Why Talented People Fail and Tenacious People Don't (The U2 Roadie Who Proved It)

0:00A psychologist once told today's guest that it would be easier for him to grab a red-hot stove and hold on than to actually try at anything. That was the diagnosis, an extreme fear of failure. He flunked out of college. He waited tables at a Highway Howard Johnson's. Then, a U2 tour bus rolled into the parking lot and changed everything. Scott Scoville quit his jobs, sold his car, and spent five weeks living in a pickup truck, sneaking into U2 shows with a fake pass, working for free. Three years later, he was on tour with the Rolling Stones, the biggest tour in the world. Today, he runs video for the biggest names in country music he just opened for Brad Paisley in Norway, and he wrote a book called Tenacious with contributions from Garth Brooks, Peter Frampton, and Alan Jackson.

0:54This episode is about the one trait every one of those names credits for their success. It is not talent. This is The Vault Unlocked. Let's unlock it.

1:14This is a story about tenacity. How about a young man who traveled and chased you two across the country, ended up on stages and opening up for Brad Prasley. I'm excited to hear this story because I think everybody needs to hear it. Today, we're going behind the vault about how you can make your dreams come true. Scott, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to the show. It is so good to be here. So I can't wait. Where do we begin? Well, I guess we can begin at rock bottom. That's a great place to start any story, right? As a kid, I barely graduated high school. My teachers literally got together with me and said, we think we're going to push you out.

2:07I went on to college. I flunked out of college. And at that same time, I was diagnosed with such an extreme fear of failure. my psychologist said it would be easier for you to grab a red hot stove and hang on and maim yourself than to actually try. Powerful, crazy diagnosis, but it felt right. Every time I tried to do my homework, I'd end up in tears. I just couldn't apply myself. And that put me in a pretty dark place because my fear of failure had me flunking out of college, had me actually failing. It was manifesting my worst fear. and I end up waiting tables at Howard Johnson's on the side of the highway, not my dream job.

2:48And I wasn't even a very good waiter, but this amazing tour bus rolls in with a space shuttle painted on the side of it. And I'm like, I want to wait on them. I honestly thought they worked for NASA. Like why the space shuttle? I didn't know what a tour bus was. I was really disappointed when they walked off the bus and they all were wearing black and had long hair. I'm like, they don't look like they work for NASA, but I took their drink orders and said, why the bus? And one of them in the thickest of Irish accents goes, we work for the band, you too. We put on the show. That blew my mind. And I had a million questions.

3:23And I'm like, I don't understand. How can you work for the band, you too? What do you mean? I would have thought you had to be Bono's cousin to do that. And the guy in charge laughs and he goes, Scott, seven of us are the very best in the world at what we do. We put on the show, the lights, the sound, and he puts his arm around the guy next to him and goes, and this is AJ. Jay, he's Bono's cousin. And so everyone starts laughing and they revealed to me a world that was incredible. And finally, after a million questions, they said, we have to go. Why don't you just come to the next show and we'll answer more of your questions?

3:58Yes. So I go to that show. I have a million more questions. I'm so fascinated about it. They introduced me to Bono and Edge and I was more interested in their career that I had discovered than the fact that I just met two of my heroes. I was like, what? Lights went out. Crowd went nuts. I'm standing in the middle of 15 ,000 screaming fans and I had a paradigm shift. This is what you're going to do with your life. You love music. You love technology. You love travel. Oh my gosh. You're going to see the world with you too. A moment later, my heart sank when I realized to do any of this, I was going to have to try.

4:36I made myself a promise standing there in the dark that I was going to start trying and never stopped trying no matter how bad it got or how much it hurt. In that moment, tenacity was born within me. Now, it was a struggle for the next few years, but that's where it started. Wow. You hear every story has that rock bottom in the moment where the lights go down. It's just you and the world, and you have to face the question, do I actually want to change my life? Do I want more? And it sounds like, it seems like that was one of those moments for you. Yeah. They're few and far between, right? A pivotal moment like that.

