Redefining Success: Identity, Presence, And Impact

What if optimizing your life is displacing the life you truly want? Leadership speaker Sean Patton, a West Point graduate and former Army Special Forces officer, offers a values-driven approach to success, where true outcomes are the result of integrity. He illustrates two principles: maximize your experience of living and your positive impact on others, and avoid the productivity trap. By fatherhood, family traditions, and The Warrior’s Mindset of gratitude, discipline, perseverance, and purpose, he encourages us to elevate our standard of being in the most important places.

Transcript

Meet Sean Patton

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hi everyone, welcome to the Jugling Entrepreneurship Podcast. Today we have an awesome guest. His name is Sean Patton. He is uh a leadership coach with Novus Global, working with elite performance founders and executives. He helps high achievers build sustainable business without sacrificing family, health, and its values. Sean brings a powerful blend of discipline, clarity, and real-world leadership experience. Beyond business, he's a devoted father who believes leadership starts at home. Today he joins No Leadership. Um I think today he also has a no leadership podcast. And uh we are going to talk about his amazing life uh with a beautiful blend of work-life balance, which have no limits. So welcome, Sean.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Okay. So I gave a little bit of introduction about you. Do you want to add anything more?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Um, well, I think that my uh my journey in in leadership, it really started in the military. So I spent four years at the military academy at West Point and then 10 years as an active duty officer in the infantry and Army Special Forces. And so uh there was that was a a season of life that was very busy, very intense, and I feel like I crammed, you know, a lifetime of leadership lessons into that. And so it's been this uh interesting transformation over the last 10, 11 years of how to take those experiences and then gain my own experiences in business as an entrepreneur and transform myself um to see what I'm capable of in this new role.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

That is super exciting. So let's start um a little bit discussion of your journey from uh military and how it actually shaped you for your further steps into entrepreneurship and even coaching um the elite performers.

Identity Over Tactics

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah, absolutely. So in the military, uh there was so much about that that was uh has informed how I how I move forward as a leader, how I uh show up for my clients, how I run my companies. Uh and what's really interesting is that what I found on the leadership side at least is every major leadership development program that I went through in the military, whether that was at West Point or as an officer training or it didn't matter. I mean, and honestly, even back at like as a kid, like as an eagle, as an Eagle Scout, as a Boy Scout, leadership always started with values, right? It started with character. And if there's anything I I've seen moving forward, it's carrying that ideal forward working with my clients. It's something I see, to be honest, like missing in a lot of companies when it comes to quote unquote leader development or management development. It's all these external things. It's like, how do you impact this? How do you get people motivated here? What's the compensation plan? And it's like, no, no, no, no. Who are you? What are you trying to accomplish? What's your identity? How do you want to show up? What are your values? And that character component uh has to come first. The identity has to inform our doing and our our goals. And so that of all the things in the military, I mean, it's informed me in in so many ways, but I think that foundational concept of a a leader is not a thing you do, it's not a position, it's not a title, it's a person you become, and you have to become a person that other smart, dedicated, and driven people want to follow. And so, what does that look like? So it all starts with identity.

Redefining Real Success

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Identity and the character building, as you said, very core um pillars. Um, that and it's very um sad to see the definition of success, have they defined, right? Uh whether it's in entrepreneurship or um whether it's outside, even from the high schooler to the undergrad to people who want to be entrepreneurs or incorporate world. Um what defines success for you? What lessons that you have learned about this true leadership and how a leader can define the success, not by numbers, but also what is a true success for a leader? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

It's a really great question. And I think we can look at it sort of two ways. So, like when I look at what how do I define success, you know, for myself, or how do I think we should look at defining success as an individual? And you know, to your point, what I'm hearing is that so much of that outward success is what we look at, right? We look at the, you know, the bigger house or the money in the bank account or the fast car or you know, you're up on a main stage, or people are following you, and so whatever it is like that people are looking up to and defining as success. And, you know, working with so many high performers, successful entrepreneurs and and executives, I'll tell you a lot of those people are completely miserable. And so is that success, right? I mean, I is is success uh worth$10 million, but your kids don't talk to you? Is you know, success uh, you know, being completely financially dependent at 50, but having, you know, be on your fourth marriage? Like what how do you define success? Um and and what is real success as an individual? And what I've come down to are what I call my two maxims. And so these are sort of like the filter of success that I try to view every decision and also my identity as I as I move through life of defining success. And intentionally it's not set in stone. Intentionally, it's it's it's vague, which is to maximize my own experience of life and maximize my positive impact on others. And it's a it's it's a balance, right? We go through different seasons of life where maybe we're taking, maybe we are more of a caretaker, maybe we are more giving and providing and and uh and and pouring out of ourselves in service of others in a certain season or in a moment. But there has to be a balance of also how are you taking care of yourself and how are you um so much, especially in this country, we are obsessed with our value coming from the doing, coming from productivity, and especially in the entrepreneur world, right? We get rewarded for doing and being productive and getting things done and marketing off the checklist and and we just keep going, keep going, keep going. And the whole time we we can go through our entire lives chasing the next doing, the next thing, and never actually being present and like maximizing and appreciating the moment of life we have. And and the problem is that if we're always working to achieve a thing so that we can get somewhere tomorrow, that tomorrow never comes, right? So you're not actually enjoying today. So I think for most probably people listening, they they can get on board with maybe maximizing their impact on others, right? They can get on board with like, I wanna, I wanna, I'm gonna have this impact in my community, or I want to accomplish these things, or I want to build this thing. Um, but it's at sometimes we completely neglect this other side, which is if you believe there is inherent value in being alive, if you have reverence for being alive for this moment, then how are you showing that reverence? Is it by just doing stuff or is it by actually sitting in that? So I think for me, that's that's the key is like how do we balance and look through these two maxims of maximizing my own experience of life and maximizing my impact on others and constantly having them sort of in in interplay with each other?

Presence And Balancing Impact

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Yeah, uh I think Sean, you have a very good point, not many people talk about when it comes to leadership. Um, it's not just the character, but living in the present, enjoying the present, prioritizing the present based on the necessity and prioritization, what family um uh is required, um, what work is required, what your uh you know, family and friends and extended circle require. Uh, not many people talk about it, and that's very, very unique and great about what you have uh raised. Uh really thankful for that. Um so let's so let's let's um jump into the most exciting chapter, you being a parent. And um, how did how did how did that um transform you or how did that change your thought process and how did that actually inspire you being in an entrepreneurship uh journey?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

In so many ways. Uh so many ways, right? And I am I'm a new father, so my son just turned one, and so you know, I tell people all the time I'm I feel like I'm just transitioning from the just keep them alive phase of parenting to actually parenting. Like I'm I'm happy to actually like say no every once in a while now and you know and and deal with that. And it it's been amazing, but you know what is interesting, there's if I had to, I'm happy to go over all the different aspects of this. I would say what it's really done for me is it's brought me to a place where I can more confidently stand, or I feel even more responsibility to stand on what to say no to. Like there's, you know, before it I would always I would say yes to like I can always work a little more, or I could always do this other project, or I could always take on this other thing. And it was and it was uh unfortunately hard for me sometimes to put barriers around that because I could always just go and go and add and do more and do more and do more. And and now with you know, looking at you know my son and and and my time with my my wife, but us together as a family is I value that so much that I have to now look at when I say yes to things, like what is gonna, what's the cost of that? There's a whole new cost to saying yes. There's a whole new cost to travel for work. I travel a lot for work. So, like that used to be uh uh, you know, traveling to doing a speaking event or uh or or travel to go visit a client. And, you know, a day away from your wife or two, you know, it's it's hard. We'd miss each other, we'd FaceTime and do all that. But now it's a whole new level of, well, now I'm not showing up as a father in those moments. And what's the cost of that? So I think for me, what has you know, I would say it's it's two things. It's that, it's it's forced me to or put me in a place where I really stand firmer on focusing on like what's most important and what's gonna, what is gonna get me the best outcomes and what's the ROI and how to kind of get rid of the noise. So it's helped me focus a bit. Um, and the other thing I would say is that, you know, it didn't, it didn't shift really any of my my vision or my goals of what I was trying to accomplish, like, or even you know, taking something as simple as like going to the gym and working out or taking care of my health. I'm still gonna do that. I was doing that before. Uh, I still valued it. But the so the goal there didn't change, but the reason behind it completely shifted. So the paradigm of why, the why behind I'm doing all those things now, you know, I I I like to say when it comes to leadership, it's leader when you decide to put on the identity, the mantle of leadership of a leader, you start holding yourself to a higher standard of being. Like if you think about it even uh in a business setting, you think if you think if if I said think of a manager and think of a leader, you're thinking of different people.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Right? And if and if you decide I'm gonna be a manager, you're gonna hold yourself to one standard. If you say I'm a leader of other people, I'm gonna hold yourself to a different standard. And so when you step up, I think, into parenthood, you really step into like a new level of leadership of the family unit. And so how I show up, the example I set is now well, it's not just about me staying in shape or being healthy or being active. It's having my son have a father go out and do and take care of himself. And how I treat my wife or how I treat people around me is no longer just about that person and me. It's about setting the example of showing the people in my family as a leader of like, this is how you treat other people, this is how you take care of lead by example. Exactly. It's a whole new paradigm.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, yeah. I I think what you're saying is just don't when you mean leadership, it doesn't just mean your work and lead by example at work, but also lead by example in the family, right? So that it's a complete holistic personality that you're building, and that's again very, very unique perspective I have. So Sean, that does make a lot of sense. That does make a lot of sense for sure. Um I'm curious about when you talk about this no-limit leadership triage, um, building a culture of trust, communication, and growth. And I see communication is often often a big missing piece um in most of the cases. So, what would be your suggestion around communication um to build that leadership triage?

Standards Of Leadership At Home

SPEAKER_00 14:28

The key for communication inside an organization is that there's mechanisms in place to have it uh in uh regularly, right? There has to be a feedback cycle and loop that is constantly moving, that isn't uh just sitting here that is going to be activated when there's something important to send up the flagpole or to give feedback, right? The mistake I see is a lot of leaders saying, like, well, you know, I've got an open door policy. If something was wrong, they would come tell me. Or, you know, if well, if if I my people know that they can give me feedback, they can let me know how I'm doing, or whatever that is, right? Um, or how often do we just check the box on, you know, the term I hate, which is like performance annual performance evaluations, right? I had a like what that looks like, how do we solve for that? It looks like regular, define what that is, but I would say at a minimum with a direct report monthly, dedicated one-on-one, where you sit down and you have already agreed to what what is your vision here? Like, what is your goal? Like, what are you doing here? Like, are you just here collecting a paycheck? Like, do you have goals or visions of moving up in the company? Are you gaining skills to do something else? Like, uh, why are you here? What matters to you? And then we found a way to align that with what matters to the company. And when you align that, that's what happens. And all too often we make the assumption that well, they signed up, they do the job, we'd be giving them a paycheck. That's why they're here. Maybe, maybe that's what motivates them, you know. Maybe uh their youngest daughter is 17, it's her last soccer season, and what really matters to them is that they get to the games and the games are at 4:30 and they work till five. And so if you found a way for them on those days to come in an hour or half hour early so they could make those games, they would do anything for you. But that doesn't happen without that conversation. And so these regular one-on-ones is just one mechanism. And also, as part of that, uh, what I have seen tremendous value in in organizations is that this regular cycle of feedback goes up and down, and it happens positive and negative. So, what that looks like is every month or every week, whenever we're meeting, you know, Hema, you're gonna give me, I'm I'm your supervisor in this scenario. You're gonna tell me three things I've done great this month and three things I I could improve on. And I'm gonna tell you the same thing, and we're gonna like lubricate the mechanism of feedback back and forth so that it's just flowing. So then when something comes up that's important, whether that's me sending information down or you giving me feedback about how something's impacting clients or the other organization or whatever, you're gonna give me honest feedback because we're that's just what we do. And and so a formal mechanism for information to flow down and up that is constantly going and is not just dependent on instances or when it's when it's needed or when you feel like it's needed. I think that's that's a key difference between companies that really get this right and really create a learning organization that continues to evolve and improve and engage their employees, and one who just is kind of like doing things sort of blindly.

Building Trust Through Communication

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah, yeah. And um definitely that communication is where uh most of the companies do feel like they have to, you know, improve and make it better and make it transparent and have that open communications. But also, as you know, you will see with this more digital age um in place, you will also see a lot of communication gaps uh within the family, right? So, and um I any suggestion from your uh leadership book um to the people, especially when you have teenagers around, um as you remember when we were small, we used to have almost all the day dinner together, right? With uh with our kids and so on. So it's kind of slowly getting reduced. And uh few kids want to more hang out in their room and do the stuff that they like compared to actually even though the parents are trying to pull them together, um, sometimes it can be a challenge. How do you think your leadership suggestion around communication can be contextualized and be helpful for families nowadays?

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Beautiful question. You know, the first thing I would say on that is going back to our earlier conversation by leadership by example.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Right.

Family Communication Playbook

SPEAKER_00 19:14

I like how many times, like I know this is something even with my with my son now, is uh I try to have a rule. It's so hard, especially when they're really young, right? But like my phone is never between us. My phone is never up between our faces. Like, you know, and and so you know, and and I work with clients a lot on this, on uh, because we work holistically. I work with clients, we set a vision, we say vision is boss. What is your vision for your business? What is your vision for yourself? What is your vision relation? We usually have professional goals or vision, uh, personal and relational. So, what are your relationship goals? What do you want your relationship with your spouse to look like? What do you want your relationship with your kids to look like? And where is that and where is it now? What's the gap? And how do we close that? And so I'll give you specific examples of exact exact examples of things we've I've done with clients that have worked. Um, the first one is just the dinner time. There's no phones, no, nobody has phones. Phones are all in the other room. Like when we're eating dinner, parents don't have phones, kids don't have phones, phones don't exist in the dining room. That's time to sit and have conversation and leading by example there. And um, you know, I have a client that then they sit around and said, Well, we're gonna we're gonna have a conversation of like what are if you want to lead an organization and in in a business, let's just say, you would have values and a mission. Do you have that for your family? What are your family values? Do you all know them? Do your kids recite them? Do you have conversations around it? And so again, maybe harder when they're you've got senior teenagers, but as kids get older, very easy to say, like one of our, you know, I have a client, one of our family values is adventure as an example. He has like five family values. So say, okay, how did what's an example where you you show the value of it of adventure today? What'd you try something new? And that's a conversation piece. So you're having a conversation around values and what what's going on, and that's way different than how was school today? Good. Right. And you're also priming them, right? You're priming your kids now look for that because they know oh, one of our family values is gratitude. One of our family values is kindness. Okay, so now they're walking through life. I mean, this is what manifestation is, right? It's not magic, it's we're you're focusing on a thing. And so you see a thing, you do a thing. So you're looking for kindness, you're looking for gratitude, and you just then you embody that. So, like you can have that's a different way to do dinner than most people do dinner. And I think it's up for us and and for parents to lead and set those boundaries. Like I have very specific boundaries. I work from home, I have for 10, 11 years. I have boundaries for myself. I don't sit on my couch, my butt does not touch my couch unless I'm done with work for the day. Not not to take a break, not to rest my legs. Yeah, not to dust my legs. And the and the TV never goes. You you've got to set these boundaries, you know?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yeah, you gotta create these boundaries.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

And and and when you do that for yourself by leading by. Example, then then your kids will start doing that, right? And I um, you know, I I uh what's her name? Dr. Becky, very like um a parental uh coach and expert online. I love her stuff. And um, you know, she showed it it was a a study she showed where it's like your children are not gonna treat themselves the way you treat them, they're gonna treat them way themselves the way you treat yourself.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Oh that's a very powerful statement.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

So, how do you show up in those moments in in terms of communication? So I would say that. And then the other one is uh again, specifically with a client who has teenagers who's trying to, who has been distant building a business and wants to rekindle this and has, you know, three teenage uh kids, one of them just got engaged, he's 19. And now at 19, now he has established he has monthly dates with each one one-on-one and takes them out and does what they want to do. And and and his mantra for those dates is lead with curiosity. He's not going in to tell them what to do. He's going in, and what he's getting curious about is what is my ideal relationship now as with a young adult? Like, what is father, you know, fatherhood to a 13-year-old and fatherhood to a 19-year-old should look different. What is this relationship gonna look like? And so he's having conversations like, look, you're you're 19, you're getting remarried. What do you want our relationship to be now? And asking and listening. So leading with curiosity, and I would say if you're struggling with that as a parent, the three question rule is great, which is you ask a question, or you they tell you something, right? They tell you so they tell you a fact, I did this thing, or I'm thinking about this, or I'm having problems here. You ask three clarifying questions before you give any feedback or suggestions. And just doing that will transform the way you're listening, and I make up transform your relationship.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

That does make a lot of sense. And I think it's it's a definitely the point you have to reiterate and make sure you consistently do that to build that relationship whether it can be spouse to spouse or spouse to kids. Um, and I I think that's one of the best ways we have suggested in this uh digital world to start making those bonds stronger and so that the kids can know if I have any problem I can go openly and talk to my parents.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Right, yeah, yeah.

Curiosity With Teens

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And the spouse can know if I have anything to say, I don't need to hide. I can have an open, honest conversation with my spouse about my feelings, and I think that is the biggest gap that we are seeing in this generation. Um, and I think the points that you have said make complete sense. I know we are towards the um top of our schedule time, but um um I would like to wrap up this forecast by um asking your another big venture that you had, which is Warriors, your book. And key uh six key success uh mantras, uh, I would say. Um do you want to wrap this forecast by telling your golden nuggets from the Warriors book to the parents and entrepreneurs around?

The Warrior’s Mindset Framework

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, you know, so the give you the I'll give you the quick the quick pitch on uh my book, A Warrior's Mindset, The Six Keys to Greatness. And the premise of the book is that um we are all the descendants of warriors and conquerors and explorers. Uh the the timid, the people who were too afraid to leave their caves, who who hid, whatever that looked like in the ancient world, like they didn't procreate there. We we're not descendants of those, we're descendants of people who got on the ships and went into the ocean and went across lands and survived wars and famine. Like that's who we that's where we come from. And and we, if we lose sight of that, of this desire, right? Which I, you know, I really I define a leader and a warrior actually as the same thing, depending on the audience, but it's the same thing for me, which is it's someone who's uh striving toward a noble purpose greater than themselves. And so that's a warrior's fighting for something, whereas you're not describing a warrior as not a thief. It's not so much like stealing something to hide it. It's there's a purpose, there's a mission, there's something bigger than them that they're dedicated to. And so when you find that, I think that's a key component of fulfillment as a human being. And so in the book, what I give is a framework for that. And the very quickly, the first is gratitude. And this is not, you still need to get the book and read it, but gratitude, which gratitude is your fuel. That's the right fuel source. It's an infinite fuel source. To live to live with gratitude is to live with love. So gratitude fuels you. Um, your the second is an internal locus of control. So that's by maximizing your impact by focusing on only what you can control. Don't let external things you can't control steal your energy, right? So we've got power. Now we're gonna harness it. North Star, we're gonna focus it toward a noble purpose greater than ourselves because we're tribal creatures and that's where fulfillment comes from. Uh, fulfillment will never come from selfish gratification. That's just a dopamine hit. That's called addiction. So we need to we need to strive toward something bigger than ourselves. Uh, and then we have self-discipline, which is how we turn intention into action, right? If we if we don't have the self-discipline to actually do the thing, then we're just sitting on our couch being, you know, dreamers, right? It's what separates um dreamers from doers. And then the fifth uh key is perseverance. And perseverance has two components, and that's how that's the grit to finish, not just through like immediate challenge, which is how we think of perseverance sometimes, like getting through a hard time. But what hits a lot of us, especially in this part of the world, is apathy. It's complacency, it's comfort, right? We're young, we're excited, we got a new job or a new parent, we're excited, we're gonna do everything right, we're gonna do all that. And then we make some money and you know, our house gets bigger, and there's like a lot of shows on Netflix, and we got heated leather seats, and all of a sudden we're like, where's our dreams and goals? Like, where's our aspirations? So the first five keys are our self-leadership, our self-leadership, right? Because the keys to greatness. So you have to go through that cycle, and then the final key is leadership. That's how we amplify that. So the first five keys are about leading yourself, and then the last key is leadership and amplifying impact by becoming the greatest version of yourself.

Six Keys To Greatness Recap

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Again, six golden negles. Thank you so much, Sean. And uh, for the audience, um, just uh so that you remember, please do check um Sean Patton's book, A Warrior's Mindset The Six Keys to Greatness. Um, I think it would definitely make a big difference in um each of our lives by reading that, and we could definitely learn a lot. Sean Patton, everyone. Thank you, Sean, for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Thank you so much, it's been great.