The Ripple Effect Of Courage: The Story Behind Scare Your Soul With Scott Simon

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“What is courageous to me is mine. I own it. I own those opportunities.”

In this episode, Nick speaks with Scott Simon to explore the themes of courage, fear, and self-mastery. Scott shares his journey from being an introvert to founding the “Scare Your Soul” movement, which encourages people to confront their fears and embrace courage in their everyday lives.

What to listen for:

Courage can be broken down into four levels: micro, daring, ethical, and legacy.
Labels can limit our understanding of ourselves; life is more nuanced.
Small acts of courage build momentum and self-efficacy.
Courage is rooted in service and love, not just personal gain.
Sharing our courageous acts can inspire others to take action.

“When I get my head on straight and I know what my goal is for that day, chances are I’m gonna do that thing and chances are I’m also gonna do a lot of other things that end up coming my way that day.”

Clarity in the morning sets the tone for momentum throughout the day
Focusing on one goal creates a ripple effect of productivity
Intention is more powerful than perfection
A clear mind is like a magnet for aligned action
When you start with purpose, you invite unexpected wins

“If you start small and start now, a courage practice, which is what starts to arise is actually a shit ton of fun.”

Starting small removes the pressure and opens the door to growth
Courage doesn’t have to be serious, it can be playful and energizing
Progress feels way more fun when you’re not waiting for perfect conditions
Boldness builds with each tiny step you take
What begins as scary often turns into something deeply joyful and life-giving

About Scott Simon

Scott’s journey from a chronically shy, bullied child to becoming a global advocate for courage offers a powerful testament to the transformative power of small, brave acts.

As founder of the Scare Your Soul movement and author of the book “Scare Your Soul: 7 Powerful Principles to Harness Fear and Lead Your Most Courageous Life” (Hachette), Scott has developed groundbreaking frameworks that make courage accessible and practical.

After a life-changing panic attack at 30,000 feet led to an epiphany about facing fears daily, Scott created methodologies that have revolutionized how individuals and organizations approach courage-building.

His SCARE framework and “1:1” practice combine cutting-edge behavioral science with actionable steps that have transformed cultures at organizations including Logitech, Ritz Carlton, Cleveland Clinic, Nestle, and the United Nations Global Compact.

A TEDx speaker and co-founder of a happiness incubator, Scott has dedicated his life to showing how small acts of courage can compound into extraordinary change. His unique combination of vulnerable storytelling, scientific insight, and practical application has made him a sought-after speaker for organizations seeking to build more courageous, innovative cultures.

Resources:

Check out other episodes about courage.

Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? Send Nick an email or schedule a time to discuss your podcast today!

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Nick McGowan (00:05.518)
Hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show. I’m your host Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Scott Simon. Scott, how you doing man?

Scott (00:15.482)
Nick, I’m doing great. How are you?

Nick McGowan (00:17.486)
I’m good. I’m good. I always love the initial conversations before we hit record, even if it’s like troubleshooting or tech stuff or just literally shooting the shit, whatever. Like I always get to find out stuff and even one little nugget is always awesome to able to go into something. So we just hit on that. Uh, as two NBA fans, um, there’s a lot that we can talk about right now. I’m a Sixers fan. The people that listen to this know that I live and die Philly sports this year sucked.

I’d like to give Paul George back to, I don’t know, the Shanghai Sharks or something, just give him away. But you are from Cleveland. So I want to get into that, but why don’t you kick us off? Tell us what you do for a living and what’s one thing most people don’t know about you. It’s a little odd or bizarre. And then let’s get straight to the calves.

Scott (01:05.947)
Okay, fair enough. I’m Scott Simon. I’m the founder of the Scare Your Soul global courage movement. So every single day, my job is to help people step into moments of fear and come out the other side. One thing that people don’t know about me is I’m a huge introvert. Standing in front of groups of people was never something that I could do. In fact, quite the opposite.

