Shed & Shine â Riff Episode: 5 Things to Make You Go "Huh?"
00:00:00 - 00:00:37
Gino Wickman
Hello and welcome back. This episode I call "5 Things That Make You Go Huh." So, for those of you that have been listening, you may recall what I do here. This is when I have a collection of podcast episode topics that are shorter than a full episode. And so I collect them, and when they pile up, I share them all in one episode to get it into the 10 to 20 minutes we tend to shoot for with each episode. And so here we go, one at a time. Here is number one.
00:00:37 - 00:01:39
Gino Wickman
Number one is an announcement, something exciting I want to share, and that is: Rob Johnson, my podcast producer, and I co-wrote a book. It's called Let It Fly, and it's a free eBook available to you. What Rob did is he looked at, in his opinion, my 15 best episodes over the last two-plus years of doing this podcast, and he then curated them and we wrote them into an experience that is quite powerful. So again, it's called Let It Fly. You can download it for free from my website, ginowicman.com. But if you like holding a book in your hand, you can buy it as a print-on-demand book on Amazon, so find it there if that's what you prefer. But again, its intention was just to be a free piece of content to put out to the world, and it really is quite an experience, so I urge you to go to ginowicman.com and download it there.
00:01:40 - 00:02:58
Gino Wickman
Number two I call: are you doing what you love? So last week, an old client, a past client, called me up and wanted to do a refresher session. So this client goes back almost 20 years ago, built an amazing company, he sold it, he stayed on for a while, then he retired, and about two years ago he started a new business. And it's now gotten to the point, more than a million in revenue, 14 employees, that now he wants to get back to fully running on EOS. And so as he called me and we talked through the session, I just lit up. And so the question here is: are you doing what you love? My urging to you is make sure you're doing what you love. And it just brought me back to why I love doing what I do so much, or at least this is one of the things. So as I've shared in previous episodes, the three things I love doing are creating content, teaching content, and providing navigation to the leaders in my life. And so this is teaching content when this client called, and so we were strategizing for the session because it's just him as visionary and his new integrator that's going to run this new business, and ultimately they're going to start to build a leadership team.
00:02:58 - 00:04:23
Gino Wickman
And so the session was two days ago. We laid out how it's just the two of them that should come and what we were going to get done, and it was so great to work with somebody who's so experienced with EOS, and then this brand-new integrator that knows nothing about EOS, and to get all of those EOS tools in place. So it was this full day, high energy, where we just kind of kicked ass and took names and put in place a clear vision, an amazing structure, how to get all the right people in the right seats, set their priorities, create their scorecard. So it was just so much fun. But here's the point: it's not about what happened to me. It was this aha and this feeling that, oh God, it just feels so good to do what I love. So are you doing what you love? What lights you up? Are you doing those things? What do you love doing? And so we're talking about Discipline Number Three here: know thyself. And so this is just a subtle little tap on the shoulder, a nudge, just getting you to think about what are all the things you're doing all day, every day, and are they lighting you up? And if some do and some don't, just start doing less of the things that don't light you up and more of the things that do light you up. Are you doing what you love?
00:04:24 - 00:05:24
Gino Wickman
On to number three. Number three is: are you an upward force or a downward force? So I heard Chase Hughes say this on a podcast interview, and I was like, whoa, that is a statement. Are you an upward force or are you a downward force on this planet? Ponder that. Do you lift people up or do you push them down? In any situation, do you make the energy better or do you make the energy worse? When you're in a room full of people, do you suck the oxygen out of the room or do you fill it with oxygen? Different ways of saying this, but whoa, this one hit me. And so it forced me to think about my life. It's going to be a new guiding principle in my life, or another one. It's just so powerful.
00:05:24 - 00:06:13
Gino Wickman
But it got me thinking about all aspects of my life, and I just want you thinking about all aspects of your life. And so when you're with family, whether that's one-on-one or with a group, are you an upward force or are you a downward force? When you're with friends, hanging with friends, one-on-one or in a group, do you lift or do you push down? In business, when you're in a meeting, when you're in a one-on-one, when you're interacting with a client, when you're interacting with vendors, do you suck the oxygen out of the room or do you fill it with oxygen? Imagine if we were all upward forces. Oh, what a world it would be.
00:06:14 - 00:06:53
Gino Wickman
On to number four. This one I call the sabbatical debrief. So I'm just coming out of my August sabbatical. I am refreshed, I am recharged, I am ready to go. Now, I bring up my sabbatical and a little debrief on my sabbatical to secretly, hopefully, I pray, motivate you to consider trying one. And also to help you fully understand what it is and the benefits.
00:06:53 - 00:07:35
Gino Wickman
So just a reminder, high level, what a sabbatical is for me: I take the month of August off every year. My goal is to forget what I do for a living, so there's no work. It's forgetting what I do for a living, and then when I come back after 30 days, hoping it's what I still want to do. And thank God, over 20 years running, that is the case. I came back from this one and I still want to do what I do. But again, there's no work. And in that place, when I come back, I do start to make these little course corrections. There weren't any course corrections this year, but the previous 19-plus there have been, but I am completely recharged.
00:07:35 - 00:08:22
Gino Wickman
So with this one, I rarely travel, but there was a bit of travel on this one. A couple of vacations, quick trip to Nashville to see my doctor. And then other than that, it was just focusing on everything else but work. One of the things I did is I went back to my six favorite books in the last eight years that have really had an impact on the writing of Shine and what led to this podcast. And so what I do is I just sit and I read the highlights of each one of those books. Takes about two hours to get through each one, but oh man, it just brings me back. So I did that, a few rounds of golf with friends, and other than that, just totally recharging, spending time with friends and family, and just enjoying the time off.
00:08:22 - 00:08:48
Gino Wickman
The other difference is this one was a five-weeker. They're normally four-weekers. It's the whole month of August. And so it was really cool to take an extra week, and I loved it just as much, if not more. But no question, I was ready to come back and get to work, totally recharged, totally refreshed. And so I just ask and urge you, again, the goal here is to motivate you and help you understand what it is.
00:08:49 - 00:09:16
Gino Wickman
And if it just sounds crazy to take a month off, start with two weeks. Two weeks is still, unfortunately, a vacation, but anything more than two weeks, it starts to become a sabbatical. But start with two weeks, then go to three weeks, then go to four weeks, and who knows, maybe five, and who knows, maybe three months. But I hope I have motivated you to consider, at least consider, taking a one-month sabbatical.
00:09:18 - 00:09:53
Gino Wickman
And finally, here is number five. This one I call shed your stuff. So as I mentioned in my sabbatical, I went back through six very impactful books over the last eight years, one of which you've heard me talk about is Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. Just absolutely love him, love his books, so good. And as I read this one, it was like, ugh, and I immediately wrote down "riff." So I had to share this one with you.
00:09:53 - 00:10:20
Gino Wickman
And what I'm going to share with you, I'm actually going to read two excerpts from the book. It's a paragraph each. I'm just going to read you two paragraphs from the book, but it just kind of says it all from a standpoint of the book Shine. So again, as you may know, Shine is the foundation of this podcast. And in Shine, we teach three discoveries to free your True Self and 10 Disciplines to maximize your energy.
00:10:21 - 00:10:58
Gino Wickman
So in this, it's going to be a focus on the three discoveries to free your True Self, and very specifically, Discovery Number Two: all decisions are made out of either love or fear. And when you understand that powerful dynamic, there are then four levels of getting right to the root and shedding all of your stuff. And level one is understanding that your True Self is in there, in a prison, trapped by your mind or ego, and the idea is to free yourself, which takes you to level two, and that's understanding that you are pure energy, and it either shines bright or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, you're blocked.
00:10:59 - 00:11:35
Gino Wickman
The energy is simply blocked, which takes us to level three, and that is that you can remove that blocked energy, and that takes us to level four, which is just be aware. Awareness, to the degree you can become aware of these things blocking you, you will start to remove those blocks, shed your stuff, free yourself from your ego, and free your True Self. On that note, I'm going to read these two excerpts, and I just want you to kind of sit back, listen, maybe close your eyes, let it sink in, because he says it so perfectly.
00:11:35 - 00:12:43
Gino Wickman
So he says, "If you mistreat an animal, it becomes afraid. This is what has happened to your psyche. You have mistreated it by giving it a responsibility that is incomprehensible." Just stop for a moment and see what you have given your mind to do. You said to your mind, "I want everyone to like me. I don't want anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don't want anyone to hurt me. I don't want anything to happen that I don't like, and I want everything to happen that I do like." Then you said, "Now, mind, figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night." And of course, your mind said, "I'm on the job. I will work on it constantly." That's excerpt number one.
00:12:43 - 00:13:21
Gino Wickman
Here is excerpt number two. You simply use the same technique to get out of your psychological mess. You just stop telling your mind that its job is to fix your personal problems. This job has broken the mind and disturbed the entire psyche. It has created fear, anxiety, neuroses. Your mind has very little control over the world. It is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. It cannot control the weather and other natural forces, nor can it control all people, places, and things around you.
00:13:22 - 00:13:56
Gino Wickman
You have given your mind an impossible task by asking it to manipulate the world in order to fix your personal inner problems. If you want to achieve a healthy state of being, stop asking your mind to do this. Just relieve your mind of the job of making sure that everyone and everything will be the way you need them to be so that you can feel better inside. Your mind is not qualified for the job. Fire it and let go of your inner problems instead.
00:13:57 - 00:14:34
Gino Wickman
Ugh, I hope that hit you the way that it hit me, but I want to stay on this, and I want to bask in this for another minute, because then I heard Thomas Campbell say this in an interview during the month of August, and he said, "Once you get rid of your fear, beliefs, and ego, you don't need a subconscious. That is where you store all the junk. That's where you put all the stuff you don't want to deal with. That's where that stuff hangs out."
00:14:35 - 00:14:46
Gino Wickman
So I'm all done reading, and I just, like I said, want to kind of bask in this and get you thinking about what you're doing when your mind is in control, when your ego is controlling things.
00:14:46 - 00:15:00
Gino Wickman
It can't control it. And by letting go, shedding all of that stuff, understand we have very little control of the outside world, and when we set ourselves free, our True Selves soar.
00:15:01 - 00:15:12
Gino Wickman
We don't have to walk around with all this crap. I believe we are waking up. I truly do. Oh, I hope.
00:15:13 - 00:15:22
Gino Wickman
Those are the five things that make you go huh. I'm so hopeful at least one made you go huh.
00:15:23 - 00:15:36
Gino Wickman
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.
