The Silent Power of Entrepreneurial Self-Exploration

0:07Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Chance. My guest today is Rob Dubé. He's a co-founder of ImageOne, visionary and CEO of the 10 Disciplines for Managing and Maximizing Your Energy, and co-founder and podcast host of Entrepreneurial Leap. He's also co-author of a book we're going to talk about today that he wrote with Gino Wickman. He's been a guest on the show. The book is titled Shine, How Looking Inward is the Key to Unlocking True Entrepreneurial Freedom. So Rob, welcome to the show. Thank you, John. I appreciate you having me. It's an honor to be here.

0:46I always love exploring a little bit of people's entrepreneurial past. Are you still involved with ImageOne? That was a significantly different business venture than what you seem to be focused on today. So I'd love to go there first, if you don't mind. Sure. I am involved in the sense that I am a shareholder of the company with the person that I founded it with. Neither of us are involved anymore. And we are what you might say in the owner's box. And we have a CEO who runs it and is much more capable than we are to take it to new heights. So your current business is much more about working with leaders and, you know, as we imply in the book, looking inward, you know, it's definitely a very self-exploration type of work.

1:33Circle, or I'm sorry, Image One was very much, would you call it a software, purely software play? Actually, we provide managed print services, which is document management like copiers and multifunction printers for mid to enterprise size organizations. Okay. So I'll stop on that, except the bridge question, which is, how did your work with growing a company like that, which is a little more brick and mortar, hands-on-ish type of work, lead to kind of your discoveries or your exploration of inner and the 10 disciplines that we're going to talk about? Yeah. So just I'll go back a little bit. I started my entrepreneurial career selling blow pops out of my locker in high school.

2:19My best friend and I were doing that together. And we had all kinds of businesses through high school and college. And the audience usually, when I tell that story, many people relate to it because they've had some experience of their own doing that or they know somebody who has. when we graduated college the two of us started this company image one and it was exciting just to have a business but i had experienced a great deal of trauma growing up and i wasn't feeling like i was as good of a business partner as i needed to be a best friend or and i was married at the time so i just felt like something didn't feel right so i started my own journey of inner work to try to find some peace for myself.

3:02What I learned along the way was that it was helping me be a better leader at the company. And so that's really, you know, those many years ago is really where I first started to see the benefits of the work that I've done. And now to come to where I am today, sharing this with leaders, it's a really, it's an honor to do so. Yeah. So it's funny, How often, two things you mentioned, how often I hear, I started a business when I was in seventh grade or that kind of thing from entrepreneurs. They all have. We all have, right? Mine was a very grunt work-ish. I sealed driveways of the company during the summers to pay my way through high school and college.

3:46It was awful work, but it paid well. The second thing was how many entrepreneurs create businesses around trying to solve their own problem or solve something they couldn't find in the market. And in a lot of ways, that's kind of what you did. You were trying to solve your own frustration or problem at some level, and that led you to an entrepreneurial discovery, which I think is so common. I'm curious, as I mentioned, you co-authored this book with Gino Wickman. many people are familiar with him, the EOS system that he created and moved out into the world. What's your connection or what was your initial connection with Gino?

4:23So one of the very impactful things that happened along my journey was that eight years into running the business, my best friend and I looked at each other and we said, we don't know what we're doing. We're growing this business, but it is out of control. And someone introduced us to this guy who was just starting up this business to help entrepreneurs get control of all this stuff. When I met him, I really didn't trust him at first. I thought, I'm not sure about all this stuff. But we ended up becoming one of his first seven clients. He wrote about us in his book, Traction, which has been a bestseller.

5:03And it really did help us gain control of our business. And so it was a really impactful thing for myself inside because I felt more at peace with my business and a little bit more control. And so that's how we first met. And then we struck up a friendship and we would meet very often at a coffee shop for many hours. And he taught me many different ways that he was living his life, which we ultimately wrote in part in the book that you referenced. So in the EOS Life book, which was really, again, an extension of EOS, but into personal life of Genos, it ends with these 10 disciplines. And I don't want to say they're an afterthought, but they're certainly an add-on to the book.

5:49And forgive me if I'm wrong on this. Did you do the audio book with him? Yes. And thank you for bringing that up because they asked me to do that interview for bonus material on the audio book. While I was preparing, I realized, you know, these 10 things I have been learning from Gino over the last 20 years, and they have impacted my life greatly. So after the interview, the two of us went out to lunch and we started talking about how impactful it's been. And I said, you know, I think this would be a great thing to teach to entrepreneurs, but I think it goes much deeper than the way you wrote it.

