You're listening to the Impact Theory Podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the billion-dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. What is up, everybody?
Welcome to a very special edition of our AMA series. These are crushing. Thank you guys so much. So we're doing them.
We're going to make it a thing. This is going to be a weekly shebang. So thank you guys for joining us. And we're now live on Facebook and YouTube, which is awesome.
And the numbers the last time we did our Facebook, wow, I'm having a stroke. It's a holiday Friday. Bear with me. The last time we did YouTube Live, we did way better than we expected.
So that was really, really exciting. So I'm honored to have you guys here. We're going to dive right into the questions. What makes this AMA, I think, work is very rapid fire.
Answers to the questions. I'm going to try to get through as many as humanly possible. And if this is adding value to your life, please do share it. I don't know if you can share on YouTube.
We floated that out there last time. Nobody has figured that out. So if anybody, hey, if you know how to do it, let us know. But certainly on Facebook, if you share this, that would be amazing.
Growing a community is really what we're focused on. And if you don't know why, drop in a question. And my boy Chase will pull it and I'll answer that. Otherwise, I'll assume that you understand exactly why we're trying to build this community.
All right. Question number one comes from Santos Conde. A leader is somebody that is painting the vision and organization, everybody, and galvanizing them around the belief system and path execution. Doesn't feel like a question.
That's a quote. Okay. Here we go. So with stuff like that, if it's going to be contextual, like, you know, context, colon, or something like that.
Okay. So here we go. This is the multi-stage question. I would like to know if you can go more in depth on this quote, what was your line of thoughts at the moment of writing?
Okay. So I think somebody was asking you to define what leadership is. And basically, that is, at a high level, one of the most important things a leader is going to do is really painting the vision for where you're going. Why do you exist?
What's the mission of the company? And exactly how are we going to get there? And it's that galvanizing idea. It's that very clear end goal.
It's the intoxication of certainty. Those are the things that a leader needs to provide to the people on the team so that everybody's marching in the same direction. And I cannot tell you how rapidly people begin to fragment and go in weird directions if you're not freakishly clear on what the end goal of the company is. And even for you as the leader, if you don't understand exactly where you're trying to get to, if you don't have a psychotically clear goal, it's all going to begin to fragment.
Because the clarity, the mission, those are the things that become the filter for your business. They become the filter for your actions. They become the filter for how you spend your time. So it has been said that 80% of business is knowing what not to do.
So it's the things that you stay out of that become really, really important. So if that's true and you have to know what to say no to, then really understanding what your mission is, having that clarity, being able to get people pointed in that same direction, which is what I mean by galvanize them, like that becomes critical. And then the sort of softer thing that becomes very difficult to quantify, but it's insanely important, is do you get the emotional buy-in from your team in terms of what you're trying to accomplish now? I think we're living through one of the most fascinating times in entrepreneurship, in business, in society, quite frankly, because the consumer now has the ability to really get to know the company, the people behind it, their mission, what they stand for, and what it means to support them with your dollars.
So because of that, companies are really having to go beyond just speaking through the product and really talking to what's the purpose, why are we here? And that is having clarity there is how you get the emotional buy-in of your team, because now there's a purpose, there's meaning behind what you do. It isn't just making the money. It's really the product hopefully facilitates something, whether that's a change you're trying to see in the world, whatever that thing is, really gives people the ability to understand very directly how what they do on a day-to-day basis to make the company stronger is bringing meaning and value.
And because meaning and purpose are two of the five fundamental drivers that people have, really giving them that through line to connect to that is absolutely critical of a leader, which I will differentiate from a manager, that would be a whole different question, I won't go into that. Okay, a company vision should reflect a long-term goal, is there more questions in here? No. All right, so on to the next.
Okay, this is from a DM. Is this from my account? Yeah, you can go into the connected box. Ah, that was very clever.
All right, which one of these is the actual question? The last one? All right, so here we go. As soon as we have it on screen.
That's, oh, there we go. Okay, I asked a question about if you're not entrepreneurial, how do you go about becoming a great number two, great number two to 50, so somewhere in there, and also selling to the unsellable, i.e. overcoming apathy. Perhaps I typed it in the wrong place.
I asked during the 1 a.m. Q&A session. Okay, so the rest is context. All right, so basically, how do you become a great number two through 50?
Those are arbitrary numbers. But basically, if you're not going to be an entrepreneur, if you're not going to be the one where everything is sitting on your shoulders, how do you become a lynchpin? Which is a term introduced by Seth Godin in his amazing book, Lynchpin. I highly recommend you read that.
And this, by the way, just the law of numbers states that the vast majority of the world are not going to be the entrepreneur. They're not going to be the CEO. They're going to be somewhere else in the organization. So understanding that being an entrepreneur is not about what is better.
It's simply a role. And if that role speaks to you, if you don't mind massive amounts of risk, if you like having all of the performance weight on your shoulders, it's actually a really, really fun place to be. And if autonomy is like your sole driver, like for me realizing that autonomy is one of my absolute biggest drivers, then being in that position can be immensely, immensely rewarding. If you're going to be in another role, it's still an amazing opportunity to really put your skill set, to find out how much you can do and contribute to an organization, to see how much of your potential you can turn into, actually the potential, and really crush it.
