3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 152 - Life Is Just Too Short with Scott White

• Derek Clifford • Season 3 • Episode 152

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This episode of 3 Degrees of Freedom features Scott White, also known as The Life Is Too Short Guy, a former Wall Street investment banker turned entrepreneur and business builder. Scott is the CEO and Chairman of a public real estate company, and has completed an impressive One Ironman triathlon and 15 marathons.

He is passionate about Rutgers Sports, and is on a mission to make the world happier one smile at a time. Scott shares with us his Life Is Too Short Guy philosophy, which he discusses in his book, and how it has impacted his life.

He talks about the internal emotions that occurred when transitioning from investment banking to becoming an entrepreneur, and how his family has changed and informed his life. He also shares how he maintains a positive attitude and outlook on life, even during challenging times, and offers advice to people looking to make a major change in their life. In this episode, Scott White will discuss his 3 Degrees of Freedom, and how his Life Is Too Short Guy philosophy has made the world a happier place.

Connect with Scott using the social links below and learn more about her business:
Email: scott@scottewhite.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottewhite2/
Website: https://www.lifeistooshortguy.com/

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Derek Clifford:

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today, we have got Mr. Scott White on the show. How are you, Scott?

Scott White:

I'm wonderful. How are you?

Derek Clifford:

Fantastic. For those who don't know Scott, I'm really, looking forward to this episode because in this episode, we're going to be talking about something that is universal to us all. The fact that life is just simply too short sometimes. Scott White is known as the Life is Too Short Guy and is the CEO and chairman of a public real estate company and has completed an impressive Ironman triathlon and 15 marathons. He's a former wall street investment banker turned entrepreneur and business builder. And with his never ending energy, Scott is on a mission to make the world a happier place one smile at a time. And he's married to his high school sweetheart. And together they are passionate about Rutgers sports, which is interesting. We'll touch on that in just a little bit. And Scott's superpower is making the world a happier place. And he does this through his speaking platform. And his life is too short guy philosophy, which he discusses in his book. And we'll explore all of these things later on. So Scott, once again, welcome to the show, man. It's great to have you on.

Scott White:

I am so grateful to be here. Thank you for the invite, Derek

Derek Clifford:

of course. So let's just jump right in. As our show is about the three degrees of freedom time freedom, location, freedom, financial freedom. I want to talk a little bit about your philosophy, where you stand right now with those three degrees of freedom. Are you locationally independent, financially free, time free, or is it important to you? And then the second part of the question is how does that life is too short philosophy fit into those three degrees of freedom and your growth in the future?

Scott White:

No doubt the philosophy fits so we'll, go there in a minute. I just had to jump on that because I was pretty excited. It was almost like a softball that you teed up for me, but we'll start with yes, at the moment given. So, my day job, so to speak, is I am the chairman and CEO of a public company. My hobby interest, energy level in part is dedicated to a student housing development company that I'm a founding partner of. And my passion is making the world happier. 1 smile at a time. I released my book earlier this year. And as you said, I'm out doing a speaking tour and speaking platform. With that as my life construct, yes, I have freedom of location. I have freedom of time and I have financial freedom within reason. So so obviously I have commitments and but generally, I would say, yes, to all 3 of those and all 3 of those tie immensely well with the philosophy. So the philosophy, which I call the life is too short guy philosophy or lit sig has 10 principles. I'm not going to jump into all of them right now because that'll take up the whole podcast but, so many of the themes are, very common. So I talk about happiness, gratefulness, living in the moment, taking risks is, part of this lit sig philosophy, doing what you love. The underlying theme, the underlying string, I would say, is that life is too short. We only have so many minutes in our life. And, I do a little bit of math that I can walk you through. There aren't that many minutes when, you really boil it down. What are you doing with those minutes? So now let's circle right back. If you don't have Freedom with your time to choose. That's horrible. That is really unfortunate. And I tell people I often get a lot of questions about how do you prioritize? How do you juggle? How do you get it all done? And I spin it back on people because there isn't a magic formula. Derek, there isn't here is exactly how I do. And here the, prioritization I tell people is be thoughtful and deliberate. about how you use your minutes, which gets to your freedom of time. So I choose to join you on this wonderful call today. I choose to work the roles I am working. I choose to write a book and go out and speak and spread this happiness message around the world. I choose, and I can keep going through the I chooses, but you get the point. So by definition, One of the principles in the life is too short guy is called minutes matter. That is perfectly aligned with what you're saying. Freedom of how you use your time. Freedom of location or freedom to deliver or be wherever you want. I see. That's a little bit less of a core principle. However. One of the principles is to find happiness doing what you love, where you love and with whom you love. So by definition, if you're in a place and you're living in a place where you're not loving it. Today's the day to make that decision to move like literally today and I don't even say that figuratively dark because 1 of my. My, my passions as I explain this to people is, in the book. I tell a number of stories of people have had major setbacks, major aha moments epiphanies that unfortunate cancer diagnosis, that unfortunate catastrophic injury, that unfortunate death of a loved one. You know what? Today is your aha moment. You don't have to wait for that. In fact, don't wait for that. So if you don't love what you're doing, you don't love where you're living, you don't have freedom to choose what you're doing. Today's the day to make a decision to change that.

Derek Clifford:

I love this. The, whole point of why I put this podcast together is to find the intentionality for people to be in alignment with who you are as an individual and understand. If you had the choices, what would you do with them? How would you do that? And I think, like you said, it fits perfectly into the life is too short philosophy because how you choose to live your life moment to moment. Yes, obviously sometimes people don't have the luxury of being able to do exactly what they want to do in every moment at every point in time, because you have commitments, you've got kids, potentially, you have work all these things, but I don't see why you couldn't set the sail of your boat, so to speak, in the direction that you want it to go later on. So even though you may not be you're, sacrificing right now, you can live the life is too short philosophy. Okay. While setting yourself up for that, like you can live it by saying, I'm making these sacrifices consciously because in the future, this is where it's eventually going to go, or am I overstepping here? Is that something that maybe that's exactly right.

Scott White:

So, one of the constructs of minutes matter. I, so one of the real goals of the book is to give people actionable, specific tools. So the book is not, and I emphasize this, it's not an academic book. It's not a theoretical. Professor at some Ivy League school saying, here's what could or should make you happy. This is day to day blocking and tackling living in the moment. So what do I mean by that? What's a real example? In the book, Derek, I provide a goals grid and I share my goals. Great. And my goals. Great is going to be different. Your goals. Great. But my goals grid across the top has 4 areas of my life that are important to me. My family. My physical, my work, and my personal life. So four areas, family, work, personal family, work, personal, physical. And then down the side, I list off tomorrow, this month, this year, and long term. And long term could be three years, it could be 30 years. But getting back to the intentionality, maybe I can't do everything I want to do today, because again, there are only so many minutes in the day. Time is a finite commodity. But if I lay out a plan saying, all right Tomorrow, I'm gonna do X next week. I want to do Y over the next year. I'm gonna do Z. And at some point in my life, ideally, I give it a stronger parameter. And some point in my life is 1 of those nebulous. Maybe I'll get to it. Maybe I won't, but 3 years, 5 years, 7 years. I'll do so the as you point out, as you said, maybe there's certain sacrifices you need to make today, but with a plan of going where you want to go. And ideally a plan of getting there as fast as possible. Don't delay what you truly want to do. That's 1 of the messages in the book because tomorrow is not guaranteed. The last principle I said, there are 10 principles. The last principle is live today. Don't wait for tomorrow. Because again, you don't know what tomorrow is going to break make the most of today.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, again I can't, underscore this even more than what you already have. This is great because the it's very, important to be able to have that in mind because, and I've been finding that as I have been being more intentional about where I want to head, the ironic thing is, that things happen faster than you think because your brain and your network. And your support system is way more powerful than you could ever imagine. All it takes for you is to put it out there, right? Whether it's in your head or whether it's out in your network. And it just takes one person to change your life. And for you listeners, that one person could be Scott. Could be me. I hope so. Could be someone else. Exactly. Could be someone else that you run into. And so I, I think that's just beautifully said. And I think that your philosophy and your book has got to be a fantastic resource for people. Now let's let's back up just a little bit. I want to hear a little bit more about where this philosophy came from. It sounds like you've been doing a lot of thinking about this. Can you talk about maybe it happened from your transition from investment banking to entrepreneurism and somewhere along the way you pick this up, but can you give us some background as to where you got this life is too short guy brand and philosophy in your psyche and in your makeup.

Scott White:

The philosophy itself evolved over the course of my life. There wasn't a day or a moment in time, or all of a sudden, I was like, pow, here it is. Here's my life philosophy. It evolved. I've generally been a high energy, positive, happy person, probably all my life, or at least as long as I can remember, but there's no doubt it evolved. I would say there were 4, 6, Big moments, salient moments that I talk about in the book that really had meaningful impacts on me, steered me in a new direction. And they really define 1 of the things that people have said to me as, I've written, this book is, oh, you're really happy guy. But what do you tell somebody? That's depressed dealing with loss of a job, dealing with whatever the case may be. And my answer is, we all deal with that. Okay, we all deal with that. And here are the four things that I've dealt with in my life that really had a meaningful impact on me. I start the book, the very first pages I talk about. I was 10 years old and I was doing a project around the house. My dad, he cut his finger. My dad then went to the hospital again. I'm 10 years old. I go to sleep and my mom is running in the room in the middle of the night that dad had a heart attack at the hospital. 10 years old in the 1980s. He then went on and had triple bypass surgery, which again in 1984 was, he had to fly to across the country to a specialist or a few people that did it. Anyway, he survived, thank God, but there's no doubt in my mind that had a meaningful early impact on me. Then you fast forward and, my dad did pass away about 17 years ago. And, the loss of a parent is, a major milestone and event that opens your eyes to say, wow, Death has really now come close. It's time for you to make sure you're living your very best life. And shortly after that I was a a close up witness to the events of 9 11. I was downtown Manhattan working, as you said before, I was a banker and I walked by the World Trade Center probably 20 to 30 minutes before the first plane crashed. I heard the first plane crash. I watched the second plane crashed. I watched the towers fall. I lived in that area for the following weeks and there's no doubt that had a meaningful impact on me. And then finally the fourth, my mom passed away about six years ago. So both my parents died at relatively young ages. And those four events, there's no doubt had a, meaningful impact on my philosophy and, who I am today.

Derek Clifford:

That's right. And plus I'm assuming that the skills that you picked up from entrepreneurialism and investment banking got the gears thinking, right? Man, what am I doing this for? Because I'm sure you have kids and a family at home. So can we talk about that aspect real quick before we jump into some of your superpower? I want to ask you, how is your family? changed or informed you and your life right now into this philosophy or into who you are as a person.

Scott White:

So I'm going to spin the question a tiny bit and talk to you a little bit about how my philosophy about family has changed and tie it directly to your question on investment banking entrepreneurship. So 20 24 years ago, I started as an entry level investment banker, and I will tell you that my mission in life was to be the king of Wall Street. I was going to, I was going to outwork anybody. I had this belief that I probably wasn't smarter than anybody, but I could out hustle. I could outwork them. And I will tell you years later. 1520 years later, I met people that I started with that reminded me that said that I always could outwork people. I always get out. So I was willing to put in that time. So so work was my number 1, 2 and 3 priorities. I was already married to my high school sweetheart, and she was bought in and very supportive. But I lived in investment banker life. I go in and work Days without going home, I'd come home, shower, go back, sleep at my desk. It was a, crazy life. And I'll tell you the events of nine 11 sort of changed that. So I was a couple of years into investment banking and the day before nine 11, I would have told you that I'll, have kids at some point in time. I'm young. I have my whole life ahead of me. And if I'm going to be the king of wall street, I got to keep working. About. See, 13 months later, after 9 11, I had my, 1st child and my daughter now is 20 years old and directly correlated to the events of that day. That changed my perspective. It changed my philosophy and then in the ensuing years, as I had a 2nd child and I climbed the corporate ladder. So to speak, I certainly. Which my priorities in terms of where I was spending my minutes. Remember I said before minutes are precious and how to use them and family became much more important to me. And then, as I went on a more entrepreneurial journey, which, as you pointed out before, or inferred is your greater flexibility of time, greater flexibility location. There's no doubt. I have been very, fortunate. Very blessed that 10 years ago. I left Wall Street and went on a bit of an entrepreneurial journey that has given me complete flexibility of, time and flexibility of completes an exaggeration. As we all have, commitments, as you said, but give me substantial flexibility of time, substantial flexibility of location and gave me the opportunity to be there. And I was the kids coaches on the soccer field and I was the in the classroom and I was there for all the major events and that became a big priority for me.

Derek Clifford:

I just have to put myself in your wife's shoes. Obviously you went through for life events. No, I don't think so. I'm just know because what I'm saying is from the perspective of your wife obviously she's seen you since you were just trying to learn yourself. We all are when we're in high school, right? To going through this process of being, I'm going to be the king of Wall Street. And then essentially turning on a dime in the perspective of an entire human lifetime, to going to, I want kids now, this is not what I want. What's really important to me is the minutes those matter to me. I'm just curious, like how your wife and at the time you didn't have, I don't think you had much more of a family. It was just you and your wife at the time, but maybe your your extended family or some other people, your friends, your network that knew you what, happened when you made that change? Did your wife? like that change or just talk a little bit about that transaction transition and mindset.

Scott White:

So I'd say a few things. One, I'm very blessed and fortunate that my wife and I've been together since I'm 16 years old. So to a certain degree we've, clearly grown together. We didn't. Really have personas or identities in a big way again, going back to who you are at 16 and we, blend them together. In fact, I'd say we grew our identities together. So she totally gets me. I get hard. You're right. We've both evolved, right? We both changed over the course of a life. She certainly was. Prepared to have a family before I was, but was incredibly supportive of my, work commitment and continues to be supportive of a lot of things that I work on. 1 of the things that I'm so excited about the book which, I keep referring to is we've been partners on the book. I, wrote it the, genesis of the idea for the book came from her. She, came up with the original title and the concept. And at this moment, she and I work very closely on it. I have a. speaking platform. And she does a lot with me on the scheduling speaking and on marketing and on everything associated with the book. I'm very fortunate and I would say it's probably the greatest gift I have in my life is my relationship with my wife.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. I, second you there. In my life, I would say that almost all of my excess, my success can be attributed. To one major decision. That was the decision to marry my wife. Just because so much growth has come from that because she came from an entrepreneurial background and she also came from a, perspective of an open mindedness and I was very, closed minded back before I met my wife. I was. Very much an engineer type and I thought I had all the answers and I knew what I needed to do. But by opening my mind and becoming a more positive person, a more happier person, I was able to start making changes in my life of things that I really wanted. And sometimes it's all about awareness, right? If you're so closed minded, you're not aware of anything, including what your own needs are. And that decision, that's why I asked about your spouse, because a spouse. Is an untapped form of wisdom for everyone out there because they know you in most cases more than you know yourself. And so I just encourage people to, deepen your relationship with your spouse and have those deep conversations as maybe that are tough conversations. And so that's why I wanted to ask you about how your family's helped you with the mindset. And it sounds like you guys have been in lockstep this whole time. And so I love that. I'd love to see that. Let's, shift gears just a little bit and talk about making the world a happier place. I'm not surprised as being the life is too short guy that's your superpower. I think they have both developed kind of hand in hand, but could you talk a little bit about how you live this day to day? Just a couple of examples or things that pop into mind when you think about making the world a better place.

Scott White:

Well, it starts with the book, right? The book was intended to a year ago. People said to me, it would be great if we could package up your attitude and your positivity and your energy. And then I realized the book was that package. Then you could elongate that. And now I'm out doing a lot of. Company keynotes and workshops to try to share these principles and the principles are in a lot of cases. So simple that it's an easy way for for people to walk away from hearing me from reading the book and implementing these tools and principles and making the world a happier place for me personally. It's, such little things. It's smiling at people. It's talking to strangers. It's waking up with the right attitude. It's random acts of kindness. These are all simple concepts that as I rattled them off, your listeners are like, yeah, of course that makes sense. But now I challenge your listeners to how often did you smile today? How often did you get in the car and smile? Did you wake up and smile? Did you get in the shower and smile? Did you get in bed and smile? Did you get in the work the office and smile? Did you, right? So that's my point is, Be deliberate and thoughtful about how often you smile because smile makes you feel better, makes the world around you feel better. How about engaging with strangers? Everyone has a story. People want to talk. They want to interact. There have been so many studies about how talking to strangers and engaging them generates chemicals in the brain and makes you happier, makes them happier. When you sit down on the plane, do you talk to somebody when you, when. You're, getting a cup of coffee. Do you engage with the barista when you're standing in line? Do you show respect for, the people in front of you? Do these are the types of small things that make a big difference.

Derek Clifford:

Very well said. I, think that most people equate generosity with money, right? But really, it's about time and energy that you can give other people that doesn't cost you anything. So I, just love that. Some of the, amazing things that I've done for myself that has helped me become a more open minded person is I remember taking, I think 30 bucks or something one day and. I went to the mall and that was back when malls were a thing. So maybe 10 years ago or something. Nowadays, the mall landscape is changing quite a bit, isn't it? But but I remember going to the mall and I remember saying, okay, I've got 30 bucks to give just to random people, like somehow. So my assignment was and I have to admit that I was not very creative at this, but My assignment was just to give it away somewhere. So what I did was I ended up dropping two 10 bills, or I think two fives or something in random places that were visible just in the mall in general as a reactive generosity, clearly in a conspicuous place. That was meant to be there for someone to pick up. It wasn't like it was accidental. Like someone who would pick this up would be like, Oh, is someone meant to put this here? And, then I went to a Starbucks or something, and then I was the only one there and I was like, look, here's 10 bucks. Just keep using this for the next customers until it gets used up. And they were happy to do that. And that felt amazing, right? Like just doing those small, simple things. It didn't cost very much money. You could smile back at people. You can have engaged, have a conversation and do all these little things. And my energy shift for that entire week, Scott completely changed And so after, after that point in time, I was just completely hooked on that. So I love this positivity doing the small things that really add up over time. So I think that's a beautiful thing. Now you mentioned before inside some of our conversation that not everything is perfect all the time. Maybe one of our listeners is having an issue and they need your superpower of making the world a happier place or maybe they're going through a difficult time right now. Can you talk about how you can maintain your positive attitude and outlook and energy, maybe a tip or technique from your book. That you can pull out for people that are having a really difficult time right now.

Scott White:

Yeah. So let's say that happiness is a relative scale, not an absolute scale. So it's not about reaching 10 on the happiness meter it's right now, as you've pointed out, I'm just going to use an analogy. I'm, at a one, right? So I'm, or maybe I'm at a minus one. So how do I move from minus one to zero, minus one to one, minus one to two? And again, it starts with small things. So even as I'm dealing with a major setback, I'm dealing with something that's very difficult. You could still smile and your answer. Maybe. It just doesn't feel the same. I got it, but I bet it feels a little bit better than not smiling. You could find ways to laugh. You could find humor and obviously the response back of the latest Scott. I just told you I'm having a really rough time. I'm in a bad place. How am I going to find humor? So one of the principles is funny things. Are everywhere. And in the book, I tell this the story about I mentioned you before my father passed away about 17 years ago, and I was at the funeral. And if you think about some of the lowest moments of your life to be at your father's funeral is probably pretty, pretty high on the loan is scale. If you know what I mean? And I was at the funeral overlooking the casket. The casket was open. It was before everyone came in. It was myself, my brother, a couple of the immediate family. I'm looking down and all of a sudden my phone rings. So I'm looking at that. Everyone's crying. The phone rings and people are startled, right? I know already people are thinking he couldn't remember to shut his phone. Oh, that's so embarrassing. I can't believe it. You go through all the litany of negativity. Again, at my worst moment phone rings. Hello, dad. What's up? Where are you? What are you doing? People didn't know what to do. They looked at me and started. There was a pause and then just like you, you like, thought for a minute. You're like, wait, is this cool to laugh or not? And people started laughing. It was a mix of laughing and crying. I admit. But look, no one was worse off. Dad certainly didn't mind. I assure you of that. I give that example as even in your worst moment, I would put that is 1 of the worst moments of my life. Looking down on my father in his final minutes before he's about to be buried. I found a way to laugh. I found a way to make the room laugh around me. I found a way to smile. Then I went on to deliver eulogy where I talk the key themes in the eulogy. The 1st, few paragraphs. We're happiness and gratefulness. I'm so happy. You're all here to join me. I am grateful that my father had a heart attack 25 years earlier, lived so long. He saw me get married. He saw me have children. He saw me buy a house. Wow. Am I lucky? Happiness, gratefulness, laughing and smiling on the worst day of my life.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. I like the fact that it all started with some humor and did you find that kind of set the stage for you to be able to be more because it it's, like a compound effect, right? If you start off or give yourself permission to be happy, even the toughest of situations. I'm picking up on the fact that you actually turned it into a positive day for everyone. And because you had the platform and you had the power that day to really express your feelings, you were able to become a force of light for everyone in that particular moment. And the amount of energy amplification that you got, For positivity in the world. It was just incredible at that moment. So maybe you have something to say about amplifying that. I don't, I'm not sure if you want to comment anything more on that.

Scott White:

I think it's so 1 of the things you just said in terms of setting the tone you have the ability to create that energy. Another tool I talk about in the book in terms of, and here's a great takeaway for your listeners that I share in the book. And it's such a simple idea. It's amazing. When I talk about it, people shake their head and I will tell you to this day, I've gotten so many emails and texts about people have implemented this and said they've actually so simple, but change their perspective. Here you go. Derek, do you remember what your first thought was when you wake up when you woke up this morning?

Derek Clifford:

Yes. What was it? It was, last day of early meetings for a couple of months, right? I was very tired. Cause I woke up at about 4 30 this morning to get ready for a 5 AM meeting. Cause I'm in Japan and there's business in the U S. So I woke up thinking, boy, I can do this 1 last 1 last day.

Scott White:

Yeah, that's what. So that's great. And you had a positive experience. When I asked that question to people, I will tell you about 60 to 70% of the time people can't remember. They give me a vague. I don't know. I probably open my eyes and I was like, it's Tuesday and I'm tired, right? It's a vague sort of answer. And I call those the blurry glasses. That's how most people will wake up. Unfortunately, I'd say a third of people wake up with, really muddy glasses. You have the chance to reach over to your table. And I always do this and put on, unfortunately, there's the blurry glasses. There's the muddy glasses, the Oh, I'm tired. It's cold. It's dark. I don't feel like getting out of bed. I have so much to do. I tell people it's so easy if you're just deliberate to reach over and here I'll use the real glasses put on clear glasses, wake up, open your eyes and deliberately and proactively. Yes, it's Thursday. It's a great day. I'm so grateful and happy. I'm going to go down and make coffee. I'm grateful to have someone I love next to me in bed. I'm grateful. My child is in the other room. I'm grateful for the. The roof over my head. I have a chance to talk to Derek today. Today's gonna be a great day. 10 seconds. I was grateful for eight things. Start the day with clear glasses like Henry. There's a great Henry Ford quote that everyone uses over and over again. So I'll just do it as well. If you think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right. So if you're waking up with those. muddy glasses, you're setting the tone for a miserable day. If you're waking up with those blurry glasses, you aren't setting a roadmap. If you wake up with those clear glasses, you're giving yourself a chance to steer. As you said, steer the conversation and set the tone for the direction you're heading in. Now I'll take off my clear glasses.

Derek Clifford:

That was awesome. I love it. What a great technique. It's very much it's like a it's, a very applicable gratitude. Practice that anyone can do. And I know a lot of people may think that it's like this woo new wave ish type of thing. I'm not going to do that to my I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to wake up and embarrass myself and, you know what though. That's fine. But the truth of the matter is what do you have to lose? You can always go back to doing what you did before so just give it a shot, have an open mind. So easy. This stuff works. And so I, love these very practical tools. And so I'm excited for our listeners to have a chance to, get your book because I can tell that you've given this a lot of thought and you have. A lot of experience in finding applicable things that are really helpful really, deep, useful tools. So that's really, great. Now I want to go back a little bit. I want to peel a layer from the onion again, and talk about how your superpower, which is obviously making the world happier. If more people were happy, can you talk about what you think that means for people's three degrees of freedom for their location, freedom. their financial freedom and their time freedom. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm just curious, like what you, what your interpretation of that would be when people are happier.

Scott White:

So to me, it's again, I'm a, you may get mad at me, but I'm spinning your questions around in that, financial freedom, that freedom of location, that freedom of your time creates that greater happiness. So now if you know that as a goal, how do you get there? What are Get at that goals grid I talked to you about. How am I going to work toward that freedom of time? How am I going to work toward that freedom of location? How am I going to work toward that financial freedom? Because I know it's going to lead to greater happiness. The two concepts, mine and yours are so inextricably linked. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's almost like we should jointly write the next book. There we go.

Derek Clifford:

I love it. I love that. That's very, cool. Awesome. Maybe let's talk about. Someone who's looking to make a major change in their life currently, right? Whether it's career or a personal change. Based on your philosophy, which is the life is too short philosophy, maybe you can provide one more tool for our audience to help them make this decision or help them frame the decision in a way that's healthy for them in the longterm or something that maybe they need to ask themselves, do you have any advice for people that are in this point in time right now?

Scott White:

So I would tell them to a, I'd start with mindset. So one of the principles, I think it's the seventh or eighth principle, is take a risk and get it done today. So take a risk and get it done today. And, in that chapter, and in that principle, I talk about the, book called the Five Regrets of the Dying. It's written by a palliative care nurse from Australia. It's a wonderful book and, the key takeaway, so we can go through all the regrets, but that's not necessary. One sentence, one sort of concept is on our deathbeds. It's been her observation that the biggest. Regret is what we didn't do. So it's not something dumb we did. It's not some mistake we made in our life. It's what we didn't do. So today, when you're listening to this in 2023 or whenever you end up listening to the reruns, today's the day to take that risk. Today's the day to get it done today. That's why I put the two together. It's not take a risk and think about it for the next four years. It's take a risk. Get it done today. And I tell people to think about so. why don't we take risks right there? They're these 2 kind of nasty words, fear and risk, right? It's fear and risk. I don't want to take the risk. I am afraid. So what have you reconceptualize those concepts and think about them differently? Think about them as, what is the worst thing that could happen? What, I, what happens if I never do? Will I look back from my deathbed and regret that today's the chance today's the day to take a chance. Take that risk. Eliminate that fear, move forward and maybe it's small steps, right? So you said people are thinking about a big change in their life. Maybe it isn't that big change today, though. I would challenge you, by the way, to consider that big change today. Maybe there are a couple of small steps as you think about the road map, that path, the goals grid to taking that chance and getting it done today.

Derek Clifford:

Yes, that's great. Did you walk through a similar mental exercise for yourself as you were making these transitions from your investment banking career over to all of that? Okay. Yeah, absolutely.

Scott White:

I would say that one of the biggest decisions in my life, which in the rearview mirror looks absolutely ridiculous. But when I left Wall Street, so I had a great job on Wall Street. I loved what I was doing. I really a lot of people think that the wall street life is a horrible life and it has its challenges. I will be honest, but I love what I was doing. I had a great team. I was working in a great company. I helped built a great business and I had a chance to leave and partner with somebody in another part of the country and had about 15 or 16 employees at the time. And most people look to me like you are insane. You're leaving 1 of the best. Companies in the world and a great platform to try this and the way I got there was to think about reframing the risk. Think about fear. What happens if it doesn't work out? If it doesn't work out, I was good at what I did. Actually, I was really good at what I didn't. I can make my way back. I could try something different. I'm young. There are other opportunities. What is the worst that could happen? It's a complete bust. What are the odds that it's a complete bust? On a risk adjusted basis as I went through that math in my head. And by the way, I'm still scared now. It sounds easy to sit back and say, oh, yeah, I reassess the risk. It's always in the rear view mirror, but I'm so grateful. I did. It was 1 of the best decisions I made at the time. It was 1 of the scariest decisions.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah I can imagine you've got a wife and you've got a newborn right at that point in time. That's, a very tough thing to do, especially because you're trying to help your family out. And it's not just you anymore that you're making these decisions for. I love that, that you're. That you're walking this talk and giving the advice that you've already used yourself. And so I, I couldn't agree more that taking a big goal and breaking it down into manageable pieces is the way to go. And then start thinking about things in terms of how much choices are you opening up for yourself later on? And I think you inherently knew that, when you made this transition that like. As I detach myself and add more people to the business to help support me so that there's partners now and I have less responsibility or maybe I have the same responsibility, but less duties. That's enabling the choices. That's enabling the three degrees of freedom. Your location freedom opens up now and your time freedom opens up. And then in some cases you may even do better with partners, right? You may have a smaller piece of the pie. If you're talking about equity ownership in that traditional way that I think about it as a real estate. Investor but your pie may be bigger. And so that's those are the types of things that that that I love to ponder about and listen to our guests approach. And Scott, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your philosophy and your very intimate details about your life and how you got to where you did. But before we go, we have the rapid round, which is the six questions that we ask every one of our guests. And so if you're ready, we're going to rapidly ask them to you. There we 30 seconds or less, so I think we can get this. Are we good? All six in 30 seconds, huh? All six? No, Oh, 30 seconds each. I don't know how fast you ready to say, man, five, five seconds is ambitious. I should probably ask someone to see if there's someone for up to the challenge. And I, if there's anyone, I'm sure it'd be you, but let's jump into the rapid number one, name, any resource that was, or is. essential in your journey to pursue your three degrees of freedom? My wife. Okay. That's beautiful. And that's because of the perspective she, gave you or because of the support, perspective

Scott White:

the growth together, the learning. She is enabled so much of what I've been able to accomplish and having her on as a partner that's supportive. It's much harder to take chances to, to do whatever you're going to do in life. If you don't have a partner is for you.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, unbelievable. And then to be able to share those experiences with someone that's, where it's at. Okay. Number two, if you woke up and your business was gone and you had 500, a laptop, a place to live and some food. What do you think you would do first to rebuild? Oh

Scott White:

I'd like to write another book. So we'll go with write another book. I'm going to write another book because you're giving me the computer. You're giving me food so I could survive. I'd have to write fast on 500 to be honest with you but, I'd love to write another book and, that's probably the next move.

Derek Clifford:

I love it. That's great. Yeah. Getting your message solidified and getting it out there ready to disseminate number three. What does your self reflection and your goal setting practice look like on a daily basis? If you have it on daily basis,

Scott White:

I absolutely do. I absolutely do. I think goals are so vitally important. I talk about the goals grid every single day. I, the day before. So, tonight I will write down. I will 1st see what I haven't accomplished for today. I'll move that to tomorrow's list and then I'll set off another list and I'll number and prioritize them giving some thoughts to. What has to get done and what order they need to get done in and time constraints. And then I love crossing them off. I think there's a great psychological effect of crossing things off. In fact, I will admit most people will do this, that if I had a goal in mind, I didn't write it down. I just did it. I will write it down and cross it off. Cause I'll feel better.

Derek Clifford:

Same here, man. That's exactly me. I love that. Except for me, I do it in a sauna. So it's the digital version of clicking the complete button and then watching the, task. Vanish, right? Which is really, fun too, by the way. Anyway. All right. Number four, what are the core work habits that you most attribute to your success?

Scott White:

Attitude is a hundred percent of my success. I fundamentally believe that I'm no smarter than anybody else. I like to think I work harder, but I don't you can't replicate my attitude, my perspective, my, how I approach everything. We didn't talk a lot about it, but even in my early days of investment banking, it was a tough business. And I was so happy and so great, truly grateful. Like I couldn't believe I pinched myself like, wait a second, they hired me. Really? This is unbelievable. And, I think that, that was directly correlated to my longevity on Wall Street, to my success on Wall Street, and where I am today. I, love to surround myself with very positive people. I think it's the biggest defining attribute in someone's career.

Derek Clifford:

I love that you said this. My mentor told me that being positive and having the attitude is akin to open mindedness and being able to stick with something for a long time until, you get to where you need to get to. If you're not positive or not open minded and have a low attitude, you just quit everything, right? And then nothing ever gets done because nothing in life. Worth getting is easy. I hate to say that, like it's just, it totally is the truth. Although I'm sure people out there who are AI experts maybe have something different to say about that, because that is changing the world also. So we'll see anyway. All right. Number five, what books do you recommend to people to help jumpstart their success in addition to yours? Oh,

Scott White:

I don't know if there are others besides mine. Look, there are a lot of them. I'll, stick with the last few I read right now. I'm reading the atomic habit, which I think is great. Start with why is great. Life is in the transitions is an interesting book that, that really made me think that's one that's probably not high on people's lists. I just finished the power regret the happiness advantage by Shawn. Oh yeah. Yeah. Great book. Yeah. I love reading, although I'll tell you now, I'm really into listening to books, but I'll, listen to probably two books a month. I I, love it. I absolutely love it. And, I tie it to running. I love to run, so I go, I run, I listen to a book, and I'm making the most of every minute.

Derek Clifford:

Bingo. Yeah. I was just about to ask you how you consume all of those. And so that, that makes sense when you're out there running training for your next marathon. I love it. Very cool. Yeah. One book that I do want to recommend to you, if you haven't heard of it yet, is the gap in the game. Phenomenal book. This book is by Dan Sullivan, the same guy who wrote who not how. And it's a fantastic book about Making decisions based out of abundance and not scarcity. I don't want to ruin it because it's such a fantastic audio book. And the audio book is actually better than the than the written one, because you get to hear interviews with Dan Sullivan. Also, that's in between the chapters. Definitely. It's called the gap and the gain. All right. I don't remember that. Come on, write that down please, do. And then I'm going to reach out to you and see how that went for you. You're going to love it. All right. All right. Last question I got for you today, Scott, what tool or process has become one of your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use every single day?

Scott White:

It's got to be the goals grid. It's got to be setting out goals and prioritizing goals. I think we spend, so in the book I talk about how many minutes we have left and I know you want me to keep this 30 seconds, so I won't go too long, but. You have a finite number of minutes left. You don't know what they are. I tell people picture a wine barrel with gold coins in it, right? So every time you do something, you reach in the barrel, you take out a gold coin. And I tell people, you don't know how many coins are in that barrel. And there are coins leaking out the bottom of the barrel. Stop the leak, reach in, know what you're doing with your minutes, setting goals, crossing them off, following a roadmap is the best way to accomplish what you want to do and to be efficient. And I did that on less than 30 seconds.

Derek Clifford:

You did. That's awesome. And I'm also guilty too, because I, just get curious and I want to ask a whole bunch of follow up questions, but anyway, Scott, this has been amazing. I knew this was going to be a fantastic conversation from the beginning, even before we hit record, but man, great to have you on the show. Before we go, can you tell the listeners a little bit about how they can find out more about your world when your book is coming out and and just how people can interact with you. Get some support or, find what you're up to out in the world.

Scott White:

Oh, that's wonderful. You can find out more about me, the book, my speaking at lifeistooshortguy.com. That's lifeistooshortguy.com. The book is out. It came out in January of this year. It is an Amazon bestseller. You can find it at on Amazon. You can find it at Barnes and Noble.com. You can find it in some local bookstores or you can send me an email and I'd be happy to send you an autographed copy. My email is Scott at scott e white.com. That's scott@scottewhite.com. Lifeistooshortguy.com is the website.

Derek Clifford:

Wonderful. And so for all of you listeners out there, please note that we'll be putting a website up for this episode specifically that's got all of the resources that are linked here, including all of Scott's links that he provided to us during the production. Of this podcast so that you can click into his website and his book and all of that great stuff. So that should be easily available to you on our website at elevateequity. org forward slash podcast. And you'll be able to find Scott's attractive mug. On the webpage, you just go ahead and click that. Just want to thank you audience member as well for listening to this podcast. So wherever you're listening or watching, please like subscribe, engage, comment. We want to appease the algorithm God so that we can get more listeners like you and we can also get some more incredible guests like Scott on the show and help to bring forward the message of the three degrees of freedom and alignment with it from every different angle. And we just are here to serve. We want to make sure that you guys have everything you need to move forward in life with full intention, and just want to thank you for listening and Scott. Thank you once again for coming on the show. This was a killer conversation. Thank you so much.

Scott White:

It was a pleasure. Thank you so very much, Derek.

Derek Clifford:

Alrighty. You guys have a fantastic week and we'll see you next time. Take care.