Choose Scary - That's where magic happens with Tom Scarda: An EOFire Classic from 2022

Entrepreneurs on Fire

John Lee Dumas

Entrepreneurship, Careers, Business

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the archive: This episode was originally recorded and published in 2022. Our interviews on Entrepreneurs On Fire are meant to be evergreen, and we do our best to confirm that all offers and URL's in these archive episodes are still relevant.

Tom Scarda was able to semi-retire with his first franchise, then failed miserably in his second. His lessons learned from failure are what make him such an inspiration.

Top 3 Value Bombs

1. Whatever you choose, your choices always come down to uncertainty, and unhappiness. Choose uncertainty.

2. There's no way to get past fear. The only way is to embrace it and understand the ramifications.

3. Don't get into something that has zero market unless you have lots of money and lots of time. Get into something where there's a niche, but not something that has never been done before.

Is franchising right for you - The Franchise Academy

Transcript

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0:00.0	Boom. Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by
0:07.8	high level, the all-on-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking
0:13.4	down how to choose scary. That's where the magic happens. To drop these vibe bombs, I are brought
0:17.9	to Tom Scarta into EO Fire Studios. Tom was able to semi-retire with his first franchise, then failed miserably in his second. His lessons learned from failure are what make him such an inspiration today. In today's episode, we talk about whatever you choose. Your choices always come down to uncertainty and unhappiness. Choose uncertainty. And there's no way to get past fear. The only way is to embrace it and understand
0:38.4	the ramifications and oh so much more. And a big take of sponsoring today's episode goes to Tom and
0:43.5	our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all in one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers,
0:50.0	coaches and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white
0:55.5	label your own software, say hello to our featured partner high level and visit high
1:02.3	level fire.com to start your free trial today. Tom, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming
1:14.9	successful that most people disagree with. Hey, hello, everyone out there. And I am really excited
1:22.6	about embracing fear and failure. People like failure, yes, absolutely embrace it.
1:29.6	Failure is what we need to embrace, especially Fire Nation, in this episode. The title,
1:36.3	Chew Scary, because that's when the magic happens. And as I mentioned in the introduction,
1:40.4	we are going to be talking about a lot of failure, specifically Tom's.
1:46.3	So let's start with your backstory.
1:47.7	Give us all the dirt, Tom, but don't get too deep into that failure thing we'll talk about in a minute.
1:53.3	Yeah, absolutely.
1:54.2	So I started as a New York City subway conductor as my first career.
1:59.6	And I was the guy opening and closing doors if you ever rode
2:02.0	the subway in New York making the announcements that were really inaudible back then. And one day an old time, it said to me, hey, kid, this is a great job. You'll always have a, you know, you'll always have a shirt on your back. You'll never have a silk shirt, but you know, at least you'll have a shirt. And I was like, wait a second.
2:21.5	That sounds like mediocrity to me. And I was only 24 at the time. And I looked around.
2:27.6	My bosses were not wearing the metaphorical silk shirts. And I realized business owners were.
	...

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