Be Honest, Be Appreciative, Provide Value with Scott Kaplan

Be honest, be appreciative, provide value. What if these 3 simple rules guided your life? Can it be that straightforward? In this episode, our guest and long-time friend, Scott Kaplan shares how these powerful values guide him through life's relationships. With no shortage of stories, quotes, and real aha moments, this conversation left me feeling grounded and inspired to keep aligning my actions to what matters most in my life - those human connections. Dig in for some real talk and a whole lot of fun.

Guest Bio: Scott Kaplan graduated from the University of Delaware with a degree in Management Information Systems. Seeing the intersection of two disciplines (business and technology) taught Scott to always look for commonalities between seemingly unrelated topics. He spent almost a decade freelancing as an Operations Consultant for small businesses and as a Personal Trainer for CEOs and other executives. In December 2018, he gave up the freelance lifestyle to join a 30 person start up that has grown 10x since.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Dare2B
• Annual Walk for the Kids - Route
• @a_record_of_my_quarantine
• Krumboltz Planned Happenstance Theory (Video)
• FYT Virtual Assistants
• Live Your Values Podcast
• LYV on Facebook
• LYV on Instragram

Connect with us @lyvshow on social to continue the values conversation!

Transcript

Bagel: 0:02

Hey, what's up values crew it's Bagel. This is our fifth episode, and I just want to give a huge shout out and say thank you to all of our listeners and supporters of the Live Your Values podcast so far. It's been amazing to already hear how these episodes have inspired some of you to rethink and prioritize what's important and work towards a more meaningful life for yourself. If you've gotten any value from these first five episodes, be it a small nugget or a life changing paradigm shift. I would love it if you could leave us a review on Apple podcasts, this would be extremely helpful in letting us get the word out and help more people live a more meaningful value based, values based life. You don't have an Apple device, no sweat. Just drop us a comment on Facebook or Instagram and let us know something you liked or suggestion you have for a guest or about the show in general. One of our core values here at LYV is to find ways to connect in every sense of the word. So we'd love to hear from you. This week's guest is my longtime friend and occasional drinking buddy Scott Kaplan. While our early years were focused, mostly on hitting the gym and parties. We naturally developed chemistry, talking about life and what matters most human connection. In this episode, Scott breaks down is three simple, yet powerful values and shines light on how they guide them through life's relationships. With no shortage of stories, quotes, and real aha moments, this conversation left me feeling grounded and inspired to keep aligning my actions to what matters most in my life or yourself a good old brew. Let's dive into this episode. Five of the Live Your Values podcast. So this may be a more informal conversation, a little casual chat with my buddy here Scott Kaplan. Who's a longtime friend. We've known each other, how long. 15 years now, something like that?

Scott Kaplan: 1:52

Yeah, I graduated high school 15 years ago when I met you my first semester of college. So 15

Bagel: 1:56

Damn crazy time is flying. yeah, so, so Scottie and I went to Delaware together and the San fraternity, kept in touch over the years. Scott, you live in and up in the city and the big Apple you've been there. What, since you graduated or no, you were in Philly for awhile.

Scott Kaplan: 2:14

It's been about eight years in Manhattan now.

Bagel: 2:17

yup. Still surviving, especially right now the crisis.

Scott Kaplan: 2:22

It's yeah, it's a weird time, but definitely a good place to be for all this.

Bagel: 2:26

so this podcast is about living your values and I feel like you and I have had some really good conversations over the years, some involving more booze than others. And, you know, kind of talking about the stuff that matters to us, what's important in life. And we've had some fun conversations about business and entrepreneurship I know you do some charity work and you're involved in one in particular that you're really passionate about. These days I know you're a working man, got a full time job, lots of hours. Putting in the time and stuff like that. What's what are, what are your values right now? Like what are the things that you feel like matter to you the most in terms of your everyday life?

Scott Kaplan: 3:06

Sure. Some sometime in college, I realized that I came up with these three points that, I bring to any relationship, whether it's personal or business. And regardless of what my income means has been, whether it's freelancing or full time or running my own business. It seems like these three have always really rung true, no matter what I'm doing. And the three are be honest, be appreciative and provide value. So no matter what, you know, you gotta be honest with the people around you for better or worse. Appreciate their time and what they're putting into it. And make sure that you're bringing something to the table so that, you know, the value you bring is why one of the things that'll keep you coming back.

Bagel: 3:49

Yeah. Oh, I love that. So I really liked the idea. Idea of like, what do you bring to the table? I don't know if you and I have talked about this, but that was, that was almost a, a phrase or almost a filter that like some of my friends growing up used to use. That's not trying to be judgmental about people, but it was more like, Do we want to be friends with this person, what do they bring to the table? It was almost like that was the filter that we use. And obviously, you know, I think we, we like to think that we brought somebody to the table ourselves and everyone had their own ways, way of contributing and their own personality and things like that. That's probably more like personality wise, but it sounds like for you, it's talking more about providing value, what are you going to contribute to the world or society or your job or whatever. Do you feel like that that plays out more in personal life? Professional? Both. Any examples?

Scott Kaplan: 4:41

I said, we can be both professional, personal, even just random people on the street. You know, in my professional life, I need to be delivering quality work. I need to be providing enough value that I'm worth what they're paying me. But then when it comes to the personal life, I mean, just being a good friend, being someone that will listen with my friends and have a problem, you know, that's value to a relationship. Whether it's, you know, romantic relationships where you take the extra, you know, go the extra mile to bring romance to it, that's providing value. So it's just finding in any way, making sure that this isn't all about you. That what your actions kind of put out there is, you know, should help you, but it should also help other people too. And that's, you know, an important thing to make sure you're doing.

Bagel: 5:26

Yeah. Yeah. It's like a being outwardly focused and knowing that the world is bigger than yourself, that sort of thing,

Scott Kaplan: 5:33

You can't please everyone, but it's good to try to please some of them.

Bagel: 5:36

For sure. Yeah. And that's, I think, that's an easy trap to fall into. I think for some people of trying to please everybody. I know that that's something I've struggled with most of my life. Have there been times where that's like been a trap at all for you. Do you feel like it's been hard to draw boundaries when it's like, all right. I can only give so much.

Scott Kaplan: 5:55

Yeah, well, I think at the one piece that we haven't talked about yet that these three rules applying to is your relationship with yourself. So being honest with yourself, you know, appreciating yourself, providing value for yourself. You know, sometimes if you really care about someone or care about your work, you may give too much where it's not reciprocated. But then it's that honesty with yourself like, okay, is this bringing value to my life? Is this something that's making me happy and really being honest about it, not. You know, BSing yourself, just that's what you want to like, but how do you actually feel about it? But I definitely have fallen into it. I especially with the, you know, I tend to be too honest. Not where it's insulting, but you know, if I was trying to make a sale and I would be honest that this might not be the best product for you. And I'd rather for me personally, I'd rather lose a short term sale and build a long term trust. So it's, again, what's the value, what's the metrics for that value you're providing? Is it a short term? Is it a longterm there's times where both are important and you know, these aren't hard rules of how to be honest, how to be appreciated and how to provide value. It's finding those in each situation you're in.

Bagel: 7:09

Yeah. Yeah. It just made me think of, when I was in grad school, I took like an elective course on, I don't remember if it was like negotiating or something along those lines. And there was, I'll never forget. Probably the one thing I actually remember from this class is there was this really interesting graph that showed like on the X axis, it was relationship. And on the Y axis, it was goal. And it had like, I think there were five different animals that represented like the low and high end of each. And then in the middle was an owl or a Fox. I always forget which one was, which, but the one that compromised the most and it kind of met in the middle. Think, I think that was the owl. but it's this idea that like some people more naturally are like more fierce and go for the goal with zero care about the relationship. Some people are the opposite where like the relationship matters much more to them than like accomplishing the goal. And like having tact is important so some people naturally follow other side of the other, but in most negotiations, you're kind of having to like understand all the sides and maybe understanding yourself and where you typically fall. And not that far falling right in the middle is the right answer, but oftentimes it's how you lead to compromise and that sort of thing. So it just kinda, it just made me think of kind of what you were saying there. And I think, it's easy to fall in the trap of, of your natural state. But sometimes especially if you're trying to stand up for yourself, sometimes you gotta make sure that your own goals are taken into account as well. And I think what you said about having to apply those three ideals or values to yourself too. Cause like being honest, being appreciative, providing value, like yeah, those are great things to have for yourself before you like, even figure out how to offer that to the world. Probably some good lessons.

