How to Design a Life That Runs Without You | Rob Dyrdek

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100%.

And, and one of the things that I love about you is when you were a kid, you used to— you— I think I told— you told me in the past you used to hypnotize yourself for success. I don't know if you remember talking about this, but you'd hypnotize yourself as a child and and you're deep in the law of attraction. I know you study and learn the law of attraction and the secrets for success. Before we get into everything you've created, how you built your philosophy, what's come to fruition, and where you're going next, can you talk about how you hypnotized yourself for success, what that was like, and I guess just that process?

And look, I think, I think the vision at a young age wasn't— I wouldn't call it as much— it was, it was the early development of manifestation., right? And, and it was drawing. I have a self-portrait of myself from when I'm 14 years old where it's me— I— this is no joke, it is me in a matching hat and shoes, like, like with a skateboard on the side, all of these, like this art easel, and then just stacks and stacks of money. Really? And you drew this? I hand drew it, right? And it's like, the most fascinating aspect is it's this bizarre matching hat-to-shoes combo, you know. And, and to me, like, I always like could feel intuitively the law of attraction, really. And so even when I look at like, I needed— I, I was lost at 25 years old when I was like searching for some sort of way to— I was like a fix to help like redirect me and get me remotivated and refocused. And that's why I was looking for a hypnotist, right? And then I found a hypnotist who was at the Scripps La Jolla Hospital. And like, and so to me, I'm like, okay, this is a, this is like a clinical psychologist hypnotist. This is real, right? And so when I got in, not some stage performer. Yeah. And so to me, it was like, like when I got in there, I was like looking for like, you know, give me, make me focused on skateboarding so I can win contests. Like you know, whatever my vision was. And he immediately did this test and said, you don't believe you were meant to be successful at your subconscious level. And so—

That's what he discovered after doing some testing.

Yeah, he did these like tests, and then the initial hypnosis was just reinforcing at the subconscious level that I was meant to be successful, right? That I believed that, right?

How do you believe— how do you learn to believe that if you hadn't believed it Until then.

And look, I, I would say that I, I had— I, I grew it and built it at an early age and was starting to lose it.

Okay. And then got it, which made you a professional at 16 and kind of go to the next level, but then somewhere you lost it, right?

He reinforced it and then boom, you know. And most recently I went, uh, to his house, you know, like a year ago.

Really?

Yeah, I went to his house. He's like this hypnotist now, his lifelong friend, you know what I mean? I found him in the Yellow Pages.

It was pre-internet.

The great Dr. George Pratt. And so, you know, I will, you know, I've sent friends there. I go see him all the time, you know. On my 5-year anniversary, he presided over the 5-year anniversary of our, uh, when we renewed our vows. Um, but I'm like, hey, can you just give me a check real quick? Uh, I just want to verify that I'm going to be a billionaire. He's like, come on in here. He's like, come on, stop it, you know that's gonna happen.

Wow.

Like him, like his like psychological power, he's like Stop it. And it's just like, you're right, Dr. George. But look, I think even, you know, we were both in Think and Grow Rich that I had, we had shot before we did the initial interview together too.

He was in the movie?

No, no, you, me and you.

Oh yeah, yeah, gotcha, yeah.

Right? And it was even back then, like now I'm evolving and getting more intuitive of things being attracted to me. But it wasn't till 2000, in '18, I was in a bit of a, you know, like a bit of a pit of chaos, right? Because here's these great plans that I have built that were unfolding. 2016, it was all coming alive, right? Our interview was at peak youthful energy of like, the world is mine. I just moved to Beverly Hills. I'm having my first child. Got my new office in Beverly Hills, like my forever estates. Just launched The Machine that month, right? All of these things, like I'm gonna build and sell all these companies. Still had never done it. Just the vision, the hope, everything. The energy of what was going to become. And, and so, um, but in 2018, like, things got sideways, right? The energy got sideways.

How so? Was this the NBC show that didn't work?

No, this was them talking about, like, Ridiculousness going away, right? Really? And I had built Super Jacket for it to be acquired, and it was just like, wow, it's like this entire thing that I've got, like, built up, and this is the first company I'm building to sell, is going to kind of drift way here. And my wife suggested, like, why don't we just watch The Secret?

Wow.

And so I'm like, you know, like, what, you know? And I kind of remember The Secret, you know, I sort of like remember The Secret. And then, I mean, the first 15 minutes, it just shifted my being. Really? It shifted my being in way of think of like, like, stop it. Like, look at who you are, what you've done, and look at like, like the good that has constantly like found its way to you. Don't lose sight of that. Like, and I began to practice belief. And literally like a month later, my internal medicine specialist is talking about meditation. And I'm like, I have to meditate. And she's like, oh, I, in my office, we have this new company that has these meditation pods, the Somadome, right? And I'm like, Can I try it out? And inside this SomaDome, it's a guided meditation about manifestation.

Really?

And so what I started doing in 2018 is I was like, I'm not going to like hope for the law of attraction, I'm going to begin to practice it. So I would go to sleep every night watching The Secret. So it was the last thing I went to bed, and then when I would get up in the morning, I would get in my dome right? And I would just like think of all the things I wanted to happen, right? And so instead of thinking in 2018 when they were talking about ending Ridiculousness and I was in season 12, I wasn't— I wasn't— I decided I wasn't going to manifest, uh, season 13. I was going— I kept manifesting walking on the stage introducing season 30.

Holy cow, so you weren't thinking about the next season, you were thinking about 20 seasons away, right?

Right. And, and so for me, like, like, it then evolved, and like, it literally began— it was like the, the, the seas began to part, right? Because what happened is, because I own the production now, I was able to negotiate directly with the head of the network on the unit economics of the show rather than talent and producing fees. And so we got to a place where we decided from a business perspective what was best for the network and the ever-changing landscape of linear cable. And I gave him the— I'm like, give me the price you want and then let me go and try to make it happen.

Because you used to have a talent fee that was bigger and then you said, let's work this out.

Right, and somebody else would produce it. Now I produce the entire thing, own the entire production, so I understood where all the opportunity was to get it to his cost. And that, it's a nuance now, right? So I negotiated with him on the unit economics where most, like even big celebrities and producers are still like, it's fees, you know? Like you don't have the ability to get in that into depth because you don't understand or own the production company at that level. And so it goes from right there, I got it to his number, we negotiated and I was getting 30-episode seasons at a time back then. And I said, I can only do this price if we get to 42 episodes and you gotta pick up multiple seasons. Wow. And I was hoping for 2, he picked up 4. Right. And so it went from thinking that it was completely like, I'm gonna have to regroup and like television's over here, to like now you're shooting 186, right? And the beauty of it was, is I had built the company up to that point. You needed 3 years of EBITDA to take it to market and sell it. The entire plan was like, we gotta get through the 3rd year and take it to market. And on the 3rd year, they were like, we don't think the show's coming back. Basically like, okay, that means the production company's going out of business after I was getting ready to take it to market and be my big first win. And instead, that 186 order, took it straight to market. Now I took it to market, here's the 3 years in EBITDA, and we have the biggest order in the history of cable television, right? Like, that's the biggest order, uh, one of the biggest ones, right? And so that is how huge that, that, that changed. And then what happens now? They have more episodes, they air more, it gets this new, entirely new life. Then they're like, can we get more?

Really?

Then by the following year, you know, and keep in mind in that time I sold the company.

What year was this now?

The company was acquired in 2019.

Okay.

Right. So, and then it was like it had this explosion. So then it's like, how many can you give us? And I'm like, so I went through all time management, all aspects, because keep in mind, I'm still doing all of this while living super balanced and happy, normal life. So I could do 250 max. So I could be in a year. Yeah. And then I was like, but in order to do that, like, can you pick up 2 years? And then they were like, what? No-brainer, let's do it. So they then ordered 500.

500 apps?

Yes.

In 2 years?

In 2 years. And that put me to 30 seasons, right? So it's like, so, you know, oh my goodness.

And again, so you're visualizing 30.

Visualizing 30. And I'll tell you one thing, you know, I, I actually spent some time with the great Dr. Joey, uh, Dispenza, right? And, and the one thing I heard from him is this idea of don't try to think it, try to feel it. You know, don't— when you're, when you're trying to, to like tap into the quantum field and, and, and generate energy in the law of attraction, the things that you are thinking about think about the feeling. That's why I thought of— I like went through the feeling of like what it feels like to be on stage. Welcome to season 30, right? So it's a much more richer sort of existence. So now, now it's like I practice it every single day. I am, I am in, you know, that Soma Dome meditation pod like feeling what I want to have. Wow. 7 days a week. Almost never miss a day, right? I track it super extensively and like literally it's like 97, 96, like almost every like, like 97% of this entire year I have been in there just visualizing what I want to happen.

I got to get one of these domes. Yeah.

Look, it's— keep it— keep in mind, like, that's— think how hard it is to just meditate every day.

That's so hard.

Right? Think about how hard it is to just do anything healthy every day.

For 5, 10 minutes.

Right? You know what I mean? It's a, I didn't do it overnight. I had to grow into it. It's a muscle. Getting that level of discipline, being able to commit to it, you need to do it over and over. You go through your highs and lows. You stop for a little bit. You go back to it. You stop, like, it goes like that till you finally grow the muscle of the consistency and the discipline to where it turns into a way of life. Yeah, I just don't— I now I can't even imagine not doing it. If I don't do it in a day, I'm like, oh, like, where are all my dreams?

How important is it for people to feel their— what they want to manifest on a daily basis then, as opposed to once in a while?

I mean, look, I'm, I'm living proof that you can exponentially accelerate towards it if it's part of your focus.

Where do you think you'd be if you didn't do that on a daily basis? It's hard to sleep almost every night watching the Secret.

Yeah, I mean, look, but I, I— look, I've been, I've been falling asleep to a lot of Jim Rohn, this old Jim Rohn, this old school sort of his sort of philosophy that's also super sharp. Because, because what I've just found is, is like you're like this, you know, I'm gonna fall asleep instantly, right? Like I sleep pure and quick, but it's like, like let me be in this like sort of growth mindset as I'm like drifting off asleep to like set the tone, right, for, for what it is. So I, I don't know. And it's, again, I think with a lot of stuff that I do, it's extreme, right? It's like so extreme.

Like, you track every minute of your life.

Yeah, like tracking all, every minute of my life, having the qualitative data of every single day, asking myself how I feel about my life, 0 to 10, right? And, uh, of life, work, and health. The beauty of that is it is a clear indication of the quality of your life.

Yes.

And I see direct correlation to my discipline on my quantitative stuff. Did I get up at 5? Did I brain train? Did I meditate? Did I get in the gym? Did I have a clean diet? Did I not drink? You could look straight up the line and look at the qualitative numbers, and they are one for one. Right? And at scale, right, it's— you, you see, you've gamified your discipline.

Yes.

Right? And in, in a sense, you've gamified driving the quality of your life, right? Which, what does that do? What do all those things actually deliver to you? You're just happier, you're more fulfilled, you feel better about yourself, you have more confidence, you have more belief, right? Like all of these things. But again, I started it in 2015. I was, I was never able to do an entire year until 2020. It took me 5 years to do an entire year. I set my goals in 2021 based off of having an entire year of this data to be like, I'm going to average 20 points above on the quality of life qualitative data, and I'm going to be 80% on my health balance quantitative stuff. And that's what I committed to. Only I am currently at like 21 and like 95. It just— wow, it like, once I gamified it and now I'm playing the stats, like, it made me even that much more disciplined and excited and energetic to stay more disciplined, which in turn gives you more energy, more discipline, and more self-belief, more success. All these things that compound on top of each other because that's You know, it really is a compound effect in all aspects of your life if you're— if you see your life as all of these different systems that have the ability to expand, right? Because as they expand and they— they're— they're harmonious, you, you get this extraordinary energy and build this, this great foundation that you grow into the ideal version of yourself, because that's ultimately Everybody's goal, you know.

