← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 544: How to Stop Overthinking and Start Doing | Pat Flynn, Lean Learning
01:02:40
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Jenny Urich
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Urich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and there is an incredible, incredible guest today. I have a huge backstory that you don't even know, but Pat Flynn, welcome.
- [00:43]
Pat Flynn
Thank you so much. The energy coming from you is coming to me, and I'm, like, so excited about this right now. So thank you for having me. I know we have a lot to talk about.
- [00:51]
Jenny Urich
We have a lot to talk about. Let me start here. The only reason I have a podcast is because of your video.
- [00:57]
Pat Flynn
Oh, my gosh. No way.
- [00:58]
Jenny Urich
Isn't that wild? So I was talking to this man, John Acuff. He's been on our show a couple times. He's like a business guy, fantastic books. And I was telling him that I started the podcast by watching a video, an instruction video by you. And I was like, gosh, it would be really cool to talk to Pat Flynn. I was like, I don't think he'll ever come on. John was like, well, you should just ask. I think he might. So you have this new book that came out, Lean Learning, and you were posting about it, and I just think it's phenomenal because I do think that we pour so much time into academics, and so this is Lean Learning how to Achieve More by Learning Less. It's a really cool concept. So I reached out and asked, and here you are, Pat. This is the number two parenting podcast in the whole country and would not be here except for your videos.
- [01:39]
Pat Flynn
Oh, my gosh. That's incredible. Well, let's make it number one. Let's make it number one.
- [01:43]
Jenny Urich
I know, it's a big uphill climb. Okay, I've got another piece. So then I got asked a keynote for the very first time. So you talk in your book about getting asked to keynote for the first time and dealing with the uncertainty and the fear. I ended up watching the video of it. But I got asked to keynote at this conference in Florida for homeschoolers. It's a huge conference. It's like 15 to 18,000 people. I got asked a keynote. She said, but you're going to need to have a book. And I only had these, like, activity books, which are good, but it wasn't like a. Like a book book. So I. I don't even remember. Like, it had been years, but when I had gone to your Pat Flynn instructional thing on how to set up a podcast, I had watched probably just like, the next one that came up was, like, how to write a book. And so this book.
- [02:28]
Pat Flynn
So I'd have been, no way. Yes.
- [02:31]
Jenny Urich
I went back and I used the same editor. I had no idea that there were even, like, these developmental editors that you could go out on your own and write a book. And I use the exact same lady. It was like, I went back to your video. I watched it again. I reached out to that woman, and she helped me do this book.
- [02:49]
Pat Flynn
You know what this is? I need to have you on my show because you are an action taker. I can already tell. And you see these things, you implement them, and then you pass it forward. The things that you're learning, you pass on to your audience as well. I'm so proud of you. This is amazing. And congrats on the book. How did the keynote go? Did it happen already?
- [03:04]
Jenny Urich
It was good. I mean, it was like, five years ago, and then it led to all these other opportunities, and similar to what you talk about in your book. When I read your book, this lean learning that just came out, I actually got really emotional because I didn't know your backstory, and I think this often happens with the Internet is that you intersect with someone and you're like, oh, this person is an expert at, you know, the Internet and the expert at podcasts and an expert at writing and content. And I didn't know your story, and I really got emotional reading the fact that you lost a job. And sort of the only reason that now I feel like I have this book in this podcast is because you lost a job and pivoted.
- [03:44]
Pat Flynn
Yeah, yeah, I lost. I lost my dream job, actually, as an architect. That's what I wanted to do. And in 2008, I got let go like so many other people. And, you know, I cried about it for a while, and I fell into a little state of depression. But I eventually woke up and said, you know what? I got to take control of my own life and figure things out. And that's where I discovered this world of Internet business. But it was hard. I was fighting up against not just the learnings and the technicalities of it. I was fighting against what I was conditioned. I thought I was supposed to do in life, right? I thought I was supposed to go down this corporate ladder or up this corporate ladder, and when I lost, I just kept fighting and clawing my way back into that. However, I didn't realize there were this. There was this incredible other opportunity here. And it took me letting go of who I thought I was supposed to be to be able to grow into who I thought I was supposed to be. That's why my first, first book is called Let Go. Not just because I got let go from my job, but because I had to let go of all these things that were taught to me, that were supposedly my best route but ended up becoming. I mean, this, this layoff was a huge blessing in disguise. So to know that the ripple effect is still working. And like I'm just imagining you, Jenny, who, and especially the moms who are now supported through your show, who are now going to be better parents because of this and the ripple effect that you're having on kids and children around the world, it's. It's incredible what we can do when we step into ourselves and really, you know, and sometimes it takes a tough moment to realize these things and open up. But, you know, I just imagining what would happen if I didn't get laid off. I'd probably still be an architect. I would not have the time and freedom that I have. I might have been. Still be happy, but I wouldn't have been able to make an impact like I do now. That's for sure.
- [05:19]
Jenny Urich
It's unbelievable. I mean, you won't ever know the extent of your ripple because this show's got 12 million downloads, which I know your show's got in the, you know, millions and millions of downloads. But, you know, it's like, but the impetus was you, you know, and, and I've told other people, people are like, well, how do you start a podcast? I was like, you just type in Pat Flynn, you know, and that's how you do it. And it's step by step, get you on the thing. And so had you not come out this book, and if John Acuff wouldn't have said, just ask him, you know, then you don't even have the opportunity to hear. This was the impetus for, I mean, several things, a book, a speaking thing, and then it just, it goes out from there. So it's a reminder to put your stuff out in the world because there's probably going to be a lot of impacts you make that you won't Ever even know.
- [06:05]
Pat Flynn
Right, right. I like to say I'd rather live a life full of oh, wells than a life full of what ifs. It's those regrets that happen later in life that you go, well, maybe I should have taken that chance or should have asked this person for this favor or whatever the thing might be. You're never going to get that time back. But it can just take one conversation, one action to change the rest of your life and the lives of those around you. And that's what I found over time. Again, this is something that's so different than what I grew up with. I grew up in a world where I had to get a 4.0 grade point average or better or else I was failing.
- [06:34]
Jenny Urich
4.2.
