Stan Phelps 0:00

I had thought in my mind, "Boy, if I could at some point make six figures a year, that would be, that would just be amazing." I got to that point, and I was like, "Oh, what would it be like to make $200,000 a year?" And whenever I had gotten to those points, it was like, "Ah, it's not what I thought it was."

0:21

This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Carolyn Sangal. We explore how to build a career that truly fuels your life, and you will hear stories from people who have navigated big career transitions themselves so you can become your own version of authentic success. Have you ever reached the thing you were sure would be enough, then got there and felt like something was missing? Stan Phelps is a sought-after professional speaker, workshop facilitator, and author of 20 books on customer experience, employee engagement, differentiation, and presentation skills. By following his curiosity and seizing opportunities, he rose to the top of everything he tried, including roles at Adidas and Yankee Stadium. Then he bet on himself and built the life he wanted for his family. I've known Stan for several months and watched how he shows up in every interaction. He listens like you're the only person in the room. He mentors, gives back, and truly wants to help others by sharing what he's learned. He is kind, generous, and he inspires people to take action and become something more. In this conversation, Stan shares his life and career journey, including what happened when he stopped chasing the next thing and started asking what he truly wanted to build

Caroline 1:54

Stan Phelps, welcome to Your Next Success. I am thrilled to be talking to you today,

Stan Phelps 1:59

excited to, to catch up. Let's jump in

Caroline 2:02

Um, Let's do it. Okay, So I, love dialing it way, way back. Can you help us understand where were you born? What was life like for the very youngest Stan Phelps

Stan Phelps 2:14

So I I always tell people I was born at a very young age. I was born in Pennsylvania. Uh, and the town that I was born in kinda has had a little bit of a renaissance in the last 15 years or so. I was born in Scranton. fictional home of The Office, also the birthplace of HBO

Caroline 2:38

Oh, wow. Did not know that

Stan Phelps 2:40

home of, our previous president, birthplace of our previous president, Joe Biden. it's the only place in the world, Caroline, that has a Houdini museum

Caroline 2:51

What? Wow

Stan Phelps 2:53

he performed there a number of times and they were big fans of, of Harry

Caroline 2:58

that's interesting. Okay, So what was life like as you were growing up there?

Stan Phelps 3:06

for background, I'm the last of five kids three sisters and then an oldest brother. My dad worked for the same company for 40 years, Caroline. He moved 20 times in 40 years. Now, partly because he worked for a natural gas pipeline, so in the beginning he was a surveyor, then a welder, and then a foreman, so he would move around pretty quickly as they were building the pipeline. Luckily, when I came along, I didn't move all that much. All that to say, when I was one, we moved from Pennsylvania to New York. And so I don't remember this because we moved again when I was two, but we moved up to, uh, the Albany area, place called Nassau, New York. And then I, for the next 13 years, grew up in the same place, just above New York City on the Hudson River, and the best landmark, if people would be familiar, would be West Point, the

Caroline 4:03

Oh, wow

Stan Phelps 4:06

So about 30 miles north of Manhattan.

Caroline 4:10

Interesting.

Stan Phelps 4:11

Yeah.

Caroline 4:11

Yeah. And so what did, what kind of things did you love doing that you, were you involved in? Of course, there's school. You know, what did you like during school, and what did you do outside of school? Like, what was your fun, especially being the youngest of five kids. Were there even other kids around,

Stan Phelps 4:27

Oh yeah, so we, we, moved, we lived in like a, a town home that was surrounded by a park.

Caroline 4:34

Oh, nice

Stan Phelps 4:35

so it was get up in the morning, go out to the park, and it was every type of game you could imagine. So I played a lot of baseball growing up, Little League and Babe Ruth, uh, growing up, so baseball was a big one. The, I grew up in the 1970s, so that was like the tennis boom. so my parents got really into it, and so that's another sport that I played. I would eventually go and play tennis in college. but I played CYO basketball and yeah, so a little bit of everything. And, great place to grow up. I ended up going to an all-boys high school, just over the state line in New Jersey, a place called Don Bosco. some people will know the name of the high school because for a while there they were the number one ranked high school football team in the country. And so they've had a lot of good players that have come out of there. You know, all boys, it kind of drew from New York and northern New Jersey, so the sports were amazing

Caroline 5:35

was that a boarding school or was that like you moved that to that area and you still lived at home?

Stan Phelps 5:41

It's a great question. It was a, it was a day school,

Caroline 5:43

did you just live by it, that it was an easy commute, or did your parents move so that you could have that experience?

Stan Phelps 5:49

Yeah. No, no, no. Great question. So I lived, again, on the Hudson River, kind of near the, the New York-New Jersey line. And so my dad worked in a town called Mahwah, New Jersey. it's Jersey, so I have to say, you know, off of Route 17 in northern Jersey. I won't say which exit, because that would be too Jersey. Don Bosco was in the town right next to where he worked called Ramsey, New Jersey. so I did that for my first two years when I was 15. I was really lucky because I had 13 years in one place. My siblings, not as lucky as I was, because they would move frequently. In fact, I always tell this story of my brother he went to a different school from second grade to eighth grade. Imagine that, every year a different school. imagine what that does to you having with your social skills and me- meeting and making friends. It definitely left like an imprint on him. When I was 15, my dad got transferred for the last time to Connecticut. So maybe about an hour and 15 minutes from where we lived, so I did my last two years of high school in, in Connecticut

Caroline 7:03

And did you still enjoy tennis at that time

Stan Phelps 7:06

I did stick with tennis. I used to tell people tennis was my racket northern New Jersey, very competitive tennis-wise, and I was a good tennis player, but no, by no means like a great one. I moved to Connecticut and I go to another Catholic prep school. It was called St. Joseph's in Trumbull, Connecticut, and we were like a medium-sized school. And my junior and my senior year, we won the state championship in tennis. I was, the doubles state champion, both my junior year and my senior year. So yes, I did, and it was, it was fun to be part of, that team and, and the experiences we had. Yeah

Caroline 7:54

Now, were there any particular school subjects or activities aside from tennis that you really started to love?

Stan Phelps 8:02

first off, I went from all boys to co-ed, so that was a, a welcome change. Much different high school experience than being in the all boys. I just took a lot of different things. I tell people, like, maybe the best class I ever took in high school, and this is gonna sound so dating me, was typing.

