Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Tom Bilyeu: Use Your Pain to Build Your Empire (Part II) REPOST - 111

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

Tom Bilyeu is the founder and host of the viral talk show Impact Theory, where he sits down with some of the world’s most influential and inspiring individuals. In part two of his episode, Tom shares how to build credibility with yourself so that you can adapt to new levels of success. Watch or listen now to discover why your success as an entrepreneur will multiply once you learn how to embrace your pain...and use it to fuel your growth.    “I have a chip on my shoulder, rage in my eyes, and fire in my belly. That’s the level of work ethic that I have.”  - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover:   2:45 - What Tom does every morning to build credibility with himself 6:52 - How an 8-year-old from Los Angeles taught Tom the power of commitment and mindset 15:59 - How to use stories to impact people who are antagonistic to change 20:07 - The power of self-awareness and facing your pain when building your empire 32:11 - How to channel your rage to push through the hardest times as an entrepreneur “Doubt is one of the greatest gifts people can give you if you have the stomach to improve.”  - Tom Bilyeu   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @tombilyeu   Watch Impact Theory here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnYMOamNKLGVlJgRUbamveA     Buy Man Up: https://manup.com/   Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow YouTube: https://youtu.be/t321QFVZDSM

I really try to spend 80% of my life in the beautiful things, the things that I'm trying to bring to the world, the lives that I want to touch, the way that I want to empower people. But the reality is, for whatever reason, the way that the human animal is constructed, pain has overcome most acutely, not long term, but most acutely through anger, through rage. Hey, friends, welcome to The Empire Show. This is an inside look with co-founder of Quest Nutrition, Tom Bill Yu, and this is part two. Now, if you have not listened to part one, I want you to stop. hit pause, do not go forward and go back and listen to last week's episode of the Empire podcast Inside Look with Tom Bill you because everything we say moving forward is not going to make sense to you. If you have listened to Part 1 with Tom Billu, then welcome.

Let's proceed. If your life is about a goal and that your life will sort of stop to have meaning when you reach that goal, like you're in real trouble. So my thing is I just want to improve every day. So if I improve today on, you know, like take impact theory, our revenue is a lot less than it was a quest. But I'm improving every day and the company's getting bigger and we're growing and we're having impact. And so it's like I feel just as jazz and sometimes more so about that than I did at Quest. But Quest was awesome.

I mean, it feels great. It makes for a great intro when people get to say, you know, grew by 57,000 percent. It's crazy. And the reality is the, you know, being valued over a billion dollars, if you play it smart, you go. from being rich on paper to being rich in real life. And money is, in fact, one day I need to do a whole podcast about money because people don't understand money. And I didn't understand money.

It's why I wasted six and a half years in my life. So here's a guy who says, oh, I wasted six and a half years in my life chasing money. I'll never do that again. But then also says money is more powerful than you think. It just isn't what you've been told. So here's what people think is going to happen. I know because it's what I thought was going to happen. People think, oh, I feel this way about this rich person.

I idolize them. I'm blown away. They give me the chills. I look at what they have. And I just think, oh my God, that's so amazing. And they think the way they feel about that person, they'll feel about themselves if they had that money. And it just isn't true.

Why? So, well, that's fascinating. The why is because the internal dialogue that you have about yourself is based on credibility and self-worth. And those things are so intricately linked to earning credibility with yourself in a dark room. Nobody knows you're there. It's you by yourself thinking about yourself.

And money won't do anything. You'll say things like, yeah, I'm a fraud. Like you'll give every excuse about why you got it. You know, I didn't really this, that or the other. For sure, that's what is going to run through people's minds. Unless you've dealt with those issues going up to it, you've earned credibility with yourself. You said you were going to do the hard things. You did the hard things.

You show up for yourself day after day after day. Then all of a sudden, when you get that money, you go, I earned that money. and then people can say any fucking thing they want, but you knew what you were doing when your alarm went off at 4 a.m., and you either got out of bed or you didn't. You knew, like, this is how I play it now. I have a rule that I get out of bed

in 10 minutes or less when I wake up. No matter what, I don't use an alarm. It's a whole other story, but I don't use an alarm. When I wake up, as much as I want to lay in bed, I don't, I may wake up at 2 in the morning. If I wake up at 2 in the morning and I've gotten at least 5 hours sleep,

then I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less, period, simple as. Now, nobody would know. could lay in bed for an hour. I got up at three. People would still be like, oh my God, you got up so early. I could lay in bed for two hours, no, no, no.

They'd still think I got out of bed early. But I would know I was full of shit. And the next time I say that I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less, I wouldn't feel what I feel right now. I have the chills. You see it on my eyes? So now the reason that I have the chills

is because, Pedro, when I say I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less, motherfucker, I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less. It doesn't matter who's watching. It doesn't matter what's going on. So I have credibility with myself. If I say I'm going to go to the gym, I go to the gym.

If I say I'm going to work on something I'm going to work on. If I say I'm going to get it across the finish line, I'm going to get it across the finish line. It's that fucking simple. And I have that much credibility with myself. So when the money hit, it was so fucking fascinating because I went through the saying where it wasn't like, oh, I was slowly accumulating wealth. It was, I'm building this company. It turns into a billion-dollar brand in five years.

So in five years, I go from, not clipping coupons because I was making better money than that by then. But I go from like a normal sort of salary to, holy shit, I'm worth, hundreds of millions of dollars. And so I'm hitting refresh on my bank account because we'd taken an investment. We'd sold some of the piece of the company. And they're like, the money has been wired. So now you're just like refresh, refresh, refresh on your banking app. He's want to see it. Right? And then boom, in one single refresh, all of a sudden I have a lot of commas and zeros. Do you take a screenshot? I think I actually did.

My man. When I saw it, my wife and I were in the gym and I was like, and she just goes, and we're freaking out, right? And then I was like, but what's so weird, I don't feel any different. And then my wife said, what are we going to do today? I was like, what do you mean? I'm going to work.

Like, it didn't even cross my mind to do anything other than business as usual because that's who I am. And my identity is to be driven for improvement. That's it. So, cool, now I'm super wealthy and that's going to let me do things that I otherwise wouldn't be able to do,

but that's not who I am. And so, who are you? That's like what matters. And if you believe in yourself and you know that you're going to do what you say you're going to do, you can lose the money and it won't matter. Conversely, if you think you're a pile of shit and you know that you don't follow through and you don't believe in yourself, all the money in the world is not going to change that. True.

So what I'm hearing you say, and this is a belief system that I've always had, and this is the reason why I always say I have a chip on my shoulder, raging my eyes and fire in my belly. And that's the level of work ethic that I have. And whether I was poor, broke, or the position that I'm in now, which is just tremendous wealth and I'm very blessed for it. The internal self-talk that you have now is the internal self-talk you will have then when you're rich, when you have money.

The difference is what is your internal self-talk? Because if you are talking about I'm a piece of shit, I'm a fraud, I'm a hypocrite, I'm this, you're only going to be that person with money and still never feel satisfied, which is why, as you said, someone will look at somebody with money and put them up on a pedestal and go, wow, they're just amazing humans. But that person may have done the internal work, or they might be faking it and going behind closed doors and going, shit, I'm dark, I'm depressed, I'm anxious. But I highly would encourage you just as a friend to do that episode on money.

I think the way you articulate is unique and you have a gift. And it would be a disservice to all of us if you didn't do that episode. So I'm going to shift gears real quick to impact theory and then I want to learn more about Tom. Yet another pivot. Boom. Right? Now it's impact theory.

What is the purpose of the show that you're doing out of your massive living room? Yeah, so to answer that question, I have to go back to when I was 18. I got accepted into USC, but not USC film school. I wanted to go to film school. And so they say, look, you're more likely, statistically speaking, to get into Harvard law than you are USC film school. So, like, kid, stop taking film classes. You were never going to get in. How did that make you feel?

To be honest, I respond well to doubt. So when people doubt me, it makes me want to prove them. them wrong. So I think that doubt is one of the greatest gifts people can give you if you've got the stomach to improve. Now, if you don't have the stomach to improve, it feels like a death sentence. So they told me that, and I thought, no, no, no, you don't understand. I'm going to get in. And so I went and found one of the guys in the admissions committee, and he would let you join him for lunch. And so I joined him for lunch, and I say, look, I got a 990 on my SATs. I took it twice. You guys want a minimum of 1,300. How the hell do I get in film school

with my SAT scores? And he said, oh, SAT just stands for. for a scholastic aptitude test. It tells me how well you're supposed to do in college, but you've already missed the window as an incoming freshman anyway. So the next window is as an incoming junior. By then I've got two years of seeing how you actually did in college. I'm not even going to look at your SAT scores. So he said, look, if you get good enough grades,

he's like, I'm not even going to read your application. He's like, I'm just going to let you in. And I was like, OK. So I locked myself in a room for two years and just got good grades. And in the middle of that, one of my teachers said, who wants extra credit? And I was like, mother.

