Gino Wickman is the author of the bestselling, award-winning book Traction, along with six other titles that together have sold over 2 million copies. He is the creator of EOS® (Entrepreneurial Operating System®), and cofounder of EOS Worldwide, one of the largest business coaching companies in the world.
Rob Dube is the cofounder of imageOne, CEO and co-founder of The 10 Disciplines, and host of the Entrepreneurial Leap and Genuine Care podcasts. He is also the author of Donothing and host of the Do Nothing retreat.
Below, co-authors Gino and Rob share five key insights from their new book, Shine: How Looking Inward Is the Key to Unlocking True Entrepreneurial Freedom. Listen to the audio version—read by Gino—in the Next Big Idea App.
1. Know and master your outer and inner world.
I have spent the last 30 years of my life teaching entrepreneurs how to master their outer world, reach the top of the mountain, and succeed by every imaginable metric. They have the business, the money, the people, the accolades, everything needed for success. Once they get to the top of the mountain, however, they feel empty and unfulfilled on the inside. This moment is an opportunity to go inside and master your inner world. This can be a chance to understand what’s happening below the surface.
Four years ago, at top of the mountain of success, I also felt unfulfilled. When I looked inside, I confronted and addressed all of the pain and trauma from early in my life. By age 15, I had built a Teflon shell around me to protect me from the world. While doing the work in my inner world, I found the root of the pain, trauma, anxiety, shame, and fear I was experiencing. Then, I learned to release it. The discipline and the opportunity here is to know your inner story, understand what and why it’s going, and then release it. By doing this, you can experience incredible peace while succeeding and mastering your outer world.
2. You are driven.
You’re one of the 10 percent of people on the planet born with the genetics of a driven person. Being driven is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that we, the driven, are born with superhuman stamina. We accomplish more than most, and we are the creators of most things on this planet. The curse is that we tend to do a lot of damage to ourselves, emotionally and physically. We also do a lot of damage to the relationships around us. We tend to leave a black trail behind us.
“Driven people don’t feel as rewarded, which can lead them into trouble.”
It is important to understand that this is genetic. In Dr. Doug Brackman’s book Driven, he explains that the D2D4 receptor in our DNA does not fire the same for driven people as everyone else. As a result, driven people don’t feel as rewarded, which can lead them into trouble. It can lead to addictions, most commonly workaholism. Addictions numb our pain and hide what’s going on under the surface. Workaholics bury themselves in their work. Understand and accept that being driven is a blessing and a curse, and it’s all about awareness. With awareness, the magic happens.
3. Feelings, thoughts, and decisions come from love or fear.
Love refers to a true self, soul, or heart. Fear refers to our ego. Your true self is trapped, encased in a protective layer that is your ego, which is simply trying to protect you. Its intentions are good, but your true self is trapped in that cocoon or protective layer. The goal is to make more decisions from love—your true self—and less from that protective layer—your ego.
The only way to do that is to remove the protective layer. To do that, I need to take you four levels deep into that understanding. On the first level, you understand simply that your true self is in there, trapped, and it wants out. Once you realize that, you go to level number two, which is the understanding that you are pure energy. We are all balls of energy, and some of us burn bright, and some of us don’t burn so bright. We can burn bright when we remove that protective layer. On the third level, you can remove blocked energy and let yourself shine.
This takes us to the fourth level, simple awareness. As Eckhart Tolle teaches us, with awareness comes transformation and freedom. Are your decisions, thoughts and feelings coming from love? Are they coming from fear? When you realize they are fear-based, you can then work your way up the levels. Your true, free self gives you the best insight.
4. It is possible to be driven and have peace.
I always thought this was a choice. You either are going to be driven, or you’re going to have peace. You cannot have both. For most driven entrepreneurs, the fear is that finding inner peace will take away all of their drive. That is just not true. It’s just the opposite. Finding peace will actually increase your drive.
“An inside-out approach to the world can increase your drive.”
My first taste of inner peace was when my daughter was born. It actually scared the heck out of me. I enjoyed peace for an hour, and then I stuffed it back down because it felt weak or wimpy. Shoot forward in time. In the last four years, I have done of a lot of shedding. I have found inner peace and my drive is tenfold. An inside-out approach to the world can increase your drive. That drive is now more of a calling than it is a drive from competition, fear, or trying to prove something to the world.
5. There are 10 disciplines for maximizing your impact and inner peace.
These 10 disciplines are a foundation. They’re a platform that will help you create time and space to free your true self to maximize and master your outer and inner world. The 10 disciplines are as follows; 10-year thinking, take time off, know thyself, be still, know your hundred percent, say no often, don’t do $25 an hour work, prepare every night, put everything in one place and be humble.
Though all the disciplines work together and have a synergistic effect, I’d like to drill down on saying no often. You must say no to everything that doesn’t fit in the first five disciplines. When you shift your thinking to 10-year thinking and you will see everything so much clearer. You will know the amount of time to take off to protect your energy. You will clearly know your true self and thus, be that in the world. You will take time in silence to calm your central nervous system and make better decisions. You will know what your hundred percent is and know your work container. The work container is the perfect number of weeks per year or hours per week that is your maximum energy output.
When you know those five things clearly, all of your decisions will become clear. As a driven entrepreneur, you have more things on your to-do list, more ideas, more problems to solve than most people on the earth. So you have to get good at saying no, and that’s what these 10 disciplines help you do.
To listen to the audio version read by co-author Gino Wickman, download the Next Big Idea App today:
