How to Discover Your Wisdom, with Patrick Mosher

Patrick, I would just like to say a massive welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

My pleasure being here, James, and it's been a pleasure talking with you in the past, and I'm just looking forward to this evening. And I don't know where this is going to go, and I'm excited for that.

Those are the best conversations, the one where there's no premeditated plan. And we've been so fortunate to get to know each other through Mastermind and obviously become friends, and we've had amazing conversations, and I've just been hoping to get you on the show for quite some time now. So I'm glad that we're finally here.

I'm glad to be here. So good. So good.

So I'd love to chat a little bit just to get the ball rolling just around leadership. We'll start there. So when you think of leadership from your experience in life and what you've been through professionally and personally, when you hear the word leadership, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

So, oh, man, I'm going to start with a story. Is that okay?

Hell, yes.

So.

When I was doing my PhD program in organization behavior and I didn't Finish, I'm not Dr. Mosher, but the two major areas that they covered in that program was motivation and leadership. And this was long time ago, and I have to say, I hated the leadership literature. And the reason for that was because it was. It starts in the. In the 1920s and 30s, and leaders were over 6 foot, you know, salt and pepper, gray hair. They had domineering traits. And I was like, this is terrible. And. And lots of leadership literature was like, dotted with that kind of stuff. And then we found one leadership theory that I absolutely loved. It's called the contingency theory of leadership. Basically, it said, great leaders meet a leadership style, create a leadership style that meets the situation. That means that leaders have to create many different types of styles, many different ways of approaching a situation. There is no one dominant leadership style that is successful or just successful. So I took that theory, and when I was in Consulting for 30 years, one of the things that I learned from that, or as a continuous learner, I guess, is that I always thought, like, well, I can deal with like 12 leadership styles. I got them in my back pocket. So if a leader presents this kind of way of being, I've got the way, the style that can meet that person, adapt to that person. And then what happened is, is that if this leader showed like a leadership style number 13, and I didn't have that one. I was like, this is great because I get to develop yet another style to put in my back pocket and keep going. So that's how I dealt with my, my whole career in terms of, of my leadership style, but also dealing with other leaders. And it was always adapting and the piece of that too. That's important, especially for your audience group, James, is, is that. And you have to maintain an authentic route to yourself. So I'm not talking about like neuro linguistic programming or something like that where you try to match the other person outside of yourself. You're really trying to match that person from inside of yourself. And that's again, that's a constant learning process. And so I love that. So I learned how to deal with one of my favorites. I've got longer stories here, but one of my favorites is.

And being from the United States, there's a Chicago in your face style of leaders that's very different than New York in your face style and very different than Philadelphia in your face style. They're all kind of different and so you have to kind of adapt to each one. So when a Chicago leader gets in your face and so it's like, well, this is how we got to do things. You got to do this or I really hate what you're doing here. And it's kind of like a playground style. So you just got. The bully just knocked you into the sand on the playground and you got up, you got to get up and take a swing. That's true in Chicago, but don't do that in Philadelphia because their style is so different. They have come to this blue collar style in Philadelphia in the leadership there. And you know that's gotta, you gotta, you gotta join them at the bar kind of thing. You gotta like be one of them and you gotta prove that you gotta, you know, roll up your sleeves in Philadelphia, which is so different than New York. So anyway, so that's what I mean by these different leadership styles of just molding your style to fit the situation. And that's when a leader is most effective. Wow, that's a long winded way to meet your question. I hope I got it.

That's brilliant.

I love it.

Thank you. And thinking about that, if someone is listening right now and going, what leadership style do I have over the years dealing with different leaders and looking at their styles and then responding accordingly, how do you think it would be possible for someone to discover what their natural style is like the one that they default to? How does someone go about removing themselves, dissociating and just kind of being a fly on the wall, watching themselves leading and kind of uncover what their natural leadership style is.

Oh, that's great question, great question. And I'm going to go to something a little maybe deeper than just leadership style, and then I'll get back to that. I believe.

When each of us was born with our very unique DNA, that kind of encoded in that, in our DNA was a purpose, something that made us unique. And so part of finding that style is finding out what's unique about you. And, you know, we're going to emulate others. We're going to have mentors that we want to be like them, which is great. But then if you've ever done that, you always find yourself kind of at the brink of being with a mentor that you go like, but I'm not her. I'm something kind of different. And that's so good that you've gotten to that place that you find that you're different than the mentors that you have and the bosses and the leaders that you admire, and you find out what your style is. So from that perspective, I would say it takes some reflection to really reach in and say, what is my superpower? And I love asking people that question, you know, what's your superpower? I'm not a real good cocktail party talk person, because I think that's kind of a waste of time. And so at cocktail parties, I might ask somebody, oh, hi, James. So, yeah, nice to meet you. What do you think your superpower is? I love it.

What it is? Like, no, I just kind of want to know. I mean, you know, and you can find your superpower. And this gets more to. Your answer is, if you've been in a profession for 2 years or more, 5, 10, 12 years, what's the one thing across supervisors and across projects that you get evaluated well on? Well, that thing is probably what makes you unique.

And that's about. That's finding your style. I had a lot of, you know, when I was at Accenture For 20 and a half years, I had a lot of people. That was where my career counselees. And I'd have this question. It's also, I think about this as personal branding as well. And so I'd ask, so, what's your personal brand? And at the time, Accenture had 500,000 employees. And so they go like, I'm really good with people, and I work really hard. And I was like, you and 499,999 other people have the same profile. So If I go into a grocery store and that's what you think, your profile, you're a generic brand, and I'm not going to pick you off the.

Top of the pile.

What makes me want to pick you off the top of the pile? And they go like, oh. So we go into a deeper conversation about what does that look like? And I say, what's, you know, what have you been evaluated good with over the past year? Very good as a high performer. But then we dig down deeper because it's not just being good with people. Tell me more about what you mean by being good with people. Does it mean that you establish credibility fast? Does it mean that you stick with somebody, that you create that.

That credibility really fast? Or accountability? Maybe that's the thing that people can. You're so reliable that you just follow through and come through every time. So it's. But that's not true for everybody. It's those unique things that make you you. That is where you should start with what that superpower is. And then from there comes your leadership, you know, your leadership style, your trait. Because then you're starting to look at, how do I supervise people? What makes me unique about how I do that?

I think you find that over time asking the same question, how do I get evaluated when I'm managing people? How do the people who report to me, what feedback do they give me that that's really good?

If I can. Can I share a feedback that I got from some of mine to give you a sense of what these things look like?

So I had left Accenture about two years, and I was in Phoenix, Arizona. I was talking to somebody who had worked for me three times, three different projects, and her name's Natalie. And I said, natalie. And we were having dinner at her house with her young child and her husband. And I said, natalie, the first time we met, you kind of got assigned to my project. And she rolled her eyes and said, yeah, that didn't go well at all. I'm like, okay. And. And I said, yeah, I kind of remember that. That you had struggled with that.

And she said, and then you picked me for another project. Why'd you do that? And I was like, ah, because. Because you had this sense of wanting to do better, always wanting to do better. She said, well, that's true. And so when I worked for you the second time, I was like, I'm going to work harder for Patrick and I'm going to make this work, and it's going to be awesome. And I felt like I failed you I felt. I felt like I didn't meet your standards. And I was like, okay, great. You know? Yeah. And then she said, and then you picked me again. And I was so dumbfounded by why you picked me again. And why did you do that? I was like, because I saw potential in you. Because you really want to do better. And she said, so the third time we worked together, I was like, I'm going to nail this. I'm just going to. And I just got all the courage up. I got all. I studied stuff and went in there, and I felt like I wasn't doing as well as you wanted me to. And there's a moment on that project where I didn't follow through on something. Something didn't go well, and you stopped. And in that moment, you cared more about me than the project, than Accenture or the client. It was all about me and my development. And I knew that you cared like that all along, but it was in that moment that I really understood, wow, he cares about me that much. And I've gotten that feedback from people over so many of the years of really investing people in them. And that comes from one of the core values at Accenture, but it's one of my core values anyway. Long before Accenture is stewardship, you leave a place better than you found it. Well, I thought about that as a great consultant. It leaves a client better than they found it, but also they leave the people they work with better than you found them, too. So to me, that's a leadership style for me that I'm always investing in people, because it's going to come back around. Maybe not on this project or immediately, but if you invest in the people, choose them, right, then it's going to come back around, and they're going to perform for you tenfold. So that's a little bit of what my leadership style is, a little bit of the magic of what. What makes me a good leader.

That's fantastic. And I. Honestly, in the time that I've. I've known you, I would say that that's so true. You go deep with people. Surface level is not what I think of when I think of Patrick. You go real deep, and you want to add so much value and joy and connection. So where does that come from? When you think back through parents, grandparents, and beyond, like, where does that come from?

Oh, man, you're going to go there. Okay, so. All right, so this is phase two of that conversation that I used to have with career counselees. And. Okay, this is going deep fast. Okay. So when they said, this is what I'm really good at, you know, and they say, yeah, this is my personal brand, I was like, that's great. And the next section, the next thing we worked with, usually produced tears.

Because. And it's exactly what you just guessed at, James here, or you already know, is that I'd say. So my hypothesis, and it's just a hypothesis, is that you learned how to be good that way due to some sort of family dysfunction growing up. And they're like, I was like, I'm not, I'm not saying anything about you. I'm just saying, well.

When we're in those formative years from, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 up to 10 or so.

Usually most families in some way are dysfunctional. And what you learned is how to survive. You found a unique way to you to survive, your family, your family dynamics, your siblings, your parents or whatever. And you found that path of doing that. And you got really good at that.

Because that is how you survived.