I want extra credit because I need straight A's. Sure. So he's like, cool, we're going to send you into the inner cities because USC is literally in the ghetto in a way that if you've never been there, you can't fully understand. Well, the running joke is University of South Central. Yeah. Literally. You are, you're a little oasis in the middle of a horrifying neighborhood.

It is a horrifying neighborhood in like seven miles in all directions. It's crazy. True. So I'm there. The second you walk off campus, you are literally in South Central. You're in the worst school district in the country. So I go in and they're like, you're going to be tutoring kids. And I'm like, okay, so they give you, of course, the most problematic kid.

This kid named Roshan. I think he was drug and alcohol impacted. He was just a mess all over the place, stunted because he was on Ritalin, so tiny for his age and just angry. And he was adopted and had been in foster care before that. And so I'd never seen a human like this. I mean, it was just crazy. And so I would sit with him for the first hour and tell him, hey, you have homework to do. I'm supposed to help you with your homework.

He'd throw a fit, freaking out. yell at me, scream, getting fights. And so then I'd be like, dude, hours up, man, I got to go. And then he would cry and beg me. And he would be like, I'll do my homework. Please just stay with me. So then I was staying helping him. About week five, I realized he's trolling me.

This kid knows he can get me for two hours if he freaks out for the first hour and then acts like an angel for the second hour. And I was like, I'm kind of impressed. Like, it's actually a good strategy. How old was he? He was eight. Eight years old. Yep.

He was eight. I was 18. And I just thought, I'm kind of impressed. And so I come back. And on week six, because it was an eight-week program. You're supposed to warn them, hey, I'm only coming for two more weeks.

So I tell him, hey, Rashon, I'm only coming for two more weeks. He goes, nuclear, dude. Nuclear. And goes and, like, punches this kid that's, like, three times the size. I was like, what is happening? Literally, the kid was furious. What are you doing that moment?

I'm just curious. Like, he punched that kid. I was literally, like, what is happening? The kid was, like, almost as big as me. It was bananas, man. And so I'm, like, trying to get a hold of them. By now, I kind of know him, and, like, we've bonded in a weird way.

And so I'm, like, I want to protect him but I don't really understand what's happening. So I'm just like physically restraining him. And so I pull him away, pull him back, and I'm sitting down with him. And he's such a problem at the school that like when they see I'm with him, they're just like, they're not going to send him as a principal. They're like, fine, but you got to get him to calm down. And so I'm like, is this because I said I'm leaving in two weeks or I'm only coming for two more

weeks? And he says, yes. And I say, all right, dude, if you promise to do your homework the second I get here, as long as I live in Los Angeles, I'll help you with your homework. Fair? He agrees, and that turns into an eight-year relationship. Holy smokes.

So it was life-changing for me for sure, and really became deep. Like, at one point, unfortunately, and I want to kick myself every time I think about this, he had been adopted by a single mother, and she was beating him. And so it finally comes out. She was, like, chasing him down the street

with a baseball bat, And so he gets removed and put in custody of the courts. And they called me and make me the guardian to see him through the courts. So at one point, I was his legal guardian, helping him get into foster care. And then I stayed with him for a couple of years in foster care. But then they just kept moving him farther and farther away. And I was broke at the time and couldn't afford to drive two hours. And so we ended up losing contact.

But that, like, planted a seed in me very, very deeply because this kid was extraordinary, but his life was determined entirely by the zip code he grew up in. And I just thought, well, this is not, like, it didn't sit well with me. So flash forward, we're at Quest now. And I still have Roshan in my mind, like, is sort of a fresh part of what makes me meet. And so we had an opportunity, we're hiring like crazy, and we're in South Central. And so some absurd percentage of people have felony convictions. And so I put word out on the street, even if you had a felony conviction, I would still consider you

to be an employee if you're willing to bust your ass and, you know, all the normal things. You have to interview and all that, but it didn't matter to me. And so I told everybody, I don't care who you are today. I don't care where you've been. I only want to know where you're going and what's the price you're willing to pay to get there. And so we had all these like ex-convicts, people with tear drop tattoos, like the whole nine, man. It was fucking crazy. And like, you wouldn't recognize me from that period of my life because I had to be alpha on

alpha on alpha to just establish, like, because I had crips and bloods working on the same line together. It was crazy town. And this is one of those things I can make all the statements in the world. People can dig into that pass as much as they want. This is actually what happened. It was bananas. And so anyway, during that period, I'm like, again, these people are extraordinary. Some of them far smarter than me. We had this one guy, former drug dealer. When I say this guy was an entrepreneur of the highest order, this guy was an entrepreneur. He was telling me about how you have to know what undercover cops, what cars they drive, when they change shifts, where the cameras point, He didn't call them employees, but how to deal with your runners and your dealers and all the stuff.

