Living a Life of Gratitude with Scott MacGregor

[00:00:53] The stories are curated by author Scott McGregor, who is the founder and CEO of Something New, a staffing and [00:01:00] recruiting company that is providing a new approach to sourcing talent. I reached out to Scott because I wanted to understand how living a life of gratitude has helped him overcome adversity in life.

[00:01:09] And in sales, my conversation with Scott really changed my perspective on the power of gratitude and not just gratitude for good things, but also having gratitude for hard things that shape us and make us stronger. Let’s listen in as Scott shares a story.

[00:01:26] I’ve got Scott McGregor here. I’m excited to have Scott on. Scott is an author of Standing O and Standing O Encore a Biograph short biographical stories on the gratitude of life lessons. He’s the founder of Something New, which has a unique spin on talent acquisition in talent search and placement. And his team has been the three time consecutive award winner of the American business award for innovation.

[00:01:54] And they have five of those total. He’s also heavily involved in the Look for [00:02:00] Good foundation. And he’s got another book that we may talk about here in the future, but that’s Scott’s background. He’s also got a 20 plus year, uh, sales and sales leadership experience in software technology and print. And so, Scott, I’m glad to have you on.

[00:02:17] Scott: [00:02:17] Brad, I appreciate it. I’ve been looking forward to it.

[00:02:22] Brad: [00:02:22] Scott, tell me a little bit about, tell me about the book. Tell me about Standing O. Tell me about the process that was going on when you decided to write it. And tell me about why you wrote the book.

[00:02:30] Scott: [00:02:30] So I’ll take a step back from there. So when I started Something New, a little over five years ago, probably the most important thing, other than disrupting an industry that I thought was fairly dysfunctional, was to create a company that was founded on giving back and to really make that the DNA of the company. So, uh, the company’s name is something new, uh, but our mission driven piece of our business is [00:03:00] called something good. Uh, so through something good, we do a whole bunch of different things to give back.

[00:03:06] Uh, the books are probably the most prominent. Um, so I’ve been incredibly blessed throughout my life, uh, to have an incredible network, um, just amazing people. Um, and I thought one of the ways that I could share some of the things that I get to learn from them on a regular basis was to put, um, some books together, uh, and then give all the proceeds to charity.

[00:03:33] So we started, uh, with 52 authors. Mmm. Dick for meal wrote the foreword Tiki barber wrote the cover quote. And then the book is filled with 52 Olympians and military leaders and athletes and CEOs. Uh, it’s all about gratitude for life lessons learned. Mmm. And, you know, we were successful, uh, [00:04:00] giving I think two organizations elevate New York and keep on playing, uh, awareness that they needed, uh, and also funding through the sales of the books.

[00:04:11] Um, and then we repeated that process again with Standing O Encore.

[00:04:17]Brad: [00:04:17] Awesome. So you mentioned something a couple sentences back. When you started something for good, really wanting to have a, a principle of giving back. What made that important to you? Why was giving back something that was on your mind?

[00:04:32] Scott: [00:04:32] It’s just always been incredibly important to me.

[00:04:35] And I think I witnessed, uh, unfortunately too many companies either just pay lip service to it or do things because, you know, it looks good on a website or. Mmm. It just didn’t seem to be a core part of, of, um, most company’s DNA. Uh, but I did see some incredible examples of [00:05:00] companies that really, uh, we’re built on a model of giving back.

[00:05:04] And I thought that we could do the same. Um, so it was, it was important to me. It’s just not, I’m not looking to necessarily put additional zeroes. In my bank account or buy a bigger house or a newer car or anything like that. Um, you know, I think if you’re going to leave a legacy, that’s not a legacy. The legacy is really, you know, what you do for other people.

[00:05:31] Brad: [00:05:31] Well, since you said that, I’m going to ask you a question I’m sort of out of, out of turn here on my questions. How would you define success?

[00:05:40] Scott: [00:05:40] I think success is making other people better. Um, Giving other people opportunities, um, that maybe they wouldn’t have had without you, uh, to me, that’s success. It’s probably why I’ve always gravitated towards a leadership position.

