Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 496: Tom Bilyeu on How to Thrive in Business & Life

Episode Date: April 24, 2017

In this second interview of Quest co-founder Tom Bilyeu, Sal, Adam & Justin visit him in Los Angeles for a fascinating two hour interview where he discusses using stories and entertainment to transform the world, lessons to be gained from Disney, the power of giving, being driven by beauty and rage and what it takes to thrive in work, business and life in general. You can find Tom @tombilyeu or at www.impacttheory.com Get our newest program, Kettlebells 4 Aesthetics (KB4A), which provides full expert workout programming to sculpt and shape your body using kettlebells. Only $7 at www.mindpumpmedia.com! Get MAPS Prime, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance, MAPS Aesthetic, the Butt Builder Blueprint, the Sexy Athlete Mod AND KB4A (The MAPS Super Bundle) packaged together at a substantial DISCOUNT at www.mindpumpmedia.com. Make EVERY workout better with MAPS Prime, the only pre-workout you need… it is now available at mindpumpmedia.com Have Sal, Adam & Justin personally train you via video instruction on our YouTube channel, Mind Pump TV. Be sure to Subscribe for updates. Get your Kimera Koffee at www.kimerakoffee.com, code "mindpump" for 10% off! Got a beard? Condition your beard with Big Top Beard Company’s natural oils and organic essential oil blends to make it not only feel great but smell amazing! Get Big Top Beard Company products at www.bigtopbeardcompany.com, code "mindpump" for 33% off. Add to the incredible brain enhancing effect of Kimera Koffee with www.brain.fm/mindpump 10 Free sessions! Music for the brain for incredible focus, sleep and naps! Please subscribe, rate and review this show! Each week our favorite reviewers are announced on the show and sent Mind Pump T-shirts! Intro to interview with Tom Bilyeu (03:59) Tom explains Impact Theory (9:20) o   How do you give meaning/hope on a global scale through narrative o   Book, comic books, movies, TV shows and video games o   Total merchandising strategy o   Disney model Tom explains his thoughts on narrative (20:30) o   Through entertainment Where does Tom’s passion come from? (32:48) o   Mother Theresa o   People’s belief in themselves o   Possibly of hope How does he bring in the guests for Impact Theory? Stories from guests he has had on. (36:09) o   Wants to bring people up to showcase their talents o   Obsessed with great minds o   V.S. Ramachandran o   David Eagleman How is he gaining his audience to the show? (48:00) o   App’s o   Social Media How did go about making the transition from Quest? Feel about people not taking him seriously? (51:37) o   Netflix, iTunes, Spotify, Disney models o   Companies staying predatory What does he see the most common mistakes are with new businesses? (1:06:39) o   Asking for money too soon o   Need to build an audience first o   Offer freebies Importance of having a community / How does he determine if a company has a large enough audience? (1:13:44) What advice would he offer a person trying to create a social business/brand? (1:25:07) o   Create a product that will help people / add value to their life o   Create a brand built on connection with audience o   Be authentic o   Be consistent o   Find influencers and share their content / comment o   Be disciplined o   Magic analogy Being self aware and traits in people he wants to develop (1:38:23) o   Grand ambition o   Drive o   Compassion What does his company culture look like? Plans to add players to his company? Deals with entitlement culture? (1:50:36) o   Continuity players o   Lynch pin o   Intra-preneurs o   True entrepreneurs o   Intern program o   Don’t have scarcity mentality What is in store for Impact Theory? Feel about viral videos and haters? Incubating companies How far away is he from releasing Impact Theory’s first narrative? 

Do you guys ever just spend hours reading the forum? What people are saying to each other on the forum? You mean like trolling it? Yeah, just going through it, like, because we get tagged a lot, right? We get tagged a lot on questions and stuff. I probably get tagged. Do you mean like when there's like 10 to 15 times a long thread, where there's like a hundred people that are like,

well, sometimes on something? Well, what happens is, because I get, we get tagged so much that I make sure to answer the questions and, you know, when people tag me, that sometimes I forget to just go through the ones I'm not tag through. And you don't have time. Yeah. And I'll look at a question or whatever and I'll be like wow there's 15 comments or 20 comments or there's obviously conversations going on.

Man, these people are so like helpful to each other and the information they're giving each other is it's legit. It's good. It's good information because some of the legit people in there. Yeah, sometimes I go through them like, well, I want to make sure there's nothing, you know, if someone's saying something that maybe, you know, not right or whatever,

like a gyms-to-pony army guys in there just infiltrating. Exactly. No, it's all really, really good. And I can see, I mean, it makes sense why people consistently say our forum is like one of our best, one of the best things that we have, you know, that we offer. It's just, it's pretty amazing. I love it. Well, what I find amazing is that we were, they kept it up. Like, of course, when we first started, and there was 10 people in there, right? I mean, when the very beginning of this, and we were helping

everybody, you know, I, one of the biggest fears I had was I remember, and I remember thinking this, I mean, God, this is so great what we're able to do, but let's be real when it gets thousands of people in here. There's no way we can, you know, possibly answer all these questions, but what's neat is to see that we created a culture in there that has now fostered all these other great minds that everybody's helping each other,

and it's not like, it's from professionals. You know what I'm saying? You got doctors and PT's. There's a lot of trainers, a lot of competitors, just a lot of really smart people that want to grow and learn that are assisting each other. Well, what's cool to me is when I go through and then people have questions

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but they don't use, or they don't follow a program like that. It's just techniques to that degree. Right, and that they're seeing the more of the development. So it's pretty cool. What a lot of people don't know is April for us is a year that we really made Mind Pump a business. And so we want to do something special. So this month, if you enroll in any of our larger bundles, the RGB bundle, which is Maps and Obolic Maps Performance and Maps Esthetic, or our Maps Super Bundle,

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If you wanna pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, up, mind, up with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Always, always excited to talk to this man. Now I have a little bit of a bias with this guy because we have tons of great guests, we have tons of brilliant guests, but I enjoy talking to Tom probably more than any guest we've had yet because his business mind is insane.

He's just, he's on such another level than almost anybody or any other guest we met. We've met guest from a scientific brilliant mind on a whole other level, but his business mind is ridiculous. And we cover a lot of that in his episode right now. I got a chance to really pick his brain and then off air too, we got to talk a lot. But man, if you're an entrepreneur and you're not following this guy, you're already fucking out.

He's a must follow. He's quite the visionary. I mean, what he talks about with Impact Theory and what the goal is with Impact Theory and this upcoming interview, he's really looking far ahead and he sees what's going to happen and he's grabbing onto it and he wants to be one of the prime drivers of the new media industry, but he's got his own motivations behind it. I believe he's very accurate with how he understands how narrative and entertainment is really what drives culture.

That's what really I connect with because I think it, I think really deep about things and I attach myself to different stories like a Star Wars or like I'm always wondering why that resonated so much with me. And he really has an awesome way of articulating like how that affected him. And then what motivates and drives him and why he's,

you know, attracted to those type of stories and what that can do for you and influencing the culture around us and stuff. And so he's, he just, he just has a way of really looking at the world in a unique way and then also just a killer, killer business mind. He's quite dynamic. When I actually watched one of his, because he's got a great YouTube channel right now. It's part of Impact Theory. The YouTube channel's actually under his name, Tom Billu. His last name is spelled B-I-L-Y-E-U.

I just watched his interview with Mel Robbins, which she has a fantastic TED Talk too. And it was one of those videos that you watch and right away you have takeaways. Like right away I applied some of what she talked about and it's pretty awesome But his YouTube channel is awesome. You got to check it out You can find them on Instagram at Tom Bill you or impact theory and the same thing on Twitter So without any further ado. Here we are interviewing Tom Bill you the man It sounds better today. It does. Or maybe we're just sober.

I'm more likely to get set. Keep it real, dude. Yeah, we had a little. We had a little. So Moscow, a little and a little already accessories, right? A little alcohol and cannabis for the way you're not wearing it. Did you say you knew who Mike was? Do you know who that is?

I know him by name. Okay, but nevermind. That's it. Yeah. Good dude, really good dude. That was a fun fun definitely. You know, it's always great too We love we love like shocking people that you know that they come on our show and they just assume if you just you know Because you don't have time to fucking if you don't know who we are You don't have time to research our bullshit. Oh, you know, it was we look like me hands. Yeah

We're gonna talk about and our website so High five at some point They see that they put it okay, and then but and then it's like, you see this transition, like it takes about a half hour hour of like conversation and dialogue. I was like, oh wow, we haven't even talked about dumbbells yet. That's always the fun of it. When you're interviewing somebody and you see,

like partway through the interview, they're vision of who you are changes. Like in real time, you see it happen. We talk about it, just kind of. We see that with almost every guest. The posture change the lake, it's up. You know how, it's interesting. Yeah, yeah. I remember when we interviewed Dr. Terry Walls We talked about this all kind of. We see that with almost every guest. The posture changed the leg. It's up, you know? Wow. It's interesting.

Yeah. Remember when we interviewed Dr. Terry Walsh? Terry Walsh, I've heard the name, but don't know. So she developed a Walsh method. Very, very smart, Dr. and scientist. And you can hear it like 15 minutes into the interview. Well, we had, she's like, oh, cool. We can hang out.

Well, we had a hard time with like, you know, there's more to that. She's a very busy woman. We had, we had, she was like, oh, cool, we can hang out. Well, we had a hard time with like, you know, there's more to that. She's a very busy woman. We had, we had a really hard time. Those are one of the first times we used Skype to Skype somebody in. I remember and we have a hard time getting connected. So we were behind, they were running behind for like 10 minutes. So you could tell she was irritated, you know, and then when she,

I think when she realized our message was pure and genuine, you know, and I think when she, and then you saw, you could just hear it in her voice Was for it was like night and difference. Yeah, that was like an octave. We would like to But people you see here body language right away as soon as they would they get to that point where they get comfortable with that I want to bring up your your shirt again Yeah, I was gonna like the best shirts because I will not trying to say anything good about myself But I was the only one that knew that is very true. What ever did that's it's a little deep That's what it is a little deep in the matrix. Yeah, it's got the white bunny and it says follow and right away

I was like, oh, that's the girl. It's out to you. Exactly. Don't take that from me That's what you can't yeah, I mean, you're first of all you like gave Justin like eight seconds. Yeah, you walk so what is this? It's a white money. I'm like, whoa, what are you off from me? I didn't know where we were playing a game. Yeah. Would you mind telling our audience a little bit about your matrix story? And, well, actually, it's going to impact theory. Let's talk about that. Yeah. Well, what is impact theory? What do you guys do? All right, impact theory is it really was born out of a book that I read called The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and in it He talked about how the way that humans used to convey Ideology how to live all of that stuff was through mythology and

The interesting thing about mythology of old is that people actually believe that it was true So if you think about the craziest story that you can imagine, the gods punishing somebody, the Cassandra complex, one of my favorite, and as a parent, you'll get this. So Cassandra was being punished by the gods, and her punishment was that she would know the future, but nobody would believe her. Which literally sounds to me like being a parent, right?

Like you know what those kids are headed for. You know what it's about. Your daughter going on her first date at like 15, you know what she's in for Your daughter going on her first date at like 15. You know what she's in for because you sound like Sarah Connor from Terminator. Exactly. Well, you and I, like, we're going to have to go totally geek out at some point. Yes. So please do.

That's how we transmitted all of these ideas. And people believed them. And then his whole thesis, Joseph Campbell's Hothesis, is what happens to the world when people no longer believe that the mythology is real? So if the way that we transmit the most powerful and disruptive ideas is narrative, and the dominant form of narrative

are these mythological stories, and then people know that they're fake what happens. And he said, look at the world around you. Many of the ills that we face today are a result of that. Now, I worked in the inner cities a lot and working in the inner cities to realize a perspective is everything. So one of the interview questions I used to ask a quest and to back up

and give you just a little more context. So at Quest, we got into manufacturing and manufacturing. The only place you're going to find enough real estate at a reasonable enough price is going to be in the inner cities, which means you're hiring from people that are local, which means it's inner city kids, right? That's who works on a production line. So you're bringing people in and normally the hard part is in that area, a lot of people have had to run in with the law.

And what we did was my whole stick is, I don't care where you've been, I just want to know, who do you want to be and what's the price You're willing to pay to get there, right? So that is interesting to me that tells me like who they're willing to become and that is where I get really Fascinated and somebody that's on fire to become something new like they're gonna bust their ass view So I put a word out into the neighborhood. I don't care if you have a felony conviction I don't care if you're a former drug dealer gang member whatever you got the tear drop tattoo We actually had some of those I don't care if you're a former drug dealer gang member whatever you got the tear drop tattoo We actually had some of those. I don't care about any of that I just want to meet you face to face and I was gambling on the fact that I could look you in the eye

And I could tell if you had done bad things because you're a bad person or if you've done bad things You're a good person and that we could really help you become something And my belief was if you get I think in in movies, right, Shawshank Redemption, anybody? Yes, absolutely. Hope is a dangerous thing, right? But a hope gives somebody something to hold on to, to fight for, to keep going, to literally in the movie crawl through a half mile of shit and get out the other side to freedom. That's what hope does, man. Hope is a driver. When you have a vision of who you can become, like, that's what working out is. Working out is the hope that you can improve yourself.

You can become something else. And whether it was people who were bullying you or you just want to get the attention of women, it's like there is a real thing on the other side of transforming your physique for people. And so that's hope. And I wanted to give these people hope. I wanted to show them that getting a felony conviction was not a death sentence. And my belief was, if I could show them that, if I could show them that, I really cared

about what they were trying to do, that they would then work their asses off for me, and that we'd be able to pull this off, because in the beginning we had to do something that was just extraordinary. We didn't have a lot of money, but we had to produce this massive amount of bars. We had to do it on really old equipment

that sort of hardly worked. And so I needed people that were really going to work hard. So we throw that out into the neighborhood, it doesn't matter if you have a felony conviction, they come in in droves. Wow. It was, literally, they would line up around, not quite around the block, but like, down in front

of the buildings, people like, what is going on here? Wow. People would come in. They wanted that opportunity. They wanted the opportunity. I wouldn't even look at the resume. And I would say, look, I just assume you have a felony conviction.

So don't panic. But talk me through, like, I need to know who you are. And so those interviews were super weird, as you can imagine, because you can't ask the traditional questions. So I start asking stuff like this. Let me ask you a question. I know that looks like a water bottle, but it's actually a magic genie bottle.

And when you open a magic genie, it's going to pop out. And you can ask for one thing and one thing only. And it has to be for yourself. Can't wish to cure cancer, bring somebody back from the dead. It's got to be like, what do you want? And the answers that I got were so terrifying that I realized like, whoa, we're like in a really bad place here. So what do you think was there was one answer?

