Episode 430: How Christina Pivoted Careers, Tripled Her Income & Is Now on Track for Financial Independence with a $1.5M Goal

Pat Flynn 0:02

It used to be that if you had information and were smarter, that you had more power. That is no longer the case. Now we all have access to literally the same information on our phones and chatgpt and all these AI companies are just making it so easy for us to just get the information we need. But if information were the answer, we'd all be successful. We would all be where we would want to be. But we're not. We are living in an age of overwhelm, confusion. Where do I even go? Who do I even learn from?

Jamila Souffrant 0:35

Welcome to the journey. To launch podcast with your host Jamila Souffrant as a money expert who walks her talk. She helps brave juniors like you get out of debt, save, invest and build real wealth. Join her on the journey to launch to financial freedom in 54321,

episode, show notes for this episode. Go to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this episode in the show notes, you'll get the transcribed version of the conversation, the links that we mentioned and so much more. Also, whether you are an OG journey or brand new to the podcast, I've created a free jumpstart guide to help you on your financial freedom journey. It includes the top episodes to listen to, stages to go through to reach financial freedom, resources and so much more you can go to journey, to launch.com/jump start to get your guide right now. Okay, let's hop into the episode, hey, hey, hey, journeyers, welcome to the journey to launch Podcast. I'm so excited to have Pat Flynn on the podcast. He's a father, husband, and lifelong learner from San Diego who has built a reputation as one of the most influential voices in digital entrepreneurship through his diverse portfolio of businesses, award winning, podcasts, newsletters, YouTube channels, you name it. Pat has done it. He has been reaching and inspiring millions of people. He's also the founder of SPI an online community for digital entrepreneurs, and inventor of the switch pod, host of deep pocket monster, creator of card party, a large scale event for Pokemon collectors and so many other things. Pat has a new book coming out called Lean learning, and we're going to talk a little bit about that and Pat's entrepreneurship journey. He's also been on the podcast before, so we'll link that in the show notes. But I'm so happy to have you back on the podcast. Welcome.

Pat Flynn 2:39

Oh, I'm so happy to be here. And by the way, you were on my podcast a while back, Episode 647, so everybody should go listen to that as well, because you were amazing. And again, I just appreciate your support. And I mean, I keep hearing the intros and, like, the long list of things that I've done. And so we could go anywhere you want to go. I'm here for you and your audience.

Jamila Souffrant 2:58

Yeah. So, I mean, I I've said this before. I'll just say it again, just in case. This is someone's first time tuning into the podcast, but you were literally one of the first podcasts I started listening to on my commute to work. It was probably one of the catalysts, right? Like one of the seeds plant, help plant a seed, about what's possible outside of a nine to five corporate job, because I was searching for a way out, which, you know, eventually led me to what I'm doing now. So I always want to just kind of give you those that Prop, because you were so relatable in your content, in the way you like, spoke and said things. And I was like, you know, that's the way I believe like to connect, to build something. And so I do just want to start a little bit back then you're probably so tired of telling this story, no. But can you talk about that coming from this place of jumping into online entrepreneurship, and then we'll kind of jump forward to where you are now,

Pat Flynn 3:48

sure, yeah, and I'm never tired of telling this story. I always know that every audience I get a chance to speak in front of, and again, it's an honor to be here. There might be somebody who might be hearing me for the first time, so it would be a disservice to be tired. And every time I can do it, I can do it better, right? So all of you are hearing the best version of this, or what hopefully is the best version of it, and it really started in 2008 because I had gotten laid off from my dream job as an architect, which was really difficult. I had done everything the way I thought it was supposed to. I got in great grades, went to a good college, got a great job, was planning everything. My retirement for 1k was rocking all the things until 2,008th Great Recession. I got let go, and I was scrambling, and actually fell into a little state of depression just trying to figure things out. Because I didn't, I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have a plan B. I was just doing Plan A in the best way possible. But of course, life hits you hard sometimes, and looking back, it was exactly what I needed to happen. I was forced to, in a way, to discover what else was out there for me. And I discovered a podcast called Internet Business mastery. And it was on an episode that I heard about a person. His name is Cornelius Fichtner. He was teaching people how to pass the project management exam or the pm exam, and he was making six figures a year doing them online. And I couldn't believe it, but I asked myself. Of could I do something like that? I had taken a number of exams on my way to becoming an architect, and there was one in particular that was very difficult that there was no information about. So I started posting information about that. I started to notice that people started to link to my work and ask me questions and start to position me as an expert. Even though I didn't consider myself an expert, I was the one to step forward and actually help people in this space. And lo and behold, later that year, later that year, I published a study guide, and it generated a lot of revenue, two and a half times more than I was making as an architect. And to give you some perspective, in October of 2008 when I launched my study guide, it was just a PDF file. Didn't even know what I was doing at the time. Really, it had generated $7,908.55 from a $19.99 cent PDF file. And that grew and grew and grew and more people started asking me about how I did that, and how I survived, and not just survived, but thrived during my layoff. And I started teaching this on smartpassiveincome.com never with the idea that it would turn into something like courses and those kinds of things, a community now that we have which is, which is what it is today. Back then, it was just let me be open and transparent about all the things, things that are going well, how much money I was making, how much money I was not making or losing, and the things that I wish I had done differently. And throughout the years, I've just been seen as this sort of just like a regular guy, like everybody else who's just happened to figure it out and is sharing all the info along the way, and it's turned into a podcast, YouTube channels, speaking books. I'm on my fourth book now and then, I've always led by example, by not just talking about these things, but actually putting things into action and sharing the results. And for a while it was niche sites and other things like that, about security guards and food trucks. It was a software company. Today it's a Pokemon YouTube channel that is blown up, and I'm sharing the results and how I'm doing that. And I'm sure you want to dive into that a little bit. I know you and your family are into Pokemon a little bit, and I've had a little bit to do with that. So yeah, the journey has been amazing. It's and it's it's been a wild ride, for sure, a roller coaster of emotions along the way. It was not all unicorns and rainbows, but it's always been a fun learning experience. And I always feel like the things I learned stack into the next thing that I attempt, and then the next thing that I attempt. And it's never perfect, but it's action moving forward and learning as I go.

