When I sold my first company, we were very successful

from the world looking in.

We're very successful.

We're Inc.

500, number 151 on the Inc.

500 list of privately held companies.

We were Entrepreneur of the Year.

We had lots of awards.

But from the inside looking out, I was running from one crisis to another,

solving one problem to another, and then we solved enough to survive,

and every time we survived again, and then suddenly we were successful.

Welcome to the Seek Go Create podcast.

This is your host, Tim Winders.

I'm an executive coach and I get to do one of the things I love the most, which

today is interview an incredibly awesome guest, very talented, great background.

I do want to remind you, this is Seek Go Create.

This is where we challenge the conventional definitions of success.

And explore stories of transformation in leadership, business, and in ministry.

Today, I have the privilege of interviewing Patrick Tien.

He's a seasoned entrepreneur, speaker, CEO, coach, and a best selling author.

He's had a remarkable journey that led him to be named Ernst

Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

He's on a mission to help CEOs build exceptional companies

and achieve their dreams.

Patrick, welcome to Seek Go Create.

Thank you very much.

I'm so glad to be here.

Thanks for inviting me.

Yeah.

I'm glad you're here, Patrick, too.

I love, I've told people this all the time.

One of the things I love about doing this is I get an hour

to just push everything away.

And so the person listening in, this is what they get.

And let's just have a deep, probably fun conversation about stuff, cool stuff.

And we're going to do that today.

Before I do that, though, let me ask, we, we just bumped into each other.

We're on a plane or something like that.

And I ask you what you do, what do you say when someone

says, what do you do, Patrick?

Tim, I actually help CEOs to not fail, but to rather succeed.

And I choose those words because I help CEOs to execute their strategy.

The CEO's job is really hard.

It's really hard.

The failure rate is really high.

And most CEOs actually leave their jobs involuntarily.

That's a nice way to say they got fired.

So most CEOs leave their jobs involuntarily.

how do you succeed?

It's a hard job.

So what I've learned along the way is that most CEOs don't fail for lack of

strategy, but rather for the inability.

To execute the strategy, which for me means achieving the commitments.

They made a commitments to their customers, to their employees,

to their shareholders, to their investors, to all their stakeholders.

And, that is critical if you want to succeed.

So at the day, it comes back down to, can you execute your strategy?

Cause most CEOs I talked to have a strategy.

we're going to come back to the execution, but I want to ask some

questions about the, we, cause we have a lot of leaders, a lot of people with

different type organizations that listen in here and when we say CEO, I think

I, I conjure up visions of big, large corporations, but can you do a little bit

better defining what do you, when you say CEO, talk a little bit more about that.

Yeah.

so we typically work with clients, which are in the mid market or smaller.

So basically when I say CEO, I mean anyone who runs a company and

really the stuff that we do extends to the leader and their teams.

So it's not just, it's not just a CEO.

I was on a coaching call with a client recently.

And I had to share with him, I said, success is not just based on you.

success starts with you, yes, but success then percolates to your teams

and can your leaders all execute.

So we have a framework of success that helps you get focused,

get aligned with each other and accountable to your commitments.

And so that process extends.

To the teams, not just the leader of the company, but to the teams and then to

answer your question a bit more directly, we typically work with companies that

have, at least 100 people or more.

And we help them with three ways you know we have a methodology

that gives them a framework to have all the right discussions to

get focus aligned and accountable.

We help them with software.

That documents the bowls so that accountability can become real.

Then we provide coaching and consulting to help them create

the correct plans and to help them improve their performance habits.

success really comes from, unfortunately, I say, unfortunately, because it's

hard getting the right habits.

And learning them and then practicing them, right?

It's if I'm trying to lose weight and you said to me, Patrick,

you to go run three miles a day.

That's great.

So today I go run three miles.

I come back to, I say, Tim, I did my three miles.

And you say, that's great, Patrick.

but you got to do that tomorrow and the day after and the day after and

the day after I had to keep doing it.

Otherwise, I'm not going to lose weight.

If I just ran three miles one day.

And I said, Tim, I'm done.

You'd be like, you're not done.

You just did it one day.

You got to keep doing it.

doing well in the company, running a successful company is the same.

it, if you are doing it really well, your rhythm should get boring.

Like you should have a rhythm that is consistent that your employees,

your team members can all depend on.

and then.

And then life becomes transparent and becomes, how should I say, the rhythm

becomes part of you so that things just happen like you're breathing.

Aren't you happy you don't have to tell your body to breathe?

aren't you happy you don't have to go...

Oh, I forgot to breathe.

Oh yes.

I feel better now.

it's just natural.

Therefore, a couple of performs well when it has a natural rhythm built

in with people having natural habits.

But every time I say the word natural, I realized that it's really not natural.

It's really intentional and highly trained.

Yeah, that's a good word.

I love the word rhythms that I saw when, we were doing some research and all on you

that it seems like, the, the book rhythms, the rhythm systems, which I think is your

company and your structure seems like the word rhythm means quite a bit to you.

Is that correct?

Very much Very much I've learned that nothing is done one time.

if you want to succeed in anything, you got to get into a rhythm, you got to get

into a cadence, you got to do it over and over again, and you're gonna get better.

So it's like turning the flywheel, one click at a time, you get better and

better until it's until it becomes, like I said, highly intentional

and natural at the same time.

So what I've discovered, Tim, is that when you've had.

When a person, and this applies to both a person and a company, when you

are inundated with a lot of stress, now stress comes in multiple ways.

Stress comes with opportunities.

Stress comes with problems.

To your body, it's all the same.

Opportunity comes, it's good stress, but it still hits your body.

challenges come, crises come, it's all stress.

So what I've learned is that, We all need a rhythm to process that, to, to process

that, to execute that, to then reflect and learn from that, so we do better tomorrow.

So if you come all the way down to what I call a micro

rhythm, it's even for yourself.

I, for example, I open up my day every day by taking a couple

of minutes to be grateful.

to God for, and I think of three people that I thank God for and pray for them.

And then I go into what did I learn yesterday?

Could be good, could be bad, but I learned something yesterday.

And then I open up my calendar and I prioritize my day.

What are my three things we can get done today?

I call that my 10, 10, 10 process, because, if you have enough time, it

should take 10, 10, 10, 30 minutes.

10 minutes to be gratified, gratitude to Jesus, to God, and just relax.

