From Architect to Entrepreneur: Pat Flynn's Journey of Taking Risks and Embracing Online Business
Key Takeaways:
- Pat Flynn, renowned entrepreneur and host of the Smart Passive Income podcast, shares his inspiring journey from being laid off as an architect to becoming a successful online business owner.
- Flynn emphasizes the importance of taking risks, surrounding oneself with supportive individuals, and creating a compelling story from unexpected moments.
- He highlights the power of solution-based selling and how it applies to entrepreneurship, along with his recent venture in the Pokemon space during the pandemic.
- His advice for success includes being patient, helping others, and prioritizing service over personal gain.
- Pat Flynn, renowned entrepreneur and host of the Smart Passive Income podcast, shares his inspiring journey from being laid off as an architect to becoming a successful online business owner.
- Flynn emphasizes the importance of taking risks, surrounding oneself with supportive individuals, and creating a compelling story from unexpected moments.
- He highlights the power of solution-based selling and how it applies to entrepreneurship, along with his recent venture in the Pokemon space during the pandemic.
- His advice for success includes being patient, helping others, and prioritizing service over personal gain.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 do what I want, when I want, with who I want.
00:02 And that to me is the definition of success.
00:05 - When you got laid off, you did not know
00:06 what you really were gonna have set up.
00:08 - It's the story that you create from now forward.
00:11 It's up to you.
00:12 A month and a half of depression
00:13 and not knowing where I was gonna go,
00:15 thinking that I was gonna end up homeless
00:17 or all these things.
00:18 - On today's episode,
00:21 we have an architect turned entrepreneur.
00:23 He was laid off in 2008
00:25 and quickly embraced the online business world
00:28 where he has impacted millions globally
00:30 from his products to his world-renowned podcast,
00:33 Smart Passive Income.
00:34 A believer in service-first success,
00:36 he has crafted incredible teams and systems.
00:39 His goal has been to inspire through action and share joy.
00:43 And he's been guided by the principles
00:44 of embracing unplanned moments,
00:46 owning his successes and failures,
00:48 and forging a unique path to happiness.
00:51 I'm so excited to welcome my guest today
00:54 and my good childhood friend, Pat Flynn.
00:56 (upbeat music)
00:59 Welcome to the show, Pat.
01:07 - Thanks, Jeff.
01:08 Dude, it's so good to be here with you.
01:10 I don't know if you know this about Jeff,
01:11 but Jeff and I went to middle school and high school together
01:14 and now we're in your studio, which is epic, by the way.
01:16 You know, I do podcasting for a living
01:18 and this is blowing me away, so well done, my friend.
01:21 - Thank you.
01:22 Well, I gotta be honest,
01:23 your podcast was one of the very first podcasts
01:26 that I ever religiously listened to.
01:28 - Wow. - Yeah.
01:29 Which says a lot in today's world,
01:31 because I think if everyone goes back in time and says,
01:33 "What was that first podcast that I actually listened to?"
01:36 Like, we remember TV shows.
01:38 Oh yeah, I watched "90210" when I was a kid,
01:40 you know, or whatever those were, or "Saved by the Bell."
01:42 But what were those podcasts, that first couple, where?
01:45 'Cause now I think a lot of people listen to so many.
01:48 It's more like a buffet style.
01:50 - It's a buffet and we're getting bloated, that's for sure.
01:53 But I think, like my podcast was to you,
01:56 I have a podcast too that was a very first thing
01:58 that I listened to that inspired me when I started.
01:59 It was called "Internet Business Mastery"
02:02 with Sterling and Jay, and I remember listening to them
02:04 and I was like, "These guys are like my friends," right?
02:07 Even though I'd never met them,
02:08 just listening to their voice and letting that sink in,
02:11 that's what inspired me to start my businesses
02:12 and to have that ripple effect then hit you
02:16 and then all the ripple effect that you will have
02:18 on all the viewers out there and the listeners.
02:20 And that's why we're here,
02:22 is just to keep that ripple going.
02:23 - Yeah, and to bring what used to be this big Chinese wall
02:28 where you felt like you couldn't have access
02:30 to certain individuals,
02:31 you didn't have access to the information,
02:33 and it was always like sold to or purchased by.
02:35 And I think podcasts really broke down that barrier
02:37 and said, "You know what?
02:38 "We're all humans, we all have strengths and weaknesses,
02:41 "and we can learn about anything we want
02:44 "with all of this podcast content that's available.
02:46 "When you get two people, three people,
02:47 "four people in a conversation, it's not scripted.
02:50 "We're not selling anything on air here."
02:53 It's just getting into the weeds together
02:55 and hopefully building rapport
02:57 and also bringing you, the audience, into the conversation.
03:00 - Yeah, you get a real sense of who a person is
03:02 when you listen to their voice
03:03 and of course when you're watching them as well,
03:05 versus when I started in 2008,
03:08 there weren't very many podcasts,
03:10 and it was a lot of blogs, right?
03:11 I would consume my content with blogs,
03:13 but people can edit that, they can fine tune it,
03:15 they can hire somebody else.
03:16 But when you're listening to an interview
03:18 and a person reacts or responds,
03:20 I mean, that's essentially their real selves.
03:25 And again, you connect with the people that you vibe with,
03:27 and I'm just stoked for your show.
03:29 'Cause at the time that we're recording this,
03:30 it's not out yet. - Correct.
03:32 - So we're doing a little time travel here,
03:33 but I'm stoked for it, you told me about it,
03:35 I'm excited for the other guests.
03:37 I'll probably add it to my playlist.
03:39 - Well, thank you. - Not just 'cause
03:40 we went to high school together.
03:42 - Yes, Scripps Ranch High School.
03:44 - Go Falcons. - Go Falcons.
03:46 Back in the day.
03:47 - Well, the funny thing, and I think I reminded you
03:51 about this once, but SPI, Smart Passive Income.
03:55 When I sold my first company, I wanted to do smart,
03:58 I wanted to do passive income.
03:59 I was like, you know what, Pat's onto something.
04:01 The idea that I can set something up
04:03 and have this continuity factor of making money
04:06 while I sleep and passively.
04:09 I don't know if you remember me taking you to lunch,
04:11 I think we went to-- - It was in La Jolla, right?
04:14 - Yeah, it was Carl Strauss.
04:16 - That's right. - Carl Strauss.
04:18 And I said, let me buy you lunch.
04:20 And we hadn't seen each other probably in eight years?
04:23 - A long time. - Like it was a while.
04:24 I mean, I must have been, this was 2000.
04:28 - I didn't have a beard back then.
04:29 - You did not, you had a young face.
04:31 You were a youngin'.
04:32 - You don't wanna know what it looks like
04:33 when you're here anymore.
04:35 I see videos, I mean, a lot of my audience
04:39 hasn't seen me either for a while,
04:40 and then they see the videos on my Pokemon channel
04:42 and other stuff, and they're like,
04:44 I didn't know you could grow a beard.
04:45 And I was like, I didn't know I could grow a beard either.
04:47 - But it's a good beard. - Thank you.
04:48 It has some gray to it. - I can't do it.
04:51 Not that thick. - Oh, really?
04:52 - Yeah, I have beard envy right now.
04:54 - It's a COVID beard, and I guess it's staying.
04:57 - Yeah, and you know what, the gray's in perfect location.
04:59 Like it's the salt and pepper, and it's perfect.
05:02 'Cause it's not like just a couple.
05:04 Where it's like you're trying to figure it out,
05:06 like you've got it.
05:07 - Now you're just flattering me.
05:08 - Yeah, a little bit.
05:09 But I have beard envy. - Oh, thank you.
05:10 - 'Cause I cannot grow one that thick.
05:12 - It's all good.
05:14 You're doing pretty well, I think.
05:15 So minus the beard, I think you're good.
05:17 - Yeah, so why I took you to lunch, though,
05:20 if you don't remember, was because I had just sold a company
05:23 and didn't know what I was gonna do with my life.
