Scott Clary (3:28)

Pat, I'm excited to do this. One of my favorite ideas from the book is this. So you write. Information had failed me. I grew up believing that information by itself was valuable. My entire high school and college experience was predicated on the idea that the more you knew about more things, the more successful you'd become. But in 2008, just a few years after graduating architecture school, I was laid off from my dream job. There I was, 25 years old, staring at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, crying out of frustration. I feel like what you went through is what a lot of people experience when the quote unquote traditional system that they thought was going to set them up for success lets them down. So tell me what you were thinking in that moment when information failed you.

Pat Flynn (4:19)

Yeah, for some context. And again, thank you for letting me share this story. It's. It was a roller coaster for sure to get from there to here. But in that moment, after getting laid off from my architecture job, having dedicated my basically entire life to higher education and learning as much as possible to then have to move back in with my parents after having gotten engaged and feeling like I was moving backwards in life, I didn't know what to do. I was desperate. In fact, some of my first moves were to. I mean, I got invited to. I didn't know this, but I got invited to like a Cutco knife presentation and then I ended up in some, some room with a bunch of Amway people. Like, I. You know, desperation comes in when you're just trying to survive and you know Thankfully, I had discovered some good parts of, of the Internet and making money online, and I was able to build a business to get out of that. But in that moment, I mean, I was lost. You know, you feel like everything you had done and put time into was a, was a waste. And you know, there's one thing to be said to, to say like, you know, I wouldn't change anything because I am happy with where I am now. But I mean, honest to God, if I could go back, I would have done more things, taken more action, not learned as much as I did, because it was only by action did I get to where I am today. And so, I mean, I can only imagine how much further ahead I'd be if I knew what I knew.

Scott Clary (5:43)

Now you said something very interesting. I wouldn't have learned as much as I did. So this is sort of the whole thesis behind lean learning. This is like the, this is like the MVP of, of cognitive advancement, right? You just learn enough to, to get the next thing done. Why do we have such an overemphasis on knowledge accumulation?

Pat Flynn (6:08)

I think because we treat knowledge like food, meaning. You come across it like, imagine. I mean, we just aren't evolved to consume the amount of information that we now have access to. Just like, I don't know, caveman days, if you will. If you come across like a fruit tree or bush, like you gather all of it because you might not come across another one. This is like literal, literal survival, right? And then, and then you know, it's valuable to have that because then you can give it to others. Information was once valuable because when you had it and others didn't, you were seen as smarter. You were seen as, as, as higher class. Even if you had a Encyclopedia Britannica in your home, you were considered smarter because you literally could afford it when other people could not. Yet today we all have access to the same information, but we're treating information in the same way. I ran a survey once when I was at a conference and 90% of the audience, like 80 to 90% of the audience were subscribed to more than 10 podcasts, subscribed to more than 10 YouTube channels, and felt compelled to make sure they consume all it. When, how much of that are they actually putting into use? Think about your experience reading a book, even a self help book or an entrepreneurial book. You read all of it and then maybe implement one or two things. And I feel like we need to change the way that we a consume, but also more what we allow ourselves to consume. We're at a buffet line of information now. And not only are we, because we're programmed to fill our plates as high as possible, we are also getting force fed information from algorithms and we're getting information that we didn't even know we needed, which we're not set up for success today. I mean, that's really the point here. Success comes with taking action, with staying and maintaining focus, getting support on that thing that you're saying yes to. However, because we're so integrated into this world with a so much info, but also too much inspiration. And that's kind of like a weird thing to say too, right? Is can you be overly inspired? Absolutely. Because when you're following any everybody on Instagram, you're getting inspired by this person and their strategy and then this person and what they're doing with their life and all of a sudden you're getting pulled in all which ways and even more confused than you were going in. So the whole thing here is just to kind of differentiate the idea between just in case learning, which is what we've all been doing, and just in time learning, still having a Y and a North Star to point to, but only allowing yourself to learn about the next step on that thing that you're doing, trusting that the information will be there for the next step after. And not only will it be there, it'll be even better and more updated by the time you need it. So let's say no to it now so we can say yes to the things we've committed to. And that's pretty much the thesis of this entire thing, based on a lot of my own upbringing and stories since having gotten laid off and trying to discover how to make it in this world.

Scott Clary (8:53)

You know, you bring up something that I've never even thought about but traditional education. Most entrepreneurs can rip on traditional education all day long and they're going to say, well, you know, I didn't use my MBA when I built my business or you know, a lot of the stuff that I learned wasn't useful. And maybe if you go to an Ivy League school, you're going to get some networking advantages. But outside of that, what are you really doing spending 100 grand on your undergraduate degree or whatever you spent on it. But you're bringing up something that is like a little bit more nefarious and slightly scary, which is traditional education and the way that our parents operated and our grandparents operated. It's training you to need as much information as possible. It's training you to just accumulate and accumulate and accumulate this just in case information. So if you go through this traditional education system, which many people still do nothing, whatever. I don't know if you have opinions on that. I can have opinions on it.

Pat Flynn (9:56)

Well, I have several for sure. I mean, but you see what I'm saying, right?

Scott Clary (9:59)

Like it's teaching, it's screwing you. It's. It's not helping you, but it's also screwing you up at the same time.

Pat Flynn (10:04)

Correct. And it's not teaching us the way we should learn. How do we learn? We read a textbook that might not even have any context to anything we care about and then take a test on it. And if we fail it, it means we're. We're bad. Right? The whole, the whole, like, you know, you got to get A's in order to progress in this world. No, you have to make mistakes so that you can figure out who you are, what you like and what direction to go. This is, this is the whole thing. And you know, education is great. I love the schools that I went to and I was so lucky to have great teachers. I mean, the teachers deserve more pay. We need higher level and higher class teachers too. However, I will say that we are not set up to really find success in the education system we have now. There is a story in the book in the beginning that you might remember about my kids, preschool, class and some different ways they're approaching things in real life. How they were able to kind of solve a real life problem right then and there and how much that might change a person's life to consider that. Right. And I want to teach my kids. I have two kids, 15 and 12. I don't necessarily want them to become entrepreneurs. They can if they want to be. I want to give them options, but I want them to think like an entrepreneur, to understand that life and progress in life is about problem solving and helping others. That oftentimes you cannot do it alone. You need to collab with other people who have skill sets that complement yours. You need to learn how to communicate and present your ideas. Even if you're an employee, you still need to know how to do that, as well as the importance of personal branding and understanding your missions and values and who you are. We don't learn any of this stuff in school. Right. Let alone financial related things which are also important that they don't teach in school. Learning how to be empathetic, learning interpersonal skills and communication. I mean, that should be what they do in the beginning. And then you kind of find your way into the thing. I mean, Think about how people were educated. Back before the education system was the way it was. Today it was more of an apprentice model. You find somebody who's doing some cool stuff and you, you work with them to learn from them and you, you, you know, you might, you know, burn your hand a little bit on that blacksmith thing. I don't know the terminology, the blacksmith thing. And, and then you go, okay, I'm not going to do that again. And then the person who's guiding you, who mentor, who's mentoring you, kind of shows you how to do it better. And then you become a master of it because that's who you are. And then you can then pass that on to somebody else and teach others. And that makes your experience with it more fulfilling. We lost that. And I think there's a reason to get back into that and, you know, mold what we have today with what was once successful before. And, you know, there are bigger levels and higher goals with this book, but I really just want it to be a conversation starter for the public and the world in general. But even for the individual listening to this and reading this book, to slow down and consider, okay, what am I doing? And is it aligned with where I want to go? And am I giving myself the best chance, am I placing the best bet forward to actually make this work? Because we're, we're working against the way the world is today and we have to kind of unlock our, like, unplug from the matrix, if you will, a thousand percent.

Scott Clary (13:10)

I think that a lot of people are like, both you and me, we live in this world where we assume that, you know, self education and taking action and execution and breaking shit and figuring it out. And like, we assume that these things are such common ideas, but they're not. They're, they're very much not. Like most of our friends are living the same lives as us, but the majority of people, they just assume that, you know, we'll do what my parents did. And then on top of that, they find out that if they do what their parents did, this is a waking up moment that I had early in my life. If I replicate the exact steps that my parents took, my life would be worse than theirs. Because now cost of living has gone up. I can't buy a detached home when I'm 20 years old. Like, the salaries are not keeping up with what it costs to live in the city that I was in. So like, okay, so I got to figure out another way. That was my wake up call. I don't know if everybody has this wake up call, I think the people, I think if you look at this is a total aside, but people are having families later, people are not buying homes, people are renting as opposed to owning. Anxiety, depression, like all of it is, it's just bad. It's bad across the board because people are not thinking differently. And this is sort of the wake up call to think differently, in my opinion at least.

