Today we’d like to introduce you to Rob Fajardo.
Hi Rob, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up in New Jersey, and the first thing I ever took seriously was baseball. Baseball taught me the two things I still build everything on: you have to show up every day whether you feel like it or not, and you can fail seven times out of ten and still be one of the best in the world. That mindset carried me to Amherst College, where I got obsessed with the idea that people who lead don’t wait for permission. I read The Go-Giver and then found out the author lived down the road. So I went and knocked. That was the first time I realized proximity is something you create, not something you’re given.
In 2015 I studied abroad in Australia and stumbled onto Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World. It rearranged me. I came home and started Leave Normal Behind the same year, at first as a challenge to myself and a few ambitious friends: stop living on autopilot, become the best version of yourself, and create things that matter. It grew into a movement of events, content, and a community of entrepreneurs, speakers, and non-conformists.
In 2016 I met the founders of Fidget360 in their second week of production, before anyone knew what a fidget spinner was. I came on as an early investor and marketing partner and helped make it a global phenomenon through an influencer network that reached hundreds of millions of people. That put me on the map: Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, work with brands like Red Bull, Microsoft, DoorDash, and Lowe’s, and a lot of stages.
Then 2020 happened. That season pushed me from being a personality to being a builder. I stopped asking “how do I grow?” and started asking the question that now runs everything I do: What does winning look like?
Today I’m Head of Operations for School of Content at The School of Hard Knocks, where I support sales, marketing, client success, and HR for a program that went from zero to over $10 million in revenue in its first year and now serves more than 1,600 business owners learning to build their brands through organic content. I still run Leave Normal Behind, I advise founders on strategy and go-to-market, and I’m writing a book, What Does Winning Look Like?, that ties the whole decade together.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not even close to smooth.
The first struggle was identity. When something goes viral around you, people decide who you are before you’ve decided. I got labeled “the fidget spinner guy” and “the influencer,” and it took years to build a body of work that said something more serious. I had to learn that attention and impact are not the same currency.
The second was money and structure. A movement is a beautiful thing and a terrible business model. For a long time LNB had more meaning than margin, and I had to get honest about the difference between inspiring people and operating something that pays people. Learning operations, the unglamorous work of systems, retention, hiring, and cash flow, was humbling for someone who came up on stages.
The third was internal. Around 2020 I had to confront the gap between the message I was sharing and the life I was actually living. Closing that gap was harder than any business problem. It’s also the reason I have anything real to say now.
As you know, we’re big fans of Leave Normal Behind and School of Hard Knocks / School of Content. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Leave Normal Behind is a movement, community, and accelerator for people who refuse to live on autopilot. Since 2015 we’ve brought together entrepreneurs, creators, speakers, and non-conformists through live events, content, and advisory, with one mission: become the best version of yourself and create things that matter. What sets LNB apart is that we’re not selling hype. We’re building a practitioner community where purpose and performance meet, where the expectation is that you grow, you give back, and you actually ship.
The spine of everything I do is a framework I call WDWLL: What Does Winning Look Like? Most people and most companies never define it, so they chase growth that doesn’t fit them. My coaching, my advisory work, and my book all start there.
Day to day, I’m Head of Operations for School of Content at The School of Hard Knocks, the education arm born out of the “what do you do for a living?” street interviews you’ve probably seen. School of Content teaches business owners in every kind of industry (medspas, law firms, HVAC, real estate, fitness, financial advisors) to grow with organic social content. We hit eight figures in year one, serve 1,600+ members, and what I’m proudest of isn’t the revenue; it’s that we’ve built a client success operation that’s obsessed with people getting results, not just signing up.
What I want readers to know: I’m building toward something bigger than any one company. Through LNB I’m developing a framework of Philanthrocapitalism, and an instrument called the PACT, that lets founders engineer giving into their companies structurally and permanently, instead of promising to be generous someday. If you’re a founder who wants your success to mean something beyond you, that’s the conversation I want to have.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
Define what winning looks like before you start running. Every painful chapter of my life came from chasing a version of success I never actually chose, someone else’s scoreboard. Every breakthrough came from stopping, asking the question honestly, and then building toward that. Clarity isn’t a luxury you earn after success. It’s the thing that makes success worth having.
Close second: proximity is created, not granted. Knock on the door.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.robfajardo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rob_fajardo/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-fajardo/
- Other: leavenormalbehind.com, @theschoolofhardknockz
