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61: Do Nothing w/ Rob Dube · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  This episode is sponsored by National Technology Management. Visit TrustNTM.com for more information. I'm Kelly Siegel and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living. Let's get living.
• 0:21
  It's a genuine honor to have today's guest on the Heart of Life podcast. I only wish I'd listened to him and followed his advice from the moment I met him. I now do, and as you all know, life is good. From selling blow pops in high school to Forbes Best Small Company's recognition, meet Rob, the visionary behind Image One, a company dedicated to delivering genuine care and extraordinary experiences with a passion for mindful leadership. He's the author of Do Nothing. And I got the book right here, Do Nothing, for those that are watching.
• 0:51
  Now I just lost my spot. Do nothing. The CEO of the 10 Disciplines for Managing Energy and a mentor of Entrepreneurial Leap. Join him on the Leading with Genuine Care podcast as Rob inspires entrepreneurs to maximize their impact with inner strength. He's not just a business leader. He's a community hero, too, having served on boards and received the Rare Everyday Hero Award. Welcome to the Harder Than Life podcast, Rob.
• 1:16
  Kelly, thank you for having me. This has been an honor to hear from you and to be on here with you and the amazing work that you do. I've enjoyed listening to your podcast for a while. So being with you to chat a little bit is super special. Well, I tell you, I meant what I said in the intro and I used half of yours and half of what I wrote. And at the end of the day, you know,
• 1:40
  Life is lessons. And the smart people learn from their mistakes, the wise ones learn from other people's mistakes. So the people that are listening, I was a young kid doing well in life and I met Rob and I own an IT company and I walk in and I meet this individual who has boundaries and standards and living life the right way. And he put all this information in front of me that you teach in the 10 disciplines, 10disciplines.com. I'm surely a part of it right now. It's brilliant, highly recommend it.
• 2:09
  And you instilled these boundaries and standards on me. And I was like, who is this guy? And I walked away. So it worked for you. But we probably missed out on millions of dollars by not teaming up. Because when we did start working together, there was definitely money to be made. So my...
• 2:30
  lesson is anybody that's looking to work with you had better work with you because as I'm going through the 10 disciplines, I could have learned this from you years ago, and I wish I had. It's one of my only regrets. Everything else happens the way it's supposed to happen. So again, I want to remind everybody, just if you want to get a quick nugget, as I mentioned in the intro, you wrote the book, Do Nothing. And if you haven't read it, folks, order it today. I'm showing it up for those that are watching this on YouTube. Thank you, Kelly.
• 3:00
  The premise is to do less physical work and do more creating with your mind through meditation. How did you first discover the benefits of meditation for leadership and business success? Well, you know, I believe that we, and one of the things that we teach in our programs is we all have an outer story and an inner story. And, you know, my, as you mentioned in your introduction, you know, I started selling blow pops with my best friend when we were in high school, we started all these different businesses.
• 3:29
  founded ImageOne, which is the company that you referenced that you and I talked about doing business together. Still own it, but not running it. And it's been a successful venture for us. My business partner, Joel Perlman, and I sold the business actually in 2004, and we were 32 years old. So we had a successful exit, but then we got it back at no cost 18 months later.
• 3:57
  which I'm happy to talk more about, but I want to keep the story, the outer story kind of brief. And so, you know, we built the business, very focused on culture. Like you mentioned, we've had some recognition, which has been very humbling. And we're proud of what we built over there at ImageOne.
• 4:17
  Now, that's the outer story. That's what everyone sees. And, you know, maybe they're impressed or something around that. Like, wow, looks like they're doing great. Looks like everything's perfect.
• 4:29
  The inner story for most of us is much different. And you've been so great about sharing your story and your amazing book. And, you know, my story is one of growing up with a lot of trauma, sexual, physical, mental abuse, health issues and and.
• 4:47
  getting into my early 20s, starting a business. As I mentioned with my best friend, I got married at 22. I had my first child at 25. And I started to notice that I was very anxious, stressed out, and just really not a very good person in general. And I intuitively knew, thank goodness, I needed to do something about that.
• 5:09
  And so I started asking questions of people and trying to understand how I could find some peace in my life. And through many different parts of my journey, and I'm happy to talk about any of them, but I wanna circle this back to your question around meditation, is around 2004, I got introduced to meditation and I found that to be very useful, obviously in my personal life, but I started to notice it translated into my leadership style.
• 5:38
  I became less reactive and way more present. I was able to slow down and make better decisions. And it really changed everything, I think, from my perspective, as far as how I went about not only leading the company, but leading my life. Thank you for sharing that. We're going to deepen, we're going to dive into the...
• 6:00
  physical sexual trauma, because I had no clue. But I wanna remind everybody that you, so you're 32 years old, you sell out of Image One, which was arguably the best print management company then, and is now, when printing is going away, but you guys are still thriving. So I wanna set the scene so people understand this is a highly successful businessman, father,
• 6:29
  husband and overall person. And I love, uh,
• 6:33
  interacting with you. This isn't, this isn't a bromance. I'm just giving credit where credit is due, Rob. And I tell you, I've been, it's hard for me to do because for so many years, I resented what you did. And, and, and now I'm just like, give me more, give me more. You're the best. Thank you. How do you create a culture of mindfulness within the organization? And what benefits have you seen for doing so?
• 7:00
  Well, first I'll just say, I don't know that you can create a culture of mindfulness, but as somebody who's leading a company or leading a team, what you can do is show up and be mindful. And that kind of goes back to what I was mentioning before around first and foremost, being fully present in this moment.
• 7:22
  And so what happens oftentimes as leaders, as entrepreneurs, visionary slash CEOs is, you know, we're the people that others come to for answers. And that's one of the things that drives us, actually. It gives us purpose.
• 7:41
  But what is really most valuable is our ability to just listen to what the problem is. And even if we know through our experience, intuition, or otherwise the answer, the real gift is just being able to listen and help the person that you're with figure out the answer for themselves.
