Executive Podcast #265: How to Build a Legendary Career with Scott Wozniak

Chris Goede:

Hey, listeners, Chris Goede here with some bonus business insight before we jump into today’s episode. If you’re looking for the right place to host your next business gathering, conference, or event, look no further than Orlando, Florida. It’s no coincidence that Maxwell Leadership hosts our bi annual International Maxwell Conference in Orlando. Between its many luxurious hotels, meeting spaces, and venues, orlando is the perfect place for you and your team to gather, collaborate, and grow. Whether you’re traveling for business or bringing your company for a meeting, there is a reason Orlando is as much a business capital as an entertainment one. And let’s not forget the delicious cuisine at one of the 46 Michelin rated restaurants where your team can kick off your evenings. So before you plan your next business event, check out Orlando, where the possibilities for business travel are unbelievably real.

Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holly, a Maxwell leadership, facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president. Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. We are continuing our series of giving Perry a break, right? Like, he did not have to create content for the last couple of episodes. We’re going to do it again for another two part series. And don’t get used to this.

Perry Holley:

No, but I talk about getting comfortable, being uncomfortable. Now, I’m on the same side of the table with you.

Chris Goede:

There’s two big guys sitting next to the table. But we are super excited because joining us today via video is a good friend of our organization. And I’m going to explain a little bit about that and the full circle as we get into this first session. But we are super excited to have Scott Wozniak join us, actually, from here in Atlanta. He’s just zooming in from it’s funny too, right? And Scott, you’ll probably agree with this when people say, oh, you guys live in Atlanta together. You must see each other all the time and you must hang out for lunch. I’m like, I don’t really think you understand. I could have my college roommate say he lives in Atlanta and I would never see him.

Chris Goede:

But Scott, you live on the south side of Atlanta, and there I know you are CEO of SWAS Consulting. We’re going to talk a little bit about that in a minute. But thanks so much for taking some time to join us. We really appreciate it.

Scott Wozniak:

Man, it is a delight being here. As we’ll get into the story, it’s kind of not just fun to talk leadership, that’s always fun, but there’s kind of a fun personal journey that being here today is really special for me. Thanks, guys.

Chris Goede:

Absolutely. We’re glad to have you. Let me talk a little bit about Scott for just a minute, and I have a couple of things that I just want you to unpack for us as we get started, okay? As I got to learn a little bit more about you as we partnered together, which, by the way, he’s partnered with Maxwell Leadership, and we’re publishing his book we’re going to talk about a little bit in just a minute. So excited and grateful for that. But, man, he has consulted with family businesses, fortune 500 companies, Silicon Valley and all that stuff. But the thing that stands out to me is that in his bio and I didn’t know this about you, Scott, it says something about you’re just an adventure junkie about Heliskiing.

Perry Holley:

Can we take just a minute and.

Chris Goede:

Talk about what in the world is Heliskiing, and give us your most memorable experience around Heliskiing.

Scott Wozniak:

Oh, man. Heliskiing is where you get in a helicopter and they take you to the top of a mountain peak. I mean, like the tip. And they drop you off, you hunker down, they fly away, and you and your crew are sitting there on the very tip of a peak. We did it up in British Columbia, up near Whistler, and you’re just looking at the range all around you. And then you pick a side and you go down, and the chopper meets you at the bottom, takes you another one. And all day long, you just ski on open powder out in the wild. It is glorious, man.

Scott Wozniak:

Lunch on the side of the slope. They bring you, like, sandwiches in a soup. It’s the best.

Chris Goede:

Sandwiches at a soup. It’s kind of like how I feel about Skydiving. Why am I getting out of a perfectly good helicopter, right? Like, I’m not doing that.

Perry Holley:

So is there a lot of risk in that?

Scott Wozniak:

Yes and no. I mean, listen, if you really want to get into it, there’s risk of avalanche, but that’s why you bring a professional guide. And not to be crass about this, but you pay the guide to ski each section before you and then radio back. It’s safe. You’re good. Come on down.

