THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Tom Bilyeu - The Quest to make an Impact

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

Tom Bilyeu is the co-founder of 2014 Inc. 500 company Quest Nutrition — a unicorn startup valued at over $1 billion — and the co-founder and host of Impact Theory. Impact Theory is a first-of-its-kind company designed to facilitate global change through the incubation of mission-based businesses and the cultivation of empowering content. Personally driven to help people develop the skills they will need to improve themselves and the world, Tom is intent to use commerce to address the dual pandemics of physical and mental malnourishment. Tom is a forever student of life. His obsession with mastering skills has molded him into a well-rounded leader, battle-hardened and unafraid to fire moonshots. This triumphant interview is definitely one you don’t want to miss!

This podcast is for champions, bold dreamers who want to change the world. I started the max out program so that I could bring you people in their lives who have maxed out particular areas of their life or that I'm fascinated by. And I was telling this gentleman to my left, I made a list of people that I personally wanted on my program because they fascinate me, they inform me, they inspire me. And so this gentleman to my left, just to give you a background, this guy parlayed a 990 SAT score into a multi-billion dollar company that he built.

It grew 57,000% the first three years. I want you to get your head around that. He was named by Success Magazine last year as one of the 25 most influential entrepreneurs on the planet. Secret entourage in 2016 named him the entrepreneur of the year and he has built multiple companies into brands and those are things I'm very impressed with. We're going to get into your head about how you did that but I'm overwhelmingly impressed with Impact Theory, which is an organization that he and his wife Lisa started the last few years that is really making a difference in the

world, just like his company, Quest Nutrition did. And so, Tom Bill you thank you for being here to the road. Hey, thank you for having me, man, I'm so excited to be here. We've flipped the script before, so. We've flipped. I've been on his program and now finally I get you here. And frankly, being on your program impressed me even further with you, the level of dedication and preparation and how much

you care. And I just know both of our audiences have wanted to see you and I together. So let's talk about you today, though. This isn't about me. I'm not sure. So 990 SATs, true story. True story.

And it took it twice. So that's my combined. That's your combined. Yeah. So neither time did I actually score that high. Both were lower, but when you put the best math and my best verbal together, that's when you get the 990. Are you kidding me?

So you don't even really have a 990 embarrassing. Nope, if they hadn't let me take it twice, I would have had, I don't know, like at 960 or 977. I feel a lot better because I'm not going to tell you what mine were because you would probably leave the room right now, but mine were even lower. And so you and I give both people, and I retested too. And so you and I give people hope

who maybe weren't the greatest students in the world. That's literally, people think that it's embarrassing for me to admit that, but the truth is, that is exactly what I want. I'm already at the punch line of my life, right? It works out okay for me. So it's like, I want people to know, it really does not matter where you start.

The whole question that life is gonna ask you is where do you wanna go and what's the price you're willing to pay to get there? Where you, I completely agree with that too, obviously. Where you like this young, so I know you didn't have the best SAT scores in the world, but I've been around you enough now. I consider you a freak, which is a which is a compliment coming from a guy

like, no, no, I think you know what I mean. You're uniquely driven and wired to pursue greatness and to make an impact, no pun intended in the world, at a level that most people have not yet realized they're capable of, even though they are. And so, did you know this young, if we went back and looked at this kid who grows up in Washington state, was there already these obvious insights and clues that you were going to turn into this guy? What were you like as a young guy? No, they definitely were not clues.

So when I was a kid, I didn't show any signs of promise to be really fair. And my own mother, when I left for college, like, she, I almost chickened out and I was like, I don't want to go. I want to just stay home. And she was like, no, no, no, you need to go. You need to go. Pushes me out of the nest. And then literally every day since she's tried to claw me back. So one day, like, I don't know, three or four years ago, I said to her, mom, like, you were the one that kicked me out. Like I wouldn't have left if you hadn't pushed me. So why did you push me?

And she said, with no malice whatsoever, I just always assumed you were gonna fail. Oh my gosh. And now that she had never been like, always my biggest cheerleader, always rooting for me, telling me I could do it. But quietly just inside, she was like, you didn't show any drive.

So the one thing I will say is I was grandly ambitious. I always said, I'm gonna be rich, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. Always, always, since the time I was a little kid, but I didn't have the drive to see it through. So I really, really was an empty dreamer when I was a kid. And it was learning to hate that in myself, if I'm completely honest,

and to not allow myself to be an empty dreamer, to force myself to get the skills, to actually execute against it, to not be in any way she performed pacified by saying I'm gonna do something, which is actually super dangerous. Most people just thinking about the fantasy of what they're gonna do,

gives them some partial sense of, oh, I've done it. Whereas I stopped letting that be okay for me, which largely came down to embarrassment I felt around my wife working when I had no job. And that was the time, she was my fiance at the time. But that was when I really started to go, okay, you've made a lot of promises to this woman and you're not on a path to keep any of them.

Well, our stories are unbelievable. I did not know that and our stories are unbelievably parallel. I was in the same situation, by the way, where I was sort of an entrepreneurial, unemployed guy while she was paying our rent, right? So I relate to that, too. How does, I'm just curious, I want to make sure I just, I think you're one of the great American business stories. Mom, I'm thinking.

And not only because of the wealth that you've accumulated, but because of, this word's overused, but it's so true with you, because of the impact you're making in the world because of your success. That's what I admire. As you know, that's what I'm trying to do with the Max-Up program too and just with my life. So what I don't get is this connection. So just help me understand it because you know that I know your story. I'm fascinated by it. How do you get from a 990 SAT into USC? How I got into

USC itself. This makes me a little sad. This is one part of the story I wish for a little different. I cheated all through high school. So the one thing that, so I graduated in the top 10 of my class. And the thing, I was a good cheater. And this is one thing I will say, people talk about network and they talk about charisma.

It's just real. And so I was nice. And that got me a long way. I remember in seventh grade, so one of the guys I would later cheat off of in high school becomes my absolute best friend in the universe. But he's on the spectrum, right? The autism spectrum. And in seventh grade, he wouldn't talk to anybody.

And so I turned around one day and I was very outgoing at that time in my life, which I consider myself now just a dyed and wool introvert, but at that time, the role in the family that I played was the jokester. So I was used to getting laughs and getting myself a steam from my ability to make people laugh. So I turned around to him and said, the great, I point at him and I'm like, my mission in this class is to get you to talk. And so inside he was thinking, oh my God, somebody actually cares.

And so then it became like, we just started attracting to each other. And he is still to this day probably the smartest person I've ever met. Wow. And so it just became this sort of unlikely pairing. But to give you an idea of like how weird this kid was, and we're still close to this day.

So he talks of himself like this. My mom said, if he doesn't start acknowledging me when I say hello to him, he's not allowed to come over anymore. She would literally say, sir, I'm just gonna say hi, and he would say, nothing, it was super weird. And so I was like, dude, you just gotta say hi back.

And so he credits me with teaching him social skills, and I credit him with helping me graduate high school, basically. But I always believed. I always believed that I could do the work, but that other things were more important to me. So I told myself a total bullshit story, which was that, hey, I could be working and earning these grades, but I'd rather learn how to talk to girls

and how to socially engage. It's total BS, and I'm rather like learn how to be, how to talk to girls and how to like socially engage. It's total BS, and I'm all aware of that now, but at the time it really felt totally justified. And I was like, they're not teaching us things that are going to help anyway. Nobody can answer why algebra is going to be useful to me. And so I just felt like that was fine. But when I went to college, day one, I said, okay, I'm gonna be taking on a massive amount of debt. I'm learning the thing that I love. This is what I wanna do with my career, so I better actually know how to do it.

So the phrase that I repeated in my head over and over and over, it was ARF, sink or swim, I will not cheat, not even one. It doesn't matter. Either one of those is acceptable. The only thing I care about is that I do every bit of work myself, and so, and I stuck to that. So my grades in college are reflected.

And I did better in college than I did in high school. And you didn't, is this true that you were going to, you want to be a filmmaker? Yes. Right? Very much. But you didn't know that there was a difference between USC Film School and USC? I did. Welcome to growing up into coma.

