EP48 Identity and Success - A New Perspective

Summary

In this conversation, Troye discusses the concept of identity in relation to achieving success, using the integrator metaphor to explore personal growth and the process of experimentation in defining one's path.


Takeaways

The integrator idea serves as a metaphor for process.
Identity plays a crucial role in achieving success.
Personal growth involves experimentation and self-discovery.
Understanding who you need to be is essential for success.
Troye is excited about his new approach and its potential outcomes.
The conversation emphasizes the importance of reflection over time.
Success is not just about outcomes but also about the journey.
Engaging in new experiments can lead to valuable insights.
The idea of identity is fluid and can evolve with experiences.
Troye encourages revisiting these concepts in the future.


Keywords

identity, success, integrator, process, personal growth, experimentation

Find out more about  working with me or about applying to join the ILN.  mike@smbmastery.com.au

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeadamscott/

https://theintentionalleaders.com/

Transcript

Mike Scott (00:02.211)
Hello guys and girls, good to be back. Troye said I'm not allowed to say anything about preparation. So I'm not saying anything about preparation. There you go, Troy. So there you go, nothing said about preparation. Troy, what are we talking about today?

Troye (00:10.85)
You just, I dared you and you lost it.

Troye (00:20.078)
So the other day when we were sitting around talking about the ILN and you fit really, really well into being a visionary. And there's a book, Rocket Fuel, where they talk about the visionary and the integrator.

And integrators are pretty rare and I've always identified myself as a visionary. Just tell, just remind us what a visionary is because you're better at this and then I'll, what does a visionary mean in a business?

Mike Scott (00:49.786)
So, yeah, visionary integrator, visionary is the entrepreneurial one. Lots of big ideas. Most of them are terrible, but the ones that good are why the business works. Good with big relationships, terrible with process, terrible with follow through, doesn't cross T's, doesn't finish stuff. They're why the business exists. Integrators couldn't be more opposite. These are the people that actually run the business. These are the systems. These are the people that bring accountability into the organization. These are people that cross every T and dot every I. So,

Troye (01:11.094)
Ahem.

Mike Scott (01:18.517)
No person is truly visionary, no person is truly integrator, but you'll generally have a very strong leaning towards one of them. Is that clear Troy?

Troye (01:25.868)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so so when I did the integrator visionary sort of test lead generator thing, I'm on the website, I came up heavily visionary. And I think you come up really visionary as well. Don't you? He's nodding for those that aren't audio. And we were sitting there and and and Mike's way more visionary than me when we start ticking all the boxes. And I was like,

Mike Scott (01:41.037)
Yeah. Yeah.

Troye (01:54.638)
Holy shit, we need a integrator in this business. and kindly Mike was like, you've actually got integrated tendencies going on here. But I'm not like when you listen to all those things like systems, tick the boxes, detail orientated, all of those things. I was like, that's just not me. But one of the things that we sort of go on

Mike Scott (02:16.303)
Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Hold on a second.

That's just not you. Troy, everything we're doing in the island now has got to be in Notion. Everything in Notion has got to have a process. Every process you've created a button so that you put the button in the process or the populate. Every time there's not somebody working within the process from the button, you throw your toys. That's an integrator. What do you mean you don't have integrator in process tendencies?

Troye (02:41.19)
Well, perhaps I'm more on this more towards the integrator side of the visionary path. really there's a whole, like probably I'd say half of the stuff that's around an integrator, like doesn't resonate with me at all. Like I'm like, I'm details orientated, perfectionist sort of stuff where it has to work. has to, like I find that very, very, very hard.

Mike Scott (02:57.134)
Like what?

Troye (03:09.134)
there's a couple of other things

Mike Scott (03:11.705)
Hang on, I'm gonna push again. I'm gonna enjoy this today. This is gonna be me attacking you with telling you how awesome you are. Yesterday, yesterday Troy, and I'm just gonna keep doing this, cause this is great. This is why I'm saying you should be an integrator. yesterday Troy, this is for the listeners. Yesterday Troy phones me and he goes, Mike, the legal agreement that our members signed for the ILN, where's the original? So I'm like, why? Troy I'm busy, like why? He's like, cause it's not good enough. It needs to be better. It needs to flow better. The template isn't right. Troy, like.