• 8:00
  That's the greatest gift that you can give them because they know the answer. It's within them. And your special talent is to be able to bring that out in them. And the best way to do that is knowing how to be fully present in this moment and being a great listener and asking really, really amazing questions.
• 8:21
  Eight minutes in and you just freaking drop the bomb. And it's literally do nothing. It's the hardest thing in the world to do. And just listen. And they will come up with the answer. So just to rerun it by do nothing. Let that person come up with the answer. And if they won't, then you just say, what would you do? That's what I tend to do.
• 8:42
  You know, be okay with them making a mistake too. It's okay. Mistakes lead to wisdom. I think you and I were talking either it was before recording or when we started recording. I can't remember. But you know, these are just things that happen in life. And sometimes things go great. And sometimes they don't go so great. It's all part of the wisdom that we gain in every moment if we're paying attention.
• 9:06
  Well, everybody talks about that mindfulness and meditation. I don't know how to meditate on it. I don't know what I'm doing, but I do it 10 minutes a day. And I know in the days that I don't do it, I'm not a good person. I'm not as good. I'm not as normal as I am. I haven't done it yet today. And you know, but.
• 9:24
  If you do it every day, the little things that used to bother you, and they're all little things. They don't bother you anymore. I've had a Dickens of a morning. Our last podcast, we just had the shelf. I'm not even the slightest bit upset. I'm going to show up for you, and we're going to go and have a good time, and we're going to record a really good show to ensure that people learn from this.
• 9:46
  The wisdom that you're sharing there is we let things come as they may, and then we just deal with them in the moment. So what's the point about getting upset that the last podcast got shelved? It's over. That was the past. You're in the present moment. You deal with what you have in front of you now, and later you'll deal with that. But when things don't go our way, which is if you're human, pretty much every day, things don't go our way, whether you're paying attention or not.
• 10:15
  And it's all about how you react to it. It's that moment between stimulus and response and you get to choose. And that moment's a millisecond. Spending some time in silence helps us kind of clear things a bit, whether it's 10 minutes or five minutes or longer. It's like there's that jar and the cap is on tight. There's water in it. There's sand in the jar and you shake it up and it's all mucky. You can't see through the jar.
• 10:45
  But when you set it down, the sand settles. And when the sand settles, you can see clearly through the water. And that's like your mind. And that's why, Kelly, you're able to so easily let the past be the past and be right in the present moment with me. And I'm grateful to you for that. So I have to point out something. This is what I meant to say on the first one is –
• 11:07
  We are two different people, but as I heard your opening remarks, we actually might have grown up the same. We took two different paths, but here we are, both moderately successful monetarily, but I think the biggest success is being at peace with ourself internally. And that...
• 11:27
  is evident on you and hopefully with me. So even though we're two different people, we ended up in the same place. And that's how if somebody at first doesn't appear to be like you, you should listen because you can learn from that person. Had I listened, I probably would be here a little faster. So-
• 11:44
  That was my one little thing. So you are closely linked to Gino Wickman, the founder of EOS. The harder than life listeners know my main company, National Technology Management, are devout users of the program. How did you find it and what did it do for image one?
• 12:00
  Well, in 91, we started the company and eight years in, we didn't know what we were doing. We were an absolute mess. We were stepping over each other. There was no organization. The processes were out of whack. We had the wrong people in the wrong seats, et cetera, et cetera. I could go on and on. And, you know, we just went out to our peer groups and we said, we need help. Like we're growing and growing.
• 12:27
  You know, we just don't know what we're doing. No one taught us how to run a business. And someone introduced us to Gino. He had just successfully exited from his family business and he was starting up this consulting business to teach people these six questions.
• 12:45
  keep these six components of how to successfully run your business. It wasn't even called EOS there, and there wasn't even his bestselling book, Traction. So we were one of his first seven clients and he was experimenting with us, but he was doing it very successfully because we just grasped on all the concepts he was teaching. We implemented them into our businesses, into our business, and it changed everything for us.
• 13:14
  And I truly, that was in 99. And five years later, as I mentioned, in 04, we were approached by that public company. We didn't, we weren't even looking to sell. There's no way they would have even recognized us if we weren't implementing the entrepreneurial operating system or EOS. So Gino and I struck up a friendship and, you know, we would get together, you know, every year throughout the years and, you know,
• 13:40
  Fast forward to a couple of years ago, we started a couple of businesses together, one of which you mentioned, which is the 10 disciplines. So that's kind of how we came together in both friendship and business. I wonder if he would do, if he'd rewrite the traction, if he would include mindfulness or meditation or some sort of, you know, because it's really taken off now. It's you, you can be very successful financially and be terrible at home.
• 14:10
  But if you're successful at home in your personal life, there's a fairly good chance you're going to be a successful businessman. The reverse is not true. Or else you'd never see these celebrities killing themselves.
• 14:22
  Yeah. So Gino and I are, you know, I'm so glad you brought it up in that way because I know he wouldn't write it any different. The reason is, you know, he's teaching entrepreneurs how to put the right components into their business to help them have a successful business. Now, the point that you're making is,
• 14:45
  is the mission that the two of us are on. And that's a book that's coming out that we co-wrote together in March of 2023, and that's called Shine, how looking inward is the key to unlocking true entrepreneurial freedom. And so that's what the next phase of this, Gino always likes to say, I think I helped all these entrepreneurs build empires on their trauma.
• 15:14
  So now the next step is to go inside and, you know, work on the totality of their lives. And that's what we've been doing together for the last two years is the passion. And thank you for coming into our program. And thank you for the kind things that you've said about it, because we are on a mission through our 10 Disciplines program and our true self mastermind, you know, really to impact a million entrepreneurs and help them free their true selves.