[00:06:00] [00:06:00] Um, you know, leadership, uh, roles are sometimes a thankless job because you may get paid less than your star sales rep. Uh, you have more responsibility, you have less control of your outcome. But the attraction for me, that was always being able to see somebody accomplish something for the first time, whether it was making six figures or putting a kid through, uh, the school of their choice or whatever it was that they were able to accomplish.

[00:06:32] And knowing that you’re a part of that. Um, so that that’s always been something that was very attractive to me.

[00:06:39] Brad: [00:06:39] Well, I know in the interview that I had that I watched, um, I think he did it with Kevin Singleton. And when he talked about his Standing O moment, he got a big smile on his face. Like you could tell that you, you know, recounting the story that he told about his dad was [00:07:00] really impactful and it’s like, and I would assume that you really offered, probably some refreshment to these guys as a pretend to recounting some of these stories that have made them, it made them who they are.

[00:07:16] Scott: [00:07:16] Yeah. I think it’s just a really neat, unique, permanent way to give recognition to somebody that impacted your life. Uh, you know, not everybody winds up in a book, uh, for the first book standing up, we actually had one of the.

[00:07:31] One of the contributing authors, uh, had written her Standing O over to one of her teachers. She didn’t tell her, uh, she’s in Atlanta and she didn’t tell her anything about it. She just said, we’re going to take a trip to New York. And that trip was actually for our book launch party. And then she filmed, uh, handing her the book in their hotel room.

[00:07:54] And the teacher, uh, saw that, you know, Catherine had written. [00:08:00] About her and just, you know, broke into tears. So it was pretty special to see those types of reactions from the people that were written about. Yeah, it’s, it’s awesome to, it was, it was neat to read the stories and to see the importance of relationships and how they change the trajectory of someone’s life.

[00:08:21] Brad: [00:08:21] Before I guess, before we get any farther. The idea of gratitude. Is that something that you felt like you grew up with or what happened or occurred that got you thinking about, or maybe sensitive to that, to that topic?

[00:08:36] Scott: [00:08:36] I think I’m just a glass half full kind of a person. Um, you know, I grew up, uh, very poor affluent town, which was a very strange way to grow up.

[00:08:51] And I think regardless of the obstacles that I’ve faced in my life, which I’ve run into a couple doozies. [00:09:00] Mmm. You know, I’ve always known that regardless of your situation, there are always, you know, probably thousands, if not millions of people that would trade with you in a nanosecond. So. not living the life of gratitude seems just like a horrible way to go through.

[00:09:21] Um, you know, so I’m blessed, I’m blessed in so many different ways.

[00:09:27] Brad: [00:09:27] Yeah, I think as I, you know, as I read the book and as I mentioned earlier, I think gratitude sort of puts, put, creates a sensitivity for you to really understand the things that are happening around you. And you mentioned that you’ve had.

[00:09:42] And when one of the reasons why I felt like this podcast was a good topic is sales life they’re full of adversity. And those who find success and improvement really have figured out how to embrace that. And though the [00:10:00] idea of gratitude, when I think about adversity and mental toughness, I probably wouldn’t write that down.

[00:10:06] As one of the, one of the top characteristics or features of somebody who’s mentally toughest gratitude, but you did change my, you did change my perspective on that. What do you, what do you think about the idea of gratitude and mental toughness? Do those two things go together?

[00:10:22] Scott: [00:10:22] They, they do. I think, you know, first blush, they, they don’t.

[00:10:27] Um, but they really do, because I think it’s all how you look at the world. Mmm. You know, and, and being a, a former sales leader, I was a VP of sales and marketing for a long, long time. And one of the things that I always look for and that we look for and try to teach our clients today is. Really looking for people that have resiliency, um, it’s people that heal quickly and, you know, today, uh, being the, uh, the day of the NFL draft, you know, they always say that a good [00:11:00] cornerback is somebody who forgets, but they may have gotten burned on the play before.

[00:11:04] So you’ve got to have a very short memory and in sales, I think you’ve got to, well, I would say in life, it’s not just sales. You’ve got to heal very, very quickly. Um, and I think often times, you know, it takes people days or weeks or months, and you hear this people, uh, you know, maybe talking about a setback that they had in life and you realize, wow, that was, you know, obviously something that was pretty significant, but, you know, Hey, that divorce was 10 years ago and yet it’s still impacting them today. I just think, you know, Yeah, I I’m, I’m the type of person I turned the page very quickly, you know, even during these times that we’re in right now, uh, You know, this is just a moment in time.

[00:11:59] Brad: [00:11:59] Yeah. That [00:12:00] really leans into the, there was a quote that we, we read or I read kind of prior to coming up with this idea, which was from Barbara Corcoran.

[00:12:09] And she said the difference between successful salespeople and others is how long they spend feeling sorry for themselves. And as I, as I read, um, looked into some of her content, listen to some of her keynotes and podcast, she really leans into that concept of being able to move on. And she, she changed my perspective a little bit on, on hard work, which I think is a cornerstone to hiring a sales person.

[00:12:35] Her perspective was, um, and I think it is skill and will, I think there’s a combination here. So I don’t think she was trying to downplay this, but she did say that she felt like she had had salespeople that have been successful. That hadn’t worked as hard. And then she’d had salespeople that were very hardworking, but hadn’t had the same success.

[00:12:54] And in her mind, the hardworking underperforming rep, she felt [00:13:00] like she could typically tie that to not being able to move past the, no. So they’re doing the phone calls, they’re sending the emails, but they’re really sort of, you know, hedging and medicating. Their failure or their attachment to the failure with all the activities.

[00:13:18] Scott: [00:13:18] Agreed. Yeah. So there’s three things that there’s three primary things, um, that I’ve always looked for. And this is again, something that we work with our current clients on, and I think these are the cornerstones for successful people and their work ethic, discipline and resiliency. Um, I have rarely seen anyone that has a great work ethic that has tremendous discipline, and that is very resilient.

[00:13:50] I’ve almost never seen somebody like that fail. Mmm. So those, those to me are the cornerstones. I think the mistake [00:14:00] that oftentimes people make is they, they consider those things table stakes. And they consider those things to be things that people have, uh, you know, in abundance. And that’s just simply not true.

[00:14:15] You can look around our country, whether it’s the problems that we have with obesity or the problems that we have with debt. Um, and you can see very clearly that we don’t exactly live in a very disciplined society. Um, so people with discipline and work ethic and resiliency are very rare. And I think when you find them, you hire them.

[00:14:42] Brad: [00:14:42] What have you found? Um, maybe not a tactics, maybe not a good word, but what have you found to sort of uncover that in the. Interviewing process. How do you figure out if somebody, is there, is there a trick or insight to sort of figuring out if somebody has those [00:15:00] three disciplines?

[00:15:01] Scott: [00:15:01] Yeah. I mean, we use behavioral interviewing techniques, which is really, you know, having people explain times when they use certain things, um, you know, and those have played a role in their success.

[00:15:18] So. It tends to make them be very specific and give specific examples. So I think you’re always looking so the past to predict the future to a degree, and often times it’s easy to find those patterns. Mmm. Work ethic and discipline and resiliency, really don’t wax and wane that much. It’s not like one year you have it the next year.

[00:15:47] You don’t. Mmm. You know, those are things that are kind of core to somebody’s DNA. Mmm. And those are definitely predictors of success. All [00:16:00] right. Well, let’s transition. You’ve got the 20 year background in sales. How hard is sales? It’s very hard. Um, you know, it’s a little like baseball, you know, most people, uh, most baseball players bat somewhere in the, you know, 200.

[00:16:17] Range, you know, two 50 to 60 to 70, meaning you’re failing, uh, you know, 75% of the time. And I think most salespeople that’s the case. Um, you know, so it’s tough. Uh, you’re getting punched in the mouth all the time and you’re dealing with rejection and difficult circumstances. And I think that’s why work ethic, discipline and resiliency are so important.

[00:16:44] It’s a, it’s a very tough profession, but. Done right. You know, I think it’s the best one out there. I I’ve loved my career in sales and really wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[00:16:56] Brad: [00:16:56] Now, do you, do you think you’ve highlighted [00:17:00] resiliency a couple of times, do you think that goes hand in hand with mental toughness and adversity?

[00:17:05] Scott: [00:17:05] A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, if you can’t bounce back, you’re you’re finished. Whether it’s, you know, you can look at. You know, I, I am a accused often rightfully so of either making a sports or a military reference. And I think you can kind of look at, uh, people that are successful in, in athletic endeavors are people that are successful in the military.

[00:17:35] And, you know, common denominator is they all are resilient. They have to be, they won’t survive otherwise.

[00:17:43] Brad: [00:17:43] Now, now, do you think how much of, we talked a little bit about skill? We talked about the mental game. When you think about a sales role, how much of that is skill and how much of it is mental?

[00:17:54] Scott: [00:17:54] Um, a lot of it is, is mental. I mean, there’s [00:18:00] definitely, you’ve gotta be willing and able to do the job. Mmm. So able to do the job is, do you have the, you know, the faculties, uh, the IQ and the EEQ to do the job? The answer to that is typically yes. Mmm. And then you’ve gotta be willing to do the job, which is you’ve gotta be willing to do the hard stuff that no one really wants to do.

[00:18:29] And over and over and over again, uh, throughout my career, I’ve seen people that given the map to success, try to take detours or try to take shortcuts. Mmm. And it just doesn’t work.

[00:18:46] Brad: [00:18:46] Right. You gotta, you gotta put in the elbow grease. Do you, um, so kind of honing in on gratitude and circling back as you talked about this a little, uh, a little bit, you know, how, how does gratitude [00:19:00] fit into the sales role or the, or the perspective or perception of the sales role, because you’re getting rejection, um, a lot, you know, inevitably in the, in the position and they seem to not go together, but how, how does that apply to a sales role? I should just, you know, should I be happy when, uh, when I hear a no?

[00:19:22] Scott: [00:19:22] I mean, you should be because every, no, you know, this, this sounds cliche, but it’s true.

[00:19:28] Every no gets you closer to the yes. Um, so. You know, those, those aren’t defeats. And I think it’s all how you look at it. If you see, uh, no, as a defeat, I think you’re just looking at it the wrong way. That’s really a step forward, closer to being successful. Um, well, one of the things that I, in what I’ve read and in interaction with you, and then what I have seen in, in videos, there seems to be a, I think you’ve got some, some natural poise, [00:20:00] but you also have resiliency.

[00:20:02] And determination as long with, you know, stick to it in this, really to be able to stick to something. You had a long career as a VP of sales, a very long career as it pertains to VPs. And, um, do you think that came from your, your upbringing or do you feel like some of that was naturally handed to you? Um, it definitely came from the way I grew up.

[00:20:26] Uh, I, you know, I think that kind of shaped me. It made me. Uh, pretty psychotically motivated, um, from the get go. I just didn’t want to live the life that I saw my parents struggling through. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t really a for material things. It was, you know, just every Christmas, every birthday, knowing that my parents maybe couldn’t afford.

[00:20:55] Uh, to buy me presents, but we’re going to any way. And that was [00:21:00] a, you know, that’s really not a very enjoyable way to win to a celebrate, something that, you know, everyone else is celebrating. Um, you know, because you know, it’s a hardship, so I just, I never wanted to live like that. And that made me very, very motivated.

[00:21:18] Mmm. You know, I was a competitive athlete. Uh, then I had a fairly severe back injury, uh, that derailed my, uh, my sports. Uh, and I channeled that, then it’s a school and, and did well, and then got out immediately started working. Mmm. And was successful. Not because I was smarter than anybody. Um, but I just. I did the work, um, I just day in and day out.

[00:21:52] And that’s probably been one of the reasons why, you know, I’ve had a fair amount of [00:22:00] success, um, in my career. Is it just every single day? Mmm. I just put in, I put in the work.

[00:22:11] Brad: [00:22:11] Next section, next thing we’re going to do is what I call the power play. So I’m going to hit you with a couple of questions and you just tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. Um, toughest decision you’ve ever had to make?

[00:22:21] Scott: [00:22:21] A professional. I’ll leave it professionally. Um, Probably letting, uh, certain people go, um, firing people, uh, but really understanding that it was a fiduciary responsibility to the organization as a whole, but those are always gut wrenching decisions.