And so you found that way of being. And you know what? That's so unique to you, that's unique to your DNA, it's unique to your family situation. And you found that strength that pulled you through. Well, then when you get into your 17, 18, 19 years and you're going through school, usually those are the same things that pulled you through school, either being really social or working really hard on grades or whatever it was. And then you got into your professional life and then you found if you applied those things, you got really good feedback. When you get that really good feedback, you do more of that. And so you built and honed those skills that came from those probably that dysfunctional time in your life. And you got really good at it and it created survival for you and became more than survival, it is how you thrived, which is awesome. Ok, now ready for the downside of this one?

The downside of this is those survival traits, what makes you really good is awesome 90% of the time. The problem is that 10% of the time the world is asking you to do something very different than your strength.

And that's when you fall back and you act like a five year old because you haven't built up maturity on that path. And so your whole life, whenever you got pushed to that situation, you always played your strong card, always played the strong card, and you never learned how to not play that strong card. So then you go back and you don't know how to play the other cards, any of the other cards. And so that's where some of these leaders that you meet, you have a really hard time with them. It's probably because you go back to your time. You've never had to deal with that or you've had to deal with it, and you survived a certain way, and that's not working right now with this person. And so you have to reject that, eject that, and try something new. And you will fail at that. And the minute you fail at that, your ego and goes like, see, I told you not to do that. Oh, my gosh. You should have relied on your strength. What are you doing? You're crazy. And so you go back and you're like, oh, my gosh. And then you go revert back to that. And that's not the right path. The right path is to go to that place of going, shut up, ego. I'm trying to learn here. So I give me some space here. And you need to learn. And that's. Then when you start learning those things that you're not playing that strong card on, then you become an exceptional leader, because then you're learning how to deal with a whole set of leadership styles or other styles of. Of situations that you could never engage before because you avoided them or they avoided you, but now you can engage them. So, again, that was a long way to get to answering your question. But that's how you kind of find your leadership style, is finding what your superpower is.

That's phenomenal. And you mentioned something there about ego and removing. So I always think of the ego. It's everyone's greatest obstacle or everyone's greatest opportunity. And so to remove yourself from the ego, to get tactical. Do you have any experiences where you're like, james, this is how I remove myself from my ego and then get, like, kind of more reflective or get a better perspective.

Yeah, there's the easy way to do that and the hard way to do that. And I'd say most of us choose the hard way to do that. So what we do is we enter situations and we get lopped upside the head and we go like, oh, that's. That's what I was supposed to do. I'll give you a story of that. So. So, because I don't want to sound like I'm, you know, impenetrable here, so I am an excellent facilitator, always have been in my career, and just could go into a room, facilitate it, make it work. You know, it didn't matter if there was a lot of conflict, because I could navigate that, and I was really good with that. And so we were doing this post merger integration of four advertising companies in New York City and there was one company from the Philippines and one from the UK and one from West Coast. East Coast. So it was this great diversity of people in the room and it was advertising companies. So these guys were marketers and so their egos are pretty big and there's a fair amount of arrogance about what they knew and how to do stuff. And so my team was like, we got to get ready for this day, this off site, day long meeting that we're going to have with them. I was like, I got it, I got it. You know, like, but, you know, we should prepare more for this. We should get this ready. We should do this research. Like, no, no, we can just navigate this. We're good, we're good, we're good. And we walked into that meeting and.

About.

45 minutes in, I was just failing badly in front of 30 clients. It was horrible. I mean, it was just absolutely horrible. And what had happened with that is that I was playing my strong card so much. My ego was so big with that because I got this covered, that I didn't do the work. I just didn't prepare well enough for this because my ego got ahead of me.

At lunchtime, literally, my boss, the partner that was running this thing, came to me and said, you know what, Patrick, I'll take over for the afternoon.

And I was like, oh, man. And there's a part of me that goes like, I have just failed big time. And there was a part of me is like, thank you. Oh my God, thank you. Because I'm just failing so badly. And so there's those lessons that we get that our ego gets so big and we didn't move it aside. And I learned so much about that. Now do I look at that? Do I regret that day? No. Why? Because I'm telling you this story today because I have it as a story to say, yeah, this is when your ego gets in the way that I didn't prep well enough for this thing. And I didn't think through what that was like 40 years ago, I was a performer. I used to be in a Purdue repertory dance company. I went to Purdue and I was in a dance company. And I remember one of the choreographers said, if you're not nervous before show, it's going to be flat.

Your listeners, I want you to write that one down. If you're not nervous before a show, it's going to be flat. That's true. Before a steering Committee meeting. That's true. Before I showed up for this podcast, there's always should be that little bit of nervousness inside and it has to be, I call it in the zone. So if it's out of the zone, yeah, you're going to be a mess. But if that nervousness is in the zone, man, you're going to roll forward on your toes, you're not going to be sitting back on your heels and you're going to be ready like a tiger, ready to jump. I mean, you're so good to go. So I always try to pump up and go, like, look, I don't know what's going to happen next. And so I try to, if I'm not nervous, I try to create a little bit of, like, come on now. There's some uncertainties, there's some ambiguity here. You don't know what's going to go on. So then I kind of roll onto my toes and make it work.

I think that's the biggest thing, is the ego can make you comfortable. And good leaders always show that they're comfortable, but they're always a little nervous. There's always a little bit of uncomfortableness in what they're doing because they're out there, they're leading the pack. And of course, that's a difficult place to be.

100%. No, that's brilliant. I love that. And so sitting in that place, like that place of, hey, controlled nervousness. In my performance history, I would have controlled nervousness. Right. I would always operate there. And there's never been a performance where I've been like, ah, whatever, you know, going from a world championship performance and then the following week, standing in an assembly hall at a primary school. I'm equally as nervous at the primary school, a bunch of kids as I was in front of, like an adjudication panel.

Indeed.

But learning how to harness that. So I was the same as you before today's call. I was excited, I was nervous, I was like, where's this going to go? And it's the same for every opportunity to sit down and talk with someone that's being recorded and being put out to the world. So for the leader out there who actually struggles to manage that controlled nervousness and it turns into anxiety or it turns into something worse. Do you have any advice for them?

Ah, one word. Breathe.

And James, you know my history a little bit with this, but breathe. I had a. A great vocal coach. His name's Roger Love. And. And Roger Love says this. It's so good. He said, there's no such thing as stage fright.

There's only getting to the stage fr. Right? Because once you're on stage, once you're in it, you're in it. And good people are just. They're flowing with it, they're going with it. They work with what's coming up. And there's curve balls thrown, you do stuff and all that, which is great, but it's getting to the stage that you experience the fright. And when that gets out of the zone, that's a problem. Here's the thing about.

Out of the zone. Fear, we'll say, is that.

Our bodies register fear in a certain way. And when you breathe diaphragmatically, a nice deep breath, you slow down automatically. When you breathe from the top of your lungs really high, you're telling your body you're in fear because that's what your body does. So what happens to getting to the stage fright is that you start going, okay, okay, I'm ready to go. Okay, here we go. And you're out. You're. As you said, you're out of that control zone. Best thing you can do before anything like this is take some deep breaths during it, take some deep breaths. We tend to go too fast anyway in today's world, slow it down a little bit. So that's my biggest advice for people that feel that fear, feel that anxiety. Slow down your world a little bit, just even simply by taking some deep breaths.

And then you just get into the moment so much better. So that's one thing that I use. I have a few techniques, but that's one of the techniques I use. That's the easiest.

That's brilliant. And when you look at the elite armed forces, when you look at professional athletes, when you look at great speakers and leaders, they all talk about breath work being one of the kind of crucial foundation pillars that they live by.

Yep, yep. I was talking to somebody.

About selling, and she was a. A doctor in homeopathy, and.

We were talking about selling, and this other guy that was with me who taught a lot of sellers, he goes, the number one thing I tell sellers to get better at is. And the sellers lean forward in their chairs when they're training. What's the one thing I need to know? He's like, hydrate better. It's like, what? I'm going to sell better because I hydrate better. It's like, absolutely. And I don't have the scientific proof for that, but that makes so much sense that to hydrate better. And this homeopathy doctor was like, well, that's good. Let me ask a few questions.

A lot of people come to me and ask about nutrition. How long can you do without food? It's like, well, you know, there's recorded cases of hunger strikes going 40 days or so. Okay, great. How long can you not go without water?

Well.

Maybe four days.

And how long can you hold your breath?

Okay, I'm just saying, I'm thinking when you talk about your body and really managing anxiety, start in that order.

That's brilliant. That is honestly brilliant.

So good. So it's like breathe will get you through the next four minutes. Nutrition, that will get you through, you know, 40 days. Hydration will get you the next four days, but breathing will get you through the next four minutes. Okay, so breathe.

That's so powerful.

I love that story.

That's brilliant. It's so powerful and so true. Like, it hits home both from a leadership standpoint and a performance standpoint. Breath work, it's everything. It centers us, right?

Yes, indeed it does.

It's incredible. Now, you and I got connected through Brenda Burchard and the high performance work that he does. So I wanted to take a moment just to focus on high performance. So when you hear of a high performer, you know, what does that conjure up in your mind?

Yes. Now there's the definition of it. I'm not going to spit that at you, but high performance, to me is about. And we used to talk when I was running sales talent solutions for Accenture. I did that for 17 years. And we would go in and measure high performing sellers and we would understand the DNA of high performing sellers in different organizations.

Well, not try to. We got the profile of what separated the top 15% from the rest. One of the measures that we used to identify high performers was a measure called persistence.

As a seller.

You can do well in a given year in selling. They call them bluebirds, too. It's like you can be in a territory and all of a sudden something pops up in your territory that's amazingly great, and you just happen to be there and there's that bluebird and you pull it down. So you don't want to necessarily look at even average sales over multiple years. What you want to look at is persistent high performance over multiple years. And so when I think about that sales, that's either revenue sales or margin sales or quota attainment or those kind of things. And so that's what I look for when I think of high performance. It's the people that perform highly year over year. And it gets back to What I said earlier about contingency theory of leadership, when you are good year over year, you're adapting because the market changes, especially in sales, it changes every year. Customers change their needs and the marketplace changes every year. But somebody who can play well in year one and then maybe dip a little bit in year two and then play well in year three and four, dip a little bit in year five, and then year six and seven do really well, you can tell that that person's like figuring stuff out and they're figuring out that algorithm of what success looks like. And that's what persistence means. And that's what to me defines high performance is the people that can juke and jive with what that new marketplace looks like each time.

I love it. And when you think about a leader that's running a company or a team and they want these high performers, right, they're relying on these high performers to drive the growth and the success. But if that leader is not leading with high performance, with their own leadership, with their own growth, with their own approach to managing people, do you think it's possible for a company to soar and have high performance results? If they have a low performing leader or a leader with a low performance mindset?

The easy answer is no.

Probably the better answer is it depends. Which is a very consulting answer. I'll stick with that. It depends.

Let me say this.

A company can do really well with an engine and replace a leader and put a, I'll call it a mediocre leader in place and that engine will run for years and do okay. They'll do okay. They won't beat everybody else in the marketplace, but they'll do okay. So sometimes those, those middle of the road leaders, they're probably more managers managing a successful operation and they're good at managing that. And they can squeeze that value out of it. And that can work for years. And you know, volatile marketplaces, it doesn't. But there's some pretty stable marketplaces out there that, that can run for years. So that's a safer answer to that question is like, yeah, you can survive with that for a while, but the marketplace will change. And that, you know, typically those, those middle range leaders or managers won't adapt well. And so I think that's the one of the keys too, as we've been talking about, is adaptability to, to new situations. So it's a little bit of a no, I don't think they can be. But it's in the short run, probably, yes, brilliant.

And in terms of that Leader who recognizes like, oh, we've got to make some changes and are looking for some consultancy, looking for some feedback, some training. What's your advice to them? How do you go and find the right consultant or the right trainer? Like, how do you find out which metric? You're like, okay, that's a red flag. We got to start looking in this area and get the right person to.

Help us with this. All right, this is so good. So I think of.

When you need to fill a gap. A gap is usually one of two types. It's either a capacity gap or a competency gap.

When you have a talent problem, the talent problem is usually competency or capacity oriented or both.

And good leaders know how to fit each one. And they're different. Right. So a capacity gap is this area is not getting this stuff done. So you need to fill it with more people. So you fill it up with more people. To get that cranking more, you need more hours in the game. But a competency gap is you need the right kind of hours in the game. And so those are two different types of gaps to look for. Mini story with this one. Early on in my career, I asked this very same question of the partner I was working for. I said, why do clients hire consultants? He told me his story. He said, at the local bank that's here in my hometown, he asked that client the same question. He said, look, you ask us to come in this year, and then we don't hear from you for two years. Then you ask us again and all that. He says, what is your criteria for choosing a consultant? And he said, see that wall? He's like, yeah, I get to a place where I look at that, and if I told all my people to go through that wall, they won't make it. I ask you guys to show up to walk through walls. That's what I ask you guys to do.

And so I don't want to beat up my people with that. So I asked you guys to do that. It's like, wow, okay. And I kind of like that. As you know, as a consultant, when you're looking outside of your own team for support, are you looking for capacity or competency? Phil's, you should hire or bring in a consultant to meet those different kind of needs.

As a consultant, a lot of times, especially at Big Consulting, I think Accenture now has 750,000 employees. Well, you know, that's a lot of people walking through walls. You just need a lot of people to throw them at the walls. And that could just be Lots of hours. Because you have a deadline, you're going to implement a large thing and you have this deadline and you go, like, my people can get it done, but I don't have enough hours in a day to make it work. Bring in the hours to make that work. Or if you have these specific needs that are these competencies that you don't want to put it, you don't want to hire for that on your team, well then go buy it. Just go buy that competency. And then, then they can come in and then you can let them go at the end of the project and you can do that. And in the process, your people can learn more about that competency as they're there. So anyway, I think of that as why should you go out and get talent? Well, it's to fill competency or capacity gaps. And basically.

Brilliant.

Did that get to answer your question?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. And I guess one of the big objections I hear from leaders is like, I just don't know how to measure the roi. Like if I'm going to be bringing in the consultant, like, what is the return on that? I have no idea. So for the leader that's kind of struggling and being indecisive and just sitting in the muddy waters of indecision, how could you help them figure out, okay, this is an issue that needs solved, this is a consultant that can solve it. Here's the ROI on that investment. How could they approach that?

Oh, that's a great question. And it's a hard one to answer in some ways because sometimes results aren't measured in the books, the accounting books and finance books. Sometimes success is measured by milestones being met. Sometimes it's the market, you know, values you more because you met a deadline. So those, those ROI is a little harder to get to. What I would say is, and I'll say I'll answer that question from the consulting point of view, but it's also easy to flip around too. So when we would propose on work at a client, that costs us money. So to your point, we had to make a choice about going after something. So I'm going to turn that question around from the consultant's point of view. But we had to spend money on this proposal. Basically how that worked for us is if you're going to spend $100,000 on proposing to this work, there better be a million dollar upside.

So it has to be a 10x. You should have a 10x upside to that.

So when I think about this, I kind of think about it the same way is if you're on the other side of that formula. So if you're going to bring in a consultant at a million dollars a month, where's the 10 million that you're going to get payback on?

So I think that's an important thing to turn around. I'll even take that. James, to our world. A little bit of what we're in this mastermind together. Well, you drop X amount of money on this mastermind, let's just for jolly say it's $10,000. Well, if you drop $10,000 on this training program, in my mind, because of my background, I go, what's the $100,000 return on investment and what's the payback period on that?

Now that sounds really tough.

Also. Let me give you a little bit of a story of this too, which I thought was really powerful for you and for your listeners is I took a training course in an Accenture's training facility in Illinois. And it was a week long program and they hired, it was senior managers and they had 35 senior managers in the room. And they hired X CxOs from Fortune 100 companies to come in and play the client.

And literally on day one, you got your introduction to the thing and then at 1 o' clock in the afternoon you had your first meeting with your cxo. And so everybody got prepared and you know, you're at training and it's like, whatever, and we're going to go drinking tonight. And so see, we came in and after the first meeting, everybody's meeting went badly. One of the teams, the guy, the cxo, kicked him out of the office after nine minutes and said, you're not prepared, you're wasting my time. Get out. It's like, no, no. I mean really, let's just say no. Get out. It's like, no, come on guys. No, get out of my office right now. I mean like, I got madam. And they kicked out. I was like. And everybody's like, holy crap, this is for real. This, this training course is for real. These people are being real with us. And they set it up that there was a competition amongst the five teams. And so now we're all trying to, you know, compete against each other. And at the end of every day there's a rating and they put up the ratings on the wall every day. And you're going like. And so that team, like was bottom, you know, at the end of that day it's like, oh, wow, this is for real. And so we went through that week and we worked hard during that week. And I will say that my team won the competition. Yes. But I will say. And we were called the Blue Monkeys. We call ourselves the Blue Monkeys. But anyway, but here's what they told us at the. At the closing of the. Of the thing, somebody. Of the training session, somebody asked, you know, with all these CXOs, there are like four or five. Five CXOs that they. They brought in for a week. I mean, this is like the chief financial officer from Verizon who had run, you know, I mean, these are like. These aren't like the subunits of. These are like the global units of these people. It's like, holy. And so you had to spend a lot of money on them to bring them in for the week. And then there's also all the lost revenue of 35 senior managers being out for a week, which is millions of dollars. And the training guy came back and said, well, we thought you'd come back with that question. So we've done the calculations, and we spent per person, $35,000 on each of you to be here this week.

So this training program costs. Just the cost was $35,000. Not just the lost revenue of us being out of the marketplace, but just the $35,000, just the cost of this thing.

Wow.

And you're. And you're like, so there's no. There's no. What I loved about being in that world is like, no. See, any executive would spend, like, you know, try to ask your boss for $35,000 to go attend this training. I mean, it's like, are you kidding me? No. But then he said this. This is brilliant. He said, and we designed this course around all the strategic, critical decisions that senior managers make in the firm. And we teed up this training program around those seven decisions that you guys make and usually get wrong. The payback period for that $35,000 per person is three weeks.

Wow.

Let that sink in for a second.

That's amazing.

Three week payback on a $35,000 course, and they've done the work. And you know what? When he said that, everybody sat back and thought what project they were going to return to. And they were like.

Yeah. I mean, as an executive, I made $35,000 decisions, like, two or three or four times a week.

Amazing.

And so that's what executives do. So also, when you think about roi, I'd also encourage people not to think so much about, literally about what hits the books, like internal rate of return and roi, but also think about what Decisions get made. The price and the cost of those decisions, when they get made well. And when they get made wrong. When they get made, or not wrong necessarily, but maybe not as well as they could have been. How many weeks does your team lose and how much do you burn in your team of time? So let's say you lose 10% of your team. You got five people, and that's 10% of their time for five weeks. Oh, you just added up to a couple hundred thousand dollars like that. If you can bring in somebody that helps that decision making go differently.

You'Re going to get that payback. Maybe not ROI or irr, but you're going to get it back with the time of your people, the capacity that they have. That's such a, such a great story and one that I always keep in my head and one that I'm always attend to as well when I work with people is like, what decisions are you making? And that if you, if I can help somebody change the trajectory of the decisions they're making, the payback periods, there, it just is. And they feel it, they know it.

Decisions are powerful decisions really, in my experience in life, but also in working with others and coaching is that, you know, your decisions really shape your trajectory. And we talked about there, you know, making a good decision, making a bad decision. But then there's one more I want to add in, and that's indecision. Making no decision. Which one's more costly? Sitting an indecision or making a bad decision?

Oh, that's such a good question. So first of all, let me sit back and do you know the root meaning, the root etymology of the word decision? Decide.

