Property Management Growth with DoorGrow
DGS 335: Mission, Clarity, and Leadership Under Pressure
Descripción
When building a business, have you ever felt like working harder should be the answer, but the more you push, the more exhausted, misaligned, or stuck you become? In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, Jason Hull sits down with Sean Patton, former U.S. Army Special Forces Commander, executive coach, and leadership speaker, to unpack what entrepreneurs can learn from military leadership, self-leadership, and mission-driven culture. They discuss the dangers of hustle without recovery, why so many business owners never learn to lead themselves, and how clarity of mission, roles, and outcomes can transform the way a team operates. Jason and Sean also explore why the military is far more collaborative than most people assume, how strong leaders facilitate input without losing ownership, and why mission dictates culture in both combat and business. Along the way, they dive into personal purpose, team alignment, trust in sales, and the mindset shifts required to build a business that creates both impact and freedom instead of burnout. You'll Learn (00:00) Introduction and Guest Background (01:15) Sean Patton's Military and Entrepreneurial Journey (04:16) Leadership in Difficult Situations: Military vs. Business (08:29) Dispelling Myths About Military Leadership (10:35) Collaborative Decision-Making in Special Forces (12:56) The Role of Extreme Ownership in Leadership (16:08) Culture as a Mission-Driven Concept (19:16) Aligning Mission, Culture, and Outcomes (20:51) The Power of Mission and Vision in Business (25:41) The Why Behind Business Success (29:24) The Entrepreneurial Hierarchy of Needs (35:19) Applying Military Clarity to Business Operations (37:31) The Importance of Clear Roles and Responsibilities (41:37) Closing Remarks and Contact Information Quotables "Leadership isn't a title, it's a person you become." "Sometimes the loudest voice in the room isn't the smartest voice in the room." "Mission dictates culture." Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/courses/mastermind] DoorGrow Academy [https://www.doorgrowacademy.com/] DoorGrow on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC1mGYT2Sw0LOe32hO_QdNg/featured] DoorGrowClub [https://doorgrow.com/] DoorGrowLive [https://doorgrowlive.com/] Transcript Jason Hull (00:01) Five, four, three, two, one. All right. Welcome everybody to the DoorGro show. I'm Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGro, the world's leading and most comprehensive coaching and consulting firm for long-term residential property management entrepreneurs. For over a decade and a half, we've brought innovative strategies and optimization to the property management industry. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. Now, let's get into the show. All right, so I have an awesome guest today. I'm hanging out here with Sean Patton. Welcome, Sean. I'm going to brag about you a little bit. Thanks for being here. Sean Patton (00:53) Yeah, alright, you go for it. Thanks for having me, man. Jason Hull (00:54) All right. All right. So Sean is a former U.S. Army Special Forces Commander, Meta Performance Executive Coach at Novus Global and a leadership keynote speaker. Sean helps leaders accomplish seemingly impossible and thrilling visions through transformation. This is your bio. As a former U.S. Army Special Forces Commander, Sean brings a rare combination of battlefield tested leadership, real world business ownership. and success back to human performance principles to every stage and coaching session. His work is grounded in one belief, leadership isn't a title, it's a person you become. As an ICF certified executive coach, host of the No Limit Leadership Podcast and author of A Warrior's Mindset, The Six Keys to Greatness. Awesome. Sean, so glad to have you here. Welcome to the show. Sean Patton (01:48) Thanks, man. I'm excited to be here. Jason Hull (01:50) Cool. So Sean, for those listening, I'd love for them to get a little bit of background on you. I gave a little bio, but tell them a little bit about how did you get into entrepreneurism? When did you wake up and go, hey, you know what? I'm an entrepreneur. Sean Patton (02:04) Well, it took a little bit. was maybe a little late to the game. I originally went from a small town in Kansas. I went to the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduated and then spent 10 years as an active duty officer in the army. So I was an infantry officer and then a special forces officer in the special forces group commanding two different Green Beret attachments. So it was a busy time. I feel like I crammed a lifetime of leadership lessons into those 14 years, right? Like West Point is most intense leadership training that our nation has. And then, you know, was a rifle platoon leader and sniper platoon leader in Iraq. Then I was an Afghanistan with my team. So I was doing really difficult things and complex things with elite performing teams. And, you know, despite all of that and 22 months in combat and 30 months to point overseas, I was never really the gun guy or the gear guy. Uh, it was all, it always about the people and the problems that we were solving. And so in 2015, a little before that, I decided that I was going to get out of the military in transition. And I just had this entrepreneurship itch that I wanted to scratch. Plus, you know, I want to check out with this freedom thing that I had been hearing about all these years was all about. And so I decided to try it and. Jason Hull (03:04) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (03:31) It was a rocky start. I had a lot of, I think I had some strengths coming out of the military and those experiences, but also some real gaps. And one of them was a, I think my risk tolerance was so high from things I had been doing. then also Jason Hull (03:33) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (03:59) The answer in the military so often, at least in the units I was in was when things got hard, right? When the, when the darkness came, when it seemed like the weight was unmanageable, the answer was just go harder. Like, you