Jamila Souffrant 7:03

Yeah, and so one of the things I'm really impressed with with your career and what you've been able to do is branch out and pursue different interests. So I want to talk about how you do that. I know you have partnerships and you have help. I know you delegate, but how hard was that for you to do in the beginning, when you're, you know, solo entrepreneur, in control of everything, and to get to where you are and do all the things you know that you can't do that by yourself. So how did you get comfortable with the idea of trusting other people, bringing people on, and working through the kinks of understanding how to grow something like what you've grown today?

Pat Flynn 7:44

Yeah, this is a wonderful question, and it took almost burning out for me to understand that I could not do it on my own anymore. In the beginning, I wanted to do everything on my own, because it was my business. It was like my baby. I wanted to be in control of all the things. And I learned everything from coding and website building to how to use Photoshop to create graphics to copywriting all the things. And once the brand started to grow and get some momentum, I just was like, Okay, well, that worked. I'm gonna do more of that. But eventually I got to the point where I just had no more time in the day I was getting, you know, cranky, and I wasn't my best self anymore, and I wasn't producing as good quality anymore, just because I was spreading myself so thin. And it took me, gosh, how many years, six or seven years, to finally open up to the idea of letting somebody else into my world of business. And I only wish I had done that sooner. Because what I thought was about pride, and you know, only I can do this in my way. It was actually just not realizing that there are people out there who can do these other things that you might need to do, but maybe you shouldn't do anymore you've outgrown them, or you need to give the power to somebody else a little bit, because they're going to do it better and actually faster, and they may actually enjoy those things. So I have people on my team now who actually enjoy looking at spreadsheets and finances and stuff, which is not something I personally enjoy myself, but I was doing that in the beginning. I have people on my team who are the ones who are editing and publishing on WordPress and hitting upload on certain podcasts. That's something I used to do, but now that I've handed it off, it's now given me time back to now experiment and play and try new things, which is where all these new things have sort of come into play. If I had continued to work in the way that I did, I would have either gotten very sick and burned out. I would have just quit because I just couldn't handle it anymore, or at the very least, I wouldn't have seen any growth at all. At the same time, however, I've had to balance the inherent nature of just most entrepreneurs to grow as big and as fast as possible, right? Because I don't know, for whatever reason, we're just programmed to go. Bigger and go faster, and I've had to slow down that. And in fact, COVID was a very, very important time for me to kind of just sit back and take an audit on my life and all the things I was saying yes to and realize that I didn't need to say yes to all those things anymore. I didn't need to grow into a 50 person team and make $100 million what if we were just steady and, you know, on top of it, but not going crazy. I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs burn out because they just fall into that trap. So finding out what that happy medium is for you is really important. There's people like Paul Jarvis, who wrote a book called company of one, who literally does the minimum amount possible with just him and him alone, he has like, six clients as a designer, and that's all he needs. He doesn't want to grow, he doesn't want to turn it into an agency, although he could. So I think a big lesson here, and just in general, is being conscious about the work you're doing, and is it actually in alignment with what you care about and what matters and what's important? And a lot of us, in this entrepreneurial mindset, we often forget the why and the whole purpose of everything? Yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 11:03

I'm glad you also brought up, like, the other side of someone who just wants to do enough. And I think that's really interesting, because there's so many components that make us, us right in the world, and whether that is we have other responsibilities, like children. So your father, very involved. Father, right? You're, you have a partner, same for me. And you have interest outside of, I'm sure, just business stuff, right? I know Pokemon started out as interest with your son, but then you were able to grow it into a business. But what I often think about now that I'm in this stage of, I don't know how much I want to grow, or if I want to grow like I, you know, I kind of feel like enough. I'm fine right now with just doing enough, and I don't know if that's the season of life I'm in or just a permanent, not just a permanent track I'm on. Because I said, I'm thinking, is this a form of self sabotage? Because I'm afraid to be seen, or afraid to get bigger or grow bigger because of the responsibilities that brings, like, when I think about being responsible for full time paychecks of other people, and responsible for so many outcomes of people who buy my stuff like that, kind of scares me, to be honest. Yeah, right. So there's this point of, is it like almost I don't feel ready for that, or a self sabotage to not want to grow in that way? Or is it, you know, this is just where I am at and to be comfortable with that. And I know you speak to a lot of entrepreneurs with your other businesses. So what do you think of that? How to differentiate between those kind of two mindsets?

Pat Flynn 12:29

Well, the fact that you're asking these questions about the work you're doing and where you want to go is so healthy because that's what we don't do often we kind of just again, fall into these traps and questioning things is a healthy thing to do so that you can go and discover and find out what the answers are. It may be self sabotage, because if you want to grow but you're creating these excuses, then that's one thing. But it also might be just a check in with yourself to make sure that you are still in alignment with more of a minimal sort of career and minimal responsibilities in that regard. So the best strategy that I have, and I put it in the book. And you know me, I'm a big Back to the Future fan. I have used a lot of Back to the Future thoughts to create thought experiments to help us answer these kinds of questions. So let's say, for example, we just take a time machine, the DeLorean from the movie, and we say, Okay, we're going to go and choose a path. We're going to choose the pathway of building out an agency with, you know, 10 team members, paychecks and benefits for them and all this stuff. And if, like, we go into this DeLorean in the future, let's just consider that it does work out the way we want it to. Right. It is working. Let's don't worry about how. But just let's fast forward into the future. You have this agency now. You are taking care of these people, and you have these roles and responsibilities. You have this much more income. But let's travel into the future, and let's look around a little bit. What's your day like? Are you happy? What are you doing? What are you missing? What have you what have you now gained as a result of this? And honestly, think about how you would feel about all this. Would you regret that decision, or would you actually be super stoked on it and happy about it when you just simply think about what the future is like if it were to work out in the way that you think it might work out, then you can actually start making some real decisions about your actions today. And when I've run that experiment, I have even talked about this in my book. Will it fly from 2015 it's just like that, forward thinking this of the actions you're taking. Now, a lot of times, I run that experiment with some people who are students, and they go, Okay, well, you know, they end up crying when they discover that the pathway they're on that they think they want to do is actually, even if it worked out not where they want to be, right? It almost feels like, oh my gosh, like I've led my life in the wrong direction, or I've climbed the wrong ladder. Better to find that out now than after you're at the top and you're like, Wow, I'm not where I want to be, and I've wasted this time. And you know, even though things have become successful in the way that I had imagined, I'm not happy. And so good to learn that now other times. Times people go into the future and they make that decision, and we sort of play with that experiment a little bit and that thought, and then they get super jazzed about it. They get even more motivated, because they're like, I see it, and yes, that's exactly what I want. There's more definition there now. So let's now do the actions that we were doing, or change or pivot into that. So sometimes just thinking about it like you said, is a great thing to do. The other thing to do, especially if it's considering growth and like imagining a future where you have these more responsibilities and these other things, another thing to do is to tap into other people who've already gone down that path before. How might you discover more about what their actual lives are like, not their Instagram life, but their real life? Might you be able to get into some of their circles, or even join some of their communities, to see and talk to people who have maybe gone through down that path before. And then you can start to imagine what your life might be like in that level too, or when you get there, seeing how other people have gone through the journey first is such a huge hack with anything. And that way you can fast forward. You can make, you know, avoid the same mistakes that maybe they have made or or get things done a little more quickly, or again, just going that's not a life I want to live. I don't want that you're running an agency cool, but now you're wearing a suit and tie every day, going into an office, and you're not seeing your kids. That's not important to me, you know. So I'm going to avoid that situation now and not even dive into it. I'm going to go this way instead, because this person is more in alignment with who I want to be and kind of where they're at in life. Yeah,

Jamila Souffrant 16:28

this is so in alignment with what I talk about and the journey to financial independence, and someone thinking about how they want to reach that, and earning money is the way you have to earn money in order to reach your financial independence goals. And so when you think about it, and you look ahead at how you want to earn money in the meantime, while getting to this goal of financial independence, I think is important, because, like you said, you don't want to look back and get to, let's say you get further down or to that goal. And it's actually you went down the wrong path that you were miserable for all those years of building something or working and doing something where you missed out on enjoying the journey, right? I definitely resonate with that. And it's funny because I was working on an additional Chapter My paperback of my book, Your journey to financial freedom, comes out in a few months, and so I'm adding a new chapter about resiliency. And I was thinking about how to help people when things are not going the way they thought it would. And core values came up because while, like, everything changes around you, you know, every unpredictable markets and job situations, all these things like, what, what can what do you value? What are your core values in that moment? And so I'd like to ask you core values like family security or personal growth or business growth, where do you find yourself in this season of your life, and what you value, and how do you let that guide your decisions on what you take on or what you don't take on? Yeah,