05:25 And I remember your story in 2008,
05:27 when you got laid off at the worst time ever,
05:31 the Great Recession.
05:32 And you were able to pivot to this new world of online
05:36 with no experience, passive income, which is amazing.
05:39 And you were sharing it openly and publicly
05:42 of not only how you did it,
05:43 but how much money you were making month over month.
05:45 And I thought that kind of vulnerability,
05:47 that kind of exposure, and that kind of access to you
05:50 was awesome.
05:51 And being the relationship-minded guy I was,
05:53 I was like, I need to talk to Pat.
05:55 And so you were grateful enough to accept my offer
05:58 to go to lunch, and I tried to hire you that day,
06:00 and you told me no.
06:01 And I loved you for it, 'cause it was so on-brand.
06:04 But it was like, you were like,
06:06 it's passive income, Jeff, it's not active income.
06:09 - Yeah, I mean, there's no such thing as 100% passive.
06:11 I mean, still, things require upkeep.
06:13 I mean, real estate, yes, it can be passive.
06:16 Things appreciate, but you still gotta upkeep properties,
06:18 investments, and same thing with businesses.
06:20 You can't just leave them forever.
06:21 But you don't have to be present all the time
06:25 to a point where if you stop doing things,
06:27 then you stop making money.
06:28 You can set things up and set up systems,
06:30 set up people, set up software, whatever it might be,
06:33 to continually work for you over time,
06:35 and like you said, even while you're sleeping.
06:37 And there's a lot of people who talk about this stuff
06:39 in a way that makes it sound like it's a pipe dream,
06:43 like it's a get-rich-quick thing,
06:44 and it's not a get-rich-quick thing.
06:47 There's a lot of active income that has to happen first
06:50 before then you can turn it into something passive.
06:53 But for me, the reason I said no and the reason why
06:55 is because I knew why I wanted to do what I wanted to do,
06:58 which was spend more time with my family
07:00 and have the freedom of time and freedom of,
07:02 you know, financially to do what I want,
07:05 when I want, with who I want.
07:07 And that, to me, is the definition of success.
07:09 And sure, like some people, definitions of success
07:13 mean mansions and cars and all this kind of stuff,
07:15 and that's cool for them too,
07:16 but for me, it's family, it's time, time, freedom,
07:19 and I knew that if I said yes to that,
07:22 then I'd be saying no to those other things.
07:24 - Well, and that level of clarity, though,
07:26 is part of your success formula,
07:27 because I think what derails so much,
07:30 so many opportunities are presented to us on a daily basis,
07:33 and they all sound good when you first hear 'em.
07:36 Or there's upside to 'em, like,
07:37 I'm gonna make some money, I'm gonna do this,
07:39 but you had such a laser focus on what you wanted
07:41 and the clarity on it.
07:43 What gave you that?
07:44 Because you had just,
07:46 this was three or four years after you had been laid off,
07:48 but when you got laid off,
07:49 you did not know what you really were gonna have set up.
07:51 I mean, I know a little bit more of the story,
07:53 but I kinda wanna hear a little deeper into that moment,
07:56 'cause I think we're heading into turbulent times,
07:58 and people might be in those pivotal moments
08:00 where they're gonna have to rethink their future.
08:02 - For sure, but with this kind of thing
08:04 that's happening again, the recession,
08:08 a lot of great businesses, a lot of new things
08:10 come out of these times.
08:12 These are times for opportunity.
08:14 And the question to ask yourself is,
08:15 what does this make possible?
08:17 If crazy things are happening in our lives
08:19 or we're losing our jobs or whatever,
08:20 okay, well, what does this make possible?
08:22 Not what was me or why me.
08:24 It's the story that you create from now forward.
08:28 That's up to you, based on how you react
08:29 to all these things.
08:30 So for me, when I got laid off, I mean, it was tough.
08:31 A month and a half of depression
08:33 and just not knowing where I was gonna go,
08:36 thinking that I was gonna end up homeless,
08:39 or all these things came about.
08:41 I'm grateful for people in my life who supported me.
08:44 However, my fiance at the time, who's now my wife, April,
08:47 she was like, "No matter what happens,
08:49 "I'm gonna stick there with you.
08:50 "We're gonna get through it together."
08:51 And that was very important.
08:52 And as you know, relationships and the people
08:54 that you surround yourself with,
08:56 I mean, your net worth, or your net work is your net worth,
08:59 I think they say.
09:01 And I'm so grateful for my fiance.
09:02 And then my family was also like,
09:04 "Hey, whatever happens, you're not gonna be homeless.
09:06 "We have a spot for you
09:07 "and we wanna help you get back on your feet."
09:10 But it wasn't until the Internet Business Mastery podcast
09:13 that I discovered that there was a world out there
09:15 in the internet space,
09:16 where you could take the information that you knew
09:19 and package it in a way that serves others.
09:21 And I knew information about an exam that I took
09:23 that was very difficult.
09:24 It's called the LEED exam,
09:25 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
09:27 Very niche exam in the architecture space.
09:29 And I had built a website
09:30 and I started to get traffic to that website.
09:32 And then I created a study guide
09:34 that I sold for $19.95 at the end of 2008.
09:38 And in that first month,
09:40 I had made $7,908.55 from an ebook.
09:45 Literally just a PDF file.
09:46 I had no idea what I was doing.
09:47 I was figuring it out along the way.
09:49 And you always say this,
09:52 you don't need the experience before you get into something.
09:56 The thing you get into becomes your experience.
09:59 - That's right.
10:00 - And so that's sort of like just diving into the deep end
10:03 and that's what taught me so much more.
10:04 And there's a book out there called
10:06 10X is Easier Than 2X.
10:08 And it goes across the same sort of ideals
10:10 where if you're trying to 2X yourself
10:12 or get twice as better,
10:13 you're probably gonna continue to do the same things
10:15 and make the same decisions.
10:16 Just try to get better at those things
10:18 or put more force into it
10:20 or just get more efficient with what you're doing.
10:22 But if you're gonna 10X yourself,
10:24 you can't do the same things that you're doing.
10:26 You have to take a different approach.
10:28 You have to find a different route.
10:32 And that will test you
10:33 and that will challenge you.
10:34 But with big risks comes bigger rewards.
10:37 I'm so grateful that I got let go
10:39 because if I didn't, I'd still be in architecture today
10:41 because I wouldn't have been forced to figure it out.
10:44 And I was forced to figure it out
10:45 and that business continued to grow and grow.
10:48 And that's where smartpassiveincome.com came along
10:50 because a lot of people and friends of mine
10:52 and old colleagues said,
10:53 "How did you do that?
10:54 "Can you show me?"
10:55 And I said, "Sure."
10:56 So I built a website.
10:58 I started to show people everything
10:59 from the tools I was using
11:01 to how I was approaching creating content
11:03 to how I was selling this thing,
11:04 what was working, what wasn't,
11:06 and like you said earlier,
11:07 how much money I was making,
11:08 which I didn't realize was such a big deal.
11:09 I was just like,
11:10 if people are gonna learn from me,
11:12 I wanna show them all the things that are going on
11:15 and truthfully and transparently.
11:18 And apparently that just blew everybody's mind.
11:20 Like, oh my gosh, this guy's showing us
11:22 how much money he's making,
11:23 how many customers he has.
11:24 And it wasn't always rainbows and unicorns.
11:26 There were some down months too.
11:28 And those months were more interesting to people too
11:30 because they started to go,
11:31 "Oh, well, why did this not work this month?"
11:33 And it wasn't just about the numbers.
11:34 It was the things that I did or didn't do
11:37 that those numbers were a byproduct from.
11:40 - It also gave visibility to the fact that,
11:43 to your point, it's not always perfect
11:44 and how is Pat gonna overcome it?
11:46 What are those steps?
11:47 And to see that it's okay if you lose money one month,
11:49 then it's okay if I lose money one month.
