10 Disciplines To Help You Stay Sharp And Energetic

The new book, Shine, is a transformative guide that illustrates how looking inward is the key to unlocking true entrepreneurial freedom. Certainly, Shine is a book for entrepreneurs, however, it is bound to benefit any business leader.

“Entrepreneurs often have a burning need to succeed. But that same relentless brilliance that propels you in your career can take a toll on your teams, personal relationships, and even your health,” explain author Gino Wickman and coauthor Rob Dube. “Our book will help you strike a crucial balance between those inner and outer worlds while taking your success to new heights.”

In Shine, Gino shares 10 disciplines to help you stay sharp and energetic without burning out. The 10 Disciplines teach you how they can lay a foundation that creates space in your busy life for you to consistently and optimally perform and achieve your inner peace.

“I have helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs achieve significant business success by using a disciplined and practical approach to operating their businesses. Yet I have come to learn that there are disciplines and a practical approach to accomplish significant life success, as well,” says Gino.

As you read the book, you will learn how to:

Set boundaries in your work life (without compromising productivity) that allow you to become a better leader and better person.
Practice practicable sustainable ways to reset your energy and recognize burnout and stress before they happen.
Tap into a flow state to harness unbridled creativity, think clearly, and move through your career and life with ease.

The book includes a valuable self-assessment survey (also available online) and prompts for reflection at the end of every chapter. In addition, within each chapter you will receive how-to's for mastering each Discipline.

Before delving into the 10 Disciplines, Gino teaches you 3 Discoveries that will help you free your True Self.

Embracing that you are driven. It is in your DNA. Embrace it. Manage it well.
Realizing decisions are made out of love or fear. And that making 10 percent more love-based decisions will have a huge impact.
Seeing that it is possible to be driven and have peace. You will not lose your drive when you have peace. You will actually have more drive.

These 3 Discoveries set the stage for the 10 Disciplines. “The 3 Discoveries are the “what” and the 10 Disciplines are the “how,” shares Gino.

Below are the 10 Disciplines for maximizing your impact and inner peace presented at a glance, along with the main point of each. “They will help you succeed in your outer world and your inner world. These 10 Disciplines have evolved greatly over the past few years. I created them when delivering a keynote speech and simply wanted to share with the audience ten things that have greatly impacted my success,” says Gino.

10-Year Thinking – Shift your mind from short-term thinking to thinking in ten-year time frames.
Take Time Off – Take 130 days off per year and don’t think about on any of those days.
Know Thyself – Be your True Self 100% of the time, 24/7/365.
Be Still – Sit in silence for thirty minutes every day.
Know Your 100% – Decide on and commit to the perfect number of hours per week and weeks per year that you will deliver your impact to the world.
Say No…Often – Say no to everything that doesn’t fit into the first five Disciplines.
Don’t Do $25-an-Hour Work – Never do anything you could pay someone $25 an hour to do.
Prepare Every Night – Before your head hits the pillow every night, document the next day’s plan.
Put Everything in One Place – Pick the one place you will capture every idea, commitment, thought, action item, and promise.
Be Humble – View yourself as an equal to every person on the planet.

Coauthor Rob shares that, “Each discipline is simple. Doing them is harder. Please don’t underestimate them, as they will have a profound impact on your life.” Readers should devote ample time with the book to learn all the details behind mastering each Discipline.

By the end of the book, “You will see how to live with a harmonious combination of being highly impactful, while experiencing an incredible sense of inner peace. We call this state being in Flowt™, which is a combination of two words, “flow” and “float.” You are in the flow when you are working and you feel like you are in the zone; time slows down, and you are performing at your best,” explains Gino.

“At the same time, you will float through all aspects of your life with a feeling of serenity, calm, fulfillment, and ease, comfortably letting your freak flag fly. We will show you how to experience total freedom from your mind, ego, and pain, while maximizing your energy, being incredibly creative, having a lot more fun, and making an even greater impact on the world.”

Gino Wickman

Rob Dube

Today, Gino and Rob answer these questions for us:

Question: Of the 10 Disciplines, which one or two do most people struggle to master and why?

