Ep. 22 Why Most Entrepreneurs Burn Out (And How to Avoid It) | Scott Hacker

Most entrepreneurs believe success comes from working harder—but what if the real secret is learning how to focus on what you can actually control?

In this episode of the Local Legend Podcast, host Eric Aquito sits down with Scott Hacker, keynote speaker, high-performance coach, creator of the R.E.A.L. Success Framework, former HP Top 5% Global Sales Executive, and former Amazon Web Services sales leader.

Scott shares the mindset that helped him succeed at some of the world's largest companies and explains why motivation alone isn't enough to build a successful business or fulfilling life.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, business owner, salesperson, or simply looking to become the best version of yourself, this conversation is filled with practical strategies you can apply immediately.

In this episode you'll learn:

•  Why motivation eventually fades—and what actually keeps successful people moving. 
•  How top performers focus on what they can control. 
•  Why overwhelm causes entrepreneurs to stop growing. 
•  The connection between your personal life and your business. 
•  Scott's famous "Progress Over Perfection" philosophy. 
•  The R.E.A.L. Success Framework. 
•  How the Eastvale Chamber of Commerce is helping local entrepreneurs grow through the Passion to Profits program. 

If this episode inspired you, be sure to Like, Subscribe, and Share it with another entrepreneur who needs to hear this message.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello, everyone. My name is Erika Quinto, and I am ambassador to the Eastwell Chamber of Commerce. Today we have a motivational speaker as our guest, Scott Hacker. So, Scott comes with a lot of coaching skills. Very high-ranked ones, to say the least. So, in on this episode of Local Legends, we're going to sit down with you and talk about your high-performance coaching skills. And you are actually the creator of the real success framework. So, from ranking in the top 5% of over 20,000 global sales executives at HP, right? To finishing your technology sales career at Amazon Web Services. So that's huge. So you have a lot of background and those with those skills. And also today, you're combining the real world leadership experience with powerful storytelling and practical strategies to help entrepreneurs, sales professionals, and leaders pursue success and confidence, purpose, and clarity. That's very powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yeah, and it is because I went through it myself. Right? I I wouldn't be able to teach or help coach anybody if I hadn't experienced that myself. So there's a lot in there that we could unpack if we choose to.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

So right, and that's I think the the ideal and primary your probably what pushed you to create this, right? Because you've been there, done that, and you realize the need. Yes. Right? Yes. Um so throughout your career, what do you believe separates good performers from exceptional ones?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Um the ability to focus on what is in their control, right? I mean, that really is what got me through a lot of the ups and downs of my career and when I had my high points, as well as even when I had my low points, of staying focused on not the the uncontrollable outside world, but the in the inside world that we do have some control over and and staying there and being present, right? Like in all that you can do. So that was a big lesson that I've learned for myself and for those that were that were in leadership, those were that were consistently doing well, they had a plan, they focused, they knew exactly what they wanted, and they executed against it.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So, what advice would you give to somebody who is still uh struggling with that? Because you said uh it takes a lot of organizational skills and obviously the passion. But some of you know, uh some of us uh during the entrepreneur um career we get so caught up with the day-to-day uh daily routine that we kind of start to lose focus on that. And then it becomes a little struggle because you have to almost pull yourself back, right? Because you're so busy managing, but you're still you still have to manage the future. So what what advice would you give to somebody who's losing track of that?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Well, focus focus on the outcome, what you truly want to get in your life, right? Too often we start chasing the things that we think we should be doing, but not really realizing what we're building towards. And motivation is an emotion, it it fades. So it isn't something that you can't just rely on, oh, I'm gonna get it every day and feel wonderful and feel like I want to get this done. It's it's really gonna be a matter of having a true outcome and a purpose that you connect to that will get you through the most difficult times. Because it's easy to stay motivated when everything's going great.

unknown 3:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Right? But it the the real challenge is when it's not. And that's when we can lose our way, that's when we can feel frustrated, that's when anxiety creeps in and I can't do this, and all the negative talk starts to pop up because we aren't really, we know we're not in alignment with where we really want to go.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