So first of all, like nobody really knew how this all worked. So I went to USC because my dad had a friend who made almost an off-hand a comment. My dad was like, oh, my son wants to go be a filmmaker. And the guy was like, oh, USC is the best film school in the world. And so my dad comes home and goes, I hear USC is the best film school.

So I was like, well, I guess I'm going to USC then. Literally, I didn't even think beyond that. It is the only film school that I applied to. I applied to one state school and then to USC, and that was it. Oh my God. And I got into USC and I just thought the way college worked was you tell them

what your major is, right? People talk, you declare your major. Right. So I thought, cool, I'll go declare my major. And then in the prep, so I've already committed, I've already said I'm going to USC. I've turned down the other offer that I had at the state school, it's done.

I'm going to USC, taking the financial aid package, offer that I had at the State School. It's done. I'm going to USC. Taking the financial aid package all of it. Then they come to your town and they orient you to like what it's going to be like. And they show you pictures and all this stuff and I'm so excited. And then I don't know if I asked a question or if it just came up. And they said something about how to get into the film school to separate application process. And I was like, what do you mean?

Literally my heart dropped through the floor. And I was like, oh god whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? Literally, my heart dropped through the floor. And I was like, oh, God. And so then I was like, what are the requirements? And they said, well, we like to see a 1300 on your SAT. And I was like, what do I do now? And that was the beginning of like real panic. So what did you do? So I go to USC and I'm like, somehow,

I'm going to figure this out. And you have mandatory counseling. And I go to the counseling and they look at what I've signed up for. And I've signed up for. And I've signed up for film classes like I'd already been accepted to the major. And they said, Tom, listen, right now, you're gonna end up spending a fifth year at the school because statistically, you are more likely to get into Harvard Law than you are into USC Film School.

Do not do this. We see people do this every year. Get out of these classes. Take normal general education requirements. And I was like, no, no, I'm gonna get in. I'm gonna get in. And I'm going to get in. And it's the one time in my life where someone looked me point blank in the face, and they said, you are going to fail.

Like, it's not a question of if you are going to fail, you are going to spend a lot of money. And they were doing it from the position of like, look, I don't want you to waste the money. But they were so aggressive about it. And there was something in them telling me that I couldn't do it. That was like, I'm definitely doing this. And so I found there was a guy that was on the admissions committee who offered, like, you could go join him for lunch. And so I went, he made the offer to like a class of 350 people. And I was the only one who showed up. And I was like, how is this possible? So I say to him, look, I got a 990 on my SATs, what do I do? I really

want to get into film school. And he said, Tom, SAT stands for Scholastic Aptitude Test. It's supposed to tell me how well you'll do on college. You've already missed the freshman class. You're not going to get accepted then. So you can only get accepted as an incoming junior, but it's an incoming junior. I don't care about your SATs because I've two years of college to look at.

So we said, if you don't want me to worry about your SATs, just get good grades. So I said cool. For the next two years, all I'm going to do is get good grades. I didn't date, I didn't party, I didn't drink, I literally didn't leave my dorm room. I worked. I put my head down for two years and I just worked. And I got, if it wasn't a 4.0, it was like a 3.95 or something. So it's never that clean Like, I want my story to be, hey, I learned that if I just put my head down and work my ass off, I can get whatever I want. That is unfortunately not what I learned, because I believed at the time you're

either talented or you're not. So I wasn't in film school to become a filmmaker. I was in film school to learn the technical side. How do you turn on the camera? Where do you put a light, things like that? But I thought you either have the ability to tell a story or you don't. So I believed myself to be a natural filmmaker.

I just believed I had talent. And so I go to film school and everything is proving. So first, I gamble, right? And I take all the film prerequisites, even though they tell me not to, I get into film school, so that feeds my ego. Then second, my, so you have two classes that are like testing you to see where you're at as a filmmaker.

And I smash it. First class smash it. And your second class you have to team up. And basically everybody wants to direct. And anybody that wants to be a cinematographer that's good, all the directors are fighting for them. And so not only did I get the cinematographer everybody wanted, but I got to direct. And then we killed our film.

It was amazing. So now I'm like, I'm the shit. Like literally every egotistical belief that I had about myself being naturally talented is just happening for me. It's effortless. I'm not even putting that much energy into it. I mean, other than the physical production,

which is exhausting. But I'm not like trying to be more artistic. I'm trying to learn how to turn on cameras and stuff like that. But I'm just a naturally talented filmmaker. So everything in college is leading towards only four people in your class get to direct a senior thesis film. So all the people, everybody else crews, but four people get to direct, and I was chosen as one of the four. So literally, the narrative in my head is I am naturally talented. You either have it or you don't, and I have it,

and I'm very grateful that I have it, and then I make my senior thesis film. And it is the most catastrophic, horrific crash and burn embarrassing thing I've ever gone through. The class is making fun of me. They're cutting up reels of my film to make a joke out of it. I mean, it was, it was a bismill. Oh my god. And in that moment, I realized the cold hard truth. And this is when I tell this story, people think, oh, now he's just being hard on himself or being overconfident, I'm telling you right now. I didn't have talent.

And so in that moment, I realized, I don't know how to tell a story. So whatever natural talent looks like, I didn't have it. It was so bad I stole the master from the school. No way. Yes, because I never wanted it to be seen again. So like that, like this is a really, so that leads into the darkest period of my life.

Okay. So I graduate and you would think, hey, but you work so hard to get in film school, why isn't that the ringing narrative? And it just wasn't. The ringing narrative was, you thought you were talented, you're a fool, you don't know anything.

And I couldn't afford to furnish my apartment. So I was literally laying on the floor of my apartment. I had an air mattress, but I was laying on the floor of my apartment. What had an air mattress, but I was laying on the floor of my apartment. What do you agree for messy? With a degree from messy, taking every remedial job that I can get because I now my ego is so crushed. Smashed. I need to be the smartest person in the room. It's like the only thing I have left. Well, at least I'm naturally smart. So I just put myself in Dumber and Dumber rooms,

which means I'm making less and less money. I'm selling video games, retail at one point. I mean, it's really bad. You're putting yourself in dumber and dumber rooms so that you were the smartest person in the room. Got it. I wouldn't interview for a job unless I knew this person at some point in the interview will say, why are you interviewing for this job? You're better than this.

It's interesting to me the takeaways you have from experiences because in life, it's not the experiences that happen to us, it's the meaning we take from them. And it's interesting to me that even you getting into film school, even your takeaways are deeply unique and very self-aware. How's the next step happened? I began to discover brain plasticity.

So I'm laying on the floor of my apartment, I'm flirting with depression, I just don't know how I'm gonna make anything in my life feel hopeless and lost. And so I start reading about the brain. And reading in college revealed itself to me as the way to gain knowledge. And so I start reading, reading about the brain, I see there's this debate going on. This is like late 90s, early 2000.

And there's a camp of people saying, no, no, you can learn, even like till your last day on this planet, but it was highly debated. It's not anymore, but it was then. And I said, I choose to believe that. I choose to believe that I can grow and change. And so I start reading voraciously. I start thinking about brain plasticity and getting better.

I take a job as a teacher and realize in teaching them I'm able to make their films better. And if I can make their films better, why can't I make my own films better? So that starts to rebuild me, and I start thinking of myself as someone that needs to grow and learn and get better. So it's now called a growth mindset.

You can now get a book on it. You can watch a thousand YouTube videos. None of this existed back then, which is why I was stumbling around. And but I start reading, and I start reading voraciously, and it starts to build my belief system. And that belief system ultimately is what completely changes my life.

But first, I need some more pain and suffering. Okay. So, when I meet my wife, part of what she's attracted to is, I'm talking girls mindset, man. I'm like, I can do this. This is what I'm gonna do. My dreams are big.

I went through this. I've learned from it. I know how to do this now. I got it. Trust me. Come with me, kid. Yeah. You know, you're gonna be rich one day. And literally, that's what I'm how to do this now, I got it, trust me, come with me, kid. Yeah. You know, you're going to be rich one day.

And literally, that's what I'm saying to her. And she's into it, ready to go for the fight, wants to be a part of it, like my wife is a real slugger. And so we then are doing the back and forth because she started as my student at the film school and we fell in love, but she's in London and I'm in LA and so we're having to do back and forth and I find myself living in London and now I want to ask her handed marriage and I know she's old school so I need to go to her dad and I go to her dad and I say you know I want your blessing to ask your daughter to marry me and And in the nicest way possible, he says no.

And my wife, Lisa, had always warned me, my dad's gonna quiz you. When I introduce you, my dad's gonna quiz you. Introduce me, he almost doesn't look at me, okay? No quizzing, gets an arm a little bit, no quizzing, seems kind of disinterested. He'd ask me a question and then wouldn't even listen for the answer.

So, but when I say, I want your blessing, do, do, do, just like it starts going through all these questions. And the final question was, how do you plan to take care of my daughter? Because he was very successful. Okay. And he said, my daughters become used to accustomed to a certain lifestyle. And how are you going to provide that for? And I said, sir, I know what you see right now is a broke, unemployed kid.

But I'm the most ambitious person you've ever met and I will one day make your daughter rich. And he said, thank you. I hear that. I still don't want you to marry my daughter. Now, important to acknowledge, she's always been incredibly kind to me. He was just very clear that he did not want me

to marry his daughter. And so that was like, whoa, like the gauntlet has been laid down. I'm gonna rise up to this. And so in my soul, I'm like, I've got this man. I'm gonna do this. I'm committed. There's no way I will not get rich now, because I'm gonna take care of that woman.

I'm gonna show him that I'm right. And then the next morning, I lay in bed for three hours, maybe four. And the day after that, three, four hours again. Why? Because it was cold. I didn't want to get up and put a sweatshirt on and literally walk the eight paces. And so I would sweat it because she was working and my job was to make her lunch. And she would come home when we'd eat lunch together.

And when we get to the punchline of what I'm like today, even I have a hard time believing that was really me. So then these two successful entrepreneurs walk into my class. And up to that point, I promised myself two things. So I grew up chubby in a morbidly obese family, and with no money. And I said, one day I'm going to be rich, and one day I'm going to have six pack abs. And that was my promise. And these guys walked in and they were rich, and they had six pack abs.

And they said, look, we're starting a technology company. Why don't you come be a copywriter? I was like, absolutely. It's one of those where people are like, what are you doing? You're leaving the secure job. For me, I was like, they're unicorns to me. They are literally the thing I'm looking for. They are rich and they have six pack abs.

They're going to let me into their company. Their whole pitch was, look, man, this is a startup. You're going to have any job in this company you want want You just have to become the right person for the job Hmm, so it was a tech company. It was in this beautiful office overlooking the Pacific Ocean Every single person in that company had a floor to ceiling window Overlooking the Pacific Ocean except me and they put me in the server room Which had no windows and a bunch of computers all worrying and making noise. And I remember one of the guys was like, who's the kid in the server room?

And so that's how I became known. I was the kid in the server room. I know anything about business, I would bring my wife to visit me in the office. And I'm like, look how beautiful the office is, and this is where I'm at. You know, literally like those makeshift desks that are like really like a table

that you would use on a picnic, but you've got a computer stacked on it. That's where I worked all day. Come on, brother. And so that just being around other people now, who had that same kind of drive. Now I remember, now people are really going to enjoy this one. We used to race to see who could relax our bladder

the fastest and finish peeing sooner. And that got me thinking at Temple, right? Like, you're snapping. And that literally, I could feel it make my brain speed up. What? It was, it's one of the most real things. Now, since then, I've read studies. You can, the number of patents filed in a city

is directly correlated to the speed at which the average citizen walks 20 yards on the sidewalk. Let that sink in. So that little, like, and I'm obsessed of the chills now. I'm obsessed with the physiological hooks that can help you develop your mind and moving fast and being made fun of, by the way, when I move slowly, that like, oh, if I got out of the car last or,

oh, you take too long to piss, like, any of it, you're gonna get teased. And so now I'm in this environment where the standards are crazy. Yeah, maybe. And I've now got the drive I want to be held accountable. I'm thinking I'm gonna make her rich. I'm remembering the gym I hate working out.

And I would sit in the gym. That's part of the belief. Especially the shake her rich. I'm being in the gym, I hate working out. And I'm a part of the gym. Especially the shake leases in and you're in. Well, she's a beast. I don't confuse me and my wife. I don't. She is a monster. We flex together. Yeah, you know the drill.

I do. I am not cut of her cloth. Could we say one second on something? I just want to go back for me. Because I think, man, there's like so much stuff in here. And again, it's your story. But like, I can't get over that all of these things lead to you

because that's a lot of turns, right? But I do wanna touch on one thing because you've changed environments. And to me, it sounds like one of the key things was having some thoroughbreds you started to run with, like that power of environment. So before we talk about that part, I want you to just speak to that

because we're gonna be everywhere today on this stuff. But I'm a monster believer that the way you change your identity is your associations. And so what you just described to me was this guy who's trying to find an identity for the better part of his life. I'm ambitious, but I'm not driven. I break down barriers for two years, then I get a big ego. Then I do something great, then my ego gets smashed, right?

Then I start, then I, my mouth writes these big old checks to my father-in-law, I'm all fired up, then I sleep in bed all day long, right? But do you believe big time that identity shaped by these associations in everybody's life? 100%. Talk about that for a second. So it's so aggressive, and it's now getting repeated.

So I fear trite words, but words become trite because they're so true that people repeat them until they lose their meaning. So you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That's just true. But now it's become so common to say, and it's like every Instagram post that I fear it's going to lose its meaning. Who are you spending time with? Because if you're spending time with people like you, you're spending time with people like me, I'm raising you up, I'm just not going to spend time with you.

So it's like now if you get in a mix of people like that who are like, man, we'd love for you to raise up to this level. But if you don't, it's fine, but we're just not going to spend time with you. All of a sudden that desire to belong to something powerful that you can see is going to lead you to your dreams. And I remember saying to my wife, over and over and over, they are their surest path to my success. I don't know anything else. I just know if I can hang on to these guys, they're gonna make me better.

And so that was through all the years of being embarrassed and developing actually massive anxiety, because I was always behind. I was always the dumbest person on the phone. I was always the dumbest person in the room. And it was like, was I gonna be willing to emotionally go through that to get great?

And most people can't. So here's the thing, now imagine, I'm not the only person they said, hey, this is a starter, you know, you have any job you want. They, I saw 12 people maybe more come and go over the years. They just couldn't emotionally deal with it. And so I remember thinking to myself,

why is it that I'm able to do this? And the answer was I could self-south faster than anyone else. So I would get kicked in the face and I would do something really dumb. I'd be called an idiot, told how stupid I was. And then I'd just be like, all right, I need to re-center. And that just became my obsession. I need to be able to emotionally get back to complete neutral. So fast that you don't even see it register on my face. How'd you do it? How do you do that? Literally practicing. So remember, the same time, I'm reading about the brain. Varatiously, I'm reading about people that understand

human behavior, I'm getting into cognitive science, neuroscience, like really going into it. So I'm reading all this stuff, going, whoa, we're just a chemical processing plant. They're a physiological hooks into these chemicals. So, hey, if you're mad, scared, whatever, but you force yourself to laugh out loud, you will change your neurochemical state,

and you literally, your experience is the neurochemistry. So I was like, whoa, so I could get, I could be in a situation where I'm being berated or all I legitimately mess up and it costs money, and it's like, whoa, that's on me, and it is nobody's babb of my own. And I realized that what most people do, their strategy is to deflect it.

It's your fault, it's not my fault. So I started thinking of this as a metaphor. People are throwing gold at me. They're throwing it really hard, and I can put a shield up and deflect it, but then I lose that piece of gold. If I drop my shield and just take the pain, let it hit me in the head,

then I bend down and go, this thing, which was me being stupid, there's a lesson here. And now I have this piece of gold. But the whole thing is I have to be defenseless. So I have to own it, I have to take it, I can't fight. If someone is like, this to this day, if our team is like, hey, there's something we need to point out to you, I'll do this.

I square up to it, I want them to know, like, hey, I want to hear it, I want to know. Like, I want to be literally physically open, I'm not going to close down, I'm going to do everything I can to square off, to open myself know. Like I want to be literally physically open, I'm not going to close down, I'm going to do everything I can to square off, to open myself so that they know I'm receptive to the criticism, right? Because that's the nugget of gold. What I know is it's going to hurt, it's going to sting. But if I can emotionally re-center so fast,

you don't even see that I went through something. Now I can just process, how do I take this information you've given me and get better? I'm so sick, I'd prefer it being your fault than mine, even sometimes when it isn't, so that I have an opportunity to feel a little pain and grow. It's some sick thing in me, right? And so you sought it out, too. There's this combination.

It's like, so there's this guy, changes his environment, massive lesson, too. He's been working on himself reading, reading, reading, reading, right? Such a competitive environment that is who can pee faster. But then it's like this totally self-aware dude who leverages pain, which we're gonna talk about in a little bit too, leveraging the dark. I love the way you speak about that. But one little thing everybody that he just said,

I just wanna point out to you, my max out interviews I've watched and the people I know outside of these interviews, successful peoples is what he just said. Their pace is just a little faster. It's subtle. If you're not careful, you miss it. They're just in a bigger freaking hurry.

They move faster, talk faster, want to get there faster. It's just, there's a subtle distinction. So, mail room, all these changes happening. Now you're peeing faster. Now you're competing. You're going to ride this thing, your ticket. You move from the 12th spot to, now you're basically moving to a partnership type position, don't you somehow with these guys? Over the years, yeah, so that ended up, we were at, it was a company called Awareness

Tech, we were there for about eight and a half years, and in that time they had said, look, if you become valuable enough to this company that we feel compelled to give you equity, you could become an owner in this company. So legitimately, my performance was undeniable, and I ended up with 10% ownership in the company just through sweat equity. So and that was huge and Really played a pivotal emotional role for me because so I'm chasing money for eight and a half years My mantra is I want to get rich. That's it. There's no right. You've been rich.

Probably live once you're rich. You promise you're gonna rich. You always wanted to be rich when you were young 100% right and so and that didn't that wasn't a dirty word for me I didn't understand people who are conflicted about money. I was like it's powerful So I want to get rich and and I just made it all about that and so for six and a half of those years I didn't take days off even when we would go to London for Christmas. I had like Video camera that would allow well, this is actually slightly in the future, but a great example I would take a video camera that would let me watch the production line at Quest Oh my god, so like that kind of obsessive like I'm all in yeah back in the technology company but a great example. I would take a video camera that would let me watch the production line at Quest.

Oh my God. So that kind of obsessive, like I'm all in. Back in the technology company, same kind of thing, but I would either be working on the tech company or trying to start other companies at night. So we talk a lot about, we had like five or six companies fail, all side hustles. But it was like, we just kept trying to learn

and figure this out. And so growing in that, becoming better, understanding marketing, helping elevate the company, really rising up to a peer status, watching other people fall away, because they couldn't emotionally hang in the environment. And yeah, then they made me, I didn't ask for a raise for five years. I was like, I want to be so valuable that they feel gross for what they're paying me.

And so, because I wanted the equity, I didn't want the salary. So I was like, dude, I'm in this for the equity. You don't have to worry about me I wanted the equity, I didn't want the salary. Yeah. So I was like, dude, I'm in this for the equity. You don't have to worry about me, equity, equity, equity. I just kept it on their mind like, hey, you said that was a possibility. I want you to know that means everything to me. And that's why I'm here. And so hit the 6.5 year mark. I'm 10% owner in the company and I'm completely miserable. And I burned out and I realized that entrepreneurship had given, given, given it was making me stronger, bigger, faster. And now it was beginning to take away because then care about the product.

I didn't love what we were doing. I wasn't passionate. I was just chasing money and money just wasn't that interesting. At that point, on paper, we both know the difference between paper money and real money. But on paper, I was a multi millionaire. And I went in and I said, guys, here's your equity back. I'm quitting. I'm not crossing the finish line,

so I don't think I should get anything for this. And it actually ended up being like a really cathartic moment where we could all say what we've been feeling, which is, yeah, none of us are happy. And so it became, well, if we're going to keep doing this, if we're going to keep building businesses, because by then it was very clear to me the struggle is guaranteed, the success is not.

And so I'm going to go do something I love. And they agreed, they felt the same. So we said, okay, well what would we build? That we would love even if we were failing. And so for three very different reasons, that became a nutrition company. And for me it was, I grew up in a morbidly obese family. My uncle essentially ate himself to death

when I was 12 years old and it was scary and sad. My mom is morbidly obese, has been my entire life. My sister's morbidly obese has been almost her entire life. My dad at one point was morbidly obese and then lost weight, but it was like, that's just where my family lives. And so I was like, they're going to die far sooner than they need to. And there's this great mother Teresa quote, nobody will act for the many, but people will act for the one. And so I just needed to wake up every day

and think about my mom and my sister. And that was it. And I thought, I can show up every day and fight for them. It's not about the money anymore. I can fight for them. And look, a lot of business acumen went into this. This was not just, we had good intentions in a built-to-big business.

It was, we understood business, right? I had now been in business for eight and a half years, grinding it out, building this technology company, which was hard as hell. And, but now we were able to marry that. And by the way, we took the tech company through the recession and everything. So I mean, it was like, I'd taken some knocks.

So we really understood business at this point. And so now we were gonna start something predicated entirely on value creation. That was like our mantra. Doesn't matter what's more profitable. It matters what adds more value. And so we literally were saying these things. And we also, we didn't actually throw our hands in a pile of wish we had to be a cool story. But like all but that said and each of us needs to have fun every day. You said that. 100%. That's balsy. Like you've busted your tail.

You finally got on the cusp of everything you thought you ever wanted. Right? And then you have the vision, the gut, the the cusp of everything you thought you ever wanted, right? And then you have the vision, the guts, the self-awareness, the intuition, whatever the heck you wanna call it, you go, no, I wanna go chase my why. I gotta do something with purpose to it, right? But I gotta ask you, you entered a space, dude,

that was loaded with people, there's like, I'm reading this thing, it's like 1600 different flavors or companies in the same exact space, right? And in a category that had been declining for years. Right. It was going the other direction, right? It was like the the most they say look for blue ocean where there's no blood. Yeah, this was red ocean as far as the eye could see. You're like a decade after Bill Phillips and the AAS or whatever, right? So like it's unbelievable. You start quest. I'm curious success leaves clues, right? So like it's unbelievable. You start quest. I'm curious. Success leaves clues, right? So take us a little bit through quest for a few minutes. What made it work?

Like what did you do that was crazy that other people didn't do? What? Because I've told you before my first podcast. Didn't even know who you were at the time. I used quest products. I actually endorsed them, not knowing you on the first podcast I ever put out. Because they tasted so damn good to be honest with you. Was that part of the thing you guys wanted to do? Like 100%. It was. So, that was purposeful. Yeah, our mantra was, you can tell the world to eat less and exercise more and it will work for every single person ever that's ever done it. But the reality is, the vast majority of the world will not do that. And we already know

that, right? So people have been saying that for like 60, 70 years. And so we're moving in the wrong direction. So our thing was don't change behavior, leverage it. So we already know people will eat things they want to eat. You can't stop people from eating a chocolate chip cookie. So the question was could you make a chocolate chip cookie that was actually good for them? So that metabolically it was actually advantageous to eat that cookie.

Could we bust our asses that hard to make that thing? And so it wasn't easy, but now we had a mission. We wanted to end metabolic disease. Now when you have that clarity, I know people are going to eat things based on taste purely. So we know we have to address that, which is why we made snack foods instead of like, you know, coming out with broccoli and, you know, steamed. Yeah, exactly. We made chips. And so, but if you called Quest and steamed. Yeah, exactly. We made chips.

But if you called Quest and said, hey, I want to get in shape. What should I eat? Our answer was boiled chicken breast and steamed broccoli. Because that's the truth. Yes. We're not trying to pull a fast one. We want people to know they can trust us. We know where our products fit in.

When you absolutely have to have a chocolate chip cookie, eat our chocolate chip cookie. So that was our stick. And so we went to manufacturers a chocolate chip cookie, eat our chocolate chip cookie, right? So that was our stick. And so we went to manufacturers and thought, okay, we'll get this made by other people, just like everybody else. We're a marketing company. We don't want to be a manufacturing company.

And they just said, this bar can't be made. They're like, and they couldn't put words around it, but what we realized was the reason the bar couldn't be made. So I'm sure many people thought, hey, let's make a bar of the taste grade. It doesn't have sugar. But then they won't run to the machinery. So for the last 70 years, equipment has been made to spec to make things that have high

fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup has a very specific viscosity. Once you take that out, even if you replace it with another liquid binder, it's just entirely different. So it wouldn't run through the equipment. And you know none of this. None of it. Right. I remember when my partner came and said,

we need to become our own manufacturer. We were all like, what? Like it just sounded so absurd. But he was like, look at it. The evidence is there. These guys aren't gonna do it. We can't trust even because if we're manufacturing with them, and they're starting to fall behind

and the cost of the bar is going up, because it's having trouble on the equipment, they will put ingredients in to make it run more smoothly. And he was like, we've just seen it because we knew other people in the industry, and he was like, we've seen it too many times. So we can't trust it, and if we're going to build a business based on trust, then we have to do it ourselves. So Nyevite, the beginner, we had no idea how enormous that task was.

By the time I left, we had over 300,000 square feet of storage and manufacturing. It was in Sanby, 1400 employees. Bars are coming off the line at the rate of 1.5 million a day. It's like a machine gun. J-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j. It's crazy. My favorite part of that plant, by the way, everybody knows the after.

The after is, it becomes this just household name, one of the fastest growing companies on earth, regardless of the business space, founded by three dudes who were basically trying to do something out of cause That could have probably made a couple bucks doing the thing they were already doing Formed a brotherhood a real trust-based relationship my favorite part of that plant story though Isn't the protein bars coming out of there my favorite part of that story goes back to Lisa and her dad And so finally your face just changed,

just so you know, right there. So finally, after all of this journey, right? From I'm picturing this 16 year old dude, I'm actually going back all the way to you with the guy on the spectrum and saying, I'm gonna get you to talk, right? The jokes, and I'm picturing you cheating in high school. I'm picturing the 990 SAT, I'm picturing you get into SC,

I'm picturing you not in film school. I'm picturing the 990 SAT. I'm picturing you get into SC. I'm picturing you not in film school. I'm picturing this guy all the way, laying on in the bed in the morning, all the failures, the startups, the false starts, all the stuff. What I think is a man in conflict with himself, which sounds like to me, all of his life, right? Then meeting the woman of her dreams, but dad's not thinking you might be the dude, right? All of that journey to this 300,000 square foot plan or one of them at the time anyways, and you end up tell them you end up all those protein parts coming out there's awesome and there's a lot that still come out of there. But what really happened in one of those plants or the plant that's the most special thing to me is what? Tell them what happened. So my father-in-law obviously had been watching the journey from day one and but he hadn't been to America since we launched the company. And so he'd seen, you know, always struggling a bit at awareness technologies and no, they're starting this new protein bar company

which sounds like financial suicide to him. But you know, okay, if that's what you guys want to do. And so when he came, he didn't realize how big it had gotten. And we had reported the numbers to him, but, you know, okay, if that's what you guys want to do. And so, when he came, he didn't realize how big it had gotten. And we had reported the numbers to him, but we kept it really dry with him. He's not a guy you hype. So, it's like, this is our top line revenue. And I think some part of him thought he wasn't understanding it. Because I mean, it was in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Revenue.

Not valuation. Revenue. And so, like, some part of him just couldn't quite allow himself to believe it had gotten that big, because we were in the same house, you know, we were driving better cars by that point, but, you know, like, it was no drastic lifestyle change, because we were just pumping everything back into the business. So he comes over and we're walking the floor, and it's, you know, it's the one we were in at that time was over 100,000 square feet, 800 employees scrambling around

and it was crazy. The bar was coming off everything. We've walked them around the whole facility and people are greeting me like the boss, man. So it was like, Tom, thank you so much. Like really, really kind, generous people, busting ass on the line. And if you show them kindness, they show you kindness in return.

They didn't know, here's my father-in-law. They just wanted to come and say hi. So he's seeing people who seem legitimately happy to see me and all of this madness going on. And I said, Andreas, do you remember when you asked me how I was going to take care of your daughter? And he said, yes. I said, how am I doing?

And he just started to cry. Yeah. Dude, I just, because Lisa's here too, he just started to cry. Yeah, dude. I just, because Lisa's here too, I've just picture that story, bro, like all you had been through. And I know probably for you in that moment, that was probably more important to you then, say that nice car you were now driving, right?

No question. Like, you're a pretty stoic dude sometimes when I watch you. And like, you should just see your face changing, even when you start to tell that story. in this amazing life you've had that is one of the great moments of your life I know that because you love her so much. You you will know this more than most when you're young and nowhere but you've got belief in yourself and you make a promise to somebody that you love and you mean it. You don't know how you're gonna do it yet but you've got belief in yourself, and you make a promise to somebody that you love, and you mean it.

You don't know how you're gonna do it yet, but you really mean it. Like, sincerely, I'm not gonna stop working until I do that thing. And then you actually do it. I can't give a gift in this human life that is better than that. There isn't anything.

Like, I remember stroking a check to my mom that had a lot of commas and zeros, and that was unimaginably cool. Like, whatever cool thingking a check to my mom that had a lot of commas and zeros. And that was unimaginably cool. Like, whatever cool thing you think you're gonna buy, it won't compare to someone in your life who struggled. And you just, in a stroke, you make the struggle, just go away. You're right.

And if they knew how good it felt, you'd work even harder. As good as you think those moments are, there are a million times better. There are a million times better if you knew how great those moments were. By the way, this is the part where you just rewind the last 90 seconds and play that back for yourself again

because you may not hear something more profound in your life than what he just told you. Because in my life, in my journey of all this stuff and things, there's a handful of those moments that made all of those things worth it. And it isn't a house physically for myself or a really fast car. And we both agree those things are awesome. And you should have them. But it's the things you can do for the people that you love, that you admire that are a million times worse. I'd be

also having a beach house is about what I thought it would be. It's incredible. It's great. But the things I've been able to do for my family have exceeded what I thought they would be like. So what I want to do now, because you've found an impact theory, and I'm riveted by your content. I love your content. I love your guests, but I really love what you talk about. And so what I want to do now is I want to help the people watching this have a better shot at making their dream, their vision happen than they did before you and I sat down

here together, okay? Because you've made yours. It's an unbelievable journey and you're just now taking on this new chapter of your life. I'm just curious first because I want them to, I want to understand you too. What's this fascination you have with the Matrix movie? I am fresh out of film school, about a year out of film school. So the Matrix came out in 99 and graduated in 98. So I'm, I'm hopelessly lost at this point. And I go to a comic convention, love comic books, and I come around the corner

at this diving little comic convention. Like, if you're thinking, San Diego Comic Con, this was not that. This was like a diving little thing, and I come around the corner, and there is, Carianne Moss, Keanu Reeves, Joe Pantoleoni, Joe Silver, the producer, like, just this whole panel of people, I'm Moss, um, Kiana Reeves, Joe Pantoleoni,

Joe Silver, the producer, like, just this whole panel of people. I'm like, what? And so this is like, I mean, film is the center of my life at this point. I'm like, I can't believe these people are here. I had no idea. And they're like, hey, we're handing out tickets to the premiere tonight. You can see it on the back lot of Warner Brothers. No way. I was like, oh my god, this is incredible.

