12. People Over Everything with Scott MacGregor
Scott MacGregor is the founder & CEO of SomethingNew LLC, one of the fastest-growing talent strategy companies in the country. SomethingNew is a record seven-time recipient of the American Business Award for Innovation and winner of Best of Staffing. Growing up, he had dreams of becoming a professional athlete, but a career-ending injury in college forced him to pivot and refocus his energy into business. He was the youngest National Account Manager in the history of Pitney Bowes, a Fortune 500 Company, and at the age of 29, he took a bold leap into the startup world. After 10 years of putting the plan together for SomethingNew, Scott launched the company that redefines talent acquisition and recruiting.
In 2020, he asked himself, “How can I give back more? How can I help more people?” The answer to that came in the form of a private membership community called Talent Champions Council. The idea behind the community was to teach leadership principles, spread his ‘People Over Everything’ mantra, and help industry leaders uplevel their businesses. In just two short years, the platform has amounted to over 500 members in 29 countries, and hosted 140 live, interactive events.
When Scott came up with the idea for SomethingNew, he was dedicated to building a company that gave back. He was able to combine his passion for learning about people’s unique stories and philanthropy by publishing the Standing O! books. Each book features prominent CEOs, professional athletes, bestselling authors, Olympians, military leaders, and more who share chapters of gratitude for life lessons learned, and 100% of the proceeds go to charity. The books have supported amazing organizations such as, Elevate New York, Look for the Good Project, Special Operations Warrior Foundation, Blankets of Hope, and Warrior Rising.
Listen to today’s episode to learn more about Scott’s entrepreneurial journey, the charities that he’s passionate about, and his interpretation of what it means to be bigger than yourself.
About our guest:
Topics Covered:
Why philanthropy is the cornerstone of all his business ventures
Scott’s passion for bringing together international leaders to share their knowledge and skills around building talent
The work ethic, discipline, and resiliency required to succeed in both athletics and business
Epic Standing O! stories, from Olympians, CEOs, Navy Seals, and professional athletes
How Scott evaluates communication skills, empathy, and resourcefulness during the hiring process
Transformative conversations that have taken place at Talent Champions Council events
How Scott grows by constantly staying curious and building genuine relationships
Special Offers:
If there’s a topic or charity you want me to highlight on the podcast, DM it to me on Instagram @getbusylivin_pod
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COMPUTER GENERATED TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Anne O'Neil: Hey, Hey, GBLS welcome to get busy living a podcast that brings inspiring people together to discover what ignites them to be bigger than themselves. I'm your host and. I have a rockstar of a person on the show with me today and someone I get to call my good friend, Scott McGregor. On this episode, you will hear why Scott is such an incredible human.
We discuss the multiple non-profits. He gives back to through an amazing community called the talent champions council and through his standing old books, which are a compilation of chapters from Olympia. CEOs Navy seals and hall of Famers. Enjoy this conversation. As we talk about curiosity, people over everything, leaning into the future and just how fulfilling life is when we are giving back and creating something new
Scott McGregor.
[00:01:11] Scott MacGregor: Good to see you. I like the backdrop.
[00:01:13] Anne O'Neil: Oh my gosh. Hey, I got to tell you all the awesome gear you've been giving me. I was like, I'm putting it up, people over everything. And Scott, it's a big deal because this is also over lady Gaga, uh, lady Gaga, picture.
[00:01:27] Scott MacGregor: That's impressive. I've never be lady Gaga out in my life.
Well,
[00:01:32] Anne O'Neil: Hey, thank you so much for making the time to chat and hang out. I'm so excited to hang out with.
[00:01:38] Scott MacGregor: Can't wait, let's do it.
[00:01:39] Anne O'Neil: So, Scott, I met you through LinkedIn, one of our really good friends, joy, Mick Adams technique posts and said, Hey, are you connected with Scott? And then I got this awesome message from you.
And this is where everything kicked off. And we, you had like, Eight exclamation points in this message to me. And I was like, this is my kind of person to hang out with. So I knew he would hit it off immediately. My kind of vibe. So I'm so happy that you can be here on the get busy living podcast.
[00:02:05] Scott MacGregor: I am honored beyond belief.
I love joy and I love her even more that she introduced us and I love our. Exclamation contest that we have going back and forth. I still think I'm in the lead, but we'll say
[00:02:20] Anne O'Neil: I know. And you never know how it can transform into like emojis or not. But the exclamation points was our thing is our thing.
And it's been like three months now. And if it was listening, we had joined Mick Adams on the podcast early. Like in episode three and she was just a rock star, human, where I kind of knew her online. And then when she showed up in real life and I was able to talk to her, I was like, oh my gosh, she's such a dynamic human.
And I know you're going to get that from Scott. So we have so much to cover, you know, all of the things that he's accomplished, but I'd really like to even dive in further. And so people have a lot of great takeaways of how you've gone about things, your mindset, and just kind of some of the things that you've kind of.
Done that inner work to be able to have such an amazing career. So ready to get started.
