Choose Scary - That's where magic happens with Tom Scarda: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:28Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. Whatever you choose, your choice is always going down to uncertainty and unhappiness. Choose uncertainty. And there's no way to get past fear. The only way is to embrace it and understand the ramifications and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Tom and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.

1:08Tom, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, hello, everyone out there. And I am really excited about embracing fear and failure. And people like failure, yes, absolutely embrace it. Failure is what we need to embrace, especially Fire Nation in this episode. The title Choose Scary because that's when the magic happens. And as I mentioned in the introduction, we are going to be talking about a lot of failure, specifically Tom's. So let's start with your backstory. Give us all the dirt, Tom, but don't get too deep into that failure thing we'll talk about in a minute.

1:53Yeah, absolutely. So I started as a New York City subway conductor as my first career. And I was the guy opening and closing doors, if you ever rode the subway in New York, making the announcements that were really inaudible back then. And one day an old timer said to me, hey, kid, this is a great job. You'll always have a shirt on your back. You'll never have a silk shirt, but at least you'll have a shirt. And I was like, wait a second. That sounds like mediocrity to me. And I was only 24 at the time. And I looked around. My bosses were not wearing the metaphorical silk shirts. And I realized business owners were.

2:27I knew I needed to be a business owner. Didn't know how. I was a government guy. And I read a lot of books, went to seminars, and realized that a franchise is a business with train wheels. and I decided back in 2000 to buy my first franchise, got into it, built it within five years, sold it and semi-retired at 41 years old. Wow. It was amazing embracing all the stuff that everybody told me not to do. Just keep the job, keep the pension. Are you crazy quitting a government job? And I did it anyway and it was awesome. We decided to buy a second franchise and it failed miserably. We lost almost our entire life savings.

3:09But that's what made me a business expert and a franchise expert was going through that debacle. And so my mission is to help people not be afraid of it and just embrace it and let the chips fall where they may because it's going to be much better than where you are today. And Fire Nation, I know we're resonating with Tom's story because we all have that first job, that second job of, you know, us at 16, 20, 24 years old in Tom's case, when maybe we looked around and said, you know what? This is a good job, and I don't not like it, but I maybe don't want to do this for the rest of my life. What's the next step?

3:42And as you have alluded to, Tom, you failed big time in business. So now let's really dive into that. Tell us the backstory behind that second franchise, like kind of build up, like why? How did it come across your plate? Why did you go into it? What excited you about it? And then, of course, why did it fail so miserably? And then, of course, the lessons learned. Yeah, for sure. And there's a lot to talk about. But, you know, I'll give the bridge version. So I sold that franchise, the first one, as I said, in 2005. And in 2006, I was sitting around smoking cigars. My wife is a New York City police sergeant at the time.

4:22She was getting ready to retire in 2007. And she read in a magazine about this particular franchise called Super Suppers, which was a make and take concept, meaning that you come to our location, make meals, follow our recipes, use our ingredients. It was a Tuscan kitchen. It was beautiful. And you make these meals in bulk, take them home and freeze them. On days when you're busy, instead of ordering in pizza again, you can actually have one of these home-cooked meals that you made with your own hands, done on the table in like 20 minutes. So it was like a working mom's dream. This was like great.

4:55And here I am, I'm walking on water. I mean, I just sold a business. I'm sitting on a diet. I'm hanging out. I'm like, you know, American dream. I've done it all. And, you know, sometimes when that happens, you get humbled. And so we got into this business and it started out with a bang, John. I mean, people, even the New York Times said that we were changing the way America eats the way McDonald's did 50 years earlier. I was like, man, we're going to be billionaires. within less than two years, we were out of business and lost almost our entire life savings. And this was kind of the first lesson was, you know, don't go into something that has zero market.

5:36Unless you have a lot of money and a lot of time, we didn't know if this would work. Nobody had done anything like this before. And so that was kind of the first lesson. You got to get into something where there's kind of a niche, but not something that has never been done before. And so that's lesson one. The other lesson that we learned right off the bat was you can't change people's habits. Again, unless you have a lot of time and money, especially when it comes to food, you just can't change people's habits. And that's what we were trying to do. So people came and they tried it once and everything was great and people high-fived and it was awesome.

