997: How to Push Past Self-Doubt and Find the Confidence to Pursue Big Things with Pat Flynn and Matt Gartland

Pete Mockaitis
Pat and Matt, welcome.

Matt Gartland
It’s a thrill to be here.

Pat Flynn
What’s up, Pete? Great to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m thrilled to have you. I have been such a huge fan of Smart Passive Income for well over a decade. It’s surprising I haven’t tried to rope you in more often.

Pat Flynn
Well, maybe this will be the start of several roping-ins.

Pete Mockaitis
Be careful. Be careful what you promise, Pat. But why don’t you, why don’t we just kick it off? Can you orient us for those who are not as familiar, what is Smart Passive Income, your whole brand, website, channel, thing you got going on?

Pat Flynn
Yeah, I’ll start because it kind of began with me in 2008. I had gotten laid off from my dream job as an architect, and that was the only plan I had was to be an architect, and I got let go in 2008 with the Great Recession, didn’t know what I was going to do. And then through the interwebs, I discovered a podcast that taught me the idea of, “Well, I could start my own online business.” And I was like, “This is insane. Like, I didn’t go to business school. I don’t know how to do any of this stuff, but I had to survive somehow.”

So, I ended up building a website to help architects pass an exam called the LEED exam, a very niched, green building, sustainable design sort of exam, and it did really, really well. In about a year, it had generated over $238,000 in that first year, which was mind boggling. I didn’t even think that was possible, number one. But, number two, I thought at any moment in time, the SWAT team was going at me because it just didn’t feel like it was possible, like, I just I had no idea what was happening.

Pete Mockaitis
You’re making money too easily, “You’re under arrest for easy money.”

Pat Flynn
I was, like, I went to school for architecture, and I’ve spent all this money for schooling, and then here I was just, like, learning as I was going, and doing much better. It just didn’t make sense. Now when that happened, a lot of people were like, “Pat, tell us what happened. How did you do this?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m just to share what I did,” and that’s what I did.

I started a website called Smart Passive Income And then along the way, in 2013, I wrote my first book, and that’s where Matt and I crossed paths the first time because he was helping me edit that book, and I had just such a wonderful experience working with Matt then that we started working a little bit more closely together on projects.

I started to speak a lot more on stages, build more of a brand reputation in the personal brand space here. And then Matt and I tied the knot, if you want to call it that, in the late 20 teens, and have been working together ever since, and it’s just been fascinating. So, now we teach people, no matter what level they’re at, how to start a business online. So that’s the quick story from my end.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Pat and Matt, you have built an amazing thing, and I do know firsthand I am a longtime customer and fan, and so I recommend we’ll be linking it in the show notes and whatnot all your goodies. But this is not a podcast so much about creating cool online courses or building a dope YouTube channel, even though you’ve accomplished that.

But I want to talk to you, specifically, about the zone of confidence, imposter syndrome, because that comes up a lot for my listeners, and I know it also comes up a lot for your students, and they wonder, “Well, who am I? Who would ever want to pay money for my course? Or who might want to listen to me on a podcast, or watch me in a YouTube, or pay me hundreds, thousands of dollars for what I know in some sort of a package?”

And so, you’ve helped many people think about this, I think, pretty well and clearly. Not like, “No, you’re brilliant! No matter what you do, it will work and you’ll prosper and get rich!” Nor it’s like, “No, forget it! There’s no chance for you. Forget it! Who are you to say it?” Like, you really do a wise job, I think, of navigating this territory between under- and overconfidence, so I want to hear all about how we do that.

Pat Flynn
Yeah, this is a really important topic. I mean, whether you are going to become an entrepreneur or not, becoming entrepreneurial in the way that you think, in the way that you solve problems, in the way that you feel about yourself is really, really key. Obviously, if you are an entrepreneur and you don’t believe in what you have to offer, you’re not going to do a good job of selling it. Nobody’s going to believe you. And when it comes to the workforce, in your professional career, if you don’t believe in yourself, you’re not going to go anywhere either.

There is selling involved in who you are and the value that you have to offer your higher-ups in which you could provide the company, and those are all important things to understand. Yet, like an entrepreneur, we always get in our own way.

We are often, and this is where my story really began as an entrepreneur, is I had to let go of who I thought I was supposed to be in order to become who I was supposed to become. I had been trained to have everything be perfect. As an architect, especially, it’s like if you don’t build the building well, it could crush people, so you kind of need it to be perfect in the way you design things.

