Intro: Our Why + Habits & Living Fully with Don Wenner

On these podcast episodes, I’ll be interviewing amazing people who have risen above challenges and are living fit, creating change, and making an impact, along with solo episodes on topics that I’ve been asked about as well. But today being our first episode, it’s going to be a little bit different.

I’ve had people tell me they wanted to hear my story, but I’m not really wanting to talk about myself. So we’ll be sharing clips from when Don Wenner interviewed me and shared his insights as well. Don grew his company. Zero to over 2 billion in assets before the age 37 and is a champion of living fully. So it’s a perfect way to kick this off.

Changing our world does not happen at once. It does not happen alone. It takes a committed group to be the change we wish to see. So together we rise above negative influences, to lead by example, making a positive impact at. And around the world, you can learn more. Join us and get show notes at livefitignitechange.com or for short, livefic.com.

All right, welcome to episode one. We are so excited. You are here. And since this is episode one, for some quick details on what we’re all about, you heard the name live, fit, ignite change, and that pretty much sums up what we’re all about. As a community, we inspire each other. Our goal is to help high performers thrive by offering solutions and advice from leaders in the industry to optimize health and performance. So you truly can live, fit and ignite the change that you wish to see.

Our purpose is simple. It’s to inspire humanity, to rise above challenges, to live, fit fulfilled lives, and we’re on a mission to inspire millions of future leaders to live their best life. You may have noticed the design of the letter i, in both the I from ignite in this podcast, cover image as well as from Inrive in the logo for our performance nutrition brand, that letter, I is a candle or a torch, and this is the candle we all carry. There is a light burning inside each of us. We just need the inspiration to rise above our challenges, lead by example and let that light shine.

So the message? Take your candle and go light your world. So for my quick background, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, graduated from Georgia tech and always had an interest in health, fitness, and personal development. Professionally, I ran my own marketing agency and on the fitness side, owned a crossfit gym and started the fit life challenge to truly help people live, fit, and ignite change.

Also, my wife and I, after meeting on a study abroad in college and her traveling to New Zealand and dreaming of going. We talked for years about taking a year to travel the world with our boys. And several years ago we figured it was time to make it happen. So I was able to automate my marketing agency to create what was an amazing adventure year as we called it. And you’ll hear much more about that later in this episode.

But it was nearing the end of that trip. We were in a gorgeous spot on the north shore of New Zealand and everything should have felt absolutely amazing, but something was off largely coming from the indecision about what was next, the debate over, do we return to Atlanta where I have family and friends that we love so dearly, or do we follow our hearts and live on the coast and keep living that life that we’d always imagine. There was no clear vision. So I set out to change that.

It was an absolutely beautiful day in this amazing coastal town called Mt. Maunganui, New Zealand.

The Mount, as it was called, was an old extinct volcano. And there were running trails. So you could run up the mountain, overlook the gorgeous ocean below. So I set out for a run with my inspirational Pearl Jam and Third Day music playing and got to the top. And here it was, it’s amazing. Looking over this beach town where we were living.

And it was eight years before this, soon after the real estate market crash. When I had been working in that industry in a challenging time with a three year old and a newborn wondering how we were going to pay our mortgage at the time yet, I took a step back to model what was working for others and discovered what all the top performers in the world had in common.

I saw how they were living fit lives, taking time to work out and keep their body in shape and their mind sharp while casting visions for the ideal future and starting their day with a morning routine. So I did that. I recommitted to daily workouts and created a vision of what I wanted life to be. I made it into a video vision, a mind movie, and in it we said, we travel the world and live in New Zealand for three months.

When that part of the video came up, it showed a picture of New Zealand and the Pearl Jam song playing in the background, had Eddie Vedder singing, “See the waves on distant shores, awaiting your arrival, dream, the dreams of others, you will be no one’s rival”.

Now here I was eight years later on the top of this mountain in New Zealand. We’re living here for three months and I see this view that had been on my vision board as a screensaver from years before. I pulled out a pocket journal since yes, I’m the type that likes to run with a little journal in my pocket to write thoughts and wrote about what an ideal life would look like in the most crystal clear vision possible.

Recently, a few years after writing it, I pulled out that pocket journal and was amazed to see what I wrote, saying in an ideal future vision, we live on the Northeast Florida coast, specifically Ponte Vedra Beach live on water, biking, distance to the beach. Our boys are thriving on baseball teams in top schools.

And I affiliate with an entrepreneurial organization on the Inc 5000 list, following the lessons of Jim Collins and making an impact. And we’re involved in the community and I am helping people live, fit lives. And wow, that’s exactly what happened as you’ll hear more about throughout this podcast. This is actually very much what this podcast is all about living fit.

So you’re in the right state of mind and can be there creating adventures with those you love and igniting change by casting the vision and taking the steps to get there. After writing that journal entry on the Mount, I followed up with some action steps and saw a house online that met the criteria and added that to my vision board.

Fast forward a few months, we’re back in the US. And we go out looking for homes in Northeast Florida. And at first it was awful. Nothing was available. It was way overpriced. And we were wondering, gosh, this may not work, but while we were out, pulled out, our phone looked at the app that showed the rentals available, and what was there was amazing. The house that literally just popped up that minute when we thought it might not work.

Guess what that house was? Yep. It was a house on that very street that was on my vision board on water in Ponte Vedra Beach. Well, it worked out and we moved in the next month. So that’s how it all came about. And as mentioned on these episodes, I’ll typically be interviewing others today since it’s the first episode we’re showing clips from when Don Wenner interviewed me.

So. First for Don’s background. Don is the founder and CEO of DLP Capital, a private real estate investment firm and financial services company focused on making an impact. He’s an expert in scaling high growth entrepreneur companies, and consistently delivering double digit returns to investors through the utilization of his elite execution system.

Don grew DLP Capital from zero to over 2 billion in assets, under management and over a hundred million in annual revenue. With an average three year growth rate, exceeding 400% securing a spot on the Inc 5000 less at fastest growing companies for an incredible 10 consecutive years in all of this before the age, 37.

