Episode 36: Noah Scott - How to Build Meaningful Connections With People

0:07 Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome to another episode of Role Models GC conversations with beautiful humans. I'm Jennifer Norman founder of the human Beauty movement and your host, this podcast thrives on your support. So if you like what you hear, follow us rate US review us and share this episode with everyone, you know, across all your networks. So today's episode is about Action exploration and determination. My guest is Noah, Scott, founder and CEO of the big possible as the host of multiple Retreats around the world. Connecting high-profile entrepreneurs and speakers. Noah has become a master of creating powerfully immersive experiences. He is deeply motivated by The Human Experience and has spent over a decade.

0:53 Mastering the art of connection. Welcome Noah, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Oh my gosh. A delight and I understand you're involved area right now. Yes, I'm in this, it's such a picturesque town called Sofia the capital Bulgaria but I'll bounce around. I'll spent about a month in one country and before this was Romania and I've been doing this for about 10 months now and it's really just open my eyes in terms of how interesting the different cultures can be how to make friends quickly in a new city. It's been pretty wild but yeah I love that now. Okay. So you like Human connection, and every human has a story. Let us hear about yours.

1:34 Well, I think, you know, my story is quite interesting. I think I started my 20s as a total delinquent. I would pretty much party every night. I took me 10 years to graduate college, but I finally did change. My major is like seven times started multiple side hustles along the way and one day I was like 29 and I was completely just, I've got out of a breakup and I was like, what am I doing with my life? So, I decided to walk across Japan, which I spoke Japanese at the time, I did this backpacking trip from Kyoto to Tokyo. It was 500 kilometers. I was like, my Eat. Pray Love to figure out what am I doing with my life and along the way I found something? That was the first real big project that I finished. And I think that courage to like stick through something set, a goal and even how hard it was.

2:22 I ran out of money halfway through, I had to work in Saga factories and Farms but I finished and that feeling was so So addicted that I I set myself a hard goal and I went through all the way to the end and I did it. I carried that with me. And after that started a production company and Lala quickly grew that to where we were one of the latest top short film companies produced a feature film gotten to this point where okay, I was done with that. It was just there wasn't a future started working in marketing for like five years and that was like the safe job where I suddenly lost all my testosterone, my Social Circle disappeared. And I'm like, back to this spot. I was You know, decade ago when I'm wrapping up my twenties like what am I doing?

3:03 And I think that's kind of when I got the spark to start the big possible which really is about connection. What I realized looking back at my time in my business as an entrepreneur, my favorite moments were when I was hosting dinner parties, where I would have friends from different Industries, other entrepreneurs, come and we'd share a meal together. Those moments of connection were the brightest and so I wanted to create an experience that would take that to a whole new level and that's kind of what the the business is now. Where are we? A host Retreats around the world. That's exceptional and a lot of your conversations are very stimulating. They're not the ordinary ones and you talk about you know being human and we're all human in this together and what a great opportunity to live and your words. Why is it so great to be human?

3:45 We get to dream. That is so unique. We could have been anything. We could have been Rock. We could have been a dog. We could have been born somewhere in space without air, but we got to be human and I think the ability to give yourself a goal. In it. And then take the actions to make it happen. Is something that's so unique to us. We also get to love. We also get to connect with other people and there's a gift that we have every single day that we have breath and to be conscious of that breath and to control it. And then, to make all that happen. It's with that gratitude that we can now say, okay with this dream that I have, how can I help other people to find the same sense of peace that I'm feeling right now? And how can I have the moments that I'm here?

4:26 Be filled with more of that gratitude. So for me, that's That's kind of what being human is. It's the ability to dream and the ability to affect the world around us. Why is it that you think that humans are here? What are we here for that is a really interesting question. If I knew the answer, maybe we finds out that answer. Maybe we're living it down. I think, I think so. It's krishnamurti speaks a lot about the wisdom that we can learn from just experiencing and not trying to fill our head and say we know all the answers. But to actually be present and to look and see the answer in the grass to the answer in the wind, that's blowing it on our face Marcus, Aurelius talks, that the reason a good fortune is created by being a good person and doing good, deeds.

