Good Life Project - Tom Bilyeu | How to Create Massive Impact

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

How’d a kid who loved movies and thought he’d be a filmmaker leave film school, and end up building a $1-billion healthy nutrition business, then exit and focus his energy back on the quest to build the next Disney, but with a focus not just on entertainment, but on impact? That’s the story behind today’s guest, Tom Bilyeu, the co-founder, along with his wife, Lisa, of Quest Nutrition, and the now rapid growth Impact Theory production studio, which is dedicated to creating media and experiences that change people’s lives. Tom was named one of Success Magazine’s Top 25 Influential People, and in today's conversation, we dive into the early influences that shaped him and his lens on creativity and possibility. We talk about how he struggled to even get out of bed for an entire season of life, and then returned to a deeper drive, underneath the yearning to make movies, and how that has been a consistent thru-line and driving motivation to build a billion-dollar nutrition company, then sell it in order to return to his original desire to make media that made meaning, but on a whole different level. You can find tom at: Website | Instagram | Impact Theory on YouTubeIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Rich Roll.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED.Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Life is a game about joy and fulfillment, and fulfillment has a very specific formula, and that formula goes like this. You're going to work really hard to gain a set of skills that matter to you for whatever reason. They matter a lot, and you're going to use them in service of a goal that is both exciting to you and honorable, meaning that it serves you, but it also serves other people. And if you do that, if you're working really hard and constantly getting better at something that allows you to serve other people,

you've won because you will be in the neurochemical place that you need to be to know to your bones that you're living a good life. So how did a kid who loved movies and thought he'd be a filmmaker leave film school and end up building a billion dollar healthy nutrition business, then exit and focus his energy back on the quest to build the next Disney, but with a focus not just on entertainment, but on impact? That is the story behind today's guest, Tom Bilyeu, the co-founder, along with his wife, Lisa, of Quest Nutrition. Yes, you've seen it in shelves all over the world. And now the rapid growth impact theory production studio, which is dedicated to creating media and experiences that change people's lives. Tom was named one of Success Magazine's top 25 influential people. And in today's conversation, we dive into the early influences that shaped him and his lens on creativity and possibility, or sometimes the lack thereof. We talk about how he gets really stuck for entire seasons of his life, struggles to get out of bed. We talk about the deeper drive that turned things around underneath the yearning to make

movies and how that has been a consistent through line and driving motivation to first build a billion dollar nutrition company and then sell it in order to return to his original desire to make media that made meaning, but on a whole different level. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors.

For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca. That's uvic.ca. swimming or sleeping and it's the fastest charging apple watch getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes the apple watch series 10 available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum compared to previous generations iphone tennis or later required charge time and actual results will vary whether you're in your running era pilates era era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push,

find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. I thought it would be fun to do a little bit of a three-act conversation with you, which dips into your history to a certain extent. And winding up in act three is sort of like the future maker slash NFTs, crypto art, aspirational movements, all that stuff. And then we and just figure out how to get by. Am I reading that right from the outside in? Yeah, no, that's pretty accurate. Yeah. So what's that like for you coming up in that environment? Are you comfortable with that? Or is there a voice inside of you that rebels against it? I didn't think a lot about it, to be honest, but because I had the movies to show me a world that I didn't experience firsthand, I really started dreaming early. And I really feel like

the time that I grew up in was pretty special in terms of where movies were and where the technology of storytelling was going. So I was very obsessed with storytelling, with watching movies. It was a great bond with my dad. And for whatever reason, between my parents telling me I could be anything I wanted to be, and then movies showing me all the things that I wasn't, it really just, I locked in on that idea of, cool, I can go dream big and then actually make those dreams come true. And so in that way, I guess I was rebelling, but I always feel like I was moving towards something and not away from something. So I didn't move away from Tacoma. I didn't move away from my family. The only thing that I would say that I pushed back

directly on, I've always had a hard time with authority. So I felt like I was moving towards things. I was moving towards living in a big city. I was moving towards becoming a filmmaker. Those things were very exciting. And I remember my mom broke down in tears during the USC orientation because they were showing like, here are all the cool things around USC that are, you know, it's like a three minute drive from here, a five minute drive from here. And I grew up, I grew up in Tacoma. My address was Tacoma, but in reality, I was closer to

Puyallup. And the fact that nobody knows where that is, that's about right. So I felt like I was growing up in some ways in the middle of nowhere. In other ways, I felt like I was, you know, the center of the universe because I didn't know anything other than that. But when USC showed all these things that were around, my mom started crying because she realized that I was never going to come home. And she was like, you were meant to be in a place like that, weren't you? And I was like, yeah, like it just spoke to me. The idea of museums and, you know, living in a city with millions of people was pretty exciting. Yeah.

I mean, that's so powerful that your mom had that awakening also. And then that you saw that in her eyes and that there was a moment between you. I'm curious also, because you latch onto film. Growing up in a town where if I had the timing right, you would have been probably sort of like a teenager when, you know, Tacoma, or I don't know how far you were outside of Tacoma, which was, you know, like half an hour, 45 minutes outside of Seattle, which is, is known at that time. Like this is, this is the capital of music in the country. This is where grunge is emerging. This is sort of like the scene is built around. Not until I was in my teenage years, even before that, it was was nobody knew it. Like if I told

somebody that I was from Tacoma, they would have no idea. And I don't even think I got on a plane before I was 13. So it was like, there's sort of that pre-grunge era where I grew up and it just felt like I live right on the edge of rural. So it wasn't rural, but it was also not a suburb. So it felt closer to rural than suburban. And so when the grunge movement happened, you know, I was quite old at that point. I was, you know, 13. And so my identity becomes formed in a period where I feel very much like I'm on the outside looking in. So this is during the John Hughes era where it's all suburban, fluent Chicago. And my life didn't look like that. I'd never seen an expensive house in real life before, right?

So it was like, I felt like that kid sort of frosting his hands on the outside, cold, leaning against the warm window, looking inside. So yeah, that was sort of frosting his hands, you know, on the outside cold leaning against the warm window looking inside. So yeah, that that was sort of the the context with which the grunge moment hit. And then suddenly, people were putting bumper stickers on their car that just said Seattle. And so that was a very exciting, but sort of jarring moment where all of a sudden, the Pacific Northwest was cool. It was a weird moment. Yeah. And then those worlds kind of converge because that music scene ends up actually

fueling a whole bunch of media and a whole bunch of movies that become sort of like part of the mainstream conversation. So when you end up at USC to study film, I'm curious also, whenever somebody latches onto something that just becomes this consuming passion at a young age, I'm always curious what's underneath that. Like, is it the creative act? Is it the ability to evoke emotion from another person? I'm curious whether you had a sense, even at that young age, what was happening underneath the idea, the notion of making films that was the deeper driver of your impulse? You know, it's funny. I didn't think about it at the time other than I just loved doing it. So that was a neurochemical state. So there's something about storytelling

