Paul Pagnato Show Notes Page

Paul Pagnato was working in the financial industry when the financial crisis hit. With the lack of transparency in the industry, people no longer knew if it was all going to work out for them. Unable to stand this lack of transparency, Paul took the courage to leave the industry to become an entrepreneur and bring transparency to the financial world.

Paul A. Pagnato grew up in Virginia, right outside of Washington DC. Since elementary school, he was a self-proclaimed “geek.” A badge he wears proudly because his nerdiness contributed to where he is today.

While other kids wanted a bicycle or sports equipment for their birthdays, he had his eyes and heart laser-focused on something much cooler – A MICROSCOPE.

With that microscope, he conducted countless experiments, some of them exciting, while others were complete busts. Nevertheless, over time the failures decreased in number even though he was tackling more advanced problems.

This led to his formal education and ultimately becoming a microbiologist, working collaboratively with NASA and McDonnell Douglas to search for life in outer space. Happiest on the water, Paul spent ten years on the professional bass fishing circuit chasing every fisherman’s dream.

Then, Paul joined the financial industry to help families manage their wealth. Without a background in finance, he started as a real novice, ultimately spending 19 years with Merrill Lynch and founding the Washington, DC Private Banking and Investment Office.

When the 2008 financial crisis revealed massive conflicts of interest in the industry, Paul’s focus turned to establish a new golden standard–Transparency. He put his research skills to work and met directly with hundreds of industry leaders, including the SEC, Department of Labor, and Institute for the Fiduciary Standard. The outcome led to the creation of PagnatoKarp, a financial founded squarely on standards of transparency.

PagnatoKarp now has over $4.8 billion assets under advisement, and Paul is a top-ranked financial advisor by Barron’s and Forbes, as well as a frequent media contributor to The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNN and The Street.

Paul is the author of the book Transparency Wave: Exponential Changes That Will Transform Our World. He is also the founder of the TrueFiduciary® Institute, a non-profit with a Massive Transformative Purpose to positively impact one million students through digital education and True Fiduciary® standards of transparency.

Paul volunteers his time with numerous organizations, including Feeding America, Operation Gratitude, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and even built several Homes of Hope in the Dominican Republic to help families in need.

Paul is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University and The Executive Program at Singularity University. He and his wife, Angela, reside in Vienna, Virginia.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @PagnatoKarp to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow – Click to Tweet

“There’s not many things you and I can control; one of them is our attitude.” – Click to Tweet

“Everyday when I wake up, I do everything I possibly can to have a positive mental attitude. – Click to Tweet

“Transparency takes courage, practice, and a positive mental attitude.” – Click to Tweet

“The pace of change is accelerating. It’s exponential.” – Click to Tweet

“There’s not many things you and I can control; one of them is our attitude.” – Click to Tweet

“The companies that are flourishing today are the ones that have taken transparency to a whole new level.” – Click to Tweet

“The reality is individuals and consumers want ridiculously simple terms.” – Click to Tweet

“You need to openly, honestly, consistently provide the facts and data of what’s going on in your organization.” – Click to Tweet

“Trust and transparency go hand-in-hand.” – Click to Tweet

“We now live in a time of abundance; what the differentiator today is trust.” – Click to Tweet

“The companies that you trust most are the ones that give you complete transparency.” – Click to Tweet

“Transparency is going to continue for years to come, and it’s going to happen very fast.” – Click to Tweet

“All these standards are about providing transparency to the culture.” – Click to Tweet

“At the end of the day, it’s all about the customer. Humans just want to know the deal.” – Click to Tweet

“One of the hardest things for us to do is to let go and to release.” – Click to Tweet

“We got to have the courage to do something really, really special.” – Click to Tweet

“Success is failure turned inside out.” – Click to Tweet

“The more failure you have and the faster you have that failure, the quicker you get to where you’re going to go.” – Click to Tweet

“The first negative thought is the thought to failure.” – Click to Tweet

Hump to Get Over

Advice for others

Be an entrepreneur sooner. You would be able to impact more lives at a much faster rate.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Personal fear.

Best Leadership Advice

Always think of others first.

Secret to Success

Always do the right thing.