Troye (03:17.71)
You're ruining my story.

Mike Scott (03:40.887)
You're describing an integrator like it's the details, right?

Troye (03:41.376)
Okay, no, you, but this is, this is my point. and we're going to why this has happened is I have decided that I need to be an integrator. I don't identify as one, but I need to be one because the business needs that to happen. And it's quite challenging because I actually think it's quite a big shift on, on, on where I'm at.

And so that contract that you talked about, I was about to send it off and I looked at it and I was like, what would an integrator do here? It didn't sit right for me. Sure, maybe I've got the tendencies. And I was like, what would an integrator do here? And it was, they wouldn't send it off like that. And it wasn't...

it natural for me to do that because I mean the legal stuff is just like I don't actually care that much which is why we need to have a hardcore lawyer because I don't care enough about it but I acted differently to how I'd normally act because I want to become more of an integrator and that's why I did that.

Mike Scott (04:50.19)
Okay, so what we're talking about today then is consciously and deliberately choosing to shift your identity, choosing to shifting to becoming someone that you're not now. Is that what I'm hearing?

Troye (04:56.014)
Ahem.

Troye (05:04.034)
Yeah, but it feels weird doesn't it? Because all of a sudden it feels like you're not being authentic.

Mike Scott (05:08.684)
Well, I mean, this is a topic we can talk on a lot about. So, you know, it does originally, but the first time I came across this concept, I remember thinking that. And then I don't know if it was pointed out to me, it probably was. I mean, this is James Clear all over it, right? He loves this stuff. Your identity is really just the set of experiences that you've had in your life, the conditionings you've been exposed to and the story you're telling yourself.

That's what your identity is. Now what does that mean in a nice way? It means it's made up, right? So whatever it is, yeah, whatever it is right now, it's made up. So if you can accept that, well, then why not choose to make up a more positive one? Why not choose to make up one that serves you better, right?

Troye (05:43.682)
My favorite thing.

Troye (05:55.404)
Yeah, so I'm going to push, I want to be the sort of the devil's advocate on this because it is something that I look, first of all, I agree with what you're saying. But there's something like that pushes against it that sits in the heart that goes, yeah, but I'm me, Mike, I'm me. And what I want to do to sort of flip onto the other side of it is to go, you 10 years ago, or me 10 years ago, I've changed. I'm different than 10 years ago.

And hopefully I've changed, hopefully you've changed, hopefully we all changed. And in 10 and 15 years time, this, by the way, this is a psychological thing, just think that there's a lot more change that's happened in the past and not as much that'll happen in the future. But in 10 years time, I hope I'm different. And in fact, I am going to be different. And I think what we're talking about here, and I see how flipped the whole conversation around to start off negative. In 10 years time,

that we can choose where we're gonna be, or we can just let life happen and we're gonna be different anyway. So I think I'm agreeing with you, but I just wanna push back because it does feel a little bit in the heart, but come on, Mike, I'm not a choice. I didn't choose to be me. I'm here because I am where I am.

Mike Scott (07:06.264)
think you did choose to be you. Some of these, we weren't going to the trauma area too much today, because I'm certainly not qualified to do that, but it's like things happen, and then we make a choice to apply meaning to those things. We are meaning making machines as human beings. Like we're amazing at that, right? And we make decisions. I am someone who that, I am this, I am that. know, I'll only speak about myself here because I don't want to speak about other people, but there are parts of me that I have stories that I tell myself, like,

identity traits that are positive and stories that I tell myself that are very negative and Those are decisions that they are decisions. They might they might feel subconscious, but they're decisions, right? But to move this thing forward and away from the negative because neither you or I are psychologists and I don't think or therapists and we don't want to be this is more about like how do we use this to our advantage? How is this a useful like when my brain is going with this is like we're talking about this thing which is like creating an identity

How is that a useful thing is really where my brain is just going. So I hear you and if you wanna go back to what you're uncomfortable with, can, but it's like, so if we're open, if we're just open to the idea that we can intentionally create a new identity, how does that help you?

Troye (08:25.102)
Well, that's what I'm trying to do with this integrator thing, is I don't identify as somebody who's details orientated, who's perfect, loves getting down into those sort of things and weeding them out and sorting them out. I don't identify as that.

And by the way, we're using this integrator idea as a metaphor for anything. For people that are listening, it's like, can, you can just, I've, the process here is I've made a decision, like, and this is brand new to me and I'm loving this experiment. So I'll tell you how it goes in a year's time we can come back to this, but like,

I've gone, I'm going, keep on in the ILM, this is where we start. It's like, what's your identity? Who do you need to be to achieve the success that you need to achieve?

Mike Scott (09:13.006)
But I wanna jump in there, right? Because it's versus the typical thinking of what do you need to do or what do you need to achieve? It's versus that. So it's not what do you need to do? It's actually who do you need to become? And let's put this into a business context. So let's say we wanna build the island into a $10 million business, right? This is a new little business that we're talking about. The typical thinking is like, what do I need to

Troye (09:18.51)
Yes

Mike Scott (09:39.695)
do to get to 500,000, 1 million, 2 million, 5 million, 10 million. There's nothing wrong with that. What I think I'm saying here, I won't say we, I'll just take my own ownership. What I'm saying here is that I've found and observed that when we shift that thinking to what would a $10 million founder do now, it's far more useful than saying what should I do now? So it's a shift in thinking from what needs to be done now to what would.

Troye (10:02.146)
Yes.

Mike Scott (10:08.686)
that person do who I want to become. Anyway, I'm floating around and I just wanted to make that.

Troye (10:12.546)
Yeah, no, no, no. And keep on jumping in because I think this is where it gets interesting is when we when we sort of riff on this. And I think what we've been sort of teaching, teaching this, let's sort of exploring this concept sharing. Yeah, it's important, by the way, because because the island is not it's not about everybody knows everything anyway. It's more about anyway, it doesn't matter. It does, but it doesn't. The.

Mike Scott (10:27.054)
Sharing, sharing.

We're not teaching anything.

Troye (10:38.062)
The idea here is what I've observed in myself is that when it's like who do I need to become? So let's make it a, the easy one was a triathlete. when I, beginning of last year, I was a mountain biker and I needed to change my identity to become a triathlete.

So easy. It's like, it's fun. It's cool. It's, but I mean, and you can give yourself a lot of kudos from shifting from like, I'm here to here. That's cool. Where everything becomes exciting. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Thank you. It's a, it's a small shift. And I think that a lot of the time in my observation is when we, when we talk about this identity thing, people do that safe 10 to 10%.

Mike Scott (11:10.03)
Sorry, if those aren't seeing this, like here to here is like 10%, 10 degrees, 10 degrees around, right? So it's a small shift.

Troye (11:27.902)
shift which is cool by the way it's not a negative thing

Mike Scott (11:28.974)
So this is like mountain biking to triathlete, but what's an example of that in business or in family life of a small 10 degree shift?

Troye (11:38.489)
I mean, tell me if you can think of one before I get to it. I guess it's like going, who do I need to be? Or how would somebody who is a leader, a good leader act, or how would somebody who's a compassionate leader act, rather than how would somebody who's a leader act? When you think of a better example, I can't really think of one just off the top of my head.

Mike Scott (12:06.2)
Yeah, I'm struggling as well to do, I can think of big ones, but I'm trying to think of like a 10 degree shift in a practical sense. So let me just think this through. So if you are a business owner that's operating their business and you're going, I want, and your business is doing $3 million in revenue and you saying, okay, this is maybe a bit oversimplistic, but it's like, what would a $4 million founder do versus a $3 million founder? That's a tiny shift. But to be thinking about,

Troye (12:35.317)
Well, I certainly need to go.

Mike Scott (12:39.278)
Well, so I mean, we actually have something right now. Like we're gonna have a speaker come in at the aisle end who's built an $800 million business. And the core thing I wanna try and extract from this amazing woman is like, what is a $800 million founder do or think or show up differently to a $10 million business founder or a 5 million? Like what's the difference in that identity, right? So I guess the example of the small shift would be like incremental changes in the size of your business. The big shift would be.

hey, I'm a $1 million a year founder, how does a billion dollar founder show up? It's a fundamental shift. It's very simplistic, but I think that's what we're trying to communicate here.

Troye (13:21.4)
Well, it's kind of making it a bit scary.

It's kind of like going, because my previous one was how does a calm and gentle person show up, which is a little bit aspirational because I think that mostly I'm calm and gentle, but sometimes I'm not. And so it was a reminder of like, it's not even something that I, it's not like I want to show up in the same way, but more. That's not what we're talking about here from an identity shift. In James Clear's book, in Atomic Habits, he talks about this woman who's overweight and she would sit down and go, how would a healthy person show up?

And the reason why it did resonate with me and it wouldn't be there with you too much is because Mike you're healthy most of the time and I'm healthy most of the time so we like yeah, that's easy But what it didn't occur to me is that this person it was a fundamental shift It was a 90 degree shift in who she was Not a 10 or 15 percent not something that I'm doing most the time But I want to do more of and that's what I'm finding with this integrated thing which is quite scary and quite exciting because it's it's like

I, it's like, it's a serious difference. It's like, I'm not that person. I've never identified as that person. And in 10 years time, I want to identify that person. I want to be a world-class integrator. And that's terrifying because I'm not that person at all. But that's the thing. It's a small thing. And now I do, now I freaking send you contracts going, it doesn't have our logo on it. It's just a small little bit.

Mike Scott (14:50.978)
You're making me think of something quite personal. I'm very open about the fact that I suffered a lot with anxiety and it has become an identity trait for me. I don't like that, but I can see it. I have the story that is like, am an anxious person. I am someone that's, it's like deeply embedded in me. It doesn't serve me. I can see it. I struggle to change it. A 90 degree shift or 180 degree shift from me is...

is that thing of like how would a calm person show up today? How would a person that's at peace show up today? And that is like, is diametrically opposed to how I generally show up. But that's what we're talking about here, is choosing an identity, a story that serves us better, right? And that is a fundamental shift.

Troye (15:33.752)
Yeah.

Troye (15:42.86)
cool isn't it?

Mike Scott (15:45.743)
I find it kind of amazing because I have actually seen this happen. So like I'm training a lot at the moment. And just to make this super practical, I wake up at 5 a.m. every morning. To be clear, it's never easy for me. I never wanna get out of bed. I'm always telling myself a story about why I can sleep in or let me go and get my phone and scroll or mess around or whatever. The thing that actually gets me to hobble over to my garage and do my workout is literally.

this identity that I've chosen to take on that I am a fit and strong and healthy person. And it sounds woo woo, but it's actually not for me. It is the thing that gets me from my bed into the garage at 5.15 every morning to do my workout. You know, to make it even simpler, my office now is on the second floor of two stairs and there's a beautiful, nice lift right next to it. I'm up and down those stairs probably 15 times a day. Just about every time I don't wanna go up the stairs. But I literally will say to myself,

what does a fit and healthy and strong person do? And I walk up the stairs and as a result, I get a ludicrous amount of, know, garment points for my height. So the practical application about this is choosing to become a better version of yourself that serves you.

Troye (17:03.234)
Yeah. Well, the interesting thing is for you've always been a fit and healthy person. So that's why it's sort of easy doing that in quotation marks for you to do that. That's your 10 % shift to go, I need to remember that that's who I am. And I think there's a meta conversation here that we're kind of having as well is like,

Mike Scott (17:03.342)
What's going on in your brain, Troy?

Troye (17:24.982)
you read all of these things like that James Clear habit. This is a James Clear idea and obviously everyone's ideas come from somebody else. But his idea of like your actions, can you remember this Mike? It's like your actions show your identity, it defines your actions and your actions define your identity. And so you set up, start off with the actions to define your identity that you're choosing to do and it sort of goes in a cycle. You read that and you go,

go, yeah, I'm going to define myself as a fit strong person and get up at 515 in the morning to go to the gym. But meanwhile, you've always been a high level mountain biker and you've always been fit and strong. And so it's that 10 degree shift. We do this all the time as we we read these cool things, like your values, like your company needs values and everyone gets like puts their word on the paper and then the good companies will go and make it into a statement. And then they go, that's fine. 10 degree shift from where they were.

