4:13 Podcast: I Can Power Boost With Scott Hamilton

Scott Hamilton: I always thought everything was chaotic and that all these crazy things happen, right? And why are all these things happening to me? And looking back now, I kind of realize that they were all meant to fortify me, to refocus me, to change direction, to basically move me where I needed to be for his glory.

Jennifer Rothschild: Scott Hamilton is one of the most famous figure skaters ever. He was a four-time world champion and an Olympic gold medalist, yet he never knew his birth parents. He fought a rare illness for most of his childhood that really affected his growth and as an adult, he's battled cancer. In fact, even now during this conversation, he has a brain tumor. But Scott Hamilton has the "I Can" spirit and his optimism and his can-do attitude is completely contagious. So, my friends, get ready to get infected.

KC Wright: Welcome to an "I Can" Power Boost episode of the 4:13 Podcast. Where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life because you can do all things through Christ, who strengthens you. And now I can hardly keep her in her seat. She's so excited because we've hit, y'all, one million downloads. That's right.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hey, everybody, I'm Jennifer. And I am, I'm just beside myself. We are so grateful because we have hit it.

Crowd: One million downloads [cheering]

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

KC Wright: Can you believe that?

Jennifer Rothschild: I just think that there is no better way to mark this occasion and to celebrate this than to have Scott Hamilton with us, because he's going to be our very first guest on this brand new genre that I am introducing to us here on the 4:13. I call them the "I Can" Power Boost episodes because they feature somebody who embodies this 4:13 spirit because of the way they live the "I Can" life. You know what I'm saying? They don't just say I can, they live the "I Can." And the goal then is once we get to know these amazing people, it's that we'll be able to then say, oh, if he can or if she can, I can, because the same God who gives them power gives us power, and that's my goal. So I just think it's perfect that we celebrate one million by introducing these "I Can" Power Boost episodes. So, KC, let's get it going. You introduce our man, Scott Hamilton.

KC Wright: Scott Hamilton is one of the most recognized male figure skaters in the world, with over 70 titles, awards, honors, and several gold medals. Scott has been inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame and is also a member of the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame. He's the founder of the Live Your Days Online platform, where he encourages people to be present and take captive the moments that God gives you on a daily basis. He's married to Tracie and they have four kids at their beautiful home in Nashville, Tennessee. Now, let's listen in to Scott and Jennifer.

Jennifer Rothschild: Scott Hamilton, this is such an exciting day for us at the 4:13 because you are here and I'm just honored. So we want to get to know you. We know the Scott Hamilton we have seen on TV. But we want to know from the beginning here who you were before you hit the ice. Like, I want to know about your family, how you grew up. I understood your parents, weren't they teachers or professors?

Scott Hamilton: Both teachers. My dad was a Ph.D. Professor of Biology at Bowling Green State University. It was his, really his only professional job. He went straight from getting his Ph.D. at Rutgers University, where my sister was born, and then they moved. He got a job at Bowling Green State University and started working there and then my mom was teaching second grade in a tiny little town called Haskins. And then as I started my medical issues and everything, I was very ... I was adopted at six weeks of age, which was really great. And then I was around age four, I started to show signs of illness where I was in and out of hospitals for four years so they could never find the source of my illness. It was a big mystery and it was very scary at the time. One doctor actually at the Ann Arbor Children's Hospital there at the University of Michigan gave me six months to live. I guess she might have been wrong. I'm not sure, but so.

Jennifer Rothschild: Jury is still out.

