Gino Wickman: The Six Essential Traits for Entrepreneurship

I want to thank our sponsor, Abby Connect. Impress callers, save time, and grow your business with a dedicated receptionist team from Abby connect. Visit Abby connect.commikem for more information. That's Abby connect.commikem yeah. Yeah. This is the ultimate entrepreneur's petri dish. And with that note, let's kick into the show. All right, folks, I hope you're ready because it is time to get all up in Gino Wickman's business. This episode discussing his brand new book, the entrepreneurial leap, and why this may be the greatest time ever to become an entrepreneur. We're going to learn that from Gino Wickman starting right now. All right, Gino, Believe it or not, right now there's this amazing music playing in the background. It's live, but we don't have it right here. Everyone, my name is Mike Michalowicz. I want to welcome you to our show. I'm an author on a mission, a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. This perception that you start a business and you are just hitting it out of park and you're on the beach just sitting back those Coronas as the business rolls forward and the reality, which is you're working your tail off, the business is not successful, not nearly as the way you want it to be, and you are struggling. We close that gap on this episode and every episode of all up in your business. I want to welcome my friends from the office here. Kelsey Ayers, the president of our company. Welcome.

Thank you. Hello, friend. Thank you for listening to us.

And also in studio or in virtual studio today is Amy Cartelli from her home.

Hello.

And Jay Kablone in the basement.

Yeah.

The entrails of podcasting itself.

I took after you and I bought Jeremy's used tires domain while we were on lunch break.

Right. He's got bike tires for sale. You also see Gino Wickman in there in the corner. But let me introduce Geno in a second. I do want to thank. I was gonna thanks nextiva. I wanna give them one. One final thanks. Nextiva has been a supporter of every single episode of our show. We converted over to a new show, all up in your business, and we decided not to. They're not gonna be supporting us for this show, but they're gonna support us in different ways. In fact, I'm heading out there once this whole pandemic's done to talk about other contracts and other ways to work with them. So thank you for next to Nextiva for supporting 300 plus episodes, and thank you to all our new Supporters are coming on. Now that nextiva hasn't locked you.

Big.

Shout out to Gino Wickman. So Gino and I have known each other now for a while. I've yet had the opportunity to meet face to face. But he's been a kind endorser and supporter for the work I do. His book, he's famous for his traction, one of the most prolific books in the entrepreneurial space and he came out with a brand new book that is so needed right now about the Entrepreneurial Leap. In case you don't know, Gino, you've definitely been living under a rock. But let me just give you a heads up. He's the founder of EOS Worldwide. He is. That organization supports over 350 individuals. As you heard earlier on, he just sold the company recently and is devoting his time specifically to helping entrepreneurs and making the huge giant leap into a new startup. And that's what we're going to explore today. So Gino, welcome to our show.

It is a pleasure to be here. And Mike, love your energy.

Thank you, brother. If there was music going on, I'd be dancing and running around.

I love it.

I was actually, between you and me, I was diagnosed with hypomania by my in laws. So both my in laws are psychologists and my mother in law about three years ago says, oh, you have hypomania. And like, what's that? She's like, it's one degree less than hypermania. So it's still channelable, you can still control it, but your energy is relentless and at times can be annoying to people.

Yeah. And as you're saying that, I'm looking around at my books because I have a book called the Hypomanic Edge. You're talking to a fellow hypomania person and it is a gift that many entrepreneurs have. So I'm actually looking around. I was going to hold it up for you, but it's called the Hypomanic Edge. So anybody out there that thinks they're an entrepreneur, read it. So.

Oh my gosh, I got to get that. And after this, why don't we go for a quick run a workout and do some more business together?

You got it. You got it.

So, hey, what inspired you to write the Entrepreneurial Edge, Gino?

Well, the Entrepreneurial Leap. Oh.

You also write the Hypermania Edge. Yeah. Now I'm totally screwed up.

You combine two titles. So what inspired me to write Entrepreneurial Leap is after 30 years of obsessing about helping entrepreneurs be successful, I decided to go to the front end of the entrepreneurial journey and teach what I needed the most when I was an 18 year old, mislabeled derelict entrepreneur in the making. Insecure, terrified, didn't know what I was. And so the idea is to help anyone out there that thinks they might be an entrepreneur in the making really discover that they are and show them a path to really greatly increase their odds of success and eliminate half the mistakes they're about to make. They're still going to make the other half, unfortunately, couldn't solve them all.

