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So, you know, one of the disciplines that we teach is to know your hundred percent. OK, and the hundred percent is just you understanding your work capacity, your capacity ball, as I like to describe it. So whether you stay in the same business and own that same business and ride it all the way out until you keel over or if you sell it tomorrow or something in between, what I would urge everyone out there in the audience is to know your work capacity.
Because we all have a secret recipe, a secret formula. And I describe it as you knowing how many weeks a year and how many hours a week is your maximum output. So there is literally a number that if you work one hour more, you will start to burn out. And one hour less, you start to get a little bored. And so the idea is to protect that boundary that is your work capacity.
And so for the last 30 years, as I built EOS Worldwide, I sold it. I've started three new businesses. I've got lots of stuff going on. I'm having a blast with it all. I never allow it to exceed my work capacity because I will burn out. It will zap me of my creativity. It will zap me of my clarity. And so I'm very protective. And that's what we teach every entrepreneur to do is to protect that capacity.
Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello.
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.
1-299 and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
All right, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today is a really exciting day because Gino Wickman is world-renowned. Most of you guys, if you haven't heard of him, you should have heard from him. Most of you are probably using his methodology, the EOS method. He's an expert in business planning, coaching, and executive development.
He's based out of Livonia, Michigan, which is in my neck of the woods. The author, speaker, teacher, and entrepreneur, genowickman.com. Creative entrepreneurial leap. Started that in 2018. Author of Rocket Fuel, which it's interesting because I had Mark Winters on the podcast as well. Amazing book. I'm 100% not an integrator. I'm the dreamer and visionary. Author of Traction and creator of EOS. And author of The 10 Disciplines.
I could go over your bio, but you've worked with literally 200,000 companies worldwide. You're on a lot of stages. Personally delivered more than 2,000 full-day sessions for more than 135 companies, helping them implement EOS. And let's just go through traction. Get a grip on your business, which has sold over a million copies worldwide.
You've authored quite a few books. Let's just get started, Gino, with, you know, you've already done more than 99% of people out there. I mean, 99.999. But I know you've kind of moved away from EOS, but that's how you kind of built the name for yourself. So let's just hear about
what's been going on here this last decade. Yeah, happy to do that. Great to be with you again, Tommy. We did this four years ago, so I'm excited to do it again. And thank you for that introduction. So, I mean, you really set the stage nicely in that my life is entrepreneurs. That is my passion. That is my obsession. And for the last three decades, 30 years of my life, I just focus on helping them get everything they want from their businesses and their lives. And like you said, I created a
those different pieces of content. I describe it as five pieces of content. So Entrepreneurial Leap is the first one. That's the podcast we did way back when. Rocket Fuel, as you mentioned. EOS and Traction are kind of one and the same. Then there's EOS Life. Then there's 10 Disciplines. And so the idea there, if you think about that,
is those first four pieces of content are all designed to help that entrepreneur climb the mountain, get to the top of the mountain. And what I learned now after 30 years is that entrepreneur gets to the top of the mountain, rings the bell, they succeed by every outer world metric, and they're still not...
feeling quite fulfilled, a little bit empty, thinking there's something more. And that's where it's time to now go into the inner world. And that's what I'm doing with this new work, this new book, Shine, this new project, 10 Disciplines. But it's all fair game. And so take me where you want to take me. But that's the backstory. And again, the next 30 years are still going to be focused on helping all these wonderful, driven entrepreneurs, but both in their outer and their inner world now.
So you mentioned that you've kind of not quite exited the EOS world, but you've got a new focus. I mean, that's still your baby. You're still speaking on stages about it. You still got ownership of that company. But, you know, we always talk about taking chips off the table. That's what we talk about in this blue collar world of home service. And I'll tell you, I sit down. I just told you I'm part of Joe Polish's 100K group. You pay 100 grand to be at those meetings every
I'm part of a lot of other groups that cost six figures a year. And I noticed that if you told every entrepreneur in there, and there's some billionaires in these groups, none of them say, I don't want to continue to win and grow and earn more money. And it's just interesting to me because there's a lot of people that ask me, what is it like to sell part of your company? What changed? And I said, listen,
I think I work more now. I made a lot of obligations to private equity and limited partners. And it's almost like now it's like you want to do it over and over again. It's like so much fun. And we made 25 millionaires in the first turn. The next one, we're going to bring in hundreds of millionaires. But I do agree there is a void. And I just I'd like to talk about that if you don't mind. I would love to. So let's go through this a little bit. Yeah, please.
So here's where I would start on that. You know, you said something really important there that, like you said, you're more busy. So, you know, one of the disciplines that we teach is to know your 100 percent. OK, and the 100 percent is just you understanding your work capacity, your capacity ball, as I like to describe it.
So whether you stay in the same business and own that same business and ride it all the way out until you keel over or if you sell it tomorrow or something in between, what I would urge everyone out there in the audience is to know your work capacity because we all have a secret recipe, a secret formula. And I describe it as you knowing how many weeks a year and how many hours a week is your maximum output.
So there is literally a number that if you work one hour more, you will start to burn out. And one hour less, you start to get a little bored. And so the idea is to protect that boundary that is your work capacity. And so for the last 30 years, as I built EOS Worldwide, I sold it. I've started three new businesses. I've got lots of stuff going on. I'm having a blast with it all. I never allow it to exceed my work capacity.
capacity, because I will burn out. It will zap me of my creativity. It will zap me of my clarity. And so I'm very protective. And that's what we teach every entrepreneur to do is to protect that capacity with that discipline. So with that said, I wanted to start there because I wanted to grab that so that you and I are two guys that sold our business. And I want to protect anyone out there that
you know, is not protecting that boundary. So now with that said, let's pretend you've protected the boundary. Now inside of that boundary in that capacity, you have an opportunity to make a huge impact on the world. And so in that work capacity, the idea is to apply this gift that you have been born with, which is your entrepreneurial drive. There's only 4% of us on the planet that have this entrepreneurial drive. And the idea is to make an impact with this gift you've been given.
