Shed & Shine â Riff Episode 133: A Quick Hit and a Long Road
00:00:00 - 00:00:36
Gino Wickman
Hello and welcome back. This episode I call "A Quick Hit and a Long Road," and so what I'm going to share in this episode are two very different topics. And so the first one might give you an immediate impact, and if I communicate it well, it should, while the second requires patience to receive the long-term impact. So in terms of timeframe, they could not be more different. And so let's start with the quick hit.
00:00:37 - 00:01:34
Gino Wickman
So the first one I'm going to call "gratitude," and we've certainly talked plenty about this in the past, but this one I am simply going to give you a quick gratitude nugget that I just experienced and practiced in the last 30 days, a one-time thing, and it was very, very impactful for both me and others. But I want to anchor this word "gratitude," as I always like to, in Discipline Number Ten, "be humble." Because if you remember, in deciding what to call Discipline Ten, it was a 50/50 coin toss: either "be humble" or "be grateful." Because it's impossible to be grateful and not be humble. It's impossible to be grateful and arrogant at the same time.
00:01:35 - 00:02:29
Gino Wickman
With that said, I hope you have a gratitude practice. And I've shared mine: every night I say thank you before I fall asleep, and then I added a new gratitude practice in the last six months, which is the gratitude alarm. My gratitude alarm goes off every morning at 8:00 AM. I say three things I'm grateful for, and if I'm with someone, they share theirs, I share mine. Now to the point. So I was taking a clarity break. I was sitting in a coffee shop, and it was also kind of a buffer day for me where I was catching up on things. So I was in this incredible place, and this amazing sense of gratitude just came over me for the people in my life. And I, for some reason, just went to this place of thinking about these people that have had an impact on me.
00:02:29 - 00:03:24
Gino Wickman
And so what I decided to do was send them all a text. I'm going to get very specific on what I sent and why I sent it, but I certainly could have made a phone call. Many ways I could have delivered this message, but text is what felt right at this moment. And so the criteria was this: I came to this place where I thought of all of the people in my life that lifted me, or made me better, or both. So did they lift me and/or make me better? And so as I went to that place and I ran that criteria through the people in my life, there were these 15 people that just stood out like a bright light. And so those were the 15 that I texted, and this is the nugget I want to give you.
00:03:24 - 00:03:57
Gino Wickman
And so what I did is I texted them these words. I just simply said, "I'm grateful to have you in my life." That's it. Short and sweet. Everybody's busy. What that did was profound. And I'm not going to go through the laundry list, but the responses were incredible. Now, I didn't do it for the responses, but it was amazing. So for me, it just felt amazing to put it out there and take the risk of saying this to these people, not knowing how they'd respond. Didn't need a response.
00:03:57 - 00:04:45
Gino Wickman
So for me, it absolutely filled me up. What it did for them was surprising. And so just one example is the reply was the person said, "Man, I really needed that today." So you could tell he was just having a tough day, and it just filled him up. And a few, as I realized, they'd never received anything like that from me. There were about five of them that I don't think I've ever expressed gratitude for, and it actually felt a little weird. Because we have a relationship that just maybe doesn't go that deep, or doesn't get that vulnerable, or for whatever reason, it just felt weird. But the responses from them were just amazing, and it would be impossible for it not to strengthen our relationship, connect us a little more.
00:04:45 - 00:05:35
Gino Wickman
So all that said, here's what I'm asking you. Consider this question: who are the people that lift you, and who are the people that make you better? And just ponder that. You could hit pause right now for a minute and just ponder who comes up for you. And send them a message. You send whatever words you want, but you might want to let them know. But in looking at that list, just do what your heart tells you to do. Might be a text, might be a call, might be just sending them some love, might even be saying a prayer for them. Who knows? Just do what your heart tells you, as I did what my heart told me.
00:05:36 - 00:06:29
Gino Wickman
On to number two. That was the quick hit. This is the long road. The topic on this long road is "delayed gratification." Now, with that, I don't want to insult your intelligence by teaching you delayed gratification. It would take a full episode, and I've got to believe you fully understand what delayed gratification is. But I'll give you the quick definition. Delayed gratification is the ability to resist immediate rewards in favor of a larger and more valuable benefit later. Okay? So I know you know that. My hope here, knowing that you know that, is that I'm going to say something that punches you right in the gut of your soul.