So I go, uh, and I'm waiting in line. And as I'm waiting in line, literally just like in the back alley of Warner Brothers, the doors burst open, people come out screaming. And I was like, what is going on? And so I plug my ears, because I don't wanna hear if they're gonna give spoilers. And they all go off, but I could tell.

It's not in a special. Yeah, they were into this thing. Go in, sit down, we're watching it. And you know that moment where agent Smith comes up to the cops, very beginning in the movie, and he said, I told you to wait until we got here, and he said, oh, we can handle one little girl, no officer, your men are already dead.

And they cut up to, she jumps up, and in that moment, the entire audience, all the one screams, oh, like, they just go nuts. And I was like, that has never happened to me before ever in a movie. There was just something so captivating. And then ultimately, the matrix is the perfect metaphor for the human experience.

It is about a guy who from the day he shows up has the same abilities as the day at the end. But once he learns to believe in himself, then he can actually do more. Even though we had the same potential, he's able to do more at the end. And I was like, that's life. You've got this potential, but if you don't believe in yourself,

you're never gonna put in the work to actuate it. And so it's a film with multiple training sequences, which are my thing, I love training sequences. So yeah, excuse me, that is the dominant metaphor. So when I go to explain to, because I've done a lot of work in the inner cities, when I go to explain somebody, you've got to get them to how to be successful. You've got to give them a new frame of reference.

And so the matrix is that metaphor. Like there is a real world equivalent to jacking into the matrix and it's called reading. And if you read, you can get knowledge and you can get it fast. It's basically someone's life distilled down to something that you can read in a week. Like that's crazy. I agree. So that's my obsession with the matrix. Bro, I love that.

And there's all these parts of the matrix that apply in real life. And I love what you just said about reading too, because, and I just feel like there's this, we live in a matrix too, to some extent, like our RAS and our brain that you and I both know a lot about is this filter that reveals to us our own reality. And the more that we can begin to understand how our brain works and what we see, what we believe strongly reveals itself to us, the more we would take greater control of our beliefs.

And so, I'm a believer though that there's this chase that you have in life where you're chasing your vision, all the positive, warm vibe stuff. I also believe that there's two great motivators, there's the game pleasure, there's to avoid pain, right? For me, oddly, the greater motivator many times in my life was avoidance of pain. And just in hearing your story, just got chills again, and hearing your story, I think you tap into that a lot too. So talk about that concept for people to understand how to leverage pain or what you, I think, called the dark place. The dark place.

Can you talk about that for a second? Yeah. So like you said, there really are only two macro level motivators that we have in life and that's pleasure and pain. And so what I want people to understand is, okay, so if nature only gave you two things to motivate you, pleasure and pain, why would you eliminate half of them? And so most people think that life is about avoiding the pain. I'm here to tell you right now, in a very controlled fashion, it is about really experiencing

the pain, learning from it. So Ray Dalio, the most successful hedge fund manager of all time, has a perfect math equation. Pain plus reflection equals progress. If you don't feel the pain, you never reflect on it. So my thing is, I spend 80% of my time focused on the beautiful things in my life. The things I'm grateful for, the beautiful things that I want to bring into existence, all of it.

20% of the time, though, I'm in the darkness, man. I'm in that Tim Grover relentless. I'm going to make this happen if I have to break myself and I'm not afraid to lean into that because I know how powerful it is. Now, if you really want to put numbers, how powerful this is, they did a study and they wanted to find out what happens, how can we get people to endure more pain and the punch line is hilarious. So they would take people and they would submerge their arm in a bucket of ice and they would

just hold it there as long as you can. Now, first it's just cold, but after a while, it really starts to hurt. And so people would end up yanking their arms out. They found that people could hold their arm in the bucket, 35% longer if you let them display anger. So put it in, they get to that point where they're about to pull it out and you tell them,

yell, cuss, do whatever you need, and they'd be able to do it. They're the expression of intensity. Even what I'm doing right now, I can feel myself ready, right? I'm ready to strike, my muscles are tense, I've got a different posture, I bring my chin down, there's intensity in my eyes. Like, dude, I'm now feeling that

because I'm embodying it, right? So it makes me really feel that. And so I actually started to tell the story earlier. I hate the gym, but what I would started to tell the story earlier. I hate the gym. But what I would do to make myself work out is I would, my wife would be on the opposite side of the gym and I would stare at her and I would imagine her being attacked. And I would imagine her being attacked by people bigger than me

and the only way that I could fight them off was to get stronger. So there was nothing beautiful in it. I was not worried about aesthetics. I was worried about saving my wife. And by stepping into that dark place, and because people were like, what are you doing? Yeah. But dude, that was, I needed that motivation

to push past what I want, to push past pain, boredom, all of it, and just to really get into it and get a result. But I find that people shy away from that. Look, to me, it's an 80-20 split. If you're spending more than 20% of your time there, it will be corrosive. Yes.

It will start to erode your sense of self because you're going to feel badly, right? Because I would be saying to myself, you're weak. Come on. Like you've got to get stronger. If you spend 80% of your time doing that, that sucks. Yes. I don't want to live like that. But not being able to dip into both, you'll just never hit the level of extraordinary. You may be fine.

You may even be good. Yep. But you're never going to be great. I don't even think you're ever going to be completely happy. And I'll tell you why. I, this is going to be great. I don't even think you're ever going to be completely happy. And I'll tell you why. I, this is going to be something that people will snip this part because you have to dip into that dark place. And here's the other reason you have to do it. You and I both know people who used to do it, who no longer do. Friends of us who have sold a company and didn't go

to the next level and found the next thing. What happens is if you spend all your time in the pleasure place thinking about it and only experiencing it, you become dull to it. It's the contrast and life that give you all the juice, that give you all the passion. So letting yourself go feel pain and discomfort in the dark place makes the light place, the pleasure place so much more ecstasy, power, passion when you go back to that state because of the contrast. If you're constantly sitting and just warm water all the time, it just sort of eventually wrinkles you up.

You gotta have contrast in your life. And so it's not just a place where it's a catalyst for change. It's a catalyst for happiness, ironically, is going to the dark place. You also talk about something, man. And I've never heard someone say this before. Maybe I need to be reading more, okay? You and I both work out, guys. You get in there sort of reluctantly, but you also have talked exponentially about

what a catalyst has been in your life, right? But I want you to talk about that, but inside that, see, I work on my meditation, I'm getting in a quiet place. It's not something I do well. It's not something that a lot of the achievers I know can do by emptying their mind all the time because they're going. And you said something I watched recently where you talked about,

think, what it, think atating, think atating. Oh my gosh, is this going to be huge for some of you right here? So tell them what think atating is, it relates to working out too, you can go to that space because this is, to me, a cutting-edge, modern, elite, separator description that I had never heard before, and I'm using it now, so go ahead. I didn't know what it was called, but I was using it. So, well, with the working-out thing, that's about earning credibility with myself, right?

So, you talk really eloquently about this. If you wanna believe in yourself and have a sense of self-worth, you have to earn that. And I wish it's something that somebody can give you, but they can't, but you can doing really simple stuff. You say you're going to do something, do it. Yes. So my thing is, I said I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to go to the gym.

Whether I like it or not, I know that it has advantages in terms of cognitive optimization, in terms of longevity, all of that. So I'm going. Yep. And doing that every day and pushing into the extra reps and showing up for myself to get the result, like I feel good about that. Yeah. And it's one very simple thing that I can control, doesn't, you know, require anybody else, and when I have to come through for me nothing. So that's big. Then I meditate immediately after that. And the reason that I do that is I like the juxtaposition of the high intensity, fighter flight, sympathetic response of being in the gym,

and then the parasympathetic response of meditating. And being able to rapidly shift your state, like on a physiological level, is really important. So I go from that, I come out of the gym, I'm huffing and puffing, I sit down, and I see how rapidly I can call my heart rate, how rapidly I can call my breath. And I listen to the sounds of nature. So if it's raining outside, I'll listen to rain. If it's night, I'll listen to the sounds of you know, like a meadow at night, which I actually find really relaxing. And I get lost in that. Now the reason that I do that is that shifts

you into what's called an alpha wave state. When you get into an alpha wave state, it's commonly referred to as being calm and creative. So it's not sleepy. Okay, that's like getting more into theta. So you feel completely alert, but you feel calm, you feel creative. And so parts of your brain are talking that don't normally talk. So you get these like really far flung sort of creative answers to a problem. Since the whole point of this is to get into an alpha wave state, as soon as I feel completely calm and creative, sometimes it takes five minutes, sometimes it takes 30 minutes.

