Justin's Podcast
Dive into the captivating world of extraordinary individuals with "Interesting People," the podcast where host Justin Wallin sits down with some of the most intriguing personalities from all walks of life. Each episode unravels the unique stories, challenges, and triumphs of guests who have made remarkable impacts in their fields or led fascinating lives. From trailblazing innovators and inspiring artists to unsung heroes and enigmatic personalities, Justin brings you candid conversations that reveal the human spirit's endless capacity for wonder and achievement. Tune in for thought-provoking interviews, surprising revelations, and a celebration of the diverse tapestry of human experience.
Justin's Podcast
Communication, Politics, and Business Success with Patrick O'Reilly
Patrick O'Reilly, president of OPR Communications, joins us to unravel the complexities of modern communications and politics. Ever wondered how technology like micro-targeting has revolutionized the industry? Learn more about the impacts of sophisticated tools like these while also exploring the timeless essentials of messaging, strategy, and the art of relationship-building.
Patrick shares key insights into the importance of truly listening to understand the motivations of others, ensuring that client goals mesh effectively with audience interests. We explore the shifting policy landscape in Washington, D.C., exploring its ripple effect on regional and local dialogues.
Patrick draws parallels between the worlds of business and sports...working to harness the power of teamwork, identifying talent, and honing skills to build winning teams—the championship formula for any thriving organization. Patrick emphasizes the critical role of writing skills in career advancement and offers compelling advice for young professionals: get involved with political campaigns. These dynamic settings provide a crash course in strategic thinking, leadership, and relationship-building—key skills that propel careers in communications and entrepreneurship.
Whether you're an aspiring business leader or a seasoned communicator, this episode is packed with practical advice and thought-provoking perspectives to boost your professional journey.
Welcome to Interesting People, the podcast where we delve into the lives and stories of fascinating individuals from all walks of life. I'm your host, justin Wallen, and in each episode we bring you inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes surprising interviews with people who are making an impact in their fields and communities. There's only one common thread that the world is more interesting because of them. Get ready to be inspired, entertained and enlightened as we spotlight the extraordinary. Let's dive in. All right.
Speaker 1:I am joined today by my good friend, patrick O'Reilly. Patrick owns and is president of a communications firm, opr Communications. They do a variety of different things and I'll defer to Patrick to describe it, but in the world of communications, whether it be for government agencies, whether it be for corporate clients or everything from gaming to local revenue, to development and a whole lot more, patrick's been doing for over two decades with a remarkable track record of success. And not only a track record of success he's been able to cultivate and continue not only positive business relationships but a vast array of friendships, which, in this world where things sometimes get heated, it's not easy. It's a remarkable track record.
Speaker 2:Welcome, patrick. Good morning, justin. It's a pleasure being with you. Thank you for your kind and gracious introduction, and remind me also that I'm old. I've been doing this a long time.
Speaker 1:I have to because I have to remind myself constantly. I bring others Right there with you. I wanted to because we have some time under our belts. I first wanted to kind of talk about in the communication space what you see, kind of two things what you see has changed meaningfully in the industry, whatever it might be, and then what are some of the things that have stayed the same, that you think are kind of totems of that are important in the space.
Speaker 2:Reflected on that for just a moment when you asked what's changed, I think in the uh. Well, now it's almost it's three and a half decades that I've been doing this. Without a doubt, number one is technology. I mean, I go back, uh, it's a kind of uh bittersweet, but I'll be going to a memorial service, uh, here in two days for um, an elected official. It was my first campaign when I came back from DC and I was the person in charge, I was the campaign manager, I was hired specifically and God rest his soul but a great man, great family, great leader, and he just passed here this last month, so his service will be on Saturday.
Speaker 2:But yeah, when I look back and think about some of the things we did in that campaign versus what we're doing today, just the sheer magnitude of what's available technology-wise, just the micro-targeting aspects of identifying supporters and the communications tools available to reach policymakers it simply didn't exist back then. So, without a doubt, technology and then the other side, what stayed the same it still gets down to, I believe, messaging, the relationships and strategy and able to kind of link up effective messengers. That's where the relationships come in, with the messages that actually move audiences or resonate with policymakers having the credibility to carry those messages that anybody can do tactics, but at the end of the day, who's got the better strategy in terms of how to execute? That's, I think, that's what separates folks, and that thing that hasn't changed in all my years of doing this business.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more, I think, any one of the things I think is interesting in the space. There's still a chunk of folks that I'm not judging on that, but I am judging in terms of advocacy. They're a group of folks who are driven for their cause and to the expense of failing to listen, and what I mean by that is sometimes when we, as human beings, feel powerfully about something, whether it's a business interest or personal interest or political interest. We feel that if people just listen to us long enough or carefully enough, they're going to be convinced by us. Right? But that's not really the way we work as human beings. We only work when we're cued to something that you want to have happen that aligns with something that I want to have happen, and I know that sounds transactional and simplistic and so forth, but this is actually a beautiful component of humanity, right? It's key to this, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's the lesson my parents taught me at a young age, though. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, so, and I think that requires uh. The other lesson that taught me at a young age is use your ears and mouth in the proportions god gave you. Uh, meaning that you got to do a lot more listening, that you need to talking, because how else do you understand their position, what motivates them, what uh moves them, what it is they're interested in, and then, uh, once you can't do that if you're talking, but once you stop listen, understand it, really, take it in, and then demonstrate that you heard them say this is what I'm hearing. Is that right? Do I have that accurately? I think only then can you begin to identify ways that, whatever the client's objectives are, begin to align them with what it is that's important to that particular target audience.
Speaker 1:We're both California guys, but I'm in DC today and obviously the climate is very different in DC today than it was four months ago.
Speaker 2:I guess you could also be referring to the temperature when you say that, but yeah, the policy climate. Uh, I guess you could also be referring to the temperature when you say that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, well, the uh, the policy, climate and um, and and there's a whole lot kind of wrapped up in that. But I'm interested in what you've seen in anything, if anything, has that uh exhibiting itself on the regional or local level? Has that exhibiting itself on the regional or local level? How are folks reacting? Is it impacting discussions that you're kind of having regularly, whether it's business leaders or political leaders or elected leaders or whatever it might be? How is DC affecting, affecting things regionally in California?
Speaker 2:Well, regardless of this election, I think, as folks in our business know, dc will always have the impact, just because of the sheer volume of funding in all states, but particularly California. So, in this particular case, though, given the recent elections and going more specifically to your question, I think folks are still trying to figure it out Candidly. There's obviously some concerns. I think the biggest issue right now is just keeping pace with the administration, and I think I saw something I think they're approaching 80 executive orders. So just keeping track, I think has been, I know, uh, speaking with some uh folks that we deal with in the media regularly that was one of the things that uh, they expressed and it was, yeah, it's just the volume, uh, trying to keep track, uh, cause it's uh, the pace is uh something.
Speaker 2:I think that uh, a lot of folks adjustment, trying to understand what the separate, the actual policy changes versus perhaps the rhetoric, and when I say rhetoric, not just coming from the administration, but for those that may oppose the administration or these policies, how they interpret it, because I think sometimes, when you have to peel back the layers and say, ok, that's not what actually occurred, but and what drives that back to your earlier comment is fear. It's like, okay, we're concerned about this. This may, when it goes to issues of immigration, we'll see that, and that's happened, certainly here in Southern California, and I think we'll know. In probably the coming months, some of the dust will settle and we'll get a better idea. On the flip side of that, though, we can't be too surprised, because the administration has been very clear. Even before entering office, they were very clear about what it is they wanted to do, and they're actually going about that now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were quite clear about what, what they were going to do, right, and uh, I, I think the speed has been a surprise, um, but uh.
Speaker 2:But I agree with you you should never be entirely surprised by people doing what they, what they say they're going to do agreed and that's why I say the biggest issue right now is just adjusting to, uh, the speed and the volume at which some of these things are happening. It's both from the public's point of view and again speaking with some folks in the media realm, that was clearly at the top of their mind, just trying to keep track of everything.
Speaker 1:Before we get out of kind of general policy. I'm interested if you've seen anything that are kind of canaries in the coal mine or precursors, predictors of future California political behavior, that are derivative of the fires. You know, and I get it, there are a lot of memes and things like that, but I have detected a greater degree of frustration with governance in blue California from that, and frustration has a short memory a lot of times and I don't know which way it'll go. But I've seen, because I talk to people for a living right and my folks talk to people for a living, I have seen some burbling going on there. Have you seen anything along those lines in terms of kind of a shift in perspective about California governance, whether it's local, statewide, nationally, I mean?
Speaker 2:that's not news. What happens, though? I think we could agree that when you have natural disasters, it puts a focus on performance and execution and competence of our government systems, and sometimes they do it well and sometimes not so well, and I think, in the case of the Southern California fires recently tremendous frustration, and there's a spike, if you will, in that level of frustration, and I think, to be fair, this is unprecedented. There are some things that, quite frankly, uh, it'd be hard to imagine folks being totally prepared for. On the flip side, though, um, it's what do you, what have you done about it? Uh, and I think people are extremely frustrated, uh, at the pace.
Speaker 2:And really it gets back down to our business, the communications. There's been some um reversals, where announcements are made one day about, perhaps, a road opening and then, on the flip side, less than 44 hours later, they have to walk that back, and I think in these types of moments, it's where you need that clear, direct communication that inspires confidence, and you can go back to someone that I think benefited from that was Pete Wilson and I'm dating myself here, but I'm thinking about the Northridge earthquakes and where he said we're going to go ahead and rebuild this freeway and it was done in less than I think it was like 66 days.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:I remember that and again that's a mindset and then it permeates a community and, um, I think that's where, uh, an opportunity, candidly, where government, then the spotlight was on government and they actually, you know, met the challenge at that time. So, uh, we'll see here, and probably it's been now just over 30 days since the fires broke out and, um, I think folks are still waiting to see, okay, somebody to kind of take the reins and say, you know, this is where we're going to go, and it'll inspire that kind of confidence that government will get the job done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember that distinctly. Exactly right, it was clear and followed through on it. It happens. The most recent thing that I can think of that's similar to that is overseas right with Notre Dame Enormous scale and scope and degree of difficulty and it was done in a very short amount of time.
Speaker 2:I think it's back to a word that we use a lot in our business is alignment. We use a lot in our business as alignment, trying to get and I mentioned it a bit earlier at least hinted towards that as far as listening to others and seeing what's important to them. But where we operate in our communities, our goal, our mission is to how do we improve these communities, and we do that by aligning the client's goals and objectives with sound public policy. And that's kind of the sweet spot. When you're able to do that, that usually produces winning results, which is what we're all about. And in the case that you talk about Notre Dame, it's clear that you had the public, you had the government, you had leadership. There was this alignment, and that's how things are able to get done.
Speaker 1:Shifting towards that to your business. I want to ask the age-old question, which is if you had known then what you know now, what would you have done differently? If anything, what do you wish you knew?
Speaker 2:I think the importance of cultivating talent. Again, you're limited. If you want to get scale, we're fortunate, and one of the beautiful things about our business is the relationships both, whether it's with the policymakers, members of the media, and one of the beautiful things about our business, uh, is the relationships both, whether it's the policy makers, members of the media, our clients, our colleagues, uh, you know, vendors that we get to work with, uh, just a fascinating array of people, personalities, viewpoints, and so that's one of the blessings. But one of the things that, as far as along the journey, is just to realize again all these truisms, that when you grow up in an Irish Catholic home you hear all these sayings and so forth. And so one of the, if you want to go, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go as a group. And I think that would probably be one of the biggest things if I knew early on the importance of developing talent and identifying. I've had great luck and success of being able to identify people with great skills or even elected officials that say, okay, they have that, it factor. But as far as building a business back to your question yeah, that takes a team, and that's the other thing.
Speaker 2:I enjoy sports quite a bit and so it's very analogous to you have to identify folks' talents and what they're good at and then meet them where they're at. Don't try and get the swear peg into the round hole. And, using sports analogies, dennis Rodman was a great defensive player and he was a great rebounder. He was never asked to go ahead and take a three-point shot. He was never asked to go take it to the rim. He said, okay, let's. And that's where coaching comes in. I think as a leader of a business, it's analogous Okay, let's see what are the skill sets of your team members and put them in the best position to win going forward. And I certainly learned that as my business evolved over the years and the decades, but I think I benefited from knowing that a lot earlier in my career.
Speaker 1:Well, flip side of that, I mean, it's a perfect segue because, you know, business is about people. What you know, there's a lot about the market and the labor market having cool. So if you're young and you're looking to get into the world of communications I guess a two-part question. One if you're looking to get in the world of communications, what are the things that you would advise people leave with? Either go out and educate yourself on this, gain a skill on this. This is what folks who may be hiring you are really probably going to look for. And the other side is for those with an entrepreneurial nature who are considering going with opening their own business what else, if anything, aside from the team component, would you advise them to think about before they actually hang out their shingle?
Speaker 2:Two things. One, learn how to write. It is just shocking, I mean, some of the things that we see. They're like, okay, who wrote this? A second grader? A second grader could probably do a better job, but it's, and again, people don't understand just from a communications. We're not looking for the great American novel here, and I'm sure there's great, but again, that ability and you asked another thing how things changed. I mean, it's just this bombardment of data and information. How do you break through? Well, you know, if you, if you can't get it down into a couple of sentences, well then you're going to have a tough, tough road ahead of you. So yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:I like to use that Einstein quote the genius is making the complex simple, and I think that's what we do. I mean, we're given these, you know, five feet of technical documents and, OK, we have to translate that into a single page fact sheet and explain it to an elected or a policymaker and yet not miss anything from that. You know, five feet of technical reports be comprehensive. So the ability to write, I think, is just a skill set. It's not one that I necessarily had when I got started. It was just, you know, through 10,000 hours that you got better and better, and then again aligning myself with really good writers and admiring them and telling them and then, with attribution, saying, hey, okay, you have to give credit because this is where I was able to get this line or this style. So, yeah, one is writing the same thing.
Speaker 2:I tell particularly young people go work on a campaign. You don't have to love politics, you don't have to be hardcore right or hardcore left, it doesn't matter, Just work. One you learn that it's a meritocracy is that if you've got skills or you can develop those skills because usually there aren't enough resources available and particularly if you have any skills at all, you can rise through the ranks quickly. You develop relationships. You have any skills at all, you can rise through the ranks quickly. You develop relationships. Again, I tell that to all young folks, particularly those coming out of school.
Speaker 2:That's who we look for candidly, people that work on campaigns. Because, again, you got to think strategically. You have to think on your feet, you have to think quickly. You have to be able to communicate. You can't be necessarily intimidated by new audiences. Sometimes you have to speak. You know truth to power. It's just a great training ground for younger folks. And again, it's not based on your age or background, or it's like can you do the job or not? Because if you prove that you can't, well then we're going to give you more opportunity. And yeah, for those that are young and hungry and um, yeah, I work on a campaign, so if you uh have campaign experience and you can write, uh, you've got a career you ahead of you yeah, and in a funny way it teaches you management too.
Speaker 1:Right, because you campaigns are driven by volunteers. So if you're one of the the operatives, you've got to convince these folks because but most people outside of the military you don't tell them something and they just do it. Right, I don't care if they're your employee or a volunteer or whatever, but volunteers are at the opposite end. You have the military over here, the volunteers are over here. You really have to convince them. They're coming in because they're engaged, but you have to inspire them somehow. You have to kind of get them along to go with whatever it is that you feel and the campaign feels is going to be effective. And it's not always easy, because the term herding cats comes from that right.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it goes back to what we discussed earlier is that, yeah, you're going to have to incentivize and motivate them and the only way you can do that is you kind of figure out what it is that they're interested. You got to listen to them and then align them with the direction that you need them to go for, you know, to win the campaign. So, absolutely right, yeah, again, nothing, nothing beats. I think, campaign experience for young people, even if that's not something that you're want to do with your career, it's just the skill sets and the experience can benefit the rest, benefit you for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:You uh, personal, though rounding things out a bit Um, you're incredibly busy, you. You are, I mean your business. Just the nature of your business is very, very successful. It's, um, it's not, uh, hyper local, it's throughout, uh, California. You have interest throughout the, the, the nation California. You have interests throughout the nation and on top of that, you also have family, you have friends. In fact, your friend and professional network is one of the largest I've ever known, and these take time and investment. You're an incredibly positive person. How do you keep that even keel and I know it's an acting phrase invest in yourself or whatever? How do you? How do you do that? How do you make sure that you know you keep, keep happy just that.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing that uh about that. Invest in yourself. I'm gonna have to work on that.
Speaker 1:Maybe you could teach me um, the other thing could just be called how do you keep out of the bell tower?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, uh, I give credit where credit's due. I give that credit to my folks. Well, first of all, it beats the alternative right? I mean, it's a choice every day and we all have the same 24 hours, so what are you going to do with them? But, yeah, just a better state of mind is finding the good and being the optimist, and I've always had and I give that credit to my folks, especially my dad always had good energy, even though we had pretty meager circumstances growing up. We were happy because he was happy and he modeled that, and tomorrow is always going to be a better day. So I think it starts there and evolves. But I really enjoy being with people. I enjoy people that have good energy, and so it's natural. I think it also feeds on each other that, okay, you bring that energy into a room and then people feed off of it and, quite frankly, that nourishes me the same. So I don't know if you ever read a book, uh, called the five love languages.
Speaker 2:No, I've heard of it, though actually I've heard a great book, uh, and then it's also, they have a children's version, and, and the concept behind it is it just recognize what it is that uh moves somebody, because sometimes uh, to your earlier comment you're, you're speaking and you think you're getting through and you're talking and talking, and talking, but you're speaking French and that person doesn't speak French. You know they happen to speak Portuguese, and so you're, you're just disconnecting. You know two ships passing in the night because you're not able to speak each of each other's language, and similar and so on. The five different languages they've got, uh, touch affection would be one, uh, quality time is another, gifts is the third, um, a service, acts of service is is another one. And I always thought, oh, and then the last one, the fifth one is the words of affirmation, and so, being, you know, from a sports background or in working a political world, oh, that's my love language. I just tell me, I'm great, I want to hear that, right.
Speaker 2:And so I thought but, uh, I'm in a business organization and my buddy said no, you goofball, you're not. Uh, yours is acts of service, because you're always doing for some, some, someone else. And I didn't realize that. And it's true is that that also gives me happiness? Is that okay? And so when you talk about it and I am very blessed to have a very large friend group and a large network, uh, you know, around the country, around the world.
Speaker 2:Um, that's another thing my folks taught me If you got five minutes, you give five minutes. So be available and to and to nurture those. And it's not the way you know that that could be a full-time profession. But no, if you go through the course of your day, there's a reason why somebody called, or there's a reason why you got an email, pay attention to it and respond, and then that's like I say, it's nurturing both ways, for me and for them. So it's in providing those acts of service, and then it comes full circle. Well, no wonder, that's why I'm in the profession that I am, because people come to me with problems and say, okay, let's go figure out a way to fix that in a way that benefits the community where we operate.
Speaker 1:Well, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting today. Is there anything else you want to say about the business, or about communications, or about life in general?
Speaker 2:No, I want to just turn around on you. You are just an absolute pleasure to work with. You talk about a great attitude. I never fear putting you in front of a client. You're just so polished.
Speaker 2:But again, the things that we talk about all day today in terms of the way you listen, you acknowledge their question and then you're able to, when necessary, pivot to say here's another consideration for you. No, I just thank you for being who you are and just always being so easy to work with, and I think that's why you and I connect so well, in the sense that we're always available for folks that you know weekends, weeknights, we have an emergency, can you jump on it? Super responsive and again, credit to you, justin. You know those are the folks, particularly at this point in our careers, I think we're a little fortunate to be able to say, okay, who do I want to work with? Because, at the end of the day, we're only as good as our clients and the clients that understand our philosophy and our approach. That's the ones that we're blessed to be able to work with, and you're certainly part of that team. So just wanted to acknowledge and tell you how grateful I am for you, thank you my friend.
Speaker 1:That means more than you can imagine. I truly appreciate it. It's been an absolute pleasure, truly appreciate it, and I know we're both busy. Today we actually have a line of things, so we're going to wrap it up and thank you again, patrick.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it. My pleasure Always good being with you. Justin, Take care. God bless you. Bye now.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to Interesting People. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform, and don't forget to follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content.
