Podcasting, YouTube & Book Launches: The Full Creator Stack with Pat Flynn

Dustin: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Seven Figure Elite Podcast. I'm truly honored today. I have a guest here who has actually shaped a big part of my adult life, and that's not a, a, an overstatement in this case. So Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income and other things is here. He's been a mentor of mine from afar for 15 years, and I was recently had the opportunity to be a, a guest on his show, and he's graciously come over and joined us here on Seven Figure Leap to share some.
Dustin: Really, I, uh, he got a new book coming out and I think there's a lot of great things he's gonna be able to share with us. So, pat, thanks so much for being here. It's truly an honor to, as part of the program.
Pat: Thank you, Dustin, the honor's mind. I'm just so grateful 'cause you and I go way back. I mean, way, way back. I mean early 2010s, uh, back when we were both blogging primarily. And to see us both grow into the different places we're at now and how we're helping people. I mean, you've helped so many, especially in the world of podcasting.
Pat: It's just incredible to see. And I'm, uh, again, grateful for the opportunity to be here and serve your audience.
Dustin: Awesome. Well, uh, you know, we could do the normal podcasting thing, like gimme a five minute backstory about being an architect and all that. And I think that's [00:01:00] relevant, but there's lots of places people can find that. Uh, I would love though, just to give a snapshot, sort of like if someone somehow doesn't know who Pat Flynn is, uh, just so they have a little context like smart passive income.
Dustin: Pokemon, there's, there's a few major projects that you're focused on nowadays. Maybe give us a snapshot of like what business Pat is like today and then I've got a few, uh, a few prompts that I think is gonna get into a really rich conversation.
Pat: Sure. So primarily I still help people build businesses, and I do that in many different ways, primarily through by leading by example. So since 2008, I have built businesses and built them publicly in a way that people are able to see all the things that I do. And sometimes it's good things and sometimes it's not so good things, but.
Pat: All the time. It is a lesson that I can pass forward to people. And it started in the blogging world and it later, uh, went into podcasting and YouTube. I had built several different businesses from an app to, uh, an app company to a security guard company, a food truck company. Uh, I have an invention called the Switch Pod with my videographer.
Pat: Um, have done online courses, I've done [00:02:00] coaching consulting, I've. Also published a lot of books I've spoken on stage and I have a lot of tools that I can offer other entrepreneurs who wanna go down their own path because I've experienced a lot across all the paths really. And, um, you know, more recently, like I said, uh, and like you said, with this YouTube channel about Pokemon, that's kind of blown up and it's allowed me to kind of get into the more entertainment space a little bit.
Pat: And, and, and as I've been called a couple times before, more of a beast, Mr. Beast, like. Celebrity for the Pokemon community, which is cool. And I have run live events for that space as well. We have an event coming up probably in, uh, gosh, it's, it's like six weeks from now and we're gonna have about 6,000 people in Tampa.
Pat: Uh, all nerding out on Pokemon together with a bunch of sponsors and you know, everybody from eBay and many others coming into support, uh, our community. So a lot of things happening in the business now. I did not do all of them at the same time 'cause people see what I do and they're like, you, I know how you do this.
Pat: Do. Like clones or something? No. Um, everything was built one at a time, but [00:03:00] they kind of stack on each other. Right. A lot of the stuff that I did as a podcaster helped me become a better communicator, for example, which allowed me to come up on stage and become more entertaining and be able to then bring that into the YouTube world and take a lot of the mistakes I made on my personal stuff and bring them into this new space and into Pokemon.
Pat: Um, there's a lot to, to unpack here. Uh, Dustin, I know we can go any which way, but which way do you wanna go?
Dustin: Yeah. Well, I love that. That was like. That's a lot, you know, 17 years of, uh, of really cool things to pack in. They, you did a masterful job there of sort of giving people a through line. And it actually leads directly to the first topic I wanted to dig into today, which is storytelling, right? So. Pat, you know, I'm a StoryBrand guide.
Dustin: I love podcast guesting. I, I I love, um, human to human interaction and sort of like getting back to the roots of being around a campfire and communicating. And I know you're also very passionate about storytelling. Uh, even what you just. Rattled off as a, as a form of story. And I think when I look at what you've done and actually following it pretty [00:04:00] intimately for 15 of those 17 years, I think storytelling is one of the reasons I've been so, uh, enamored with like, not only the things that are really applicable, like you taught me how to blog and that was really applicable at the time that I needed it.
Dustin: But also, you know, like. I didn't, I didn't even pronounce it right, like Pokemon. Like that's not even like my thing. But I still am enamored with it because of the storytelling element of it. So I guess to, to start this part of the conversation, why is story so important, especially now sitting here in 2025 and, and all the things that we're dealing with that will, uh, lead us eventually to talk about your book that you have coming out.
Pat: Yeah. And to give you an example of how powerful storytelling is on my Pokemon YouTube channel, I get many comments of people who are watching hour long videos, sometimes two or even three hour long videos who say, I don't know anything about Pokemon. I don't even know what this guy is talking about, but I can't stop watching.
Pat: And the reason this is important is because story. Connects because story is about the ups and downs. It's about the discovery. It's about the challenges that we overcome or maybe not overcome. [00:05:00] But all these things are relatable. They bring emotion into what it is that you teach, and people connect on an emotional level often, and this is what's now more important than ever because today there is more information than we could ever need, and more than that, there is AI just making it so easy for us to just get what we need Informationally in.
