Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Master Your Mind Like a CEO – Part 1 of an Interview with Tom Bilyeu

Episode Date: July 5, 2017

It’s easy to underestimate the role the brain plays in shaping our perception of circumstance. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen are joined by Quest Nutrition co-founder Tom Bilyeu, for a discussion on mission-based businesses and why it’s important to know what you’re fighting for.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Well, welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We are so excited to have our new friend, Tom Bilyeu, who I got to meet at the big success event in Dallas. Tom is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, a company that is now valued over a billion dollars. I see Quest bars everywhere. I helped to support that company by the cases of Quest Bars that I have eaten over the years. He's also the

co-founder and the host of Impact Theory, which Tom will tell us about. Tom's mission is the creation of empowering media-based intellectual property and the acceleration of mission-based businesses. I mean, clearly, Amen Clinics and Brain Warriors Way are mission-based. No question. Personally, he's driven to help people develop the skills they need to improve themselves in the world. And he is a forever student. And Tom, we just couldn't be more excited to have you on the Brain Warriors Way podcast.

Thank you, guys. I am excited to be here, and I certainly had the good fortune of telling Dr. Amen this in person, but you have had a massive impact on me, and it all started with making a good brain great. I am obsessed with the brain and reading that book and I've since read multiple others of your books as well, but that one really kicked it off for me and the whole notion of automatic negative thoughts and

really has been a very powerful, powerful notion in my life. So I am truly honored to be here today. So we're going to break this into three episodes. So the first one, I want our audience to get to know who you are and your journey to health, because I think anytime they hear about someone's journey to health, their takeaways for them. And then the next one, we're going to talk about ants and how to squash the automatic negative thoughts, which is just it's a critical life skill. And then we're going to talk about how mindset can change your life and business. So tell us your journey to health. As I watched you at Success Magazine, it was just fascinating. So tell people a little bit about

your journey. Sure. So I grew up in a morbidly obese family. And that was, you know, I honestly, it was invisible to me. I really took it for granted. I didn't think much about it when that it's the whole concept of David Foster Wallace. This is water. You know, for me, that was water. And eating a horrific diet was just part of how I grew up. And so I loved the food, so I didn't really think anything about it. And I was always a little bit chubby as a kid, but, you know, compared to a lot of people in my family, I very much got off light, not because I was making better choices. I just, you I just got lucky. And it wasn't until later that I really started to think about, from a diet perspective, the implications because I saw

so many people in my family struggle. And when I was about 12 years old, I had an uncle that died of complications from his diet. And that was very, very sad. And seeing that seeing somebody who's a shut in and who doesn't leave the house and who really can't get around and just have sort of a high functioning normal life was very sad and left a lasting mark on me. And that was something that I thought a lot about. And then as I got older and saw my mom and my sister really struggling profoundly with depression, and that was the big thing. And you know, especially my sister really struggling profoundly with depression. And that was the big thing. And especially my sister, to watch her go from this vibrant, just amazing human being to really sort of closing in on herself and not being happy, not having the joy in her life.

And I just really became obsessed with the notion of what would it take to help her be happy. And I started going on my own weight loss journey when I went to college, where most people put on the freshman 15, I lost like the freshman 35. And was just Yeah, I was just really obsessed with doing well at college. Like it was the first time in my life where I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. I was taking a lot of student loans and was really just obsessed with getting the most out of college. And that, I didn't try to make any better choices, unfortunately, but just found myself in a position where I was working a lot, a lot, a lot. And then I was poor. So I didn't have access to snacks and soda and things that I had growing up. And so in that sort of accidental lifestyle change, really saw a big transformation in my physique. And I happened to bump into a girl that

hadn't seen me in several years. And she was sort of taken aback and said, Wow, it's crazy. I always thought of you as the chubby kid. And that was like this moment where my life sort of got knocked sideways. And I like sort of re envisioned my whole childhood because compared to my family, I was in such better shape that I never really thought of myself like that. So it was just really eye-opening moment. And growing up as a kid, I always knew that there were two things that would ultimately be true about my life. And that's one day I would be rich and one day I would have six-pack abs.

And I had no idea how I was going to accomplish either thing. But those were two things that I was really interested in making come true in my life. And so to cut a long story short, I start working out and start taking my health seriously and don't really understand at this point, much about nutrition, don't know who to listen to. And I'm sort of fumbling my way through things. And I remember my roommate at the time, his girlfriend, because I was eating red vine licorice because it was fat free. And I remember her saying, well, I think though, if you eat too much sugar, that it can actually become fat. And

I thought, that doesn't even make sense. Like how on earth would sugar become fat? Like they're totally separate things. And so that shows you where I started and end up meeting these two guys who become my co-founders at Quest Nutrition ultimately, but this was about a decade before that. And they were in great shape, really understood nutrition, understood human metabolism, and really became my first mentors with that, with working out. And that began a big journey there. And then at the same time, I really felt powerless in my life and didn't know how to get control of what I wanted. If I was going to make myself wealthy, the only thing I knew was there was something standing between me and that. And I began to really understand mindset.