5:12 I think a lot of those answers are good enough to use and I think if we don't really know it, we can go to Nature and we can feel it. And if there's enough Clarity out there to give us at least a grounded, feeling of acceptance, for our purpose to be here and I think that's enough. Beautiful. Beautiful. And as humans we have this innate ability to get to know ourselves and our lives are filled with the journey back to ourselves, I often will say and along the way we get to self-express, we get to manifest our life. And one of the ways that you've been able to manifest your life is through Visual Arts and through other ways and channels, and your voice and whatnot. But curious about the visual arts perspective and how that might have informed your life.

5:55 Mmm, it awoken something that I've always had a skill to be creative. I started my career making videos, done photography, had a fashion line, so I've always kind of had this Knack but I never was formally trained one year. I don't know when I started doing this. Maybe about seven years ago, I started doing these things where I would have New Year's. I would create something. That would be a life-changing goal and I would try to accomplish that within a year. One year I'm sitting on my ex-girlfriends couch and I say, okay, you know what, I'm going to do this year, I'm gonna learn how to paint and I'm gonna hold an exhibit. Never actually painted, I knew I was creative, but I didn't have to pan coordination to do it and it, I was Trying to solve this problem. Like how do I approach this? And it January went by, I had some ideas for a concept February by. I still didn't really know, I knew what I wanted to express. I wanted to express the beauty of the human body and this sort of Journey between life and death. And I was one day I was at the Museum and I was looking at this piece it was by Christopher wool and the Simplicity of it was just black and white but there was a texture that really brought me in there was like I looked at the what he used to do.

6:55 It was silk screen ink and on linen and I was like, wait a second. I know how Silk screen. So I connected the dots back from when I did t-shirts. What I taught myself how to silkscreen? And I'm like, oh now I know I have a process now and then I gave myself constraints. Okay, I'm gonna because I don't know anything about painting. I'm just going to give myself two colors, black and white. And now I have my process. I'm a great photographer. So I just started shooting. I did photography and then I would bring those images and I'd alter them on Photoshop and then I went into the darkroom used a and Emulsion to make these silk screens and because I did it by Hand. They were kind of like everything was imperfect and so you know, I put it on the thing and the first one came out and I was like, whoa, that is cool.

7:37 And so the first painting I did was it sold and I'm like great and then since I had a process, I could just replicate and each piece became better. And I sure I had some things that kind of turned out like garbage but that's okay. They were still cool. But the most interesting thing that I learned out of that was, I think it was the acceptance that I am. Creative. I think that was something that being able to embrace that skill of using the hands and something I thought capable of doing. Now, I've given myself this mission to do it. It unlocked so much more confidence in all the other creative aspects of my work graphic design suddenly. I elevated. My graphic design to a whole new level. My video went to a whole new level. Even my writing, like everything was just like, wait, you have the skill?

8:24 And because I consistently said that I wasn't good at this. I wasn't good at this. I was stunting my My own ability. And so by giving myself the permission to try suddenly I just said, oh actually I have this Talent, let me embrace this and sometimes that's all it takes, you know, to your point. We do tell ourselves these scripts. Oh I'm not good at this, or I could never do that or I'm afraid to do this. And if we only gave ourselves the opportunity for a little bit of evidence to show through, then it could just completely release the floodgates and and then you start to re script your life by saying. I'm the kind of person that is creative. I am the And a person that is going to try new things, I am the kind of person that won't let anything stop me and everything changes from there.

9:06 Isn't that amazing, the mindset with a little bit of validation that can help along the way to keep you, you know, going and motivating to continue to try for sure. Well, so now, you are a full-time nomadic entrepreneur. What has traveling the world taught, you? I think it's taught me a lot to appreciate the connections that you make along the way because every single time Time I landed a new city. I don't know anyone and there are countless people who are ready to speak to you, but you had to put the initiative out and it's a lot of work. Even I'm an extrovert. I still get to these moments where I'm, you know, surrounded by strangers. And I'm like how do I get to this point where I feel like I'm not alone anymore and it, you know, so that appreciation for the people that you meet in your life, really?