But it comes down to, again, clarity of goals. So what is your role? What are the goals of your role? What are you trying to do in the company?
And how can you become the best in the world at that? That concept to me is so important. What do you want to become the best in the world at? There is a job out there.
There is a role out there for which if you invest and really put yourself into becoming truly the best in the world, and whether you ever accomplish that is quite frankly irrelevant. But if you're making sincere strides to become the best in the world at that position, you're going to be startled by one, how fun it is, because a fundamental building block to happiness is progress. So it's getting better at something. And then the whole concept of technique, where when a skill set that you've fought very hard to acquire has use for other people, that is fulfillment.
So those things combined, making progress, getting better at something, and knowing that the thing you're getting better at actually serves other people, that's the magic. Like that is the thing, that thing that you're hunting for in your life, that happiness that isn't so fleeting, that lasts longer, nothing lasts forever, but that has a deeper sense of meaning, well-being, and stays for a longer period of time. It is really the intersection of those two things. So figuring out what that role is, and then going about acquiring those skills, and really looking at the company and saying, what are the problems that we're facing as a company, and how in my role can I make those go away?
And then I'll say just another thing, no matter who you're trying to be in the company, help other people shine. Help other people shine. Like if you're that person, if you're the person, no matter what your role is, no matter where you're in the company, if you're helping other people be great at their job, they're going to want to help you. You can always count on Agent Smith.
All right, ambivalent relationships, also known as for enemies, how just deadly those are. So go back and watch that. That's super powerful. And when you're supporting each other, you minimize, not eliminate for enemies.
All right, is this new? Yes. All right, hey, Tom, I was listening to one of your AMA podcasts with my wife, and we noticed that people really only ask you about Quest Nutrition and how you started it, but we think it's a more interesting question is how did you start the tech company without the personal skills that I know of, with nothing to start and yet make it successful, we are itching to know. All right, sadly, I've been reading who these are coming from.
That would be great. We need to add that in the future. So, all right, C. Beryl Run, which I'm sure I'm messing that up.
That's a username which makes it even harder. Okay, so the tech company, which, by the way, was Awareness Technologies. Let me take a tasty beverage here. Awareness Technologies, I was hired as a copywriter, so that whole transition is very important to understand that all of my inadequacies at that point were being carried entirely by my partner.
So they understood business very, very well. They've been at the game for a very long time. They brought me as a copywriter, and they said, look, don't think of yourself as a copywriter. Understand this is a startup.
You can have any position in the company that you want. You just have to become the right person for the job, meaning you've got to acquire those skills. You've got to get so good, we can't ignore you. You've got to be better than anybody else who's competing to take on that responsibility, but if you can do that, then you can earn your way to that position.
And I was so hungry to succeed that I was just on a relentless, I was on a war path to acquire skills, an absolute fucking war path. And that is how I encourage everyone to be in your life, no matter what it is that you're trying to do. If you're not on a war path, if you're not going so hard that other people in your life are looking at you like you're an absolute madman, you're just not going hard enough. You're not acquiring skills fast enough.
You're not putting enough energy into it to really get great, to surpass other people. So obviously, not everybody's going to want that life, but for people who are really trying to be playing a world stage and have success at the highest level, that's just it, period. There's no other path. Set the bar ridiculously high and surpass all expectations.
That's it. So I was on a war path to do that, to get better. I was reading, I was studying, I was doing anything and everything that I could to get better. I was finding ways to add value, so I didn't know enough about business, but I found that there would be so many opportunities that people would start to forget about them.
So I started keeping a list of all the opportunities and reminding people and saying, hey, what about this? Are we moving on that? Are we discarding it? And so I would come to, let's say, a conference call, and I would have notes on the last time that we were talking and what we were trying to move forward so that I was sort of the context giver because I wasn't going to be able to at that point in my career.
I wasn't going to be able to say, hey, based on experience, this is what I think we should do. I was total sponge mode, but I knew that I could bring value by taking notes, by knowing where things were, by pushing projects forward, by being the energy, by identifying the right answer. You hear all of this stuff in the way that I speak now, and this is really when I began to put all this together, but realizing that I wasn't always going to be right, but I could identify the right answer. And I could say, okay, I can see that that's really going to be useful, and then put my energy behind that.
So being the energy, being the context, understanding what needs to be moved forward, those are really the tools that I use to begin to climb my way up and then being on a warpath to acquire new skills. So doing that for a very, very long time, it was about eight and a half years before we finally sold the tech company. So doing that for about eight and a half years, getting better every day, taking on more responsibility, and that's another thing, by the way, taking on responsibilities had nothing to do with being a copywriter, nothing to do with being a copywriter, but I could see that the company had problems, struggles, things that needed to be addressed, and I was just trying to take on as much as humanly possible so that I would become the person that people would turn to. And then in all of this, I am so, after I made the realization about what you build yourself steam around matters, which is an answer for another time, I began to actually get better and better every day, always willing to look at where I was bad and inadequate and improve upon that skill set.
