Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Tom Bilyeu, Co-Founder of Impact Theory and Quest Nutrition

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

This week’s conversation is with Tom Bilyeu, the co-founder of Quest Nutrition — a unicorn startup valued at over $1 billion — and the co-founder and host of Impact Theory.Why did I want to sit down with Tom?Tom is driven to help people develop the skills they need to improve themselves and the world.It’s not every day that we get to learn from someone who created a billion dollar business.I wanted to understand his mindset, his approach to leadership, and what he’s most hungry for.Tom is very clear about what he wants and what he believes in and that definitely is apparent in this conversation.In Tom’s words, “What I do is with a very high degree of intention. I am very much not stumbling my way through life.”I hope Tom’s clarity inspires you to spend your own time getting clear on what you want and what you stand for, if you haven’t done so already._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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it. That's the scary thing. They don't realize they have this narrative that's running on a loop and that it's totally disempowering. So that has been the primary driver for me is to really tend the garden of what I allow myself to repeat. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais and by trade and training, I'm a sport performance psychologist. And the whole idea behind this podcast, behind these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery, to better understand what they're searching for, how they organize their internal life, how they make sense of the world and how they condition and train their mind to excel. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of,

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Now this week's conversation is with Tom Ballou. He's the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, a unicorn startup valued at over a billion dollars. And he's also the co-founder and host of Impact Theory. So why did I want to sit down with Tom? He's driven to help people and the skills that they need to improve themselves in the world. And it's not every day that we get to learn from someone who created a billion dollar business. So it's flat out extraordinary. And I wanted to understand his mindset, his approach to leadership and what he is most hungry for.

Tom is very clear about what he wants, what he believes in. And that's definitely apparent in this conversation. And in his words, this is what he says. What I do is with a very high degree of intention and I'm very much not stumbling my way through life. So I hope Tom's clarity inspires you to spend more of your own time getting clear on who you are, what you stand for, what you want in your life, what your future hopefully looks like as you line up your thoughts, your words and actions across multiple environments. And if you haven't done that already, maybe you can use this conversation as a quick little ping, a little jump off point to be able to do that internal work. And so with

that, let's jump right into this conversation with Tom. Tom. Yes. Thank you for being here. Dude, my honor. Truly. Yeah. Awesome. So I had a great time on your podcast and you ask really difficult, wonderful, challenging questions. Nice. As it should be. So I hope to return the favor. I have no doubt. Good.

Okay. So there's so many places we could start. And what I want to do is give a quick background of your history. You know, I imagine that 90% of people that are listening right now understand, you know, where you've come from, but for some folks that haven't, um, so early days you were in tech, right? Yeah. Well that, that's sort of late days, like early days I was in film. That was like going to be my whole thing. And ever since I was probably 12, wanted to be a filmmaker. That was it. Knew exactly what I wanted. Um, had that interest early,

developed it into a real passion. So by the time I was in my late teens, it was, it was really all consuming for me and, uh, went to film school. That's a whole story. Uh, and then it was purely because I wanted to control the resources. And I met these two guys who would later become my co-founders in quest. And they said, look, you're coming to the world with your handout, man. And if you really want to make the kind of movies you want to make, then you're going to have to get rich and then you can make your own studio and you can do things your way. And I was like, that sounds amazing. And so I left, I was teaching film at the time, left that and they hired me as a copywriter and that was in the technology company. And so I left, I was teaching film at the time, left that and they hired me as a

copywriter and that was in the technology company. And so from there I got into technology, but it really started with just trying to get rich so that I could make film. Was it, so that was the idea? Was that where your primary driver was finances first then art? Oh, 100%. Yeah. I was like, I am not going to be a starving artist. That is so uninteresting to me. And from the time I was a kid, there were two things about me that I knew would be true. Now I grew up in a morbidly obese family and I was a little bit chubby by today's standards. Actually, that feels weird to say, because if you look at photos of me as a kid, you'd never say that. But back then, um, someone actually said to me, Oh, I was thought of you as the chubby kid. Once I had lost a lot of the weight. So what age are we talking about? Uh, from the time I was 12, 13 through, um, my, it was really my freshman year in college that I lost a ton of weight. So most people go to college and put on the freshman 15. I lost the freshman 35, um, because you were focused because I was so focused on film. So I just, I wasn't snacking. I didn't go out. I literally lived, uh, just head down working on projects for four years. So, I mean, it was just really, really an amazing and intense

period. Um, but yeah, so I ended up losing a lot of weight. That's when this woman was like, Oh, I was thought of you as a chubby kid. And I was like, what? And I replayed my whole life and was like, wow. Cause in my, my family was morbidly obese. So for me to be a little chubby, I just felt like I was super lean. Uh, but that made me realize, okay, maybe I wasn't quite exactly as expected. What was so early go back early, early days when you were, let's say six to 12. Yeah. Okay. Remember that phase? Yep. How did you start to think about yourself then? Was that you were the compared to your family, you were fit. Oh, in terms of body shape. Yeah. I didn't think too much about it to be honest at that point. Um, when you grow up around it, it's so

normal. So my family was heavy. My mom was heavy. My sister was heavy. My dad was heavy. Um, aunts and uncles were heavy. So literally when I was 12, I had an uncle who died of obesity related complications. So it was like, uh, that was just normal. Um, so I didn't really think about it to be honest. Okay. And then as you were rolling into the next phase into the college years, what'd you start to figure out then? Cause I don't give it a sense. I don't get a sense on the early days, like how your family structure was. So if your parents are morbidly obese and are they still alive? Yes. Both thankfully. Yeah. And so how is their health now?

Um, my dad, so there's a whole book change or die. Most people get told, Hey, do this one thing. Most people, they can't make that change. My dad could. So the doctor told him, if you don't get in shape, you're going to die. And so he on a dime, uh, ended up losing a lot of weight. I don't remember how much, but it had to be North of 60 pounds. Um, really, really turned his health around has stayed in reasonably good shape since that point, which was when I was probably 15. Um, and then my mom on the other hand has continued to struggle her entire life. Okay. So this is actually pretty interesting to me is that mom and dad had a similar type of eating pattern, lifestyle pattern, right? Yep. Then dad got some news that he was in trouble.

Yeah. Mom didn't get that news. Uh, surprisingly, I guess not, or it was never relayed to me. How about that? Okay. All right. So dad got the news. Then when you were in your formative years, you saw dad make a radical change. Correct. Okay. I see you as somebody who's make, has made decisions in their life and then has done whatever it takes to go get it. Yes. Right. And so that actually is a really bright line between those two experiences probably.

But I'd like to hear you talk about what that was like for you. And you might say, no, it was just like, I just saw my dad. It was no big deal. But to see someone make a dramatic change is actually pretty shaping. Yeah. It's really interesting. I didn't think of it like that at the time. And I was so on my own path of what I wanted to do. And my dad and I weren't close growing up. So it looking back, I'm always like, wow, that actually was pretty impressive. Um, and I, I think a lot about like how much of this is nature, how much is nurture, how much control do we have? How much are we hardwired?

And so it does make me wonder, seeing that my dad has a certain level of discipline that has manifested itself in that way. He was able to lose weight. And every time he puts his mind to it, he'll lose weight and he fluctuates. He goes back and forth, but I'm never heavy like he was when I was a kid. Um, but that is pretty interesting to me that he can do that. And discipline, I would say is like my superpower. When I set my mind to something, forget it. That's it. Which is something you saw your dad do in that small way at a young age. Cause it takes a lot of discipline to change lifestyle for sure. Yeah. And usually, so we talked about this on your podcast that, and I'd like to hear your response to it is that

an axiom that i found to be really true and to hold up in a durable way is that the reason we change is because of pain the reason we grow is because we get uncomfortable so it's the uncomfortable space is how we get better at something by reaching that capacity but when we get real with the pain is then at that moment we start to say, okay, now I'm going to make some real changes because I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. So did you have pain in your life at some point? Does that hold, does that axiom hold up for you? Oh, very much so. Yeah. Not necessarily around my body. Um, my body has always been a move towards thing for me. So like you and I were talking before we started rolling, I want to live forever. And that really, and, and I mean that in that I actually don't want to die.

