Practices for High Growth Leadership with Patrick Thean

00:00:08:10 - 00:00:36:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Leadership is a journey. Our guest today has been on that journey as an entrepreneur and business owner, and helped countless others on that journey to especially as CEOs. But his principles of high growth leadership success apply to all of us. And that's why I'm welcoming you to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:36:02 - 00:01:05:10
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast, you could be with us live for future episodes on your favorite social channel. You can get all the information about when those live episodes are happening. Therefore, interact with us sooner and get this information sooner by joining our Facebook or LinkedIn groups. Just two of the places where these are simulcast. Go to remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin to find out when they're happening.

00:01:05:10 - 00:01:28:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Sign up for that group. Join us. Get the inside scoop and know when episodes are coming. Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership. Navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world more complex and uncertain than ever.

00:01:29:04 - 00:01:59:11
Kevin Eikenberry
Leaders need a new perspective and a set of tools to create great results for their organizations and team members. That's what Flexible Leadership provides you. Learn more and order your copy now at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. And with that, we get that business out of the way. Let's bring in our guest. His name is Patrick Dean and he is an international speaker, CEO, coach and serial entrepreneur whose mission is to help leaders build great companies and achieve their dreams.

00:01:59:13 - 00:02:18:00
Kevin Eikenberry
All those in favor say aye. Aye, aye. Patrick's journey began when he was named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year in North Carolina, after growing his first company to number 151 on the Inc 500. Since then, he's been on a mission to share his wisdom with CEOs worldwide, guiding them through the complexities of leadership and high growth success.

00:02:18:02 - 00:02:43:23
Kevin Eikenberry
He's the bestselling author of Rhythm How to Achieve Breakthrough Execution and Accelerate Growth, which led him to be on our show the first time. And now he's here to talk about his latest book, The Journey to CEO success seven practices for High Growth Leadership. His methods have been integrated into programs at EO, MIT, and Cornell University, and his leadership tools have driven extraordinary success for many CEOs and organizations.

00:02:43:23 - 00:02:47:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And so, Patrick, welcome back.

00:02:47:17 - 00:02:52:19
Patrick-Thean
Kevin, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure and I'm grateful to come back.

00:02:52:21 - 00:03:08:13
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, we tried to do this once. We had a little we had a little snafu. So some of you if you're if you're on the live stream, you miss it. I thought you guys did this. Well, we started, but it didn't. We didn't finish. We're here and we're excited to be doing it. So, so it's been.

00:03:08:15 - 00:03:31:05
Kevin Eikenberry
It's been a while. It's been over a year since you and I were together for rhythm. And so I'm curious, a little bit. And so we'll we'll put a link to that episode in the show notes, everybody, because of course, if you're going to like this and so you're going to get more Patrick. But, I'm curious, tell us a little bit about the journey that leads specifically to this.

00:03:31:07 - 00:03:32:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. Patrick.

00:03:32:18 - 00:03:52:22
Patrick-Thean
So, you know, after I sold my first company a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs and CEOs came to me for help. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. So there were not, you know, 20 some years ago, not a lot of tech, firms here. And so with the success of this, my first project and first company, a lot of folks came and asked me for help.

00:03:52:22 - 00:04:11:05
Patrick-Thean
And so for the last 24 years, I've been on a journey helping CEOs. And I would actually share with you that the first few years I did it more for fun, actually. And then I began to realize that this was actually my calling. You know, Stephen Covey wrote a book called The Eight Habit, which is about finding your voice.

00:04:11:05 - 00:04:39:06
Patrick-Thean
And I think I've been very fortunate that I found my voice, which was to help CEOs, not fail, but rather succeeded, achieve their dreams. So this book is kind of dedicated to that. Now, I think you asked me earlier what of all the other leaders. Right. And this all this stuff worked for all the other leaders. I just have this, burning passion in my heart to help CEOs, because that is a tough job, and that it's actually a very high failure rate job.

00:04:39:12 - 00:04:48:14
Patrick-Thean
So, so for me, I've been on a mission to help these guys and gals find success in a very difficult job.

00:04:48:16 - 00:05:21:05
Kevin Eikenberry
So the you know, the subtitle of the book is practices for High Growth Leadership. And as you said, being a CEO is an extraordinarily difficult job. All leaders that's true for but my question is, what's in all this 24 years of. Yeah, observing and helping and coaching. What would you say is the is the biggest difference between the leaders that create what they're trying to create or move in a really significant, positive direction?