It was so common. Almost everyone gave the same answer. What do you say was? No, no, no, something for yourself. I got here. I said about world bad areas. Come on. Yeah. Almost everyone gave the same answer world peace. No, no, something for yourself Yeah, oh another chance another chance. Good guess not the right answer Just somebody have for me. I don't know Love except. Yeah, God these are No, that's your way too high

It's a holder level self-awareness. They don't get that level self-awareness right now. What is it? Somebody believe in them? It's something like, right at home? It's just somebody to believe in them. Even this is so fascinating. I wish right now this were like a soundproof room

where you guys had headphones on and in the other room I'm asking the inner city kids like what their answer is. So we could juxtapose like back up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they got far off the arc. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a brand new bed or like it. Now you're getting close. Oh, man. Oh, I see a person. Just tangible things.

Everybody anyway said, I want a job. Now, okay, saying I want a job because I think that's what I want to hear, right? Right. Right. So it's not actually what they would ask a magic. Jeannie. So I would say, come on, motherfucker, we both know you do not want a job. You're asked what's in it home all day, chilling day chilling smoking a blunt if you could true or false yes that's true okay then why the fuck I said it's a magic it's a magic job come on so it's not a parole officer it is a magic genie what do you want really for real and then like you would push and prod like okay well why did you say you wanted a job I want money okay so you want money so here here's a magicie. Why don't you ask a magicie for money?

Okay, cool. Well, but you have to be specific. Tell him how much money do you want? Every one of them then truly this to a person gave the same answer. What any guesses? Million dollars. One million dollars. They were 100% correct. And that's when I was I was Sounded at that crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I remember being that kid at that. I was like, I remember being that kid. Yeah, I was like, let's go look at Zillow, it could be possible. Yeah. And Zillow is available to them.

It's not like all these guys have cell phones, so it's not like they're existing in a world where they didn't have access to the information, but they weren't accessing it. It was so outside of their purview of what to think about and it made me realize perspective is everything. Because if you don't even know like what to ask a magic genie for, you're done.

You were done, my friends. Because, but really, you were up against the one problem that cannot be combated accidentally and that one problem is your perspective holds you down. Your perspective keeps you small. Your perspective makes you think of very small things and you're never going to encounter anything that pushes you to think bigger, right? And that's why it happens geographically. This is happening here in Los Angeles. This is literally in a car from where we are right now. I was

getting these answers were like 20 minutes away, okay? So 20 minutes away from where we're all sitting right now We're surrounded like for those of you can't see where we are as fucking beautiful where these guys have this house So you're surrounded by multi-millionaires right now, okay? All that think in a totally universe different way than these kids in the inner cities and so I began to formulate this notion of mindset it's generational poverty right right? Now generational poverty is about money, it's about mindset. You can have a monk that doesn't want to do anything. They're not trying to scale the latter. They're not trying to be remembered. They want to go day to day, be here present in

the moment and love that and they are not lost individuals. But then you can go to these guys and realize that they don't know what they want in life. They feel trapped by the system. They don't believe that they're ever going to have anything. They don't even think like on a grand enough scale to have a vision to go and chase something. So what I started realizing at that moment is the way to help these people is just to introduce them to a mindset that's empowering. And then from there, like they can start reading

and doing just like some really basic fundamental things that'll expand their vision of what's possible. Because once your vision is expanded to what's possible and let's bring it back to Shasha and Credemption, you have the vast majority of the characters in the film don't believe that you can tunnel your way out, that you're gonna get caught, that whatever's gonna happen, it's just, why would you even start?

It would take so long, it would take, you know, I think even says in the movie, that would take like 20 years, and it ends up taking him 19, right? But he knew, handful by handful, stuff my pocket's full, on a long enough time scale, I get through this, that's belief, right? And so what impact theory is, is how do you give that belief on a global scale? Now, I am a huge believer that don't try to change behavior, leverage it. So I'm not going to run around giving talks in the inner cities and trying to convince them, hey, think differently, it's not going to work. That's not how we assimilate disruptive information.

The way that we assimilate disruptive information is through narrative. We are meaning creation machines. That's what people do. I can show you the clouds. You look at the clouds. You'll see a face. You'll see a duck. You'll see, oh, that looks like the first car that I had. It's crazy.

None of that's there. They're clouds, right? So we are making that up in our minds. And so that is utterly fascinating to me. So you can get people to start creating all of this insane meeting out of something when it's actively constructed to generate meaning, right? That's what narrative does.

Is it takes these elements and it brings them together characters, emotions, storylines, in order to deliver you meaning in the form of thematics and takeaways and all of that. And that's what we do. But people think of it just as being entertainment, right? So it gets dismissed, people aren't really ringing the information out that they could. So when I looked at it from a no bullshit, what would it take?

I want to leverage behavior, I don't want to change it. I'm going to be accepting people at the five points of narrative styles that are relevant today. And that is books, comic books, movies, TV shows, video games. Those are your five dominant forces. So if we can find a way to make each one of those pieces revolve around the theme of empowerment going from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, we can actually have global

impact. And to me, you have to play the game, no bullshit what would it take. And so really just understanding, I'm going to work within the psychological framework that exists today, hems are meeting, making machines, the way that they drive meanings from narrative. That's just where I ended up, right? So that's just working backwards from the problem.

So but at the same time, businesses have to be self-sustaining. Now, how do companies that do traditional narrative, how do they actually make money? Well, let's look at the greatest example of all time, Disney, right? They, like so far in a way, have been more successful than every other studio.

First of all, they came along in the 1930s in the Great Depression, and we're making an obscene amount of money for now, they were making a lot of money. For back then, it was like absolutely crazy ridiculous. And in ways nobody even imagined cartoons. And not only do they not imagine it, they told while you're out of your mind,

like that's A, it's childish, B, it's already dying. So people were saying, it's dying, bro. Like, yeah, I was playing for a bit in front of some of the movies, but nobody's really going in on that now, like what are you doing? And he just had this crazy vision about what it could be. But the most important gift that he gave us,

and this was in 1930, and people still aren't doing it, is what's called a total merchandising strategy. Now every studio has a merchandising strategy, but no one has picked up on the one fundamental thing that Disney understood and that impact theory is going to disrupt Disney because we not only understand the total merchandising strategy in a way that nobody else does, but we're doing it in the moment today using social technology, the ability to build communities and all that. So I'll wrap this up. I know we'll fire me up here. So go for it, man. So this is how worse. This is what Disney understood nobody else does. Disney is a brand and the only way to be a brand of meaning is to stand for one thing and one thing only.

He stood for the magic of childhood. That's I'm rounding it to that was a little bit different in his mind, but stood for the magic of childhood. That's not rounding it to that, it was a little bit different in his mind. But it was the magic of childhood, that's what he wanted to create. It was pure wholesome family, friendly. You knew if you went to see a Disney movie, it was not gonna be a Sasha film, there wasn't gonna be any sexual, double entendres,

it was gonna be family-friendly stuff, it's gonna be really human, he prided himself on, getting his characters to convey real human emotion, could feel connected to them, despite the fact that they were cartoons. And it just continues to mushroom and grow and grow and get this. You guys ready for this one?

Yes. I can't fucking believe this is true. If you go back and look at historians, one of the things that they credit with getting America out of the Great Depression is Disney's story of the three little pigs. You're kidding me. I kid you not. Oh, okay. And the story that they, so they wrote a song. I've never heard of it.

Well, look at the story of it, look at the story of it, right? Exactly. So at the time, it's like this whole downtrodden thing, like everybody just feels bad. And here's the thing about the economy, it's all fake, right? It's all fake. People get scared to spend money because people say you should be scared to spend money.

If you have a job and your pay does not go down, why would you change your lifestyle? Yeah, I was about to. Okay, you change your lifestyle because you're afraid. Now you're afraid you're gonna lose your job. Now if you don't go ask for that raise because you're afraid that, ooh, I might get fired, right? It changes everybody's mind.

Not, if somebody loses their job, then that's very real. Right, exactly. So if you lose your job, it's very real, you actually have less money. But if you don't lose your job, it's very real. You actually have less money. But if you don't lose your job, and most people actually don't understand this, they think when they go into depression that somehow their money is like doing less,

your money actually does more because prices begin coming down because the people who do lose their jobs can't afford it. So it's like, that's why they say invest when there's blood in the streets. When everything's going wrong, if you're one of the people with the jobs. That's when you buy.

Yeah, fucking buy. So anyway, in the story of the three three little pigs they write the song called who's afraid of the big bad wolf and it becomes The rallying cry pushing back against the depression so the depression becomes the big bad wolf and everyone saying like we're not afraid of it anymore And sincere real scholars say that was one of the things. Wow. It was such a cultural phenomenon. They can pinpoint it to that. Yeah. I mean, look, are you gonna get everyone to agree? Yes, it was the, no.

But it's like one of those where it is taken very seriously as it had such an impact on the spirits of people and was such a cultural phenomenon that, yes, people say it's one of the things that's happening. You are talking about human psychology, if you're gonna say, I mean, that's just how we operate. And I mean, there's a reason why we believe in things. There's an evolutionary purpose for it.

It's what drove the first guy to go over that mountain to search the new land knowing that there's, he doesn't know what's over there. Am I gonna get food over there? How am I gonna bring back food from my tribe? I'm gonna die, but I believe in something, you know, spirituality came from that art came from that. I mean, the expanding human consciousness came from that.

How excited do you get about like people like Jamie Wheel and Genome Project and stuff like that? Yeah, man, Jamie's my boy. So both Steven Collin and Jamie Wheel, like I love those guys so much. And I had them on impact theory. We did the interview, Red Stealing Fire, did a book review of that, which

was just insanely fun. A, to read and B, to do the book review. And I always feel like, I'm never sure if I'm like, ranting a mouse, or Jamie, you're gonna have to tweet me or something and let me know if I talk too much. But he is ten times more interesting off-camera. And I think he's fucking amazing on-camera. But off-camera, when he's like not, like he'll just fucking talk,

he is this hyper-intellectual guy. He is super, super bright and he's very adventurous. And so his understanding of psychedelics and how to leverage them and all this stuff is unbelievable. You're gonna love the episode we did with him. Oh, you're gonna love it. Yeah, we got into all that. He was so, man, I can't, he's got what in July?

Is it in July? He's got it coming up to Big Sur. Have you heard him talk about it? Like the little, the little domes at the, or that domes are like, he's setting up like these. And it's got the, you know, hot coal that's got the infrared. It's got all. Bungie jumping.

Yeah, bungee jumping. Basically a place where you can reach a stasis through every known, you know, legal method. All the distractions are passing on further by putting you in these like really high intensified, you know, like ultimate level sort of situations and your body like acclimates to that now. So, so it's pretty interesting.

So with impact theory, you're looking at taking the most effective in your opinion, but also on my opinion, and I think it's true. What the most effective medium of, especially today, getting people to believe and giving them hope, which is through media, entertainment, through book, through, you know, like you said, comic book, through, you know, movie, TV, book through, you know, movie, TV through internet, and you're trying to develop these stories and these narratives that promote and push this or not, or at least encourage this belief through these narratives.

And you go about finding these very specific stories that kind of fit within like the message that you're trying to get. Well, you know, before we even go into that, you're a huge fan of narrative. You're a huge, huge, you're Matrix fan, Star Wars fan, and they all, all these narratives that are super powerful kind of have a similar vein, right? They all, what is that, explain that?

Yeah, so I really, really, I mean, this is my fundamental thesis that hiding in pop culture, pop mythology are all the things that you need to know about how to live your life that will empower you and allow you to do whatever it is you want to do. So Batman, the Matrix, and Star Wars made me the entrepreneur that I am today. That's truth. So just nobody's out there helping you decode that. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, and we now live in a world where you've got the social component where, so if you look at what we're doing at impact theory we put out all this social content a lot of it commentary on something else So a book review or whatever we're gonna start doing movie reviews are actually gonna start doing movie nights

Where we invite the filmmakers we invite the audience and we break down the film not in like a critical studies way But like what can you extract from this like what are the lessons? How can you apply this stuff? Because you've got humans writing these stories. So they're giving you some real emotional moment that they understand that they've been through whatever, either trying to get you a cathartic moment so that you can get past something

or trying to show you a moment of overcoming an obstacle or rising up above something. So, going back to what I was saying about Disney, Disney understood that you had to make family-friendly movies. What we understand, and that it needs to be consistently that, so that you become the brand, and you can bring things in. So he wasn't, he didn't make the mistake of being Mickey Mouse, okay? This is what every other studio makes the mistake of doing.

Disney did not become Mickey Mouse Studios. They became Disney Studios, Mickey Mouse was a character. When Mickey Mouse started to get played out, which it did, he brought in Donald Duck, who was the antithesis on purpose, the antithesis of Mickey Mouse. Literally. Yeah, all of the writers felt really hemmed in, Mickey had to be so pure, so they wanted a character that could be a bit of an asshole,

and that he would always get us come up and so it still felt Disney, it wasn't like they were championing a bad guy, but now you had a bad guy, you could act out, act a fool, he would get us come up and so the end and so all felt right with the world. But it all came back to Disney, right? And so they end up creating all these different characters, but it all relates back to one brand.

So that's what we're doing at Impact Theory. Whether it's a comic book, whether it's a movie, a novel, it doesn't matter. It can be a million different characters. But you know that that character is going to go in the hero's journey. He's going to go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset from being disempowered by his view of the world, right? So going back to my notion of ending generational poverty,

you have to show them, they have to see themselves. You have to see the kid who says, I want a job. Actually, I'm lying, I want money. Okay, how much money? A million dollars, a million dollars, a fucking crazy. A million dollars, not even gonna buy you a house. To like, okay, now at the end of the movie

believes that they are capable of all this insane shit. And then like 80 style fucking Rocky IV, you show them train their ass off, and they get better. And that montage. Yes, dude, why do those work? Because they give you the chills, like, is a human being, like, it's all condensed,

it's music, it's emotion, and it's aspiration. You see somebody through hard work, grinding it out. There's something in us that we feel good when we work hard Right part of your brain just goes you did it man like other people were not willing to do that and you did that So when you see those moments where your hero they're down. They're relatable, right? That's why these moves works well rocky in the beginning rocky is me He's me or maybe even a little worse than me. Right? So like, I really like him. And that's why I can be into him when he finally in the end

breaks the unbreakable Russian because it's like, I was with him for that transformation. I'm projecting myself onto him, the music, the emotion. Like, I'm right there, I'm feeling it. I want to do it. Like, I remember watching the karate kid and then going out wanting to kick the shit out of my neighbors, right?

Because you're so jazzed. You fucking want to be, you want to be a karate kid my neighbors. Right? Because you're so jacked. You fucking wanna be, and you try to create. You wanna be a prodigate? What's wrong? I wanna be a Johnny. Fuck that doesn't work in real life. That's what I mean to me. It's not supposed to be Johnny.

