How Thinking 5 Moves Ahead Can Make You Millions with Patrick Bet-David

Brandon:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast, show 457.

Patrick:
I know a lot of people that have good ideas, I know a lot of people that are workers, I know a lot of people that want to do something big with their lives, but they force move 19 to move two and it breaks everything down. They try to buy a house they cannot afford too early, they lose it all. They try to go out there and become this famous person that they haven’t done yet enough to get there and they want that kind of respect. The sequencing is where we make the mistakes in, and that’s why I wrote the book, Your Next Five Moves, which is really all about sequencing.

Intro:
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Brandon:
What’s going on, everyone? It’s Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, here with my co-host Mr. David “The One-Cop Shop” Greene. How are you doing?

David:
Not bad.

Brandon:
I made that up right now-

David:
What do you mean by one-shop cop?

Brandon:
One-cop stop, I don’t know. I don’t know what I said.

David:
You had a good idea. A for effort there.

Brandon:
I was like, “What’s the phrase? A one-stop shop?”

David:
Yeah.

Brandon:
That I was playing with that.

David:
You’re trying to put cop into it because it rhymes?

Brandon:
Yeah. It was decent, right? Give me a rating on that, one out of 10. Somebody tell me how I did. What’s you been up to, man?

David:
Buying a couple of condos in Hawaii. They should be closing soon.

Brandon:
That’s been a long closing process.

David:
Oh God, yeah. The financing has taken a long time. But enough about me. I am on cloud nine right now because we get to bring our audience to listen to one of the people I respect the most in the entire business, entrepreneurial success space, Mr. Patrick Bet-David.

Brandon:
Well, let me explain why this is such an interesting thing. So, most of the guests we have on the show that we bring on are people that I’m obsessed with for whatever re… I read a ton of books, I’m obsessed with them, and I’m like, “Hey, we should get this guy on, or this guy on.” And so a lot of the guests we’ve had, especially on the Sunday episodes, which shares more mindset and success focus rather than real estate, have been people that I’ve been obsessed with. This is one that you, Patrick Bet-David is one that you brought to me and said, “You need to listen to this guy.”

Brandon:
And for the last six months, I would say half of the text messages I get from you are either a link to something that he said or an encouragement to go listen to something he said or a quote that he said. You know when people push really hard and are like, “You should go do this,” and I’m like, “No, I’m not going to do that.” Like “Try this food.” “I’m not going to try that food.” I resisted for a few months. And then finally, I was like, “All right, let’s check it out.” And now he’s my favorite person in the entire world. So you and I are both super fans, and we are thrilled and honored to have Patrick Bet-David here today. So we’ll get to that in just a moment.

David:
Yeah. He’s addicting. I love Patrick’s communication style. Frankly, I listen to it just to help me communicate better on our podcast. And he’s a meat and potatoes guy. I think a lot of our listeners come to BiggerPockets because we don’t try to upsell you on something, we give you exactly what you’re looking for. And he’s got that same style. He makes really good content, he breaks down exactly what leaders should be doing, what a business owner should be doing, all the way down to actually picking up the phone and what you say when you answer it. It’s hard to find people like that, and when you do find one, you definitely want to share it.

Brandon:
Yeah. Well, let me read his bio real quick, because this is just so good. This is during that Iranian revolution of 1978, Patrick’s family had escaped to survive and end up living in a refugee camp in Germany, moved to California, served in the US Army, became an entrepreneur. A huge business influencer, media influencer today. I think they have over 2.5 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, Valuetainment. Has a massively successful insurance company, I think it’s called PHP Agency. Over 10 million followers across five media platforms. It’s just crazy. He’s interviewed pretty much everybody who’s ever had a deep thought in the world. He’s an amazing host and interviewer, and we’re going to turn the tables on him today.

Brandon:
So that is what we’re talking about today, and his new book, which is called Your Next Five Moves. So you’ll hear all about that and more. But first let’s get today’s quick tip.

David:
Quick tip.

Brandon:
Today’s quick tip, pick up a copy of Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bet-David. It is amazing. I’m not kidding, it is one of the best books I’ve read. It’s really good. I think you’ll love it. And it applies perfectly to real estate investors, even though it’s not a real estate book. I think you’ll love it.

David:
Let’s give them a second quick tip. The second quick tip of the day that’s not quite as quick tip, is going to be, don’t waste pain. We talked today with Patrick about how pain is the most powerful motivator there is. You never want to go create pain for yourself or purposely hurt another person. But trust me, if you’re living on earth, there’s plenty of pain going around, you’ve already got some. Find a way to let that motivate you to accomplish your goals as opposed to what Brandon talks about, when people let that become their excuse for not chasing their goals.

Brandon:
That’s pretty good. That’s good. A good tie into the show. All right. A big thanks to our sponsors, as always. And now, I think it’s time to get into the show with Patrick Bet-David. You guys are going to love this. Hey, real quick, before you go to the interview, this week I’m doing a contest over at my Instagram, never done this before. But I’m going to actually offer up my vacation rental in Maui. Come have lunch with Heather and I, maybe Josh or David, do a strategy session with me on your real estate. Maybe even make a guest appearance on the BiggerPockets Podcast, which is cool. If you want to know more about the contest and go check out my Instagram, I just dropped the video. BeardyBrandon, it’s beard with a Y.

Brandon:
I dropped the video on April 3rd, 2021. So BeardyBrandon, check it out and I hope you win. It’s going to be awesome. All right. Enough chit-chat. Let’s get to the interview with Patrick Bet-David.

Brandon:
All right. Patrick, welcome to the BiggerPockets Podcast, man. It is an honor to have you here.

Patrick:
It’s good to be on with you guys.

Brandon:
No, thank you. Well, I want to start somewhere that’s maybe a little bit of a painful scenario in your life or situation in your life. It’s something I read in the book so I don’t think it’s too private. And that is, your father had a heart attack, I think you’re 23 years old, and that situation changed your life. I’m wondering if you can tell the audience about that?

Patrick:
Yeah. I was the guy that you wanted to party with, I was the guy you wanted to go to clubs with, I was the guy you wanted to go to Vegas with. I was that guy, I was the guy that partied hardcore from the moment I joined the army at 18, till about 24 years old, until my dad had a heart attack and I went to UCLA medical center and I was at this government facility, even though it was UCLA, I’m going to this place and I see my dad, lost weight, he looks weak, and those place is not really helping him out. And I got upset at one of the nurses, “Why aren’t you going? My dad’s been calling you.” And the lady’s like, “Sir, we have 50 other people here. Your dad is on free insurance, you’re not paying for this. The government, the taxes are paying for this.”

Patrick:
I flipped out. They called the security, kicked me out. I went downstairs. I had a Ford Focus at the time, 2002 Ford Focus, stick shift, manual. And I cried little baby that day. And I woke up the next day as if you wouldn’t recognize me. I told my friends, “Don’t call me anymore to go to clubs.” I told the girls, “I’m not going to clubs. Don’t call me for nothing.” And I stayed like that until my dad didn’t have to worry about financial issues ever anymore. Man, the last time my dad reached in his pocket to pay for anything was May 29, 2004. And the reason for that was because I shifted in 2003 August, where I said, “Things are going to change here moving forward.” So that’s what happened with that story.