The aha and where I'm going next with the inner world stuff is that it is possible to be driven and have peace. Sadly, most of us don't find inner peace. There's this itch we keep trying to scratch. And the underlying fear that I've discovered for most is that we feel that if we find peace,
It will zap us of the edge, the drive, this thing that got us everything that we wanted when it's just the opposite. You will actually have more drive, more energy, more creativity, more intuition to create and make a bigger impact. So-
I've been working on this, kind of like taking 75 years old as my inner star or north star. And I built this kind of a spoke of physical, that's what I was looking up, physical, family, mental, financial, spiritual, career, and personal. And kind of defining what all those look like and really saying, instead of I want to go to Italy with my mom and dad,
I put like where we're going to go in Italy and who we're going to be with and exactly what sites we're going to see. And same thing. It's like, how involved am I in the church and where, what's my body fat? How much energy do I have? Like really getting specific with it.
And what I've noticed is entrepreneurial, the entrepreneurial spirit is it kind of coincides with ADHD. I mean, for sure. We've got a lot of things going on. We've got KPIs hiring inventory, new trucks, iPads, just hiring all these things. And I was in a room with about a thousand people speaking to them. And I said, how many of you guys think you have a touch of ADHD? Yeah.
And every hand went up, every single hand in there. And I guess sometimes we talk about everything we want to do. And I don't think the money, most people listening think the money is the fulfillment. The money is once I get that money, that's when I'll be happy. That's when I could do this stuff for my family and go on the trips. And I agree when you don't have the money,
It's very difficult. You can't hire great people. You can't buy nice trucks. You can't invest in technology. But what is it with entrepreneurs that like, I mean, my good buddy, Kent Goodrich has hundreds of millions of dollars.
And he's just like, what's my next thing? And he said he'd give anything to take my shoes and be 40. I mean, he's in his mid 60s. Yeah. Yeah. So good. You know, so there's three discoveries that I teach on this topic that you're talking about. And it's in this new book, Shine. And I'll quickly give you the three discoveries. And I want to come back to number one. And so the first discovery is that I am driven. And so this is you out there talking. The second discovery is that all decisions are made from either love or fear.
And then the third discovery I touched on, which is that it is possible to be driven and have peace. Going back to the first discovery, which is I am driven, the power of that discovery that you have this discovery and this aha that I am driven. I was born with this DNA. I have the soul of a driven person.
The beauty is it's all about awareness. It's understanding that it is a blessing and a curse. There is a blessing side to it, that we are the creators of most things on this planet. We have superhuman stamina. We solve most of the big problems on the planet. And so those are all the great sides and the blessing side. The curse side is that we tend to do a lot of damage to ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, and to the relationships in our lives.
And so with that, we tend to leave a black trail behind us. And so the idea behind this first discovery, just understanding is to have awareness, is to accept the fact that you are this being, that there's no changing it, that yes, ADD is a part of this. And to the degree you are aware, you start to come to grips with some of the dark side and a
address it and confront it. We, the driven, tend to get ourselves in a lot more trouble than most. And as a result, we tend to carry around trauma and pain from the past because we took so many risks. Whatever the reasons are, we carry this burden inside of us. And the idea and the understanding is that you can be free of all of that. And it starts with just accepting it and not hiding from it. I love it.
accepting that we're one for 4%. And, you know, Joe, the other day was talking about hunters and gatherers and we're hunters. And it's just, it's in our DNA. It's like our brains are wired differently. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And, you know, there's these words that I just want to read them, you know, so the typical driven entrepreneur is restless, not present, leaves a black trail behind them. Like I said, they're intense, they're dominant. It's never enough. We're never satisfied. It's an amazing book called Driven by Dr. Doug Brackman, which really helps you understand this DNA. The point is, is just to acknowledge the fact
that these are my dark side things. Acknowledge them with the people in your life so you're not in denial over them, so you're not feeling guilty about them, so you're not beating yourself up about them. And with that awareness comes this incredible freedom because, again, there's that blessing side. It's remembering the blessing side and acknowledging and addressing kind of the dark side, the curse side.
And then the next step is the love or fear. And we talk about this all the time, even in sales. Why do people buy fear, uncertainty, and doubt? Typically it's, and you remember the book Blue Ocean where you describe instead of the features and benefits go into, no one's buying a drill. They're buying the whole of the drill. And understanding for me in the garage door industry,
It's all about how do I make sure when you hit the button, it's safe and the door goes up and down. That's what you care about. And it's really using those steps. So we talk about fear and love is like on, what is it? Maslow's hierarchy.
I mean, you don't really talk about love. Usually it's about you hit your initial needs and then the last one is self-acculation. And I think love would come in the last final step of that. So how do you apply it in the book Shine? Yeah, well said. So I'm going to take you deep into the cause of it. I'm going to try and do it fast. And I trust you and your audience can follow this. But it starts with, again, the discovery that love
All of your decisions are made from love or fear. It's a fact. And so when you understand that, the idea is to understand that you are this amazing soul or true self, as we like to call it, inside of there, this ball of energy. So you can call that whatever you want, but it's a power source and it's the soul of a driven entrepreneur.
It's just, unfortunately, that soul is encased in a protective layer that you could think of it as like a dark cocoon, which is just your ego protecting you from past pain. And if you understand that visual, now here's where I take you four levels deep into what's going on, because the first level is to understand that your true self is in there. The soul of a driven entrepreneur is in there. It's just in there under that protective layer.
All of a sudden, when you understand that, we take you down another level to understand that you are pure energy. We are all pure energy. It's scientific. And when you see that visual I gave you, it's all just energy. That soul at the center, that encased cocoon, it's all just energy.