Gino: Take Time Off (and not think about work the entire time)…it's the not thinking about work the entire time that gets people.

Say No Often…people don't have their boundaries clear, they have FOMO, they don't want to disappoint people, so they say yes to most things (in professional and personal lives).

Question: Which of the 10 Disciplines did you find the most difficult to master?

Gino: Know Your 100% takes intention and awareness. You have to pay close attention to how many hours you're working and what you're doing during those hours to gauge what is raising your vibration or energy and what is draining your energy/having you working at a low vibration.

There is a tipping point when the driven entrepreneur is not effective but because of their driven nature, just keeps pushing through. This push is the lower vibration/lower energy and is not making the kind of impact in the world that we hope for them.

Question: Why did you feel comfortable sharing so much of your personal life journeys with readers?

Gino & Rob: We are them and we hope our vulnerability will inspire others to share their inner stories. This is part of letting go or shedding, as we like to say. When you let go, you are free. When you are free, you SHINE.

___

An entrepreneur since the age of 21, Gino has always had an obsession for learning what makes businesses and entrepreneurs thrive.

At 25, he took over the family business, which was deeply in debt and in need of help. After turning the company around and running it for seven years, he and his partners successfully sold the company.

Gino then set out to help entrepreneurs and leaders get what they want from their businesses and lives.

Based on his years of real-word experience, Gino created the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®), a practical method for helping companies achieve greatness.

For over 30 years, Rob has been thriving as a purpose-driven entrepreneur. He is the co-Founder of Imagine One, which has won dozens of awards for its people-first and purpose-driven culture.

Rob is also the author of Donothing: the Most Rewarding Leadership Journey You Will Ever Take, the host of the Leading with Genuine Care podcast, and host of the Do Nothing Leadership Retreat in Colorado.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

How To Rewire Your Mind To Build Your Adaptability Quotient

Alec Litowitz argues that the most valuable skill of the next decade isn't IQ or even EQ (Emotional Intelligence). It's AQ: your Adaptability Quotient, the ability to question assumptions, update beliefs, and respond effectively when reality changes. Litowitz is the author of the forthcoming book (releasing on September 15, 2026) The Adaptability Quotient: Rewiring Your Mind For Success In The Next Human Era . And he shares that “AQ is a learnable way of using your mind like a high-performance machine: to model risk, absorb feedback, make faster corrections, and create repeatable advantages in conditions where most people stall out—or drown.” In short, it’s all about how to move from “making the right decision” to “making decisions right.” “As artificial intelligence, media, and scientific advances reshape the cognitive landscape, adaptability becomes the essential discipline for reclaiming human agency,” adds Litowitz. “And a s AI resha...

Learn The Power Of Probabilistic Thinking

Dive in for a fascinating read as you discover the life-changing power of probabilistic thinking, taught by Kyle Austin Young in his book, Success Is A Numbers Game . “Every goal that you’re pursuing has two hidden numbers attached to it—a probability of success and a probability of failure,” explains Young, “If you can make the first number bigger and the second number smaller, you can rewrite your predicted outcome.” “Whether you’re trying to start a business, run a marathon, get a promotion, earn a pilot’s license, grow a bumper crop of tomatoes, or sign an acting deal, these two percentages are always lurking in the shadows predicting what is going to happen.” But, adds Young, "Most of us never think about them. We assume our odds are unknowable and unchangeable. This dangerous lie leads millions of people to fail at goals where they were perfectly capable of succeeding. You can choose a smarter path,” encourages Young. In Success is a Numbers Game , ...

Daily Intentions For Leaders

Everyone can benefit from the book, Dear Friend , which features bite-sized, daily notes for contemplation, inspiration, connection, and clarity. Busy and stressed business leaders can particularly benefit from the 365 profound, heartfelt reflections from author Michelle Maros , founder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life and cohost of the podcast, Life Happens with Barb and Michelle . Dear Friend invites readers to go deep and use the notes as a daily practice that compounds over time, nurturing strength, resilience, and clarity. In just a few minutes each day, this book will offer you a daily reprieve when you feel burned out, beaten down, or overwhelmed by the strains and stresses of modern life. The heart of Dear Friend began in the quiet mornings Michelle shared with her mom, Barb. Every day, they would sit together, reading affirmations or passages from Barb’s beloved books. These small rituals—simple but powerful—set the tone for each day, grounding them in g...

How To Maximize Employee Involvement

Here are 10 tips for how to maximize employee involvement : Have active ways to listen to your employees. Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want. Share information about customer satisfaction with employees. Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability. Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues. Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small. Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea. Train! For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges. Conduct meetings around specific issues and brai...

How To Write A Company Policy

Keep these five tips in mind when you craft your next company policy: Keep the policy short and simple. Get rid of two old policies for every new policy you implement. Make sure that your organization's policy and procedures are written to serve your employees and customers--not just your organization. Don't write a policy in reaction to a single incident. The problem may never arise again. Don't write a policy longer than one-page, no matter how large your organization may be. Thanks to author Bob Nelson for these great tips from his book, 1001 Ways To Energize Employees .

How Will You Get Involved?

"Philanthropy isn't just a pursuit for the wealthy. Philanthropy is about involvement . Pick your issue, work at it, and do your best to make things happen. Even if you're not wealthy, you have time, expertise, skills and other resources you may not even have realized that can be used to serve others." Thanks for this great advice from author Eli Broad.

How To Transform Your Perspective And Lead With Positivity

Here is a new book I imagine nearly everyone will benefit from. It is, The Negativity Fast . It's both a self-help book and a book for leaders who want to lead with positivity. At the core of the book is a thirteen-week negativity fast, during which you’ll progressively eliminate sources of negativity in your life for 90 days. And then from that point, you’ll have a new outlook on life and will have learned how to use gratitude to completely transform your mental outlook as you reframe the negative events in your life into events that made you stronger, more resilient, and better prepared for future setbacks. “My goal is to help you reduce the time you spend in a negative state and increase the time you are positive,” explains the book’s author, Anthony Iannarino . Particularly for business leaders, the book offers easy-to-follow lessons on l earning to lead with positivity for effective change throughout your team and organization. The evidence-based exercise...

70 New Year's Resolutions For Leaders For 2019

With less than two weeks before 2019, it's time to identify your New Year's Resolutions for next year. To get you started, how about selecting one or more of these 70 New Year's resolutions for leaders? Perhaps write down five to ten and then between now and January 1, think about which couple you want to work on during 2019. Don't micromanage Don't be a bottleneck Focus on outcomes, not minutiae Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times Conduct annual risk reviews Be courageous, quick and fair Talk more about values more than rules Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance Constantly challenge your team to do better Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own Err on the side of taking action Communicate clearly and often Be visible Eliminate the cause of a mistake View every problem as an opportunity to grow Summarize group consens...

Seven Indicators Of The Right Work For You

In Brian Tracy 's new book, Find Your Balance Point , he shares this helpful list of the seven indicators of the right work for you and the career where you will feel fully engaged and where you will be the happiest in serving other people: The right work for you is something that you really enjoy doing; something that you love to do. The right work for you is easy for you to learn and easy to do. In many cases, you learned it automatically, without thought or effort. You love learning more and more about the work if it is the right work for you. When you are engrossed in this work, the hours fly past. You forget what time it is, and later you are surprised to see how much time has passed. The right work for you gives you energy when you are doing it. You can spend hours at this work, often forgetting to eat. If it is the right work for you, you want to be excellent at it, and you are constantly striving to learn and improve in that area. If it is the right work for y...

How To Coach Rather Than Supervise Employees

Bill Berman and George Bradt , authors of the book, Influence and Impact , explain the importance of helping your employees to understand what their jobs entails, and what the culture expects, so they can do the work you need from them the most. More importantly, they say that it is better for you as a leader to coach employees rather than supervise them. And, as you coach, they recommend you: Ensure the employee fully understands their job responsibilities. Pave the way for the employee to be successful. Given them the time, resources and encouragement they will need. Help them know themselves better. Consider a personality assessment by a trained evaluator so they understand their styles and preferences. Help them know the business. Ensure they know the organization’s mission, vision and purpose, business strategies and cultural norms. Help them know you. Help them to really understand what you really need from them to make you and the organiz...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog