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 Bilyeux, serial entrepreneur and co founder of billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. Hey, everybody.
Welcome to another episode of ama. I'm your host, Tom Bilyeu, and we are gonna be taking your questions. So drop them in. Let's get crazy.
Let's get down to this bad boy. We're down a couple people today, so if there are any technical difficulties, bear with us. I'll try to nonetheless dazzle with some amazing answers. All right, the first one comes via the connect in box, which, by the way, if you guys don't know, you can submit [email protected] so we look at every one of those bad boys.
All right, I've been told over and over, even once by Tom, that until I change my identity, I won't change. How the heck do I change my identity? How does someone do that? All right, so this is a great one.
And by the way, we're gonna be making a series of videos about things like this, which I'll consider our frequently asked questions. And identity is actually, it is very, very simple to change. It doesn't mean that it's easy, but it goes like this. First, it starts with identifying what it is exactly that you want to change and then turning that into a very simple statement.
So I'm the type of person that. So if you know that you want to go to the gym every day, I'm the type of person that goes to the gym every day. Now, the key is that you're not just repeating it to yourself, but you're saying to anybody else who will listen, especially people that are very integrated into your life, you care about, it matters to you what they think, that is going to trigger congruence. So once you say it to them, you're feeling like an ass.
If you're not congruent with that, you're not actually doing. You can tell anybody and everybody who will listen what it is that you're going to be doing. So I'm the type of person that goes to the gym every day. I'm the type of person that is always in shape.
I'm the type of person that reads every day, whatever that is. And by saying that, you're literally shaping your identity. Now, the reason that I start with identity instead of behavior is identity actually drives behavior. So if you want to actually go to the gym, then it's not about just creating a habit loop of like, say, setting your gym clothes next to your bed or something like that, which also helps, by the way, because that is a habit loop trigger.
But until you get your identity in the right place, it'll be all too easy to come up with excuses. I cannot tell you. This is probably the one that I encounter the most because it's probably the thing I struggle with the most, which is absolutely hysterical. I do take some solace in the fact that our boy Marcus Aurelius, the famous stoic struggle with getting out of bed, which is exactly what I struggle with.
So I'm the type of person that gets out of bed 10 minutes or less. And this full confession, probably at least twice a week, sometimes three times a week, I think. No, no, no. If I miss my 10 minutes, no, no.
I could just keep saying I'm the type of person and no one would know. But the reality is that when you've told yourself that, when you've told other people that it really does become part of your identity. And so to actually feel like myself, I actually have to get out of bed. And it works.
I'm shocked how well. But nonetheless, that's how you make it a part of your identity. That can be something huge, it can be something little. But as you're forming your identity and building it brick by brick with these things of you're the type of person that it's.
It's pretty amazing how consistent you will become with that. All right, next one is from Lunatic Nick. Nice. It's from YouTube.
What advice do you have for a 17 year old that wants to get into online business, parentheses passive income without getting educated in college or university? All right, there's two parts of this question. One, the notion of passive income. I think that is just a disastrous way to go about getting into something that isn't.
Because there are certain things that you probably could set up. It'd be relatively passive income. But the struggle is guaranteed that success is not. So now you're gonna be working your ass off to try and create passive income, which may never come to fruition.
And so if it wasn't born out of passion, I promise you're gonna lose some percentage of your life to something you don't care about. And this is one of the most important realizations that anyone can make, and that is to create anything in life. It is going to be hard. So if you know that it's going to be hard and that it's not guaranteed that you're going to be successful at it, then make sure that that thing you're working your ass off to make is something that you care about in of itself.
And I think the really important question to ask yourself, what would I do and love every day even if I were failing? Once you have the answ, then you know what to go about. So largely, I think passive income is total. So let's start with that.
And even things that you can get going for a while, the industry is going to change. Especially now in the world that we live in, it's going to change so rapidly, it's not going to stay passive for long. And this is how people get sucked in, spending years and years of their life fighting basically just to keep your head above water. And since it was meant to be passive, they did something that didn't really care about.
And now they look back and six years later, they've just spent six years of their life doing something they really don't care about. So I would say better to make the demand that you do something that you love. Now, I know that the real part of your question is, does getting a college education matter? The answer is absolutely not.
So unless you're doing something that requires a degree like law or medicine or something like that, where literally they're not going to let you practice unless you have that degree, then college is optional. Now I will say, even though it is wildly optional in filmmaking, I'm very glad that I went to film school. For me, at that time in my life, I needed a very strong, structured environment that was very, very important to me. And because I was lazy just to be full disclosure.
So I knew without people around me telling me this is due by this time and that there was all this pressure for me to, you know, excel in a very formal environment, I wouldn't have done as well. So that that was what I needed at that time in my life. Now, however, I know how to learn. I know the systematic steps I need to take to become world class at something.
And so for me, I'd be slowed the fuck down by school, and so I wouldn't go. So you've got to be able to make that differentiation in your life. Nobody can tell you that but you. And then I would run the math.
