Episode Transcript

Michael Abernathy 0:09
What’s up? What’s up? What’s up, everybody? Welcome to Five Minute rants. I’m your host, Michael Abernathy. And I’ve got a special guest today with Kevin Paul Scott. What’s up, Kevin?

Kevin Paul Scott 0:20
Hey, man, good to be with you today.

Michael Abernathy 0:22
Thanks for joining me. So we’re just gonna get into this real quick. A lot of time. You and I were talking about the eight essential exchanges. You want to elaborate on that for me?

Kevin Paul Scott 0:33
Hey, absolutely. Okay. First of all, let me take you back 10 years ago, 29 years old, starting my business, and I’m reading all these leadership books they’re talking about What do you do as a leader and I’m like, Man, some of this is really a lot of theory, a lot of philosophy, not a lot of practical advice on how to make it. And a lot of times they wanted to make it sound like it was really easy. But Here’s What I learned. Everything in life that really is going to matter is going to require sacrifice. It’s going to require trade offs. I call them exchanges. Let me give you this example. Just real quick. I don’t know if you did you collect anything when you were growing up?

Michael Abernathy 1:16
Yeah, I totally collected the things. Rocks, and bottle gaps and baseball cards.

Kevin Paul Scott 1:21
Okay, baseball cards. Here we go. I know some people are gonna tune out now because they don’t like baseball cards. Hold with me for a second man. When I was growing up. The number one card that everybody wanted was the 1989 upper deck Ken Griffey Jr. Rookie card. You know this one?

Michael Abernathy 1:37
Yes I did. I sure do. I know this one.

Kevin Paul Scott 1:39
Okay, Here’s the deal, I’m going to spare you because we only have five minutes, there’s three ways to get the card, you either get lucky and get it in a pack of cards. That didn’t happen for me. Option two is you go to a store and buy it never got it that way. Here’s option three, you got to trade for it. I gotta find somebody that has the card I want. But Here’s the deal. To get the card I want. I can’t just give up some crappy cards, I’ve got to give up something of value to get What I want. You call it a trade. I call them exchanges. You got to give up something to go up. And Here’s What I learned that people that are successful in life, sometime in their 20s or early 30s. They identify What they want so much that they’re willing to sacrifice for. And I talk about your things, sacrificing stability for significance. What do you love so much that you would give up comfort to truly achieve it. Talk about sacrificing expedience for excellence. expedience is good, it’s a good thing, but sometimes you’re not gonna get it done quickly, you need to focus on doing it well. And then I think maybe the most important, I think about this idea of exchanging the immediate for the ultimate. Okay, we go back one of these older guys that really crushed it, a guy named Zig Ziglar used to say it this way, he said the cause of failure and unhappiness it’s trading What we want most for What we want. Now. He’s always saying the number one reason that people fail or they’re not happy in life is they’ve given up What they wanted most for What they wanted right now in the short term. And I just think in life, the thing we’ve got to do is, first of all, figure out clearly What is it we want? Maybe it’s a professional goal. Maybe it’s about a family, maybe it’s about personal accomplishment, you got to figure out What it is. And then What are you willing to sacrifice to get it? And we’ll make those exchanges. And by the way, it’s not easy. And nobody likes writing that book, because it is not a sexy topic. It’s like, Hey, let me by the way, the reason it’s called eight essential exchanges is because If it said eight sacrifices you need to make nobody would ever buy that book.

Michael Abernathy 3:53
That’s so true. Man. The short term versus the long term trade is amazing. How did you get to that? How did you come to that conclusion?

Kevin Paul Scott 4:02
Well, it’s something I just look at every area of our life like What do you want most? And What do you want now? And most of us are wired to choose What we want now. Okay, What do I want most? Yeah, to be a great dad at my stage of life. What I want right now, man after a day at the office, I want to zoom out I want to just sit here and play on my phone all day. What I want most to build a business for the long term but What I want right now is to take a shortcut. What do I want most to be physically fit What I want right now about two dozen Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. And Here’s the thing when we consistently choose What we want now over What we want most we sacrifice our future on the altar of the immediate and I would just challenge people decide What you want and What you want now or What you want most.

Michael Abernathy 4:56
That’s really good and you literally stopped at like 4:56 min So that’s perfect timing. Well, everybody, thanks for tuning in. Kevin, Thanks for coming, man. Really appreciate it. Really appreciate your time.

Kevin Paul Scott 5:08
Thanks for having me.

Michael Abernathy 5:10
Awesome. Well, we’ll catch y’all later. Peace.