If you could only do 5 things on a daily basis that would set you up for freedom, success, abundance, what would those 5 things be?

I mean, I, I'm— to me, I'm with, you know, it is my— the core 5 that I do. I'll skip Brain Train because that's just more like a discipline thing for fun. Uh, but you get up early, you know, like, like lately I've been getting up at 4 and 4:30, um, because it's like you you get so much out of being highly organized and having time to get a ton of stuff, um, executed before the chaos starts, right? Because I don't care who you are, the chaos starts, you know, in my case it starts at 7, the moment my kids get up. So everything that I can get done ahead of then is, is essential, right? And including free thinking and ideating and all these things that, that get lost when you're just going from thing to thing to thing and exhausted, and then like veg out, get up, go thing to thing to thing, right? Like, you're— the life force is constantly recalibrating and getting clarity on where you're headed as part of it. But one, for sure, get up, get up early, meditate, you know? And everybody does it in a lot of different ways, but like, I don't— meditation for me isn't get quiet. And breathe.

It is—

I put headphones on, I get in a dome, and I listen to a guided manifestation meditation that's like basically dry, like reinforcing my drive and ambition and hopes and dreams rather than trying to like, like bring peace. And it's a different style, but I think anytime you just take that like 20 minutes to be outside of your body and ultimately the reality, if you will, is a great reset. And I think number one, far and above, is diet, man. I just don't— I don't care. I don't— there is— if I could boil down the core of my happiness, the core of my execution, the core of— it is literally clean diet. Right? And it also compounds, right? Yes. And it goes, it compounds back and forth, right? Because like you can get clean and get a big momentum and you can just start to eat lightly bad and you just level off, you know what I mean? You definitely can't go a layer deeper, but it is of course the hardest one to maintain. It's the battle between the upper self and lower self, right? Yes. It is that pure battle of like, you know, you know you shouldn't be doing it, But like, you just can't stop it. Then once you start it, here's the problem for someone like me. I have to create all this discipline and gamify it to protect me from me because I will start to dip down.

To justify, ah, just, yeah, yeah.

I'll dip down and then I'll do like fake health for a while, right? And then I'll be like, after my wife's birthday, then I'm gonna get focused again. You're always like, You're always like breaking that battle between my upper and lower self is, you know, I would say even this year is probably the only year and I was committed to it again because I had the data and like now seeing like gamifying it is like I just want my body composition this, you know what I mean? Like, I swear like normally it would like literally summer dip back, oh, back up in the winter. Starting over January 1st. It's almost like in December it's just pizza and wine and cheese and cookies. Oh, it's— and, and, and to me it's like, so how do you—

do you do an 80/20 approach to that? Do you have a cheat day? Like, how do you make sure you're not this disciplined freak of nature all day long and not also enjoying moments of—

yeah, I try to like, like not put a— I just try not to lose control. Yeah. Right? And then I keep a foundation of, and my foundation is just chicken, vegetables, right? And intermittent fasting. That's it. Right? So I just, no rice, no bread, no snacks, chicken and vegetables at like 10 or 11, chicken and vegetables at like 3 or 4. And then, okay, it's date night, like I'm gonna go with the wife and we're gonna go movie, I'll have popcorn, right? Like it's um, it's your baseline. Yes. That you can commit to. And then it's your— now it's a battle between your upper and lower self. Where do I lose it? I— in the spring when I went on vacation. So I had to— and I got back into that same mode where I like, I, I dipped so quick. And it was a 5-day trip to Cambo, and I'm in a dogfight. It felt like I was like fighting to like get back to that extraordinary discipline, right? And even with this much discipline, I was still fighting it, you know, and wavered throughout the summer, but stayed committed to like, let's be this year. Look at how disciplined, how much better you feel about life, all the things that are happening to you. Like, let this be the beginning. And at year 5, I finally had like a pure year that I envisioned in 2016. 16 that I was trying to sell to you that I was going to develop and be. And it took 5 years. And I just think that's another testament of like, you're talking— I'm so disciplined, I'm so committed, yet I still— highs and lows and chaos. Like, it took me 5 years before I— well, really 4 years into the 5th year before I really got there, you know what I mean? Which is, is just a testament to like having a plan and knowing that, hey, it's a— you're going to grow into this over the next 25 years, not try to do it over 6 months. Yeah, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years.

Interesting. Okay, so that's number 3, nutrition.

And then of course, um, getting in the gym and moving.

Yes.

You know, I don't forget about— you know, another big thing that I sat in here was talking about my passion for biomechanics— and now after years of abusing my body, I have a doctor come to my house 5 days a week.

Wow.

And all I want to do is re-engineer my biomechanics. When I came in here, I was 1 year and a half into fixing my biomechanics.

Thought I probably had— It was still messed up though.

Yeah. Thought I had probably another 6 months to go, 8 months to go. I am now into year 6.

He still comes in 5 days a week.

And it's like now I have this extraordinary— I know every single muscle in my body. I know the relationship between every single muscle, every single bone, all of the fascia, all of the nerves, all of the neurology, and have had to slowly fix it all and created a system, triangulated 3 different systems that allowed me to do Quantitative Muscle Testing and muscle pattern correction that I could quantitatively test. And to simply describe it, your body winds, puts a layer of compensation on every time, like, you add another movement dysfunction, and there is literally thousands. And they essentially turn your body into these Chinese handcuffs where you try to treat one area and it goes to another one and locks it, then that one starts to pull, pulls back into— it's your— in unwinding all of those Chinese handcuffs, it has taken me, you know, almost 3 years. And right now I sit on the precipice of, like, testable flawless biomechanics, right? Really? And another beautiful thing about it is I was getting internal blood work the entire way through, right? So I have my blood test for the entire way through. And so this latest blood work came back and, you know, you're no longer— you have no more inflammation markers, you no longer have leaky gut. All of these things were— and, you know, my internal medicine specialist is like, you know, You know, I don't know, I don't know, like, what about your diet? I'm like, my diet hasn't changed. All I'm doing is fixing the relationship between my muscular structure and my skeletal structure, which then is releasing pressure on my internal organs and my gut and the functionality of my body and all this stuff. So I digress. Extraordinary, because now I'm like, wow, you're going to be— you're going to not only have a flawlessly functioning system, but now you have all this data to to show that it's flawlessly functioning that you'll be able to use as your baseline till you die. Till you die. You'll be able to see some anomaly that happens in a muscle, in the blood work that you can tackle. So it's not— what happens a lot of times is in your blood work and all these different things, there's so many incoming things that are causing the dysfunction that you just treat the one that's the most aggravated or the one that's at the top when really your entire body isn't a fully functioning system, that one set, one part of it can't be healed and the rest of it's healed along with it, right? So I go back to— I only now have extraordinary respect for the great Tom Brady and pliability.

It's amazing.

At the end of the day, it is the relationship between your muscular structure, your skeletal structure, and how you move and how your muscles slide on and turn on and off, that allows you to function, function pain-free and flawless. So again, what I just said was not understandable, too deep, and way over the top. But my number 4 is just move. Movement. Because like, you don't— don't— it's not necessarily about working. Just get all of those muscles to be turning on and off and letting like those nerves slide through and letting that fascia like not get caught where muscles overlap and now you create a dysfunction that makes that muscle hypertonic that then now pulls you over here and then forces your calf to go and then you can't understand why you got plantar fasciitis. Then you go to a doctor and then they just rub the bottom of your foot when really it was a muscle in your upper trap that really actually pulled you over to this direction that got your calf that then ultimately got the plantar.

Sure.

But they don't look at it like that, you know what I mean? It's like we're going for that planner. So that's number 4.

Yes. Um, number 5.

And number 5 is, you know, I don't— I'd rather say sleep, right? Like, you know, in, in all these things are standard. Yes, right. All these things are standard. And to me, they're, you know, here's, here's what I've learned. Here's the biggest lesson I've learned in 5 years. Is my— the mastery of my capacity. And your capacity is taken by a lot of different things, but one of the main things that takes your capacity is stress. And what I'd call stuck stress— things that you just can't release, can't let go. People in your life, all these different things. People just don't— like the stress over money, stress over where you're at, like relationships. Yeah, it's like there's— it is this this, this drainage on your energy that pulls from your actual capacity, right? Then now you try to overcorrect and try to do all these things, and then you get burnt out, right? Like, even super, like, like ambitious, driven people, like, they just, like, it's like, just keep the hammer down all the way till you need a complete reset, right? And, and The only way to get capacity, once you get to a place of free, right, where I have no more stuck stress, stress doesn't exist inside me, right? Like all of the things that ever caused stress, I cleared and then built systems to protect me from ever happening, right?

What was the one you had to let go of that was the hardest?

Look, I'm— there's no specific one because I do that. The beauty of that qualitative asking yourself every day, How do I feel about my life? How do I feel about my work? How do I feel about my health? When you ask yourself that, you come up with a number and a reason why. And when the number's low and you— and the reason why is someone you work with, like, and that happens 2 or 3 times, it's so clear to you that, okay, I need to remove this, or I need to adjust it, or whatever. Yeah. And I think even like a big one early on was just not understanding money, right? Like, and, you know, we talked about in 2016 how profound, uh, you know, Money Master the Game was for me and how it began this evolution of learning money. But, but it was a huge one for me. But in that period, once I saw that happening, man, this is actually bringing to surface all these things about my life, work, and health that are bothering me, that I— that became now easy to eliminate. Because it's like, "Oh, well, there's that again." Like, "Okay, let's avoid— let's just stop that," right? Versus like when it's coming from all these different ways, it's hard to tell what is actually causing the stress, right? And so as I got to that level of getting clear, now there's this extraordinary energy behind it, right? And so part of that process too was like, "Okay, I no longer want to do things that take energy from me. I only want to do things that give me energy. So here's your option. You need to either like learn it really well so that it can take less effort, so it now begins to give you energy, like not take it from you. You either need to automate it or you need to hire someone.

Outsource it.

Yeah, you know, and it's like as I transition to seeing everything through the lens of how do I drive it to automation, everything began to change.

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I mean, look, you got to think, I have built an entire system around my life, right? Like, and this is my chief of staff and my 2 assistants run my life operating model called the Rhythm of Existence. That, that's an 80-page document that is basically, you know, food delivery, how our housekeepers and nannies work, like travel, like haircuts, like meeting agendas, schedules, family agendas, um, all the weekly date nights, everything to do with operating and running my entire existence. All the— else with it, like if there's a leak, you just go into the document, here's all the plumbers that would deal with it, like It is, it is basically eliminating a giant aspect of your core life that now is, is humming by itself. In, in a great example of true, like, like, create something, automate it, and then optimize it, right? Because greatness is found in optimization after you've automated, right? And is, is ridiculousness, right? Because you got to think, I'm I used to shoot 30 or 40 a year, and, you know, it would take all this time of lead-up and production. It would take so much energy. I'd be there all day to shoot 2 episodes, like, and I eventually, um, you know, started to optimize it, evolve it. Then I went to shooting 3 a day. Then, then I started— stopped going to production meetings and standardized how we delivered scripts to me and now I no longer have to look at no-guess scripts. Like, I just slowly got the entire thing down to where I don't even need to meet with producers anymore. They send me the shows, I have the scripts with all these adjustments I can make, I watch it one time, make all my adjustments, and then go shoot it. And now I shoot 6 a day.