And then 10 minutes to reflect and learn from yesterday.

And then 10 minutes to prioritize your day.

Now, some of my clients can't get that done.

I say, that's fine.

Do 5, 5, 5.

Can't get that done?

Do 2, 2, 2.

Can't get that done?

Do 1, 1, 1.

You got to tell me you can't, you got to at least find 5

minutes to begin your day right.

And if in the end of the day.

If you do a 5 5, if you do a 1 1 1 or 2 2 2, that accounts to maybe 2% of all

the time that God gave you in a day.

can we not even take one to two percent just to refresh

ourselves and get a day right?

So that's what I call a micro rhythm.

if you can do that on a daily basis, that would really help people,

achieve more results for themselves.

So that's a rhythm.

That's a micro rhythm.

So Patrick, what is the difference?

I love this conversation.

I think this is extremely valuable to anyone in a, we'll call it a leadership

role because I think the clients you work with, yes, it's valuable there, let's

just talk about someone who's head of a family or head of a small organization,

ministry, anything like that.

But tell me.

What the difference is, if there is between a rhythm and a habit,

if there is, or at least what's the contrast or how do they, how are they

similar and how are they different?

Yeah.

so when I say get into a rhythm, I would say that, you literally get into

rhythm, get into a rhythm of reflection, of thinking, of planning and doing, in

a company rhythm, we specify you do a weekly rhythm for your company, you do a

monthly rhythm, and then you do a planning rhythm that is quarterly and annually.

Okay.

Your rhythm does become a habit.

It does.

However, in when you're practicing this rhythm, there are a number of other habits

that you need to do in order to do well.

So I would say that a rhythm puts you into a cadence where you can practice

some of these good habits, like the one I just described about opening your day.

That's a habit to open your day.

And getting to a daily rhythm to do that, say every morning at 6am while I'm having

coffee or before I have coffee, I spend time with the Lord, I do this rhythm.

So that's putting me into a rhythm.

And if I can calendar that, That's a rhythm now.

So if I have a fixed rhythm to do that, it makes it much easier

for me to exercise the habit of opening and reflecting on my day.

So for example, I do this very, I do this pretty well, but when I go on vacation.

I have trouble doing it.

Why?

Because my rhythm got messed up.

See?

when my rhythm gets messed up, I'm flying over here, I'm taking a tour,

so I gotta go, okay, my habit of reflecting and opening my day, today

I gotta do it at 6am, tomorrow I gotta do it at 7am, the day after that

I gotta do it at 5am because of my travel when I'm on a holiday, right?

On a vacation.

So that's when the rhythm is out of sync.

And I promise you, if your rhythm gets broken and you go on this vacation,

you come back and you realize you say, wow, the 10 day vacation I

took, I only reflected and opened up my day four to five times out of 10

days because my rhythm was broken.

And when my rhythm is broken, it's not unconscious anymore

or subconscious anymore.

I got to really find specific time to do something.

I have a, one of my guys that works with me, Ryan, he's a pastor.

I joke with him.

I say, you work for me by day and you work for God by night.

but he's a pastor and he runs a church or he ministers in a church

that believes in tent making.

so all the three passes there have jobs in the real world.

and with Ryan, I pray with him once a week on Mondays, and if something happens

and we missed that day, for example, we'll be trying to schedule a time to

pray, but oftentimes we can't seem to get it in before the weekends, right?

So that's the difference, or the complementary of a rhythm.

So we have a rhythm to pray every Monday at two o'clock.

And if we, and it's a habit.

So if whatever reason he's on vacation or I'm on a different time zone and

we can't do that, we will try our very best to reschedule during that week.

Sometimes we achieve it.

Sometimes we don't, but the rhythm helps make sure that your habits.

Being practiced?

And I think people will find that if like you and Ryan missed two

weeks, three weeks, then sometimes it.

disappears, what does it do for you?

I'm just curious.

This is a curiosity question because my wife tells me when I don't do my rhythm

or my habits, my morning routine, that at times I could be a little bit grouchy

or a little off or something like that.

and I don't like that.

I would like to at times be more.

Flexible.

I'm very much a creature of habit.

Now I know some people listening, they're hearing this going, Oh my

gosh, that seems so restrictive.

And the others are going, amen.

That's exactly what I do.

I'm like, I'm rigid and all that.

so how do we sometimes structure?

And I know people have families and stuff like that.

So talk a little bit about a little bit of, I don't even like the word balance.

That's not the right word, but wholeness or.

I would say the following, I would say, the following I would say

is, I wouldn't use the word restrictive.

I would say that all of us human beings are creatures of habit.

Even the ones who like to brag about our flexibility and our, individual craziness.

And, but I promise you, most of us human beings, we're a creature of habit.

We may not wanna admit it, but we're a creature of habit.

So I would say that there's a difference between a habit.

a rhythm or being restrictive.

So my point is that, if, for example, you miss your, so the rhythm helps you

to do things, I would say, unconsciously.

So that's why when you miss your, your early morning start or whatever, you're

thrown off for the rest of the day.

And I think that Even knowing that should help you to be intentional, right?

In other words, and I'm the same way.

if I didn't wake up early enough, or I woke too late last night, so I didn't

wake up early enough today, I can tell you that yes, I'm going to be more earthable,

I'm going to be more grouchy, etc.

However, That's not the job.

The job of a CEO like me is to show up every day, not for me, but for my team.

So then unfortunately that day, I just have to be more intentional.

I have to be more self aware that Patrick, you had a bad night last night.

I just have to be self aware and say, okay, I didn't get to open

my day today the way I want to, but I'm now self aware and highly

intentional about how I carry myself the rest of the day and I can do it.

And so can you.

It would take more energy.

It would just take more energy that day.

And you just have to understand that I'm going to be self aware,

be intentional, take more energy, and then I can recover tonight.

Tonight, make sure I have a good night's sleep, open up my day

correctly the next day, right?

So I think the rhythm helps you.

Whatever rhythm you have helps you get into what I call a framework and a rhythm

of success and success built upon success.

I love this conversation on rhythms, but the thing that keeps popping

in my head are work that I've done with executives and leaders, conversations

I've heard about people that struggle.

To get into rhythm.

I want to go back to the example you used earlier, just about the,

what we'll call the morning routine.

you said that at times you have clients, CEOs that say, I don't have 30 minutes.

I don't have 20 minutes.

