Rob Dial on Unlocking Your True Potential – EP 026

Rob Dial on Unlocking Your True Potential

Today, I’m talking with Rob Dial. Rob is a motivational speaker, coach, and content creator who has inspired millions of people around the world.

I actually first met Rob back when he was only 19 years old selling Cutco — where he got his start in sales and discovered a passion for personal growth.

Rob quickly moved up in the company, and by 24 he owned and operated a multimillion dollar office, where he trained over 2,000 sales reps. Throughout that time he taught personal development to his team and saw just how much it impacted their lives.

By 2015, Rob had left the corporate world and launched The Mindset and Motivation Podcast, which hit #1 on iTunes in 6 categories and accumulated over 1 million downloads in the first 12 months.

He has since built an international audience of over 1.5 million followers, and is now living his mission to help people realize their true potential.

In this conversation, Rob and I talk about the path he took to get to where he is today, what it takes to find your passion and purpose in life, and how he built a multimillion dollar business without becoming a slave to it!

Key Takeaways with Rob Dial

• How Rob found his niche and used his extraordinary talents for sales and teaching to build and scale the business of his dreams.
• Why everyone has a creator inside of them.
• How conferences and connections open us up to new opportunities we may never have previously known were possible.
• The value of making goals when it comes to who we are as people.
• How entrepreneurship can still grant you extraordinary freedom, even in a pandemic.
• Why it’s so easy to get clear on what you don’t want–but not what you do.
• How to effectively hire and delegate when you need to.
• Visit Rob Dial’s website at RobDial.com

Rob Dial Tweetable

“People always want to set goals around their business, around how much money, but people rarely want to make goals of who they want to be as a character, as a person.” - @RobDial Click To Tweet “The same way the virus can spread from one person to another, positivity can spread from one person to another.” - @RobDial Click To Tweet

Resources

• Rob Dial Website
• Rob Dial on Facebook
• Rob Dial on YouTube
• Rob Dial on Instagram
• Rob Dial on Twitter
• Rob Dial on LinkedIn
• The Mindset Mentor Podcast with Rob Dial
• Funnel Hacking Live
• Traffic & Conversion Summit
• HeartMath
• Internet Marketing Party
• Think and Grow Rich
• The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle
• SXSW
• Rob Dial: Accelerator Academy

Rate & Review The Lifestyle Investor

If you enjoyed today’s episode of The Lifestyle Investor, hit the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio, or wherever you listen, so future episodes are automatically downloaded directly to your device.

You can also help by providing an honest rating & review over on Apple Podcasts. Reviews go a long way in helping us build awareness so that we can impact even more people. THANK YOU!

Connect with Justin Donald

• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Podcast

Get the Lifestyle Investor Book!

To get access to The Lifestyle Investor: The 10 Commandments of Cashflow Investing for Passive Income and Financial Freedom visit JustinDonald.com/book

Read the Full Transcript with Rob Dial

 

Justin Donald: Let’s jump in. So, let’s kind of take this back a ways. How did you get to and if you can share what you’re doing today so that my audience and my viewers can understand your life? You have built an incredible life and I’m excited to learn more about it and how you got there. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. So, I originally met you or knew of you through Cutco, so I sold Cutco. I started in 2016. I was 19 years old. I hired a mentor when I was 19 and that was our mutual friend, Hal Elrod, and I paid him $500 a month to be my one-on-one coach. And it was him and his best friend, Jon Berghoff, so that was a pretty damn good deal, knowing both of them now and even knowing them then. And so, I hired both of them to be my coach, life coach, sales coach, all of that stuff, and I moved up through the ranks of Cutco. I was the pilot sales manager there so I ran the office in Tampa. After I ran the office in Tampa, I went and moved down and we won two silver cups when I was there so we’re the number one office in the United States there. And then moved to Fort Lauderdale to open my own office. And I got kind of burnt out as a lot of people do. I was obsessed with being the best. And so, once I hit number one in the region, I was like, “Okay. I feel like I’ve done what I want to do,” and I just ended up leaving. And so, I left the company and I went into just normal traditional sales, corporate sales. So, I went from being my own boss, running my own office to then working for someone else for five years and I was like, “This sucks.” It’s terrible to go from being your own boss to working for someone else because, for me, it was like it was just soul-sucking to do it. 

 

And so, as I was working at these places here in Austin, I was in Tampa for a little while. I quit that job after a year and a half. I went to backpack Europe for three months by myself and then immediately moved here and had never been here, knew only one person here, and moved here, fell in love with it, started another. I was with another business, two other businesses when I was here, and I was like, “I can’t do this anymore.” And so, I started researching how to make money online and all of these different ways. And so, first thing I did was start an Amazon business because I felt like that was a pretty easy way to start a business and I was in Jason’s Deli with my girlfriend, and I still remember the moment where I was like I don’t know if it was in my head where I was like, “Everybody seems miserable here,” or if it was actually that way. There were people that were just screaming at their kids and they were severely overweight and they looked depressed. And it was like this moment when I turned to Lauren and I was like, “I’m going to start a podcast,” and she’s like, “All right.” Like, podcasts weren’t a thing six years ago like they were not what they are now. Like now it’s like everybody has a podcast but then it was like nobody really listens to podcasts like they did, and I didn’t even know how to listen to them. 

 

Rob Dial: And so, I was like, “I’m going to start a podcast,” and she’s like, “Why?” And I was like, “Well, I feel like I have so much information I can give people,” because at that point I was still into personal development, still reading, still growing, still going to conferences, still learning, and I felt like I had knowledge that I was obligated to teach other people as far as like how I improve my life from where I came from. And back story on me is I had an alcoholic father who passed away when I was 15 and had to deal with all of that and the stuff that comes with it. So, I felt like coming from where I came from. I was able to build a pretty good life at that point and had a great mindset. I was like, “I think I could teach this to people.” So, I started it in August of 2015. So, it’s been almost six years I’ve had the podcast now, 900 episodes. I think we’re about to eclipse 900 episodes so it’s three times a week. Actually, it’s four times a week. It’s about to go to five times a week. So, literally, constant creation is what I’m trying to do. And it’s grown and then grew, started making videos on Facebook because I want to get the message out there more because when I first started podcasting, nobody knew what it was. And so, when people were like, “What do you do?” I was like, “I run a coaching business and I run a podcast.” It was like, “What is a podcast and how do I listen to them?” and that’s usually what people said. 

 

I was like, “I need to go where everybody is.” And at that point in time, everybody was on Facebook, and Facebook kind of dwindled down. I think Instagram’s more of the big thing now. And so, I was like, “I need to figure out how to get basically a podcast and the messages that I’m giving and how I can take that and put it into a video form and make that go viral.” So, then I started making viral videos and got obsessed with it. I mean, we’re probably at about like 1.5 billion views with a B, which is pretty cool on that. And so, from there, I was able to grow following. We have about 2.5 million people with 2.7 million people that follow me on Facebook and then from there I was able to start transferring people who followed me to find out my podcast exist. So, I basically started the podcast, grew the following on Facebook and Instagram, and then started bringing Facebook and Instagram people to my podcasts for my podcasts to grow. And so, it was like we did a million dollars the first year, which is big, but now at this point where this month we’re going to pass 4 million for the first time downloads this month. So, it took five years to get to 50 million downloads and within the next twelve months, we should do another 50 million I’m thinking.

 

Justin Donald: That’s incredible and it’s fun hearing the story because when you started making your videos, these viral videos, I didn’t even know you had a podcast then and that’s probably because podcasts weren’t as big and people didn’t listen to them the same way that they did and access to the podcast. 

 

Rob Dial: Right. There’s a little bit of a hurdle. 

 

Justin Donald: And so, it’s neat hearing the back story of all that you had going on behind the scenes but you built out another channel to create the following to actually pull people into your podcast world. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. 100%. So, I was like at that point in time I didn’t want to spend any money into it because I didn’t know if it was going to work. So, I was like, “How can I get people to come and listen?” My podcast is called The Mindset Mentor. How can I get people to listen to The Mindset Mentor that don’t know who it is? In podcasting, it’s not really easy to be found like especially now there’s 1.7 million podcasts if you go into iTunes and try to search for it. And I was like, “I don’t know how people are going to find me.” I was like the only way to be found, I mean, there’s just so much value in having a following, right, whatever you want to do. So, like I had an Amazon business and then I was like, “I’m not passionate about this. I want to do coaching.” And so, I’ve been doing coaching because we did that all throughout Cutco. That’s all we did was coach people all day long. That was our job. And so, it’s an easy transition for me. I was like, “Oh, I can definitely do this.” And so, started the coaching business. And then every time I’ve decided to do something different, a different course with a few different courses that we have now, I could easily just promote it to my following and also to my podcast. So, all of everything I’ve built, the company I built, everything, there’s been no Facebook ads. I never bought followers on Facebook or Instagram or any of that stuff. I was just able to figure out with human psychology what people like and then be able to create content that they would like so, therefore, they want to follow me, and then when they follow me, it’s about making them aware of my podcast. They can start listening to it that way. Or if they want to be able to buy one of my products down the road, they can buy my products down the road because they’ve been following me for a while. 

 

Justin Donald: Very cool. Now, tell me a little bit about the Amazon business. So, is this one that you just decided to close the doors on? Did you sell it? What did you end up doing with that business and what was it? 

 

Rob Dial: So, we were selling foam rollers and we were crushing it. So, literally, on our first 30 days, we sold a thousand foam rollers and we ran out like fast and I was like, “Oh, my God, we got to get more from China.” So, we got them all made. We had them all. I mean, like we went through tons and tons and tons of different ones to find the one that was like the highest quality because I didn’t want to just have crappy products. So, then we had to have it shipped back over and so we were selling a lot. And then I realized that I was putting a lot of time into my coaching business and I was putting a lot of time into my Amazon business. And I was looking at both of them and I had this moment where I was literally sitting in Starbucks and I was working on this stuff for Amazon and getting people to follow and learn about that product. And this moment where I was like, “Okay. I don’t think both of these are going to win.” You know, like they could both win. Depends on what you want to go for but they’re not going to win unless I put 100% into one of them. Like, I can’t put 50/50, 70/30, none of that stuff. And so, I was like, “If I fast forward ten years from today, then this is probably 2016, beginning in 2016, if I fast forward ten years from today, do I want to be known as the Amazon guy or do I want to be known as the guy who’s helping people? And I was like, “I just want to be known as a guy who’s helping people.” 

 

Rob Dial: It’s interesting because like I never would have thought that the business would be where it is now. I had a feeling but I thought it would have taken ten years to get to the point that it is. But the first year the business we did about $85,000 then it grew to a couple of $100,000. And now we’re on track to probably about $5 million this year. But I don’t think it ever would have gotten anywhere near that if I wouldn’t have let go of the Amazon business. So, we literally shut the doors down. We’re like when we run out of this run of products, we’re just going to be done with it. My business partner, Dean, in that product is now my business partner here in what I do now. But at that point in time, he was like, “Yeah. I want to go into real estate.” So, he started getting really hardcore into real estate and it was best for both of us to just let it go. Yeah. It was it. We just let it go. Busy Buddha was the name of the company. 

 

Justin Donald: Wow. That’s so cool. And it’s neat to have a working business that you could keep doing it. But it wasn’t about the money, it was about something else. And I think that that in itself is a cool story because I teach and coach people the same way on it not being about the money that once money is taken care of, then it’s so easy to focus on what it is that either, A, you have gifts in or, B, that you’re most passionate about or, C, likely both combined. And so, it’s neat to see that you can make that decision even in the face of some income that you’re just going to shut the doors and then pursue what it was that you’re best equipped to do and what you enjoy most. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. The thing that people don’t realize whenever they tried to grow business is you can struggle your way to success. I’ve done it before, and I know a lot of people who have done it like you can struggle your way to success and force yourself. Like when I had my Cutco business, I did struggle like I was working 110 hours a week. I was putting everything I could into it and I would be considered a success in that business. But I started falling out of love with all of the aspects of running the office and doing the trainings and doing the interviews and stuff. But when I left, the thing that stuck with me was like I love teaching people and I feel like without too much harm, I feel like I’m really, really good at teaching people.

 

Justin Donald: By the way, I can vouch for the fact that you’re really good at teaching and coaching people. You don’t have to worry about any tooting your own horn. You’re good there. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. And what people tell me is like I’m good at taking really complex things and making it easy to understand and I feel like I can do that too. And so, for me, when I left when I was in Jason’s Deli, I was like, “I just missed teaching people.” Like that was what it was for me is I love getting on stage, all of that. I love content creation. I love those things. So, with me, the way to become successful is hard work. And you can either hate your life as you’re doing it and push yourself and push yourself. There’s people that do it all the time, make millions and billions of dollars but they hate what they do. They’re not a fan of it, whatever it is. Or you can work really hard by doing something that you love but, as cliches are cliches because they’re true, when you literally do something that you love, you don’t feel like you’re working, right? So, they say when you do something that you love, you never work another day in your life. Like when I say I make three podcast episodes, actually now it’s four and it’s about to be five, like for me, it doesn’t feel like work. Like I love doing this. I love setting up, I love recording, I love getting everything together in the aspect of what the shots look like and what the sound looks like and putting all of it together like I love the aspect of just creating. 

 

And I think that everybody has a creator inside of them in some sort of way, whether it’s through art, whether it’s through music, whether it’s through writing, whether it’s through, you know, that we’re getting an interior designer that’s doing this house like that’s art. They have a cool job and so they love what they do, the interior designers of this house. And I think that everybody should find something that they love to do because if you do something that you love, it doesn’t feel like you’re working like it literally just feels like an extension of you. My real good friend is over here. I was just telling you about this here yesterday, and he’s obsessed with wine. He’s a level two sommelier. He’s going to level three and he’s going to go to level four. And he’s obsessed with wine and I was like, “This should be your business.” And the reason why is because he reads books about wine and he handed it to me one time. He was like, “Look at what region this from.” I was like, “I don’t actually care,” like this doesn’t interest me at all but it tastes really good. That’s the only thing that I really care about. But he is so into it. I’m like this is perfect because you’re going to get really good at this. Your knowledge is going to surpass 99.9% of people on the Earth and when you get to that, you become an authority in that space. And you will work really hard to build whatever business that you want to around that and it won’t feel like work because you’re doing something around wine, which is what he loves. Mine is personal development, human interaction, and I just love people and trying to figure them out. And so, for anyone that’s out there, it’s like if you don’t know what you, I always say this in every single podcast where I talk about passion and purpose, like a lot of people listening are like, “I don’t know what’s my passion or my purpose in life.” Like that is a big issue with a lot of people. 

