Do You Have What It Takes To Become an Entrepreneur? Exclusive Interview with Gino Wickman.

When you get knocked on your ass, the only reason you get back up is passion. Most of the world would just lay there because it's insanity to get back up. And it's passion that helps you push through every ridiculous obstacle you're going to face as you build your business.

Any advice that you can give anyone who is just struggling with the lack.

Of confidence, you got to listen to your gut. But just know that fear, lack of confidence, insecurity goes with the territory. You're going to feel it. That's what makes you tough. That's what strengthens you. That's what makes you great. I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur till age 29. My dad handed me the keys to the business and a check for 100 grand to take care of some short term debt. Turned the business around, got it growing again, we then successfully sold it. And that's when I then set out to pursue what I realize is my true purpose. And that's helping entrepreneurs get everything they want from their business with the vision, with the plan, with the execution. Right? Just have this knack for working with crazy visionary entrepreneurs because I realized, holy crap, this is why I'm on this planet.

Okay, so I'm really excited to have Gino Wickman with me today. Gino has been a friend. I've met him at the street to Coach program. I've also been an EOS client since 2016. And Gino, you've had quite an impact on my life. After I read EOS life, it's had just a huge, huge impact as I've been transforming through my own career path. But today we're going to be focusing on your best selling book, Leap and do people have what it takes to become entrepreneur? Gino started real quick, a little background at 18 years old. He took his experience as a young entrepreneur and ultimately grew into a pretty big business. The EOs, for those of you who don't know, entrepreneurial operating system has impacted thousands and thousands of companies. I don't know how many companies right now are using EOS, but do you guys have a count on that?

220,000 right now.

That's unbelievable. And so, yeah, so I have my own little, quite my own journey with eos, but welcome Gino. I'm really excited to have you today.

Yeah, great to be here, Chad. Great to see your face. My brother and I look forward to this wonderful conversation we're going to have and hopefully we help a bunch of people.

Me too, me too. So tell me when you. Let's just start off with a little bit of background and just to give a little people some perspective. You started when you were 18 years old and your entrepreneurial path led to EOS as like your main staple. How many years between starting off in business and getting to eos? What was in between?

Yeah, well, I'll give you the lightning fast story. And by the way, the book is called Entrepreneurial Leap. Just in case somebody's already starting to search for it, let's make sure they know what they're looking for. So Entrepreneurial Leap. And that book is basically me teaching what I needed the Most. So at 18 years old, I was an entrepreneur in the making. I was a mislabeled derelict. I was lost, I was confused. I didn't know I was an entrepreneur. I didn't realize I was an entrepreneur till age 29. So I'm teaching the world what I needed. For anyone out there, any young people, that you are a wild and crazy entrepreneur in the making, you may be feeling. What I felt in this book is to kind of give you hope and show you why you were put on this planet. So to answer your question, 18 years old, graduated high school, did not go to college. That's the last thing I was ever going to do. I am, I am. I have no interest in academia. As my friends all went off to college, I went to work. I just wanted to make money and so went to work in a machine shop for three and a half years, saved up a bunch of money and kind of took my entrepreneurial leap and fumbled through lots of things, lost all my money frankly, but found myself in the real estate industry as I was doing some real estate investing and ultimately decided to get my license, become a real estate agent and was very successful for three years which led me to taking over a family business. And so my dad created a program that was the number one real estate sales training program in North America. And I had gone through all of his training, it had changed my life and I decided that I want to run that company. I worked my way into the company, worked my way from the bottom to the top of the organization in a year and a half and discovered the company was in need of a turnaround. And I felt like I can save it. So here I was, a 25 year old kid, I look back and call it a kid at 56 years old and felt I could save it. And as the story goes, my dad handed me the keys to the business and a check for 100 grand to take care of some short term debt. And I was Able to turn the business around in three years. Armed with two amazing mentors, Sam Cupp and my dad, turned the business around, got it growing again, we then successfully sold it. And that's when I then set out to pursue what I realized is my true purpose. And that's helping entrepreneurs get everything they want from their business.

How did you figure that out?

Around 31.

How'd you figure that out? Like, what, did that just come to you? Like, how did that.

Well, no, it certainly didn't come to me, but it was helped along by the strategic coach program that you and I are involved in, because it really helped me clarify my unique ability. But what had happened for me is I just look back and realize what I had done for the last six years. And I just have this knack for understanding business, helping entrepreneurs. As I was helping my entrepreneurial, visionary father kind of whip the business into shape, I just had this knack. But what I realized is that after doing that for so long, I realized I was spending only about 5% of my time running that business, doing the stuff I really loved. And that was just kind of the planning aspect, the working with the entrepreneur. And so I then, when we sold that business, because we successfully sold it, I stayed on for a year and a half to transition the new leadership team out of Virginia, retired from the business. I then set out and built a business with that 5%, which is just, again, helping companies with the vision, with the plan, with the execution, working with the entrepreneur. I just have this knack for working with crazy visionary entrepreneurs because I discovered I am one, and it was 29, like I said, that I realized, holy crap, this is why I'm on this planet. And everything just kind of fell into place for when we sold the business, the timing on everything. And then I set off to help entrepreneurs. And that's how EOS evolved and was created.

And your. Your visionary craziness, did you figure that out when you started? Did you know? Did that develop when you created your program or.

No, what happened is when I took over the family business, I've created a concept called the Visionary and the Integrator that your audience may be familiar with. Well, I created that in the family business because I deemed my dad the visionary and I was the integrator. So I was always the integrator to his visionary. And so what I thought I was destined to do was run companies because I was really good at it. Come to find out, I'm actually more visionary than integrator. But I discovered that at 29 and then I just got itchy and realized I needed to go do this next thing. So it just threw a lot of trial and tribulation and learning and observing myself. And again, strategic coach and learning. My unique ability was very helpful with that. But I just realized, given the option, I'm one of the rare. There's one out of 20 visionaries that have the ability to do both. They have the ability to be integrator and visionary. I'm one of those. But given the option, if I have to choose one, I want to be a visionary. And so that's what I chose. From that moment on, for the rest of my life, I just want to be in that visionary seat. That's where I.