Brandon:
Wow.

David:
It almost sounds like, because I’ve heard you tell the story many other times ,you had a lot of stuff going on in the background of your mind. You had some skills, you were a strong-willed person. You wanted to be successful at what you did, bodybuilding at one point was what you wanted to do. You were obviously successful at partying and having friends. And that moment with your dad catalyzed all of the skills that you had in the strengths you had and you got that focus, that you said, “Okay, I’m going to take these things that make me unique and I’m going to actually put them in a solid direction because I don’t want to be in this pain.”

David:
Am I completely off with my assumption of how that mindset was formed?

Patrick:
No, you’re right. The saying goes, Fear sharpens listening.” I was so afraid of my dad dying. Ever since I was six years old, when my teacher asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said, “I want to be a dad.” And they’re like, “What? You want to be a dad? For what?” It wasn’t like I said, I want to be a dad because I want to do the work that it takes to be a dad, which makes more sense because that’s fun. But no, I said I want to be a dad because my dad’s my favorite human being in the world. There’s some special about my dad and I’s relationship. He was very tough on me, he was challenging me constantly, always, “Go do something with your life.” It was constantly like that.

Patrick:
So it wasn’t he’s a very loving, caring, it’s not his personality. First time he said I love you to meet me was one day, my sister and I are having a conversation, I’m like, “You know what, dad, when’s the last time you said… ” I said, “Dad, I love you, dad.” He says, “Excuse me?” I said, “I love you.” He says, “That’s good.” I said, “I want you to say I love you too.” He said, “No.” I said, “Tell me I love you too.” He says, “You know I love you.” I said, “I want you to tell me you love me.” Anyways, long story short, I said, “You need to tell me and your daughter you love us. And we know, but we want to hear it, so I want you to say.”

Patrick:
This will be coming out of military. “What has gotten into you ever since you got out of the military? You tell everybody what to do. I don’t need to tell anybody I love them.” I’m like, “Okay, no problem.” I go to work the next day. And I get a call at Bally’s, “Hey, your dad’s on line one.” I’m like, “My dad never calls work.” Because to him, it’s disrespect to call someone while they’re working, because to him, work is like… so you can insult somebody like that. So I pick up, I said, “Dad, what’s going on?” He says, “Hey.” I said, “What’s up? How you doing?” “Good. Okay. Um. Okay. Okay. Okay. I love you.” Click. What is wrong with this guy, right?

Patrick:
And then my sister calls me, she says, “Hey, is dad okay.” I said, “Why?” She says, “Because he just called me, said he loves me, and he hung up.” She says, “Now, let me tell you the conversation he and I had.” So look, since six years old, I wanted to be like him. And so for me, when that happened, I was afraid of losing him, and that created a level of urgency and seriousness to get my life together.

David:
Yeah. Brandon, didn’t you have a similar experience with just that deep-rooted desire to be a father that was always present in your life?

Brandon:
Oh yeah, definitely. In fact, I read, what’s that book? Matthew McConaughey’s book that came out recently.

David:
Greenelights.

Brandon:
Yeah, Greenelights. He mentioned that, “The only thing I ever wanted to be was a father.” And when I read that line, I’m like, “Oh, that just resonates in my soul.” The only thing I ever knew I wanted to be more than anything… The only thing I ever knew I wanted to be was a father. So yeah, I can totally resonate with that. I’m wondering if we could talk real quick about even what came before that too. I don’t want to gloss over the first 22 years of your life before that moment. You came from another country and you had some unique way of getting to America. Can you explain that?

Patrick:
Yeah. I lived in Iran 10 years. And when Khomeini died, six weeks later, July 15th, we escaped, we went to Germany. I lived at a refugee camp in Germany for a year and a half until we finally got our Green Card to come to the States. And I came here November 28, 1990, which was a magical year when I landed in the airport. I was looking for Rocky. I was looking forward gremlins.

David:
Yeah. One-eyed Willy. We all remember The Goonies. That’s awesome that that’s what America was. So you get to this country, it’s definitely not what you thought. What we’re trying to figure out here is, how did this amazing mindset you have develop? Where did it come from? What would you mind sharing about how pain and rejection played a role in entrepreneurial success?

Patrick:
Yeah. That’s a big part because if that happens to you early on, there’s two ways we react to it. So funny. So I’m in Hawaii, one of my guys comes up to me. I’m going to give them a shout up here. They don’t even know I’m going to say this. It’s not like they’re my main player. Their name is Wendy and Eddie. And they come up to me and they say, “Hey, Patrick, can you make a video and send it to one of our guys in Phoenix,” in their office. I said, “What did you do last month, performance wise?” And he said, “We only did this much.” I said, “How much? He said, “This much?” I said, “What happened? You guys had a killer December, but you guys didn’t come out the gates. How come you got such a small January?”

Patrick:
And honestly, I kid with them because we have a very good relationship together. They’re like, “Well, you don’t understand. You don’t understand. You don’t understand.” I’m like, “You know what? I’m not doing the video. I’m not doing the video until you do X, Y, Z. But I don’t think I’m doing a video because I think you’re too content and casual right now. So no, I’m not going to send that message out.” And I walked away. Now, I’ve done that my entire career for 20 years, you guys got to realize, you don’t see my day to day. All you know is my day to days, I challenge and I poke a lot.

Patrick:
So I walked away and I told Tecra, and I said, “I don’t know how they’re going to respond to it. Let’s see how they’re going to respond to it.” Well, they’re about to do something in a company today that no one’s ever done in the history of the company ever, to break a record. They came back with a vengeance, pissed off that the fact that I said, “I’m not doing the video because you lack consistency. You’re one month on, one month off. And no, I’m just not going to do it.” So, now here’s the complete opposite side, what’s crazy about this story, is I can say the same thing to three other people and the way they would have taken it is, “I can’t believe he said that. I don’t think he likes us. I can’t believe he said this. What an arrogant this. What a this? What a that?” They miss the entire point.

Patrick:
Nick Saban said, he’s talking to his guys and he’s got all of his players around. He says, “Look, there’s three different types of players that I have on my teams my entire career.” He says, “There are those that don’t want to be told anything, ‘Leave me alone.’ It’s the leave me alone community. ‘Don’t tell me anything. Don’t coach me. I know what I’m doing.'” He says, “The second are the ones that want to be coached.” He says, “But the highest level ones that end up doing the best are those who want to hear the truth.” He says, “I’m looking to build players who want to hear the truth and be coached. If you want to be left alone, this ain’t the team for you.”

Patrick:
So, you asked the question, what did your mindset come from? I went through a lot of weird, strange hell experiences. That’s why they call it hell week. I went through like a hell decade or two. And then at the same time, I lost some battles, I lost some moments. And then eventually, all of those things combined together, I got tested, I said, “You know what? To hell with it. All I can control is myself.” We responded to it. So yeah, I do agree with a lot of those things helps you out, but it’s also on the individual, how they respond to the challenges, not necessarily the challenges.