[00:03:05] Scott MacGregor: Let's do it. Let's do it.
[00:03:07] Anne O'Neil: All right, Scott, let's start giving everybody some context kind of where you grew up. And one of the questions I'd love to ask is, did you have anything that you wanted to be when you grew up when you were
[00:03:17] Scott MacGregor: a kid?
Definitely. So I grew up in a little shoreline town in Connecticut called Madison, Connecticut, phenomenal place to grow up. The problem for me is I got. Pretty poor in a very, very affluent town, which was a really strange, unique way to grow up. I always wanted to be a professional athlete. So I'm jealous of the career that you had, but I always thought, and it, it changed as I grew up, you know, it was, I wanted to be a football player that I want to be a baseball player, wound up playing baseball, or getting a scholarship to play baseball in college.
Blown out my back and my sports career.
[00:03:58] Anne O'Neil: Since you were like a little
[00:03:59] Scott MacGregor: kid, little kid, little kid, always, there is no doubt in my mind that was going to happen. And it didn't. But sometimes
[00:04:08] Anne O'Neil: I almost think of those childhood dreams though, as you get older and you can look back, it's like, oh, I still kind of accomplished that by all that you're doing.
And now you're really good friends with a bunch of those Olympians and professional athletes. So you're, you're still in the world of that.
[00:04:23] Scott MacGregor: Yeah, it was for me, you know? Growing up with not a lot of money in an affluent town, like athletics was what leveled the playing field for me. So it's what made me feel kind of a part of the community.
And, you know, didn't make me feel uncomfortable around my friends because for me, athletics was, was something that leveled that playing field. So it was just an incredibly important part of my life for as long as I can remember.
[00:04:52] Anne O'Neil: Oh, wow. And you, did you accomplish getting a scholarship at, you had a really big injury.
[00:04:57] Scott MacGregor: I did, you know, and had major league tryouts and, and all that, which obviously didn't go anywhere. But yeah, I enjoyed it while it lasted, but once it was over, I'm like, okay, what's next? And what's was next for me was, you know, how do I not wind up in a situation where I have the stress and anxiety that I saw my parents have by not having the financial means to take care of certain things.
So I was. Crazy. Hyper-focused on starting my business career.
[00:05:30] Anne O'Neil: Wow. And so where did you take off from that? And like through college, you weren't able to play that much after this major back injury and you focus on school or networking. What did that look like? That kind of got you started in the business.
[00:05:42] Scott MacGregor: Yeah, I focused on school, you know, as soon as that was over, I focused on school and really focused on what was I going to do after to make money. And I knew like I wasn't going to be a lawyer. I wasn't going to be an accountant. I wasn't going to be a doctor. So, you know, what were the things that I thought I was, I was probably meant to do and sales for me.
I think I knew that was, that was going to be my path. I had a mentor growing up, Ken green, who I call Papa green vice president of sales. Yeah, he's in, he's in my first book standing. Oh, definitely one of my heroes and he was a mentor to me and I kind of saw, okay. Wow. This is what you can do if you're a genuinely good person, if you value relationships, you know, and if you're a good communicator, both written and verbal, and you know, to me, that was the path that I, that I chose.
[00:06:38] Anne O'Neil: So everyone's got. Motto is people over everything. And we're going to talk about that a lot, even though he's got this awesome art piece behind him that says people over everything, I have one of the t-shirts behind me here and it's just, wow. It's just so simple. Right. Was, so it was Ken, the one who kind of introduced you to that Genesis.
People over everything is, is the overarching, you know, foundation of work. Yeah,
[00:07:03] Scott MacGregor: I definitely, there was a bunch of people in my life that really focused on people and relationships. And I always knew that was kind of, even as an athlete growing up, it's the athletes that make or break the team and in business, it's, it's always your people.
So I got into a leadership role when I was. Relatively young, like in my mid twenties was my first manager role right away. I knew that it was the team that I was going to build that was going to predict my success or my failure. And so it's always been something that I've just been hyper-focused on.
And now. To have the ability to kind of advise companies on their people's strategy, uh, and help hypergrowth startups really kind of live into that is just an incredible blessing.
[00:07:54] Anne O'Neil: I love it. Oh, I love that. I love that so much. I, I want to go back to when you were a CRO. And you were like, Hey, I'm, I'm kinda missing out on the talent strategy.
So let's talk about just at least what that position looks like. And then kind of the development of something.
[00:08:12] Scott MacGregor: Yeah. So I left a fortune 500 company, uh, where I was doing very well. I left to go to a startup and I mean, a startup, five people and people thought I was absolutely out of my mind. I was 29 years old, but more of being kind of the.
Ahead of anything, especially a role that encompass not only sales, but marketing and also client success was really appealing to me. And I thought, Hey, I'm 29. I've got nothing to lose. Even though I did have two kids, a mortgage and a lot of responsibility already at that age. So I, you know, was very, very blessed.
We grew from like five employees to 300 and we had, you know, really substantial success. So. You know, in growing regroup, double digits every single year for 17 straight years, which I tell everybody in the beginning, that's super easy to do as you're starting to grow from 30 to 40 million, et cetera. And you're continuing to grow at that rate.