6:14But then we would never see them again. And that was not cool. And that, Fire Nation, is a recipe for disaster. Now, let's be honest, Tom. Fear of the unknown, that's something that stops a lot of people from ever even taking a chance. So let's talk to our listeners here, Fire Nation, who are entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, side hustlers. How do we get past fear? And this is like a question of the ages. And I have found after reading probably every book on fear and even wrote one myself called The Magic of Choosing Uncertainty. Nice. I found that you cannot get past fear. There's no way to get past it.

6:55The only way is to embrace it and understand the ramifications. It's like everything that you fear, I can't say everything, but majority of things never come to pass anyway. You're up at night fretting and, oh, my God, what if, what if, what if? And meanwhile, it doesn't happen anyway. So this kind of you learn, you know, as you go through life, as you get older, you realize, well, none of that stuff really happened. So I just wasted my time. And you got to have a real compelling reason to embrace change, right? And most people don't. And I don't know if you ever heard the phrase. I'm sure you have.

7:37when one door closes, another window opens. I have found in my career that when I chose to close the door, a million windows opened. It gives you opportunity, and there's no science behind it. That's the problem. We can't put it on paper and say, well, here's the mathematical equation that's going to say if you do this, you do this, you're going to be successful. No, it's really having faith. When you have faith, magical things happen, but you just have to face it and just run head into it with, of course, doing research. Don't get me wrong. You're not just jumping in, but you got to do your research.

8:15But don't let the naysayers stop you and all the things that the teachers and the preachers tell you not to do. Whatever they tell you not to do, do the opposite. That's what I say. So Fire Nation, I mean, I hope you're really understanding that Tom is pulling from all of these experiences that he's had all of these years, from his successes, from his failures, from his struggles, obstacles, challenges, and everything in between. And that's how we learn. And we're going to be talking about all of this and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Senator Cynthia Lummis recently announced that funding for a U.S.

8:51strategic Bitcoin reserve can start anytime. This is a massive step forward for a strategic crypto stockpile. And no surprise, was soon followed by a new all-time high for Bitcoin. If you're looking to buy more Bitcoin, BitIRA can help. In fact, BitIRA will help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into Bitcoin. This also allows you to buy Bitcoin using pre-tax funds, then continue to invest in it over time as you do any other retirement account. And if you want, you can even add XRP, Ethereum, or other cryptos. Bit IRA protects your assets with end-to-end insurance, highly secure storage, multi-encryption, and is registered with the US government.

9:32Your IRA is fully IRS compliant. Best of all, you can trade crypto within your retirement account without incurring taxes on any buys or sells. Just go to bitira.com slash JLD and request a free info guide. Once you do that and open your IRA, you'll get a free ledger. Think about this. In March, President Trump signed an executive order for the treasury to manage 200 ,000 Bitcoin as the foundation for a reserve. That's just the foundation. Go to bitira.com slash JLD to open a tax sheltered IRA in Bitcoin. For entrepreneurs like you and me, cashflow isn't just another line item. It's everything.

10:16And if you're trying to manage it without a clear view of what's coming in and what's going out, it can feel like you're flying blind. That's when decisions get delayed, bills sneak up on you, and opportunities slip through the cracks. That's why so many businesses rely on Intuit QuickBooks. QuickBooks has powerful money management tools built right in, giving you real-time insights into your cash flow so you can always know where you stand and when to act. Plus, it makes paying vendors, managing 1099s, and gearing up for tax season simple. With QuickBooks, say goodbye to manual bill entry and cut tedious work in half.

10:47Their automated tools help you spend less time chasing invoices and get you paid up to four times faster. Transform your cash flow and your business. Check out QuickBooks Money Tools today. Learn more at quickbooks.com slash money. Again, that's quickbooks.com slash money. Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments, Inc., licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business, and they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack.