11:51 You made it possible and acceptable
11:53 for my journey to be okay
11:55 and not to think,
11:56 "Oh, if Pat makes money every month
11:58 "and I lose money one month,
11:59 "I must be doing it all wrong."
12:01 - I mean, that brought a more realistic approach to it.
12:03 And it was much different
12:05 than the kinds of educational content
12:07 that you'd see at the time back then,
12:08 which was like this quick system,
12:11 but I'm not gonna tell you
12:12 until you show me your credit card kind of thing.
12:14 - $47.
12:15 - $47.
12:16 I mean, some of these programs
12:17 are tens of thousands of dollars too.
12:18 And I was just sharing everything for free.
12:20 And that attracted a lot of attention.
12:23 I became a guest on a lot of podcasts
12:25 and was on a lot of videos back then.
12:26 And that's when I decided to start the podcast in 2010,
12:29 which now has over 75 million downloads.
12:31 Also in the Entrepreneur Network, by the way,
12:33 shout out to them.
12:34 And that has now enabled me
12:37 to build a lot of relationships.
12:38 A lot of people who have had on the show,
12:40 I think this is why it's so smart that you're doing this,
12:41 because it's not just about talking
12:44 and collecting this content to share it with all of you.
12:46 It's the relationship.
12:48 I mean, our relationship's gonna be even stronger
12:50 after this conversation.
12:52 And it's much easier to ask somebody
12:55 to come on your show and feature them and tell their story
12:58 and then build a relationship that way
13:00 versus not having a podcast and saying,
13:02 hey, can I just pick your brain for 20 minutes
13:05 or can we chat?
13:06 - Sure, I'm sure if I didn't know you
13:07 and I called you to take you to lunch,
13:08 you would have been less inclined to say yes.
13:11 - Well, I mean, if you had some nice Everbowl
13:13 sort of food that I could have, then maybe.
13:16 - We went to Carl Strauss.
13:17 I brought you into a bar.
13:18 - You did, you did.
13:19 You got me nice, drunk and just asked.
13:21 No, I don't drink.
13:22 - I took advantage of you with iced teas and lemonades.
13:25 - Yes.
13:26 No, it was fun.
13:27 But yeah, to go along with the story,
13:28 I mean, the podcast started and then the YouTube channel
13:31 and then I started writing books
13:32 and I started to just speak on stage like you do now
13:35 and really develop a style for how I teach business.
13:39 Every person who is an entrepreneur
13:42 who wants to share that information has a different formula.
13:44 And it's like diets, right?
13:46 Like a lot of people want the one diet
13:48 that will help everybody and that's not gonna happen.
13:50 We're all different body types.
13:52 We have different mentalisms, et cetera.
13:54 But my goal is to share the way that I do it.
13:58 I love your show because you're asking others
14:00 to share theirs too.
14:01 And your job, the audience's, to pick a style
14:04 that works with you based on the mentor
14:06 that you wanna follow or the future that you wanna have
14:10 and then just go with it, right?
14:12 And try and experiment.
14:14 And I think you and I align
14:16 and we have some similarities in our business styles.
14:19 You have your formula, I have mine.
14:20 And really what mine comes down to is just serving first.
14:23 Find a problem and help those people.
14:26 That's really all that it comes down to.
14:28 Even down to now where I have students that I coach.
14:31 It's like, let's find one person who has a problem
14:33 and let's solve that person's one problem.
14:36 Everything else can stem from there.
14:37 You don't need a website, you don't need a business,
14:39 you don't need a location in order to help people.
14:42 And once you get that one result,
14:43 not only does it teach you where to find these people,
14:45 how to talk to these people, how to teach these people
14:48 what their objections are, what their struggles are,
14:50 how to help them overcome those struggles,
14:52 not only do you also get a testimonial after you help them,
14:55 but you now have the confidence
14:56 that what you can help people with actually does help.
14:59 Which is, I know, a big problem with a lot of entrepreneurs
15:00 is we wanna solve problems,
15:02 but then we end up having to sell something
15:04 or promote ourselves and we're just not sure.
15:07 Or we have imposter syndrome because we don't know
15:10 if it's gonna hit or not.
15:12 Well, find out, get it done, get that person the result.
15:15 And then what happens is you almost now feel
15:18 a responsibility, an obligation to go out there
15:20 and promote it and you speak loud about it
15:23 because you know that this can help.
15:24 If you had the cure for a disease
15:26 and you know that that would help people,
15:28 you're gonna shout from the rooftops
15:30 to help as many people as you can, right?
15:32 Especially if you come from a heartfelt
15:33 sort of service-driven approach.
15:36 That combined with the systems and the automations
15:40 and the people and the way that you set up your business,
15:42 very much inspired by Tim Ferriss,
15:44 I gotta say, when I started my business in '08,
15:46 that was a year after the four-hour work week came out.
15:48 And that's why my business, my architecture business,
15:51 did not have a physical space,
15:52 did not have even physical books,
15:54 because I wanted to just get that information to people
15:57 in an as automated a fashion as possible.
16:01 So people could download the book,
16:02 get it automatically delivered to them.
16:03 I'd wake up in the morning and I'd have an extra
16:06 seven to $800 in my bank account the next morning.
16:09 And it was just such a unreal, surreal feeling,
16:12 especially because I worked so hard to become an architect
16:14 and here I was doing this thing that I had never done before
16:17 and I was making two and a half times more
16:19 and it just kept growing.
16:20 So anyway, I'm talking a lot, but--
16:22 - No, but this is important because I think
16:24 there is so much, especially at this stage,
16:27 in the Pat Flynn journey, I mean, you've had immense success
16:31 and you're very well known, but I don't know how many people
16:33 who meet you for the first time
16:35 or really get to know you now at this stage
16:38 understand that you're just like everybody else,
16:42 or you were at that point.
16:44 You had the same challenges, the same trials,
16:46 the same tribulations, the same uncertainty.
16:48 I mean, I can't tell you how many successful entrepreneurs
16:51 that I have had the privilege of speaking with
16:53 that we've all shared the imposter syndrome.
16:55 I don't know one that hasn't had it.
16:57 And it either makes you or breaks you.
16:59 And it's what do you do with it?
17:01 And the fact that that part of your journey,
17:03 that part of your story where like you just said it,
17:05 it's like, I went to law school to be a sports agent.
17:07 I've never touched the legal profession pretty much since.
17:11 You went and were an architect.
17:13 I mean, how often do you architect at this point?
17:17 - In the traditional sense, very little.
17:19 - Correct, right?
17:20 And so you have this reshaping of life
17:22 of what you thought you were
17:24 or this person you thought you were,
17:25 because one of my core values,
17:26 one of my success formula for me is change ready,
17:29 is to be willing to change.
17:30 And the Great Recession taught me that
17:32 'cause we were unfortunately or fortunately
17:35 children of that era.
17:36 We came into the workforce right during one of the worst
17:38 financial times in the last 50 years.
17:41 I think it enabled us to survive COVID a lot better
17:44 and handle the next macro black swan event.
17:46 And those unfortunately can break a lot of people
17:49 or companies, but can shape a lot of people and companies.
17:51 And I think the Pat Flynn story of '08 is so valuable,
17:55 especially, unfortunately, of what I am seeing today
17:58 in today's weird times.
18:00 And so I think that you can teach a lot of people
18:02 with what that past was.
18:04 And a lot of people wanna hear about the Pokemon
18:07 and the stuff that's more important today,
18:10 but going back is important as well.
18:12 - Oh, for sure.
18:12 Before we get into the Pokemon stuff,
18:15 I wrote a book called "Let Go,"
18:17 which was more of a memoir of how I got let go
18:19 from my architecture job.
18:20 - And I've read it, it's a great book.
18:21 - Thank you.
18:22 It's a double meaning because in order to become
18:24 the entrepreneur that I am today,
18:26 I had to let go of who I thought I was supposed to be.
