125: Stop Avoiding the Question That Will Change Your Life w/ Jason Brown

No Limit Leadership | Episode Show Notes Stop Avoiding the Question That Could Change Your Life — with Jason Brown

What would you love to be true about your life a year from now? Executive coach Jason Brown joins Sean Patton to break down why high performers avoid that question, what it's costing them, and why naming your vision isn't arrogance — it's the bravest thing you'll ever do.

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Chapter Markers

00:00 — The question high performers can't answer 01:07 — Jason's background: from pastor to executive coach 03:14 — Why we avoid thinking about the future 05:54 — Nobody's asking us the right questions 09:22 — Faith, humility, and the stories we hide behind 12:18 — What it means to bring beauty into the world 14:37 — "I can't add another thing" — and how to respond 23:40 — Fear vs. love as a driver of high performance 25:28 — Where does your enoughness come from? 28:22 — How pursuing a vision shapes your identity 30:46 — Jason's son, the mile, and measuring what you control 36:16 — From "what am I capable of?" to "what are WE capable of?"

Connect with Jason Brown

🌐 Website: jasonbrowncoaching.org 

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason-brown-bb122a42 

📧 Email: jasonbrown@novus.global 

🏢 Organization: Novus Global

About Jason Jason is an executive coach with Novus Global who works with leaders carrying a vision that matters — not just to themselves, but to the world around them. His coaching centers on the belief that pursuing a bold vision doesn't just change outcomes; it shapes the person, clarifies purpose, and brings something needed into the world.

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
stop. Ask yourself this. What would you love to be true about your life a year from now? If you don't have a clear answer that your whole life is currently aimed at, this episode is for you.

Novus Global Executive Coach Jason Brown breaks down why high performers can't answer that question, what it's really costing them, and how naming your vision isn't arrogance. It's the bravest thing you'll ever do.

Sean Patton (00:36)
Welcome to the No Limit Leadership podcast. am your host, Sean Patton. And today I am joined by Jason Brown. He's an executive coach with Novus Global, who works with leaders carrying a vision that matters, not just to themselves, but to the world around them. His work challenges leaders to confront the cost of leaving their vision unrealized while stepping into the pursuit of something meaningful and transformative. Jason's coaching centers on the belief that pursuing a bold vision doesn't just change outcomes, it shapes the person, clarifies purpose and brings something needed into the world.

Jason, thanks for being here today,

Jason Brown (01:07)
So glad to be with you, Sean. Happy Friday.

Sean Patton (01:09)
Yeah. Happy Friday. know. Yeah. mean, you, you have a very, ⁓ interesting background kind of that brought you to, your current role as an executive coach at, at Novus global. And before this, you were a coach in a different sense working in the financial sector. So what originally drew you to working with financial advisors and high performers?

Jason Brown (01:28)
Yeah, so first of all, think, you know, of course, I was, this wasn't with a lot of thought when I was 22 years old, right? But what I found myself doing, probably my beginning, my junior and senior year college is I was hanging out with people. And again, without being super conscious about it, I was very interested in helping them grow as a human being. So, you know, that's something that's just tracked with me all throughout my adult life. So,

Kind of functionally, I was a pastor for 22 years. So college students for the first 12 and then in a church setting out in Paramount Compton, Long Beach, California for 10 years. And then originally from Iowa, we moved back to Iowa in 2016. That's when I started in the financial planning and investment management industry and worked at just a remarkable local firm here in Des Moines. And, you know, it sounds kind of funny, like I was never an advisor.

but the work I did was lead the team of senior lead advisors at this group. And so a lot of my focus really was, you my kind of working theory, my working thesis was if I can help them become better human beings, my guess is they're going to become better advisors. And I also had the good fortune of working within an organization that was like, we're all.

we are behind that vision and working with people who also had a real vision for growing as human beings themselves. So, yeah, that's kind of what got me into coaching is it is really it's another avenue. And I would say I probably have the most excitement about the possibility of this avenue creating more transformation.

within the lives of people, including my own, than anything I've done up to this point.

