What is the true power of your wisdom? How can you use if for the good of humanity? In my interview with Patrick, he spoke all about how to uncover your superpower as a leader and how to use it. 

Patrick is an author, speaker, advisor, consultant, coach, mentor, teacher, husband, father and granddaddy. He's passionate about helping individuals, teams and organisations get from point A to point B with energy, momentum and achieving success! 

 

My top 3 take aways from the interview were:

1. If you can impact ten, you can impact a million. Rather than building the biggest network in the world, build the deepest and most connected one. When you have deep connection with others, you have more impact with them too.

2. Wisdom isn't wisdom, unless it's shared. When you read something profound, share it. If you listen to an amazing podcast, share it. Share the wisdom and knowledge.

 

Full Transcript

SPEAKERS 

Patrick Mosher, James Laughlin 

James Laughlin 00:00 

Welcome to lead on purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven-time world champion musician, and now an executive coach to global leaders and high performers. In every episode, I bring you an inspiring leader or expert to help you lead your life and business on purpose. Thanks for taking the time to connect today on investing in yourself. Enjoy the show. 

 

James Laughlin  

I'm incredibly excited to welcome in this week's special guest, Patrick Mosher. Patrick had an almost 30-year consulting career with Accenture. He's also the host of the annual wisdom console. Wisdom Council members spent four days discovering and honing their biggest contribution to the world, their legacy. His last trip was to Machu Picchu, and he goes to spiritual places throughout the world and takes great leaders and takes him there to answer the most important questions in life. Look, in today's session, we go deep. Patrick has so much to share so much gold for you leaders out there. He's an incredible speaker, incredible thought leader, you know, on over 80 projects across five continents. Patrick helps global 1000 executives implement their most complex strategies those post-merger integrations, new company launches, new product launches, technology implementations, global sales academies, and more. Look Today is gold. Get the pen and paper out you can take so much away from today. Let's welcome Patrick to the show. 

James Laughlin 00:00 

Patrick, I would just like to say a massive welcome to the Lead on Purpose Podcast. 

 

Patrick Mosher 

Oh, my pleasure being here, James. And it's been a pleasure talking with you in the past. And I'm just looking forward to this evening, you know, I don't know where this is gone go. And I'm excited about that.  

 

James Laughlin  

Those are the best conversations, the ones where there's no premeditated plan. And we've been so fortunate to get to know each other, through mastermind, and obviously become friends. And we've had amazing conversations. And I've just been hoping to get you on the show for quite some time now. So, I'm glad that we're finally here.  

 

Patrick Mosher 

I'm glad to be here. So good, so good.  

 

James Laughlin  

So, I'd love to chat a little bit to get and get the ball rolling just around leadership, we'll start there. So, when you think of leadership, from your experience in life, and what you've been through professionally and personally. When you hear the word leadership, what's the first thing that comes to mind? 

 

Patrick Mosher 00:51 

So, man, I'm going to start with a story, is that okay? 

 

James Laughlin 00:54 

Hell yes! 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 00:58 

So, when I was doing my Ph.D. program and organization behavior, and I didn't finish, I'm not Dr. Mosher. But the two major areas that they covered in that program were motivation and leadership. And I and this was a long time ago. And I have to say, I hated the leadership literature. And the reason for that was because it was it starts in the 1920s and 30s. And leaders were over six foot, you know, salt, pepper, gray hair, they had domineering traits. And I was like, this is terrible. And lots of leadership literature was like, dotted with that kind of stuff. And then we found one leadership theory that I absolutely loved. It's called the contingency theory of leadership. And basically, it said, great leaders, create a leadership style that meets the situation. 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 01:55 

So, that means that leaders have to create many different types of styles, many different ways of approaching a situation. So, there is no one dominant leadership style that is successful or just successful. So, I took that, that theory, and when I was in consulting for 30 years, one of the things that I learned from that or as a continuous learner, I guess, is that I always thought like, well, I have I can deal with like 12 leadership styles, I got them in my back pocket. So, if a leader presents this kind of way of being, I've got the way the style that can meet that person adapt to that person. And then what happened is, is that if this leader showed, as a leadership style number 13, and I didn't have that one, I was like, this is great because I get to develop yet another style to put in my back pocket and keep going. So that's how I dealt with my whole career in terms of my leadership style but also dealing with other leaders. And it was always adapting. And the piece of that, too, that's important, especially for your audience group, James is, is that and you have to maintain an authentic route to yourself. So, I'm not talking about like, neural-linguistic programming or something like that, where you try to match the other person outside of yourself, you're really trying to match that person from inside of yourself. And that's, again, that's constant learning, you know, process. And so, I love that. So, I learned how to deal with one of my favorites. I've got longer stories here, but one of my favorites is. In being from the United States, there's a Chicago in your face style of leaders. That's very different than New York and your face style, and very different than Philadelphia in your face style. They're all kind of different. And so, you have to kind of adapt to each one. So, when a Chicago leader gets in your face, and says, like, well, this is how we got to do things, you got to do this, or I really hate what you're doing here. And it's kind of like a playground-style. So, you just got the bully just knocked you in the sand on the playground, and you got to get up and take a swing. That's true in Chicago, but don't do that in Philadelphia, because their style is so different there, they have kind of this blue-collar style and in you know, in Philadelphia, and in the leadership there. And you know, you got to join him at the bar kind of thing. You got to like, be one of them. And you got to prove that you got to, you know, roll up your sleeves in Philadelphia, which is so different than New York. So anyway, so that's what I mean by these different leadership styles of just molding your style to fit the situation, and that's one of the leaders' most effective. Wow, that's a long-winded way just to meet your question. I hope I got it. 

 

James Laughlin 04:51 

That was brilliant. I love it, thank you! And thinking about that, someone is listening right now and going on what leadership style do I have- Over the years dealing with different leaders and looking at their styles and then responding accordingly. How, do you think it would be possible for someone to discover what their natural style is? Like the one that they default to. How does someone go about removing themselves dissociating, and just kind of like being a fly on the wall watching themselves lead, and kind of uncover what their natural leadership style is? 

 

Patrick Mosher 05:23 

Oh, that's a great question, great question. And I'm going to go to something a little, maybe deeper than just leadership style. And then I'll get back to that, I believe, when each of us was born with our very unique DNA, that kind of encoded in that in our DNA was a purpose. Something that made us unique. And so, part of finding that style is finding out what's unique about you. And you know, we're going to emulate others, we're going to have mentors that we want to be like them, which is great. But then if you've ever done that, you always find yourself kind of at the brink of being with a mentor that you like, but I'm not her. I'm something kind of different. And that's, that's so good that you've gotten to that place that you find that you're different than the mentors that you have in the bosses and the and the leaders that you admire. And you find out what your style is. So, from that perspective, I would say, it takes some reflection to really reach in and say, what is my superpower? And I love asking people that question, you know, what's your superpower? I'm not a real good cocktail party talk person. Cuz I think that's kind of a waste of time. And so, I at cocktail parties, I might ask somebody, Oh, Hi, James. So yeah, nice to meet you. What do you think your superpower is? What? It's like, no, I just kind of want to know, I mean, you know, and you can find your superpower. And this gets more to your answer is, is if you've been in a profession for 2 years or more 5, 10, 12 years. What's the one thing across supervisors and across projects that you get evaluated well on? Well, that thing is probably what makes you unique. That's about that's finding your style. I had a lot of, you know, when I was at Accenture for 20 and a half years ago, I had a lot of people that was where my career counselees. And I'd have this question. It's also I think about this as personal branding, as well. And so, I'd asked, so what's your personal brand? And at the time, Accenture had 500,000 employees. And so, they go like, I'm really good with people. And I worked really hard. And I was like, You in 499,999 other people have the same profile. So, if I go into a grocery store, and that's what you think, your profile, you're a generic brand. And I'm not going to pick you off the top of the pile. What makes me want to pick you off the top of the pile, and they go like, oh, so we go into a deeper conversation about what does that look like? And I say what's, you know, what have you been evaluated well with over the past year, very good, as a high performer, but then we dig down deeper, because it's not just being good with people tell me more about what you mean, by being good with people? Does it mean that you establish credibility fast? Does it mean that you stick with somebody that you create that credibility really fast? Or accountability? Maybe that's the thing that people can you're so reliable, that you just follow through and come through every time. So, it's, but that's not true for everybody. It's those unique things that make you. That is where you should start with what that superpower is. And then from there comes your leadership, you know, your leadership style, your trait? Because then you start to look at how do I supervise people? What makes me unique about how I do that? And I think you find that over time asking the same question. How do I get evaluated when I'm on managing people? How do my people who report to me what feedback do they give me that's really good? 

 

Patrick Mosher 09:15 

If I can kind of share feedback that I got from some of mine, to give you a sense of what they look like. So, I left Accenture about two years. And I was in Phoenix, Arizona, I was talking to somebody who had worked for me three times three different projects. And her name's Natalie, and I said Natalie, and we were having dinner at her house with her, her young child, and her husband. And I said, Natalie, the first time we met you kind of got assigned to my project. And she rolled her eyes. Yeah, that didn't go well at all. I'm like, Okay. And I said yeah, I kind of remember that you know that you had struggled with that. And she said and then you pick me for another project. Why do you do that? And I was like, ah cause because you had this sense of wanting to do better, always wanting to do better, she said, well that's true. And so, when I worked for you the second time, I was like, I'm going to work harder for Patrick, and I'm going to make this work. And it's going to be awesome. And I felt like I failed you. I felt I felt like I didn't meet your standards. And I was like, okay, great, you know? Yeah. And then she said, and then you pick me again. And I was so dumbfounded by why you picked me again. And why did you do that was like because I saw potential in you because you really want to do better. And she said, So the third time we work together, I was like, I'm going to nail this, I'm just going to I and I just got all the courage up, I got all I studied stuff, I went in there. And I felt like I wasn't doing as well as you want me to. And there's a moment on that project, where I didn't follow through on something that didn't go well. And you stopped. And at that moment, you care more about me, than the project, than Accenture or the client, it was all about me and my development. And I knew that you cared like that all along. But it was in that moment that I really understood, oh, he cares about me that much. And I've gotten that feedback, you know, from people over so many of the years of really investing people in them. And that comes from one of the core values of Accenture. But it's one of my core values. Anyway, long before Accenture is stewardship, you leave a place better than you found it. Well, I thought about that, as a great consultant, it leaves a client better than they found it. But also, they leave the people they work with better than you found them to. So, to me, that's, that's a leadership style for me that I'm always investing in people because it's going to come back around, maybe not on this project or immediately, but it's there. If you invest in the people who choose them right, then it's going to come back around and they're going to perform for you tenfold. So that's a little bit about my leadership style is a little bit of the magic of what makes me a good leader. 

 

James Laughlin 12:07 

That's fantastic. In the time that I've, I've known you, I would say that that's so true. You go deep with people, surface level is not what I think of when I think of Patrick, you go really deep, and you want to add so much value and joy and connection. So where does that come from? When you think back, through parents, grandparents, and beyond? Like, where does that innately come from? 

 

Patrick Mosher 12:29 

Oh, man, you're going to go there. Okay, so, all right, so this is phase two of that conversation that I used to have with crew counselees. And, okay, this is going deep, fast. Okay, so, when they said, this is what I'm really good at, you know, and they say, Yeah, this is my personal brands, like, that's great. And the next section, the next thing we worked with, usually produced tears. Because it's exactly what you just guessed at James here. Are you already know, is that I'd say so, my hypothesis, and it's just a hypothesis is that you learned how to be good that way, due to some sort of family dysfunction growing up, or like, huh, like, I'm not saying anything about you? I'm just saying, well, when were in those formative years, from, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, up to 10 or so, usually, most families in some ways are dysfunctional. And what you learned is how to survive, you found a unique way to you to survive your family, your family dynamics, your siblings, your parents, or whatever. And you found that path of doing that, and you got really good at that. And that, because that's how you survived. And so you found that way of being and you know, what, that's so unique to you that's unique to your DNA, it's unique to your family situation. And you found that that strength that pulled you through, well, then when you get into your 17, 18, 19 years, and you're going through school, usually those are the same things that pulled you through school, either being really social or working really hard on grades or whatever it was and then you got into your professional life. And then you found if you apply those things, you got really good feedback. When you get that really good feedback, you do more of that. And so, you built and honed those skills that came from those, probably that dysfunctional time in your life, and you got really good at it, and it created survival for you. And became more than survival. It's how you thrived. Which is awesome. Okay, now ready for the downside of this one? The downside of this is those survival traits that make you really good, are awesome 90% of the time. The problem is that 10% of the time, the world is asking you to do something very different than your strength. And that's when you fall back. And you act like a five-year-old. Because you haven't built up to maturity on that path. And so, your whole life, whenever you got pushed that situation, always played your strong card, always play the strong card. And you never learned how to not play that strong card. So, then you go back, and you don't know how to play the other cards, any of the other cards. And so that's where some of these leaders that you meet, you have a really hard time with them. It's probably because you go back to your time if you've never had to deal with that, or you had to deal with it, and you survived a certain way. And that's not working right now with this person. And so, you have to reject that, reject that and try something new. And you will fail at that. And the minute you fail at that your ego goes like, See, I told you not to do that, oh, my gosh, you should rely on your strength. What are you doing, you're crazy? And so, you go back, you're like, oh, my gosh, and then you go revert back to that. And that's not the right path, the right path is to go to that place of like, shut up ego, I'm trying to learn here. So, give me some space here. And you did learn and that's then when you start learning those things that you're not playing that strong card on, then you become an exceptional leader. Because then you're learning how to deal with a whole set of leadership styles or other styles of situations that you could never engage before because you've avoided them, or they have avoided you. But now you can engage them. So again, that was a long way to get to answer your question, but that's how you kind of find your leadership style. Yeah, is finding what your superpower is. 

 

James Laughlin 16:43 

That's phenomenal. And you mentioned something there, but ego and removing. So, I always think of the ego. It's everyone's greatest obstacle, everyone's greatest opportunity. And so, to remove yourself from the ego to get tactical. Do you have any experiences where you're like, James, this is how I remove myself from my ego and then get like kind of more reflective or get a better perspective? 

 

Patrick Mosher 17:08 

Yeah, there's an easy way to do that. And the hard way to do that. And I'd say most of us choose the hard way to do that. So, what we do is we enter situations, and we get locked upside the head. And then we go like, oh, that's what I supposed to do. I'll give you a story of that. So, because I don't want to sound like I'm you know, impenetrable here. So, I am an excellent facilitator always have been in my career and just go into a room to facilitate it make it work. You know, it didn't matter if there were a lot of conflicts, because I could navigate that I was really good with that. And so, we were doing this post-merger integration of four advertising companies in New York City. And there was one company from the Philippines, one from the UK, and one from West Coast, East Coast. So, it was this great diversity of people in the room. And it was advertising companies. So, these guys were marketers, and so their egos are pretty big. And, you know, there's a fair amount of arrogance about what they knew and how to do stuff. And, and so my team was like, we got to get ready for this day, you know, this, the soft side daylong meeting that we're going to have it on. I was like, I got it. I got it. No, like, but you know, we should prepare more for this. We should get this ready. We should do this research. Like, no, we can just navigate this. We're good. We're good. We're good. And we walked into that meeting. And about 45 minutes in. I was just failing badly in front of 30 clients. It was horrible. I mean, he was just absolutely horrible. And what had happened with that is that I was playing my strong card so much. My ego was so big with that, because I got this covered. That I didn't do the work. I just didn't prepare well enough for this. Because I my ego got ahead of me. And so, by lunchtime, literally, my boss, the partner that was running this thing came to me and said, you know what, Patrick? I'll take over for the afternoon. And I was like, oh man… and there's a part of me that goes like, I have just failed big time. And there's a part of my saying, thank you, thank you, because I'm just failing so badly. And so, there are those lessons that we get that our ego gets so big, and we didn't move it aside. And I learned so much about that now. Do I look at that? Do I regret that day? No. Why? Because I'm telling you this story today. Because I have it as a story to say yeah, this is when your ego gets in the way that I didn't prep well enough for this thing. And I didn't think through what that was like. 40 years ago, I was a performer. I used to be in a Purdue Repertory Dance Company. I went to Purdue, and I was at a dance company. And I remember one of the choreographers said, if you're not nervous before a show, it's going to be flat. And I just your listeners, I want you to take, you know, write that one down, if you're not nervous before a show, it's going to be flat. That's true before a steering committee meeting. That's true, before I showed up for this podcast, you know, there's always should be that little bit of nervousness inside. Because it has to be I call it in the zone. So, if it's out of the zone, yep you're going to be a mess. But if that nervousness is in the zone, man, you're going to roll forward on your toes, you're not going to be sitting back on your heels, and you're going to be ready, like a, like a tiger ready to jump, I mean, you're so good to go. So, I always try to pop off and go, like, look, I don't know what's going to happen next. And so, I try to, if I'm not nervous, I try to create a little bit of like, come on. Now, there are some uncertainties, there's an ambiguity here, you don't know what's going to go on. And so, then I kind of roll on my toes and make it work. So, I think that's the biggest thing is the ego can make it comfortable. And good leaders are always showing that they're comfortable. But they're always a little nervous. They're always, there's always a little bit of uncomfortableness in what they're doing. Because they're, they're out there. They're leading the pack. And of course, that's, that's a difficult place to be.  

 

James Laughlin 21:26 

100%. Now, that's brilliant. I love that. And so, sitting in that place, as that place of hate controlled nervousness, and performances to controlled nervousness, right, I would always operate there. And there's never been a performance where I've been like eff whatever. I'm going from a world championship performance. And then the following week standing in an assembly hall at a primary school, I'm equally as nervous at the primary school with a bunch of kids as I was in front of like an adjudication panel, learning how to harness that. So, I was the same issue. before today's call, I was excited. I was nervous as like, where's this going to go. And it's the same for every opportunity to sit down and talk with someone that's being recorded and being put out to the world. So, for the leader out there, who actually struggles to manage that control, nervousness, and in turns into anxiety, or turn into something worse, have any advice for them? 

 

Patrick Mosher 22:23 

Ah, one word, breathe. And James, you know my history a little bit with this, but a breath. I had a great vocal coach, his name's Roger Love. And Roger love says this, it's so good. He said, There's no such thing as stage fright. There's only getting to the stage fright. Because once you're on stage, once you're in it, you're in it. And good people have just flown with it, they're going with it. They work with what's coming up. And, you know, there are curveballs thrown, you do stuff and all that, which is great. But it's getting to the stage that you experienced the fright. And when that gets out of the zone, that's a problem. Here's the thing about out of the zone fear will say, is that our bodies registered fear in a certain way. And when you breathe diaphragmatically, a nice deep breath. You slow down automatically. When you breathe from the top of your lungs really high. You're telling your body you're in fear because that's what your body does. So, what happens to get to the stage fright is that you start going, okay, okay, I'm ready to go. Okay, here we go. And you're out. You're the as you said, you're out of that control zone. The best thing you can do before you know anything like this is taking some deep breaths during it, take some deep breaths, we tend to go too fast anyway, in today's world, slow it down a little bit. That's my biggest advice for people that feel that fear, feel that anxiety, slow down your world a little bit, just even simply by taking some deep breaths. And then you just get into the moment so much better. So that's one thing that I use. I have a few techniques, but that's one of the techniques I use. It's the easiest. 

 

James Laughlin 24:23 

That's brilliant. And when you look at the elite armed forces, when you look at professional athletes, and you look at great speakers and leaders, they all talk about breathwork as one of the crucial foundation pillars that they live by. 

 

Patrick Mosher 24:35 

Yep, yep. Brilliant. I was talking to somebody about selling and she was a doctor in homeopathy and we're talking about selling in this other guy that was with me who taught a lot of sellers because the number one thing I tell sellers to get better at and you know the sellers' lean forwards in their chairs when they're training is what's the one thing I need to know? He's like, hydrate better. Like, what? I'm going to sell better because I hydrate better. It's like, absolutely. And I don't have the scientific proof for that. But it's but that makes so much sense that they hydrate better. And this homeopathy doctor was like, Well, that's good. Um, let me ask a few questions. Um, a lot of people come to me and ask about nutrition. How long can you do without food? Like, oh, you know, there are recorded cases of hunger strikes going 40 days or so. Okay, great. How long can you not go without water? Well, maybe four days? And how long can you hold your breath? Okay, I'm just saying, I'm thinking when you talk about your body and really managing anxiety, start in that order. 

 

James Laughlin 26:03 

That's brilliant. That is honestly, brilliant. 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 26:07 

Oh, good. So, it's like, breathe, we'll get you through the next four minutes. Nutrition that'll get you through, you know, 40 days, hydration, get your next four days. But breathing will get you through the next four minutes, okay? So, breathe. 

