#195 - A Warrior’s Mindset for Entrepreneurs | Sean Patton on Leadership, Discipline, and Performance

0:00 You are the limiting variable in every aspect of your life. Your income improvement follows self-improvement. Your ability to lead your family follows your self-improvement. Your ability to experience fulfillment in life, that's you. That's not the outside world. Welcome back. Um, we're finishing the day of the, uh, we love doing in studio, but we're finishing the day today, uh, with just an awesome guy.

0:43 think we're going to end up here and find out what a warrior's mindset. just happens to be as a book he wrote, but you can't write that book and stand up the meaning behind it, um, without developing that in life. So I'm pumped to introduce Sean Patton. He's a former U S airborne army, airborne ranger and special forces Greenbury commander turned executive coach. leadership speaker and host of the No Limit Leadership podcast. I think his name has trumped mine. uh Sean has coached founders, executives and world-class leaders on how to unlock high performance through self leadership, resilience and intentional cultural building. He's also the author of a warrior's mindset, the six keys to greatness, a framework built from decades of military and business experience that helps people lead with clarity, purpose and impact.

1:32 Sean, welcome to the necessary entrepreneur man. Yeah, thanks for having me, Mark. I'm excited for this. 100 % all right. I'm just gonna dive in. I don't usually go right to the marketing and branding of what a guy does however um I think I would be remiss not to go deep with all this military experience you have everybody wants to talk about that But I hope today what we do is we learn what you garnered from that and what you've turned into this leadership business and and what coaching looks like now so my question is yeah, you wrote the book but What is a warrior's mindset? find a warrior as someone who fights for a noble cause greater than himself. I think that that aligns with who we are as human beings.

2:16 And I think when we realign to that, when we have this noble cause or a purpose or some outcome, something that is bigger than our own selfish gratification that we are striving and struggling toward, we are at our best selves, and I also think we're at our most fulfilled selves when we're doing so. And I feel like modern society and marketing in so many ways has distracted us from our core being. And when we get realigned with who we are as a human being and how we're supposed to operate, we can maximize our own experience of life and and maximize our positive impact on others.

3:02 Hmm. What's your life look like taking that warrior mindset? What I want to dig into today. Did you have it before the military or did it evolve and develop? We'll go there, but what's it look like today? Utilizing this mindset in the civilian world after you left that part of your life, because that's what you're coaching and teaching now. So what's that look like applied now? Cause it seems tough and gruff and a hard outer core, but let's go into it on. how that's applied and what that looks like and how it reveals itself in the everyday life of being a human in this normal world. Well, in some ways um it's more complicated doing it in the civilian world um or harder because, you know, in the military that mission set's given to you.

3:53 It's a given. Like you, you have a, you've been given a mission that is, and especially when I was in, you know, special operations, special forces, like we're accomplishing big real world life and death things and your serving and striving to be the best you can for the survival of the people next to you. the higher purpose, it's like given to you. Like the mission set's given to you. All you have to do is execute. What makes it more difficult in some respects for in the civilian or like real world is you have to create it. The world's not gonna give that to you. And so it takes real intention to um do the work on yourself to...

4:36 establish your own worldview. Like how does, how do you believe the world works and how should it work? And what role do you want to play in moving us from our potential as a world to what we could be? And what's, and that's going to look different for every, and that's kind of the hard part is we, we're constantly sort of like learning about ourselves. And then as we strive toward those things, we are, we're changing as we grow into new beings. And so we have to constantly reassess, you know, what that looks like. So having some sort of guide rails around what are your values and uh how do you want to participate in the world that's going to give you energy and fulfillment.

5:17 That is the key to having that whereas mindset. And so you mentioned like, how does that look like for me in terms of, you know, maybe working with clients or people now like. So we can just take a founder of a company gets so lost in the survival mechanism of like. making payroll, am I kidding the numbers and like doing that we've all been like that, that, that we lose sight of why did we start this company? Like what impact we started, we start a company because we're trying to create value or solve a problem in the world. And money becomes a by-product of that. Because if you get too locked into, uh it's just about, I don't know, like a bigger house or a faster car or how big my company can be.