It's pretty
[00:09:16] Anne O'Neil: difficult. I mean, that's like, that's amazing because so many startups fail. There's like 90% of startups fail. So, you know, to be able to continue to grow.
[00:09:24] Scott MacGregor: But kind of through all of that time, I was relying on recruiters or I was trying to rely on recruiters to help me in that aspect of my job, because I was drinking from a fire hose every day.
So I'm like, oh my God, what could I outsource? And especially 2008, the economy socked, we were hiring like crazy. So every recruiter was calling and wanted our business. And it just, those experiences just honestly felt flat throughout the years. And I thought, man, this is such an important role. Why am I not getting more from these relationships?
So I thought, why don't I build my own mouse trap? And then I really sat on a business plan for many, many years until my wife finally encouraged me to jump off the cliff and be an entrepreneur. I was really. Just the thought of leaving a pretty comfortable salary and income. It almost felt like irresponsible to me to do that, but it was clearly my passion and my wife, Meg was like, you gotta do this, you have to do it so seven and a half years ago, I started a company called something new and yeah.
Easily, best decision ever.
[00:10:45] Anne O'Neil: Yes, I absolutely. And we'll talk about the major successes that something new has had, but you really spoke about something that I kind of want to dive into, even for myself and especially listeners, because you know, right now we live in a culture of hustle and take action and take it right away.
But I really loved learning this about you, Scott, that you sat on this business plan for 10 years. Sometimes I think about Teddy Roosevelt quote, uh, and it's counterintuitive about the man in the arena. And even those for those 10 years, it's almost like there's this contemplate of practice that you're taking before you take action.
And it's just like athletics, you know, you're studying film, you're visualizing, you know, you're doing everything right. When it's time to lay some up it's time to go. And I, and I did look up the definition of contemplation because again, I just feel like this is a piece that sometimes is just skipped over right through action.
And the definition was the action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time and a person who seeks to pass beyond mental images and concepts. To a direct experience. So what did those 10 years look like when, you know, although you're still doing your job and then you're on the weekend, what did that look like when you were kind of developing it and creating it?
Because everything you've created since this time is just insane, attention to detail, and then also has such huge impact with the words, the lettering, the, you know, how you're giving back. What did those 10 years look like when you were.
[00:12:11] Scott MacGregor: You know, it really gave me a great opportunity. It was like having a laboratory almost because I knew eventually at some point I was going to do it.
So every interaction that I had with recruiters or anybody in the talent space or in leaders, Was really meaningful because not only were those practical things for me to be doing at the time, but they were also an indication of like, what's missing, what am I not getting that I wish I got? And then how do I create an offering that will.
You know, solve the problems that I was having. So my entrepreneurial journey has really just literally solved the problems that I had for years and years and years.
[00:12:56] Anne O'Neil: And you have done that. So again, the company is called something new and you just recently won a bigger seventh in a row, the business awards for innovation, which is incredible.
So you had success right from the start. Talk a little bit about that. Once you got that.
[00:13:13] Scott MacGregor: So, you know, I knew we were going to build a different mouse trap. So it started literally with the company name. And I remember telling my wife, I'm going to name this company something new. And she's like, Hmm, that's a, that's an unusual name.
And I thought, you know, we're going to be around for a long time. We're going to have to be innovative because it's one thing to introduce something new to the market, but that gets stale pretty quick. Yeah. So you've got to consistently be dedicated to innovation. And I think that's something that I'm incredibly proud of my team for always leaning into doing things differently.
Never really saying like, okay, this is the way we do it. And that's the only way we're going to do it. I always say I'm married only till one thing. I'm married to mag. That's it? Anything else? So anything else can change. And through that, you know, we've been able to continue to innovate and yeah, it's resulted in a record seven straight American business awards for innovation, which I'm incredibly proud of our team for our company.
[00:14:25] Anne O'Neil: And when you name something like that, something new, you have to be up to big things, you know, you're even setting yourself up for awesome, awesome expectations and, and successes. So, Scott, I have a question. I know you love sports. What's a great analogy you have from your athletic experiences that you've been able to see in the talent space for companies, I'm building communities.
[00:14:48] Scott MacGregor: You know, I mean, from a talent perspective, the things that I'm always looking for in candidates are, you know, work ethic, discipline and resiliency, which if you look at great athletes, they have a great work ethic. They have great discipline and they're very resilient. So, you know, those things are so tightly correlated and, and those are often things that are overlooked in.
Companies looking for talent. Like when I look at job descriptions, if you go on indeed with millions and millions of job descriptions, you really never see work ethic, discipline or resiliency as a job requirement. Yet those are literally the things that are most likely going to produce a great employee and move the needle.
So company. I think unfortunately kind of mistake that they, they think those things are table stakes because when I bring them up to a client and I said, well, what are your thoughts on things that are not so obvious, like experience in a certain industry or five years doing X, Y, or Z. And I talk about those things, like communication skills or empathy, or work ethic or discipline or resiliency, they're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, of course we want.
