Walt Hampton, J.D., 63, is a former criminal defense lawyer, author, speaker, adventurer and bonvivant who helps solopreneurs and entrepreneurs to grow and scale businesses that set them free. A longtime resident of the Hartford/Connecticut area, Walt and his wife Ann Sheybani now reside in rural Ireland. It serves as home base for their very global lives.
What impulses propel you to trade one life for another that looks, smells and feels radically different? What gets in the way of dreaming the unthinkable? What inflection points in your life help you lean into what your heart desires?
THE IMPERFECT SHOW NOTES
To help make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who like to read rather than listen to podcasts, here are our show notes.
These show notes come via the Otter.ai service. The transcription is imperfect. But hopefully, it’s close enough – even with the errors – to give those who aren’t able or inclined to learn from audio interviews a way to participate.
SPEAKERS
Walt Hampton, Achim Nowak
Walt Hampton 00:00
I had created what therapists later termed the golden handcuffs for myself. I had emerged from law school with, you know, what now would be more than $100,000 in student loan debt, a wife, two kids, a minivan, a beautiful suburban home. So I had, you know, I had begun to accumulate the outward indicia of success with all of the responsibilities. That’s, you know, people, people create the responsibilities along the way, they also give the impression that they are trapped. And so I felt trapped.
Achim Nowak 00:38
Hey, this is Achim Nowak, executive coach and host of the my fourth act podcast. If life is a five act play, how will you spend your for that I have conversations with exceptional humans who have created bold and unexpected for that, listen, and to be inspired. And please rate us and subscribe on whatever platform you’re listening on. Let’s get started. I am just thrilled to welcome Walt Hampton to the fourth act podcast. While it is a motivational speaker, an author and a Strategic Coach, after a career of over 20 plus years as a commercial litigation and criminal defense lawyer, while now helps individuals grow and scale their businesses to and I quote, Wald, set them free. I love that statement. And I hope we get to explore what set them free means and in all of its wonderful connotations. If this sounds like a career switch, Walt and his marvelous spouse and partner in crime and Shay Bonnie also left a posh life in the Hartford Connecticut area, and now live in a remote part of Ireland. So there have been some extraordinary switches in your life, Walt Hampton and I, I want to talk about how we do that because I think other people might listen and go, gosh, I wish I could do what Walt Hampton did. So in that spirit. Welcome, Walt.
Walt Hampton 02:22
The only thing you left out was, and he’s a legend in his own mind.
Achim Nowak 02:27
I’m glad that I can edit this podcast. I think I’ll edit this out. Welcome. Walt!
Walt Hampton 02:34
It’s so wonderful to be here such a gift and privilege to spend some time with you and with your listeners.
Achim Nowak 02:40
My pleasure. What I want to get to, obviously is how does one create a life in a foreign country from which you want a global business? And I want to dig more into the idea of what setting ourselves free. Looks like and sounds like for you? Because I know it’s different things for different people. But I want to start at the beginning. I’m always curious when when you Walt were a young boy or a teenager? Who did you want to be when you grow up? What was your thinking?
Walt Hampton 03:19
Well, I was thinking what my mother told me to think. I’m the oldest son of an Irish Catholic mother. Yes. So I was thinking I was going to be a priest. And for a long time, during my young years, I played at celebrating maps. And in fact, I went to the seminary.
Achim Nowak 03:42
How long did you stay in the seminary world?
Walt Hampton 03:45
I stayed for six years, until I was invited by the rector after catching me one too many times in the moonlight, to rethink my career direction.
Achim Nowak 04:04
So what I’m hearing is that you were a troublemaker even back then.
Walt Hampton 04:09
Yes.
Achim Nowak 04:13
Well, I’m curious about because sometimes mom and dad have ideas for us. That may actually be cool ideas and and wonderful ideas, even though they’re not ours. So when mama dad said maybe a priest might be a good idea how much of that resonated with you versus you would just being a good boy?