- [06:36]
Pat Flynn
Yeah, 4.2. I graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley. It was like, okay, I'm doing the things that I was taught to do and I'm doing them well. Even in my architecture job, I was doing stuff that I wasn't asked to just to kind of climb that corporate ladder even faster. I was the youngest person in this 200 person architecture firm to become a job captain. I was on my way to success and then it was just like pulled out from under me and I felt like I was at fault. I felt like I did something wrong. But what I found out was just I wasn't in my my true self. And it took getting laid off to find that. Now. I also discovered that as I was learning entrepreneurship and trying to figure out how to do things like start a website to help architects pass an exam, which was my first website and product, to starting Smart Passive income and the podcasting and the YouTube and the book and the speaking, I found that my traditional ways of learning were not going to help me. My first inclination when I had discovered this idea of starting an online business was to go to business school to spend, you know, $30,000 a year and consume everything before taking any action. And I just couldn't do that because I had to make something work faster. I was moving back in with my parents. I was crying in my old bedroom, just wanting to get out and find success again. And it took me letting go of the fact that perfection was the way I had to let go of realizing that mistakes were bad. No, mistakes are great. I had to fail faster in order to learn. And over the years, I found that I've developed this framework and system without even really knowing it, to learn things faster, to acquire skills more efficiently, and to have a lot of success across so many different mediums from you know, podcasting to business, to an invention that I have to now succeeding in the Pokemon YouTube world. It's. It's kind of wild and I see. And the reason this book came out is twofold. Number one, I've had a lot of people ask me, pat, how do you approach the things that you do? Because you always seem to do these things well. Are you a genius? No. Are you just extremely lucky? No, but I am kind of lucky, but lucky luck is where opportunity meets action. But more than that, I wrote this for my kids because my son is 15 now, my daughter's 12. They're entering young adulthood very soon, and they're living and growing up in a world that's so different than the one that you and I grew up in, right. Where information used to be scarce and valuable. Now just knowing the things isn't going to get you anywhere. In fact, you could go to ChatGPT and it will likely show you that it knows a lot more and can get, you know, things for you much faster. So just having the information isn't enough anymore. It's finding the right information at the right time and using it in the right way. It's the difference between what we are so used to doing, which is consuming just in case information, and transitioning to now just in time information. And it's a hard psychological thing to get over. But this is where we need to go. This is where what I'm trying to teach my kids, realizing that the resources are there, you don't need all of them right now yet at least for people my age. I go to, I ask them to pull out their phone, I'm like, show me the podcast that you're subscribed to or the YouTube channels you watch. And they're like, subscribe to dozens. And like, I have to listen to every episode. I'm like, why? You now have no time to do anything and you're confusing yourself. In fact, one thing I talk about in the book is this idea of not just overloaded with information, but overloaded with inspiration. Because we're so connected on all these social media platforms and we're following people that we love and enjoy, we're getting super and over inspired and it's just pushing and pulling us in all different directions. And we, even though we have access to all the information we could ever need, we often feel even further behind. And this book is a response to that.
- [10:15]
Jenny Urich
I talked to this mom recently. She said, you know, her husband brought it up. Cause she said we'd be like this night she's like, I, I want to be a homesteader. I want to have a 15 acre farm. I want to raise pigs, I want to do all our own food. And then the next day she's like, I want to live in an rv. I think it would be great if we travel the country. So it's just, it's like an onslaught of information. And I, I love that. The book, especially for parents, it illustrates the fact that we really focus on this one right way. The one right rate is a 4.2 GPA. It's magna cum laude. It's, it's the architecture, it's, it's this job that seems set in stone. And yet it wasn't. It was not. And so if we can be a little bit more open to other ideas, it helps our kids to be more flexible. It gives us a little bit more time as a family, because then that information is not quite so imperative. You can spend a little bit less time on it. It really gives families permission to do things a little bit different. So this lean learning, can you talk about how the endless consumption of content is? I mean, so you talk about it. You know, it can take you in different directions. It also can be something that we do out of fear, right? Because if we just say, well, we're just still learning, I just got to take one more course, you know that if I just finish this, I'm going to be better equipped in the future. And it keeps us from doing anything.
- [11:31]
Pat Flynn
Right? The learning is actually a fake way of progression. It feels good to learn. It feels like it's more safer to kind of understand the whole thing before diving in. And of course, in some cases that's, that's important, right? If you're a brain surgeon, you kind of want to know how things work first before, you know, you don't just like, you know, go, go right in there. But for most things that we're trying to do in life, we don't need all the information to get started. We, we think sometimes we need to put, you know, what is it, 10,000 hours into something is what some people say to become a master. But you can learn so much and progress and even find success within the first couple hours. You don't need 10,000 hours. You can get there later. And yeah, you know, across, across the entire spectrum of everything that you could ever know about a particular thing that you're doing, you just need a small percentage to just get started. Because what happens is when you get started, the actions that you take help guide the next direction. To go. The mistakes that you make don't derail you. They become the guardrails to now work within. And again, it's a psychological thing that happens with learning. And like you said, the fomo, that happens as well. Because we come across so many things on our feed and on our desk of really well positioned items because these people are great writers, they have great titles and great thumbnails for their videos. So I mean, they are built to bring us in and if we're not careful, we're going to watch and then go down a rabbit hole that we don't need to go down right now. And so there was once a strategy to combat fomo, this fear of missing out, which was Jomo, joy of missing out. But I don't like that because it's almost like pretending or you're kind of faking that, right? It's almost like Reese Witherspoon when she was trying to in Legally Blonde study for the bar exam. Like all of her sorority mates were partying and she was studying for the bar exam. Well, of course she wanted a party, but she did something that is what we, what we need to do, which is the joy of opting out, realizing those things are there, knowing that, yes, I feel compelled to do that or learn that thing because everybody else is talking about it, but being disciplined enough to say, I know that that's not what I need right now. Thus then recommitting to the thing you've already said yes to. Because here's what happens when we continue to say yes to everything. I mean, this is part of the exercise of growing. It's learning when to not just say yes to things, but also when to say no. Because when you say yes to one thing, you're inherently also saying no to something else. And in this world of over inspiration, over information, when you say yes to the new thing, you're saying no to the last thing that you said yes to. And it just becomes this vicious cycle, right? And when I think about this, like, psychologically and biologically, our brains aren't evolved or haven't evolved fast enough to consume the amount of information that's being presented to us, right? Like if you think about the way we were back in like cave person days, right? Like if you come across food, you hoard it because you might not come across food again for a while, right? So you, you consume it for survival. And we have been treating information in the same way because for a while information was survival, right? Information equals power. Or at least it used to be. It was a significant thing that showed how wealthy you were or status. Right. The, the more you knew.