11:29Seriously, think ClickFunnels, Calendly, MailChimp, Kajabi, and even your CRM all rolled up into one powerful white label solution. You can build funnels, send SMS and email campaigns, schedule appointments, manage pipelines, run memberships, and even launch your own branded mobile app. It's drag and drop simple, incredibly customizable, and built for serious growth. My favorite part, you can resell high level under your own brand. That means recurring revenue, loyal clients, and total control. So whether you're tired of duct taping tools together or ready to start offering high value services with ease, high level is your unfair advantage.

12:05On top of it all, their support team is second to none and has your back every step of the way, seriously, every question that pops up, they will have your answer waiting. And if you visit my special partnership link, you'll get a free trial. So visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial and see why thousands of businesses are switching. That's highlevelfire.com where marketing, sales, and automation finally come together. High level, join the revolution. So Tom, I'm sure you've heard of this quote. It's a Jim real quote about how you're the average of the five people you surround yourself with.

12:40And that's, you know, in real life, that could even be authors of books that you're reading, you know, podcasts, hosts, you know, whatever it might be. Who inspires you? I have like the average answer, you know, all these great entrepreneurs that have gone before me, but actually who really inspires me the most is my wife. And it's a real quick story that I'd love to share. So she was like literally a New York city police sergeant. And when she was getting ready to retire and we were starting up that super suffers business, she wanted to do something that really scared her. So she took a standup comedy class and she, you know, we lived in New York, we lived in Long Island at the time and she took this class and she was pretty good at it.

13:27And the, um, the teachers at that class said, Hey, you should come back and do another session with us and instead of having five minutes of material, give you 10 minutes. And she did. And she was really, she got really honed the skill. She was really good at it. And she's not a class clown, but she's really good, you know, in front of a mic, I guess. And she entered it, you know, on a whim entered into a contest to the Long Island's funniest comedian and she won it. And then, you know, we came to the point where it was like, oh my God, we're like kind of going out of business here. We were having this debacle with the business.

14:04And she had an opportunity to actually go back to the police department after she retired and have the same position with the same salary and everything. And we sat there and contemplated it. And she said, you know what, let me try this dream, this comedy thing. And we did. And just literally four days after she did that she got a random phone call from some lady who saw her on the internet and said i would like you to join our comedy troupe called the italian chicks and we we uh travel around the you know north america including canada and we do and she did that for 11 years now she's doing she was on last comic standings you know she did all that stuff now she's in movies she's on tv shows you Nobody big.

14:51She's not anybody that you would know, but she is following her dream. But when you look back in that moment of time when everybody said, we should just go back to the job, forget about entrepreneurship, forget about following your dream, we decided to do the opposite of what everybody said. And it worked out just magnificently. I love that story. I'm really glad you took the time to share that because to me, Fire Nation, that just speaks so valiantly about just putting a stake in the sand at some point in your life and saying, what is something I actually want to do? Not have to do for next month's rent check or X, Y, or Z, but something that I actually want to do that, yes, it's scary.

15:37Yes, it's the unknown. but man even if I can achieve some level of success like Tom's wife that man I mean how good of an alternative is that now if Fire Nation wanted to find anything about your wife does she have a YouTube channel does she have any social media they could check out well yeah she um you know Instagram her name is Gina G-I-N-A and says same last name is mine Skarta so Gina Skarta and And yes, and now she's like writing a one-woman play. Oh, cool. All this stuff that she's doing. And she's a cop. Right. She didn't go to school for anything special. She has like an associate's degree from a local community college.

16:20Yeah, but you know what she has? She has life experience. She's experienced things. She's lived life. And she's looking to tell her story. So check her out, Fire Nation, Gina Scarda, S-C-A-R-D-A. Give her a follow on Instagram, look at some of the things she's doing. And who knows, maybe you might be in a position in a location at some point to check out what she has going on. And let's, you know, continue to, let's just continue to congratulate people who took that leap. And something I do want to talk about, Tom, is life savings. I mean, you hear people talk about it like, oh man, this is my life savings.

16:57This is my life savings. It's like this thing that, you know, if you don't have that, that you're essentially going going to be under a bridge roasting rats on a fire to survive. People are terrified of losing their life savings. So break it down for us. What actually does happen if we lose our life savings? Yeah, you know what? The answer is nothing. Nothing happens. You got to go get a job that you're going to hate, probably. And you're going to pay back the bill, pay back the loan, pay back whomever lent you the money, whatever it is. That's the extent of it. I mean, you could go the whole route of bankruptcy and all of that.

17:34I don't recommend that at all because that sort of follows you around for your whole life. But you just need to go pay the loan, whatever it is. And it sucks. Nobody likes to lose money. Believe me, I was crying back then, literally. And now I look back at it as a blessing. Yeah, and sometimes it's not even as far as paying back the loan because sometimes you just went to zero. And so now it's like, okay, I'm at zero. I'm starting from scratch. I got to go get a job, put some money in the bank. Let's do at bat number two. at bat number three. I mean, think about it, Fire Nation. If a professional baseball player gets up to the plate and gets three hits out of 10, which means seven times out of 10, they're walking back to the dugout, they're an all-star.

18:15That's an all-star right there. So don't think that when you miss your first swing and maybe you do go to zero at some point in your life that you can't get back up and swing again. And Tom's a perfect example of that. So Tom, we've talked about a lot of great things today. What's one big takeaway that you want to make sure Fire Nation gets? What's one thing that we can maybe learn from? I know you mentioned a book that you have, maybe talk more about that, how Fire Nation can learn more about what you have going on. And again, this one big takeaway from today's episode. Yeah, thank you. So the I mean, the takeaway is that you have nothing to lose.

18:52You know, you came into the world with nothing and you're going to leave with nothing. And by the way, you are already a winner. Right. It was it was a great you probably heard this before, but a great mentor of mine, a gentleman by the name of Bo Eason, says that what happens on the day of conception? right when when you were conceived this is kind of a weird thing to think about for a second people don't like to think about it a lot of times but there was three million you know whatever 300 million sperm right and and you won the race there was only one mission was to right penetrate the egg and you won so you're already a winner you got nothing to lose man it's it's like that's the thing.

19:34And again, I'll say that there's no mathematical formula. I can't say, you know, do this and you're going to be successful. At the end of the day, every choice that you have, whether it's what college to go to or what town to live in or what person to marry or, you know, whatever it is or what business to choose, your choices comes down to the choice between uncertainty or unhappiness. Most people choose unhappiness and they put up with the crap. You don't have to. You really don't have to. So choose uncertainty. That's where magic happens. And you will thank yourself in years to come when you're sitting on a rocking chair saying, I should have, I would have.

20:16You don't want to be in that position. No regrets. I love that. And Bo Eason, I'm glad you brought his name up. Such a great dude. I've read a lot of his books. He's been a guest on Entrepreneurs on Fire where, of course, he crushed it because that's what he does. But I think that's a fantastic way to end this interview is by talking about the fact that you have the choice, Fire Nation. Do you want to choose uncertainty or do you want to choose unhappiness? It's truly your choice. So, Tom, what's the best way that we can connect with you? Any call to action you might have for our listeners? And then we'll say goodbye.

20:47Yeah, absolutely. And if anybody wants to get in touch with me, you know, my website is just TomSkarta.com. You know, by day, I'm actually a franchise consultant. I match people with franchise opportunities, helping them not make the mistakes that I made. I've been doing that for 17 years. I have several books out there. It's all on my website. So TomScarter.com podcast, you know, the whole nine yards, you know how it is. Getting it out there, just making sure that people get out of their shell, choose uncertainty, make magic happen. Don't be that person that's going to confront ghosts of all the things that you should have done.

21:23It's not a good scene. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with TS and JLD today, so keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com, type Tom, T-O-M, in the search bar. His show notes page will pop right up. Please do visit tomskarta.com. Check out everything he has going on there from the books to everything else he has. And Tom, thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

22:2210 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs. And you can get it all in one place when you visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. And I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software, say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today.