It means you're a bad person. Yeah, that's right. No, he's making fun of me all the time because I'll say something like between Superman and Batman. And I'm just like, I did not relate to Superman. Yeah. Yeah, like I was an asshole.

He comes to earth. he's got unlimited power. There's just like, Kryptonite is the only thing stopping him. There's like no villains get out of here with that. I can't relate to that shit. You ready? I'll make it your favorite superhero. And so this is another shout out to DC, DC,

I need to give me the rights. So tell me. Yeah, a lot of these things. Convince me me the rights. So tell me. Yeah, a lot of these. Convince me. Here it is. Superman is only interesting in areas where he either loses his powers. So if you saw Superman 2, it's challenging. Yes.

Right. And he gets zaz kicked in a bar like any other guy. And then that moment where he comes back, oh, and he's got his powers and he gets revenge and the guy that bullied him, that was amazing. Then the other is put the powers way in the background and make this all about somebody who doesn't want to have to save everybody and the huge responsibility. It would suck to be Superman, like for real.

So, A, the powers are obligated. Right, the powers are cool when you're in high school and they get you late, okay? So, at that point, like being Superman and your dad's telling you not to run and you're like, uh, super dick, you know, it's great. You got super everything. Like, and he can't show any of it. So like, to me, the moment you show Superman fighting flying, crashing through things, there's no stakes because I know he's not going to die. Yeah.

So that's just not interesting. So the whole world of Superman, Superman is an allegory for passion, which is, hey, you've got this guy who's totally ordinary until the Yellow Sun comes along. And once he has a yellow sun, then he can do extraordinary things. So as an allegory for that, it's really important for people to understand, hey, you can be like Superman, if you find out what that thing is, it makes you feel alive, because then you're special, right? Because you'll push harder, you'll do more. You're actually capable of more. I mean, that is a truth of humanity.

You are capable of more when you feel on fire and alive than when you just feel dull, numb, you're not interested in it. It is crazy how creative people get, how late they'll stay up, how hard they'll push when they find that thing, yeah. And you want people to feel that. Oh, for sure.

Why? Why do I want them to feel alive? Totally selfishly. I want to live in a world where more people are just on? Why do I want them to feel that? I've totally selfishly. I want to live in a world where more people are just on fire for what they do and they're making a whole lot of fun. Because you have a passion for this. Yeah, I want people to do that too, but you have a deep seated passion.

Where does that come from? It's neurological drug addiction. So we, really though, right? So anything anybody ever tells you, it's all because they get a neurochemical reward. So I'll give you an example, Mother Teresa. If Mother Teresa felt badly about herself and vomited, every time she helps somebody, she never would have done it, it wouldn't make sense. It made her feel good about herself. And rightly so, but it made her feel good about herself. And so she was

just chasing that which made her feel most at one with God, like she was doing God's work, and that made her feel whole and connected. So it was a wonderful experience for her to do that. It was easy. It was wonderful. It was how we're fully rewarding. Same for me. It's not that it's easy what I'm trying to do, but the moment of awakening where you see somebody come up out of the matrix and they become capable of something that they weren't capable of minutes before just because they now believe in themselves. I get the chills. That gives me the chills. They say the greatest emotion ever is awe. And that moment leaves me an awe of the human condition. And so I am just incredibly grateful that that is either through wiring or I've just slowly reinforced

it myself to see somebody wake up to the possibilities to have hope for the first time. Like I will tell you one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid, this is my kid, back at Quest, his sister was shot to death in the heart with an AK-47 right in his lawn. That's growing up hard, okay? That's brutal. And he was almost convicted of attempted murder, he didn't do it, he knew who did it,

but he said if I had ratted, they would have killed my family. So he's like, in my neighborhood, like it's not even an option. He's like, we're always so confused when the cops come along. And it's like, do you know how much worse it would be? Like going to jail would suck, but me ranting,

staying out of jail, and you killing my family? Like, it's not a hard choice. So he was like more than prepared to go to jail, and luckily, they found evidence that proved it wasn't him, so they didn't have to say who it was. And I thought, wow, man, that's seriously bold. But that kid comes to me so trying to create all this opportunity for him

help him works way up. And he comes to me one day literally because his kid is tough as nails. And he comes to me and he's crying and he's like, you want more for my success than my own mother. Not this mother doesn't want good things from him but he was like, I'd put it into action, right?

I'd try to create opportunity for him. That kind of, like that sticks with you forever. It sticks with me forever, right? That was like one of those moments where I'm like, well, if anybody ever wonders why I do this, like because that moment feels so good. You went through a transformation yourself. Do you see some of this,

some of what you see in these kids or in these stories with yourself starting from where you started to where you are now? Yeah, 100%. I used to think that I grew up, I wouldn't have used the word hard, but I used to think like my family kind of teeter and white collar blue collar, like my dad worked as a mechanic for a while.

I couldn't have every cool toy that I wanted. I had the generic skateboard when I wanted the Tony Hawk, you know what I mean? And I like really felt bad about it until I met these kids and then realized that I was just a rich providence asshole growing up. So yeah, they really have grown apart so I don't wanna paint myself as if I had it like that.

Well, not necessarily like that, but the story of where you were to where you are now. Not climbing in the weight loss and all the challenges. It's all perspective. And your mind, it was that rough are now. That climbing and the weight loss. And that's all the challenges. Yeah, definitely. That's all perspective. In your mind, it was that rough for you. That's where you, I think actually you have to have empathy

on yourself when you are like, because I feel the same way too. There's always somebody who went through more. There's always going to be somebody who has a scarier story or went through more. I mean, that's not shame. The fact that you have that perspective and that awareness that you saw that you've now turned that

to providing something like this. I mean, when you look at it, when you're looking at your platform, The fact that you have that perspective and that awareness that you saw that you've now turned that to Providing something like this. I mean when you look at it when you're looking at your platform what you're building with impact theory and How do you how do you decide who you're gonna bring on like right now? You're doing like you've got incredible interviews that you've been putting on there. I watch most all of them How do you decide that process? It's got to be somebody that legitimately inspires me So my promise to the audience is, your life will be better if you watch the show than it would be if you didn't. And so to really make good on that,

I just use myself as the filter. If I'm moved, if they really taught me something, make me feel more alive, I get fascinated, really drawn into their world, then I wanna bring them. And then I know I'll be able to do a good interview because I can show real authentic, passion, connection, enthusiasm for what they've done. Otherwise, then you're kind of faking it

and I think that the audience is gonna feel that really, really fast. So that's a big part of it for me. What is good? Oh, I was gonna ask, out of all the guests you've had, who's impacted you the most? Wow, that's a great question.

Different people have impacted me in different ways. Do you guys know Faras Rahabi? I may have asked you about that last time. Yeah, he's the trainer for George St. Pierre. Yes. Yeah, so that dude just is unbelievable. The way that he's balanced mind and body is utterly astonishing.

To me, he is the modern day Bruce Lee, and I will not be content until he is world famous. And I just, I don't know that he has like the ache to be out in front of the camera, which makes me very, very sad, because I really, really believe, do you guys know who Susan Boyle is? All right, Susan Boyle goes on, Britain's got talent. There you go. Yes. And she comes on, like sort of a front-by-house wife and says she's about to sing like one of the most difficult songs to make sound good ever. And so everyone thinks, oh, she's one of the setups

that's gonna come out and embarrass herself and we all get a chuckle. And she comes out and she crushes that song. And it is otherworldly. And I remember I saw this before I'd heard anything about it. There was no hype because my wife's British, I was in the UK, and they're like, you have to watch this. And when she starts singing,

you're like, how has this woman hidden for this long? Like this is a prodigious world class talent. And she has no one had any idea she could sing. That's how I feel about Frost. It's like, dude, how are you not the most famous person on the fucking planet? Like, he's a philosopher, warrior. He is a legitimate fighter.

He can fight at the just highest, highest level. And he was on a path to becoming a professional fighter when he realized, okay, maybe I have a little more talent for coaching, but he's created world champions and is just the ultimate badass. So he's a guy and I interviewed him back at Inside Quest. I haven't interviewed him yet on Impact Theory, though we were trying to make it happen,

which would be amazing. I really think this guy is just extraordinary. But then I'm also obsessed with the mind. And so there have been a lot of guys that have come on the show, like David Eagleman, VS Ramachandra, Moran Surf, who most people don't know. But these guys just, from a neurology standpoint, oh man, what they've taught me about the brain is unbelievable.

What are some of the things you've learned through them about the brain? What's like blowing you away? Let's go with VS Ramachandra. You know what Phantom Limson drum is? Yeah. All right, so he's very weird. Oh, wow. He's the guy that created the mirror box.

So he's the one that discovered the chair, basically, for you. Yeah, exactly. So are you guys familiar with? Yeah. So when you have a mirror in between and you actually like, so you see your hand on the other side and your arm isn't there. Yeah. So if you, if you feel like a ghost, yeah. So sometimes in an accident, someone loses a limb, um, an arm or a leg, usually it's more commonly with the hands and arms. They'll still feel it. So even though the hand's out there,

and it's usually in massive pain. So although, like if I lost my right arm, it's not there anymore, but I sense this pain in my right arm as if it were there. And usually they feel it in this clenched, kind of up near their body type position, and it keeps them up at night, they can't sleep, they take pain meds.

Nothing can take it away because it's not there, but their brain is perceiving this pain. And so he was the one that invented the treatment for it, which when you look at it now, you think yourself like, well, shit, I mean, but it was brilliant, right? It's a brilliant, simple method. And what they do is they put their amputated,

arm up to this box, and there's a mirror on the side of it. So that, let's say my right arm goes in there, the mirror is facing my left hand. So when I put's a mirror on the side of it so that let's say my right arm goes in there, the mirror is facing my left hand, so when I put my left hand on the ground in front of it on the table, it looks like I now have two arms. And then they do various techniques and I think they, I don't know if they tickle the hand with the feather and you have to look at the mirror

and perceive that it's your right hand. And like miraculously all of a sudden, they perceive this hand, standing and there's no more pain. Very, very fascinating. So he discovered that. Yeah, it's crazy. He's a really, really cool guy. And the whole concept behind your brain is lying to you, right?

So like you said, they feel pain, but it's nothing there. So the nerve isn't even present. So the reason that the pain killers and stuff don't work is because what's it trying to affect? It's a different pathway in the brain. So, and then getting into the way that the painkillers and stuff don't work is because what's it trying to affect? It's a different pathway in the brain. And then getting into the way that the brain will remap and reuse that area and that a lot of times people can find their amputated fingers,

they'll refine them on their face. And so if you have an itch on one of your fingers, you know, oh, right below my left eye, that's where that finger is. And so you can scratch it. And it stops the itching in the phantom limb. It is so crazy. What does it tell you?

You're gonna think about this. What does this tell you about your body and about pain? You know, it's funny. After I saw a YouTube video on with him and the box technique and I had a client who had shoulder pain, chronic shoulder pain for I had trained at this time for about three years. And I consider myself very well versed on mobility and muscle recruitment patterns and posture and how

joints work, and we corrected everything. She did have poor recruitment patterns. She did have impingement. She did have issues with her shoulder, but we corrected them, but the pain continued to persist, and I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out why this pain was still there. And she went to acupuncturists. And sometimes that worked a little bit,

but then it would come back. And I just couldn't figure it out. And then I watched that video. And I asked her, how much stress and pain, emotional pain, did this shoulder issue cause you when it first happened? Because initially she had injured herself. And she's like, oh my God, I couldn't work. It affected my relationship with my husband, my kids,

and caused all these problems. And I had realized there was an emotional connection to this pain. And so I told her about this particular phantom limb syndrome technique. And I said, perhaps you're perceiving the pain, but it's not physically there. And I had to assure her that didn't mean the pain was fake as you feel it. It does not fake, it's still there. You feel it, but maybe it's something you're perceiving. And the weird thing is the second she got that, the pain went away.

And it would come back every once in a while and she reminded herself of what we talked about and the pain went away and then it was gone. Like what does that tell you about the brain? I mean, that shit blows me away. What are some of the other things you've learned about the brain with some of these? So, David Eagleman, the work that he's doing is really astonishing. So, if you guys ever heard the word, um, Velt before?

No. All right, so um, Velt's just a fancy way of saying all the things that we can perceive, the length of light that we're able to see, the frequency of sound that we're able to hear, the sensations that we're able to see, the frequency of sound that we're able to hear, the sensations that we can feel. So like a shark can detect magnetic, electromagnetic stimulation in the water. So you can actually put a plate on the bottom of the ocean that's just giving off electricity, but in a pattern of like a flopping fish, and it'll go attack the plate.

So even though we can see, there's no fish there, that like signal that it sends out, the muscle firings is so distinctive that it can't like stop itself from biting this plate because it's just convinced. So the shark has a different um belt. Dogs obviously have a different um belt from us. They can smell things that we can't smell. So that's the things you can perceive or what make up your um belt. And what he realized is that you can extend your um belt. So I could get you to see infrared. And what he realized is that you can extend your oomvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv random. And then you begin to realize like they could blindfold you. Let's say it were one doing infrared. And so you close your eyes or one doing heat signatures. You close your eyes and something moves in front of you. And you can say, Oh, wow, that was Sal that just walked by. Do it again. Oh, that was Justin that walked by. Do it again. Justin,

are you are you feeling okay? Because he knows he's running two or three degrees too hot. Like once you've been doing it for a couple months, it is crazy. So you could do all this stuff. So he's working with deaf people now to get them to actually be able to understand language. So by the patterns. So what they do is they'll have somebody

where he can't see their lips and obviously can't hear them because they're deaf, but we'll read a word, it creates a pattern and then they'll write what the word is. It's crazy So their hope is that you wear the pattern for you know two months three months four months that it just becomes fluent and that you're Hearing the patterns and they'll if I had to guess they're gonna have to chunk it into phrases So it's like hey man good to see you would be like one. So that they don't have to like go through every word. I don't know, they'll figure that's me guessing. But I could see something like that coming out of it

so that they could really assimilate the information really fast. But that's where this gets interesting. And he said one of the his fantasy things is to create a vested interprets the stock market. So that as the stock market goes up or down, that you would actually have a visceral feeling. You'd have a sense of where it's headed. And that's like how big data works.

So they talk about the subconscious is faster and faster. So if you can get to a subconscious level, where you just begin to have a sense, right? You're saying all that information. Exactly. Because it's coming in so much faster, right? You're able to process so much more data and recognize these patterns that you could begin to get an intuitive like, oh, it's definitely going to rain tomorrow. You

know what I mean? Or it's going to rain in six minutes, whatever, because whatever all the like data points swirl together to create this one pattern on you, and you'd begin to recognize what that pattern is. So the idea of expanding the envelope could be really, really interesting. It's also different parts of the brain that are, that you're learning to perceive these things through. So rather than your eyes or your nose or your ears, it's through pressure or heat or vibration. Well, here's the crazy part. You'll begin to perceive it as sound or vision. So it actually ends up making it to those places in the brain. It is so weird. This is some of the most

interesting part of his research is they will put so take somebody who's been blind and then give them The similar vest and they will begin to perceive it as seeing they will actually refer to it as seeing and they will say I see that thing And they did this this was first started back in like the 60s I think someone had like this big TV camera and you would sit like this weird Dennis chair And it would just press patterns into your back and they could identify faces. So imagine, I can tell whose face it was. They're blind. They see nothing.

This is just a pattern in the back and they could go, oh, that's Sally, oh, that's a coffee mug. Like, that's how good they got at this stuff, but they perceived it as seen. Wow. No, so I can't help but think like, I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to put myself in your shoes. You're this huge fan of stories, narrative, you love the brain, you obviously love psychology or that sounds like you can pull from all these things and create some amazing stories.

Yeah, but here's the hope that we can crowdsource this stuff because if I become the bottleneck now we're in trouble So the real key to our model is that we're going to crowdsource everything and that the crowd is going to tell us what stories Are going to succeed or not so it goes back to you got to think of it like we talked about this in the last show From my big-figreek wedding the crowd is the head. You don't get to tell them anything But you get to be the neck so you can't tell people what to think about, or sorry, what to think, but you can tell them what to think about. So you point them at something,

and that's why building a community is so, so, so important. Because when you have a community of people who feel that you've delivered more value to them, then they deliver to you, and then you make an ask for them to do something, which for me let's say, hey, I want you to look at this company or I want you to look at the story.

Perfect. Hey guys, we finally got the rights to the matrix. And now we've had 72 script ideas submitted. We need to know which ones you guys think are most on brand for impact theory, right? So it's got to be empowering. It's got to be about the growth mindset. But it's got to be entertaining. So like, is this a great fun story? Like the stories have to work with the people know what a growth mindset is or not. They have to know if they don't know impact theory it still has to work. Like it's got to be great entertainment first and foremost.

Now are you gonna leverage like other social media platforms out there? You're gonna create your own through this. Like for instance say like a Kickstarter you're mentioning bringing the crowdsourcing in involved in that. Like what does that look like with impact? Well leverage tools for sure

because that's where people are already habituated to going. But whenever we can, it'll always be the slowest growing and the most important. But we'll do things like a newsletter, we've got an app that's already in alpha testing right now. And I think ultimately this lives in an app where people can really connect, submit, read, review,

because the big thing is you've got to gamify it. They've got to be rewarded for what they do. So you're ready to script, cool, you got points, and those points can be translated into something. And even if it's just, you're at the top of the leaderboard which people love, right? Like I'm the number one impact theory, we call them impactivists.

So I'm the number one impactivist, right? Like that, and if that means something, at least in that community, then you've really got something. So, and I mean, look, Wikipedia's already proven that people do this. They do it for the accolades to say I contributed to some. A lot of people don't know that over, I think it was 82 or 88% of all successful apps are a game.

That's most all successful apps are a game. I remember when we first, we were Justin and I, that's how we partnered up way back when we were building an app for, and when we originally saw it was like this fitness tool, like we had this grand vision for a tool. And I remember like being, God, we were deep into it before we realized that stat and I was like, oh my God, this is ridiculous.

Why would we even do this? We have to gamify it. You know, we have to plan. We could fully pivot it and, yeah, start structuring it around that because we saw, you know, how powerful that was. And also how you could just like you're doing, how you'd sort of take these people and

take them through this process and to where you want to get them in the end. There's something to it as far as structuring it. So they get introduced to products. They get introduced to products, you know, they get introduced to get information with fitness and they're more likely to continue this process like every day because, you know, with apps, it's like, you know, the whole adopted at first, but like, unless you keep engaging them constantly or they're into it, like, what's the motivation there anymore? So I want to know, I want to know to Tom to Tom like what it was like for you to pivot from

Quest where and we've talked before and you chaired like you know how great your partners were and how much everybody played a significant role in this success of that and now going over and you I mean you're all by yourself when you first started right I mean obviously you have a team now of people but when you first made that move, it was all by yourself. How did you go about surrounding yourself with other people, with strengths like that? Well, it was very fortunate in that A, my wife and I founded the company together. So, from the word jump, and she was part of the founding team of Quest. So, we've been working together for a long time, and we started it together and immediately

transitioned. So, when I transitioned out, talked to my partners that, hey, I want to take this core team that's helped build inside Quest. And so they came right away. So we were day one, we hit the ground running with seven people. Did that create any animosity? Was that, no, not at all. Not at all. That was, it was easy transition. Yeah. Was that because you communicated it beforehand? Everybody kind of knew what was going on? It was, yeah, they didn't plan to move forward with inside Quest. So it was, you know, I mean, quite frankly of knew what was going on. They didn't plan to move forward with Inside Quest. So it was quite frankly, I was taking them off the payroll, which was great. And they didn't have to fire them.

So it really ends up being just nice, smooth, simple transition. Well, excellent. So with what you're doing now with Impact Theory, with your goals and the way you're going about them, which is, from a media standpoint, is that I call it the new way, the new media, right? It's not the old way, you're not going through the big networks, you're not going through television and that kind of stuff. Are you getting recognized as that,

or are they looking at what you're trying to do, or what people like you're trying to do, and still saying, ah, we'll do it our old way, and we're not going to change. No, totally, they're going to do it their old like you are trying to do and still saying, ah, we'll do it our old way We're not going to change. No, totally they're going to do it their old way and they're never going to change and we've taken enough meetings now with studios to understand that We'll keep doing it because I think there's really great people there and you never know like where you find great people like hang around and just see like what comes of it But I think the the reality is they're a really classic example of why your old established companies inevitably fall to the young new company. Because culturally, you've got people who've been successful for doing something one way, and those ideas really do begin to make them an expert, calcify into dogma, their rigid

ideas. It's always worked this way, we're going to do it, and there's so much internal pressure not to lose your job, that it's actually way, and just think about it, let's boil it down to the emotion, it's way riskier emotionally to come home to your wife and say, I was fired, I bet on this thing, then it is to come home and say the company doesn't exist anymore.

Like coming home and saying, it's not my fault. Yeah, right? How could I have been the one to take that company? So Noah's gonna blame anyone person, maybe the CEO, but even then they usually get a Yeah, right? Like how could I have been the one to like take that company? So no one's going to blame anyone person. Maybe the CEO, but even then they usually get a pass, right? Oh, I was the board and the CEO on the board couldn't see eye to eye. And you know, so it's like no one person is going to take the blame for the fall of a company. But you have to take the blame when you get fired. So just like people are more afraid of being the one in the

casket and giving the speech, people are more afraid of being the one in the casket and giving the speech, people are more afraid of getting fired than they are the company failing. So that's just recognized the truth of the incentives and what people are motivated by. So they're still not taking it seriously, that's incredible to me. No, not at all. You've got so many examples, recent examples, like the story of Netflix walking into Blockbuster. And saying, hey, we want to work with you guys and blockbuster last amount and like five years later blockbusters

gone. You know, I mean, so many examples of that. How long do you think it's going to take before, I guess, media completely changes. Oh, we were talking about this early. Like, my kids don't even watch regular media anymore. It's all YouTube and internet. It's already changed. I mean, it's changed so fundamentally and so massively impacted their business.

And you can just see what's happening. From the time that the DVD died, it really like they are scrambling now. And they are in a terrifying, terrifying period where they're making enough money that they still matter to the conglomerates that own them, but they're beginning to get in a more and more desperate situation.

So there's a sense of panic in that world, right? Are really defensive from the, oh, you know how I tripped, I tripped out when we came here and we are going down was Hollywood Boulevard or whatever with and you see the big Hollywood sign. I haven't been here probably a couple of years actually down in Hollywood area and all the billboards now are all netflix advertising.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is it like Friday on the fucking wall. I mean, that like every week the fuck up, yeah, all of them, they were all, I'd never seen that before, because it hasn't made its way to us. Like we still see the, you know, a movie, the next movie that's coming out,

you know, in theaters on the billboard or what are that. But you see all the advertising now, all the Netflix shows this year. I mean, it was like John, shit down, I was driving. Oh shit, that looks cool. the advertising now. All the Netflix shows is here. I literally was like, John, shit down. I was driving. Oh, shit. That looks cool. Check that out.

Check it out. You know, the A-list actors, yeah, it's getting crazy. And, you know, have you had a chance to really get into Netflix? Do you know much about that company? Have you interviewed anybody? No, no. I love to know. I know the world just from the outside.

I know what. You know what? I would think going to someone like them for some of your ideas, they would probably fucking be all over it. They, yeah, they probably would be more as a Netflix or bigger than Netflix. That's just it. They're bigger than Disney. To me, they're just like, you get out your Disney, you know, fuck Netflix. I love people like that.

Yeah, dude, say that. That's why you, but tell me that's not why you, that's why you probably don't even trip on that, right? Is you see yourself doing almost everything they're doing and so? Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, they're a very powerful distribution partner and I would happily work with them. So that is, that just comes down to who controls things

and this is where young artists get themselves in trouble and this is where I think we're gonna have a huge breakthrough because I'm not predatory by nature. So I wanna see an artist succeed and I just know that if you play it for the long game, you're going to do a lot better. So here's what the studios do. They give the artists a sweetheart deal in the beginning

because they're just getting off the ground. They need to. And so they give like a ton of latitude. They attract the highest caliber talent that they can. The studio begins to become the name brand, the thing that carries the weight. And then they begin to nickel and dye in the artist. And then the artist looks for somewhere else to go.

And that's the life cycle. Right? So it just happens over and over and over and over and I don't know how many times that has happened before somebody goes, hey, you know what? Instead when we get big, we're just not going to start fucking you. Like why does somebody eventually just say that? Like they get so myopically focused on one, they probably have a board and so the board is pressuring the shit out of them.

They're just looking at numbers on a spreadsheet and they're saying, hey, there's so much room in this profit margin. And you start looking at some of the deals to the artist and you think, God, why are we paying these guys? I remember one time I was working at a job, I'll leave it nameless. And I was, I was hourly, right? They didn't want to commit to me, but I'm a really hard worker. So every single hour that they offered me, I took.

And I was working 80, 90 hour weeks. And so I would open, I would close. If somebody's gonna go on vacation, I would take their hours, like, just inhuman. I didn't have a girlfriend. I had nothing but this job. And so I was all in. And I was dirt cheap for them.

But I ended up working so many hours that I was making more than some of the much higher ranked people in the company. And so they said, you have to stop doing the hours because we can't have you making more money. And I was like, guys, that doesn't make sense. So literally, you would rather give it to somebody less qualified, somebody that you can rely on less because you don't want to piss somebody off.

That's it. It looking, it is complicated. And as somebody that owned it, it, it, looking, it is complicated. And as somebody that owned a big company, I get it, it's complicated. But you've got to build this stuff from the ground up to not fall prey to stupid shit like that. So a big part of our thing is I've watched companies try to do what we're doing, do it wrong

because they stay predatory and they, they act like we're the big, you know, the, the 800 pound gorilla in this and we're gonna take advantage of that and we're gonna ring that for everything Them as worth and then you just don't have to be like that. You know your passion for what you're doing is so damn similar to what we are doing Only we're heavily focused just in the fitness kind of world Like if you pay attention to our YouTube you'll start to see we're now producing other people and they're these If you pay attention to our YouTube, you'll start to see we're now producing other people and they're these incredible minds that just don't know how to do that right for themselves and we're not expecting anything from them.

We're just helping them. We want the content basically. Yeah, we want to be able to bring them on and introduce them to people because there's so much shit out there. There's so much bad information and people just, and people don't know that they don't know. But you know, and the reality is now, I think if if you were trying to own people have easy access to people now So in the past if you were a celebrity or whatever people didn't have access to you to you right they had access through

You know media through now with social media Instagram like Kevin Hart the comedian He's mastered his is ability to connect with people. And so trying to own, if a studio tries to own people like they did before, I don't even think it's possible. I don't think you're going to succeed anyway anymore. It's just not going to work. I think people are going to own themselves. And here's the good and the bad thing about what you're doing, the good thing, and the

bad thing is it's a new way of doing things. So you have all this creative flexibility and ability to do it, but the bad thing is, you got to kind of invent some of it. Yeah. You got to kind of come up with what it looks like. So yeah, and I'm literally trying to patchwork it together from everything that I've seen work.

So you've got the Spotify model, you've got the Netflix model, you've got iTunes. I think a lot of this stuff has been solved to try to find ways to make sure that the artists are getting paid And as any touring band knows the real money is in merchandising as Disney is completely proven the real money is in merchandising that the narrative the all of that stuff is really meant to drive Awareness of the ideology that I think that makes you love it that makes you like want to echo it and signal to the world that you

Identify with that and then you need to be prepared to make those things for them. So what I'm finding now is as I go to the studios and I talk to producers and I explain to them my business model, literally they get this like, they look to make nobody's looking around and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like this would be a game changer. Why?

Because the studios are conglomerates, okay? Conglomerates answer to a lot of people. Those a lot of people all have MBAs, their finance degrees, and they look at things from a spreadsheet perspective. There's no creativity in it. And what they do is they wait for something to prove itself out. They buy it. They optimize it until it dies and they discard it. So think of them as like a succubus. That is literally truly turning burn. Like drinking the the blood the vitality Everything out of it knowing that all you know two three maybe fivefold my money. That's great Yeah, like and let it go low risk high return

Exactly instead of saying like hey This is gonna be something that we're going to take advantage of for a very, very, very, very long time. And that's been the Disney play, right? Mickey Mouse is viable today. He was viable back in the 1930s. They've done a really good job of making their own brand, sort of be this protective umbrella of all this other stuff that has life beyond it and all these other places. They're very careful with their properties.

They don't let them get oversaturated. So it's like, they've got this whole strad, the total branding strategy, or total merchandising. They've got this whole huge strategy for it. It's not churn and burn, but they do take that strategy with their artists. And so their thing is like, hey, those people are sort of behind the scenes. And Disney, if they had, and look, I don't know enough about Bob Eiger's Disney to know, like, if I'm on the mark, but here's my gut instinct. That Bob Eiger comes on the scene and realizes we're in trouble and we've not been able to compete with Pixar and Pixar is the

new Disney and they're handing us our ass because their animation is better. Their storytelling story is better. Yes. And when you go back and look at what made Walt Disney as a human being so effective at times of trouble. When he was getting his ass handed to, his story's incredible. He's been through bankruptcy, been evicted from multiple houses, apartments, had multiple cars repossessed,

and every time his response was, we need to make the animation better, right? He doesn't waste time winding crying, nothing. He's just like, we're not undeniable yet. And so he's going back to the animation. How do we make it better? The first two really incorporate sound, the first to do color. And to get into color was like this huge financial risk. And no, the

industry didn't even believe in color, let alone the animation industry. So I mean, it's just like pushing and making deals and borrowing money and just because he wanted the animation to be phenomenal. And whenever an entrepreneur returns their product and making it so great that it can't be denied, that's when you know that they're going to make it to the other side of this. So when I see studios and stuff burning out the people who are responsible for making the art truly phenomenal, I know they're in danger.

So Disney's strategy is go out and buy it. Culturally we're not able to do it internally anymore. So we've gone out. We just start buying everything. We buy picks are we buy Marvel Studios. We buy Star Wars. Now, they're at least not the traditional succubus style company. So I'm hopeful they'll be protective of at least the IP. But my pitch is they're only able to buy things that already exist. Okay. That where's the next thing on the horizon? There isn't anything. So I'm saying, hey, I would do that if I could, honestly.

That's why I don't like take too many swings and what they're doing. It's brilliant. And if I had the capital to do it, I'd do it too. But somebody is gonna come down here and say, we're gonna incubate the next generation, but I'm gonna protect the artist. I'm gonna make sure that the artists have ownership.

I'm gonna make sure that they're incentivized to go push it, right? Cause I want them selling merch, baby. I want them out there like pumping the merch and because it's driving back to us, I want to make sure that for the first time ever an artist that goes out and hustles can make a shit ton of money off of their creation. And the thing is, and this is what happens all the time. Princess Leia forever, Carrie Fisher was just pissed, like super bitter.

Because the movie, you know, making billions of dollars, selling dolls that look like her and all that, and she got paid her fee to act and that was that. But like, you could have had her be like, the biggest evangelist of all time, it doesn't take a lot, right? It doesn't take a lot to make her feel like, wow guys, that's amazing, I wanna be out here,

I wanna push promote, I know that whatever percent, I mean, it can be 0.001%, but when that number gets big enough, it's like, wow, I want to be out here. I want to speak good. I want to keep it going in the public consciousness. And my thing is, this couldn't have happened before. So I get why nobody did it before. But when you see what's happening now, and you realize that you have a direct conduit

to your audience, that you know them by name, and they know you, and that they will stop you when they see you and shake your hand. And thank you for the impact and tell you about what you did to their lives and that they've lost fat, added muscle and it's because of you guys, right? That is a whole new world and it can happen on a global scale. You guys were talking last time, it was a Nigeria, it was like somewhere crazy that you had like some testimonial from, right? It's unbelievable. So that's the world that we live in. No matter how smart the people are that work for you company, the smartest people on the planet don't work for you, embrace that.

So now how do you tap into those people? How do you get them excited about your brand? So literally, literally, less than 48 hours ago, I looked into a camera and I said, we're now accepting designs. Less than 48 hours later, for free, I have designs that I can now sell. That's crazy.

That's very cool. It's very cool. I did nothing. Are you people this, like, the world is insane? Yeah, but okay, so there's so many people and I love talking business with you. I love to get into this shit because when people ask me what we're doing,

I have such a hard time explaining it to the average person. And I use you as an example. I said, you know, because you're one of the few that I feel that you can really articulate it. Well, yeah, and you really grasp where it's at now and where it's going, right? And you see that. And it's obvious to me when you see that.

Now, what is, what do you see? Because now I feel like there's a lot of people that are kind of getting it and they're like, okay, and they're trying to figure it out, right? Or they're trying to emulate what they see. When you assess a business like ourselves, where we're at or where you're at, what do you see the most common mistakes are

in keeping them from continuing to grow? What are the things that stand out to you when you see these people that are trying to, even though you're doing something that nobody else really is, but there's other people in other types of businesses that recognize the importance of social media and the direction that it's going and what you need to do with it, but they just don't really understand how to do that. What's the biggest ones you see? I honestly, the biggest mistake I see is people ask for money too soon, right? And so just not giving enough away for free,

and I'm not saying that about you guys, I have to really look at the model. But you really like, you want people to be sitting there going, does he know I'm getting free? Right? Where they're like straight uneasy because everybody else is charging for content of this caliber or they hedge their bets. And it's like, that's what you get for free. Now join us on the paywall, you know what I mean? And it's like, oh, well let me speak to that. Let me speak to that with us and our brand.

Like this was something that we actually talked about that nobody was doing and we got that. And people thought we were crazy when we were all still working on other jobs, but yeah, we were coming back and we're doing these podcasts and writing blogs and giving out, and like literally for it was 200 and something episode We did it all over you every experience we've ever had as a personal trainer

We gave and never once asked for anything and I tell I give this as a lesson to other entrepreneurs that I talk about and I said So when we turn the switch on so many people bought from us because they felt compelled to give us because how much we gave for the past year and a half of being with us. We didn't even have to ask for it. We'd actually had people reaching out to us and emailing us and saying, you guys should start some sort of a go fund me so we can help you. And we're like, no, no, no, no, no, let us. And we continue to do that. And when you truly do that, I think that message is conveyed.

And I think when the time is right and you can, it isn't that hard. But a lot of people don't see that, they don't get that. So step one, build an audience. Step one, build an audience and really ask, what are they already paying for? And how do I deliver that in a super meaningful, like obviously connected way? So the reason that I ended up in merchandising,

and start there and think, oh, what we're going to do is sell merchandising. I started just thinking about, how do you actually end generational poverty, right? That mindset. And the answer led me to narrative. And then I thought, okay, well, how do the most powerful film, book, comic book studios, how do they make money? Where's the money really? And the money's merchandising. So it's like, okay, well, then I guess we become a merchandising company at a necessity because the world believes information should be free.

Now, as somebody who grew up in a world where information was like something you paid a lot of money for. Like I was like, wait, what? Like I was, when I first heard that I was straight offended. I was like, you cheap bastard. And then I was like, that's the world though. Like if people believe it should be free, then it doesn't matter what I think.

They're not gonna pay for it. So, that's the position you value. Excellent, excellent point right there. So it's like, now I know I've got to give my information away for free, and I want to be more aggressive about it. So let me paint you the vision of we're gonna be doing live events. So live events, I think is something everybody understands

that you're gonna have to pay for that, right? But there is at those events an expectation that certain things will be free. So our pitches, I know that if you go to a movie theater, you know where they make their money for real, right? Popcorn. Yeah, hot dogs. That's a fun movie. $15 popcorn. Right. So it's on the concessions But they're doing something that makes people embittered and they don't want to pay for that and it's not a beautiful transaction Right, you're not making people happy with that

But it's where they generate a ton of income. So they think, okay, you've come here, we've created this big opulent experience and the sort of ransom is that you're going to buy whatever die of coke. My thing is, okay, invite you to a live event. It's going to be amazing. It's going to totally fucking blow you away. You're going to have to pay to come in. Whatever you expect to be free is going to be free and then some. So let's say we do 1.25, you know, X, whatever you would expect to get for free. be free and then some so let's say we do 1.25 You know X whatever you would expect to get for free and then we're gonna have premium stuff that you can pay for and but it's totally optional Right, it's the premium model So you're gonna get more than you would get free somewhere else But then I also have something here backing it up

But I know that I'm gonna cover my nut on the door and then I would try to get even more of the merchandising in whether it's T Sure, it's people's books whatever And you literally exit through the gift shop, right? Like you merchandise the life out of these events. You don't have to buy anything, but if you want to buy it, it's there. It's a way to show your appreciation, to show your allegiance to whatever. That's sort of how we're thinking through it now, because those are the things I know people are already trained to do. They already do that. They want a commemorative whatever. They want something that echoes that ideology. And so I'm just trying to put people in a position where I exceed their expectations of quality and the freebie stuff. And then I put everything else in

danger of happening, right? So like all the stuff that they wrap around to check out stand so that when you're there, oh yeah, I'll take a stick of gum. Oh yeah, I'll take some tic-tacs, whatever. That you've created that opportunity where they feel good about it, you feel good about it, you're generating revenue. But to me, it's it right now, the world of physical goods is where I want to be. Now ultimately, as the blockchain comes on and digital goods can become truly unique. One-offs, then maybe it's more interesting to sell something that's digital, and I think maybe people get behind that a bit so you can create scarcity. But right now, selling digital stuff, just I don't

think there's a great big market for it. I think people are weird about it. So I'd rather bring it into the physical tangible world. So like, make and produce a story in narrative, don't sell it, give it out, which now we have the means to do that for free, where everybody can access it, but then the merchandise goes along. Yeah, I mean, we'll still in the system that exists now, we would still sell something. I mean, you sell it to maybe Netflix, but you get a piece for everybody. The watch is it, you get some amount of pay for that, same at a traditional movie. And there's no reason to fore for that. Same at a traditional movie.

And there's no reason to forego that. That revenue model is still working. It's just declining. So don't overly invest in that, but I don't think you get any value for turning that down. Unless you're going to be like your own Netflix. But then to build the back catalog big enough, just that's not the game I'm trying to play. Not now. I mean, maybe in the 15 year plan,

but right now it's really about making that amazing content to actually impact generational poverty as a mindset and then giving people a way to show their allegiance to that with lifestyle stuff. And it all becomes very physical, it becomes something that I know people already do. So then you are actively looking for also individual artists. Yeah, we're looking, we want people to submit stories, comic books, movie ideas, TV shows,

all of it. Our thing is, we want to be involved where we can build a community. So I usually use comic books as the example because it's really, I think it's a powerful medium, but it's all community driven. Super community driven. Very well said. You build a community around it, they get excited, it's episodic, you can get like a whole lot of vibe going.

The studios are already used to acquiring that material. We would be in a position where we'd have enough of the fan base that we don't have to sell the rights so that they take everything that we'd be able to retain some of the rights in the beginning, we'd probably maintain a minority of the fan base that we don't have to sell the rights so that they take everything that we'd be able to retain some of the rights. In the beginning, we'd probably maintain a minority of the rights. I'm very okay with that as we build our power, but let's say we retained 30% of the rights to merchandising, we retained 30% of the box office, whatever you make something work, but you're in a position where you pull through demand.

Because we're able to crowdsource this, I don't have a huge overhead where I have to sell the movie. So we can wait for that right opportunity where it's like, hey, things are working really well here on the comic. We're building the audience. I'm not distributing through anybody else. This is a digital world. We do our own thing.

We only get behind things that have virality. So it's like, by the time we go to a studio, it's like the EL James Nero. There's 5 million people reading this comic on a daily basis. Our engagement rate is off the charts. I've already sold $4.3 million in merchandising. There's no mystery here. This is the biggest no-brainer ever. So now you're in a strong position to say, I'm going to sell you the rights for five years.

I'm going to retain 30% of the merchandising rights or for the first film you get 90% of the merchandising rights for the second film I get 40%, you get 50%. There's all kinds of things you can work in because you've got some strength because you're not just a kid with a script. That's where this model will either live or die. Our ability to really get a community excited about that property and spending money right now today. Well, let's talk about that property and spending money right now today. Well, let's talk about that community

and talk real numbers. Like, what does that look like? Can you tell the audience it's listening, like how long or how much of a loyal audience you need to have before you can turn the dollars? Like when, how many people, like can you assess a business and go like, oh, they have 3000 loyal fans,

they should be making X amount of dollars. Can you compute that? Not really not super effectively. I would say it all depends on what that thing is that you're selling. So if those 3000 people are all net worth of 50 million or more, then you can sell a whole lot of shit. Right?

So it comes down to who you're 3000 are. So from my perspective, because I'm going after the masses, I'm going after people that watch movies, read books, comic books, I think the number is 3 million. So if I have an audience of 3 million, so right now we have an audience of just under 100,000, we're already seeing what we'll call the Oprah effect, right, where we can sell out a book on Amazon just by releasing a podcast. So we know it's happening, we know that we're going to have impact. But when I think about the size that you have to get to where a studio is going to then take that property and be willing, remember, they're going to spend a lot of money on it.

And I'm going to ask them to let me retain a certain percentage of the rights. I'm going to need a big audience to pull that off. So that's three minutes. Now how big of an audience would someone need to get your attention? Yeah, I was going to say. So I have a 100% yes rate. So my thing is, if you ask me to come on your podcast, I will come. The only question is when.

So when is determined by how big your audience is? If you've got a big audience, then I'll stay up late, I'll skip the gym, I'll do whatever I have to to be on your podcast, I can turn that around in like 72 hours. If you've got 5,000 followers, then it might not be till June, where I'm looking at a day where I've got nothing planned and you know, it's easy breezy. That's fair. Right? I think that's pretty reasonable.

Why do I say yes to everybody for two reasons? One, there was a time when I was doing my very first podcast and I needed somebody to say yes to me and I was eternally grateful. And I'm a big believer in just paying stuff forward so it's like somebody did that for me. I thought they were very kind for doing it. I'm willing to do that for somebody and for a lot of people. Two, you can't unless you actually go in and try to edit and splice my words together. You can ask me any question you want but I control what I say. So I have no fear of like being trapped or set up

or whatever like with an interview where that can get a little dicey. So, you know, podcast. Have you had any experiences like that? Yeah, we were just talking about that. It is very easy to make me sound crazy. I have learned that lesson. I think you're just really smart.

And it's really smart people sound, some can sound crazy to not take that problem. So, and then it's good practice. You know, it's like I need to be out there. I need to, and also I'm like, it doesn't hurt my feelings to get one person. Like, if that one person's die hard, like, I want to meet every single one of those. And as long as they live on the internet, where anybody like at any time, right, that guy can have four followers, but then I say something that resonates, we release the clip on Facebook and boom, it goes viral, it gets big and I never would have

had that answer if they hadn't asked me that question. So as long as I'm in control of my performance, if you will, I'm all for it. I want to scale it all the way down for a person who is one person who's going to build something that they maybe they don't see it or even want it all the way down for a person who is one person who's going to build something that they maybe they don't see it or even want it at the scale that you're building. They're coming after Disney, but they respect the direction that social media is going and that they're not really, they haven't figured it out yet. They haven't figured out how to utilize it as a business tool. How would you help them build this? Forget what I do.

I don't think it matters what it is. We'll call it anything. We'll call it a product. We'll widget. Not T-shirts, whatever. Because that tends to be the thing right now, I see. I see a lot of people starting clothing lines. They think that they get 10,000 people looking at them

because they do have to make it pictures. And let's take that because I think that T-shirts is a really important one. And it's people keep going back to it because it's relatively easy. There's a ton of infrastructure because it's work for so many people that there's just the world has adapted

to making sure that T-shirts can be made relatively high quality, very, very fast, for very cheap. So it's a great entry point for people. And people know, like, I have my favorite T-shirt. I love it. And so they want that thing. So if somebody came to me and said,

I wanna build a T-shirt brand, I'd be stoked. I wouldn't say, oh, the world's too crowded, don't do it. My answer's gonna be this, what the fuck are you putting on your T-shirt? Because think of it like a tattoo. When we designed our logo, I said, it has to be tattooable. Now there's two things that make something tattooable. The design has to be cool.

