[00:00:00] Hala: Hey, Patrick, welcome to young and profiting podcast. It's 

[00:00:02] Patrick: good to be on with you. 

[00:00:04] Hala: I am very stoked for this conversation. You are the CEO and founder of the PHP agency and the creator behind the hit YouTube channel Valuetainment, which is the number one YouTube channel for entrepreneurs. And before we get into your come-up story and your most recent book, your next five steps, I did want to touch on your amazing story.

[00:00:22] Hala: You were born and lived in Dhahran during the Iran Iraq war in 1986. Take us back to those terrifying days when you were just eight years old and what those moments were like for you. It's 

[00:00:33] Patrick: crazy. You're asking that question. We were just having this conversation with somebody, but yeah, it was born in 1978 during the peak of the revolution in Iran, where they were kicking the shot out.

[00:00:44] Patrick: So I was born October eighteen, seventy eight, four months later, he went into exile. Khomeini came in the moment. Khomeini came in, Saddam Hussein in Iraq saw the fact that Iran wasn't shambles and for many didn't have the military leaders ears. They didn't really respond to them. This was a weak moment in Iran.

[00:01:02] Patrick: He attacks. So we were at war with Saddam Hussein in Iraq for quite a while. I remember one day we're living in Tehran, Iran, and we got bombed 160. Sometimes in a day we escaped it around. We went to a city called chadash and then from cataracts, we went to Bandera Pallavi, which is like north Iran. And then eventually we came back to Tehran and my mother finally said, this is not a place to be.

[00:01:24] Patrick: We would always watch Rocky movies. We would watch movies with a dream of one day coming to America. And my mom told my dad, if we stay here, this guy has to serve the military. And I don't want my son to serve the Iranian military. My dad agreed. We sold everything. We, uh, got on a plane, Lufthansa plane went to Germany and I lived at a refugee camp there for two years.

[00:01:44] Patrick: And from there came to the states, a couple of things that helped me out with both of those areas, any Iran, extreme level of paranoia, which some people may say paranoid. It's a very good thing. If you're a military leader, it's a very good thing. If you're a parent, it's a very good thing. If you're a founder of a company, it's a very good thing.

[00:02:02] Patrick: If you're an investor, it's a very good thing for all of those things. So that paranoia got me to always be thinking about what if we go out of business? What if we do this? So let me save a little bit more money. Let me invest more. What if the speed slows down? What if we can expand it? What if this was always that?

[00:02:17] Patrick:  So you're more urgent. You'll put 2, 3, 4 more hours a day. You'll show up on a Saturday. You maybe you'll do a half day on Sunday every once in a while. And then in Iran, in Germany at the refugee. We were there with people from Yugoslavia at the time Poland, Afghanistan, they're all over the place. I had to learn how to be from people from different ethnicities.

[00:02:40] Patrick: So I learned people skills and dealing with different people that was very helpful. And I came to the station November 20th, 1990, and that brought a whole slew of different issues that I have to get better at. 

[00:02:50] Hala: So talk to us about how coming from immigrant parents, like really shaped who you are into in terms of like wanting this massive amount of success, like you were extremely successful.

[00:03:00] Hala: Why do you think that is? Because I find that people who have faced the most adversity end up being the most successful in life. 

[00:03:06] Patrick: I just had the cold. If you've seen the movie king Richard with will Smith, the story of Serena. He just left the office five minutes before I got on with you. I had him on the podcast just a minute ago and we were talking about.

[00:03:20] Patrick: What it was like, he's played by Jon Bernthal in that movie king Richard. And he says parents were tougher back in the days under kids than they are today. So you're middle Eastern like myself. So, you know, our parents are a little bit more high standard pressures. Like you better do this. You'll be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer.

[00:03:43] Patrick: And if you become an engineer, you're a failure in life. If you don't have a four-year degree, how dare you not have a four year degree, constant pressure. Right? And so the idea of, uh, being raised in that environment, it was constant and never ending pressure to perform, which if you decide to compete in the world of business, we talked about players like Ben Simmons, who plays for the nets you're from Jersey.

[00:04:06] Patrick: So, you know, he's in that area, but Benson has just. From, uh, Philadelphia, he got $20 million last year for not playing Vista for not playing. And then he's coming to the nuts he's cleared to play, but he doesn't want to play because mentally he's going through certain challenges. And then these other tennis players are saying the same thing.

[00:04:24] Patrick: Somebody Olympic players are saying the same thing, what being raised in that kind of an environment toughened me up. Well, I could maybe tolerate pressure in a better way because I've had pressure in my life, my entire life, since I was a kid. So this is nothing compared to what we went through. Maybe that's the strength that you get from having that kind of an environment.

[00:04:45] Patrick: And now I have four kids. I have two boys and two girls. I'm trying to create that kind of a pressure for these guys. It's hard to do because they live in a resort. They travel everywhere. You know, they, they have a certain lifestyle that they're accustomed. So I have to figure out ways to create that pressure for them in a different way that maybe I didn't have access to because ours was natural.

[00:05:06] Patrick: But I think you need that. The more you have that as at a younger age, the more you're going to be able to handle it later on in life, because life is very, very hard. It's not easy in living in today's times, marriage, raising kids, finances, temptation challenges, competition, conflict, crucial conversations, staying healthy.

[00:05:27] Patrick: Taking care of your investments, following politics, you're not following politics. It's a different era we're living. So it pays a lot to handle pressure today. It's a very, very high paid skillset for those who know how to handle pressure. 

[00:05:42] Hala: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love that answer. So let's talk about when you immigrated to the U S so it wasn't exactly smooth sailing and high school.

[00:05:50] Hala: You actually had a 1.8 GPA. You had a really low sat score. Why do you think that you struggled so much in high school? Was it a language barrier? 

[00:05:59] Patrick: Yeah. So in high school, I took ESL all the way through college. First semester when I had ESL and, and I left college, I dropped out, but in high school I was all math.

[00:06:11] Patrick: I love math analysis. I love pre-calculus. I love everything to do with numbers. To me, math is like, incredible. everything else. I failed biology. I could care less about biology did nothing to me.

[00:06:22] Patrick: My teacher at the end, her name was miss Tiffany we're at our final. And she says, can I have Patrick David and Sean stand up? Me and Sean, this other kids stand up and she says, even if you got a hundred percent on this test, you still wouldn't get a D. So she says, I love you guys. You guys are very funny, but you have no reason to take the.

[00:06:40] Patrick: She gave us a hug and we left, I hadn't many of these classes that I had no interest in. I had no interest in certain classes at that phase of my life. I was interested in selling. I was interested in making money and I was interested in people. So let's just say you and I were classmates. I would have known everything about you by the end of the class, I would have known about your parents, their names, their date of birthday, your date of birth, your favorite food, your favorite sports teams.

[00:07:05] Patrick: You like sports. And what's your favorite movie, your favorite song? Who's your favorite teacher in school? Who's your favorite quarterback? I would have known details. Cause I'm curious about you. I was the curious kid that wanted to know the white kid. I was always like, why don't we do this? Who were why'd you do it?

[00:07:20] Patrick: What motivated you to do this? What do you, why do you like this so much? I don't like this. Why do you like it? It was curiosity. So that helped me. When it comes down to business, because I was extremely curious about human beings and what got them to tick. So I had zero interest in the current educational model that they had.

[00:07:36] Patrick: It was extremely boring to me. 

[00:07:38] Hala: Yeah. And it's really interesting that you say that because sometimes the traditional school system doesn't really cover what you actually need in real life. And it sounds like you were more about getting that experience and having social. And actually that can really pay off later in life.

[00:07:52] Hala: So I think that's pretty interesting that you say that. So you ended up joining the military because you basically thought you had no other choice. What was the military like for you? How did you apply those skills to entrepreneurship? 

[00:08:05] Patrick: I love the military. One of the best decisions I ever made is going into the military because I learned how to, again, get along with people from Mississippi, New York, LA, South Dakota, North Dakota.

[00:08:16] Patrick: I learned the different cultures in the state. I learned what it is to work 80 hours a week steady for six months straight. I don't what it is to sleep in dirt for a couple of weeks and couldn't stand it. I learned comradery. I learned teamwork. I learned back in each other up. I learn all of that stuff.

[00:08:34] Patrick: Military taught you hard work in a way people think they've worked hard until they go into the military and then they come out and this is shit that's on how much we have to work. Are you kidding me? Like this was ridiculous. What we have to do it make no sense like Jewish, so tired. I remember one time I'm in bootcamp.

[00:08:51] Patrick: We've done so many pushups. and anytime an officer walks out, you know, everybody's a company attain should've and everybody was standing like this and you have to salute the officer. I couldn't salute what my left hand is holding my right arm up and it would fall. I, my shoulders were gone.

[00:09:06] Patrick: Training was amazing. Cardio was nonstop, but, it brought us together. if you were at our army unit, you knew us. It was a group of our friends, myself, McElroy, Bradford, Gutierrez Klinger, man was a group of us. We were inseparable. You couldn't separate us when we were together. So you learn a lot of that stuff.

[00:09:26] Patrick: And when I got on, I started working at working at Bally, total fitness and sales. I brought that comradery. I brought that. You have to be emotionally tough. Cause we were very sarcastic towards each other. People couldn't handle it. Like everybody would take shots at each other, but we could do it to each other and then people wanted to get into the circle.

[00:09:42] Patrick: But we would kind of like, you got to really be able to handle this circle. This is not an easy circle to be a part of. We really kick each other's ass and like, oh, but I want to be a part of it. And then we try you. I don't know. You're too soft. You can't handle this. There was a certain level of toughness.

[00:09:55] Patrick: And I brought that back into our sales team that we applied. But it wasn't for everybody, but I love it. I wouldn't do it any other way. One of the best decisions I made in my life. 

[00:10:04] Hala: Yeah, something that I keep hearing from you, as you're talking about these stories, what sounds really important to you is all the connections you were able to make from all these diverse backgrounds.

[00:10:13] Hala: Like you said, when you're in the refugee camp, you met all these people from Europe and you have to learn how to be their friends. You came to America, you were curious about your classmates, you went to the army, you met all these people from the states and had to build comradery. Why is that so important to you?

[00:10:26] Hala: Why does that stick out to you so much when you, tell them. 

[00:10:29] Patrick: Motive, motivation stories. Everybody's family is screwed up in a way or, or another, and we all hide it very well. We all have that one relative that screwed up. We all have those moments where we were screw up at times, that connection gets you to see the humane side of people that we have a lot more in common than we think we do.

[00:10:49] Patrick: We may disagree on who's the best sports team we may disagree on, where we think taxes need. We may disagree on clothes or music or some of that stuff, but about 95% of stuff in life we, most people agree with and it's finding that commonality. And then outside of that, I don't think there's more exciting product in the world and people, I can't think of a more exciting, interesting product in the world and people, yeah.

[00:11:15] Patrick: Cars are not. Yeah, homes are nice planes. Gadgets. Technology is nice, but human beings steady motion is that feeling gets that finding what button moves you versus moves me versus moves my kids versus moves my best employee and finding out why that person who is so extremely talented. The other day, I had the boys, my sons watch Goodwill.

[00:11:39] Patrick: Huh? And there's a scene where Ben Affleck tells, his friend, Matt, Damon's saying, I swear to God advice to you three years from now, I'm going to kill you. He says, what do you mean? He says, look, some of us are not as smart as you are, but if you don't use that for anything, you're an idiot. So you, what are you talking about?

[00:11:54] Patrick: I see myself living here for the rest of my says, no, I don't. You got to get us. I look forward to one day coming up to picking you up and I knock on your door and you don't answer. He says, every day I come to pick you up, I hope is. That you left without telling any of us, because you're going to go out and pursue your dreams.

[00:12:13] Patrick: And eventually it happens when he goes knocks on the door. And I don't know if you've seen the movie Goodwill hunting and he doesn't open a door in that one scene. It's an emotional scene. It's kind of like, eventually we all have to make a decision to open that door and go spread our wings and see what we're capable of.

[00:12:27] Patrick: And that moment is scary. It's frightening because it's on us. If we, when it's on us, if we lose it's on us, you can try to blame your mom, your dad, your. Your boss, your teaching, your siblings, your, you can blame anybody you want, but unfortunately the market's going to put it back on you. And they're going to say, Hey man, I was your fault.

[00:12:44] Patrick: I know you don't want to hear this, but it was on you. Hey, good job. You won. That's also your fault and then shows up haters and competitors. But wait, I thought everybody wanted me to win. Well, no, not everybody wanted to see you win. Some people said that, but only if you actually wanted to see you win.

[00:12:59] Patrick: And how do you handle that? Because some of them are your friends. Some of them are your relatives. This is all part of testing. And very few people can handle all of this, but I don't know. I'm fascinated with human beings with people. 

[00:13:11] Hala: Yeah. And I can't wait to get into using your haters to feel your motivation and everything later on, but let's stick on your story.

[00:13:18] Hala: I want to learn more about your come up journey is super inspiring. So you left the military and then you wanted to become the next Arnold Schwartzenegger. And that was your plan. You went to California, I believe. And you want it to just become like a bodybuilder and make your way that way. So talk to us about that.

[00:13:34] Hala: Yeah. 

[00:13:34] Patrick: So I was the guy, if you would come to my army barracks, I had pictures of bodybuilders, fitness models and Arnaud and John Travolta everywhere. I mean, that's what it was when I say John Travolta. I mean, from the movie staying alive or Saturday night fever, I was the guy that would wear polyester.

[00:13:52] Patrick: With bell bottoms. And I would wear these shirts with the big collars. You should see some of the pictures. It's not a person, many would recognize if they follow my content. But, uh, yeah, I got out. I said, I'm going to be Mr. Olympia. I'm going to win the stolen fuel one day to go to Hollywood. Be a big star and then I'm going to marry a Kennedy and then one day I'm going to be the governor.

[00:14:11] Patrick: So God, that's what I'm going to be. Right. And then I came out and I went to the Australian peer, show myself to kind of learn if this is what I wanted to do or not. And I party with some of the guys and I'm like, there's no way in the world. I'm going to put in my body what I have to put in to win this thing.

[00:14:26] Patrick: And I'm 6, 4, 6, 5 I'm way too tall. The right height for bodybuilding is 5, 10, 6, 5 is two times. Maybe five 11, my muscles are longer, so longer muscles to develop. It's a tougher than shorter muscles anyway. So I said, yeah, I'm not doing Mr Olympia, but I came back and I started working at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

[00:14:46] Patrick: I met a girl named John veer who was working at Morgan Stanley. We met at Venice beach, we started dating and I said, you know what? I'm going to try this Morgan Stanley thing and give it a try. She worked there. I sent my resume in with a joke on the cover letter. I sent it to a hundred different places.

[00:15:01] Patrick: 30 people call me back. They thought the joke was funny. 15 of them offered me an interview. And then I think I got three offers and I took Glen bell, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter. And I was 21, 22 years old. When I first got started with them, got my series 7 66 31 life and health 26. And I went that route.

[00:15:19] Patrick: So as much as I loved Hollywood, as much as I loved storytelling and going and being a big time actor in Hollywood. And playing the rules that I wanted to play that moment. I'm like, Nope, I'm leaving this behind. I'm going to go this way. Maybe one day I'll make movies and I'll create a small little part for myself, but I'm going to go into business.

[00:15:39] Patrick: And I saw everything from the lens of a mathematician numbers. All this stuff fell in love with financial industry. And obviously the rest is history there. 

[00:15:47] Hala: Do you remember what the joke was on your cover 

[00:15:49] Patrick: letter? I do. I do. So father once tells him. Three sounds when I die, I want you to throw a thousand dollars into my burial in front of everybody.

[00:16:00] Patrick: I want everybody to know how much you love me. And he tells us sons, you have to make sure you do this. The kids say no problem. So today comes, dad dies. First son goes up, he throws a thousand dollars, but it's a $1,000 bills. Everyone starts crying. The second son shows up, he throws 20 $50. Everybody starts crying.

[00:16:20] Patrick: The third one was an accountant, becomes an, he writes a check for $3,000, drops it in there. It takes all the cash and walks out. So that story made 30 people laugh and three job offers. And I ended up working on Morgan without a four-year degree. Again, 

[00:16:35] Hala: this is you using your skills as a people person to get what you want.

[00:16:39] Hala: Right. It's as everything that you had learned along the way, and it ended up working out for you. Okay. So let's talk about you being an intrepreneur within your organization. Because like me, I started my business as a side hustle, working in corporate at Disney. So I also worked in corporate and I'm really happy.

[00:16:58] Hala: I took that route. I'm really happy that I didn't just start my business without any corporate experience first. So talk to us about the importance of. If that was, you know, your feeling as well, do you feel like you don't regret working for other people and learning off their dime? to me, when I started creating content, I made this video called life of an entrepreneur in 90 seconds.

[00:17:18] Patrick: And this was October 31st, 2015. It's been nearly seven years in a video, gets 10 million views in 24 hours. That's when that was viral, like everybody said, oh my God, I got 30 million. Now a few hundred million views it's had on different downloads uploads, and everybody was pressured to have that entrepreneur in their Twitter handle.

[00:17:41] Patrick: Right. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. And then a guy from IBM sends me a message and he says, look, man, I read your stuff. I follow your stuff. I feel like in order for me to succeed, I have to quit IBM. And I don't think that's the right decision to make. So I'm doing very well. I love the company, but I don't want to leave the company, but I feel like I have to.

[00:17:59] Patrick: I said, you know what? You make a very good point. Here's what you need to be thinking about. There are many great companies that retain potential future entrepreneurial. Who become entrepreneurs think they can make the same amount of money as an entrepreneur, without having to take the risk. He says, what do you mean?

[00:18:16] Patrick: I said, well, take Paul Allen for an example. He's an. we can go through so many stories of how money is made of people who are entrepreneurs or within a company. They become the president. Then they become the CEO. Like Tim cook was a billionaire. Now he's an entrepreneur. He's not an entrepreneur.

[00:18:33] Patrick: There are so many billionaires today. Who've always been an intrepreneur. Now what's an interim. And entrepreneur is an entrepreneur. Thinks like them works like them creative, like them obsessed like them. Oh, seat. Non-stop going, going, going like them. The only difference between the intrepreneur and the entrepreneurs, the entrepreneur put the money up.

[00:18:53] Patrick: That's it. So the entrepreneur gets a little bit more respect because he or she took all the risks. Most people are, but I have to go be an entrepreneur. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. Let me kind of put the option to the individual. Who's thinking they have to go be an entrepreneur in a different way.

[00:19:09] Patrick: Say, you know, Elon Musk at 32 years old, he lost started a company and he's planning on buying this one company called Tesla and he wants to compete in the automotive industry. You have a shot at going in and getting 0.2% of the company, but that's nothing pat. It's nothing. What's 0.2% today of a trillion dollar company. 0.2% of a trillion dollar company. It's $2 billion. So you may have been like, yeah, but you're not an entrepreneur. Yeah. Well, your, your $2 billion you did. Okay. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. So we try to be an entrepreneur being worth 50 million.

[00:19:48] Patrick: Or be an entrepreneur or $2 billion. Yeah. You can go on a liquor store and it's your liquor store. It's only one and you make 180 grand a year nets, but you're an entrepreneur. Or you can walk, go work with a chiller, a guy like Musk and get equity in that company and become a DECA millionaire. So that notion between the tool and social media has confused.

[00:20:08] Patrick: A lot of people. Before people jump and go out there and just become entrepreneurs. If you know any chillers around you, or if you know anybody, we said, I don't know who that person is, but I know that is going places with that new company has started. I'm going to send them a message and I want to send them one to work for you.

[00:20:24] Patrick: Before I started my own business, maybe that's going to be a better route for me, just as much as you are looking for ideas and companies to work for. Look for great creative minds and personalities. Who you feel are going to do something massive, figure out a way to go team up with them. That may be just as valuable as a great company to be a part of.

[00:20:43] Patrick: Maybe even more. 

[00:20:44] Hala: This is so valuable. I love what you just said. Like, I resonate so much with it and I think it also is important to understand what you really want, because money is not the end. All be all. it also matters. What kind of work-life balance do you want? Do you want to have a family?

[00:20:59] Hala: Do you want to work 18 hour days for. These are all questions that you need to ask about yourself and what you truly want in life. And sometimes they don't align with being an entrepreneur of a huge company. It's really hard to be an entrepreneur and a CEO. 

[00:21:13] Patrick: Extremely difficult. Yeah. 

[00:21:15] Hala: Okay. So let's talk about how you started your first company.

[00:21:20] Hala: So you worked at Transamerica for over seven years, and then you started a national finance service company. P H P H. And you say your business was inspired by saying your dad told you never be afraid of the truth. Why did you decide to start that 

[00:21:34] Patrick: business? Yeah, so I was working at Transamerica and I was at Morgan Stanley prior to that.

[00:21:40] Patrick: And a few things happened during that era. Number one is I saw in the securities industry, when you were selling stocks, bonds mutual funds, you had to report to your boss broker dealer. Every time you communicated with somebody on Facebook. So it was very weird. You're like every time we communicate with a client, I have to report it to you.

[00:22:00] Patrick: You do? Why? Because that's the BD guidance. I'm like, that's just insane because social media is the way of life as well, because you have to report everything on email. You have to report everything on social. So you don't understand that's not sustainable. Well, that's what the regulation says. I said, okay, sounds good.

[00:22:14] Patrick: Being somebody that securities licensed after adjust to it, then I said, that's not going to last. Long-term social media is here to stay and it's just going to get bigger. This is all for 18 years. Then I watched a guy named Ron Paul raise $6 million on my space in 24 hours. Okay. Now this is my space.

[00:22:33] Patrick: Most people don't know what my space is. If their age starts with the number two or they're teenagers, they don't know what my space is. Right. My space, your age has to start with three to really know what MySpace. At least that you used it, right? So he raised his 69 year old man runs for president and raise a $6 million on MySpace in 24 hours.

[00:22:54] Patrick: And it becomes a Guinness book of world record. I'm like, that's crazy to see that happening. Then I saw the Hispanic vote becoming very big. Then I saw one term Senator to become the two-tone. All through social media, raising five, $10 Barack Obama. And then I saw every article, talked about the fact that for every dollar that's spent 75 cents of the dollar spent the decision maker was a woman.

[00:23:18] Patrick: So women power was getting girl boss. This was like, it was starting to become more and more and more women wanted to become business owners and executives and entrepreneurs. Anyways, I'm watching all this stuff. I said, this is the direction the financial industry is going. So October of oh nine, I started my own insurance company.

[00:23:36] Patrick: I wrote a book about the next perfect. And I explained here's, what's going to be happening. And today, if you come to one of our conventions, we just had a convention at the MGM grand arena. You come in August, we'll have 15,000 people there. We've had delay Kobe Bryant interviewed in front of everybody.

[00:23:53] Patrick: We had president Bush there. We've had Kevin Hart duty irresponsible towards her. We've had Sebastian Maniscalco performed last year. We had Nicky jam there. Mike Tyson, we had Mario Lopez was our MC this year we have. We have Kurt Warner. We have Laila Ali, we have Penn and teller performing. We have Nellie's opening up the convention a concert. but the average agent, today's a 34 year old, Hispanic female. So I saw the youth. I saw the, women and I saw Hispanic and then we're multicultural. So you'll see 15,000 people from all different backgrounds. Those trends that I studied is what led me to start an insurance agency targeting that specific audience.

[00:24:35] Patrick: And it led to what it is. 

[00:24:36] Hala: That's amazing. And so you really made insurance sexy, you know, typically an insurance agent is like an old white guy. Right. And you're, you're having like young, Latino women selling for you. How did you attract those types of employees? Like, did you set out from the beginning?

[00:24:53] Hala: Like, I want to have a really diverse workforce and, and sort of disrupt everything. You set that out from the beginning. 

[00:24:59] Patrick: You're not married right now. Okay. So when I was single. What I did as a man. So everybody said, well, what are you looking for in a woman who got here's? What I'm looking for men typically are not as clear of what they're looking for early on, or you guys get it earlier than we do.

[00:25:15] Patrick: Right? One day, one of my agents, wife, Patty. I said, Patty, I've made up my mind. I'm staying single for the rest of my life. I enjoy my own company. I'll have girlfriends, but I'm not getting married this well before you decide to not get married, read this book called 101 questions to ask before we get engaged.

[00:25:32] Patrick: I said, okay, I'll read it. So I read the book. I'm like, wow. I thought I was looking for this in a wife. And I'm looking for this. It's crazy. I had no idea. Okay. This is kind of cool. Now I know what I'm looking. Well, once you know, what you're looking for your job is to tell the world what you're looking for.

[00:25:51] Patrick: Why? Because your friends know to give you good referrals of what you're looking for. Your coworkers, know what you're looking for. There's a difference between saying, man, I'm looking for a hot girl today. That's very general. Versus if you say I'm looking for somebody who's between the ages of 27 to 32, who's never been married before, who is a worker career person.

[00:26:15] Patrick: Somebody whose height they're between five, two and five, six athletic lights to work out. See the more I go, the more specific on being. So you may know a thousand different women, but I just eliminated 95% of them. And you're only thinking now about four girls that you may know that may be a good fit to go on a date for me.

[00:26:33] Patrick: And I don't even know if they're going to be interested in me. Right. But I went from a thousand to four. The more clear I got about the target audience I was looking for, then I started telling them. I'm looking for young, Hispanic women, competitive sports minded that Idera married with kids. This is what I'm looking for.

[00:26:52] Patrick: Fantastic. They showed up. So you understand, once you get clarity on the target market, you're going after then, you're better at asking for referrals and your referrals are more focused rather than general makes sense. So is it, well, you know, you say, you say I'm your Booker. And so I want to get some good guests on a podcast.

[00:27:10] Patrick: And all of a sudden your Booker sends you a list of names. You're like, I'm not interested in these guys. Well, can you give me a little bit more clarity on who you're looking for? I'd like to have people guests as a podcast. perfect. Let me go find them. So I got more specific. I told everybody the right people started showing up.

[00:27:26] Hala: I love that. Okay. So last question, in terms of getting to know you, before we get into your book, your next five. And so I found this quote for me that I really loved. You said reading an hour a day is only 4% of your day, but that 4% will put you at the top of your field within 10 years. And it actually reminded me of something that Steven Kotler taught me, which is that books are the best ROI on your time.

[00:27:48] Hala: So authors, they spend hours and hours, maybe their whole lifetime creating a book, and then you get to digest it and just a handful of hours. So I'd love to understand how reading changed your life. 

[00:27:59] Patrick: I mean, you said it earlier, right? 1.8 GPA. First time I finished a book cover to cover. I was 21 years old.

[00:28:05] Patrick: I've never finished a book cover to cover. I was 21 the first time I did it. And then once I read a business book, I'm like, I can't believe this. Isn't a book I've written over 2000 books and God knows how many business articles. And that led me to who I am today. I think it's. I remember one time, one of my advisors came and stayed at my place and he went to the room that he had and he went into the shower he's in the shower for 45 minutes.

[00:28:30] Patrick: And I'm like, I know discovery. I've traveled the world with discover. That's a long ass shower to be in my bathroom. What is this guy doing in my shower? So all of a sudden he comes out, pumped up, but you good? He says, yeah. So w what's up with you? He says your wall, your wall in the shower is awesome. I said, Well, I had all my affirmations on the wall.

[00:28:50] Patrick: Okay. So he went through all of my affirmations cause I would laminate them and I would put it on all my showers. So if I'm in the shower, I'm always reading my affirmations in the shower. Okay. While I'm in there. Oh, this is a great idea. I'm going to do the same thing, et cetera, et cetera. Those affirmations are a by-product of the books.

[00:29:10] Patrick: I would read a book, I'd get a quote. I put it in there. Right? Be careful what you joke about or be sarcastic about because your spirit stops having faith in awards that come out of your mouth. Boom that's power. Highest form of maturity becomes a is when you become independent of other's opinions. Oh, that's awesome.

[00:29:24] Patrick: Hi, swarm of maturity, maturity, independent of other's opinions. I can handle more time. All of these things were being added. One by one by one by one by one, again, byproduct of books and any event. They stick the more till you tell it to yourself, they stick and you, you start becoming these quotes. 

[00:29:41] Hala: Yeah.

[00:29:41] Hala: Let's stick on the law of attraction because I know that you have a unique perspective on the law of attraction. Why is it not enough to just say affirmations? What else do you have to 

[00:29:49] Patrick: do? Listen, that's a, cop-out when people say, you know, law of attraction, I say, good things are going to happen to me. No, that's not how this thing called life works.

[00:29:57] Patrick: The question about what's the key to success. I've asked God knows how many people and said, oh, well the key to success marry the right person. Work hard, save money, go to college. Love people. Believe in God. There's so many of these different keys to success, right? For me, it came down to a few different things.

[00:30:16] Patrick: One on myself to enjoy my own company is alignment because if I live a life, the behavior of my life is. With my values and principles, I'm at peace, but if the way I live is different than the values and principles, I'm just out of whack. So I'm tough to be around. There's a bit of bitterness there. What is pat dealing with?

[00:30:39] Patrick: All you have to know is that these, this is out of whack a little bit, right? So that was more alignment when people want to be. I feel people who are calibrating at the highest level and competing at the highest level, they're very aligned. 

[00:30:51] Patrick: Then the other side for me, the key to success was out, work out, improve out strategize and outlast outlast.

[00:30:59] Patrick: We're not really going to know who the real competitors are for two days. So most people are picking their rabbits way too early. It's going to be 20 years till you're going to know who's who 20 years ago. Nobody would've put Elon Musk on that. 20 years later, it's Muskegon basles. Those guys have made it very clear is who they are.

[00:31:18] Patrick: So social media influencers, we're not going to know who to kill our social media influencers are till 2035. We're not gonna know it's going to go on for many, many more years, 20, 35, 5000. Do remember that one guy that used to override and talked about it. Everybody talked about her on Twitter, Instagram, everybody tell him on a YouTube.

[00:31:35] Patrick: Haven't heard that guy's name for the last five, 10 years. What happened? So the pool starts beating. And then all of a sudden, only a few people make it at the top. Right? So outwork out, improve out strategize and out last, last takes 20 or strategize. It takes a while because it's going to take a while for you to come up with good strategies out, improve.

[00:31:54] Patrick: If you want to compete with anybody, beat them out, improving them in and out work. So laws of attraction as good as form of affirmations, but affirmations by themselves without workout and prove out strategize. Outlast means nothing. 

[00:32:08] Hala: I talked to David and he talks about the law of Goya. Get off your ass.

[00:32:13] Hala: You've got to combine that with the law of attraction, if you want results. Okay. So let's talk about your most recent book it's called your next five moves. You wrote it in 2020, and the title of the book is related to chess. And you say that you always need to be thinking steps ahead of your opponent to win.

[00:32:28] Hala: So talk to us about the vision and mindset of a chess master and how that is related to 

[00:32:33] Patrick: business.

[00:32:34] Patrick: Life is all about sequencing, all about sequencing. You and I may play the same game, but your moves may be better. And my moves or not, you're going to beat me meaning I'm so impatient that a move that I'm supposed to do as move 19.

[00:32:49] Patrick: I do that move three. I lose versus you are willing to be patient to do move 19 at move 19. You have an edge over me.  I once watched this movie years ago, it was called flash of genius. I don't know if you've ever seen a movie flash of. It's the story of I've guy who invented the windshield wiper.

[00:33:11] He had this winch intermittent windshield wiper that he invented. So there's a scene in this movie where he's in court. It's a must watch movie. He takes these intermittent wiper years ago when cars are driving and they can't get rid of the rain or to stop.

[00:33:27] Patrick: And he invents this. It's a very big deal. He takes it to Ford Chrysler to everybody. Well, they blow them off, but they take his patent and do it themselves. And he never makes the money on it. So wait a minute. I came up with this. They're like, no, you just use three parts and put it together. He says, it doesn't matter.

[00:33:44] Patrick: I came up with it. They blew him off and they were thinking this guy is going to be gone. Cause he does not have the kind of money to go up against Ford's lawyers. Where long story short, he goes to court against these guys. He loses his wife. He loses his kids cause he lost his house. Everything he was that stubborn and his wife leaves them, takes the kids.

[00:34:04] Patrick: The guy's got nothing left to his name. And then there's this one scene where he's standing up and he says, so you guys all saying that it's not a big deal? Cause I just took three parts and put them together and anybody could have done it. Well, how come you haven't done it all these years. And I was able to do it.

[00:34:19] Patrick: He says, your honor, and he looks at the jury. He doesn't have a question for. He grabs a Charles Dicken book. him, grabs it, he opens it up and he says, have you ever used the word sometimes? Yes. Okay. Have you ever used the word conflict? Yes. Where's this guy going with this? Have you ever used the word love?

[00:34:37] Patrick: Yes. Every word that Charles Dickens used in the diction, in his book, we all know, but the reason why this thing sold millions of copies and why we're not Charles Dickens and he is, is because he knew what order. To put those awards that we all know about. We could have done the same thing, but he knew the order.

[00:34:56] Patrick: Finally, the jury says shit, this makes a lot of sense. The guy ends up getting $28 million and I'm talking 28 million in seventies and eighties now, 48 million today, 28 million during that time. And that's how the story ends. So what does this mean? You asked a question about your next five moves.

[00:35:12] Patrick: Everything is sequencing. If you start looking at life from a secret. You'll make decisions in a different way. So what's better date first, have kids and then get married. No date first, take your time. Depending on your religion, maybe live together for a couple of months, maybe travel to get it, to get to know each other, then maybe.

[00:35:36] Patrick: Get married after you're engaged, maybe stay engaged for six months. We then get married. Maybe enjoy each other's company for a couple of years, then have kids. I'm not telling you that's what to do, but I'm just saying like, there's an element of sequencing. You start a company while I'm going to go start a company and I'm going to go out there and do X, Y, Z.

[00:35:53] Patrick: Okay. Well, think about what's the right sequence within the company. You're starting. Who do you go recruit first? Who is your first hire? Who's your fifth hire. How much money should you raise? Should you raise capital based on. Or equity or cash. What should you do next? All of that is sequencing. So the people I'm convinced that when at the highest level, they obviously take the big risks, but they're much better at sequencing than everybody else.

[00:36:20] Patrick: And that's why I wrote the book. Your next five moves.

[00:36:23] Hala: This is super interesting. You know, I've done like over 300 interviews and nobody has ever talked about this. This is the first time that we've talked about sequencing in terms of decision. So you talk about five moves. Why is it five? Like why isn't it 10, because you might think, you know, the more moves the more, better off I'll be.

[00:36:40] Hala: So wifi, 

[00:36:41] Patrick: I originally suggested 15 moves because a grand master in chess knows your next 11 to 15 moves. I said your next 15 moves, but then the publisher, Simon and Schuster. That's going to be intimidating. It's a lot easier. If we go with five rooms, I said, no problem. We go at five, but in my mind, I'm more 15 moves.

[00:36:57] Patrick: So I think you gotta be thinking 15 moves ahead, by the way, this whole concept of your next five moves or your next 15 moves is not only within your health. It's also with your confidence. I got four kids, so I have your next 15 moves with them. Sports art, you know, with the interest that they have. It's your next 50 moves in your marriage.

[00:37:19] Patrick: Your next 50 moves with your companies. Your next 50 moves with a podcast. Your next 15 moves with signing talent to bring it on board. Your next 50 moves are where I should buy my properties. Now in the company is buying domains. it's not just one dimensional. It's your next 15 moves in everything you do.

[00:37:36] Patrick: So essentially. If you unpack this and you come up with 15 moves in every aspect of your life, you could come up with 150 different moves, but there are different. So imagine looking at your board and you come to your work and you're looking at the wall and there's 15 moves for all different areas of your life.

[00:37:55] Patrick: You handle your day in a different way. You make decisions in a different way. You take on new. Hobbies in a different way. You're a little bit more hesitant about picking up a new hobby that could maybe take 12 hours of your week from you. You treat everything in a different way. You hire people in a different way.

[00:38:11] Patrick: You invest in a different way. Everything becomes slightly more intentional when you're looking at the sequencing. 

[00:38:17] Hala: Yeah. Now how do you go about kind of deciding what order you're going to do things? Cause that seems like a lot of pressure. Like somebody might think like, well, what if I make the wrong move, then all the other moves are wrong.

[00:38:27] Hala: Like, what are your thoughts on that? 

[00:38:30] Patrick: You play monopoly. And if you go right off the bat to one of buy boardwalk and you spend all your money on boardwalk and say, I go and buy Indiana, Illinois, and maybe it's a little bit cheaper to buy that versus the other one. Maybe you shouldn't have bought boardwalk right off the bat because it's only two pieces.

[00:38:46] Patrick: Anyway, it's an all the way at the end. So maybe you should've bought a, you know, Atlantic, maybe you should have bought a couple of different, so, but that's part of the game. That's how game works. You got a kid. And we all, all of a sudden save money and we have a thousand dollars. If you go spend all your money in one place, well, maybe you bought something that doesn't give you return.

[00:39:03] Patrick: And your other kid took that thousand dollars and invested in that thousand dollars now, $1,800 judge on you. So many things we can do with our decisions that are short-term benefits without delayed gratification. Like I'll test my kids and I'll say the following, they'll say, daddy, can I have some ice cream?

[00:39:20] Patrick: And I'll say, yeah, you can get one. Of chocolate ice cream right now, or I can let you eat an entire ice cream at eight o'clock tonight. When we get home, what am I doing to the kid? If he says one leg, I'm like, shit, this guy's thinking short-term I'm hoping the kid says what? Yeah. I'm not going to take a lick.

[00:39:37] Patrick: It's not worth it. I'll wait until the end of the night. Okay, cool. So I'll give you a scoop at the end of the night. I'm teaching delayed gratification, right? We'll be tempted to make some of the decisions right now that we want to right now. But you, as a leader, as somebody, who's got a big vision, you gotta be patient to make the right moves in the right sequence.

[00:39:54] Patrick: It's tough to do by the way. Very hard to do. Yeah, 

[00:39:57] Hala: it sounds tough, but it's super, super helpful and interesting to hear you talk. Okay, so we've got about 10 minutes left. So I'd love for you to walk through the five moves in achieving your goals. So that's master knowing yourself, master the ability to reason master building the right team master strategy to scale and master power 

[00:40:15] Patrick: plays.

[00:40:16] Patrick: So number one, the most intimidating question, I'll ask people when I'm working with them, I'll say, who do you want to be? And they're like, what do you mean? Who do you want to be in life? I don't understand the question. What do you want to be? You want to be the one where all the pressures are. You want to be a role player?

[00:40:32] Patrick: You want to be somebody that's doing something very, very big. How big of a life do you want to live? Do you want to live a life where you got a nice condo and you're making one 50 and you're somebody that works nine to five and you're okay with that. And there's zero NBN you. If one of your friends becomes a billionaire or do you want to live a life where you want to find out what your full potential looks like?

[00:40:52] Patrick: You are really curious. Why did God make me talent? And then these following. Why'd you do this to me. God. Why don't you give that talent to somebody else? I didn't know. I'm talented in these three areas. Why'd you give it to me, man. I can not live the rest of my life. Not knowing why that is. So who do you want to be?

[00:41:06] Patrick: Kind of a life you want to live? That's a heavy question. When I ask somebody and they have to really think about them. There's a way to go through that process to. Who you want to be in the kind of a life that you want to live. That's number one, I made a decision a long time ago, who I want to be in the kind of a life I want to live.

[00:41:20] Patrick: I remember it's always, at this point, I've spoken in front of a hundred thousand people. I've spoken in front of audiences of 15,000. I'm in my late twenties. I've made good money. I drive a nice car. I'm dating the girl that I wanted to date. Who's. Now my wife we've been together nearly 13 years. I've traveled the world.

[00:41:36] Patrick: I've been in 40 countries at that age. I've seen a lot. Right. I've partied. I've had a good time. All of it. but I have a feeling of emptiness. I'm like, Okay, it's gotta be bigger than this. What is it? I bring all my advisors together and we have a meeting and I say, guys, I want to know what I want to do my life, what my real purpose is.

[00:41:55] Patrick: And it's just really driving me nuts because I think it's bigger than what I'm doing right now. So I asked one guy who was a, a pastor. I said, Do you think I'm supposed to be a pastor? And he says, well, listen, I've been in the church game for awhile. I can tell you for a fact, you're not made to be a pastor.

[00:42:10] Patrick: Okay. You're a business guy. There's nothing about you. That's a pastor. You just stick to what you're doing. Okay. Good. That's not me. Hey. Um, do you think I'm supposed to go do no, you're not. So eventually I need this one guy. George was. Well, it tells me why don't you find out why 40 million immigrants come to America?

[00:42:26] Patrick: Why do we call this the American dream? Well, you've never heard of the Russia dream, the German dream, the French dream. Why didn't it call him the British dream or the Brazilians? And why is there only the American dream? Why go study it and talk about that for the rest of your life. So I went and I did, I couldn't stop talking.

[00:42:42] that got me, for me to realize who I want to be and what kind of a life I want to live that inspired the hell out of me to explain chapels and with the life that I've lived in a complete different way. Number two is the team to the ability to recent, right? So once I started going through the process that I was going through unemployment as a leader, I noticed when I would sit with somebody and I would talk to.

[00:43:05] Patrick: I will try to catch this person's ability to reason if it's at a different level of mine. And I want to, pull that and draw that out of them. Right? And you will know certain people vibrate at a, at a certain level. You're like, Ooh, there was a lot of depth in this guy. This was very different of a person I spoke to.

[00:43:22] Patrick: I've never heard anybody explain it this way. I want to get better at that because in the book, power versus force, I highly recommend reading the book power vs force, but he talks about all these different levels that people have on which one produces the highest level of vibration and the way he breaks it down is that the lowest level that we all have is shame.

[00:43:42] Patrick: Then he goes to guilt. Then it's apathy grief, fear, desire, anger, pride. Then the first level where it leads to power, instead of force is courage. You have the courage to make mistakes. Then it's neutrality. You're able to entertain different conversations that people disagree with. Then it's willingness.

[00:44:02] Patrick: You're willing to work with people you're accepting of people. You don't judge that much. Then it's, you're able to reason have an exchange of ideas. Then it's a love, you love people. Then it's joy, peace, enlightenment being at the highest level, right? The way he explained is that in this book, I got you. I sat there and I said, I have to be able to process issues better.

[00:44:23] Patrick: So I created a system on how to process issues, how to solve problems, how to handle issues. And that system is a transferable system that I can give to other people where some people overreact when something happens, there was no need to overreact. And sometimes people under react and there is a need to overreact.

[00:44:39] Patrick: So people sometimes screw that reaction part up. And that formula is in a book that you can find it. Then the third one is team building. 

[00:44:46] Patrick: Everything in life to me is. recruiting a running mate is recruiting the right friends, recruiting the right mentor, advisors, recruiting the right spouse, recruiting the right COO president investors, board members.

[00:44:59] Patrick: Everything to me in life is recruiting. Then getting a formula on how to scale and your strategies, which kind of takes a little longer to get, because I'll sit there and I'll have a cup. We just hired a new talent, a very well-known talent that we just signed. We signed a three-year contract with her.

[00:45:12] Patrick: She just moved here from New York. We're excited about it. She's been a big name on TV for a while. And very well-known person on TV. So we just signed her and she came here and we had our entire team marketing team. There's 10 people in the room, you got Mertz, you've got design, you've got graphic, you've got all this stuff.

[00:45:27] Patrick: Right. And she started talking about, here's what we do this show. Here's what we did with that show. I remember one time I was in this meeting, we did this and we did that. We did this syndrome, like got it. So that's what they did on NBC. And that's what they did on Fox. And that's what they did on CNN. And that's what they did on ABC.

[00:45:43] Patrick: When she was enrollment, these decisions will be. I'm borrowing strategies and I'm writing them down, but strategy, you have to catch it. If you're distracted, you'll miss it. Somebody can watch this podcast in five different ways. One, I was like, ah, that was cool story. The other one's doing other things didn't catch anything.

[00:45:58] Patrick: We talked about the other, one's like, oh, that was interesting. The book I'll get it, but somebody can. I've never heard anybody explain it like this before I'm going to go buy that book. I'm going to go read this book. The reason part makes sense. I have to be able to reason better for, okay. So everybody they received, but if you screw it up and you miss it, you miss what you were supposed to get in the last, but not least the power plays capitalism businesses dirty.

[00:46:20] Patrick: You're naive. If you think, yo my gosh, everybody wants me to be a millionaire. Yeah. Okay. And unicorns are gonna fly over celebrating your success. That's not how life. You have to understand power place. You have to understand if you start winning and taking market share away from somebody else. There's envious people out there, not everybody.

[00:46:39] Patrick: But what I learned is the killers of the killers of the killers at the top, they feel there's so much left that you're like, listen, you go get it as well. You went as well. Totally fine that they don't come from the MBS place, but you have to be careful because if you got forbid, create an enemy, that's very envious.

[00:46:55] Patrick: You have to try to minimize it. You can naturally it's going to happen. You can't prevent that. But if you do that, You have to learn how to play the power place would that individual, because anyways, it's a complicated world when it comes down to competition. And I write about that in point number five, moving number five in a book.

[00:47:10] Patrick: So that's how I would describe the five months. 

[00:47:12] Hala: Amazing. So guys, we only scratched the surface. I highly recommend you go get his book. Your next five moves. I'll stick the link in the show. So project, we ask a couple of questions at the end of the show. It can be super quick. We do something fun at the end of the year.

[00:47:25] Hala: So first, what is one actionable thing my listeners can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[00:47:30] Patrick: Okay. Unfollow people whose a language produces a certain energy and feelings in you that is not necessarily an hour of your day follow people whose language and. Methodology of processing issues elevates your thinking.

[00:47:51] Patrick: You only have so many hours of focus per day. You can't afford to lose it. Train your negative friends and family to not call you often. The way you train them is if you pick up the phone call, every time they call you now only pick up every three calls, then go to every five calls. Then every seven calls, then they'll stop calling you because they realize you're not calling pick.

[00:48:14] Patrick: Of course, I'm not saying, you know, if there's an emergency. You have to train negative people to not call you, because if you train them to call you and you pick up every time they going to call you forever until you, they learn this, guy's not answering the calls anymore. I know it sounds kind of weird, but that's what I 

[00:48:27] Hala: would say.

[00:48:28] Hala: No, it's true. You got to protect your energy. Okay. What is your secret to profiting in life? 

[00:48:32] Patrick: Reading people? Tens of thousands of meetings face to face. And I like to read energy and people motives because you kind of it's intuition. Obviously you're not going to get a ride, but if you're right, 70, 80% of the time, you're in a good 

[00:48:46] Hala: company.

[00:48:47] Hala: I love it. Thank you so much, Patrick. I know you have to run. Thank you so much for your time. 

[00:48:51] Patrick: This was great. Thank you so much for having me on it was fantastic. 

[00:48:54] Hala: Thank you.