Sean Patton (03:13)
Why is that?

Jason Brown (03:14)
Well, two things. First of all, I'll just talk a little bit about how it affected me. So I spent years running away from the question like, hey, what would you love to see happen in the future? And I had all sorts of reasons as to why that was not a good question for Jason Brown to answer. And all my reasons were really good. What I realized is probably my primary reason was I was avoiding failure, which, you know, that wasn't necessarily something I wanted to admit, but

working with a coach who gave me the opportunity to get out into the future and like say, well, actually there is some stuff that I've got some ideas in here about what I'd like to do that is, you know, I would say occurred to me as being so impossible or so out of the realm of possibility that I didn't want to really ever say them out loud. Right. And so

Getting the opportunity to do that is one thing. And then the second thing is, you know, what a good coach does is they, he, she, help you articulate in very concrete ways, the steps or the commitments you're going to make in order to get to that vision. And then they hold you accountable to it. And honestly, like, you know, I've been in a lot of good systems.

But I've never had the sort of challenge in accountability that has come with getting coached, being a coach.

Sean Patton (04:34)
You, if you look back, maybe in your, your past or working with others, you mentioned there was, you know, a lot of reasons around not getting clear on, on vision, just sort of this reactive mode, just going to the next step.

Jason Brown (04:46)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (04:48)
Do you think that that is intentional or is it, you mentioned it just too scary. Where do you think that that the motivation comes from? If we think that, I know I found this, if we walked around and asked, you know, a hundred people on the street, like, what are you working toward? What's your life going to be like in five years? If you're successful, my guess is 90 % or more, 95 % or more are going to have no idea.

Jason Brown (05:07)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (05:50)
It's very interesting. It's very, it's like a very big, why do, why do we avoid that?

Jason Brown (05:54)
Well, here's the first thing, and this may sound just no, real silly. Nobody takes the time to ask us and listen. So, you know, that's one of the things, regardless of if I end up coaching anyone, when I sit down to have, let's say, a first or second meeting with people who are interested in coaching. I think there's incredible value for them to get.

just by sitting with somebody who has time to say, hey, what's out there? And is not going to leave the conversation until they start to give some answers. So that would be my first answer is that, you know, for the most part, nobody's asking us the question and then nobody's given us the time to kind of like probe, prob, you know, be interested enough to

get us to the point where we're giving answers that then start to like maybe get us excited about going after something. So, you know, it's a that'd be my first. That's the first thing that comes to mind for me. How about for you?

Sean Patton (06:53)
You know, what was coming for me as you were just talking, I was going to ask you, but maybe I'll try to give my pass at it as well is, know, this immediate sort of excuse of like, well, who knows? Right? Like the world, the world's going to change. Things change so fast. Who knows what I'm going to want be whatever in five years. Like what's the point. and, I think that, it becomes this attachment to outcome.

Where it's like, well, I don't want to set this big vision or say, I'm going to do this thing. Cause you mentioned like fear of failure. That's always been a huge driver for me. I've I didn't unconsciously. and so it's this sense of like, I don't want to say this big, scary thing because what happens if I don't get it, then I quote unquote fail. Then I feel like a failure. And so it's just like, just put one step in front of the other and create a.

Jason Brown (07:14)
Maybe.

you.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (07:39)
worldview, a value system where that becomes virtuous.

Jason Brown (07:44)
Yes, well,

yeah, and I'll say I had a lot of a virtue attached to that exact same thing. And, you know, of course, the virtue was a cover up for my own like, well, what if I were to say this out loud? What would people think about me? Would I still?

Sean Patton (08:00)
What was that? What

was that virtuous story? I'm wondering, like, what were you telling yourself back then? Like, what was that story Jason was telling himself?

Jason Brown (08:03)
⁓

So, you know, it's hard for me to divorce this from my own concept of faith. So, you know, here's a couple things. Nobody knows the future. Only God knows the future. And so, you know, don't plan for it sort of thing. And that's definitionally then what it means to live by faith, something like that. And here's this other thing.

you know, when I had the opportunity to start to talk about some of the things that were in me, you know, it's, it's, there is some bigness to it. And so I was attaching the virtue of humility as well to, Hey, you know, I'm going, I'm not going to sort of go out on a limb and go after this thing or go after that thing because, you know, I want to remain humble. Um, and

And I don't want to be that type of person who is like, I'm going to do this, or I think I can go do this big thing. And you know what? You don't need to be that type of person to start to look out there and begin to pursue stuff. So yeah, I definitely attached a particular version of faith and a particular version of humility as a cover of.

for honestly, think maybe some of the vision that had been planted in me. And I keep doing this here because this is where I feel like it's located in our bodies, like somewhere in this area.

Sean Patton (09:22)
Yeah. You know, I, uh, I love this and I think this is an important topic for a lot of people listening. And so I want to, and I think you're uniquely positioned to, to commentate and give your opinion on. So if I had to create like sort of characters or characters or whatever the word is, right. Like if I was to inflate two sides of this, maybe coin from a, especially probably like in this country, like a Christian faith background.

Jason Brown (09:32)
in here.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (09:48)
I know people

that are maybe even more extreme than what you said, right? Of just like, you know, I'm just a humble servant to the Lord. I'm just going to show up, do my work every day and take it. like, and, like anything outside of that, anything is just like anything outside comfort zone is like, that's not my place. I'm just here doing like, that's one stream version. And then if I had to maybe look at this as a scale and go to the far other side, you have, you know, again, what occurs to me as like the.

God wants you to be rich. And like, if you're not rich, you're not going like, you know, like give, give, give. like, you know, maybe the there's that funny movie with like the hyper about the, the, like mega church pastor, right? Like driving his jets and he's like, this is what Jesus wants, you know, like, it's like the far version of that. Right. So it's like, what's w what's in between? Like, where do, where do we sit in that?

Jason Brown (10:27)
One, two, four.

Yeah.

First of all, I got to tell you a funny story that's coming up. so when I was pastor in Long Beach, there was a show that was going to be started. It was called the real pastors of LA and one of the pastors who was on it, one of the pastors who was on it, get this, this is so great. He comes, he was from Long Beach as well. And so he says, Hey, can I talk with you about something? And so we get coffee. He's explaining to me the idea of the show and he goes,

Sean Patton (10:35)
Yep.

Jason Brown (10:56)
I'm trying to figure out a way to say this to you. We just need somebody who's like kind of normal on this show.

And it was because all the other pastors that were being featured, mean, just hard for me to say this, but they were driving Bentley's, they had a jet, these sorts of things. And they said, hey, we're just looking for somebody whose life is pretty normal. And I declined. wasn't really interested in them making my life non-normal.

But I will say, yeah, that one of my huge fears was I had in mind all those pastors who, you you hear all the stories, right? At the end of the day, major internal issues, probably in it because they have some desperate need for attention, probably in it because there's greed and they're papering it over it with all this religious language. And frankly, you know, many stories of

of pastors who had just totally used up people in their congregation. I definitely live with that story and said to myself, I will never be that pastor. I will never be that leader. And, you know, I think that that was a great thing. I think it served me for a long time, but I also see the ways that it was limiting. So it's really funny that you would bring that up because yes, as an archetype, that just lived in me. And I was like, never.

Never, never.

Sean Patton (12:18)
So, so, and you being in that world and obviously processing this for yourself and coming to again, this new story, this new way of relating to, your purpose and how you want to impact people and then tied to your faith. So what, what is the current story? What is, what is the belief that you're on now that feels true?

Jason Brown (12:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you you read that introduction and I'm always I'm always tweaking, you know, that sort of a statement, right? The thing that is really grounding me and that has more energy, I think, than anything I've come across up to this point, Sean, is I realize what I want to do is help people bring beauty into the world. So like that to me, even saying it.