• 15:43
  I'm a poster child for what you guys are doing. And, and if you want me to, I'd, first of all, I'd like you guys both to come back on when the book is out and we'll, I'll read it ahead of time and we'll interview on that because that's what I did. And if you want me to write anything for it, that's, you know, I, I was, I'm going through the 10 disciplines. That's how I live my life. And then we are devout EOS. So anything that you need for that, I firmly believe in giving back and I just believe in this. This is how I live my life. And, you know,
• 16:12
  It's very peaceful and it's very freeing. This is how harder than life was born because I'm running EOS because I'm mindful because I do the daily habits and rituals to, to be peaceful and to just be absolutely zero chaos in my life. So let's talk about that for a sec. Is that okay?
• 16:34
  Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, because you're bringing some things to mind for me as entrepreneurs. And, you know, you and I have been on this journey for a while, you know, running a business, starting a business, being an entrepreneur. It's a unique thing to go through. And there's a lot of similarities. While we're all very unique in our own way, you know, one of the things that Gino helped us discover is that as entrepreneurs,
• 17:03
  We are driven. And having this driven part of us is a blessing and a curse. And there's some science around this, actually. We all have, all humans have the D2, D4 gene. But in entrepreneurs, or I should say in driven people, so it's not just entrepreneurs, it's high performers in athletics, in science, in any sort of modality you can imagine, entrepreneurs being one of them.
• 17:32
  It's about 10% of the population's D2 and D4 genes mutate differently, which means we have an insatiable appetite for the fact that we're never satisfied.
• 17:46
  We're always growing. We're always moving forward. We're always like, okay, I did that, what's next? So we're driven. And what we tend to not understand is that the people who work for us, that are part of our teams, even the people in our personal lives,
• 18:04
  They don't understand that because they're not wired that way. And we're looking at them and we're like, hey, what's your deal? Come on, let's go. Let's move. We got to grow. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. Like, I'm good. And so that can be, you know, the curse is we can leave a black cloud behind us. But the blessing is that we make the greatest impact in this world. I mean, we couldn't have 8 billion people being driven by.
• 18:32
  but 800 million are the change makers in this world. And so being driven is a really important thing to understand about ourselves. Because once we understand that, we can discover the second thing, which is that we are making all of our decisions from love or fear, from love from our heart or fear from our ego. And when we're making decisions from our ego, which is often the case,
• 18:58
  It's coming from the wrong place. We're making fear-based decisions. They are not coming from our true self, from our intuition. When we make it from love, you mentioned peace. That's what got me going on this. If there's an ease, there's a peacefulness that comes along with that. And we have to work on this, actually, most of us, really pausing through mindfulness and
• 19:24
  And paying attention to, wait a second, what decision am I making right now? Is this coming from fear? Is this coming from my ego? Or is this coming from my heart? Is this coming from love? And if you keep going from love, it's going... And a lot of times people are going to criticize you. Well, you could have made a ton of money on that deal. Why didn't you do that? Because it wasn't coming from my heart. The money, losing the money is fear-based.
• 19:50
  Coming from your heart means you're coming from the right place. The money's going to come. Don't worry about that. The success is going to come when you do it the right way from your heart. And then that brings me to the last discovery, discovery number three, which is it is possible to be driven and have peace like you, Kelly, because you don't have to smush down your driven life.
• 20:16
  What many of us believe, many of us high performers, entrepreneurs, we believe that this fear, this thing, this angst that drives us, if we let go of that, we won't be successful anymore. But it's the opposite. You'll be more successful. Look at you. You're coming from a place of peace and you're more successful. Right.
• 20:38
  There's more ease. You're making better decisions. You're growing your company. You're growing this podcast, your book, all the things that you're doing, your fitness. I mean, it's out of this world, all these things you're doing, because you make your decisions from your heart. But yet you're still driven as anybody I know. It's unbelievable. So Kelly can be driven and have peace at the same time, and so can you, whoever out there who's listening.
• 21:05
  First of all, thank you for all that. And I receive it. And it was, that was one of the hardest things in the world to do is to, is to make the change from making fear-based decisions and love because you could be very successful running and being fearful. I was always fearful. There's so much success. Yeah. I mean, monetarily. That's right. So I will tell you that.
• 21:29
  I'm smack dab in the middle of making that transition. And along with, we're two and a half years in our EOS journey. So we are literally morphing, national technology management, morphing into a new company. And we're shedding the skin of the old. And it is amazing.
• 21:46
  It is scary and it is painful. I'm not going to sit here and say to people that is always rosy. Like right now we are in a drought where we, it's where we're, we know who we're going to be and we're, and we're trying not to take on, um,
• 22:05
  customers like we used to and literally the visionary just said or the the our integrator just said let's just go out and get the business that we used to nice and we both looked everybody looked everybody nope we're gonna we're gonna trust the process trust love and everybody said just buckle up it's gonna get a little hectic for a minute and then love will will will reign
• 22:35
  Those love and fear-based. And then the drip. So a lot of times she'd, she'd catch me. So I have, I'm the visionary. She's the, the, the integrator. And she'll be like, can we just celebrate this win for one second? I'm like, Oh no, no, no, no, no. I've already got to the next one. I don't wait one minute. I am onto the next one. I've gotten better. And she always says, she's like, you're amazing. How adaptable I am.
• 22:59
  I used to just be a bull in a China shop, as you know, when you met me. And now I'm soft and sweet and a huge heart. I love everybody almost to a fault. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I believe most people are good and we're set up for a massive 2024. Our pipeline is huge. We just made another, we made another hire for another sales team and we're
• 23:25
  We're disrupting the industry based on our VTO vision traction organization chart of EOS. We, it is insane. I didn't know life could be this. I didn't know business could be this easy. And I didn't know not life could be this easy.
• 23:40
  I love that you say it like that. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. You had the freaking cheat code. So listen, go to 10disciplines.com. It'll be in here. The next one, I think this will air in January. So the next one will be starting just around January. We're in the middle of it. It's not only what you learn in there, but the people you meet. Yeah.
