John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Hey, I want to give a shout out to another member of the HubSpot Network, the success story podcast, hosted by Scott D. Clary. It's one of the most useful podcasts in the world. Success story features Q & A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, conversations on sales marketing. Hey, and if you're a freelancer, his episode on how to make seven figures freelancing on Fiverr is a must listen to the success story podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

John Jantsch (00:46): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Gino Wickman. He is the founder of EOS worldwide, an organization that helps tens of thousands of businesses implement EOS the entrepreneurial operating system with the aid of international and the international team of professionals and certified EOS implementers. He's also the author of the award-winning best-selling book traction, get a grip on your business, which has sold now over a million. He's got a new book today. We're going to talk about the EOS life, how to live your ideal entrepreneurial life. So Gino, welcome to the show.

Gino Wickman (01:23): Pleasure to be here, John. Glad to be with you again. Yeah,

John Jantsch (01:26): That's right. It's been too long. So let me let's set the table, uh, kind of the, you know, there's obviously some people, not many probably out there that don't know what EOS is necessarily. So maybe set the table between kind of the relationship between EOS life and EOS sort of the professional organization, kind of the context of, of where that came together and for this book.

Gino Wickman (01:49): Yeah, for sure. I'd love to. So I'm going back 20 years ago, I basically took a leap to help entrepreneurs. I realized that that was my calling. That was my passion. That was my gift. It's been a total of 30 years of doing this, but 20 years is when I started to create an operating system to help entrepreneurs and their leadership teams run a better business. And so for five years, I did that with 50 companies, 500 sessions, put the finishing touches on what is now EOS. And then I decided I was going to leverage it. So I put it in a book called traction, found a great partner in Don Tinney. He and I joined forces, started EOS worldwide, and that's about 15 years ago. And so then he and I basically built EOS worldwide one EOS implementer at a time. And so we've now as implementers, there are 450 implementers around the world.

Gino Wickman (02:42): We've taken about 14,000 companies through the process. We have about 130,000 companies that are using the tools and running on EOS. And, and, and so that's the big picture and the backstory and that's EOS. Well, what happened? I just gave kind of a 20, 21 year timeline that is EOS well there's then this other piece that kind of percolated along all of those years. And that's what led me to writing the EOS life. And the way that that worked is it's very interesting because when Don and I joined forces and I decided to rebrand EOS, it was originally known as the business accelerator. Now known as the entrepreneurial operating system, I engaged a real high-end marketing firm and they interviewed my top seven clients. And the owner of the firm went out and sat with each owner and asked them very specific questions. And that the owner of the marketing firm came back kind of in awe, because he said to me, Gino, he said, we, we, we got the same answer from all seven clients, seven out of seven.

Gino Wickman (03:50): And what they would talk about is how EOS has given them a better quality of life. And I kind of shrugged that off because I'm so obsessed about helping the entrepreneur build a great business. I kind of ignored the fact that they're living this great ideal life. Then what happened is my partner, Don Tinney started to live the EOS life, his ideal life, ideal life. And he saw the effect on him and he came to call it the EOS life. And as we were building this community of implementers, he would share this with them. And again, I shrugged it off and then shoot forward to probably five years ago when the community are EOS, implementer community really started to embrace this idea of the EOS life. Don described it as five points, doing what you love with people. You love making a huge difference, getting compensated appropriately and having time for other passions.

Gino Wickman (04:40): And so I finally gave in and at our conference, our EOS conference five years ago, I decided to deliver the EOS life talk. And it was so unbelievably well received. I did it the following year and then ultimately out of a pandemic with extra time, not being on a plane, you know, S you know, 18 times a year, not being in a hotel 40 nights a year, I had some excess capacity and I decided, you know, it's time to write this book. And it just kind of flowed out of me and so long, long story, but that's how the EOS life was birthed. And that book just launched 30 days ago.

John Jantsch (05:18): Yeah. And I, you know, it really makes a lot of sense while you talk about in EOS, you know, delegation and having a vision and creating systems and processes, those all should lead to at least less stress and things like that. So it, so it makes a ton of sense. And, you know, over the years, I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs and help them get some control of their marketing. And they've actually kind of expressed that, that gives them their life back a little bit. And I think, I think there's certainly a lot to that. So since you mentioned the five points, um, one of the things I love is that you are very tool driven. I mean, you, you produce lots of tools. You give them away freely. This book is no exception. And so I thought maybe we'd take each of those five points and let you just kind of unpack the tool that makes that happen. So the first one you mentioned, do what you love. And, and if you're an author like me, who sometimes forgets what you wrote in a book, I'll remind you that, you know, that's the delegating.