It just grounds me. It's like, this is why I'm a coach. This is why you're doing this. And, you know, it may sound weird, you know, two dudes here talking about and I know what you used to do in your past. And, you know, two dudes here talking about bringing beauty into the world. But as you know, beauty can be defined in so many ways and.

When I'm thinking about with the clients that you and I are working with or the clients that are out there in the future, it's OK. There's going to be people who don't, know, this concept of bringing beauty into the world, it's not going to connect with them. But there are plenty of people that I know for a fact that it connects to deeply and they're thinking. So, what's the beauty you want to bring into the world via the business that you own? Via the culture that you want to create at work.

via the opportunities you want to create for your colleagues. What's the beauty you want to bring into your own private life? What's the beauty you want to bring into your friendships or your marriage relationship or your relationship with your kids or whatever it looks like, the organizations that you're part of. So what I've found is as I've really like leaned into this and talk with people about this is people really connect to it and

They are thinking about their lives and like, man, am I creating beautiful things? Am I bringing beauty into the world? And my occurrence is, I mean, this has probably always been the case, but like now is a huge time for human beings to think about, okay, how can I be the creator of beauty? So that's...

That's the thing that is really energizing me right now and has become my why behind my coaching.

Sean Patton (14:37)
So when you talk with leaders.

often, either especially the business owners or senior leaders, whatever, leaders in the community, whatever space they're in. If I get, you know, I hear pushback on this sort of concept, it's usually around, I can't do another thing. Right. Like people are like, I can't add another thing. look at all the stuff I'm doing. I'm burned out, right. Or whatever the, the

Jason Brown (14:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (15:01)
I'm

wondering what, what your take is, your responses to that sort of sentiment. Like, yeah, that sounds odd. I'd love to bring beauty in the world, but dude, look at all this stuff I got going on.

Jason Brown (15:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, when I when I've talked to people about that, you know, so, yeah, there's been a few times where I'm asking people about, hey, put yourself a year out. And if I were to run into you and say and the first words that came, you know, said, how's it going, Sean? And the first words that came out of your mouth were, I can't believe it. But what would you put in there? And

You know, there's been a portion of people who have heard that as just another big thing that they're supposed to do. Just another like big, like project or a series of shoulds or a series of have tos in order to be a worthwhile human being. I assume you kind of run into that a little bit as well. Yeah. And so one of the things I try and work with them on is first of all, Hey,

Sean Patton (15:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Brown (15:55)
If we could set that aside for a moment and not think about any of the have to, should to's, what would you love to be true about your life? And, you know, they say some things and then they'll say something like, but if I were to do that, I don't know if I would even have time left over for my kids anymore or something like that. And I say, OK, well, then that's got to be in. That's got to be a part of the product that you're that the.

part of the vision that you're going for is time with kids and then try and help them articulate, well, what would you love to be true about the life with your kids as well? And then just have them entertain the possibility, just the possibility that perhaps they could pursue all of these things in a way that is not totally exhausting.

in a way that's demanding even more time, in a way that's demanding even more stress, you know, in the language that you and I are using, that high performance math, which is more time, more energy, more stress, more of all these things, right? And I try and get them to imagine, are there ways that this could happen without more, more, more, more?

And I'll be honest with you, you some people, some people, go, let's let's talk about that. That's interesting. And some people are like, I just don't see the path.

Sean Patton (17:06)
Yeah.

Jason Brown (17:14)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (17:15)
Man, I love that. And so two things came up for me when you were just talking to me, notes. One is that if we are either for ourselves or if we're working with a coach or talking about this with, know, a peer or mentor or something that if we create vision, that's not holistic, that's lacking something.

Jason Brown (17:36)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (17:39)
we run into real problems, right? If I say, what's my vision for a year? And I'm about the perfect vision, but I'm just thinking about my business. But it lacks, you mentioned like, well,

Jason Brown (17:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Sean Patton (17:51)
I'm I'm to make this much money and I'm do this much thing. And then I started running that race and I saw like, what that looked like. And I was like, Oh crap. I don't even want to, I don't even think I want that because of, because of the, the,

Jason Brown (17:52)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Patton (18:08)
the cost of the time associated with it. and so, that was a key for me. It's like, think, I think it's so powerful to, even if you were talking with a business coach, or even if you're thinking about business, but you're visioning for yourself is like, a vision that's holistic around like what matters in your life, what are your key priorities and kind of like starting there? Is that, is that like a good point? think like the prioritization thing comes up for me, like what's most important first and let's make sure that's included in vision.

Jason Brown (18:32)
I think that's huge. also, you know, what I've, what I've tried to do every time is when they say, but then I'm worried that this won't happen. It's like, no, no, let's put that in the vision. Right? No, let's include that, but let's include it as a positive. So, so what is it that you want? Well, you know, this thing that you're afraid of losing out on. Okay. Well, let's not only bring it in as a, don't want to lose out on it. Let's bring it in as a,

Well, what would occur to you as exactly what you want related to that thing? So I think my answer is yes, for sure. What you said is like, let's try and be holistic. know, yeah, personal health, close family and friend relationships, things like that. Let's not leave that out. And then when it occurs to somebody like, my gosh, if I were to go after this, the story I'm telling myself is these things.

would completely suffer. Okay, well let's just bring them into the vision. Let's just bring it in and then let's put a vision spin on it. Not just to like, not just a crud, but like, okay yeah, well what would you love to be true with that relationship and this? Yeah.

Sean Patton (19:37)
And I,

and you know, my second point there was about this high performance versus meta performance construct. And I think you're hitting it perfectly right now, which is if you list all those things out and you approach it with your past patterns or high performance mindset of more and more and more. And I want to have, know, you're like, want to travel to Europe four times a year. And I want, you know, my relationship with my wife to be perfect and my kids have this and I'm going to be, I have a six pack and I'm going to have a million dollar business.

Jason Brown (19:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (20:05)
Like all that stuff. you're like, I'm going to hyper if you high perform that, or you have a high performance mindset, I guess my argument would be most people, myself included, when we first do that exercise, it comes across overwhelming and heavy and impossible because we have this high performance mindset and the power of meta performance in our world or taking of like, what am I capable of is like, what if we look at what if there's different ways to accomplish it? And

almost be obsessed with, I love it in entrepreneurs. A long time ago, I heard the somebody said it. I wish I could give them credit, know, stay obsessed with the problem, not the solution, you know, like, and so, yeah, so like explain to someone, maybe that difference between when they're like, what are you talking about high performance versus meta performance? And how is, how does that let me accomplish or create a vision that seems impossible?

Jason Brown (20:34)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, know, first thing I do, I think it's worth saying is, you know, people are going to list off a bunch of stuff. There probably is a place where you say, okay, do you really want this? Do you really want this? And I think most of the time what you'll find out, whether it be with yourself or with the people that you're working with, there are some stuff on this list that when they, you know, like, you know what? No, I don't really want that. It's just, I felt like...

somebody who's a really good human being or a super high performing human being, that's something they would want or they should do, you know. You know, and so it's like, well, what would it look like if we just pulled that out? So that's something that, you know, I think the great thing about when you move from so the high performance question, right, that you're asking is how can I be the best? And there's so many limiting things that happen in that way. First of all,

You're typically when you're asking that question, you're asking it in terms, you're defining it within whatever context you're in, right? So, you know, it's like put yourself in a company and it's like, okay, great. I know that I'm the best manager there. Well, you may not even be close to the best manager on the planet, but within the context, you're the best thing. And that can really be limiting them. It can kind of limit your growth.

The math on high performance is more and more and more and more. When you ask the meta performance question, which is what am I capable of? And you're getting coached towards that end. A good coach is going to ask you to consider the possibility of brand new ways of thinking and also

consider the possibility of brand new ways of behaving that are not more, more, more, more. And so it's really requiring a certain amount of re-imagination and also reinvention of who you are. The other thing I would say is, and this has been true for me,

is when you're pursuing that really, you know, it kind of, it's seemingly impossible, but it's also super thrilling, glorious, beautiful. And there's not a lot of shoulds there. It kind of like you think, I get to do this.

when you take off out all the shoulds, you find yourself with just more energy to move in that direction anyway. mean, and maybe that's question for you too. I'd be curious like, have you found that for yourself or for your clients as well?