So the fact that my entire job now is stepping in front of large groups of people is, it’s insane. And when I tell people that I’m an introvert and that most of my life was spent pretty much in silence and kind of living an invisible life, they are shocked. So shout out to all the introverts out there who are just leading life and doing the thing. And it’s awesome.

Nick McGowan (02:01.88)
Hmm. Being an introvert, think is a thing that a lot of people will push to one side, just like the extroverted people. It’s like they’re all pushed to those are the ones that come in and just yell and say, I’m here. Like the party has begun sort of thing. There are a lot of variations to that. So I thought that I was extroverted for a long time. And I think a lot of it actually tied back to trauma and trying to prove, you know, and all that sort of stuff.

Scott (02:19.165)
yeah.

Scott (02:28.338)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (02:28.514)
But I find that I do actually get more energy from just being by myself working through things and you get to bring it back. But was that a thing where, and I read through some of your history and all that, like being shy and being kind of bullied and we all go through stuff and we will all filter it, how we’ll filter it and then turn it into whatever we do. But that is still our fucking reality. Like that’s what you go through and what you’ve done.

But do you see that a lot of people actually kind of take that introvert extrovert and don’t see it as gray?

Scott (03:01.243)
do. I think we’re we live in a society that loves labels. Like, you know what I mean? Like we love to just assign a label to something and then we can put it in its box and and move forward. You know, you have ADHD or you don’t or you’re shy or you’re introverted or you’re extroverted and you’re take this test and we’re going to tell you exactly who you are. And that’s a load of crap in my view. In fact, I think it’s all gray. Like we all are these

huge pots of stew where the potatoes and the meat are these experiences that we’ve had over our lives and the influences that we’ve had and the learning that we’ve had. So it’s all gray in my view. What I really see as a major problem is when people let those labels that somebody else gave them define them and they buy into it. That I think is where

work can be done and there’s a lot of work to be done.

Nick McGowan (04:06.03)
What a loaded thing these just drop like there’s a lot of work to be done. Yeah I think there’s so many pieces to it that Like systems time into so many different things. We have our own little systems. We’re also part of major ecological systems psychological systems Governmental systems all these things, but then it all ties into what we want to believe it that

I was having a conversation with somebody of the day where they were getting to a point where it was just like, just don’t, I don’t care about this thing anymore. Like this is the end of my caring. I no longer care. So there, the options at that point were lessened for what they could do. And they’re, I’m not trying to get into context of the thing. So I’m trying to be a little bit ambiguous with it, but it was, it was like, well, once you reach that point where you’re no longer caring, you can either shift what you care about within that, or you can just say, well, I no longer do and I don’t.

Scott (04:32.316)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (05:01.688)
We as people will accept that from people, especially in the formative years. Like I think so much of the stuff that shapes us is from childhood. Somebody said something weird you at one point and you moved along from there, but you created this story and interpreted it and fucking 30 years later, it shows up in a career relationship, all of that. But we gotta get all the way back through all that shit. These are all these layers and all that piece, but without knowing what somebody’s core wounding is or what their actual intent is.

deep intent is how do you actually help people find that? Because part of the reason of bringing you on the show is to talk about fear. A lot of people will say, well, I fear this thing or I fear that or I have no fear or whatever. But even with that, that’s a great fucking big ass word.

Scott (05:38.12)
Yeah.

Scott (05:46.995)
It is. And this is a perfect show to talk about this, because I think there is the big mistake that people make when they think about courage and fear is that let’s tackle courage first, that it is this huge thing that somebody else has that they don’t. Right? It’s like a virtue sitting on a mantle somewhere that somebody else has and they’ve created

social movements or they created a company that just changed the world or something. And I want to democratize courage. Like I literally believe that we, it’s our birthright as humans to live a ballsy, exciting, exuberant life and courage to me. And I’ve studied happiness and positive psychology and behavior design and

Nick McGowan (06:22.563)
Yeah.