Best tools in business or life

A great support group.

Contacting Paul Pagnato

Twitter – https://twitter.com/PagnatoKarp

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpagnato/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/transparencywave/

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGO8H6lDxTc-x1NIyYMQW_Q

Website: https://www.transparencywave.com/

Resources

PagnatoKarp: https://www.pagnatokarp.com/

Show Transcript

[expand title=”Click to access edited transcript”]

Unedited Transcript

Jim Rembach (00:00):

Okay. Fast leader today. I’m excited because I, we have somebody on the show today who is going to help us with something that when I think about this and being exceptional, extraordinary at it, you know, it’s really the less than 1% of the entire leadership population that’s good at it. So it’s an opportunity for me and you, Paul Pagnato grew up in Virginia right outside of Washington, D C since elementary school. He was a self proclaimed geek of badge he wears proudly because his nerdiness contributed to where he is today. While other kids wanted a bicycle or sports equipment or their birthday, he had his eyes and heart laser focused on something much cooler, a microscope with that microscope. He conducted countless experiments, some of them exciting while others were complete busts. Nevertheless, over time, the failures decreased in number, even though he was tackling more advanced problems.

Jim Rembach (00:57):

This led to his formal education and ultimately becoming a microbiologist, working collaboratively with NASA and McDonald Douglas to search for life and outer space, happiest on the water. Paul spent 10 years on the professional bass fishing circuit chasing every fishermen’s dream. Then Paul joined the financial industry to help families manage their well without a background in finance. He started as a real novice, ultimately spending 19 years with Merrill Lynch and founding the Washington D C private banking and investment office. When in 2008 financial crisis, it revealed a massive conflict of interest in the industry. Paul’s focus turned to establishing a new golden standard transparency. He put his research skills to work and met directly with hundreds of industry leaders, including the STC department of labor and the Institute for fiduciary standard. The outcome led to the creation of tech natto carp, a financial founded a financial firm founded squarely on standards of transparency.

Jim Rembach (01:56):

Pagnatokarp now have, has four point $8 billion in assets under management and Paul is a top break financial advisor by Barron’s and Forbes as well as a frequent media contributor to the wall street journal, CNBC, Fox business, Bloomberg business, Reuters, CNN, and the st Paul is the author of the book transparency, Wade exponential changes that will transform our world. He is also the founder of the true fiduciary Institute, a nonprofit with a massive transformative purpose. To positively impact 1 million students through digital education and true fiduciary standards of transparency. All volunteer tears his time with numerous organizations including feeding America operation gratitude and the Walter Reed national military medical center, and even built several homes of hope in the Dominican Republic to help families in need. Paul is a graduate of Florida Atlantic university and the executive and the executive program at the singularity university. He and his wife Angela, reside in Vienna, Virginia. Paul Pagnato. Are you ready to help us get over the hump?

Paul Pagnato (03:06):

I’m ready. Thank you so much for that amazing introduction, Jim. Very, very, very flattering.

Jim Rembach (03:10):

Well, and you know, I really appreciate you putting, um, you know, your input into this bio because when I had the opportunity to get your first bio and then started reading in the book, I’m like, Oh no, we can do much better than this. And so thank you to you and your team for doing that. But you know, I’ve, I’ve given my Legion a little bit about you, but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better?

Paul Pagnato (03:33):

My current passion is our topic here today. It’s transparency. Transparency has completely changed my life and I want to do everything I possibly can to help give the tools, give the courage to other individuals to be more transparent, to be more transparent in their personal lives and their corporate life or an nonprofits, agencies, government. But that is, this is my passion and I’ve been able to lead through what I know and have experienced the last three decades. And wealth management and financial services are really hoping to bring this to to everyone.

Jim Rembach (04:10):

Well, and as you’re talking and I start thinking about your background and, and that start that you had in the financial services industry, I really liken it to many people when it comes to their skill, knowledge and expertise and understanding of transparency. I mean, we hear the word a ton. I mean we do, but I just don’t think we really know what that means. And you say it all starts with P M a what does BMA,

Paul Pagnato (04:34):

PMA is positive mental attitude. Jim, there’s not many things that you or I or audience can control every single day. That’s one of the few items. It’s our attitude. And so every day when I wake up, I do everything I possibly can to have a positive mental attitude and for that to carry through with me. So tips are when I send an email or a text or having conversations with people whenever I possibly can, I always end it with PMA. And that goes right to my subconscious mind to remind me to be positive. But then I’ll hopefully makes a little impact on others as well.