I was like, dude, this is like straight up entrepreneurship. I was so impressed. We had a bunch of people like that. We had one kid that almost went to prison because he refused. He knew. He literally watched somebody attempt a murder. And then when the police are there, swarming the scene, all that, he steps out his door just to go to his friend's house. And they grab him.

And they're like, you match the description. So he almost goes to prison because he refuses to rat because he said, look, I would have not gone to prison, but they would have killed my family. So he's like, what good does that do? This kid was willing to go to prison. That's some diehard shit. So I'm seeing these people, I'm like, these people are amazing. They're some of the most incredible people I've ever met.

And I just kept saying, the next Einstein is somewhere in Compton right now. But they're never going to be found. They're never going to have the kind of breakthroughs because they don't believe in themselves. And so one after another, I saw these amazing people, and I would ask them this magic genie question.

Magic Genie is about to show up and you're going to grant you one wish and one wish only. You can wish for anything you want, but it has to be for you. You can't cure cancer, bring somebody back from the dead. It has to be for you. What do you wish for? To a person, they all said the same thing.

Now, what are the odds? Okay, they're there for a job, so money's on the mind. They're going to be, like, in a certain vein. I get it. But they all said the exact same dollar figure. Do you know what dollar figure they said? No, cool. One million dollars.

Pedro says, it's a fucking magic genie. You could ask for a trillion dollars. You could ask for a money printing machine. You can ask for anything you want, and you ask for a million dollars? Why do you think it was just a million dollars? To them, that was a billion. It was a trillion. They didn't think any bigger than that. And that's when I was like, okay, this is a problem of frame of reference. Their frame of reference is so small that a million dollars to them was like the craziest ask they could think to make a magic genie.

And I would even press them. It's a magic genie, motherfucker. You sure you want a million dollars? Yes, I want a million dollars. So I was like, wow. So how do I get people a million? more empowering mindset. So I started Inside Quest, which is now Impact Theory, the show. And I thought, I'll just tell them. I'll look straight into the fucking camera. And I'm going to tell them the answer. I'm going to tell them how to think. I'm going to tell them what books to read and it's going to change their lives. And it did for 2% of them. And I thought, what do I do for the other 98%? Because a whole bunch of them started in like this book club and they were reading all the books and just one by one, they all fell out, fell out, fell out, fell out, because it is the mental equivalent of telling

somebody who wants to get in shape, eat less and exercise more. Do more sets. you'd be just fine. And the truth is, it will work, and it will work every time. But most people won't do it. And so I thought, all right, we have a problem here where they're getting an ill mindset handed down generation after generation, because of where they grow up and the people around them that they see,

and they don't have any one to tell them very simple things about how to think and think big and all that stuff. And social media didn't exist, and so I didn't know how else to give it to them. And so then when I tried social media, what we now call social media, and it was only impacting about 2% of the people, I realized this doesn't scale.

And so I thought, how would you impact somebody's mindset if they're antagonistic to change? And the only answer I know is mythology. It's storytelling. And it's what we've done for the millennia that we've been a species. We tell stories. And those stories encapsulate how you should think,

how you should act, who you should admire, what behavior you should have in the face of fear, what courage is, bravery, all of that. And we just pass it on, pass it on, pass it on. But then at some point, the stories started to break down, and people didn't see them as real anymore, and they were no longer passed down with the, like, and you should be like this.

And so I want to bring that type of storytelling back where you don't have to believe it's true, you're going to know very much that it's not a true story, but that it's going to have the kind of impact that the Matrix had on me or that Star Wars had on me. And so the way I explain it is Star Wars and Yoda led me to Taoism.

Taoism led me to a growth mindset, and a growth mindset helped me build a billion-dollar company. And so I want to have the single-minded tenacity to only tell one kind of story, a story that empowers, the classic heroes journey over and over and over from a thousand different angles so that nobody anywhere on this globe can ever say that they got to adulthood without encountering an empowering mindset. Huge.

