WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 You posted something a few weeks ago, and it said, half the battle in life is believing the future looks bright, 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:28.905 especially when nothing around you suggests it will. The easiest thing to do is to blame others, assume bad intent, and expect the worst. Those who believe the future looks bright tend to create it. How can people, when they're in that moment, that darkness, where nothing seems fair, how can they find the light? What's the alternative? It's the first question. What other choice do I have? So I I got two choices in that moment. I can sit there and think 00:00:29.390 --> 00:00:45.165 nothing's gonna go right. Poor me. It's unfair. I cannot believe this happened. I cannot believe in and if you have that mindset, you're guaranteed to get the results that you're you're thinking. Things are not gonna work out for you. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna sit there. I'm gonna be like, listen, at least I have this. 00:00:45.645 --> 00:00:50.445 At least I have that. At least I got this going on. We were in the army one time in boot camp, 00:00:50.685 --> 00:00:53.165 and me and this one guy, he just got a letter 00:00:53.405 --> 00:00:55.085 from his wife leaving him. 00:00:56.010 --> 00:01:00.810 And I will never forget, we're in the bunk. You know, we got sixty, seventy of us at this one floor. 00:01:01.370 --> 00:01:07.130 And I'm looking at him, African American guy, probably 25, 26 years old. He's crying. 00:01:07.530 --> 00:01:14.255 And I go up to him. I'm 18 years old. I said, are you good? He says, no, man. I'm not good. I said, what happened? Hands me the letter. 00:01:14.575 --> 00:01:15.535 His wife 00:01:16.015 --> 00:01:16.975 left him 00:01:17.295 --> 00:01:21.375 for another guy that he knew. They were friends. So 00:01:21.535 --> 00:01:29.310 imagine you're in a setting where you don't have access to call her for six more weeks because it's the second week of boot camp that we're in. 00:01:29.950 --> 00:01:31.470 There is no texting. 00:01:31.470 --> 00:01:35.790 There is no let me FaceTime her. There is no WhatsApp. This is 1997. 00:01:36.190 --> 00:01:40.750 I joined April. I eventually got into boots. This is like first week of May, second week of May. 00:01:42.165 --> 00:01:47.685 What do you do in a situation like that? Imagine you're running. What are you thinking about? We have imagination. 00:01:47.685 --> 00:01:54.965 What are you visualizing as a man that your wife is hooking up with him, and what is he doing to your wife? This is your wife. She just left you. 00:01:55.960 --> 00:02:00.760 And you have to stay focused, and you have to do push ups, and people are screaming in your face. What am I going to do about it? 00:02:01.080 --> 00:02:01.960 Super, 00:02:01.960 --> 00:02:11.435 super difficult for him. And I sat there and said, listen, man, can you walk? Yes. Can you talk? Yes. Can we do this? Yes. I said, look, man, let's just kind of start with that and get back at it. 00:02:11.915 --> 00:02:13.995 To me, the idea of optimism, 00:02:14.315 --> 00:02:19.915 you know, feeling that everything's gonna work itself out. I grew up in a very difficult environment 00:02:19.915 --> 00:02:23.670 where I didn't have a lot to look forward to. But to me, 00:02:24.710 --> 00:02:27.910 I look forward to one thing on the weekend. That 00:02:31.830 --> 00:02:32.550 song, 00:02:32.630 --> 00:02:34.470 it's NBA playoffs ninety. 00:02:34.710 --> 00:02:37.830 NBA basketball or NBC, Ahmad Rashad, 00:02:37.830 --> 00:02:38.390 the Lakers. 00:02:39.245 --> 00:02:42.125 I look forward to watching a game on Saturday. 00:02:42.445 --> 00:02:43.725 That was enthusiasm. 00:02:43.725 --> 00:02:46.925 No matter how bad Monday or Tuesday was. So that came back to here 00:02:47.165 --> 00:02:58.620 now growing and building a business. You always have to look forward to what's happened what's happened in the future, and that optimism will give you more chances in life. You know, I played the victim for a lot of my life, and I was in jail for for selling drugs, 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:01.340 and my cellmate got me into fitness. 00:03:01.500 --> 00:03:08.505 And I remember he was asking about my story because he's like, you're gonna work out with me someday. I was in the middle of opiate detox. Horrible, horrible for weeks. 00:03:09.065 --> 00:03:14.825 And he's like, well, what happened to you? Like, what did you do? And I'm like, my parents got divorced, kids picked on me. 00:03:15.145 --> 00:03:25.150 He's like, no. Like, what did you do? And essentially, he was he said to me, he's like, quit being a his exact words. And I was like, what? He's like, you're blaming everybody else for your problems but yourself. 00:03:25.870 --> 00:03:38.845 And he's like, you have the choice to change. You have two choices. Be a man, look yourself in the mirror and say you got yourself here, or be a little go cry in the corner and say, well, listen, that conversation changed my life for because for years, I was blaming the boogeyman for everything. 00:03:39.245 --> 00:03:50.470 And it feels good because then it takes your power away. It, like, you don't have to be accountable anymore, but it's a trap that so many people fall into for years, if not decades. It's so true. It is so true. Just right now, 00:03:50.870 --> 00:03:54.630 I came from a the second sit down I'm doing with Terrence Howard, the actor, 00:03:55.110 --> 00:03:57.670 and this is the first time I've seen him say, 00:03:58.345 --> 00:04:01.065 you know, his first time he went on Cosby Show. 00:04:01.465 --> 00:04:06.825 They did his part, and Bill Cosby afterwards said, hey, man. That was a very good part. I think you could maybe be a regular here. 00:04:07.145 --> 00:04:11.385 And then he goes and tells all his friends, hey, guys. I wanna be on Cosby. I wanna be he's 19 years old. 00:04:11.785 --> 00:04:12.585 And then 00:04:13.610 --> 00:04:15.690 no episode with him in it. 00:04:16.570 --> 00:04:24.170 So he's furious. He comes back. He goes to the studio, walks in, sees Bill Cosby, says, hey, can I talk to you? He says, come into my office. 00:04:24.650 --> 00:04:31.935 He says, I noticed you didn't use my clip. I was in Cosby, you said I'm gonna do great. He says, yeah, not everything makes it in. 00:04:32.415 --> 00:04:37.935 He says, but you said I'm gonna be back on, you said we had something. Yeah, but my thoughts changed. 00:04:38.750 --> 00:04:43.470 He says, but you made this promise, and what about this? He says, yeah. And I changed my mind. 00:04:44.350 --> 00:04:46.750 So he says, from that moment when I left, 00:04:47.150 --> 00:04:48.990 I kept blaming him for everything. 00:04:49.150 --> 00:05:16.040 And then I realized, guess what? If you don't change your own way of doing things, you know, sometimes things are not gonna go your way. Sometimes you are doing the right things. Sometimes the other person just doesn't wanna give you that opportunity. Sometimes a client changes their minds. You'll close a big deal. You're about to get a $10,000 check, and you're all happy you're going to the bank, client calls and cancels. Now what do you do? You were already counting the bills, your car payment, your phone, your this, your that, and no. Now I changed my mind. 00:05:16.440 --> 00:05:17.960 These things are gonna happen. 00:05:18.280 --> 00:05:20.120 But if you think long term, 00:05:20.815 --> 00:05:25.695 and you're able to make it past the tornado, and you take personal responsibility, 00:05:25.855 --> 00:05:39.170 you have a fighting chance. And you have quite the transformation story as well. You were a partier. You were somebody that didn't take life too seriously. And I know when people party I'm a former drug addict, so I understand that those habits can be ingrained in you, and it can be hard to make 00:05:39.490 --> 00:05:52.995 change because you've been doing certain things for so long. Like, how did you go from living in that, you know, that Ford Focus store you tell off Yep. Dad's heart attacks to kind of really changing things? So if you ask my friends and you say, my friends from high school, 00:05:53.395 --> 00:05:55.155 or even my friends from army, 00:05:55.315 --> 00:06:02.355 was Patrick a guy that smoked weed? They would tell you, Patrick never smoked weed. I never smoked weed until I was 22 years old. 00:06:02.675 --> 00:06:04.755 I smoked weed with a girl 00:06:05.230 --> 00:06:06.990 and a friend. 