6:00 Or when I hit a million dollars in revenue, then I'll be a legit like, all of those stories we tell ourselves, actually are, uh then work becomes something that takes energy from us. And even if we're striving and we think that like that newer house or a new car, which is awesome, like it's cool to have things like I want things, I want to make money. Like I like making money. uh I like having businesses that are successful, but you know, one of my, businesses is, they co-founded and co-own is a series of jujitsu gyms in Nashville. And. Yeah, it makes money and it's at a point now where it's got a CEO and a GM and man, I just teach classes a few days a week. I show up my board meetings. get my distribution check. Like it's awesome.

6:42 And that is cool. But what's really cool is when I show up and there's a hundred people on the mats or a parent comes up and tells me how his, confidence in his teenage daughter has been transformed because of the work we're doing. Right? Like that's what matters. It sounds like you're talking about mission driven and let me try to be in the civilian world, not ever being in the military where you live for so long that it formed your mind and brain, right? It formed, it almost formed the guy who is here, but what we're all looking for is easy lead outcomes all the time. doesn't matter. A mediocre performer still is envisioning this elite outcome. It's one of the most frustrating things in leadership, right? But something that just happened in this world that you weren't involved in this one, but probably in the past, you were involved in ones you don't talk about with Maduro in Venezuela.

7:28 We went down there and plucked that guy out what I believe without losing one military person. If that's how it went down and that's what happened, that is mission focused, mission driven, an elite outcome. And so what I'm assuming is, you know, everything that went in to make that one thing happen. And that's the approach that it's necessary on these businesses, these jobs, these roles that we have, that if you want that outcome every day in your life for everything you participate in, what are the things that have to go into the preparation of?

8:10 You know, I love you that call out because it's so funny, literally minutes before we recorded this, I finished, um, we're hopefully going to sign another contract, but I finished a contract that has been renewed several times with the company for me to do leader development training with them. And we just did like the end of it because it's going to change for now. And so this whole session was lessons learned and feedback from different leaders and it filled my cup so much to hear. that feedback from the end of this. But there were so many moments where I was like wondering, am I just speaking to the void? Am I putting this together? And so literally the words I'm reading them, I wrote down minutes before this call was the work always precedes the result.

8:55 And so often we want this immediate feedback or we want to see immediate results. We want to have these elite outcomes, especially that however you define that elite outcome, if it's a bigger outcome, if it's a bigger impact, almost always the tail of that, right. That had to happen to create it is longer. And so to your point, clear preparation, patience. mean, I know for me as an entrepreneur, the patience is the hardest part. I just want to go, go, go, go. And oftentimes we have this concept and I'm part of a larger coaching firm called Novus Global and it was great.

9:37 great uh analogy between rowing and sailing. And so sometimes as an entrepreneur, you know, my sort of right hand dribble default is rowing, like, let's just go push, let's go hard and make it happen. And sometimes that is a superpower. But if we find ourselves rowing and rowing against the current, it's like, hey, you know what, you can just put a sail up, bro. you know, like, how's the like, just give it some time, let it breathe, let the market work, like check the winds calm. And when you do that, it's like things just start to flow a bit. And so this idea and concept of like preparing, but then having the awareness of like, when do I need to sail and when do I need to row in order to have an elite outcome, I think gives us life.

10:18 So we're talking about experience, right? And talking about the perspective of when those moments happen. So in your experience, even in business now, how much, cause you know, sometimes we identify these just elite performers in the beginning. Everybody takes a step back and says, Whoa, what did I just see? Are those people found or are built? mean, almost gets to me what you're asking about right now. was like a nature versus nurture conversation. And what I would like to maybe reframe that is that what I've found often is that it's not nature versus nurture. It's nature and nurture.

11:00 And so what you probably have also seen in elite performance, mean, think some of the easiest ways to see it is almost always like in sports, just cause it's like, it's just so black and white. There's a scoreboard, right? But you'll see where there is just someone who has, uh, some talent that just aligns with that sport rule set. And all of a sudden you're just like, you know, you're a LeBron James or whatever, and they're like 16 and they got a full beard and they're dunking on people. Like what the hell's happening now? Right now there are so many more of P what I have seen. You know what? I've got a great example of this. I talk, was talking with a former, um, all pro NFL tackle one time and.

