HEY Y'ALL!

I'm Stefan Wills. I'm Glad you found your way here. My goal is to help others achieve their absolute best by questioning the status quo and crushing the inner critic. I scour the earth to bring you strategies to upgrade your life.

Scoured is the newsletter that distills the best in scientific studies, research papers, and our own experience into an easy-to-read weekly format. We scour the business, leadership, and psychology world and scrub it to make it easy to apply.

MISTAKES WERE MADE...

By 24 I was a millionaire, at 25 I was $250K in the hole.

At 2:14 AM on a Sunday in February 2006 I thought I was dying.

I fell out of bed and told my wife it felt like I was being repeatedly stabbed in the stomach. My appendix was rupturing.

I had four surgeries over four months.

My "wealth" and health came crashing down in an avalanche of misfortune and mistakes…

While I was in the hospital an employee broke into my office, stole a handful of checks, and embezzled a great deal of money.

A JV partner colluded with a title company and fled the country.

The subprime mortgage crises brought all projects to a screeching halt.

Everyone got scared and left me alone holding the bag.

I lost about $500,000 in 90 days. The dream home I was building with my wife (and the earnest money) was gone. Thirty pounds vanished, my truck was repossessed, and we had to lease our townhouse to avoid foreclosure.

THE SLOW RECOVERY...

I returned to the drawing board.

Everything took a royal beating.

My health compromised, my finances decimated, my relationships strained, and my confidence seriously shaken, I turned to the skill I knew best to start over, sales.

Everything we had went to get our feet back under ourselves.

This is where I'd love to say that I had this meteoric return to success, but that's not how it happened.

Learning the lessons that would set a new trajectory took three years.

Early days of building Microsoft's Customer Success business

Freedom takes many forms, sometimes it's island living

TURNING POINT...

Wealth and money are not the same thing.

Over three years I learned that wealth is a byproduct of creating value and choosing freedom, and you can create as much wealth as you want.

The more specialized value you create, the more wealthy you become.

I started looking for ways to provide specific value. I took stock of my unique abilities and what I wanted.

Since that hard lesson, I was able to start and grow one of the most successful fully digital dental labs in Minnesota.

I co-founded three consecutive successful SaaS applications.

Built two over-achieving business units at Microsoft.

Forged dozens of lifelong friendships by pouring my heart into the teams I was blessed with.

These experiences cemented a truth in my mind:

THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF THE VALUE YOU CREATE DEPENDS ON THE GAME YOU'RE PLAYING.

Focusing on making money didn’t work. Focusing on delivering as much value as possible did.

This is where I finally found freedom.

MY MISSION...

TO HELP 1 MILLION PEOPLE ACHIEVE FREEDOM THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Scoured and Upgrade are the resources and community that would have saved me from myself all those years ago.

I am not a "ninja" or "guru" and will never claim to be.

What I am is extremely curious and wholeheartedly passionate about seeing everyone achieve everything they're capable of.

Theodore Roosevelt said, "The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it."

Is joy and freedom something you desire?

Join me and thousands of others who demand it.

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