S12e6: Mike Depatie – A Purposeful, Worthwhile Struggle

The process does get you to a deeper point with the people you're with. I mean, the people you went through in the process, in a way, it's like going through boot camp because you're going through something that's demanding and meaningful at the same time. It's a purposeful struggle that's worthwhile. Welcome, everybody. My name is Drew Horning, and this podcast is called Love's Everyday Radius.

It's brought to you by the Hoffman Institute, and it's stories and anecdotes and people we interview about their life post process and how it lives in the world radiating love. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Hoffman podcast. Mike DePaidi is with me. Welcome, Mike. Hey. Glad to be here, Joe. How you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good today. Thank you very much. You are just a few hours from the

process, aren't you? Well, I'm actually yeah. I'm a couple hours from the process, vocationally, but I did the process in 2005, a long time ago. However, it's been kept alive over the years because I've been lucky enough to do a annual fishing trip with eight guys that have all been on the process. Some of the eight have been we've been together now for twenty years. And you're on that trip, and Rasingrassio is on that trip.

And so through that trip, every year, we practice a lot of the techniques in the in the process as part of the fishing trip, and it's kept me very much, in contact with the process. And I have to say that over all these years that it's, resonated at a deeper and deeper level with me because of that. It's a pretty unique thing. And you and I talking recently about Raz and his passing, it really made me wanna reach out and connect with you around having a conversation on

this podcast, so I'm grateful. Thank you. Likewise. Thank you. By the way, it's dubbed Q fish. For those that are interested, it's Quadrinity Fishing Trip. Q is for Quadrinity. Right? Well, it actually came from the fact that there's q twos. So there's a q two, then there's gonna be a cute fish. Where it started is actually, my father put together a father son fishing trip for thirty five years. And, he had gotten his eighties, and he had always organized the trip.

Same week in June, same crappy cabin, same place, same fishing guys, everything over the years. And over that time, the week in Montana and Idaho that we spent together kinda worked time for me, whereas I'm up in the stream. I thought about, you know, my life and thought about, you know, girlfriends and jobs and things that had happened in my life. And then suddenly, he said, I'm done. I said, you're done. So what do you mean you're done? Because

I'm done. I don't I I have had a wonderful time doing this, but I don't feel comfortable standing up in the boat anymore. That happened about two years before I went to the process. And so in my process, couple of guys, we became very friendly in the process, and I was explaining this and a loss for me of this. And they said, well, we wanna go. I said, well, do you guys fly fish?

They said, no. And, we've now been doing it for twenty one years together, and, we've continued this into another father son trip as well. And so now it's been fifty some odd years I've been doing this, And there's something about that tradition, but there's also something about the Q fish trip. It's a very unusual fishing trip where we spend the first day or two, everybody gets an hour where they get to check-in with a group.

Just about them, they spend a whole hour talking about what's happened in their life over the last year. And some of these guys that I honestly once a year, I see them on a fishing trip. And so it's been unique experience for me to experience somebody at such an intimate and deep level once a year over twenty one years. And much like Hoffman, people are working on various things. After twenty one years, quite frankly, people are still working on the same things.

But, you know, some people have resolved things. Some people are still working on things, whether it be in their marriage, their life, or their job. You know, I always felt like it was just it was such a special thing to have that connection, with men. Usually, it doesn't happen. And on a fishing trip, nonetheless, or actually, we do this check-in, then we actually do something else interesting. We actually do

morning meditation in a group. I'm thinking, what who goes on a fishing trip and does a morning meditation? But it's fantastic, and so it's meant a lot to me. I've taken over from my dad who's organizing the trip. And so I feel particularly lucky to have gotten on you guys, both you guys, at really intimate level. Yeah. And RAS has been on from nearly the beginning. Right? I think RAS came on in 2009 or so, and we started in 2005, 2006. I made RAS through the process.

Turns out I ran a company called Kimpton Hotels, and this guy, Bill Kimpton and Raz were were friends. I think Bill Kimpton was on the board of Hoffman. Raz kinda took a particular interest in me, and we got to know each other. And, we had a lunch. He knew about this fishing trip that I had, and he had mentioned that he thought it was really cool and might wanna come. We had a lunch and, oh my god, he took us so serious. I think he really wants to come.

And so he came, and I think it had a lot of a lot of, depth and texture to our fishing trip. You know, he's just a really wise, thoughtful, experienced guy, ten years older than I was. Also helpful to see somebody kind of age and how they handle that and how they handle it with either grace or they don't have it with grace. We had another guy in the trip named David Bork who was ten years older than Razz, and he passed two years ago. He was the the group truth teller.

