Welcome back to Inside personal growth, joining me from Grafton, Massachusetts, on the other side of the screen, with this beautiful green yard and his back thing. The only thing you guys can't see is the green screen, but it turns into books. But for all of my listeners, we have Bill Zujewski on speaking about what's your life score, and the subtitle is a playbook for designing your best life. Bill, Good day to you. Thank

you, Greg, for having me looking forward to our conversation?

Well, I'm looking forward to this podcast because there's this is so needed. You know, when you live in a world that's so fast paced, and people the loneliness scores are off the roof, they don't understand why, and you virtually have taken and put it in as you're probably out of balance. The other thing is, is Bill is the inventor of Zen score and good life score, and we're going to be talking about that during the interview, and we'll be giving you also links in the blog entry here, underneath the YouTube video to his website, so that you can go download this and during the course of this interview, we're going to actually have some fun, and we're going to pop up some of the screenshots from his app that he has spent so much time developing and is so dedicated to, but I'm going to tell them a little bit about you. So Bill is a seasoned entrepreneur, executive, visionary and profound family man, that's for certain. He brings decades of leadership experience to the table as the inventor of Zen score trademark and founder of good life LLC, He's dedicated his life to helping people achieve balance purpose and happiness, devoted husband and father with four amazing children now thriving in their 20s. I have a son whose birthday today is 44 he's 44 bill provides insights that blend personal growth, family values and actual tools for success. I actually think that probably bill is closer to my eldest son's age, 44 is that what you are? No,

let's just say I'm in my 50s. Okay,

there you go. Not much difference, yeah, as

you know today, you know age is so different from 3040 years ago, right? I mean, you can feel like you're in your 30s or 40s. I mean, we have a president who's 80, so I figure you and I still have a good 2030, years still in us, and

we do, you know, and when I look at it, age is just a number, as they say, and it's really how you feel. And the whole idea of this book and these apps is to get you feeling better. So let's kind of dive into the book a bit, and then we'll talk about the apps as well. You know, the book opens out with opens up with this powerful statement, the good life. So who defines the good life? We all want it, but what is it? And you after creating this Zen score and developing this life assessment framework. How has your definition of the good life evolved? Because you know, you've now seen hundreds, if not 1000s of these scores, and you can see at least an a score. Obviously, you don't know all the people, much about the people, but you can see what's affecting their happiness, yeah,

no, um, and it's changed. I'm glad you said that. It's kind of evolved as we grow matures young, from young adults to mid adults to older. You know, I would say early on, I thought of the good life, stereotypical, you know, great house, summer home, yacht, you know, money, you know, living the good life, right? And then as I raised my four kids and family, I'm like, that was way more fulfilling than the career and the good life for me became going on vacations and sharing that love with my family and all these and friends. And now, now the good life, and it's almost a play on words, the good part is actually doing some good for the world, right? Do having a purpose bigger than than yourself? So I landed on good life as the name of the company, mostly because both, I think the definition of good life has to change where it's kind of a healthy, fulfilling relationship, full life. And hence we'll get into my kind of score and measuring all those areas of your life. But then also doing, you know, some good in the world, yeah.

And I want to, for my listeners, life is spelled L, I, I, F, E, right? So, just so they know

it is a brand, a brand decision, you know, I couldn't get the domain, good life.com I think it was so expensive. So what

you put two eyes in, and you got it. So there you go. That's it. So Bill, just personally, you know, how did you get here from there? So when you look at your profile on LinkedIn, which is the only place I know to look at it. You see this life filled with work and all these other kind of things. And obviously something must have transpired for you along the way to say, Hey, I'm gonna go change everything that I've done to actually build this company, become an entrepreneur and dedicate yourself to helping people have a happier, more fulfilling life.

