073: From CEO (Back) to Creator with Pat Flynn

Every holiday shopper's got a list.

But Ross shoppers, you've got a mission. Like a gift run that turns into a disco, snow globe, throw pillows and.

PJs for the whole family, dog included.

At Ross holiday magic isn't about spending more. It's about giving more for less. Ross, work your magic. Every growth that I've had personally as a business owner, as a founder, as a creator, has come as a result of stepping outside of my comfort zone and doing something new. It's those moments when I continue to do the same things over and over again that I either get bogged down, I get bored, I get tired, I get overwhelmed, I get potentially burned out. That's when I can step back and go, what am I doing? I'm not even trying new things or pushing myself. I'm just trying to remain busy for busy sake.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host, Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now, onto today's show.

Hello. Hello friends. I am so excited and I'm going to admit I have some podcaster butterflies recording with today's guest, Pat Flynn. He is probably someone that needs no introduction for so many of you. He is a father, husband and entrepreneur living and working in San Diego. He owns so many successful online businesses that it's just incredible trying to even keep track of them all. But you're probably most familiar with his incredibly popular podcast, Smart Passive Income. Pat is one of the OGs. He recorded his first episode in 2008, then really got it rolling in 2010 and I've been just so honored to be a guest twice. He also has his Ask Pat podcast. He's a creator of the Switch Pod, author of several awesome books including Super Fans, which I'm halfway through and loving it. Spi Pro, his private community. I mean, there's so much good stuff here. Today we are talking about his transition out of the official CEO role of his company, which is, I think such a rare moment in any business. With that, Pat, welcome to the show.

Hey Jenny, thank you so much for having me. Hello everybody. And I'm excited to chat about this because it's still fresh and I'm excited and I think a lot of people can learn from it.

You mentioned this shout out to Selena Su. We were in a little breakout room, and the time was even running out. The countdown timer was on for you, sharing what you're up to. And you said, I'm transitioning out of CEO and back into my role as creator. And I just leapt at this because you have achieved in doing this, what I describe in the book as escape velocity, that in order to step aside as official CEO, not only is that a big mental, emotional, kind of spiritual challenge for an entrepreneur who's as embedded in the business as you, but it also means that you got your systems and your team and everything working to the point that you could do this, to focus on creating. And you officially stepped down January 1st. We're recording this here on February 2nd, just one month later. Take us to your thought process. When did it first cross your mind that maybe you don't want to be in the CEO role any longer or you wanted to design this new future state?