But when it came to being an entrepreneur, you can’t. You have to be imperfect. That’s the only way to progress is through failure and mistakes and learning as you go and figuring things out. And if I had to design my career, like I designed a building, I would still be designing it and not taking any action. But what I learned, and maybe this is where we start, is through all of this, relationships have been so, so key.

Knowing people and understanding what value means to them has been the most important thing to help me get to where I’m at today and will continue to help me as I move forward. It’s all about relationships. So, if you try to go through life and your career all on your own, it’s going to be very, very difficult. But when you start to understand the people part of this, it begins to unravel into a clearer path because, really, it’s about serving others.

And that includes in your work, your clients, obviously, but also your manager or your boss, and understanding what’s important to them and seeing how you might be able to position yourself as indispensable or providing some sort of value that only you can do because, either maybe that’s your expertise, or that’s what you train to do, or you figured something out, that without you, the company wouldn’t run in its optimal format.

So, there’s a lot to unpack here, I’m sure, but for any entrepreneur who knows what they’re doing, it’s about serving others first. And I think it’s the same thing when it comes to building your career. How can you be of service to others? Your value, your salary is often proportional to that.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that so much. And starting right there with that imperfect, I think that is probably a killer of starting quite often from the get-go. It’s like, “I don’t know how this is going to work. I don’t know if it is going to work. It might be kind of shoddy.” Take us into the right mindset for starting imperfectly. Like, what’s the wrong way to think about it, that’s going to kill any idea or momentum before it starts? And what’s the prudent ideal way to think about imperfection?

Pat Flynn
The idea of imperfection and failure has been ingrained to many of our heads since growing up, “If you don’t get an A, you’re doing it wrong,” or on your tests. It’s, “You have to be perfect or else.” And that’s a very tough position to be in. How could you possibly even learn to explore or try new things if that is the mindset you have going into something new?

You have to have the mindset of failing fast means learning faster. And I think that that is a huge thing to understand. The idea that as long as you understand that there is learning to be had, true failure is giving up, but worrying so much about what the result will be often stops people in their tracks. I make the success my actions, not the result of those actions, because I can’t always control the results. But I can control the actions I take.

And so, if there’s learning on those results, that means even if I fail, I am making progress, and sometimes, yes, you’ll have to communicate this with other people who are around you and other involved parties. But, mentally, introspection-wise, personally, I use to account all of my success on the results that the work that I did do, and that’s a very tough position to be in. Imagine doing the action, and then an algorithm or YouTube or somebody else says, “No, that’s incorrect,” or, “You did it wrong,” even though you know that you prepared yourself to do things correctly.

And so, it’s a very tough mental position to be in to consider your success, the results of what you do, versus, “I did the work. I showed up. I did my best, and I’m learning from my mistakes.” That is a win even if the result isn’t where you wanted it to be because you can’t necessarily always control the result, but you can always control your actions that you take now. The actions that you take today, turn into the story that you tell about yourself tomorrow.

Pete Mockaitis
Tweet that, Pat. That’s good.

Pat Flynn
Yeah, I’ll engrave that one in a wood plaque at some point. But, Matt, I’m curious your thoughts on this too, because you deal directly with a lot of students who are at that level, where they just are getting in their own way and they’re telling themselves stories about why this is not going to work. How do you coach people? You’ve coached several people in our community directly on those kinds of things.

Matt Gartland
I like how Pat kind of phrased it around entrepreneurial and how do we just kind of reframe sort of our headspace and then, therefore, our approach to relationships.

And it’s similar, but maybe a different way of teeing it up, which is not to expect an immediate reward, not to expect like, “Hey, I’m going to do a thing. I’m going to deliver value into a relationship,” especially a new relationship, and instantly expect, like, closing a sale, or getting a yes, or some sort of immediate gratification.

If we can lean into new relationships and be okay with the imperfection of like, “I’m not getting something immediately back,” and being okay with that, and I’m not saying that that’s easy, but just like the reps of practicing that, that is healthy relationship-building.

Like, just invest into them, deliver value, help them in some way, start to earn that trust. That works in any career. That works in a corporate environment, whether it’s with your supervisor or a cross-functional manager or partner or an executive in your company, if you work in retail. All of these different career pursuits and job types can, I think, improve if we initially detach the pursuit of, like, some sort of instant gratification or reward for my actions, and invest more into their success and just value delivery, I think is one of those really healthy, important kind of reframes on building relationships and getting more comfortable and, therefore, less maybe trapped in our own insecurities or imperfections, that headspace is not helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
Ooh, there’s so much there in terms of I like that headspace is when you are focused on serving and delivering value to the others, by definition, we’re no longer self-centered. “You lose yourself,” to quote Eminem, the best pump-up song ever, before entering a situation. So, you lose yourself and you’re not self-centered, you’re other-focused, giving value, and then a lot of the nervousness disappears. I’d love to hear a bit more about the success comes from the actions, not from the results.

We had B.J. Fogg on the show, talking about Tiny Habits, and he’s awesome. He told me that I was a natural celebrator. And I’m curious, if we find ourselves maybe getting a little bit hung up on the external results, the wins, the validations, the atta-boys, are there any methods or approaches you use to celebrate your actions or to bring your head back into the zone of, “No, no, this was a win, this was victory because I took the action here”?

Matt Gartland
I think that this is a part of the richer story of, like, finding jobs that speak to satisfaction and bring joy to our work

Just like doing good work with good people, trying to help in whatever sort of way that that makes sense in your own definition of an ideal job, I think, is a really kind of motivating force and can help us overcome mistakes and pitfalls and whatnot that will be true anywhere if we’re not doing those things. And, I think Pat said it earlier, like we’re not maybe trying hard enough or leaning into the opportunity to serve people and collaborate with others.

Pat Flynn
Also, I think it’s important, and you’d mentioned this briefly, Matt is the idea of the team and doing great work together with others. And part of a leader’s role, and I think everybody should, and it’s very entrepreneurial to be a leader, to see others who are there who might need your help or guidance, to also recognize the good work that they do. And I think it’s important in a communal situation, especially in a workplace, to recognize those who are doing work that may also often just be overlooked.

I remember when I was working in architecture, there was one person, Adrian was his name, he would always recognize the small things that I did that were good, and that reinforced me to want to do those things and other things even better, and those are things that the project managers would often sort of overlook. And that made sense because they weren’t directly working with me. Adrian was the job captain who was in charge of sort of my work and overseeing my stuff.

But recognizing things that were a little bit challenging, and even if I didn’t do them correctly, the fact that I tried and made progress on those things was good. It helped me want to make sure those things were even better the next time, and that’s really key. And we practice that inside of Team SPI as well, and we try to recognize those in our community at the same time and the good work that they do. Even those small things matter quite a bit.

It’s human nature to want to feel like you’re a part of something, and I think in the workforce that sometimes gets forgotten because there’s a job to do, but it’s still people talking with other people and connecting with other people, and the people sort of component of this is really key. And if you can set yourself up as a leader, which means a few things, being a leader means seeing and recognizing the work that other people do, like I just said.

But it’s also owning up to what your weaknesses are and what your mistakes are, and then seeing how others can fill in that gap, and you all working together toward a greater good or a common goal, or also working on those things that are weaker and just not pretending like you know everything, I think, is important, too. The good leader is the one who’s in the trenches with the community, not the one at the top of the mountain just yelling and telling everybody what to do, in my opinion.

And I think that energy inside of that workforce and that workspace is really important to just to understand. There’s no necessarily a barometer that measures the energy in the room. But there is a feeling, and I think it’s important to keep that as high as possible, the energy in the group.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig that a lot, and so props to Adrian. Thanks, Adrian. You’re awesome.

Pat Flynn
Yeah, thank you, Adrian.

Pete Mockaitis
If we’re lacking an Adrian in our workplaces, an unfortunate place to be, do you have any self-talk approaches or strategies? If we may, could we zoom into the conversations that you’re having with yourselves that you find helpful for persisting in the midst of these sorts of situations?

Pat Flynn
I’m reminded of a journal that I used to write in every single day, I did for three years until I moved on to a different system, but it’s called “The 5-Minute Journal.” And “The 5-Minute Journal” is an incredible sort of journal. Journaling is great. That’s a great way to be introspective and to learn and to kind of unpack things that may be happening throughout the day, but I always found that just like blank page journaling was very hard. I’m like, “Okay. Dear, Pat, here’s what your day was,” and then, like, I don’t know where to go.

But “The 5-Minute Journal” is nice because it breaks things down for you. When you start your day, you open this book, there’s already prompts, “What are three things that you’re grateful for today?” And I love starting the day with thinking about gratefulness because, no matter what happens, I know there’s something I can be grateful for, and it changes every day. I might be grateful for the food I have, or the fact that I get to drop off my kids at school every day. Whatever it might be, it changes.

But what’s really nice is at the end of the day, I can look back before I go to bed and I can write three things that I’m proud of myself for actually accomplishing. No matter big or small, I know I made some sort of progress, and it could be as small as the fact that I made my bed in the morning, to the fact that we just finished this million-dollar project and the client loved it. Just to have that documented and to kind of put it on paper allows us to process these things.

And the additional component of “The 5-Minute Journal,” Also asks you, “What are three things that you could have improved on today that you’re going to hopefully improve in the future?” And it might be, “Oh, you know, I was a little bit of a jerk to my coworker today. I’m going to work on that tomorrow. Cool.” “I didn’t work on my health and fitness today. I just ate McDonald’s all day, so I’m going to try to work on that.”

And, again, it becomes a place to document these things, and it’s really amazing to go back into time and read these things, and it kind of helps you remember that, (a) you have all these amazing things to be grateful for, no matter what’s happening, and (b) you are always looking to see how you might be able to incrementally improve tiny habits, just like you said, over time, and that’s one device that I would recommend people check out if you’re into that thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, very good. I think we had a psychologist, Dr. Ellen Reed, saying these exact sorts of prompts so they’re good, they are science-approved that they really do get you into an awesome, what’s the word, it’s like a nice virtuous cycle in terms of, “Okay, we got some gratitude, we got some pride, we got some improvement, and up and up and up and up, and self-confidence rises,” and it’s a beautiful thing.

Matt Gartland
I’ll add, if I can, two additional thoughts on that, I think that’s great. One is to preemptively surround yourself with people when you need them, whether that takes the form of a mastermind group, at least as we think about those in online communities, whether that is a collection of your neighbors in your local community. I’m privileged to have some really awesome neighbors that we’ve gotten close and we hang out a good bit these days.

Or, even a variety of different small kind of addressable groups, because we’re all going to have bad days or bad weeks, and these things are not always, per se, work-driven, or career-driven, like, life of course intersects us all the time.

So, if you can build into those relationships, which kind of, of course now, kind of folds back on the power of relationships and intentionality with which we’re investing value into relationships, then lean on them when you have a low moment and you need some re-encouragement, if it’s a super bad day, because you know that it’s going to come back around. One of those friends and colleagues or partners is going to need that of you.

And then you go through that cycle enough times, you’ll learn one of the most obvious truths ever, which is we’re all going to have hard moments at any scale of success, no matter what number is in your bank account or what size house you live in or all these other maybe, like, attributes of success or claims of success. Like, we all struggle with stuff, and people are people. So, if you can build it with the right people, and if you’re surrounding yourself with people that share your kind of a common set of values, and you nurture into that, that safety net is there when you need it.

Pete Mockaitis
That is huge. I’ve got a podcast mastermind group and a church men’s group and, of course, just friends and neighbors, and it’s huge. So great reminder. All right. Beautiful. So, let’s say we’ve got these foundations in place. We’re going to start imperfect. That’s cool. We’re going to do some journaling and thoughtfulness associated with celebrating the daily successes. We got supportive relationships. Cool, cool, cool.

Well, let’s say, yeah, we’re going to embark upon this thing that we found kind of scary. Maybe it’s a big new project. We’re not sure if folks are going to embrace it at work or it’s maybe our own side hustle, our own project. What are some of your pro tips on taking the first real steps in the exterior world that are likely to be prudent and not too risky, not too un-risky?

Matt Gartland
Especially through the entrepreneurial lens but I think this works in so many other contexts, is to develop a range of skills borne of a range of diverse perspectives, which is in contrast to just being too narrow and maybe even almost too hyper-specialized with one discrete skill or focal point.

With small business, especially if you’re working for yourself and you’re not a venture-backed tech company, then you’re probably doing a lot of this stuff. You’re trying to think about your marketing and positioning. You’re trying to design the product or service. You’re doing fulfillment, like the actual delivery of that work or build that thing. You’re maybe even doing a little bit of sales, business development, building relationships, maybe some partnerships.

And if you lean into that with joy, if you lean into that with like an adventurous sort of mindset, like, “Look, like that’s actually a good thing. If I can develop a broader range of skills that gives me more confidence…” to go back to the theme of confidence, “…and, like, being able to do the thing, whether, again, it’s a side hustle or a small business on my own, or even just a big project at work.”

And there’s a great book that kind of encapsulates a lot of the thinking by David Epstein called Range, and he pulls from a crazy amount of industry and science, and even athletes, professional athletes, to kind of make the case and tell these stories, which is, like, if you can have more range of ability, you can think faster, make sharper decisions, your instincts are improved, you’ll enjoy the process more, you’ll probably have outsized performance as a result, and, therefore, set yourself up for a higher degree of probability for success.

Pete Mockaitis
We had David Epstein on the show talking Range, and it’s good. We’ll link to it in the show notes.That’s beautiful. That confidence often comes from, “Yeah, sure enough, I’ve done this before in a lot of different contexts, and, boom, we got this under control.”

Pat Flynn
From my perspective, I love the idea of what I like to call a voluntary force function. A force function is something that kind of forces you to do something, and a voluntary one is you put yourself in that situation on purpose. And I have a perfect story to share about when I was still in architecture, where I, in fact, got a promotion and a raise as a result of putting myself in a situation that was slightly higher pressure than I would just be otherwise because I voluntarily put myself into that situation.

So, thankfully, I was with Adrian out in Orlando. We were meeting with the Hilton regional director for all Hilton hotels on the East Coast, so he was like a bigwig in the world of hotels. The division in the architecture firm I was at was hospitality. So, we built hotels, restaurants, that sort of thing, and I was just like the grunt in the room. I was just there to take notes and to follow along. I was sort of almost like intern status even though I was getting paid. It was very early on in my career.

There was a point in the middle of this conversation where they wanted to redesign a lot of the hotel rooms and kind of make them a little bit more modern, and there was a tool that had just come out called V-Ray that was a 3D modeling tool that allowed you to have photorealistic versions. This was early 2000s, by the way, so it was like before all the neat fancy easy-to-use computer-related programs came out. This was like early, early when it came to that stuff.

And the regional director said, “Hey, does anybody know how to use V-Ray in the room? I want to see what these rooms are going to look like before we make these final decisions,” and the room was completely silent. Nobody raised their hand. I had heard of V-Ray before. So, I don’t know what it was in me, I put my hand up and I said, “I can make this 3D renderings for you.” He’s like, “Son, you were in the back quiet the whole time. Who are you?” “Well, I’m Pat Flynn. I’m just a drafter here at MBH Architects.” “Cool. I look forward to seeing those renderings in about a month.”

And Adrian looks at me, he’s like, “Are you kidding me? You don’t know how to do that?” And I said, “I’m going to figure it out.” And I did. I had enough. Like, that was all I could think about because I had so much pressure on me to figure it out that, guess what, not only did I figure it out, I became the example for so many other people in the office on how to use this program. I even taught workshops on how to use this program. I wasn’t an expert, but I knew enough to do what I needed to do to get those drawings out there.

And just last year, I went into my dad’s storage unit because he wanted me to get some stuff out there from the past, and I found those renderings and it just brought back all these memories of the heightened pressure I was in, yes, but just how great it was to accomplish something that I didn’t even think was possible, because I put myself in that little bit of a higher-pressure situation. It’s almost like if you want to learn a language, what’s the best way to learn a new language? You literally buy a plane ticket and spend a month in that country. You’re going to figure it out because you have to kind of thing.

And I think a lot of us often will try to sit in complacency when it comes to our work and our life. Comfort is great, but comfort doesn’t help us grow. All the best and most awesome things happen outside of that comfort zone. So, there might be something in your audience’s head right now that they might be thinking, “Well, what if I were to put myself in that position?” Well, what if? What would happen? And also, what’s the worst-case scenario? Probably not as bad as the best thing that can happen if you take action and you are compelled to do it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really well said. As I suppose the worst-case scenario is you fire up V-Ray, and you go, “Oh, shoot, this was vastly more difficult than I expected.” But on the flip side, I imagine you’d say, “Hey, I’ve learned new software packages and platforms before, and I am an architect. Though I don’t know it yet, how brutally challenging can it really be?” especially if you’ve got, you don’t need it tomorrow, you’ve got some time on your hands.

Pat Flynn
And it’s not impossible. That’s the other thing. A lot of times we assume things are impossible, or, “I would never be able to do that,” but that’s just a story we’re telling ourselves based on past experiences. But when you break it down to first principles, like Elon Musk does with things, you can eventually build a rocket that can go into space and land itself, which nobody thought was possible.

But you start to strip things down to the absolute truths and realize that, “Well, maybe it is possible and maybe I can do this. And if somebody else has done it before, then it’s absolutely true that it’s possible. I just need to figure it out and talk to the right people, make the right calls, do all these actions that I wouldn’t have normally taken because I wasn’t in this slightly higher-pressure situation.”

And that helped me account for a raise, a promotion. Like, it led all the way to where I am now, the butterfly effect, so.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I love that story so much. And, Pat, if we are not so fortunate as to be in a meeting with a bigwig who asks a question that’s just floating in the air waiting for us to grab, any pro tips or fun ideas for how we can bring the forcing situation upon ourselves?

Pat Flynn
It reminds me of Noah Kagan from OkDork. He was number, I don’t know, nine at Facebook or something and then he got fired. But then he wanted to work for Mint.com, and he applied for a marketing position there and he didn’t get it. So, he said, “No, I know I can help this company. I’m just going to come up with a marketing plan and make it on my own. I’m going to write a 10-page report on the way that I would market Mint if I was here. Even though I didn’t get hired, I’m just going to give them my plan because I know it’s that good.”

And he did that. He didn’t have to, but he did, he volunteered to do it, and then they hired him because it just showed that he really, truly knew exactly what he was talking about. So, in a way, it’s an understanding of, “Okay, what is of value to said company, said person, whoever it might be that the decision-maker is, and then giving them that value, like, go and do the thing?”

So, if I didn’t have a bigwig, if I was proactive in thinking about what would be valuable to Hilton or this company or my work at the time, I might have already had that idea to make a V-Ray version of this even if I wasn’t prompted to because it matched that level of “What is value to who is the decision-maker right now?” So, exploring and going out there, and asking and understanding what it means to, you know, a lot of us when we’re working somewhere, we don’t really know how the work we do affects everything else that it leads to.

I think the more you can begin to understand your role in what it is that you do and why it matters, then you can lean into those things that you then bring to the company more than if you’d kind of just did the bullet-point list on your job description.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Pat, I love that so much with the Noah Kagan story. It reminds me, also we had Ramit Sethi on the show talk about the briefcase technique. Like, in an interview, he was like, “Oh, let me show you. I went ahead and did the thing.”

So, what’s cool about that is you combine those elements of, “Okay, but think about a person and what’s of value to them. And, hey, here’s a date in which I’m going to be speaking with that person. Well, hey, it looks like I’ve now got some pressure in terms of a deadline. I should go ahead and make the thing before I meet with that person.”

And, Matt, I wanted to follow up with your perspective. You’ve got some views when it comes to people, relationships, being of value. How do you think about that in a way that’s just been really transformational for you?

Matt Gartland
Well, even in Pat’s examples, like the power of story infused with doing of the thing, I think if you can do both in the right context, that’s a positive double whammy. So, yeah, do the thing, take initiative, but then add a story layer to it. Communicate your thought process. How and why did you come up with, maybe with the Noah example, why did you come up with the type of marketing plan that he did? It’s not just the fact that he did one, but it’s he created a specific one borne of his own creative thinking, his own imagination, his own story.

So, if you can, in your own situation, think about the “what.” The “what” is the thing to do, but also then, like, the “why” in the story, and it kind of brings your own personality into it. That’s how you get sticky. That’s how, like, “Oh, like, Matt Gartland or Pat Flynn,” or, like, your name gets associated with the thing more than just, like, “Oh, this is a nice plan. I’m going to go implement the plan. I kind of forget who actually did it.”

So I’d figure out like what that story wrapper is around the thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I’d love that concept of the story wrapper around the thing, it enhances it. I’m thinking back in the day when I was consulting, I had plans to leave consulting and start my own business, and so I had created this savings spreadsheet, just like personal savings of money, like, “Okay, how can I make it so dirt simple to know how much money I should be saving?” And so, I thought, “Okay, just input your base expenses and then see how much do you want to save, by what time. And then here’s how much you have left to play around with.” And so, that’s all I got to know.

It’s like, “Okay, spend less than $80 a day on random fun things, like tacos or whatever, and we’re good.” So, I shared that with a few of my colleagues, and they thought it was cool because they’re consultants and they like spreadsheets. But you’re right, when you added the story around it, it became legendary.

And when I left, and folks were talking about, “Oh, Pete, bye. We’re going to miss you, and your legendary savings spreadsheet will live on,” because there was a story like, “Oh, yeah, I want to leave this consulting and go be a speaker, author, something. I love developing people skills stuff and I’m going to figure that out, and I’m going to need some savings because I don’t know what I’m doing yet.”

Matt Gartland
Yeah, I think that’s exactly it.

Pat Flynn
So good.

Matt Gartland
And maybe as another intersection that’s adjacent to the thought is, “Can you do something that maybe the other person,” or if it is a bigwig, “they don’t want to do or it’s not their cup of tea?” So, like the classic maybe phrasing of one person’s garbage is another man’s treasure, kind of adapting of the metaphor here, but at least in the entrepreneurial world is maybe a better example.

There’s a lot of energy about being a visionary and coming up with ideas and being the idea person, and that’s really important work, to be clear. But, especially, then down the line, though, there’s need for operations and integrations and systems and finances, and all of these other things that come around.

And, at least, if you look at it on paper, if you read a book, maybe like Gino Wickman’s book, Rocket Fuel, as one reference point, there’s a whole other set of value in responsibilities and work to do that. Maybe, like, in this context, a visionary doesn’t want to do, and especially if you are maybe naturally wired to be that person, can you feel out those opportunities to do the other side of the coin, add value in this other way, create an opportunity by taking on an initiative, or lean into an opportunity and create that opportunity for yourself by doing so that kind compliments the other side, compliments the other person or the other team in an organization?

I wouldn’t say force yourself into something that you don’t want to do. That’s not what I’m trying to articulate, but rather it’s, like, if you are naturally gifted and can lean into an opportunity that someone else maybe doesn’t want to do, I mean, there’s an opening right there, and then add together, kind of stack these ideas, find that opening, take initiative to create a thing, put a story wrapper around it. Gosh, I think if you did those three things in combination, that’s a massive winning advantage.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that so much. And now I’m thinking about my colleague, Anne, at my other company, Cashflow Podcasting, and it’s funny, there’s been a couple of times where I’ve just “vision-arily,” I guess, just thrown out an idea, and then she comes back with such beautifully detailed spreadsheets. I was like, “Hey, I think our website could really be improved here, here, here.”

And then she’s like, “Okay, so here is an in-depth creative brief about all of the strengths and weaknesses associated with our competitors’ page in which they are doing the job better than we are doing, and how I’d like to adapt this and that.” And I was like, “Oh, wow.” It’s, like, I didn’t want to do all that. I just wanted the page to be beautiful and more effective. But then she just did the hustle, the legwork of the detailed bit-by-bit, “This is what excellence can look like,” and it was oh so delightful to me.

Matt Gartland
Yeah, that’s an amazing example. I think that’s spot on.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Pat and Matt, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about a few of your favorite things?

Pat Flynn
One thing comes to mind when it comes to entrepreneurship, I think it’s important, especially when you want to be a leader, when you want to be a teacher, there’s so much information out there now. Information is now not the valuable thing anymore.

So, we have to think beyond the information or beyond the work that you do, and it’s the brand that you create around the work that you do. That involves how you interact with people, but also that involves what you stand for. What are your beliefs and your values that you bring here that support the company that you work for? Because those are the things that become the people-to-people connection.

We connect with other people, and I think that the more you can show up as a human, and that means taking a position on something, that means taking a stand for something you believe in, that also supports the company’s values, and really kind of not just doing the work that, eventually, and it’s a scary time right now with like AI. AI is going to take a lot of jobs and it’s going to do a lot of work that is just kind of commoditized, and everybody’s doing the same thing.

So, it is the human-to-human interaction that is going to be the differentiator. So, it’s important to work on who you are and how you then can mold into the business that you’re in and to the company that you’re in, in a way that’s beyond just, “Here’s what I was hired to do. Here is the value beyond that that I can bring to the company, the relationships, the energy, the positioning that we have, and the mission that we’re on together.”

And I think it was Zig Ziglar who said, “You can have anything in life that you want so long as you help other people get what they want.” And so, I’ll finish there because that’s one of my favorite quotes and I try to live by that.

Matt Gartland
For me, it’s the notion of letting go, which is kind of ironically, and it’s fun to say, like the first project Pat and I worked on, which is the title of his memoir book. Like, if you want to keep growing, pursuing new opportunities, you’re going to have to let go of the thing that got you there. Like, maybe it’s the job in pursuit of a different job, maybe that requires a small leap of faith.

Whether it’s maybe going out and starting your own business. I mean, any sort of reference point to get to the next thing, and the next thing that is maybe a little more meaningful. It’s not maybe an incremental point of growth. It’s maybe a little more towards exponential. It’s going to take some of that, again, courage, overcoming some imperfection tendencies, and some of the other things that we’ve discussed today, to let go of that thing, even if it’s been awesome and successful, and it’s even a big part of your identity up until this point, especially from a career standpoint, to do something new and exciting, maybe a little bit bold.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, now in rapid-fire, could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Pat Flynn
“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” Ford.

Matt Gartland
All right. I’ll use “Give to Grow,” which is the title of a friend’s new book that’s coming out all about investing in people, and we’ve hit on some of those themes today. So, give to grow, and good things will happen.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Pat Flynn
Right now, Dark Matter. It’s the latest one that I read, and I don’t read a ton of fiction, and I really loved it. And it’s now, I guess, an episodic series on Apple.

Matt Gartland
All right. I’m a proud father of two little girls, so it’s a parenting book, but The Anxious Generation is just a masterful read for me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Jonathan Haidt.

Matt Gartland
He’s a parent. Yes, exactly. And I think there’s just a lot of crossovers into society and how we think about just the intersection of work and life, and mobile devices being at the center of a lot of that. So, it’s a fantastic read on a lot of levels.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your jobs?

Matt Gartland
Notecards.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Matt Gartland
It’s just such a great tool. Simple. You can have multiple versions. Carry them with you everywhere. Get ideas down, plot out a plan. So, notecards.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Pat Flynn
For me, kind of similar, Post-it notes. I use it to plan everything, like literally everything. Our brains do a good job of coming up with ideas but not necessarily organized or in the correct order. So, I like to get everything out there using Post-it notes, one idea per note, and then that’s where I rearrange things. I use that to write my books, create courses, outline my YouTube videos, podcast episodes. So, it’s like a notecard except there’s a little sticky edge on it. So, me and Matt are pretty similar in that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Pat Flynn
I think about a few things that I’m grateful for the moment I wake up.

Matt Gartland
Sleep habit is mine. Just when I go to bed and try to get into a healthy circadian rhythm so that I’m waking up as refreshed and as energized as I can be, because if I have that, everything works better throughout the day.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that you’re known for, a Matt or Pat original quotation?

Pat Flynn
“You got to be cringe before they binge.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that sounds accurate.

Matt Gartland
That’s pretty good.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Matt Gartland
So SmartPassiveIncome.com is just our site at large, but as we’ve kind of shared, or at least at the top, the community is the center point of everything that we invest into and care about the most because we know it works. We see it every day. So, you can go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/all-access to check out our All-Access Pass, which is just a perfect kind of on-ramp to all of our work.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a final challenge or call to action for those looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Pat Flynn
I challenge you to get a little uncomfortable. If you’ve been complacent, but you’ve been looking to grow, where might that next level be in that realm of a little bit of discomfort, one sort of step outside of that comfort zone? I think, typically, when I run this exercise with students, they already know what that is because they’ve been wanting to do it, they’ve just been scared.

And this is just a call to action to go and make that happen because, here’s another quote to finish off that relates to this, that is a Pat Flynn original, “I would rather live a life full of ‘Oh, wells’ than a life full of ‘What ifs’.” Those regrets are going to haunt you, so you might as well take action and see what happens.

Matt Gartland
And I would say, go say hello or introduce yourself to one person that you know that you should know as a part of your network, as a part of maybe even your inner circle, and you haven’t because of XYZ mental figment of your imagination. So, it takes some more courage to do that, but, yeah, go say hello to that person.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Matt and Pat, this has been delightful. Keep on doing the great stuff you’re doing.

Matt Gartland
You as well, Pete.

Pat Flynn
Thanks so much, Pete. You, too.

Matt Gartland
Thanks a ton. This was great.