18:29 There's this thing called sunk cost fallacy,
18:32 where when you put enough time into something,
18:34 you think that that's what you have to keep doing.
18:35 And I felt that way about architecture.
18:36 I felt that way because I went to school for architecture.
18:38 My parents paid my way through Berkeley
18:41 to become this architect.
18:42 Stepping away from that didn't make sense to me on paper.
18:46 It did not make sense for me
18:48 to try something completely different
18:49 when I had spent all these years doing this.
18:51 But when I got laid off, I was sort of on two ladders.
18:55 I was wanting to climb the corporate ladder
18:57 and still be on that ladder, and I was sort of hanging on.
19:00 But then here was this new ladder,
19:01 and I was on both ladders.
19:02 And if you imagine yourself straddling both ladders,
19:04 how easy is it to climb any of those ladders?
19:06 - Yeah, it's gonna--
19:07 - It's gonna, yeah, it's gonna be weird,
19:09 and you're gonna fall and hurt yourself.
19:12 So I had to let go of the architecture career ladder
19:17 that I had to fully embrace and put all my strength
19:21 into climbing this new ladder.
19:23 And this new ladder, the entrepreneurial ladder,
19:25 was much taller, much higher, a little scarier,
19:29 but I could climb a lot higher
19:31 'cause I didn't have those ceilings holding me back
19:33 from the growth that I didn't even know I had in myself.
19:36 - But when you got laid off, and I've never asked you this,
19:38 did you apply for other architecture jobs
19:40 while you were doing the LEED certification website?
19:43 - I did.
19:44 - Did you go on any interviews?
19:45 - I did.
19:45 - Did you get offered a job?
19:47 - I did not, thankfully.
19:48 I would've taken it.
19:49 - I was gonna ask you if you--
19:50 - 100% I would've taken it.
19:51 - And you'd be an architect today, probably?
19:53 - Probably, yeah, I interviewed,
19:55 I moved back in with my parents.
19:57 I was living in Irvine, California.
19:59 Both my fiance and I moved back in with our parents
20:01 who both live in San Diego.
20:03 And I was living out of my high school,
20:06 middle school bedroom making this work,
20:09 trying to make it work.
20:10 But I was still going into interviews
20:13 around architects in the San Diego area
20:16 because I did not believe that I was supposed
20:17 to go down this new path.
20:19 I was hanging on to the thing
20:21 that I was most comfortable with.
20:23 But as we all know now,
20:25 growth comes from outside of the comfort zone.
20:27 And I'm so grateful that I wasn't,
20:29 like I must've failed a CAD test or something
20:33 because I had to go in and do some sample CAD drawings
20:36 and I guess they didn't impress, thankfully,
20:39 because nobody ever called me back.
20:41 And I'm grateful for that because that's when I went all in.
20:44 Actually, when I went all in was actually a year later
20:47 when I stopped worrying about the architecture thing.
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21:42 - So about nine, 10 months later,
21:51 my boss called me back, the one who let me go,
21:55 and he was calling to check up on me.
21:57 He's like, "Pat, how are you doing?
21:58 "Are you okay?
21:59 "Hopefully you're surviving the recession."
22:01 And I said, "Man, I started this new thing,
22:03 "and it's going really well."
22:05 And I don't think he was hearing me
22:06 because the next thing he said was,
22:08 "Pat, I wanna offer you a job again, a job back."
22:11 So he removed himself from the firm.
22:13 He took a couple of my friends and coworkers
22:16 to start up a firm, and they were working with one client,
22:18 but it was a client that I was mostly on
22:21 when I was in architecture.
22:22 And they were gonna start up a new thing.
22:24 And he had offered me more pay.
22:28 He had offered me a bonus,
22:29 and he even offered to pay for a year's rent for me
22:32 to come back to Irvine and work with him in an office
22:35 with two of my coworkers.
22:37 And I did not hesitate to say thanks, but no thanks.
22:42 It was a split-second decision.
22:46 And then I hung up, and I was like,
22:48 "Wow, I really just said no
22:49 "to what would have been an amazing opportunity.
22:53 "Why did I not even think about that?"
22:55 And it's because I couldn't imagine going back
22:58 when I saw, even just got a taste of what it was like
23:01 to be my own boss and see,
23:03 and it wasn't just about the revenue either.
23:04 It was about the fact that that revenue was coming in
23:06 while I was getting these incredible thank-you notes
23:09 from the people I was helping.
23:11 Because I have my fingerprint
23:13 on several buildings around the US,
23:14 mostly P.F. Chang's and Yard Houses,
23:16 'cause I was in the restaurant division,
23:17 some gaps in Apple Stores too.
23:19 But anyway, those were the projects I was working on.
23:20 Nobody will ever know that.
23:22 I mean, you're the only people to know that
23:24 because I just said it.
23:24 - Next time I eat at P.F. Chang's,
23:25 I'm gonna think of you though.
23:27 - Pat Flynn Chang's, P.F. Chang's.
23:29 - Yes, yeah, there you go.
23:30 - No, I don't know, I just made that up.
23:31 - Yeah, I like it.
23:32 - But with the LEAD exam,
23:36 an exam that most people don't know about,
23:38 when a person would pass their exam
23:40 because of the help that I have offered,
23:42 I mean, people were sending me life stories
23:45 about how passing that exam got them this promotion
23:48 and allowed them to take a vacation with their family
23:50 that they weren't able to do before,
23:52 or that they were studying for this exam for two years
23:54 and their boss was gonna fire them if they didn't pass,
23:56 they said, but then they were able to finally do it.
23:58 Like, I got so much more recognition and thank yous
24:02 and feeling like I was doing something worthwhile,
24:05 helping a little exam in the space
24:07 versus building these giant buildings
24:08 that everybody was gonna use every day.
24:10 And I was like, wow, I can make a bigger impact on my own.
24:13 And so I'm gonna go deep into that, deep impact.
24:15 - Deep impact.
24:16 And did that always drive you?
24:19 - Yeah, right.
24:21 - Was that always something that was very important to you?
24:22 - That is very important to me.
24:24 It's a blessing and a curse, I think,
24:26 and my wife will definitely tell you that.
24:27 So I'm an Enneagram three.
24:28 I don't know if you know the Enneagrams,
24:31 but a three out of the nine on the Enneagram
24:34 is very much somebody who thrives
24:36 when they know that they are helping others.
24:38 And that could be, again, there's,
24:40 for the Enneagram numbers,
24:41 there's a good side and a bad side.
24:43 And so that fuels me, that drives me.
24:47 Knowing that I can be there of service to other people
24:50 is what keeps me moving forward.
24:54 The downside of a three is then,
24:57 do I not feel worthy if I'm not helping people?
25:01 - If you're not getting that outward validation.
25:04 - Right, right.
25:05 And so there's, I mean,
25:07 obviously there's a correlation between that
25:09 and writing books and being a keynote speaker
25:12 and hosting my own events and those kinds of things too.
25:15 But my approach is always coming
25:17 from a place of serving first
25:19 and the by-product will be the thank yous
25:21 and the recognition and the impact that I make.
25:24 And I later realized that I'm making an impact
25:28 even if I never hear that I'm making an impact.
25:31 By putting myself out there,
25:32 I mean, there was a point in 2011, 2012
25:35 when my podcast was up for a year and a half
25:38 and the numbers were starting to get pretty flat, right?
25:41 Plateauing.
25:42 And so I was getting way more attention
25:45 and way more traffic from my blog.
25:48 The podcast was great 'cause I was telling stories,
25:50 people could hear my voice and such,
25:51 but it just, like, I didn't see the results in the numbers.
25:54 And I'm a very numbers-driven person as well.
25:57 So I was like, oh, maybe I should quit the podcast.
25:59 And right before I was gonna give up on the podcast,
26:01 I got an email from a guy in Poland.
26:03 His name was Michal Szafonski.
26:05 And the subject line of this email was,
26:08 "Pat, you saved my life."