 

Rob Dial: And I always say it’s completely cool not to know what your purpose is but it’s not okay to not be in constant search for your purpose every single day. So, if someone’s listening and they don’t know their purpose, they don’t know what lights them up, well, then their freaking job every day should be if they go to a 9 to 5, that can be your side gig. Your job should be, “I need to find what it is that I love to do in this world,” because if you decide to do that, you come alive. And then somehow lots of people are like, “You know what, I’m going to start a business on the side of this, I’m going to start this little side business.” I have friends that started a business around a game and he happens to know a lot about marketing, growing followings, and stuff but he started a business around this game called Warhammer 40,000. Have you ever heard of it? 

 

Justin Donald: No. 

 

Rob Dial: Oh, my God. I don’t want to say it’s weird because I don’t want to offend anybody, but it’s the craziest thing. It’s literally a board game that’s like 20 feet by 20 feet. It’s huge. And the pieces are like massive. And the games can last like two to four to six hours. And so, he literally was like, “You know what, I’m going to build a following,” like he just loves games. And so, he literally took cameras and just started live streaming for hours on YouTube and he didn’t get this massive following but the people who are hardcore in it became hardcore fans of his and in the first year, he did like $150,000. That’s not like not a lot of money like that’s what? Three times more than the average household in America makes on average, right? But it’s only because he’s passionate about it. He’s going to do it anyways. I’m going to learn anyways about personal development and the human brain, all that stuff. My friend’s going to learn about wine anyways. He might as well take that knowledge, teach to people who are also interested in those things, and start to build a following. And if you build a following, eventually, you can figure out how to make a business out of it. 

 

Justin Donald: Totally. And I couldn’t agree with you more because I’ve done the same thing in the investment world. I would call what I do both lifestyle and investing because, to me, I think it’s important to figure out how you can stop being a slave to the money that you make into the business that you have and to measuring the amount of income that you earn based on the equation of time. And so, to me, I think figuring out that mystery and that puzzle to have assets that produce income so that you don’t have to have your time produce income, meaning you can have your time produce whatever you want, your passions that don’t have to make you money. They can make you money. But what’s the thing that you do all the time? When I took a year off and my family traveled the world and we just had the most fun, I found that the two things that I constantly did was I looked at investment deals and I coach my friends to financial freedom. And so, with that same Cutco background, I always have loved coaching people. And so, what you’re saying is spot on and that’s how the whole lifestyle investor brand became what it is because this is what I was doing anyway and my friends wanted to kind of jump on and see what we are doing and see if they could join in on some of the deals. 

 

There are a couple of things. Number one, I love that you have moments in your life that trigger like you just remember, “I was in this Starbucks. I was in this Jason’s Deli.” I mean, you have these defining moments that just are hard to forget. And then you’ve been able to develop this business, coach other people into developing their businesses, which is incredible, and you’re doing a lot of work all over the globe. This isn’t just here in Austin where we live. I mean, you’ve got followers in virtually every country. I mean, you got tons of people here in the U.S., but very international following, which is cool. And then you’re helping these individuals kind of do the thing that you’re already doing. So, I’m curious, big picture, what does this look like in five to ten years or more? 

 

Rob Dial: Actually, I’m not attached to it anyway. That’s the crazy thing about it. So, it’s funny because I am like the goal person, right? I’ve always been really big on goals. And so, what I set down my goals, I’m like my main goal is just how can I create better content? My goal for this year is literally how can I just give more, whether that’s give more time, give more money, donate, create more content, whatever I can do to give more? Because the thing that I found is that the more that you give, the more that you get. You get to a point where it’s like all of this is I feel like life is just a game and for some people, they kind of suffer and struggle through it because they don’t release themselves from the game, I guess you could say, and see it as it is. And so, for me, it’s like I have things that are happening at all times so it’s not like I’m just like, “Oh, nothing’s going on.” Like I’m in the middle of writing a book right now. We’re in the middle of pitching it. I was supposed to be pitching it this week to go to actual traditional publishers. So, writing a book right now and then that’s going to be coming out next year. And then for us, it’s like growing our mastermind is another big goal but for me, it’s like I have this vision and I don’t know why I always have it but it’s been popping up for a while now and I’ve been telling this to people, and it seems to be something that’s kind of starting to come true is in 2026 I’ll be on stage in front of 5,000 people. 

 

I don’t know who’s 5,000 people they’re going to be. I have the feeling that they’re going to be mine, but it’s just not 2026 yet. Like, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing now and it’s eventually going to be that way, right? People was like, “Oh, do you want to be as big as Tony Robbins?” I’m like I don’t want to have to have security everywhere I want to go. I don’t want it to be that way but I feel I have no need or ego want to get to that level but I have the feeling it will probably get to that level. But I’m not doing it out of a place of lack or no self-worth or any of those types of things. I’m just trying to provide value as much as I can. You know, there’s a lot of pain in the world that people have that they go through and pain is inevitable like you can’t go through this world without getting some sort of scars but suffering is optional. And there’s a lot of people that have gone through pain, trauma as things in their past, and they’re still suffering from it instead of figuring out how to become released from it and start to create the life that they want. So, for me, I feel like a lot of the people that I’ve taught, a lot of the people that I’ve helped, have relieved them from suffering. So, I feel like I’ve kind of got like a tool and I’m like this tool helps so many people. Why would I not try to give this tool to as many people? And for me, it’s like there aren’t any real goals like of where I need to be. It’s just how can I continue to wake up and love what I’m doing? And creating is what I love to do. I happen to be a creator that does all of these things. So, Chris will tell you. Chris is behind the camera like I sent her videos and I’m like, “Oh, sh*t, do you see how this is shot? Like, we should try this. This is to be something cool to do. Like I have another idea for you, Chris.” Then we have some more ideas. 

 

Rob Dial: I have more ideas of things I want to do like I want to create videos of just giving to people and just not because I want people like, “Oh my God, look at this guy. He’s giving and stuff like that,” because I want people be like, “You know what? I should buy the coffee behind me for someone at Starbucks,” and to have those types of videos go viral, have people go, “You know what, maybe I should do something nice for someone else. Maybe this world would be better.” Maybe people would feel less divided, the left or the right or the color of their skin or gender of all these things that were being divided in different ways and just be like, “Hey, I can just love everybody no matter what they believe in, no matter what their opinion is, no matter what they look like, no matter how they were raised, any of that stuff.” And so, for me, it’s like I only see myself as a person that creates content to help people remove them from suffering, but also to make them feel better about what is they’re doing and see if maybe they can help somebody else. Like the way I am at every single podcast, 900 of them, is make it your mission to make somebody else’s day better. That’s it. That’s all I want to do. And if I can keep preaching that to other people, I think the world would start to become a better place. Where it’s going to be in five years? I don’t know but it’s going to be pretty damn big. That’s all I know. From where it was five years ago to where it is now and if I just keep going on the trajectory that it is, I think there’ll be a couple of more books, there’ll be some big old conferences, be all of that stuff. 

