Hidden Gem Episode: 10 Disciplines for Maximizing Your Energy, Rob Dube, CEO, imageOne

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Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Common Skew. And right now, if you're listening to this episode as it's published, you're in the middle of your 2023 holiday break. And as has been a tradition for us, we like to use these few weeks during the holidays to republish a few hidden gems you might have missed earlier in the year. Now, these weren't necessarily the most popular episodes, but they should have been because they were so profound in their practical insight that we thought they were worth resharing with you. Today, since the new year is right around the corner, we're republishing our conversation with Rob Dube, CEO of Image One, on the topic, The 10 Disciplines for Maximizing Your Energy. It's the perfect episode to help you as you think ahead to your personal and business goals for 2024.

More on that in a minute.

Did you know that the overall distributor network growth on Commscue has soared to over $1.8 billion in annual revenue for 2023? In addition, over 800 distributor companies now power their businesses using Commscue. That's up from 715 distributors in 2022. E-commerce shops growth hit an all-time high with a 75% increase in shops adoption And the total number of sales projects created in the Commscue platform swelled to a 23% increase over the previous year. All of these details and more are a part of our 2023 year-end recap, where we highlight the growth and numerous workflow enhancements built for you by the Commscue team, plus a letter from founders Mark and Catherine Graham. You can check it out at commonscue.com/2023-recap. Today's episode is brought to you by Commenscue, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more, visit commenscue.com. Now, here's our hidden gem episode with our special guest, Rob Dew, on the 10 disciplines for maximizing your energy.

Rob, it is really cool to have you here on the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm so grateful that you reached out to me, Bobby.

Um, I am really intrigued by the book that Gina Wickman wrote and the program that you've built around 10-year thinking. And of course, we will link to everything in the show notes, but we're talking about The 10 Disciplines for Managing and Maximizing Your Energy. I took away so many great things. I thought we would look at the 10 things which 10 years. We'll go through those real quick and you can do this better than me. But the 10 things are 10-year thinking, take time off, know thyself, be still, know you're 100%, say no often, don't do $25 an hour work, prepare every night, put everything in one place, and be humble. And I thought we could use this, our next 20 minutes or so, to unpack some of your favorites and some questions I had. Yeah, around some of these. So welcome. And as I said in the intro, You're amongst great company with entrepreneurs who've started businesses, built them, and then trying to figure out how to maximize their energy.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you for having me. And, and reading off the 10 disciplines, it gets— it's a great way to get started. And I'm actually— I kind of want to follow your lead. I'm curious what you're curious about. Yeah, your audience best. So I'll just follow your lead and we'll go from there. Great.

I have lots of questions. First of all, 10-year thinking. It's really hard for some of us, myself especially, to think 10 years. For those of us who are foresight challenged, what's the nearest direct benefit of 10-year thinking? Do you, do you like an example?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's many, but when, when you know clearly where you want to be in 10 years and for some people that have trouble going out that far, we recommend scale it back a little if you need to be at 5 or 7 or something like that. But looking out at some point in the future, by the way, Some people go out to 20, 30, 100 years nowadays. Well, the idea is when you know where you're going, it, it, it affects your actions today. And so, you know, clearly I'm going to give a simple example on a personal side. If I want a strong relationship with my wife in 10 years, how I treat her today matters. And I know that sounds obvious, But it is like that. So if I imagine in 10 years we have this beautiful, close relationship together, how I act today matters. And it's no different in your business. Yes. What— where are you going? And another thing that's really wonderful about thinking out in those timelines is time can slow down for you. You know, we're very now, now, now. Yeah. Kind of society and a business. We got to get to it now. There's a lot of urgency and a lot of pressure around stuff. Yeah, and this pulls a little bit of the pressure off. And when you pull the pressure off, take some of that stress and anxiety away, you begin to think more clearly. You know, I think your audience and maybe even yourself— I know for myself, when I'm not stressed and anxious, I think more clearly. And then time, as I mentioned, time begins to slow down. You make better decisions ultimately. And a funny thing happens wherever you're headed in terms of your business or maybe your lifetime goals. You actually end up getting there quick, more quickly. So it's kind of funny the way it works.