Caroline 8:22

opted for Latin, um, instead of typing, and then in my college years and still even now, I feel like, dang, I should've learned the proper way. And so if you don't do it right, you try to help the next generation do it better. I got my kids different typing things from, from kindergarten, and they type beautifully, and I still kinda haphazardly do it. But Yeah typing. Typing, great, Did you have to take it, or you chose to

Stan Phelps 8:49

No, I cho- I chose to take it and I'm glad I did, and then, you know, I knew I kind of, I kinda leaned more towards the... We took some basic business classes, and I was decent at math, and so I, when I went to college, I knew I wanted to be more on the business side. But I will tell you, I was not a very good student in high school. I, I tell people I made the top half of the class possible By my, by, by how studious I was. So really the light bulb did not, really go off for me till I went to college. I'll share this 'cause we're, we're, we're both professional speakers. when I was... I did Junior Achievement. Are you familiar with JA or

Caroline 9:38

I heard it back in the day. Um, it wasn't anywhere where I was, but I did hear that. Tell, tell me a little bit more about

Stan Phelps 9:45

Junior Achievement, really interesting. It's the idea that, you know, you kind of come together as a small group of maybe, let's say you have 10 or 12 people, and you, you form like a company, and you have different roles in the company, and you create a product, and you have to sell it, and you have to... You learn all about the aspects. Anyway, I, I went to a conference my senior year. They had like a spring conference, in Western Connecticut, a place called Danbury. I decided to sign up for like the speech contest, and to say I bombed it would be an understatement. I mean, I, I had such enthusiasm. I, I sourced a lot of really good quotes. I wrote them down, but there was no thread to the story. I did the best I could, but yeah, I, I did not win nor even come close to winning. when I sat in that class, after the thing, there were, there were sessions, and I sat in on a session and somebody was kind of sharing some of the principles from Dale Carnegie. And if people aren't familiar with Dale Carnegie, kind of, you know, public speaking 101 and effective relationships, really, really, Dale Carnegie course is kind of a famous thing. And, uh, maybe like a month later, and I'd kind of known of Dale Carnegie because my dad took it through his work like decades before, but my parents said, "Hey, what do you want for your high school graduation gift?" And I did, Caroline, I did not hesitate. I go, "I want the Dale Carnegie course."

Caroline 11:22

Nice

Stan Phelps 11:22

And so I did it my summer before going to college

Caroline 11:28

Oh, wow. And you wanted to do it, so you

Stan Phelps 11:30

I wanted to

Caroline 11:31

engaged in that. And at that time, of course, that's gonna be an in-person experience. Were you the youngest person in that course at the time?

Stan Phelps 11:40

Yes, I was probably by a factor of maybe five or six years.

Caroline 11:46

Oh, wow

Stan Phelps 11:47

if you're not familiar, it's like a three-hour once a week type of thing. It ran for like 12 weeks, and every session you have to do like a two-minute speech, and it's a timed speech and, and it's every week there's a different topic or, you know, part of the books that you're assigned to kind of study and practice. but it was a really, really good experience and it kind of, lit a little bit of a fire for me, for the love of kind of speaking and presenting

Caroline 12:19

was this the first time that you're doing something outside of school and chose some learning for your own self?

Stan Phelps 12:26

Yeah, I think may- maybe. Um, now to back it up, I, When I was 16, I got my first job. I worked at, uh, an ice cream franchise called Carvel. Do you remember, do you remember Carvel at all?

Caroline 12:40

yeah. Don't they still have cakes like that in the freezer section?

Stan Phelps 12:44

they sold ice cream cakes. Yes, good memory. Uh, Fudgie the Whale.

Caroline 12:48

Nice, nice.

Stan Phelps 12:49

Cookie Puss, Uh, all, all different cakes. And, and so that, I was really into, you know, working and, and making a little money. tennis obviously was a big part of what I did. but yeah, to your point, that was probably, other than joining like Junior Achievement, and when I was a senior, I, I ended up doing the, I didn't have a big role, but I did the senior play.

Caroline 13:11

Oh, cool

Stan Phelps 13:12

So I tried to, tried to kind of ex- expand my horizons a little bit

Caroline 13:17

That's neat. Now, how did you decide that you even wanted to go to college, or was that just part of the assumption go- coming from that high school, everybody's gonna go, so you might as well pick something? How did that, how did that decision go down for you, and how did you pick business of all the things?

Stan Phelps 13:33

when you go to a prep school, almost everyone who goes to a prep school, the preparatory is or the prep is for getting you ready for school. at Don Bosco or St. Joseph's where I went, I could probably... Between those two schools, I could probably count on one hand the people that either decided to go into a trade or to go into maybe the military as opposed to going to, you know, a two-year or four-year. So, my experience doing Junior Achievement and just that I liked the business classes that I had done in high school was enough for me to go, you know, I like this idea of... I didn't know which element of business that I wanted to go into initially. I just knew that that was something that intrigued me. Even though I knew that, I still went undecided my first year of college And so I took an arts class, I took a poli sci class, I took an organizational behavior class, I took philosophy, I took ethics. I, you know, I, I kinda did a little bit of everything. you know, after the first year it kind of reinforced what I thought I wanted to do, which was to get into business administration

Caroline 14:52

And then in that you went in undecided, did that make it take a little longer to finish your degree, or did you still, were you still able to like fit things in slots

Stan Phelps 15:02

Great. So I, I went to, it's now a university, but back then it was a college in New York up in Poughkeepsie, New York, which is about 60 miles north of the city on the Hudson, and it was a liberal arts college. So even if you were studying business or whatever you were doing, you had a ton of core type of classes that you would need to, to, to fulfill the liberal arts. so no, it didn't, didn't put me behind the eight ball at all

Caroline 15:36

did you have a job while also going to school or what was your you know, your next after the ice cream, uh, journey? Then what, like where do you go when you start out your job being super fun with ice cream? Like how does that go?

Stan Phelps 15:50

so I did not... I saved some money. I worked pretty hard the summer before I went to college, so I did not have to work when I, when I went to college, in my first year. my first summer after college, I went learned how to teach tennis and got certified professionally, and then I spent the summer in near Princeton, New Jersey at a place called the Lawrenceville School, and I taught tennis for, like, nine weeks.

Caroline 16:20

Oh, that's cool

Stan Phelps 16:21

That was my summer, and I earned not a lot of money, but enough that I, I didn't have to work when I got to school in the fall. But then half of my sophomore year and half of my junior year, I studied abroad in Australia

Caroline 16:36

How did you pick that?