00:06:29 - 00:07:29
Gino Wickman
I don't know how else to say it. That's the way I like to say it. So it's going to be this checkup on yourself. Are you delaying gratification? Because by now I'm so convinced of the power of delaying gratification and the compound interest on what that means on everything in life, money, relationships, success, etc., I'm just going to say some things to you to stir the pot and have you do a checkup on yourself and make sure you are delaying gratification. Now I want to anchor that in Discipline Number One, "10-year thinking." Because if I rename 10-year thinking, I might rename it to "delayed gratification," because that's what it's all about. It's all about looking out into the future and doing things for future impact, results, and returns, not immediate returns.
00:07:30 - 00:07:45
Gino Wickman
So in stirring the pot, let's talk about weight, and let's pretend in the future you want to be healthy. Well, delayed gratification would say, "Eat well and don't eat that dessert at every meal." And so that's just a simple formula.
00:07:45 - 00:08:27
Gino Wickman
There's money. When we talk about money, delayed gratification says, "If you save $1,000 a month for the next 20 years at a 10% return, you will have almost a million dollars in the bank. You'll be close to being a millionaire." And so with that $1,000, you can either save it, grow it, get close to being a millionaire, or you can piss it away on something fun. Delayed gratification or immediate gratification. You choose. Same thing like saving for a house, or just spending money on frivolous things when you can invest that compound interest on something bigger and better in the future.
00:08:27 - 00:08:42
Gino Wickman
And then also in success. Success in anything. It's about doing the basics. It's so hard to be faced with, "Go play," or "Do your work." And in doing your work, if you'll do your work, do the basics, great things will happen.
00:08:42 - 00:09:17
Gino Wickman
I think about EOS Worldwide and building EOS Worldwide, which now has over 900 EOS implementers. And I think back to the grueling, brutal first five to ten years and those first 100 EOS implementers, and how I repeated myself 1,000 times. I did the basics every day. My partner Don did the basics every day. Everyone in the company, we did the basics every single day. There would not be 900 implementers in the world right now if we did not do the basics, delay gratification, do the hard work back then.
00:09:18 - 00:09:53
Gino Wickman
There's a great quote Jim Collins shares of one of his friends who's a rock climber, and he was, at the time, one of the best in the world. And what this person said is, "I can suffer for the thing longer than most." And I'm like, "Ugh." Because that's what I did in those first 10 years. I'm not bragging, but the point is, are you suffering for the thing? Delayed gratification. Another friend says, "Patience is waiting without complaining." I love that one as well.
00:09:53 - 00:10:17
Gino Wickman
And then just some examples. It's like, go to the party or lay the groundwork for your future. Plant an acorn to grow an oak tree, or just start picking all the fruit off the existing trees right now. Running a marathon, are you going to sprint the first mile as fast as you can and keel over by the second mile, or are you going to steady eddy at the right pace and run 26.2 miles?
00:10:17 - 00:10:50
Gino Wickman
And then there's the great Stanford study with kids and marshmallows. And the kids would have a couple of marshmallows in front of them, and the scientist would say, "I'm going to leave the room. If you don't eat the marshmallows, I'm going to come back with more marshmallows. But if you eat the marshmallows, I won't give you more marshmallows." And so they studied these kids for decades afterward. And the ones that delayed the gratification, didn't eat the marshmallows because they knew more were coming, were more successful in life than the ones that immediately ate the marshmallows. Delayed gratification.
00:10:51 - 00:11:27
Gino Wickman
And so all that said, I urge you to re-look at your 10-year thinking. What do you want for your future? And are you delaying gratification? Are you doing the basics right now? Are you suffering for the thing in the future longer than most? Do a little self-assessment. Look back, maybe, at least a month, at the activities that you're doing, and then look forward to see if there are some wonderful course corrections and maybe some instant gratification mistakes you made in the last 30 days that you can correct going forward.
00:11:28 - 00:11:50
Gino Wickman
So that is a quick hit and a long road, and I hope you got one, or two, or three great nuggets from that message. 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, we wish you all the best in freeing your True Self. Stay focused and much love.
