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We’ve officially reached the 100th episode for the Flipped Lifestyle podcast!
Before we get started, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their dedication to take action.
We’ve been around for almost 2 years now and it’s such an honor how we’ve all grown as a community. Thank you for all the support and most especially the iTunes reviews. The reviews help secure our rankings and in turn help us reach more aspiring online entrepreneurs. So, if we have impacted your life in anyway and you haven’t written us a review yet, please do so because we would absolutely love to receive one from you!
We have a special episode for all of our avid listeners this week.
As some of you know, we usually get a member on air for a free consulting call to help them take their business to the next level and then let you guys listen in, but this time it’s going to be a bit different.
Our guest this week is our very good friend and mentor, the crash test dummy of online business, Pat Flynn.
Pat has been in the online business scene since 2008. He used to be an architect, until the industry took an economic downturn.
Always the optimist, Pat took charge, launched himself in a catapult and began a new life-changing journey.
His website smartpassiveincome.com and the Smart Passive Income podcast has touched the lives of thousands of people in an international level.
His mindset along with the choices he made has created an amazing ripple effect.
Despite all that fame and fortune, Pat firmly believes that the best part about his job is the amount of quality time he gets to spend with his wife and kids — now, that’s a true family man.
We have so many things in common with him and we are just thrilled to share our backstory with y’all, like how Shane came across a random podcast one day (while mowing the lawn!) and was just struck with immediate certainty that this is what we needed to flip our lives upside-down.
Also, we’re gonna talk about family, life and lessons we’ve learned along the way.
So, hold onto your seats and let’s get this show on the road.
You will learn:
- What it is like to raise a family while doing online business
- How to manage your kids while doing online business
- Insights on education for your children as an online entrepreneur parent
- Inspiring ripple effect stories of doing online business
- The importance of taking roles in the family and setting expectations.
Links and resources mentioned in today’s show:
Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what’s possible for your family!
Click here to leave us an iTunes review and subscribe to the show! We may read yours on the air!
Can’t Miss Moments
Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family.
“Just being here in Chicago at Podcast Movement, speaking to Pat Flynn who’s been just an awesome mentor to us and just a great friend. Hanging out here and doing what we do, that’s an amazing can’t miss moment. Something I couldn’t imagine doing 10 years ago.”
You can connect with S&J on social media too!
Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family! Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business. Help us by sharing the show!
If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below!
Jocelyn: Hey y’all! On today’s podcast, we celebrate our 100th episode with our special guest, Pat Flynn.
Shane: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts Shane and Jocelyn Sams. Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? Alright, let’s get started. What’s going on guys? Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. We’re super excited that you are here listening today, because we are celebrating our 100th episode of the Flipped Lifestyle podcast.
Jocelyn: That’s right. We have been coming to you for almost 2 years now, which is pretty awesome.
Shane: And we’re just so thankful for our audience. It’s amazing every week as we watch it grow. We’re just thankful that you have stuck it out with us and that you’re here listening week after week. We can’t wait to bring you more great content going forward. We’re not done at 100, we’re going to keep this thing going for as long as we can, until we can accomplish our goal of helping as many families as possible flip their life with online business. Now, normally our show is all about bringing members of our Flip Your Life community on, giving them a live consulting call right on air, helping them take their online business to the next level and sharing that with you guys — the listeners — so that you can pick up tips and then you can take your online business to the next level as well. But for the 100th episode, and just the 100th episode, we’re gonna change things up a little bit. We normally don’t bring on experts or gurus or any kind of guest on to our show, but today we’re gonna make an exception. We discovered online business by listening to podcasts just like you’re doing right now. And one guy was very influential in our early days getting started online, so to bring everything full circle we wanted to bring on a good friend of ours, the guy that kind of introduced us to online business on to the show and just talk about the journey so far, talk a little bit about life and a little bit about business… Today’s guest on the show is none other than Pat Flynn.
Jocelyn: And for those of you who don’t know Pat — and there are some people out there — one of the reasons that I knew that we had sort of made it, is because one time somebody said that they had discovered Pat Flynn through our podcast.
Shane: Introduce me to that Pat Flynn guy! He’s pretty good!
Jocelyn: You’re welcome Pat. So, you can find Pat over at smartpassiveincome.com and he also has the Smart Passive Income podcast, so definitely check that out! You can also listen to our episode on Pat’s podcast by clicking on the link in today’s shownotes and you can find that over at flippedlifestyle.com/episode100. We first met Pat in person in 2013 at a live event, and that live event lead to our SPI episode that I just mentioned, and also to the launch of this website and this podcast.
Shane: Also, we maintained that relationship with Pat over the years. We’ve got a lot in common with Pat, our family make is very the same, we got young kids — a little boy and a little girl — We just got a lot in common with Pat. He’s a great guy to hang out with, one of the most real people that you’ll ever meet in the online space, he’s exactly what like you would think he is in person as he is on his podcast. We get to see and hang out with Pat whenever we go to live event around the country, we’re actually at Podcast Movement right now in Chicago and that’s how we were able to get out with Pat and get this interview done. Pat even makes a special appearance sometimes, he actually showed up at one of our live events. He was at a Flip Your Life live event out in San Diego, so you never know who’s going to show up at Flip Your Life live if you go out there and want to hang out with us in person. He’s just a super great guy, gracious guy, really genuine and we’re really appreciative of him for coming on the show and talking with you guys on what it’s like to really live the Flipped Lifestyle. What does it look like when your online business makes it? Kinda keep that out there… what is it you’re working for as you’re trying to flip your life? We’re gonna talk about that today, we’re gonna stay away from the online business stuff, this isn’t going to be anything about Pat’s story… you can find that in a lot of other places. We’re gonna get real with Pat today and talk about raising kids, how to have an online business with kids in the house, how to work from home and we’re gonna get into some things you may not have heard from him on other shows.
Jocelyn: Before we jump into today’s interview with Pat, we just wanted to say thank you to all of our awesome listeners and our members who have sent us these amazing stories, how you changed your lives based on something we talked about in the podcast, something that we’ve helped you with in our community… those stories are just so impactful for us and maybe you’re just somebody who’s listened, maybe you’ve never reached to us before, we don’t really answer our own emails anymore but we do get those stories passed on to us. One thing that we do read regularly are our iTunes reviews, so if you have not left an iTunes review for us in the past and we’ve provided some type of value for you over the last 100 episodes, we would genuinely appreciate you doing that. Just take the opportunity to let us know about that and help us to make you serve better by just knowing a little bit more about you. What kind of help you need with online business?
Shane: iTunes reviews are really important, for the rankings and helping us grow our podcast, helping us reach more people, reach more families to help them flip their lives. We would just love it if you guys would go leave us a word, what does the Flipped Lifestyle podcast mean to you? What has the last 100 episodes done for you in your online journey? And just tell others about our podcast, so that we can grow this thing and in the next 100 episodes we can help more families flip their lives through online business. Alright guys, without further ado, let’s jump right into our interview with Pat Flynn.
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Shane: What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, great to be back with you again this week. Got a little bit something different for you this week. We’re celebrating our 100th episode of the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. Jocelyn, how crazy is it that we’ve been doing this for 2 years? I didn’t even realize it until 2 weeks ago.
Jocelyn: It’s kinda awesome! I love it. We’re here in Chicago, hanging out at Podcast Movement and it’s awesome.
Shane: We’ve got a spectacular view on the 27th floor of this hotel too. For those of you who are regular listeners to our show, you know that we usually bring on a member of our Flip Your Life community and we give them a free consulting call live on air, but today we have something a little bit different. We have a special treat for you guys, normally we don’t bring on experts or guests, but today is an exception to the rule. Our guest today is our good friend, the one and only, Pat Flynn. Pat, welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast.
Pat: What’s up everybody? Happy to be here, I don’t know what floor we’re on but we’re on a tower overlooking the Chicago river.
Shane: It’s unbelievable. I think it’s a canal or something. That’s some body of water with boats!
Pat: I’m just so happy to be here, and congrats on episode 100 you guys. I know how big of a deal that actually is.
Shane: Yeah, man! It was awesome when we… I didn’t even notice. Jocelyn goes, “I think we’re almost to episode 100.” And we started looking around like… “Oh man! We gotta blow this!”
Pat: Really?! You didn’t even know how many of these you’ve done.
Shane: It’s easier said and kinda runs around together a little bit. You remember everything but then it just becomes a part of your life.
Pat: Right. Do you guys know your previous episodes by heart? Like the number or the guest…
Jocelyn: Uh… No.
Shane: No. I’m always mesmerized by your magical ability to be able to do that. Someone will be like, “I was on your show this episode… “ or “I heard someone was on this episode, what number was that?” and I’d be like… “Just google it? That would be great.” We actually do that because we bring on our members, so sometimes 6 months… 8 months on the road we’d be like, has this person been on the show before? And we will google it ourselves to make sure we haven’t already did.
Jocelyn: As soon as we realized that our 100th show was coming up we knew that we wanted to have you on, and for those of you who may not know, we actually discovered online business when Shane randomly stumbled across Pat’s Smart Passive Income podcast in 2012. So, Pat was kind of the spark that started us down this online business path and today we’re sorta bringing everything full circle on this special 100th episode. Once we quit our teaching jobs, was it 2013?
Shane: I think it was 2013, yeah.
Jocelyn: We knew that we had to go up to San Diego to meet you in person and a lot of people know about the story, Shane jumping up the lawnmower to come in here and tell me that he had discovered you and your podcast. If you don’t know about that we can link you to Pat’s episode, it’s 122 of your Smart Passive Income podcast.
Shane: Wait a minute. We actually sold that lawnmower last summer.
Pat: I would totally buy it.
Shane: I know right? I’m like you would have put that on your front lawn or something. We do have a picture to remember it by.
Pat: That’s such a great story.
Shane: I remember when we sold it and they were putting on the truck and I was like… there was a little tear in my eye, goodbye lawnmower.
Jocelyn: Well, the good news is we don’t have to mow our lawn anymore.
Shane: Yeah… we don’t use it so we had to get rid of it. You know what I mean?
Jocelyn: Yeah, so it was like a happy and sad type thing, but can you tell us a little bit about the first time that you’ve met us?
Pat: Well, just obviously anybody who listens to this show knows the passion behind what you guys do and the excitement and the energy, I think it’s just the one thing I noticed and it still continues to be there since I first met you. It’s almost like you walking into a room and then, “SURPRISE!” and you’re just… all this energy when you get surprised in a birthday party or something, that’s how I feel whenever I’m in a room with you guys. High energy, fun, exciting… it never changes. You guys were always the same, and super honest. Then we went out to get barbecue one time…
Shane: That was awesome. What was that place called? It was in Maine.
Pat: It was in Maine, kinda random but we were there for an event and we just had such a great time talking about family. I mean, that’s one other thing I love about you guys, you guys were all about the lifestyle.
Shane: For sure.
Pat: And not just building businesses but what that actually means and what it can do for you and your life and your kids and stuff. So, immediate connections! We’ve been friends ever since. Just very blessed to be part of you guys’ journey.
Shane: Yeah man. That was an awesome experience for us to. The first time we ever met was at that event you had with that ducker, and it was cool because we had quit our jobs already and we had figured out this digital product thing and how to make our income online, but then I told you guys a story at that event about a friend of ours that we helped.
Pat: Mm-hmm.
Shane: They sold stuff online and they got enough money to pay their mortgage, and I’ll never forget that guy. My friend came up to me at church going, “Man! That really changed our life. That impacted us.” When we were getting ready to go one day to talk about our education stuff, we were confident we had that part under control, and then we came up with this crazy idea to start Flipped Lifestyle and that’s what we actually talked about. So, this whole thing was actually born there. When we talked with you about how to do this and how to scale that, you know what I mean? Great, great stuff. Pat, let’s move into other stuff. Family, friends and the stuff that we do online business for, I think a lot of people here — many experts, I’m gonna use that quote unquote — that talk about this lifestyle about being rich or famous or the beach thing…
Pat: Right, right.
Shane: And it kinda gives this weird impression to people. Especially families who are like, “I’ve got kids, how do I… how could I possibly do that? How can all of that jive together?” so, tell the families and the people out there with kids that listen to our show, what is it like being an online entrepreneur, raising kids and tell us a little bit about your family and how that kinda flows in and out of your podcast and your business.
Pat: Sure. You know, I love talking about integrating my business and family and vice versa. That’s what it is, it’s one thing. A lot of people try to separate work with their personal life, and when you’re working nine-to-five, that’s how it is and you go home and you’re away from your office and stuff… but you’re an entrepreneur, especially when you work at home, it has to be both integrated but also separate, so that you can get things done. That’s been one of the most hardest things, especially when the kids were younger, I felt like there was no time.
Shane: Yeah.
Pat: Because I had to be a father and a husband, but I also have my business to run. So, how do I do all that? It took a lot of just being conscious of my input and output of everything. It actually took a lot of heated… not a lot… but a few heated conversations with my wife to just really understand what was important for both of us, because even though I was the one doing the business, April was the one running the house and taking care of the kids. Communication became very important and setting up the boundaries between working and not working, so that I can be fully at 100% in whatever I was supposed to be doing at that time.
Shane: How are your kids?
Pat: My kids… my son is 6 now, entering 1st grade after the summer and then my daughter is 3, and she’ll be going to preschool. That’s what I’ve learned, growing up with kids, is things happen so fast for them. New milestone, new experiences for them that just have a completed effect on what you’re doing. Like the moment you feel comfortable with something, something can change. Right? It’s like… “Okay! They’re finally sleeping… and nooooow there’s a tooth coming in, so it’s just!” from that to, “Wow! He’s at school.” Everyday I have to wake up to do these things to take him to school and pick him up, that has been interesting. It has opened up more time, but also decreases the amount of flexibility we have on going out for trip and all that stuff. It’s just, again, all about communication. Every family is different, but as long as you’re conscious about the work that you do and why you’re doing it and also those around you who are affected by it, you can make things work by adapting, conversations and just adjusting over time. It’s really important. The top 2 things that have helped me with increasing my productivity in my business even though I’m working at home with a family, is setting boundaries in terms of time and schedule. I now wake up at 5AM everyday to do a lot of work before the kids get up.
Shane: Yeah.
Pat: Because when the kids are up, it’s very difficult to get work done and I can get a lot more done in 2 hours in the morning and 3 hours at night than 8 hours during the day when they’re awake, because that transition time between getting interrupted and trying to get back into your zone… I don’t know where I read this, but I heard that people spend 3 hours of their day in transition time. Trying to get into the zone of work where it’s kinda half work and you’re just trying to get back into where you’re going and then all of a sudden you have a kid who’s interrupting you and you have to start from scratch in getting back. We waste so much time doing that, so I don’t even fight it anymore.
Shane: Yeah, you can’t.
Pat: I work with it, around it.
Shane: It’s funny… in our space there are a lot of successful people that we get to interact with, but a lot of them don’t have kids and a lot of them think the things they use for productivity — the tips, tricks and tactics — don’t work for us because with kids, I always say my day starts at about 19 hours. We don’t have 24 hours, because we do have that transition time, we do have those non-negotiables. Our kids are going to take that amount of time just to make their lunch, just to make their breakfast and you really have to be vigilant and work around that, or you’re gonna get way behind.
Pat: Right.
Jocelyn: But you know, it can be beneficial that we do have children that are this age, because we’re sort of forced into making the schedule and sticking to it. You don’t really have a choice because they’re going to be awake from these hours to these hours, and you have to help them. The age that our kids are 7 and 5, they don’t do a lot of things for themselves so we have to be there taking care of them, which is awesome… but can be challenging too.
Pat: Right, this is a huge job because of a lot of things that go along with this. I use my kids as motivation for being productive, because I feel like if I’m working and I find myself in the wormhole when I’ve done 7 videos down the line… even if I’m doing stuff that on the surface might seem productive but it’s not relevant to my next task, I’m wasting time and I feel like when I’m wasting time in my business, I’m taking time away from my kids. That has helped me so much in terms of, “Okay, how do I streamline this? How do I get rid of all the extra steps that I don’t need? How do I outsource this so that I don’t take time away from the kids?” and that has been a completely life changing trip for me as well.
Shane: Our big challenge at the beginning was that we didn’t have that straight division. Like you said earlier, you run your business in your family and decided April’s gonna run the household. You know what I’m saying? For us, it was weird because we were like, “Oh crap! We’re both doing this.” So, we had to do some other kind of compromise like we do use childcare in the day, even in the summertime when the kids are home from school. They don’t stay there forever, but from 9:30AM to 2:30PM, they’ve got to be somewhere else so that we can get that really productive time in and we both can divide and conquer, and then we have multiple businesses too… I mean, I might have to get up at 5 and she might have to wake up at 6. You have to make a way to solve the time crunch problem when you have kids.
