Gino Wickman, Joe Polish and Dean Jackson Discuss Leap: Do You Have What It Takes to Become an Entrepreneur

Selling the company, moving on to the next thing. I set out to pursue this passion, which is helping entrepreneurs. And so it all stems from really believing in my heart of hearts and why I was put here is that I can help these entrepreneurs get control of their businesses.

I'm Dean Jackson, he's Joe Polish and.

This is the I Love Marketing podcast.

Gina Wickman helps entrepreneurs get a grip on their business. He helps entrepreneurial leadership teams crystallize their vision, gain traction, and become healthy, functional and cohesive. He is also an expert at assessing young entrepreneurs to determine the clearest path to their fullest potential, and teaches the six essential traits every true entrepreneur must possess. In this episode, Gino shares content from his new book, Leap and how to transform your life through Entrepreneurship. Don't miss another episode of I Love Marketing. Subscribe today. More information can be found@ilovemarketing.com subscribe if you'd like to learn more about the Genius Network Annual event, go to geniusnetworkevents.com if you'd like access to the show notes or the exercise to help you take action on what was discussed, please visit ilovemarketing.com 352 hey everybody, it's Dean.

Jackson and Joe Polish and a very special guest by the name of Geno Wickman who's awesome. Gino, how you doing?

I'm doing great. Proud to be here and very honored.

I want to share who Gino actually is, but before I do that, is there anything you want to say?

I'm super excited. We've known Gino for a long time. We've been trying forever to get him to come on the podcast. We finally agreed, so here we are.

Yeah, yeah, he's sort of a big deal. So this will be the only thing I'm going to read during this podcast. So just so everyone knows Gino Wickman, he's been an entrepreneur since the age of 21. Gino has an obsession for learning what makes businesses and entrepreneurs thrive. At 25, he took over the family business which was deeply in debt and in need of help. After turning the company around and running it for seven years, he and his partners successfully sold the company. Gino then set out to help entrepreneurs and leaders get what they want from their businesses. Based on his years of real world experience, he created the Entrepreneurial Operating system which is called eos, a practical method for helping companies achieve greatness. He has personally delivered more than 1800 full day sessions for more than 130 companies, helping them implement EOS. He's also the author of the award winning best selling book Traction, Get a Grip on youn Business as well as Get a Grip, Rocket Fuel, how to Be a Great Boss and what the heck is eos?

All those books.

So Gino's the founder of EOS Worldwide. It's an organization that helps thousands of businesses implement EOS with the aid of an international team of over 300 professionals and certified EOS implementers and online sport. There are more than 60,000 companies using the EOS tools worldwide, including my own company, including Strategic Coach. A lot of people that we know use eos. It's a fantastic system. And Gino is now devoting time and energy towards helping entrepreneurs in the making get a huge jump start on taking their entrepreneurial leap, which is why he created Leap. And he also has a new book coming out which is titled the Same Thing, which is Leap. And you can check out the website for that@e-leap.com but I'll ask Gino a little bit about that as we go on into the podcast. So that's who Gino is. And Gino, that's the bio of you. When people ask you, who are you? What do you do? How do you typically explain it?

It's funny because I don't have this perfect elevator pitch, but it's always one sentence and it's just I help entrepreneurs. So at the end of it all, what I was put on the face of the earth to do is help entrepreneurs get everything they want from their businesses. But in its simplest form, it's just helping entrepreneurs achieve freedom, creativity, make an impact on the world. So that's what I'm all about.

Yeah. As we get into this, I mean, there's a lot of different directions we could go and there's some topics that me and Dean want to definitely cover with you. What you're most known for, at least from my perspective, is the book Traction. And then of course you and Mark Winters wrote Rocket Fuel. I've read both those books and it led to me actually hiring an EEOS implementer. And CJ Dube is one of your people. I shouldn't say implementer, but someone that literally just helped coach me through the whole process. So I'm about, I don't know, maybe close to. In the last year we've had several off site meetings with my team. It's this whole system that we've been adopting. You have a great way of explaining why to have an entrepreneurial operating system, including you even say that even if you don't use mine have one. And the reasons why? So, I mean, that would lead me to just kind of going into it, asking you, why did you create the company EOS Worldwide? And why did you create eos? Where does this come from? Because all of our listeners are obviously very interested in marketing, but having the best marketing in the world is not going to help you if you're logistically and management wise completely incapable of implementing and taking action on it. You obviously created all this for a reason, and you're one of the best in the world at guiding and directing companies how to run more effectively and profitably and without losing too much of your brain cells in the process.

Yeah. And so the why and the how I created it goes back to. There's a great quote by Danielle Kennedy that says we teach what we needed the most. And so it goes back to when I took my family's business at 25 years old. And here I was doing this turnaround, running this company and kind of figuring it out real time. I was a member of Young Entrepreneurs Organization at the time, now known as Entrepreneurs Organization, working with my fellow EO brethren and just realizing both the suffering I experienced running a business and seeing the suffering that my fellow EO entrepreneurs were experiencing. And so, upon completing the turnaround, selling the company, moving on to the next thing, I set out to pursue this passion, which is again, helping entrepreneurs. And so it all stems from really believing in my heart of hearts and why I was put here is that I can help these entrepreneurs get control of their businesses. And so it was all about I started by helping my dad get control of his business. And then it, you know, spawned into finding another entrepreneur that would let me help them and another entrepreneur, another entrepreneur, and they started referring me. And so the really fast version of the first five years is I tested, honed, refined every imaginable solution tool, idea that I could think of, ultimately whittling it down to what I created and discovered were 20 of the most powerful tools that will ultimately solve 80% of the issues an entrepreneur is facing with their business. And then the system ultimately takes a holistic approach to helping them build and run and grow a better business, ultimately evolving by the end of that fifth year into realizing that the world needs an operating system. And so they weren't calling it that back then, other than as it pertained to a computer. And so I basically created an operating system for an entrepreneurial organization to help them get everything they want.