Gino Wickman (06:11): Oh, yes. Yeah. You don't have to remind me, believe me, I intimately know this content, you know, and I would say one other thing as I answer your question. Yeah. The reality is I have been living this EOS life. I have been living my ideal life for at least 20 years. And that's another thing that Don saw in me. But for me, I kept shrugging it off because it's so natural for me. And, and so for what that's worth, you know, I don't teach one ounce of theory. I've been living all of this, but, but to your exact point, I then realized it's kind of the tool or tools that we teach our client that help kind of expedite move the needle toward them living each point on the EOS life. So to your point, I always love to start with a question and then share the tool.

Gino Wickman (06:54): So the first point again is doing what you love. Okay. And so that's the whole idea here. And I start by asking you the audience out there. The question is, what kind of work do you love to do? And I urge you in, in this book, it's, it's a, it's a thinking exercise. I urge you to work from a journal and you spend 5, 10, 20 minutes thinking about that and writing that. But the tool that we then have every client use in the EOS process is something called delegate and elevate. And the way that delegate and elevate works is it's an exercise where if you cut a sheet of paper or a document into four quadrants, it's also lovingly known as the four quadrants. And then you write the words and I'll try and share this quickly in the bottom right hand quadrant. If you write, don't like not good at, in the bottom left-hand quadrant, if you put don't like good at, in the upper right-hand quadrant, if you write the words like and good like to do in good at it.

Gino Wickman (07:53): And then the upper left hand quadrant love to do and great at it, obviously where we want you is in that upper left hand quadrant. But the exercises where you literally list everything you do all day, every day on a document, and you'll write 10, 20, 30, 40 things. And then you take each one of those things that you do all day everyday and put it in one of the four quadrants. And just be really honest, the way it works is once it's all filled out, we then just urge you to delegate one thing in the bottom two quadrants to elevate yourself more to the top two quadrants, with a focus of someday getting you to that upper left-hand quadrant. And so the whole idea here is a process. It's a journey, and it's about moving the needle. As you're probably going to hear me say 10 times in this conversation, because if you will delegate one thing every quarter, you'll look up in 2, 5, 10 years, and you will be living in heaven. And I'm the testimony because for the last 25 years, I have delegated one thing every quarter, and I fully live in that upper left-hand quadrant, even. So that three and a half years ago, I sold EOS worldwide because I needed to delegate an entire company to free me up to go to the next level and do what I wanted to do to free up my energy, my creativity, so long dissertation, but there's the,

John Jantsch (09:06): We had some pushback from some people or, or not just even pushback the realization that a great at love to do, but that doesn't really serve the company. You know, for me to be doing that work. I love it. I'm great at it, but I should delegate it. I mean, how does somebody wrestle with that? Yeah,

Gino Wickman (09:23): Well, let's start with, you know, the primary audience for this book is the entrepreneur is the business owner. And so that entrepreneur and business owner has the most freedom to design their life. And, but in saying that my dream is that then leadership team members live this life, which they can employees, which they can and then families, but we've got to start with the entrepreneur. So I would challenge that because that visionary entrepreneur at the helm of the organization, they kind of get to write their own ticket and live in their sweet spot and then build a structure around them, bring in talent to do all of those things that they don't like to do. So I would challenge that as possible. And the beauty is I get to prove that it's possible because I've proven it now with 14,000 companies and entrepreneurs with the work that we've done.

Gino Wickman (10:12): And certainly the intimate 135 clients I've worked with, it's absolutely doable. But I will say this, John, just to hit probably the most important barrier and that is people not feeling they're worthy, not feeling they deserve this life. And so I go right at that psychology in this book, and I always say to the audience, and so if you're out there and listening, I just want to say this, you deserve it. You deserve it. And you really truly do. And if we can get you past whatever psychological barrier is making you feel unworthy, oh, then you're just absolutely gonna take off. And again, if you keep moving that needle every quarter, you're going to look up very soon and be living your ideal life again, starting with doing what you love. Okay.

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John Jantsch (11:55): All right, let's move on. Number two with people you love.