I don't have 10.

I don't have five.

And what I heard when you were saying that was there's a good chance they

either have negative habits or habits.

Maybe mindsets that are preventing them or, it's another thing, maybe

they just don't want it bad enough.

I don't know.

What are some of the barriers and I think you and I are rhythm guys.

We love being in a rhythm that leads to things, but what have you

had to help people work through?

I have to do it some a lot of people are listening in going, okay, I want that.

But how do I break through the barrier of getting to it?

If I'm just struggling with, I get up in the morning and I scroll through my phone.

That's a bad, I think that's a bad habit, but some people

might be part of their job.

so help the people that can't quite get into a rhythm for whatever reason.

Some of them are in leadership roles too, by the way, they've worked their way up.

so help us out a little bit there.

So there are two things I would share with you.

One is the concept of.

Owners owning versus being a victim.

So God gave you and me the same amount of time, 24 hours a day.

so why is it that some people can do it and some people can't, I would

say that you go to the first own it.

And accept that it's your fault that you haven't done so a lot of

the folks I work with, the first part is for them to accept that when

they say, I don't have enough time.

That makes it sound like they're a slave to whatever it is that's

happening their life versus owning it and saying, wait a minute.

I own my 24 hours.

I can't make enough time.

By the way, I'm a big Stephen Covey fan.

And, Stephen Covey fan.

And he talks about, Stephen Covey talks about, his seven habits, right?

Of highly effective people.

One of them is put first things first.

In fact, his first three habits are about helping you own yourself.

And be strong yourself.

Then his next three habits are about getting a team working strong.

Then the seventh habit is about sharpening the saw, which is about renewal.

put first things first, is about prioritization.

And I would say that number one, the person has to understand

that he or she owns their time.

Their time belongs to them, doesn't belong to anybody else.

So when people say that demands for my time agreed, but you are

the supplier, you decide whether or not I'm going to give you time.

Thank you for inviting me for this podcast, but I decided

to accept your invitation.

I could have said.

I don't want to accept the invitation.

So you don't want me, by the way, I'm grateful.

I'm just doing this as an example.

So I could say, gee, I showed up for your podcast.

I didn't really want to come.

but I'm now a victim of your podcast.

Or I could say, no.

You invited me.

I chose to come.

I'm now here.

I'm happy.

Same thing.

So when people say they don't have time, first, I want to teach

them that they own their time.

Nobody else owns their time.

They own their time.

and that's so part of that, the second lesson, which is related

is the word prioritization.

So a lot of people think that they're prioritizing by saying

yes to a hundred things.

And really, prioritization means you say yes to a couple or three or four, and then

you actually say no to a bunch of things.

You say no more than you say yes.

So those are the two things that I would share with, leaders that I coach

up front if they have trouble with, finding time to reflect on themselves.

And then I would say, Tim, the third thing is sometimes, People have a

misconception, or something buried in their psyche, is that when they do

things for themselves, it's selfish.

A lot of folks, especially folks who are taught to be giving and

generous, sometimes they create an image in their own minds that to

take care of themselves is selfish.

when you're in the plane, and bad things happen, and the oxygen mask

falls down, what do they always say?

They say, first, put the oxygen mask on yourself before putting

it on your kid or somebody else.

Because if you can't even breathe.

You can't help somebody over there who can't breathe.

So step one is put the oxygen mask on yourself, then you help your child.

Same thing here is I want people to really understand that first they

got to take care of themselves.

They shouldn't feel guilty that they need time to improve

themselves, and help themselves grow.

So I found that a lot of leaders who are servant leaders sometimes get the

wrong impression to be a servant leader you're supposed to serve the others and

therefore you don't take care of yourself.

You eat last right leaders eat last.

Yes, in many ways, leaders should eat last, but in many ways, if you

don't fill yourself with what you need to, you would be too empty to

serve others so there's that balance.

they eat last, but they still eat.

It's not like they starve.

It's not like they're on a hunger strike because everyone else is eating.

I like that.

I like that analogy.

I had a flashback to the gosh, it had to be the early nineties when I was teaching

time management in the corporate setting.

And I remember saying this often.

And I haven't said this in a while, but you brought it, you gave me a flashback.

It's if you don't own your time, someone else will, and that sounds a

little harsh now, but it goes to, I've got one more kind of general question

for, I want to do some background on you and then we're going to talk about

your book and some of your processes and structures, but you brought up the

word victim and the reason that is.

Kind of welling around inside of me right now is just having a conversation

the other day with the leader of an organization and we're on the same page

with our thought process and we were talking about some of their teams And

some of the people with the company and unfortunately, we might have been

commiserating about a certain generation.

I hate doing that.

You can't lump people together we're 50 plus and we were talking about

a generation maybe in the 25 to 35 range And we were talking about that

victim mindset and how challenging it can be And we were just wondering if

we're seeing more of that if there's a lot more out there You know, how are

we going to work with it as leaders?

How are we going to run teams and things like that?

And I know we've got some practical things we may talk about in just a moment, but

talk about in general, or are we seeing more of that mindset in today's world?

Are you seeing it creep in even to people that have reached the executive suite

level, because years past right or wrong, people would not have reached those

levels of leadership with that mindset.

So what are you seeing just related to what we'll just throw a lump

into victim mindset, because I think we're going to have to deal with it.

Yeah.

So I don't know that I'm seeing that.

I think that I'm seeing more of the world is more socially aware.

And I think that the people are putting more power, giving up more power to

what the social media tells them.

So what that means to me is that you gotta be careful not to let the social

medias and social stuff rule your life, but you can, it's easy to, it's easy to

fall into that, so I don't know that's a victim mindset as much of a, I feel judged

by social media, and so I need to, solve that problem, and I think it's a fine line

between saying, look, maybe I shouldn't care as much, I shouldn't care as much

about what people have to say about me.

I should be more real.

So I think the challenge is what I'm seeing is that it may be harder to get

to the real person for the person to feel vulnerable enough to share what

is really happening with them because they're afraid that, something gets

out there that they would and could be judged and it'd be difficult to solve.

So I see that more as a victim mindset, more as a, Hey, social

media is more powerful now.

I got to be careful.

I don't want to be so transparent.

I want to be less vulnerable.

I want to be more politically correct.

Things like that.

That's what I, that's what I see.

So I think that in a company.

You have a lot that you can control.

