* Before we begin, you can listen to episode 20 of Build With Rob right here.

Back in 2016, I heard one of the most impactful podcasts of my life.

Rob Dyrdek was on Lewis Howes’ podcast, The School Of Greatness.

→ You can listen to that podcast here where I began to realize that Rob Dyrdek was a total gangster in entrepreneurship.

Ever since then, I realized that some people play a much different and much bigger game than others.

Some people, like Rob, “see the whole board” while others can only see 1-2 moves ahead.

Fast forward to 2021 and Rob Dyrdek is beginning to take over.

He started the Dyrdek Machine which “is a venture creation studio that partners with visionary entrepreneurs.”

They “systematically fuse art, science, and magic to create meaningful businesses that stand the test of time and impact the world.”

To help expand his brand, he also created Build With Rob - a podcast that he uses to both build awareness for the Dyrdek Machine and also find potential partners.

Around this time, my best friend Kaleb Fossum and I had our own podcast called the Be Uncommon Podcast.

We were trying to force a product idea so that we would actually have something to sell and produce revenue.

So one day, I went for a walk and listened to an episode of Build With Rob where he said that the Dyrdek Machine was now open to being pitched products by visionary entrepreneurs.

My mind began racing with ideas.

I thought about a few things:

Consumer-packaged goods such as a consumable that Rob would be interested in. (He’s only interested in CPG products for his venture studio).

What CPG product Kaleb and I have always used our whole life

What did I land on?

Energy drinks.

Kaleb and I have drank pre workout drinks since we were 14 years old.

But we knew that we had to be wildly different to stand out.

The Dyrdek Machine has a process that you have to go through to pitch them a product.

You’ve gotta create a deck (like a PowerPoint presentation) and send a video explaining your product.

I designed a horribly ugly pitch deck, on purpose.

We recorded a 10-minute video and sent it to them.

A few weeks later, we heard from a producer on the show asking us if we wanted to hop on the show with Rob and tell our story a bit.

Here’s why this is crazy:

We didn’t have any product. We barely had 90 listeners on our podcast at the time.

It was 100% theoretical. We just googled ingredients and found out wildly different things that have never been added to energy drinks.

We picked a name that sounded like it belonged on an energy drink.

I did all of this with one goal in mind: get facetime with Rob Dyrdek.

I didn’t even necessarily want to create that product or run a CPG brand.

I just wanted to get in front of Rob and have him see our faces and hear our stories a bit.

Which is exactly why I designed a horribly ugly pitch deck video to send him…

Graphic design is NOT a strength of mine.

However, humor and business experience are.

I knew every other person would design a beautiful deck, use all the right numbers and formulas to sound smart, and be like every other person.

Our goal was simple: Stand out.

We had to be different.

We could NOT be boring.

So we leaned into our humor while still telling our story and pitching a half-decent product idea.

And what happened?

Lifestyle design boils down to 3 different qualities that you have to attack.

The first step is: Curiosity

You have to be relentlessly curious about life itself.

You have to have daily conversations with that voice in your head - the roommate you can never get away from.

When you first start out, you may hate this voice. You may think that voice is an asshole. You may think that voice is chalked full of fear.

... Fear of change, success, failure, judgment, or so many other possibilities.

You have to ask yourself an absolutely absurd amount of questions to find out:

The Goal - What you truly want out of life

The Playing Field - What you currently know to be true about your life based on the information you currently have

The Plan - What you should do about the goal in spite of the playing field

The curiosity stage is basically where you “fuck around and find out.”

This curiosity should have no boundaries or limits.

Ask yourself questions like:

- What was my childhood actually like?

- What were my role models actually like?

- What have I been telling myself was true about myself my whole life? Why? Have I questioned this?

- How do I actually feel towards my family? Why?

- How do I feel about money? Does it make me angry, hopeful, sad? Why?

- How do I feel about my appearance? Do I take care of myself?

- What would I do if money wasn’t important?

- Whose opinion stops me from doing things I wanna do? Why?

- What do I want to spend my time doing?

- What hobbies do I have outside of work?

- When was the last time I tried something new? Why has it been so long?

This is the stage where you discover who you actually are.

The next pillar or stage of lifestyle design is: Authenticity.

One of the key characteristics of successful and happy people is confidence.

Confidence can be built like any muscle in the body can.

It’s built through reps.

It’s built through experience and real, tangible practice.

However, the root of confidence is authenticity.

You can only truly be confident in yourself if you actually know yourself.

“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” - Socrates

To become your truest and most authentic self, you have to be able to be honest with yourself.

Not bullshit honest, either.

… The gnarly and confrontational kind.

The David Goggins kind.

The kind where you call yourself out, hold yourself up to a particular standard and take full accountability for every facet of your life.

It’s only at this point that you can begin to design your life.

If you don’t commit to 100% honesty with yourself, then you’re gonna keep living your life based off the thoughts and ideas of other people.

Think about it…

If you don’t know what you truly want out of this life experience, you haven’t done the work.

If you haven’t done the work, you’re not your authentic self.

You quite literally can’t be.

Simply because you don’t know.

You start with curiosity and then you stick to your guns through authenticity.

Through curiosity, you start to realize what your “big goal” or destination is.

Through authenticity, you realize what the playing field actually is.

And then…

My favorite made-up word is “figure-it-out-ivness.”

That’s the 3rd pillar of lifestyle design.

A few years back, Jordan Palmer gave me one of the greatest compliments of my life as an entrepreneur when he told me:

“Your level of figure-it-out-ivness to solve any problem is as relentless as anybody I’ve ever seen.”

The reason why it hit so hard for me is that I think that every single person in the world is an entrepreneur in their own life.

And quality entrepreneurship is based on one’s ability to solve problems under pressure.

So when it comes to lifestyle design, we have to solve problems.

The “problem” is basically your big dream goal lifestyle.

The pressure?

That’s just figuring out and executing the plan in the timeline that you want.

Each person on this planet is as uncommon as anything could be.

Nobody ever has, is, or will be exactly you.

They won’t have your exact past, experiences, knowledge, environment, family, friends, memories, or dreams.

So the plan you build to design your life HAS to be hyper-specific to you.

That’s the only way you can design the dream life that you truly want.

It’s a simple + straightforward process.

It’s not easy.

It’s simple.

1. Be relentlessly curious about yourself and life to find out what your dream lifestyle is.

2. Stay authentic to your true self once you find the answers to your curiosities so you know the playing field.

3. Figure out what the plan is and then execute on it

The best part about this process is that you chase energy the entire time.

You’re not chasing happiness.

What gives you the most energy?

Finding out about yourself.

Bettering yourself.

Being honest with yourself.

Building your dream lifestyle.

Happiness will find you throughout the entire journey.

Have fun.

Ride the lightning,

Luke Bockenstette