Pat Flynn (14:20)

And good for you to think ahead about that. And you're like, is this where I want my life to go? For me, I was just in automation mode, right? I had gotten good grades, I went to a good college, went and got a great job and was planning my 401k. Like my whole life was planned ahead. And I didn't really stop to think about is like, is this really what I want to do? Because I was set in motion from my past and my parents and society. And yeah, like, honest to God, if I didn't get laid off, I would probably still be doing architecture and you know, I would hope to be happy still, but I would definitely not have the time, freedom and the ability to do what I want, when I want, with who I want. And that to me is the ultimate freedom that I have today because I've been able to build these businesses and learn quickly. That is, that is the skill that I feel like is going to be most valuable in the future because things change so fast the more quickly you can learn and acquire new skills and knowledge to then apply, not just for the sake of learning, not just for trivia night at the bar, but because you want to actually do something that's going to be the skill that matters. Because AI is coming, it's here, it's leveling the playing field for everybody. And just like information and that kind of knowledge. So it is the knowledge put to use as well as the humanness of all of this that is going to help us stand out and find that joy and provide more value in the world as things become more automated and.

Scott Clary (15:38)

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Pat Flynn (20:14)

I mean, it was definitely a survival thing. It was like I couldn't help but take this action that I wouldn't have taken otherwise because I was starting a family, wanted to get out of the house and there was something at stake. Right. And this is where in the book I talk about the importance of putting yourself in a, in a little bit of heightened position outside of your comfort zone, a little bit of heightened pressure. I call that a voluntary force function. There's many other cases where I've purposefully put myself in a situation to learn and to do and not give myself time to outthink or overwhelm myself. But I just had to take the action. Like when I learned how to speak on stage or when I learned how to fish with a jig versus all these other, like there's so many different examples. But going back to when I first started, I mean, you're right, I didn't take action right away because I was like, okay, I need to do what I did when I became an architect. I need to school myself and learn everything I can about this thing called entrepreneurship before I take any action. So I bought all the books, I went to Barnes and Noble. I read everything. I started consuming podcasts that were out there and again, doing what exactly, I'm saying not to do now, but I eventually found a podcast, a one that I connected with. I connected with the hosts. In fact. It was. It was believing now what was possible. That was the first step, believing that it was possible. And it was through another example. I listened to a podcast called Internet Business Mastery. It was the only one I could find that seemed sort of trustworthy around that age. And there was an episode with a guy named Cornelius Fitchner who was a project manager, and he was teaching people how to be a project manager. And he was making six figures a year, helping people pass the PMP exam, the project manager exam. And that was the. Oh, my gosh, this is actually possible. Like someone like me who's taken several tasks, tests, as an architect, I could maybe take some information I have and put it online. And that was sort of the first moment of inspiration that was like. That became a passion of mine to try to figure out how to take this knowledge I had and put it online. So again, I fell into the same traps. Let me learn how to build a website from scratch. Let me learn JavaScript and CSS, let me learn marketing, Let me learn all these things, SEO, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I eventually ended up investing in a program that those guys had and that helped me cut out all the noise. I eventually learned this question that I didn't know I was practicing back then, but these guys were sort of embodying it. And this is a question I later received from Tim Ferriss, who helped me in a decision moment of my life. And this question is, if this were easy, what would it look like? And that, oh my gosh, has changed my life because I and many other people who probably listen to the show who are high level achievers, often will want to overcomplicate things and make things harder than they actually need to be. So this program I got was like, hey, here are the minimum tools that you need to build a website, get it up there, and have basic search engine optimization to get your stuff out there. So that's what I did. And I put my knowledge online. And lo and behold, I started to get traffic. And I was like, okay, this was cool. Now I want to make some money. How do I do this? Well, I could start, you know, I could. I could go to school to learn how to do consulting and all this kind of stuff, or I could. At the time, the easiest thing to do was to sell an ebook with this Information. So I was like, okay, that sounds like a good idea. But I didn't even know what an ebook was at the time. This is again 2008. So again, I took a lean learning approach, which is what is the next step only and only learn about that and then figure out the rest later. Because those resources were available. The first thing I knew is I needed to take this information and put it into a book of sorts. If this were easy, what would it look like? I would just have it in Word already. So that's what I did. I didn't worry about formatting it, how to sell it or anything. I just knew that I needed the book or else nothing else would happen. So I just put it in Word. Cool. After that was done, I was so motivated to figure the next step because I was making progress. I was finally seeing something happen, which is oftentimes we don't even get to that point. And then I figured out how to format it. I found the right resources, the right tools to format that book, which I only needed right then and there. And after it was formatted and ready to go, I was like, okay, I need to sell this thing. What do I do? I went to my mentors and the guys who were in that program and they said, okay, here's how you can get a PayPal button on your website. Cool. I did that. Now I need a sales page. How do. How do I build a sales page? I've never done that before. And then I found a resource from again, somebody who had gone down this path before. They said, pat, go check out this book. You can actually check it out at the library if you want or buy it. It's called Moonlighting on the Internet by Yannick Silver. And in the back of the book, there is a Mad Lib style sales page. Don't even read the rest of the book. Even though I was compelled to read all of it because it was exciting and new. Just the last chapter is a Mad Lib style sales page. You can plug in your product there, use that on your website. So that's exactly what I did. Probably the most valuable book I had ever purchased. It was like a $35 book because it turned into hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales after that. And a lot of times we just again overcomplicate so much stuff. That book and that website still continued today. Now, 17 years later, I get. I get income coming in without even having to touch it anymore. Every single month from that website, from some additional work that I did in a high pressure situation. To try and survive in the beginning. That has now continued to reap benefits for me over time. And I've continued to build several businesses like that over time across many different industries.

Scott Clary (25:24)

I love it. This is the perfect example of just in time information. Like that, you lived it. And that's, that's such a powerful idea. I feel like, I feel like I haven't been the perfect proponent of this my entire career, my entire entrepreneurial journey. But I can tell you that when I, when I sort of have realized that everything I want is on the other side of action, I spend way less time learning and way more time doing. And I've actually even listen. There's nothing wrong with podcasts. I can never tell you not to listen to podcasts. I'd be, you know, shooting myself in the foot. But there's a point where you have to stop listening to podcasts and you have to start doing shit. Tim Varys is so good. I love that. If this were easy, what would it look like? Another thing that I think entrepreneurs get in their head about is, or the reason why they accumulate so much knowledge is because they're scared of taking action or they're scared of a negative result. Tim Ferriss has another idea that actually fixes that. It's fear setting, it's understanding what's the worst possible outcome that could ever happen and actually understanding is it likely that it's going to take place. And more often than not, the answer is no. Like, you go to the extreme, right? I'm sure you know this concept, but it's like, okay, if the business doesn't work out and I can't afford rent, you know, the worst, worst worst is I'm homeless, my wife leaves me. That that's never going to happen. And then when you start to realize that the worst case scenario is never really going to happen, then it's a lot easier to take action, which is really what you have to do. We sort of spoken about how just in time information is very different from the way most of us were taught to learn. But if you were going to look back and see how you made the transition from just, just in case information to just in time information. If you're going to give the most useful idea so somebody can start to shift the way that they think and the way that they learn and the way that they do, what would that idea be for somebody that is right now stuck in this knowledge hoarding mode of their life? And again, I mentioned before, like, who listens to this show? It's people that are in businesses are building their first business or their executives. But a lot of executives that listen to this show, they would love to start their thing, but they're scared shitless to do it for a variety of reasons, like we just discussed. So how do you switch your thinking?