You can control your culture, your core values in such a way that rewards

transparency, vulnerability, and reduces judgmentalism as much as possible.

so for example, in my firm, we, we have a core value called

no thinly disguised contempt.

What that really means is that if you've wronged me in any way, shape, or form,

I need to clean my slate with you.

I need to come to you and say, Hey, Tim, when you said that the

other day, it hurt my feelings.

I don't know if you knew what you meant, but this is what I felt and clear the air.

what this came from my first.

But he actually, when I found that I had a lot of really intelligent

programmers, software company, and the trouble of really intelligent people

is really intelligent people also get really offended really quickly

or really disappointed very quickly.

They have very high standards.

And if you miss their standard, they get disappointed.

And then if you layer in an inability to resolve conflict, now I avoid you.

So when I avoid you is like this guy's content, you disappointed me.

Instead of resolving it, I now avoid you.

and so the way it shows up is that, Hey, Tim, I want you

to work with Jack over here.

and you would say, Patrick, Jack's a good guy, but why don't you put

him on the other person's team?

I don't really want him on my team.

Why is that?

no, he's a good guy.

He's a good guy, but I just don't really enjoy working with him.

Why is that?

I don't really know.

you do know, you just don't want to tell me.

So in my firm, we have this core value called no thinly disguised

contempt where we need to resolve.

That's hard to do.

That's hard to do.

And then the second thing I would say is that I've also tried my

very best to instill a mindset that it's okay to make mistakes.

In fact, when you make mistakes and you tell me bad news, the first

thing I would say is thank you.

Thank you for letting me know that, Tim, that went wrong.

Now we can go fix it together.

So those are a couple of mindsets and values that we've put in place

to try and create an atmosphere where people don't feel judged if they made

a mistake, and have also have the ability and the tools to come back to

people and say, Hey, did I wrong you just now or did I upset you or hey,

you upset me just now and resolve that.

And I believe that can improve vulnerability and performance.

So I believe that, or what I've seen actually is that, a team cannot really

reach peak performance if they're not willing to be transparent to each other.

Unfortunately, transparency needs vulnerability.

So if you're not willing to be vulnerable.

You won't be transparent because I'm afraid now, right?

if I'm afraid of you hitting me, I'm not going to be transparent.

So you almost need vulnerability.

Then you lay on transparency.

Now we can talk about what we want to achieve as a team.

Get focused, aligned, accountable to achieve the results.

I think many individuals, leaders, and also I think people on teams,

I think they struggle with vulnerability and transparency as it especially relates

to being strong, powerful, and decisive.

It's like those.

Those three or four or five traits, whatever, they don't

seem to live in the same body.

I know for me, my personality is wired.

I'm a, I grew up in the seventies, came into business, started

first company in the eighties.

And I was just like, Strong, pretty bold and vulnerable and transparent

would not have been words that would have been used to describe me.

I don't, you think people maybe are still struggling a little bit with

that, with the, the culture we're in.

Especially folks that are my age, your age, who come from

the baby boomer section of the world.

I would say that.

My message to all the leaders who have this kind of experience is God

has given you fantastic experience.

Now the question is, how do you not use your experience?

As a repetitive thing.

How do you use it as a sieve to, to use your experience, but based on the

cultural, changes that happened today.

yes, the world is gentle.

I would say that, running a company in the 80s and 90s.

you could, you, you could be a lot more direct, but by the way, a lot

of people think that, you can be direct without being a jerk, too.

You can be tough and kind at the same time, and I think that the challenge

that we're now presented with is to be able to be non dualistic in our thinking.

there are a lot of myths, I call these myths, where people think, oh, to

be, to be a good, boss with results.

You got to be a jerk.

You got to be tough.

You can't be kind.

And I got to tell you, all Singapore boys, I'm from Singapore and all

Singapore boys serve in the military.

Therefore.

Now it's two years, but when I was growing up, it was two and a half years.

And so I went through the Singapore military and I, I went to officer

school and I came out as an officer.

And I remember one day, one of my men did something wrong and

I brought him to my office.

And usually the officers in the military, they're yelling at you.

They're yelling profanities and they're going.

this and that and tough guy thing and so I, I said, I talked to my guy and I said,

Hey, these are the things you did wrong.

Do you understand that?

He said, yes, sir, I do.

Okay.

help me understand how you understand it.

Like we walked through it all and we were done.

I said, all right, on your way out there, see the stuff Sergeant

and take two extra weekend duties.

He was stunned.

He said, sir, I'm sorry, sir.

I said.

You heard me.

On the way out, see Staff Sergeant and take two extra duties.

And he looked at me and goes, wow, oh, he couldn't process.

He was like, what he was thinking was, but you didn't yell at me.

You didn't shout profanities at me.

You didn't do any of that, er stuff, right?

And he was a little bit confused.

And I said, Corporal, there are consequences.

To your actions.

You understand that, right?

He said, yes, sir.

I said, so just because they didn't get mad at you, didn't yell

at you, doesn't mean you don't have to face the consequences.

You understand that, right?

He thought about it for a minute.

He said, I do now, sir.

I said, good.

So go out there, see Staff Sergeant, take extra duties.

He said, I got it.

And he went out.

So my point is dualistic thinking.

I'm going to yell at you, shout at you, punch you in the

face, take two extra duties.

No.

Instead, I was kind to him, I explained it to him, I wanted to make sure

he wouldn't do it again, and go out there and take two extra duties.

I think that we have a lot of, we have a lot of models in our head

that cause us to be dualistic in our thinking, You can't be tough.

for example, most people would say, Hey, why don't you hold that person

accountable to achieving the results?

And they would say, Well, I don't want to be a jerk.

I didn't ask you to be a jerk.

I asked you to hold him accountable to achieving results.

Why is that being a jerk?

Because that person has in his mind two models.

I can either be tough or kind.

And I'm saying, no, you got to be tough and kind.

And then I explain why.

So let's say you work for me and you're not doing very well.

And I don't correct you.

I don't teach you.

And therefore a year from now, I can't promote you.

And therefore three years from now, I have to fire you for non performance.

Am I being kind?

No, actually three years ago, I should have said, Tim, these are the three

things you did that are going to stop you from progressing in your career.

Would you like to learn about them?

You probably would say, yes, what am I doing that's stopping me

from progressing in my career?

And I will tell you, you don't come to work on time.

You deliver work to me late.

And by the way, you made too many mistakes in your programs.

Can you fix those three things, please?

Wow.

Okay.

I, what did I just do?

I just coached you and taught you and helped you become better.

I'm not being a jerk.

I'm not being, but I'm being tough.

I'm letting you know, if you don't fix these three things, you probably

can't look towards a promotion.

So if you don't fix these three things, next year, when it comes

time to promotion or discussions and you, and I say, Hey, Tim, you're

not getting promoted this year.

You go, Patrick, why?

I said, I pointed out three things to you, didn't I?

You show up to work on time and you write code a certain way.

You need a certain thing.

You didn't do it.

So I'm sorry.

You're not getting promoted.

but then a year later when you, when we talk about promotions

and salary increases, I come up with a nonsensical reason, right?

I say things like, you don't have enough experience compared to Jack

over there who's getting promoted.

But in my brain, I'm thinking, you don't do good work.

so I need to tell you, look, you're not doing great work.

All right.

You're making too many mistakes.

You're not showing up on time.

So I'm not being a jerk.

I'm actually being kind because I'm helping you get better.

for audience listening in, think about the best managers you've

ever worked for, which ones of them that you respect the most.

I promise you, it's going to come back to the managers that

did what I just described.

They were able to tell you some tough things, hold you to a higher standard,

and maybe even the best ones would expect you to achieve something that maybe you

didn't even think you could achieve, but they held you to a higher standard,

and they coached you, and you got there.

Those were probably tough managers.

They were not nice managers who didn't tell you what you had to improve.

the thing to me and I think we'll talk about this in just

a moment because I think it's part of your system is that it seems as

if we have a lack of or maybe we just don't have as many people that are

willing to have mature, focused, timely conversations in the world we're in today.

I want to hold that thought.

For one second.

And I want to get to that in just a moment, but I want to back up a second

because one of the things we do here is we talk about redefining success and

how people come to be where they are.

And you brought up a couple of things that I can't leave.

You brought up that you were in the military in Singapore, you grew up there.

And then also know that you had a company that led to an exit a few years back.

So what I would love for us to do here in a few minutes is just

let's give a little bit of Patrick.

I joke at times the early years or whatever, tell us whatever you think

might be pertinent to the conversation of redefining success and how you

came to be who you are and come up with the thought processes and the

systems and the rhythms you have now.

Just fill in the gaps a little bit, either the way you grew up a

military and then how'd you, how you got in the business world,

I would share with you that I'm an engineer.

So I'm an electrical engineer.

and I think that I've been very blessed.

I had a wonderful childhood where I was highly encouraged to express myself.

Now that's unique coming from Singapore, a country that is very steeped in rules.

But, I was always encouraged to express myself.

And so I came to the U.

S.

to study.

And I think that, so I'm a child of East and West, I grew up in

Singapore, 17 years, came to U.

S., went to Cornell University.

And then I went to work for Oracle.

Now, when I went to work for Oracle, after my military, I went to work for Oracle.

Oracle today is a multi billion dollar, one of the best, biggest

software companies in the world.

Back then it was about a 500 million firm.

And it was growing at 100% a year.

So I think that, I would encourage, first of all, the young people.

I would tell you that your first job is really important.

And I think that I was very fortunate to be put into Oracle.

And Oracle is a place that encouraged individualism thinking, encouraged you

to put yourself out there to go forward.

Now Oracle isn't All perfect either.

Oracle, I think was a tough place to survive.

if you wouldn't, it was definitely a dog eat dog world when I was there

back in the eighties, late eighties.

And if you didn't perform in a couple of quarters, you'd be cut.

So Oracle was a tough place to work, but one, one of the few things I think these

are the things that made me successful.

Number one, I was fortunate enough to have a lot of love in my life.

And so I have a healthy ego I have a healthy ego.

but secondly, I also have enough humility to learn.

And I remember this one guy at Oracle, my, my first year there, he was upset

with our programming and he yelled at me and the senior consultant.

And he yelled at us and he called us amateurs.

The senior consultant came to me and she was furious.

She said, how can Mike call us amateurs?

That is so unprofessional, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I thought about it and I thought, yeah, that hurt my ego a little bit.

But I said to her, I said, he's right.

We're amateurs.

Yeah, but he didn't have to say that.

And I'm like, yeah, but okay.

But he's right.

Code we wrote was bad.

We're in a customer that has, that expects delivery.

And we didn't do a good job.

So she got all mad with Mike and she walked off.

I took the other route.

I went up to Mike and I said, Hey, Mike, you called me an amateur just now.

And Mike got to fight mode.

He was like, yeah.

So what about it?

What about it?

And I said, Mike, you are right.

I'm a man.

No, he said, what are you gonna do about it?

So I said, Mike, you're right.

I'm an amateur.

It's not what I'm going to do about it.

It's what are you willing to do about it?

Because what do you mean?

I said, I want to learn what you teach me.

So instead of me, I could have chosen to be like the other person

and gone all upset and offended.

He called me an amateur.

But I didn't.

I recognized that this guy was one of the best programmers that we had in the team.

The best, actually, on our team.

And...

I asked him, I said, will you teach me now?

I just graduated university.

So he made fun of me.

He said, she's a well college boy, Ivy league boy.

He said, it'll be homework.

They'll be homework.

I'll give you homework every night.

And I laughed.

I said, bring it on, Mike, if you're willing to teach me, give me homework.

I will deliver homework every morning.

He laughed.

He goes, you college boys, I swear, but okay, fine.

I'll teach you.

And I'll give you homework every single day.

You miss one homework assignment.

I'll stop teaching you.

And I just worked every night and anything he gave me, I worked on and I became a

great programmer in six months, I learned what most people would have taken them

four or five years to learn it all.

I got this guy to teach me in an intense way every single day.

that was incredible.

So for me, I think one thing that is part of my makeup is

that I'm very curious to learn.

I am very, as much knowledge as I accumulate or as much experience as I

get, I would like to approach things as though I know nothing, because I feel like

if I walk into a room where I know 50%, I'm only open to learning the other 50%.

But I walk the room, and I believe I know nothing.

I'm going to learn 100% of whatever that person has to offer and serve me.

So that's a lot of, I think, my psyche.

And so when I sold my first company, We were very successful

from the world looking in.

We're very successful.

We're Inc.