5:20I've had maybe two or three of my life. This was a massive one for me and it led to the dumbest plan ever. I decided that I was going to quit my three jobs, sell my super sport Camaro. The school was flunking me out, so no big deal leaving there. And I moved into my Subaru Brat, those tiny little pickup trucks. And I started sneaking into U2 shows and working for free. My plan was I was going to make myself invaluable to them. And somehow they didn't have me arrested. The police almost arrested me three times getting in the building. But the crew was like, what are you doing in here? And I'm like, I'm just figuring it out.

6:00Don't worry. I'm just another one of the stagehands. And for five weeks, I snuck in every day, worked for free while they were all sleeping on the bus. I was driving all night to the next city. I just killed myself doing it. But it was a start. I was finally moving. And then I mean, most people to me, even there, I have to tell you, it's like it just seems unbelievable. So how are you even getting in? Like, so you show up and you're like, I am. I'm just the hands here, obviously. Like, and then, and then who do you know who to speak to, to get you to do a job and how, like the safe work policies, all that stuff.

6:37Like how, how does, how does that even happen? It's, there's a lot to all that. So maybe check out the book, but I will say to answer your first one, I had a fake laminate, but it wasn't totally a fake laminate. I just, the backside of their laminates that was white. Who does that nowadays? They're never white. I made a laminate that was white on both sides. And then I saw that they had like radio channels. They also had laminates passes hanging around their necks that had like radio channel numbers and things on them they needed to remember. And so I made that, but not the official pass. And then I would just pile it.

7:13Now, when you're trying to get in during the show, security is high. If you wait till after the show when the stage hands are showing up, way lighter. So I did that. I wasn't going to the shows. I wasn't a groupie. I was a roadie groupie. I wanted to be in with the work. And so it was lighter and I would just look like I didn't want to be there with my fake laminate hanging around my neck. And if someone caught me and stopped me, which happened pretty often, I would act freaked out that I had lost my laminate and not seem like I was worried about getting in trouble with them. I'd be like, oh my God, they're going to kill me.

7:47God, maybe it's on the bus. And I would turn around and like run back up the ramp. Like I I was going to the bus to find my laminate and I would sneak in a different door. And only, only three times did it get to where I was talking to the police and having to do some fast talking, but they didn't arrest me. No, there was a man on a mission there. So, so fast forward here. Cause I, I mean, that can spend the whole time on that story alone. So what happens now? You're, you said you've been following them for a couple of weeks, couple of months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I'd become something of a mascot.

8:22They were rooting for me. The truck drivers and all that were pulling for me. And every now and then they'd lay on the horn if I was swerving a little bit. And they'd yell at me at the truck stops. You got to pull over. You can't make it all night. And I'd be like, okay. And then I would just pull out way behind them so they couldn't see me anymore. Because if I lost them, I'd have to find the place. And GPSs didn't exist back then. This is 1987. I'm doing this. So I'm using a Rand McNally Road Atlas to find the venue. you. No, thanks. I'd rather follow the bus. But I did all that for five weeks.

8:56Felt like I was maybe making some impact. But the reality is they were all experts at what they did. I was just figuring out how to coil cables and latch road cases, right? Like I was, I didn't belong. But five weeks in, the union in Buffalo had a dispute with a band and someone was saying something about me and that ended up in the union's ears. And so in their argument over a bigger problem. They said, and you have non-union labor here working with you. And that's stealing union jobs. And they find the band$5 ,000. Now, I don't think the band ever had to pay it, but that event drew attention to me and upper management went, what are you guys doing?

9:37You're letting this kid roll around. Like he's going to fall asleep in the middle of the night, crash his car and his parents are going to sue us. And his life is going to be on our hands. he has to go so i made it five weeks before that moment that's still i mean i mean it's still impressive that's very eternity living in try living in your car for five days i lived in it for five weeks i couldn't imagine i can't imagine so then what happens you find you get caught uh obviously tenacity is in yes so where does it go good timing right because uh video was brand new to the industry and so i was had a lot of time to think while i was driving from city to city and I'm like, if I'm going to get into this industry, I want to do the thing that's brand new.