I don't even know if you would have the ability to have knowledge of the stats of how many companies like for instance in the US there's 28 million businesses, 21, 22 million of them are single person operations and then everything in between. And there's about 200,000 businesses that account for the vast majority of the revenue and jobs in the world. And so the rest are just small business owners and people that fall everywhere in between one person and gigantic organizations. How many of the small businesses out there actually would you even have an idea that have any sort of recipe operating system, any formula, or most people just flying by the seat of their pants?

Well, I can tell you 15 years ago it was zero, and today it's some number higher. But it is a tiny percentage because in the last few years everybody is jumping on the operating system bandwagon now. So everybody's calling everything an operating system that they're creating for entrepreneurs. So I honestly don't know. And for what it's worth, if you take this kind of microcosm, our ideal client at EOS Worldwide is a 10 to 250 person privately held company. That's the sweet spot where 80% of our clients are that number that you mentioned earlier, where 60,000 companies are using and applying and implementing the EOS tools. Kind of gives you a sense of how we have not even scratched the surface and that 60,000 is worldwide. And so a majority of those are obviously in the United States. So it is a sliver, at least from a standpoint, of what we're touching. And then you go out to the companies that are somewhere in the neighborhood of touching as many as we're touching. I mean, I bet you it's less than 10%. I want to say like 1%, but unfortunately I've not done the study, nor am I going to. So that's my best guess.

It's so funny because when we look at a lot of businesses are started by people who they get the idea they can market and they can drum up business, but then it quickly gets to where they're getting too much business that they can't handle the administration of it or handle all the.

The big. If I could jump on that point, Dean, because the way I describe our typical client, you know, because they're typically coming to us around 10 employees or larger. And so what's common, and this will also tie to what we're going to talk about next with leap, is you have this entrepreneur that takes an entrepreneurial leap, has this incredible passion for their thing, whatever the product or service or whatever they've created, they then take it to the market, they sell a bunch of it they start hiring people and then they find themselves somewhere between 0 and 100 employees having gotten away from their passion, what they used to do, what they love doing. And so all of a sudden they're now faced with an organization where they have to manage people and systems and processes. And so what EOS does is takes that poor entrepreneur that is now mired in their own personal hell of running the day to day of a business when they just want to be living in their passion, doing their thing, living in their unique AB as Dan Sullivan would call it, and really be the visionaries that they are. And so what we do is we help that entrepreneur elevate themselves back to that visionary position and build an infrastructure around them that runs the company like a Swiss watch and frees them up to grow to the next level.

I want to get your description of, I guess, different types of entrepreneurs, if you categorize them that way. I mean you certainly have ways that you describe different individuals and talent within an organization. There's something that I don't even know where I first heard this, but it seemed to make sense where there's mission based entrepreneurs and then there's obsession sort of. Entrepreneurs and mission based are more methodical and they set up systems and they have more stable like everything, including their personal lives, more marriage and things like that. Whereas obsession based can bankruptcies and ups and downs and erratic crazy behavior. But the ones that actually change the world on the biggest levels are usually the obsession based. But there's a lot that never make it, leave a ton of shrapnel and a lot of wreckage and have a lot more intensity in their lives. I definitely lean towards the obsession based entrepreneur. Although I've never been bankrupt, I've never to my knowledge I've ever screwed anyone out of money. I have a great reputation in the marketplace and I've, you know, done a great job, but I've created a ton of self inflicted harm on myself in the process and you know, burning the candle, you know, that sort of behavior. And I mean, I feel I'm in the best place in my entire business career now in my 50s, however, you know, I look at so many young entrepreneurs that me and Dean work with and people that come to us and I try to think of what's the best way that I could possibly help them. I used to think, you know, well, you just need a marketing solution, you know, because when you're a hammer, everything's a nail with whatever you're asking. But I'll tell you as I've gone through life. I really pause when someone asks because we reach a lot of people and so we're in positions where people are constantly looking to us for guidance and advice. And that's why it's great to have you here, because you're not a guy that like, your main focus is marketing. It's really making a business run and really helping the entrepreneur. So how would you even describe. Are there different types of entrepreneurs? I mean, there's different levels of intelligence, there's skills, there's models, there's industries. What do you look at first in order to determine how to build a successful company?