know, like the mission is going to end, you're going to redeploy, like you, know, the sun's going to come up, just keep going, keep going, keep going. And what I didn't appreciate was when you get into the entrepreneurship space is that in the military, even in those units, there was this like, Jason Hull (04:11) Okay, yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (04:28) mechanism around us almost protecting us. Like they had honed us into this machine that could push ourselves to these extreme limits. But they told us when it was time to turn it off and when it was time to refit and when it was time to recover. And then I got in entrepreneur space and when things got difficult and you know, I made some really bad financial decisions which we can get into and all of that. I found myself with all of that weight with the only answer I had was just go harder. Jason Hull (04:52) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (04:59) And so three years later, I was in the hospital ⁓ and I had stress hives and my appendix almost burst and all these health issues and going through my first bankruptcy or my only bankruptcy, but bankruptcy after three years. And so it was a rough start to the whole thing. I had to learn a lot of lessons about myself in that. Jason Hull (05:07) Wow. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, early stage entrepreneurism, there's some similar patterns I've noticed because, you know, I've talked to thousands of entrepreneurs. I've gone through this sort of journey. in the beginning, yeah, we do a lot of stupid stuff. Like we make mistakes and that's part of learning. You know, we believe weird things like I just like your first hire should be a clone of yourself. If I could just clone myself, I call it the clone myth. Like we believe like You know, we think we can do everything ourselves. it'd be cheaper if I just figure out how to do it myself. If I just read the right book, watch the right YouTube video. And so we do dumb stuff like we don't get support. We don't get help. We don't get mentors. like it. had to things had to get really hard before I started getting mentors, getting help, getting coaches, getting support. And I had to be humble, you know, before I was willing to do that. And. And yeah, and so I see, I see this, you know, a lot of people play out this journey and then early stage as an entrepreneur. Yeah. We're, we're, it's almost like the hustle's glamorized. And so we go through this process of like, I got a hustle. I got to work harder. That's what you do if you own a company, if you're a CEO, if you're a boss. And so you just burn yourself out. I remember I was at end of a sales call trying to wrap it up. I was in so much pain because I like I think I'd slipped some sort of disc or was bulging in my back. And I was like by the end of the call and doing this call, I was laying on the floor and I ended the call and I was like, and I was in so much pain. I wasn't able to work and had to lay down for like two weeks. Yeah. And then I realized because I hadn't been eating, I'd been just working. hadn't been sleeping. Sean Patton (07:04) my gosh. Jason Hull (07:11) very well, I'd been just working. I thought I just need to work harder, work faster. And I didn't realize that probably I was like probably operating at like 10 % of my effectiveness mentally. I was being stupid. And I thought, I just need to work harder, I gotta hustle. And I wasn't taking care of myself. And then that's when I realized, if I don't take care of my body, I don't have a vehicle to achieve stuff or to get results. And I'm not even really present. Sean Patton (07:23) Thank Jason Hull (07:40) when I'm there with people because I'm hungry and I'm tired and I'm I'm everywhere else and I haven't even produced the, or my brain hasn't had a chance to clean itself like it does every night. And I haven't gotten food to fuel my brain. I don't have all the chemicals my brain needs. I'm lacking dopamine and serotonin and GABA and like, I'm just, I'm an absolute mess, right? And I see people do this all the time, all the time. Sean Patton (08:05) It's so true. I, in my lens, how I look through that is through a leadership lens. And I learned in the military so many great things about leading others. And as I look back at it, what I had to learn in entrepreneurship, what you're kind of talking about is like, I never really had to master leading myself. Jason Hull (08:31) Yeah. Sean Patton (08:32) I never had to look at myself as like, how am going to lead myself? Cause the way you mentioned there, like I would never treat one of my soldiers or one of my employees or have an expectation of them the way I was, I was treating myself. And so it's like, how would you. Jason Hull (08:41) Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't do I wouldn't I wouldn't push my spouse to be like this. I'd be like, hey, come on, clean more. Work harder. Do this. Right. Yeah. Then marriage would be over real fast. I wouldn't like I wouldn't do that to my kids. Come on, go. Yeah. But to ourselves, we can sometimes be a cruel leader. Right. Can you dispel a myth? Because, you know, I got I kind of got a sense of this. I've never been in the military. And God bless you. Thank you for your service. I appreciate that. Sean Patton (08:55) Yeah. Jason Hull (09:15) ⁓ but I've realized I've been listening to, ⁓ Chaka Willa, Willick and Leaf, whatever their, their book, ⁓ the dichotomy of leadership. And I had this belief that in the military, I think a lot of people maybe that haven't been involved in it have this perception. Military, just, you either give orders or you take orders. It's rigid. There's no thinking. You just were told what to do. And, ⁓ you know, I've kind of gotten a very different picture of that. that there's a lot of decisions and there's planning and know, this is lives are on the line and it's painted a very different picture. Can you just touch on that? Cause I think some people here, you've got this background in the military and to you, it's just, you know this stuff cause you had lived it. But for those that have never been in the military, what advantage did that give you in business and how is that different that maybe people perceive it? Sean Patton (10:09) It's a great question. I do think that there is this idea from either whether it's like movies about basic training or, you know, the, or, know, about like submarines. Yeah. You just shut up and go. Right. And, know, there is in basic training or when you're, I would say when you're being transformed from a free citizen to a soldier, there is a bit of a breaking down of Jason Hull (10:16) in movies. Yeah. You blindly follow and you're told what to do. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sean Patton (10:39) some of that, that needs to come back. But then as you build that foundation of like, when it's time to go, I go ⁓ and I have some discipline and I can, can integrate with the unit, let's say. ⁓ Then you start getting more and more responsibility. And especially as you move up in the military, you become, I mean, it's not that long, like two or three years later, even the regular military, regular army, you're going to be a team leader. So you're going to be a leader. And a of those kids are like 20, 19, and they're in charge of three people. And so they're no longer just like, it would make no sense to have someone to stand here and like, what do I need to do? This is what need to do. ⁓ That's not, not, that wouldn't like, that doesn't work in a company and that wouldn't work in a unit. And so there needs to be input on each side. And then especially when you get into like the Navy SEALs, like Jaco was talking about, or in a special forces team. mean, the planning, I was a facilitator of mission plan. Jason Hull (11:11) Yeah. Yeah. Sean Patton (11:38) but I was by no means the smartest person in the room and it was a very collaborative experience. And so my job as the commander of a 12 man special forces ODA was to receive the mission that we had been given. And that mission doesn't come down and tell us this is how you're going to do it. It says, here's the effect we need to have in the area. Here's the questions we have. And then it was up for us to sit down and I had, you know, I have a warrant officer who's Jason Hull (11:43) Hmm. Sean Patton (12:08) trained in human intelligence to a level of a CIA operative. I have an intelligence officer or an intelligence sergeant who does the same work the NSA does. My average age on my team is 30 years old, people with multiple combat experiences. I remember one time I was in Lebanon and one of my younger soldiers, Greenbright, we were talking about why there was this conflict going on and how we were trying to influence it. And I said, well, you know, it's probably because of this rift between this Hezbollah and the Shia sect and the Sunni sect of Muslims in the area. And, you my 26 year old soldier is like, actually, sir, that's incorrect. This conflict in the Becca Valley actually goes back hundreds of years. It's actually over like water rights. mean, like that's the level of conversation we're having in the planning session. And it is very much a collaborative Jason Hull (13:00) Yeah. Sean Patton (13:07) ⁓ discussion and we come up with multiple courses of action, but here's, I will say where it kind of converges to, ⁓ the lesson that comes from the military and maybe an issue, this is where the people maybe have this misconception, but I think it's an important one for when it comes to the, company is that at the end of the day, kind of go back to Jaco's first bunk on book, honestly, extreme ownership, has to be someone in charge as the commander is my dis Jason Hull (13:11) Yeah. Sean Patton (13:35) was my decision. was like, okay, I've heard everyone's input. We're going with, this is how we're going to do that. And immediately, because everyone had given their input, even if we didn't pick what their choice was, it was, okay, Roger that. Now we're going to execute that as if it was our own. And so that level of ownership when it comes to planning and execution is where we turn and say, okay, now we're on the same page. the rich discussion and input that happens before that is an important job. And that's why I think whether it's in the military or in the civilian world, as a leader of an organization like that, you need to be a master facilitator. It's not your ideas. It's how can we be the composer of the group in front of us? And if someone is taking over, how do we calm them down? How do we... Jason Hull (14:20) Yes, yeah. Sean Patton (14:31) recognize when someone's voice is being stomped out and their valuable input isn't being contributed. You know, like how do you handle that and get the idea so that the best concept comes to the top and then get buy-in to execute. Jason Hull (14:37) Bye. I mean, what I'm hearing is like, you know, this picture you're painting is you've got this team of specialists. They each bring some value and some wisdom and some knowledge to the table. They're experts at this one particular craft. They see everything through a different lens and you're getting feedback from all these different lenses. And then as a leader, you have to decide which things are valid, which things do we incorporate? And, know, and it's up to each individual that's a specialist to really put some pressure on the leader to say, this is significant, this is important. And it's up to the leader to make sure that, you know, maybe that quieter voice, but to recognize what is significant if they're not making it present, because sometimes the loudest voice in the room isn't the smartest voice in the room. And so, yeah, so that's fascinating. And, business is a lot like that, but a lot of business owners, they don't even run their teams like that. They think it's a dictatorship. They mistakenly think that's how the military works. They're like, I'm the dictator and I have all the best ideas and I'm smarter than all of you. And they do, they end up as the emperor with no clothes. Cause everybody in the team were like, yes boss, we don't want to get fired. Sean Patton (15:56) Absolutely. And that's why I think that the, main job of, let's say that entrepreneur, that business owner, that even commander, right. Is your job is to craft the vision of what you're trying to create. And yes, the outcome and clarity of