So it's interesting. You know, my experience with that was I was the operator of my business for over 20 years, but then when we were experiencing traction because of eos, we broke through ceilings, and I realized at some point I couldn't do it anymore. And so I was able to do it, but only for a limited time because I didn't have the skills or the capabilities. And that's when I knew I needed to bring in an integrator to come in and take over so I can go kind of fully embrace the visionary position that I, you know, that I eventually rolled into. But that was. It was definitely a transition that was not easy.

And that's. That's the way the story works. And we may get into that when we get into this content. But you out there as an entrepreneur in the making, if you are, you're a visionary. You're a visionary in the making. And there's going to come a point from when you start your business until you reach a certain level, is somewhere in there, you're going to need to bring on an integrator to help you take it to the next level. So that's the story for every one of us.

Yeah. Okay, good. So, one question I had just to look back before we jump in, headfirst into the six traits. College. So I work with a lot of college kids. I help a lot of college kids. I'm very passionate about, you know, people trying to figure out their right fit.

And.

And I think there is. It feels at least there is a transition going on in the world of work. And I bet everybody kind of through the years have gone through this when the big tech boom hit. And all of a sudden we had a recession in 2008, and all of a sudden, Covid. But everything seems to be kind of like, bubbling up where I've Never seen anything like this before where there's more self education online today, more creators giving away free content, more abilities for people to learn and grow on their own without having to go get a degree. And I feel like, at least in my entrepreneur network, that if you talk to almost any entrepreneur and you ask them if you're sitting with someone with a college degree or sitting with someone without one, who has the gift of gab, makes you feel good, has soft skills, that you're almost always going to go with the guy who you like one, because people are who they like most of the time, but because if someone can't articulate why they're the right person, they hurt themselves and, and not getting an opportunity that maybe they're more qualified for. So my question to you because in your book you talk about college, you do touch on it, and then you made your comment today that it wasn't right for you, but that is such an outlier mentality because most people have been so brainwashed that you should just have to go to college. So can you just real quick touch on, has your mentality changed over time when it comes to college? Not your personal what you would do, but just in general the advice and coaching you give people and outside of learning that you'll get just from the social being in college and networking, which you know, yeah, you're going to get that. And I know you touch on that, but can you just, just touch on has it changed and what are your thoughts and you know, the whole college and university diploma and you know, going to college or not, because a lot of kids don't know what they want to do and they're in that position right now.

Hear, hear. So I write an entire chapter on this topic in the book, okay? And I call it college or not. And the conclusion of all of this is I've learned it's simply a chapter choice. Because if you are an entrepreneur in the making, okay, if you're genetically encoded to be an entrepreneur in the making, you don't need to go to college to be successful. But it comes down to a choice. And so here's my journey on where I got to with this content. Because I have been biased or I was biased for about the first 20 years. So I did not go to college. I turned out okay. And my clients, which almost every single one of them went to college, got a degree and many were MBAs, I would ask them in the early years, for about the first 15 years, I would say, are you using anything you learned in college to be a successful entrepreneur in a hundred percent of the time. Every one of them said no. There's absolutely nothing they learned in college that's helping them with being an entrepreneur in terms of their degree. And so I was biased and I'm thinking, all right, so why would anybody ever go to college if you're an entrepreneur? Where I came to kind of shift a little bit is then I started asking a follow up question. And after the no, I would then ask, knowing everything you know now, would you go back to college? And almost every one of them said yes. So that is, all of a sudden I was perplexed. So here's what I've learned and again, I write a whole chapter on this. What I've learned is, and when they say yes, I say why? And they give me two answers. So there's two reasons when I put them all together. Number one, they say the relationships that are serving them well now in life, later in life. So the relationships they developed in college have served them well now in life as entrepreneurs. Number two was the opportunity to practice on their students. Selling stuff, sharing ideas. So being an entrepreneur in college, whether that's selling T shirts or whatever. So those are the two reasons. With that said, what I then do is share all the facts. I give a list of billionaires that have a degree and don't have a degree. So you can see the contrast. I also give if you're going to go to college, if you choose to go because it's a choice, you're going to turn out fine either way if you do go to college. What I share are all of the classes you should take in college that will help you be a better entrepreneur. The other difference is for those of us my age, there wasn't an entrepreneur degree. There wasn't any, anything entrepreneurial in the way of teaching or a degree back then. There's more of that now. Some of it isn't great, but some of it is really good. And so if you're going to go to college, maybe choose one that has a great entrepreneurial program so that you can practice those skills. But at the end of the day, it's a choice that you'll make. You know, then the other thing is I talk about trade schools because you could go to a trade school, learn the heating and cooling trade, learn how to master that skill for five years, start your own business and have a $5 million heating and cooling company that's highly profitable within 10 years. So there's, there's other ways to skin this cat as well, but at the end of the day, college comes down to a choice, and you just make that choice. Where are you going to put that 100 grand? College or start a business with it?

And when you hire people, does it come into play? When you hire people, do you care?

Never. For me, I don't care. I think it's a crime how it's mandatory. I mean, you're missing out on some great, talented people. So. So I come from a different world, so I, you know, character, honesty, drive, intelligence. I'm looking more for those and people that align with my core values. So, no, that's not a criteria for me. But sadly, it's a criteria for most. So it's, you know, it's a right to passage. But also what's important is if you're going to. To get a real job and you're not an entrepreneur in the making, you probably should go to college to increase your odds of success. But whatever happened for me, I just. It was not an option. I could not wait to get out of academia and just figure it out for myself. I'm definitely.

