When you become so sensitive
to basically
the ramifications
of your decisions, it also becomes easier
to not do them. You get there after you've optimized
the system. I had to design it first, then I had to learn how to do it, get fully committed, then I had to, like, get better at it. And then I began to optimize it so I could get more and more efficient, more and more consistent. Then it finally basically has this acceleration,
you know, that equate it to almost like blasting through the atmosphere where you need a certain amount of acceleration in order to, like, get through the atmosphere. It's that sort of other side
of what it takes. Once you get beyond that, now it becomes effortless and intuitive
by your natural ability
where before you were fighting to be consistent and fight these triggers. Now it's almost the opposite.
Okay. Rob Dyrdek, welcome to the What's Essential podcast.
Thank you. It it is great to be with you. We were first introduced,
uh, by Brent Montgomery,
and
he sent you, I think, Essentialism and Effortless.
Yeah. Sent me Essentialism. In a minute, but sent go tell tell me, first of all, just a little bit about that,
what that did in your mind, and then I have a couple more follow-up questions. Yeah. You know, I think when he you know, because obviously, he's a big fan of yours, uh, considering
your,
uh, connection in business. And, you know, we
we had always sort of shared philosophies
and and different aspects of sharing the way that I operate. And he said, you gotta read this book.
You know, this stuff is brilliant. I've given this to everybody at the company. Like and
and it started the, you know, the journey of you know? And to me, there's always these great tools that if you're someone that's constantly growing and evolving,
you you get shared another philosophy that then almost kind of brings clarity what you were already feeling.
And and, again, I that was essentialism
for me. And then
and then I'm like, boy. But, you know, even back then, it's like, well, what happens when you're only doing the essential
and you're you're pushed up to the top? Right? It's
then effortless was right behind it because and it's the book started with, like, you know, your like, and then that's effortless. And then I realized, like, man,
like, the way that I drive everything to automation and then the optimization,
my whole existence is driving to this effortless existence. Right? So I I think that's where,
you know, I connected with your philosophy
on a practical side as it as it was related to how I run my life as a whole. You know?
So after you and I first connected,
I sent a note to Brent that basically said something like this. I said,
Rob's not really human.
You don't you don't really meet Rob. You experience him. That was my sense of when we of when we talked. Uh, the intensity
that you bring to whatever you do
is really
remarkable to me.
Uh, and and I and I want to get to some specific things that you do that we talked about,
but I want to go into some detail with. But first,
I want to just reference something, and and maybe maybe this is funny for you, or maybe it's serious for you. I don't know. But but you are on record as having said so I was sort of saying it as a, you know, you're not really human. But you are on record as having said, I am part alien.
I truly believe that.
I believe I've been abducted, and I'm some form of an extraterrestrial
race,
a sixteenth part alien or something. Now, maybe that was a joke at the moment, part of the crazy,
but talk to me about that.
Well,
look, I'm
you know, there was this this gentleman who, um, was abducted by aliens. That's from the Howard Stern show who we had on Fantasy Factory who was, like, basically explaining to me that you are, in fact,
you are you are alien,
and you are this extraordinary being. If you understood who you really were, it would blow even your mind. And I'll it was always funny to me. You know, I you know, I'm the guy who once purchased a a hyperdimensional
resonator,
which is a time machine off a guy in Nebraska.
And because I thought it was funny, I thought this this guy's really selling time machines, and I thought it was amazing. So I bought one. It was 365.
And
and then years later, I tried to bring him on one of my television shows to talk about it, and he's like, I ain't talking to you. I know what you are. And I'm like, what? He's like, you're an alien.
And I'm like, what? So it has been validated
on a handful of different occasions where random people have expressed to me
that I may in fact have some alien blood.
And and for you, even if we just put it aside as as
as symbolic
Mhmm. There's something about that that's still powerful for you. I can tell that it is, that you're just going forget whether you call it alien or not. Just the idea that there's something in us,
something in you
that
that's above and beyond
what would normally be expected.
It's like somehow it names for you or gives you permission
to live differently,
to to live in a in in a really differently to what you see other people doing. Am I reading that right?
Yeah. Look. I I'm
I'm
who I am is unexplainable
in in sort of the normal way that life works. Right? The evolution, the growth, the expansion, the development of of
a way of living in a mind that I wouldn't even have thought possible,
you know, even five, six years ago. You know? And so,
you know, when you get to a state where you begin to evolve and grow
beyond your wildest dreams, right, you then you and and you
begin to have the ability to control reality
because you get better and better at, uh, deciding what you wanna do and achieving it no matter what that is.
You you
begin to feel like you are controlling
the universe in at least in the sense of your own universe. And then you can't help but be filled with gratitude and and awe that all the stuff that you set out and had a vision for actually was realized and your way of life has been realized,
you know, you you certainly
take pride in feeling like you are living like a one of one existence.