11:42 Uh, his name is Frank O'Malley. You can leave up. And we had this super interesting conversation. And he talked about, I think football is a example where, uh, like natural ability and, is really can stand out. You know, he pointed out, he's like, look, I was 300 pounds and I was a 17. He's like, I was starting. Like I was good at football. I could do nothing but show up to the game and be good at football. So, uh, she's like in high school, it's like 80 % physical, right? So. than natural and then like 20 % mindset, like work ethic, right? Like actual work behind it. He's like, and then in college, it's like 60, 40, like everyone's fast, everyone's big. And you start seeing a bit of a shift of like who can hang and who can't, you know, like who's developed the mindset.

12:28 And so often the people who had it, who were, had an easy jump because they are more naturally gifted at something didn't develop the... the routine, preparation to facilitate that, because they could just kind of wing it and get by. And then they hit a ceiling. And he's like, and then you get to the NFL, it's 90 % mindset, 10 % physical ability. Everyone's big, everyone's strong, but you see people that cannot handle being a professional at that level and putting in the reps because they were just always so big and fast and the things were easy. And I think the same can apply in business and same thing can apply in life where If you were the, that's why we, think we so often with entrepreneurs where it's the right, it's the first or second generation immigrant, or it's the person with the rough background, the person who uh had to struggle that ultimately succeeds because they had to develop, they had some raw ability, they had some natural talent.

13:24 But, and I think it's very hard to have none of that and overcome that. Like you'll hit a certain ceiling, but man, when you have both, that's where the magic is. that's a week. Did you find you were on the army side? Cause I know in this where everybody talks about Navy SEALs and all this and stuff, but they really don't talk about green braes a lot. And then even Delta and all that. You're supposed to talk about that. gotta be quiet, right? Yeah. But, but, but I heard somebody say one time, I don't know who it was, but on the podcast, I mean, there's a lot of you guys that have this background that are on podcasts now and Sean Ryan's highlighting so many and Rogan's had them on and stuff. But I heard someone say, if it was on a podcast or what, but they said, Hey, Going into Navy SEAL training, we could never tell you who was going to make it, but we could easily identify in the beginning who wouldn't.

14:16 And they said it was always the ones on the outside that were big and buff and things had come easy and they came in with these big attitudes. We can identify them instantly and none of them ever made it. Yeah, I think that's a great example of this concept that we're talking about right now. And I have an actually, actually a story in my book. tell where like, I remember the, the first night of special forces selection, we had done, you know, our initial testing and that sort of thing. And we go into the, we're showering and you know, for the night and getting ready for the night and like, you know, like I just remember like being in this locker room and you felt like you were in like a D one football locker room. I'm looking around like, I felt like I was like underneath the Coliseum, you know, I'm just looking, I'm like, Cause I wouldn't pretty confident, but there was like 400 people that showed up and I knew not all of us were going to make it.

15:03 And I started, that was the first time I started looking around. like, Oh crap. Am I the one that's not going to make it? I'm like, hold on a second. who, like you just look around like who's failed. Like everyone is, everyone's ready. You know, like this is crazy, but sure enough, you know, almost 80 % of them didn't make it. It's the things that are underneath. Yes. And so we, started seeing to your point. remember the next, that night, you know, we woke up at like, I I woke up at like 4 a.m. or 3 a.m. and it was a, this is where they get you. This is the mindset part it. It was a unknown distance, unknown timed, rock march. So it was show up, you weighed your rock, you had 45 pounds and you put water, plus water show up in this line and the instructions were, you're going to follow the green chemlights, the glow sticks.

15:53 Right? Until you see the red one, there'll be a cadre member, give him your number, turn around, come back. Standard is do your best. Now here's the thing, everything else in the army is task condition standards, everything. Here's the task you're going to do, the conditions you're going to do that enter. And then here's the standard for success or failure. It's very clear. And so you'll see a lot of, one of the reasons that special forces is different than let's say Navy SEALs or others is um not all of them, but most of them. were in the regular army before. So they have years in the regular military as we're almost everyone in SEAL training like comes in as like a ran a college or as a a 18 year old kid and like they've only been a SEAL, right?

16:33 So they already been in the army. So you'll see these soldiers, bad soldiers and all of sudden what's getting to them is the fact they don't know the standard. Are we getting ready to go four miles or 20? What's failing? What's passing? What were they trying to discover in that first day? What were they trying to discover? They're just kind of discover who breaks under the unknown. Who breaks when you don't know if this is going to work or not? Who's comfortable operating in the gray and isn't going to work themselves mentally into a rumination cycle that ends up with them.

