MBA 053: Finding my Purpose with ROB DIAL

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