• 24:01
  the like-minded individuals that you meet that can help you along your journey. Because what do they say? You want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go with people. And I will tell you, it's like a little cult or a fraternity, EOS people, because you can look and you can match up
• 24:20
  core values and you'll know right away if you're going to do if you want to do business but most eos companies that we run into we end up doing business with so kudos uh to you and i love everything about you and anything i can do to help and and i just i'm a firm believer i'm drinking the kool-aid because it's it's provided me my family which extends to my work family a fruitful life so
• 24:44
  I love it. Let me, if you don't mind, I just add just to build on what you're saying, because I want to encourage everybody when you go to the 10 disciplines dot com, there's an assessment. It's called the true self assessment. It takes like less than five minutes to take. And, you know, we're happy to review it with you if you do take it or you can keep your scores to yourself.
• 25:07
  It isn't the traditional scoring system like in school, like if you're 90 or above, you're not an A, etc. What it does is it consistently shines light in areas of your life that need light shined on you. And so it keeps you in check.
• 25:24
  And so we always encourage people to take it every 90 days or so just to notice, where do I need to shine light on? Once you do that, and then what you're doing by going through the program, the 10 Disciplines does this for us. First, it helps us understand ourselves.
• 25:43
  We must understand ourselves at a very deep level inside. Why are we doing the things that we're doing in our life? What is really truly driving us? And what do we want out of this life? And that takes time for some people to really sort of, you know, start to really think that through.
• 26:03
  And make sure that it all gels together. And we take you through that part of the process. We have five disciplines that do that. Once you have a good understanding of yourself, you are crystal clear on what you need to do in this life. And you've got to protect yourself. That means creating really, really solid boundaries. And those boundaries are important because every moment...
• 26:29
  of your life needs to be spent on energy driving activities, ways that you can make impact. And by the way, impact can, oftentimes people think that's big. Actually, it could be really small. Many interactions with team members at your company or family members,
• 26:47
  or just out about at the grocery store. This is the kind of impact that we make. So the other five discoveries, totaling 10, help you protect yourself and create those boundaries. Then you go into free yourself, which are the three discoveries that we teach, which I taught you about. And once you free yourself, you shine. And that's what we want for you. We want you to shine. And that's
• 27:17
  I can't wait. This is a seven figure class podcast. I mean, I am telling you, listen to what he's saying because it's right and go to 10 disciplines and try it out. I got a couple of one of the disciplines was take more time off. I mean, I I'm not kidding you because.
• 27:37
  What, what the, I'm going to paraphrase it in my words because the listeners kind of listen to me and they understand what I'm talking about. Some of my best downloads have been when I've been just quiet doing nothing. So I will paint a picture for you. I was in my home in Florida. I have a house in Florida and I was sitting in my hot tub one day and I was anxious and I was trying to figure out why I was anxious. And it's because I was doing nothing. But I was also remembering that, that what I had to go back to do, and it was, I'm
• 28:04
  And I basically just sat there, did nothing, and realized I didn't want to check email anymore.
• 28:10
  And I had the download during my do nothing moment and that I was going to hire an assistant. And since I've done that, I've freed up my angst because I can't, I think email is one of the most inefficient things in the world. You can, it's, you just said moving the needle is what you said. You said it more elegantly than that. But moving the needle isn't sitting here checking emails. So I said, I want, and since the day that I did that,
• 28:38
  my life has changed so i can use that energy that i would be going back and forth with emails of miscommunication towards really creating something magical that moves the needle so i'm going to expend energy it is going to be on a big grand scale and that's what he's teaching so having said that
• 28:58
  Take more time off. Literally, that was one of the disciplines. He went in and said, I want you to take, what did you say? It was so- 130 days off. 130 days. Think about work the entire day. And one more. You said you wanted to take a full month off. I want to tell you that I got anxious when you said that. And then I started thinking about it.
• 29:19
  I take two weeks, or I take a full week off in July, and I take two weeks off in December. And I said, you know what? I'm aiming to take July off and December of next year. And we're setting up the structures to do that. Because
• 29:35
  What I'll do is I'll create more harder than life. And as the harder than life podcast and everything is, is to give back to charity. And every minute that I'm sitting thinking, I will figure out a way to make more money to donate to the cause. So that's what he's teaching. So we're going to go into there. I just get showed you how we measure ROI. So how can other leaders measure the return on investment of incorporating meditation, mindfulness, as well as these 10 disciplines? Cause I kind of put them all together into their organizations. Yeah.
• 30:05
  Well, a couple of things come to mind. First of all, how will you get an ROI on being a more mindful leader? Well...
• 30:14
  The first thing is if you're going to put dollars to it, I'm not sure you could throw it on a spreadsheet and figure that out. But I think it's pretty obvious that when you're leading in a way that is mindful, which doesn't mean you still don't have to make really hard decisions, you know, and affect people's lives. You know, that's part of leading, unfortunately, you know.
• 30:37
  Most of us don't like to have to affect somebody's lives because they're the, as EOS language would say, they're the wrong person for the organization or they're in the wrong seat. So maybe they're the right person, but they're in the wrong seat.
• 30:52
  And so what you can do is, you know, you can do things from a place of compassion. So, for example, at ImageOne, we have a program called Mindful Transitions, and that's where we come together jointly and we talk about that this isn't working and how can we both have a soft landing so it isn't abrupt and still have great care for each other.
• 31:16
  So that's one way from a leadership standpoint that you can put a process into place. Now, how does that come for an ROI? Well, I think first from your own physical and mental health, there's an ROI, but you're going to have a stronger culture. And if you believe that a stronger culture leads to better results, then you're going to have better results. It's just a fact. So I guess you could start tracking the numbers if you're a data person.
• 31:43
  from the day that you really started changing your culture and five years later, how are you guys doing? I would argue that the best cultures that I've seen are consistently over-performing based compared to their own industry peers. I've seen that time and time again. Now, personally, Oh, go ahead. No, I was just, I wrote you, you know, we, we share the same brain I think now and I wrote culture, I last fires, fun and love.
