Living The Red Life - 10 Disciplines to Maximize Your Impact & Inner Peace w/Gino Wickman

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

In this episode, we’re joined by Gino Wickman, a renowned entrepreneur, author, and creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). Gino shares his invaluable insights into achieving entrepreneurial success while maintaining balance and avoiding burnout. Drawing from his 30 years of experience, he discusses the importance of finding a personal "magic formula" for work-life balance. Gino emphasizes the delicate equilibrium between pushing yourself hard enough to avoid boredom, but not so hard that you burn out. He highlights the concept of a "work container"—a framework for maximizing energy and output while staying within your capacity for both work and life. Throughout the conversation, Gino offers practical advice on optimizing productivity and maintaining focus, from how to structure your workday to how to adapt your formula over time. He also explores how business owners can scale effectively, noting that, like building a skyscraper, once a business is up and running, it requires less day-to-day effort to maintain. Gino also dives into the importance of systems and delegating effectively to prevent overload. He encourages entrepreneurs to constantly assess their capacity, stay aligned with their values, and make strategic adjustments when necessary, ensuring long-term growth and sustainability in both their personal and professional lives.CHAPTER TITLES03:00 - Impact & Purpose06:00 - Finding Your Formula09:00 - The Work-Life Balance Formula12:00 - Energy and Efficiency15:00 - Shifting Over Time18:00 - The Burnout vs. Boredom Balance21:00 - Work Container and Business Growth24:00 - The Role of Systems in ScalingConnect with Gino Wickman:https://the10disciplines.com/BOOK TITLE - ShineConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

In a 10 year business cycle, this is what typically happens for us as entrepreneurs. We have two great years, two terrible years and six pretty good years. When you're going through those two really tough years, you feel like it's game over. You're getting your ass kicked. You're getting killed. But just as quickly when you're in the two great years, it doesn't last forever. And so you just have to stay sharp because the second you think you've got it figured out the universe is gonna kick you in the ass and introduce you to the two tough years. My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast and I'm here to change the way you see your life in

your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. What's up guys welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today we're going to dive into a bit of mindset, a bit of personal development outside of the normal typical marketing strategy and funnels. We've got Gina Wickman on the podcast today and I'm really excited for this episode because it is a little different. We're going to dive into 10 key disciplines for maximizing your impact.

And in a piece, Gina, welcome to the show. Thank you, Rudy. Thrilled to be here looking forward to hopefully impacting a few lives today. Yeah. So look, everyone listening, they're entrepreneurs that you generally, as an entrepreneur, I feel we are 10 times more caring of personal development, building a dream life, becoming the best version of ourselves, whether it's in our business, whether it's with our ads, whether it's making our product better.

And I think out of everything, you are the most important product yourself. Right. So, for the audience listening today, what are they going to learn over this podcast? So what's a bit of your background bringing you here? Yeah. Well, I'll flip those two and start with the background that'll lead right into why this topic today. And so my background is that I am obsessed about helping entrepreneurs.

So I am one, I'm an entrepreneur who helps entrepreneurs. I've been doing that for 35 years. It's in my blood and it, like I said, is my obsession. And so with that, in the last 25 years, I've created five pieces of content in the world that help entrepreneurs get everything they want out of their business and lives. And so very quickly, the first piece of content

is called Entrepreneur Elite. For a startup entrepreneur or early stage, even an entrepreneur that may have been wrestling with whether or not this is for them. Next is rocket fuel, and that's for when that entrepreneur, that visionary needs their integrator counterpart for how to find that counterpart and grow the business to the next level.

The third piece of content is EOS or my book Traction, where that helps that entrepreneur and their leadership team build and run a great business. The fourth is EOS Life, which is helping those leaders then live their ideal life. And then the fifth piece of content, and what we're going to talk about today, is the 10 disciplines in a new book I wrote called Shine. So if you think about those five pieces of content and why I start there is that's really

the life of the entrepreneur. That's the climb that we all make. Everything I teach, I've lived it myself as an entrepreneur. I started by turning around a family business, getting it out of deep, ugly debt, running again. We successfully sold it. And then I set off to build the next business and help entrepreneurs, which is EOS Worldwide.