6?

Instead of shooting 2 a day. Wow. And I shoot 6 between 9 AM and 3 PM. 3 o'clock where I used to shoot 2 between 8 AM and 6 PM. And so when you look at my time where I've tagged my time and again designed Pure Balance and then tagged it all in the calendar. And so it pumps out the dashboards of how I spent my time. And it's even fascinating to me that I spend 30% with my family, 30% sleeping, 30% working, 10% on health. But when you look at the data, I shoot 250 episodes and it is 4% of my total time in a year, right? And that is when you have just gotten to a place of extraordinary optimization and efficiency. But what, what is it? It becomes effortless, right? You're not even like— it's not even— it's no longer even like a part of your— you don't have to You— it's not— it only requires the energy to go and do it. Where in the beginning you're thinking about it all the time, you're thinking about the game, what do I got to do? And like, and then you're trying to get prepared and all of these things that are part of that, that ultimately get there. Now I go back to it's 4% and takes very little energy, so it leaves— I have a, I have a ton of capacity. Right? So it's like every time something comes, every time I do something new, it's like, how can I drive it? What's the pathway to automation? You know, because, because even doing the podcast, it's like, you know, like launching a podcast—

Build with Rob, make sure you subscribe, watch it.

Uh, but I'm— it was— I didn't want to just— I didn't know how I wanted to do it. But I knew that I didn't want to do it interview style because it's like, I just think of like how hard it is to like book guests, right? Like, I just think of the time job. That's what I'm saying. Like, I think of like all that, then researching to get all these things. Like, I, when I, when I think about like pushing to that, um, it just didn't, like, it was too difficult. Then it was like, what's the, why am I doing it? Because I need a, I need a platform for people to hear the way that I speak and think about business to attract other great entrepreneurs to want to build companies with me. That is the primary focus of it, right? And ultimately, like, who better to do that with than just the people that you build companies with, right? So that's why I launched it of just telling the stories, and now it's partners going through it, you know, even bringing a partner investor in Mindride and Outstanding Foods on and being a part of a show. It's still not automatic, right? That's still a ton of difficulty. And like, I'm continuing to transition the format until I can get to a place where I can see it, where I could do it effortlessly.

It looks like you need a co-host to like cue it up for you or something.

Yeah, no, like really, the really way I envision— because you know, I take pitches on, on dirtdickmachine.com if people want to pitch businesses. Then I've transitioned to basically giving, uh, advice, uh, to them about their business. And I get a ton of energy from that, right? And using the background of my experience and my current portfolio companies to give them business. Then I also give them life design advice as sort of a mentor, and like, here's how you should think about your life. And what I realize is, man, that, that gives me a ton of energy and has broader appeal. It's much easier for me to execute. And then I've been doing on, on the ones that I'm, I'm doing now, like a big monologue in the beginning of just like what, like a philosophy in business or life that I'm in the middle of. So now I can, I can share these thoughts that I have about the way that I'm thinking about everything. I have a great forum for that. And then I can, uh, share advice and knowledge with, uh, fellow entrepreneurs as like a tool for people that are I'm actually in it and I can automate that.

Yes.

Because it's the people that are sending in the questions that want to be on the show that are producing the show. And then I am in the rhythm always of ideating on big ideas that I can share as something more unique as part of the show to go along with it. But together, those, I don't got to try to get you out there. I don't got to try to get Billy G out there. I can like do these at scale and now I can optimize it. Now how do I just make this better and better and better? How do I, how do I like just turn that now into, uh, you know, the Entrepreneur's Life and Business, uh, Dave Ramsey type of show, you know what I mean?

And he doesn't need guests on all the time either. It's his philosophy, coaching, mentoring, right, right.

Like, so, and something I get way more energy from, and then I still bring on my partners to be part of the monologue, to be like advice on part of the show. When we launch a new company, I still do the specials to do it. But I launched it and had to feel through it. I had to feel through it, right? Because another thing that I've really discovered over these 5 years, that, you know, I originally developed it for the process of creating businesses, but I realized it's actually anything you ever want to do in your life. And you first have to come up with the idea Right? You know, the discovery phase, we call it the Machine Method. The next thing you do is diligence. Okay, do I want to do this? What does it take to do this? Like, you got to like figure out like, you know, do I want to do this? Then you got to build the plan, right? Like, so now you build the plan and boy, it's exciting because now you're like, oh man, this is going to be amazing.

Right. And then the plan fails at some point.

No, look, then you launch it.

Right.

Now it's real. Right. Now it's like, oh my God, this doesn't work. Is this ever going to work? It's all the doubt. You know, in business they call it the Valley of Death. Right? You don't have a real business till you have product-market fit. But I believe that then when you get past the launch and you find product-market fit, you scale. You now grow. You expand and grow because you figured it out. You learned everything that you needed to learn to be able to plan more precisely to actually achieve what you didn't fully understand when you built the plan earlier because you'd never done it before. Right? You have to actually experience something to begin to understand what you actually need to do to accomplish it. But you could almost tie that to anything you attempt to do. That's a relationship, right? When your first relationship— oh, we kind of like each other. Like, let me see, is she really like the one? Like, hey, you're couple dates. Like, hey, let's get into a relationship. Oh, but that offended you? Like, oh, you don't like— oh, you like— I don't really like silent movie, you know, whatever. It's like before you decide if it'll fit, boom, you can grow together, right? Like, it's, it's It's this almost foundational structure of any creative idea growing, having the ability to grow and scale, right?

And you got to take the exploration phase, test it out, see what works.

And so, when I think about our first podcast, my energy, boy, that energy.

5 years ago.

Yeah, 5 years ago.

You hadn't built a brand yet.

Look, no, I had Super Jacket a little bit, had Streetly, but had not like—

Built and sold a company.

Yeah, hadn't built and sold a company. The vision was I'm going to build and sell 100. And make a billion dollars in liquidity. Never sold one in my life, but I did that first. I decided this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to build this plan. Then I, then I spend all that time, uh, going through all the things that I need to do that. Then I designed it. When I, um, sat with you 5 years ago, August 26, 2016, I had just launched and it was like This is going to be amazing. Look at this, the machine I got. It's like here's all the do or die.

You spent 2 years with research firms helping to develop this process. You had the whole thing mapped out, ready to go.

It was going to just explode everything. And I literally got into the deepest, craziest waters. And by 2.0, I had almost an entirely different philosophy. Philosophy. By the time I redid and now discovered those phases, discovered capital staging, discovered like all of the points of growth, what had happened to all the different companies— because keep in mind, I did like literally— and from when I left like our podcast to like 8 months later, it was like, it was like, like 10 brands.

I think you made a ton of investment.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know. And, and really Um, you know, again, coming out of here, introducing me to Billy G, and then doing, you know, taking Fresh Soul to Pig Out and Outstanding. It's like, was in that era. Momentous, Black Feather Whiskey, like, um, Where To, like, all of these, like, like, Made by Science, Chemistry Hole. It was like one after another in that gap. And then by the time the second year came by and they were like in chaos Right? Like, it was all of my chaos.

You're like, I need to restructure.

It was— some were really working, some were not. It was like, well, why is that? Like, what happened? Like, why is this one out of— like, it was, it was, it, it was this extraordinary, like, awakening of beginning to see, like, the triangulation of, like, all the things that they were going through were so similar and how I could have present— prevented them with a better process. And then I just took the time to redo that process and then built like the Machine 2.0 and launched the Machine Method, right? And, and then started doing businesses through the Machine Method. But I digress back to no different than the process I discovered there. I was, I was in the launch phase and I finally found my, my product-market fit as it relates to the machine and the business. In 2020 and then now have built 3.0 to now scale like, you know, to as far as I could possibly even dream.

Wow. What is the 3.0 version?

3.0 version is the, the, you know, where I really realized is, is it's— I systematically fuse art, science, and magic, right? Yes, it is. You know, it is that like you've got to create it. It's this building businesses and ideas, this creative process, that the science is the proven fundamentals of success, business, all these things have to happen in order for something to work. And then the magic is these intangibles. You know what I mean? This, this, this—

Give me an example.

Here's the perfect one, tie it back to Super Jacket. Like you negotiate for unit economics, get this big order. Then when it comes out, it has an entire resurgence. And because linear cable goes down, then a pandemic hits. And then they now— now your show goes to like it to an even higher level because everybody's sitting at home and they've watched everything on Netflix and they can just sit there for 4 hours and just laugh and just forget out. It has another research. You could never— and what did all of that do? It led to these bigger orders and giant return that drives to a bigger earnout for the acquisition, uh, way bigger than I could have ever even dreamed when I built it, the original idea. Or when I actually sold it versus what it actually became. You couldn't— it's completely unexplainable and it is pure magic, right? Pure, like, like complete magic.

And so what season are you shooting on now?

Uh, 24, right?

You've already got order for 30.

Yes, I got 6, you know, I got the rest of this year, then 250 next year. So I'm, I'm gunning, right? But again, I say it to And then, you know, where the machine itself and how that comes alive, like, now it is a fully integrated multi-platform universe of brands, media, community, and philanthropy, right? So what did I do? Not only did I like create this system for taking businesses from an idea stage all the way to acquisition, but then I'm launching the complete media vertical that starts with Build with Rob and building content around our philosophy and creating businesses. Then I launched the Machinist, right? So the Machinists are people that sign up and now become part of the Machine Method process where they are consumer collaborators, where every step along the way we're asking them what they think about the product. So what am I— I'm building loyal consumers because they're actually part of the process. Right? So, uh, you do that. I put— I launched the Do or Die Foundation, right, to, to— for underserved and underappreciated entrepreneurs, and put a million dollars into that. And our first, uh, program is we're doing business competitions with other great, uh, entrepreneur charities, right? We have three tracks: youth prodigies, women and people of color, and recently incarcerated, right? And, and building the programs to to support and give them like non-dilutive capital, like, you know, proving they have the do-or-die spirit in the idea. And again, all of these ultimately are built to scale, right? And, you know, even as I evolved as a business person, I understood that like, you know, you operate a business not from a traditional standpoint because everything's integrated and everything integrates through you, right? And when I realized like I run a flat organization and that I— it's me and my seat president and CEO, and then the heads of all these divisions. Man, if I put somebody in every single one of these divisions— venture, media, product, community, philanthropy, um, founder, brand manager for myself, like operations, finance, um, and brand and marketing, right? You look at those 10 verticals, they integrate all the way across. And ultimately I can put KPIs on all of them. And so all those KPIs ladder up to the strength of the machine and the performance of the machine, uh, to essentially be one of the most impactful venture studios ever created. And everybody understands it and understands their mission. It's fully organized and completely integrated to basically create the amplification for our existing portfolio and the gravity for our future portfolio, right?

Wow.