And so just over time, I was able to get good. So, all right, next question from Kartikeya Rawat, how to deal with negative people that always find negative things in your ideas and are suspicious of anything new, just want to live and die like everyone before them? Okay, so first and foremost, you have to have a belief system that's going to inoculate you from this stuff. So one of the pieces of my belief system, I only do and believe that which moves me towards my goals.
So when people attack me, I, one, separate the message from the messenger. So if the messenger is a dickhead, but the message is actually usable, then I'm just going to take that, regardless of whether it hits me emotionally and becomes an emotionally difficult moment, I'm going to set that aside, also using that same thing of doing believe that which moves me towards your goals. If feeling that emotional sting serves me, then I'm going to feel it, but I'm only going to feel it for as long as it serves me. So if it's pushing me, it's driving me to go get a better skill set, to listen to that piece of information and say, okay, this really stings and it really hurts to hear this, but it's now pointed out a flaw in my game.
Now that I've identified it, I can go acquire that skill. And because I've built myself a steam around identifying the right answer, not worrying about being right, always willing to admit when I'm wrong, not priding myself on being smart, but instead priding myself on being the learner, that sting becomes very short-lived and I only allow myself to feel it for as long as it's useful. And then I can just discard it, right? So, and I can discard it because what they're probably trying to do by, well, Jesus, that actually gets complicated.
So it's entirely possible to actually protect you and to do it out of love, which is ironically where most of the negative feedback in your life is going to come from. But if they're actively trying to tear me down, understanding that that's just a losing long-term strategy, doing and believing that was moving towards your goals. So it's like, whether they're trying to hurt me or not is irrelevant. I'm going to separate the message from the messenger.
I'm going to take what's useful. I'm going to feel this thing only as long as it's usable and then I'm going to move forward. So I have nothing but empathy and compassion for people that go on the attack, for people that want to hurt and damage other people. It comes from a place of weakness.
It comes from a place of insecurity. Don't fool yourself. They actually do feel better when they say it. So if you're suiting yourself by saying that, oh, you know, like, yes, it does come from insecurity, but it actually does make them feel better.
I find it very interesting to delineate between that so that I never try to pacify myself with bullshit. And when people are beating you down, it actually does make them feel better. So you're going to have to find other ways. It does come from insecurity and knowing insecurity is a losing long-term strategy that has helped me through some of that to set it off to the side, not pay attention, but really take in the information, no matter who it comes from, decide whether it's usable or not.
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All right. This comes from YouTube. Question from Ein Arswe. Ein Arswe.
Ein Arswe. Something like that. All right. Here we go.
What kind of system do you use for calendar? I'm struggling to find a system for me that works. Do you use physical apps or combine the two? This is where I just have to be honest.
I'm atrocious at my calendar. I'm embarrassingly bad at managing my calendar. So I have a human being that their job is to manage my calendar. That's probably a terrible answer for everyone out there.
So unfortunately, I'm just not the right person to answer that question. All right, YouTube question from Crazy YouTuber. With all your knowledge, what is the best time for fitness, morning or depending for everyone? It probably does depend for everyone.
But I will say, for most people, if I had to guess, doing it first thing in the morning is always going to be ideal because you're going to make sure that you do it. And prioritizing fitness and getting a cognitive optimization, which should serve you through the day. In John Rady's book, Spark, he talks about how there is a time effect of working out. So whatever you do immediately following working out, you're going to get the most benefit from.
So for me, the morning is the most important part of the day. So I work out immediately, partly because I will skip it if given any reason whatsoever because I absolutely hate it. And then the other is that my morning routine carries all the fundamental building blocks of making sure that the business is in the right direction. All of my high-level thinking is done in the morning.
So knowing that I need to be really on point for that, working out in the morning also serves that because it leads right into that really, really important time. All right, YouTube question from Robert Ballantyne. How do you write an effective speech? This is interesting.
No one's ever asked me this before. I've just joined Toastmasters and would love to write and execute on my first talk to improve my communication skills and help in escaping the matrix. This is fun for me. Okay, so here's what I would do.
First and foremost, you need to rush to getting to the point where you trust your instincts. Now, instincts are built, they're developed, they're not something that you're born with. So a lot of this is going to be whatever it is you're speaking on, you need to make sure you really fucking understand it so that you've gone deep, deep, deep, deep. And in that process of gaining mastery, you're going to develop your instincts.
Now, in there somewhere, you will get to the point where you understand it so well that your real personality is going to begin to shine. That's where things get fucking interesting. So finding your natural style, finding a way to really be that quirky, weird version of yourself, like that's when I feel like my speaking really began to take flight is my personality is such that I go from deadly serious to tongue-in-cheek and funny in like a heartbeat. That's really me.
And so I can go on a rant and I can get fucking deep and then I can click over into like the wink and the nod. And at first I was embarrassed to do either extreme. I was embarrassed to be funny because I felt like, oh, well, people really want me to stick to the material. And I was embarrassed to go like really fucking hard and passionate because it's like people are going to think that I'm crazy.
