Empire State of Mind
Empire State of Mind
Pat Flynn's Visionary Journey Through Real Estate Entrepreneurship
What would you do if you found out you were about to become a parent? For our special guest, Pat Flynn, the news turned his life around, pushing him from flipping 420 houses a year to a full-time real estate career. Now, he's the proud owner of a 300-house rental portfolio and his sales team buys 30 houses a month. His journey is a testament to the power of vision, an idea that shapes this episode.
We get to the heart of why having a vision is key to the growth of a company, navigating changing market conditions to maximize profit. Pat’s military background, his encounter with Robert Kiyosaki, and the unexpected turn of events brought about by impending fatherhood took him on a rollercoaster real estate journey. But it was his resilience and offensive mindset that propelled his business even during a downturn. We also dive into the effects of changing interest rates on the real estate market and the importance of communicating the vision to your team.
This episode is also about life beyond business. We discuss the challenges of changing business partnerships, the recognition of life's changing seasons, and the importance of personal relationships, health, and well-being. Pat shares his weekly self-reflection practices, providing an insightful look into the life of a successful real estate entrepreneur. His journey is not just about real estate entrepreneurship but also about personal growth, making tough decisions, and finding clarity amidst chaos. Don’t miss this episode packed with valuable insights from Pat’s journey and his perspective on life and business.
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Contact Matt -
- email: matt@dciabq.com
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Welcome to the Empire State of Mind. On this episode we have Pat Flynn, who went from flipping 420 houses a year to catching a vision that would last his lifetime.
Intro:We believe the purpose of owning a business is funding your perfect life. Welcome to the next generation of growth and opportunity in the inspection industry. This is the Empire State of Mind. Empire State of Mind Building build companies with faster growth, higher profits and more time freedom. Finally, a podcast for the home inspection industry and beyond. This is the Empire State of Mind and this is your host, Matt Williams.
Matt Williams:Welcome to the show. I'm going to tell you today is a good day. We have Pat Flynn on as our guest. If you were at the IEB conference, he was one of our keynote speakers. He was an absolutely inspirational talking about how he grew his business up to a certain size and how he hit a lid and had to restructure and catch a new vision for his life and for his company. Hey, Pat, welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Pat Flynn:Appreciate you having me Matt Glad to be here.
Matt Williams:It's good. I'm glad that you're here today. We were talking a little bit off the air before we got started and you were telling me a little bit about your background. Your background you started off, I think you said, on a drilling rig, right, and then started doing some real estate and then you eventually grew one of the largest house flipping operations in the United States. Can you help our audience understand what was that like? What were you doing there?
Pat Flynn:Yeah, so I went to a small military college up in New York called Kings Point. Always wanted to be a Marine like the old man, and that didn't end up working out. But what did happen there was I've always been into kind of money and wealth building and even in high school and everything you hear those stories of like the kid selling donuts or whatever at a price Always had that kind of gene in me. I love that. I really knew what to do with it because it kind of came from a military type family and Robert Kiyosaki is actually also a Kings pointer where I went and he also played rugby there like I did, and the Kings Point rugby alumni kind of group there has always been really tight. So when I was a senior, he came and spoke because it's his alma mater, so he comes for free every couple of years and speaks to the senior class and he talked about his book you know Rich Dad, poor Dad and he talked about wealth and I read the book immediately after and that's where, kind of that's where the itch started.
Pat Flynn:So I sailed on ships for a few years after school on oil tankers in the engine room with the whole time. I bought my first property in 2010 in Massachusetts and at that time it didn't matter what you bought, as long as you held it for a little bit you were going to win. Because I graduated school at the bottom of the market, the bottom of the real estate market. So very fortunate for that timing. But just started kind of kind of buying houses and flipping them a little bit at a time. I worked six, eight months a year on the oil tankers and then was home for the rest of the year, so I had time at home to do stuff and had a little money in my pocket when I came home. So it was very fortunate very fortunate career path and timing, how the whole thing worked out.
Pat Flynn:And then went to offshore drilling for about five years and moved to Florida with a very similar schedule. So sold all my stuff in Massachusetts when I moved to Florida in 2013. And just started again down there, started going to all the REI meetup events, met as many people as I could, did a little wholesaling, bought some rentals, made as many contacts as I could in the area and then in 2016 is when I left that and jumped into real estate full time. And the only reason that happened actually is because my girlfriend got pregnant and we had our first kid in 2017 and very unplanned. But if that didn't happen, they probably would have never forced me into this full time, because it was always good. I was always making good money on the drilling rig and this was always a good side gig while I was home, so everything was kind of working. I knew I'd make it in my exodus at some point, but it was one of those things where it's never the right time.