00:06:07.390 --> 00:06:09.870 I probably smoke weed five times in my life. 00:06:10.350 --> 00:06:13.550 Then when I was at Bally's, I worked with a guy who worked with a 00:06:13.870 --> 00:06:14.910 cocaine guy, 00:06:15.230 --> 00:06:16.830 and I did two lines 00:06:17.085 --> 00:06:19.965 when I was 21, 22 years old 00:06:20.285 --> 00:06:23.165 at a club in 3rd Street in Santa Monica, 00:06:23.325 --> 00:06:25.325 and then I did half a pill of ecstasy. 00:06:25.405 --> 00:06:47.755 That is it for me with drugs, just so you know. So to the average person, they'll laugh at that and say, what, you haven't tried this? No. But everybody around me, my friends, they all were into it. My deal was alcohol and women. I drank a lot. I would finish a bottle of tequila in the army every week. Literally every week, I drank a bottle of tequila. So that was my thing. We'd go in Nashville, Tennessee, party, do all this other stuff. 00:06:48.155 --> 00:06:50.475 And then one day, you know, I I 00:06:51.755 --> 00:06:53.275 see the life I'm living, 00:06:53.515 --> 00:07:09.090 and I'm starting the benefit that I had is I got into reading books very early. 21, 22 years old, when I got out of the army, I got into reading books. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna read these books. Rich Dad Poor Dad, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Think and Grow Rich, Laws of Success, Psycho Cybernetics. 00:07:09.250 --> 00:07:18.245 Anyways, I started feeding, you know, power versus force. I'm like, wait a minute. What the hell am I doing with my life? I shouldn't be doing any this stuff. And then came church, 00:07:18.725 --> 00:07:19.685 and then came 00:07:20.245 --> 00:07:21.365 changing disciplines, 00:07:21.365 --> 00:07:39.095 and then came me dating a girl that we're about to get married, and after being together for two and a half, three years, I told her the magical words, and I said, before we get married, I wanna do something. She says, what do you wanna do? I said, I wanna go one month without sex, you and I. She says, what? I said, I wanna go one month, no sex, you and I. She starts laughing. 00:07:39.495 --> 00:07:45.415 I said, no. I'm I'm dead serious because I love you, but I wanna be married to you. I want you to be my wife. Let's go see if we can do one month or not. 00:07:47.575 --> 00:07:50.295 First week, it's Friday night at a big expedition. 00:07:50.730 --> 00:08:05.450 We get back from the movies. It's 11:00 at night. We typically would sit out there in the parking lot, and we would have some fun. She said, what do you wanna do? So I gotta drop you off. She said, you really don't wanna do anything? I said, I wanna know. Let's see what we can talk about. We didn't have a lot to talk about. Don't get me wrong. We had a very good connection together. 00:08:06.085 --> 00:08:11.045 But long term, she wanted to go the Hollywood route, I wanted to go a complete different route. 00:08:11.685 --> 00:08:18.565 Long story short, that didn't work out. And, you know, she's happily married today, I have three beautiful kids, I'm happily married, I got four kids myself. 00:08:19.200 --> 00:08:36.205 But I made different decisions because I wanted to get the real meaning of life for me. I really wanted to find that what that potential for me look like. So I cut out video games early on in my after the army, I was not a video game guy. I cut out the party stuff. I cut out my obsession with women, 00:08:36.845 --> 00:08:38.125 and then I said, let's 00:08:38.605 --> 00:08:42.845 replace it with books, business, health, and faith, and see what it does. 00:08:43.165 --> 00:08:47.005 And then my life changed in ways I never imagined. 00:08:47.330 --> 00:08:48.930 The life I live today 00:08:49.330 --> 00:09:08.395 is still a movie to me. This isn't something, if you ask any one of my friends that I went to high school with, not one of them would say I was gonna end up being here right now. None of them. So it was some of those choices that I made where I cut out the bad habits, the bad things I had, and life changed for me. Choose Your Enemies Wisely. One of my favorite books I've ever listened to, by the way. 00:09:09.355 --> 00:09:20.400 And if people listen to that or read it, I highly recommend, they'll know that you didn't just go from point a to point b. There was a lot of zigzags in between, a lot of loss, a lot of heartache and stress and financial stuff. 00:09:20.880 --> 00:09:32.160 Like, do you believe in order to get from, like, the point a to point b that people see, like, you have to compound small wins and continue to go through adversity? I don't think you have a choice. I I really don't think you have a choice. I think the guys 00:09:32.405 --> 00:09:34.485 that are winning at the highest level, 00:09:34.885 --> 00:09:36.965 that thick skin comes from somewhere. 00:09:37.365 --> 00:09:41.605 Your your ability to go through difficult times comes from somewhere. 00:09:41.765 --> 00:09:44.485 You you'll see stories about comedians who won, 00:09:44.965 --> 00:09:56.530 and they're crushing it. And then in a podcast, when they get vulnerable, they'll talk about how difficult their upbringing is. Mhmm. Look how funny Theo Von is. You watch Theo Von, you're like, this guy is just ridiculously 00:09:56.530 --> 00:10:08.685 funny. He had a challenge in upbringing, a different kind of a weird one. Look at Kevin Hart, tough upbringing with his father. You you you look at all of these guys, you know, and then you see some of the guys that make it to the highest level and they win. 00:10:09.325 --> 00:10:12.045 And I realized a pattern that they had three things in common. 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:16.280 The people that become the greatest at what they do, 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:19.160 one, they had experienced unconditional 00:10:19.160 --> 00:10:39.725 love from one person. That's all, you know, typically it's their mom. One person had to offer you unconditional love. You keep screwing up, they still love you because it makes you say, how can the love exist? I've let this person down so many times. She still loves me. Thank you. Number two is someone that no matter what you do, you will never get approval. 00:10:40.250 --> 00:10:43.530 I got my college degree, but you weren't valedictorian. 00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:45.130 I made a $100,000, 00:10:45.130 --> 00:11:01.715 but you don't have a college degree. I just started my own business. We did 1,000,000 a year. Yeah. But you don't own a house. I just bought a big house. Yeah. But it's in a bad community. I just no matter what you do, that person's never gonna give you the approval. And then the last one is you choosing the right enemy. You choose the right enemy. 00:11:01.955 --> 00:11:12.150 It brings out the best in you. You choose the wrong enemy. It can bring out the worst in you. I've seen people choose the wrong enemy, and they destroy their lives. I've seen people, you know, choose the right enemy and they just sometimes people choose 00:11:12.470 --> 00:11:14.470 those that believe in them as their enemies. 00:11:14.790 --> 00:11:29.405 And sometimes people choose somebody that wants the best for them, but just because they challenge you and push you as an enemy, that person's not an enemy. That's an ally. You are not choosing the right enemy. That's somebody you wanna be close to. Just because they're always challenging you and pushing you, that's not an enemy to you. You're delusional. 00:11:29.485 --> 00:11:41.380 You wanna choose the person that's easy and you can be accepted around them no matter what you do. It's okay. Relax. Oh, it's okay. Eat this. Oh, it's okay. Don't do oh, it's okay sleeping. Oh, it's okay to do that. Yeah. But that's your enemy, 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:42.980 not the other person. 00:11:43.460 --> 00:11:47.380 The person that's pushing you, challenging you, confronting you, 00:11:47.700 --> 00:12:00.465 directing you to say, hey, man, you complain too much. Hey, man, your language is weak. Why do you talk like that? Who talks like that? I just don't like him. You know, he's my enemy. No, that's your ally. So 00:12:01.185 --> 00:12:10.760 unconditional love, no matter what you do, won't get the approval. And last but not least, choosing the right enemy. You do that, you know, typically tends to produce a very strong, 00:12:11.080 --> 00:12:12.440 ambitious human being. 00:12:12.760 --> 00:12:17.000 You know, one of the things that I did was I thought about what would make me angry 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:24.165 when I would work out. Like, after I got out of jail, that's what helped me get through. It was like the people who bullied me in childhood and stuff that happened to me. 00:12:24.965 --> 00:12:43.690 Then I found that that got me so far and I had to choose different enemies because I found myself just angry at the world because I was constantly thinking about the people who wronged me and I caught myself at times slipping back into the victim mindset. There's a lot of people that go through adversity as a as a as a kid, and they're trying to turn that pain into purpose. How can they make that leap from, 00:12:44.170 --> 00:12:50.945 like, using that as fuel to then moving it into the next direction? Listen. You got anything 00:12:51.425 --> 00:13:00.145 I can use to drive you at the beginning, I'm gonna do it. Anything. When I over the years, I've recruited and built a lot of different insurance agencies in America, I would 00:13:01.620 --> 00:13:07.940 use a method called the lock on method. I would look at a person and say, is this somebody for me to put 90% of my time into? 00:13:08.260 --> 00:13:13.380 And typically, the things I would look at before I put my time into that person is, has this person played sports before? 00:13:13.885 --> 00:13:14.605 Why? 00:13:15.245 --> 00:13:19.165 If you played high school football, high school basketball, 00:13:19.165 --> 00:13:20.445 high school baseball, 00:13:20.525 --> 00:13:21.805 travel soccer, 00:13:21.965 --> 00:13:25.085 and you played it in your teens for four years, 00:13:25.980 --> 00:13:28.060 here's what you generally experienced. 00:13:28.380 --> 00:13:32.060 You experienced your coach pushing you, challenging you. 00:13:32.460 --> 00:13:34.060 You experienced losing. 00:13:34.300 --> 00:13:35.900 You experienced injury. 00:13:36.140 --> 00:13:37.340 You experienced 00:13:37.420 --> 00:13:55.015 teamwork. You experienced what it was like when a guy blocked for you or you're about to lose the game bottom of the ninth inning, but that shortstop made the cash through to first. Without him, you were about to get the loss because of him. You're a hero. The pitcher, you're like, man, I'm it's good to have good people in your life if I didn't have that shortstop. So you realize you need people. 00:13:55.690 --> 00:14:01.050 I saw patterns of people that played sports three, four years with a tough coach. 00:14:01.530 --> 00:14:15.195 They were generally easier to work with and coach than somebody who never had that experience of playing sports. They were sensitive. A person that didn't play sports, they were typically sensitive if you gave them feedback. You know? They were typically someone that was soft. If you had a little bit of military background, 00:14:15.435 --> 00:14:27.420 drill sergeants kind of pushed you and got that stuff out of you. So to me, as I sit down and go through it, that's a choice the individual's gotta make. You know, it's truly a choice. You're headed towards a terrible life. 00:14:27.660 --> 00:14:33.500 You're gonna lose decades of your life, and you don't even know it. So make the better choice for yourself. But, 00:14:34.220 --> 00:14:34.380 know, 00:14:36.775 --> 00:14:39.815 I Mario Aguilar, one of my guys, bought me a gift, 00:14:40.135 --> 00:14:40.775 a 00:14:41.335 --> 00:14:42.375 Xerox 00:14:42.695 --> 00:14:46.215 management manual, sales manual from 1969. 00:14:46.375 --> 00:14:47.255 Why Xerox? 00:14:47.670 --> 00:14:51.270 If you look at which companies produced some of the best salespeople in 00:14:51.750 --> 00:14:56.630 the last sixty years, Xerox is always on the name that comes up. If you go right now, chat GBT, 00:14:56.870 --> 00:15:07.215 what Fortune 1,000 companies produced the best salespeople? Who has a reputation for that The last sixty years, you'll see Xerox will be in the top five list. So guess what? Why is that? Systematic, 00:15:07.455 --> 00:15:09.855 a guy at the top taught people follow-up, 00:15:10.015 --> 00:15:29.400 taught them how to confront, taught them how to do customer service, customer experience. If you look at management, Jack Welch. If you worked under Jack Welch, people wanted to recruit you because they knew, especially if you had worked under Jack Welch's if your resume said, report it direct to Jack Welch for seven years. Oh, you want this guy. You come here. We'll put you and give you a heavy position. Why? 00:15:30.135 --> 00:15:49.340 If you made it under a Jack Welch, that means you are a Jack Welch. That means you can handle the tough love. That means you can handle being pushed. That means you can handle the pressure. We want somebody like that. So to me, you know, the same way you look at a resume and somebody's had four jobs in four years, I'm like, I'm gonna be the fifth job. Why am I hiring you? You know, it's the same way you're going to be judged 00:15:49.500 --> 00:16:02.985 for the choices you make, whether you like it or not. And if you want the kind of credibility and respect when you walk into a room, sometimes that takes years to regain. But the reality of it is just like in the in in Christianity, 00:16:02.985 --> 00:16:03.865 nondenominations, 00:16:03.865 --> 00:16:48.350 they'll say this. There's there's such thing as, you know, I'm a born again Christian. You'll hear that phrase. There's a born again executive. There's a born again CEO. There's a born again founder. There's a born again father. There's a born again husband. Hey, from today on, that's it. The old guy's dead. Decision is cutting away. I'm gonna make a decision to cut away from the old me. New person is here. Every day I'm working on developing a new guy, I'm good. I know I've made mistakes, I'm gonna be making better choices moving forward. Then at first people don't believe you. They think you're full of shit. They're like, whatever. You're gonna go back to drugs. You're gonna go back to drinking. You're gonna go back to not taking care of your money. You're gonna go back to gambling. I get it why you don't trust me. It's a fair judgment that I deserve because I've been doing this for eighteen years. I get it. But wait for me six months. Six months later, oh, wow. Interesting. 00:16:48.590 --> 00:16:55.135 Is he gonna break again? One year later, wow. He's changed. Two years later, three years later, everybody forgot. 00:16:55.615 --> 00:16:57.535 And it's just an old story. I 00:16:58.015 --> 00:17:02.575 had a guy with me that's been working with me for twenty years. He had such a massive alcohol issue. 00:17:02.975 --> 00:17:04.815 Six years ago, I'm picking him up from prison. 00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:10.240 And it's 03:30 in the morning, I'm pulling up in my blue Rolls Royce in Oak Cliff, Texas, 00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:12.400 which is the worst part of Texas, 00:17:12.800 --> 00:17:29.995 Dallas. Terrible. The prison's there. I go, and everybody thinks I'm a lawyer. He gets in the car, we're driving back to his house, I'm dropping him off, thirty minute drive, saying, you're not saying anything. I said, I have nothing to tell you. You typically have a lot to tell me. I said, I have nothing to tell you. Pat, you have to talk to me. He's crying in the car. You have to tell me something. I said, have to tell you nothing. 00:17:30.315 --> 00:17:37.260 No. No. I'm I said, moving forward, you're not reporting to me. You're probably gonna get fired. You're out of the circle. You're not gonna work with me directly. 00:17:37.580 --> 00:17:46.860 They're probably gonna fire you unless if you commit to something with them. I'm no longer I said, you're not grateful for your life. I said, you're not grateful for what God's given you, and I can't do anything about it. You lack perspective. 00:17:47.695 --> 00:17:51.135 We come back. He says, give me one last chance. 00:17:51.615 --> 00:17:56.495 Every night, you need to go to AA meeting. Every night for a year, he goes to AA meetings. 00:17:57.055 --> 00:18:01.135 The guy that sat down with him was my previous CFO. He has a tough conversation with him. 00:18:02.700 --> 00:18:03.740 He accepts. 00:18:04.060 --> 00:18:13.740 He went from about to kill himself with his story to now he works with us. He does very well. He makes a million dollar of your income, beautiful wife, beautiful kids, beautiful family. 00:18:13.900 --> 00:18:15.900 But by the way, we forgot 00:18:16.775 --> 00:18:21.335 any of the stuff that he did seven years ago, because he proved to us that he's truly changed. 