But once you realize that that is your superpower and that really being you is going to allow you to give a speech that nobody else can be able to give, but knowing the material is where I start now because I know my material so fucking well, I don't memorize speeches. So I'll walk into a speech usually with three things that I know that I want to cover. If I'm doing slides and that's really easy. And if you've ever seen me do a speech, the slides, like it actually feels a bit like cheating because I don't have to hold so many things in my head, but I usually go into a speech with three sort of top line things I want to do.
I never memorize like certain lines or anything. So if I give it the same speech 20 times, it'll be different all 20 times because I'm going off the cuff just with that general thing. But that really is about knowing that topic. So research the life out of it, practice, practice, practice.
You're going to get, like there will be phrases and things you begin to say when you start really forcing yourself to do the speech in a non-memorized way. So do that practice, do it over and over and over. If there are multiple Toastmasters in your city, do them all. Like if there are five and they meet on different nights or even if they meet on the same night and you can split, be the first speaker at one and the last speaker at the other, get out there and speak as much as humanly fucking possible.
Like I just cannot emphasize that enough. The more you do stuff, the better you will get. And the thing that will separate you from everyone else, other people are going to speak once a week or three times a week and feel like they're crushing it. When you can start speaking three times a day, seven days a week, you'll maul everybody.
All right. This is from Agent Smith, I think, just as Jared. Jared, I know. Not you.
Different Jared? All right. So from a different Jared, we have a lot of people in the feed, talk about the belief system, go to the website, learn, tab, sign up, and download the 25 bullet points. How is that not from our Jared?
I was going to say, this is all a lie. Like, are you just trying to like make it seem like someone's in the feed saying that shit? No. So how come I said, is it you?
You shook your head no. All right. So, all right, here we go. Go get the belief system.
Go to the website. We have it. It is our, it's the thing that you get when you sign up for the newsletter. We had it all designed out nice and wonderfully.
So go check it out, sign up, get them, get them 25 bullet points. And if you guys don't know, by the way, the belief system is what I had to go through at the, I guess just on my journey to becoming an entrepreneur to change my mindset to escape the matrix. So, check it out. All right.
YouTube question from Antoine Faux. Show. Nice. Can we take a second to respect that name?
How do you approach a business concept if you lack the skill to create said concept? For example, you want to create an app but lack the ability to script it other than learning it. Well, partners is going to be the easiest way. So there's two ways to handle the need for a skill set in a company.
One is to learn it yourself. And two is to partner with somebody or hire somebody that has that. Usually, most startups don't have the financing to just run money at the problems. You're going to have to partner with somebody.
You're going to be giving up equity in the company in order to get their attention, to get them into the company, to bring that skill set to bear. So that is the simplest way. All right. Next.
YouTube question again is from Daryl Dickens. How do you explain escaping the matrix to someone who has not seen the movie? Like this. Escaping the matrix is a metaphor for a limiting belief system.
So beliefs that you hold in your own mind about what's possible, about what you're capable of, that is the matrix. So the movie The Matrix is a story about belief. And the main character is able to do things only once he believes that he can. So that's really what it's all about.
It's what makes it the perfect metaphor for life. Humans leave with belief. You're only able to do the things you believe you can do because once you believe that you can do it. Like as a nine-year-old, you're not going to believe that you can play in the NFL.
You're going to believe that you can get to the point where you can play in the NFL. So it's that belief that the work, the effort is going to yield the result that you want. And that will put you on the path to learning and getting better. So that's how I explain it.
All right. YouTube question from Game Dev Underground. Hey, Tom, I'm curious if you've ever interviewed someone that has their life together but doesn't make a ton of money. I noticed you tend to interview people that make a lot of money.
That's interesting. I think if you went back, you'd realize that the vast majority of people, literally the vast majority, I'm going to say it's less than 75% of the people I've interviewed make a ton of money. So the money is easy and it certainly gives you a hook into explaining, not explaining, but you have a barometer for the success. So you can say, hey, this person sold their company for $50 million or whatever.
And it's instant credibility. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. But yeah, I mean, literally the people that I can think off the top of my head, we have a ton of people that I'm sure make a decent living for Swayze, but their primary driver just isn't that. They're not interested in selling their company or they're an author and they're just crushing it ideologically, but not necessarily making a lot of money.
So yes, many, many. All right. Ben Widener, what's the SnappleCap say though? All right.
Let's check. Today's SnappleCap is human eyes have over 2 million working parts. Boy, Dan, bro, fitness. What's up, dude?
What ways have you changed your diet and lifestyle to improve your microbiome? Thank you for that question. I'm obsessed with microbiome. I try not to bring it up in every answer, which you'd be surprised how often I can do.
So my big thing has been, I'll give you, well, so one, if we were talking about what we're doing with Lisa, that's way more complicated. So I'll give you my answer, which is a lot more simplistic. I'm reducing the amount of artificial sweeteners. I am increasing the number of vegetables that I eat and I'm not washing them, which I'm somewhat conflicted about because I'm not sure.
I need to get really serious about finding out where they're grown and like what pesticides might be on them. I may be causing myself a problem there, but I'm trying to get dirt in my life, literally dirt. So, and I also don't wash my hands as much. Maybe that sounds bad, but I used to wash my hands so much that they would begin to get chapped and crack and bleed, just to give you an idea how spastic I was.