Jim Rembach (05:15):

You know, as you’re saying that and because of the dialogue that you and I had in a firsthand experience I had with transparency, it makes me think about what transparency if you’re unskilled can absolutely cause, and that is a whole lot of fear being rustled up that really isn’t necessary. But if we do have that PMA foundation, I think it has the opportunity for us to have a very, very different mindset and lens into transparency. Is that correct?

Paul Pagnato (05:45):

That’s so correct. You know, if you think about it, we’re humans and we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re all normal. So we survived a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, 2000 years ago, by not being transparent because we survived in the Bush from the lion by camouflaging ourselves. And now in a very short period of time and a decade, it’s being asked upon us, almost demanded upon us to be fully transparent. And that’s hard. So what happens is when we’re being transparent, we feel vulnerable, we feel insecure, we feel that people are going to judge us, we feel people will be getting data to take advantage of us. And it really couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s all mental chatter going on in our minds. But it’s real. I mean, we release a hormone called cortisone a heartbeat’s faster. We start, you know, our lungs start expanding, our chest starts literally, we get this fear. It’s an emotional response. So it’s, it’s real and it’s hard, but it takes courage. It takes practice and it takes PMA to get there.

Jim Rembach (06:57):

Well, and I think what you just said, you also bring out in the book in regards to this three waves of innovation because you’re, what you’re really founding here and stating is that transparency is really where innovation is going to come from in the next, next several years. And we’re going to talk about that in a second. But I want to talk about these three ways because contextually I think it’s important. So you talked about the communication wave of innovation, the digital wave of innovation and at the wave that we’re in right now, but at the early stages, just the transparency wave, now that you say the communication wave less than about 400 years and vigil wave less has lasted about 50 and then the transparency wave. So when you, when you start talking about those ways, really, what are they, what’s the communication? Digital and transparency.

Paul Pagnato (07:44):

Yeah. So that was, that was beautiful. And the waves are happening faster, the pace of changes is actually accelerating. It’s not plateauing or flattening out. So the communication period was the launch of the printing press, the airplane, the combustion engine, the telephone. So think of these ways is continuous. Those are all things that we all use every day today. But that was the first big massive burst of innovation in the late 18 hundreds that enabled us to go into the digital era. That really started with Vint Cerf in 1969 it was a government project to create the internet. It was for security reasons and that launched everything we have today from email, text, uh, computers, PCs, all of that. So we all grew up in or born in the digital era that is now the end of the digital era is bringing us into the transparency way.

Paul Pagnato (08:46):

So Vance does digitization, machine learning, artificial intelligence provides Uber transparency on aspects and you see it happening in industry after industry, whether it’s the ride sharing industry with Uber and Lyft, it’s a complete transparency now on the drivers and who’s picking you up where they are, you know exactly what the cost is to an Amazon completely disrupting the retail industry. Everyone has complete transparency on what, what, what, what costs, what to companies that have incredible cultures of transparency. So this era, the companies that are flourishing today are the ones that have taken transparency to a whole new level.

Jim Rembach (09:31):

Well, and we’ll talk about some of those in a moment. And so I think for all of us, in order for us to try to understand some of these, you know, different periods is we often will describe those in different ways. And there was somebody who actually talked about the six DS of exponential organizations during a digital wave. And you’ve borrowed that to create the 60s of the transparency way. And we’ll talk about that. But the 60s from the exponential organizations, I want to hit those for a moment so people can see how they all connect. So we have digitized deceptive, disruptive, dematerialized, demonetized, and then democratized. And I think we’ve heard those words, you know, describing a lot of things, talking about, you know, some of the technologies and things becoming more open sourced and all of that. And so they’ve kind of gone through that way. But you talk about the 60s of exponential transparency that I want us to get into. So you talk about standards, terms, total accountability. Oh, I’m sorry. Transparency standards was the first one. So these are all teas and then we have transparent costs, then we have truth. And then to me, you and I talked about this most important thing being trust. So tell us, you know how the 60s actually fit into this next wave that we’re really in, right?