You know? I I am a strong believer
in a simple principle which is that everything is created twice.
Once,
you know, emotionally,
you know, mentally,
even maybe spiritually, and then a second time physically.
And I think what you just described
is
the extraordinary
ability
that that idea
gives you. Did you say, my goodness. At one time, it was just a list. One time, it was just an idea. And then I've seen this unbelievable
thing actually happen and be manifest and be created.
And and it changes everything because then it says, not only is that something to be grateful for, but it's also like, well, what else could be created?
If if the creative process is something that is is
available to me,
well, what do I want to create? That's what I sense when I hear you talking about it.
Yeah. And look. And it it goes a little bit deeper. Right? Because it's not a goal.
It is a life.
Right? And when I began to see my life as all these sort of interconnected
systems,
and then I designed those systems. And each of those systems had goals and ambitions.
And then as I got better and better and started drawing closer and closer to those goals associated
with these different parts of my life,
then the energy started to build. The harmony started to build. The law of attraction kicks in. All this opportunity
begins to fulfill the vision.
And then what happens when you get closer and closer? You can see further and further because you begin to see more clear. You begin to to have
the bigger ideas that you can see of what's possible that you couldn't see before.
Then you dower basically in this perpetual
state
of evolution and growth that basically feeds your energy and passion
to basically,
uh, push to see what's possible. Right? And for me, it transitioned from self preservation to generational preservation to where it's like, wow. How can I affect the next five hundred years of the Dyrdek family instead of just affecting my children and or affecting my way of life in this lifetime? That that's the the other side of when you find that harmony and life's potential reveals itself to you by having deep clarity on what you want to achieve and then growing towards achieving it. And that's what I've done. You know? Well, you have, and it and it's really fascinating to me to hear you describe, like, all the systems
and the layers that you've put together that
you know, it's not just, as you say, a goal, take action, next goal. It's build systems so that so that these goals start to happen whether you're, you know, forcing or pushing it today or not.
I I want to get to a document that you have created. I have never seen anything
like this.
You call it the rhythm of ex the the rhythm of existence.
You call this the rhythm of existence.
And
it's a document,
uh, something like 20 pages long.
I've read lots of documents. I have even guided people in creating documents, planning
tools of one kind or another for people's lives. But this is different,
a rhythm of existence. Can you just, first of all, describe,
you know, what it is from your point of view?
Yeah. And I I think simply put, it's like the operating
system for my life. Right? And and and, essentially, it it it has every aspect of how my life operates and then all the documents associated with it. And and it's built to basically drive all aspects of my life to automation.
Right? And because at the end of the day, you've got to get things to automation
before you can begin to optimize them. Because optimization
is where the extraordinary
happens. You know? Now I've just applied that to all aspects of my life. And first, it starts with designing time.
Right? Then then I've gamified
my mental health. I've gamified
my physical health. Right? I've
systematized,
like, my financial systems and structure, how I operate,
my daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly schedules,
like, I integrate my family, my nannies,
my diet, all of these things into this this this moving system
that can be operated
by
chief of staff and assistants and then all my COO, president, and all the people that work for me. Because I decided I would design
a fully integrated life that included both my business
and my family and my well-being,
and that document basically represents how that system operates together.
Yeah. And and, again, this is the difference between setting goals only,
which is what I think a lot of people do. It's if they're going to try to live by design, that's what they think it means,
versus
build systems
and how those systems interplay and automating those systems so that you can not just live
life,
but stand
apart and look at your life and look at the machine and look at the the ecosystem of your life and keep designing and tweaking it. Just like you said, you know, optimization happens after
automation
automation.
Optimization happens after automation.
Okay. But I wanna go through a few pieces of this document. Okay. First of all, uh, what does it have in it? The overview. Has your purpose statement.
It has your four subrhythms,
work, life, health, and sleep.
You have a section for definitions,
principles, framework rules, and success criteria.
That's just the overview of the document.
Let's
let's just start with the top. I mean, what do you include when you think about purpose?
Uh, you know, look. It's you know, much to you, it's about living a high energy,
effortless
existence.
Right? Because at at the end of the day,
like, you you have a limited amount of capacity, and that capacity is drained by decision making,
stress,
uh, bad sleep, not eating right. Like, you know, in in we think that all these things kinda live separately and, like, oh, we're gonna try to take care of ourselves. Oh, we're gonna try to be less stressed and be more grateful.
But in fact, you know, if you really wanna live like that on a consistent basis,
all of these moving parts that are in this document
make up sort of the system that allows you
to be able to operate at a really high level that gives you the clarity to manage your time, manage your mind share, manage your capacity, manage your energy and your health,
and and be and look. Even the qualitative side of it is really built to give you insight to yourself
to make sure that you're optimizing even the system properly
because the more you optimize it, the more energy you get back. And, you know, there was a book written in 1910 called the science of getting rich.