But reading about the way that we actually get microbes into our system, I'm trying to get it as close to like just natural as human possible meaning back in the day when nothing was processed, you didn't have soap, you got dirty hands, you picked up food, you ate it, you pulled the carrot out of the ground, you brushed it off and you ate it. And inevitably you were getting a lot of dirt and in the soils where a lot of microbes live. So I'm literally trying to get dirt in my life. So my changes have been relatively simple because I don't struggle with symptoms from what they call dysbiosis, which is a messed up microbiome.
Doesn't mean I don't have one, it just means I don't have a lot of symptoms from it, whereas Lisa, it's much more complicated. Because I don't feel like we've solved that problem. I can tell you what we're experimenting with, but nothing that I can really stand behind other than enzymes. Enzymes have been a big win for her.
So taking what's called a pancreatin enzyme, which helps break down fats, carbohydrates and protein. For a long time we had her on one that just broke down protein. And I read in one of the books on the microbiome, I think the disease delusion, but don't hold me to that, about that. So we tried it and that's had a real big impact.
All right, YouTube question from Gary Maggio. Please advice for 55-year-olds who need to make a change from cubicle to more fulfilling career and make good money. So first of all, I love the age range that we have in this community. It's absolutely unbelievable.
And how many people are in a traditional age group where advertisers don't even reach out to you because they think you're so set in your ways, you're never going to make any change. I think it's absolutely unbelievable how many people realize how much time they really have left to do something amazing. So for anybody, 55 or otherwise, the key is to understand what are your interests. So you're going to look inside and you're going to see small flickers of interest.
Okay, now that we have an interest, engage in that interest and get to the point where you know whether you're truly fascinated in it. Then you're going to build that into a passion by truly gaining mastery. Now, when you're doing that down a path, you can monetize. That's where things really, really get interesting.
Also, if you're going to work at somebody else's company, you need to find out what's the mission of the company, what do they stand for, what are they trying to bring to the world so that you can see how your actions relate to something that hopefully you care about and understanding that, especially if you're looking for a job while you still have a job, you can be patient enough to find something that really is a good fit. And that selection is like the vast majority of the battle. I'll say that 80% of getting this right is finding a company that suits you, that feels right, where the people and the culture feel good, where the mission of the company aligns with something that you believe in. So as you're working your ass off to bring these products to market, that it's something that actually makes you feel really good about yourself, that there's a tangible result.
You can look into the world and see the reflection back of all your efforts that you want to see, whatever that is, right? There's nothing universal about that. But that's how it's going to work. So it's going to be the fundamental building blocks of happiness, progress, technique.
So progress, you're getting better at something, technique, hey, you've got this skill set that's actually serving other people. Like that would be very, very meaningful. And then if it's in a universe of things that you care about, so whether that's, hey, if it's video games, awesome, there's a universe of video games. You don't have to be a professional player or found a video game company or even be a coder, but you could be an amazing accountant in that world.
And so the people that you're interfacing with, the people that are designing games are doing something that you find really, really interesting. So that concept of universe of this is really, really important, but it's really aligning things with your interests, which become fascinations, which become passions, like being in that world. That's really the key. All right, Facebook, Nancy Boyd, how do I find a company that actually cares about their employees?
I find that most corporations and companies just value the mighty dollar over the well-being of their employees. Okay, so there's two things that I want to address in this. One, be very, very, very careful about becoming cynical. So I get it.
There are a lot of companies out there that suck and they just either truly don't care or they care, but they don't know how to build it into the culture, which, by the way, is harder than you think. So you need to go into this with the attitude. Remember, Einstein said the most important decision anybody will ever make is whether they live in a friendly or a hostile universe. It's a decision.
So the most important decision in this case that you're going to make is whether there are a lot of companies out in the world that care about their employees and really want beautiful things for them or whether they don't exist. If you believe that they do, I'm telling you, all of a sudden you're just going to start to see them. You're going to hear those comments. Your reticular activating system will begin paying attention to those things.
If you believe, however, that they're all terrible and abusing employees, you're just going to see that. Yeah, it's very weird. It's a fundamental thing about the human condition. You will see what you look for.
So if you believe they're a good company, you're going to find them. So start with that. Believe that they are out there, and they are, by the way. And if I had to do this, I would start somewhat with social media with companies that are in the universe of things that I care about.
So I'm going to find those, and not just the executives, not the ones that are just pushing and promoting their own company, but who's using the hashtags or app mentions that are employees. You can check out Glassdoor, but honestly, you're going to get some mixed results with that because usually people are posting because they're disgruntled. It's very hard, speaking from experience, to make everybody happy. So that can be a little bit dicey.
Word of mouth is massive, but finding a company that's really in alignment with something you care about in your own life, and then engaging with them and really trying to dig deep in, find people that work for them, and see what the culture is like. Go in, and if they're looking for anybody that fits your description as an employee, getting interviews, going in, meeting people, asking, like, talk to the receptionist. Ask them, like, what do they think? What do they feel?
Get a vibe. Laughter is a metric. So in an interview, just listen. Is it quiet?