But when you say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of is code word for, oh, of course we want that. Everyone has that, but you, and I know whether it's athletics or whether it's business, like that's what separates. The Kobe Bryant's from everybody else. That's what separates, you know, great people in business from everybody else.
I'm so it's exceedingly rare to find those attributes in people. So those are, those are things we focus on intense.
[00:16:42] Anne O'Neil: I was looking at the website of like, what, what are we all about? You know, what's our belief. And the very first thing of course is people over everything. But the very first bullet, I like circled it on my notes.
I was like, what we believe in inspire to be the number one bullet point was a company that gives back. Yep. So I, it says our successes do more than build our bank account, being a ring in the ripple that can inspire others to do something good. We believe we can make the world a better place. I mean, Scott, I don't meet very many CEOs or business people that that's their number one belief and foundation for the work.
How did that come up? I know you have other ones, but that is like the number one thing that we talked
[00:17:18] Scott MacGregor: about. It's the most important thing to me. I want to jump out of bed in the morning and be excited about going to work and quite honestly, like making companies more productive or things like that. Yes.
They're they benefit organizations and they do impact people's lives, but it's not as significant as our ability to give back. So from day one, I knew that was going to be the cornerstone of the business. And I really wanted it to be in the company. DNA problem that I ran into is I knew I was also going to bootstrap the company.
So I wasn't going to take outside funding and I thought, oh boy, How am I going to write checks for these organizations that I really believe in, because I don't have the ability to do that because I'm pouring all the money back into the company. And that's where the idea for the books came in. So the standing of series, which is, you know, books of gratitude for life lessons learned, you know, just came from me, trying to figure out how to do that.
And I thought my assets are. I have incredible friends like you who are willing to write chapters of gratitude for a life lesson that they've learned, we'd put it in a book and then we give all the proceeds to charity. So that started with a book called standing, oh, Dick Vermeo wrote the forward to keep Barbara at the cover quote.
And we had, you know, 52 absolutely amazing contributing authors. We're on book, finished book four, we're on book five, which you're going to be in.
[00:18:55] Anne O'Neil: I absolutely loved them there. The impact and the stories. It's almost like you get to own the other people's experience by reading these great stories.
[00:19:02] Scott MacGregor: Yeah, it's so cool.
So yeah, giving back to me, it's just the DNA of our company. And, you know, you don't have to have a model like Toms or Bombas where it's, you know, buy one, give one, you know, you can just be a company that believes in doing good in the world. And, and that's why we produced the ripple report because I, I think, you know, one of the things is that people sometimes think we're not big enough to make an impact.
And what they don't realize is that. All you really need to do is inspire one person. And if anyone's fire one person, hopefully that person will inspire somebody else. And that's the ripple effect. And that's, you know, even though we're a smaller organization, hopefully that we've had a big ripple effect on, on the world and that's at the end of the day, I think that's what changes the world that is, is people collectively joining together to do great that.
[00:20:03] Anne O'Neil: You can't beat that, but I want to keep talking because that was a slight took good line, but I'm, you know, just the foundation of how to go about in the world. So if you guys go to try something new.com, you can also pull up their ripple report, which Scott was talking about. And it has all of these great stats and of people that have contributed to the standing oh books.
And there again, there's four of them and some of the best CEO's Olympians and Navy seals. I mean, anyone that, this is a great story is all around. And then the chapter
[00:20:33] Scott MacGregor: NBA players,
[00:20:34] Anne O'Neil: not Adobe NBA errors. For the next one for the next one. Y'all and then the money I'll, like I said, the donations go to a foundation that we're going to chat about here.
And just minute. So is there a memory or story from one of these books that you've been able to like take with you and you've really been able to kind of embody or one that maybe even surprised you.
[00:20:56] Scott MacGregor: Oh, there's been so many epic chapters written one that stands out for me, that was just written in a different way.
So Mark Brown. Yeah, I know
[00:21:07] Anne O'Neil: mark from BYU, LR, Jesse, it's still yours.
[00:21:13] Scott MacGregor: Trainer. And he played football for the jets is a good friend and he wrote his is called dear football. So we wrote it as a letter to a sport. So it didn't write it to a specific person. He gave his gratitude to a sport. He grew up in Patterson, New Jersey, and he really.
Attributes football for changing his life. It's really what got him a scholarship to Auburn. And then eventually got him in the NFL playing, you know, for the jets. And I thought that was a really unique, impactful chapter. Another friend of mine, captain Todd up wrote his about the spout. He's a 30 year Navy seal.
Men wrote his about the spouses that support, you know, our special operators. And that one was really, really impactful. There's just been, there's 200 and there's just so many. I love them all. So it's like, you know, which of my kids do I love the most. I love them all, but those are just two that, that kind of jumped out.
[00:22:18] Anne O'Neil: Oh, I love both of those, those stories so much in market. I know mark, I've met him again at a weekend for the build your life resume, which Jesse Itzler put on. And he was just an incredible person. I mean, hearing him speak and then watching him on the trails, just awesome. And you know, even on social media, everything that he's about.
