Take an Entrepreneurial Leap and Grow Your Business | Gino Wickman

There's an old saying by Danielle Kennedy that says we teach what we needed the most. Okay, so that's what I'm doing. I'm teaching my 18 year old self who was a lost, confused, mislabeled, derelict entrepreneur in the making. You know, I was insecure and so I look at that pain of someone who was lost and I want to solve that pain.

Hey, this is Mark C. Winners, co author of Rocket Fuel and expert EOA implementer. So welcome to the Rocket Fuel podcast where visionary and integrator duos from entrepreneurial companies share a behind the scenes look at their relationship. These amazing leaders blend their unique skills to create what we call Rocket Fuel. Today's guest is the one and only Geno Wickman. Geno is an author, speaker, teacher, entrepreneur, co creator of Eos Worldwide, and creator of Entrepreneurial Leap. He's also my friend, my mentor and business partner. As the creator of the visionary and integrator concept, he has a wealth of insight to share on the topic. So in this episode, Gino describes how he created this game changing concept and how he found his perfect partner in the beginning stages of Eos. We're going to hop right into the conversation where Gino describes the origin of the visionary integrator concept in the early days of Eos. Let's go.

Gino Wickman, welcome to the show, my friend. How are you today?

I am fantastic and I'm looking forward to this.

Mark, I could not be more excited to have you here and for all of our listeners, you know, Gino is my friend, he's my mentor, he's my business partner. Gino has impacted my life in more ways than almost every other human on the planet. So I couldn't be more grateful for him taking some time to join us here today. And I'm really excited about this conversation. We have no idea where we're going to go with this, so as usual, this will be a grand adventure. So we got lots of visionary integrator listeners for this program, so I kind of want to start there. Obviously you wrote the book Traction. You and I wrote Rocket Fuel together. You wrote three other books in the Traction library. You're the creator of eos, built the Eos Worldwide company, and now you've got the entrepreneurial Leap. So lots and lots of stuff. So there's lots of things for us to talk about, but I want to really kind of start with Visionary Integrator. And the first thing I'd like to hear from you is when you go back to the beginning, sort of the Origin of the visionary integrator concept. Love to hear where the terminology came from for you. So why don't we just start there? Where'd that come from?

Yeah, fantastic. So it goes back to when I took over the family business at 25 years old. I took on a big turnaround, and it took me about three years to fully turn that business around, get it out of some deep, ugly debt, get.

It growing again, and then we successfully.

Sold it after seven years of me running it.

Well, about a year and a half into that turnaround, we were kind of still, from a roles and responsibilities standpoint, tripping over each other, bumping into each other. And so there were three partners. By the time we sold, we each owned a third. It was my dad, Ed Escobar, and myself. So what happened is I had this AHA moment about roles and responsibilities. And so the way I describe it is I locked my dad and Ed Escobar in a room at the Troy Marriott in Michigan, and we did a full day meeting. And it was all about just to kind of level set where we were with the turnaround, what's going on, keeping them up to speed. But the AHA was we've got to divide and conquer here. We've got to crystallize roles, because like I said, we were tripping all over each other up until then. And going into that meeting, and I was very nervous because here I was now, what, 26, 27 years old, and meeting with these two very successful people. I went into that with a couple AHA's. The first was my business mentor, Sam Kupp. In one of our mentoring sessions, shortly before that meeting, me saying something, and he goes, ah, you're a visionary. So I can remember, like it was yesterday. And so that word, it was not about him calling me a visionary because I was the integrator in that business, but it was that word. And it's like, wow, that just makes sense. And I'd never heard the word before. At least something about it. I never heard it. And so my aha there was that my dad is a visionary. And so my dad is this wild and crazy entrepreneur, built an amazing company that I took over. Number two is I was listening to an audio recording by Michael Gerber, and.

It was, hang on. An audio recording. For those of us who aren't that old. What is that again?

Well, back then. And what was it in the early 90s? It was a cassette tape.

Okay?

That's how we learned back then, is through cassette tape. It was a recording of him teaching a Class. And he used the word integrator in a little bit different context. But he says this word integrator and the same thing. I had this, aha. I'm like, wow, that's what I am. And so here we are in this meeting at the Troy Marriott, and I literally illustrated the first accountability chart ever. And I put my dad in the box at the top and I called him a visionary. I put me below him and I called myself integrator. And and then there were the three major functions of the business. So marketing and sales was Ed Escobar. And so we put Ed there. I oversaw the other two major functions. But long story short, voila, the visionary integrator concept was born. And so once we did that and we divided and conquered those roles. But back to just the visionary and integrator role. Once my dad and I got really clear and he got out of the day to day, because the secret is, that's what was going on is he was getting his hands in a lot of the day to day stuff. He was freed up to just focus on growth. I was freed up to just run the day to day of the company and get us out of that mess that we were in and turn the company around. And we just absolutely took off from there. And the rest is history. On the visionary integrator concept.

Beautiful. Just to kind of help set the timeline about what year was that?

That would be my best guess. It would be somewhere around 95.

Okay, perfect. All right, so we're going to fast forward in time. So, you know, all the stuff that you're doing after you have a successful exit from your family business, and then you, you know, you're fall in love with the science of how to, you know, figure out how to make an entrepreneurial company do more eos. The system, the entrepreneurial operating system is eventually created and that turns into the book traction. And then eventually it turns into a business. Right. So it's not just your practice anymore, but it's literally a business EOS worldwide. And at some point along there, you figured out or something happened that said, aha, now I am the visionary. I may need an integrator in this business. So talk about that. How did that aha kind of come together for you and then what did you do about it?