You're taking an entrepreneurial leap yourself in this. You are known in this industry for giving businesses traction, for having the EOs. I've spoke to the EO community. You're the first name I hear. I spoke at the YPO community. You're the first name I hear. You are the authority in the space. And now it's not that you're abandoning the space, but you're moving very entrepreneurial to a whole new category. What inspired you to take on that risk yourself?

Yeah, I love that you're saying I'm not abandoning the space because I'm absolutely not. I built EOS Worldwide with my partner Don Tinney and that business over 20 years. We built it, we sold it, is continuing to grow at 40% a year. There are three 150 US implementers. I still own the books, I still own a part of the company. So EOS that is very much alive and well, it is self sufficient and free of me. And the plan is for that to be around 100 years and half my working time is still EOS stuff where I'm passionate now. Eos Worldwide is now a big company. That's not fun to me. So I like building things. So my next project, again, again I am absolutely. I've taken another entrepreneurial leap. I've got to be half crazy. I can't stop myself. But again, it's this undying passion to impact a million entrepreneurs in the making. And so that's what it's all about for me, that is the next 10 years of my life is an obsession about this next topic.

So the entrepreneurs in the making. The first thing that pops in mind is a person coming out of college starting a business. But then the next picture is like the story of Colonel Sanders who starts his first company. Supposedly I think it was in the 60s. What makes up an entrepreneur in the making?

I love it because that's the reality. This is for anyone age 9 to 90. Okay, so it's not about an age at all. It's these people that exhibit these, what I call the six essential traits, these traits and characteristics of an entrepreneur. And the idea is to find them wherever they are. And if they're young, it could be in school and they might be in the corporate world, they might be in the inner cities. Wherever they are, it's to find them and help them realize what they are. And so what makes up an entrepreneur are again, those six essential traits which I'll quickly rattle through them. And that is visionary, passionate, problem solver, driven, risk taker and responsible. And so when you look at any successful true entrepreneur that has built an organization, they all have those six essential traits.

Yeah, so I heard, risk taker, driven, all these things. And I was like, oh, because if you don't have that responsible component, that could be a problem, right?

Oh, you better believe it. And that's the one that catches everyone by surprise. And I love to leave it for last because it's a little jarring. You're hearing all these intense words and then all of a sudden, responsible, what the hell is that? Well, that one is as important as the rest. Because my other favorite question is, you know, which one's most important and which one's least important? There's no such thing. They are of equal importance. And so half the world takes responsibility and half the world does not take responsibility. And you just have to decide which one you are. But a true entrepreneur takes total responsibility, which means when something bad goes wrong, they immediately look in the mirror and at themselves and somebody defined responsible, somebody who exhibits this trait perfectly by saying a responsible person, if their building gets hit by a meteor, they believe it's their fault.

Okay?

And so that's the device I built the building, I moved in the building I chose to be there. And so that's the definition of responsible. Where half the world would say, oh, woe is me, look what happened to me, look what they did to me. So responsible is as important as the rest.

Well, the asteroid that came careening through the new economy in this pandemic, you know, recording this on Cinco de Mayo, I think a lot of people had no expectation for this, no preparation or planning. How can an entrepreneur take responsibility over what's going on? Or can they?

Well, you know, so what I've been saying a lot is something really important. My business mentor taught me 30 years ago, so it's held true every decade for 30 years. And he talked about the 10 year business cycle and that in a 10 year business cycle you're going to have two great years, six good years and two terrible years that could potentially put you out of business. And since he said that 30 years ago, it's literally happened every 10 years. So the crisis, we never know what it's going to be. But the bottom line is you shouldn't be surprised because, by the way, let's pretend you were surprised by this one. Shame on you. Ten years from now when the next one hits, that you're surprised. And so the reality of it is, as you go into this, knowing that once we survive this, and we're going to survive this, I'm getting my ass kicked again in the next 10 years. And so the responsibility is just assuming responsibility for knowing that's happened. And how do you ultimately take responsibility? Have 6 months cash flow sitting in the bank, both personally and in your business, so you can do these hiccups. At the end of the day, in the grand scheme of 1000 years of history, it's just an issue. It's just an issue.

But, you know, so the government has gone to entrepreneurs who've taken the leap. They said, here's a tranche of money. We'll give you two and a half months of salary for your team. That's cash flow. Is that a responsible and appropriate thing to do? How's that going to affect us?

Yeah, so I'm not smart enough to know that, and I certainly don't want to get political here. So I don't know. Thank God I'm not the guy sitting at the helm of this whole thing making those kind of decisions. So I honestly don't know. I hope, I pray, I hope it helps, but I have no idea, because we can go through two alternate universes on how this should have been handled, and who the hell knows who's right? In five years, we're gonna look back and know what was right. But that's hindsight 20 20. When you're in this battle, you just gotta move forward, make decisions. And these are the decisions our government has made. And hopefully they're the right ones. Who the hell knows? My. And again, they know more than what we know. And so again, if I was at the helm, I could give you a smarter answer when I saw all the data points.

But what about the recipients? I mean, a small business just starts up, they take the entrepreneurial leap, and now I got a lot of cash. How do you see that affecting them? Are they using it prudently? Are they using it imprudently? What's happening in your perspective?

Well, I think that if I had to guess, you're asking me a theoretical question because I haven't gone out and talked to 10, 10,000 of them.

And until I asked you before the interview to do that, I tried. Bad's on you.

You asked me a half hour ago. So I got to.

It was a half hour ago.

So I would suggest that a third are probably abusing it, a third are using it wisely, and a third, it's gonna screw them up somehow. It was a handout, but who knows what those numbers are, but there's some percentage of each one of those categories. And so all I can say is my hopes and dreams. And my hopes and dreams would be that anyone that truly needs it because you've been devastated. You don't know how to get out of this thing. You don't know how to solve this thing. And so this is going to buy you 60 days. Then, great. That money was put to good use. And I would suggest most entrepreneurs would have figured that out. And then for the rest that, you know, again, if they could figure it out, they said, no, thanks, I don't need it. But for the ones that desperately needed it, you know, it probably will save our asses economically. But. But who, who knows? Because again, alternate universes, we could, we could play out each one of these things, but let's pretend the government gave no one money. You know, what would that look like? And I could give you 10 theoretical thoughts like, but, you know, all I'm going to do is piss off, you know, whatever side of the fence they are politically on the, you know, your listeners. I'm going to piss off one or the other with. I make, you know, unfortunately, we can't all agree on anything right now.

I piss my listeners off every episode.

Good. Well, I'm quite certain if you and I do great work today, yes, we're going to piss some people off that we have not done our job if we haven't rattled a few cages.

Well, one thing you share in your book is this, these three concepts that confirm the glimpse in the path. And I think it's particularly applicable now if my perspective is right, because things are changing so dynamically. Can you share all details about that?

I love it. I appreciate you starting there because that's really the context of this whole thing. And so the way I wrote this book and the way I'm teaching this to the world and the way you, as the listener or viewer, I want you to see, this is in three parts. Confirm, glimpse, path. As you said there, confirm is all about first confirming whether or not you have these six essential traits and whether you're meant to be an entrepreneur. And so here comes the first two times I'm going to piss off some people in your audience. Number one is, you know, a lot of people want to be an entrepreneur right now and many are not. Okay. And a wake up call here. And I believe I'm doing a service to the world by saying you got to know if you are or aren't because I'm trying to actually save you from 10 years of hell if you're not a true entrepreneur. But for those that are, there's an assessment. It's free, you can figure out if you are. The other point is it's going to assess whether you have those six essential traits and help you filter and decide for yourself. And but here's the other thing that's going to piss people off. I believe you're born with these traits. They can't be taught. This is not, I'm not teaching you the six essential traits. I'm making you aware of them so you can do a self discovery on yourself to decide do I have them. These have been with you your whole life. Now once we've confirmed, we then take you to glimpse. And now if you have these traits, I show you what life looks like as an entrepreneur. All of your options, countless stories a day in the life, both the dream and the nightmare and how to avoid the nightmare that then lights a true entrepreneur up. And then path. I take them through the path and I show them how to eliminate half the mistakes, greatly increase their odds of success. And we get into things like college or not. For a young person, how to find your passion, tenure, thinking, eight disciplines for increasing your odds and then the nine stages of building your business. So that's, I'm trying to get it all out in one fell swoop. But those are the three parts of the book. And it literally takes you on this journey of self discovery, of ultimately deciding if this thing is right for you. I give you a glimpse, you're able to see it all and then decide to take your leap.

Yes, we talked about the confirm with those six elements. I'm really curious about the glimpse, the dream versus nightmare because I went in with a dream and it very quickly became a nightmare which then fulfilled a dream because I realized the peaks and valleys. Can you give more explanation around what those elements are?

I would love to. And so what I do is, and I'm not going to do it here in the interest of time, but I do kind of two riffs. If you Will one is this riff on a day in the life, the dream and what it looks like and what is possible. And this is what we help every one of our EOS clients live. This is the work I've been doing for 25 years. And so what it can look like to live the dream as an entrepreneur. Then I do the same riff and show the nightmare and show what hell looks like. And frankly, what most entrepreneurs are experiencing today as we speak. Well, we start with that contrast that is glimpse. So you can see those two scenarios. Know that the dream is possible. And then I show the eight most common mistakes on why entrepreneurs are living that nightmare. And I learned that out of, you know, 20 years of working with entrepreneurs. When they come to me living the nightmare, I then teach them how to live the dream. And scientifically, it's these eight things over and over and over and over that they keep screwing up. And so we can go as deep into those eight as you want. You're in charge here, so I'll go wherever you take me.

So the two hypomanias got to roll through this. Give me all eight. But you got like three minutes to do it. You got it.

No. And here's what I'll do. I can do it in 30 seconds. I'll give you them at a high level. And if. If you get excited about one or two and want to go deeper. Let's go deeper into those. Here they are. Very quickly. Number one, not having a vision. Number two, hiring the wrong people. Number three, not spending time with your people. Number four, not knowing who your customer is. Number five, not charging enough. Number six, not staying true to your core. Number seven, not knowing your numbers. And number eight, not crystallizing roles and responsibilities.

I will take option number. Well, I don't recall the number. Not charging enough is such a common problem with business.

I love it. I love it.

Yeah, on that one, how we resolve that?

You bet, man. So first thing I want to start with is it is a psychological issue. It is rampant. Almost every entrepreneur when they take their entrepreneur leap under charges. But what's important is to understand why you're doing that. You're doing that because you don't feel worthy. You're insecure. Psychologically, you are not comfortable charging what you're worth. And so we got to go to the psychological issues. We gotta fix you. We gotta fix that brain of yours. And I would prescribe two thoughts or ideas. First is a masterful video. It's a TED Talk by Casey Brown. Okay. And so just go to that TED talk, 15 minutes. It goes right to the psychology, how to educate your customers and clients. And so really, really powerful. Second thing is a great quote by Dion Sullivan who says when it comes to pricing, when you're about to choose your pricing, think of the number that scares you the most and add 20%. Okay? And so that's what's happening is that 20% gap is the psychology is a psychological issue that you're faced with. And so it's funny, you know, for 15 years in the work I did, working directly with clients, I would raise my fee every two years. And every time I raised that damn fee, I would go, ah, why didn't I do that sooner? Because nobody balked. I didn't lose a client. And so it's. But I didn't feel worthy enough to charge that next fee increase, you know, when I chose the one before that. And so it's, it's all psychological with that. You gotta educate your customer, you gotta teach them your value, you gotta understand how you are better and different than any other option they have. So you've got some work to do around this. But it's, it starts by being a psychological issue.

Yeah, I totally get it because even as you're saying that, in my mind I'm thinking about Walmart's so cheap, they're setting a low price standard. If I go up 20% over my fear factor, I can never compete. But let's go on to the path. You talked about cutting mistakes. I think you said in half. What are some of the tips to avoid those mistakes?

Yeah, I love it. So now we're into the third part of the book. There's a chapter for each one of these disciplines. And again, like I said, at a high level, it talks about. First chapter is about college or not, depending on your age. It really gives you all the facts so you can decide if going to college is right for you. I did not go to college. I knew I could not wait to get out of academia. And so I give all the facts. It's not a pro college, it's not an anti college message. It's all the facts as an entrepreneur for you to decide. Then I get into how to find your passion. Then I get into how to find a mentor. I get into the power of tenure thinking where I want to go to is. The last two chapters are about the eight disciplines to greatly increase your odds of success. And then the nine stages of building your business. And the awareness of those two things are what help reduce and cut in half the number of mistakes an entrepreneur is going to make. So here's what I'd love to do, Mr. Hypomania, fellow hypomaniac. So you get. I'm going to go through the list again, but you tell me, would you prefer to hear about the eight disciplines or the nine stages first? Choose that.

Okay, let's go through the nine stages.

You got it. Okay. And I'm going to quickly go through those nine stages at a high level, and you pick the one or two that you'd love to drill down on. So here are the nine stages of building your business. Not necessarily in a sequential order, but as best I could, because some of these things happen at different times. But I see, number one, it's generating cash. Number two is hiring an integrator. Number three is discovering your core values. Number four is holding yourself accountable. Number five is communicating frequently with your employees. Number six is having a plan B, C and D. Seven is staying in your personal sweet spot. Number eight is preventing your business from getting away from you. And number nine is capitalizing on coaching, training, and mentoring.

