Welcome to a special Thanksgiving episode of Insight Interviews! Thanksgiving is a time for reflection and appreciation, and in this episode, we'll explore what our past guests are grateful for and what fills their hearts with gratitude. It's a conversation filled with warmth, inspiration, and moments that remind us of the importance of expressing thanks. So, let's embark on a journey of gratitude together.
"Practicing gratitude is not just a feel-good thing, it's a neurobiological reality that sets us up for a more positive outcome in life."
– Steve Scanlon
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Hey, welcome, everybody to the podcast. This is your host site interviews.
Hey, wait a minute. What are you doing there? It's my turn.
Is it your turn? I forgot it was your turn. Should we start over or just go for it?
No, no, don't start over just now you can bring us into the podcast. Go ahead.
Well, listener, you're already here. This is your host, Jason Abel. And Steve, you're Steve Scanlon, the other host.
Thanks for identifying me.
Welcome. We've been doing this for three years. I guess we still don't have it right, but here we are. Welcome to this episode of The Insight Interviews- Powered by REWIRE
One of my favorites. It's not even going to take us very long.
No, actually, we're just doing an intro. And if you've listened to episodes of The Insight Interviews- Powered by REWIRE for any length of time now, this is our special Thanksgiving episode, and all that we do is a little bit of an intro, and then you get to listen to some really cool guests of ours around the topic of gratitude and Thanksgiving. And Steve, you and I did riff a little ahead of time. You've got some ideas around this. What do you got?
Well, my first idea is the next time you say, this is our Thanksgiving episode, that our editors should find some congratulatory fun trumpets or something like that.
Yeah, I like that.
Our famous Thanksgiving. And then I started thinking, is there Thanksgiving music? I don't know. There's Christmas music.
Yeah. Does a cornucopia make music or? I don't know.
Well, I will say that there is an actual album that was done. I want to go in the 80s, which is going to date me by George Winston. For those people listening to this, George Winston was kind of a mellow piano player, and I actually quite liked his music. And he's got an album called Thanksgiving, so there you go.
Huh, little, little tip. We'll put it in the show notes. How about that?
You know, some people will listen to that and be like, oh, my gosh. I actually quite like it. You can listen to Thanksgiving by George Winston. Look, my little thoughts really quickly here are, there may be people coming in here and they look forward to this in our Thanksgiving episode, maybe. Maybe there are people that listen to our podcast, and we get to this element at the beginning of our podcast where we ask our guests about gratitude and gratefulness, and it's become a tradition, which you may riff on. It's become a tradition of ours. You and I even talked about a year ago or so.
Like, let's have a different tradition. Let's ask different things. And I noticed that you and I never did.
We just kept on asking about gratitude.
Well, and I think we recognize that there's a reason for that. And again, we sometimes even say this in the podcast, but because we're on our gratitude thing, look, I don't think you need an advanced degree in neurobiology to understand that gratitude and that posture and position of our mind is good. Clearly, there's research that says when we live or even experience gratitude and that we're grateful for things very overtly, that that sets our mind up to be in a position of growth, learning, generation, creativity, and it's still a human life, dude. You know that, right? Like, we can't live in that twenty-four seven. And frankly, the brain is actually more set to live in the opposite, right? The brain is this threat detecting machine. So if we don't practice intentional gratitude, we will, by default, practice cynicism. How about that?
Yeah, yeah.
That's just neurobiology. Right. And so we do it because we believe in our coaching practice and in our lives that practicing gratitude is healthy. It's good. It's not just this feel good thing. It's a neurobiological reality that sets us up for a more positive outcome in life. Number one, and then I'll let you do your thing. And number two, even with our guests who come in and we're going to ask them about their business and some of their challenges and where they go, and they get worked up about that, and we slap them with, what are you grateful for? It's amazing how much better our podcast is because we start with that, and it sort of reframes the guest's mindset.
Sure does.
And then when they share, like, okay, here's my thing, or whatever, again, I don't know that we put any science to that, but I want to suggest that if we didn't start with that and we just dove right into tell me about you and what you're doing and where are you challenged and what are the opportunities, and we just did that, we could still get some good stuff. I wonder if it's that much better because we help them reframe in that moment, something that they're grateful for, that might be something even different than what they're about to talk about.