6:32And that started our path on really taking a deeper dive into each one of the disciplines and how they actually help us understand ourselves better. And once we have a better understanding of ourselves, how we can protect ourselves in our lives, meaning having really clear boundaries. So we are focused on the things that make the most impact in this life. Right. So the 10 disciplines show up in as a big, large part of this new offering shine. Shine. So rather than buy the book, if you want to know what the 10 disciplines are, we might talk about a couple of them, but how do they show up differently in Shine than they did in EOS Life?

7:13So what we do is we take a deeper dive into five of them and really help you understand yourself at a deeper level. Okay. So I'm going to give you a simple example. One of the disciplines is say no often. And this is where we encourage people to get really clear about saying no to anything that doesn't fit into what their purpose is, how they're going to make the greatest impact. And what we notice in working with our clients is that they have a hard time saying no. In fact, they're saying yes to 90 % of the requests that come their way. And so that's high level. So now we have to go a little bit deeper and ask ourselves, why do we say yes to so many things that we know don't really fit into the type of impact that we want to make?

8:07And so we go a little bit deeper and then we go a little bit deeper from there as we keep peeling off the layers and helping ourselves to understand better why we're doing the things that we're doing so we can change our behavior. Well, I'll tell you why we say no or why we say yes to everything. It's because I think in a lot of ways that's a protective mechanism, believe it or not, to stop us from doing maybe some of the hard work that we're afraid to do. Thank you for that, John. God, that's definitely one of the things that's happening, you know, and we see, you know, FOMO, fear of missing out on a great opportunity, you know, things like that, not wanting to disappoint people, you know, and so when you start to identify those, like we've just named three between the two of us, you can go deeper.

8:55Why am I afraid to disappoint people? What's that saying about me? And you keep going deeper into that. Where does that come from, et cetera? So that's why these are so impactful because they really help us take a better look at ourselves. And now a word from our sponsor, Work Better Now. Work Better Now provides outstanding talent from Latin America, hand-matched to your business with over 40 roles across various industries, including marketing. They're a reliable partner for consistently finding the perfect fit for your business. Simply tell them what you need and they'll handle the rest hassle-free.

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10:09That's WorkBetterNow.com, and don't forget that DTM Podcast code. Yeah, yeah, and in the end, we conclude that it was always our parents' fault, right? But that's easy. You know, there's one of the disciplines is simply stated as know yourself. And while that sounds, I don't think anybody argue with that. Certainly every leader that has some self-awareness is a better leader. How do you, from a practical standpoint, you know, break that down in a way that's actually going to serve? Yeah. So what we want, what our hope for you is that you realize what your true self is, that you free your true self.

10:53And so this is you starting to understand the most authentic version of who you are. And that's when you start looking at society and the expectations that you're working with in your life. You start to notice how your identity oftentimes is wrapped around what you do professionally. and also your social circles and the things that seem important in those social circles and really questioning that. This is a very deep dive. Now, practically speaking, how can we start? Well, it depends where you're at on the continuum. You know, you can do simple things, which I imagine many of your listeners have already done to some degree, which is, you know, take a personality profiling tool, take as many as you can and start uncovering all the things that are you.

11:43And you can go from there. You mentioned in kind of a funny way about, you know, must be our parents' fault. Well, you can go to therapy. That's very common these days. When I started going many years ago, it didn't have that same comfort level for many, but you could go to therapy. And those are a way to start to understand cause and effect, et cetera. And there are all sorts of modalities that you can explore that really help you to understand yourself better. And we write about those in the book. So there's a very large list and you can kind of pick and choose what seems to ping you. Yeah. So one of the disciplines, possibly my favorite, although it took a long time to realize this and it's just stated as be still.

12:29And I live in a national forest. I have lots of ability to get out into nature and be still. But for a lot of entrepreneurs, that's actually probably one of the hardest ones for them to do. I mean, we're so used to the chatter, the noise, the what's next on my to do list. You know, what are some of the remedies, I guess, for that? Well, let's start with what are some of the benefits of approaching this discipline? And then what are some of the ways to do it? Yeah. So, you know, the first thing I always like to share is my favorite, one of my favorite quotes from the author Anne Lamont. And she says, my mind is like a bad neighborhood.

13:08I try to never go there alone. And so as someone who's having trouble with the beast still, I encourage you to reflect on that quote from Anne Lamont. Sitting is hard because subconsciously we know exactly what's about to happen. We're about to put ourselves through all the anxiety and stresses and all the wonderful, beautiful things that happened over the last 24, 48 hours, and maybe the last 24 years. You never know what's going to come up. So why would we put ourselves through that? Well, it starts with our ability to come into the present moment and realizing with great perspective, that's really all we have.