Pat Flynn 17:50

this is great again. I think that's so important to think about your values, because that becomes your filter, your barometer for the decisions that you make. And as you grow as an entrepreneur, as you begin to generate more revenue or make more money, and however you do, more opportunities will come your way. It just naturally you start to attract these things. And it's very important to understand what matters to you and what is important so that you can make the right decisions as those opportunities come in. I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs, especially grow and become semi famous and then go down the wrong path. Right? They entered the dark path, and it's not fun or not great, because they again, they were just kind of going along with it instead of consciously thinking about it. So for me, in this season of life, and something that's always been an embodiment of of how I live, is is through leading by example, right? If I'm going to teach anything, I want to teach by actually doing, not by saying. And this benefits me, because I'm not a great copywriter, and I'm always looking to improve how I communicate, but nothing communicates more than actions and results versus just like words. And especially in this day and age with AI and everything and everybody having access to all the same information, what's going to be the key differentiator, especially when you're building a brand, it's going to be how you tell those stories and how you wrap those stories with words that connect and emotions. And the best way to do that is just to kind of be the case study yourself and show up and serve. Serve first is another value that I have, and I try to try to go into different communities, like the Pokemon community more recently, or any community I'd be a part of. I was once taught to always leave the room cleaner than when you entered right? That's sort of like what my mom taught me, and I try to do that more metaphorically, in the communities that I'm a part of. How might I go into these communities and leave and have the community be better off as a result of of my my work there and my service experiences over material? That's that's a big value of mine as well. This is something that we try to embody as a family as well. So we don't have a lot of, you know, rich, lavish things and those kinds of things, but we do spend four vacations, right? We'll spend a little bit more to stay at the nice hotel or to go on that private food tour. Those are the things and memories we want to we want to collect memories as a family, not stuff, although my wife would probably argue. We have too much stuff, especially Pokemon stuff, in this house, and that maybe is partly my fault, but I do that in my business, right? This is why card party exists. It's not just like me talking on a video and telling stories. It's like, Let's get together in person and create these memories together. And this is why card party this year continues to grow. We're gonna have it's in Tampa this year, at the end of June, we're gonna have 6000 attendees, likely, which is two times higher than last year, and 750 vendors in this in this Convention Center in Tampa. It's going to be incredible. And I'm so excited. And the last thing that I that I offer, as far as like values and things that are important to me, especially now, is, like a 42 year old man, and I think this is very obvious, because of the work I'm getting involved with now is just find the fun in the things that you do. I don't know what happened when I turned 40, though I was just like, I was just like, I don't have time to waste time on BS anymore. I don't know what happened. Like, literally, the day I turned 40, something happened internally with my brain and soul. Really, it was just like, I need to enjoy every moment of my life as much as possible. And it doesn't mean like my work isn't stressful. It doesn't mean like the things I do aren't hard. But even within those hard moments, I try to find the fun in it, because if I'm having fun, especially as a creator, my audience is going to have fun. If I'm having fun as a father, then my kids are going to have fun as well. So this is really, really important to me, and it's something that I would recommend everybody get involved with. And it's finding those, those hobbies, and in my book, Lean learning, which I have here, and I'm again, very grateful that you're allowing me to come on here to share this a little bit lean learning, how to achieve more by learning less. There's an entire chapter here about auditing the things that you do and making sure that you actually dedicate some time to those hobbies, or a hobby, at least an avocation, something that helps you escape and remove yourself from the day to day and the responsibilities that you have and all those kinds of things. And for me, recently, it's been fishing and a little bit of golf, getting me outside a little bit, helping me discover nature again, which I used to fish a lot, and I've rediscovered that. In fact, if you don't mind me telling a little story about this, and this is really important in terms of finding the fun. I remember COVID had happened, and we were finally able to get back outside again. And I went to this lake that I used to fish at here, called Poway lake in San Diego. And I remember getting up early. I wanted to, just like, get there with the glassy water, the sun's the sunrise, and I remember seeing the sunrise over the mountains, and I took out my camera. First instinct was to take out my camera and share it on Instagram. And then I stopped myself. I said, Why? Why was my first response to this beautiful scenery to share it. Like, do I need validation from others that, like, this is amazing? Do I need to show off that I'm in this beautiful, you know, part of nature right now? Like, why? Why was I even here in the first place? I was here for me, so I put the phone down, and I just was there, and I enjoyed it, and I was able to absorb that. And it really was an eye opening moment for me, because I realized that a lot of the why behind what I was doing was for validation and other things that other people would say to make me feel better about the choices I was making. But after I turned 40, I was like, You know what? Why can't I just do things for me sometimes and enjoy that? And that was big, because I've now started fishing. Since then, I've had some of my favorite memories with some friends fishing recently, and again, finding the fun in everything that I do, and taking a break from the grind every once in a while to kind of reset, if you will.

Jamila Souffrant 23:30

Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up about finding something for yourself, not necessarily that you have to monetize or create a business from. But that brings me back to a card party, which, by the way, I'll be there in Tampa with my two sons. This is our third year going, so I'm really excited, and they're really excited to go, but you were able to turn this interest right. Like, first it was, I think you wanted to connect with your son in his interest, and then, you know, then you grew this pokemon channel to now this conference. And so it is a business now, right? And so how do you decide what stays for you? We kind of talked about this a little bit right, like the hobby, right? But I mean, who's to say Pat? There won't be, like a Pat Flynn fishing or golfing channel next, right? No, you know, no judgment here. That's what you do. Because I know how you do it will help someone. But how do you decide? And at what point do you decide that you want to monetize something because there's people listening watching right now and like, they have an interest. They have something that they're like they can legitimately make a lot of money from, or enough money from and help others. How do they know, like, when to do that versus when to keep it for themselves?

Pat Flynn 24:37

Yeah, this is a great question. It reminds me of Chalene Johnson, who is a good a friend of mine and a mentor. She is a avid snowboarder. She loves snowboarding, has an interest for it, and she's, of course, an entrepreneur too. So sees a lot of opportunities in that space. And one day at a lodge, she had connected with another person there who was a fashion designer and who knew about Chalene, and was like, Chalene, we should create. Create a snowboarding fashion line together. And, you know, she leans into fashion too, and it's like, oh my gosh, this is perfect. Like, this is to my interest, colliding business. This is gonna be great. We're gonna make lots of money. We're gonna have a lot of fun. But she did a similar exercise, like I talked about earlier, and just thought a little bit ahead in the future, and said, You know what, I don't want to do that, even though it'd be fun, even though I'd make a lot of money. Probably snowboarding is for me. This is actually my escape, so I will not go down that route. And that's what I said about fishing, right? I could easily, and trust me, I've thought about it, creating a fishing YouTube channel, because I know I could be in there be a lot of fun, but then it would, it would remove the purpose of that for me. You know, Pokemon, although it started out as a hobby between my kids and I, it still serves its purpose as something that the kids and I can do together. In fact, the kids are employees. They work in the business. They get a paycheck, and they have responsibilities. They're learning about what it's like to work and be a creator and do all the behind the scenes things. And then they're now learning money management as well, and they have Roth IRAs as a result of the work that they're doing, which is really cool. So I can teach this to them at the young ages of 15 and 12 and set them up for the future and for success, which is really, really cool. Now, in some cases, like the Pokemon thing again, especially if you're like, looking for something to generate revenue from. I think it's important to have some level of passion or excitement for it, right? There's a lot of people, and I remember back in the day when I was more blogging, a big trend was just like, Okay, let's find a keyword that happens to have low search volume but high potential revenue, and let's build a niche website about that, even though it's about like wireless headphones. I'm not passionate about wireless headphones, but I can make money there. And all those projects that most people do that are about nothing, that they care about, that are just there to make money alone, they usually fail or they just have no joy into it. I mean, imagine it blows up. You're gonna have something amazing that gives you money that you're not gonna be happy about. So why start with that? Start with something with a crossover between an interest that you have, again, it doesn't have to be something that you're losing sleep over. You love it so much, but just some sort of seedling of an interest for you, combined with what you can do to help people in that space, right? And even in the Pokemon space, nobody was telling great stories and bringing more entertainment into the space. It was more investment information. It was more, you know, drama, it was more the history about the cards. But nobody was bringing cinema into it and telling story and creating things that were about the community, which is what I've stepped forward to do, obviously with like card party. But even in the videos, I'm out in the wild and I'm meeting people and I'm connecting with kids and adults alike, and trading with them, and this is something that wasn't done before, so I was able to take a lot of the things I've learned from my podcast and my speaking career and all these other things, and now bring it into this space. Right? It's card party is set up like a business event, with little breakouts and with a keynote, but it's not informational, it's entertainment, and with the other creators in there. So again, all these things that I've done have always stacked into the next, but I think a part of it is also just experimentation, right, spending a bit of time and committing to it showing up, and then at the end, deciding whether or not it's something you want to continue to do. I've recently done this on on Tiktok and reels and shorts, I created a separate channel. It was still Pokemon, but it was separate. I didn't link to it from anywhere, and it was a channel where I would open a pack every single day. And just kind of, I wanted to see if I could build a channel that would do well there. And I just wanted to learn what short form video was like. I had never done it before. I could have just dabbled with it and said, Oh, I'm going to try it for a week and see what happens. And if I had done that, I would have given up after given up after week because I wasn't seeing any views at all. But I said, You know what? I'm going to do this for 60 days. This is a this is a process of Lean learning. You commit to a period of time to show up. And so I committed to a daily video for 60 days, and by day 30, I wasn't seeing a lot of views. But you know what happened? I had 30 pieces of data that has then now come in from YouTube to teach me which videos did do better than others and which things about them, or what parts of those videos were people interested in, I was able to cut down my editing time for my videos from 45 minutes a day to 15 minutes a day. So I was improving. I saw those improvements by again, just showing up day 35 one of those videos hit 750,000 views, and it just blew up, and now we are at day 295 it's not even a year yet. This separate channel has 1.6 million subscribers on YouTube. It has grown to 1 million on Instagram, 1.5 million on Tiktok, 2.5 billion with a B views across platform and in and of itself, this shorts channel now generates five figures a month through ad revenue and brand deals that I've made. It's even allowed me to connect with the Detroit Lions who wanted me to come to their game and open. In a pack on the field. I've connected with NBA players and UFC fighters because they simply watch my videos. I saw a video the other day where somebody used my jingle in front of a crowd of 15,000 people in his Dj Mix. It's like gone viral, and it only happened because I dedicated myself to a certain amount of time. Again, I knew it wasn't forever. I could do 60 days and then assess whether or not it would work or not. And again, even if I didn't get those views, even if it didn't blow up, I hit day 60. It is a win, because I committed to it. I was disciplined. And of course, all the things I learned along the way that can then be put into whatever the next thing would be. But thankfully, of course, it did blow up, and it's still doing really well.

Jamila Souffrant 30:36

That's really exciting to hear, and inspirational like that, consistency and persistency to keep going like even when you don't see it, because your outcome, what you're measuring success, is not what other people the validation from other people, it's what you're getting from it, regardless of the applause or lack of applause from anyone else, right

Pat Flynn 30:55

count, uploads, not likes. That's what I once heard.

Jamila Souffrant 31:00

Hey, journeyers, if you are loving this podcast, then you will love my book, Your journey to financial freedom, a step by step guide to achieving wealth and happiness. I wrote this book for you. This book is for you. If you want a clear and enjoyable path to having more money options and a rich life, this book is for you. If you hate your commute and the fact that you need to seek approval or permission from a boss, I hated that when I worked. This book is for you. If you weren't born into wealth, you didn't marry rich or won the lottery, but you still want freedom. This book is for you. If you're at a crossroads, a major decision or event is imminent, maybe a career change. Marriage, starting a family, pressures are reaching a tipping point, and the discomfort and the desire for more can no longer be ignored, and this book is for you if you find yourself zoned out at meetings, looking out the window or daydreaming about the life you truly want. So go pick up your journey to financialfreedom.com. So I can show you how to map out how to get from where you are today to where you ultimately want to be. And enjoy the journey while you're on the path, head over to your journey, to financialfreedom.com to see where you can pick the book up. It's available on Amazon, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore everywhere. Go to your journey to financial freedom.com to get the book. Now, I think if you have your main source of income solidified or it's consistent, then you have the luxury to not have to monetize other things, right? Like, I think, for someone who's listening, and maybe they are struggling with income, but they have an interest, and that interest can make the money at the you know, it'd be appealing to them figure out, how do I monetize this in a way that feels good, because I'm actually interested in it. And so I do think it's a luxury, you know, in a way, to have that mindset, like, I don't actually have to monetize that, which I think we should all look at in our lives, if we have that luxury as a superpower. As you know, something to feel grateful about is that if you can have hobbies, that can just stay hobbies versus maybe you do need some income. And so you should start thinking strategically about how to turn whatever you're doing on the side, or this thing into a source of food for your family. And then I do want to go into lean learning a bit and some of the principles, because you touched upon a bunch of them. But can you talk about, like, the core message of the book, and what you want people to get from that? And then we'll kind of go into a couple tips for people,

Pat Flynn 33:35

yeah, thank you. And before that, I do want to speak to this. You know, need to, you know, put food on the table. It is a luxury to be able to have the opportunity to do that today. You know, now more than ever, it's easier to connect with people, to serve and show up on these social media platforms. It wasn't easy back in the day, right, when I was a kid, it was impossible. You know, you had to make a lemonade stand and hope people would drive by. Now you can go to where people are and show up and see what their problems are and serve them. And so that is a luxury, and you should take advantage of that. It's it's not shameful to generate revenue from the thing you love and the other people in that community, if you show up with serve first as your attitude, right? When you can show up and serve, you can sell and serve at the same time. That's what Shaleen Johnson told me, you can sell and serve at the same time. And I love that, so I just wanted to pass that forward before I move on to lean learning. To lean learning. Lean learning, the tagline says it all how to achieve more by learning less. Because here's the thing, information overload is the new norm, and it's scary and it's hard to navigate, and sometimes we don't even know how much we're moving further away from our goals by actually learning too much, right? You can get over inspired, and you can get actually pulled in all different directions and not have any focus at all, because there's just so much availability out there, and our brains aren't wired to capture and absorb all of it, right? We're treating information today like a scarce resource, like it's food, right? Like if. Imagine like back in the caveman days or whatever, if you come across like a berry bush or something or some food, you hoard it, because you might not find more later. We treat information like that, but now we're at a buffet line, and we keep putting our plates full of information. And not only that, algorithms on these social media platforms and search results are force feeding us stuff that we didn't even though we need it, right? And so information used to be valuable. It used to be that if you had information and were smarter, that you had more power. That is no longer the case. If you were the smartest in class, you were going to be the most successful. If you had an Encyclopedia Britannica because you could afford it, you were smarter because you literally could afford it, and other people couldn't. Now we all have access to literally the same information on our phones and chat GPT and all these AI companies are just making it so easy for us to just get the information we need. But if information were the answer, we'd all be successful. We would all be where we would want to be, but we're not. We are living in an age of overwhelm confusion. Where do I even go? Who do I even learn from? That's what this book helps you navigate, how to choose the right resources. So you can differentiate between just in case learning, which is what we're all doing, learning just in case, because we might fear that that thing, that book, that whatever is the next best thing that's going to solve our problems, just in case, information versus what we need, which is just in time, information, it's finding the resources for the thing that you're doing right now. Even though you might not know all the steps, you know which direction you're going, but you don't know exactly how you're going to get there, but you know your next step. Do that next step, learn about that, master it, trusting that the next step after that will have resources that by the time you probably need it are going to be better than you if you just captured all these things upfront. So case in point, going back to my first business, I was doing Lean learning without even knowing it. Writing this book has helped me extrapolate this and put frameworks to be able to share it, but I was practicing lean learning, and this is how I've been able to do all these things that we've talked about and do them. Well, I'm not special, I'm not a genius, I'm not smart, but I know how to approach things, to learn faster. And so with my book, for example, if I had tried to figure out and already I was getting overwhelmed when I wanted to write this ebook to help architects, right? It was like, Okay, I gotta write the book. Then I gotta format it, then I gotta figure out how to sell this thing, then I gotta market it. And sales pages like, what is I don't even know. I'm gonna stop, right? But I thankfully had something at stake that forced me to make decisions and take action. So putting yourself in situations, not necessarily just like, Go quit your job and then figure it out kind of thing, but I was laid off, and that was a force function for me. You know, if you're trying to, for example, learn a language, imagine the work you do to learn if you knew that next month you were gonna have a conversation with somebody in that language, right? Like you just are gonna do the work when there's something at stake there. So that's an important piece of Lean learning, as well as to have those voluntary force functions, as I call it. But going back to the book, I knew that the first step was just to write this thing. So I opened Microsoft Word and just wrote the best study guide I could. I looked at other study guides. I was like, how are these laid out? Okay, I'm just gonna create my study guide. And then I had all the words in Word. And then I was like, Okay, I have to format this. I have to make it look somewhat nice and put graphics in here. I never done that before, but let me go watch a couple of YouTube videos about that. Let me go learn from this one person who has done it before and is teaching it. So I was able to create, like, a landscape book with two columns, and I figured out how to do that when I needed it cool. I have this book now. By the way, I'm now more motivated than ever to figure it out, because I'm moving forward. I finally have something I lit a fire under myself when I had this thing, and I was like, I need to sell this. I have it. What do I do? And then I eventually found a tool that somebody recommended, again, somebody who had already gone down that path called E junkie. This was a tool back in the day where you could upload a PDF file and you get a button back to put on your website. So I did that, and I was like, Okay, I have this button. Now, if people click on it, I'm gonna make money. But now I need a sales page. I need to talk about this thing. I need to present it. What do I do? So same thing. I went to somebody who had done this before, and I asked, Hey, do you have any resources, or where could I learn how to write a sales page? And they said, Hey, Pat, here's a book. It's called moonlighting on the internet by Yannick silver. Now this book has 30 different ways to make money on the internet, from selling on ebay to whatever. I didn't need any of that stuff. All I needed was the appendix in the back of the book that was a sales page Mad Libs template where I can just plug and play my own product in there and just use that sales page. So that's exactly what I did. Again. How do most of us read books? We read all the things and then choose maybe a couple things that we might remember. No lean learning is kind of like this. You find the resource you need and then you implement it. And so after implementing the sales page from the back of this book, that website which still exists today and still is generating revenue passively, green exam academy.com, I have made over seven figures from that e book alone over the years, and that didn't happen by what I thought I had to do, which was go to business school to learn any of this stuff, or at least. Just write an entire business plan around it and probably scare myself out of it. It was by actually just taking action and figuring it out as I went and, yes, making mistakes too. But you know, the thing about mistakes, and a lot of this book, is about the psychology of just like wanting to absorb everything and procrastination and failure, the mistakes are important. The mistakes aren't there to derail you. They actually help you put up guardrails to then work within and that's how we can reach our goals faster, and how you can speed skill or speed run skill acquisition. And it's how I approach everything now, from learning how to play golf to get better at fishing to musicianship to the business stuff that I do, everything involves lean learning and approach, and it's how I've been able to adjust more quickly and in this day and age, like I said earlier, having information is not going to be what's valuable anymore, right? Remember what it was like not even too long ago. Was like, if you want to succeed in life, like be a coder, have information about coding that's going to be obsolete in a very short period of time because of AI. So the faster you can learn and pick up things, and the more application and implementation you have, right? That's gonna be what's more valuable. It's how quickly you can pick things up, not how much information you can just absorb and spit back out. Because we have things that do that already. Yeah, no,

Jamila Souffrant 41:18

I'm nodding, because when we think about even test taking, and you know, it's not necessarily about what's on the test. It's like how you study for the test and what you need for it, you know. And there are people who might know the content better than you, but if they don't have kind of a replicable wages that they studying for other things, then knowing that content may not help them in the real world, which is what I tell my kids, like, be a problem solver. You don't have to actually know the ins and outs of this issue, and you don't need to know that. Just want you to be creative in solving the problem. So that way you can apply that to any problem you come across. So it sounds like that's part of it, too.

Pat Flynn 41:54

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's definitely, in a way, something that I want to use as a conversation starter for the way we need to change how we learn things. I mean, we're we're so slow in how we're adapting to the fast, changing, technological, heavy world that we live in today that most people are just going to be left behind if they approach things the way we used to, right we used to read textbooks and then take tests on them. And I remember most of us would just cram information the night before, like, with zero understanding. And now we're still doing the same thing. Kids are still staying up till midnight to cram for tests about information that they can just spit out the next day, and then they forget about it. Versus what if we took a learning approach of actually understanding? Like, remember back? I mean, we don't remember because this was before us, but like back in the olden days, right? How did a person learn to become a blacksmith? They didn't read about blacksmithing or take tests on it. They literally were near the forges with a with a mentor who was showing them, and literally with there with them and with a hammer, and saying, No, you're doing that wrong here. Let me show you how to do it like literal application in real life. And there are versions of that that I imagine can happen today, internships, and there are even schools here in San Diego that are experimental right now. They're not up yet, that are going to be structured like this. They're in school two to three days a week learning. You need the foundation still, of course, but then, two days a week, they're actually on the job. They're learning from a person in that career path that they may or may not go down, but they're actually learning and implementing and trying things out, getting a feel for what it's like to work in the real world. I mean, I went to school for five years for architecture at UC Berkeley, one of the top public architecture schools in the world. I learned more in my first month working at an actual architecture firm, about like, what it actually really was required to become a successful architect, than the five years of school. No offense to Berkeley and I enjoyed my time there, but I learned so much in that first month from literal clients that we had to create blueprints for and what it was like to work with a team and a designer when you have to build the elevations for these buildings that you're doing, I mean real world stuff. I mean, that's what this is like. We're learning too much. I ran a survey once at an event, and I had discovered that 90 90% of the audience were subscribed to more than 10 different podcasts. And when you're subscribed to a podcast in general, you kind of feel bad not being caught up. You almost feel behind, right? If you see more information coming your way and like, oh my gosh, I'm behind you. We even say that phrase, like, I'm behind, where it's like, you're only behind because you think you need all of this, but you don't. What if you were actually proactive with what you wanted to learn about and do, and you actually just found the one or two resources you need, and then you put them into action, you're gonna go so much faster, so much faster.