I love that it sort of tempers the urgency and separates the urgent versus important and also gives you a filter for that. Like, that's, that's one of the few things I think we don't have is this filter for making decisions around.

Right. Could I add one important thing that I think is great? Because I know a lot of your audiences are entrepreneurs and Gino's mentor, his name was Sam Kopp. He's no longer with us, but he taught him a great lesson, and I always like to share it when I'm speaking with entrepreneurs, and that is the 10-year business cycle. And so in the 10-year business cycle, what we're saying is you're going to have 2 great years, you're going to have 6 good years, and then you're going to have 2 terrible years that could potentially put you out of business. Yeah. And it's like clockwork. There's always things if you go back in history that are happening in our society, in our world that could really mess up your business. It could be a recession, it could be inflation, it could be a pandemic, it could be a war, and etc., etc., or all of them, which seems like they all came at once recently. But if you're aware of that, you can be very clear and prepared for the inevitable. And that inevitable are those two terrible years that could put you out of business. So that's another huge value to 10-year thinking because you're always preparing yourself.

It's a huge tip because I can imagine how— I know how panicked we get in those 2 years when they hit or that 1 year when they hit. And totally, you know how it is running a business yourself, multiple businesses. You get that first month and you start going, oh no, what's going on? Then that second month and that third month and you start to really panic.

Oh good, I'm not alone.

No, I'm just kidding.

Of course. No, I know everybody has the same.

Yeah. You're coaching a lot of entrepreneurs. Yes. And, and through your program, in the 10-year thinking, have you found an easier way? Like, have you found the methodology for breaking that down? Is it, is it a matter of saying, let's just think 5-year and 3-year, or is that up to the individual?

Well, for— it depends on how they think and what they can wrap their minds around, right? We actually take them through a, a visioning exercise, and I think that breaks down a barrier and the visioning exercise revolves all revolves around just kind of dropping all, you know, things that might be getting in your mind and getting in your way and just really being able to dream, you know, and just what that's like. And it's, it's an exercise, takes about an hour or so. Okay. And, uh, that gets them to, you know, where they need to be. And usually that helps them get past that 5-year or 3-year, you know, where they could go out further.

Yeah, another discipline I loved was know thyself. Now, I recently took the Kolbe assessment, and I had really grown tired of like personality assessments because I think I've taken every single one of them twice, right? And I wanted to know something more tangible about the impact that impacts the way I work, not just, you know, how I'm wired, although I'm sure it includes both. You're far more versed in this because I'm really new to this, but I discovered this term conative strength, if I'm pronouncing that right.

Cognitive?

Yeah, they use the word conative. C-O-N-A-T-I-V.

Okay.

And the instinct, the instinctive way you take action when you strive, which I thought was a beautiful statement, or when you execute. And you're more versed in this than I am. Mine was explain, maintain, innovate, envision. What are yours? Do you recall a few of yours?

I've never— I haven't had that aspect of it. It was that in the Kolbe.

It was in the Kolbe, right?

Yeah.

It's a new—

maybe it's a newer version. Yeah, it's been a long time. It's been— but I'd be curious because we focus on your numbers Okay, your Quick Start, your Follow Through, your Fact Finder, and your Implementer.

So what were your numbers? My numbers were, if that— this makes sense to you, 6, 6, 5, 7, 2.

6, 5, 7, 2. Sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

Does that make more sense?

Yeah, 100%. And it probably falls right in alignment with what you were just sharing, uh, a moment ago. So now that you know that about yourself, um, how does that resonate when you see where you land as a Quick— where you land as a Fact Finder, a Quick Start, a Follow Through, and implementer. Did it resonate with you at all?

It really did. It resonated because I felt like I sometimes live in a world where I'm busting my head against the wall with certain things, and there were insights into it that showed me how I work. It showed me that this is the way you optimize at your best. And so, for example, I do content, and, and maybe, maybe my role can— for salespeople in the audience, it's a little similar to business development, right? You're typically working on a prospect for a while, or you're, you're doing some long-range planning. And with content, it can be that way. So it, to me, it was incredibly helpful to, to find some resonance around the way I work. How about you? How have you seen Kolbe, uh, work in, in terms of helping people understand how they execute and how they can apply that?