Yeah, so it's important though, to go just a step ahead of that because again, if I'm correct, on the year plus or minus a year, 95 is when I came up with the visionary integrator concept. From there, I had then not Taught it or shared it with anyone else in the world until probably 2001. Okay. And so what happened is when I put myself out there, we sold the business. I realized what my true God given skill set was, my unique ability. It was helping entrepreneurs. As I started to help my clients and as I started to indirectly help my EO brethren, if you will, I started to see that same pattern with my dad and I. So it's, I just came up with that idea to solve my dad and my problem. All of a sudden when I started to see this over and over and over again, that's when it kind of became a thing. And so when I talked to the first client, it worked. And a second client, it worked in third and fourth and fifth. All of a sudden that's when it really became a thing. And I just kind of called upon that experience and remembered those two words and, you know, the rest was history from an EOS standpoint, from there.

Right. And just to clarify, for folks that may not know, when you say your EO brethren, EO is the entrepreneurs. Organization was actually YEO back then. Right. So other entrepreneurs, you guys had a forum together, you know, some guys you were really tight with and so you were seeing what was going on in their world, what was going on with your world. So all that eventually begins to birth, you know, this business of eos. And as eos, the business begins to grow. And again, you see now you are the visionary of that business and you have this accountability chart seat that's empty or you're sitting and you're playing both roles. Talk about how you got clear on that.

To take you there. Now for five years I'm teaching this visionary integrator concept to my clients. Basically about 50 clients. That was the five years of creating EOS and testing and refining all these ideas that I had. So five years in, created the concept. Never really thinking, as best I can recall, of myself as a visionary because I was a one person show, I was a consultant, for lack of a better term, I was coaching these businesses. I was an EOS implementer, even though I had not called it that. So five years into doing that, that's when I then met Don. I was looking for my perfect partner. When I decided it was time to, to join forces with somebody to leverage this EOS idea, that's when I said, you know what, I'm a visionary. Because then I look back at my history and I've always been a visionary. I've always had those ideas. I just had to be the integrator for the family business. But also I'm the 1 out of 20 that is both. Okay. And so I'm that rare bird that can do both due to my detail orientation. So with that, though, once I really understood the concept and taught it so many times, I said to myself, I don't ever want to be an integrator again because I don't want to be involved in the details. Given the option when I'm at capacity, I prefer to be a visionary over an integrator. And so I set out to find my integrator. And through word of mouth, that's when I found Don and he and I joined forces as a visionary integrator dynamic duo.

So go into word of mouth a little bit. So literally, who said what and where and how long did that take and what did that look like?

Yep, I basically what I did is knowing that I needed someone. I sat down and I bullet pointed out about 15 bullet points, painting the perfect picture of who the ideal partner would be for me. And that was core values, Somebody who's interested in a risk reward relationship, somebody who's great at building teams. And so I just went through all these descriptions and boom, there was that clear picture. And I then sent that to everyone on the planet that I knew. And so that's emailing people, telling people, everyone I ran into, I said, this is who I'm looking for. This is what I'm looking for. If you know anybody that meets this description. And it was a guy that used to work for me, a guy I call my guardian angel because he's done three very impactful things in my life. The third one was finding me Don. And he basically said when I was sharing with him, he said, I got the perfect, perfect guy for you. And he introduced Don and I, and the rest was history from that standpoint.

So let me poke on that a little bit. So did you instantly know that Don is the guy?

No, just the opposite. So the deal with Don was whoever was going to be my partner and my visionary, the integrator to my visionary, had to go out and be an EOS implementer for a year and a half and prove that someone else could do this other than me first, before I would even consider a partnership and joining forces and building this business. And so that was job one. And when I met with Don for the first time, I looked at him and I said, don, nothing personal, but I just don't think you have what it takes to do this. And I even said to him, I said, you know, you just Come off as a little meek, you know, and that's the word that I use because he is this gentleman, humble giant, okay. Of a man from a soul standpoint. And so he looked me in the eyes and he says, gito, I will show you. And then he went off in the next year and a half, and he duplicated every single one of my results for a year and a half and just absolutely blew it away. And that's when I knew about a year and a half in that this is the guy. And we joined forces and built the OS worldwide.

So you guys were visionary integrator together for how many years before that changed? And we'll get into that in a second. But how long was it before which change? Before you were no longer visionary integrator in EOS worldwide together? From the time that he joined and after the year and a half to when there was another change. We'll talk about in a minute.

Yep. So he became an EOS implementer for a year and a half, then we joined forces. And so it was. I believe I'm doing my best math that I can. 10 years. I believe I was the visionary for roughly 10 years. 10 to 12. Somewhere in there.

All right, so that's good. So in that 10 to 12 years, what I'm looking for is talk about how that relationship evolves. So you've talked about at the beginning. Right. So your first impression was, this isn't going to work. And so there was a proving process of about 18 months, and he proved right. And you guys really lean into the structure and the relationship and you take off and you're. You do that for roughly 10 years. So over that 10 years, talk about how that relationship changed. Not that the structure changed, but as you learned more about each other and had more experience, talk about that, what was different over those years?

Yeah.

So I'll just kind of ramble on this one a little bit and you.

See what you can glean because you.

Prompted a couple of things, because first and foremost, that first year and a half he was 100% an EOS implementer.

So I didn't even know if he.

Was capable of being an integrator yet. But his background was being a great integrator. So I already knew he had a great track record of being an integrator. And so again, the year and a half was just me teaching, coaching, mentoring him on how to be a great EOS implementer. And that was the only gist of our relationship. So that's important to know that. Then when we pulled the trigger and started the business. Then he became integrator. I was visionary. A couple really important things, and the world needs to hear this, because I had other interests, I had other passions. I was spending my time again. It was all around EOS at the time, but it was writing books, it was working with my clients.

So my deal with Don is that.

He had 45 days a year of my time. So that entire 10 years of building EOS worldwide, I gave him 45 days a year as his visionary. Not a second more and not a second less. I am very, very obsessive and protective of my time. So with that, that was our deal. And his deal was he was going to be an EOS implementer and be the integrator of the business. 50% of his time. And so that was the deal. 50, 50.

And so we joined forces with those.

Amounts of time, committed to building this company. And then over 10 years, we built it. It grew 40% a year for 10 straight years.

A couple really important points there, though. And then you can see what you glean here when you talk about how things change. Well, for the first year and a half, the model did not work.

Okay? We did not make a penny in.

The first year and a half off.

Of this company we started. We were making money as EOS implementers. So that was very, very helpful. But the model was not working.

And Don is this amazing team builder.

And recruiter, and so he's finding us these people, but half of them weren't great, okay? And so with that, we're a year and a half in. We probably had about 20 implementers at that time, and most of them weren't producing, and the model just wasn't working. We were making no money. So the first really important point when you talk about our relationship going forward, I was officially frustrated. I locked myself in a Starbucks all day. I read two books, Starfish and the Spider and Tribes by Seth Godin. And I pored over all of what I call the data points.

And by the end of the day.

I have my clarity as to the we need to change this model. And so I leave Starbucks with absolute clarity.

I called Don.

He answers the phone and I said, don, I'm about to turn our business model on its ear.

And then I go off on this.

Rift and I lay out the whole new business model.

And then I pause and he goes, I love it. And so then when we met with.

The 20 implementers, shortly after that, I.

Very nervously presented the new plan. And bottom line was we went from taking a percentage of what they generated to creating a fee based model where they access the content and the tools in a membership model. And so they paid to play. And so instantly we would generate revenue. The ones that were successful got a huge pay increase because they were paying us less. And the ones that weren't paying us anything all of a sudden had to start paying. And so the bad ones went away. The ones that couldn't produce, I should say, went away. And then the model just absolutely exploded from there.

Yeah. And so just as sort of a side comment on that, because I came into the picture shortly after that, but a little bit after that and that change, probably if that change hadn't been made, you and I might never have met.

Yeah.

Because that was instrumental.

Yeah. And if that didn't work, that was plan B, then I had C, D and E. So yeah, you're exactly right, because I would have come up with another way to do it and it probably would have been very, very different than the model that it is today. One way or the other, this content was getting to the world. So fortunately plan B worked.

Right. So, all right, so we've got all this time that you guys spend together. You go through business, he goes through a, you know, learning how to be an EOS implementer, proving that someone other than you can do it. We go through business model changes with EOS worldwide to flip that around and make that work. So you spend, you know, again, 10 to 12 years in this relationship. So looking back now, what's something that you have learned about don't over that time span that you just never would have guessed or just didn't see at the beginning, other than the obvious thing? What's something deep there?

Yeah. But I want to say a couple of things because I think there's some holes to fill in before I answer that exact question. I'll leave right into the answer because as I think about, as you're forcing me to think about this journey, I'm reminded of a couple things. Number one, same page, meetings. And I remember him resisting them like the. So it was actually me as the visionary, which this is very, very rare, where I'm saying, don, we've got to do these meetings. And he and I, we lived two hours apart. And so in Michigan. And so we would meet in Jackson, which is an hour drive for both of us, and we'd meet in a Panera for a half a day, two to four hours, until we got through all the issues. Sometimes it was a full day, but he would resist them like the plague. That's so interesting in hindsight. He sees them as incredibly valuable and a big reason that we built what we built and stayed on the same page. But I remember that that was interesting. So that was always bumpy and frustrating. You know, why didn't he want to? Because it was a virtual company. So he and I rarely saw each other's faces. We saw each other's face about every 90 days. But for starting to do those same page meetings, that was number one. Number two is that poor man, I am a nut, okay? And so I am very passionate. I'm very intense, tense. And so he and I would argue, and as I think back, I was talking about how he and I would argue. I think I was the only one arguing because he was this calm, gentle giant, and he would just listen to my rants. So that dynamic I'm describing, he was so masterful at just dealing with my insanity. That's what made us great, because most people could not handle that. Most people would take that personally. Most people would back down. And. And I love a good fight, and I love a good debate. And so it was this wonderful relationship where he was just so mature and calm. Then there's this funny story I like to share, and then I'll get to the answer to your question is we're walking. We met at my office one time, and we're walking out of my office. It's 8 o' clock at night. The building was locked, and the door going out, the side door of the building automatically locks, so you have to push the bar to unlock it to get out. And again, I was so intense, so focused, always so amped up that he and I are walking side by side, and I push the door first, and I'm pushing on the glass and I'm going like this, and I can't get it open. I'm literally rattling this door, and it's rattling like crazy. And then Don, it's like the perfect description of our relationship, gently pushes the bar to the door. The door opens and we walk out. So that is our relationship in a nutshell. He was this calm, steady force, and I was a raving lunatic. And we just kind of were a perfect match.

I love that.

So the answer to your question about Don is he. You know, the most profound thing I learned about him is how masterful he is at building a team, a community. I never expected it to be so special. I knew it'd be pretty special, but he just kind of took it to a whole nother level. And so that's what probably stands out for me most as to just what a powerful, silent, humble force he is and how people are just drawn to him. And so he was so, so important in the community that we built.

Yeah, I love it. And of course, my experience of Don, and I love him dearly, is he's just so much wisdom, and he can cut through the craziness and the chaos and just kind of bring it down to. In his gentle, you know, soft voice. It's just. It's. It's this, you know, it's like, okay, I got it now.

It was so great.

For 10 years, you know, he'd bring me you guys every quarter and we do our boot camp, but, you know, he'd bring me one to six of you for those first, whatever, 10 or five or 10 years. And then I would just go crazy teaching you guys for two or three days. It was just so much fun.

