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Episode Summary
Most owners I talk to are running so hard they can’t hear themselves think, and they’ve convinced themselves that’s just what the job is. Rob Dube ran that play for years. He and his partner sold imageOne in 2004, watched it become something they didn’t recognize, and bought it back in 2006 because the company they’d built deserved a different operator. That’s a story I had to dig into. In this conversation, Rob walks me through what he changed the second time around: how Bo Burlingham’s Small Giants gave him a framework for building a company that wasn’t chasing size for size’s sake, why culture became the lever, and how thirteen years of meditation practice turned into a leadership tool he now teaches other owners at silent retreats. The line that stuck with me is simple. Doing nothing is the most rewarding leadership challenge most owners will ever take. Rob’s not selling mysticism. He’s describing the same problem every owner I work with has: the seat is loud, the calendar is full, and clarity about what actually matters gets crowded out. He sold a company, bought it back, and the second time he built it differently because he changed what was happening between his ears first.
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## Top 10 Takeaways- Selling your business doesn’t guarantee you’ll feel done. Rob sold imageOne in 2004 and bought it back in 2006.
- The second time you build a company, you build it for the reasons you wish you’d built it the first time.
- Chasing size is a default. Choosing to be a Small Giant is a decision you have to make on purpose.
- Your culture isn’t a poster on the wall. It’s whether your people would still come to work if they had other options.
- The loudest thing in an owner-operator’s head is the noise that crowds out the answer.
- Meditation is not a wellness trend. It is the discipline of choosing what gets your attention.
- Doing nothing is harder than doing more, which is why most owners never try it.
- The owner who can sit with a hard question for an hour will outperform the owner who reacts to it in ten minutes.
- Your community, your customers, and your team are all reading the same signal: are you present, or are you somewhere else?
- Building a business worth owning starts with being an owner worth working for.
Sound Bites
“Doing nothing is the most rewarding leadership challenge you will ever take.” (@TBD) — Rob Dube
“We sold the business in 2004, and we bought it back in 2006.” (@TBD) — Rob Dube
“How often do you actually do nothing? With everything on your plate, finding a quiet moment to just breathe feels impossible. That’s the moment you need most.” (@TBD) — Rob Dube
About This Episode
Rob Dube is the president and co-founder of imageOne, a managed print services company recognized on the 2017 Forbes Small Giants list of Top 25 Small Businesses in America. Rob started his first business in high school selling Blow Pops out of his locker and has run companies with the same partner ever since. He sold imageOne in 2004 and bought it back in 2006. He is an avid meditator of thirteen years, the author of donothing™: the most rewarding leadership challenge you will ever take, and the organizer of the donothing™ leadership silent retreat. This conversation sits in the early podcast era, before the iBD methodology was fully formed, but the themes of owner intent, culture-driven companies, and clarity about why you own what you own are right in the center of the work.
Resources Mentioned
- donothing™: the most rewarding leadership challenge you will ever take by Rob Dube — Rob’s book on meditation as a leadership practice.
- Small Giants by Bo Burlingham — The framework Rob used to restructure imageOne around purpose instead of growth-for-growth’s-sake.
- Bo Burlingham — Author and business writer; longtime mentor and friend to Rob.
- donothing™ leadership silent retreat — Rob’s silent retreat for business leaders.
- Rob Dube on LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/robdube
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 1 — Ownership Goals — Why Rob sold, why he bought back, and what changed about his intent the second time
Concepts referenced:
- Noble Aim — The Small Giants premise: build a company around purpose, not size
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — The noise and overwhelm meditation is designed to interrupt
- 168-hour constraint — Doing nothing as the discipline that creates room for the work that matters