Do you feel that your book. Now, if someone's undecided, they're not sure and they're really struggling with it and they're getting pressure. Is your book a recommendation? I mean, we know it's a recommendation, like trying to figure out if you have what it takes, but is this also kind of something that could be implemented to try to figure out what I want to do and, you know, should I be making a decision? Because most people that I talk to, they're just. They just don't know what they want to do. They're so lost. And so I'm just curious to know, like, is it for someone who is trying to figure that out?

Yeah. So I would say this, number one, when in doubt, go to college. In other words, if you're totally in doubt, go to college. We'll see what happens with the whole system in the next 10 to 20 years. But at this moment, there's the answer. On this day and time. With that, I would say go to college or a trade school, because most people come out of trade schools are making 100 grand a year. Most people coming out of College are making 30 grand a year. So it's, you know, the math is pretty simple. But again, I'm not knocking it. When in doubt, go to college or a trade school because it does require a level of confidence. But in answering your question, unfortunately, no. This content, this book, all things Entrepreneurial Lead is just simply about helping the 4% figure out who they are. So there are 4% of the people that have the six essential traits of an entrepreneur, which is visionary, passionate, driven, problem solver, risk taker and responsible. And you either have those traits or you don't have those traits. So what it's doing is helping you understand. Are you one of the 4%? If you're one of the 96%, it's not a death sentence. It just means this isn't the career for you. So it's just helping you know if this is the career for you. If it's not, the good news is you get to check that box and say, okay, entrepreneurship is not for me. Because if you don't have those six essential traits, I'm doing this to save lives. I'm doing this to save you 10 years of hell. Because it's so hard being an entrepreneur. Good news is you get to check the box if you're not and go look at a thousand other career options for you. But no, we don't give you all of the other options that I'm not in that business and I choose not to be in that business. But there are others that are. Go see them. They'll help you.

Got it. One last question about that.

Yeah, please.

It takes a lot of strength and a lot of courage to make a decision that is not as common. Like everyone going to college. Like we grew up and that was it. So you knew yourself sounds pretty well at that time. You just knew a lot of kids don't. Any advice that you can give anyone who is just struggling with the lack of confidence because they don't know if they can do it. Not because they don't know if they want to. It's because they don't know if they can go against what everyone in their family are saying and how it's going to sound and how it's going to look and their friends and be the only one who doesn't go and it looks like you're a misfit because of it. Anything that you can maybe speak to because maybe you can't because you didn't feel that way, but I run across that a lot.

Well, but I would say this. I did feel that way from a standpoint of I was terrified. I was not this confident, secure 18 year old that chose not to go to college. I was petrified. Okay. I was terrified. I am a kid that grew up with lots of trauma, fear, pain. I've experienced it all. And so no, I just had this Teflon armored shell that I created around myself to make myself look confident. But I was terrified on the inside. So I would suggest to anyone, go to college, not go to college. You're going to feel some insecurity. You're going to lack some confidence. You are not alone. We are all lacking confidence at certain points in our life. So the first thing, the advice I would give is just know that you're not alone. Know that you are not alone. That lack of confidence, insecurity, that fear, is normal. You are in good company. But again, with all that said, if you're not feeling clear enough that not going to college is for you, you should probably go. When in doubt, go or go to a trade school. Because to take a flyer, give this book or me, blind faith would be an absolute mistake. So you got to listen to your gut. But just know that fear, lack of confidence, insecurity goes with the territory. You're going to feel it. That's what makes you tough. That's what strengthens you. That's what makes you great.

And hopefully you have. You know, you talked about your dad and your partner early on. I mean, you need to have people that you can lean on for support, whether it's a mentor or a coach or someone. But it's. To do it by yourself is not. It's not a fun road. I mean, being an entrepreneur and being a leader is a lonely path anyways. But you got to have a few people that you can go to. That's your rock. That's your pillar. That can help you kind of, you know, bolster through some of those tough times.

Yeah, yeah. And real quick on that, too. You know, you have people in your life, they're just trying to protect you, you know, and all they know is what they know. And so you're going to get some naysayers and you're going to get some people that are really afraid for you and trying to protect you, that are going to give you some terrible advice. And so to your exact point, you've got to find people in your life that believe in you, that are great sounding boards for you, great mentors for you. So I was blessed that I had that. Now, as I think about at 18, I'm not so sure I had any mentors back then. So I was kind of on my own, but I did not have people in my life telling me I was crazy. I was wrong, I shouldn't do it. So I had that blessing. I didn't have the other side of that. And if you have that in your Life, you got to spend less time with those people. You got to move away from those people. You got to stop listening to those people, start listening to yourself and maybe others that are more in alignment with your thinking. And so when you have two very conservative parents that know nothing about entrepreneurship, and whatever they do, teachers, engineers, whatever, they are just a more conservative type of a career, and all they know is that college career path, there's not much they can lend, and they're going to come, they're going to bring their bias to it. There's nothing wrong with the path they chose. It's just very different than the path an entrepreneur chooses. And so you got to surround yourself with those kind of people. And my dad was one, so I had it in my household. And so, for what that's worth, very cool.

Okay, so I want to jump into the six essential traits. You know, I've personally consumed a lot of my career of leadership and entrepreneurial books and content from authors and leaders. And I told you before we started the interview, there's very few people that I can say that I consume their content and I don't disagree with something. I like to kind of fight for performance. I like to hear people's different perspectives. I'm easy to flip. If you make sense to me, I can go. But when I read yours and I resonated with all of them and I can't, it's hard for me to fight against them, which is a good thing. Right. And it's even better being a collaborator of yours because I can go out and say that you did all the research to figure this out and I didn't have to do that, and I can approve it through experience. But how did you come up with these? And just talk to me a little bit about the foundation of these six traits. And I have a burning question. I've been dying to ask you about it, but I want to first just hear a little background about it.