Well, this aspect is great for your team to know you and you to know your team. So if they take it as well, you have a good sense of things. And so one example might be, say you need— you have a role on your team that requires a lot of fact-finding, to use their exact terminology. Right. And you need somebody who's a little bit more thorough. So you'll look for a higher fact-finder, a high follow-through, but they might not be a quick start, meaning, you know, somebody like you, you're kind of on the higher end for quick start. So you gather some number of facts because you're, you're kind of mid to on the high end and not a ton of facts, but, you know, reasonable amount and then you're ready to go, right? You know, and now people that are working with you who know that about you, now they understand Bobby's about and, you know, that's what's going to happen with him. He's going to want some facts. And when he gets what he needs, he's ready to go. He's going to decide and be like, watch out because we're on our way. Right, right, right.

Great example.

Great example.

Only because it's real time. Last night, I— this is, this is typical, typical me. Last night I realized we have our interview today and I always love to send questions in advance, even though some people like you don't need them. And last night I was like, I'm gonna go do that. I did my— I quit. This is a great quick start, maybe last minute too, but quick, quick start was I'm gonna learn everything I can about Rob in the next, uh, 45 minutes, craft these questions and kick them over to him. And here we are having a conversation. So maybe that's what you mean by the MO, right?

And the good news is you didn't need 45 minutes, you only needed like 7 minutes, right?

Not true, not true. So what about you? What's your— what are your numbers and how does that— yeah, how does that—

how does that affect the way you— mine are actually very similar years actually, so I really relate to you. I'm a 1. The last thing is implementer, so I'm like a 1, I think. I, uh, so, uh, but I'm a, I'm a 7 fact-finder, and I'm a 4 follow-through, and I'm an 8 quick start. So that kind of gives you— we have some similar traits as far as that goes. Yeah.

Okay, okay. Uh, well, I'll link to this in the show notes where you can find the Kolbe Report. Um, any other thoughts before we move on from Kolbe?

There's another great one that I like very much, and it's called the Enneagram. Yeah, and that, and that goes through— are you familiar with it?

I am, yes.

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, people can check that out and kind of learn more about it, you know, just Google it or whatever.

Yeah, we'll link to that. We've actually had guests speak on the Enneagram and also on the podcast, so I'll link to that. I'm glad you wrote that too. I think it's a really, really well-balanced and holistic way of looking at work.

Yeah. Yes, it is.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about was one of your— one of the disciplines that Gino works on and that you work on through, through your coaching program is know your 100%.

Yeah.

Now I create content, so it's a big part of my job is blocking chunks of time to devote to this. And so after reading Know Your 100%, I dropped this in my calendar notes under my weekly blocks, this quote from, from Gino's work: You should know the exact amount of time you'll devote to your work if you want to maximize your energy. This is known as your work container, which you must protect. What makes this discipline different is that it also works in the context of managing and maximizing your energy. You have to protect your energy. So I can really appreciate and understand how that applies to my work. How does it apply to a salesperson's role?

Well, we don't really teach salespeople so much, but—

or entrepreneurs or CEOs.

Yeah, entrepreneurs and CEOs. But I think it's applicable to everybody. First of all, you have to be able to control your day. So that's really important. So for a salesperson, if they could control their day, and I think a lot of salespeople do, they— what we say is decide on and commit to the perfect number of hours per day and weeks per year that you will deliver your craft to the world. And so you just have to decide. And it takes a little bit of playing around with is how many hours do I put in where at the end of the day I don't feel drained, but I don't feel like I got more to give. Yeah. And so for some people it's just a simple 8 hours. For others it's 10, for others it's 6, and feel and feel okay with. I'm better at 6 strong hours than 8 to 10 slogging through. Yeah. And then focusing on doing the things that give you the most energy, like where's your sweet spot, you know, your unique ability. And it's set a million different ways. And so when you do that and you're very clear about it, that's how you begin to set your boundaries. So what time do you start? What time do you end? Everybody understands how Bobby works and they don't— and Bobby doesn't let us out in, you know, he's set his boundaries. So we can't, we can't go outside those boundaries.

