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 (00:21):
Hello everyone. My name is Rob Dube and I am here with my good friend Gino Wickman. Gino, how are you today?
Gino Wickman (00:30):
I am great my good friend Rob Dube.
Rob Dube (00:33):
I don't know why I say that, my good friend. It's fun. It's fun to say.
Gino Wickman (00:36):
Don't ever change.
Rob Dube (00:38):
So today, deep breath, we are going to talk about how things are so interconnected in the world. You've heard me mention that I've been traveling a bit. Too much.
Gino Wickman (00:53):
Oh, boy. Hot button, sensitive topic everyone.
Rob Dube (00:59):
So in my travels I've been sort of paying more attention to this, and what I noticed is probably obvious as everyone here listens to it, including yourself. There are so many people that help us when we're traveling. I'll give you an example. I went to visit my kids recently. They live in New York City and I live in northern Michigan. So I had to fly from northern Michigan through Detroit to New York City.
(01:25):
There's all the staff in the airports, store clerks, people that keep the airport clean, they keep the operations smooth, the check-in for the airlines, the baggage people, the flight crews, the drivers. They got all these planes landing and taking off all at once. Then you get to the city, New York City, it's so busy and everyone's crazy. And there's the staff in the stores and the restaurants we visited. The Uber drivers. All in wherever we wanted to go though, we got there safely and we were treated really well by so many diverse human beings.
(02:05):
And it's something I think we take for granted, how interconnected everything is. So I always want to cue you up. Does anything come to mind for you on this?
Gino Wickman (02:16):
Yeah, a thing or two. But I'll speak to the travel thing and my sensitivity alert. So just everybody knows Rob has been traveling way too much for him. We got to reduce his travel. I love to travel. Rob does not love to travel. I'm on a plane about every three weeks going to places I love. I love to travel. Rob does not like to jump on a plane every three weeks. So that's what that was about.
(02:39):
And so interconnectedness, this one I feel like is going to be a great back and forth topic, and I feel like we're going to keep going a little deeper and a little deeper and a little deeper and get a little more vulnerable and a little more vulnerable and a little more vulnerable. And I feel like I'm actually going to say some things I've never said before out loud, but we'll see.
(03:00):
So I believe we are all interconnected. I'll start there.
Rob Dube (03:07):
Keep going.
Gino Wickman (03:08):
No, no. I want you. I want you to grease the skids.
Rob Dube (03:14):
Okay.
Gino Wickman (03:14):
Here's what I want to hear to force me to be vulnerable and go next. What do you believe? Describe for us your take on interconnectedness.
Rob Dube (03:25):
Well, where I feel it most, and I hope I could get to a place in my life, but I'm allowing for it to happen the way it's supposed to. But where I notice it most is two places, when I go on an extended retreat in silence and when I have done plant medicine journeys. And this is where I feel this wholeness of everything. In other words, it's not like I'm connecting dots like, "Oh. Well, the trees and the leaves and the soil," and all that kind of stuff. It just feels like I'm part of this whole thing that's going on. I'm just one small part of it.
(04:09):
And so that is a sense of interconnectedness that feels so beautiful to me. It brings me to tears when it happens and then it goes away when I get home and I just try to remember it, just try to bring it back.
Gino Wickman (04:28):
I'm just going to share a basic fundamental belief that I have. I shared this with an audience once and a lot of them got mad at me, and so I am a little cautious, traumatized, wounded, but I've shed most of that. I don't know if all of it, which is why I'm tiptoeing into this. But this is just my belief, okay? So all I'm doing, what I've realized and learned is all I can do is say what I believe. And in no way am I preaching anything to anyone. In no way am I trying to change somebody's beliefs because the context is our book Shine and helping people understand those three discoveries to free your True Self and live by the 10 Disciplines. And whatever your belief they work, the 10 Disciplines and the three discoveries. So it doesn't matter what you believe. So that's not what this is about, but it helps whatever you believe, it amplifies what you believe.
(05:34):
And so what I believe is I believe that we are all connected and I believe that we are all souls. And I believe that we all pure energy. And I believe when we die, we go somewhere and then I believe we come back again. So that's it. That's what I believe. Just me. Not preaching. Please don't get mad at me. So in that belief though, what it does for me in that belief, so now just imagine. So if you can put yourself in my shoes, I believe we're all connected. I believe we're going somewhere. So play all those beliefs out. Why would I, could I, ever harm another human being? And so I believe that belief leads to peace in the world. There's still evil people, there's still the battle between good and evil out there. And so unfortunately we need to deal with evil people in however way we deal with them.
(06:38):
But nonetheless, the majority of us are not evil. And that belief, again, knowing that I feel connected to everyone and am connected to everyone, I just feel like that makes me a little nicer. For those that believe the same thing, they're a little nicer to me, leads to some peace. I believe I'm going somewhere. So when I leave this earth, so I believe we're walking around in these meat suits that are wrapped around our souls. And when we pass, we go somewhere. What that does for me is it gives me great peace. I do not fear death. I believe I'm going somewhere. I believe, when my brother passed away a year and a half ago, I believe I will see him again. Again, just my beliefs. That gives me great peace and I think leads to better decisions. So there's my next...
Rob Dube (07:29):
So good
Gino Wickman (07:30):
... topic or explanation of interconnectedness.
Rob Dube (07:33):
Yeah. And prefaced with "I believe" before every statement. Absolutely. And you just brought up one thing for me, and that was even the evil in the world and some of us, myself included, have had some evil things happen to us in our lives. But the evil, there is connectedness in the evil. I believe there is connectedness in the evil.
Gino Wickman (07:59):
Oh, no question. No question, no question. And that evil, I am not capable of going too deep into the evil, but that evil is wrapped around souls as well. And so whether that's ego that's creating that evil, or past trauma, or multi-generational trauma or conditioning, I don't know. I can't speak to that. But I know that with what I believe, I believe I perpetuate more good and love in the world. And I believe good and love will win. And the more good and love there is, the less evil and hate there will be.
Rob Dube (08:40):
So can I take this from a deeper conversation to a little less deep, but kind of deep? Would you mind?
Gino Wickman (08:48):
Well, yes. But have we heard what you believe, Rob?
Rob Dube (08:53):
No, I don't think so.
Gino Wickman (08:54):
Because there's no judgment. We have atheists out there listening that disagree with every word I said, and I love that. I sit with atheists, have conversations with them. I love that. So in other words, we have all walks out there, but I'd love to know what you believe.
Rob Dube (09:09):
Truth be told, I think about death a lot. It's a favorite topic of mine next to one of our coffee shop topics, money. And it's a constant investigation for me. I know what I want to believe, and what I want to believe is that I have lessons in this life and I come back in some different form in another life which I use those lessons to at some point hopefully have a easier life potentially. Or maybe it'll be a harder life, just depends.
(09:45):
But then sometimes I ask myself, is that my ego needing to know to feel better about what happens next? And that's just my belief. I work with so many people that are very faith-based and I hear so much about their beliefs and those are all really good beliefs too. And that's just the way that my mind's always worked. I'm open and I hear all kinds of ways people think about this whole thing. And so for me, where I've landed is this idea that I come back in some form and the lessons I'm learning in this life will carry over into this next one. And that there have been past lives. So that's what I believe, and I've had lessons in those past lives.
Gino Wickman (10:32):
Well thank you for sharing that.
Rob Dube (10:33):
There you go. There's my belief Now. Am I allowed to bring it up?
Gino Wickman (10:36):
Please. Yes, now you've opened the floodgates.
Rob Dube (10:39):
So I'm curious, and I'm going to bring this into interconnectedness. Have you ever done a mindful eating exercise?
Gino Wickman (10:47):
Not fully. I'm familiar with it, but never, never fully.
Rob Dube (10:51):
I thought you might say yes. But the most common one that is used when doing it is they use a raisin. And as I was thinking about this topic, I thought, "Well, how does it also relate to business?" So you all out there, you're driven people, you have these businesses, you're serving people, and it's all interconnected. And I want to share the journey of the raisin to kind of get your mind thinking a little bit.
(11:18):
So first I just want you to imagine this raisin, which is your widget. All the people who had something to do with getting the raisin to the person who wants the raisin. So first there had to be a tree that was planted and it starts as a grape and it gets picked and it goes through a process to become the raisin. I have no idea what that process is by the way. And it's packaged in a small box. Who makes the box? Maybe you do, maybe you own a box company out there. It's made by a different company of human beings that make these boxes and deliver to the place that make the raisins. And once it's in the box, it's packaged up and it's picked up by a truck driver delivery person, and they're placed in a truck, driven to a warehouse somewhere for distribution to a city where there's a grocery store or a market.
(12:03):
Then they're picked up by another driver, taken to that grocery market. Then at the grocery market, someone unloads the back of the truck and puts it in the back of the grocery market. And then at some point it's brought up front stage onto the shelves. And there you are looking for your box of raisins. And there you see that box of raisins. You go, "Ah, just what I wanted. Exactly." And so you come along, you grab that box of raisins, you don't think twice about this whole thing. And then to purchase it, you walk up, you're assisted by this wonderful person usually at the checkout counter. They're amazing people. And all this, and I'm sure I missed some steps, just to get this to you, to get your mind going.
(12:45):
And then this works in your business, whatever. As I said a minute ago, your widget, just think about all the process and all this stuff that's going on in your business that ends up getting to the end person who ends up using it, hopefully successfully and happily and is happy to pay for it. It is all connected. We are all making such a difference in each other's lives in the most simple ways, and we don't even think about this stuff.
Gino Wickman (13:12):
Okay, two thoughts on that. That is certainly the less woo-woo explanation of connectedness than what I gave. But what's fascinating in hearing that is, so think about the number of people you touch as a driven entrepreneur and the number of people that touch you based on what you just described. And then the other place I would go because now it's like I have no idea if this episode is ever going to make the light of day because what I am sitting here wrestling with, and I hope you're going to give us a magical answer to this because I'm sitting here going, "What's the point, Rob? Why did you select interconnectedness for a topic on a podcast to help people shed their shit and shine?" So can you answer that?
Rob Dube (14:06):
I got quiet and it came to me. It came to me because I just notice all the stuff that we do. I work with these driven entrepreneurs and there's this whole thing going on all the time. A lot of dramas, honestly, a lot of things. And I think to myself, "Wait, time out. Let's get some perspective here." This is all a big thing that's going on. Let's just take, how do you say it? Zoom out, zoom out, and let's take a look at the big picture of everything that's going on here. And maybe that'll settle down a little bit of what you're going through right now. Maybe just a little bit of perspective. I was thinking about you, but I don't know if I want to bring it up because you're writing some notes.
Gino Wickman (14:51):
Oh yeah.
Rob Dube (14:51):
No, no, no. Do you want to say what you want to say or?
Gino Wickman (14:54):
No, say what you're going to say.
Rob Dube (14:56):
Okay. Because I was thinking about you and your perspective because you built this empire, EOS, worldwide, and there's so much, so many moving parts, so much interconnectedness. There's so much love that goes through that whole thing when you were part of it, and I'm sure still, to so many extents. And I just wondered if you ever even thought about that when you were going through it all?
Gino Wickman (15:21):
No, my brain doesn't work like that unfortunately. But it was definitely about impact. So what I did know as I built it, every time we had an implementer, every time we touched a client, the impact it was having and the ripple effects of that. So I mean, it's just a tidal wave that you almost can't stop now that's been created.
Rob Dube (15:39):
But it's like you train somebody and then they go out and do sessions and then they're talking to all these people who have all these businesses with all these employees, and et cetera. And I don't know whether there's 800 something EOS worldwide and they all have 10 clients, I don't know, with five to 10 leadership team members, whatever it is, and all these employees. It's really this-
Gino Wickman (16:02):
Pretty crazy.
Rob Dube (16:02):
Yeah, right.
Gino Wickman (16:03):
Pretty crazy when you think about it. And I think back to 20 years ago when I created a bootcamp that teaches them how to do that magic with their clients. And I wrote a book, Traction, that shows somebody how to implement EOS in their business. And those two things almost 20 years ago continue to spawn more amazing EOS implementers, these perfect people that are built for that, that are impacting their clients, like you said, and the people reading this book and the way that it's impacting their companies. And that just keeps growing and growing and growing. But then look at, on average each one of those companies has 50 employees, so it's impacting those employees. It's crazy.
Rob Dube (16:39):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Gino Wickman (16:40):
And then what I was writing down there and what you prompted for me, because I'm still saying to myself, What's the point? What's the point of this podcast?" Are we scaring people? Is it making sense? But there's this other thing I say, which maybe is in alignment with the point and why this is coming to you, but I always say we are all just human beings trying to create something great in the world. At the end of the day, that's all we are. And we are driven souls. And so when I say that, it's all of you out there. We are driven souls. We are the exact same. We are all the same. And you are not alone. You are not alone. There are millions of us walking this earth. We are all the same. We're just simply human beings trying to create something great in the world. So just know you are not alone.
Rob Dube (17:31):
Gino, I think that's a good stopping point actually, if this ever gets the light of day.
Gino Wickman (17:36):
If it ever sees the light of day.
Rob Dube (17:39):
All right everyone, thanks again for joining us. We greatly appreciate your time. And as always, stay focused, and much love.
Gino Wickman (17:48):
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.