Pat: Therefore, we're all on the same level playing field in terms of, you know, the vast knowledge of of, of whatever we can choose to learn, but what's gonna make us stand out as people as humans. It's that emotional component to it, because AI does not come with that. It could try. There's just something about the soul of a person that comes out in, especially their voice.
Pat: This is why you and I both love podcasting, right? It, I could, I could, I could type out the same things that I'm saying, but when you hear somebody and you hear them telling a story about something very difficult and their voice cracks a little bit, I mean, you can't help but, but feel that with that person, that empathy comes through.
Pat: And when it comes to business owners and, and [00:06:00] entrepreneurship or just being a decent human being, the. That is shared between two people is gonna be something that connects that AI will never ever get, uh, in, in my opinion. Um, so as a creator, learning how to tell story better and, and, and studying this and practicing it in real time, whether it's at the dinner table or on a stage, can be the most valuable use of your time, in my opinion.
Pat: And it allows you to, it allows you to compete with everybody else because. Unique stories unlike anybody else's. You have something that nobody else has, your experiences and the way that you've seen it in the lens that you have, and that is something that often we feel like is a disadvantage because maybe we don't have as big of a following or maybe because we don't have, uh, as much authority yet.
Pat: But if you have a good story, you can capture attention and it doesn't matter who you are. I think about my behavior on, for example, when I, I block out my distractions by the way I put them in the calendar, like if I think it was near el, who said, you know, plan or, or schedule your distractions. So I do have [00:07:00] time in my calendar for literally doom scrolling, but it's contained, uh, at least.
Pat: Um, and that's really helpful. So when I'm in my contained doom scrolling moments on TikTok, I usually find that I'm most interested in when just people who I don't even know, they just start by telling a story. They, they, they're really good at the hook, of course, but then they just take me through something that is relatable that sometimes will give me goosebumps, and I don't even know who that person is, but because they're masterful storytellers, they're building an audience and getting my attention at least, and that's something we can all practice no matter what level we're at.
Dustin: I love that. Yeah. And I. As someone who also has geeked out on it, you know, have an engineering background. And so the things I think are most powerful, and I think storytelling is the prime example of this. They're sort of art and science, right? Like they're, they're skills, like there are things you can learn and they're, there are things you can develop and you can, and you can come from.
Dustin: Borrow from schools of thought. And so there's these practitioners, you know, like the Donald Miller with StoryBrand frameworks, or Roy Sutherland, who's kind of a [00:08:00] classic ad man of, of, uh, of Great Britain. And what, what I found is really fascinating about it though, and you even said this too in
in your remarks, I. We're wired for this, right? Like you used the word soul. I mean you could look, talk about neurology and brain chemistry and stuff like that. Like we literally file and access and convey information through stories. Like we don't necessarily think about this consciously, but like it really is true.
And so that's the science part.
Dustin: And I think the art part is something that, um, you really. Masterful at, and you've, you've really, um, been able to do in many different formats. I think that's really what, what, what's so fascinating, like having seen you on stage, see, you write in the blogs in the early days, uh, of course podcasting, which is what we're gonna get into a little bit more next and now into this YouTube world that is.
Dustin: You've done a lot of YouTube, but a lot of your YouTube used to be more tutorial based, like over my shoulder. Still in a story format. But like you said, Mr. Beast style, like entertainment. Like that's a, to me, that's like being a [00:09:00] standup comic, like level of difficulty of uh, of, of, of nailing that sort of thing.
Dustin: 'cause it's, there's a risk and reward, right? It's like, wow. Like that's really special when you do it right. And it's also. Hard and because it doesn't come naturally to a lot of us. So, kind of a final thought with storytelling in your own development, like how have you become over the course of many years, a great storyteller and, and what pushes you to like, try new mediums and, and try new challenges with this?
Pat: Yeah, the storytelling. Mastery, which I don't, I don't think I'll never get to mastery, but I want to, I want, I, I wanna continue to improve. There. There, there's a few ways to improve. Number one, it's just by doing and practicing consciously about trying to get better, which might, which might mean, okay, uh, how do I hook an audience on a particular platform better?
Pat: How might I retain them? And I'm getting data back, especially from YouTube on how well that is happening or not. And that data then informs what I should continue to do or what I should stop doing. Learning in more of an art and as a consumer [00:10:00] and paying attention to when am I most enthralled and like sitting at the edge of my seat while somebody's speaking, even if it's a TED Talk, right?
Pat: There are multitudes of TED Talks and certain ones just seem to capture your attention. What about them? I'm gonna watch them, I'm gonna study, I'm gonna write some notes and, and then take from that and, and, and maybe
implement it in my own way and try something different. Uh, I get a lot of inspiration from YouTubers who don't necessarily have the fanciest.
Pat: Uh, equipment or the biggest explosions or the, who spend the most money, but who somehow capture my attention. There's one in particular, Ryan Trahan, who is just a kid who goes through these challenges. He did, he did a challenge where he, um, uh, he, he did like a bartering thing where he started with a penny and he was able to get it all the way up to a house, and then he donated that house and just the way he did his penny challenge.
Pat: It's so, it's like. You can tell right away how nerdy and geeky he is and self-deprecating and all that kind of stuff, which I am as well. And I try to incorporate that too. And just to give you some sense of like how deep I'm getting into this, we had a [00:11:00] video in the Pokemon channel where I tried to collect, um, all of the Pokemon cards from, uh, for, for one Pokemon.