Pat Flynn (27:46)

I think thinking about the why behind the draw, to learn so much for everybody, it's different, but in general, it typically comes down to fomo. We don't want to miss out on that next thing that everybody's talking about. And so we get drawn to it. And now we have squirrel syndrome, and we're kind of running all over the place, Right? We have this fear that if by saying no to that thing that's coming across our plate, even though we might not need it right now, that we're going to miss out on something. And just we as humans, we don't want to miss out. We don't want to be left behind or not be a part of the crowd. It's just human nature, whether you know you're doing it or not. So there was a strategy that was put into place a while back called Jomo, that there was even a book, I think, called Jomo, which is Joy of Missing Out. But I don't like that. Like, that's just kidding ourselves. You don't feel joy because you're missing out on stuff. You're just kind of pretending. So I have a different strategy, and that is the joy of opting out by you saying, I see that there, I recognize it. But I'm going to say no, not yet. I'll get to that later. Because this thing I've already said yes to or this project that I'm working on is the thing that I'm focusing on right now. That is what's important to me. It almost re ups the energy to the thing you've already said yes to. And one strategy is to get around that, because you'll still have fomo. Create your own digital shoebox for those things, or maybe an actual shoebox, meaning if you come across something that's not relevant to what it is, you're learning next, put it in a Notion folder, put it in Evernote, put it in a notepad, whatever it might be. Now it's out of your brain, but you still know you could go back to it if you wanted to. 98% of the time, you will never, ever, ever go back to that thing. It's simply a strategy for you to finally move forward into that. Into that thing that you're doing. The second component of making progress is giving yourself time to do this. And there's a strategy in the book I call time blocking. You may have heard of time blocking before. It's where you literally put a block of time in your calendar and you say what you're going to do there, and that's fine. But I want to use time blocking as like a. As like a. A shield. Like, you're literally blocking out other things that could happen during that time and doing everything in your power to within that time. Just focus on that thing to get into that flow state where you're starting to challenge yourself a little bit more and get a little bit deeper into that thing, because you are literally shielding everything else from around that time. And for different people, that means different things. It might mean different asking your secretary or assistant to say, like, hey, for the next two hours, like, no calls. Like, I have to be in here by myself for the next two hours to learn this thing. It might mean asking your spouse or people around the house to just kind of understand that during this time, you're going to be all in on the thing. You're going all in. And however you want to balance that with time, that you are all in with your family as well. That's one important thing I've learned as a parent and husband, as an entrepreneur, is like, I used to blur those lines between personal and business all the time, and it was not fair to either of those parts of my life. And so to compartmentalize and go all in on my family, as much as I'm compartmentalizing and going all into my business, is really key. And to just see those things on the calendar month by month, I can make sure that I'm balancing it as well as I can. One strategy I have for a lot of high performers that if they want to fit in something, but they're also so busy, is similar to how when you receive a paycheck, you pay yourself first, right? You grow your nest egg. You pay yourself first before you pay anybody else or any bills. You take a little chunk out of that and put it into something that grows and grows and grows over time. You could do the same thing with your time on these separate projects or inspirations you have. So perhaps it might mean for a period of time, waking up a little bit earlier. I did that when I was writing the book because I knew that I would not have any distractions before the kids got up and I could just wake up for me before I wake up for somebody else or some other things and tasks that I have to do. And that's really important as well. I mean, I could go on and on and on, Scott, about different strategies. I mean, there's the idea of giving yourself an allocated amount of time to have that focus on one specific thing. Right. You might give yourself. If you're going to experiment with going on YouTube and doing shorts or reels or TikToks, and you're like, okay, I want to give this a shot. Instead of just going like, okay, I'm going to try it for a couple days and see what happens. If nothing happens, then I guess I'm not good. You need to give it a shot. So what I did recently, this was 300 days ago. About 300 days ago, I said, I'm going to experiment on YouTube shorts. I have a Pokemon YouTube channel that's at one and a half million subs.

Scott Clary (32:06)

It's killing it, dude. I saw that. That's incredible.

Pat Flynn (32:09)

It's a separate story, but I decided to start a shorts channel separate from that. Still Pokemon. I open a pack every day, and it's either a good hit or a bad hit. And I just wanted to see if I could get some momentum on the algorithm there. I didn't link to it or mention it at all. And I said, I'm going to do this for 60 days. And if I get to the end of 60 days, I go daily for 60 days, then I've won. It doesn't matter what the results are. I've given it a shot and I'm gonna base my win and my, my, my, my happiness, my joy about this, on the fact that I showed up every day for 60 days and that's gonna be the win. Not if I get a lot of views or not, because you can't always control that, but you can control you showing up every day. And so what happened in the beginning went live daily on, on TikTok. And I also repurposed it for. For shorts and reels. And it would take me like 45 minutes. But I found the time. I woke up a little bit earlier or stayed up a little bit later, started to batch process some of them to do multiple of them in one time or in one sitting. And after 30 days, I only had about 200 or 300 views per video. And old me would have said by then, man, it's been a month. Like, I'm not seeing any momentum here. Like, I'm a failure. I'm bad at this. But I was only halfway through the experiment. 60 days, no matter what, was going to be the win for me. But not only that, I did see improvement in my editing. By putting the reps in, I went from 45 minutes per video to 10. And so even if I moved on to something else, I will have gained some skills and have acquired some ways to get better at other things that would have involved my business and other things that I have going on. Now. Day 35 comes around, one of those videos hits 750,000 views and I'm like, oh my gosh. And all the videos start to surge up. And today that channel that was started just about 300 days ago that I didn't link to from any of my other properties has now just recently crossed cumulatively 2 billion views. We're at 1.6 million subscribers. It is a five figure income on its own from ads and all those kinds of things. It's allowed for opportunities. Like the Detroit Lions football team invited me to come and open a pack on their field. Because they open a pack, their social media guy opens a pack before every game for good luck. He reached out to me and we connected. And I was able to fly out to Detroit and open a pack of Pokemon and get to know people who work for the Detroit Lions and build a relationship with them. And that's just one of many things and people that I've connected with just as a result of showing up, getting the reps in, knowing that it wasn't going to be forever because there was a stopping point. And that's important too. Like nothing else mattered during those 60 days other than the work I was already committed to. I wasn't allowing new projects to insert themselves. This was a. This was like a petri dish that I was able to focus on. And it worked.

Scott Clary (34:55)

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Pat Flynn (38:51)

Thank you.

Scott Clary (38:52)

How do you know what time frame you should give this mini project? Because this is such a powerful idea. But to your point, and everybody listening can apply this idea to the next idea they have or the business they want to build or the side hustle they want to start. But you made a good point. If you had given up after 30 days, you know, you wouldn't have seen any traction. Day 35, I think you said, is when you got that 700,000 plus. So what's the. And. But if you've done it for six months and there was no traction, that would have limited your bandwidth for other opportunities. So what's the perfect balance? What's the way to figure out how long should I give this idea and give it my all and learn the small task? We're going to talk about micro tasks in a second, but learn the things that will actually get me to where I'm competent enough at it so that I can give it a good enough shot. Like how can somebody think through this exercise and apply it to their own thing they want to test out.

Pat Flynn (39:52)

So number one, you, you don't know what you don't know. So it's important to find others who have been successful doing the thing that you're trying to do. A la again, apprentice kind of stuff, mentorship, or even just somebody who's gone down that path before, who on a podcast is sharing that story or on a, in a book or whatever it is. Again, the next thing you're working on, there are resources about that. There are people who've gone down that path before in their own way. And you can avoid those mistakes. You can learn from them as you go and you can even ask, like, how long did it take you until you started to see traction? And you can kind of make a, a guesstimate on how maybe more forward that could be for you because you're not going to make those same mistakes or just on average, what you're seeing a Lot of people. When I started blogging, you know, it became known in the space, because we all talk to each other, that it took about six months to go gain traction. If you were going to gain traction in that space with search engine optimization and the relationships that you were building for some people happened faster. For some people it took a little bit longer, but in general, six months. The most famous story was Darren Rouse, who had the blog pro blogger.net his wife gave him the ultimatum, the deadline. It was like, you have six months to turn this into a business or else you're going to stop. And that was her putting that on him. And of course he did the work. And I think it's, I think it's Parkinson's law or some sort of law where like whatever the amount of time you give yourself, you actually put the time and effort into filling that to at least give it a shot. And so there's, there's no perfect answer to this. I think a lot of it is based on what others have done, but also how much time can you dedicate to it to get to a point where you are comfortable with a decision as to whether persisting with it or pivoting from it into something else? So, yeah, there's no perfect formula, but I think it's going to be just based on experience. And I was like, I'm only going to give it 60 days because I don't think I could do it for more than that and not see results. So if I can't do it in 60 days, then I'll move on to something else and I'm okay with that. That's a rule that I set for myself in the beginning.