Well, I might suggest that some of what you're about to listen to, of the guests responding to the question of who or what are you grateful for, as we start every episode, you're going to hear some things. You're going to hear some things that will resonate with you. You're also going to hear some pauses. You're going to hear some almost like, shift, tonality shift, and that just speaks to what you're talking about, Steve. Like you start off in a posture of gratitude, and then everything that comes after that, I don't know, it's just enhanced. It's just better.
Well, and then we always have this hope that that might have some sort of trickle-down effect into how you live your life, right. How do you wake up in the morning? How do you approach things? Can we practice gratitude more regularly?
Yeah, so good.
Yeah and this has become a tradition of ours, and we tried to change the tradition. I don't know. Maybe, I don't even know that you and I ever talked about that. I tried a couple of times, and then I kind of thought, why Would we change like that? That's dumb. Yeah, let's take something that works. It's good. It's good. Helps. Yeah. Let's do something different. I think we do that sometimes for, you know, I think I told you that, right? Sometimes. Because I speak so much about the lizard brain and I published the book that I did, and I've had people come to me and go, oh, Scanley, you're not going to talk about more lizards, are you? And I'm sensitive to that. I get it. You want new things and we've got a lot of stuff. I certainly can. But my question is, hmm, do you not want me to address the lizard brain because somehow you've mastered yours?
Yeah. And it's always a journey, right?
Well, yeah, that's the whole point of still the lizard. Even if we do seem to quiet the lizard brain, it will still be there because it's a psychological construct in every human being's mind. And so, it's an ongoing way that we see how we're always trying to be right or make habits or control the world or whatever. And so, I'm all for newness, and I know I don't always have to share about the lizard brain. However, I don't want to steer away from sharing about something that's going to always be there, same thing with gratitude. Yeah, maybe one day we'll do something different at the beginning of our podcast, and maybe one day we'll do a different Thanksgiving episode. But I want to suggest that this one's awesome.
It is one of my favorite of the year. I've said that the last two years. I can't wait. I mean, when this episode drops, it'll be the Friday before Thanksgiving, and it is a reset for me where I get to listen to some highlights of some guests of what they're thankful for. Makes me think about or remind me what I personally am thankful for. And boy, you want to talk about posturing? It just gets me in the right posture. For the following week of Thanksgiving. I would like to riff for a minute. Are you done? I don't want to cut you off, but I have a couple.
No I’m not done, I've got…
Jeez, dude.
No, I’m so done. I'm so grateful that you would even ask that. So there's my gratitude. There you go. Just this idea of tradition.
This is the third year that we've done that, and you and I have thought about what if we did something different this Thanksgiving? There is some monotony in tradition, which can be like, why are we doing that? Shouldn't we do something whiz bang different, kind of like you referred to. But then there's also some value in traditions. And I think that if you're listening to this, you probably get what I mean by that. We're entering into the holiday season, and there's certain traditions that a lot of us have around the holidays, but there's also traditions that we have, whether it's family traditions, some spiritual traditions, some even self-traditions that we have. And I would say to you that there is value in traditions. So, one, we're not going to break the tradition of doing this particular episode, at least this year, we're not going to do that. And I ran across a stat the other day, and this isn't why you do traditions, but man, I think there's at least a dotted line between the two. Steve, a year ago, our listenership was about 100 downloads per episode, just about give or take, some a little more, some a little less. So, we're not breaking any records in the podcast realm, but again, there's listeners there. Well, we just talked to our producers the other day. I don't even know that you know this. We're averaging 1000 downloads a month right now. Now, I don't know that that breaks any records either, but for us it does, and that has been for about a year straight now, we have about 1000 people listening to us. And I only say that because, you know, we've been doing this for three years now, and even a year ago, our listenership was half of what it is now. Now, is that because we have a tradition of dropping every week an episode every week? Is that because we have a tradition of doing this Thanksgiving episode? I don't know. Probably not. But I do know that some monotony and some traditions, boy, they can benefit. Maybe you, maybe those around you, There are some good things that happen with that. So anyways, at the end of the day, I think a question that I want to ask, and then we'll start to wrap this up, Steve, I, are there traditions that you have as a listener that you'd like to lean into maybe even more? And I guess the last question that I would ask is, are there traditions that you're not taking part in, that you've thought about, that you wanted to start? Is there anything, maybe this Thanksgiving season, this holiday season, are there any traditions that you would like to be responsible for starting? Just kind of ask that question. So, Steve, man, I'm grateful for you, I'm grateful for rewire, I'm grateful for our clients, believe it or not, I'm grateful for some of the challenges that we're having in society and politics and whatever, because I do think that they make us think more, work together more and challenge us and make us stronger. But, yeah man,, before we let it go to what our guests have to say about gratitude and Thanksgiving, any last words you got, brother?
Well, yeah, I mean, dude, you can't tell me you're grateful for me without me reciprocating that.
Okay, we're done. Goodbye.
Otherwise, people think I'm a cad. Like, dude, our partnership has been wonderful, and I'm super grateful for it. I am grateful for this podcast, and I didn't know those numbers, and I think it's actually cool. My hope, and then we can let people go and you can sign off, is two things. Number one, that you really would take the time to not just listen to other people's gratitudes, but as you're hearing them, that you would really reflect upon and let that wash over you. And again, like we say, at the end of all of them, it doesn't really matter what Johnny or Susie or Billy or whoever's gratitude is, what's yours? May that help you really unearth and uncover your own gratitude.
Yes.
And number two, I just hope, I would like to start a tradition with you, and it's that you would use the words whiz bang more.
Did you like that?
That was good. Really did. I'd like to at least use that twice a year in a podcast. Just say whiz bang. Because in the middle of an interview. Yeah, just whiz bang. That needs to be just used more. So, if we can create that tradition, that would be great.
That's so good. Well, to that effect, everybody, we hope you have a whiz bang Thanksgiving. There you go. We just did it. So here's the rest of our guests compilation of what they're grateful for in order for you to get in the season, get in the mood, and think about what you're grateful for. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode of The Insight Interviews- Powered by REWIRE.
Thanks ya’ll, It's great. Thank you.
I'd love to hear. What are you grateful for?
What am I grateful for? I guess honestly, truly, where I am today, personally and professionally. probably one of the few people that's been able to get to where I am without a college degree, which was a stumbling block for sure, early on in my career. And then personally, I've got a great family, wife, two kids. So really grateful across the board on both fronts.
Great question. Gosh, I think about this every time we go through what I believe is what I call a cleanse in our market. I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn what it's like to go through something like this, because these are the moments where we take that microscope out and really dissect ourselves and try to make sure that we understand what's happening, that we don't necessarily make this our own fault, which a lot of people start to reflect on themselves, right. Is my religion doing this to me? Whatever. Right. So, I'm grateful for a lot of things, but right now, I'm grateful for the opportunities that this industry presents ourselves, either good or bad.
Oh, my gosh. Boy. I am grateful for somebody that I work with who asked me to lunch, of course, I bought, and he just shared his heart and his family's pain with me, and I got to be with him for 2 hours in support of him and to guide him a little bit on maybe some steps to take. And I'm grateful for an incredible team of people that I have who want to move at the pace that I move and are willing to have really powerful, hard conversations that make us amazing. So, today's been an incredible day.
Oh, Steve, that's a long list of things. So let me start off, though, by saying, for those of you that don't know me and aren't familiar with me. I am chief in the mortgage business, and right now mortgage business is coming off of a two year boon, and we are experiencing a little bit of an industrial shrinkage.
That was the kindest way anyone ever describes 2022 in the mortgage business.
Yeah, we are looking at some consolidation, some workforce decline, that kind of thing. And I am thankful for not only my customers, but also the people that I work with that try and help them out each and every day.
"I'm grateful to be in America. I'm grateful to be an American and to even have that luxury of having a passport that's American to where I can live my faith, I can live my views, I can teach my kids the traditions of my family, and to do it in a place where you can do it freely, and that's the beauty of being in America, I mean, thank God for the United States."