Well, it's about once in a lifetime I get a time to ask Gino Wickman about challenge. I have. And we were just talking about last episode we did I throw happy grenades. I, you know, I had this vision for our business, and these ideas pop up and bubble, like, oh, we can do this idea. And our integrator, Kelsey, who runs the company, gets thrown off and so does everyone else here at the office. So I'm curious about the blend between hiring integrator and staying in my sweet spot.

Oh, I love it, love it, love it, love it. So there's two points here. It's staying in your personal sweet spot as the entrepreneur, and then it's staying in your company sweet spot. That's the not letting your business get away from you. As far as asking about you personally, or are you asking about the company staying in its sweet spot?

Me personally love it.

So here's what I would prescribe, and I'm going to do my best to articulate this in 60 seconds, which is not an easy thing to do. But as an entrepreneur, you first and foremost have to decide what your genetic encoding is, and it's not the same answer for every entrepreneur. And so using me as an example, you know, my love is teaching and creating content, and I'm a pretty good salesperson, you know, and so to go out there and teach and present and sell and promote. So as long as I'm doing those three things, like 95% of the time, I'm staying in my sweet spot. And so the point here is, you want to stay in that sweet spot. And anything else, you want to make sure you're delegating and elevating, delegating and elevating, delegating. And so as you grow the business, you're staying in that sweet spot. Because what's happening is most entrepreneurs are doing it all, and the business is growing, and they're slowly like the boiling frog, they're just slowly dying because they're drowning in all that stuff. Well, the secret is to stay ahead of it, stay in that sweet spot, and keep delegating and elevating. Now, little different than what you're saying, but I want to tie the two together, because let's pretend Mike is doing a great job of staying in his sweet spot. You are going to have a lot of ideas. You are going to be throwing a lot of stuff at Kelsey, and so then that's a different story. And so now, between the two of you and your leadership team, you've got to agree, what is the company sweet spot? And Kelsey's got to be very strong at saying, mike, that doesn't fit and what we call core focus in eos and traction. So she's got to be the filter that says, this doesn't fit in our core focus. This doesn't fit in our core focus. Because here's the reality. Let's pretend most of your ideas are good. With all due love and respect, they're not all good, but let's pretend most of them are. Okay, Most organizations don't have the capacity, time, or energy to execute every great idea. And so you have to be very selective. The more successful you get, the more success comes at you. And so a great quote from Jim Collins is, the more successful you become, you're more likely to die of indigestion of too many opportunities than from starvation of lack of opportunities. So the idea is to be very selective, choose the right opportunities, because I know how successful you are. I know lots of stuff's coming at you. I know you have a ton of ideas. And so you just got to stay true to your core and then ultimately decide your growth trajectory. Because if you're a $2 million company, you're trying to go to $100 million company, start adding people, start capitalizing on those ideas. But not everybody wants to do that. And so what's the sweet spot? So hopefully that answers the question.

It does. It does. My friends watching, we just had barely enough time to scratch the surface of the entrepreneur Leap. So, Gina, before I let you go, where can our listeners and our viewers get access to your book and all this great stuff you're doing?

You bet. So the epicenter of all things entrepreneurial Leap is the website e-leap.com you will find that free assessment to find out if you have the six essential traits. You'll find a free chapter of the book, the first 30 pages. There are nine free tools I offer on that website. You can obviously also purchase the book there and through any major retailer. But the whole idea is to help give this wonderful content away and, again, impact a million entrepreneurs in the making over the next 10 years.

The extraordinary Gino Wickman. Thank you so much for joining us. I love you.

Thank you, Gino.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank you. That was great.

Well, take care, brother. So we're gonna recap what we learned from Gino in just a minute, and I'll tell you with websites. If we told my dad, it's@e-leap.com he go to e- yeah, it'll be a nightmare. So let's recap what we learned, and then. Do you have a game again today, Jay Bone?

Of course, yes.

All right, I'm gonna stop asking because you always do. All right, one time, like, let's do the game. Like, oh, not today.

Yeah, that's. I'm gonna surprise you with that.

So, Jaybone, why don't you go first? What was your takeaway from the big G, man?

