There’s so much to learn from every individual we meet. The right connection with the right individual might unlock the secret to a successful life. In this episode, Patrick Donohoe shares two eye-opening conversations he had with two individuals who are very different yet equally successful in their own ways. He details his chance encounter with renowned golf course architect and designer Robert Trent Jones Jr., who is still filled with so much passion for his job at 84 years old. In another interaction, Patrick recounts his meeting with former NFL player and Hall of Famer Emmit Smith, now a sought-after speaker and best-selling author. Tune in as Patrick shares the valuable life lessons he received from these great individuals and why it’s important to connect with the people around us.
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Life Lessons From Strangers: Discovering The Keys To Success By Connecting With People
Tony Robbins has said that the eyes are the gateway to the soul. I’m about to participate in an event in Northern Utah called 29029 Everesting, which is essentially hiking up a mountain multiple times until you reach the elevation of Mount Everest. It’s done in about a dozen locations around the country. At least it was previous to COVID just a handful of times this year.
I just came from a conference on the island of Hawaii, and so I did not have time to be in my office and record an episode for the week, but I’m going to record some audio sound blips as I hike up and down this mountain because it is challenging and specifically commenting on the nature of being in this team environment where there’s another 100 or some people hiking with you, encouraging you and just some of the success stories that come from it.
I wanted to do is comment real bridge last episode with this event that I’m doing with two conversations I had with Hall of Fame individuals. One is a professional athlete, which most of you will know. Another is also a Hall of Fame individual in the Golf Hall of Fame, who you may not know. When I was at this conference, I had the opportunity to play golf. It’s a famous course called Poipu. The Poipu Golf Club is a PGA event that’s held there. It’s a beautiful golf course. The grounds are incredible they have these two ocean holes that are magnificent. I got to play it a couple of years ago and it was a joy to play it again.
As we were leaving the 18th hole, there was an individual that approached us. He was in a golf cart, somewhat to disheveled this old green golf hat and wrinkly. You could tell that it been worn a million times. He was driving along the path. We were exiting and he was older in age, and he asked, “How’d you guys like the round of golf? How’d you like the course?” We were like, “It was incredible. I played here before and these were their first time playing. It was beautiful. It rained a little bit.” He was like, “This is one of the most famous courses or the most favorite courses that I’ve designed.”
I was like shocked. The individual next to me is like, “Did you helped with the grounds crew? Did you helped build it?” He’s like, “No. I designed this course.” This gentleman that I was playing golf with is an avid golfer and knows golf history. His son plays on a NCAA Division one team back East. He’s like, “What’s your name?” He said, “My name is Robert Trent Jones Jr.”
My partner was like, “No way.” He had probably a dozen bud lights by that point, maybe a few more. He said, “Show me your driver’s license,” to get him to approve it. This guy, which I’m sure that was not anticipating that question, opened up his wallet and didn’t have his driver’s license on him, but he had an American Express Black Card that said Robert Trent Jones Jr. on it.
We got to laugh out of that, but then we start a conversation and he had this journal that he was showing us that mapped out a lot of the courses that he designed. It showed some of the drawings. He’s written poems about the golf courses that he’s designed anywhere from Indonesia to Hawaii. He was up in Hawaii doing a redesign of a golf course in Princeville, which is in the Northern part of Kauai. He’s been in Mexico. He’s been all over the world designing hundreds and hundreds of golf courses and his father, Robert Trent Jones Sr., I think he did an upwards of 600 either designs or redesigns of golf courses. It was in the family. It was becoming a legacy.
We’d have this conversation, and I remember it distinctly where he started opening up his book and looking at us. I looked straight into his eyes and it was an unbelievable connection where I saw how much this man loved what he did. As he was flipping through his journal and diary, there were pages that were earmarked. Clearly, the book had been used many times to show other individuals, but it was truly inspiring to have a conversation with the man who discovered his calling in life, and he wasn’t done. I think he’s 83 years old, almost 84. You could tell that he lives in breathes what he was meant to do in life and it was an incredible lesson.
I mentioned in the episode that when we connect with people, whether it’s a stranger in line at the coffee shop, someone at the airport or someone at a restaurant, those are people that we’re meant to meet. You may not think that. You may be skeptical, but there’s a stoic idea around the fact that the people we come in contact with, we are meant to communicate with them.
We’re meant to connect with them. At least I speak for myself. Don’t take the opportunity to do that at a deep level. I connected with this individual, Robert Trent Jones Jr., through his eyes and saw how powerfully he loved his life. How much he loved doing what he did. He got to travel all around the world. He was at this golf course because there was a group behind us that was playing.
They’re part of the golf club there and he was going to show them some of the designs for the golf course up in Northern Hawaii. As he ended our conversation, I started to have a conversation with them, he didn’t skip a beat as far as the passion and the excitement that he had for what he was going to do and talk about golf, golf courses and golf course design with these gentlemen who also had, apparently, a passion for golf. That was my first interaction and my connection.
The second one was with a Hall of Fame running back for the Dallas Cowboys name Emmitt Smith. Many of you will recognize that name. He was a guest speaker at the conference I was at. There were two phases of our conference. We were at phase one. There was another phase two and another group of people coming in after us.
Successful Life: When we connect with people, whether it’s a stranger in line at the coffee shop or someone at the airport or at a restaurant, those are people that we’re meant to meet.
He was the last speaker on the morning. We were departing and he was going to speak that evening to the other group that was coming in. There were only a few people there, and many people had already left on their flights but there are 25 to 30 people in the room. It was a general question and answer, and he talks about two distinct things. He talked about the team and the idea of hunger, the principle of hunger. I didn’t get to ask him any questions there. I didn’t get to interact with him personally.
After this little speaking engagement, we are checking out of our room and went to have breakfast. My family went to have breakfast. I went to the gym and, lo and behold, as I was getting my workout underway, Emmitt Smith walks in and gets on the Peloton bike that was right next to me and started doing his workout.
I said, “I enjoyed his talk in the morning. I was grateful that he was there,” then I get into my workout. We talked for about an hour and a half. When I was done, he was getting out of his workout and we were the only ones in the gym. I went up to him. He didn’t have any water bottle with him, so I gave him some water. I said, “I really enjoyed your talk this morning. There are two things that I took from it, and I’m super grateful because I have been thinking along these lines lately.”
The first thing was the idea of teamwork. I told him, “What I’ve discovered in some of the most successful businesses, including my business, are those that have participated in successful teams in the past, and most of it is through sports teams, especially at a very high level, maybe high school but collegiate or professional levels.” There’s an individual that’s on my team at Paradigm, who was a Commander of a Navy Submarine for twenty years and retired as a Commander.
The idea of teamwork within the military is profound. The success, as far as individuals are concerned, comes from how they see their role on their team. That’s what he spoke to that morning, whether it’s Terrell Owens or other athletes who are very individualistic, egotistic and don’t operate that well on teams that tend to ruin the culture of a team.
Emmitt Smith, even though he was individually accomplished, he accredited a large part of his success to his team. The second principle was the idea of hunger. I said, “Hunger is fleeting because you can be hungry and it drives you for a moment, but when that moment is gone and when achievement is made, that hunger no longer gives you the drive for the next level.” He’s like, “I totally agree.”
Hunger is a never-ending principle of life. Finding something to be hungry about, passionate about driven to accomplish or to achieve. I said, “With teamwork and hunger, did you know that as you exited the NFL?” He’s like, “No. I experienced it, but I didn’t understand how teamwork applied to business.” Now he’s a successful real estate developer in Texas and a couple of other areas I believe but the idea of hunger where he had hit all of these major levels in his professional career and getting to those levels and more levels just wasn’t possible anymore. Hunger, drive, and the why behind his new achievements had to be discovered, and it’s a never-ending process because once another level is hit, it’s again circling back and finding something else to be hungry about.
The lessons from these two interactions are as follows. First, you don’t ever know who you’re going to meet, and just like I had this eye contact and presence, which I’ve been working on a lot over the last couple of years with Robert Trent Jones Sr., I did the same thing with Emmitt Smith where most people wouldn’t go up to him and start a conversation with them.
I didn’t start the conversation. I was like, “I know you love golfing. Let’s go golf before you leave and before I leave.” He declined because he had to give a speech that night, but recognizing that all human beings are the same in a sense, and they all, mostly at least love connection and love conversation. The fact that I went up to him is something I probably would’ve done a couple of years ago.
Knowing that connection is deeply important to me now, and specifically being able to connect and understand eye contact, presence and being there, the energy is profound and palpable. It was only about a 30-minute conversation I had with Emmitt Smith, but the idea is, when you’re able to connect at that level and have common ground that you agree upon and speak to, especially when it comes to principals, it’s a conversation I’ll never forget with both of those individuals.
That’s the first thing is never discount the moments of opportunity where you’re able to connect with somebody. It could be a Robert Trent Jones Sr. It could be Robert Trent Jones Jr. It could be Emmitt Smith. You’ll never know. As I mentioned, it could be a billionaire or your next business partner. It’s someone that can inspire you to take your life to the next level.
You don’t know but what you do know and if you can operate your life on this belief, a good call-to-action is to consider all of the connections and relationships that you have with people. When you interact with somebody, consider that as something that was meant to be and that moment as something that you were destined to fulfill. How are you going to fulfill that conversation? Are you going to be present? Are you going to have eye contact? Are you going to engage? There’s so much fulfillment that comes from that level of communication and conversation.
Successful Life: Seek out passion. Seek out something to be excited about when it comes to your vocation. Your zest of life is amplified when you participate in that.