Pat: It’s so important that you guys are talking about figuring it out. I know a lot of people in the same position who are trying to force things, and when you try to force something it never works out. Somebody always gets upset or just not everybody’s happy in that situation, so it’s really good that you guys talked about that. Another thing that I talked about integration in terms of business and personal life, it’s not completely separate, I actually get my kids involved now. They’re at the age where they understand things, especially my son, he’s 6. I don’t know if you know this, but we record a podcast every week together.
Shane: Cool!
Pat: It’s not public or anything, but we just save those in the archive and maybe they’ll be public one day. I get them on my microphone like what we’re doing right now, I’d interview them and chat, I’d tell him to ask me questions too. I’m getting him used to the idea of just using your voice and putting yourself out there, and being in this world. I want to get him involved and show him what daddy does, so when somebody asks him he knows instead of just like, “He works in his office,” but instead he can say, “He has a podcast.” I remember he was 4 and we were at a playground one time, and he would just go up to a random parent and say, “My daddy has a podcast!” Like, just randomly! And they would come over and be like, “That’s cool, what’s your podcast about?” and I’m like… I swear I didn’t pay him to do that or anything, he is just really proud that he knows that this is what I do. Now, he is at the age where he’s starting to think and solve problems, I’m always teaching him every single day that a business is successful when it solves problems, what problems have you seen today? We always talk about that in our “show” and he comes up with these crazy ideas, sometimes they’re super wacky but really creative. Sometimes he has come up with ideas that already exists, and I’m like there is a product that does that and he’s like I wish I had invented that. And I’m like, “You can make it better.”
Shane: It’s funny you said that too, because Isaac and Anna, people would ask them, “What do you guys do?” and Isaac would look at them and go, “Yeah, they live the Flipped Lifestyle.” That’s what he would say to them and he’s like, “They flip lives or something.” Isaac actually came to us a couple of months ago and he basically said, “Can we do what you guys do? Can we have a YouTube channel?” I’ll never forget the first time he ever said it, because I’m sure he heard us say, “Expert enough.” You know something that someone else doesn’t and you can teach them, and he said, “You know I’m in first grade, I could teach the kindergarten kids how to play minecraft.” And I’m like, “Oh you’re on to something here boy!”
Pat: My son is also involved in minecraft now.
Shane: I think I told you about minecraft the last time we talked. I’ve planted that seed in your head.
Pat: Maybe you did, but my son came home from school and he’s like, “Daddy, can I play minecraft?” I remember our conversation and started to do research and I was like it’s a little scary, because you can have these kids and these games and there are zombies and stuff, where you can have other kids in the same server. I don’t know if he’s ready for that, but then I started to see minecraft being used for education.
Shane: Oh yeah.
Pat: Problem-solving and creativity. They’re actually putting it into curriculums in certain countries.
Shane: There are camps… summer camps!
Pat: My son’s going to minecraft camp next week and they’re going to teach programming.
Shane: That’s amazing.
Pat: So, I’m going to download this game to see what it’s like and I can speak the same language.
Shane: You’ll get addicted.
Pat: Yeah, I got addicted. I would play and look at the time and it’s already 4AM.
Jocelyn: I’ve got to finish this castle!
Shane: It’s cool when Isaac asked us to do that and we just launched their YouTube channel, Flipped Lifestyle Kids, where Anna and Isaac they wanted to do toys and then boxing and things like that.
Pat: That’s cool.
Shane: But then we also wanted to do travel reviews, because Isaac thinks a lot of kids don’t get to go to places they get to go so he wants to show them what it’s like. So, we started these YouTube with reviews and things like that.
Jocelyn: Okay, so we were talking about sort of how we’re raising our kids and how they’re sort of aware of what we’re doing. I know that your kids don’t remember the time when you worked a different job, our kids don’t. We were teachers when they were really young, with all that in mind, how are you deliberately raising them to continue to be different, continue on this legacy you don’t have to be stuck behind a desk from nine-to-five? What are you guys doing? How are you intentional about that?
Pat: We’re getting involved with what I do. Now they’re conscious of the fact that we’re different than other parents out there. My son has come back from school and he’s like, “Daddy! Someone’s father is gone everyday,” and we talked to them about it, how awesome it is to be an entrepreneur and the fact that we have flexible hours and opportunities in front of us, I do try to inject an entrepreneurial strategy or mindsets into him. For example, every day when I drop him off at school I ask him, “Hey Bud! How do you change the world?” and he goes, “By helping!” That’s what it’s all about. The funny thing is, the other day another thing we talk about is complaining, because it’s something a lot of kids do. April and I were getting frustrated with it, “Stop complaining.” It’s hard because complaining doesn’t help to solve the problem. Okay, you’re complaining, you’re frustrated, that’s fine… but how are you going to solve this problem?
Shane: Will my kids do that? Oh yeah. If they were here right now, I could look at them and go, “Anna Jo, whiners and cryers get nothing.” That’s exactly what I say to them every time. It is like that when we were teachers, man. I actually stopped going out in the hall between classes, because you would stand with the other teaches and the kids are all going to talk… just total complaining and negativity.
Pat: You don’t wanna be around that. We have a thing we call the complain jar, where every time they complain, they take a quarter and put it in the complain jar. If we see them in a tough situation and they try to solve the problem first, then we take one of the quarters back out and put it back into their wallet which is really cool. That alone has really helped out. The other day, my daughter who’s 3 she was complaining about something. I forgot what she was doing but she was building something and it’s just wasn’t fitting the right way and she was just about to cry, and then Keoni… he goes, “Kai, are you trying to solve the problem? How are you trying to solve the problem? Stop complaining.” It’s really cool to see him teach her.
Shane: I actually heard Isaac say to Anna, “Don’t tell me the problem, tell me the solution.” because I say that all the time, like any time something goes wrong. It’s so funny, because he said the exact same thing. Anna was like, “This won’t work!” and he was like, “Don’t tell me the problem, tell me the solution.” and it’s so funny that they do pick up those things.
Pat: Yeah, they do! And you know, he knows how to go out and speak with people. That’s one thing I wanna get him comfortable with doing too, presenting your ideas and being comfortable with that. He is in a school that promotes that. He’s in a school where we work on a single project and have the parents come in and they’ll do a showcase where they share their ideas. We were at a showcase at the end of the year here and he had been working on this thing, a renewable energy solar power stuff which is really cool because he asked all these questions about it. He created his presentation which was really cool, but then all the other kids were there ready to present. They had their poster boards up and the parents were gathered outside, all ready to go in and the teachers say, “We’re going in, but please do not go to your own kid’s station first. Go to other kid’s stations, ask them questions… we wanna teach these kids about presenting their ideas to people they don’t know and getting comfortable with that because that’s a real life skill.”
Shane: That’s awesome!
Pat: I was like crying… because YEEES!
Shane: Like why hasn’t someone did this for me.
Pat: It took me my entire college to figure out how to put myself out there, being vulnerable… that was through my architecture work, where we had to work on a large project for a long time and get up with real architects and get feedback. It was so hard for me to do that! Like I just want to throw up before doing that.
Shane: But getting your kids used to that I think consciously about that too. Jocelyn loves dance, and I’m kinda like, “I’ve got to go to this 8 hour recital for my kid’s 2 minutes,” but it is so good because you put your kids in front of people. Isaac is really anxious about that, getting in front of people, but we have him in swimming and he’s like, “I don’t wanna do this! I don’t wanna do this!” and I’m like we’re gonna get you over this now. You’re going to go out there, make some friends with people and it’s gonna become a part of your life so it never becomes something you’re scared of in your life.
Pat: And the big thing for me is even though I would love for my son to become an entrepreneur, I’m not telling him straight up that he should be an entrepreneur. I want to have him earn the skills and know the skills to understand that he has the ability to do whatever he wants. Maybe he will be an employee, but he’s gonna be the best employee there is who’s gonna solve problems, who understands these principles on how to be relevant for whatever he chooses to do.
Shane: Yeah. What do you think about college for your kids? Besides the fact that we want our kids to choose their own path. Jocelyn and I talk about this and we’ll tell you what we think after you tell us what you think. We’ve got differing opinions a little bit about this, but we’ve all been through college. We’ve been through the experience, through the journey, the nine-to-five, to online business… so what do you think about that path?
Pat: Yeah, I get asked about this a lot. I’m very thankful with the path that I took even though I’m not in architecture anymore. Obviously, that lead to everything that happened here or getting me to where I’m at today. A lot of people are like, “Hey! Are you gonna put your kid through college?” I always say it’s going to be their decision but we will set it up in a way where if they want to, they can. There are different parts of it. The getting into the green part is not the important part, I feel and think that if you’re going to go to certain fields then it’s very important. If they have a passion for that, great! Go do it. I think that the experience that goes along with the college life, time management, networking… that sort of thing. Finding the right people, that I think is worth going to college.
Jocelyn: Yeah. I totally agree. That’s the way I feel. I feel like college is sort of like your adult trial period. You still got a safety net of mom and dad, but then you’re still learning to do your own laundry.
Shane: It’s the lead magnet to life.
Pat: You did NOT… (laughing) I wouldn’t pay $40,000 a year for a lead magnet like this.
Shane: That’s an expensive introductory offer.
Jocelyn: I think it’s a good transitional period to becoming an adult and just learn about what the world is really like outside of mom and dad’s little safe cocoon.
Shane: Yeah. For sure. Let’s fall back into the now and touch a little bit about those boundaries with the kids at home. The thing that always hurts for me here is, just pains my soul, when we are working here and Anna Jo… it’s worse with my daughter, I’m hardcore with Isaac, “Go back in there!” you know what I mean. But when Anna comes up, she’ll blink her little eyes on me and ask, “Can I sit on your lap?” and I’m like… “I’m doing something, but yes you can!” How do you even… do you do that? Or are you hardcore and go boundary time shut and lock the door?
Pat: It’s not hardcore. I think my wife plays a big role in this. She understands when I’m doing certain things. I try to not work when the kids are awake.
Shane: That’s great.
Pat: That’s the easy answer, right? But it’s not always possible.
Shane: No, it’s not possible.
Pat: Especially when I’m doing interviews, I can’t force someone to stay up until midnight to do an interview with me… unless they’re in Australia, then it works pretty well. But if I’m doing something in the middle of the day and there’s a big launch or something and I have to be there for a webinar and whatnot, I communicate with my wife, “Hey, I’m doing this webinar. I have to be 100% there, do you mind just making sure that the kids don’t interrupt?” and she’ll be good and take them to the park which is gorgeous. It’s a gorgeous, not a gorgeous park, but a gorgeous situation is what I’m trying to say. She is a part of the team too, and I just wanna give her a ton of credit because she’s the most underrated player of Team Flynn. She sees me go to these conferences and I’ve learned to not share too many pictures with her, because…
Shane: Don’t show her the steak! Don’t show her the steak. You told me the story.
Pat: It was one of my first conferences, I was so excited to be a featured speaker. April was very supportive of me going, but she was at home watching the kids and they were just getting on her nerves which they often do.
Jocelyn: We have no idea what that would be like.
Pat: Yeah, right? And I’m in this amazing dinner. $150 steak dinner. I snap a photo and I send it to her, I’m like… “Look at this amazing steak dinner, wish you were here!” and then she sends back almost immediately a picture of her dinner which was a half eaten bowl of mac and cheese.
Shane: Oh no.
Pat: After that no text, no nothing. I was like… “Crap! I shouldn’t have done that.” So, I’m very aware… point of the story is she works so hard and she doesn’t get a lot of credit for it. Being the mom, stay at home mom, choosing to be a stay at home mom even though she wants to have her kids. I respect and love her so much for that. She sees me go out and people want to take pictures with me, I’m starting to get recognized in public now which is pretty cool and at the same time I’m like, “This is my wife guys!” Anyway, it’s hard.
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: Yeah, it’s definitely hard, but I like how you guys get your expectations out there We heard somewhere, I can’t remember where it was, that the source of most fights between people is the difference in expectations. So, if both of you have your expectations out there, she knows what you expect you know what she expects and that just helps the conversation and just everyday life. It makes it go smoothly. We started doing this since we heard that. I would tell Shane, “My expectation is this…”
Shane: We start with that phrase now, because it’s so cool for anybody listening to the show, we want them to hear that there’s more than one path. Anyone can figure it out, we do it at the same time and balance the kids with other tools, you guys do it by dividing your household and your business. We’ve got a member of our community who has 6 kids and did this on her own while her husband had a full time job, and we were like, “PROPS!”
Jocelyn: Well, she had a full time job also at that time.
Shane: It just shows that it doesn’t matter, necessarily, what the solution is in your family situation, it just matters that you get a solution. You have clear expectations, you communicate it, and you do it. That’s how you make it online, really.
Pat: Yeah, for sure.
Jocelyn: Alright, Pat. Let’s shift gears a little bit. One of our favorite things about Flipped Lifestyle is the ripple effect and the worldwide impact that we’re having on people. Just recently we’ve had people from Israel and Singapore.
Shane: Someone from Kuala Lumpur member this morning join the Flip Your Life community.
Pat: Nice.
Jocelyn: That just blows my mind. We never imagined that a couple of former teachers from Kentucky could impact people all over the world. Can you share with us an unexpected or maybe like a particularly impactful ripple effect moment since you’ve started Smart Passive Income?
Pat: Yeah. This goes back to 2011, I think. When the podcast was up and running for a year and a half, I was starting to lose momentum, all the numbers were the same and I was just like, “Why am I doing this?” every time I hit publish, I’ve got to do another episode next week. You get that sometimes. So, I was actually considering stopping the podcast because even back then I was initially a blogger and I loved blogging. I was seeing much more growth with it. As this was happening, as I was having these feelings, I got this email from a guy in Poland. His name is, I thought his name was Michael but it’s pronounced ME-HOWL, M I C H A L. It was an incredibly long email, like an essay’s worth of text. Typically when I get an essay’s worth of text, I save it for later, but the subject line was what made me read it. It said, “Pat, you changed my life… Here’s how.” So, I went out and he was in this tough situation where he was doing extreme sports and he had gotten through a crazy injury. He had jumped off with a snowboard and he landed on his feet wrong, and crashed with both of his ankles. So, he couldn’t walk, or do anything. His wife had to support him, he had to get work from home, which was terrible. Everything was a terrible situation, he showed me the x rays in the bottom and there were these bolts to hold him up. That’s when he said he had discovered my podcast, because he had all this time, he was sitting in bed and just completely depressed. He found my podcast and there’s one particular episode he had listened to that was talking about goal setting and how you should set goals that are almost impossible. Not just what you know you can do, but nearly impossible. He said that with 2 broken feet, that he was going to run a marathon. That was his goal. So, he set out everyday to train and get rehabilitated, and started doing his physical therapy. He’s been listening to me every single day, he even called me his physical therapy coach. After a year, he was training for his marathon and listening to me everyday, at the bottom of the email he showed me an image of him crossing the finish line at the Warsaw Marathon in Poland. You can see on his feet these plates that are holding his feet together, and he’s holding up this sign. It’s in Polish so I didn’t know what it said, but he had translated, it said thank you God, thank you to his family and thank you Pat Flynn.
Shane: So, it didn’t even have anything to with online business. It was the motivational stuff!
Pat: It was so crazy. The crazy thing is I’ve been keeping up with what he’s doing, and because he had all the time to listen to me and learn about online business, he since created his own online business in Poland.
Shane: That’s awesome.
Pat: And he is the #1 personal finance blogger in Poland now.
Jocelyn: That’s incredible.
Pat: The crazy thing about this ripple effect, is that he is now making a huge impact in other people’s lives. He has told this story before, and he tells his story about how I tell the story, it’s kinda funny. Now, he has people… he showed me an image of someone else crossing the marathon pulling his name up.
Shane: That’s awesome!!!
Pat: And it’s just… it blows my mind. The impact that we have, the crazy thing about it is that I was about to give up on my podcast, but if he hadn’t emailed me… this was happening a year and a half.
Shane: He had a ripple effect on you, to keep you going.
Pat: Who else is out there who just hasn’t emailed me yet? Or you guys… or those of you listening. We have, using the tools in front of us right now, the ability to change lives and we don’t even know who’s lives were changing right now.
Shane: Yeah, we had a crazy email the other day, it was from a member from our community and she said… this isn’t something I can imagine. We knew her story because we’ve brought her on the show, we helped her with her business and she had 5 businesses in 6 months. That’s not even the impactful thing. She sent us a message and it said, “I just wanted you guys to know that you helped me with my business, that’s great but we have decided to donate a portion of every sale to the Ronald Mcdonald house.” The Ronald Mcdonald house was a big thing in her life and she went to give back to the community. I look over at Jocelyn and it’s like we aren’t even donating to the Ronald Mcdonald house, but because we helped someone with their online business, they’re able to donate hundreds of dollars a month to that cause. That would not have happened if she had not come through our community, and if we had not decided to do Flipped Lifestyle.
Jocelyn: If we had not discovered your podcast, you know.
Shane: You just keep going and going back.
Pat: I wouldn’t have kept going back if I hadn’t discovered the Internet Business Mastery, which was the first podcast I listened to. If I didn’t buy an iPod that day, you know? It’s like all these crazy things that lead… we now have these opportunities.
Shane: The funny thing about the ripple effect is we can all point back to a negative catalyst that drove us this way like you lost your job. We’ve told this story here and on other podcasts where we had a really bad situation at a daycare. The children were being mistreated there. My job where my boss was threatening to fire me when we wanted to take care of the kids. That was the catalyst that made me start looking for online business or some kind of alternative. I think if you go far enough in everyone’s success story, they only see the good but they don’t ever see that there was usually something negative that we rose to the occasion and went that way to start the ripple. The pebbles gather to break the water, before the ripple starts.
Pat: Have you ever heard of the book called, “The Depth?”
Shane: Yeah.
Pat: It’s the same deal. Right before that inflection point is always a dip in your life.
Shane: For sure
Pat: So, the whole thing encouraging those of you out there with some struggles with your life…
Shane: Something positive will come out of it.
Jocelyn: There is no more powerful word in the English language than, “You’ve changed my life.” We see that from time to time.
Shane: Jocelyn gets tears in her eyes. I always know when it happens, because I look over and Jocelyn is crying. I don’t know, but we got an email didn’t we?
Jocelyn: It’s incredible. It’s my favorite part of what we do. Okay, so we are now going on five years in online business.
Pat: Congrats!
Jocelyn: And you’re going on how long?
Pat: uh… 8 years!
Shane: Wow!
Pat: Crazy.
Shane: How does time fly by that fast?
Jocelyn: Yeah, and since this is our 100th podcast episode and we always put life over work. What is your favorite thing that you’ve got the opportunity to experience because of online business.
Pat: My whole life I’ve feel like could represent that. There are so many things, from being able to take my son to school with my wife everyday, and be there. We’ve got teachers and other parents come up to us and be like, “How are you both able to come everyday?”
Jocelyn & Shane: Oh! We get that often.
Pat: Like did you win the lottery? I’m like, better… I have my online business.
Shane: Are you always the only dad in school functions?
Pat: Yeah.
Shane: There are maybe one or two others, but I’m the only guy making tacos on Taco Day or something like that.
Pat: I am, but there are some other dads there. It’s funny they’re all entrepreneurs too.
Shane: Cool.
Pat: We just have that flexible lifestyle.
Jocelyn: You’ll probably find that more in California than Kentucky.
Pat: Yeah, and more recently my daughter is 3. She’s doing hula dancing. It’s like a big thing in the Filipino community in San Diego — hula dancing. We were a little worried because this was a huge performance, the biggest one in her life. The other two she’s done were for friends and family. She’s freaked out, she’s kinda overwhelmed and just cried on stage, you had to drag her on the stage and just didn’t want to force it. It was tough because hours of prep, getting the hair done, it’s very much like a pageant type thing.
Shane: For sure.
Jocelyn: Yeah, we did pretty much, every Saturday.
Pat: Yeah. This one was at San Diego Fair, I was just super blessed, it was a Tuesday. The performance was at night and we wanted to treat the kids and make her happy, and so we spent all day at the fair which was really cool. We just played games, no worries, don’t even worry about your performance tonight we’re just going to have fun. She had a blast and I was able to be there with family, in the middle of Tuesday, not many people considering it was a fair. They all start pouring in at night, so we were able to enjoy all the games and all the rides that we wanted to. Then at night, the performance came and we were like, “Ok, well, if she doesn’t do it… it’s fine. This is an overwhelming situation.” She rocked it.
Shane: That’s awesome.
Pat: She went out there with a smile on her face, she stayed up the whole time and I was just crying. “My God! My little girl, she’s performing now.” I think it was because we just had a great day together.
Shane: And you were both very active and the support was there.
Pat: I feel like if I had a nine-to-five and had to rush from work, and see her all scrambled and we’d be sitting in traffic, then we wouldn’t be able to be there together.
Jocelyn: Kids feeds off that too. They know if you’re nervous and they feel that energy. That’s going to make them restless, so because everything was relaxed and chill all day, like you probably felt more comfortable.
Pat: I’m amazed because we thought they were like 5 year old kids.
Jocelyn: Do you always cry when your kids do activities? Because it always makes me cry.
Pat: Not always, but my daughter I think I’ve more of a sensitive heart. Whenever it comes to her.
Shane: The daughters wrap you around their little fingers.
Pat: But the other day my son was shooting some basketball, and last year when he did basketball I was the assistant coach also. He just didn’t have the muscle to get the ball up above the rim, because he’s tiny, the rhythm for 5 year old kids, it’s tough. Half of the team couldn’t even shoot. This year, at his first practice, his first shot went in. I was able to film it actually. I put it on Instagram and he was just like, “Oh! So proud!” and I was just crying then because I knew he could do it and it just took him one time to realize that, yeah he can. Now, he’s confident.
Shane: That’s awesome.
Jocelyn: Your kids are like ours. The second that happens Isaac be like, “Put it in Facebook!”
Shane: Right. “Share that! We’ve got to share them with our followers.”
Pat: Our region uses Snapchat, my son doesn’t have his own Snapchat, so I do it for 10 seconds a day. Here and there. So, he’s like, “Are you gonna Snapchat that?” and I’m like, “that’s not how it works, but I will put it on Instagram.”
Shane: Jocelyn, what’s your favorite thing that you got to do or experience because of online business?
Jocelyn: Oh, wow. I mean. There are honestly just so MANY things that I can think of right here. I mean, just being there for my kids all the time where we couldn’t do that as teachers. People think that teachers see their kids all the time, they go to your school but you really don’t see them that often even if they are in your school. Just being able to experience school with them, that would be sort of like an everyday thing. As far as other things, we had the opportunity to do… we’ve got to visit a temple or something in Korea.
Shane: Yes, when we were in Korea. We ended up in Seoul, Korea. It was so amazing.
Jocelyn: Yeah. I was the only blonde person there, that was interesting.
Shane: Yeah.
Pat: Oh! Britney Spears!!!
Jocelyn: So, that was incredible and being on the beach in the Philippines. I can think of so many things that this lifestyle has enabled us to do that I never could have even dreamed up in ten years.
Shane: We were sitting out, it was our anniversary last Sunday. We saved our anniversary dinner til we got to Chicago and it was a nice restaurant. The food looked good, we found it online, we were sitting in just together. I was like, “Jocelyn, would we be sitting here if we were still teachers 4 years ago?” You know? Just all the little steps you take along the way and then going back to the kids, for me… We’ve not only made it to all their games but at least one of us has always been in every practice. My dad was great, my dad was always in our stuff and always got us there, and he went to every game that we had. But practice was different, those were extra bonus stuff that you get to do and you get to see your kids make those first shots at practice. You’re gonna see your kid win his first little race against his teammate. I think that’s what’s given me a lot of perspective online, is we’re seeing behind the scenes of what really happens during life. Dropping your kid off everyday to school, and that’s just mesmerizing to me that we get to do stuff like that.
Pat: Just imagine the impact that this is gonna have when they become parents. They’re gonna want to have that same thing too, so they’re gonna take that action and make it happen.
Shane: It’s awesome, man! One thing I do, touch on here, people listening to this… there are two things that make me really mad, when people say this: 1) Well you guys are just so lucky. I’m like NO. I’m not saying that being in the right place at the right time has not helped us, but we’ve put ourselves in the places at the time. We chose to be there. Another thing that drives me crazy, 2) Did you hear the story…? And I don’t wanna sound like we’re rubbing it in, because people will say, “Oh you got it made!” and I look right back at them and I say, “No! We made it happen.” and I think that’s what I want everybody to do. When we tell those kind of stories, it’s not to say, “Oh look what we get to do.” it’s to say, “Look at what YOU could do.” Well, Pat man, we really appreciate you taking a time out of your day. You’re a busy guy, you’ve got a lot going on and we’re just thankful that we’re friends and that you’re out there doing your work and we’re out here doing our work. We keep throwing those pebbles in the pond everyday. Thanks so much for coming on the 100th episode of our Flipped Lifestyle podcast!
Pat: Woohoo!
Jocelyn: Thank you so much.
Pat: Here’s to another hundred.
Shane: Here’s to another thousand! Let’s keep it going.
Pat: Ten thousand.
Shane: Forever. Twenty thousand! Thanks for coming to our show and everything you do for everybody online.
Pat: Thank you guys for what you do too!
Shane: Alright guys. That wraps up our interview with Pat Flynn. Hope you enjoyed that, so much information in there about a lot of topics we don’t get to talk about in online business like, how to work around kids, how to get your spouse on board with your online business… just all the things that really go on in your life when you’re an online entrepreneur. Just a super awesome conversation with Pat. You know, Pat gave us a great can’t miss moment there at the end of the interview when he was talking about being able to take his little girl and give her that opportunity to do the hula dancing and see her succeed and to be there for that event. I think for our can’t miss moment this week, we’re just gonna say it’s Podcast Movement. Being here, being able to interview Pat and just being able to have the opportunity to hang out with so many amazing people out there changing the world.
Jocelyn: And for those who may be new to our show, can’t miss moments are things that we might not have been able to experience without starting our online business and doing what we do every single day. Just being here in Chicago at Podcast Movement, speaking to Pat Flynn who’s been just an awesome mentor to us and just a great friend. Hanging out here and doing what we do, that’s an amazing can’t miss moment. Something I couldn’t imagine doing 10 years ago.
Shane: Yeah. I woke up this morning and opened our window. We’re on the 27th floor of The Hyatt, looking over the great lake out here and the sun was coming up, I was just so thankful and blessed for that. It’s just amazing the difference online business really makes in your life. If you’re on the fence thinking about starting an online business or maybe you’re knee deep pulling the weeds and can’t quite figure out how to get over the hump, we would love to help you take your online business to the next level. All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife and we would love to help you make it happen in your life, because we don’t want this just for us. We want it for everybody that’s willing to put in the work and get out there and do it, make it happen for themselves.
Jocelyn: As we close the show, we would just want to re-emphasize something. We spoke to Pat earlier and that’s just letting people know how their content is affecting you. How it is changing your life or just making you think about things in a different way, so if we have impacted you in any way over our last 100 episodes, and you have never left an iTunes review for us before we would just encourage you to do that. We’ve read every single one as they come in. They just mean so much to us and so we would really, really appreciate your support in doing that and helping us celebrate our 100 episodes.
Shane: Alright guys, that wraps up the 100th episode of the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. Make sure you come back next week for episode 101 as we continue our mission to get out there and help people flip their lives. Thank you so much for listening! Until next time, get out there and do whatever it takes to take action and flip your life. We’ll see you then.
Jocelyn: Bye!
Dave Starr says
Absolutely inspirational, S & J. You two are true American heros. Build an income and lifestyle from the ground up, help people, and (very important to my readers, since I live overseas), making yourself location independent. Flip on. flip on.
Shane Sams says
Thanks Dave! haha. My favorite comment ever “Absolutely inspirational, S & J. You two are true American heros.” 🙂
Don’t forget to leave an iTunes review! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/flipped-lifestyle-podcast/id902645131?mt=2
Joey says
Congrats on the 100th episode! I’ve listened to every single one of them, some of them more than several times. 🙂 It’s actually Pat’s session 122 where I found yours. So, thanks Pat, too!
Shane Sams says
Thank you so much for listening and leaving a kind word! We appreciate you! -SS