Perry Holley:

I think he may be misnamed the guide.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, we have a different name for him. We’ll talk about that off the podcast. But, man, we’re so grateful for you to join us and just you’re an avid learner, right? You’re a consumer of content and product, and then you take that and you make it your own, and you’re helping organizations and you’re helping leaders. So today’s topic, as we jump in and we get started, just to learn a little bit more about Scott and his journey is how to build a legendary career where passion and purpose overlap. And I think a lot of our listeners and those that are watching us on YouTube, they go, man, at the end of it, I really want to have a career that was purposeful, that I’m passionate about. It becomes that legendary career and I want you just to share a little bit about your personal journey. But my first question to you is this statement, which is, you mentioned to us, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And I think that is a key point that I’d love as you kind of unpack.

Chris Goede:

And tell us a little bit about your story why that is so important when we’re going after building a legendary career.

Scott Wozniak:

Listen, this is the first mistake we make, and it’s a well meaning, wonderful mistake, and I made it. That’s why it’s something I’m really passionate about. We find something early in our life that we’re good at, and everyone around us, they care for us. They’re like, you should do a career in that. You should do a career in that. And so we go bake our career around this first thing that shows up. And it turns out that, again, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. So my example is probably not what most people expect a business consultant to share, but I grew up as a child actor.

Scott Wozniak:

I did my first speaking role when I was four. By the time I was ten, I was winning a bunch of competitions, got in a music group in middle school, toured and made albums. High school was on an NBC Christmas special, and so everybody’s saying, you got the gifts and you should go be a stage guy and go be a performer. And it was working, right? I mean, I was getting some pretty cool stuff, and so I went and got a degree and started doing professional work. And I woke up in my early 20s going, you know what? I don’t actually love this. I mean, it’s fun. I didn’t dislike it, but it really wasn’t what I was passionate about. It wasn’t something I could see myself doing for the next 30 years.

Scott Wozniak:

And it’s not that that field isn’t beautiful or fun, and I still have some great friends doing it wasn’t what I actually was made for and was passionate about. It was a classic case of, hey, you have a skill, you should do it. Now, maybe a more common example is somebody’s good at math, right? And they’re like, you should go into finance. You can be an accountant or, like, a hedge fund trader. Like, you’re good at math. You should do numbers, or you did really well in science. You should be a doctor. And there’s nothing wrong with those careers.

Scott Wozniak:

But the problem is, what we’re doing is we’re just over optimizing on the obvious example, hey, you have a skill. You should bake your whole life around that skill. Well, man, you may have multiple skills, or you might find a non standard way to apply that skill. So just don’t fall into this obvious trap. Hey, just because you have a skill means that’s your whole career, you should do that for the rest of your life. Maybe not. Maybe there’s a deeper question about passion and calling and what can you really do with these skills that we need to answer? And it takes a little more work, but, man, it uncovers a lot more options.

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Perry Holley:

Many people listening. I know in our coaching business, I hear a lot from people that kind of feel trapped in what they do and there’s no joy in it. There’s no fulfillment in it. But what was that moment like for you? Because I went through a little bit of similar, but I feel like it took me a long time to kind of wake up and say, hey, Perry, if you’re not going to jump, nobody’s going to push you. You’re very comfortable where you are, but you’re not happy. It wasn’t about happiness. It’s about joy, about fulfillment to me. But was there a trigger? Was there an exercise? A coach? How did you finally go? I needed to make a change because you were very successful.

Perry Holley:

You’re on stage. It wasn’t like you could say, yeah, this isn’t working. It was working.

Chris Goede:

You’re not a floundering actor. Yeah, I mean, it was right. And it was natural for you. So how do you get away from the complacency of that? And what was that moment? That’s a great question.

Scott Wozniak:

Yeah, it was multiple things coming together and it was a process. It wasn’t like one day and the next day I launched. It was terrifying. Right. What if the new thing doesn’t work? And how do I put all this time into it? Now I got to admit to everybody, oh, man, I messed up. This is what I’m not supposed to do. And they’re all patting me on the back. And there were people who freaked out, like, what are you doing, man? Are you okay? Do we need to pray for you? It’s like, no, this is good.