It was. There was a lot packed into that. I think the point that I like the most is if you're starting out as an entrepreneur, the pricing model. So think of a number that scares you out of 20%. I think that's really, really important because a lot of people don't know how to price, and then they're afraid that once they're established, if they change the price, then it's. Yeah, it's either going to throw off their business or they have to explain some reason why they're raising their prices. So I really like that.

Well, you made that rub product and. And it sold to some survivalists and outdoor campers and stuff.

How would.

How did you do the pricing on that product?

So I looked at comparable seasonings, and then I figured out the cost per ounce that it cost me to make it. And then what the cost per ounce for the manufacturers to make it, and then the markup that they were doing. And then I added in my expenses and things like that. And then I came up with a number that I thought was Pretty reasonable. And I think I probably did charge too low for.

Yeah. I was wondering if you didn't do the add 20% after you figure that out, you know?

Yeah, Now I know.

You know? Yeah, yeah. Maybe reinvent that product. This. You had that one smoked rub. It was incredible. My favorite. Amy, what'd you learn from Gino Wickman?

Oh, I loved him. I loved him. I loved him. I loved him so much.

You know why?

Because he looks like your husband, doesn't he?

Maybe that could be it.

Like Chris Kelsey.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. We had Prince. Last one. And now we have Chris, her husband. I didn't even know he's an author. I know an amazing author. I keep going.

So the thing for me is, like, as a person who really never connected with the business side, if I have one, even if I am, is there an entrepreneurial spirit in me? I love the idea that he's going back to the front line and taking these people who are just starting their journeys and helping them confirm, do they even have the characteristics of an entrepreneur? Do you really have what you're going to need to be successful down this path and then sparing them possibly 10, 15 years of struggle? Because if it's just not an ingredient in there, that's not part of your makeup, how great. What a gift to know that and know that ahead of time.

I love the idea. Also observation.

Well, thank you. I also love the idea of knowing that, you know, college isn't for everybody, and some entrepreneurs won't take that path. My son is a freshman in high school. I'm hearing more and more about his friends who are like, no, I have no college in my plans. I'm going to be. They've got their 3D printers already. They have ideas of things they want to manufacture, and they're talking about their. Their entrepreneurial plans. They're 15 year olds.

Interesting.

College isn't in the future for them.

I have a question. Yeah. And I, you know, I went to the Boone High School to present to your son and his other students, and I told him, college sucks. You guys don't do it. You'll be an idiot if you do it. And I terrify. I terrify. Could you imagine me saying that? Right?

I could just see the guidance counselor.

Hey, if your husband's home, y' all have Chris come down. Just wave real quick so people can see the video.

Oh, I wish he was. He's out at the garden center right now.

Oh, damn it. Because then people like, oh, my God, Gina Wickman just flew across country and.

Hanging is hanging out with Amy. She was really psyched about his appearance on.

Yeah, he's actually working on Amy's garden. That's how much of a hypomaniac he is.

He's that good.

Kelsey, what did you take away?

So I love that too. I love that there's six clear traits. And it's not something that you can acquire. It's not a skill set that you can learn. You either have them or you don't. And I feel like that is very critical and important because. Because I think that some folks might go into it maybe lacking one or two of those traits and they might succeed, but are they going to be happy doing it? And I think that's the point. Your life is short and precious, so do something that makes you happy. And I also love that he said delegate and elevate or delegating and elevating. I think that's so great. I love that. And I think having between the visionary and integrator, having that coherence of your. Your growth strategy, so, you know, how fast do we want to grow? How big do we want to grow? And that helps kind of determine which projects to take on or which ones we slough and say no to, you know?

Yeah, yeah, that. So I highlighted that. Delegate and elevate, too. What I find funny, of all the guests we interview, for me, the most impactful components. Components are usually not something that they're speaking to, but they kind of just throw in as a. Not as an afterthought, but just substantive information, but not the core contact context. So when he said delegate and elevate, I don't think he was really concentrating on that. He was talking about this 10 year base rule and the two years are high. And it. I'm listening. And also things like. Yeah, and you just need to delegate and elevate. When he's talking about the integrator and I don't know, he just threw it in. And to me, that's the. That was the. All this stuff was amazing. It was gold.

Yeah.

The other thing is, clearly two hypomanias is the fastest conversation I know.

I could not write down anything.

I feel like, hey, hey, hey, hey. I even. I could barely catch up.

And my husband Chris, I have just determined is a hypomaniac. I mean, I've always said he's ADD and he is ADD, but I have just decided after listening to YouTube that is also what.

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And the funny thing is, I don't know if you're called a hypomaniac because that's why I said to my psychologist in laws and said, oh, I'm a hypomaniac. They said, no, no, you have hypomania.

Hypomania. Okay, so a person with hypomania.

But personally, I like the label of being a hypomaniac more. And I want to get that book, like Flash Dance.

My favorite thing about that, like, was, was the fact you said, you said.

I want to get that book Hypomania Edge.

Yeah.

I'm embarrassed. I was so focused on that title that I called his book. I know.

Right off the bat.

Yeah, right off the bat. I'm like, listen, we've been trying to score Gino WICKMAN for like 10 years now. Like, we finally got Gino Wickman, author of the brand new book, Entrepreneurial Edge.

Gino, I love you so much.

I pay attention to everything you do, every word you say. I know everything inside out. Hey, you look like Amy's husband. Why do I make observations like that? Like, he has no idea what I'm talking about. When you score a guest of his significance. Like, I should do some research and I should speak to what he wants to share.

Like, the one thing he wants to.

Talk about, the one thing you want.

To talk about was his book. And I'm like, hey, let's talk about Amy's husband. What's going on with this economy, Gino. And tell me about your brand new book on the government.

Gino.

Yeah, exactly.

He's like, I don't want to make any political statements, but seriously, what do you think about the government? He had a push. Am I the worst?

A little.

No, you're wonderful.

But there's better interviewers out there. I'm not the next guy. Brian Williams. Is that the guy who got Brian Williams fired? I'm next. I'm not the next Brian Williams.

Even though that's a great thing.

Yeah, well, you know, you'd be the next Brian Williams.

I gotta defend Brian Williams or Matt Lauer.

I'm glad you're not Matt Lauer.

Okay, Matt Lauer. I can't defend. I will defend Brian Williams because Brian Williams said that he was on a helicopter that was shot at. I then listened to a story through Malcolm Gladwell on how memories modify and it's true for every single human being. If you look back at any significant events in your life, particularly where someone else was there, and you try to go item by item of what happened, or moment by moment and have the other person in a Separate room, share moment by moment. It'll be two different stories. Even though we both observed the same thing.

Yeah.

And see that.

And if you record. Record your reflection on a moment today, and then you record on that moment 10 years later and reflect back, it's changed.

Yeah.

And, like, new elements come in. So he may have legitimately thought he was shot at. That's.

Yeah. And I also, like, in the big scheme of things, I don't feel like it was, you know, horribly morally wrong, you know?

Right. He wasn't trying to. I don't think he was trying to elevate himself to be a hero. He just said, well, yeah, we took on fire. I was scared. I don't know. It's a shame they got terminated over that. But how he handled it, I thought was very noble. He said in reflection, he goes, I don't recall, but I must have been trying to elevate my ego. Like, he took the punch, even though I don't know if it was necessary.

Right.

Brian Williams, you're my hero now. You're my war veteran, Brian.

I don't even know what the hell you guys are talking about. I just. I'm lost here, so you wouldn't know.

You wouldn't know. You got terminated. He got terminated for this whole shebang.

All right?

He got terminated.

Yeah.

Terminated.

Terminator.

He got terminated. Got terminated. That's all you need to know.

My favorite part about the interview, Mike, was in the beginning, you said, just between you and me and the 12,000.

Other people I know. Well, the beautiful thing is by saying that he. I. I hope subconsciously.

Oh, yeah.

I can share some intimate stuff. So when we started the interview, he starts rolling up numbers and stuff, like, now the world knows, Jay.

Quite the mind hack. Yeah.

Mike and his mind hacks.

Yeah, he hacked the hell out of my mind, though. I don't know what's going on. All right, what. What game we got to play ke.

Can you play. Can you sing the jingle to play What?

Thank you.

Can you do the jingle?

Oh, but which one is fake?

No, that's not it. What's the. What's the fake one? Which. Oh, yeah, close.

I didn't even get it right.

All right, all right, so we have another episode of what? Which one's fake?

So which one's the fake one?

Yeah, which one's the fake one?

That's. I just did. I just did the jingle.

There you go.

No, I said, which one? And he said, it's what, the fake one?

No, you said, what's the. I Can't remember what you said.

Oh, I got an idea. Why don't we fight over what the real title is for this stupid game we're trying to play? We're Horrible. Stupid game. By the way, I take that back. That was offensive.

That's a great game.

Thanks. All right, so the first one, the bottle humidifier. Turn any standard size water bottle into a humidifier with the bottle humidifier. Great for when you're sick on the go or have a case of hard boogers.

The bottle humidifier, that was Jeremy Copy.

Yeah, I have creative license. The bottle humidifier inserts directly into the bottle and produces a soothing steam using two 9 volt batteries. All right, number two, the reverse microwave. Microwaves are great for heating, but what about when you need to cool something? The reverse microwave, nicknamed the chill wave, can cool a boiling drink down to 40 degrees in less than five minutes. Perfect for wine, beer, or water on those hot summer days. Unlike traditional microwave, all metals can be used, except for copper. And finally, we have the color copy pen. Ever see something that had a cool color you wish you could duplicate with the Scribbler pen? You can. The digital pen uses sensors to determine the color and transfers them to the electronic tip. Just hold the pen to a color and press the button for five seconds.

Just the tip?

Yeah, just. Just the tip. Yep.

Okay, you just add Jim.

Yeah, he couldn't resist.

He said the electronic tip. I mean, come on.

That's why I wanted to name that segment and I was vetoed.

I'm gonna go.

Elevation point was almost. Just the tip.

Yeah, I'm gonna go first. I. The bottle. He would define.

I didn't even finish the description.

Oh, I heard just. Dude, I cut you off. You said just a tip, and I'm like, you cut off. You're cut off.

So. So you hold it to the item and press the button for five seconds. And then now you can write in that color. There you go.

That was it. Well, now I changed everything.

So we got bottle humidifier.

I didn't get that the first time.

The bottle humidifier is a legit product in my opinion, and I daresay I even seen it. The color tip is really technically sophisticated. I can't imagine how they did it, but I'm gonna say that's okay. The reverse microwave makes no sense to me. And I think I caught you, J Bone, with too much description. Like it doesn't support copy. I think that was a superfluous add on to throw me off. So I'm going to go with reverse microwave. Being a fake product.

Okay.

I kind of agree. But just to be different, I'm going to say the color copy pen only because I feel like I would have seen that technology or in other things that it can then write in that color. I definitely think that, like, denoting the color makes sense, but to then be able to write in it feels very sophisticated, and I feel like I would know about it.

I'm gonna go with the reverse microwave as the fake one.

Oh, Amy teaming up with me. So one, two, punch.

Yeah. All right, well, guess what? You guys got it correct. The reverse microwave is the fake one. Surprisingly, the color palette Amy Cartelli brings it home. Is real.

How did.

Yeah, how? I didn't. Expensive. Is that pen.

I didn't look into the technology, but apparently you take the reverse side of the pen to, like, this part, and you hold it to whatever item is, and then it'll create that color in the tip. Wow.

Interesting. Very interesting. How does it. Like, is it real ink? Like, is how it's like.

Yeah, I think it's real.

Oh, no, the ink doesn't come out. It doesn't work.

Like, so this. So this pen is an erasable one, which is great, but if I put something hot on my paper, it will disappear. So, like, it's obviously a different, like, type of ink.

It's probably. I didn't look into it, but I'm thinking it's probably like the toner for the inkjet printers. Like, there's cartridges in there, and then when they combine.

Oh, Blends them.

Oh, that makes so much more sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, Kelsey, you use invisible ink.

Yes.

So what did you put hot on your paper that caused it to disappear?

Sometimes I'll put, like, my mug on.

My paper and a circle goes and just doesn't come back.

No.

Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's cool. So it's made to work with a rocket book, which you can just wipe clean. So it's great in that regard. But then when you're using a regular paper, it's also cool because you can erase it. But those instances, you just have to be conscious of putting hot things on it. You don't want it to disappear.

Talking about disappearing, we got to disappear ourselves. We got to wrap up this show. So, my friends, make sure you leave a rating and review on whatever podcast you're listening on. And please send me an emails. Ask mike@mikemcalowicz.com with any question that you have around your business. I want to answer on the show or on our other things that we do. And make sure you sign up at YouTube too. And so subscribe to that if you want to see the videos. You can see how Gino Wickman looks just like Chris Cartelli. And one final thing, go to mike motorbike.com that's our central hub for all the stuff we're doing here. Click on get the Tools. We have free books chapters. We have free book chapters. We have other free download tools for you. It's right for the Wall Street Journal. All that stuff is there for free waiting for you plaster to bonus. Pretty soon we're going to be doing a live or at least a virtual event where I share my latest research. But the only way you can join in for free is by going to the get the tools option@mikemotorbike.com all right, we're out of here. See you guys.

Bye.

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