So I've had the good fortune to be interviewed by you on Impact Theory. The level of research that you do on all your guests, one of my favorite episodes is still David Goggins and how you were able to. to get him to share in ways that I haven't heard him share on most other interviews that I've heard him on. What is the end goal with impact theory? So I do think the two things need to coexist. There are people that will go to the mental gym.

And if I'm honest, like I so love that relationship of seeing that moment of awakening in somebody where they just get it and they got it, like you could really just tell them and they're like, boom, right there, I'm with you and they're change as a human. extraordinary and it's one of the most amazing things I've ever been a part of. And then we all have a certain skill set that we have been working on, whether on purpose or accidentally. And one of the skill sets that I've been working on since I was, God, I don't know, eight is verbal ability. And so that's always been the thing that I got like strong returns on. Every ounce of energy I've ever put into my verbal ability has come back to me

tenfold. And so now living in a time where you can literally put a camera on you, and if you can say something in a compelling and persuasive way, you can change people's lives, fucking count me in, man. So that I do because of that 2%, and because I love it, and because I'm good at it.

And then I think that uniquely, it allows me to then draw parallels to narrative. So I can tell you a story over here, and then I can tell you what it means for people that get down like that. You know what I mean? So most people are only ever going to watch this story. They're only going to watch a TV show or a film

or a VR experience or play a video game. But some people, they're going to join me over here. And that's where it gets really interesting. And that's the goal of impact theory, is to get more of them to join you over here? Well, I would love that. The goal of impact theory is to pull people out of the matrix,

to use my words, to give them an empowering mindset. I don't care which side they're on. If they get it from watching the movies and the TV shows and reading the comic books, I'm all for it. If they can get it straight up, just me direct to camera or doing an event or something like that, I'm all for it. I have no preference as to which lane.

I just want to use every avenue. I have. Fascinating. I want to shift gears for a moment and talk about Tom. What makes you so self-aware? Like you are truly, and I've had the good fortune to be acquainted with, make friends, connect with lots of people. What makes you so damn self-aware? It is one thing. When something really hurts, I don't run away from the pain. I look at it and go, okay, I don't want to feel this again. I have done something to create this pain. And, Once you make that connection, this pain is a result of me, my behavior, my belief, something, and you go inward to find the solution, the inadequacy.

I use that word a lot because I think people get really paranoid to feel inadequate. And I'm saying, lean into that shit, homie. Like at all times in some area of your life, you're grossly inadequate. And so it's just a question of, are you going to put the energy into fixing it or not? And that will come down to whether you're willing to look at it or not. So I stare nakedly at my inadequacies. So I was a dumbass in high school. I was a dumbass in college.

I'm trying to be a little bit less of a dumbass today and try to be way more sensitive. But every time that I get feedback from the world that I've done something and gotten like a result that I didn't want, I'm perceived in a way that I don't see myself, I let it hurt. That's the reality. I let it hurt and then I solve the problem.

That's interesting. Most people don't let it hurt. Correct. Most people find ways to justify against it. What do they have to do to be able to become so self-aware? You ready? Ready. So there are ways to train the self-awareness, but it ultimately comes down to feeling the pain.

So I'm going to give you a story. And once you can embrace this story and tell it like it's your own, you're already there. I wrote an article one time, and it was my gift to the world. I honestly, I racked my brain for what's the most important thing that I've learned. And I thought it would be just universally well received. And it was the most maligned thing I've ever written in my life. And I thought, wow, I was still... What does the same mean?

I really don't know that word. I love that you said that, and I'm just like you, I would ask if I didn't know. Maligned is like people hated it. They just threw heaps of hate on top of this fucking thing. And that was about how, if I got hit by a drunk driver, I would blame myself. and not the drunk driver. And people were up in arms. So I thought, well, I have to ratchet this shit up.

How can I tell it even more crazy? Because if you're not hearing me there, I'm going to make even more noise. So let's say that this is actually true. My wife is British. Now let's say that she were at home with her mother in London, in the bedroom that she grew up in. The doors are locked. The alarm is on.

Her mother tucks her in. She's safe and sound. Right then in that moment, a meteorite comes screaming through the atmosphere, crashes through the roof and kills her. Whose fault is that? Now, if you don't know me, you're going to say, it's dumb luck, divine providence, fate, it's nobody's fault that is absolutely false. But that's not what you believe.