But if we use tattoo, there's shit on there. Yeah. We use that our first tattoo. Somebody is fucking amazing, right? And tattooed it, you're like, whoa dude, someone just tattooed for shit. Now, I really stop and think about that for a second, that you've built a brand that resonates

with that person so emotionally, because remember that it's not about you. It is about them. This show has done something for them that means so much that has become a part of their identity and they want it with them forever. That is what a fucking brand should be. That is what a brand should be.

And somehow some way, so many fucking companies do not recognize that. They cheap out on it. They bastardize it. They think of their customer as a fucking number. We're about to go through an age where everybody is going to have a tattoo of some company that they really fucking believe in because of transparency, authenticity, connection, you find these people, you meet them, you get to know them, you're like, fuck, this motherfucker has changed my life. Yeah, fucking tattooing it.

Yeah. Like when something, it won't even be mocked upon. The way people kind of chuckle at that now, right? Probably with 10, 15 years ago, people that put a Nike swish or did some with that, you kind of chuckle laugh up, but that won't be that way in 20 years. Think about Harley Davidson. The ultimate badge for us. Dude, you say something to the world

when you tattoo Harley Davidson. Now, what I like is that gives the company a responsibility because if you know motherfuckers walking around out there with your tattoo, you owe them something. You owe them something. Now, to me, if as a company, you can accept, I owe them something. And you can think about that as you're working on your product.

Like, that was a big thing for us at Questman. We really thought about like, people are having these transformations and they're thanking us in all this. We owe them the highest quality product ever. You know, you saying Harley-Davidson is crazy because we just were, my girl and I were just watching the ultimate fighter and I was telling her like,

fucking Harley-Davidson, man, been around for I was telling her like, fucking Harley Davidson man, been around for a long time, smart, smart company for getting, and I don't even know the behind the scenes on exactly how that partnership works with the fact that they would attach themselves to a company like UFC, which could be sketchy for them to possibly do. They're already established, they don't need to do that.

I think that was such a brilliant move. I don't know if you knew that or not. Do you know that they partnered up with the UFC and they give away like a Harley on all these? Very smart. Yeah, no, very, very smart how they do it. They give away a Harley every season to this ultimate fighter show,

which is going crazy and viral. Yeah, no, it's... So, to the t-shirt, back with the t-shirts, you've got someone wants to make t-shirts. What's step one with this new, great fucking product? A great product, not the t-shirt. What's step one with this new, great, fucking product? A great product, not the t-shirt. The t-shirt is not the product.

So the t-shirt is the echo of whatever your product is. So the easiest example, if you're going to try to turn something into that, is what is that? Like, let's just say that it's a show, right? What is your show meant to do? How is it actually going to help people? So I'll be super selfish for a second. And I'll say that the very first thing the impact area ever sold was a t-shirt, a branded

t-shirt of all things. And for a long time, we didn't have them up, didn't have them up, building the brand, and the way that we're building the brand is by making content that we really want to change people's lives. By going out of our way to make the highest quality content, make it free, and by high quality we mean, if you take the advice in the show, it will change your life, it will change your life for the better. That I'm responding to everyone on social media that we do, you can win calls with me, so you can literally get one-on-one mentoring with somebody who built a billion dollar brand. And I sit there and I really think about your business and how it can help you.

I'm trying to give away all your ideas or all my ideas to help you grow. Literally just trying to give everything away that I can. And people writing in, you change my life. College professor saying, I use your interviews to teach my class, people using the motivational stuff to get to the gym, people that have been abused using. We just had a guest that's like a hero in that world because of what he's been through and like how he has touched our life and helped them.

I mean, it's just like, thing after thing after thing where people feel like you're making me a better version of myself. And then we go, hey guys, today the shirt with our brand on it is available. If we've added value to your life, go get one. Just to thank us, they would buy it. Like people want to give us money. It's not about the t-shirt, right? And the problem is people making t-shirts think it's about the t-shirt. It's not about the t-shirt, right? And the problem is people making t-shirts,

think it's about the t-shirt, it's not about the t-shirt. So you have to find out all the wrong things. You have to find out what is it really about? It's about that signal that says, I'm on the inside of something. I know something that you don't. That if two people wearing an impact theory t-shirt bump into each other, I probably would be like,

oh! Right? And they'll start throwing out quotes and stuff from the show. And it's like, it's like the shirt you're wearing right now. Exactly, where you and I were like, hey! Exactly. Exactly. So, you create a great product

and how do they get that audience? How do they get that audience? How do they do that? How do they put that, you know, what you're talking about out there? What's some of the first steps, some of the first tangents? We have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen

to us fitness entrepreneurs. All right, so we want to go through how to build a social brand like it's fast again. Yeah. All right, here we go. Okay. Ready? Yeah. All right. So number one, get your social accounts, make sure you're up on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat. Those are going to be the five that will attack for right now. And

you're going to put out content that is different on each and every one of them. So this value add no matter where you're going. You want to be making sure that the content in whatever form it is is doing as best to deliver value as fast as humanly possible. So don't waste people's time. It's very rare that I just show super random shit like all the time. There's things that like really catch my interest and ah, that's not empowering somebody, that's not helping somebody.

And there is a certain, is it endearing? Sometimes I'll do it just because it's endearing and it makes you feel like you know me better, so I will do those. But you're looking for authenticity, transparency, connection, and support. So how do you support? You've got all your accounts,

you're putting out the content that makes sense for your universe. So for you guys obviously, health and fitness stuff, tips, tricks, all that stuff. I'm assuming you're featuring transformations, you're showing people that. Then you want to be doing stuff that's community-focused. So you want to show them, hey, community, you've done this. So maybe you feature one of the guys around the world.

And hopefully he was connected with somebody that's also in the Mind Pump universe that helped him a little bit. So you can really celebrate like these two did this for each other to show that the community is important that it's doing something, so my sense of identity in the community isn't just about my relationship with you. It's about Harley Davidson, right? It's Harley Davidson means something, this is what the community means, what they're doing for each other, and we're going to highlight some of that. And then you're going to on top of your high caliber content, you need consistency. So you're going to have to be hella consistent, putting it out, and then you need to engage with them.

So you're going to go in and you're going to be commenting, commenting, commenting. I spend an inordinate amount of my time commenting. So on the way home now from this, all I'll do the entire drive is comment. Never drive yourself anywhere ever again, and just make sure that you're always in the back of an Uber, and whenever you're traveling, it's comment time. And when you can, if you can comment in real time, and this is something that I suck at,

but I'm trying to get better at, that when, because I don't post, everything is written by me, but I don't post it, right? So I just can't fucking do it. I don't have time to deal with the logistics of that, right? So somebody else gets, yeah, they get all my my copy and then they go and they post it now If I know the minute that they're posting it, I'll get on and I'll start answering back in real time Which is obviously a lot more effective then find influencers that are in your world that are doing something that's relevant

Other fitness influencers whatever go and do all the things for them that you wish they would do for you Share their content comment meaningfully Don't just be like, cool. No wink. Don't just put the fire icon. Like go in and say, man, this episode was really bitching because of this. Like this really cool. I do this one a lot. Yeah. Rock on. And look, that's better than nothing. Yeah, but you got a pause right there. You got a pause right there because there's that's

a hard one though. It's a a hard one for people to do. And I feel like a lot of people get stuck right there in business. A lot of people get so self-serving and they get so focused on themselves that they just were, if they were to actively go out, genuinely try and help another company or help somebody else without even expecting anything

or turning, it's amazing what ends up happening. Yeah. But you have to be able to do that. Not a lot of people can do that. And let's really talk about the one, be disciplined. So let's say that, you guys are already big. So I'm going to use you as the big fish. So somebody comes up to you guys and they've just been crushing, crushing, crushing, delivering so much value to you guys and they've just been crushing crushing crushing delivering so much value to you.

Like they're in. They share all the comments. They're like out there pushing promoting. They buy the t shirts. They wear them. They go to Machu Picchu. They take a picture of themselves at the top of Machu Picchu with your shirt on saying I never would have made it this far if it wasn't for these guys.

They fucking change my and you guys now know them by name. Like their hell of a legit right? And you're just like, Oh, damn damn like that's ebra him like we know that guy I can't what the fuck you doing that much, but you know right and he's like hyping you guys up at every fucking turn and On his wedding cake when he gets married like the the three of you guys are like I Got my wife Then you meet him you meet him.

You meet him face to face. And at that moment, you guys will feel a crushing obligation to ask him one question. And that question is, what can we do for you? Now, if Ebrahim is smart, he says nothing. Guys, just keep putting out high value content. I so believe in what you're doing, I just wanna keep pushing it and promoting it. Now, you'll eat out high value content. I so believe in what you're doing, I just wanna keep pushing it and promoting it.

Now you'll eat out of his hand. And he walks away and he doesn't turn back. Three months later, he actually needs something real, something big. And where you guys, it's good for you, it's good for him. Now he comes and says, hey guys, I actually do have something now that I think makes a lot of sense for you.

Here's why I think it'd be really fucking great for you. And when you guys look at it and go, whoa, this actually is really good for us, dude. Eberhan, we'd love to partner with you on this. This is amazing. Thank you for thinking of us. Now there's a real partnership. But he didn't play the card just because he bumped into you.

And that's what everybody does. Oh, I have your attention right now. I'm going to play my fun card. Yeah. Because I don't know who he's going to come back. Now, do you guys know Magic at all? And I mean, Magic, like, Magic, slide of hand, my fun card. Cause I don't know who he's gonna come back. Now, do you guys know magic at all? And I mean, magic, like, magic, slide of hand, card magic. Do I know any magic?

Yeah, do you, do you, do you know this is not very good? No, this is not very good. I love, I love, I love, I should all of David Blaine stuff, I mean, I mean, I'm gonna be like, yeah. Perfect. So here, here is the truth of magic. So I am utterly fascinated by magic.

I've taken classes at the magic castle. Like, I really, really dig magic. Now the reason I dig magic, there's two types of people. People that when they learn how the trick is done, they're less enamored. People that when they learn how the trick is done, they're more enamored. I fall into the ladder camp.

Now there is a trick where there's a thing called a force, where I can force you with a high degree of accuracy to pick a certain card, right? So do things, hey, pick a card, any card, you pick it, you don't show it to me, but I actually know what it is. Put it back into the deck, shuffle it up, I guess. It's crazy, it's gone, it's not there, right? And then I say, you see those four basketballs over there?

I want you to go cut, not that one, the second one next one, I want you to cut it open. You cut it open, inside is your card. Is that your card? Yes. You're flipping the fuck out, right? Because you would rather believe that that's magic than that I went to a basketball manufacturer and said, hey, I need you to make a basketball with this card. Right. And that, that to me is what being an entrepreneur is. When you do so much pre-planning hard work, you're thinking so now,

it's so strategic that people would rather believe that you're just inhumanly gifted. He's smarter than me. He's more talented than the devil. Than believing that you just think that far ahead, that you work that hard, that you went, how the fuck could I make it seem like a carman? I'm not gonna pretend.

I'm actually gonna go put a fucking car in a basketball. And the first six basketball manufacturers would say, no, everybody else stopped, but you went to the seventh. And then you finally got them. There's people that have done this like really famous stories where they'll go, they'll do this to make the card vanish. And then they'll go, actually, I think it's, it's in the inside pocket. Check, check the inside pocket of your jacket. You reach in, it's nothing in the inside pocket of my jacket. You, you sure? No, no, no, I'm sure it's there.

Take your jacket off. And it's in the lining of the fucking jacket. They've actually had the card sewn inside the lining of the person's jacket. OK? Because the incredible prep. Follow. Where's their tailor, right? Where do they get their suits?

It only works when it's like, you know that person. You know they get their suits made. You know where they get the made. So you go, you convince the tailor, hey, the next time he comes in, I want you to put this card. And then you bet. And one, if you're really clever You really want it like now I'm really fucking throwing dirt at the magic industry

You'd store four different cards in different places and memorize where they are so that you've got outs Wow if you miss on the first one you know where the second one or the third or the fourth one is depending on what card Okay, how did Dave and Blade put it in a canelo that? Fucking idea even played put it in a cantaloupe. That, I have no fucking idea. Oh, I have no idea. And here's the thing, I'm really- The cantaloupe would be a-

Yeah, it's like, and here's the thing, that might not be as crazy as you think. That might not be as crazy as you think. Oh my God. Oh my God. Wow. So, there might be enough

acidity in there that it would eat the car away I don't know, but it's like, don't, like, don't put it back. That's just counted, don't put it back. That's awesome. You must really get excited then when you see like really don't, like, don't put it back. Just count it, don't put it back. That's awesome. You must really get excited

that when you see like really brilliant business minds and when you see someone who's like, wow, they're way ahead of like everybody else with what they're doing. Yeah, the guy right now that just, I get the chills every time it's Elon Musk. Yeah, he's not another planet man. Like what he's, so first of all,

he's got the, just the balls to dream big, right? The moment like terraforming has now become my thing. Like if you're not thinking about what planet you so first of all, he's got the just the balls to dream big right the moment like terraforming has now become my thing Like if you're not thinking about what planet you're gonna terraform You're just not thinking big enough, right? And that's just a good way to think about it So the other day I was really having this thought so I this normally does not happen to me But we're modeling our house and I'm really thinking about how fucking big and beautiful it is and how much money I have to remodel and it's crazy And like I can't believe I'm actually here and I've succeeded the way that I wanted to succeed. And just like this little voice was like,

you've had your success. And you've had your success. And I thought, whoa, whoa, whoa, motherfucker. That's how success ruins you. Because you let off the gas pedal. You're not hungry, you're not desperate, right? It's easy to have that first bit of success because a certain type of person,

I'll put you guys in that camp, a certain type of person. It's like the have that first bit of success because a certain type of person, I'll put you guys in that camp, a certain type of person. It's like the need for oxygen. You're not gonna stop. You just fucking need to prove it to yourself to somebody else. It's like the way that you get a physique, right? Do you know how bad you have to want a physique? Even if you fucking take drugs,

I think people think you inject steroids and, whoop, like you're big. You start to fucking work out, right? There's like, you have to kill yourself to get a physique. There's just no two ways about it. So somebody they want it so badly they either had dirt kicked in their face by the bully, they couldn't get the girls whatever. Like they have some crushing need to become that person. So they put themselves through that and it's amazing. The same is true of success. When you find somebody that that, they're that on fire to become that thing, to do that, to get good enough

to perform at that level, that they just, they're willing to accept all the failure, rejection, embarrassment, all that, and keep going long enough to get to the other side of it. But then when they've got it, that's the thing that erodes them. That's when they let off the gas pedal, and they're not hungry like that anymore.

And me, it's all about understanding. What makes you feel alive right now today, right? Dreaming about the future is awesome, but what makes you feel alive right now today? Because my sort of vision board thing growing up was always a big house. So it was really fascinating for me to see when I got the big house. I took like a red hot minute to be like, oh my God, like we're here. We did it. And then right away I was back on the. Because for me, the in the moment, like feeling that makes me feel alive,

it's a fun journey. Yeah, the journey, man. 100%. Yeah. It takes a long time though to get that, I feel like I feel like you kind of, you kind of have to get the big house if that was the thing, right?

And then you have to be able to detach yourself and look at it. Yeah, look at it like, wow, you know what? And learn to appreciate, which probably makes the process you're going through right now even more unbelievably exciting and fun and enjoyable because you're probably more mindful and present that you've ever been because you have this perspective to actually enjoy this process to enjoy the moment we're actually in right now yeah because

that's all part of it right yeah and I I actually had this moment I should share this with you, because I've shared with so many people now, and it's such kudos to you. We were your last interview, and we had just came off, we had Paul check before that, we had Lane Norton before that, we had Stephen Kotler, I think, and we just had a crazy line, just,

Rob Wolf, yeah, we had just great minds, man, and all different arenas too. And you were talking, you're going, and I felt myself so into your story. And I've been so focused on the business earlier in that morning, I had been frustrated where we're at. We could be doing more of this. So we need to be doing this and I remember feeling that. And then I remember being in that moment, almost being detached from myself. And I was like, and that I remember being in that moment almost being detached from myself and I was like Fucking hey dude. This is this is why I do it though like this part right here and to get all that information and it to have met these great Brilliant minds and get to ask the questions that I want to ask and talk like fucking aim. And this is what it's really about

Yeah, the end the end result. That's just that'll always keep changing You know keep wanting more and this and that and learning to be mindful and present like that. And you know, you're the way you tell the story, the way you explain things, allowed me to do that. And I share that now with a lot of people, especially very driven people like ourselves, because it's really easy to get so focused

on the end goal or that house or that thing. And then you realize when you actually get that, that moment is really short live, right? It's very short. There's actually a name for us, the psychological phenomenon. I've trained so many clients that have trained for an event, like a run, a race, or a competition, and the depression and the sadness and the lack of motivation they get after the event is like clockwork, like every time, like I did that race,

now what? I'm not motivated anymore. Like how do I, how do I keep going? Like I don't have this thing I'm driving towards because they were so attached to this, this thing that they had achieved and there wasn't something, something deeper for them. What are some traits, what are some key traits you look for and people that you want to develop? Really, there's three things that I look for. You have to have grand ambition. One, just to be interesting to me and for me, not to seem crazy to you. You've also got to be dreamy big.

Like you can imagine if I said to a whole swath of humanity, if you're not thinking about terraforming, then you're just not dreamy big enough, they'd be like, what the fuck is this? Right, like that's so dumb to them. It's just dumb. I think about all the time. I? Right? Like that's so dumb to them? It's just dumb. I think about all the time.

That's so crazy saying that. So, and that to me, like, that's just, that's so necessary. Like for me to enjoy life and really fall in love with an idea or somebody else, like they've got to have that similar grand ambition. Just it's a framework thing. And then the other is drive, because to me,

a lot of people will think about terraforming, but they're not actually gonna do it ever. They know that, I know that. All the friends of family know that. They're an empty dreamer. And like if you really wanted to like offend me, call me an empty dreamer, right? Because that like, that, when I say it,

I mean it super offensively. So it's like to to get lost in your dream to be pacified by the dream itself instead of actually going for it. And that's a Ryan holiday thing, man. So he's just an incredible mind in the ego is the enemy talks about that. That some people actually get pacified by saying like, I'm going to go for it tomorrow. And merely saying it is enough for them, right? So don't want empty dreamers. Drive to me is the willingness to stick it out, to garner the skills that you need to acquire

in order to actually go terraform or whatever grand thing it is you want to do. And then the third one, and this is true of me and I think that it's very much not universal. It's not something that everybody has and orders everybody want, but compassion. And I just, I really, really enjoy seeing good things happen to other people.

I really enjoy being a part of a team. I'm not a guy that wants to be all alone. I really like having people around me that play at my level that are exceptional, extraordinary human beings. I want to acknowledge them for what they've done in their contributions. So for me to get to a mountaintop

and not share it with somebody else would just be heartbreaking. And there's a great quote, a pleasure shared is a pleasure doubled. And I really, really believe that. And so I look for people that want that, that want to be a part of a team that like to celebrate and win together,

that aren't like unduly jealous when somebody on the team succeeds, right? And that's another hard thing to find. Yeah, and it is, and especially when you're looking for driving ambition, you normally find competition with it. And I'm a competitive guy, but I don't put it in my like top three qualities that I feed myself.

I think it's important and it goes back to what I say, people should be, they should be driven by beauty and rage and equal measure. It's so much cooler to say an equal measure, but it really should be like an 80-20 split, right? 80% of your time should be focused on the beautiful things you have and the beautiful things you want to create. But 20% of the time should be rage for not being good enough for the fuckhead who slided you, for the people that don't believe in you. And I think that it's incredibly useful as a human being to go, that person doubts me and I'm gonna prove them wrong and it is gonna be delicious.

And to just revel in that and to know, but if you spend all of your time there, then you're Darth Vader, right? So you've given in to the dark side, but it doesn't mean that you don't use it. There's like, I'm just gonna give this all to you. You go and do, you go. Here's the thing, here's what makes Star Wars so fucking powerful is it's one of the few

times where they really acknowledge that there's power to the light and there's power to the dark. And that Darth Vader, I ask people this one simple question and they all get it in an instant. I want you guys all to do this. Think of the last time that you were enraged. Like fucking enraged. Got it? All right.

It's intoxicating, isn't it? It's beautiful. It's purity, right? Because now you're not going to stop. They're a part of your brain that assesses risk and reward, fear, insecurity. It shuts off. It's gone. There's none of that. There is only blind, unadulterated rage. It is movement in one direction. It is attack. It's full fucking speed. It's, I don't give a shit what happens. It is movement in one direction. It is attack. It's full fucking speed. It's I don't give a shit what happens. I'm going to ruin you. You just consume everything in front of you. Oh my God. Like a fireball of death.

And it feels so good. And people don't talk about how clarity feels good. Clarity feels good. Clarity is intoxicating. People will follow. Look at fucking Hitler. A blind raging maniac, but he knew exactly what he wanted. And there was so much clarity and energy that people could get behind it and draft on it. But when you give in, when that is your dominant emotion,

when that's the dominant thing that motivates you, your dark face, slave to the machine. Very well said. So the beauty of Star Wars is that Luke begins to realize, like, holy shit, there's power over here, but I see how it ends up and it becomes destructive and becomes. And he tends to it a little bit too. He feels it. And he knows, like, right then, it's like, oh my God, I can't become this.

Right. And that's what that whole imagery that we see on Dagobah and all that, that we see on Dagaba and all that. Like we see all that. So, Tom, do you do stuff right now currently within the company or did you guys do this in quest to foster that culture of the 80-20 or the top three? Just in general, fostering a culture of people, what do you guys do like practices

or is there certain things that have you designed the layout of the office or is there certain things you do for your employees or is there certain things that have you designed the layout of the office or is there certain things you do for your employees or are there things like that that you've done to encourage this healthy environment of the people that you want to cultivate? Most definitely. So the thing that we look for and trained all of our HR department, all of our managers to look for an employee employees was grand ambition drive and compassion.

I just recently, just recently took a note. In fact, God, if I can pull it up really fast, I turn my phone after in these. I'll see if I can ballpark it. But basically, you need to create tracks for your employees. And this is something that I didn't do a quest and I regret it. Because when people come into a company,

they need to know what does the future look like, right? People want movement. They want to be able to go somewhere within the company. But not everybody is driven in the same way that other people are, and you don't want to hold everyone to the same exact standard. And I learned that the hard way, because I wanted everyone to think like I thought, to be like I am, to be driven, and like you're just going to go up, and ultimately you're going to branch out and start your own company.

And in the beginning, that's, I just hired that. I was looking for entrepreneurs. I was looking for other people, and basically my thing was to give me two years, and then go, I'll teach you everything I know. Go start your own company. And in the beginning, that's, I just hired that. I was looking for entrepreneurs. I was looking for other people and basically my thing was give me two years and then go, I'll teach you everything I know, go start your own company. And that's like really dysfunctional. You actually don't want to do that. I had to learn that the hard way. One, the vast majority of people will make a terrible entrepreneur and that's not actually what they want. So when you build a culture that only rewards that, people will fake being that just to fit in. So that's a terrible idea. So I broke it. It goes something like this. There were five. So forgive

me if I forget one of them. But it was continuity players. So there your head down, get my work done, nine to five. I really want to contribute and do a good job for you. But my job is not my life. And I will act in accordance with that. So don't I'm not the guy you call on a Saturday. I'm not the guy you call on a Saturday. I'm not the guy you ask to stay late. Like, okay, I'm a continuity player. Those people will more or less stay stagnant. They'll get there two to five percent raise year over year

and as long as they're fine with that, I'm fine with that. They're not ambitious. They're not pushing themselves. The next is a linchpin. And a linchpin is somebody that is just an unstoppable force of nature within the company. They, man, if you need somebody to run through a wall, they're going to be the one that does it.

They're going to acquire skills that they know will make them more valuable. They're going to be moving up in the organization. They're a John Wooden style team player where it's like, hey, is that the role you need me to play? I'm going to play that role. If that's what the team needs right now, like, I'm going to be that. And I'm going to keep my out constantly for that. I'm going to figure that out.

The next is an intrapreneur. So somebody who thinks like an entrepreneur, but they don't ever want the assake of owning their own company, but there are problem solvers. They're going to be a bit of a rogue agent. Half the time you're going to be fucking pissed off at them for like running off and doing something. But the other half of the time, they'll do something ingenious, right? And you'd be like, thank God I have this person because they're really pushing the envelope.

They're thinking outside the box. There may be the one person that's going to keep us from getting eaten by the people coming up behind us because they're not willing to question everything to challenge the status quo to just be data driven and say, we've got to change this shit. It's not working, right? So, but they're not, look, they don't want to start their own company, so they're not going to leave. Then there's true entrepreneurs.

And you're going to get them for a couple years. They're going to be some of the most exceptional people that you have, but you know that you have them for a very limited time. They have an incredible mind because they will treat every dollar like it's their own. They're really trying to learn every aspect of a business. They're going to have a total view of it because they have that sense of if we fail, everything goes away because they've trained themselves to think like that. Maybe they've been entrepreneurial in the past.

So they really act like a business owner, super, super valuable, usually short time solutions. Maybe there's only forks that feels complete. So those are the, those were like the me sort of thinking through as we scale impact theory, like they're gonna fall into these categories. So back at Quest, I treated everyone like an entrepreneur. And for entrepreneurs was awesome. We got along so fucking well. Inchpreneurs got along with them very, very well.

But continuity players looked at me like I was a dick and just like did not understand my mentality. Because I'm over here pushing them to like be the next big thing. Like come on man, like don't you want, that's not what they want, right? Like they just wanna come in, like they want a good job, they wanna contribute, they wanna be meaningful,

but they don't, dude I nine to five it broke. Like I've built my life around this. I want my time with my family, I'm not overly ambitious and that is completely fair. So it's about, and I got this from our CFO who said, there are two tracks, I think it was at Johnson and Johnson. Anyway, it was one of the big, big companies. And he said that they force people to choose a path.

And you're either upper out or continuity, I think it was that. It's like you either get promoted or you get asked to leave the company I was like you actually say that to people do you want to be on the upper out track? Or do you want to be continuity? He's like yes, it's actually That is man like cut through all the bullshit like straight to you Just side if you're not moving up. You're probably moving up Yeah, and so I was like wait so if you're if you're a continuity player

You don't actually put pressure on them to go up No, they're continuity player that reminds is it the emeth revisited have you read that? Yeah, micro a Real, did they get into some of that in there? I think that's part of that. I don't know that you remind me technician Yeah, I don't remember him you what language he used but that's a technician Yeah, entrepreneur So when you're hiring for positions then do you look at the position and what you want out of it and say, okay, I want this is a position for an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur or a continuity or is that part of your process now?

I'll say like 70% of your hires will fall into a really clear bucket and then 30% it's like, who's the person? An assembly line person, you're basically, either you want to pay your dues and get off the line or you're going to be there forever. And there's not much in between. So that one is, you're going to find a lot of continuity players on a manufacturing line or something like that.

But then other roles, it's like, hey, you know, what do you want to be a marketing forever? And like, that's where you're at. You just really, really like the creative process. So you could be either a Linchpin or a continuity player there or an entrepreneur and I know, well, you're just going to crush it for two years and then that's it. And your entrepreneurs, you probably

move them around, right? They're the division head that, well, maybe the division works and they run that forever or maybe that division doesn't work and you point them at something else. But usually, entrepreneurs over time will get frustrated and leave just because as a company gets big I should say because that's what they hate. They hate bureaucracy, they hate sloth, they need to be given like a skunk works type project where they can go be a risk taker, really try things, move fast, be nimble, feel their

personality. And that's why they're like an entrepreneur but not quite. Yeah. nimble feel their personality. And that's why they're like an entrepreneur, but not quite. Yeah, they just some people don't want the assake of big teams. They don't want the assake of, hey, if this all fails, I'd lose my house. They don't want to have to know where their next paycheck is coming from. Well, can you talk about some of the up and coming talent you have coming up or ideas or are you unable to talk about? No, I mean, I can talk about anything.

So right now, we're not expanding the staff much. Right now, our big focus is on doing, there is a word, now we're intern, wow. So yeah, we've got a bunch of interns coming in and that's gonna be really helpful. And that came out of, so I've been giving this talk for a really long time So a lot of times the young person will come up to me and say hey, what do I do? You know, how do I get ahead fast and my answer is go give the person living the life that you want to live the following speech

And don't give someone the speech if they're sort of living the life that you want to like this is what you give to the person who's living your fantasy Fucking life you go to like this is what you give to the person who's living your fantasy fucking life. You go to them and say I'm gonna work harder and smarter than anyone you've ever met before and I'm gonna do it for free for 90 days. If at the end of the 90 days you feel that I've added so much value that you'd rather pay me then lose me then I'll stay on. If not at least we had you know the time together. All I ask in exchange is knowledge and connections. And I said, that's how you do it. And then in those 90 days, you better blind them with performance. Don't fucking come in and be good.

This is the standing outside in the rain for four days. Fight Club, Project Mayhem, I'm in it for everything. Whatever you need me to do, I'm in. Like if you do that, anticipate their needs, like really, really crush it. Like you have to turn off your ego to pull this off. But at the end of the 90 days, if you smash everything they ask you to do, whether it's go take my dogs for a walk, or it's like go write this really important piece of content that we need for the website, and you crush them both, or hey, I need you to go deal with this vendor who's fucking us over on our delivery of

T-shirts and you make that problem go away and you're doing it all for free. Like, if you do that and crush it, the chances of you getting a job are unbelievable. Oh, super high. Can you imagine that? I would hire someone like that in a second. Do you imagine the culture that someone like that in a second? You imagine the culture that that would so feed into now I've been saying that for like three years now So just last night as but one example guy comes up to me and he says hey

Somebody really smart once told me to say the following words of the person like my dream life and he gives me a patient That's happens to me all the time now 90% of the time like oh man, that's so great But I'm not really the guy living the life that you wanna live, am I? And the answer is no. It's just that I'm the one that said it, so they think I'm gonna be receptive to it. So I'm like, look, do yourself a favor, do me a favor too, but find that person

who's really living your fantasy life. And go give them that speech, because it will work. And I always tell people, it's no or a restraining order, but nothing in between. And you do that enough, and you're finally gonna get somebody that bites. And you'll that enough, and you're finally gonna get somebody that bites. And you'll really, aim for the ceiling, like who, who is it that you want?

Like, is it Bill Gates? Is it Elon Musk? Go give them that pitch. And I wish that I had done that when I was in my early 20s and I had very little economic need. You could work for literally nothing and survive for a while, sleep on a French couch, whatever, get it done.

And so we've had enough people come up to me like that that we decided, hey, let's do an internship program. Let's do like these 90 day chunks. Let's get people in here. And then one, maybe one in a hundred are just such absolute rock stars that it's like, yeah, I would rather pay and make sure that we keep you. So you know, it seems like such the obvious thing to do

when you really think about it. So we're that we don't process and think that way because if you saw a company or a guy who, oh, I'm so fascinated with what you're doing, I love what you're doing, I wanna be a part of what you're doing so bad. And I have these talents or I could work. It's like, it's almost seems like a no-brainer

that that would be the approach. It's, let me show you that I can, and it would be obvious for you if you saw a guy that actually provided value to what you do, but in reality most people don't really want to take the action to do anything, they want to say it. Well that's true, but it's brilliant. It's brilliant, brilliant what you're doing

with the internship because you're gonna see some incredible talent and at the same time, you're giving people who are willing to do the work and opportunity, which is all they want. All they want is that opportunity. How do you deal with the entitlement culture? That's where I was going. Because it feels like, look, I'll tell you something, I was raised by... I knew for Owen Cate. I'm a first-generation American. I was a therapist. My parents poor Sicilian immigrants. And that's how I was raised my dad told me that my dad said you go in there You wash those dishes better than anybody so good that that guy's gonna want to pay you because you do such a good job

Like that's the way I was raised But I don't see that a lot and when you even say internship people like no, you got to pay me and I don't want I'm not gonna do anything for free. How do you deal with that? Yes, so I've been on two sides of this equation. One, where I'm in a company and it has structure and it has HR people who say that I'm crazy and that legally I can't do what I wanna do and all the stuff, which by the way, anybody out there listening to this right now

when somebody tells you that, I want you to look them in the face and say, I'm very, very grateful for your advice. And I'm honored to have you on this team, but bitch, you thought. And I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I wanna do. And whatever wording, verbiage, whatever we have to call this role to not pay them for whatever period of time,

like call it that. Cause I can't tell you how many times people told me, you can only do it if they get college credit. Nope, fuck that. Like, if they want to come in and figure this out, like, let's figure this out. There is a way and people get trapped by stuff like that and it drives me absolutely fucking crazy. So anyway, don't get trapped by rules and regulations.

There is always an ethical way. There is always an ethical way around the problem. I promise you, but people just take the first answer like, yeah, anyway. So I won't do real. And what makes me so mad about it, it really pisses me off, is that people want to fucking do it. Like I bet you had applications. Yeah, exactly.

Fucking going out, you know, out the windows. And you experience more than you can, more than you can possibly use, because people are itching for that opportunity, but you've got other people who want to get in the middle of that and tell you, no, no, you got to do it. You can't do it that way and it's got to be college credit and all this other stuff.

That's correct. And as the leader of the company, you have to take the responsibility to not let things erode to that point where it's like, you've just gotten to the point where you just been to every legal concern and all, there's always an ethical solution to the problem I promise. So, but in that system where I was part of a bigger company

and people weren't necessarily dealing with me now and it sort of becomes, it's once or twice removed from sort of the heart of the ethos of the company, that's where it gets harder. And there is a lot of entitlement and they feel, the person looking for the intern feels that it's like, I have to pick from who I have. It's like, the more you raise the standards,

the higher you raise them, one, that becomes a siren call for a certain type of person. And then two, I think that if you just, like, don't have a scarcity mentality, more people will come, more people will come, say no, say no, say no. If it's the wrong person, say no. And then you will find somebody,

and literally so, and they don't give you, I'll juxtapose it. On impact theory, we literally said, hey, everybody, this is like Fight Club and you're going to be doing the equivalent of standing in the rain for four days. His name is Robert Paulson. Exactly. Before we let you inside.

And if you're prepared to deal with that, then you're kind of intern. If you're not, then we're just not right for you. And I want this to be right for you. But we're going to give you an obscene amount of value. I'm going to make sure by the end of the internship that I've delivered more value to you than you've delivered to me That's my promise so but to step up to that table like you're following my content because you know I think a certain way so since you know I think a certain way don't expect to show up and I'm less Of that right off camera that I am on camera right so the guy on camera says he's

Motivated by beauty and rage and that 20% is fucking fury and like, so that's how it's gonna be in real life. Like so, don't come expecting something else and you know that I'm the guy that like, I will get it done like first there last to leave, work obscene amounts of hours, like the only way to impress a human being

is to be capable of the extraordinary. Like there's just no shortcut. Like there's nothing you can say that's gonna make me be like, oh wow, but there's a whole lot of stuff you can do. That'll make me go, whoa, that's really impressive. So that's all we're looking for. The vast majority of people will say it, then they won't do it, they will burn out in the program

and then it's a numbers game, you know? If we can get a one in a hundred hit rate, I'll be ecstatic. Wow. That's awesome. Are you guys in the phase right now with impact theory where you're you're currently just building your your audience just building a massive audience? Yeah, we're doing really all three things at once So we're building the audience and then we've had the very good fortune because of how visible the show is people bring companies to us with frequency and

the show is, people bring companies to us with frequency and that's getting pretty exciting. So we're beginning to incubate some companies and then on the content side we're now just beginning, we've started taking meetings with the studios, that would be awesome if we could leapfrog and get the rights to something that they're already doing. You know, and I've talked about that underserved properties that I think thematically, ideologically, are aligned with Impact3, where we could take it, show the merchandising model, prove it out, probably through comic books, all users submitted, and really work that out.

So we're just now beginning to request that the community send in original ideas, because I think it's gonna be a very slow burn. But there are a couple things that we're working on, one that we talked about before rolling. I won't mention now. And then a couple of other things that are so early stage. But they could turn into something.

So that I think we're probably still, I don't know, three to six months out from getting really serious about traditional narrative stuff, because it's such a long-term play. We need a much bigger community, get a lot of submissions, but the community's growing really, really rapidly. And so that's the answer. I was just gonna ask you,

how fast is your audience growing right now? Oh, crazy fast. Crazy fast. Yeah. Crazy, you're doubled already, you're almost tripled you two since the last time that we were together, which was just like, yeah, you're growing.

Yeah, very, very fast, right. And I think you didn't really touch too much on it, but I think it's so important that something that you do really well. I mean, when you started to post on YouTube, like consistency, I mean, you, I tell me this all the time, like YouTube is not, if you stop looking at YouTube,

like you look at a lot of people, like a social media thing, and more of it, like what TV was 20 years ago, and you start thinking of it like a network in your own channel and that stuff and start looking at yourself. If you're putting yourself on YouTube as a fox or NBC or so like that and think about it like that, it'll help you out. And you know, how pissed are you when you come on your favorite showgums on Monday at

seven and next Monday it doesn't. I mean, that's going to piss you off. Like, and if it's shot fuzzy and makes me dizzy watching it, probably not gonna watch it. Like, you know, just start thinking that way, the same way you would consume television before the past, that YouTube, you do a very good job of that, that it's one of the few channels I feel on YouTube

that is already making that transition. I feel like that looks like I'm watching TV, almost on there. You've had a couple videos go viral. Yeah, it's a little crazy. Which ones or the ones that went viral? There was that gentleman on there was talking about the... Millennials.

Yeah, that one went all over the place. That was nuts. That had over 150 million holy shit. That's one. Damn, it's still out. It struck a nerve. It's amazing. Oh yeah, oh yeah, in a big way.

And virality is one of the same. Like we joke with people that want us to like consult with them and we're like, hey, It's struck a nerve. It's amazing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And a big way. And Viroly is one of the same. Like, we joke with people that want us to like consult with them. And we're like, hey, look, first rule of building your social following. Just have a massive viral hit. Yeah. Yeah. That would take care of so much.

No problem, then. So, yeah, take it on thought for you. So we were all joking about it, right? So we do, because that one was with Inside Quest, huge, huge, huge. And we said, okay, what do we really need to do to get impact theory off the ground? We're like, we need a viral hit, totally joking, right? And then like episode number five goes fucking viral. And we are like laughing, it got 11 million views. We're like, this is crazy. We are now literally people come to us because they want to go viral. It's so crazy. So, but we're really beginning to sort of break down like what does a viral hit look like?

Because there are certain things, and I will tell you part of it is people have to love it and people have to hate it. Yes, because that video, we have that example. It was a very polarizing. We have that example in our own podcast. If you would ask me, do I think it's like our best podcast,

not at all, but it was definitely the most polarizing for sure. For sure. Yeah, because that particular, that particular, it's still being hated and loved about, you know, like it was definitely the most polarizing for sure for sure Yeah, cuz that particular that particular it's still being hated and loved about you know like it's caused the most drama But also the most love it's has to have that Did you guys get a lot of hate from for that particular Guys a fucking idiot what does he know what a dick and then the The woman that went viral names Mel Robbins people, she's an idiot, she's an idiot.

She's an idiot. Oh my God, Mel, you changed my life. It's so amazing, thank you so much. Like, so it was like, what the fuck? Like, how are these people watching the same person? And I'll never understand why people take the time to like tell somebody that they're an idiot. Just move on.

Like, it's such a catastrophic, is she gonna be like reading the comments? Oh, I'm an idiot. Oh my God, you're right. Wow. So you know what I'll do. I'll I'll actually engage those people and tell them that it's I'll actually break down the reflection of themselves that they're having for having the the need to get out there and tell some of their idiot. Like that's such Europe. You're totally announcing your insecurity to have to go on a social media platform on someone

you don't supposedly like, you hate and actually go out of your way to do that. What are ways to calories? My favorite is when people comment like unfollow. Oh my god. So how far away do you think you guys are from developing your first Like narrative story or your theme part. Where do we have a theme part? Yeah, that's the real car. Right. So I'll answer both You'll have the first narrative. I think we'll come out in comic book form I'll come out in the next six months for sure. Oh wow. We we started, yeah, we started asking people for ideas

specifically in the comic book genre. We started talking to comic book artists. So I was just down at the Anaheim Comic Con. And by the way, anybody listen, I'm a hijacked your audience for a minute. Anybody listening, if I have brought value to your life and you can get me into the San Diego Comic Con, you are my hero. Hit me up at Atom Bill you. I am hell bent to go. I want to go with you. I used to, all right, motherfucker, Justin and I are going to the comments. Yes. Now here's the thing, I used to go every year

and a tragedy struck. My wife's birthday and our anniversary, which happened to be a week apart, the only two weekends, the San Diego Comic Con, ever do it, are the weekend of my anniversary or the weekend of her birthday. Oh, come on That is ultra shittake. Yeah, and then so one year of feeling like the pressure

I was like, baby, you know what? I'm not gonna go to Comic Con this year. I'm gonna stay home for your birthday I'm gonna show you that you're more important the next year They implemented the policy that you had to wait in line unless you'd gone the year before I was like mother fuckers. I was so pissed. How, how that year, that year. So since then, I've been like in purgatory where I have to do like that, like you're hitting like refresh, refresh, refresh, like a thousand times trying to get your fucking ticket.

So now I'm just like, when is it? It's July 20th, 27th right around there. Oh, that sounds funny. So somebody, there's gotta be someone else. You can help the brother out. Going, I'm going. Going, no, we're getting you there. Oh, that sounds funny. Somebody. There's got to be someone. You can help brother out going. I'm going. Going. Now we're getting you there. My PRH is a background light. I got you. I got you. Yeah. If you do you really? No. Jennifer, you're you're on national television right now. Point that camera at her. Point that camera. Hey, right right now, you tell him you're getting me into

sale. We've made Justin wants one too though. Me. Just go. Justin go. That's good. That's this thing. No, I think you're right here. it's good. That's thing. You're my hero. Look at that. This is an example. So literally that just happened. I just happened. I want every one serious. You just have to say shit out loud. Literally say things out loud.

This is like my whole thing. I just find it my say it. I like the secret now, right? Just ask for the check to go on your fucking mailbox. Here's the thing the secret's bullshit, but I'll give it to you in way better words. You don't get laid if you don't ask Right, you don't get laid if you don't ask so So that's man tell people what you're trying to do you'll be surprised to come to your aid. Thank you Jennifer

That's awesome. That is awesome. Well, it's always awesome talking you guys. I have to say this is so much fun You guys are the most fun that I ever have doing podcasts now I've done it twice so I can say it like it's so much fun I listened back to our episodes telling you guys this before we started rolling you can hear we're having fun Yeah, like just in the way like we're talking and going back and forth, you guys are a fucking blast. If there is ever anyone that I can help get on the show, I will be the most unendingly positive like testimonial for you guys. So let me know. If you want someone to do a channel commercial, let me know. Like anything I can do to help you guys are just awesome. Excellent

brother. They appreciate you. Love you man. Thanks for coming on again. Thank you for having me. Great time. You're doing a lot of fun. Listen, go to mindpumpmedia.com. We're still offering 30 days of coaching for free. You can also check us out on Instagram at Mind Pump Radio.

You can find my personal page at Mind Pump Sal. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin in Adam. Is at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps on the ballac, maps for performance and maps aesthetic.

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