Pat Flynn:Right, it's never the right time to pull the trigger, whether it's starting a family, starting a business, putting your job into it. So I was forced into it and very fortunate to have that happen and then through that time period over the past seven years, did a bunch on my own for a little, got up with a business partner, started learning everything I could about running a business and hiring and traction and EOS and setting goals and managing people and leadership and running an organization, and just one step at a time, I had this vision of over 400 houses a year flipping. I had this vision of a 300 house rental portfolio and I have a vision of a buzzing sales team buying 30 houses a month. And we accomplished all of that in the seven year time period, just going one quarter at a time and finishing the priorities that needed to get done.
Matt Williams:That's fantastic. It's interesting how what can be possibly viewed as a tragedy not a tragedy, but, like you know, your girlfriend gets pregnant. It's unplanned and you know that's not a tragedy. I mean, some people might consider it that I guess, but you know, but that's not like what could be considered as a disruptor or a negative. Yeah, like man, that just like really changed my life in a potentially negative way. Some people might.
Pat Flynn:Big time.
Matt Williams:Big time right, it's possible, but what was potentially something that disrupted you to?
Pat Flynn:But it's all how you look at it right, Matt Right yeah. It was a catalyst for you. It's very easy to look at that situation and be like holy shit, my life's over, sort of thing. Right, and yeah, it's all. It's completely all on how you look at it.
Matt Williams:It is how you look at it and that became a catalyst that launched you into building a huge, fantastic company, whereas I think some people will shy away right. So I've seen this before in people and maybe I've been tempted myself at times where a catastrophe or something that I view to be something like catastrophic or a huge shift, a big shift in my life. And I think sometimes human nature is to pull back and be like play it safe, like well, you know what? My oil drilling gig is great, I can make enough money. I'm gonna just I'm gonna hold down and like play it safe. And you were.
Matt Williams:You actually kind of went the other way and you said, no, I need to push harder forward to provide for my kid and my family or whatever you know. Like all of a sudden you kind of took it to a different, a different direction. But some people might have like said, I'm gonna get a basic nine to five job just to hold it down and so I can provide for my family. And you took it to a place of I don't know, catalytic growth, like catalysts to be able to take a huge shift in your life. I love that and you did that.
Pat Flynn:I will tell you too, though, for those, for those people that may be like thinking about taking a big jump like that, even I mean, for me it was not an easy decision whatsoever. It was. It was a painful growth period in my life and I and I questioned myself a million times on if I was doing the right thing, because, like you said, I mean you make, you make good money offshore. I was still home, you know, six, six, five months a year and I had health insurance, great health insurance, yeah as a entrepreneur, you don't have that.
Pat Flynn:You just get more on it Right. Yeah, it wasn't like oh yeah, this is an easy decision Time to roll, so it never is for anybody. It never, ever is Easy decision. It doesn't matter what your personality profile is. It's just tough to make that call when you have a kid on the way or a family to provide for, whatever it is.
Matt Williams:Absolutely, 100% agree. Yeah, I've got a wife and two kids of my own, and I know there's been times where, you know, decision that maybe I would make with if I was single versus well, no, I've got more responsibility on my plate. I need to make sure I'm taking care of that too. You know, and I think there's those seasons, and so you had this vision in your head of doing 300 rentals, 420 flips, 30 deals a month, and then one day you woke up and you realized you had it right.
Pat Flynn:Yeah and it's. And then we just got there. And you know, until that point in time I had read so much about business and so much about leadership and vision but, to be honest, I always put that vision piece, always put it on the back burner. I didn't do a great job articulating that vision to the staff and everything. It just kind of happened for me because we were so involved. But I never knew the importance of leadership in a company, having a vision and everyone knowing exactly where we're going, until we hit my previous vision that we didn't have anymore and it was gone and we had lost.
Pat Flynn:You know, you think you'd hit it and you'd celebrate like you're winning. And we did right, it was financially awesome, the team high five, but then it's like what's next? Then you're just you know, if you're not growing you're dying, sort of thing, and it truly started to feel that way. The whole office lost purpose. We started to lose people started to lose employees. Employees started to bicker and fight because we weren't kind of a team anymore. You become more of a team when you struggle together towards a common goal and we just didn't have that anymore.