Are people laughing? What does that look like? That, that to me, makes a big difference. So yeah, there you go.
All right, YouTube from Ghassan Salah. What beliefs were holding you back when you started your journey? For me, in no uncertain terms, the thing that held me back the most. I believe my talents and intelligence were fixed traits, and there was nothing I could do about them, and my life was meant to be seeing how well I could position myself to let my natural innate talents shine.
So that is a devastating mindset. It's called The Fixed Mindset. Read Carol Dweck's book, Mindset, which talks about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Once you believe, A, everything is my fault, and I can change anything about myself at any time, so I get better at something that I'm not good at.
If I'm somebody who's easily frustrated, I can learn to not be easily frustrated. If I'm self-obsessed, I can learn to think about others. Like, whatever it is, no matter how esoteric and soft the skill, you can develop it. So, yeah, that was a huge game changer.
And then the other one that I'm on a personal mission to bring to the world, what you build your self-esteem around matters. All right, YouTube, RSTV, what are the top three books you would recommend for millennials? I recommend the same books for everybody. Go to impacttheory.com.
Tom's reading list, the 25 books in order that I think everybody should read if you want to build a mindset that is going to set you free. And now, this man who's just off camera has also created a knowledge trail, which is all the books that I'm reading. Not all of them, by the way, apply to mindset, but check it out. All right, Facebook, Jennifer Mason, how do you handle being the best you can be in a world of meh?
So, this goes back to that don't let yourself become cynical answer that I was just giving to somebody else. Really is important. Regardless of what other people think, if you are focused on gratitude, if you're focused on things that make you smile, that leave you in awe, like you want to be stripped out, type in people of awe or, oh God, what is it? Yeah, something like if you type in people and awe or people of awe or whatever it is into YouTube, you're going to get this video series I do every year.
And it's like humans doing the most unbelievably cool stuff ever. It's freakish. Type in good Samaritan. I mean, there's so many phrases.
You will get whatever you look for. So, if you type in words about somebody doing something cool, amazing, kind, sweet, generous, like you will just get page after page after page of this stuff. But I'd really, really like to see us do positive news. Now, the reason that news companies don't do that is because it doesn't sell, because it doesn't trigger the amygdala.
People pay a lot more attention to things that freak them out, scare them. And there's a biological evolutionary reason for that. But I think there is a lot of space. I think there's a growing movement of people that are doing positive things.
So, if you look for it, I assure you, you're going to find it. And you will find things that leave you in straight up awe. Aw. This world is full of just amazing shit.
All right. Facebook. Jay Walker. How do you suggest women striving for positions of power go about it?
I'm a film commercial director living in the Czech Republic. And it seems like every step I take leads me to a man happy to take advantage of the fact that I'm young and hungry. Aside from being upfront about ethical limitations, do you have any advice for women attempting to achieve in this day and age? Okay.
So, A, it's important for me to recognize my limited ability to answer this question because I have not lived through it. So, I've never had to struggle with that. So, I can only imagine that there is a universe of problems that I'm blissfully ignorant to just because I haven't had to deal with it. Having said that, none of that fucking matters.
And even if the world is wildly misogynistic, the only question is, despite the misogyny, how do you climb up? And the answer to that is universally the same. It gets so fucking good, you can't be ignored. So, look at hidden figures.
The women were so good at math. It didn't matter, A, that they were female, and it really didn't matter that they were African-American. So, because they were the ones who could do the math. So, when you put yourself in a position where you're just better than everybody, while you may be tempted to give you the frustration of how fucking obnoxious it is, you have to work twice as hard as everybody else, it doesn't matter.
It is what it is. And so, if you have to work twice as hard, work twice as hard. If you have to get twice as good, get twice as good. But that is the path, right?
There are two paths. Deal with the world the way that it is. Deal with the world the way that you wish it were. I promise, one of these paths, the one where you deal with the world the way that it actually is, leads to success.
Dealing with the world the way that you wish it were, leads to only frustration. So, accepting it, pushing, getting that good is always going to be the solution. And here's the really hard news. If you're not getting where you want, it's because you're not good enough.
And it may be that you're not good enough at that skill set, that craft, and it may be that you're not good enough at navigating those interpersonal relationships of how to keep that from being a problem in your life, being a woman. You just have to own that. You have to make that your responsibility. There's just no way around it.
All right. YouTube, Scruffy77, tips on focus. I have a very hard time focusing on one skill set. Very bad ADD brain.
All right. Step one. No, go back. Step one.
There you go. Step one. It's very bad to reinforce in yourself that you have an ADD brain. When I say things out loud about me that are negative, usually I follow them up mentally silently with a repetition three times of how I'm not going to let that hold me back or that it's something that I can overcome.
Two, you're going to address this in identity. So, I'm the type of person that, despite having ADD or whatever, I force myself to come back to focus. So, practice it. When you find yourself drifting, bring yourself back, back, back.
Because I promise a certain amount of the times, your lack of focus comes down to what you're doing is boring, it's not fully capturing your attention, and you can use willpower to combat that. So, forcing yourself to come back and then mentally reward yourself whenever you get back on track and you're doing the thing you're supposed to be focusing on so that it feels better and better to bring yourself back to that task over and over and over, even when it's really boring. Also, having a compelling future and knowing why you're doing that thing, acquiring that scale, pushing that hard, whatever that is, what's that adding up to? Like, why are you doing all this?
So, once you know that, then you can focus on the excitement. For instance, on the days that I really don't want to go to the gym, I focus on results. So, normally I don't. Normally, it's about the process and all that, but sometimes you just need to think about how dope the six-pack abs are going to be, how amazing it is you're going to live forever.
Like, whatever that thing is that is the result you're trying to get out of it, that's real and honest, not the one that is politically correct. Like, I'll just tell you, being shredded is fucking rad and you feel amazing about yourself and you think you're a stud every second. You want to walk by mirrors at all times, like lifting your shirt up and looking at your abs. It's fucking rad.
So, if that is truly emotionally motivating for you, own it. I find that most people, this actually isn't true for me, I'm obsessed with longevity, living forever. Most people are not. So, asking somebody to do something for a slightly better blood test or to live longer, you're not going to get much.
But most people get pretty stoked when their ass looks better. So, be honest with yourself about what's motivating you. Let that be an awesome motivator. Be stoked about it.
Focus on that. That'll help you get back on task. All right. What do you think is the best way to explain it and show them?
So, the best way, always and forever, to lead is to lead by example. So, you want them to see you admitting when you're wrong. You want them to see you fail and that you recognize how you fail, that you don't lose any optimism, you don't beat yourself up, you're excited to recognize that you were wrong. And when they see that, like, that's going to be infectious.
And you're like, whoa, oh my God, I totally failed. I can't believe it, but this is what I'm going to try next time. Or, and I'm going to work. I'm going to push myself to get better.
They'll see that. And then also, this is straight out of mindset from Carol Dweck, you want to reward the process, not the intelligence. So, don't say, oh my gosh, you guys are so smart, you're so talented, like, amazing, that drawing is so great, or getting an A on that math test, you're so clever. Don't do that.
Instead, say, whoa, to get that grade, you must have worked really hard. You can only imagine how much you had to study. Man, that drawing, that's really incredible. You've come a long way.
Like, all that effort that you're putting into it is really paying off. So, really making sure that you frame it in a way that's useful to them. And then, the most important part is them seeing that that's real for you. All right.
YouTube, Cam R, what's the hardest part of initially bringing an idea into action and starting that business you've been putting off starting? All right. Watch that clip where I told people, if you want to help starving children in Africa, to book your ticket for this weekend to get to Africa. Like, acting.
You have to act. Like, that is the most important thing. If you've been putting off starting a company, fucking start it right now today. And don't just give it a name and, like, go try to register your company.
Fuck all that. Don't worry about that. Go out, make a product, and start selling it. That matters.
Everything else is total bullshit. So, don't talk. Go do. That, that, there's, there's no substitute.
Everybody lean in real close. Real close. What you want to do is take action. That's it.
Like, there's no fucking secret. Just take action. Yes, it's going to be embarrassing. You're going to do something fucking stupid.
People are going to laugh at you. That is all true. You're going to lose some money. That's all true, too.
It doesn't matter. The lessons that you will learn will be so fucking powerful. Like, if you want to get great at basketball, don't sit and watch the NBA all day. Go grab a ball, right?
Like, kids, is that not obvious? Go grab a ball. Start playing. If you want to start a company, start the fucking company.
Like, you can, you can start today. This is one of those things that it is, it is amazing. It will set you free. Once you realize, all you need to do is take a sincere step every day towards actually doing it.
It's going to scare you. Yes, you're going to be convinced you're going to fail. Yes. And by the way, you may actually fail, but you'll learn from that.
So whatever the first one is, don't worry about that. Think about company 10. How do I get to company 10? How do I get to product 10?
Okay, I've got to burn through the nine failures. Fantastic. But they're all playing in to that 10th one. But it's all about action.
People that act every day are the ones that are pulling ahead. All right, Facebook, pretty a Bhatia. How does one clear up miscommunication and show the real picture? Okay, so first, you've got to be clear on what the real picture is.
And one thing I found incredibly useful in my life, when I'm processing out loud, I tell people, I'm processing out loud. We were just doing this last night. There was a bunch of us sitting around the table until super fucking late, by my standards. And I was just like, guys, I'm processing out loud.
And thank you for being part of this. I really appreciate it. And so there was no misunderstanding that, like, I don't know where I'm going with this. I just want to verbalize.
And then when I know, you just fucking get right to it. Give the answer. Clarity, clarity, clarity. There's massive intoxication to clarity.
When you can give something succinctly, you know exactly what you're talking about. So differentiating between the two is super critical. And when you have the clarity, walk through things step by step, brick by brick. Don't take anything for granted, which is something that I fall prey to sometimes.
So you want to make sure that you're laying those bricks a piece at a time. So you need a piece of information A so you can understand B so you can understand C and just walk people through it. All right, YouTube, dark night. Hello, Tom.
Hello, right back. Great username, by the way. I'm not sure how you got that. Is there anything you can share about dealing with stammering?