With that awareness, we take it down another level to understand that you can remove all blocked energy because that cocoon, if you will, I also like to call that layers or a block of marble that you're trapped in where you just got to chip away all the blocked marble, but you can remove blocked energy. That encasing is just simply blocked energy that can be removed. And then we take you all the way down to the final level, which is the awareness level. It's
just being conscious and being aware of the decisions you're making. And when we say decisions, decisions include thoughts, feelings, emotions, and decisions. So it's all that stuff going inside of you. And with awareness, you will start to see, whoa, something's coming up for me that's more fear-based or something that's coming up as love-based. But the truth of the matter is most of us are walking around and it's fear-based emotions, feelings, thoughts, decisions. And
And with awareness, when it's fear-based, you can then work your way back up those four levels that I just shared with you because you can start to feel into and go into why am I coming from this fear-based place? And you can process
that block and it dissipates. And then all of a sudden you shoot up to the next level where again, you're pure energy and then you're burning brighter as a result. And then you shoot up to the final level where finally your true self starts to become free. The goal is to ultimately free your true self, but it's a process that just simply starts with that awareness and paying attention of where it's coming from. And literally a 10% shift in
from fear-based decisions to love-based decisions, it's like a Richter scale, a monumental shift and change in your life will occur. And then you really start to pierce the shield and open the door to really start to process, ultimately getting to a point where most of your decisions, thoughts, fears, emotions are coming from love. And oh, what a difference that makes. You know, when I hear this, I think about the first thing that popped into mind is Burning Man.
And just, and I've never done any of this type of, like mushrooms or whatever. There's different ones. We were talking about them the other day, but people are like, one of them was all about seeing oneself. And one of them was like understanding reality. And I don't know, what is your thoughts on that to kind of, I don't want to say medicate, but just taking your brain into a different realm.
wavelength? Yeah, well, I would say this. So in the book Shine, we list probably 40 ways to shed layers, okay? And plant medicine, so what you're describing is plant medicine. There's all various forms of plant medicine, but that's one of many ways to shed layers, to start to create this awareness, to really start to go inside. Remember, we're talking about going into the inner world of the driven entrepreneur. And so this is a scary place. And I'm a little
little bit ahead of my time on this, but it's coming. There is a movement that's coming. And so plant medicine is one of many ways to just get you to let go, be conscious, be aware. What it's doing is it's turning off your default mode network in your brain. It's turning off your ego.
So that your true self is the only one talking because again, that protective cocoon layer is no longer protecting you, which again, its intentions are good, but it's doing nothing but causing damage. The same thing can happen in meditation, contemplation, journaling, good forms of therapy, lots of different ways to start to go inside. You don't need plant medicine, but for driven entrepreneurs,
with some of the most incredibly strong egos on the planet, sometimes you need that two by four to the side of the head just to wake you up and pierce the shield because we are, many of us are carrying a lot of pain and trauma. We are protecting ourselves. You know, I've, I had a lot of pain and trauma going up. What happened for me at age 15, when alcohol touched my lips for the first time, it was never a problem for me, but it numbed me.
And so all the pain I felt up until age 14 went away when alcohol touched my lips. And at that moment, my ego and I joined forces to create the most perfect protective layer, this persona where I buried all my pain down and I created this tough guy, hardworking persona. And then for the next 35
Five years, I put my head down and I just went to work and built a nice little empire with that ego and all that pain buried. But it started coming up for me four years ago. And so I really started to do this work. So it's funny you bring up Burning Man. It's, you know, this conversation is starting to be had in the entrepreneurial world where this conversation has been had for the last 50, 60 years and certainly thousands of years, to be quite frank. Hopefully that all made sense.
Yeah, you know, I'm just curious. So you were 50 till you had some kind of the hardest thing for me, which I just learned how to do a couple of years ago was self-reflect and kind of look back at my life. And I'm pretty happy with the way things have gone. I mean, it's not perfect. There's all kinds of things you wish you could change. And I wouldn't say that because they shaped who I am today. But, you know, what was it at 50 that you said? And I'm sure part of it was
You're sitting here with all these entrepreneurs who are mega successful. I mean, you look at the death rate of like people that are just, they should be happy. You know, they've got all the money in the world. They can do anything they want. I mean, suicide rate is real. Yeah. Oh yeah. And it's like, wait, they're rich. And then I, one of the questions I always ask Joe is I'm like, I'm not sure if I want to be just, I'm not sure if I want to be famous.
And because that's one of the things I hear is like, you know, all these people want this fame, but then you get it and it's like, wait a minute, I have no peace now.
But I was going to what caused you to kind of look at this and say, this needs to be dealt with? Yeah. So it was age 52, you know, a year and a half after I sold the business. And I was sitting there kind of celebrating my life as I thought my life was kind of perfect. You know, I built that nice little empire. I sold it. I was then working on all the projects I was passionate about. Got a great family, great friends.
I love them dearly. I think they love me dearly. And so Doug Brackman is who I mentioned, his book Driven. He has this great quote and he says,
the trauma comes up when we are safe. And so in addition to working with entrepreneurs, he also works with Navy SEALs and he talks about how the Navy SEAL doesn't experience their trauma on the battlefield. They experience it when they come home, they're sitting on the couch and they're safe. And so what I realized for me at 52 was I was sitting in my living room, kind of celebrating my success. I was feeling safe at the moment. I was safe and
And then all of a sudden something just came up. And it's like all that pain I buried at age 15 all came up. And what I had realized with Doug's quote is that I have been fighting a battle for 35 years. I've been just kind of fighting a war and my trauma came up.
when I was safe. And so it just came welling up. And it's this point I'm making about I was that classic entrepreneur that climbed the mountain, succeeded by every outer metric, got up there and then just realized, I don't feel fulfilled. I feel like there's something more. It feels a little bit empty for me. And so something forced me to go inside.