And old Wallace d Wattles,
you know, talks about, like, evolution happens with a free mind, meaning when you have mind share.
And you just don't realize how much steals from your mind share and and actually pulls from your capacity.
And for me, like,
this document was built in 2015.
It took me five years be before I could fully operate it, and the last year and a half has been really optimizing it. Right? Because it's, like, a really complex thing that you have to grow into
and get better and better at operating it over time. Simply put,
you don't just decide to be balanced one day.
You being balanced is difficult. There are so many aspects of balance that you need to do self discovery
and realize what rhythm you can live in in order to have balance. It's not as simple as spending more time with my wife and not working as much. Right? Like, you have got to put, uh, some serious work into the discovery. And then guess what?
Then you've designed it. Now you gotta start on your journey because becoming really good at being balanced is just like going to the gym or trying to build any other skill. You've got to grow it over time and get better at it in order to for it to actually be extraordinarily effective for you. There's so much to to to build on here, but one of the things is I don't love the word balance. I've never felt especially attracted to it, which might be surprising given
the people associate my work as being, well, sort of work life balance. But I never even understand what that term means. It's it's it's it's an odd phrase to me where you're trying to I mean, generally, people are spending too much time with work, not enough time with their life. So it's not really about balance. It's about making sure that work doesn't consume them. But even besides that, it's this idea of a sort of a seesaw where it's like, well, one goes up, one goes down.
Wants that? I don't know. It doesn't inspire the imagination. You're right. Does it And because you wanna know what it is? Yeah. Go on. Harmony.
You're searching
for harmony.
And all aspects of your life system, like your health, your mental health, your financial health,
like your quality of work and the relationships at work, the quality of your relationships and your family,
your
purpose, ambition, all these things create the system.
And when the system is out of balance,
like, even if you're, like, you have good time management, you're all wonky and out of balance. It's when there's harmony
and there's rhythm,
that's that's when you can really find,
quote, unquote, balance because you found real harmony. You know? Well, there's a there's an engineering term, and the term is dynamic
equilibrium.
Mhmm. And I love that term. So even as I don't love the term balance especially, I love dynamic equilibrium, and that's what I think
you are going for in this document. Right? This is now six years
of development, this document. Right? It's an ongoing evolution, but it's about trying to get all the pieces to work together
in a way that everything works and that it's optimizing,
you know, each piece
of the puzzle.
And so, anyway, that's what I think of when I when I look at this document, a dynamic equilibrium.
Love that. Love that. And think about it. It changes every year. I continue to evolve. I have kids now. I have you know, it's like like and and I I even,
you know, really look to my wife and how she's feeling and how we're evolving. Do I need to put another body in? Do I need to automate something? Like, you just constantly keep adding to it because you're driving back down to your center,
which is minimizing
how much effort you need to output
to live a fulfilling, happy,
uh, harmonious life. Right? Like and that's constantly evolving and requires you to to be constantly adaptive. You know?
Well, this is why I love the term rhythm.
I mean, as I say, I've seen lots of documents,
more than the average person, let's say, of gold documents and so on. But but this phrase rhythm of existence, a rhythm, and then even within it, you have, you know, uh, the rhythm of existence has four subrhythms. Work is part of the rhythm. Life,
health,
sleep.
Uh, how how are you doing, like, on a scale of one to 10
in
health? How are you doing on that right now?
Well, look. You you you
know, my my health is a little bit more complicated,
right, because I'm I've been on this journey
of reengineering
my entire biomechanics
to where I have flawless neuromuscular
and skeletal alignment.
Too deep to get into here today. But what I what I do want to
tell you is I've had twelve bad days in 2021.
And the most fascinating
aspect of using qualitative data,
uh, as it relates to zero to 10, how do you feel right now about your health? Well, I've tracked zero to 10 how I feel about my life, my work, and my health
every day,
uh, for the last six years. Right? And in 2020,
it was the first year that I finally collected an entire year of data.
And at the end of that year, I averaged
and if you total them up between the zero to 10 between life, work, and health, there's a total score of 30.
I averaged an 18.2
for the year.
And then every day I tracked, did I get up at five? Did I brain train? Did I get in the gym? Did I meditate? Did I eat clean? Did I not drink?
And for the year, my my percentage that I did that was 56%.
And wow. How fascinating.
At the end of twenty twenty, I had an entire year of data
of both qualitative,
how I felt about life, work, and health, and then quantitative,
what did I actually physically do
for my health. And it was so obvious in the data
that, like, man, look at this. When you were really committed to your health side, look at the qualitative numbers.
Right? And so I made the commitment in 2021
that I'm going
to average above 20,
and and I was gonna do that by averaging above 80%
in my call on my quantitative stuff.
I was going to get up at five, brain train, meditate,
get in the gym, eat clean, and not drink 80 of the year.
I ended up doing it
92%
of the entire year, many of the months at 400%.
My average for the year is 21.4.
And so when I look back at how much I accomplished this year, how balanced I was,
but ultimately,
I have proof
in numbers
of the quality of my life was the highest it's ever been. And so when I I I had a bad day where I scored a 16 two weeks ago, and I thought to myself, man,
when is the last time I scored a 16?
And I went back and through the entire year, had two 16s, and I had 10 17s for the whole year.
And I and I'm like, wow. I only had 12 bad days in this entire year. And then when I went back to my twenty twenty data,
I averaged the 16 in October.
I had months that I averaged 17. I had months where I averaged what today
would be considered a bad day in an entire year.
This is extraordinary
and really, really over the top, but it is what happens
when you commit and get really good
at using qualitative
data and creating gamifying
your health with quantitative metrics
and then getting motivated
now by seeing them work together and the output being
the quality of your life is higher and better than it's ever been, not just on how you say it feels,
but in the data
and truly what you've been able to do over an entire year's period. And for me, how I know I will be at the sustained level of happiness forever because I know I still have even further to go from from what's possible from an optimization standpoint. You know?
Okay. So I'm looking right now at your time data,
you know, tool that you'd sent over to me. So, I mean, I can see literally day by day every breakdown, all of these points that you are referencing,
color coordinated.
You know, this is this is a level of precision.
Normally, I ask somebody, how are you doing in health zero to 10? They offer one number.
Right? Nobody offers
well, over the last six years,
you know, I've averaged 18.2,
and then this year, I've been at 21.3,
and 12 bad days in one year. I mean, like, nobody's doing that. Right? And and it might seem overwhelming to people, but but the whole point of the of this system is to reduce
the the the stress and the pressure and the burden. You just got a better machine that's running rather than, oh, I'm just trying harder than anybody else alive. It's the system that you've been building that really works.
My question to you is what
what are you using
to gather this data? I mean, are you using particular
tools
or apps or,
uh, you know, what are you using?
But but let me let me say to another point because every time I describe it and and show people that I do it, it, like, makes them tired
because it's just like, how could anybody do when do you have the time to do all this?
But but think about it, and you know this. Like, it's now second nature to me and intuitive.
I don't even, like I can't even imagine.
I got up at four today, brain trained, and meditated before 05:00
because I had a bunch of other things I wanted to do, and my nanny wasn't here today. And it's like, normally
a a year and a half ago, I've been like, I'm gonna skip brain training and meditating today.
It eventually becomes habitual,
and habits eventually become intuitive. They just become a way of of who you are.
And so for me, it's it's,
um, since I developed it on my own and it it doesn't really exist, I had somebody write me the script for my Google Calendar.
So I essentially, every day, get up, put in how much I slept,
um, then I rate my sleep zero to 10. I then rate how motivated I am that day. Right? Because I wanna track how motivated I am. And then I go back to the previous day and go through the core four. Did I did I meditate? Did I get up at five? Did I eat clean?
Did I get in the gym? Right? Then I give my score for how I feel about my life, work, and health. And, of course
Just into your calendar? You just put it into your calendar? Into my calendar. Right? And then then, um, my I asked my wife every day how she feels about our relationship, zero to 10. Right? Because even that now,
the beauty of qualitative
data between you and your wife is you now you always have to have the conversation about,
like, in my case, because I'm more of a robot,
her feelings.
Right? So I'm always, like, aware of her state,
which allows me to be a better husband and be more aware of her energy
rather than than constantly,
um, you know, this high energy, everything's amazing life can can tax somebody who's feeling empty. You know what I mean? So, uh, all of that data goes straight into,
um,
my Google Calendar, then it all gets pulled into a Google spreadsheet.
So I get to look at it every month, every day. You know? It's like, I'm, like, motivated
by the gamification
of my discipline. You know? And so it's like, it it it
stops me from,
uh, wanting a pizza.
It stops me from like, I'm just tired. I need a glass of wine. Like, it it because I'm I'm I've gamified it,
and and there's just these moments. These moments of weakness are the hardest to break, especially depending on where you're at from a stress level. And and and I've found as I've cleared out so much in my life and gotten to this highly optimized state that I still carry these certain triggers
that have been with me my whole life.
And one is when I feel stuck. When I feel stuck, I just wanna drink and eat pizza.
You know? And it's and but now it's so hyper aware. When I get stuck and then have that feeling, it's like, oh, look at that trigger. Look at that trigger. You know? It it's like you begin to be able to seal them.
And this system gives you a reason not to.
You know, a lot of us don't have a reason not to do these things. When the trigger happens, you go, okay. Well, you just go along with it.