So I love that. I'll make sure to read that chapter specifically about him. I was thinking of something you said earlier about the. You only have to inspire or influence one person, which is what you were doing with the standing old books and everything that you're doing through something new with your ways of giving back.
And I really want everybody to listen into that because it's so profound. It only takes one ripple to. Again, speckles of the ripple effect to really impact someone for me personally, that's why I started to get busy living podcasts. You know, it was, you know, the good vibes, the growth mindset and giving back.
And when I would get a DM or a text from someone just real quick, We introduced Joey, Mick McAdams again, and I got a text from, um, one of my friends who was like, this really made a difference because I'm dealing with blended family. And I really wanted to know how to create that powerfully. Like joy does enjoy as a blended family with five kids.
And so that really made a difference. She was like that, that conversation, I was like, let's make an introduction, you know? And I was like, oh, and I went on a walk that night. All if that's the only thing that comes of this podcast, I'm like so happy and it's been great because I've had other people just message me, but it's so great.
How you kind of create something and the one person that's all it matters if they have a little bit of impact.
[00:23:53] Scott MacGregor: Yeah. I think so often, like people don't do things because they. They want the impact to be too great. So it's like, oh, I'm not going to post this on social media because I'm not going to get enough likes or I'm not going to do a podcast because I'm only going to get this many downloads or I'm not going to, you know, write that book because it's not going to sell that much or whatever.
We have all this kind of head trash around that when in reality, it's that, that one relationship, that one person that you're going to impact that. Can change everything. And that's why for me, relationships are so important. I'm not trying to collect, like have the biggest network of people. I'm trying to have the most genuine relationships.
And that's why I pour a lot into the relationships that I have because they mean so much to me. And they can make such a huge impact on your life.
[00:24:52] Anne O'Neil: I I'm already so grateful that I got to meet you in the, in the three months. And, you know, having you here in conversation, I have all these great books. I've got so many awesome stickers.
The people I've met that I already feel the impact. It's almost like I can feel the way if you know, it's bigger than a ripple for me, of who you are in the world. And you know who joy is and the people that are in this community, it is really, you can feel that that realness and that vibration through people.
And then, you know, I was thinking about the one person of impact and that when I was in high school, I do remember some of the games. So playing basketball, maybe you maybe have this as a football guy or a baseball guy. I'd love to hear your take. Maybe we were playing a team that wasn't really great. And we knew we were going to win, like, you know, the game, most likely if we played half decent.
Right. And I remember being in the ups, you know, where I was getting ready to play. And I'm like, What I would look as I was looking around the stands, you know, in my high school gym, which I had practiced, you know, hundreds of thousands of hours in just by myself, but it was always fun to play in front of people.
And it was like, what if someone is here for the very first time to watch me and this team perform? And so I always. If it's just one person that can take something away from this game, even if we were supposed to win or whoever I played, I was like, I'm going to play my hardest because there might just be one person.
So I think of that as well, just as a little like kind of closure of you just never know my
[00:26:14] Scott MacGregor: impact. Very cool. I don't think I was that profound at that age, but yeah, that's a very cool mindset that. You know?
[00:26:23] Anne O'Neil: Yeah. Because you know, you're going to go out there. How can you create something that's bigger than yourself?
Which right now we can jump into that, which has the main tagline of this podcast is what inspires you to be bigger than yourself. And so for me, you know, in high school, I always thought of, Hey, you just never know. Who's out there watching and what impact they can take away from the game or how I high five or how I cheer.
If I'm on the bench, you know, there's lots of different things. People are always watching.
[00:26:49] Scott MacGregor: I was always a maximum effort, kind of a guy. So I actually wound up getting injured a bunch in high school, playing football and like COVID. It was a hall of fad, played for two hall of fame coaches, which was pretty cool.
But one of my coaches, Steve Filippone would say like, you know, you practice so hard, you're practicing. Like it's a game. Like that's why you're getting hurt all the time, but I like kind of one speed and I'm going to put everything. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to put everything in.
[00:27:21] Anne O'Neil: Absolutely. And you know, that go, that kind of circles back to the part of the business plan that you're waiting on for 10 years.
Cause you knew once you made that decision, you were going to be at full steam ahead with something new and, and look at the successes brought you and you are that kind of a person, whether it's writing the books, creating the books or the talent champions council. So I'd love to kind of talk a little bit about that because this, this community.
It's kind of blown my mind, to be honest in the very short amount of time for two months that I've been there. So this is going to be one of those things that I definitely want other people to engage in and hopefully sign up for. So tell us a little bit about the Genesis of the talent champions council.
[00:28:01] Scott MacGregor: So it goes back to late August. Early September, 2020, my wife and I just kind of wanted to get away peak COVID time. And we're like, we got to get out of Dodge. Where can we go? That we've never been before. And we had always heard great things about Charleston, South Carolina. So we're like, okay, let's go to Charleston, South Carolina, which is like a 14 hour drive.
