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Entrepreneur of the Week: Scott Silverman posted on January 8, 2009

As the Executive Director and Founder of Second Chance, Scott Silverman has been committed to breaking the cycle of unemployment, poverty, homelessness, substance abuse and incarceration for over 15 years. Recently, Silverman published a book titled, Tell Me No, I Dare You! Here, Silverman discusses the story behind the book.

bizSanDiego: What inspired you to write Tell Me No, I Dare You!

Silverman: What inspired me was my own personal journey. I had this strong desire to share parts of my life in a format that would allow me to get my message out. As you get older, you realize you can’t get to everybody you want to get to. I thought the book might create an opportunity for me to share some of my experience, strength, and hope with individuals.

bizSD: I know you talked a lot about turning a “No” into a “Yes.” What do you mean by that exactly?

Silverman: When we grow up most of us hear “No” as a kid. “No, don’t do that. You’re going to burn yourself. Don’t go over there, don’t cross the street and don’t stay up late. You’re not tall enough. You’ll never get into that school, etc. So what I’m trying to convey to people is that we need to start thinking in “Yes” terms. So whatever the “No” is, they start to think, “I’ve got my ‘No,’ now I have an opportunity to turn it into a ‘Yes.’” Versus wondering, “Am I capable of doing that? Am I smart enough, am I fast enough. Is my golf swing good enough? And just find ways to think about “Yes” and getting to the “Yes.”

bizSD: How has a “Yes” mindset helped you in your own life?

Silverman: A lot of my changes started to happen when I got sober in 1984. I didn’t know I was looking for a “Yes” at that time. But what I realized when I was intervened on was that I wanted to get to something different. But I didn’t know what it was. What I found, through self-help groups and opportunities, was that I could get to my “yes.”

But I didn’t have a formula for it. So a part of my journey with the book was to create that formula. The book offers examples for somebody else to effect change, or at least get change as an option on the table versus simply saying “I can’t do that” or “there’s no alternative.”

There’s always a way, and that’s what I teach in the book. Because, for me, that part of the journey was significant.

bizSD: How do you develop a yes attitude? Is there some particular technique people can use to become more positive? Can this be achieved simply through diligent practice?

Silverman: The practice makes perfect phenomena unfortunately doesn’t work in some respects because of failure. In my opinion, failure becomes a huge platform for success. The majority of people will take failure as a stopping point.

Practice obviously helps you improve, but if you hit a wall and you get stuck, it doesn’t mean it’s the end or give up. It may mean surrender, go a different way, or surrender and take a different direction….start a new day, but don’t give up. That’s part of what I’m trying to convey. My philosophical perspective is to see that “Yes,” and then, when the “No” comes up, see it as an opportunity to maybe avoid a failure.

bizSD: From a business perspective, how important is attitude to success? Would you say that most of the business people that are successful today have gotten there because they’ve kept a positive attitude?

Silverman: Well, my years of teaching and working with some of the hardest …being on the planet as long as I have, being in a long-term relationship, and being in long-term recovery, I’ve learned the one thing, the only thing really I can control is my attitude.

You can get in my face, the weather can be horrible, business can be bad and the family and kids won’t listen, whatever the circumstances. The stock might be horrible. You know, what we’re going through in our economy now, but at the end of the day I believe that I can do something with my attitude that no one else can influence. So what I try to do is start my day with the best possible attitude I can. This in turn will be infectious with others and set a good example. It will also give me the tools I need to process stuff that comes up that isn’t favorable.

bizSD: In the book you talk about being comfortable with being uncomfortable. What do you mean by this and how can this practice benefit people?

Silverman: To get to “Yes” you’re going to have to spend time being uncomfortable. What I mean by being “comfortable with being uncomfortable,” is that when you know that you’re going to do something that is out of your comfort zone, you’re going to be uncomfortable. That’s just because it’s foreign, unfamiliar and you haven’t practiced it. You’re starting something that in your heart you want to do, but you don’t have the tools for yet.

For example, when I started Second Chance 15 years ago, I had no idea how to run a nonprofit. I didn’t know about the governing board, I didn’t know about fund raising, I didn’t know about the articles of a corporation, I didn’t know any of that. So I had to learn. I was uncomfortable not knowing. But I realized that if I stayed with this, I would find a way to get comfortable. I was uncomfortable not knowing, but it felt so right for me that I became comfortable with the idea that I would find a way.

bizSD: What role did Second Chance play in your decision to write this book?

Silverman: Well, I really believe that if I hadn’t done the work I’ve done at Second Chance, the book probably wouldn’t have made as much sense. It really was one of the driving forces. We’re now graduating up to 60 people a month, putting 100’s of people a month into housing opportunities, making referrals and getting people back into society. We’re helping people get their families back together, stimulating financial literacy, helping them get access to mental health support and recovery, helping them get into alcohol and drug free housing.

There are so many things that we do and I knew that there was no way that I could keep this pace up. The book gives me an opportunity to help teach others and it puts an outline in people’s hands on the 5 keys that they can start doing on their own.

bizSD: What is your goal for Second Chance moving forward?

We want to find ways to work with the Department of Corrections, the Employment Development Department and work with parole. So as people get out of the institutions, we are a bigger, better tool to help folks get ready to come back into the community. And this all leads to good things. It decreases crime, increases opportunity to create tax payers, gets people working again, gives access to heath care, gets families back together and stops them from being a burden on the system.

You know it costs $46,000 to keep somebody in prison right now and all they’re doing is sitting in a cell. So one of the things we want to do is change that. By reducing recidivism, we can save the tax payer $100’s of millions of dollars. And that is what we really want to do. Is find a way to spread Second Chances evidence based outcome program throughout the state of California and hopefully one day, if we get lucky, take it national.

Scott Silverman will be hosting a special book signing at Warwick's bookstore in La Jolla on February the 3rd. Stop by the store in the evening to chat with Silverman and buy a copy of the book and/or have it signed.

Copies of Tell Me No, I Dare You! can be purchased at Amazon.com.