First, they hit the gym hard. Real hard. Then, after we shut down highway that runs past Rushmore, they raced the winning craft from Soapbox Rhode Island (a giant calculator called “The Numerator”) down it numerous times to gear up for the race in Denver.

Have you ever wanted something so bad you were willing to bike 900 miles through the Rocky Mountains to get it? Me too.

I should preface this article by saying that is it really geared toward people working in marketing and/or advertising, and more specifically, for those with creative roles within those two industries. Having said that, if you’re a bead maker looking for your dream job and need some inspiration, I don’t want to exclude you so read on. All I ask for in return is a hemp anklet.

My dream job. That’s exactly what I was looking for when I applied to Red Bull a few years ago.

This job was mine I told myself. “This is I ME.” I knew it. But I didn’t want to just convince Red Bull to interview me. I wanted to convince the company that it would be complete lunacy not to hire me.

So I hatched a plan – I would create an “experiential application” of sorts. I would bike from Phoenix, AZ to Denver, CO for a job interview with Red Bull.

At the time, I wrote on my blog:

When I told a friend I was planning on doing this, he asked me, “Why?” I responded by saying,

“Because nobody else has.”

I like to think of myself as a thinker. I’m a big idea guy who likes to scale down plans, not up. When I heard about the job opening for which I applied, I knew I was going to have to do something different to get noticed. I have a friend who works there. I had heard how progressive Red Bull was. They hadn’t managed to hold the majority share of the energy drink market while hundreds of competitors came and went by sticking to the principles in Branding 101.

Red Bull is a fun, creatively bold company that thinks outside the box, even though no one who works there would use the cliché’ “think outside the box” because to do so would be thinking inside the box.

It’s a company that thinks differently. A lot differently. I knew I had to, too.

Sure, I could fly there. My resume is probably good enough to get me an interview without pulling this stunt. But this isn’t a stunt. It’s a lesson in branding. Only in this case I’m the product.

And this isn’t Jojo the Clown’s Energy Drink. It’s Red Bull – the Yankees of energy drinks, minus the overpaid pitchers. I could tell the hiring manager what makes me a dynamic, adventure-minded maverick who loves a good challenge and thrives on orchestrating big ideas, or I could show them.

I’m going to show them.”

I lept into action. I sent the hiring manager a letter asking him to remove the job posting from Red Bull’s website because I was biking to Denver to claim it.

I created the website BiketotheBull.com (no longer live) to document the experience. I made sure the hiring manager found out about so he knew I was serious.

I bought a touring bike and started training and planning. I didn’t know if the hiring manager would hold me to my pledge, but in the event that he did, I wanted to make sure my quads didn’t fall off somewhere near Moab, Utah.

My “experiential application” worked. I scored an interview with Red Bull. I wasn’t asked to bike to it, which was both mildly disappointing and breathtakingly relieving at the same time.

At the end of the interview process, I was offered the job. My dream job.