17:14 When you get into a room and I'm sure hopefully other people can relate to this. I'm sure they can like. You get into this room, make sure you start doubting yourself or you start questioning, you start thinking, and you get in this night goal and that is using up so much energy. You're just using up so much energy and you're bringing down your mind and your perspective. And, and if you don't have the, the mental fortitude or the mental ability to turn that off and say, it doesn't matter. I'm just going to do my best. And I'm just going to keep going. Um, I don't need to know outcome. I don't have to have certainty. I'm just going to do my best and I'm going to. what the boards I would use now with clients is uh process over outcome. Yeah, isn't it just the next green glow stick? That's all that matters.

17:55 Yeah, just keep moving. Keep moving. All matters. But you would see, what I saw was I saw after the first mile or two, those super buff, you know, the gladiators just like start to fall one after another and faster than you would think. Like within a few miles, you're like, dude, know you can do, I know you can do this for 12 miles or 20 miles, but it's the mindset that couldn't, was getting to them, like they don't, they didn't know, they couldn't handle not knowing. And so much in special forces, like one of the, one of the reasons that also special forces is, is different than some other special operations units, like a Navy seal or like a Ranger regiment maybe, or Delta is like all of those three units I had mentioned are their primary missions are all direct action and special reconnaissance, which is the reason it's like cool to make movies about them.

18:44 And like, it's it's kill capture, it's raids, it's hostage rescue, it's reconnaissance. the work that. Army Special Forces does is much more nuanced. um you know, back in the OSS days of World War II, the Office of Strategic Services, um after World War II, we weren't sure if we wanted to keep this ability of sort of like intel and paramilitary operations. And what ended up happening was it bifurcated and split. And what came out of that was the CIA for the civilian world and Army Special Operations for the other, Army Special Forces for the other Green Berets. So. That being said, when Navy SEALs go on target with 30 of the guys that they've trained 10,000 hours with, and you have to, you have to be precise.

19:29 You're shooting down a tiny corridor on a ship. Like you better be black or white locked in, dude. You better be right. When you go on target as a green beret with 12 Americans and 300 Afghani commandos at night, that's, you have to be a master of chaos. You have to be okay with the unknown and the uncomfortable and navigate it in real time. And that's a different. type of mindset. And I think it's more analogous honestly to like an entrepreneurial mindset. That's what I was saying. I'm like, without reducing what you guys did and what you went through in the danger, can, is it a metaphor for entrepreneurship? Because look at the failure rate. When you were talking about the first night and people stopping at one and two and three miles, I instantly knew I was like, man, what are they quitting for?

20:10 These guys wouldn't have come there if they couldn't have ripped off 10 miles like that. And they had probably done it before many times with more than 45 pounds on. And so, and I'm like, man, in entrepreneurship, It's not a failure rate. Sorry. It's a quitting rate. And I'm not trying to be an asshole. But that's just what it is. Dude, you're so right. You're so right. do you, uh, it's so easy to say and hard to do. So like, I'm not trying to trivialize it, to view quote unquote failure as not the opposite of success, but a necessary step toward ultimate success is a mindset that every entrepreneur needs to have if you're fully committed.

20:52 And I make up that, that goes back to Are you obsessed with the process and process improvement? Because if you're obsessed with the process and you fail, awesome. We're not quitting. We're not done with this journey. It just didn't go well today. And now I have new data so I can do it better tomorrow. I can get better. So we're valuing growth, right? Over that. And um so many times what's very hard, and this is maybe a crux of where I think I can see my own experience where I've gone wrong with it. I don't know if to relate to you, I'm sure to relate to others, is when I tie my personal value to that outcome. identity right?

21:34 Once I sign my identity to that, that's really hard. And, my first business out of the military, uh three years, everything I had into it, made a couple critical early financial mistakes as a brand new entrepreneur. And, you know, I went from a green beret commander, Captain America, whatever you want to call it. Like, you know, I'd always succeeded in everything I'd done. I was a West Point grad or whatever, just like list of things. um Three years later, declaring bankruptcy. That was outside of combat, the hardest moment of my life because it was this like, I felt like a failure. had 30 months overseas, 22 months in combat, and the only panics attacks I've ever had have been two as an entrepreneur.

22:22 There's just a different thing, man. So what do we make of it then, right? think, man, entrepreneurship is not sexy until you get the big victory at the end. And there is such a long journey of marathon stacked on top of each other to get there. There is nothing cool and sexy and I need to brag about man. And, and, and literally until the end. think, you know, if we're going to draw a sort of parallel with milk, where's the parallel between no military experience and entrepreneurship. And, know, maybe it goes back to like every hard training thing I ever did.

23:08 whether that was, you know, four years at West Point and who made it there and who didn't, uh, army ranger school, special forces selection, special forces combat diver qualification course. Whatever you want to look at, the people who went into that to bring it sort of full circle back to the worst mindset piece, the people who went into that for maybe let's just call them the wrong reasons. Like they went to West Point because their parents wanted them to. They went to Ranger school because um they didn't have, they thought it would give them the confidence they were lacking or because they're again, their parents did or whatever, like the pressures or the social pressures or something.

23:51 Right? And I would maybe equate that to like an entrepreneur who goes into it. Like if you're going into it because you want to drive a hundred thousand dollar car, you will not make it. Is that because, is it because those hard, dark moments that you've had in entrepreneurship and the hard, dark moments I've had and we all had, there has to be something significant keeping you going. There has to be in my perspective, this noble purpose greater than yourself. has to be about, it can't just be about the accomplishment. it's too hard. It's too hard if it's just about like, your cyber truck is not worth 10 years of suffering.

24:35 Like it's just not, dude. So if that's what you're focused on, you're not going to make it. But if you're focused on, and I would even say something like, I'm trying to create, freedom from my family. You know, like for me now, I'm a new father. I'm father later in life. have a one-year-old son. And like, man, I would say that none of my, literally probably none of my goals have changed, but the reason behind every single goal I have has completely changed. And it's a matter of like the life that I can envision for him, a life I didn't get to have, time I'm gonna get to spend with him, memories I'm gonna get to spend with him, freedom, like all of those things just in that, like that's a fire that will not be extinguished.

25:21 And so- How do you think you'll balance that with also not making his life too easy? Yeah, it's a question. I think it'd be very intentional. I remember when I first time, not that I'm a wealthy man by any stretches, maybe one day, but as I started spending time with just to say people with, that had our baby already made all of their, a lot of money or high net worth folks are made it the old fashioned way through inheritance. is what I found was like, you know what, you know, actually raising kids when you have a lot of means to give them is very hard because it, you have to go against your DNA, like your genetic predisposition, which, you know, we were designed to live in a world of scarcity.

26:13 And so your natural tendency is to give your kid everything because that's how we survived, you know, and I grew up with a single mom in a small town in Kansas who I watched her, you know, work. full time as a waitress and bartender to put herself through undergrad and grad school to be a school psychologist to work with special needs kids without any help, financial help from my biological father. Like that was the example I had. So everything she had, she was giving. And that was the example that was set for me, but it was out of necessity. But if it's not out of necessity, I think it really takes intention. And I think, you know, to bring it back to like leadership, cause obviously that's like where I like to live is if As you become an entrepreneur, hopefully you're working on your own self leadership because ultimately your children are to be a much, what I believe is that your children will be much more reflective of how you are as a human being and how you treat yourself than even how you treat them.

27:10 So there's all these words that we stack a preface in front of. They seem to be popular, but nobody's wanting to break them down these days. It's called a self-confidence, a self-belief, self-discipline. Itself, but we seem like we continue to look everywhere else for the responsibility of those. Yes. The reality is that you are the limiting variable in every aspect of your life. Like your income improvement follows self-improvement. Your ability to lead your family follows your self-improvement.

27:51 Like you are your ability to experience fulfillment in life. That's you. That's not the outside world. There's plenty of people living in complete what we would consider squalor that are living happier lives than... a lot of millionaires in this country. Like we, we just a tie in our value to these other things. we keep an attire, tie in our value to these outside circumstances, looking for outside validation when all of that work is internal. And, um, and, and, and for me, that's the reason the word leader is so powerful to me because I have a firm belief that the journey to becoming the leader that you're capable of.