Scott Kaplan: 8:49

Yeah. I mean, it's the one person you can never get away from no matter where you go, everywhere you go. There you are.

Bagel: 8:55

That's right.

Scott Kaplan: 8:56

From birth till death. It's the one relationship you can never end.

Bagel: 9:00

Yeah.

Scott Kaplan: 9:00

So you gotta make sure that you take care of yourself.

Bagel: 9:03

Yeah, I think self care is an important thing. How are you managing with that these days? So at the time of recording this, where we're still in quarantine or a stay at home. Have you had the shift, anything that you were doing for like self care? Like making sure you say somewhat sane these days? I feel like it's a struggle.

Scott Kaplan: 9:21

Absolutely. I mean, it was a I, so I went through a bit of a transition almost a year and a half ago. I spent most of my twenties, running my own personal training business where I made my own schedule. I was freelancing in tech, helping small businesses, implement new systems. So I really had like about eight years of freedom, you know, I had to work, but I could make my own schedule. And, You know, really fighting. So like working, I can just cancel everything on the schedule. About a year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to join a small startup that has done quite well. It was, I was around the 30th hire, and we were working very hard and a year and a half later, we are almost at 300.

Bagel: 10:03

Crazy.

Scott Kaplan: 10:03

Going very well. The, you know, as unfortunate as this quarantine has been, for what my company does it's only helped business. Cause we're a tech company, that's digitizing processes. And it's, it's been an adjustment, you know, to maintain that self care switching to a schedule where I was reporting to people, where I was working 60, 70 hours a week. You know, I let things go. I wasn't going to the gym. I wasn't eating healthy. I ended up going to the emergency room because my blood pressure spiked to about 50 points above normal and into the critical area where, when a doctor took my blood pressure they immediately sent me to the emergency room. But then I was able to, you know, that was kind of a wake up call and I made sure to fix my eating, drank a little less alcohol, make sure I was getting to the gym. And then, you know, Flash forward another four to six months. And we're in quarantine where life has been flipped upside down again. First couple of weeks, I was bored. So I was drinking a lot. I wasn't eating well, wasn't exercising, but I was able to find my way back to the patterns that I had done. And I think that's, it's an interesting thing. And I think it really applies to, one of the reasons why I think it's important to actually identify what your values are is because you're not going to be perfect with them. You're going to fall out. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to make decisions that go against what your values are. And the point of the values aren't to abide by them a hundred percent of the time. It's a reminder. It's, you know, we have all these sayings in life. You know, my favorite one is, darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. You know, it's a reminder of like, be nice to people that are not nice to you because someone's being a jerk to you. The gut instinct is to return that same thing. So we had these sayings to remind yourself of like, no, no, no. The right thing to do is to treat this person with respect, regardless. I think that can apply to these values to, you know, identify what matters to you in life. So that when you start to drift away from what matters to you. You have those guideposts, those like shiny lights to say, no, no, no, this is how you want to live. Cause it's, we're human, you know, none of us are perfect. We're not going to be able to do things a hundred percent of the time. So having those reminders of what matters to you is going to bring you back home.

Bagel: 12:18

It's Bagel with an overlay. I heard you like these so I'm doing one. Listening to Scott say that the reason we need to define our values is because we know we're going to get off track makes total sense. As I'm about to describe when we jumped back in, it's as if your values are your compass. Imagine a compass that decided to North was a different direction. Every time you looked at it. It would be not only useless, but detrimental. Getting a working compass in other words, establishing which way is the right way for you, allows you to always be walking towards your true North. If that's where you want to go. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. You used some good words there. I think for me it feels kind of like your compass. It's like

Scott Kaplan: 13:00

that's great. And

Bagel: 13:01

star almost where, yeah, we're all gonna get off track. As someone who struggles with perfectionism, there's so many times where I just beat myself up over not doing things exactly right. The reality is like, that's not human there's no such thing as perfect. You know, I can go down the rabbit hole of all of the reasons why it really logically it doesn't make much sense. But at the end of the day if I come back to the values and the things that are most important, you know, probably the pinnacle one for me is just connectedness, like being connected to the people I care about and to nature and society and all that sort of thing. I feel okay. Like even if something didn't go well that day or if everything went wrong that day, if I feel some sense of that connection, which I value probably the most over anything else, like I'll still feel whole. I still feel pretty okay. And like a human being and like myself. And so I think that's a great point of how that's the benefit of really helping, identify those values for yourself. To like recenter and work back towards the path or aligned back with what you know, where your center is and that sort of thing.

Scott Kaplan: 14:05

Yeah, there was, in fitness. I mean, this is a thing that's outside of fitness too. But a common term you'll hear is, you know, equilibrium. That the body wants to find equilibrium. And when you get too far away from what matters to you and your, you know, the values that are important to you, you kind of feel like you're out of equilibrium where things don't feel well. So having those markers to be able to return to that steady state, it makes it easier to find that comfort zone.

Bagel: 14:31

Yeah. That's a really great word. What's your go to thing that you try to do to like reset or get that equilibrium back?

Scott Kaplan: 14:37

There's a few things, reaching out to people who know me, someone like you. If I'm, you know, need to talk to someone that's a great way to, you know, someone who's known you for years, that knows when you're kind of full of it and what matters to you. But I'm also a very private person. I don't often share my personal feelings and emotions, and sometimes it's just sitting down and either writing my thoughts out or just like isolating myself and saying, all right, I'm not happy right now. Why am I not happy? Was there a certain event that I need to be upset about and give myself some time to be upset and then move on? You know? But you know, it goes back to being honest with yourself. What am I doing? Am I doing the things that matter to me? Am I doing, you know, my drinking every night and going out partying? And am I trying to hide some feelings? By, you know, getting drunk all the time or, you know, Oh, no. I just like to have fun. Well, really? Or do you like to just have fun or is this masking something and it really just comes back to you have to be honest with yourself. Like lying to yourself doesn't do anything good. So. Write out your thoughts, you know, if you're someone who does well with your own thoughts, isolate yourself. If you're not someone who can do that, find a therapist, find a friend who you can talk to, you know, but you have to work through those feelings, you have to make sure that that honesty comes out to be able to get back to what matters.

Bagel: 16:01

Yeah, I think that's really brilliant. Just understanding that you don't have to do it alone. But yeah, there's such a good practice to find ways to like journal or meditate or just kind of have that self reflection time to really think about what's going on. I really like how you said, giving yourself the space to actually like be with the emotions that you're feeling, which for some guys may be a little harder to do. Maybe some girls too, you know, it's like sometimes we don't want to sit with those emotions or we're almost pushing them away instinctively or, not even intentionally. But I think to really improve or get better or even get past something. Yeah. If we kind of just like, need to like, let it sit, right? Like if someone I know for me, I'm a very sensitive person. I'm a Virgo and that might have something to do with it. And almost on a daily basis, something will happen that offends me like that. I just like take it way too seriously and probably isn't even worth my time. But I get upset about it sometimes just in my head and I'll let it go in like a minute, but other times it'll stick with me. And I've definitely nowhere near even mastering this, but just allowing myself to even say out loud. Like you said, like I am feeling this right now. Just acknowledging it. sometimes it can be really, really powerful.

Scott Kaplan: 17:20

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, sometimes it's something small. I live in New York city where you can't commute without getting angry at someone. There's someone who's going to be doing something stupid that you want to yell at. I'm not going to yell at those people.

