We recently had the chance to connect with Scott Hyland and have shared our conversation below.
Good morning Scott, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
My daughter, Sorcha. As a business owner, you get so accustomed to your day-to-day being consumed with business-related activities. My daughter is two and a half years old and she’s interjected joy and purpose into my life that I never could have anticipated. As focused as I am on continuing to grow the business, and as proud as I am of the business’ success, it all fades to the background any time I see her do something small like crack a smile or laugh. She is my world and she’s become an added motivator to me to do the best I can every single day.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Scott Hyland, owner of Paw Academy Pet Care and The Bark Bus. Paw Academy started in 2009 as a small, community-based pet sitting service in Celebration, FL. And while we’re still very proud to call the great community of Celebration our home base, we’ve since grown by leaps and bounds. We now provide in-home pet care to thousands of fur families in the communities of Celebration, Championsgate, Reunion, and Golden Oak. We’re also the proud on-resort dog walking and pet sitting provider for the Disney resorts, Margaritaville Resort, and the Kissimmee KOA Campground. Earlier this year we also launched our brand new service, The Bark Bus. The Bark Bus is Florida’s very first mobile doggy daycare adventure experience. We completely customized a school bus to safely accomodate pups of all shapes and sizes. We pick the pups up at their homes like kids going to school, and we go for fun days out. We take the pups to dog parks, walking trails, and some of our favorite dog-friendly establishments for pup cups and lots of fun photo and video content. The bus has been a huge hit. The dogs love being on the bus, and our pup owners get a kick out of it too! Our mission as a company is to do our part to ensure that every pet in Florida has a safe and loving home. To that end, we’re also starting to partner with local pet adoption facilities, using our bus to transport pups and providing shelter dogs with fun days out to get them away from the shelter for a few hours. Every day that we make a difference in the life of a dog, cat, or human is a great day.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
My wife definitely takes credit for seeing my potential clearly before I could see it myself. My wife grew up in Ireland. She left her home as a teenager to tour the world as a professional Irish dancer, and ended up relocating to Orlando as a Disney performer, ultimately starting her own Irish dance academy. She took and exceptional and unique path, and is incredibly successful because of it. When I met my wife, I was a corporate stiff. I had a successful corporate marketing leadership career, but I hated it. I think I always knew that I wanted to be exceptional and unique, but felt stuck in a safe & boring existence. My wife encouraged me to follow my passion, take risk, and not be afraid to pursue greatness.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Nobody seeks to endure suffering, but I think one of many things that highly successful people have in common is the ability to persevere and use suffering as a learning experience and a springboard forward. The more times you endure pain or failure and push through it, the more invincible you feel. I’ve personally experienced plenty of suffering, both personally and professionally, and I’ve learned that each instance of it is just like a tool that’s sharpening me to be stronger going forward. The other thing that I think suffering provides is perspective. When you’ve experienced lows, it makes the highs feel even better.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is absolutely the real me. I’ve always said (and proven to be true on occasion lol) that I don’t make a good poker player. It’s a quality and a fault at the same time, but I project myself exactly as who I am and what I’m feeling. I believe in transparency, I try not to make people in my life try and guess what I’m thinking or feeling. This is why I wasn’t a good fit in corporate America and why I’m so much better off doing something I actually have passion for. Because it comes across very clearly to clients, employees, friends and family.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I want to be remembered as being extraordinary. I hope to leave a very broad impact. I think most people, regardless of what they do, strive to be a good mother / father, husband / wife, friend, son / daughter, etc. To me, that’s table stakes. Obviously I want to be remembered as those things, but I also want people to tell a story of someone who created a huge impact well outside of their small orbit of friends and family. And more than anything else, I want people to look at my daughter some day and think “it’s no wonder she’s a legend.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pawacademypetcare.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barkbusfl?igsh=MWJ3cGlodzc1dWYyOQ==
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/me?trk=p_mwlite_feed-secondary_nav
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pawacademy/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@barkbusfl?si=fxeTTBhiXL-21JJ4