00:05:21:05 - 00:05:22:22
Kevin Eikenberry
And those who don't.

00:05:23:00 - 00:05:46:00
Patrick-Thean
So, you know, there's seven practices, right? So in my book, any of the seven practices. And so, the first couple are about yourself. The first couple is about and I believe, by the way, that if you don't work on yourself, then you don't deserve to work on anybody else. So, practice one and two, right? Right. So practice number one is to be curious.

00:05:46:02 - 00:06:07:19
Patrick-Thean
And practice number two is to level up continuously. Kind of like playing a video game. You know, once you get past stage one two, stage two, the villains or monsters come at you faster. You got to you got to beat those guys and gals, and then you got to get to the next level. And you'll reward, by the way of getting to the next level, is more stuff coming at you had a faster, greater speed.

00:06:07:20 - 00:06:32:23
Patrick-Thean
And, and and, in many ways, you know, bigger results, which also means bigger chances for failure. So your reward is a better, faster, bigger game and you keep going. And so if you forget to level up or if you choose not to level up, you stop. And that's the best you can go. And and you would then be the if you were a CEO, you then be the rev limit on your company.

00:06:33:04 - 00:06:52:20
Patrick-Thean
This applies to all leaders. So if you're leading a team and you stop growing, you become the rev limiter on your team. So so to me, those are the most important ones. Like you've got to continue to level yourself up. Otherwise you're not going to be a great leader for the people. But you got to be curious.

00:06:52:20 - 00:06:58:22
Patrick-Thean
I think that I'll tell you something. You know, this year I hit 60, so I'm 60 years old now. And, oh, you're.

00:06:58:22 - 00:07:02:18
Kevin Eikenberry
So young because you're so.

00:07:02:20 - 00:07:25:20
Patrick-Thean
Young. Yeah. So, so. But but what I've realized is that, you know, when you have enough, enough experience under your belt, you can actually make the mistake of using experience like a hammer, like, hey, do this because I said so. Why, Patrick? Because I've done it 100 times. You've done it how many times? Twice. But you know. But that would be the wrong use of experience.

00:07:25:20 - 00:07:45:22
Patrick-Thean
Using as a hammer, more importantly, is how do you take your experience, enter a new opportunity, and be curious enough to use your experience in a way that brings the most value in that situation, right? So to do that, you got to have curiosity. I think if you don't have curiosity, your experience actually makes you a worse leader.

00:07:46:02 - 00:07:53:14
Patrick-Thean
Could you come in slinging it like a hammer, like I know better than you because I've done it more than you, etc., etc., etc..

00:07:53:14 - 00:08:02:14
Kevin Eikenberry
So it's either a hammer or it's a or it's a, it's a mental block, like we, we, you know once we become expert.

00:08:02:16 - 00:08:03:08
Patrick-Thean
Yes.

00:08:03:09 - 00:08:28:16
Kevin Eikenberry
We don't we no longer are searching. Right. So to be curious means we're continuing to search, which is what I like. It's so interesting that you say that I that's one of the. I just wrote that down. Don't use experience as a hammer. I love the metaphor. So one of the things that that's been floating around in my head a lot lately, which always worries my team about what's going to happen next, but the the word that keeps rolling around in my head now is wisdom.

00:08:28:18 - 00:08:33:15
Kevin Eikenberry
And since we've now established that both of us are about the same age. I'm curious.

00:08:33:17 - 00:08:35:03
Patrick-Thean
You're so young, Kevin.

00:08:35:04 - 00:08:56:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Thank you. I mean, see, you're. But you're younger, so. But here's the thing. Here's my question. You talk about leveling up. We talk about being curious. You were talking about experience from your perspective. Where do, how do we how do you put wisdom into this equation?

00:08:56:06 - 00:09:20:15
Patrick-Thean
So I think wisdom, if it's an equation, I think wisdom is, is you need this, very healthy dose of curiosity. Another health, a dose of humility. Right. And by the way, this is a joke about the humble man. The humble man woke up one day and realized he was humble. He just lost it. Right. So, you know, when you wake up, you go, hey, I'm a humble guy.

00:09:20:16 - 00:09:46:22
Patrick-Thean
Boom. You just became arrogant somehow, right? So, so, so the humble man never wakes up and says, I am a humble guy, right? So the minute you do that, look how humble I am. Humble. I am both. You've lost it now. You're arrogant. So? So really, you got to have a good dose of curiosity, a good drop off, humility, and experience and wisdom.