David:
You put a post on social media maybe a month or so ago of a football player who had lost the bowl game. And I don’t remember the teams, but I remember that you showed, he was out there while the rest of the team is in the locker room sulking, or maybe consoling each other, “Hey, you had a great season.” He goes out there and he watches the other team get their rings or get their medals. And he just wanted to absorb every single ounce of pain and frustration, because I’m sure that players thinking, “I’ve been there many times. What if I would have given a little more? What if I trained a little harder?”

David:
And your message was, don’t ever waste pain. Pain is the most important, powerful recipe when it comes to being successful. I don’t know many people that look at the world from the perspective you have, but when we interview successful people, when you interview successful people, can you think of one that didn’t go through an abnormal amount of pain at some point in their life that caused them to respond the way they did?

Patrick:
Oh, don’t get me wrong. The percentage is based on Fidelity, 83% of millionaires in America are self-made, 17% are not. Okay. So maybe the person that’s not self made and he grew up in a family that they gave him everything and things were easily given to them, you’re taking away what caused the person who is self made to become self made is a lot of pain and challenges. Sometimes parents take that away from them. In our house, it’s so funny, we’re trying to get our kids into this one school, we’re not fully sold, but we’re looking at it and we’re doing hardcore investigation right now.

Patrick:
And one of the things that the people said, they said, “This school is very challenging. They work with the kids a lot, but they expect a lot from your kids.” And I look at my wife. I said, “Babe, what would most people say about your husband on the way I exp… ” We can be on vacation, guys. We’re in Hawaii. You guys are in Maui. I’m in Maui two weeks ago, the kids are still required to read 20 pages every day, and they’re still required to do the… It doesn’t matter where we are, they’re required to. We’ll go on vacation with a lot of our peers and our friends and family, and they’re like, “You still don’t let them do… It’s vacation.” I said, “I don’t care what it is. The currency of my house is reading books.”

Patrick:
Now, to the average person, it’s what? Well, you’re being unreasonable. Well, this is a little too much, and this is a little too much. I get it. You can’t take pain away from individuals. We all have to somewhat go through it individually. This doesn’t mean you don’t have a community to console and go talk to and say, “Man, I’ve gone through it as well, challenging buddy. But I believe in you, you can get back into. Let’s go get it.” This doesn’t mean encouragement is bad, this doesn’t mean community’s bad, this doesn’t mean lifting each other up as bad, this doesn’t mean hugging somebody and tell them, “Bro, you got it. It’s all right. We got this. I believe in you.”

Patrick:
But it also means we have to have that in order to independently survive in this thing called life that’s nonstop of humiliation, shots, differences, judgment, argument, debates, setbacks heartbreaks. I just had a conversation right now with a guy, his name is Dan Price. I don’t know if you guys remember the one CEO who came out and said, “I make too much money. I’m making $1.1 million a year income. I’m going to give all my employees a $70,000 a year salary.” And this thing was shared and it got 500 million comments, record breaking for NBC. record-breaking for Facebook. And he was the talk of town for quite some time. Obama gave him this award and all these other things that happened with this guy.

Patrick:
Well, he and I just talk right now for 90 minutes. If you would’ve sat here and listened to the conversation, you would’ve said, it’s probably one of the most… There was about three moments in the conversation where I’d challenge him with the questions, where I thought it was going to be over with. But I think we need that pressure, we need the discourse. We need us to have those kinds of conversations, and none of us can get away from life without having that, especially if you want to compete at the highest level.

Brandon:
My daughter is four years old right now, almost five, and she just told her first lie about a month ago or so. She says, “Mom said I could have ice cream.” And mom walks in the room and goes, “No, I didn’t.” And she goes, “Oh, I forgot.” And we were like, “No, you didn’t. You just lied.” And her face goes white, she jumps off the chair, she runs into the room, and she can’t stop screaming. She feels so guilty for lying and having been caught in it. And she’s got her face in the pillow just crying and screaming. And my wife and I walked in there and I held my wife and I said, “She needs to feel this like this.” This is the hardest thing. I want to go near the bed, “It’s okay, it was a small lie. Don’t worry about it.”

Brandon:
But that’s where her character is being built in that moment where she’s just in pain. And of course, we then would talk to her and we talked it through, but it just reminds you, in life sometimes, we have to go through that. And people oftentimes will use that pain in their past as an excuse on why they’re not successful. But then others use that as a reason, as a fuel, as a fire for why they are. And that’s a huge difference I see in people that are successful or not.”

Patrick:
It’s crazy you say that. Michael Jordan in the documentary, The Last Dance, there’s a part where he explains what his dad did to him. They showed a scene where his dad was like, “Oh, you just go outside. You’re not a real man. You can’t go build stuff. Let me and your brother go get the stuff done.” Something like that, to the effects of that that his dad told him. He says, “When my dad was challenging me and pushing me to be better,” he said, “When you’re in it,” he said, “It’s very difficult emotionally.” He says, “Because you don’t know how to handle it the first time, you’re being challenged. Your dad’s challenging you. You’re being pushed.”

Patrick:
He said, “But if you can come out of it, that’s when you can end up becoming something really special if you can handle it.” Now, obviously, we know what Jordan ended up doing, but what happens if he didn’t have a father figure that challenged him that way and an older brother that kicked his for all those years, would Michael have been Michael? I don’t know.

David:
Well, Michael Jordan was famous, if you follow his career for proactively looking for things to cause him pain. We’ve all heard that story. He got cut from the team when he was in high school. Well, that’s not really true. He tried to make the varsity team before he was even at varsity level and they made him play JV like all the other people his grade level. But he interpreted that like, “They shafted me, I’m going to make them pay for that.” And he used it as fuel. I think Michael Jordan understood the fuel that comes from pain. If you said something about him in a newspaper article before the game, or you made it sound like you were on his level, he took it personal.

David:
And I don’t think he was an egomaniac, it wasn’t that. it was, he knew when you’re that good and you’re this successful, you’ve got to find ways to keep fueling yourself. And I’ve noticed that successful people will frequently raise the bar on own selves, so now they feel like they’re not successful enough and they’re still in pain to use it as fuel. And I remember being a kid, hearing a lot of parents say the phrase, “I want my kids to have everything I didn’t have.” And as a kid, I was jealous because my dad wasn’t saying that ever. I don’t think he had that desire once in his life.

David:
But now I understand how dangerous that was, because what you should have been saying is, “I want to give my kids the values and principles that I developed when I was in this pain,” instead of, “I want to give them what I’ve already earned.” Would you agree, Patrick?

Patrick:
No question about it. It’s so hard to do when you can do everything for them. That’s when it gets hard. And then kids in school say, “Do you know who your daddy is? Do you know your daddy has money? Do you know your daddy can buy anything? Why doesn’t your daddy do this? And why doesn’t your daddy do that?” And kids come home and they say that to you, “Daddy, how much money you got, daddy? Somebody in school told me you’re this. And someone in school told me you’re famous. And somebody in school told me you were rich. My teacher said this.”