You're almost creating the perfect entree into the next conversation about Leap. But I don't want to go there quite yet because everything you just said is exactly what I was seeing and feeling 20 years ago. And when I talked about the suffering, and it's such a strong word, but it is suffering. At the end of the day, I don't so much look at it the way that you're kind of compartmentalizing it, you know, obsessive entrepreneur, this type of entrepreneur, that type of entrepreneur. And you're talking to a fellow obsessive entrepreneur. Okay, I am ridiculously obsessive, ridiculously passionate, total ocd, total add. I mean, quite frankly, I'm a fucked up mess. And I'm just this mad scientist guy who just, I obsess about entrepreneurs and helping them. And so believe me, it gets away from me as well. And somehow I've managed to stay married and I have a wife that still loves me and we've been together for 35 years and I have a 23 year old and a 26 year old that I think still love me. But we're very close, so somehow I survived it. And so I'm not sure I totally buy this whole, you know, there's this obsessive entrepreneur, there's this, there's that. Because I believe at the end of the day it's about what you want. And I work with a lot of obsessive entrepreneurs that are balanced. Balance is all relative. With my obsession. I still take an August sabbatical every year for the last 20 years. So, you know, I'm not so sure I totally buy that context. And so all of that said, the way I come at it is it's whatever the entrepreneur wants from their business. So what do you want out of this darn thing? What I obsessed about for five years in creating yoas is a system to help them get that thing. And then, yes, there are entrepreneurs that work 80 hours a week. And there are entrepreneurs that work 35 hours a week and then everything in between. And in my 134 companies that I've taken through the process, honest to God that you could put them all on that spectrum, some are 35, some are 40, some are 45. So the point is it's about what they want. And yes, the 80 hour week ones are a lot more obsessive or burn the candles or whatever, but that's what they choose and that's what they're happy doing. And so I just. Right, wrong or indifferent. I'm not saying what you've learned and what you're sharing is wrong or right or anything. I just come at it from a standpoint of. And again, this is the entree into Leap. What I've discovered is a true entrepreneur has six essential traits that make them who they are and it's why and how they build great businesses. I don't waste a whole lot of time analyzing and compartmentalizing them. And so that's the best way I can describe it. And I hope I'm being clear.

The reason I ask is because I'm not sure I always like hearing how other people frame and look at things. Because at the end of the day, like Dan Sullivan, as we make it up and we make it real and different people go about doing that in different ways. And with all the work that I've done in my addiction recovery environment, what you surround yourself with, how you set it up, has a lot to do with how obsessive and how out of control you can become, which I think leads to, with what you teach people. And certainly EOs and what you write about in Rocket Fuel and the training is creating a system that allows you to take your crazy and make it functional in a lot of ways and put boundaries and methodologies around it so you're not going off the deep end, which you've seen a million times.

Actually, Joe, don't forget your train of thought. Because I want to say one more point right there at that point. So I'm interrupting you on purpose because if I look at my 30 year history of obsessing about entrepreneurship and business and running business. So this is a crazy way of looking at it, but this is what I observed. My wish for every entrepreneur that takes their entrepreneurial leap is that they take control of their life and their business right out of the chute. And it is 100% possible. It's exactly what I did building eos worldwide for 20 years. But not everyone is ready to listen. And so if you think about a 25 year old that starts a business and runs and grows that business until they're 60, if you measure their testosterone every five years, there's a direct correlation to their testosterone dropping. And when they call me, because what happens is you are full of piss and vinegar when you're 25 and 30 and 35 and 40. But frankly, when you start turning 45, 50 and 55. And obviously my example here is a male entrepreneur. The same applies to female entrepreneurs, but for the testosterone. So what I find is they get to a point where they say, oh, I cannot carry this load anymore. I can't do it all anymore. And I just wish they wouldn't wait until 50 for that to happen because they could take that kind of control at 25. They're just so full of piss and vinegar, they don't want to stop and take a deep breath and realize they're just going hard all day, every day. I just want to throw that little piece in right there.

You ever wonder what's so energizing about piss and vinegar and that combination that.

Makes it so desirable to be full of?

And maybe there's a supplement opportunity here.

See, and we're right to marketing.

I can't help it, guys, I'm a 10.

Quick start.

I love it.

That is funny. Well, look, I became a millionaire before the age of 30, and it was right around 30 and I was a driven guy and I did a lot of things. I mean, one of the things that I look back, that I did write is the saving of money and looking at how it's managed. And I really did learn a lot from books like the Richest man in Babylon, things like that, where you just put money away. But oh my God, the lack of systems. And there is a price that I paid in terms of angst. Had I implemented eos early on in my business, it would have been a total. I mean, it would have just been worth millions more to me early on. And if any young people listening to this could really grasp what Gino said, he's absolutely right. And I'll tell you, a lot of times, you're just not capable of hearing that. You almost need to get bloodied up and beaten sometimes a bit. You know, Gary Halbert, who's now passed away, who I learned marketing from, he said something really funny to me years ago. He said what a lot of people, people consider wisdom as you get older is simply fatigue.

And that summarizes exactly the point. I was trying to make you just.

Seem to get smarter. But it's like, well, you know, I mean, how much do you do you just run out? I mean, pretty soon you realize that I'm not going to be driven because we're all driving. The question is, are you driving effectively? Are you winning races? Are you burning yourself out? How many skid marks are you leaving behind? How much wreckage are you happening along the way? How many new cars do you need to keep running into? Because you know, this whole running economy is way more than just, is it making money or is it not? This is your life, this is your body, this is your brain, this is your family, this is your passions, your ambitions. I mean, there's so much into it. Business is life on all levels. As my friend Dave Kekich says, the highest evolution I think of an entrepreneur is the results that they not only create in their companies, but in their own life. It's a real serious issue. And I know you're dealing with serious stuff. So let's. You said, what are the six essential traits of a true entrepreneur? I'd love for you to share that. And then let's go into talking about Leap.

Perfect.

Well, let me give a little context as I go into that, because the content for Leap, the curriculum and the book is broken into three parts.

Okay.

And so part one is called Confirm. Part two is Glimpse, part three is Path. So Confirm, Glimpse past and Confirm very high level is helping you to confirm whether you are or aren't an entrepreneur. Glimpse is showing you a glimpse of what your life could look like if you take the entrepreneurial leap and pursue this God given talent of yours. And then path is showing a path that will help make the road a little less bumpy. And I believe I can help eliminate half the mistakes they're about to make. They still need to make the other half. It's all part of the learning process. But that's the content at a high level. And who that content is intended for is an entrepreneur in the making at any age, 16, 60, and everything in between. And so it's anybody that feels like or thinks they might be an entrepreneur. And then secondarily, it's for anyone that cares about them. So be that a parent, a guardian, an aunt, an uncle, a spouse, a teacher, a professor. And so the people that want to help them, this is a great tool or resource to teach and guide and help them discover. And so all that said, taking each one of those one at a time and going right to where you asked, that first part is Confirm and Confirm Again is all about confirming whether they are or aren't. And I just have a very strong belief in all of my work in the last 30 years that there are six essential traits. And so what are they? They are visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker and responsible. And you can say those words a hundred different ways, but very quickly just to do a minute and a half version of that. Visionary means you have lots of ideas, you're able to connect the dots, you have this sixth sense, you're incredibly innovative. Passionate means that you have a passion for your product, your service, your thing, strong belief for that that no one can shake out of you, and you just are obsessed about filling a void of some sort. Problem solver is that you're a creative problem solver. You naturally lean into problems when setbacks and issues arrive, you devour them, you dive into them, you don't run from them. So you're naturally an optimist. Every cloud has a silver lining. And so we're where most of the world runs from their problems. An entrepreneur leans into their problems. Driven means that you have an internal fire, a strong sense of urgency. You're competitive, you want to succeed, you're self motivated, you hustle. Risk taker means that you don't freeze when it's time to take the leap, make the decision. You are rebellious in nature, you're willing to fail, you don't want to fail, but you know that if you do, you're going to pick yourself back up. And so again, you tend to be rebellious in nature and you're comfortable making those tough decisions because the entrepreneurial leap is risk taking, but also every step along the journey is taking huge risks. And then responsible means that you blame no one. You look in the mirror when it comes to fault or blame or problems in the business and there's always two types of people in the world. They're the ones that take responsibility and they're the ones that blame everyone. And so entrepreneurs tend to look in the mirror when there's an issue point to themselves as opposed to looking out at their people and pointing at their people. And so those are the six essential traits in a nutshell.

So you got visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker, and responsible, which is a great list. I mean, this absolutely describes. I mean, I see myself in all of this, what you said about in problem solving, entrepreneurs lean in and a lot of people are apt to run away from it. I think that's where there becomes some confusion with. I see it took me a long time to realize this, where I will be in a room of entrepreneurs and they'll be so enthusiastic about conquering or whatever. Then you go back and you share it with the team and everyone sighs or is like, what? There's this total disconnect. And part of that is it's a different sort of worldview, It's a different way that you approach things. The entrepreneur life occurs to the entrepreneur differently than it occurs to not entrepreneurs. And so building an enterprise around that is really important. And it also in none of these traits does it show that you actually know what the hell you're doing. It just shows that you're a visionary or you have all these things. So getting to taking these traits and then turning into something that becomes a functional, profitable business that has life to it is where you taught all of your things together. But so you first confirm that you're an entrepreneur. So is your book Leap a way to reduce suffering for people that think they got it and determining that maybe, maybe they don't.

And those are the exact words I put. You know, it's a cautionary tale. And so what I'm trying to help do is number one, the ones that have these six essential traits, I'm trying to help light them up, turn that light bulb on, get them excited, help them realize that there's nothing wrong with them again. So we teach what we need the most. With this project with Leap, I'm teaching my 18 year old self who graduated high school was very different from my friends. I was lost, I was insecure, I was confused. I was an entrepreneur and I didn't know that until probably 30. And so I want to help that person that can't quite figure out why they're what they are, number one. Number two, for anyone that doesn't have the six essential traits but wants to be an entrepreneur, because everyone wants to be an entrepreneur now. In the 70s and 80s, they all wanted to be rock stars. Now they want to be entrepreneurs. Well, with all due love and respect, not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. So I'm going to break some hearts. You know, I take no pleasure in that, but I believe I'm doing them a service because I'm helping them through process of elimination know that entrepreneurship is not for them. So they can go find their thing, because everybody has a thing. And in that note, there's an assessment they can take. They can literally go there now to the website e-leap.com and actually take the entrepreneur in the making assessment and get a result that's really Going to help to start to get their gears turning and ultimately decide is entrepreneurship right for them.

I think, you know, early on too I always look back at myself and I realize, you know, now looking back early on, you know, play team sports like soccer and hockey and baseball but as, as I sort of matured and came along then I realized I'm gravitating towards tennis and we're individual sport where it's like results oriented full on. I'm the person total responsible for the result. And even the same thing with while everybody's getting jobs. Had my first job and only job at the bowling alley for $2.50 an hour and realizing I can make so much more money selling the coupon book subscript from my paper route client. Exactly. And you realize it's like I like Dan Sullivan's model of the results economy is knowing that as soon as you enter into the place where you're only getting compensated for results that you're creating in the world, but there's also, you're getting compensated more than $2.50 an hour. I'm not renting myself out hourly. I'm doing something that is ult a meritocracy. That's really the thing where you can, you're rewarded for your skills and abilities, you know, for your effort and stuff that you put in here.

Here. And to your point about knowing it at a very young age. Absolutely. People exhibit these traits at 6, 7, 10, 15, 17 years old, 100%. You can see them already starting to show these things.

But it may be flagged as a.

Negative in your system or in your.

As a disregard for.

Or does it.

Exactly right. So you gotta be parents, you know, don't need to get pushing the alarm bell that their kid is defiant. It may be that they're a leader and that they're self aware.

And that's where I get to the secondary audience for LEAP because I'm hoping that that's exactly what's going to happen is parents are going to read this and go okay, that's what my son is, that's what my daughter is and just really help clarify and validate and hopefully reduce some friction.

Well, Joe and I have talked about this before that there's really nothing that prepares kids for leading into entrepreneurship. Really. I mean it's not, there's not an education system that's there to teach these things in high school where they could be helpful for kids or even as a transition out of high school and into entrepreneurship.

I happen to agree and you know, hence why LEAP was created. You know about in the book how there's pre med for doctors and there's pre law for attorneys and there's apprenticeship for plumbers. Well, this is pre entrepreneurship. It doesn't exist in the world. And it needs to, because these unique beings, you know, are mislabeled barrel X when in fact they're entrepreneurs in the making.

You know what's actually really funny? Like, I've interviewed Kathy Colby quite a few times, and she's had, you know, her Colby profile done on the educational system. And, you know, she has this whole belief that there's so many, you know, these kids that are being diagnosed with all kinds of mental disorders and ADD and ADHD are just really high quick start kids that. And for someone that doesn't understand Colby, it's a, it's a, a way to look at someone's mos. Left your own devices, how are you going to operate? And so she says, we're just drugging so many young kids because the school system doesn't know how to handle those sort of. Because the vast majority of teachers are not quick starts. And a huge percentage of entrepreneurs are high quick start. And another friend of mine, Dr. Ned Hallowell, who's the top ADD ADHD psychiatrist is in the world, I think it was Driven to Distraction or Answers to Distraction, one of his books, he actually writes that a lot of ADD people, when they're young, they're criminals and they're doing criminal behavior. And if they don't have a handle on it, but if they can direct that sort of energy into more productive things, it's amazing what they can do with their lives. And so the reason I'm bringing those sort of comparisons up is I was a troublemaker. And when I say troublemaker, I was actually a traumatized kid. And I mean, I won't go all into my life details, but I had some pretty bad stuff happen to me as a kid. And I was, you know, became a drug addict. I would sell drugs to pay for drugs. I mean, I was like, you know, I was doing things in a very dysfunctional way as a teenager. And what's interesting, though, is if I look back, painting curbs, mowing lawns, I mean, there was no Internet back then, because if I was, if there was Internet back then, I probably would have tried to be an influence or something when I was in high school. The funny thing is, I look back that so much of the entrepreneurial activities that I, I know a lot of successful entrepreneurs today, that if you look back at their early starting days, they were directing those sort of entrepreneurial talents into really not good things because there was no school system or structure that actually knew how to handle them and they had to go out. Now, I don't have any stats or any data to support this, but I would bet my life savings that if there was some great research done, you could actually tell a lot of the future entrepreneurs are probably ones that are, that just don't fit in to the system, you know, a lot. And I, and I, and I don't think that's an inaccurate thing to say. I think you can kind of smoke out some of these people just by looking at what's going on in their lives.

Here, here. And with that, I spend a bit of time giving countless examples of exactly that, how these people were at a young age. And I know you guys didn't get a chance to fully read the manuscript and I hope you get a chance to do it. But, but you know, there's at least 15 examples of how one particular entrepreneur at 6 years old franchise his lemonade stand concept. So not only did he start a lemonade stand which is entrepreneurial, he franchised it to his friends on all the other corners. So you see this in these kids at a very young age, along with these other traits, you know, so they, yes, it starts at a young age. And I know that many of my report cards said Gino is very disruptive in class and all those kind of comments. And so I too had adhd, as they call it. And I was a troublemaker. So yeah, that's definitely. And it's great that you bring up Dr. Hallowell and Kathy Colby because I quote them in the book with Kathy Colby in this confirmed part of the book. The reason I cite her work along with Amy Brewski's is they do some great work around second and third generation businesses. And so I actually decided to write a whole chapter in this confirmed step about second and third generation entrepreneurs because play this out. I mean, think about this. You have this entrepreneur starts a business, gets to a level where the kids are now 25, 30 years old, and they want their kids in the business. Well, the reality is if their kid does not have those six essential traits, they are not taking the company to the next level. And so I go way deep into that reality and it all comes from experience because 40% of my clients are family businesses. And I'm working on these transition succession plans for the kids all the time. And I see the ones that work really, really well. And then I give those stories in the book and I see the ones that are terrible and don't work because these poor kids. Kids are either being forced to take over the family business when they don't have traits or they want to because mom or dad did it, but they just don't have any business doing it. With all due love and respect. So anyway, for what that's worth, that's a really passionate, exciting chapter that I think is going to help a lot of family businesses.

The book is not out yet, but people can pre order the time that we're doing this recording. So the book officially comes out October 5th. So if someone wants to pre order it, I guess they probably should just go to the site. E-leap.com do the they can go to.

The site or they can go to any major retailer.

Let's kind of go through the essential things that you think would be most valuable for people to know and hear. Because I mean what you're talking about, I think it's really insightful and I think there's a lot of entrepreneurs, especially with kids, that would love to share this with young people. And certainly, I mean, who's this person book really for?

So at the end of the day, again, it's for that entrepreneur in the making at any age. So it could 16 to 60 years old is the way I keep saying it. So it could literally be that 40 year old woman who, you know, followed the herd through college into the corporate world. They're sitting in this job from hell for them and they're an entrepreneur and they just never really were told that understood that they get their hands on this content and realize this is what I am. So it's for any entrepreneur in the making, anyone with these six essential traits. And then again secondarily, it's for any of the people in their life that care for them. So, you know, teachers and professors, I hope they're going to love this content and grab this content and teach this content to their students. I'm trying to make their life easier. I'm taking an open source, abundance based approach to this content. I want this content to get out there to the world and so it's for that secondary market as well that care for these people and want to help these people.

You just added that interesting two words about a 40 year old woman who is at a job from hell. For her, it makes me think of the whole concept of work. You know, having a career, doing a job, having, you know, I mean everything that you have. And I know a lot of Business owners that have just created a job that they hate, they left a job that they hated, and they created one around, you know, having a company, and they still hate it because they don't know what it is they're doing, which I think is a lot of the reason that you've created the methodologies that you've created. Dan Sullivan, I've had conversations with him about work, and he said that there's no bad work in the world. There's this bad work for certain people. And someone will look at, like a janitor as an example. And of course, I started out as a carpet cleaner, and they would be like, would hate that job. And I'll tell you, I have a lot of people that do cleaning, that love doing cleaning. What are your thoughts on just work in general? I mean, certainly if you're in a slave labor camp or something, that's a completely different issue. Given the choice of being able to go out and do certain work, most people hate their jobs, but there's a lot of people that are never going to run companies. And so to the person out there that hates what it is they do, or to the entrepreneur that is struggling, struggling, what do you say to them? I mean, obviously you have a book here that describes all kinds of ways to think about it and interact with your, you know, your capabilities and what to do with them. But, I mean, what are your thoughts on? Is there bad work out there? Are there bad models? Or how do you.

How do you think about it? I love that question. And I have 10 different answers for you, all answering the same question. So I'm gonna just give you, like, maybe the top two or three that come to my mind, because first of all, all I believe I'm convinced that everyone has their thing. There is a thing. I believe I won't get the quote perfectly right, but where the needs of the world and your passion cross their lies, your calling. Supposedly Aristotle said something like that. I can't find the source, and I have a similar quote in the book. But my point is, I think everybody has their thing, and it's just a matter of finding what that thing is. And they're all different. And so that's point one. Point two is this conversation we're having is in the context of entrepreneurship, and that's all it's about. And so we have to understand that less than 5% of the world is entrepreneurs. Less than 5, at least less than 5% of people in America are entrepreneurs, which means we're talking about a small sliver of Society, and good or bad, right or wrong, that's all I'm able to help a person do. I'm incapable of anything else. So I'm all about entrepreneurship. But now let's go third point to the 95%. You know, I don't think there is a bad job. I think it's. I wish there were a way, and I think it's coming in about 30 years that when you're born, they scan your body, know your DNA, and they tell you exactly why you were put on the earth to do so. I think we all have our own passions and our own skills and our own desires. And, you know, how great would it be that everyone could do that? And then I guess the last point I want to say, and I'm trying to not say all 10, is I'm incapable of being a doctor, an accountant, a paramedic, police officer. And these are all amazing, admirable careers. And we need these people a teacher. And again, I can go through every career. I'm just incapable of doing any of them. If I. If I had to go do accounting, I would get fired in a week. I would be considered the most incompetent accountant on the planet, and I would feel like shit, and I would be insecure, and I'd probably want to jump off a bridge. So it's just not my calling, you know, it's not my skill set. It's not what I'm here to do. And everybody just needs to find their thing. And there's no bad answer, and it's a different answer for everybody. So I don't know if that's answering it, but those are four of the 10 things that flash into my mind when you ask the question you asked.

And that's really good because, see, I think a lot of times people will blame their work or blame their boss or blame their job, and if they did a little bit more exploration. And also, there's certainly countries that have oppression and people are forced to do things and they really don't have a lot of freedoms. But if you take a place like I remember this when I was. Oh, man, I must have been early 20s, and I was at a party, a buddy of mine named Jim, I still know the guy. I actually had a bet with him that whoever made a million dollars first would have to pay the other person ten grand. And I actually, I actually won. And then many years later, he never officially paid me, the tech grad, just outright, but he did end up joining Genius Network. So it was pretty cool. We were at his house. And he used to work for Motorola and he had all of his colleagues that he worked with. And here I had my small carpet cleaning business and I have people that work for me. Not a lot, just a couple. And I'm an entrepreneur. And I'd been reading the E. Myth and everything back then, listening to all my Earl Nightingale tapes and Tony Robbins and all this stuff back then, just trying to learn how to mostly self help stuff. And they were all bitching about the company, about how the boss sucks, the manager sucks and this and that. But I was sitting there thinking to myself, you guys are choosing to show up there and go work. I mean, no one's holding a gun to your head forcing you to have this job. And I got this insight that entrepreneurs will sit and bitch about their team members, but in different environments their employees are going to bitch about the company. I just started thinking, well, everyone just loves to complain about stuff. I mean, it's just part of the human condition. What struck me though is I understand both sides because I've been on both sides. I can sort of see the thing. But it just shows that there's such a lack of alignment for people with the work and the things that they do. So here you have the layout. So you said confirm glimpse and then path for the time we have. I'd like to kind of have you give an overview because ultimately this is a really valuable thing. I mean, if someone invests a few hours into learning what you've laid out here, it could totally change the trajectory of their life and how they do it. And of course, what I am very familiar with in terms of your past work is eos. I can't tell you how many people I have told to read Traction and Rocket Fuel. And this is all just a recent thing in the last couple of years where I've come across this. So I know that if you can condense time, anyone that's listening to us here, that will take this message seriously, if they were to read your book, if they were to like look at where they're at in their lives and in their business, and they start down this path five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, it not only is probably worth millions of dollars to them, if you want to look at just the financial aspects, that's one part of it. Just the sanity, just what it will, and just the value creation in the world.

