← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Lessons - From Secretary to Overstock President | Stormy Simon - Former Overstock.com President
00:15:50
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- [00:00]
A
Everyday Dose is a success story partner now. New year, new goals. And if you're like me, you've got big plans for 2026. But here's the problem. Keeping that momentum going. Week one, you're fired up. Week two, you're already tired. Your brain is fried. You're running on fumes. Wondering how you will sustain this all year long. For the longest time, I thought the answer was just more coffee. Drink more, work more, achieve more. But that just led to afternoon crashes and burnout and jitters right when I needed to be the sharpest. That's when I realized I didn't need more coffee. I. I needed better coffee. Something that actually supports my lifestyle and what I'm building. Enter Everyday Dose. It's coffee with benefits. High quality coffee combined with lion's mane, chaga mushrooms, collagen protein and nootropics. You get the boost you need to accomplish your New Year's resolutions. It tastes like coffee. There's no crash, there's no jitters. Just clean energy that lasts. If regular coffee is a flip phone, Everyday Dose is a smartphone built for 2026. And right now, get 61% off your coffee plus starter kit and over $100 in free gifts. Plus plus enter for a chance to win $100 cash or get your entire order refunded. Visit everydaydose.com success story or use code Success story at checkout. Gusto is a success story partner. Now look, I talk to business owners every single day, and you know what I hear constantly? Scott? I love running my business, but I hate dealing with payroll. And I get it. Nobody starts a company because they're excited about calculating tax withholdings and benefits administration. That's exactly why I use Gusto myself. And the smartest business owners use it as well. Gusto is online payroll and benefit software built for small business. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire, onboard and support your team from anywhere. Now, here's what sold me. Unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No surprises, no hidden fees when you need to run that extra payroll. And when you hit a tough HR situation, and trust me, you will, you get direct access to actual certified HR experts, not a chatbot. Real people who know what they're talking about. Plus, they're the number one payroll software according to G2 for fall of 2025. And over 400,000 small businesses already trust them. Try Gusto today at gusto.com success story and and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months free payroll@gusto.com success story in this lesson's episode, explore what it truly means to bet on oneself and redefine success beyond money or titles. Discover how necessity and responsibility builds self, trust and courage to take uncomfortable risks. Understand why curiosity and growth matter more than external validation or status. And uncover how staying grounded through success requires clarity around freedom, purpose, and personal values. When did you. When did you. When did you understand that you could bet on yourself? Because that is something that I think is. Is a very important point. I think that's the reason why people don't leave jobs and people don't push themselves into things that are slightly uncomfortable. When did you realize that? Was it because you had figured everything out and you were just, again, repeatedly successful? Like, what was the thing that allowed you to feel comfortable jumping into that new thing that you didn't know?
- [03:02]
B
I knew I had to after I had the kids and, you know, decided I was going to do it. As a single parent, there was no one else to bet on. You know, there just wasn't anyone where I could go, oh, I'm going to, you know, I need you to do this for me, or there just wasn't anyone to bet on. It was me or nobody. And it's not a sad story because I had support of my parents, but, you know, they weren't wealthy, we were. They were blue collar. And so I had their support, their love, their undying. Like, they thought I was awesome. But when it came down to making it happen, that was just me. And I think I've always felt like that to some degree. You know, you have that feeling of, I don't know if the whole world does, but kind of being alone, but knowing that you're amongst this amazing universe. But yeah, you got to pull your own weight. That's the thing. And you can pull as much or as little as you want, and there's no judgment or measure of success, right? Like people, people measure success by money, and that's a pretty shallow measure.
- [04:22]
A
What, what pushed you to move? What was the thing that you saw in the new job that made you say, I want to. I want to prove out myself there. This is like the next step.
- [04:35]
B
You know, there could be a piece of. Often it was, I would look at what my next step would be at that job. Like, I completely loved being the assistant to the president. That was my favorite thing because I would learn something every single day. And I think as I've a chronic autodidact, I just. The knowledge and curiosity of what? I don't know, like. And we get one life. So how much can you learn or experience in one day, every day, and not have too much on repeat? You know, it's the repeat that would scare me. So once I hit a repeat of, oh, God, I don't want to do this today. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. It's like, I don't want to do this today. That's a. And then you get up and do it again and again. And how. I don't want to wake up.
- [05:34]
A
You know, how many people do that their entire life? Too many. I know.
- [05:42]
B
I, you know, that's where money is. Money. The success, you know, the measure of success. You, for me, you know, and I always think it's easier. Oh, yeah. Once you get a little bit of money, you can say all the things you're going to do to change the world and how to live and, you know, I'll always identify as the welfare mom. I know what it's like to be totally afraid to have your light shut off with children. It's terrifying. And so many people live like that. Every day we have to find a new measure of success that doesn't include, you know.
- [06:19]
A
Just money. More. More money.
- [06:21]
B
Putting yourself up against someone with a jet or, you know, the Kardashians or anything like that. Like, it's just life.
- [06:29]
A
You've been. You're obviously super, super grounded, and I think that's important. But I think the. The interesting thing I want to try and eventually figure out, maybe you're. Maybe you're cognizant of it. You've had extreme success like you've had. You've operated at a level, like, far beyond what most people have ever operated at with the companies that you've run. How did you stay grounded through all this? Where now you have been successful and now you still know that what's happiness and success for you? And it's freedom. It's living in a trailer in the middle of the desert. Like, that's not. Obviously, not always where you are, but still you. You enjoy it. You enjoy this part of your life. And when people start to get success, I feel like everybody starts off a little bit grounded and a little bit. I don't feel like money's everything, but then you start to get it, and then people change. Or maybe they don't change. Maybe just. It just brings out what was always in them. But how did you stay grounded as you grew through as you can, as you got more and More successful over your career?
- [07:32]
B
Well, I wouldn't say I stayed grounded the whole time. I'm more grounded now. You know, I walked in pretty grounded with a lot of. Just the spiritual way that I lead my life. When I first came to Overstock, you know, which was the big one, right. Everything I did led up to these skill sets that I was able to apply at Overstock and just had amazing, you know, success in the ideas I had or things we executed. But the groundedness, because that was. I went through 10 careers there, like legitimate P. Ls, building a business to 100 million, doing crazy things like that, like, and then, I mean, just an apartment to 100 million. We grew the business to 2 billion. And along the way, holding so many different responsibilities, building them and taking them with me along the way. There were moments I wasn't grounded. Like we. There weren't these mentors that I could go to and be like, you know, what should I do next? The founder and CEO was very. Was a mentor, of course, but I would. I would say his. He hadn't a very aggressive, like, his mentorship, Very successful, great. But probably something, you know, when I look back now, I wouldn't adopt now, I wouldn't be in the cycle, but as a female and in Utah and, you know, me and this, the CEO and founder of the company were such great friends. Unapologetically and unashamed. Shamedly. Is that a word?
- [09:11]
A
It is now. Let's go with it.
- [09:13]
B
I love that word. But that is, you know, with. That brings a lot of baggage as a woman, you know, there was a lot of accusations or rumors, and it becomes a really hard place to know what's worth fighting and what's not. I was never a victim, but it would be crazy at my age to say, oh, no, I just scared. Skated through everything as a female with none of that on my hands. Nobody ever hashtag me toot or of course we all went through it. But, you know, there's a lot that you navigate to do that as a female, and there are people that root against you, at least at the time. And I think that, you know, it's easier sometimes for people to say for a woman for some reason that maybe, you know, oh, she must have slept with a boss. It's got something else to do with it. And, you know, you step out of it and look back at your life and all the amazing things, you know, and there's not just one place that that happens that, you know, as a female, when you get success and hard Work works. People still want to put that on them. I don't get it, but they do. And as I've stepped out of the whole arena, right, where it's just like who. The truth is, it would have been way easier to sleep your way to the top. I mean, Honestly, what's that, 15 minutes a day? I was spending 15 hours a day as a female. I mean, and these are the things we have to talk about. Because there was never a moment in my career where I was a victim. Because any time there was that type of situation, I got through it. Not as a conqueror or a confronter, but as a navigator. Because it wasn't worth my time to. It wasn't worth my time to fight certain fights. You know, at work, with something like Overstock especially, there was so much greatness to be done. So so many things that were exciting at every turn that anything that was not about that company and the functions of it to me was a distraction. And so my focus. I don't even remember what your question was.
- [11:48]
A
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- [15:32]
B
Most left Overstock in July of. Well, I left, like, officially, right. I was there a long time. It was a big position. You got to sign papers. But I left officially September 30th. But when I literally, you know, quit. Quit. That's such a harsh word. But quit. Resigned, I guess, is something.
- [15:53]
A
You resigned. You. You were like, I'm leaving now.
- [15:57]
B
Yes. And by the time that was July, I'm thinking of the official day sometime in July. I know it was right before my birthday. And then I was on the board another three months right after that. Like, within weeks, the whole Fox story on me, too, broke out. And I thought, how brave. How brave of her. How brave. Very immensely brave. And that was just a moment for me. It was a moment, and there was a wave happening. It's the only way I can describe it, because I. You know, when I left Overstock, it was for many reasons. We talked about them whenever I woke up and went, I have to go do this. I'm not doing that in my life. I don't want to wake up and ever be like, oh, I gotta do this today. I want to wake up and be like, doing the day, no matter what it takes to get to where I'm doing the day, that's the path I want. And so when I left, you know, I wasn't thinking. Well, nobody was thinking. Hashtag metoo. But when you're allowed to tell your story, when you're allowed, when you feel like it's empowerment and not a weapon and not a grudge and not anything but just your story, that's the movement we need to get to. That's the movement. And, you know, we were talking about mentors. And throughout my leadership, I have some horrific stories. I acted horrible at times. You know, there's articles about leaders becoming sociopaths or psychopaths, a good executive or something. A sociopath, I can't remember which one. But I read the article, and I thought, yes, it makes it. There are some emotions you simply have to turn off. You have to. Because you're not, you know, managing people. Your responsibilities are, you know, columns on an Excel sheet and all the people equaling a column. So I had to do horrific things in my time that I would never don't. I don't even feel like fit me as a human or a spirit. But I did them. I did them well and I was able to to execute and succeed. But you don't see it when you're in it, you see it when you're out of it.
- [18:35]
A
Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.