[00:22:42] Brad: [00:22:42] Yeah, for sure. What about biggest regret?

[00:22:45] Scott: [00:22:45] Uh, not starting the company, uh, that I have now, I sat on a business plan that I had written for a decade. Um, and I just didn’t have the guts to jump off the cliff and do [00:23:00] it. Um, and finally I did, but it took me 10 years.

[00:23:04] Brad: [00:23:04] Well, I’m totally derailing the power play here by asking you a follow up, follow up questions to what’s supposed to be rapid fire, but what was that process like?

[00:23:12] What, what initiated you? You came up with the business plan at some point in the business, and then what initiated the transition at what point did you decide? Hey, I gotta just. Uh, you know, draw a line here and make a jump.

[00:23:27] Scott: [00:23:27] Um, I was very dissatisfied where I was, I mean, I was making a lot of money and that was really what was keeping me there.

[00:23:33] I just couldn’t kind of wrap my head around, leaving that amount of money, but I was very disappointed with the direction, um, that the company was, was moving in. Uh, and my wife was incredibly supportive. Um, so Meg had, you know, continue to encourage me. Uh, to follow my passion and to a, to basically jump off the cliff and give [00:24:00] it a shot. And so I give her all the credit for it.

[00:24:04] Brad: [00:24:04] That’s awesome. Yeah, definitely helpful. If you get some support on the home front, um, next question. Are you born mentally tough or made mentally tough?

[00:24:14] Scott: [00:24:14] I think you’re made mentally tough. You know, when adversity comes your way. Uh, it either, you know, crushes you or you move through it.

[00:24:25] Uh, I see, you know, sometimes people hit minor adversity and you know, they’re essentially in the fetal position. And other times I see people get hit in the sled jam, you know, hit my head with a sledgehammer and they move on as if nothing happened.

[00:24:44] Brad: [00:24:44] Anything else you want to cover? You wanna talk a little bit about the new book coming up?

[00:24:48] Scott: [00:24:48] Uh, yeah. You know, I’m happy to, why not? I, this, so this is, uh, the first time, uh, I’ve spoken about this publicly. We’re not going to actually announce it until July 4th. Um, [00:25:00] but we are coming out with our third book called Standing O Salute. Uh, it is a hundred percent military. So everybody in the book is, uh, somebody who served in the military and we’ve got a lot of generals and a lot of.

[00:25:16] Army Rangers and Navy seals and Marines, and just amazing people. Medal of honor winners, um, that are in the book and all the proceeds are going to go to the special operations warrior foundation, uh, which is a phenomenal organization, uh, run by clay hot mocker. Uh, and Sean card and, um, just fantastic people.

[00:25:39] So we’re really excited about it. And that’ll be out in the fall.

[00:25:47] Brad: [00:25:47] During our conversation, Scott mentioned three traits that he believes are the key to success, work ethic, discipline, and resiliency. That last one really stuck out to me in terms of how we think about adversity [00:26:00] and overcoming adversity and sales. I’m going to bring our producer Kiel Hauck on here. Kiel, what stuck out to you?

[00:26:08] Kiel: [00:26:08] Well, yeah, I think, you know, you talked about that last point, resiliency, Scott shared an analogy of how, you know, a baseball player, um, you know, go up to the plate and if he’s able to get a hit one out of every four times, he goes up, you know, that is considered successful, but that also means that you’re.

[00:26:25] Failing three out of four times. So it seems like, well, how, how could you call that success? Right. But I think when you tie it back to like what it’s like to be a sales person and Brad, you’re a sales guy. I mean, a lot of it is failure. It’s failing to get the sale and learning about like, okay, how am I actually going to work through that and get past that and use those failures to become a better salesperson? Wouldn’t you say?

[00:26:48] Brad: [00:26:48] Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that he, he highlighted that he gave him a strategy for learning. Um, from your failure and moving forward with confidence.

[00:26:58] Kiel: [00:26:58] Yeah, no [00:27:00] question. And you know, that’s, I think it’s a hard skill to learn. I mean, you kind of have to, the only way to do it is to like repeatedly go through failures.