Yeah, let me do a little riff about it. And that'll create context for your audience. And then dig deep and ask whatever questions you want to ask. But the six essential traits are visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker, and responsible. Okay? And so those are the six. And what I believe is, I believe you are born with them. They cannot be taught. Okay? So it is nature over nurture. So this is really important now. Half the world agrees with me. Half the world doesn't agree with me. I hope I'm wrong. I pray I'm wrong. Because if I'm wrong, that means that 8 billion people on this planet can all be entrepreneurs. And with all due love and respect, it ain't gonna happen. So with that said, though, I like to do a riff because now I want your audience to kind of scan their body and see if this is who are because it's been with you forever. But visionary means that you have lots of ideas, you're able to connect the dots, you have a sixth sense. You see things others don't see. You're able to see around corners. You, you're great at putting things together. Passionate means you have an undying passion for your product or your service. This thing you want to bring to the world, a strong belief, you want to fill a void. Problem solver means you're a creative problem solver. You love leaning into setbacks. You're an optimist. You believe every cloud has a silver. And you see solutions when other people are seeing problems. Driven is that you have an internal fire, a sense of urgency. You're competitive, you want to succeed. You're self motivated, you hustle, you love working hard. Risk taker is where you don't freeze when it's time to make a tough decision. You're able to make tough decisions. You're rebellious by nature, you're willing to fail. You don't want to fail, but you're willing to fail. And you tend to beg for forgiveness instead of ask for permission. And responsible is where you bl. You look at yourself. You look at the mirror when faced with any type of a problem. And there's two types of people in this world. When something goes wrong, half the world blames everyone else, half the world takes responsibility. And this characteristic, this trait is where you default to taking responsibility. So there's the riff. I urge you to scan yourself and see if this has been you your whole life, where this came from. It started with me just observing and working with entrepreneurs for 20 years and then digging deep because it probably started with a list of 15 traits and then really whittling it down through research, conversations, getting feedback from hundreds of other entrepreneurs, true entrepreneurs that built businesses from the ground up. And through all of that, out came these six essential traits that have held true now for many years now. With that said, there's a great assessment you can take@e-leap.com you fill it out, you score 90 or higher, odds are pretty good, you have these six essential traits. If you score lower, then you just have to question and ask yourself, are you really an entrepreneur in the making? So there's the contextual teaching of the six essential traits, what questions do you have around it?

So the first question, this comes up a lot because as I talk to people about your book and I talk to people about the traits first, I want to just introduce the concept that we've learned together and Dan's strategy coach who noticed how. And it's a very powerful concept that literally changed the way I see everything in my business, realizing that I don't have to know how to do everything. I just need to know who can, who can be that person. You're my who when it comes to being able to teach people if they have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, Right? And I think when you can fill up your black book with lots of who's that are the best in their unique ability, you really become a different type of an outlier in business because you have resources and network and tools that you can share that other people don't. And if it's been tried and proven before, then even more so you're going to be more successful. So my first question is that when you have something like, let's just talk about risk taker. It's funny, when I take the Colby. The Colby is the assessment that we've done in Strategic Coach before and it teaches you more about how you're wired, how you work, how you go about attacking your goals in life. As a risk taker, I'm willing to take lots of risks, I'm willing to do lots of different things, but I also am a really good fact finder and I know how to get my facts in order before I go just do something stupid. And I also surround myself with incredible people who kind of hold me back from kind of shooting myself in the foot before I go try a bunch of different crazy ideas that I have. So if you're not a risk taker and someone takes this assessment and they realize, you know what, I'm just not this quick start visionary risk taker. But I have no problem taking lots of risk after I get all this information, the facts and the due diligence, something that you probably don't do so well, but, you know, a lot of fact finders do. So can who not how not break the six traits, but allow people to sneak into that 4% because they know that they can get the information, you know, that they need because they're good at fact finding in order to take the risk, but they're not someone who just on the fly is going to be able. And I'm not talking about being reckless, I'm Talking about, you know, more calculated risks. But maybe you can just talk to me about that visionary risk taker trait and someone who's not one recognizes it, but can go do it after they get what they need.

Yeah. So here's what I would say. First, I'll answer your question with saying no. So that's the short answer to speed things up, but I'm going to give you a longer answer. So no, you can't hire out risk taking, unfortunately, because here's the thing, risk taking. You know, everybody assumes when I say this that risk taking means the day you start your business, taking a risk to start a business, taking a risk to leave your job, you know, with this much money in the bank and start a business, that's the first risk. And that might be the easiest one. And I'm being, I'm, that's probably oversimplifying it, but this is about the 1,000 risks you're going to take in the next 10 years. When you're sitting there with, with a thousand dollars in your bank account, you've got payroll to make, you've got something to sell, and you've got to make a really brutally difficult decision that puts your company at risk to try and get to the next level. So literally you are taking risks constantly as you're growing your business. Now what's important to know though, if you're a high fact finder, there are lots of high fact finder entrepreneurs. So, so for those that have that, I'm a low fact finder, so I don't need a lot of facts. So I'm doing a lot more leaping than I am looking. It's okay to be a fact finder. You're still going to pour over those facts. You're going to go, do I pay my people? Do I invest in this marketing plan? Do I sell this thing? Do I change the price? You're going to look at all the facts, you're going to make your decision. You, as a higher fact finder, you're going to take, take a few more hours than I would have to make that decision. But you're still going to make that decision. You still got to take that risk. You still gotta do that very scary thing that could potentially put you out of business.

So that's, there's a lot, a lot of nuances. It's not usually black or white. So that's just like you kind of peel back the onion a little bit on that, which is really good. The other question I have about that is for someone deep, do you typically see that visionaries are high, Quick Starts, they're better. Visionaries are more in that risk taking in that realm. Or do you come across people who are visionaries and they fall on that low score on the Colby, which is they're not really a risk taker.