Pat: So there's. 1025 Pokemon. I chose one of them and tried to find all the cars that were ever made for that Pokemon, that Pokemon's name is Gengar. It's a ghost and poison type, uh, ghost type Pokemon. And we were like, okay, like we can make a challenge and just try to find them all, but what's gonna give this meaning?
Pat: How do we make this something that can connect with people who might not even care about Pokemon? And how do we bring that into the story? So I pulled from my own experience and, and kind of maybe even the reason why I wanted to do this, because I have a collection that is very. It's very, almost perfect in a way how things are placed in binders, and there's certain ways to go about it.
Pat: There's sort of a, a, a, a craft to collection to collecting, and I had purchased this collection from somebody who needed the money and I purchased and there, there was a, um, a, a gang guard collection that wasn't complete yet, and I just put it aside. Out of my entire collection, [00:12:00] there was this folder with just half of the amount of gang guards that were there, but it was messy.
Pat: It was dirty. It was kind of like an older binder. Well, while all my other stuff is like neat and perfect, so we were like, okay, let's play on that a little bit. I think that's, that's, that's, that's a human thing to go. I need this to be perfect, right? So that's gonna be my reason for collecting and, and making this perfect collection and completing this incomplete thing, which is something we can all relate to.
Pat: And then in the story, I find out that some of the cards I find that I need are in not great condition. And I have to then weigh the decision of, well, I, I haven't seen this card in a while, but it's not perfect. Am I gonna be okay with that? Really start leaning into this push and pull. That's where good storytelling comes.
Pat: It's the ups and downs and rollercoasters. It's the push and pull, the tension there and eventually by the end of the story to spoil it is. It is the imperfect. That creates character. It is through the [00:13:00] imperfections and this imperfect collection that I had, that built all these amazing experiences and connections with new people in my life who are now my friends.
Pat: That wouldn't have happened if I just wanted things to be perfect. So let, let's embrace the imperfection, and it's this like tale or moral of the story, right? Like thinking about it on that level has made this video earn well over $50,000 in ad revenue, just one single video. It's helped this video see four plus million views.
Pat: It's helped me make connections with brands who would've never found me otherwise because they are now emotionally connected to what I'm doing on a human level. So that's just an example of like how deep we're getting into it. One, one resource I wanna give your audience before we move on is a screenwriting book called Save the Cat. Wonderful. It's made up of a bunch of different storytelling tactics that you can use and incorporate in whatever you're doing. And like I said, it's for screenplay writers, but we're incorporating it into our YouTube videos and I'm incorporating it into podcast as well. Um, save the Cat is just one of those [00:14:00] strategies.
Pat: And Save the Cat means, like, if you're telling a story, have in the beginning of the story at some point, some Save the Cat moment. And what that means is if you, if you've ever watched an old movie and like the protagonist saves the cat in the beginning, you know, they rescue a cat from a tree. You as the viewer immediately start assuming certain things about that person.
Pat: They're kindhearted, they're good-willed, and you root for them when they, when they go through a challenge. Um, so we do the same things. I'll often do trades in my Pokemon videos where I am getting a completely lopsided trade where I'm losing out. But this kid who's little, who doesn't have a lot of money or big cards, he's getting something special that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
Pat: So then that positions me as a Save the cat protagonist. So when I go through a big challenge or something's very difficult and we lean in, we lean into that, it just feels even harder for the audience to watch, which makes. Hopefully the overcoming of that challenge, that much more grand. So again, I'm getting into the deep, deep, deep parts of storytelling and it's so fun, dude.
Pat: I like, I cannot [00:15:00] wait for how all the stuff I'm doing now stacks into me writing fiction books in the future and maybe even writing screenplays, who knows? But these skills I'm acquiring now are all stacking to the next, the next, the next thing.
Dustin: I love it, man. That's so good. Well, thank you for going a little deep there. Uh, I, I enjoy it. I know the audience will enjoy it. Um, I talk a lot about story, but often just about marketing, you know, and just about frameworks and the essentials. But I love the, uh, the depth at which you've studied this. Not just studied it, but your.
Dustin: Enacting it and you know, the proofs in the pudding. You have the scientific data of the YouTube results, uh, to, to show like how, how important that is. So we've talked a lot about YouTube and I think that's awesome. Um, however, I think it would be remiss, you know, we're doing this thing right now, podcasting, and I was on your show.
Dustin: You're on my show, and you've got a book coming out, lean Learning that we're gonna talk about. I, I think this is related. So there's a reason you're doing this show, right? There, there's a reason there's these seasons of increased podcasting activity. I know you've got a very popular course on power up podcasting on the [00:16:00] hosting side of this, and so I know this is a bit of a softball or maybe a, just a, a leading question that we can go a little deeper with, but, you know, in the power of storytelling and the idea of lean learning, which we're gonna, what that means, but it's a great title so people kind know.
Dustin: When do you see podcasting? Podcasting is. Now we're 20 years past that. Right. And, and so I'd just love to get Pat's current thoughts on the power of podcasting, why you're still doing it. Do you think it's got a future, you know, those sort of things. And we can, we can talk a little more tactically about how this ties into business building and marketing.
Pat: Yeah, I know we talked a lot about YouTube, but podcasting is still my. First love, if you wanna call it that. Yes, I had blogged, but podcasting is really what got me to fall in love with creating and telling these stories. Podcasting is
the perfect platform to expand and connect and emotionally connect and, and be relatable.