Scott (06:41.413)
I love geeking out on the neuroscience behind why we do what we do as humans. I have not found a better key for unlocking a successful and happy life than courage. It is literally like the key that opens the door. And I think once we start seeing courage as something that we have inside of us, and it’s a choice that we can make every day,

Nick McGowan (06:47.351)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (07:09.381)
it completely changes the mindset. And it’s not all of a sudden something out there or sitting on the mantle of somebody else’s house, but it is something that becomes a practice like a meditation practice or a yoga practice or any other kind of practice that somebody has in life. And to me, that’s when we start making incredible shifts in our lives.

Nick McGowan (07:20.302)
Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (07:32.184)
So even specifically with courage, let’s separate the layers to that as well. Because again, yeah, people will look at it and I love the visual to it. I often think not only individuals, but like little cartoons and animations. And that just, it’s fun for me. So thinking about somebody being able to reach or not being able to reach and find that like you’re also in someone else’s house. What the fuck, get out of their house. That is their mantle. Why are you in there? That is not your courage.

Scott (07:46.865)
Yeah.

Scott (07:57.363)
That’s right.

Nick McGowan (08:01.846)
And to democratize that and just be able to share it. It is there. And I think a lot of people like it’s a muscle in a way where we get to kind of look at it that way. You have to strengthen it, but it can also shrink over the course of time. I found that there are different little layers of courage within different moments. can be courageous in a moment to not fucking say something wild. You know, you can be courageous in the moment to say, I’m going to step out on my beliefs.

Scott (08:05.373)
Yeah.

Nick McGowan (08:29.58)
and say something here or set a boundary or whatever that looks like. how do you actually, how do you do that in your life? But how do you see those things and help other people see them? Because if you stack that shit up at the end of the day, you’re like, my God, I have been more, which ties into your brain.

Scott (08:39.281)
Yeah.

Scott (08:42.737)
Yeah. Yeah. So I really think about courage in four different levels. You can almost view it as member Maslow’s incredible hierarchy of needs. like a pyramid. So you’ve got foundational aspects and then you’ve got you’ve got higher kind of higher level aspects. To me, the first level of courage is what I call micro courage. It is literally the smallest acts that we can do on a daily basis.

buying a cup of coffee for a stranger, initiating a hard conversation, smiling at somebody that you don’t know. Little acts that start to build momentum and the positive psychologists call it self-efficacy, like a sense of agency, right? Like we can do this. Micro-courage, an incredible foundational step towards courage. The next level is what I call daring courage, which is…

has like a 007 kind of vibe to it, which is now all of a sudden, the things that you’re doing have a little bit more risk, a little bit more reward, and there are probably more eyes on it. So this is when you’re doing physical activities that are, have some daring to it. When you’re doing something in your life, maybe it’s a relationship. This is taking a relationship to a next level or ending it. Something that feels right. By the way, Nick McGowan , you said something so

Nick McGowan (10:04.43)
Yeah.

Scott (10:09.187)
on point and, and smart. And that is sometimes the courageous thing is the not doing rather than the doing. We always think of it as like, I’m going to accomplish this thing, tackle this hard thing. sometimes not saying that thing or, taking a day off as opposed to living a workaholic lifestyle every single day. That is the career. And for many high performers, it’s the not doing thing that freaks them.

Nick McGowan (10:15.192)
Yeah.

Scott (10:38.565)
out. yes. props to the not doing. So that’s daring courage. The third is something that I think most people will identify with and I call it ethical courage. And that is standing up for your beliefs, your morals, your values for other people. It’s, it’s

Nick McGowan (10:38.958)
Preach. I mean, if you’ll call that with that.

Scott (11:07.261)
people who have started social movements, people who have stood up for rights against wrong, speaking truth to power. All of those fall into this category of ethical courage. The one kind of key aspect is it’s courageous as long as there is some risk in it for you. If you’re just, you know, sending out a message somewhere that no one’s gonna see and it’s anonymous, I don’t consider that super courageous.

But these are the moments that test us, right? When we’re standing up for something we believe in or someone else who needs us to. And then the fourth level, so we’re kind of like working our way up this spiral, is called legacy courage. And this is how I kind of frame legacy courage. These are the decisions or choices that we make that are one way choices. Like when we do them, there is no going back.

And Jeff Bezos wrote this, this shareholder letter at one point, maybe it was like 2005, 2006, where he talked about these kinds of decisions. He calls them type one decisions. It is literally like getting married and having a baby is a, is a, is a type one decision. Quitting a job and starting a company is a, is, is, is legacy. And this is really where we, you know, put our stake in the ground in our lives.

Nick McGowan (12:25.345)
Yeah.

Scott (12:32.941)
I view these levels as interlocking and mutually supportive. It’s not like you start with one and end with the other. They all support each other, but I love frameworks and I love, you know, being able to say like, my God, I did this thing. Here’s what happened. Here’s the type of courage. And then, you know, what, what am I going to do next?

Nick McGowan (12:41.006)
the

Nick McGowan (12:56.174)
Yeah. So we talked before about having the end in mind or the five year plan and like, this is the thing that I expect to happen or whatever. And I want to tie in everything that we’ve talked about so far into that. Because I think there’s a lot even with that. I don’t want to keep just breaking out of the layers and saying it’s all gray. Let’s just blanket here and say, yes, that’s what we’re going to talk about. But basically being able to take all of that.

to then say, well, how does that look when people are saying, well, I want to be courageous, but I also want to do that thing that’s going to take a bit of planning? Or do I just go, you know what, fuck everybody here, I’m leaving today and starting a company tomorrow, I’m going to make $8 million. And then people wake up the next day and go, what the fuck did I do? What is happening? So you have to have some sort of planning to it, depending on how you work. I don’t I don’t want to say you have to everybody need is a bit different. But how does that all tie into what you’re talking about?

Scott (13:49.503)
yeah. So this is when a practice becomes really important. I mean, if I were to boil down, your soul, which is now this organic growing community of people who are pushing comfort zones every day. mean, they’re artists and they’re attorneys and they’re grandparents and they’re teens. And they’re all passionate about dealing with this issue of fear and harnessing it rather than letting it stop them.

So when it becomes a practice, which means doing it consistently and with intention, just like any practice. I mean, if you want to have a yoga practice, you don’t show up on your mat once a month. It’s not the way it works. Same thing with a courage practice. So I created a framework a couple of years ago called SCARES, S-C-A-R-E-S. And SCARES is something that I do literally every single morning. I journal it.

I spend 15 minutes, it’s almost like morning pages, if people know Julia Cameron and the concept of morning pages. And scares allows me to get my mind focused on what I need to do that day. Sometimes it’s short term, sometimes it’s long term. But the key thing is I’m not like making up my mind at two o’clock in the afternoon going like, you know, I’m going to quit my job and start a new company. Like that’s not the way it works.

And by the way, that doesn’t sound courageous to me at all. That sounds just kind of stupid. Like that sounds flippant, not, and courage has, I love courage so much because it has this worthy, service oriented, love oriented component to it. Like it’s not just like doing shit in the world. It’s doing it for a reason that something important is going to happen on the other side of it for you or for somebody else. That is an amazing.

Nick McGowan (15:19.914)
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott (15:45.459)
concept and and to own that and to and to make it a power center for yourself is super It’s super incredible. And so when I journal scares every morning and when I you know, our community does it You end up with this execution step Where you do something courageous that day? I find that

Nick McGowan (15:51.992)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (16:11.261)
To me, when I get my head on straight and I know what my goal is for that day, chances are I’m gonna do that thing and chances are I’m also gonna do a lot of other things that end up coming my way that day. And that to me, is just, it’s living life. It is truly living life to the fullest because at the end of the day, I don’t wanna care what other people think of me or of my failures or of…

rejection or all the things that we self-create as fears. I don’t wanna let those things stop me and they have an incredible ability to stop me. So I have to create mastery, self-mastery and structures to be able to overcome.

Nick McGowan (16:56.748)
Yeah, I love that, not just because this is a keyword and obviously part of the show, but the self mastery component of it, but the tie into how you define courage. Somebody could define it in a way that doesn’t invoke the same sort of feelings or movement that you do. And I think that’s a big thing for all of us to think about, like how we define these things. The stories of what people tell us and they define us as, and we go, all right, well, I accept that and…

that’s my definition and that’s what I’m gonna do. If we define that differently, I think that’s a beautiful way to go about it. The self mastery, there are times where people will say like, hey man, that’s not a destination, it’s a journey. I’m like, I get it. It’s also however you define it. Like if somebody told me that self mastery means this thing, we would have to unpack all of that, because why is it a definite finite thing, you know? Like when someone says they’re a guru or like I’ve learned all the things, it’s like, all right, cool, well I’m done. I don’t need to talk to you.

Scott (17:53.747)
Of

Nick McGowan (17:54.082)
There’s, we’re finished.

Scott (17:56.595)
Can I give you just a little example of that? So, Scare Your Soul started basically because I sang in front of a busy restaurant to overcome a fear of singing, which goes back to your original point of when I was 10 years old, I had a choir teacher tell me I had a terrible voice and I shouldn’t sing. So that was the label, right? Kid can’t sing, if you sing, you’re screwed. Like don’t do it. And for 35 years,

Nick McGowan (17:59.234)
Yeah, please.

Nick McGowan (18:17.582)
Jeez. Yeah.

Scott (18:26.107)
I didn’t ever, ever. And I decided one day after, after, you know, studying positive psychology and, and, learning about happiness and pushing comfort zones. And so I brought an acoustic guitar to the busiest restaurant in my city. And I sang in front of the about a hundred strangers. And it was the most terrifying and yet powerful moment of my life. And

I came home and I wrote a Facebook post about it and the post went viral. And so I had all of these people from around the world DMing me saying like, okay, how do I become more courageous or what should I do? And so I just started helping people step into moments of greatness, whatever that meant for them. And I just remember there was a young woman named Sarah Marie.

who was a dancer and just buff and built and just an incredible presence. And she said to me, wanna do something brave. And we talked about it and she thought about it and she came back to me and she said, I wanna hold hands with a guy in a mall for five minutes.

And I was like, okay, like, let’s unpack that, you know, because to me, holding hands with somebody in a mall would not be something that would push me. And she gave me the lesson of a lifetime. She said to me, Scott, I was raised in an abusive home and I don’t ever want anyone touching me. I’m not, I don’t hug people. I don’t hold hands with people. So for me,

Nick McGowan (19:45.976)
Okay.

All right. Yeah.

Nick McGowan (20:10.926)
Mmm.

Scott (20:15.067)
Walking in a mall holding hands with somebody for five minutes is pretty much the gutsiest thing I can do. And I was floored. And it was this ultimate realization that we do, know, courage is not like this catch all phrase. What is courageous to me is mine. I own it. I own those opportunities. Just like Nick McGowan , you own yours and Sarah Marie owned hers. But what I did learn is

When we do brave things and we share it with each other, there is like this huge ripple effect. Sometimes people do things in life that they’re proud of or pushed a comfort zone and they don’t share it. They keep it to themselves. When they share it and that’s in a large degree what our community is about, you start to build this incredible sense of momentum and supporting other people. mean, who doesn’t want to support underdogs?

other humans who are trying hard things. Like it’s the best. I get so jazz talking about it because we’re just humans supporting each other and in the best things possible. People building relationships and building businesses and leaving toxic relationships and doing the hard thing. And what could be better than that?

Nick McGowan (21:16.203)
You

Nick McGowan (21:35.298)
Yeah. I love that you not only did that thing, but you had the realization to go, shit, there’s something in here. That’s purpose. Like that purpose is deep within side of you. That is different than anybody else. And I find it funny that you were like, didn’t plan this. Like I didn’t want to talk to people. I didn’t want to be in front of people. I didn’t want to do these things. And now, like, no matter which way you look at it, God, universe, energy, like what if that’s comical as hell, you know?

Like what a beautiful thing and you’re thriving in it because this is so aligned and deeply aligned with you. I love that you talked about being able to share it too. Social media has gone weird over the past little while. But even being able to share things within context of a simple conversation, catch up with a friend or somebody at the grocery store or whatever and being open instead of just being closed away. Like I know I do that at times like the fuck off energy.

I’m just trying to buy my groceries, get back in, I gotta do this and that. When I get home, I’m do these things. And you close off those potentials of even seeing that sort of stuff. I love the way you look at that, man. And I wanna know what song was it? What did you perform?

Scott (22:41.565)
Yes. Yes.

Scott (22:48.467)
Okay, well, if I had known, it’s a good question. If I had known that it would have turned into this, I probably would have chose something maybe a little bit more spectacular, but my parents used to play Simon and Garfunkel songs in our house growing up. So I played the boxer. And I think it was just like an ode to the people who were important to me in life.

What the funny part about it is, you when I tell this to people or if I’m giving speeches and we, and we talk about it, I was terrible. Like the choir teacher was not wrong. Did he label me? Yes. Should he have said it? No. But you know what? In the end, I had people applauding me. I people throwing money into my guitar case. Like it was, it was this incredible experience. And just think about what we could all do.

I mean, everybody listening to this or watching this podcast is avoiding something. Okay? Everyone is. And if I just put out this challenge right now that anybody listening to this or watching this, what are you avoiding? Do it. Just do it. And then let’s see what happens. And that, my friend, is where we start to break through.

Nick McGowan (23:52.494)
Yeah, something.

Scott (24:14.991)
and we start to have the conversations that need to be held. And we start to do the things that need to be done.

Nick McGowan (24:21.742)
Let’s put a little bit of caveat as long as it’s safe for those around you. So somebody’s like, I need to attack this person. He just gave me the go ahead.

Scott (24:26.407)
Bye.

Let me know it’s funny. I wrote a book a couple of years ago, I had a publisher in New York reach out to me and ask me if I’d like to write a book on courage and fear, which actually gave me a lot of fear writing for anybody that’s done it writing a book is a terrifying experience. But the first thing she said to me was, I think we need to clarify, you know, that we don’t want people doing things that are unsafe or I mean,

Nick McGowan (24:47.758)
Yeah.

Scott (24:59.247)
certainly violent and things like that. And so that’s that to me is always part and parcel of what courage is and what courage isn’t. And I mean, have I gone skydiving? Yes, I have. I have a fear of heights and I went skydiving. But to me, that was not the courageous part. Because to me, that felt like, yeah, it was scary. Was there a worthy cause to it? Maybe you could say I was overcoming a phobia.

Nick McGowan (25:07.694)
Mm.

Scott (25:28.413)
But to me, calling somebody and saying, I come over and saying, I love you to that person for the first time, that’s courage, my friend. Courage is rooted in service and in love. And I think when we view our lives like that, we start to make really good decisions.

Nick McGowan (25:39.672)
Yeah

Nick McGowan (25:48.846)
Absolutely. Yeah, if we can clean up the core, at least know what our core is and what that core means for us, then we can start to share that, you know? And what a beautiful thing, man. I’m sure we could sit here and we could just rattle off all the stories and this could just turn into like a nine hour episodes of all the stories of the conversations and breaking all that stuff down and all the little pieces of it. But what’s your advice for somebody that’s on their path towards self mastery, specifically revolving around courage?