And I sold that about six years ago. And so again, my passion is helping entrepreneurs. And so wherever you are on that entrepreneurial journey, one of those pieces of content will help you as you make your climb. You and I decided we're going to go all the way to the top of the climb to the mountain and focus on 10 disciplines because you can apply these at any point in your journey to help you absolutely maximize the impact you're going to make on the world, really expand and maximize your energy and give you more inner peace, the bonus byproduct of implementing these in your

life. Well yeah, and I mean a couple of things, you know, uh, as the audience that are listening to this and see this launch, they're probably going to say, Rudy, how the heck did you have Gino on you? You didn't talk about systems and all. So I'll probably have to have you on for a second, uh, episode, just to talk and geek out about that. Like I go from the 210 employees and I liked to think I'm pretty good at ops and systems and I think as you go to 10

million plus in revenue, you die without them. And I've certainly dodged a few deaths as we've been working on our systems and processes. And I know you've been so fundamental with those systems and those books for tens of thousands or probably millions of entrepreneurs. I read them, you know, early on in my journey and I have to refer back to them and refer my C-suite and all my clients back to them. So firstly, amazing job on that and thanks for what you've done for most entrepreneurs that don't have a clue what a system is or a process. But, you know, it's impressive and we'll definitely maybe dive into that in another session But for today, let's talk about the disciplines

Can you maybe give us a few to kick us off and dive into some for sure? Here's what I like to do I find this to be the best way for the audience to absorb the content is what I'll do is I'm gonna give you all Ten a high level pass just so you know what they are And then you know your audience better than I do. And so if there's one, two, three, or four that really jump out at you, let's drill deep into those. If you're not sure, I'll go with my gut and what my guts tell me about your audience, but here they are at a high level. And so again, the 10 disciplines to maximize your energy impact inner peace.

Number one is 10 year thinking. Number two is take time off. Number three is know thyself. Number four, be still. Number five, know your hundred percent. Number six, say no dot dot dot often. Number seven, don't do $25 an hour work. Number eight, prepare every night. Number nine, put everything in one place. And number ten, be humble. It's so very quickly with these 10 disciplines after living them for about 25

years myself in the businesses that I've built and becoming pretty darn good entrepreneur And a pretty darn good person in my personal life I was asked to speak and it was time to come up with new content for this particular audience and I soul searched I what are the disciplines the habits the things that I've lived by for decades To kind of building create what I have and that's where these bubble to the surface that I've lived by for decades to kind of building, create what I have. And that's where these bubble to the surface. I did the talk, it was so well received. It has now just taken on a life of its own.

And so I'm just really excited to share these with your audience. Yeah, I think I always kind of joked like, I think for me, like how I boil it all down, I say life for me, I'm always trying to optimize five areas and I'm yet to master like all five at an amazing level at once, but you know, business and finance, personal relationships, friendships, health, and then hobbies and fun. That's kind of like how I look at my life and buy bookings that I'm always trying to work on. And I'm normally good at getting like three or four really great.

And then there's one or two lagging and then you kind of switch over here. It's like spinning plates, but I'm only 13, so I got some more time to really try and master all five, but I would love to start at the top with the, like the big vision. Like, I think, you know, I, uh, I think the 10-year vision would be great. Let's start there. And so we call it 10-year thinking okay and so because this is more about just having a vision it's shifting your whole energetic being to thinking in multi-decade terms and so it's all about shifting from that typical driven entrepreneurial spirit and energy where

you want everything now, now, now, today, this week, this month, to expanding that time horizon. And so each discipline starts with a bold statement. And so the bold statement is my way of saying, if you would just give me blind faith and just do this one thing, you will get all the benefits of the discipline and all. So I'll start with the bold statement and then I'll paint a little color around the discipline and let's see where the conversation leads us. And so the bold statement around discipline number one, 10-year thinking, is shift your mind from short-term thinking to thinking in 10

year timeframes. If you will do that, it's the most incredible thing. It happened for me at 35 years old when I fully embraced this over 20 years ago. And all of a sudden when I did, time slowed down. There was this incredible peace that came over me. I got more clarity. I started making better decisions.

And then I literally got there faster. There's an old quote that says, we overestimate what we can get done in a year, but we greatly underestimate what we can get done in 10 years. And so if you'll shift, ironically, you will get more done. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I think it's funny, just a lot of people, they, they

really don't know when I speak to them, right? They're just like trying to survive or go through the day to day. And, and, um, I think that's something that my staff probably admire in me because like, you know, you get hit with these problems in business and as you get bigger to a hundred staff, they actually, and you do more, I feel they feel more frequent because you're just doing more and out there more and, and nothing phases me. And they always wonder why, like if you have some, someone steals money from the business or this big project collapses and celebrity quits. And it's, I think it's cause I'm so, I think a confident, but aligned in like the big thing, the small things matter. So, so little, whereas most beginner entrepreneurs I coach, you know, I have a big community, I always tell them like they'll lose sleep over the, the

freelancer on Upwork, the overbilled $200. And I'm like, it's now, it's not going to matter. Like, you know, um, so what, why do you think that is? Why, why is there such a difference in like me? And I mean, lots of most successful people I hang out with are like that. But when you start, you're not like that. Yeah. Well, I would suggest that, you know, in terms of why it is, I think it's just,

like I said, the DNA of a driven entrepreneur. We just go, we are driven. We have stamina and energy that is 10 times more than most. And so with that becomes this sense of urgency, and we just want everything now. And in that, again, if you can picture like dual universes, picture being stuck in that place where your head is down and you're just trapped in today.

Yes, today's problem seems like the biggest problem on the planet. Now let's go to the other alternate universe where you're seeing everything 10 and 20, 30 years out. Today's problem is literally a speck on that time horizon. And so there's something that my business mentor taught me 30 years ago. It's been so profound and I've taught it so many times. And he talks about a 10 year business cycle.

And he says in a 10 year business cycle, this is what typically happens for us as entrepreneurs, we have two great years, two terrible years, and six pretty good years. And so the point is that you can zoom out and realize that when you're going through those two really tough years, you feel like it's game over. You're getting your ass kicked. You're getting killed. Well, you can zoom out of that. Me now having lived that three decades at least,

when you're in that, like when COVID hit as an example. In other words, it's just a blip when you're able to zoom out. But when we were in that, it was sheer hell. But just as quickly when you're in the two great years, it doesn't last forever. And so you just have to stay sharp because the second you think you've got to figure it out, the universe is going to kick you in the ass and introduce you to the two tough years. But it's funny because the kicking in your ass,

like I still see that, like I can't say who, but I'm friends with a couple of billionaires. And like, I still see that with them. And I'm friends with a lot of people with hundred million dollar companies and they say exactly the same. And I think when you start out, you mean, oh, it's just cause I'm starting out and beginning.

I'm like, no, that's called entrepreneurship, right? And then I train you start out, you mean, oh, it's just cause I'm starting out and beginning on like, no, that's called entrepreneurship. Right. And then I train a lot of, uh, I used to train some pro athletes and now I partner with a lot of like celebs and pro athletes. And it's the same there, you know, and an Olympic athlete trains for four years and gets food poisoning two days before the Olympics and now, oh, you gotta wait four more years, sorry, you can't race. Right.

It's like, if you seek perfection or like extraordinary things, it's never going to end. And I think knowing that and having that mindset helped you through it. Right. And I just, it's kind of funny the 10 year thing, cause I look back my last 10 years, I've had probably exactly that. Like I had one really bad year in my first business when it peaked, but it led to me like doing all the stuff I do now. So it was a blessing in disguise. And then

I actually think I just had one of the, probably the second bad year out of my 10. Um, but I had lots of great things within that. Um, so yeah, it's probably, probably true for me in the last 10 years too. I really like that. Um, I'll throw two more nuggets in there really quick for you. The other thing that happens is when you shift to 10 year thinking, all of a sudden when you start to have a sense of what life looks like you from a 10 year timeframe, it doesn't have to be entirely specific, but relationships, business, finance, let's use your five categories, you should have a relatively pretty good idea for what that looks like. And let's go outside of business for a second, but if you intend to be in a healthy, loving

relationship with your significant other 10 years from now, each one of these clarity moments directs today's activity. And so if you want to be in a long-term relationship, that thing you're about to say to your significant other today, you're going to think about it. But my point in that is all of a sudden now you're making 10-year decisions today. Every decision, how much money you're saving, decisions for your business, personal relationships, health, that thing you're about to put in your mouth. In other words, you will make better decisions today.

They will be 10-year decisions if you shift to that thinking, which is why you get there faster. Because again, with that short-term thinking, you're just making a bunch of short-term decisions. Yeah. And I think it's like, I've always been like that. Like I bought real estate at 18, 19, 20, 21. And I've kept it to this day. Like I've always had this like long time investment brain, like even since a teenager playing computer games, I would be like playing it for like to win over years and like chess and stuff. So I think that's probably what made it one reason that I became a good entrepreneur, cause I do think that way.

And I think society now, and I think it gets worse as society's changed with the internet and stuff is like every what most people are more the opposite where it's like what's happening now what can I get now immediate gratification now but we all know the world's most successful people, you know, they all delay immediate gratification for long term gains, right? Exactly right. Okay, so next one for you and some of them like I love all of them, but I've done like whole podcasts on the like 25 hour work being and so I recently, so I will skip that one for today, even though

I'm sure you'd give even better perspective than me. But there is a one wall that I would, I would love to pull out, which is the, I know you're a hundred percent. Love it. Love it. One of my favorites. I would love to pull out, which is the know your 100%. Love it. One of my favorites. And I was thinking about this in advance, and that's one of the two that I would have chosen. So for some reason, your audience drives me to this one. So know your 100%, discipline number five.

I'm gonna start with the bold statement again. And so here's the bold statement. Decide on and commit to the perfect number of hours per week and weeks per year that you will deliver your craft to the world. I'm gonna say it again. Decide on and commit to the perfect number of hours per week and weeks per year that you will deliver your craft to the world. And so here's the point here. Again, we are driven entrepreneurs. We have that DNA.

We have that energy. We have the souls of driven entrepreneurs. And so with that, we are here to make an impact on the world in some way, shape or form. And so we have a gift a craft an ability well with saying that there is literally an amount of time that one more hour per week you apply that you will start to burn out and one less hour you will start to get bored now I expect your audience to not believe this yet, but I promise you it's real, and this takes time to dial in.

So for the last 30 years of my life, I have been a 40 week a year person. I work 40 weeks a year, and I work 55 hours a week. That's my formula. For some reason, I just, all those years, working any less than like 11 hours a day, five days a week, I would start to get bored. Anything more, I would start to burn out. So we have a formula. And same thing with those 40 weeks.

I take 12 weeks off a year. I take the month of August off every year. So I have figured out my perfect formula to create the maximum output. There are so many other benefits which we'll drill down on as we have this discussion, but it starts with you just heightening your awareness to say, what's my magic formula? Because it even includes the time you wake up

and start working, whatever time that is for you, and we're all different. Some really creative entrepreneurs, they don't start till 10, you know, they go till well into the night. Some start at 4 a.m. and we're all different. So it's understanding you're maximizing energy and impact here.

And so I'm usually hitting the ground running at about 7.30 from a work standpoint, you know, and then I'll go pretty hard till 6.30. Well, now at 57 years old, finally after 30 years doing that, I'm realizing that I'm going to work down to about 40 hours a week. That's a little side note, because the point is it can change over time.

But for 30 years, that was my formula. And so a great way to describe it, a podcaster gave me this analogy as I was teaching this. And they said, think about it as like a fuel efficiency gauge in your car. And when you step on that accelerator, there's this maximum fuel efficiency that if you press the accelerator too hard, you're going to burn through too much gas, too soft, you're not getting enough efficiency. And so that's what we're doing here.

We're dialing in your perfect formula for maximum output. And I would say like, I'm interested in your opinion, at least my personal like opinion is mine's cha- mine changes a decent amount depending on personal life and business. So like I scaled, like I said, my company to 110 staff. Um, and we did about 25 million in three years in revenue. And I was working a lot then really busy, but now, and I teach my staff this too. Like we had to see a downsize now and really systematize and build great systems.

I said, it's a bit different when you're building the skyscraper and once it's built, you need less people to maintain the skyscraper like that. So now I actually work way less on trade. I'm doing triathlon and iron man. So I'm, I'm training all afternoon. So I actually only probably work six, seven hours a day now versus 12 hours a day because like the skyscraper has been built and now we're in a good groove maintaining it. But then in a year or two, like I'll build another skyscraper and I feel it will change again. So did you find that to be true? Like it can have that variability? Well, here's how I would answer that a couple of different ways. So just like I described with me, after 30 years, I'm making a shift now to 40 hours.

I think the short answer to your question is yes, but I think there's a deeper answer that says you still at the end of the day have a formula. And I would argue that it's almost like the triathlons you're preparing for is kind of part of your driven entrepreneur. Yeah, yeah. It's part of my what day for sure. I would call that part of your work, but that's just me. But my point is coming back to me as an example, yes, you'll have weeks that that increases

because of what you're working on. When I sold EOS Worldwide, it was a very intense three-month period that I was working more than that, but I could see myself burning out. So what I believe is if you look at the long haul, I grew EOS worldwide 40% per year for 15 straight years because I stayed committed to that container and capacity. I may have been able to increase that growth rate if I put more time in, but it would have burned me out. And so this kind of gets back to almost like 10 year thinking.

It's looking at your life and what kind of balance do you want to have in your life? Because my point is we all have a formula. And I think what happens with you is when you don't need to put as much time in your business, you'll have a lot of energy in the tank. And so you fill it with something else. Well, I, I used to split with more projects, but then I realized that would've been great because then it causes a ripple effect on the team. So now I think.

Yeah, and so it's dangerous too, but the beauty of understanding this, we call this your work container, is you can head things off at the pass because I found myself doing the same thing. I all of a sudden find this excess capacity, I go start another business, and then put myself right into being over my capacity. So the power, once you understand this work container, all of a sudden you can now maximize the container. And quite frankly,

that's when you start to build an organization because then you're protecting the container and just adding resources so that you can keep delegating and elevating, delegating and elevating, but staying within your capacity is about avoiding burnout and avoiding boredom. It's this magic formula that exists for everyone. Love it. Well, while we're coming close on time, so I will save the rest for the book and for people to go away and actually learn this and read this from the book. So I guess final question, you know, we've given them a taste and I've

loved this conversation and I believe it's been super valuable, uh, for entrepreneurs listening to reflect. But if they want to, you know, really dive deep into this, can you just tell them where they, uh, head to, you know, learn all this, read about this, the book and where they can find you? Absolutely. So the book is called Shine. You can find it at any major retailer, but also our website.

So our website is the10disciplines.com. You can spell out 10 or just write one zero, but the10disciplines.com. You can find the book there, but what you can also find is something called a true self assessment, a free assessment we offer just to get a sense of how free your true self is and how well you're living these 10 disciplines already in your life. So it creates kind of a benchmark for you in terms of where you are. We also offer group coaching, a mastermind, and so lots of resources there on the website. But I'd urge you to take a look at that assessment as a great starting point to get a sense of where you are.

Great. And I would love for you to come back on down the line and I do geek out on the art system side and you are the man when it comes to all of that. So I would love, and I'm sure my audience would love to talk about that one day, but thank you so much for today. Love the conversation and I'm excited to dive into all the other disciplines myself. And, uh, like I said at the start, I mean, you know, as an entrepreneur,

you and the business are one. And if you're struggling, your business will struggle too. And if you're thriving, your business will generally thrive too. So, and I know, you know that I'm sure that's the wrinkle. So Gina, thank you so much guys. Keep living the red life. I hope you enjoyed today and I'll see you guys soon. Take care. know that I'm sure that's the ring like that so Gina thank you so much guys keep living the red life I hope you enjoyed today and I'll see you guys soon take care