outcome, clarity of vision of why does this company, why do we exist and what impact are we trying to have in the world? And once people are bought into that and aligned on that. Jason Hull (16:09) The outcome, clarity of outcome. Okay. Sean Patton (16:26) then we can have a great and rich discussion on the how, the strategy. Jason Hull (16:30) Got it. that, you know, that's, so now we're talking about culture, right? Which is the foundation before we get into tactics, we have to have culture and the military, you have all kind of chosen into a particular culture. There's a set of beliefs and that's a foundation. It's kind of like, you might maybe even take it for granted, but the military has that and a lot of businesses don't. They don't have that set culture where it's defined. Sean Patton (16:57) So can I, what I will say is that this is true in the military and I'll give you some military examples just because they're maybe interesting to your audience and then we can talk business is that mission dictates culture. So, know, for example, you might have, you know, especially a lot of the movies, right? You see like the Marines, That's stereotypical. We'll be super stereotypical right now. Marines mission, their core mission is secure the beach to land ships. Jason Hull (17:04) Yeah, I love this. Yeah. Yeah, OK. Mm-hmm. Okay. Sean Patton (17:27) So if you notice, are a bit like, just go get in line, full frontal assault, you're getting off ships on an uncovered area and you're just massive violence of action. That's how you win that battle, okay? So they need to have a certain kind of mentality and I'm generous. Okay. A special forces team will operate by, with and through an indigenous force. So we're a US sponsored insurgent. we've got, I will go on target with. Jason Hull (17:42) Yes. Sean Patton (17:54) 10 Americans and 300 Afghani commandos. Like that dictates a certain mission, right? And so ⁓ the difference between the Marines and then maybe the Navy SEALs who are operating and their job is to take over a ship underway with 30 SEALs that all live together, work together. They know each other in their ear, like synchronize their precise, you know, cause you've got to be right. You're, you're firing weapons inside of a ship corridor. Like Jason Hull (17:57) Okay. Yeah. Sean Patton (18:23) You have to be so precise. I can't do that on the ground with 300 Afghanis running around. I'm just like guns pointed this way. You know, like we've got to you've to be much more flexible and and how you plan that and how you think about success and all that is a different animal than the Marines who are on you're trying to storm a beach together. A SEAL team is operating with 30 people who've worked closely together and then. where you've got 12 of us trying to work by with and through a different unit to do a different thing. Like the culture inside each one of those units would be completely different. In the Marines, you might have a bit more like go here, do that. Yes, sir. How, how jump high, jump faster. You know, you might need that because that's you need to storm a beach. You made, you need very precise, very black and white, right? And wrong, like precision to take down a ship with 30 people. you need to be very clear about larger intent and what is the big thing we're trying to operate here and how do we control sort of an uncontrollable mass and chaos to operate a Green Break team. If you took the culture of each one of those, if you gave that mission to a bunch of Marines who are just like, where do I go? Where do need to blow up? And you're trying to like do a sensitive political operation with 300 indigenous, it would be a disaster. Jason Hull (19:29) Yeah. Sean Patton (19:46) And if you tried to set the precision of, cause we tried to do this sometimes, like you would work with an indigenous force. If you tried to set the precision and standard of a US special operator, whether it's a SEAL or a Green Beret on this indigenous force, you drive yourself crazy. Like it's not going to happen. All right. And so all of those different units have different missions. And so they all have different cultures. And to your point on your company, if you're not clear on missions, If you're not clear on the vision and like why you exist and what you're trying to do, you will end up chasing your tail on culture because you'll just start grabbing like every other leadership book and culture. just like, what about this works here? This works here. This works here. Instead of saying, what are we trying to accomplish and what is the optimal culture for our mission set? Jason Hull (20:36) I love that. Yeah, one of our guiding documents at DoorGrow is our, we call it our client-centric mission statement. And it talks about who we want to serve in detail, how we will help them, what our goal is, our plan, and then what kind of the long-term sort of vision that maybe we'll never achieve, but it's the goal we're striving for. And this is what we coach our clients on getting defined because it creates culture. Then we have our how we do things. That's the company core values. And then we get into personal why statements for the business owner, business why statements. Creating all of this is, we call this the culture materials. There's like six key elements that I coach them on getting in place that help kind of make the culture visible to everybody on the team. And you're right, mission dictates culture. I love this idea because the mission of the business which most people mistakenly think is just to make money, is actually to provide some sort of value and to solve a real problem in the marketplace. And that mission, whether you're good at it or not, and the team are conscious of it or not, and you're focused on it or not, dictates whether or not you have good culture that actually achieves outcomes. That makes a lot of sense. Sean Patton (21:53) Yeah, absolutely. Cause yeah, I love that you have that structure and I love how you also tied that down to personal why statements because this is another leadership issue that I see with a lot of entrepreneurs. We're big companies, honestly too, is that there is this assumption that you've accepted this job description and here's what matters to the company and therefore what matters to maybe me as your leader or boss or the division or the company is also the most important thing to you as an individual or like the reason you're here is not really explored. So I think one of the most critical conversations you can have, and it sounds like you have a structured format for that, which is fantastic, is just sitting down with each member of your team, like, why are you here? What matters to you? Because often, right, I'm sure you've had this, I've had employees where you assume a salesperson, the most important thing is compensation, right? It's how much money you can make. And that's great. Maybe it is, but then it's actually like, well, yeah, that's important. And also, you know, my, my youngest is a senior in high school and this is the last baseball season we have with, and man, the games start at four and it's so hard for me to get to games at four because you have me work till five. And it's like, if I could just make those baseball games, that would be amazing. And then all of sudden, Once you know like what matters to them and why they're doing this, then you can adjust and say, cool, how do we align what matters to you? What your personal why statement as you mentioned it and the company why statement. And now you've got alignment. And when you align those two things where what matters most to them contributes to what matters most to the company, you just, create transformative effects. Jason Hull (23:36) Thank Yeah, the big challenge I've noticed, the biggest transformation I can get is to help the business owner get clear on their why. Because when the business owner isn't clear on why they do what they do, they end up doing the wrong things in the business. Because you're the business owner, you can do anything in the business. And so some business owners are like, well, I have to do the accounting. I'm the business owner. Do you really? If you hate accounting, you probably shouldn't be doing the accounting. You're not the right personality fit for that, which means you're actually probably not the best person to do that. So some business owners love sales. Some love accounting. Some hate it. Some love operations. Some are really bad at that. And so if we can get clear on their personal why, and then we can look at their role and see if their role is helping align with that, we can then reorganize the entire business. But most business owners, the first team they build is they transition from solopreneur to having a team. I find is a mess. The first team they have is built around the wrong person. And it's kind of like they're like, I'm this shape puzzle piece, but it's not really them. They're like, I'm doing accounting. I'm doing this and a little bit this. And then they're like, now I'm going to get team members. I'm going to puzzle pieces around this misshapen puzzle piece. And they fit that puzzle piece, but that's not even me. So I hate being in it. I'm uncomfortable in my own business. In property management, this is where they get to two to 400 doors. call it the second sand trap or the team sand trap. They've made it through that transition of finally having a team from being a solopreneur and they're the most miserable they've ever been in their business. And adding more doors makes their life personally worse, not better. Because adding more doors just means they're working harder. They're doing more work instead of getting the right support and the right team, because they didn't build the right team around the right person from the beginning. So if I get them clear on their why, They're like, my gosh, I'm a circle. I'm not a square. I need to build this whole different team around me. And then like when I got clarity on this many years ago, I think within a month I had fired like half my team. I changed everything. I changed the type of clients I was willing to work with. I changed my business model. Like I didn't want to tolerate certain things anymore because you know, I woke up one morning and I was like, I would rather stream Netflix and avoid growing my business. even though I need money, then deal with the clients I'm dealing with at that time. I'm like, why is this so, why am I so out of alignment? Then I saw Simon's the next start with why, like presentation on the golden circle, why, how, what? And I was like, what? And I'm like, ⁓ what's my why? And so I went to, I've like, I need to figure this out. And my personal why is to inspire others to love true principles. What that means is I love finding the better way to do things. I love learning what works. and sharing it with other people, I would do that for free for fun. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm doing it for free for fun right now. Like I love this. I love learning what's working for other people. And then I get to turn around and share that with clients and I get paid to do that. That's crazy. And that's the role I get to live in my business. And so my business, it feeds me my why. Sean Patton (26:47) Yeah, it's all true. Jason Hull (26:55) And so our why statement of door goes to transform property management, business owners and their businesses. So we get to create transformation. Everybody on my team buys into this vision. We all celebrate when our clients are winning. And so that's the culture we've created in the business. That's our mission, transformation. And we know if we transform the business owner, we transform the business. We transform the business, we transform the team. We transform the business and the team. We transform hundreds, maybe thousands of tenants and rental property owners lives. There's this ripple effect and that's exciting to me. We're having impact, right? And so the thing I can get on a sales call and confidently say to a property management business owner, here's why you should trust me because if I'm selfish in getting what I want out of life, my why, my business is going to give you what you need and you are going to win. And we can always trust motives. And so I call that the golden bridge. The golden bridge is find out the prospects why. Sean Patton (27:31) Yeah. Jason Hull (27:54) and you build a bridge to it, the bridge is the business. It's what gives you both what you want. That's where the deal happens. And there's my why, there's the prospect's why, the business why is what connects us. And that's the golden bridge. And if I can relate that formula verbally, all the objections drop by the wayside, because the only real objection is, I don't trust you. If they're like, what about these features? And what do you do with my property? And what do you do? How do you handle evictions? All they're saying is blah, blah, blah, I don't trust you yet. And so that's, I just teach my clients the golden bridge formula and that we have, and then they become great at selling because sales is about trust. That's it. Sean Patton (28:35) Yeah, I love that, ⁓ that framework. And also I want to call out an important mindset shift that I know I struggled with. And I think a lot of other owners struggle with it. You mentioned there, which is this belief that if we're not suffering, Jason Hull (28:57) ⁓ yeah. It's like suffering's a badge of honor in entrepreneurism. Sean Patton (29:02) Yeah, like if we had, if we're actually enjoying what we're doing, if we're having time off, if we're like, you mentioned, we're taking care of ourselves and we're like inspired and energetic and it doesn't feel that hard, we must be doing something wrong or being lazy or we're not doing enough. And so then we're like constantly pushing ourselves to this point of, uh, I need to be overwhelmed. I need to be, and when things are going well, we'll crash the plane. Jason Hull (29:11) ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sean Patton (29:30) just so we can feel the pain again, so we feel like we're being productive. And so I love the fact that you, sounds like you sort of, we're running into that or identified that. And now the shift that it sounds like you've made around your mindset is like, what if this could be fun? Jason Hull (29:32) Yeah. Yeah. What if you actually love doing what you were doing in your business? I'll tell you what happens because I hope a lot of people do this. You make way more money when you focus on the money instead of the mission and you're not focused on your why you make way less money. But it's money is easy when you are focused on helping people get what they want. You're outward focus and it's you're being selfish enough to focus on your actual purpose. Money is not your purpose. If I say, do you want money? There's a whole level of depth beneath that. Right. And so, yeah, but you're right. Like we're struggling, we're suffering, and it's like a badge of honor. Look at my hustle culture. And I'm like, it's so hard. And then we start succeeding and we get, the world gives us feedback because the world isn't supportive of entrepreneurs. The world cares about safety and certainty more than freedom. Entrepreneurs care about freedom and fulfillment more. Sean Patton (30:24) Yes. Jason Hull (30:48) than safety and security. And that's why we start businesses. That's a risk. But as soon as we start winning, what do we hear from people? ⁓ it must be nice. Sean Patton (31:00) Yeah. Jason Hull (31:01) it must be nice that you have this. Jason got his cyber truck or he's in his million dollar house. It must be nice. ⁓ know, and so you hear things like this and you're like, did I do something wrong? maybe I need to be small because I'm making some people feel uncomfortable because, know, it's to be a struggle. I can't show that I'm having success because it's got to be hard. I didn't I didn't work hard enough to earn this. Maybe it's that feeling or, know, it has to Sean Patton (31:20) Yeah. Or enjoyment, yeah, it's gotta be. Yeah, I think there's a lot of that. I know my relationship as I've reflected back with, with money, um, with success is, know, I grew up with a, with a single mom and she was phenomenal. I mean, raised me, worked full time as a waitress and bar center to put herself through undergrad and grad school to be a school psychologist, to work with special needs kids so that she could impact the world and take care of me. But in that, yeah. Yeah. Jason Hull (31:31) Hard. Yeah. And love was working hard. That's what you saw. Like she was hustling. You knew she loved you. She was serving. Yeah. Sean Patton (32:02) Absolutely. And so I would say there's two sides of that coin. One, what I tell people all the time is like, when you see your mom do that or that's your leader, like mediocrity is no longer acceptable. That's one thing I took away from it. then the, but there was this idea when we say we drove through nice neighborhoods or we saw big houses or we saw people with money. was like, ⁓ those it's like those people. Like it was very much put into, I feel like subconsciously that Jason Hull (32:10) Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Sean Patton (32:31) I think that it was just a matter of like, ⁓ there's this idea of that good people or hardworking, working class folks like us, we're doing sort of this noble thing and these other people either just got lucky or they're just different or they were born into it or, it's this idea of like, we're not those people. Jason Hull (32:49) Or even worse, were unethical or hurt people to get there. Those rich people, those evil billionaires and those evil millionaires, and nobody should have that kind of money. They must have hurt people to get there and yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean Patton (32:54) 100 exactly. And so that was like a story, even a money story and success story that over the last 10 years as an entrepreneur with different businesses, and I was, and I was as a coach of leaders inside companies, ⁓ and, business owners that I've had to overcome. And I have found myself to your point, sort of sabotaging or questioning when I do have certain levels of success or impact and downplaying it almost because I have this. Jason Hull (33:17) Yeah. Sean Patton (33:34) subconscious belief that like, wait a if I make this amount of money or if I get to do these things is like, am I, as you said, am I deserving of that? Or is that even like an ethical thing to be able to do? I need to suffer more and drive myself back to the