that I just respond more aggressively than most people. So, you know, a lot of people obviously get the emotional highs and the emotional lows of watching a film. I think for me, the amplitude might just be a little bit bigger, but then there's also the idea of when you're shown how a magic trick is done, it either increases your love of magic or it decreases it. And for me, it always increased. And so not only did I study magic for a while, because I was so enamored with learning how the tricks were done. I had that same kind of response to learning how filmmaking was done. It just made me like it even more. And so you marry that then. So higher amplitude, emotional response. And then, and this is me contextualizing it. Now I wasn't thinking about this as a kid, but my dad and I, the way that we bonded was over films. So that was like the one thing we shared. My dad loved cars. I

absolutely hated them. My dad loved working in the garage. I despise having grease on my hands. And so there was like this, a disconnect that I was hyper aware of. So I felt bad. I remember at 11 being like, so crestfallen for my dad, because I was like, man, having kids isn't easy. You sacrifice all this stuff to have somebody that hopefully shares your passions. And I didn't. And I was keenly aware that like I had friends that did. And so there was like this, you know, sort of pain for me for sure. But in, in some ways, maybe even more so for my dad, that like my best friends would have been better sons for him than I was and that he would have had more fun with. And so I really latched on to filmmaking because there was a certain type of

film like Jean-Claude Van Damme. Oh God, the guy I'm forgetting who I was absolutely obsessed with, who's now a cop. He's not got the best reputation at this point, but it was one of those big 80 stars. And we really bonded over those kinds of movies. And so combine that with, I have a higher emotional amplitude, something that I can do with my dad and that my dad had access through his work to a camcorder. So I could also go make films. This is in the eighties. So I'm making films at a time where most people, I mean, by this point, everybody sort of of has a vcr but it's a really new technology and so that like confluence of you know being the kid growing up sort of right at the edge of rural watching the john hughes moment loving film bonding with my dad and being able to play with it and you get like this just

everything was reinforcing it from all angles. Yeah. And also, I mean, what sounds like it's emerging as you share this is you're tapped into a level of empathy that shows up in a lot of different ways over the course of your career and fuels a lot of what you do. It sounds like at an unusual level at a young age. Do you have a sense of that? Yes. And was actually aware of that when I was a kid. So one of my earliest memories is we were having an Easter egg hunt. My sister is almost four years older than I am. We were having an Easter egg hunt.

I would have been probably five. And I remember seeing an egg and going, I'm not going to pick this one up because I know it will mean something for my sister to win, to find the most eggs. And, you know, it's one of those things that you then suddenly you're, you know, whatever, 15 and you think back to it and you're like, whoa, like that's really been a thing for me. I love to see other people win. And in fact, in business, the thing that I really had to grow into was really wanting to win myself and to own that and to toughen up and to get good. And I definitely, there was a time where the guy who very, very successful entrepreneur

at the time, he was more successful than I was. And so this was an interesting comment to hear. He pulled me aside and we had hired him as our CEO. And he said, Tom, look, you just don't have the killer instinct. And I remember thinking, yeah, you're right. I don't, but I don't want to. And at that time, it was actually kind of scary because I couldn't yet envision social media. And so this was a time where having the killer instinct would have helped my business career. And so while I didn't want to cultivate it because I knew what that would mean,

I also didn't know if that was the death sentence of my entrepreneurial career. So that was a really weird moment that happened probably about maybe 18 months, 24 months before the thing that we now call social media presented a path forward for me that I could really see clearly. So yeah, in that moment, it was like, wow, like this, it's not something I'm willing to cultivate, but it may mean that I'm never going to be successful. And so it was a very weird moment. That's so interesting. I mean, it's interesting because when somebody says, you know, talks about this phrase, the killer instinct, you know, the alternative frame to that is, well, I'm inviting you to cleave off a piece of your humanity in exchange for what like, you what the world says you have to have.

So on the one hand, you can frame it as an asset or you have the killer instinct. Then on the other hand, you can frame it as, oh, I'm walking away from a part of what makes me human and I'm not willing to do that, which is certainly how it landed with you. I want to dive into how that showed up in business because I think it tracks in really powerful ways. But let's talk about what happened at USC a little bit first. You end up at USC, you're going to film school, knocking out of the park. And then there's this moment, which becomes a bit of a crisis for you, senior thesis time. You create a movie that you feel is like the pinnacle, you submit it, and you don't get the response you think. Yeah, no, it was terrible. And unfortunately, by the time I submitted, I realized that it's terrible. And so now you've got your whole family flying in and you're like, this is bad.

Like they're going to see this. It is objectively bad. And every bit of feedback that I had gotten up to that point was that it was bad and that everybody was worried that it wasn't going to come together and then it doesn't come together. And so that was devastating. I mean, that was, I can't overstate how hard that moment was for me. It was at that point, it, it unfortunately gets worse, but it was at that point, the worst moment of my life. And the thing that scared me was I didn't know how to make it better. It wasn't like, I was like,

oh, okay, well now I get it. I see what I should have done. It was, I really did everything that I knew how to do. And all of the things that had gotten me to that point suddenly fell apart. And there's something very interesting that happens to people where you come face to face with your real limitations. And if you don't have a growth mindset, I can think a few things more terrifying than

realizing the edge of your ability. And you suddenly realize I'm on a very small island and I have to live the rest of my life on this island. And you don't realize that you can make that island bigger. And so that was devastating. And up until that point, I had really started to, and my belief was always very fragile, but until that moment, every time I tried in film, it worked. And so it was like, I had this, albeit fragile, but growing confidence. And we all know that person who it's,

and I've heard it said about dogs, that you get people that are nervous or dogs that are nervous, aggressive. I was nervous, confident. So I was constantly worried that there was another shoe to fall because internally I felt so insecure because I didn't know what I was doing. And in that moment, it suddenly all came crashing down. And I realized, whoa, like I, I believed that you were born with a certain amount of talent. And I had believed that what film school had taught me was that I really had it right. So I had performed very well in all of the classes leading up to that moment. I was smashing it in my GPA, never cheated, nothing just like earned it and was killing it.

And every film that I turned in was getting me more and more success. And so I was one of only four people selected to do a senior thesis. It was like a big moment. I thought this is going to be the thing that catapults me into stardom. And then the first thing that chipped away at my confidence was they showed us George Lucas's senior thesis. And it was amazing. I mean, amazing. And in his senior thesis, you see why he goes on to become George Lucas. And so I had this sense of like, oh God, like I'm not sure that anything I've done

would lead me to believe that what I'm about to do is gonna be as good as what he does. But I was like, hey, you've thought that every time and you've knocked it out of the park every time. And then I really failed and fell on my face in front of everybody in slow motion because you're doing it over, you know, whatever, four months. And so the teachers were like, Hey, I'm not sure you're making the right decisions. You know, you should think about this. And I was just like, I didn't know enough to understand what they were

trying to articulate. And so you just have to plow forward. And so, yeah, that was gnarly. And so crash and burn and enter the darkest phase of my life. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. We'll be right back. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

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The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

And you referenced this phrase growth mindset, right? Which is referencing directly the work of Carol Dweck and growth versus fixed mindset, which I think has become such a part of the popular conversation and happily so over the last decade or so. But, and for those who aren't familiar with that work, it's this distinction between a belief that whatever you do, whatever success you have is based on some sort of God-given genetic, whatever it may be, talent. And when you reach the edge, that's it. Versus that the same might be actually the outgrowth of effort, of work over time, of developing skills and craft and hard work. And if you had the mindset which you had, which was the fixed version, well, this is all about talent and I've just hit the edge, then it is devastating because you think there's nothing

beyond this and I'm not capable of doing anything beyond this. At that time, I mean, you use the language of growth mindset. Now, I'm assuming in that moment in time, that language wasn't available to you. And the idea, the concept of growth versus fixed wasn't available to you. No, no, it was just innate talent versus, you know, whether you can get better. And so, and this is interesting because this is all happening in the late nineties. So in the late nineties, at least as it bubbled up into the, the cultural awareness, there was a debate going on brain plasticity. Could you change as you got older? Yes or no.

And it was really debated. And I was, and I can't remember what started me on this. It might've been filmmaking quite frankly, because in film school, they teach you about the physicality of the ears, for instance, or the way that your eyes do motion tracking. And so they really got me into thinking about the idea that I now reference as you're having a biological experience.

And I think that first seed was planted with that as I began to need to understand my audience and understand how they respond to sounds or sights or why edits work and how you make, how you leverage them tracking motion to get them what they call across a cut. And as you're doing that, you really start to think about the human as an animal that has like these visual tricks that they'll fall for, that there are audio games that you can play to like turn down their, their volume. Cause there's actually a muscle in the ear that the louder something gets, the more it clamps down. And so if you give a moment of silence, then that will relax

and then you can hit them with a loud sound again. And so as I was starting to think about those games, I started thinking about the brain and then thinking about the brain ended up being the thing that saved me because I was like, okay, there's this idea of brain plasticity. I've just hit the edge of my talent

and now it's devastating, like really emotionally devastating every time I think of myself as being at the edge of my talent. And now it's devastating, like really emotionally devastating every time I think of myself as being at the edge of my abilities. But hey, there's this brain plasticity idea. And what if I really could get better? And so I just decided that I was going to act as if that were true. And then enough things happened in my life, especially because I started teaching film. And when I started teaching film, I'm reading about the brain, right? And I'm teaching film and I'm helping students' films get better. And so I have this moment of realization of, well, wait a second. If I can study and then go teach them

and help them make their films get better, why can't I study and practice and make my own films better? And marry that now with, I have the language of brain plasticity. And I'm like, oh my God, this, I think this actually is real. And so now I just go whole hog into, you know, your Tony Robbins and like anybody talking mindset, you can get better. Carol Dweck did not have a book out yet. And I just decided to act as if it were all true. And that changes my life. Yeah.

So here's my, my curiosity around this. You're doing all this stuff. You drop from this absolute low into a short season of really low. It sounds like borderline depression, languishing, using Adam Grant's language. You start to discover all the ideas around neuroplasticity. And as you're starting to buy into it, as you're saying, yes, this makes sense to me. And you're literally using that to teach other people. Was there something in you that said, let me actually tap all of this to go back into the world of the film. And I know that you kind of go back to it

years later in a very different way, but at that moment in time, was there a voice in you that said, let me go back into this because now I believe I can be the next George Lucas? Because the move that you made was away from film while you're sort of like doing this rather than back to it. Well, the interesting, so I never actually gave up on film. So everything that I've done was with an eye towards making my dreams come true in filmmaking. So there's this really dark period where it feels like rhetoric. I don't necessarily believe it anymore, but I haven't stopped moving altogether. So if you were to sort of imagine, like if you've ever seen a bee when the weather turns cold and they're like moving really slowly and they're like flap their wings a little, but they can't fly.

That's what that period felt. That's me too. When the weather gets cold. So you know it well. So I go through that period where I'm definitely slowing down. I am now sliding towards depression. I have deep fears that I'm never going to be able to make my dreams come true because I don't have a thread to follow.

I don't see the path. And I believed at that time, those who can do those who can't teach. And I was selling insurance door to doors, just miserable on a lot of levels. And I end up getting a job offer to run a post-production part of a school. And so I'm like, Oh my God, at least I'd be around film. I'd be talking film, seeing other film buffs. You know, it's not even teaching, but I can get paid to do something, at least be close to something I love. And so that turns into, I meet these business guys and they're like, hey, we have this opportunity basically for you to come and get rich. And since you're coming to the world with your hand out, if you instead

figure out how to get rich, then you could build a studio. Actually, I wasn't thinking studio at the time. You could make films, you could fund your own films and do it that way. And so you're no longer having to beg for money. You could just make the movie. And so why don't you come with us, you know, in this startup and then work your way to partner and get rich. And I was like, oh my God, that sounds amazing. I thought it would take 18 months. It took 15 years, but it worked. And so there was a time at Quest where Quest was so successful and I was spending so much time filming things that I was perfectly happy for Quest to be my forever company because I had shown that by understanding storytelling, that I understood marketing

and that I could do something really extraordinary. And obviously it changed my life financially. And so I didn't need to go beyond that, but I did want to incorporate filmmaking more and more with inside the company. And so we launched Inside Quest and we're literally shooting a TV show. And so we launched inside quest and we're, you know, literally shooting a TV show. Um, and so I was trying to find ways between the commercials and

the shows to like really do something. And then of course I ended up spinning that out into a standalone company, but I, I really didn't ever lose sight of the passion of storytelling. It just very much was expressing itself in a very strange way. Yeah, that's so interesting. So it's like the through line carries on, but it's coming out in the form of creating experiences for people around this big nutrition-based brand. And also that backstory, which is if we can actually build this into something that is powerful enough where I can exit a certain level, it gives me the freedom to then just devote myself wholeheartedly at some point in the future to really going all into this and doing it exactly the way I want to do it. So there's like these two storylines running for you.

Yeah, no doubt. And the sort of craziest moment of belief or just absolute stunning ignorance was thinking that, oh yeah, I can go learn business, build something big and exit and be able to go film my own films. And in the beginning, admittedly, it was like, you know, I was thinking if I could get like seven to $10 million, that would let me shoot a film for a million dollars. And then I can use that as my calling card into the industry. And of course it, course, everything is so much harder than you expect it to be. But yeah, in the end, it worked. It's kind of crazy.

And the quest that we're talking about here, for those who aren't aware, if you've ever gone into a grocery store, a bodega, pretty much anywhere at this point and seen Quest bars, Quest cookies, all sorts of different product lines at this point. That's the company that we're talking about. So Tom becomes a part of a couple of people who start this brand and build it into what eventually some nine, 10 years later, they're able to exit at a billion dollar valuation. That's sort of like the legendary story on the outside. There's another through line that's running underneath this story though. And it ties back to that empathy that we talked about when you were a kid. And there was a deeper mission, it sounds like, for the company itself. This wasn't just let's build a billion dollar brand and exit for a lot of money. There was a service, there was an empathetic mission behind this that wasn't just about let's make a ton of money, but there was a service vision behind this as well. For sure. So what ends up happening is we're building a company before that called Awareness Technologies. And, you know, it was doing well, it was successful, not on the scale of Quest, but

I wasn't having fun. And so on paper, by that point, I'm worth, I don't know, call it roughly $2 million. And one, there's a big difference between being worth something on paper, by that point, I'm worth, I don't know, call it roughly $2 million. And one, there's a big difference between being worth something on paper and actually having the money in the bank. So I learned that up close and personal. And then realizing that I couldn't guarantee that I would ever be successful. So I couldn't guarantee that I could turn that $2 million on paper into $2 million in the bank. Maybe that never happens.