500, number 151 on the Inc.

500 list of privately held companies.

We were Entrepreneur of the Year.

We had lots of awards.

But from the inside looking out, I was running from one crisis to another,

solving one problem to another, and then we solved enough to survive,

and every time we survived again, and then suddenly we were successful.

I didn't feel as successful as everyone said I was.

and I set about to understand why, and at the same time in Charlotte, North

Carolina, not a lot of tech firms.

with a successful exit like that, and well known exit, I had a lot of

entrepreneurs come ask me for help.

And as I dived into their stuff, I realized that I wasn't

as dumb as I thought I was.

these poor guys were making a lot of the same mistakes.

And then in 1999, Fortune magazine had this article by

Ram Charan called why CEOs fail.

And he profiled a number of well known guys like John Sculley from Apple.

And the bottom line of the article was that these CEOs fail not because of a

lack of strategy, but a lack of execution.

So I thought hard about that.

And I agreed with that, even for a lot of the companies I help, which are younger,

smaller, oftentimes they'll come to me and say, Patrick, I need a strategy.

My strategy is not working.

But when I dive deep into it, I realized that they actually have

a good strategy, but they're executing it poorly, making mistakes.

Causing rework too slow.

They missed a moment in time, and then they blame it on the

strategy, or they have a team that isn't working well together.

It's a people problem, not a strategy problem.

So most of the time, when I work with, the companies I work with today, my team

does, we find and discover that Most of our clients don't have a strategy problem,

even though they think they might.

They either have a teamwork problem, an alignment problem, or a inability

to focus and to get things done when they're promised it will get done.

Tim, it's funny.

people come up to me and they say, How do I hold Jack accountable?

Fictitious name I always use.

And usually when somebody comes to me mad and says, Patrick,

how do I hold Jack accountable?

What they really mean is, How do I give Jack the consequences of his failure?

Not how do I hold Jack accountable?

that was much earlier.

Like for me, accountability is a good word.

Accountability means to account.

It's made up of two words, account and ability.

So let's account for your ability early in the process.

And account for whether or not you believe you can achieve the

goal you're supposed to achieve.

And you account for that early on.

And if you can't do it, you ask for help.

You make adjustments.

You solve the problem.

When you get to the end of the project, and you've failed, and people

say, I gotta hold you accountable, that's actually not accountability.

That's actually saying, how do I give Patrick the consequences

he deserves because he failed?

That's what they really mean.

So accountability to me is over here in the front part and all along the way.

How do I help you to be accountable to achieve what you've committed to achieve

so we get there and you've achieved it?

So I don't know if I answered your question.

I rambled a little bit.

I apologize.

but you asked me about my, my, my mindset, my thinking.

So my philosophy is really about.

You've got to be curious, you've got to learn, you've got to be humble, you've got

to, you've got to take every opportunity to experience, and then you've got to

find ways to be very focused, execution is about being focused, it's about making

sure the people around you are all working on the same things together, and then

accounting, For your ability to achieve your goals in a different way that is

successful versus just whacking you on the head of a hammer on the end of the quarter

saying I'm going to hold you accountable, because you didn't achieve your goal.

It's like I want to hold you accountable to achieve your goal in the very

beginning and help you all along the way.

That's my version of accountability, which I found.

works very well to help people achieve their plans.

No, I think you actually did a great job of answering the question.

It may have veered in some different directions, but it was a good thing.

And let me tell you why.

I learn a lot in the seat that I'm in.

First of all, I love asking questions.

You could probably tell.

And I also love that you could really learn a lot about people by hearing.

I think the scripture is, out of the heart comes the issues, out of the

mouth comes the issues of the heart or the, we can learn a lot about people.

I can learn what you're passionate about, but it leads to a question

that I want you to define for me.

And it's part of what we're about here.

And that is how we define success.

My observation from just listening to you is.

Success you, because you mentioned the exit and see so many people

would want to dig down on an exits.

oh, what was the financial aspect of it?

What did it mean?

This and that?

And I'm sure all that was great, but here's what I got from it.

I got that.

You learn something.

It was part of a growth process and it's now helping you to

continue learning and growing.

And then sharing that with other people at the same time and helping

not just you keep moving along and learning and being curious but you're

also helping other people use the word accountability a lot, which I think

is which is to me a code word for helping other people grow helping other

people move along but All of that is my observation to then ask you the question

How do you define success right now?

You probably have done great things financially.

And a lot of people in our world now would say, how many cars are in the garage?

What does the house look like and all that?

And I, if that's what it is for you, that's fine.

I'm not going to discount it.

But how does Patrick say I am successful when blank?

So I think you're successful when you figure out

what purpose God put you here for.

and you're living it.

That's what I believe.

for me, success is exactly what I just said.

figure out what, why you're here, what does God need you to do right

now, and then just rest in that.

And don't resist quite as much.

So what I'm trying to say is, so I believe that we all have a

purpose here and the faster you figure out yours, the better it is.

Unfortunately, sometimes you got to go through a lot of pain and

maybe have some success and failure before you figure out yours.

So let's say you figure out your purpose.

That's one.

The second would be to now rest in that and allow God to lead you.

In that, not trying to get religious on you, but if you do it right, the load

that God carries for you should be lighter than the load you carry for yourself.

to some degree, oftentimes, if you find a load too heavy, that tells me, even if

you know what purpose God has for you, you may be struggling too hard to get there.

And you might be doing it in a way that God didn't intend you to do it anyway.

so for me, I've discovered that, I have the ability to, remember and to

see patterns of companies and people.

And then I have an ability to help bring those back and help leaders apply

that experience to their circumstances and for them to choose a better path.

Some people call that coaching and I guess that's the word we would use today.

So I apply that in coaching and I've then created a framework to

allow you to think, plan and do in such a way that it forces you.

My framework forces you to have time to reflect, learn, plan, and

then do, and do it all over again.

Because I find that one of the biggest problems I saw in a lot of hard charging

presidents and CEOs and leaders in general was this do, do, do thing.

It's like they just wake up and they just want to do like robots

just keep going harder and faster.

And I found that if we just Took the right amount of time to reflect work on

a business, not just in the business, we would succeed faster and actually in

a way that doesn't wear us out as much.

So that is my calling.

My calling is to serve CEOs and leaders to help them rest a little

bit so that they can actually not fail, but rather be successful

because the failure rate is very high.

So that's my personal calling.

And then I would say that, I fall into the category of, I come from a family

of workaholics, so my grandfather, died at 97, Workley was 91, my dad is now

90, he's a retired judge in Singapore, but he worked, he was about 85, and

basically my grandfather and my dad worked until they could no longer

work, my father is medically unable to work, or he'd still be working.

I come from a family of workaholics.

Okay, so that being said, you that's how I'm programmed.

So I purposefully look at that and say, just because that's how I'm programmed,

is that the road that God wants me on?

Do I have to take that same road?

And by, by examining that truth and asking that question, I've concluded

that I don't have to take that same road.

I'm still going to work hard, but serving my wife and my two girls, my,

my two children is more important to me.

than working hard.

but that was because I was able to take the time to examine that personal truth.

So we're all programmed in certain ways.

I'm trying to share, right?

I'm programmed to be a workaholic.

Okay.

In other words, I grew up watching my parents work hard, hard.

And I still remember I had attached a room to my parents and my dad would

go to his home office and work at 9 p.

m.

And at 12 midnight the lights turn off and my dad works really hard.

He worked till 12 midnight every day.

And he worked on Saturdays and Sundays.

And when he retired from being a judge, I, he took a part time role.

He took a role at a firm in Singapore.

And I asked him, I said, Dad, are you Working, are you taking a part time role?

And he's 70 years old.

And he said, if I take a part time role, what I'm going to

do the rest of my time, right?

So he's programmed to just work.

and when I, when he said that it didn't sit well with my spirit.

And I thought I admire my father for the hard work.

I have a very hardworking ethic.

But is that my role too?

Do I want to say, I don't want to say that, I can tell you this much.

The answer to my question is, I do not want to say, Hey, if I only

work half time, part time, why don't I do the rest of my time?

No, I want to be highly intentional with my time.

100% of all the time that God has given me, I want to be highly intentional.

If God has called me to work 100% of the time, I will do so.

But I don't want to do it just because...

I think I'm supposed to.

for me, understanding that I'm here to serve, CEOs, help them to lead good

companies, help them create jobs, and then to be a servant, serve my wife and

my two girls, help them have the best life that they can be, that they can have.

That's where I am.

that's so good because the thing that I heard was number one,

the way I word it is, success for me is identifying the assignment that I

have in God's kingdom and then doing all I can to move into that assignment

and operate in it every day, which is exactly roughly what I heard from you.

And then

And in a way that's restful,

it

in a way that's restful, because I don't think

God has called us to be crazy.

I think even when God calls us to do something, the magic is in allowing the

power of God to work through you, right?

Allowing the power of God to work through you, so that you don't get too big of

an ego either, because we have to, for me, I realize that God works through me.

isn't about how good Patrick is.

So that allows me to...

Maintain a healthy yet not overly healthy ego, if we, if something goes right, it's

great, but it's not like I did everything it's so to me is I gotta be restful.

I gotta be, I gotta be still.

The scripture says, be still and know that I am God.

So I got to be still and allow God to operate through me, which means

that when we succeed, it's not I can't, if I believe that, then I

shouldn't go, Hey, I did everything.

I'm, I am God's gift to you.

No, I'm not.

I allowed God's gift to flow through me to you.

I'm not God's gift to you.

if we really truly believe that we are created by A

creator, then doesn't it make sense that we would want that creator

to be a part of what we're doing.

And maybe he, he's got the manual to help us identify

what it is we were created for.

And I love the word you use.

You said that you guess that word is coach in today's world.

I actually have.

Come to believe that word is actually, we are disciples, we are discipling others.

And some people might get uncomfortable with people saying that in a, in

the business world, but I think that's exactly what we're doing.

But this is one thing I heard, I'm watching my time and I want to

make sure we bridge the gap here.

When I heard you say the word rest, the word rhythm popped into my mind.

Because it, to me, it is very difficult to get into a rhythm.

If you don't have some degree of rest, if you're restless, we talked at the

beginning about how some executive CEOs, they can't ever get to a rhythm

of just five minutes, one minute.

Of this habit, there has to be some degree of rest to get into the rhythm.

In the time we have left here, Patrick, what I'd love for you to do is to tie

together what you're doing with the book rhythm, how that book's been out

now for almost 10 years, and it's still going strong, how you're tying that in

with the systems and all that you have.

and if you can, the thing that I really loved was.

How important the, we've talked some about it, but maybe you can

bring that in here and, just a few minutes, those mature conversations

to me, but with accountability and communicating that to me seems like

something we're really lacking.

So talk a little bit about that.

And then we've got a couple of quick things we'll finish up with

in the last couple of minutes, but I love how this came together.

That was a great answer.

And I think it ties a lot of this together.

So thank you for that.

you're welcome.

so what I've learned is that the corporate world is very busy.

And as you get more successful, you get busier.

How do you actually reclaim time?

Because if you don't figure out how to do that, you cannot succeed, right?

If you think about it, as your company gets bigger, You have

to actually learn how to manage something bigger with less time.

Otherwise, you will not be scalable.

Your company gets to a certain point and you just explode or implode.

So the first thing that I, that most companies have to do when they

meet me is they have to have the willingness to schedule the rhythm.

It's impossible to say, hey, let's get together for a two day planning session,

unless you've scheduled it way in advance.

If you come up to this month and you go, hey, it's time for our two day

planning session, free up the calendars, no one can free up the calendar.

Stressful.

So what you want to do is you want to schedule your rhythm.

So my rhythm.

Is what I'm trying to do is I'm really trying to put things, give people and

companies specific times to think, to plan, and then to do their work.

And when you have framework, you can put your mind at ease.

so the think rhythm is about figuring out your strategy and to make sure that

you have key winning moves of growth.

The key winning moves for growth become the two or three things that you're

really focused on and you've prioritized above everything else in your company.

That's how you know what's important.

So that's the first one is you can figure out what are the key priorities we have

to use to grow our firm and therefore they become the most important things.

That's prioritization.

The second step is on a every quarter we get together and have the right

discussions and then figure out what I call your plan for the next 13 weeks

because every quarter is a 13 week race.

And if you can have a great year, you're going to have it one quarter at a time.

And if you have four great quarters, you have a great year.

Within the quarter, there are 13 weeks.

And the only way to have a great quarter is to have a

great week, one week at a time.

So we plan for the quarter and then on a weekly basis, I have something

we call a WAM, a Weekly Adjustment Meeting, different from a status meeting.

Most companies have a status meeting where they come together and discuss the status.

It's actually a very expensive meeting.

So for me, I'm like, why come together for a status?

Why don't you provide the status ahead of time, come together and solve problems.

Make adjustments, look at the accountabilities and figure out what's

not working and make the adjustment.

Hence we call it a weekly adjustment meeting.

Not a status meeting, right?

So now you have a place and that's part of my do rhythm to let you do

the work, and I like to say nothing happens unless you do the work.

so now what happens is that when something comes up during the week, instead of

going to a crisis, you can say, okay, let me park that and have that discussion

in two days in my weekly meeting.

And so we don't have to go crazy here now.

If it's a crisis, then yes, I agree, drop everything and go take care of the crisis.

But a lot of crises were created because we didn't, the company

didn't have the right rhythms.

To prevent the crisis.

So you can either be in fire prevention mode, which is what my framework

gives you a firefighting mode.

So in fire prevention mode, every week you have a weekly meeting where you

have the opportunity to discuss stuff.

So I've given you a place.

There are not that many things that happen on a weekly basis that

have to be attended to right now.

So executives and leaders need to learn a bit of patience to say, let's

pop that into our weekly meeting and have that discussion instead of

distracting and call and ringing the crisis bell and distracting all the

other employees that work for us.

And then usually Some wonderful idea pops up in the middle of the quarter,

but a bad thing happens is that the leader goes, Oh, I got a great idea.

It's week seven.

Do it now.

Okay.

But what about all the other stuff that we had already planned?

Forget that.

Do this now.

So I would say no.

Don't do that.

Instead, put that in the list of things to discuss at your quarterly

planning session, where you can take that and compare it to all the other

priorities that you have and make a holistic decision on whether you want to

attack that new opportunity, yes or no.

So some of this has is actually, I'm giving you various spots for you to put

things so that you don't go into a frenzy, go into a crisis when things happen.

So that is the framework.

That's why the rhythm works.

And that's why it creates the space.

For people to rest, think, plan, do, and rest in the middle of that as well.

And communicate.

It sounds like you've got a lot of places to have those, what I called

earlier, mature conversations.

And they're on the calendar versus, oh, you know what?

I'll talk to your Jack you mentioned earlier.

I'll talk to Jack about that situation that occurred last week when we,

whenever I can or at the water cooler.

And that's usually means it doesn't happen.

Correct.

That's

So you've got the structure in place.

All right.

excellent structure.

I love that rhythm.

I actually am sitting here listening, going this a lot of

what I quarterly, my mind works quarterly and then I chunk it down.

I don't think many times I loved way back when we would

say, what's our five year goal?

What's our, which I love long term planning.

But 90 days, man, give me 90 days.

And I think you do a few 90 days, you could change the world, have a huge

impact, Patrick, where can people find you and, give us a little info on

the book and where to go to get that or anything else you want to do to

share right here where people can get some resources and connect with you.

So if you come to my website, rhythmsystems.

com, there are a few things I can give you.

The first is that, I have a, I have an assessment that you can take

that will help you, you understand a little bit more about what you can do.

And it's a free assessment.

So please enjoy yourself and take that.

So come to rhythmsystems.

com and you can find that.

Secondly, We are the first, by the way, in our category of gold

management to actually create an AI powered business coach.

So if you come to my website, there's a button called ask Patrick.

and this is one of those where my product manager thought it was funny.

So he called it, ask Patrick.

And I, he announced the product and I looked at him and he

announced it at our conference.

And I said, Ryan, you didn't tell me you're doing that.

And he said, Patrick, this is one of those times where I learned from you.

It's better to ask for forgiveness.

Then permission.

So the product is called Ask Patrick, because he didn't ask me permission.

But anyway, if you go there, it's, you can play with our AI powered business coach.

So it's like having a reliable 24 by seven consultant for any strategy

and execution related questions, all built around the concepts that

I shared in the discussion today.

so we provide about 10 free questions for people to just try

it and have some fun with it.

Should I have interviewed AI Patrick or real Patrick?

should we have brought him in on this interview?

absolutely.

By the way, it's pretty funny because, we have two pieces of AI in our software.

One is this Ask Patrick, where you can actually engage in strategic questions.

In our software, we also have an AI goal setting coach, because

one, one thing that is really hard is setting really good goals.

So most people write goals like, Increase sales.

That's not very good.

So if you go into our software and you wrote as a goal increase sales,

you hit the smart coach button.

It uses AI to come back with three options for you may come back

with stuff like increased sales by 20% by the end of this quarter.

So it will actually take your thoughts.

And create a goal for you that you can then accept or, Oh, I like

it, but I'm going to tweak it a little bit and resubmit it to the

AI goal writing coach and it will regenerate three new options for you.

And I gotta tell you, I've played with it even myself and we do our planning.

I'm like, all we really need to increase sales this quarter

for this particular product.

And I popped that in, I hit the AI coach and boom, it gave me

a better version, even for me.

it's fun.

It's fun to play with.

I think there's so much there with AI.

We could go off on a tangent, but I want to ask my final question.

We are seek, go create here, Patrick, those three words.

I'm gonna let you pick one of those words over the other two.

That means more resonates with you right now, whatever.

Seek, go or create which one and why.

I picked Seek because.

I teach that curiosity is the, is really the foundation of all things.

when I get this all the time, I get a executive leader that says to me, Patrick,

I got my 360 feedback and one thing my team wants me to learn is learn how to.

Listen better.

I get that all the time.

and I've learned that you actually don't have to learn how to listen better.

If you want to learn how to listen better, just learn to be a little bit more curious

and interested in the other person.

And so I picked the word seek.

I think if more people would be more curious and do a little bit more seeking,

there'll be less arguments all around.

I love that.

Be curious, Patrick, thank you for this conversation.

It has been so enjoyable to me.

I've enjoyed so many aspects of it If you've listened in, please share

this episode with someone else.

I know that Patrick said something that someone, needs to hear.

So the best way that people get exposed to podcasts like this, this

information, this type of, teaching and training that we like to do here is

when someone texts them a screenshot or.

Shares it.

If you're listening on YouTube or one of the podcast platforms, please do that.

We have new episodes every Monday until next time, continue being

all that you were created to be.