This
game,
the gamification of your life around what's essential to you is helping you to go in that moment,
okay. Now I have a reason not to. I want to put in my score. I want to be able to say today was great according to my own criteria. Go ahead. Right. And and again, you it's it's not even my it's like you know
what happens if you have two glasses of wine and a pizza.
You know that it brings it slows your brain function down. It brings your motivation down,
which gives, like, a a lapse of a few days. And and I swear to you, I can feel
like if my energy shifts because I decided to go out on a on a Saturday night and
booze it up and then get up in the morning and and,
you know, eat, you know, a bagel. And I know that sounds light, but it would still affect me. It's like I get to see the the ripple effect into the entire week.
Right? And so it's like when you become so sensitive
to basically the the ramifications ramifications of your decisions, it also becomes easier
to not do them. Right? And and that's the
you you get there after you've optimized
the system. I had to design it first, then I had to learn how to do it, get fully committed, then then I had to, like, get better at it. And then I began to optimize it so I could get more and more efficient, more and more consistent, then it finally basically has this acceleration.
You know, it equated to almost like blasting through,
uh, you know, the atmosphere where you need a certain amount of acceleration in order to, like, get through the atmosphere. It's that sort of other side of what it takes. Like, once you get beyond that, now it becomes effortless and intuitive
by your natural ability
where before you were fighting to be consistent and fight these triggers. Now it's almost the opposite
where there's so few and far between, and then it's like, okay. Do you really want a pizza? No. Right? But sometimes you do it just for enjoyment, and then you have three responsible slices in the early afternoon
knowing that you're going to, like, intermittent fast in the evening and the pizza doesn't affect you whatsoever. Yeah.
Yeah. You're you are this idea of not just living life, but learning from living.
You're just taking that to a really, you know, high level where you're constantly
paying attention, adjusting,
and then not just generally not just
not just putting the pressure on your mental exertion to remember what you're observing. You've just built a system to be able to pour that data into it so that you can learn fast
from the experiences that you're having.
Right. And you almost get really good
at optimization.
So you're constantly
nuancing. And when you feel stuck, when you feel the rhythm get tight, you know, because what what happened to me this year
was I didn't
account for that, okay, I'm was finally doing press and interviews again. I
launched six companies this year. I shot 250
episodes of television this year. I launched my foundation this year. I've shot 35 episodes of my podcast this year. I'm
all of the I launched a consumer feedback group called the machinist that are consumer collaborators inside my venture studio.
Like, I hired, you know, seven or eight new people. You're talking about,
like, this excessive
amount of work. Now keep in mind, I did all of that with only 30% of my time because I would never compromise
my balance. Right? I would never compromise the time with my wife, the time with my family.
And what I ran into now was that capacity issue where I I would not compromise my balance, so I had to start making mega trade offs. Right? Like and the trade because it was not but the trade off was not going to be at the expense of my balance. It was going to be at the expense of what I could do in the allotted time that I worked.
And that forced me to really recognize capacity
and then drive everything into hiring a bunch of new bodies and and and fast track everything
from automation to optimization
to pull back from that capacity
in order to allow myself to get back in a more comfortable rhythm.
Because even though I was fully balanced in in my health
and and my family and my work and all these these sort of essential balances that we think of, I still had pressure on that 30%
because I had packed it so tight that I I didn't take on anything else and drove everything to automation, released that pressure,
restructured my schedule with my executive team, restructured the org chart of my business to a flat org chart, then they did daily
or every Monday half hour meetings all day with every executive to keep everything flowing and organized.
And going into 2020,
I've just cleared Tuesdays for only execution.
That way, I have fully organized Mondays,
and then I have fully cleared Tuesday to allow me to get caught up, breathe, free think, and only now set meetings
inside
the remaining three days of the week. Only now
inside the 30% that I allot
for work.
And It's in
and there's it's so it's very impressive. It's very interesting. I've taken a day now, Wednesdays, where I I don't schedule any appointments and,
uh, except with rare exceptions.
And I'm amazed at the value of that day to me, to be able to just to do things, to actually do deep thinking,
uh, and to not be so reactive even with great things. You can be reactive even with great things. You used the term mega trade offs. What's a what's a mega trade off you've made this year?
Yeah. You you know, look. I'm I'm
I've tried not to get to the point
of,
um, the mega trade off. Right? Because because
since I'm I'm I never traded off for my family time or my health time. I stayed more committed to it than ever. You know what I mean? And Mhmm. Because in the past, what would I do? What's the first trade off you make?
It's always health.
Always health. It's always meditation.
It's always,
uh, the gym.
And then what's the first thing what's the easiest thing to go when you're exhausted all day?
Diet. Right? Like, you just wanna sit and veg and be out of it. Right? And and so to me, by by by staying so getting so good at leaving balance, I was jammed in that capacity. Now what are my trade offs? My trade offs are
I'm going to push the book I wanna do out a year. I'm going to I'm not going to shoot it. I was, uh, offered a a a a business television show that I stopped.
