SPI 684: The Impact of Impact

SPI 684: The Impact of Impact

Announcer: You’re listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he’s learning how to write more handwritten notes to people who have helped him. Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Hey, you know I love to take you behind the scenes on a lot of the inner workings of what’s happening here, and you’ve heard about my upcoming event, which is happening in the next couple weeks in Anaheim, and that’s not what I’m gonna talk about today. My event is in the world of Pokemon. This is a, if you are new to the show, I started a Pokemon YouTube channel to kind of document my journey collecting and all this kind of stuff, and it’s kind of blown up.

We are at the time of this recording, over 615,000 subscribers strong. 5,000 members, paying YouTube members, and it’s, it’s just on an amazing run. And we have an event happening in June that is kinda like a Comic Con, but for the Pokemon YouTubers. So I’ve, I’ve become good friends with most of the creators in this space and, and we’ve decided to all collect together in one spot.

And this is an event that I’m sort of hosting and putting together. It’s not about me, it’s about the community. And we’ve already sold over a thousand tickets at the time of this recording, which is in mid-April. And we’ve not spent a dime on marketing. Which is amazing. So when you create stuff that people really crave for and really want, people will wanna participate, they, they will wanna, you know, buy a ticket or, or, or get the thing right?

And so it’s coming. I’m very nervous about it, but that’s not the only thing I’ve been working on. I’ve also been writing a book and a lot of, you know, I’ve been writing this book and I wanna share with you a few things that have been helping me. Number one, this book, which is called Lean Learning, is very much, I mean, I, you know, when I wrote the proposal, along with my buddy Jeff Goins for this book.

I knew this was an important topic, but with AI and just the state of the world and the state of just information consumption in general, it’s now becoming even that much more important. It’s becoming that much more of a flag that I’m planting in the ground about kind of where we’re at and and how we can do something about it, right?

Because here’s the thing, we live in an age where information is freely available. We’re in the information buffet age. Right now. Right. And we’re, and there’s no leaving. You can’t leave the buffet. Once you’re in, you’re in, you, you not only are at the buffet of learning where you can go here and here and here, and you try a little bit of everything.

And oftentimes what happens is our eyes are, are bigger than our stomachs, if you will. Or in this case, with learning. Our eyes are bigger than our brains. We fill our plate quite large and we consume right? We consume, we consume. It’s, it’s just really interesting, the parallels between, you know, food and information.

It’s freely available. Now, what happens when you go to a buffet, right? You try a little bit of everything, you fill your plate because you wanna get your money’s worth. You’re like, I’m here and I want it all. And what ends up happening is you don’t get fully satisfied by one thing, right? You almost kind of need it all to feel like you’re satisfied, which is the same as you or me subscribing to podcasts, watching all these YouTube videos, watching shorts, reading books, all the ways of consumption that make us feel like we’re moving forward, when actually it’s making us full. It’s making us bloated. We’re actually eating too much. We need to lean out a l our learning a little bit, and this idea that, okay, well how do we choose one part of the buffet and focus on that.

That’s very difficult to do if you ever go to a buffet, right? Especially if you’re in Vegas or something. You, you want to try everything and the thing is, We have not just the buffet that we could walk up to in this world of learning, but we literally have the buffet lines coming to us. Right. And whatever you choose to consume, you’re gonna get more of, right.

You just kind of get fed it, almost force fed, spoon fed, all these things that maybe we tried once and it’s like, here, have more here, have more here, have more. We are getting full. We’re, we’re slowing down as a result of this and we’re just not absorbing the nutrients that would actually light us up and give us the energy that we want cuz we’re taking so much in.

And there’s a lot of analogies there, right? And it’s been really helpful to get excited about this book when I think about the impact that it could potentially make, right? I think it’s really re really important that when you’re creating anything, right? Yes. You have to tactically figure out how to put that together.

And I’ve been finding pockets of time to write and also record. I’ve been recording a lot and that’s been transcribed and turned into writing. That gets molded in, into something. Still in the early stages of the book, but I mean, at this point we’re like 60% through with it in its first draft form and, and we still got a long ways to go.

This book probably will not come out until 2024 at the earliest, but I want it to come out as soon as possible because this is, this is massively important with where we’re at, because if we don’t control our learning habits, much like how if we don’t control our eating habits, we are going to not feel good.

We’re, we’re not gonna feel good about it. Right. And it’s hard because it’s there. We wanna say yes to it. And part of what we talk about in the book is, is saying no. Right. Just about, just because it’s there doesn’t mean you, you want it. And in fact, this idea of opting out of learning, right? No, I don’t want that part of the buffet is actually so empowering.

And it gives you more time and effort to focus your energy on consuming this part that you love, that you enjoy, that that is experiential, that you can go deep with, right? And what we need to do is we need to try to find our way out of this buffet and step into the restaurant with the chef that we know about, that we trust, that cooks food that we enjoy, that fills us up in a way that is nutritious, if you will, that then helps us move forward with our lives.

So, again, this is, this is just where my head is at right now with this, but finding a system to create, you know, finding these pockets of times has been hard, but in my past it was very easy to go, oh, you know, I don’t have a large block of time to focus on this, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna focus on something else.

But I’ve been learning how to manage my time in a way where when I do find a pocket of time, I can insert myself into that time and try to get into a flow state much sooner. That’s kind of the, the trick if possible, to get into that flow state where you are just going right where your body and your mind sort of just take over and you’re not even thinking about it anymore.

You’re just kind of doing it. And that can be very difficult, especially if you have many things going on during the day. Consuming a lot more than you need to is adding to that problem. But even just doing the things you need to do, it can be very difficult to sort of insert yourself back into flow state while you are in transition mode most of the day.

And I think Tim Ferris talked about that, where it’s like it takes a while to get into the flow state that you need to be in to create beautifully. And what I’ve learned to do is when I, when I think about the impact that that work will make, I’ve been able to get into that flow state much, much faster.

So this is the sort of big lesson here is. When you understand the impact of what you’re creating and when you truly believe that it’s going to help people and it’s, it’s a statement or a piece that you really need to share, it becomes that much easier to get into flow state even with a little amount of time.

And I think that’s because not just like you’re able to get into flow state faster, but you’re able to have something at stake, which pushes all the other things out during that moment, right? Like nothing else matters because this is so important. And so I wanna question you. How are you feeling about the work that you’re doing?

How are you feeling about the impact that it’s making? And I feel like there’s almost like a, a chicken and egg situation, right? Where especially if you’re a brand new creator, it’s like, well, I don’t know how impactful this is. Therefore, it’s hard to understand and get motivated by it, right? Because we’re, we’re so curious as to whether or not this is gonna work or there’s the idea that you create something and this, this is very common and, and I still feel this where put a lot of time and effort into something.

I know it’s gonna be helpful. And, and this could happen with the book too, but I know it’s helpful and I put it out there and then nothing happens, right? And this is why the importance of validation is so key. This is why my first major book was Will It Fly written in 2015, which if you haven’t checked out yet, this will help you at least give yourself the best chance to know that the thing that you’re working on is impactful.

This is why I’ve come up with that one person, one result strategy, which you’ve heard me talk about before, help one person in that market get one result. You don’t even need a website to do that. Help that person get a result, a transformation. And that unlocks not just a testimonial and not just the idea that now you can make more money doing this.

You know, again and again in scale in and do it a little bit more in an automated fashion or put that information in an online course, but it unlocks the brain, your brain, that you can do this. Right, the impact of impact, yo. So let’s get to impact with just one person sooner than later, and that will help you scale that impact much bigger after.

So same thing with this event that I’m hosting. It’s like, man, I’m scared. I’m nervous. There’s a lot of moving parts, there’s a lot of things that, you know, I might drop the ball on that the team might drop the ball on, but I can’t worry about that as much. As I can get excited about the impact that this will event will make in the community that I am now in and, and, and I’m a part of and I was welcomed to, this is my way of sort of, you know, stepping forward to offer something that I know I, I can offer kind of uniquely because I have the resources and I’ve run an event before for this community who are passionate about this topic that I’m also passionate about, but perhaps don’t have the event chops or the, the business chops and to not make it about me and to make it something that can impact their businesses as well. I think that that’ll always come back to me in some way, shape, or form. And, and that’s that. So yeah, the impact of impact and if you aren’t quite confident in the impact that what it is that you’re doing will make, then try to find a way to realize that impact and, and the best ways to literally talk to another human being and, and help make that transformation happen.

And honestly, if you’re not sure, figure it out. And, and if you, Try to figure it out and you’re like, oh, this, this is not as impactful as I thought it would be. Don’t take that as a failure. Take that as a learning experience. Take that as, wow, I can do a little bit better, or I can do something a little bit more differently so that it does make a different impact than what other people are trying to do and, and it stands out.

So anyway, that’s me. The impact of impact. I appreciate you. We have special guests coming in next week to teach us something, so make sure you subscribe for that. We often have our SPI Pro members come in to teach you a little something here on the microphone. We’d love to share the microphone here.

And check out Pro if you haven’t already, SPIpro.com. Thank you so much. I appreciate you and best of luck on all your stuff.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Our senior producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media, and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!