9:53 They're like the lights in the darkness, it really is this every single moment, There's an opportunity to speak to somebody. And so, like what? I'm talking to those Barista at the cafe, I really appreciate the interaction that I have a lot more than I did. When I was just in the day-to-day grind because everything is new. Everything is novel, and even just the simplest things like walking on the street now are filled with so much more color more energy. And also I think there's a different approach to habits. I would always have a good morning routine for example or like get discipline but the middle of the day who knows what would happen by resetting my routine. Every single time when I moved to a new city my cues are completely different. The environment is so it gives me the opportunity to now intentionally create habits every single month. And look at the habits that I've had. Like, I picked up and be like, wait, this isn't really serving me.

10:42 Let me let go of that. I've noticed that I was eating out much more when I was in Romania. I'm like, wait, I need to start cooking more. So here in Bulgaria. I'm like doing my grocery shopping and I'm cooking a lot more. It's easy way to give yourself that reflection because you're always stimulated by new things. Yeah. I travel I'm always first Amazed by the beauty of our Earth. There's always something new in the nature and in the environment and even in what man has built in the architecture and the history that goes along with is always a new and interesting vibe there. And I love what you said about even walking up to somebody that you don't know, it could be a barista or it could be somebody in the street to ask for help and instead of thinking about it as a transaction, which I think a lot of people live their lives, very transactionally or conditionally and really stepping into that moments of Dating that person that that energy that's old.

11:32 That's right there in front of you and developing a connection, which is what you're all about. Now, you know, you've mastered that you really understand that it's extraordinary think about the odds of what coming across anybody in your lifetime and actually developing a relationship or even being able to say hi billions, Millions to one. If you think about it, space in this, In Our Lifetime that we get the opportunity. As I appreciate so much the opportunity to have this podcast with you, what are the odds that we would have ever have connected and Matt, and been able Have this glorious conversation. I do not ever take anything like that for granted and even if you don't have the ability to travel, there are ways to break up those habits that you talked about, even if it means rearranging the furniture in your apartment or something, that makes a little bit of a shift so that you can really step out of all of those mind, less things that you are doing and become more mindful. I think that's actually a good habit to start to recreate yourself each month.

12:25 That's not a bad thing. I love that. Yeah, it's funny that you brought that up about this synchronous. City of the moment that we have every day I had this moment, I was in the sauna at the gym and 90% of the time there's nobody in there. One day I had this uh.this was in Budapest maybe two months ago. I had this guy that, you know, he was traveling big muscular, dude. He comes in and, you know, we both finished our work out of the same time that we're both in Budapest. I think this is the odds are already kind of astronomical, but then we start having a conversation, we get deep and philosophical. And he said something that, you know, that was so powerful that it impacted me to this. Day. I was like, you know your story is not yours to keep to yourself. Your story is there so that you can share it with the world.

13:06 And I'm like, wow, this is amazing and I started thinking like what had to have happened for me to be in this moment and that I could have been in a mood and I didn't talk but because we talk because we opened up and we were vulnerable now, we've got this like just awesome interaction. I don't even have his dice number. We don't have our phones in sun or whatever, but even more exciting more vulnerable sitting in a sauna with another large man. And Striking up a conversation. That's beautiful. Wow. So you know coming off of this pandemic so many people are hungry for real in real life connection, though. It remains elusive for a lot of people, particularly our young people who a lot of them. Now, you know that they've gone through high school or even College.

13:48 They haven't had the opportunity to have real good connections during formative years of their lives. What are some of the bulletproof ways that people can use to build deep connections? I think the first really big thing is about how we listen. And especially right now, we're so filled with the instant gratification. So one thing I love to do is to leave my phone at home as much as possible. So when I go to the gym, leave my phone at home, when I go for a walk, sometimes you just leave your phone at home and that creates more presence. And when you're having a conversation, the last thing you want to do is have your phone on the table because even if you see it, it's still going to pull you away and try as much as possible to use active listening.

14:29 That means really engaged to what this person. Is telling you give them the space to finish what they're saying. And then when they're done say something, thank you for sharing that acknowledge that they've given a portion of their soul, and then you can add some commentary. I think that active listening is the biggest one, and then I think, the questions we ask are also a big part of how we can get deep quickly. So often we just say the same questions, what do you do for work? How's your day? And if you just kind of even just listen to some of the questions that Jennifer's asking it's like wow, you can really pull some powerful And then tie a couple that with the active listening and now you're just connecting deeply. And there's a framework. I use.