The second is find something that lights you up in the morning. I would say seek not find. Find is a singular event. Seek out passion or something to be excited about when it comes to your vocation. Seek out like Robert Trent Jones Sr. something that your blood pressure raises your excitement level. Your zest for life is amplified when you’re able to participate in that.
Two more things, teamwork. Know your role on a team. Be part of a team. Even in business, we may think we have individual titles, responsibilities, and positions but we’re part of a team in a number of ways by understanding that other people play different roles and complement ours. It’s also being there when times are tough and willing to accept, help and support when times are tough for you.
The last thing is hunger. Know your why. I would say a very simple first principles idea behind success is your hunger. It’s that driving force behind why you’re doing what you’re doing. Hunger could be a level of lifestyle that allows you to take your family to places and experience things with your spouse. It may be individual, able to golf every Saturday, have a membership at a country club, or provide charitable contributions even time to cause you’re passionate about.
Find something to be hungry about. That hunger and why is going to drive you through the inevitable friction, difficulty and challenge. That stands in the way between where you are right now and what you want to accomplish and achieve. Guys, thank you for reading. You’re amazing. I appreciate the support. Check-in with the next episode, where you’ll know a compilation from this physical challenge I’m about to embark on. Until then.
How many times has fear held us up? How many opportunities did we miss just because we were too afraid to try? It is time to overcome that and start living life. As Patrick Donohoe highlights in this episode, life is on the other side of fear. He further elaborates that by pushing our fear thresholds, we realize that we can do more. Life demands growth, and if we hold ourselves back, we can’t possibly get to the life we are meant to live. Join Patrick in today’s show, where he shares his own experiences and lessons learned that you could apply in every aspect of life.
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Life Is On The Other Side Of Fear
Everything you could possibly want out of life is on the other side of fear. I want to qualify that statement. I got some feedback that my head was in the cloud. I was not aware of what was going on in the world because of what I was choosing to focus the topics of this show on. I get it. I understand why someone would say something like that. There’s a lot going on. My intent is not to propagate ignorance. This show rarely, if ever, touches on circumstances and experiences that are outside of our control. In the Middle East, there’s always going to be conflict. There’s been for a long time. There are also things going on in government that are sad but that’s been the case for a long time. We don’t have control over monetary policy, fiscal policy, COVID. We don’t have control over policy.
We don’t have control over whether there’s quarantine or not. There are so many things that we think there’s a solution of control and influence and we get all worked up about it. I choose to focus on the things that I can’t control. The qualifier is everything that we could possibly want out of life is on the other side of the fear that we have control and influence over. In all aspects of life, there’s a gap between where we are now and where we want to be. Those are the two points. There’s a gap in between. That gap is laced, typically with some degree of fear. Fear of failure, success, pain, of what others will think of you if you succeed, of what others will think of you if you fail, and of what success or failure will mean to yourself image when you believe about yourself.
The irony is that when we toe the line with this fear, there’s another fear that fills in the gap that takes its place. It’s a never-ending loop. An infinite loop. There are ways in which we can strategically push these thresholds. If we don’t, we are always going to come up against these thresholds because if you think about it, part of us tries to avoid fear and pain and rightfully so, at the same time, because life commands and demands growth. It will put things in our place over and over again, challenge, friction, pain, and problems so that we grow. Looking at what we can do to strategically position circumstances, experiences that will allow us to push those limits and thresholds, it could minimize or mitigate some of the challenges that often surprise us.
Early in my business career, I learned some invaluable lessons but it was at the cost of a lot of pain and failure I told you about. An investment failure that I had over ten years ago, but there were some relationship challenges that I had and they kept coming up over and over again. When I got out of the mess of 2008, 2009, 2010, I rebounded. I had a small team. I was doing pretty well, connected with the group and the group had another financial advisor that was working with them. I had a great relationship with this individual for a short period of time. Our wives are from the same country. We shared similar interests. We were very passionate about our principles, our values, and what we were doing financially.
We started working together and I saw some early signs. There were some red flags that came up regarding this individual’s desire to be independent beyond their own and not work with me in tandem. I did not feel the same way, but this individual did. I did not say anything. Red flags came up. I wanted to avoid conflict and build a relationship and it kept coming up over and over again. The final straw was this individual went to a group that we were working with and said, “I don’t think Patrick is necessary. I want to take over.” The group came to me and said, “This is what this person is saying. What do you think?” I was like, “I’m out.” It was too late. The relationship was ruined.
There were other circumstances after that with a team that I had built, at one point in 2014-ish, we had upwards of 70 employees. We were doing well and the wheels started to come off. There were people put in positions they shouldn’t have been in. There were those that had an illusion of experience and try to influence this area and that area. The conflict was a daily occurrence. I did not face that conflict. I did not know how to handle it. I kept pushing it off. What ended up happening is more of the same happened and ultimately, over the course of about twelve months, dozens of employees were either let go, fired or they’ve left on their own accord. It was insanely painful. I wanted to go back on my own. At the same time, I recognize the principle that life business was teaching me a lesson. I needed to learn that lesson.
What are the lessons you can gain from this? First off, again, nature is commanding growth in your life, your relationships, your finances, professionally, every area of your life. Physically, nature is compelling you to grow. Most people push off those signs. They don’t listen. They think that there’s an easier way, a shortcut and ultimately, what happens is a stronger experience then another strong experience. They keep stacking up until there’s a massive failure in pain. That’s when we decide to say, “This is a lesson. I need to make some changes. This is what I need to do.”
I’m going to go over two primary lessons you can take from this story. The first one is with regards to what I learned in any situation where another person is involved. I do not wait when a flag comes up. When a red flag occurs, I approach it head-on. Some of the things I say is I learned this from a therapist who specialized in businesspeople. I worked with her for over a year. She’s amazing. Karen Kindred, if you want to look her up, she has some podcast episodes and some interviews.
She taught me how to communicate with how I feel about certain things because you can’t argue with how somebody feels. It’s a way of feeling. I got to the point where these red flags came up. I said, “This is what is going on. This is how I feel. Please, help me understand your perspective.” That’s it. It’s very simple. You can use this in business and in your intimate relationships, your family relationships.
It helps you understand and share with and communicate with people at a deeper level. You either can gain perspective that you may not have had or their intention may be what you assumed and you know early on so you don’t have to prolong the inevitable, which will be even more painful if you continue to wait. I have an equation. When I feel something, see something that is irritating, that is frustrating, that borderline is like, “This is not right,” I approach it head-on. I share what I’m feeling. I share what my perspective is. In most circumstances, I’m not seeing things the same way as this other person. Them being able to express themselves helps resolve.
If the intention is what I assumed it was, I then escalate and say, “This is what I’m going to do next because this is how I feel. I don’t want it to go on any longer.” It points to a very quick conclusion that if a person does not want to essentially align with whatever the perspective and situation is, then there is a clear exit and it happens quickly. It’s so simple, but it’s been incredible. I’m going to give you the second lesson. I’m going to spend a little bit more time on this one, which is strategically designing a threshold by breaking through thresholds. Lesson two is you can strategically stretch yourself by pushing your own limits and learning to love challenges, friction, and conflict because you know that you can thrive because of being able to face it. Your psychological muscles continue to grow.
Other Side Of Fear: Find something you can do once a year that pushes these physical and psychological thresholds and builds your muscles, which ultimately allow you to face whatever challenges.
I believe your income, your wealth, what you can manage, whether it’s people or money, are correlated with this ability to handle conflict, friction, and challenge. There are some invaluable lessons that you’ll receive in this. Self-respect and self-competence are scraping the surface. Plus, being able to strategically position yourself in these areas will also allow you to grow at a much quicker pace. A few years ago, I saw this crazy guy speak at a Tony Robbins business event. His name was Jesse Itzler and he has this thing called a Big Ass Calendar. He says in a nutshell, “To do at least one crazy physical thing every single year.” Jesse pushes this to the limit. I’m not going to talk much about it.
I mentioned on the show before, but he wrote a book called Living with a SEAL, which is when he invited a Navy SEAL that he had met to live with them for a couple of months because he was so impressed by this individual’s ability to live a lifestyle at this very heightened level from an accountability perspective. He also wrote a book called Living with the Monks, where he spent a good amount of time living in a Monastery in, I believe, Upstate New York, again, to experience a very simple, basic lifestyle.
Jesse has a myriad of programs that he advocates. He does this thing called Hell on the Hill. He has a house in Connecticut where they have this big hill and run up a hundred times. He has the event every single year. He also has this event called Everesting. It’s done at about a dozen places around the country where you essentially hike up and down typically ski resort hills, the equivalent of the elevation of Mount Everest. You hike up, take a gondola down or a chairlift down, hike up again, typically over 36 hours. It is significant as far as elevation ends up being 25 miles-ish.
He does these events because he has connected this idea of pushing your physical and also mental thresholds strategically. What it does, it’s not just the physical aspect, you learn what you’re capable of. You push yourself to those limits that help your body, mind, and you realize that it can do hard things. It transits and builds muscles. I’m going to come back to the Everesting. There are other events, too. I’ve mentioned the Tony Robbins events, which are very psychological in nature that push you to these thresholds. An old business colleague of mine, Garrett White, has a program called Wake Up Warrior, which is primarily designed for men but pushes you to these psychological as well as physical limitations. A guest that I’m going to have on soon, Tim Reynolds. He has a course called Reclaim your Gladiator, where he does something similar. Mostly physical in nature at his ranch in Texas.