How much debt am I gonna walk away at the end of this with? So I walked away from college. I remember I was $25,000 in debt, so it wasn't something to sneeze at, but it wasn't, you know, the $200,000 that, like, a doctor can walk away with. And there is no universe in which I would get a degree that put me $200,000 in debt.
Literally none. Nothing. I would find a different. This is unfortunate.
That's my passion. But I'm gonna have to do something else. Like, you're just behind the eight ball in a way that I can't explain. So that's me.
That's my choice. Obviously, people can do what they will, but under no circumstance would I do that. Run the math. All right.
Bendris Rudani from Facebook. How to be always positive. I don't advise being always positive, so I advise an 8020 split. I think 20% of the time, you should be focused on some negative people that hate you.
The things you fucked up in your life, like, all the bad things to kick you in the ass to get you to look at your fallibility, which is also something that's incredibly important. People often ask how with my success, I stay humble. And the reality is I get slapped around by my inadequacy so often I'm not even trying to stay humble. It's just, that's the reality.
And so when you are willing to stare at your inadequacy, one is the only way to actually get better. There's a famous quote from Epictetus, the stoic philosop, you cannot learn what you think you already know. So you've got to be open to being changed. You've got to be open to where you're wrong.
Because once you recognize you don't know you're wrong, you're bad, you're underperforming, then you can actually get good. So I think that that's really, really, really important. 80% of the time, though, you should be focused on positivity. And the way to do that is you get what you focus on.
So if there are things in your life that are going well, stare at those things, fan those flames. Think about the things you're grateful for. Think about the things that you want to build. Think about the things you're willing to strive for and merely your willingness to really go after something you should be proud of, that you should feel good about that, so you're gonna get what you focus on.
So, literally, if you want to be positive, focus on positive. Also, there are these amazing physical entry points to things like this. So laughing even when it's fake, smiling, even when you don't feel like it's watching a comedy, hanging out with a friend who puts a smile on your face all of these things are ways that you can take control of your physiology. And that's something that I think that people miss out all the time.
And by the way, if you're not working out and eating right, good fucking luck. So this is just the truth of human biology, boys and girls. The truth of human biology. If you want to have energy, if you want to feel positive, you have to work out.
Like, I wish it weren't so. You have no idea how much I resent needing to work out. It pisses me off. It just does, because I don't enjoy it.
But I so enjoy having a massive amount of energy, being in a good mood, feeling good. And all of those things come from working out and eating right. And, dude, I want to sit around all day, never work out any junk food. That's what I want in the short term.
But in the long term, I want to feel good and be positive. So those are things not to be ignored. All right, Dre Marina. Facebook.
I've been referred to as a blank slate because of my lack of culture and experiences in life. I want to change that. How and where do I begin? All right, so first and foremost, everybody starts with a blank slate.
They may just start writing on that slate earlier than the next person. But right now, the easiest way is start reading. And actually, this is the time where I'd say a blend of fiction and nonfiction is probably going to serve you best. And then travel, man.
If you can travel and read whilst you travel. If you do that, like those two things alone, I forget who said, but somebody said, like, the thing that most effectively compats narrow mindedness might be March 29, I put you in the quote. But it's something like the thing that combats narrow mindedness the most effectively is travel. Like, as you get out in the world and see how other people live, it is incredible how much more empathy you will have for people, how less you other them.
Was it will, I'm looking at you. Was it Mike Posner that I was talking about that like, it was don't other people? And I had to explain it's actually, I didn't know he meant. But that.
That is really powerful. Right? So you're walking by somebody and let's say they're in pain and need, whatever. The only way to walk by without helping them is to make them the other.
Right? So if it was your mom, who you don't see as the other, you see it as part of your in group and you immediately assist her. But if it's somebody that you don't know you can just turn a blind eye on other than when you're traveling, when you're in a country with people, when you're seeing how they do it, you're just immersed in everything. It's pretty fascinating how rapidly like you feel connected, you have the sympathy, you sort of take on like that country.
Like when I think of all places at least, and I travel, like, I feel a sense of like connection and ownership of that because I've been there, experienced it. So those are tremendous ways. So if you can afford to travel, yay. Do that.
If you can't read. Okay, next one comes from Dayton J. King on Facebook. How do you balance time with family and work?
How many hours? All right, so this sounds like you want a really tactical answ. So here's how it goes for me. First of all, at the beginning of my career, I was all the fuck in on business, period.
And I literally abused. The relationship that I have with my wife is atrocious. My wife is amazing though, and was so supportive that she essentially held her breath for six years. Then at the six year point, she did put her foot down this.
Okay, this is beginning to damage our relationship to the point where it's getting risky, so let's stop doing that. And then we implemented date night, which has shifted from Friday night to Saturday night and now has essentially become most of Saturday. I'd say about 80% of our Saturday is spent together. And then the other 20% is spent with selfish time, which even on Saturday, a lot of times for me is going to be split between video games and work.
