How Scott Curry Went from Homeless to Financial Freedom

🎙️ How Scott Curry Went from Homeless to Financial Freedom

Guest: Scott Curry
Host: Dwight Heck
Podcast: Give A Heck

🔥 Episode Overview

Are you trapped in survival mode, wondering if financial freedom is just a fantasy for people like you? In this powerful episode of Give A Heck, I sit down with Scott Curry, founder and CEO of Faith Roar, whose journey from homelessness to building multiple six-figure businesses proves that your past does not determine your future.

Scott shares his raw story of overcoming childhood trauma as a military brat, struggling through failed businesses, and facing homelessness twice. But what sets this conversation apart is how he transformed these crushing setbacks into the foundation for extraordinary success, building a YouTube channel that reached 80,000 subscribers and generated over $250,000 in annual profits, all while working a full-time job.

⭐ Key Takeaways

  • How Scott built residual income that sustained him through his son’s life-threatening illness, his mother’s death, and escaping an abusive relationship
  • The mindset shift from one-time sales to recurring revenue that changed everything
  • Why being a straight C student who could not hold a job became his greatest business advantage
  • The three-month strategy that allowed him to quit his corporate job and go full-time on YouTube

💥 From Failure to Financial Freedom

Discover how Scott:

  • Turned his inability to conform into entrepreneurial success
  • Built a profitable uniform business with zero startup capital using pre-sales
  • Pivoted from failed motivational speaking to stock market education during COVID
  • Created multiple automated income streams that work while he sleeps

🙏 The Faith-Driven Approach to Business

Learn about Scott’s unique perspective on:

  • Why he believes God wants you to prosper financially, not struggle
  • How faith sustained him through the most devastating year of his life
  • The biblical principle that transformed his approach to wealth building
  • His mission to help one million people achieve financial security

🛠️ Practical Strategies for Starting With Nothing

Scott breaks down actionable steps for building your own profitable venture:

  • The pre-sales method that requires zero upfront investment
  • How to validate your business idea with complete strangers
  • Why working 18-20 hours a day for three months beats working 40 hours a week for years
  • The affiliate marketing approach that generated income before YouTube monetization

This conversation challenges everything you have been taught about success, education, and the traditional career path. Whether you are drowning in debt, stuck in a job you hate, or simply ready to take control of your financial destiny, Scott’s story offers both inspiration and a practical roadmap.

Do not let fear or past failures convince you that entrepreneurship is not for you. Scott’s journey proves that tenacity, faith, and strategic action can overcome any obstacle. Your breakthrough might be one pivot away from changing your entire life trajectory.

🔗 Connect with Scott Curry

🌐 Website: https://scottcurry.me/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RealScottCurry
🐦 X / Twitter: https://x.com/RealScottCurry
📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StockCurry
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealscottcurry/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curryscott/
🎤 eSpeakers: https://www.espeakers.com/marketplace/profile/52774/scott-curry

📬 Connect with Dwight Heck

🎯 Final Message

Your ideas are valid. Your instincts are powerful. Your journey is worth protecting. Whether you are just starting out or rebuilding from rock bottom, give a heck and give it boldly. Because when you combine faith, resilience, and intentional action, you are not just building wealth. You are building a legacy.

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🕒 Episode Chapters

00:00:02 Introduction to Scott Curry’s Journey from Homelessness to Success
Host Dwight Heck introduces Scott Curry, founder of Faith Roar and successful entrepreneur who overcame homelessness, illness, and personal loss to build multiple profitable businesses and inspire millions through YouTube.

00:03:00 Military Brat Origins and Early Business Failures
Scott shares his childhood as a military brat, struggles with conformity in school and jobs, and early business failures that taught him valuable lessons about entrepreneurship versus traditional employment.

00:08:26 The Double-Edged Sword of Constant Moving
Discussion of how military life provided cultural insights but hindered deep relationship building, highlighting how life experiences create both advantages and challenges for future success.

00:12:20 School System Limitations and Financial Education Gaps
Scott and Dwight critique the education system’s focus on creating employees rather than entrepreneurs, discussing the lack of financial literacy and critical thinking skills in traditional schooling.

00:20:24 Economic Realities and AI’s Impact on Markets
Analysis of current economic conditions, unemployment trends, and how AI spending affects GDP while consumers struggle, demonstrating the need for updated economic understanding.

00:26:47 Lessons from Homelessness and Personal Responsibility
Scott candidly discusses his homelessness experiences, acknowledging personal responsibility for financial mismanagement and the importance of emergency funds and risk management in business.

00:33:56 Failure as Learning Opportunity and Persistence
Exploration of how successful people use failure as education, emphasizing the importance of tenacity, learning from mistakes, and continuing to pursue goals despite setbacks.

00:40:53 Faith and Resilience Through Life’s Darkest Moments
Scott shares how faith in God provided strength during his son’s illness, mother’s death, and escaping an abusive relationship, emphasizing spiritual support during adversity.

00:51:15 Legacy Building and Giving Back
Discussion of Scott’s mission to help others achieve financial freedom, inspired by his mother’s regret about not staying home with children due to financial insecurity.

00:53:13 YouTube Success and Business Pivoting Strategies
Scott explains his transition from motivational speaking to YouTube stock analysis during COVID, demonstrating the importance of adapting to market opportunities and timing.

01:01:01 Building Residual Income Through Monthly Memberships
Detailed explanation of how Scott shifted from one-time sales to monthly recurring revenue, creating sustainable income that provided freedom during personal crises.

01:05:32 Practical Steps for YouTube and Business Success
Scott outlines the hard work required for success, emphasizing 18-20 hour days, not waiting for monetization, and creating multiple revenue streams through affiliate marketing.

01:15:03 Final Encouragement: Faith Without Works is Dead
Scott’s closing message emphasizes taking action despite fear, combining faith with practical steps, and surrounding yourself with successful people to achieve your goals.

Full Unedited Transcript:

[00:00:02 – 00:01:46]Welcome back to the Give a Heck podcast. I’m your host, Dwight Heck. I’m here to help you live a life on purpose and not by accident. Each week we dive deep into real stories, raw truths, and powerful conversations that challenge you to give a heck about your life and the life of others. Before we dive in, I want to share something personal. Faith and resilience are often the difference between giving up and breaking through. Today’s guest embodies both his journey from homelessness and loss to building financial freedom is a powerful reminder that with faith and perseverance, anything is possible. Today’s guest is Scott Curry, founder and CEO of Faith Roar and four other successful businesses. Keynote motivational speaker, speaker, self published author and influential YouTuber with over 80, 000 subscribers. His videos have inspired more than 2 million people worldwide. Scott’s flagship business, Faith Roar, grew so quickly that he was able to quit his job and go full time on YouTube in just three months, generating over $250,000 per year in profits. His story is one of overcoming illness, personal loss and abuse and turning those trials into triumphs. Get ready to discover how Scott equips others with mindset strategies and tools to rise above adversity and achieve success beyond what they imagined. I’d like to welcome you to the show, Scott. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.

[00:01:47 – 00:02:04]Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be on here and I really hope your audience is inspired and motivated to get started on their journey, live a life with purpose, and just find more success than they ever dreamed possible. Which is exactly what happened to me.

[00:02:05 – 00:03:00]Yeah. And I look forward to us getting into the depths of your. Your origin story. I knew a little bit. But you know, that’s why I always have us have a conversation before I hit record so that I can find out more about, you know, the centric what’s going on with a person. Right. It makes it so much better of a conversation. We all have life challenges and you’ve gone through your fair share, especially in 2025, which we’ll get into. What I’d really like though is if you could share me your origin story from your earliest recollections. So what you’re willing to share, obviously what you’re comfortable with. Because I find that our lives are we really disrespect our origin. It doesn’t mean our life has to be our origin, but it always has clues as to who we’ve become today. And I’d appreciate if you could do that. Share as much as you feel comfortable with about your origin to where you are today.

