[00:00] Patrick Morin: Becoming an expert means not collecting people, but understanding people and understanding the role in the ecosystem and being able to call them and have some degree of familiarity with them to such a degree that you can either help them or they can help you. It’s not just about, I got 5, 000

[00:22] Jim Harshaw Jr.: LinkedIn’s.

[00:23] Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man. Real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity. Consistency and focus in business and life. This is your host, Jim Harshaw, Jr. And today I bring you Patrick Morin. What if the key to unlocking your full potential lies in something as simple as pen and paper?

[00:44] Patrick Morin, my guest today proves that that just might be the case. And it might just be that easy. His career spans wall street and private equity consulting, and even 19 years as a Dale Carnegie. Instructor, but his story starts with this surprising twist. He shares in this episode, and I didn’t know this until we started talking.

[01:04] He had this handwritten vision that he shared during a job interview years ago, that would go on to shape his entire life, his entire career. And it’s fascinating what his son actually points out later on in life. So check this out. It’d be really interesting. And he also shares how writing down your goals can just literally rewrite your future.

[01:21] And this isn’t really a goal setting episode. But this is how one guy used that to create success. And he shares this framework that he used to reinvent himself time and time again, from mastering sales and communication to becoming this recognized expert. And an industry, and he shares this four pillar sort of system for becoming a recognized expert in your field in whatever field that is.

[01:43] So don’t let this just be another podcast episode that you listen to and it goes in one ear out the other. Join me in real conversation taking place right now over in my online community where I engage directly with you directly with members on every podcast episode. You can join my free community.

[01:59] Just go to JimHarshawJr.com/free. That’s just JimHarshawJr.com/free. And you can get free access right there. So I look forward to talking with you. I look forward to engaging with you over there. In the meantime, let’s get started. My interview with Patrick Moran. Well, you’ve had a successful career in MNA, uh, private equity, business consulting, but all this started.

[02:23] As a Dale Carnegie instructor, how did you get into that?

[02:28] Patrick Morin: Yeah, it was, it was funny. The, uh, when I came out of college, I actually had worked for general electric for a couple of years and then went down to wall street for a couple of years and the funny part about it is I left wall street and moved to Richmond, Virginia, and when I was looking around, I was trying to reinvent myself at that particular time.

[02:43] And I was looking around for jobs and most of them were in finance. And my girlfriend at the time had graduated from a Dale Carnegie course in Albany, New York. And she said, you know, she goes, you’d be really good at that. And I’m like, good at what? And she was, I thought she was talking about like Fred Carnegie.

[03:00] I didn’t know it was Dale Carnegie. It’s like Fred Carnegie. And so she called the organization and said, Hey, I’d like to take another class and my boyfriend wants a job. And I was like, no, no, no. So I went in, uh, I went in and it was a guy by the name of Gene Cook who ran Dale Carnegie here in the Virginia area.

[03:21] And he said, what would you like? Tell me about your career aspirations. And I had actually had all of my life goals and I had a life vision that I had written out, not including Dale Carnegie. And I handed it to him and he read it right there in front of me. It took about five or six minutes and he looks right at me and he said, he goes, if you come and work for me, you can have all these things.

[03:45] And that’s how it started.

[03:48] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So many directions I could go from that. So you had your goals and your vision, your life vision written down. You just had up that piece of paper. Is that your current one or is that the one from the past?

[03:59] Patrick Morin: That is the new one for the vision of the, of the firm that we have now.

[04:04] But yeah, at the time I had, uh, everything I wanted to be, haven’t do this. So this would have been 1993 and it was everything I wanted to be, haven’t do over the course of my lifetime. And then the strengths and everything that I had, that I saw within myself, the assets that I had within myself, and then I’d put it into a narrative.

[04:24] Into almost a story, a description of what I wanted. And, uh, that’s what I handed to him. And it was, uh, it was pretty fortuitous because I ended up five years full time with Dale Carnegie before, uh, I moved over to the real estate investment trust. But I was an instructor with them for 19 years.

[04:43] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Wow. Do you mind if I ask you.

[04:45] What are some of those things on your original list of goals in your vision?

[04:49] Patrick Morin: No, it was really funny because I just sent that original document to my son earlier this week and He and I had just had a conversation, you know He picked up from Virginia and he moved out to Colorado and he’s trying to get some traction out there And I and I told my son I said look I said all you really see is the glitter in the glittery I said you didn’t really see all the failures That came as a result of this.

[05:11] And we started talking about all the failures, ironically, you know, in advance of, of this conversation. And he was inspired by that. We were talking about it over Thanksgiving and he was just like, he goes, I didn’t realize that there was so much hardship along the way. And then I sent him the original document that I’d given to Jean Cook at Dale Carnegie.

[05:30] And he goes, he goes, you know, it’s really weird, dad. He goes, the way that you wrote this, he said, it’s almost exactly the way that it was in our house. And what it had described, Jim, was the type of business that I wanted to be in the people that I wanted to be around. It even named the house, the description of the house that I wanted to live in.

[05:51] And I hadn’t actually looked at it in years and years and years. I just brought it up for him and I sent it over. And he recognized that we had created from that vision in 1993, by the time we had that house in 2008, 2010, he was reading it as if it was a historical document, but it was written as a future as a future look.

[06:10] Wow. Wow. Yeah. Do you believe in the law of attraction? I do. I believe in elements of the law, of the law of attraction. And what I do believe is that when you put something in your head and you put it out in the, into the world, I think that consciously or unconsciously you create situations that deliver things that do that.

[06:31] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And I feel like you see things that might look like obstacles that, you know, they, those go away. If you have this right vision, they, they, you know, if you have this vision in your head, in your mind, in your heart, it might look like an obstacle, but where to some people, where to you, it looks like an opportunity.

[06:48] Patrick Morin: Yeah, it is. And there’s, but there’s also a congruent belief that goes through it, which just says you will start moving towards those things that you have already created within your head. And, and I think a lot of times people leave it out there and make it fairly ethereal and kind of like leave it floating around.

[07:07] But when you write it down, even if you don’t revisit it on a, on a regular basis, you’ve already made it into something concrete. And what’s interesting is about the one that I just happened to have on my desk. I wrote this three years ago about the firm and in preparing for this upcoming year for 25, I pulled this one actually out.

[07:28] And I realized that we were already going pretty far down the road with the one that I had written three years ago. And I was, I kind of caught myself off guard going, wow, all right, well, we already had this and we’re already moving in this direction. And I think there’s a, it’s fairly instructive for people to have clarity around that.

[07:45] But anyway, to the Dale Carnegie point, Gene was exactly right in, in joining the organization and being with them for the first, the five years full time, but the instructor for 19 years. It actually helped me manifest and realize the things that I had handed him. And he was right to say, if you come and work for me, you can have these things.

[08:04] Jim Harshaw Jr.: For the listener. This is not the first time you’ve heard this stuff. There’s something to this writing down your goals, writing down your vision. And where most people get stuck, Patrick, is they don’t have a process for this. And so, first of all, I’ll say this for the listener. I recorded a podcast episode specifically on creating what we call the Pathfinder Vision, and this is for part of my program.

[08:26] It’s called Reveal Your Path. So I’m going to have that link. I’m going to put that in the action plan. I don’t know the number off top of my head, but we’ll have that in the action plan. And, you know, so make sure you grab that. This is a process for crafting out this personal and professional vision for yourself.

[08:42] Patrick Morin: Yeah. And I’ll, and I’ll back into a couple of different things. I’m a devotee of Brian Moran and Michael Lennington’s book, the 12 week year. Big fan of 12 week year, and I have been so for the better part of probably 15 years because I believe in the whole concept of periodization, which says, if you live every day as if it’s a week and every week as if it’s a month in three months, you have achieved more than other people have in a year.

[09:08] And I believe it is an accelerated path, and the authors and I have had extended conversations about this very thing. So point number one. Is if people can actually get their heads around periodization. I think they find there’s an acceleration towards towards that vision that they create for themselves.

[09:28] Number two, it’s, it’s funny that we should be talking about it. Now I do all my new year’s resolutions before the 15th of December, and that’s the deadline. And it’s because from the 15th to the 31st, I want to live with them and I want to see if I can achieve them. So if I’m going to be changing one of my behaviors, if you think about what Most New Year’s resolutions are, they are all the things, Jim, that we hate about ourselves in the new year.

[09:54] I’m going to stop smoking in the new year. I’m going to lose weight in the new year. It’s all of these negative

[10:00] kind of images that we have about ourselves, as opposed to the flip side one, which is I’m going to try to meet one new person a week, or I’m going to, I’m going to be doing all these other things.

[10:09] So every year for the last 30 years. I start with my New Year’s resolutions by the 15th, and from the 15th to the 31st, I try to live with them, and I make tweaks and adjustments, and then it’s go time on the 1st of January to live those changes. And the changes are not usually legion, right? They’re not like these epic things.

[10:31] There are minor adjustments to it, but the other one is there’s a wonderful book by Cal Newport. It’s called Deep Work.

[10:38] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yep, we’ve had him on. We actually talked to him. Yeah, I talked to him years ago. I’ll have that episode for the lesson. I’ll have that in the action plan, but go ahead, Patrick.

[10:46] Patrick Morin: Yeah, Cal just kind of nails it on that, which is if you can block off 90 minutes, like it’s those 90 minute blocks of deep work of thinking of no interruptions, but if a person actually sat down with no television, no radio, just a pad, paper thought, maybe a beautiful view.

[11:05] And started to write down these are the things that I would like to experience in my life, or this is the way that I would like to, to live. It coalesces into a greater vision in the future, and I try to find time to do that at least once a year.

[11:20] Jim Harshaw Jr.: This, my friends, my listeners, my longtime listeners, say it with me.

[11:24] This is a productive. Pause. This is a concept, Patrick, that I’ve learned after interviewing hundreds of guys like you. And I figured out that the real secret to success isn’t hard work. Like everybody’s working hard. There’s like a lot of things out there that say, Oh, that’s the secret to success. But it’s really this idea of a pause, this focused pause, this productive pause is defined as a short period of focus reflection around specific questions that leads to clarity of action.

[11:49] And peace of mind. And that’s what we’re talking about here. That’s this deep work, this, you know, in this example, a 90 minute period where you ask yourself these tough questions, you answer them, you put them down on paper, and this is focused reflection around specific questions. It’s giving you clarity.

[12:05] It’s giving you peace of mind.

[12:07] Patrick Morin: You know, you’re, you’re an athlete, you’re a wrestler and you’re an athlete. And so you, you automatically understand the periodization. I was always struck by, uh, I think it was J. J. Watt, who he would say that after he, that when they were doing two a day practices to get ready for the season, he was a pro football player.

[12:22] But he found somewhere in the back of the stadium and he put in a king sized mattress behind, like seriously, like behind filing cabinets or something. And he would go back there and he would sleep between the practices when everybody else was out doing stuff or errands or things like that. And if you think about that pause for a second, it was that downtime.

[12:43] It was that down period. And 12 week year. And you realize there’s 52 weeks in a year and you’ve got a 12 week year, really, it’s broken into 13 weeks and you take that 13th week in those periods and say, I’m going to operate as an athlete full bore, and I’m going to drive it for the 12 weeks, but then I’m going to stop and I’m going to, I’m going to get my head together.

[13:05] I’m going to get my next 12 weeks ready together. I personally, for me, I can’t give the advice to anybody else, but I find for me, yeah. It drives my energy level, my excitement, and I start to look towards what am I going to try to achieve in the next 12? I can’t say it’s going to work for everybody, but it has absolutely worked for me.

[13:23] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. Well, you know, success leaves clues and you know, this is not our first time hearing this stuff. This is your version, Patrick’s version of it, but we’re seeing more proof, more proof of success that this stuff works, this concept works. So, uh, if I’m not mistaken in my research, I found out that you specialized.

[13:40] And the Dale Carnegie and I say Carnegie, I’m from Pittsburgh. Carnegie is a, a big name in Pittsburgh. So I’m not sure if I’m saying it right or if I’m saying it wrong, probably saying it wrong. Yeah. That’s what, how us yinz are set.

[13:50] Patrick Morin: Uh, exactly. Everybody always does that.

[13:53] Jim Harshaw Jr.: You specialize in teaching the sales advantage and then also another course called high impact presentations.

[13:59] Is that right? I haven’t done it in

[14:01] Patrick Morin: about a decade or so. I did it for 19 years, but yes, those were my expertise. Yes.

[14:07] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Is there anything in particular from either of those that you could really break down and we could do a whole podcast on either one of those topics. So is there anything that really stands out to you?

[14:16] Cause I want to get to this idea of the process of, of how to become an expert. Uh, and I want to talk about that, but is there anything from those two courses that really stand out to you that you could share from either sales advantage or high impact presentations?

[14:30] Patrick Morin: It really is. Let’s start with the latter one first, because you and I shared the stage a couple of months ago and what people don’t realize is that the ability to communicate and the ability to to express ideas, especially to a group of people can really be an important element towards achieving the things that you want to achieve.

[14:52] And what I find, especially in coaching people who are either doing media training or they’re trying to get up in front of a group of people, is that they’re always nervous and they’re always scared. And the one phrase that kind of encapsulate how to overcome that is this, is that when you are in front of the room, Jim, You are the least important person in the room.

[15:12] And if you can just conceptualize that and says you’re on stage, but you really don’t matter. It’s the people who are sitting in the seats. And if you care enough that they are getting your message, if you are articulate enough that they are getting it and that they can apply what it is that you’ve learned or what you’ve constructed to their own lives, and our lives are made better as a result of it, nervousness is going to evaporate and you just focus in on them.

[15:37] And similarly, In the sales process, um, and I see this all the time, people want to talk about themselves. They want to talk about their company and they want to talk about their products. And in most of my sales process, I almost never have to talk about myself or my company or my products. I’m only trying to understand the situation of these founders who are exiting their companies.

[15:59] And what are the challenges that they’re facing? You know, why are they exiting their companies? Is it death? Is it divorce? Is it just exhaustion from the business? Is it economic? Is it, what are these things? Cause once I understand that, now I can start to construct an exit that’s going to work for them.

[16:16] And I find that if salespeople in particular become the spotlight guy and shine the spotlight on the tenor on the stage, the other person, when the person to whom you’re selling, actually understands that your caring is about their situation, they’re coming along with you any which way. It’s not about what you tell them, it’s about what you ask them.

[16:39] And as Covey said, you know this one, seek first to understand, then be understood. And I, and of those two points, that’s really what I would take away after decades of doing that.

[16:50] Jim Harshaw Jr.: For the listeners, if you could just clip that last minute or two of what Patrick said and actually absorb that into your life, it will change your life.

[17:00] In terms of, you know, focusing on other people, whether as a leader or you’re on stage or otherwise in sales, selling stuff, this will change your life. Just absorb. I mean, literally, you know, if you’re listening on your, on your podcast player has a little go back 30 seconds, like hit that a few times and go back and listen to that and really, you know, listen to it two or three times.

[17:20] If you have to. But really absorb that. So Patrick, this is a great segue into what I also want to talk to you about, which is becoming an expert, this process of becoming an industry expert. Like you put, you talked about earlier, you said I had to reinvent myself. Um, you talked about that at the very beginning of the episode here.

[17:40] How do you become a recognized expert in the industry for the listener who has experience in their industry, maybe some knowledge and they want to become a recognized expert and they want to build their personal brand. How do we go about that?

[17:52] Patrick Morin: Yeah, it’s a, you know, if you take a look at it, like training for an event or making a decision, I mean, obviously the first part of this is day can dairy of the cut, make the decision that this is what you’re going to do to so many people tend to Jim, they tend to fall into their careers.

[18:09] They tend to, oh, it’s, you know, this is just how I ended up or where I did, but when we make a specific choice that we are going to go into an occupation or a career or an industry. And we make the decision that I want to be proud of what I do, and I want people to be able to know that they can come to me to solve solutions in this space.

[18:30] And we make the decision to be an expert. There are many things that we can actually do to construct that expertise. And, you know, if you take a little bit of the element of the 10, 000 hours, right, because I think that’s pretty much proven out is that, you know, 10, 000 hours gets you to a level of competency that most don’t the harder part around just saying, Oh, study it for 10, 000 hours is that nobody knows what the formula for that is.

[18:59] And a few years ago, when I came back into the investment banking industry, after some of the other career things that I did, I realized that I had to reinvent not just the firm in which I was located, but also myself. And, um, so the first time I started to focus in on the staffing industry. The human capital management industry, because I look at that industry as being the mortar between the bricks of industry in America, and that is everybody is is tied to some sort of labor pool and over the years, I knew that I was coming into a new body of knowledge, and I wanted to accelerate to the best of my ability.

[19:40] I wanted to accelerate that recognition that I could be an expert and I could help people, and I wanted to feel confident. I didn’t want to feel like an imposter. And so what I did is I broke down how to become an expert into things, chunks that I could understand that I could do, and then I created
[20:00] four pillars for it.

[20:01] And the first is expertise, which is a body of knowledge within a certain field. What do you actually know about the field? The second is. Is the process that you’re executing going to be significantly scalable? Is it proprietary? Is it unique? Is it efficient? Is it all of these other things? So really developing and examining the process.

[20:24] The third is. Looking at the people that you know, and that you’re connected with so many people out on LinkedIn, just hit connect, connect, connect, connect, connect. But those connections are worthless because they kill the six degrees of separation. So starting to understand in an industry who the owners are, who the vendors are, who the reporters are, some of the elements of the people that are in there, that’s good too.

[20:47] And then the fourth one is The exposure, things like your podcast, where you’re starting to hit another audience. So between the expertise, the actual expertise, the process, the people, and the exposure. Once you have those four pillars, that’s when your ability to be recognized as an expert goes forward.

[21:08] And each one of those pillars have certain elements that if you do, it’s going to accelerate the process.

[21:16] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So let’s start with the first one. The first one’s expertise, right? Knowledge. And I think a lot of people are probably sitting there listening and saying, okay, I have that. Like, you know, I’m in a certain industry.

[21:25] And I have a certain amount of, of knowledge or information there. Let’s assume they have some body of knowledge or experience, right? Do they take that and now have to create a process? Is that the next step?

[21:36] Patrick Morin: It is, but, but, but I don’t want to just gloss over the knowledge because a lot of times people say.

[21:41] Well, I’ve been fixing cars for years and I, you know, I know things there are, there’s a level of arrogance that kind of goes along with it. That makes you ferocious to say, well, I know everything there is to know about this business, AI and the advent of AI over the last two years would tell you is that you don’t, right?

[21:58] And so there’s a humility that goes along. with being an expert of saying, I don’t know everything. And that will actually get you to being an expert faster. But let me give you some examples of this. So I’m an investment banker. So I sell other people’s companies, people build companies, and then they, you know, they want to exit and they want to sell them.

[22:17] But if I’m looking at a particular industry, I want to know the universe. And what I mean by the universe is who are the players in it? Who are all the other companies that are in it? Where does that company establish itself with its metrics and its benchmarks against other companies? How long have they been in the industry?

[22:36] If I, if I start to create an idea and I’ll give you an example in the staffing industry, there are 19, 000. staffing companies in the United States. The exciting thing about that is it’s a discernible number, right? It’s a finite number. And an expert at some point over time would be able to say, I, I know who they all are.

[22:57] Right. I’m not saying be that crazy about it, but that’s a really good start is to examine. Even if you’re competing somewhere locally, who are those that I’m competing against? If you look at a Lindsey Vaughn or you look at even in the NFL, every one of those players know about every other player. When you hear Tom Brady making those commentaries, he’s like, when I was playing against that guy, this is what I knew.

[23:23] So if you think about your own business and say, do I really understand the universe of the players against whom I’m competing or this body of knowledge that I need to understand that universe is finite. A couple of other points, and we’ll move on to the other ones, which was vocabulary. Do you, if you’re coming into a new space, One of the finest things you could do to get up quickly is to understand the vocabulary of the space and not just because you heard the term, but to really dive in and understand it.

[23:51] Do you know the math of your client? Do you know their customer acquisition cost? Do you follow the news in that industry? Are you reading the trade magazines in that industry? Do you self study? In my case, the MNA of that industry or the technology stacks that are being used in your industry. Do you understand your client’s process or your client’s decision making process?

[24:17] So that way you’re helping them solve the problems. And do you understand how your clients are delivering their product so you could be a competitive advantage, a force multiplier, that is expertise in an industry. And the wonderful thing about this thing, Jim, is that that study is totally controlled by you.

[24:37] Totally controlled by you. It’s not external. It’s not out there. You can go home at night and spend an hour, spend Cal Newport, spend 90 minutes on each one of these over the course of two or three weeks. And your level of understanding goes up pretty dramatically.

[24:51] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah, absolutely. And for the listener.