 

Justin Donald: Well, we’re on the same page on that and I love hearing you speak about that. And how can we make the world a better place using our gifts? How can we make the world a better place really kind of engaging with people from all walks of life? I think that that’s incredible. By the way, side note, I’ve got some great context for you in the book world so book launch, editing team, the whole nine yards. I was so impressed with my team and we’ve just had great success with The Lifestyle Investor book as you probably already know. So, just let me know who you want and I’m happy to connect you. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. You crushed it. For having not gone into this world and then go onto Wall Street Journal bestseller like that’s a pretty damn big deal. 

 

Justin Donald: It’s kind of crazy because this is not my world, right? I don’t have this huge following like a lot of people that are on my podcast like you and I have not spent a lot of time in this influencer space. And so, it was very rewarding to see how my network and community really showed up to support the book and to support the message and just the good that has come from it from a charitable standpoint. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. It’s amazing. I love that. 

 

Justin Donald: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And obviously, you’ve been a lot of support in the growth of that and my online presence. So, thank you for your thoughts.

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. Well, what was cool about it was watching you take a year off because I was like I just love Justin because literally, you’re like, “I’m just going to go learn this year.” And you just went to every conference, even if it made no sense because of the fact that you were like, “I want to learn and see if maybe I can meet people or do things and come aware,” like what you did in that year is the same thing I think everybody should do if they’re in that situation where they don’t know their passion. Now, obviously, they might not be able to take a year off but most conferences happen over the weekend. Like if you work a job, you could take two weeks at PTO, sure, then you could travel somewhere or you’d be like, “Listen, I could use this year to completely free myself from the rat race.” And do what you did, which is like, all right, there’s this conference this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, like you went to Traffic & Conversion, which is like a marketing one. You met people out there and it’s like you could have found something that would have been like, “Oh, my God, this is huge for me,” if you didn’t know what your passion was but the cool thing was eventually your passion popped up and you’re like, “Oh, it is investing. I am obsessed with investing.” You know, the stuff that you are reading and getting into was your passion. I wouldn’t do it because I’m not passionate about it. 

 

Like, I need to figure out like it’s a good thing I have friends like you that can then help me in this way but then it’s like when you find out like there’s a thing that I love to do. And if I was doing nothing else, like if money was no object or if I didn’t have to do something, go into a job, what would I do with my time? And if for you, I’m sure money feels like a game or it’s like a fun game that you get, so you wake up to play a game every single day in different ways. That makes you feel good. It’s like everybody’s got something that they love. And if somebody doesn’t know what they love, I would love for everyone to listen to your podcast and go, “You know what? I do have 14 days of PTO this year, 20 days of PTO this year.” I could go on a vacation with my family for a week. And then another week, you know what I could do, or two weeks, depending on how much time you have, I could go to this conference, this conference, this conference, and then just see what comes up. Like the way that I learn to do what I do and to get good was, number one, going to all these conferences, learning from all these people, and having my mind blown where I was like people are making money doing that. I had my mind blown at so many different conferences and I was like that’s why I really was open up to there’s literally a million ways to make a million dollars. There’s probably more. And you go to these conferences, you meet these people, and then like a little bit of someone’s talk goes, “Oh, my God, that connects to me. I could do that.” 

 

Rob Dial: And then you meet somebody and I met so many people with all of these conferences, which is a huge benefit of it, that expanded my mindset. Like, I know that if I had not gone to Funnel Hacking Live four years ago and met a friend of mine named David, that I would not have my business be where it is now because of the fact that he had a business, the same business as me, very similar, but about three years ahead. And so, I was able to see what the next three years were looking like for me. And I was able to look at a blueprint and ask him questions and go, “Oh, I like what he does here. I would probably do something different here.” And I literally was able to see his business and mentally build mine behind his. And then literally my business is where his was three years ago like that’s kind of the way that it works. And so, it’s cool to be in those positions where you start to meet people and then they open your mindset, and then I would say last year I joined another mastermind I’m a part of. And there was a guy that I met there was at that conference and he told me something he was doing which was similar to mine and it opened up a new part of my business because I wasn’t doing the same thing he was like I took that little piece like a puzzle piece, and I locked it in place. And I was like, “Oh, my God, my business probably got maybe doubled because of just knowing him.” But had I not put myself out there and gone to these different things, I don’t think my business would be anywhere near where it is. And I think it’s the phrase like, “No man is an island.” I would not have the business I have. I wouldn’t have the following I have unless I connect with these people. 

 

And so, I think that if people are out there, they don’t know what they want, take the year like you took, and then have a transition period. People are always like, “I can’t quit my job right away.” You don’t have to quit your job away. If you don’t love what you do, find out what it is and then give your go, “Okay. I’m going to give myself a transition time.” You know, two years by this date, I’m going to be doing X, Y, Z, whatever that thing is. And so, like for me, I teach coaches. And so, a lot of the people that are coaches have never been coaches before ever but they’re really passionate about something. They’re passionate about helping people in relationships. They’re passionate about personal development and fitness and nutrition. And we’ve got everything swimming, swim coaches, we’ve got divorced coaches, we’ve got death coaches for grieving and going through those. And there are people who usually have a full-time job but they’re super passionate about this one thing, and that’s where they spend all of their time doing when they’re not at that job and they’re like, “How can I make money helping people go through these situations whether it’s learn to swim, going through a divorce, getting the relationship better, fitness, all of that?” And if people can find that thing, that missing puzzle piece and lock it into place, and then just surround themselves, people who are in the similar category, like life just gets way better.

 

Justin Donald: Totally. And the opportunities are endless. These different businesses that people can come up with in the area that they’re already good at or a new area that they just want to become good at. It’s truly endless. I love how you spoke about how anyone can do it, whether they have a job, they have their business. Whatever situation they’re in, they can choose to go to conferences or to go to boot camps or go to whatever it is. And I’ve gone to a ton, as I know you have, I mean, that’s the name of the game. And I joke with people all the time. When I went to Traffic & Conversion Summit the first time, I think there were 6,000 people there and I said I’m probably 5,999 or 6,000 in like knowledge of online anything. I really felt like I was the most novice person in that room. But there are two things you get. You get the education from the people that are speaking and you get the connections from the people you engage with. And both are incredibly valuable. And go figure today I’m utilizing all these things that I learned about when I didn’t even have a business. I didn’t even think I was going to do what I’m doing today. It’s fascinating. So, I’m a huge believer in being a lifelong learner. And to me, that’s just always going to be a core principle of who I am and what my life is going to be about. 

 

You said earlier that your goals have changed. You used to be this goal setter and you’d want to accomplish these things. You’d write them down. And I’ve been very disciplined about that in my life as well, where every year I go through, my wife and I do like our planning day and we do this with our daughter now as well on a separate day for her. It was interesting this year being one of the first years where I realized that I don’t feel like I need to check the boxes like I used to. But what I do feel like I need to do is become who it is that I want to be. Like, what virtues do I want to embody more? Where am I lacking? How can I surround myself with people that have those? And how can I learn to be a more well-rounded person, a more knowledgeable person? So, that to me is very inspiring as well. 

