Rob Dial 

Founder and host of a motivational podcast that is focused on helping you find your purpose in life.

Elevator Pitch: Who is Rob Dial?

Rob Dial is a motivational speaker, although he doesn’t care much for the term. He runs a short, to the point motivational podcast and does coaching as well.

Starting Out

As opposed to most entrepreneurs, Rob chose to go the entrepreneurial route before he went into corporate. At the age of 19, while at college he worked as a door-to-door knives salesman and earned commission on his sales. He worked for that company for 5 years and trained over 2000 sales reps. When he eventually entered the corporate world, he hated it. Rob worked for a few different companies where he did sales and training of sales staff. He left shortly thereafter to start his own business. He agrees that the safety net of a steady income is appealing to most people but he was at his most unhappy when he was working in corporate and had the highest base salary and commission. He didn’t want to come to a point, look back on his life and see unfulfilled potential. Rob mentions a quote that states that you can fail at what you don’t want to do, so you might as well take a chance on something that you love.

Becoming Obsolete

With the way technology is constantly evolving, many professions will become obsolete within the next five to ten years. It is our responsibility to consider that and think of an exit strategy. Think of a way to incorporate that technology today, sooner rather than later. The easiest way to become an entrepreneur is to figure out what everybody’s problem is and how to solve it.

Making Mistakes and Learning from Them

In retrospect, Rob can identify problems with his initial authenticity. He used to spend a lot of time planning the podcasts, reading scripted lines and editing the podcast to perfection. Perfection came at a cost to his authenticity – he sounded like he had no personality. Much time also went into editing in such detail. Eventually he decided that it wasn’t sustainable and stopped editing the podcasts completely. This was when he really started to gain traction with the audience. People started to respond to the authenticity. More than anything else, Rob feels it’s important to just be yourself. This will help with job satisfaction and building a loyal fan base. Rob says if he always strives for perfection, he won’t complete anything and that’s true for many an entrepreneur. Don’t use perfection as an excuse for not getting things done.

Differentiate Yourself

In Rob’s industry it all boils down to your personality. Some people will find your unique style appealing and others won’t. When he first started his podcast he was nervous to compete with the likes of Tony Robbins when he wasn’t nearly as knowledgeable. He then heard an interview that made him realise that many people know much less than him and could relate to his message better. This helped him get over the impostor syndrome. Rob also continues to use himself as a guinea pig to improve.

Rob’s Morning Routine

Rob doesn’t advocate getting up at a certain time, because he knows that everybody needs a different amount of sleep to function optimally. You need to figure out how many hours of sleep you need per night. If you work for somebody else, wake up earlier and start your morning routine on your own terms. You can’t control the rest of the day, but you can control what you do before you start work. Rob’s morning routine checklist looks like this: breathe, meditate, read, cold shower and yoga. When he wakes up, he starts the day with a breathing exercise called the Wim Hof Method. This essentially floods your body with oxygen. That is followed by his own recorded meditation. After that he reads for a bit, takes an extremely cold shower and does yoga. Now that he works for himself at home, he sees the value in adding structure to his routine.

Income Streams

If you’re thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, Rob suggests only leaving your current job if you have at least six months to a year’s worth of savings to cover their expenses. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about your steak and sides. The steak is your salary. When you have your steak, you start building on your sides by adding other income streams. The advice Rob gives is to stay at the company you work for, but stay later, stay up later, work on weekends on your other revenue streams. People also need to realise that they can live off much less than they think, that they’ve inflated their standards of living over the years. His income comes from coaching.

What’s My Purpose in Life?

Many people get stuck on this question. Rob quotes Elizabeth Gilbert: “The world is divided into two kinds of people: there are the jackhammers and there are the hummingbirds.” She continues about the difference between following your passion and following your curiosity in life. Rob associates with the jackhammer – he knows what his purpose is and he is happy to fully pursue it. But most people aren’t that lucky, they still search for that purpose. This puts them under a lot of pressure. Hummingbirds move from one flower to the next. This is an analogy for those people who shift from one profession to the next, searching for that right fit. It’s not the end of the world. Find something that you can focus on for the next three years and commit to that.

To Build the Next Uber

That’s a lot of work! There are two reasons why a person would want to build the next Uber – they’re searching for significance or they want the money. Rob feels he gets enough significance from his job as well as other perks such as a lot of free time. If you’re attempting to build the next Uber, you won’t have that freedom. Figure out what’s important to you – do you want to build a massive company to impact the world or do you want to build a massive company because you’re searching for some sort of significance? Or are you doing it for the money? Or do you want to make a decent living and have freedom in your time?

Lifestyle Entrepreneurs

Rob’s advice is to start right away. Start today. Figure out how your business can make money today. From there you can start making different plans and adjustments. Rob uses the phrase “Ready, fire, aim!”, not “Ready, aim, fire!”. Get a business idea and execute it as soon as possible. Only then you can spend time on making it better. Don’t try to make it perfect first. People tend to slow themselves down and hold themselves back.

Reset Button: If you had to start over in a different industry, what would it be and why?

Rob is certain that it would be in technology. He recognises the massive amount of technology changes over the last few years. Rob says he would probably approach a tech-savvy friend to handle the technical side, while he would be in charge of sales. He predicts that in the next ten years technology will encompass everything. It would have to be something that he is completely passionate about as well.

Last Words

While Rob was transitioning from the corporate world to owning his own company, he went to every single networking event after hours. He worked at building his following. He followed each person of significant value in his field and observed their social media habits. He didn’t copy them directly, but picked up priceless tips.
He advises up and coming entrepreneurs to just start. There won’t ever be a perfect time, so don’t delay. Once you start making the first money, you realise it’s real, you’re on the road to becoming an entrepreneur. Afterwards you can start making adjustments. Ready, fire, aim!