Awesome. So let me kind of tag onto the question of what you learned about Don over that time. And was there something that you learned about Gino? So going through that whole experience, what's something that you learned about yourself?

Well, I think I'm just trying to think of a timeline. Yeah, I mean, it's probably right in there. What I learned, and maybe it was just before that 10 year run together, is what I learned about myself, is just to embrace myself. So I think going into that, it's probably why I was so comfortable just fully being me, because I learned at 35, and that's why I'm trying to do the math, to let my freak flag fly and just ignore the judgment of others. And there's lots of it out there and just be 100% fully me. And I probably bumped along with that fully through my mid and late 30s, which is where right around when Don and I were partnering. So what I learned about myself is I just truly accepted the wild and crazy lunatic that I was and just kind of embraced that.

Love it. Love it. All right, so let's fast forward to the end of that relationship. Not the end of that relationship, but the period of time where you were both the visionary and Don was the integrator. And so some changes happened with the structure in eos worldwide. And I think this is really interesting, Gino, because there are people who ask about this a lot. If this happens, if as a company grows and it has its own maturity curve, does the visionary change? Can it change? Does the integrator change? And so I'd love it if you could kind of tell the story about how you Approached, you know what? I'm going to move out of the visionary seat. When did you decide that or how far before it happened did you decide how long did you plan for it and then how did you approach making that type of change?

Oh, man. So you prompted about eight things. So I'm going to try to boil it down to about three, but there's so much in there. So the reality of it is, is I never wanted to be the visionary of EOS Worldwide. I was good at it, I had a blast with it, it was an incredible ride. But remember, you know this because I told this to you guys every single quarterly meeting. And so we EOS implementers, we meet every quarterly, every quarter. And what I would say to you guys, I would say someday I'm going to be sitting back there with you next to one of you as an EOS implementer, because I would say at the end of the day, I'm just an implementer. I'm just an implementer. So I had to step away from being an implementer, which is my greatest love, to become the visionary of this company, to take it to the next level. So I knew I wasn't going to be the visionary forever. To make the first point. The second point is absolutely not. Every entrepreneur is not cut out to start a business and ride it all the way to being the CEO of it at a billion dollar company. It's just, it's rare, it's one in a million. It doesn't happen. And we're going to talk about entrepreneurial leap later. But I want to bring one nugget into this because this is one of the teachings that go into entrepreneurial leap. And that is my challenge and teaching to any entrepreneur in the making is to start to get really clear on the type of business you're built for, you're draw to, you're cut out for. Because if you do that, your odds of success will soar. And so for me, what I know is 50 to 150 person company is about my limit. It's just not fun to me anymore. I can't hug everybody when it gets much bigger than that. I can't feel connected to everybody and it's just becoming too big. Which is one of the major reasons I sold. There were eight reasons, I can't remember them all, but one was certainly that this company has gotten too big, it starts to get a little bureaucratic, there are layers. So I knew what I was cut out for and so I knew I was going to tap out at some certain size and so that was a really important message and lesson, lesson and why I left that visionary seat when I did. So going into it, I always knew that I was going to take myself out of it. And I don't know if we're here yet, and let me know if I'm answering your question perfectly. But knowing that, you know, I started my succession plan five years before the day it was time to succeed, that role perfect.

So, so five years ahead, you see it coming, you know that there's a change out there in the future. So five years ahead of time, you began your succession plan of thinking about how to approach that, what that might look like and how you were going to get it done, make it happen. Right. So now tell us a little bit about that. So how did you do that?

Yeah. And so again, if we just do simple math, 10 year run as visionary, five years in, I started putting in place the succession plan. Gave myself a five year Runway. And so the first step. And Don did a masterful job of laying out this timeline, a five year plan. And each, each year at a milestone, we've got to be here, year one here to year two here, year three.

So quick, quick insert on that. Did that discussion first happen in a same page meeting or did that come up in a annual planning session?

I would say it was probably a same page meeting. That would make more sense.

Right.

But I can't remember exactly. And so he laid that out and in a nutshell, and I'm sure he still has this document, so you can access it. I'm gonna do my best to describe it, but I won't get it perfect by any stretch. But, you know, the first year was really about me crystallizing my role, getting knowledge out of my brain, understanding the role so that the job description was really clear and the time commitment and who I was looking for. And so just a lot of great work around creating clarity in the role. The next year was about finding the person, identifying candidates, just so that we are aware. I kind of already knew that my candidate was Mike Peyton. I was hoping he was going to be the candidate when the day he came to boot camp, one hour in, at the first break, I grabbed him and I said, I'm never letting you go. Because he was like the embodiment of all things, the perfect EOS implementer, the perfect everything. So I always had my eye on him. And then about three years in was he and I, you know, agreeing to this and starting the process of training him. And then four years in was him starting to Assume some of the role. And then I think almost a year to a year and a half before the actual succession day he was in the role, and then there was a year of mentoring. And so very methodically, at that five year mark, I then took my hand off the wheel. He fully took the reins. I was no longer his mentor and he was the visionary of the company. So it was very, very methodical.

So. So I love it. So you saw it, you way ahead of time, started planning for it with, with help from Don to kind of lay out a structure for how we're going to, you know, check the boxes, if you will, to kind of make sure that we. We make it work, work well. And a masterful job. You know, from my side of the, of the room on that, you know, it was. It was awesome. Right. And so, so now at the end of that, Mike's in place, Peyton's the visionary, and Don's the integrator.

Yeah, let me just. One other really important point that has to come through on this is I had some very real concerns about Peyton and being in that role. There were two glaring concerns. And so literally two years before he took over, I was very direct and blunt and I said, if you can't correct these two things, you can't do this job. And so he very masterfully focused on improving upon those two things. And so the point in that is the learning lesson as you have to be very direct, because what most people would do is they chicken out and they would just hope that those flaws or those concerns or whatever you want to call them would go away or whatever. Or they're so hopeful that this is the person, they don't address it. I just hit it right between the eyes. And he solved both issues very, very well.

So for what that's key. We see all the time people with their people situations just riding on hope. They hope it'll be okay, they hope it'll work out, but they never confront it, they never address it, they're never direct and get right to the point of what needs to be addressed. And so I love that. Okay, so Peyton's a visionary, Don's the integrator, and there's another change coming. So talk about that. Where did that come from and how do we approach that?

So same thing. We put in place a five year timeline for Don's replacement, Although his timeline might have been a little bit shorter. I can't remember, maybe three, four years, but upwards of five years, same thing. He laid it out very detail oriented, I believe. I'm trying to do the math and I don't know if I'm gonna do it well, but they overlapped. So I think he ended up bringing on his replacement fully in the role. Kelly Knight, three years after I did, maybe two years, two and a half years, somewhere around there. Again, I won't be perfect on those dates, but same thing though. A very methodical timeline that looked very similar to my timeline for my replacement.

And actually it sounds like, you know, his transition plan or his succession plan was starting to crystallize before. Even before Peyton took place. Right before he went filled in the seat. Right. So it was. There was an overlap, there was kind of a lag there. So the trigger for. For Don's succession, how did that come about?

Well, that's a little different. Where I knew 10 years before the day my replacement took over that I was gonna have a replacement, Don didn't. And I actually had some deep concerns because he was still only committing 50% of his time to the business. Now, Don's 50% is most other human beings 100%. Just so you know. I mean, Don works 80 hours a week, right?

So.

But he was maxing out the 80 hours a week he was at capacity and didn't know it or acknowledge it. So he was really burning out. And so it was me pushing him, challenging him, having deep concern for him, and him fighting it for a while until he finally kind of caved and said, okay, we need to find me an integrator. And so that's kind of the fast version of how that came down. But I really, I saw it before he saw it that we had to get him out of the integrator role someday soon or just someday, because the math didn't make sense for him to continue that journey for 20 straight years.

So some good, you know, raw, open, honest, same page discussions to kind of work through all that until it was a point where he could actually, you know, see it. And.

Yeah, and as I recall, and he'd probably be a good interview for this. But as I recall, you know, I would kept saying, don, it's a full time job. It's time. A full, full time job. I must have said that a thousand times to him. And then one day he finally said, I think it's time, you know, so he. Anyway, and then we put the wheels in motion, right.

And we could go into this for a long time. So just the last observation, because there's actually another change after Kelly comes into the integrator seat, but I'd love to hear just Sort of your observation as how, again, the life cycle of a business moves along, how those visionary integrator seats can also change over time. And what if. What sort of. If you were going to put a nice summary of your observations of going through that experience with EOS worldwide, what did you learn?

Yeah. And what's interesting. So I don't know if we're going to go all the way to Peyton's replacement, but that's a really important story because here's one thing I learned, because there's two ways to do this. In our case, you know, I found my replacement putting a visionary in place that was obviously Don's visionary. For a couple years, Don was integrator. Then when we found Don's replacement, we had to find the perfect puzzle piece for Peyton. So it led with, here's Peyton's puzzle piece. We got to find him his perfect puzzle piece. Well, then shoot forward in time. We had to find Peyton's replacement. And so we did it in reverse because we had to take then Kelly's puzzle piece and find her perfect visionary puzzle piece. So it's a question of which role you're looking to fill. So it's really interesting that we now have this experience of working on both puzzle pieces, replacing both puzzle pieces. So that I learned the puzzle piece analogy is very powerful in that. But again, it was all about, in Peyton's case, him finding his perfect integrator. It wasn't about finding an integrator. It was around finding Peyton's perfect integrator. And then again, when it was replacing him, it was about finding Kelly's perfect visionary, not a visionary, Kelly's perfect visionary. So that would be one thing.

Perfect. So it's just proof in the pudding of the two piece puzzle. Right. And how, as you said, how powerful that is as a way to think about it. So, all right, so I want to go to entrepreneurial Leap. So let me. I've got the book here. So everybody sees it, but this is, you know, Gino's new baby, the entrepreneurial leap. And so my first questions here, Gino, are, all right, cool. Well, we'll get into why this? But before we get into why this, why now? And as everybody sort of heard, you have this really beautiful pattern in your history of kind of seeing things and then kind of laying out a plan for how you're gonna make it happen. So really curious, when did you know you had this other baby to deliver to the world? And when did you start really kind of planning to make that happen? How far ahead of when you moved into it was that.

Yeah. And so it all kind of comes together because I was 40 years old when I decided that when I turn 50, I'm shifting my energy and I'm going to go to the front end of the entrepreneurial journey and I'm going to help entrepreneurs in the making take a better leap, start a better startup. And so that was 40. I said I was going to do it at 50, I think in 10 year timeframes. That's what I recommend to the world is thinking 10 year timeframes.

And so I had a lot of Runway, but again, it ties right to.

My success session plan as well as selling the business. So one of the eight reasons I sold the business was that I was freeing up my energy and creativity and time for this project. It was more about the energy and the creativity. So I knew 10 years before I started, before I did it. I'm 53 now, so that was three years ago. And so when I turned 50, company.

Was sold, I freed up my time and I jumped headfirst into creating this new content which is called entrepreneurial.

Perfect. So now let's talk about what your passion is for this. So, you know, tell us why this is so important to you and then we'll get into why it's so important to the world.

Yeah, so there's a, there's an old saying by Danielle Kennedy that says we teach what we needed the most. Okay. And so that's what I'm doing. I'm teaching my 18 year old self who was a lost, confused, mislabeled, derelict entrepreneur in the making. You know, I was insecure and so I look at that pain of someone who was lost and I want to solve that pain. And so this book is for anyone, any age. You could be 10 years old or 110 years old, but anyone that thinks they might be an entrepreneur in the making. And what this does is takes them on this incredible journey of self discovery to decide if entrepreneurship is right for them. And it's written in three parts, Confirm, glimpse and path. And so at first confirm firms whether or not they even have what it takes. I then show them a glimpse of all the possibilities and then show them a path. And so the mission and the passion is to impact a million entrepreneurs in the making over the next 10 years and really help these entrepreneurs and they can get a huge jumpstart on taking their entrepreneurial lead.

So you and I have obviously talked about this lots of times. My firm belief is that entrepreneurs are actually the solution to A lot of the disappointing or challenging things that we have going on in the world. So that's why I see it. Is there something different that you see about the reason that entrepreneurs can have such a big impact?

Well, I come at it a little bit different. So I love what you're doing. You take over once I get them to start their business in a lot of ways from a visionary standpoint, from what you just mentioned, and from an EOS standpoint. But for me, it's what I call. It's about finding the 4%. Okay? And so it's not like I'm doing this so that we can solve a bunch of problems in the world. I'm doing this to create freedom for people. I'm doing this because the reason I feel like I'm on the face of this earth is to help entrepreneurs. And I like to say I like to help entrepreneurs out of ignorance and suffering because they do really stupid stuff and make their lives very difficult when these are mistakes and silly things that don't have to happen. And so for me, it's about finding the 4%, helping them know what they are, why they're on this planet, why they're here, and helping them create an amazing life and live in that thing that they were born to do. And so, like I said, it's any age, because as quickly a 60 year old is going to have this aha. As a 13 year old, and as I'm talking to you and your audience is listening, there's really three audiences here. Number one is certainly that entrepreneur in the making we're talking about. Number two is anyone with an entrepreneur in the making in their life. And so if you're a parent of this wild and crazy kid, you probably have an entrepreneur on your hands. And so to read this book and have them read this book, it's going to help you understand them better and also help to show them a path to get to where they need to go and why they're here. And then the third audience is just for anyone that wants to help them. And I call those collaborators. But it's anyone that wants to teach, help, coach, guide entrepreneurs in the making. And so these are colleges, high schools for profits, nonprofits. It's amazing content that I give for free so that they can be a hero to their audience. And so it's all about impacting and finding the 4%. And as for the problem they solve in the world, I'll leave that to you. But you know, I always say that, you know, some of these people, they're going to start a $2 million heating and cooling company. And that's awesome. We need lots of those. And then, yes, another one is going to populate Mars. So we're going to spawn all kinds of entrepreneurs.

Right. Nonetheless, I love it. And then so I know lots of our listeners fall into one of those buckets where, you know, either it's relevant for them or very likely relevant for someone that they know. So I hope everyone takes advantage of that. As I think about the three parts of the book, Gino in the confirm stage, if you will, or that that part of the book, one of the comments that you make is that you'll break some hearts. And I know, you know, one of your, one of your gifts is the ability to say the hard thing, to have the very direct conversation. And, you know, sometimes that hurts. And so when you think about breaking some hearts in this context, is it. Do you feel like there's people that think it's cool to be an entrepreneur and they're just kind of kidding themselves? Why don't you talk a little bit about what you mean by breaking some hearts?

Yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth. So right now, becoming an entrepreneur is the new rock star of the 70s and 80s. Because in the 70s and 80s, everybody wanted to be a rock star. You know, that was the career choice. That was really cool. And so right now, everybody wants to be an entrepreneur and we're hearing about these billion dollar tech unicorns. Everybody thinks that's the ultimate destination. And so, you know, just a really cool, sizzly thing right now. And that is really, really dangerous because again, if you're not in the 4%, if you get the bad news that you're probably not an entrepreneur in the making, you know, that's a punch in the gut. It's heartbreaking. And I'm not doing that to break hearts. I don't take great pride in breaking hearts. What I'm doing is it's a cautionary tale. I'm trying to save you 10 years of sheer hell because you're going to be miserable if you're not cut out to be an entrepreneur. And what's also scary about this messaging is, you know, a lot of people are led to believe that's like the ultimate destination in life is to become an entrepreneur. When it's one of a thousand career choices, it's just one of many things that you can choose to do, it's not the ultimate destination. So that hopefully answers your question.

Absolutely. And so you've got an Assessment. And how do people take that? And what's it gonna tell them?

Yeah.

And so my discovery after 30 years now of obsessing about entrepreneurs is that a true entrepreneur has six essential traits very quickly. They are visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker, and responsible. And you are born with them. They cannot be taught. And so I create an assessment to help you discover and decide if you have those essential traits to be an entrepreneur. If you score 90 or higher, odds are pretty damn good. You are. If you score less than that, then it's a cause for concern. At the end of the day, you decide what. But the assessment is free online. E-leap.com please go take it. But what's also important in this, to take a little bit of the sting off is I teach something in the book called the entrepreneurial range. Okay? And this is probably the most important point contextually for your listener, because if you picture this arc and on the right side of the arc you picture the words true entrepreneur. And on the left side of that arc, you picture the words self employed. Well, anybody that owns their own business is somewhere on that entrepreneurial range. This book, this content, those six essential traits that assessment are all speaking to the people that are on the right side of that range, the true entrepreneurs. And if you picture the ones that redline that range, these are the Elon Musk, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Sarah Blakely's of the World. On the far left side of that range are the one person shows, a freelancer, a consultant, somebody with a lifestyle business. And so I always say, if you, if you have handy skills, you can go be a handyman or woman, charge 60 bucks an hour, make 100 grand a year, and you'll be busy for the rest of your life if you're any good. So you're self employed, you have your own business, you're on the far left end of that range. You're probably not going to build an empire, but that's a pretty damn good gig. However, somebody with those six essential traits, if they start out as a handyman or woman, within five or 10 years, they won't be able to help themselves but to build a construction company because they're going to start to do the math and they're going to start to get motivated. They're going to say, if I hire somebody for 25 bucks an hour, then I got an extra 35 and you're going to turn it into a business. So it's not a death sentence if you don't have the six essential traits. But it does mean if you score lower, that maybe more of a lifestyle business is better for you. Or in the context of this conversation, you might be an integrator, and you might be a world class integrator for these entrepreneurs in the making. Because if it's not clear for your audience at this point, anyone on that right side of the range is a visionary. And so let's bring it right back to what you and I are talking about. And one last little point. One unintended consequence of this book which has been really incredible, is that when any visionary, a successful, existing successful visionary with a 10 to 250 person company that reads this book, I never intended or thought they would read it, but when they do, it's incredible how it lights them up. Because what you're doing is you're literally reading your life story. Literally. And so what it does is it kind of resets your entrepreneurial spirit. You have a ton of AHAs. And so I never expected these incredible testimonials from visionaries, successful entrepreneurs that read it. And so something you might want to consider to get you all the way back to the basics of your entrepreneurial roots.

Yeah, I love that. And of course, you know, if there's, if there's something in here that helps us find other integrators, you know, that's very, very dear to my heart because the world definitely needs more of those. There's lots of visionaries out there looking for more integrators. I know you have, in the first part of the book, in the confirm phase, you have a whole chapter on second and third generation businesses. And that's something that we get questions about a lot and we see a lot, you know, is, is, you know, the visionary started it and now, you know, they're moving on or want to move on and, you know, junior or whoever, that's the next generation. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. So talk a little bit about what's in that chapter and how you explore some of the discoveries and the ways to think about that.

I love it.

Yeah. And I don't get to talk about this chapter much on podcasts with as much ground as we cover. So I just love this topic and I love that your audience is seeking this information. So I write an entire chapter called second and third generation entrepreneurs.

And so for anyone out there that.

Has a son or daughter that you think may take over the business someday or you want them to take over the business, or they've already taken over the business, have them Read this book. You must read this book and have them read this book because it is the litmus test. Okay. And once you finish reading it, you're either going to be 100% convinced that your child is capable of taking the business over. I share countless stories, I share the statistics, I share the data.

Or you're going to go, eh, probably not very powerful tool.

So whichever side of this you're on, read the book. It's going to be a complete how to manual for you to determine if you have what it takes to be a second generation entrepreneur.

Yeah. So anybody listening that's on any part of a multi generational company like that, please take that to heart. Please do that because it's such a critical decision. And like we talked before, we're not trying to break hearts here, but we're trying to save pain and suffering that could go on for decades. So let's do the work up front to get clear.

And I would also add, as a.

Second generation visionary entrepreneur in my family business, I'm speaking from experience that chapter. I just loved writing that chapter and it gets such great feedback because I'm speaking from experience.

So I urge you to please read.

It if you're wrestling with this issue.

I love that. So I'm watching the clock and there's so many things I want to ask you, Gino, so I'm kind of going to go rapid fire a little bit on you. Okay. So in the glimpse section you talk about the eight critical mistakes. So which one's the most common?

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that. So unfortunately it's not that easy. But I want to give you kind of a context first.

Okay.

So we just finished talking about confirm and let's pretend we confirm that you're one of the 4%. You have what it takes. You're an entrepreneur in the making. I then take you psychologically to glimpse. And Glimpse is all about helping to show you the light, help you see what the life is all about and all of your options. And in that, I'm sharing a day in the life, both heaven and hell. And that most entrepreneurs are unfortunately living the hell scenario and the eight most common mistakes to avoid. So that you live the heaven scenario. So they are equally weighted. This is what almost every one of our EOS clients comes to us suffering from, that we sadly have to solve. When they have their 10th to 250th employee. This is how to head it off at the pass.

So very quickly I'll give you the.

Eight and you just tell me the one that jumps out at you, you know your audience probably as good as I do, but I'll say better than I do. So it's not having a vision, hiring the wrong people, not spending time with your people, not knowing who your customer is, not charging enough, not staying true to your core, not knowing your numbers and not crystallizing roles and responsibilities. Those are the most common mistakes every startup makes and they suffer two, three, four, five years later because they didn't head them off at the pass. And they are all avoidable.

Yeah, so, and my quick answer would be, you know, seems like they're equally weighted.

100%.

But that number eight is a big one for visionaries and integrators. Right? Not crystallizing roles and responsibilities. So specific to that relationship, that one is we got to do that. Alright, so I'm going to take you to Path and there's three things I want to hit here. And the first one is college or not. Love it.

Well, so I write an entire chapter on that topic because I'm very passionate. I, as an entrepreneur did not go to college. Academics were not for me. I could not wait to get the hell out of academia. Graduated high school with a solid 2.3 GPA. But here's the point. So again, I write an entire chapter, I give all the facts, all the data, show you a laundry list of very successful entrepreneurs that do have a degree and that don't have a degree. At the end of the day, it's a choice. Okay, it's a choice. But what you'll learn is to be a successful entrepreneur you do not have to go to college. But if you do and you make that choice, there are some very important things that you can do, learn, there are classes you should take, which are all the recommendations from the people that you know, I interviewed for this project. But the most important thing is every successful entrepreneur I've talked to that have an MBA says they use nothing from their mba. As an entrepreneur, I would ask a follow up question, I would ask, would you go back to college? Everything you know now they all say yes. However, and the two reasons they say yes is they what they got out of college were the relationships that have lasted them a lifetime and served them well. And number two, the testing and proving ground to tinker with their entrepreneurial ways. So if you go for those reasons, you're good. But if you go because you think somehow that's going to make you this incredible entrepreneur, the data does not show that.

I love it. Second, quick One passion. Is that enough?

Well, passion. I write an entire chapter called how to discover your passion. Passion is the number one reason you will succeed. Okay? Because being an entrepreneur is pure insanity. You get knocked on your ass 10 times during your startup phase and to keep getting up and getting up and getting up, the only thing that's going to get you up is to have deep passion for something. So is it enough?

No.

There's other stuff you have to have, like we've talked about, but you have to have a passion or you're just not going to survive this thing. Because there's no reason to get up once you get knocked down the first time. If you're not doing this for something deeper than money, deeper than yourself, et cetera.

All right, so last question from the path is mentor. How do I get one?

Yeah, great. So again, I write an entire chapter on this as well. Two things here. Number one, again, the website is e-leap.com and there's a tool I created called Mentortrack. Okay? And so if you want to mentor entrepreneurs in the making, please grab that five step track. Very powerful. It does 80% of the heavy lifting for you. But for somebody looking for a mentor, my strong advice is figure out where you want to be as an entrepreneur. And so in glimpse, there's a tool I offer on the website called my biz match and that will help you get clear on the business. You're drawn to the business. Like we talked about, once you know or have a rough idea the kind of business you want to build, go call 10 of those entrepreneurs and ask them if they'll mentor you. Nine are going to say no. These are very busy people, but one is going to say yes. Schedule a one hour meeting, get to know each other and if it feels right, ask them to mentor you and agree on a structure. My structure with my business mentor was once a month, every night, once a month, 90 minutes, once a month. With that said, that's how you do it. If you can't find a mentor because they don't have time, then go work for one of those people. And last, if they won't pay you, go work for them for free and be at their beck and call 247 because it's the best education you'll ever get. Having a mentor is a speed pass to success. If you don't find a mentor, you're going to be fine. Half of these visionaries I interviewed, these entrepreneurs, didn't have mentors.

Half did.

They were all fine. But you will get there faster with A mentor.

Love it. Very well said. Great resources in that chapter. All right, so now the lightning round. I want to hear if you've got a room full of visionaries standing in front of you, give them one thing, one piece of wisdom, one golden nugget. What is it?

Wow, there's about 12 golden nuggets. But if there were one, I always, I just want to go to the one that bubbles to the surface for me. And so the thing that hit me was let go of the vine. Okay. And so just go 30 seconds deeper into that is if what I'm doing is I'm doing the math. And if I think about the one thing that prevents a visionary from fully freeing themselves up and flourishing and going to the next level, both personally and taking the company next level is they will not let go of the vine. And so energetically, they're still hanging on to stuff that is zapping their energy. They are not fully creative, they are not fully energized. So let go of the vine.

Perfect. Same exercise for integrators. So we got a huge room full of integrators. The golden nugget for the integrators is.

I have to say two because there's two competing ones bubbling up. One is do not have same page meetings. So make your visionary have the same page meeting. I'm going to wring somebody's neck if I hear one more time. Well, I can't get them to do it. You have to be absolutely forceful. Do the same page meetings. Non negotiable. Trust them. And the second thing that comes to mind, equally important is subjugate your ego. I think the greatest integrators are ones that have no ego and the ones that want to shine and want to be shoulder to shoulder with the visionary and want the accolades. It's a formula for disaster. Let your visionary shine, subjugate your ego. Be a great number two, as hard as that is, and we write it in the book market. It's my client that said, you know, nobody ever wants to win the silver medal, Nobody ever wants to come in second place. But you know, a true great integrator is absolutely comfortable being the wind beneath the wing. So that would be the advice there.

Love it. That's pure gold. And finally, the golden nugget for the room full of entrepreneurs in the making.

Oh, wow. And so let's assume that they're all true entrepreneurs in the making and they have the six essential traits. The number one thing is know the business you're built for. Building a billion Dollar tech unicorn is one in a million and not for everyone. And so that's why I created that tool, my biz Match. Know whether you are a product or a service entrepreneur. Know if you're a B2B or a B2C entrepreneur. Know if you're a high price, low volume or or low price, high volume entrepreneur. And know the size of company you want to build. There's no shame in a $5 million company. There's no shame in a $50 million company. So stop getting caught up in the hype with these effing billion dollar companies. It's okay to build a $5 million heating and cooling company that throws up a 20% profit and provides an incredible.

Service to the world.

So know what you're built for and go build that.

Love it. Absolutely love it. Pure gold. Three, actually four golden nuggets there to wrap us up. So. All right, let people know Gino and.

This will all be in the show.

Notes and you've referenced website. But again, how can people get in touch with you? How can they follow you?

How can they learn more?

You bet. So the epicenter of all things Entrepreneurial Leap is e-leap.com if you have an interest in being a collaborator and you want to teach this content, you want to be a mentor, I give you my content for free. Click on the Become a Collaborator button. There's a free chapter, first 30 pages of the book for anybody that wants to wet their whistle. And please take the assessment and forward that assessment to as many people as possible that you think might be an entrepreneur in the making. It's a great first step. E-leap.com awesome.

Fantastic. Well Gino, I am so thankful, so grateful for you taking the time to be with us today. Tons of great content. I appreciate you sharing your wealth of wisdom that I've had the great good fortune to benefit from now for years. So thanks so much for being on the show and to all our listeners, thanks for listening, thanks for watching and until next time, Go Rocket.

Thank you for joining me today for another inspiring story.

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