00:09:47:00 - 00:10:09:14
Patrick-Thean
Experience is always a good thing. But but you got to have that. But by the way, I get a lot of leaders who ask me, how do I be a better listener? And so for many years, I gave them the typical advice, you know, active listening, make eye contact, you know, put your put your stupid cell phone down, you know, don't don't have another window up on your screen and stuff like that would be.

00:10:09:14 - 00:10:11:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Really good starting points, right?

00:10:11:02 - 00:10:20:20
Patrick-Thean
Right. But then I realized that that if you are curious and interested about something, I didn't have to teach you how to listen.

00:10:20:22 - 00:10:36:22
Kevin Eikenberry
So. So, Patrick, I'll tell you a story. So, you know, we do also, we do lots of training. And, sometimes clients will say, well, can you include some training on listening and say, well, we can talk about listening. I said, don't think anyone using training because everyone knows how to do it, and I can take you all through that.

00:10:37:03 - 00:11:10:06
Kevin Eikenberry
But here's the exercise that I often will do with people. I won't go into all the details, but people end up with, with a, with a task to listen on a topic that they're not necessarily interested in, with someone who knows that is does care about that topic. And, and we just ask them to practice knowing how to listen because they know how, and and here's what is almost always said, I ended up being way more interested in this topic than I thought I would be, simply because I decided I was going to listen, which means they came became more curious.

00:11:10:10 - 00:11:17:13
Patrick-Thean
I guess you can intentionally choose to be curious. You can. Absolutely. Okay.

00:11:17:15 - 00:11:26:20
Kevin Eikenberry
And because as human beings, we are learning beings. Yes. Once we're there, it's like we can't help ourselves. Yeah, but get interested in my.

00:11:26:22 - 00:11:45:09
Patrick-Thean
If you think back to when you were a kid and you were in in grade school and you think about the, the teachers that you learned from, to me, the best teachers I had were the ones who kind of got me interested and got me curious, the ones who gave. And by the way, for those teachers, I didn't mind the homework.

00:11:45:11 - 00:12:08:06
Patrick-Thean
I didn't mind homework at all. But but for the other teachers, where unfortunately, I was in a subject that I wasn't interested in. I, I, I really hated the homework. But here's the thing that that made me realize that that curiosity and interest is a key component to learning is that over the grades, I had different teachers for the same topics.

00:12:08:07 - 00:12:28:20
Patrick-Thean
Well, one year those topics were really interesting and another year the topics were terrible, but they were the same topic. So really, the person who led the class, the teacher, was able to ignite my interest and curiosity, whereas the other teacher was not able to ignite my interest in curiosity. And I think the other component here is about caring.

00:12:28:22 - 00:12:58:03
Patrick-Thean
The other the teachers that got me going were ones that cared about me, about me as a person. Not just the topic, but about me as a person. So I think all those things add up to us being curious. So for me, I've got this thing that some people would say is rather selfish, but I will not take on a customer that I don't enjoy or don't feel like I could really love and care because I found that it just made it easier.

00:12:58:03 - 00:13:19:03
Patrick-Thean
Like if I liked the customer, I just automatically cared for that person. And so for customers that didn't enjoy, you know, I've been in business long enough to know that I need to figure out how to care about that person. Otherwise, I'm not going to be genuine cat fake genuine this. Right. So. So I try really hard and I but it take a lot of energy for me.

00:13:19:05 - 00:13:41:17
Patrick-Thean
So over time, I begin to decide that, I'm only going to take on customers that I like because it was so much easier for me to be interested in the person, to be curious about the person, to like the person, to care about the person. By the way, my coauthor in my new book, Michael Prager, he's the CEO of Heaven exchange, which is a public company today.

00:13:41:17 - 00:14:04:02
Patrick-Thean
So I started working with Mike Prager, Michael Prager, 24 years ago, helped them start of an exchange. And today it's a public company. He's the founder CEO of Ever Exchange. Very few companies that are public, being still led by by the founder. Yeah. And so somebody asked me this question once, he said, you know, wow, you've coached this guy for 24 years.

00:14:04:03 - 00:14:25:00
Patrick-Thean
How do you do that? I said, well, I go into every session of Michael, excited to learn about what he's going to teach me today that I don't yet know. That's kind of what I'm that's kind of my mantra. I go, hey, I'm sorry, I get to see Michael this Saturday. So I get to see Michael the Saturday, and I'm excited to go see him.

00:14:25:00 - 00:14:31:07
Patrick-Thean
And and he's going to teach me something that I haven't learned yet. So that's how I stay interested in the person.

00:14:31:09 - 00:14:54:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Everyone that's listening, I want you to note what Patrick just said. I get to see Michael, not I have a meeting with Michael. Not I have to see Michael, not Michael's on my calendar. I get to see Michael. And that small word says everything about it. So, Patrick, we need to move on because we got seven practices. We are not going to get to all of them.

00:14:54:19 - 00:15:13:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. There's there's a couple that that I mean, we could spend an entire show on each of them. You know, full alignment is one of them. But I think people have some clue about that. We might get to culture because that's just so over important, overly important. But I want to talk about early warning systems, to two parts about this.

00:15:13:08 - 00:15:36:01
Kevin Eikenberry
And then I'll let you expand. One is thinking about finding early warning and then there are systems to do it. Like we can have a practice or a process or a plan to give us some red flag, you know, leading indicators. Right? Yeah. So talk about this and what this would look like for us, as leaders.

00:15:36:03 - 00:15:58:10
Patrick-Thean
So the first thing I would say is that everyone's solving different problems. So people come to me and sometimes they'll ask me for the best early warning system will say the best early warning system is based on whether the challenge you're facing right now, what are the leading indicators that will help you peek around the corner so you can identify the trend before it smacks you on the side of your face?

00:15:58:12 - 00:16:15:09
Patrick-Thean
That's what you really want. So there's no best early warning system. I would say that the way that early warning system works is, look, you got to figure out what is it that you really care about. It could be a problem. It could be a customer. It could be anything. And then you then you ask yourself the five whys, right?

00:16:15:09 - 00:16:37:05
Patrick-Thean
Like, why do I care about this? What could happen if you just keep asking those questions until you identify something early in the pipeline of time? That can be an early warning system for you. It's not complicated, but it is difficult. You know why? Because people have to slow down and think about it, Kevin. That's why. Yeah, right.

00:16:37:10 - 00:16:39:22
Patrick-Thean
Most people want me to just go down the warning system.

00:16:39:22 - 00:16:42:17
Kevin Eikenberry
I'm like and think those are two problem.

00:16:42:19 - 00:17:03:21
Patrick-Thean
Yeah, you got to think about it. You got to really think about what could mess up your world. Now some of them are easy, some of them are easy. I remember a meeting I had with one of my clients that the head of sales walked in. She was very happy. I said, why are you so happy today? She said, because I already know I'm going to make my quota for the quarter.

00:17:03:23 - 00:17:32:07
Patrick-Thean
I said, really? Tell me how you know that. She said, well, it's because you know, when when the last two stages of my pipeline is 200% of my quota, I'm going to get there. I know that already. So right there, she shared with me what is her early warning system? She needs to get to two X pipeline of her quota in the last few weeks of the quarter.

00:17:32:09 - 00:17:48:08
Patrick-Thean
It's not more complicated than that. And so she asked me, hey, can you build me an early warning system? And I said, sure, I can. I can help you definitely with that. And I shared that thought with her and she said, Patrick, wow, you're a genius. How do you figure that out? And I said, you just told me that I.

00:17:48:08 - 00:17:48:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Listened to.

00:17:48:22 - 00:18:10:05
Patrick-Thean
You. You just told me that. So. So that's what I mean by bi. Most of us actually have the answer. We just don't slow down enough to think about it. And so usually it's something that we already know. But we have to slow down to think about it and go, what precedes A precedes B pick and then boom over here.

00:18:10:05 - 00:18:25:12
Patrick-Thean
That's the early warning system. Then the next thing you got to do is you got to quantify it. You got to be able to say, when this turns to this, whether it's a number or something that you can quantify doesn't have to be a number, but numbers are the best example. But you got to be able to quantify it.

00:18:25:14 - 00:19:01:11
Patrick-Thean
And then, you know, when something hits that, incorrectly, it's it's an early warning system. Best example when I drive to the airport, from my house in Charlotte and I always cross the train tracks. Now oftentimes, I unfortunately, the lights turn red, the berry comes down. Ding ding ding ding ding. Train coming, train coming right. Obviously I stop because I don't want to run to a train, but sometimes, sometimes no train appears and then ding ding ding, the gates go up and we drive through and we don't get mad.

00:19:01:11 - 00:19:26:00
Patrick-Thean
We don't go. I can't believe this stupid thing stopped me. No, no train appeared. But what if a train did appear and I drove through? I get smashed, so the early warning system isn't perfect, and it's okay if the train didn't come. But it's not okay if the early warning system did not go off and you went across the train track and got smacked by a train.

00:19:26:02 - 00:19:26:14
Patrick-Thean
Yeah.

00:19:26:16 - 00:19:30:15
Kevin Eikenberry
I love that. I love that.

00:19:30:17 - 00:19:48:13
Patrick-Thean
And by the way, early warning system is something that a lot of people forget about. I'll tell you why they forget about it. Because we get to tunnel vision. We get so tunnel visioned into the goal that we don't see what's coming on the side. So it's your peripheral vision that needs to be adjusted. So you can see.

00:19:48:14 - 00:20:11:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, we we get we get laser focused. And we would say well that's good. Yes. And right. Yes and right. Laser focus but still moving your eye I could tell a story from, from growing up that wouldn't apply to anyone who wasn't a farm kid. But it's exactly what I'm thinking. Like, you got to know where you're going, but you got to keep moving your eyes.

00:20:11:08 - 00:20:13:15
Kevin Eikenberry
If you don't do that, you got a problem, right? Yes.

00:20:13:17 - 00:20:24:07
Patrick-Thean
And that's when you see that early warning system that provides some of that peripheral vision. By the way, I'm sure you you know the movie Jurassic Park. Did you see the movie Jurassic Park years ago?

00:20:24:09 - 00:20:25:13
Kevin Eikenberry
I did not.

00:20:25:15 - 00:20:26:12
Patrick-Thean
Oh my goodness.

00:20:26:12 - 00:20:31:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Okay, as it turns out. But that's okay. Everyone can judge me.

00:20:32:00 - 00:20:54:08
Patrick-Thean
But but there's a scene where where the hunter is hunting these velociraptors. Yeah, and he's zooming on his prey. He's about to shoot the velociraptor when the two other velociraptors appear by his side. So he was so zoomed in on that one particular one, he forgot that there were three of them. He knew there were three of them, but he forgot about the other two.

00:20:54:10 - 00:21:06:02
Patrick-Thean
He was so zoned in, and the other one just let him target him until I think he was right there. And then the other two showed up and of course he lost. So that's what happened. We don't have an early warning system.

00:21:06:04 - 00:21:08:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Everybody. That's what you call Lincoln focused.

00:21:08:05 - 00:21:08:16
Patrick-Thean
Exactly.

00:21:08:16 - 00:21:34:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Call it spoiler alert. Okay, so, we can't not we can't not talk about the fifth one, which is culture. And the question, I mean, it's one of the seven practices. And and we've had lots of episodes on this podcast. It doesn't surprise you, Patrick, where we talk about culture in one way or another. But the question I want to ask you here is because you talk about it and I agree with you.

00:21:34:03 - 00:21:38:03
Kevin Eikenberry
Why is culture more important now than ever?

00:21:38:05 - 00:21:58:12
Patrick-Thean
So a couple thoughts about culture. The first is that the pendulum has swung back and forth between and it's an employer's world to an employee world swinging back right now to the employers will to some degree. But it's never going to go back all the way up here. So therefore, most of us are always looking for great employees.

00:21:58:12 - 00:22:17:06
Patrick-Thean
And in this war, for talent, you want to you want to get the best talent trying to come to work for you, and then you want to keep you want to you want to get them to choose to stay. So lots of people ask me, Patrick, how do I keep my best employees? And I jokingly say, look, your best employees are not pets.

00:22:17:06 - 00:22:40:12
Patrick-Thean
You don't get to keep them. You get to. You get to allow them to choose to stay with you. So culture becomes a competitive advantage, because what you want to do is you want to attract the right people and repel the wrong people. So people ask me, what is the best culture to have? That's the wrong question. It's not what's the best culture to have?

00:22:40:14 - 00:23:00:21
Patrick-Thean
It's the right question is what do you enjoy and love? And therefore, what are the kind of people you want to attract to work with? If you can do that, imagine if you could wake up every day working with a group of people that you love to work with. Amazing. Most of us spend. I think the state is 70% of our working hours.

00:23:00:23 - 00:23:31:11
Patrick-Thean
So our waking hours at work, 70% of our waking hours spent at work. So you can choose to spend that 70% of your life with people you love or not. You get you do get a choice. And by the way, those folks also get a choice. So so that's why it's a competitive advantage. Not only is it financially good for the company to attract and have the employees choose to stay with you, that's a very good financial outcome.

00:23:31:13 - 00:23:55:22
Patrick-Thean
I think there's lots of things out there that show you it costs at least three times the, the salary of a person when you replace that person. Right. So there's financial reasons for that. But there's this other reason the money can't buy called joy. Joy, would you prefer to come to work, spend 70% of your waking hours with people that give you joy, or people that don't give you joy?

00:23:56:02 - 00:24:01:20
Patrick-Thean
Like for me, I that's that's, that's that's a competitive advantage.

00:24:01:22 - 00:24:20:09
Kevin Eikenberry
So another one of the practices is people ecosystems. And as we've just been having this conversation, you just been chatting, I'm sure people would see, well, that seems pretty close to culture. Well, just just very quickly, the difference between what you would consider culture, what you would consider people, ecosystems.

00:24:20:11 - 00:24:45:14
Patrick-Thean
So culture, the environment, you create people ecosystem is the people you choose to hang out with. So that's the difference. And I think most people when we talk about people ecosystem mainly think about their employees. But the employees are really one part of an ecosystem. They're your customers, your partners, your suppliers, you know, your investors, you do investors, your, your shareholders, etc..

00:24:45:14 - 00:25:07:00
Patrick-Thean
So all those are part of your people ecosystem. And one of my companies, I had this investor, that that gave me $20,000 invest in the company. And he asked me so many questions, took up so much time. I went to his home a few, I think, after the first year of his investment. And I said, buddy, I'm going to give you back your money.

00:25:07:02 - 00:25:25:03
Patrick-Thean
He said, what? I said, I'm sorry, man. You shot me. So many questions I can stand anymore for $20,000. Let me just give you let me write you the check. Now. And he didn't realize that those questions were just driving me crazy, but I never told him so. The minute he realized that, he said, Patrick, keep the money.

00:25:25:05 - 00:25:35:07
Patrick-Thean
I'll stop asking my questions. So, so that was a good example. This is a smart guy, but but he was in my people ecosystem.

00:25:35:13 - 00:25:43:15
Kevin Eikenberry
He was he was in a way, he was trying to be curious. And yet, a little too much. Yeah.

00:25:43:17 - 00:26:09:06
Patrick-Thean
Yeah. But for me, it was taking too much of my time. Right. So what I wanted was, was really an investor in that particular situation for that amount of money to not bug me. Really. And so, so I think, who are you putting your people ecosystem is so critical. And I would say that I learned a lot from the first venture group that invested in my first company I learned so much from.

00:26:09:08 - 00:26:28:05
Patrick-Thean
And when I when I when I talk to other entrepreneurs, I am just so grateful for how much I learned from this group of venture capitalists. And those days not, we call them venture capitalists versus private equity. And I've got friends who've had horror stories of how they were cheated and things like that. But for me, I learned a lot.

00:26:28:05 - 00:26:37:11
Patrick-Thean
They treated me with such, such graciousness and I helped them make money to help me make my house great square, you know? So.

00:26:37:13 - 00:27:05:10
Kevin Eikenberry
You know, I think that's a really important point, even for all of you who are listening, that might never meet a venture capitalists. And that isn't your goal. But I think all of us as leaders, it can be pretty lonely. And we need to have people in our circle, in our ecosystem that we can trust, that we can learn from, that we that can give us the feedback that we need that I mean, that's a that we can have joy with.

00:27:05:14 - 00:27:26:19
Kevin Eikenberry
We can go right on down the list. And I think that's a really important point. And, and I'm glad that we sort of came back to that before we finished the seventh principle. Or seventh practice. Excuse me, is the core customer, and again, I know we could talk about that, but I chose to for us to pick a couple that I thought would be especially helpful, you need to know more about all seven, everybody.

00:27:26:19 - 00:27:42:14
Kevin Eikenberry
So you need to get a copy. Patrick and Michael's book, The Journey to CEO success seven practices for High Growth Leadership. Patrick, is there anything I didn't ask that you wish I would have?