• 32:13
  How do you measure those? I don't know on an ROI, but that's what we...
• 32:18
  Well, I'll tell you at ImageOne, we actually do measure those things. So we have what we call the, we have an annual happy survey, we call it. And it's a very extensive survey. I want to say it's like 80 questions. We give people specific block time to take it. It's that important to us. It could be anonymous or not anonymous. We always ask that they do it non-anonymously.
• 32:45
  And what we do is we start to ask questions of them around their personal happiness and well-being in their lives. And again, the totality of their lives. And what that means is I'll give you an example. So I might ask you, how happy are you on a scale of one to ten? You'll answer. Then we ask a follow up question. How happy is the person most close to you in your life? Yeah.
• 33:13
  And then you rank that person. How happy are the people within your household? And then they rank that, that. And we ask them how many people are in their household. How happy are your friends? And so what we do is now we're helping you create a picture around not just you, but the people that you're surrounded by. And that helps you understand, holy mackerel, I'm like a seven in happiness out of 10. But when I look around the people I've surrounded myself with,
• 33:42
  they're miserable. Like I think of my, you know, I'm not, I'm hypothetically speaking. Yeah. So, oh, my best friend or my spouse is like a four in happiness. And so then you have to come to terms with that. And then you can take action with it.
• 33:57
  But what it does for us as an organization is it helps us understand what tools do we need to provide to people so they can take action and have a more peaceful life or a happier life. And so that's what this whole survey is about. And of course, we've tracked these results for years so we can see how things are going, like during the pandemic. Whew. Whew.
• 34:24
  Man, you should have seen the scores during that period of time. It was rough. People were struggling. Big surprise, right? And so, you know, we got to understand better. Well, what can we bring to them? Now we understand what they actually need. And so that's another way that you can actually track, you know, the ROI on having a really strong culture.
• 34:48
  It's too funny. We do the same thing, of course. It was one of our rocks. It was one of our rocks. What books, resources, or mindfulness practices do you recommend for aspiring business leaders who want to explore the path further besides the aforementioned do nothing and traction?
• 35:06
  And The Shine coming out soon. Yeah. No, I do list many resources in the book. But, you know, my favorite all time book, because everybody's in a different place in their life. So it's hard to say, like, you know, this is the best one. This is the best one. But so but the one I always put at the top is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
• 35:30
  So, you know, that always puts everything in perspective for anybody, whether you are far along on your journey and you're feeling peace, or if you're, you know, early on and you're just very, you know, anxious and having a hard time in life, that book brings such great perspective to life in general.
• 35:59
  experimenting with a mindfulness practice or a meditation practice. Of course, there's many apps that you can play around with, like Headspace and 10% Happier are a couple that are very well-known. Calm is another one. But I always like to share with people, practice with those apps as if they're a teacher for you, but knowing you should graduate from the app and then be on your own.
• 36:29
  Because what ends up happening is oftentimes people get attached to the voice on the other side that's guiding them through the meditation or maybe some of the different wisdom talks that these apps provide. So they essentially become entertainment.
• 36:49
  for us. And that means we're not really practicing what's intended, which is being alone with our thoughts. And there's a great quote I always like to share by Anne Lamont. And she says, my mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try to never go there alone. And so that's, I think, where we want to get to is being alone with our thoughts, being alone in that bad neighborhood, and just being with it.
• 37:15
  and letting it all come up, all the anxieties, the traumas, the different things that are holding us back, and hopefully having them have some way to release or at least bringing awareness to how it's affecting us so we can maybe do something about it in our life. And so I always encourage, graduate from the apps, and you can cancel your subscription, which they don't like me saying that, of course, but that's what I encourage.
• 37:44
  I use the daily calm every day, but I also do, based on your recommendation, that's 10 minutes. So that's not enough for me. Anytime I'm on an airplane, I'm usually deep into a meditation. I do a lot on my own now, based on your recommendation, and we're going to get into that.
• 38:03
  I am a fan of routines and rituals, as I know you are. Will you break down a typical day for me? What's the first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do for bed? And then include how long you meditate. I know the answer, but I want the listeners. Okay, sure. I wake up now at five o'clock and I meditate for 45 minutes.
• 38:21
  And I do journaling for 10. Then I have some coffee and some breakfast and I read for about a half an hour. And then I do some yoga, light weights and stretching for about 25 minutes.
• 38:40
  And then I'm a runner, so I usually go for a run for about 45 minutes. Six miles a day is usually what I get out, get what I'm able to fit in. And I come back, get ready for the work day. And I like to be in my office usually somewhere around nine o'clock and have my first meeting usually somewhere around 9.30. I ask my assistant to never schedule more than four meetings a day,
• 39:09
  So no more than four hours or just four meetings.
• 39:13
  That gives me some buffer time to truly be prepared and to take any actions that came out of the day. I like to be shut down by the end of the day around 6 p.m. Then I'll usually have some dinner and hang out with my wife for a bit and go for a walk with her. And then 20-minute meditation before I go to bed, which is usually around 8.30, sleep by 9, and repeat. You just described my life, but I –
• 39:43
  You know, everybody's different. And what I suggest everybody to do is to steal some of those things. I will tell you, if you follow that to a T, you will be successful. It sounds boring, but it's not. It's massively wild successful. I've known Rob for many years. And this, like I say again, I hate to keep singing your accolades, but you are a successful person.
• 40:05
  Human, not just businessman, human, you are winning. And that's what this is all about. We're only here, we're all going to die. So why not live a good life? And going out and partying, you end up creating, you end up fighting against yourself. So those are great, great habits and rituals. And I tell you, mine's very similar. I do a little bit, I mix in a little bit more gratitude, a little bit more working out.
• 40:33
  And my day starts at eight and ends at four. But it's very similar. Very similar. I got to get that second meditation. But I've been doing it lately. Let me build on a couple of things that you're mentioning. First, you said something really wise at the beginning, which is everybody's different. So my routine isn't for everybody and yours isn't either. Yeah.
