Gino (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.
(00:21):
Hello and welcome back. This episode I call the Facade Poem, the Facade Poem. And so a little brief history on this one. For some reason about a week ago, I grabbed one of my old journals. This is a journal that I kept from probably age 23 to 33. And as I opened to the very first page of the journal, the inside cover, there were three legal pad notes with writing on them, and one was a poem that I wrote back when I was, and I'm trying to figure out the age, and the best I can figure, I wrote this poem between age 28 and 32. That's as close as I can get to it.
(01:20):
But it was very profound because I completely forgot that I wrote this, and it probably has to be 20 years since I've looked at it, if not, fully almost 30 years. For simple math, I'm just going to assume I wrote this right around age 30 and so that would be 27 years ago. And again, like I said, completely forgot that I wrote this. And so I grabbed it, read it, and it was a very emotional experience. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to share this poem with you, this poem, and then I'm going to share with you the ahas and just what's coming to me around this. And so here we go. Again, the Facade is what the poem is titled, and here it is.
(02:12):
"Sir, can you tell me what is a facade?
(02:21):
I will, if you promise not to find this explanation odd in the form of a man you believe has it all intact only to find that couldn't be further from the truth. This is a fact. A man who wrestles with why our world must be so. And this man who wants to be himself and is crying out to just let go. But if he lets go, how far will he fall or will it be just the opposite and he'll actually soar above it all? Will this man ever let go? We'll never know until he tries. What a shame if he doesn't before he passes and dies."
(03:12):
That's the part that gets me a little emotional.
(03:13):
"So will he shed the facade, shrug the critics and the foe? Hold your breath and get ready. Soon we will know."
(03:26):
So there it is. As I read that, it had a very emotional experience and then shared it with my wife, and then I read it one or two other times prior to this. Aside from the emotions that come up, there are a handful of ahas that come up that I just want to share with you in the hopes that you have a couple ahas from that poem. And I also hope it may have hit some of you in the heart and soul as well.
(03:53):
And so the first aha was, I realized that was the spark for Shine. So the book Shine, all of the content in Shine, everything that's been going on this last three and four years, that was the spark 27 years ago. That was the spark for everything we've been talking about in this podcast series.
(04:16):
The next kind of aha that came to me is that I realized as I read it, I was certainly writing it to myself. And so as a message to myself, it was a poem to myself, but it was also a poem to so many entrepreneurs because when I read that poem, I can feel the pain from that period in my thirties. And at the time, I had known a lot of entrepreneurs and I could feel their pain, and so I wrote it to both myself and to them. But all that said, I don't know who I was writing it to, but there definitely is something pinging about it.
(04:58):
The next thing that then came up is that's when my soul was pinged. I realized that that was right around the time that my soul was pinged. And so I always talk about how right around age 30, that's when my soul was first pinged. And I believe that's what prompted me to write that thing that I completely forgot that I wrote. So my soul must have wrote it, and then my ego made me forget about it because my ego is so afraid to confront that and let go and drop the facade. So then I realized that that was when I first realized that I had the suit of armor, that I built that suit of armor.
(05:39):
Now, I didn't understand it to the degree I understand it today, but that suit of armor that I talk about that I put on at age 15 when alcohol touched my lips for the first time, and it numbed all my pain, and I created this perfect facade that I presented to the world to protect me from all of my pain. That was the suit of armor, the block of marble that I talk about, the ego that needs to be shed. And so that was the aha moment. Again, I think my ego made me forget about it, but that was the aha moment, and that was when I started taking it off. That's when I started taking off the suit of armor, chipping away the blocks of marble, shedding layers, i.e. the facade. So, for what that is worth. Hopefully that pings your soul and gives you a few ahas.
(06:32):
And then from there, I realize there's a story that I tell about my 30th surprise birthday party that my wife threw me and how there were six factions of my life. And I stood there wondering, "Who am I going to be today?" That poem was written right around that same time. Again, I can't zero in on exactly when it was, and it's intriguing because I wonder. So it was obviously before or after that 30th surprise birthday party. But whether it was before or after, so if it was before there was the ping and then the surprise birthday party was the next ping to say, "Okay, enough trying to be six different people in my life. I'm just going to be one and that's me." Or, again, I wrote it afterwards because the 30th surprise birthday party pinged me enough to wake my soul up to send me this message and write this poem.
(07:24):
So then from there, I realize the word shedding, as I'm reading it, and I'm reading that line at the end there when I talk about, "So will he shed the facade," shed. And so that was the first time I used the word shed, and I was actually quite surprised that I was using the word shed back then. I thought it was probably in the last 10 or 15 years I've been talking about shedding layers, shedding layers, shedding layers, but it goes all the way back to when I was age 30. And so that was the first use of that word.
(07:59):
And then the last and final aha was just that, "Oh, it's all a journey." So for me, this is so recent and powerful and profound, this last three, four years, I kind of lost sight of all of the shedding and the ahas that started way back around age 30. But the point is this, it's just all a journey. I've been doing this for 27 years, not three to four years. So that was really profound. And so I've just slowly been shedding layers, like I said, moving the suit of armor, chipping away the marble, dissolving the ego and the facade.
(08:43):
So what's the point of all of this? I would suggest this to you, and I'm saying this to you as much as I'm saying this to myself. So what's the point? What's message? It is this. It is a journey. The whole thing is a journey. That poem made me look back and realize this 27 year journey of shedding, and I realized I don't know where I am on the journey because it was a lot more painful back then. It's a lot less painful today. But I wonder 27 years from now, am I going to look back feeling so much freer 27 years from now that I realize all the pain I was in today?
(09:27):
I don't know, I don't care. It's all just simply a journey that keeps getting better and better and better and better. And it has been a wild ride these last 27 years. And I would not trade it for one single thing. There's been pleasure, there's been pain, and I would urge and ask and suggest to you, and talking to myself, is to just be patient, have fun with it, look at it as a journey. It's going to keep getting better and better. And as I work with my clients and hang and talk to these driven entrepreneurs, I see the facades. I see my facade, I see their facade. And so just please embark on this journey and it might be a great opportunity now that I've shared all of this to go back, hit rewind, and listen to that poem again now in this greater context.
(10:30):
And so again, the point in the message is this, if we will all just look at it as a journey and be patient. Imagine if every one of us driven entrepreneurs shed our shit, oh, what a world it would be.
(10:53):
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.