But I've seen you do this, Mike, as you take it down to that next level. Like, this is how do we take those concepts to the next level? So all of a sudden, now we're not just, they're not just words in the statement. They're actually decision processes. They're part of our company. Our company is actually the values, not the values are just part of our company. It's like, how do we take these concepts and push them down into the deeper level? That's what's pretty cool about this.

Mike Scott (18:49.1)
Yeah, and it is like the words are sort of, they don't feel strong, but it really is about becoming somebody else. We need to become somebody else. Should we choose to? We don't have to do anything, by the way. I'm using words like you need to become. You don't need to do anything. But change is very difficult, right? Like behavior change is possible. Full change in people is really hard. So like, you know, if you're listening to this and you're going, what are these guys talking about? I like to try and simplify stuff for my own simple brain.

Troye (18:51.81)
Ahem.

Mike Scott (19:16.226)
And it's actually a very simple, but a very difficult concept. It's choose who you want to become and then create the evidence for becoming that person through your actions. So if you want to become a fit and healthy and strong person, then you create evidence all the time by going to the gym, by running, by lifting weights, by eating properly. So you're constantly looking for evidence. And at the risk of going sort of too philosophical about this,

It's actually just about self-awareness. That's why we're doing it. We're saying we're becoming this person because then we're very self-aware about our actions. When we have a lot of self-awareness, we generally don't do the wrong thing. Generally bad behavior comes from pain, is one thing, but a lack of self-awareness. When we're very self-aware, we generally take better decisions. That was just my little riff on trying to make this practical because I can't help myself. Troy, we need to wrap things up with time here.

Troye (20:15.01)
Well, here's my practical tip. A lot of people are founders and stuff and I've chosen integrator as a different thing. I've also seen people go, I can't sell, I can't sell. I'm not a salesperson. And I'm using this one on purpose because it's freaking hard and there's nobody, there's like one person in a hundred who thinks they're good salespeople.

Mike Scott (20:15.106)
Yeah.

Troye (20:38.382)
And so what you do is so but the challenge I guess here is what is your business need? Think about the type of person your business needs Have an internal locus of control which means that you're in charge of that You can control your universe and the world around you that like life doesn't happen to you you happen to life and You become that person and you can

You might not like it, it might not sit very well with you at the moment, but in ten years' time, it will.

Mike Scott (21:10.51)
love the way you've articulated that. I wanna add that expand that, not just to your business. What does your family need? What do you need? What do your kids need? What do your parents need? What do your brothers and sisters need? Like expand that to wherever it is that you feel that. I love how you've articulated that. What is the thing that I care deeply about need? And just decide that you can become that. I think I'll end with a story, which is quite funny. I've got two cousins from different sides of the family, both very successful.

Troye (21:16.396)
Yeah, hell yeah.

Troye (21:32.707)
Hmm.

Mike Scott (21:40.66)
And I think they thought they were giving me a compliment, but in various different times in my life, I was a naughty, badly behaved little kid. I've literally had headmasters say, Mike has got equal chances of becoming the president or ending up in jail. I'm just not sure which one it's going to be. Literally, I've had people write that on my report card. I was a difficult, difficult kid kicked out of school when I was 10. I mean, like we can go on about that. I've literally had two cousins say to me with a big smile on their heart, like face thinking that they're being nice going, know,

It's just so amazing that you've actually been successful with this kind of like awe shock in their eyes, basically insinuating they had written me off to being in prison and a reprobate. And anyway, the point I'm making here is like, these are people that love me and they're my family and they're great. I made a set of decisions along the way that I wanted to become a different person. And I've done that many, many times. And it's amazing how when you have that decision,

your actions just begin to follow it. Like it is completely and utterly possible. I haven't done anything extreme impressive or anything. It's just moderate success as it says on the 10 of the podcast. But this is a practical thing that you can do today. So I love how Troy framed that up. And with that, I think we need to wrap things up. Troy, any parting words for the audience?

Troye (22:58.606)
Yeah, go and have some fun. This is a game to have fun with and play with it and yeah, enjoy it.

Mike Scott (23:09.007)
All right, everyone, see you soon. That's a wrap.