Walt Hampton 04:37
Well, it’s an interesting question, but I’m going to pivot with the question because it’s actually much of what I do now. Because ministry and priesthood is about being present. It’s about holding space. Yeah. And a lot of the work I do right now is holding space with people who want to create great new chapters in their lives. And so I get to speak from stage. Yes, I get to impact lives all over the world. And so in a very real way, the work as a beautiful thread, from the very beginning for me.
Achim Nowak 05:15
What I hope we’ll get into, because for many of us, and you and I can say this, we’re both in our 60s, we both lives, lot live lives. And somewhere on the outside people go, gosh, I wish I had a life like waltz. I wish I have a life like Hakim’s. And that’s the outside. And the inside is sometimes a little more complex. What I’m also hearing in your statement right now, which is, in a way, what you do now is a coming back to where you started. And other stuff happened in between, and my over and over connecting the dots here.
Walt Hampton 05:50
I think you’re connecting the dots beautifully. Because after the priesthood didn’t work out, I had no clue what I was gonna do.
Achim Nowak 06:00
So how did you end up in law? Tell us,.
Walt Hampton 06:03
It’s much more interesting. So my dad was a physician. And so door number two was to go to medical school, yes. Which I did. And I loved medical school, till I discovered that I didn’t like sick people. So I spent two years in medical school and didn’t pursue it, I did become a an EMT, paramedic, and I still hold emergency medical certificates to go out and help people in the wilderness. That’s a whole nother conversation, maybe we’ll touch on. So door number two didn’t work out door number three. And this is true for many lawyers, it was a default door. Because the messaging I got from my parents was you need a profession. You want to have a profession, you want to be a professional. Yeah, so my grandfather had been a lawyer. And I visited Cornell law school in Ithaca, New York in the summer, in the one week that it’s not snowing and raining, and don’t love with Ithaca, New York, and the idea of law school. And so that became the beginning of my career law. It was a default.
Achim Nowak 07:17
So for 20 plus years, Walt, first you pursued a traditional career with one of the big firms, you were on track to become a partner, you ended up leaving for reasons that you might share with us. And for about 20 years, you had your own firm, you’re a managing partner, you specialized in criminal defense and litigation, when you think of that stretch in your life, and what are some moments that stand out where you go, oh, gosh, this is something I actually really loved about this work, or this is something that I never loved, that always felt wrong, like, take us to some moments that stand out in this journey.
Walt Hampton 08:03
So the answer is C.
Achim Nowak 08:07
That’s such a grown up response, Walt.
Walt Hampton 08:12
So I, I loved law school, I loved law school, I just soaked into the environment it was it was filled with rich knowledge and depth and intellect and, and it is still in my mind and was at the time, and I wish it could be culturally true, that you could engage in vigorous debate and disagreement, and then go out for pizza in the evening, was a place to really think and test ideas and understand it was a grand experience. I loved law school. And from the moment I started practicing, I knew it was the wrong fit. For me. I had, as we’ve alluded to this, this, this sense of wanting to connect and serve. And for me, the law was deeply adversarial. And so there was this friction that happened from the very early days, I just, I had a sense that, wow, I made a wrong turn here, or I need to do something else here. This is not for me. And I realized there was an inflection point it was, I see law students, usually they finish in May, which always feels great. And then there’s this horror, a moment when you realize you have to spend the next eight or 10 weeks studying for the bar. And so I did that. And then so most law students start in August in the United States. So I walked into my office and it was a beautiful hermetically sealed office, which is not great for an outdoors person. And I had to wear a suit which is not great for a person who was happy, never wearing a suit. And on the desk was a stack of timesheets. And my senior partner said, and your timesheet is your Bible and you’ll measure the existence and value of your life in six minute increments. So there was this dis ease right from the get go. And then I launched into a fall into an autumn of 70 and 80 hour weeks, because the billing expectation then was 1800 hours a year. And then it was 2000 hours a year. And I remember so vividly a beautiful. This is New England, it was a beautiful, early October Saturday has to be there on a Saturday because you’re expected to be there. On Saturday, I walked into my hermetically sealed office, on the 18th floor of a beautiful office building, looking down the Connecticut River and the sun beginning to rise and seeing the stack of papers on my desk and thinking is this the way it’s going to be for the next 30 or 40 years of my life. It was such a moment of despair. It was a moment of just despair, then, and I had created what our therapist later termed the golden handcuffs for myself. I had emerged from law school with you know, what now would be more than $100,000 in student loan debt, a wife, two kids, a minivan a beautiful suburban home. So I had you know, I had begun to accumulate the outward edition of success with all of the responsibilities. That’s you know, people, people create the responsibilities along the way, they also give the impression that they are trapped. And so I felt trapped.
Achim Nowak 11:45
I have a hunch many of our listeners have had their own moments of despair. And those moments, when we’re honest with ourselves, we go, this doesn’t feel right. And I’m not talking about the marriage, the children, the home, I’m talking about just the 4050 6070 hours we spend at work. And we have this hunch This is not my best livelihood. You stayed in it for a pretty long time. So how did you make that work for yourself? Walt?
Walt Hampton 12:21
It was a very interesting time in the development of law firms and law firm culture. Yeah. So a colleague of mine, a woman who was two years senior to me, and very beloved by the firm, an amazing human being great lawyer. She was pregnant. And a Rao arose. Does Eileen get to stay on the partner, ship track and the mom. And there was so much discussion, crazy discussion, you know, votes and more boats. And they finally concluded that there could be part a part time woman going on the partnership track. Well, Walt had a really good idea at that moment. I, I had research because my undergraduate major in the seminary had been psychology. I’m not I you could go philosophy or psychology. I had chosen psychology with a philosophy minor. And I thought, oh my god, I could cobble together a business as a psychologist and I applied and got into the University of Connecticut’s Ph. D, clinical psychology program. This is like I’m like, now four years in, I’m like, I’m close enough where they’re saying, well, just keep your head down. Be good. Be a good boy, you’re gonna be a partner. And that was the brass ring. Of course. It’s a long longer stretch of time now, but it was about five, six years. Yes, the brass Rick. So I went to the park. So but I applied for this program. And I went to the partners, I said, I’d like to go part time. I’d like to go and work on my my graduate work in clinical psychology, because it’s gonna make me a better lawyer.
Achim Nowak 14:10
I bet that didn’t fly.
Walt Hampton 14:12
They said, No. And then they said, but don’t worry, you’re going to be a partner. And we’ll pay you more money. And this happened three times more, because the money felt good. So I went, I went back in the rabbit hole, three times or, and then there was another inflection point. We used to have these beautiful, beautiful receptions for lawyers at the end of the week on Friday, which was like the beginning of the weekend when you would start to work again. But at four o’clock, we gather in the beautiful mahogany conference room on the 18th floor, and we have Chardonnay and hors d’oeuvres, and I was talking to the managing partner, and I had a Chardonnay and Bill had a Chardonnay and he looked at me and he said Walter, they called me Walter Walter now exterior VR partner. And in that moment I, in that moment I snapped. I said, Oh, Bill, I don’t really want to be your partner. And six weeks later, I tendered my resignation. And I entered the the psychology program at the University of Connecticut. And I also hung my shingle out. Yes, I have my own practice.
Achim Nowak 15:24
This is the quintessential moment of more money, more purpose, more money, more purpose. And more money, clearly wasn’t going to get you a more purpose.
Walt Hampton 15:35
Right. And you try to use by chose, but I didn’t stick. Because what happened in that moment, when I left the practice, because I had taken such an ownership role around business and business development. All of my clients left and so I had this little shingle out in this little suburban town of Hartford outside of Hartford, Connecticut. I was going to school.
Achim Nowak 16:01
Yes.
Walt Hampton 16:03
I had a teaching assistantship, I was teaching, I was going to school and all of a sudden, I had this crazy busy law practice. So I did two years of the four year Ph. D. program up to a master’s level in psychology. Yes. And I said, You know what, the money is just too good. So I crawled back into the, into the rabbit hole of wiring for a welder.
Achim Nowak 16:28
And you had a wife, you had two children, you have the home, and I’m sure all of us listened to you can relate to that.
Walt Hampton 16:35
Oh, yeah. While it was okay, because it was new. And it was exciting, and it was mine. So it was okay for a while.
Achim Nowak 16:49
Here’s a word from our sponsor. That’s me. I invite you to check out my fourth act calm. There’s a whole other world of fourth act conversations going on beyond this podcast, my fourth act.com. Please take a look. I want to jump to what in my mind as the outsider looking into walls life is the big leap, which is you start a company called success summit. How do you go from having your own small thriving law practice to creating a business called success summit? Which I’ll let you explain what it is. I said a little bit about the beginning. That was a good 1516 years ago, but how do you how did you mentally and emotionally get there? Because that kind of turn I think is of interest to many of us, because many of us have those aspirations, but most don’t do it.
Walt Hampton 17:55
So by that time, you already mentioned the amazing and Shivani author and coach and business partner and love of my life. We had just married my my first marriage unraveled decades ago now. And I was a single dad raising three young boys on my own for a dozen years while managing my law firm. That’s a whole nother story. Yes. But the kids had gotten a little bit older, I married this amazing woman. And for our first Christmas gift, she gave us two tickets to Tony Robbins, unleash the power within. And I said, Oh, this is lovely. I am not going to go to Tony Robbins. I’ve been inoculated, I am not going to drink the Kool Aid, I am not going to stand on chairs I’m not. And I went to Tony Robbins. And I stood on chairs and jumped up and down and drank the Kool Aid. And when they made their offer, as they do after a three day event, to join mastery university, I was the one talking and into the fact that this would be good for us. I had no idea why it was one of those offers you sign up now. So we signed up for mastery University, which was look in retrospect it was the big inflection point that moment in time was the inflection point. along that way. I became aware of this thing called coaching. As I had no idea what coaching was, I thought, you know, I was I used to sponsor my kids soccer game, I had no idea what like business coaching was, or like coaching or whatever coaching was. And so in that context, I met several of Tony’s trait trainers and I was invited to apply to Tony School of coach training. And I did on a whim like just like, like I dashed off an application like completely half assed. And then I went away for 28 days climbing in the mountains, and I came back and I had an interview. I didn’t realize there had been 2200 applications for 20 spots and Tony schooler coach training and I was accepted. And I went to Tony school and all of a sudden I realized I could use all of the skills and problem solving. Listening and presence in the context of this thing called coaching. And this is way cool. When I finished Tony NATO to offer those that he deemed qualified, I went to work for Tony for a while as one of 70 of his results coaches, and it was an amazing experience, and then being entrepreneurial. And then I looked at each other and said, Oh, we can do this, we can build a coaching business. And that was the beginning of someone success.
Achim Nowak 20:29
What’s so beautiful about your story? I’m struck by all the different things you pursued, that you’ve thrown yourself into. And I’m really getting the fact that Walt Hampton is a learner, and walhampton wants to learn, and that desire to learn at a certain stage which got you to Tony Robbins, which then got you to was the gateway to a whole other life. But if you weren’t curious and didn’t want to learn, this probably wouldn’t have happened. Right?
Walt Hampton 21:02
I think that’s right. One of the criticisms and I actually write about it my first book journeys on The Ed that I got from family and heard a lot in the context of my first marriage was your like a Walter Mitty? If you look at the life of a Benjamin Franklin, you know, there was a whole era where being a polymath being somebody who had a lot of different interests and wanted to pursue a lot of different things was, like nothing. And sadly, I think we become very constrained and tunnel vision. I’ve always wanted to learn more and explore more, and even even now, I mean, I just like fascinated on learning technology and digital marketing. And, you know, just it’s just great fun to learn new, new thing.
Achim Nowak 21:49
I’m thinking of a recent conversation I had with Tom a sucker who talks about, we’re all characters in his story. But very often the story is written by others for us. And, and how do we become the character in the story that we actually desire, right? without all the other judgments about what the story should look like?
Walt Hampton 22:11
Yes,
Achim Nowak 22:13
we could spend hours talking and I am going to just jump along because I’m interested in getting to Ireland, you and n. In a way away are living out of fantasy that many people have some actualize, which is, if I could live anywhere, and do my work from anywhere, where I would actually like to live, not because my job is there or because my family is there, but because of my heart wants to be there. I know about your life in Ireland, because I follow you on Facebook and you and do these wonderful morning run reports. If any of you have never seen it. Look at the pictures that Walt and Anne post. They’re avid runners, and I see this images of the Irish landscape. And spiritually speaking, it always looks to me like you’re running from your house to the water, which is the source every morning and you drink from the well. And you go back to work. This is I Kim’s interpretation of your morning runs, right? But how did you end up in that house in that place? I just would love to hear that story.
Walt Hampton 23:24
So just one step back. Because you’ve you’ve said something that I think it’s really important to underscore we became when anna and i got married, and we then got into this world of personal and professional development, we became much more mindful and intentional as to what we wanted, what we want, not what somebody else wanted. We had lived that out what we wanted to create. And so when we began to build summit success, we wanted to build it in a way that would give us the freedom that we want. We’re both you know, we’re both travel junkies, we both are people of the world, we want to see the world and we’re both high altitude mountain errs and ultra distance runners and we love to explore and travel and be in different places. And so we built the business not knowing that we were going to be we started building the business not knowing where we would ultimately end up. But we began building the business in a way that allowed us the freedom to do whatever we wanted. And so when we were married and 2007 dear friends of ours still dear, dear friends of ours came to us and said you know you’ve both been single for dozen years. You both raised your kids on your own. You probably have you both have your own houses, we probably have everything you need. We’d love to give you a wedding gift. We have no idea what to give you. We’d love to give you the use of our home and County Cork Ireland would you like it for a week. And so I went home and was working on a graduate degree That summer, and we were having an extension put on the house and I was crazy busy at work. And I, and we were built, you know, I was I was now coaching a lot for Tony, why don’t you want a honeymoon? Dear? Yeah, I guess how about we go for a week to Ireland good, but we’ll cash in frequent flyer miles. So we went just to like to check a tick the box off. Yes. And this was another inflection point in our life. You know, there are moments where, you know, the roads could go different ways. And this was another, we got to this place, there’s a little home, that’s only two kilometers from where we live. Now. We got to this place. And it was like, we immediately came to ground, we immediately like, Oh, my God, this is like, this feels like, I don’t know, oh, this feels like home. But that’s weird, because you know, we have no particular connection to Ireland. But we love this place. And we had the most amazing week. And we wept when we left. And we went back for our first anniversary and our second anniversary, or third anniversary. And as you might do, some people know this, you go back to a place and you start looking in the realtor’s windows. And in 2013, we thought we should have a little vacation place here because we keep coming back. We don’t want to keep on being a past. And so we bought a little beautiful little cottage high on a hill overlooking the North Atlantic Ocean from which we run every morning. And we bought it with the intention of being a vacation home. And we painted it and we created a website, we stayed for 18 magnificent days, and the most magnificent days of all in April, we got to the end of the 18 days and said we don’t want to leave. And so we essentially didn’t I mean, there are pieces in between the you know, the divesting ourselves of law offices and, and infrastructure and our home in the United States and all of that all of the practical stuff that we have. We had fallen in love with this place. And we had created a business that could go there. And so we did.
Achim Nowak 26:58
Yeah. The moment that really stands out for me, the story you said is that, that moment where you sink into you and into the place as you were there. And the fact that somehow you went and figured out a way to honor that. I remember the first time in the late 90s that I landed at Miami International Airport to do some job. And I was in a car and somebody drove me across the macaws MacArthur Causeway to the place where I was staying. And my heart just burst open. Yes, yes. It took me many years to end up in Florida. But my heart just said, Okay, why not here? Because this feels right.
Walt Hampton 27:43
And you listened to that call.
Achim Nowak 27:44
Yeah. As as you went and did? Yes. How do you and and as a marvelous book coach, let me just say that and has supported some of my friends who are cherished friends who are working with annual their books. So how do you operate from this? Originally, it’s supposed to be vacation home now your home in a rural part of Ireland? And how do you support your clients around the world from there? So paint a picture of what this life looks like for people who think I might want something like that. And the paint paint wasn’t you what’s wonderful about it, but if there are challenges, tell us what the challenges might be as well.
Walt Hampton 28:35
We did social distancing and isolation long before it was fashionable. What most people don’t know about and even though we’re both speakers and love being with people, we’re introverts. Yeah, it’s important to know that and by introvert I mean, like Susan Cain, who wrote the beautiful book, quiet speaks about introverts, introverts are not shy. introverts just need to go to quiet to recharge. And so one of the reasons we so love Ireland is that it’s quiet. It’s a place to recharge after a busy life. So we do get around the world pre pandemic, and post pandemic we’ll get around the world again, to speak to a danger to trout bull. And so we do events and we’re on stages all around the world. And then we come home and we do mostly our executive coaching and our book coaching on video platforms like a lot of people learn to do and this last year and so it has been the way we have worked for a long, long time to work virtually and to do deep work virtually and we can do it anywhere in the world and so many of our days start off at I you know I get up at 430 in the morning and I journal and I meditate and I read we have coffee together we talk about our days and then we get our running close I know we do we run out toward the sea we run along this running is just a place of connection for us. We deconstruct Western literature we talk about world, follow text we come home, we have a business meeting as her after our connection time, and then we started into our day. And we often work not more than 20 or 30 feet from each other. But it’s funny, we’ll get together lunch, how was your morning, honey, and then we’ll go back and do it in the afternoon. The beautiful thing is, because we’re five hours ahead of the East Coast, a lot of our work doesn’t start until late morning or early afternoon. Yes, we’ll work until about six or 630 in the evening. And then we’ll finish up, we’ll talk about our day, we’ll sit near the fire or take a walk along the sea. And those are our days. That’s the rhythm of our days. And it’s just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful rhythm.
Achim Nowak 30:45
You’ve already talked about it, but I, I guess I just want you to spell it out some more. How does place and the place where you are? How does it feed and nurture your soul.
Walt Hampton 31:05
So being grounded and not to get too existential and to woo, but you know it’s in. Cal Newport, of course has that wonderful book, deep work. depth is such a rarity right now where we’re all moving at such high density, we have so much coming at us all of the time, that it’s easy to skitter, always to skitter along the surface of things. And to really to be grounded, do feel the ground literally and figuratively, beneath you allows you a solid disk to do to do deep work. And so it’s from that place of, you know, feeling rooted, feeling grounded, that allows me then to hold the space with a client, who is not feeling that. And so, you know, it’s not only a sense of peace, and joy, and connection, for me individually, and then for anime, but it’s also allows me to do the work that’s so important in the world, which is to hold that space for others that may not have that.
Achim Nowak 32:20
I know you mentioned the mountain climbing, you mentioned the running, I know you have ambitions around all the things you want to accomplish in that area, would you just talk about how that juices you and charges you and and drives you forward.
Walt Hampton 32:39
So from my youngest days, I have loved the mountains. And my dad and I learned to climb together. And very early on, I began climbing and I began climbing a lot of mountains first in the northeast of the United States, and then around the United States, and then further and further. And so mountain climbing was kind of my thing. And when Ann and I got together, she had been a distance runner. She said, Honey, if I’m going to do this mountain climbing stuff, you’re going to learn to become a distance runner. And so I did my first marathon at age 53. I did my first ultra marathon at age 55. I’ve done for ultra marathons since last year. And we ran the Grand Canyon from the South Rim to the North Rim and back in a day, which is about 48 miles and 20,000 vertical feet. So we’d like to run and and become an amazing mountain climber. We have our sights set on the Seven Summits we’ve done for them together, we have three more, which we’ll get to those activities connect us in our physicality, you know, they they allow us to be physical in the world connected with each other, I’ll tell you there’s nothing quite like literally having someone else’s life in your hands. I mean, Dan and I have been together on glaciers all around the world where you know, she’s she or I have gone into a crevasse and the other is held are one another and that there’s some powerful stuff that goes on at the end of a rope. And so those activities or activities that bring us a lot of satisfaction and joy.
Achim Nowak 34:18
Well, I think we just spent three or four minutes looking at so many different ways of going deep and physicality is another way of going deep connecting with a source operating from that place and and you and and are giving yourselves the gift to inhabit that space and create your lives from that space which is powerful. If you were to based on what you know now if you would look back and give give young Walt some sort of words of wisdom and advice. What might you say to him based on what you know now
Walt Hampton 35:01
There is a wonderful passage in Isaiah 43, Be not afraid. And the Jesuits are recorded a brilliant piece of music around a call to be not afraid, I think, to be less fearful, to be more willing to risk. You know, none of none of us gets out of this thing called life alive. And yet so many people have regrets. That’s the thing that drives me right now, I don’t ever want to have regrets.
Achim Nowak 35:32
That’s obviously also great advice for once a fellow fourth actors, people who are accomplished, but are not willing and ready to stop. There’s not being afraid. But that’s also I think, our willingness to take risks, and leave the predictable story. Along those lines, if you were to give some wisdom to and guidance to folks in our age range, who goes I would love to live in some exotic place. Walter makes it sound so easy. Somebody just gave him a house for a week. And he stumbled into it. What might he say to me to encourage me to, to take those sorts of risks.
Walt Hampton 36:17
So first of all, I’d say the whole romanticization of it is in the Android web plays to this, you know, this one thing or that one thing, and it’s, that’s, that’s just not true. I mean, I built five businesses now from scratch, and every single one of them has taken time and a dirty four letter word called work, it does take work takes intention. And when you’re doing something you love, it’s really, really fun. The other thing is, there’s that old adage, I don’t know whether it’s a girdle quote, or you know, jumping, the net will appear, that’s also garbage. Every time I’ve seen people try to jump without nets, they’ve ended up dead on the sidewalk. But you know, this whole idea of the gig economy and side hustles become hashtag popular these days. And really my work at summit success. Again, as a side hustle. I didn’t wake up one day and say, you know, I’m just closing my law office doors, there was a period of transition time. And so there are ways for us not to risk the 401k there are ways that we don’t have to give up the benefits or spend all of our hard earned assets or put things at risk. I mean, there are moments of inflection where we do jump the shark as it were. But those happen organically. If you’re intentional about leaning toward where your heart is drawing you. My own coach years ago, who I still work with today. She said, Follow the heat, I said I have no idea what that means. I’ve come to figure out what that means. There’s a natural gravitation of our hearts always know our heart. And one of the things that your listeners and my audiences always get hung up on where there are your listeners are like, really they suffer from SPS, which I call smart person syndrome. And all of this stuff happens in our heads. And really, when we can connect deeply with our hearts and listen to that still small voice. That’s what we need to be drawn to. And we can explore we can be, we can be explorers, on the path and from that place of exploration, discover what brings us joy, and freedom.
Achim Nowak 38:27
Beautiful. Since you’re also a fantastic writer, where can our listeners go to find out more about your writing and the work that you do? Where Where would you like to direct them to?
Walt Hampton 38:43
I made this up myself. So www.walthampton.com
Achim Nowak 38:48
you are you’re truly original world? Is that the best place to start?
Walt Hampton 38:58
That’s the best place to start.
Achim Nowak 39:01
Well, I urge all of you to check out Walt, I thank you for this generous conversation. And I’m so happy that I know you and n and To be continued.
Walt Hampton 39:14
it is our gift and our privilege to know you and thank you so much for the gift and privilege of being able to spend time with you and with your listeners.
Achim Nowak 39:22
My pleasure. Bye bye.
Walt Hampton 39:25
Bye for now.
Achim Nowak 39:28
Like what you heard, please go to my fourth act COMM And subscribe to receive my updates on upcoming episodes. Please also subscribe to us on the platform of your choice. Rate us give us a review and let us all create some magical fourth acts together. Ciao
0 Comments