And that and really beginning to struggle quite profoundly with anxiety led me to studying the brain relentlessly, reading as much as I could, discovering your work, Dr. Amen, which was very influential, especially in the early days of really just trying to grasp what the brain is and how it impacts us and how I should be thinking about it and protecting it like an organ and you know I mean just like all the things that that you really teach I had to learn and was you know I was starting from ground zero and and didn't understand just how much the brain controlled us and for me it really was the movie The matrix that gave me the metaphor that

I needed to understand to really understand the way that the brain was creating my entire reality. And once I had that concept of the matrix, which in the movie is, you know, essentially a virtual world that we're stuck in and don't realize it, but taking that as a metaphor for that's the brain and the brain is constructing this world, you know, it's in total darkness, total silence, and it creates this very believable representation of the world around me, but ultimately it's a representation. And so once I understood that, understood that it was this construct and I needed to really understand it. I needed to understand the way the brain worked, that it may have my best interest at heart, but it wasn't always telling me the truth. And that I needed to really dive into that and learn that I really just started

reading, reading, reading obsessively about the brain and beginning to formulate an understanding of that. And then that really led to the biggest gains, both physically and mentally from a health perspective for me was understanding the brain. And so that's become the root of all of my success, which I will credit really to reading and just understanding the way the brain functions. That's really my story of my path to health. Well, wow. I applaud you because you look really young. When you said they were your partners, but not until a decade later, I'm like, because you look really young. So that's impressive right there. But I'm curious. So you talked about your sister and your mother has your lifestyle change. You said you wanted

to impact your sister and her depression. Did it, did you have an impact on your family? Yeah. I'm, I'm very proud to say that my sister, since we launched quest has lost over 120 pounds. Yeah. It's, it's been such a beautiful and amazing transformation. But as you guys know, the real transformation has been psychologically, like just seeing her get into a virtuous cycle of food to start to feel better about herself to realize she's in control of her life, to see her start going to the gym and eating better and really taking care of herself and the way that makes you then feel optimistic and you feel better and your brain is functioning better. And, and that in turn makes you happier and you start making better choices. I mean, it really is just an entire all encompassing

virtuous cycle. And, you know, my sister owns that transformation. That is her. And she was the one that really gave me the words, you know, when I said like, how did this all happen for you? And she said, you guys were the first ones that really let me move towards something. You gave me food that I wanted to eat instead of just telling me to eat less and exercise more. And that was like the big win for her. So her thing was she loved M&Ms and eating M&Ms just put her in a great mood. And I mean, food is a powerful drug. And so for her, it was swapping that out with something that tasted like cookie dough, which was one of our early bars that for her was just a big deal. And so she said,

you know, now I have this thing. I want to eat it. I'm excited. It tastes delicious. And I eat that instead of my M&Ms. And then that turns into, you get those early wins,

you start losing weight, and then you just start making more and better and better choices until, you know, it's a hundred and twenty pounds later. So I want to go back to something you said, that being obese in your family was like water, that it really wasn't anything that sort of stood out as a problem. And as you said that, I just think about what's happening in our society. It's the norm.

That with two-thirds of us overweight, almost 40% obese, that it's becoming the norm. And people aren't upset about it. I have this great story of one of our best friends, Mark Lazor, who was diabetic, overweight. And when I watched him order chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy at dinner, we were at a conference together i asked him how tall he was six feet i asked him how much he weighed 244 pounds i calculated his bmi it was 33 normal is between 18.5 and 25 over 30 is obese and i'm like dude you're obese and he said daniel you're so cold. And I said, not nearly as cold as you're going to be when you're six feet under. And it shocked him. And the next month he lost 10 pounds.