13:55And we want to reinforce that as much as we can. The next thing we want to do is be able to pay close attention to our thoughts and our patterns and our loops and our dramas. And again, allowing for us to bring perspective to what those are and what's actually going on. And by doing that, we have a greater ability to begin to settle our mind and also settle our nervous system. So our bodies and our minds aren't made to go at the speed that we're going at. So we're really adapting real time these days. and it's of great benefit for our overall health to just settle down. Much different than sleep, you know, sleep has incredible benefits and we must do that and get enough of it.

14:42But this is different because we are in an awake state and we are fully aware of everything that's going on around us. The sensations, you know, the sensations of sight and smell and hearing and tasting and touching and bringing our awareness to those things. And this, again, I always go back to the word that I like to use, which is perspective. It all brings it into great perspective, whatever it is that we have going on. And hopefully that helps us to carry that through into our regular everyday lives where we get caught up into the many dramas of life or challenges or successes where we can pause and, you know, notice that moment, as Viktor Frankl says, between stimulus and response and make a choice.

15:36And that's why we encourage people to be still for 30 minutes every day. And I know probably everybody needs to work out their own rituals, their own habits, you know, that they practice, right? Are there some that you think, yeah, make up your own mind, but here's a couple that you really ought to explore or consider. Are there certain habits, certain rituals? You know, I know you talk about like, you know, a nightly preparation routine and a morning, you know, ritual. Are there some that you think probably work for almost anybody? Well, as it relates to Be Still, some of the ones that we write about are prayer, contemplation, journaling.

16:19You and I just talked about meditation. Those are simple. You can play around with each and every one of them. You could spend 10 minutes journaling, 10 minutes in a quiet meditation, and then 10 minutes in a contemplation. And you could do five, 10 minutes of prayer. So you do have to kind of find your, you know, what works for you. And, you know, try your best to not get discouraged. People quickly get discouraged. Primarily the feedback that I get is that they're just really busy and it feels like a waste of time. So you have to stick with it and know that there's great benefit down the road for you.

17:01This isn't a quick fix pill that brings you calm because you tried it for a few days or 21 days. It's a lifelong practice. You know, having a routine, same time, same place every day. You know, maybe it's the morning before you get your day started or the evening before you go to bed or anything in between. you really do have to play around and find what's perfect for you. I know you do, or we were talking about you've been doing a retreat for a number of years. That is really a compact way to practice some of what you write about in the book. And I assume that you have worked with some leaders to help them implement some of the ideas and shine.

17:40Are there any, is there anybody that, I don't know if, I don't know if you can talk about personal case studies, but have you seen significant discoveries that people have made by taking up this type of practice as a leader? Absolutely. I mean, in my retreat, I have high performing entrepreneurs that come once per year, they come for five days, three of the days are a complete silence, which many of them are very nervous about doing that. At the end of the retreat, we do a closing circle. And the emotion and the deep love and peace that comes out of these high-performing people that are going 1 ,000 miles an hour.

18:24And the inspiration and motivation they have to carry that with them when they come down off the mountain, because we do it in the mountains, and bring that into their leadership, into their family lives. is truly amazing and and so i always share with them you know please bring this practice with you into your daily life so you know carry it through and keep it going for 30 minutes a day because it will continue to cultivate and grow and your mind will be at greater peace not 100 of the time but it will be a greater, it will have greater peace and you will have a greater energy with those around you.

19:11Yeah. You know what I find you, you talked about, mentioned that idea of maybe it won't be a hundred percent of the time, but I think what does happen, or at least for me, my own experiences, you start to recognize when it's not happening, right? When that piece is not happening. And that to me is, you know, that's half the battle, you know, because you get off of the autopilot, you're like, oh, I'm witnessing this now. And so now I know what to do about it. And I think that's one of the, there is no, like you said, magic pill. I'm going to be happy a hundred percent of the time, but now I'm not going to, I'm going to lose some of the stress because I understand it now, if that makes sense.

19:43Right. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Rob, I want to thank you for stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. Is there someplace you'd invite people to find out more about your work and obviously pick up a copy of Shine? Yes, absolutely. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that. and the listeners can go to the 10disciplines.com and you can find the link to the book there and many of the things that you and I have spoken about today and many more. We always like to encourage people to take our true self assessment. It's a 20 question assessment that will give you a sense of where you are with each one of the 10 disciplines.

20:25And then we have 10 additional questions that help you understand where you are in terms of freeing your true self. And that's a great assessment that you could take every 90 days just to shine light where light needs to be shined. Again, I appreciate you taking a moment and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.