Scott Clary (41:45)

No, I think that's a very valid answer. I think you look for, again, people that have done it before, smart look for, just make a smart educated guess and then you take the action. One other idea that's very important that ties into lean learning and you touched on it, but I just want to, I want to expand a little bit is creating voluntary force functions. How do you create voluntary force functions in a way that they are healthy and not so stressful or so potentially life ruining that they're not conducive to. You know what I'm saying? Like voluntary force functions could be quit your job and figure it out, bro. And then all of a sudden you have no money in the mortgage. And so that's an extreme. But how do you, how do you properly set up a voluntary force function that sort of stretches your comfort zone but doesn't obliterate your life, Right?

Pat Flynn (42:31)

And that's the point is to stretch yourself just a little bit, right? You are in your comfort zone. One rung outside of that is where progress can begin to happen. Five to six rungs out of that is danger zone. Right? And so there's, there's a. And that's different for every task and for every person and for every person situation and scenario. So I think it's important to just think about and brainstorm, even use Chad, GBT or clot or something to brainstorm what are, what are 20 higher pressure situations I could put myself in as a entrepreneur looking to get better at speaking. One example of that would be to set a date where you're going to go live and just, just talk to your audience live. And that's a higher pressure situation. It's, it's, you know, what's the worst that can happen? You might fumble your words and maybe embarrass yourself a little bit, but you're not going to lose your entire business because of one live. It might be one rung outside of that. It might be actually getting a date on the calendar where you're going to speak on a stage. And now you're going to have to figure out what you're going to say and how to do it and find the right resources. And this is how I got comfortable speaking on stage. My buddy was putting on an event in 2011 called Fincon. Philip Taylor's his name, and it was his first year. So I wanted to help him out and I wanted to speak even though I always said no because I was definitely afraid. So I said, okay, I'm going to say yes. This is what's going to get me to take the right action. And of course, right after I wiped the sweat off my head after I said yes, I said, oh my gosh, I need to find the right resources. So I didn't go again to old pat traditional learning and read every single book on public speaking, and there are plenty. I asked around again to some people who I knew were speakers. So connections, relationships, important. And I said, what's one resource that you would offer? The one and only resource that you would offer to, to somebody who's brand new to speaking. And like, four of them mentioned a book called Stand and Deliver by Dale Carnegie. So I was like, boom, now I have some direction. I'm going to consume that one book and one book alone. And that one book and one book alone had taught me just the base foundational items that I needed to at least get Comfortable and not embarrass myself. Cool. I got that information, did the rehearsals, did the work, understood who was in the audience. I said to myself, okay, if this were easy, what would it look like? I would share information on stage that people wanted. Okay, who's in the audience and what do they want? Great. They're all bloggers. They want to stand out. Great. I know how to talk about that. That, like, backdoored my way into just at least talking about the things that they wanted to learn about. So that. That helped. And again, fast forward to today. I've spoken in front of 350 different stages and have earned over a million dollars from my speaking fees over the years, which, again, I would have never done if I didn't do that. So to your point, I think laying out different options, seeing what feels just the right comfort zone for you outside that, you know, would be hard. And if you start to feel a little nervous about some of those things, that's a good sign. If you start to go, oh, hell no. That's like, that's idiotic. Then, okay, you could put those aside and then even sharing those with other people. Because especially again, if you have a mentor or guide or a spouse or somebody who knows what you're trying to do and wants to get behind you, they might be able to encourage you to do something that might be a little uncomfortable and help comfort you with whatever dangers might. Might arise. But in general, I mean, now, if I'm doing stuff, if I'm not feeling a little bit uncomfortable, that's when I'm most nervous. That means I'm in comfort zone. That means I'm complacent and not testing myself where there is no growth. And so I actually look to get a little nervous now. And I put myself in these situations. The book itself and the deadline to get the manuscript to the publisher was. It was a big one. And there's other, like, lesser danger zone ones like, like, I talked about fishing earlier. I'm a big fisherman, and I've always wanted to learn how to fish with a jig because you get the best and biggest bass when you fish with a jig. But it's. It's difficult. And every time I go fishing, I'd tie a jig on, I try it, I take a couple casts and just be like, this is foreign to me. I'm going to move on and back to the baits that I'm used to. And so I wasn't doing myself any favors. So one day I took a boat out and I only brought a jig with me. I didn't bring any of those other baits. I was literally forced to. Even though I wanted to. I could, I could only fish with a jig. What was I gonna do? Go back home? No. I want to be out in the water no matter what. So I'm just gonna do it. Got out in the morning, 8:00am practicing with it, trying different retrieves. Nothing's happening. 2:00pm I finally get like a bite. I didn't land the fish, but I got a bite. And oh my gosh, just that bite gave me some inspiration and I like, I felt it like there was an energy to it now. And I ended up fishing to the rest of the evening and I caught two bass and now I use my. This month, my first go to bait. Now I've gotten comfortable with it. I've unlocked that because I forced myself to do nothing but the thing that I really wanted to learn. That was hard. So that's another example that may be relevant to some of you, depending on what you're trying to do, a thousand percent.

Scott Clary (47:19)

Before we, before we move and speak about micro skills, tell me the story about your kid and why we can learn so much from kids and why we, we think we're much smarter than we are.

Pat Flynn (47:29)

Yeah, Ms. Vasilis, she's amazing. And she, it was my preschool teacher for my son and, and this was, you know, years ago. But the story was they were eating lunch in the classroom. This is a brand new school by the way. And all of a sudden there was an ant infestation in the middle of the classroom, by the way. They didn't know that they had basically San Diego is a giant ant hill. Just, just FYI. So the answer to the classroom, they had to eat outside. And it was hot and it was uncomfortable and they weren't going to be able to eat inside ever again. So they took the afternoon curriculum and scrapped it for problem solving. This together with a bunch of preschoolers. So this teacher, she had some business experience which was great and she was able to kind of do a brainstorming session like us entrepreneurs would took out post a. Post it a stack of post it notes and asked everybody in the classroom who had an idea on ways that we could solve this problem. And some ideas were there were not great, like hey, let's just eat chick fil a every day. Like no. And one kid was like, hey, we should just eat the ants. Like that's, that's not gonna be. There's not enough nutrition. But eventually they narrowed it down to one idea which was to build a sunshade out of blankets that they, that like that could get donated by the parents. And I tuned into this with an email that came from Ms. Vasilis that evening that said if, hey parents, if you have any blankets, like can you donate them? And so we did. And then we dropped or dropped off the kids the next day. And when we picked them up kind of early afternoon, we noticed that there were these structures in the courtyard, in the, on the concrete that were next to their dining tables. And these were these sun shades that they had built kind of L shaped sun shades out of PVC pipe that the kids built on their own. And they were so happy. We were all taking pictures in front of them that, that day, almost like they were like celebrities in front of one of those step and repeat patterns at the Oscars. But these were just little kids and that might not seem like a huge deal, but if you think about it, four and five year olds, they experience a problem in real life. They all collaboratively brainstorm and narrow down to one solution and then they build that solution and then they experience the results of that like immediately in a day without having to learn how to be an engineer, without learning all there is to know about how to build structures out of PVC pipe, they just got their hands dirty and did it. This was a safe experiment that they could do. I mean, what a life changing thing for a kid to learn and experience, to be able to be able to do that and all the entrepreneurial type of things that are in and around that and how proud they were to do that. And now they're able to, through those kinds of experiences, tackle anything and realize that if they're bad at something, it doesn't matter. Mean they're terrible and they should walk away from it. Means hey, let's get some help. Let's work through this together. Let's find somebody who's done this before who could guide us through this. Let's solve our problems. And I think that's just the best way to approach life is when you come across something that you need help with to figure it out and work together to do so. And that story really inspired this entire book and always gave me the idea that I wanted to write something about this and change the way that we educate. Again to our point earlier, like, what good is a textbook? Yes, textbooks are great and it's good to understand stuff and history is important. All the baseline foundational educational items should still be there, but there Comes a point where you need to figure out who you are and what you like and get your hands dirty and learn from somebody and figure out who you are through doing. Not just like learning. I mean, how many times do people go to college and choose a major without even really knowing what they want to do in their life?