But really, truly, and I'm not saying this to get people's goat, I really believe what I'm about to say. It is my fault. The reason it's my fault is I know that there's an organization that track what are called near-earth objects. They're trying to find some way to knock them off course, whether it's a planted nuclear explosion, lasers, whatever it's going to be, they are trying right now to find a way to stop things like that from happening. Now, I know they exist.

I know where they are. I've never sent them an email with ideas. I've never sent them a dime of my money. I've never called them to give them encouraging words. Nothing. And I think that makes sense because I think the likelihood of my wife being killed by a meteorite is vanishingly slim. So to put my resources towards that doesn't make sense. But if she is killed by a meteorite, I'm not going to waste time blaming fate, divine providence, whatever,

because I know I could have done something and I chose not to. Now, once you take ownership of your life to that level, you cannot help but progress because you're never giving your power away. You're never looking beyond yourself. You're never looking anywhere other than inwards to find out what you could have done differently. And I don't feel badly about it. If my wife died, I would mourn deeply the tragedy of losing the greatest love of my life. For sure, I would be devastated beyond measure.

But it wouldn't make me feel badly about myself that I didn't do something about it. And that's what I want people to understand. This isn't about beating yourself up. It's not about victim blaming. It's about retaining your power. It's about looking for ways to improve. And if I had to sum up why I think we exist, it is to improve.

That's it. Humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. We are designed to adapt. Now, if you know that you're designed to adapt from the fucking ground up, like all that stuff about, oh, it's junk DNA, and we have 20,000 genes that encode traits, but an onion has 40,000. Like what the fuck?

It's not junk DNA. It's epigenetic signaling. That's what makes us great. is it's not like we have all these different genes that are going to express themselves. It's that we can titrate the amount that that gene expresses itself from all the way off to all the way on and in a bazillion different combinations.

That's what makes humans so amazing. The woman that swam the bearing straight literally turned her white adipose tissue into brown, thermogenic adipose tissue by exposing herself to cold. That's fucking crazy. You can't do that with a cheetah. They just freeze and die. Humans adapt.

So if we can agree that humans are the ultimate adepatose, then all you have to do is say, cool, I'm a human, I'm meant to adapt, but I have to put myself under that stressor. But I'm not going to put myself under the stressor to get the adaptation response if I'm so fucking busy trying to feel good about myself for being right or good or smart or whatever, but instead just feel good, you're a human, you're willing to learn, make that your identity,

I'm willing to grow and adapt and push myself. But first you have to accept that you're not yet good enough. That may be the most empowering phrase in the English language. I'm not good enough yet. Yet. There's what you just said here touched on two specific books that you turned me and my wife on to. Book one was in a basket mindset. Great book.

My wife and I listened to it over and over again. There's psychosyberetics that we've listened to over and over again. Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. Great book. I believe even a better book than his book that everyone. knows him for. Think and grow rich. Thank you. So mindset was one book. How did you discover that book? And why is it that you give it away in these baskets when people do the impact theory show? So mindset is the most important book in the English language. It is the foundation of

everything. I don't even remember how I found it, but sadly I found it after I developed a growth mindset and just didn't have the words for it. And I think somebody just said, oh, read mindset. And I thought, whoa, like that's such a great title. And then read it. and was just utterly blown away by it and literally lamented that I didn't have it 10 years ago when I was like stumbling through all this stuff. So I just live in this like fear that people just never read it. And so they don't have a growth mindset. So that's why we give it out and everything. And if people have already read it, hopefully they'll give it to somebody else.

Well, it's a brilliant way to give it out because the people that you give it out to are people who have tremendous access. And therefore when we read it, all of a sudden we become that pebble to our tribe. and so you're doing a massive, massive service with that book. It was Cheryl DeWitt. Carol Dweck. Carol Dweck who wrote it. The other book that I got to start off by telling you this. You realized my wife went to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Biola.

Wow. She has a degree in Bible studies. Everybody who comes out of Biola minors in Bible studies. And we're having dinner together, right, in L.A. and you suggested a book called The Power of Myth. This book has completely changed my wife's perception, my perception on, and we don't need to go too far into religion, et cetera, but I can tell you this, that it's completely changed our perception

on the higher power that be. How did you discover the power of myth? What did you think about it? Yeah. Why do you share it with others? Like so many things in my life that started with Star Wars. So George Lucas said that he had worked with this guy named Joseph Campbell to tell the perfect story. And I thought, Joseph Campbell, I've never heard of that guy.