But once I feel calm and creative, I go takes five minutes, sometimes it takes 30 minutes. But once I feel calm and creative, I go into thinkitating, where I let my mind begin to wander onto the biggest problems that I face in my business. And in that, I'll just have these ideas and I take notes and I go back to it, so I'm still breathing, I'm still keeping my eyes closed, except when I'm taking notes. And I stay in that space,

and I can sometimes elongate that for another 30 minutes. So my typical meditation is 15 to 20, and then I'll think it take for 10 to 40 minutes, depending on like if I'm really on a vein of something interesting. And knowing that I'm gonna be able to do that once I get into the alpha state, I'm very, I actually get into the alpha state much faster

because I'm not thinking, oh, is this an idea I should take a note on? I'm just like, when am I really there? Yes. When I feel it, click in, I'm like, okay, cool. And if I have an idea, boom, is this an idea I should take a note on? I'm just like, when am I really there? When I feel it, click in. I'm like, okay, cool. And if I have an idea, boom, then I go for it. So that's been transformative to my business.

It's transformative to me. I've done it from time to time, but I've resisted it because of that other learning. And the more I've thought through when you started teaching, my gosh, some of my idea to do this, even though Tony had encouraged me to do it, came in one of those moments and the vision for it, had I not taken action, written it down, went through all the thoughts I had, I had a chance when I was young, I'll just share this with you, when I was much younger, I ended up running into Wayne Dyer on a beach in Maui early in the morning, not crazy, but along those lines similar, because you're in that alpha state at this one point

of sleep, too, right, before you get there. And what happened was he said to me, goes, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with wonderful ideas and inspiration? You probably heard this before, but he told me that it's just sitting there on the beach. I said, I do. And he says, what do you usually do when you do that? So I was asked him about writing books like you and I were talking before. And he said, well, that's the morning inspiration.

That's the divine waking you. The worst thing you could do is go back to sleep and it's an invitation to be creative at that time and he says, so what I do is I get up and I write until I can no longer write in those moments before. And so I thought that was only during sleep that that would happen at that first stage of sleep and now I'm learning that I can get in that state as I meditate after I work out. It's freaking brilliant and you should talk about it more because I don't hear other people talking about that. It's brilliant, brother. So let me ask you a couple things about you for a few minutes. We're gonna not have that much more time left but I now want people to feel like I'm at lunch with Tom and I want to

learn things from him. A, what makes you happy? The easy answer and the most truthful answer is time with my wife. The other answer to what makes me happy is really two things. So time with my wife and then the pursuit, which I'll put in all caps, right? So the pursuit of whatever, the pursuit of getting better, the pursuit of impacting the world, the pursuit of building something big that matters.

The pursuit, maybe I never get it. I don't care about that. I care about the pursuit. I care about whether sincerely, I'm actually trying to make it happen. Not bullshitting, not just like empty dreams, but like for real. I'm actually giving myself over to this. And I've spent a lot of time in the inner cities. I big brother for this one kid for eight and a half years completely changed my life. And then having 1,400 employees and about a thousand of which grew up hard in the inner cities. Hard, I mean most of them grew up in Compton.

I mean it was just some of the most extraordinary stories I've ever heard. And I realized that those people are as extraordinary as anybody. Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins, all those same raw materials exist in people in the inner cities that nobody believes in, nobody think we'll ever go anywhere. And they won't because they don't believe in themselves. And so we were talking, at our most honest, like, what are we really driven by? And I'm driven by that moment of awakening, which I had in my own life where I finally realized wait.

I can learn new things. So just because I'm not good today doesn't mean I can't be good tomorrow. And that filled me with so much excitement. I want to see that in other people. And I want to see what the world looks like when other people realize, wait a second. That Steve Jobs quote, that the world is made by people no smarter than you is actually true. And so if you're believing that these people are smarter than you, because you did bad on your SATs, I'm just going to tell you right now, stop.

So you can develop yourself. So my obsession became that humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. We are literally wired from the ground up in order to grow and improve under stress and pressure. So it's like what's the phrase, pressure can burst pipes, but it also creates diamonds. So it's like you need the pressure.

And yes, it can hurt, but it can also make something amazing if you're willing to put yourself in that situation. So it's a weird twist of fate that humans, in order to build the muscle, you first have to tear it, right? So, but once you accept that that's how it works, you can do extraordinary things. Wow, I love the humans of the ultimate adaptation machine. I've heard you say that before, and I absolutely love that.

Now, you've had, like I have, you've had extraordinary people sitting across from you. I've been blessed to have you sit across from me today. And I'm curious if there was a common denominator between all of these people, or what have you learned that surprised you in doing the show so far? The thing that's really surprised me is that it is so consistent. That- Which is.

What has made them all successful and their ability to articulate it. They use different words. Some people come out from different angles. Everybody has something fresh, but there's this thread that runs through them all. What's the thread? The thread is drive.

It's not an empty dream. It's a willingness to take action. It is a willingness to face whatever they feel they need to face, embarrassment, failure, risk, but they go out and they actually do the things that they need to do to develop the skills that they need to execute. And so that comes from a place that they just own it. And to have the courage to go out and actually do it and get the skills, you've got to believe that you can and that's where it comes down to ownership. Once people are willing to say, oh everything is my fault.

Like that then and the funny thing is I wrote a blog article, this is probably like five years ago now, I wrote a blog article that and when I tell you I thought I thought what's the thing that's the biggest gift that I could give somebody that if they read it would change their lives forever and for the better. And the art, and it still remains true. The article was about me saying, if I got rear-ended by a drunk driver, that I would blame myself. And people were in an uproar. And they were just pissed.

They're like, your victim's shaming. And I'm like, what? I'm like, the thing I'm not doing, I'm not being a victim. I'm saying that there are choices I could have made, not the least of which was don't get in my car Right, so I could have not gotten in my car I could have because I paint the scenario where you're you know you end up pulling in between two people There's nowhere to go and so and I'm like and the car dies and your horn's dead So it's like they hit you now

Even the insurance company's just gonna pay out right they're gonna say well. There's nothing you could have done Now, even the insurance company is just going to pay out, right? They're going to say, well, there's nothing you could have done. But if you accept that, you play the role of the victim. If you own it and say, oh, I could have done this differently, I could have done this and I could have done this. And you understand that I'm not doing it to feel badly about myself. I'm doing it to maintain control. That's when, when you go, okay, I'm in control of everything that's ever happened to me.

Then you're just looking for other options. Oh, what else could I have done? How else could I have chosen differently? So that's like, you wanna talk about the thing that all those people have, it's that. A couple more things I wanna ask you about. You talk a little bit about seeking power. Yeah.

And it confused me when I first heard it. I'm not sure I even liked how you said it at first until I understood it. And so, can you talk to everybody about seeking power and what that means? Yeah, this is another one of those things that internally for me, it's such a beautiful concept that I was so surprised the first time I said it out loud and somebody was like, oh, that's gross. And I was like, okay, I need to explain this now. So to me, power is the ability to close your eyes,

imagine a world, a beautiful world, the world that you want to exist, open your eyes, and then be able to actually make that world come true. And so when I say I'm seeking power, I'm saying, I'm seeking the skills that will allow me to make the world a better place. Whether that's to be able to connect with people and build a team and get other people excited, whether that's to be able to build a business, that generates enough funds to improve the world a better place. It will, whether that's to be able to connect with people and build a team and get other people excited,

whether that's to be able to build a business that generates enough funds to improve the lives of the employees and the people that we touch with great products. You know, whatever that is, like to be willing and excited by the thought of going out and getting those skills, because those skills really are powerful.

