Episode 50 - Motivation to Move: Scott Smith

Transcript

Meredith Medland: You’re listening to Living Green: Everybody Inspired To Succeed. I’m your host, Meredith Medland, and today I’m here today with Scott Smith and Scott is the founder of Motivation To Move. Motivation To Move can be found on the web at motivationtomove.com, and if you got iTunes open you’ll notice that Motivation To Move has been in top one hundred, and of course they topped in the (unintelligible) section. And also there are a number of different products that you can choose from; The Daily Boost, which is a nine minute program, The Fitness Boost, the Motivation To Move Show, and today we’re going to talk about goal setting and the goal setting experience and Scott’s take on that. Scott it’s great to have you on the show. Lets get right to it. Tell me what’s going on with iTunes, what’s happening and how many podcasts our listeners can choose from.

Scott Smith: How many podcasts? Well first let me say hi. How are you today?

Meredith Medland: Well hello. How are you? I’m great.

Scott Smith: Good. Totally awesomely cool, okay. I’ll take that right now. And might I say, PYOTB; you do know what that means, right Meredith?

Meredith Medland: No, I don’t know what that means.

Scott Smith: Uh oh! It is our secret language. It’s something we created at Motivation, it was kind of an inside thing because I think mostly what we do is we’re a big cheerleader for folks and we keep in between the lines and moving forward. And we came up with PYOTB, basically that means pat yourself on the butt because you have done good.

Meredith Medland: Oh, oh, oh, I know what that means. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what that means. I know, I remember ‘cause when I was listening to one of your podcasts I was like, you know, “Would I use butt with my spinning students” – you know, I teach spinning and Yoga and a couple fitness classes. Yes, it’s very good. Thank you for that.

Scott Smith: We change it to sometimes PYOTB meaning pat yourself on the back, but in any case you and everybody out right now, we’re always our own best cheerleader, so go ahead and be a cheerleader. But your question was “What’s going on with iTunes and that stuff?

Meredith Medland: Yeah. I want to make sure that I get it right for everybody.

Scott Smith: Okay. We have had, we have a couple programs on iTunes, and we have the website which has a lot more, but we have a few on iTunes. One of them is called The Daily Boost, and this is on the, under the health category on Self Help, and it’s always, we’re always number one or two – we’ve been that way for about three years now and it’s a neat little program that people really like. And we’re always in the top one hundred, and then we get up a couple days ago and now we’re not only in the number one in Self Help, we’re number one in the entire health category, which is pretty big, it’s a lot of programs there. And we end up being I think at this moment number 29 out of all podcasts on iTunes, so that’s, there’s a lot there, including yours someplace in there, right?

Meredith Medland: That’s right. Top one hundred, yup, yup.

Scott Smith: There you go…

Meredith Medland: Congratulations!

Scott Smith: Thank you.

Meredith Medland: That’s huge!

Scott Smith: It’s a little bit of, a little…

Meredith Medland: Well I want to let our listeners know too that one of the things that you can do that will really, really help out is to put your rating in iTunes. If there’s podcasts you like, those ratings are watched by the iTunes staff and make a huge difference on where the podcast is placed and how it’s promoted in iTunes. So if you like your shows, make sure that you’re taking the time to acknowledge them via iTunes.

Scott Smith: I appreciate that. Yeah, I didn’t know that. I guess I haven’t paid attention to that, but that would make sense, so…

Meredith Medland: Well we’ll have to talk about all the, we’ll have to talk about the marketing secrets in iTunes….

Scott Smith: Cool!

Meredith Medland: after our show today.

Scott Smith: Awesome!

Meredith Medland: So what I’d love our listeners to do right now is if you are online go to motivationtomove.com and start a free download. So at the bottom on the front page you’ll see something called The Goal Setting Experience, and this is an audio seminar and workbook that Scott has put together. And one of the things that I absolutely adore about this product, Scott…. Well first of all, thanks a lot for giving it to everybody for free – that’s great to get people involved. And secondly, my take on goal setting has always been create three outcomes in three months, and that’s, Three Outcomes is the coaching company that I do mostly in the corporate world. And when I listened to your Goal Setting Experience what I really loved is that it wasn’t one of these sort of how to, here’s, you know, specific measurable, achievable, the focus wasn’t so much on those things, but like “Hey, you’re going to set, you’re going to set a goal for something and really look for that experience that you want. And I was hoping you could tell our listeners a little bit about your angle on that and help them today just in creating the day that’s ahead of them and making sure that they’re having the kind of day that they want to generate.

Scott Smith: Well sure. I give an overview. I’ve been known to be a bit of tease, so we’ll give them the idea, then tell them to go download it because really I think, it’s a 60 minute program that I think I really, I have a tendency to talk quickly and I probably should’ve slowed it down to about two hours, and so you’re going to have to listen a few times to get it, but… Essentially what it comes down to is this: you know, everything in my life that I’ve ever learned has come down to how I experience life, and a very strange thing happened to me a very long time ago, and that was that I would set goals and I would work so hard to go after them and then I would arrive at my goal and go, “Wait a second, this is nothing like I thought it would be.” So it kind of got into my brain that wow, the journey we all talk about is important, and I started thinking about the goals, and I said, “Wait a second, why don’t I come from an emotional experience based setting, decide what I want to feel or what I want to experience not only when I get there, but along the way.” And when I began to think that way every moment of my life changed and it’s taken me a whole lot further than it ever did before. I was never able really to get out there and do the One-Two-Three and the outcomes and all this. I just got confused. I don’t know if it was the ADD in me or what it was, I couldn’t keep up with it. But we’re emotional creatures – and I know you are after talking to you a bit Meredith – we’re emotional creatures…

Meredith Medland: Indeed.

Scott Smith: We love the life experience. And since I’m such a physical guy in terms of my work-outs and everything, I just am completely into that. So that’s kind of the basis of the goal setting experience, and I’ll tell you what, we’ve had just amazing results from that from a lot of people that have gone out and done the Bryan Tracy stuff – and there’s a bit of Bryan Tracy’s goal setting within this. I kind of, I kind of built on that. You don’t want to, you know, totally reinvent a good wheel, so… just a little bit different twist that we’ve had some good results with.

Meredith Medland: My favorite, one of my favorite things I’ve heard you say on your products is that one of the beauties of goal setting is so that you don’t arrive somewhere and think, “How did I get here? Like, whoops”.

Scott Smith: Now a long time ago… I’ll tell you what, it’s happened to me a lot; it’s like what the heck happened because, you know, people get into it and they, I have so many friends, they’ve set these goals and they think they know what it’s going to be like, they never really think about it. And then along the way they’re working so hard – and I’m talking like my 40 year old male friends. I literally had a guy tell me this one time; he said, “You know what, I’ll lose my hair, you know, I’m going to lose myself out. I might need a facelift by the time I’m done working so hard. I’m not, I don’t have to enjoy anything as long as I get what I want.” And then what happens is you get there and you realize “Well I don’t enjoy this either, and I can’t afford the facelift because I work so hard I’m broke now”, you know. It made no sense to me. And, you know, but I’ve started this way of thinking, I have a really quick story. Years ago all I ever wanted to do – people can tell, I’m a former DJ now, I used to be on the radio years ago… I think you were too, right, up in Wisconsin…?

Meredith Medland: I was, yup. WSPT, Stevens Point.

Scott Smith: There you go. All I ever wanted to do was be on the radio, that was it. And I had this great goal to get there and I did everything I had to to get there. And then what I realized was my experience was being locked in a soundproof booth by myself for five hours a day just playing records and talking to nobody except myself. I said, “Well this is no fun.” And that’s when it started to kind of click, that “Huh”. It’s that day to day thing, and when you arrive make sure it matches up with where you started. And I find if you stay on track with that the entire journey, the journey’s fine and then you really like it when you get there. It’s kind of like where I am now; I just, I do what I want to do all day long. It’s exactly what I want; if not, I need to make some changes.

Meredith Medland: I love it. So great! I want to make sure that my listeners know, so the reason that Scott is on the show is I listen to Scott’s podcast a lot. I mean this is definitely, so I’m giving a hundred percent, you know, certified, if you like sort of my take on life that I think you’re really going to like what Scott has to say. And what I find the best about it is that my own, you know, inspiration or motivation or that part of me that can get really excited and turned on and alive that I bring to, whether it’s my podcast or teaching, that I also need to be sourced at times and need to be inspired and thought you’ve done a great job at doing that for me, and I just wanted to make sure that our listeners know that there was something a little extra special about my connection to what you’re doing over at Motivation To Move and that you’re really impacting me personally and thus my listeners and students as well. So thank you for that.

Scott Smith: Well thank you for saying that. And to flip it right back around, I think, you know, in our first conversation when you first contacted me, yeah, you pointed out some questions to me very quickly as you’re trying to figure out who I was and what I was all about. And if you listen to the programs that I produced after that, you may have heard portions of our conversation coming right back at you.

Meredith Medland: I actually did hear a few things that sounded like they might’ve been influenced by what I said. Yeah, I loved it. That’s awesome. Thank you so much. We’re going to take a break to thank the sponsors, and when we come back from the break we’re also going to talk about something that Scott and I had a nice chat about before the interview, and that was martial arts. There was this awesome thing that arose that we found out we both had martial arts history. So we’re going to talk about that when we come back, as well as some other exciting things. So stay tuned and we’ll be back right after this.

Meredith Medland: Welcome back from the break. My name’s Meredith Medland and I’m here with Scott Smith. As you know, you can go to motivationtomove.com, or if you’d like to learn about what I’m up to you can go to everybodyinspired.com, or check me out on Face Book at Meredith Medland. If you’re looking the show notes from today’s page those are listed at livinggreenshow.com. Scott I was so excited when I first spoke with you and found out that you had a martial arts history and that you’d included media in that experience. Can you start from the beginning of how martial arts came into your life?

Scott Smith: Oh, I’m very old; that was a long time ago.

Meredith Medland: I know, I know. I’m…

Scott Smith: I’m kidding…

Meredith Medland: really interested.

Scott Smith: You know what, I’ll tell you how it happened, how I got into it. You know, I think a lot of folks think about maybe doing martial arts, and a lot of adults maybe did it when they were a kid – in my case I didn’t do that. But I did have kids. I had children. And there was a time when we were thinking about martial arts for them because I, it’s the best thing that you can ever do for a child, period. If you have kids, particularly if they’re maybe five to ten years old, get them in a good school now, you will not regret it. I had done that….

Meredith Medland: Why do you think that? I’m just curious, what’s your take on that?

Scott Smith: Because the foundation you give them - the self-esteem, the confidence, all the respect, the integrity – everything that you teach a child at that age, they don’t get right now. Parents don’t know how to teach it; they haven’t been trained. Schools don’t teach it anymore. Kids don’t read self-help books and they don’t listen to podcasts like I put out. We use it in this, you get in this positive peer group with these energized martial instructors who live to do the right thing, filled with integrity, and these kids get that every single day, five-six days a week, and then you marry that intellectual and emotional with the physical activity, that bam, you get the click as I call it. These kids are wonderful, it changes their life, and if they are only in it for a couple of years - between this five and ten, up to eleven maybe… When they’re a teenager, you know, they’re kind of going to get out there and do their own thing; some will stay in, some won’t. But if they have that base, those kids are not going to go wrong. They’re going to be A students, they’re going to be good people, and that’s why I say that. You know what I mean by that…

Meredith Medland: Thank you. I do. I mean, my listeners know that I, you know, I teach kids (unintelligible) from two to five Monday through Thursday afternoons at Martial Arts Family Fitness in Santa Barbara, and if anyone ever wants to talk to me about kids, their kids and martial arts, call me up. I’ll always take that call and help you out. But I was curious, I just was curious what your angle was on it, so thank you for that. Lets talk about now, continue on with your journey in martial arts.

Scott Smith: I will. And I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you why I have that angle too a little bit more as we get into this. But basically I took my kids in, walked in and it was a really strange experience – I don’t know if you’ve done this, maybe. I walked in the door. I was about 30 years old, fairly old to start the martial arts. Not real flexible. I walk in the door and there’s all these people running around in what I thought were pajamas, and I though, “Whoa, what is that?”, you know. And little did I know, I signed my son up and then my daughter up and then of course then I would sign up and I drew my wife into it at the time, and we began training. And it was American Kimball Karate in Coral Springs, Florida, and I just started taking martial arts. That was all there is to it, that was how it began. Well I was also in the advertising world doing a lot of voice over work, a lot of television production work, a voice over and spokesperson work, all that kind of stuff, and if you’ve ever done that kind of thing – and you have, by the way…

Meredith Medland: I have.

Scott Smith: you’ll find that sometimes it’s hard to get the gig, you know. Sometimes its just not enough work going on. And so I one day went to my instructor, the owner of this school, and I said, “You know what, you need a TV show.” He said, “What?” I said, “I can make you an infomercial.” And I remember I made two infomercials for this guy, they were 30 minutes each and I made them for fifteen hundred dollars each. I don’t know how I did it. I have no idea. This was 1993, and I didn’t know how well connected he was; he actually owned a big martial arts organization, a consulting organization, and I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was I made these two show and then he made copies of it and sent it to all his friends. And then I started getting phone calls from people saying “I want one.” Well so I immediately went from fifteen hundred dollars to ten thousand dollars, and that was my first couple, and I started traveling the country. I created a show called American Karate Masters, the show that travels the country in search of great martial arts schools. And I would go into a town, I would spend a day or two at the school, I would videotape the students, I would talk to all the parents, the instructors, and weave it together into an “in their own words” format that was kind of a documentary, but was also designed to drive enrollments. I ended up going to almost 200 hundred schools, I spoke at martial arts conventions, I – and ever time I did that I got more business – and I just kept traveling. And that’s how it kind of became involved in my life and how I got such a neat perspective on what martial arts can do for kids because I probably had interviewed about 10,000 parents and I’ve heard their words. So that’s my martial arts background, and along the way I got to be choked out by a lot of great instructors. I’ve slept on the couches of more famous martial artists than you know, and eaten sushi in bad restaurants all over the place.

Meredith Medland: Well I love it. I’m so, I’m so glad that you got to do that. It sounds super fun and I’m glad that you shared that, so thank you. Yeah, you know, my, we could just go off on a whole martial arts tangent, but I’m going to hold myself back from that. So then it’s a little bit of your history and how you’ve been influenced. I’d like to learn some of the other pieces of history that you draw on, whether those are workshops, experiences, teachers, whatever it is that ads to your bank of wealth as it relates to self-help and motivation and where are you, where are you drawing from? Where are you sourcing from?

Scott Smith: You know, it’s kind of odd. I’ve always been a guy – I think I get it from my mom – I’ve always been the kind of ‘see it as the glass half full’ kind of guy, always optimistic, but not over the top, realistic also. And throughout my life, you know, I’ve had moments of not feeling happy or not feeling content, and I always just kind of wonder what that was; why wasn’t I like that, and I was sometimes, I wasn’t sometimes. So I paid attention to it, and I have since began to call what I do ‘observational motivation’. I began to look at what people were doing and what worked for them, and that would drive me, I’d just follow the rabbit hole, I’d just keep going. As I got into that I did traditional motivational type work. When I was in my early 20’s I think I had a friend that gave me Zig Zigler C at the top, that was the first place I started. And very quickly after that I had a really interesting experience that I sometimes even forget ‘cause it only lasted about four months. I was hired by a radio station in Pompano Beach Florida called The Motivation Station, and….

Meredith Medland: Oh wow!

Scott Smith: they played three and a half minute clips of motivational speakers ‘round the clock like a top 40 radio station. And they hired me to host between the clips. And I was all but 25 years old maybe, and I began to listen to these things for five or six hour shifts, and then I had to comment on the, and, you know, and have discussion with people. That’s kind of where it started. And I began just to move that direction - I’m a big fan of Tony Robbins, I went to just about everything he’s done. And I have a collection of probably a thousand books that I’ve read over time, I’m not a huge book reader these days, I think I’m kind of taking a break, but typically it’s two or three a week – and I’d bring that in. But most – I got to tell you – most of it comes from paying attention and getting out there and talking about people and getting down into what they believe and what makes them tick. Also done a little bit of the, a little bit of – we live in Florida here in this little town called Cassadaga, which is a spiritual town – I’ve done a little bit of training and hanging out up there for about five or six years. My wife, my late wife was a Raki healer and she drug me through that world, and I found a whole new way of thinking up there. So what ends up happening is I have this obsession with the physicalness that we do, I have an obsession with being happy and having self-control and not using your willpower to get what you want but using your freewill and really enjoying the ride, and put all that together into my own little particular twist based on experiences in the past few years and it just seems to work.

Meredith Medland: It sure does seem to work. Can you tell us a little bit more about that community?

Scott Smith: Well Cassadaga is the – excuse me – the largest and the southern most spiritualist camp. It is, I’m not a spiritualist at all. Based on the universal laws for folks who may not study too much - you know, the law of attraction, law of vibration, law of cause and affect, all that stuff. But they study the spiritual religion, but it’s about a 54 acre camp where mediums and – no psychics are there – but mediums and healers are there, and they run classes. Each one runs out of their home. You can come to that town anytime and stop by the bookstore and make a reservation and go have a reading by somebody – I don’t know if you’ve ever had that done. I…

Meredith Medland: Yes, yup.

Scott Smith: I’m a very good friend, I’ve known a pastor, Lewis Gates, who is, I’ve known him for about seven years now. He’s senior pastor over there, and Lewis is a healer and a Raki healer and a spiritual healer and a medium among other things, and a remarkable guy who I’ve had the good fortune of not only being in his classes, but at the same time just kind of hanging out with him for day upon day and just talking about stuff, and relating. He’s a very motivational guy, and that’s always my thing; you’re going to find me, I’m not ever going to stand up and say “Listen, I’m this spiritual guy”, I’m not going to say that. I have that background, I have that understanding, but I’m really, I kind of lead it on the self-improvement motivational side a little bit more, and that’s just kind of where I stay. But it’s a great town; if you’re ever down here you need to come visit. It’s a neat place.

Meredith Medland: Now what is the, what’s the major city near that?

Scott Smith: Orlando.

Meredith Medland: So it’s right, so it’s not related at all to – I know there’s a large scientology community in Florida as well – but it’s not, this is totally different than that, right?

Scott Smith: Totally different. Nothing to do with that whatsoever. It’s actually right between Orlando and Daytona, and you can look it up online at cassadaga, probably dot com or dot org. It’s a spiritualist; you know, anything about the spiritual, what they practice and what they believe, that’s what’s there. And my wife, before she passed away, was a Raki healer and spent about seven years there, and that was her area of interest, and as she learned more – in fact I’ve got about 400 of her books here as I’m going through one at a time and reading all that – but it was a neat place that she was able to grow and learn, and of course me being the curious type, she dragged me along and I learned a bunch and I get to pass it on these days to other people.

Meredith Medland: Well thanks for sharing that. And I want to really honor your first wife here on this show too ‘cause I know that she’s so influenced you, as well as Joy, who you’re currently engaged to now, both really, really amazing, amazing women in your life. And so if you’re a listener of Scott’s show you’ll definitely be able to hear how those women have influenced your life. So just wanted to have an energetic love moment there…

Scott Smith: You know what….

Meredith Medland: and acknowledge that.

Scott Smith: I’m getting a hug from my late wife right now; it’s got a, that little chill goes up my spine, I know she’s here, and I was with her for 29 years… And Joy and I have recently gotten married by the way, so… I like to say that I have dated two women in my life and I married both of them. That’s not a bad track record.

Meredith Medland: Awesome! That is super awesome. I thought that you got married, and then I thought, “What if I say married and….?”

Scott Smith: Well I think part of it, I don’t think I’ve updated the website, I noticed that the other day. I went, “Aw, I guess I should let people know I got married”, but…

Meredith Medland: Yeah, exactly. We’re a little behind. I love it. We’re going to take a break to thank our sponsors, and then when we come back from the break we’re going to talk a little bit about you and your journey and some of the things that you thing - although of course this has all been that – but just getting a little more into the Scott Smith matrix. So stay tuned, we’ll be back when we thank our sponsors. And if you want to visit our show notes you can go to livinggreenshow.com. Thanks Scott.

Meredith Medland: Welcome back, and we’re in the final segment of the show today. And Scott I’d love to continue on and speak with you a little bit more about the spirituality component of your life. I know that you said that you don’t necessarily bring that to your podcasts, this is more along the lines of sort of the inner heart of what’s going on in your backdrop. What is your relationship to God or a higher power, or what do you call that? What’s your relationship?

Scott Smith: You know what, I… It’s funny as you said that I will always tell you that I am connected in a big way, although I probably have more faith in the world and anybody I know. I know it’s there, I feel it’s there, I call it God, and that’s where it is. Underneath that I believe that there is an orderly way that everything works. The universe operates in a certain way. And taking it down to the ridiculous, you know, I walk out my front door and I see the sun rises and the sun sets every single day. It’s predictable – I don’t know if you notice that or not; it’s just always there, it always happens. And I look and I go, “Well, you know, so I can get fancy, I can get technical, but the bottom line is there’s something at play here. It’s orderly and it works.” And it just makes sense to me that if I have great faith and great belief in myself and this world that we live in, and figure out the system, the way the system is designed to work. And then I become a bit of a maverick within that system and allow myself to be personable and have some freewill and operate within that system, I can kind of do whatever I want in my life. So I walk through every single day with honesty, with a really warm feeling… And I’m saying this, I’m stumbling just a little bit, and I want to tell you why, because I spent probably 40 years not even being able to answer that question, had no idea. All I knew was I knew. And when you know you got it, and that’s why, I don’t know if that’s enough of an answer for you, but that’s kind of where I am with it.

Meredith Medland: That definitely works for me. Lets talk about some of these years maybe where you knew but you weren’t able to put quite as maybe, have just that experience as deeply as you do now perhaps. Give us a little sense of your history. I mean you definitely, you were heavier in the past and that’s been a huge, huge shift for you. You want to give us just a little journey? I mean it’s definitely, you know, I would say it’s an important part of your story, but actually there’s a whole bunch there, but I think that it’s important that our listeners know if you go to the About Us page you’ll learn a lot about Scott’s history and learn that you haven’t always been, you know, this skinny fit guy teaching classes and clubs.