Scott Wozniak:

So it’s a process. I had a coach that wouldn’t let me go and kept asking me hard questions. Man, the value of coaching changed my life.

Perry Holley:

Amen.

Scott Wozniak:

Part of why I became a coach is because of what the coach did for me. I also started and this was probably a good insight. I started experimenting on the side while I kept my day job going and started like, well, let me dabble in this. And some of those things I started experimenting with took off in my heart and mind and I started getting results and I’m thinking, oh, man. So it wasn’t like this cold turkey and now I got to figure out what to do. I kept my day job going while I started figuring out what to do. It was parallel, and so when it was time to leap, I knew what I was leaping to and I’d already experimented and tried it a bit as a part time thing. So I was like, okay, I think I can actually do this now.

Scott Wozniak:

That didn’t mean it wasn’t terrifying, but with a coach and some support and new people encouraged me on the other side, and then there was a lot of prayer and journaling, so I happened to be a Christian and so this was a big part of the process for me. And honestly, that’s probably the last 10% that tipped the scales, is just journaling and praying. And I just kind of felt God challenging me, saying, do you trust me? Will you go for it? And that was a big part of my last little bit, is like, okay, Lord, I’m going to trust you to figure it out and I’ll be obedient. Yeah, it did work out and we made the switch, but it’s a journey. It’s a process. I’ll say this bit part of what got me woke up. My coach challenged me with this. It was like, when you get to the end of your life, when you look back, what will you regret more? Will you regret that you did it and it didn’t work, or you regret never trying? And it was like, clearly I will regret deeply if I never even gave this a shot.

Scott Wozniak:

So that’d be the question I might ask someone who’s listening is, hey, if it’s truly something you’re passionate about, what would you regret more? Would you regret spending a nice life in a safe, comfortable job that doesn’t give you joy? Or would you regret more? Man, I tried it and it didn’t work. I think the answer for most of us is, man, I don’t want to get to my deathbed and say, if only I would have given it a shot.

Perry Holley:

I love it. I think the side gig is exactly I think what I did, I stumbled in it. I didn’t know to do that, but I started trying while I was still being an executive. I thought maybe I should start doing some leadership and maybe I could just do a free lunch and learns for people. I really enjoy that. And then I should try coaching. I really like that. And then I met some people that said, hey, you should do and all of a sudden, that overnight success.

Perry Holley:

It took ten years here we are. To do that. I know you’ve been influenced by John Maxwell and a lot of your upbringing and how you came along. And I wondered, was there a starting point with John? And I’ve enjoyed your book, by the way, and getting your story was fascinating, as Chris was saying, but I know that the influence of John Maxwell was strong throughout part of your life. Tell me more about John Maxwell and how you came to know him and what’s he done to influence you.

Scott Wozniak:

Man, this is part of what makes this so special, hanging with you guys. So remember, I’m trying these new things. I’m dabbling and I’m exploring, what else can I do? And I got involved in a bunch of cool nonprofit programs. I worked at Focus on the Family, did some of their conference stadium tours, and some using my stage stuff in new ways, and worked for some churches and youth camps. And honestly, if I could be direct, I worked for some really nice guys who were really bad leaders. I mean, they meant well. They had a great heart, still friends of mine to this day, and they had no idea how to lead an organization. And I was, like, hitting this wall and frustrated, and I was getting excited, like, I’m trying to change the world, and how do we do this? And I didn’t even have words for it.

Scott Wozniak:

And somebody handed me the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. I mean, if you remember this, it’s one of the classic original books that took off. He’s written a bunch. But for me, that was the moment when not only did I discover John Maxwell, but it was like I discovered words. I didn’t even have words for leadership and strategy and systems and all that stuff. That literally is my career now. And it was that. I’d read that book like it was a novel.

Scott Wozniak:

Stayed up till 03:00 a.m. Reading it, I just couldn’t put it down. And I got everything John got. I actually joined up. I don’t know if you remember the Enjoy Life club. I would get that CD in there.