And to me, it's like, people misunderstand power the way they misunderstand money. So when people say money is the root of all evil or power is the root of all evil, that's to fundamentally misunderstand why they're so coveted. So the reason that I can say all day,

I can tell people, and I have lived this, money cannot buy you happiness. And happiness is the only thing that matters. If you let me change that to fulfillment, right? Fulfillment, something lasting. That's it, it's all that matters. But I'm even still chasing money. So the question becomes why?

If I know that money in and of itself won't do anything for me, why is it still so interesting in my life? And the reality is, because money actually is powerful. And what I mean by that is, money is a great facilitator. If you don't know why you want the money, the money will be empty, you will buy things with it, and won't do anything for you. Because here's the thing that money can't do that people don't realize.

When you look at somebody with money, especially when you don't have it, you admire them. And so you think, if I had money, I would admire myself, but it doesn't work like that. So once you get the money, the thing you thought would happen to yourself, the story about who you are, you think is gonna change and it doesn't. So that's when people become totally disillusioned.

They think, if I have the Ferrari, I'll think differently about myself. If I have the house, I'll think differently about myself. Your insecurities are coming with you wherever you go. So if you think anything external is going to change that, the only thing that changes your insecurities, show up in the gym, put in the effort, go to work, do the thing, suffer in service of somebody else. Do something to bring beautiful things to people that you love and care about.

Do something beautiful to bring something to somebody you've never even met. Those things will change your story. The money's never gonna change your story, but the money has allowed me to build a business. The money has allowed me to not have to worry. The money's allowed me to help my mom, not have to worry. The money's allowed me to bring on a team of employees and not have to worry. The money's allowed me to help my mom, not have to worry. The money's allowed me to bring on a team of employees

and not have to worry about going bankrupt. It does real things that allow you to actually impact people. I believe that commerce is the only way to create a self-sustaining economic engine that isn't just charity. Charity have to go, like, here's what people don't understand about charity. Charity is survived by going and asking money from someone who's figured out how to make money. So, how can you then be annoyed

that some people are out making money? Even charities are funded by the people who figured out how to make money. So my thing is make your charity a for-profit company that does good in the world, where every product that it sells, the world becomes a little bit better, right? Now, that to me is where,

in the 80s, it was like a way grow story. It was just like, make as much money as you can. Social media has changed. All of that, that shit is dead as disco. Yeah. Like, consumers just won't stand for it. Yeah. They want to know who you are as a human being. And whether or not your product is going to add value, if they don't like what you're about as a person, your mission, your why, they're just not going to get into it. They're going to go to the next person who has a similar product and a better why. Oh my gosh. So that becomes the thing.

So money is powerful. Power is effective. It's the same thing. Once you understand my definition, power isn't to lord over somebody. Power is to close your eyes, imagine world, and then make it come true. Love it.

Oh my gosh. There's a level past that you you possess, by the way. And so what makes you attractive is that, because people do have big eyes, and they do want to know who you are. But a rare thing is congruency. Someone who actually does the things that they say they're going to do.

In other words, if you watch their life with the sound turned off. So I always say this. If I turned the sound off, and the word somebody says, and I just watched them like an old black and white movie without the sound, what would those actions tell me? And this man's and his wife Lisa dedicated their lives, frankly, since becoming wealthy to making an impact in other people's lives. And if I watched your movie because now I know you with the sound off, it's

congruent. That's what makes you so attractive, especially to somebody like me and to the audience, because I know, I know you won't say, but I know the sacrifice you've made of time. You and I right now, fortunately for both of us, could be anywhere in the world that we wanna be. We're sitting here together, helping people, right? And I know that on any given Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, you could be doing anything you want

with who you want at any time you choose to. And you choose to be doing this. I know the financial sacrifice you've made to do this. I've watched what you've turned your home into this unbelievable studio. Your life is about this. I want to finish with a question for everybody else's benefit here, not about you or I. But there's people watching to say, hey man, I want to be happy. I want to turn my life around. I want to be a successful entrepreneur. There's information everywhere now, brother. Right. I mean, what is the thing if they got a bump into you

with the movie, said, hey, Tom, can I get a minute with you? I've got this question. You only get a minute with them. What would you say to this person out there about creating a transformation, a change, a shift, the next level, whatever it is they want? What would you tell those people if you had that one minute with them? I'd give them two things.

The first is read the book mindset by Carol Dweck, period. It's so critical, man. And it just lays a foundation for how to think. That step number one, step number two is you will only ever get in your life what you absolutely must have. Your absolute obsession. So you, this has your obsessions become your possession That is so true and so getting people to understand that that level of like I must have this

Until it is that like whatever it is if it's taking care of your wife If it's doing something rad for your mom if it's having a beach house, whatever it is until it you need that like you need Oxygen you won't get it It is gonna demand so much of you. You're gonna fall so many times, you're gonna be so many obstacles, and unless it must happen in your life, one of them will make you stop.

Like you said, you can't be for sale. Like if your will can be bought, it doesn't make you a bad person, man. It really doesn't, but if your will can be bought, you're just not gonna get it. Yeah. You, um, I don't want this to end. I mean, I'm just, this has been rad, first of all,

and this is no bullshit. Yeah. For every kind word that you've said to me in this, having you on my show was extraordinary. They can go watch it, right? Cause right now they're gonna, oh, they're just here, he's just trying to be nice. It's amazing and they'll get to see my face seeing, like really connecting with you for the first time. It's a very similar face, the one that I'm gonna, oh, they're just here, he's just trying to be nice. It's amazing and they'll get to see my face seeing like really connecting with you

for the first time. It's a very similar face, the one that I did it back to you today. 100%. But I want, like, see it for real. Like, there are just some people you connect with in life. They're like, when you walked out the door,

I was like, that guy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I, listen, let me just tell you something. It sounds like we're both saying this, for you to parlay a 990 SAT into, I'm serious brother, it makes me, makes me emotional when I see a dude

who's like living his authentic self. Like you were born for this. Like you are on the right path brother. Like when I went there that day and I'm appreciate what you said, but you can ask the people I was with when we left that day, I said, bro, this dude's doing exactly, and his wife,

they're doing exactly what they were born to do. And I was overwhelmed by the commitment you've made, bro, because I know that has to be about other people. There's just no way that you would make the commitment you're making it, it was just about you. And so I know your heart, I know how badly you want to reach people because you could be doing anything and you're choosing to do this.

And your standard is so high for yourself that you are going to change the world. And it inspires me, man, when I find those rare people in life because I want to connect with them, I want to help you anyway I can. I want to collaborate with you. I want to encourage you, I want to support you because I think you're incredible. I think you're incredible and I think what you're doing is amazing. And I know today people who watch this interview,

you're just getting a taste. And so this is like the preview to the movie of the things Tom and Leicester are doing. And you can find the rest of it on his Instagram account, on his YouTube, and it's gonna be a journey. See, he, both he and I, want to grow and get better. So, in a year, he won't be saying the same things he's saying right now. Neither will I, it'll be new and more innovative in the next level from where you are now, and I can't wait to go on this ride with you.

I really can't, man. I think you're absolutely freaking amazing. So, thank you so much for today, brother. I enjoyed it so much freaking amazing. So thank you so much for today, brother. I enjoyed it so much, man. So I know you all loved it too. Here's all I ask. You know where to find me or you wouldn't be watching this. On Instagram, I do the two-minute drill every day

because I want to engage with you. And so the two-minute drill is basically this. When I make a post, anybody who makes a comment within the first two minutes, we do a daily draw. You can get gear for me, but you can also get a coaching call. Every once in a while, I surprise you with a call from one of my guests, and you get a half hour in their life, which most of them don't give away freely,

but I twist their arm for it. And so I want to encourage you to be making those comments so we continue to build the community, so that we engage, because we want to help people max out the areas of the lives that matter the most to them, and we're here to support you. I bring you some of the best people in the world in particular areas, and Tom is clearly

extraordinary in one of those people. So I appreciate you everybody. Leave a review on iTunes, thumbs up in a comment or a like on YouTube. God bless you and max out.