10:19Instead of getting on the bottom rung of the lighting ladder, I didn't want to be like brand new at the thing that people have been doing for 30 years. Why don't I be brand new at the thing that's been around for a year? The video was literally brand new at shows at that point. And so that's what I did. I got some great advice from the crew who were great friends to me and they said, you know, Hey, go to school for this. Lawrence Anderson from the crew said, go to school for this projector. Cause nobody knows how to run it and you'll get work. And I did, I was hired before I even got out of the one week long class on how to do the projector.

10:55A company out of DC hired me. I did corporate video for a year and a half. The company was great. My coworkers were great. I hated the work, no loud screaming fans no music just ballrooms and videos on why software is good you should buy it and things like that but i i learned the gear and kept trying to put myself in the right place at the right time and managed to uh be in the right place at the right time and draw interest from someone who had just gotten a rolling stones tour uh so within three years of that you two encounter, I was on tour with the Rolling Stones doing the biggest tour in the world.

11:33Wow. Wow. But the important thing is that whole thing where I would fall into tears trying and couldn't try in those three years, I got over that. And I learned that failure is not death. It is not the end of the world. It is in fact, it's a stepping stone. It's necessary. It's where you learn everything. You learn everything in failure. You learn nothing from not failing and hanging out there. And with that knowledge and that tenacity that I had to build up to overcome my dysfunction, I've just applied that time and time again throughout my life to chase dream after dream. So, yeah, it got me my first dream.

12:17But more importantly, it has been the key element in this life I live. yeah i mean i i couldn't couldn't agree more when you talk about you know we learn more in failure than we ever do in our in our successes that's the truth um so i again i just i can't like five weeks of following you two and now you're actually on tour traveling with the rolling stones still hard because i felt like i was in over my head i felt like i was failing all the time. I still wasn't first five months of it were all, well, I would say torturous, like here's the dream, but you want to be awesome in your dream. And instead I felt like I was failing every day and I, I just, but I didn't give up and I kept trying and little by little, I got better.

13:08And somewhere around we did, uh, we did the first six months or so we're in America. Then we took like a little bit of time off for Christmas. Then we went to Japan and I'm sitting in Japan where we're doing a month of shows at the Tokyo dome with the biggest band in the world. And somewhere around there, I went like, am I, am I okay? I'm okay. I think. And that by the end, by the time I left Japan, I'm like, I'm like, okay, I can have fun. This is okay. I'm not terrible. I could be better, but holy cats i'm on tour with the rolling stones and by europe it was like a victory lap and and so much fun and so many stories that's there there's a story with this story there it almost sounds like when you were in rolling stones which is the biggest tour on stage at that time guaranteed it was the biggest in the world um for for decades it was 450 crew members it was massive.

14:08And I was one of the 38 that had to be in every city. Interesting. Cause it sounds like in that moment, your identity hadn't caught up with who you were actually being in the world. Imposter syndrome. I mean, I really wasn't as good as I wanted to be, but are we ever, but to me at that point, it was still, that was still like death. You had to be perfect. So we all have our reasons why we have dysfunctions like this. And I could write a whole book on why I have those dysfunctions, but instead I chose to write a book on how I got over them. Cause I think it's the same way you get over any dysfunction, whatever it is.

14:44And that's by just don't let the fear of what it is. Keep you from trying, keep you from getting out there and failing. Cause man, not trying is failing and failing is nowhere near as bad in reality as it was in my head. And that is so true. I think that's, I, I, Wow. Failing was nowhere near as bad in reality than it was in my head. Yeah. And I think that's always the, there's a great quote in the book. Amelia Earhart says, your fears are paper tigers. And I'm like, yeah, like they look really scary and you get close up on them and you're like, this isn't even a real tiger. Like this can't even bite me.

15:27And maybe the failure hurts. Um, and it does. Right. But it's not the end of the world to me as a kid, It was so terrifying that it just froze me in my tracks. But getting over that has helped with everything. And, you know, I have 17 guests in my book that chime in and write some things, some really interesting people. And they all agree. And these are people that are household names, you know, Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley, Peter Frampton, you know, Garth Brooks. Let's see. a couple of astronauts, entrepreneurs, when you ask all of them why they made it, they're all like, oh, I just didn't give up.