Bagel: 17:34

I thought of your story though. You told me last week of the three assholes as you called them in the middle of the street.

Scott Kaplan: 17:40

Yeah. Well, quarrantine has gotten me a little more on edge.

Bagel: 17:44

Understandable.

Scott Kaplan: 17:45

Bagel was just referencing when these guys were basically taking up the whole sidewalk and I, in a not so polite manner, asked them to move to the side. And, they said I didn't need to be mean. And I said they didn't need to be dumb asses. Um, so

Bagel: 18:00

Right. That's dumb asses

Scott Kaplan: 18:01

I guess he, hadn't sorry. Should I give him share the, the slogan that I like to use for those situations? I don't know. Is this a family friendly podcast? I'm like,

Bagel: 18:09

Not at all. It's authentic.

Scott Kaplan: 18:12

I'm a big fan of the saying. It doesn't matter if you're being a dumb ass or an asshole, it's still shitty, you know? So like you might be making a mistake and not realize you're doing something wrong, but you're doing something wrong. You might be purposely doing something wrong and you're an asshole. Well, it doesn't matter. Cause you're in the way it's shitty, but that's not one of my values. I try not to get angry at people, but sometimes that

Bagel: 18:33

That's real. Yeah, it happens.

Scott Kaplan: 18:34

Hey, you know, it's, I have to be honest that sometimes I lose my temper and I can usually keep it in check, but that's me. But what I was going to get at was, you know, we, there's the small things. And then unfortunately life is full of tragedy and trauma. You know, we're going to have deaths, we're going to have horrible things happen in our lives. We all go through it. And, you know, being able to process that it's not something you have to share with people. Although some people enjoy sharing it, but one way or the other, you know, being honest with yourself about what you're feeling and processing what you've been through. However, in a nondestructive manner, you can do it. You've got to get through it. Just be honest with yourself. And you know, if you're not, you're not providing value to yourself, you're not appreciating yourself. Cause you're going to be stuck in this and you need to find a way to deal with those things. If you want to be honest and appreciative of yourself.

Bagel: 19:23

Yeah, it's, really apparent how those three values do drive your decision making and like how you think about life and how you approach things. Are there any, as I've been asking people this question, are there any values you see that other people upholds that you're just like, that means nothing to me and that doesn't matter? Or you almost like laugh at it.

Scott Kaplan: 19:43

You know it's, I don't know if it's like specific values. You know, it might just be how they apply their values. You know, I'm not a social media person and I see people who just completely are obsessed with it. And it, you know, I have friends who work in the social media industry and make their money through social media. And like, I think it's great. If you find something that drives you, That's that's amazing, but like how they're applying their values to those things. It's just, to me, it's just like, I don't want to put all my thoughts out there. Like this is the most public forum I've been in and I don't even know who's going to listen to this, but

Bagel: 20:21

Yeah, lots of people. I promise.

Scott Kaplan: 20:24

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions. The masses are coming.

Bagel: 20:28

Yeah. I have a feeling you're not alone. I have a feeling that some people who do listen to this will probably relate to that a lot, which I think, I actually think that's really cool for you to share. I think there's people on all different sides of the spectrum on social media. As in general, like using it and how to, how publicly they want to share their thoughts and their every moves and their reactions let alone, like pictures of dogs and babies and, you know, celebrations and all this stuff. It's hard to believe it's been around for like 15 years already. Like part, part of me feels like it's been much shorter. And other part of me feels like I can't remember a time without it.

Scott Kaplan: 21:08

Well, I mean, I dunno, I consider AOL instant messenger social media.

Bagel: 21:12

It would be, it was.

Scott Kaplan: 21:14

That's even longer than 15 years.

Bagel: 21:16

That's true. We grew up with some form of it. So like from the beginning. Yeah.

Scott Kaplan: 21:20

I mean, away messages. Those were just statuses.

Bagel: 21:23

They were they were. It's crazy. Have you seen how social has impacted your own life or people around you in any positive or negative way?

Scott Kaplan: 21:34

Sure. I mean, I think that it's undeniable, that it has changed society, you know, it's for better and worse. You know, we have ways of staying in contact, like never before. I have, you know, a friend, a mutual friend of ours reached out through Instagram. Cause I posted a picture of my, of us playing Jackbox games the other night. That wouldn't have happened if, it was a story I don't really post a lot, but it was a fun time. So I do share some times. And, you, that was a, it was a way to stay in contact where. You know, people who you don't even talk to anymore, at least to kind of get to stay up in their lives. But then there's the people who compare themselves to what they see in social media is not real. It's all of us well, the majority of us are just posting our highlights. So, you know, it's, it's unfortunate, especially. I mean, I can't even imagine being a kid growing up in this where. You know, I got bullied in school, but I went home and, and unless you had my screen name for aim. You couldn't bully me online. Now everyone is so visible to everyone. So, you know, I looking back, I mean, while I was getting bullied in high school, it definitely wasn't fun or anything. But looking back, it, it helped me understand how to treat people. And, you know, I think kids today, if you're the same bullying, tactics are happening only when you leave school, those bullies still have full access to you and publicly they can do it on a public forum. So I think it's, it's a lot harder for kids to be dealing with that. But you know, my, my three values, my, my three values come into this again. It's like be honest about what social media is. You know, appreciate what it can be and what it shouldn't be. And trying to distinct make a distinction there and, you know, social media even go the other way should provide value to you. So. If you're, you know, unfortunately I don't know if a kid could do this, if it's too ostracizing, to be completely off of social media. But like, if you, if you're being on social media platforms are bringing you negative feelings and negative emotions, that's not a value provided. That's not something that you should be putting yourself through and being honest about it, you know. Like, Oh my God, I see these fitness models who have better bodies than me. Well, if that's your reaction every day one, are you being honest about who they really are, but is that social media providing value to you? And if it's not, why are you subjecting yourself to it?

Bagel: 23:50

It's time to take a real hard look at your behaviors. This discussion was framed around advice to a kid, likely a teenager growing up in the age of social sharing as a norm. But the lesson can apply to all of us that choose to engage in the social media trap. Are you being honest about who your friends are and the people you follow? What emotions does it bring up as you scroll through your feed? What value is it providing? Yeah, totally. I think, it may be hard for a kid. Having that complex of a thought about whether it's adding value to their life and that sort of thing, although they may be. But I think as adults, for sure, it's like, I mean, I'm still on Facebook and I, you know, use social to some extent these days, although not posting nearly as much as I did, maybe when we were in college or even a few years after that. But, yeah, I'm think I do find myself aimlessly scrolling sometimes, like I did last night cause I couldn't fall asleep and it's just like, Oh, what's going on? Right. And we could easily go down a rabbit hole with social. We don't have to do that, but I think it's just like, it is interesting. And I think it's a good question to ask yourself about anything that you're engaging with, which is like, how is this adding value to my life? What is this, how is this serving me? Or how, what is this providing me that's that's useful or beneficial. And if you can't clearly articulate that, maybe worth considering whether that should be in your life. That probably goes for relationships too. Not just social media.

Scott Kaplan: 25:17

Yeah. I mean, I try to the same way I try to apply these rules to myself. I try to measure other people and things and experiences in that same light. If I'm in a relationship, I want them to be honest with me. I want them to appreciate me and I want them to provide value in me. I don't not that I want to use them in any way, but like, they need to bring something, as you said earlier to the table for it to be worth it, you know, even if it's just listening to me, even if it's just being a good friend or a good girlfriend or whatever the relationship is. You know, if it's my boss, I want my boss to be honest with me and to appreciate my work. And I want my boss to improve my workday. If they're not, maybe that's not the right employment opportunity for me.

Bagel: 25:59

I was just going to say, I'm really glad you brought that up because it's like you're holding up the mirror of your own values to the rest of the world and the other people that you engage with. I don't even think that's a selfish thing. I think that that's your filter. That is what matters to you is saying, these are the things I care to do for others. And I'm hoping for the same. And that's kind of, those are the types of people that you want to be around. Those are the same types of things that you asked for from others in return. And that kind of helps you build your center. which I think is cool. I don't know the right way to ask this question, so I'm just gonna figure it out. How do you respond to other people's values? Are there times where you've seen like someone, you know well, whether it's someone you're dating or friend or coworker where like you could sense, like, wait a second, they care a whole lot about something totally different than me. And how does that ever conflict with yours?