So we drive down. And we have an incredible time, even though going there late August, like weather-wise very dumb.
He admitted he was insane.
[00:28:43] Anne O'Neil: Don't come to Miami and August sun.
[00:28:44] Scott MacGregor: Exactly. So in our drive back, I was saying to bag, you know, we were talking about my business, something new and I'm like, I love it. It gives me the ability to give back. It gives me the ability to help people, but. It's not overly scalable. Like we can only work with like, maybe about a hundred companies a year.
We're pretty tapped out at that point. So I was trying to figure out like, how can I give back more and how can I help more people? And it just dawned on me how I didn't think of this earlier. I have no idea, but I'm like, well, all the companies that we're working with and helping them with their people's strategy.
They're just made up of individual leaders that really need this help. So why don't I try to start a. Private membership community and we'll teach all of those leadership principles in kind of that people over everything mantra to try to get people, to level up their games and understand that people are going to make or break your success.
And help people with all those things that I'll bring in. You know, people from pro sports, people from the military, who I actually think do talent way better than corporate America. And that's how the talent champions council got born. So literally I came back to the office. This is early September, 2012.
And I said to my team, we're going to start a private membership community. And they were like, oh my God, like, what is cause we're already. So, and we got it up and running in a month or two. And you know, we're a year, a little over, you know, a year plus in, and we have 500 members in 29 countries. We put on 140 live interactive events a year.
With amazing people and it's just so much fun. Absolutely love it.
[00:30:45] Anne O'Neil: It, so there's 500 members so far in just a short amount of time. And I got to say so, and you said there's 140 live events when we have speakers coming in, you know, coming in and. I've been on at least three of them. And I've been absolutely blown away by the things that, you know, the conversations that come up, like questions that are asked and the takeaways that I can have for myself.
I can't recommend this highly enough. And you know, you'll also get all these cool patches and stickers and that, but the community, it is a lot of it's. Everyone is supporting each other and what they're up to and really kind of. Just having everyone's back. It does feel like almost an athletic team or like you cited maybe the military or, you know, the Navy seals where everyone's helping each other really kind of accomplish a goal or, you know, talking the same kind of growth mindset language.
We've
[00:31:35] Scott MacGregor: had guests that have come on and some of these folks. Very very prominent, you know, very well known the Brandy chess stains of the world, Dick for mail, just a lot of really prominent people. And, and I think they've all been pretty impressed that our community is super engaged. They're really, really engaged and.
Everybody just wants to help each other. So it's, it's been just a ton of fun. We've got some incredible events coming up. We've got Joe fosters, the founder of Reebok 87 years old. He's an absolute legend. We've got him coming on with Meredith Vieira. Who's a legendary broadcaster coming on, Kristine Lilly all the time.
Great soccer players. So all, all coming to talk about different facets
[00:32:24] Anne O'Neil: of bleeding. And everyone listening. So these, these conversations that he just talked about, the brand new trust stains, Meredith Vieira, these are happening live on zoom, and you actually have face-to-face time with them to ask questions and have interaction.
I can't recommend it highly enough. And there's also like a book club. There's other conversations around it. And the community is for anyone who believes that people are a company's greatest assets, just real quick about the talent champions council. I was wondering Scott, cause you get to interview all these people like.
Yep. For at least the first 30 minutes. And then it's open for 30 minutes of the Q and a. What have you discovered newly by sitting in there and having these conversations and, or end, or just creating the talent champions council? Is there something that you've discovered newly about yourself?
[00:33:10] Scott MacGregor: The that I have a lot to learn that's for sure.
So everybody that comes on, I always wind up with like these aha moments where they say something that just like stops you in your tracks. And as somebody who's kind of a voracious reader and listens to podcasts and really tries to do a lot in self-development it's, it's so cool to have those personal.
You know, interactions with them. A lot of the people, most of the people, I would say that, that come on or are friends of mine. So I know them personally, but even, even then, it's kind of cool to have people say something that you go, wow, I've never heard that before. I'd never thought of it that way. So yeah.
I'm constantly reminded that, you know what, we're always learning. There's always room for growth and you know, no one person has all the answers. And that's, what's so cool about a community, is that all 500 members have something really valuable to contribute. I love
[00:34:13] Anne O'Neil: that. You know, you just touched upon a big point that I think we both have in common, which is that growth mindset.
Even when I do research for these podcasts, or I already know someone a little bit. There's always something new to discover, you know, like a new way of saying something a new way, like of, of a lens to look at a situation that someone brings to my attention. I'm like, I've never even thought of it that way, you know?
And I absolutely love the conversations that we've had in the talent champions council, but it's one of those mindsets that you can always be growing and always be looking at something newly, like. You know, the curiosity, the one thing that might just work is right around the corner from where you were already looking, you know, do, do you have a definition of growth mindset I've said on here?
I'm not sure if I've said it on this podcast, but I've been interviewed before that my, my personal definition of growth mindset is, you know, what's the best thing that can happen here. You know, where a lot of people are like, oh, but what if that one bad thing goes wrong? And so that's kind of how I've always looked at like, you know, life through.
Clear colored lens of anything can happen. I can create anything out of this anything's possible. So what is growth mindset for you if you had to define it? Uh, that's
[00:35:22] Scott MacGregor: a great question to me. It's like constant curiosity. I'm just so curious. Like, I love to ask questions as many times that on a podcast, like, I don't really like.
Talk. I like to listen and it's funny, but my wife will say like, there are times I'm at a party or something, and I really don't say a word I'm just kind of listening and taking everything in. So I'm just super curious. I love getting to really know people and understand what's important to them. What makes them tick?
And I learned so much, so to me, like growth mindset is. It's just that constant curiosity that hopefully we all have about. And that's why people have asked, how did you build this network of, you know, people that are so interesting because it doesn't matter to me whether it's sports, art, any domain that somebody is exceptional in.
I'm like, that is so cool. It's so interesting to figure out, like, how did you become the best at this? That story to me is always fascinating. So I'm constantly curious to figure those
[00:36:37] Anne O'Neil: things. Oh my gosh, Scott, I think this is hilarious because I have on my notes, I'm like, what is Scott insanely curious about?
And so maybe you're just curious about curiosity, like what what's possible. What's out there.
[00:36:52] Scott MacGregor: It's really people's stories. It's who they are. And it's, uh, I dunno, I love building relationships. There's nothing like it. I'm not looking for the most followers. I'm looking for real relationships. Like, I love the relationship that we built.
Like it's what I get a text from you. I'm like, ah, this is going to be a good day. Like it's
[00:37:16] Anne O'Neil: just, oh man. Absolutely. I feel the same way. I literally feel the same way. I was so excited to be able to talk with you. Wait, I'll tell you a quick story, because you said you were somebody that listens a lot in, you know, group dynamics or you love to ask questions.
I could feel the synergy right away, you know, between us. So I got to tell you a story all through my life, people were. You know, you ask a lot of questions. And when I moved to Florida, I didn't know anybody. So I moved to Fort Lauderdale eight years ago without knowing anyone. And I just kind of went to a couple of places and started talking to people and I got invited out to different events.
And that was when I was like, I'm saying yes to everything because I need to meet some needs of the community here. And I would ask a ton of questions and they're like, oh, you're the new question, master girl. And so they kind of would say that back and forth. I was like, Well, I wasn't really interested in your story.
Like, where are you from? How did you end up in Florida? Like, what are you, you know, what are you interested in here? Honestly, that's also where the podcast came from is because I really like hanging out with people and asking a lot of questions, you know, and seeing all their research, their story. So I just knew that we had that synergy and I wanted to share that real quickly because I was like, I love it.
Let's talk right there on that moment. What inspires them to be bigger than themselves. So it's my favorite part to talk about, even though we've touched upon it during the standing out the talent champions, council and something new, but we have to talk about these incredible non-profits that you support Scott.
And I mean, there's so many when I wrote you the email, I'm like, I've never seen a list of this many nonprofits that someone has supported throughout their careers. So let's just touch upon that. If you want to start out first with the look for the good person.
[00:38:54] Scott MacGregor: Absolutely amazing organization. And Kubicki is a, is a fantastic friend.
How she gets as much done as she gets done is absolutely beyond me. I think she works like 24 7. So it's really about teaching kids gratitude and kindness in schools. And she's put together an unbelievable curriculum. She's rolling out some new stuff, which I don't think I'm probably supposed to talk about.
So I want. I mean spectacular, literally spectacular. So it was really fun. She was in my second book and we actually gave all the proceeds to standing along core to the look for the good
[00:39:37] Anne O'Neil: project. Amazing. Look look for the good project.org. Let me tell you their mission. Our mission is to improve the lives of children by giving them access to social, emotional learning program, which develops healthy self-esteem.
And if you guys go to look for the good project.org, you'll see all these cool videos, they have gratitude spots for all these kids in elementary schools. And what I found interesting watching those videos. You know, definitely the kids were happy and really full of gratitude, but listening to the teachers and principals at the schools and the parents, you could see that their world had transformed because of the look for the good project and what they were doing.
And over 35 states and communities.
[00:40:22] Scott MacGregor: Yeah. It's uh, the work they do is, is unbelievable. So choosing the charity for each book is kind of a really special. Practice for us as we really try to figure out like, who, who can we serve? Who can we help? Who can we shine a really bright spotlight on? And it's just been phenomenal.
[00:40:44] Anne O'Neil: I absolutely love that. They've, they've taught over 250,000 children and I was just inspired. I even bought even bought Ann's book last night on Amazon, because it was like, learn how a humpback whale inspired thousands of people to look for the good. And if you bring up any kind of animal psychology, I'm like, I'm buying that book.
I need to know about this humpback whale. I need to know where it all started. So she looks like an amazing person. That's had so much impact over the time. And Scott, I saw you also have a couple of other non-profits that will definitely be putting in the show notes that you're inspired by. Can you talk a little bit about them?
I see warrior rising special operations warrior foundation, elevate New York. Just touch upon those as well. Cause we'll definitely make sure to highlight.
[00:41:30] Scott MacGregor: Yeah. So the first book that I put out, we actually gave the money and highlighted two, one was called coupon playing, which is run by a really good friend of mine.
Marnie Schneider Marnie's mom was the first GM first and only GM in the NFL. Uh, Susan Spencer. She was the general manager for the Philadelphia Eagles. Uh, and Marnie's grandfather let her toasts was the owner of the Eagles. So Marnie is a, is a great friend and runs keep on playing and then elevate New York.
I used to be the chairman of the board, uh, for elevate New York is run by Kevin Singleton and as a program, uh, embedded into the school in the south Bronx in New York just does incredible work. So it was, I was really excited to. Support them special operations warrior foundation is the non-profit that we supported from a book called standing of salute, which is all military.
And, uh, the special operations warrior foundation helps support the children of special operators who have passed away or been severely wounded in, in the line of duty. Blankets of hope is an amazing organization run by Mike and Nick via Rita. And doing incredible work to not only help kids in school.
So what happens is children in school write notes, uh, that go with the blankets that are given to the homeless. So it really is this really cool. Virtuous circle that they've created. And then warrior rising is the nonprofit that we're supporting with the book that you're going to be in a, which is standing on or, and standing on, or will be out October, November of this year, where your rising is run by.
One of our board members for the TCC Jason Ben camp. Uh, Jason's a west point grad played football at army green, Baret decorated green Baret and runs, warrior rising. And another company called mission six zero.
[00:43:35] Anne O'Neil: I know you guys probably couldn't keep up with all of them. They it's just amazing. All of the different impact you're able to have, you know, and if you listen to that, a lot of it was about giving back between all of what, you know, these organizations are doing and also gratitude, you know, having a lot of, thanks for everything.
And I know your, you mentioned your two sons briefly, but you they're in the military right now. I just want to make sure I said thank you for their service, because I know that that's being a military family is, is a hard thing.
[00:44:04] Scott MacGregor: Yeah, so that they're out of the military now, believe it or not. But my oldest son was a Marine and my youngest son was 82nd airborne.
So your military life is, is crazy when you see it upfront and personal. And you know, I've got lots and lots of friends that are in the military and I have just absolutely. To say I have enormous respect is an understatement, um, for the sacrifices that that they've made. It's just incredible.
[00:44:35] Anne O'Neil: So you've continued to keep growing with that growth mindset and know creating a new iteration of yourself.
What does that evolution look like for you in a couple of years from now, or, and building out your legacy? Is there something you want to do next to something new or, you know, how do you want to keep growing?
[00:44:54] Scott MacGregor: Yeah. You know what? I'm not a big, like five-year ten-year plan person. I kind of believe in living into the answers.
So I think one of the beauties of having the. Incredible relationships with amazing people is you have no idea where it's going to take you. So I kind of just let things happen naturally. I mean, I'm super passionate about something new. I'm very passionate about the talent champions council. I'm really passionate about giving back, um, the boards that I'm on and other things like that.
So I don't know, just keep growing those businesses and see, see where it
[00:45:33] Anne O'Neil: takes. That honestly is one of the best answers. I love that because it's kind of like the magnetism and the vibration, the energy that you speak about often is that there is something out there and the more that you're giving back, the more that you're connecting with great people, the more of those answers kind of show up for themselves.
[00:45:52] Scott MacGregor: Right? Yeah. I think too often, You know, people try to figure out what's going to happen at the end of the game. And they take that too. When it comes to relationships. I think a lot of people think, well, why am I going to invest in this relationship? Because I'm not sure how it's going to pay off monetarily.
Maybe for me. I never think that way. I just think is this an interesting person that I would love to get to know, and then I'm going to invest in them. And I know that any success that I've had in life, I kind of stand in these spots and go, how the hell did I get here? And I, when I reverse engineer it, it's this crazy circuitous path that took me there that if I had bought, how is this relationship going to benefit me?
I would have never imagined, you know, how that would have transpired. But, so I think you just have to kind of live into some of those.
[00:46:52] Anne O'Neil: I absolutely love that reverse engineering is one of like the foundational principles of my life, of what's out there. And it's, and it's also kind of like that Steve jobs quote that he had in the Stanford commencement speech, it's like, you can't connect the dots going forward.
You can only connect them when you look backwards. You know? So I love that. Well, I got to say, this has been just an amazing conversation. I love to call you my friend and I'm so honored that you're here.
[00:47:19] Scott MacGregor: Oh, I could, this is been so much fun. What a way to spend the day chatting with you? I could literally, I could talk to you all day, so I appreciate it.
[00:47:36] Anne O'Neil: Well, thank you so much for listening to our conversation. If you have a GBL story in your life, share it with me on Instagram at get busy. Underscore pod. I might just share your story on a future episode. Thank you for sharing in the good vibes and giving back. And GBL in with us.