It might have been the book Letting Go has been very profound for me in this last five years, but it might have been that. I don't know the thing that triggered it, but all I can tell you is the universe hit me over the head and said, it's time to go inside after all these years. Because what I realized-
Again, looking at me in the outer world in those 35 years, a hell of a run. It's a pretty good run. I've got a lot of people that follow my teachings. But the reality is below the surface, my inner world was always, the tectonic plates were always shifting. My central nervous system was always amped up. There was always anxiety. There was always fear. So it's always going on below the surface.
And I just was able to put on this great face and this great package that I created. It was time for it to all come up. And over the last four years, I've been letting it come up, releasing it. And, you know, that's where we get to this third discovery, which is next, because like we talked about with love or fear, I just went into the root of all the fear based decisions, thoughts, emotions and feelings. And you will find the source.
And once you find the source, it comes up, you release it. Sometimes it comes up with as much pain as when it went down, you know, 30 or 40 years ago, but it comes up and you can release it. And again, if you would have told me five years ago, I'd be having these kind of conversations with entrepreneurs. There might be a fistfight because because, you know, again, I was this I had this tough guy image and it was all outer world and building great businesses.
Now it's both. Now I see so clearly how we can build great outer world success stories and great inner world success stories.
So let's dig in. So the third one is driven in peace, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so let's go into that a little bit. Yeah. So this is like the culmination of everything because this is all the first half of the book. Then the second half of the book shows you 10 disciplines for how to do all this, for how to create space and time in your life to do this wonderful work and be on this journey. So the third discovery, again, it's the culmination of all of it.
that it is possible to be driven and have peace. So with that, as I mentioned earlier,
Most of us driven entrepreneurs, we think if we find peace, we're going to lose our edge. And so for me, I always thought it was a choice. I thought it was one or the other. You're either driven or you have peace. You can't have both. And when I got my first taste of peace in my mid-20s, when my daughter was born, it lasted an hour. The second she was born, the elation, the bliss, I can only describe it as just like pure love and bliss, lasted an hour.
And then I stuffed it back down because it scared the shit out of me. It felt wimpy. It felt weak. And I literally thought it was going to zap me of everything. Well, shoot forward in time now. Thank goodness. I've now learned that it is possible to be driven and have peace. And I find for me, as I'm now seeing with many,
is your drive increases because it's now an inside out type of an energy that's coming from your true self and your soul, as opposed to the old outside in energy, which outside in is where you're weighing it against what people will think and judgment and
fears and you have competition driving you, it's a completely different source of that drive. Therefore, your creativity is higher. Your intuition is higher. Your decision making is better. Time kind of slows down. And so it's possible to have both.
I love it. Well, that makes you feel better. There's an edge and it is, I will say, like, I don't care what anybody says you do. I consider myself as humble as they come with as much accomplishments. Like I still take time to do shop tours. If a guy,
Doing a million dollars a year calls me. I'm taking that phone call. I like to help everybody. My buddy, like I said, Dan Martell says it's selfish to take those phone calls because everybody should hear those calls. It should be broadcast to the universe.
And he's like, you know what I like to do? I like to go home and scroll on Instagram and TikTok. And I just like to do my thing and watch my shows with my wife. And I like turn my phone off and I don't answer. Yeah. And I just, it's hard for a guy like me to just turn it all off. I do a pretty good job of it, believe it or not. But where do you see yourself? It sounds like to me, you're somewhere at 40 or 54, 55.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years looking back at the work you're doing now? What are you hoping that
This obviously, anything you touch, I'm guessing, is going to be a whole, this will be a movement. It's already starting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I certainly hope so. But funny you picked that timeframe. So very specifically, our goal is in the next 10 years is to free a million souls. So we call it true self. But it's that thing that I described, that visual protected in that cocoon is to help remove that cocoon, those layers, that protective shield for a million driven entrepreneurs. Yeah.
And so that's, that's the one clear goal. I'll certainly be dabbling and playing and working in all five pieces of content that I created because I'm still as much as passionate about the outer world success for entrepreneurs as the inner world, but having a blast with this one and having some of the greatest conversations that I'd never thought I'd be having. So, but that's the short answer is free a million souls. I mean, I,
I know a lot of people that you look at them from the outside and you're like, they got it all. Their inner soul, it's like there's still something missing. And that's what you're trying to get to the root of is what is that? And then maybe they're carrying baggage. Let's go through the 10 disciples or disciplines. I'm sorry. We can call them disciples. That's a whole different conversation. Yeah.
Yeah, so here's what I always like to do. I'll roll through all 10 at a high level so everybody knows what they are. My goal is always to teach and make an impact on this podcast. And then...
you know your audience better than I do. Let me know which ones you want to drill down on. So at a high level, here are the 10 disciplines. We call them 10 disciplines for maximizing your energy, your impact, and your inner peace. And again, these create space, time, and a platform in your life to do this wonderful work. So discipline number one is 10-year thinking. Number two, take time off. Number three, know thyself. Number four, be still.
Number five, know your hundred percent. We touched on that earlier. Number six, say no dot, dot, dot often. Number seven, don't do $25 an hour work. Number eight, prepare every night. Number nine, put everything in one place. And number 10, be humble. Okay. I can tell you what the audience would love to hear. All right.
A lot of us, we take time off. Let's just start with number two. For sure. But we're not really taking time off. There's literally like your time off, but you're like, there's anxiety. Like if I'm on a boat fishing and I don't have reception for two days, because that's what happens is you're deep sea fishing. It's like you come back and it's like, and I've got an amazing EA and I've got an amazing way of delegating, but it's like,
It's like you almost don't want to get behind. It's like, and most of the entrepreneurs, they don't really have a business. They are the business, the entrepreneurs. So they haven't delegated enough. They haven't put enough people in charge yet.
So let's just talk about number two for a little bit. What is time off? What does that mean to you? You bet. What does it say in the book? Yeah, so whenever I teach a discipline, I always start with a very bold statement. So the bold statement is my way of saying, if you just do this, you will get the benefits. If you just gave me blind faith, here it is in one sentence.
And then I'll always end the teaching of the discipline with an action that I urge you to take to move you forward and get this discipline implemented in your life. So I'll start with the bold statement. So we're on discipline number two, take time off. Here's the bold statement. Take 130 days off per year and don't think about work the entire day.
Okay, and so that should have shocked and blown the minds of many out there. But there's the bold statement. So let's start there. Now let me dig into it with you. Because first of all, if you took off every weekend and holidays, you're already at 110 or 115 of those days. So you're most of the way there. And so you're just throwing in a few more vacations. For me personally, I have taken 150 days off.
every year for the last 20 something years now through the building of EOS Worldwide, 40% growth for 15 straight years, 150 days off, including taking the month of August off every year. I take an August sabbatical every year.
And what I will tell you, whatever your starting point is, whatever your number is, because this is where you're going to decide the perfect number for you. The idea is to turn the world off and recharge your batteries. You like handed the perfect example when you go fishing and you can't turn your phone on and access your phone for two days. Look at what happens for you. I know for a fact that when I check out for a month in August,
One of my goals when I check out on the first day is to try and forget what I do for a living. And then on the 31st day, when I come back, I hope I'm still motivated and energized to want to do it. And I'm willing to stop if I'm no longer motivated, but thank God for 20 plus years, I come back even more motivated. But the point I'm making is when I take that time off, I come back more creative, more energized, better ideas. I see things with a whole new set of eyes,
I'm convinced that I'm further ahead in the last 20, 25 years by taking the month of August off than I would be if I had worked through that month. And so you've got to recharge. You've got to rejuvenate. You've got to always stay creative, have better ideas, more energized. And this is the way to do it. You've got to turn the world off. All work and no play makes you a dull boy or girl.
So I think there's an important lesson here because I do orientation for every new group that comes in. And I say, listen, the most important thing for me is that you take your PTO because a lot of you are going to try to skip it. You're going to have to work. And I've seen it over and over and over for the last 20 years in this industry is you don't take a vacation. You don't recalibrate. You don't get reset.
It's 100%. So I think not only this lesson applies to us as entrepreneurs, but making sure that our coworkers underneath us are doing the same. Yeah. And I would add to this, you know, this again is so classic with a driven entrepreneur is we have pain and trauma and we're really good at numbing our pain and trauma. And there are a multitude of ways and addictions that we use to numb that. But
But the biggest one is our workaholism. You know, so we are workaholics and we're just simply hiding from going inside, from feeling what's in there. And so we just work too numb. And when you're aware of that, it shifts everything. And to your last point, when we're being the example, then yes, we're the example for our people and our people start to do the same.
And everyone's healthy, clear, more creative. And I get that it's hard to compute. And you'll see how all 10 of these disciplines all work together in an incredible, magnifying fashion. And so this is just one-tenth of the puzzle here.
So the bold statement was 130 days off. What was the final? Just do this. And then the action is to write your number of days off. So literally when you finish this podcast, sit down and just count how many days you took off in the last 365 days. And you might write one, you might write 10, hopefully you write 130, but just start with the brutal facts of reality. Start with what the real number is right now and just start to increase that number.
Try it on, but start by doing the math on what you're really taking on. And then, I mean, when you're on your August vacation, hopefully traveling the world somewhere exotic,
Don't you ever say, man, reading a book or say this applies to my business and I need to apply that? You might not do it there. You might have a Google file or throw that in your office file. But do you ever think about work where you're like, man, this would be a great... Are you reading when you're on those vacations? Or is it just pure turn everything off? You're not educating yourself?
Short answer is it's pure turn everything off. It's impossible for business ideas to not pop up. So what I do is I just quickly list them. So I live my life from a legal pad. I love to write. And so I just have my September 1st legal pad going and I just write them down there. And have I read a business book during August? I may have, but it's very,
Very rare. So I'm reading more personal development stuff, maybe some kind of a novel or fiction type of a thing, but no, very little business. But when business does creep up, I just put it on my list so I don't lose the thought because sometimes they're really good thoughts and then I let it go. The idea is to turn it off as much as possible.
Just personally, I want to know why August. That's when the kids usually start back up from school. But what was the idea of August? Yeah, so it's very simple. So as an EOS implementer, so I created EOS and I'm an EOS implementer and I was a full-time EOS implementer in the early days. And so I was doing 150 sessions a year. Well, August is the slowest month in the life of an EOS implementer. That's when we do our least sessions.
So the handful of sessions I would do in August, I could displace them. And so it was just the perfect month because it was the least busy month. Got it. And I think we kind of dove into number three, know thyself. But these are the ones where you're really slowing down. I'm guessing number three has a lot to do with be still.
and probably reflect, just jump in and give us an overview of number three a little bit. Know thyself. Yeah, great. So again, the bold statement here is to be your true self 100% of the time.
24-7-365. And what this forces you to do, and so yes, Be Still is part of helping you get clear and discover and maybe shed some layers and process. But the way this works is it starts with you understanding some of the outer world basics.
What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your personalities and traits? What are your skill sets, your superpower? So really start to get clarity around those things. But then we start to go deeper because then we start to go on the inside.
And what's really going on in the inside and shedding all of that stuff, because the idea is for you to be your true self fully in the world 24-7, 365. And so a story I share is when I was 30 years old, my wife threw a surprise birthday party for me. And so I walk into this house and 100 sets of eyeballs yell surprise. And I look around the room.
And I'm quoting myself. So I try not to use too much profanity, but I'm going to quote myself on this. I look around the room and I see six factions of my life with these hundred people. And I look at those six factions and I go, who in the fuck am I going to be today? So in the room were my employees.
my business partners, my family, my wife's family, my high school friends, and my new friends. So six different factions, and I realized I was a different person for all six factions. Why on earth would I do that? Imagine the energy that that burns trying to be all things to all people. And so it was an aha moment for me where I said, from this day forward, I'm just going to be me. And so this is you really figuring out who you are.
are in your true self and being that and let the cards fall where they may. We driven entrepreneurs were really good chameleons sometimes. And so we're really good at being all things to all people. And it twists us in a knot.
well i do think there's something to be said about i just had a guy on recently we talked a lot about your alter ego like he created the black mamba with kobe of who he had to become on the court and i think i'm a little bit different around mom than i am dad i mean and i don't try to be it's like a different around my ceo than i am around my cfo it's like i don't try to be a different tommy but sometimes you try to be like okay
I got to try harder around the CFO because I got to pay attention to stuff that I really don't like, that he's make sure that I'm paying attention to. I love the operational side of things. So I try to grasp this of being me. I think they still know that's Tommy. He's still got his feet on the desk. Just get to know me. I'm not like trying harder, but it's like, I can't explain it. I don't know if I could just, I'm just trying to,
kind of put this into what I go through. I mean, you're not going to treat
Not every employee like you would your wife. I don't know, like maybe, but that's weird, kind of. Yeah, well, here's what I would challenge. And I would dig in a little bit with what you said. You gave a great example. You're different with your mom than you are with your dad. OK, and so, again, ultimately, what we talked about already is just awareness and being still helps with awareness and consciousness and just being aware of, you know, why and how am I acting differently?
with my mom than my dad. And I'm not talking about like your CFO. Yeah, you probably need to dig into the numbers a little more, whatever that means for you. What I'm talking about is you fully being you unapologetically. And so I lovingly like to say my wish and goal for every driven entrepreneur is that they let their freak flag fly. And so are you being fully Tommy Mello in every situation?
And that's the goal. And so again, with that awareness saying, all right, why am I a little different with mom than I am with dad? Maybe there's something there. You know, maybe there's some conditioning there that when you're adjusting yourself for someone else, you are burning energy. And what we're talking about here is maximizing energy, making a bigger impact, having more inner peace. And when you have to kind of
bend yourself a little bit for somebody, the tectonic plates inside are going to shift. The central nervous system isn't going to be so relaxed and, and it's burning energy. My humble two cents. I like it. And what's the, uh,
For number three, what's the... And then the action is just commit to one thing you will do. So if it's skills and abilities or personalities and traits you want to look at, you can go take one of the amazing profiling tools out there that exists just to learn more about yourself. There's an exercise we prescribe where you ask five or 10 people in your life what they believe your three greatest strengths and your three greatest weaknesses are. But just do one thing to...
figure out and learn more about who you really are. So just learn more about yourself. And then again, if you're ready to start to go inside, then look at one of those other options. You know, like you brought up plant medicine at the beginning of this. If you decide you want to take that leap, that might be one thing you do or go get therapy or read an amazing book on how to shed a layer or meditate. Just do one thing that helps you know who you are better.
Let me ask you a question about being well-rounded or balanced. You know, Dan Thurman wrote a book, Off Balance and Purpose. Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy wrote a book about 10x is better than 2x. Focus on your superpowers. Do you think we should be well-rounded and kind of have this balance?
From your perspective? No, short answer, no. Because what does that mean? You know, so I just come at it completely different. So, you know, what is well-rounded? Because now all of a sudden you're bringing society's conditioning into that. I mean, who defines,
mine's well-rounded. I want to go like, who's the leader of the definition of well-rounded? Do we go to that person and say, show us well-rounded? I just come at it a different way. I just come at it from a standpoint of assuming you're not an ax murderer. So we have the souls of driven entrepreneurs, these wonderful, beautiful souls that are blessings and curses. We talked about that.
Just be you. Just let that fly. What does that mean? In other words, just be the person you want to be. And there's a knowing that goes on inside of you where you know. And so, you know, you're not going to hurt people. You're not going to do damage. And maybe out of that, you come off as well-rounded. But again, if you're tippy-toeing and dancing and trying to be this crazy,
quote, well-rounded thing, I fear that you're not truly being your true self in that case. So I don't know if that makes sense, but it's just coming from the inside out and just being fully you, whatever that means. I love it. We'll jump into one more and then we'll kind of start wrapping things here. I'm enjoying the heck out of this, by the way. You know, I think all the entrepreneurs, what I explain to people, and it's your number six to say no,
I think a lot of people, they start divesting in their company. They say, we're finally making money. And the husband and wife started talking. They said, we deserve a second house. We deserve a Harley. We deserve to go on that one month vacation. And I'm not saying you don't deserve it, but typically if you just wore the blinders and stayed a little more focused,
it'll start to just expand into this amazing thing that it'll be like, you know, my buddy's invested in real estate. So now I'm going to go into flipping houses. And my other buddy started a bar. I got enough money. I could start a bar. And it's like, as an entrepreneur, you said we could do anything. Well, anything you throw at us, we could actually accomplish, but there's only so much time in a day. And is it the one thing that we should be focused on? And so I had an entrepreneur tell me, I can't say no, but what I've learned how to do is say,
The answer is yes, but not today. And probably not next year. And I probably won't have time in the next five years for that. That's great. No, it's like, I'm going to say yes because we say yes to things, but not today. Yeah. So,
- What is the best way for an entrepreneur to say no? Because there's a million things going on. We could say yes, it's so easy to say yes and just have one more thing we've gotta do. - Yeah, you're here. All right, well, let me start with the bold statement, okay? So we're talking about discipline number six, say no, dot, dot, dot, often. So the bold statement is say no to everything that doesn't fit in the first five disciplines. So what's vital with this
is you've got to understand and implement the first five disciplines in your life because those are the clear boundaries. So let me just remind you of those first five. It's 10-year thinking, so it's thinking in 10-year timeframes. It's taking time off, so you're rejuvenated, recharged. It's knowing thyself, as we talked about, so you're being your true self in the world.