• 40:55
  And so the point is find a routine. Now, some people don't like that idea, like routine. I just like to let the day take, you know, just let the day fall in place or, you know, things like that. Actually, by having the routine, you actually do get to allow things to come your way. So, you know, there's just these little things that we set ourselves up for success, you know, on the bookends.
• 41:20
  And then the rest can kind of fall into place the way, you know, oftentimes people think their whole day should be. But it's all about setting ourselves up in the right way. The other thing you mentioned was gratitude. And thank you, because I forgot to mention.
• 41:36
  as part of my journaling practice, both in the morning and I actually do it in the evening, is I do include a gratitude practice. And you and I know how powerful that is. And I just want to encourage the listeners, if there's anything that you do,
• 41:51
  Take time to be grateful at the end of the day, at the beginning of the day. And it can literally be anything. There's so much. And if you're going through hard times, sometimes that's hard to see. I had a friend once and he explained to me that he had a very difficult, challenging life and he would walk around the streets of Boston and everybody looked pissed off to him.
• 42:17
  But they weren't. But that's just how he was seeing the world. Right. And he said, you know, he worked through and then he he shared with me about a day where he was walking down the streets of Boston and people didn't look pissed off anymore. And he noticed something had shifted.
• 42:35
  And, you know, by having gratitude, sometimes when things are hard, we find something little, the sun shining, you know, I'm breathing right now, whatever. Even if you're kind of fibbing to yourself, do it and keep doing it day after day. And you will begin to change some of your mental constructs.
• 42:55
  You'll begin to rewire your brain, maybe find the right way that what I'm sharing right now fits with you. But begin to just get into that idea of just gratitude each and every moment and find one part of your day. It only takes like 20 seconds to express gratitude.
• 43:16
  I begin every day and end it with gratitude. I just say three things I'm grateful for. Right now, I'm grateful for you. I appreciate your time. I'm grateful to call you a friend. Every time I get a text message from you, I smile. And I wish it would have been sooner. But I will tell you that it can be simple things. Sometimes it's just the bed I'm sleeping in. Sometimes my cat is nuzzled next to me. It's just simple. And then when you do that on a regular basis, you will start to think that the world is rigged in your favor.
• 43:46
  So good. You know that everything happens for you. It's insane. I feel like every day that the universe, that God, that source, whatever it is, is aligning things to make me happy. I just, you know, even when things aren't working, it's like, okay, we're going to keep you out of this.
• 44:03
  Hey, what did you, I wrote this down earlier. What the heck did you think you were going to do at 32 by retiring or quit? What did you think you were going to do? We were trying to figure that out actually, when they gave us the offer to buy it back or not buy it back. I mean, they gave us the offer to take it back. So, but no, we were looking at all kinds of different business concepts and, you know, all different kinds of things and we just hadn't landed on anything. So, but it wasn't meant to be because they came back at us and we decided to take it back.
• 44:31
  I will probably do some sort of work, especially in this personal development, this harder-than-life space until I die. I just – I love – and I will – shameless plug again. Since I've implemented EOS, we have no fires. So I love walking into the office every day. I love –
• 44:49
  living every day. It's through the mindfulness and EOS. This is, I can't stress it enough. And I'm going to tell you right now, watch 2024. Watch it. I'm telling this to the listeners. You'll know because you're going to be right there with me, but watch what you're going to do.
• 45:06
  We do in 2024. I'm excited. I got some big things in the work. You know what? I love what you said, by the way, about fires. You know, actually, there's those fires. They just don't they just they just don't get so big because now you have the process in place.
• 45:26
  to get it when it's small, because there's problems still. That's never ending. There's always gonna be problems in business. It's just your ability to have the right things in place so they don't get out of control. And that's what you've done. And in the EOS world, they're called core processes. Core processes. And when you identify and they're followed by all,
• 45:50
  You just don't. And it's a lot like, I'll use an analogy like this. Everybody knows football. Most people know football. And everybody has gaps in the defense that they have to mind. If you don't, if you break containment and you go to the wrong gap, you usually get gashed. And it's a long run or a long touchdown.
• 46:10
  If you just have the right person in the right seat followed by all, you will not get gashed. It's like taking your gaps. So we're going to switch to you a little more because we're coming up against, I like to keep this an hour. What's something you believe in that almost nobody agrees with you on?
• 46:27
  I don't really know. That's a good question. But one of the philosophies I have, and it was inspired by a Buddhist symbol called an Enso. And an Enso is kind of like a circle, but it isn't completely closed. And there are many different ways of saying what the meaning is, but essentially it is, I am nothing, I am everything. Yeah.
• 46:49
  And so that's something that I like to, if the question presents itself, I always like to present to others is this idea that I am nothing, meaning all of us, we're nothing, but yet we are everything. And because we're all connected, do it all.
• 47:08
  There's a book that is that symbol. Do you know the book I'm talking about? I don't. I'm going to go find it. I'll text it to you when I see it. It's that symbol. And it's a metaphor of going through life. I'll send it to you. You know who sent it to me? I think John Dawoskin sent it to me. Somebody gave me this. And I'm like, I love when you're open and receiving God or universe or source or whatever just keeps sending you good stuff. Yeah.
• 47:37
  If you could create one law in the universe, what would it be and why? Well, I wish, you know, I really wish the law would be we would just always have compassion for each other. Obviously, that would simplify all of our lives and we wouldn't have so much angst, you know, around the world. So we all want some degree of peace. We all want the same things in life and they're usually pretty basic.
• 48:05
  You know, we just want to be heard. We want to be loved. You know, it's nice if you have a roof over your head and some food, you know, available to you. Once you get past that, it's, you know, just diminishing returns. The rest doesn't make you all that much more happy. You and I know, you know, success is great. It brings some comfort, some, you know, added comforts. But at the end of the day, the happiness that we all desire is within us.
• 48:34
  And there was more compassion in the world, which there's a lot, by the way. I mean, I don't want to make it seem like there's not. There's a great deal of compassion. But there's, you know, challenging situations that are always going on that, you know, maybe bring awareness to us of the importance of that.
• 48:51
  You just took two of the next questions. So define happiness and then define success because they're two separate things. Yeah. I mean, for me, it has to do with inner peace. You know, the rest will just fall into place as it should. I don't really know what that is. You know, I have goals. I'd
• 49:08
  want certain things, you know, to happen. And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. I just try not to be attached to that outcome. So at the end of the day, you know, it's again, I think just circling back to what I mentioned before, you know, the peace that we are all always looking for, it's inside of us. It's innate. You know, we have that peace when we're born. And what happens is the world gets a hold of us.
• 49:37
  And so it's all about where we were brought up, how things are unfolding, all the different things. And it just starts to create a whole different set of mental constructs for us. But if you just go back to if one can imagine that moment when you were born, you were free. You were your true self at that moment. And so I think that's really all we really want at the end of the day.
• 50:05
  You are a remarkable human being. I just love you. I mean, I just, I'm fascinated by you. I could tag it, sit down and talk with you for days. Same. If you could have dinner with one person who's alive or dead, who would it be and why?
• 50:22
  Well, I've always, you know, I've always really wanted to meet the Dalai Lama. And I actually had at one point on a list of mine that I just wanted to ask him one question. But I haven't figured out what the question is yet because I feel like he's answered all of them.
• 50:44
  So, um, I still think about that. What would that one question be? So if your listeners have any ideas, I'm really open to them. And that's why I love you because you have me thinking all the time. What would be the one question I read? Did you read the book with the, uh, Dalai Lama and Bishop Tutu? Were they met together? So joy, that's it. It was so good. I mean, I wonder if you recommended that to me. I read it. It's fantastic. What's your biggest fear? Hmm.
• 51:12
  Well, when I think about things that get me anxious, you know, they're usually around my life changing in a way that seems scary. Like, could I handle it if? So I wouldn't say it's something that I ruminate on on a day to day basis. Yeah.
• 51:37
  But I do every now and then have this wave that comes over me. Like, what if, you know, could be, what if something happened to one of my kids or my wife? What if, you know, my whole business got destroyed? You know, what if all these things? So those are fear-
• 52:01
  based things that come into my mind. But part of this whole idea around being more mindful is understanding that that's part of our makeup as humans. We're wired to be fearful. And that's very much why we make a lot of our decisions from fear. So once I can remind myself of what's happening...
• 52:24
  And what the future that I might be thinking about in my mind isn't even here. It isn't happening. I'm just here in this moment. What's the point of all that? It's not worth the angst. So that's a practice.
• 52:42
  that I have to bring into my life and just remind myself that, hey, that's a made up thing. Just like all the wonderful successes one might want that I might think about and make me excited. That's also a fantasy.
• 53:01
  I get those more than I do the fears these days. And I do too. Of course, you and I are wired that way because we're resilient. We're like visionary. We're like everything is going to happen, you know? But, and they do happen to us. That's the truth. But I've learned for myself what makes it most peaceful for me is not getting attached to those outcomes, but living my daily life in this moment.
• 53:30
  And knowing that I'm doing the right things in this moment, that those things might actually take place. But then again, they might not. We're very similar. Again, it's just eerily. I'm looking into a mirror. Our brain waves are connected, Kelly.
• 53:46
  Through the mindfulness, I have so much love for myself, self-love, that I know I have confidence to get myself in and out of any situation, whether it be good or bad. That's right. So that's what gives me the confidence to know that if something – because let's not say if. Something's going to happen in our lifetime that's going to suck. It's true.
• 54:04
  I got the tools and I got the resources and the, what is it, the word, family to help me get through that. Kelly, I have two things I want to mention. One is, you know, there was a time where my son was with a friend in Philadelphia. And I got a call at 2 o'clock in the morning and they'd been in a major accident. Yeah.
• 54:26
  So everything in life was floating along just fine until that phone call. And I could give a crap about anything else that was going on. None of that. All that was just like out of my head. And all I could focus on was that moment.
• 54:41
  what happened with my son. He's good. Everything's fine. But that's how quick things can change. But the other thing I wanted to ask you about is you mentioned this idea that I have a lot of self-love. And what I recognize is a lot of people struggle with that. In fact, they want to take care of more other people actually before themselves. How did you get and find that self-love for yourself?
• 55:08
  You know what, that's a great question. It was an easy answer too. I got it mainly from the book, The Four Agreements, and it was talking about the first agreement being impeccable with your word, keeping the promises you make to yourself and to everybody else. And when you do that and there is no negotiation, you build this trust in yourself that then equates into love.
• 55:37
  And I just kept doing it over and over and over again. And then what I did is I put myself in uncomfortable situations and I would be more vulnerable and I'd put myself out there.
• 55:47
  And, and, and, and think better things would happen. So I have no problem. It's, and I would tell you now I'm expanding that with vulnerability, going out and being extremely vulnerable. Yeah. So self self, um, keeping your honoring your word to yourself, keeping your commitments and then just being vulnerable, being uncomfortable day in and day out, expanding your being.
• 56:10
  Thank you for that question. That was a good question because listeners need to hear that and hear it from my guess is yours is the same. Of course. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
• 56:23
  Well, you know, my wife and I have a 10-year thinking vision that we created three times in our marriage together. So, you know, where I see myself as doing this work with the 10 disciplines and our true self mastermind, impacting a million lives, helping them, free them to their faith.
• 56:49
  free their true selves. And so, you know, that's where I see myself and, you know, my wife and I are spending ample time together in the way that we imagine. And we have very specific things, but I won't get into all of them. But, you know, doing the things that are important to us in our
• 57:10
  you know, being there for our kids in the way in our family members, some of whom we take care of in a way that makes most sense for them. So, you know, just being a rock for them and in any way that that is necessary or not necessary, because they may not need us in the way that we might imagine. So, and really just living a simple life.
• 57:34
  It is simple life. I would have never thought to hear that out of myself, but I love it. So we've talked a lot about the 10 disciplines, but I want you to take a minute, talk about the 10 disciplines in your own words. And that in January, the next class is starting. And then what is this e-leap? I don't think we've talked anything about this. Okay, sure. So the 10 disciplines I mentioned earlier about we help you understand yourself and
• 58:00
  and protect yourself, clear boundaries, so you can free yourself and shine. And so we take you through 10 disciplines that help you do that. And when you go on the website, you'll get a much greater understanding of all that. The next program begins, I believe it's January 30th, 2024. And it's a 10-session program that is one hour in duration. Each session is one hour in duration.
• 58:27
  So we know our audience very well. They're very busy and we go super fast. I mean, the hour goes by in a blink of an eye.
• 58:37
  The setup is I kind of talk a little bit about each discipline for a little bit. Then we have all the attendees do some experiences where they're doing some thought-provoking questions and journaling and different exercises that we provide them, different tools. Then they share with each other in breakout rooms kind of what they've come up with. And then we come out.
• 59:02
  And we wrap for the day and move on to the next session the next week. So it's a very quick way to implement these, integrate these into your lives. And so, again, it starts January 30th and it's 10 sessions over, I think, 12 week period of time.
• 59:20
  So that's the 10 disciplines. Entrepreneurial LEAP or e-leap, which is e-leap.com as Gino and my other business, which is an academy for early stage entrepreneurs. And it's a four session academy, which takes place. The first two take place within 30 days of each other. And the next two are within 90 days of each other.
• 59:44
  And they essentially help entrepreneurs increase their chances of success by putting in the foundational tools that are needed to get them over a million dollars in sales and hopefully graduate into EOS, which you and I have mentioned throughout the conversation here.
• 1:00:03
  So it's kind of those early stage things that you need. You can't quite implement EOS yet. It's a little bit too much. So, and it just gets you again, increasing your chances for success. Because as you and I know, you know, this journey of entrepreneurship and starting up a business is not for the faint of heart and most fail. That's just a fact.
• 1:00:28
  Guys, remember, plan to fail or fail to plan, plan to fail. That's right. Everything that he's saying and everything we're talking about, this 10 disciplines, EOS, is the playbook, the blueprint for success. Do not – you see anybody that's successful, they have coaches, they have a plan, they have a routine –
• 1:00:50
  I'm just telling you, I wish that somebody, I would go back to my younger self when I started Kelly Communications 30 years ago and said, dude, listen to Rob.
• 1:01:00
  Implement EOS. And here's another shameless plug. Do not try to implement EOS alone. It does not work. You pick and choose the things that you like and that you could do. It only works if you follow it to a T and it's not expensive. I mean, the first year we implemented, I think it was six months in, we paid for the entire year from one of the rocks that we implemented that paid off immediately. So it pays itself back quickly. True.
• 1:01:29
  Rob, it's been a pleasure. I love you. I appreciate you. I mean this with everything. If there's anything that I could ever do for the E-Leap, for EOF, for anything, just reach out anytime. You have a friend in me. And I promise me when you come downstate again that we get together for lunch or dinner or something, I want to break bread with you and pick your brain even more and learn from you. Is there anything I haven't asked you today that you feel compelled to share?
• 1:01:56
  I don't think so. You are a wonderful interviewer. I have to say very prepared and very thoughtful questions. So I've said all I can say for today. And I just want to say thank you to you. And I am grateful to you. And I'm glad we got reconnected. You are such a joy to be with. And every time I see your smiling face, it makes my heart warm. Being and seeing you on the 10 Disciplines program every week is
• 1:02:25
  It's just like every time you hop on, I just smile naturally. And that's the kind of energy that you exude in this world, in your book, in this work that you're doing. Please read that book, everybody, if you haven't already, if you're following, maybe you have. But there's so much wisdom that you bring to this world and bringing out some wisdom from your guests. You've found your purpose, my man.
• 1:02:52
  Let me ask you one question. What is the overall takeaway of me? The overall, well, what, you're going to make me do that in a sentence or something? I've been getting a lot of feedback of two things, vulnerability and love. Yes. I'm like, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Yeah. But, you know, inspiration comes to my mind.
• 1:03:15
  You know, inspiration. Yeah. Like, you know, I forget about that. Showing like what's possible and finding peace, you know, because it's easy to get caught up in challenging times and upbringings and circumstances and all that kind of stuff. But it's your, um,
• 1:03:35
  It's your ongoing thirst to grow and learn and not be afraid of what the next thing you might learn is all about that might mess up your existing thought process. You're like open to it. Like, hey, bring me something new. Let me think about that. Maybe that is a good thing for me. That's inspiring. I can't imagine what you're going to be like in 10 years.
• 1:03:59
  It's going to be insane. You just said something that is absolutely a must share. It is.
• 1:04:06
  I'm basically, I'm unlearning a lot of things that I thought that I would have died for truth. I would have died if you said this is untrue and it is wholeheartedly untrue. So a lot of growing is unlearning some of the things that you thought were gospel. So I appreciate that. And I will make, it won't surprise you that I literally, I just partnered with a doctor and,
• 1:04:30
  And, you know, some of the longevity, I've had all kinds of tests, because I desire to take it three or four or five or 10 more levels of inspiration, because we're trying to donate a million dollars a year for the rest of my life to local charities that you will know so.
• 1:04:48
  I appreciate that. I feel that. I got to wrap this thing up. Please rate and share the podcast. Also, I do my best to respond to all the comments on all social platforms. So if you want to see more of something or less of something, leave a comment. Each and every episode is sponsored by National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with. Delivering peace of mind with technology every day. Visit TrustNTM.com for more. And until next week, be harder than life. Thanks, Rob. Thank you.
• 1:05:14
  Thank you for listening. Please rate and subscribe to Harder Than Life, and let's take this to the next level. Get connected at the links below.