And the next two years he lost 53 pounds. And he cut his insulin dosage in half. half, but so much of our world is living in this toxic level of denial that is literally damaging the health of our society. And you said one more thing that I really, really want to highlight because it's a big philosophy for us in helping people get well. And I love what you said. So we tell people there is no suffering and getting healthy. It's about abundance, but you have to replace, not erase. The human brain is not designed to enjoy deprivation. So what you did with your sister was brilliant, right? So she had to replace those M&Ms with

something else. You can't just cut stuff out. You've got to replace it with something healthy. That's what, that's what I do. I help people replace the things that they're removing with something that they will enjoy equally or more, and that's going to make them healthy. So what you did was perfect. And that was just brilliant. So I love that. Yeah, that's, it really is the strategy and you know the whole idea behind quest was okay our goal is to end metabolic disease um you can't tell people not on mass i mean just like what you're saying you can't tell them to eat less and exercise more it doesn't work really gotta exactly everyone knows that no one's doing it it's crazy right so that was our whole thing was we want to make food that people can choose based on taste, and it happens to be good for them.

That's really the only way forward because we know that people are going to eat for pleasure more than they're going to eat for sustenance. Address that. Be honest about that. Be real about it. I think that's the way the whole food industry has to go. No question. That's why in the cookbook I just wrote, there's blueberry muffins.

There's brownies. But they're grain-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, and they actually taste good. And they're sugar-free, so they taste good. People don't know it's possible. You have to show them. We all have a gift. Your gift, like my gift, is to help you were able to show people the possibility. And that's amazing.

I applaud you for that. That's just awesome. The growth was incredible. It was astronomical. Talk about that and how you manage the stress in your own life that goes with that kind of growth. And how you still look young and don't have gray hair. That's pretty amazing. Well, the gray hair is, let me tell you, I have no interest in growing old gracefully, so I dye the life out of my hair. So we'll just start with that for disclosure.

Obviously. So my thing is that, so the growth was crazy and it was 57,000% in our first three years alone, even more if you carry it out, you know, four and five years, just absolutely bonkers. And it really came down to a couple of things. One, the product was real and it worked. That absolutely bonkers. And it really came down to a couple of things. One, the product was real and it worked. And that's obviously a huge deal. And then two, we understood social media really before anybody else. So back in this, we started thinking about the company in 2009. Everybody was saying that Facebook was just a distraction. How's this ever going to be valuable

to a business? And we just understood, look, this is about community building. This is about people not have a megaphone and they can say something positive or negative about you within minutes of an interaction with your company and to a global audience. And so we understood the power in that. And we just so wanted to deliver value because we had spent such a long time really just focused on getting rich, making money, building a product that was fine, but it wasn't a passion. And I got so fed up with that that I literally went into my partners and I quit. And I said, look, I cannot do this anymore. I need to live a life where I feel alive. I need to be passionate. I need to be

helping people. I want to be driven by value. I want every day to be about coming in and trying to deliver value to somebody's life. That's just how I'm wired. That will feel good. I can get excited about that. And so they said, you know what? We actually feel the same. And so we agreed that we would sell the company and that we would start something new that was predicated entirely around building value, building community, doing something great for people, and really having a big mission. The whole notion of ending metabolic disease, we understood. That was a huge thing. And we thought it would take us about 25 years, just a really big mission but if we could wake up every day and come into work doing that we would love it even if we were failing and that concept of doing what you love even if you're

failing was so important it was so transformational for us that that really changed everything and if you guys know simon snack and his book start With Why, that whole concept is just so, so powerful to me that once you know why you're doing what you're doing, like to your point about stress, all of a sudden that becomes easy. Like you can deal with that. And I'm sure you guys have read Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. Yeah, one of my favorites. And that's like if you can survive a concentration camp

by knowing why you're fighting, by knowing exactly what it is that you want to make come true, you can do anything. So to be honest, I didn't feel a high degree of stress. Quest was a lot of work, and it was just an overwhelming amount of hours that we had to put into it. But I was thinking every day about my mom and my sister, and I was thinking about all the people that struggle like they struggle. And it was so real to me. And it was people that I knew and loved and didn't want to lose that, you know, you show up and you're putting that effort in and you feel like, wow, I'm really bringing value. And people are leaving comments like, oh my gosh, you've changed my life. And they're submitting these, you know, transformations. Like my sister's transformation was one of thousands of people

that wrote in and said, you know, I've lost a hundred pounds or 150 pounds. I mean, it's just unbelievable. So it gets really easy to fight the hard times when you know what you're fighting for. Well, your passion is, it's infectious. It's really cool. It's fun to see that. That's awesome. We are so excited. Well, we are going to stay with Tom and on the next podcast, we're going to talk about how to squash the automatic negative thoughts and how important that has been in his life. But it's a critical skill you need in your life as well. Stay with us. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We have a special gift for you.

It's an opportunity to win an evaluation at the Amen Clinics. All you have to do is subscribe to this podcast, leave a review and rate us on iTunes. To learn more about Amen Clinics and the work we do, go to amenclinics.com. You can also learn about our nutraceutical products at brainmdhealth.com. Thanks for listening.