It's being still, it's taking time to be still at intervals, meditation, contemplation, prayer, whatever form you are drawn to. And then it's knowing your 100%, which is that work capacity that we talked about earlier in the podcast.
With those five things in place, it is so obvious what to say no to. It's like literally somebody telling you to eat a worm. You would immediately say no. It's so obvious. And so it's just knowing those five things so you have clear boundaries. And again, what to say no to will be obvious. Now, with that said, you're picking the discipline that is my favorite from a standpoint of it's the easiest one for me. So
Your friend who says yes, but postpones it, you know, I would offer one piece of advice and it's working for him. So I don't want to change anything, but I want to throw this out there because I believe the ability to say no to someone and close, sever that cord, sever that tie, end that energetic connection. I believe that person that keeps saying yes to everything, but not today, maybe next year, maybe next decade, they still have,
made a commitment to someone and there's still hope out there. And I don't think that's full and true freedom. And so it's a matter of getting good at saying no. And so it's building a muscle. I'll jump to the action and then I'll come back to the teaching. But again, the action is just to say no to something in the next seven days. So what we're doing is we're getting our clients to build the muscle, just say no to something in the next seven days and start building that muscle. So for me, I get...
numerous requests a day. And so I have to say no a lot to a lot of people. And so I'm really good at saying no. And I have this way of saying it where people go away feeling good. And then somebody pointed out to me about five years ago that,
what I do is I say no, but then I offer something else up like another solution. And so if somebody wants me to do their podcast, the answer is no or do a talk or whatever it is. I say no, but then I say, well, here's somebody who might be a great guest for you. And so what I do is I kind of cushion it, offer them another solution. But nonetheless, the answer is no with me. Again, that cord is severed. There's no energetic connection. I'm able to move on. And so it's all about getting comfortable,
knowing those boundaries and just saying it. And then again, if the opportunity presents itself is to offer something up in its place so that you at least help the person with what it is they're trying to accomplish. I love that. Yeah, it's like anything else. It's like talking on stage turns into a muscle and you get good at it. When you learn how to say no, it's a lot easier. You know, I was thinking as you were speaking a little bit about just
You look at your core five people in your life outside of your family, who you're spending time with, and you start to pick up. I always tell people you have a cage if you don't get inspired by your closest people around you. And a buddy of mine, actually Dan Martell, was explaining that you're not best friends anymore with the kids you grew up with. You didn't have a choice. They were your neighbors. You became best friends. What do you guys have in common now? A lot of people...
have these friends that they've grown up with, and their idea of a good night might be a 24-pack and a ball game. And you've kind of grown past that, but you're like, well, we're still friends. We still kind of got to be in this friendship. And you really don't. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, it's so profound because that comes up almost every time with this
journey that we take people on because relationships are going to change. As you create this space and time and you shed layers and you start to really fully become your true self,
Sometimes you're not going to resonate with the people you used to resonate with. And so let's talk about the 24 pack for, for is one example, you know, a well-known fact is as people start to shed their stuff, their desire to drink greatly reduces because the desire to numb the pain goes away because there's no more pain to numb. Well,
If you've got a drinking buddy or a drinking family member where you just don't desire to drink as much anymore, all of a sudden those two relationships don't align anymore. And so it starts to get very uncomfortable. Now you can apply that to anything. That's just a drinking example, but it might be sitting around bitching about stuff. You know, you might've had a friend that you sit around bitching about stuff for the last 20 years and you don't want to bitch about stuff anymore. Whatever the example is, you will start to see relationships going away.
you will either choose to spend less time with that person or that person will start to move away from you because they see you energetically changing. You just don't energetically line up anymore. And so it's very, very common. And my advice is when you realize a relationship with a family member or a friend or an employee, somebody that works for you, when you notice that it's shifting and it's changing,
Your job is to spend less time with that person. You've got to protect your energy. You've got to protect yourself. And it's just all about spending less time with that person and moving away, hopefully in a healthy way, in an honest way. But you can't feel guilty about that. And that's what happens. We feel guilty and we spend the next two years continuing to spend time with that person, walking away from every get-together feeling drained energetically, feeling a little miserable, feeling zapped.
It's not fair to you. It's not fair to them. And so it's just a matter of moving away in a very honest way. I love that. That's really profound.
I'm going to ask one more question before we wrap up, and then I got the closing questions. But what practical advice or a starting point can you offer for entrepreneurs who want to begin the journey of mastering their inner world while still achieving success in their businesses? Yeah, that's fantastic. So one of the things we prescribe is we call it telling your inner story. And we go into great detail on this in the book Shine. But it's all about
starting to pierce the shield and go below the surface as I like to describe it. And so just a matter of being really honest when you look at your trajectory from age zero to now,
Start by telling your outer world story because that's really easy for us driven entrepreneurs. We can talk about all our accolades and all our successes and all the people in our life, which will help you understand an example of a contrast in an outer world story. The advice is to tell your inner world story. Now go below the surface and really look at the way that you felt on the inside during that experience.
What were some of the experiences that maybe caused you to feel a certain way where maybe you start to realize, you know, I've always felt very judged in my life or I used to judge myself a lot or I still do. I beat the shit out of myself. You know, I fear these things. I fear success. I fear failure. You can actually chase down the root of that, but don't get so caught up in perfectly understanding where it came from, but just start to be really honest about
what's going on for you under the surface, that's your inner story. And that is the starting point to releasing it. The only reason
you dig into and understand your inner story and tell your inner story is to release it. We have got to let go of the illusion from the past, the story we created from the past. The idea is to let it go. But it starts with understanding it and telling it. And then once you understand, we urge you to tell it to someone you love, someone you trust. When I told mine for the first time, it was probably my late 30s. I told it to my wife.
And when I got done, she was still sitting there. I thought she was going to run for the hills because I wasn't perfect. And then I shared it with my kids and they didn't run. Now, you don't have to go as far as I've gone because now I put it into a book. So you don't have to shout it from the rooftops and tell everyone. But I am called to do this. I am here to help driven entrepreneurs. But it starts with just understanding, knowing and telling your inner story to pierce the shield and start the process.
You know, Joe does a pretty good job of that. He talks about his addiction pretty openly, but he didn't really talk about the sex addiction till seven years ago. And he said he was expecting everybody to leave when he said it on stage. I mean, he teared up and said, hey, I'm an addict and I like prostitutes. And coming from this high...
you know, a lot of people respect Joe. And then he said, here was the crazy thing. When I got off on stage, people not only came up to me with their drug addiction problems, but their porn. And they also have the same issues I have. And they also were, he said,
It was very, very difficult. But when I did it, it freed me up. It literally like, and he, you know, even relationships, personal relationships, like romance relations, romantic, you know, I guess part of it is,
We live in this world of social media and personas and influencers, and everybody wants to have a nice car and a big house and have their private jet. And that's, and people look at you a little bit differently when you have those things. Oh yeah. And unfortunately it doesn't attract the right energy. It attracts, I think some of the wrong energy. I don't,
I don't think that stuff I've literally specifically try to not let that stuff define me. Yeah. You know, I would add one more thing that it's so powerful that you share that. And I remember the day Joe started sharing that, you know, I love Joe to death. He's a, he's a dear friend and it makes me think of how I don't want to, I don't want to lose how I want to communicate this point because it's so important.
What's happening in that and telling your inner story is you're becoming human. We're becoming human. We're machines. At least speaking for myself, I look at the 35-year run, I was a machine. And now I'm just simply becoming human. And as the people in our lives, just like Joe did from that stage, he shared that he was human. Once people start to see that we're human, this is the beauty I'm talking about. This is that inner peace that starts to happen is it attracts people to us.
because we're all just human. And I always lovingly like to say, I have never met anybody that didn't need a little bit of therapy. So we're all a little screwed up. So all you're doing is you're relating to other human beings. We're all a little screwed up and we can all shed our shit. So why don't we just do it together? Find peace, be humans together. So for what that's worth.
Do you still see a therapist or a psychologist? I've done sought therapy three times in my life, in my 20s, seven years of therapy, in my 40s, and then in the last two years. So I'm not in therapy now. But what I learned in that, I'm a big believer in it.
But in my 20s, I was not willing to be honest with myself. My ego was so strong, it just knew how to make up all the right stories to say what needs to be said. So it helped with some things. Then in my 40s, it was decent, but I was still holding back. Man, but two years ago when I was ready to let it go. So if you're going to go to therapy, you've got to be honest with yourself,
with your therapist, let it fly. So it was very profound for me a couple of years ago when I finally did it for the third time and I finally let go. - I feel like women might be better at letting their feelings out and really kind of coming into it. I do believe that men and women are still quite a bit different. Gino, if someone wants to reach out to you
or be, you know, learn more about this? What's the best way to do that? Yeah, fantastic. So a couple of things. So the epicenter of everything we're talking about is at the10disciplines.com. You can either put in the number 10 or spell out 10, the10disciplines.com. What you'll find there is you can download a free chapter of the book, the first 27 pages of the book shine. You can also order the book shine there.
And then we offer a self-study for the 10 disciplines, group coaching for the 10 disciplines, and a mastermind if that's appealing to you where you want help implementing this stuff in your life. And the last thing I would urge, you'll find what we call a true self-assessment on the website. And that's a great way to find out where you are on this journey to freeing your true self.
And once you fill it out and you submit it, it's completely free. We also offer a free coaching session if you want to take us up on that once you get your results and your gears are turning. So lots of great resources there, but it's all at the10disciplines.com. And who is your, who would you say, this is all entrepreneurs, who is the perfect coach?
It's really anybody looking for just some more inner peace, really. It really is. All I know is a driven entrepreneur. So we're very overt and specific in that we want to help driven entrepreneurs with this work. But yes, anybody can translate this material. Anybody can pick up Shine and totally get it.
So it will resonate with anybody. We just focus on driven entrepreneurs because that's what I know. That's what I'm most comfortable with. So that's what we shout from the rooftops, but it'll translate for anybody. And finally, we talked about...
I really didn't want to go into EOS. I know those were in the notes, but obviously super uber successful. Everyone I know, like literally big rocks and like EOS. But this is like, this is some different side of it. This isn't just about business success. This is about so much more. And you can tell the way you've moved up
in life. And this is the next chapter. Yeah. We talked about a lot of things. Maybe we didn't hit on something. I just, I want to give you an opportunity, Gino, to close us out with whatever you want to close us out with. Yeah. Well, I would say this, you know, so like I said at the beginning, I put these five pieces of content into the world. Yes. EOS has made a huge impact.
And those first four pieces of content are all about succeeding in your outer world. And if you're not called to go inside for whatever reason, it's too scary, you're not ready, you're still climbing the mountain, please go embrace the first four pieces of content and build an amazing outer world life. And then at some point, you're going to get pinged to go inside. So don't feel like you have to do this, but I certainly hope you do. And you can start to do this inner journey now.
at any point, the beginning of climbing the mountain, in the middle of the mountain, at the top. So tap into all that content wherever you are. It's all about helping you as the driven entrepreneur build an amazing life and amazing business, both in your outer and inner worlds. I love it. I absolutely love this. This is like, I don't know if you believe in divine intervention, but probably what I needed to hear today. So I appreciate it very much.
And this was a great podcast. Means a lot, my brother. Always a pleasure. Joe and I will be talking about you. So you're just it's amazing watching everything you've done. And I love that we have that connection to Joe. I appreciate you very much. Well, listen, I'll be in I'll be in touch. I got to go fill out a true self-assessment right now. Pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for doing this. My pleasure. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you. Can't wait.
Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high
performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.