Let me look him up. And lo and behold, he has this book called The Power of Myth, which was done in an interview style, which really spoke to me as a slow reader, somebody who struggled with that. And so I picked it up. I read it, and this is probably a couple years before my marriage, before I got married. I'm reading this book, and he's talking about the power of mythology and why myth is so important and why it's so universal, how cultures that never interacted tell the same stories under different guises, but like it's the same general arc.

I was like, wow, that's really interesting in this notion of like having to empower yourself, having to go from that scared, weak, alone, afraid, to going on this death-defying journey only to come out the other side, essentially an adult, right? It's that, the coming-of-age story. But like in a way, back in the day, where it was done in a way more hardcore way. And that resonated with me a lot

because I feel that was one thing that was missing from my upbringing where my parents loved me so much, and they wanted to protect me from everything. And so they literally, I'm wearing a shirt because this is what I had to learn in my life. So I was as soft as soft comes. and nobody said, man the fuck up.

And it would have been brutally hard to hear. And it would have broken some fragile part of my ego back then, which would have been good. But everyone was so afraid to do that to somebody, and I get it, that it was never done to me. And so part of the sort of asininess of me in high school and college was that. I just, I didn't own myself. And I was afraid of everything.

And so reading that book and understanding that, ah, there was this whole mechanism for how many millennia where you took a kid out into the woods and you kicked his teeth in, literally, or you circumcised him in front of the entire village with no anesthetic, and he had to scream a warrior cry without crying or whimpering. You just did all this, like, crazy shit to let him know, hey, you were a child then, but you're a man now, simple ass. And he was talking about Joseph Campbell,

was talking about how even marriage he thought that one of the reasons that the divorce rate is as high as it is, is all the rituals have lost their punch. And there's nothing to show you that you're a different person when you get married than you were before. So after reading that, I decided I wanted to get ritualistically scarred as a part of my wedding. And so I did, which was amazing.

And it reminded me that I was a different person before I got married than I was after. And it's just continued to reinforce the mindset and mentality of what it is to come into yourself, to own yourself, to take responsibility, and to understand the journey that we're on. that you don't develop into a fully functioning adult by accident. You really have to work at that shit.

And understanding the mind and the brain and to put yourself in ritualistic settings to read stories as ways to live, to connect with other members of the tribe, as a way to influence yourself and to set values and beliefs and all that stuff. And I think that all too often, we feel like, well, in a modern society,

like, that's all just BS. That was good to get us here, but it doesn't really matter now. And it, like, that's so false. It is so fundamental to who we are. And that's why all these remote cultures tell the same exact stories. Nuts. And so that was an eye-opening process for us. We were already, it's funny, we already started to question, even my wife coming from the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, we already started to question some things. And so that book just brought so much clarity. Highly recommend those two books, mindset and the power of myth for those watching and listening. But, and all the way.

also I would maybe wrap all that up with the outwitting the devil by Napoleon Hill. If you can just read those three books, boy, talk about game changers. Tell me, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Is it rage? Is it darkness? Is it this intense focus? I smell what I have and I love it. I don't know how to define it when people look at me.

They go, there's this thing about you. There's this thing about you, Tom. What is it? Because you articulate so well, and I want you to say it. What is this? So my thing is beauty and rage. And I really try to spend 80% of my life in the beautiful things, the things that I'm trying to bring to the world, the lives that I want to touch, the way that I want to empower people. But the reality is, for whatever reason, the way that the human animal is constructed, pain has overcome most acutely, not long term, but most acutely through anger, through rage.

And they've done studies, really fascinating. You force somebody to submerge their arm in an ice bucket. And at first, like, nah, I could do this all day. Five or six minutes in, it's excruciating. And what they found was if you had to be silent, there was a certain average of time that you'd leave your arm in. But if they let people swear and demonstrate anger, they could leave it in for 30% longer. 30%.