Yeah, the designing of the future state's where it comes from. It doesn't come from. I don't like my role as CEO. I actually loved it. And to give you a little bit of background, I mean, my blog started in 2008, and it was essentially just a blog, which then turned into a bit of a YouTube channel and then a podcast, Smart Passive Income in 2010, and then books and speaking and all this kind of stuff. And in order for me to begin doing all that, I had to step up and essentially be the face of the brand. And so Pat Flynn was very synonymous and is still synonymous in a way, with Smart Passive Income. But that's changing. But back in the day, that's how it was. I was the writer, I was the one doing everything, and there wasn't even anybody on my team. And it eventually came to the point where I was either going to burnout or I had to know that I was going to hire a team. This is if I still wanted the business to grow. Right. I could have just stayed at the state that I was in and have some money coming in and be fine. But I wanted to grow mostly because I wanted to help as many people as possible. And I've seen the fruits of that, and it's been incredible. But in 2012, 2013, there came a point where I had to make this decision, and I decided to start building out a team. I got very inspired, in fact, by going to a conference called the Platform Conference. This was in 2013 with Michael Hyatt. Michael Hyatt had a book come out. He had a conference he had me speak. And the coolest thing about this event was when I was in the listening to some of the speakers, I also noticed that the founder and creator and the head of that company, Michael Hyatt, was also in the audience. And he was learning, and he wasn't even doing any of the work. He was like, everything was already done ahead of time. And he had this beautiful team that was made up to be able to create a really outstanding event. And I asked him afterwards, I was like, how are you able to sit in the audience and just learn and be present here? I would just be worried and flustered, and he's like, I got a great team. They can handle it, so that I can do more of what I want to do, which is learn from you and everybody else who's here. And I was like, wow, that's fantastic. So he really started this inspiration for me to consider how I might start building out team members so that I could feel supported and I can continue to do more of the things that I wanted to do, because it got to the point where I was doing less of the creation and more of just the administrative stuff. Email was starting to become a burden. The podcast was growing, and I doubled down on it, but that also meant I doubled down on my editing. So trying to have a team in place to support that would allow me to do more of what I wanted to do. And that happened. And then I ended up finding a person who. Who really changed my life. His name is Matt Gartland. We initially started working together. I was a client of his. In fact, he and his team were taking care of a lot of the production and the editing and a little bit of the planning, and essentially then ended up acquiring his company to take his entire team on board. And Matt became my chief financial officer and chief operating officer at the time. And he's just done so much to help me remove myself from the busy parts of the business, to continue to get it running so that I can focus more on the creation side of things. But I was still considered CEO. I made those CEO decisions as far as ultimate decisions on team, ultimate decisions on direction and whatnot. And, you know, even though there was less of me involved in the business outside of creation, there was still more time that I wanted to go back to where it was back in 08 to 2010, where I could just write and that's it, or I could just now podcast, or I could just film. And it's been getting harder and harder to find that time. So recently, talking with Matt On a call. And in fact, we both have the same birthday, same birth year. Actually, we were born on the exact same days, which is kind of crazy. December 6th, 1982. It's 2022 this year, which means we are both turning 40, right? We're both turning 40 this year. And so we had a deep conversation about how thankful we were to find each other and work together. But also, what did we want the next decade to look like? What do we want our 40s to look like? And for me in particular, I wanted it to be more about just me being able to expand into new business ideas that I have that I just haven't had the time to do more creation. I've been falling in love with YouTube on top of the podcast that I already have, and figuring out the YouTube algorithm has become a fun hobby of mine and starting a new YouTube channel in the hobby space. And that's something that I see a lot of opportunity in. So if I were to continue down the route of becoming a CEO, I mean, it's one thing to just have that title, but it's another thing to actually do the responsibilities of a CEO, to make those decisions and to plan for the business in a way that will continue to have it grow, to continue to have it support its employees and its students and customers. Obviously, it was going to take a lot, so I had to make a decision. I said, you know What? In my 40s, I want to have more freedom of time, and I still want to be involved in spi, but I don't think I'm going to be the one making the ultimate decisions anymore. I would love to have somebody else come on to step into that role. And so it's been really neat because Matt has taken over as CEO, and he kind of was playing role of CEO just for the last couple years, but to have that title officially with his name, I mean, definitely well deserved. It comes with also additional shares of the company. But at the same time, I now have a little bit of weight lifted off my shoulder in terms of ultimate decision making and responsibilities for things so that I can fall more in love with the things that I love most, which is content creation. And so I still have responsibility in the business. You know, I'm still in many ways the face, although not the only face now in the business. We are definitely changing the brand in a way, and it has changed over the past four years. In fact, it's not just me anymore. There's been a lot of people, including Matt, who've stepped into the forefront to create content, to be a guest on the show, to create their own podcasts that live under the SPI Media brand. We have another new podcast that just came out called the CX podcast, which is the Community Experience Podcast, which is led by two of our team members, which has been really fun. Tony and Gillian do an amazing job there, and that's growing the brand. So it's akin to, like. And I don't want to say I'm Iron man, but it's like, I'm analogous to Iron man in the sense that, you know, I kind of started this whole thing. It's the Marvel universe. It started with the Iron man movies. But it's not just Iron man that makes up the Avengers. It's Hulk. It's Black Widow, it's Hawkeye. It's all these other people and other players who have their own special talents and strengths. And so that's what SPI Media has become. It's become more of an Avengers type of model, where all these amazing talents are coming in. And Gillian, who is directing the SPI Pro experience, is just using her superpowers there and her background with community and leading teams that way. And then Matt, with his financial and operations experience, totally taking the lead on CEO sj, who's running operations as far as HR and management and people. It's just so fantastic to see all these people come together to now make the brand even stronger. It does feel weird, I will say, because SPI was my baby and still is, although it feels like it's maybe a disgruntled teenager at this point instead of a baby. But it's going through these changes. You know, it's, like, physically changing and.

Right. Like, it had a growth spur. It's tall and awkward, but not even.

Right, Right. Exactly. And we're not, like, quite sure how to use the limbs yet, but it is growing into something beautiful, and I'm just really excited for the future of it to have somebody else come on and, you know, make even smarter decisions and not get back to the point where it's like, all right, Pat, you owe us two videos this week. Like, I'm still gonna have some creative say, but most of all, just have a lot of that time and space to go into the 40s with whatever it is that I want to do. And I have a lot of big goals, like I said, that just wouldn't be able to do as CEO of the company anymore. So there's a lot to unpack there. So hopefully that gives you a nice little history. Oh, my Goodness from where we were to where we are now. Yes.

It's like a pile of gold coins. There were so many good nuggets dropped first. I love this analogy of the Avengers and everyone using their own superpowers, and I think it's a superpower to assemble a team like the one you have. I love. I had a huge smile on my face as you were talking about Matt and his progression with you and your partnership and knowing you're born on the same exact day. I met Matt way back In, I think, 2011, the first WDS. And I've kind of watched him from the sidelines and watched the two of you partner. It's really beautiful to see that you kind of dropped this very casually, but you said, yeah, and then I acquired his company and his team. I think for a lot of us who listen to smart passive income and who followed you over the years, your transparency is so generous. But a lot of us would not think to acquire someone else's business, even though that's maybe more common, let's say, in the startup world. How did you know that that was the right move and how did you know Matt was the right guy? Because it can be kind of nerve wracking making these big business partnership commitments.

Oh, for sure. I mean, we had already been working together from a client point of view. I was his client again. He had a company called Winning Edits. I was their biggest client. They had a few other clients that they were helping with production for book writing and things like that, but they were definitely doing a lot of heavy lifting for myself. And then, if I remember correctly, Matt and I had a conversation where it just was like, what if I was your only client? What would that look like? And it was like, wow, I'd get more of the team, I'd get more time, I'd get more. Not just of their effort, but probably their mind. Because when you have your own team, right, and you're the only one that they're thinking about in terms of the company and its success, it's not divided across all these other clients. And if it's 2x the amount of time you're getting, you're probably getting 10x the amount of that person's energy for your business if it's done in that way. And so we just had a conversation and Matt proposed, like, hey, what if you just acquired the business? I think Matt actually was the one to get down on one knee and then propose this. So I was a little reluctant at first because that's a big decision. You know, that's a lot of money involved and that I was the only person on my employment sheet. Still, it was nice having Matt as sort of contractual work because it was very easy for paperwork. I didn't have to worry about benefits or anything like that. It was all contractual stuff. But then I also looked at the numbers of what it would have cost to bring the team on. And it did cost the same that I was paying his team prior that I was paying him and his company to have them help me. It was going to essentially be the same cost because when you work with an agency, they'll help you, but they'll also tack in like a 20% agency fee on top of that so they can make profit and whatnot. Well, I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore because these people would be on my team and the numbers would have worked out the same. But I know that I would have gotten, obviously a lot more time and like I said, 10x the mindset to help grow the business and truly dedicated people who are here for the audience that I'm building and the service to them. And so it just made sense. So, yeah, that's kind of how it went down. And it was an interesting transition. And I'm thankful because the person on his team who was in charge of his team, the HR stuff and the benefits and all that stuff just now started to do that for SPI Media. And so it was an easy transition in that way, but hard for me personally, because now I just felt, wow, there's so much more that I'm responsible for now. These are my employees. These are people whose lives now depend on the business and me and this smart, passive income, personal brand of Pat Flynn to do well. And if we don't, then they don't have jobs anymore. But leaning into our superpowers and focusing on the courses and now SPI Pro, it's amazing to see what the business has been able to do to support them and their families with healthcare, with retirement planning, dental vision. The fact that I see them smile on zoom and I'm like, yeah, your smile is partly because I was able to help pay for that. That's awesome. I don't actually think that, but I'm just kind of putting two and two together now. It's like, wow, we're doing so much more good and we're helping so many more people directly in the business as employees versus if they were just kind of contracted out. And I appreciate that. And although there is more headache, there's some taxes and Things related to that, especially with remote teams that you have to file in every state that they're in and whatnot. I'm not a lawyer or an attorney, by the way. Check your professional for your own business. But it's been really nice and it's been beautiful to see the team grow and take ownership of things. I think that's the other biggest thing with relation to hiring the team and acquiring the team versus working with them as an agency was they now feel ownership for the parts that they're responsible for in the business versus just getting the job done and getting a job on time. Hopefully now it's like there's purpose behind it for them and they also see the results because we have very close ties and connections to those who we're serving in our audience.

Yeah, that's such an important and powerful shift is when the team drives the business forward as if it's their own. And it sounds like Matt has been such a great partner in doing that.

Huge. Yeah.

So congrats, by the way. You're one month in stepping out of the CEO role officially and about to turn 40 later this year. Matt as well. It's so exciting. Everybody steps out of this. Not everybody. I've talked to Michael Bungay Stanier on this podcast about stepping out of his CEO role after 20 years of building box of crayons. That looks different for everybody. Some people like to not have any involvement whatsoever. Some people are going to stay hands on. So how did you think about your ideal non CEO role? I wonder? What if you currently have a title or not. But how do you and Matt work it out so that you're not stepping on each other's toes? And I would imagine there might be a learning curve of learning not to be the CEO in a way, and letting him sort of take over even more responsibilities. Even though it sounds like you've also done that very gradually over the years.

It has been very gradual. And I think that's what's led to no sort of rubbing of shoulders in a terrible way at all. My title now is just founder owner, essentially. And it allows me to almost become a floater. I can float between different teams and help out, and I'm doing a lot more creation than I did before. But honestly, not much has changed. I mean, January 1 came by, celebrated New Year's first workday right after, and it was like, all right, I'm kind of still doing all the same stuff I was because it kind of felt like Matt was becoming CEO of the business anyway for A while and I was playing more creator role, which is where I love. And Matt, with his superpowers and his spreadsheet magic, he's able to lean into that even more now. And I think he just now has the title and the credit that he deserves with an spi. And that was something that when I recognized from a higher point of view, like, wow, I'm not going to be positioned as the CEO of the company anymore. What does that mean? What might that look like for people? How would that be perceived? Would it seem like I'm just trying to leave everything behind and escape something that's failing? Or would I be perceived as somebody who's moving on to something else? And although I do have other things that I want to do, I'm still around. My face is still on the podcast artwork, and I'm still going to be. Even if I were to get to the point where the only thing I'm doing now is advisory work for spi, which it could get to that point literally. The business is running on its own, CEO, whether that's Matt or somebody else focused on the business and making decisions. But I'm still there as an advisor. Like, I am an advisor to eight different companies in the SaaS and creator space now. I mean, that would be great. But for now, there's no plans to have me stop the podcast or anything like that. There's no plans to have me stop even making decisions on which emails to send and whatnot. I'm still very heavy in the marketing role within Team SPI and playing almost a little bit of director now there before we start to potentially look for somebody else to come in and fulfill that role. But yeah, not much has changed. And again, it's largely due to the fact that Matt and I have had several conversations about this and we actually hired somebody to help us with this. There are people out there who can consult with you with relation to succession planning in all different kinds of ways. And I know that there are some people out there who have removed themselves from CEO or owner of their company and then do nothing. Like they're literally done and they wipe their hands clean and they move on to the next thing. And that's not what I'm doing. It is more of a formality and a step toward the future of the business and other things that I have going on versus on this date, you're no longer doing anything and things are changing forever. So it's a gradual shift. But I think it also speaks to the. If you want to talk about Clockwork and Mike Michalowicz. This idea of being able to step away from your business every once in a while and have it continue to run for four weeks at a time and then be able to come back with no worries at all. That's fantastic. What if I'm able to build a business in a way which, yes, requires a new CEO to come in, but in a way where I could literally just check in once a quarter and yet the business still continues to run and I earn revenue because of that. Like that's like clockwork times 50. So that's sort of what I feel like I'm leading to. But at the same time, because I enjoy the creation so much and because I love my audience so much, I don't envision a time anytime soon where I leave focusing, helping and serving that audience because that's just who I feel like I'm meant to serve. So why would I walk away from that when it's so deeply ingrained into my heart?

I love that and I just want to highlight. I think it's so exciting for your audience for two reasons. One, it's the trust you've built over 13 plus years that enable you to expand SPI Media because people trust you so much because of the value you add, which is what you teach is just always be giving and adding value that I saw you have this whole portfolio of podcast now and I can't wait to listen. It's like these are curated by you. Just like the tools that you use and the companies that you advise. I use circle because of you. I met my friend Leanne through you. Like you're such a connector and a curator. So it makes sense to me as someone in your audience to see you expand the portfolio of what you offer. And then the other thing is, I think it can be so nerve wracking for the founder to do what you're doing and step aside or let other people step in. But your audience, it means that they get more of you and that more of the best you and more of the creator in you. That is why everybody showed up in the first place. We don't need you doing the taxes and the HR payroll. You know what I mean?

That's exactly right.

I hope Matt does love that stuff.

I don't want to do it either.

Right, right.

It's like he does.

We want to imagine you set free from those aspects of running the business and let other avengers on the team take them over because it means that we get to see you more on YouTube and in your podcast and in a second show. I don't even know how you do everything you do as is.

Yeah, I mean, that's so true. I mean, you think about a lot of these web designers, for example, who love web design, and then they start an agency and then they're no longer web designing because they have a team of web designers, and they're always focused on the relationship stuff, and maybe they don't like that and they're introverted or they are focused on the management of those team members, and that's something they've got no experience doing or just aren't really that great at leadership. But they don't even do what they were meant to do anymore. And they're only doing it because that's what they thought they were supposed to do or they thought that was the only way to grow. So I think understanding who it is that you are and where you want to go is really important, and making sure that you're designing for that. This is the cool thing about this, and it's a term that was once used and maybe overused, but I think it's gone away, and I think it should come back a little bit. And that's this idea of lifestyle design, being able to design your business in a way that supports you and the lifestyle that you want. And a lot of us kind of lose track of where we're at sometimes because we're so involved in the business, or we're just drawn in by the money potentially, or we feel like if we don't do this, it's going to all crumble. There's a lot of reasons why we lose track sometimes. And I think that, again, I'm just very grateful that Matt has stepped in and other people in the company to support the business in a way that it continues to run, it continues to serve. But like you said, now the audience will get more of me, and that will likely bring more business in. And, you know, if I was just doing the paperwork all the time or a lot of these managerial type of things that I'm just truly okay at, and I know there's people who are better than me at, well, then I wouldn't be fully showing up to the audience that I care about as much anymore. So I think that it's the right decision. It's not an overnight thing, that's for sure. And it's definitely something that I question every once in a while. I'm not going to say I knew this was the right direction. I kind of always was wondering, is this Right. For me, we always ask ourselves these questions ten years down the road. What if this is the moment that changes everything? What if this is the bad decision that turns everything wrong and then I am naked in a ditch somewhere in Vegas or something, or it spirals out.

Of control, it's no longer my business. I hate it. It spikes the brand into the ground.

Totally right? Or so that's a story we tell ourselves, right? We make up these stories and we as humans just love drama. And we try to create it from nothing sometimes. But I try to force myself to think about, well, what are the positives? What if SPI was running so smoothly and everybody was getting so much value from all the players that are there and I am still able to show up when I want and I'm still able to provide value. My courses are still there, obviously, but I'm able to try my hand at a lot of these other things. I'm able to start a coffee farm in Hawaii, which is a big goal of mine. And a lot of these other things that just wouldn't be possible if I stayed the path I am now. Because as I heard Ramit Sethi once say before, what got you here won't get you there. Right? What got you here won't get you there. And the cool thing about that is understanding that every growth that I've had personally as a business owner, as a founder, as a creator, has come as a result of stepping outside of my comfort zone and doing something new. It's those moments when I continue to do the same things over and over again that I either get bogged down or I get bored. I get tired, I get overwhelmed, I get potentially burned out. That's when I can step back and go, what am I doing? I'm not even trying new things or pushing myself. I'm just trying to remain busy for busy's sake. And so that's why I'm excited more than anything. And the story I'm telling myself is, what if this is a decision that makes my 40s the best decade I've ever had? Right?

Yes. And then that is what you create. I call those the burdensome bees. Bored, burnt out, bottlenecked or buried by bureaucracy. It's like when we fall into one of those, it's time to shift.

We'll be right back just after this.

Hi, this is Deechan Laichman and I am here to tell you toyotathon is on. So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year end deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary relief liability like the stylish and efficient Camry. The Ready for anything RAV4. Or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra. All with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota. Let's go Places.

Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go.

Of whatever you're carrying today.

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free to from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.

And breathe.

Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.

Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.

1-800-Contacts.

There's two types of growing pains I want to ask you about. One, you asked when you were interviewing me about micromanaging. I think early on when someone's going from an individual creator or solopreneur to having a team, there can be this awkward transition of not knowing how much feedback to give or how much to stay in the weeds of things. And it's this continual process of letting go. One of my all time favorite SPI episodes, I'm going to put it in the Show Notes is 1:15 on Inbox Zero with Jess. When you finally brought her in to tame your inbox, was there a time in your business where either you were a micromanager or you just had trouble letting go of things? And I'm wondering how you got over that.

Yeah, I think with relation to that episode and bringing Jess on my executive assistant to help with email, that was the point at which I was micromanaging the most. That was one of my first sort of hires, bringing somebody on to now be the person who will respond to the audience who's reaching out to me. I highly recommend you check out that episode. There was a lot of decisions made with regards to, well, do you use my name, but it's you or are you answering as Jess on my behalf? How are people gonna feel about that and what really had to happen? And I'm very grateful for Jess for this cause. She said, you have to just trust me, let me help you. And I did. And there were no fires to put out. And it was a learning process on both sides because she was learning how I respond and how I would respond to certain things. And I was learning to let go of the fact that a person needed to hear from me within the next hour after sending an email. Part of the struggle was when I grew my business. That was a big, big reason why I grew so fast, was because I was so responsive to people so quickly that I just blew their minds. And they couldn't help but share the fact that there was this person on the Internet named Pat Flynn who was just sharing everything and as helpful as possible. But of course, when you grow so quickly, you can only do so much of that to a point where then I only had 10,000 emails that were unread in my email inbox, and I needed some help. But after that, I think Jess really taught me, because after that, I almost looked for other things purposefully to see what I could hire out for. Mindy came on board to help me with editing my Ask Pat podcast. And the truth is, that show wouldn't exist without her because it was a new show on top of the show I already had, and I had zero time to put it together. All I had the time to do was to record these answers to questions that were coming in. And I said, mindy, I don't know how you're going to do it. I don't care how you do it. I need this into a podcast, and I'm going to come out with an episode once a week. Go. And she's like, I got this. And so there's trust. And it worked. But at the same time, it wasn't all smooth. In the beginning, when you work with anybody, you have to really ensure that you understand that it's not a push button hire. It's a time that you're going to have to. Have to train to get to that point where they are now automatic. And now it's automatic completely. I haven't touched the production of my podcast other than hitting record for the last seven years, which has been amazing because that's hours of time gotten back every single week. But the cool thing is all these people can do these things much better and faster than I can. And so I can now focus on the things that I know that only I can focus on or that I do best, that I can stay in my zone of genius. And I can let these other players come on to support that in a way that they can do it in their own zone of genius, which is great. And so it's just really crazy to think that I was so reluctant because looking back, it was honestly, the best decision I ever made was to hire people. And this led to then bringing Matt on and acquiring his team. I was, like, so into It I was like, I want to acquire all eight of you all at once now. And so that worked out really well. But yeah, it can be hard to let go. But now if I work with somebody, I'm like, I'm going to give them the commander's intent. This is how it works within our team. We have the objectives that we want to have and we let the team who is responsible for that particular thing, whether it's the marketing team or the operations team, or the CX team, the community experience team. We go, here are our objectives coming from top down, go. However you want to design that, go. You are responsible for this. You can design it, it's yours. You take ownership of it. And if they need help, cool. But honestly, they run with it. Because the truth is, and I don't remember where I heard this story, but it was about like a troop or some sort of wartime effort where a general was offering advice to their troops to say, like, hey, here's the plan to infiltrate our enemies. Here is the plan. It's like a huge booklet of like every step, step one to 100 in terms of how this is going to happen. And of course, when you have a very detailed, micromanaged, step by step thing, obviously things aren't always going to go the way as planned. It's just a kind of a guess. And then like if step four kind of unravels, then all the steps in front of that don't even matter anymore. Versus what they ended up doing was saying, here's the commander's intent. We want to infiltrate this country. However you want to do it, do it. But that's just what needs to happen. And then they get to come up with their own ways, with their own superpowers to be able to do that. And so that's what we do on our team. And I love it because the team feels ownership, they feel very proud. We celebrate those wins when those goals are achieved and those achievements are met and they step up. Right? And we're at a point now where everybody's become so efficient with their work that. And I don't know if you saw this, but I announced this on Twitter a couple weeks ago. But starting a couple weeks ago, we launched a four day week work week. And this is with the same pay just cut out one day a week. There's been a lot of studies about that in Europe, especially with production increased and happiness increased and stress levels decreased as a result of a four day work week. And when you study the history of why it's a Five day work week. It's just so interesting. So we are experimenting and we're getting good results right now. There's still a lot of surveys to be had and a lot of analysis and we want to do this for a few quarters to see what truly the outcome is and whether we go back to five day a week or not. Who knows, maybe we'll go to three day a week. Because it's often said that when people know that they have four days to get their work done, they're going to prioritize, they're going to strategize to get to the point where with that ownership that they have to make the decisions they need to make to get things done on time so that they can have their weekend even longer. Three day weekend is amazing for recharging. Coming back you have four days. So 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3. And our hypothesis is it's just going to make everybody happier and more productive and make decisions on what to work on. Much better.

Yay.

Are some of the fun things that we have working on now.

I love that you're doing that. See setting time free. Go be free. And I agree. It's so much more humane. We all need an errand day as well. Like we need a day that we have to go do the annoying errands out in the world.

Right.

That's awesome. And I love your data driven approach too of just testing it and being willing to try things. The second growing pain before we wrap up and I have just a question and a thought from my community for you as well. The other growing pain real quick. I love knowing that you worked with a coach to work on this succession planning and transition and MBS said that he did the same. It was really helpful to have a coach. What do you think is the biggest pitfall or something to watch out for that would be easy to make for somebody trying to step out of that CEO role in their business?

Yeah, I mean the biggest mistake would be hanging on for the wrong reasons or leaving for the wrong reasons too. I think that also it could be detrimental to the business if all these things aren't thought about because especially if you're a personal brand, the moment that that person leaves. I mean we've seen this with a lot of YouTube channels and blogs back in the day that were sold. A new person steps in, just everything tanks because there's so much care from that person. And so making quick decisions versus research, analysis, conversation and really drawing this out to a point where you can be confident and you're sure that this is the right thing is really the right way to go. I understand sort of the reason to potentially want to remove yourself from a CEO position or a position like that quicker. I wish I could, in a way, have more time to create and also just be advisor at this point, but it's going to take some time. I mean, I'm still in the marketing. I'm still not just, like, ripping the band aid off and leaving, but at the same time, I think conversation is most important and deep understanding internally within you and the other players involved, because you don't want to leave somebody hanging either. And you don't want to leave in that kind of. With troubled waters for them. You want to make sure all parties are taken care of. And that takes conversation, takes openness, and I think perhaps to bring it down. I think the biggest mistake is just being dishonest about this with yourself and others involved. So honesty always is best. And yes, it might lead to tough conversations, but this is how you get to where you want to go. Right. These tough conversations where there's discomfort can lead to the places where there is the most comfort.

Yeah. And as you said, that vision that you have for entering the next decade of your life of being the creator in chief again.

Yep.

Quick thought from Jonathan Bosch. I put out the call to my community to see if they had any questions for you. Jonathan said, no questions, just gratitude for you being another example of consistent kindness and creativity applied daily in a way that inspires others. So thank you. I second that.

Thank you.

And then Leigh Ann Hughes, the firecracker. Reason that I know that I know Leanne is because she heard me on your show and, oh, she's just one of my favorite people. Her question is, how on earth did you stream every day to YouTube for 365 days?

Yeah. So if you don't know about this, In March of 2020, when the pandemic hit, I went live on YouTube and I was just planning to go live for like a day or two to be there to support the community and to show up and kind of provide a shoulder to cry on, essentially, because we were all struggling at the time. And that one day turned into one full week. The one full week turned into a whole month. And I said, you know what? We're just going to go for the full year. And there was nothing else to do. So what better way to keep yourself distracted but also provide value at the same time and hone in on your craft than go live every day on YouTube? A lot of people Go. Wow, that feels like it took a lot of work. And it wasn't no work, but it also. I always try to design things in a way that is as frictionless as possible. So my setup in here, in my home, in my office, was the same every single day. I didn't touch anything. I only had to push one button. Everything turns on and I can just hit a button and go live. So that removes a lot of the friction. It's a similar thing, too. If you're going to go to the gym, have your clothes laid out with your shoes and socks the night before, so that when you wake up and you don't want to do it well, you're gonna use the excuse of, well, I need to get all the clothes ready and stuff, and that's just gonna take time, so I'm out. So I tried to make it as frictionless as possible. Number two, I like to gamify things. So getting to a hundred days straight was like a milestone, right? And celebrating that day and a thousand hours or whatever, like, those kinds of things become games to me. And gamification and numbers are very much in my DNA. As far as what drives me, mastering the skill is something that's very, very important to me. Whatever it is that I'm working on, I want to master that skill. And live streaming was fairly new to me, and I knew that there were ways that I could figure out how to do well with it and try new things. I also used every day to experiment. I also used every day to see what topics people would respond to, which gave me signals as to, well, what courses should I create or what topics are of most interest that I can go deeper with on a video or even a podcast episode. So that was really helpful. So there was a lot of value coming back my way as a result of that. But I did get really, really good at streaming live to a point where now I've spoken at a lot of virtual events, still a lot of virtual events happening. And I'm always noted as the top speaker. And I know a part of it is not just because I've practiced communication through a podcast for over a decade now, and I've been on stages in person, but literally, because I have all the fun toys that allow me to make watching a person virtually that much more interesting. With my stream deck from Elgato and sound effects and different camera angles and things like that, that just add flavor that I know has me standing out from everybody else out there who's doing live video, too.

I mean, that's so true. Because even in our five minute breakout, you were talking. Bam. All of a sudden your book is showing up next to you. Just all these little fun features. The only challenge would be 365 different graphic tees because you always have such good messages on your T shirts.

Yeah, right. I mean, I tried to do a different shirt every day, and then all of a sudden, like, come day 60, they started to recycle.

Right. You need like the T shirt team member that's always taking little snippets from your podcast.

Yeah.

I also love how you've talked in the past about Just In Time Learning. That instead of getting overwhelmed trying to learn everything about every platform all the time, there's a great example of you doing Just in Time learning. So, okay, now my focus is on live streaming and I'm going to get as good as I possibly can.

Yeah. And start messy. You know, as my buddy John Lee Dumas says, you know, you gotta be a disaster before you become the master. And thankfully, it wasn't a disaster disaster, but it definitely was kind of rough. And I was learning a lot, making a lot of mistakes on the go. But I'll tell you, there's no better way to improve than making a mistake in front of, you know, hundreds of people. Now I know I'm not going to do that again next time kind of thing.

Last question as we wrap up. If you could give permission to fellow business owners to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be?

I would say I give you permission to fail. I mean, perfectionism is the biggest thing that stopped me from starting back in the day. And I know with a lot of my students in my courses and even in SPI Pro, it's often the permission to fail that moves a person forward because that's how you learn. There's no better learning than failing because that helps you understand which direction not to go. And if you're anything like me, grew up in the 80s and 90s school, it was all about getting the best grades. It was all about getting into the right college. And a failure would have just been the end of the world. But now I've had to deal through and fight through that conditioning. And now I appreciate the failures. And I look to get to the point where I'm close to failing. I don't try to fail, but I put myself in a position that if I were to fail, I know that I'm going to grow on the second iteration and the third iteration. So I give you permission to fail. And if you've been thinking of starting something and worried about trying to get it right or worried about the right timing. Just go into it and yes, try your best. But if you fail, that's okay. Just learn from it and then keep going.

I love that. Pat, thank you so, so much. Thank you for your time today, for sharing so openly about this big transition in your life and Matt's. And thank you for all the work you've done for over a decade inspiring so many of us. I'm just beyond grateful for you.

Thank you Jenny. Thank you everybody.

Thanks everyone for listening.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star. Thank you. Word of mouth is the most joyful way we can grow this show and it helps us land interviews with the luminaries and insightful guests that you would mostly most love to hear from. Please send this episode to a friend who might find it helpful and for show notes and related links from this episode, visit itsfreetime.com while you're there, make sure you're subscribed to the Time well Spent newsletter. You'll get instant access to my Tech Toolkit, a continually updated list of all the software I use, along with the total monthly spend to run my business where no one works full time even me. Visit itsfreetime.com join remember, you are running the show. It's time for radical reimagining and everything is up for grabs. Let it be easy, let it be fun, and build with love.

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's Unlimited Wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.

Of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if network's busy, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.