Gino Wickman (00:00):
Welcome to the Shed and Shine podcast. I am Gino Wickman. This is where Rob Dube and I help driven entrepreneurs shed their shit, free their True Selves, unlock true entrepreneurial freedom, and shine. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us and we hope to make a huge impact on you.
Rob Dube (00:19):
Hey, everyone, I'm Rob Dube, and here again with my good friend Gino Wickman. Gino, hello, how are you?
Gino Wickman (00:28):
Great, Rob. How are you?
Rob Dube (00:31):
Doing very well. We're going to have a fun conversation again. I'm hoping that you might be able to set us up with what we're doing here.
Gino Wickman (00:39):
I would love to. So if we go back a few episodes, you will see an episode that is all about Rob and I and our history for 20 years of hanging out in a coffee shop twice a year and just talking about a bunch of stuff. And so we did an episode where we talked about this may never see the light of day, and then Kristen and Rob, our podcast producer, were going to ultimately decide. And so it saw the light of day.
(01:10):
People liked it, and so we're going to do it again. And so the way this works is Rob and I have no idea what's about to be said. So just like the coffee shop meeting, I will drive to the coffee shop and I'll be thinking about Rob and I'll just jot a few things down on my legal pad that I'd love to talk to him about. He has done the same, he's going to go first. Rob will share a topic, then I'll share a topic, and we're just going to talk about whatever comes to mind about the topic. But each one is a surprise to the other person. Rob, what is topic number one in the coffee shop here?
Rob Dube (01:42):
Okay, okay, well, I have five topics and I was channeling which one to speak about as you were talking.
Gino Wickman (01:48):
Nice.
Rob Dube (01:49):
And the one that came to me is called the car accident.
Gino Wickman (01:51):
Oh, my goodness, the car accident. I can't wait to hear about this.
Rob Dube (01:55):
So in a previous episode we talked about our sabbaticals and I talked about, at the beginning of my sabbatical, I went and did a therapeutic psychedelic journey. One of the things I'm working on during that journey is death and dying. I've never learned about death and dying from anybody in my life, and it's something I'm very curious about: the whole process of it, what it might feel like. And a lot of this came up for me over the years, and I don't know if you remember, I actually asked you in an actual coffee shop meeting, how have you prepared for dying?
(02:39):
You shared with me the regular stuff that everybody does that I've done as well, but I want to prepare in a different kind of way, and I want to do that with my wife, Emily. And we've been talking a lot about that. So I come back from this journey and we talked about death and dying. The death rehearsal is what my therapist calls it. And my wife and I are off running errands and we're at a stop sign and this woman comes through the stop sign right at us and hits us. She never stopped, never put her brakes on.
Gino Wickman (03:17):
Holy cow. Wow.
Rob Dube (03:17):
Just didn't see the stop sign. She was in another world. I mean, she's 90 years old.
Gino Wickman (03:22):
Holy cow.
Rob Dube (03:23):
And obviously I'm sitting here with you, so I'm fine. Emily's fine. The car's totaled.
Gino Wickman (03:29):
Holy.
Rob Dube (03:29):
The woman was a wreck who hit us, but she was fine as well. But it just got me thinking as I watched this car come at us in slow motion, my death rehearsal is not a rehearsal right now, is this what's about to happen? I had that in a millisecond of sitting there. And so I was thinking even more and more about it intensely in the week after that accident and just thinking about what that all means for me. And I don't have any answers actually. And I would actually love to hear anything that's coming to your mind, and I'd love to hear from the audience actually, people that have thought about this. What kind of ritual do you want if you have the good fortune to be dying around your family? Because if we got hit by the car, we wouldn't have been. What do you imagine your last breath might be like? Am I depressing everybody right now, by the way?
Gino Wickman (04:31):
You're depressing me a little bit, but I've written six notes. You got my gears turning. I was in this really silly, goofy mood when we started and now it's like, whoa, man, this one's a lot different than the mood I was in. But that's what happens in the coffee shop sometimes.
Rob Dube (04:44):
That's right. It's just like-
Gino Wickman (04:44):
Exactly.
Rob Dube (04:46):
So, yeah, I didn't mean to bring you guys all into this discussion, but, hey, it's the one that came to me, so what can I say? And so I have a list of questions, I don't have them with me, but that Emily and I have been talking about, things like what scares you about death? What do you imagine happens after death? Some people that are very religious feel very clear about that. And so that can be good if you are. And I'm not religious in that way, so I don't have that same way of thinking. And so, yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of just really putting it all together, but I don't have any answers.
Gino Wickman (05:25):
Oh, well-
Rob Dube (05:25):
Which is fun. It's part of the growth.
Gino Wickman (05:27):
I love it. What a great topic. And it's so interesting because you did this with the tree topic as well. You hit on the thing that's so prevalent in my life right now. So I wrote down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 things, and I'm going to do my best, I'm going to look at the clock, to say them in less than 10 minutes because I have a funny feeling this is the only topic we're getting through, but I might be able to get through them in three minutes and then you tell me if you want to continue on. But this is a really big topic, and so I'll rip through what I wrote down.
(05:59):
First of all, I write in the book Shine where I almost died three times: from COVID, from a gas explosion in my house, and from my brakes going out on my car at 85 miles an hour. So death is around me, so the universe is trying to teach me something about death. In that coffee shop conversation you and I had 15 years ago about death, remember what I shared with you, I have always had a fear that someone's going to kill me. And the way that I say it is that I'm going to say what I really feel and somebody's going to kill me. So again, it's just it is what it is. I've been told two things about that. One particular person told me that is from a past life experience, and that is in the past. The past is in the past. Another person told me that it's probably already happened, and it wasn't a physical death. It was either a being crucified by the people I love or an ego death.
(06:55):
So that's the other thing. When death starts coming up, a lot of times it's just an ego death. And so I've seen that a lot and I think, if I really analyze what's going on with me, you can't kill the ego, so be careful, but it dissolves and somebody said something great recently, just manage it like a dog. So just manage your ego like a dog. It will follow your orders. It's just a tool. It can't run your life. And that's what we do is we let it run our life, but death is the fast way to describe that. And then ironically, someone near and dear to me, who's actually the person that gave that piece of advice about it being in a past life, she just went to a workshop on death. She went to a retreat on death where you go for four days and you go through this death process.
(07:35):
So this death topic with driven entrepreneurs is a really hot topic. I was being booked to do a talk for YPO Boise Idaho, and their theme is all about this. One of their events was death. They all went to a funeral home and went through the process of dying. So I believe there's something really profound with this topic, and there's something we can all learn. And I'm just rolling through all my points here. I want to say this though, sitting here today and everything that I've gone through, I have no fear of death, absolutely none because I believe in a couple of things and this is just me, okay? So these are just my beliefs. But with this being surrounded by death in the last year and a half, my brother has died, who was my hero, died at 58 years old. His wife died, leaving us three of their kids in their mid-20s. And my brother-in-law died, my sister's husband died. So of my six brothers, sisters, I'll call them sibling-in-laws, half have died. And so my kids on this side, half of their aunts and uncles on my side of the family died. So I've been surrounded by this. So that's certainly prompted me to really bask in this and understand it.
(08:55):
But what I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt is I believe we are going somewhere and I believe we're coming back. So that's just me. So again, I'm not preaching anything. I'm not pushing anything. I believe we are souls. I believe our souls live on. And so I believe we're going somewhere, and I believe it's a really beautiful place. I believe my brother, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law are looking down on us and they're there, and I believe I will see them again. And I believe I'm coming back after I go up there and do a round. And so that gives me great peace. That just really gives me peace in this scary, crazy topic of death.
Rob Dube (09:34):
I used to say I wasn't afraid of death all the time, and I truly believed that. But then I had a different psychedelic journey and during the journey, I felt like I was dying. They said that sometimes this happens, and I was laying there and I was thinking to myself, what the hell are you doing on this journey? You're dying right now, and why did you do this? And your wife, your kids, you left them behind to go do this. And I was getting really upset with myself. And then I settled down and I got peaceful. And of course I'm here so I didn't die. And what I realized in that is actually I am afraid to die. And so that's brought up more of this work because I really wanted to work through this more.
Gino Wickman (10:24):
And if I may, on that, for what this is worth, I'm just giving my experience, God, how fun would this be though, this is why this conversation's so interesting. So how interesting would it be to have this conversation with 20 people? But the reason I'm not afraid is because of what I said, but I also, man, if I go now, for whatever reason, truck hits me, heart attack, whatever it is, man, it's been a good fricking life and I've made a lot of impact and I've loved a lot and a lot of people have loved me. And so it's like I'm good. Now, with that said, I expect to and hope to and want to be here for like 50 more years. And I feel like the impact I've made, I have not even scratched the surface. I really feel like I've made 1% of the impact that I'm about to make on the world. But if my time is up and it's time to go, I am so good with that. And like I said, I believe I'm going somewhere and then I believe I'll be back to do another round, whatever the heck that means. So anyway, for what that's worth.
Rob Dube (11:31):
There's a cool thing that my therapist taught me is to practice death every day, and I'll get out of the morbid part of this in a second, but he puts his hand on his heart and he feels his heart beating. And then he breathes in, and then he breathes out two short breaths, which is my understanding through him that that's sort of the last breath that you take.
Gino Wickman (11:58):
Ooh, wow.
Rob Dube (11:59):
And so that's a way of preparing for death. But now getting out of the morbid side of it, and I've been practicing this, it helps me realize how precious every moment is that I'm alive by practicing for death. It reminds me that death can come at any moment, and so embrace each and every moment that I have while I'm here learning these lessons. And that's what I'm here to do is to learn these lessons.
Gino Wickman (11:59):
Exactly.
Rob Dube (12:29):
And you and I have very similar beliefs in terms of different lives and things of that nature, so just embracing that and it's-
Gino Wickman (12:38):
Yeah, and you prompted one other thing, and this is unfortunately going to be our one and only topic for this one because the one I'm going to bring up is at least 10 minutes. So let's save that for later, but let's not feel like we have to rush this, I think we're a couple minutes from being done, but there's another belief I have, and I believe that there's a grander plan. You know what I mean? So I don't think we have any control at the end of the day. And I think when your time is up, your time is up.
(13:04):
But you stole the words out of my mouth because I was going to share this before you said what you said. And so when our loved ones go, as painful as that is, I believe these are all learning experiences, and I believe we have to see the dark to see the light. I believe that. As I look at life and what's going on, it's just this constant seeing the dark to see the light and the more dark, the more light. And so when I go, it was predestined, I was supposed to go, and my time is my time. And it's a hard thing to figure out why, because some of it is so cruel and weird, why an eight-year-old would get cancer and die. I mean, it's like how is that a lesson for anybody? But I believe there's a grander plan.
Rob Dube (13:50):
I'm reading a book right now by Ram Dass, and he shares something very similar to what you just brought up about why would a young child be taken at that kind of age? And he says they've brought what they needed to bring in this life at this time and learned the lessons that they needed to learn, three years old, five years old. Hard to understand from our thinking minds, from our analytical minds, from our emotional senses, but being able to see it in that way, and, I don't know, it hit me in the right way.
Gino Wickman (14:29):
And here's another wild one. I'm sitting here wrestling whether I'm going to share this one, because we're going to lose 10% of our audience with this one, and they'll never come back again. That's why I have ways of saying these extreme statements. But there's a whole concept out there and many books written on it, and they're called soul contracts.
(14:45):
And the whole concept is a soul contract. And so when we're up there, wherever there is, heaven, the universe, whatever you want to call it, again, it's all energy, as souls, we choose this lifetime. We already know, and we're here to learn a lesson. And so there are books written on this, and I think that one of them is literally called Soul Contracts. It's really heavy. And I went down that rabbit hole just kind of studying that whole concept, and frankly, that gave me some peace. So death is a really hot, good topic.
(15:21):
It's almost like money. So it's like everybody's afraid to talk about death when I think it's so powerful to talk about death. It's also so good to talk about money. It's like I joined an organization where there's 15 of us that talk about wealth, and it's so freeing. It's like the world's afraid to talk about money. The world's afraid to talk about death. So it's great things to talk about because we just grow and learn and get rid of all the taboo and clear that shit, and it's all bad energy.
Rob Dube (15:47):
It's so true. It's so true. All right, well, I think we've said it on this topic for now. I don't know. What do you think, do more?
Gino Wickman (15:55):
I think no, to be continued to the next coffee shop.
Rob Dube (15:57):
I could probably go another 45 minutes on it, but I mean-
Gino Wickman (16:00):
Oh, my God, I think that I could too, but I ripped through my list and said everything as fast as I could say it. But, yeah, we could go an hour just on this.
Rob Dube (16:07):
All right, well, if you hung in for our topic on death and dying-
Gino Wickman (16:10):
That we didn't lose you forever with wherever we went toward the end there.
Rob Dube (16:15):
We are as always grateful that you've tuned in so.
Gino Wickman (16:18):
And here's another thing, Kristen and Rob will shoot it down if they didn't like where we went, but I hope it sees the light of day.
Rob Dube (16:25):
We'll see. We'll see. All right, everyone, stay focused and much love to you.
Gino Wickman (16:30):
Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us, and please tune in for the next episode. Until then, if you'd like to see where you are on your True Self journey, go to ShedandShinePodcast.com to take the True Self-assessment and receive personalized guidance. If you're all ready to begin your inner world journey with Rob and myself, please join us for the next round of the 10 Disciplines group coaching program. We wish you all the best in freeing your True Self, stay focused, and much love.