And I could guarantee the struggle. And if the struggle is guaranteed and the success is not, then I really needed to think about what I was doing with my day-to-day life. And so after it was around the six and a half year mark that I went in and quit. And then I ended up being at Awareness Tech for almost a decade. So it was, I think, a little over eight years. And at the six and a half year mark, when I quit, the whole idea is I'm going to go right again. And I'm going to do something that makes me feel alive because maybe I fail at filmmaking, but at least on a day-to-day basis, filmmaking would be a lot more fun than security software. And that was hard.

And I really felt like a failure at that point. It did not feel like a win. And now sort of looking back, it becomes the best thing that I ever did. But at the time, it really felt like I was abandoning my friends. I mean, those guys had become like brothers to me. And I was just doing it because I was fed up. And I was, you know, I spent all this time showing up every day, just trying to be rich. And I was on paper worth millions of dollars, but I was emotionally bankrupt. And so it was, you know, now I have a far more articulate

way of explaining it than I would have back then. But it's like, if you know that success isn't guaranteed, the struggle is, then whatever you're struggling at, you better struggle at well. And so that better be something that you would love, even if you're losing. And at the time, my partners and I were asking the question that sort of in the popular zeitgeist you were supposed to ask, which was, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? And so that was like, oh, well, I know exactly what I would do. We would build this company so we can get rich so we can go film the way that, you know, I wanted to film. And so through that process, I realized that's the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is what would you do and love every day, even if you were failing?

And once I switched my mind over to that, I started making the right business decision. So I end up, I quit, but my partner's like, wait, don't, we feel the same. Like, how do we do something where we can keep working together? The long story short, that ends up becoming Quest, but the value system that we put in place was the struggle well system, right?

So it was gonna be something built around our passions. It was gonna be something where we were focused not on making money, but on adding value to people's lives. Going back to that idea of I like to see other people win. So I wanted to do something rad. We would now say I wanted to build community. Back then, I just kept saying, I just want to connect with people.

I want to be who I really am. I want to connect. I want to uplift them. And social media, it wasn't called that then, but that thing that ends up becoming social media is just beginning to percolate. And so I'd read Kevin Kelly's idea of a thousand true fans and I went to my partners and I said, look, I think that we can use this thing

that now we call social media to build a community, to uplift people, to celebrate them, to do something amazing. And because we have a product that people eat, they're gonna come back. And so we have this opportunity to like really be a meaningful, ongoing part of their lives.

That speaks to me as a business person, that I can do. And so as we structured the company around those values, and so I wasn't chasing money anymore. And I thought if I spend the next 40 or 50 years of my life building this company, I'm showing up every day fighting for my mom and my sister. They were morbidly obese. It was a way for me to help them by making food that they could choose based on taste that happened to be good for them. And so that becomes a paradigm shift. And then it becomes so successful that I'm just like, this is how you do business. And by focusing on adding value over money in the era of social

media, it's like, you have to be business savvy. And I never want that to get lost in this. Being a nice person is not enough. You also have to understand like business, but if you understand business and you lead with adding value to people's lives, you really can build something extraordinary. And so that it was the perfect confluence of events where if it had happened 10 years earlier, I wouldn't have had the business savvy. And if I had never found obsession with value creation, I don't think I ever would have been successful because I don't have the killer instinct. So it's like this really fascinating moment. Yeah. And there's also, there's so much foreshadowing in there of the work that you're doing now too, which we'll circle around to. But part of this process also for you, I mean, you become, like you said, very, you develop the

skillset, the mindset of being really proficient, really good at business. And along with that, a lot of philosophy. So now you're, you know, like it's not just, oh, I'm doing this because, you know, it's going to help me be a filmmaker, but also it seems like a spark was really lit in you and saying, oh, there's something that I love that I'm deeply passionate about this, about value creation, community building, about bringing it all together and develop a bit of a stance of a sort of business philosopher, which after the exit from Quest, puts you very publicly in that role. But at the same time, so you have this really powerful event. You've been working for years really, really, really hard and you exit. I'm always curious what happens when people have an event like that and they wake up the next

morning, you know, because on the outside, it's like, this is everything that you've worked for. Check, check, check, check, check. Right. But it's also everything that's gotten you up in the morning. And I'm wondering when you wake up, not necessarily the next morning, but you're like right around then, how are you just as a person? So luckily I learned the lesson back at awareness technologies that money wasn't going to solve my problems. And so I am obsessed with that idea that I was referencing earlier, that you're having a biological experience, meaning life is a game of neurochemistry. And the reason people do drugs is that you can alter your neurochemistry incredibly rapidly with drugs.

Now, that's a very dangerous game because there are massive consequences to drugs, but I get why people do it. So I became very interested in the idea of how much can I manipulate my neurochemistry through my lifestyle, through my mindset, through my belief system, through my value system. And I realized that I could manipulate it far more sustainably doing that than anybody could ever hope to do through drugs. And that realization is probably the thing that has sustained me the most. It was now it's like, there's a lot of people talking about it, meaning that meaning and purpose, fulfillment, joy,

like that's the grab bag of things you should care about. Money, success, fame, those things also have this really high amplitude in terms of what it does to your neurochemistry, but it's very short term. And so I recognize that back at awareness technologies when it was sort of play money, right? Because I was worth millions of dollars on paper, but it didn't hit my real life. And I realized, okay, this is a game of neurochemistry. I need to love what I'm struggling at every day. And there needs to be joy in that. There needs to be fulfillment in that meaning purpose. Like I need to focus on those things. And so by the time we sold Quest, first of all, I was worth hundreds of millions of dollars on paper again. And so I had lived that

once before. And then because we built the value in the company, but didn't take any value out until we sold, it all happens in one moment where you go from not having any money in your bank account to having a lot of commas and zeros. And so it was a very important moment that I had a hypothesis about. And then the hypothesis came true. And my hypothesis was that the money couldn't touch the only thing that mattered, which was how I feel about myself and I'm by myself. And my hypothesis was that it wasn't going to be able to touch any of my insecurities. And so I needed to deal with those insecurities. And then I get that moment where you're hitting refresh on your banking app and

it goes from normal to like, holy hell. And in that moment, I realized I feel exactly the same. And so all of the adoration that I had grown up with looking at people that were wealthy and saying, oh my gosh, that's so amazing. I wish you realize that what you're hoping will happen when you get wealthy is that you will feel about yourself the way that you feel about other people when you look at them. But of course you don't because your insecurities are going to follow you wherever you go. And so I was like, I understood by that point what money was and what it wasn't. What it is, is the great facilitator. It lets you actually execute on your dreams. It's extraordinary. Money is actually more powerful than people think,

but money can only address money problems. It cannot address personal problems, insecurities, self-esteem, none of that. Now becoming capable of doing the things that allowed me to generate that wealth. That was the transformation. That's the thing that actually makes me feel good about who I am. Right. See, having opportunities to make money at somebody's expense, not taking it right. Like there's a hundred things that end up happening to you, getting a deeper skillset, doing things when nobody's looking that have, you know, end up paying off tremendously. Like all of those things, like going hard, you know, for a thousand days and there's no reward for it. And all of those things give you a sense of like, I said, I was going to do it. I did it right. I showed up, I've done the hard

things I've pushed when nobody was watching those things matter. So the next day i felt like the same person in fact the the real story is the day that the money hit if you were to ask any of my employees they couldn't tell you what day it was because i showed up for work exactly the same i acted exactly the same because i knew the only thing mattered was meaning and purpose so when we exit the company fully and i sell and like i'm no longer involved in quest in any way, shape or form. And even after that, like I, my last day at quest was a Monday. My first day at impact theory was that Tuesday. I didn't take a single day off.

I just started building the next thing right away because I know that what matters is meaning and purpose. And so once you accept that, that is the truth of the fundamental human condition, then you're not tricked by money. And meaning and purpose, like if I can just cut through all of the guesswork for anybody out there that is pursuing wealth, the only thing that matters is that what you do every day is worth the struggle. So read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and act accordingly. So powerful in so many ways. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. When you wake up, then literally like there's zero time. You walk out of one and then you walk into the next adventure the following day, impact theory, which you start out along with your wife, Lisa, and you're building this now media company together

where you get to really focus back on storytelling, on shining the light on incredible stories and telling them the way that you have, where it meets the taste that's in your mind and offering it to the world. But unlike traditional studios, rather than saying, let's build an entertainment franchise, you say, no, we're going to build a franchise that offers the world the red pill. We're going to build an empowerment franchise wrapped around entertainment, which I thought was a really interesting choice. Yeah. So going back to meaning and purpose, also one of the greatest ways to acquire talent is to give them a mission that they can believe in. So it isn't just the people that start the

company that are going to derive meaning and purpose from what they're building. It's every member of the team. And so I knew one for me to show up every day and fight as hard as I'm going to fight and to put my finances at risk and all of that, I needed to believe in what we were trying to do. And so I knew that I don't think any of us are born with a mission. I think we decide at some point what our mission is going to be. And then, you know, we reinforce that. And so at Quest, my mission, the thing that gave me meaning and purpose was to end metabolic disease, right? I wanted to save my mom and my sister. Now moving into impact theory, I was going to switch and I was going to have a different mission. And there

was no cognitive dissonance for me because I understand how you build importance in your life. And so I said, okay, cool. I'm moving on from that. And what's that next mission going to be? And so through Quest, I actually really discovered what now is the meaning and purpose behind why I tell stories. So growing up, I didn't have meaning and purpose behind it. I just loved it.

And I have given it meaning and purpose through a hyper-intentional set of actions to make sure that when it gets hard, I'm not thinking about like how many employees I'm going to have or am I bigger than Disney? I'm going to be thinking about the people I'm trying to help. So I started working in the inner cities when I was 18 or 19. And then at Quest, ironically, I find myself back in the inner cities and I'm just meeting all these extraordinary people that have a frame of reference that is not useful. And because they have a frame of reference that's not useful, even though they're smart, even though they're beautiful human beings, amazing, capable,

they're not doing anything with their lives. And so they're struggling in ways that they don't need to struggle. So I become obsessed with this idea of, Hey, wait a second. There's nothing special about me. I just have, I've put together a group of ideas that if anybody else puts at the center of their life, they could leverage in the same way that I have. So I start trying to, I set up what we call quest university at the time. now obviously Impact Theory University, and I start teaching them everything I know about entrepreneurship. And I'm like, I will teach you anything. I will come in early.

I will stay late. If you want to know how to build a competitive nutrition company, I will teach you how to do it. It doesn't matter. I just want you guys to know these are just ideas. You can all use them. And so I poured my heart and soul into that. And 2% of the people that encountered those ideas did something with them.

And it's amazing. And seeing even now that echo through their lives and they believe in themselves and they're making more money than they ever thought they would make. And they're finding meaning and purpose in their lives. It's incredible, it's beautiful. But I am a scale guy.

So I just kept asking myself, what about the 98%? And so what would you have to do to reach them? And so while I'm at Quest with no intention of leaving, I come across the idea that this is obviously going to be about story. And I've got to hit people at a limbic level. You've got to get away from the logical centers of their brain, speak to them at an emotional level, and ideally catch them as early as you can. And that leads me to the age of imprinting, which is 11 to 15. And I become obsessed with that. And so now you've got impact theory ready-made to hit people on both fronts, the logical part, which is what we're doing right now. Think like this, act like this, right? Just talking into a camera. And then you've got the storytelling side, which hits people in the

emotional centers. And about 85% of the storytelling that we do is focused on kids 11 to 15. And so that becomes the wrapper of just trying to figure out what would actually work to make the change in people that we want to make. And so we put that at the center of the company. It wasn't like I was born with that mission, but you can create meaning. Hmm. So you start building Impact Theory, which has now, I guess, it kind of officially launches around 2016 if I have the timing right. So we're five, six years into it. It's now become like this substantial entity, which produces all sorts of different forms of media, different shows,

continuing to follow on that mission, adopting those values. In the last couple of years, you get lit up about something different. So you and I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days together with an amazing group of people a couple of months back. And we're kind of all sharing what's on our mind at the time. And it comes time for you to share what's on your mind. And you basically just address the group and effectively say, there is something happening right now that the vast majority of the world either doesn't know about, or if they do know about it, they have no understanding whatsoever of what's really happening. And there's so much mythology and confusion and in fact, scammy stuff that's

happening around the real undercurrent of the truth of what's happening that so many people are just ignoring and writing off. And I'm imploring you, do not ignore this. And what you were talking about then was the world of these things called NFTs, not just those, but the broader world of structure and organizations that's built around it. I had kind of been curious about it at the time. I had seen some stories. I'd actually found myself in a room on Clubhouse earlier in the year with a guy named Micah Johnson. And he was doing his first quote NFT drop. I had no idea what that actually meant at the time I'm in the room. I'm just like, oh, this sounds interesting.

And the guy has an interesting story. He's since been on the podcast sharing that story. And then I start to get really curious. And then when you say, do not ignore this. And here's a guy who I know is smart. He's gone deep, deep into this. You're somebody who doesn't take anything at surface value. You vet like nobody on the planet.

And you're saying this is real. And I'm like, huh? All right. I need to know more. So part of the reason I wanted to invite you to have this conversation is because I want to talk about this because you have become evangelical about NFTs, about this world. And I want to know what's underneath this, what is happening that you feel is so big and also that so many people are missing and it's tapping something. I feel like there's this empathic side to you that says, please, please, like I care about you.

Even if I don't know you, do not miss this because this is a once in a generation thing. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening and that is why I've become evangelical. So I heard, I forget who said this, but I thought this was a really accurate way to frame it based on how I feel. So whenever inequality gets so bad, your only option is massive redistribution of wealth. The only way that that's happened historically has been war or revolution. And it is my hope that what's going to happen now is the third way to do this, which is peaceful, which is a major technological disruption that predisposes the average person to take advantage of it. Now, like anything, if the average person is poised to

take advantage of it, the people that are well capitalized and smart are also going to have the opportunity to get in. But this really is, as far as I can tell, the first time in history where the average person can front run the institutions because the institutions have certain guardrails within their institution that precludes them from moving capital into these areas. Now, what, A16Z has started snatching up Web3 companies left, right, and center. But certainly what's going on in cryptocurrency, I think people need to take a look at. And I want to be very clear.

All I'm saying is research it. Look into this. I don't know that I'm right. And so I take a very Ray Dalio approach to this, which is I think I'm right, but I don't know I'm right. And so people need to really look at what's going on in cryptocurrency and Web3 and make their own decisions. Now, having said that, what I see happening is a technology that is custom made for somebody like me and somebody who likes to see other

people win. Because what's happening right now is the blockchain has created a movement which was brewing for a long time culturally. And I think the creation of the blockchain is a response to the undercurrent that probably, at least as I became aware of it, started as Occupy Wall Street, like that whole movement of like, the system is broken and we've got to find a way to fix the system. And so you get the probably, it's probably a nom de plume or whatever. I forget the, just an alias of Satoshi Nakamoto, of this person, whoever he or she may be, that created Bitcoin and gave birth to this technology

that is now reaching real mass adoption. And I ignored it for a very long time. And I had a lot of smart people telling me, hey, you really need to look at this. The most recent of which was actually one of my teammates here at Impact Theory, a guy named David Kim. And he was just obsessed with me looking at it. He's like, Tom, you've got to look at this.

And I'm like, David, I'm good at making money. I have no interest in getting good at investing money. So I'm just not interested. And he wouldn't let up, wouldn't let up, kept bringing it up, kept bringing it up. And finally, somebody else was like, hey, Tom, you need to consider it your full-time job to learn about NFTs. And this was back in March of 2021. And I had never heard NFTs strung together like that before, but five years or more before that, I had met a guy who presented me the thing he called V Adams. And I'm looking at it and I was like, whoa, this is going to create scarcity of digital items.

I said, that's going to change my business. I was like completely blown away and then immediately forgot about it because the technology wasn't mature enough. But the second I looked at what NFTs were, I was like, oh my God, this is that digital scarcity thing that that guy was showing me. And I was like, this is going to change everything. And now the technology is there. And so as I started researching NFTs, you have to understand the blockchain. As you grow to understand the blockchain, then you understand cryptocurrency. And as I grew to understand the blockchain, cryptocurrency and NFTs, I was like, this is going to change the world in the most profound ways possible, in ways little and small and big. And this is going to be everywhere. And then I was like,

wait a second. What this really does is it's changing from creating audiences to building communities. And when you understand in a Web3 context what building a community means, it means that you're giving them an opportunity to create with you inside of the world that you're creating and they get to own part of the products that you create. And so as we created an NFT product called the Founders Key,

we imbued it such that whoever owns that key owns 90% of it. So we get a 10% royalty as they sell. But now as I build value into those keys over the next, what, 40 years of my career, now all of a sudden the community is capturing 90% of that value and it aligns our desires. So I've said for a decade that if you can align people's selfish desires, then you can really do something incredible together. And it's been hard previously because you couldn't prove who owned what. So it was very easy to game the system. And because it was so easy to game the system, nobody built anything. So we were talking

for a long time, like how do we gamify quest? How do we create incentives for people? How do we reward them for buying product, being a long time, you know, supporter of the brand, liking and sharing things on Instagram, whatever, like how do you find a way to, to reward them for doing that so that they'll feel more connected, that you can help elevate them and that they have a reason to keep doing it. We just couldn't find it. And I mean, you could do basic things like frequent buyers and things like that, but it's really hard. And there was no way for them to capture the economic value of that. Like they could get the value of a punch card or something like that, but it's tough to sell that punch card, right? So the blockchain gives people the ability to actually own. So to understand the three phases of the web and to understand why this is being called web

three, web one was right. Only you would go to a website. It would present you with information, but you really couldn't do anything. Then web two comes along and now you can read and write. So you could like social media, you could go out and put photos up, blog posts, whatever. And you now had a presence and you could attract an audience. And so it wasn't passive anymore. You were building an audience and you were creating all this content. You became a creator and we've seen what happened, right? So I built a billion dollar business off the back of that realization. Now you had read only, you had read and write, but you didn't have the ability to really own a piece of what's going on.

And so that layer of ownership and active participation, active creation within those ecosystems. So with Disney, for instance, Disney creates a story and they put it out and you enjoy the story and you can buy the plush toys and you can read the fan fiction. But now what you're able to do is you're able to go into, like with our founders keys, we have what's called the right to partner. So if you have a legendary key, so there's three tiers of our keys. If you have the legendary tier and we put out, so we just put out a project called Merry Mods. It's a Christmas themed project. We want to make it like a Christmas classic,

a story that you come back to every year. And with that, now, if you have a legendary key, you could go build, and somebody actually did this, build an ornament company using our brand in your ornament company. And so now by owning that product, that key, you get certain utility that other people don't have. And I can prove that you have that because on the blockchain, I can prove that that key is a legitimate key, that it's actually owned by that person. And therefore I can give them the rights to do things

that other people wouldn't be able to do. And so that means as I make the right to partner more valuable, they're able to sell that and capture 90% of those economics. And so we've aligned our selfish desires with the community such that they're incentivized to make the brand bigger, to create within the brand, to make those keys more valuable so that either they're getting the value because it's letting them do things like the right to partner, or they're getting the value because actually more people want to buy this finite, scarce

resource. We actually have deflationary mechanisms. So there are actually less over time. And so by making it valuable from a utility perspective, by making it, you know, a discrete number of units that are actually declining over time, if we continue to execute well, then the value of that should go over time go up and so it becomes this incredible and again these could all go to zero this is not financial advice like people need to just understand the technology understand what it allows you to do and then if

you can get the right product who it really becomes amazing because you retain the ability to resell that not the company And so it's really this incredible moment where when you factor what's going on in cryptocurrency, and if I'm right, and crypto like Bitcoin, for instance, becomes true digital gold and that more people invest in that than they do traditional gold. And look, Bitcoin has been the greatest bet you could have made over the last decade. It's really pretty extraordinary. Will it continue? Who knows? Again, it could all go to zero, but it's really extraordinary.

And so you have this new class of people that think about technology in a new way, that invested early in this technology and are now reaping tremendous rewards. And hopefully this allows us to redistribute wealth to people that are early adopters of this technology that are helping build on top of these protocols and giving the use case scenarios for these. And so the builders and the creators end up capturing the economics of this. And when you look at the fact that Bitcoin is the fastest adopted technology in human history, it got adopted faster than electricity. It got adopted faster than the telephone, than the fax machine, than the mobile phone, than the internet. Like it's, it is truly the fastest adopted technology. And the only technology that's being adopted faster than

Bitcoin is Ethereum, the next sort of big digital currency. So it's really crazy what's going on right now. Now, again, I could be wrong. This may all end up going nowhere. But to dismiss it without doing the research, that would be heartbreaking for somebody like me who knows that this isn't a zero-sum game, that there are a lot of people that could win at this, especially when you start talking about the creator economy and that you don't even have to go and create something yourself. Let a company like me create the IP and then you can come in and what's your skill set,

right? Do you do immersive audio experiences? Do you want to do a podcast about it? Do you want to create an ornament company? Like whatever, there are all these opportunities and they're going to be more and more companies like Impact Theory that are creating these incentives for people to come in and build this stuff in a way where they get to capture the economics of that. And so it's this incredible time where companies now, if they're savvy and they understand that that cultural moment has already happened,

Web3 as a personality trait of the current generation, that is, it just is. People are going to expect, if you grew up playing Minecraft and Roblox, you're going to expect that when you engage with a company or a product that you're going to be able to contribute in some way. And the companies that fail to recognize that demographics are destiny, that that is, it's already happened. This isn't a question. It is happening. And so now all of the infrastructure is being built right now.

And I'm just saying it's so early. And if you can go in and either help build that infrastructure or build something on top of the infrastructure that already exists, you have this massive chance to really create something meaningful that allows you a life. Maybe it allows you to make $75,000 a year. Maybe it allows you to make millions of dollars a year. I have no idea that will come down to individual abilities and, you know, what you end up creating. But the fact that I think people now, I'll give you one example of where I think the blockchain is going. I think people are going to be able to find a band in their local town that they think is going to be awesome before they've made, you know, made it on Spotify or anywhere else.

And they buy an NFT off of those people that give them rights to royalties off of their song. And the example that I heard given, and it really resonated with me because I actually grew up not far from where this band formed is Nirvana. And imagine if I had found Nirvana when they were a little band in Aberdeen, Washington, and I could get an NFT from them and that that NFT gave me lifetime royalty, let's say 30% of their royalties get distributed back

to the people that hold the NFTs. And I bought in for some expensive, but not overwhelming, let's say $350 or a thousand dollars. And then you get access to the lifetime rights. And there will be people that know music are tastemakers and can go in and find these bands, use their social following to bring attention to the bands. So they're not helping the band elevate.

And then they get rewarded for doing so that that is going to happen. And there are so many things when people get me started, started, we could have done a whole hour just on this. And of all the things that are going to happen in Web3, and now is the moment, this is the internet in 1995, where most of them are going to go to zero. There's going to be some Amazons. And so if you can find the Amazon, the Netflix, the whatever, then, you know, this could be absolutely life-changing. Or if you could build the next Amazon the Netflix, the whatever, then, you know, this could be absolutely life-changing. Or if you could build the next Amazon or Netflix, then this really becomes truly, truly extraordinary. But you have to do the research. You have to get in and understand the technology because once you understand the technology, you don't have to follow anymore.

Now you can lead. And that's where this gets interesting. And so, yes, I implore everybody listening to go learn about Web3. Now, if you walk away saying Tom is crazy, fine, fair enough. But don't dismiss it without doing the research. Yeah, it's fascinating on so many different levels. And it's interesting because a lot of your focus is you're taking your background in storytelling, creating media, creating comics, creating movies, creating all these different things, and then figuring out, okay, so not only how does this fit into this new world, but actually I'm going to create it with the express intention of it being like staking a

claim in this world. So I'm going to build it for the world. The other side of this experience is the individual, is the photographer in a small town or the stop motion animator or the illustrator or the person who's nearly just composing songs on their computer. And normally, it's a brutally hard world to succeed in. And if in fact, you're somebody who gets traction, you know, you sell something to the first person who buys it. And whatever you get is what you get for life. And what's so is what you get for life. And what's so fascinating to me for this role, so for people who are like, this sounds really interesting, but it's also wild, it's too big, it's too enterprise level. If we take this down to the level of one single human being who likes to create stuff, right? And say, how can this,

how can these ideas, how can this emerging technology affect you as an individual? You know, just that one individual, even if you have no aspirations for scale, but you just want to be able to keep creating stuff that is cool to you, you know, and that maybe there's an audience for. And this is a world in which if you step into it, there's potentially an opportunity to say, I'm going to offer this. I'm going to coalesce a community around it. And the community is saying yes to, I like what you're creating. So I'm going to exchange value for it. I'm going to pay you for it. And then they're also saying yes to the fact that, and maybe someday if you get big, or if this gets traction, this is going to be a really good investment for me.

And they're saying yes to, and there's this really cool community of other people who like this stuff too, that's forming around this. And me owning, me having an ownership interest in one of these things actually gives me a ticket to the community too. So it lets me in. So there's like all these multiple layers of things that are, and tell me if I'm getting this wrong or if I'm getting it right. But when I think about it from the level of just one person listening to this, who just likes to make stuff and like how this would be relevant to that one person, I want that person to feel like they're included in the conversation.

No doubt. Now you've got it exactly right. And the number of opportunities for people to create are going to be a thousand fold what they are today. And, you know, imagine if Wikipedia, you could actually make a living creating something like that. That's the kind of things that are going to happen. At Impact Theory, one of the things we're looking to do is create bounties. So, hey, we've got our marketing budget. We're going to be creating videos and all kinds of stuff, but Hey, you love Mary mods too. Um, we have a bounty,

let's say that is for a 32nd spot that is, uh, designed to get people excited about Mary mods is the holiday PFP, something like that. And then you put a, some kind of incentive for them to create this thing. And then if it gets selected, then they win the bounty. You're going to see more and more people doing that. And, you know, we could get into Dow's that's a very big topic, but there are going to be incredible ways for creative people to leverage other people's infrastructure to help build what they're doing, but also to be rewarded for that. And I think that's going to completely revolutionize the creator economy. I think people that would have never thought of themselves as a creator, because maybe the bounty is for coding, right? And so it's coding a bot that does something on

Discord, for instance, which is actually something that we did. So, you know, you don't have to be an artist. You don't have to be a musician. You can be an entrepreneur. You can be a coder. It's just you have to be somebody that understands the opportunity, understands how to plug it in in a Web3 community first way. And yeah, you are limited truly only by the technology and your imagination. It's just as people get in and understand what's happening, like the amount of cultural

energy pouring into what's happening in Web3 right now is unlike anything I have ever witnessed in my life. And the people that were old enough to be engaged with the internet when it happened all look at this and say, this is exactly like what happened with the internet when it happened, all look at this and say, this is exactly like what happened with the internet. And just the sucking sound that the Web3 space makes as it draws in talent is insane. So yeah, the most enthusiastic and passionate builders are pouring into the space by the day. And the opportunity to really be early,

like it's still there, but let me tell you, at the rate people are pouring into this space, it won't last forever. Um, so I hope that people really move quickly to learn again. All I'm asking is that you do the research that you look at it, that you assess the technology and form a hypothesis about where you think this goes, because I think anybody that does, you know, even 25 or 30 hours of homework will walk away saying, oh my God, this is bigger and more important than I could have realized. Yeah.

I'm so in that learning curve right now. And like you say, right now, it's a really interesting moment because there was a really big barrier to entry in that you really do have to invest. You have to spend a significant amount of time and energy in learning. But my sense is we're going to hit a moment where there was this huge change in Web 2 when Matt Muley brings out WordPress. And all of a sudden, what used to be more complicated and expensive to create websites, there's a platform that's available for free where anybody can create a decent looking website in the blink of an eye without having to code.

And now something like, what is it? 30% of the entire web is built on WordPress. It makes it accessible to everybody. I feel like, and I'm curious whether you agree, we're in that moment where we're pre-WordPress in web three, but it's coming. Like, you know, it's coming. And when it comes, the world, it's going to make it so much easier to understand this and to step into it and participate in the deep learning when it's not so easy, believing that this other sort of like level, that there will be a level of ease that somehow like drops into this world that will massively expand participation, there's an opportunity,

which is fascinating to me. And like you said, do I believe 100% all this is going to happen right now? No. And I have another interesting lens on this, which is in a very past life, I was actually an enforcement attorney for the SEC. Oh, we've got to talk more. Yeah. So it's fascinating because what I see happening in this world also is because it's largely unregulated right now. It's not like the SEC, they created disclosure requirements to try and level the playing field of what's available from an information standpoint. That doesn't exist in this world right now. And all of the same scams that I used to investigate 25 years ago,

market manipulation, pump and dump, penny stocks, all this stuff. When I look at what's happening in this world, I see those things. And when you take that securities overlay into this world, you're like, oh, this is like the stock world pre-SEC, pre-disclosure requirements. And there's a massive amount of fraud and scams and stuff. And I think that's scaring a lot of people away, and rightfully so. I think you have to be super, super careful. And again, I'm a total noob in this world, but based on that weird background that I have, I look at this with a different overlay. I'm like, huh? I'm seeing things that I'm having flashbacks and I'm like, that regulation, I have to imagine it's going to be coming at some point too. I hope it does. The industry really needs it. We need to know what the guidance is going to be, where the regulation's at.

And yes, absolutely. There are so many people that are scamming the space, which the legitimate creators here are so annoyed at the people that keep scamming. It's like, you know, for the love of God, you've got this massive revolution happening. And when people are doing dumb things like that, it tarnishes things, which only slows the adoption. So yeah, it's, it is very frustrating. Yeah. But, but I do see the future and I see like where things have evolved in like, you know, in, in the world of security. So really exciting moment, like you, you lit a fire in me that may

be even more curious than I had been before. And so I'm in research mode. I'm in deep learning mode. And I think it would be an interesting thing for people listening to this who have no idea what we're talking about to just do some basic, literally Google NFTs as a starting point, you will find a ton of really fascinating information about it. And if you haven't listened to the conversation that we aired not too long ago with Micah Johnson, too, because it's a really beautiful, powerful case story of how somebody created a really compelling aspirational movement around a big vision and a values-based ideal, and also who's building enterprise value around something. And I think that's going to happen.

I mean, this is what you're doing at Impact Theory also at scale, you know, with multiple different projects and stores and properties. So as we come full circle in our conversation, you're sitting here and we're talking and, you know, it feels like the kid who was obsessed with film and obsessed with storytelling and empathic and wanting to do things that are going to make a really big difference. It's all come full circle in a funny way also. You were recently on a panel. You were one of the people, Quentin Tarantino is the other person, and you literally had this opportunity where you say, Quentin, do you realize that you could actually use these things to just fund your next movie with all the film heads out there that just want a piece of what you're doing next? And you could have done this back in, if this was available, back in the early days, it would have been a complete game changer. It's like you're coming full circle back into this world in so many different ways.

When you think about the work that you're doing now, the way that you're doing it, who you're doing it with, What excites you most about that? It really is. There's such a, in a moment of disruption, there is a tremendous opportunity. And when we founded Impact Theory, there were two things I was trying to do. One, I wanted to build something bigger than Disney. Just, I like looking at my future and making sure that it's bigger than my past. That's a fun game for me. And then the other side was really wanting to help the kinds of people that I had come to know and love that grew up in the inner cities and break the fact that

right now your zip code is the number one predictor of your future success more than your IQ. And that's very distressing to me. And so when we founded the company, I told everybody that we were looking for our moment of disruption and that it was going to take something big for us to be able to leapfrog fast enough to be able to actually compete with Disney. But I could never have told you that it was gonna be Web3 or NFTs, but that's what it ended up being. And so, you know, we went from growing well. I mean, we were growing at a nice clip,

I think 400% year over year the last year. But then Web3 has made us a hyper growth company again, tens of thousands of percent. And when I see that moment of disruption and I'm over here capitalizing on it, and I'm just like yelling to anybody that will listen that this is the size of the opportunity. And, you know, for anybody that is willing and able to capitalize on that, they should. And so I'm so excited that a whole new generation of creators, a whole new class of people that have traditionally been iced out of the typical

financial world are going to find crypto. They're going to find the blockchain. They're going to find NFTs and they're going to realize that there is a bloodless revolution happening. And I hope they don't let it pass them by because man, if they get in now, people that would never have dreamed of the kind of success, like I'm, I'm in so many groups, like private WhatsApp groups and stuff with creators that they just didn't see this being their moment. And they've made millions of dollars. And they've made millions of dollars creating something that their community finds incredible. And so when you feel like you're serving people

with something that's so uniquely you and you've been able to deliver value that they get to capture, ah, man, it's just, it's so cool. It is everything I always wanted business to be and it's so cool. It is everything I always wanted business to be, and it's actually happening. And as we get clear regulation and as more people pour into the ecosystem and as more infrastructure is built, and we have that WordPress moment, it's going to unlock a level of creativity that people have never seen. And as somebody who's a techno optimist, like I'm just, if you give me 20 minutes to explain to people, just the dumb things I can think of that are going to happen,

like off the top of my head, people always walk away. Like I want to live in that future and that future is being made right now. And so, yeah, I'm excited for more amazing people to pour into the space and reap rewards for doing amazing things for other people that they never thought they'd be able to do and then create opportunities for that community. It's going to be incredible. Yeah. I love it. Good place for us to come full circle. So sitting here in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase

to live a good life, what comes up? Oh man, that's very easy for me. So life is a game about joy and fulfillment and fulfillment has a very specific formula. And that formula goes like this. You're going to work really hard to gain a set of skills that matter to you for whatever reason, they matter a lot. And you're going to use them in service of a goal that is both exciting to you and honorable, meaning that it serves you, but it also serves other people. And if you do that, if you're working really hard and constantly getting better at something that allows you to serve other people, you've won because you will be in the neurochemical place that you need to be to know to your bones that you're living a good life.

Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet, you'll also love the conversation we had with Rich Roll about reinventing your life and stepping back into the creation of something that is all about impact, purpose, and possibility. You'll find a link to Rich's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work that we've been doing here on Good Life Project, go check out my new book, Spark.

It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields,

signing off for Good Life Project. Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk.