Ep 16: Storytelling, Identity & the Art of Showing Up ft. Rob Kirkpatrick

What if the most valuable thing you bring to the table isn’t what anyone can see? In this episode, Dustin sits down with Rob Kirkpatrick — founder of Kirkpatrick Brands, veteran media professional, and one of Lafayette’s most trusted voices in strategic communications — for a conversation that moves from tulip fields in Amsterdam to the conference table, and everywhere in between. 

Rob spent nearly two decades in television and radio, from Fox in Dallas to CNN in Atlanta, before coming home to Lafayette and building something that can’t quite be put in a box. And that, it turns out, is exactly the point. Like the tulip farmers who bulldoze the flower to protect the bulb, Rob’s built a career on the conviction that what’s underground — the relationship, the trust, the story — is always worth more than what’s on the surface.

From losing both grandmothers nine days apart and finally stepping into therapy, to learning the difference between professional decisiveness and emotional availability at home, Rob gets honest about the gap between projecting confidence and actually living it. He unpacks what radical candor felt like for a Southern hospitality guy in a Silicon Valley startup, why he wishes he’d let himself be 22 and stupid a little longer, and what a farmer cutting open a tulip bulb in the Netherlands taught him about business, legacy, and the work no one ever gets to see. He also shares the family traditions that have quietly shaped his daughters — from New Music Tuesday to navigating airports at six years old — and the Acadian flag pin he gives away to anyone who compliments it, a little wink to his grandmother who did the same thing her whole life. 

Faith. Family. Fulfillment. — this is The Elevation Room.