It's—

he doesn't allow us to do it. Yeah. And so if you have some control in that regard, you can really maximize your energy and then you're doing the work that gives you energy.

Yeah, great point. There's a lot of science now. The Andrew Huberman podcast that's out there, if I pronounce it right, he's so good. There's a lot of science around the fact that your brain stops working when you, when you're doing those 10 to 12 hour slogs. You can do them all day long, all you want, but you're not really maximizing your energy. That's right. And that's, I think, a big part of what we're talking about. There's a recent article in The Atlantic titled America's Fever of Workaholism is Finally Breaking.

I just read this. That's great.

With, yeah, with disciplines like take time off, say no often, do you feel like we've reached a point collectively where we're bringing more balance to our lives?

It's a really good question. I don't know. I feel like this, this balance idea has been discussed and brought up for years and years. And, you know, we're all looking for this perfect, you know, like work and life. And, you know, it does kind of all come together. And I think, again, if we have the ability to control what we're doing on a day-to-day basis to a certain degree, let's say 80% of the time, you know, I think that's where we find our perfect mix and that we get different every day. And you have to pay very close attention and be really aware about your energy. In some cases, it's helpful to document it actually and really start cueing in like, what did I do today? Why am I so drained? Yeah. And maybe you only work 6 hours, but you were working on something that you hate doing. It just sucks the energy out of you. Yeah. And so just paying attention to that and then trying to get that stuff off your plate, delegating, elevating, whatever it might be, and getting really focused on where Do I bring the most value? Because when you're doing that, you're bringing value to your organization, and of course you're more energized.

Yeah, really great point. I saw a hack last night on TikTok with Google Calendars, and what the guy said was that go in and create a Google Calendar with your optimum week, and then, and create all the blocks, like your workout, your, your work energy, where you're putting it. By creating a Google Calendar, when you overlay anything over it, like a meeting or something, you actually have this background that kind of shows you what your optimum week looks like. So you sort of know what sacrificing.

I thought that was a great idea. Yeah, that's a great idea.

Yeah.

Let me ask you, have— do you have— do you feel like you've cued in on your 100% and your— the way you like your day to be structured?

Absolutely. So much so. Yes. I shouldn't say it so definitively because we're all— it's always a work in progress. And but because of the kind of work I do, so if I'm prepping for an interview or I'm scheduling, uh, deep work for content or research, or we are going to host a webinar some of that is deep work and requires blocking. And that's a, that's a position that others may not find themselves in because a CEO may have different demands or a salesperson is going to have different demands as well. So but yes, I'm finding progress with that. And but it's always a battle because there are a million admin tasks around even things like that.

It's so true. And here's the thing. So, you know, and different disciplines come into this. But, you know, the first thing, you know, we always think about is how do you start your day? When do you want to start your day? How do you get set up to be the best? For some people, they jump right in, and that's cool. Like, nothing wrong with that. You have to know yourself. Know thyself. Yeah. The next thing is, how many meetings can you handle a day, right? You know, some people are in meetings literally all day, which means they never really have the proper amount of time to prepare and have a clear mind. So There's boundaries you can set around that. When do you shut down? What's your shutdown process? And when are you done? Meaning I'm not looking at my phone. I'm home. If you have a family, I'm home with my family. The phone's away from me. I'm not glancing and, you know, those kinds of things. So once you start honing in on that, you can really get super disciplined about protecting those boundaries. You know, for me, I do not want more than 4 hours of meetings a day. I can't handle any more, and I would rather have less, but that's the max, and that's all I could take, and that's my boundary.

I love that boundary. This leads into one of the topics I really wanted to get into, and I think one you're incredibly passionate about, is about be still.

Is your—

does your— give us an example of what your morning looks like when you start.

Yeah, so for me, I'm an avid meditator, and I have been for almost 20 years now. And so when I wake, I start with a medit— I meditate in the morning for about 40— not about— I meditate for 45 minutes. So that's how I start my day at 5:00. And, and so that's just me. But a lot of people do it a lot of different ways. We're just encouraging that you take time in your day at some point to sit in silence for at least 30 minutes. And it's really hard for people to do that.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things— there's a great quote I love by the author Annie Lamott. She says, my mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try to never go there alone. And this might be one of the reasons why we have trouble sitting, right? When we're sitting in silence, everything's coming up. All the things we need to do and all the, you know, just all the annoying things, challenges, a conversation we had before, whatever it might be. And it's painful. It's so hard. And we start feeling like we're not being productive. What am I doing sitting here? I have 10,000 things that need my attention. Yeah, but you got to recharge. You got to let that stuff come up. And hopefully you could get to a point— and that's maybe another discussion, but I'm happy to go wherever you want with it— where you allow these things to come up and go by like clouds in the sky. Yeah, you don't judge them and you just let it go and, and just kind of settle. There's always that great, you know, I'm sure you've seen it with that great example of the jar with sand in it and you shake it up and water and sand and you shake it and the sand's all over the place and it's cloudy. That's your mind. That's what's going on. And when you set it down and you let it settle, there's your mind. You have more clarity, you have more energy.

Yeah.

So there's such power in doing that. So you can meditate, you can journal, can, you know, contemplate, look out a window at a tree and watch it sway in the, in the wind, whatever your thing is. Pray. Yeah. Everybody has a thing.

I love that. I love to— the bridge or the hacks to, you know, we think meditation, we think, I know I should do that. And you have this guilt complex that comes around it. My hack is so My hack is every morning I have contemplative reading. Um, and, and so that might be— it might be memoirs, journals, or poetry. There's a certain type of reading that actually puts you in a contemplative mode. And so, and what that does, it almost forces me into meditative state in that, in that sense. But I think it was Rinpoche or someone, uh, who said that I have so much to get done today, I must spend at least 2 hours in meditation. I thought that was an interesting answer. You would get that. A noob like me wouldn't get that, but you would get that, right?

I do get that. I love that, by the way. That's so great.

Yeah. Last question. I know we need to get— of the 10 disciplines for maximizing your energy, which one do you see professionals struggling to implement the most but has the most benefit?

Benefit? Oh my God, that's a hard question.

Hard.

It really is. But, you know, I'll just— I'll hit on one that I hear often, and I hear a lot of people kind of spinning on for themselves, and that is don't do 25-hour-an-hour work. So what we end up doing is we say, well, I have a hack, I have a thing on the computer, I use Calendly, I use this, I do that. Nobody can do my travel plans the way I— nobody knows my special need, my— the special way that I like a certain seat on the plane or certain hotels or no type of room, all these things. So, so we end up, you know, using technology and we end up thinking that we can't transfer our knowledge and our needs to somebody else. And so we end up spending an awful lot of energy. I'm not even going to talk about time, although time is certainly part of it, but I'm talking about energy. Like, do people really love making their travel plans? I know it's not that hard, but do you love doing it? Does it give you energy? Delegate it. Go out there and look, start making a list of all the $25 an hour work you're doing. And these days maybe it's $30 an hour work or whatever it might be. And start delegating it. It may require an investment. You may need to get a fractional admin, or there's all kinds of things you could do nowadays because there are people out there that love doing $25 an hour work. They are made for it and, and they are excited to support you. And so if you're guilty in any way, so there are people that have that happening, I feel guilty. I can do any, you know, I want to show I could do anything anybody else could do. Right. We know that. We know that. But guess what? You're in the position to deliver huge— and I am talking huge— impact in the world. And you cannot spend time doing that work. You can't. You— we don't want you to spend time doing that work. We want you to spend time doing the impactful work, because when you're doing that, it just— it filters out. In such a greater way. So let yourself off the hook, start delegating it, maybe make some investment, and you're going to start to see a return on your investment big time. If it's your business, you're going to start seeing how things are starting to move forward faster and your business is going to be more successful. You're going to be more successful. Your team's going to be more successful. It all, it all comes together.

It's awesome. Rob, thank you so much. That ties so well to know yourself and all the other disciplines. And you can find these at thetindisciplines.com that you have 10disciplines.com. We'll link all to this in the show notes. And Rob, it's been a real pleasure chatting with you.

Thanks a million for having me.

You bet, you bet.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SkewCast. Be sure to keep up up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.