Sean Patton (23:37)
Yes. And I will say it's taken work for me to get there. I, a realization through that the work we we've done at Novus global together and the Meta performance Institute has really helped to give additional clarity and language, think, to, it. but it before my answer was always go harder.

Jason Brown (23:40)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (23:57)
identity around the ability to go harder and we're out work people out do things like that and would I you know if I have to strip it down to what I've gotten to a place now in the last few years of this self work is

that what I start identifying is, the primary driver fear love. And, if it's fear, like fear is a, uh, I think it can be useful in very short. It's like an acute tool, you know, it's like the deadline is here. I got to, I got to, I got to hammer it out or this emergency happens or else my family, whatever, like it could be very useful in these small, uh, acute senses, but

Jason Brown (24:15)
Yeah.

It's a... Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Sean Patton (24:36)
for you brought the should part, but if it's, if a should in front of it, it's a fear. It's like, well, what if not, if you don't get it, right. And so, and my fear, my primary driver is the need to feel like I matter. That's what drove me for a long time was if I don't, you know, if I can't, uh, if I don't get into West point or if I don't graduate high enough, like

Jason Brown (24:43)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Patton (25:02)
I then I won't matter. I'll just be another dude on the street who doesn't matter in the world. And then same thing going to infantry, go under special forces. Like it was always, I had to push myself and figure out what I was capable of. And I had my own stories around that. And just like yours, I think there was some positive and aspects around service and around contributing to a greater good and like things that are still valuable. underneath that, the primary driver was steel. This fear based of.

Jason Brown (25:05)
Yep. Yep.

Sean Patton (25:28)
If I don't do this, if I don't stand out, if I'm not the best, then I don't matter.

Jason Brown (25:29)
Is it? Is it?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I'm just thinking about I'm making up then that one of the things that changed internally for me, for you, is just this realization, I already do matter

Sean Patton (25:43)
Yeah. And I'd say that's like being completely transparent. My current struggle. Like I'm having current conversations with multiple coaches about, ⁓ this. so, ⁓ and actually one of my commitments that I, I have failed out since my last coaching session is to ask people where they get their enoughness from. So let me point that at you, Jason, where do you get your enoughness from?

Jason Brown (25:49)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so yeah, my guess is there's gonna be a part of me that is not gonna answer that question for the rest of my life. So let me be. I don't think I'm ever gonna get so zen that it's like, all right, I've got enough enoughness. But.

where my enoughness comes from is this belief that I am deeply loved by the creator of the cosmos and that who I am, not, you know, there's better versions of Jason to come. There's less messy versions of Jason to come.

There's a lot of growth that I can have. But who I am, even just right on this podcast right now, is a gift. So wherever I go, you know, if I'm just showing up at Starbucks, I'm thinking about the fact that my presence in that place, there's an opportunity for just me to be a gift. It could be to the people next door. It could be to the workers who are there.

But just this belief that me, who I am, wherever I go, I take this gift with me. And when I am, when I've really leaned into that fact, I am deeply and profoundly loved and I just am a gift. I feel enough, you know, I get off track regularly from that, but that's

That's kind of my answer. And I do think there's something like at age 54, I can observe my life and I do think that this has become even more true of this belief. I don't become a gift or I don't matter because of the next five amazing things I'm going to do.

you know, right now. So that's the answer.

Sean Patton (27:44)
I love that. I appreciate it. Thanks for that vulnerability and being candid. what came up for me too is that in some of your content and in previous conversations,

And I believe this too. And, and, and I'll give you kind of my take maybe at the end, like that the pers creating that vision, you're talking about his identity. Like when you talked about enoughness, was really the switch to identity versus is doing. And so, in creating vision and pursuing vision, you mentioned that, or you have said before that, uh, pursuing a vision shapes the soul, but it's the pursuit of vision that, changes that things that identity.