[00:03:00 – 00:06:06]Yeah, I appreciate it. You know, I don’t remember too much from my childhood. I grew up a military brat. We traveled a lot. I don’t have a whole lot of memories prior to the age of 12. My dad was. He was a good dad, but he was also a little bit abusive. And my mom was amazing, solid rock in her life. Really. Her biggest role was keeping my dad in check. And one of the things that we did by traveling all over the world, I mean, I went to high school in three different countries. Germany, Turkey, and Alabama. And through all of that, I learned a lot about dealing with different people and different cultures and understanding just all the different ways that people think. And ultimately ended up going to college at the University of Florida and went into business. Now, when I first went there, I went into engineering because that was what my dad was pushing me into. And then in my sophomore year, switched to business. My dad blew up, got angry, made me switch it back to engineering. And by my junior year, I was like, forget him. I’m doing my own thing. And made it back to business. Ultimately ended up graduating the University of Florida required a 2.5 GPA to graduate. And I graduated at the absolute best of my ability with a 2.53. And it was enough. I got my degree, but I am a straight C student. And through all of that, I just never really conformed to what I was told to do. And I tried to get jobs, and I would get fired left and right. I can’t even count the number of jobs I got fired from. One of my bosses actually told me straight up, when he let me go, he said, scott, and you cannot be an employee. You suck at being an employee. You need to go run your own business. And the funny thing is, I had tried, but I had so much failure early on. My very first business, fresh out of college, I tried to take everything I’d learned in college and apply it. And so I went through and tried to create this incredible business plan. And I went through. I did my market research, my competitive research, my pricing research, product research, put the whole thing together. And at the end of the year, I had a huge pile of papers and no business. And I realized, well, that doesn’t work. And it was really eye opening for me to realize everything you learn in school and college, it’s really designed to get you a job. And since I didn’t really do that well in school, didn’t really do that well in a job either. And so it just wasn’t working for me. I had to go find my own way. Tried a lot of different businesses, failed at most of them, but just kept on trying until I finally found one that worked.

[00:06:08 – 00:08:25]So you were a very tenacious person though, right? My, my audience listening is probably. Some are probably laughing, others shaking their head. Because when I hear origins like yours and the research I did on you prior to us even recording, you’re a tenacious person. And I find tenacity to be a superpower. And so many people do not realize that to be tenacious means you’re also resilient. Right. Can be the same thing. So what a resilient person to go through that. I love how you put straight C student. Right. It did not conform. I’m smiling about any of that. Is because at the end of the day, the most successful people that I’ve run into, that I’ve worked with aren’t necessarily university or college grads. And no offense to those that are, that are. Because there are businesses that are, they’re being run corporations that are their CEOs or COOs, CFOs, whatever their, their university or college trained and good for them. But, but at the end of the day, I know more people that are C students controlling the knowledge, controlling the people that have all that knowledge, the scientists, the doctors, you know, and again, I’m not trying to pigeonhole saying there isn’t successful people in professions. I’m just saying based on my research, based on my own observations, people such as you don’t make good, good employees just like me are better off being self employed, controlling our life, controlling. Being the wind in our own sails, controlling the rudder. Right. And, and the only person we can point out if things don’t work out is ourselves in the mirror and say do better. Right? So I loved you sharing that. You know, that’s interesting though. I’ve never heard anybody say that they don’t remember a lot of their, their origin from before they were 12. But then when you added the fact that you’re a military brat and went all over the place, I can just imagine, you know, the cruelty of kids going through different schools too. Certainly couldn’t have helped you. And our minds try to not remember things that are going to be traumatizing. So I appreciated you sharing that too.

[00:08:26 – 00:09:26]And it’s a blessing and a curse going through all of that because as a military brat going to all these different places, on one hand, it gave me incredible cultural insight and the ability to Work with a lot of different people. But on the other hand, it was kind of a curse because I learned never to make deep relationships with anybody, never to become good friends with anybody, because what’s the point? You’re just going to move and leave them anyway. And so, on one hand, I’m able to deal with a lot of people. On the other hand, it makes it very difficult for me to build really good relationships. And so anything I feel like you go through in life, there’s some good and some bad, and you’ve got to hold onto the things that are good and use that to propel yourself forward, while at the same time, you’ve got to learn and really get educated and really focus on bettering those areas that kind of got squashed a little bit.

[00:09:27 – 00:10:59]Well, yeah, and they do get squashed, unfortunately. And, you know, one of the last things that you had mentioned, too, in your part of your origin is that school. And I put down in my notes here, school equals a job, right? Schools were designed. And people get frustrated when I talk about this because sometimes the truth hurts. Think about the pandemic. What did it do to people when the schools weren’t open? They struggled to find people to watch their kids so they could work their job, even if they were sent home to work their job. Now all of a sudden, they got kids running around or a significant other that’s gotten. Maybe they’ve paid off or whatever the case may be. And all it did was prove to me it’s a giant babysitting service that’s designed to keep kids so that people back in the day could go work in the fields, farmers could go work out in the fields, they could work in factories, or they could do whatever. And I’m not saying the school system doesn’t add some value, right? Teaching kids certain things. I think it needs a major overhaul. And again, this has nothing to do with the admin or the teachers. I have a lot of clients that are teachers and friends, even a sister that’s a teacher. But at the end of the day, when. When you look at it at an overall perspective, they. They’re not even sure exactly what’s going on because it’s the same hamster wheel. Every single day next year, it’s the same hamster wheel. Teaching these kids to be little automatons, to go out and get a job, to not live purposefully. There’s.

[00:10:59 – 00:11:00]Yeah, I know.

[00:11:00 – 00:11:02]You’re absolutely right. That’s missing.

[00:11:03 – 00:12:19]And that’s one of my life mottos, is don’t let school get in the way of your education. And it’s all about thinking about that. We don’t really get taught a lot about finance or entrepreneurship or relationship building in school. Those aren’t educated very well. We get taught how to fall in line, how to follow the rules, how to do exactly what we’re told. And that’s great for people that want to become employees, which luckily the vast majority of people do. But for those of you who want to get into business, want to do something a little bit different, you kind of have to learn a whole new skill set that simply is not taught in school. But what’s amazing, especially talking about finances, is you read that book Millionaire Next Door and it’s the teachers and educators who actually have the highest wealth building skills of any other industry. And they have the ability to teach some really good fundamental skills. But unfortunately, the administration system just kind of squashes it. Luckily, here in Colorado, financial education is now required in the school system for all high school students. I just wish they’d bring back shop class and a few other things that could help as well.

[00:12:20 – 00:13:44]Well, yeah, that’s a good point. You know, and a lot of places, even in Canada, they have financial courses or they have different things they teach in high school. They have been here for 20 plus years. My kids went through it, but it’s not enough. It’s surface level and it’s, it’s like it’s a tool that they’ve put in to appease people such as me that have wanted to go in and shout from the rooftops. They, this is what you need to teach your kids. And it’s not just about money. It’s about how to be resilient. It’s about how to be tenacious, how to, you know, move forward in life or you got adversity at home, maybe at school they should be teaching you how to deal with some of that adversity. Maybe they should give, give you somebody that’s an actual guidance counselor that can guide you, that’s not just sitting in that job collecting a paycheck and looking forward to retirement. Because I too many of them I sat with over my lifetime, even with my kids, and listening to them, not really give them life lessons to make them an entrepreneur or to be a leader, a critical thinker. It’s all about, oh, go to this college, go to this university, you’re going to come out and you’re going to make 40,000 a year and then you’re going to spend 40 years working and try to live off 40% of that, if you’re lucky. Right. It’s broken mindset. It really is.