26:10 And so I was like, man, this is good.
26:12 It's either really good clickbait
26:13 or this story is gonna mean something.
26:15 And thankfully it was the latter.
26:16 I opened it and he was telling me the story
26:18 that he found my podcast almost as soon
26:19 as I came out with it.
26:21 And it was around that time
26:23 that he had a terrible snowboarding accident.
26:26 He broke both of his legs.
26:27 He included x-rays in the emails
26:28 to show how shattered they were.
26:30 And then he felt like he was a disappointment to his family,
26:32 wasn't able to work anymore.
26:33 His family had to take care of him.
26:34 He had two young daughters.
26:36 And he said that every day he wanted to just give up.
26:41 But after hearing my show, that kept him going.
26:44 And he said that he listened to my podcast every day.
26:46 It wasn't even a daily show.
26:46 So he was listening to episodes over and over again
26:48 to learn business and to be able to do things.
26:51 And he was able to start a business from his bed
26:54 to help people in the finance space as a blogger.
26:57 But he said that in one episode,
26:59 he learned from me that when you set goals for yourself,
27:03 that you wanna set almost impossible goals,
27:05 goals that are seemingly impossible
27:07 because like we were talking about earlier, it pushes you.
27:10 And he decided that with two broken legs
27:12 after one of those episodes,
27:13 that he was gonna run a marathon.
27:15 So he had about a year and a half to rehabilitate himself,
27:20 to learn how to walk again,
27:21 and to train to run a marathon.
27:23 At the very end of this email,
27:24 sorry, I'm just gonna,
27:27 the very end of this email was a picture
27:31 of him crossing the finish line at the Warsaw full marathon,
27:34 26.2 miles, holding up a sign.
27:36 And it was in Polish, so I didn't understand what it said.
27:40 And it said, to translate, thank you, God,
27:44 thank you to his family, and thank you, Pat Flynn.
27:46 - Wow, you just gave me goosebumps.
27:48 - And dude, I was like,
27:50 I never even knew this person existed
27:52 until he sent me this email.
27:54 And the whole time that I had my podcast going,
27:56 he was listening and I was helping him,
27:57 I didn't even realize it, and I wanted to give up.
28:00 So it was that point forward that I knew
28:01 that I never wanted to stop anymore.
28:03 Like that even if I don't get verbal or actual confirmation
28:08 that what I'm doing is helping,
28:10 as long as I pour into those people,
28:12 whether they tell me or not, it is worth doing.
28:14 Several years later, I went to an event and he was there
28:18 and he gifted me that banner.
28:19 So I have that in my house, actually, which is awesome.
28:22 But I'm very grateful for Michal.
28:24 He has since become one of the most highly published authors
28:29 in Poland now.
28:32 He has a book translated to "Financial Ninja"
28:34 is the name of his book, and it's self-published,
28:37 but it outsold every traditional published book
28:40 in personal development and finances in the country.
28:43 Anyway, he's doing really good 'cause he also got
28:46 a lot of content from me to help him with his business.
28:48 So anyway, I tell you that because impact is important,
28:51 but sometimes you don't know the impact you're making.
28:55 So you just have to keep going.
28:56 - Well, I've never taken the test, what'd you call it?
29:01 - The lead exam or? - No.
29:04 - Oh, the Enneagram. - The Enneagram.
29:06 I don't know where I fall on that,
29:07 but one of my earliest mentors, David Meltzer,
29:10 used to have a business principle saying,
29:13 and it was make a lot of money, or excuse me,
29:16 it was help a lot of people have a lot of fun
29:17 and make a lot of money in that order.
29:19 And I believed in that.
29:20 I was like, you know, this is something I can get behind.
29:22 Like help a lot of people, yes.
29:23 Have a lot of fun, yes.
29:24 Make some money, great.
29:26 Later in life, he switched it.
29:28 And he switched it to make a lot of money,
29:31 have a lot of fun and help a lot of people in that order.
29:34 And I didn't like it at first.
29:36 And I said, Dave, why did we switch this?
29:40 Like, are we so big now?
29:41 Like, do we not care?
29:42 And he said, Jeff, if I don't make enough money
29:44 and help myself first, I can't help
29:46 and have the impact I want on more people.
29:49 And as an entrepreneur,
29:51 that was hard for me at first to grasp.
29:54 But then I started to think about it.
29:55 And then, you know, I went to law school.
29:57 I do a lot of analytical thinking.
29:58 And I realized something.
29:59 If you go out into the world today
30:01 and ask a hundred people off the street,
30:03 you win a hundred million dollars in the lottery,
30:05 what's the first thing you're gonna do?
30:06 A huge percentage of them are gonna say,
30:08 I'm gonna buy my mom a house.
30:10 I'm gonna take care of my family.
30:11 I'm gonna take care of my friends.
30:12 They're gonna talk about giving.
30:14 But we don't, because we don't have the resources.
30:16 And I think what Dave was trying to teach me in that,
30:19 or in his own business model,
30:20 but through my learning of that process when I was younger,
30:23 was you have to enable yourself first
30:26 so you can help other people.
30:27 And I think with your podcast,
30:29 you were trying to get that outward validation first,
30:32 but because you were having other success,
30:34 you could keep it going regardless
30:36 and build that sphere to help more people.
30:38 Because if people don't know you,
30:40 they're not gonna listen to you.
30:42 They're not gonna listen to the content you're creating,
30:44 the guests you're gonna bring on.
30:45 You can't have that impact you really wanna have.
30:47 And the me-hows of the world are not gonna get that access.
30:52 And who knows where they are without it?
30:54 And you don't realize the kind of impact and touch
30:57 you can have on people or where it comes from.
31:00 - So true.
31:02 - And I mean, the Mathis twins were on my show
31:05 and they have this saying, and I can't get it out
31:07 of my head, but it's exposure leads to expansion.
31:10 'Cause they grew up in a poor neighborhood
31:12 with no resources, no access to information,
31:15 and no belief system around them that says
31:17 you can be anything you want.
31:19 You know, we grew up okay.
31:20 We grew up in a middle-class family communities
31:24 where our parents weren't really, I don't know yours,
31:26 but entrepreneurial was not something we were taught.
31:29 It was go to graduate school, get a degree,
31:32 and follow the corporate path, right?
31:33 - 100%.
31:35 - But we didn't have, it wasn't struggle bus,
31:38 like for others.
31:39 And the idea that what your show has done for so many
31:42 and what I'm trying to accomplish here
31:44 and what I think is so important
31:45 in the entrepreneurship community is exposing people
31:48 to the belief that it's possible.
31:50 That you can accomplish this if you follow these formulas,
31:53 if you have access to the information and believe
31:56 or take these big steps and make these audacious goals.
31:59 'Cause if you aim for the moon and miss,
32:01 you fall back to earth.
32:03 But if you aim for Mars and miss,
32:04 you can still land on the moon to the 10X, 2X, right?
32:07 And so how do we do that?
32:08 How do we have that impact?
32:10 How do we continue to have the exposure
32:12 to create the opportunities for the me-hows
32:15 around the world to believe in themselves
32:16 and take those steps and have that touch feel
32:19 that you got back, that validation?
32:21 - Yeah.
32:22 And today I think even more important
32:25 is not just the information,
32:27 'cause like you said earlier,
32:28 information is freely available everywhere now.
32:30 And especially now with chat GBT,
32:31 it's even more filtered as it comes through to us,
32:35 which is incredible.
32:36 Like it's a crazy time that we're living in right now.
32:38 But what people are looking for, I found,
32:40 and we actually changed our business model at SPI.
32:43 So at SPI, Smart Passive Income,
32:45 we have since developed online courses
32:47 and we were selling these online courses
32:49 as sort of one-offs and how to podcast,
32:50 how to do email marketing, affiliate marketing,
32:52 webinars, all those kinds of things.
32:55 Our product now is community.