Paul Pagnato (10:45):

Yeah. So after studying the companies that are leading their industries that are growing exponentially, they have a certain DNA and these companies follow the 60s and so what I’ve done is broken it down and decompartmentalize it for individuals to be able to follow and to be able to embrace. Let’s start with the first one, transparency standards. So it’s having the ability to do some deep thinking, pull yourself out of the business and determine what are the standards of transparency that the organization should follow. In my industry, the wealth management space, we did that. And so these transparency standards range from receiving no commissions feel only advice, providing transparent reporting. Every single industry needs these. That’s the baseline. That’s the foundation. So once you have these transparency standards, then you can build upon that and create terms. The reality is individuals, consumers, they want simple terms. They don’t want a contract that they feel you need an attorney to review to really understand.

Paul Pagnato (12:01):

So it should be a red flag to anybody. If you receive terms and you can’t understand, well what the heck they’re saying, or if there’s 20 pages to the terms. So they should be ridiculously simple. Then there’s total accountability. The organization needs to hold themselves accountable to the terms and the standards that are, that are created and better yet have third parties hold them accountable. In our world, it’s the sec, the securities exchange commission. So we actually created these standards that are the toughest and the toughest in the world to follow. We give them to the sec and we tell the sec, hold us accountable to these standards. Pretty, pretty awesome. So that’s the, that’s the 13 is accountability. And then it’s cost. People have an initial gut reaction that institutions, firms aren’t providing full transparency on what the real cost is to them. So you just need to get out in front of it and just tell people the real deal, what are the costs?

Paul Pagnato (13:03):

And it should be really, really simple. So we do that. You know, we would meet with people, we tell them every single quarter, every three months we tell them how much they’re paying to the petty. Because if you’re not doing that, their minds are wandering and they probably think they’re paying more than they really are. So you need to have transparent costs and then it’s truth. You need to openly, honestly, consistently provide the facts and the data of what’s going on in your organization to your team. So you have transparency and culture to your clients, to the marketplace, to the media. Absolutely, absolutely critical one should wreak just reek of that. And if you successfully follow any organizations successfully follows those five T’s, you’ll have trust, trust and transparency go hand in hand. And we’re in a period now of abundance. It used to be scarcity, rural economies and companies that were created going back thousands of years.

Paul Pagnato (14:07):

We’re based on scarcity, scarcity of raw materials. It could be copper, it could be steel, it could be oil, diamonds, gold. It could be education, it could be food. Now we have an abundance in all those areas. So you can go right online and obtain any of those anytime 24 by seven. What the differentiator today is, is trust is when you go online, where do you going to trust, what products are you going to trust? What brands are you going to trust? And it’s those brands and those companies, those organizations that are giving you complete transparency. Okay. So when you start talking about that in country context through arrows

Jim Rembach (14:52):

that we were referring to, you know, the communication era, the digital era, you’re talking about this way being, you know, the exponential era, kind of give us an understanding about how all of these sixties fit into what an era cause I mean, cause that the, there you’re talking about longitudinal, you’re talking about a marathon, you’re not talking about, you know, and even though you’re saying that it’s accelerating, this isn’t a scenario or a situation where it’s like, okay, now it’s done. It’s transparent. So done with the transparency that’s over, we’re going to do something else. I mean give us an understanding of what you’re meaning by

Paul Pagnato (15:27):

this era. Yeah. So a few things when we talk about the word exponential, very hard for the human brain to comprehend because we’re linear creatures and we survive by being linear creatures. So let me give you two examples. We talk about exponential. If you take 30 linear steps, you’re going to walk 30 meters. If one takes 30 exponential steps, we’re going to go 26 and a half times around the planet. That’s exponential. I give you a penny a day for 30 days linearly, you’re going to have 30 cents at the end of the month. If I give you a penny a day, exponentially one to 2 cents to 4 cents a sense, it’s $5 million at the end of 30 days. We are now in an exponential era. So you’re right Jim, these changes are happening at a mine. It’s hard for the human brain to comprehend how fast, but these ways are continuous wave in an ocean.

Paul Pagnato (16:25):

They continue to flow and they continue to build on one another. Just as we continue to ride in cars and take airplane flights and we’re continuing to text and use email for the digital era. The same thing. These sixties of transparency are going to continue for years and I believe decades, decades to come. But it’s happening so fast, so, so fast. If you look at the last decade, about $5 trillion of wealth and been created by companies following the 60s and I believe the next 10 years, there’s going to be 10 times that, well created by the 60s so it’s going to happen, but then it will be continuous and it’ll be paramount to how our minds think and what we want in our buying habits and who we want to do business with and who we want to have relationships with. What, as you’re talking, I start thinking about exponential national debt, but we’re not going to go into that. It’s abundance. We have abundance of debt. Yeah,

Jim Rembach (17:28):

that’s scary. Okay. So, but in the book you talk about in order to really give people context and we’re not going to get into those, that’s why they need to buy the book, um, is to talk about the questions that you ask about each of these particular tees. And I’ll give a one or two just as an example. So like when you start talking about standards and if transparency standards, it’s, you know, what is number one transparency issue in your industry or company, right? And, and it, and you go through a whole slew of these. There’s, you know, um, you know, 50 plus almost 50 questions that are associated with this. Uh, so I think it’s a really important for people to know that there’s context to this. It isn’t a scenario where, you know, you’re talking in theoretics, um, you know, it’s not a theoretical conversation.

Jim Rembach (18:11):

It is an, an application type of a situation. And that’s what more of us need to do. Because it goes back to what I was mentioning a moment ago, is that very, very, very few people are skilled at being transparent. We hear the word, but we really don’t know what it is. And you’re helping do that with this book. So I commend you and appreciate you for that. And, but well, let’s talk about the companies that are applying the sixties because you mentioning how they’ve had some significant impact and you have S case studies, you know, several companies that are associated with these. Now for me, and what one of the reasons why I love having you on the show is because when I look at these really it’s founded in the customer experience, these sixties, um, these six steps, these companies, I mean all of, all of this is really about the customer experience and having significant industry impact. And then ultimately for me, most of them use it’s global impact.

Paul Pagnato (19:13):

So it’s all about the end user. It’s all about the customers. So you’re spot on. All of these standards are about providing transparency to the customer, but also internally the culture. So it’s, it’s the people working because the two need to go hand in hand. An organization is just about the people. That’s all a company is. It’s people without the people. You have nothing. So complete transparency needs to be provided to, to the organization, the people, and then in return to, uh, to, to the consumer. So the two, the two really go, uh, go hand in hand, but it is all about the customer at the end of the day. So well I’ll give one company as an examples. Apple, Apple computer, uh, Tim cook and the organization have done an incredible job of giving leadership with privacy privacy’s on the front of minds of so many people. But at the end of the day, humans just, we want to know the deal.

Paul Pagnato (20:14):

So what are you being private about and what do you not? So data that you have on, on us, on me, on you, what is being furnished to other vendors and other suppliers and being sold and is out there in the public and what is not. So Apple has created privacy standards. Anybody can go to their website and immediately see it and you have complete transparency, complete clarity on what’s going to be maintained by Apple and what isn’t. So that’s an example of a company taking transparency to a whole new level and respective area. And there are a leader and now we’re seeing other technology companies beginning to follow and create their own privacy standards.

Jim Rembach (21:00):

Well, in the book you have a incredible two page graph that talks about the transparency beast. And what you mean by that is these companies are just, they’re growing fast and they’re just gobbling up competition. And, and within that graph you talk about the 60s and the companies that really Excel at that area. Cause I, you know, it’s not a situation where, you know, you’re going to be, you know, uh, ex, you know, exemplary at every single one of these teas. I mean, people who have specialties, right? So you talk about in a transparency standards, you know, like some of the companies that people may not have heard as much about is, you know, square, you know, is in there, um, terms, you know, people who are exceptional at that. You know, a company like Spotify, um, total accountability. A company like, you know, Bridgewater, a transparent cost.