28:34 is the path to becoming the greatest version of yourself. And if you think about it, even if you think of where like manager versus leader, if you had to say, think of a manager, think of a leader, you think of different people. And do you want to manage your family or do you want to lead your family? Do you want to be a manager in your community or do you want to lead your community? And do you want to be a manager of people in your company or in your business? Or do you want to be a leader who invests in others? And if you step up and you put on the mantle of leadership, you start holding yourself to a higher standard of being. You automatically elevate the decisions and actions that you take. And so I encourage people, my message would be, to establish what is your journey to becoming the leader of yourself that you're capable of being and commit to that journey.

29:24 And kind of like we talked about with business, we're like, the money is the result. All, everything else is a result. The better relationships are the result. The healthier family is the result. The healthier business where people actually enjoy showing up and working is the result. Like all those things, the better world is the result. A better experience of life is real. Of you folks on how can I be the best leader of myself and others? What does self-improvement look like for everyone? Let's just say we like using zero to tens. There's zero to ten and every one of us humans, we're somewhere in here. What does responsibility of self-improvement look like for anyone, no matter where they're at from zero to ten? Hmm. I love that. It's a great question.

30:04 Um, I will use, I'll go back to the framework that I set up in my book. because that is what makes the most sense to me. And that's what I've developed. And to me, it starts with gratitude. A perspective on gratitude. You can always come back to gratitude as your infinite fuel source. Like what we, anyone listening to this podcast does not have problems of scarcity. have problems of abundance, but it's hard to recognize that. So we have won the lottery of the human experience. There have been a hundred billion humans that have walked the earth and know it's every single one of them struggled for survival every day with a pointy stick.

30:46 You were given this civilization. You were given this freedom. You were given this quality of life. So if you always come back to like oh gratitude, that's your driver. Then you're going to be driven by love and not fear. So that's one. So I think that has to start there. The next one is internal locus of control, right? Focusing on maximizing your outcomes by focusing on only what you can control. You know, you can't control the market. You can't control what war is going on. You can't control other people's behaviors or opinions. You can control you. And anytime wasted on that other things are as wasted time, energy, and effort. So internal locus of control, North Star, having a noble purpose greater than yourself that you're striving toward. Without that, you're lost, right?

31:27 Selfish gratification will never lead to true fulfillment. and then, self-discipline. So how do we turn, um, you know, dreams into doing right, like execution. And so a commitment to what does self-discipline look like for you? What are your habits? How, look at your calendar. Are your priorities straight? Is it aligned with your North star? Cause if you're just doing stuff that isn't aligned with your ultimate outcome in business or in life, you're going to be a loss. And a final of that five steps of self-leadership to me is perseverance and developing resilience. And we do that. um by putting ourselves intentionally in situations that are just outside our comfort zone.

32:07 We do things that are just a little hard, a little uncomfortable. Same thing with working out, same thing with our business, same thing with, you know, if you're, if you're used to, you know, talking on, to a few people talk to 20 and get on stage in front of a hundred, then you're ready to talk to a thousand, but that happens incrementally through, um, through stress inoculation. but if, if we stay inside your comfort zone, you wither. So that's the thing with resilience and perseverance talk about people talk about that a lot. But the reality is like, that is a constant muscle that has to get worked. You're either getting more resilient. You're either getting smarter. You're either getting stronger or you're getting dumber and weaker and weaker. they are, and less resilient. Like there is no steady state in this world. Your muscles are breaking down if they're not getting stronger.

32:49 So I'll rehash that real quick. And it's just my framework. And maybe you pull out a few that work for you. It starts with gratitude as your fuel. You focus on only what you can control. Don't waste time and energy effort on others. Uh, have a North star noble cause greater than yourself. Constantly work on your self discipline and then, uh, do hard things and constantly find where you're at in that cycle and work on those three. And eventually you'll spiral up to a new level of being. Hmm. So if we think about leadership, since we're here, it's, what you do. It's the book you wrote. mean, it's the, it's the stages you speak on. It's the, the, I'm sure that's a foundation when you're, you sit on a board and you're an advisor, you're jujitsu, jujitsu's at gyms.

33:32 I'm sure, but I think about the places that we all came from. You came from a little town in Kansas, but the first and best leader you saw was your mom from what you told me about. From all the people that you've seen succeed around you, not just in the military, but in gyms and where they all influenced early by a leader that maybe we wouldn't have considered that they were in a leadership position. You know, I hesitate to say all or always, um, but I will say that. Because here's what I've also seen maybe if, if I had to, if I had to make a counterpoint to is that true or not, it would be, also have seen a lot of people that maybe were influenced on the negative side.

34:22 Maybe they had the parents or the dad that was like, I don't want to be like that. You know, I actually use a great example, my, long time business coach, John Michael Morgan, shout out to John. Um, you know, He grew up with a father who built a very successful company, but his whole value for his dad was his work. So he was never around. So he didn't know his dad, even though he had a dad and he was at home, like he was just always working. so that was because of that example, he said, I'm not going to be that. And so he instead is intentionally a present father and leads differently. So I think that, I don't think it's...

35:02 I don't want let anyone off the hook by saying like, I haven't had a good example. Like, well, I didn't grow up like that. didn't have like, but you've seen like, that is almost an external looks of control of like, well, I need to have this good leader. What, what a lot of people have seen is they've been a part of a company that had terrible management and leaders. And they were like, well, I know what I'm not going to do when I, when I get in charge and I move on. Right. So I think, I think it does come back to those lessons are out there and you can constantly ask yourself. going back to our previous conversation on progress versus our process versus outcome is you could always ask like, how is this for me? I have an awful manager. How can I learn from this? Oh, I just lost my company.

35:42 How can I learn from that? I just made $100,000 easy, interesting. What can I learn from that? Right? Like there's always a lesson and if we're constantly looking for it, we'll find it. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's this analogy I'm sure we happened or what the lessons from, but you find somebody who doesn't drink a lot of times. Like if they're like, Hey, I don't drink. Like, why don't you drink? It's like, well, because I had an alcoholic father who showed me what drinking was like. And then if you go to someone and you say that that's an alcoholic, like going to AA, they're in my life. I know them and they're like, why do you drink? And they're like, well, because I had an alcoholic father. And the example he set for me, it's what you're talking about. The lessons are everywhere. Right?

36:23 Yeah. So the challenge is, it's what, what do we make about this development as a human? Because I'd give my mom a lot of credit for the person I've become too. And you hear these stories. We, like said, we use sports earlier and, but it's not just sports. Like it's even like a Michael Phelps though. Maybe the guy has the perfect upper body. Like he looks like he's a fish swimming in the water. But then if you hear what he talks about, about his training regiment for a decade or something, like I think there was something like a decade. that there wasn't one day that he wasn't training in the water, not one day. And then we see the outcome of his life and all these gold medals and stuff. But not everybody's gonna be a Michael Phelps. So I'm asking Sean Patton, what's the in-between?

37:08 I think that um what I've noticed with outliers in a particular field often is that it comes at extreme sacrifice to other aspects of their life, even if it's just for a season. And so maybe that's for you. I know for a while, thought it was, I thought chasing big numbers and money was like, that was, I was going to go elite on that. whatever it took. um And then you get a little closer, you get a glimpse of it and you're like, Ooh, I mean, I got, I've got clients that are worth a figures that have a terrible marriage and the kids don't know them. Like, is that success?

37:49 I don't know. Um, so I think that what you can look at is what is the best, what is the, what is your North star? What is your vision? What is the best version of you? What is the life you're trying to create? Because the life that I'm trying to create. may not include the sacrifices it would take for me to make $10 million the next five years. But what it does include is my ability to stop working, to live overseas for part of the year and be swimming in the ocean with my kids at 3 p.m. every day. It's just how you define what elite is, like the best version of you. So I think you define like, what is that ideal version, that vision you have for you?

38:32 And that may not be... oh indexed into one particular area of life, but it may look like I've got a successful, I've got a business that creates financial and freedom for me and my family. It allows me to make different decisions. It allows us to travel. I'm able to have date night. I've got a relationship with my spouse that gives me life and is passionate and motivating. And my kids, I have a relationship that I couldn't even imagine. And my kids are 19 and 20 and they actually want to hang out with me. That's meh. That's Michael Phelps of life, bro. Yeah. Have you seen anybody though that, because what I'm like, love the quitting at 3pm and swimming in the ocean with your kids.

39:12 It's like, but then what you have to do is you got to reverse engineer your wife on what you're going have to do to make sure you have that. Yep. Right. That is important. And so what I do know, you touched on it. You're still going to have to have a season of sacrifice. Yeah. I mean, entrepreneurship, the, the, the first sign I put up in my office when I got into the military, it stayed up for years and years was, and I don't remember who said it. So many probably important and smart. Um, but it was, know, entrepreneurship is living your life for a few years, the way most people won't. So you live the rest of your life the way most people can't. And what I would add to that is like probably a lot more years than you think. Um, possibly, uh, at least from my experience, but.

39:56 When you do that to your point, then you create options. So as I said, it's a season of life. Like I remember when I was like competing in jujitsu a lot and I won a master's world title, like, or when I fought MMA, like I, that's all I did. Like I trained, I worked, I slept at eight because that was, that was what I was doing in that season. and if you want it to be the best person in like, that's what you got to do for a long time at the sacrifice of other things. So these are constantly decisions we have to make and is the sacrifice worth it? And what are we really trying to create with our lives? And what I will find, what I found is that like consistency beats intensity almost every time.

40:37 How long? Until you hit the red chem light and you got to turn around. We just solve the world's problems. Get a red kid, go get a red Kim light and just put it your office and your bedroom and everywhere you all. Oh my gosh. What have you seen? I appreciate, man. I appreciate. Here's what I love about humans. There's these categories. I love humble people that have already done big things. And they just let him speak. Yeah. Yeah. That feels like you. Well, thanks, brother. I appreciate that, I think when you've had a certain life experience and perspectives that like, I'm just maybe just like leaving with gratitude, but man, I feel like I'm just getting started, That's so good.

41:27 um So the attitude of just getting started, um even though you're not. Why is that so important? For me, it's exciting. I get to keep growing. um I get uh to keep improvement. think that there's a point that, going back to my point about human beings and striving to a normal purpose greater themselves, I think there's a component of that, which is that fulfillment comes from growth.

42:08 And so if you can just maintain, as a value I have of like, growth is important, continually growing and getting better is, is important to me. Um, I feel like we experienced a lot of fulfillment from that. So I try to keep that mentality at all times and balance the gratitude for what, uh, I've had and what I've accomplished and be proud of that. Um, but know that the day you stop growing, you start dying. Hey, as we, as we start to wrap up here and hit our 45 minutes, um, we're going to tag the book. We're going to tag all your speaking and your, but from the podcast perspective, no limit leadership. How many episodes have you done?

42:49 111. Okay. Of course, the military guy would know the exact number. 111 Mark, not 112, 111. What have you, what have you surprisingly taken away from it the most and looking back on those 111? Everybody thinks they have unique problems, but they're all the same human problems. We all think our unique business is, it's all unique and problem or our mindset, our negative thoughts, our rumination, our doubts are like, we all think that it's the, it's this unique experience in a sea of humanity, but we're all, we're all living the same experience, man.

43:30 We're all the same doubts. And, uh, that's why I think community and relationships is such a power, a power move and so important because when you start having those conversations and realizing that, there's a lot of solace in that. Um, we get back to the, very tribal nature, which is where we're our strongest. All right, Sean Patton. Hey, thanks for joining us. I'm going to say something that may not be the truth, but it feels to me. Um, it feels like through all the challenges and all the experiences you've had that you've come into a season of peace. That's what it feels like sitting here and maybe it has something to with your new son. I'm sure that's a, that's a big piece of it, right?

44:12 But it feels like that you're at a place where you just started. You've got 20 years ahead of you that you can probably absolutely dominate and crush all the things you've done. It seems like you're in a place of peace. I don't know. It's just what I'm taking away from it. Yeah, it's been a lot of, a lot of work, man, after the military, um, and shifting identities and just continuing to, um, I mean, that was, and a lot of respects not in a great place mentally when I got into the military. Um, and then I had the bankruptcy and I had, I had a divorce right before I got into the military. mean, and, um, survival's survivor's guilt is real.

44:52 And, um, and I would just say that. Eventually, like continuing to come up with a worldview and a perspective on life. that just being here, the experience itself is the value, has really helped me get to a place of peace. All right, Sean Patton, thanks for being a warrior of leadership. Thanks, brother. Thanks so much, Mark. Appreciate it,