And all of that now driven to automation, systemization, so that I— again, it's, it's 10 core divisions that all have people, but I— and it— and I oversee all of them, but it's done in a way that is highly organized and highly efficient. Right. And even, even how I do a Monday, I do a Monday, I start at 4:30. I spend all morning like going through a fully connected hot sheet where all divisions go through my hot sheet, where I have a master hot sheet with both my personal and business. And then all 10 divisions and managements go through it. And then so I have complete and total visibility on all aspects of my life. Right. And then I go first with my chief of staff for an hour, then my president and COO for an hour, and then I go half hours with every division through the hot sheets that integrated into my hot sheets, so that ultimately at the end of Monday we're all completely reset and we set the week's goals and the week's meetings. Like, instead of— because what did I used to do? I used to have all these standing meetings, and then I'd rely on people to have like note— like be kicked picking up loose ends and having things organized, like, and then it's like trying to fit it in that hour time slot, and then you're trying to do 5 things when you really could only do 1. And so I did all that, then on that Monday, then we set the week, and it's like, okay, half hour on Tuesday for the Russell collab we're gonna do for the foundation, okay, an hour on Wednesday for KPIs for the new head of venture, right? It's like, so, so you become so so much more efficient, but you're also, um, creating more clarity for those that work for you and more clarity for yourself and amplifying your output because it's so focused and organized. But I digress. I would have never— I had to get to a place of like understanding, like, you know, the paradigm is a structure of a company kind of has these hierarchies and people report to them and they handle all these different things. But when I was able to finally get the clarity of like, here's the 10 divisions, here's how they integrate, I need somebody to own every single one, then I've now— I've basically added 50 hours to my output by putting one body in each of those. Where before I used to like have 3 or 4 of those mashed together with someone more junior that I tried to support, and it's pulling energy and time and like all this stuff.

How do you find these people you can trust?

I'm— it's funny because I've— hiring is the hardest thing in the world.

It's so hard. Hardest thing in the world.

And I always looked at it as, ah, it's just this— it just is what it is. It is what it is. It's hard. And I realized that I made it hard because I never— even though I'd write these great detailed job descriptions I still would ask you, I would try to hire people and have them do all of these different things and then have unrealistic expectations on their ability to do the things that I wanted them to do. And they would sell themselves that they could do it all when really their skill set was really built to do one of them, right? And I think that changed because when you put someone when you're trying to hire someone through a lens that you have total clarity on as management, and your ability to interview them becomes so much clearer. Then when you test them, right, you give them a test, then it's so much clearer, like, oh, this is the right fit, this is gonna be amazing, and they drop right in, and their experience has led them to get here, right? And I would say even the one I was most patient for, which is the most complex, is my chief of staff.

Oh man.

Because it's like, if that's the actual like cornerstone of my existence, that's basically everything, my entire time, energy, and this rhythm of existence. I created this rhythm of existence document, 80-page operation like system for my life in 2015. I did not implement it until '19.

Wow.

Because the assistants I would hire couldn't do it.

Couldn't do it.

And so when my assistant that couldn't do it quit, right? Quit on me. And it's like, oh man, here we— you know, because what happens? I'm so busy, the idea of trying to get another chief of staff was like too much, too insane.

So you take it on yourself and you're trying to pass it off.

So when she left, then I committed like, no, I need someone that cannot— that has the skill set, is the perfect personality, that can really do it. And I was patient, and until I found the absolute perfect person and then came in and became the Cornerstone. Like, now that rhythm of existence is not what I did in 2015. It's the 2021, fully flushed out, fully operating. You know, there's like our family sync agendas in there and how we meet as a family and keep everything fully organized. It's like, you know, everything to do with all my doctors and health and the— everything to do with my entire life and business. Like, yeah, life and business, not as it relates to organization, right? It's like my, my main top hot sheet has it all, but then each manager's, um, hot sheet, I click through into theirs, right? So they, they, um, stay separate, and she might mainly, like, focuses on, uh, making sure I'm doing everything that I would say I would do from a business standpoint, right? Wow. But what did it do? What did it do? I have more capacity. Yes, right.

I'm not thinking as much about all the details.

It's like you— because you're, you're, you, you underestimate how much capacity you lose by not thinking about exciting things and ideation and execution, but stressing over, is that someone taking care of that? Like, what do I got to do over there? Oh, Oh, this thing happened. What am I supposed to do? All these things, like it is from the way I travel to food, like it is every last thing has been dialed. And when something isn't, it's a note is made, added to it, and optimized. Because beyond automation is optimization where you just get better and better. And the better it gets, the less effort it takes. Your system gets smoother the longer people are with you and stay in the system. The more efficient they become, the more optimized like they are and how they communicate with you. But it, it, and, you know, I heard like Ray, the great Ray Dalio, say it recently of like, you know, I just kind of live more life than other people live because I've figured out how to like get more out of my time. And he talks about like he has 25 direct reports that he gets basically an additional 50 hours each out of to scale his capacity, right? And to me, I have like a micro version of that, the way that— hearing him say that is what gave me the breakthrough of like, no, like, you are a flat organization and that's where you get your capacity back. As I was drifting into this, like, you know, becoming so aware of like what's taking from me? What do I— what's taking from me? And because what, what happens to a guy like me, you add another thing on, right?

So you got more time. Let me add this to my plan.

And, and, and, and, but I don't want to, I don't want to compromise my balance, right? So I don't compromise the time with my wife or family.

You got 30% there, 30% sleep, 30% work, right?

So that 30% of that 30%, 12 of that is committed to ridiculous. Ridiculousness, right?

So that means for the year, yeah, 12%.

So my total work time, 12% is gone now. So that means everything that I do with the machine, all the companies, everything that I do, I now have that, um, wow, 88% is what I can fill in. So, and I won't compromise it. So what happened when I, I started doing press for the first time in, in years? I launched Machine 3.0, I launched the foundation launched the podcast, launched The Machinist, launched our entire product line, built and launched MindRight, launched Lusso. Like, so it is like, I got— I— it was this amazing awakening of like, look at you, you just like did— you've just taken on so much, you can't do it, right? And that's when it was like, I also was forced into like, like, nope, you have to like be patient. Because you took this all on. Don't overcorrect and be like, what do I gotta stop? It's like, it's like, look at what you can automate, look at what pain points are, slow down with some things and, and ease things into automation, and then be more aware of your capacity, right? Because you don't— at this level, you've, you've grown into this amazing life. Like, like everything you do gives you energy. Every you're fulfilling all the vision that you had 5 years ago, you realized. And now it's like you're even more motivated and driven and excited about like what the future holds now that you have gotten so good at essentially manifesting the future. Like you get even more excited to bring it, bringing it alive. So you, you, you don't want to lose that energy or feeling.

So it's like overwhelming yourself.

Yeah. So, so what I have to That's when I really was like, nope. I always looked at like, you have mastered time and energy. And I'm like, this is some like, I'm on some like, I'm like a yogi at this point. I'm getting into the mystic level. Me and Sadhguru are like in the same vibe right now. Then I got overwhelmed and then I realized like, time and energy is what you mastered, but now you have to be aware of capacity. So now all you have to do is learn to manage it, understand it, and be aware of it and master that. And the connection between capacity, energy, and time is where you will now essentially operate forever to where you're constantly, you're constantly fulfilled and energized. And I was trying to explain to somebody, like, when, when your systems are moving at such a pace so harmoniously it, it builds this energy that basically draws in all the things you want to happen, right? It is the power of the law of attraction. And when you're clear and open, all that stuff comes pouring in. And but I reached a second level in this where it's like, okay, I'm swirling, but then I, if I'm, I almost create a cone. And it's like, and when I get to that level of elevation, it's almost like I'm simultaneously planning the future and experiencing the present, right? Because you can't really do both. You're either experiencing the present, and everything you experience in the present is based off of what you did in the past. Every action, every decision, everything that you've decided in your life, how you're feeling, your angst, your anger about yourself, your company, your diet, your relationship is based off of what had happened in the past of what you're feeling right there, and you have way— you have— and you know you have the control to change it in the future. But understanding that every decision actually all ladders up to having experiencing the present in an extraordinary way. But the unusual— and then, or you're looking to plan the present and what that future is. It's hard to live in them simultaneously. And when I get to the truest state, I am like I am almost like drawn to like seeing the future while like just experiencing what I'm doing so purely, you know what I mean? And that to me is like my machine mindset and my system as a whole that's like reaching into this like more magical level that I've experienced like hits of that I know like someday I will be able to like live in state. And it really does feel— it's like some weird, like, high-performance, like, mystic level, right? Because it's still like material and output and data and all these things, like, like, you know, that a lot of the great books will tell you that you— and you got to let go of all those things to actually do them, you know what I mean? And, and to me, you know, I'm I think it's the idea of you have to let go of when they happen or how they happen, but not let go of what they look like and how to make it clearer and clearer, right? Because the clearer— the more clarity you get, you get drawn by the clarity. Because it's like the more you go in a single direction, the wider your field gets, the more you can see, the more you know what to do, the more you accomplish. Accomplish, the more belief, the more energy you accelerate towards it. So you can't just lose sight of the idea of like, oh, there's the goal. If I get there— I'm not married to the goal, you know what I mean? It's like, that's not the way. But you can't be obsessed with the outcome of the goal, right?

You have to be obsessed with—

you have to be obsessed with making the process more evolved, more effortless, and more enjoyable on the way there.

Right? Like, that's— be obsessed with creating more joy in your day-to-day life.

And think about it, like, you know, the great Gary Vee, what's he gonna tell you? Fall in love with the process, right? And to me, it's like, fall in love with making the process fun and enjoyable.

Effortless.

Yeah, making it effortless, right? Because the truth is, in the beginning, the process sucks because you're trying to fit— you're not sure about so much, you're trying to get it going, you're You're trying to get it, but when it eventually gets to this place where now you understand it, now the process becomes enjoyable. It's taking less energy. It's more clear to you. Now you're accelerating. Now it's pulling you towards what you're trying to do, right? That's almost like this event horizon that you've got to break through. Again, I go back, it's kind of a through line of everything, like it's in anything you ever want to accomplish. A relationship, a goal, or a life, right? You— if you— it's the life that you want to create, you still have to design it, and then you have to build the strategy and plan to get there. Then you got to go on the hero's journey and go through that— some crap, like some chaos, but stay focused on knowing that you're, you're getting better at it, and you're eventually going to automate it and get it to optimal optimization where it becomes less, takes less effort and you get more energy back.

My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode. And the School of Greatness drops new conversations every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday around money, mindset, healing, manifestation, and relationships. And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now and you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now, let's get back to the conversation. Need a boost?

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What do you think have been the, the 3 best investments you've made, um, whether it be financial or a personal investment that has allowed you to have more energy, more freedom, joy during the process?

Yeah, I mean, look, I— it's It's so many things, you know. I mean, because you got to look, I go back to my Somadome, you know what I mean? You know, I didn't like that price tag at $25,000.

Maybe I don't need that right now.

Let's get some headphones, man. But we'll see, you know. And look at that, things, you know, paid for itself a thousandfold, right? It's like the idea that, um, it's— but it's, it's the people and developing the systems. Yeah, you know what I mean?

It is investing in the people.

Yeah.

And investing in the systems.

Yeah. And staying committed to that, right? Like, and it's, it's, um, but, but at, but at the end of the day, you're not going to buy your way there, right? Like, there's no silver bullet. There's no, there's no thing you can invest in to do it.

Yes.

You have the only way to get there is through discipline, right? And discipline and consistency is the hardest thing to do, right? How do you get more disciplined and consistent? You have clarity on where you're headed. What's going to make sure you get there? Energy. You know all the things that you need to do to get energy: diet, less stress, like working out, all these things, like, okay, choosing better friends, choosing better friends, all these things, all that stuff. Now you got clarity and you start, uh, you got the energy to push it forward. Progression creates belief, right?

Progress creates belief.

That's right. Because as you're moving towards it, you're like, oh, I can actually do this, right? And, and as I said in our first podcast back in '16, if you can break it down into believable steps, now you, you're— you— it's the first action of belief. And the, the next milestone, you have to absolutely believe by all bit of your being that you're going to be able to get there. Because if you can't get there to that next milestone, that is the next milestone on the way to your big goal, you're not going to do it. And it's okay to lose belief there. It's okay to fail there, right? Because it's, it's everything you want to do, you don't, you can't always do it, right? And so it's like you would rather fail with intention and fail with clarity than the pain of like like having no idea why you're failing and you just keep trying other things and like keep trying. Like it's that, that lack of understanding. But if you know exactly, uh, where you're supposed to go and you can't get there, it becomes— your, your point of failure is so much easier to digest. And then you're, as the great Ray Dalio would say, reflecting on that, that pain of like deciding I can't do it, it's not going to work, and they couldn't figure out how to move forward, then the reflection of why— okay, move on to something else and create a new plan again and step off on that journey to do it the same way. And, and to me, you know, it's that, that, that power of evolution, um, that you expand into anything you're, you're ultimately wanting to achieve, and, and And Ray will tell you, pain is where you learn the most.

Of course, great teacher.

And to me, you know, and it's, you know, for him it's the loops where it's the audacious goals, you know, make a plan, go for it, fail, uh, learn, audacious goals, right? That's how you, you get there.

But, but how did you have the belief in yourself to get to a billion and launch 100 brands and get to a billion when you'd never done any of that, when you never lost an exit in one brand yet.

Yeah.

How do you believe that it's possible, such a big audacious goal? Or is it, okay, this is the big goal that's gonna be a long ways away. Well, what's the first step?

What do you think the first step is?

Do it once.

Do it once.

But you've never done it before.

I know.

So how do you believe that you can do it once?

So I— you're not sure, right? Yeah, I want to do this, but I'm not sure. So I designed a plan to do it, to do it. I designed the system, right? The way I designed— I did all the planning. And so like, I, I'm— the path was there, but, but for me to— I had to actually do one to do it. And when they started going, then it was like, then it was like, got this, right? And, and, and the beauty of it was, right? Is all of them were like, like nothing like I planned them. They unfolded so crazy and unreal. And that's why, again, I fell back into this, like, man, you, you plan for clarity of direction, but just know that the way the universe works is it is just completely unpredictable. Yes. But it still goes the same direction. It doesn't like, like figure itself out in some willy-nilly way. It goes the same way you thought it would. It happens completely different than you expect. And that to me is like another reason of why that magic was so important, you know. And again, you, you build a lot of belief at the beginning in your plan, right? I knew the way I was building the plan, that was like, okay, you know, it's like, it's like in order to do this, like you're gonna have to build at this stage, you're gonna have to look at the data and make sure that there are industries and products and market that have scale that people are buying. Like, you're going to have to, like, look at the type of product and make sure it has scale and has a wide consumer base, right? Like, there's all these fundamentals that I learned in the beginning that I didn't practice in my early days of being an entrepreneur that were, like, basically leading to it. So, you know, as I'm, as I'm going, evolving and learning, I'm getting even clearer and clearer on what that even means, how to create value. What companies would buy companies and what for and what type, how to look at an industry and how to look at where is an opportunity that is white space versus one that's too, too advanced, right? Like where, like how do you like begin to look at like how do you protect a company from losing value? Like where, where are the pitfalls of what, of what happens to companies and they don't work in the valley of death when they launch? Like how come so many of them are struggling? Like you, you begin to, to see all this to then make another way of doing it that gets clearer and clearer, right? But the, but the beauty of it is, is I looped through the failure and winning.

Yes, right?

Because you also— I was still like, whoa, got lucky with that. And then why did I get lucky? Wow, that the, the reason you got lucky is because it was pure market timing. Yes, right? Like, you didn't— like, it should have, like, been a failure that you learned from because the entrepreneur wasn't experienced enough. And you realized that you were no longer looking for people that were just do-or-diers. You were looking for people that understood the 7 core capabilities of business, the business engine. Because I used to just think you just— you got the do-or-diers.

Someone's just like, I'll do whatever it takes. But someone who understands, right?

Because when you'll do whatever it takes, you're slamming into walls because that are unbreakable, right? And I used to think you were either a brand creative product guy or you were like a business guy, right? And business guys weren't creative and, and, and creative guys didn't know business. And I realized like, no, it is— it— business is brand, product, media, marketing, sales, ops. Operations, finance, and then it is all, it is all of that working together is what creates a business. And the best CEOs, like our good guy, uh, Billy G, they have general knowledge in all of them so they can hire the right people in every single one of those. And they have growth mindsets where they're trying to learn as much as they can as the person who's the visionary behind it to make sure that they continue to hire better and optimize further to build their engine that is their business, right? And so to me, I still was getting wins and crazy things were happening and I would get a big win and it was different than the pain of failure because it's like, wow, amazing. How lucky did I get? Why did I get lucky? Right? And now you can begin to see like why What actually occurred there and how can you replicate that going forward?

For the next one. How can you get better and tighter?

You just keep adding those pieces to the toolbox. And here's an interesting thing that happens along the way, right? You go from like early on trying to diligence so many things and see in it and understand it, and you get more and more intuitive. I can talk to a founder and about his idea for 15 minutes and can see every hole that he has and everything about the idea, even if I don't fully understand it. The same way I can, I can talk to, you know, and a really good example is the recent company that we built, uh, the Jolie Skincare, that's like a water filter system with, uh, Ryan Bambouzine, who's the, the former CEO of Greats. Like, it was 15-minute conversation with him, how he looked at the opportunity, like how he talked about the business, like every single— I I didn't even need anything else. I didn't need anything else. I did all the data as part of it.

You knew he understood it all.

I knew I could— he understood every single aspect of it. He chose the idea looking at like where the opportunity was, why there was an opportunity, what the business model and unit economics were of that opportunity, who the consumer was, where sort of the marketing initiatives kind of lived in this free zone between like like, uh, you know, hair care and makeup and, um, and how big all those places were, but nobody's really attacked the thing that keeps you, uh, that's, that's doing the most damage, which is your water that you're washing your hair and face with, right? Then you're, you know, using all these creams and things to try to help, but it was— it— and I could see it all intuitively, and, and and just did the deal, like, you know, went through our entire— didn't need to go through our entire process because it was just like, this is it. We went and validated it, right? We do our big immersion and looked into the market and saw, you know, how much white space it is. And even when you do these big, like, data insights to the market and opportunity, all it is is like a reason not to do it, you know, in almost every single case, right? And the reason to do it is the reason not to do it, right? And so it's like, you know, in the game of building businesses, I don't care, in the venture game, all of it, it is all opinion-based, right? And 9 times out of 10, it's like the founder's experience and like opinion-based because, you know, you're kind of rolling the dice. And there's literally a reason to never invest in anyone's idea ever, right? Because it's just an idea, you know? But Since it was my mission as I sat here back in 2016, my personal mastery would be to curate ideas and individuals and build profitable, sustainable, acquirable businesses.

And so why was that something you wanted to do when you'd never done it before?

Well, it— I had been through the process. I knew I loved creating business.

Yes.

But I knew I didn't like it unless it worked, right? And I knew I was the type of person that needed a score. I needed, I needed some sort of ending to get you excited. Yeah, like, to be like, this is what, this is what victory looks like. I didn't, I didn't feel comfortable in this, like, maybe, like, you know, it could turn into anything type of vibe. And, and so that's, like, what got me focused on, like— and then when I read the book, you know, Start at the End, like, and the idea of, like, decide what you want out of a company before you ever do it. Like, that, that really defined, like, okay, we're gonna build this for $150 million, build this to $20, you know, $50 million in revenue and sell it for 3 times revenue. And at— it's gonna need $500,000 to start, $1 million to launch, $2 million for growth, $5 million for a B round, and then it can be sold for $150 million. At that point, uh, we would have been diluted down to 35%. Okay, great, we're gonna you know, $50 million off of this transaction. Let's go, right? And that's how I do every single one of these businesses with every single founder. And, and so for me, it's like, it's the map for everybody. And then I don't want to build with somebody that doesn't think that way, right? I don't want somebody if they are like, oh, this is my passion, you know, I want to keep this forever. Yeah. And, and sometimes I would consider it if it was like, hey, we're going to grow build this to a $10 million business that, uh, is worth— that, that kicks off, you know, $5 million in profit that we split, right? We, we— I will do those, right, where it's just like a dividend split.

And what are the— what are the 6 exits? Which companies?

Uh, Made by Science, Chemistry Holdings, Super Jacket, Street League, Wear2, and Momentus, uh, just merged with AMP.

And I think you might— you want to check your email to see if this other Let me see.

Oh man, it's extraordinary.

That'd be— that's the magic if it actually came through, man.

You come through right now.

We'll see. You come through right now because you've been working on a deal for the last couple weeks, right?

Where are you? Where are you? Um, it's gonna be in before the end of the episode.

It's gonna be before we launch it.

Yes. No, no, it's gonna be today before we leave.

Okay, let's do it.

Yeah, one last check before we leave.

Yes. Okay, so those are 6 exits. Which one surprised you the most, and what was the biggest one?

Well, Super Jacket for sure is the biggest one.

The production company?

Yeah, you know, and, and the— and, and why it's— why it's also so extraordinarily significant is they acquired Street League as part of it. Um, you know, I owned 70% of it, right? And who acquired it was the same group in 2013 that offered me a 360 deal to own half of everything I did for the rest of my life. And this group, wow, like basically I was raising money first for Street League, and this group was like, we don't want to just invest in Street League, we want to invest in everything you do. And when they, they offered me this 360 deal to own half of everything that I would do for life.

How much would they give you up front?

Uh, at the time it was going to be $50 million. They were going to value me at $100 million. I was going to get, um, I was going to keep $30 and it would unlock over time. Uh, no, then they were going to put $20 in the company and then we were going to grow this Dyrdek Enterprises to a billion-dollar business. Interesting. At the end of the diligence, um, We want to talk about pain. It, it was essentially this rude awakening. And not only am I not a business person, I don't understand money. I don't understand. I'm not creating any value. They could not invest in me because it was— that was— I was not investable. They were willing to loan me $7.5 million, put me on a salary, and then help me figure it out.

Wow.

So that they could have the right to then, uh, you know, put in a few more million to own half of everything I did for life.

Wow.

And it was like, you know, the main guy there was like, look, take the money and then you're our problem. We can make— we'll figure this out, right? And I'm like, like, like, I'm gonna give up half of everything, everything for life, and I don't even know who I am, right? What am I even doing? What, you know, and that sent me on the journey of really like—

Getting clarity.

Getting clarity, changing life, the entire everything, that moment forward. And even when they came in as like a bidder to buy Super Jacket, and I was like, let's get this deal done, I need it for the story. Of course, full circle. I need the full circle. And they thought, no kidding, in the beginning they were like, what's like, they were like freaked out. Why is he being like excited about the story of this and the full circle and the like, and like this poetic justice, right? Like, and they kept asking, are you gonna take this money and just like stop working? I'm like, what? This is like one, one company. This isn't even like my vision. It's like one company I built because it was the easiest one to sell because I already had a television company. Like, no, I want this for the story. And then this is like the beginning of the rest of my life. You know, and so it made it that much more special because think about it, in that era before I got rid of every company and everything that I had built up to that point, the only thing that I kept was Street League, and, um, I had not launched Super Jacket yet as a regular production company.

So it's a 2013—

well, no, that's when I've spent those 2 years building it, right? So by the time 2016 happened and I was ready to launch the machine, the only companies I kept was Street League, and then Super Jacket was just a label. Super Jacket was the first company I put through the development process of built to sell, and we launched it that year. And then, um, 3 years later, right, 6 years from when the 360 deal— then 3 years later, they come in and acquire the only 2 things I kept, from that period to basically give me the capital to now go to Vision, that I own 100% of, and Will for Life. Wow. Like, that's what I'm talking about, you know what I mean? And it's like, it's magical.

It's magic.

You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't sit back and not be like, whoa, wow, man, what? Like, and again, it just, you know, from 2016, for, for the mega one to be that story, you know, it's right there at the end of, you know, 2019. Like, it, it is really when I'm like, why magic became part of it for me, right? Where it's just like, man, you can't, you can't write that, you know what I mean? Like, that is, is so extraordinary, so amazing, but also like, like not something you could ever have planned, thought of, or even considered as being part of the narrative.

Narrative.

Yes, of the entire journey.

How do we cultivate more magic in our lives?

You know, I, again, I, I'm— I think you position yourself for magic to happen. And when I talk about like automation and capacity and effortlessness and clarity, all of those things are the actual energy that create the magic, right? It's like you I built the company to sell. I went— I taught myself first how to do it. I took, took my licks, said, I'm going to teach myself everything about business. I'm going to learn money. I'm going to like never— I'm going to be the person I thought I was rather than after I realized I really wasn't. I'm going to become the business person that I've always envisioned myself to become. And then when I went on that journey to become that I began to learn and learn and began— as I began to learn, I began to see how much I actually needed to know, which got me even more hungry to learn more and more. Right. So like by the time I got to the machine itself, I had like, like, you know, really developed like so much clarity and understanding. And then I Now, where's my advantage? It's in television. You have a television show. So I built the first company to sell in there. So I'm— keep in mind now, had the big vision. I'm gonna do— I learned it all. Then here's— okay, I'm gonna launch and build 100 companies. I'll make $20 to $30 million off of each. I'll make a billion dollars in liquidity. Uh, like, okay, here's the first one. Then like, like, then it's like, oh no, it's going away. Then, oh my God, no, I got this mega order. It's going to be even easier to sell. Like, now it's unprecedented. Take it out. Like, like, like, all the production companies are all over it. And then who comes in? The random group that gave me the 360 deal.

Crazy.

From the 5 years earlier, right? And it's like, and it's like, clear out, these are the bad guys. And it's like, it's like, like, it's inexplicable, but It was done with clarity and purpose. It was part of the bigger vision. I planned it, I did it. It just didn't unfold the way I would have expected, right? But it unfolded because I had the diligence, made the plan, learned what I needed to do, and then I went out and executed. And by executing and do it, then what happened? The magic came in, right? The law of attraction came in. So So, you know, I only say that to— you should be in awe of it because you know it's luck, right? And I don't care, like there's, you know, there's this, you know, there's that great debate of like, you know, I don't believe in luck, you know, I've worked so hard, you know, of course I've positioned myself for it, but no, no, no, no, no. It's luck, you know what I mean? It's like, it is such an intangible of so many circumstances that have to line up that allow something to happen that are so beyond your planning, your control, and all these things that you, you must be humbled by it and be like, man, you are— what? Wow, like, how lucky. And be in awe of it, right? Like, it's more like how in awe I am of all the magic that I've been able to create because it's like, it's— it happens not like sometimes, but all the time, right?

And magic happens every day, every week, every month.

It's just so constant that what does— what, what do I believe in? What do I believe? I believe that I control reality and create magic. Yeah, nobody can tell me otherwise, you know? And so all that does is make me more disciplined. Yeah, more consistent.

So we create more of it.

Yeah, I— because it's like I'm, I'm living in this really high elevated energy that's super fun to live in. And it's— and I designed it in a balanced way that it, it, it puts no pressure on me because I, I've— I have such control over it that it makes it more fun and enjoyable to live through and experience and and really experience, right? Rather than just keep working for the goal, you know what I mean? Like, we're just gonna go till we get there. Yeah, what do we, you know, we're grinding, we're, you know, get up and go, hustle. Like, no, it's like, like, like push to effortlessness, right? And, and even when I go back to the idea of mastery, right? Like, I'm getting better and better and better in a single direction. And so it made me think a lot about like when people choose careers and like what you choose to do in life. And we all, we in the traditional sense call it like, oh, they're really experienced, right? And the truth is, when you become experienced, become an expert, you become a master. Here's all these extraordinary intangibles. You have more security because people could use your expertise. You have more value. You have more self-confidence, you have more purpose, you would more have more self-worth, more self-belief. There's all of these intangibles that come along with that that go so far beyond, um, uh, just being really good at something, right? And, and the, the truth of what that is is you grow into that, but you can't grow into mastery if you don't know what you want to master.

True.

You know what I mean? Like, you just— like, if you try to choose all of these different things of like, what will be the thing that I want to be best at? You know, I'll keep trying all these things, and then you just, you get a little bit ways and like, oh, I don't know if that's gonna deliver on what I want. And keep in mind, here's what happens to people that do that. They do not have aligned with who they are, right? Physically, mentally, emotionally, with what they do. Right, their passion, their interest, their finances, their work, and how they live, their free time, their adventure, their relationships. The coordination of all of those and, and this, the integration of all of those are actually at the core of how you have to build your life design.

Because what you do and how you live.

Yeah. Because ultimately, if your passion is skeet shooting uh, but you want to drive a Ferrari, uh, and you're never going to connect it. So what you would have to do then is create financial stability at such a level in some other form that limits the amount of time and energy so that you can put your time with that skeet shooting most of the time. You can be working for the weekends if that's where all your energy is from. So what type of job do you choose? You choose one that takes the least least effort in the least amount of time that gives you the most capital to live the lifestyle that you can live, that you want to live. It's the connection of all of those, like, is actually where, um, you know, what, what I'd consider like the extraordinary life lives. Yes, because when you like are emotionally fulfilled by doing something that you love that is your work, and it provides you with the time and space to have the relationships and live the lifestyle you want, that's it. That's where happiness lives in. And all those things are connected together, right? So to me, I— as I began to see that, you know, I'm— I naturally gravitated towards it, but, but it really connected for me when it was like like, my ambitions are so great. Why do I need to fly private? Why do I need like this, you know, $40 million house? And like, why do I like want to like do all these crazy exotic vacations?

Why did you need these things?

Right?

Like, why did you need these things?

Because I love them. And that's like, that's like, and I'll tell you why I needed them. Because I, when I look at myself and my identity and what I connect with, like, who I am. That's where my identity—

I—

my identity lies, right? Because what happens is a lot of people then get, you know, like the people that boom and bust, where their identity is similar to mine, where, where they love like kind of living on this elevated lifestyle and, and kind of, um, having the fruits of their, uh, work be part of their identity. When those people lose that revenue source, it's— it is where depression and pain and all that, because it's tied to their identity. So to me, I knew it was part of my identity, but I knew that I didn't want to ever risk it. So I knew I had to grow into it. So I didn't spend the money to build Forever Estates when I could. I refined— I kept designing and designing and refining refining.

You showed me so many different models over the last 5 years.

That's what I'm saying. And I've continued. This week I got another VR model of what is one of the final versions. And I'm like, extraordinary. I moved like 2 stair sets down and pushed out part of the land. And I did these, like pulled out this overhang, like this like nuanced stuff. I'm like, extraordinary. Right? Like that's how much work, effort, and process and passion I put into evolving that. But I didn't allow it to put pressure on myself, right? Like, I wanted to grow into— I established the money and lifestyle that I needed, and then it didn't matter if I made, you know, $30 or $40 million, or I made $5 million. I still spent the same $2 million. $1 million, right?

And then again, when I sat here in 2016, what happens if one thing goes away? What if the Ridiculousness contract went away 4 years ago? Or what happens if you don't sell a company? Then what do you do in that position?

I'm, I'm at no risk, right? So understand this, what I did from a savings perspective is I have all my high-risk venture over here. I, since we met in 2016, I've invested in 25 buildings, right? And so that 25 buildings has now ballooned not only in value, but it produces the cash that covers my lifestyle. Wow.

So those buildings, that investment covers lifestyle?

Covers lifestyle. So I, for— I, and I referred to it as a freedom fund back in 2016 when we sat, but I had nothing in there. I hadn't done it yet, right? And so now that was this last 5 years you started building? That's it. Yeah.

Wow.

And so not only do I now have I'm free for life. I'm free for life. My lifestyle will never go away. But because that wasn't enough for me, I also then always keep 10 years of cash of what that is at all times.

Where? In the bank?

In the bank. Wow. And so people will tell you, oh, well, that's silly. You're losing money. Well, guess what? A pandemic hit in 2020 and it was like, dang, that's crazy.

I got money.

Anyway, it's like, anyway, even if the real estate stuff stops or collects for 10 years. I got, I got— wow— years.

It's just more peace of mind.

5 years.

It's my peace of mind.

And that's it. And so, so I go, I digress, I digress all the way back. That's the system I created in 2016. I live it today. Shocking, shocking. But what is the output to me? It's another thing of stress that keeps me— if my foundation is so tight now, I don't ever have have to contemplate whether or not my lifestyle or identity will be compromised.

Because you know within 5 years you'll be able to figure something out. If you lose it all, you got 5 years of run, right?

And it's like, it's, it's— that's just the system. I have, I have, I have so much money beyond that, other backups here and there. But what I don't do is spend beyond that. I am not— I didn't go buy a jet, right? Like, I'm— will one day, right? I didn't go and build the house. I'm I'm still waiting till the house would never be a burden. Yes. And because to me it's like it is this absolute peace and peace of mind. And the pandemic is the perfect example. What happened in the pandemic is like— and I say this from— what you experience in the present is based off of what you created in the past. And I knew that I wanted to build that system because I needed that security for peace of mind, not for anything other than it eliminates it. But it was tested in the pandemic. And then when it happened, like, what did it allow me to do? It allowed me to now take all this free time and go deeper on my strategy and planning and organization. Everything that I was going to do this year, right? So you don't even skip a beat. What happens is I immediately got back all of this time that I could now turn to optimizing my systems, like getting further in to do it, like, okay, beginning to plan out the fully integrated multi-platform universe, start working on the brand, like I want to evolve the brand, like, and turn it into Systematically Fusing Art, Science, and Magic, like all these— I basically Basically everything that I'm living now, all this press, all this ideology, the podcast, the machine, all these companies, all of this stuff is because of the time that I had to go and build. And because I had all this additional free time during lockdown in those first 6 months, right?

You weren't stressed. You had already automated, you already optimized things. You weren't stressing about details. You had a free time energy piece Clarity to go.

That's it. That's it.

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10 years ago.

I would say even 5 years ago, because 5 years ago, like, I, I— it was It was this extraordinary feeling because I made a deep transition, because I had finally, you know, you got to keep in mind when I launched the machine, I had a staff, a team of about 25 that I all let go. When I moved to Beverly, I went from driving to down, living in Hollywood and driving downtown through East LA into my warehouse next to a dump and and sitting in my warehouse to now and driving back to Hollywood to now living in a gated community in Beverly Hills, driving through the most beautiful city in the world to a penthouse in the sky.

I'm looking at a 360 view of the world.

All of this energy and expense. So then it was that I had found the love of my life.

Oh my God.

The extraordinary intangible. Like, when did you meet her?

Or when did you guys get married?

2015.

So right before you came on. Yeah. You just met. Yeah.

So yeah, she was pregnant with Koda, my first child, right? So I still wasn't even a father, still didn't even fully understand that. But it was now you transitioned to now you had the entire plan, you reduced your entire cost structure because you got rid of all those bodies. You are now just you and an assistant in your penthouse living in Beverly Hills, like, and now you're gonna do company after company, here's the vision of how you're going to realize the machine and all that. And so it was was at the launch phase. So it was like, it was like the energy was like, oh, you knew that you were gonna like invest in buildings and, and, and, and chase, chase cash and investments and build all these businesses. And then you went and did it and then had the cold reality of like, whoa, this is like, whoa, this is way more complex than I envisioned. How come I'm not— all these didn't work? But you began to see of some of them really working, and you're learning from them, you go. So it wasn't, um, it wasn't all like dread because you were so planned, but it was still like this, like, you know, you had to fight through it as you're evolving, learning, and growing. But it was just like, when I hear my voice in that OG podcast, it is light as a feather and excited about like the possibilities, you know what I mean? Where if we would have did it like in year 3, it would be like, you know, I'm gone. You know, I'd be like, imagine, imagine we scheduled a time, uh, to do the, the podcast like when I was going through Ridiculousness not coming back, which then would have been like, like would have crushed my dreams of building the Cell, the production company, and like, you know, the entire sort of aspect of everything that was kind of happening. Like, versus, and I knew it, right? The same way that when I did— you really just did your podcast and never did anything else, didn't do any more press, stopped doing everything. And it was because I realized like, man, you were talking about all the things you're gonna do.

Go do it.

Yeah. And it was like, go do it. And then like, even as it's like when I finally broke through into 19 and was like, man, this is really going down. Then when all the acquisitions started going down, right? Like it was, it was like, okay, now it's time to begin to tell the story. But then the panty hits, right? And then I'm like, man, you get another year to like keep building the story, right? Like keep evolving it and really think it through on how you want to launch it and give yourself another another year of developing and building and having everything before you go and do it, right? So now when I have gone out and doing press and talking about the philosophy and everything that I'm doing, it's what I've done rather than what I'm going to do. And it's what I said I was going to do realized in a short period of time.

5 years is quick.

And that's what I'm saying.

And The most people can't launch and sell one company in 5 years, right?

6, right? And look, and to that point too, inside that podcast, I told you at the end, I said, you're like, I don't want to write a book. I don't want to— I'm not a teacher. You're a teacher. You love like sharing and teaching people. And like, I'm like, I'd rather just like, like, I don't like want to share. Like, I'd rather just be an example of what you can do. That's how I felt because I hadn't done it. You know what I mean? Now after doing it, I'm like, man, I need to— I got to share this. This is like, I really figured out some stuff along the way here that I know that I can like create and share in a way that people could replicate and experience what I'm experiencing, right? And it's a completely different philosophy and And like now, like I truly look at it as like, no, like this is your, your gift for storytelling and entertaining needs to be in sharing your philosophy because, you know, you're going to be able to help so many people, right? Short window of transition, right? And another big thing that, that, that happened in 2020 after all those exits was you now have, you know, two children and you're beginning to shape your children and think about your children and. And I'm, you know, the universe presented to me Tiger 21, right? And Tiger 21 is, you know, it's basically just a high net worth peer group. And, and it's, it's really amazing, all confidential, just other high net worth individuals. You meet once a month and you just like share, you know, philosophies, investment philosophies, all these, all these different things. And, and they do this thing each month one of the members of the group has to do portfolio defense, where you have to show all your assets to the group, to the group, and then discuss your assets.

They come at you, say, what about this? What about that? This is wrong here.

And yeah, yeah. And to me, I was like, this is what I need to be a part of, because I knew only the realest of the real are gonna be in that room.

Wow.

Because you aren't gonna be in that room and be like, here's everything I do, unless you are real deal, right? And to me, I'm like, that is the peer group that I need to be in. And so, um, super eclectic, amazing, interesting group. It is, it is insane. And really interesting thing about like everyone in there, they all have sort of like the, the same sort of expenses, right? Like there's just sort of the standard, like, like sort of what I consider normal guy wealth management. And then everybody like manages their own money and has their own system on how they do it. There's nobody in there with like, like people that manage their money. It's super interesting, right? And because like, I'm like, oh, I can't, I just, I've had advisors in the past, I would never— I was expecting to get there and be like, what are you, who are all your guys' advisors?

You know what I mean?

And it's like nobody does, right?

They all, they all manage their own money.

They, they have people like help, but they've created their own personal system that they oversight on, right? And but in Portfolio Defense, they ask you have to like also give certain aspects of your philosophy and principles. And one of them is what is your 100-year plan? And it was this like, like crazy awakening where I had finally crossed this threshold of where I was no longer like looking at self-preservation, and I had shifted into generational preservation. Like, what can I do to make an impact on what it means to be a Dyrdek for not 100 years, for 500 years? And, and like, what are, what are the concepts and the things, and what does it mean to be a Dyrdek in our core philosophy? And, and now building book and designing this book is for like, like what it means to, to be a Dyrdek and, and ultimately how to live an amazing life. And how do I create a system to manage this capital that gives everybody that for generations to have an opportunity to become entrepreneurs, to live their dreams and fulfill through creating a family bank system that can go on forever, way beyond Now of course my version is super next level. I'm also going to like, before I die, hide like, like, you know, Picassos and rare watches and Ferraris all over the world. And once a year I'm gonna have a family meeting where they reveal the treasure map.

Wow, that's—

I'm gonna record like 500 inspirational messages on hologram so that like every year Here comes the inspirational from, from our patriarch, right? Like, you know, I'm going to make like my legacy so crazy. And then it even, it even changes what Forever Estates is to me. When I'm designing Forever Estates, I'm thinking about how the, how it will be remodeled in 100 years and how the family meet— where will the family meetings occur inside here when it's no— when I'm at, when I'm at G6 and and there's 200 family members.

Wow.

It's not just 5 of us, right?

Wow.

And, and think about that. You're now— you're, you're— it's because you've gotten to the horizon and now you see so much further than you could have ever imagined. Because if you did not reach the success level, you would never have ever— you wouldn't be thinking about generational wealth unless you created generational wealth, right? And, and that's the, like, another side of this sort of intangible magic side of the unfolding, right? Because I think that I— as you grow older, grow older and get more clear, you can see out 5, 10, 15 years. And I think as you get older, you can see further, right? But it— but you— but knowing things are going to change and evolve in such a way You're, you're, you're always changing every, every 3 to 5 years and seeing further, and the distance is a little bit different. Yes, but the anchor that's never changing is I'm the, you know, the way I own my company, the way I manage my assets, the way I'm managing the pro— all these things are built knowing that you want this to be part of your family legacy forever, right? And it changes even like when I looked at the machine, I was like, oh, I'm gonna The ultimate is I'm going to build the machine, build the portfolio, then take on huge capital to cash out for half of it, then sell the whole thing. And now it's like, no, no, no, I'm going to keep it forever.

Why?

Like, I'm never— I will— I, you know, all the executives, I give them, you know, profit shares and everything that we do, but it's still a Dyrdek family business forever. And it has no bearing on whether or not, you know, my, my children ever wanted to be a part of it, you know, or any, any company. I won't build it like that. I will never— it's, you know, they— I, you know, really, for me, if they can just fundamentally have solid biomechanics and, and great relationships and just simply like lock in on this philosophy that your life's this system and you get to control and design that system, find harmony in that system, and whatever gives you harmony, just get really good at deciding what you want to do, whatever it is, and breaking it down. And know that it's, it's tough in the beginning, but you'll grow into it. And if you don't like it midway through, it's okay to quit and try something else. But you really want to get to a place where you find the things that you love to do and you can grow. And no different in a relationship. You know what I mean? Like, you want to find somebody that you connect with and then grow with, right? And it's like, you know, the intangible is I already, you know, had this extraordinary, like, by fate and destiny magic again, love. But then what we've grown into over 5 years is extraordinary because we grew into each other and then with each other. At such scale. And I defend it and protect it because I know how rare it is and how impossible it is. And, and so I defend and protect it and evolve it as like my number one priority in life. And it's why I never compromise like our balance as a couple and as a family. I don't want her to ever feel like I work too much, right? I don't want my kids to ever feel like that. And again, even today, like, I'm like, I, you know, had to jump on a Zoom and my son was going to the park and he's like, "Why don't you come to the park?" And I said, "Look, man, I'm about to jump on a Zoom meeting. You know what that's like?" He's like, "It's like playing." I'm like, "No, it's like I'm about to go to the park." I'm like, "I just can't wait." He's like, "All right, Dad. Okay, I'll see you afterwards. Have a good meeting." I'm just I want them to be so connected to the idea that like, like there is not some separation between work and fun. Like when life is at its best, you just— every aspect of your life is fun and enjoyable and gives you energy. And, and to me, as a— I just want to mentor that in self-belief in, in them and, and just the tools that teach you to grow and evolve. And then you know that this is the process of life, this is how it works. And when you try something new, this is, this is, this is the, the risk associated with it, uh, but it'll never be the, the end-all be-all. And, and to me, then how do I turn that into teachable to their kids and then their kids' kids, right? To where what it means to be, uh, a Dyrdek is at its at its core, like, balanced, happy, and harmonious, right? To where, like— and that doesn't matter if you want to, you know, you love McDonald's and want to work at McDonald's, you don't— you have no ambition and you just want to, like, like, you know, uh, play video games all day with zero ambition. As long as that aligns with your entire, like, who you are, how you feel about yourself, and your passion, your interest, your time and energy, and that's where you feel amazing and you're truly happy, do it. But I doubt anyone would truly find happiness sitting in that position, right?

Right. I've got a few final questions for you. I feel like I can go another few hours with you because I want to ask you so much about— I feel, I feel like, uh, I am so blessed because I get to speak to you off camera about how you found the relationship of your dreams, how you structure your relationship, energy management, fun, love, intimacy, how you do all these things. Maybe this is in 2 and a half years, you come back on for another show and we talk about how you do all that. Because you told me one time about there's very little, like, stress in your relationship. It's like almost all peace. Maybe there's like moment of like a small misunderstanding that goes right back to peace and joy, which I think that probably gives you so much energy. And finding, creating that and finding that, I think a lot of people struggle with that. So there's more things I want to talk about with you in the future. I've taken a lot of notes. I've got a few final questions. Uh, I'm curious, what do you think everyone misunderstands about failure and success? What do you think most people misunderstand about both of them?

You know, I, I think that, that, you know, because, because failure— we've done a great job of like, like just bringing failure up, uh, to the surface of like, you know, there's no failure, there's lessons, you know, there's evolution. And But I, but I think the, like, the reality of failure is it's, it's not so black and white. It's like you can micro fail along your way that prevents a major fail. Right. And, and like learning and evolving from the micro failures is just as important as, as the pain that happens from the lessons learned in the big ones.

Right.

Because the big ones you want to avoid at all costs because they are start-overs. They are, they are much— they are, they, they take a toll emotionally, physically, energetically, right? And they take a recovery period. It's, it's much different. So to me, there's so much a range inside it, and I swear when you fail with clarity it's so much easier to digest when you can, when you can see where off in the horizon, if this, if this thing happens, that this is going to cause this to, to not work because you were diligent on understanding the risk inside it and you stayed focused on trying to avoid it. But if it's inevitable versus getting blindsided, you know, and look, and a lot of people get blindsided and it it's the nature and it's tougher to pick up from. But more often than not, you could have seen it and made a decision to either move away from it or stop way before it gets too painful, you know. And then I think in success, it's, you know, it's the reality of success is the same way. And and in the fact that it's— there's so many ranges of it, you know. And to me, you know, your success will always lead back to your quality of life. You really just want to live a high quality of life. So if success is financial, that leads it to there. It's emotional, it's relationship, whatever it ultimately is, like Success is always found in quality of life, which ultimately is happiness, fulfillment, self-belief, confidence, like all these things that make up who you are, that make you feel the way that you feel about yourself, you know? And that has so many ranges, but you want to get good at creating success. Yeah, you don't want to just— you don't want success to just happen and then not know how it happened. You want to know how and why it happened so you can create it over and over again.

Yeah, uh, I was just talking with Matt, uh, my, my good friend and COO, right before with you, and we were talking about how 15 years ago I was roommates with Matt. We were broke, right? We were broke and we watched Robin Big when it first came out. 15 years ago, was that when it first came out? 2006, um, 2007. And I always tell people, you want to find— in order to gain, like, once you find some clarity in your life, you think you have a direction you want to go, you want to find a mentor or mentors with models that you can mimic. And you've always had— and from afar, before I knew you, always had a great lifestyle, you had a great vision, you were building things that has been you know, amazing for me to see and mimic and model in certain areas. I don't do exactly what you do, but I've been able to see your lifestyle design, how you built your relationship, how you structure your life, you organize it all, you optimize with health, everything, nutrition. So it's been really fun to, to, to learn from you. And I hope everyone watching and listening can learn from you as a great mentor with an amazing model, which for some might seem extreme. I mean, you track every data point of your day, right? Over every month, over every year, you analyze it, you obsess over it. But that's part of the reason why you've been able to create so much momentum around your success. So it's not by accident you've created this much success. There's a specific design, specific model, which takes extreme discipline and consistency like you talked about. Uh, and I'm just so grateful that, you know, I get to check in with you every now and learn about how you're doing these things. Hope I can come over soon and just— I want to get in the pod, check out the pod, the meditation pod.

And, and again, you know, I'm as grateful as I was to, to be able to meet you for the first time and connect with you, to share it. Yeah, it's like the same joy to share the evolution. I know, because I, I give you— I give you updates and I give you the bite size, you know, and you're just I'm like, what? Like, like, and it's always like, it's, it's always like this guy, like the next in, in. But it's the format of being able to now have like the true more in-depth conversation.

Yes.

Um, that gives me value, gives me this another historical marker. And here we go, we get to now see like, okay, what does the 5 years.

That's what's gonna ask you right now. So you had a vision 5 years ago, you know, this is something I do. I've had Grant Cardone on my show many times, and every time he comes on, he always tells me, you know, I get frustrated because you challenge me to step up bigger than I ever thought before. And I always say, you're playing small, Grant, you know, you're playing small. I think he's got a couple billion under his assets.

I remember seeing that, you really jammed You did.

You really did. But it goes out and creates it. So I'm curious, what is the vision in 5 years? What will you have created for yourself?

Well, first of all, I will probably float in here.

Levitate.

Yes. I will probably be sitting here and no one will be able to hear it. You can speak with this. You can transmit. Transmitting. The energy to you, you know. But I, I truly believe what's gonna happen in 5 years, that I will be on the truly realized, like, ideal version of myself holistically.

Okay.

Because I think I still— Forever State's done. That'll be done, man. Yeah, it'll be done.

5 years will be done.

Be done. Like, so now I've lived out that vision. It's like the, the portfolio of brands will now be at such a scale, um, that, that I will evolve into holding certain ones that are built to be like, nope, we're going to carry this one to a billion dollars and go public, right? There's going to be such—

how many brands in 5 years you think you'll have a piece in?

Oh, in 5, um, I would say, I would say you'll either be half or sold already. Combined, combined, at least another 25, right?

So, so how many you have right now? 14 right now?

Um, no, no, I've done 14 since we were here, sold it. So, so the remaining ones, we have 10 remaining right now. So I will for sure have 35 at a minimum, right? But it's the quality and the scale of those. Um, I will have it at, at that point, um, you know, raised at least you know, $20 to $30 million in through the foundation that I was able to deploy. You know, I think—

For your philanthropy?

Yeah, for the Do or Die Foundation.

Wow.

I think, you know, we're talking not only flawless biomechanics, but by that time I will have been able to— what I'll probably be working on at that point is the system that I created on the baseline of human function, on how— what I learned through my 7 years of learning all aspects of my body and fully integrating it and healing it into one harmoniously operating system, both inside and out, um, I will now have been able to turn into a system, right? Uh, I would have had an extraordinary best-selling book that would have already been out, that was a feature film, and was the backbone to my now great joy of doing keynote speaking, because I will want to like share that energy and passion with people, of course on a limited basis, because I will want to be spending that balance out.

30-30-30-10. Yeah.

With my family. And I'm beyond that, right? Like, I know that I want to eventually grow into only working 15% of my time total, right? So now that I've mastered time, energy, and capacity, I can also plan into like, working much less as I get up into my 50s and my kids get older. Because even in my planning documents, I have like the next 15 years planned out and all my kids' age and my wife's age and all these milestones that are coming along the way. And I, and I know that there's a point where I want to be able to be— spend more time and be more influential in my children's life before I go back to, to working more, right? So in, in that sort of like 12 to like 18 phase, you know, so I want to be able to—

interesting—

uh, live that fully. But I also know who I am and what I'll transition to next, right? I know that like I'll transition this same ambition into one-off projects, right? That I'm going to want to do big one-off creative projects that like have these finite—

Sure, sure. An event or something.

Yeah, just— they're just not about money anymore. They're just about like, how can you create something super crazy, right? And, and to me, I know that that's going to be where I transition into, right? And because at some point I will now have— because I'll never go beyond doing, you know, 5, 6 companies a a year. Because if me and the founder don't connect and don't like— and I don't help shape it with them and create it and we birth something, that's— I'll never do it. I don't— I'm not building the company so that it can go on without me and build companies. Like, at the end of the day, it will always be me as the co-founder of these businesses rather than just being this place that makes companies, right? Because then it would like no longer be be as fun for you. Yeah.

What's the thing you'll be the most proud of that you do of all these things, or something maybe you didn't talk about?

Yeah, look, I'm— I'm— I really believe, like, the same way I am just in awe of what the last 5 years have brought, but the, the next time we meet, it will truly be to any and every person, this is what's possible in a 10-year span. You know, like, every person alive could achieve this much, and here's when it happened, why it happened, and how you can do it too, um, is what I look forward to sharing.

RobDyrdek.com, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Rob Dyrdek. Where can they go to be a part of a Build with Rob podcast if you want to learn more about your philosophy, the machine mindset? Um, where else can we go connect with you, support you during this year and the next 5 years?

Hey, you want to be a part of the Machine Method? Become the machinist, you know what I mean? You got an idea you want to pitch us? You want to be on Build with Rob? Go to dirdekmachine.com. Um, you know, but really, um, you know, love and support all the businesses and entrepreneurs we build with. You know, they're, they're all amazing founders. And amazing companies and just continue to build, uh, great ideas with great people.

Absolutely. I'm involved in two of them, Outstanding Foods and, uh, MindRight. So make sure you guys check that out. We'll link it up there. I got to get involved in more now in the future with you. So now that I've seen you just hit one after another, I'm like, I got to get involved more. Um, this question, I don't know if I asked you this question the last time. I don't know if I started asking this, but it's called the Three Truths. So I'd like you to imagine that you live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day on Earth, and you've accomplished all the goals and dreams that you want to accomplish, from Tiger 21 and developing the 100-year plan and all that stuff. You've done it all. You've amazed yourself how much magic you create every single day. But for whatever reason, you got to take all of your written content, audio, video, message that anyone has access to— it's got to go somewhere else, whether with you or to another place. But we don't have access to this anymore, but you get to leave behind 3 lessons you would share with the world, 3 things you know to be true from everything you learned. What would you say are those 3 truths for you?

You know, I think, um, and I'm going to try to make it concise this time. I rambled on in the first, uh, first one we did. Um, but you know, number 1 is, is chase energy, right? Like, you have to to hunt the things that feed you, not pull from you.

So good.

And you will— if you focus on building a life of around relationships, job, everything that you do about doing the things that give you energy, happiness is found there, right? Like, and, and chasing energy above everything else, that's so good, will lead you to fulfillment. Right? And the second one, like, like, design life, you know. Don't live life and let life happen to you. Don't try to work really hard and then try to have free time and be focused. Decide what type of life that you want and design it. Then learn to grow towards it and get better and better at creating the plan that you will grow belief in can happen, and then you will become the ideal version of yourself. But you cannot do that without designing life. Okay. You know, and, um, you know, I, I'm, you know, we spoke about it pretty extensively, but find joy in the process, right? Like, it is not about, um, you know, it's not necessarily about the process. Fall in love with the process. It's life. You're living, you're doing it, you're growing, evolving, expanding towards your ideal life, the what you want to accomplish, who you want to be. But learn to get better and better at So it takes less energy and that you have total joy so that it is nothing more than this joyous journey to, to where you want to be and beyond. Yeah, because you'll never stop growing and never expand. When you fall in love and find joy in the process, you will then just do the process forever and go beyond what you could even imagine was, was even possible.

Chase Energy. Design your life and find joy in the process. Um, I'm really grateful for you, man. I'm so, I'm so grateful we're friends. I'm so grateful I've been able to watch and have access to your information over the last 5 years, but watch you for 10 years before then and be in your life in the last 5 years and hopefully contribute to your life in certain ways as well by bringing you different, different things as well.

But I'm—

yeah, reading Billy G, hopefully that was a good one. But I'm grateful for, uh, and I acknowledge you for you not only talking about what you're gonna create, which so many people say what they're gonna do, probably 99% of people don't do it and you've done it.

Yeah.

And that's what I really acknowledge you for is like you created the, you designed the vision for your life and you did so much in 5 years. Yeah. Every time I talk to you, you're always doing and being the better version of yourself you want to be.

Yeah.

You're living it. Since the moment I met you, you've always been about positive energy.

Yeah.

And finding joy in the process. Everything. Even when it's like, oh, this happened and this TV show didn't work out and this, we spent all this energy on this thing and it didn't work out the way we wanted it to. But you always find like the joy in the process. And I've watched you obsess over designing your life, obsess over these metrics and the dashboards you show me on your computer of like, this is how I analyze it. And every morning and every night, and I track it and I measure it. And this is the whole thing at the end of the year, the report. And now I know what to do next year for it to be even better. You fall in love with the process, you design your life. And I can't wait for you to start creating this in book format and speech format for others to start learning how to replicate it, because I think that's where your legacy will really live, is how you teach others how to do this. Because I want to keep learning how to do this myself. So I acknowledge you for all this, my man. I acknowledge you for your, uh, your— the joy you bring to your friends, your family, your business partners. Because every time I'm in a meeting with you and there's other people around, you bring energy. You don't chase it, you create it. Yeah. And that is a gift. So I acknowledge you for all this stuff. I can't wait for 5 years, uh, and, and all the times we hang out in the future before then. Um, anything else we can do to support you or to talk about before The final question.

No, no, because, you know, really, we've— we just being on here again and giving— allowing to me to be on this glorious platform that you have grown and evolved, you know what I mean? Yeah. Uh, I'm just thankful that we're friends and ultimately that we get to share this conversation, to share with others, you know?

Yeah, we're helping a lot of people. You're helping a lot of people, man. I appreciate it.

Okay.

Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Oh man, it's, it's, you know, to me, um, like, I really believe that, that very similar to before, because I, I, I see it in other great individuals and I'm trying to chase it, but it, but it really is when your personal mastery, um, becomes so highly optimized that you, you grow into a level that almost no other people have ever done, which then inspires the masses to try to emulate you and be the best version of themselves, you know. But at the end of the day, it's still like who you are, what you dedicate yourself to, your personal mastery reaches such a level that other You just can't help but be inspired by it. True greatness.

I mean, I'm good. My friend, I hope you're enjoying this episode right now because we are on a mission to impact 100 million lives every single week. And every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people. Make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now. It's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes. I appreciate you, and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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