There are so many different events like this, but the idea is to find something you can do once a year that pushes these physical and psychological thresholds and builds your muscles, which ultimately allow you to face whether they are challenges in marriage or friction in business. It allows you to face those and grow quickly from them instead of doing what I did, pushing them off. You attack it head-on because you understand the nature of the challenge, friction, and growth. The fact that if you keep pushing them off, life is going to put them in your path regardless. What I’m going to do soon, as you guys are reading to this episode, I am going to be going up this ski resort at Snowbasin. It’s in Eden, Utah, about an hour North of where I am in Salt Lake City. I’m going to be doing Everesting.
I’m going to be going up and down about 13, 14 times and I’m going to document it. I’m not going to document it to signal anything other than wanting to have you guys there as my accountability partner. I’m doing this by myself. There’s obviously a group doing it, but I’m not doing it with a friend, family member, a busy business colleague. I’m doing it by myself. I’m essentially going to be recording my thoughts, my experience, especially in those times of pain and difficulty. You are my audience and family and I want you to hold me accountable. I believe that these physical circumstances allow growth, not just in that specific category but in a lot of other aspects of life. I’ve done a couple of Tough Mudder and Spartan events. There are lots of these mud races, obstacle races, workout routines that allow you again to strategically position conflict, challenge, and friction in your life so that you are constantly growing.
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Thank you for reading. I hope you learned something. Go out there, face some challenges, toe the line. You’ll be glad you did. Email me at Hello@TheWealthStandard.com. Tell me what you’re up to. Tell me what challenge you’re willing to face. Tell me what challenge you have faced in the past. I’d love to hear from you. If you want to adopt this Big Ass Calendar philosophy, psychology, go check out Jesse Itzler. He has a brand called Build Your Life Resume. Thanks for reading. We’ll talk to you next time. See you.
Life often takes us by surprise. Yet, it is in these moments that we often find life-changing opportunities. Patrick Donohoe has two stories that will make us rediscover how life happens in moments. When you come face to face with these situations, do you run away, show up differently, or just live in the moment? Find out how we can grab on to these opportunities in this episode.
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Life Happens In Moments
If you knew you were going to rub shoulders and interact with a billionaire, would you show up differently? A few years ago, a friend of mine was befriended by a billionaire. Since then, he has sat in the Owner’s Box at the Cowboys games, traveled by a private jet and spent the weekend in this waterfront mansion in La Jolla in California. Every year, he gets to spend an entire week in either the Caribbean or the Mediterranean on a 300-foot private yacht. On top of this travel, the business and investment mentorship has been invaluable to my buddy.
He told me the story of how they met and it’s going to blow you away. It happens that this friend of mine loves to vacation in the Caribbean and goes there every year. He was staying on the island of Saint Martin in the Virgin Islands. It was a typical day on the beach. He was relaxing. Let’s call him John. He goes up to the bar to order some drinks. While he was waiting for his order, he gets into this conversation with a gentleman who was sitting at a table, apparently waiting for his guests to arrive. I have two nicknames. I’m going to give you one. I call him The Chameleon. He is a brilliant businessman.
First off, he is hard-nosed in business when the necessity arises. He has several decades of experience at this executive level, but he also is a loving husband, father and grandfather. It’s amazing to experience him because he is a totally different person around kids. He runs around, plays and races them foot races. He instinctively knows what part of him should show up in the various experiences that he has in life. As he engaged in conversation with this gentleman at the table, the conversation ultimately led to being invited onto his monster yacht that was in Saint Martin for dinner that night. From that point forward, they became great friends and the rest is history.
I want to give you another relevant story and this story is personal. My two daughters, who are both teenagers, called me in this code-red moment. They were in this heat of realizing that there are going to be tons of people evicted and homeless because of this eviction moratorium based on the quarantine during COVID. There were record levels of heat in the West and there was drought. The Delta variant was a scare because it was going to require masks to be worn again and potential school disruption. It even went to this Bennu Asteroid that was threatening to hit the Earth while the Taliban was taking over the world.
Life Happens: How we show up is merely based on these primal instincts to be safe.
I went home and I was like, “First off, give me your phones.” We sat down and over dinner, had a several-hour conversation and exercise. I calmed them down and then I said, “I want you to take a second, step out of your body and look at the life that you get to live. We’re going to sit here all night if that’s what it takes and come up with 500 things that are amazing about life.” I had to prime the pump and it was a conversation we’ve had in the past. This is how powerful our primal instincts are.
I said, “We’re sitting here, eating dinner. We didn’t have to hunt for food. We’re eating fresh vegetables that we didn’t have to grow. We’re sitting at the perfect temperature because of the air conditioning. We have artificial light so that we can see and experience each other differently. We can look out our window. Because we live on this beautiful hill, we can see the city on one side and then we can see the mountains on the other. There was a sunset happening.” It was one of the most beautiful, picturesque views when they are able to step outside of themselves and actually see it. I said, “Frankly, the world should be in constant awe at the life that we get to live as you compare this life to those who lived 100 years ago.”
It took a few hours to get through this list, but we sat there and I wasn’t going to give them their phones back until we completed this list. After that, their whole demeanor changed. Maybe it was because they got their phones back, but they started coming up with ideas and being aware of things to be grateful for and aware of things that were going amazing. We went into, “There’s not a utopia. There’s no perfection in life. There’s always contrast.” The reason why I tell you these two stories is because there are some fundamental lessons there. The first lesson is how we show up in moments can completely change our life and destiny.
Second, how we show up is primarily based on these primal instincts to be safe and afraid of what’s going on. It’s ultimately this engagement of the fear part of our brain that is in constant operation unless we’re aware. News media and social media understand this fundamentally and most of what is talked about are negative. I would say 80% is negative and 20% is positive, which may be generous. The lesson is awareness of the fact that this is what is taking place with the information that we receive in life, 80% is negative and 20% is positive. It leads us to this necessity of having to have a strategy for determining what’s right, what’s positive and what I can be grateful for. The person that shows up with that state of mind versus the person that shows up in primal in that state of mind, opportunities are either passed on or capitalized on.
When we show up in this way, you have those billionaire relationship moments and that moment changed my buddy John’s life forever. Because I do lots of work and business with him, it has helped influenced my life as well. If we show up in primal, the lesson is that these moments pass by. Our life remains fear-based and stagnant. We’re in constant code red that impacts our health, relationships and ability to earn money. The list goes on. You’re probably asking what the strategies are in order to be aware of this. There’s the strategy that you, as a reader of the blog, are aware of. The strategy, first off, is asymmetric. Asymmetric means that the input, what it takes to do it, versus the output, what you gained from it, is multiple times the input.
The strategy is simply a morning routine. That routine seems so simple, but what it does is arms you to maximize your day and moments because that’s where all the opportunity is. I’ll put a simple morning routine. It’s like a note that I have because I love talking to people and playing golf with business friends, especially in the summer when I get to meet and see my family. It’s a note that I share with them that’s a breakdown with links to the morning routine. I typically use it as well as a shortcut morning routine. Let me go into a few details of what’s in that note. There’s a short way of doing it and then there’s a longer way of doing that.
The short way is an exercise called priming. This is something I learned from Tony Robbins. It takes ten minutes. It’s life-changing if you can get in the habit of doing it. There’s a longer exercise which consists of exercise, prayer, meditation, visualization and personal development study. What this does is sets the stage for every moment that you will experience during the day. Does it mean that you’re going to be perfect in capitalizing on those moments? No, but it’s going to give you the upper hand. It puts you in that position of control so that the billionaire that you could have rubbed shoulders with or maybe did rub shoulders with, a relationship is established as opposed to a massive opportunity cost.
I hope you guys learned a lot. If you want to go deep dive into this, I’ve mentioned this before on the show. The deep dive is a course that I created and have iterated on. I’ve made slight improvements here and there. Some of you may have access to it. It’s a course called A Path To Financial Independence. I’ve put a lot of this in there, but it goes into a lot more detail and gives you some exercises that have made a massive difference in my life and I know that they will make a massive difference in your life. You can access this course. It’s something you have to pay for. It’s available at TheWealthStandard.com/freedom.
Let’s summarize this episode. Meeting a billionaire happens in a moment. Meeting your soulmate, the love of your life occurs in a moment. A life-changing business, professional opportunity, business idea, or professional idea too happens in a moment. Life happens in moments. The human experience seems to be designed so that we show up in primal and this state of survival. This is a challenge that we all have in common, but I believe it’s designed for us to grow and value the process of growing. You can have a huge influence, maybe in a greater influence, on your moments. The strategies exist, but they don’t work independently. You have to put forth a consistent effort. Practice makes everything permanent. Everyone, thank you guys for the support. Thanks for reading this episode.
Previous to Covid, I attended over a dozen of Tony Robbins events. Although there are some hokey parts of Tony and preconceived opinions, he is a freaking genius when it comes to helping people discover their best self then bring it to life every day.
His priming exercise is profound. If you have never something like this before, it will feel awkward and weird but just push through that.
The road to financial freedom is difficult and fraught with risk. Reaching financial independence means managing risk. In this episode, Patrick Donohoe talks about risk management, investor wisdom and due diligence. He shares an experience with a bad investment and what he learned from it. Tune in to learn more about what you need to keep in mind when investing.
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Investor Wisdom: Sound Judgment, Due Diligence And Managing Risk
This episode is sponsored by the new and improved Financial Independence Calculator found at TheWealthStandard.com/calculator. One of the driving forces of human beings is freedom, which infers financial freedom too. Several years ago, I set out to discover how any individual, regardless of their financial situation, could evaluate their finances in five minutes or less and have a firm date when they could achieve financial independence. The calculator is going to take you just a few minutes to complete and it’s going to provide you with a specific financial independence date. Go check it out now.
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“Life is a series of sensory experiences, then you die.” This statement sunk in at a pretty deep level. Time sneaks up on us. Our survival instincts make us believe that we’re going to live forever. We get those momentary glimpses of our child’s faces, who are now more adult than they are kids. It’s conversations with family members that are in their fourth quarter of life or you hit marital milestones that are calculated in decades instead of years. We can’t get our time back and exchange it for the meaningful experiences we want that were most likely taken up by the mundane work or wasteful, meaningless activities.
You may not consciously link the fleetingness of time to wealth-building and investing, but I want you to consider the possibility that there is almost a direct correlation. In my experience personally and with clients, urgency will breed complacency and impulsiveness when it comes to making financial decisions. This urgency comes from the unconscious realization that you may not have enough money to retire or be financially free. In order to have more money, you must invest and investment requires risk. This urgency is, in my opinion, amplified by the unfathomable amount of information and perspective we are constantly bombarded with, which further limits our capacity to think critically.
We’re all in this tractor beam of stimuli and without awareness and discipline, we have little control over filtering what is constantly fighting for our attention. I saw this report by Statista, a data analytics company, about what happens on the internet in just one minute. It blew my mind. Look at some of these statistics. Two hundred million emails, 69 million messages on Facebook and WhatsApp, 2 million Tinder swipes, 5,000 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded, 695,000 people share a story on Instagram and 9,132 new connections are made on LinkedIn. There’s more. It’s crazy. How do you step out of this tractor beam to make wise financial decisions? I’m going to tell you a personal story to illustrate this.
In 2006, I was introduced to an investment opportunity in a new oil and gas company. The principals had worked at one of the largest oil companies globally. They were stationed all around the world in the Middle East and parts of Texas and Oklahoma. They stepped down to form their own company and were raising money to acquire these unproductive, inefficient oil and gas operations in Texas. I ended up investing almost everything I had initially. I was very compelled by these guys, but I didn’t understand successful business operations, let alone an oil and gas company. I didn’t know even what the word assay meant. I couldn’t begin to understand what an assay report was, the legalities of mineral rights, contract law or the fact that the investment I was putting money into was debt and not tied to any underlying asset, but I invested anyway.
Leading up to the craziness in 2008, I was getting cashflow every month. I felt like this was a wise investment and I was a good investor. I decided to invest even more. I borrowed money to do it. This was when cashflow stopped. It was devastating. I won’t go into that. I tell the story in the book. After the initial emotional meltdown from 2008 to 2011, I went on this witch-hunt to figure out what happened. I learned a ton about business operations and the cost of lousy operations. An example is the discovery of this oil field operator coincidentally having ownership in a trucking company that was transporting the oil. Apparently, they thought it was okay to charge five times the going rate to this specific operation.
I also learned from the assay and financial reports that the interest that was being charged on these promissory notes would inevitably result in ongoing negative cashflow. There were a dozen other discoveries. I’m not going to get into it, but I’m going to segue into the lessons and apply them to your investment experience. First, one of the biggest skills of an investor is knowing how to think critically, which to me is an inhibitor to impulsive response and irrational behavior when it comes to making financial decisions. Why? All investments originate from a hypothesis perspective. The hypothesis is simply an interpretation by an inherently fallible person who won’t tell you that they’re fallible to highlight all the things they’re good at.
The lesson is to evaluate the team that will execute the investment, “Are they green?” If you don’t understand business fundamentals or the industry that you’re investing in at an operational level, at least stay out. You don’t have business there. It’s a huge risk. The principals in this specific investment, I trusted them and that’s why I invested for obvious reasons. They were successful specialists in their respective careers, but they didn’t possess the adequate business acumen to make the investment successful on a business scale. If they did, there were so many red flags that I was able to find as a neophyte that they would have found out if they knew how to do proper due diligence.
Managing Risk: We can’t get our time back and exchange it for the meaningful experiences we want that were most likely taken up by the mundane work or wasteful, meaningless activities.
I would also say that private investments like this one don’t have the level of regulation that a publicly traded investment has. That’s why there’s a greater upside, but also it carries a huge amount of risk because of the downside. There’s still risk in publicly traded investments, but what minimizes that risk is the regulatory criteria that come with severe consequences if it’s not met. There’s a high degree of built-in accountability with publicly traded investments. In order for someone to be successful in that arena, they have to consistently meet these criteria. It includes accounting, legal, business operations, executive levels, managers and hiring, which adds to the expense. That is why dividend returns on publicly traded companies in the oil and gas industry like Exxon or Schlumberger are typically always in the single digits.
The next lesson is to know your asset allocation based on risk and control. That was another error where I invested way more than I should have given the amount of money I had at that time. This is one of the reasons I came up with the Hierarchy of Wealth. I wrote about this extensively in Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, which is the book I came out with that tells you more about the theory behind it. The Hierarchy of Wealth has four tiers. It will help you easily look at your asset allocation so that you know the appropriate amount to invest in these higher-risk assets.
What do you do with the lesson? First, we have a free calculator for The Hierarchy of Wealth. You can put your assets into it easily. The idea behind The Hierarchy of Wealth is to go in a sequence of priorities. You build your tier-one capital, which is your foundational capital. Your reserves and sleep well at night account. You do this before investing in anything else. Next, instead of investing outside of you, you invest in yourself. You figure out how to earn more money by being more valuable in the marketplace. As you go through this hierarchy, you invest in more safe assets that have good returns, individual rental properties that have at least 20% equity and a 0.8% rent-to-value ratio. I talked about that in the book as well.
When you get to that point, invest in what you understand. My brother came to me and was a great example. He was through his Hierarchy of Wealth and ready to invest maybe with more risk to get the better upside. We had a conversation about his expertise which is mergers and acquisitions, especially in the healthcare industry. He knew it forwards and backward. Understanding the financials, business plan and team involved, he would be able to go in and do due diligence on a very high level. It’s investing in those areas and companies. It could be a REIT in the healthcare space, Real Estate Investment Trust. It’s something that he was familiar with that he can take his knowledge and expertise and do the proper due diligence to figure out if it’s the best place to put his money that will mitigate risks.
There are other examples I have in the book of being able to invest in areas that you understand. The book you can get for free on the website in PDF format. Go to Resources and the book link should be there. The next thing to do is sharing is caring. Share this information and teach somebody else what you guys learned. It’s one of the best ways to lock in the understanding so that the next time you are faced with financial decisions, specifically in the arena of making an investment, you will remember this experience. Chances are, if you don’t teach somebody in 2 or 3 weeks, the information will be gone.
Let’s summarize this episode. First, all investment is a hypothesis by people. Therefore, it inherently is susceptible to flaw and fallibility that requires due diligence. Learn to judge your judgments when investing because you instinctually will make a judgment unconsciously and look straight to the rate of return and the opportunity to build wealth. You also associate decisions with the character and charisma of the person in charge. Make a judgment about their level of competency without going beneath the surface, which is that big lesson that I learned. It was a hard and painful lesson and one that I hope you don’t have to experience.
Finally, another thing you guys can do is there’s a live demo that I’m doing with the Financial Independence Calculator as well as The Hierarchy of Wealth. This is going to happen in 2021 on September 10th. If you already have the Financial Independence Calculator and the Hierarchy of Wealth Calculator, then you will receive an email. If you don’t have it, you can go to TheWealthStandard.com/calculator. There you will be given the opportunity to register for this live demo that I’m going to do. I’m not sure of the time yet, but it will most likely be in the afternoon. Thank you for reading. I appreciate the support. I hope you learned something and stick with me for the coming episodes. You’re not going to want to miss them. Until then, take care.
Some people in the financial industry have the habit of taking everything as gospel. They consider anything they learn off of a book or from a mentor as 100% true. Garrett Gunderson found humor in all of this and talks about things that most people are too afraid to say, merging money with funny. Learn all about wealth with some jokes on the side with Patrick Donohoe and his guest, Garrett Gunderson. Garrett is the Founder of Wealth Factory and the author of Killing Sacred Cows. Learn how to give important information while still being funny, understand why wealth disappears when you’re no longer true to yourself, and so much more.
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Merging Funny With Money: Understanding Wealth And Humor With Garrett Gunderson
There is a saying that embodies the idea of absolute and unwaveringcommitment. That saying is, “Burn your boats,” which is to say when you make a decision or a commitment, there’s no plan B, no escape clause, and no way to back out of the commitment. My good friend Garrett Gunderson has made a pretty bold commitment. He’s made one of the riskiest moves that I’ve seen in a long time. He spent what most people would consider a fortune on training, coaching, Hollywood-level film producer and production crews, and other consultants to create this one-hour comedy special primarily focused on the topic of money and personal finance.
In June of 2021, I was fortunate to be invited to the live taping. It is seriously a level ten. It met all expectations and exceeded them. It’s honestly hilarious. Before this film is actually made available, Garrett is going to be doing a multi-city tour and it may be coming to a city near you. Why did he do it? Why comedy? Taboo topics of politics and religion have a stepchild, which is money and personal finance. The stack of cognitive biases that prevent the mind from rationally evaluating financial strategy is pretty thick. The exception is someone having an open mind. However, the rule is that what’s familiar or what’s status quo is to stay on that course.
Garrett hypothesizes that humor is a catalyst to breaking through these filters. He’s written three books, one of them is a New York Times bestseller. He’s been in the space for several years and despite what most would consider a success, his mission is to break through what keeps holding people back from living a life that they truly want. He’s spoken on videos and has a pretty broad social media audience. He’s taken his message as far as he can go. In this three-part series, you’re going to learn a few things about what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.
Number one is how powerful ideas have made their way into our belief systems with any vetting, scrutinyor evaluation, and how difficult it is to go back and objectively understand these beliefs without shortcuts such as humor. Number two, you’re going to learn a unique perspective on wealth and what people are really after with their goals like retirement or financial freedom. In the third episode, we’re going to talk about Garrett’s journey where he put his successful career and reputation at risk and why he’s done it, and everything that has led up to this point in time to this decision. You are going to love these episodes. I can’t wait for you to experience this new content from Garrett. To learn more about his tour and if it’s coming to a city near you, go head over to FreeFlow.group. Enjoy.
I’m doing good. I got to spend a little time with you which was nice, doing some comedy for your financial guys.
You’ve come such a long way. I remember back in the early days, you always had humor but you brought it to a totally new level. I’m excited to talk about what you’re up to. I first want to set the stage because there are probably people that have not heard of you before. I was hoping you would walk through your journey in the financial advising and the personal finance space. You’ve written two bestselling books and one of them is a New York Times bestseller. You’ve experienced quite a bit. I’d love to hear about your journey because that’ll set the stage for what you’re doing right now.
I won $5,000 for being the Young Entrepreneur of the Year as a teenager. That seemed like a ton of money for me. I came from a coal-mining town.
That’s a huge amount of money.
I had this crazy thought when they handed me the check like, “Nobody else made that much money in that second.” That sounds ridiculous but that’s a teenager’s mind. I was just thinking, “This is amazing.” I want to invest it. Part of it is because I lived in this little town. I want to get to the big city which to me, Salt Lake City was big and intimidating even though it’s not, but coming from a town of 12,000, it seemed big.
I tried to invest the money but I was under eighteen and my mom wouldn’t sign off as a custodian because the Italian side of my family would put cash and coffee cans and put them in the cellar. Everything felt risky and looking back, it probably would have been because that was the ‘90s. I probably would have put everything in the stock market just because it was doing so well in the ‘90s. Not knowing why it would work or how it would work.
I remember when I was eighteen, this guy that worked for World Financial Group came and showed me this variable universal life policy and ran the illustration at 18%. At $70 a month, I was going to be a multi-millionaire 40 years down the road before I was 65. I’m like, “That’s illegal to show 18% first off. No investment in the history of the world has ever done 18% a year for that period of time,” but it was fascinating and I’m like, “This is compound interest and it’s not taxable.” That led me to ask a lot of questions and get an internship when I was nineteen years old for Guardian and Park Avenue Securities.
You know the way that really works. An internship was, “Bring your family and friends so we can sell them products.” The guy that ran that was very big on whole life. At the time, I didn’t think whole life was that sexy so I liked variable whole life because Guardian had this variable whole life product. You could put it in the market, which was again in the ‘90s, it was doing well. In the year 2000, two things happened. Number one was this dude from New York came up. He was bald but had a ponytail. He had a New York attitude, he was teaching, and he was slamming variable whole life. He’s like, “These are the ‘90s. This is the best you’ll ever do.” It was early 2000 and it started dipping for a couple of months. He’s like, “I’m going to compare with this couple of months of dip to a great decade to what whole life would do.” It was even.” He’s like, “This is even with no risk or minimal risk compared to high risk.” I remember getting a sinking feeling in my gut like, “Oh my god.”
Because you got people set up on.
The good news was Guardian would let you convert. They just let you convert the policy over to whole life. We went through and started converting policies. Also, at the time I went back to one of my professors from college, Steven Harris, who managed $5 billion of municipal bond funds for strong investments. They were the number two investment company in the world at the time. He was the number one investment money manager in the world for municipal bonds. He was always number one as the guy, and then he decided to become a professor. He walked away at 55 and said, “My next 25 years is going to be to pay it forward and be a professor.” We became friends and he helped me dissect what was going on in the market.
I didn’t know what I was doing and so between that guy from New York and him, I got all my clients but went out of the stock market. I started doing that in March of 2000. Everyone but one was out by May of 2000. For those that don’t remember, 2000, 2001 and 2002 were three double-digit negative years in a row. I saved hundreds of thousands, would have been millions. I didn’t have that much money under management because I was a kid, most of my clients were family and friends from small towns, but it helped me preserve some of those relationships. It was hard to tell people I didn’t know what I was doing but that began my journey.
Another mutual friend of ours, Mike Isom and I started flying together all over the country. It was 26 straight months. I flew somewhere to interview people. I went to symposiums or workshops because I wasn’t married yet. I had made some money in college and didn’t have a lot of expenses. I owned a property in Cedar City, Utah, where I went to school. My then-girlfriend, now wife, was living there while I was living in her parents’ basement because I was such a cheapskate back then, and just spending everything on learning this kind of stuff.
That’s when I started to focus on efficiency. I realized, “If you can save on tax, it was a pretty guaranteed rate of return. If you can save on interest, that’s a pretty guaranteed rate of return. If you can save on non-performing fees, hidden commissions or improper structure to investments, it was a guaranteed return. If there were duplicate coverages or improper structure with insurances.” These were all ways that you could put more money in your pocket without having to take more risks.
I teamed up with three other young guys that were always asking questions and always showing up to these kinds of things. We partnered with a firm called Ingenuity. We started this thing that was $20 a month because we realized, we can make people more money but they’re still the same person mentally. We would have people be like, “My friend did better in the stock market and I’m not in the stock market because you told me not to be in it.”
We figured we got to help people with their mindset. These producer perspectives, we email out to people five days a week. We had these producer forums once a month and we start to open up in different places and we bring speakers in. We have newsletters once a month and interviews once a month on CD that would acknowledge people. We started to focus on mindset while we were still helping people with their finances.
You get exposure to the mechanical, the more objective numbers side of things. You go and study. You timed it perfectly. Nobody knew that dot-com was coming or when it would hit.It was great timing, then you pivot and now you have a combination of the numbers side of things, making people more money but then mindsets. What led to the mindset? What led to that shift into the mindset as opposed to just continuing down the path of making people more money?
I had this partner, Les McGuire, who was very philosophical. We were in a program called Strategic Coach and every time we fly to Chicago to go to these sessions, we get these healthy debates and talking about things and dissecting everything. We would always talk about our clients and what was happening with them. I was talking about annual reviews every time in person. I was doing quarterly phone calls. I was really proactive with that. No matter what was going on in their finances, they still seem to have the same level of stress and the same issues.
Funny Money: There was no court jester of finance who’s out there poking fun at it. People can get easily offended by some jokes.
We were seeing they’re investing in our lives, going to things like Landmark Education and Strategic Coach. It turned me from being a total jerk to only a jerk. Eventually, I’ve evolved into a pretty decent person. Thank God for my wife, I did all this work because I look back to the kind of person I was. We recognize the impact it has on our lives. We had this philosophy that the best investment is yourself. Invest in yourself. You’re your greatest asset. It’s like, “What are we doing to help people with that? We’re just helping them with their assets, not with their mindset.”
That’s why we started that membership which was called The Producer Revolution. It was a pretty sizable movement. It created some fanatics and we had some philosophies that could have been developed a little bit more. The answer to every problem was, “Create more value. Don’t be a consumer.” There are almost some angst and judgment that came along with it. It’s kind of a visceral you get when you’re twenty years old and think you know everything. It was progress. It definitely wasn’t perfect, though.
That was back before we had to build our own platforms. There wasn’t WordPress, Kajabi, and all these plug-and-play things. We were hiring developers building it on C# platforms and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then it becomes antiquated so quickly. It was a good step in the right direction. I remember in December of 2006, I was in Phoenix with one of my clients and he was good at mapping things out. We were writing this seven-stage process called the Freedom Fast Track, and the second stage are Sole Purpose Activator. It was a foreign weird thing to think about considering someone’s sole purpose, which is their values, their script route to operate combined with their abilities, and also what they’re passionate about in the highest context of how they live.
To put that in a financial program and then later I was like, “This is what makes personal finance, personal.” It seems common sense now but at the time, it seemed radical. It seemed out there. It seemed almost airy-fairy and I’m going to get attacked. I did a little bit but not too bad. I eventually wrote the book Killing Sacred Cows shortly after that. Now I’m in a whole other world of recognizing that there are just not as many people that want to be educated as that want to be entertained, and that finance is super intimidating for a lot of people.
What led to that understanding? Not to say that people have all stayed the same over the last couple of decades but now we have a different society. Social media took place in between the time you started and now. I would say, from a political standpoint, from a communication standpoint, even internationally, the world is now getting way more connected. What are some of the experiences that you’ve had that started to set your course a little bit different than you may have thought in the beginning?
I started speaking more heavily in 2005. We had some events before that but my other partners did some of the speaking, I was only doing it here and there. In 2005, I was speaking every month for our own things and flying to other places. When I was going to speak at other people’s events, sometimes I would be in a breakout session back in those days, but I was in a breakout session on finance. I might be going up against any other session. It was hard to get as many bodies in my session as everybody else’s session. I started hiring a lot of coaches like Roberto Monaco, Jonathan Sprinkles and Teresa Easler, everything around speaking. I can’t be a financial guy that people are intimidated by money and bored to listen to it.
I started doing that and I remember I went and spoke at this event in Vegas. It was all dentists. Every speaker had time on the main stage but for a very short period of time, it’s ten minutes. Sometimes at dental events, you get CE credits for going to courses. I’ve never got to offer CE credits so I’m now competing with people that are known in that industry and that might be icons, maybe they’re the best oral surgeon or whatever or they have CE credit and I’m a financial guy.
I remember I’ve been working for a while with these coaches and I got up and I get my ten-minute talk. I had the smallest room in actual physical size. I had only a small square to stand in because people are sitting on the floor. People were outside the door looking in because I’m joking around a little bit. I’m giving them a lot of information. My tonality is going up and down. I’m not monotone. I’m not wearing a tie. I started growing my hair right around that time and it was like this entirely foreign thing. That was the first taste I had of it. That was like, “There’s something different.”
A lot of times, at those events, you do short videos to say what’s the description of your thing was. I started learning marketing so I could write what it was and they could engage in different levels. I saw that entertainment at a pretty early time. There are a lot of times where I would show up at an event and one of my coaches Michael Port would say, “A surprise and delight speaker.” Nobody knew my name but I would be the number 1 or 2 rated speaker out of 15 to 20 speakers because I could bring that energy and entertainment.
I was in Italy for a summer with my wife taking all this time to relax. We had so many good nights where we’re all joking around and having fun. Because I had two months of time off, I was thinking and writing some jokes for fun. When we came back for my birthday, we went to an Atlanta Braves game and I’m telling her some jokes and she’s laughing. My wife is like, “Where are you getting these jokes?” I’m like, “From my own brain.”
I’m proud of myself here because to make her laugh, she’s not a fan. She’s not like, “Garrett’s a money guru.” No, she’s like, “Take out the garbage. I knew you from college.” I remember she comes to one of my events and there are more than 30 people at this event. I finish speaking and she goes to the bathroom and someone about them goes, “You’re Garrett’s wife? Congratulations.” She goes, “Congratulate him.” She’s not impressed but she’s laughing.
That was a Friday. That Sunday, I flew from Atlanta to Vegas and one of my friends at Keith Yackey’s event goes, “Our next speaker is hilarious. One of the funniest dudes you’re ever going to hear.” I’m like, “I got a fifteen-minute financial thought and he just said I was one of the funniest dudes. How do I do this?” I walked out on stage and I go, “Maybe the worst introduction I’ve ever had but I guess he didn’t mention I wrote a New York Times bestselling book called Killing Sacred Cows, which might sound amazing and flattering until the very first podcast I ever did and the guy called it, “Killing Scared Crows,” the entire one hour and a half.” At the end he says, “What should I invest in?” I go, “I’ve got a few suggestions. Bifocals, literacy or a new career.” The crowd’s laughing, I’m kind of teaching and I’m getting a setup.
I called my buddy who’s a comedian at the airport. I said, “Come to our office tomorrow. For two hours we wrote some jokes and I did an open mic. From August 2017, comedy became a hobby but during COVID, it became more of a complete pivot into a way to integrate my career. Because you were there, the night that I filmed my special called The American (D)ream, where I took this merge of money and funny and did an entire comedy special with some of the biggest names to ever produce comedy being involved.
My executive producer, Marty Palmer won an Emmy with Seinfeld. My editor, Michael Schultz won an Emmy with Chris Rock. My director has more comedy specials on Netflix than any other director and he was up for the Emmy for The Fresh Prince Reunion. They understood that there is no court jester of finance who’s out there poking fun at it. Back in the day, the court jester couldn’t make fun of things that were real that anyone else would get killed by the royalty. I can start poking fun at something so that we can start looking at it a different way. When I show up and talk negatively about a 401(k), it’s offensive to some people. It hurts them because they’ve worked so hard to put money into it. When I tell jokes about it, then they go, “That’s true.”
The magician or the funny archetype is a hard archetype to own. Naturally, that’s not your archetype but yet you discover this part of your personality that connects to people at a different level. In my experience in finance, you can easily toe the line of making people wrong and offending them. We’ve all done it and in the financial world, there are some very determined belief systems that are reinforced by books, personalities and media. If you think or believe something different, it doesn’t even matter the logic behind it. From an emotional level, people are like, “Don’t talk to me.”
That’s what is interesting about what I’ve learned from you because of this pivot that you’re making. When you have this humor, first off, tapping into that, you got to be vulnerable. I’m not sure if you can fake funny, maybe you can, I don’t know. To me, I feel that’s the genuine person when they’re funny. Number one, it brings down those barriers. Number two, just comedy in general, you’re able to talk about taboo or off-limits things.
The American (D)ream is the right title for that.
Even if you go to Chris Rock’s stand-up routines or Eddie Murphy’s stand-up routines, they talk about hardcore things that you don’t talk about at a dinner table or at a conference.
Without the comedy, it’s canceled. People are angry.
For sure, but when there’s a comedy, that’s an interesting dynamic where these experiences that you’ve had that taught you about personal finance, it’s a challenging industry. You’re always up against belief systems but then you figured out a way where you tapped into something genuine by yourself, where you’re able to connect with people at a different level where they’re now open to talking about what was off-limits before.
I wrote this poem and part of it says, “Comedy is the key when no other will do. Love is the answer but can’t always get through. Satire is pointing out what we hide, but everybody already knew.” That’s my summation of why comedy is so profound because they say that when you scare someone to death, they remember. I don’t want to do that to people. It’s almost as effective to make someone laugh.
I was talking to my sound engineer. We’re doing the final process of the special and he goes, “There are so many gut punches in this. I got to be candid with you. When they told me what you were doing, I thought, ‘How is that ever going to work?’” He goes, “It’s great.” It’s cool to win over some pretty intense critics in that world with a lot of stature and knowledge. Some of it is a joke that happened to come out that night that I was not expecting. I was saying, “This is too funny not to include,” but the theme is there. It’s going to help the masses face a topic that they’ve been afraid of.
Funny Money: There are some very determined belief systems that exist in the finance industry. If you think or believe something different, people will not talk to you.
I’d say thatas you look at humor, you look at roasting or whatever comes to mind. When Demi Moore was roasting Bruce Willis, it was fascinating because those are things that without that platform, that conversation does not take place. It’s almost like society has gotten to this superficial level, which we’re all involved with, where it’s who you are, but then it’s who you are in public.
There’s a joke in my special that my manager is scared of. You heard the joke because you were there. I’m talking about how kids now don’t labor. They don’t need Labor Day off. Driving around with Uber isn’t labor or getting Jamba Juice or typing on a Zoom meeting isn’t labor. Having a baby is labor. That’s why they call it that, because it’s hard work that wrecks the woman’s body. Ladies, you deserve a few hours off afterward. He’s like, “You can’t say that joke.” I’m like, “It’s a joke because it’s stupid that guys would say something like that or feel that way. That’s what makes it funny.” It’s not like I’m saying it as a sexist. I’m saying it as the opposite like, “How stupid are we?” That’s why you get a laugh out of it but we’re a sensitive society.
The sensitivity is the conflict between who we are in public and who we are internally, and that gap continues to widen. These are thoughts that everybody has but nobody’s willing to express because it would violate some stigma associated with their public personality or public profile.
My sets are pretty clean because it’s not made funnier with vulgarity because I want to have a reach. In my everyday life, I swear a lot more than when I’m on camera. I’m also thinking about, “Does it add to it?” I remember, I posted one of my comedy sets and someone was like, “This was supposed to be clean. There are sexual innuendos in here. It’s so filthy.” I’m like, “I’m a filthy mind, what am I going to say?” I don’t want to mute myself. I want to be able to say things that other people can’t say and that’s what makes it funny.
I also want them to remember some things that helped them in life. The goal is, it has got to be funny first. It’s not just another lecture. I am truly declaring myself a comedian and based upon who’s involved with the project and where it’s going. I remember I did a practice run for a group of your advisors. You were laying on your side at one point laughing at my insurance jokes. I was like, “This is fun. This is good.” That’s good because I was doing a lot of Zoom at the time to prepare. Zoom is not as fun as people in the same room as you. You can only hear laughter one way a lot of times on Zoom. It’s been a challenge but a good one.
You said you want to get through to people to help them. When we first met, there was sincerity and genuineness about you where you wanted to make a difference. You talked about the things you thought were most important for other people to hear. Your journey led you to the point where even though you were saying the things that would help people, there was resistance on that initial layer that they were not able to get past, therefore, they weren’t helped.Maybe get into where you’ve come with your understanding of what wealth is and what people are pursuing. Unpack why aren’t people achieving the levels of life that they want especially in a society where all the information, all the books, everything is there to do it but yet people are still stuck, in a sense.
Wealth for me is knowing what your win is and living by your rules and your win, not everybody else’s. We lose wealth when we try to conform to society. When we try to please others at our own expense. When we buy into this notion that this is going to be a temporary thing. That we’re going to give up so much of what we enjoy so that one day we can finally live a life that we can love. The problem is those habits become who we are.
I had this conversation with someone and I said, “I’m leaving social media.” He’s like, “How are you going to do business?” I’m like, “There was business before social media, there will be business after. Social media is not part of my win, it’s not part of my wealth.” I don’t want to have digital assets where how I’m viewed is based upon the number of subscribers, likes or comments because then I’d start thinking superficially about what would be viral or controversial versus being who I am. This is a weird notion but I’ve had a renaissance in my life where I decided hobbies were going to be as valuable to my wealth as my business activities. They would be on par. They wouldn’t be beneath that.
I started taking courses on being a barista. My friend, my client and I built this thing called The Roast, which got a big bougie seat and I could pull it behind my eBike. It’s got a chalkboard that you open up and it’s got an espresso machine you could put up there. It’s got a generator on it and it’s got a sound system so I could roast coffee while I roast bad financial ideas, almost like jaywalking would be on the street. I’m like, “That’s fun.” I became a whiskey sommelier and then I started learning how to fish. I started taking classes at Trager and I went and shot an elk with a bow. I started doing these things that weren’t anything to do with money. They were just about my own enjoyment.
I start thinking about, “What art do I enjoy in life? What are the art forms that I would do for myself?” I write some poetry sometimes. Comedy was part of that. Some of that crossover into a business world or a financial aspect. The start was considering my life and myself valued a lot to take time for myself for no other reason and that I would enjoy those moments, not because of validation by the external world. By doing that, I feel like I can be more connected to the world versus having the world tell me what wealth is or what my win is. That has been this revitalization of my life. I feel more inspired. I have more ability to connect with people.
A lot of my hobbies have to do with satiating experiences, either meditative experiences or satiating. Satiating experiences are how can I create conversations that lead to connection? When I’m making a latte, I’m listening to someone. We sit down and we have that latte and we have a conversation while we sip on that latte, which prolongs that conversation. I started smoking a tobacco pipe every now and again, maybe once a week or so. I’m doing that with my dad who grew up Mormon so that was a surprise that he enjoys it. He texted me talking about having some tobacco and pontificating something about life. My mom’s like, “That reminds me of my dad. He used to smoke every Sunday.” I was like, “That’s a 30-minute smoke.” It’s a beautiful artifact.
I started to invest in hobbies and I have this philosophy in life that I win when I play. I play doing comedy. I play while writing. Even my new website, I’m writing. I’m writing things that are funny and enjoyable that are part of that process. I created life on my rules and on what my win is. I’m not trying to retire from anything. I’m not trying to run from anything. I’m not trying to hide from anything. That can be difficult at times but it’s rich and rewarding. That’s wealth. When you know your win and you’re living your life based upon winning all the way along and not about arriving somewhere.
That was the point I was going to make a follow-up question to because this is something that most people would resonate with, “That would be nice.” They look at you and others who fit that persona and they say to themselves, “I have to do this first to do that.”
That’s sacrifice. Unfortunately, we learn that through conversations and culture. Did you ever play The Game of Life, the board game? The only way you win is by getting your college degree. That creates a subtle belief about why we have to go to college. You played Monopoly. How do you win a monopoly? Get as many things as possible. It’s a zero-sum, winner-takes-all game. We start buying in that belief with capitalism. That isn’t what true capitalism or free market would be. It’s what cronyism becomes. It’s survival of the fittest versus collaboration.
I’m like, “I’m playing games that everybody else told me to play, go to college, get a degree, have a big business and grow that business.” It was always about, “I’ll take care of my health later. I’ll have time for my family later.” Those were always in the background and then the great lie that all business owners ever tell their spouse, “I’m doing this for you,” but it’s not. It’s for the fulfillment of our narcissistic ego and this unfillable void of more is better, and all those notions that we learn in society, especially here in America. There is merit to some of that but there’s a lot of false reward to a lot of that, especially when we’re trying to prove something to other people.
I was practicing my comedy set. I had a terrible night. It was on Zoom and some people on including some who used to coach me in speaking and I had some friends in a dining room and there’s a chef in the kitchen. It was at my friend’s house. My wife’s in there doing her culinary homework in the kitchen. It’s noisy and they’re like, “Can you be done in an hour?” My set is an hour and a half. The worst thing you can do is take an hour and a half in comedy and make it an hour. The best thing you can do is to go, “I won’t show 1/3 of my set.” I condensed it and the guy said, “You sucked.” I did. That’s the truth. It wasn’t good. What was hard is not to have that be a chip on my shoulder be like, “Wait until I do this on the next show.”
What I did was I waited. A month later, I finally shared it and he goes, “I can’t believe that’s the same thing.” I’m like, “I had an off night.” I learned a big lesson from that. A big part of the lesson was along the way enjoying it. Not waiting for April 15th but being like, “I had this set in March in Ogden at the Wiseguys Theater.” It was an amazing set and it was one of the best nights. It wasn’t that the night was only good. As a standalone, that was a win. That was an enjoyment. Enjoy that moment. Extract that moment. Even leading up to that night, my last line, I felt was awesome. I couldn’t wait to sit but I was like, “I want to enjoy every moment on that stage.”
Often, in life, we’re trying to get to the next moment. It’s a silly movie but a movie that impacted me was Click with Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale. He could fast forward through anything. He missed everything. Most people would do that without proper perspective. We’ve learned that pain is something to avoid. What I’ve learned is pain is part of the process and it’s a gift even if we don’t like the wrapping. It’s a tap on the shoulder. If we’re willing to go through it with love and compassion, on the other side of that pain is always connection and lesson.
My wife woke up early one morning and I’m like, “What’s up?” She’s like, “I’m sad because I’m trying to get our son in this camp. He’s got to have certain vaccinations.” My son had an adverse reaction to a vaccination back in the day so he’s not up to speed on certain tetanus and polio, which I don’t even understand why you would have to have that. She’s like, “I don’t think they’re going to let him in camp. He’s struggling with friends.” I was like, “If you need to call the camp and have me on the call, I’ll be on the call.” Otherwise, I was doing my best not to get sucked into thinking that I have to make her happy, that that’s my responsibility or that there’s something wrong with her being sad.
She was able to get a hold of the camp and they’re going to let him in. Even what she did, I do a lot of times, which is we suffer in the future. We start thinking about what’s coming up and we start thinking, “What can go wrong with that?” We start suffering for something that hasn’t even happened, and 99% of what we worry about is never a reality. The stuff that has the biggest problems are things we could have never predicted. I feel like we’re going to have the tools and we’re going to have the lessons through those even if it is painful. The people that struggle the most are the ones that try to avoid the pain, hide from the pain, run from the pain, and go around the pain when going through it is the only way.
I was reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and the definition of a meaningful life hasn’t changed at all since then but yet the world has become more complex. It’s been more difficult for people to have those moments of meaning.
We’re better at faking things now. We have tools to make things look and feel real.
Funny Money: Don’t mute yourself. You want to be able to say things that other people can’t say.
It makes it even more difficult.
Filters, social media and editing. I don’t know how to describe it without sounding too crazy but I’ll say it. I’m in acupuncture and relaxing. I have this moment of clarity. I felt like it was God saying, “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve got you. You’ve got this. When you make mistakes tonight, it’s part of the process. Make them. It’ll be okay.” You’re in Show 2. I didn’t make as many mistakes in Show 2 as I did in Show 1. In Show 1, I forgot where I was at one point. This girl was laughing so hard that I got distracted because she thought the word cavemen was funny. I kept saying cavemen but at the end, I go, “Does anyone know where I’m at?” Everyone started laughing because I’m making a mistake. My manager yells and so I picked it back up.
In the second show, do you remember the tooth bunny bit? I was meant to say the Easter Bunny and I said the tooth bunny. That stayed in the special. It was a mistake but it was funnier. I talked about the Easter Bunny. No wonder we have a problem with pedophilia. We have a stranger in a costume here and kids go to him and he’ll give you things for free. I go, “That reminds me of a story with my wife.” Everybody started hysterically laughing because the last word was pedophile. What I was supposed to be referencing was free because she went to spring break when we’re dating and said, “I don’t need any money because the guys are super nice. They’ll give you drinks for free.” Those were accidents. Those were mistakes that made it funnier.
The fact that I went in without knowing, I was able to be in that moment without fear. I didn’t tense up. I laughed with you guys. I rolled with the punch. In life, we try to control the uncontrollable and that creates unnecessary stress and worry. That worry starts to become who we are instead of who we are. Everybody gets a dumbed-down, lesser version that’s not present because of how we handle things, because of what we think is right and wrong, because of how we don’t want to be judged. Ultimately, we don’t show who we are because we think that if we’re someone else, people will like us more. That’s my estimation.
I’ve done a lot in my life too. I don’t think you can completely avoid that. It’s part of our makeup. It’s part of our DNA. We’re more aware of it.
I have too many windows open that are running in the background and slowing the software down. I’m like, “Why am I worried about that? Let’s have a conversation. I’m going to call that person. This person didn’t text me back. Do they not like me? I’ll call them instead of sitting there and worry about it.” I always think, “Maybe they have other things going on. Maybe a lot is happening in their life. If they don’t like me, that’s up to them.”
You’re walking on the side of the road with a stranger and you have ten minutes to talk to him. What do you tell him? We’re all human beings. We all essentially suffer from the same programming in a sense. We’re all part of the experience where stuff happens and we respond to it in similar ways. It’s this never-ending pattern that we get stuck in. You’re talking to someone for a brief period of time, what do you say?
What would life be like if we trusted ourselves more? What would life be like if we listen to our intuition? Intuition is such a gentle nudge. It’s an inner knowing. It’s a gut feeling or a light feather to the face. It’s super easy to ignore but the more we ignore it, the more we have unrest, depression and we succumb to scarcity. Intuition doesn’t always lead us towards the easy path. That’s the thing. That’s why we like to ignore it sometimes. Sometimes it leads us down to a challenging yet rewarding path. Sometimes it’s because we think that we’re too alone, we think that we’re not capable or it hasn’t been done before. When I say we, I can be good at talking myself out of it.
I had surgery on November 3rd, 2020. I was in my bed for several days. I was eating gummies for pain management to go to sleep. I didn’t want to take any opioids. I don’t do good with weed at all. It makes me disconnected and I can’t even formulate good sentences. I found myself being like, “Why do I think I could be a comedian? This is stupid. This is dumb.” At that time, I was like, “I’m going to do a special.” I had written an outline.
Yes. November 3rd was the surgery date. I turned on The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling that was done by Judd Apatow. It was him talking about his doubts of ever been good enough to be a comedian and all this kind of stuff. He has some cool things he wrote in his journal, which reminded me of things I’ve written in my journal. I was like, “I’m going to do this.” I can’t even walk down the stairs because of the surgery and all this stuff.