Chris Goede:

You said they were tapes.

Perry Holley:

I’m older than him.

Scott Wozniak:

I came in when they switched to CD. That’s where my part of the journey was. This is in the 90s.

Perry Holley:

They chiseled them on bricks, and then.

Chris Goede:

We went to cassette.

Scott Wozniak:

That’s right, the old cuneiform process. This was what I kind of built my first. It was how to build myself as a leader and then honestly, a little bit into it. A couple of years into this, I’m shaking my fist at God. I’m like, It’s not right. The world’s held back for bad leaders and somebody else should be doing something. And then felt like God was just elbowing me, like, yes, somebody should do something. And it really woke up my passion.

Scott Wozniak:

Like, man, this is something I could spend all day on and pour with leaders and help them out. And that really kind of brings us back to where we started here’s. Now, the formula that I help people think about when they think about life and career, when I’m mentoring or coaching, there’s two circles, two overlapping circles. One is what makes me come alive, what are the things I’m good at and passionate about, and where are my skills? And that might be the math or stage skills or whatever the stuff is. The other, though, is what does the world need? What breaks my heart? And where are the problems? Where are the gaps? Where are the things that people are hungry for would make their lives better? And then you put those two circles, and in that overlap, in that space of the things I can do well and the things that the world needs, you find something that you could be delighted to come every day and pour more and learn about and makes everyone’s lives better and is really valuable to them. And so, for me, that was that. Part of what I loved about the theater was the communication. I loved also forming teams, and every play is another project.

Scott Wozniak:

You get a new group and culture and build all that. We’ll layer that over to, like, man, the world needs to learn how to form teams and cultures and get effective stuff done. And now you start adding new skills, right, because you can learn skills. I just devoured everything John had. I think I’ve read every one of his books, seen him speak a dozen, 25 times. I actually ended up becoming one of the John Maxwell guys and going and speaking at some events. And so that just became a big part of the world. And eventually, like, you, Perry, the more I did, the more they loved.

Scott Wozniak:

And it was like, hey, maybe you should go into that. So got a degree in business masters, and my professor had me start working with them. And then Chick fil A had me start working with them. And now I have my own company, and, man, I’m having more fun. Than I ever did. And I’m making more of a difference than I ever did because this is, I think, what I was meant to do. In fact, the way I like to say it is I think I’m called to be Merlin to the Arthur’s of the world. Right? Like, you have a vision for camelot.

Scott Wozniak:

Hey, can I come behind you, maybe work a little magic and help you build something special so it’s the best? As a Christian. Here’s what I’ve learned. God’s plan is usually always different than my plan and better than my plan. And so I’d say this for someone who’s processing this, if you’re feeling like, this isn’t it right? Hey, it’s working. But it’s not that deep joy that Perry was talking about. Don’t settle. Don’t settle for a comfortable, I’m not going to starve career. You were made to do something that you would delight in, that would make the world a better place and go for it.

Scott Wozniak:

Don’t be casual, don’t be comfortable. Build a legendary career. And whether that’s famous or not, build something you would be excited about, right?

Perry Holley:

Yeah.

Chris Goede:

I love what both of you said where it was painful, right. But to take that step, to become legendary, as we talked about in the title, right. To have that legendary career, you’re going to have to go through that process. It’s not going to know just completely obvious, and it may not be again, you may be good at something. You may have an idea of what you think that is to your point, Scott, in that circle. And then as you dig in, you may come out with something completely different, and you got to be open to that and that process. One thing I do want to talk about as we kind of work our way to the end of this awesome conversation is you talk a lot about there are engines, right? There are engines behind success, and there is an engine that you believe is behind all other engines of success. And can you unpack that a little bit for our listeners as they may be struggling with this, as they’re growing as a leader, they may be leading somebody that they see struggling, that they want to kind of help, support or influence.

Chris Goede:

Talk a little bit about that concept you have around the engine behind all engines.