Pat Flynn:We switched from an offensive mindset to one of defense and sustainability, and that is just not the way that I operate and like I started to kind of step back and wasn't enjoying my day to day. And so the importance of setting that vision for your staff and your team is, you know, it can't be understated and I never thought it was a big deal until I saw what it can, what sort of poison that can be Do a company when you don't have it?
Matt Williams:Yeah, absolutely yeah. In fact, you know there is actually a quote out of the Bible that I love all the time and it says that without you got to write down the vision and make it clear and make it clean. It says, without vision, people will perish. And so without that vision, without that goal in front of them, people start to fall apart and teams fall apart and and you start to see that happening in in life and and it's so applicable to to business, where you know it's like you got to have that vision. In fact, in the real estate market over the last 12 months has been a little bit. It's a moving target. It's that's been changing rapidly.
Matt Williams:You know the the feds increased right about this time. Well, maybe it was last spring actually of last year they started moving interest rates up and I think it was May. It was it was April or May or something, maybe June of last year. They started moving interest rates up and that started impacting the real estate market. March was the first one. March was the first one and you you knew, like you're in that business and you felt the impact of yours, and I was also in the real estate sector and I felt the impact on that as well.
Matt Williams:And when the market started to shift and change you talk about offense and defense being part of the IUB community jumping on some of the coaching calls that they have they were actually telling us as inspectors. They were like, hey, listen, your natural reaction is going to be to pull back and be defensive, but this is the season to be offensive. And I listened to them and I did everything that they basically all these, these coaches are like this is really what you need to do is be offensive, not defensive. Don't be. You know, be on the front end, not on the back end.
Matt Williams:And so so I did that and my business grew significantly through the middle of the downturn and I watched my competition be defensive and a lot of them went out of business, a lot of them shrunk. They're laying people off, they were struggling, and I actually pushed really hard forward and we took a massive amount of market share. We went up 10 points in market share over the last 12 months strictly because we were pushing so hard offensively in the middle of the downturn. Right, and it's like, but if I didn't have the vision that that I had, then I probably would have been like well, man, we just like hold on, like this is going to be a storm, like don't go anywhere, don't do anything, and and so I think that, that that idea of what you're saying, and you reacted emotionally to the day.
Pat Flynn:Yes, yeah.
Matt Williams:Oh my gosh that and and I don't know about you my emotions can lead me astray really far, really quick. So that's really great. Yeah, the emotional side of it, oh yeah, yeah man. Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. So so now you're there, like you have this vision, you you know you're achieving it. Now it's like you hit what Like the like. Just hold steady mode, and you can't do that for long, because then you start sliding backwards. So where'd you go from there?
Pat Flynn:Yeah, so that's what happened, and I talked about this transitory period at the IAB conference. That was the whole meat of my talk is how do you find your direction in the fog? So you mentioned rates started to jump in March of 22. In June of 22 is when the Fed bumped interest rates 50 bips in one month and that was not going to say the final blow to us, but our margins got crushed based on our business model during that time period. So that's when it really started to sting us.
Pat Flynn:So probably through the first couple quarters of 2022, we had already hit like our goals and we were just sustaining. So we lost our mojo, but we were still making money and things were still good. When the Fed bumped that rate, the rates, 50 bips, that's when things started to deteriorate, when there was not a ton of vision. I did have a vision to get us out of that hole, but it was when kind of me and my partner no longer agreed on that vision and things started to kind of deteriorate. We had some people leave and we never had people quit Like the year prior. We had won best places to work in Jacksonville, number one for meeting size businesses in Jacksonville.
Pat Flynn:We were number one in the city, which I was very proud of. But then we, like before my eyes started to deteriorate and we had people quit and volume was going down and me and my partner didn't agree on what we should be spending in marketing. So if marketing spend goes down, as you know, you know, deal flow and revenue goes down. It's like this horrible death cycle that starts to happen.
Pat Flynn:We disagreed on the future. We disagreed on staff members, on firing, so ultimately we ended up doing a layoff in early 2023, which was kind of the final nail in the coffin on what was happening. We limped around for a couple months after that and ultimately me and him decided that we weren't going to be business partners anymore. It was best that if we just moved on, having no animosity or anything. We just had very, very different views of what the future looked like.
Pat Flynn:I had spent this previous three months kind of wrestling with the fact that my vision and dream of 30 houses a month and being a top three flipper in the country had happened, but I severely failed my team in not knowing what was going to happen next.
Pat Flynn:So now, this next time around finding the right business, the right strategy, that a vision could not only carry me through the rest of my life but also take care of my staff and my team and my leadership around me and make sure they are able to hit all their goals in life, whether it's wealth or personal development or, you know, work time balance with family.
Pat Flynn:I wanted to craft the perfect vision for me and for my team to be able to carry us on, no matter what the market conditions were, no matter if the wind was blowing from the north or from the south. We may have to adjust a little bit, but we continue that 20 mile march on. So I had spent the last six months crafting that, shared it with my partner. We were not on the same page at all, so it was kind of a high five, like a man time, to go our separate ways. So now I'm three months in to putting this vision to work. That feels insurmountable right now, but I just know the way we operate quarter over quarter. We are going to get there and we'll slowly march over time and I'm very excited for the impact that I can have once we, once we fully get us up and running. And I'm happy to share it too, matt, if you want to get into that, I do.
Matt Williams:I do want to get into that forever yeah, I do want to get into that.
Matt Williams:I like what you're saying, though, like the idea that you had this business partner for a season and then that season shifted and changed and ended right, and so the market shifted. That changed your business model. But I mean being able to look back and celebrate, hey, the season that we had together as business partners. Look at the amazing things that we did. You know we built this thing top three, flipping company 400, whatever your vision got accomplished. And you see, this major thing, you guys did something significant in that time period, and to be able to hit also have the maturity to go, you know what that season was fantastic. We need to shift to a different season Now. We're no longer aligned.
Matt Williams:It doesn't mean you can't be friends.
Matt Williams:It doesn't mean you can't be have good feelings towards each other. I think every I don't know I've had a business partnerships where I hung on to longer than I should have only because I had this idea in my head that it was going to be forever, and I think that there's seasons for things or seasons for all kinds of stuff in life, and I think that to be able to have the maturity like you're explaining of, like you know, hey, that that season was just over and we moved on and now hopefully, you can both celebrate each other's wins and you're at each other's direction and you can still be friends in the sense of like, hey, man, you're crushing a good job and kind of back and forth. I mean that hopefully that's something that it can can grow into and and be a good long standing relationship. But those things are still extremely painful, separating and those big changes, changes painful changes, painful. It doesn't matter which way you cut it. But I would love to hear your take on which a new vision is and what you're talking about.
Pat Flynn:Sure. So I mean, first off, your your analogy of seasons. I love that way to describe what it is, because it very, very much is that the partnerships are seasons. You have seasons with your family, and what I experienced at the end of Yellowbird right, there was a season of extremely hard work, followed by a season of kind of having to figure yourself out a little bit, and that transition from working a lot of hours every week to like trying to figure the next thing out and also working a ton of hours every week.
Pat Flynn:That was not the right thing to do. It was a season of me having to pull back on the hours I was working, spending more time with my family, more time with my headed books, more time in the gym, more time connecting with people. And when I finally figured out that that was the season I was in more connection with people and family and it wasn't a season of work and making money. That's when things started to click for me. So being open to the idea of seasons, matt, like you said, and being more in tune when they change, I think can become a superpower for people, and I feel like I'm getting better at it and better at it as life goes on.
Matt Williams:Yeah, that's awesome. So, when moving forward from here, you've got a new vision. You're already starting to implement it. What are you working on now? That is the next chapter for Pat Flynn.
Pat Flynn:So we, we, I. I tried to dive deep into what I was passionate about and a bunch of ideas that I won't bore you with came to mind and, you know, nothing really clicked for me that I really could actually gave a shit about. The only thing that I really truly cared about and that fired me up was the team around me and and coaching leadership and teaching leadership and watching someone grow from not really having any experience doing it to starting to lead people and have confidence in themselves and grow, and I got extreme joy and satisfaction from watching that. So it came to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter what business you're in and what you do. What matters is that there's people in a team around you and you guys can grow and struggle together, because that's what I enjoy.
Pat Flynn:So I decided to stay in in real estate because why not? I already have all the connections. I know a lot of people in the community. I have lending connections, a background or resume there, so why leave a space that I'm already connected in if you don't get a shit, to move to something else? You just care about growing a great team. So decided to shift from the house flipping to a new construction, home building because several reasons. One is just that that's there's not enough housing in America were way under built to is. I live in Jacksonville Beach, florida, so right in the center of the Sunbelt, and there is so much land in northeast Florida. Not that I'm the guy that wants to develop every corner of America, but we are very under housed and there's a lot of land, a lot of wasteland downtown in these areas where people should really build, build affordable housing for people. There's just a ton of opportunity there.
Pat Flynn:Yes and the third thing is is an extremely scalable business, unlike flipping houses, where it's like it requires so many decisions on my part. Hey, you're gonna buy it or you're gonna not buy it. You're gonna do full on construction. You're gonna sell it as is. We need to do the kitchen or not do the kitchen. So many decisions for 420 houses in one year and just so painful where it's not exhausting building new construction, it is the same thing over it's exhausting.
Pat Flynn:But building new constructions the same thing over and over again, and it's what I enjoy doing. We can walk in every week and we can put the right systems, processes and people in place. We can solve problems week over week and continue to make progress and put smart people in good spots that can have a real impact and it is repeatable. And there are a shitload of problems and a ton of hurdles to jump over, but that's the way I lead in the company, in the way our company is designed, because when we split up, I took all, I took the whole team, and that's the way we operate with with EOS is we solve problems every single week. We create our priorities for the quarter. That are the rocks and they always get done. So this, the business of home building, just is the perfect fit for who we are as a business. So it's something that if you're a wholesaler or flipper, you know typically you're not good at these systems and processes and having to deal with the city and that which, which is fine, wholesaler and flippings is phenomenal business. But we're just not set up for, we're set up to build something that it can be foundational and great and grow over time. So very excited about that's that's the first part of it is it doesn't matter, you know, if interest rates are high, interest rates are low, the market's good, the market's bad. We think we can adjust and continue to grow and build housing kind of forever, and we'll, of course, have to make adjustments and we'll have issues, but it is a company that's. It is a company that, unlike a flipping company, can grow and can can be around for a very, very long time. So what I think about the whole vision and, like I said to you before, it's not just a vision for me, it's a vision for the team around me who I care deeply about, and then being able to build wealth and grow their lives too.
Pat Flynn:So I think about the vision as as a catamaran, as I kind of describe them as the catamaran, as a boat that has the middle and the two you know, that's the two people that you know, that's the two pieces on the side and the sale up top. So what happens to the catamaran is the wind hits it and sometimes one side of the catamaran is way up, sometimes one side is way down, but you always have your stability in the middle. So I think of the home building company as the stability in the middle. And then your two sides. One side, you have the opportunistic stuff like flipping houses, doing development deals, doing acquisitions. These are the great pieces of great profitable pieces of a company that you shouldn't lose just because you're scared of risk. But you should have the the wherewithal to know when it's not the best time to do that. So these acquisition, house flipping, land development, buying lots, part of the company.
Pat Flynn:I wanted to be part of what we do, but I want everyone to understand that that's a seasonal thing. It's great sometimes and sometimes we'll pour resources into it and sometimes we won't. But no one loses their job right when things go bad. When things are good we may push some people over there, when things are bad we may pull them back.
Pat Flynn:That, the other side of the catamaran, is the portfolio.
Pat Flynn:So single family houses, commercial real estate and businesses another seasonal thing depending on interest rates, depending on the market, it may be a good or bad time to buy houses.
Pat Flynn:Do you want to buy a house with a built to rent, go out and find businesses to run?
Pat Flynn:Whatever it is, that is your portfolio wealth building side, and it's not always a good time to be adding to your portfolio, right, it's correct. You don't just shut your eyes and say I'm going to buy 50 houses you the rest of my life because it just doesn't work that way, right? So that's the way I think of it and I think, with that setup, knowing that you have these two opportunistic pieces one being the wealth building portfolio, one being kind of your position's opportunity side and you have this stability in the middle which is this home building company that is always fee home building for people for the rest of time, I think that can last, I think that can outlast me and I think you could create wealth and prosperity for a lot of people. And I think, from that platform, I can use my podcast and everything I do for my mindset and stuff to get to get out there to the rest of the world and impact a lot of people, and I'm very, I think that's very fantastic.
Matt Williams:Yeah, what sounds like. You see, I can hear your passion coming out. What I like about. But that too is in the home building side. Like, right now, there's a housing shortage across the country and there's a see as a need for affordable housing right now, which is kind of a big conversation. That's happening across the country as well, even in our markets, other markets, and so if you're meeting that need in your community, well, that need has a long runway right now, but at some point that runway will run out. Might be five or seven or ten years, but the need for housing will always be there. So if you're able to shift from you know affordable housing and then like, well, now the season is lending itself more towards luxury homes, well, now we as a home builder, you can just shift your entire crew over to where the demands are at and so you can go into luxury home or you can go back into you know middle size or you know affordable housing, or whatever it might be like. Yeah, I think that's a great idea, especially if you have your other sides of your catamaran going.
Matt Williams:Now I want to go on a boat. I'm just I'm, I'm want to go, but now we got a, but they have the difference seasons and the different things, right you know, and so I think that's that's pretty great. Yeah, so that's really good. So you've already started this. Have you started building houses yet?
Pat Flynn:We this quarter, q3 this year. One of the rocks is poor five foundations. They'll be our first five foundations we pour, so it is was so much to get rolling here between licensing and and permitting and workers, cop insurance and generally there's just a laundry list of shit that we had to get through in the past two months or so, but finally getting there. We have eight houses that are through permitting, we're going to pour five foundations and we have 30 lots in permitting behind there. So the first year we'll build, we'll start building 146 houses over our first 12 months.
Matt Williams:That's amazing. That's amazing. So that's a lot. And I like how you dream big and go big like from day one, and are you building them like spec houses and selling them Like you finish them and then just put them on the market, or is this a kind of potential buyer, get you halfway in the middle and make decisions and changes along the way? How do you model that?
Pat Flynn:No, 100% spec. We will not be dealing with buyers until the houses are done. That's just not the model we're doing. We're going the affordable housing route. We're using good products that are cost effective and we are hitting that lower 225 to $300,000 market and a lot of people buying those houses are thrilled just to be in a new house. So no buyer decisions whatsoever. 30%, I would say a third of what we do is just going to go on the market full retail and be listed by our real estate team, which the company's called Flight Building. Our real estate team calls the flight group and the girls will list about a third of them. The other two thirds are an investor client of ours and they they send, they'll, they'll sell to investors or they'll sell the hedge funds or they'll do whatever they do with them. But Flight Building is solely fee building, so the building company is not going to own any land. That's the other side of the catamaran, right?
Pat Flynn:So if you own any land and you're just a built, a fee building company. That's what allows you to be the center of that catamaran. If it doesn't own any land, I'll own that on the other, on the other side on the one wing.
Matt Williams:That's a. That's a good model. Yeah, I see builders that go out and they'll buy massive lots and then they'll develop them and then, you know, they'll put in the utilities and they'll do all of the infrastructure work and then that same builder company is also coming along and building the houses that go on that lot too, and so you see them kind of doing the entire thing and and and then I don't know that's. I think I love the idea of splitting it up and having like a separate development company and then just having the building company being the way it is. I think that I think that's a really powerful model like that a lot.
Pat Flynn:You appreciate that.
Matt Williams:Yeah, man. So you, you mentioned that you have a podcast. What's your podcast called?
Pat Flynn:It's called Pints with Pat. So I used to drink a lot more seven years ago before kids, so I used to do it weekly and I would drink. I would drink a different beer every episode and talk about that a little bit, but the name kind of stuck pretty well. But it's, it's weekly and it's short. It's a lot of purpose.
Pat Flynn:Stuff we do here talks about being authentic to yourself and, to be honest, like I was interviewing a lot of people in the podcast and I really didn't enjoy talking about real estate that much with people across the country, I just became a pain point for me.
Pat Flynn:So now I use my podcast as almost a personal journal, personal audio journal, and I talk about what's going on. The company challenges I've faced, is I've faced things I've learned and I talk about those kind of three things every week is like what's going on with the company challenges we face and things I've learned that week and just my attitude about certain things. And I just think it's gonna be a really cool thing to look back on five years ago, see where my head was at. As you know, we were in the preliminary stages. It's also a cool thing for your kids to listen to one day as well and see where your head, you know where their dad's head was at at 35 years old and know that like, yeah, I had a lot of doubts too, and like I have. Of course, everyone has those insecurities and questioning themselves, so I really just talked to myself on it and it's less than 10 minutes every time and now I enjoy doing it and putting it out every week.
Matt Williams:That is really cool. I love that idea, especially the idea of your kids when you get older. I look at my parents and I'm like they made some big decisions to be able to have a front row seat to the decision making process that they were going through. I'd be able to hear maybe some of the struggle or some of the doubts or some of that, to hear that front row seating 10, 15, 20 years later. I think there are seasons in my dad's life particularly that I would have loved to know the process and the thought process of why he made decisions the way that he did, because some of his decision making was fantastic.
Matt Williams:I'm thinking what was his process? What was he bouncing around in his head? Did he really think this was going to work or was he questioning himself the whole time? In hindsight, you look back and you're like, man, that was a really good decision. He's like, yeah, it ended up working out. But then back in the day, did he really think that? Or was it just like, yeah, you know. So now it's like I wish that would be kind of cool to have that kind of a journal or a reference point to be able to see what's ticking in their head. So, pat, do you just have the one kid now, or do you have more than one kid?
Pat Flynn:I have three kids now. I have two girls, six and three and just had my first boy and he's five months old.
Matt Williams:Congratulations. That's really awesome. So if people want to get ahold of you, right People have listened to this. They've heard this idea of catching the vision. Maybe there's people who are, I guess, this. What are the next steps that someone would take if they maybe catch themselves in the doldrums of life where you were? You've hit some goals. You're kind of like struggling on catching a vision for the next chapter. What are some next steps that you would encourage somebody who is in that place, like you were about a year ago? What would you encourage them to start doing?
Pat Flynn:That's an easy one for me because I just went through it. So I would suggest everyone watch a documentary on Netflix by Jonah Hill called Stutz. It's about his therapist. It's a guy that and I'm not in therapy, I've never been in therapy, I've nothing against it. But watching that and that guy, phil Stutz, is just the way he thinks about things I think it's very, very interesting and what he talks about a lot of his clients and how they're worth $100 million, actors and stuff like that that come to him after a movie and they're in the same spot, kind of.
Pat Flynn:I was just on different scales, like what now? Sort of thing, like I'm trying to do this and trying to do that, and what he says is it's a pyramid and I'm going to screw this up. But basically what it is is you need to focus on yourself, your health and your relationships. And that's exactly what I did. I changed up my diet I've always been like in good shape and from playing rugby and stuff, but I completely revamped my diet to where I lost a bunch. I lost a bunch of fat. I revamped my exercise routine.
Pat Flynn:Just it tried something different, got very serious about my meditation. I started kind of making plans with people that I hadn't talked to in a while. So just not doing business things, not doing what I was doing before, and, just from reaching out to people I hadn't talked to in a while that I may have not done or not done business with, had some phenomenal conversations. I reconnected with my family at a very, very high level. I got my wife involved in like the goal setting and what I was going through and where I thought I wanted to go. So when I got my personal life extremely under control and at a very high, higher level than it's ever been at, that's when the answers just started to become clear to me.
Pat Flynn:So the answers weren't clear. It was too foggy when I busted my ass every day trying to find that next business maybe going to bail bonds or maybe be a business broker my mind was too cluttered. When I let my mind get more focused and get more clear through meditation, reconnecting with family and friends and getting in fucking fantastic shape, the answers, just they were obvious and they became clear. So that would be my suggestion for anyone in that spot Start to focus on yourself, your family, your personal relationships, Get your health very, very, very much under control and things will fall into place.
Matt Williams:I guarantee it. Yeah, that's fantastic advice. I love that. And so if somebody wants to get a hold of you and they wanted to reach out and maybe had a question about something you're doing or wanted to maybe get more information from you, what's the best way for someone to get in contact with you?
Pat Flynn:So either email is pat at flightbuilders, nocom, just flightbuilders, or just DM on social media. Elena does my social media and she does such a good job with it, putting out the podcast, and I write a Friday thoughts email every single Friday so you can find that through just my. You can search me on Instagram, you'll find me. I think it's patflinstf.
Matt Williams:What's stf?
Pat Flynn:Okay, if you search yellowbird or flight.
Matt Williams:Okay, yeah, that's awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. This has been a fantastic episode and I hope it inspires people to reach out for a bigger vision for their life and something that can go even further than what they thought they could go. Pat, thank you so much for being here, man. Hope we connect you in the near future.
Intro:Thank you, matt, I enjoyed it. You've been listening to Empire State of Mind for the home inspection industry and beyond. Our passion is to elevate the home inspection industry with mindset, strategy and tools. We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and review. For more, follow on Instagram at IEB coaching and don't forget to hit the website at wwwiebcoachingcom. Learn about IEB at no cost and have all your questions answered on our open call once a month on the third week of the month. We hope to see you there and we'll see you next time on the Empire State of Mind.