Scott Hamilton: Yeah, I know, it's like is this all a dream. So then we went to Boston Children's and it was there that they thought I had a disease called Shwachman-Diamond syndrome. And it was actually Dr. Shwachman himself was looking after me and I had every symptom, but I didn't have the disease. So they basically sent me home with the orders that, to go home and live a normal life.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Scott Hamilton: I was on, I was on no sugar, no dairy, no flour.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Scott Hamilton: And he said, just get off all the stupid diets. You might be starving to death for all we know and just go home and live and see what happens because we can't diagnose this thing, that's for sure. We've done everything we can and you've been through all these other really good hospitals and they can't diagnose it either. So go home, live a normal life. And so we got back home and of course, everybody was just emotionally exhausted, physically exhausted. My mother would sleep in that little chair in the corner of the room, because children's hospitals now are much different than they were back then. Back then, it was a bed and a little chair in the corner. And now they have like daybeds, all the other stuff for the parents. But yeah, so that was my life for four years. It was just hospitals.

And so we started to run into some pretty hefty medical bills. And so my mom went back to school to get her master's degree so she could get a job at the university, which would pay better with better benefits. So she did that. And so she was teaching school, going to school, and raising a family all at the same time. And so our family doctor came and just said, basically, you guys need a morning off and they're like, can't do that. They had just adopted my little brother. He was at that time about three or four. And, and so this is, I'm done with my hospital stuff now I was still very sick and there's said you need a morning off and they said how are we going to do that? And my family physician just said, you know, my kids just enrolled in this really fun program at the university. They have a brand new skating rink and they're teaching children from the city how to skate every Saturday morning from eight to noon. And so my parents are concerned for safety and everything.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: I just went and I realized that I was different than, now I was around a lot of well kids, where I was really used to being around a lot of sick kids. And so, ya know, after a few weeks of skating, I realized that I could skate as well as well kids. And that was a big deal because I always felt lesser. I was always the shortest one in my class. I was always the sick one, the short one, kind of left out, last one chosen, and all that stuff. And then a few weeks later, I realized that I could skate as well as the best athletes in my grade and now I had self-esteem attached to all this thing. And it just, it changed everything. I always, ya know, I tell people in a lot of my talks and everything I just said, self-esteem is the most powerful agent in the planet because it changes everything. It changes the air in the room. It changes opportunities. It changes how others look at you. It changes how you look at yourself. It changes how you approach the next opportunity. It changes everything, so a healthy self-esteem, not ego, not pride, or anything else, but just feeling good about yourself changes everything. And it was soon after that my health started to improve and I started growing again and it was kind of miraculous that I found the perfect activity for not only my body type, but also my personality. And I loved it. It was really fun. So I just became an ice skater.

Jennifer Rothschild: Just! I just became an ice skater. That's like Da Vinci saying, I just became a painter.

Scott Hamilton: [Laughing]

Jennifer Rothschild: But I love, though, how the ice skating became that place. Like that missing puzzle piece that allowed you to become who really, you were wired to be athletically, personality wise, and then it just became a platform. Not only for people to be inspired by your skill, but by your life. So let's just fast forward from that to 1984. Okay.

Scott Hamilton: Well, a lot happened between those two dates. Sarajevo!

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, a lot happened.

Scott Hamilton: I failed a lot. Ya know, I joke that I wrote the book Finished First and in that book we were talking about how many times do you think you've fallen on the ice. It was like, let me do some math. So I did some quick math and on the minimum end I think Ive probably fell 41,600 times as a skater. And so, you know, the really cool thing about that is I got up 41,600 times. So, you know, the more you get, the more you fail and get up and try again, the more you fail, get up, and try again. It kind of changes the way you look at those failures. You don't look at them as anything more than information. It's like, okay, I didn't do it right. Let's get up and try it again and I'll try it this way. Okay, that didn't work, let's try it this way. And then pretty soon you master that skill out of just trial and error, you know, and so you learn that everything is a process. Everything, you know, nothing is forever. Everything's a process. Everything is what you bring to it and that's shown up in every aspect of my life. So, you know, going to my first nationals and coming in dead last and then going back to my nationals the next year and coming in second to last. And then, you know, it was after my junior year that we went to nationals, first year of juniors, and I beat two guys, actually came in seventh out of nine and I just thought, man, I'm finally able to beat somebody. This is pretty fun, you know?

Jennifer Rothschild: [Laughing]

Scott Hamilton: And so the next year, well, it was right after that that my mom came home from a doctor's visit with a very cheerful kind of sing-songy way. Then she goes, "Okay, everybody family meeting," and we were like what's going on, we've never had a family meeting before. And she just said, "Okay, I've just come from the doctor," and she was very upbeat and very happy. And I was like, okay, this is going to be good news. And she goes, and "I've just been diagnosed with the disease called cancer. And I'm going to have some medicines or I may not feel good and I may have to have some surgeries. So basically I'm going to need some help around the house." And so she went and she started doling out duties and how we can help support her. And then she looked at me and she said, "And you, mister." I go, "Yes ma'am," and she just said, "We're broke. We're flat broke. We're almost right on the verge of bankruptcy. So you've got one year left of skating and then, we're going to have to, you're a senior in high school, you're going to start college next year. We're both professors at the university, you'll get to go for free. And we can afford free, but we can't afford another year after this one of skating."

And so I went back to where I was training in Illinois, and my main coach had retired. So I was with a new coach and he was kind of a whip cracker. And, ya know, I just figured it was my last year I might as well submit, so I went all in and I arrived at the nationals that year. I just started landing a triple salchow. I got it about two weeks before, and my mom was there with a wig on because she lost all her hair to chemotherapy and she had her arm in a sling because they removed her left breast and most of the inside of the left arm with all the lymph nodes and everything. And so she wore the, she didn't really, she said she didn't really need the sling, but it kept people from bumping into her, which, ya know, at a crowded nationals that was a good thing. And she just was so happy the whole week. And I figured it's my last competition ever. And so I went out, my coach told me not to warm up my triple salchow because he didn't really want to know if it was there or not, you know.

Jennifer Rothschild: [Laughing]

Scott Hamilton: So that was a good coach. And so I actually went out and I landed my triple sal and I got so excited that I forgot to mess up the rest of my program. And I came in first. I won junior nationals. And so the reason my mom was so happy was on the way to the competition, she never told me this until afterwards, she met a couple in Chicago that had a lot of money and they never, they loved skating and they didn't want a skater to have to lose their dream due to lack of funds that they had more than enough of. So they, they wanted to meet my family first before they decided to sponsor me and after meeting my mom for just a few minutes, they said we'd love to sponsor Scott if you would be okay with that. And she said, "Are there any strings attached?" And they just said one. And so the string attached to that was that I'd have to move to Denver, Colorado. Where I would take from a coach, who was just about to leave for the Olympics, where he coached John Curry and Dorothy Hamill, two Olympic gold medalists.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, whoa.

Scott Hamilton: So, I won the lottery. Right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: So, I call it the trifecta. The next year, I turned 18, I was sponsored, and I got my own apartment.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, help.

Scott Hamilton: And you're a parent, obviously, you're a parent.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, that's that's ... that's that.

Scott Hamilton: So, it's a recipe for disaster. So, of course, I went to nationals and I did really well in the figures, which was my nemesis event and dropped all the way to ninth after the freestyles and it was an epic failure. It was awful, and it was right after that competition that my mother would lose her battle with cancer. And that was the day that I decided that I didn't know how to live without her and I really wanted to mourn her properly. And the grief was like something I never experienced before, so I decided on that walk, you know, the morning we lost her, that I was going to bring her with me wherever I went. And I was going to try to be the skater and the person that she always dreamed I could be. And I figured that was the healthiest way to mourn someone who I loved more than anyone else on the planet.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: And so from that moment on, things just changed. I became a different skater. I was just, I couldn't skate enough, I couldn't skate hard enough. I couldn't work harder than, every session was just, on it, on it, on it. If I didn't feel like showing up, I was like honor her. I would go. If I didn't feel like doing a run through, honor her. I would do a run through. And from my ninth place finish the last time she saw me skate in competition, the very next year, I was third in the United States and eleventh in the world. And then two years after that, I went to the Olympics in 1980 and I came in fifth. I was hoping for eighth, but I came in fifth.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, wow.

Scott Hamilton: And right after the world championships that year were two months after the Olympics where I came in fifth again, I woke up one morning in Denver and I realized that the gold medalist, Robin Cousins, had turned professional. The silver medalist, Jan Hoffmann, decided to go to medical school. The bronze medalist, Charlie Tickner, turned professional. So all I really had to do was wake up and I'm ranked second in the world.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's awesome.

Scott Hamilton: And yeah, it was really wild. So, you know, the guy had to be was a genius at my weakest event. So I just had to take a long hard look in the mirror and say, all right, it's time for me to stop hating figures. Because I hated figures and they honestly hated me back. You know, it's kind of like what you put out comes back usually, you know, so I didn't like figures and so they didn't like me either. And so I decided that I needed to repair that relationship. And so I decided to fall in love with figures, I did, and then starting in October of 1980, I never lost a competition until March, all the way through March of '84. I was undefeated for the rest of my amateur career and that included four U.S. Titles, four World titles, and the Olympic gold medal, and it was just surreal. It's like how is this happening? You know, after the first Worlds, I thought, you know, either I've got to up my game to be worthy of this title or I have to accept the fact that figure skating is at its lowest place in history if I'm its champion, right. So, you know, I got to a point where after I defended the next year, I realized that I was just competing against guys just like me. They're just guys. They weren't, you know, I wasn't competing against the entire history of the sport or every human being in the planet. I was just competing against guys just like me, and so I just had to figure out a way to stay ahead of them. You know, so that world title took on a different identity. And I really felt like I needed to take ownership of it and I needed to work toward staying ahead of the pack.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hmm. You know, it's interesting, as I hear you talk, you in many ways, like when you said you decided to fall in love with figures, when these guys are just guys. I mean, it's interesting, these paradigm shifts that you make.

Scott Hamilton: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: And when you make those paradigm shifts, it really has changed every step of your journey. And, Scott, what I hear in that, too, is, you know, falling down, getting up, you know, shifting your paradigm. It's describing, of course, your whole skating career. But I also think it really is a good description of your life, because I think you've received far more than just awards and gold medals and all that. I think you've received a lot from loss, the loss of your mom, your own cancer. So why don't you talk to us a little bit about that. What is it that you've literally received that has changed you from the hard spots, the suffering in your life?

Scott Hamilton: Well, it's just how you go through it, you know. It's, you know, even today, if I go in for an MRI for my brain tumor, I just think no matter what the news I get today, my thought, my hope is that I'll face that news good or bad, joyfully. And my wife was asked in an interview not too long ago, you know. Really, it doesn't make sense? How do you face something like that joyfully? And she honestly corrected the interviewer by saying, "Well, joy isn't lack of fear and suffering, but it's how you go through it." Right? So it's kind of that swing thought. It's like, you know, it's like I'm not always going to get what I want. I'm not always going to have it easy and in the difficult times, it's really important to decide how I want to go through it. And and it's definitely a bit of a tug of war. You know, it's like it's really easy to fall into that, you know, sadness, just that kind of grief that my physical self is now being challenged or the fear or whatever. But, you know, I've learned and it's kind of that muscle about getting up 41,600 times. It's kind of that it's like the more I respond to things, especially difficult things positively, the the better off I am, you know, next steps. So if I allow, ya know, I did a TED Talk actually on, you know, I ran into somebody at an awards thing in Nashville. And he goes, "Oh, I read the TedEx thing Nashville. Would you speak at our event this year?" And I go, "I'd love to. What would you like me to speak about?" And he goes, "Anything you want."

Jennifer Rothschild: Mhm.

Scott Hamilton: Okay, well, give me something. And so, you know, in my mind, all that kept coming back was suffering. I was like, that's such a downer. I don't want to talk about suffering. So I went on the TED website and I did the search for talks about suffering and then no one ever gave one before. And so I thought, well, maybe I'm supposed to do this. And so I did my research and everything, but I, I came back with kind of how I ended it. And it's sort of how we all are. It's one thing that we have in common is we will all suffer in our lifetimes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Scott Hamilton: You know just how much, right? So I came up with that fork in the road, kind of that Yogi Bear line, when you get to the fork in the road, take it, you know, but it's, my fork isn't left or right, my fork is kind of up or down, you know? So I come up with this kind of understanding that in the really difficult times in our lives, we can, we have three choices. We can succumb, adapt or evolve. Ya know, the succumb is take that road down, allow it just the gravity and the momentum to just take you to the lowest place you've ever been. Or you can just not go up or down, you can just stay at the fork, just stand there and just succumb to whatever your condition is. Or you can really work. You can just dig in and start taking that higher road and that more difficult road to coming back. And in that way, you evolve and you're probably, you're better, higher, stronger. What's the Olympic motto, "Citius, Altius, Fortius." Ya know, higher, faster, stronger. Or yeah, faster, higher, stronger, something like that. Anyway, so it's that, it's like any time you just decide that you're going to rise above your circumstance, it changes the trajectory of your life. So I've learned that, you know, it's like when I had my childhood illness, you know, and I, I didn't allow it to crush me. And I found skating and all those competitions where I lost. I didn't allow those to crush me either and I found ways of rising above that. And then when I lost my mom, I found the greatest part of my character. Ya know.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: It's just whenever I included her in anything, it just made it better. So difficult, horrific episodes in our lives don't have to crush us or define us. We can learn to deal with them and rise up against them, above them, whatever that is.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: And we just come through it and somehow we're better. It's like, I always use that kind of examples of like broken glass, right? If you drop a glass on your kitchen floor and it shatters into a million pieces, it'll never be able to do what it did before. But if you hold the pieces up to light, it now can make rainbows. Right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Uh huh.

Scott Hamilton: So, it's kind of, looking at scars. Every morning I get up and get out of the shower and I look at all the scars from my cancer, from surgeries from athletic injuries, things like that. And I realize that where that scar is, it's tougher skin than was there before, that nothing will ever damage that area the same again because it's stronger than it was before. Broken bones, when they get back, they're stronger than they were before.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: So, it's just keeping those mindsets in mind and understanding that life is hard and life offers us a lot of episodes where we have to really fight through them and others that just crush us or meant to challenge us on every level. And then we have those good ones, too. But those are kind of, those good ones come out of other situations. So, you know, I really just try to encourage people that, you know, no matter what's going on in your life, just allow it to do its work and in the same time participate in it in really profound ways. And, and that's kind of, you know, represented in my faith journey, as well. You know, it's just, I always thought everything was chaotic in that all these crazy things happen, right? And why are all these things happening to me? And looking back now, I kind of realize that they were all meant to fortify me, to refocus me, to change direction. To basically move me where I needed to be for His glory.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Scott Hamilton: And it all came out of God's grace and mercy. Nobody needed more grace and mercy than I did growing up. But it's that it's you know, it's like. You know, it's looking back on it all, it goes to a sermon that I heard Attorney Jim Gash, President of Pepperdine right now, but I was at church and he gave the sermon, and he just said, you know, "there are no such thing as coincidences. They're all God's scheduled opportunities." And in that moment, like everything just sort of just fell into line. It's like I get it now that led to this and this led to that. And that was meant to be for that and all the things that really strengthen me and prepared me for the next weren't things that I ever would have chosen for myself. You know, cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me. You know, it was brain tumors, one, two, three. Each of them have given me something that I've learned incredible things from. You know, losing taught me how to win, you know. You know, it's just all those all those things, you know, that you wouldn't choose are incredibly important for building your character and building your understanding of what you can endure and the power of that, you know. So I'm really, you know, I don't want the next bad thing to happen.

Jennifer Rothschild: Sure. Sure.

Scott Hamilton: At the same time, if it does, you know, I can look back on history and kind of go, okay well, here we go. Let's see were this one goes.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, your life is a commentary. It really is. It's like a living commentary on Romans 8:28, that it is God. Things don't just work out because things are things, but God is the one who works.

Scott Hamilton: All things together for our good. Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. And I love that you called it chaos, Scott, because a lot of people feel that, like this is just chaos. But it reminds me of your illustration of the glass breaking on the floor. But then you have all these broken pieces that reveal light and create rainbows. So for those listening who feel that emotional chaos and just disorientation, I'm just grateful for what God has done in your life, Scott, because it gives all of us, I believe, a real, real sense of hope. So I want to ask you a few more questions. And these might feel, you know, unrelated and random.

Scott Hamilton: No worries.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, I'm just going to go through so quick questions.

Scott Hamilton: Don't make me think. I'll just react.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know they won't. I promise.

Scott Hamilton: Okay, thank you.

Jennifer Rothschild: I won't make you think. By the way, if you're doing this all already without thinking, then I think you're good to go. Okay, so here we go. Why should we ditch fear and celebrate failure?

Scott Hamilton: You know, it just comes down to if we can break failure down to just purely information, I think it's less toxic, less you know, it's just, it's hard to carry all that stuff with us.

Jennifer Rothschild: Amen.

Scott Hamilton: We can let it go.

Jennifer Rothschild: Amen! Let it go.

Scott Hamilton: Let it go and learn. Right. Learn. I can't change it. I can't go back. There's no time machine where I can go back and tell myself not to do that. But, you know, we learn from our mistakes and, hopefully, you know, we don't make them again.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, failure is information is a freeing way to live. I, I love that. All right. Random question. I've heard you talk about this, and that's why I want you to answer this. If you had to post a description of yourself on a dating site, how would you describe yourself?

Scott Hamilton: Well, yeah, it's that whole idea of being one hundred percent honest, right? So, yeah, it would go short, bald, half-neutered, chemo-radiated, surgically-repaired, retired male figure skater of unknown ethnic origin, seeks a beautiful, intelligent woman for long walks, laughter, and an interest in my hobby for collecting life-threatening illnesses.

Jennifer Rothschild: [Laughing]

Scott Hamilton: But that's it. You know, that's my dating profile. Good thing I'm married, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: It's a good thing you're married. I love that about you though, Scott. I love that. Okay, talk to us about the importance of editing our critics.

Scott Hamilton: Oh. Oh, yeah. That's really important. You know, it's like I've had to learn throughout the years as a judged athlete, you know, all of our wins and losses come out of a judge's scorecard. So the dance is how do you convince the judges that you're the best one there? Judges say the most outrageous things to me over the years. One judge said to my coach, you know, "It's really great that Scott is skating better. And I was really showing good promise, but you have to accept the fact that he's too short to be competitive internationally." And I thought, well, that, that okay, how do I fix that? You know, and then all I had to do is just, and it was a really easy thing. All I had to do is look back on the guy, the last American to win the Olympic gold medal before me, was a guy my height.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes!

Scott Hamilton: So, it's kind of like, okay, well, that's her opinion, right? So I always look at the world of social media. You've got all these opinions flying around is it this, or is it that, or is this true, or is that, all these different conflicting messages and they are just coming at you. And if you, if you disagree then you're wrong. So I look at all that and I go, okay, here's the filter. Is it opinion or is it fact? Because it can only come in two forms, right? Is this someone's opinion or is this based in fact? And if it's a criticism aimed at me, if it's opinion, then delete. I mean, that doesn't serve me in any way, then delete. But if the, if that criticism is rooted in truth, right. In fact. Thank you. That's a gift. Like, thank you. Like, I could never point those things out for myself. I just, you need other people sometimes to kind of correct you and move you forward. So, you know, opinion. Delete. Fact. Embrace. Absolutely embrace.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, that's good. All right. You inspire us.

Scott Hamilton: Ah, thank you.

Jennifer Rothschild: So I want to know who inspires you. Who inspires you, Scott?

Scott Hamilton: Oh, man. Ya know, I'm inspired by a lot of things. I'm inspired by someone who visibly loves the Lord. I'm inspired by someone who's risen above their circumstances. I'm inspired by a bald lady at a supermarket. I'm inspired by, you know, I'm inspired by a sunrise. I'm inspired by a sunset. Ya know, it's so easy to just overlook everything that's going on around us. But if you just take that moment and just soak it in, this life is such a gift and God gives us this life as an experience like no other and, ya know, in its way, a test. And so we're all going to fail the test at some point. Right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: But, you know, it's the redemption of Jesus that we can rely on. And the more I understand, the more I invest in understanding who I am and in my relationship with God, 3-in-1, you know, it's like, wow, that's where that comes from. Or, wow, I can use that to rise above this. Or wow, I really, I can feel His love coming off these pages. You know, it's all rooted in the Word and and I didn't understand for a long time. I'd read the Bible and I just thought it was crazy stories about all these people and it wasn't until my wife's pastor handed me a Bible and just said, "I want you to read this. But instead of focusing on the characters in the book, I want you to understand how God interacted with them and why." And I thought okay. He goes, "Do like history?" And I go, "I love history." He goes, "This is a book of history." And I'm like "Okay, thank you."

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Scott Hamilton: You know, now I read it differently and, and each time I read it, the same words will affect me in different ways. So I encourage people to just get into the Word. This year I am going to read the Bible cover to cover and people think that's a Herculean task. It's honestly five pages a day. Really?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, well, yeah. And it's the kind of activity that might feel like it's a, uh, a big output of energy to do it, but what you receive in the process far outweighs anything, you know.

Scott Hamilton: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: I mean, because His Word is alive and it gives us life.

Scott Hamilton: It does.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, speaking of life, Scott, I guess this would be my last question to you. Okay, so. If Scott Hamilton...

Scott Hamilton: I'm nervous.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. Yeah, this is going to be good brother. This is going to be good, okay. If Scott Hamilton could be remembered for one thing, if your life could be remembered for one thing, what would you want that to be?

Scott Hamilton: Who am I to think that I'll ever be remembered for anything? You know, it's just those times that I can look back on really amazing big events where there's no way I could do it on my own, you know. Who am I? Well, maybe God was with me. You know, we all you know, Moses stuttered, you know, and yeah, we all are going to suffer through identities that evolve, identity crisis. You know, it's like those forks in the road, and I just say all you can do is the best you can at the time and just try to do it with positivity and honesty and love and generosity. And hopefully everything will work out the way you hope.

KC Wright: If Scott Hamilton can, I can, and you can. We all truly can. He said so much you will want to remember. So go to the show notes when you can to get his power boosting quotes from this very conversation. And you can also read a transcript there. The show notes or simply at 413Podcast/powerscott.

Jennifer Rothschild: I'm telling you, KC, because you know, I went back and listened to the interview. I was typing so fast. He had so many things, great quotes, y'all. Yeah, so you need to go check out those show notes because I did, I just put all those power boosting quotes there. And also when you're there, you'll be able to look at some videos, we'll link you to some videos and to his books, including his most recent book, Finishing First. So, my friends, I hope that this conversation inspired you just like it inspired me. Don't ever forget that the same God who empowers Scott Hamilton is the same God who empowers you. And so that means that if Scott can, you can, because we all can do all things through Christ, who gives us strength.

KC Wright: Thank you.

Jennifer Rothschild: Good stuff.

KC Wright: Yes, thank you.

Jennifer Rothschild: Let's keep celebrating our one million.

KC Wright: Woohoo. Oh my goodness.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hey, seriously, y'all, thanks for getting us to a million.

KC Wright: We love you.

Jennifer Rothschild: We do.

KC Wright: We have a million more reasons to be grateful because of you. You're the best.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, you are the best.

KC Wright: Here's to the next million, Jen.

Jennifer Rothschild: Let's just start now.

KC Wright: Let's do it.