Right. So, and so I thought that was a throwaway comment earlier. No, no, no, for real. That's like a central tenant in my life. Okay. Hold on. We got to pause because I want to get back to the first question, but okay. When I hear that, I really thought it was throwaway because it seems crazy. No, no, no, not at all. And, and at some point, probably in the near future, the first immortal will be born if they're not already. Now, obviously I hope that I'm of that first generation that really truly through medical science or potentially the uploading of consciousness, which is far less interesting to me, uh, than just rejuvenating this meat suit as they, as they call it. Uh, that would be my preferred method, but I'll take uploaded consciousness. Okay. But yeah, we're going to

like really derail if we got in that rabbit hole. Well, I don't want to go too deep in there, but why that as a motive, as a driver in your life, why live forever? So there was this book I read when I was a kid called Einstein's dreams, and it's a bunch of short stories. And one of the short stories is what if everybody lived forever? And in that world, people are bifurcated into two paths. Path number one, nobody ever does anything because there's always time to do it tomorrow. And path number two is the other people do everything because they can do everything that they've ever loved or been interested in. And that hit me like a lightning bolt. I was like, that's me. There's so many things I'm interested in that I really want to learn. And the only problem is I don't have enough time. And so I'm always having to choose between what path do I go down? What thing do I develop into a passion? What do I develop mastery over? Which by the way, like that really is just a major driver for me. Um, not just because I'm on your podcast. Like that's a thing. Mastery is one of the things that sits at the center of my life. And I find that process so pleasurable. It's like from a neurochemical standpoint,

it is absolutely intoxicating for me, the process of growth. So when I read that and I thought, Whoa, if I live forever, I would be able to pursue all of these things, which is incredibly interesting to me. So from that perspective, that's it. It is me moving towards that excitement that I feel to grow and learn and get better and to see the way that knowledge stacks on itself. Okay. You, there's a lot in there. You read Einstein's dreams at a young age. Cause it's a funky little book, you know, how did you've read it? Nobody, I like, I brought that up 50 times. Yeah. No one's ever read it. But it's not really an easy read.

No, I mean, well, how about this? It was so interesting to me that even if there was like some density of language or whatever, I don't even remember that. That wasn't part of my experience. My experience was, this is so interesting. Like these fascinating elements of time. How old were you i was probably 13 or 14 yeah okay that's young to get turned on to that book i don't that's not my memory of the book but possibly because i was i was an impossibly slow reader so i was not tackling dense books like i'm not the kid that read doskievsky yeah but it's not like an easy read. Like what's an easy read? Like The Alchemist, you know, or Way the Champion.

Yeah, those are easy reads. And I just remember being kind of funky and like interesting, but not game changing for me by any means. It's interesting. It's one of the books that stuck with me the most. But the book that changed my life was an easy read. It's The Gunslinger by Stephen King. So that book changed me at a fundamental level. How so?

It was A, the first book that showed me that people live by a code or some people live by a code, which then became just a tentpole thing in my life. And then second, it was the book that made me realize I'd like to read. And reading for sure defines my existence. Wow. So, okay. So you've got this driver for growth, this expression of mastery, uh, driver, you want to live forever and you love reading, right? That's one of the ways that you get better at things. Okay. And then Lakota, the Lakota way was one of those books for me. I don't know if you've had a chance. Yeah. So it's a, a book on the tribe, Lakota Way. And so the principles that people live by there that they live by is phenomenal. So, okay. Then I want to go back to dad for a minute. So you saw dad

do some game changing stuff. Maybe it was subtle that you picked up on that way as possible, but what is, you also dropped this hint that you, you and your dad were not close. What does that mean? Um, well, the gospel truth is as much as I love my dad and he's like, we've connected a lot as adults. If I had to reach inside his soul, he probably shouldn't have had kids. That was, um, he was very driven. So when I was young, he was at work all the time. Um, and then his real passion is cars and working on cars and I hated it. So his one opportunity to like really bond with his son. Uh, I, I did feel bad about this as a kid. I just hated it. I couldn't stand being around cars and like working on them,

but it would have been such a rad way to spend time with my dad. And looking back now, like understanding it with a fully developed brain, I so would have done it just to like, see him in his element, to see him having fun and be so passionate. Um, but at the time I did not, I wanted him to want to play video games or go ride bikes. And he wanted me to work on cars and it was just like two ships passing in the night. So we weren't like growing up. I felt like my family's amazing. But then as I got older, I realized, Oh, my dad and I actually aren't very close. Like I was super close with my mom growing up. Um, but it wasn't until I grew up that I could really connect with my dad and start to do things that he loved rather than just always ask him to

do things I loved. As you're telling that story, I'm thinking about my relationship with my parents and it's complicated as most adults in relationships with their adults, you know, it is a complicated process because sometimes we feel like children are around our parents, even though we're full adults. But at a young age, I was much closer to my mom. And then my dad was definitely working, ripping and running, working. And there was a miss in our relationship at an early age. So I'm always trying to sort out where the drivers come from for people. So what is your relationship with your dad like as it relates to your ambitions in life, the honest answer is cats, cat in the cradle. Is that the name of the song cats in the cradle? Um, I feel that all the time.

Like when I was young, he was really busy. And now that I've gotten older, I'm really busy. And so I'm so hyper aware that the cycle that I'm going to live is the nightmare of we keep missing each other. And one day he's just going to be gone. And that is just all too real for me. And the, the just gross, nasty truth is I spend my time the way that is important to me. And so I make time. There's no question, literally right now, my sister and I are planning a trip to go see him, but I only see him a couple of times a year. So it's, yeah, that, that, that is going back to wanting to live forever. It's, that's one of those things that I would really like to spend more time with, but the other things that I'm pursuing,

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And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. So how do you spend your time? Do you have a family?

I do not. So I don't have kids for that very same reason. When I think about where I want to allocate my time and energy, it just isn't to that. So I'm married and I spend time really on two things that are just so disproportionately big in terms of my time allocation, um, that they're essentially all I do. One, my highest priority is my wife and that bond, that marriage is insanely meaningful to me. And then number two is what I'm building, uh, which is impact theory. So that to me is, um, that's where I spend the majority of my time. So let's say I spend 80% of my time on that, which my wife is my co-founder. So there's a lot of intermingling there anyway, which is very helpful. And then 20% of my time

is just entirely focused on her and play and that kind of stuff. Okay. How do you guys play? Uh, well, we actually play video games together, uh, which is a whole thing, uh, that I can explain, but that you want to talk about bonding with your spouse, like do something. Yeah. A hundred percent. Cause we're on the same team. So we share this like objective and it's, we want to get better and push ourselves. And you've got this common enemy. You're blowing me away. Cause I'm not, I would have fit. I would have thought that you were something on fitness or some team on fitness, but not gaming. No, no, no, no, no. My wife is way into fitness. She actually loves it. Like whatever the endorphin rushes that people

talk about. Yeah. I don't get that. So I hate working out, hate working out. Now I reinforce it because I always say things like that, but the real truth is I hate working out. Now I do it five days a week, but I do it begrudgingly. And if I didn't need to do that for living forever is the number one reason that I do it. Number two is strength. Uh, number three is aesthetics. If, if it wasn't tied up in that stuff, I would never do it. You don't get any kind of buzz from it. None whatsoever. But I notice if I don't work out for sure, what happens? Cognitive optimization goes down. I'll just tell anybody listening right now, if you're not young, the thing that I promise you,

whatever back pain you have, knee pain you have is because you're weak. That's just the truth. And it's not because you're overworking yourself because you're underworking yourself. And if you got stronger, they will go away. So every time I get an ache and pain, I know I need to address it by getting stronger. So, and I'm glad that I found that out in my mid twenties when I really started lifting seriously. Okay. So you don't have an objective for sport. Of course not. Your lifestyle is more geared towards business development for sure. Impact theory, and then time with your wife, the relationship there in reverse order, right? Yeah. In importance, it's wife first, but in time allocation, it's business. When you think about the word balance, what do you think about that comes to mind?