suffering conversation. Jason Hull (33:40) Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the feedback we get from the world as entrepreneurs. So one of my frameworks is the four, I call it the four reasons for starting a business. The first reason is fulfillment in life. That should be primary. We should be getting fulfillment in life, living our why, living our purpose. Number two, it should be more and more freedom. The business should give us more and more freedom. Now, we initially as entrepreneurs, when we start our journey, we make more and more money. And the reason we want more money is we think it will give us more fulfillment and more freedom. But the default is, I've seen this over and over again, I live this, is we make more and more money and we have less fulfillment and freedom in our business initially. Until we get clear on this, because we're aiming for the wrong goal, we're aiming for money, not the four reasons. Once we have fulfillment and freedom though, once we figure that out, we're like, why am I doing this? I need to shift things. And we get alignment there, then we want to benefit others. That's contribution. And that's actually why businesses exist. Businesses exist to contribute to the marketplace something of value, solve real problems. Otherwise, they're just snake oil and they're stealing people's money. And so true entrepreneurs, like they might start with just the motive of money, which maybe isn't the highest motive. But if they're going to be successful, eventually they graduate usually to contribution. because that's the only thing that actually works in the marketplace. The marketplace is brutal to anything else. So it's almost like God tricks us into becoming good people by getting us to start businesses, you know? And so the fourth reason, once we have contribution, we have fulfillment, freedom, we get to, we're living a life where we feel like we're benefiting others, making a difference. And we love, we can't have those first three without the fourth, which is support. There's no, Sean Patton (35:22) Yeah, yeah. Jason Hull (35:41) business owner that I know of that enjoys doing every hat, wearing every hat in their own business. And so we have to have a good team. We have to have a good support. Just like you were talking about in the, in the military, like if you're going on a mission, you need some specialists that have expertise in different areas to make this work. Not everybody has the same personality, the same skills, the same intellectual abilities. And so we need other people if we want to stay in those first three. We can't have fulfillment, freedom and contribution if we're doing stuff we don't enjoy. That's the opposite. And so we have to have team members. And that's why we build the vehicle of a business instead of just be a freelancer and do it all on our own. And that's the, so those are my four reasons. Now there is the fifth reason. The fifth reason is what everybody else wants. And we want this too as entrepreneurs, but the fifth reason is safety and security. This is what makes us different. Everybody else on the planet wants all five of these things. But most people on the planet play safety and security first. They're like, forget your freedom. We saw this during the pandemic. It's like, fuck your freedom. Like, we don't care about your freedom. I want to feel safe. Make everyone feel safe. Force it on everybody. Make everybody feel safe first. And then freedom would be a really nice afterthought. And then entrepreneurial people were like, this what crazy planet am I on? Sean Patton (37:04) Mm-hmm. Jason Hull (37:08) Am I hanging out with aliens? Like, I don't understand. I thought we were in the land of the free home of the brave here in the US and like, what's going on? And we have all these different basic hierarchy of needs, but the hierarchy is different for entrepreneurs versus everybody else. And there's nothing wrong with that. Like I need people on my team that don't want to be the business owner. Sean Patton (37:21) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah Jason Hull (37:32) You know, I need them to be with me and enjoy it, right? And they need somebody that like me, that's crazy, that's willing to take some of the risks. They just don't realize they're working for a crazy person, right? So that values freedom more than safety. So yeah, but look, I love safety and security too. That's why I process documentation. I have systems that makes me feel safe. If I lose somebody, right? So we need all of these things. So I love, I love that you were pointing that out. ⁓ Where should we go from here? Sean Patton (37:42) Hahaha Yeah. Jason Hull (38:01) Like we're almost at the time and I love hearing the ⁓ how the military works because the military works its life or death. It's it's ⁓ and there's clear objectives and I feel like in business things get so fuzzy and there's so much BS. And when we hear it in terms of military, we're like, ⁓ duh, this would translate. I should do my business this way. Sean Patton (38:04) Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a good way to wrap in last couple of minutes is like, what are some key points there? think that what the military does, because not everything in the military is from personal experience translates perfectly over, right? But that there's certain things. Yeah, it's all the same. There are some similarities. I think that if there's an overarching word of why, and it's just true, Jason Hull (38:43) Sure, it's not all exactly the same, yeah. Sean Patton (38:58) military, good military units are able to accomplish the seemingly impossible tasks ⁓ is clarity, like extreme clarity and no nonsense around no clarity. And so whether that's clarity of mission, clarity of roles and responsibilities, who's doing what when and what are they committing to? There's so much... ⁓ Jason Hull (39:05) Yeah. Hmm. Sean Patton (39:26) sort of expectation or unsaid agreements that happen inside business, where we make assumptions about what we think other people understand or what they think success is or roles is. Instead of saying here's our clear mission, here's our outcomes, here's my role and responsibility, here's what I'm gonna own. I mean, the amount of times I work with a company or entrepreneur and we go in and they say, yeah, here are like the 12 things that are important before the next meeting, but there's no one's name next to it with a date. Jason Hull (39:28) Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like who? Who's responsible? Who's accountable? Yeah. Sean Patton (39:55) It's like, Hey, what'd we talk about last meeting? Who's doing that? Yeah. Who's taking, who's accountable. So I think they're very clear about like what role and responsibility do you have so that you can lean into that. So clarity around roles, responsibilities, clarity around mission, then clarity around, you know, end state. Like what does success look like for this? Those are. Jason Hull (40:14) What's the definition of done on this? How do we know this is accomplished? I love it. Sean Patton (40:19) Mm-hmm. And so I think if companies could really take that approach of clarity in those three areas, it could be transformative. Jason Hull (40:29) Totally agree. One of my mentors that really taught me operational stuff was a mentor named Alex Sharpen. And Alex would talk about outcome transparency and accountability. He was like a three-legged stool. And he said, there has to be a clear outcome. Like, who's responsible ⁓ is also, right? that's like outcome transparency, accountability. Accountability is who? What are we trying to accomplish is the outcome. And then what's the scoreboard? How do we measure success? How do we know if it's done? And he said he would watch billionaires and follow them around and they go into a meeting. They didn't know what was going on, what was being discussed, but there was a problem. He would just walk in and he would ask three questions and the problems were solved. Cool. What are we trying to accomplish? Okay. Who's responsible for this? Awesome. How do we know if it's done or not? And it was that simple. And then you walk out of the room, everyone's like, man, he's magic. So glad we have him. What a great leader. And I love it. Clarity is massive. one of the things, like a lot of businesses don't even have the clear role or job descriptions defined for their existing team members. If I went to, anyone listen to this, I went to your team member, ask yourself this question. And I asked them, what are you responsible to achieve on a weekly, monthly basis? What is your job? Sean Patton (41:27) Yeah. Jason Hull (41:52) What are your roles? What are you supposed to do? And then I went to the business owner. I went to you listening and said, what is their responsibility? What are these? I usually get two very different set of directions. But if you come to my team or hopefully some of my clients that I'm coaching and you ask that question, they would say, cool, let me pull up my document that is super clear that we review regularly. This is it. We've agreed on this. We're literally on the same page. And it's that simple. And so they know what outcomes they're responsible for. And the outcomes are more important than the responsibilities. So on our job descriptions, we have results. What results or expected accomplishments are there? so little things like that. One of the things I love saying lately is, this is one of my little phrases, is any action we take without clarity is a little bit wrong. Sometimes a lot, a lot wrong. Sean Patton (42:21) Yes. Mmm, I love that. I love that. Jason Hull (42:51) Yeah, and so that's dangerous. like the last thing you want to do in on the battlefield is just rush out with a lot of gusto guns a blazing with no plan and a lack of clarity. But in business, sometimes that's how we operate for shooting from the hip. We're like, Woo, yeah. Sean Patton (43:08) Yeah, it is. That's the thing is because of the mission that the military has, the culture demands extreme clarity. And because of the mission of businesses, people can get away with leakage and mistakes because, you know, it's not life or death. But if you treat your business like that, that's how you get to the next level of performance. Jason Hull (43:18) you Love it. Cool. Sean, awesome having you on. Always fun to chat with you. We have some good conversations. ⁓ This is really interesting to me. I love hearing how ⁓ this all works and the contrast with military and whatnot. You brought up some really great points that really made me think. How can people get in touch with you? Tell them what you do real quick and all that. Sean Patton (43:40) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So you wanna, my personal site is SeanPatton.me. Super easy to find. I'm very active on LinkedIn. And I am a part of a larger firm called Novus Global, where we focus on creating meta performance leaders. A lot of the transformation we're talking about today. So yeah, LinkedIn and my website, easiest ways to get me. also the host of the No Limit Leadership Podcast. Please check that out and. Jason, you have a scheduled day. I'm excited to have you on that podcast in the future. Jason Hull (44:29) Yeah, I'm excited to be on that. That'll be great. It's been great having you. Cool. Thanks for being here. All right. Yeah, absolutely. So for those of you that are property management business owners and you felt maybe stuck, stagnant, you want to take your property management business to the next level, reach out to us at doorgrow.com for free training on how to get unlimited free leads. Text the word leads to 512-648-4608. Sean Patton (44:35) Thanks, Jason. Appreciate the opportunity. Jason Hull (44:57) Also join our free Facebook community just for property management business owners at doorgrowclub.com. And if you want tips, tricks, ideas, and to learn about our offers, subscribe to our newsletter by going to doorgrow.com slash subscribe. And if you found this even a little bit helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on wherever you saw this. We'd really appreciate it. And until next time, remember the slowest path to growth is to do it alone. So let's grow together. Bye everyone. All right, and we are out in five, four, three, two, one. Sean Patton (45:33) Thanks brother.
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