Well, that's a loaded question. I can go two routes with that. I can certainly go professional, and I could go personal. I'm just grateful for the support system I have professional and personally right between my family and my work family. I think the amount of years I've been in the industry, the mortgage industry, I've grown close to many that have helped me along my path. And then secondly, support that I received from my family who've helped me along my path, kind of go in the direction that I wish to go in and follow my dreams and goals, et cetera. So, I'm just thankful for family and grateful for family in general, whether it's my professional or my personal family.
Oh, wow. Well, we had a chance to do this together at San Antonio, but I thought a little bit about, more about this on my trip home. And really it revolves around kind of three things that always rise to the top for me, and that's, number one, my faith. Number two, my family and friends. And then I get to complete it off with another F, and that's FCM. The team here is just wonderful. So those are my kind of the F's, if you will. Family, friends, faith and FCM. Those always rise to the top.
Oh, man, that's a big question right out the gate. First of all, I'm happy I was able to stand up and get out of bed. Always happy for that. Happy. I had a nice warm cup of coffee, and I'm happy to be sitting here. I approach everything I do with a little bit of, you have a choice to either be miserable or you have a choice to be happy. And I choose to be happy. So, I try to approach things every day with and in everything I do with a little bit of gratitude and understanding that no matter what you think, it can't be that bad.
Wasn't quite expecting that question.
That's why we ask it, man.
Yeah, I'm grateful for, well, usually when I'm being flippant, I would say dark chocolate. That's the first thing that comes to mind. Ice cream is a close second.
That's right.
Ben and Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs. But mostly I'm grateful for my wife especially. She kicks me in the butt, keeps me on track.
Nice.
And my friends, especially my business partner. And just the fact that, in fact, my birthday is coming up in five days from today.
Nice.
I'll be 72. I am extremely grateful for my health. The fact that I'm in good shape, strong. I'm healthy. I'm able to do a bunch of stuff. I'm able to travel. I live in what I consider the greatest country on the planet, wven with all the stuff that's wrong about America, there is so much that's right about it. I'm just grateful to live in a country where I get to speak my mind, say what I want, do what I want. The list could go on and on. I actually do a gratefulness exercise every evening before I go to bed. I actually write down ten things that I'm either grateful for or appreciate. There's a difference between the two. There's a little bit of a difference, a little distinction, but it's either something I appreciate about somebody or something that happened during my day, or something I'm grateful for. And I've been doing that for years. And that's something I'm grateful for, is my gratefulness list.
Well, it's funny you should ask, because I actually totally forgot that you asked that every single time. But what I'm grateful for is really living in this great country. It's not a perfect country. We're noisy and boisterous, and democracy is entertaining at times. But it's the best country for me and for many people. So, I love living here, and I'm happy for it.
Wow. First of all, I just really appreciate that question. I didn't know that's where you were going to start. But I'm grateful for so much, Jason. And I think first and foremost, I'm grateful to my team. They did carry us through the pandemic, as you mentioned that a minute ago. They show up every day. They allow me to lead. I think I'm most grateful for the fact that they allow me to lead this organization, and it's a real privilege and honor, and I just couldn't be more grateful for the folks that I get the opportunity to work with every single.
I mean, first off, I'm looking out the window of my office here in Portland, Oregon, and the sun is shining. It's a beautiful Friday afternoon, so, I mean, Friday afternoons are already beautiful, and you add the sunshine to our winter landscape and it's stunning. So, I'm grateful for that, and I'll say, you know, Steve, this isn't just to be promotional or cheesy or whatever, but I am absolutely honest and sincere when I say this. I am so grateful for the engagement and the way that you've influenced, impacted my life and my relationships, not only at work, but frankly, you know, we spend more time on our coaching calls, sometimes talking about my personal life than we do about my team and origination and all that. And I can honestly, genuinely say, and I've done plenty of other coaching platforms in my 20-year career, I am absolutely grateful for the mindset, the awareness of where I'm at today in my life. So, thank you, Sensei.
Well, that's a cool gratitude.
Wow. I'm grateful for the ability to think about the future. I mean, the. The now is so noisy. It's just such a noisy, polarized, threatening now that I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to think about the future, be able to think future back in order to develop a clarity of direction even within all this noise.
My family, I would say, yeah, for sure. I'm a mom of two little boys, so I have a seven- and eight-year-old son, and I'm really grateful for them because they're just, even on the most stressful day when they get home from school and I see them, I just have a smile on my face. So, it just never fails. So, I'm very grateful that they're part of my life and that I get to be their mom. I think they're amazing. Of course, I'm biased. I would say I'm most grateful for them and for all the sweet things that they do. So, I feel like I'm very lucky to be their mom, too.
Oh, mate. It's just the fact that you can walk and talk supposed to be enough, but everything that we have around us and understanding that your life is in a good shape or you're going for the direction that you want to go, or if you have exciting things to happen along the day, even if they're not that much excited that you need to face it. Just the fact that you're going facing to fix. It's already a bless. Right? And aside of that, I choose to live in a place that I do have qualities in front of me. I do have a good view. So, I'm already blessed for wake up and being able to experience that every morning. I have a beautiful son, too, so it's easy to just wake up, say thank you, and I have a little angel that every time that I'm about to wake up, he comes to sniff on me and give me a kiss, which is, that's the big fellow over there.
Oh, he's a big boy.
So, every morning, mate. is blessed. I call him my little angel in the morning. So, yeah, I believe that's what make me wake up and be happy for the day.
"Family and meaningful relationships. And that really just jumps right off my tongue. And I've been thinking a lot about that lately, beyond the family component, but how important meaningful relationships are. And that's what I'm grateful for."
I'm grateful for living in a world that has been wonderful. And I hope we'll stop going to hell.
Well, see, we could do a whole interview. That's going to be your 22nd book, this wonderful world that's going to hell.
Yeah. It's actually the 18th. I think it was called rebalancing society and going on. But I'm grateful for, you know, I'm living on a lake. This world is beautiful and wonderful, and we've got to be so careful about what we're doing.
So maybe I'll start with gratitude first. So, I'm in my late 50s. I'm 57, and it's become more and more apparent that friends, coworkers, people that I know, even family members, have faced issues, whether it's financial, physical, or emotional. And my personal opinion is that everybody's in pain, and that is physical pain, emotional pain, and or financial. And when I think about what I'm grateful for, I'm grateful for my pain not being so great that it disables me from being a good father, husband, friend, coworker, leader. So that's the first thing that I'm grateful for. My health. And I believe that my health is key, because if I'm not healthy, I really can't be of service to the people that I care about. So, the first thing that I'm grateful for is my health. Second, I would say, is the health of my wife, Dominique, and my three children. I've also kind of seen and heard, and I think in a leadership position, some of it is like the Mel Gibson movie, What Women Want. You think. You want to know what other people think, feel, until you hear what they think and feel. And then you're like, I'm not so sure I wanted that. And in my role, I listen to a lot of people in a lot of pain, and I say, thank God that my wife and children and my parents, my brothers are healthy. So, I would say that is absolutely at the top of my gratitude list. Then I would say way, way down are smaller things, like the opportunities that I have, the place I am in life, my desire to continue to work on myself, to improve, things like this. But overwhelmingly, my gratitude lies in emotional, financial, and physical health of my family.
Well, my company just turned nine years old yesterday, and I'm cool. I'm grateful to have made it this far, man. It's been a crazy journey. I feel like we beat the odds and we get to enter into our final year of our first decade. And I'm grateful for my team, grateful to have made it this far. It's been a wild ride.
Well, that's a great question. Oddly, I'm really grateful that my business is off probably 80% since its peak, because it's created an environment where we've been forced to examine my team and I, a lot of the traditional ways that we've done things and we found a route to personal improvement. Maybe just I have to answer that question a little bit more deeply, because we want to feel good when we leave work, when we walk out the door, and in an environment where we're not going to be able to base that on closed loans. We've made a conscious decision vision to base it on open discussions about our activities and thoughts and behaviors, so that we can find a way to feel productive in our days when we're moving into headwinds. So that's what I'm grateful for today, is to be part of a team that's able to share that commitment to self-improvement. Yeah, it's what I wake up thinking about these days.
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