Jim Rembach (21:50):

Uh, you have a company in here. Um, most of these we know, uh, they’re cause they’re pretty big global grant brands. You’ve got home Depot, Airbnb and Walmart. Um, truth. You have companies like PayPal, Netflix, Salesforce, and then trust a DocuSign, Microsoft, uh, Vanguard. And so some of these are, you know, organizations that have because of being skilled at one area now impact that all of these others. So it is a journey and a growth. So if I think about organizations and we know, where do I start and how do I start a, you talk about the six steps to personal transparency. Cause ultimately don’t leaders have to model the way

Paul Pagnato (22:33):

100%. At the end of the day, we talk about companies and corporate world environment, but it’s people, it’s people working in the companies, it’s people working in nonprofits, it’s people working in the government agencies. So it’s human beings running all of these entities. So it’s all of us every day have the opportunity to take transparency and our own personal lives, the corporate world associations, communities as well as government agencies and all, it all starts with us.

Jim Rembach (23:08):

Well and those six steps, uh, just so that we’re all on the same page is released fears, focus, positivity, story and then sharing. So when you start talking about release though, what is that

Paul Pagnato (23:25):

all of us have had and continue to have issues that come about and we had this mental chatter. It could be me mentally, there may be people that we just absolutely love and there there may be people that we are like so, so on and then people that causes conflict and stress, right? So just think about being able to release that. We lease that conflict and stress with individuals that we have this association with. Well it’s possible but we have to release, we have to forgive, we have to have transparent dialogue with them. I attended a, I’m a Yogi and I attended a teacher training. I’ll share this brief story. There was a hundred of us that were there and none of us knew each other from all over the world and it was seven days and very physically demanding but then also mentally demanding.

Paul Pagnato (24:23):

We were halfway into it, halfway into it. The instructor, how does all pair up with somebody that we didn’t know. We had to share the number one obstacle facing us in our life with somebody else, some stranger. And then they had to share with us. Then he asked 20 people to get on stage and share. I didn’t have the guts to do it. I didn’t have the guts and the courage to be that transparent. 20 people did. What was amazing, Jim is all 20 people said this same thing. The number one issue was that the number one issue was them not releasing what the problem was. And these are people that have been abused, victimized, I mean just really, really intense situation. So it’s one of the hardest things for us to do is to let go and to release.

Jim Rembach (25:16):

And as you’re saying that, um, it goes back to you and I, before we started recording this interview, talking about an experience that I had. And I think really the release absolutely rolls into, and I know all of these relate to one another rolls into the whole fear thing. And going back, what you were saying is how we were created as creatures and what we had to do. Um, but the, the release and the fear thing, I mean, to me those are two interlocking elements that if we don’t address those first, I mean, you can just forget the rest of the other four. Yup. Yup.

Paul Pagnato (25:49):

And it takes massive courage to do that. We have to be confident with ourselves to be able to let go and to be able to release. I mean, it’s, it’s, think about people that have done that. So like Galileo, right? So Galileo created the first telescopes. This is in the 16 hundreds. He was in Rome, he was Italian. The Roman Catholic church believed that everything revolved around the planet earth. He knew that wasn’t the case, but he had the courage to be transparent about that. He spent the last 10 years of his life in jail. I mean, how many of us would spend the last 10 years of our life in jail too? Because our passion to be transparent about something. Nelson Mandela, he spent over 20 years in jail because he thought it was wrong. The racial segregation, 20 years of the government overthrown, he would have died in jail. He was transparent about it. That’s courage. Maybe those are extremes in some of our minds, but that’s what we’re talking about. Like we got to have the courage to do something really, really special.

Jim Rembach (26:58):

And I think that goes back to the whole thing that I mentioned is that we’re talking about the one percenters. But I think through your group, you know, we’ll continue to grow that. And I am, I myself am committed to being more transparent as well as to help my clients do that. But ultimately we’re talking about here and we hit the customer experience component. We talked about this human centric, you know, type of focus. Is this saying we’ve got to create a culture and overall transparent culture. So when you start talking about creating a transparent culture, what does that look like for peg natto court?

Paul Pagnato (27:26):

Yeah. So some things that we do that enable this transparent culture is once a quarter we have company day, everybody stops all the activities and we focus on the business. And during company day they get complete transparency on everything. They see what our profits are, where our revenues are, our experiments that are underway, what’s working, what’s not working. Everybody in the company needs to get up and talk about the experiments that they have and their failures and their successes. So everything we do in the organization’s completely transparent, we’re an autonomously run organization, bottom up versus top down. So people are empowered to make decisions every single day. People are empowered to fail. Successes, failure turned inside out. I know this sounds crazy, but the more failure you have and the faster you have that failure, the quicker you get to where you’re going to go. You just accomplish and accumulate so much more data in a shorter period of time. So people are not penalized for failure and for experimenting, they’re actually encouraged to do so. That’s, that’s life. We fail every single day and

Jim Rembach (28:42):

well, hold on, let me stop you there because I think it’s important talking about transparency, I think it’s a really important to go into that because some people could particularly, you know, potentially take that and say, gosh, everybody’s gonna run amok. Um, and, and so therefore we need to put controls in place. And I would dare to say, when you start talking about that in reference, you’re probably making a significant investment in people’s skills and abilities. It’s all about development. You’ve created a learning organization in order to get to that point. Is that correct?

Paul Pagnato (29:12):

That is correct. Yep. And we have the Trump confidence and trust, trust and transparency go hand in hand that they’re going to make the right decisions with the confidence and trust and develop systems and processes so that when there is failure, we know when to stop. Right? So there’s backstage and front stage. All the experiments are occurring backstage. They do not impact the end user, our clients, but they’re all being done to create and unleash more value for clients. So our goal or mantra is every single quarter, unleash more value for our clients. That’s how you have very satisfied clients is by just slightly increasing the value proposition quarter after quarter after quarter. But that happens only by experimenting. And if you have 10 experiments, maybe one or two work out. So you have a lot of failure. So you’re, you’re spot on. It is not chaos by any shape or imagination. It’s very, very controlled. But it’s a collection of data. But we need to have confidence, we need to let go and we need to have a trust and transparent culture in order for people to be confident doing that. People not to feel thick and we’ll lose her job because he didn’t experiment. It didn’t work out.

Jim Rembach (30:30):

So I think ultimately we need more transparency heroes to end this. This cannot be aspirational. Um, but we do need inspiration in order to help drive us. And one of the things that we look at on this show or quotes to help us find some of that. Is there a quote or two that you liked that you can share?

Paul Pagnato (30:45):

Uh, yeah. So the first negative thought is a thought to failure. It’s back to the PMA, right? So we had this mental chatter going on and all of us have these negative things that had her, our minds just know it’s normal for that to happen, but just deflect it. Like take it in except it, and then just let it go and focus on the positive. So that’s one of my favorite quotes. So first negative thought is a thought to, uh, to failure. And the other is success is failure turned inside out. So when we have that failure, don’t think of it as a negative. Think of it as one step closer to success.

Jim Rembach (31:27):

And it has Nelson, Nelson Mandela, who you mentioned said is, um, you know, that he always wins, right? And either learns, you know, or he accomplishes it. Right? So, um, when you start talking about, you know, having those learning experiences on the show, we talked about getting over the hump. You can, you hit one on the little bit. Uh, I was talking about your Yogi experience. Um, but is there a time where you can think that you’ve gotten over the hump that could benefit all of our listeners that you can share?

Paul Pagnato (31:53):

Yeah, so one of the most difficult periods of time in my life was the financial crisis. Just seeing a bad, at the time I was overseeing $1 billion. These are families that have trusted me with their wealth for them, their children, their children’s children for generations to come, and during a financial crisis, I didn’t know if their capital was going to be safe anymore. I didn’t know if it was all going to work out. Nobody knew. Millions of people lost their jobs. Millions of businesses went out of business and will compound. The problem was the lack of transparency in the financial industry. It was gut wrenching. I mean, literally I would be nauseous each day. I slept two, three hours a night. I mean, I was in a super, super bad place, as was millions of people, and that’s what I needed. To have that courage and need to take the courage to say no more.

Paul Pagnato (32:50):

I’m not going to be part of this. Lack of transparency in the industry anymore. And I left. I was making a great living. I had three children, 1816, 14 at the time getting ready to go off to college and I left. I walked from it all to be an entrepreneur and start a business to bring transparency to the financial world. So it’s one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but yet one of the most rewarding things. So I just share that because when you’re faced with one of your biggest challenges in your life, when you get to that tipping point, do the right thing, be transparent and things are going to work out well. I would dare to say when you start looking at what the work that you’re putting together, and I’ve had the opportunity to actually interact with several of your team members, um, you know, you are doing things in, in the way that will enable multiple generations to be impacted and thank you for that.

Paul Pagnato (33:46):

But when I started looking at all of this, I mean, you know, you’ve created the 60s you, you know, really are revealing, you know, this transformation process you’re talking about, you know, building an entire era. Um, you know, I, you have to ultimately chunk this down in order to be able to execute and have success. And for many of us, we talk about those being goals. So if I start thinking about just one of the goals that you could share, um, what is it put aside for just a moment? Our personal fears, our personal agendas, the things that are, that are holding us back just for a minute. Put it aside and think about the other person. Think about seeking the flourishing of others and the impact it would make by putting our own personal agenda first and put others first and put our own personal fears aside and just think about the other individuals that are going to be impacted and the flourishing that they’re going to have is that would be an amazing goal for all of the staff and the fast leader. Legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on, let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

Jim Rembach (35:00):

And even better place to work is an easy to use solution that gives you a continuous diagnostic on employee engagement, along with integrated activities that will improve employee engagement and leadership skills in everyone. Using this award. Winning solution is guaranteed to create motivated, productive, and loyal employees who have great work relationships with our colleagues and your customers. To learn more about an even better place to work, visit [inaudible] dot com four slash better. All right, here we go. Fast leader Legion. It’s time for the home. Oh, okay. Paul, the hump day hoedown as a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m gonna ask you several questions and your job is to give us robust yet rapid responses that are gonna help move onward and upward faster. Paul tech natto are you ready to hoedown I’m ready. Let’s do it. So what is holding you back from being an even better leader today? It would be personal

Paul Pagnato (35:49):

fear. There would be the fear of negative consequences occurring. It would be the fear of me feeling pain mentally, physically, financially by not doing something. So it’s, it’s myself holding myself back from obtaining and getting to the next phase.

Jim Rembach (36:09):

What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?

Paul Pagnato (36:13):

Always think of others first. Put yourself second, third, fourth. Always think of others first.

Jim Rembach (36:20):

And what is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

Paul Pagnato (36:24):

Always do the right thing. That simple. Just always, always do the right thing.

Jim Rembach (36:30):

And what do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

Paul Pagnato (36:35):

Okay. Having an unbelievable support group, team, family, personal relationships, a great solid foundation of, of, of support.

Jim Rembach (36:46):

And what would be one book you’d recommend to our Legion? It could be from any genre. Of course, we’re going to put a link to transparency, wave exponential changes that will transform our world on your show notes page as well.

Paul Pagnato (36:57):

The future is here faster than you think by Peter Diamandis.

Jim Rembach (37:03):

Okay. Fast leader Legion. You can find links to that and other bonus information from today’s show by going to fast leader.net/ Paul Peck. Natto. Okay, Paul, this is my last hump. They hold on question. Imagine you’ve been given the opportunity to go back to the age of 25 and you can take the knowledge and skills that you have now back with you, but you can’t check them all. You can only take one. So what skill or piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

Paul Pagnato (37:26):

Why I would have been an entrepreneur and launched a business sooner and why I would be able to impact many, many more lives at a much faster rate.

Jim Rembach (37:39):

Paul, I had fun with you today. Can you please share the fast leader Legion, how they can connect with you?

Paul Pagnato (37:43):

Yes. Transparencywave.com so go to the website. Uh, all my contact information is there. So transparency, wave.com [inaudible]

Jim Rembach (37:54):

Paul Pagnato. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom of Fastly or Legion honors you. And thanks you for helping us get over the hump.

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271: Paul Pagnato: Transparency Brings Trust into the Customer Experience