Patrick:
I’m like, “What did they tell you?” So we processed it together. And I say, “Okay.” So we go to a restaurant at Pearl Harbor and he sees this white Ferrari, and he really likes it, my middle son. He says, “Daddy, I want you to buy that Ferrari for me.” I say, “Son, I’m going to do something way better for you.” He said, “What? What are you going to buy me?” I said, “I’m going to show you how you can buy that white Ferrari yourself one day. How awesome is that?” “No, I want you to buy it.” I said, “No, buddy, I’m going to show you how you can buy it one day.”

Patrick:
And it was a great example of how… Of course it’s something I could do, of course I can go get the kid almost anything he wants, but is that necessarily what’s going to build them into who he can be potentially one day? Not at all. So I agree with you on that.

David:
Yeah. What you’re describing is the capitalistic mindset versus the communistic mindset or the socialistic one, which would say, “Well, everyone should have a Ferrari.” I’m curious how much of your background and where you came from developed this affinity that you seem to have for capitalism?

Patrick:
I grew up in a family where my mom couldn’t stand rich people. She just didn’t like them.

David:
Same.

Patrick:
She despised rich people. And we had one guy in our family who just passed away two months ago, six weeks ago, who was the richest guy in our family. And my mom would always say bad things about him. He’s this, he’s that, he’s this. I’m like, “Man.” I couldn’t stand this guy. I’m like, “What a bad person you are.” And then when I came to the States, my dad would take me to his house once a summer and I would go to his place. I could tell exactly what his house looked like. 7,200-square-foot house, neighbors with snoop dog and upland off a street called San Antonio. You drive up to the cul-de-sac. To the left he had a massive bird’s cage. But I’m talking like 30 feet up for his cage, not like one of these small ones.

Patrick:
And then he would always have Jaguars. He was a Jaguar guy and Cadillac guy. And his, almost like his cousin would live in that house, Alfred. And when you walked into the home, to the right was his office, and then all the way to the end was a master bedroom, living area, kitchen. He had a picture with Al Gore, for whatever reason. And then he had this picture with his entire family who were all dressed in white, pool table, and then swimming pool, tennis court and all this stuff. I used to love going to this place, but my mom couldn’t stand this guy. And then later on in life…

Patrick:
And my dad on the other side, my dad couldn’t stand lazy people. Oh my gosh, my dad couldn’t stand lazy people to the point where if you were lazy, my dad had zero filters. He would tell you, “You’re lazy. You’re fat. Why are you so fat? Stop eating so much food.” I’m like, “Dad, you can’t say stuff to people, dad. That’s not respectful.” “But I’m telling him the truth.” I said, “I get that, but there’s a way you communicate.” There were a couple of my friends who would never come to my house because he would say, “How are you doing, Gordo? How are you, Gordo?” I’m like, “What are you doing?” “But he’s fat. He needs to understand that his butt is too big. He needs to lose 20 pounds.” I’m like, “Oh my gosh.”

Patrick:
It was funny and comical at the same time, but very uncomfortable. These are my parents, and I love these guys, but they’re my parents. My mother’s side, they were communists, my dad’s side, he was an imperialist. So later on when I grew up, I’m like, “Okay. Not all poor people are lazy. Some poor people are poor for other reasons not because they’re lazy.” I know a lot of poor people have worked their tails off. They’re poor because they don’t read books, because they don’t develop new skill sets, because they don’t increase their value in the marketplace. And to them, they’ve been convinced whether, it’s by their family, the TV, the government, that they are poor and they’re supposed to be poor, and rich people are bad. And they stay in that state and they don’t question anything.

Patrick:
Well, I started questioning things, and I said, “Mom, I don’t know about this. I hung out with that, man. He’s a very nice guy. He gives to everybody. His entire family lives with him.” So he was a socialist within his family. He took care of his family very good. But when it came down to business, he wanted to build a big business for himself and compete, and he wanted to pay taxes, but not too much taxes. And eventually, years later I asked my mom, I was 33 years old when I asked her, I said, “Mom, why don’t you like that guy so much?” She says, You know what? It’s not like he ever did anything bad to us, it’s just when he became rich, we never saw him as much as we used to see him.”

Patrick:
I said, “Mom, that’s a different story, mom, the guy’s busy. You don’t know the guy’s life. He’s got kids, he’s got grandkids, all this other stuff.” She’s says, “Now I get it.” He says, “Things are different now, but my life experiences got me to finally get to the point that I think it’s all about choice. I don’t like force, leave it to me to choose. Don’t force me to pay 70% in taxes. Don’t force me to be poor, broke, billionaire, rich, middle America. Give me the choice to do it.” And all of that fits with the criteria’s of capitalism. Not all the other economical systems that are out there.”

Brandon:
We’ll talk about the book a little bit, Your Next Five Moves. Definitely one of the best books I’ve read in the past few years, reallY, really good. And I read a ton of books, and you read a lot of books too, I can tell you know what you’re talking about. What does that mean, your next five moves? Can you explain the analogy there with the chess?

Patrick:
Everything in life to me is about your next five moves. Even right now, you sat there prior to this interview and you said, “What’s the first question I’m going to ask?” Your flow. There are 15 moves in this interview that you have. If you prep and you sit there and you got the stuff marked off on the book and you’re like, “Hey, I’m going to say this, and I’m going to ask this, and you go first, and I go first,” that whole thing is 15 moves that you got in place. So I came up with a title originally 15 moves because I was watching a documentary by Magnus Carlsen. And they were talking about how the grand master knows 10 or 15 moves, masters know five to 10 moves, pros know three to five moves, and the amateur only knows his next move when he plays chess. It’s typically one or three moves that they know.

Patrick:
So, in the world of business and life, those who win at the highest level, they typically sit there and say the following, they say, “Okay. All right. Here’s what the conditions are.” They do a lot of research. Research, research, research. Read, read, read, read, read, read, read. Research, research, research. And then they say, “Okay, based on this, move one, I’m going to send an email to that guy. Move two, I’m going to send an email to those two as well for options in case he says no. Move three, I’m going to contact my attorney and ask him to drop the contract. Move four, I’m going to talk to my partner to see if he wants to come in on this for another million bucks. Move five, I’m going to go out there and get this product prepared to ship to those three so they all have… ”

Patrick:
“Move six, I’m going to talk to the person that are each of their best friends, because I know Bob that knows Jack, I know Larry who knows Mary, I know Joey who knows Jackie. Perfect. So they also know what’s going on.” And then the 15th move is what? We do business deal together and we make $10 million. Are we going to go out there and launch a book? Or, are going to go out and launch this? But all of that is about moves. And I think too many times where we as human beings get it wrong is sequencing.

Patrick:
I know a lot of people that have good ideas, I know a lot of people that are workers, I know a lot of people that want to do something big with their lives, but they force move 19 to move two, and it breaks everything down. They try to buy a house they cannot afford too early, they lose it all. They try to go out there and become this famous person that they haven’t done yet enough to get there and they want that kind of respect, but you have an earned a marketplace, they rub certain people wrong way. The sequencing is where we make the mistakes in. And that’s why I wrote the book Your Next Five Moves, which is really all about sequencing.

David:
As you were talking, you had me thinking that when I… I was a police officer, technically I still am, and now I moved into being a real estate broker and a loan officer and starting business, becoming more of an entrepreneur. One of the hardest things that I had to learn was the understanding of leverage, that there’s this temptation to just do it yourself. And what you made me realize was that I only think one move at a time, see it, do it, see it, do it. And breaking that habit where you hire assistance and you let other people take over and you actually invest in them, allows you to get a couple moves ahead. And what I found is, as I’ve moved a couple moves ahead, it actually gets harder and harder to be able to bring yourself back to the details of the moment.

David:
When you get thinking that far ahead, your mind is just looking at all the seven different ways this could work out and trying to prepare for where you’re going to go, depending how it shakes out that when you have to bring yourself back to present day, what am I going to do right now, it’s really hard. Did you have a similar transition, Patrick, as you scaled to the level that you’re at?

Patrick:
Yeah. Of course. But when you scale and you get to the next level, the challenge now you’ll face is typically to following. You’ll get to the next level, and if you yourself don’t each time recreate yourself, you’re not going to go back to the following level, you’re going to drop back down. It’s almost like this, let me explain to you how this thing works. So let’s just take markers, making 100 grand a year, making a million, 10 million, 100 million, a billion. Let’s just make those the numbers for the sake of numbers. And the numbers could be 100,000, quarter million, half a million, a million, two million, it doesn’t matter, I’m just giving you a number.

Patrick:
You got a business at the top line revenue which is 100 grand, a million, 10 million, 100 million, a billion. When you’re doing 100 grand a year, you’re in the top 1% of a community. What do you mean by that? You’re in the top 1% of the community, you could be one of only 50 kids, 100 kids that came out of your school or your cousin that’s making 100,000 all of your income. So you’re elite amongst people that are around you, but you go into the next level who are making a million dollar your income, you’re nobody. You go to the bottom 10%. So it’s like playing basketball at a junior high school where you’re the best guy, and that same kid goes plays with high school people, you get bullied.

Patrick:
And then the same guy goes and plays basketball at Rucker, or goes plays basketball at New York, or LA, or some of the best streets in Chicago, Miami, and you get crushed like, “I don’t like playing at Venice Beach. I prefer playing with my junior high school friends.” So each time you go to the next level, you are the worst of the next level. And it’s very hard to go to the being the best of your current level and everyone says, “Oh my gosh, he’s the manager of Cedars. Oh my gosh, he’s the best in our office. He’s the best out of the five people on our little group.” But then that guy goes and you’re walking around like this in your office and you’re going to the region like, “I’m really a nobody here. I thought I was like killing it.”

Patrick:
And that can push you to want to go back only to your smaller office to feel special, or you may get the feeling saying, “Man, I’m little here, but what if I can compete with these guys? And what if I learn what they’re doing? This could really be amazing.” And then boom, you’ve flourished, and now you’re getting, let’s just say MVP and you’re the best of that group. And then you go to the nationals and you’re like, “I’m going to the nationals” You go to the nationals, it’s like, “Wait a minute, dude, that guy from New York’s better than me. That guy from [inaudible 00:33:24] is better than me. That guy from DC is better than me. Wow, I’m a nobody. But what if I can compete in that?”

Patrick:
So you get this idea how this thing works. So every time you scale to the next level, you’re going to hit a level of recognition and affirmation that you’re getting, that’s going to feel good, but is that going to mean you stay there or you’re going to chase your capacity? Believe it or not, it doesn’t take a lot to slow people down, just pay them 100,000 your income and tell them they’re special, they’ll typically stay there for the rest of their lives. That’s just typically how things work. But if you challenge somebody to seek their capacity, that means every other year, you’re going to face something very, very difficult that’s going to be new and no one’s know how you’re going to handle it, but it’s in those moments when we realize, are you a big thinker or you’re a small thinker, we’re going to find that out.

Brandon:
That’s so good. I love the way you put that. I’ve told this story a few times on the show here, and I’ll just summarize here is, I spent a decade getting to 100 rental units, had 100 rental units, wrote some popular real estate books, have a podcast. Let’s say I’m pretty good about myself, I’m like, Yeah I’m doing pretty good job.” And then I went and spoke at a conference, I was keynote speaker because I’m the guy in the podcast. I go speak there, and all of a sudden I realized, I was the least qualified person to be in that room of every attendee, of every speaker, I should not have been there. And I was there because of my podcast, or name, or whatever.

Brandon:
And it was that day, I had to decide, am I going to go back to where I feel really good about myself and pat myself on the back because I’m doing a good job? Or am I going to push myself to that next level? And so now in the past 18 months, we bought almost 2,000 more units, went from 100 to 2, 000 because I said I’m going to push that into the next level. But that is hard, and that is painful, to go back to the conversation we had earlier, painful. In fact, I pulled a quote out of your book here and I love that it said, “Those who can tolerate pain the most, the ones with the most endurance, give themselves the highest chance of winning in business.”

Brandon:
Because every time you push to that next level, it is painful and it is difficult to all of a sudden be the worst. But I think that’s what makes the top people, the top people.

Patrick:
First of all, kudos to you guys, to you for going from a couple hundred to a couple thousand. And it’s sometimes in those moments where you go to an event and you see people that are ahead of you and say, “Well, what happens if I give my best?” Here’s also what I say, what I say to people that say, “Well, why does this matter?” I say, “It doesn’t matter.” “So what do you mean?” I say, “That’s okay. Let me unpack this for you.” Why is everybody always talking about money? It’s not about money, but let me explain. And hopefully this makes sense.

Patrick:
I got a call once, and I talk about it in the book where I got a call and this person was getting ready to throw in the towel, “Just business isn’t for me, I’m going to go to church, and I can’t believe because this other person’s…” I’m just like, “Why are you throwing the towel?” “I just think I’m a church person,” and you’re not a church person. I said, “Wait, you’re more holy than I am.” Fair, that argument’s a whole different argument, but I don’t know when to have that with you, but let’s talk about something else with you. I said, “What are you running away from? You’re running away from something.”

Patrick:
“I’m not running away from anything.” “Yeah, you are.” “No, I’m not. You think life is all about money and I don’t.” I said, “You think that I think life is all about money?” “Yes.” “What has given you the idea that I think life is all about money?” “Well, look looking, look at how hard you work to go out there and build a business and what you’re doing, look at you, all you care about is money.” I said, “No.” I said, “What I’m solving for is I want to know what the best version of Patrick looks like. I’m just so curious about this guy. Now, let me flip it on you. What’s that?” I said, “What’s good money to you, if you make it, you’d be very happy? If you never make more then you’re totally happy.”

Patrick:
He says, “If I make 150,000 all your income, I’m happy.” I said, “Great. No problem.” I said, “Let’s just say $150,000 all your income. Great.” I said, “Say you’re 75 years old,” says yes. I said, “Say you’re 75 years old at dinner with your grandkids and you have a nice place, you got a nice backyard, you’ve been living in this place for 30 years and you’re totally happy with it. You never made more than 150 and you sit there.” “You know you had all the talent in the world to do something massive with your life, but you settled to just do it 100, 150. If you’re sitting there, will you have any regrets that you didn’t give it all in your life?” And the person’s quiet, “I would have no regrets.”

Patrick:
I said, “Then guess what? Go live that life.” I said, “I would, if I’m the 75-year-old sitting there and saying, I just lived the safe life, I would be so miserable because my wiring is not that, my wiring is curious.” I said, “Only do what you said you’re going to do if you sincerely mean it, but if deep down inside, you’re going to be one of these ambitious people that doesn’t want to give their best and somebody else advances ahead of you and behind closed doors, you have a little bit of envy in you, that means you always wanted to give more, but you were afraid of it and you didn’t want to put in into work, but you were a bigger thinker. So, be very true to yourself because if you lie to yourself, it’s a pain that’s going to last a long time.”

Patrick:
Again, I don’t judge anybody that makes $50,000 a year who is writer, and they write a book and they make $50,000 writing their book, and they’re not famous, the world doesn’t know them, but they make 50K, they’re so happy, and they’re so happy for me, meaning this guy’s making 50K, he’s so happy, but when we get together he’s like, “Man, I just heard what happened the other day, Pat, freaking congratulations, bro. Awesome.” And I know he’s sincere, I just love the level of alignment this individual’s has. Unfortunately, most people sit there and they say, “Look what he’s doing. Look, what she’s doing.”

Patrick:
Dude, go chase your own life. I don’t judge you if you want to live a small life or a big life. You get to make the decision on how big of a life you want to build.

Brandon:
That’s phenomenal. Yeah. That whole chapter that you talk about envy in the book was one of the most life-changing chapters I’ve read in any book. I think I underlined in circles like, “This is so good. I need to talk about this.” I’m glad you brought that up. I have underlined this quote, it says, “What will give you peace of mind is being honest enough to know who you are and do what it takes to live the life you want.” Because it’s not always about, you don’t have to go up 2,000 units like I do, or you don’t have to build a huge real estate team like David does. If you’re happy where you’re at, be where you’re at, but I think the key is knowing yourself. It’s knowing who you are, knowing what you want.

Brandon:
And that’s why that’s basically the first move, is being real with yourself and knowing yourself. All right. I want to move on. I want to move on to something that you call the personal identity audit, I think, you explain what that is and why is that so impactful for people?

Patrick:
Years ago, I went to Matador Beach and I had a list of 83 questions that I went through, and I sat there and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this one’s a tough one to answer. Tell me about the three people in your life that you dislike the most?” And you write it down. And like, “How similar are you to them?” Wait, what? What do you mean, similar? They’re not like me. I’m like, “Well, but you maybe have. So maybe you don’t like yourself, what is the problem with you not liking them?” And I’m going through the set of questions and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this was too tough, difficult than frustrating and annoying experience.”

Patrick:
But what it did do is, by the time I was done I was like, “You know what, Pat, man, you got a lot of problems, but it’s okay. You’re going to be all right. It’s okay.” So the more and more it became about this guy accepting this guy, the craziness I accepted, the non-stopness I accepted, like my wife, we were at a party this Saturday’s celebrating Persian New Year. And one of the girls there asked my wife, how I am. It’s like, “Every time I see Patrick is like this.” My wife says, “You don’t know one thing about Patrick.” “What’s that?” “From the moment Pat wakes up till he goes to sleep, he is non-stop doing something. He’s going, going, going, going, going.”

Patrick:
I don’t know any other way. I have no idea any other way, but then to be that way. So the questions, what they did for me is, it got me to say, “That’s okay that you’re like that.” One time, Nassim Taleb, he wrote a book, I don’t know which one it was, Antifragile or Skin in the Game. One of the things he talked about in his book, he said, “So many people want to give people medicine and stuff to eat so they stop getting angry or they stop getting frustrated.” He says, “I enjoy being angry, I want to feel that.” He says, “When it rains and I’m writing,” he says, “I feel a little bit depressed.”

Patrick:
He says, “I don’t want to stop rain, I like rain. But when it rains, I do get a little bit down.” You’re from North Washington so you sometimes you experience like… I don’t mind, maybe not nine months out of the year for you, maybe you go to Mallory, it’s a different kind of a thing. But the point is, I want to get to a point where I’m comfortable being around Patrick the rest of my life because you can get along with everybody in the world, but man, if you can’t get along with yourself, what a miserable life, what a miserable life. And here’s the flip side of it, you cannot get along with everybody in the world, let’s say majority of people in the world, but you get along with yourself, you know what’s so weird?

Patrick:
The person that gets along with themselves but nobody else in the world lives a happier life than the person that doesn’t get along with themselves but they get along with everybody else in their rest of the world. Because eventually, there has to be understanding of who you are. Now, the person that’s like, “I don’t get along with everybody else.” If you’re also not working on yourself and improving yourself, maybe you’re just an asshole and there’s a reason why that’s the case.

Patrick:
There are assholes that think pretty highly of themselves, but I think the point I’m trying to more make is, when I went through those questions, by the time it was done, I said, “You know what, Pat, I like you, I think you and I are going to get along for a long time.”

Brandon:
Yeah. That’s really good. And of course, everyone you can get at the end of the book, you actually have it listed in there, the questions. And I know it’s on your website, I think as well. So yeah, super important. Now, one more topic I wanted to make sure we cover today, and that is, I was fascinated by your discussion on the difference between an intrepreneur and an entrepreneur. Because so many people, especially in this, this is a real estate show, everyone’s, “I want financial freedom and I want to quit my job and stick it to the man.” We get a lot of that attitude feeling.

Brandon:
But for a lot of people, the answer may not be entrepreneurship, it may be intrepreneurship. Can you explain the difference there and who makes maybe a good intrepreneur versus entrepreneur?

Patrick:
Yeah. Right now there are so many people that want to be able to on Instagram or Twitter, say entrepreneur, investor, all that other stuff. There are a lot of entrepreneurs that are broke and there are a lot of intrepreneurs that are billionaires. There are a lot of people that are not meant to be entrepreneurs. There are a lot of people that are better intrepreneurs. There are a lot of employees that make horrible employees, meaning you’re just not a good employee, you just don’t do well to the whole basic stuff where it’s like, “No, you got to do this.” It’s like, “No.”

Patrick:
And so those people are needing to be entrepreneurs, but there are companies that are doing a very good job, especially in the last couple of decades that they attract people that are entrepreneurs, but they work W-2 for company because that company allows them to be entrepreneurs within a company, yet there are W-2. And I call them entrepreneurs because in every possible way, that person works like an entrepreneur. What’s an entrepreneur’s work schedule look like? Bill Gates talks about, “First 20 years of my life, we never took a vacation.” A little bit extreme, but that’s what he did. Great. He’s happy, he’s okay with it, some people like him, some people don’t. It’s Bill Gates.

Patrick:
Zuckerberg. They asked him a question, they said, “Did you watch The Social Network?” “Yes, I did.” “What’d you think about it? How much truth was there?” He says, “There was some truth, but one part of the truth that wasn’t in there was we worked a lot harder. We didn’t party as much as that movie show we party, we didn’t party that hard. We worked a lot.” And he was pretty serious. And Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t seem like a joking type, I can’t see Mark telling a joke. And quite frankly, if he did, I don’t think it would be funny because he doesn’t seem like a funny guy I know.

Patrick:
But the point I’m trying to make is, before you go out there and take your 401(k) out and refinancing cash out all your equity in your home to start your own business, you may want to go find a crazy founder that you will like who is on a mission to do something big, that you can go in and get some equity in the company or buy into the company, help that company be a 10 billion auto company, and you own a couple of percent, you’ll end up being worth $50 million versus, “I’m going to go open up my own restaurant.” Unless if it’s a passionate place, a different story, but sometimes it makes more sense to become an intrepreneur than an entrepreneurial,

Brandon:
Early in my career… I’m an intrepreneur at BiggerPockets, this is the BiggerPockets Podcast. The BiggerPockets the website was started 18 years ago, something like that from Josh Dorkin, and he was the CEO. Now, I have equity in the company, but it’s not my company. I’m an intrepreneur. And at the beginning, I was not a good entrepreneur. I did not have the skill. When people say they want to start a business, I’m always like, “All right, can you get up and go work 80 hour, 90 hour weeks for six months without making any money whatsoever, without knowing you’re going to be successful?” And that’s what it takes to start most businesses, there’s a lot of time and effort before you start making money.

Brandon:
And I could not do that in the beginning. I could not, I was not an entrepreneur, but I’ve learned over the last few years, now I’m an entrepreneur and intrepreneur. I do the podcast here, but then I have my real estate business on the side, which has become even more profitable than anything I do here at BiggerPockets. Anyway, the nice thing though is you’re not stuck at one forever. You can be, if you’re honest with yourself, I am a better intrepreneur, at least was that I was an entrepreneur, but I learned how to be a better entrepreneur by working with our founder, Josh, who I deeply respect and love. And he taught me how to be an entrepreneur and so now I can do both.

Patrick:
Kudos to Josh, by the way, and kudos to you for identifying that, more power to you and Josh.

Brandon:
Oh, thanks. Yeah, it’s been a ride. Dave, what do you think?

David:
In my own journey, one of the things I’ve learned is, at least this is the way I look at it now, and I’d love to get Patrick’s opinion and perspective on it. The entrepreneur is the person that has to go gather every single resource and bring it to the people, and then lead them in how to use it. So I think about my business, we’re successful if we can build a house. We are actually selling houses, but for this analogy, and I got to go buy the wood, buy the nails, buy the tools and negotiate the price on all of those. And we’re in contract together for who’s going to buy the house and then get the permits done with the city, and I could go on. All that stuff has to be done.

David:
And then I bring all that information to the intrepreneurs, the agents on the team, and I say, “Look, I’ve done everything I can to possibly make you successful, at times I’ll even get in there with you and swing the hammer, but you got to build the house.” And a lot of intrepreneur or people that should be intrepreneurs, they look at it like their ego gets involved and they don’t think that they should, but what they really are is house builders. They’re good at that, give them a hammer, give them a saw, they’ll go out there and they’ll build the thing, but they don’t know how to gather those resources and they don’t maybe know how to make the blueprint, and they definitely don’t know how to run a P&L to make sure they’re going to be profitable. They need that from the entrepreneur.

David:
And that’s the way that I look at the whole thing. Now, on my team, what we do is when you become successful and you want a bigger piece, I build a team around the people on my team. I go say, “Look, I’m going to hire people and train them to serve you the same way you did for me, and you’re going to take a step up this ladder, and now you’re going to have all these people that are underneath you.” And really that’s a great transition, Patrick, because I’m so curious as to how you scaled your insurance company and your other businesses to the degree you did. Is it anything close to what I’m describing?

Patrick:
Yeah. For me, it’s a number of things, but for me, we started off with 66 agents and today have around 20,500 agents nationwide, nearly 150 offices in 49 states. We have more problems today than ever before. And I’ll tell you, we have more problems today than ever before. Not because the company is going down, we’re just bigger. But the benefit of having more problems than we ever had before is we also have way more leaders than we ever had before, way more leaders than we ever had before. The benefit of having more leaders is they take on responsibility and you share pressure.

Patrick:
I remember in 2013, 2014, I was having a lot of anxiety and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? How are we going to handle this? I’ve never been through this before.” I started bringing a C-suite executives and I realized, “Look, when you share the pressure, this thing becomes a lot easier.” Sometimes people don’t like sharing pressure, sometimes people want to hawk pressure. It’s okay to share pressure with the right people, it accelerates a lot of it. So the more I was able to share the pressure, we grew faster because that means we had more leaders to help make the vision of the company a reality. Once we all bought into the vision and we shared pressure, we started scaling a lot faster.

David:
What you’re describing there might be the trait of how you know if you’re a leader in a company is if you’re wanting the pressure or if you’re just wanting the perks. The employee comes in and they want all the perks, but they don’t want to share the pressure, whereas the leader who you’re going to build around welcomes the responsibility that comes with it. Would you agree with that?

Patrick:
I would agree with that. I would agree with that.

Brandon:
And as I’m reading your book, and as I’m learning more about you, I realize you do, you are wired for this hard work, hard charging growth mentality. How are you balancing that with your also desire to be a good father, to be a good family man, to have a life? How do you balance that, those two ambitions?

Patrick:
My wife’s pregnant with our fourth. We have three kids, a nine, seven and a four. So we definitely make time in the bedroom to have fun with each other. And I probably have… This is probably my favorite part of my life with my kids. I love my kids, man. Let me tell you, I enjoy my Sundays with them. Yesterday we broke a new record. We went yesterday for 10 miles and 10.16 miles yesterday. You got to realize, these kids are doing it in a BMX, it’s not like small little bike. It’s not like they have gears, so they’re like going like this. So to go 10.16 miles with boys, a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old, I’m proud of those guys.

Patrick:
But look, my vision was crystal clear, I grew up in a family where my dad worked six days a week and I saw him once a week. And Iran Friday was the only day off, Sundays we worked. Sunday of US is the Friday of Iran. So Iran was Fridays. He worked every day, he left at five o’clock, he came at 9:00. And I’ve never felt like I missed something with my dad. Never. Did my dad throw a football with me? He has no clue how to play football. Did my dad shoot baskets with me? He has no clue how to play basketball. Did he hit baseball with me? No. Did he sit there and teach me how to go camping? No. But you know what? I don’t feel like I missed anything with them.