I feel like as entrepreneurs we have like two waves, right? We have our personal and family wave of just ups and downs, and then we have the business aspect, and it's also another wave and ups and downs of the business aspect of it, right? What motivates us, what's going great, and then all of the challenges, and sometimes the challenges uh can become that that uh point in your life where it actually actually stops you, right, from moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah. Overwhelm is the thing that will stop you from moving forward. Like having so much going on that you can't make sense out of anything. Um, and that's that's actually the human brain shutting down because it just can't deal with it. It's just too much to take in. And so when you said those two separate waves, they are separate waves, but they're very much connected because they're not individual silos. Like your work life and your personal life, they're connected. And too often we treat them as separate um entities in our life, and they're not. They're really they really are connected. One, they have different reasons, they have different outcomes for our life, but they're absolutely connected. And the more that we realize that if I take really good care of myself and my relationships and my personal life, my business is going to improve. And if I do well in my business and stay focused on what I know I should be doing, I can come home and still be present for my family, for my kids, for whatever it is else in life that you want to do, including things for yourself. What a thought. Wow. What a scary thought.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yes, I think that's very hard. I think um for a lot of business entrepreneurs to do that. It's like when do you turn the switch on and off?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Right?

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah. Most of them don't ever turn the switch off. They just keep on. And and so when you're an entrepreneur, you think you have to do everything. And as soon as you realize that there is some options, that's when life actually becomes a bit a little bit more in your control.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

So so I'm gonna ask you this. Um, so if you could put a billboard uh out in the city, and preferably in Eastville, of course, it would be in Eastville, right? What better place?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

All right, we're gonna get sponsored by Eastville to put up a billboard, people. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

What would your message be? What would it say? What would Scott want it to be?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Well a phrase I use all the time with my clients is progress over perfection. Like always focus on the progress you're making as opposed to having the perfect plan or the perfect anything. Because too often we hold ourselves to really, really high standards. The highest performers hold themselves to high standards, but they also know they're constantly learning. Like they're learning, and by doing, they actually learn more, and they actually get more insights and they get more ways to uh try to achieve the things that they were trying to achieve, maybe on their own, maybe with others. So um, you know, it's it's that that's that's one from that level. I I would just also say that the other the other one I would probably I would I would probably go back between the both of them, and that is um really anything is possible. With the with the right with the right focus, with the right intention. I'm not saying that you're gonna be able to fly, but what I mean is that it really, if you get really um centered on what matters most to you and you focus on that, you can you can achieve it.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

That is so inspirational, especially when I could already envision it, right? Because we all get stuck on that freeway and we're already thinking, oh, we're already late. Uh what is our day looking like? And uh and then we start to form this little story in our heads about all of these things that we haven't done and the day is just beginning, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

And I love that.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, yeah. Anything is possible. And that's where we get where we get stuck to, where we're all the things we're not doing, right? You choose you know, what you focus on is what you feel. So if you choose to focus on the things I'm not doing, then we'll go down that rabbit hole. But if we choose to focus on, oh, look at the progress I've made today, or just choosing to like realize that I have done some things today that were worth, that were of value for myself, for my family, for my business, whatever it might be. Like to take that time to slow down and really appreciate life and to be fully present in it. That's a really difficult thing as adults.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Focus on the little wins to get that big.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah, constantly celebrate. When we're kids, we celebrate all the time over the littlest things.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

We get to be adults, and it's like we always oh I did that thing well, but I gotta get to this next level.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

We won't allow ourselves, right? That privilege. Uh I yeah, I understand.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

You've never you've never heard that before. I never experienced it, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I have that's another topic.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

I have, for sure. That's why.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

So um so you just launched uh the first master class. I like to call it the master class, uh, in collaboration with the Eastwell Chamber of Commerce from Passion to Profits.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