16:13And that's what they all want to talk about. And we all kind of, maybe we all do, but I think I did. You think, well, these people are just so talented. That's why they're there. But even though some of them might have a photographic memory or pitch perfect hearing or the incredible ability to build muscle and balance some of the athletes, none of them talk about that when you ask them how they made it. They're like, oh, I didn't give up. And so I'm like, well, why don't you talk about your talents? And they're like, well, sure. Hopefully I have some talent. But then they'll tell you people they knew that were more talented than they are.

16:48And you're like, who? And you're like, oh, you've never heard of them. They gave up. But this person had more talent than me. And you're like, wow, this is just something we should be talking more about. I couldn't agree more. I don't know if anyone who's listening heard the natural plug in there, but in his book, Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley, astronauts. I mean, this is no joke of a book here. Obviously, you've got a network. And I love what you just said. And all of those people, all different walks of life who have done some, I'm going to say, some great things, probably gotten to the top 1 % of their careers.

17:29they don't look at it and go it's because I had this the talent or some special skill they look at it and they say I'm only here because I never gave up yep all of them feel that way and you know an eidetic memory a photographic memory would be incredible to have but if you don't have one you don't have one you can't develop that or pitch perfect hearing right you can get better at pitch, but not that thing. But tenacity, if that's the most important ingredient for them, that is 100 % developable because you can decide to be tenacious. And so long as you stick to it, you are. So you can go from zero to 100 % of the thing that's the most important factor in their lives and more simply mine.

18:18And I just felt like that was something that had to be discussed and we had to shine a light on it. So let me ask you this, because I think I'm interested. You're writing this book on tenacity and you're hearing these perspectives of all these great people. When was it or what clicked when writing this book when you said, oh, now I really understand what being tenacious looks like or what tenacity means. So I'm going to ask you that question right now from all of this, what does tenacity mean to you? I think that there's just layers of it. But I think that when I first started writing, I was like, what would I write about?

19:04Because a friend suggested, he's like, you're such a storyteller. Please write a book. And I was like, I don't think so. And then without asking me the next day, his publisher called me and said, I hear we're doing some books. And I'm like, no, but if I did, what would I do? And I started thinking about it. And the moment I thought tenacity, I was like, well, that's the story I have to tell. Cause the first thing you say is why would anyone read my book? Like I'm not that cool. Um, there are people that I admire that are way cooler than me, like read their books. But then when I started thinking about it, I was like, well, that's the story that I would tell, but surely it's been told.

19:42And I Googled it and looked, and there are books that are entitled Tenacity or Tenacious, but they're always one story that they just felt like it was a tenacious story. It's not about tenacity. The closest was a book called Grit by Angela Duckworth. Fantastic book. But she wrote it from a scientific point of view. She is a professor and has a psychology degree and she wrote more of an analytical book. And I think it's absolutely wonderful, but I wanted to come on the other side of that with very personal stories told by the people who live them. And because I don't like to be told what to do.

20:24I am awful at that. And so, so many books that maybe are geared to help you, I struggle with because they tell me what to do. And unfortunately, to my own peril, I will very often not do that. But if you tell me a story that you lived through and I can celebrate the victories with you and die a little bit with you when it goes south, I will learn from that and I'll enjoy the ride. And so that's the kind of book I wanted to write. And that's how I wanted to present my thoughts on it. So I never tell you what to do. And I ask my guests to never do that either. What we will occasionally do is ask you a question.

21:03Like, you know, do you wonder what it would be like if you had made different decisions 10 years ago? Because that's what my character is doing at this moment in the book. I get that. Let me ask you this. How would you feel 10 years from now if you realized that this was the moment when you made a different decision and started acting differently? And so I ask people questions like that. But I never say, hey, do this. because if you tell me what to do, I probably won't. Probably like most people. So how does how do you go from I can see maybe a little train here, but I feel like something there was a little bit of a gap.

21:42But how do you go from chasing YouTube to imposter syndrome, you know, with the Rolling Stones of Japan to I love what you said. I really love the comment you said to a celebration tour of oneself. I'm going to call it the celebration tour of of the identity, meeting the person you actually are in the world through Europe to writing, I guess, the book with all these professionals to opening up now because you were. tech guy rolling coil or you said coil or whatever you said you know carrying the equipment to learning some tech to actually opening up or you're working for the people that are opening up for brad no i'm opening um like not singing you're not singing i am i'm singing you're you're singing i'm opening an opening act now yeah i headlined some festivals now over in europe um I was told as a kid I couldn't sing.