Gino Wickman (12:00): Yeah. So again, opening question, I urge you to answer and ponder for 5, 10, 20 minutes is who are the people you love to work with? Okay. And so it starts there spend some time, think about that, ponder that, but the tool that we help our clients accomplish this with is something called the people. Analyzer sounds incredibly cold, but it is one of the top five tools in the EOS process because it's helping you surround yourself with great people. Great people are defined by the right people in the right seats, right? People means they have your core values, right? Seat means they get it, want to have the capacity to do the job. Every one of these tools we're talking about are downloadable free on the website. So EOS life.com. So there's nothing you have to go by. It's there waiting for you, but I would urge and ask a couple things here.

Gino Wickman (12:52): First, you must discover your core values you out there. You got to decide the three to seven characteristics that describe you, that, that, that, that make up who you are as a person. And a way of thinking about as the antithesis of those things are the things that you have in life, or have in people. And so let's pretend though you discover your core values. I would suggest one way to do that is amazing core value cards think to perform as a company that has great core value cards, but you can buy them online. A few bucks, 52 cards, 52 core values. And in 15 minutes you will discover your core values, lots of ways to do it. But with that, once, you know, your core values, your job, if you want to be happy is to surround yourself in your company with people that have your core values and the ones that don't, you've got to part ways they will thrive somewhere else.

Gino Wickman (13:49): And then the last little point I'll make, and then I'll shut the heck up. And let you respond is once you've mastered that because it takes about a year or two to help our clients get to that point where everyone is the right person in the right seat at or above the bar in the people analyzer. Then I urge them to expand their circle. Now that they got all of their employees to be the right people, right? Seats matching core values, then expand the circle to your vendors and suppliers to your clients and customers. And then all, ultimately the icing on the cake is to your family and friends. And I go into great detail on how to do that in the book and countless real world stories. Because when you cross that line into family and friends, Ooh, that one gets scary.

John Jantsch (14:35): Well, I think for a lot of people probably just crossing into customers and clients, you know, it's like they, they showed up, they need what we sell, you know, but, but if you're a particularly a professional service business have a one or two bad clients can, can be a real issue

Gino Wickman (14:49): Here, here. And if, and if your audience will listen to you, John they'll have so much business coming at them that they can be selective and they can fire some clients that just don't fit. You know, we EOS implementers. I'm an EOS implementer. I have clients, I have the luxury of handpicking, every single one of my clients, the ones that I just love being around. And so we all have that luxury because we get to pick and choose our clients because of this awareness that we have, that life's too short, not to work with people that you don't love working with.

John Jantsch (15:19): So I think we're on to making a huge difference. So we're going to get into some, some vision.

Gino Wickman (15:25): Got it. So opening question here is how do you make a difference? And so again, urging you to ponder for 5, 10, 20 minutes. And so really think about how you make a difference, but I'll give kind of two contexts here. And so the tool is something called the vision traction organizer. It's a tool I created that helps an entrepreneur in their leadership team, capture their vision and plan by answering eight questions about the company. They captured them in the VTO and you've got a vision and plan to take to the organization. Well, the first context is when you fill that tool out, the answers are all there. The way that you and your company are going to make an impact is by executing what's in that vision traction organizer. But in addition to that, if you're not an entrepreneur or maybe not a leadership team member, or maybe you are, there is a second context, and that is you can make a huge impact on the people in your company and your community on your family.

Gino Wickman (16:21): So there's so many ways to make a difference, make an impact. And so you just have to think about that. But one example I always like to share is if you're a leadership team member of an entrepreneurial company, there's a great quote by Simon banks. That goes, you are a leader when you produce a leader who produces a leader and so very profound. So if you're sitting there going, I don't know how to make a difference. Well, if you're a leader or a manager in an organization, focused on achieving that goal, focus on helping others around you become great leaders and then therefore help them help others become great leaders. But that's the mark of a true leader is when you've created an left that legacy where you're creating lots of leaders in the world. Yeah.

John Jantsch (17:04): I do think a lot of people get hung up on that idea of impact, meaning, oh, I have to cure world hunger or something. And it's like, gosh, I could make two or three or 10 people's lives better. That's pretty special to this.

Gino Wickman (17:14): How even one person's life, just imagine one. And, and, and the point about the VTO is if your passion is that customer or client to provide them tremendous value to solve their need, that makes an impact. That makes a difference. So you're exactly right. Don't overthink this, this, this isn't about solving world hunger, unless that's your thing, but there are lots of ways to make a difference. So there's,

John Jantsch (17:37): It's kind of an entrepreneurial myth. I think that that's out there that you're a founder of this company. You start this thing, you put your sweat and blood into it and, and you don't take any money out until it's producing at a certain level. Or there's a lot of folks that do that to themselves. And let's goes right into number four being compensated for

Gino Wickman (17:55): Here, here. Right. So yeah. I urge you to pay yourself first, generate big profits. Certainly, hopefully you will share those profits with your people, but there's nothing wrong with making a lot of money. So that's exactly what this one gets to. So the, we call this point, number four, being compensated appropriately. Again, this was my partner, Don tinnies wording. I like to call it getting paid very well, but nonetheless, whatever you call it, this is what we call it. The question to ponder here is, and this one always comes out of this like a curve ball, but how are you adding value for people? That's what it all comes down to. If you don't feel like you're making enough money, you're not adding enough value in the world. So really think about how do I add value? How do I add value for people? And, and you'll start to get to your answer with that.

Gino Wickman (18:45): The tool we teach here, I already shared, which is delegate and elevate. So ironically, the more you delegate and elevate what's in those bottom two quadrants and elevate yourself to the top. To again, working toward that top left quadrant, the closer you are to that, the more money you will make because you are adding more value. And, and the, the, the discipline I would leave you with on this one is something that I learned from one of my business partners in my twenties. And it was, don't do $25 an hour work. Okay? And so if you're sitting there frustrated with your situation and you're making 50 grand a year or 40 grand a year, whatever the number is, and you want to make six figures. So the DISA, the, the, the philosophy here is that you want to earn six figures because we need people earning 15 bucks an hour, 20 bucks an hour, 25 bucks an hour. I'm not knocking it, but for the people that want to make six figures and beyond you, can't do $25 an hour work. And so everything you're delegating in those bottom two quadrants, typically that is $25 an hour work. And you need to build support around you to delegate that work. So you can elevate yourself to doing hundred dollars, $250, $500 an hour work. That's how it works. You got to add value.

John Jantsch (19:56): Yeah. And I think, uh, I, I heard a great quote. I can't remember who said this. I said that, that, you know, business owners tend to think, look at all the work that needs to be done and figure out how do we get it all done? And entrepreneurs, truly entrepreneurs look at all the work and say, how do I get other people to do all this? You know? And I think that's a great distinction. A lot of people are in this mindset of, oh, I've got the time I can do this. But as you say, I think we undervalue the, the lost opportunity cost in that.

Gino Wickman (20:21): Yeah, exactly. And, and, and, you know, a way to, sometimes people don't quite grasp what I mean by, you know, you got to add more value. So it's very simple. If you flip burgers that pays 15 bucks an hour, if you cut a lawn that pays 25 bucks an hour, if you're a supervisor that pays 40 bucks an hour. So the point is, if you want to make 100 grand a year and you're cutting lawns, you're never going to make a hundred grand a year. So you've gotta be doing hundred dollars an hour plus work. You've got to solve a bigger problem for people cutting along. That's worth 25 bucks that you've solved a $25 problem. You gotta solve bigger problems for people.

John Jantsch (20:57): All right. Let's move on to another number five and with time for other passions,

Gino Wickman (21:03): You bet. So let's start with the opening question, which is what are your passions outside of work? Okay. And so again, please ponder that, give it a good few minutes, 5, 10, 20 minutes. And this one, the tool that we offer here is something called the personal or family VTO. So there were, there was a VTO for the business. There's also a VTO for the family or for the individual. And so what I urge here are a couple of things. First of all, what we're having them do in the EOS process in the tool is called EOS time management. And so when we get to create the structure for your organization and what we call your accountability chart, when all that work is done, there's then the seat that you sit in in the organization. And like we said, you gotta have the right people in the right seat.

Gino Wickman (21:55): Well, once your seat is clear, you then have to decide what your hundred percent is, how much time per week. You're going to devote to this business, how much you're going to work. And I've got clients that they are 35 hour a week people, and I've got clients that are 85 hour a week. People I'm like a 50, 55 hour a week guy. So that's that you got to figure out the amount of time that you feel fulfilled, but you have time for other passions. And so that's my formula. Everyone has their own formula. The reason we start there is then you need to protect that because if you don't protect it, your time is going to be this ever expanding amalgamation nation that you're just going to completely burn out. But if you will protect your a hundred percent, put a stake in the ground, it will help, you know, when it's time to delegate and elevate, but it will also help you protect the time.

Gino Wickman (22:45): So you have time in your personal life to pursue those other passions. And then just so everybody knows that this isn't like some revolutionary thing. It's not a, it doesn't have to be jumping out of planes and hella skiing and all that kind of stuff. So for me, my passions are simply going for a walk with my wife, going for a bike ride, golfing gambling with my buddies, traveling with family, friends. These are the things I love to do. These are the things that give me energy and light me up when they're on my schedule to do. And so it's a matter of just having time to do those things that you love doing. And then I give like 50 to a hundred things you could do if you can't figure out your passions, but I don't know that I've met anyone that can't figure out what they're passionate about.

John Jantsch (23:27): And, and, and the thing that people realize pretty quickly when you have that time and you do recharge doing that. You're just, you're 100% time, so much more effective to,

Gino Wickman (23:37): Yeah, well, that's the secret formula is you recharge your batteries. You come back into work and you're literally twice as productive. So

John Jantsch (23:45): You did a sneaky thing. You put a bonus, a book inside the book, which for those people that like the little kind of mini snack size, a great added addition to attend disciplines for managing and maximizing your energy. I'm not gonna, we're not gonna have time to go through them, but I'm a, I'm an audio book listener. And I must admit, I, I made the mistake of listening to that section while I was on a walk. And I found myself wanting to write a bunch of stuff down. Just really, just as you said, there are things in there many, much of which we've talked about, tenure thinking is sort of revolutionary idea. Don't do $25 hour work. We've talked about no, you're 100%, but you really organize them. I think in a way that, that probably everybody that consumes that part of it would look at say, five of them and go, I'm not, I need to do that.

Gino Wickman (24:32): Yeah. And, and if I may just take 30 seconds on that. So what I did is I put this mini 30 page book inside of a book, which is very unconventional, but that was the place to do it. Cause I didn't want you to have to buy another book. And so where this evolved is two years ago, I decided to get vulnerable. And I taught this at our EOS conference. And it's for anyone, that's a hard charging individual. It's 10 ways to manage and maximize your energy. They're so powerfully simple, but this is how I've done it for 20 years. And I just kind of put myself out there and said, this is how I absolutely optimize my energy. And again, the reaction has been so incredible. I decided what the heck I'm going to put that in this book.

John Jantsch (25:12): Well, and what I love about this too, is, is there's so many books on managing your time. And I think that that's really the wrong approach. You can't actually manage that. Couldn't agree more. So I love that you focused on energy because that's really, that's how we make time. If you will. All right. Tell people where they can find out you've, you've shared some of the, the links and the websites. And I of course will have them in our show notes, but maybe just invite people to where they can find out more about the book and about all the resources. Yeah.

Gino Wickman (25:39): Fantastic. Well, I'll share four things. You know, the first is that the primary is to go to EOSlife.com. So that's where you'll go to learn about the book and the content and download the tools we talked about. Second thing I would say is if you're intrigued by the 10 disciplines, go to the 10disciplines.com, it's the number ten one zero. You'll see that there. The third thing I would say is if you're curious on everything, I'm up to everything. I've created all of the content in one place. Cause there's really five major pieces of content that I've taught the world. Just go to Gino, wickman.com. If you want to see what I'm up to. And then the last thing I would suggest is if you're going to buy the book, the EOS life, you know, it's in all forms. But what we did with the audio book, if you're an audio book, lover is an in-depth more than two hour interview with me from an incredible interviewer friend and client Rob do bay. And so if you really want to kind of get into the, behind the scenes on all of this EOS life content and the 10 disciplines, the audio book will take to take you to a really fun

John Jantsch (26:42): Place and think we'll also learn that you are a wild and

Gino Wickman (26:44): Crazy guy when you were young. I still am. Yes, I very much so was when I was young.

John Jantsch (26:50): So, um, I will say one thing, you know, on your, your whole delegate, obviously you've taught people to get executive assistants and things of that nature. I will say that your executive assistant is one of the most efficient I've ever worked with most effective I've ever worked with. Oh, that's so nice.

Gino Wickman (27:05): And she's been with me for almost 30

John Jantsch (27:07): Years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she, you can tell that because she kind of channels you and your energy, you know, in her responses, even though you'd know it's not you, which you just told her,

Gino Wickman (27:17): You made her day in my day with that comment.

John Jantsch (27:19): Thank you so much for that. That's a hard thing to teach. So it does, it does take a while. All right, thanks so much for coming back to the duct tape marketing podcast and hopefully we'll run into each other one day soon out there on the road. Always a pleasure, John.

John Jantsch (27:32): All right. So that wraps up another episode. I want to thank you so much for tuning in and you know, we love those reviews and comments. And just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That's right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that 'Offer our system to your clients' tab.