How'd you get here? Yeah, no. I mean, I look back, and probably typical of most young professionals in their 20s and even my younger 30s. It was all about ambition and career and getting to the executive level. And I was getting there. In fact, I got there, you know, almost by 30, and then I was there, and I'm like, was still something was missing. And in fact, life was actually the worst it's ever been. I was like, traveling to California two, three times a month on a plane. Um, always thinking about on the weekends, my emails, I get to, get get to, I started dreading Sundays. I don't know if your listeners out there, you have that same feeling, oh no, the weekend's over. Back to the real world on Monday. I'm like, why should life be that, you know, heavy of a burden. And so I actually slowed down a little bit. I actually resigned from my California job. I had a one, three and five year old at home, my poor wife, and started spending more time, and realized, you know what, I could put some of the ambition on hold and still make a good living working 40 hours and being focused on putting 40 quality hours in, but disconnecting at night, going to Disney, going on vacation, going to the gym, and it worked for me. And I just started from that point on, I just made a point of living a more balanced life because I felt myself kind of relieved from from the stress that I felt when I was, you know, too career focused.

Well, part of that is, you know, people get so enamored with achievement because the ego says you're not enough, right? And I was reading your chapter this morning, believe it or not, around how you had ignored your health. You're like, I was never in the gym. I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. And this is one of those balance points on your card, right? Yeah, you were living the imbalance life, which is what you just explained. So can you discuss how a balanced life scored transformed you, and can you share a specific moment when you realize the need for this system, meaning this system that you I mean, look, we've seen these, all of us. Yeah, way before. BILL Right, the wheel of life. Yeah, that's right, the wheel of life, and how implementing it created this tangible shift for you in your own well being. Because, you know, the wheel of life's been around. You know, whatever it is nine points or however many points, in your case, it's health, relationships, growth, work, leisure, home, money, purpose. But in your case, you went a step further. You said, Well, I can actually develop an app and get a Zen score out of this, right?

Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, it goes back. It was probably the engineer and me 2025, years ago. You know, end of the year we would have these new year's resolution time, and I my approach. I had this little spreadsheet, and I looked at how the year was went and what I'm going to do focus on the next year. And it literally was a spreadsheet I had like, How did my career go? How did my pay at work? How's my fitness? How's my relationship with my wife? Did I take a vacation? I literally I would score myself zero to 10 in like 1314, rows. And then it was really more about pausing and being more intentional about self, reflecting on your life, right? And getting off the wheel and just thinking about these areas separately. So I did that for years. And then my kids. I saw them, you know, graduating college. I saw them getting super ambitious, and, holy smokes, the same thing I was going through the stress, the pressure of their job. They stopped showing up for certain family events because they had too much work piled up. And I was like, Oh no. And so I started using it with them. I said, Listen, you gotta weigh relationships more importantly than your career. You're doing fine in your career. So So I started using it with my kids. And after I left the corporate world, I went to this I created this scorecard around green business with these two other founders. And the green scorecard is pretty cool for small business. So last year, I'm like, how about a scorecard for life? Take what I kind of built for myself and see if I can share that in like a mobile app and another app for other people to use. So yeah, you go through these 11 questions really deep, and you know those 11 areas, and it spits out your zen score between zero and 100, and how you're doing with living a purposeful, happy, healthy, balanced life. Yeah,

I think it's important people like to measure things, even for those people who don't like the plan, you said life is easier with a plan. You obviously had your life planned out. Lot of people would say, No, no, no, I want to be spontaneous. I don't want that plan. But in chapter one, you write about how our brains can adapt and change more when, when we're we imagine, right? In other words, use our imagination. I have a friend who wrote a book about worry, and I want to throw this in here, because he says worry is misuse of the imagination. And so the reality is, is that you write about that. So what's the most significant personal belief or habit that you've had to rewire in your own brain in your life? And this is an important one, because we all need to be rewiring and refiring 100%

Yeah. So I it's funny. You should say that that the I think, the I think there's studies, the more intellectual and smarter you are, the bigger your imagination, the more your mind spins about all the things that can happen and that's possible, and you end up being more anxious than the average person. And that was me. And then I look back, I actually, in 2011 I had a little bit of a health scare. I had to have surgery on my bladder, had some chronic kidney disease kind of things come up. And it was, whoa, the power of the mind. I was so anxious almost had panic attacks. I was so scared that my fear was turning into physical ailments that were actually worse than the thing that was actually fixed

with my I didn't almost have panic attacks. You had pain,

such a powerful thing, and I had

I'm familiar with them myself. I know how painful they are. You.

You have to when you realize that your your mind could be tricking you into thinking things are real that aren't real, you realize you gotta reprogram. So I actually got help compartmentalize some of that stuff. And sure enough, when I just started to put it on the stop thinking about it, I started feeling better when I started getting busier with my friends relationships, other things to distract me. Life got better, and all that stuff, all that baggage, and that fear, anxiety, it just went away. And I never had I've never had it in a long time. I still, I'm still anxious sometimes, if my kids aren't home at, you know, at certain hours or traveling, but but the heavy anxiety I had is gone, and hopefully for

good, well. And again, I think it's anxiety for us, or whatever that that we have, again, that worry, that anxiety, is a misuse of that imagination. It's saying, Oh, what if this happened? What if that happened? What if this happened? And so you're thrusting yourself into the future, and it's your imagined future, which usually never comes true, especially when it's about the negative stuff. So you know your help grow framework covers eight essential life areas. We just said they were, health, environment, leisure, purpose, growth, relationships, occupation and wealth. Was there a ninth category that almost made the cut? And which area do you feel most people struggle with after seeing these scores, I think I have an idea of which one it is, because I think our world has put so much focus on it. And if I was to guess with just, I'm just gonna throw it out there to you, and I'm hopefully I'm not if it's if it first, it first came to me that wealth and relationships were the top two, because I think that's the one that most people struggle with. And what's probably one is probably relationships and number two as well.

Yeah, so the two part question, so first part the there was actually three other categories that didn't fit nicely into the help grow mnemonic, right? So I had to put my marketing hat on there. So in your zen score, there's actually 11 categories that I include three others beyond help grow. I took relationships and I split that into romance and friendships, because I think the relationships are that important. And your relationships with your partner, your life partner, right, is a little different than your friendship. So I split that up into two, and then the vision, having a vision, I'm a huge believer, is super important. So I took purpose and kind of split it out to having purpose, but then having a vision for what your life looks like as another category. And then the last one was mindset. Again, that's I just split out health into physical health and mental health, because mental health is such a big part of your life and getting your mindset right. So those are the three categories that are kind of subcategories buried within, within the Help, help grow. I think, I think most people focus on wealth as to measure their life. And I think it's a terrible metric. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying money is not important. Of course, you need money to go on vacation. You need money to go enjoy dinner with your friends and dying, right? I mean, you need some and then you need to work hard to make money. So all those things are are important. But coincidentally, this book good life, but good life out of Harvard by two professors, took a study of these 3000 people for almost 80 years and trying to figure out what were the indicators of health, longevity, happiness throughout someone's life, and by far, almost two to one than all those other categories, was relationships, that the people around you, your your closest partner, your circle of friends, especially as you get older, will be more deterministic of your longevity and how you feel than any other thing.

Totally true. I mean, that's that Harvard study of adult development that you're Yes. Yes, exactly. And, and, you know, that was an 80 year study, so if people want to look that up, they can. And the other thing that's been said so many times, and we've heard it, is, you know, people strive so much for this wealth, but in the reality happiness, in in our society today, you can make an income of between 60 and $70,000 been proven by statistic over statistic, and anything above that doesn't make you any happier. Yeah, right. So if you're striving for more than that, you're not going to be happy. Now, I do agree that having something to fall back on is important, having some kind of savings, not living from paycheck to paycheck, but truly, that is kind of the level they've determined. Now, you know, you know you talk about learning helplessness as the opposite of the growth mindset, okay? And it's called learned helplessness. And so in this case, what advice would you give someone who recognizes they're stuck in these patterns of learned helplessness in a particular area of their life? It doesn't matter if it's the health area, the wealth area, the relationship area, because a lot of times we sabotage ourselves with our own stinking thinking. As Zig Ziglar used to say that you're stinking remember? Do you remember his statement? This a long time ago, but you probably would remember this, and many of my listeners, he says, your aptitude isn't determined your aptitude. What was it? Your aptitude does not determine your altitude. It's your attitude, right,

right, yeah, another great quote I'll throw for referencing Old, old books. Earl Nightingale with you are what you think, right? Yeah. So it's another simple

so what about learn helplessness? Bill, what I mean? Yeah, tell people

I know. I know, because there's a lot of people blaming their circumstances the state of the world, and some of that is just self talk that they don't realize is happening, and they're not realizing that some of those thoughts aren't true. And they're, they're, they're kind of random, random or driven by their ego that if they stop and truly became mindful of some of these random thoughts and stop believing them. They could actually rewire themselves to be more positive, be more ambitious, take action. So it's probably over simplistic to say the mind is like this giant computer that you can reprogram it. But I definitely think you can. I definitely think you can change your thinking. And and one of the the hottest areas right now is that whole mindfulness, understanding consciousness, more about what's real and what's not going on in your mind.

I think it's neuro plant neuroplasticity. And the reality is, you've got the super conscious, the conscious, the subconscious. And inside that subconscious that's being programmed, it's the one normally that's telling you you can't, or you don't, or you're not enough, or you're whatever, whereas, when that's reprogrammed by whatever technique you choose to use, in my case, is hypnosis, you really can get beyond the program that it's running right. Basically reprogram it right, right. And when you do, it's amazing what happens. I know I've reprogrammed mine. I've had a few little surgeries, and I go to a guy and we do that, it's gonna heal. You can kind of see this shiny thing on my head. I had 40 stitches and cancer, and literally, it's gone. And this is only two weeks old. So the reality is, is that, you know, you can expedite healing. You can do everything clearly with the mind. You know, the Chinese used to actually put people into a state of consciousness and not use anesthesia. Really, they could cut on the body without this, and that's how powerful the mind is. Now people don't really understand that, but it is true. So in your chapter, we'll go back to relationships, because we were talking about that, you mentioned that a life shared is a life truly lived. How has your understanding of this you shared a little bit about your family in the shift about relationships as a cornerstone of well being influenced how you prioritize connections in your own life. Because, you know, I heard your story. You were running, running, running. You never had time for anything. You knew you were imbalanced. You didn't know how quite to get back to this balanced life. But you truly it was around the love of your family that really brought you back to understanding. And you had a life scare with your kidney, right? So I heard is two things. One, you had, you know, Hey, your wife is saying, hey, guess what? Bill, You're never home. And two, you had this kidney deal, and you decided these two things were painful enough you needed to do something. Would that be a good assessment?

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And then when you start giving more, right? And that's what we're talking about here, to family, to friends, you actually feel the joy you do, right? So I guess, like, if there was no one to share, I, you know, I was fortunate. I was actually in software eats the world. I was in software for 25 years, so I've done pretty well. I've got a little summer place. What would that summer place be if I couldn't share it with family and friends? We'd come there and have amazing moments together, right? That's what I'm talking about. Half the things that we have would be pointless if we weren't able to share them, right? And so that's where I realize now giving stuff away makes me feel really good. And same with helping people that whole self talk thing, I have a lot of anxiety in our family, and I know I've been able to help them, coach them through some of the negative self talk circles that they've had that they had to stop listening to, otherwise they were going to drive themselves crazy. So again, I felt something good in helping people with their their life in that way as well. So it it becomes super evident once you hit some of your kind of other milestones, that true life fulfillment does come from kind of sharing, giving, all those aspects. It's not just hyperbole,

generosity, totally and you're extremely generous, man. And thank you for your donation to compassionate communications our nonprofit as well. So you know the good life score app. Now let's just talk about this app, because people might be a bit confused. You've got the Zen and the good life score app, it seems to be and when you go to your website, it says, for individuals, for coaches, right? You got these things that you can actually do, clarify for the listeners these practical applications, kind of the philosophy and what was the most challenging aspect of translating these principles into this digital tool that people could actually use? I think you've kept the interface from a computer talk sense, pretty simple. So the UI here, just for all my listeners who understand computer speak, which probably most everybody does, you being in the software business, you knew what you had to do. You had to keep this simple, and you did. You had to keep it practical, and you did. And you had to make it so that people could do it quickly. And you did, what would you add to this element? Other than the commercial I just gave?

Yeah, no, thank you. Yeah. So there, and thank you for noticing that there's actually two scores, and they're very different and important at the same time, the first score, Zen score, takes you two minutes go into the app and it's 11 questions. It's how you feel about your life, it's your inner score. It's your mindset. How do I feel about my health? How do I feel about my wealth? How do I feel about my relationships? And it'll just going through that Zen score assessment will kind of uncover holes right or blind spots that you have that you might not have thought of. You know about your about how you feel, about what you're doing in those areas. So that's your zen score takes two minutes. The life score is like a life diagnostic. It's your outer score. It's what you're doing, your actions, your habits. So like, when you go in and it takes like 20 minutes, so just like, wealth is one of the categories, right? If you took the life score wealth, part of it, it's going to ask you, are you saving 10% of your paycheck every week? Is your mortgage 1/3 less than 1/3 of your income? Do you pay off your credit cards every month? Do you have a six month rainy day fund? Do you have a retirement or IRA or 401 K, do you know a mutual funds and stocks and how they work? Do you have a finance so it's like, these are the things that people who are like, financially secure and doing well with their finances. Do you have a budget like do in life, to do to have their financial house in order. So my life score is, hey, are you doing these 12 things in the wealth category? You know, here's the playbook of what you should be doing, and here's and here's your life score. If you're actually you're doing it. And I do the same thing for health and relationships and occupation health is going to look at whether you're doing cardio and weight training and stretching and mindfulness and your heart rate like, you know, black and white diet, you know, best practices of leaving a healthy, healthy life. So some would argue that we're all too different. You know, there's no there's no playbook for life. I get it. There's no identical playbook, but there's things that we know most people who are happy, healthy, fulfilled, are doing, and have their life in order. And I think what I'm trying to do is kind of share those practices in this life, score, light and playbook with people and see how they compare to what they should be doing.

So in this life score, do they have the ability to, like, download this, or is it just on the app only right now?

Yeah, right now, there's two ways to figure out your life score. Actually, if you if you want the number, it's like a credit rating between a zero and 1000 you actually have to download the app onto your phone or use the web version. You can go to good life.com Join good life and get access to the web application to do either your zen score or life score. Zen score is free, so you can go to your app store and

how much is the good life? The Good

Life is 95 bucks a month. I mean, a year. And there's a coaching version. I have coaches using it as a great engagement tool, like, think of a coach coming to you and saying, Hey, fill out this Zen score and life score. In our first meeting, we'll figure out what you need to work on. So it's a great coaching tool as well. That one's 303 60 a year, because it's got client, professional collaboration tools, goal setting and things like that. So good life, I mean, at its core, I am a software company, right? That's what good life is, trying to try to codify life's best practices and give people tools to help them. You know, get good at life.

Well, if people wanted to reach out to you, we can give them your email address, or they can go to the website and they can contact you through the website right to share, especially if it's a coaching group, or it's a coach, or it's somebody like that who wants to utilize the software with their clients, correct?

Yes, for sure, you can go ahead. You'll get a feel for it with the free Zen score version. But also, if you want to see the coaching version, you can reach out to me. I'll give you a demo. We can set up a quick zoom and, you know, I can go over over the features with you. Um, there is one other way to kind of get your score, but not exactly, which is a lot of what my app is based on is in my book. So at the end of each of the chapters on health and home and growth and relationships, there is the paper version right of the assessment that you can take and score yourself zero to 10 in each of these, you know, each of these areas. So you you don't have to be a tech wizard. You could actually get the book. Go to Amazon, search for Zujewski Or what's your life score, and you'll find my book.

So, important question. You know, this journey kind of all started with this you called the group text. It was the life lesson. Yes, your four children, yes. What's been the most meaningful feedback that you've received from your family about the lessons that you've shared with them in the book.

Okay? First of all, I highly recommend it to anyone with with children. It's a great way to stay engaged with them, right? I'm sure most people have a family text already. This one's just me and my four children's and it's in the title of the group text is life lessons, and I share about one per month with them. I've been doing it for 10 years. And what's amazing is, every once in a while, we're out for dinner, and they'll quote some little life lesson that I gave them the other day, my son the stock market was crashing and and he said, Don't catch a falling knife, dad. And then I'm like, You're right. So a lot of people think the you know, stock is on discount because it's going down. It might be going down for a reason. So, you know, they remember those little life lessons. People reciprocate. Like I did something, you know, earlier last year and then, and then I, and I did it for free, and one of my one of my kids, yeah, you'll, don't turn that favor right back to you, dad, won't they? I said, Yes, people reciprocate. So, so yeah, it's fun to see you never know when kids are reading your texts and taking them seriously, but I actually have seen them spit it back to me over the last few years, and it's kind of gratifying.

Such a great way to have this thing evolve. In other words, to have this software evolve. Do you evolve? For you to learn from your life lessons, and then choose to build software to bring it out to the world, and then find how to expand that even further. And with that being said, as you look forward into the future, how do you envision life score concept evolving? Are there ways you hope to see it adapted and did different demographics or different cultures or areas, or how do you see this thing growing? Bill,

yeah, so my, my moonshot here is that there's no metric now for life. That's I'm sitting at dinner five years from now, and I hear the table next to me, what's your life? Score, Joe, Oh, mine's, you know, 730 what's yours? Oh, 820 and that actually, people's consciousness have changed from thinking of wealth as a metric, but more of this whole balanced, you know, relationship, loving life as a better metric, and that people are using life score as that metric, right? There is a kind of change the world here too, right? Which is, there's so much materialism and jealousy and polarization, like, if I can help people start thinking about, you know, life in a different way. You know, that's my moonshot.

That was a great, great explanation of your moonshot, you know, sitting next to a table, or you hear somebody at the other table asking about their life score. And regardless of what the score was, the fact was, is you created awareness by using the application. Also, we're going to create awareness. Because for our listeners, you're going to go to Amazon and pick up the book, and even if you don't get the app, as he said, you go to end of each chapter score yourself, and you'll get your life score. I think the bigger question is, is not that you have a life score. What is it that you're going to do about it? What is it that you're going to implement in your life to get there. Now, in reading the book, you get some of Bill's, you know, great pictures that he's put in here, some of his own life lessons. And obviously everybody listening out there has their own lessons. And the key here is, you know when you're on the growth line, when you're learning, when you're applying what Bill is actually making aware to you, you actually can start to change those neuro pathways, change your thinking and your mindset, and really live A life which is coming less from fear, less from anxiety, the anxiety that you had, less from worry, and more from being compassionate, grateful, understanding, hopeful, all the other things, the adjectives that describe the polarities that we're talking about here. And so I want to thank you for coming on inside personal growth and sharing with our listeners. We'll have links to your both of the websites to be able to get this down, and we'll also have a link to Amazon to get a copy of the book. You've been a wonderful guest on inside personal growth, sharing your own personal story, your insights and how this software actually evolved. And for everybody who wants to actually go out and get the free Zen score, what is the website you'd like to send them to? Bill,

yeah, yeah. So you can go to good life.com with two eyes, good life, one word.com, or you can go to your the Apple Store, your app store on your phone, and type in good life, or Zen score and download the mobile version. Either version, they're very similar. Will get you going with figuring out. Hopefully by now you're curious on what knowing what your zen score and life score are.

So are both of those apps available in Android and iOS version

natively only on Apple, but if you have an Android the web browser version is designed so it displays nicely on your Android phone. So just bring it okay,

and you have to actually type it into Chrome. Yeah? To it. You don't actually have an Android app. No to good life.com. Yeah, I just want to make it clear for people, because I tried that myself, and I realized that there wasn't an app. There's no over at the at the Google Store. So be clear, no app at the Google Store, but if you're running on Apple, you can get the app right, correct. Okay. Well, thank you, Bill so much. It's a pleasure having you on insight personal growth. You sharing your insights. We'll make sure that this gets out to all the listeners. There'll be a wise note version of this well for all my listeners, so they know and again, go pick up a copy of the book. Go check out the apps. We'll have links below. You'll see it here, where you'll be able to link into that and appreciate you and appreciate what you're doing to make the world a good life.

Thanks, Greg, been a pleasure. Namaste

to you, brother and good life.