22:42And this is a great example of what you can do when you start employing tenacity and just embrace it. As a kid, I was told I couldn't sing. There were a lot of things I thought I couldn't do. I accepted that. And I believed that until I was in my 40s. And I got drunk at a party and it's about 4 a.m. in Norway. I'm on vacation and I start singing along to a Johnny Cash song on the radio. And they turned on the radio and this guy who's in a band goes, you're singing with us tomorrow. And I go, no, I don't sing. And he goes, yeah, you do. You're singing with us tomorrow. And I was just happy enough at that point that I went, okay.

23:23Well, the next day I was so terrified by all this. I'm like, what is happening. Like what? Oh my God. Like, no. But I got up on stage and I sang the song hurt Johnny's rendition of that. I thought to a polite applause, I hopped off stage, ran to the bar and went like, why did I do that? That was a terrible idea. No one needed to hear that. And I said to the bar maid, I want all the beer, please. All of it. And I'm, I'm ruminating and I look up and realize she's not moving. And I'm like, yeah. And she looks at me and says, I have goosebumps. And I'm like, what? It turns out I am a baritone and I grew up in the eighties where everyone is singing.

24:07Like one of my guests, Jonathan Cain from journey. Don't stop. They're all up in this stratosphere and I sound terrible up there. I'm a baritone. If you put me down in a low register, I can sing. And I found out in my forties after a life in music that I could sing. The band gets off stage. You just did it up there. I was, I, I was like, I love it. Cause your people haven't talked to my people and there's no, no one said I cannot do X or Y. So I have to just, I'm, I'm dying to hear like just one or two lines of you singing hurt. Cause I love that song. I got to love Johnny Cash. If you may hurt myself today.

24:49To see if I still feel. Whoa. Anyway. No, no, no, no. Not anyway, man. Like goosebumps. Yeah. Check out my version on Spotify. I start yelling at the end. Okay. I will. It's fun. I mean, you don't want to do it exactly like the artist did it, right? So by the time at the end, he's going, if, you know, Johnny's like, if I could start again, not my version. I'm like, if I could start again, it's fun. I'll definitely, you know, we'll put that in the show notes too. Okay. This is awesome. Wow. It's fun. Wow. It's fun. Life should be fun. So yeah, I, I, the band gets off stage and they're like, join our band.

25:44And I'm like, no, what? What? You're a Norwegian band. I live in America. No. So there's a fun backstory here. Tim Ferriss and I got to be friends. We hung out at a conference four years in a row. And I asked him a question that I immediately regretted asking. I said, did you really do all that crazy stuff you said you did in the four hour work week? And he got quiet and I went, I shouldn't have asked him this question. And by the way, also probably one in the morning, two in the morning. I probably also had a few too many drinks. I don't drink anymore, but I used to be quite well trained at it.

26:20But he hesitated and he goes, I did. But here's the first few chapters were life happening to me. When I saw my company do great, when I got out of the way, I said, this is an experiment I got to run. And he said, so all the other crazy stuff I did, I was running an experiment and I knew I was writing a book about it. And I was like, oh, that's a great answer. And so I moved on other subject, but I woke up the next morning and sat straight up in bed and went, son of a gun. My friend Tim had a life worth writing about because he was writing a book, not the other way around. Now, granted, Tim's had a really interesting life, but I made myself a promise.

27:05This is one of those moments where I made myself a promise. Only a few in my life. I said, you know what? I'm I'll never write a book that turned out to be a lie. I didn't know I was lying to myself at that point. I said, I'll never write a book, but I'm going to start living my life. Like I'm writing a book and I'm going to constantly ask myself what would make the next chapter more interesting? Because metaphorically, this is the book I'm going to thumb through when I'm sitting on my rocking chair and maybe I don't have the energy I do now to like climb mountains and do crazy stuff. So how can I make the book of my life the most interesting.