Scott Wozniak:

Yeah, there’s a couple of things, regardless of your industry or career, that man, the better you get at these things, the better everything else works. One, for example, is self awareness. The more you understand who you are and get to know that, everything else gets better. Right. The first and most critical tool you have to build your life and make a difference in the world is yourself. So figure out what God designed and how he set you up. And then the other one, I think, comes back to what we’ve talked about indirectly, a bunch already in this conversation is learn how to learn. Get good at figuring out how to get more better ideas, practicing skills.

Scott Wozniak:

This is where something like a coach can change your life. Part of the learning process is doing it together. It’s not all like going up to an ivory tower and writing a thesis paper. Some of it is learning how to read content. Huge discovery for me was the value of podcasts and audiobooks that I can listen to while I’ve got other things going. I mean, enjoy Life Club CDs, right? Being able to play that while I drove to work was like, oh, this start processing. So learn how to learn. Learn how to get better content.

Scott Wozniak:

Learn how to bounce ideas off each other. Learn yourself. I mean, these are some of the fundamentals. And this is why I like the metaphor of an engine, right. It’s an ongoing habit. The person who continually learns just like, steadily gets better and better and better and better and better, and the better you get at learning, the better you get at everything else. I mean, you get to the point where you’re like, I don’t know how to do that yet. I know how to learn, so I’ll figure out how to do that.

Scott Wozniak:

And to quote John, right, leaders are it’s. This is not optional. If your passion is leadership, you just have to continually be learning. And so get a learning engine going. All the other engines will figure themselves out by definition, right? If you can learn it, then we can figure the rest out.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. John also taught me that growth doesn’t happen by accident. So you think, I did my schooling, I finished all that and I’m done. He said, what do you say? If you’re done learning, you’re done. So yeah, I totally agree that growth is an intentional process that you do a little bit every day. And I love that you’re a member of Automobile University. It’s one of my favorite, especially Atlanta traffic. You can get a degree in like, two years.

Scott Wozniak:

That’s exactly right. Program.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. To do that.

Chris Goede:

Did I hear him say that Maxwell Leadership Executive podcast was one of those things that he consumes often?

Perry Holley:

I just assumed that I think I.

Chris Goede:

Made was actually it’s funny, I was actually on call with John yesterday, and we were talking a little bit about there’s always an answer, right? It may not be the answer that you want or that you think, but man, keep digging, keep learning. There’s always an answer. And what I love about your kind of illustration about this engine is you think about it where whether it’s oil or whether it’s fuel or now whether it’s electricity, right? There are things that have got to be put in there to get that thing running. And to your point, if we’re going to be that learning engine, we’ve got to have podcasts, we’ve got to have books, we’ve got to have audiobooks. We got to go to conferences. We got to put ourselves in environments. That go and this is another saying, right, where you go walk into a room and you go, I might be the stupidest person in this room. Because it’s going to challenge us to have a different perspective and continue to learn.

Chris Goede:

Well, listen, I’m going to wrap up real quick. I’ll let you close Scott again, just excited. Not only just to hear your story and hear your passion for learning. And I really love this fact of man, to have a legendary career where your passion and purpose overlap may not be something you come out of school thinking you’re good at and where you’re getting atta boys from your parents or your professors or whatever it might be. And that’s something that at the end of the day, when Father Time is undefeated, all of us are going to have a day someday, and I don’t think we’re going to look back and go, man, I sure wish I would have done more accounting. I may be good at math, which I’m not either good at math or accounting, but I love the passion and conviction that you have for that, for us. And so thank you for taking time to share your personal story. I want to encourage you, those that are listening or watching us on YouTube, make sure you join us next week because now we’re going to take a step further and where Scott actually wrote a book about this and we’re going to talk in depth about that and he’s going to give us some.

Chris Goede:

So really, really want to make sure you join us for that.

Perry Holley:

So glad you joined us, Scott. And for our listeners, chris said next week we’re going to look at the customer insights and how Scott put this together to build this engine. And you can get a learner guide for this episode, as well as leave us a comment or a question. You can do all that at MaxwellLeadership.com/Podcast. We love hearing from you. We’re very grateful you’d spend this time with us today. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership executive podcast.