November 15th was when I called comedian Marcus and said, “I want to write this. Do you want to help me?” He said, “Sure. We could write a special by January.” Barry Katz, my manager in the Industry Standard podcast, announced that I’m going to do it on April 15th because I said I was considering it. All of a sudden, a brand new comedian is going to film an hour special that I started writing on November 15th and I’m going to perform on April 15th, where most professionals are going to take a year to do this.
I’m on Zoom five days a week testing this out. You were there for one of them. I’m walking, reciting, rowing, rewriting and it worked out great but it was uncomfortable. I had to face many demons of insecurity like how to be direct with people, how to ask for what I want, how to allow a vision to expand beyond my comfort zone and make changes, how to say no to things so I could truly focus on this, and how to allow other people to support me. There were many things that had to go on for that to occur and that was the most growth.
Who I am from January 2020 to who I am now, I have to reintroduce myself to the world from who they knew in the past. I’m willing to listen to intuition. I’m willing to do the harder things and process through pain. I’m convinced that on the other side is love and connection. I feel worthy of love. I feel that I still have insecurities but I still love myself even if I’m imperfect. I’ve adopted the statement, “Perfectly imperfect,” as part of my life. I don’t have the answer but I do have the question. My question at all times whether it’s convenient or inconvenient is what would love choose? What would love do? How would love show up?
I used to think that what was most unique about us was our abilities because that’s maybe a Strategic Coach concept but what makes us most unique is how we show love, express love and receive love. I’m like, “What if I mastered that? What if I invested in that and not in all the other stuff about more, but how to show up as love? How to choose love when it’s difficult? How to choose love when I want to pout and be a victim? How to choose love when someone I feel has wronged me or said something negative about me?”
When I said to someone I looked up to, “I don’t want to be part of this anymore,” something that was on the board, he was like, “That’s going to impact us.” I’m like, “I know but you’ll figure it out.” “What am I going to do?” “You’ve always found a way.” In the past, I would have been like, “You’re right. Let me do it,” even though I don’t feel like I have the time or capacity or I don’t feel like this is my calling because I want to appease you. I was like, “You can even go and tell people that I’m an ass and I’ll be okay.” I’ll keep showing up as love. Part of the time, that is having clear boundaries.
What I took from that is the question you ask yourself, especially when you’re experiencing fear, anxiety or stress.
It’s easy when times are good.
The primal part of us shows up when things are not how we expected. Number one, it’s the awareness of it. Number two, it’s not relying on those carnal instincts. It’s strategically designing a way in which you can ask yourself different questions and catch yourself and then be more present and enjoy that moment.
I don’t know how you feel about this but the way I feel about this is I have the ultimate testing ground, having a wife and having kids. I can be neutral about things in business and not take much offense to it or not have to drag me into drama or a lot of emotion. If I don’t get my way with my wife, I can find myself on the couch. I find it harder to ask for forgiveness immediately or to not be right at the moment and listen. That is the ultimate place because I’ve shown her more of who I am than I’ve shown anyone else in the world.
Funny Money: You lose wealth when you try to conform to society or please others at your own expense. When you buy into this notion, you’re going to give up so much of what you enjoy.
There was a time where I believed that she didn’t love me and I wasn’t lovable because I’ve shown her so much. When I recognize that was a limiting belief, I’m able to even give her more love without the fear of not being reciprocated, “What if she doesn’t like this about me?” I joke that this is the 26th version of who she’s been married to. I’m like, “The only woman that’s been married to more men with one marriage is Danielle, Garrett White’s wife.” He’s on version 35. He’s even faster. He goes full steam ahead on any good idea and maybe he’s not like that now.
It’s one of those things where I hope that that’s what we all pursue. I don’t think there’s this end to our becoming. You have so much brilliance and meaning when you’re living in present moments because that’s where it all exists, but it’s this constant awareness that you can continue to iterate, improve and be better. It’s not to take away from how you are right now but be even better and continue to improve on the experience. I don’t know if we’re designed to sit still. He’s certainly not designed to sit still.
I was a miser when I was first married. I was all about the game of preservation, cutting and budgeting. My kids are fascinated when they hear these stories because they don’t know that version. I remember my youngest ask my wife, “Why is dad like that?” She goes, “He thought it would be the best thing for our family at the time.” In our first year of marriage, I felt like my wife was going, “What the hell did I get into?” I’m like, “We need to balance this checkbook. Why did you spend so much on your classroom? You’re supposed to get paid as a teacher and not be paying out. Why is this electrical bill so high?” I’m ridiculous and she was patient. She keeps holding a mirror up and saying, “Is this what you want? Is this who you want to be?” She creates that powerful listening for me that I could be like, “I could probably do better.” For her to still love that version but I appreciate this version even more. This is probably good that we’re not talking finance because people can learn finance from your book or my book and all this stuff. This is the stuff that is underneath it that captures wealth.
That’s where I wanted to go. Maybe it’s not direct but there is a total correlation between your enjoyment of life, who you are, and your understanding and your experience of wealth. We all live in a society that we should be in amazement 24/7 because of how we get to live compared to the past. Yet, there are still absolutely miserable people. You have people with lots of money. It’s this insatiable thing where they think that physical things are going to quench that thirst. At least my experience with things, I would love to get your thoughts. Your levels of impact have improved. By impact, I mean ways in which you create wealth. It’s improved because of your internal improvement. I’m not sure if there’s a direct correlation but I know that there is a tie. At least that’s my experience.
We’re in a consumeristic society where the eternal quest is for more.
The limbic part of our brain or that monkey brain, all it knows is to consume as much as possible.
Redefining the game changed everything for me. What if more meant more peace and less worry? What if more meant more leisure and less sacrifice? What if more meant more meditation, more recreation and less frustration? In my twenties, I had so much ambition that more meant more revenue, even more employees so I can tell people how many employees I had. Do you remember my office back then? It was way extravagant for where I was at that point in my career. It was more about more shows and less personal growth because I didn’t have time for it. The work was being at work versus working on myself.
I had enough of it because I was like, “If I do this work.” I remember one of our mutual friends, Vince, was like, “Go to Landmark.” I thought it was going to make me a better financial advisor and it did, but not for the reason I thought it would. In my twenties, I did a lot of talking on this podcast. I do a lot of talking but now I’m focusing on listening more. Not just listening to people but listening to intuition because I feel like intuition is the source. It is the knowing, the divine path or the divine will. I can have free will but that can be a lot like a detour a lot of times than listening to that intuition. My self-choice would be to pay attention to it or not. I might be a little bit deeper on the philosophical level but I found that to be true.
I don’t always listen to my intuition. I was in LA walking and I saw this kid that looked like he was in mental pain and angst. He didn’t look like he’d been homeless or if he had been homeless. My intuition was like, “Go talk to him. Walk by.” It was inconvenient because there were other people. I’m walking in the airport and I see this girl. She’s a little bit heavier but she was beautiful. I’m like, “Go tell her she’s beautiful.” I was like, “I’m married. That might be weird.” My intuition is like, “Maybe she does need to hear that at that moment.” I start rationalizing and justifying out of safety, protection, convenience, inconvenience or hustle. I’m listening to my intuition because I had a dream to write a one-man show. It was a dream. I woke up and I’m like, “I’m doing it.” You’ve seen it. You’ve seen the impact it has. It’s not even officially out yet but that’s intuition.
I am the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling personal finance book Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity.
Founder and Chief Wealth Architect of the Inc. 500 firm, Wealth Factory. A regular on ABC’s Good Money, he has been on Fox, CNBC, as well as hundreds of radio interviews, and I contributor for Forbes. I also am a frequent speaker at workshops and conferences and live in Salt Lake City.
I have also been interviewed by some of the greats in the personal development space like Hal Elrod, Robert Kiyosaki, Ryan Moran at the Capitalism Conference, Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, the Mindvalley Podcast, Project Life Mastery with Stefan James, Joe Polish of Genius Network, Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas, The Science of Flipping with Justin Colby, The How of Business, and many more!
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Patrick is the President and CEO and started Paradigm Life in 2007 after learning from his mentor Kim Butler about financial strategies outside of Wall Street.
With a background in economics and marketing, Patrick immediately realized the opportunity to teach investors, business owners, professionals and families on a large scale using modern digital media and communication technology. Since 2007 Paradigm Life has worked with thousands of individuals in all 50 states.
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Patrick Donohoe is the Founder and CEO of Paradigm Life and PL Wealth Advisors. Patrick and his team teach thousands how
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Patrick was recently honored by Investopedia as one of the Nation's Top 100 Most Financial Advisors. He is a highly sought
after presenter and speaker at financial-based events around the country and is the host of The Wealth Standard podcast.
Patrick grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, and attended the University of Utah, where he received his bachelor's degree in economics.
He lives in Salt Lake city with his wife and three children.
WHAT'S INSIDE THE BOOK?
THE CHAPTER LIST:
1. ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
2. THE PERPETUAL WEALTH STRATEGY™
3. QUESTION EVERYTHING
4. BREAK AWAY FROM WALL STREET
5. AVOIDING THE INVESTING AND LENDING TRAP
6. THINK FOR YOURSELF
7. A SOLID FOUNDATION
8. B ELIKE THE WEALTHY
9. MYTHS AND TRUTHS OF INSURANCE
10. SAVE, BORROW, INVEST, AND BUILD WEALTH
11. START, BUILD, AND PROSPER YOUR BUSINESS
12. YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE
13. MAKE THE SHIFT
14. TAKE BACK CONTROL
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose
by Patrick Donohoe
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LEARN HOW TO MAKE YOUR MONEY GROW.
The 100+ year old investment strategy proven and used by the wealthiest of the wealthy.
I am the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling personal finance book Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity.