[24:53] You can build your own curriculum around this, right? Everything Patrick just said, you know, you could read the books, you know, watch the YouTube videos, listen to the podcast, subscribe to the industry media, their social media, trade magazines, et cetera. You can do this on your own. You’re probably going to need some accountability.

[25:08] All of this is done better with the group. If you can join a group, there’s people out there of other people out there doing stuff like this. Like have a coach in the industry, you have that, you’re going to get out there much faster. You’re going to build your brand much faster.

[25:22] Patrick Morin: It’s true. Two points to that.

[25:24] Number one, I’m a firm believer in peer groups, even if you’re creating one yourself. But number two, part of this is also the Jocko Willink and David Goggins kind of mindset, which is just do it. You know, there’s a quote up on my window over here. And it’s from my son who borrowed it, I think from, uh, from Goggins.

[25:42] And I was talking to him at one point, cause he works very hard. And he’s, he’s, he’s 21. He’s pretty successful. And he said, he goes, daddy goes, we don’t stop when we’re tired. We stop when we’re done. And he goes, it’s only done by doing. And then he said, I love you, but I got to go work out click

[26:01] Jim Harshaw Jr.: simple. Not easy, but it’s simple.

[26:03] Good. All right. So let’s talk about the next step. The second step here process.

[26:09] Patrick Morin: Sure. If you were going to compete at the highest levels, it’s about process. Um, I mentioned Lindsey Vaughn a little bit earlier and it’s because she’s making that comeback right now. But if you actually read rise or you read anything that she has put out there, she’s inspirational to me before Michaela Sheffrin, the most successful skier in American history.

[26:26] But she looks at that team and she looks at the process of waxing the skis of prepping of all of the activity that goes on ahead of time. So when you’re looking at your own competitive advantage of becoming an expert, that means that you have a process that you have thought through and constructed that is more efficient than your competitors or than other processes that are out there.

[26:50] You’re not just. copying and pasting and putting it in that you have looked at tweaks and methodologies to be able to do it. And when I worked with General Electric, Jack Welch used to say, he goes, speed, simplicity, and self confidence. Those are the three things. If something is simple, you can do it fast.

[27:10] If you can do it fast, you can do it repetitively. If you can do it repetitively, it builds your self confidence because it allows you to say, I’ve done this. I know that I can do it my, the 51st. And so when you’re looking at your own process, whether or not it’s your sales process or your growth process, or it’s your CEO decision making skills or whatever it is that you’re doing in business, when your process, A is greater than B in terms of efficacy and effectiveness.

[27:38] then you are becoming an expert. People will recognize you. That’s the reason why we hire plumbers. I can go under my sink and I could futz around with it for two and a half hours or my friend comes in and he’s an expert plumber and he comes in and 10 minutes later, the thing’s done. That’s process. But it also has to be unique.

[27:57] It’s got to be consistent. It’s got to be efficient. And ultimately it’s got to be scalable. The whole reason of getting becoming an expert in your field through process is the fact that it leverages the amount of time you have to spend on any one particular problem. The thing is, is that most people don’t actually deconstruct their processes.

[28:17] Last point I would say on process, if you think about what we talked about at the beginning of the thing, which is the beginning of this broadcast, Which is going through New Year’s resolutions for the first 15 days of, of December and then living with them. That’s part of the process. It is saying, here’s the new process I want to do in the new year.

[28:38] Yeah.

[28:39] Jim Harshaw Jr.: And it’s a process that works. So the next step is people, the third step here is people tell us about that.

[28:44] Patrick Morin: So people there. In our culture, we have become a culture of people collectors and what we think when we go to a conference or what we think when we go to an event is that I need 25 business cards.

[28:57] I wrote an article about this a few years ago and it was just like this avalanche of cards, right? That people would collect and just say, I’ve got it. But to become an expert in any field gym, it means. Not necessarily knowing the world because that will eventually happen over a period of time, but it means knowing the influencers that are getting results.

[29:19] It means if you’re in a specific industry, it’s not just about knowing who your competitors are, but who are the vendors to your industry and do you actually know who they are? I wrote an article a few years ago for the apartment industry and it was entitled, your vendors as a competitive advantage. And what it meant was this, when you know you’re in the apartment industry, when you know your vendors really well, the guys that are painting your apartments and changing out the carpets, you know, every time you turn an apartment and you really know them and you have a relationship with them.

[29:53] And you need them to turn an apartment very quickly. They will move you to the front of the line, especially if they know that you’re going to pay

[30:00] quicker and that you care about the success of their subcontracting companies. And so to become an expert in anything, it’s not just about knowing the customers that you serve and the names of the CEOs, but it’s also the vendors that are serving you and the other vendors that are serving that same client base that you are serving because those individuals become.

[30:24] influencers to them. But it’s also do you know the advisors into the industry that you serve? Have you started cultivating relationships with accountants and attorneys that serve the industry that you also serve? So you become a collective group of people who are serving into an industry. Do you know the reporters?

[30:43] Of the trade rags that you’re reading so that way when there is a quote when they are looking for a quote They know to pick up the telephone and call you and say I need a quote for this particular thing for this Situation and it’s gonna go on our national magazine or it’s gonna go On our monthly update, becoming an expert means not collecting people, but understanding people and understanding the role in the ecosystem and being able to call them and have some degree of familiarity with them to such a degree that you can either help them or they can help you.

[31:19] It’s not just about I got 5000 linked ins.

[31:23] Jim Harshaw Jr.: So I think this is a critical part when you think about people, you know, the knowledge is important, the process is important. I feel like the people can really exponentially move you down the track, like they can open up doors, they can connect you to other people.

[31:41] Like this comes back to just relationships and connections. And this is, I feel like, an X factor. In this whole system,

[31:49] Patrick Morin: it is, if you think about it is the very definition of force multiplier. And, and let me tell you where people typically fall off and fail at this, the critical rule expanding the ecosystem of the people with whom you’re connecting is give first.

[32:06] And do not expect quid pro quo. Give first. There has to be something in your psyche. When you’re becoming an expert, sometimes you’re giving your advice away for free. Sometimes you’re giving your connections away for free. So whatever it is, and you have to be good with that because I will tell you living a bad dharma leads to a bad karma.

[32:27] And that is when it is all about the self and it’s all about you. you will fail quicker and harder than ever before. But if you were looking at it and saying, in what ways can I help Jim accelerate this podcast? In what ways can I Excel help Jim get his message out to more people or gain some additional exposure?

[32:47] And then remember, if I have to ask for your help, it isn’t help. If I have to ask for your help, it’s charity. And because I’m, I’m in a position where it’s just like, Jim, I really need your help with this thing. And nobody ever feels good about that. But if I see. A person who says, uh, you know, man, they’re in this certain situation and I know how to solve that problem.

[33:08] Let me help them solve this problem, regardless of whether or not there’s going to be remuneration for it or other things. The multiplier effect of that is legion. It’s huge. Give first with no expectation of reciprocity and what you’ll find. You want to talk about the law of attraction? That’s the law of attraction.

[33:28] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve, you know, Zig Ziglar said, you know, you can get anything in the world, have anything in the world that you want as long as you help enough other people get what they want. So,

[33:36] Patrick Morin: yeah. I wish more people would do it.

[33:38] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Yeah. So Patrick, this leads, I think, directly to exposure and because exposure, I mean, people can help you get that exposure.

[33:46] So let’s talk about that fourth and final piece of the four step process. Yeah, sadly, this is the heroine

[33:52] Patrick Morin: of this generation right here is exposure. And it’s because now you’ve got people becoming, uh, you know, everybody can have a podcast. Everybody can have some sort of broadcast media and it’s a good thing and it’s a bad thing.

[34:04] But that exposure part is so important because a lot of times people are getting exposure before they’ve actually become an expert. And that’s problematic because if you get exposure before you’re an expert in your field, at some point, somebody out there who knows a little more than you two is going to has the ability to expose you as really as a fraud.

[34:23] So you have to have your, your expertise. You’ve got to have your process in place. You’ve got to be able to know the people. And then you start generating that exposure because that right there Is the geometric, if you will, uh, uh, exponential, if you prefer geometrics more, more, probably more mathematically correct on that, but that is where your expertise gets compounded and the world gets you to the view, but specifically in your field, in your field.

[34:52] Are you going to the trade shows? Do you understand who the associations are? Are you connected with the executive directors of those associations? Are you reading the trade rags, the trade magazines and the trade journals of that industry? And even more importantly than that, are you looking at the advertisers in the backs of those journals?

[35:12] Because those are also the people who are clamoring for influence from your given market. Are you keeping track of the electronic media? When you are joining groups on LinkedIn, are you actually participating in a material way to the collective intelligence of that group? Or are you just sucking the information out or are you contributing in a meaningful way?

[35:37] That level of exposure, uh, in terms of helping people build their companies, build their businesses, build their presence. Again, it’s a giving thing more than a taking thing, but the exposure can actually be an organized military effort towards getting out and getting your message out there. But before you get exposure, make sure that you’re an expert, make sure you know who the players are in the industry and that your process.

[36:03] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Patrick, this is incredibly helpful. It’s a very. You know, simple, but not easy, you know, simple process, right? You know, step one for becoming an expert is knowledge or expertise. Step two is creating your process. Step three is connecting with the right people. And step four is exposure. So you’ve given us a very clear process.

[36:24] It sounds like a lot. And so for the listener who’s sitting there saying, okay, this, this sounds great, I want to do this. Where do I start? What is an action item that they can do, something they can do in the next 24 to 48 hours to start taking action on what you shared here today? One of the first things

[36:44] Patrick Morin: that I did at one of the lowest points of my life when I had just come off one of the biggest failures of my life, which was fairly early in my career.

[36:52] And I felt like I had nothing. I effectively had my car. I had. 10 suits and 10 boxes of books and 2, 400 bucks in the bank that had to last me indefinite period of time. And I’m sitting, I’m like, Oh my God, what do I do? I actually sat down and started made it a list and it was part of that original document that we talked about at the top of the show, which was what are the assets that I have?

[37:17] And once I got past the car and the suits and the books, I started to realize I have an asset of a college degree. I have an asset of experience working as a dishwasher in a kitchen. And I started to list out these things and I never realized that they in fact were assets and those experience and how they form your character and how those things cannot be shaken from you and taken from you, no matter what happens in your life.

[37:43] If somebody wanted to become an expert in their particular field, Start by taking the inventory of what it is that you already know, and then humbly reflect on that and say, how much greater is this pool into which I have already dipped my toe. If you have the humility of that, but you also have that inventory, you have what I call the as is, what do I know now?

[38:07] And then there’s always going to be by relief, a should be. And then there’s this barriers. What’s stopping me from doing it right now? Is it the self discipline of getting up at four o’clock in the morning? Is it the self discipline of me going in and actually reading a book or listening to an audio book or listening to one of your podcasts?

[38:24] Cause you’ve had phenomenal podcasts in here. And then ultimately, why am I doing this? And if we understand the why of what we do something that it allows us to get through the difficulty of the, what we’re doing and it, and the complexity of the, how we’re going to ultimately do it. If it were me and I were one of your listeners, I would start with step one of what is the inventory of strengths that I have in the field in which I want to become an expert.

[38:55] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Simple, simple step. Most people won’t do it, but for you, the one listener, who’s, I mean, you’re here right now. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to take this step. So Patrick, thank you so much for making time to come on the show. Where can people find you, follow you, engage with you? One of the best places for them

[39:14] Patrick Morin: to reach me is all of my contacting information is actually out at LinkedIn, but I will link into you.

[39:20] After we’ve had a conversation, um, but they can, uh, they can hit me at patrickattransactcapital. com. Again, that’s patrickattransactcapital. com. And I have actually no problem broadcasting my phone number, which is 804 402 2836, 804. 402 2836. It’s all over the web. It’s perfectly okay. I have found that most people don’t abuse those contact things.

[39:45] What I would say is this, whenever you try to reach out to me, I’m happy to help. Just help me understand one of two questions. What is the problem that you’re trying to solve? Or what is the question that you’re trying to answer? It’s something that they use with the President of the United States in the

[40:00] Situation Room, and it helps narrow and focus the conversation and gives clarity into what the next couple of minutes are going to look like.

[40:07] Great productive pause

[40:08] Jim Harshaw Jr.: questions. Excellent. Patrick, thank you so much for making time to come on the show and sharing your wisdom. You bet. I

[40:15] Patrick Morin: loved it. I love talking with you and I’m grateful that I was allowed to be a guest on on your show. You have a great reach and a great audience and I’m humbled to be one of your guests.

[40:26] Jim Harshaw Jr.: Well, I’m grateful for our friendship and our connection. We’ll talk to you soon. Thank you, Jim.

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