Scott Smith: No, no. You know what, I’m just the typical guy who had a lot of dreams and just wanted to do something. I always said I wanted to affect people someone. It took me a long time to realize it was positive for me, and that’s what I wanted to do. I just hard drive and do what everybody else does, trying to make a living, you know. Run, trying everything I could to get it to work and nothing was coming into play for me. And along the way my weight was up and down; I’ve lost the same 60 pounds at least three times. And I just wasn’t paying attention. And I’d work out, then I’d go get fat. I remember I was teaching at the YMCA one time, I was involved in the early kickboxing craze in the 90’s and teaching some of that. And I, so I had that martial arts background, but then I had stopped training and I gained some weight. So I walked back into the Y, and they said, “You know, you look like you have a background; would you like to teach class.” And well I needed to lose some weight anyway, and I, so I started teaching classes and I lost my first 60 pounds. I then gained it again, lost again, gained it again, and things progressively just, I just couldn’t get control of it, I wasn’t congruent with who I was, didn’t feel good. Well one day, I got to tell you, I was, probably I was 42 years old, and I was laying in bed being a whiny husband – I don’t know if anybody knows what a whiny husband is, probably you do ladies, right?

Meredith Medland: And this is when you’re married to Sheryl, right?

Scott Smith: Yeah, I was married to Sheryl, and I’m laying in bed one day and I’m just complaining, I’m not feeling good, ‘cause when you get heavy – I was at 248 pounds, today I weigh 167 – I was laying in bed complaining because, you know, the fat gets in your body, it presses up against your liver and your sciatica and everything else and before you know it you just plain don’t feel good. And she said – she in a nice wifely way – “Would you like me to make an appointment at the doctor for you?” And I said, “Yes.” So she did. So I go to the doctor and I get this physical and the doctor turns to me and I’m heavy – and I’ll never forget – and she turns to me and says, “You know what, obviously your blood pressure’s high, your cholesterol is probably going to be high, but, you know, we can give you these pills because you are over 40”. And I’m like, “Whoa! Whoa, when did that happen?” And I woke up. I called doctors the motivators of last resort. Got my attention really fast. So I came back out and I literally left the doctors office, I went to Target and I bought work-out clothes because the home was a couple miles away, and I went to the gym. And in two months I lost 40 pounds and progressively took all the weight off and totally reshaped my body. And along the way I noticed something. I was teaching classes again – they offered me another class – I was teaching classes and I realized that these folks were having a rough time, that they…. You know, anybody can teach a kickboxing class, but they needed something else. So I started to kind of talk to them and started to bring to them things that I had learned in the world of self-improvement, and I began to blend it with music and create this world that is now on Motivation To Move; that started out in a kickboxing class. And then I started an email list, and I tell people that we’re going to get together, we’re going to have some fun, come to, you know, come meet with me at a restaurant, we’ll have some, you know, have some fun together, and it grew. It just kept growing. And the more it got there, the more I got these audiences coming my way, and to go a little further with this – I get excited about this stuff, can you tell – I decided on this podcast thing and I just happened to hit it just before iTunes built the directory and everything took off from there. And so that’s what rolled into that area, and at the time I was a formally fat guy living in a thin guys body and all I wanted to do was help people start moving and help them stay moving until they created a life of their dreams. And I still do that. That’s my absolute mission. Four words: Start moving, stay moving. That’s what I’m all about.

Meredith Medland: That is what you are about indeed and that’s totally clear. I love your laser sharp focus. It’s very, very stunning.

Scott Smith: I do have, I do have one more step that I think will actually finally answer your question. Do we have a second here?

Meredith Medland: Oh, we got plenty of time.

Scott Smith: Awesome! Here’s what happened, and all that’s going on, everything’s kind of cool, and there’s this neat part of the story that changed my world and got me in touch with who I am on a spiritual basis. I had been blowing through life paying attention to this stuff kind of sort of reading stuff, kind of sort of, but not really absorbing it, not really feeling it. And I remember the day I decided to start Motivation To Move as a website and actually go commercial and start charging for my premium membership, and I remember the day I started it because I was moving. I’d been packing up all summer long and I was going to move to Colorado with my wife, start this online business and go live in the mountains for a while, and that’s where we were heading. And we had sold the house – well my wife hadn’t been feeling good all summer long and we had been to the doctors and stuff and had just, you know, it wasn’t getting any better. We were moving out of our house, and I was in the middle of the night, moving some furniture into my daughter’s house and about a hundred miles away I get a phone call from my wife saying, “I’m scared. Something’s wrong. I think I have to go to the hospital.” And I remember I called up the long deep breath, I took this breath that I didn’t let out for a hundred days. And I got in my car, and I’m driving down I-75 from Gainesville to Orlando thinking, “What the heck is happening to my life right now”, and I remember looking up – never in my life have I done this – I looked up and I said, “I am not ready. She’s not done with me.” And damn if it didn’t just come to me, like loud, it’s like a lightening bolt through my chest, “No, you are. Take care of your wife.” So I did, and we ended up with a terminal diagnosis that day, she passed away a hundred days later, but I remember I was doing the motivational podcast and I was doing The Daily Boost, and I had this thing, it was at 60 episodes, and here I’ve got a terminal wife, I’ve sold my house, I’m homeless now. I’m totally, I’m living in a hotel on the beach, and I’ve got to figure out what to do here. And I remember, I took 8 days off, I walked out to my back deck and I sat there and I just looked out at the ocean – that was her favorite place in the world – and I said, “I can’t do this. It’s not like I’m starting a lawn service or something; I started a business where I’m supposed to motivate and inspire people and I get this other feeling that comes into me.” And I looked up again, I said, “Is this a test? Are you testing me to see if I can do this? Alright, lets go.” And I did. I took it on, and I did things I didn’t think I could ever do and this beautiful woman… You know, I’m always saying it’ll be great or it won’t be. This was, I worked so hard helping her die I cannot believe how hard we worked. Talk about goal setting with the ultimate in an outcome. You do it the best you can, and your reward is they leave you. I’ll never forget how I felt and I’ll never forget when she left me. I’ll never forget standing in my living room. I never forget when I was ready to fall to my knees, and I looked up again. And I said, “You know what, I’m a strong guy and I’ll pay attention, I’ll listen, but I’m not going down on my knees. I’ve got to be strong for everybody.” And that’s really, those three events just kind of shaped me, and I really don’t know completely how to, how to deal with it; all I know – and you’ve heard the outcome of it – is that it just emanates out of me and it’s just who I am and I can’t even really explain it entirely. So…