My experience is. So you're talking about Colby. And Colby is a profiling tool that helps you understand where you put your energy in four areas. There's fact finder, high and low. There's Quick start, high and low. So you're asking a Quick Start question. In my experience, I would suggest I've personally never met a true entrepreneur, visionary entrepreneur, that wasn't an 8, 9 or 10 on Quick Start. So it's very rare that they're lower than that. But there are exceptions. And so I had a great conversation with Colby and one of the owners of Colby, and it's in the book. So I put this in the book and what she says, she agreed 100%. Colby agrees with me 100% that she said other than some exceptions that we find, which is highly intelligent entrepreneurs. So you get these anomalies that are incredibly intelligent and they're so smart that they have this ability to think like no one else can think. Their. Their Quick Start is still on the higher side, you know, maybe five, six, seven, but it's less than eight. And they're just so freaking smart. And they've got all those other traits that they're able to endure to a certain level. But in my experience, 8, 9, 10, quick start is what almost every visionary entrepreneur has.

And have you ever seen a visionary be able to start a business knowing they're in that visionary spot and have someone as a second or a partner being the one who's doing all the risk taking so that they don't have to. Because they don't have that trait? They don't have that.

I wouldn't say that, but I've seen lots of partnerships. Obviously, two partners start the business where one is typically the integrator, one is typically the visionary, but they're both entrepreneurs. And so there's something else I teach in the book called Partner Person. You have to decide if you're a partner person or not. And so what I see a lot of is these winning combinations that, yes, they feel better taking the risk with a partner. So fundamentally, we entrepreneurs, we're either partner people or we're not. So you either like having partners or you don't. You're going to be successful one way or the other. You just have to Know yourself. So I'm a partner person. I like having partners. We've got tons of clients that have no partners. They own 100 of the equity and they just pay everybody to work there. Both work. You just have to decide what type of entrepreneur you are. But yes, sometimes with that partnership, the ones that like to go it with a partner, yeah, that helps calm some of that risk taking because they've got another partner that's sharing in the risk, sharing in the decision, being a sounding board. So for what that I still have.

Learned though, that someone's got to be in control to make that final decision and they better be able to, to feel comfortable taking risks.

Visionary entrepreneur at the helm that's taking that ultimate risk, that person that you're describing. And whenever I see the two visionary thing, nothing good happens with that combination.

Let's talk about passion. This one tends to get a little confusing for some people too, because you can think that you're a really passionate person in life. I've got lots of passion, but I think from what I understand from your book, is that it's about passion towards something that you're passionate about for a service or for I'm going to change the world, I'm going to create something, I'm going to do something specific. And I get a lot of questions from people saying, well, if I don't know what I want to do, how can I gauge myself on passion if I haven't figured out what I want to do yet? So I thought it was a good question.

Yeah, that's really good. And so sometimes passion and driven get confused. Okay. And so first of all, I want to back into that by sharing that driven just has to do with this drive I talked about earlier, where you just have a sense of urgency and you love working hard and your whole life you've just tended to outwork everybody. Okay, so that's driven. Passion is exactly what you said it is. Passion is not about, oh, I'm a passionate person. Because we all have passions. I mean, there are people that are passionate about crocheting. Okay. So that person may become a, if they're really passionate, a crochet entrepreneur. But nonetheless, we all have lots of passions, you know, playing sports, whatever it is. This is absolutely what you said. It's an undying passion for the dent you want to put in the universe, for the impact you want to have on the world, for your product or service. And the way I describe it is the reason it's so vital and it's probably the most important Piece of all of it is because you are going to get knocked on your ass so many times as an entrepreneur. And so when you get knocked on your ass, the only reason you get back up is passion. It's crazy that we get back up. And so most of the world would just lay there and not get back up because it's insanity to get back up. And so it's just passion that I can do this, I will succeed, I will make this thing work. I am going to have this impact. And it's passion that helps you push through every ridiculous obstacle you're going to face as you build your business. So hopefully that clarifies it.

It does. And I'm really curious, can you share one of the hardest knocks you've taken in your journey that and how you dealt with it like something that you got knocked, the wind, the wind knocked out of you and you had to kind of get back up and your passion was something that helped you kind of do that?

Yeah, well, they're all learning lessons, you know. And so one of my, my, some of my most painful things, I, I was broke three times. I was broke at trying to get the ages right, 21, 25 and 32. And 32 was the worst because I became a millionaire by 30. Like I wanted to. I missed it. By year 31 I was a millionaire and then by 32 I was $200,000 in debt. Some really big risk taking and bad decisions. So those three things knocked me on my ass. And each time you get knocked on your ass, it is a learning experience because that at 32, with a five year old, an eight year old, a half a million dollar house. House, a very supportive wife, you know, that's when I said to myself, no more. And I really got smart about money. I was just too big of a risk taker. So that was one and then another one was a year and a half into building EOS Worldwide. We were just failing. It wasn't working. I mean it was not generating any income. It was generating income, just not enough to support everything. And so my partner Don and I were faced with what are we going to do? Because right now it's not working. And so I completely changed the whole business model. I went to a Starbucks for half a day, poured over all the information and completely changed it took a huge risk, changed the whole model. On about at the time, 15 or 20 EOS implementers. I gave the presentation of my life and that shift to the business model is when it really took off. But we basically were facing the end of the business if that didn't work. So that was pretty brutal.

Wow, that's crazy. That's unbelievable. Thank you for sharing that. Appreciate that. Let's dive a little bit deeper into the book. You do touch on the types of businesses. You kind of give a little background for people who are trying to figure things out, trying to look for different opportunities because they don't know what they want yet. But then you also kind of really spend some time on the biggest challenges and the biggest, I mean, you could talk about a little bit, but I'm curious because we don't have as much time to pick one, pick one that you feel like people need to hear in regards to the common mistakes that you know, that all entrepreneurs either they're gonna, they're bound, it's inevitable for it to happen. But you know, again, if I had a lot of the stuff that I had today back then taught to me, I could have avoided a lot. I always say with EOs, if I would have had EOs when I first started, I wouldn't have ran meetings that lasted two hours longer. But you know, I think again to your point, you know, they're not failures, they help us, they, we learn from all of them. But that being said, I'd much rather learn and avoid some of the pain if I could. And so I'm of kind curious, of all the things that you, you share in your book, can you give us one that you feel like, you know, people need to hear this if they're thinking about going to start a business?

