Life By Design: How to Create Your Personal Operating System

How would you love to create and live a better life in a way that is designed by you, that is easy, fun, and crystal clear, and fills you with joy, freedom, and power? Sounds too good to be true, right? No. I want to introduce you to a concept of creating your own personal operating system. And this is about putting you first because success in life creates success in business. And you are the machine that gets to make it all happen.

And how it works is very similar to a computer, and this is the analogy that I like to give. For a computer to be the best computer every single day, it has a boot sequence of apps and programs that it starts up, aka its operating system that says, oh, boot, boot, boot. I am now a high performing computer. We can create the exact same thing for ourselves to design ourselves into the best version of who we want to be.

So what I want to do is start with this. Do you even have a life opt? Do you even have a life operating system currently? And really, there's four choices here. Number one, I don't have a system, aka I am currently living by default. Number two, I have a loose system. I don't follow it consistently and I get inconsistent results. Number three, I have good systems in some areas, but not all the buckets of my life. And number four, I currently have a harmonious, joyful and loving system that has me showing up as the ideal version of myself every single day, aka I am living by design.

I encourage you to ask yourself which one of those four levels are you currently at? Because if you're not currently at number four, living by design holistically in all areas of your life, I've got good news for you because there is a lot of opportunity for you to create a lot more of what you would love in your life.

So why in the world is having a personal operating system so important? And there's several reasons for this. Number one, because systems scale. If you want to have a better life, this is the blueprint for how you can do it. This takes you from wishing and thinking to action and doing it because you've got a system for creating everything you want in your life.

Number two, because it prioritizes you first. There's a fallacy in the world that we all wake up every single day and the first thing that we need to do is work or jump on social media or turn on the news or jump on the internet. The reality is when you prioritize yourself first, everything else comes afterwards and you will create a lot more abundance in your life.

Because number three, your personal operating system is about holistic success and this applies to filling up the buckets in all areas of your life. And this is an area where I've seen so many people who are successful in a few buckets of their life and for a lot of people, it's work and finances where, man, they're grinding and grinding and grinding and then they look and like, you know what? I don't really have a lot else in my life to show from it.

And I actually know this from experience because for more than a decade when I was in corporate America, I was someone who was work hard, play hard, but I did not have holistic success. I was not self-aware and I did not have a growth mindset. So I know what it's like to fill up only a few buckets of my life, not all of the buckets in my life.

Because number four, ultimately your personal operating system is about doing more of what you love and this helps you be in control of that. Because number five, ultimately this helps you create a better future and this will have a profound impact on your life, your business, and everyone around you.

And then last but certainly not least, the reason why you want to create this is because it is way better than the alternative of living by default. Who would not want a system and structure in place where you can create everything that you want in your life and you are doing it by design or you are completely in charge of this. And that's a beautiful part of this is it's not hard because you get to design it any way that you want.

And the way that I like to describe this is when I created my own personal operating system, Rob OS, it's like my world went from black and white to color. And it's really when I think back to when I first became self-aware, that was a similar moment where all of a sudden your vision, you're like, holy smokes, you can just see so many more possibilities for yourself.

Because what your personal operating system ultimately becomes is a belief system. It is the heart and soul of your life and your journey and you want to believe in your systems. And one of the things that I love is being very intentional about the inputs that I have. And Pittsburgh Penguin Bryan Rust was talking about the success of the Penguins and he said, we believe in our system. And this is something that rings true so often in the world of sports.

But imagine for yourself believing in the system that you have created for yourself, about yourself, about your future and everything you want to create in life. Because for me this is about commitment and lifestyle. This ultimately becomes a mindset, a lifestyle and a way of being. And the reason for this once again is because you get to design it and you've got all of the evidence because you have all of the steps and all of the things that you want to create in all of the buckets of your life.

So let's get to designing your personal operating system and how you can do it and integrate it into your life. And the way that I like to think about this is actually in a very simple manner of creating practical tools for yourself. I oftentimes use the concept of having a creator's tool belt where I'm arming myself with different situations or mindsets or ways of being and self-creating in life, and this is one of those examples.

So what I'll share that I think can best help you in this is giving you some insight into what my personal operating system looks like. And then you can say, hmm, what are the things that I like that I would love to integrate? You can go ahead and do so. The things that don't serve you, cool, you don't have to do anything with them.

Number one for me is core values. This guides who I am. These are my highest priorities, my driving force. They are the heart of who I am and it's why when you go to my website one of the first things you'll see when you click on the about me is my core values. My core values are foundational to my operating system. So if you don't have core values for yourself I'll encourage you to create them.

Because number two after core values for me is all about vision and clarity of vision. And it is very hard to create the things that you want in your life if you don't actually define what in the world it is that you want in your life. And this isn't just tangible things. This is all of the things internal, your mindset, your heart set, as well as external.

And for me, simplifying vision, there's really three ways that I think about it. Daily, hey, what is a perfect or a great day look like for me? Of course the word perfection in this one is all about designing, hey, if I lived my perfect day right now, what are one, five, ten things that I would love to do? You create that menu and then in any given day, man, I do any of these things, these is what would be included in my perfect day. And just having that standard for yourself, that operating system of what you would love more of in your life every single day on a daily basis.

Because the next thing that we can create is our three-year vivid vision. And this is something that this year was an absolute game changer for myself, where you look three years ahead and then you reverse engineer it. And once again you look at holistic success, all the areas of your life. So for me I was looking at anything from my wife to my son to my abundance of prosperity to exploration and play to how I feel, what I would love to create in each of those areas. And I highly recommend checking out the book Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold. Really helped me out there.

And the last thing that you can do around this is also creating a five-year vision. And there's various steps or questions that you can ask yourself around this to create clarity of vision. And the more that you live in your vision and your dreams, the greater the chances of you creating it because it's top of mind. So what we get to do is we can create a consistency practice every single day to live in our vision, to start creating those things in our life.

The next thing that I like to think about is my mindset, and this is how I think about things. And you can create a mindset by design. Because I know this because I did this, because I was not this person 13 years ago. And with this we're talking about self-awareness, growth mindset, positive mindset, having a yes and mindset which comes from my improv background.

And when you design and cultivate and curate your mindset in a specific way, now this is your lens of how you think about things in the world. And so much goodness comes from this foundation that you can start to add things. And when different situations come into your life, you've got the mindset that can create what you want in that situation.

The next part about this is around creating being and identity. And in Tim Grover's book Relentless one of the things that he says is everything is labeled number one because everything is most important. And that is certainly true in this. But when it comes to being and identity, this is number one. I mean, so is vision, but really the identity of who you are and who you create yourself to be every single day.

And for me this is all about the story that you tell yourself. Because the story you tell yourself creates your thoughts, your thoughts create your actions, your actions create your results. Therefore if you want to create anything that you want in your life, let's work backwards, and it starts with the story that you're telling yourself. So it makes complete sense to design the story that we tell ourselves, the most powerful version of who we are. And for me, I speak my declarations every single day. They are so important. They are foundational to who I am. So this is something that is number one in the personal operating system for myself.

Up next what we've got are habits and routines. And these are now the actions and the consistency practices and the things that we get to do every single day that help us do more of what we love. So I'm talking about a morning routine and an evening routine and a fitness routine. What are we doing for mindfulness or creative living?

And for a lot of people this can feel heavy or rigid or why are you not just working right out of the gate? I get it. But I'm someone who lives by design. I prioritize myself first, and because of that I love my morning routine. Not because it has to be several hours, because it gets to be. Because I love investing in my growth mindset by reading for 30 minutes first thing in the morning. I love meditating for 10 minutes because I believe in the power of mindfulness and creating space for myself, and journaling and free writing and getting what's in my head out of my head.

All of these consistency practices have been created over more than a decade of doing this work. And it's something that I encourage you to think about it like building a house brick by brick. You just don't say, I'm going to create my personal operating system and boom, I create all of this out of the gate. No, it's something where, cool, I want to integrate one of these things. All right, I'm doing it. Now I want to create another one and another one and another one. And why? Because you get to design it. What would you love more of in your life?

And one of the great benefits of this, which is the next part of this, is this creates a standard of action for yourself. So for me, in my creator's tool belt I've got games or tools that I play for myself that help me create more action designed around what I love to do and doing more of it. Because we live in a world where it is grinding, going from 40 hours to 80 hours to do more, more, more, more, more. I get it. I understand what prolific action looks like. There's a lot of different levers that we can pull here.

And there's a great book about this, 10x Is Easier Than 2x, and I recently read it and it really resonates with me. Because for so many people to create a better future they say, all right, well, I'm going to double the output of what I'm doing right now. So I'm gonna go from 40 hours of working to 80 hours of working. So I'm not going to be home as much and I'm not going to invest in my writing or my mindfulness or working out or hanging out or doing any of these things.

Instead the concept of 10x over 2x is all about 80 20 rule. All right, what are the things that I can do, the 20% that are most important in my life, that can create those results for myself? All of a sudden now we're using leverage. And for me this was all about what creating a standard of action is for yourself. I'm a prolific action taker and at the same time I'm impressed by people who do more with less. Once again this is the wiring in my operating system. You can create your own. But this is where you can create your own standard of action to do more of what you love.

And then the last thing I'll add to this right here, which I believe is one of the most important things in the world and one of the least talked about things at the same time, is your relationship to time. Creating a relationship to time where you're living in abundance, where it serves you, where time is a blessing.

And this is something that is so important for me and my operating system because I did not live this way for a large majority of my life, including a lot of time over the last 13 years. And it wasn't until I did some deep inner work when my son was born about two years ago when I realized the self chatter and myself around time scarcity and not having enough time was not serving me. I was like, yo, what's up with these thoughts around not having enough time? I do not like that.

So I created my four phases of time mastery to create a relationship to time that serves me, where I live as I am that I always have enough time, I am that time is a blessing and I am that I dance with time. And this is another thing that is part of my operating system because you will never hear from me ever, I don't have enough time. But as time is never the excuse because I come from a place where I live in an abundance of time.

So that's an example for you on what my personal operating system looks like. And it's something that for a lot of people they say, is this hard? Because that feels like a lot. No, this is not hard in the least bit. It's easy, it's fun and it's almost effortless effort, and it's fulfilling because you get to design it.

And that's the thing when you take the Lego blocks or the bricks principle and you say, all right, I am living by design, what would I love more of in my life? And then one piece at a time. Cool, I want to integrate that, I want to integrate that, I want to integrate that. What's the system? What's the system? What's the consistency practice? So we're not sitting here being like, you need to do this thing, because you're the one who gets to decide whatever it is that you want to do. So this is not rigid in the least bit.

The reason we create consistency is because we would love more of this in our life. And consistency doesn't have to mean every single day. You can think of this as a menu where you say, hey, in any given day, week, month, year, here's some things that I would love to do. It's all relative. And once again you are the designer of your own personal operating system, so live in that.

The key with this is just be intentional about it. Because so many people when they're living by default are not intentional about the things that they do. There's oftentimes the terminology of the rat race or being the hamster on the wheel. We're just going, going, going, going all the time. When you live by design you can slow down a little bit because you're intentional about every single aspect of your life, because you come from a place where time serves you and you get to do everything in your life.

And the beautiful part about this is this creates momentum in your life because it is sustainable and it is consistent, because that is the way that we design it. Because that's what your computer does. You push that little on button, it goes and it starts popping those things open for you.

And this is something where so many people are challenged by the concept of this because the world doesn't operate on this level. But I'm telling you, when you give yourself this gift of living by design, not just in a few areas of your life but in all areas of your life, because once you understand this concept, why would you ever not want to do this? Is it because you feel like you have to or should show up in a certain way? Well, if that's the case, that's a story that you've created for yourself that doesn't serve you. So drop that.

Because I encourage you to design this from a beautiful, peaceful place. Because when you do, you can be more efficient with your time and energy. You can be healthier and happier and create higher and more output in your life. Because what you're ultimately going to do is design this and build it backwards for yourself. This is what living by design is. And when you do this you will evolve and continue to create unlimited potential in your life because you're in complete control of every single aspect of your life.

And there's a few questions that you might be thinking about or might ask yourself. And when you're thinking about creating your operating system, ask yourself this. What are the things that you get to do to make you a better version of yourself so that you have better energy, more clarity and a more balanced mind? And how are you going to get living or better at living in a more harmonious way? And just being intentional about asking yourself this question. If you're like, I don't know, great, that's the inquiry to dive deeper.

Another question. Do you have a system or process for insert whatever it is that you want in your life? Maybe it's the large buckets, your health, wealth, love and happiness. Maybe it's a morning routine. Maybe it's going to the gym or eating healthier. Whatever it is, just ask yourself, what is my system for this? But Rob, I don't need systems, I just do it. Cool. Well, I would encourage you to start seeing this as systems, because when you start to think in systems, systems scale. So if you're good at doing this in a few buckets, you know you can do this. So let's translate them to the other ones.

Another question you can ask yourself is creating a better future experience for yourself, how are you going to do it? A lot of people, they just like talking about it. But the best of the best in the world, and this is a 1% of 1% conversation right here, so make no mistake about it, what we're talking about here is mastery level stuff. You want to create a better future experience for yourself, how in the world are you going to do it? Once again, if you say I don't know, congratulations. Creating a personal operating system for yourself to create everything you want in your life, the joy, the happiness, the freedom, the power, all of that is possible for you.

So once you've created version 1.0 of your personal operating system, there will come a time in which you will move to optimizing your operating system and you'll be continually designing it to be better and better. And this is something that is an evolution, certainly as you begin to operate at higher levels.

And one of the phrases I use often is there are levels to this game, or get on my level. And I say these things because I know the work that I've put in, the systems that I operate on that allow me to operate at a certain level. And you know right away when you're around someone and you're talking to someone who is on your level, above your level, below your level. And now you understand the game.

And with this now you have opportunities to evolve and grow because every day, month, year is not the same. Circumstances change. And that's good because you've designed this in systems. When you want to evolve you can create new systems that serve you.

And another way you can think about this is you can also restructure your operating system. Because maybe you're going through a valley or some challenges in your life, or maybe you've designed some things that you realize and you say, you know what, this does not serve me. Cool, you've got the system. Discard what you don't like, add in some stuff here and boom, this becomes the new system that you're running on now. And maybe it's a system for just a season of time.

Another thing for you is the reason you want to create version 1.0 is because that's how you're going to create version 2.0, 3.0, 4.0. So you got to have 1.0 before you can start optimizing these things.

Because once we've created this personal operating system for ourselves, let's get to the results and the impact that this creates in our life. And quite frankly the answer to this is unlimited possibilities in abundance and joy and freedom and love and everything you want in your life. Because that's what this is designed for, because you are the one who gets to design this.

And I'm so passionate about this because this is how I live. Like I said, lifestyle, mindset, way of being. And I started from zero. I had none of this. No self awareness growth, no growth mindset, no consistent practice for my health and well-being. And if I can create this, so can you.

Because wouldn't you love to have a good life with high energy where you're taking control of all aspects of your life to where you can do more of what you love? And when your energy is at a higher level, oh baby, you're so much more clear. And this will transform you into a state of positivity and prosperity and allow you to create so much more personal freedom. And who wouldn't love to do more of what they would love in their life and know that you've got the systems to support you behind it? So you say, you know what, I am always good with this.

So I want to share this because number one, this has had a profound impact on my life. It's something that I coach on on a regular basis, I live on a regular basis, and I just had a conversation yesterday with somebody about this, so this was top of mind. And I said, you know what, I have not yet created this exact message for you, and that's what I wanted to do.

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