Please tell me. No, this is so good.

So decide. What are other words that have side in them? C, I, D, E.

So with cid.

Oh, they're not very nice. We've got homicide. Homicide, genocide. These are not good.

Matricide, you know, match aside. Okay, Right. So side C, I, D, E means to kill.

Decide literally means to kill all other options.

Wow.

Okay. Decisions are powerful, powerful elements. And I like to think of myself when I was in consulting that I'm. I love crafting decisions for executives. And as a good leader, craft those decisions for your people and for your clients, your customers. Craft those decisions and things will move. Because if you do a decision well, with wisdom, you will kill all the other options and then you won't spin on not just indecision. The worst thing, even worse than indecision, is spinning on decisions. You make it, you don't make it, you make it. You don't make it. You don't make it. You do make it. And I would say those aren't decisions, because you didn't kill all the options in the process. So you didn't make a decision. You made a wish or a want or I don't know what you did, but you didn't make a decision. Decisions mean you make it. You go through the gate. It's a valve. You go through that valve, and you don't go back. That's what a good decision is. Okay, so. So that's the first thing is not just indecision, but going back on decisions. It's not really a decision that's worse even than indecision. But then let's go to decision indecision. So I love this one, too. And you knew I was full of stories, so you knew what you were getting into here. So I would often get consultants who has a counselor for. They come in and go like patients. Patrick, you know, the project I'm on is hard. I'm like, I gave you the analogy before. I would tell them that it's like our clients ask us to walk through walls. None of our projects are easy. They don't pay a million dollars a month for easy projects. So, okay, let's get that off the shelf. First of all, they're all hard. So what makes this one particularly hard? And they're like, well, this is like, I want to roll off the project. I was like, okay, you need to understand.

That there's two paths of learning. There's a path of learning, of leaning into the thing, and there's a path of learning to remove yourself from a thing. And both of those are valuable learnings. But there's learning and there's costs with both. Now you're sitting there thinking, just get me off this project, because it's horrible. I hate the people. My boss is horrible. The client's terrible. The deadlines are impossible. I want to leave. It's like, okay, understand that there's a cost. Oh, I didn't think about the cost. It's like, yeah, the cost. Cost will be that. That will be put on your performance appraisal. It'll be. It'll be put out there in your performance review for the year that you asked to be removed from a project. And that has cost. Like, what do you think that'll cost? It's like, I can't anticipate that. But it's not good. You know, it's not a good thing to ask that you're removed from a project. And so, you know, chances are you'll probably get an average rating for the year. But it's not my fault I got assigned to this project. Oh, not hearing that part. You know, you were dealt a card. You had to play with the card. So there's a cost of being in it, leaning in and learning with it. And there's a cost in learning with learning how to remove yourself from things. And so if this is so toxic for you, or if there's an abusive or hostile environment, that's a whole different element of things. So we'll talk about that. But if you're just asking because it's hard, well, there's a cost, and you should learn from that. So which is the path of learning for you here? To be in it and lean in or to remove yourself from it? Because at the end of this conversation, I'm going to make a phone call. And either I'm going to make a phone call and say I'm rolling this person off the project and you're going to bear the cost of that, as I will, too, because I'm not going to be looked at as very favorable either, or I'm going to make a call and say, bob is ready to come back and hit it running. But either way, I'm making a phone call. You don't get to spin on this decision anymore.

What it's like. No, because this is a decision you made. It's so far along that you're talking to me about it. I'm not going to let you spin on this anymore. So I'm going to make a phone call. What's it going to be? Which. Which phone call am I making? They're like, wow, okay, I didn't expect to be put to the fire that way. But to your point, James, that that point of indecision, you know, you can go down A or B, and the worst possible thing is to spin at the branch in the road. Because that. That place of indecision just burns time and resources and sanity and energy.

And you just get worked up more and more being in that place. Either lean into it and go, or just get yourself out of it. And I will tell you, getting yourself out of things, yes, it has costs, but sometimes those costs are worth it. That is a whole different conversation. I am divorced, and that was one of the very important things for me at that time was to create a positive environment for my children, was to get divorced. But it cost my relationship with my children for years. But that was the right choice. And it had its cost, but removing myself and the learning that I had from that was so important and it was the right thing to do.

I love that.

A little bit more intimate for your crowd, but that's true.

This is good. This is where it needs to go. I think, I truly believe to transform humanity, we need all leaders to get out of their heads and into their hearts. We can talk about ROIs, we can talk about growth, we can talk about corporate leadership, but at the end of the day, we've got to leave the office and we've got to go home. And the success and the leadership that we have when we go through the doors at home are very much more important than what we do in the office. Why? Because that's our legacy. That's what we leave for our future generations. So let's talk about leadership at home and what it means to be a dad and what it means to be a partner. So when you think of leadership in your personal life, what comes to your mind when you think of that?

Oh, that's so good. And I'll talk. Personal life is one thing, being a parent is another. So I'm going to start with parent, I think, and start there. And I've told this to so many people is, you know, people talk about how important their job is and, you know, they got to get this next promotion. Why? Well, I want to. I want to get the next promotion because it's important to have a greater impact at work. Okay, why do you want that? And you do the five whys, you know that, James. And eventually they go like, I'm trying to provide for my family. It's like, okay, great, you're trying to provide for your family.

Why is that important to you? It's like, well, because they're my family. I mean, you know, it's like, well, and it's kind of what you just said too, James. It's like you have a legacy at work, which is really important. But your legacy at home with your children and your relationship with your wife and in your community and everything else, that is your children are your legacy. That is the most important legacy you can leave behind. And so I will go with that in two ways. I think is one thing that I have told people. Yes, maybe I had this conversation with you. Yes. You need to love your children. They need to know that they are loved. Yes, yes, yes. And I think coming right up close, second behind that, in terms of your obligation, what you give your children is character building situations where they can grow because you are not going to be there when they are 41, staring in a mirror going like, what should I do next? And they're faced with a moral dilemma. And you know what they're going to remember? Not even remember, you know, how they're going to act. They're going to act somehow that they learned when they were 12.

That there was something that happened with dad that 12 that they go like. And they're not going to remember that, but they, that set the course for their life in a way. And so when they're staring the mirror at 41, they're going to go like, yeah, I'm going to take the high road here. I need to do the right thing. I need to tell the team about the dynamics of what's going on. I need to tell my boss about how the metrics crashed or whatever it is. But they're going to take the high road because they learned that from dad or mom when they were 12.

So I think giving them those character building moments for themselves. And then I guess third on the list is role model. You got to role model those things for them. They got to see you show up, they got to see that you care and you know, maybe they do see you working a little bit and we can talk about balance of life. I have a whole thing about that too. But, but I think it's kind of a crock. But we'll talk about that. But, but they need to see you working too because they, they want to see their parents care about their primary purpose in life and in fact invite them into that part of your life as well. That's why I don't think balance is, you know, a thing. It's like balance of life. It's like that whole concept is like there's life and work on a teeter, you know, a seesaw, fulcrum. That's just, no, that doesn't even exist. If you're, if you're at home and you're thinking about work, good for you because you yearn for that purpose that you're doing and it's kind of coming into your life that way. Great. And when you're working and you're thinking about, wow, I love my wife, I wish I could be with my kids. It's like, great. You yearn to be with them. So I don't look at that as a lack of balance. I see that as a yearning and that yearning is, drives your insides. It's so good to have that because your purpose is being fulfilled all around you. So. And there's always that I guess sense of empty, not emptiness, but that feeling of like that gap that you're trying to fill. Well, that's just being human. Let's just be human and live with that. So I think, I think that's the greatest thing you can give them is character building situations, love and role modeling. How's that for three? Never thought of that before.

That's great.

I love it.

And it's interesting you talk about balance. I don't believe in work life balance, but I believe that we're in counter state of counterbalance. So we're always counterbalancing and going from okay, my work needs me, you know, 20 hours today, but yeah, tomorrow I need to be with my family 15 hours or you know, this week there's something major coming up. So I'm going to counterbalance, move over here and focus on that. Okay. Then the next month or next week I need to be here for the school play or sports day. And so yeah, I don't think that there's eight hours of this, eight hours of this, eight hours of that. It doesn't work like that. It's very much countering. So when have you found it most difficult, when has it been most challenging for you to find that happy, whatever you want to call that flow, happy flow, between what's going on professionally and what you're trying to achieve in your personal life?

That's a great question.

The story that comes to mind, it'll be a little bit of a sidestep, but I don't mean it to be, but, but it will be a little bit is. So I mentioned that, that I divorced when my children were 4 and 2. And again it was, it was for a better work life environment for them and my ex wife moved six hours away. So I was six hours away from my very young daughters. So we agreed as a part of the divorce decree that she would bring the daughters to me once a month and I would go see them once a month. So I would drive up there. This was early in my career.

If you think about that.

Balance for me, when you talk about hours, that was very controlled for me in a way that was kind of abnormally controlled because I didn't have my kids during the week.

But there were two weekends a month that I had them.

Well, I would always roll onto a project and say I have two weekends a month that are non negotiable. I have my children and they're like, okay, got it, got it, got it.

For the people out there, you know how that is, right? Eventually I'm on a project and the president of the company says, I want to have a meeting on Monday morning with Patrick at 9 o' clock and it's Friday at 4 and it's a weekend with my kids. Okay, what do you do?

And I told him, I said, because I'm clear in my head, so part of this is your moral compass, your stake in the ground. I told them when they were non negotiable, I said, well, you know my schedule and this is a weekend with my daughters. And they said, oh yeah, yeah, right, right, right, right. Sorry, sorry. But you know, after they go to bed on Saturday night, I mean, could you work on it then? And before they wake up on Sunday morning, it's like, no. My time is dedicated to them and I plan to be sleeping when they're sleeping. So I'm up before them so I can make them breakfast, not so I can be working on our thing. So no. The answer is no. What were we supposed to tell the president of this company that wants to meet with you on Monday morning? We've been working for three or four months to get this meeting with them. We've got it for you. And now you're saying no. I was like, you have two options. Either I walk into that meeting cold at 9 o' clock on Monday morning or we ask them to move it to Tuesday.

Now that sounds so brash. And James, I know it sounds like, oh, you know, that's so brash. It was. I was a manager, I was a new manager and I was telling somebody that was four levels above me in the organization.

Go ask for the meeting for another dime.

That's boundary enforcement at its best.

Oh my gosh. And I'll tell you too, it was a non negotiable. I did it with, you know, everything. I was scared. I was scared of getting fired, you know, but, but it's a non negotiable. It's like. And then I remember at the end of that meeting, I said, look, here's the thing. I am not going to let you take 50% of my time with my daughters away from me this month. It's not going to happen. And I'm like, oh.

You'Re putting me in a bad situation, you know that? I was like, I know, but that's just how it is. And so they went. That afternoon, it was 4 o'. Clock. So they went and asked him and he came back and he's like, and he was a good guy, this partner I was working with, he's like, I feel Kind of foolish to tell you this. I was like, what? He's like.

Tuesday was actually better for him. So that's brilliant. I was like, thank you. But he's like, yeah, so you're going to meet him for lunch on Tuesday. And, you know, that's great. So then we had time to prep on Monday. But there's also. Part of this, is that, you know, another huge thing of that story is.

We'Re presented options.

And there's sometimes always option X, not just A or B that's in front of us. And even just asking. Asking for it to be different is important. So I guess in that situation, you asked me a question. You know, when have you felt that? I had a number of those kind of situations pop up with working on weekends. There's another whole thing that we can get into. I took three weeks off every summer and went to South Dakota, participated in ceremonies out there, and I did that every year for 21 years. So literally, there was like, well, you don't really need to go this year, right? Oh, you can take a call while you're out there. It's like, no, there's no cell phones on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. And so, you know, so those became non negotiables, too.

But let me. This goes back to. Can I tell you another story? Is this okay? Please.

This is great.

Okay. So. And I learned that when I was a new analyst at Accenture and I just started, and I, you know, because I was an experienced hire, and they didn't do a lot of those back in those days, my career counselor was the partner of my practice.

And I remember asking her, I had worked there for a year, and I was like, I am working my butt off. The hours that I'm putting in is just outlandish. And I said, you know, as an analyst, I can't do the projection of what it would look like to be a partner. I just, like, just the hours just pile up. To be bigger, you have to do bigger things, bigger projects, bigger, More people to manage bigger, more complex stuff. And I was like, I will die doing this. And so I asked Carla, I said, carla, I need to ask you this question. How do you. How do you do it? How do you make this work? And she said, I'll tell you a secret. She said, of all the years I've been here.

Every Sunday I see my husband Russell. Every Sunday, I could be, you know, they've sent me to Europe, they've sent me to Asia. They've sent me all over the place to do this.

Stuff.

But I've seen Russ face to face. Every Sunday, either I come home or I fly him out to me. And that's been true my whole career since I've been married to Russ. And I was like, wow, what a great example of non negotiables of holding that line. Those boundaries that are non negotiable. Now, having said that, yep, all good. Now having all of that, oh, you have to earn your ability to put those boundaries out there.

Companies just don't give them to you. They don't go like, so don't walk in with an expectation you're going to get this boundary. It's like, they're going to go like, yeah, you're out. And they're fast with making those decisions, as you should be, too, as a leader. But, man, if somebody earns that, man, give it to them. Give it to them. I had people come to me, and consulting's brutal in terms of hours. And I've had people come to me and say, you know, Patrick, in four months, I have a wedding that I'm in the wedding party. And so I have to leave on that Thursday for the wedding. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'll be back on Monday. I was like, okay, but here's the deal with this. You have to make sure that nothing skips a beat while you're gone. You can go. So, you know, I have the power to say, you can go, go. But, man, if you leave me in a heap of trouble, that's on you, not on me. So you got three months to prepare for that time. Go get it done. And if you give that challenge to people to manage their own boundaries and to manage their own success, oh, I can't even think of a single time where somebody didn't tee it up and go. And they left. They left that week better than any other performance week. They had the whole rest of the project because they were just, I want to go. And so they got everything. Everything was lined up ready to go. And it's just like, man, I didn't notice they were gone. It was so good. And I learned how to do my own transitions that way, too. So I think, you know, those boundaries are important, but boundaries are earned as well.

That's powerful stuff. It really is. And the one thing I love about that is that part of your non negotiables professionally was to say, hey, my role as dad is actually incredibly important to me, and a lot of who I am is defined by that. And you stuck by it, even through the fear of possibly losing your Job, you're like, no, this means the most to me. And I'm not going to budge on that. I think it's important to have those non negotiables so that your career, there is some boundaries between career and responsibilities and desires to be a great dad or partner or mom, whoever's listening here.

So. And you know, to add to that too, you know, earning those boundaries too, I think is an important part of that.

Because, you know, the world's just not going to give those to you. And so you have to, you have to earn those. I used to tell people that.

I called it, you have to feed the monster. Sometimes I was the monster. Sometimes as the leader, I was the monster, you have to feed me. And so part of that is like, you have to understand what success means, what your clients or your boss really cares about. And you have to feed the monster to earn those boundaries too. And that's an important part of that, I think.

Very incredible. And in terms of, I look at your career and it's just mind blowing in terms of what you did and what you achieved. But what you're doing now, I feel like you're taking up another gear. You know, most people, they have a life of career and they're counting down to retirement, like, cool. And it's like you just keep stepping it up again in terms of what you're aiming for, your vision, the impact you want to have. So I'd love to just chat a little bit about what you're doing right now and what your mission is. So wisdom for humanity is right behind you. I can see it. For those of you who are listening on Apple or Spotify, you won't see that. But if you're here on YouTube and you see it, Wisdom for humanity. Tell me what that means.

Oh, good. Okay. So we've now entered the next three hours of our conversation.

Yeah.

So wisdom for humanity.

Let me do it this way. So when I started my career at Accenture in big Consulting, I knew that I cared about, as I mentioned earlier, about leaving a place better than I found it. And I felt that was true on every project I was on, every person that I worked with. And that's how that was. And what I loved about working in big consulting is that every project that we were on was the top one or two project of that company's everything that they're doing. And we worked with Global 1000 companies, CL exclusively. So for me, anyway. And so.

The work that we did usually ended up in their annual report, you know, the next year Somehow some way of success, hopefully most of the time and not all the time, but. But that, that to me was like having that significant impact was, was in my DNA and in my bones and saying like, wow. And so having Left Accenture After 20 and a half years.

I didn't count it, but, you know, I know just one single project, I impacted 40,000 people over the course of six months. And so millions, let's just call it millions of people impacted. And, you know, leaders out there too, if you really think about it, that's the impact you've had. I'm not extraordinary in that sense because, you know, most leaders have that kind of impact across 10, 15, 20, 30 years of career. So I have that in my bones to want that kind of impact. And so probably over the last 15 years of my career, I got told so many times, patrick, you need to write a book. You need to write a book. You need to write a book. Like, okay, well, I'll leave Accenture and I'll write a book. Well, as I got into this phase of being an entrepreneur. And by the way, just this past week, I celebrated my five year anniversary having left my corporate job, which I loved, by the way, but also I love this part of my life too. And like you said, I felt like I lifted my game some. And it's like when I think of now getting to wisdom for humanity. First, let's start with wisdom. The definition of wisdom. I love words. And so the definition of wisdom is the soundness of act or decision based on knowledge, experience and good judgment.

Giving you a pause so people can write that down. I'll say it again. Wisdom is the soundness of act or decision based on knowledge, experience and good judgment.

What I love about that, that term, wisdom, is that wisdom isn't something ethereal, it's not something I have. Wisdom is, is an act or decision. It's in the world.

So that's a huge piece of this. Wisdom is actions and decisions. So it's not what the Dalai Lama has in his head or what your grandfather has in his head or your grandmother has in her head. It's what they put out in the world. That's what wisdom is. And I like the first part of that. Soundness. And soundness means stable sound. Really. It's a sound decision. It's a sound act. But what I also like about the word soundness, it also is soundness is sound. And there's nothing more intimate than voice. Because as I'm talking, I'm shaking bones in your body. Those little Bones in your ears are going, that's such an intimate act of. I'm moving bones in your body, literally. So soundness of act or decision means that wisdom isn't wisdom until it is shared. And I think that is huge for us. And now looking at the. So what makes a good decision? Well, the definition tells you knowledge, experience, and good judgment. So when I look at wisdom for humanity and I think about the state of our world right now, James, we could use a little more wisdom, don't you think?

For sure.

People are reposting stuff that they don't do the research on.

And that is terrible. That's a terrible thing to do because you don't know all the research that's underneath it. People are misquoting science and science, if you know, scientific theory is about testing hypotheses, not about truth. And they're getting. Everybody's getting that wrong. And so now they're posting stuff out there. And science has scientific proof on both sides of an argument until there's. There's 97 on one side and three on the other. And that takes time to figure that out. But people are picking up the three and going, well, that's true. See, here's the study. It's like, that's not what science is. So. So to me, that's also not wisdom.

Wisdom is knowledge. Do the research. Wisdom is experience. Oh, well, she can't be saying that. Well, live for 20 years in her shoes and maybe you'd understand from her experience why that makes sense to her.

Because we don't know those things. So experience. Walk in somebody else's shoes before you make a judgment on them. And you know, we have. I live in Minneapolis, which was the is, was and is the epicenter for racial injustice on the planet right now because of what's happened here. Well, people are having that conversation, but they're not doing it. Trying to understand as much as we can. Being with the white privilege, I've lived with of understanding the black experience before I make any statements or judgments about it. I don't know what it's like. So let me talk to a bunch of people to understand their experience. And the last one is good judgment. And what good judgment literally means is to consider widespread, diverse options before making a judgment. That's what good judgment is. So you don't make snap judgment. That's not wise. So if we made our decisions with knowledge, experience and good judgment, man, our world would be evolving. We would be evolving as humanity. And so when I say wisdom for humanity now you're getting the gist of how these things are linked together. Man, if we just had more wisdom in this world, our humanity would evolve. So one of the things that's really important when you talk about wisdom for humanity and a movement, because I consider it a movement. It's not a business, it's not a dream, it's not a wish, it's a movement. Then when you think about a movement, what are you fighting for and what are you fighting against? So let me go. Wisdom for humanity. It's a number four for the listeners out there. And wisdom for humanity. What am I fighting for? Well, the number four has significance to me because, James, you and I share an Irish heritage. I have on my father's side, it's all Irish. And so my great, great grandmother on my father's side, Ellen Hurley, stood on a dock in Tralee in 1859 at 11 years old and got on a boat and came to America. Now.

What'S not known is that those are the same boats used in those times as slave boats to bring the Irish over. And they packed them pretty much the same as they did these, the slaves. I think I read someplace that the mortality rate on those. Those Trips was like 11%. So your chance of dying was high. Now, can you imagine being 11 years old standing on a dock and, James, maybe you know this better than. I have stories in my head about how this is, but she may not have spoken English. It might have been Irish.

High chance.

Yep. So. So she's standing on a dock, she's got a bag in her hand with all her belongings. I want you to, if you're a listener, you're 11 years old. Remember when you were 11 and you got a bag in your hand, your parents by your side, and you step off a dock to go to a place that they don't speak your language? And by the way, 1859, in a couple of short years, we were in the Civil War. So in a tumultuous. So you thought you were leaving something horrible, and you walk into something that looks just as horrible. And by the way, the Irish were treated very badly during the Civil war. And at 15, she was married. She had five kids. Thank you, Ellen Hurley, because I exist and I think about her.

And I think, wow, there are four generations back. Ellen Hurley, thank you. Thank you for living the life you did. Thank you for living through the trials and tribulations you did. And I know that if Ellen Hurley walked through my front door today, she'd wonder how I became the king of Ireland.

Yeah.

Not that I live in a palatial, you know, place or anything like that, but she'd go like, hot running water, Are you kidding me?

And I get to sleep. Are you kidding me? And there's heat. And, you know, she'd be, like, wondrous over some basic things that we just take for granted. She'd be like, can I just take a bath for like, an hour? It's like, yeah, go do it. You know, she's like, oh, I bet she never had that, you know, dirt floors, probably. I don't know. But wow. So, you know, we have such an abundance versus what they had back then. So I look back and I say, there's so much wisdom to gain from their stories that made us who we are. That's in our DNA, that we should learn from those things, Wisdom. Gather their wisdom, their stories, and pull that forward. And now I have what I can of those. Now here's the. Here's the magic of this story, which is just crazy to me. Great grandma. Great grandma. Yeah. So then I look at my granddaughter. I have a granddaughter. Her name's Maddie.

Maddie's grandchildren are as far away from me as Ellen Hurley is. Wow.

I have as much. I have as much ability to impact my great grandchildren's lives as Ellen Hurley has made for me. Pay it forward, folks. That is our job. So what is wisdom for humanity? It is building a better world for future generations. And if you want. If you want to put a stake in the ground four generations forward, look in your grandchildren's eyes, if you have them, look in your children's eyes, whatever, and say, I want to build a better world for them. That's why I think of my clients or my customers are not. James, you and me and the people around me. It's looking at my granddaughter and saying, I want a better world for her grandchildren. So they're sitting at their knee and they're asking her stories about what was it like to live through the pandemic? And maybe, just maybe, one of her stories will be, you know, one of the things I carry forward is the courage of my papa.

And I really value that. And if I can give her a story or two, give her some values, some things that I gave to her mom that passed along to her, job done. But the work is not done, folks. It just isn't done. Wisdom for humanity. I mean, there is a lot of stuff kicking up in the world right now, and people go like, oh, things are so terrible. I am so optimistic about things right now because it doesn't mean that things are good, it just means that things are moving.

And we're in a moment of evolution. We are evolving as humanity. I have got data to prove it. We are evolving as humanity and every decision you make, every action you make makes a difference. The legacy you are building with your children, but also with your work and your business. So I love to work with people who have monstrous ambitions of changing the world, changing the way people work and live. And in doing that, they change that for future generations. I like forward thinking people that they're not just trying to make money and they're not just trying to do something to solve for today, but they're doing something to solve huge human issues today. Working with people that are working on diversity and inclusion. Man, we're, we're novices at that. So let's lean into helping those people do their work and figure out what it means to respect all individuals, no matter race, gender, anything. Let's just lean into equality. Let's lean into.

Harmony. Living in harmony with nature. Let's have a planet that my great granddaughter can like, breathe the air and eat the food. Simple things.

That's so inspiring. I feel the goosebumps just thinking about your mission that you're on. And it is a mission and you're on it and you've got this movement just building and I love that. It's intrinsic, it's very spiritual. And I think of like the human needs psychology that often we're trying to find the right career or we're trying to find the nicer neighborhood. And we're always up in these basic human needs of certainty, variety, significance and connection. And we're trying to meet those. But you're at a place, you're in the spiritual needs realm where you're looking at contribution and growth and that's what you're focused on. So many people, Patrick, struggle to actually get there in life. They struggle to get to the point where they can start to emulate a better future, to create a better realm for their grandchildren. So for someone who's struggling just to figure out what their purpose is, what they're here for, do you have any advice for them to start to either go deeper and reflect and kind of unpack why they're here and what their purpose might be?

Sure. Okay. Did we do this again? Okay. Another three hours in front of us. Okay.

So that's a great question. And you know, how to lean into what your life purpose is.

Again, I think it comes down to, you know, what is that DNA? That's encoded in you paying attention to that. One of the things that I loved as a partner in my last part of my career is the executives would get together and they'd go like, oh, yeah, don't you just hate the millennials? Yeah, they're just hard to work with. Oh, they're so entitled. Oh, yeah. And I'd be like, stop. Stop talking like that. Like, what do you mean? It's like, well, first of all, if you want to go to labels like that, I'm a baby boomer now. I'm a late baby boomer. But do you think all baby boomers have the exact same value structures? So stop labeling millions of people in one category, because I think they're a little bit more diverse than that. They probably have a lot of different thoughts and ideas than that.

So back off of like naming millennials a thing. Secondly, what I would say is, as a baby boomer, I'll go, there is that when I grew up, my dad would say, jump. And I'd ask, how high? That's how we grew up. I get that. But now when I say jump, these younger professionals go, why not how high? And you know what? If you get frustrated with them asking why, that is your problem, not theirs. In fact, I loved working with young professionals that had that attitude because it forced me to reach in and go, what is my why? What am I here doing with this client and with this team and with this project? And so I think that was really important to do that and to get back to describing the big why to people, as Simon Sinek would say. And I look at that and I go, that actually helps us roll on our toes to understand what's behind all these things. And I think the more that people ask that question, I get back to wisdom for humanity. We're going to evolve because we're going to be answering those questions with what we do. So let me give you a story of that.

And I love telling the story. So I was doing a big project, and I can say it now because long enough ago, but I was doing a project at Best Buy, which is a large electronics in the US and in Canada. And I was in charge of the post merger integration of Best Buy with Future Shop in Canada. So they had decided to buy a company to go into Canada. So I was in charge of the integration of that company, which is a big deal. And I had 22 people, I think, on my project. And I remember one night on Wednesday evening, we had our progress meetings and people would come into the meeting and that Night. And if you're a leader, you know how this goes. Nobody made eye contact with me. We walked in, sat down, no eye contact. No eye contact. And then my program lead said, well, we're going to start with real estate. You know, we had four open issues. We closed two. There were three new open issues this week. Real estate. Do you want to start? And real estate said, well, you know, there's still some contention over this. Okay, just stop. Stop.

And I said, okay, everybody.

Put your books and papers aside and just sit in your chair. Get comfortable. Close your eyes. Everybody take a deep breath.

I did. And nobody knew what was going on. It's like, this is so weird.

And I said.

So Best Buy has put a $1.6 billion crown jewel in the hands of the 22 people in this room.

The only way that they're going to expand, they've saturated the market in the US they're not going to build any more stores in the US they can only do it through merchandising. The only way to expand is with a geographic footprint, is to go into another country. So they came to Canada, and So they. There's $1.6 billion on the line, and they thought so much of us that they put it in your hands. But I'll tell you this.

I don't really care that much about how much money that this is going to put in Accenture's coffers, and I really don't care how much money this is going to put in Best Buy's coffers, and I really don't care about the margin on, you know, for Future Shop either, whether they're going to make a good deal out of this or not.

But I do care about. In about eight months.

There'S going to be a mom in Toronto.

And her daughter is going to ask for an electronic gizmo.

And she knows that that's going to really make her happy.

And we are going to open a store.

That'S 20 minutes from her home. On her way home from work, she's going to stop in that store, she's going to buy that gizmo, and on Christmas Day, that girl's going to open that present. That girl's going to hug her mom and say, this is the best Christmas ever.

That's what makes me wake up on Monday mornings to do this project.

I want you to pack up, I want you to think about what your reason for being here is. Go home, and I want to see you tomorrow bright and ready to go and have fire in your belly. About what we're doing.

Wow. I can say I still have friends from that project because they're like, I remember that meeting.

That's amazing, Patrick. Like, I want to. I want to be in that meeting. I wanted to be working with you. That's just amazing. It, again, goes very deeply intrinsic and very spiritual. Like, you connect this. You've got this big corporate world, you're leading these big projects, but you bring it right down to a human level. And I love that humanity comes first.

It does. It does. And here's what I with executives that we don't do with our people. And please write this one down. If you're listening to this.

We don't sell our projects to our people.

To our teams. We don't sell it to them. We should work as hard on selling our projects to our team members and to our contractors and our collaborators as much as we do our clients and our customers.

Because they are the ones that have to care about it the most to produce something that's world class for them. And they have to understand what that is. And part of that, as a good leader, is just because I had that value of this mom with her child doesn't mean everybody in the room is going to have that same one, that same vision, that same thing that puts fire in their belly. Maybe it's something else, but I wanted to give them role models. Something that said, here's something that I hang on to. And then part of a leader is trying to Understand, of the 22 people, what are you hanging on to? What's the thing that puts fire in your belly? And you know what? Honestly, if you say it's promotion and money, I'm not the best leader for you. Because honestly, I didn't rise that fast through the ranks because I didn't care and I didn't make the most money of the people I worked with because I didn't care. What I did care about is delighting my customers. What I did care about is creating solutions that enriched the human experience on the planet. Those are the things that really matter. So reach into your gut. That is my long winded answer to say, reach into your gut and find out what your why is. What puts fire in your belly? What makes you afterwards cry about an experience you have with a customer? Because. Not cry because of bad things, just like that just was like magic. What just happened. Now you know, and then repeat that over and over again.

That's finding your purpose. And you all have had that. If you're listening to this podcast, you've had that experience. All you have to do is kind of string those pearls together and look at the common thread, the thread that went through them and said, this is the purpose that went through these things. This is what created that magic in each of those experiences. And then puff on that and unpack that more and more, and you're going to find out year over year, decade over decade, that you're going to find out where that magic comes from, and then you're going to be able to replicate it so much easier the further you get in your career.

What great advice. That's seriously beautiful. That's beautiful. And I think about that and what comes to mind is the quality of one's life directly correlates to the quality of the questions that you ask yourself.

If I was to spend time with you. So if I'm listening to you right now and thinking, wow, Patrick's quite amazing, which would be true. I want to work with Patrick to help me uncover my purpose and to make my impact on my community, my family, and humanity. How can you help me? So what is it that you do, Patrick? I know that the Wisdom Council. You've told me personally about the Wisdom Council that you host and run, and it's just phenomenal. So let's share it with everyone that's listening. What that's all about, that journey.

Oh, what it's all about. Okay, so here we go again. So Wisdom Council. So.

When I think about wisdom for humanity and I think about a Wisdom Council.

First of all, and this sounds strange to emphasize this part, but in the Native American culture, particularly the Lakota people, when they met, if you can imagine, they met in a tipi to make their big decisions. And in what shape did they meet? Answer that for me, James. What shape did they meet in?

I imagine circular circle, because they sat.

Like on the outside of the ring around a fire in the middle of the thing. So they sat in circle. Now, that sounds odd that it's like, that's important. But what happens with a circle is that there is no hierarchy. There's no one above somebody else. There's not a long end of the table. There's not the end of the table. The leader doesn't sit this here. Everybody in circle is of equal footing. So, first of all, my Wisdom Councils, what I wanted to repeat is if we're going to talk about wisdom and talk about wisdom for humanity, the first thing is we meet in circle.

Everybody has a voice at that table. So important to get that right for me. And when you deal with These big issues that we deal with in wisdom for humanity. And so wisdom council. And then the other part of this, and there is a story here, so I'll tell it is.

When I was a partner, and we were in Newcastle, England, we had just done a big proposal at a project to a client, and there were five of us in a pub.

And I think that's where I learned. What is it? Blood sausage is.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, black pudding.

Black pudding. That's where I learned black pudding. And so. And it's like, oh, really? Okay. So. But we're. We're sitting there, and I remember Rob was with us, and he was. He was old. I mean, he was like. Like almost 50.

And so. And so, you know, we were all talking. He's like, yeah, I'm going to retire. We're like, oh, Rob, what are you going to do after you retire? And he's like, well, I've already started this, but what I want to do is I want to go to places on the planet, and I want to do the best parties in the world. So he had already done Oktoberfest in Munich, and he'd already done. What is it? Carnival in New Orleans, and he'd been to Rio de Janeiro, and so he'd done these big things, but he wanted to do.

Chinese New Year in Beijing, so he wanted to go to all these places that had these big parties. And I thought to myself, can't think of anything worse than partying with a lot of crowds in those places. But what I do like about that is that going to a place every year.

Well, he retired the next year. In fact, he died a year later. After that, it was often an urban myth that the average death age of a partner was 52. He died at 52. So there's those kind of things that just go like, oh, maybe that is true.

So when I was getting ready to leave my big job at Accenture, I took that to honor Rob. And even mentioning him now is honoring him. I wanted to go to someplace on the planet every year. But for me, what resonates with me is I wanted to go to a sacred place on the planet every year to visit a new sacred place. Because I'd been to Stonehenge. And when I went to Stonehenge, and I know this sounds kind of weird, but when I went to Stonehenge and I heard the old one speaking, I just. I.

I kind of felt them somehow, the ancient people being there. And so I said I wanted to do that, to visit these sacred places. Well, you know, you mentioned that to, you know, I was a new entrepreneur when I was talking to people about it and they're like, we're going to take people with you, aren't you? And I was like, what do you mean? I was just going to do this on my own. I was like, no, people would like, would love to go with you on these things. Given your spiritual background, your business background, they would want to go to these places to you. And I was like, okay. So the first year in 2018, we went to Machu Picchu, Peru, and I did a four day wisdom council there. And Machu Picchu is where the Incans lived. And Machu Picchu is this great big mystery because in about 1450 they abandoned it for some reason, nobody knows why. So to go there was just tremendous. And it was discovered or rediscovered in the early 1900s. And so since then it's become, you know, this, this place, the spiritual place where people go, well, I took people there. And my belief with that is again, wisdom for humanity, is that if you're going to repurpose revision your life doing that in Machu Picchu, you're going to come up with a different answer than in the basement of a Marriott in Omaha, Nebraska. I'm just saying I think you're going to have different molecules firing in your brain differently where you're going to go like, oh, and when you're touching those stones in Machu Picchu, man, you're going to get inspired to do something big. So we went to Machu Picchu with these people and it was a tremendous experience. And I'll share one of the things. I was talking to our guide and I said, you know, I don't know the Quechuan language, which was the language of the Incans. I said, yeah, I've traveled all over the world and, and having worked across six continents in the world, I would go into a room and they would switch to English, which always humbled me because I'm in Spain and I can't speak Spanish. So they switched to English for me. And they do it so cordially. And I just feel so humbled by that. So I always went and asked, how do you say the word friend in your language? Let me at least know how you say the word friend. And so she said.

Let me call my dad. So she pulls out her cell phone, which I thought was tremendous. Right? We're in the middle of Machu Picchu and Machu Picchu, if you've ever been there, it's like walking through Like a chapel. Everybody's like, oh, it's like. And that's Machu Picchu was thriving with kids running around stuff. So I didn't see it that way. But anyway, she's calling her dad. And given my background, I didn't see her calling her dad. I saw her accessing the elders.

Because she didn't know. She didn't know quite the answer to this question. So she's talking to Dad. I asked her what friend meant or what the word for friend was. And how do you say thank you? So she got off the phone and she came back to me and she.

Said.

We didn't have the word friend in catch one.

Really? She goes, no, because that would mean we'd have the word enemy. We didn't have that either.

Wow, that's amazing.

Can you imagine? Can you take our culture today, can you imagine not having the word for friend because you don't have a word for enemy?

It's powerful.

Wow. Mind blowing. Yeah. How do you live that way? How do you give that way? I mean, it's just so huge. And my mind just started going, like, wrapping myself around that. And I was like, okay. Oh. And her name was Natalie. I said, natalie, so then what would you call me? She goes like, oh, I call you Uncle.

I was like, ah, The Lakota people on Pine Ridge Reservation have a phrase. And I told this to her. I said, they have a phrase. It's.

Means we are all related.

And when I go out there amongst the people that know me and know my spirit among them, they call me Uncle.

Amazing Brother. So they don't call me friend. They call me brother or uncle because we're all related. Imagine. And when I told Natalie that story, she goes like, yes, right. This was a connection of ancient wisdoms connecting them from 3,000 miles apart. But they were still common. There's these common wisdoms that we have to go collect from these places. So going to Machu Picchu, huge learning there. So that's what Wisdom Council is. We go to these places, not only talk to each other about our own vision and revisions, and not only our own challenges that we have, whether they be spiritual challenges or business challenges, which I dealt with for 30 years, or I am a certified high performance coach, coaching personal development issues. Whatever they are, let's put them in the mix and work them, but work them in Machu Picchu. With these kind of wisdoms coming in, they're life changing. So this coming year, in 2022, we're going to go to Delphi, Greece, and Delphi, Greece, where the Delphi Oracle did her work. The Delphi in a very matriarchal culture. The ancient Greece, Greek society was very patriarchal. The Delphi Oracle was considered the most powerful mortal female on the planet.

So imagine being 15ft away where the Oracle, it's recorded that she gave Aristotle advice on philosophy. She gave advice to Alexander the Great before he conquered the world.

This is how powerful they felt. This priestess was there. And imagine going to Delphi and maybe if you just had that sense that she's there, what question would you ask her?

Because you get once in a lifetime question, what's that question? And you know what, what I love about that archetype is the Delphi Oracle, is that we are faced with Delphi Oracle questions all the time. When you go to your boss, what are you going to ask? When you go to the CEO, what are you going to ask? When you go to your customer, what are you going to ask? What are you going to ask for? How are you going to craft that question.

To be most effective for everybody involved is a win, win, win, man. Those questions, craft those carefully. So that's what we're going to talk about in Delphi, is those questions and we're going to share our answers with each other. So that's Wisdom Council. And every year we go to a different sacred place on the planet. I'm not going to share where the next couple are going to be, but.

Amazing. But let's just focus on Delphi. And then we went to Ireland as well. But I won't tell a whole bunch of stories about that. James, you and I should talk about Ireland sometime.

We will definitely need to do that. But if somebody's listening right now and they're going, I need to know more, like I want to know more about Wisdom Council. Can I qualify to be a part of that? Am I the right fit? Where do they go to find out that.

Yes. So, so great question. First of all, my wisdom councils are 12 people only. So I'm not packing a lot of people in a room. This is to sit in circle. I got to find a room big enough to put 12 people in circle. And then if the room doesn't hold it, then, then, you know, I got to find a different room because it's 12 people or less and we've had as few as six people in circle, which I think is fabulous. So it doesn't really matter how many people, it's more about the quality of the people in the room. And so when I look at that, so The Wisdom Councils. I do have a very heavy screen on that, just to be open about that. I have an application and then I'll interview you maybe once or twice to see if you qualify to come. Because what I want is to make sure that everybody has a chemistry with each other and that we have the right mix of people in the room, that we can really grow from each other. So if you want to find out more, there's a couple ways to do that. One is to. I have a website called WisdomCouncil Live. It's just WisdomCounsel Live. So, you know, you can go out there and learn more there. You can reach out to me directly if you want to. And I'm sure you'll have this in.

The show notes for sure. Absolutely.

Show notes. But it's patrick@wisdomforhumanity.com so that's easy to get to me that way. And if you just want to, Gosh, if you just want to have a conversation, go like, look, I don't know if I want to sign up for all this stuff, but this guy sounds intriguing. Let's have an intriguing conversation then, and just reach out to me and we'll set up some time to chat.

I love it. Amazing. And I can tell you now, if you're listening and you get the opportunity to reach out and chat to Patrick, you're in for a special moment. Every time I've sat and chatted with you, Patrick, I've learned something. I've become more aware of my own thoughts and where I'm headed. So what you do, the work you do is special work. It's powerful work. And I just want to ask you a question. I always ask this towards the end of our podcast, and that is if you're giving advice to your, let's say, your grandchildren, and they come up and says, hey, Papa, so how do we lead a life of purpose? What would your answer be to them?

Oh, James. Okay, this is so good. All right, so I'm going to answer that question with a challenge. I love it. So here's the thing. Oh, this is so good. I am so delighted to answer this question. So wisdom for humanity. If I look four generations back.

Even my parents, my grandparents and my great grandparents, my great great grandparents, their lives are so under documented.

After World War II, in Western society, at least in America, you went to the American dream. So up until then, my father, he grew up in south side Chicago Irish Catholic community. He grew up around his great uncles, his uncles, his grandfather, his, you know, all of Them, they lived in this Irish neighborhood and there, you know, Saturday night the stories would come up and they would tell their stories and that's how things, wisdom got passed down. But after World War II, my dad took us four children and moved to Cincinnati where the job was a better job, which was great. But I didn't have the privilege of being around my grandparents, my uncles, my great uncles, that Irish heritage of mine. So I never heard the stories, never heard of it. I heard a couple from my dad, but not from my dad's brother and my dad's sister and their kids and all that. I didn't have all that. So in a sense, I feel one of the things that I am desperate about is that we have cracked that connection with our history.

That is sad to me. So one of the challenges I have, if you are listening, is to if your parents are still alive, ask them questions to tell stories of their life, grab those family values, get really good on. I think of myself as an elder whisperer. I love to talk to elders and get the good, juicy stories out of them and then record them, get them put down and put them into the world somehow. So here's. So that's one thing. They're under documented now. I have three grandkids, two boys and a girl, and I look at them and their life is so overdocumented, it's scary.

You know, my oldest grandchild's grandson's birthday, there's like one person took a thousand pictures and there was 30 of us there. That's probably 30,000 pictures of his first birthday. And there's pictures of him here, here, here, here, here, here. You know, it's just like, it's terrible, right? And so one of the things that they're going to have to sift through is how to, how to condense and precipitate their important stories because they're so over documented with so much video and pictures and stuff and digital footprint that they have that they're so over documented they're going to figure that out. But we, James, we're at this weird precipice of so lacking behind us and so much ahead of us.

So I've talked to this with a few people and wow, I can't believe you asked this question, because I would have put it to you anyway. Is so people look at digital media as evil or harsh or whatever. It's like technology is amoral. It's what we do with it that makes it moral or not. I'm an analytics geek and somebody asked me how Would you define analytics? I said, well, data is like a loaded gun on the table. Analytics is the intention of the person who picks up the gun.

When we have analytics, be very wary of what the intention is of the person that's analyzing data, because they're going to use it either to enrich the human experience or control it. You got to know the difference. So I digress. Analytics is another geekdom that I have. But anyway, we'll go back to this question. So then here's this thing about what would I tell my grandchildren? Well, this challenge got put to me, and I think this is a challenge I'll put out to your people, and then I'll answer it for you. Is Brendan Burchard, person that we study from, once gave his mastermind this challenge. He said, what if there was a person who is going to save the world? They are going to save the world. And they have been through all the training. They were trained by Dalai Lamas. They were trained in, you know, all the martial arts. They were trained in gymnastics. They were trained in, you know, they. They've done the shaman work, They've done all this work. And this person has been crafted to save the world. And you are the last station, the last learning booth, the last thing they're going to learn before they get put out into the world in three minutes. What are you going to tell them?

That's the question you just asked me. And you know what? Here's the beautiful thing of this. If you shoot that video today, each of you, that's a video your great, great grandchildren can watch.

That's the power of technology that we have today. If you're not around your grandchildren, hey, shoot that video, because that's something that you can pass along that might be the most important video digital asset that you leave behind. The legacy you have is the video of you are the chosen one. And if you shoot that video, send it to me, post it in YouTube, send me a link to it, I'll take a look at it because, man, I want to know what you're about. That's probably the most succinct way to say, this is what it's all about. Okay, so you asked me this question, James. I. I gave you a lot of context to get to my answer, but here's my answer. And I believe everybody should have. And think about this as, what are your three core philosophies, man? We can have 10, 20 of those things. Like, that's great. But if you had to really boil it down to three core philosophies, what are they? So I'm going to share with you mine, and this is what my you are the chosen one video kind of would sound like. The first one that I have.

Is to.

Learn continuously and deeply.

So learn. Learn is the key word there. Learn continuously and deeply. You are going to face so many difficulties, and it is in the most difficult times where you are going to learn the most. And you're going to have a lot of wins. But you know what? Just don't celebrate the wins, but learn from the wins too, because that's how you're going to evolve as a human being. How you're going to learn those multiple leadership traits to apply to each situation is by learning deeply and continuously through successes and failures and through spinning at the branch in the road that you don't choose. Either way, you're going to go like, wow, I shouldn't be doing that. But those are all those learnings, and each of those learnings is a gem. Every time you learn, pack one of those gems into your back pocket and put those in your backpack, because those learnings carry those four with you. So learn continuously and deeply. That is the first one. And the second two have to do with what I believe are the two obligations we have on this planet from cradle to grave. And it is pretty simple. We have talked about them all around these today. James. The first obligation is to take that DNA that you are gifted with, that unique DNA that unique you, that authentic you, and that was a gift at birth, and take that, that talent that you are and hone and shape that continuously.

So you got to learn deeply and continuously. You got to take that talent that you are and shape it.

Then the second obligation is to put it out in the world where you shine the most. Oh, that sounds great. No, that is really hard. To take that talent that you are and overcome the fears that we talked about earlier. The courage to put that where it shines most is also going into that uncomfortable zone most of the time.

Because you are on that edge all the time. Now you have got to replenish that talent. You have got to do that. But you have got to do. You have got to put it out there and shine the most. Because that is what evolution means. That is what being human means. So learn deeply, continuously. Shine boldly. And the third one is to live 100% empowered. Don't ever let anybody take your power away from you. And you have that power with you all the time. You've decided yourself exactly to where you are. Even if a tree came through this, crashing through the roof right now. I'm not a victim of that tree branch because I decided myself to be standing right here. And in that moment, the universe, being perfect as it is, decided it was my time. Okay, then. But I didn't have to give that away. So always live 100% in power so the three are live 100% empowered, learn deeply and continuously, and then put that talent in the world where it shines boldly. Those are the three that I would send that I have shot that video for my grandchildren to pass along, and that's what I hope my great grandchildren look at.

That is stunning. You've put so much thought, so much human, spiritual thought into that, and I hope, if you're listening to this right now, please take the time to think about that. What is the lesson, the value, the principle, the philosophy that you want to pass on to your grandchildren and beyond? So, Patrick, I just want to say a massive, massive thank you for taking the time to share your wisdom with everyone here on the podcast.

Well, I'll leave you with this. I call it the.

It's like. It's math. It's just math. If you look at where we are, and if you and I can change the trajectory of one person's life by 0.05 degrees.

We'Ve changed the world. That person will be in a different universe. You will be in a different universe in 10 years because you just took one thing from today and changed something. We've already changed the world, James. As I said before, if you can infect 10, you can impact a million.

Stunning. I love it. Well, thank you so much. There's been so many nuggets that I will be going back and listening to this personally and taking down notes, and I hope that everyone else that's listening has taken down some gems and then act upon those. There's one thing listening passively, then there's another thing to act upon those and embody those. So, Patrick, you're a special human. I'm so honored to be connected with you.

Thank you, James. So glad that we could find each other. Of course we found each other. Across how many miles are we apart?

Like seven and a half thousand?

Exactly. So. But of course we found each other. So thank you and thank you to your listeners for listening today. And again, as James said, you know, change the world, build a better world for future generations. That's what we're here to do.

I love it. Thanks, buddy.

Thank you, James.

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