Stan Phelps 16:38

So great question. So I knew that a lot of people at my, even to this day, Elon is a really big college for studying abroad, Elon here in North Carolina, and Marist where I went are like the top two in the country. So we're talking almost two out of every three students that go to Marist or Elon will do some type of abroad program.

Caroline 17:04

Interesting

Stan Phelps 17:05

And so it was something I was interested in. Um, I will fully admit that, you know, in the late '80s when I went to study, we were right on the heels of Crocodile Dundee, and, you know, Australia just seemed like a very interesting place that also wasn't maybe as different

Caroline 17:25

Yeah

Stan Phelps 17:26

as other places you could study, because there wasn't a language issue. because this, they're in the Southern Hemisphere, their seasons are switched. So, you know, Christmas for them is their summer break.

Caroline 17:38

Yeah

Stan Phelps 17:39

So the school year there goes from February to November. And so with a couple of friends that I went to school with, um, there was four of us, we went over, we rented a house, and just had an amazing experience. It's the first time I'd ever left the country.

Caroline 17:58

Oh, wow.

Stan Phelps 17:59

And it was... I always, I'm trying to get, I have two kids in college right now. One will definitely study abroad. I'm trying to get the other one on board with it, because it, it gives you just a different perspective living outside of our country

Caroline 18:13

that's fascinating. So you, you do this study abroad, yet you also kind of go along with some other people, so you're able to have this great immersive experience and also still be able to rely on some relationships that you'd already established. So that's, th- that's really awesome

Stan Phelps 18:31

lifelong friends that I still have to this day, and it was an amazing experience. While I lived in Australia, I would teach tennis on the weekends, so that was a little bit of a job that I had there. And then when I came back to school, I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, and

Caroline 18:51

you know that?

Stan Phelps 18:52

decided, I decided to become a resident assistant.

Caroline 18:55

Oh, nice. I did that for a couple years. It was fun. Super

Stan Phelps 18:58

yeah, oh my God, that was a great, great experience. Just the ability, to learn how to kind of manage and deal with people, again, to get up and speak to, you know, 40 people on your floor and have difficult conversations at times, um, and to learn how to program and put on events. It was, it was a great, great experience. So I did that, and it was really touching. It was the same hall that I lived on my first year

Caroline 19:27

Oh, that's awesome. That's

Stan Phelps 19:29

so I did that for a year and a half, and then I ended up going back to grad school, but not right away. I took a year to work in between, and

Caroline 19:40

do then? And how did you know you wanted to go to grad school?

Stan Phelps 19:43

I knew I wanted to get my, my master's in business, and I had kinda set that as a goal that I wanted to get to. Um, and I loved Marist. It was great, and it, and the light bulb went off for me when I was there. I was a very good student. In fact, I graduated with high honors from there, as well as playing tennis my whole time there, which was a great experience. Um, and I just blossomed in a lot of ways, but the light bulb definitely went off. and so I almost transferred because I wanted something that was a little more academically maybe a little more challenging or, I don't know, maybe prestigious. And then I just realized, "Look, I love it here. It is a great place. I'm gonna go somewhere else next level when I go." And, and so I had a year in between, and I, I went and lived in London for six months, and I got what's called a Blue Card to be able to work in London.

Caroline 20:46

you just decided you wanted to do that, or did you have to have the job lined up in order to get the blue card to be able to work there?

Stan Phelps 20:53

No. So a lot of people, a lot of people could do this. There, there are programs where if you are a student, you can go for a short term. There's about a dozen different countries that offer it, and, um, the UK was one of them. And so it was called... It was through the Council of International Educational Exchange, and the trick was you were considered, Caroline, a full-time student till six months after you graduated So I was able to, uh, you know, you had to pay a fee or whatever. You didn't have to have a job lined up. This is so early 1990s. I go over there, and they have an office in London, and you would go to the office, and they would have a huge bulletin board, and on one side of the board was accommodations, like if you needed to do, like a share a flat with somebody, somebody was looking for a roommate. And on the other side of the board was job openings.

Caroline 21:53

Wow

Stan Phelps 21:54

so I ended up getting, uh, a job with a... Well, first off, I got a, like a temporary job where I traveled all around England and Scotland, which was really cool, and then I ended up working for, like a property broker.

Caroline 22:09

and was it the Australian experience that you're like, "You know what? I got some time. Let me go see somewhere else"? Or like, where, what, what was the desire, and how did you even... You know, a lot of other people, they're just gonna graduate, and they're gonna just do the status quo and just get something nearby where they are or where they were

Stan Phelps 22:27

No, again, you know, living in Australia, it was the first country that I had, I had ever visited, and it was so funny when I was there in Australia, I visited the Australian capital, which is, we have DC, theirs is the ACT, the Australian Capital Territory, and it's a little city called Canberra. And I was there, and we had traveled probably about 20 hours in the car down the coast, and we visited it, and I, and I said to myself, "My whole life I've lived within about five hours of DC, and I have never been by the time, when I got back, I think my, my junior year spring break, we ended up going to the capital. But, you know, it just opened your eyes, and then I knew I was gonna go back the following year to graduate school. And so it just, for me, it was like, "Hey, this is a great way to..." I hadn't been to Europe, to kind of experience and travel a little bit of Europe as part of it, and, uh, yeah, just jumped at the opportunity

Caroline 23:31

That's awesome. Now, had any of your older siblings ever done study abroad or work abroad kind of things? Was there a family pathway or familiarity, or it was just, was you just forging your own path?

Stan Phelps 23:44

No, no, n- not, I mean, my parents traveled, you know, when you're the last of five, there, and there's a seven-year gap between me and my closest sibling

Caroline 23:54

So they're just like, "All right. Have fun,

Stan Phelps 23:57

So, you know, by the time I was like 14 or 15, all, everyone else was out of the house. My parents finally would travel with my aunts and uncles and they, one year they went skiing in France, and another year they went to Spain and to Hawaii. And so, and then they came and visited me when I was in Australia, which was, which was awesome. So I definitely had a little bit of the bug, and I th- I think Europe still has a huge appeal even now, right? To go, and there's so many countries and it's so diverse, and it's a lot easier now to go with the EU, right? and and visit. So I did my six months. I ended up meeting a guy who would be one of my roommates, but also became the best man in my wedding, and is still one of my best friends to this day, who, he lives in New York City. but just happened to meet through the program and, um, yeah, mag- magical time living in... We lived in a, a part of London near, near Green Park, a town, a pl- part of London called Mayfair, which was, you know, three of us in a one-bedroom apartment. As you can only do, right? Being, uh, being in college or just out of college.

Caroline 25:15

That's awesome. Now how did you pick your grad school, or how did you decide, you know, where you were gonna go and, and, and, and then what happened? 'Cause if I'm not mistaken, I think there's something else there aside from MBA on your credentials. so what was... How'd that work out? Yeah.

Stan Phelps 25:32

I had applied to a bunch of places my senior year, and, um, I got- I ended up being wait-listed a couple of places that I was interested in going. And, um, but one of them where I'd almost transferred to out of Marist for my sophomore year was outside of Philadelphia, so Villanova University. yeah, just, just really had a good feeling when I stepped on campus. I had a sister and a brother that lived, kind of one lived in Center City, Philadelphia. Another one lived out in the suburbs, so there was a little bit of a family element. I had had some friends that had went there and had a really good experience. And so th- that's, that's where I decided to go. Now, I also realized that when you study business undergrad and then you decide to do an MBA, your MBA is almost like a rehash of what you already did undergrad. And I, I knew I wanted to work in sports, and I realized, and specifically I wanted to potentially work within tennis, that if I could add one more year to my degree, I could do both a law degree and my MBA. And so I had really enjoyed business law when y- you do business law one and two for undergrad, and that, I really enjoyed that, and that kind of lit the, lit the fuse to go, "Oh, maybe that would be a way to make my MBA a little more valuable or interesting as opposed to just doing a rehash."

Caroline 27:13

Gotcha. That's fascinating. And then what happened? So then now you, did, did you have to do an internship or anything in between your, your years of grad school, or did you choose to do one, or did you just finish and

Stan Phelps 27:26

Yeah, great question. So I, I worked for, when I was in undergrad, I did, uh, an internship with... People won't even remember this. Gannett Newspapers. So Gannett was like USA Today, but they had a bunch of papers, and one was, I think it was the Poughkeepsie Journal. So it was like the the city, the small city newspaper. So I worked for them in marketing, and that was good experience. And then my, my summer of between my junior and senior year, I interned for the USTA. And so that's the United States Tennis Association, and they used to have offices in Princeton, New Jersey. So I spent part of the summer teaching tennis, and then I spent about a month interning with the organization. That ended up allowing me to, volunteer and work at the US Open.

Caroline 28:30

Imagine what your life would be like if your career aligned with who you are, what you do best, and actually fueled the life you want. At Next Success, we support all ages and stages through career transitions from students exploring majors or careers to job seekers actively searching or re-imagining their next move to professionals committed to self-awareness and leadership growth. Stay connected and explore what's possible at nextsuccesscareers.com and follow @nextsuccessmethod on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Oh, wow. That's cool. That had to have been like A- bit of a, a little bit of a dream

Stan Phelps 29:12

ab- absolutely. Um, and it was also in those days was really when US tennis was amazing, especially on the men's side. It was the peak of, like, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Michael Chang. yeah, so it, it was a fun time.

Caroline 29:31

Did you ever wanna, like, play with them? Like, "Hey guys, if you need a warm-up, I'm in."

Stan Phelps 29:38

well, this will be foreshadowing for what I would do after grad school, but yes. Yes, and I would, while I was at, uh, in, outside of Philadelphia, Philadelphia had two professional tennis tournaments. They had a women's one, and they had a men's one. And so while I was there, I started to volunteer and work the events, and when you work an event, it's really interesting. You get to see the sponsor side of the equation. You get to see the tickets and game operation side of the equation. you get to see just the athlete side. And so that was, through that, I ended up meeting some people with an agency called IMG. Now, IMG, I know you've got some O- Ohio roots. It started in Cleveland, Ohio, and back in the '90s they were by far the biggest sports marketing and sports management agency

Caroline 30:38

Is that where the marketing fascination came, or had you noticed that even in undergrad where you... You know, 'cause business is such a broad field, and then, you know, when you get your MBA, typically they make you have a concentration area, whether it's supply chain or finance or marketing or, you know. But how did you

Stan Phelps 30:57

So great question. So I, I gravitated more towards marketing, but I did a concentration because you can't just do something simple, right? I did one in... And it's so funny because this is gonna date me as well. When I went to college originally, they used to call it personnel management

Caroline 31:17

Ah, interesting.

Stan Phelps 31:18

Yeah. It was only while I was in... I remember I, I studied in Australia that they called it human resources. Um, so I, I ended up doing a concentration in marketing and HR. but of course you just graduate with a business administration degree. When I went to grad school, how it, how it works, if you do a law degree it's three years, if you do an MBA it's two. When you put them both together, you combine the electives of each.

Caroline 31:50

Ah.

Stan Phelps 31:51

And so what it does, it allows you to take something that would take you five years, you can do it in four.

Caroline 31:56

Nice. Nice

Stan Phelps 31:58

so because I had studied some business, I was able to wave out of some stuff. I did both. Now, if I would've taken one, I could have done it all in three full years, which would've been really hauling to do it. Um, but al- almost got there. I, I, just a little over three years it took me to do both

Caroline 32:19

A- and then what happened?

Stan Phelps 32:22

during my summers when I was in graduate school, because I had met this big agency, through connections I got introduced to the person that oversaw the internship program. And so because my background was in tennis, they sent me down to Florida to a place that's now called IMG Academy, but back then it was called the, the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy

Caroline 32:50

How

Stan Phelps 32:50

or Bollettieri Sports Academy. And it's not just tennis. They have got David Leadbetter Golf, and they had Adidas Soccer, and they had... Now, now it's just, it's amazing venue on the west coast of Florida below Tampa, a place called Bradenton. Anyway, they sent me down there. I did one summer as an intern, and I did well. They invited me back the second year, but, like, paid this time, which was nice. And while I was there, Adidas had, like, the umbrella sponsorship for this big sports academy. And so network, you meet some people. I'm working the summers there. Right when I graduate is when there was an opening within, in tennis at Adidas, and so it was right while I was studying for the bar. so I just finished in December. I took my last class, finished, um, and I was working at the university with student athletes. And, I'm studying for the bar and they say, "Hey, we've got a job for you in Portland, Oregon." And I go, "Great. I'll be done with the bar in, like, four weeks or five weeks." And they're like, "We need you here on Monday." And it was a little bit of a gut check. This is, like, my dream job and I, and I went, "All right. I'll go, and it won't be easy," but I go, "You'll fly me back," because I had already signed up to take the bar. "You'll fly me back to take the bar and give me a couple days, you know, that I need." They're like, "Yep. Okay." Literally the next week I'm learning a new job and I'm studying for the bar at the same time

Caroline 34:35

Were you still single at the time?

Stan Phelps 34:38

s- yeah, I was single.

Caroline 34:39

yeah. 'cause I'm just like, like what else are we juggling here too, you know?

Stan Phelps 34:42

It was, it was, all doable. It w- it was all doable, and then I flew back, and, you know, back in the day, you, you wouldn't find out for about three months

Caroline 34:49

Oh, wow

Stan Phelps 34:50

after you sat the test. but I was off and running. I had my dream job. I... Footnote, I, I would never have taken the bar again. Thank God I passed it. and my dad would joke, 'cause he has a little bit, he has a little bit of, uh, uh, Irish as part of his heritage, English and Irish. He was very proud that I had the ability to pass a bar Um, so, so so, uh, off, off to the races. Um, I'm working. I moved to Portland, so w- lived on the West Coast. back then Portland was a really interesting and new place. I spent about a year as like a coordinator, and then I got my dream job

Caroline 35:35

And what was your dream job

Stan Phelps 35:38

My dream job was to be like the head of promotions, like the promotions director for tennis. So you work with the athletes, the events that we would sponsor, the college programs that we were involved with, the teaching professonal- professionals, um, the grassroots of like the juniors, and it was amazing. I had it, and I had it for about two years. literally, I mean, pinch me, this is like, everything I, I ever wanted. And then they came to me and they said, "Hey, would you consider moving to New York City and managing our relationship with the New York Yankees?" Now, I, I think I

Caroline 36:21

were, you a fan of them

Stan Phelps 36:23

Oh, I was not a, I was a super fan.

Caroline 36:25

Okay

Stan Phelps 36:26

And, you know, two years before, they had won the World Series in '96. It had been about almost 20 years since they had won the... and I grew up in the '70s playing baseball, and the Yankees were, you know, they won, I think, three times during that decade. You know, my formative years of being young. So yeah, a huge fan, it was a little hard decision because, i- if you're gonna stay with the same company, you have to move around, right? If you want to advance. it wasn't easy, but I, I made the jump. So after about three years in Portland, I moved to Manhattan, my office was in Yankee Stadium, which was really, really kinda cool. And the team won all three seasons I was there and it was, I was single at the time. It was a fun... Everyone- I always say everyone in their life should live in New York City at least once it was an amazing experience. And then after, in my third season there, the person who had done global tennis for all of Adidas ended up leaving. And I got approached and they said, "Hey, would you consider managing global tennis?" this was like if, if I had the US job was my dream job, this was like even better. I left New York, I relocated to Amsterdam, for three years I worked in global tennis.

Caroline 37:57

That's awesome. throughout this time so far, how often were you speaking and utilizing some of that Dale Carnegie training, Right Like, during the whole, like, during college and all that, I have to imagine that, like, you've been building up the reps, and you've been doing the things and trying to figure it out, and like, throughout these things, no doubt you had to have been making excellent contributions and also doing a great job of networking, giving somebody a positively differentiated opinion of you versus everybody else that they normally rent. But, but how much of that was Dale Carnegie, and how much of that was Stan Phelps?

Stan Phelps 38:37

I mean, I think you can do a lot in life if you just have enthusiasm and, and a strong work ethic, and that's w- what my, my dad had taught me. And, and you can be good in a room, and you can carry a room. Uh, I mean, I, I really didn't speak a ton other than you would do presentations for i- in your role. but it wasn't till a little bit later that, I started to get the bug of, of speaking.

Caroline 39:08

Interesting.

Stan Phelps 39:09

and

Caroline 39:09

so catch us up. yeah, catch us up on the stories

Stan Phelps 39:12

short version is I, I met my wife at a baggage carousel in Amsterdam.

Caroline 39:19

What? Tell it... wait, this, this story needs a little more... how does, that... Yeah, let's

Stan Phelps 39:26

how does that even happen? So I was flying back, it was my first year of, of, living in Amsterdam. I had been home for the holidays, and I was flying back, it was right around New Year's Eve. I noticed this woman walk past me on the plane, and you know when you do a double-take, you're like, "Oh, I can't place it," but she looked... I mean, she's beautiful and attractive, but that wasn't the thing. It was like, "God, how do I know this person?" And so when you fly to Europe, you know, it's an overnight flight. You get there 7:00 AM in the morning or whatever, and I've got a hat on and you're a little... You know, it's a red-eye flight for a reason. I'm at baggage claim and I'm talking to somebody else I met, another woman I met on, on the plane, and I see this, this woman I, I thought I recognized across the way. And I said to the person, I go, "You know, I think I know her." And she kind of gave me the... She's like, "Oh, go, go talk with her." And, and, you know, probably 50/50 whether or not I would've, but she gave me a little bit. And I walked up to, I go, "Excuse me," and I kind of laughed. I go, "This is gonna sound like the worst pickup line." I go, "But I think I know you from somewhere." I go, "Do you live here?" And she's like, "No, I'm visiting family." And then she wouldn't say anything else. I'm like, "Well, do you live in New York City?" I mean, that's where I had moved from, like, you know, less than a year earlier. And she's like, she's like, "No." And I'm

Caroline 41:02

You're a stranger danger

Stan Phelps 41:03

I'm like, I'm like "Oh, this is starting to get cringey." And I go, I go, "Do you live in Portland, Oregon? Is that how I..." You know? She's like, "No." I'm like, "All right. Where, where do you live?" And Caroline, no joke, she looks at me and she goes, "I live in Connecticut." And I looked at her and I go, "Jennifer Wills." I said, "We went to high school together."

