S1E1: Gino Wickman, Part 1 | Entrepreneurs Deserve to Live Their Ideal Lives Now

Gino Wickman, founder of EOS Worldwide, creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS®), and author of The EOS Life, shares five essential points for living your ideal life. Gino delves into how these practices naturally emerged through implementing EOS, why entrepreneurs deserve to live their best lives, and how to start living your EOS Life.

Start Moving The Needle

Entrepreneurs are high achievers, natural leaders, and excel in front of challenges. As incredible as these characteristics are, they can contribute to a poor work-life balance, mental health struggles, and suffering relationships. Many entrepreneurs believe living their ideal lives is a task reserved for retirement — or isn’t in the cards for them at all. 

Gino began to notice this years ago, and he was inspired to help entrepreneurs achieve better quality of life. He recognized that entrepreneurs need guidance that supports the way their brains work, instead of trying to re-wire them. Thus, EOS® was born, and the five essential points for living your best life — your EOS Life® — grew naturally from implementing EOS in businesses.

1.) Do What You Love

Achieving your EOS Life is more about the journey than the destination. Gino shares that using specific EOS Tools can help ensure you always do work you love. When you Delegate and Elevate™, you make sure your time is spent on tasks you love and at which you excel. The Accountability Chart™ ensures that everyone in your organization is in the right seat.

[18:17] “It’s all about moving the needle, it’s all about making progress, and so this isn’t a switch you’re going to flick. . . Just make one little move in the right direction.”

Gino recommends delegating one new task per quarter. He’s been doing that for 25 years and attests that it just keeps getting better.

2.) With People You Love

Gino focuses on core values and the People Analyzer™ as the two EOS Tools that help entrepreneurs work solely with people they love. Gino stresses this point isn’t about excluding certain people from your organization, but is about energy:

[21:58] “When you surround yourself with people with your core values, you’re going to be happier, there’s going to be more energy, you’re going to feel better.”

Each time you interact with a person, you leave that interaction either feeling re-energized or drained. Gino urges entrepreneurs to take that seriously. Once you start working with people you love, expand that circle to include spending time with clients, friends, and family who energize you. The difference will astound you — you will be a better person.

3.) Making a Huge Difference

Gino explains that making a difference or big impact is relative. Look to your V/TO™ (Vision/Traction Organizer™) because that outlines your 10-Year Target™ — and the impact you’re going to make. Ask yourself, “How am I making an impact?” and answer honestly. If it’s the impact you want to make, you’re on the right track.

4.) Being Compensated Appropriately

Gino defines appropriate compensation as making enough money to achieve your financial goals. If you’re not making as much money as you want, you must create more value in the world. 

The Delegate and Elevate™ Tool helps put entrepreneurs on-track to achieve their financial goals. The more time you spend doing things you love and are great at, the more money you will make. If you’re an employee who wants to earn more money, ask if there’s a way you can make your boss’s life better. It’s all about adding more value.

5.) Time to Pursue Other Passions

Time for other passions means that you have enough time to do activities you enjoy in your personal life. Use the EOS Time Management™ Tool to help make this happen. This Tool forces you to decide what the 100% of your working time is. 

For example, if your 100% is 50 hours per week, you shouldn’t work one minute over that limit. Everything else is reserved for your personal life and your passions. Gino emphasizes that if you don’t establish that boundary, you will burn out. 

Make a list of all the things you love doing, and spend the time outside of your 100% doing those things. This will ensure that you spend your spare time doing things that revitalize you.

Living your EOS Life isn’t linear. Sometimes you fall off the wagon. Gino reminds that this is ok — you will fall off the wagon, but you can also get back on.

[46:48] “It’s ok to live out of balance in life as long as you know for how long and why.” 

The EOS Life is a journey, and it’s one that’s available to everyone — not just entrepreneurs. Everyone deserves to live their ideal life. You just have to decide to start living it.

Learn More:

• The EOS Life
• EOS Worldwide

Also Mentioned In This Episode:

• The Hypomanic Edge by John Gartner
• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
• think2perform