Absolutely. And so what I want to do though, I want to zoom out, I want to create a little context as I answer that question for your audience because it's really important that they understand the context of this book in this content and the question I'm about to answer and where it lands. Because there's three parts to this book, okay? And we call it Confirmed, Glimpse and Path. And up until now most of what we've talked about is everything in Confirm. And that third of the book is all about helping you confirm that you are an entrepreneur in the making. And again that assessment is the tool we offer to help you confirm that you are. Fill it out online. E-leap.com Score 90 or higher. We've probably confirmed that you're an entrepreneur in the making. But please read that whole part of the book because it's we take into a deep dive to really self evaluate. Glimpse is once we confirm you are one. Glimpse is showing you the life, what is possible. And if you are one. It's going to light you up and you're going to be ready to run. And then path is showing you the exact path to greatly increase your odds of success and help you avoid half the mistakes you're about to make. You'll still make the other half. It's all part of the learning experience we talked about. But where we are now is you're asking a the Glimpse question. And in Glimpse, there's a powerful tool. There are lots of tools in the book, but a powerful tool in each one of these parts of the book. In Glimpse, it's called My Biz Match. And what it helps you understand as an entrepreneur that's thinking about taking your leap is that you are drawn to a certain type of business. And when we talk about type of business, there are three types. There's industry, there's type of business, and there's size of business. And so first of all, there are hundreds of industries to choose from. I choose education. I love teaching. In type of business, there's three aspects to type. There's product or service business. I'm a service entrepreneur, don't like products, product or service. You must decide from there. You decide on whether you are B2B or B2C. Do you love selling to businesses? Do you love selling to consumers? I love selling to businesses. I love selling to CEOs. Goes. And then last, are you high price, low cost? So are you high price, low volume, most expensive value? Are you low cost, commodity based? Really important you understand what appeals to you there I'm high price, lots of great commodity businesses out there. And then the third is size. Are you going to build a million dollar company or a billion dollar company? So every entrepreneur is not cut out to build a billion dollar company. It's okay to build a $3 million company, a 10 million do. So I love building like $5 million companies. That's kind of my sweet spot. Five to 10. So with that said, this helps you understand all of your options and what you're drawn to. And that tool exists on the website as well. You go to mybizmatch.com you click a whole bunch of buttons and out pops for you. Perfect industry, perfect type of business, Perfect size of business that works for you so that you take your leap knowing what you're built for. And you don't, don't do the crazy thing that many do. Try to build a billion dollar company when they shouldn't. Most of us need to tap out before it hits a billion. So with that said in Glimpse, we do lots of cool things, so that tool exists. We share tons of real life stories, and then we share a day in the life, both heaven and hell and what it looks like. The question you're asking is to avoid living the day in hell or the hell that most entrepreneurs exist, you have to avoid a eight critical mistakes. Now, I'm going to turn it on you because I'm actually going to read through the eight critical mistakes and you pick the one because you know your audience better than I do. But here they are. Very quickly, here are the eight critical mistakes almost every entrepreneur makes when they start their business. And they are all avoidable. Number one, not having a vision. Number two, hiring the wrong people. Number three, not spending time with your people. Number four, not knowing who your customer is is number five, not charging enough. Number six, not staying true to your core. Number seven, not knowing your numbers. And number eight, not crystallizing roles and responsibilities. So what would you pick? Knowing your audience and where they are.

Boy, you know, as a leadership guy, I, I, my, my heart went right to vision. But the problem is, is that I've, I've seen a lot of people start a successful business and they didn't have a big vision for the business. They just see their, you know, you know, they had a great product or a great service. But I don't know if I've ever experienced more pain in my 25 years as an entrepreneur by hiring the wrong people. And it's a daily grind when you have the wrong people and you haven't done anything about it and they've been sitting around and everyone on your team is wondering, why is this person still here? And it's just, and it can just the sabotage that can happen in a growing company and the fact that it's just repeatable and it just, it's scalable and, you know, you have to get good at that. You have to figure out, you know, how to hire great people around you and how to create an environment where people love to come and grow. And there's a lot of nuances to that, but I think for me, the most, the most pain in my career has come from hiring the wrong people. Yeah.

So let's hit that one. So eight critical mistakes almost every entrepreneur makes. You're choosing number two. This is mistake number two, hiring the wrong people. And so here's how it shows up, up. Just so the idea here is glimpse to show you what's about to happen for you so you can head off at the past. So what typically happens, you have an idea. You take an entrepreneur leave, you start selling it, you're starting to generate some money, and all of a sudden you're at capacity, and you need a body, you need a being, you need somebody to help you as you grow to the next level. And so the first thing you do is grab the closest person to you, which is your brother, your sister, your cousin, your aunt, your uncle, your mom, your dad, your best friend, your neighbor, whatever it is, you just grab the closest and you throw them in the business. And then you just keep running. And then you need another person and you grab another one and you throw them in your business. Well, you get to a point where all of a sudden, holy cow, these aren't the right people. And that's with EOS. That's when we're typically meeting an entrepreneur with 10 or 20 people and 20 to 40% of them need to go. It's just a disaster. So how do you head that off at the past? The way you head it off at the past is when you get to that point where you need a box body, you take a deep breath and you do two simple things. You first must know what your core values are, what your culture is, what's important to you. So know your core values, your personal core values, typically three to seven of them, and only hire people that have those exact core values. And number two, hire for the position you need. Hire for the talent you need. And so we urge you to think about an organizational chart. And is it sales you're hiring for? Marketing? Operations, Operations, Is it finance? So what are you hiring for? And so find that person with your core values and find that person with that skill set. You don't have time to teach somebody that skill set. You got to keep running. So hire for core values and skill set for the seat you're hiring for. And you will hire so much better. You'll still make some mistakes, but you won't be sitting there with 10 or 20 people needing to get rid of almost half of them one, two, three years later. So that's.

Is. Is GWC the Get it one and have the capacity? Dude, is that one of your. Is that one?

That is very much. That's an EOS tool that I created.

Get it.

Want a capacity. But that's EOS stuff. We don't in this book with Entrepreneur Leap, we don't get into any EOS stuff. We don't get any advanced stuff, because what we're trying to do here is just get that entrepreneur to start a better startup. We just Want to get you up and running with people where all of a sudden you've stabilized the company and then you're ready for eos. So we're just trying to get you through startup. So now we can't, we can't throw a whole bunch of advanced stuff at you. So GWC, when you get on the.

EOs, so when I, when someone's starting off and they need to hire someone, the most important thing. Culture fit. Yes, obviously. But you're. You got to find someone who has the skill to do what you need to do. And don't go deeper. You don't need to go deep. Just find someone who can do the job really well.

So let's pretend, hypothetically, you have a business that you realize, like, if we just. And I'm going to, I'm just picking an example. Don't read too much into it. But, man, if we just keep making these phone calls, that the money just pours in a hypothetical, right? So it could be anything. But let's just say that, that. And all of a sudden you've been doing that half your time and you're at capacity. You can't anymore. So you need somebody to do that. But what you do is you go hire your sister, who's a bookkeeper and an introvert and doesn't like to talk to people, but she's a body and she needs a job. And so you throw her in that job. Well, that, like, that was a terrible decision. She might be a cultural and core value fit, but the last thing this woman wants to be doing is talking to people on the phone all day, every day. And so the point is, you got to hire somebody for that skill. And just as quickly, if you need a bookkeeper, don't go hire, you know, your cousin who is a creative, disorganized extrovert who needs to be talking to people to go sit in the room and pay bills. And so it's. You just need to hire the right person for the position that has the skill set to do that job. So you're not spending one minute training. You're putting them in that position. They're better than you at it, so you can keep running.

So I'm curious, you know, because you know yourself very well and you're, you're. Your whole exposure to everything you've done has given you a true sense of your own identity. And when you made a comment before about how you're a partner person, I would imagine that as a coach in that world, you have seen so many people have bad partnerships, people blow up. And who knows what that even means and what it's done. And I'm curious, when it comes to having people around you that can do what you can't do, that skill that you need when it comes to partnerships, do you personally feel that no matter how many bad stories you'll hear, you're always that kind of a person that wants to have a partner because they can do something that you can't? I mean, what is your why behind you feeling so strongly about the way you feel?

Yeah, well, it's really important. And so the whole idea is again to decide if you are because at the end of the day you are or you aren't. It's that black and white. You just have to figure it out for yourself. And some figure it out the hard way. So I have personally taken about 134 companies through my process, the EOS process. Of those that have partnerships, 40% of those were strained. Of those half parted ways. And so the quick math came down to I think it's something like 18 to 22. I'm doing really fast math here that in the process with my client, they parted ways. They literally split up somewhere in the process. And this is people that realize they should not be together picked a bad partner. Many times they're just not a partner person. Many times they are, but they just pick the wrong partnership. So I have seen nightmares and what I say to them when we realize these people should not be together, I say life is too short. Ten years from now. I want to say the F word as I'm saying this, but I'm going to control myself. Ten years from now. Do you want to effing be doing this? YouTube. So it's a, a wake up call to say, wow, life is too short. Let's part ways, man. Let's figure out how to separate and go forward. So you either are or you aren't. Now here's what's important. If you aren't, you've got clarity. And again, there are lots of people that own 100% of their business. Amen and hallelujah. If you're a partner person, partner person, partner people split into two categories. Controlling interest or equal distribution of ownership. Ownership. So I'm a controlling interest partner. So while I'm not a while, I'm a partner person, I have to be in control. I have to own a majority of the business. I have to call the shots. At least that's the way I was for the first 30 years of my business life. It's a little different now for me, but I have to be in control. The buck has to stop with me. I have to make the final decision. I. At the end of the day, I'll listen to your opinion, but it's a grain of salt. I'm going to make my decision. Decision. So you're either controlling interest, partner person, where you like other people to have equity in the business, but at the end of the day you have ultimate control, or there's equal distribution where there's two of you, 50, 53 of you, third. Third and a third, four of you, 25, where everyone's equal and it's. It's equal voting rights. So it. Within partner person. You need to make a decision what type of partner person you are. But at the end of the day, you're one or the other other. And it's really important to know that. And again, there's stories in the book, and it's one of my clients who says he realized he had partners early on and he just realized he just does not play well with others. He's going to own 100% of all of his businesses. He's not giving any equity up and he's incredibly successful. So there's lots of ways to compensate people. It doesn't always have to be equity, so you just have to figure out which one you are to avoid a train wreck in the future. But also, if you're a partner person, don't go it alone. You want that, you need that for some reason. So. So find your right partners to get you where you want to go.

So I know our time's going to be limited, so people are going to have to dive in and get this book if they want to learn more. But I have a couple last few questions I want to run by you. You're sitting around to paint a picture. You're sitting around with a group of college kids and you guys are all having fun brainstorming, and you're a visionary. So they tap into your brain and they put up on a whiteboard and they say, let's think about starting a new business and just having fun. Some fun. I'm just curious to know what you'd say if you were going to brainstorm with a bunch of kids. Like, hey, here's some great things to think about in regards to starting a new business today and taking into consideration how AI is changing things and how the whole business landscape has changed things. With COVID and remote work and people working with people overseas, there's just so much has changed. I'm curious to know what, what are the few that you would throw up on a board? Not necessarily so specific, but like if you just someone was picking your brain from ideas, like what kind of a business would you be throwing up as a brainstorm?

Oh, it's such a great question. So you're not going to like the answer audience. So get ready. And I'm going to try to say this in two or three minutes and I know our time is tight, but I have to answer this the right way. So if I knew the answer to that, I'd be a trillionaire. So there is no answer. So this is where you out there, you got to stop kidding yourself yourself. Nobody's going to give you the idea. So there's something I teach. In thousands of years of entrepreneurial history, there are two things that change and two things that never change. And if you out there could burn this into your brain, you will succeed forever. Okay? And so thousands of years of entrepreneurial history, the two things that change are number one, products and services and number two, methods of communication. So the way we communicate with our customers 500 years ago is different than the way we communicate to our customers now. The products and services from 100 years ago are considerably different than the products and services now. So those two things are always changing. The two things that never change is human beings will always have wants and needs, always and forever. And number two, do you will always have to persuade them. So as long as you have your ear to the ground, you will see what human beings need and you will have to persuade them. So you got to become masterful at how to persuade those human beings. You always have to persuade them. So if you get that, you'll be successful forever. So there is no product. Now here's the funny thing, AI this and that. I'm going to say it again. Go learn how to install an air conditioning unit in a house and you will have $5 million company generating a million dollar profit ten years from now. But nobody's thinking like that. There are so many businesses. So everybody thinks it's a new idea. It isn't the new ideas, it's the old ideas, but also new ideas. But now we go back to my biz match. What are you drawn to? Because if I tell you here's the perfect thing, go into making cell phones. And anyway, so I get into something where this is the industry, this is the product, this, if you're a service entrepreneur and you're not person and you anyway, it's to do it would be dangerous for me to say that.

That's true. But to be fair, I'm just saying as a visionary, because I can. I can do this, and I'm sure you can, even though I've never done it with you, I can have fun throwing ideas up on a whiteboard because I could just start thinking of a thousand things right away. And I'm curious. My curiosity goes to what would you kind of things would you be throwing up there? Now, you said before, services is your passion. You like to serve. So is it on the coaching world, is it like, what would you be throwing up there? I'm not saying tell us what the next big thing is. I'm saying for you, Gino Wickman, besides doing what you're doing, which we want to end on, what are some things that you feel like you just would love to do it because you're passionate about it and you do it outside of what you're already doing?

Yeah, I love it. You're not going to like the answer, but I'm answering it. So. I have never sat in a room and brainstormed with a bunch of entrepreneurs or anybody, a bunch of ideas or sort of a business. I don't sit around brainstorm that. I'm a very focused entrepreneur and I know my genetic encoding. I love helping entrepreneurs. I love helping entrepreneurs. And I have spent the last 30 years helping them get everything they want from their business in life. I'm going to spend the next 30 years helping them get everything around their business life. So I stay close to them, I work with them, and then I just see things. It's not something I'm sitting at a whiteboard coming up with. I just see a need that they have. Again, let's go back to the two things that change, the two things that don't. They're always going to have needs. I just pay attention to their needs. I watch them, I observe them like an anthropologist, and then I see what they need and I look at what I do in my life and I just connect dots. So at this point in my life, I am teaching driven entrepreneurs. I've been teaching them how to succeed in their outer world. Now I'm teaching them how to succeed in their inner world because I see their pain and their trauma and the inside of them that's holding them back from being truly grand, great from making an even bigger impact, from having inner peace. And that's where I'm spending the next 20 years of my life. So that's what I'm focused on. Because I see that pain. I saw that pain in me. I learned how to solve and heal that pain. Now I'm doing that for them. Prior to that, it was entrepreneurial leap, realizing what they were when they were young and started realizing what I was. Before that, it was eos, because I saw these frustrated entrepreneurs that were struggling on how to run their business, and I'm like, are you kidding me? This is so simple here. Here's a system doing it. So I just look at the people I love working with and I just think about how do I solve their problems, what's going on with them, and God only knows what's going to come to me 10 years from now, but that's how it comes to me, never writing on a whiteboard.

So it's funny because just hearing you talk about that and hearing you talk about the pain, there are so many businesses and service businesses that can be created from solving that problem. If someone's good at it, like, you know, it's endless and. And it's probably a very good business that gives you a lot of job security. So I appreciate you trying to answer.

It.

And I think I got what I was looking for. So, real quick, let's end with talking about what you're doing now, because in our last meeting in the collaborators that you had everybody kind of brainstorming and hearing, and you were sharing all this great stuff you're doing for people who want to take it to the next level, people who have the business, people who have already jumped in, they're already there. They're doing what the book talks about, right? And they've succeeded in that. They took that step, they took the leap, and now they've got something, but they still, along the journey, are hitting either walls or need help. And for me, coaching and workshops and mentors and everything, I mean, for me, the EOS story has been transformational for me, so much so I could write a book about my own experience with it. And. And I think for me, what I learned about that experience is that. And this would be for anyone who's considering after they hear you talk about, is this something I want to look into? Is that my trajectory? And I think Dan's, of course, helped me see this. Every time I jumped into an EOS or a strategic coach or a coach, for me personally, I saw everyone around me get better. I saw the results get higher. I saw a parallel shift throughout my entire. Of my own growth and, and what I was able to do in my business as an integration of what I was doing. So maybe just share a little bit about what you created and what you've already tested and proved that's working really well and what people can do and where they can look to go to get some more information if they want to kind of dig a little bit deeper into what you're doing now.

Yeah. Awesome. So let me start by again. I always love to give context, so there's five pieces of content I've created in the world. First is Entrepreneur Leap, which is what we're talking about for this last hour, and it's helping anybody that thinks they're an entrepreneur start a better startup. Then there's rocket fuel for when that entrepreneur starts to grow and needs to find their integrator counterpart, the visionary integrator concept you and I talked about. Third is Eos, and that's when that entrepreneur gets to typically north of five employees, 10 to 250 is the number. But help them run their business like a Swiss watch. That's Eos and traction. Then there's Eos Life.