Caroline 41:26

And then did she say, I mean, she must not have. It, it, it, there's a happy ending to this story, you've got a couple kids in college, but like how, and then what happened? Yeah, like this is pretty awesome

Stan Phelps 41:38

so here, here's a funny thing, like this is gonna again date me, right? So when I worked at IMG, the guy who founded that, his name is Mark McCormack. And Mark, one of Mark McCormack's thing was never go anywhere without a pen or a business card

Caroline 41:55

Interesting

Stan Phelps 41:57

And, and still to this day, I'm, I'm pretty, I'm pretty... If you ran into me and say, "Hey, do you have your bus- do you have your, do you have a business card or do you have a pen on you?" Like, we have phones now, it's not like you need... But sure enough, we had went to high school together. we were the same year, but I had only done two years at this high school. And it wasn't like we dated, but it was just small enough, we had maybe 250 people in our class. Um, so it wasn't a small school, but we were in the same homeroom my senior year. And I used to write a joke of the day up on the board. and I think she kinda remembered me from that. But I gave her my card and she said, "Oh," she said, "my grandparents lived... My mom is Dutch." Her mom had come over to be, like, a nanny, an au pair, and met her dad, who grew up in New York, in the city. she goes, "My grandparents, my cousins are here." She goes, "I get over here, like, sometimes twice a year."

Caroline 42:59

Oh, wow

Stan Phelps 43:00

And I'm like, "Oh, small world." I go, "Here's my business card." I go, "Look me up next time you come over." And that was it. And here's the craziest thing. A year goes by And all of a sudden I get an email out of the blue. And what, what had happened was she had gotten promoted. She worked for a children's wear company called Carter's,

Caroline 43:24

Oh, yeah.

Stan Phelps 43:24

and she got promoted. She went from a cube to an office. She's cleaning out her

Caroline 43:30

Oh, and she's found your card

Stan Phelps 43:33

Found my card, and she happened to be coming over the next month, and she reaches out. She's like, "Hey," or, "I'm gonna be, you know, visiting." And immediately I went to the dates and I started laughing. I go, "I'm gonna be skiing in France that whole week. I'm not even gonna be here," when she, when she visited. But, but we started emailing, and this is gonna date me again, the early days of, like, Skype.

Caroline 43:58

Yeah.

Stan Phelps 44:00

And so Caroline, one day, we're, we're talking about Europe, and she has traveled a little bit, and at that point I had been there for almost two years, and I was talking about all the neat places. And I go, "You know, one place I really wanna go and visit," 'cause you just hear magical things about it, "is Prague." And she goes, "Oh," she goes, "I've always wanted to go there." She goes, "Do you wanna go?" And I went, "Yeah. Let's go." And I think we probably both, like, got off Skype and went, "That could be really bad

Caroline 44:38

or, excellent

Stan Phelps 44:39

or, or, or excellent." And then so short story longer, I came over. My, My, I had my, two of my nephews, one was graduating high school, the other wa- was graduating college, and it was Father's Day, so we're talking about, you know, 25 years ago almost. I decided to fly back to surprise my dad and be there for the graduation party. And so that was gonna be, like, on the weekend, and I reached out to her, I said, "Hey," I go, "I'm coming into New York. I'm gonna go out to New Jersey for the weekend." But I go, "I don't have plans Friday night. Would you wanna come into the city?" And she did, and we met at the clock in Grand Central,

Caroline 45:26

so

Stan Phelps 45:27

we walked through Central P- we were gonna go to the, the MoMA at the time, but it was reloc- it was closed, it was relocated. We, we walked through Central Park. We had, went to my favorite, one of my favorite restaurants and, um,

Caroline 45:41

was there music playing in the background And everything's just falling in line? I mean, this sounds amazing.

Stan Phelps 45:47

And then, you know, this was like three weeks before we were gonna meet up in, in Germany to take the train to go to, to go to Prague, and, uh, we had an amazing night, and I went, "All right, Prague's gonna be great." And it was.

Caroline 46:03

Oh,

Stan Phelps 46:03

And it was

Caroline 46:04

All right, So now how does this new, you know, awesome love interest falling into place, how does that affect your and her ca- and her careers then?

Stan Phelps 46:16

So great question. So at some point you get to a point where, you know, we did the long distance thing for about a year. what's also interesting, it's like I- I've now been in my dream job for three years. I was traveling probably about 200 days a year, which is a lot. I love travel, but that's a lot of travel. here's the other thing you learn living in Europe, is that this idea of doing a sabbatical, you know, here in America it's like that's priests and professors. Well, if you live in France, by law you can take a year every seven years. Now it's not paid, but the company has to be able to give you a similar job when you come back. And so I had a friend who went on like a sabbatical, and I went, "Hmm." I go, "That's something I think I'd be interested in." And it was right around the time where the company was kind of shifting some, some positions around, and I said, "Look," I go, "I'm thinking about going back to the US because I'm doing this long distance thing." And I go, "I think I'm gonna do a... I wanna do a sabbatical." And so we worked out a deal. I did like a 10-month sabbatical,

Caroline 47:35

Awesome

Stan Phelps 47:35

and I bought an around the world ticket, the idea was maybe at the end there, there might be something for me, but it's not guaranteed. And if it wasn't, there was a little backend for me. and sure enough, I did the 10 months, there wasn't something for me, which was totally fine, and I moved back to, back to the States

Caroline 47:57

Awesome. And then what did you choose, like after having your dream job beyond the dream job, then what kind of role do you go in next?

Stan Phelps 48:07

w- uh, my wife worked for Carter's not too far from where we went to high school in Fairfield County, about an hour and 20 minutes from Manhattan. I worked in sports. I moved back, we got engaged, we bought a house, and we strategically bought a house in a town, it's actually a city, called Norwalk. Now, Norwalk is an, 55 minutes on the train into Manhattan, and I totally thought that's where I was gonna have to go and work. Now, I wouldn't love the commute, but

Caroline 48:44

Yeah

Stan Phelps 48:44

you want, if you're working in sports, there's not a lot in Connecticut. So we, we picked that because it would be a reverse commu- commute for her, and I, sure enough, I get a job working with the PGA of America

Caroline 48:56

Wow

Stan Phelps 48:58

five minutes from where we bought our house.

Caroline 49:01

Now, had you liked golf also?

Stan Phelps 49:04

Now, when I Yes. So I had kind of played arou- I, you know, growing up playing tennis, you kind of muck around and play a little bit of golf. certainly I did that when I was in college. when I moved to Portland is when I bought my own first set.

Caroline 49:21

Okay

Stan Phelps 49:23

And at the time, Adidas owned TaylorMade, which was one of the bigger golf companies. So you would get, you know, you'd get really good clubs for really cheap. And my, my brother was a big golfer, so we would go to Myrtle Beach every year, and I kind of just got into it. You know, you, you grow up playing tennis, and I tell people I'm never gonna be as good of a tennis player as I was when I was 22 and playing all the time.

Caroline 49:53

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Stan Phelps 49:54

My, my brain thinks I'm still good, but, you know, the, the rest of it. Golf was really interesting, and to this day is that you can just, you can see yourself get a little better at a time, and that was really fun, and it was social and And so even when I worked in tennis and I traveled around the world, a lot of times I would bring my clubs with me.

Caroline 50:17

Oh, cool. So this, So this, was just really seemingly, like, an awesome fit And right place, right time,

Stan Phelps 50:27

Right

Caroline 50:27

and you like the stuff too. You know, 'cause if someone is an excellent marketer, you could probably market anything, when you like the thing you're marketing I believe you do a better job You

Stan Phelps 50:38

do a better job. You're just more interested in it, right? Um, and, and so I did, I managed, I was the director of marketing. I oversaw marketing and events for a thing called the PGA Merchandise Show, which is like the big industry trade show each year. To give you an idea of how big it is, it takes up the entire, down in Orlando, the Orange County Convention Center, 1,200 exhibitors, over 50,000 attendees. Now, you and I could not go to the PGA show. You have to be in the trade in order to get in the building, right? So, massive. And, and so that was a lot of fun. I did that for two years, and what's interesting is right at the time I was applying for that job, I applied to be, a director of marketing position with the New York Knicks sometimes it's what you don't get at the time that's a blessing because they went on a really rough skid for a while. Um, and then I also was in the running to work at, like, an agency, the PGA job worked out. It was, it was great. two years doing that, and then I, I went to the agency side at a small agency where I was the number two, and we did what's called experiential or event marketing

Caroline 52:05

Interesting. So you had been in marketing at all these really well-known, awesome places, and now you go to a company that does marketing for people that don't have big marketing teams? Like, it- or or what is, what is the agency side in marketing? Help me understand that.

Stan Phelps 52:21

So the, the group I joined was called Synergy, Synergy Events, and, uh, originally it was called Synergy Sports. But, um, what I loved about it, about ha- a little more than half of what we did was working with the USTA, uh, and the NHL and the MLS, working with the leagues or brands like an Adidas or a Nike to kinda create... So some of the things we would do is what we call sponsorship activation. So Adidas World Cup, you know, World Cup's going on right now, they're a sponsor. They'll do various activations, right, to bring that to life, and that's the type of stuff that we would do, like fan experiences. We would also do, like, product launches,

Caroline 53:11

Awesome

Stan Phelps 53:12

like, big events to launch, like, a, a product. we would do, like, PR stunts Like, just to try to get, like, earned media, like wo- world record attempts or, we've got the World Cup going on right now. At one time we did for Major League Soccer, it was around, like, All-Star, so David Beckham was part of it. We did the most consecutive penalty kicks in a row So like 700 in a row. Boom, boom, boom. Like, but it had to be, you know, it had to be... No one could repeat.

Caroline 53:47

Yeah

Stan Phelps 53:47

Um, and so we got the Guinness World Record for... Anyway, we used to do crazy stuff. my job was to manage what we did, client-wise, so business development, client development work, and sell in, like, the creatives and the projects. And so that was, I tell people, I learned really quickly that some of the best relationships and opportunities would develop at conferences.

Caroline 54:15

Hmm.

Stan Phelps 54:16

You'd meet somebody, "Oh, that's interesting what you do. Hey, we have something we're thinking about." but here's the key thing. I learned really quickly, intuitively, that people looked at you much differently if you just had one word on your badge

Caroline 54:31

Interesting

Stan Phelps 54:32

And that one word was speaker

Caroline 54:36

Really?

Stan Phelps 54:38

Yeah.

Caroline 54:39

So you're noticing this there and all the different events and stuff that you're on

Stan Phelps 54:44

And I'm like, "Well, what do you have to do to be a speaker?" Well, you have to do thought leadership, right? And we, we wanted to position ourselves as more of the cutting edge type of agency, right? So y- I started writing on behalf of the agency, and then I started my own blog back when blogs were, like, the whole, whole thing. that led to eventually, took me about two years to write it, but it, it led to the first book in the, in my series

Caroline 55:17

Interesting. So you were still working at this agency when you decided to become a thought leader because you th- saw people had different attention if they had speaker on their badge, and now you're trying to put in the reps and get the foundation for that. Then you're, then that led to, Well, you

Stan Phelps 55:40

Well, I will tell you it was at a time where I st- I loved the stuff that we did, but marketing was changing so rapidly. This is back, like, 2007, 2008, 2009. A, we were, we were coming out, we were just going into and then coming out of a recession, but it was Think about when Twitter was founded. Think about Facebook coming into prominence. Social media and, and the consumer had a much bigger voice. Amazon was coming into its own, so reviews and, and Google. And, and so I, I really thought the stuff that we were doing was fun and interesting, but there had to be a better way marketing-wise. And all I I tell people all I knew was I was part of the problem and nowhere near part of the solution And so that's what I started to write about. I, I, I decided for an entire year I was gonna write about every aspect of marketing. And, and the goal was, and I learned it pretty quick, but I stuck to the one-year thing, is that I wanted to find the one... If I went, I did 50 different posts over a year. I called them marketing axioms, like generally accepted principles. But I go, "I'm gonna find the one that I'm gonna go a mile deep on as opposed to just spreading really wide." And I found it, and I started a project. That project became a book, and that book kind of launched or opened my eyes, my eyes to, "Hey, this is something that could be the next thing." Like, I always had a little bit of an entrepreneurial bug in me, and I always knew from even a, a young age that... And, and I'm not unique. Uh, 80% of people think they have a book in them at some point, right? So I'm by no means unique, but I... That was one of my goals, was to write a book

Caroline 57:44

So you did, and now to date, you've written how many books?

Stan Phelps 57:49

Well, as of today, 20.

Caroline 57:52

Wow.

Stan Phelps 57:53

As of

Caroline 57:54

amazing. So when, when did your first book come out, and which book was that?