That's very exciting. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, it really is exciting because uh you know, we wrapped up the first one and um it's it's a four, it's a four in-person workshop um class where we're it's really all centered around uh my real success framework, which comes from my coaching with uh in high performance as well as my Tony Robbins uh programs that I coach on. I'm an authorized you know, Tony Robbins instructor as well and coach. And so we're doing four in-person classes and four Zoom sessions for entrepreneurs. And what I found when I was working in corporate America is that these types of frameworks or training was always available to help you level up your skills, level up your thinking. And um with entrepreneurs or solopreneurs, those kinds of tools don't exist really, and not in a way that really can resonate with them personally. So we're really um in these in this Passion Profits program, we're really taking and just enabling people to really take the tools that they learn and apply them specifically to how they want to live their life, how they want to run their business, how they want to really execute and live the life hopefully that they really strongly want to pursue. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

So and I know that um you have been doing this these classes for about how long now?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Um Well, the the real success framework actually was something I came up with about a year and a half ago. And so I've done it with with several different organizations, I've done it with different uh couple of different chambers of commerce, but really to this extent and to this depth, this is this is the that was this was the inaugural one. This is the one that really got us off the ground because a lot of it we I've done in the past have been taking all four modules of the Real Success Framework and putting them into either a half day session or 90-minute, right? We're in this, we're really going deep. And I want to applaud the city of Eastville because and and the Chamber of Commerce because they were the ones that said, look, we really want to invest in this, and we want to bring this to our business owners because we know there's gonna be value in it for them.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Oh, absolutely. I I know for me, I come from the corporate world initially, and I used to have I I had access to those type of um sessions and trainings, and and it's huge, and it's huge. But then when I decided to go, you know, into my own business, and that's a whole different ballgame because you're on your own, you are literally uh navigating that ship alone. So it's so important to have that as uh as part of your life and guidance, and I think a lot of it, we all need that. A lot of it comes from we have to motivate ourselves, but when we have other businesses that we can be with, right? Sit in class and share those stories. What is something that you a takeaway that you would say from the first class in Eastville that would say really resonates with you and that you feel, wow, this is really something that I wanted to do for other entrepreneurs and they can take home with them?

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Um, really just to empower them in a new way of thinking, right? That that because and you kind of referred to it as that being a business owner can feel like a very lonely experience. Like you have to do it all yourself or you're on your own. And to have these people in this class setting, if you will, and learning off each other. While I'm sharing frameworks and we're we're talking about things and I'm leading the conversation to a certain extent, they're also really learning from each other. They're being very vulnerable and sharing, and we've we've learned so much about each other's business, the struggles that they face, the successes that they've had. Um it's just really, for me, it's the whole reason I do what I what I do. I really, at this stage of my life and becoming a life coach and becoming a speaker and workshop facilitator is really trying to help others realize the kind of change they can make in their life. Because I was a client of a coach first, right? Like I hired a coach when I was in my corporate job because I needed answers. So if I can give that back to others and from the results that we're we've seen in this, it's it's happening. And just the conversations I'm having with people one-on-one, the things they're sharing in class, the movement that's being made. Um just it's it just is absolutely it inspires me to want to do it more.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

And probably you get to see all the diversity in different businesses and the culture that they have for their own business, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah. I, you know, I'm I'm I'm very blessed in the fact that I I have over um 20 clients in my coaching practice around the world. Like there, the I I have a client in Iceland, I have one in South Africa, I have, you know, I have all these clients all around the world, and I will tell you the one thing that's common amongst all of them is we all share the same concerns and issues. Doesn't matter where you live in the world, whether it's in Eastvale or whether it's in Iceland, you have you're you're dealing with the same issues.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

So I saw somewhere, I want to say either on your profile or somewhere, and I saw this quote, and it says, living with integrity for ourselves. So is that something that you live by? Or that you truly believe that is your starter to your own.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I aspire to that every day. Let's put it that way, right? Like, like um, we all have good days and bad days. And so integrity to me just means living in alignment with the values and and the the things that I that I view most important in my life. And so, yeah, that's that's integrity is a big, it's been a big um uh a word of of anchor for me for a very long time. Critical word. Yeah, it really is. And another word that kind of aligns into that is congruence is living in alignment with who we are. Because when we're not, when we're saying one thing, but we're doing something that's contrary to that, oh boy, that starts to disconnect, and there's all kinds of feelings and emotions that we can't even identify what where they're coming from. But if we were to look at it, we're we're probably living out of alignment with ourselves, our true selves anyway.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Okay, now you're going very deep deep.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I am going very deep. So pull me back out of the water here so we don't we don't go.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

I I've seen you uh speak at the morning mixers. Uh you do a great job, a fantastic job. And I know that our audience is pretty big in the mornings. Um do you normally do these uh um events with other chambers or are or is this uh why Eastville? Why did you decide that this would be a great place for you to launch like your first master class?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Well, um hey, I live right next to Eastvale, I live in North Eastvale, as Harry would like to call it, right? That's right. Right. So I'm I'm just Eastvale adjacent, but I live in South Ontario. Um but yeah, I really because I wanted to really connect with small business owners, uh Eastvale is is the is the closest one to me, but it was also the one that I noticed that I felt really invested the most in the businesses. Like they were really truly concerned about bringing their business owners up and enabling them. Um I've done it with Chino, I've I've I've presented at Montclair, we're looking at at similar programs there. I'm talking to the Corona Chamber, because that's the way I can get in front of you know the majority of business owners. I'm looking at other vehicles as well, but those are ways that that I'm I'm looking at right now. And and you know, again, Harry had it had had this idea about passionate profits, it aligned well with what I was doing after I did a workshop for the chamber. We talked through it and worked through the details, and here we are.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

So it's wonderful to see that uh you're able to provide that because it's one of the key pieces for education for small businesses. Uh so there's a lot of need in the community, especially because uh, you know, as business owners, we have to touch and we have to wear different hats, right? We touch every single aspect of the business. Right. So it kind of, you know, uh coincides with everything, sharpen those skills, yeah, to the max. We don't stop doing that for sure. Yeah. What is one event that you have attended with the Chamber of Commerce that you could say has really resonated most with you? And why would you recommend it?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Well, the the monthly events, the the you know, the business at breakfast events once a month are always really insightful because we learn a lot about what's going on and we hear from the other business owners. But um I think that National Day of Prayer breakfast that gets hosted in May is a really impactful one. I'm a man of faith, so that that speaks to my heart. And to um just to see all of the people that are involved with that, the those who spoke, those who prayed, those that attended, it was a really nice, unifying, like really connected message that like this is this is this is a community that wants to support each other and help each other out, and that really resonates with me.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

The unity, right? Uh yeah, wonderful, beautiful. Well, uh one last question. So what would you if you somebody asked you, you know, I want to go to the city of Eastville. And what do you what how would you rank um maybe opening up a business in Eastville perhaps? Or in the surrounding area, what would you say, what would be your first thought, and how would you approach that question about the city of Eastville and maybe even joining the Chamber of Commerce?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Yeah, run, don't walk. Yeah, don't don't don't think about it. It's it's the resources you've got available to you through the city of Eastville, um through the chamber, uh, the connections, the community that's there. It it's it's one that you'll have a lot of success in. You'll make some really great contacts. Your business will thrive there if you invest in the time to really like leverage the resources that are available. And I know that because I've been around several different chambers, and this one stands out for sure in a good way, and all the way uh above the rest.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Wonderful. That's why we want to put a billboard up there right in Eastville, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:09

That's what I had to do to get a billboard. It should have told me sooner.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Well, Scott, uh I thank you so much for being here. Uh it's been fun speaking with you, and uh you are a person that has a lot of knowledge in coaching, um, very inspirational, and I almost feel like uh we probably have to have session number two.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Right, right? You let me know when we need to do it. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

We can go back and maybe revisit um you know what we can do next for the next coaching class through the Chamber of Commerce, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yeah, keep building on this.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

That's right. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Thank you, Erica.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

All right.