 

Rob Dial: People always want to set goals around their business, around how much money, but people rarely want to make characteristic goals of who they want to be as a character, as a person. And I always think it’s really important to think, I think about death all the time, and I think it’s important to think about death and the reason why is because the more you think about it, the more you realize your time’s going to end. But the reason why it’s important to think about as well besides death giving you the urgency to get things done that you want to and bring your potential to the world or just out to your family, whatever it is that you’re going to be doing, is what do you want people to say about you at your funeral? Like if you were to go, “Oh, I don’t know what characters I want to bring out of myself.” And you’re sitting there like, “Who do I want to be? I want to be nice, I want to be giving,” but you’re kind of like surface level with it. If you’re sitting there in the crowd of your eulogy, what do you want every single person to be saying about you? And that is the character traits that you should try to work for and build into yourself. And you write them down. And then the simplest thing to do is wake up every single morning in the same way that you get in your car. Like we’re in Austin, Texas right now. If we want to go to Houston, I don’t know how to get directly to Houston. I’d probably figure it out but if I want to get there quicker, I just put it in my GPS in my phone and will go, “Okay. Rob is here. He wants to go here. And this is a direct way that we’re going to go.” 

 

Wake up every single morning and set your GPS for who you want to be as a person. Okay. I want to be more kind. I want to be more loving. I want to be more giving. And then you look back and you’re like, “I kind of messed that up last week. There were certain parts where I didn’t do as well. I didn’t do as well as I could have yesterday.” And you’re not going to be perfect but you wake up every single day and you’re basically setting your GPS for who you want to be as a person. And eventually, if you just do that every single day, your characteristics will start to change. You’ll start to make different decisions. If you decide to be more loving, you’re going to stop screaming at people on the road. You’re going to be a little bit nicer around the people who are taking a little bit extra longer at Starbucks, whatever it is. And those characteristics and the character traits are going to be built into you simply because you wake up every single morning and say, “Who do I want to be as a person?”

 

Justin Donald: That’s awesome. I love that. That is just gold. You know, it reminds me of a time that we were hanging out at South by Southwest and we just had some incredible conversations and I had so much fun. We were connecting. We were going to some of the different sessions. We kind of pulled out, I think we went to go grab some food or went on a walk. It was neat because at that point in time, you were doing a lot of traveling and we haven’t even gotten into this. We could do a whole episode just on the places that you’ve traveled around the world because you’re one of the most well-traveled people that I hang out with. And I love travel, as you know, and you have done just a masterful job with it and you’ve been able to take your business with you wherever you go. It’s interesting, though. We haven’t traveled as much this last year, and I’m sure that you’re excited to go somewhere. I am. You know, I just got back from Puerto Rico, which is really nice, and I went to Vegas for March Madness so that was really cool. So, I’ve got some small ones but going overseas is a little more difficult right now. I’m curious what you envision for travel and the impact that can have personally, professionally? Just kind of where you are with it?

 

Rob Dial: I mean, I love traveling. The reason why I want to start an online business was so I could travel. That was it. When I went and quit my job in 2012, the thing that actually opened me up to traveling, though, was Cutco because we used to get trips all the time. So, we had trips so we could go on and we went to Mexico a few times, the Czech Republic. The first time I went overseas, like overseas was to Prague for that trip and it was 2008 or something like that. And it opened me up and I was like, “Wow. This is incredible to be able to go and see such a different culture, see so many different people in the way that they act, and the food, and all that.” And so, for me, when I quit my job in 2012 and backpack here for three months, I was like, “I love this. I love this. This lights me up inside.” I was like, “I want to be able to travel anywhere I can,” and then I went back, moved to Austin, got a job, and realized, “Oh, I only get 15 days of PTO like that’s not going to be enough for me.” And so, I was like, “I need to figure it out.” So, then I’ve really just started researching all of the ways you can make money online. And so, I saw these ways and I saw this way, and I saw this way. And then I started going to this thing in Austin called Internet Marketing Party, who are just a bunch of people who are on the Internet and they just make money in different ways. 

 

And so, I started going and talking to them and I was like, “Oh, I can really make this a thing.” And so, as I left the business company I was with and I started my own business, started in 2015, but then in 2017, I built it to be stable enough that we could leave. And so, we left and we went to Europe. My girlfriend and I, we left for six months. So, we stayed about three-and-a-half months in Italy. We were all over then we went to – where do we go after that? We went to Amsterdam, we went to Spain, we went to Croatia, we went to Thailand, to Bali, to Dubai. We went to all these different places but I ran my business the entire time. And the cool thing about it is when I was there in 2012, I was like, how can I make money and then quit and have enough and then come back and get another job and then quit and then make enough to be able to just keep saving. And I thought I was going to be like this, make money, don’t make money, make money, don’t make money, make money, don’t make money. But what’s cool about it is that I was able to set my entire life up with all of my coaching calls to do them at night. And so, literally, what Laura and I would do is we would go to a new place, we would explore all day long, and then we would work from like literally 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. We would work for six hours every single day and I do all my coaching calls there. I’ll do my videos. I’ll plan. I still did videos. My first viral video was our very first week in Rome and that video did 50 million views and I was like, “Oh, I can do all of this while I’m still traveling.”

 

Justin Donald: In fact, there might even be more of a draw while you’re traveling. 

 

Rob Dial: Right. Because you’re more open and you’re more creative and like life just, you know, you feel better and when you feel better, you show up better. When you show up better, you do better, make better business decisions. You make better content, whatever it is you’re doing. And so, for me, it’s like I think that for me, travel has made me a better content creator. It’s made me more empathetic to what’s going on in the world and other people that are around me. And so, for people who don’t have a way to travel and it’s something that’s their passion. They should absolutely figure out a way, whether it’s their own business or getting more free time or working through Zoom and being able to do it but we’ve been kind of hindered with the traveling this year. I haven’t left the country for the past 12 months like that’s crazy. That’s not normal for me in any sort of way. But literally, yesterday one of our friends who lives in Rome, he’s over in Hawaii right now, spending time in Hawaii because they’re still in lockdown. And so, literally, he’s giving me like the week-by-week when Italy’s supposed to be open and he’s going to go back mid-May and I was like, “Maybe I’ll meet you in mid-May. We’ll see if it’ll work.” And so, for us, as soon as Italy opens back up, like we’re gone because Italy is a place that we spent at least several last year, a month, every single year over in Italy. I think to be able to leave and go somewhere different is something to look forward to and it makes you more creative when you’re there. But when you come back, it also helps you appreciate where you live as well. 

 

Justin Donald: Certainly. And I cannot wait for Italy to open up. It’s one of my favorite places to go. In fact, one of my favorite wine experiences I’ve ever had is out there at Torgiano. If you’re new to Torgiano, it’s just an unbelievable organization. We’ve brought them in. We’ve had them host, actually, you came over for…

 

Rob Dial: No. I was out of town that time that you did it. 

 

Justin Donald: Oh, you missed the wine event. 

 

Rob Dial: I remember you told me about it though. 

 

Justin Donald: Come into town and just do this amazing wine tasting with like fifteen different bottles of wine. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah, it’s crazy. 

 

Justin Donald: And with truffle oil and pepper and Cheaney oil. It was unbelievable. So, I’m a huge fan of Italy. In our last trip when we went abroad, we spent three weeks in Italy. We actually brought our babysitter out with us so that we could get time away and kind of have date nights and stuff like that, my wife and I. So, I just think that that’s so cool. And like you, I’m ready. So, I feel like this is the longest stretch I’ve gone since I’ve been an adult that I have not left the country now. Being in Puerto Rico, it’s U.S. territory so I’m out of the Intercontinental USA, but it’s still part of the USA. 

 

Rob Dial: It counts but doesn’t count, I guess, we could try to say. 

 

Justin Donald: Yeah. That’s right. I’m trying to help it make it count so that way I don’t have to say I took a full year of not leaving the United States, but it’s kind of part of the United States. 

 

Rob Dial: Well, that is another benefit too. So, one thing I didn’t say is even not having to leave the United States so people who are like, “I want to still travel,” when COVID hit, we were in Sedona and we stayed in Sedona for four months just so we didn’t have to come back to town and stay away from people and all that. So, it’s like people don’t have to leave the country if they don’t want to. If they want to be close because maybe one of their family members has something that they’re worried that something might happen and they don’t want to leave the country because they want to be 12, 13, 17 hours away, the cool thing about having your own business or setting up your lifestyle the way that you want to like you’re talking about is you can literally go, “You know what? I’m going to go to Sedona for a month. I’m going to go to Colorado and ski for a month.” You can do all this stuff or go for a couple of weeks when you decide to set your life up that way. But what it comes down to more than anything else is what I would assume one of the biggest things of being a lifestyle investor is to actually be intentional. Like what the hell do you want? First off, like, most people don’t know what they want. Put it on a piece of paper like what do you want your life to look like? There’s no reason why your life can’t be that. The only thing that’s restricting you from being there is you thinking that you can’t be there. That’s the only thing. So, I think that it’s about waking up and being intentional with a lot of the stuff that you do so that you can build a life that you want and be free from the rat race that so many people are stuck in. 

 

Justin Donald: Totally. And here’s the thing. People get really clear on what they don’t want. 

 

Rob Dial: For sure. 

 

Justin Donald: They just don’t get clear on what they do want. 

 

Rob Dial: Right. 

 

Justin Donald: And it’s fascinating. And then sometimes people say, “Well, I’m going to stop being an employee. I need to be my own boss because I need freedom and I need autonomy and I need agency in my life.” But then their business ends up owning them and they work for hours and they’re more consumed by it. And for a while it’s fun, it’s a challenge, but at a certain point, that’s not the case and you end up being it’s still a rat race. It’s a bigger, nicer rat race. I joke with people like you get off the treadmill, this enslaved treadmill of having a boss and having a job, and then you just get on a really nicer one, like a Peloton treadmill. It goes a lot faster and it’s a lot more stable and there’s more competition in it and there are just so many more ways to keep you hooked to it but it’s still a treadmill that’s hard to get off. And like you, I mean, I feel like there’s so much perspective and just energy and there’s just so much about traveling that makes me a better person, makes me a more understanding and compassionate person, which I think is really important, especially in a day like today and especially being married and having a daughter, having a young daughter. But we really had the most fun this past summer. We went to Colorado. We went to all the cool spaces in Colorado that generally people go in the winter and we decided to do them in the summer. So, we had Breckenridge and Vail and, by the way, we did like every major cool place in Colorado. We had home-based out of Denver. We hit up Boulder and Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. I mean, we literally hit up every cool place all along the way, went to Steamboat, and then did a road trip all over Texas and all over New Mexico. And it was just a blast. And so, just because you can’t leave the U.S. doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take advantage of all the wonderful sights and experiences the U.S. has to offer or wherever your country is, wherever you’re listening. 

 

Rob Dial: Yeah. And it’s sad that people don’t think that it’s possible and it’s sad that people stay locked into it. And what you said is a really big point where I would say most people want to leave their jobs so they have freedom but then they get so locked into their job, they want to leave their jobs. They want to leave their business so they can have freedom. So, they leave a job because they want freedom, they start a business, they get locked into it, and then they want freedom from that business so they want to shut it down. So, a lot of people, what they also do as they start businesses is they don’t tend to start businesses a lot of times in something that they truly love. Sometimes they go in it just to make money and then they actually hate that more than what they did before because now they’re locked into something, working more hours sometimes, doing something that they absolutely don’t love. And so, it’s about finding what you love doing that thing, but then realizing that the most important thing for me, I think as somebody that wants to grow their business is as money comes in, don’t spend the money on yourself, spend it on getting more people in. Because when you start getting really good people in, that’s when you’re able to get freedom. And believe me, like when I had my first business, I ran it into the ground because I could not delegate, and most people who have businesses don’t delegate. 

 

The more money that comes in, the more you start spending in more people and bringing in more people and bringing more people, the more freedom that those people create for you. We both have a lot of friends that have a lot of different businesses. The ones that I’ve seen that love their lives the most and that usually the most successful are the ones that trust other people to run aspects of their business, and they don’t micromanage them every single day. And they just like, “This person’s really good at what they do.” Like when I bring someone on, I want them to see my business and what they do with it as their business under my business, like I want them to literally see it as their business because then they have full autonomy of what they’re doing. They love it more but also at the same time it’s like the average person will look at what somebody does. Let’s say it’s sales, for instance. I’m good in sales. I could hire a salesperson. I could probably do the phone calls better than them. But if I have four salespeople, I can’t do as many phone calls as them. So, I have four salespeople on my team. So, I might be better than all of them, at least maybe just a little bit. I could do all four of maybe what, 16 calls a day, 17, 20 calls a day? There’s no way I could do it timewise. So, my business has grown because I brought on the right people who see this as part of their business, their own business inside of my business, but there’s a part of me, the micromanaging side, that I used to do a long time ago, I’m like, “They’re going to do it. Like, just trust them to do it. They’re going to figure it out. They’re going to get better.” And what tends to happen is when you give somebody autonomy, they end up loving their job a lot more. 

 

Rob Dial: And one of the phrases that I’ve always heard that sticks with me a lot is that, “People don’t quit their job. They quit their manager.” And a lot of times that people quit their manager because the fact that they feel like they are constricted and they can’t do anything, they can’t be themselves, and they can’t create in their role, in their position. And when you do that, it does a couple of different things. Number one, the best thing that it does is it frees up more time for you and, number two, that people tend to show up more, and that’s what really matters. 

 

Justin Donald: Yeah. There’s no doubt. And you know, something else really important that you said that I think is – I actually want to like draw some math to it because, number one, you find people that want to go above and beyond the call of duty based on how you hire them. So, you’re finding people with certain personality traits, with certain behavioral traits, and you can find people that are going to thrive in the environment that you want. But you made a really good point. And I used to do a lot of consulting and advising for companies to help them scale. And this is it. It’s what you just said that let’s say that you can do something better than someone else. Maybe they’re only 80% as good as you and you could do it 90%, 100%, whatever it is. Well, what happens when you really want to scale even outside of sales? You gave an example of four salespeople. Well, you’re not going to be able to do what four salespeople do. So, they can do it worse than you and they can do it even considerably worse than you, but four people is still going to produce a larger return. 

 

Rob Dial: Still going to sell more than me. Yeah. For sure. 

 

Justin Donald: The sum is greater. Well, what happens then when you get to operations, right? You can do operations where you’re kind of managing all aspects of the business. But when you plug someone in there, maybe they do it 70% as well as you. But that gives you the freedom to be able to be in or on your business, not in your business, not into the day-to-day, but thinking and strategizing. And so, it’s so powerful. Let’s say you have five people that you bring in and they all do 70% to 80% as well as you do in that role but you add that up and there’s no way you could ever do that. 

 

Rob Dial: There’s no way. There’s not enough hours in the day. And what you do is and I don’t remember who said it to me one time but we were talking about zones of genius and someone was like, “What are your zones of genius?” And I was like, “I feel like I’m really good at creating content that people love. I just feel like that’s something that I understand. And the second thing is, I’m really good at coaching people.” And it became very aware to me that, in my business, as it grows, the only two things that I should ever do is coach people and create content. There is nothing else that I should be doing. And the more that someone gets focused on that, they realize when I stay in my zone of genius, I can then hire people that stay in their zone of genius. So, like, our stuff right now is being recorded through video, through mic, all of the stuff in my videographer, Chris is doing it. Chris is way better than this that I am like she’s better at it than I am. And being able to run a business where I focus just on this and be able to bring her in, her zone of genius is this. She’s also obsessed with it. Like, literally, Chris is obsessed with this. Colors and all of the stuff and like that’s her life. And that’s the beautiful thing is that she loves doing this thing and creating in my business, but also outside of my business and getting better and better and better. And like we were talking about we were in the studio, I was like, “She’s really frickin good at lighting.” And she’s gotten better and better and Chris would tell you, she wasn’t that great at lighting when she first started, but she’s improved because she’s gone, “I want to get better at this. I want to get better at creating content.” 

 

So, now our lighting looks really damn good in all the videos. I can’t set my cameras up to look as good as they are because my zone of genius is creating content and coaching people. Hers is video, making stuff look good, so that’s hers. Then I have Dean, who’s my director of sales, my best friend. He is obsessed with sales. I love sales. I’m not obsessed with it like I’m good at it, but I get tired of it if I do it for too long. He’s obsessed with it. I’ll say this. When he first came on, I was better than him at the position. He’s way better than me. What’s crazy about it, though, is he’s so good at it, he’s gotten ridiculously good and trained our other three people that they are all probably, if I would be honest with you, all four of them are probably better than me because they’ve been able to focus on those things. And by me, removing myself from the actual day-to-day of getting those things done, it’s allowed somebody else to go, “Okay. This is my zone of genius. I’m going to focus on this, Chris in video, Dean in sales, for my coaches so I have Lauren and Abby who coach people that come into my courses and everything that I do. They coach them one-on-one and they help him that way. So, then now they’re going and getting like HeartMath certifications and certified and like the way to listen to your intuition more and do all of this stuff that makes them really good at what they do. Then in my marketing, I have Jeremy and I outsource to Jeremy because Jeremy is obsessed with marketing, putting ClickFunnels together, making active campaigns to talk to ClickFunnels. 

 

Rob Dial: Nothing bores me more than trying to set up a page, but these people are all like masters of what they do and the more full autonomy that they have allows me to have more full autonomy of what I do and not have to focus on those things. And the thing that I see most with most people is that it is really hard to delegate. And most of the time, it’s actually an ego issue more than it’s anything else. This is my baby. No one else can do it better than I can but if you’re going to completely scale like we have 12 people on a team, I can’t do 12 people’s job. There’s no way. Time-wise, it just does not work. But when I let them do it, it frees me up to live my life and do the things that I want to do. And the more that I can do the things that I want to do like travel, for instance, the better my content is, the better I coach people, the better ideas I come up with, all of that stuff, and I’m able to stay in my zone of genius and a lot of them stay in theirs. And in turn, I feel like everyone’s happier. I feel like people love what they do a lot more than when there’s some of this on their ass, checking their numbers every single day, “Tell me about this. Tell me about this. Tell me about this. This isn’t good enough. This isn’t good enough.” And in the business, it just seems more effortless that way, which was a beautiful part about it as well. 

 

Justin Donald: That’s awesome. Well, it’s cool hearing your evolution as a business owner and not just the content creator because you’ve got both. But I can see a lot of your passions in the content creation side. It’s neat seeing all the people that you have come into contact with that have helped you in this world. You mentioned Internet Marketing Party and David Gonzalez is a good friend of both of ours, and what a great guy. I just want to give him a shout-out. 

 

Rob Dial: For sure. 

 

Justin Donald: And it’s just so cool seeing the way that you have grown and evolved and have just gone from one business to a completely different business and the success that you’ve had through and through yet you are still this amazing down to earth, humble, easy to hang out with, wonderful guy that I feel very privileged to call a friend. So, I’m just excited that we could share all this with the world and people could learn more about you and all that you have going on. I’d love to know who are some of your greatest mentors or teachers? This could be real life. This could be books that you’ve read. Who are they or what are they? 

 

Rob Dial: So, my favorite book ever is Think and Grow Rich. That was the first book, if you want to hear a funny story, actually, let me tell you this. Let me rewind it. So, Saturday we had a party. My birthday was yesterday so Saturday we had a party and I was sitting outside and all of my friends were here and I was like, “Man, it’s crazy. Like I’m 35.” And so, I was like, “Okay. I’m literally as close to birth as I am to 70 years old,” and I started thinking that. I was like, “Man, it’s crazy to think of like the life that I have created. Life is something that we create. It’s not something that just happens to us.” And I was like it all started because I was reading a book that Jon Berghoff told me to read. I didn’t read. I never read. I didn’t read in college. I don’t read in high school. I dropped out of college. High school, I did well, but it was just because I’m really good at memorizing stuff like I’m very good at memorizing, which is why I can tell you I was in Starbucks for this. I was in Jason’s. I remember almost every detail. And that happens to be a skill set and he was like, “You should start reading books.” And he told me to read The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle by Jim Rohn. So, I went and got it when all my friends are still here and I went and got in, literally, like almost the whole book is highlighted and underlined and stars and all of this stuff. And I opened it up and I was like, let me just see, like if the universe has a message for me, let me open it up. 

 

And I opened it up and it talked about that, literally, there was a box like this huge paragraph. I literally took the entire box and I put around it and put a star next to it and so I could see it. And it said, “Basically what we’re talking about is like life is something that you create. It’s not something that just happens to you. But if you don’t pay attention, it will just happen to you.” And so, I was like, “Man, that’s crazy to think about.” I remember reading this book, another part of me remembering where I was, I remember being in my Nissan Sentra the first time I cracked that book open, the first book that I had read without ever being forced to read. And I remember I was in my Nissan Sentra outside someone’s house, waiting for them to show up for a demo, and I started reading it. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is good. This is great.” And so, like, that was the very first and Jim Rohn is Tony Robbins’ mentor so that was the first book that I read that was like opened me up to books. Then I was told, “Oh, you should read Think and Grow Rich,” so I read Think and Grow Rich and that was the first book that opened me up to success, whether it’s financial success, whether it’s relationships, any aspect, being a great parent, all of them have steps to being “successful” or success can basically just be good at it, good at business, good at relationships, all of them have steps to “success.” 

 

Rob Dial: And Think and Grow Rich made me realize I can do anything that I want to do. I’ve just got to figure out these steps to success are. Doesn’t matter what it is. No matter what it is, I can figure out the steps to success because somebody else has been successful in this thing before me. So, I can find out get their autobiography or if I can get myself around them if they are still alive or if it’s possible for me to learn about them. So, for me, it was like that was the very first book where I was like, “I can do whatever I want,” which was not really normal for me as a child because I didn’t come from a place where there were a lot of rich people around me or people who had money. So, it wasn’t like I knew wealth and what that looks like, but I was like, “Oh, I can get into it. I just wasn’t surrounded by it at this point.” So, like for me, it was always really big. And then obviously Tony Robbins helped but what’s my biggest mentors for me now are actually really deep philosophers. So, I went on a really long Alan Watts kick. I love Alan Watts. I love thinking really, really deep. When I can be quiet in like outside it’s just all nature so I can sit outside and I can sit and think deeply. My best ideas come from that. That’s what I really like. I love the philosophical side of life. And so, for me it was like I love Alan Watts. I’ve been on this for a couple of years, a Ramdas kick like I love Ramdas. 

 

And just spirituality in general, I feel like the first 35 years of my life was very much like business and make money and do this. And now it’s like kind of the transition of if that was the first 35 years of my life and I’ve got at least another 35, hopefully, what do I want those to be on? And it’s much more of spiritual development and character development of who I want to be. And so, I would say like as of and then there’s a lot of different mentors. I would say like Bob Marley opened me up to some different stuff where he was speaking different and talking about money differently. And I think that he kind of opened me up to different things. And there was also like music. Music really opened me up to, as I listen to my music from high school, go back and listen to it, I realized that the music I listen to made me think differently. And the music that I listen to is never like anarchist type music but it was always kind of like screw the system type music. Like Ben Harper would kind of talk like that, Jack Johnson, where he talks about there was a song that’s called Cookie Jar where he talks about the people in the news and all of the stuff that’s happening. And then there’s like a John Mayer song where they talk about they feed you, they give you the news to think you think certain ways. And I’m starting to listen to his music to go, “Oh, my God.” The music that I listen to in high school made me go, “I’m not going to follow the rules.” 

 

Rob Dial: That was the music kind of brainwashed me to go, “I’m not going to follow the rules,” because I’m not good at following rules. I’m not good at being told what to do. I’m real good when I have my own thing and like we’ve been talking about full autonomy of what I want to do. So, I would say like there are so many mentors and songs that I’ve listened to and books that I’ve read and people that I’ve talked to growing up along the way that have opened my eyes to the world doesn’t have to be the way that I think the world is. And I can create it to be whatever I want it to be. And so, I think that a lot of people don’t pay attention to the people they surround themselves with enough. I don’t think they pay attention to the music they listen to enough because I really do believe in the fact that the words that we use, especially in our own heads and out loud, will change the way that we think. And if I’m singing something out loud, that is a verbal incantation or affirmation. And so, I’m starting to change the music I listen to and go, “Oh, yeah I do like the beat of this, but I would never say that to a woman.” You know what I mean? Like, there’s a lot of music like that where I’m like I actually don’t believe what they’re saying. Maybe I should start listening to music that I do believe. As I started doing that, started going back to music I used to listen to, I’m like, “Oh my God, I can see how these people, as my podcast is called The Mindset Mentor, these were kind of mindset mentors for me in high school and I had no clue where I was like, “I’m not going to follow the rules. I’m not going to care about this. I’m going to do my own thing.” 

 

And once I started listening to music, I think I kind of clicked out of the rat race from there on and I went to college. I was like, “I don’t like this at all.” And then I found Cutco and I was like, “Whoa, I can do my own thing and make as much money as I want and I could be my own boss. I don’t have to listen to anybody. This is amazing. Oh, I can open my own office with them.” And then I went back in the rat race and I was like, “No, this doesn’t line up with who I am at all.” And so, I think that there have been so many different mentors along the way. And Rob, ten years ago would have been like, “Yeah. Nobody’s helped me. I’m completely self-made.” Seven years ago, I would have been like, “I’m self-made. I’ve made all the money.” I don’t understand what they mean when they say no man’s an island but as I get older, I realize every single person I’ve talked to, every single thing that I’ve read, every single thing that I’ve listened to, the music have all changed me in some sort of way to become the person that I am. And so, I think mentors are literally all around me my entire life. 

 

Justin Donald: That’s awesome. What a cool answer. And it’s interesting to think about what music did you listen to and what influence did it have because even when you don’t realize that it did, it may have. It’s a subconscious thing and there are trends and themes that you’ll see show up later on in life. I think that’s incredible. It’s great recognition and I appreciate you pointing to that as an influence. And I’ve actually never really considered the lyrics of the music that I listen to, to be some of the influencers or major influencers of my life but I think that you are on to something.

 

Rob Dial: Which when you start going back and listen to music when you were younger and you go, “Oh, my God, like this has influenced me deeply.” Why? Because I was saying it out loud to myself hundreds, if not thousands of times, of all of these different like the stuff that I listen to is just a little bit on the rebellious side. It was never like burn the system down, but it was always like more of just a little bit like, “Hey, we don’t like the way that things are going. We don’t like this.” And I’m like, “I don’t like the way things are going.” That is true. I don’t like the government in the way that it’s set up and the way that they treat people, and all these left or right doesn’t matter to me. So, it’s like I’ve come to realize that like every one of those things I listen to literally made me who I am. And so, literally, mentors are everywhere and that’s the beautiful thing about life.

 

Justin Donald: That is so cool. So, if there is only one other thing that you could share to kind of wrap up our session here today, what would it be? 

 

Rob Dial: The same way that I leave every single episode of mine, make it your mission to make someone else’s day better. If everyone listening did one thing positive for one of the person today, it would make you feel better, it would also make that person feel better, and there’s a good chance that that might turn into a chain where they help somebody else out because they feel better. So, the same way that a virus can spread, as we can see over the course of this world and what’s been happening the past year, the same way the virus can spread from one person to another, positivity can spread from one person to another. Also, negativity can spread from one person to another. So, if everyone just goes, “You know what, I’m going to figure out a way to do one good deed for someone today,” I guarantee you it is going to be a lot better just by doing that. 

 

Justin Donald: I like it. Yeah. And so, motive matters and if you’re doing something for what you’re going to get out of it, there is an aspect to that. But at the same point in time, doing things because it’s right or because you want to make a difference, you want to make change in the world like that is a great motive and you’re going to feel good no matter what the motive is. It just feels good to help people. And on that note, I’d love to wrap things up with what I always say to our audience here, which is to take some form of action on what you learned today and that action should show up in a way that gets you closer to living a life with financial freedom, a life that is by design, not by default, not by autopilot, but intentionality. And that’s by taking one step closer, just moving in some way, taking some form of action towards a life of financial freedom. So, thanks so much for joining us today. Where can our listeners find out more about you? 

 

Rob Dial: Mindset Mentor is my podcast. And if you put my name anywhere on the Internet, Rob Dial, it’s going to pop up on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all of my stuff is. I’m everywhere on the Internet. Just put my name in, you’ll see me and the podcast is usually where most people end up listening to me on. 

 

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, you’ve done such a good job that you can actually say that. Just throw it in. It’ll show up. That’s me. 

 

Rob Dial: I’m out there somewhere. 

 

Justin Donald: So, nice job. Well, thank you for your time today. This has been a lot of fun and I appreciate getting a chance to do it in your home studio. You’ve got a gorgeous home and an awesome property. I’ve got a chance. I’m just checking out the pool and the hot tub right out behind you as we’re communicating here, and what a fun environment to be able to create content in. So, thank you for welcoming me into your home so that we could do this. 

 

Rob Dial: Sure. Hey, man. Thanks for coming by. 

 

Justin Donald: You’re an inspiration, Rob. 

 

Rob Dial: Thanks, bud. I appreciate it.

[END]