Stan Phelps 57:59

So it was, it was called The Purple Goldfish. and it was all about the little things you could do to drive loyalty and, and word of mouth. How to create like raving fans. And it was based on a concept called Lagniappe. Have you ever heard of Lagniappe before?

Caroline 58:19

Um, I have, but I'm not, like, I'm, it's not, uh... I, yeah, I'm recalling that I've heard that or seen that, but I'm not recalling exactly what it is. Please help me

Stan Phelps 58:32

So it's a term that's a, it's a Creole word, so it comes from Louisiana, and it's been around for 200 years. In fact, Mark Twain in his autobiography, Life on the Mississippi, he said, "Lagniappe was a word worth traveling all the way to New Orleans to get." And it was the idea back in the day, in the 1800s, you know, you knew everyone you did business with on a personal level. And so lagniappe was the idea that when you did business with a merchant, that the merchant would do a little something extra to kind of honor the relationship. It was something that got thrown in for good measure, right? Uh, it's something that was added. And, I was just at I didn't even know what you would call it customer experience at the time, but I was like, I worked in experience and I said, "Why can't we create a really unique experience for everyone we do business with?" And that launched a journey or a project where I collected over 1,000 examples of this, crowdsourcing-wise. I would blog about the, the things that I was finding in the project, and ultimately a book that, you know, the best examples, and a framework was created that became a book

Caroline 1:00:01

And That year that it was, that it came out was what?

Stan Phelps 1:00:05

That came out in 2012

Caroline 1:00:07

So since 2012 you have pumped out 20 books

Stan Phelps 1:00:12

Yeah, if you... That's not counting like workbooks or mini books, 'cause if you counted workbooks or mini books, it'd be more like 30.

Caroline 1:00:21

through this then you decide, "You know what? You know what I think I'm gonna do? I think I'm gonna leave all the stability behind and jump in both feet and do my, own thing." When did that happen?

Stan Phelps 1:00:34

My, my, kids are five and six at the time. We live in Connecticut. The schools are not very good in the city that we live in, so it was either send them to private school or move. When I decided I was gonna make this leap, I could be based anywhere, and I chose what we call the Triangle. yeah, my wife was, at the time, had kinda left corporate behind. She was at home with the kids. So it was a little bit of a jump in order to do it, but, no risk it, no biscuit.

Caroline 1:01:07

And this area, had you been here? I mean, in all your travels or, like, how did you know that this was the place?

Stan Phelps 1:01:14

Yeah, you'll, you'll appreciate this. So I told you my, my, one of my roommates in London was... He's an NYU grad. He grew up in the city. He played tennis at NYU. Turns out, small world, we played against each other when I was at Marist. the other two people that were in that apartment, one the whole time, one moved. That's how the, the spot for Dave opened up. They were both... They had both played tennis at NC State. And so when I would work down in Florida during the summers, I would often stop and, and come down and say hello and just hang out a little bit. yeah, just over the, the course of years, I just come to know the area, and we had very specific criteria of what we wanted. All right? We wanted lower taxes. We wanted a lot of colleges and universities. We wanted good business. We wanted a decent, at least a decent airport. and at the time, you know, we, we looked in Chapel Hill and Cary, and we ended up in Cary, and it was probably the best decision we, we made

Caroline 1:02:24

Well, I forgot to ask you, back, back in the day when you were young and growing up and your dad is working all over the world and, and, you know, even growing up and, and those things, did you have a vision of what you thought success was then, what it meant to be a successful adult?

Stan Phelps 1:02:40

Hmm. Ooh, great, great, great question. I, you know, I, I had thought in my mind, "Boy, if I could at some point make six figures a year, that would be, that would just be amazing." I got to that point, and I was like, "Oh, what would it be like to make $200,000 a year?" And whenever I had gotten to those points, it was like, "Ah, it's not what I thought it was." I felt the most engaged when I was passionate about something, and I was, there was no have to do anything. It was come up with ideas, pursue them. and so I'm very fortunate now that I'm in a role where I can do what I want, and I can kind of put my time and energy into places that I think are important

Caroline 1:03:29

So tell a little bit about what is it that you do now? I know that you've spoken all over the world, you know, obviously published, you know, now 20 books. what do you do? How do people find you? How do people work with you?

Stan Phelps 1:03:41

I'm a certified speaking professional, so I deliver keynotes, which tend to be shorter engagements, usually 40 to 60 minutes in length. And then I do more, like, training and workshops, which tend to be more longer form. So for example, I was, I was in Seattle this week doing a full day workshop for the Children's Hospital in Seattle. And when I'm not doing that, I'm, I'm usually pursuing a topic and writing, a book

Caroline 1:04:15

That's Awesome. And your latest book is Speak Different.

Stan Phelps 1:04:18

it's called Speak Different. It's the first one I've done, that's part of a new series called the Spotlight Series. I'm making a little bit of a departure from, like, I would say 101 or 201 type of material, and thinking about how you can focus on certain areas, shine a light on them, but make them very useful and practical. So Speak Different is all about how to present ideas that inspire action, and there is not a skill that you can learn that would, that'd have more impact on your lifetime earnings than being, being really good as a communicator and presenter. So w- my, myself and my co-author are super excited about the application and how this will help a ton of people

Caroline 1:05:09

Absolutely. Yes, I love that it wasn't just for speakers, it's also for entrepreneurs. It can be for anyone, and everyone has to speak all the time. So definitely love that. Now Last question, how do you define authentic success for you at this moment?

Stan Phelps 1:05:28

Ooh, authentic success. Um, I mean, I really, for me, it's about the amount of impact that I can make. It's no longer about the dollars. when I started on this journey, my kids were five and six. Now they're a rising sophomore and junior in college. So a lot of it is about helping them as they figure out what's next for them. and so really it's more about the impact, um, that I can make and less about what I do

Caroline 1:05:59

Awesome. Well, I love it. Thank you for sharing more of your story behind the stories. I've really enjoyed, interacting with you at the National Speaker Association North Carolina chapters. Second Saturdays are, are a thing, so anybody in the, uh, Research Triangle Park area, please feel free to come and join our local meetup. And what I've learned about National Speaker Association in general is that every single person is amazing and welcoming and kind. So thank you, Stan, for that. I've also enjoyed your book. and I look forward to, cheering you on for even more of your next success. So thank you for being a part of the show

Stan Phelps 1:06:35

Thanks so much, Caroline. Take care

1:06:37

Thanks for listening to Your Next Success. And remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want