24 fingers: Good afternoon and good morning. I’m Emma Goode, founder of digital marketing agency 24 fingers, and today I’m joined by the wonderful Pat Finn of Rubicon Results who’s kindly offered to answer our 24 questions. Pat, it’s great to have you here.
Pat: It’s so nice to talk to you anytime, and especially if we get a chance to do something that’s recorded together. Thank you for the opportunity.
24 fingers: My pleasure. I know all about you, but for the friends that haven’t met you yet, can you give me a 24-second round-up of who you are and what you do?
Pat: Well, what I do now is I’m a coach. I’ve been a coach for 20 years where I’ve worked for a company called Landmark Worldwide, where I led a programme called The Forum, which is a three-day transformational weekend.
Since the pandemic, I’ve brought back a coaching programme that I have. It’s an international programme where people play on a mastermind team and shoot for amazing results in 10 weeks. Between the team and the private coaching, people are altering their lives, literally shifting to a whole new level in life.
24 fingers: I can definitely vouch for that. I’ve been on multiple of your programmes and it truly is something very special, and we’re going to learn more today. So I’m going to dive in. Let’s start with what’s your favourite word?
Pat: My favourite word is possibility. No question. I love that concept of living from possibility.
Anything’s possible in life. When you come from that perspective, you don’t always produce the result, but you definitely come from a perspective of being positive and knowing that any problem can be worked out in life.
24 fingers: I love that. And what gets you up in the morning?
Pat: Well, my job gets me up. I have a schedule that works for me. Other people might think I’m crazy. Because I’m in Los Angeles and I have clients in London, in Spain, in Poland, in Sweden, I schedule calls early. My first calls are at 5:15 a.m. my time and then I do another call at 6 a.m. Then from 6:30 to 8:30, I take off, I go to the gym, I come back, I meditate, and then I start the rest of my day.
It’s an amazing way to start the day. First of all, it gets me up early, which I love doing. But if I didn’t have that call schedule, there’s a chance I’d talk myself into sleeping longer and hitting snooze one more time. So I have to get up. And I get up because I love what I do. I love having a chance to create possibility with people.
24 fingers: Inspirational. What do you truly, honestly think of social media?
Pat: It’s one of those things that I should be good at. I have a background on television. I’ve been a TV weatherman. I’ve been a game show presenter here in the US for years. I’m used to being on camera. You would think that, given the message that I have seems to resonate with a lot of people, you would think there’d be some connection between my delivering my message and my ability to deliver it and having social media success. But I suck at it, if I can use that word. I’ve gotten a little better at it, having a chance to interact with you and work with you. But the work that it takes to do it right, I don’t put into it. And then I make myself wrong for it: well, why don’t you just do what Emma says? If you did that, then you’d have that success.
Most areas of my life, I am totally satisfied with,. Social media, it’s like, all right, sooner or later I’ll figure it out.
24 fingers: So books or Kindle? I think I know the answer to this, but which do you prefer?
Pat: Books, and I’m not proud to say a lot of times, it’s audiobooks lately because I’m on the go and I live in LA, and just to get anywhere, it’s about an hour, so I’m in the car or at the gym every morning. So I listen to a lot of audiobooks.
And I love just the habit of physical books. Before I go to bed, if I’m reading something that’s transformational or spiritual, it just puts me in that right tone to go to sleep. So books over Kindle, but unfortunately a lot of audiobooks.
24 fingers: So you’re in the coaching industry. What do you think the biggest challenge to your industry is right now? I’ve got some opinions on this, but it’d be great to hear what you think.
Pat: Well, one of the things is the market is flooded with a lot of people who call themselves coaches and some of them are really good. I mean, they know how to empower people and put people in the right direction.