Meredith Medland: Well I’m so glad that you took the time to share that here as well because I mean I actually can really relate to what you’re saying. When I was 15 years old my mom got diagnosed with terminal cancer – she got diagnosed earlier, she died when I was 15, I was holding her hand and she had died in our home and had a terminal illness, and I watched my dad go through a similar thing and just really, you know, stand up and be strong and, you know, give morphine and all the things that go along with that illness, but also what I saw is my mom’s immense faith and immense just spiritual living and a joy even through the pain. And so I also share that as a backdrop of motivation for me and the choices that I, how I live my life and how I choose to be present and a definite awareness, both through my own personal injuries of my body, but also through experiencing her death or passing on and how that’s impacted me. So I definitely, you know, my heart goes out to you there, and I have to say that whenever I hear you talk about Sheryl on the podcast I really, it’s almost as if I would recognize her if she was walking down the street.

Scott Smith: Mm hmm, she’s a powerful person. And, you know, it’s, like I said, there’s beauty in everything. It’ll be great or it won’t be, so whatever, if you decide to do it make it great even if it’s dying, make it great, you know. Pass on and make it great. And you’re right, she, Sheryl told me a couple of times, but she told me, she said, “You know what, I can do more on the other side, and she meant it. And once she got to that point, I have no doubt that she’s helping me with my podcast everyday ‘cause I don’t actually spend a lot of time on them. I come up with an idea, I sit down, I do it. I don’t write for days and days; I basically am done in ten minutes. I mean it’s…. And I know that comes from somewhere and it probably comes from her. So, you know, interesting about that faith, that deep faith that she had, I remember when she sat down and she called me in the room and she said, “I need to have a talk with you.” And I said, “Okay.” She goes, “You’re going to be a bachelor soon”, and I hadn’t even thought about that. And she had a talk and told me the kind of woman I needed to attract into my life, called my kids in, told them the same thing, had a question and answer session, called her sister and her best friend in, and made sure everybody knew what she told me and what her wishes were, and wanted to make sure that I was okay; not going to be okay but okay now, and that my kids were okay now, ‘cause if I was okay and they were okay guess what she could do, she could pass on. She knew that. And she released me to do that, and I remember afterwards I evoked the law of attraction, I totally believed it and I’m standing in my kitchen one day and I’m, it’s about ten days after she passes. I know she’s told me, she says, “You know, when you meet somebody go ahead and go with it. You know, your hear will tell you that.” I didn’t know it’d be like two months later. And, but I remember standing there, I said, “Listen, I’m a beat up fat slob. I’ve gained my weight again, I have 25 pounds back on my body, I’m sitting here in a condo rented by myself, I have nothing going on in my world except my motivation to move members, and I got to get back going again. What am I going to do?” And I said, “Well the first thing I got to do is shape myself up because I want this beautiful woman in my life, I want these beautiful people in my life, and I have to create that and attract that.” And I gave myself a deadline. It was the 31st of the year, it was New Year’s Eve, and I was at a party….

Meredith Medland: That was two thousand, was that 2007?