Scott Kaplan: 26:52

Yeah, I've wanted mine where, you know, I had a friend who, we lived in the same building and just, you know. We were actually on the same floor and, got very friendly, and you know, after a while it seemed like he was more interested in just getting things from people. You know, I felt like he was a shark. Like, it wasn't a bad thing or what he was, he's probably going to be very successful in life. You know, he's got that like kill, kill, kill attitude to get what he wants out of life. And it just, wasn't what I wanted. And, and I saw him doing it to other people and I was like, all right, well, I don't like it, but he's never done to me. He's always been good to me, appreciated me. And then one day, we had an agreement and he decided it wasn't a good enough agreement for him. And basically just almost, you know, screwed up some plans that I had. And it was the wake up call, alright, he doesn't share the same values, you know, he's not going to be honest and provide value to me. And you know, it wasn't like an immediate cutoff, but, yeah, I kind of distanced myself. And when I left, when I moved out of the building and I haven't talked to him in years now, but you know, I wish him nothing but the best. I don't want this to sound like I'm badmouthing him in any way. It just, you know, I, and again, his values of getting what he wants in life is the most important thing to him. It seemed. And you know, I'm not going to try to actually assume I know what is in his head. But that's okay. Like he had what mattered to him and it didn't quite, vibe with what I wanted in life. And, you know, we had some fun and hanging out and, but, at the end of the day, the things he was bringing into my life, weren't the things that I saw valuable as we had to part ways.

Bagel: 28:35

Yeah, and I think that's a good Testament to what we were kind of sharing earlier, which is like, you have your set of values and the ones that usually your three to five is about the max of like the core values that someone has and is really able to track and emanate in the world and that sort of thing. And that might be the way that we're choosing to surround ourselves with people that share some of those values. Maybe not all of them, but like you said, if there's a clear disparity between like those three values that you care about so much, and like this guy is just totally not important. In fact, maybe contrasting those values, like completely. Yeah. Probably not someone that you're going to jive with. And then you're going to want to spend a lot of time with, because you just don't. Believe the same things and probably going to cause more strife than it's worth. No, it was just, I was just going to say that you use the word shark and that was one of the animals in that graph I was talking about earlier, which it was all the way up on the goal and zero on the relationship. It was the shark.

Scott Kaplan: 29:41

Yup. I mean, that's, you know, at the show shark tank, that's, that's the idea of a shark is they are going to get what they want and it's. Successful people, very successful. Highly successful people often have to be that way cause there's other sharks out there. And if you're not going to be a shark, someone else is going to eat you. Which is why, like I'm not in the finance world. I don't think I can swim in that fish tank.

Bagel: 30:04

Imagery.

Scott Kaplan: 30:06

Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. As, you know, as long as you're not being destructive to yourself or other people, there's nothing wrong with being a shark. And, you know, if that's what matters to you, you know, I don't wish any ill will towards this guy. I don't wish any ill will towards anyone. Who's just trying to pursue what they love. but I think it's interesting that yeah, most companies will list their values. Not always actually the values that they have, but sometimes it's a PR thing, but sometimes they really do feel those things. And they'll often incorporate in interviews to try to make sure that the people who they're bringing in share those values and just like a company is going to build their workforce, your personal life has a workforce. And it's important that the people around you are of a similar mindset in terms of values. They don't have to be exactly the same values, but that you can work those values together to not get in the way of your company yourself, having your values and being successful in implementing those values.

Bagel: 31:07

Yeah, I love that. I think that's awesome to think of it that way. And you're right. Lots of, I mean, every company ideally should have a set of values. Again, usually three to five is like the ideal range and you're right. That some of them really practice those values in their hiring and the work they do with their clients. And internally as a staff and from the leadership down, a lot of them just do it for like PR reasons, like you said, it's just like, they want to represent themselves in a certain light, but maybe aren't actually practicing them. And I think that's the same thing with human beings with us. It's like, are we actually, you know. It's one thing to say that these are the things you care about, but are you living those values every day? Are you practicing those core values? Not necessarily every single day, but do they drive you? Do they drive your decision making? Like, it's really clear for you that those three matter a lot. And you're probably thinking about them even if not on the surface, they're kind of ingrained in you with almost everything that you do. And if you think of yourself as not that you have to be a corporate entity, but you can think of yourself as, you know, as an entity of some degree, yeah.

Scott Kaplan: 32:15

Yeah, Mitt Romney said businesses are people. So why can't people be businesses or corporations? Sorry. He said corporations are

Bagel: 32:20

Corporations. Yeah. I think it's the same idea that like a company values itself, it puts a value in what it offers to its customers and in the same light human beings should value themselves, hopefully. And the way that you carry yourself. And interact with the world around you should matter. And we all have values, whether we have addressed them and identified them or not, which is what the show is about a bit is to help people discover and align those values so that they can practice them and hopefully live a more meaningful life. Two other things I wanted to bring up with you that I think could be fun. One is Planned Happenstance, something that you and I have have talked about a bit over the years, and we'll put a link in the show notes to so people can learn a little bit more about it. But it's basically this idea that most of life happens outside of our control but what we do with the control that we do have is what actually matters. That's like the power that we do have is, reacting to these situations and setting ourselves up for future opportunities. I think that's kind of the basis of planned happenstance. I can go on about all the ways I think, you know, one decision after the next kind of helped propel me to the next thing between different jobs and careers and deciding where to go to school and who I associated with and all that sort of thing. Are there any ways that you feel like planned happenstance has like been a part of your life?

Scott Kaplan: 33:51

Absolutely. So you brought planned happenstance to my attention. I think it was soon after we graduated. You were in grad school. I was kind of figuring things out. And you mentioned that you had read about this idea and it seemed like I was already doing it and once you brought it to my attention I really embraced this idea. You know, I try to think of it a little less of life is happening to me and more of preparing myself for opportunities. You know, you're absolutely right. A world of 8 billion people. That's 799 plus nine nine nine nine nine nine, nine, nine people doing things. And then you, so there's a lot happening around without you doing it. So you don't have control over everything, but you do over have control over your actions, and preparing yourself for opportunities. You know, I was, I didn't really want to return to the corporate world. I loved my, what I was doing, the freedom, what I was always making sure that I was improving my skills in both tech and fitness. I graduated with a degree in MIS management information systems, which is basically it was supposed to be the major, the future before the market crashed. That's a whole nother thing. But you know, it was, basically, it taught me how to learn systems, and you know, flash forward seven or so years later, I'm 29. And I realized that a lot of the things I learned in school, were not outdated, but a lot of it was being automated. And honestly, no, it was becoming an outdated skill set. And I knew I needed, you know, I didn't want to return to a corporate world, but I knew I needed to update my skillset. So, you know, I took out a loan and went to a coding bootcamp, you know, three months, nine to five everyday learning, you know, Ruby on rails and react and all these new fancy coding languages. And I met a friend in coding school who, we stayed in touch after school ended and, you know, flash forward another two years, she joined a startup that she was their first hire. She was the sixth or seventh person, you know, the first one outside of the founding teams. They just reach about 30 people and they were hiring. And I was like, actually, this sounds like a great opportunity, not something I was planning for, but this happenstance just fell into my lap. So I took it and it's been great, especially with this quarrantine, I would be out of work because I'd still be a personal trainer. But now still gainfully employed. And it's, you know, it's, there's opportunities everywhere you look. You just have to be able to recognize it. And it's also about, you know, you kind of said, you mentioned how everything in your life has led to where you are. And I think some people have a difficulty appreciating that and you, I'm going to go back to you have to be able to appreciate things. It's one of those values that everything that happens to you, I don't believe it happens for a reason. I mean, it does, because again, there's so many people, there's a reason that everyone did what they did and this event happened. But not that it's like a divine intervention that this event happened. But if you can appreciate whatever happened and make it mean something, then, you know, that's that's value and being able to turn whether it's a good thing or a bad thing into something that's positive, you know, can, can be very useful.

Bagel: 37:08

Yeah, that piece right there of making meaning out of the circumstances that I think that is like the tenant, the main foundation of planned happenstance. And the foundational of a lot of great conversations you and I have had over the years. Which is, you know, this idea that lots of stuff like you said, it's out of the control of what might've led you to a certain event. But there's also things that were in your control. And so to recognize those things and have gratitude and appreciation for the things that you did do, as well as understanding that like some other stuff in the world had to happen, whether you're spiritual, religious, or not, other circumstances had to be as such to get you to a certain point. In addition to the things you did that were in your control and having some appreciation around that, I think is important. Because it, I think it's a motivator. I think it motivates you to continue to try to continue to like make decisions and set yourself up for further opportunities. There's lots of different, you know, opinions about, you know, like the whole, the secret thing and, you know, willing things to happen. And I'm not going to offer my opinions on that, but I think the idea that if you are trying to make meaning of your circumstances and you're taking action and you're trying to set yourself up for future opportunities, that's what's in your control. And I think that's why I've gravitated towards this planned happenstance theory and why, I just think it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, basically, I'm saying, I agree with you.

Scott Kaplan: 38:34

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a, I've said this a few times to people and it never. I don't know, I've never had a positive reaction to it, but it's something that stays in my head is. You know, people talking about fate, like, is it God pushing you to do something? Or what, what is fate? And I had this realization, I think in high school that I believe that fate is a result of collective freewill. So because we're all making thousands of decisions every day what's going to happen is going to happen because of that. Will Ferrell was in a movie, I forget what it's called stranger than fiction maybe. Where it was like somebody was writing a book about him, but it was all about everyone else's decisions that were leading to what was going to happen to him. And it's like, it's not predefined, you know, everyone else is going to make their decisions and that's going to impact what happens to you to what you're fated to do. But you also have control, you know, I also. I loved Obama when he got out of, when he finished being president, he has a quote of saying, I thought I was going to write a chapter in US history, but it turns out I only got to write a paragraph, basically that the power of the president wasn't as huge as he thought it was. And you know, if you apply that to your life, you are writing your book. Your whole book is your decisions. But there's other people who are also writing their books that intersect with yours. So it's like, you know, you think you have this amount of control, you know, a score of 10 in your control, but it turns out you have a score of seven or three, or who knows what it is. But you still have some control and getting that control to fit in to everything else that's happening around you can be scary. But, you know, it's also understanding that if things don't go your way, well, they're still going. You know, if things don't work out in the end, then I guess it's not the end yet. And that's, you know, I love that saying too. So I, you know, I've gone for job interviews and didn't get them. And at the time I was devastated that, you know, 2009 I finished college, the market crashed in 2008, so there were very few jobs out there. And I remember was up for a, I was in like a third round of interviews for what I thought was my dream job at the time. And the guy who ended up getting it was the guy who I helped in almost every class we had. Like any class I had with him, he came to me and I would help him. And he interviewed better than me and got the job. And at the time I was devastated, I was like, that was what I really wanted. And looking back. I mean, I don't know if I would be miserable, but now with my life experiences, that is not the path I would have wanted to go down with where the path I did go down. So, you know, I thought I was ready. My book turns out his book was getting that job. And my book was to go be a bartender for the next year, which was an amazing time. And I learned more bartending. And the millionaire who bought that bar taught me his whole life perspective. That still stays with me today. I carry more of my lessons from that year that I do from four years of college.

Bagel: 41:28

Yeah. And that's like a great example of how you made meaning of the situation that happened. And it's funny that you brought up an example of, of losing out on a job, because that's exactly where I was thinking, obviously, my background as a career counselor, I think it's also a very relatable experience. I mean, unless you're like 15 and never applied for a job. I think everybody's experienced the hardship of being turned down at whatever stage it was in the job application process, whether it was that nobody ever looked at your resume or you got the interview and didn't get called in or didn't get the offer, or anywhere in between. And I think it's really easy to get down on yourself and, you know, to feel like maybe you failed or that you are a failure. I know I've even used those words myself before when I got turned down from certain things. And it sucks, you know, in the moment, like if that's something that you really think you want or care about. Like, it sucks in the moment and it's going to take some hindsight later on to come back and look at that and understand maybe why something happened the way it did, because hopefully in this aligning with this theory of planned happenstance, that that propelled you to whatever the next thing was that you ended up doing. And in my opinion, maybe he should be doing right. It's like, it's that piece where you have agency and you actually have some control. You had no control over getting denied that job, probably in most cases, maybe someone just interviewed better or was a better fit. Obviously, if you didn't do your homework and you know, that sort of thing, that's a different story. But assuming you did the best you could, right? Just that tenant of always doing your best. Assuming you've done that and you do get denied from something. Not to look at that as a failure, but to look at that as an opportunity to say, you know what, that maybe that just this wasn't meant to be, or maybe the timing wasn't meant to be. But like what are you going to do next? I think that's the critical component. And that's like the, I think that's the sweet spot of planned happenstance is figuring out when things don't go the way that you expected them, how do you react to that? And how do you set yourself up for the next opportunity?

Scott Kaplan: 43:31

Absolutely. I mean, again, fate is the result of collective freewill. So like we all were making decisions throughout that, they got hired. You now have the freewill to decide what happens next to you. Or maybe what happens next, but how you respond to it. So if you didn't get that job, be honest with yourself, give yours self time to deal with your emotions. You, you don't, you, you missed out on a job that that is a devastating thing. Deal with those emotions. Give your self time to get over it, get over it and find what makes you happy. Find that next thing.

Bagel: 44:01

Yeah. And the other thing with that too, that you mentioned that I think is cool, is talking about how people have their different books that they're offering themselves, which I think is a good analogy. And what's cool to think about is like, yeah, sometimes you feel like maybe other people's books are getting in the way of things that you're trying to do or trying to accomplish. And sure. It may feel like that sometimes, but if you think about it in like a pure sense or whatever, it might be like you have the chance to be written in someone else's book. In fact, probably lots of people's books, right? And professing and living your values like being honest and, and being appreciative. Like those are ripple effects that I noticed for sure as your friend and like other people notice probably at your job. Right. And so like, you're getting to author your own book, but you're also you know, you're affecting other people's stories too. Which is kind of a cool way to think about it. It just makes you realize that things are bigger than just you out there.

Scott Kaplan: 44:58

Yeah. Well, you get to write your character in everybody else's book. So it's like, what character do you want to be? Do you want to be the jerk? Who makes fun of people and treats people with disrespect? And you're a minor character who had one line in the book, or do you want to be someone who people go, wow, that's a hero. That's it? That's a good guy or girl or a good person. You know, we are writing our own books, but we're writing our books while everyone else writes their own books and their book intersects with ours. wWhich means in turn your book intersects with theirs. So how do you want to relate to those people?

Bagel: 45:35

Yeah, love it.

Scott Kaplan: 45:37

I do want to talk about the downside of planned happenstance. And this is also the downside not of having values in general, but it kind of brings everything we've been talking about full circle. And it's that sometimes people aren't gonna understand your values. And that can create risks, time where I have had problems with going to happenstance. I'm not going to move away from it. It's brought me tons of joy and success in life, is trying to get other people to understand why I do this. I've been on job interviews where they say, well, where do you see yourself in five years? And I can't answer that because it's, it's too broad of a thing. I was on a job interview once where they said, okay, you, you want to come in to do this? What do you want to do when you get here? And I was kinda like, well, look, I've never worked at your company. I had ideas. But at this point me saying, what I want to do would be counter to what, how I want to approach any job, because I don't want to go in and say my will on this job. I want to go into it saying, how does the job work and where do I fit in? I didn't get that job. You know, the feedback was I wasn't decisive. They wanted someone who was more decisive and knew what they wanted. And I do know what I want. That's the thing. It's like an every job I've ever gotten, I've been successful because these values work for me. But sometimes when you need to get other people to understand those values, they're not gonna understand it. And I think there's, there's ways to not change your values, but kind of phrase them differently. You know, honesty, my number one value. I had to change how I was honest with people. When I went from freelancing and running my own business. And I could speak as Scott, too, working for this company where now I had to speak with their voice and that caused problems early on. Where, you know, I tried to explain there was a problem and here's how I thought it should be fixed. And that's not how you speak in a corporate setting. And it, you know, I probably could have advanced faster had I realized that sooner, and it's not about compromising your values. It's about making sure that your values work in each situation. So you might have to adjust. You know, maybe I need to find a better way to describe planned happenstance and how I approach these situations. Maybe I need to customize how I'm honest to specific people. And just because they're not working in that situation, doesn't mean you need to compromise on that. Doesn't mean you need to change them. It means you need to figure out how those values fit into this specific situation.

Bagel: 48:12

I think it's a good time for a pause. You may be thinking, was that the fire engine on my street? The answer's no, those are the sounds of uptown Manhattan. But back to the content here. I think Scott's proposition is an important one. He's suggesting that we can adapt our values to fit the environment. I don't disagree, especially when applying something like honesty. There's degrees of honesty. There's brutal honesty, which I think of as speaking the full objective truth, no matter the cost. And there's being forthright, being honest in situations where you're asked to speak up. Certain situations may call for different levels of honesty. How do you know though, if it's compromising your value? What signs do you see or feel Yeah, I think that's a very real example of how, it's this struggle of balancing. Staying true to yourself and the values that obviously are really important to you, that you clearly live out in multiple parts of your life, pretty regularly. And, and how does that fit the mold of a corporate setting or maybe a, a company's particular set of values? Hopefully things don't totally conflict, but there may be, like you said, you may have to adapt. You may have to adjust how you're, living those values or carrying out those values in an organization where it's not just you. You're representing something bigger than yourself. That can be a tough thing. Have there been times where you noticed a conflict that you didn't think could be aligned with, like either someone else's values or a company's values or something like that?

Scott Kaplan: 49:56

I mean, this is my first job since my, in 10 years where it was a full time, nine to five, and the values do line up again. It was, it wasn't about changing my values. It was about, phrasing them in a way that people could hear. You know, if someone can't hear what you're saying, you can't change how they hear it, but you can change how you phrase what you're saying.

Bagel: 50:18

Yeah.

Scott Kaplan: 50:18

I mean, here's just a fun story. This isn't exactly to answer your question, but of when honesty didn't work for me. After school jobs were scarce and I interviewed somewhere, I think they were making planners. They, it was like right off campus and they're making like planners for college kids and high school kids. And, you know, people who use daily planners and the interview was going well, and I just, I had this need to be honest with them that I was like, look, I gotta be honest. I don't know if I'd take this job if you offered it to me. It turns out you don't say that in an interview. You know, but it was before I had even identified that being honest was important to me. I felt the need to be honest with them. And like, sometimes your values are gonna get you in trouble as you fine tune them, you know, it's, it likes as a learning experience. So, you know, it's not that, my value was in contrast with this company's values, but I had to learn how my values should be expressed. Yeah. Needless to say, I never, I didn't even get a call back. Like they weren't even like, sorry, we're not gonna hire you. I'd never

Bagel: 51:24

heard You basically told them not to hire you. It's what you did.

Scott Kaplan: 51:27

Yeah. I mean, I was thinking about it, but I, you know,

Bagel: 51:31

Well, I kind of, I'm joking around kind of, but, I suspect you're not the only one that that's happened too. Where it's like your value came to a head, you know, with something that you were doing. Especially like with a job, cause a lot of people probably have the value of being honest and being upfront to some degree. In fact, I would argue probably most people want to be honest. But most people also probably struggle with being a hundred percent honest all the time because of like society's rules. And like you just said, sometimes we know we don't really want a job and we go on an interview and we almost kind of want to admit it. And you did, which I, I mean, I power to you, man. At least, at least you knew, and you were honest about it and you, you lived by your values there and that's kind of cool at

Scott Kaplan: 52:14

mean, I wouldn't recommend anyone doing that though. Anyone listening? Don't say that in a job interview.

Bagel: 52:19

I mean, unless you're like a hundred percent sure that you don't want that job. But no, it's funny that you say that because it's like society kind of tells us like, Hey, don't remove yourself from an opportunity until it's actually right there until you've got the offer, essentially, right? Like go through the motions, go through the process. When you have the offer, that's the time to be honest with yourself. And then to decide whether or not you want to take that, but don't turn down that opportunity before it's presented to you is kind of how we're taught. Like I can say at least culturally in the US specifically around pursuing job opportunities. But yeah, but that's a conflict, right? And it's one example, but I would bet that lots of people have a conflict with being honest, openly, you know. It's one thing to always tell the truth when you're confronted. But it's another thing, like the stupid example of you don't want to invite your neighbor or something to a party that you're having. So you just decide not to share it with them. Well, is that lying or is that not being honest or is it just not being forthright? Where's the line. You know, and then all of a sudden, maybe they hear through the grapevine that you're having the party and then you feel guilty. Right? All this kind of stuff. Again, just another example. But, there are lots of ways where like our values were, we're forced to confront our true values with like practical nature.

Scott Kaplan: 53:37

Absolutely. I think that comes back to, you're not going to be able to live your values a hundred percent of the time. And that's not the point of identifying your values. It's a guide to live by not a hard set of rules that you have to do every day. So look, if you really don't like your neighbor, cause he doesn't have those values that mesh with yours. Maybe don't invite them. That's not your fault that, you know, but if that's going to cause more problems again, it's the short term. It's the long term that we talked about earlier. Like where's the better value in this. Where's the value being provided too, you know, is having someone you don't want to talk to you at the party, a better value than having a uncomfortable relationship with someone that you see on a daily basis kind of depends on how you measure it.

Bagel: 54:21

Yeah. And, and there could be a conflict in terms of prioritizing your own values too, it gives you that guide. Like you've been saying to make those decisions more confidently and feeling like you're more authentic and true to yourself. you know. And I think that's one of the main benefits of really helping identify and align your values is, it might help save you some time and energy, as opposed to oscillating back and forth between what you should do about a certain situation. If you, not that you're always going to be able to do this, but a lot of the times if you align it to a value that you have, you're able to make that decision more clearly more confidentl. And not kind of beat yourself up over it because you know that you're doing what's important.

Scott Kaplan: 55:07

Yeah. I also think it's, we are going to make bad decisions. We've thought we've said it a few times. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to choose the wrong path. We're going to go away from our value sometimes. I was listening to a podcast a few years ago. With a lot of the, coming to light of how previous generations have lived in like, you know, the me too movement, which is great. And you know, a lot of the understanding that things that have happened in the past are wrong, has come to light more often. This guy was saying that this is a good thing that we should look back five years, 10 years, 20 years, a hundred years and longer, and say those were wrong because that means we've grown. That means we have improved our own morality, that we can recognize that the way things were done before were wrong. You know, if we didn't see anything wrong with how we were living before we haven't progressed at all, we haven't grown at all as a society. And I think the same thing applies to people. I mean, I'm someone who will, every once in a while, more often than it should be, I will look back on something that happened yesterday last year in the third grade. And like, why did I do that? But at the end of the day, looking back on that and recognizing that it was a mistake is growth. That is a learning experience. And, you know, yeah. I'm going to beat myself up over it sometimes, but I also need to recognize that it's a good thing. It's not a good thing that I did it necessarily. It is a good thing that I can recognize that what was wrong with it. And then I can grow from it and use it to improve what happens next.

Bagel: 56:38

We often hear that we should fail forward and that feeling is just a step in the ladder of success. Well, what makes that possible is that we are flawed human beings. With complex reasoning skills and we're capable of growth. How often do you stop to analyze a decision that you made that led to a crappy consequence? The next time that happens after you've worked through your emotions, write down one thing you learned from that experience and the next time the opportunity presents itself, your brain will know where to access it. Yeah, absolutely. And I, you didn't list this in your top three, but it sounds like that that like self reflection piece or they're just growth, like growth sounds like it's important to you. I couldn't agree more. I also do the same thing on a daily basis. Like I'm the kind of person who sends an email and then reads back over the email to see how much, how badly I messed it up. And it's like, Okay. Like combination of being analytical or over analytical and, but also like wanting to do better. And that can be a good thing. Obviously, there's a breaking point where maybe it's not good for you, but yeah, that's self-growth and the taking the time to reflect only helps us and only helps us clarify what matters, you know, what means something to us as well. Now the last thing I wanted to ask you about is your charity work and the organization that you've been, kind of a part of and helping raise funds for. I think it's really cool. And just wanted to give you a chance to share if you want to just kind of talk about it. And also like, why is it important to you? Obviously we all have limited time and resources. And so maybe sharing a little bit about like, why you decided to spend your time on that.

Scott Kaplan: 58:21

Sure. So in 2013, I started volunteering with a nonprofit called Dare To Be. Dare To Be works with homeless shelters that take in families. So, basically the goal of Dare To Be is to end the cycle of poverty with children. So a child born into poverty is more likely to remain in poverty. So giving them outlets to learn, they have a seven point system that I won't go into now, but basically to prepare them for life and not have to live in the life that they grew up in. It's, unfortunately my, the past year and a half, since I started this full time job, I haven't had as much time. But I, you know, chaperone events. I've done some fundraisers for them. I run an annual walk for the kids fundraiser where it's their single biggest fundraiser I found out recently, each year. And I walked the length of Manhattan from the Northern tip in Marble Hill to the Southern tip of battery park. It's about 17 miles based on the route we take. It takes like five or six hours,

Bagel: 59:22

That's a, that's almost a marathon. I mean, I know you're not running the whole time,

Scott Kaplan: 59:26

Yeah. I mean, it's a walk, and the point of it is to provide school supplies. So we do it in August so that these kids who literally have nothing to bring to school will have school supplies. You know, school is hard enough for kids and if you don't have notebooks and pencils, like you're guaranteed, no shot to make it. And so, yeah, they have an annual back to school drive. And I just kind of started throwing this fundraiser for them. And the walk for the kids has raised, enough for almost 300 kids to have school supplies for an entire year. Yeah. And it's, you know, I think it's I guess I was fortunate in that. One of the things that brings me joy is helping people, you know, it's everything I do to help other people, whether I'm grabbing a coffee for a coworker or, you know, sending a surprise gift to a friend to these fundraisers, it's entirely selfish. I get joy out of it to help these people. You know, I'm lucky that the thing that brings me joy is helping other people. It doesn't matter to me to give back. You know, I went through a few different organizations. I knew I either wanted to work with children or dogs. I love both of them, not that comparing children to dogs or anything. But yeah, both communities that can't necessarily help themselves, and ended up with this one and it's been extremely rewarding. And, you know, even if you can only do one thing a year, get out there and, you know, find some way to give back to someone who couldn't help themselves. It's incredibly rewarding to see you writing chapters or paragraphs and other people's books is very cool.

Bagel: 1:00:59

Yeah, that's awesome. Giving yourself an opportunity to do things that you care about outside of work obviously, you know, when you're giving your time to an organization like that. It's interesting to see how it aligns with values and the things that you care about in your own life and that sort of thing. But it could be a good way to, for people out there who maybe are trying to figure out what ways they want to give back or whatever it might be a good place to start is thinking about what matters to you. What's important to you in your own life and what are some, maybe what are some opportunities for you to help out other people who aren't as fortunate as you, that can't do the same things that you're able to do. And that sort of thing. So.

Scott Kaplan: 1:01:42

Yeah, absolutely. So I think something else that I like to think about is like, I had my big three, like be honest, be appreciative, provide value, as like what drives my relationships, whether it's other people, myself, whatever it is. But I think you can also have specific values for specific situations. So, you know, if you're looking into volunteering. What matters to you? You know, trying to see like, okay, you know, you want to give back, but like, why do you want to give back and how do you want to give back? There's so many different organizations and ways to, you know, is it financial? Is it your time? So understanding your values for that politics is a hot button issue these days. So anytime I enter into, social or political conversation, I have values that I bring to those conversations so that I can approach it in a reasonable way. You know, I'll list those out too. We all have different ways of approaching them. So I think you should always be empirical evidence over anecdotal evidence, facts over emotion, and understanding over judgment. So I love three. So all of my rules are in threes. And I've thought about this a ton, you know, I'm not saying you can't have emotions in these conversations I'm not saying you can't use anecdotal evidence. I'm saying it's, you know, empirical evidence should be over anecdotal, but anecdotal is what makes it personal and makes us care. You know? You know, at some point we have to judge. People and events, but we should also try to understand them. And so I have these three rules specifically for what I'm getting into these conversations so that I can be understanding and try to move towards a solution rather than just being angry and thinking other people are bad.

Bagel: 1:03:22

Yeah. Which comes back to like a central value, which is trying to connect as opposed to push people away. Whereas other people maybe who haven't clarified or identified that as a value in terms of conversations and how they feel about politics and the things you mentioned. Maybe they haven't thought about the fact that their number one goal is to start a fight with people. And some people may want that, like maybe intentionally or unintentionally, like that's what they're striving for. But it sounds like you've done the work to figure out what it is that you care about when having those kinds of conversations with people.

Scott Kaplan: 1:03:59

Exactly. And I think, you know, look, social media is designed to come back to that, and this is one of the downsides of it. Anger is a better clickbait. so you know, whether you're on YouTube and you watch one video and then they're going to show you the videos that you're going to watch more. Or you follow a Twitter, a chain because it makes you so angry to see how other people are, you know, look, I don't agree with our current president and most of the stuff he does, you know, and I in turn will disagree with a lot of the perspectives of his supporters. But I want to appreciate that there are people I want to appreciate that they're they have a perspective, you know, They have families. They, you know, if there's a Trump supporter living in Philadelphia, he probably likes the Philadelphia Eagles just as much as I do. And like, that's a connection I want to appreciate this is a person. This isn't just like someone behind a screen. Even if we completely disagree and I can't stand their perspective on this, I want to be able to appreciate that they are a person. And like, I want us to be honest with each other. And like, maybe there will be value in this conversation if I can get one thing from them, then I can look at a situation differently. Great. There's a value there. The whole point of it was each situation. You know, if you're super into music, how do you approach how you like your music or, you know, how you're learning your music or how you're expressing yourself through music? You're into exercise. What are your values and exercise? Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Lee have very different body types. They were both at the peak of what they did. So what's your value there? You can find your values in any part of life, you just have to be willing to take some time to like reflect and understand what the point of doing this is to identify those values. And again, you're going to fall off, but if you have those values set in place for this specific thing, you have something as your, you said your North star to bring it back to where you want to be.

Bagel: 1:05:57

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think, even before that, especially for anyone that's maybe younger listening, sometimes you need to like go out and experience the world before you have any clear vision at all of what's important to you. But there could be some people out there who maybe, they have no context yet and they've done stuff, but they've never actually taken any time to think about why they've done the things that they do or what motivates them or why they have the behaviors that they have. And that sort of thing. So I think it's totally fine. And even if you are older, you could be retired and still learning new things about yourself. Maybe you pick up a new hobby or a skill, and you never knew that that mattered to you or maybe, Whenever you walk into a new setting and you didn't realize that you had a specific connection with someone that you kind of brushed off your whole life, right? Like there's always opportunities to learn more about yourself and what matters. So I think that's an important first step. But then, once you do go out and experience of stuff in the world, I think kind of bringing it back to what you were saying, which is like taking that time to reflect and understand what matters and why

Scott Kaplan: 1:06:59

Absolutely. And like, you know, I've been talking this whole time, like, you know, I've always had these ideas in place and that they're set in stone and you know, it's anything but, you know. I I've had multiple careers. I've had a lot of freelance gigs, like where it's one having nothing to do with the next one. I made plenty of mistakes in my younger days, you know, college, I was a bit of an idiot, you know, and at that point. Well, right, a good note to reflect, you know, it took going through a number of experiences to. You know, kind of understand that those experiences all had common connections. You know, you can't find a common connection until you have the things to find the common connection of. You know, if multiple situations make you feel a certain way, well, now you have the basis of information to start making decisions. And it's what you said. If you haven't had the opportunity to experience things, you know, you're 16 years old in high school yet you haven't really seen much outside of your home and your school. So you wouldn't have these opportunities, but once you realize that you can reflect, you know, I think that there's some saying about the wisest man knows that he knows nothing. You know, but I also think the wisest man is the man who realizes he needs to reflect. And I say, man as the general again, I'm gonna try to just say this just for men, all people across the board, you know. The more you reflect and you're honest with yourself about your experiences and how they made you feel and you know, what happened next. If you did something, did that have the end result that you wanted, or did it not? Reflect on that. Why did you not get what you wanted? Why did I not get that job I wanted when I told them I didn't want the job, but when I told them I wasn't gonna take the job reflect on that, you know, learn from all these things. And then that's how you get the experiences to start understanding what your values are. You know, you can hear what other people's values are, and you can try to adapt them. But until you've lived these experiences and until you've reflected and understood why certain things happened the way they did or did not happen the way you wanted them to, why they made you feel good, why they made you feel bad then like once you've done those things, you can actually start understanding your own values.

Bagel: 1:09:27

Yeah. And I'm really glad you said that too, because I think the main goal of this podcast is to help sort of expose people to the guests who come on and their own values and the experiences that they've had that have led to them clarifying those values for themselves But it's a good reminder what you just share that like, that's only part one, but there's multiple steps that you'll need to take on your own to help discover and align and practice those values for yourself. So the whole idea of it going out and experiencing and reflecting on things. There are good opportunities to do that when we experience high highs and low lows. Not that that's the only time that you should be reflecting on, but when there are big successes in your life or you were just elated or really happy or joyous about something that went really well. That's a good opportunity for you to stop and reflect and why that mattered so much to you and why that made you feel happy. Just as much as when things go wrong. And when you face challenges I think that those are the moments that the values come to the surface, the things that matter to us the most kind of shine throug. And almost become more clear when we're going through a tough time, because it's how we pick ourselves up. And it's how we kind of are resilient and can move forward is because we are like, all right, well, That sucks. It's didn't go the way I want it to, like, there's all this bad stuff that happened, but something pulls you through, right? There's like something that like empowers you to keep moving forward. And I think that could be a good time to like reflect back and figure out what matters to you when shit hit the fan.

Scott Kaplan: 1:11:00

Absolutely. And I think you kind of made me think of, in fitness, trying to bring it back to that. And I brought up a couple of times now I just think there's so many things you can learn from fitness that apply to other areas. In my opinion, the, the rule that governs all of fitness is the said principle, S a I D specific adaptation to impose demand. Essentially you, if you put your, a stressor on your body, your body wants to return to equilibrium. So it's going to adapt to that specific stressor so that if it happens again, your body isn't thrown out of whack as much. You know, that's why, if you run, you get better at running. If you lift weights, you get better at lifting weights. It's very specific things that are going to happen. You know, if you're a sprinter as a marathon runner, if you're brought up Arnold Schwarzenegger and, Bruce Lee earlier, those were specific adaptations to the demands they put on their body. And kind of what you were saying before applies to your high highs and your low lows if you do that to reflect, you will get in the habit of doing it and of reflecting when it happens. And then not only can you do it at the high highs and low lows, but once you're in the habit of doing it, maybe it's the medium highs and the medium lows, and then it'll work its way down to where. You know, this weird I'm walking on, you know, through Manhattan and this person is walking super slowly and I get very angry and I go, wait a minute. This is a small thing I know to reflect. I should calm down. And it's like, the more you get into the habit of reflecting, the more you get in the habit of returning to your values, the more you will do that reflexively. Like it's just your body. You will adapt to it. You know? I'm not a big meditation guy, but the idea is the same thing in meditation is put your mind back to where you want it to be rather than where you are and the more you do that you will adapt to it. And the more you put that demand on your body to return to equilibrium, to reflect on your experiences, to return to your values, the more you just instinctually will do it.

Bagel: 1:13:01

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Just this idea of being present with the thoughts and acknowledging them and not trying to bring them in, not trying to push them away, just like sitting there and accepting and letting them pass through. Allows you to recenter a bit, but it kind of helps you clarify what you're actually experiencing. And like helps you connect with the emotions of what you're experiencing and like the example you just shared. Like sometimes it's something you can brush off and realize like, wait, I don't need to get this riled up about some dude walking slow in front of me. I could pass them at the next crosswalk or whatever, you know, but other times it is more serious than it is more heavy and all the better reason to have this practice in place where you can stop and breathe and actually like help yourself understand the gravity of the situation and why is it so important. And then allow you to take that moment to stop before that, before you then hopefully carry out a decision based on the values.

Scott Kaplan: 1:14:01

Exactly. You know what, I'm going to bring up one more thing because a friend of ours is doing something really cool that I like. And it's, you know, it's sort of raised his values in. I don't know if you talk to Justin recently? But he started, a new Instagram account. A record of my quarantine. He's a big music guy. I'm just for background for anybody listening, our friend, Justin, great guy, a big, big fan of music, You know, spent a couple of years in a band that was his main source of income and he's got like a 500 plus record collection. And, you know, it was really important to him to not only listened to all of his records, but reflect about what the music made him feel, but also, what he was feeling when he bought each record. So it's sort of a, you know, he wanted to have sort of a recap of his own life through the records that he's collected through his years. I guess I don't know what his values are for this, but he had a specific thing he wanted to do and he's doing it. And it's like, you know, a lot of us are in quarantine, not knowing how to handle day to day life. Every day is an opportunity to pursue something that you want to do. So why aren't you doing it? You know, he'd been talking about doing this for a while and a quarantine got him to do it. And it's like, you know, your values can be like specific ideas, like, you know, the way I was describing what mine are, but they can also just be doing things you enjoy or do anything that you want to do. You know, if you want to learn to play the guitar, go learn to play the guitar and make that a value that matters to you. If you want to learn another language, download Babel or whatever, Duolingo or whatever app you want to use and make that a value to you, make it something that matters. And do it.

Bagel: 1:15:57

It sounds like. Yeah. The, the pursuit of, what you care about, pursuing the things that matter to you can be a value in itself. And I think lots of people, myself included sometimes will make excuses of why, you know, I'm not going to do something even though in the back of my head. I know I want to, we've all been there. I think being quarantined right now, you know, lots of people feel motivated to do stuff, but there's also this lack of motivation maybe because we're not like socializing and kind of low energy right now. But the idea that if you care enough to pursue the things that make you happy in life, that could be a value in itself. And I think a pretty cool one. yeah, I think that's awesome. Cool, man, I think this has been a lot of fun. I hope I hope you've enjoyed it. We always have some great conversations. So I'm glad we got to bring you on and let you talk about your own values and lots of fun stuff today.

Scott Kaplan: 1:16:46

Looking forward to the finished product and hearing all your other great conversations.

Bagel: 1:16:50

Thanks Scotty for being on the Live Your Values podcast, and we hope you come back soon. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Live Your Values podcast. If you like what you heard, please hit subscribe in your podcast app so you get notified about all new episodes of the Live Your Values podcast with me,"Bagel." Special thanks to Emma Peck for logo design, Danielle Gelber for marketing strategy, and my team at Free Your Time Virtual Assistants for operations support. Until next time.... Get out there and LYV!