00:27:42:16 - 00:28:12:14
Patrick-Thean
Well, you covered a lot, man. You cover most of the book. I would say that, I would say that, you know, thank you very much for inviting me on the show. And I would say that the the the core customer, that's something that's a little bit different from most people's discussion about the customer. I would say that I believe that you need to figure out the customer that you can best serve, that you can best grow with, and that is not all the customers you have.

00:28:12:16 - 00:28:38:06
Patrick-Thean
So I, I believe that, once you figure out that core customer, that's the customer you build your products for, your services for, and all the other customers get to use the same products and service as, but you create it, you design it for this core customer. So you got to get that right because your strategy and everything should be built around that core customer product services, everything you do, if you get that right, business flows easily.

00:28:38:08 - 00:28:45:01
Patrick-Thean
You get that wrong and you find yourself running, building products or services that just seem to be going against each.

00:28:45:01 - 00:28:54:21
Kevin Eikenberry
Other, being pulled in different directions all the time. So I'm going to shift gears a couple more things before we finish. Patrick, what do you do for fun?

00:28:54:23 - 00:29:13:19
Patrick-Thean
For fun? I have two beautiful daughters and a beautiful wife, so I spend a lot of my time with them. And I just came back from Japan with my wife and my younger daughter, Nicole, and had a great time. So, right now where I'm in my life is I'm spending a lot of time with my with my kids who are in their 20s.

00:29:13:21 - 00:29:20:05
Kevin Eikenberry
That's awesome. And the only thing you knew I was going to ask you for sure is what are you reading these days? Patrick?

00:29:20:07 - 00:29:41:04
Patrick-Thean
So I'll give you two books that I love. One is called The Surrender Experiment with Michael Singer, and it's about really letting, going and getting to the flow of life and letting life lead you versus being so like, like driven. And for driven guy like me, that's a really it's a it's a good yin yang, kind of a kind of a thinking.

00:29:41:10 - 00:30:02:04
Patrick-Thean
So the Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer I love. And then another fun book I like is, that I'm reading right now actually is moonwalking with Einstein the Art and science of Remembering everything. I just find that to be a fun book. So I try to do two things. I try to read like, you know, a serious business book, and then I try and read fun books at the same time.

00:30:02:06 - 00:30:19:08
Kevin Eikenberry
Moonwalking with Einstein. We'll have both of those books as well as both of Patrick's books in the in the, show notes. So all of you can get access to those, the Patrick, where can you where do you want to point people if they want a copy of the new book? Where do you want to point people?

00:30:19:08 - 00:30:21:19
Kevin Eikenberry
How can they get connected with you? What do you wanna tell them?

00:30:21:21 - 00:30:29:17
Patrick-Thean
Yeah, well, just come to Patrick tien.com, and it will take you to my website. And you can buy this book on Amazon as well. So look for about.

00:30:29:19 - 00:30:55:22
Kevin Eikenberry
Ten t e a n.com Patrick t.com. We'll have that in the show notes as well. And so before we go everybody, I have a question that I ask you every week. If you've been here before, you probably know what's coming. And it's the most important question I could ask you today after you've just invested 30 minutes of your time with us.

00:30:55:22 - 00:31:15:06
Kevin Eikenberry
And that is now what? What action will you take? Maybe. And we hope that is to go buy a copy of Patrick's book. But that's not really what I mean. Maybe there's something that you heard Patrick say about being curious. Maybe it's something that we talked about. About listening. Maybe it's something about the core customer.

00:31:15:06 - 00:31:33:21
Kevin Eikenberry
It doesn't matter what it is. It's just that I want to help you move from. That was interesting to. Here's what I'm going to do with that, because I'm pretty confident the first is true, but the rest is on you. The answering the question of now what? What will I do with what I just learned is on your shoulders.

00:31:33:21 - 00:31:41:03
Kevin Eikenberry
It's your opportunity and we hope that you will do that. Patrick, thanks for being here. It was worth the wait, my friend.

00:31:41:05 - 00:31:44:18
Patrick-Thean
Thank you. Kevin, thank you so much for having me and everybody.

00:31:44:20 - 00:32:01:15
Kevin Eikenberry
If you enjoyed this, you will enjoy next week, I promise, because every week there's another episode, another chance for us to join together, to learn what it takes to move in the direction of becoming the leader we were born to be. Join us next week for another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. We'll see you then.