15:09 Also those with to host dinner parties, dinner parties are some of the best ways because the place in which you have a conversation, has a lot of significance. There's a book called The Art of gathering, which really talks about how to bring in person experiences together and actually have them be meaningful. So if you hang out in a nightclub you're not going to have very good conversation. There's just no way. But if you have a dinner party, Now it's intimate, your scent. It's also multi-sensory, right? You connecting with the food. You have to taste, you have the sites, you have to Smells the touch. So anytime you can actually allow yourself to be more present and share that experience with someone else. It's going to ignite so much on a deeper level. And so, yeah, the dinner parties, powerful powerful experience.

15:52 Going on adventures with people, the out of the comfort zone away from this sort of the mundane, even if it's going for a walk, rather than having a meeting in the office. Have a, do I do Walking meeting or, you know, bring your friend out of the house rather than sitting at the TV. There's a lot of ways that just changing the environment can give you an opportunity to share an experience on a deeper level. Absolutely. There are so many opportunities that I've come across over dinner parties or cocktail hours versus just sitting in a boardroom or, you know, a regular boring meeting with four walls, where there's no joy and there's no passion in there. But when you put a beautiful glass of wine in front of a person or an amazing meal, wonderful church history. Oh my God, forget about it.

16:35 It's like then you're sharing at the moment of joy to get on, you really get to know that person much more intimately than you would in a setting. Where everybody feels like they have to kind of act in a more professional, or closed way. So, yeah, I love that suggestion. For especially for young people to, like, step into these areas in these places where you can really connect over things that you love things of Joy moments of just, I so there's also one other element to that is little bit more difficult to encapsulate, but there's a concept that Per connection happens. Over shared struggle and not just shared experiences, but shared struggle. So if you can introduce some purpose behind the Gathering, that will enable everyone to come with an intention to solve a problem or to overcome something and, you know, giving a thread of Common Ground. Sometimes over struggle, as we're coming together to solve that it allows us to also have more things to talk about understand people on a deeper level. So sometimes if you can, if you can also work that in Now you've got this magic recipe to just get to know people really deeply.

17:38 Yeah, really bonding over their shared experiences and the feelings of the struggle or Astra a feeling of Joy. Doesn't have to be a struggle, it could be just a shared feeling I shared emotion, what great advice with so much fear swirling in the world. How can somebody leaned into risk-taking and developing a big vision for their lives? Like, some people are really comfortable why they are so like you know they don't really feel like they have to stretch too. Out of their comfort zone. Maybe they've been, you know, raised in a wonderful Suburban neighborhood and have been given quite a lot of opportunities before them and they're like, well I don't really feel like they need to take risks but yet some people who either hit rock bottom or to your point, you know, you come out of a really dramatic relationship, maybe there was a breakup. It's like what do I have to lose and then you just go for it. So that often is a catalyst for that but what about the person who is you know, kind of like happy with their lives? You know, what do you recommend in terms of taking risks from that standpoint?

18:31 Yeah, it's interesting. Resting because the most dangerous spot to be in is complacency it's hard to take a risk. But what happens is you're going to eventually get to a point if we're not growing. We're actually dying. And that's it's a little bit harder to accept but you know I look at a lot of my friends who are comfortable and what ends up happening is there's a sadness or a complacency that starts to eat away at them after a long time and easy way to introduce risk into your life is through Adventure, whether that's picking up a new Copy whether that's traveling a little bit more, whether that's picking up a project. Like maybe there's a cause that is important to you. And it's only through these moments where we can devote herself entirely to the task at hand that we can really truly be happy.

19:16 I think there's a lot of research that's been done Mikhail. Csikszentmihalyi. He's a, he's a guy that talks about flow speaks a lot about how the people that when they're fully engaged in a project that's when they're the happiest. And I think the biggest danger we have is Comfort, Comfort is going to keep us Us from challenging ourselves. And eventually, what's going to happen is we're going to start to fizzle out burnout. Sure things might be comfortable, but if we're not actively putting challenge in front of us. There's a danger that we're going to live with a life of regret. The only way to minimize regret is by Taking Chances taking risks. Every day should be a bet. Every day should be a Gamble and the more you roll, the dice, the more you start to understand the patterns on the table. So there's always uncertainty. There's always things that are going to go wrong. But if you approach it like, you know, hey, I'm Going to safeguard This Bat.

20:04 Like, I know when my stop loss is in stocks, they have a thing where you, if you invest at like $95, you can set it up so that if the price goes down to 90, you'll sell your shares. You do that across a lot of different things. You're going to protect yourself in the long run from having made bad decisions, but it's much better to try. And to take the risk, then to do nothing because what happens is along the way, as we take those risks, we get more feedback and we're able to learn, we're able to grow and we're able to expand, you start small start with something that maybe He just a passion project start with maybe a weekly hobby start with asking people out on a date every day, whatever thing that you want to grow or get better at just show up every day with his consistent. I'm going to try to get a little bit better at this and before you know it you start your skin gets thicker. You're able to embrace the risk a little bit more and you know that every time you take a risk there's a reward waiting for you.

20:55 I love how you described that because there are certainly people who I've spoken to who are like yeah. I like the consistency I like to. Reliable. I like the steadiness of a life that doesn't have a lot of highs and lows and ups and downs and that's their Vibe. I would say that there is a difference between being innately. Curious versus being somebody who's like a total, you know, adrenaline junkie is going to go, you know, bungee jumping. It's not that there is a Continuum, there is a spectrum of your curiosity, which will prevent you from a life of stagnation and complacency and the ultimate worst thing, which is boredom, you know, we know, He wants to live a boring life. I think that sense of curiosity helps to get you to a place where you are continuously learning, you're continuously improving your continuing to grow rather than dying as you say. So beautifully, put beautifully played. I would love for you to tell us about these Retreats that you run clearly.

21:50 It's taking you all over the world and you're creating a lot of magic for a lot of people. So tell us all about it. Yeah, the biggest reason I'm so excited about that isn't so much about getting out to have a vacation and You know, be surrounded by luxury environment. It's about the lives that were changing. When people show up and immediately you can see the relief from leaving the World Behind and showing up with a group of intentional like-minded, entrepreneurs, who are all there to learn to grow to find that perspective and peace of mind. And then by the end of it, it's like I have people coming up with tears in their eyes telling me how much they appreciate the experience how this has changed their life. People forging business Partnerships with each other. During the experience helping each other get clients. Just, that aspect is what really keeps me going. The reality of knowing that together, we're able to achieve so much more than on our own.

22:44 When we look at the world through the lens of Leverage, The more leverage we have, the more impact we're going to be able to make. But some of the biggest Leverage is that's out. There is actually Community, we don't have to know all the answers but if we know someone who knows the answer now we've shortcutted the learning curve. And you know, I like to think of all the That are coming to my treats as Pioneers. They're all exploring. The unknown going out on their own Horizons but they're sharing the maps of that Horizon with the other guests that are there. So what we'll do is, we'll have four days of staying in a luxury environment. So I'll rent a beautiful Villa on Airbnb or just through some of my contacts will have a chef create culinary masterpieces. Just like tantalizing, the taste buds. Giving this authentic experience of the local Cuisine performances from local artists, but also have these like, Ted Style Presentations where there's a speaker and they're talking about business.

23:35 We're talking about growth or talking about human connection and then you're in this environment where we create this, Alchemy for connection and so there's deep questions, there's guided workshops. But then the best part, my favorite part is there's Adventure. So we're going out, we're going to cenotes for going to the beach, where were celebrated at night. So that's kind of the experience in a nutshell. It's about showing up shedding the skin of the day-to-day with a community of other people who are also with that same intention. And then Learning while they're getting the perspective to craft a Life vision and then going home, empowered with the people who are going to be able to make it happen. For those people who are listening who haven't been to a retreat like this, I strongly encourage you to look in the show notes and look at the big possible so that you can find out more information about what Noah's doing here. It is extremely special.

24:24 For those of you who feel like you are ready for a change in your life. If you are ready for a transformation, this could be exactly what. What you are looking for, it could be exactly what your soul is hungry for, in order to make those connections to step out of your comfort zone to get into a place where you can meet people who can help you on your next adventure. And then you're having this incredible Adventure. As you're doing it's thank you so much for sharing your words of wisdom with us all the way from Bulgaria. I wish you much success and abundance and the rest of your life and I know that we will be forever connected. Thank you so much on forbidden pleasure.