Like, think about how massive that is. And that just rang so true to me. Because in those moments, like to give you an idea, when I transformed my physique, I had no muscle and I needed to add muscle, I used to, I feel bad. my poor wife, but in the gym, we'd work out at the same time, and I'd see her across the gym working out, and I would look at her with so much rage, anger, and hatred. And she was like, why do you look at me like that? And I said, because I'm imagining someone trying to rape you, and I'm the only thing that

can stop them, and I'm not strong enough to do it right now. And the anger is what I need to do that extra set, to keep pushing myself, to go hard, to really tap into something animalistic. We all have it. We all have the propensity for that. And I think it's nature's way of protecting us that in that moment that you have a response other than fear. You're going to have fear, but what can you click into? Can you click over into the animalistic instinct? And the only way that we talk about it in

society is mama bear. Like you get that mama bear and people get it, right? They get it like I'll do anything to protect my kid. But that same thing, that same level of aggression and I will dominate no matter what self-sacrificing going all the way. No one does that. Think about that moment. No one does it with a smile. That's fucking pure animal rage man. But that is like a tool we've been given and to not to have to have into that's crazy, but to live there is also crazy. So if you're spending too much of your time in the rage, in the anger, it's going to corrode your life. So it is ultra effective in these acute bursts where I'm tired, man, I'm fatigued. I am like to my core, to the point

where you're thinking, I need downtime for me too. In those moments, I don't think about the people I'm trying to help. Like, that's who got me into that position. I thought about them and I I push and I push and I pushed and I did way more than most people thought was possible. And I just took myself to the absolute brink of exhaustion, trying to do something rad. But then, if I really want to get it across the finish line, in that last little bit, just for a moment, I'm going to tap into full-blown rage, and I'm going to think about the people who want me to fail. I'm going to think about the people right now. The chills again.

I'm going to think about the people who hate me. I'm going to think about the people who doubt me. I'm going to think about the people who actively want from my destruction. and that I will not under any circumstance allow that to happen. And in those moments, that's the only thing that will get me that extra little bit is to go into the darkness. And it's just human nature. And for people to not acknowledge that is to miss a massive tool.

So eloquently put, so fucking eloquently put. I knew you could. And I just want to say, I feel the same way. Period. I feel the same way. So I'm going to finish off with this last question. And then this last question is something that I ask all of our guests who come on board with this inside look on the Empire show. If you've got a young man, young woman who says, look, I know I'm meant to be different.

I know I'm not supposed to be like everybody else. I'm a square peg. They're all round holes. Whether it's entrepreneurship, whether it's athleticism, whether it's I want to change the world, like our mutual friend Peter Diamante's wants to do. And he or she is standing in front of you. You have one lesson to impart on this person to impact them on their journey because you're never going to see them again. And what is that one lesson? You're hopelessly average.

And once you embrace how wonderful that is, you can take your life in any direction. Humans are not blank slates. We all know better than that. You come with some pre-wiring for sure. We have slightly different dispositions. I think the personality tests are pretty interesting. But the reality is you're fucking average, man. And so if you want to do something extraordinary, awesome.

That is for you to do. That is yours to take. You can do anything you want. You could be the most dominant. and this, that or the other, whatever it is. You can go fucking terraform Mars if that's what you want. But don't think, for one second, you have to believe that you're special

because you're not. So it just comes down to how much work are you willing to put in? Because Elon Musk, if he were a lazy fuck, he would get nothing done. It wouldn't matter how smart he is. They did a study one time, or an expose, and Einstein had 160 IQ. Maybe it was 180, but it wasn't more than that.

The smartest man in America right now is a 220 IQ. at the time of the expose, it was a bouncer in a bar. Because his frame of reference is fucked. So he doesn't do the things that he needs to do in order to get the result that he wants to get. So the reality is being average is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter. As long as you meet minimum requirements,

then it's just a question of, do you know who you want to become? And are you willing to pay the price to get there? And if you're willing to pay that price, you can do anything you set your mind to. But most people don't believe in that. They don't believe that they can learn. Because they don't believe they can learn,

they never put in the energy because they don't think the effort will be rewarded. So I would say, you're a human, man. You already won. You're an adaptation machine. That's what you do. Go put yourself under stress. It's the only way we adapt.

Brilliant. How do people find you? At Tom Bill You everywhere. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. And my last name, unfortunately, I spelled weird. It's Biazum Bravo. I, L-Y-E-U. Tom, Bill, you, I want to thank you for your time.

I want to thank you for the true, honest, to goodness, impact you're making. I had no idea the depth of you, and I can't wait to get to know you longer as a friend. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having me. Hey, thanks so much for being here for today's Empire Podcast show. We would love for you to do a quick little favor for us. Just go to iTunes and give us a five-star rating. Leave a comment, share it with your friends.

And if you're interested in growing your business faster, go to bedroskoolion.com, forward slash empire fill out the application to see if you're a good fit for our empire mastermind group