- [14:38]
Jenny Urich
Yeah. You even talked about the encyclopedias.
- [14:41]
Pat Flynn
Yeah. Anybody who had an encyclopedia in their.
- [14:44]
Jenny Urich
House was maybe they had two sets.
- [14:46]
Pat Flynn
Right. Right. You, you were. Because you could afford it. Right. Because other people couldn't. And, and therefore you were higher status if you had an Encyclopedia Britannica. But today we're at this buffet line of information. There is so much of it and we're stuffing our plates. But not only that, these systems and the platforms that we're a part of are designed to force feed things and just like basically ram these things down our throat when, when we don't even need them. Right. It's that they are designed to help you find things that you don't even know you need right now because that keeps you on those platforms and makes more money for them. When you realize why these things are drawing your attention, you start to kind of be able to kind of, you know, at least be able to combat that. When you realize these platforms want you to stay on because they're making money from ads, because you're able to stay on there, you start to go, wait, wait, wait. Now you're kind of just using me on this cog in your system. Now I need to take control again on where I put my time, where I put my effort and where I take action. And again it's, it's getting to action faster, action over information that's going to help you and your kids understand what works. I mean, this is how I learned to cook. I didn't learn to cook by going to, you know, cooking school. Cooking schools are great, especially if you want to go deep with something. But you don't start there. You start by getting messy in the kitchen. You start by cracking a few eggs. You start by, you know, just, just tasting something and it's not great. And then now you know not to put sugar in your omelets anymore. Right. Like those kinds of things. Although there are sweet omelets and that's, that's more of an Asian culture related thing. But anyway, you take action. That's what this is about. And the learning can come from doing and doing things together with others. This is why the chapter is about surrounding yourself with what I like to call champions in your life is really key. Getting together with other members of your community or your family who is supportive of you if there is that, or mentors to help guide you as well, because you only know what you know and you don't know what you don't know. So when you surround yourself with other people on this learning journey, with whatever it might be, you can hold each other accountable. You can kind of fill in each other's gaps. You can, you know, guide others behind you, but also get guidance from those ahead of you. You can't do this alone either. And this is, this is why the chapter on champions in your life is really key.
- [16:58]
Jenny Urich
Yeah, this is so much about action. It's so practical, even for this podcast. When I started off, I had a crummy microphone. It was from Amazon. I already owned it and it plugged into the side of my computer. And most of the original reviews of the podcast are like, this sounds awful. People are like, she needs to work on her sound. And then, you know, it's like, we did a. I don't think I got a real microphone until way in, but we, like, we're messing with the background things. And then I just recently talking about John Acuff. He had a. He stepped out and did an. A live event. You had your live Pokemon event. You got 5,000, more than 5,000 people coming. So he does this live event, his own event. And I met this woman there and she was like, I really like your podcast, she said. I went back and listened and. And I thought she was going to say something like, they're all great. She was like, the first ones were not very good. You know, she's like, it wasn't it. And you do. So you just do. You do. And that's how you learn. And, you know, you could spend so much time researching, researching what's the best microphone? How do I do the sound? I've got this, like, soundboard here. I have no idea how to use it. You know, you could tweak all the things or you just go for it and then things start to happen and you learn and you iterate along the way. I mean, you talk about gardening, fishing, you know, you learn those things hands on. You have to actually do them in order to grow.
- [18:14]
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- [20:53]
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- [21:23]
Jenny Urich
So you talk about this question in the book. It's called Lean Learning how to Achieve More by Learning Less. I'm all about it. Let's learn less so that we can play more and do more. But one of the things you talk about is this question. If this were easy, what would it look like?
- [21:36]
Pat Flynn
Yes.
- [21:37]
Jenny Urich
Oh, okay. But what if it's not easy? I've really been mulling it over. If this were easy, what would it look like? So you know, if for a podcast it would be like, well, you're just going to start, you're going to start with what you have. That's what makes it the easiest and you're going to learn along the way. But what about the things that are a little more complicated to kick off?
- [21:55]
Pat Flynn
Sure. I'll give you an example. In fact, I'll share a little story about how I started my first business that uses lean learning and really helps you understand the power of this question. The reason this question is important is because we always tend to overcomplicate everything. We tend to think things are harder than they actually are. And so when I started my business, I quickly found out that I had this following who was following me for study tips about an exam called the lead exam. It's a very niche exam in the architecture space. And I was told that I could potentially write an e book and study guide and sell it to this audience that I had on my website. And I was like, this is a great idea. I wish I had this and I'm going to make it because nobody else has made it yet. But I don't know how to do this. I don't even know how to format it. I don't know how to write it. And researching all the things about an e book, I found out that I needed to know what technology to use to sell it online, how to write sales copy and all this stuff that I had. No.
- [22:45]
Jenny Urich
Okay, this is a good example because this is, that is not easy. Like to figure, I mean, we've got a self published book. I mean it's a lot. You have no idea what you're getting into. So this is an example of something that's not easy. Right, but, but the question is, if it were easy, what would it look like?
- [23:01]
Pat Flynn
Well, step one, I don't need to worry about selling anything if the book doesn't exist. So let's narrow down our focus just to those first parts. Okay, well I don't even need to know what the COVID looks like, even though that's what I want to focus on because that's the sort of fun part. But I don't have a book yet. I need the words inside this thing. So I'm going to strip everything down. If this were easy and I could just get started, I would. Like you said, just get started. I opened up Microsoft Word and I just started writing and it was bad, but I started it. It's almost like you're finding a whole bunch of sand and it's messy, but through that then you can carve out the sand castle that'll end up there at the end. So I took two and a half weeks of just writing, not worrying about all the next steps, trusting that those next steps I would be able to find something to help me on. And by the, by the end of three weeks I had it. I had a 74 page word document that was ugly, but it had all the information I needed inside. So I said, okay, now I want to make this not ugly. I'm not going to worry about marketing this yet or any of the sales copy. I just need to make this look good. So I went onto YouTube and I found one video about how to take a pay a long document and turn it into a land more of a landscape positioning with two columns and add blank spaces within it so that people can start writing in it. And I was like, oh my gosh, I figured out how to do this in one hour. I didn't have to like go to school or anything to figure this out. There are a lot of resources like YouTube to help figure out what the next step is because that's what lean learning is. What's the next step? Learn only what there is to know about that. This is called just in time information. And then trust that the resources there for the next one. So again, I formatted the book. Great. I have this book now. It's formatted, it's ready to go. But I don't know how to sell this online. If this were easy, what would it look like? Well, I know that that's possible. So let me go ask a friend of mine who sells a digital good online on their website and just ask. And he was like, oh Pat, yeah, easy. Just use the tool called E Junkie, which doesn't exist anymore. There's a lot of other tools that do something similar, but I could just upload my PDF file to this tool and it would give me a button to then put on My website, anytime a person clicks on this button, I'd make a sale if a person finished their checkout process. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's easy. It took 20 minutes to set up.
- [25:09]
Jenny Urich
Wow, great.
- [25:10]
Pat Flynn
I have this button now, but now I need to learn how to do copywriting. I'm not copywriting. People spend years mastering copywriting and knowing what words to say on their website. I've never done that before. I would just normally say, like, hey, this is the thing. Buy it. But there's an art and a science to it. So it started already again to feel overwhelming. But wait, if this were easy, what would it look like? And I eventually found my way through asking and some research again, finding the answer to this particular question. How do I write sales copy for my book? There was a book that I found called Moonlighting on the Internet. It was written by a man named Yannick silver. It was 200 pages of all different kinds of ways to make money online. I didn't need any of it. I just needed the appendix in the back of the book, which had a Mad Lib style sales page that I can just basically copy and put in my own product, add in my own features and benefits, and just use that. That is literally today still. The same sales page I use was from this Mad Lib style template. And that sales page has helped me earn over seven figures on this architecture website that is still up today. So you can see I didn't go to school for all this, but I was open to the fact that I didn't know where I was going next, but that there was a resource to help me figure out my way when I got there. But I needed the information right now for the writing book process. Finished. The designing the COVID process. Great. Finished. The how to sell this online. Okay, great. Finished. That question guided me all along the way, and I've used that in everything that I've done. And it's helped me strip out all the complications that I just, you know, naturally add into things that don't need to be there.
- [26:48]
Jenny Urich
The book is so practical. I mean, you are. It gets your mind spinning immediately because you talked about how you use this question in all sorts of areas, like in your marriage. So if this were easy, what would it look like? And I immediately, like, we are dealing with. Our kids are similar ages. Like ours are 17, 15, 14. We've got a couple more 12 and nine. And, you know, it's like they're always changing. Now all of a sudden, one of them, like, really is interested in having very expensive shoes. So you're like, well, I wasn't expecting to have to deal with that. And I mean, it's just constantly evolving with your kids.
- [27:18]
Pat Flynn
Yeah.
- [27:18]
Jenny Urich
And it feels overwhelming, like, are we going to have enough? How are we going to decide what is our philosophy on your expensive shoes? Do we allow you to buy them? Do you have to pay for half? Like, and there's a thousand things like that that come up often with parenting. And so it's like, well, if this were easy, what would it look like? And so you're talking about like the Eisenhower matrix. I was like, well, let's just bump the things to the top that are real important and make sure we talk about them. So it's just really helpful. It's so helpful.
- [27:42]
Pat Flynn
Thank you. Thank you. Can I share another quick story about that? Yes. Like, because you mentioned your kids and like, they're changing things and.
- [27:49]
Jenny Urich
Yeah.
- [27:49]
Pat Flynn
One thing my kids, like my wife and I do, is we, whatever the kids are into, we want to get involved with them. We want to, we want to speak their language. And so, you know, for a while it was. My son and daughter were actually into Fortnite for a while, which is like a video game. And my wife and I were like, we have no idea what's going on. So what did I do? I said, okay, if I want to participate in this with my kids, I need to learn how to do this. What would be the easy way to do that? I hired a 14 year old kid on fiverr.com who was coaching people how to play Fortnite. It was some of the best money I had ever spent because this kid already, first of all, like, kudos to him for having business acumen and like making money from this. But number two, it was the best money I spent because in an hour I was able to understand it enough to then be able to play with the kids. And we ended up playing for like it was. This was like the first year of COVID We played every day. And it became our way to escape the craziness of the world, but also brought us closer together. And we even see still every once in a while talk about some of the moments we had in this virtual world of playing together and winning these games. And then this is how I got into Pokemon, because the kids were into Pokemon. So I started researching Pokemon. And this is where I fell in love with the community so much that even though the kids have kind of outgrown it, I have definitely not. And I've. I've leaned into that Community a little bit more as a YouTuber. But anyway, this is, again, like, everything. Like, nothing will be constant. But the way you keep up with things isn't necessarily just learning everything there is to learn about it every single time. It's going right to the root of, like, in your case, what's going on right now and what can we do with it, but also finding the one or two resources to help you right now for the next step that you need.
- [29:30]
Jenny Urich
Okay, well then, okay, since you brought up the Pokemon, take the same general principle. If this were easy, what would it look like? And talk us through how you did an in person event with 5,500 people.
- [29:42]
Pat Flynn
Yes. So we have an event called Card Party. And I had run events before, and I always knew they were so complicated. Right. So if I want to show up and bring this community together, there were. There were no events like what I was creating. You know, I wanted to create an event that I would want to bring my kids to. All these other events in the card space are more transactional. They're about the. The buying and selling part of it. And I wanted it to feel like. Like camp. Right. So I said, okay, if this were easy, what would it look like? Well, I had a relationship with a person who I've spoken at their events before. This is an event called Podcast Movement, and I developed a relationship with that company and the founder, Dan Franks, because I've spoken and keynoted that event every once in a while. And during COVID when things were starting to open up again, I reached out to him and I said, hey, are you doing events again? Like, how are you doing? Because I know events have been stopped for a while. He's like, yeah, we're doing events where I've been looking for more people to partner with. And I said, hey, well, I have an idea. If you can set up the infrastructure and the organizational stuff around an event, but I bring the Pokemon community into it. And instead of a keynote, we have game shows. Instead of breakout sessions, we have panels with some people's favorite YouTubers. And instead of an expo hall full of sponsors, we have an expo hall full of vendors. Well, yeah, we have that system already. If you bring those people, I will set it up for you. And we have this thing now, and we had 50. Our first year was 2023 in Anaheim. And again, if this were easy, what would it look like? We would want it to be something that everybody, especially the other creators, would want to come to. So what did we do? We didn't make it about Me, we didn't even make it about the cards. We made it about these other YouTubers. So these other YouTubers in the Pokemon space, they became the featured headlines. Even the smaller ones that only had a couple hundred subscribers, we put them on the website and you know what? They were the ones who were more likely to promote it because they are finally starting to get recognized by somebody. I knew this would happen because I was a creator once before who just started from zero. And it's become a celebration for them. And of course they bring their loyal audience. Even though there's a small few number of them, they're willing to fly out and pay to go to go to a ticket to see their favorite creator, who they have this relationship with virtually to then meet in person. And now this past when we had 60 creators, 5,500 attendees, completely sold out a convention center in Tampa and our next one's happening in Seattle. And again now it's just getting even easier because we're finding the things that work and we're just doing more of that. We're cutting out the things that don't. It wasn't perfect. There were a lot of mistakes made along the way, but we could have overlearned and never launched and never had these experiences, experiences that have been so deep that people have become best friends who have met at these places, who then fly to find each other again between events to stay connected. We've had people come up to us and say this is the only place they feel like they belong somewhere because they get bullied, you know, outside of the Pokemon space. So when you bring this is, this is now talking about the things I talk about in my book Superfans, right? Bringing your community together. You know, I don't just walk the talk to talk. I walk the walk here. So superfans, I'm living it, I'm showing it in a new space that I had no business in before. I didn't even know anything about Pokemon until my kids got into it in 2020.
- [32:51]
Jenny Urich
Wow. Wow. And in five years, you're bringing together community of 5,500 people. And I love, I love the in person stuff. I mean, I think that that's what we need. People are lonely and they're really struggling that way. So, you know, you have all this family friendly content. You're bringing people together.
- [33:07]
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- [34:04]
Jenny Urich
Not all meals are created equal. For instance, breakfast has a spicy egg McMuffin for a limited time, and lunch does it. McDonald's breakfast. Let's talk about mistakes along the way, because this is one of the reasons why people don't do things, is they know. They just know, like, there's gonna have to be mistakes because we don't know everything. Especially, you know, you're either paralyzed because there's more there to learn and you haven't learned it, or you're paralyzed because you're like, well, gosh, if I step out now, I'm. I'm certainly going to make some mistakes. And people talk about, you know, mistakes. They lead you to learn. I like what you talk about, though, in this book, Lean Learning, that mistakes lead to resilience.
- [34:48]
Pat Flynn
So you.
- [34:49]
Jenny Urich
You told this great story about how you get fired, and you're like, okay, you know, I'm gonna make this. And you had just gotten a raise. You talked about that in your first. In that. I watched the video of the. Of your first speaking gig, and. And you were like, you know, you gotten a raise at the architecture firm. You know, like, things are going okay, then you lose your job, and. And off you go to try something new, and you call the website in the lead or something, because it's called lead. And. But then it was a copyright infringement. You had no idea. So, like, one of your first mistakes was a huge one.
- [35:26]
Pat Flynn
It was. It was. And, you know, my internal. So. So the story is I had a website. It was titled in the lead L E E D. Because I play on words, right? Yeah. This is fun. This is fun in the Lead. Very catchy. Very, very shareable. And it was working.
- [35:40]
Jenny Urich
No one owns it because it's spelled yeah, right.
- [35:43]
Pat Flynn
However, that is the name of the organization leadership and energy and environmental design that has a trademark lead. And eventually, after the website started doing very well, I ended up making 25 to $30,000 a month selling the study guide back then when it was. When it was really, really hot. I got a beautiful letter from the United States Green Building Council that said, hey, you're infringing on our copyright and you need to change it. And you have. You have 14 days to do it or else. And I was like, I'm done. I knew it. I was not cut out for business. I, like, I wanted to just escape.
- [36:21]
Jenny Urich
Yeah.
- [36:22]
Pat Flynn
And after a quick little freak out moment, of course I found an attorney online and he was like, oh, no. Okay, you don't have to worry too much. We just have to change the domain name. And eventually I found out that because they were big, like the United States Green Building Council actually really loved what I was doing. I was helping more people become certified. They just didn't want me to use the trademark because then apparently there were other people who were using the trademark who weren't doing such great things. And in order to get rid of them, they had to get rid of all of them. And I was included in that. So first of all, my initial inclination like that I was going to end up homeless and naked on the street or something was not true. Oftentimes when things like this happen, we think of the worst case scenario. But it was a learning moment for sure, and it was something that then I can pass forward to people who I was teaching entrepreneurship to. But also, you know, it was an opportunity for me to understand that I, despite not knowing everything, was still able to succeed and move forward and move past that. There were a lot, like, if you speak with any entrepreneur, you'll find stories that are similar about ways that they've made mistakes. I mean, even in one of my first podcast episodes that I recorded, I spent a lot of time trying to get a big person on the show. And I did. I finally, through connections and relationships, had a person on the podcast who I wanted on the show.
- [37:39]
Jenny Urich
Who was it?
- [37:41]
Pat Flynn
This was a blogger from Australia, in fact, Darren Rouse. I forgot to hit record.
- [37:49]
Jenny Urich
Oh, no.
- [37:51]
Pat Flynn
Oh, no.
- [37:51]
Jenny Urich
That's the worst ever.
- [37:53]
Pat Flynn
It is the worst ever.
- [37:54]
Jenny Urich
That's the worst ever.
- [37:56]
Pat Flynn
Well, you can be sure that I've always hit record after that. And I could always, you know, you could have something like that happen and then go, okay, I guess that this just means I'm a failure. But it's up to you to decide how you react to these things that happen. Right. So I said, okay, that sucked. Thankfully, he was very gracious and we were able to rerecord, but that was very embarrassing and something that then I was able to understand and put in my sort of systems and standard operating procedures to always make sure that I'm recording. And I don't know if I gave you a small heart attack to just make sure that we were recording when I said that, but yeah, we're totally recording.
- [38:33]
Jenny Urich
Oh, you did a little bit.
- [38:34]
Pat Flynn
Yeah.
- [38:35]
Jenny Urich
Mine go. Mine starts automatically, so I'm so good. But I've we. I lost one one time. I have no idea what happened to it and just wasn't there. You're like, oh, because you can't recreate that synergy or whatever the conversation was. You can go back and have another one, but you're always kind of like, oh, we lost it.
- [38:50]
Pat Flynn
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you, you learn these things over time, you know, and, and again, it's up to you to, to, to decide what you want that to mean to you.
- [39:00]
Jenny Urich
What I really liked though, and this is, this is the part that I feel like in this day and age where we have to adapt a lot and our kids are going to have to. What you talked about was, okay, mistakes are gonna lead to re. To learning, right? You're. You're not gonna do that again. You're gonna learn to always hit record. You're gonna learn to check copyright things. You know, if you come up with something new, you're gonna learn these things along the way, but they just also make you a resilient person.
- [39:25]
Pat Flynn
Oh, yeah. It's just like the salesperson who says, you know, you gotta get through a thousand no's until you get that yes. And every no helps you understand that these no's aren't as bad as you might think. Right. The rejection that happens isn't as bad as, as, as we make it out to be. And of course, if you just get rejected once and then you start kind of spiraling down and overthinking what that means, then of course it's going to feel bad and you're never going to try again. But the resilience is key that, that understanding in this sort of almost like self training that it's that, like the mistakes are that you're going to be okay. And I had to train my way into that because I grew up in.
- [39:59]
Jenny Urich
A world where mistakes were bad with a 4.2. So yeah, if you, if you grow up in a 4.2 GPA. Then, you know, that's the type of situation where you're like, everything's gotta be perfect.
- [40:10]
Pat Flynn
Well, I came home, I remember one day I came home with a 94, 95% on my math test. And my dad goes, what happened to the other 5%? And I love my dad. But that then led to two hours of tutoring on a one of those yellow legal pads that was a little wet because I was crying on it. It was just such a painful thing. And so therefore, of course, I was conditioned to be like, okay, never again do I want that kind of lecture. And like, you know, hardcore training. So I'm going to perfect everything. And every mistake could potentially lead me to those traumatic moments. So therefore, I will not make mistakes and not be okay with it. Which then in some cases in my life was like, okay, well, I'm not good at this, so I'm not even going to try because I know I'll make a mistake. So therefore I'm just going to stick with the things that I'm good at and never explore. And that is a very dangerous game to play because then you start to live in complacency. You start to say, I'm fine, but you need to be great. And in order to be great, you need to step outside that comfort zone and fail. Fail, as some people say, is an acronym for first attempt in learning. As some say.
- [41:14]
Jenny Urich
Yeah. And it makes you a more resilient person in the long run because you realize you're like, well, I made it through the cease and desist letter. That happened right off the bad. You know, like, I mean, when people talk about failing, I'm like, oh, my sound quality was crummy.
- [41:27]
Pat Flynn
Right, Right. But you got to be cringe before they binge. That's what I like to say.
- [41:31]
Jenny Urich
And to get a letter from an attorney. Does this letter, I mean, that's like, really? I think most people would be like, crumple, you know, I'm done. You say, I took this as a giant sign that I was not cut out for running my own business. Imagine if I had quit. Imagine. I can imagine. Because I probably wouldn't have a podcast or this book, you know, imagine. And you talk about other mistakes. I had no idea that YouTube used to be a dating website. That that was. The original intent was it was so that you could upload videos of yourself and try and meet other people that you wanted to date. It just, like, didn't work.
- [42:06]
Pat Flynn
Yeah.
- [42:06]
Jenny Urich
So of course. And now YouTube is this huge thing, so it's really, really incredible to learn, and especially from someone who came from being a 4.2 GPA especially. I think that you can especially speak into that because you can say, look, I've tried both ways and this way works really well. The lean learning way works well. Let's talk about adapting because we are in an era marked by swift changes and endless choices. You write, the ability to adapt quickly has never been more crucial. So you say this lean learning goes beyond traditional learning, which I think is counterintuitive. Most people would say lean learning goes below. It goes before, but you say lean learning goes beyond. How does the lean learning help us to be an adaptable person?
- [42:57]
Pat Flynn
As quickly as things move today, the more that you can understand and learn your way into new things quicker, the more useful and valuable you will be. Imagine the. And this was recently I had a conversation with my in laws about our kids and I'm remembering a conversation we had when they were little about their education. They're more traditional and they were focused on their education and kind of what are they going to be? And I'm like, we're going to find out who they are first. But they were like, they have to learn how to code. Engineering, coding. Okay, cool. That's what everybody was sending their kids to school to go to, right? The world we live in today, coders are going to be obsolete in a very short period of time because AI and all these things are able to write code without human error much faster. So if somebody had dedicated their entire life to just code, if they don't have the ability to learn other things more quickly, they're going to be left behind. That is just fact. And I'm not saying don't commit to things. You can commit to things and that's important, but also commit to the idea that adapting and learning other things is crucial. And learning how to essentially relearning how to learn, learning in the traditional ways is going to hold you back again. I think there is a major case for still the foundational things you need to learn. There's a lot of things that are great about school, traditional school, homeschooling, whichever you choose. There's some foundational things that you have to understand. But there comes a point in a person's life where then it's up to what their special skills tell them to do. It's up to what their interests are to help them lean into the things that they want to, not necessarily just follow a path that everybody else is going down. And you know, it reminds me of I Was taught really early on when I would pick up my kids from school to never ask them, how is school today? I would always ask them, what's something that you learned that you could teach me to empower them to want to teach me and to understand that I, as the parent, might not know everything and that they, the student, the kid could still teach somebody of my age. Something we were always taught to ask our kids, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? You know, have these goals, what do you want? But I don't like that question, because how does a kid even know what's available to them? So instead I ask questions like, what is lighting you up right now? What are you most excited about these days? And when you understand from a root level what's exciting, you can then potentially help lean into your kids, into a position or a career that is in support of who they are as a person, what lights them up? Because when, and we all know this, when you are excited and having joy in what you do, your work just as much better, and you're able to serve the. The world and those who are under you much better too. So anyway, getting a little deep here. But, you know, lean learning, although it's stripping out everything, right? It's lean. It's almost like a diet, right? We're leaning out, but we also lean into and go deeper with the things that we choose to focus on. And that's where it goes beyond this just sort of surface level understanding of things. You can go deeper and master these things and acquire skills that others can't because they're too busy researching or they're too busy absorbing. You need to implement, you need to do, and that's how you become the master.
- [46:11]
Jenny Urich
I really like it because it gives the adult a lot to think about for their own life, but it also gives you a lot to think about as a parent. And how are we parenting and how are we preparing our kids for the world that we're in? So you had this sentence in the book that you said, before the Internet, knowledge was a precious commodity. And things have changed. And I think we really slowly change. You know, it's really hard to change those types of things. And in fact, I would say that in most school settings, knowledge is still considered the precious commodity, even though we need to adjust a little bit. Before the Internet, knowledge was a precious commodity. What about AI? Like, what do you think people would say? Like, if descendants in 15 years is before AI, what would be considered the precious commodity? Does that make sense?
- [46:54]
Pat Flynn
Yeah, I mean before AI. So today it's not just information, but I feel like it's the human experiences and the human connections, right? And I think AI will never replace those things. And this is where, especially as a creator, learning how to tell story is really important. Or as a person or a student and or a teacher building real relationships and not just sharing the information, but really making a emotional connection in some way, shape or form. Again, realizing and understanding what is important to somebody and leaning into that for them and for yourself as well. I feel like that in the future AI is just going to make just again information and even implementation of some of that on a more basic level. A lot of jobs like, you know, things that relate to information related jobs from accounting and those kinds of things that are all going to be numbers based, like that's all going to be handled by machines. So thinking about then, well, what then would be important. It's the human connection. It's those experiences that AI will never be able to replace. It's empathy. A lot of these skills that my wife and I have been trying to teach our kids, like communication and working with other people in groups and presentation skills, you know, self care, these things are things that are more important to us than, than the grades that they get. We still want them to get good grades, we still want them to have opportunities, but it's so that they can have options, not so that they can live a predetermined path in life. And I think that that's really key. So you know, we've gone through big world changes in the past before. You think about, you know, the Industrial revolution and things that used to be important then that just became commoditized to the information age. And now information becoming commoditized in the AI age, it's going to be a lot of those, those things that we still have to critically think about that are going to be taken care of for us, which many people are afraid of. And I'm afraid of certain things about AI as well. But there's a lot of things that it can do for me as well so that I can move on to those experiential related things much faster. Right. I can take care of, you know, five hours of research in just 15 minutes so that I can get to the parts that only I can do as a human to get on my podcast and talk and have a real conversation with somebody to, you know, going out and experiencing and doing things with my kids versus kind of just the research part of it, right? So you know, AI can be a tool for good, and it could be a tool for bad. And, you know, with great power comes great responsibility.
- [49:28]
Jenny Urich
Yeah, Jerry Kaplan talks about that. He's like a Stanford researcher. He's been researching AI for a long time, since the 80s. And he talks about how the future is more human than less. Because of just what you said. I think that's what everybody really wants. They want to go do stuff with their kids, they want to go fish, they want to garden. And so if you use the tool to gain a little bit more time, what are you going to put the time into? It's going to be the things that make you feel human. And I love that you talked about in that first keynote that you gave, which is online, people can watch it, you say, become a person that has stories. Like, if you don't have any stories, then put yourself in situations that are going to make stories happen so that you can connect with people in that way. And I thought that's really good advice for adults. It's really good advice for kids, for families, Be. Be the type of family that has stories that are attached to your family, to your kids, to your experiences. So I love all this. It's really, really relatable and very timely. I thought this was really interesting. So you're talking about lean learning, like learning a little bit less so that you can go do. But also you talk about learning in different ways. So one of the ways that you talk about learning is learning in groups. So you wrote, peer groups are a good. And I don't really do this. Peer groups are a good way to consume information. So there's the piece about over consumption, but there's also the piece about direction. And where is your information coming from? Can you talk about your personal experience? Because you've done tons of things with peers over the years, several groups, and you attribute a lot of that to where you are today.
- [50:58]
Pat Flynn
Yeah, I mean, you can't read the label when you're inside the bottle, I like to say. And if you're trying to do something, anything, you know, oftentimes you get so deep into the weeds of what it is you're doing that you just can't see things that are so obvious to others on the outside. And it's important to, again, have those outside eyeballs or ears to help you understand where you may or may not be going. And I've had that happen in so much of my life. I've had other people help reposition where I go, because I might be going down a wrong direction right So I have various mastermind groups that I'm a part of. These are groups of people about four to five each that meet weekly. And these people are so important to me. We've been together for over a decade each, and we make it a priority to meet weekly to talk about where we're at and what we're doing and what's the struggle right now, but also share wins with each other and inspire each other. But I've gotten such brutally honest advice from the outside, from these, from these people before, that without it, I wouldn't be where I am today. And these people, I offer the same kind of brutal advice to them as well, and opinions and perspectives. So I think this is why working with others and others who are along the same ride with you is really, really key. And plus the accountability that comes with that. If anybody's ever tried to go to the gym on their own every day, it's very difficult. But if you go with a friend, you know, they can, they can text you and make sure you get up because they're going to show up and you don't want to leave them hanging and vice versa. And you can kind of be there for each other when you, when you need each other. So this is why working in peer groups is, is really, really key. And this is why getting involved in communities is key, because you can find people who you vibe with. You might not vibe with everybody, but you find your group of people and you kind of create this little amazing group together that can, that can support one another. And I know that in like, for example, the homeschooling space, there's a lot of people who are grouped up together, who speak to each other, who share curriculums with each other and all these kinds of things to better who the child in the end. And that's really, really great. You know, you only know what you know. And so I think, again, that's important. But then also, if you think about it, you also have access to millions of other resources out there, too. And this, this is why finding the one or two resources to then guide you and stick with as you run these experiments or as you learn these things is really, really key. And just again, being okay with the fact that there's probably other resources out there, but you are going to stay disciplined and commit to this curriculum or this journey for a period of time before you assess whether or not to pivot or persist. And that's what's key. There's also other kinds of ways to learn, taking these big things that you want to do and approaching them in a more micro mastery kind of way. I have a friend of mine who's an ultra marathon runner and he wants to master ultramarathon running. I mean, he's running like 30 miles a day. It's stupid. Like, I, I don't know how he does this, but in order to get better at it, he's not just running every day to get better at it, he's micro focusing on certain elements of it that then incrementally stack on each other to get better over time. So, for example, I remember at one point I, I called him up one day and I was like, hey, what are you up to? How's your running going? He's like, oh, cool, we have a camera crew here to help me film some stuff. And I'm like, what are you filming? He had a camera crew come to his house to film him in ultra slow motion to see how his heel hits the ground, to make sure that the angle of attack and all these other math equations that go along with them. Like, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about, but this sounds cool. Anyway, he was micro focusing on that because if he can get his stride just 1% better across thousands of steps, that turns into several minutes and then several hours and, and much more energy. Right. So micro focusing on these things is key. When I go to speak now, I micromaster certain things. When I was learning, I was learning. Okay, well, I'm going to figure out in this next talk what to do with my hands. And I'm just going to watch 100 TED talks, but I'm not going to watch them all the way through. I'm just going to focus on what they're doing with their hands and I'm going to try to discover what I like and don't like or what makes sense or where I'm more engaged and not engaged based on just literally what they're doing with their hands. And then I can learn and absorb that and then implement that and now becomes a part of my second nature. And then I can move on to the next thing. I'm going to learn how to, you know, use my voice in a more dynamic way when I'm speaking to get more people to pay attention to what I'm doing. And then this is how I've become now a world class speaker that I've, I've made over seven figures in speaking fees when back in the day I was deathly afraid of even getting on stage because I didn't just go up on stage and try to get better. I micromastered on certain things each time.
- [55:21]
Jenny Urich
And you started with just one simple book. You started with stand and deliver. You started with something.
- [55:26]
Pat Flynn
Right.
- [55:26]
Jenny Urich
You start with something, and then you know that's not going to be everything. So you just made these small adjustments every single time. You say you never know what can happen when you put yourself in the right place where you are forced to learn and grow so that you know. And sometimes you choose that sometimes you're forced to learn and grow because you lose your job. And sometimes you're helping out a friend. You're going to do the public speaking for their event, even though you're terrified.
- [55:49]
Pat Flynn
Yeah.
- [55:50]
Jenny Urich
And that's a choice to learn and grow and. And then you capitalize on that and keep going. There's a lot to consider in this book. I was where we are on time. I was wondering if. So, you know, you get this 4.2 GPA and you go on and you do really well in college. You go to UC Berkeley. If you were a high school advisor today, would you advise that.
- [56:18]
Pat Flynn
My role, if. If it were up to me as a high school advisor, would be to learn more about each child who was in my. In my folder, I guess you could say, because I know I'm gonna have like, I don't know, a to G or something like that. So whoever these kids are, before telling them what to do.
- [56:34]
Jenny Urich
Yeah.
- [56:35]
Pat Flynn
I need to know who they are.
- [56:36]
Jenny Urich
Yeah. Because that path might work. The 4.2 might work. Yeah, exactly.
- [56:40]
Pat Flynn
It's all based on who they are and what their goals are. And so that. That would be. As a coach, I know to do this, it's asking the right questions to help them discover who they are, not guide them in a way that, you know, felt right for me or it's what everybody else is saying. Right. So again, ask. This is where the exercise for everybody listening is what's important to you? What are your goals? What are your values? They're going to be different from others. So the pathway that somebody says, just like a diet, it's like, oh, do this diet, because it's helped me lose a lot of weight. Well, that helped you. But I'm a different person. I have different goals. I have a different body.
- [57:15]
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Right.
- [57:16]
Pat Flynn
So, you know, some things from this may work and some things from it may not. In fact, in many cases, it could be dangerous. So this is where going into who you are and what you are interested in can then help guide to, you know, for some. And we Even tell our kids we like, if you want to go to college, cool, but go because you know that that's what you want to do. Not because I told you, maybe it's travel, maybe it's do an apprenticeship or do some trade. And especially at a young age, you have the opportunity to try a lot of things. That is your moment in life to experiment because you have less risk. You don't have yet the family that you have to maybe reduce the amount of opportunity you have. That being said, that doesn't necessarily mean you don't ever will have opportunities. I started my business and several other more with a family.
- [58:04]
Jenny Urich
Yeah, same, same, absolutely.
- [58:06]
Pat Flynn
But that, that's where I would go. I would go into coaching Pat and, and ask the right questions to discover more about who they are or at least get them to start thinking more deeply about what they want in life. Not necessarily. Again, which school would make you look the best?
- [58:22]
Jenny Urich
Yeah, it just gives you a permission to like, explore other ways of doing things and a reminder to prioritize things like adaptability and resilience and, and making mistakes and, and how to take these large decisions that are in front of you and break it down into smaller things. If it were easy, what would it look like? What a book. Lean Learning.
- [58:41]
Pat Flynn
Thank you, Jenny.
- [58:42]
Jenny Urich
I can't even believe I got a chance to talk to Pat Flynn. We always end our show with the same question. What's a favorite memory from your childhood? That was outside.
- [58:52]
Pat Flynn
I really had. So second grade, I was living in Connecticut and I had a really big crush on this girl. Her name was Rachel. And I tried to impress her by going on the monkey bars, running to the monkey bars. And I was in my head as a kid. I was going to do a full 360 above it and then land on my feet. I didn't know physics back then because I ended up slipping and hitting my elbow on the concrete sort of thing. And I broke my arm trying to impress this girl. Traumatic. Went to the doctor and the doctor ended up being Rachel's father. So I got to know Rachel through her father. And when I went back to school with a cast on, she was the first person to sign my cast because she already knew that I was coming to school with. With her. Dad had been talking about me with. With her. So anyway.
- [59:47]
Jenny Urich
What a story of something that. That seems like it's going the wrong direction but was redeemed.
- [59:51]
Pat Flynn
Yes, yes. And. And then I moved away and then that was that. But, you know, making lemonade out of lemons is kind of a theme here, I guess you could say.
- [60:02]
Jenny Urich
Yeah, it sure is. Pat, what an honor. Thank you. Thank you for helping me start all the things that I've started. I mean, you had no idea I even existed and you put all these things out into the world and they have helped me tremendously and then have trickled out into our 1000 hours outside community. I'm so grateful and huge congrats on your new book.
- [60:21]
Pat Flynn
That was you were so fun to talk to you. Thank you so much, Ginny. I'm grateful for you as well. And thank you so much for this opportunity.
- [60:30]
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