That if you're going to achieve balance, it's by being extreme in both ends and that I don't put any stock in balance. I don't think about balance. I don't worry about balance. It literally is not interesting to me. What's interesting to me is how much do you get fulfillment out of what you do? If you're not being fulfilled, stop immediately. Like I always tell people, I may be the wrong person to take advice from for you. Like if you want to be a great parent and you want balance in your life, I'm not the guy. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with what you want. If it's fulfilling to you, if you are lit on fire with the way that you're living your life, you're doing everything right. You've already won. For me, the thing that lights me on fire, Michael, I'm not joking, is what I'm trying to build. When

I think about scaling, uh, an empowering mindset, nothing turns me on more than that. Okay. Well, me too. That's why I'm glad we're talking. All right. So, okay. So before we get to like how you're going to go about doing that impact theory is certainly about that. And so I've been watching what you've been doing for a long time from the days of quest all the way through. And it feels like you're waking up a giant with impact theory. Yeah. With impact theory. It feels like, uh, there's, there's a handful of people that can wake up giants and, um, feels like you're knocking, you're, you're getting to know the giant, if you will. And I don't know what's going to happen next. I'm like, I'm really excited for you. Cause I think you've really grabbed

something that's powerful. And so what do I mean by that is that you've been spending time in a high quality way. The interview, I knew that you were onto something, not from your show, which I've seen, but from the way that you interviewed me, I was like, okay, he's got some thoughts behind why he's asking what he's asking. And so I'm imagining on the backend, you've built a model or you're building a model and that model is purposeful. And so is that close to being right? I think that's very fair. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Are you being coy? Like you don't want to say, or no, I will just say that for me, um, what I do is with a high degree of intention. I'm very much not stumbling my way through life. Why intention? Why does that

word matter to you? Because I think everything works backwards from the goal. So if you don't know what you're trying to achieve, and this is what I think the vast majority of people in the world struggle with, and I'm talking 99.9999% of people, they don't have a crystal clear goal. And the worst part is they think they do. And so this is the thing that I struggle with all the time with people in my life, people that are fans of the show that write in it's I say, Hey, you have to have a goal. And so they think, cool, I want to win a gold medal. And they think I've got it. I know exactly what I want. And then my question is you want to win a gold medal in what the Olympics? Yes. Okay. Fantastic.

Summer or winter? Summer. Great. Swimming or tennis? And when you start asking those questions, then they quickly realize, oh yeah, I was not specific in any way, shape, or form. So for me, the intention is the beginning of everything. You have to know what you're trying to achieve in order to know what to practice. Because if you want to win at the slalom in skiing for the winter Olympics, you're going to train very differently than if you're trying to win at the slalom in skiing for the winter Olympics, you're going to train very differently than if you're trying to win as a swimmer or a tennis player in the summer. So, and even like the specific event that you want to do for swimming, you would train very differently from one event to the next. So that to me is where everything starts.

Did you have that insight prior to quest nutrition? Most definitely. Okay. So one of the things I'm confused by what you're learning is when you've gone on this two year deep dive on impact theory and working to understand mindset basically, right. Is that how much of that did you already know? And people are confirming or, or I don't know, I guess confirming, you know, it's a confirmation bias that I'm concerned about mostly, but how much of that, those interviews are confirming what you already knew and how many are you scaffolding and adding onto, but how much did you already have that in place at quest nutrition? Can you wind back to early days of quest and then

tell me about what your mindset was like then by quest, I had the core of what I would say is now my mindset, or even just the core of a growth mindset. I definitely didn't when I started at awareness technologies. And that was part of the process of me really beginning to understand what it means to truly have a growth mindset instead of a false growth mindset as Carol Dweck, the author of the book mindset calls it, which I think is where most people live. Um, so that was a really big transitional time for me. By the time we get to quest, we actually end up getting to quest because I got so fed up being unfulfilled, being deeply unhappy, chasing money, um, that I just drew a line in the sand and said, I will only do things that are in accordance with what I now

believe to be true about the human condition. Certainly what is true for me. Um, so quest in many ways was a reflection of what I'd learned about mindset, about what really makes for a fulfilling life. Um, but in terms of the confirmation bias with the interviews, I, I know that my current skillset has already taken me as far as it's going to take me. So if I want to get better, I've got, or if I want to go farther, I have to get better. And so I am never surprised when somebody says something on the show that I already believe, because I think that there are universal principles of success, but at the same time, I'm routinely surprised and someone will push me and make me think in a new way. And that is deeply fascinating. I mean, let's take you for instance. So it started with Carrie

Walsh Jennings and I'm doing all my research on her and you keep coming up and she keeps mentioning you. And I see the interview with you and I'm like, okay, this guy thinks in a new way, he's pushing deeper. He's going to a different place. And that I thought was interesting because in your world, you're dealing in, when we were talking about this earlier, you're dealing in half a percent, a percent, anything that's 2% improvement. It's like insanity. And so playing at that elite level to me is really, really interesting. And so once you have a real growth mindset, you're dealing in the half a percent, a percent it's, it's never going to be, Oh, revolution overnight. You're too deep in the

process for that. So at this point in my life, I've been building businesses for almost 20 years, which is crazy because it went by so fast. But if you looked at me in the beginning, I did not have a growth mindset, fixed mindset, absolutely terrified that I wasn't good enough, that I would never be good enough. And that caused deep insecurities in my life. And then as you learn and get your teeth kicked in a few times and you realize, okay, well, I either have to stop because it's really hurts emotionally, or I have to change what I allow to affect my ego. And so that whole process took a very long time, but on the other side of it is, is the mentality that I have today. So that's what gave birth to quest. So you've seen like the spectrum because you talk about deep depression, right? Like you,

you went through a bout that was really difficult. I always say that I flirted with depression. I've seen clinical depression. That's not where I was. I was hopeless. Um, and the only thing that saved me was I didn't want it to become depression. And I had just begun reading about brain plasticity and this is in the late nineties and it was super debated. People weren't sure, like, can you learn new things as you get older or not? And I remember making the decision that I'm just going to choose to believe that the brain is plastic, that you can learn as an adult. Now there's so much research has come out in the intervening 20 years that I think everybody now pretty much agrees that the brain is plastic. You can learn, you can change at any time in your life. As long as you're alive,

you can make adaptation. Um, but at the time it was, it was pretty contested. So that, that was just a conscious choice that to avoid getting depressed, I'm going to choose to believe that I can get better so that I don't have to feel this hopeless, this loss, this stupid, this untalented forever. What are some of the practices that you put in place? Because I think it's easy to conceptually want a growth mindset, right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a growth mind. I don't know anyone that says, no, my mind is fixed. You know, like I'm not open to ideas. Why, no, why would I, why would I want to grow? So I think most people say that they want to grow and be, be open and progressive. So instead of growth mindset, I think about having a progressive

mindset. What are the mental skills that for you are critical and essential to have a growth mindset? Because it is simple over this conversation to say, yeah, I'm open to learn. Let's talk. But then as soon as it gets hard or as soon as there's some duress in the environment, perceived or real, that we tend to tighten up. And that's more save your ass being fixed, if you will. So what are some of the essential mindset skills that have been influential for you? Well, some of it comes down to just core beliefs. So Einstein said the most important question anybody has to, or the most important decision anyone ever has to make is whether or not you

live in a friendly or a hostile universe. And I remember reading that going, Whoa, the fact that he's calling that a decision that we all get to make, uh, is pretty impressive because neither is empirically true. Where did you, where did you read that? I've been exposed to that and haven't found the source of it. And that was like long ago. So much so that I set up this, this paradigm shift, borrowing that insight. You're the, you're the first person I've heard talk about that. Maybe for like 15 years when I first was exposed to it. So where, where were you exposed to that? I honestly have no idea.

It may has been, it may have been as simple as someone else quoted it, like at the beginning of a chapter or something to a book. And I was like, Oh my God, I, I obsessively keep a list of quotes that have impacted me like obsessively. You write them down. Yeah, a hundred percent. I'm there's gotta be more than a thousand quotes on my list. Okay. So, so I borrowed that insight and said, right, if that is a decision, then, then how does that play out into the performance world? And I think there's a fundamental decision. Either I'm going to approach success or avoid failure. And again, 99.99999 back to your,

your analysis of people say, Oh yeah, I'm about approaching success. But then when you put them in a hostile, rugged environment, it's more save your ass than it is get after it. Yes. I can tell you why. Let's hear. So what you build your self-esteem around matters. So when someone commits suicide, it's coming from a place of I'll never feel good again. And I'll shorthand it to people often take exception with this, but I'll just shorthand it to you're never going to feel good about yourself again. So if that were true, it's not. But if you really truly could never, ever feel good about yourself again, I actually get why you would kill yourself. That would be a deeply unpleasant existence. So you understand hopelessness. So that's what you're describing right now. No question. Yeah. So if you were really in that forever, then it, I,

there would be no point. Like fulfillment is the thing that people are seeking. So I'll just tell you right now, the punchline to life is fulfillment. It's not money. It's not success. It is fulfillment. It's a brain chemistry state. It is one of the most stable brain chemistry states because it has to do with who you are and who you're becoming, not what you have. So that is, is one of the things that's most impervious. It's often born out of suffering, which is ironic and completely fascinating. But when you really decide that I'm not going to value myself for being smart, for being good, for being right, for being the best, fastest, strongest, whatever.

Instead, I'm going to value myself for my willingness to learn. I'm going to value myself for my willingness to stare nakedly at my inadequacies. All of a sudden, that's where you actually derive pride, value, a sense of self-worth is from a willingness to go, oh, I'm flawed. I'm deeply flawed. Then you can really have what Nassim Taleb calls an anti-fragile mindset. So anti-fragile is something that's not resilient. It's not tough because those are still defined by their breaking points. Just their breaking points farther away.

It's truly, it gets stronger the more it's attacked. That's anti-fragile. So if somebody tells me that I'm stupid, and this is how you know, if you really have a growth mindset, if somebody says I'm stupid, I'm thinking, oh, this is amazing. I've already gotten this far with however stupid I really am. This person's about to like clear up a blind spot that I have. They're going to give me some piece of information that I'll be able to leverage and go even farther. This is amazing. Tell me please how stupid I am because I have worked really hard to

build my self-esteem around being the learner and that's it. And so I repeat in my head that I'm the learner. I tell myself the story of somebody who's willing to stare at their inadequacies and to tactics you were asking earlier, what you repeat in your head matters a lot. And what you repeat out loud matters a lot. In fact, I'll just say that your mental and emotional stability comes down to what you keep repeating to yourself. And if you keep repeating to yourself that you're a loser, nothing ever works out for you, that basically you live in a hostile universe, everything's against you, you're going to be miserable. And you're just repeating it over and over and over. And most people don't even realize that they're repeating it. That's the scary thing. They

don't realize they have this narrative that's running on a loop and that it's totally disempowering. So that has been the primary driver for me is to really tend the garden of what I allow myself to repeat. And how do you, so I'm nodding my head. I'm saying, yep, yep, yep. And then the way that people justify their thinking pattern is through justification, right? So they have, we have to have a story where we are more the hero than the victim, or if we're going to be the victim, then we're going to blame other people. And so it's complicated what we say to ourselves and how slippery it is that it reinforces a hostile world or friendly world or a world that we're going to approach success or avoid failure. And so how have you, how have

you been exposed to your inner dialogue in the, the naked truth that you're talking about? How do you go inward? What do you do? Do you write, do you listen, do you meditate? Do you talk to wise people? How do you do it? All of the above. So meditation has been amazing. That was a total game changer for me. Uh, but I didn't find that till about three or four years, three years ago. Um, so consistency look like there on meditation. Yeah. I'll say 70% of the time. Yeah. And do you go by minutes or daily? No, no, I go by state. So if I have any level of what I call background radiation, so I have any level of, yeah, that's what it feels like to me. So like, I have no idea why I don't feel at ease. I feel stressed or anxious, but I

can't even pinpoint it. So to me, that's just background radiation. It's just there. And once I learned that I could get that to zero, that became the barometer for me for how long to meditate. So that's usually about 20 minutes, but then I try to chase that with what I call thinkitation. So I meditate so I can get in an alpha wave brain state. So I'm calm, creative. That feels so good. It's one of my absolute favorite neurochemical states. Once I'm there though, I find that I get really interesting ideas. And so I got really frustrated that in meditation, I was supposed to clear my mind of that when I was like, if I don't write this down, I'm going to forget. And it's really a game changer. So I started allocating time after that. Once I'm at zero background radiation, I'm calm and creative. Then I can immediately move over into thinkitating where I hold the meditative posture. I'm still breathing in a meditative way, but I'll start taking notes. So that's really, really, really been powerful for me. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth.

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And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple. And they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more.

It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high-quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash findingmastery and use the code findingmastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. What are your smaller practices look like for meditation? For meditation specifically, I only have one practice if I'm completely honest,

and that is to get really comfortable. I like to sit cross-legged, but I don't always. And I put on headphones. Are you flexible enough? Yeah, to sit cross-legged. I I don't always. And I put on headphones. Are you flexible enough? Yeah, to sit cross-legged? I'm not. What? Yeah, come on now. What?

I was literally going to say, like, if you can't sit cross-legged, like, that's interesting. Yeah, I don't sit in a lotus pose or whatever. It's not like my feet are wrapped up on my knees. Just normal Indian style. You know, I'm not sure that most men can. Really? Yeah. You're just destroying my entire world right now i had no idea so yeah i am shocked i don't think of myself as flexible in any way

shape or form if you could sit in the inside you got something on there yeah i can sit cross-legged so i work hard like there's no flexibility yes that's interesting yeah so it's there's some genetic coding for sure that is around it that makes it tough for me but then if you think about my sport i was sitting in surfing we sit with really bad posture in the water right way more than we're surfing so that makes a challenge as well for us interesting yeah okay all right um thank you for like wrapping us into where you've been. Now, I'd like to see if we can sharpen this up a little bit and get to the cost of you, the cost of your relationships, the darker side of this mission that you've been on. Do you have a relationship with the darker side? Oh, yes.

But not in the way that you were saying. Like, I'm really obsessed with the dark side. And do you know Tim Grover? Yes. But not in the way that you were saying, like, I'm really obsessed with the dark side. And do you know Tim Grover? Yes. Okay. So when I read his book, Relentless, I was like, Tim, you're speaking my language, man. Like I get that and tapping into the dark side. And so to me, it's an 80, 20 split. If you spend more than 20% of your time in the dark side, you're just not going to like your life. It will be dark and gloomy and miserable, but like they did this test and I forget the exact percentage of this. I'm going to ballpark him, but it's something like if you take somebody, this is how they did the pain tolerance. You have them submerge their arm

in ice water. At first it hurts, but it's not that big of a deal. But to get people to leave it in longer, something like 35% longer, if I remember right, they would say you can curse, you can display anger and they could do it. So the anger in and of itself, that darkness, the turning to something that's ugly and aggressive, it actually has a very acute reason for existing, which is it lets you push that little bit extra in that moment where it really sucks. So that's big. Then there's emotional stuff. Like, um, when I find that the beautiful things that I'm trying to create, bring to life, the things that I'm grateful for, the people I want to help in the lives that I want to touch 80% of the time, it's enough. And I focus there and it gets me going and it gets me up and excited and I'm pushing, but then 20% of the time, it's really not enough. And I just can't get the juices going at that moment. I think of the people and I picture their face that want me

to fail. Wow. I think absolutely not a hundred percent. And I, under no circumstance, am I going to fail? I'm not going to let those people win. It works so well. Now you have to be careful again. You can't spend too much time there, but wow, it's powerful. Do you have people in your life that, you know, their faces, they want you to fail? Oh yes. My friend, what did they tell you? How about this? I'll give you it in their actions. I've been sued. Um, I've had people threaten to, um, take me down. Uh, like, God, what are the actual words that they say? It, it like, I don't remember the actual words, but the, the punchline is I'm going to take you down. If you do this, then I'm going to come after you, um, legally or otherwise

publicly. Um, yeah, a hundred percent. So that is very easy for me to think of. And then I have a list. I don't actually write their names down, but I keep them in my mind of people who've told me it's never going to work. It's too late. You're just not good enough at this, whatever it is that they told me. Some of them I actually like, and this is where it gets weird. There's one guy on my list. I really like him. And I think that he's a good person who puts good vibes into the world. But for whatever reason, when I first started with the podcast, he was just like, dude, it's already played out. You're never going to be able to do this. And I hired him to help me. And his like the end sort of, uh, revelation that he had as

my consultant was, yeah, this isn't going to work for you. And so like that one drives me a lot. I think about that a lot. And when we started at zero, I was like, I'll show this guy. And that's been good, especially because I like him. So it's not like hatred or anything like that, but Oh, I want to prove them wrong for sure. Does that tone and thread have any relationship back to your relationship with your dad? Um, never once did that occur to me in that way. So, um, with my dad, I have a lot of compassion for like, when I think what my life would be like if I were a father and how conflicted I would be. So I don't blame him. He was always kind and he was funny growing up. Like he was a sweet guy and I have a beef with

him. He was never mean to me ever. Um, we just weren't close like that. But what I was, what I was saying is not the anger for your dad, what I was thinking is not the anger for your dad, but I was thinking like, I need to do extraordinary things to get favor from my dad. Definitely not. No. So that, because he was more interested in cars and he was more interested in whatever that if you did something extraordinary that he would go, Oh, well, wow. That thing that he's doing over there is more interesting than the car. For sure. Even when I was younger, it never like, that's not the way to my dad's heart. The way to my dad's heart is to do things that he likes. So he, so he's stubborn in some ways. Interesting. I wouldn't use that word. My dad is, um, he likes what he likes. And if you can

meet him on his terms, then you can have a really great relationship with him. So for me, if I really, and, and I don't go in on the impossible to please father routine, which isn't my dad anyway, it is my father-in-law by the way. So if you want to get into that fascinating thing, which I think a lot of people struggle with, and I've seen my father-in-law who is just an insanely incredible human being. His story is beyond fascinating. Uh, but he didn't want me to marry his daughter. And he definitely withheld his literally said, I don't want you to marry my daughter. It wasn't like, Oh, I just kind of felt it. Like there were tears. My, my then girlfriend soon to be fiance was having a stroke. She didn't feel supported. I mean, it was, it was just laid out on the table. So, which has been amazing in my life, by the way. And I'm so grateful for that.

You want to talk about something that pushed me. So from the, the thing that you're looking for, I probably get more from my father-in-law who, and it is important to me to note, my father-in-law has always been kind to me. He's just never pulled punches about what he wanted for his daughter. And if I didn't line up with that, he was just like, Hey, I don't want you to marry my daughter. In the moment that he said that to you, was it face to face or was it? Yes. It was amazing. Do you remember that? Of course. It was one of the most important moments of my life to be sure. Remember the feeling? Uh, do I remember that? Yes. And it's not at all what you would expect because I had so

much arrogance at the time. How old were you? 24, 25. So you didn't feel it. You weren't not like that. No, you're you, you went to that mode, which is like, Oh, okay. I'll show you then. Yeah. And it, it even was like, um, I think that there's healthy competition and I felt healthy competition with my father-in-law at that moment, because I so believed that I was going to win and that it, there was just, and it was so fascinating because I was in this really weird place in my life where I had so much ambition and absolutely no drive. So I had no reason I had yet to get slapped around. So I had no reason to believe that I was going to succeed. But yet at that moment, I did believe I was going to succeed. How'd you do that? That's interesting.

I'm not entirely sure. My journey is weird and it has like these ups and downs of, so I go to film school and I'm crushing it. And you're more likely to get into Harvard law statistically than you are USC film school. I get in. It's a whole story. Again, people told me I'd never do it. I had a counselor look me in my eye and was like, you're not going to get into film school. Will you stop acting like you are because of the

statistics? And like, they were like, you're going to end up doing a fifth year. So you really have a history of people saying it's not gonna work out for you. Not as much as I would like, but you want more of you key to, uh, for sure. Really? For sure. If you believe in yourself, the gift of doubt is so powerful. Yeah. Well, I call it betting on myself. Like I learned that from athletes and they say, I've said in so many different voices, no, no, no. I'm betting on me. I'm putting in the work. I'm doing this, that, and the other. Yes. With other people. But when it comes down to it, I want to have the ball. I want to be able to be right. Yeah. You're getting into my fetish now. Yeah. Bet on me. A, my wife and I say that back and forth.

So when I decided to leave awareness technologies before we had decided to start quest and she, I said, look, I'm about to make you poor again. And she said, I bet on you. And it became like this whole thing for us that I bet on you. I was just amazing. And then you've got to want the ball. You've got to want the ball. You've got to want the ball. You've got to want the opportunity for glory or for total disaster. You've got to want that. And if you

can't find a way to want the ball, you're in real trouble. This'll be surprising to you. Um, there's an athlete that I spent some time with. He won, I think four championships in the NBA, which is not easy to do. And he says, Hey, sometimes I'm running around. I'm the 10th man on the field or on the court and I'm hiding. I don't want the ball. Now he's figured out how to be valuable much more often than the time he's sharing. But that experience of not knowing that you have what it takes, like the vulnerability, the hiding is also real. Have you had that experience where it's not like you're this amazing bronze sculpted human that can, you know, not be damaged in any way. Have you ever had the other side where you're really

vulnerable, where you have the ambition, but you're like, man, I don't know. Yeah. I spend, even now I spend the majority of my time going, Oh, what on earth makes me think that I can do this? And then I fall back on my belief system. And it literally is only my belief system that carries me through. I tell people, you should look at me like, um, a bunch of habits, routines, and beliefs duct taped together. That's it. Because even when I was at that, my most arrogant with my father-in-law and I really believed I was going to do it. Then five minutes later, I would have felt like I'm going to fail. Like what, what am I thinking? And in fact, I said that to him and really felt that I was right. And I was

going to win at one of the darkest periods of my life. So how I'm able to even justify to myself, like why in that moment, were you so sure when five minutes on either side, you would be so insecure and not knowing how you're going to pull this together. And I mean, it's just like utterly fascinating, but I didn't have the habits and stuff to pull me through where I could predictably do it back then. So I told him that, and then embarked on like falling on my face and going through a really rough period, but still like having this beacon of hope that like, I wanted something so badly that some part of me knew wanting it that much was going to carry me through, which now I can codify and I can tell

you why that happens. But at the time I didn't understand it. I just really, excuse me. I really wanted something. Now it's like the thing that separates people that do nothing from people that go on to do something extraordinary is they, they really want it. And when people ask me like someone just today in my YouTube feed was like, I'm so lazy. How do you like get up and do what you do and work as hard as you work? And the reality is I want something. I want it so badly. It is a need when you have that, like I needed to be successful. I didn't know how I was going to do it. But in that moment, when you said, I don't want you to marry my daughter because my daughter's become used to a certain way of life. And I don't think you can

provide it literally in that moment. I wanted that life for myself. And I wanted to give my, you know, then girlfriend something that amazing in her life so badly. I just knew I will find a way. So that is ambition. That is the defining characteristics of ambition. Do you also have any part of you that values content and peace and stillness? Stillness, yes. In very brief intervals is is absolutely critical and if you want to achieve if you don't find a way because it to me it's the only way i found to get rid of that background radiation that otherwise continues to build and build and build and build what is what is the radiation is it a voice is it not entirely physiological stress and um anxiety and

overwhelm is probably the the best way to it. So do you know what a rogue wave is? Yeah, of course. All right. So, um, sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude, but I thought people listening right now were like, what the fuck's a rogue wave? Yeah. Please go through it. Uh, a rogue wave. Yeah. Out of nowhere, the amplitude of other waves, they just combine to kick up this one wave. That's just much bigger than anything. I've been caught by him. Like for real in real life. Yeah. Like everyone that surfs has been caught by those outsider sets that like clean up the whole lot and it'll scare you for sure. For sure. Yeah. Now I've never experienced one in the ocean, but I've experienced them in real life where all of a sudden, literally all of a

sudden, I remember the last one I had, I was walking to pee. And in that moment, wasn't doing anything crazy in that moment, a rogue wave of overwhelm, just like started swelling. Now though, I know diaphragm breathe, know that like, you really just need to release that energy. You need to let it go, let it dissipate. Don't grab onto it. Like don't tighten, like you were saying earlier, don't tighten, just relax. And if you diaphragm breathe, because it triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, suddenly that, that sense of overwhelm, the stress, the anxiety, it just dissipates in a matter of seconds. If you're trained, if you're trained, right. That's why front-loading mental skills and practices for arousal regulation, emotional regulation, cognitive controls,

all of that has to be trained ahead of time because intellectually, yes. Oh, I'm supposed to breathe. But if it's, if you're not trained in it, it's not going to be effective for sure. And then, and then there's a whole nother cycle, which is man, I'm breathing, but it's not working. I'm like, God, I'm breathing, but it's not, well, no, you just haven't trained. Of course it's not going to work. Was that a panic attack? No, no, no. I don't think I've ever had a panic attack. I've gotten real anxious. Yeah. Um, but I don't get the like, um, oh my God, I'm having a heart attack.

I've never had that sensation. Okay. And then do you ever, uh, have the experience where you just watch yourself go through that intense experience from a nonjudgmental standpoint, nonjudgmental standpoint? It's not how it feels. That's not how you do it? It doesn't feel like I'm a disembodied third party. So you go in and you're like a wrestler,

American wrestler. Like you wrestle with stuff. You get into it as opposed to an Aikido master and using the energy for some sort of transformation. It's interesting. So I always think of it as ju um, jujitsu. So when something like that comes, I use it as a habit loop trigger to go into the habit of diaphragm breathing of relaxing of consciously relaxing my muscles. So I think of it as physiological hooks.

I don't feel like I'm wrestling. That definitely feels like a metaphor that is more Aikido. Yeah. It's more jujitsu, Aikido or more than more. Okay. And then what habits, routines and beliefs. So the beliefs part for me are the more powerful. Totally. For you as well. 100%. And then what are some, for people that aren't sure about their belief model, you know, or the things that they believe in, do you have a practice that you've been able to

articulate to help you be more clear with your beliefs? I actually wrote them down. So I don't know another way either. Like if you don't write them down, it's just, they just, it gets confusing. It starts banging around your head. Totally. So how have you done it? So this started as an employee thing. So, um, I felt like I have, I still feel this way. I have an obligation to my employees. So you're going to help me build something, hopefully something that really matters. And I'm going to translate that energy into money. So that to me feels like I need to make your life better. If, if this bargain is going to work out well for you. So I decided back at Quest, I was going to

create this thing called Quest University. And what I wanted to do was train people to think in a way that would allow them to be successful at whatever they wanted to be. So making protein bars was your tuition, but man, like learn everything you can about what it is that really feeds you and then go do that thing when the time comes. So I thought, I know what I did to go from the kid who was hopeless and defeated and broken and not knowing how I was going to make anything in my life, despite the fact that I had all this ambition. I know what I did to go from that to building a billion dollar business, right? So I get what I had to do to my mindset, to my belief system. So let me just write it down and give it to people. Um, and then that ultimately became impact theory, but that I literally wrote it

down. There's 25 bullet points. You can actually download them now, uh, go to impact theory.com. It's right there for free. Um, and it's the 25 things that I had to come to believe, think, and do in order to become a master at my craft. And then, so let's stay on that. So the, you're suggesting that if people adopted your 25, that they would be better? Or are you suggesting that they should have their own 25 or own three or whatever?

At the end of the day, like make it your own, but they are pretty much the universal principles of success. I don't think anybody's going to look at them and go, I use the same words, but they're also not going to look at them and say, no, these aren't accurate. I think people go, yep, this is it. I use different words. I think of this slightly differently, you know, like you, a progressive mindset versus a growth mindset, not exactly diametrically opposed, right. Just getting it nuanced. So I, that the whole interview show

of impact theory was to bring on a bunch of people. And you would hear, even though I never prepped them, that they're going to say things from this list. It's just, it's the reality, like playing the victim, never going to make anyone's list. That's been successful. Not once, not ever. Um, so it's things like that, that you can do anything you set your mind to without limitation. That's a lie by the way, but we do and believe that which moves us towards our goals, right? It's things like that where people go, yeah, actually I really get that. Did you borrow that stuff from science? Did you use it from one of the 11 world religions? Did you like, how did you, was it an intuitive process that you came up with? Basically every word out of my mouth ever is stolen from someone somewhere that I read.

So I am the amalgamation of all the ideas that I've consumed from the insanely generous people all throughout history who've taken the time to write their wisdom down. Um, and some of it is just school of hard knocks. Like the one thing that I'll say was just a straight epiphany, uh, that came from an emotional crisis was what you build your self-esteem around matters. And that can, I remember where I was, I remember what happened. And in that moment, um, I realized, yeah, I pride myself on being right on being smart and being good, being worthy. And that's really creating problems in my life because I had convinced my business partners to do something I knew was bad for the business because I needed to be right

because they were so much smarter than me. And that was just damaging my self-esteem. And so I realized either I need to quit and get out of here because I routinely feel stupid, or I need to switch what I build my self-esteem around. Um, so that was a school of hard knocks thing, but for the most part, like read, read, read, I just cannot emphasize that enough. So I get an image of Frankenstein, but I don't see you as being Frankenstein, but the image that you've taken on many different pieces and parts and made engineered yourself to be strong and powerful and anti-fragile, if you will. What is the soul of Frankenstein about? Wow. You want to talk about a question I was not expecting. What is the soul of Frankenstein about? Do you mean as you're seeing

me as the Frankenstein? Yeah. So you have put together, you've engineered yourself. So this is really a question of, and everybody listening or watching, I want you to lean in right now because hopefully I'm about to change your life. In the world of social media, everybody wants to echo and nobody wants to get good at the shout. And to me, when you're recording content, it's just the echo of a life of gaining mastery in something else. So you were telling me privately the story of somebody coming up to you and saying, so what does it take to be you? And they meant you as a podcaster and you gave them this whole thing about 14 years of education and learning. And you didn't even mention the 18 years in the gym, teaching these kids like emotional skills in gang neutral territory, which to me is the most fascinating story. It is unbelievable. And I remember when I heard that story for the first time and I thought, that's how you become great. It's 18 years of Saturdays alone in a gym with a bunch of kids that want to fight and

you have to keep them from fighting and focus on the basketball. That's how you get good at anything. And so I'm not, I don't read as Frankenstein, even though my beliefs were cobbled together from everything from Taoism, from Christianity, from Tony Robbins to just an unimaginable list of people that have written books. Carol Dweck, I love you, Carol. Like all of those people have given me this insanely powerful information, but it was synthesized into something seamless through 20 years of falling on my face, embarrassing myself, doing ridiculously dumb stuff, trying to become an entrepreneur, starting as a copywriter,

having to work my way up through all of that, you realize what works, what doesn't, what suits you. You put it in your own words. It's something where you can say, I've experienced this. I say this because, oh, in this board meeting, this happened. And I learned this really painful lesson. So that's why that's the failure. Just to put it really simply, failure is the soul of this Frankenstein. Okay. And then what happens after your body extinguishes? If you, if you, if you fail out like a light, yeah. Out like a light. So the, the, the worldview or the universal view that you have is that we are bags and bones and chemistry. And how did we get here then? You want to talk about something? I am not the right person to answer that question but

since i have an interest but you have a point of view about it for sure so follow my logic um so i'm fully aware that right now i am i am fully aware that i'm outside of my area of expertise it's important to me to state that yeah um but here's my logic so from a cosmological standpoint um i'll give you that there is something we do not understand. There is no question about that. But there are laws that we can follow and we can trace them back. And it does seem to lead to some quantum theory that probably looks something like soap bubbles, which create all of these different universes. Now, what is it that the soap

bubbles are floating around in? I have no idea. And you will have to ask somebody far smarter than me. So essentially we are all stardust. We are a chemical reaction that triggers on a very predictable, uh, trajectory. So these at a quantum level, I guess I should say it, it becomes probabilistic more than predictable. Um, but through that probability, things arise. So I was talking to a physicist one time and he said, Tom, the universe that you see around you is merely the most probable, but it isn't the only one. And that in theory, there are an infinite number of universes where the rules of physics play out slightly differently. And that this merely happens to be the one that is most probable. And we mistake it for the only

one that exists. And I thought that was really fascinating. And look, we could go down this rabbit hole and I'd actually have so much fun on a podcast entirely about things like Schrodinger's cat. Um, and you know, light as both a wave and a particle. I mean, that, that stuff to me is very, very interesting. Um, I'm just not smart enough. That's that's I'm being a coy. That's not how I actually think of it. I haven't allocated the time to it, to get really good at it. So, but it is just made. Yeah. Yeah. That's a nice little cognitive shift there. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Evidence of your beliefs. Correct. That if you did spend the time, you'd figure it out. Correct. And have you had your IQ tested? I have not. No, I'm, I'm, uh, curious. And this is,

um, this is revelatory. So here's just the God's honest truth. I worry that it would affect me to know the answer. That's right. Either way. That's right. That if it were high, then I would dismiss myself as being just genetically gifted. And if it were low that I would think maybe I can't do this after all. So it is, it is sensitive information. And what we do with any information, success, failure, what we do with facts that we've come to learn about our body or our mind or whatever, that information, what we do with it is really important. And so if you can fit it back into your model, it'll probably, you'll probably be fine. The thing is, I know what I would do already is if, if it came back high,

I would say, Oh man, I wish I'd gotten tested when I was younger. Cause I think I've raised it through all of my learning and all of that stuff. Uh, and if it were low, I would think, wow, it's pretty extraordinary. IQ doesn't make any difference. Like look how far I've already come. So yeah. IQ IQ, like let's bet on EQ more than IQ. Yeah. My thing is like, I'm going to make a statement. And at the end of it, you're going to realize that you hope I'm right. And the statement is we can get good at anything. Humans are the ultimate adaptation machine, which means whatever you want to do, you can point yourself in that direction. And it doesn't mean that other people won't have an easier time doing it. Like my wife gets lean easier than I'm just a fact of life. Um, I wish it weren't. So I wish that I

could eat the way that she could. Uh, now she has microbiome issues, which is a whole nother issue. But when we first got together, we could eat literally, she's half my size. We could go calorie for calorie and she wouldn't put on fat as easily as I would. Um, so there's people are going to get early wins with stuff. Um, and that may be frustrating for you, but if you keep at it, the process of gaining mastery of really dedicating yourself to something will beat somebody's natural talent every time. Now, if they have natural talent and they work as hard as you, they'll probably go farther.

But you know, it is what it is. Do you know what they say about kids that are exceptional at Pop Warner? No. That they are exceptional at Pop Warner. That's yeah. Well said. Yeah. I've met people that are obviously smarter than me. And one of two things holds them back. Either they don't want it enough or they just don't put in the time and the energy. They do something else. See on that first point, they don't want it enough. Yeah. So this is a self-determination theory is a model that helps shape motivation for me. And there's three components to it, as you probably recognize competency, autonomy and relatedness. Right. And so, but the model is that we're always driven

towards something. And inside of that, when you say you don't, they don't want it, what they actually want is maybe relief. What they actually want is some sort of escape or there's something that they want greater than the thing that you think that is obvious, like winning or figuring something out or unlocking a new piece of information. And so the process versus outcome motivations. But we're always motivated towards something. So can you take that idea and then shape what your primary drivers are? And I know that we started the conversation with this, but I'd like for you to say it again. Yeah, for sure.

I believe that the very meaning of life is to see how much of your potential you can actually manifest into tangible skills and then put those skills to the test in service of something bigger than yourself. That's it. Now, the reason I think that's it is because that's what leads to fulfillment. You just said four sentences that were really dense and crisp. And I'm betting that you could say those again, those concepts again. So those are, so you think fast, you think clearly, you spent a lot of time in the space of understanding how to build business and how to build your mind. And potentially now I'm learning the minds of people that were working for quest, right?

And you're going to take that and amplify it to many more people through impact theory. But what you just did was really crisp. And I don't want people to lose that, right? Can you go back and it doesn't have to be word for word, but it'll be word for word. Yeah. So let's go again. Yeah. So I believe that the very meaning of life is to find out how many skills you can manifest

or how much of your potential you can manifest into actual skills that have utility that you can put in service of something bigger than yourself. That, that, that's the meaning of life for me. Um, I think it's universal, but I don't need other people to believe it. I just know that it's so true for me that it is my North star. It's my guiding light. I, I have made an astronomical amount of money in my life and it didn't make me feel differently about myself. It allowed me to do other things. Money's insanely powerful. It's probably more powerful than people think, but it's not what they've been told. And so people think money will shift how they feel about themselves because it changes how they feel about other people. But then they're going to get

money and realize, oh yeah, this actually doesn't make me feel any differently about myself. And whatever insecurities I had, I still have. So I know that that's not the answer. And the times where I feel the most at ease, the most content, as you were saying earlier, are the times where I am awash in the neurochemistry of fulfillment, where I've done something that was really hard for me to figure out how to do. And it helped somebody else. That's two parts. And I don't want people to miss out on either part. If you get extraordinary at something that only serves you, it's not going to bring you fulfillment. Success that is not shared. This is a cool story. This was part of Red Bull Stratos project. And, um, one of the, one of the fellows that brought me into that project, Andy Walsh.

Dr. Walsh had one of the really old school, old guard military, I don't want to give his ranking or name out because there's some privacy there, but highly respected person. And we're in the middle of some stuff, let's just call it that. And he slides a note over to Andy and says, uh, success that is not shared is a failure. That is like right on the money of what you're saying. So success that's not shared. So if you're doing something that where only you gain the insight, knowledge, whatever, whatever, or the money and wealth and whatever, that there is a

trap inside of it. One is it's not going to be fulfilling. Now, I don't, I don't know if many people really know that because it's hard to win financially, you know, and I say that not because I want to have a limiting thought, but there's a reason that one, what is it? 3% of the world owns whatever, 90% of wealth or whatever that crazy status. Do you know that stat? I don't know. Yeah. Well, you're in nuts.

You're in that 1%, you know, that owns the majority. So most people struggle financially. Like, and you think about globally, the average income across the globe was somewhere around like $7,000 annual like that. That's hard now. So what, what did you do now when we flip the kind of like flip that model on its head, what did you do with your first 10 million? Like what, what do you do with that? Do you go, Oh my God, yes. And then invest it, double down. Like what did you do with your first 10? Well, yeah, we, for a very long time, we just reinvested every single dollar back into the

company. So the Jesus, I reinvested hundreds of millions before I took anything out. So did you have a paycheck? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was making money. You had a nice little living or were you? I had a nice living. It was wonderful. It was more money than I'd ever made in my life. Uh, but I wasn't taking home seven figures. Um, so,

but it was great and it was wonderful and nobody is going to cry themselves asleep at night with what I was making. I assure you, uh, except maybe Bill Gates, he would have been really unhappy. But the reality is if you're building something that matters to you, that's probably the only way that you're going to generate the wealth in the first place. And then, so you're more likely to just continue to reinvest and reinvest and reinvest because you want that thing to like come into the world. Like I was trying to save my mom and my sister. And that's what I was thinking about every day. Yeah. So there's a great was thinking about every day. Quest nutrition. Yeah.

So there's a great quote often attributed to mother Teresa. No one will act for the many, but people will act for the one. And so thinking about my mom and my sister, how they were struggling with weight and that if I could make food that they could choose based on taste and it happened to be good for them, then I can keep them around longer. And so that was the driving force. And look, I'm not stupid. I knew that there were hundreds of millions, maybe a billion people that struggle with food the same

way that they do. So there was a real business opportunity, but my decision-making was very clear when I thought about them and I thought about what will help them. And so the irony being that when I started thinking about them and value creation and just trying to build a community and do something good for other people, it built a massive business. So we now live in a world where being a good person is the most potent marketing vehicle there is. And that's an awesome time to be alive. Okay. A couple of final questions here. Thank you for your time. A couple of final questions is what do you understand most? My mind. Now I'll carry it out farther and say the human mind, but my experience has been pretty intense on me. So I'll say I really understand

mine. And that goes back to the, um, the, at least three practices, which is writing, listening to yourself and being around wise men and women. And reading about the brain. I just can't stress it enough. So I read about the mind, the structures of the brain. Yeah. Okay. And then as a man, what is it that you do the best? Wow. I am shocked that I don't have an easy answer for this. Um, I think the thing that I do the best is I, this is what I want to be able to do the best, make people feel good about themselves. I really hope that's what I'm best at. How does that show up for you? In giving people an empowering mindset, which is like the central thing of my life.

And an empowering mindset never starts with kicking the crap out of yourself. So lesson number one is love yourself right now, where you are, whatever weirdness is, the things that you devalue in yourself, like stop, love them. We can work on kicking yourself to achieve higher things later. But right now, like you've got to embrace yourself. If there's two components to mastery, mastery of self and mastery of craft, how do they relate in your mind? I don't think you can master your craft without mastering yourself. At some point, you're going to get in a self-destructive loop of either just not wanting it anymore, because you've got so much background radiation to go back to that analogy, going on the stress, the anxiety, just lack of desire, a want for something else that you'll

spin out of that. And also I find that the people that are most successful are the ones that can self-soothe the fastest. So if you can't self-soothe, you get caught up in the emotion. In fact, one of my favorite stories around this is yours. So that whole thing where you said that the Seattle Seahawks, they got in this really tribal mode and the guy was like freaking out. No one, no one person could calm him down, but the whole team like started bouncing around. I had the chills now telling your story and they all like calmed him down. I thought exactly emotional control. That's where you had to outsource it. And like the team had to bring you back. But the way that the team responded

is understanding if we can't get him back, if we can't get him to a clear state of mind, then we can't be effective. I have the, on my face, I have the chills. Um, getting to a clear state of mind is the only position from which you can win long-term. So the people that I've seen that are really, really extraordinary, they can take that emotional blow, fail really publicly. And it sucks, man, even with a growth mindset, even though I know that there's a victory waiting on the other side of that for me, I still go through the pain of, whoa, this really sucked. And then all of the beliefs and all that kick in and they soothe you, but you're meant to feel the pain. So going through that and learning how to soothe yourself is insanely important. Fear of failure. We haven't talked about it yet. It feels like you don't have any. Be unfair to say that I don't have any, like if you're working hard enough in the gym, there's probably some part of you that's like, yeah, I'm a little afraid to walk in today. What are you afraid of? Um, I'm only afraid of two, two things, three, if you'll let me include open water. So open water freaks me out in a way you don't understand. Um, but that's like, whatever, that's one of those sort of, you're just not going to

go there. Uh, well, a, it's easy to avoid, but no, I moved towards the things that scare me. So I've got a whole open water thing coming up in December. You do. I do. What are you doing? Um, I've been invited to speak as a part of a free diving thing, which literally if you handcrafted the thing that would freak me out the

most, I'm not joking. There is nothing else that makes me more tense than that. Um, so they invited me. I have a rule in my life that I moved towards what scares me. So they said, Hey, we want you to come be a part of this thing. Um, so I said, yes. Um, and then the two things though, that really like I think about routinely are brain damage that scares the life out of me. I can recover from anything else. Physical. Absolutely. Look at Stephen Hawking. Um, and then my wife dying that, that really terrifies me because I've invested so much into that. And I believe we all turn into a bag of bones. So if the only reason that you're with your significant others, cause they're hot, let me tell you that that goes away.

And the thing that I value in life is shared experience. And so there's no way to shortcut it. It was living a life with her when I was broke and scared and felt hopeless and her being a part of my journey to build myself, being a part of her journey to build herself and watching her turn into this extraordinary woman and sharing that, sharing the ups and the downs and the fears and the joys and the laughter. I mean, just everything. It's been, been an insane ride and we've done it together. What are you investing into stay alive forever? Well, sadly, this is one area that I've completely said someone else is going to solve this problem for me or I'm going to die. You're waiting. Uh, so I'm on the board of the X prize, which sort of tangentially is involved in things like that. But that is a very minor

contribution. Um, I'm on the board of another company called Modius health, which are making contributions to make other people live longer, but I don't struggle cause that's mostly around weight loss, which is not my struggle. So it doesn't really help me, but introvert or extrovert introvert in the extreme, although I can be ambiverted as I think is probably pretty obvious. But how do I recharge by myself for sure? Attention to detail, none, none whatsoever. It is so terrifying. I have to have a team around me. It's the one thing that like my belief system demands that I accept that I could get good at it if I chose to, but it is so overwhelmingly uninteresting to me that I have no interest in putting attention.

High need or low need for control. Oh, massive excruciating. Self-esteem is high. Yes. Self-confidence is high. Yes. Self-critical. Um, yeah, I am, but constructively I used to be destructively self-critical and I just learned that doesn't make sense. Critical of others. Um, not really. In fact, no, I'm way compassionate. It's something that kind of drives my wife crazy because I can always see someone's point of view. Yeah, that does make other people crazy. My wife too, because I like to wrestle with concepts from multiple angles and it feels like I'm defending some bad behavior from another person. That's exactly how my wife feels.

Really? Okay. You know, how about speed of decision making? Rapid, but not because I don't have insecurities or fears because I know it's a good tactic. So you listen to your gut or your head or is it both? Yeah, it's a balance of both, but I just really, really believe in anybody listening to this, please take this to heart. I really believe the thing that will destroy your potential, that will ruin your business, will make you a bad employee, a bad husband, a bad wife,

whatever is indecision. And it's simply something you allow or don't allow. I think it's better to move a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction than to stand still. And the reason I believe that is movement, activity, decision-making. It is the most information rich data stream there is. So the reason moving in the wrong direction is better than standing still is you'll learn standing still. You don't learn anything. So people are like, Oh, but if you're moving in the wrong direction, you're moving still is you'll learn. Standing still, you don't learn anything. So people are like, oh, but if you're moving in the wrong direction, you're moving farther from your goal. Not really because you're getting the knowledge. So maybe longitudinally you've gone in the wrong direction, but you're now so much stronger,

faster, better that you'll get to your destination faster than you would have if you were standing still. Because a person standing still is just going to be there forever. So I'd rather go a hundred miles an hour in the wrong direction, only to have to retrace my steps and go the other way because I will be that much more well-equipped. So measure twice, cut once is not something. Oh yeah. I was going to say, I don't really think like that.

Yeah. Fucking cut the shit out of it. And then look back and go, well, what worked? What didn't? There's always another piece of wood. I like that. Even I liked that. That was good.

That's great. Okay. Last question, you know, and I'm, I say that. Even I like that. That was good. That's great. Okay. Um, last question, you know, and I'm, I say that and I, one or two always pop up as we're going, but like really the kingpin question is how do you think about or articulate or even define mastery? So I believe that as a species, we are designed to be put under stress and then we have an adaptation response to that stress. So mastery is an outcropping of what we are designed to do. We are the apex predator, not because in fact, this is oftentimes, um, Charles Darwin is misquoted as saying it's the survival of the fittest, which he actually never said. What he said was, it's not the strongest that survived nor the most intelligent, but rather the most adaptive to change that. Let that be the beacon at the center of your life. Like we're able to adapt and change and grow.

And so applying that to something you care deeply about that can also serve other people. That's the juice. You're on it. You've really thought a lot about this. I'm surprised that you haven't gone toward a formal education in something, whether it's psychology or something else, because like your command of a variation of ideas is obviously noticeable. I don't know if you have theory underpinning or the underpinnings of theory that are guiding that, or it's more like the things that you know have been time tested in modern times that work. But if you're going to go back to adaptation and you referenced without even saying it, Viktor Frankl earlier and like some real...

Viktor Frankl's my boy. He changed a lot of people's lives. Yeah. So how come you didn't do a formal education track? Because I know what I want in my life. And at the end of the day, education is irrelevant. Knowledge is the power and knowledge has to be applied. And so I went to school. It was amazing. I'm glad I did it. And when I graduated, I knew I would never be back. And I've learned far more by doing than just by being in a formal education setting. Plus I really think like, I don't have a degree, but I've read more books on psychology

than most psychology graduates. So, um, and then I've, I've hired 1500 people. So it's like, eh, you really get to understand people pretty fast doing things like that. So I'm building a business right now. Coach Carol, head coach of the Seahawks and I, and we've got a small team. Do you have, I'm sure you have lots, but one or two gems that you could pass through us that, you know, could create an accelerated growth in terms of team building? No, I think, I think he's pretty damn good at that. I would say, yeah, but no more like business decisions. And I totally hear what you're saying. Like, go, go, go, go, I think, I think he's pretty damn good at that. I would say, yeah, but no more like business

decisions. And I totally hear what you're saying. Like, go, go, go, go, go iterate, iterate. Yeah. But so let's go in another direction then. So always focus on value. And what I mean by that is what you offer has to work. And if what you offer works, then you'll be unstoppable. And most people don't think about that. They start, what should I be doing from a marketing standpoint? You should be the best at what you do and what you do should deliver real results. And if you focus on something that delivers real results, you will be unstoppable. Brilliant. So folks that aren't exposed to impact theory, I hope you watch or listen to what you've got going on.

So where's the impact theory.com? Yep. You go to impact theory.com or more importantly to me, if you're going to give me my ideal would be to go to youtube.com forward slash Tom bill you, which is where all the impact theory episodes are released. We also have other content there. Um, that, that is our primary platform. So you're building a TV channel basically.

We're building a studio. It is. So we want to take on channel. Basically we're, we're building a studio. It is. So we want to take on Disney. Seriously. Yep. Is that the model for impact? That is literally our model. What would Disney look like if it were founded today?

Really cool. Thank you. Now let's see if we can pull it off. Yeah. Thank you again for your time. Like your insights are awesome. And, um,

what, what on social media, what's the right places to follow you on social YouTube, Instagram, those three up you'd be a happy camper i'm way active socially all at tom bill you yeah oh okay and you are active yes yeah very very yeah cool thank you All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the

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