So I only do work on the weekends I enjoy, which isn't really a part of the answer to your question, but that's a big thing for me. So doing that, making sure that you've got that time, but then also understanding if you're really ambitious like I am, that your ambition is. See if I can explain this. Well, my relationship with my wife is my highest priority, but the one thing she can't ever ask me to give up is my ambition.
So from an hour's perspective, I actually spend a lot more time on my ambition than I do on my relationship. That's just true. But over the years, my wife and I have realized that we really enjoy coming together on the ambition. So she was part of the founding team at Quest.
We founded Impact Theory as equal partners and she very much is an equal partner in the business from a reality perspective of what she's doing, putting together, working on. And what we found is Having a shared dream of the same thing we're trying to build means even though, like right now she's off doing something else while I'm doing the Emma, but we have that same goal of what we're trying to build. So there's still a sense of connection as we're doing this. So that's been really, really helpful in our relationship.
And the reality is that I'm not the right guy to take advice from. If you're on balance, I don't leave imbalance. I don't find it interesting from the perspective of what I want out of my life. I'm doing exactly what I want.
So that's it. So from a raw hours perspective, Monday through Friday, if I'm awake, I'm either working or working out. So that means my wife and I spend essentially zero time together as husband and wife. And then on the, on Saturday specifically, It's about an 80, 20 split.
80% of the time with my wife and then 20% of the time selfishly doing other things which primarily work. And then on Sunday, it's a mix. So I usually do a pretty significant amount of work on Sunday, but I also make time for my sister who also lives in Los Angeles, and my wife, My sister and I have amazing time hanging out. All right, enough on that next question.
Question is from Glasseye. All right, then, YouTube. Can you give us details on your note taking method while you read? Absolutely.
So I keep. So everything I do is audible. So I'll be listening to the book at 3x, which 3x means three times the normal speed. So the Audible app actually lets you speed things up.
As I'm going and I hear something that's interesting, I'm either going to do one of two things. I'm either going to sort of take the notion and write the notion down, or I'm going to say, I want to memorize this quote. So if I want to memorize the quote, I actually mark this down differently in my notes. Anytime I put something in quotes, that means it is verbatim and I will sit there and pause and listen and dictate.
Obviously I slow it down. I don't do that at 3x and I get it word for word accurate. If I'm just doing the paraphrase, then I'll just pause it and really get the concept in my head and write it out. And sometimes I'll even add like my take on it.
So the author said, you know, something like this and this is what it makes me think of. Right. And so then Like, I'm reading, really wrapping my head around what that concept is. I take notes probably on about realistically, like 80% of the big notions in the book, but only say 15% of the, like, specific nitty gritty.
So for the most part, like, I'm just in the zone with the book and then once listening and I'm just going. And then once I realize, okay, this is like a thematic point. This is like something important that I can use in my life and write it down. And I'm almost, I'm entirely trying to assess what I can use in my life versus trying to write a book report, if that makes sense.
So I have no interest in treating a summary of something that somebody else could read and feel like they read the book. If you read the notes, which, by the way, if you want the notes that I take, we actually publish the notes that I write on the books that I read. Go to impactory.com Sign up for the Knowledge trailer. And the Knowledge Trail is every book that I read in the notes that I have taken on that.
And what you're going to see is it's me dissecting the book from its usability to me. So you may find that my notes are horrific because they are not Cliff Notes. This is not me trying to say, here's the book neatly packaged for you. I have thought, how am I going to use this in my life?
And I've taken notes from that perspective. Let's talk about what is going on in your closet this time of year. Most people realize half of what they own isn't even worth keeping. Things that look fine in the store, but they don't hold up.
Pieces you keep but never reach for. I know that one all too well. Spring is when you see it all clearly. You don't need more, you need better.
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Niv Morgenstern. This is from Facebook. If you could build a university from scratch, how would you build it? What was in it?
You know something that I've thought very surfacely about recently? Jared and I discussed this in an episode of After Impact. I think it was the episode on Titus o'. Neill.
Check it out. Thaddeus Blurd as his real name, but he's the WWE superstar Titus o'. Neill. Check it out.
And I think that ultimately which, first of all, I'm not the right person answer this question, so let's start with that. But I would focus almost entirely on, like, really based fundamental things. So, for instance, how to build a belief system. I think it's just incredibly important, actually building that belief system so that it's reinforced immeasurably in the university.
How to learn at just like, a high level. Like, what is the process of learning? And then problem solving. And problem solving is really gonna be the big one, because the thing that holds most people back is they hit an obstacle and they stop and they just don't know how to think creatively and they run the problem.
They don't have the tenacity to handle the grit in order to go over under through a round, invent something entirely new, whatever it takes to get beyond that. And I think that is very much a learnable skill. And I believe that I really am the composite of a bunch of learned things. I'm not a born entrepreneur.
I'm not a born filmmaker. These are all things I've decided that I'm interested in, I've decided are important to me. I've cultivated a love and passion for. It wasn't just like, oh, I sprang forth and these were the things that I wanted to do.
And I believe that that's true of everybody. Well, I think people get really inclin. Why Genius Doesn't Matter is one of our episodes with just an incredibly brilliant person by the name of Taylor Wilson. Watch that episode for him, talking about the thing that propelled him forward wasn't his intellect.
He said his brother is actually much, much smarter than he is. But he had a passion. He's developed a passion for nuclear physics, of all things. So I believe that we cultivate those things in our life.
And so the university would really be about cultivation, helping people actually develop those things. So that's it. I feel like there was one other thing I was gonna mention, but I'm now forgetting what it was. Yeah.
So we'll move on. Oh, I would use technology. So I think if you gamify learning and entrepreneurship is one of the ways to really gamify learning, because you can actually do things. You can change the world.
You can create jobs, you can generate money for yourself. You can generate capital. You need to build other things. It is the ultimate gamification.
It is fucking crazy. When I look at my life and I went from scrambling the couch cushions, finding a change with gas in my car, to building impact theory, having the crazy Beverly Hills mansion like it's Crazy. It actually changes your life and what you're able to do. It's pretty phenomenal.
And that really makes learning for me this very visceral thing of, whoa, if I learn this skill, then I can go do this thing. That's why I'm so obsessed with skill acquisition. It actually makes you capable of something that's super, super important. All right.
Lauren Zapata on Facebook. Tom, I've always wondered, how do you monetize your business? All you do is share great content for free and you're still growing. How so here's the answer.
We monetize what we're doing now, but not like if we were counting on the monetization that we're doing now. This business is going to end in the next few years. So here's what Lisa and I did. So because we have the capital to sell, fund the business for a very long time without worrying about the need to make money, we can play a long term game.
The long term game that we're playing is building the studio. So we do make money off of this content. So like working on brand partnerships with the podcast, we get some advertising dollars off of the, the YouTube stuff. I get paid very well to speak, which by the way, if anybody wants to hire me as a speaker, that's very possible.
Email connect3.com so those are all like the, the short term revenue generator. So we have three phases of revenue. So phase one is what we call short term money, which is it's, you know, decent, but it's, it's certainly not going to allow us to grow the studio the way we want to grow. And those are primarily the things that I just listed, also the merchandise.
So like for instance, we make this shirt, we make a whole line of shirts that you can go buy right now on shop impactory.com we make revenue there as well. And our long term play is actually merchandising. But to get the merchandising, we have to build the studio. The real merchandising, like the big, like where people don't know our brand.
So you have to differentiate the things we sell right now. Merchandising or because people know the brand, they love the brand about the value of their lives and so they want something called self signaling where they remind themselves of their connection to the community, to the ideology, all that. Ultimately though, what we're doing is we're putting out, we're going to be making studios. So think of Disney.
So we're going to put out content like Disney. So we'll Be doing comic books, we'll be doing TV shows, movies, so on and forth. Now the idea there is to create ideology that resonates with people. And then the echo from that is the merchandise.
So not only T shirts, stuffed toys, toys, bed sheets, lampshades, watches, like all of it, right? It literally is a Disney model. It's called a total merchandising strategy. And we're just in a very fortunate position where we can do what I think is the ultimate marking vehicle, which is I'm going to add value to your guys life relentlessly for years and years and years.
And that will give you guys infinity for the brand. So that when we create something, I say, hey guys, it starts, please go check it out. If you love it, tell people you love it. If you hate it, then tell people you hate it.
I just want you to talk about it, I want you to share with people, I want you to engage with it. And so that gives us power. I believe the community is a new currency. So, and I think that the only way, quite frankly, to really build a massive community is to add value for free.
So I'm trying to add a crush amount of value. That's part of the reason that I tour around and give talks. It's why I do the meetups. It's why do what we call the endless Q and A, where I'll go somewhere, I'll speak, and then I'll stay for as long as it takes to answer every question that people have.
And I've been for up to 11 hours and I'm talking without even taking a break to pee. I stand there for 11 hours and answer questions because I want people to know I'm willing to suffer to help you make your dreams come true. And the reason that I'm doing that is I believe that's a short way to build a big business I can monetize the shit out of. And I want people to be very clear, this is not a charity, this is a for profit business.
But I believe the world has changed. The world has changed, boys and girls. And the way to build a really big business is to first build a community, or certainly in conjunction. But we're in a very fortunate position here.
We have the capital to just really, really focus on content. But you can see we're doing more and more monetizing as we go, pushing our merch harder. You'll see. Now any Instagram post that I do, if I'm wearing one of our shirts, I'll tag it, hey, please, I want you to go Buy it.
And I believe in what we put out there. So I feel very good about selling it. We're going to sell harder and harder and harder. The maybe one day I'll be able to figure out a way where I feel really good about selling information, but I don't right now it just feels like it should all be free.
So that's why we're doing it. And we bring people into our ecosystem that way. So that's it. All right, Adam Dukes, this is on Facebook.
How do you deal with self doubt? I love self doubt. I think it's fucking amazing if you keep it in check. So 20% of my time I actually spend in self doubt asking like what am I really worried about?
What am I worried I'm not going to be able to pull? I want to look at that, I want to pretend, I want to really know, like where do I think I'm weak? And I'm going to look at that and I'm going to say okay, how can I address this through real tactical skills. The key thing to overcoming self doubt is there's one thing you have to believe about yourself and that thing is in fact lean closer boys and girls, lean closer.
Because this is the key to everything you have to believe. Humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. That we are wired for learning, growing, improvement. That there is a process in our brains called myelination.
It's brain plasticity. And by doing something repetitively you will get better at it. That is the nature of being human. That is how we become the apex predator.
Nature makes a decision of every creature it creates. Option 1 pre program everything. Think of a horse, it's born and it can run and jump immediately that day. Humans on the other hand, are wired for adaptability.
Not knowing what situation you're going to be born into, being able to go anywhere and adapt, being able to learn any specialty and get good at that thing. You could go and become a pipefitter, you could go and become a novelist, you can become anything you want. That's adaptability. Now once you accept that all humans have the ability to adapt, you don't have to believe you're special or different.
You simply have to believe you are a human and you can adapt. Awesome. Now all the self doubts but I'm not good enough. Just slap on the word yet.
I'm not good enough yet. I suck at this thing right now. But I could get better. Once I decide to allocate my mental resources, my energy, my time, my effort to that thing.
I can get good at that that is the only thing I believe about myself. But I just believe to the core of my existence that that is what humans are designed to do. Now it becomes how tenacious am I? And I'll ask you guys the same question.
How tenacious are you? Do you have the willingness to bend over backwards, to break yourself and have to believe for the thing that you want to do? Can you fucking David Goggins it? Can you grind so hard that other people think you're literally out of your minds?
And. And are you ready? Because this is the fucking secret. Can you find a way to love that process?
Can you love it as much as you love your significant other? Can you love it as much as you love cheesecake? Because I'm telling you, the reason that I've been able to do what I've been able to do is because I love that fucking process. And I have built into my ego a love of staring at my inadequacies, a love of knowing that I'm going to show up when other people don't.
A love of wanting the ball and not being afraid to fail, of falling on my face and knowing I will look, look at what it was that caused me to fall on my face. I will address it by acquiring a new skill. And because I love that process that I actually get a neurochemical response, the kind of thing that people get from eating a bowl of ice cream. I've trained into myself to get out of looking at my failures, to get out of staring at my inadequacies, to get out of pushing myself long past Pain, boredom, all of that.
Those are some of my most joyful moments because I built that in my system. Once you do that, you will become truly unstoppable. So self doubt will crumble in the face of that. All right, next is from Ike Bransad.
Ike Bransad. There it is. YouTube. What would you recommend to someone who is trying to move on from past failures, but other people don't seem to forget them.
Fucking love them for that. Love them for the doubt. Love them for the fact they're trying to hold you back. Because, oh my friends, once you understand the power of the dark side.
I went and saw Star wars last night, the last Jedi. The reason this movie I am obsessed with Star wars is because they are honest about the fact that there is power and danger, but there is power in the dark side. I spend 20 of my time thinking about the people that want me to fail, thinking about the people that want to keep me in a box, thinking about the People who think they're better than me, that want to crush me down, that want to see me fail, they want to see me suffer. Now it's only 20%, but I spent 20 of my time there because I refuse.
I refuse to let people see me fail in the long run. I refuse to let people hold me down and I refuse to let other people define me. And you've got to get to the point where you know that that doubt, that anger, that hatred on their part is against gift. It is a gift because it's something to push back against and say what you will, have that chills, say what you will about the beauty.
Where you should be spending 80% of your time, there is more acute meaning short periods of time, that short burst. There's more power in pushing back against somebody. There's more power in showing somebody proving them wrong. There's more power in that in short bursts.
I want to be very clear about that. Don't live there. It will become corrosive and destructive. But there's more power in short bursts of anger, rage, just fury, than there is in the beauty.
And when you understand how to capitalize on that, when you understand that if you can keep it in check and keep it only 20% of your time, that that is a gift that someone has given you, then you'll propel yourself forward. Let's talk about the most powerful force in wealth building, compounding. There's a reason that people talked about this forever. You put an asset to work, it generates more of itself over time, the curve bends way in your favor.
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This is from YouTube. Tom, I recognize I have unhealthy ways of validating my self love or self worth which affects my relationships and people in business. What do you do to reprogram your unhealthy ways of validation to something more effective? So first of all, the fact you're asking questions have this level self awareness is absolutely amazing.
So what you're gonna do is you'll identify the ways in which you're doing it that are unhealthy. Actually write them down and then you're train yourself out of them. You're the way we always change our behaviors by changing our identity. So I'm the type of person that, so if you know you've got the negative ways, so you're gonna have to get rid of them the way we get rid of things.
Not by focusing on breaking down the oldest, by building the new. So, so instead of here are the things I've done like that aren't good. Instead of doing those, what are the things you should be doing? So identify the ways you can do it that's in a healthy way.
And then I'm the type of person that whatever the healthy thing is you're going to do to overcome the negative thing that you've been doing. And I really need like more specifics on this question to give you a really powerful answer. Let me just come up with a couple things you can do to really get healthy and what you validate yourself. So what you build your pride around matters your self esteem.
So being a learner is just way, way powerful. It's going to build humility into your system because a learner's always gonna be willing to sit somebody else's feet, learn from them no matter what. They, they aren't worried about the ways in which they're better. They're only worried about the ways in which they can learn from that person.
It's incredibly powerful. So I'm the type of person that is a learner. I'm the type of person that is always willing to admit what they don't know. Right?
So being willing to admit when you're wrong, that's incredibly healthy and super powerful and it makes other people feel so good. I'm the type of person that gives credit where credit's due. Right. One thing I try to build into goal is recognizing the way in which other people have helped me, that they propel me forward.
Somebody else has a good idea to really let the light shine on them and let them know like dude, you crush it. This, this was your idea. Because part of what I run the risk of is I try to be the energy behind ideas. And if you don't acknowledge whose idea it was, then simply because everybody's getting behind your energy, it looks like you're trying to take credit for the idea.
So make sure you just give credit away. Now, here's the irony. When you give credit, people keep coming to you with great ideas. They want to give you their ideas because they know you'll be coming in.
So anyway, those are just three ways that you can do things that are really, really healthy. You can probably identify more, but those are three that get you started. They're just super empowering to other people, super empowering to yourself. It's, you know, humility, first attitude, belief system.
So, yeah, get after it. All right, this name, the next name has the most slashes accent Morrison I've literally ever seen my entire life. So I'm sure this is how you actually pronounce it, but ignoring the dashes, it's Rosa Jadzik. Yep, that's close.
All right, this is from Facebook. How do I deal with hate? The more successful we are, the more hate we usually get. Do you find this to be accurate?
Only sort of. So I think that as you get bigger, hopefully the ratio of people that hate you to love you stays the same. There's just more of them. So from a raw data perspective, it's the same percentage, but just a bigger number.
So. And I just, like, really went hard on addressing how to deal haters, which is love it, recognize it as a gift, because it gives you the acute power to push back against something. And while it's not a great strategy for 80% of your time, it's an amazing strategy for 20% of your time. So that's how you'll hate and understand, like, where it comes from.
Right? People are doing naps, are insecure, they think they're losing. And literally, literally, even if it doesn't come from that place, it's not a place of insecurity. It's just a dumb fucking strategy.
So people that waste time putting negativity out world so crazy, like, those are units of energy that you could have spent building something, and instead you're trying to spend time turning something down. That's so dumb. It's just a dumb strategy. So I don't even need you to believe that, oh, they're weak and it's insecurity and, oh, you should just be empathetic.
Just recognize it's a dumb strategy. Like, you're literally wasting Time putting negativity out of the world. And there's a great quote, is not me and somebody else for getting set now. But the way that we build the new is not by spending our energy tearing down the old.
It's entirely focused on actually building the new thing. So if you want to make change, focus on the new and worry about turning down the old. People that are putting negativity are worried about turning the old instead of just outperforming. It's crazy.
All right, Tanya Cox from YouTube. How do I move past guilt from hurting someone in the past, whether it be business or personal life? Go to that person and apologize. Oh, own it.
Just apologize. I don't think there's really any other way, like owning it and telling people that you're sorry and then you gotta move past it because they may or may not forgive you, that there's nothing you can do about that. And letting yourself get caught up in some cycle where they want to basically own you for the mistake you made. Absolutely fucking not.
But own it. Apologize and move on. I don't think there's any other way. And then just do amazing shit in your life, Things that make you proud.
Look forward. Don't be trapped in the past. Keep moving forward. All right, Jennifer Etfield on Facebook.
I look at everything as a teachable moment. Very wise. As a business owner and mentor to others, what has been one of the most profound things you have learned of late? I never quite understand, like, the timestamp on questions like this.
So rather than tell you what I've learned of late, let me just give you some of the most important things that I've learned, period. As a business owner and mentor, probably the most important thing I've learned is not to try to be an apostle. Like, I'm not out there trying to change people's minds. So I have a belief system that has proven to me that it works.
And I'm going to put out the world for anybody that wants to listen. I'm not trying to convince people. I'm not in the game of convincing. I'm the game very much of preaching to the choir.
So I'm trying to build a bigger and bigger choir. And then once the choir is here, I want people to understand, like, hey, here's what I've learned. Take it, run with it. But I'm not trying to convince people that I need to do that.
So that, to me, is just not. Not an effective strategy. I think you lose so much time to people that just aren't ready. Like, I Just have the energy for that.
And that did not used to be the case. I had a deep and fundamental belief that I convince anyone of anything. And while that may be true, the amount of energy that it takes to convince some people is just spastic. So I don't spend that just doesn't make sense.
So preach to the choir. That's my advice. All right, next up, Kelsey Mayer from Facebook. For those of us working in social services, how do we guard our minds against the poverty mindset?
I judge everything through the lens of effectiveness. And so if you can recognize, and it seems like by the question that you recognize, you can recognize the poverty mindset doesn't make any sense, then I would adopt it. Also, if you're gonna be spending that much time with people that exist in that mindset, then you need to counterbalance that by spending time with people who think big, who have the exact opposite, which we call the impact theory mindset. When you have people that have the impact theory mindset and just really have empowering belief system and you're spending copious amounts of time with them, one, I think it's just gonna re energize you to go back and keep doing what you're doing.
Which, by the way, is a beautiful human service. Yeah, I think you mean that like if I were a grief counselor or I was a person that I was just listening to a podcast. So we just did an episode with Mike Posner. I don't know if you guys know him, the musician, incredibly interesting guy.
And he did on his podcast, which by the way is utterly fascinating, check it out. Called what does this all mean? Or what does this all About? That is he had a, had a chaplain that deals with people that are dying.
And I just thought, whoa, if I were doing that, I would have to offset that with like amazing beautiful things on the other end. I just couldn't exist entirely in that world. Um, so yeah, that's what I do. I use a counterbalance strategy of if you're going to be dealing with that mindset a lot, you need to also have on the other side be dealing with an empowering mindset.
Okay, Gabby Lilly, this is from YouTube. How would you recommend gamifying? Changing mindset, overcoming limiting beliefs, changing negative triggers to positive triggers. Okay, so this is the thing in life has the most natural gamification built built in.
So the one sort of non natural part is going to be self congratulatory behavior. So you've got to get the point where you're really effective at self congratulating I know how bad that sounds, but it's really effective. And so when you do something that's the behavior that you want, then you need to reward yourself. You need to feel good about that.
You need to really be proud of yourself in that moment. So you need to get good at that. The other thing is, when you have that mindset, the reality is you're building that mindset so you can acquire skills. And so you need to reward yourself for acquiring the skills, because the skills of the thing that are going to have real world implications.
So when I look at just how much my life has changed, and I talked about this earlier, I took myself from scrounging my couch cushions to find enough changeable gas in my car to just being wealthy beyond my most fantastic imagination. So that is really, really critical to recognize is that skills have actual implication. And so being very smart about the skills that you acquire, because they're going to allow you to do something, they're going to allow you to have impact, they're going to allow you to outperform, they're going to allow you to build things. And those things that you're building, if there's something you actually care about get you the result you want, they have real tangible consequences in your life.
It is astonishing to me that people want to pretend like the government could hold them down or anything like that. The reality is, once you know how to dazzle your fellow human beings, you can get anything you want out of life, period. Anything you want. If you can dazzle your fellow human beings, you can get anything you want.
So let me tell you, if I found myself tomorrow in a country that were that just stamp that out, made entrepreneurialism illegal, I would like. It's that simple. Unless I were imprisoned and even that, my mind would immediately go to how I get out of the situation. In fact, go read the Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, please, and hear how he thought about the process of being incarcerated and how he looked at do I escape?
What do I do? How do I communicate to the outside world how I still have meaning? It's really, really incredible. There's always something that you can do to dazzle your fellow human beings.
And the way you do that is by getting really good at something. Get really good at something. I just can't stress that enough. Like your life should be about getting so good at something that matters to you that you can't be denied.
Go acquire skills, my friends. All right, step in. I've just brutalized your last name so badly, I'm just going to skip seven. This is from Facebook.
How do you become genuinely interested in people? People. Okay. How do you become genuinely interesting people?
All right, so here's the process. There is something in your life that you already care about that you find interesting. So what you want to do is immediately get past the surface talk, Castle, weather all that and get right to that thing that you care about. So you can be a little bit selfish here and you're going to take the conversation to something you find interesting.
Now, the wonderful thing about that, not only is it authentic, you're going somebody you find fascinating, it's actually gonna make that person feel good because you're asking them questions. So the irony of all of this is the same thing that's going to allow you to fall in love by going somewhere selfish, by asking that person what they know that you find interesting, they're going to realize, whoa, this person is interested in me. And so they're going to light up around you. And so now, as you chase your selfish, authentic desire to connect and find that common area of interest.
Interest. They're going to be like, well, this person's exploring. Now, you may not be able to connect with everyone. There may be things like some people just.
You can't find it. Fine. Cool. Hey, you asked, you tried.
Hopefully you phrase your questions in a way that are in of themselves interesting. Like, when I meet somebody new, one of my favorite questions to lead off with because it's so aggressive, is to just say, what's your deepest passion in life? And people always like, whoa. Like, yeah, I guess you're not much for small talking.
Not at all. Like, I really want to know. And that to me is fascinating. Like, I'm fascinated by nothing hyper specific.
Like, what do you think about ornithology? It's, hey, what's your deepest passion? Now, I don't know where they're go, but what people are just obsessed with what their deep passion is, even though their answer is nothing. I'm so interested in that.
And by the way, back question, when people are like, I don't know, like, they immediately go to this really cool, like, place as a human where it's like, wow, nobody's ever asked me that. I haven't even thought about that. I'm not sure what I'm passionate about. And like, you immediately take them to this fascinating place of, like, existential crisis, where now they're talking about something that's real, they're thinking about something that's real, and now you're sharing that moment if you're not a dickhead and you're really open to, like, being in that vulnerable place with them, it's so cool.
So anyway, that's how really ask about things that you care about. That's the first thing. All right, Jesse Bailey from Facebook. Yo, Tom.
What is one of your most impactful defining moments while you were on the climb to becoming successful? What did you learn from it? All right, it's sadly rare that you really have epiphany, but I had exactly one real epiphany on my way up, and that was that what I built my self esteem around mattered. And what happened was I so built myself around being right, being smart, being good, talented.
And I found myself in a position where people were just smarter than me. They were way ahead of me on the journey. They just knew more than me. And so I felt insecure all the time.
The time. And so what I found myself doing was I was always trying to argue my way to being right. If it was my idea, I was just fighting for 5, 4, 5, 4, even when I knew it was wrong answer terms of moving towards my goals. And one day, just like a ton of bricks, I'm arguing for an idea that's bad.
Even though it's moving away from goals. I'm doing it because it was my idea. And I want to win the argument, feel good and smart. And so I thought, whoa, this is really dumb.
Like, I'm either lying myself, what I really want, because what I tell people is I have this goal, which is the time is to get rich. And I tell people I want to be rich, I'm going to be rich, willing to do whatever takes to get rich. And here I am arguing for an idea that I know will move me away from that because I want to be right. So I was like, which is it?
Which do I want? By the way, I wasn't passing judgment on myself. I just wanted to know, like, for real, what do you want? Because if you want to feel good about yourself in and of this moment for being right, you're around the wrong people because they're too smart and much better than you.
So immediately get out of this situation. Go be around people that know less than you so you can feel smart. And if that's what you want to do, man, just go enjoy it. Or recognize that isn't what you want and what you really want is your goal.
And now start acting in accordance with your goal. That was a massive breakthrough for me. And what I decided was I needed to feel good about myself. And I wanted to go after my goals.
So I need to switch my self esteem around to something that would always move me towards my goals. So instead of valuing myself, being right or being smart, I decided to value myself for being a learner who was always willing to admit when he was wrong. That literally changed my life. And if you had to put a pin on the one thing that has really made me successful, that's it.
All right, next question. Khalif Williams. Hey Tom, how do you cope with anxiety? All right, anxiety is a very real condition.
I'll call it a neurological condition. It's slightly misleading, but it's a physiological condition. How about that? So it can be described in terms of purely physiological condition.
And this is important to understand so you understand how I deal with it. So number one, anxiety is you're stuck in the sympathetic nervous system, the fight, flight or freeze response. So your heart rate is elevated, your breathing is shallow, your, the blood in your brain has actually left the neocortex. And it's going to be more primitive parts of your brain to deal with fight or flight.
So knowing all that, you're literally primed to not be very effective. And so it gets in the self reinforcing loop. The more anxious you get, you get more anxious because you're actually performing worse. And so all your worst nightmares are coming true.
So your anxiety just continues to rise. Okay, so once I understood what was going on from a physiological condition, and by the way, I feel it very important to point out I'm going to guess this is very much a hypothesis, but I'm going to guess over the next five to 10 years it comes out with increasing fervor. That anxiety is dramatically tied to the microbiome. Now 95 of your serotonin, which has to do with that feel good calm sense is stored in your gut.
Now super fucking weird to me, but nonetheless it's true. And if that's true, you have dysbiosis, which is a dysregulation of your microbiome, then my gut instinct is that the two are inextricably linked and that your microbiomes totally mess up that you're gonna be more anxious. Now there is definitely mindset component to this as well, and that's part we can address a very acute manner. And it goes like this.
You need to learn to diaphragm breathe. Diaphragm breathing is what's going to take you out of the sympathetic nervous system that fight or flight and move you into the parasympathetic nervous system because they exist. What's called a negative feedback loop, meaning you can't be both in the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system at the same time. Basically, a teeter totter.
So as the sympathetic nervous system goes up, the parasympathetic nervous system goes down and vice versa. So the parasympathetic nervous system is known as rest. And diagnostic digest is where you're chilling out. Your heart rate is slowing down, your breathing is nice.
Deep in front of the diaphragm, you get this calming sensation. You feel very relaxed. So literally, the number one trick that I employ for getting out of an anxiety loop is a diaphragm breath. Now, even though I just did both in and out of my mouth, I actually typically do an in through my nose diaphragm breath out through my mouth, diaphragm breath.