[00:27:08] And I mean, the, the further you can get from wallowing in those failures, but actually saying like, okay, that didn’t work. What am I going to take away from it, that’s going to be useful for me as I kind of approached my next obstacle, that’s related the only way to kind of develop a, a knack for, um, overcoming those problems and challenges that we face.

[00:27:29] Brad: [00:27:29] Yeah. Why I asked him in the interview, I said, is sales hard or easy? And he said, it’s hard. And then he went on to give that. Analogy. And I think the thing that, um, that he sort of pointed out was you really have to be, he said something along the lines, and this is a common sales perspective.

[00:27:46] I said, well, should you just be happy? Cause you gotta know. And he sorta, I think he chuckled and transitioned by saying yeah, cause a no gets you closer to it to, yes. I do think you really have to be fixated on [00:28:00] getting a yes or getting to yes. As big, really important. Otherwise you do see that as a failure.

[00:28:06] So if, if you’re not getting, if you’re not fixated on getting to yes. And getting satisfaction over, over, yes. And really having a glass, I would sort of a glass half full mentality, then you are going to be really discouraged. And I think that’s a significant point to bring up as it pertains to people who find success and  and sales and those who don’t is their perspective of.

[00:28:31] Missing out on not being effective 75% of the time.

[00:28:35] Kiel: [00:28:35] Yeah. Well, I’m interested to get your take. Um, you know, to that point, you kind of started the conversation with Scott, talking about gratitude. He wrote, you know, those two books standing out, it’s obviously something that he’s really passionate about.

[00:28:47] What were your thoughts and what he shared in terms of like how gratitude relates to mental toughness.

[00:28:54] Brad: [00:28:54] So I was really interested to have him on, because I wanted to talk about that, that topic. [00:29:00] And I’m really fascinated, um, about people who, you know, I would say there’s a gratitude movement. I mean, there’s a movement of people.

[00:29:10] Um, it’s a recent movement of really putting a lot of emphasis on gratitude in what I think is interesting about that is, and I may have stated it in the podcast then I think gratitude is the one thing that allows you. To be, to understand the president. And if you’re going to move into the future, you really have to, to be in the present.

[00:29:35] And then I’m sure we’ll get into this. When we, when we talk about Brandon or when we get into our next episode and we start to digest Brandon’s comments, but he made a really good, uh, he made a really good point, which was you can’t get something essentially said something around the lines of. You can’t get what’s coming to you.

[00:29:57] If you’re not grateful for what you have. And that [00:30:00] reminded me of, you know, Hey, if you, if you, if you have a Pinto car and you want to a Mercedes, you’re probably not going to get the Mercedes until you take good care of your Pinto.

[00:30:12] Kiel: [00:30:12] Yeah, that’s a really great way of, uh, of putting it. And, you know, you’re referencing that, that interview with Brandon Steiner.

[00:30:18] I, you know, I’ll say at the start of all this, I, I would have been surprised that we were going to have two episodes here that kind of had a, um, a focus, um, on gratitude, but you know, to, to hear Scott and later on, everyone will hear Brandon as well. It really does make a lot of sense and how gratitude can be pretty impactful in terms of growing in mental toughness.

[00:30:40] Brad: [00:30:40] Well, and I think the other thing that I think the other thing that it does is it grounds you from panic. So if you’re grateful for where you’re at and what you have, you’re not going to panic. And we all know that panic in sales is awful. I mean, as soon as you throw out the panic [00:31:00] signals and you start deeply discounting, you start getting urgent, you start throwing out.

[00:31:06] Um, kind of emotional signs that you’re in distress. I mean, you might as well just set the deal on fire. Cause those never go well. I mean the client can pick up on it. You start folding like a lawn chair. It just doesn’t go. Well, yeah, no question. All right. Well, that’s it for today. Remember if you’d like some further reading on how to grow in mental toughness and become a better salesperson, you can download our mental toughness playbook.

[00:31:31] You can get it for free by going to monster connect.com/podcast. And remember, subscribe to your favorite podcast app and leave us a review on Apple podcasts until next time. Don’t let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do. [00:32:00]