Because.

Because entrepreneurs are the ones that make the world go around, in my opinion and in my experience. And so they are the important People to help. And the more you can make them more capable, the better they are. And I don't think anyone here wants to listen to our podcast. I mean, it's not like they like, let's listen to a podcast or anyone's podcast. It doesn't matter. I think what people want is they want a result. And in order to get a result in their life, they need capabilities. And that's why people read books and that's why they listen to things, is they're looking for the. So what could you share that would I want people to really take seriously? I'd love to have everyone that's listening go out and get a copy of Leap and read it.

Yeah, I love that. So it's intended to do all of those things just to respond to that quickly. And I love what you said because it really is a fast read, you know, that's what I want your audience to hear. And they can download a free chapter. So there's a free chapter available on the website. It's like the first 30 pages of the book, so it'll cost them nothing. At least start there and see if it draws you in. But what I would say with our limited time we have, you know, obviously there's three parts and I want to drill down on something that I think is going to be helpful in the second part, Glimpse. So I just want to quickly touch on path really fast and then if we can spend the rest of our time on Glimpse. But with Path, the point I want to make there is path is when we get into moving forward. And what I'm doing with path is I'm showing them and preparing them for what's going to happen because I believe the more prepared you are, you can eliminate the mistakes. And I get into things like college or not for the ones that are at an age deciding whether they're going.

To go to college.

And some great data and statistics. I talk about the vital importance of passion, how to find a mentor and manage that relationship, how to move forward, but be patient. I then share them eight ways to increase their odds of success. And then I prepare them for the nine stages. So there's some good meaty stuff there that I think will help serve them well. And again, touch on everything that you just described and what you teed up there on the Glimpse side. What I do in Glimpse is I give many real life stories so they can see people who were right where they were and what they built and how they built it. I also show them a day in the life both A day in heaven, a day in hell, the nightmare and the dream. And so I show them a contrast and then I Show them the 8 mistakes to avoid to avoid the nightmare. But this last piece and glimpse is about their options. And I did not expect this chapter to be so much fun and meaty and interesting. But when I talk about options, you know, I remember when I was 25 and I took over the family business, I remember how ignorant I was as to all of the options for a business in the world. And so when we say options, we're talking about businesses, industry sizes, we're talking about things like, are you drawn to a product business, a service business? Are you more of a B2B person? Are you more of a B2C person? How big of a company do you want? You want a million dollar company, a billion dollar company? Are you more drawn to high price, high value, low volume, or are you drawn more to low cost, high volume? And what I realized, and when I look at all of my clients, every entrepreneur is not capable of succeeding in every business. And it's such an important message because what I'm doing in that chapter is I'm helping this person who's sitting there, be it 16, 25, 35, 55, and taking them through this journey to discover what is the right business for them and what are they drawn to. And so I take them through all of the businesses, all of the industries, all of the different sizes, vivid color size, to what B2B business to business means and B2C and what that means. And so I don't know what that prompts for the two of you, especially with your marketing minds, but when you think about the extreme of somebody choosing a product business or high volume, low cost, million dollar company compared to a service business, high cost, low volume, billion dollar company, those two businesses are so completely different, require such a different type of marketing. And it's so important for that entrepreneur to decide what do I really want out of the shoot. And so I don't know what that prompts, but that chapter was a blast. And I think that in my test reader, I had about 75 test readers on this that just really was enlightening for the entrepreneurs in the making.

You know, that prompted for me when you were talking about that and Joe mentioned starting a carpet cleaning business. And I've heard Joe tell the tales of being, you know, in August, in an apartment with no air conditioning on the third floor, lugging up the thing with the cat allergies and the whole thing, and realizing that if you're going to start a carpet cleaning business as a sole entrepreneur. You've got to realize that that's what that business is. And if you push the accelerator pedal ahead, you could see what does that look like when it's full. Like, you realize that there's a surface business like that there's only so much you can do yourself. And then you realize, okay, if you're going to grow that, then the idea would be to get yourself out of the carpet cleaning part of it and get technicians in there who can, who can do it.

But a lot of times people, people.

Gravitate to a business without really understanding what that's going to mean if it's actually successful.

Yeah. And if I can grab that point, that that's my exact point. Because if you look at every entrepreneur, I don't know this statistic, but I'm sure the percentage is high how many entrepreneurs stumbled into their business as opposed to consciously chose their business. And the idea with what I'm talking about is it's, you know, I wish I knew all of the options when I was 25 and honest to God, it probably took me to. Until I realized what all the options were. And once I knew the options, I made much better decisions for myself. And also when an entrepreneur chooses the right options for them, they're more likely to succeed.

Yeah, I've got, you know, good friends that I golf with, my country club that, you know, I talk about it often as the tale of two dentists. You know, one's kind of entrepreneurial and treats this thing like a business, but both of them, either way, when you're a professional going down that path, you got to realize that being a dentist or being a surgeon or being anything that's going to require you performing the service is going to have a limitation or it's going to mean that you're constantly being able to serve it and there's not much leverage on that. And the same thing when you're looking at a business that is going to have a customer that you're going to work with once and it's done and you'll never have any more interaction with them compared to a business where you can build a subscriber base or ongoing monthly recurring revenue relationship with so many things that go into pre planning. If people would think through what does this look like? If I'm actually.

Yeah. And if you. And let's pretend you want to start a software development company. Well, are you going to start a software development company that creates a $5 a month app or a $10 million software program that needs to be fully implemented into an organization over two years. Those are two very different software development companies. So. Which are drawn to.

You know what's interesting about this too, Gino? Because I nearly asked you the question, like, you know, why do you want to help young entrepreneurs, owners? Where does this drive come from? People that are starting out. It's interesting as I've gotten older, how I look at, who do I spend my time working with. Certainly me and Dean started the I Love Marketing podcast because I remember back in 2010 when we started this, right before doing it, we were very early on in the game of podcasting. I remember even one of our episodes with Tim Ferriss on. Me and Dean were trying to talk Tim into doing a podcast, and he was like, I don't know if I ever want to do that. And we're still trying to find the raw files of that so we can play it.

I wish we had a quote from Tim for that. You know, that would be awesome.

Yeah. But, you know, so there's. There's a lot of people that we actually got into the podcasting game, that it's became their core business, where it's always just been something we've done just to help people. I mean, we've never done sponsorships. We. I mean, you know, even promoting your book here. I mean, we're not. No affiliate thing. We're not like, getting, you know, someone buys your book or not. We just care about helping entrepreneurs. I sit and forget that, man. We actually do a lot of stuff because we're driven to do that. But what it reminded me of, when I had my carpet cleaning business, my first two years of that business were absolute hell. It was total misery. I was doing hard manual labor. I was paying money to work. I literally was not making any money, and I was financing it, and I went $30,000 in debt on credit cards, and that was a lot of money back in 1990 and 1990, it wasn't even that. It was just the sheer work that I put in and getting no results. But I could not get this little fantasy of mine to go away after I learned marketing and figured it out, because I needed to eat, I needed to survive, and I learned how to make my company profitable. And I developed all these marketing systems and stuff. When I created that course, what was going through my head is, what do I wish I had when I first started that would have saved me the two years of hell that were just. I mean, I couldn't do Today, one week of what I did for two years when I was first starting. Right. You know, but it was the piss of it.

My own carpet.

Yeah, it was like what Gino said. So it actually really, it really tied into this going, wow.

Yeah.

There's this, this desire in people that have figured it out to try to, you know, give that bridge to people so they don't have to, you know, fall down and kill themselves. And a lot people of.

And remember that quote from Danielle Kennedy and please make sure she gets the credit for the quote. But it's. We teach what we needed the most. And so, you know, that's what you did. That's what I did. That's what a lot of people tend to do. And so from our pain and suffering, we want to solve that pain and suffering for others so they don't have to go through the hell that we went through.

Let's do this, Gino. Like, let's. I'd love to have any, like, kind of wrap up to the conversation and when the book comes out and I'd love to get the feedback from our listeners when they do actually have a chance to read the book. Maybe we can do a future episode after the book comes out and just kind of see where people are at. And of course, we're happy to support and see the beauty of this is we know each other. I mean, we're in groups together, we spend time together. So I know your work, I know your drive, I know your integrity. And I use eos in my own company. So, I mean, there's a lot of familiarity here with how knowledgeable and valuable what it is you put out. So I know that any that you're going to, you know, guide, that's what you do, you guide and you support, you help people that are in their entrepreneurial endeavors. So what didn't we talk about or any questions we should have asked that we didn't that we should address before we wrap up?

I honestly feel like we covered, you know, we could obviously go 10 more hours if we just kept riffing here. And obviously we're not going to do that. And so, you know, my hopes and dreams by the end of this is that any one that needs this help will reach out. And like we said, the website e-leap.com is where there's a free assessment, a free chapter, and they can pre order the book. And so as long as that's clear for their next step if they really want to embark on this journey. Other than that, you know, I think we covered about as much as we could cover in 60 minutes.

It's funny. Even looking at the questions on the assessment, you'll get a pretty good indication of whether this is really for you. Just even answer the questions.

I would encourage everybody to do that.

Go check out the assessment.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, so for everyone that's listening, I hope you found this very valuable and eye opening and useful for yourself. But more importantly, you probably know a lot of people that are in the middle. They don't know quite what to do or struggling entrepreneurs or people that are doing really well that it could just be greatly enhanced. So if you can think of anyone in your life that would be well served to listen to this episode, please share it with them. The total cost of doing that is free. And that was sort of a joke, but I guess come across that no, but please give us your comments on I love marketing or wherever you listen to podcasts and if you're not currently a subscriber, just subscribe and love to get your feedback after you read Gino's book and take the assessment and go from there. So, Gino, thank you so much. Always a pleasure talking with you. And Dean, not so much with you, but you know, we're kind of.

As always, I love you too.

Always a pleasure talking to you guys.

Awesome. Thank you and thanks to our listeners. Take care.

Thank you.

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Sam.