Jason Brown (28:03)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (28:21)
level. Can you explain what that means?

Jason Brown (28:22)
Yeah, I'll do my best here to do it.

So one of the things you do a lot of work, you and I with our coaches or with the people that we're coaching, and you're getting out into the future and you're articulating these targets or these outcomes, vision that you want to pursue. And that's always changing and hopefully always growing and adding.

great, you do that work and then you're working on the strategy to get there. At the end of the day, you know, in some respects, the achievement of the vision, the realization of the vision, it's just the cherry on top.

It's who you become, the type of person that you're required to become in order to realize that vision. So when I think, you know, part of my vision, you know, related to bringing beauty into the planet, I have specific groups of individuals that I'm thinking about that I would love to help them bring beauty. And, you know, one group is ⁓ politicians. So.

That strikes me as like a radically new concept. hey, let's think a little bit about the beauty you want to bring over. Like, what in the world is that? But I want to like, let me make this tangible. Our son, he is he's a junior in college and he is he's a runner. So he just had his indoor season. And during the indoor season, he focused on the mile and

Sean Patton (30:23)
Yeah.

Jason Brown (30:46)
So I did a lot of coaching with him prior to the season. He's got a great coach too, so at his school, but I did a lot of coaching with him. And one of the things that Jack chose to do is he chose to make measure success on the basis of whether or not he stayed true to the commitments that he made. So he had two big goals just personally. One was run us up four minute mile. The other one was to win the national championship in the.

And then he worked backwards from that and he made commitments to run, we call them experiments actually in our language. So he committed to certain experiments related to that goal and also related to his leadership on the team. So there were certain things he was committed to. And all during the year, what he was celebrating was the fact that he kept running the experiments that he wanted to run. He stayed

true to the commitments that he made. And so, you know, this story, it has a happy ending. He ended up winning the mile at the National Championships for Division three indoors. And one of the things that was unique is, you know, when Jack was being interviewed afterwards, he he kept talking about how the whole season he was celebrating.

Like the whole season he was celebrating because every week he'd say, ⁓ you know, I did the things I wanted to do in my training. I did the things I wanted to do in my rest and recovery. I did the things I wanted to do as a captain of this team. You know, I told my dad, I told my coach, here's what I'm going to do. And I did it. And he would let himself celebrate that every week. And that was his success. And what's interesting when he won the mile.

He was able to do something that not a lot of high performers do. He celebrated like crazy for a week. Because he didn't just move on to the next thing.

He was just so happy. And for him, and he said it, he said, I felt like I already succeeded this season.

So I just share that as maybe a tangible example of, and you know, it occurs to me that like our son's ability to celebrate like, know what I made and kept these commitments. He grew as a human being. And you know, maybe he never wins the national championship. He still grew as a person. He still became.

better version of himself. Hopefully that's you know kind of a helpful answer to that question.

Sean Patton (33:04)
I mean, yeah, there's so much gold in there about commitments, about process over outcome and about the pursuit of something and measuring it by what you control and your actions and your development as a person is the true measure of success. Because so often, right, we get to, you know,

Jason Brown (33:19)
Yes. Yes.

Sean Patton (33:30)
I, I, I, I wrestled growing up. do Jiu-Jitsu and I, even now, right. compete and, ⁓ you know, I use the example of process for his outcome. Like you could go out and like not prepare, like show up, you know, head somewhere else, whatever, not even be that great. Not, not do not, do your grappling is great. And you could still win, but like, yeah, yeah, it's just.

Jason Brown (33:50)
Yeah, Johnny Manzano, right? When he was QB at A ⁓ The stuff that

I was doing the night before, it's like, you kidding me?

Sean Patton (33:58)
Yeah.

Crazy. And we still get you still got the wind, but like then, and then other times, right? You can, you could do everything right. Like your son, could do everything right. And he still could have some other person could have shown up who just runs a three 30 mile or something in like, whatever, you know, like it's, so it's like, so if that is your, if that's your measuring stick, well, you're just throwing stuff at the wall at that point.

Jason Brown (34:19)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (34:20)
You know, judging yourself based on who shows up today and then you're in high performance. But if you push, so this is like a great example of your bring up, like meta performance is looking at, I keep my commitments that I stay in integrity? And, and to your point, the beauty of that is we do that with, you know, the mile. What does that look like for him at his first job? We do that in our, with our teams and we celebrate as we go and we stay committed. Like maybe you do hit revenue goal. Maybe the market crashes and you don't.

Jason Brown (34:26)
Yes.

That's right.

Sean Patton (34:47)
But what about the following year and the following year and the following year? Like you're in such a better position because of that development. That's what I'm hearing.

Jason Brown (34:53)
Absolutely. And I think it's so true, you know, because the truth, he could have gotten a near infection, you know, something like that sinus infection. We got not a chance to win. Right. And that kind of stuff shows up in life. And if our only metric is the achievement of the results at the end. And again, you and I are not saying don't name the results, don't orient your life towards them. Absolutely do that.

But the value is in the process. The value is who you're becoming along the way. I think too, you got this just a little bit. It's like when you get, know, we will talk in Novus Global, we will talk about, there's a better question than the high performance question. You know, it's like, how can I be the best? The better question is, what am I capable of? And that's because you can ask that for the rest of your life in all kinds of situations.

But then we also say there's an even better question, which is what are we capable of? And I really do think like, okay, great. Name your individual stuff. Awesome. That's good. But in all cases too, can we consider the we?

You know, it just takes your mind off you for second and now you're putting it on something already larger than yourself. And it gives you the opportunity. You're thinking about your success, not in terms of yourself, but you're thinking about your success in terms of something that's broader.

Sean Patton (36:16)
Yeah. It's interesting to me that when I do that thought experiment, you just talked about that. When I use the, what are we capable of? It's almost easier for me to stay with like process and function. know, like then when it's, when I think what am I capable of, I'm sort of almost, it's almost easier for me to fall into the trap of like, here's the number or here's the thing. but for some reason I hear we,

Jason Brown (36:28)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (36:39)
I go back to like, well, geez, like because naturally outside myself, it's thinking about how would we function together? What would that look like? And the dynamics of that, what would have to be true for us to, to do that? and it's interesting. It kind of pulls you out of yourself, ⁓ to do that.

Jason Brown (36:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, privately offline, right? You and I have talked about like, I wonder what kind of success we could create within, you know, we both had some experience in the financial industry, for example. And I will say, you know, for me, just getting on the call with you, starting that process, brainstorming a little bit. I loved it.

Like, honestly more fun than me sitting down and just thinking about me.

Which is great, that's fine, but you know, just hanging out with you and hey, what about this, what about that? You know, just starting that process, thinking about what is it that we could create? I don't know, there's something about that that does just create more energy. More fun, almost.

Sean Patton (37:37)
Yeah, no, totally. Man, I, and I love that we've come back to this like pursuit of this grand vision being led by fear to create beauty and have fun while doing it. Like talk about it, like a compelling vision to me, you ⁓

Jason Brown (37:51)
Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Patton (37:57)
Man, Jace's has been awesome, man. I really appreciate your time today. I appreciate the work you do and your commitment ⁓ to it and to yourself and others. So thanks for sharing with us today, And we will be definitely doing work together.

Jason Brown (38:11)
Yes, love being on the podcast, Sean. Thanks also for the work you do. And hey, people need to know you're a great dude. You're just a good dude. And honestly, that's part of what makes it just super fun and valuable to spend time with you.

Sean Patton (38:20)
Thanks, man.

⁓ well, thanks, man. I'm going to, ⁓ I'm going to sit on that when I, when I'm meditating on my enoughness, because that does mean a lot coming from you. Thanks, man.

Jason Brown (38:36)
That's it.

You bet. Bye bye.