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S1E30: What A Bike Ride Taught Him About Workaholism

Hitting the Ceiling

Hitting the Ceiling

S1E30: What A Bike Ride Taught Him About Workaholism

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How long would you stay in a good job after your family started asking why you could not show up?

You can spend 22 years helping quadruple a company, earn a good salary, carry eight different hats, and still wake up to the fact that there is nowhere left for you to go. Rob Taylor reached that point while late nights followed him home, his wife noticed the cost, his sons kept growing up, and eventually even a free Thursday afternoon on a bike trail could make him feel guilty for not answering email.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Rob spent nearly a year getting decades of knowledge out of his head, left the career that had defined him, cut loose work that felt like “selling my soul,” and started learning how to let success take up less room in his life.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

00:01:46 — Why calling himself a workaholic forces Rob to confront habits he has carried for almost three decades.
00:02:33 — What four grandchildren changed about Rob’s definition of where his time belongs.
00:03:59 — How a Thursday afternoon bike ride exposed the guilt Rob still feels when he is not working.
00:05:42 — When Rob realized a 22-year career had become a ceiling instead of a destination.
00:06:54 — How hearing family members ask why he could not show up made the cost of work impossible to ignore.
00:08:21 — Why Rob spent almost a year with a technical writer pulling decades of knowledge out of his head before leaving.
00:16:09 — What Rob noticed when paid work he was excellent at started feeling empty instead of useful.
00:16:54 — How admitting he felt like he was “selling my soul” finally gave Rob permission to burn the boat.

To learn more about becoming an EOS Implementer, visit:
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Want to gain traction in your own company? As written about in the bestselling book Traction by Gino Wickman, the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) helps entrepreneurial leadership teams clarify their vision, gain traction, and work together more effectively. Learn more:
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This episode was produced by Story On Media:
https://www.storyon.co/

About The Hitting the Ceiling Podcast

Hitting the Ceiling is a show for entrepreneurs and leaders who refuse to let a ceiling become the end of their story. Host and EOS Worldwide Visionary Mark O’Donnell explores the hidden breaking points entrepreneurs face and what it really takes to push past them. Drawing from real stories and hard-earned experience, this podcast focuses on mastering Five Leadership Abilities to break through the ceiling and build a business that actually works.

About Mark O'Donnell

Mark O’Donnell is a highly successful entrepreneur, CEO, and Expert EOS Implementer. He is the current Visionary and CEO of EOS Worldwide and has also served as Head Coach for the company. With over 100 companies under his belt, Mark has helped numerous companies achieve their goals and get what they want from their businesses. As a serial entrepreneur, Mark has founded and sold multiple successful businesses. His passion for helping people live their ideal lives led him to his current mission of assisting 1,000,000 people with tools like those found in the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). Mark is a lifelong learner and an alumnus of Albright College, Northeastern University, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives outside Philadelphia, PA, with his wife, mother-in-law, three children, and his one-hundred-pound dog, Blue.

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