But some people who are coaches decided to do it because their friends would always ask them for advice and they thought they were good at advice. And coaching, at least in the world that I come from, is way deeper and more expansive than that. It’s really getting up and under what are the limiting beliefs somebody has, having the ability to meet them at the vibration or the emotional level they’re at right now, how to lift people up and be able to hold them to account in a way that they don’t reject or resent you. To be able to create a system to hold them to account to do what they said they wanted to do in the first place.
So that’s a long answer, but I think the biggest challenge in the industry is to be able to rise above the clutter of a lot of people saying they’re coaches.
24 fingers: I was going to say something related. It’s super important that you find the right coach that’s going to help you move forward. I think Rubicon is a unique set-up and certainly my experience is very different than like you say somebody who’s going to give you advice but not perhaps share how to implement it and hold you accountable and give you the opportunity to be within the community when you’re doing it. So we’re on the same page there.
24 fingers: What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Pat: I wasn’t sure exactly what, but I knew it was something where I’d be speaking to people. When I was in first grade, what I asked for for Christmas was a little recorder. Back then we didn’t even have cassettes. They were these little mini reels of tape, like a mini recorder.
I would sit in my bedroom and I would read the newspaper out loud, thinking I’ll become a news anchor, become something on television. And eventually I did become a news anchor and was on television.
At the time I wasn’t clear what that meant, like the next step for me was to be on the radio, which I did get a chance to do as I got out of high school. But I knew it was something where I would have a chance to speak to people and it turned out that way.
There’s a great book by Michael Beckwith, Life Visioning. In the book, he talks about looking for the vision of your life; how do you find the purpose of your life? And he says one of the ways to do it is to look at what you wanted to be when you grew up.
It may not be a direct correlation to your purpose in life, but you could start to see a thread if you look over what you wanted to be when you were younger and along the way in life. Because as you get older, then you get all these mixed messages from parents who think you should be a certain way and society thinks this is the best thing to do.
But if you can get back to that pure moment when you were younger, what was the thing that lit you up? So for me, it’s always fun to look back at those times. I can just remember sitting on my bed with the newspaper, not even understanding all the words because I was just in first grade, but recording myself and listening to it back.
24 fingers: I often refer to you as the Bradley Walsh of America. I don’t know if you know who Bradley Walsh is, but you’re like the loveable inspring version of Bradley Walsh and anybody watching this in the comments will know what I mean by that. What led you to your current career?
Pat: My current career is, I guess the thing that led me to my past two careers, my past career and this current career, was that I was a TV weatherman in San Francisco and enjoying it, but knowing that there was something more than that. A friend of mine invited me to do this thing called The Forum, the three-day weekend.
At the time, I was the weekend weatherman in San Francisco. So I only got three weekends off a year. So if I was going to give up one of them to do this programme, it’d better be good.
So I went in kind of arrogantly saying, listen, if I’m doing this within six months, I’m going to be on national television and within six months, I’m going to own a radio station because when I worked in radio, I always thought I could do it better than they were doing it.
And I did The Forum, and within six months, I put together investors and bought a radio station. Within six months, I was on national television, hosting a game show here in the United States called The Joker’s Wild.
So for me, that was life-changing, not alone the fact that I created a relationship with my parents. When I grew up, my parents were alcoholics. There was a lot of drama in the household. I moved out when I was 17.
And they had since gotten sober, but I still kind of kept them at a distance and The Forum showed me how to have true forgiveness and connection. I ended up with this most amazing relationship with my parents for the rest of their life.
So for me, it was just like, okay, this is earth-shaking, this is extraordinary. So I started, even though I was on national television having the radio station, to train with Landmark.
For years, I led their introductions to their programmes and eventually led The Forum. So The Forum, I guess, is the thing that led to me becoming a game show host and the chance then to become a coach.
24 fingers: You’re so modest, but I have to say that you’ve impacted over 50,000 people’s lives through your coaching, haven’t you? Probably more now.
Pat: I get goosebumps sometimes when I think about what it is that I get a chance to do. I think people have a sense that they want something different in their life. There’s almost like a sense in their heart knowing there’s something beyond the way things are right now and I’m just a conduit for that.
I just get a chance to help people see how great they really are and here are some of the steps to take you in that right direction. It’s really great to know that it made that kind of difference.
24 fingers: You’re doing it. Now, your favourite word is possibility. Can you use it in a sentence, please?
Pat: I love living from possibility, or I love helping people create possibility in their lives.
24 fingers: But how can you make it rhyme with something? Make possibility rhyme.
Pat: Let’s see, when you have possibility, you have agility, or when you have possibility, you love taking on responsibility. Or infinity.
I used to have a TV production company. We produced TV shows for a dozen different networks, and we called it Infinity Productions, and it was I-N-F-I-N-N-I-T-Y. At the time, we thought it was really clever.
24 fingers: Boom boom. What advice would you give to your younger self?
Pat: That’s an interesting question, because in one sense, I live my life with no regrets. I’ve made many mistakes over the course of my life, but I look back at them from a perspective of not that there’s something wrong with me, but what could I learn from that to shift who I am now?
So in one sense, my life is perfect, the good and the bad of it. I think it would be to have more fun along the way, and I’m sure a lot of people say that, but just looking back, there were times where I was just stressed and with my nose to the grindstone… I’m going to just get this next thing done.
And I would, but what I’m learning now, and what we teach in Rubicon, is there’s actually this balance between this inner sense of peace and calm and knowing things are going to turn out, your connection to the universe or a higher power or whatever. When you can come from there and be in action, that’s the most effective way to produce results in life.
So I would remind myself to take time, start to meditate earlier, start to enjoy life more.
24 fingers: You already get up at five. You can’t get up much earlier. What’s been the best thing anyone’s ever done for you?
Pat: People have been really generous with me in life. My friend Bob Woody, that would be one of the best things. When I said I was going to be on national television, I got a chance to audition for a game show we have here in the US called Wheel of Fortune. The host of it was leaving the daytime version of it. I didn’t get it, by the way.
But on the set, there’s this moment where as you’re doing audition, they say, look into the camera, say your name, and who’s your agent. And in that moment, it was like, I’m just this weatherman from San Francisco, I don’t have an agent.
So I said to Vanna (Vanna White was the person turning the letters and one of the hosts of Wheel of Fortune) “Hey, Vanna, who’s your agent?” And she yells out “Richard Lawrence.” And I go, “My name is Pat Finn and my agent is Richard Lawrence.” Because I figured if I got it, he’d of course take the percentage and negotiate the contract.
I didn’t get it, but then after the taping, Vanna said, “You want me to introduce you to Richard?” I said, “Sure, I’d love it.” And that was the moment, once I met Richard that allowed for the rest of the game shows that I hosted after that. So that’s one thing. There’s so many moments of people being amazing with me.
24 fingers: Thank you. You’re very generous to others so I’m sure that comes back to you. And what’s been the career-defining moment? You might not have had it yet.
Pat: That’s a good question. I’ve had a couple of great careers. I’ve always had jobs that I love. I think after getting into television, the career-defining moment was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish holiday. And I’ll tell you why.
I’m a radio air personality, I hear the local TV station back in Pennsylvania has an opening for a weatherman. I asked if I could audition, first they said no, we’re only taking people with TV experience and I talked them into allowing me to go for it.
Practised all weekend, I put a little red dot on the middle of my mirror and I pretended that was the camera lens, so I got used to looking into the camera. I’ve got these little kids’ weather books that defined, here’s a high pressure system, a low pressure system, so it sounded like I would know what I’m talking about.
And I went in and I auditioned, and at the end of it, I knew this because I was on the radio that morning, and talking about it, and at the end of it, I said, “And happy Rosh Hashanah to all my Jewish friends,” thinking no big deal, it was just a flow of being comfortable with the whole thing.
And then I got the job, and three months later I found out from the owner of the station who happens to be Jewish, that that was the moment we decided it was you because you were so open and so positive with all kinds of people. So whatever the inspiration was to say happy Rosh Hashanah literally shifted me from being this radio personality to television, which I did for the next many years, decades.
24 fingers: That’s lovely. So if you could won an award, who would you thank?
Pat: I think my kids, because that’s made the biggest difference. I’ve got four kids, and they’re amazing. And it really woke me up to shifting how I live life. It wasn’t about just me anymore. There was something about those moments of being connected in love. So I think my kids would be at the top of the list.
And then some of my mentors along the way, I’ve worked with a person called Werner Erhard who created the Landmark Forum. Michael Beckwith who is the pastor at my spiritual centre, Agape in Los Angeles. I think my kids and those two would be at the top of the list.
24 fingers: Give me a timesaver of the day.
Pat: Timesaver of the day. I’ve learned a lot by studying successful people, and we share a lot of it in our Rubicon programmes. We first start with Einstein time, where maybe how we think time works, linear time works, isn’t exactly the way it is. Einstein said one minute with your hand on a hot stove can feel like an hour, an hour with the person that you love can feel like a minute and that time is relative.
So we start to show you how to have a different experience of time. Mostly we complain about time. There’s not enough time. I’m going to be late. There’s stress that’s involved with it. But if you can shift your relationship to time, all of a sudden, magically, you end up getting more done.
We also get into how important it is to plan out your day, even if you’re flexible and need to change it. But there’s something about prioritising what’s important and then putting it into a schedule and doing that versus what feels good in the moment.
Because if we’re about putting out fires and just doing whatever there is to do next, we’ll be drawn to do the thing that we like more versus the thing that may be more important. It’s that whole 80-20 rule of 20% of our actions producing most of our results. So to actually box yourself into doing what you know is the right thing to do. Even if you might be resisting a little bit.
And then the third one, which will maybe sound strange to people, but one of the things that we show people is multitasking makes you stupid and it’s based on a number of different scientific studies that show the second you’re doing two important things at once, your brain’s power diminishes dramatically.
You’re not as creative. You’re more stressed. You get tired quicker. You don’t think as clearly. So we show you how to do one thing at a time and then do the next thing and then the next thing. So scheduling your day and then doing just that thing.
We even have something called 45-15, which is you shut off all notifications of emails coming in and text, you get a glass of water ahead of time, you’ve had your snack, you’ve used the bathroom and you set an alarm for 45 minutes. And you set an alarm by the way because even checking the time is multitasking and it’s taking your brain off of something that you’re focusing on.
And then people do this and you start to train your brain to be able to just do that thing, and it’s amazing how much more you can get done in a day. I know it sounds like a simple thing and sometimes people resist doing it, and then when they try it they go, “Oh this is great, this is so cool.”
So that’s some of what I use for practising what I preach as the coach to have more time in the day.
24 fingers: I’m very guilty of multitasking. So where do you see the coaching industry in 24 months?
Pat: Well, I think, first of all, I don’t know, but I think the industry, there are some people who are really good salespeople who don’t necessarily back it up with the substance of coaching. So I think some of that’s going to start to drop away.
Because just knowing how to create this system means that you’re able to sell with a lot of sizzle, but it doesn’t have the substance to it. I think people will start to avoid that. You may get a one-time sale from somebody, but they wouldn’t want to do it ongoing.
For us, over 60% of the people who do our initial 10-week Rubicon want to do advanced versions of it and continue. There are people who, when we started it back in 2020 that did Rubicon and who are still on a Rubicon team five years later.
So I think that’s going to be the change. There’s going to be a little less of the hype and a little bit more of what really makes a difference for people.
24 fingers: I love it. And so what’s an interesting fact about your company?
Pat: Interesting fact. Well, where the name came from. Many years ago, I was reading a Psychology Today and they talked about an actual psychological phenomenon of crossing the Rubicon and then I read more about it. Crossing the Rubicon goes back to Julius Caesar’s time. He was at the banks of the Rubicon River and was told if he crossed the river with his men, he would have to defeat the enemy because there was no turning back and he had a choice to make.
So in that moment the die was cast, he decided to move forward and went on to become the emperor of Rome. So nowadays it means to pass a point of no return, to literally leave behind the way things have been and take this fateful decision like this is a moment of shifting my life towards the future for what’s possible.
So I love calling our company Rubicon Results because it really is about that. It’s about the fact that it doesn’t matter what your limiting beliefs are, doesn’t matter what you failed at in the past, doesn’t matter if you have the story of you not being good enough or strong enough or capable enough or old enough or young enough or smart enough or whatever.
None of that matters if you can literally cross that Rubicon and begin the rest of your life, like at this point of demarcation between who you’ve been, and who you’re going to be. And we help set the stage for that and really create the foundation for the rest and the best of your life.
24 fingers: If you can have a 24-minute chat with anybody living or dead, who would it be?
Pat: Well, my first answer would be my parents. They’ve passed now. And just that thought of having one more conversation, I’m moved by it, just the thought of it. So I mean, that would be, if I was given a choice, I would probably pick that.
If I needed to pick somebody who I could learn from, or would want to ask questions of, when I was a kid, I was impacted by the death of our US president, John F. Kennedy. I was in first grade and they didn’t tell us why, but they sent us home and when we got home halfway through the day, my mum was sitting there crying.
And it was the first time I realised there were people in the world that could really make a difference. So politics wasn’t of interest to me, but the ability to have character and say the right thing and to move masses with what you’re saying and what you’re doing was really powerful. So I think the chance to talk to John F. Kennedy would be amazing.
24 fingers: Thank you for sharing that. And what’s one word you’d like people to describe you with?
Pat: Love. I love love. I strive for seeing the gold in anyone. Part of the reason our coaching programmes are powerful is because I help people see how amazing they are, and I can’t help but fall in love with people who are up to something, who are vulnerable, who are willing to put it all on the line to create this new relationship, this new business, this new body image, this new writing a book or a project or whatever.
So I find myself saying “I love you” a lot to people, probably more than most business coaches would do, but I do. So that’s the word that I most want when it comes to how people think of me.
24 fingers: I know that anybody that finishes a coaching call with you has never left that room feeling anything other than a million dollars, so it’s true. Now you’re in LA and I’m in Dubai. We sound very global. I’m just going to do a screengrab. What’s one quote that defines your work ethic?
Pat: Well, when I say something about the global thing, we started a new team Thursday morning. And I’m just so proud of this because it shows that people all over the world are up to something.
On our team, we have six different countries represented. This is a 12-person team, and we’ve got, naturally the U.S., but we have the Arab Emirates, somebody’s in Abu Dhabi, somebody’s in Sweden, somebody’s in London, somebody’s in Spain. What’s the sixth one? Oh, Zambia in Africa.
So I love the fact that people come together once a week on a Zoom call. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. It doesn’t matter your age. We have the team ranging from somebody who’s 22 to 71.
But there’s like this common design of human being to want to see what’s possible in life and to take the actions towards that. So, sorry to hijack your question.
My favourite quote that’s on the bottom of my emails is from George Eliot and the quote is “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” And that’s something that I live by and get a chance to share with other people.
Somewhere along the way, I found out that George Eliot wasn’t really George, it was Mary, somebody who 200 years ago found it much easier to get published with a male name. So that made it even more exciting. It’s like nothing can stop you in life. So that’s my favourite.
24 fingers: Now, I know your feelings on social media, but have you got a favourite campaign that you’ve seen that someone’s done or that’s resonated with you?
Pat: Let’s see. Well, recently, two answers for that. But recently the Gwyneth Paltrow campaign, I don’t know if people have seen it in other places in the world, but in the US, she’s done a commercial for Ashley Madison.
That was the couple that was caught at the Coldplay concert having an affair. And so she did a commercial where she’s representing the employees of Astronomer. And she talks about, “We’ve been getting a lot of questions lately.” And they start to show the question. And it’s clearly a question like, “Oh my God, how are you guys dealing with it?” And then she’ll answer it from a perspective of, “Yes, Astronomer really works when you use this type of technology” or whatever.
So anyway, it’s just I think it’s clever and it’s a great PR campaign. Though for me, what I watch most in social media is this may not sound like the right thing to answer, but it’s the truth, is the clips from Britain’s Got Talent and America’s Got Talent. There’s something about that moment where you’re watching somebody and you don’t know how it’s gonna go. And sometimes Simon will raise his hand to stop the song and say, “No, that’s not working. It’s boring, have another song” and they’ll do the song. And it moves me every time.
There’s something about that moment where you see somebody’s life change. They’re extraordinary, living their purpose, sharing their talent, and then everybody stands up and gives them a standing ovation. Somebody hits the buzzer and the gold confetti starts to fall. And however they’ve been up until that moment in life, this moment on is never going to be the same. So that’s what I get excited about.
24 fingers: What’s been the best part of your day? I know it’s early for you.
Pat: Best part of my day so far. Well, obviously talking to you. There’s a book that I read called Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg. I think you’ve read it or you’re reading it too.
And he talks about this, he calls it the Maui syndrome or whatever, but basically says the what you’re thinking about as you first wake up has a momentum to it. It literally has your brain operating in a certain perspective. One of the things he says is, as you get out of the bed, as you put your feet on the floor, the first thing to say is “It’s going to be a great day” and really feel it. He says sometimes there’s enough going on that you might have to say “It’s going to be a great day somehow.” But no matter what, you’re creating that it’s going to be a great day.
And I firmly believe there’s a direct correlation between what we’re thinking about and what comes about in life. We work on that in Rubicon in terms of how to shift your thoughts to what you want to create in life.
So for me, that was my favourite part of the day so far. It’s like getting out of bed and stepping on the floor and going, “It’s going to be a great day.”
24 fingers: Finally, anything to plug?
Pat: Well, right or wrong, I’ve been plugging Rubicon here a lot, but I guess what I’ll plug is if there’s any interest in looking at how things could be beyond the way they already are, you may or may not want to do Rubicon Results, but my invitation is to do a discovery call with me.
It’s a 45-minute Radical Results Discovery Call and the whole purpose of the call is not a sales call whatsoever. The whole purpose of the call is to help you recognise how amazing you are, what is your purpose in life, what’s next for you in life that will light you up and what your vision in life.
And then out of that, sometimes people choose to do Rubicon, but I get excited about it because I meet somebody new. We have this conversation and within 45 minutes they’re on top of the world walking away from the call.
So, I invite people to do that. It’s a free call. It’s RubiconResultsCall.com. That’ll get you right on my calendar and just schedule a call and we’ll have a conversation that will lift you up, I promise.
24 fingers: It’s definitely true. You’ve been amazing as always, such a pleasure. And thank you so much for your time.
Pat: Emma, can I just say this? I love what you’re doing not only with this series, but what you do with your classes and what you do with people, really helping them solve their social media problems. And there’ve been a number of people once they got to know you in Rubicon, who then have done your programmes. I’ve never heard somebody say anything negative about you, ever. You are somebody who obviously loves what they’re doing, but is really credible. You know what you’re doing so you are the solution to so many people’s problems.
I know you do this to give other people a chance to talk about themselves. But if anybody is watching to this point in the video and you haven’t reached out to Emma Goode yet, my invitation is to do that. It will rock your world, no question.
And I love you, I love your energy and just how much you enjoy doing your job. So thank you for letting me be part of that.
24 fingers: Thanks so much. Take care.
Pat: All right. Bye.