00:18:21.735 --> 00:18:24.695 Does that make sense? So the judgment that we were giving him, 00:18:25.095 --> 00:18:26.295 he removed it. 00:18:26.695 --> 00:18:29.255 And that's kinda how life works. He recreated 00:18:29.255 --> 00:18:29.975 his reputation. 00:18:30.570 --> 00:18:54.005 And everybody can do that based on their choices, but it's not easy. It's very, very hard to do. And I've heard you talk about, like, McConaughey's famous quote where it's like, your hero should be your future self. Do you think it takes something like that to create this future identity of yourself? This thing is so fun. This life it I mean, sometimes you're, like, going through such a season, and sometimes you're going through such an amazing season. And then sometimes you're sitting there with a person and having a great conversation. 00:18:54.325 --> 00:19:00.020 And, you know, this morning, I wanna watch my daughter. She was four years old doing a a show at our school, 00:19:00.340 --> 00:19:27.660 and she was part of the tiny dancer at the church. She she was dancing. I'm standing right there just looking at her, and I can't wait for her to see me and say, daddy's here. You're safe. And then I walk to the side, and she spots me. She runs up, just throws herself at me, lifts her legs up. I'm hugging her. We're sitting there having a good moment together. My son is over here. We're laughing. My other daughter's there. We're laughing at how she's moving, how she's dancing. My wife is sitting over here. And no one exists around me at this time. 00:19:28.060 --> 00:19:28.940 Life 00:19:28.940 --> 00:19:30.220 is amazing. 00:19:30.460 --> 00:19:31.980 But my dad is 83. 00:19:32.300 --> 00:19:39.020 My biggest fear at six years old was possibly losing this guy. His time is coming up. He's 83 years old. He walks different. 00:19:39.495 --> 00:19:48.455 You know, he he his body is very different. It's frail. It's not the same as it was, but we still have good conversations together. I'm 47. I'm not 37. I'm not 27. 00:19:48.535 --> 00:19:59.870 Body's different at 47 than it was at 37 than it was at 27. You know? You and I are five days apart, you're all you're an October 13 baby. I'm an October 18 baby, but things change. But it's also like, that's cool. 00:20:00.110 --> 00:20:04.270 You know, you sit there, you realize how amazing we got this one chance here, 00:20:04.510 --> 00:20:11.945 and it's not always gonna be great. It's not. But if you don't look at this and say, man, let me go enjoy this thing called life and 00:20:12.185 --> 00:20:13.945 get some experiences and, 00:20:14.345 --> 00:20:26.790 you know, do something that it can make an impact, so when one day I'm no longer here, yeah, they'll eventually forget about you, because that's kind of life moves on. We're all coming here, and then you move on. But at least some impact is left. 00:20:27.190 --> 00:20:33.865 At least you build something you're proud of. People look back and say, that's my dad. That's my mom. You 00:20:34.265 --> 00:20:38.665 have to think about your mortality and what kind of an impact you want to make. So to me, 00:20:39.065 --> 00:20:49.030 if you don't see the bigger picture of how lucky we are to have a shot at building a good life, even though after we screwed up, you like gratitude, you like perspective, but just take a step back and realize 00:20:49.350 --> 00:20:51.670 we are some of the luckiest people alive. 00:20:51.830 --> 00:20:56.150 Even if you've got nothing, you still have more than a lot of people that are billions of people 00:20:56.630 --> 00:21:11.735 don't have a lot of things that you have, trust me. But that gratitude, it's hard to do when life is tough. It's not easy. You gotta still find a way to do it. No. When you have nothing going for you, that's like the only thing you can really lean on, right, is gratitude's been great for, like, your legs and your arms and your And 00:21:12.215 --> 00:21:13.015 I think that people, 00:21:13.560 --> 00:21:15.240 have a hard time because 00:21:15.560 --> 00:21:27.160 they want to think positively, they want to be confident, but yet their bank account has nothing in it. They don't have a relationship. They're out of shape, so they have no real metric to look at. Like, my life is going in the right direction. 00:21:27.320 --> 00:21:30.825 How can people get past that? Starts with you. Make a change. 00:21:31.145 --> 00:21:36.105 You know, start keeping your word. Increase your credit score. You know, the same way we have a credit score when you buy a house 00:21:36.345 --> 00:21:49.130 or you buy a car, it's because you don't keep your word of making that car payment. So your credit score score drops. You did not make that mortgage payment on time. Your credit score drops. 00:21:49.450 --> 00:21:53.290 Everybody is judged on how well of a job you do keeping your word. 00:21:53.530 --> 00:21:56.010 If you're a project manager, does it get done on time? 00:21:56.925 --> 00:22:00.045 If you're a general contractor, do you build a house on time? 00:22:00.525 --> 00:22:07.245 If you're a kid going to school, do you go to school on time? If you're a father or mother picking up the kids, do you pick them up on on time? 00:22:07.485 --> 00:22:18.250 If you're a CEO running a Fortune 500 company that's a publicly traded company, do you deliver on your estimates that you had? You know, what you were gonna be doing? If you're president, you deliver on the policies that you said 00:22:19.050 --> 00:22:19.850 everything 00:22:20.010 --> 00:22:23.690 is about keeping your word, and it starts off with the smallest thing. 00:22:24.305 --> 00:22:30.945 I'm gonna walk I'm gonna go and walk outside twenty minutes. Okay. Great. Did you keep your word? I did. Great. Do that one month straight. Your respect goes up. 00:22:31.345 --> 00:22:46.200 You know, I'd like one of the things I had every time I had one of these health people on the podcast, I change something big about my health. I had Paul Saladino on about a year ago. Last time I had Celsius, I used to drink two or three Celsius a day. Haven't had a Celsius drink since that day. K? Then I had 00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:53.035 Gary Breck on change with him, what he said. Then I had Doctor. Rhonda Patrick on two weeks ago. 00:22:53.435 --> 00:22:55.915 I've been fasting every day. 00:22:56.235 --> 00:23:08.620 I moved up my dinner. Typically, I have dinner around seven, 07:30. Now I have dinner at 04:45. I don't have dinner late. Unless if I'm going out with somebody and entertaining, and maybe I'll have some oysters, something like that. But I try to bring my dinner to 04:45. 00:23:08.780 --> 00:23:12.620 I don't eat anything in the morning, including piece of gum, including honey in my tea, 00:23:13.020 --> 00:23:27.085 including any water that may have sugar in it. No. It's just regular water, regular tea. No. And guess what? I feel better. I feel hungry. I feel like I'm in a hunt at this. So to us, hey, you keep your word when you're making small little commitments, 00:23:27.245 --> 00:23:30.525 you start seeing respect goes up. You know what? When I say something, things happen. 00:23:31.430 --> 00:23:36.390 When I say what I'm gonna be doing, everybody builds a reputation. Some people have a reputation for being 00:23:36.630 --> 00:23:37.350 tough. 00:23:37.590 --> 00:23:42.310 Some people have a reputation for being good at making money. Some people have a reputation for being fun. 00:23:42.630 --> 00:23:44.870 Some people have a reputation for being a womanizer. 00:23:45.215 --> 00:23:51.695 Some people have a reputation for being good with the way they write, or text, or call, or speak, or podcast. 00:23:52.015 --> 00:23:58.175 I wanted to build a reputation that when Patrick says he's gonna do something, he's gonna do it. Because both your enemies, 00:23:58.550 --> 00:24:53.955 your friends, your family, your allies, benefit from it. If your enemies know when you say, here's what we're gonna be doing, they're like, oh, I definitely don't wanna hear it from him. There's a benefit of building a reputation. When you say you're gonna do something, you do it. So being consistent and not being a victim are two common themes we talked about. And keep your word. And keep your word. Yeah. What other, like, big life decisions do you think are important for people? Cut out the drugs. If, you know, you can cut out the alcohol, you know, cut out any of that stuff that slows you down. Change some of the people around you that are negative and are crap magnets, including some family members. You know, change your language. I audit people on the words they use. I'm like, don't use weak words like I'm tired. Don't use weak words like, you know, I I'm just so tired. I'm just I'm like, oh my god. Stops. It's a turnoff when somebody talks like that. Right? I can be sitting next to somebody and I talk to them just by the way they speak. I catch weak words. And when you catch weak words, a person with weak words can't manage 00:24:54.330 --> 00:24:59.370 others. And if you do, you can't in a high standard environment. So you gotta protect the words that's coming out of your mouth. 00:24:59.770 --> 00:25:05.610 You know, sometimes you slip, you're like, well, why am I talking this way? No. No. Upgrade the words. Upgrade your environment. 00:25:06.010 --> 00:25:17.725 I can't go on on this for for hours and hours, but those would be some of the things I would share. That was one of the biggest shifts I made was changing the people I spent time with. I I say that you gotta spend time with people who have common futures and not common pasts. 00:25:18.045 --> 00:25:24.550 And that hit home with me because I was a guy who partied all Love that. Yeah. Common futures dot common past. Yep. Because 00:25:24.870 --> 00:25:43.385 as a kid, you know, I I partied a lot, did a lot of drugs, and that was like my my crew. Where are you from? You're From Maryland. Maryland. Yeah. So were born and raised in Baltimore. Yeah. Born and raised in the Baltimore area. Yep. And so that's all we did, and so that's what I was used to. And so it wasn't it was when I when I stopped doing drugs and I got into fitness, 00:25:43.625 --> 00:25:49.145 I would go hang out with my old friends and there was something different. Like, they would go and do drugs or drink a bunch or whatever. And I was like, 00:25:49.800 --> 00:26:12.415 why does this feel weird to me? Why does this feel like an awkward first date when I have nothing in common with these people? And I had to make that decision that's like, okay, they're in my past life. I need to cut these people out. They're not bad people. They're just not aligned with where I'm going in the future, and that is has really stuck with me in something that I've used to be successful. Good for you. Respect to you. It's not easy to do. It's very hard to do. But if you're able to do it, 00:26:12.975 --> 00:26:15.455 life changes. You know, sometimes for us 00:26:16.920 --> 00:26:23.720 I had I had one of my guys that I've mentored for over twenty years, no longer, but I used to mentor this guy a lot. He he's probably one of the 00:26:24.280 --> 00:26:27.880 10 people in my life that have spent the most actual 00:26:28.360 --> 00:26:32.040 hours with me. It's in the thousands of hours that this person spent with me. 00:26:33.185 --> 00:26:37.105 One day, we're having a conversation. He says, you know what? I don't know why, 00:26:37.585 --> 00:26:40.305 but why is it so important to me what you think? 00:26:40.865 --> 00:26:44.145 I wanna get to a point that I could care less about what you think about me. 00:26:44.850 --> 00:26:47.490 I said, really? Yeah. I said, why do you think you care about what I think 00:26:48.610 --> 00:26:53.650 why do you think you care so much about what I think about you? I don't know, but I don't like it. I said, okay. Alright. 00:26:54.770 --> 00:27:01.355 I said, so what's wrong with that? Tell me what's wrong with that. And he starts kinda going through the whole thing. Alright. 00:27:01.595 --> 00:27:02.555 I said, 00:27:03.755 --> 00:27:04.555 see, 00:27:04.795 --> 00:27:07.915 if you make a list of people in your life 00:27:08.635 --> 00:27:10.155 that you rank them by, 00:27:11.050 --> 00:27:14.890 who on that list do you care about and what they think about you, 00:27:15.210 --> 00:27:16.330 and you rank them. 00:27:16.570 --> 00:27:17.770 Like, I care 00:27:19.930 --> 00:27:22.970 what my kids think about me, but in what areas. 00:27:23.450 --> 00:27:26.410 Not the fact I'm tough with them. I'm gonna stay tough with them. 00:27:27.285 --> 00:27:31.285 But I care about the fact that they're gonna go out there, when a kid offers them drugs, 00:27:31.845 --> 00:27:33.445 for them to sit there and say 00:27:33.685 --> 00:27:43.870 and the kids that are offering them drugs say they don't have a good relation with their dad. I want them to say, man, my dad's gonna be hurt by this if I do it. I love my dad. He loves me. I can't I'm good, guys. 00:27:44.510 --> 00:27:48.670 That I care about that. Right? If I go and I think about my dad, 00:27:49.070 --> 00:27:50.750 I wanna make my dad proud. 00:27:51.390 --> 00:27:59.745 So I care about that. But my dad didn't want me to leave the previous company, start my own insurance company because he was afraid. He was afraid I was gonna lose everything. I already had a great life. 00:28:00.065 --> 00:28:05.265 I was already traveling the world. He's like, what are you doing? What you're gonna give all this up to go start your own company? I am. Why? 00:28:05.585 --> 00:28:08.785 Because I don't like what this other company stands for because of three people. 00:28:09.585 --> 00:28:12.625 He says, so you're gonna leave? He says, yes. He's called my pastor. He called everybody. 00:28:13.350 --> 00:28:16.070 He says, Pat, you can't do it. I said, dad, I'm doing it. 00:28:16.550 --> 00:28:18.230 But I did it partly for him. 00:28:18.870 --> 00:28:20.390 I wanted to make him proud. 00:28:21.030 --> 00:28:26.935 But guess what? I care about what he has to think about me. And then all of a sudden, I noticed who's not on the list. 00:28:27.495 --> 00:28:30.375 And I said, why do I care so much? Oh, done. 00:28:30.935 --> 00:28:33.015 This guy, why would I care about what they think? 00:28:33.495 --> 00:28:38.775 It it became so simple when you make a list of saying, are the top 10 people that you care about 00:28:39.090 --> 00:28:44.930 what they think about you? This should be a short list. But that also doesn't mean everything you do. 00:28:45.410 --> 00:29:00.165 Not every decision. My I have relatives that were not happy about my me marrying my wife because my wife's white, and I'm Middle Eastern. And I grew up around Middle Eastern minus my time in the military. In the military, I was around everybody. But in, you know, high school, was around Armenians, Assyrians, 00:29:01.125 --> 00:29:02.005 Iranians. 00:29:02.005 --> 00:29:03.445 No. I married 00:29:03.445 --> 00:29:11.780 my wife. We got letters. She got letters saying, how could you marry somebody like Pat? Do you know about his temper and all this other stuff and how hard charging he is? He's you want something like that? 00:29:12.740 --> 00:29:15.300 And I got letters. Why would you marry a white girl? 00:29:16.445 --> 00:29:19.885 The the day before I got married, I'm getting letters about why are you getting married? 00:29:20.205 --> 00:29:42.770 Man, I'm good. My dad loved her. I love her. We have a good relationship. We've been married now for it'll be seventeen years in June. Do I think we're gonna be married together for forty years? I don't know. We take it one year at a time. Every I've been saying this since our wedding day. When I got married, I looked at everybody. I said, I don't know if we're gonna be married for twenty years. We're taking it one year at a time. We've been taking it one year at a time for the last sixteen and a half years. Right? 00:29:43.575 --> 00:29:49.095 Four healthy kids. We're happy. Life is good. We're growing. We're doing our thing. But to me, 00:29:49.495 --> 00:29:52.455 it's very important to make a list of the people 00:29:52.775 --> 00:29:57.815 opinions you carry. You have to be honest with yourself because some people are on that list that you shouldn't care what they think. 00:29:58.520 --> 00:30:12.360 And that list shouldn't be 50 names, 200 names. It should be a very tight list. Max, 10 names. Healthy, five names. For me, I have four kids. I have more family, so that got a little bit bigger, but around 10 names is where it needs to be. And then you'll 00:30:12.815 --> 00:30:15.055 walk better, you'll make decisions easier, 00:30:15.455 --> 00:30:17.295 you'll second guess yourself less, 00:30:17.695 --> 00:30:30.270 you'll take responsibility more, and like, no, I'm good. Here's what we're gonna be doing. Alright. Great. You'll lead better if you're able to do that. Do you think the path you took to change your life is repeatable for people who wanna who are feeling lost? For others to do. Absolutely. 00:30:30.350 --> 00:30:34.510 Yeah. You know, like, the other day, we're doing an exercise. It's a good question you just asked. 00:30:34.990 --> 00:30:39.710 And one of my the managers here, her name is Taylor. She's phenomenal at what she does. 00:30:40.565 --> 00:30:43.205 Me, her, Aaron, and Mario, we made a list. 00:30:43.685 --> 00:30:48.325 K? And they're asking me, Pat, I wanna be better at managing my guys. What do I do? 00:30:48.645 --> 00:30:53.925 I said, great. Before we talk about what you can do, she's talking about how can I become better at duplicating 00:30:53.925 --> 00:30:54.965 others 00:30:54.740 --> 00:30:55.700 to succeed? 00:30:55.780 --> 00:30:58.980 Right? Duplicating others. So what you're asking is, is it 00:30:59.300 --> 00:31:01.300 repeatable? Is it duplicatable? 00:31:01.300 --> 00:31:02.580 Can somebody else 00:31:03.060 --> 00:31:05.380 get the same kind of results? And here's what I said. 00:31:05.860 --> 00:31:07.380 I said people we recruit, 00:31:08.585 --> 00:31:09.945 what do we get 00:31:10.345 --> 00:31:14.665 that we don't do, that they bring to the table? What is not 00:31:15.145 --> 00:31:16.745 that you can't duplicate? 00:31:16.985 --> 00:31:22.905 And they're sitting there thinking, I don't understand the question. Okay. What do you bring to the table that I didn't help you get? 00:31:25.060 --> 00:31:30.180 My IQ? Yes. It's got nothing to do with me duplicating. Like, I can't duplicate IQ. 00:31:30.660 --> 00:31:34.100 My EQ? I can't duplicate EQ. EQ personality. 00:31:34.100 --> 00:31:36.020 I can't duplicate the personality. 00:31:36.100 --> 00:31:45.875 So you and I can't be like Theo Vaughan. That's his personality. Right. You and I can't be like Marcelo Hernandez, the comedian. We can't be like, you know, 00:31:46.675 --> 00:31:51.715 a Matthew McConaughey or Tom Cruise. That's the personality. You can't duplicate that. 00:31:52.035 --> 00:31:52.835 Then character, 00:31:54.330 --> 00:31:55.210 honesty, 00:31:55.210 --> 00:31:56.010 integrity, 00:31:56.170 --> 00:32:05.770 that your parents did that to you, and your choice, your faith, your decisions, that's not my responsibility. That's on you. Authentic, some people are fake. Some people are authentic. 00:32:05.930 --> 00:32:14.435 I can't. If you're authentic, that's you get the credit for that. Right? And we wrote a couple other things here. Then it was like the next part is on what to duplicate. 00:32:15.075 --> 00:32:16.915 One of them was nonverbal. 00:32:16.915 --> 00:32:18.515 The other one is verbal. Meaning, 00:32:19.395 --> 00:32:20.595 caught, taught. 00:32:21.810 --> 00:32:22.530 K? 00:32:22.610 --> 00:32:26.530 So what you bring to the table, personality, DNA, character, 00:32:26.770 --> 00:32:28.850 talent, IQ, EQ, 00:32:28.930 --> 00:32:31.810 we don't get credit for that. Right? Then 00:32:32.050 --> 00:32:41.205 what you can catch from working with me, the impact I make of teaching you. Hey, Johnny, here's what you need to do. Read this book. Follow the script. 00:32:41.365 --> 00:32:43.925 This is your schedule. Here's how many calls to make. 00:32:45.125 --> 00:32:47.605 Follow the structure. Dude, okay, that's teaching. 00:32:48.530 --> 00:32:49.890 And then it's catching. 00:32:50.370 --> 00:32:53.970 Catching is if you spend the entire day with me today from morning till now, 00:32:54.210 --> 00:32:57.730 you'd walk away saying, holy This guy's schedule is back to back. 00:32:58.130 --> 00:33:05.985 It's way more than what I'm gonna say on this podcast. Every time somebody comes here to our property and they come and walk around, we have three different buildings. One of them we're about to sell, 00:33:06.225 --> 00:33:13.105 which was a bank we bought, and the podcast said it was in the vault. The other one is a building we bought that we turned into our cigar launcher, private member, 00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:19.120 which now we're turning into a restaurant, and then this 11 acre campus that we bought. Not a land, lease to be on the land. Right? 00:33:19.600 --> 00:33:23.280 When somebody comes in, you're like, oh my god. What do you guys do? 00:33:23.760 --> 00:33:24.720 What is this? 00:33:25.280 --> 00:33:38.505 This is really what yeah. Holy I didn't know you guys said this. We do. Then somebody will come and monitor and see how I work. And then they say, oh. And by the way, when somebody comes and watches how you work, they make one of two decisions. 00:33:39.385 --> 00:33:42.020 One of them is, oh my god. 00:33:42.420 --> 00:33:44.980 This is what it takes? I'm not doing it. 00:33:45.380 --> 00:33:48.900 Or it's gonna be, wow. I got the blueprint. 00:33:49.140 --> 00:33:50.020 Let's go. 00:33:50.260 --> 00:34:04.835 But one of those two decisions is gonna be made. So duplicate this. Can somebody repeat this? Number one, the stuff that's your DNA, personality, character, all this stuff, no. That's on you. I can't be like you. You can't be like me in that area. I can't be like you. You can't be like that in that area. Caught. 00:34:05.260 --> 00:34:07.900 If I watch you do a 100 episodes of podcast, 00:34:08.220 --> 00:34:43.550 I can see how you prepare for it. I can see that you have notes here that you wrote down. I can see the format that you follow to write the notes down. I can catch how you do this. Then I can catch how you prep. Let's just say I'm your driver or your right hand guy, I drove here with you, and I saw what videos you watched of me. Do you go to filters, most views? Do you watch those videos first? Do you go to Twitter to see my last 100 tweets? Do you go to Instagram to see what stories I put up to see what's the most freshest thing on my mind? I don't know, but there's a format. Look at how you started today's podcast. You got a tweet or a Facebook post that I put put up two weeks, so you started with that. That's a format. I can catch that from you. Right? 00:34:45.245 --> 00:34:46.045 90% 00:34:46.045 --> 00:34:47.005 is catching. 00:34:47.085 --> 00:34:48.445 10% is teaching. 00:34:49.325 --> 00:34:58.685 It's not even close. Well, I think it goes back to your environment, who you spend time with. Right? Because I think You know what I'm saying when I'm saying 90% is catching and 10% is teaching? Like, 00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:09.280 somebody told me this quote twenty five years ago. There's more caught than taught in parenting. There's more caught than taught in parenting. 00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:15.405 My daughter was two years old. One day she comes. She's like, what the heck? I said, what'd you just say? 00:35:16.685 --> 00:35:18.365 What the heck? 00:35:18.845 --> 00:35:19.805 Brooklyn. 00:35:19.805 --> 00:35:21.325 I said, babe, 00:35:21.725 --> 00:35:26.285 what'd you where did you learn this from? And then my wife said, babe, you always say what the heck. 00:35:27.085 --> 00:35:28.205 She caught 00:35:28.640 --> 00:35:35.120 this phrase, what the heck. School calls me saying, hey, your son dropped a few bad words today. Really? Tell me which ones. 00:35:35.360 --> 00:36:03.820 Well, the s word and the f word. I said, will take responsibility for the s one, not the f one. The f one, learned the school, the s he learned from me. And the teacher's like, oh, wow. You're very straight up. I said, no. What do you want me to tell you? I said a lot around the kids, and I probably shouldn't. So that's me. He caught that from me. But I don't say f around them, so he picked it up from somebody else. Okay. Well, thanks for that. Well, father, can you please slow down? I said, well, think about it. You know? But I'm being honest with you. So to me, the replicating part 00:36:04.060 --> 00:36:06.380 is you is caught 00:36:06.460 --> 00:36:07.500 is taught. 00:36:07.660 --> 00:36:12.185 Taught is important, but oh my god, catching it is so critical. 00:36:12.425 --> 00:36:18.185 And it goes back to the way you carry yourself, right, in setting the example and being the model. And that's why they say in parenting, 00:36:18.185 --> 00:36:19.705 like, modeling behavior 00:36:20.105 --> 00:36:27.980 is, like, one of the most important things. Like, just kinda just how you just referenced that. It's very true. This is why for me, when I would do conference calls, my kids are watching me. 00:36:28.620 --> 00:36:32.140 If I'm in the car, they're around me, I want them to hear daddy negotiate. 00:36:32.780 --> 00:36:33.660 If I'm 00:36:34.540 --> 00:36:54.805 running a meeting, if the kids don't have any school and no practice and no sports, they're at the office here all day. They're running around. They're picking stuff up on what's going on. How do we run a media company? How do we run a consulting firm? What do we say in the boardroom? What's being negotiated? Why did dad handle that that way? Dad, why did you fire that person? Dad, why did you hire that person? Dad, why did we make that investment? 00:36:55.420 --> 00:37:02.700 Dad, what do you think? Well, I think we made a mistake lose that. We did lose money, and we made a mistake. But what could we have done differently, dad? What do you think we could have done differently? 00:37:02.860 --> 00:37:03.980 It's constant 00:37:04.140 --> 00:37:07.500 because shadowing is an edge. It's massive. 00:37:08.205 --> 00:37:12.525 If if if I can work around somebody and shadow them, 00:37:12.845 --> 00:37:17.405 and if I can do that three months, six months, twelve months, two years, are you kidding me? 00:37:17.805 --> 00:37:19.085 Are you kidding me? 00:37:19.405 --> 00:37:25.490 Why is it that the VPs end up becoming so many vice presidents become presidents? Because they shadow the president. 00:37:26.210 --> 00:37:28.290 You know, they're they're in the room. 00:37:28.690 --> 00:37:31.250 They're seeing, oh, that was a dynamic with China. 00:37:31.890 --> 00:37:32.850 But that was a dynamic 00:37:33.250 --> 00:37:34.610 got it. Let me store it here. 00:37:35.255 --> 00:37:38.375 I shadowed. I saw it. So very important. 00:37:39.015 --> 00:37:41.095 So you got boys. We're 00:37:41.095 --> 00:37:46.135 in like a men's mental health epidemic, I think, right now with suicides and addiction. 00:37:47.255 --> 00:37:51.500 Like, do you think that is, and what can men do differently 00:37:51.980 --> 00:38:01.500 to be to kind of not fall into some of these unfortunate traps? We're listening to what people are telling us on how to raise kids. It's a bunch of nonsense. 00:38:02.235 --> 00:38:05.675 And we're being told how to raise kids by people that don't have kids, 00:38:06.155 --> 00:38:08.635 or or that are extremely sensitive. 00:38:09.035 --> 00:38:10.875 Oh my god, don't raise your voice. 00:38:11.355 --> 00:38:17.070 Oh my god, don't argue. Oh my god, no. No means no. No. I'm gonna raise my voice, 00:38:17.390 --> 00:38:19.390 and we're gonna have some tough conversations. 00:38:20.190 --> 00:38:28.675 And why? Why? But why you do that? Because how do you think coaches talk to you? You think a coach is gonna say to you, honey, 00:38:28.835 --> 00:38:32.915 please try catching the ball next time. Catch the flipping ball. 00:38:33.395 --> 00:38:36.115 We've done this practice route a 100 times. 00:38:36.355 --> 00:38:38.035 Run the route. What are you doing? 00:38:38.435 --> 00:38:54.470 Right? So, oh, okay. That's the reality of life. What do you think it's like? You didn't hit your numbers three quarters in a row. You think the boss is gonna come in? It's okay, Johnny. We'll give you one more quarter. No. No. No. Hey. Next quarter, you don't hit your numbers. This is it. I'm telling you right now. There's nothing I can do about it. You're gonna get fired because you haven't hit your numbers. 00:38:55.295 --> 00:38:59.135 And, you know, you're not working the way you were before, and I don't feel the intensity, 00:38:59.535 --> 00:39:10.650 and you tell me where you wanna go from here. We'd love to keep you. We'd love to have you be with us for twenty years, but you're making it very hard for us to keep you right now. So I don't know. It's your choice is on you. Where do you wanna go with this? You have to confront. 00:39:10.810 --> 00:39:17.050 So to me, I love when we argue, because when you argue with your kids and you debate with your kids, you're teaching them what? You're teaching them debate. 00:39:18.250 --> 00:39:25.455 You're teaching them how to sell. You're teaching them how to negotiate. You're teaching them how to ask for something. All skill sets that's gonna help them advance in their lives. 00:39:25.855 --> 00:39:27.855 When when I say no, 00:39:28.495 --> 00:39:30.655 I don't say, don't ever ask me again. 00:39:31.295 --> 00:39:33.215 I say no. I said no. 00:39:33.615 --> 00:39:33.935 No. 00:39:34.870 --> 00:39:39.430 And then he comes back with a different creative. And I asked myself, how come he's not coming back asking for it? 00:39:39.990 --> 00:39:42.230 Come back and ask for it. Renegotiate. 00:39:42.790 --> 00:39:51.785 Why are you not coming back? The kids are almost confused. Like, well, you said no. Why are you giving up so early? Come back and renegotiate with your daddy. Give me a creative way of saying yes to you. 00:39:52.345 --> 00:40:00.745 Okay. Okay. I'll come back to you. Alright. What is it? What if we do this, this, this, and that? No. I'm not good with that. But if you do this, I would be open to this. You'd be open to that, I would. 00:40:01.410 --> 00:40:08.370 So what if we did that? Okay. Now we're talking the same language. If that's the case, I'm good. Or I could I'm teaching follow-up, 00:40:08.770 --> 00:40:11.810 because you gotta learn follow-up. Half the battle with life is following up. 00:40:12.210 --> 00:40:34.200 So you gotta follow-up with clients, you gotta follow-up with boss, you gotta follow-up when you're closing the house, you gotta follow-up with a deal that didn't go through, you got it's follow-up. And then, you know, the the the the fighting intensity side to be okay in the storm, because life, you're gonna be in storm. Now don't get me wrong. Some kids are born. We have four kids. One of them is very calm. One of them is very intense. One of them is very philosophical. 00:40:34.200 --> 00:40:36.440 One of them has just got a temper and competitive, 00:40:36.440 --> 00:40:37.960 psycho psycho competitive. 00:40:38.200 --> 00:40:41.240 So, yes, you manage them in a different way, but you still 00:40:41.545 --> 00:40:44.905 you still wanna raise your boys to be tough because, 00:40:45.305 --> 00:40:49.785 you know and and by the way, teach my kids about politics, I teach my kids about debate, my kids read 00:40:50.825 --> 00:41:07.730 books. You know, my oldest son is right now going through the Bible, the Koran, and the Torah. He's already read At The Strike. He's already read is it Dante's Inferno, I think it's called. He's already read he's he's had five, six hundred books over. He watches Hillsdale College to get the history of the constitution, to get the history of politics. 00:41:08.365 --> 00:41:09.165 I'm 00:41:09.165 --> 00:41:14.045 shaping their mindset, so when they go into the real world, and let's see what you wanna do with it, you pick and choose. But you 00:41:14.525 --> 00:41:18.685 gotta work with them to be tough. I think it's a soft society because one, 00:41:19.005 --> 00:41:42.625 fathers are not that involved, they're not selling the right belief system, they're scared, they're walking on eggshells. Then by the way, if you see my kids, like today my 12 year old, I'm in the chapel watching a four year old daughter, he's sitting on my lap. Not because I asked him to sit on my lap. We have a relationship, we have a bond. I don't know what's gonna happen next five, ten, twenty years because they're gonna go through their own thing, they're gonna have different influences, some of the influences they get are not gonna like me, some of them are gonna be girlfriends, 00:41:42.785 --> 00:41:58.640 all your dad cares about is money, they're gonna date somebody that their parents are not fans of where I'm at because I'm loud with certain opinions that are. They're gonna go through this phase, and it's okay. It's okay as as they go through it, but as long as, you know, we're shaping them to be tough, respectful, 00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:12.375 long term, we have a fighting chance with them. You know, the show is called The Adversity Advantage, and and the reason is a couple things. One, to show that adversity has purpose in life. And two, it's like what not to do. Because I think a lot of people's problems 00:42:12.695 --> 00:42:38.585 are they're caused by what they do during adversity. They drink a bottle of wine every day. They have too much sex. They do all these things, spend a bunch of money. What do you do when you have a bad day? Like, do you have, like, a recipe, like, to to to kind of recalibrate yourself when you're having a bad day? Yeah. When I have a bad day, I'll come in, and the if you wanna know the immediate way to get rid of all of it for me is my kids being around me. And I know it's not something that's duplicatable or replicatable with everybody, 00:42:38.825 --> 00:42:41.145 but if I've got kids with me, I'm good. 00:42:41.945 --> 00:42:46.425 When I come home, I see them, pain goes away immediately. At least that's for me. 00:42:48.170 --> 00:42:50.810 But I, you know, I I don't I don't know if I 00:42:51.130 --> 00:42:54.010 like, last week, we had a couple days where I'm like, 00:42:54.410 --> 00:42:58.330 yeah, I'm not feeling good about what's going on. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, 00:42:58.650 --> 00:43:12.315 no, I can't keep going like this. I called an emergency meeting. I took my three executives. We went out to dinner. I said, guys, let me tell you what's on my mind, and I need your help with this. Here's what I'm thinking about. I laid out my concerns, what I'm frustrated with. 00:43:13.035 --> 00:43:17.035 And I said, I I I want us to have a clear road 00:43:17.570 --> 00:43:24.610 to a billion, to 10,000,000,000, to a 100,000,000,000. We don't have a clear road right now to a $100,000,000,000. We're having this conversation about valuation 00:43:24.930 --> 00:43:27.970 and what we wanna build. What we wanna build, we have a big vision. So, 00:43:28.370 --> 00:43:28.930 okay, 00:43:29.650 --> 00:43:31.890 if we drop everything we're doing 00:43:32.285 --> 00:43:34.045 and we only did one thing, 00:43:34.445 --> 00:43:38.445 what would it be? And they say to me, da da da. I said, okay. 00:43:39.085 --> 00:43:50.290 I said, so go a little bit more. How how much could this scale? Well, we did this, like right now we're getting a lot of companies that are coming to us because our consulting firm is booming, growing exponentially. We have 10,000 clients from 64 00:43:50.770 --> 00:43:51.410 countries 00:43:51.730 --> 00:43:55.970 that we do engagements for, and they range from $50,000 to a $3,300,000 00:43:55.970 --> 00:44:06.135 engagement. And some of the companies come in and they say, hey, can we give you some equity? Can we do half cash, half this? And the companies that have been with us for two or three years will entertain it because we know the operators. 00:44:06.215 --> 00:44:23.340 And so now we're getting to a point where people are coming up to us saying, hey, we'd like you to open up a fund, and we wanna give you half $1,000,000,000 to go, because we have so many companies that are coming to us. You make the investments, you take the risks, you manage it, and then for us, we'll bring the CEOs in, we'll help the CEOs become better CEOs, we'll deploy to them exactly 00:44:23.500 --> 00:44:45.865 the variable comp we have, the benefits program we have, how we do our calibration, how we do our marketing, how we do all here's how we do everything. This is all yours. Why? Because we own 50% of the company. Because we own 100% of the company. Because we own 25 of the company. So now we're deploying everything to you. And we sat there and said, what if we did this for twenty years? What does twenty years from now look like? And it was like, this is the range where we'll be in. I said, that's believable. Okay, great. 00:44:46.265 --> 00:44:46.585 So 00:44:47.200 --> 00:44:49.200 it's as soon as possible 00:44:49.520 --> 00:44:52.000 trying to talk to somebody 00:44:52.320 --> 00:44:54.960 to process the issue, what we can do 00:44:55.440 --> 00:45:04.285 to make that issue or the problem better. I wanna talk to somebody. What do you think about what happened? What could we have done differently? What about this, what about that? If we have a bad day because, 00:45:04.445 --> 00:45:11.325 I don't know, market dropped or tariffs got canceled by Supreme Court or Bitcoin is down 50% 00:45:11.325 --> 00:45:13.085 or interest rates went up, 00:45:13.485 --> 00:45:20.220 I can't control that kind of stuff. My frustration typically comes when we make bad mistakes or when we make certain things that's not moving. 00:45:20.620 --> 00:45:21.500 That's 00:45:21.500 --> 00:45:22.460 typically my 00:45:22.940 --> 00:45:29.980 format on what I do next. You control the controllables, which I think is all you can do when you're faced with hard times. I think so many people, they over index 00:45:30.725 --> 00:45:46.840 in the problem in itself and what they can't control instead of spending time on, like, the things that they actually have the control over. It's true. What would you say to the the Pat and the Ford Focus, knowing what you know now? You gotta go through it. You just gotta go through it. You know, part of life 00:45:47.400 --> 00:45:48.520 with faith 00:45:49.160 --> 00:45:49.880 is 00:45:51.000 --> 00:45:54.440 the reason why we respect people who win at the highest level 00:45:55.160 --> 00:45:55.800 is because, 00:45:57.075 --> 00:46:05.395 you know, the the people will ask, did you ever think that you were gonna do something big? Like, you know, even the song for a podcast song is, did you ever think you would make it? 00:46:05.635 --> 00:46:06.355 Right? 00:46:07.875 --> 00:46:09.235 I knew I was different. 00:46:11.540 --> 00:46:13.940 Like, I knew I was different. I knew, like, 00:46:14.260 --> 00:46:20.340 the the fire I had in my belly to wanna be somebody was so out of control 00:46:20.420 --> 00:46:21.300 high. 00:46:22.340 --> 00:46:24.900 It was so high, but then 00:46:25.275 --> 00:46:31.355 on the complete opposite side, I had no credibility to say I was capable of doing something big with my life. 00:46:31.755 --> 00:46:34.235 I didn't have anything to say, well, 00:46:34.475 --> 00:46:40.555 I was a high school quarterback. We took the, you know, team to the state championship. I never played organized sports. I'm six four, 00:46:41.050 --> 00:46:44.490 two fifty. I have never played organized sports. How is that possible? 00:46:44.730 --> 00:46:47.210 I never played organized sports. I don't have, 00:46:47.610 --> 00:46:55.450 you know, where I was in the army and I went to, you know, Delta Force, a special force. I don't have that. I didn't have a 4.5 GPA. I had a 1.8 GPA. 00:46:56.075 --> 00:46:59.915 I don't have a 1,600 s a t or fifteen eighty s a t. I don't have that. 00:47:00.475 --> 00:47:09.195 I I didn't have anything to look at to say so it was always a guessing game. Why do you think you're so special? Why do you think you're meant to do something big with your life? Why? 00:47:10.070 --> 00:47:12.070 So I'm like, I don't know, 00:47:12.230 --> 00:47:16.470 but I cannot get rid of this feeling in my belly. I can't. 00:47:16.790 --> 00:47:23.030 I feel like my blood is boiling all the time because I wanna go out there and do something big with my life. 00:47:24.845 --> 00:47:31.485 Almost gave up, almost went back into the army, ended twenty years, and that's all I was gonna do. Because I looked at the $34,000 00:47:31.485 --> 00:47:36.125 pension plan I was gonna get when I was 40 years old. I almost did it. I almost went back into the army. 00:47:37.270 --> 00:47:40.070 So to me, it started off with that fire in the belly. 00:47:41.190 --> 00:47:41.990 And then 00:47:43.030 --> 00:47:46.070 I remember when I hit made $250,000, 00:47:46.150 --> 00:47:49.030 and I started getting very good at the business and insurance, 00:47:49.270 --> 00:47:50.390 that's when I was kinda like, 00:47:50.965 --> 00:47:52.085 I 00:47:52.805 --> 00:47:55.125 think I can do a 100,000,000. 00:47:55.685 --> 00:47:57.685 I think I can do it. Why? 00:47:58.245 --> 00:48:06.165 I don't know why. I just think I can. What makes me think you can do it? I don't think I'm gonna stop until I do because I trust my way of making decisions. 00:48:07.180 --> 00:48:13.340 And then that led to next step and next step and next step and next step. But even today, where I'm at today, 00:48:13.980 --> 00:48:14.700 my 00:48:15.020 --> 00:48:15.820 aspirational 00:48:15.820 --> 00:48:17.580 vision of where I wanna be in ten years, 00:48:18.875 --> 00:48:35.650 Still a little bit like, it's kinda crazy for you to think that you're capable of doing that. Who are you? Why don't I believe it? Yeah. But who are you? Well, look what I've built in the past. Okay. But this is a complete different industry. I get it. That part of the unknown and the faith and the doubt that whether you're gonna pull it off or not, 00:48:36.370 --> 00:48:44.210 that's the hell week. That's the excite that's why you get the credit from people to say, man, you made it. Man, you won. Man, you pulled it off. So 00:48:45.805 --> 00:49:09.990 I think I think a person's gotta go through the parts of the battle of the doubt, close to giving up, and that's all part of the test to tell the story later on to realize the credit goes to that moment that you were about to give up, you didn't. That's where the credit lies. I'm looking forward to seeing what unfolds for you in the future. Pat, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Don, thank you. Love this convo. I really enjoyed it as well. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate Got it. Thank you.