 

James Laughlin 26:22 

That is so powerful. I love that story. That's brilliant. It's so powerful. And so, so true. Like it hits home, both from a leadership standpoint, from a performance standpoint. Breathwork goods, everything has centers us, right? Yes, indeed it does. It's incredible. Now, you and I got connected through Brendon Burchard and the high-performance work that he does. So wanted to take a moment just to focus on high performance. So, when you hear of a high performer, you know, what does that conjure up in your mind? 

 

Patrick Mosher 26:54 

Yes, now there's the definition of it, I'm not going to spit that asset. Um, but high performance to me is about. And we used to talk when I was running sales talent, solutions for Accenture, I did that for 17 years. And we would go in and measure high-performing sellers. And we would understand the DNA of high-performing sellers in different organizations. And try to well not try to we got the profile of what separated the top 15% from the rest. And one of the measures that we use to identify high performers was a measure called persistence. As a seller, it's you can do well in a given year. In selling they call on bluebirds, too, it's like you can have you can be in a territory, and all of a sudden some pops up in your territory, that's amazingly great. And you just happen to be there. And there's that bluebird and you and you pull it down. So, you don't want to necessarily look at you know, even average sales over multiple years, which you want to look at his persistent high performance over multiple years. And so, when I think about that, and that, you know, sales, that's either revenue sales, or margin sales, or quota attainment, and those kinds of things. And so that's what I look for when I think of high performance, it's the people that perform highly year over year. And it gets back to what I said earlier about the contingency theory of leadership. When you are good year over year, you're adapting. Because the market changes, especially in sales, and it changes every year customers change their needs, and, and the marketplace changes every year. But somebody who can play well, and year one, and then maybe dip a little bit in year two and then play well in year three and four, dip a little bit in year five, and then your six and seven do really well. You can tell it that persons like figuring stuff out, and that they're figuring out that algorithm of what success looks like. And that's what persistence means. And that's what to me defines high performance as the people that you can jive with, with what that new marketplace looks like, each time. 

 

James Laughlin 29:09 

I love it. And when you think about a leader that's running a company or a team, and they want these high performers, right? They rely on these high performers to drive growth and success. But if that leader is not leading with high performance, with their own leadership with their own growth with their own approach to managing people, do you think it's possible for a company to soar and have high-performance results if they have a low performing leader or a leader with a low-performance mindset? 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 29:43 

The easy answer is no. Probably the better answer is it depends on which is a very consulting answer. So, I'll just stick with that. It depends. And let me say this a company can do really well with an engine and replace a leader and put a, I call it a mediocre leader in place. And that engine will run for years. And do okay. They'll do okay, they won't beat everybody else in the marketplace, but they'll do okay. Um, so sometimes those middle-of-the-road leaders, they're probably more managers managing a successful operation. And they're good at managing that, and they can squeeze that value out of it. And that can work for years. And, you know, fall to marketplaces, it doesn't. But there are some pretty stable marketplaces out there that I can run for years. So that's a safer answer to that question is like, yeah, you can survive with that for a while, but the marketplace will change. And that, you know, typically those middle-range leaders or managers won't adapt well. And so, I think that's one of the keys to what we've been talking about is adaptability to new situations. So, a little bit of a No, I don't think they can be but in the short run, probably, yes. 

 

James Laughlin 31:14 

Brilliant. And in terms of that leader, who recognizes, like, oh, we got to make some changes, and are looking for some consultancy, looking for some feedback, some training. What's your advice to them? How do you go and find the right consultant? Or the right trainer? Like? How do you find out which metric like okay, that's a red flag, we got to start looking in this area and get the right person to help us with this? 

 

Patrick Mosher 31:37 

All right, this is so good. So uh, I think of when you need to fill a gap, a gap is usually one of two types. It's either a capacity gap or a competency gap. Okay with that, you know, when you have a talent problem, the talent problem is usually competency or capacity oriented or both. And so, in good leaders know how to fit each fun, and they're different, right? So, a capacity gap is, this area is not getting the stuff done. So, you need to fill it with more people. So, fill it up with more people to get that cranking more, you need more hours in the game. But a competency gap is you need the right kind of hours in the game. And so, those are two different types of gaps to look for. Many stories with this one, early on in my career, I asked this very same question of the partner I was working for. I said, why do clients hire consultants? And he told me a story. He said at the local bank, that's here in my hometown. He asked that client the same question. He said, Look, you asked us to come in this year, and then we don't hear from you for two years, then you ask us again and all that. He says, what, what are your criteria for choosing a consultant? And he said, see that wall? I said, yeah, I get to a place where I look at that. And if I told all my people to go through that wall, they will make it. I asked you guys to show up to walk through walls. That's what I asked you guys to do. Wow. And so, I don't want to beat up my people with that. So, I asked you guys to do that. It's like, wow. Okay, so and I kind of like that, as you know, as a consultant, when you're looking outside of your own team for support. You know, are you looking for capacity or competency. You should hire your hire or bring in a consultant to meet those different kinds of needs. As consultants, a lot of times, especially, you know, big consulting, I think Accenture now has 750,000 employees? Well, you know, that's a lot of people walking through halls, you just need a lot of people are thrown at the walls. And that could just be lots of hours because you know, you have a deadline, you're going to implement a large thing. And you have this deadline, and you got like my people can get it done. But I don't I don't have enough hours in a day to make it work. Bring in the hours to make that work. Or if you have the specific needs that, are you know, these competencies that you don't want to put it, you don't want to hire for that on your team, well, then go buy it. Just go buy that competency, and then then they can come in, and then you can let them go at the end of the project. And you can do that. And in the process, your people can learn more about that competency as they're there. So anyway, I think of that as to why should you go out and get talent? Well, it's to feel competence, your capacity gaps basically. Did that get the answer to your question? 

 

James Laughlin 34:53 

Yeah absolutely. Thank you and what I guess one of the big objections I hear from leaders is like, I just don't know how to measure the ROI Like, if I'm going to be bringing in the consultant like, what is the return on that? I have no idea. So, for the leader that's kind of struggling and being indecisive and just sitting in the muddy waters of indecision. How, could you help them figure out, okay, this is an issue that needs to be solved. This is a consultant, a consultant, here's the ROI on that investment. How did How could they approach that? 

 

Patrick Mosher 35:20 

That's a great question. And it's a hard one to answer in some ways because sometimes results are measured in, you know, the books, the accounting books, and in finance books. Sometimes success is measured by milestones being met, sometimes, it's the market, you know, values you more because you met a deadline. So that ROI is a little harder to get to. Um, what I would say is, and I'll say, I'll answer that question from the consulting point of view. But it's also easy to flip around to. So, when we would propose to work with a client, that cost us money. So, to your point, we had to make a choice about going after something. So, I'm going to turn that question around from the consultant's point of view. But we had to spend money on this proposal. And basically, how that worked for us is, if you're going to spend $100,000, on proposing to this work, there better be a million-dollar upside. So, it has to be a 10x, you should have a 10x upside to that. So, when I think about this, I kind of think about it the same way, is if you're on the other side of that formula, if you're going to bring in a consultant at a million dollars a month, where's the 10 million, you know, that you're going to get paid back on? So, I think that's an important thing to turn around. I'll even take that, you know, James, to our world, a little bit of what, you know, we're in, we're in this mastermind together. Well, you know, you drop X amount of money on this mastermind, let's just for jolly say it's $10,000. If you dropped $10,000, on this training program, in my mind, because of my background, I go, what's the $100,000 return on investment? And what's the payback period on that? Now, that sounds really tough. Also, let me give you a little bit of a story of this too, which I thought was really powerful for your listener for you and for your listeners, is I took a training course in its center's training facility in Illinois. And it was a weeklong program. And they hired it was senior managers. And they had 35, senior managers in the room. And they hired X CXOs, from Fortune 100 companies to come in and play the client. And so, and literally, on day one, you got your introduction to the thing and then at one o'clock in the afternoon, you had your first meeting with your CXO, and so everybody got prepared, and you know, you're at training, it's like, whatever, and we're going to go drinking tonight. And so, see, we came in, and after the first meeting, everybody's meeting went badly. One of the teams, the guy, the CXO, kicked him out of the office after nine minutes, and said, you're not prepared, you're wasting my time. Get out. It's like, no, no, I mean, really, let's just say No, get out. It's like, no, come on, guys. No, get out of my office, right now. I mean, like, I've got me, and they got kicked out was like, and everybody's like, holy crap, this is for real. This training course is for real, these people are being real with us. And they set it up that there was a competition amongst the five teams. And so now we're all trying to, you know, compete against each other. And at the end of every day, there's a rating and they put up the ratings on the wall every day. And you're going like, and so that team like was bottom, you know, at the end of that day, it's like, oh, wow, this is for real. And so, we went through that week. And we worked hard during that week. And I will say that my team won the competition. But I will say, and we were called the blue monkeys, we call ourselves the blue monkeys. But anyway, but here's what they told us at the closing of the thing, somebody of their training session, somebody asked, you know, with all these CXOs there are like four or five, five CXOs that they brought in for a week. I mean, this is like the chief financial officer from for Verizon, who had run for you know, I mean, these are like, these are like the subunits of these are like the global units of these people it's like holy, and so you know, you had to you know, spend a lot of money on them to bring them in for the week. And then there's also all the lost revenue of 30 five senior managers being out for a week, which is millions of dollars. And the training guy came back and said, well, we thought you come back with that question. So, we've done the calculations. And we spent per person $35,000 on each of you to be here this week. 

 

Patrick Mosher 40:20 

So, this training program cost, just the cost was $35,000, not just the lost revenue of us being out of the marketplace, but just the $35,000 just the cost of this thing. Wow. And you're and you're like, so there's no, there's no, what I loved about, you know, being in that world is like, no, see, any executive was spent, like, you know, try to ask your boss for $35,000 to go attend this training. I mean, it's like, are you kidding me? No. But then he said, this, this is, this is brilliant, he said, and we design this course, around all the strategic, critical decisions that senior managers make in the firm. And we teed up this training program around those seven decisions that you guys make, and usually get wrong. The payback period for that $35,000 per person is three weeks. 

 

James Laughlin 41:18 

Wow. 

 

Patrick Mosher 41:22 

Let that sink in for a second. That's amazing. Three-week payback on a $35,000 course. And they've done the work. And, you know, what, when he said that everybody sat back and thought what project they were going to return to? And they're like, Yeah, I mean, those, you know, as, as an executive, I made $35,000 decisions, like two or three or four times a week. Amazing. And so that's what executives do. So also, when you think about ROI, I'd also encourage people not to think so much about literally about what hits the books, like internal rate of return and ROI. But also think about what decisions get made, the price and the cost of those decisions, when they get made well, and when they get made wrong, when they get made, or not wrong, necessarily, but maybe not as well as they could have been, how many weeks? Does your team lose? And how much is your How much do you burn in your team, you know, of time. So, let's say you lose 10% of your team, you got five people, you know, and that's 10% of their time for five weeks. Oh, you just added up to a couple of $100,000 like that. If you can bring in somebody that helps that decision-making go differently, you're going to, you're going to get that payback, maybe not ROI or IRR. But you're going to get back with the time of your people the capacity that they have. That's such a great story and one that I always keep in my head, and one that I'm always attending to as well, when I work with people is like, what decisions are you making? And that if I can help somebody change the trajectory of the decisions, they're making, the payback periods there, it just is, and they feel like they know it. 

 

James Laughlin 43:17 

Decisions are powerful. Decisions, really, in my experience in life, but also in working with others and coaching is that you know, your decisions really shape your trajectory. And we talked about there, you know, making a good decision making a bad decision. But then if there's one more I want to add in, and that's indecision, making no decision, which one's more costly sitting in indecision, or making a bad decision? 

 

Patrick Mosher 43:46 

Oh, that's such a good question. So first of all, let me sit back and do you know the root meaning of the root etymology of the word decision, decide? 

 

James Laughlin 43:59 

Please tell me, no. 

 

Patrick Mosher 44:01 

This is so good. So, decide. what are other words that have "cide"in them? C.I.D.E. 

 

James Laughlin 44:11 

So, C.I.D.E. Oh! They're not very nice, got homicide, genocide. These are not good. 

 

Patrick Mosher 44:21 

Patricide. You know matricide. Okay, right. So, cide C.I.D.E. means to kill. Decide, literally means to kill all other options. Wow. Okay, decisions are powerful, powerful elements. And I like to think of myself when I was in consulting that I'm, I love crafting decisions for executives. And as a good leader, craft those decisions for you for your people, and for your clients, your customers. craft those decisions and things will move. Because if you do a decision well with wisdom, you will kill all the other options. And then you won't spin on not just indecision, the worst thing, even worse than Indecision is spinning on decisions. You make it you don't make it, you make it, you don't make it, you don't make it you do make it. And I would say those aren't decisions because you didn't kill all the options in the process. So, you didn't make a decision you made a wish or want, or I don't know what you did, but you didn't make a decision. Decisions mean you make it you go through the gate, it's a valve, you go through that valve, you don't go back. That's what a good decision is. Okay. So, that's the first thing is not just indecision but going back on decisions. It's not really a decision. That's worse even than indecision. But then let's go to indecision. So, I love this one, too. And you knew you knew I'm full of stories. So, you knew your you know what you're getting into here. So, I would often get consultants who have a counselor for they come in and go like, Patrick, you know that the project I'm on is hard. I'm like, I gave you the analogy before, I would tell him that it's like, our clients ask us to walk through walls. Yeah, none of our projects are easy. They don't pay a million dollars a month for easy projects. So okay, let's get that off the shelf. First of all, they're all hard. So, what makes this one particularly hard? And they're like, well, this is like, I want to roll off the project. I was like, okay, um, you need to understand that there are two paths of learning. There's a path of learning of, of leaning into the thing. And there's a path of learning to remove yourself from the thing. And both of those are valuable learnings. But there's learning and there are costs with both. Now you're sitting there thinking, just get me off this project, because it's horrible. I hate people like my boss is horrible. The clients are terrible, the deadlines are impossible, I want to leave is like, okay, understand that there's a cost. I didn't think about the costs, like Yeah, the cost, the cost will be that that will be put on your performance appraisal, it'd be said, it'll be put out there in your performance review for the year that you asked to be removed from a project. And that has a cost. Like, what do you think that'll cost us? Like, I can't anticipate that, but it's not good. You know, it's not a good thing to ask to be removed from a project. And so, you know, chances are, you'll probably get an average rating for the year. But it's not my fault, I got assigned to this project, oh, not here in that part, you know, you delt a card, you have to play with the card. So, there's a cost of being in it, leaning in, and learning with it. And there's a cost and learning without learning how to remove yourself from things. And so, if this is so toxic for you, or if there's an abusive or hostile environment, you know, that's a whole different element of things. So, we'll talk about that. But if you're just asking that, because it's hard, while there's a cost, and you should learn from that. So, which is the path of learning for you here? To be in it and lean in or to remove yourself from it? Because at the end of this conversation, I'm going to make a phone call. And either I'm going to make a phone call, and say, I'm rolling this person off the project. And you're going to bear the cost of that, as I will, too, because I'm not going to be looked at as very favorable either. Or, I'm going to make a call and say, you know, Bob is ready to come back and hit the hit-run it. But either way, I'm making a phone call. You don't get to spin on this decision anymore. 

 

Patrick Mosher 48:40 

What? It's like, no, because this is a decision you made you've already it's so far along that you're talking to me about it? I'm not going to let you spin on this anymore. So, I'm going to make a phone call. What's it going to be? Which phone call? Am I making? Like wow, okay, I didn't expect to be put to the fire that way. But to your point, James, that that point of indecision, you know, you can go down an orb, and the worst possible thing is to spin at the branch in the road. Because that place of indecision, just burns time and resources, and sanity and energy. And you just get worked up more and more being in that place. Either lean into it and go or just get yourself out of it. And I'll tell you, getting yourself out of things. Yes, it has costs. But sometimes those costs are worth it. And that's a whole different conversation. I am divorced. And that was one of the very important things for me at that time, was to create a positive environment for my children was to get divorced. But it costs my relationship with my children for years. But that was the right choice, and it had its cost but removing myself and the learning that I had from that was so important. It was the right thing to do.  

 

James Laughlin 50:00 

This good. This is where it needs to go, I think I truly believe, to transform humanity, we need all leaders to get out of their heads and into their hearts. Yeah, we can talk about ROI, we can talk about growth, we can talk about corporate leadership. But at the end of the day, we've got to leave the office, and we've got to go home. And the success and the leadership that we have, when we go through the doors at home, are very much more important than what we do in the office. Why? Because that's our legacy. That's what we leave for our future generations. So, let's talk about leadership at home and what it means to be a dad, and what it means to be a partner. So, when you think of leadership in your personal life, now what comes to your mind when you think of that? 

 

Patrick Mosher 50:47 

Oh, that's so good. So, and I'll talk, personal life is one thing, being a parent is another. So, I'm going to start with the parent I think, and start there. And I've told this to so many people are, you know, people talk about how important their job is, and, and you know, they got to get this next promotion. Why? Well, I want to, I want to get the next promotion because it's important to have a greater impact at work. Okay, why do you want that? And you can do the five why's you know that James and eventually go, like, I'm trying to provide for my family. It's like, okay, great. You're trying to provide for your family. Why is that important to you? It's because they're my family. I mean, you know, it's like, well, it's kind of what you just said to James, it's like, you have a legacy at work, which is really important. But your legacy at home, you know, with your children, and your relationship with your wife, and in your community and everything else. That is that your children are your legacy, that's the most important legacy you can leave behind. And so, I'll go with that in two ways. I think this is one thing that I've told people. Yes. Maybe I had this conversation with you. Yes. You need to love your children. Yes. They need to know that they're loved. Yes, yes, yes. And I think coming grant a close second behind that, in terms of your obligation, what you give your children is character-building situations where they can grow. Because you're not going to be there when they're 41, staring in a mirror going, like, what should I do next, and they're faced with a moral dilemma. And you know, what they're going to remember, not even remember, you know, they're going to act, they're going to act, somehow that they learned when they were 12, that there was something that happened with dad, that 12 that they go, like, they're not going to remember that, but they that set the course for their lives in a way. And so when they're staring the Mirror at 41, they're going to go like, Yeah, I'm going to take the high road here, I need to do the right thing, I need to, I need to tell the team about the dynamics of what's going on, I need to tell my boss about how the metrics crashed, or whatever it is, but they're going to take the high road because they learned that from dad or mom when they were 12. So, I think giving them those character-building moments for themselves. And then I guess, third on the list is his role model, he got a role model those things for them, they got to see you show up, they got to see that you care. And you know, maybe they do see you working a little bit. And we can talk about the balance of life, I have a whole thing about that, too. But I think it's kind of a crock, but we'll talk about that. Um, but they need to see you working too because they want to see their parents care about their primary purpose in life. And in fact, invite them into that part of your life as well. That's why I don't think balance is important, you know, thing, it's like a balance of life. It's like, the whole concept is like, there's life and work on a teeter. You know, a seesaw fulcrum. That's just, no! that doesn't even exist. If you're, if you're at home, and you're thinking about work good for you, because you yearn for that purpose that you're doing. And it's kind of coming into your life that way. Great. And when you're working, and you're thinking about, wow, I love my wife, I wish I could be with my kids. It's like, great, you yearn to be with them. So, I don't look at that as a lack of balance. I see that as a yearning. And that yearning is driving your insides. It's so good to have that. Because your purpose is being fulfilled all around you. So, if there's always that, I guess, sense of empty, not emptiness, but that feeling of like, ah, that that cap that you're trying to film, well, that's just being human. Let's just be human and live with that. So, I think I think that's the greatest thing you can give them is character-building situations, love, and role modeling. How's that for three? Never thought of that before. 

 

James Laughlin 54:43 

That's great. I love it. And it's interesting. You talk about balance. I don't believe in work-life balance, but I believe that we're in counter stead of counterbalance. So, what we're always counterbalancing and going from, okay, my work needs me, you know, 20 hours today. But yeah, tomorrow I need to be with my family for 15 hours, or you know, this week, there's something major coming up. So, I'm going to counterbalance, move over here and focus on that. Okay, then the next month or next week, I need to be here for the school play or sports day. And so yeah, I don't think that there are eight hours of this and eight hours of that. It doesn't work like that. It's, it's very much countering. So, when have you found it most difficult? When has it been most challenging for you to find that happiness, whatever you want to call that flow, happy flow between what's going on professionally, and what you're trying to achieve in your personal life? 

 

Patrick Mosher 55:37 

That's a great question. Um, the story that comes to mind, it'll be a little bit of a sidestep. But I don't mean it to be, but it will be a little bit. And so, I mentioned that, that I divorced when my children were 4 and 2. And again, it was for a better work-life environment for them. And my ex-wife moved six hours away. So, I was six hours away from my very young daughters. And so, we agree as a part of the divorce decree, that she would bring the daughters to me once a month, and I would go see them once a month. So, I would drive up, there's so this was early in my career. And so, um, so if you think about that, you know, balance for me, when you talk about hours, that was very controlled for me in a way that was kind of abnormally controlled, because I didn't have my kids during the week. And but there were two weekends a month that I had them. Well, I would always roll out to a project and say, I have two weekends a month, that are non-negotiable. I have my children. And they're like, okay, got it. And, you know, for your, for the people out there. You know how that is, right? Eventually, I'm on a project. And the president of the company says, I want to have a meeting on Monday morning with Patrick at nine o'clock. And it's Friday at four. And it's a weekend with my kids. Okay, what do you do? And I told him, I said, Because I'm clear in my head. So, part of this is your moral compass, your you know, your stake in the ground. I told him when they were non-negotiable said, well, you know, my schedule, and this is a weekend with my daughters. And they said, Oh, yeah, right. Sorry. But, you know, after they go to bed on Saturday night, I mean, could you work on it then? And before they wake up on Sunday mornings, like, no. My time is dedicated to them. I plan to be sleeping when they're sleeping. So, I'm up before them. So, I can make them breakfast. Now, so I can be working on our thing. So no, the answer's no. What are we supposed to tell the president of this company that wants to meet with you on Monday morning? This is we've been working for three or four months to get this meeting with them. We've got it for you. And now you're saying no, I was like, you have two options. Either I walk into that meeting cold at nine o'clock on Monday morning, or we asked him to move it to Tuesday. Now, that sounds so brash, and James, I know it sounds like oh, you know, that's so brash. It was! I was a manager; I was a new manager. And I was telling somebody that was four levels above me in the organization. Go ask for the meeting for another time. 

 

 

James Laughlin 58:30 

That's boundary enforcement at its best. 

 

Patrick Mosher 58:32 

Oh my gosh. And, and I'll tell you, too, it was non-negotiable. I did it with, you know, everything. I was scared. I was scared of getting fired. You know, but it's non-negotiable. It's like, and then I remember at the end of that meeting, I said, Look, here's the thing. I am not going to let you take 50% of my time with my daughter away from me this month. It's not going to happen. Like you're putting me in a bad situation, you know, that I was like, I know, but that's just how it is. And so they went that afternoon, you know, it was four o'clock. So, they went, and he came back and he's like, and he was a good guy. This partner was one of these, like, I feel kind of foolish to tell you this. I was like, what is it like, Tuesday was actually better for him. So, like, thank you. He's like, Yeah, so you're going to meet him for lunch on Tuesday. And, you know, it's great. So, then we have time to prep on Monday. But there's also part of this is that you know, another huge thing of that story is we've presented options and there's sometimes always option X, not just A or B that's been in front of us. And even just asking, asking is for it to be different, is important. So, I guess in that situation, you asked me a question, you know, when have you felt that you, I had a number of those kinds of situations pop up and, you know, with working on weekends. There's another whole thing that we can get into. I took three weeks off every summer, went to South Dakota, and participated in ceremonies out there. And I did that every year for 21 years. So literally, there was like, well, you don't really need to go this year, right? Oh, you can take a call while you're out there. Like, no, there are no cell phones on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. And so, you know, so those became non-negotiables too. But let me this goes back to Can I tell you another story?  

 

James Laughlin 

Please, this is great! 

 

Patrick Mosher 

So, um, and I learned that when I was a new analyst at Accenture, and I just started, and I, you know because I was an experienced higher, they didn't do a lot of those back in those days. My career counselor was the partner of my practice. And I remember asking her, I had worked there for a year, and I was like, I am working my butt off. The hours that I'm putting in are just outlandish. And I said, you know, as an analyst, I can't do the projection of what it would look like to be a partner. I just like just the hours just pile up to be bigger, you have to do bigger things, bigger projects, bigger, more people to manage bigger, more complex stuff. I was like, I will die doing this. And so, I asked Carla, I said, Carla, I need to ask you this question. How do you do it? How do you make this work? And she said I'll tell you a secret. She said, of all the years I've been here every Sunday, I see my husband, Ross. Every Sunday. I could be you know, they've sent me to Europe, they've sent me to Asia, they've sent me all over the place to do this stuff. But I've seen Russ face to face every Sunday. Either I come home, or I fly him out to me. And that's been true my whole career since I've been married to Russ. And I was like, wow, what a great example of non-negotiables of holding that line that those boundaries that are non-negotiable. Now having said that, yep. All good. Now having all of that, oh, you have to earn your ability to put those boundaries out there. 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:02:34 

Companies just don't give them to you, they don't go live. So don't walk in with an expectation, you're going to get this boundary. Like, they're going to go like, yeah, you're out, you know, and they're fast with making those decisions, as you should be too as a leader. But man, if somebody earns that, and give it to him, give it to him. I have people come to me and consultants brutal in terms of hours. And I've had people come to me and say, you know, Patrick, in four months, I have a wedding that I'm in, I'm in the wedding party. And so, I have to leave on that Thursday for the wedding. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'll be back on Monday, I was like, okay, but here's the deal with this. You have to make sure that nothing skips a beat while you're gone. You can go. So, you know, I have the power to say you can go. But man, if you leave me in a heap of trouble, that's on you, not on me. So, you got three months to prepare for that time, go get it done. And if you give that challenge to people to manage their own boundaries, and to manage their own success, ah, I can't even think of a single time where somebody didn't tee it up and go, and they left. They left that week, better than any other performance week, they had the whole rest of the project because they were just, I want to go and so they got everything, everything was lined up, ready to go. And it's just like, I didn't notice they were gone and so good. So, I learned how to do my own transitions that way, too. So, I think you know, those boundaries are important, but boundaries are earned. 

 

James Laughlin 1:04:02 

That's powerful stuff. It really is and the one thing I love about that is that part of your non-negotiables professionally was to say, hey, my role as a dad is actually incredibly important to me. And a lot of who I am is defined by that. And you stuck by it, even though the fear of possibly losing your job like no, this means the most to me, and I'm not going to budge on that. I think it's important to have those non-negotiables so that your career there are some boundaries between career and your responsibilities and desires to be a great dad or partner, or mum, whoever's listening here. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:04:39 

And, you know, to add to that, too, you know, earning those boundaries, too, I think is an important part of that. Because then, you know, the world's just not going to give those to you. And so, you have to earn those I used to tell people that call it you have to feed the monster. Sometimes I was the monster, sometimes it's the leader, I was the monster, you have to feed me. And so, part of that is like, you have to understand what success means what your clients or your boss really cares about. And you have to feed the monster to earn those boundaries, too. Yeah, that's, that's an important part of that, I think, 

 

James Laughlin 1:05:21 

Very incredible. And in terms of, you know, I look at your career, and it's just mind-blowing in terms of what you did and what you achieved. But what you're doing now, I feel like you're taking up another gear. You know, most people, have a life of careers that are counting down to retirement like curl. And it's like, you just keep stepping it up, again, in terms of what you're aiming for your vision, the impact you want to have. So, I'd love to just chat a little bit about what you're doing right now. And what your mission is. So, wisdom for humanity is right behind you, I can see it. For those of you who are listening on Apple or Spotify, you won't see that. But if you're here on YouTube, and you set wisdom for humanity, tell me what that means. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:06:01 

Oh, good. Okay. So, we've now entered the next three hours of our conversation. Yeah. So, uh, so wisdom for humanity. Let me do it this way. So, when I started my career at Accenture, in big consulting, I knew that I cared about, as I mentioned earlier, leaving a place better than when I found it. And I felt that was true on every project I was on every person that I worked with. And that's how that was. And what I loved about working in big consulting is that every project that we were on, was the top one or two projects of that company, everything that they're doing. And, and we worked with global 1000 companies exclusively. So, for me anyway. And so, the work that we did, usually ended up in their annual report, you know, the next year, somehow some way of success, hopefully, most of the time, and not all the time. But, that to me was like having that significant impact was in my DNA and in my bones and say, like, wow, and so having left Accenture after 20 and a half years, I didn't count it. But you know, I know, just one single project, I impacted 40,000 people over the course of six months. And so, millions, let's just call it millions of people impacted. And, you know, leaders out there, too, if you really think about it, that's the impact you've had, I'm not extraordinary in that sense. Because you know, most leaders have that kind of impact across 10, 15, 20, 30 years of career. So, I have that in my bones to want that kind of impact. And so, I'm probably over the last 15 years of my career, I got told so many times, Patrick, you need to write a book, you need to write a book, you need to write a book, like okay, well, I'll leave Accenture. And I'll write a book. Well, as I got into that this phase of being an entrepreneur, and by the way, just this past week, I celebrated my five-year anniversary, having left my corporate job, which I loved, by the way, but also, I love this part of my life too. And like you said, I, I felt like I lifted my game. It's like when I think of now getting to wisdom for humanity. First, let's start with wisdom, the definition of wisdom. I love words. And so, the definition of wisdom is the soundness of an act or decision based on knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Give you a pause so people can write that down. I'll say it again, wisdom is the soundness of an act or decision based on knowledge, experience, and good judgment. What I love about that, that term wisdom is that wisdom isn't something ethereal. It's not something I have. Wisdom is an act or decision. It's in the world. So that's a huge piece of this wisdom is actions and decisions. So, it's not what the Dalai Lama has in his head, or what your grandfather has in his head, or your grandmother has in her head. It's what they put out in the world. That's what wisdom is. And I like the first part of that soundness. And soundness means stable sound, really, it's sound to sound decision to sound act. But what I also like about the word soundness, it also is soundness is sound. And there's nothing more intimate than voice. Because as I'm talking, I'm shaking bones in your body, those little bones and your ears are going that's such an intimate act of I'm moving bones in your body literally. So, soundness of act or decision means that wisdom Isn't wisdom until it's shared. And I think that's huge for us. And now looking at the so what makes a good decision? Well, the definition tells you knowledge, experience, and good judgment. So, when I look at wisdom for humanity, and I think about the state of our world right now, James, we could use a little more wisdom, don't you think? 

 

James Laughlin 1:10:22 

For sure. 

 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:10:24 

People are reposting stuff that they don't do the research on. And that is terrible. That's a terrible thing to do. Because you don't know, all the research that's underneath it. People are misquoting science and science, if you know, a scientific theory is about testing hypotheses not about truth. And they're getting everybody's getting that wrong. And so now they're posting stuff out there. And science has scientific proof on both sides of an argument until there's 97 on one side and three on the other. And that takes time to figure that out. But people are picking up the three and going Well, that's true. See, here's the study. It's like, that's not what science is. So, to me, that's also not wise. Wisdom is knowledge. Do the research. Wisdom is experience? Oh, well, she can't be saying that. Well, live for 20 years in her shoes. And maybe you'd understand from her experience, why that makes sense to her. Because we don't know those things. So, experience the walk in somebody else's shoes before you make a judgment on them. And you know, I live in Minneapolis, which was the was and is the epicenter for racial injustice on the planet right now, because of what's happened here. Well, people are having that conversation, but they're not doing it. I try to understand as much as we can bring, you know, with the white privilege I've lived with, of understanding the black experience, before I make any statements or judgments about it. I don't know what it's like. So let me talk to a bunch of people to understand their experience. And the last one is good judgment. And what good judgment literally means is to consider widespread, diverse options, before making a judgment. That's what good judgment is. So, you don't make a snap judgment. That's not wise. So, if we made our decisions with knowledge, experience, and good judgment, and our world would be evolving, we would be evolving as humanity. And so, when I say wisdom for humanity, now you're getting the gist of how these things are linked together. And if we just had more wisdom, in this world, our humanity would evolve. So, one of the things that are really important, when you talk about wisdom for humanity, and a movement, because I consider it a movement, it's not a business, it's not a dream, it's not a wish it's a movement. Then when you think about a movement, what are you fighting for? And what are you fighting against them? So let me go wisdom for humanity. It's a number four, for the listeners out there, and wisdom for humanity. What am I fighting for? Well, the number four has significance to me because James, you, and I share an Irish heritage. I have on my father's side, we're all Irish. And so, my great great grandmother, on my father's side, Ellen Hurley stood on a dock in Chile, in 1859, at 11 years old, and got on a boat and came to America. Now. What's not known is that those are the same boats used in those times as slave boats, they bring the Irish over, and they pack them pretty much the same as they did the slaves. I think I read someplace that the mortality rate on those trips was like 11%. So, your chance of dying was high. Now can you imagine being 11 years old, standing on a dock? And James, maybe you know this better than I have stories in my head about how this is but um, you may not have spoken English, you might have been Irish, by chance. Yep. So, she's standing on a dock, she's got a bag in her hand with all her belongings I want you to if you're a listener, you're 11 years old. Remember when you were 11. And you got a bag in your hand your parents by your side, and you step off a dock to go to a place where they don't speak your language. And by the way, in 1859 and a couple of short years, we were in the Civil War. So, in a tumultuous so you thought you were leaving something horrible, and you're walking into something that looks just as horrible. And by the way, the Irish were treated very badly during the Civil War. And at 15 She was married she had five Kids. Thank you, Ellen Hurly because I exist. And I think about her. And I think wow, there's my there are four generations back, Ellen Hurley, thank you. Thank you for living the life you did. Thank you for living through the trials and tribulations you did. And I know that if Ellen Hurley walked through my front door today, she'd wonder how I became the king of Ireland. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:15:28 

Not that I live in a palatial you know, place or anything like that. But she got like, hot running water. Are you kidding me? And I get to sleep. Are you kidding me? And there's heat. And you know, she'd be like wonders over some basic things that we just take for granted. She'd be like, can I just take a bath for like an hour? It's like, yeah, go do it. You know, it's like, oh, I bet you never had that. You know, dirt floors probably I don't know. But wow. So, you know, we have such an abundance versus what they had back then. So, I look back and I say, there's so much wisdom to gain from their stories that made us who we are, that's in our DNA, that we should learn from those things, wisdom, gather their wisdom, their stories, and pull that forward. And now I have what I can have those. Now, here's the magic of this story, which is just crazy to me. Great Grandma. Yeah. So, then I look at my granddaughter, I have a granddaughter named Maddie. Maddie's grandchildren are as far away from me, as Ellen Hurley's. Wow. I have as much ability to impact my great grandchildren's lives, as Ellen Hurley is made for me. Pay it forward, folks. That's our job. So, what is wisdom for humanity, it's building a better world for future generations. And if you want, if you want to put a stake in the ground, for generations forward, look in your grandchildren's eyes, if you have them, look in your children's eyes, whatever, and say, I want to build a better world for them. That's why I think of my clients, or my customers are not James, you and me and the people around me, it's looking at my granddaughter and saying, I want a better world for her grandchildren. So, they're sitting at her knee. And they're asking her stories about what it was like to live through the pandemic. And maybe just maybe one of her stories will be, you know, one of the things I carry forward is the courage and my papa. And I really value that. And if I can, if I can give her story or give her some values, some things that I gave to her mom that they passed along to her job done. But the work is not done folks. It just isn't done. Was it for humanity, I mean, you know, there's a lot of stuff kicking up in the world right now and people go like, oh, things are so terrible? I'm so optimistic about things right now. Because it doesn't mean that things are good. It just means that things are moving. In, we're in a moment of evolution. We're evolving as humanity. And I've got data to prove it. We're evolving as humanity. And every decision you make every action you take makes a difference the legacy you're building with your children, but also with your work and your business. So, I love to work with people who have monstrous ambitions of changing the world, changing the way people work and live. And in doing that, they change that for future generations. I like forward-thinking people they're not just trying to make money. And they're not just trying to do something to solve for today. But they're doing something to solve huge human issues. today. We're here with people that are working on diversity and inclusion. Man, we're, we're novices is that. So, let's lean into helping those people do their work. And figure out what it means to respect all individuals no matter, race, gender, you know, anything. Let's just lean into like equality. Let's lean into harmony, living in harmony with nature. Let's have a planet where my great-granddaughter can like breathe the air and eat the food. Simple things. 

 

James Laughlin 1:19:33 

That's so inspiring. I feel the goosebumps just thinking about your mission that you're on. And it is a mission that you're on and you've got this movement, just building. And I love that it's intrinsic. It's very spiritual. I think of it like human needs psychology that often. We're trying to find the right career or we're trying to find the nicer neighborhood. And we're always up in these basic human needs. Have certainty, variety, significance, and connection. And we're trying to meet those. But you're at a place, you're in a spiritual needs realm where you're looking at contribution and growth. And that's what you're focused on, is so many people Patrick struggled to actually get there in life, they struggled to get to the point where they can start to emulate a better future to create a better realm for their grandchildren. So, for someone who's struggling, just to figure out what their purpose is, what they're here for, you have any advice for them to start to either go deeper and reflect and kind of unpack why they're here and what their purpose might be? 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:20:38 

Sure. Okay, did we do this again? Okay, another three hours in front of us. Okay. So, this is that's a great question. And you know, how to lean into what your life purpose is. Again, I think it comes down to, you know, what is that DNA, that that's, you know, encoded in you pay attention to that. One of the things that that I loved like a partner, in the last part of my career, is, you know, the executives, we'd get together and they'd go like, oh, yeah, don't you just hate the millennials. Yeah, they're just hard to work with. Oh, they're so entitled, oh, yeah, I saw that. And I'd be like, stop. Stop talking like that. Like, what do you mean, it's like? Well, first of all, if you want to go to labels like that, I'm a baby boomer. Now, I am a late baby boomer. But do you think all baby boomers have the exact same value structures? So, stop labeling millions of people in one category, because I think they're a little bit more diverse than that. They probably have a lot of different thoughts and ideas than that. So back off of like naming Millennials a thing. Secondly, what I would say is, as a baby boomer, I'll go there is that, you know, when I grew up, my dad, you know, would say jump in, I'd asked how high. That's how we grew up, I get that. But now, when I say jump, these younger professionals go, why? Not how high? And you know, what, if you get frustrated with them asking why, that's your problem, not theirs. In fact, I loved working with young professionals that had that attitude. Because it forced me to reach in and go, what is mine why? What am I here doing with this client and with this team, and with this project? And so, I think that was really important to do that. And to get back to describing the big why do people as Simon Sinek would say, and I look at that, and I go, that actually helps us roll on our toes to understand what's behind all these things. And, and I think, the more that people ask that question, I get back to Wisdom for Humanity, we're going to evolve because we're going to be answering those questions with what we do. So let me give you a story of that. And I love telling the story. So, I was doing a big project at, and I can say it now because a long enough ago, but I was doing a project at Best Buy, which is large electronics, in the US and in Canada. And I was in charge of the post-merger integration of Best Buy with Future Shop in Canada. So, they had decided to buy a company to go into Canada. So, I was in charge of the integration of that company, which is a big deal. And I had 22 people, I think on my project. And I remember one night on Wednesday evening, we had our progress meetings, and people would come into the meeting that night. And if you're a leader, you know how this goes. Nobody made eye contact with me. Sat down, no eye contact, no eye contact. And then my program leads said, well, we're going to start with real estate. You know, we had four open issues we close to there were three new open issues this week. Real Estate, you want to start real estate said Well, you know, there's still some contention or it's okay, just stop, stop. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:24:20 

And I said, okay, everybody, put your books and papers aside and just sit in your chair. Get comfortable. Close your eyes. We take a deep breath. I did, and nobody knew what was going on. It's like this is so weird. And I said um, so Best Buy has put a $1.6 billion crown jewel in the hands of the 22 people in this room. The only way that they're going to expand is they've saturated the market in the US not going to build more stores in the US, they can only do it through merchandising. So, the only way to expand this with a geographic footprint is to go into another country. So, they brought the game to Canada. And so, there's $1.6 billion on the line. And they thought so much of us that they put it in your hands. But I'll tell you this, I don't really care that much about how much money that this is going to put in Accenture's coffers. And I really don't care how much money this is going to put in Best Buy's coffers. And I really don't care about the margin on you know, for the future shop, either whether they're going to make a good deal out of this or not. But I do care about in about eight months, there's going to be a mom in Toronto. And her daughter's going to ask for an electronic gizmo. And she knows that that's going to really make her happy. And we are going to open a store. That's 20 minutes from her home, on our way home from work, she's going to stop in that store. She's going to buy that gizmo and on Christmas Day, that girl's going to open that present. That girl's going to hug her mom, say this is the best Christmas ever. That's what makes me wake up on Monday mornings to do this project, I want you to pack up, I want you to think about what your reason for being here is to go home. And I want to see it small, bright, and ready to go and have fire in your belly while we're doing. I can say I still have friends from that project, because they're like, I remember that meeting. 

 

James Laughlin 1:26:51 

That's amazing Patrick, I want to be in that meeting, I want to be working with you that's just amazing. It again goes very deeply intrinsic and very spiritual. Like you connect this, you've got this big corporate world, you're leading these big projects, but you bring it right down to a human level. And I love that humanity comes first. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:27:13 

It does, it does. And here's what I with executives that we don't do with our people in and please, you know, write this one down. If you're listening to this, we don't sell our projects to our people. To our teams, we don't sell it to them, we should work as hard on selling our projects, to our team members, and to our contractors and our collaborators as much as we do our clients and our customers. Because they are the ones that have to care about the most, to produce something that's world-class for them. And they have to understand what that is. And part of that as a good leader is just because I have that value of this mom with her child doesn't mean everybody in the room is going to have that same one, that same vision, that same thing that puts fire in their belly, maybe it's something else. But I wanted to give them role model something that said, here's something that I hang on to. And then part of a leader is trying to understand the 22 people, what are you hanging on to? What's the thing that puts fire in your belly. And you know what, honestly, if you say it's promotion and money, I'm not the best leader for you. Because honestly, I didn't rise that fast through the ranks. Because I didn't care. And I didn't make the most money of the people I worked with. Because I didn't care. But I did care about is delighting my customers, what I did care about is creating solutions that enriched the human experience on the planet. Those are the things that really matter. So, reach into your gut, that's my long-winded answer to say, reach into your gut and find out what your why is what puts fire in your belly? What makes you afterward cry about an experience you have with a customer that crack is a bad thing, just like magic, which has to happen now. You know and then repeat that over and over again. That's, that's finding your purpose. And you all have had that if you're listening to this podcast, you've had that experience I have to do is kind of string those pearls together and look at the common thread the thread that went through them and said, this is the purpose that went through these things. This is what created those men that magic and each of those experiences and then puff on that and unpack that more and more. And you're going to find out year over year, decade over decade, that you're going to find out where that magic comes from and then you're going to be able to replicate it so much easier, the further you are getting your career. 

 

James Laughlin 1:29:49 

What great advice that's beautiful, that's beautiful. And I think about that, and what comes to mind is the quality of one's life directly correlates to the quality of the questions that you ask yourself. If I was to spend time with you, so if I'm listening to you right now, and I'm thinking well that fits quite amazing, which would be true. And I want to work with Patrick to help me uncover my purpose and to make an impact on my community, my family, and humanity. How can you help me? So, what is that you do? Patrick, I know that the wisdom council, you've told me personally about the wisdom council, that you host and run, and it's just phenomenal. So, let's share it with everyone that's listening. what that's all about that journey. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:30:37 

Oh, what it's all about. Okay. So, here we go again. So, wisdom council. So, when I think about wisdom for humanity, and I think about a wisdom council, um, first of all, and this sounds strange to emphasize this part. But in the Native American culture, particularly the Lakota people, when they met if you can imagine they met in a teepee to make their big decisions. And in what shape did they meet? Answer that for me, James, what shape did they meet in? 

 

James Laughlin 1:31:11 

I imagine circular 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:31:13 

Circle, because they sat like on the outside of the ring around a fire in the middle of the thing, say sat in a circle. Now that sounds odd that it's like that's important. But what happens with a circle is that there is no hierarchy. There's no one above somebody else. There's not a long end of the table, there's not the end of the table. That leader doesn't sit this year, everybody in a circle is of equal footing. So first of all, my wisdom councils, but I wanted to repeat is like, if we're going to talk about wisdom, and talk about wisdom for humanity. The first thing is we meet in a circle. And so, everybody has a voice at that table. So important to get that, you know, right for me. And when you deal with these big issues that we deal with, if it was for humanity. And so, wisdom council. And then the other part of this, and there is a story here salt palette, is when I was a partner, and we were in Newcastle, England, we had just done a big proposal at a project to a client. And there were five of us in a pub. And I think that's where I learned what is it blood sausages? 

 

James Laughlin 1:32:20 

Yeah, yeah. Sort of like black pudding? 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:32:23 

Black pudding. That's where I learned black pudding. And so, it was like, Oh, really? Okay. So, we're, we're sitting there. And I remember Rob was with us. And he was old. I mean, he was like, like, almost 50. And so, you know, we were talking, he's like, Yeah, I'm going to retire. We're like, oh Rob, what are you going to do after you retire? And he's like, well, I've already started this. But what I want to do is I want to go to places on the planet, and I want to do the best parties in the world. So, he had already done Oktoberfest in Munich. And he'd already done, what is it a carnival in New Orleans? And he'd been to Rio de Janeiro. And so, he'd been done these big things. But he wanted to do a Chinese New Year in Beijing because he wanted to go to all these places that had these big parties. And I thought to myself, I can't think of anything worse than partying with a lot of crowds in those places. But what I do like about that, is that going to a place every year? Well, he retired in the next year. And in fact, he died a year later after that. It was often an urban myth that the average death age of a partner was 52. You died at 52. So, there are those kinds of things that just go like, oh, maybe that is true. So, when I was getting ready to leave my big job at Accenture, I took that to honor Rob, and even mentioning him now is honoring him. I want it to go to a place someplace on your planet of yours but for me, what resonates with me is I wanted to go to a sacred place on the planet every year to visit a new sacred place. Because I've been to Stonehenge. And when I went to Stonehenge, and I know that sounds kind of weird, but when I went to Stonehenge, and I heard the old ones speaking, I just I, I kind of felt them. Somehow, the ancient people were there. And so, I said, I wanted to do that, to visit these sacred places. Well, no, you mentioned that too. You know, I was a new entrepreneur when I was talking to people about it, and they're like, we're going to take people with you, and I was like, what do you mean? I was going to do this on my own. I was like, no, people would like would love to go with you on this and give your spiritual background, your business background. They would want to go to these places with you. I was like, okay, so the first year in 2018, we went to my Machu Picchu, Peru, and I did a four-day wisdom council there. And Machu Picchu is where the Incans lived and in Machu Picchu is this great big mystery, because, in about 1450, they abandoned it for some reason, nobody knows why. So, to go, there was just tremendous. And it was discovered or rediscovered in the early 1900s. And so, since then it's become, you know, this, this place, the spiritual place where people go. Well, I took people there. And my belief with that is, again, wisdom for humanity is that if you're going to repurpose revision, your life doing that Machu Picchu, you're going to come up with a different answer, then in the basement of a Marriot in Omaha, Nebraska. I'm just saying, I think you're going to have different molecules firing in your brain differently, where you're going to go like, oh, and when you're touching those stones, and Machu Picchu, and you're going to get inspired to do something big. So, we went to Machu Picchu with these people, and it was a tremendous experience. And I'll share one of the things I was talking to our guide. And I said, you know, I don't know the Quechuan language, which was the language of the Incans. So, I've traveled all over the world and then having worked, you know, across six continents in the world, I would go into a room, and they would switch to English, which always humbled me, because I'm in Spain, and I can't speak Spanish. So, they switched to English for me, and they do it so cordially, and I just feel so humbled by that. So, I said, so I always went in and asked, how do you say the word friend in your language? Let me at least know how you say the word, friend. And she said, let me call my dad. So, she pulls out her cell phone, which I thought was tremendous, right? We're in the middle of Machu Picchu, and Machu Picchu. If you've ever been there, it's like walking through like a chapel. And that's Machu Picchu was thriving with kids running around stuff. So, I didn't see it that way. But anyway, she's calling her dad. And given my background, I didn't see her calling her dad. I saw her accessing the elders. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:37:21 

Because she didn't know quite the answer to this question. So, she's talking to dad. I asked her what friend meant and or what the word for a friend was. And how do you say thank you? So, she got off the phone. And she came back to me, and she said we didn't have the word friend in Quechuan. Really? She was like, no because that would mean we'd have the word enemy. We didn't have that either. 

 

James Laughlin 1:37:50 

Wow. That's amazing. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:37:53 

Can you imagine? Can you take our culture today? Can you imagine not having a word for a friend because you don't have a word for the enemy? It's powerful. Wow. Mind-blowing. Yeah. How do you live that way? How do you give that way? I mean, it's just so huge that my mind just started going like wrapping myself around that and I was like, okay, um, oh, and her name was Natalie. So, Natalie then what would you call me? She was like, oh, I call you uncle. Like, ah, the Lakota people on Pine Ridge Reservation have a phrase and I told this to her. I said they have a phrase. It's Mitakuye Oyasin. Mitakuye Oyasin means we are all related. And when I go out there amongst the people that know me and know my spirit among them, they call me uncle. Amazing. So, they'll call me a friend. They call me brother or uncle because we're all related. Imagine and when I told Natalie that story, she goes like, yes! Right? This was a connection of ancient wisdom connecting them from 3000 miles apart. But they were still common. There's this common wisdom that we have to go collect from these places. So going to Machu Picchu, huge learning there. So that's what wisdom council is, are we go to these places, and not only talk to each other about our own vision and revisions, and not only our own, like challenges that we have, whether they be spiritual challenges, or business challenges, which I dealt with for 30 years, or I'm a certified high-performance coach coaching personal development issues, you know, whatever they are, let's put them in the mix and work them but work them in Machu Picchu, with these kinds of wisdom coming in. They're life-changing. So, this coming year in 2022. We're going to go to Delphi, Greece. Throughout Delphi, Greece, where the Delphi Oracle did her work, the Delphi, in a very matriarchal culture, the ancient Greek society was very patriarchal. The Delphi Oracle was considered the most powerful mortal female on the planet. So, imagine being 15 feet away, where the Oracle, it's recorded that she gave Aristotle advice on philosophy. She gave advice to Alexander the Great before he conquered the world. This is how powerful they felt this, this priestess was there, and imagine going to Delphi, and maybe if you just had that sense that she's there, what question would you ask her? Because you get once in lifetime question. What's that question? And you know what, what I love about that archetype is the Delphi Oracle, which is that we are faced with Delphi Oracle questions all the time. When you go to your boss, what are you going to ask? When you go to the CEO what are you going to ask? When you go to your customer what are you going to ask? What are you going to ask for? How are you going to craft that question? To be most effective for everybody involved is a win, win, win. And those questions, craft those carefully. So that's what we're going to talk about in Delphi is those questions, and we're going to share our answers with each other. So that's wisdom council. And every year we go to a different sacred place on the planet. I'm not going to share where the next couple is going to be. But amazing. But let's just focus on Delphi. And then we went to Ireland as well. But I will tell a bunch of stories about that, James, you and I should talk about Ireland sometime. 

 

James Laughlin 1:41:45 

We will definitely need to do that. But if somebody is listening right now, and they're going, I need to know more like I want to know more about wisdom council. Can I qualify to be a part of that? Am I the right fit? Where do they go to find out that? 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:41:57 

Yes, so great question. First of all, my wisdom councils are 12 people only. So, I'm not packing a lot of people in a room, this is to sit in a circle, I got to find a room big enough to put 12 People in a circle. And then if the room doesn't hold it, then then you know, I got to find a different room, because it's 12 people or less. And we've had as few as six people in the circle, which I think is fabulous. So, it doesn't really matter how many people it's more about the quality of the people in the room. And so, when I look at that, so the wisdom councils have, I do have a very heavy screen on that just to be open about that I have an application. And then you know, I'll interview you maybe once or twice, to see if you qualify to come. Because what I want is to make sure that everybody has chemistry with each other, and that we have the right mix of people in the room that we can really grow from each other. So, if you want to find out more, there are a couple of ways to do that. One is to I have a website called wisdomcouncil.live. It's just wisdomcouncil.live. So, you know, you can go out there and learn more there. You can reach out to me directly if you want to. And I'm sure you'll have this in the show notes for sure. Absolutely. Oh, no, it's but it's [email protected]. So that's easy to get to me that way. And if you just want to gosh, I just want to have a conversation go like, look, I don't know if I want to sign up for all this stuff. But this guy sounds intriguing. Let's have an intriguing conversation. And just reach out to me and we'll set up some time to chat. 

 

James Laughlin 1:43:28 

I love it. Amazing. And I can tell you now if you're listening, and you get the opportunity to reach out and chat to Patrick, you're in for a special moment. I've every time I've sat and chatted with you, Patrick, I've learned something. I've become more aware of my own thoughts and where I'm headed. So, what you do the work you do is special work. It's powerful work. And I just want to ask you a question always ask us towards the end of our podcast, and that is if you were to give some advice to your let's say your grandchildren. And they come up and say Hey, popper. So how do we lead a life of purpose? What would your answer be to them? 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:44:08 

Oh, James. Okay. This is so good. All right. So, I'm going to answer that question with a challenge. So, here's the thing. Oh, this is so good. I'm so delighted to answer this question. So, wisdom for humanity. If I look four generations back, even my parents, my grandparents and my great grandparents, my great-great-grandparents, their lives are so under-documented. Um, after World War Two in Western society, at least in America, you went to the American dream. So up until then, my father grew up in South Side Chicago, Irish Catholic community He grew up around his great uncles, his uncle's, his grandfather, his, you know, all of them, they lived in this Irish neighborhood. And there, you know, Saturday night, the stories would come up, and they would tell their stories. And that's how things wisdom got passed down. But after World War Two, my dad took us four children and moved to Cincinnati where the job was a better job, which is great. But I didn't have the privilege of the way of being around my grandparents, my uncle's my great uncles that that Irish heritage of mine, so I never heard the stories never heard, I heard a couple from my dad, but not from my dad's brother, and my dad's sister and their kids and all that we didn't want to have all that. So, in a sense, I feel one of the things that I'm desperate about, is that we've cracked that connection with our history. That's sad to me. So, one of the challenges I have, if you're listening, is to if your parents are still alive, ask them questions to tell stories of their life, grab those family values get really good. I think of myself, as an elder whisper, I love to talk to elders, and get the good juicy stories out of them. And then record them, get them to put down and put them into the world somehow. So, here's so that's one thing they're under-documented. Now I have three grandkids, two boys and a girl. And I look at them and their life is so over documented, it's scary. You know, my oldest grandchild, grandson's birthday, there's like, one person took 1000 pictures, and there were 30 of us, there were probably 30,000 pictures of his first birthday. And there are pictures of him here, here, here, here, you're here, you know, it's just like, it's terrible. Right? And, and so one of the things that they're going to have to sift through is how to condense and precipitate their important stories. Because there's so over documented with so much video and pictures and stuff and, and digital footprint that they have, that they're so over a document is they're going to figure that out. But we, James, we're at this weird precipice of so lacking behind us and so much ahead of us. So, I've talked to this with a few people that can't believe you asked this question. So, because I would have put it to you anyway, is so people look at digital media as evil or harsh or whatever. It's like there's technology is amoral. It's what we do with it that makes it amoral or not. So, I'm an analytics geek. And somebody asked me what, how would you define analytics? I said, well, data is like a loaded gun on the table. Analytics is the intention of the person who picks up the gun. When we have analytics, be very wary of what the intention is of the person that's analyzing data, because they're going to use it either to enrich the human experience or control it. Wow, you got to know the difference. So, I digress. Analytics is another Geekdom that I have. But anyway, we'll go back to this question. So, then here's this thing about what would I tell my grandchildren? Well, this challenge got put to me, and I think this is a challenge I'll put out to your people, and then I'll answer it for you. Is Brendon Burchard person that we study from once gave his mastermind this challenge. He said, what if there is a person who is going to save the world? They're going to save the world. And they've been through all the training they were trained by Dalai Lama's they were trained in you know, all the martial arts. They were trained in gymnastics, they were trained in, you know, they've done the shaman work, they've done all this work. And this person has been crafted to save the world. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:49:01 

And you are the last station the last learning booth, the last thing they're going to learn before they get put out into the world. In three minutes. What are you going to tell him? That's the question you just asked me. And you know what, here's the beautiful thing about this. If you shoot that video, today, each of you that's a video your great, great-grandchildren can watch. That's the power of technology that we have today. If you're not around your grandchildren, hey, shoot that video. Because that's something that you can pass on that might be the most important video digital asset that you leave behind the legacy you have is the video of you are the chosen one. And if you shoot that video, send it to my post on YouTube, send me a link to it. I'll take a look at it because I want to know what you're about that Probably the most succinct way to say this is what it's all about. Okay, so you asked me this question, James, I gave you a lot of context to my answer. But here's my answer. And I believe everybody should have. And think about this as what are your three core philosophies. And we can have a 10-20 of those things like, that's great. But if you had to really boil it down to three core philosophies, what are they? So, I'm going to share with you mine, and this is what my you are the chosen one video kind of would sound like the first one that I have, is to learn continuously and deeply. So, learn, learn as the keyword there, learn continuously and deeply, you're going to face so many difficulties. And it's in the most difficult times where you're going to learn the most. And you're going to have a lot of wins. But you know, what, just don't celebrate the wins, but learn from the wins, too. Because that's how you're going to evolve as a human being how you're going to learn those multiple leadership traits to apply to each situation is by learning deeply and continuously through successes and failures. And through spinning at the branch and the road that you don't choose. Either way, you're going to be like, wow, I shouldn't be doing that. But those are all those learnings. And each of those learnings is a gem, every time you learn, pack one of those gems into your back pocket because then put those in your backpack because those learnings carry those four with you. So, learn continuously and deeply. That's the first one. And the second two have to do with what I believe are the two obligations we have on this planet from cradle to grave. And it's pretty simple. We've talked a lot about them all around these today, James, the first obligation is to take that DNA that you are gifted with that unique DNA, that unique you that authentic you. And that was a gift of birth. And take that, that talents that you are and hone and shape that continuously. So you got to learn deeply and continuously, you got to, you got to, you got to take that, that talent that you are, and shape it. Then the second obligation is to put it out in the world where you shine the most. Oh, that sounds great. No, that's really hard to take that talent as you are, and overcome the fears that we talked about earlier, the courage to put that where it shines most is also going into that uncomfortable zone most of the time. Because you're on that edge all the time. Now you've got to replenish that talent, you got to do that. But you've got to do, you got to put it out there and shine the most because that's what evolution means. That's what mean you Being human means. So, learn deeply, continuously. Shine boldly. And the third one is to live 100% empowered. Don't ever let anybody take your power away from you. And you have that power with you all the time. You've decided exactly where you are. Even if a tree came through this crashing through the roof right now, I'm not a victim of that tree branch. Because I decided myself be standing right here. And at that moment, the universe is perfect as it is decided it was my time. Okay, then. But I didn't have to give that away. So always live 100% of the power. So, the three are 100% in power, learn deeply and in and continuously. And then put that talent in the world where it shines boldly. Those are the three that I would send that I have shot that video for my grandchildren to pass along. And that's what I hope my great-grandchildren look at. 

 

James Laughlin 1:53:52 

Stunning, you put so much thought so much human spiritual thought into that. And I hope if you're listening to this right now, please take the time to think about that. What is the lesson the value the principle of philosophy that you want to pass on to your grandchildren and beyond? So, Patrick, I just want to say a massive, massive thank you for taking the time to share your wisdom with everyone here on the podcast. 

 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:54:16 

Well, I'll leave you with this. I call it, it's like it's math. It's just math. If you look at where we are, and if you and I can change the trajectory of one person's life by .05 degrees we've changed the world that person will be in a different universe you will be in a different universe in 10 years because you just took one thing from today and change something. We've already changed the world, James. As I said before, if you can impact 10 You can impact a million. 

 

James Laughlin 1:54:55 

Stunning, I love it. Thank you so much. There have been so many nuggets that I will be going back and listening to this personally and taking down notes. And I hope that everyone else that's listening has taken down some gems, and then act upon those. There's one thing, listening passively, then there's another thing to act upon those and embody those. So, Patrick, you're a special human and so honored to be connected with you. 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:55:17 

Thank you, James. So glad that we could find each other. Of course, we found each other across how many miles away apart? 

 

James Laughlin 1:55:23 

Yeah, like seven and a half thousand? 

 

Patrick Mosher 1:55:26 

Exactly. So, but of course, we found each other. So, thank you, and thank you to your listeners for listening today. And again, as James said, you know, change the world build a better world for future generations. That's what we're here to do. 

 

James Laughlin 1:55:41 

I love it. Thanks, buddy.  

 

Patrick Mosher 

Thank you, James.  

 

James Laughlin  

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button. And I'd love it if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders. It's that time to get out there and to lead your life on purpose.