It is possible to be a driven entrepreneur and have inner peace?
With 10 simple disciplines, this guide will help you make a bigger impact while increasing your freedom and creativity.
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. Gino Wickman, bestselling author of Traction, teams up with mindfulness expert Rob Dube to help readers strike a crucial balance between those inner and outer worlds while taking your success to new heights.
In Shine, they share 10 disciplines to help you stay sharp and energetic without burning out. You’ll learn to:
- Set boundaries in your work life (without compromising productivity) that allow you to become a better leader and better person
- 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
With a self-assessment survey, a rich resource guide, and prompts for reflection at the end of every chapter, Shine is a groundbreaking approach to work–life balance and peace of mind.
Disclaimer: I was sent this book to review after reviewing Gino’s other book What The Heck Is EOS?
What I Thought of Shine
I definitely thought this was a great self-development book for focused entrepreneurs. However, as just a self-development book I found the writing quite stilted, short and a bit cold. There wasn’t much storytelling or a chance to truly connect with the authors. The anecdotes or stories seemed surface-level. The book was also a bit too prescriptive and missing the human side of self-development.
Do this and you’ll be able to achieve this in your life.
That being said, I think all driven entrepreneurs who are “no nonsense” will resonate with the writing style. The book is only 220 pages and the perfect length for a busy business owner to consume. The short exercises found in each chapter help you delve deeper into each topic and give the reader just the right amount of self-reflection to help integrate the teachings.
I am not a entrepreneur but a full-time employee with side hustles so I read this book as someone who might eventually want to become a full-time business owner but many of the disciplines I have or can implement as an employee.
My favourite chapters were:
Part 1: I really loved how they laid out their model for discovering your True Self. I think most people struggle to understand who they really are before the world told them who they were supposed to be. As someone who has worked for others for almost 2 decades this really resonated with me and I took the time to work through the chapters’ exercises in my journal.
From the discoveries to free your True Self we moved onto disciplines to maximize inner peace. While I’ve implemented many of these in my life there were a few things that I can add to my routines or re-vamp. Those came from the following chapters:
10-Year Thinking – this was amazing because I’m an annual goal-setter but haven’t actually challenged myself to think 10 years ahead. I think this is going to be game-changing in my mentality.
Take Time Off – I have unlimited vacation time where I work. Do I take advantage of it? Of course, not so for the first time this year I have ensured I am taking 1 week a quarter, extra long weekends, birthdays off, etc.
Know Thyself – while I’m obsessed with personality tests, the last one that really got me excited was the Strength Finder test. It was the first time I was told I should be building business based on my strengths vs. focusing on fixing my weaknesses which has always been a mainstay of annual corporate performance reviews.
Prepare Every Night – I’ve been doing this on a weekly basis but I love the thought of just taking 10 – 15 mins to re-set for the next day.
For a busy entrepreneur, I highly recommend you take a moment to read this book. It may just stop you in your tracks and improve your life before you have a rock bottom moment where you need to.