Scott Clary (50:57)

They're just most of the time, like, myself included.

Pat Flynn (51:00)

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and like, there's all these stories now and you know, of course it's in the news and it's political as well, with the having to pay back these student loans that, that were for, you know, kind of on pause for a while and how upset many people are because of that. And, you know, I'm not going to argue for one way or another, but rather just the, the, the, the surprise to me that so many people are in majors that they didn't even choose themselves. Like, they were just kind of random anyway, we could go deep on that, but I'm not. But yeah, there's a lot here for sure. This isn't just an entrepreneurial book. It's an education book. It's a call for change in this world that we now live in, which is so overwhelming with information, so not in our favor for making progress and moving faster than ever. I mean, the information is not slowing down, it's just actually speeding up.

Scott Clary (51:55)

You speak about micro skills, and when you walk through sort of your entry into entrepreneurship, you walk through sort of the micro skills that you learned that made you successful. First of all, help somebody understand what a micro skill is outside of like the obvious just definition, but help somebody understand what a micro skill is. And also I think the more important idea is how do you identify which micro skills are actually useful versus which ones are wasting your time? Because if you're going to apply this lean learning methodology, the whole goal is to not to waste time, not to overthink, not to learn things that are not serving you right?

Pat Flynn (52:30)

So micro skills are. I talk about it in the book as micro mastery, right? You become the master of the thing that you're doing by actually focusing on the micro. So a lot of athletes do this. Musicians do this instead of trying to get better at a piece by just playing the piece over and over and over and over and over again until it gets better. They take a part of it and they break it down and then they focus on that. Right. A conductor does this with their band. They say, okay, class, let me just hear the trombones in this section at Bar 20. Cool. Okay. Just that one bar alone. Let's try that again and again and again. Okay, let's master that. There's a triplet there that you're all missing. Let's focus on that. Okay. Joey, you play. Okay, you got it. Jana, you play. Like, they break it down and athletes do this when it comes. Like, I know a lot of runners who are like ultra marathon runners, and they don't just go, okay, I'm just gonna run every day and get better. They focus on things. So they might focus for a period of time, like an entire month, on just their breathing, how they're breathing in through their nose only while they're running to increase their endurance in their lungs or running stride. You know, if you were to focus on trying to get better at all of those things at the same time, none of them would get better. So you take a moment of time and say, for this period alone, however many days it might be, or you give yourself, I'm going to focus on this, and I'm going to find the resources about this, and I'm going to talk to other people about this and this alone. Going back to my speaking, I did the same thing. Once I learned I wanted to be a master at this and do this, I started to go into presentations with, okay, what's the one thing I want to focus on on this next talk? I want to focus on my storytelling in this one. Like, yes, it's going to have slides. I'm going to be talking about this information, but I want to tell some good stories within it. So who's telling good stories? Let me watch TED talks and just consider those stories and take notes on them. Let me talk to somebody who is a great storyteller and ask them for tips. Right? This is where I came across Nancy Duarte's book Resonate, which is about the sort of push and pull in a story, the ups and downs and the rollercoaster that brings emotion and connection into it. And these things you learn only because you're focused on those things at a period of time. And then once you learn them, you've become somebody who then now embodies that. And now it's stacking onto the next thing that you learn. So in another talk, I went in and just was like, okay, I have no idea what to do with my hands. I'm just gonna learn about hands, and what do I do and how do I use my hands to emphasize the things that I'm saying or to. And I learned that, you know, the bigger the audience, the bigger and more grandiose your hands have to be, because for the people in the back, it's gonna feel silly, but it's gonna look great and professional. When you express these things or when you kind of close in your hands and kind of bring them tighter to your body, this might be a more vulnerable time in your talk that you're telling a story and you can use your hands again to emphasize and amplify the things you're talking about. Again, I only learn these things by hyper focusing on that and learning about it from people who knew what they were doing. One thing at a time. The same thing happens in our marketing, right? When we, when we hyper focus on certain parts and Micromaster our marketing, it's like, okay, I have a sales funnel. I just want to have a better sales funnel. So I guess I just, I'm just going to keep doing it and try to get better every time. That that's no way to approach something to get better. Break it down. This is how we begin to prioritize by way, we break down the whole process. So, sales funnel, okay, people need to come to the website, then they need to subscribe to the email list. They need to then open those emails, then they need to click on the links in those emails, then they go to the sales page, then they have to click the link on those sales page to then go to the checkout process and then buy and then they get that email. There's like eight steps in that process. Cool. Well, let's Micromaster that. What is a high leverage point? This is the question to ask yourself for priority. What is a high leverage point? If I were to change or improve just one of these things, which one would be like the first domino that kind of knocks down the rest? Oh, okay. Well, I'm going to work on email subject lines and just mastering that, like, down to that level. Because if more people open my emails, more people will see those links, more people will go to the sales page and more people will click. I'll get more customers. And for a month, I'm going to deep dive and go literally, like, I'm going to allow myself to rabbit hole myself into a world of subject lines. And that might sound boring, but I also know it's only for a month. And I also know it's for a good reason. So let me do that. And now I'm looking at subject lines when they come in my inbox. I'm talking to people who are experts in email about subject lines. I am learning about. I'm reading blog posts, I'm listening to podcast Episodes. Not all the podcast episodes, just those episodes alone that are about that. And now I apply it. I experiment, I give myself reps, I give myself a month. I have two emails going out every week. Okay, cool. I'm going to look at the data and see if this stuff actually works. Great. It's working now. It's implemented in a part of our business now. So let's pick the next thing to Micromaster. And of course, with numbers and sales funnels, if you can, you know, double the amount of people opening your emails, you're literally doubling the amount of sales. But you can expand and exponentially grow that by doubling not only the number of people who open those emails, but the number of people who now click on the link in those emails. Cool. So now I need to focus on copywriting and call to actions. Cool. Let me focus on that. So the process goes on and on, and then where you can really scale is you're like, hey, employee, you're our marketing director. You focus on this, have your team focus on some of the other components so we can all grow these things kind of at the same time.

Scott Clary (57:49)

How do you balance this idea for somebody that's very interested in mastery, as I think most people who are listening to this podcast are, they are interested in mastery in all these separate skill sets, but then they read Malcolm Gladwell and they figure they got to put 10,000 hours into something to figure out how it works best. So you know where I'm going with it. But how do you balance these two ideas? Right, so is it a. Is it an MVP mindset that you apply to everything, a lean mindset that you apply to everything? Or are there some things that you should put 10,000 hours in before you really will see the rewards or the return on that thing?

Pat Flynn (58:25)

It's a great question. First of all, I would question, why are you reading Malcolm Gladwell? Not because I. I don't like him. I actually love his books. They're super inspiring. But that's a problem when you have a focus and things you want to do. Are you listening to podcasts in the car? Because you feel like you just have to fill in time that's actually negatively affecting you because now you're getting all these new ideas and thoughts, whereas you could just take action. So that's number one. But let's say you do know about the 10,000 hour thing, and I do agree with that. It takes 10,000 hours to master things. Sure. But that doesn't mean stuff can't happen in hour one, in hour two. An hour 12, an hour 469. Right. Those moments of learning help you and you can see results from them. It's not like you have to wait 10,000 hours and then like a microwave ding, it's done and you can finally start enjoying the thing. You get there and it's a part of the journey as well. Right? And it can happen probably much faster with more focus. You have. Maybe the 10,000 hours comes as a result of just. We have so many other things that we're trying to fit into this life and some of those things should stay and are important, our relationships and whatnot. Of course. But putting aside or saying no, not yet to a few things, to go deeper into something means maybe you just only need to spend a hundred hours and not everything needs. Maybe doesn't even necessarily need or want 10,000 hours. But again, to my point earlier, how can you make hour one valuable and create a result for you? How can you have hour five do that, et cetera?

Scott Clary (59:54)

I think that's, that's. I agree with you. I also think that one, one idea that frustrates me is people focus on, people focus on milestones. And it's so cliche, right? Like enjoy the journey or the, the destination is a journey. But it is so true. For example, I've been doing. So there's about 900 and some episodes of this podcast up. I, I don't think I've done 10,000 hours, but it's definitely changed my life already. Now at the, at the 10,000 hour mark or 10,000 episode mark, I don't even know if Joe Rogan has. Joe Rogan doesn't have 10,000 episodes or JLD doesn't have 10,000 hours, though some.