[00:13:45 – 00:15:48]It is. Now there’s a lot of teachers who honestly, deep down are wanting to help children and help them expand. My ex mother in law, Teresa Newsom, actually participated in the Gifted and Challenged talented program at her school. And part of her gifted and talented, she ended up writing a book, got her doctorate’s degree, spoke all over the world, and it was all about helping kids be creative. And there was this really amazing study that was done. I don’t remember the exact numbers. I’ll just give you some statistics, but they’re going to be a little bit off. It’s okay. 83% of statistics are made up. Yeah, I just made that up. But basically what this study found is it looked at a genius test at different age levels and it looked at preschoolers before they entered kindergarten and gave them this genius test. And something like 45% of kids came out as genius. And then they did the same thing in kindergarten. It dropped about 35%. They did the same thing in about fifth grade, it was down around 20%. Did the same thing in high school, it was down around 8%. By the time they got to college, graduated people, it was all the way down to 2%. And the question was, did people get dumber throughout their life or were they trained not to think? And I think the clear answer is people are trained not to think. And the problem is when it comes to business or finding success in life, you have to do something that most people have not done, either not willing to do or just haven’t thought about doing. And that requires a lot of creativity and thinking. And it’s just something that gets squashed in our school system. So I don’t blame the educators, the guidance counselors. I think they have incredible hearts and they’re all out there trying to do their best to help students. I think it’s the overarching education system that says we have to teach these things. You’re not allowed to teach anything else that ultimately squashes our kids.

[00:15:49 – 00:16:06]Oh, absolutely. There’s so many people out there. You’re right though, that educators want to make a difference and, and help out. But again, they’re. They’re stuck in a hallway with walls on both sides and said that you can’t go outside of this and.

[00:16:06 – 00:16:07]Exactly.

[00:16:07 – 00:17:32]And how many people that are teachers, let’s say high school, want to be have a critical thought conversation with their students and have them challenge them. Are they capable of it? They’ve never. Most of Them haven’t been taught how to handle that, that conflict, that initial conflict of them being challenged. Well, you know, Sally says, hey, I think this, this, this and that. And they can’t have that conversation because they’ve been taught that they’re the end all, be all, they’re the instructor. And it gets even worse when you go to college or university. Why do I know that? Because I went through college. I know, right? They for sure don’t want to be because all of a sudden now they’re either used to be in that industry and now they’re an instructor or professor in that industry. They think they have arrived, they’re the end all, be all. They’ve never been taught how to be a critical thinker. So how are they going to take it when people challenge their thought process? Right? And then I’ve seen that time and time again, even having conversations with retired people that were their educators, they, they are so out of the loop with things that have changed. Let’s say if it’s in, in sciences, right. Depending on what it is, they’re just not up to date on stuff. Even in finance, the finance world has its basics, but there’s constant evolution and change and things that you need to be aware of. And being a critical thinker sure helps, doesn’t, does.

[00:17:32 – 00:20:24]And we’re seeing that. Heck, even today with a lot of people confused about why the stock market keeps going up to new highs and why GDP is positive when layoffs are increasing, we’re in what, our fourth month in a row now where the number of jobs have gone down, unemployment keeps rising. I just saw today the unemployment rate is the highest it’s been in four years. Consumer credit card spending is at all time highs, consumer savings are at all time lows, and layoffs are skyrocketing and a lot of consumers are hurting. And yet a lot of people look at the economy based upon how we’ve measured it for the past 70 years or so, and they’re looking at consumer spending and saying, well, consumers are struggling, we should be in a major recession. And they forget about AI spend. The AI spend is actually so great, it’s keeping our GDP positive and keeping stocks at all time highs, even though the quote unquote real economy or consumers are struggling. And so like you just said, things in finance change all the time and we have to constantly be keeping up with it. And I was talking to an economics professor at a college, I’m not going to name it, I don’t want to embarrass anybody, but he was so focused on industry and consumer spending and literally wasn’t even considering AI in his calculations. And he was kind of dumbfounded as to why certain things were happening. And I don’t think it’s anybody’s real fault. I think it’s just the way that the education system pushes people to teach what quote unquote has always worked and not think creatively and not get beyond. You know, I think I only got real benefit out of one professor in college. And he actually wasn’t even a professor, he was a guest professor. He came in for one semester. He was actually a business owner that had run numerous successful businesses, multimillionaire. And he was the only one that I got real life knowledge out of because he wasn’t teaching from the book, he was teaching from experience. And you know the old saying, those who can do and those who can’t teach. And so a lot of times we’re being taught by people who are not successful in the fields or teaching in. While the real education, the real knowledge we should be gaining is from people who are successful in the fields that they’re in. As the old saying goes, if you want to be a millionaire, learn from a millionaire. If you want to be a billionaire, learn from a billionaire. We have to constantly being surrounding ourselves with people who are more successful than us and learning from them and that’s the only way that we get better in life.

[00:20:24 – 00:23:35]Yeah, success leaves clues and a lot of times we just aren’t, we’re oblivious to those clues. Like you said, you know, millionaire, become a millionaire, billionaire, follow a billionaire, the list goes on. You know, and for some people, this is overwhelming for them to see. Maybe they’re listening and they’re barely keeping their heads above water and they’re making minimum wage. Right. So where does the failure start? Well, it dials all the way back to we learned behavior from our parents, from the people in our social circles that our parents hang out with, the conversations they have that they don’t realize are a little seven and eight year old brain or hearing, regardless if it’s addressed at us. And it affects how we move forward, how our road map of life moves forward. And it really, it’s a societal change that we need more than just a school change. We need society to stop glamour putting glamour on everything. And commercialism in, in product placements and movies and TV shows or you know, these gurus on social media standing beside a rented Lamborghini and then saying that they’re going to help you make 50 grand a week or Whatever the case may be. It’s just we have a societal issue, so we’ll, we’ll take it out from there. It’s not just an issue with, with the education system, which is controlled by governments which want to keep the people stuck. They don’t want to keep them. You know, depending on what kind of ideologies the, the government currently in power has, whether they’re too socialist or too conservative, you, you causes challenges. And it’s always about keeping the corporate and wealthy where they’re at. And I look at what’s going on in the US you mentioned all those numbers. I, I, I, I have to follow it. I have lots of conversations with Americans and unfortunately to sustain, look, look at during the crash of 08 when all the housing crashes happened and then they showed the market stabilizing, what, nine, end of 09 beginning 00:10 into 2014. Well, they were pumping money into their, into Wall Street. A billion dollars. Right. Roughly a day. Why are they doing that? They were shoring it up. But yet the numbers showed everything was grand. My point for that is how long can AI sustain a GDP that isn’t focused on the consumers and the people at the grassroots level, the ones that are really suffering like so. So to me, the job numbers, can they ebb and flow. They can go up and down. We, we have had positive job numbers now in Canada for the last couple months. And that’s, and that’s great. But at the grassroots level, those jobs don’t do anything to my consumers or businesses that I’m helping that are suffering. Right. All that does is make it so that interest rates possibly change, making it even tougher. Right. Or making it better. But you know what I mean, there’s always a ying and yang. There’s always a consequence to one thing over the other. And what is it? Sustainable?

[00:23:36 – 00:26:15]Yeah, absolutely. The nice thing, and this is something that took me a while to realize, is that we live in a global economy. And a lot of my early failed businesses really focused locally and what could I sell to people in my city? And my whole life changed when I understood something somebody said in a brand new way many years ago, pre Covid somebody told me something and they said, you are going to be paid based upon the value that you provide. Now this came from somebody who did business consulting and he was charging $10,000 for one day in his house. And what he would do one day a month, he would have people pay him $10,000. He limited it to 10 people. So for one day a month he had 10 people pay $10,000 to come in and spend an entire day working through their business problems and helping their businesses grow. The man made $100,000 per month, working one day a month, $1.2 million a year, working 12 days a year. And I looked at that and I said, great. How can I provide value to get to the point where people are paying me $10,000 for a day of my time? And I found it was really hard, if not impossible. And I had a lot of failure going after that. But everything changed when I actually started the YouTube channel and I started selling to thousands and thousands of people these very low cost items at like $10 a month. And what I found was it is much easier to get 10,000 people to give you $1 than it is to get one person to give you $10,000. And when I started thinking about that, started going global and started presenting to the us, Canada, uk, Australia, Germany, Singapore, all of a sudden my business blew up and grew exponentially fast because I changed that mindset. I said, let’s go worldwide. It may be a recession in one economy, but it’s probably booming in another. And the desire to be financially free, the desire to better your life, even if it’s a little small way, is universal. And when I finally figured that out, everything changed for me.