Scott Smith: 2007, yeah. Well she died in December of 2006. And basically on the end of the year I was at a New Year’s Eve party that a friend of mine dragged me to, and I don’t even know what I’m doing there ‘cause I’m grieving at this point. I have another interesting story about Cassadaga to share with you if you will, but at midnight we did my toast, I put the champagne down and in the next year and a half I met a beautiful girl, I bought a house, I built a business, I lost a total now of almost 80 pounds, and things are rolling really nicely. Going pretty good. But the Cassadaga, I got to tell you…

Meredith Medland: Yeah. Jump in with that.

Scott Smith: Sheryl died on a Wednesday. On Monday a couple of her friends from Casadaga were there and they, one of them, Katie, who runs the bookstore there, was having an open house and a holiday party. And I said, “I don’t really want to go to a holiday party”, and Sheryl looked at me, she said, “You’re going.” I said, “Really?” That was Monday. Well she died on Wednesday morning about 4am. And so come Saturday I had been commanded by my late wife that I was going to go to this party. So I head up to Casadaga, not knowing what to expect, and I walk in this house. Now just imagine that I have now walked in a house in a camp where there are mediums everywhere who they believe that, you know, life is lived on different planes and life goes on and her physical body’s gone or as she called it her “mommy suit” is gone, but she’s still here, they believe that. I’m grieving, I’m not thinking too much about anything other than her and how I feel. I walk into this house and there’s about 30 people in there, and the first two or three say, “I saw your wife hanging around today.” I said, “What?” And because they’re tuned into it, and so I had an amazing conversation all night long with these people who tuned me in so much to how they feel and what she felt and tapped me into that. It was just, it was serendipity. It really was. I could not have predicted it. It happened. I can’t believe it did, but it’s a wonderful evening overall, so…. I’m left with a positive feel for everything. I can’t see anything but gratitude for what I had and what I have now. I have no other way of seeing it. That’s, I don’t know, it’s just the way I am.

Meredith Medland: Mm, thank you so much. You know, while you were talking I brought up Cassadaga, so it’s c-a-s-s-a-d-a-g-a, dot org, and one of the neat things our listeners might like is that they have audio files, downloadable audio files of Sunday lectures and meditations, so… One of the threads through my show is I definitely have a curiosity of all the different spiritual paths and what people are up to; I’m always curious, so that kind of stuff grabs my attention. Well Scott, we’re ready to wrap up the show and I just want to, I want to say one more thing or cover one more thing before we go today, and that is that in your last podcast you talked about your coaching group and that you’re getting ready, your next mastermind group together. Can you talk a little bit about that before we go?

Scott Smith: Yeah. We’ve taken a summer hiatus. We run a mastermind group every year, and we’re getting ready to bring that back in. This is a small, a small group that I work with personally in calls – we do two calls a month on that. And it’s an interesting group because we believe that life is built on a foundation of fitness, so we expect everybody to take care of their physical body. And also believe that, you know, there’s some practicalities of life called business and relationships we have to work on. And there’s a spiritual part of life too. So our group comes together very practically and looking at all of those elements. And that group is coming; if folks are interested in that probably the easiest way, we’re right in the middle of creating a brand new website – your timing is amazing – so a lot of stuff is not updated right now. But the easiest way if they’re interested is to send me a personal email, [email protected], I’ll spell it out – and I’ll give them all of the information about that. And I also take a limited number of personal coaching clients – executive coaching clients, if you will – I take about eight or nine, just depends on how many. And I’ve got at this point two slots open at this moment, and if anybody’s interested in talking to me about that, same thing, [email protected]. Or you can hit the website and go to the Contact Us page and find me there.

Meredith Medland: Fantastic! Scott, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And listeners, if you want more information about this show, if you happen to not be at an internet connection, you can go the show page and that’s at livinggreenshow.com, and then just search on Scott Smith, it’ll be on the right hand rail, and there’ll be links of all things that we’ve talked about so you don’t have to write them down or find them. And Scott continued good luck to you. I’m so excited; maybe we’ll see some sort of TV show or something, more things in the future. I’m sure you’re on a great path and I’m looking forward to watching you grow and continue to reach so many people.

Scott Smith: Meredith thank you so much, and I, more is on the way. I can’t wait, but I’m in no hurry, I’m enjoying the ride. So it’ll be here when it’s here.

Meredith Medland: Awesome! Thank you so much. My name’s Meredith Medland, and I’m your host of Living Green: Everybody Inspires To Succeed. And I hope that we’ve left everybody inspired. And if you’d like more information about me you can go to everybodyinspired.com or check out the Face Book page, and that’s Meredith Medland. And for other shows like this you can go to personallifemedia.com. Thanks so much and have a great day. And as Scott would say, you want to get out there and get moving, right Scott?

Scott Smith: Right.

Meredith Medland: Alright, thanks so much and have a good day.