Pat Flynn (60:35)

Of those episodes are long.

Scott Clary (60:36)

It's very true. But at that point, yes, you are in the 0.001%, but you don't need to live in the 0.001% to have a, to have the thing that you're working on radically impact your life. Like, you have to think about what are we doing this for? Like, for me, this is sort of checking a whole bunch of boxes. I, I would prefer not to work a 9 to 5 anymore. This gives me access to incredible people. I mean, you do this as well. It's a great networking opportunity. It, you know, if you do it for long enough, it'll afford you a great income, a great lifestyle. It's very comfortable. Like I said, I walked five minutes from my house to my studio where I record. So I'm not 10,000 hours in and my life is, you know, significantly better than before I started. And maybe it'll be even. But that's the thing. Like, you don't. You don't have to. You don't have to be a Joe Rogan to enjoy podcasting. You don't have to have a hundred million dollar company to enjoy entrepreneurship. And I also wish that we would set our own. More people should set their own personal North Stars, as opposed to just benchmarking against somebody who, you know, built the next unicorn.

Pat Flynn (61:44)

Don't get me started with that. The, the first question I ask new students when I coach them is like, what, what's your number? Like a million dollars. I want to be. I want to have a seven figure business. That's always the default answer. And then I go, why? Like, well, that means I'll be successful, I'll have enough money. And I'm like, okay, so what do you want to do with this money that you're talking about? You're a seven figure entrepreneur. What do you. What do you. What does that money now give you? And lo and behold, by the end, when we calculate everything, they don't need a million dollars. They don't need a seven figure business. And so then I asked, like, what was it about the seven figure business that was so compelling to you now that you know that you only need $165,000 a year to do what you need to do? Which is a very different business model, by the way. You know, building a seven figure business versus a $165,000 business. I mean, that's. Yeah. Anyway. And the answer usually is like, I don't know. I just felt like that's what success looked like. And then we dive into, well, what does success look like to you? It's more time with the family, all these other things. I'm like, okay, we now have a plan, and we now unplugged you from that matrix again of what everybody else said. I mean, to the point of even just education earlier. It's like, what do you want and where do you want to go? Having a base level of foundation or knowledge is important. However, there comes a point where you need to start having agency for your own life and what you want to do and where you want to go. And that means having control over what enters your brain space and what doesn't. There's so much to be said about that phrase as well in terms of what happens when there are negative people in who come across your life, especially as a creator, people who try to tear you down. And you know, I once learned that, you know, hurt people hurt people. And so I've learned to just have empathy and move on. You know, every second you waste thinking about a hater or troll is the second you're taken away from those who would benefit from your work or who do, who do care about you. And I've gotten into some major funks before because of what one person once said. We have that weird entrepreneur math where one negative comment is greater than a thousand positive comments. And you know, we have to learn our way out of that as well. And hopefully your audience is already learning to do that because that's a big one too.

Scott Clary (63:53)

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And speaking of opportunities, they put together the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning@netSuite.com ScottClary this is the playbook for understanding how to use AI for your business. The guide is free. That is NetSuite.com ScottClary it's tough. I don't think I, no, I'll say with 100% certainty. The entire audience has not learned how to not deal with negativity. I think it's a constant, it's a, it's a constant problem that people have to overcome. I've worked with a lot of people that are very tenured, very successful executives and you know, because of what I do for a living, they ask how do I start a podcast? You know, how do I build a personal brand, what, what content should I post? And they, they do know what they gotta do already, but the second they do it and they could have the most successful career, they could have the, the, the best record, they've had success in the past. Everybody looks up to them and they post content on social and they're just horrified that they're going to be judged that they're going to be ripped down. A good friend, she just started a podcast and first episode did incredible, like one bad email she got back from this podcast and it was actually because it wasn't even because of the podcast, it was because we launched it on a YouTube channel that had a video that she put up 12 years ago which was also a great video, but it was just when she was earlier on in her career and she wasn't as tenured or experienced and somebody just went into her ripping a 12 year old video because she wasn't like, there was nothing negative that she put in the video is just, she wasn't as experienced as what they expected. So they're like, well, you kind of sounded stupid in that video. That was sort of the negative comment. And that's the only thing that came up on the call after we reviewed the podcast launch. That was the one thing that was ingrained in her head. And listen, it's. It's. Creators get exposure to this more. But for people that are, you know, entrepreneurial, starting their own thing, starting their first thing, we can talk about all the lean learning, we can talk about all the. All the micro skills, and we could talk about all the execution. But part of it is mindset. Mindset to execute, but also mindset to deal with pressure. Mindset that you are responsible for your own outcomes, good and bad. And I think that that's a very important thing to just understand before you break out of the matrix, so to speak. Because when you break out of the matrix, nobody's protecting you anymore. And that's a good thing and a scary thing. And just navigating that. Just expect it. I don't know how else to say it. That's. That's all I have on that.

Pat Flynn (68:54)

I know kung fu.

Scott Clary (68:56)

Yeah. One last thought on. On mastery. What. When somebody's learning this micro skill, what is the one thing that they do wrong? When they're learning these skills that will eventually help them with lean learning and execution and entrepreneurship, what's the one thing they do wrong? What's the one misconception that you just need them to stop doing it?

Pat Flynn (69:22)

Is. Again, I mean, there's a few things we've touched on already, but even, even when you get to the micro level, there's a few bad habits that can come back into play. Number one, it's trying to find literally every resource about that thing again and then over overloading yourself. I mean, it's very similar to a couple guys I talk about in the book that you might remember. Terry and George, my two golf friends from architecture. Terry's the guy who had all the golf magazines. He had a subscription to all the golf channels, and he had the putter in his office to practice. Like, he was that kind of guy, right? He wasn't great. He wasn't great at golf because, I mean, how many sources was he getting information from to putt? You should put this way. But then in the next page it was like, no, you should put this way. And so he would just like get confused. Whereas George found a coach, number one. So he got private coaching, but then he would just spend time to do the thing that maybe wasn't the sexiest thing to do, but he knew that if he just did that thing and grinded for that thing for a little bit, that it would just then be something he could move forward from and it would improve his game. And he became a scratch golfer as a result of doing it that way, spending, you know, a week just on how to read greens and learning just about that from his coach with some guidance. Right. Um, so again, that. That. That's a big one. Um, the. The other thing is, again, thinking that you have to be perfect. So a lot of learning feels like progress. It's like a imposter for progress. But progress only happens when you take action. So having a deadline or a date, at least that you will start something. This is why I love teaching podcasting, because it's so easy to get people to do it and then get the results because you say, okay, when's your podcast coming out? I don't know, A few months from now. No, pick a date. Pick a date. Do it. And now, what's your first step? I guess I got to come up with some, like, a concept for the show. All right, I'll see the concept tomorrow. And then they start taking action. And then once they start seeing the concept, Right. They haven't built the show yet, but they can start to imagine it at that point. Right. And I do a lot of exercises like visualization and sort of future tensing, things like, okay, now that your show's available, like, tell me what a perfect review for your show would be like. Now they're talking in future tense. They're thinking about what we would want an audience member to say after listening to. They haven't even recorded an episode yet, but now they're thinking about how they want to approach it. Right. So I think a lot of times we can get super bogged down on, yes, the actions, which are important, but remembering the why is something we often forget when it comes to going so micro and when you can zoom out again every once in a while and consider your why. Your why has become your guidelines, your guidepost, your. Your North Star. And I think that's always important to keep in mind. I have a section in the book where I talk about every month, you know, putting. Putting time aside, literally blocking time in your calendar to do a why. Focused introspection, just to kind of go, are the things that I'm doing now in alignment with where I want things to go? And a lot of times you can catch yourself before it's too late or before you put Too much time into something. I call that a wifi, because if you don't have good WI fi, you're lagging. I don't know. It's like dumb dad jokes that I put in the book. But that's good. But I do that to make them memorable. So now you won't forget. Anyway, that's. That.

Scott Clary (72:32)

That.

Pat Flynn (72:32)

Those are a couple important things with regards to making sure you stick with it. But, you know, see them seeing the light at the end of the tunnel too.

Scott Clary (72:39)

One thing that you speak about in the book, which I'm a big fan of, and I'm fully. We're very much aligned on a lot of the ideas that you. You teach. But the idea is teaching. Teaching as, as a tool to help you learn. Speak to me about why that's so important. But I also just want to give context or advice for people that are earlier on who feel that they can't teach yet and why. In my opinion, I think they're wrong. And I'm sure you would say the same. So, so tell me about teaching. Why is it important for learning? And then also, if you're early on, how do you teach and how do you sort of take advantage of this learning hack, for lack of a better term?

Pat Flynn (73:17)

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. Teaching is definitely the best way to learn. It refines what it is that you're doing. It helps you actually create these frameworks and structures that not only help others, but internalize it for you. This happened when I wrote Lean Learning. I had to extrapolate all these experiences and things I was doing because it was a pattern that I was noticing with the results. So I had to dissect that. And by dissecting it, I am able to now even understand it more myself and learn it and now also teach it. And it was only through, again, the force function of having to write this book that those things came out. So by teaching, I mean, I had a friend of mine who's a ukulele player. He's pretty amateur, he's just getting started, and he's learning from some really, really good ukulele players in Hawaii. And his teacher asked him, hey, are you teaching anybody ukulele? Like, the teacher asked his student like, hey, are you teaching anybody ukulele? And he was so taken aback by that question because he's like, I'm. Who am I to teach others? I'm. I'm the one learning from you. But the ukulele teacher was embracing the same model that I do, which is you Learn by teaching. So he asked his student to teach his kids some of the new chords that he was learning. And so he had a couple ukuleles at home. A lot of Hawaiian residents have just, you know, easy access to that. And he was able to teach his kids just some of these chords. So not only was he reinforcing the chords, he was learning by now shifting to a different part of his brain and internalizing it more as a teacher, but he was also now experiencing this joy in these. These moments with his kids. And now his kids are also seeing that Daddy, although he's not an expert at this, still has value and can teach just like I can when I come home from school and learn something. One thing I ask my kids when they get home from school is not, how was your day at school today? Or what did you learn? It was, what's one thing you got out of class today that you could teach me? Man, their eyes light up. I've been doing that ever since preschool. And it works, and it still works. And it positions me as not just a parent, but somebody who's also learning from them. It positions them as somebody that even though they're not an expert, even though they're still in school, they can still teach and help others. And it helps them refine what they're learning so that when they have to take that test eventually, then they're more capable. So that's. That's why.

Scott Clary (75:24)

Well, no, I was just gonna say, I notice. I love it. I. I notice all of my. Outside of helping me understand the frameworks that I've learned and passing them on to someone else, sort of solidifying my knowledge when I try and teach something, I understand my own gaps better than, like, you get so crystal clear when you're trying to teach a concept, you understand exactly the things that have to be reinforced tell you you're trying to teach something from stage, you know, real quick, the parts that are not a hundred percent. So I'm not saying everybody throws themselves into that position, but if you ever want to know if you really understand something, well, go in front of an audience and teach it to them, and you're going to know exactly which parts you need to brush up on.

Pat Flynn (76:06)

I mean, that is a high pressure situation. I actually Love Q&As in front of audiences.

Scott Clary (76:10)

Yes, I do, too, for a few.

Pat Flynn (76:11)

Reasons, because it can be less performance and more real time, and that. That exudes some amount of energy and authority. But like, when a person asks you a question, if you're on stage and they're asking you a question live, and you don't know the answer. A. To your point, that's like a gap that you can now fill. But what do you do? You just say, you just be honest. Like, actually, that's a really good question. And to be honest, I don't know the answer to that right now, but now I'm inclined to research it. And the next time I'm on stage in front of you guys, I'll be able to share that or find the right resources for you. But. But apologize. I don't know the answer to that right now. Next question, please. Boom. And that's how you handle those situations. Because, again, I was always afraid of, well, I'm the one on stage. I should know everything, so I'm not going to put myself in that situation at all. Versus, again, through learning, through mentorship. I hired a speaking coach. I learned that you can navigate that and also learn at the same time. And again, I appreciate you mentioning the sort of final chapters of the book about teaching, because it is the best way to not just reinforce your learning, but it's how we all together as a community can make the world a better place by experiencing things, sharing them, and. And working together, which is a big theme of the book.

Scott Clary (77:21)

And I'll just. I'll just say this, like, there have been times when I don't know something and somebody does a live Q A with me. You will never get a more loyal fan than if you tell them that you don't know the answer. You say you're going to figure it out for them, and then you actually follow up with them and give them the answer to the question or the problem that they're trying to solve for. Like, it blows their mind because very few people actually do this, yet it's so simple to do, right?

Pat Flynn (77:46)

Or. Or the. The other people who aren't getting that answer directly say, man, Scott's so honest. And so I know that when he's actually answering a question, it is real, it is true and authentic because he tells us when he doesn't know the answer, but then he'll find the answers and relay them back toward us. And. And that's really special, too, because I've. I've been on stages where I've watched people talk and, like, pretend their way through an answer. And it's so obvious, bro. It's like, it's almost embarrassing. And maybe it's just because I am a trained speaker, but, I mean, people know the authenticity shines one way or another.

Scott Clary (78:19)

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Pat Flynn (79:27)

Yeah. I mean, expertise, you've put in a certain amount of time and effort and, and are able to sort of create these frameworks from a position of authority. Right? You've, you've gained some results from the thing that you've done and now you want others to experience the same results in a more heightened way. This is where the books come into play, courses, things like that, consultations, coaching. It's higher level. It is, it is. You know, you are a little further along than somebody who's still in the weeds, if you will. But the important part of this is you can still be valuable even if you're in the weeds, because you are literally going through it with people. For example, with my first business, teaching people how to pass the lead exam, which was the name of that business that I was helping people with, I was not an expert at that test. In fact, I barely passed the exam. I needed a 170 out of 200 and I passed with like a 173 or something. And it's a very difficult exam. And so a part of me was feeling like an imposter showing up and teaching this stuff. Who am I to teach this stuff? However, in conversations with people and answering even just a few questions, you could see their, their eyes light up and they see you as an expert because you have some experience that is very close to the experience they're about to take. In fact, in many cases, somebody who has just gone through the same process is more valuable than somebody who is a 40 year venerate of the space, who's speaking at a podium in a university, who's so far removed from what's actually happening out there that, yeah, they might know a lot of things, but I could also look these things up on Google now. But this is what's actually happening. And let me show you. And this is how in 2009, I was so worried because the company that came out with the questions for this exam, the United States Green Building Council, they came out with their own guidelines to compete with mine. And I thought I was done. I was like, why would people learn from me, Somebody who barely passed the exam. I'm just like a, like a Joe Schmo who created a guide versus like literally the people who create the questions for the exam. That was May of 2009 was my most profitable month ever.

Scott Clary (81:37)

Funny.

Pat Flynn (81:38)

And I was like, what the heck is going on here? Well, first of all, they blasted out all these emails to people with their guides. That was like $169, so way expensive. And then people started doing research to find, well, what other guides are out there. And they found mine and they decided to buy from me. And I asked a survey question, why did you buy from me and not them? I was literally just wanting to know the answer. And they said, well, I felt like I knew you because you just took the exam and you know exactly what it's like from. From the same perspective I will have. And that taught me so much in the early days and why it's when I show up online. Despite me having to still learn my way through things, I'm still knowing that I can teach these things. I don't have to wait till 10,000 hours to then feel qualified to teach. I can teach after hour one because somebody is at hour zero.

Scott Clary (82:25)

I love it. And I think that expertise is what most people think they have to have before they teach anything. Experiences, to your point, not only permission to teach with the experience that you've just received, but also to some people can be more valuable. And also, you know, the people that are at hour 0 sometimes you should be, to your point, seeking out recent, recent experience because that is going to be more contextually relevant to what you're going through right now than, than somebody who, who sold a business 10 years ago for a hundred million dollars. Like that's that, that somebody who's. I mean, you can talk about a lot of this stuff. I'm sure this is a whole other podcast, but when you look at mentors, right, you have people that are your peers, people that are just ahead of you, and then you can have a couple people that are, you know, further along in their career, in their life. But I think that peers to hold you accountable, that are literally experiencing the same thing as what you're going through right now, and people that are just ahead of you, those are the most useful kinds of mentors. Those are going to be the ones that actually help move the needle in whatever it is you're trying to figure.

Pat Flynn (83:29)

Out and you able to help them, I mean, and be there for each other. I mean, that's. Yeah.

Scott Clary (83:34)

Mentorship is not one way. Teaching is not one way. It's. It's two way, always.

Pat Flynn (83:38)

That's why mastermind groups are important or brain trusts or, you know, circles of people. Not where there's one head at the table, but where everybody at a moment in time becomes the head when something happens or they need help or they're presenting to others. So, yeah, absolutely. 100. I mean, you and I are cut from the same cloth a thousand percent.

Scott Clary (83:54)

Yeah. What. What would be one idea that I didn't ask you about that I should have asked you about that you'd like to leave the audience with. From the book.

Pat Flynn (84:01)

Yeah. So in addition to micromastery, which is getting to the sort of small level to move F, there's other ways to move fast, too. One of my favorite ways is to do what I like to call the power 10. I implement this probably more than anything in my business because it helps me find quick results and it helps me have surges of success, if you will. Now, the Power 10 comes from the world of rowing. So I used to row at the CAL in the CAL lightweight crew. If you're seeing this right now, you would know that's obvious because I'm not a heavyweight. But in a boat of eight people, plus one, the coxswain who yields the commands. If you're on. On the water, I mean, you could just be coasting. But if you're in a race, you want to get ahead of other boats. So how, when you are rowing, do you get ahead? You actually do what's called a Power 10. And a Power 10 is when the coxswain kind of counts down to get everybody ready. Okay, power 10 in three stroke, two stroke, one stroke, go. And for 10 strokes and 10 strokes only, you will give everything you have to give you. And the boat just. It's like literally a hot knife through butter. The boat on the water. When you see a Power 10 in motion, because the boat just, like, goes. And you get that because it's ten, not a thousand, where you'd burn out or die. And you're not just coasting the whole time. You have a moment of time. Ten strokes in the world of rowing. But for you as an entrepreneur, it might be 10 days or 10 podcast episodes, whatever it might be like. I teach a lot of podcasters how to podcast. I have thousands of students. One thing we do is we call, like, a hit week. We call it a hit week. So, yeah, you might come out with a podcast every week, but at some point in the next three months, do a hit week, where every day during that week, you come out with a podcast episode. Oh, man, that's a lot of extra work. It takes me forever to. Yeah, it is. But it's just for a moment of time. You're going to have a podcast episode every day for seven days. You're going to create some event around it, you're going to build some hype around it, and guess what's going to happen? You're going to see a surge in your downloads, in your call to actions being clicked on, in all of the things that you want as a podcaster. This moment, this power 10 that you're going to implement is going to be great. So let's put in the work. It's like a hackathon. Amazing things are built in 24 hours from people who just say, okay, for 24 hours, we're going to build this thing and we're going to eat pizza all night until this thing is done.

Scott Clary (86:21)

Done.

Pat Flynn (86:22)

Great. You're not doing a hackathon every night, but when you do it, things get done. And that's the point. And so what is your version? You the listener of a hackathon or a Power 10 that you can implement? There's a side story that I talk about in the. In. In another place where I actually ended up getting injured as. As a rower. I was also a soccer player, and I injured myself, so I wasn't able to row anymore. And I eventually became the coxswain for the women's rowing team because their coxswain had quit. And there's some other lessons around that, but we ended up winning every race. And yes, a male can be on the women's rowing team only if they are a coxswain. And even though I was heavier than all the girls on the boat, we still won. And, man, those were some of the best experiences of my life. Lo and behold, the next year, I ended up dating one of them, and then things went to crap. So there's another lesson in there, too.

Scott Clary (87:13)

There's a life lesson in there for sure.

Pat Flynn (87:14)

But, yes, don't do that either.

Scott Clary (87:18)

Anyway, no, I think that's great advice. Would you. And by the way, I've. I've seen this with YouTubers and they do vlogmas, and they just. They pour everything into vlogging, like, every day around Christmas, 30 days of whatever. Yeah. And. And people tune in just for those. A few vlogs around Christmas, and that's what people love. And they. They wait all year for it. Anyways, very powerful idea. Would you recommend somebody do that at the beginning to gain momentum or somewhere later down the line in their journey once they've already sort of figured out their craft?

Pat Flynn (87:54)

Yes.

Scott Clary (87:55)

Yes to both.

Pat Flynn (87:57)

Yes. Space it out. Implement them when you can. Of course, you have to make time for them and have energy or even gather the resources, if you will, for those times. But the trick is to figure out the balance, right? Because if you do a Power 10 every week, you're gonna kill yourself. Like, imagine a boat with eight people who are rowing as hard as they can for the entire way. I mean, the halfway, it's just like sprinting in the beginning of a marathon. Right? So I think it's. It's a matter of maybe you. You do sprint the first part just to get ahead of the pack, but then you coast and you pace yourself, and then by mile seven, you're like, okay, I'm gonna take this next mile and go a little bit harder on this one, but make sure to not again burn myself out. And so, in a very similar way, we've all heard that analogy, that business and entrepreneurship in life is like a marathon. It's. It's not a sprint. However, you can get ahead by sprinting every once in a while, and that's the key here. So I think it's. It's. It's important to implement it. And now whatever you're at right now, listener, consider. Okay, well, what's my version of a Power 10 that I can do the next couple months, and then you can plan the next one after that.

Scott Clary (88:57)

Amazing. Pat, I appreciate you so much. Okay, so I want to give people the opportunity if they do not know where to find you, where to go, where. I mean, the book will be everywhere. Books are sold, Amazon, I'm sure. But website, social, all that, where should people go? And we'll put it in the show notes as well. If there's any links that you want to Let them know about.

Pat Flynn (89:16)

I appreciate you, man. And like everybody listening for your time. I hope this was not just enjoyable, but something that can help you. And if you do pick up the book, I do appreciate it. We're doing our best to make a run for the list this year. It's my first traditional published book, so we'll see what happens.

Scott Clary (89:30)

It's going to do well. It's going to do very well. I like, I love paradigm shifting. I love, I love helping people escape the matrix. This is all good stuff. And, and because it's not just about listen, there's life lessons, there's, there's, there's business lessons. You're a prolific creator, entrepreneur. But also it's, that's all fun, but it's about shifting the mindset around, learning about success, about execution, about entrepreneurship. This is why for this podcast, when I first started it, just to give you some context, I don't have to tell you my whole story, but I started this podcast with very tactical conversations about how to, you know, how to create an email campaign that gets a high open rate and a high click through, how to run a great Facebook ad set that, you know, gets a great roas. But I realize that all the tactical things are very important, but if you don't have the right mental models in place, it's very hard to succeed at anything. And this is, this book is full of mental models that are truly like mission critical, integral. Some of the most important mental models that any entrepreneur or any successful person really has to internalize. So I think it'll do quite well.

Pat Flynn (90:37)

Thank you, man.

Scott Clary (90:38)

That's.

Pat Flynn (90:39)

That means a lot. So, so much. I mean, find me at Pat Flynn on most social media channels. I have a YouTube channel, same name, as well as smartpassiveincome.com which is the business where we teach other entrepreneurs how to achieve their goals. And leanlearningbook.com if you're listening to this and happen to get to it before June 3, there are some bonuses there, early pre orders. But either way, just whenever you're listening to this, I hope this is helpful. I hope it's valuable and I'm just super stoked for your support, Scott. It truly means the world. Thank you.

Scott Clary (91:06)

No, my pleasure, man. The last idea, last question that I like to just ask because you've given over so much and I know you're, you're a family man. You know, you're trying to teach your kids as to navigate life, entrepreneurship, business as best you can. If you had to figure out and distill all the different things that you've learned in your life down to one idea that you want to pass on to your kids and that you can pass on to your audience. The most important idea around life? Business Success. Entrepreneurship. Doesn't matter. What would that idea be and why?

Pat Flynn (91:38)

Just one. Just one.

Scott Clary (91:40)

Yeah, just one.

Pat Flynn (91:41)

You can't do this alone. Go out there, build relationships, meet other people, serve others. And it just takes me back to my favorite quote from Zig Ziglar, which is, you can have anything in life you want, so long as you help other people get what they want.