In addition, he’s exactly the type of person that this podcast is all about. He lives a fit life, leads by example, and is dedicated to making an impact at home and around the world. As you’ll hear more about in this episode, also be sure to check out his podcast impact with Don and the company DLPCapital.com.

Oh, and did that description sound familiar from what I wrote about in the pocket journal and amount for an entrepreneurial organization making an impact? Yep. Right on again. So yes, several years ago, after we moved into that house on a Friday, I met Don the following Monday and it’s been great making an impact with DLP, the team and the events.

Also, I’m still running the Fit Life Challenge. And now it’s an enhanced version partnering with mentors of mine, like Mark Sisson and his coaches, as well as top biometric analysis companies. While also working with my family and others on creating fit life compliant, which is basically paleo primal type foods that on the go youth athletes and their parents will truly love to eat while fueling optimal performance through our Inrive Performance Nutrition. More on both of those later.

So with all of that, for this first clip, we are going to dive into, it comes from a live training that Don led at DLP a couple of years ago. So be aware with conference room speakers over Zoom, the audio is not pristine for this first clip.

The training was called the 24 consistent practices of highly productive leaders. It’s one of the best trainings I’ve been a part of on leadership. It combined the leadership philosophies from John Maxwell and Jim Collins. And Don came up with the 24 practices that it takes for leaders to truly be productive. There’s a full training that shares all 24 practices. So you should definitely check that out.

This clip dives into the first practice discipline and building habits. Don mentioned, he’d set me up to talk about my routines and diet, but beyond that, I really didn’t know where it would go. So it turned into a pretty interesting conversation. Here’s that clip.

Don: To level one here. We’re gonna, we’re gonna, I have a couple leaders here who already I’ve lined up last night to, to give some insights on some of. Habits, and then we’re gonna open it up for some discussion and, and, uh, uh, comments here. Really the key is to get some, some clear takeaways. So I have a few leaders I, I planned to, to put on the spot who know they’re gonna be put on the spot.

I have some who don’t yet know they’re gonna be put on the spot, who I plan to put on the spot here a little bit. So. Um, so first here is a really big one. This is where a lot of things, you know, start many of these practices start with you needing to build the discipline around improving this, this area around improving this, the, the practices we’re gonna talk about this morning, um, and level three, uh, leaders understand that discipline is giving up what you want, what you want right now for what you truly want.

I always like to look, think about the simple example. I don’t know about you guys. Actually. I do know about at least most of you guys. I think we can all say we like donuts, right? There’s not many people. Don’t like donuts. And so as much as everybody likes donuts, right? We all know they’re one of the worst food we eat.

Right. There’s nothing good about eating a donut. It does nothing good for you beyond the next 30 seconds. It takes you to of hour of donut. Um, so, you know, if we, if we, if we all had the opportunity to eat don’t and everybody in this room, of course could stop at a gas station on their way into work or whatever every day and eat a donut, what would stop you from not eating a donut, which we’d all like to do is we all don’t want to gain 20 or 30 pounds, right.

And be lethargic and not feel good about ourselves and whatnot. And that’s a simple example of discipline is giving up that donut, um, to, to, to be in the kind of physical shape, live longer, be healthy, all those types of things. So, um, so I wanted to, you can go ahead to the next slide here. I want to go ahead here, talk about discipline. So quote from Darren Hardy, the author of the compound effect that we’re reading right now, you’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine. I think that’s an important point is that discipline and building habits is almost exclusively around how you spend your days.

It’s almost exclusive about changing little things that you do each and every day. It’s not usually big fundamental changes. It’s very little, uh, details. And I’m gonna have Patrick, uh, give a little insight. I’m gonna set Patrick up here a little bit though, to give some insights. Patrick, how old are you?

Patrick: 42.

Don: So Patrick’s 42 years old, right? So how many of you guys? I think most of us are older than 2021, right? Most of us in this room. Probably not many of us who aren’t. Right. And when you were 20 or 21 years old, it was hard to have six pack abs, right? Right. Not many, many had six pack abs when they were 20 or 21.

Right. But when you doubled that age to 42, how many 42 year olds in this room are older have six pack abs, right. Not many, right. there’s not, not many. Right. So, so, um, but it’s about little, little, little choices, right? Um, so Patrick, you know, he’s done, he leaves, you know, morning groups and, and we’ve heard about it living fully, but you know, Patrick, you know, I get to sit across from him every day and, and see away his diets eat what he chooses to eat, uh, see how he focuses his, his activity.

We’ve all heard a bit about his morning routine. So I tell a little about some of the choices he makes and some of the routines and, and, and how that’s, you know, affected him. And, and of course, doesn’t just translate a six pack out, but it translates into all aspects of your, your life. So Patrick, go ahead.

Patrick: Okay, good. Yeah. And I knew you were going to set me up to talk about routines, but I didn’t know you were going to set me up quite like that [laughter], and I’ve actually been told it’s an 8 pack, but who’s counting [laughter], but yeah, I’d say routines are really absolutely essential to me. And I kinda take you back to a few years ago when I was in Atlanta, I was working at my marketing agency and, you know, things are good. They were okay. But not really, awesome, so we said, okay, let’s do something else here.

And so, I really took the time to dive into some of the people that I thought were the top performers, like who is truly successful. Who do I want to model? I found one thing they had in common across the board. It was a morning routine. And so I kind of took the best of the morning routine from all of them and started doing it myself.

And at the beginning, I wasn’t consistent. It was kinda intermittent, I did it a few days. And what was amazing to me was that my boys noticed the difference when I did and when I didn’t. When I did, I treated them with love and, and affection and gave them attention. When I didn’t, I was still in a groggy angry [laughter], and they say to me, dad, you haven’t done your kickstart yet. Go kickstart your day. That’s what I call it, my kickstart. And so as then I committed, this was October of 2017. I committed to starting every day with that kickstart. And it is the same routine every day. It is going out and doing the breathing exercise. Getting my day started with gratitude. Having the vision for my ideal future and the steps I need to do to get there. And now I can successfully say I’m on day about, I don’t know the exact number. It’s about 900 days in a row right now. And I can say it is the number one thing that has had every achievement I’ve had has come from being able to do that.

Don: So you mean you did this even during COVID?

Patrick: Yeah absolutely.

Don: Even when you travel.

Patrick: Absolutely.

Don: Even on busy days.

Patrick: Yes.

Don: Even when you had life throw things at you every day. Right? Um, so that’s, that’s what the discipline is about, right? It’s not for week. It’s not for Monday through Wednesday. It’s not only in good times. Only when you’re not traveling. Only when life isn’t gonna change through job changes through traveling the world through right through relocating your family.

Melaine: How much time? Doesn’t it take a lot of time?

Patrick: Not at all. And the core that you actually have to get through is about five to seven minutes. That is it. And that is the quick version. You can do little body motion stuff while you’re doing the vision and gratitude. And, and it, it is amazing. And, and yeah, wherever we are, whether I look like a nut in, in a hotel in the Philippines or wherever we were, you know, you can make it, make it happen, get it done.

Don: So walk us through, what is, what, what time do you do that routine and what does the routine look like?

Patrick: Sure. So, I wake up at 6:01 and then I have my routine that immediately depends on the weather. If I go out outside to the screen porch or the, uh, the garage, and then it is running through the actual freezing exercises that we’ve done from vision day, that takes a few minutes and always playing inspirational music in the background.

I’ve got a playlist for that. And then it goes immediately.
Don: You have that playlist already planned in advance. So you are not spending time looking for music to put on?

Patrick: Right, it’s ready. Just push play and go, and, do the gratitude immediately. The exercises to be able to recognize what you’re doing, in that moment, the things you’re grateful for three things you’re grateful for.

And then going into the vision. I know exactly what I’m gonna do my three things for the future. Three things for this year, and then the steps I need to do to get into it. And so all that is about five to seven minutes. If I have a little more extra time and I’ll do a little more of a body workout.

Don: & most days, are you doing your body workout at that time?

Patrick: No. My main workout is later in the afternoon. And that’s the other part of the routine? Where, where during the day, I would say, I’m getting things done is all because of time blocks, where you talk about the most important things. We can’t just always be responding to our emails. It is taking the time to set time to do the most important things.

That’s our milestones, our rocks. And then when I get my workout in & some people might think I leave the office early, but I leave at 5:15. And those that I actually have seen my schedules and routine in the alignment report know this, but I leave at 5:15 so I can make my 5:45 workout. That’s when I do my intense workout for the day.

So I can make dinner with my family and have time with my wife and my boys, and then be with them. And then I’ll be able to come back in the evening, inspired, ready to go for kind of that second shift where it’s quiet and I get the vast majority of my work done. So, I mean, certainly not saying you all need to do that, but just find what works for you.

And that’s what’s worked for me and about me to get things done.

Don: Very cool. And Patrick, any diet tips for the group?

Patrick: So sure. Same thing really on diet. I did it for, it’s not just really how you look, but how you feel. And for me, I did it out at CrossFit for performance. And so when I did the test, as you all might have done in CrossFit are similar, like the Whole 30 diet or the Paleo diet, things like that, where you go in and kinda strip out all the bad things, the sugar, the bread, the cart, you know, all that kind of stuff.

But then add back in the things one at a time to see what works for your body. And so I found when I added back bread and dairy, my performance went down. I didn’t feel as, as good. And I just didn’t have the energy and I wanna always perform at my best. So, I mean, yeah, people think I’m kind of weird….

I mean, I eat on a certain schedule at the same time. I don’t eat bread and dairy, but it’s a tremendous amount of vegetables, nuts and lean meats. And that’s what fuels me and people might say, well, isn’t boring to not eat the bread of carbs or to work out at the same times, but no it’s because the workouts and the food are constantly varied.

It’s just done at the same time with the same routine, the same habits and, and really that’s, that’s been the fuel for life.

Don: And cutting out the dairy and the bread was pretty hard the first 30 days

Patrick: It was. Yeah. I mean, you, you love, you love that stuff. And, uh, but then. When you do, and then you feel better and then you add it back in, it’s like, oh, I feel awful, so, yeah, just again, everybody is different, but you can do what works.

Don: Awesome.

Patrick: So I hope you enjoyed that and got a snapshot into why it’s the small daily actions that we take that are so important. All the specifics of these routines and diet, including empowering alternatives, that taste great when aiming to avoid grains and sugar, along with checklist and meal plans are all packaged together as part of our fit life challenge.

We’ll link to that in the show notes and dive deeper later in this episode. Now we’ll dive into a conversation Don and I had last year when he interviewed me, it starts off talking about the four crises in America that DLP is impacting and particularly focusing on one of them, despite having more opportunities now than ever, a high percentage of people are just not happy.

And Don has referred to this as the happiness crisis. So here’s that conversation.

Don: The happiness crisis and, and it’s one of the four areas of impact before crisis that we’re really focused on here at DLP is, is making an impact on, on, on the fact that, uh, we have a tremendous number, tremendous, uh, percentage of, of the world in the country that is, you know, unhappy right now, the highest levels of unhappiness, um, in, in American history. I think it ties a lot in with our core value of living fully. And I’d love for you to talk a little bit about living fully, especially in the context of.

Patrick: Yeah, absolutely. Living fully to me is such an important part of – like you mentioned happiness –  but also just living a great life is fully productive in, in every sense.

And I know coming straight out of your book, Building an Elite Organization and all the stuff that we teach here at DLP getting into the concept of the eight Fs is what to me living fully is all about is living fully in really all aspects of your life. So when we go through the process of the assessment that you created, I love how it brings together everything that people wanna focus on.

And so, you know, you can start with an assessment, it’ll go through, like you mentioned, the, 8 Fs would be family, friends, faith, finances, fitness fulfillment, freedom and fun. And the idea there is that you think of a, a wheel. And if you have a round wheel and you’re solid in all eight areas, you’re gonna go, you’re gonna be able to move that wheel and have a great life.

But if your finances are, are hurting or maybe your relationships, your family is hurting and it’s gonna be like a flat tire, you’re just not gonna be able to roll. And so the whole idea of, you know, I think again, you mentioned it in your book, it was in the chapter of productivity was all about the, the folks that need to realize the organizations, the leaders of these organizations need to realize that people might be coming to work and not being totally productive because of all these other things and you get it right.

And you can get ’em to, to fix it and really get on that right path by truly living fully in all aspects of life. So, I mean, it goes back to so many things, and I could dive into all aspects of what we do from living full a day and all the rest. But to me, I think it just comes down to that core belief that this goes beyond business.

We want people to truly thrive in their lives and that that’s really what living fully is all about.

Don: Yeah, that that’s phenomenal. Patrick and I, I wanted to hit on, you know, recently we, we talked a bit about this internally at, at living fully day. Um, and, um, actually at, at another, uh, DLP, uh, day that we, um, you know, we just had caught alignment day, which is, um, uh, Jeff Bezos recently was quoted saying, you know, he believes the term, you know, work life balance is a, is a debilitating term, right?

That, that it means that you’re, you’re having to trade off, you know, work and, and everything outside of work, you know, family, your marriage, you know, fitness, all, all the other eight Fs. You just, you just talked about it. He says that’s a, the debilitating term as it’s more of a circle, as you just said.

Right. And it’s more of, uh, of, of it all working together a part of. Uh, one plan and, you know, I, I always think back that, Hey, it’s easy for me here. You know, running a company and being a, a leader of an organization in 2021 to, to have this concept of, of work life integration and be able to believe that, you know, being success, you know, having real success is, is, is achieving success. And all eight of these areas of life at the exact same time. And, but, and, you know, cause I recognize that it was much harder, you know, 30 years ago, 40 years ago before technology. And it may have been that, Hey, in order to work, you had to be, you know, at the office and you had to, you know, be there at eight, nine o’clock at night.

And, um, you couldn’t go home and, and, you know, do work after the kids go to bed. Or integrate areas of life as easily, but you, you know, an executive here in, in, uh, DLP, you know, talk to us a little bit about how you’ve been able to, uh, embrace this concept of living fully and how, you know, you’ve been able to incorporate certainly working really hard in a lot of hours and being dedicated to your work, um, with all the other areas of your life that you’re, you’re passionate about. Talk, talk a little about, you know, how you live fully and how you, you lead, uh, by example, here in our organization.

Patrick: Certainly. Yeah. Thanks for that. And I know you certainly do the same. I’ve definitely modeled your leading by example as well. But I would say for, for mine, it really does go back to having that sense of the schedules, the habits, the routines, I mean, doing morning routines and all the rest is so essential.

And then being able to plan out the day where I know I’m going to get started with mindset and making sure I’m on the right track, then I’m going to be hitting the things that I need to do right off the bat, most important in the morning to get the day started. And then you’re gonna have the meetings.

You’re gonna connect with the people who are here. The, the. Our team members that we work with and really being able to make a difference with them, but then having the items built in to that schedule to make sure that I’m going to leave at a certain time so that I can actually make it to my workout, to do my daily workout, which is more for my mind than, than anything.

But it certainly keeps me in great shape too. But it’s that break between the end of the Workday and the start of the family night before our, our family time. And then certainly very. Active in, in coaching my boys’ sports. I love being able to be a CrossFit coach and coach their little league baseball teams and just kind of go out and, and make a difference in, in that aspect of life, where you are involved in the community, you’re impacting the lives of these other kids, you’re coaching on the baseball team.

And so it goes back to my point earlier of being able to live that more full life. You are inspired, you are excited and you bring that into the office. So I know if I’ve gotta leave to make my workout, I’m gonna be more productive during those hours. So then I can go spend the time with the family. I do my evening routine, which is really just as important, telling my boys goodnight, saying prayers, doing wins.

And then, you know, after they go to bed, I might go back for a couple hours in the evening to really hit on the most important time at the things that I need to do. And, you know, at that point of the day, it’s, it’s quiet and knock ’em out, but certainly get the things that, that I need to get done finished and all kind of within that encapsulated schedule of what I’ve found to be a way to, to really live fully and productively, to get the things that are most important.

Don: Awesome. So, so many, so many nuggets there. And I, I want, you know, those of you, uh, you know, listening here who, you know, are running, running organizations, um, uh, owning businesses to, to recognize there that I have right now on, on this episode with me, one of my senior leaders of the organization, who certainly you could think of that, I might be thinking, you know, Patrick’s leaving at a, at a, well, maybe considered an early time to leave, to go get his workout in, to then get home and have dinner with his family to go coach his kids’ sports, to be able to have his evening routine with his kids, where he is celebrating their successes and wins and having time for prayer and having time to stay in shape and gets to go spend time, you know, at the beach and spend time traveling to see family and, and all these things that that would be something, you know, I would be, you know, against.

But, it’s the exact opposite, I recognize, and not only do I want Patrick to have this, you know, truly live fully and, and achieve success in all these areas. Cause I know that’s, what’s gonna make him more productive at work on the short term, but certainly over the long term. Um, but I want him as, as a senior leader in our organization to be modeling that and sharing that, uh, with, with all the other team members throughout the organization and modeling that, that behavior of, of being able to live fully, whatever that means for them. Right? Different seasons of my life, different seasons of Patrick’s life. Um, what our schedule look like, what the habits we built may have been a bit, bit different, you know, before children then, you know, after children, as they may be a bit different when our children, are out of sports and are in college or, or grown, you know, seasons will change what those, those routines are.

But, but building those habits around what’s most important adjusting how, and when you get your work done and passionate about your career around what is, uh, most critical, um, in, in your life today. And, and I just think that’s, it’s really important for those, uh, running businesses to recognize the, the, the power of that.

And then certainly for those of you, uh, working in organizations, understanding. Um, that, uh, when, when, uh, when you go intentionally focus on improving in all areas of life, you’re gonna get more and more today, you know, the leaders of organizations, your, your CEO or, or, or boss recognizing and appreciating, you know, the value of you, uh, focusing on having success in all areas of life is it’s gonna, uh, create, turn you into a better, a better ultimate producer and more valuable, uh, to the organization. So, um, so thank you for that, Patrick.

So I know one of the coolest things that you’ve done in my eyes anyway, um, is you traveled the world for a year with your, your, your family, with your kids, your two boys. Um, so can you talk to us a little bit? I mean, it’s inspired me and, and something that my family and I are planning to do around the same ages, my kids will be when, when you did this with, with your boys, um, talk to us a little bit about a, how did, how that experience and, and how did you, you know, keep yourself disciplined and, um, you know, through, uh, the, the challenges of, of traveling and being in different places and, and, and, uh, Not having the same, you know, being in the same home and, and having all this change all the time.

Um, because a lot of us I know, are thinking, oh, you know, the biggest challenge I have to staying on a routine and, and, and staying disciplined is, you know, is travel is, is, um, you know, for, you know, often for work, you know, how did you go and keep discipline and just talk a little about the experience of traveling the world is I know that something and more I’ve been talking about with people more and more people I talk to would love to do the same.

So I’d love, love to hear a little bit about that. And the lessons you learned from that experience.

 Patrick: Sure, absolutely some incredible lessons, incredible memories. And it was pretty interesting how it, how it came about. And I think to follow up quickly on your last point, you know, talking about the day and just to acknowledge you as well as being a coach, I think it’s pretty incredible that you were able to go out and coach multiple teams, not just one basketball team, but two and football teams and all the rest of, of your boys.

So I, I admire that and acknowledge you for that. That, that to me has always been, what’s been so important to myself and my wife and. When we did talk about this traveling world, this started years ago – to give you a little background in the story, I know, you know it, but for the, the listeners we met at Georgia tech, not actually at Georgia tech, but on a study abroad that was over in, in Europe.

And when we met there, our whole early life was based on adventure travel and doing fun stuff, but then you have children and the travel kind of stops. So it did for for years. And it was really, I mean, you could talk about troubling times where this was back. Gosh, let’s go back to, I dunno, it was after the real estate crash maybe 10 years ago, or I’m working at VP of marketing as a, uh, in a real estate company and basically voluntarily left the company. Um, but that was right when my wife and I were talking about, well, what are we going to be doing to really live the life we’ve always imagined. And I took a step back and this is actually when the morning routine and all that kind of stuff started. And it was in that time, we said, okay, we wanna go live in New Zealand for three months.

We want to be able to travel the world and actually made it part of our, our long term vision, where that was something we wanted to do. And we always said we were gonna do it before my boys got to middle school. And it got to the point where my oldest was getting to middle school in a couple years. And my wife, my wife and I were like, well, if we’re ever gonna do it, now’s the time.

Now at this time I was, I was living in Atlanta. I was running a marketing agency and we were like, You know, how in the world are we gonna do this? But we, long story short set our minds to it decided we were going to, and basically turned the marketing agency to kind of be one on autopilot that would run essentially without me, I was still working and I would still check in throughout the days when we were traveling, but to be able to, to make it happen, uh, we just kind of set the, set, the motion in place and it definitely took discipline to I guess stay on track with this vision, because there were people that were very dear to us in our lives that were not up for us going. I mean, basically the whole idea is like our boys were thriving. They were in a private Catholic school in Atlanta. We had a great life. Why would you dare leave? But I think to me, the biggest thing, and it relates to you and this impact podcast, I mean, obviously we had some incredible times. Yes. We went to Hawaii and lived in New Zealand and Australia and. The, the thing though that had the most impact was our time in the Philippines. And we had just left the great barrier reef in Australia and, you know, had been in places that didn’t really have poverty.

But when we flew into the Philippines, my, uh, my, my son, my he’s was 11 at the time. He’s 14 now. It was a ride from the airport to this beautiful guest house we were saying in called the Bella Vita guest house. They had never seen poverty like that on the right end. And as soon as we arrived there, In that spot, he looked at me and said, wow, dad, that makes you so grateful for what we have.

And I was thinking, that’s the kind of thing that can’t be learned in books. And I mean, it didn’t end there because following example of, of Bo, who was in episode one on your podcast, he works with Kiva and gives, um, gifts, loans out to those in need. So when we did that with my family, both boys picked those that needed loans in the Philippines, but then it didn’t end there.

And after Corona was shut down, uh, basically that’s where we went in the Philippines. Um, and the Bella guest house closed tourist, schools closed, and their house became basically a hub for getting school supplies out to people. Now my boys go out and they do yard work. That’s how they make their money.

And they pledged to give money for every grass they cut was, was going to that. So I just think there, things like that, where you learn the type of things, you could never learn in school. To be able to see that type of impact. And it’s just been, uh, yeah, definitely a great, great experience. And I know I went down a really long story there, but to answer your specific question on how I stay disciplined, this was not a vacation.

I was still working with the marketing agency. We set up a system. Now it wasn’t quite as refined as your elite execution system, but definitely some similar elements and where everything was organized. So basically when a project came in, everyone knew their exact role and just executed on it. My boys, well, they were still in school, homeschool. That was, and my wife was able to teach them. And I had the privilege of teaching Spanish, religion and PE, but she really taught them everything else. So it was while they were in school, that’s when I got my work done, but there were many days when, you know, we were out seeing the world, we were climbing a volcano or snorkeling.

And then when we’d get back late, well, we often stayed at Airbnbs, but there are many times we stayed in hotels. They were exhausted and they’d want to go to bed. So I didn’t wanna disturb ’em and keep the lights on. So I’d actually go into our hotel room bathroom, and just use that as essentially my office to knock out all the items that I needed to do.

So, yes, it certainly took discipline, but it was well worth it. And. Really turned out to be the best experience that we’ve ever had as a family.

Don: That’s awesome. So, so I’m gonna actually jump, jump around here a little bit. You caused me to, to kinda wanna ask a couple different lines of questions. So, um, for anybody who doesn’t know this, and I’m guessing, you know, most, most probably don’t know this here, listening, um, you know, the, the book that, um, Patrick’s referenced that, uh, and maybe where some of you first, you know, came in contact with us building an elite organization, uh, outside of myself, Patrick was the, uh, most, uh, responsible for, uh, for the, the book getting out there, potentially getting in, in, into your hands and, and for, uh, you know, the efforts that, that we’ve done in, in, uh, trying to help build elite organizations. And one of the most common questions is people have been going on the path of, of building elite organizations and implementing lead execution systems.

And when they read the book or when they come to one of our events and, uh, the, the biggest, uh, challenge often is, you know, how do you go about, you know, attracting and keeping and retaining the, the best people and, uh, the most common, positive feedback people give to me, uh, when they come to our offices, our advance is, wow, you have such incredible, we have such incredible leaders and, and everybody through the organization, people who are running companies are just so impressed with the, the quality of our, our, our people here and, and the most common feedback people give me when they read the book is, you know, I love the, the focus and intentionality around, around the people, uh, side of the organization. And I’d love to get your perspective on, you know, how do you go about building the organization, uh, people side of the organization. How do you go about attracting, retaining, developing, um, the very best people from, from your perspective?

Patrick: Great question again, you definitely hit the big points there and it, it goes back to culture and I, I just always say again, you know, treat people how you wanna be treated and being able to develop people, not just for their leadership. That’s absolutely super important, but also developing in their personal lives. And when you do that, productivity is going to be better as far as attracting people. It, I think two things. I mean, start by treating people, right? So they will truly be the ambassadors to your brand and bring the best people that they know to you.

But the second is really it’s casting that compelling vision. You know, as we’ve said before, it’s, as Steve Jobs said, you casted compelling a vision enough. It’s gonna pull people towards you and then show them that vision. And I’ve gotta share with you too. I mean, I was just leading the group, uh, here in this room, our elite members.

Just last week where we were training people, essentially, it was a, a group who was looking to implement the elite execution system in their business. And we were going through training presentations on what we do to inspire our team, to help grow the company. Obviously you’ve had success living, uh, growing a, a fast growth company.

And so the way we did that is by doing what we call vision day. I know you said it’s your, your favorite day of the year, but as we started talking about it with the group, I mean, the idea is, what you started with your elite compass was being able to share the vision of where this company is going on that day.

You create a day where you’re bringing in all the awards that you’re celebrating people from the year that, that they’ve done, all the successes that we’ve had and just all the impact that you’ve made by giving out to the world. And you bring all that together in a really compelling couple hours that then turns into a video that one video is probably the greatest attracting source for people that would be looking to come in into DLP.

And I know those that we’re talking about it here in, in the room were just talking about what, what an inspiration it was to be able to see that and see a company that’s doing so much good. So it’s really living that, that mindset, I guess you could say, you know, you, everyone can have their core values, but really living it by treating people, right casting that vision, sharing it with others makes an amazing difference.

Don: So I’m glad, glad you said that Patrick, and, you know, uh, you know, we, we are focused on this, this crisis of, of happiness and, and, uh, you know, the great Dale Carnegie said, you know, the number one human desire is that of the feeling of importance of, of significance.

And, and another way to think about is people want to be, uh, a part of something, you know, bigger than themselves. They wanna be a part of a, they wanna have purpose. They wanna, uh, be a part of, of making, uh, an impact. And, and so what’s really cool. You’re referencing on the, the vision day. Uh, video is, is become such an incredible recruiting tool, um, as well as this incredible tool to build the, the culture with an organization because, um, it’s us laying out a clear direction, clear vision, clear, clear, um, purpose to, to what we’re, uh, about and, and where we’re going and, and how everybody fits into that.

And when people can see a genuine, uh, uh, focus on, on making an impact and doing good and, and helping others. People wanna be a part of that. And, and people, I think more today than ever are in search of, of, of connection to, to something, you know, bigger themselves, that they can be a part of and, and, and, and impact.

And, um, and that’s, uh, just a, just been a tremendous, uh, part of our, of our success of having, you know, clear, clear direction and, and that’s, uh, a lot of what the building lead organization helps helps you craft and help you figure out. But I wanna move Patrick to, to the next book that I, this is probably the first time we’ve talked about this in a, in a public, uh, format here per se, is, is we are working on, um, writing the next book.

And Patrick’s heavily involved in this and called Building an Elite Career, which is a book focused on not what we, as, you know, senior executives or owners or leaders need to do to grow a lead organization, but what, what individual, um, uh, team members, individual, you know, people need to do, uh, to build an elite career, not just a career where they’re successful in their work, but they’re successful in, in the eight Fs of life.

They’re, they’re truly living fully while they accomplish all of their, their dreams and, and, and growth in their, their career. So you talked a little bit about, you know, what, what led to, to, you know, creating this, this book and, and how you, uh, how you feel this is gonna, you know, be able to make an impact on this, this happiness crisis and, um, uh, you know, help so many, so many people, um, uh, looking to, to find, uh, find purpose and, and make an impact.

Patrick: Absolutely. Great question. So I think this one is great because you, you go from Building an Elite Organization, which is really for the, kind of the leaders of the organization, how to implement their, the elite execution system to scale and grow. And so now this, the building elite career is, is truly for the team members.

How do you thrive in everyday life? How do you thrive in an elite organization? That to me is what it’s all about. And you were just talking about the key to happiness and the key to happiness was feeling like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself. You’re, you’re growing, you’re developing. And so yes, seeing the vision day.

Vision is great because you can get that connection that we so vitally need to be able to grow with a company and make sure that we are part of that vision. But the second part of it is personally too, and that’s what a lot of this second book would get into. And a lot of things that we do here at DLP specifically related to the personal compass and the personal compass you’re coming up with a mission for your own life, a family mission where you’re gonna go together, what your vision is. And I think we, we might get into it later, but a lot of that leads into how we use our Elite Journal and using these things to be able to cast that vision for where you want to go and then being able to do the things every step of the way.

So Building an Elite Career is gonna be a great opportunity to kind of jump off and say, okay, here’s the elite execution system that has helped businesses scale and reach amazing Heights. But now how you, as a team member within one of those organizations, can you really ignite your career to be able to take off in all kinds of ways by yes.

Helping the company hit that big vision, but also you and your personal life. So you’re truly going to live fully in those, 8 Fs that we talked about before.

Don: Awesome. So, so you know what, Patrick just references our Elite Journal here that I have in, in my hand right now, we’re gonna, we’re gonna kind of conclude with that in a minute or two. Um, but before we get into that incredible tool, um, that really you, uh, deserve, uh, the vast majority of the credit for, for leading and making happen. And, um, and you know, just recently was talking to Hal Elrod the author Miracle Morning, previous, uh, guest, and talked about how it’s, it’s arguably the best, uh, journal he’s ever come across.

And he’s the, you know, per se, the king of, of implementing, you know, these types of disciplines in, in this life was pretty, pretty cool, uh, affirmation. But anyway, before we get to that, I wanna first hit on a topic that I know at least in, in my belief that a lot of people struggle with. And, and I think often is one of the, the biggest challenges people have, especially those who are focused.

Even the, the most driven people who wanna, you know, wanna be successful, um, neglect, which is their health. And, and I think often when, when health and and fitness is, is not where we want it to be, that can lead to, to negative effects and in, in all areas of life, above and beyond, um, you know, health, which is obviously pretty critical in and of itself.

So you lead here at DLP, our, our fit life challenges and, um, lead us often through, you know, uh, short kind of workouts to start our, our days. Um, so I’d love for you just to talk a little bit about the importance of, uh, of fitness and, and maybe a few tips on, on what people can do to, to improve that area of their life.

Patrick: Sure. Absolutely. And yeah, it kind of goes back to my background before where I’m a CrossFit trainer and certainly love that side of life as well, but it was more than just getting people into the gym where I started the thing called the, the fit life challenge. And you break it down to the very simple things.

What do people need? Everyone wants to either lose weight or look better or something, but there’s something holding them back from getting there. And the three things you really need to make it work is you simply need the knowledge. You need to know how to do it. Basically have a guide, have a plan to show you like, what is the proper way to eat? What do I need to do to exercise? And then second is the accountability, which is so much what the lead execution system is all about. It’s certainly in the FitLife challenge as well. You’ve gotta have accountability to be able to make sure you’re doing the things. And then to make it fun is, is the third.

And for where this came from several years back when I owned a CrossFit gym members would come to me in the gym with questions or even others who didn’t know me, who’d see me would come and ask questions and the questions would always be something like, wow, at your age, with family and a busy schedule, how do you stay in shape?

And what’s your diet and how much do you exercise? Basically, all the questions were around the concept of, is it exercise or is it nutrition? And while nutrition certainly has a huge, huge part of this it’s I’d typically answer and say, well, yes, it’s both nutrition and exercise, but also more, it’s actually four components, mindset, sleep, nutrition, and exercise.

And so for the quick version of those, the mindset we sort of talked about already, but if I were gonna say one thing that people should do to change is start the day with their morning routine. It has been by far the most effective thing that I have ever done in my life. And just that place where I get in the, the state of, you know, I’ll come out in the morning and, and you first step is getting your body in motion.

So it’s simply just going to be doing the breathing exercises or priming, or just moving around. And then from there you go into meditation and then journaling using the Elite Journal that we’ll talk about in a minute. So just simply doing that in the first few minutes of the day is really the best thing that people can do to get started. From there, there’s also a bedtime routine. Just simply meaning going to bed. At basically the same time at night, having a routine, like we talked about saying prayers and wins with your boys before bed. And then for the diet piece, I could get into all kinds of details here, but it’s all in the guide. fitlifechallenge.com, but it basically comes down to this. People are, people are always saying, just eat less and work out more. Right? But what happens when you eat less? Your metabolism slows down and you’re hungry. So I ask people, would you really enjoy going through the rest of your life being hungry? Of course not. Right? So why do it, this is absolutely about the quality of food and not the quantity of food.

So in short for tips, it’s eating vegetables, fish, lean meats, nuts, and seeds, and in the process, make sure it tastes really, really good. So you enjoy it too. It’s really just about cutting out those things that hurt our performance, and eating the foods that allow us to have that vitality and perform better. And what does that take? You cut out the grains, you cut out the dairy, you cut out the sugar. You’re gonna have so much more energy. I mean, I did it for a CrossFit challenge years ago and I went back to it and was like, gosh, I feel sluggish.

I just don’t wanna eat this stuff anymore. And then, I think where it leads. It’s like Darren Hardy on the compound effect. I mean, you can do the same thing and you’re, you’re not gonna notice a difference for some time, but then there’s one guy who’s gonna eat just a little bit better every day. And one guy who’s gonna eat a little bit worse.

And then you won’t notice a difference like a month later or even a few months later, but you start two at a year and then two years, three years, it’s just such a massive difference. So it’s, it’s taking those little daily habits putting them into your life. And I mean, that’s what I love doing is helping people.

You know, we always talk about, if you live fit, you’re gonna ignite performance and you’re gonna live that great life. Anyway, that’s a, a short version of what could be a very long conversation.

Don: Well, that’s a great overview. And I’ll just say, you know, having been on the, the, a part of this, you know, probably 10 times now with Patrick is, you know, we all can be guilty of, uh, of finding excuses, right? Why we don’t take care of ourselves, obviously, you know, maybe not obviously, but, but my belief is diet is the most critical component of of it, but, um, but we all find excuses why we don’t what we don’t exercise. And Patrick has shown me and, and a lot of other leaders how we can get one heck of a workout and be sore for days in under 10 minutes with no weight, uh, whatsoever, no machinery.

Um, but we all come up with excuses. Oh, I’ve been traveling, so I didn’t have time to get to a gym or, um, um, it, it, it’s, it’s often, uh, excuses in building these simple, simple habits. It doesn’t take a lot of time and can be incredible, especially over time as, as you just said, uh, really elegant elegantly there.

So, so thank you for that. So, uh, with that said, I wanna, uh, come to a tool that, that you’ve spearheaded, uh, the launch on this past year, which is one, uh, bunch of, a bunch of, uh, words for top, uh, best seller lists and, and, uh, we’ve heard endless, endless, uh, people, uh, talking about how impactful is been, you know, I’ve had people go and read the elite execution system, you know, building elite organization and implement the elite execution system.

And, and, and come to me though and say, you know, their biggest takeaway was the implementing the Elite Journal into, into their, their day to day life. So talk to us a little bit about this, the, the, where this came from, and, and what’s the value of implementing this, uh, simple, simple tool we call the, the Elite Journal.

Patrick: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s, um, definitely used every day by me and by many people. And it’s so gratifying to hear that. And I’ll acknowledge you again. I mean, Definitely has a lot of the stuff that came from me and what I like the habits, routines that I was just talking about the fitness, but it’s blended with the elite execution system.

What you created is truly the greatest system I’ve ever seen to helping people be productive and scale and create these incredibly profitable businesses. And then you pair it with this, which is really, we call it the companion to your book, Building an Elite Organization, because it is essentially what I see as the daily guide for how anyone using the elite execution system can put the practice into their life.

And I mean, there’s so many things in here where you think of, if you’re gonna sit down and start with this, I mean, I have the, the vision board that we start out with and, and you go through, and it actually, the Elite Journal leads you through the steps of being able to go through. And first, look out where you wanna go in the future.

We mentioned it before with the life assessment, the goal designing, like where do you wanna be in 10 to 25 years? Paint that ideal future picture. And then back it up and say, okay, well, where do you wanna be in three years? And what do you have to do in one year to be on track, to be able to get there?

And then you break it down to, again, getting into elite execution system terms of the rocks. What are you gonna do in the next 90 days to get there? And then from there you go down to your weekly pages and your daily pages. So within those, you actually start off every day and write what you’re grateful for.

You write your top goals, you write your top priorities for the day to reach those goals. And it’s just a way to get grounded. And like you mentioned, the, the amazing feedback that we’ve received, I’ve just loved hearing from all the people that say they hadn’t journaled before, but now that they’re doing this, they just have so much more clarity.

It’s like they know where to go. They get rid of all the junk that the kind of like the whole idea of you need to be in control of your day. And normally people would just open up their emails and be dictated by things that are coming into them. And, but now they’re being more proactive with their life.

They’re relaxing by focusing on what they’re grateful for. They’re focusing on the top priorities first and they’re getting it done. So to me, that’s been just wonderful in, in hearing how it’s really helped people get to that ideal life, which is kind of the whole point of everything we’ve been talking about today.

Don: Awesome, Patrick, so, so I know it can seem. uh, uh, self, self, uh, uh, fulfilling here to, to, to promote the Elite Journal, as we did create it here at DLP, and it’s a, uh, you know, product that, uh, you know, we do have for sale on Amazon and, and, um, and so forth. But it really is. I mean, it’s been unbelievably. Uh, incredibly, uh, impactful to me, uh, using it, but, but probably even more powerful to me has been hearing, uh, so many of these success stories, how it’s it’s changed, you know, people’s lives, um, and how it’s improved their, not just their individual performance, but improved their, their, I love the work. Clarity there, their clarity, their focused, their potentiality around being a father, a mother, a husband improved their, their, their fitness, um, has helped them certainly accomplish more in their work. That’s the most kind of obvious, um, uh, value that that often comes out of it, but it really is just incredible.

And I know for me, you know, it took me until probably five or six years ago that I got into the habit of journaling and, and thought it was silly. And, and why would I ever do that? And it just seemed, seemed, you know, seemed ridiculous. Uh, to me, the thought of sitting down and writing down, you know, my thoughts, writing down my goals, writing down, um, My wins.

Um, but, but if you’re just willing to give it a chance and, and, and, and put it into action, it’s, it’s, it’s unbelievable. And we’ve seen it from our frontline people in roles, like in maintenance or construction who, who might be in their fifties or sixties who’ve never thought about a tool like this put into, into play and, and have life changing, um, effects, let alone those in, you know, younger in their, their careers. Senior leaders. Who’ve had more exposure to personal development, uh, across the board. It’s been, been really incredible.

So again, I give you kudos for, for making that happen, making this, uh, dream of yours, a reality and, um, and uh, helping so many people. So, so again, this has been Patrick O’Donnell, um, the, uh, man who made the Elite Journal happen, um, and, uh, is helping, you know, deliver wild to so many people within DLP and, and outside of it, you know, thank you so much for, for everything. Uh, everything you’re doing.

Patrick: Absolutely my pleasure, always great to talk about all this wonderful stuff we’re doing. And I guess before we go, I’d just love to kind of acknowledge you as truly leading by example here at this organization, but beyond DLP too, really making a difference in the world. I think being able to be that model and kind of showing us the way through the forest, as we talk about what good leaders do and what, uh, I, I love the quote by, by Jim Collins.

He says, um, the X factor of truly great leadership is humility. Humility combined with a ferocious will for something bigger than yourself. And I think it describes you so well in that you’ve used DLP as your vehicle, but you’re making a difference, not only for all of us here at DLP and our families, but all of the elite members and prosperity members that we touch and really beyond that to impact the whole world through the DLP positive returns foundation and everything that you’re doing with this podcast, all the rest.

So just wanna say thank you. And, uh, it’s a pleasure. So keep up the great.

Don: Thank you Patrick. Too, too kind..

Patrick: All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed that quite a lot packed into that conversation. Right? You can find everything we discussed in the show notes at livefitignitechange.com. If you resonated with this and would like to live, fit and ignite change in your life, you can get started for free at livefitignitechange.com/start, where you can join our community of high performers and get access to our kickstart resources for free. You can choose if you’d like to start on the path to getting in the best shape of your life and or ignite the change you’d wish to see by casting a vision and taking the steps to get there. You can get plugged in at livefitignitechange.com/start or for short, livefic.com/start. Also my family and I we’re igniting the change that we wish to see in the world by helping others live fit. We were sick of all the processed sugar loaded foods and drinks marketed to us, especially to our youth. So we’re developing a line of truly delicious grain-free, sugar-free products that children and adults love as part of our Inrive performance nutrition. Learn more. Join the Inrive insiders for free to be the first to hear about samples, launch parties, and specials at inrive.com.

That’s Inrive.com. Thank you so much for tuning in and please be sure to like, share, rate and review this show. This is what’s needed to help reach more and serve more so together, we truly can ignite the change that we wish to see. Thank you so much for your help in making it happen. And I hope you make it an outstanding day and go forth to light love and serve the world and live the life you’ve always imagined.