My trade off was no longer inside
my life,
but it's inside my allotted time of the business that the time that I would be willing to do for business. And the beauty of it is you have so much you know, I have so much clarity in all aspects of my life as it relates to the things that would ever put pressure on you, fine especially my financial design. Right? Because there's at at a certain point,
like, finances will always put pressure on you unless you design a way where they don't. And and I did that by,
like, creating a plan in 2015
that I was going to push
all of my
net earnings into cash
distributing
non correlated real estate.
So I get to live a life I wanna I wanna time out for a second because I want to get separately
to the business systems. Let's just wrap up on the rhythm of existence and then move to that. Does that work? Sure. Sure. Um,
okay. So just other aspects really quickly as part of your rhythm of existence,
uh, you go through the principles that you want to, uh, you want to run your rhythm of existence by. You want them to be predictable,
adaptable, balanced, and relentless.
You go through framework rules.
Uh, each of these things, intention, measurement,
triaging,
time allocation, energy allocation, three sixty review, cadence.
I mean, each of these have definitions and specificity,
success criteria.
Uh, you know, that's all part one.
Part two
is the rhythm of existence actors and roles.
What your role is, what your chief of staff role is, what your executive assistant does, what your personal assistant does, uh, what your DM team
does.
And and underneath there so that's part two. Part three,
I think it's part three, is tools and resource
management.
Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Doc, Calendar, Gmail, Dropbox,
you know,
goes through various living documents, the Hot Sheet, the living doc. Uh, I mean, I I could go on. You go through your relationship with Brie,
know, and and, well, my goodness, I thought I was further through the document than I am. I'm I'm, like, literally halfway through the document. I thought I was managing this better. Uh, you you go through a weekly activity management,
constants
within that weekly
event. I'm gonna mention some of the weekly haircut
to maintain a low maintenance and clean appearance. Like, that's the level of specificity it goes to. Do you have someone just come to you? Is this an obvious question? How do you make the weekly haircut effortless?
Yeah. So someone comes to my house every Friday at 09:30. You know? Every Friday at 09:30. So every single week, you get your haircut.
Yeah. Because to me, think about it. It's like it's like, okay. Now it's it's like like, you just it's one thing now you never have to think about. You know what I mean? It's like, it doesn't matter if you're going out. You know? And because it's like, what do you do otherwise? Like, oh, it's been a while. Now you're now you're worried about it. Now it's taking mind share. Then you gotta schedule it. There's all these things. It's like it's a perfect example of as many of those things that you can do
release you from mindshare and give you more freedom. You know?
A 100%. You've you've got a weekly
wife breakfast.
A weekly weekday breakfast is scheduled every Thursday morning that you're gonna be with Brie.
A weekly date night,
dinner date night and movie,
you know, set same time every week, uh, weekly date night.
So, yeah, that's two date nights a week. That's what you're describing there, isn't No. I do I do Friday I do Thursday movie night, Wednesday breakfast day date. I do
Sunday sushi night.
I do Tuesday night talk night. I do Thursday. We meet with all of our assistants, and we have a family living document hot sheet that we go through every aspect of the family.
I then we I then we walk through my calendar for the month to make sure we're all on the same page.
Every single morning, I sent her an email
at six in the morning of everything that I'm doing that day and what it means to me along with a love quote so she never,
um, has visibility on everything that I'm doing. Now all of this, it just it it started with, like, hey. Let's have two date nights a week. Then it then it's like, okay. That's not enough. And all of this optimization
with this relationship,
all of this,
when she's down, I'll still clear a day and take her to the movies in the afternoon.
Right? Like, I still this is I'm still incredibly adaptive
inside this rhythm that becomes as intuitive and normal to the whole system,
but I don't I'm not rigid with it. Right? Like, I will still allow flexibility
depending on how I'm feeling or how how my wife's feeling.
Because at the end of the day, it's still about making sure and protecting the energy
of the house and the family above everything. You know? So there's two parts when I listen to all of this. I I see on the one side,
I could imagine wives everywhere listening to this going, well, I'd quite like if my husband
had time for breakfast with me once a week scheduled,
two date nights, sushi night, you know, talk night, and so on. That that part of them would welcome this.
Uh,
there's another side that I could see many
people listening to this going back to your comment about it, uh, seeming exhausting,
feeling like, is is she really the center of it, or is this machine,
you know, owning it? How is your relationship with Brie right now?
Yeah. I mean, look. I have an extraordinary
relationship with my wife. You know? And and I like to say, like, she's never even, like, really made me mad.
Like, this entire optimization
is based off of, like, managing
her emotions and feelings and making sure that she's always feeling in in
in the best place and feeling the best about about her life and our life together.
And and look. It's it's it's it's been created based off of her needs. And then it'd be like, she I we feel like we don't even, talk. Okay. Let's you wanna make Tuesdays? We we don't watch any TV and always make, uh, talk at night. Like, okay. Perfect. It's like, like, we only go out at night. Alright. Let's do let's do a breakfast day day. What do wanna do with that? Then it's like, I feel discon alright. Let's get the the family together and do with all the assistance and do a family meeting every week. Right? It's like you're this is over, you know, going in seven years of marriage
where I just keep optimized. You gotta think another thing that that I refer to it as tuning a Ferrari,
but I also
we also have a therapist come to the house every other week.
So it's like now we have a neutral party. Even though we have this extraordinary
relationship that I literally I put on as the most precious thing in my life because I know how rare this type of love is,
and I'm I'm going to defend its purity at all costs. Right? I put it above everything.
And
but we still bring in a neutral party
so that, like, you can have these conversations that, like, you you there's just some conversations that even though you're so close and have such a great relationship
that you just can't have without some sort of support system between you that has allowed which in turn continues to keep the energy of your home and your relationship,
um,
constantly being,
like,
like, taken care of. Right? And then asking her to to get the score each day,
she gives me ones and zeros all the time. Like, if I like and it's like and it'll be, like you know, it'll be something, like, so nuanced, but I don't. I never question
why she feels the way she feels. And and that's what I think is probably the greatest
growth gift that I was able to give her at this age and this level of optimization
that don't don't bother arguing with her about how she feels.
Just help understand
why she feels that way and try to not make her feel that way again. And if you just think about that fundamentally,
that's what's allowed our relationship to grow so strong
and and
stroke so good over the years we've been married.
They get now she's giving you Brie's giving you a score of one or two on a 10 scale. On a what scale?
Yeah. On a 10 scale. I look. She gave me a zero.
She gave me a zero,
and I had we had to rewrite the sprint and give you a better.
You know, I wanna say that we got I got the zero because I'm
like, she had been traveling and came back the next day, and I was in my normal day rhythm.
And then I stopped and watched football
instead of working
on a Sunday. And and
to her,
I chose she had been gone for two days, and rather than spend time with her and her, she felt like I chose football over her. Mhmm. So I can be like, what? You were going two days. Like, you know, it's like, I don't you know, like, I there's no reason to argue it.
I just I'm in it's and so what did I do to optimize it? I told my assistant, okay.
From every now on when she's out of town, this is now the third time where when she's gotten back, she's felt like all of us didn't miss her. And so I'm like, from now on, when she's out of town, put it let's go through it on the calendar and make sure that, like, we I take her to lunch that day and make sure that we do a family activity
so that we don't otherwise, if we try to just live our normal lives when she comes back,
it's then she's going to feel like we didn't even miss her. And, again,
nuance.
Feel it. Make the change. Add it to the system. Like, then in that week with that week with my assistant, we go through it and lay out on what I'm gonna do on Sunday when she comes back. And people could say that's crazy,
but that's what I wanna continue to do to have this highly, uh, amazing,
beautiful relationship
with my wife. You know what mean? If if if I had Brie on and by the way, I have her on speed dial right now, so she's about to step into this. What would she say about all of this? Would she say like, what's her honest view? Does she say,
man, I love that system, or does she say, man, I wish I could throw that system out sometimes?
What what would she say of all of this?
No. I I I think, you know, uh, she's transitioning this year to starting to collect her own data. She won't show it to me, but how she feels about her life, work and health, zero to 10, to begin to create that qualitative awareness. But here's what she would tell you.
I know how much he absolutely
loves and puts his family first and how committed he is to our relationship and our love and our lives.
That's what she would tell you. Right? Because at the end of the day, the system's irrelevant.
Right? Because the system falls away and is in the background. It seems like the the system's driving everything,
but it's not because the system was designed.
It was automated.
It was optimized, and now it's intuitive.
It's just the rhythm and the flow of life. So it doesn't feel like it's even in her world. You know? Well well and something I wanna say about that is that everybody
has
a complex
system right now, and the results they're getting people listening to this, the results that
you're getting
in your
relationship with your spouse, with your children,
you know, with your health, with your sleep, with your life. I mean, you have a system already, and it's highly complex,
and it's highly inter interdependent
and interrelated.
And so it's not like building a system like Rob has created
suddenly is more burdensome.
It's just more by design. It's more deliberate
instead of this
complex system being created by default. And so in a sense, I can see how
both systems really become
quite invisible over time.
It's just whether that system is built in your favor
around the things that matter most,
around the relationships that matter most, or whether they're built in some other form,
uh, without such purpose. Am I getting that right? Tell me where I'm wrong.
Hallelujah.
It is the cornerstone of my entire philosophy
that is the machine mindset. Right? It is this idea that you are a living system whether you like it or not. You just are have an entire system that is disorder by design.
You basically have grown and evolved into because what do we drive? We drive everything
to the least amount of effort as possible.
So if you're driving if you design it poorly and then drive it to an effortless state where it's out if you become extraordinary
at eating chips every night and watching Netflix,
guess what? The the ramification
of the lack of disorder in the in in your health and your entire happiness in your system, you've created it. And and the further along you get,
the harder it is for you to redesign your systems to actually find harmony
and have balance and create the output of your ideal life. And then most people have to, like, try as hard as they can to try to get it to work, and then they give up because it takes too much effort because there's so much drag on the systems. And I really believe
you cannot change
one part of your life without changing all of it. And and it's just the reality that people think they can just go to the gym and be healthier. Oh, I'm gonna spend more time with my wife, and then my relationship's going to be good. It is like, if you do not have
the harmony in all of your life systems,
then master your life systems,
then grow your life systems and optimize them to have the output of what?
The highest quality of life possible.
Because the the output of your system is essentially the quality of your life.
And and some people
just build a system that is so out of balance and and so
lax that has so much just, like, wobbly dysfunction in it that they they literally
no longer believe it is possible
to to find true happiness or a high quality of life. So they just spend a lifetime hunting pockets
of happiness
in between being in a constant state of drudge, you know. Uh, now
I wanna say hallelujah to you because because that's it. Right? Essentialism is an ecosystem
or nothing.
You know, it's it's all about all the interrelated pieces and and how to it's a living organism.
And so how to keep
tending to it. It's more like it's more like a garden
than than a single goal. Okay. Go get that. There's so many ways in which you could you could go get a single goal and actually violate all the things that really matter to you, uh, because they all get dropped at the same time. But go. What is everybody has the exact
same goal.
It is to live a high quality,
effortless, happy, harmonious existence.
We all seek the same thing,
true happiness. But the problem is
it seems so elusive
and complex,
and we dabble in it and and never seek to design what would actually achieve that for us, then that's what I did. In 2015,
I defined
what my ideal life
would be, And then I designed all the parts of it, and then I grew into it.
And guess what? I live it. And it took me five years to get there. And when I got here,
it's like,
wow.
You are overwhelmed
with gratitude. You are overwhelmed
with ambition and motivation because guess what? I can now see so much further than I ever thought possible once I reached my ideal life.
And and my ideal life keeps evolving. And because here's the thing too, you don't you don't go straight to a goal.
You expand
into a goal. And here's the other aspect of an of of a goal. You you can put a couple milestones
to your big achievement, but it reveals itself about of a third of a way through.
A third of a way through when you're really hoping to achieve something, you finally see everything you actually have to do to achieve it. And at that point, most people either quit
or they buck they get extra motivated because now there's the clarity that's needed to achieve it. But you expand
into life,
and life reveals itself.
But I'm telling you as living proof, when you design all those systems
and and around growing into the ideal version of yourself and life and then you do it, boy, you are you are truly living
an alien like existence.
You know what I mean? You that's just the
perfect way to bring that about.
One of the let me just sort of
end this episode on this point. When I think of people watching,
you know, ridiculousness
and you say that. You say it perfect.
Ridiculousness.
You said it. Oh, yeah. But I love the way you say it. The the when I think about people watching that and and and this is obviously not a knock on the show because the show is what it's supposed to be, entertaining,
funny. We people need that escape, that laugh when life gets burdened. But when people see one there,
I just don't see anybody
connecting the dots back to the conversation we've just had.
You know, people oh, hey. The, uh, you know, a
skater,
uh, you know, skater boy who built this life and so on. But but the level
of
precision,
the level of thinking,
the systems that have been developed,
I mean, this is this is this, let's say, is the real
Rob Deereck.
Yep. Any final thoughts for us? Yeah. I mean, look. You you know, the the beauty of life is
you get to continually evolve and make it whatever you desire.
Right? And and I,
in the process of choosing to do that,
I've actually
began to put together a philosophy
of how to create any life that you desire that I believe,
you know, twenty years from now will be my great legacy, and people won't even think about the fact that I shot 250
episodes of television this year,
uh, and have the number one
cable television show by consumed minutes with 55,000,000,000
minutes consumed this year,
albeit with 4%
of my time,
uh, in an entire year because I tracked it,
they would never connect it. But it's the beauty of life
is that I continue to evolve and have no paradigms
on what is possible for me, which in turn will allow me to be a great,
um, sort of inspirational
person to look at of truly anything is possible. If this kid quit high school at 16
in Ohio and became a professional skateboarder, then went on to,
uh, be this, uh, television star and then this super successful venture capitalist and entrepreneur,
and really at the end of the day,
his greatest achievement is the pure happiness in heaven on earth that he created with his life,
anything is possible. You know?
That is beautiful.
That's
what's essential. Thank you so much for being on the show, Rob.
Great. Love being here.