32:57 It's focusing on not just like us talking
33:00 to the audience and the audience talking to us.
33:02 It's having a safe space for the audience
33:05 to connect and talk to each other.
33:07 And to have that happen and to see that the connections
33:11 and the cross-pollination and the random meetings
33:14 that are happening that are all serving that audience,
33:18 even without me there, is freaking amazing.
33:22 And so this is what I advise business owners do now,
33:25 is think about how can you not just create
33:28 educational information or products,
33:30 but how can you create a community around those things
33:32 of like-minded people who share the same goals
33:35 or who have the same problems
33:36 or who are struggling with the same things
33:37 so that they can support each other.
33:39 If you do that, you become essentially
33:44 the facilitator of those interactions
33:46 and it does nothing but heighten your brand
33:47 and increase the amount of support and exposure
33:50 and reach and love for what you're doing.
33:53 So my latest book that came out in 2019
33:55 is called "Superfans."
33:57 - I've also read that.
33:57 - Thank you.
33:58 And I sort of wrote that with the prediction
34:03 that in the future, communities would be
34:05 the most important thing.
34:06 And I think we all know that this is where it's going
34:10 because the human-to-human connection
34:12 is what is always gonna be needed
34:15 for a person to feel like, you know,
34:18 to just feel anything really.
34:19 And so in 2020, during the pandemic,
34:23 I started a new thing with the "Superfans" playbook in mind
34:26 with making people feel like they belong
34:28 to something with common language between that community
34:30 with actually building a community in the Pokemon space.
34:34 And I gotta thank my kids
34:36 'cause my kids got me into Pokemon.
34:38 And then of course, they kind of grew out of it
34:41 and now here I am as a 40-year-old
34:43 now going super deep into it,
34:45 deeper than I ever thought I would.
34:47 You know, when we grew up,
34:48 I grew up with "Magic the Gathering" and--
34:51 - And "Pogs."
34:51 - And "Pogs," oh my gosh, yes.
34:53 Pokemon was a little too young for us at the time.
34:56 I actually worked at a Toys R Us in Miramisa
34:58 and every Saturday I had to come in and set up tables
35:01 so that the kids could come in and play Pokemon
35:02 and I was always like, "Ah, Pokemon, such a kid's game."
35:05 Now here we are.
35:06 But of course, now it's a collectible,
35:10 now it's something people invest in
35:12 and it's still providing a lot of bonding experiences
35:16 between parents and their kids and trading
35:18 and like the cards are still coming out,
35:20 there's the anime, there's all the things around it,
35:22 Pokemon Go.
35:24 So I started this channel called Deep Pocket Monster
35:27 on YouTube in 2020.
35:28 I got really deep into the world of Pokemon and YouTubers
35:31 and found that there were some holes
35:34 and I could come in and tell a better story
35:36 and try to just entertain it in a way
35:38 that's different than what everybody else was doing,
35:40 which was opening packs of cards
35:41 and screaming when they got something cool,
35:43 which was fun, but that's not me.
35:45 I wanna tell a story, I wanna go deep
35:47 and I wanna have some fun doing it.
35:50 Now fast forward today, two and a half years later,
35:53 we're at 650,000 subscribers.
35:56 It's actually more profitable than anything I've ever done
35:59 because it's a small team and the ad revenue from YouTube
36:01 plus the sponsorships and such are just out of this world.
36:06 It's a much bigger audience because it's more entertainment
36:09 versus focused like entrepreneurship,
36:12 but I'm also just having so much fun
36:15 and it's allowing my kids and I to connect.
36:17 Kids are actually employees of my company now,
36:19 they are on payroll.
36:21 - That's also good for tax benefits.
36:23 - That's the primary reason why they came in
36:25 and now they're learning money management
36:27 and I can teach them about investing
36:28 and they have some money to play with and invest,
36:31 but also they're working hard and they're a part
36:34 of the videos and they're helping me with merch
36:36 and those kinds of things, so it's pretty cool.
36:38 And now we're bonding over that, it's just really fun.
36:42 I hosted an event in Anaheim about a month ago
36:47 and we had 2,500 people come to a first year event
36:50 with zero marketing spend because I set up the event
36:54 in a way that just brought the community together
36:56 to have fun and it's called Card Party.
36:59 It's not a convention, it's not a expo, it's a party.
37:02 Like let's just have fun and celebrate this thing
37:05 where on the outside we all look like nerds
37:07 and people are like, why are you playing with that?
37:10 This is the space for all of us to come together
37:11 and not get any of that, we can all relate to each other.
37:14 And then it was like kids, adults, YouTubers,
37:17 brands coming together and we just had such a blast
37:20 for two and a half days and we're definitely
37:21 gonna do another one.
37:22 We've already sold I think a few hundred tickets
37:24 and we don't even know where it's gonna happen yet.
37:26 People want it in and it's because community is so strong
37:29 and it's needed and I know how to build community.
37:33 It's just been so fun, but yeah, the Pokemon thing
37:36 has been a, when people hear that I do that now,
37:38 actually what's really funny is parents will come to me
37:41 and they say, Pat, I listened to your podcast for years.
37:45 I heard my son watching YouTube and I heard your voice
37:50 and I was just tripping out and I watched it
37:53 and you were opening Pokemon cards
37:54 and now my son watches you for something
37:56 completely different.
37:57 But it's funny 'cause I also inject a lot
37:59 of what I've learned in entrepreneurship
38:01 into that content as well.
38:03 When I talk about collecting cards,
38:07 yes, we can get drawn to this and that and this,
38:09 but if you niche down your collection,
38:11 you're gonna be a lot more satisfied with your progress,
38:14 you'll spend less money, there's less resources
38:17 that you need to worry about, so the riches are in the
38:19 niches, I always talk about that in business
38:20 and I talk about it in collecting as well.
38:22 I bring a lot of my life philosophies into my live streams.
38:26 When I live stream every week, I get about four to 5,000
38:29 people watching me open Pokemon cards live.
38:32 - That's fun.
38:33 - It's fun and crazy and ridiculous and it's awesome
38:36 and it's like kids and families at home
38:39 with popcorn watching.
38:40 I got to meet those families recently
38:43 and they just have a good time bonding together
38:45 over Pokemon and I got a lot of thanks
38:48 because I keep it family friendly.
38:49 The parents are okay letting me be on their iPads
38:53 at home and stuff.
38:54 - Which is a big step.
38:55 - Yeah.
38:56 - Especially for parents because there's not a lot of
39:01 entrepreneurs that can toe both lines,
39:03 that can speak to the grownups and still connect
39:04 with their children and bridge that generation gap.
39:07 - Yeah.
39:08 - Which is Pokemon, go Pokemon.
39:11 - Pokemon, Pokemon baby.
39:12 - Yeah, I mean there is a little bit of a skill there,
39:14 I know and I think because I'm just a big kid at heart,
39:17 I can toe that line very well.
39:19 It's very similar to why Bluey is such a big show right now.
39:22 It caters to both kids but then there's adult themes
39:25 and joke, not adult themes but jokes in there
39:27 for adults that only adults would get.
39:28 I do the same thing in my content as well.
39:30 - Simpsons used to do that well.
39:31 - Yeah, that's right.
39:33 - Simpsons was a very good example of adult humor
39:35 but so complicated that kids don't get it
39:39 and it's tailored to kids.
39:40 - Yeah.
39:41 - So I try to do that.
39:42 Anyway, I'm just having a blast creating content
39:44 for a different audience.
39:45 And it's funny 'cause a lot of the Pokemon audience now
39:47 goes like how are you able to afford all this,
39:50 how are you able to give this all away?
39:52 'Cause I take a little bit of a Mr. Beast approach
39:54 to a lot of this where I'll buy some collections or cards
39:59 and just give them away on stream and that grows my channel
40:01 which helps me generate more revenue,
40:03 which helps me buy more cards to give away
40:05 and it just keeps stacking.
40:07 But a lot of those people, they dig a little bit deeper
40:09 and they find my other channel and they find my podcast
40:12 and now many of them are students which is cool
40:14 and even kids who wanna learn how to start a podcast.
40:16 I have a course on how to start a YouTube channel
40:18 and a lot of those people from the Pokemon,
40:20 I mean it's proven, I know what I'm doing.
40:22 And so they go to my courses and I don't even have
40:25 to sell it, they ask for it which is the coolest thing.
40:29 - Because you're giving value, you're not selling
40:32 because there's no reason to sell.
40:33 You have what people want.
40:35 You have a formula that they can follow and get results.
40:39 And that is the best way, when I used to make my living
40:42 selling, it was solution-based selling.
40:44 You were providing solutions.
40:46 You're not selling me a product or service hoping
40:48 to just get my money because that's the end
40:50 of the transaction.
40:51 You're providing me a solution to a problem.
40:53 And all I have to do is invest in that solution
40:56 to solve my problem.
40:58 I'll do that all day.
40:58 - Oh exactly, it's the difference between somebody
41:00 knocking on your door and saying,
41:01 hey, do you need this vacuum?
41:03 I don't need the vacuum.
41:04 Well, this vacuum's great though, it's better
41:06 than your current vacuum.
41:07 - It's not a problem for me right now, right?
41:09 Versus I have bugs in the house,
41:12 just please give me a spray that I can use right now
41:16 to eradicate all this.
41:17 - Solution-based selling is the only, in my opinion,
41:20 the only way to sell products and services.
41:22 It's the secret to--
41:24 - If you wanna go to bed at night.
41:25 - And if you wanna make a lot of money long-term.
41:27 - Oh yeah.
41:28 - And not be a used car salesman that no one wants
41:30 to interact with and feel icky about it.
41:32 So I have a question for you.
41:34 Hey there, it's your host Jeff Fenster
41:36 and I have something very exciting to share with you today.
41:39 You know, here on the Jeff Fenster Show,
41:41 we're all about growth, both personally and professionally.
41:44 Speaking of growth, have you ever heard of Everbowl?
41:47 As the proud founder of Everbowl, I can tell you firsthand
41:49 that we're on a mission to help everyone unevolve,
41:52 to live actively and eat stuff that's been around forever.
41:56 Imagine stepping back into a world
41:58 where everything you eat is fresh, nourishing,
42:00 and packed with nutrients.
42:02 At Everbowl, we've got you covered
42:04 with our wide range of superfood bowls.
42:06 But it's not just about the food.
42:08 It's about a community of like-minded individuals
42:11 who are determined to embrace a vibrant,
42:12 fulfilling lifestyle.
42:14 Join us on this journey as we redefine what it means
42:17 to be healthy and active.
42:18 So if you're ready to unevolve
42:20 and be the best version of yourself,
42:21 head over to everbowl.com and check out our menu.
42:24 And I ask a lot of people this.
42:28 Describe to me what the word entrepreneur means to you.
42:34 - A person who tries to figure it out
42:37 for the benefit of others.
42:38 And as a byproduct, happens to make some money.
42:41 But the entrepreneur is the person who's gonna step up
42:43 to figure out how to solve that problem.
42:46 They're gonna get creative.
42:48 They might not know exactly
42:50 how they're gonna solve that problem,
42:51 but they know that they just need to keep going
42:53 to make it happen.
42:54 And I think you've done that in a way with Everbowl,
42:57 in a brilliant way where you had never been
42:59 in an industry like this before,
43:00 but you figured it out.
43:02 And you figured it out as you went.
43:04 And not only did you figure it out,
43:06 you figured out ways to make it more efficient
43:08 and make it even better.
43:10 I mean, you can go up the chain to Elon Musk.
43:12 How are we gonna create an electric vehicle
43:14 that actually is designed in a way
43:17 that everybody will want it
43:18 and is still fast and efficient?
43:20 I don't know, but he figured it out.
43:22 And he went back down to first principles
43:23 to determine are these rules that we're saying about cars
43:26 still actually true or not?
43:28 And he just redesigned from the ground up.
43:30 He figured it out.
43:31 So an entrepreneur figures it out
43:32 for the benefit of others
43:34 and happens to make some money along the way.
43:36 - Do you think everyone should be an entrepreneur?
43:39 - I think everybody should learn the skills
43:42 that an entrepreneur would use.
43:45 Whether that means they should be an entrepreneur or not,
43:48 that's gonna be a choice
43:49 that they'll have to make on their own.
43:50 Like I can't speak for anybody else.
43:52 You'll have to determine that on your own
43:53 because you can still be incredibly useful, helpful.
43:57 You can still be happy as an employee.
44:01 But when you learn the skills of entrepreneurship,
44:03 such as how to figure things out,
44:05 how to communicate your ideas,
44:08 I mean, those are skills that every employee should have.
44:12 - You'll make more as an employee having those skills.
44:14 - Oh, exactly.
44:15 You'll go up the ladder much faster, for sure.
44:17 So whether you should break free
44:21 from what it is you're doing to start your own thing
44:23 is gonna be up to you and your own circumstances.
44:26 So I can't tell you if that's what you should do or not
44:28 'cause only you know that.
44:30 But you should learn the skills
44:32 that an entrepreneur uses to succeed
44:33 'cause those skills are applicable everywhere.
44:36 - I love it.
44:38 I get asked that question a bunch from young college kids
44:41 that are trying to figure it out
44:43 and they are trying to force entrepreneurship.
44:45 And I try to explain to them,
44:46 everyone should be entrepreneurial-minded.
44:47 - Okay, so same answer.
44:48 - Same, similar answer.
44:49 - Actually, you said it much shorter and better than I did.
44:52 - It's my question.
44:53 - Yeah, that's true.
44:55 - Do you have your core values defined?
45:00 - Perhaps not as well-defined as you,
45:02 but I know inherently why I do what I do
45:05 and what I want to happen.
45:07 And serve first is the most important thing.
45:11 Own up to your mistakes is another important thing.
45:14 I think that comes from how I was parented,
45:19 where my parents, I love them,
45:23 but they never admitted when they were wrong.
45:25 And for me and my wife,
45:26 we always are very quick to admit
45:28 when we make a mistake to our kids
45:29 'cause we want them to know that we're not perfect,
45:32 but we're still for them
45:33 and we are there to care for them
45:34 and we're gonna be there no matter what.
45:36 And that it's okay for them to make mistakes too.
45:38 I grew up in a household where I had to be perfect.
45:40 I had a 4.3 grade point average out of scripts
45:44 and still was not valedictorian even with a 4.3.
45:47 Our class was very competitive.
45:49 - You were close though.
45:50 - It's close, Marnie.
45:51 And have you followed up with Marnie at all?
45:56 - Not recently.
45:57 She's like the district attorney of San Diego
46:02 or something like that.
46:04 - Wow.
46:05 - Yeah, she's very successful.
46:06 - You know, I didn't go to our reunion.
46:07 - I know.
46:08 - I was supposed to and I was out of town
46:10 and I regretted it.
46:11 - 20 year maybe coming up?
46:15 - Is it 20 years?
46:16 No, we just--
46:17 - 15?
46:17 - We just had the 20.
46:18 - How old are we?
46:19 Do we already have our 20?
46:20 - Yeah, that's the one I missed.
46:21 - Oh my God.
46:22 - I saw the invitation and I got hit up
46:25 and I was like, you know what, I'll actually go to it.
46:27 And I say that, that sounded bad.
46:29 I'll actually go to it, not because I'm too good for it,
46:31 but I was like thinking about it.
46:32 I'm like, social media kind of ruined
46:35 the whole premise of reunions.
46:37 - I agree with that.
46:38 - 'Cause I can see everybody.
46:39 - You're still in connection with them.
46:40 - Like even people I haven't talked to in 10 years,
46:42 I still see them on social media 'cause we're connected
46:44 and I know their children's faces.
46:47 - Yeah.
46:48 - I haven't had a conversation in a decade,
46:50 but I kind of like, what am,
46:52 so I, but I was like, you know what, it's in San Diego.
46:54 I'm gonna be in town or I was supposed to be in town.
46:56 And I was like, I'm gonna go.
46:58 And then I ended up leaving town for an event and I missed it.
47:01 But I think you were there.
47:02 - I was there.
47:03 Marnie, who I was talking about,
47:05 one of her powers as district attorney,
47:07 she gets to create like, like today is officially this day.
47:12 Like she gets to actually coin that day in San Diego.
47:14 So she made that day,
47:16 I think it was October something that year.
47:19 Like every, every time that day,
47:22 like officially the Scripps Ranch High School
47:24 class of 2001 day.
47:25 Like she, she officially made--
47:27 - We have our own day.
47:28 - We have our own day, which--
47:29 - Marnie, thank you.
47:31 - Like, it's just awesome.
47:33 And doesn't really mean anything, but it's kind of special.
47:37 - No, it's very special.
47:38 - You know, and you should have gone
47:39 and we'll make sure you're at the next one.
47:41 - I will be at the next one.
47:42 - Yeah, or why do we have to wait to a reunion
47:44 to like come together?
47:45 Can't we all just like--
47:46 - You know, I'm talking to Mr. Community.
47:48 - Well, I don't, yeah.
47:50 - Maybe, yeah.
47:51 - Who's in charge of the, like May is in charge of it.
47:54 She was, she's, she should be in charge of it.
47:56 She's good at that.
47:57 - She's great.
47:58 No, but she's been busy playing super mom actually.
48:01 But yeah, sorry, I got way off track.
48:04 - Yeah.
48:05 - Where do you want to go from here?
48:06 - Well, my other question for you actually is,
48:08 is if you had to start over today,
48:10 pretend all the wealth, all the businesses,
48:14 all your exposure, no one knew your name.
48:17 You didn't have, you didn't have the podcast
48:19 instead of 2008, it's 2023,
48:21 but you have the knowledge that you have today
48:23 and you had to start today in today's world
48:25 where blogs don't have the same impact.
48:28 There's much more saturation in the podcast space.
48:31 Social media, personal branding world
48:33 is much tougher to penetrate through.
48:36 What would you do first?
48:38 - I would find a problem that I am interested in solving
48:43 that I could obsess over trying to figure out how to solve.
48:46 Find a person, potentially somebody
48:49 who already has some sort of following
48:50 and just literally pour everything I can
48:53 to help them get what they want.
48:55 'Cause as Zig Ziglar says,
48:57 you can get anything in life you want
49:00 so long as you help other people get what they want.
49:02 - That's one of my favorite quotes.
49:03 - Mine too.
49:04 - From my book.
49:05 - So I'm gonna figure that out.
49:06 What does this person want?
49:08 I'm gonna help them get that.
49:09 And I'm gonna do it in a way that's non-transactional.
49:14 Hey, if I do this for you, can you do this for me?
49:16 No, no, no.
49:17 You just give, you just do what you can for that person
49:20 and let the universe take care of the rest, right?
49:24 And even if that person doesn't give you anything back,
49:26 you're learning, you're understanding,
49:28 you can find the next person, the next person.
49:29 All of a sudden, you start to build
49:31 a little bit of an expertise.
49:32 Now I'm gonna start a YouTube channel.
49:33 I'm gonna start talking about the people that I'm helping
49:35 and how I'm helping them and the things I'm discovering,
49:38 the new ways that we can all consider
49:40 the things around this niche.
49:44 And just be patient.
49:47 I think something Gary V talks about a lot
49:49 is micro hustle, macro patience.
49:53 So on the micro, on the daily,
49:55 hustling, trying to figure things out,
49:57 creating content, experimenting, seeing what works,
49:59 see what doesn't, trying to help people.
50:01 But on the macro, being patient with those results
50:04 coming in and having things change
50:06 because those things can take sometimes time
50:09 and it can feel like nothing.
50:11 And then all of a sudden, boom, it just starts to take off.
50:14 And a lot of people, unfortunately,
50:16 seem to quit right before that inflection point,
50:18 right before that hockey stick curves.
50:20 They quit right before.
50:21 And you gotta stay patient and you gotta keep going.
50:26 And when you keep going,
50:27 knowing that you're gonna keep going,
50:29 coming from a place of service,
50:30 then you kind of have nothing to lose,
50:32 like only so much to gain.
50:34 So that's kind of the approach that I would take today.
50:38 - I mean, I think that's brilliant,
50:39 especially for all the college kids
50:40 graduating into today's ecosystem and today's environment
50:43 where AI is replacing a lot of the entry-level jobs
50:46 that used to be available to them,
50:48 or at least the thinking that it's going to replace
50:50 those entry-level jobs.
50:51 And I think it's a matter of when, not if.
50:54 But as I try to say, someone has to enter those prompts.
50:58 Someone has to control the AI.
51:00 Someone has to be thinking about how to use AI
51:02 to make their job more efficient.
51:05 And I can assure you, and I'm sure you feel the same way,
51:07 but if someone who works for me came to me and said,
51:08 "I just figured out all this technology
51:10 "to automate 80% of what I do here,"
51:13 that's not gonna make them replaceable.
51:14 That makes them irreplaceable
51:16 'cause they're thinking about organization first, serving,
51:19 leading with value for the company,
51:21 the good and betterment of the team.
51:23 Instead of throwing people at the problem,
51:24 they're throwing technology and modern-day thinking,
51:28 which to me is part of what entrepreneurship's all about.
51:31 - Yeah.
51:32 - But Pat, I wanna thank you for coming on, man.
51:34 This was-- - This was super fun.
51:36 - Yeah, this was fun.
51:37 Getting you in studio, getting you to speak to the audience.
51:39 I mean, we have different audiences.
51:41 Yours is much more already established entrepreneurs,
51:44 but I have a huge audience of college-aged young adults
51:47 that are trying to find their way.
51:48 And something I always try to explain is
51:50 I'm an ordinary guy that figured out
51:51 what extra stuff to do to get extraordinary results,
51:54 and it's formulaic.
51:55 It's doable by everybody.
51:57 I didn't have a 4.3 at Scripps High.
51:59 3.6, seven, 3.67.
52:02 But we grew up similarly,
52:05 and we approached the world differently
52:07 and came from different walks,
52:08 but it can be accomplished,
52:10 regardless of the fact that we weren't trust fund kids
52:13 that had all the opportunity,
52:14 and we weren't coming off the street
52:15 having to fight our way there.
52:17 We are that middle of the road group,
52:18 and on all fringes, there's accessibility and options.
52:22 And picking your brain
52:23 and getting you to speak to them is so valuable.
52:25 So I wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart,
52:27 and it shouldn't take every two and a half,
52:29 three years for us to connect.
52:30 - I mean, we literally live right by each other.
52:33 So let's definitely grab a coffee, beer, whatever.
52:38 - Yeah, and for those of you who don't already follow Pat,
52:42 you absolutely have to.
52:43 As I said, SPI, his podcast
52:46 is one of the foundational podcasts for me.
52:48 It was one of the first three
52:49 I ever listened to religiously.
52:51 You need to follow him.
52:52 He is a wealth of knowledge and information.
52:55 He comes at it from a position and place
52:57 that is accessible and doable.
52:58 You don't have to have all of the wealth already.
53:01 You don't have to have
53:01 all the relationship capital already.
53:03 It is very specific and easy to follow ways to build success.
53:08 Pat, you're an inspiration to many.
53:10 And I wanna thank you.
53:11 - I appreciate it, man.
53:13 - Thank you so much for listening.
53:16 If you're looking to level up your relationship capital game,
53:18 then take a minute and text the word JEFF to 33777
53:23 for a free copy of my Network to Millions playbook.
53:27 The link will also be provided in the show notes below.
53:29 See you guys next time.
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