[00:26:15 – 00:26:46]Well, yeah, of course it would. One of the things, though, that, you know, I want to go back to finding out some more about your origin and what you’ve currently shared with me earlier as well. We’ll talk about that, what you’ve gone through this year. At one point in time, right, you were homeless, right? Couple times. And you faced incredible hardships. What of those experiences currently shape your identity, your ability to be resilient and tenacious? Can you tell me more about that?

[00:26:47 – 00:28:51]Yeah, you know, we talked about people, they get laid off and just the general fact that bad circumstances happen to people. And a lot of times what I’ve found, and this is a tough pill to swallow, is that no matter what happens to us, a lot of the results afterwards are dependent upon us both in how we planned for it before it happened and what we did about it when it happened. So the first time I became homeless, it was because I had quit a job, I was going after a business, I was single, I didn’t have kids, didn’t have anybody to support other than myself. At that time in my life, in my early 20s, I was willing to take on a lot more risk than I am today. Supporting a family and risk management is key. When you’re trying to better your life. And so early on, I was willing to take on a lot of risk and the business just didn’t work out. It failed. And I ended up becoming homeless. I couldn’t pay my bills, got evicted from my apartment. And what I learned from that, and I didn’t accept it at that time, I figured this out much later in life is that had I been smarter around money and taken some of that early success I had and saved it rather than spending it, I probably could have gotten through that tough time in my business. But because I screwed up financially and didn’t prepare for things to get bad, I ended up becoming homeless. And so I can sit here and try to blame and say, well, you know, the business just didn’t work out. It’s not my fault. It was the economy, whatever, but at the end of the day, it really is my fault. It was my actions that led to that. And so learning from that and getting better, I think is what really changed now in life and some of my later businesses versus some of the earlier businesses where I was just gung ho, go for it, and whatever happens, happens.

[00:28:52 – 00:30:18]So life lessons are a good thing though, right? Right. As long as you don’t live in the, in the mistake world. I hear that all the time. I made that mistake. I could have done this. Your inability to have action was also stemmed from the fact of lack of education, possibly lack of knowledge or even sometimes. I know I have that education, I have that knowledge, yet I’m not applying it. And it always comes back to action like I’ve been doing. This is my 25th year of, you know, doing financial planning and life skill coaching. And I still go back into the valley of despair. I still have challenges where I’m going. Why wasn’t I doing that? I teach this, I educate people, but I’m not practicing it myself. I think we get lazy, you know, at certain points in our lives. We get comfortable and, you know, it’s nice to hear your story. Terrible that you went through it, but admitting that, you know, if you had saved some, maybe you had made it. So if somebody had encouraged Scott to, you know, save 10%, you’re doing really well right now, Scott. Save 20%. Right. Then live off the rest. You can still have a good stuff. And now that 20% can be your emergency fund, or maybe part of it is, is paying off some debt, or maybe some of it’s being saved for retirement, but you have a nest egg or something that you can dive into instead of living in your Car.

[00:30:18 – 00:30:20]Can I be honest with you?

[00:30:20 – 00:30:20]Sure.

[00:30:21 – 00:31:08]People did tell me that. I just didn’t listen. I had a pride problem, and I find this true with a lot of people. And like I said, it’s a tough pill to swallow, but I felt like I knew better than everybody else. I had this great business idea it was going to work, and everybody telling me it was a failure. They were stupid, they were idiots, they had no clue what they were talking about. And I knew deep down in my soul this was going to work, and I went after it. And I didn’t listen to those people who were trying to help me. And I really had to humble myself, especially later on in life, and learn, hey, I may not like what somebody’s saying, but I better listen because they’re trying to help me out.

[00:31:10 – 00:31:46]Yeah, well, pride. Pride can be a bad thing, and pride can be a good thing. I paint a wall and I stand back and I look, ooh, I did a pretty good job of that. You have pride in your work, but then we can be prideful in the way that you’re talking about. And we don’t let anybody else’s thoughts in our brain overtakes any logic or any real rational. We rationalize everything. I’ve been there. I’ve had those businesses that. That I was going to be the next all be all, and, oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I had people caution me. So that’s.

[00:31:46 – 00:31:46]I’m.

[00:31:46 – 00:32:01]I’m, you know, thank you for admitting that. You know, we have outside influences that know more than us, but yet all of a sudden, we know more than them. And it’s a humbling experience to have a business not succeed. Isn’t.

[00:32:03 – 00:33:56]Really is. And, yeah, I think this is a turning point for a lot of people. I have spoken to a lot of people, trying to encourage them, because every single person I have come across ever, has had incredible business ideas. Literally every single person I’ve ever met was really, really smart and genius business ideas. But very few people actually took action to make those businesses reality. And very often what I find when I talk to people is they’re constantly coming up in excuses of why it won’t work. And when I dig deeper, usually what I find is that very early on in life, somebody did try a business and it didn’t work, and so they gave up, they quit. And now they tell everybody, oh, business doesn’t work. Investing doesn’t work. And what they really mean is, I tried it once and it didn’t work for me. And I have never met a single person in my entire life who is highly successful, who did not go through failure before they found success. Because every single person who tries is going to fail at some point in their life. And the difference between those who are successful and those that go back into a job is the people who are successful take that failure, they use it as a learning opportunity and then they get back on their feet and they try again. And ultimately it goes back to what you said early on. It’s about tenacity, it’s about perseverance, it’s about resilience, it’s all about pushing forward and continuing onward. It’s why Amazon was so successful. Jeff Bezos motto is fail small, can’t be afraid of failure. You have to use it as every single learning opportunity to improve yourself and make yourself better until you finally do find success.

[00:33:57 – 00:35:21]Yeah, it’s a great way to put it. What meaning do you put on failure? Right? People listening or watching, you know you fail. I tell people, light doesn’t bend around the corner. You don’t know what’s around the corner. So you failed. Pick yourself up, put a band aid on your boo boo, move forward. Maybe it’s time for an awareness check. Maybe it’s time for an evaluation check of your associations of what you are reading, what you’re watching, who you hang out with, like actually looking at. Why did I fail? Was it lack of inaction? Was it lack of too much accent action? And listening to people that really don’t have my best interests? Maybe they’re giving me information. Oh, you should, you know, don’t worry, just quit because their, their life sucks and they don’t like their life. So they don’t want to see their, their buddy, their family member or whoever be successful. There’s so many outside associations of noise that come at us. So if you’re somebody listening or watching and you, you failed at something good, that’s a stepping stone, right? Obviously, I hope it wasn’t a financial disaster for you, but sometimes in life you need to be aware, analyze your failure and realize it’s a stepping stone. Because around the corner, where you can’t see could have been your success. Yet you quit too soon, right?

[00:35:21 – 00:36:07]Yeah. There’s something that’s set in sales a lot that I’ve heard a lot of sales trainers and speakers talk on this is that it takes a hundred no’s to get your first yes. So you might as well get through those hundred no’s as quickly as possible. And in life and business, it’s the same thing. People go through about five businesses before they finally find that big successful one. So you might as well get through all those failures as quickly as possible so you can go on to find success rather than trying your first one at maybe 20 or in high school not having success and then giving up and then coming back at 50 and going, oh my gosh, what am I doing with my life? Might as well just go for it and just keep trying and failing and trying and failing until you finally try and succeed.

[00:36:07 – 00:37:37]Yeah. And you know, for those of you out there that are saying, well, I’m at a full time job, I can’t just take that risk. Just ask yourself, what are you spending your time with after you’re done work? Right. If you’re single, you should have lots of free time. If you have a family, obviously you got to do accordingly and spend time with your family. You should have core values where your faith and family are above work. But you still have a lot of free time that you can invest in that part side, on that side venture and continue to grow. I know many people, many, many people that did things as a side hustle, that’s now their full time hustle. They weren’t, they didn’t have the ability just to leave their job. Right. But sometimes it happens. Sometimes we can just leave our job. But my point for any of this is, people, what are you investing your time in? If you really are somebody listening and really want to be your own entrepreneur or you want to accomplish something, maybe it’s not even financially, maybe you want to learn how to play the guitar. But every single night you sit and binge watch sports, television, drama, whatever for four or five hours and then you go to bed. Imagine if you took one hour of that five, start playing, playing around with a guitar, or trying that new hobby, or putting a little bit of research into the business you’re interested in because you have some knowledge or an idea, how are you investing your time? Is basically what I’m getting at.

[00:37:38 – 00:39:49]Exactly. And throughout most of the world, football is the number one sport. Of course, here in America, football is a very different meeting than it does in the rest of the world. But regardless, a lot of people will watch football and they’ll look at their favorite player, they know all the stats, they watch their favorite team, they watch all the games, drink beer, enjoy time with their favorite team. And the question is, if all that time you spent becoming an expert on your team and your favorite player had been spent trying to become an expert on how to run A business and how to find success in life, your life would look completely different. And just like you were saying, you know, I started my business while I worked a full time job. In fact, every business I’ve started, I work did it while I worked a full time job. And it’s very, very doable. Does it take some sacrifice? Yeah. You got to give up those football games, you got to give up maybe a little bit of time with your family, but in the end the result can be worth it. And what I found is even if you try and have failure, a lot of what you learn in trying that business, the sales skills you learn the marketing skills, the people skills and just the tenacity skills, can actually make you a lot more successful in your career as well. I actually know quite a few people who tried a business failed, but then all of those skills they built up led them into senior management at their jobs. And so success can be found in life a lot of different ways. But you’re never going to find it if you never try. And you’re especially never going to find it if you try fail and then you don’t get up and try again. And rather than spending time after work watching those football games and relaxing and doing something that isn’t really propelling your life forward, why not start today to propel your life forward so that five, 10, 20 years from now you can live a far better life than you could have ever imagined?

[00:39:51 – 00:40:52]Well, absolutely. I want to get into a little bit more about the resilience conversation and overcoming adversity for those that are listening or watching. Scott’s gone through a lot, right? He’s faced serious illness, the loss of his mum, escaping an abusive, narcissistic relationship. How did you stay positive through all this? So we talk about being resilient, we talk about keeping on, keeping on with action and then you have something that happens like you’ve experienced in this last 12 months. How did, what did you do to keep yourself positive through all those difficulties? And I’m not saying, and people are listening and watching that he didn’t have his values of despair. But obviously you had things that helped you move forward. You have specific anchors you focused on or routines that helped you through this last year, like share as well with the listeners, if you, if you would like, about what you’ve gone through this year and how you’ve, you circumvented and stayed above all that noise.

[00:40:53 – 00:43:42]Yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing before I get into that is to understand that a lot of my early failures in life, the homelessness, the failed businesses. It taught me the importance of building up a residual income, something that could get you through life’s difficulties. And this is something that has to get done before you experience those difficulties. And so in 21, in 20, 22, 23, I built up a business that provided a lot of residual income. So earlier this year, in January, my son got extremely sick, ended up in the hospital for three weeks. He was in the icu. He had complex pneumonia. He almost died. He was three years old. And as a dad, completely heartbroken over that. There was no possible way I could work. And luckily I had built up that residual income over previous years to help get me through that time. I continue to make money, continue to pay bills throughout the whole time he was in the hospital. And the exact same thing happened in September when my mom got deathly ill and passed away her last three weeks of her life. She was in the hospital, and I was in that hospital every single day with her. And I would never have been able to do that had I not had that residual income. And same thing with escaping that narcissistic relationship and moving out and quickly trying to literally rebuild my life in a very short period of time. It was all possible because I had that income coming in, and the finances are important to have in place. I honestly believe that money isn’t going to make you happy, but it sure does help, and it sure can get you through a lot of tough times. But ultimately, when you go through so much in life, at least this is true for me. You know, dealing with all the sickness, the death, the just escaping an abusive relationship, it was and probably would have been impossible to make it through all of that had it not been for God’s help. And there’s a verse in the Bible that says, God will give you the peace that surpasses all understanding. And I certainly experienced it this year. And I cannot possibly sit here and say it was something I did, because it wasn’t. It was all God’s help. It was the peace God gave me to make it through the most difficult year of my entire life. And had I not had the help from God and Jesus to make it through, I probably would not be sitting here talking to you today.

[00:43:43 – 00:45:28]Well, and I can. I can hear that and realize it’s the same for me. And I’ve told that to people time and time again. Even in my book, I talk about. I talk about the Holy Spirit. I talk about God. I talk about the fact that in the most trying times in my life, the only thing that was a constant was prayer and, and comfort because of Jesus. Right. And I appreciate you sharing that because, you know, you’ve been through a lot this last year. We talked about that before I hit record. And it’s, it’s a lot of trauma to deal with and people, what do they normally. Most of majority of the population. This might hurt a few people to hear this, but most of you blame God. And a lot of you that blame God aren’t even God fearing. Meaning you don’t even practice faith of any type. You don’t pray, you don’t go to church. I’m not saying you, you can’t be a good person without going to church or without praying. But what I’m getting at is don’t blame. Why blame somebody, why blame God or Jesus for the results of your life when you haven’t even plugged into that type of faith? And even if it is that type of, you have that type of faith, it’s still not God’s fault. Right. Of the adversities and challenges that you’re going through. But he can be strength for you because he’s somebody that talked to, communicate with and then listen to the answers, please and thank you because I’m guilty of that. Praying about the same thing two, three days, getting the same answer and realizing like Scott, I think to myself, God already told you three times, how many more times you gotta ask him, you know?

[00:45:30 – 00:47:18]Yeah. It’s something I heard a long time ago that really rocked me to the core. And I think a lot of people need to grab onto this. The Bible says that Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy, but God comes to give life and life more abundantly. So whatever is happening in your life involves death, destruction or theft. That is the work of the devil. If whatever is happening in your life involves life and life abundantly, that is the work of God. So when bad things happen in their lives, it’s important to understand who’s doing it. And blame the devil, because the devil is the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy. And when good things are happening in your life, blame God or really thank God, because God is the one who comes to give life and life more abundantly and living that life of gratitude and thankfulness towards God. And a lot of people have a lot of different religions. I’ve read a lot of books that call it the universal laws of nature or universal laws of the universe. And all they’re really doing is rehashing the Bible because God is the creator of the universe and when you read the Bible, and I would encourage everybody to read the Bible, whether you’re a Christian or not, it will absolutely open your mind up to the way the world works, is you’re going to start to realize how much God is a loving God and how much God holds your hands and walks us through those dark moments and gets us through to the other side. And that God is not a God that hates us. He’s not a God that punishes us. He’s a God that loves us and wants to see the absolute best for us in our lives and the lives of those around us.

[00:47:19 – 00:49:18]Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better. That was perfect. At the end of the day, you know, some of the tools that we utilize are our core values and what do we believe and what has helped us through the most tumultuous times in our lives. And for me, it has been God too. Right. At the end of the day, if my. If my faith is weak, it affects family and it affects my job. Right. The more I give it up and, and, you know, just. I give it up to you, Lord. Right. Thanks for allowing me to be alive today. I’m gonna do my absolute best, but thank you for giving me this shot, the opportunity. How many people have passed away in, in our lives in the last year? Ten years. Right. That literally expired way too early based on what we believe. Right. They expired way too early, and there’s nothing there. There’s no legacy. There’s a few distant memories that’ll quickly fade. But really, what have they done for a legacy? What have they done to move their lives forward? And a lot of times I find people are stuck on that hamster wheel of life. They don’t have questions. Core values, they filter their decisions through that, help them through the. The bad times, which was when core values are most important. And bad times doesn’t necessarily mean death. It means getting challenged by clients, getting challenged by family, tough conversations, the garbage you see on social media. Right. And. And the, the. The far division between families could really be rectified if people had a filtering system that was based on giving it up to somebody that created it. All right, but we could have a long, long conversation about this. I want to get through a bunch of more stuff. Do you have any last comments about that before I go on to your reinvention?

[00:49:18 – 00:51:14]Yeah, I would just say one thing, and I think this gets a little bit into the reinvention, but when it comes to thinking about God, you know, a lot of people, they want money because they think about all the ways that would make their life better. The nice cars, a nice house, the vacations they can go on, retiring comfortably. And all of that stuff is important. But I think what’s more important is the legacy that you’re going to leave behind. And I love the quote, get more to give more. And one of the things that I’ve really tried to do is help out as much people as possible. A few years ago, I took a trip out to Uganda and traveled the country and just tried. I mean, it was my best year ever. I made over $300,000, had more money than I needed, and I wanted to give and help out people. So I went into these really poor parts of Uganda. I gave them some money to build some schools. We also bought some land so that they could build some churches. And I also found an orphanage that was struggling. And I bought them farmland so they could farm and grow their own crops and they could feed all their kids. Also bought them some school supplies. And the point is, I wanted to help more people. You know, a lot of people think about, well, I’m going to go sponsor this child, and it’s great, sponsor the child, but why not sponsor a whole orphanage? Or I’m going to go give a little bit of money to the local food bank. And that’s great, but why not go buy 5 acres of food land and 100 people can be fed? And those are the ways, I think, I think, get more to give more. How can I give more? And how can I get more to give more? And I think that’s really important when it comes to faith and legacy, is when our focus is on giving and expanding the kingdom of God and helping people. I think that’s when God says, okay, this is a person I’m going to give more to.

[00:51:15 – 00:53:12]Yeah, true. And then, you know, you look at what you did by buying land. Well, that’s residual, right? That’s something that can continue to provide. Continue to. Whether it’s land to build a church, whether it’s land to farm. Both of them serve a purpose of feeding people, right? Whether it’s spiritually or physically. That’s. That’s great. That’s. That’s something that not enough people think about, right? What can we leave as a lasting mark that’ll live well beyond us, but will continue to be a residual for many, many people who will magnify it to many more people, right? So when people that are listening or watching, when you. If you don’t think one person can make a difference, rewind and listen to what Scott talked about that he. He did. Right. A few years ago in Uganda. Right. It’s just. What is your thought process? Don’t hoard what you have. Give and you will receive it. Just time and time again, I’ve seen it in my life. The more I give, even when I’m hurting and I really shouldn’t be giving, I keep on giving. And then it comes. I don’t know what day it’ll be, but it comes back tenfold. It really does. Right. So let’s get. Let’s get into, you know, in 2020, you were a key, key note speaker. And, you know, everything was. Happened and life got changed because of COVID It drove so many people to lose their ability to bring an income, especially speakers. And we’re forced online. Right. You started your YouTube channel. Tell us more about your YouTube channel. And. And what happened throughout that process? Because you were still initially at Merrill lynch, correct?

[00:53:13 – 00:57:47]Yeah, so I was at Merrill Lynch. I actually left Merrill lynch sometime prior in 2012. And the reason is my wife’s twin sister ended up getting diagnosed with cancer and was only given three months to live. And we knew we needed to leave New York and go be with her to spend as much time as possible with her in the last few months of her life. And so we literally just dropped everything and moved out to Colorado to be with my wife’s twin sister. And I don’t regret that one bit. Now, I did end up finding another job locally here in town. Ended up working for a finance company that was essentially building software to invest in the stock market. But the whole time I had a job. Well, when Covid hit, the motivational speaking that I was building on the side while working full time came to a complete standstill. There were no live events, there were no speaking engagements. Everything was completely shut down. And I started thinking, throughout 2020, how can I continue to help people or build a business when everything is shut down? One of the things I did is I tried to go online and I tried to put motivational speaking videos online. It did not work out. Nobody watched them. It was a complete and total failure. Around that time, there was a new charter school starting up. My kids were getting into school and I decided, oh, this new charter school needs school uniforms. I’m going to go provide school uniforms for the school. And I contacted the school and it was on a Friday. And I said, hey, I can provide school uniforms for the school. And they said, great. Can you send us some information, your products, website, stuff like that? I was like, yeah, Absolutely no problem. I’ll get it to you on Monday. And I had nothing. So I hung up the phone. I immediately got online, started looking for suppliers of school uniforms, ended up finding one, ended up taking all their pictures from their website, figuring out pricing and how much markup I needed. Spent the weekend building a real simple website real fast they could take orders. And then on Monday, I called the school back and I said, okay, I got my website, it’s right here. All of the pictures and everything you’re looking for online, you can just go in there. And I said, what we’re going to do, Because I didn’t have any money to buy inventory. I said, what we’re going to do is we’re going to have all of the parents pre order uniforms for the school year. And then about two weeks before school starts, we’re going to place a bulk order with the manufacturer and that way we can all get our uniforms at a huge discount. And the school said, yeah, that makes sense, sounds great. And so all the parents from the school went onto the website pre ordered. I just collected all the money for a few months. And then two weeks before school started, I placed an order with the manufacturer, the uniforms came in, I split them up and I shipped them out. And I thought that was going to be my business. Problem is, I very quickly realized that the uniform business, school uniforms specifically, is very seasonal. It produced a lot of money for about one month out of the year, and then it was completely dead for 11 months. Not exactly a viable business. So I continued to think and try to figure out what I was going to do. And then I started realizing that a lot of people were going on YouTube trying to find stocks to invest in. And I said, hey, I’ve worked at Maryland to work at Morgan Stanley. I can actually provide information to these people and help them out. So I repurposed my YouTube channel, stopped the motivational speaking, started doing stock picks and started reviewing actually what other YouTubers were talking about and providing a little bit of my own analysis saying, this is what they said, here’s what I think. And people loved it. And the channel absolutely blew up because the timing was right. We had a lot of people sitting home from COVID a lot of people getting invested in the stock market at that time. So starting that particular YouTube channel, it was about pivoting into the right niche that ultimately made it so successful.

[00:57:48 – 00:59:00]Wow, that’s, it’s interesting how those little pivots or those little things change to make us realize, you know, that wow, this is amazing. Oh, it’s only one month of 12. Oh, what can I do next? What could the difference is, is people that are always reinventing and pivoting are always looking, even when they’re successful in one venture, their, their ears are to their railroad track and they’re listening for the next thing. Right. So you could end up with multiple businesses like you have, because you should have diversification and income. Right. We’d all love it. Majority of us will never achieve it. But yeah, you know, I go back to what you mentioned earlier about having that residual income and being able to take that time off, you know, from your, your child being sick to your mom passing to going through divorce. Residual income is not a fallacy. People that are listening, it does exist. Just look at your cable company, look at your Internet provider, look at your cell phone company. That’s all residual income. They know they got you hooked and why not you?

[00:59:02 – 01:01:00]And this is something that I had to pivot on as well. When I first started that YouTube channel, I was doing a lot of affiliate marketing. So I would find companies that aligned with my channel, whether it was a brokerage company that people could sign up for or a news website or whatever it was. And I was promoting those things to my audience. And it was great at first because people were going on, they were signing up, I was getting those affiliate checks. Problem was it was all one time sales and so people would sign up. And I had incredible growth at first and then it kind of slowed down. My income went from 5,000 my first month to 8,000 to 12,000 my third month and then back down to 7,000 my fourth month. And then it kind of stagnated and I realized this wasn’t going to be viable forever. Eventually I was going to run out of people to sell to and I needed to figure out something different. So what I did is instead of selling these one time things to people, I decided to start selling monthly memberships. So create a course, don’t sell it for $500, sell it for 20 bucks a month. Create a discord, put it up there for 10, 20 bucks a month. And it was a very, very low dollar amount that everybody could afford. People went in, they signed up and they’re paying monthly, month after month after month. And I ended up with about a 13 month customer retention rate on that. And very quickly, you can do the math on it, at about $20 per month I was charging, had about 1200 people signed up for that, paying every month. And that is how the residual income was built up. I had to pivot and realize, okay, one time sales isn’t going to last forever. What can I do differently to instead of charging a one time fee like most people were doing, how could I do it on a monthly basis? And that’s what changed everything for me.

[01:01:01 – 01:02:04]No, that’s smart, smart business, right? You think about the fact that the people that charge 999 or 495 for a course or whatever and really that’s a one time ouch. I’d sooner or one time hit to the positive. I’d sooner stretch it out and have like you said, 1200 people doing 20 bucks. It’s. The math is pretty simple. So you got all these multiple enterprises. What’s your true mission? Your true mythic mission though is Faith Roar. Correct. In regards to helping people out with their finances to understand where they can invest to. So the other things that you have sprinkled in other businesses are those businesses like the, you know, getting the school uniforms and it’s only beneficial certain times of the year and you don’t have to focus a lot or are the other businesses just an afterthought? You always stay focused on your mission with Faith Roar?

[01:02:05 – 01:04:45]You know, it’s a interesting question because when I look at the other businesses that I’ve started early on, the reason I keep running those is because they’re still profitable and they really don’t take a lot of work. I have done my best to automate everything. So the websites are out there, people go on, they place their order, it goes through a system, gets fulfilled very easily. Everything is automated in those businesses, so they don’t take a lot of work when it comes to Faith Roar. This is something that is completely different and completely new for me. The investing channel that I’ve got 80,000 subscribers on YouTube on is actually called We Profit Day and Night. Faith Roar is something brand new that I have kind of expanded upon. And the whole reason that came about is because a few months ago, when my mom passed away, the day she passed away, we were all in the hospital room together and just kind of sitting there next to her dead body and telling stories. And my dad told us something I never heard before. He said that my mom only had one regret in life. And he went on to explain that when I was born, I’m the oldest of three children. When I was born, and when my sister was born, my mom didn’t feel financially secure enough to stay home and raise us. So from the time we were infants, we ended up in daycare. And it was the Daycare teachers who raised us while my mom went back to work. And when my brother was born, my mom finally felt financially secure enough to stay home and raise them. So she quit her job and raised my brother. And after about a year of raising my brother, my mom told my dad that she regretted not staying home and raising my sister and I. And when I heard that, it hit me to the core. It was like a punch in the stomach. And I said, I am going to do everything in my power to help as many people as possible to become financially free and financially secure so that they never have to make that decision between staying home with their family and going back to a job ever again. And I know and understand I’m not going to be able to help everybody, but I’m going to do my best to help as many people as possible. And my goal with that ultimate long term goal is to help 1 million people improve their life and get financially secure.

[01:04:46 – 01:05:31]Yeah, that’s a great mission and goal because you help a million, how much does that propagate out? Right. Millions more. So that’s, that’s. I really appreciate you sharing that. When you talked about. Let’s ask. I want to ask a couple questions about your YouTube channel. What would you tell people if they wanted to replicate not necessarily in your space, but your success? What practical steps would you give them then for creating that profitable YouTube channel? You talked about the fact you went from you didn’t want to sell, right then you use Discord and you’re charging $20 a month. But what process would you help people? This is how you should get started. Is there any simple steps you were willing to share?

[01:05:32 – 01:08:36]Yeah, I would tell people this. A lot of people look at what I did on YouTube and they think I had some kind of overnight success, that I got lucky. And I don’t know, maybe there was a part of that. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that I worked my absolute butt off during those first three months. I was working 18 to 20 hours a day, literally getting three to four hours of sleep every single night for three straight months. I went and worked my full time job. I came home and worked another full time job on my business on the YouTube channel in order to get it started. That’s how I found success so quickly. And the other thing I would say is don’t wait for people to help you. A lot of people when they get started on YouTube, they’re trying to get monetized and they think getting monetized is the key to success. I was making money long before I was monetized. And at the end of the day, the YouTube ad revenue was less than 10% of my overall income. What I did is I went out and I found companies that had affiliate links that were within my niche that I could sell to. I also reached out to other YouTubers who had courses and products that they were selling, and I signed up as an affiliate with them. And then I started selling other people’s courses and other people’s companies. And that’s how I made my money. I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for YouTube to monetize me. I was going to go out and do what I needed to do to be successful and not wait for other people to help me out. And so I think the key is extreme hard work. You got to give it your all. And the second key is go make your own success. Don’t wait for others to come and offer you a sponsorship or offer you monetization. Go out and start selling from day one. And if you can do that, I think that’s going to be the key to find success. Of course it’s not going to happen that fast for everybody. I get it. It does it. I’ve got a lot of YouTube channels that aren’t even monetized yet. It doesn’t happen overnight for everybody. That doesn’t happen overnight for most people. The timing just happened to be right for me on that one. But what I do know and what I have experienced by working with a lot of other YouTubers is that those people who stick with it, they post three videos a week, every week, non stop. They market their channel and other platforms such as X and Facebook and Instagram. They go through, they do the research, they get good SEO in their descriptions, they put in the work, they eventually find success. Doesn’t always happen overnight, but eventually they find success. And while it may or may not be enough to help you quit your full time job, in every single situation people have been able to supplement their income and to just help them pay their bills, get out of debt and start saving for retirement.

[01:08:37 – 01:10:16]Yeah, it’s. It’s just a matter of you got to start somewhere, right? You just have to, you have to realize that it’s going to take some long hours like Scott’s talking about. And you got to invest in yourself and realize that it may not happen like it did for Scott. Like you said, timing was perfect for him. But just always ask yourself, what if, what if I put in this effort and instead of doing this, I spend 18 hours, 12 hours today just to work at this. And if you’re at a job too, well, then you go to your job. Eight hours, let’s say you got an hour travel. Either way, you got to spend some time with family. You still might have an hour every night, two hours. What are you investing in yourself? What are you investing in those dreams or those aspirations of what you want to accomplish? Scott has proven that no matter what adversities and challenges, you can still rise and climb. You don’t have to stay camped in your mindset. It’s simply a decision. Does the pain you’re feeling great enough for you to do stuff to get rid of that pain? Whether it’s emotional, mental, financial. Usually all three are tied together, unfortunately. Right. So when it comes to somebody that wants to get started and they have absolutely no money, what advice would you give them? They have nothing. Like they literally are living with more days in the month than they have money. What would you say to them? What would you be your some of the first steps you tell them in order for them to can get out of their own way?

[01:10:19 – 01:12:14]I would say get started and try to get those first sales as early as possible. When I started Leadership Uniforms, I had no money. I didn’t have the money to go buy uniforms. I didn’t have any money at all. What I did is I made pre sales. I got people to go in and buy the stuff before it was ever even purchased or shipped. And a lot of people have great business ideas and then they go out and they try to sell and nobody wants to buy. And I’m not talking about your grandma and your spouse and your friends. I’m talking about complete strangers. If you can sell to complete strangers, you’ve got a viable business model. If you can’t, you probably don’t have a viable business model. And you need to pivot and try something a little bit different. There’s an old saying, a business that sales solve all problems. And if you can go out and you can get sales, then that’s key. That’s going to solve your problems. And it’s not something where we can turn our lives around overnight. It takes time. But I will say this. If you try and get your business started, you might succeed and you might fail. But if you never try, you’re guaranteed to fail. So why not take that chance? I’ve met with a lot of people on their deathbeds and a lot of those people had regrets. The one regret I have never heard anybody say is I regret spending more time at my job, heard a lot of people regret not spending enough time with their kids. And I’ve heard a lot of people regret having a business idea and never trying. And I don’t want you to have to live your life with regrets. Get out there and try it. You got nothing to lose.

[01:12:15 – 01:15:01]You don’t want to be that person either, that all of a sudden something you’ve had a desire burning in your heart and percolating between your six inches and you find out somebody else has done it three, five, ten years later. And even then, when it’s just at the cusp and there, let’s say there’s, oh, I thought of that too. Doesn’t mean that it’s so overcrowded that you still can’t do your idea. Use that as a catalyst. If you know somebody that’s done something or doing something, you’re not the first person, Scott, that’s doing. Maybe you’re doing it in a different fashion, a different way, but you’re not the first person on YouTube to discuss about stocks and money. Right? You just aren’t. But you’re unique in what you did and how you delivered, and you didn’t let that stop you. Oh, it’s too noisy out there. I’m not going to do that. Instead, you believed in yourself. So my point is, people believe in yourself. And if you have people around you that are constantly negative and saying, oh, you know, Scott, Dwight, don’t do that. Just stay at your job. Just be satisfied. That is such a terrible world word. You know, if I’ve had a good meal and I feel satisfied, great. But when it comes to life, I don’t believe that you have to be satisfied. You can go and achieve more. Now, those listening and watching, if you’re completely happy where you’re at, you have no discourse, you have no strife, you have no tribulations. Great. Appreciate you in your life. Enjoy it to the fullest, enjoy the journey. But those that listen to my show, you’re. Most of you are listening because you want some hope, faith, you want some drive. So just go out and believe in yourself, right? Look at Scott’s a prime example and why I wanted him to be on the show, he. He was driven to succeed, create a residual income where he could take off time. I know exactly what he’s talking about. When my granddaughter passed away in 2017, prior to her passing away, I spent eight and a half months and just about every single day until after a few months, I took Sundays off. I wouldn’t. But that didn’t mean every Sunday. Sometimes I’d still go in, but how could I do that? Well, I have a business that has residual income as well. And, you know. And when you’re an entrepreneur, who controls your time, Scott? Yeah, we do. Yeah. So, Scott, this is going to be the last question and we’re going to wrap up the show. If you could leave our listeners with one final piece of encouragement, something from your own life, proving it’s always worth giving a heck and never giving up, what would that last piece of advice be?

[01:15:03 – 01:17:46]You know, I’ll get into my second life motto is that the answer is always no until you ask. And we could modify this a little bit and say the answer is always failure until you try. And I think my last piece of motto, I know it’s scary. I know there may be some pushback from a spouse, especially if there’s money and risk involved. But my last word of encouragement to everybody is go try. Give it a shot. Don’t live with a regret of having never tried. I can’t guarantee you’ll be successful, but I guarantee you won’t regret trying. And so I just want to encourage everybody, give it a shot. Go try to improve your life. Go try to make it better. And if it doesn’t work out, learn from it, move on and try again. Because I do deep down believe that everybody can in some way find success and live a better life than what they’re living right now. But you’ve got to be willing to go out and do something different than what everybody else is doing. Everybody goes into a job, goes home, kicks back, relaxes, watches tv, goes to bed and does it again. It’s the people that are willing to do something different, like read a book on self help, read your book that you have, or go watch YouTube videos and learn how to improve their lives. Those are the people that change the world and change their lives and improve them. And you might get a little pushback at first, but in the end, if you do find that success, all of the struggle, all the time, all the effort put into it is so worth it. And we talked a little bit about having faith in God and I honestly believe this. The Bible says faith without works is dead. We all want to have faith that God’s going to make our lives better. We all want to have faith that we’re going to get through it and things are going to get better. At the end of the day, the reality is the difference between those whose lives do get better and those who don’t is action, faith without works is dead. So have the faith that God loves you, that he’s going to help you be successful, that he’s going to give you a life and give you more than you could have ever dreamed or imagined and then take action and put works towards that faith to actually make it a reality.

[01:17:47 – 01:19:52]Yeah. What a great final message. If we don’t serve, we’re not served. Right. We need to go out and serve others and be a person that does what God put us on us on this planet for and be aware of our, our strengths, our weaknesses, give up our weaknesses, focus on our strengths of serving others and, and we’re, you know, we’re taken care of. Does that mean you won’t have strife, Challenges up and downs, valley, despair, quiet desperation? We’re all going to continue to go through that. It’s, can you see, Pat? Can you see over the other side of it? What are you doing? Right? Your, your strife, your, your tribulations. Pray more, right? Communicate, talk with people that are like minded, get the support you need. God sends people to you to help you and vice versa. Right. He’s not going to directly interject in your life, but he’s always going to make sure that if you’re cognizant enough and ability to be aware, oh, you know that person, why didn’t they listen to them better? Oh, you know, I had this. God answered me this morning and said, hey, I’ve sent you all these people. Why don’t you actually open your ears up and listen to them, all right? And actually take their advice. And what, there’s no direct interjection, there’s people interjection. And, and are you one of those people that’s interjecting in a positive way, like Scott said, taking action to increase your faith, to increase your believability to others? It’s going to come back tenfold. It really does. Right. And those of you that say that we’re full of it, well, obviously you aren’t going to be listening to this show too much longer because this is what it is. I believe God is the center of my core values and then my family and then work. Right. So any last words before I wrap up the show?

[01:19:54 – 01:21:07]I just want to really encourage anybody who wants to try to improve their lives and give it a shot. Maybe you’re not really sure where to get started. Maybe you say, I’ve got this great idea, I don’t even know where to begin and you just need a little bit of help with that. You know, reach out to somebody who has found success in business, reach out to people who know what they’re talking about and have found success. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So if you’re spending time with a lot of people who are watching football games, you’re going to be somebody who watches football games. If you spend a lot of time with people who are business owners and are successful, you are going to be successful. And you can go on all kinds of different platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Meetup or any of the other available websites or resources out there, faith com wherever and go find those people who are successful. Surround yourself by those people so that you too can aspire to their level and and find your own success in your own life.

[01:21:08 – 01:21:16]Fantastic. Thanks for that. So the best way for people to reach you go to faith roar.com or do you want to direct people others?

[01:21:17 – 01:22:07]Otherwise, yeah, faith roar.com is the best way to find me all of the resources that I personally have on there for helping you get your business started or invest in the stock market and start on that journey towards financial freedom is on faithroar.com and that’s definitely the best place for you to go out and get started on your own personal journey. The vast majority of those resources are free or highly discounted. For anybody who stuck around and listened this long into the podcast, I want to offer you 50% off the faith Roar community. Just enter coupon code podcast at checkout and that’s going to get you access to that Faith Roar business and financial success community for just $4.99 a month.

[01:22:07 – 01:23:15]Wow. That’s amazing. Thank you for that. So before we close, remember, adversity can be the foundation of the greatest success. Faith, perseverance and intentional action can transform hardship into opportunity. Give a heck about your future and let your faith roar. This has been Scott Curry, a builder of business, a motivator of millions, and a living example of resilience through faith. If this conversation moved you, share it with someone who needs to know they’re not alone. Their past does not define them, their courage does. If this episode resonated, please subscribe to the podcast or hit and hit subscribe Part of me on YouTube. Leave your review or rating in your favorite app. Like comment and share this on social media as well. Every review and share helps amplify voices like Scott’s and reminds others that financial freedom and resilience are possible. Until next time, keep giving a heck about your life. And remember it really is never too late to give a heck.