When you were doing your check-in, he's the guy that called you on your shit. You still working on that? What are you doing? And, to have that is, it was really a gift. So the so the Q fish thing has been very meaningful to me and gets more meaningful every year. Really a loss now that Razz has gone. Yeah. What is it like for you to have known Razz so intimately through these years on this experience and then to hear of his passing?

Well, you know, I had a little bit of forewarning of it because, we had been fishing together, and I saw I saw him decline a little bit. I didn't think it would happen so quickly, but, obviously, it was very shocking. But I felt sad but grateful that I had known such a person that had been influential in so many people's life to to have had the honor and privilege to know him at

such an intimate level. And what's interesting about Raz is that, much like all of us, is advanced and has evolved as he was. He's still working on some of the same stuff every year. Here we go again. And that, I think, kinda gave permission to everybody to be really human, because, you know, if Raz is still working on stuff, how about the rest of us? It's okay. I love that Raz showed up authentically, which allow and gave permission to everyone else to continue working on it.

What is it about life that has us not resolving things necessarily, but kind of still working on the same stuff. Is that just the way it is? You know, that's the nature of the beast, so to speak? I think the bigger life issues are things that you may be working on for a long time. Again, nothing wrong with it. The the core issue in your life might be something that takes your whole life to work out. It

might be graceful to know. It might be exactly what you need to come to some greater realization. I don't think you can judge it. It's just what it is. You talked about the sharing and the meditation, but why do you think fishing in particular and fly fishing in particular seems like a perfect gathering activity for this kind of thing? Well, you know, I think men need something to do. Take the day to go golfing, take the day to go fly fishing.

And fly fishing is perfect because it's outside, and it's in nature, and it's very zenning. I mean, when you're fly fishing, you might be lucky if you catch one or two fish a day. And by the way, just for the record, I shouldn't say this. I don't think rads are a car fish or one or two because it really wasn't

about the fly fishing. But when you're on that stream and you're out there and you're spending hours casting and looking at the water and kind of taking in the scenery, you're kinda getting out of your normal daily life, and you're maybe with somebody else, you know, with a guide. And what's interesting is these guides. I had one guy, Smitty, been with us for fifty years. And the guides were the most interesting guy. I said they live out, you know, out in the wilderness pretty

much. This is what they do. It's not who we come in contact with every day, and they're very interested in this whole Q fish thing. Like, who the hell are you guys? We always get the guys involved in some kind of conversation. That was a very Hoffman esque conversation. I think they really liked it. They weren't quite sure what to do with it, but they liked it. So it was kinda added to the fun. Why is men gathering? You mentioned

men, and you talked about activities. But beyond the activities, what do you think is transpiring over the course of those four or five days between the men as they engage in this experience? I think that the Hoffman thing gives everybody permission to be a little more vulnerable and to connect at a deeper level.

And I think once you kinda step into that and people are trusting, it's a high trust level as well, then I think people are more willing to share things that might be vulnerable, especially we get into the sharing and people are talking about, hey. You know, maybe something happened on my marriage or something's not working on my job or you know, people don't wanna admit that. But oddly enough, it's the vulnerability that connects us. It's not the perfect you know, that's like Teflon.

But when people get vulnerable, then people suddenly open up to them. And the only thing I learned from Hoffman, I remember going it's kinda funny. So I went to Hoffman because this guy, Bill Kimpton, came CEO of this company, Kimpton, who had died couple years before I became CEO. He was really involved with Hoffman. The legacy of the company was we really wanted to excel in customer satisfaction. And the way we thought to do that was to

connect deeply with our customers. And I thought, well, how the hell are we gonna do that? So we thought of ways to connect with the customers. We thought the best way to do that is if we got our employees to more deeply connect with themselves, that ultimately, they would connect at a deeper and more authentic level with their teammates, people that work for them, and ultimately their customers.

And so we spent a lot of time and money training people on the Enneagram as a way to kinda gain what we call self insight. And for certain people, there is an advanced course in self insight, which was Hoffman. And we sent a number of people to Hoffman, but they had to wanna do it. By the way, the Enneagram training was ten hours with a personal Enneagram coach one on one. It's a major investment by the company, and it was it was private. We didn't ever get the results of it.

The service model for the company was care. It wasn't service. How do we get our employees to care? Well, we had to care for them. And the way we cared for them was helping them develop more fully as a human being. And we do this through the Enneagram. We do that through Hoffman. So anyway, when I became CEO, somebody said to me and said, well, you ought to do the Hoffman process. I said, well, yeah. Sure. I I'm into self development. I'll do the Hoffman process. I didn't know

what it was. And so I get all the paperwork, and I'm showing it all out. And I'm thinking, this is, like, kinda serious. I I I'm not really sure I should do this. And so I call up Hoffman, and I get somebody on the phone. I say, hey. You know, I'm coming in a couple weeks. I'm filling out paperwork, and I I had kind of a leave it to Beaver kinda childhood. I'm I'm not really sure I should come. And the woman on the other end says she goes, I see. Tell

me something. I said, well, she goes, do you have parents? I said, yes. She goes, you need to come. And, so I came, and I'm I remember I'm sitting around that first day. There's a big u shaped. Everybody's sitting around 41 people. Everybody's kinda saying, you know, give me a word of of how you feel right now. I'm just shut down, hopeful, excited, scared, where it might be. And I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know. I I don't have anything to come with these people.

But what I learned over a full week of dealing with everybody is after learning about everybody's struggles, everybody's vulnerabilities, everybody's humanness, you love them all. I love them all. I may not wanna be best friends with all of them, but I love them all. And so the big learning for me was, one, I'm lovable. But secondly, if I just knew people at a deeper level, I'd love them all. I mean, I wanna hang out with them all the time, but I'd love them all. It was a

big learning for me. And in loving them and seeing and feeling that love for them, what did that do? I mean, it's easier to love yourself if you think how easy it is to love others other people. Because we you're loving them for all their imperfections, all their struggles, all the crap, and that's why you love them. It's like the the that bumper sticker, I love New York. And say I like New York. You might hate it, but you might love it, and all the imperfections.

And I I think that's that for me was a was a big learning of Hoffman. And you did it when it was eight days, and you were at White Sulphur Springs. You really connected with a bunch of guys there, which was the origin of the fishing trip. What was that like to find that kind of connection with people on such a deeper level? I think it was very affirming that we all could share in the process and then connected it at a deeper level. And the process does get you to a

deeper point with the people you're with. I mean, the people you went through in the process, in a way, it's like going through boot camp because you're going through something that's demanding and meaningful at the same time. It's a purposeful struggle that's worthwhile. Did you bring some of the insights? Like, how did the process, which is such a personal thing, how did that return to work? And were you able to integrate? And I'm curious about the professional angle of this deep inner work.

I think the best thing you can do as a leader, best thing you can do as a spouse, as a father, as a brother, cousin, uncle, is to be the best version of yourself you can be. And so I think what Hoffman allows you to do is get more in touch with that best version of yourself. And, then that's really what we're trying to do at Kimpton. We're trying to help people

become more fully who they really are. By the way, in a corporate setting, when you're in touch with who you really are, it may not win the day because it may not be the right thing. You may not be bringing the right thing to the job, but being someone you're not definitely won't win the day. And so we were really helping people become more of who they are. If I was gonna give advice to young people, I'd say, figure out who the hell you are and be that.

You know, spend the first part of your life figuring out who the hell you are, and then fully fully step into it. And why is that feel so important? I feel the emphatic nature of what you're saying there. I think we're all kind of given a unique nature and kind of a unique role in the world. It's kinda like the old Joseph Campbell hero's journey. You hear the unique call. It's just to you, and you get it when you're young, hopefully,

and it's a unique call to you. If you rise back home, then you start the hero's journey. And part of that hero's journey, let's just take it to Hoffman so that you get the unique call to go to Hoffman. But part of the hero's journey is when you go into the into the forest, because you're called to the forest because that's where the treasure is. You don't go where the well one path is. You go where the scariest part of the path is, but it's the part of the path that you're called to. That's the

part you have to enter. And now you're in Hoffman. Now you're sitting with 41 other people. You're on the path. You've now entered the forest. And, in the forest, as you're guide as you're learning things and you're growing and you're basically coming against your own demons, these are the demons. These are the things in the forest that are taking down. There's all these people on the line kinda helping you. Oh, go that way. Go this way. They're supporting

you. And it's only by going through that process, by the going through the hero's journey that you come to the treasure. And the treasure is basically being able to live the life that you're meant to live. By the way, now that you've got the treasure, you can bring it back to the community, which might be your spouse. It might be your workplace. It might be wherever, but you gotta go there to get the treasure.

I am really appreciating your connection to all of the steps of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. Yeah. I love Joseph Campbell. And you love reading, don't you, Mike? Yeah. I'm a big reader. I there's just so much stuff to read. I find that I if I'm lucky, it's that I have an insatiable curiosity that I get up every morning and think about, what what do I wanna learn today? I may be two in my head, quite frankly, I've been thinking about the quadrinity.

But there's just so much stuff to learn about in both the kind of the the the physical world, whether it be, you know, history or politics, whatever. But the inner world philosophy and it just never stops. And the more you know, the more you kinda wanna know. And then one thing leads to another, and I just keep stacking up the podcast. And the podcasts are amazing. What an amazing new medium where anybody in the world you're interested in is anybody's probably on a podcast.

And only that, you can have a visual. You can watch them. You can model them. You can think about what's going on for them. You can have such a communication going on. I mean, the last for the last week, I've been in Davos, the Davos economic forum. I might go to Davos, but it's on YouTube. Everybody in the world was at Davos. I can watch them on YouTube. I might as well be at Davos. What's that been like to be able to transport yourself to Davos without actually going there?

If you see somebody speak in public on a, say, YouTube, their their video, and they're being interviewed, there's just so much trans weather. And then it's really your present and just kinda watch it. Like, what are they thinking about? What's what's that body language? That guy didn't agree with what they just asked him. What's what's really happening there? What's really going on? You said I'm lucky to have this. Have you developed it, or you just have

always had it? I think I've always been really curious even as a kid. I'm I'm the one that had all the hobbies, you know, whether it was rockets or coins or fish or I remember that as a kid. I just always kinda I always had a drive to kinda know what was going on. I I had a professor at business school that used to get in front of the class. It was a case method kind of thing for an MBA, and he said, can anybody tell me what's really going on? And that was always, can anybody tell me

what's really going on? And I think I've always been interested in kind of the what is the grand unifying theory of everything? What is really going on? And by the way, what appears to be going on is probably not what's going on. Yeah. So it just makes it interesting, especially with people. People are endlessly fascinating. Yeah. What podcasts are you loving lately? Quite frankly, I'm interested in what's going on with AI right now. So there's a podcast called the All In Podcast, which is a

bunch of tech bros talk about tech. And I'm a hotel guy. So what what am I doing? I listen to all this tech stuff, but I think this AI thing is so important and really trying to understand it and just listening to these guys talk. And then there's so many different rabbit holes to go down from there. There was this other guy, Peter Diamandas, who did the x prize. He's got something called moonshots where he talks about the latest things

happening in, in tech for the week. So there's kinda like business and technology, and there's things like the Hoffman podcast, which is great. Quite frankly, I love the, Oprah podcast. You know? And Razz got just got interviewed there with Oprah. And I know a number of people have been interviewed by Oprah, which is kind of interesting. But there's just so much stuff out there. Yeah. And so if we get a little more personal, tell us a little bit about your story and sorta how you came to be you

on a more personal level. I don't know. It's so fascinating, but I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. And, my father ran a small little business. I think one thing that really influenced me is the my father had a couple sales guys work for him. And when I was in sixth grade, he brought home his motivational tapes that he gave to all the sales guys. And I remember I I was listening to them, and there was a guy named Zig Ziglar. And Zig Ziglar's cassette tape was, I'll see you at the top.

And I listened to that over and over again, and it was all about having the right attitude. The territory of the world was basically neutral. It was all I asked that interpreted that territory. And two different people could have the same exact territory interpreted completely different. And so I think at a young age, I decided to interpret it things more positively.

But I did come from a family that it appeared to be super functional, and I think it was functional except for the fact that as a kid, the one part of my quadrantity I was really out of whack was was my emotional side. And mainly because I came from a family where my father was command and control. Stop that crying. I'll give you something to cry about. And my mother was from England, and she was very, I'm fine. You're fine. We're all fine. There's nothing to be sad

about here. And so I got very out of touch with my feelings. Now lucky for me, I married a woman that was very in touch with their feelings and helped me get more in touch with my feelings. But I think the one thing that came out of Hoffman for me was I really I mean, when you had to name the emotions you were feeling, I had to look at the list. And, and I probably still struggle with that

a little bit. It that's the one part of me that was really clear to me that he went through Hoffman that was out of whack. Before she became your wife, you guys broke up. I'd love the reunion of that story. Well, it's kind of an amazing story even to me that, we dated in college, Michigan State freshman year. I was a bartender. She was a waitress, and I fell in love with her. One of the first women I ever fell in love with, but we were 18, and that never occurred to me even to

get married, but she kinda felt differently. And a couple years later, she married another guy. I was happy for her. I went to a wedding. I've been to all my wife's weddings, one I participated in. But, anyway, time went on. I, was in the hotel business to travel over The United States. You know, I had plenty of girlfriends, plenty of people I couldn't marry, but I never asked anybody to marry me. Seventeen years went by. She had two children. She got divorced.

I hadn't seen her in, I don't know how many years, fifteen, seventeen years, and she remained friendly with my sister. I was going to, visit my sister in Michigan, Lake Michigan. She said that in summer nineteen ninety one, she said, by the way, Holly will be there. I said, well, great. Holly, I haven't seen her in so long. It'd be great to see her. We're gonna take much more of it. I saw her and boom.

It was just like that. Within a couple of months, we were engaged, and then we were married shortly thereafter. Kind of a funny story about it, besides that part of it, which is amazing to me even now, is that we got engaged in a high level on over Napa Valley. And I was living in a beach at that time. Holly was living in Detroit, Michigan. We met in, Napa Valley, and we flew in a hot air balloon and got engaged. Years later, we built a house in Napa Valley, and I live in it right now.

And then we realized when we built the house, all the hot air balloons fly right over our house. So we actually flew over this piece of land when we were not even living in in Northern California. And all these years later, here we are. It's just kind of, you know, one of those freaky things that and it was a big coincidence. What does it mean? I must admit, I never had a stronger intuitive feeling about anything other than.

It was a strong intuitive feeling. We've had a son together, and I've got two steps around. Yeah. Your evening ritual in that Napa Valley land that you flew over is you and Holly walking, listening to podcasts with your dogs. It's unbelievable. We're lucky to live in a area that's got a lot of vineyards around us. We've got a five mile walk. We can take maybe, like, 10 different five mile walks to base the mountains on both sides.

And we walk on the survey night for an hour, hour and a half, and we listen to our books on tape. That's why I'm getting so many books read, and then we come back and have a glass of wine and talk about the day. It's just such a healthy thing to do. And I now kid with with Holly, she's, you know, she's 69 now. I call her my trophy wife. Yeah. She gets a kick out of that. But, you know, hey. Listen. You walk an hour and a half every night. You get outside. You get in good shape.

Oh, I'm just grateful for this conversation. What's it like to talk about Holly, your life, your process, all of it? Well, it's just fun to talk to you. And the fact that you have an interest in it, I feel very blessed in my life. And if I look back at things like the coincidence of going to Hoffman, the coincidence of having a close relationship, with RAS, Just how those things actually were very impactful to me, but they kinda happened coincidentally.

You don't know at the time, but you look back and then you realize how those chance encounters actually are significant and they resonate. So I I guess my only maybe not advice, I don't know what it is, but I feel lucky that over time, I feel like I've I've established a pretty good intuitive sense about things. And, and kind of what I should do or what I shouldn't do or what I'm drawn to or what I'm not drawn to, and I kinda rely on that.

And part of that was maybe pulling through, you know, probably, like, twenty five years of meditation to probably things like Hoffman, for sure. When you talk about your intuition and aging, one of the stories you bring up is your mom's last moments. Can you share that moment you had with her? Yeah. I'd be glad to share that. So, I was very blessed that my my mother just shy of her 90 birthday, and I'd have to say that her health span and her lifespan lined up almost perfectly.

She was really only kind of infirm for a couple weeks and really only a couple days. Couple days before her death, she asked for hospice. She she had control of that. She asked for last rites. And it was two days before she died, and I'm at her deathbed. And I happen to be in my father's deathbed too, which I think really is a blessing to be at your parents' deathbed, both lived long lives. My mother grabbed my arm and she's she looked him in the eye. She'd been sleeping a lot. She opened her

eyes. She said, Michael, Diane's not so bad. I said, mom, aren't you scared? She goes scared. Scared of what? I thought, well, what a what a gift from a dying parent now. That's a real blessing to have a parent live so long. I I don't even know what to make of that, and then to be able to say that or death, but I think dying may not be so bad. I don't know. Being dead may not be so bad. Dying. No thanks. That's scary. I think it was a Woody

Allen said, I don't mind dying. I just don't wanna be there when it happens. Mike. I look forward to our next Q fish. Hey. Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time to do this. This is a lot of fun. I'm so grateful. You bring so much energy and aliveness, and your real calling card, Mike, is your incessant curiosity. I love it. Oh, thanks for recognizing it, Drew. And, and you are great at what you do, and I I love seeing what you do. And

I love listening to your podcast. I can't wait to see you at the Cube Fish. Yeah. I'm gonna see you before that, hopefully. That's it. I'm gonna come visit you in Napa Valley, brother. Okay, brother. Take care. I love you. Thank you for listening to the Hoffman podcast. My name is Matt Brannigan. I'm the CEO of the Hoffman Institute Foundation and a Hoffman teacher. Our mission is to provide greater access to the wisdom and power of love within ourselves, in our relationships,

and in the world. To learn more or to support our mission, we invite you to visit hoffman institute dot org.