Pat: You can go deeper because of the way people consume podcasts. They're consuming it different than every other [00:17:00] medium. A person listening to a podcast is on the go. Often. They are doing something else passively. But actively listening to you, and it's just you and them. They're in your that you're in their earbud.
Pat: It's very intimate. It's the best way to scale intimacy. And when you look at even the data, I'm a very data-driven type of person as well. When you consider a person's listening time versus watching time or reading time, the listening time
far outweighs, I'm talking like 10 x. The amount of time people are consuming by listening to a podcast versus watching, and.
Pat: Much of benefit for us to get on podcasts. If you are launching something like, again, thankful for, for being here to talk about my book. Get in front of audiences, like build those connections now so that you, by the time you have something, you know, digger well before you're thirsty. And then when you have that thing to launch, now you have these relationships with podcasters and that's great.
Pat: Or better yet, host one yourself to practice your craft, but also invite people on who you can build a relationship with. [00:18:00] And then by the time you might need something, you can maybe ask them for a favor. Uh, podcasting still in my opinion, is in, its sort of. Tween stage, I would say not infancy, but I would say it's still growing up.
Pat: And when you consider the numbers about how many, for example, YouTube channels, there are out there 50 plus million YouTube channels and then 500 million active blogs. Uh, or at least there once were. Bloggings not that big anymore. Uh, SEO has changed, uh, and so has blogging, but there are still just a couple million active podcasts.
Pat: That's not much in the grand scheme of things, and most people who start a podcast don't keep them. I mean, there's, there's several more podcast, but most of are people who haven't committed. And realize that this takes some work and some skill, and then they're giving up. And that's a good opportunity for us who are committed, who understand the power of this platform to show up.
Pat: And whether it's your own show or you showing up on other people's shows, to relay that message, to connect on a more personal, [00:19:00]
relatable level, and then actually share those call to actions that get. Movement and wherever it is you want, whether it's your product, your message, or whatever it might be, your email list, there's so many amazing things that can happen because now a person, even right now listening to me for the last 20, 30 minutes, we have a deeper relationship now than we did beforehand.
Pat: Much more than if you were to randomly even find my YouTube channel, because it's also coming with Dustin's sort of, um, sign off, right? Yeah, exactly. And, and, and people, you have spent the time to earn the trust with your audience. And having me on the show gets me to cut in front of the line, if you will, for trust building, and that's so, so powerful.
Pat: So yeah. Podcasting a hundred percent still worth doing guest podcasting. Absolutely. Which I know you teach and you're a master at. Um, yeah, I mean, I'll argue to the end of time about that.
Dustin: Good. Yeah. And, and you know, I think I probably, I probably originally found you through podcasting and, you know, the internet Business Mastery days. I know that's kind of how you got your start into [00:20:00] online business. And I was kind of around that same era and so I, I can find myself being a little nostalgic and like.
Dustin: Of course it's good. This is where I got my start, but I think when you look at the data, I mean there, it's definitely in a, still in a growth phase. I think it's one of the most imbalanced channels in the fact that there's more and more and more listeners, there's more people consuming podcasts, um, audio books, but, you know, podcasts specifically, and.
Dustin: It is a hard medium to maintain, and therefore there is a sort of pod fade effect. And so if you can be a creator who's committed to the podcasting, whether you're a host or a guest, or preferably both, and you can stick with it and you can be consistent, there's so much opportunity and there, you know, and, and.
Dustin: You know, I preach this a lot and so we don't have to go into this too much here, but you, I think one of the first words you said when I said podcasting was relationship, you know, and so there's this idea of, yeah, there's listeners and it's a great storytelling medium, and there's SEO benefits and there's all the things.
Dustin: But first and foremost, I think what's so powerful about it is the ability to build deep relationships [00:21:00] and multifaceted. In this format,
obviously you and I are deepening your relationship, but these listeners who are in sort of a semi hypnotic state or meditative state in the, in the way that they consume podcasts, as you mentioned, I think is really special.
Dustin: Um, and yeah, I just, I, I, I hope that the, the listeners here, pat as a thought leader in this space and someone who's really, really good at YouTube, which, you know, obviously is in a still podcasting. I want to transition to the book specifically, but I think this would be a great time to talk a little bit more about podcasting specifically for book marketing, right? So you've got a really unique perspective and you've, I believe you've self-published three books and now you've got this traditional published book, lean Learning that's coming out, and so I.
Dustin: You kinda have a unique experience of like different types of books, different mediums. Um, you're obviously in the creator, uh, world, you know, a lot of really popular authors. You're friends with a lot of them and masterminds with some of them. So you have some unique insights [00:22:00] into like, how's podcasting tie into book marketing?
Dustin: And as much as you're willing to share or whatever is comfortable, I'd love to get your thoughts on that. And then we'll move into like lean learning and dig into the book itself, uh, before we, uh, tell people how to get, how to get access.
Pat: Yeah, there's a lot of benefits of podcasting for book marketing for sure, and in my opinion, marketing starts before the thing is actually even finished or made. So book marketing, I already started talking about the process of writing lean learning several years ago to plant that seed and let people know what I was working on, and also using the podcast as a platform to.
Pat: Experiment with certain stories and see how people respond to them. And there were certain stories that I've told in the last several hundred episodes that seemed to stand out, that I got emails about, that I asked people about that seemed to resonate with them, that now I was able to pull forward and put into the book because it was now tested.
Pat: It wasn't just random. A lot of these things are using the podcasting platform and other platforms, social media and XI like X for this purpose because it's just quick. You see what works and what [00:23:00] doesn't.
Podcasting again to get deeper and then even like. Commence conversations with certain people who are listeners, super fans, asking them more about like, Hey, what did you think of this story?
Pat: What do you, what do you, what did you take from that? Or, or how did that inspire you? Um, you can then bring that in and even, even use those, uh, in, in your book itself. Um, there's a lot of people who've used podcasts in many different ways, or good friend Chris Ducker had, uh, for a couple of his books created podcasts.
Pat: Started podcasts just around that book topic. He named it exactly the same as as his book, like Virtual Freedom was one example. Uh, and he created a limited time podcast where he came out with an episode, I think one per day or a couple per week leading up to the launch. So he would start to introduce these topics and introduce these concepts and you know, he would talk about the book and see it.
Pat: He wouldn't oversell it because the podcast and the relationship that he was building with his audience. Was the selling, it was the, that's, that's what it takes to sell. It takes, uh, understanding, it takes trust. And that trust happened over time [00:24:00] because he started this podcast like just on behalf of the book.
Pat: And then of course, there was an end date to it after the book launched. And even a few, maybe a few, uh, weeks after to pull in more stories and just keep that momentum going then. It's evergreen, it's there, there's a start and a
finish to it, and it continues to still get downloads and still push people toward the book now, like over a decade later.
Pat: And that's how cool podcasting is too. A lot of these things you talk about, depending on what it is, of course, but uh, there is evergreen this to what it is that you're creating and that's, that's huge. You can create something once and it continues to work for you over and over and over again. That's what I love about, uh, a lot love about podcasting.
Pat: So those are just a few examples. Um, and of course being a guest on other people's shows, just like I am here. A guest on Dustin's show right now. It is obviously a great way to get in front of audiences with that, like you said, endorsement that comes to help fast forward, that trust building and hopefully, uh, entice people to hearing about the book and maybe even, you know, picking it up on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, um, target and anywhere else you, you might want.
Pat: Um, that was sideways plug for my own [00:25:00] book there. That, yeah. Thanks man.
Dustin: I'm curious, and this is, you know, a very tactical question, but if you're working with the great publishers at Simon Schuster in this case, so a big publisher, you know, um, it's a big deal and I know a lot of people have done different forms of publishing, hybrid publishing, self-publishing. It seems like almost everyone universally is like, I gotta do a podcast tour.
Dustin: Right? Like it's, it's kind of part of the launch process and I, you know, this is a small part of, of that effort on, on your current radar for lean learning. What do you hear from the publisher? Is there sort of like, pat, we need you on 20 podcasts, or they don't even mention it, or do they, do they place you on them?
Dustin: I'm kind of curious in the published book world, what role is podcasting viewed in kind of the modern marketing push?
Pat: Yeah, so even before signing the contract and the deal, having a podcast and having reach on my [00:26:00] podcast helped me get a better deal. It, it actually helped me. Absolutely. I. Just even gain interest from, uh, with, along with my agent to then get a deal and it actually was able to command a higher dollar value of my advance, again, as a result of having a podcast that was proven that was here.
Pat: So like for all the reasons to just like start now, that's a great one so that you can build your following, build this audience base. And of course it definitely helps that I already have this audience to then launch a book into the publisher. Sees that pay attention, do help and support. They have many other people who have written books who may also have podcasts.
Pat: And just in their Rolodex, podcasters in general, they have their list of everyone from podcasters to, you know, good Morning America and all these kinds of things. I haven't landed any of those things yet, although I do think some of that's coming. Um, you know, they offer help and I'm appreciative of that.
Pat: But the truth is, and I, I wholeheartedly believe this, they need me more than I need them.
Dustin: Yes.
Pat: Um, I need them as well [00:27:00] for what I'm attempting to do, which is to break into a new field of self-development and self-help because I don't have those connections. So that's why, uh, one of the reasons why I wanted to go
down the traditional route for distribution and, and those connections in those spaces.
Pat: But as far as marketing is concerned, many traditional publishers will ask you to do everything that you can in your power to promote your stuff, your own stuff, and, and it makes me wonder just how could a person who has this amazing book idea. Who has something to say? How could they possibly break through in a traditional sense if they don't have a platform? I honestly don't know. If, if you don't have a platform, then you better at least know the right people. So again, speaking to relationships, like we talked about earlier, you cannot be siloed and, and sort of in your grandma's basement writing a book and just hope that after it's done, it's gonna get out there.
Pat: You have to put in the work and putting the work in beforehand, even using your platforms that you're building now to again, ideate and experiment to sort of tease these things. There's some, there's some famous bloggers who've [00:28:00] done this really well. Um. There was the, the author of Mars, uh, I can't remember the name of the author off the top of my head, but he wrote a book called Mars that later became a movie with Matt Damon in it and, and a few others.
Pat: Um, he wrote that book publicly on his blog, and as, as a result of writing it publicly, he was able to also capture the attention of. NASA scientists who would then give him the calculations that would then end up or correct him on the calculations that would later end up in the manuscript, which I thought was really cool.
Pat: So this crowdsourcing idea, right? It it. Same thing goes with business. I've made the mistake before of starting businesses siloed because I wanted to. Keep them secret. And I was afraid of sharing these things too early. No, no, no. You wanna share these things as early as possible so that you can start having people
poke holes in these theories that you have and actually start laying real bricks down as you, as you go instead of, you know, laying 'em all down and realize that you put it on the wrong plot of land, if you will.
Pat: [00:29:00] Um, which I've done before. So anyway, that's,
Dustin: Great. No, I, uh, appreciate that. It's sort of a, sort of a tangent, but I think it's related. So now I actually do wanna talk about the book and I wanna talk about this idea of lean learning and, and obviously you can share the contents of the book and how we're gonna get it and where it comes out and all that.
Dustin: But I, I guess to start this part of the discussion and. Um, just give people the right context. So the tagline is, how to achieve more by learning less. So like, why write this book? Like you mentioned, you kind of got a following and you could have wrote a Pokemon book. You got a, you could have wrote a passive income book and you've written other books, you know, in the business space.
Dustin: This, this is a little more into that self-development, obviously it still ties into, um. Business lessons. There's a lot of things that entrepreneurs especially can take from this, from this idea. Um, but yeah, I'd love to know like what inspired you to write lean learning and then we can go a little more little.
Pat: Yeah, two things really inspired me to write this book. Number [00:30:00] one, it was the fact that I had continued to try and experiment with new things like the Pokemon thing and, and my invention, the switch pod, and a number of different other things. And for whatever reason, people would say, pat, you just seem to have figured things out.
Pat: Whatever you do, you seem to win at. How do you do that? And for a while I was just like, oh, I'm just really lucky. And the truth is, I am not, I have developed over the years without even knowing it certain ways and, uh, uh, of approaching these things, certain ways to, um, follow through and, and certain frameworks to wrap my head around.
Pat: The things that I'm involved with to give them the best chance to succeed. Not everything I've, I've touched has turned into gold, but a lot of things have, and this book helps encapsulate a lot of that and pass that forward to people in
an age now where I think we need this more than ever because right now information overload is the new norm.
Pat: And as a result of all the information that's not slowing down. By the way, our brains are just not evolved to understand how to wrap our head around everything to absorb this [00:31:00] content and, and, and we are. All of us are habitual consumers. We want as much of it as possible. We treat information like it's a scarce food source, right?
Pat: Like back in the day, you imagine caveman days, right? Cave, cave people days. Um, if you come across a food source, you, you, you hoard it because you might not come across with a, another one later, like, get those calories. You know what I'm. Times have changed. No longer is information scarce because all the information we could ever need is available on our phones and chat, GBT.
Pat: And again, stuff's not slowing down. So what's happening is we're at this buffet line of information now, and we're not just filling our plates full. And as a result, obese with info slow, lethargic, slow to move. Um, we don't, we're not getting the results we want. Um, we're confused, we're overwhelmed, we're tired.
Pat: We're getting force fed stuff with these algorithms that are putting stuff in front of us that we didn't even know we needed. So we're not set up for success in the world of information that we live in today. The second inspiration for this book [00:32:00] was my kids. I have kids. My son is 15. My daughter's 12.
Pat: They are entering this world. They're entering adulthood very soon, and I want them to be set up for success in this world where, yes, we all have access to all the information we can ever need. It's how you approach your learning, what you choose to learn, what you choose not to learn, how to differentiate between just in case information, which you don't need, and just in time information, which is where you wanna go.
Pat: And really the big thesis of the book, um, I want them and everybody else who reads this book to succeed because although we have more information and we have what we need as far as resources, most people are feeling even more confused and and behind. And this an answer to experiences, professor. Well, I, I don't have a degree in psychology.
Pat: This is not, although there are scientific things in the book, this is about relatable life experiences, storytelling, if you will, to with you and help you understand that you have what it takes to [00:33:00] navigate this crazy world and hopefully achieve success in a much shorter time period.
Dustin: I love that. Yeah. You mentioned chat, GBTI mean, I, I had a moment, uh, not to launch into a, a story, but a very, a very quick side note that ties into your kids. My kids are slightly older and I had a moment, um, just a few months ago, I got invited to speak at my daughter's senior class. They had entrepreneurship.
Dustin: I. Um, focus on a, on a a day. I came in, I was actually talking about StoryBrand. I was talking about the power of story, but as I was driving there, I actually got a little emotional and I was standing in front of the class. I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna tell you like story stuff. But what I really, what really hit me like big when I walked in here is you guys are 17, 18 years old.
Dustin: You're graduating in a few months. I was you, you know, uh. A while back, 25 years ago, and at the time I didn't realize it when I was in your seat, but I quickly realized that I was, my life was divided into pre-internet and post internet. You know, I graduated in 1997, so grew up with no internet or no broad adoption.
Dustin: Kind of started to become a [00:34:00] thing in high school and especially in college. And of course everything's internet, you know? After that I was like, you guys are like. Pre AI and post ai, like it, your whole life's gonna change. And the decisions you're making right now about careers, like all this stuff is going to be influenced by AI in some way.
Dustin: I don't know exactly how, you know, I'm just a 45-year-old guy, uh, who's reminiscing on pre-internet days and, uh, but I, I think, I think this is what part of the magic of the timing of the book, pat is. It was already, we were already overloaded with information. There was already, you know, with the internet and 20 years of that, like, we already have everything we could ever want to know at our fingertips.
Dustin: And now we have this AI technology and predictive technology and it's even more overwhelming in my experience. And so you wanna speak a little bit about why lean learning in an age, especially where we're becoming AI centric as a, as a culture moving forward.
Pat: I mean, just to give you an example, not too long ago, everybody was saying, you need to learn how to [00:35:00] code. That's the future. If you're in coding now, you're kind of in trouble, just to be frank. 'cause AI and chat, GBT can do it in an instant and do it. Better and do it faster. Faster. And so imagine a company hiring a person who requires training, who might make human mistakes versus just a couple lines of code to get what they need.
Pat: I mean, it's, that's happening. And it's not just happening for coding, it's happening across multiple industries. So value for us as people will no longer become just, here's the one skill I know. How quickly could we learn new things that then are useful today And we don't even know, for example, what we might need to learn.
Pat: But the quicker you can pick those things up, the quicker you can learn your way into them. In the frameworks that I bring into the book at which, which. Learning about how to fail and fail fast. Um, learning about the importance of mistakes and getting rid of procrastination and that perfectionism all the way to finding the right support system around you to certain [00:36:00]
methods, uh, to sort of excel your learning processes by breaking things down into much smaller skills and then micro mastering them so that they stack along the way.
Pat: Um, there's a, there's a lot of strategies like this in the book, um, but your usefulness will not be in just how much. Um, it's how quickly can you understand and, and utilize things. And the fact that you don't need to understand all there is to know about something in order to be useful is, is the big thing here, right?
Pat: If you look at a pie graph of like, let's say you're trying to learn how to do whatever, anything if, uh, 100% all the way around 360 pie graph is all the things you ever need and could learn about something like, let's say YouTube, there's like a million things to learn about YouTube, but get started.
Pat: Probably less than a fraction of a percent of that entire pie graph. So let's just focus on that, learn how to do that the best, and then you can stack and add on things over time to get better. And then of course, through your own actions and implementation, [00:37:00] you'll put up GAR guidelines, uh, along the way, right?
Pat: Like I, I often say mistakes don't derail you. They actually create the rails for you. You can then lead yourself down. And that is so important and so counterintuitive, especially for us who grew up in an age where it's like you read the whole textbook, take a test, then you read the next textbook, textbook, take a test, right?
Pat: Um, for me, the way I've been able to build everything fast is by iteratively putting it together, learning as I go. Even my architecture book, I had to learn how to write the book, format it, sell it, create a sales page. I'd never done any of that stuff before. If I was doing a traditional schooling, you know, and, and, and education for that, I would've gone to business school and then tried to figure it out.
Pat: But I didn't, I didn't have time because I was moving back into my parents after getting laid off and I had this vol, this force function pushed me to do things and experiment and try. So I wrote the book, got it all in Word, and then was like, okay, now that I have this, I need to learn how to format it. I don't know how to do that.
Pat: Well, let's find some resources. Here's a couple YouTube videos that will show me how to format it into a [00:38:00] landscape, two column thing that I,
that I want. Great. Now I have this thing that is ready for sale, but I've never sold it before. Where do, where do I go? I find a mentor or somebody who's done this before who's teaching it.
Pat: Cool. Here's a tool that you can use called E junkie to sell your PDF file. And now you have, you remember E Junkie
Dustin: I was gonna say, that's a blast.
Pat: Yeah.
Dustin: I remember getting those, these uh, emails, that notifications. Yes.
Pat: Yeah, man. So, right, like I got the button to put on on the sales page, but I never made a sales page before. Let's go find a resource for that. And I found a book called Moonlighting on the Internet by Yanik Silver. And in this book there's like 30 different ways to make money online. Uh, and, and you know, most of this stuff's outdated, but I didn't even need any of that.
Pat: I just needed the appendix in the back that had a Madlib style sales page that I could copy and put my own product into. And that Madlib style sales page from the back of this book, probably one of the most valuable resources I've ever found. Imagine me reading the whole book. That that would've confused me.
Pat: I would've had now 30 new other things that could have inspired me to go all which ways and not do anything. [00:39:00] But I just needed that resource that turned into a seven figure income just from pulling exactly what I needed out of it. And that's just a case study in lean learning as you go. And um, I. This is what I'm trying to teach my kids and what I try to teach my students and, and that, you know, failing is okay.
Pat: In fact, it's required. So, I don't know. I get very passionate about this because the way schools are teaching kids, or at least they had for a while, is, is counterintuitive and it's slow. It's, it's, it's outdated. Um, and if we don't make changes now, like we're gonna be left behind.
Dustin: Yeah. Uh, a thousand percent on. Board. It's funny, as you were going into that story about the architecture book, my, uh, my final question, which I think you already answered, we can just kinda talk about how to find the book. It was gonna be like, Hey, we have a lot of, we have audience full of entrepreneurs.
Dustin: Obviously, lean learning is a, is a, a practice and a concept and a. Implementation guide for kind of everything with learning. But I was gonna say, like specifically for an entrepreneur listening and all the things that we kind of deal with, um, in this, in this unique [00:40:00] world, I was gonna ask you, is there a, a, a story or a, a, a specific framework for entrepreneurs that would kind of drive this home?
Dustin: That was a great story and a great framework. Is there anything else that pops to mind Is fine if there's not.
Pat: Yeah, no. There, there, there, there's a question in the book. It's, I call it the keystone question. I actually got this from Tim Ferris, who is a big inspiration and sort of mentor to me, um, at first from afar and then a little bit more closely. Uh, and this question is, if this were easy, what would it look like?
Dustin: I love that question.
Pat: And that is a question that has guided me into. Much more results faster because oftentimes we try to overcomplicate everything. We think things have to be harder than they actually are. It's almost like a MVP minimum viable product, but for learning and doing. If, if this were easy, what would it look like?
Pat: If you ask yourself that question before you attempt to do anything, oftentimes you are able to get to the answer or to the solution much, much quicker. Um, with less money spent with less.
Pat: You know, another example of that was when I was learning how to [00:41:00] speak, uh, on stage, which started in 2011, and again, asking myself this question, if this were easy, what would it look like with thousands of books and videos and all these things I could have gotten into? I went to a person who I knew had a, who I knew was a great speaker, and I just asked him one question.
Pat: I said, if you were starting over as a speaker, what would be the one resource that you would go to? Um, and he said, read this book called Stand and Deliver by Dale Carnegie. Great. It became my guide, my guideline, my guidebook for my very first talk in, in, uh, August of 2011. And since then, I've spoken on 350 stages and have earned seven figures in speaker fees since then.
Pat: Um, yes, I could have gone to school and gotten formal training, but then like I wouldn't have gotten to the result faster. What taught me more was, was
getting on stage. Not doing perfect, but doing well enough to then add on the next and then add on the next. Um, if this were easy, what would look.
Dustin: That's really good. I I like that. Both as a, I dunno, [00:42:00] consumer is the right word, but as the learner, but as you're describing that, I'm, I'm imagining being the guy you went to. What, what's the thing I have to know to be good at this next speech? Right? And so I think as, as we position ourselves as entrepreneurs in this current and continuing to accelerate sort of e economy of insights over information, how can you be the insight to someone, right? Like how can you. Be this guide who just lights the next step and doesn't overwhelm people.
Dustin: Because I think we're way out of the business of here's a course with all these things, right? It's much more like, here's the next best step, pat. Like, you have this one specific goal. I wanna just get you there and not overwhelm you. I think the people that can do that elegantly are the people who are gonna be really increasingly in high demand as coaches, as YouTubers, as podcasters.
Dustin: I think the people who can, um, facilitate lean learning for others, like there's a huge value proposition there.
Pat: Because information is not valuable [00:43:00] anymore. Time is, time is valuable, and if you can be the coach that helps people get to that result faster. If you can help become a guide for a person so that they're not making the same mistakes and wasting their time, you, you are it. And so one thing comes to mind is if people are like, Hey Pat, I have a business and I wanna promote it.
Pat: If this were easy, what would it look like? Oftentimes my answer is be a guest on a podcast. I'm not even kidding. I'm not. That's not just for you, Dustin. That's for literally everybody. And I share that as well. Be a guest on a podcast because that person has already spent the time to earn that trust. You have their endorsement and you're able to get in front of an audience that you wouldn't have been able to get in front of o otherwise you could do a million other things, but if you were gonna do one, that's where I would start.
Pat: Um, yeah.
Dustin: Good. I love that. Well, um, lean learning how to achieve more by learning less. Uh, I know this is, uh, is coming soon. Uh, I hope that I, I we will, I'm committed to making sure this is published before it comes [00:44:00] out. So when someone's hearing this, it's out. So Pat, you know, I know June 3rd is the big day for you to release this.
Dustin: Um, tell us, um, yeah. Basically how to find it. I think people kind of get what it's about. If there's anything else you wanna share, sort of about, um, the reasons to get the book feel free. But otherwise, if you wanna kind of tell us the best place or best places to go, uh, pick up the book and spread the love, uh, let tell us how to do that.
Pat: Dustin, again, thank you for having me here and thank you everybody who's listening to this. Uh, the book will give you immediate results. There are things that you can do to start to already. You know, clear the weeds out and get to the right stuff that you wanna do and the results that you wanna get in life, like promise.
Pat: Uh, you can go to, of course, Amazon to pick up the book. It's also available at Barnes Noble and Target, which is awesome. But if you wanted to check out if there are some bonuses still left, uh, you can go to lean learning book.com and pick it up there. And if you happen to read it and, and you enjoy it, uh, lemme know.
Pat: I would love to, to hear from you.
Dustin: Awesome. Yeah, and if you're listening to this, uh, leave a comment, [00:45:00] uh, wherever you're listening to this or, uh, shoot me a, shoot me an email on the website and lemme know your biggest takeaway. I'm, I bought some books as a pre-order. Obviously I'm gonna keep some for myself and, uh. And cherish the signature, uh, autograph copy I'm gonna get.
Dustin: But I'd love to give, give away some books to listeners and just spread this message. I think it's super important, uh, both again, as a learner, but also as if you're an entrepreneur and you're in the business of providing transformation to clients. You've gotta use this approach, I think in this, uh, in, in this new age that we find ourselves in.
Dustin: Lean learning book.com. Uh, pat man, thanks again so much for being here. You're a gift to me. I can't wait to hang out with you, uh, shortly after this comes out in, uh, at Craft and Commerce where you're doing speaking engagement 3 51 or whatever it is. Uh, and, uh, you're gonna have a big impact there. And I'm, I'm excited to, uh, have the book to share their in person and, and endorse your work with, uh, all the good creators that are around.
Pat: Thank you man. I appreciate you. Thanks everybody.