I'm a stutterer myself and dealing with the same problem that every stutterer does. Can I be treated permanently? So A, I'm not a stutterer. So I'm going to tell you what I've learned from other stutterers.
But know that this is a tip to, I'm sure, a very, the guys work. But I'm excited about this because I met somebody who, they were amazing, very eloquent. And they said that they were a massive stutterer when they were a kid. And they said the key is, much like anxiety, so you get going in the wrong direction, right?
You get this downward spiral where you are worried that you're going to stutter, which makes you stutter more, which creates this downward spiral effect. So how do you get that going in the other direction? I'm going to give you, so one, that's your task, right? So we have to get out in a virtuous cycle.
So what's going to be the thing that allows me to get there? His example was when he would get stuck on a word, he would use another word. So for him, it was about having diverse vocabulary that led him whenever he encountered a word, he had another one ready to go that he could just get out without stuttering. So that, interesting.
Now, going into some of the psychological, sorry, the, I don't even know what words used for this. I want to say neuroanatomical, but it's actually not that, but the mechanistic ways to go about it, there are devices that you can get that create a delay, which is, I don't understand why this works, but in creating a delay, it helps some people get rid of their stutter. So I would be looking into that. I would be typing into YouTube, getting over a stutter.
I would be researching it online. This, almost certainly, there is a device or something that is going to allow you to address this. So I'd go deep. Research, research, research.
All right, YouTube, Nick Solo, I don't know if I should continue chasing my dreams and find new friends and try to make a compromise with my old friends. Say what? If your friends are holding you back, like they got to go, they got to geo, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time. Go back.
I've got to read that again. Like this question is either the most terrifying question of all time. I don't know if I should continue with chasing my dreams and find new friends or try to make a compromise with my old friends. I'm admittedly reading into this, but here's what I hear.
Your friends are somehow heckling you, stopping you, slowing you down from making your dreams come true. Fuck that. Like you've got to be joking. They're not a friend if they're holding you back.
Wish them well. Meet them with compassion, empathy, understanding, all of that. It's very heartbreaking and sad that they're trapped in a place where they aren't following their dreams. They're trying to hold you back.
You've got to be fucking joking. I wouldn't let my own mother hold me back from my dream. So under no circumstance, what compromise would you make? Like that you'll only strive to be so much.
That's in fucking sanity. Thank you for sharing. I'm so grateful because you've been very vulnerable. But Jesus, dear Lord.
Yeah. Next. All right. Facebook.
Jacob Johnson. Tom, what are your thoughts on the fine line between being apologetic for something that transpired in the past to weakness? That transpired in the past due to weakness, I think. Where does being apologetic turn to being weak and conceding?
Ooh. I don't think it ever becomes weakness. I think weakness is its own beast. If you fucked up, own it.
Own it completely and totally and without reservation. Not like, I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I fucked up. I totally messed up.
It is absolutely my bad. Nobody owns that but me. This is entirely on me. And I have to make radical changes in order to be better.
Let me walk you through exactly what I'm going to do to make sure that I never let you down in this way again. Right? I don't know what the exact case is. That's not weakness.
Like if you screwed up, I so aggressively take ownership for the things I do that half the time I think people think I'm a little nuts because I'm apologizing for things they don't think need to be apologized for because I'm apologizing because I broke my own code. So have a code that you live by. And when you fail that, dude, fucking own it. You will be shocked at actually how powerful that makes you seem to the other person because it's like, whoa, this person does not try to pass the buck.
They don't push blame on anybody else. Like they own it. And also doing that because it shouldn't just be words. Like you should really be owning it.
You will grow more powerful by the day. There's absolutely nothing weakness in that. All right. Facebook, Jumani Sablan-Cabrera.
I don't think we've ever seen your middle name before, Jumani, but welcome. How do you push yourself to doing something that scares you? I live my entire life just to this side of panic. So for me, do and believe that which moves your torture goals.
That's it. So I don't trust fear. I don't believe in fear. I get it.
I know what it is. It's my subconscious communicating to my conscious mind. Fair enough. But that doesn't mean that I have to get into it.
So courage is about acting in the face of fear, not the absence of fear. So because I want to be courageous in my life, I'm always forcing myself to do things. So what I do is say, what is my goal? And then I build in mechanisms that I can't back away from.
I'll commit to a speech that I know like it would be more embarrassing to back out of than go through with. So putting myself constantly in positions like a total confession time. We're building a set that we're going to spend a lot of money on to do a new show. I have no idea what the fucking show is going to be, but I've figured it out because that set is getting built.
The money is getting spent. And so doing that forces me to not be paralyzed by fear. I've got to overcome that. Also, and this is big for me, I want to free people from the matrix.
Whenever I think about making money, then I get fearful because it's like, well, I really want to risk money to make more money. But when I think about actually helping somebody and pulling them out of the matrix and then living a better life than they would have for not encountering these ideas, that gets really easy. For me to be of service to other people kills my fear. So that's a big one.
When I actually think this is going to help somebody, it gets very easy to push and push and push. All right. YouTube, Tyler Wall. Tom, long time fan.