Scott (26:17.477)
Okay. I would say, start small, but start now. We oftentimes will shroud fear in this kind of bubble wrapping of, I’ll do it when the time is right, or it’s not the right thing to do now, or I need more information about this when really all we’re doing is avoiding the thing that needs to be done.

And I’m here to tell you that if you start small and start now, a courage practice, which is what starts to arise is actually a shit ton of fun. Like I push myself every single day and it, do I end up in moments of discomfort? I do all the time, all the time, but you know what? I do it with a smile. I do it with enthusiasm.

I talk to people all the time that I don’t know. I ask things of people that I, you know, probably shouldn’t be asking, you know, and, and, and I try things and I stand on stages that are bigger than, than I’ve ever stood on. And it, at the end of the day, it is so joyous and energizing and we all have the opportunity to do it. We got to.

try to put away the concept of what is going to please or make other people happy with us. have to deal with the issue of rejection or feeling that we’re not good enough. You are good enough. In fact, when you start to act courageously, you’ll see how good you truly are.

Nick McGowan (28:01.038)
Even as you say that I can feel the moments in time where I’ve done something courageous and you get that at least I got that like, fuck well if I can do that, matching the other things like you mentioned relationships, stuff like that. I got a divorce four years ago, three years ago, I don’t know, quite some time ago. But being able to get to the point of saying, hey, we need to have this conversation when you go well damn.

What about all the dumb little things that I pushed off? Like, why would I push those off then? If you could do this thing, but you can also reverse that and go, well, if I can do all these. And it sounds like not only you, but also the people that are part of really the movement, they also feed off of other people. I mean, that’s part of why the show is the show to be able to talk through and go, well, this guy went through similar things. I can do it. Here’s what worked for him. Let me fucking give it a good old college try at least, you know?

Scott (28:57.011)
Absolutely. Alright, so I have a quick, great story for you. Appropriate to your comment about divorce. So I got a call from one of our ambassadors who told me that she was pushing a stroller and in the stroller was a scarier soul baby. And I was I like took a deep breath and thought to myself, what is she talking about? What? What is a scarier soul baby? And and this is the story that she told me.

She was married in marital therapy with her then husband. And I put out one of our weekly challenges, which I’ve done. Anybody can access them for free on our sub stack. And the weekly challenge that week was to have a hard conversation with somebody. So the hard conversation she had was with her husband saying like, this is not working. I think we need to kind of call it quits. And she did. And he actually agreed. He said, I

I agree with you. they separate, they get divorced. It’s a very challenging time as we all know, it’s never easy. And she in that time of need reconnects with an old friend that actually happened to be her old boyfriend from high school. And they started to spend more time together. They ended up getting much closer. They fell in love again. They got married and had a baby. And that was the baby that she was.

Nick McGowan (30:22.766)
you

Scott (30:25.683)
pushing in the stroller. So I’m not gonna say that my challenge created this child, but in a way, you know, who knows what the universe would have delivered. She chose to bravely have that conversation and look where it led. That to me, that story is just, that’s all of our right. We have the ability and the right to make brave decisions in our lives.

Nick McGowan (30:31.564)
you did. You just did.

Yeah.

Scott (30:55.557)
And then what happens afterwards is the only the universe can provide, but I’d much rather live a life where I’m saying yes to it than no.

Nick McGowan (31:05.71)
I think at that point we’re done. That’s end of this. Well done with that. No, seriously, man, I appreciate you being on today. That’s a great way to, I thought this was a great conversation. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect?

Scott (31:18.621)
Sure, I’m at scotsimon.us. And if they want to subscribe, be part of Scare Your Soul or subscribe to our newsletter, that’s at scareyoursoul.com. I also have a book, as I mentioned, you can find it anywhere. It’s called Scare Your Soul. Nick McGowan , it’s an honor to be with you. It’s been really great.

Nick McGowan (31:41.166)
Thanks, man.

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178 episodes