Rob Dial is a podcaster, performance coach and speaker for 10+ years now. Throughout the course of that time he has coached thousands of people – from college students to NFL superstars. He is the magic behind MWF Motivation.
Show Notes:
If you could have 3 wishes granted, what would they be?
To change the fact that innocent being killed by older men who can’t get their politics together; secondly to not have to sleep and thirdly, I wish extreme self-awareness for everybody in the world.
Take us through the journey of growing a multi-billion-dollar business
It was Cutco Knives. We sold the best knives in the world in people’s houses. I was a 19 years old college kid. I went in for an interview and saw there 20-21 year olds who were making a $1,000 per week by selling knives in people’s houses. I didn’t know anything about knives, I didn’t know anything about cooking (I’m still a terrible cook at 31) but I was like if these people could do it, I could do it as well. I went in for the job really to make money. That originally attracted me. Starting at that company set me a completely different path in my life. It made me focus on personal growth and made me be the best i could be. By the time I was 21, I was promoted to run an office for them; grew it to one of the biggest offices in the United States, broke a bunch of records, trained a few thousand people. The rest as they say is history.
Was Sales something you thought you’d be good at or you said let me try this because I need the money?
A little bit of both. I always wanted to be in sales because when I was younger, my father was in sales and I remember being in high school and wanted to be ca car salesman because I knew that sale people make a lot of money. I knew that I loved cars but no car place wants to hire a 16-year old kid to sell cars for them.
It forced me to get out of my shell. By the time, I was 20 years old, I was interviewing people who were 40, 50, 60 years old sometimes and then running 3 day-17 hour trainings for them. It forced me to get better at my communication skills and getting in front of people and speaking. I always wanted to be in sales but didn’t think I would be a great sales person because I was really shy and not very confident.
What infrastructure that were in place to make you become so good at it?
Cutco had a really good training program. If you’ve met anyone who has ever been at Cutco for a while you’ll recognize that they are usually super sharp, on point person and the reason is they recruit a lot of people and they quit because it is really a hard job. To stick there for a while says a lot.
The best part was the culture. For people who worked there for a while, it turned into a bubble of positivity and personal growth and everyone talking about the books. You have 19, 20, 21-year old kids talking about the books they’ve read, the conferences they’ve been to; the money that they’re investing into themselves. When I was 19, a few months after I started with them I paid $500.00 per month to have a one on one coach to make me better. They talked about how they taught skills for life.
When did you recognize the importance of feeding your mind?
I ran an office for them in Florida when I was 21 years old. I started to notice that there are two different paths that I could take. When I first started at 19, I partied a lot. I started to notice that I could continue down that path and it wouldn’t take me where I wanted to go in life. I could look at the people whose books I was reading, whose conferences I was going to and realize that if I start putting the right things in place right now, it could set me up to be extremely successful in life and that is the theory.
It was hard to say no when my friends would call me up to say let’s go hang out. It was hard not to say yes. But I knew what I was working for, I had a vision of where I wanted my life to be. Ten years down the road, I’m glad I made those decisions because it set me up to be way further ahead than most people that are my age now.
I had the foresight that it would change my life.
Where are those college friends now?
They are still some of my best friends. Some are doing pretty decent for themselves. Looking at some of friends from high school, they are not really successful; they have normal day jobs and those types of things.
An example of someone I became best friends with who I met through the company when I was 19 or 20 years old, is killing it as a Realtor. Most Realtors may make $40,000 in their first year, he just switched over 3 months ago and this month alone made $45,000 and already has the team of people under him 3 months into. It shows you the type of mind-set that you develop from working in this company. I always like to think about it like this, you can go to the gym and you can work out your body, and grow your muscles by putting them under stress and making them better by training them. That’s exactly how the brain works, if you can put yourself through stress and learning discipline, and the right habits then it is just easy for you later on in life for things to be thrown at you and you can go past them and throw them off. You don’t have as many limiting beliefs or fear holding you back because you’ve already gone them 10 years ago.
When did you decide you want to be a coach?
I started doing coaching a long time ago when I was younger. What happened was I was with the company, I doing well working 100-110 hours a week because I was obsessed with becoming the number manager and I burnt myself out. I left the company and got a really good offer to work for another company. I thought maybe I go work for them and do some sales and training for them. I had a different experience where instead of going and becoming an employee and deciding that I wanted to become an entrepreneur; I was an entrepreneur who then become an employee and then deciding that I wanted to become an entrepreneur again. I went into the corporate world for 5 years and realized that it’s good for some people but for me, it’s just not what I wanted. I don’t deal well with being an employee. I like to think of ideas and execute on them and make money off them.
I went into the corporate world and did sales and training for them and was very successful doing it and made a great deal of money. In December 2014, I was making more money than I ever had in my entire life, I was great but I was completely unfulfilled with what I was doing. I decided to leave the company. In January 2015, I wrote in my journal that I want to create a job where I can help as many people as possible get what they want, bring out their true potential and be able to do all of this from my computer and be fulfilled. Ten years ago, I wanted to do something that even if I weren’t able to make as much money as I was when I was in the other company, I would be still be driven to wake up every morning and do it and be able to give something to people. I was trying to think how can I do it? What format that I can use? It took me about 4 month of planning. I thought I am going to get my message out via Podcasts. I feel like a decade of personal growth, conferences, book read, and everything that I’ve done, that I have a lot to offer people. Within the first year it got over 1 million downloads and well on way to 2 million downloads within 18 months and been able to build up a following between Instagram and Facebook of over 100,000 and growing.
The best part is when I quit my job, I was making the most money I’ve ever made at that time; now I’m 100 times more fulfilled than I ever have been and making more money than I could ever dream of when I was working for someone else. It shows you that when you decide to cut free from the salary and the safety net and really go for what you want to do and what you’re passionate about, the money will follow. I’m living proof of that.
What is the name of your podcast?
MWF Motivation – Monday, Wednesday, Friday Motivation, which are the days that it comes out. They are short to the point, no BS podcast. It is about 5-15 minutes.
Take us through severing ties with our safety net?
I used to hate that I had paid vacation because I wanted to be on vacation all the time. I didn’t want to have 10-15 days of paid vacation that I could take per year. When someone says paid vacation, I’m like, screw paid vacation. My life is going to be a vacation and I’m going to get paid while doing it. That was one of the things that made me want to leave, the second thing was, working a 9-5, Monday to Friday was just arbitrary stuff made up by someone who was no smarter than you and I.
I’m very much the person that questions everything that is done by society and the rules we follow – the way we are to act and the way we were told to be. I don’t think I was put on this planet to work somebody else and spend most of my waking hours doing something that I don’t want to do for somebody else who doesn’t really care about me. I could be replaced. Maybe I’ll make less money but I would be happy.
We’re stuck in the 9-5 of what we feel we’re supposed to do and that safety net. The money in my bank account never fulfilled me and it was the idea that if want to go and work form the park on Tuesday at noon, I can go work form the park on Tuesday at noon. I can set up a mobile hot spot from my phone on my computer and I do it all the time. That’s what I wanted to build.
What’s more important to you?
Making a bunch of money and bunch of digits in my bank account or being really happy every single day that I’m alive and feeling like I’m helping a bunch of people while doing it and that’s what made me break free.
In reality, we think we want money to buy new things and all of that but really what we want money for is to be free. When you own your own business, and got it to a point where it is at least profitable, and you’re able to pay the bills, feed your children and all of those things, you’re free. If you want to take a day off, you can take the day off.
Final piece of advice?
You’re going to die. I watched my father die at 15 years old. From that moment I realize, this is a legitimate thing, he’s not coming back. I’m going to be in the same position one day. It’s very real. I think about it all the time. I’m going to put everything that I can into making sure that I can be the happiest that I can be every single day. If somebody has the gut feeling inside of them of, “I need to do my own thing”, or I need to figure out a way to make money on the side to have more freedom with my kids or I want to travel, they need to figure a way to execute on it. You only get one life. If you feel like you shouldn’t be working for somebody else, don’t waste your life working for somebody else.
Main Take-Aways:
- Invest in yourself, it will come in handy years from now.
- If you feel being an entrepreneur is for you, don’t waste your time working for others.
- It’s not money we desire but the freedom to do what we want when we want.