Patrick:
Now, on this side, I bring my kids to my office, they travel with me. Quarterly, we always have some special going on that’s with the family. Sundays, I have my plans with them. Saturdays, it’s date night, Friday night is date night. Every day when I’m in town, I take my wife out to lunch on a daily basis. So I wanted to build my life around things and criteria that I have today. And these are my non-negotiables, but there was an element of sacrifice that others didn’t want to do that I did. But the vision is so big that my wife and I talked about it for 18 months before getting married.

Patrick:
And I told her, “If you want to find a nine-to-five guy to marry, that’s home every night at 5:00, it’s not this guy, but I can introduce you to plenty, it’s just not going to be this guy. You tell me what you want to do, babe.” And then she finally decided to do it. By the way, she’s seven months pregnant, she’s at the office next door, doing her own thing. She’s the VP of operations right now running a $5 million software that we just developed in the last three years, and she spearheaded that project from beginning to the end. So she does.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. Yeah, it definitely helps to manage those expectations upfront with everything in life, it’s all about managing expectations. Very cool, man. Well, I got about 400 more questions that we’re not going to get today, but let’s summarize the today’s show, getting to the last segment, it’s called our-

Voiceover:
#Famous Four.

Brandon:
This is the famous Four, it’s the same four questions we ask every guest, every week. We’re going to fire them at you right now. First question for you, is there a habit or trait that you’re currently working on in your life? Anything that right now you’re saying, “Hey, I’m trying to adapt that in my life until I get better at that.”

Patrick:
Patience, I’ve been working on my entire life. I’ve failed miserably, although I am more patient today than ever before. I can say what I pray for constantly because I’m working on it regularly, and that’s having more courage, having more wisdom, being more tolerant, and having more understanding. I still think I got so much work to do, but those are four that I’m constantly working on.

David:
Now, those traits are also actually things you actively purposefully work on with your children, correct?

Patrick:
Yes. Regularly.

David:
Is there three things you guys pray together with every night?

Patrick:
Those are the four things, courage, wisdom, tolerance, and understanding. It’s non-stop.

David:
That’s great.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. Which books have made the biggest impact on your life?

Patrick:
It’s funny, I’ve read the same books at different stages of my life and they had a different impact, but one book, it’s like a book that means nothing to anybody, Hypomanic Edge did a lot for me, but if you go on Google, Amazon, it’s got like 28 reviews, maybe 100 reviews, but The Hypomanic Edge, Laws of Success, when I read it in 2010, How to Win Friends and Influence People probably 10, 20 times because I’m a military guy. Lean Startup allowed me to at the beginning stages of the company, be focused. Built to Sell, got me to realize the importance of systems.

Patrick:
Zero to One, Peter Thiel was very effective. Gary Keller’s, The ONE Thing, I can tell you, right now, believe it or not, I’m reading a book right now on a guy that’s genius guy, the man who ran Washington, James Baker. I’m reading the story of James Baker right now because how you create alliances, and diplomacy, and ambassadors, all of that stuff, because that’s what I’m curious about right now. But I go through phase, and the way I read books is I read subjects. I’ll pick a subject, I’ll order 20 books, and that’s all I read.

David:
Next question. When you’re not taking over the world and teaching all the rest of us how to do the same thing, what are some of your hobbies?

Patrick:
I like the water, I like the ocean. I came over here specifically to be closer to the ocean. I love movies. There used to be time in the middle of the day, I used to go watch a movie. I like 10:00 AM with my 80-year-old friends who were like, “Why is this younger?” Because typically people who watch movies at 10:00 AM, they’re 80-years old. So I’d go there and they’re like, “You don’t look like you’re on social security.” I’m like, “Nah, but how are you doing grandma? Good to see you. How are you doing grandpa?” We would sit there and we’d watch a movie. I’m a movie fanatic. I love movies, I love outdoors, biking, exercising, and I’m definitely a big foodie. I love some good food.

David:
Rumor has it that you’re the best guy to watch a movie with because as you watch, I am legend, you’ll break it down and tell people what the directors are trying to say with that story.

Patrick:
Yeah. I’m that guy.

Brandon:
I love it. My last question today, if you had to pinpoint one or two things, I know this is an awful question to answer because that’s impossible to do, but if you had to pinpoint one or two things that separate successful entrepreneurs from those who give up, or they fail, or some just never get started, what would you say?

Patrick:
I think it goes back to the whole Nick Saban thing, man, you got to be true to yourself and your vision. I know it sounds kind of hokey, you got to be true to yourself or whatever, but a friend of mine called me this weekend. This friend of mine, he’s had a lot of problems, it’s not been the easiest thing, but he called me and we had a very interesting conversation to get. He’s acted very weird with me the last 10 years, but this guy knew me like one time we were in Las Vegas, we were at Studio 54. I’m 42, I was 21 at the time, so I was 21 years ago. And I was so gone, and I have $5,000 on me. I was throwing $100 bills. I couldn’t afford to throw $100 bill.

Patrick:
It was the only $5,000 I had because I took it out of my credit cocks, I was gambling. I’m throwing money, Scott grabs me, we go out. I’m so done because I had like seven shots of tequila. And he puts me in the back of the car, I punch him in the face, I’m like, “Don’t touch me.” And he puts me in, and then he knows that Patrick, and he knows this Patrick. So to him, it’s like, “Man, I can’t disconnect from the two Patricks.” So I said to him, I said, “Listen, why are you comparing yourself and your life to me.” I decided to traumatically change my life because of what happened with my dad. That’s my choice. I decided to do that.

Patrick:
You got to make a decision on what kind of a life you want to live. So if there is something to say for the people that do make it, they’re true to themselves, and they don’t compare, I don’t compare my vision to yours. I just know my vision is, I’m not going to stop until this thing becomes a reality because there are certain say. I tell God, I said, “God, if you keep me healthy and you gives me a good 100 years, I’m going to do stuff that’s going to make you very proud.” I used to say 80 years, now I’m saying 100 years because I’m getting closer to 80. I’m like, “Give me another 20 more.”

Brandon:
We’ll go 130, 140. We’re good. Just keep going.

Patrick:
I think you’ve got to be true to your vision and don’t let anybody confuse you and make you feel guilty about it. Guilt is a very powerful tool that people use to control you, you cannot let guilt prevent you from chasing your dreams.

Brandon:
Awesome, man.

David:
All right. For people who want to learn more about you, Patrick, where’s the best place for them to go?

Patrick:
You can go on Amazon, order the book, Your Next Five Moves, or you can send me a message on Twitter, I will respond back @patrickbetdavid. If you want to see the content, you can go on YouTube and type in Patrick Bet-David, you’ll see plenty of stuff.

Brandon:
That’s awesome, man. Well, again, really, really appreciate having you on the show today. Everything you talk about is just solid gold, so we’re honored to have you. Thank you.

Patrick:
Thanks for having me guys. Appreciate you.

David:
This is David Greene for Brandon, the perfect father Turner signing off.

Outro:
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