Jamila Souffrant 44:46

Yeah, I love that advice, and I'm nodding as you're talking, because I'm thinking about all the ways that you know, like you said, you don't realize that you're doing it, but when you look back at why that was successfully, like, oh, that's what I did. Like, you know, when it was time to write my book, like I honed. In on what I needed, like you did in that moment. Like, what about agents? Like, learning about that process? What about book proposals and just learning at that moment what I needed to do and reverse engineered to kind of get to what I got. So I love that Pat. Please tell everyone I want them to. I mean, they're probably already following you, but just in case, please tell everyone more about where they can find your book, who's it for, and then how they can follow up on all the amazing things that you're doing.

Pat Flynn 45:27

Yeah, thank you so much again for allowing me to talk about it and just share more stories here. I appreciate you so much and all the support you've had for me over the years. I'm looking forward to seeing you in the family at card party coming up. I know you all have a good time there, which is which is awesome, so be sure to find me. I'll be there for sure, obviously. But lean learning how to achieve more by learning less can be found, of course, wherever books are sold, Amazon. It's also going to be a target for a bit. And Barnes and Noble, which is really cool, it's my first traditionally published book. So this is like, there's a lot at stake here. There's a lot more players involved. And I'm just so again, so grateful for the support. Anyone who picks it up. Leanlearningbook.com if you happen to listen to this before it launches on June 3, you'll be able to potentially see some bonuses and stuff there as well, or just learn more about the book and myself. And then at Pat Flynn, on most social media channels, you could find me there as well. But again, thank you so much for the support for this book. It means so much to me. And again, I wanted to help everybody who is feeling overwhelmed, confused, feeling like you're moving slower than you want to in life. And there are other things that are there for you that just are kind of not within reach. They are, but we have to find a method to learn our way into that much faster today. And again, you have that you have the information. You literally have access to all the information you need. It's going to be how you navigate, it, who you learn from, how you surround yourself with the right people. And then, of course, these principles in the book that help you stay the course. And actually it can accelerate your learning into things so you can master but you know what? It doesn't happen right away. You have to be a disaster before you become the master, as I once heard. And if we could be a disaster together, then, then we can help each other along the way. Yeah, I love

Jamila Souffrant 46:56

that. Pat. Thank you so much. I'll link all the necessary links in the episode show notes. So thank you so much for coming back on. And I appreciate you. I appreciate you as well. Thank you. Thank you. Now, can I ask for one favor before we go? It'll take like 10 seconds, hopefully. Yeah, of course. Would you mind giving a shout out to my son, Zach and Luke? They would love me to show them this today. So they're like, Mom, what do you do all day? I'm like, I'm working. I'm interviewing. But their names are Zach and Luke, and you'll see him at card party.

Pat Flynn 47:22

Okay, cool. Hey, Zach, Hey, Luke. I have been speaking with your mom for the last 45 minutes. It was awesome. She's amazing, by the way. Don't forget to tell her that all the time. But I cannot wait to see y'all at card party. I know you enjoy all the Pokemon stuff, and we have a lot of fun things planned. So I look forward to seeing you there, and be sure to go clean your rooms, yeah, and

Jamila Souffrant 47:41

listen to me. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Don't forget. You can get the episode show notes for this episode by going to journey to launch.com or click the description of wherever you're listening to this and you can still grab your jumpstart guide for free to help you on your journey to financial freedom by going to journey to launch.com/jumpstart

if you want to support me and the podcast and love the free content and information that you get here, here are four ways that you can support me in the show. One, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcasts, that purple app on your phone, your Android device, YouTube, Spotify, wherever it is that you happen to listen, just subscribe so you are not missing an episode. And if you're happening to listen to this in Apple podcasts, rate review and subscribe there. I appreciate and read every single review. Number two, follow me on my social media accounts. I'm at journey to launch on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and I love, love, love interacting with journeyers. There three, support and check out the sponsors of this show. If you hear something that interests you, sponsors are the main ways we keep the podcast lights on here, so show them some love for supporting your girl. Four, and last but not least, share this episode, this podcast, with a friend or family member or coworker, so that we can spread the message of Journey to launch. All right, that's it until next week. Keep on journeying. Journeyers. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai