How To Monetize Your Skills - Tom Bilyeu Interview

I'm in high school with you okay we're in tenth grade yep boost on vinyl ah if it weren't for social media I would be convinced that someone from high school right now is thinking of me as a failed stand-up comic somewhere it was just like a whole mess Oh alcohol made me feel like I was suppressing the urge to dance on the table so you're not a fan of the universal basic income of $1,000 a month to any American no matter what I'm super broke living in an apartment with no furniture I could not see a path to success wish I had a chance to meet you away she believed in me at times when I was like over I don't know if I can do this that's powerful wait a minute who doesn't have a bar everybody's got a bar everyone told us we were crazy leaving technology and going into food let me say that is absolutely nuts what you guys did one I just want to acknowledge that you've done your homework you got a good story it got so heated I was like we're actually about to throw punches you guys are corny crazy okay bowl of it like what skill set has the highest upset highest return the little better you think you can get is the tip of an iceberg you can radically transform your life all of us two buttons man this is crazy and everyone turns I mean they're like what Dad wax on wax off this phone crazy ass story [Music] what are the things I like about my guest today he's a trifecta which is somebody who has his own theories right they have experience working with other successful people but they've also applied their own philosophies to win because not only has he been successful as somebody who worked as they may be the third person in a company then he want to became a founder with the company they sold the four billion dollars he's made a lot of money for himself you can go search his network to see what kind of money this is a lot of people can say their network but this is like I sold the company for this much and this is how much money I made so we're gonna talk about how he worked with his other two partners and then on top of that he starts a YouTube channel called impact Theory which by the way if you're on social media if you consume any content on social media you have absolutely seen this man he asks the right question great interviewer and he interviewed me a few weeks ago I said we got to bring you example into his house I was blown away by his operation his organization his ability put it together so I said we got to bring you here to Dallas and do the interview so today's guest is Tom balloon Tom what's up man thanks for coming out man thanks for having me yes you're a pro I like your stuff man you're you're very different than a lot of guys online I got to tell you thank you so before we get into it obviously anybody who knows you'd have heard your story and we're gonna go through that part you know growing a business 57,000 percent first 30 years 1,200 employees I think at one point you guys had your product quest bar being sold at what 40,000 different points that you guys sound like some stores all these other things and very very good story so I want to go to that part and we'll talk a little bit of family a little bit of current times what you're thinking about what's taking place and we'll go from there so before we do go into deeper into the business I'm in high school with you okay we're in 10th grade yep who's Tom vital ah so I wanted to be a comedian so in 10th grade that would have been my identity a thousand percent oh yes everyday at lunch I practiced my stand-up so I would let's say we're at a table with 10 people I would do 45 minute impromptu comedy routine and my goal always was to get there was one guy if you could get him just right he'd actually spit his soda through his nose so I was always trying to like hit that level of funny and I just thought that was gonna be the course of my life in fact if it weren't for social media I would be convinced that someone from high school right now is thinking of me as a failed stand-up comic somewhere and before does it start oh is this tenth grade oh Clark today um it probably so my sister was really good at sports and she's older than me so I naturally followed her into that but I did not have her proclivity for sports I did not yet have a growth mindset so I didn't think I could work to get better so I stepped into it I had no natural talent it was very embarrassing some of my most embarrassing moments are related to sports I'll give you one quick one I was the slowest person in the district I ran cross-country and my thighs used to rub together till they bled it was just like a whole mess when you say thighs I mean were you a heavy yeah I was about 200 pounds when I was 14 so it was all over you had 14 I was relatively tall but I'll put me at like 5 8 5 9 I mean that's your heavy yeah yeah for sure by today's standards not so much but back then yes people thought of me as being a little bit chubby interest but but by like when people look at my photos from before it's like you weren't heavy well that's compared to now so comedian yeah that was like the whole shtick so about in seventh grade I found theater I found that kind of stuff and really poured myself into speech and debate and yeah thought I'd be a stand-up comic now it's a comedian because you had a tough life growing up because you know comedians sometimes they have to make people laugh and have to make things easier Kevin Hart you know he had to figure out a way to make himself calmer in the pressure situation was it just purely because you like making people laugh and entertaining people I think some of it was where do I fit in the family dynamic and realizing that oh I I could make people laugh and then they started turning to me to make them laugh and then I found that was a way I think I would have been picked on a lot if I cuz I was in band I was a little bit chubby I was bad at sports so I would have been picked on but I found that if I could make people laugh I could disarm them so the biggest guy in the school once said yeah don't don't quit Bill you because he's funny and so like that became my thing was I could talk my way out of anything but when I went to college because my comedy was based on making fun of myself I wanted to take myself more seriously I wanted to stop doing the self deprecation all the time and so because I didn't have a wounded childhood because I did not have a need to make people laugh it was just something that had served me I stopped doing it on a dime self-deprecation yep totally because you don't want that to be your identity correct now do you think there's a link between comedians and genius because their brain goes a million miles an hour so if you think they're I think that if you are good there there is definitely more than coke out of his nose so you must be doing something look when you compare me to a Robin Williams or a Kevin Hart or somebody like that who's just at the top of their game I was never funny like that so I was what I'll call living room funny so in a living room situation if I told you hey I want to be a comedian be like yeah you're gonna be great this is amazing but one of the most transformational moments in my life do you know who Mitch Hedberg is I don't oh my god Patrick I'm about to introduce you to somebody here so I went to I decided I was going to get back into it so long story short my life was not going in the direction I wanted after college I was looking desperately to find like how am I gonna get back on track so I think I'll go back to comedy yet I was so good at it so I do a routine at the Laugh Factory open mic night la la okay and at open mic night you start with about 300 people and I was the first one there I did my thing I was funny but not no one's gonna remember me and everyone starts leaving as their friend finishes the open mic and then at the end you get really famous comedians that come on and they try new material so it's usually bad so by the last comedian it's like I'm not joking maybe 12 people left one and finally we get to they're about to announce the last comedian I can't take it anymore so I tell my friend hey let's get out of here we stand up this guy comes onstage he's like yo before you go you're gonna want to stay for this last guy because he is the funniest man in America I thought all right that's pretty big hype let's see we sit back down and this guy I've never heard it before in my life Mitch Hedberg comes out on stage he is so funny that part way through the act I actually think to myself can you die laughing one time a guy handed me a picture of me say here's a picture of me when I was younger every picture is of you when you were younger because I can't catch my breath it was insanity now you can google him he's that funny and I was like okay I could get that good but I would have to dedicate my entire life to it because I now see what funny is and getting some laughs is different than making somebody ask can you die laughing well you know that's the part that I think you and I have in common with is did you logically write their say I don't know if I can compete with this guy so logically this is not the business for me I'm leaving this industry is that kind of what it was I said it a little bit differently I was like I needed to believe I could beat him on a long enough time yeah like I needed to believe if I put my energy and I said into this I could beat him and so I said that to myself but in the room still they were sitting like sweat from laughing I was like I'm never doing this again God because I'm not willing to give myself over to it that was always meant to lead me to something else too so because what I wanted to do was direct which is like the biggest cliche of all time so I wanted to direct and I thought well if I can get attention by being funny then I've got the opportunity now you know the other part that's interesting with me with your stories the fact that you you're not a drug guy you said the first time you tried marijuana you were 26 or something like yeah well that was the first time I tried alcohol was even later for marijuana but yeah so wait a minute first time you tried alcohol was 26 marijuana is later land said you've never done cocaine it and nothing else outside of that so what was is it were you born in a faith-based family with strong values and principles no but there's something about my mom she has a way of like making it sound like a really bad idea and my I had a lot of aunts and uncles and second cousins and stuff that were all alcoholics drug addicts and watching them I thought oh that is not a good look I mean it like real like some real white trashy stuff yeah and so I just like no and my mom was chiming in with it's way bad you don't want to do it you don't want to end up like that so she's my ear making it sound really logical to not do it and I'm watching people act a fool who are doing it so I just thought yeah was anything she said I was different at it the ordinary like was it fear-based apps if you're gonna die you're gonna do this you'll ruin your life somehow someway yeah I I when I thought I was gonna have kids I wanted to ask my mom like you were so good like neither my sister or I ever got into trouble we never did drugs we never drank really yeah but she wasn't like some tyrants about it so I had a whole thing where I was gonna have her document like how does he did it it's very impressive I don't know have you ever interviewed your mom I haven't but I want to do a legacy video for her I mean it would be fascinating mortified you're talking three kids nope no drugs or alcohol to kids via to kids no drugs no drugs no alcohol no trouble nothing my sister to this day is like the most straight and narrow person you show when you tried it what was it like for you look yes alcohol both of them oh alcohol made me feel like I was suppressing the urge to dance on the table it is awesome and I love it the most I just don't let myself do it because it's not in it's not congruent with wanting to live forever there's just too many downsides but that [ __ ] is fun so like I get how people get in trouble I just don't have an addictive personality so for me it was easy to be like yeah this is fun but I can weigh it against the disadvantages and there are way too many marijuana makes me feel like my head is heavy and I just want to sleep I do not understand like there are some people that metabolize it in a way that they love it they feel reiative whatever I feel like someone is pressing play and pause on my brain it's fun ahsha's so that didn't work out for you I don't not at all interest now your friends did your friends do anything were your friends drinking were they smoking pot was in high school but in college yeah sure okay so in college you around them they're offering it to you nothing happens you're saying no not interested ha so are you processing it because I understand there's a part where it's mom told me this but then you leave so did your parents raise you in a way where they control you to kind of let you be so you never have to rebel against them I never had to rebel against my parents got it my dad was into his thing and that like if anything I was trying to do things to get my dad's attention but not in a destructive way but that's part of what drew me to filmmaking was that was how he and I bonded my mom was tailor-made to be my parent so she did not play I remember one time my friend came in to school and he was like dude my mom tried to slap me and I blocked her and she burst out crying she's never gonna slap me again I was like I'm doing that the next time my mom tries to slap me on the blocka this is gonna be amazing and so I'm pushing my mom's buttons as she goes to slap me to block it and I'm like this is over I won and she goes to slap me on the other side and I blocked that too and I'm like I shut this woman down and as I'm celebrating pow she hits me with the third one and I remember in the moment I wasn't mad I was like respect like my mom and not the one that stops and starts crying when you push against her like she would just raise the level so because I had so much respect for my mom my mom always made me feel crazy loved like even in those moments and was my biggest cheerleader and always told me I could do anything yeah I just never felt like I had to push back how were her parents her parents were dysfunctional I think to say the least and I remember my mom used to force her parents to hug us and tell us they loved us because they never did with her Wow and so she just wasn't gonna play that with her kids so for me it was always that it was hugs and goodnight kisses and I love you and you know just it was always there but never trying to control you to the point where you had to rebuild wow it's weird like she really did like she instilled fear but she let that be my own fear like I was if I was definitely afraid of failing you got straight A's in my family that was that but I wasn't afraid of my parents and then you didn't drink you didn't do drugs because that was gonna ruin your life and then I think because she helped me believe that my future was gonna be awesome I don't want that yeah so now after that you know you go into wanting to be you know in the film industry you're wanting to go to that direction talked a little bit on that yeah so my dad makes an offhanded comment when I'm 12 years old so this is like the classic case of Bill Gates has a computer when he's a kid and because of that he's just a little bit ahead of everybody in that area my dad's work happened to have a camcorder before anybody had cameras I mean now like people today can't imagine a time where you don't have a camera with you at all times but when I was a kid I was super weird and so my dad would bring this video camera home and me and my friend would mess around with it and at the time I thought I wanted in front of the camera I just always knew where to put the camera to make something funny or whatever and so I slowly started being the guy behind the camera my dad made an offhanded comment and he was like I think you're actually better behind the camera than you are in front of the camera now he may have been trying to save me from myself and saying like you're terrible in front of the camera kids you should get behind it but he said it in a way that like made me think oh wow my dad thinks I'm good behind the camera so then I started focusing behind the camera we bonded over films that was like our stick and I like I want humans to be blank slates but the reality is were not and while our ability to change is astronomical there are definitely things that we have responses to and I respond to visual things with extreme aggression and so when I see something then it'll hit me really hard so you didn't have to like push me to get into film like I loved it and then realizing that I had an intuitive understanding of where to put the camera whatever to make it funny and then my dad saying that and then like oh you have to pick something to study in school it's just like its snowballed and so it was never like oh this is my greatest passion it's just like little by little I became more obsessed with it more obsessed with it and dove deeper into it so go to film school and long story short at the beginning of my film career is extraordinary I'm killing it and I thought I was naturally talented I thought like growth mindset didn't exist when I was a kid like I never heard those words until I was probably in my 30s so as a kid it was like you're either born with it or you're not and so that's what I thought it was with film I just thought I I knew how to direct complete opposite of the way you think today 1,000% in the opposite direction and this is what ends up happening is exactly what led me to that so I'm in film school my first films are good and I start getting attention and USC film schools doggy-dog so statistically speaking you're more likely to get in the USC film than you are a Harvard law so i against all odds they tell me I'm never gonna get in I lock myself in a room for two years do nothing but study so that I can get in as a junior I get in and now I'm thinking wow I've already defied the odds my first films are good start getting attention I get selected as one of only four people selected to do a thesis film and they give you a phantom budget of like 35 K which back then was insanity have imagined it and I completely get up I mean just like so bad I mess up in every conceivable way you can mess up and it like broke some part of me how public of a loss was it massive so first of all you go from being one of your entire class to being one of only four in your class to do the film so all eyes are already on you to see where you're gonna do and then people started making like what we would now call memes but didn't have that word back then but they were making like little losers in my film to make fun of it which was devastating and then I screened it in front of family and friends and was just heartbroken because it was so obviously bad what role did you know at that moment where you're sitting in your dorm room and you're talking to your mom with the phone hanging down and your friend comes in and sits right next to you what does that do say that doesn't happen does it make any kind of an impact on your next move you know I've thought about that a lot and I do wonder sometimes what my life would have been if I had had just enough talent to do well on that film as well and then the realization comes later in a professional setting could that have knocked me off course it's very possible but what ends up happening is I have that moment I'm you know laying in the middle of campus on a pay phone to my mom saying like I don't have talent and having this realization of I'm actually not good and that was really hard when you think that your other born with it do you're not so I go and I graduate and I start teaching and in teaching I begin to realize two things one I'm sliding towards depression and two that I can help these students make their films better and if I can help them make their films better why can't I make my own better how are you at this guy 22 23 or 22 23 you're teaching yeah and what school is this New York Film Academy in Los Angeles in Los Angeles got it and so this is are you going at school as well at that time or you're done with knives done done with school yeah so was it like something you wanted to do what you're just transitional mix move well so I did a lot of transit transitional jobs and teaching was definitely one of them but I was selling video games that sold insurance door-to-door like I was just trying to do anything to make ends meet I'm super broke living in an apartment with no furniture I mean it's just like a whole period in my life and I could not see a path to success it wasn't like there was that sense of being lost and hopeless because you don't know how to break out of it there was no internet so it's like I literally have no idea how to get out of this what year is this this would have been mm mm yeah 99 2000 was the worst of it all right before I met my wife who really helped me turn things how did that change so one by this point I start reading about things we would now call the growth mindset so I'm knee-deep in Tony Robbins I'm in selling insurance door-to-door how'd you get introduced it was it the selling insurance I was with on the insurance side what company it was prepaid legal oh really there's prepaid legal that's a legal insurance got it so prepay legal was sold I think a few years ago for 651 it's now a different company name right now so I think it's called Legal Shield or something like that so you're selling prepaid legal is that what introduced you to a little bit of Tony Robbins it's possible I actually don't remember but I started being around people that were trying to get better and you go to like sales conferences and they're teaching how to get better and it's like all planting this little seed in my mind about maybe self-improvement is possible maybe who you are today isn't as important as who you could become yeah and so that like ends up being powerful but like it wasn't like I had some big epiphany and you're just like huh this is interesting then I'm teaching and I'm thinking why I can make their films better why can't I make mine better meet my wife and my wife just takes to that mentality right from the jump but then starts pointing out some holes in my game shall we say to put it politely how soon not right at first but when I went and asked for her father's blessing to marry her he said no and that that was eye-opening because he his story is crazy so he was born in a small village in Cyprus which is a tiny Greek island and he clawed his way to the top of one of the largest shipping companies in the world I mean just an extraordinary story and I went to the village that he grew up in and you think how how did you go payment no I went with Lisa and my wife God but not with him but I met his parents that was surreal that really brought it doesn't make sense why he is the way he is no it made it harder to understand why is that they were like to give you an idea his mom he bought her a washing machine and she was like get this thing out of my house like she couldn't fathom a technological advancement like she knew her ways that was in like she grew up in the mountains she married someone she'd known since she was like 5 years old it was like just like her life was on on Rails and that was that like what are you doing with his newfangled stuff and so they sent him to the mountains to study and he like really just takes to it and it's one of those guys that just had like enough hustler mentality and I MIDI was always looking for an opportunity made good on opportunities nothing was ever below him just like worked his ass off and what he ends up achieving is really really extraordinary and so he's looking at me this broke undereducated kid and he says how do you plan to take care of my daughter and I was like sir I know what you see but I'm telling you right now I'm the most ambitious person you've ever met and he gives me the look that I would give to somebody that says the same [ __ ] I'd be like yeah whatever right like ambition is [ __ ] unless you have Drive and I didn't have Drive and so at the same time those words are coming out of my mouth I'm laying in bed 3 to 4 hours a day every day and the only thing that gets me out of bed is the shame of my girlfriend now wife is working I'm not and she comes home for lunch and my only responsibility in the world at that time is to make her a sandwich before she gets home and so the fact that like only shame would get me out of bed in time to do it it was just crazy it was like teaching about the semiotic I was only teaching in the summer so it's like God really weird cadence like things are sort of happening at the same time and it kind of doing sales on the side yes but that was before I met her so you not doing sales anymore not at this point got it so it was yeah it was a hard time and so realizing that I have ambition but not drive and that I need to get some Drive if I'm gonna pull this off and my wife was very encouraging but at the same time my wife didn't pull punches and she's like what the [ __ ] like you need to do your hair you need to actually wear nice clothes because I would just bum around in sweatpants and wouldn't do my hair and and I mean look I cannot say enough that my wife was always loving and encouraging and always felt like she shared that vision of who I could become yeah but it's like it wasn't enough for her that I was daydreaming about it I had to be doing something to go get it and so that that was good like to have somebody that really held me to a standard respect to my life so yeah so that like realizing that and realizing that I didn't want to be ashamed of myself anymore I didn't want to be depressed I wanted to do something extraordinary but that was gonna demand a high price and I looked at myself and just like yeah I'm willing to pay that price what what what What did he say when you said I'll get you a house right next door to live with us I'm gonna give him a gun I don't understand why is he trying to like keep her cool yes let's see like don't feel married yet hang tight a thousand ply so one I just want to acknowledge that you've done your homework I'm very good story thank you so yeah so when I say to my father-in-law hey I want to marry your daughter he said whoa whoa whoa don't do that how you gonna take care of her how about this instead of you guys get married I'll give you the house he owned the house next door to his he said that was always meant to be my daughter so you guys can have it move in stay there cuz he know in his mind he's thinking Oh in 18 months those guys are done the right keep her close I don't want her going to America then it's in because this is all happening in London I lived in London for a year so he's like got to keep my daughter here do not want her going to America with this loser like can't have it but if I push back against this kid she's just gonna go from harder so he's smart he knows good so he's like hey take the house he doesn't say you can sleep with her but that's basically the read between the lines like being a relationship be with her live with her I don't care about that but don't marry her don't take her to America and so yeah it was it was awesome and the thing is he was always very welcoming to me partly because he's smart and he knows if he pushes me away then it's all over and partly because he's a freakishly kind man so and he ends up becoming an incredible mentor I mean just like a lot of amazing things came out of that relationship but the first one was just calling [ __ ] on where I was in life and not letting me hide behind ambition I had a chance to meet your wife I mean obviously her energy is unbeliev she can light up a room when she walks and she's got that kind of an energy and you know sometimes this question is asked but I'm thinking of what you're what you'll say - this is say you guys know me it's a you guys don't get married say that doesn't happen how much of a role did she play I know you're talking about honestly all that stuff a lot of times you read you'll say you know Michelle you know they'll say Michelle Obama is so lucky to have been married to president and you know that quote she comes back and says well anybody I would have married would have become a price how much do you believe in death yeah I love that so I'm just a huge believer in love and partnerships and all of that so I like that my story is intertwined with my wife who is an extraordinary human and I for sure would not be Who I am today if it wasn't for her now would I have figured it out other ways because I don't think you can ever let somebody own your story I think I'll take credit for the things that I did my wife could never make me take action she couldn't be there for me when I have to push harder or see something through but did I have a partner that when I was broken and on my knees that she got down was sympathy put an arm around my shoulder and told me everything was gonna be okay no I didn't have that what I had was someone who picked me back up brushed me off reminded me of where I was going and who I could become and told me that she would do anything in her power to help me become that person ultimately I had to do the work but like you think you want sympathy when you're down but what you want is compassion you want love you want encouragement you want somebody who believes in you when you don't believe in you and she was I have the chills on my face right now she believed in me at times when I was like I don't know if I do Wow yeah that's powerful and I like how you said it just to being a cheerleader is not enough you got to be more than just a cheerleader cheerleaders hey go get him you're gonna be great I believe in you that doesn't lead into results you can also identify what things you need to improve it so how does this transition into you copywriting and maybe you got to be thinking bigger with you know your partners that show how does that transition into that so my wife and I had tried to start our first business what we did start a first business and it made money but it made very little money it was a photography business and and that gave me that entrepreneurial Drive like I wanted to do it I had a little tinge of it when I was selling for prepaid legal and then really felt it when I was doing the photography but I just looked at the dollars and I'm like this never goes anywhere I can never make enough money I didn't have the words to explain it but it was because I was time for money and you can't break the wealth equation if you're dealing in time for money so I was like all right I want something more but I don't know what that more is and then two of my two of the people that came through and saw me speaking about filmmaking were these two entrepreneurs and they were the two things I had always promised myself as a kid that I would have is that one day would have six-pack abs and one day I would be rich those are my two promises and that really guided my life and like a very sincere and intense way for a long time and they come across my path not only are they wildly successful in business but they're yoked and I was like whoa so these guys are like yo we're gonna work together someday and people would tell me that all the time and I was like yeah yeah and not really believed it and they called and said look we're starting this new company and why don't you come be a copywriter we settle for employees but we're always looking for partners and you can have any role in this company that you want you just have to become the right person for that role and I'm really their pitch yeah and I saw him make that pitch to everyone dozens of people whoa dozens and nobody did anything with it and I was like what the [ __ ] do people not see like what they're offering and everyone was telling me they're full of [ __ ] dude like can you not see like these guys are just trying to take advantage of you and I thought even if they are like what do I have to lose exactly like as long as my payroll checks or clearing and they're not doing the only thing unethical I don't quite understand the risk so everyone was like freaking out telling me that I shouldn't do it and I was just like wow this seems too like it's too self-evident to me that I could always go back to teaching and that I might as well try this and if it sucks and I'll go back so I did it tried it they were amazing and true to their word they were like you can become anything you want now here's the bad news you're not yet the person you need to be and they were just cold-hearted about it just like real indirect like you suck at this only an idiot would do that like they were so intense what's the age difference yeah what are they five years older than me both of them yeah so it was it was direct it was intense it was not for the faint of heart or the belly hit from the jump and for me it was intoxicating and I fell for it and I was head over heels like it was so awesome and it was like my whole life if anybody had been like that to me I would have shut down because I didn't believe I could get better but by the time I meet them I now believe I can get better so I now I believe I can get better I'm working out in the gym so I see this like whoa you can change your body I've lost all this weight like it's this crazy transformation so they come in and they're like dude the little better you think you can get is the tip of an iceberg you can radically transform your life and this is the playground to do it and you can get rich and they said look you're coming to the world with your hand out right now and if you want to control the art you have to control the resources so I was like this is amazing and so I hear make that pitch all day every day to a bunch of people nobody does anything with it I start as the kid in the server room nobody knew who I was everyone else in our office had floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked at the Pacific Ocean I was the only one that didn't I was in a room with no real desk I just sat at one of the servers and no one knew they didn't even introduce me around so people were just like who's the kid and I was just like I suck right now so I have to get better I've got to keep my head down and work my ass off and get good and I took that so seriously like when I moved to cuz at first I lived quite far from them and so I decided I was gonna move closer and I timed the locations so I told my wife she could pick anywhere that I could get to their place in seven minutes or less and so we would go look at an apartment and then I would time it to their houses and see if I could get there fast enough and as long as there's no headquarters I mean is this at the time at the time that was less relevant to me than being able to if they needed me at 2:00 a.m. could I show up you know in a moment's notice already a 10 percent or you're not temp now Jesus that lawyer just employee got it this is how I get to 10 percent God and that's why I like I when people say like I don't want to intern or I want to make sure I'm getting paid when I'm worth all that stuff it's like if you're focused in the beginning of your career with monetizing your current skill set you will never get where you want to go because money only spends once unless you're really good at investing which most young people are not whereas skills monetize again and again again and a great poet so powerful yeah money only monetizes once or you can only spend it once but your skills can be monetized over and over and over so I just saw it wait a second what I need is skills these guys have skills I'm watching them do this they're giving me a seat at the table such as what can you kind of loan calls why why the [ __ ] let me on these phone calls it was like it doesn't make sense I zero to contribute and I remember at the beginning the Oh Patrick the only words and I don't know if people think I'm exaggerating when I say this the only words that I would say on this conference call would be good bye I would wait the entire call here it comes I'm finally gonna get my chance to speak and I'm not even sure why it meant something to me but to actually be able to utter syllables on unlike this official business call was so important to me and so I'd wait and I'm like oh we're wrapping up I can tell it's happening here it goes goodbye that was it but I took notes I paid attention I watched how they were I listened to how they did business I watch how they negotiated what they push on what they didn't what the ethos was all of it and I just drank it in and then I thought okay wait a second I can be the energy of this stuff I may not be able to think of the ideas yet I don't understand business but I can be the energy so if somebody says hey by Thursday we need to have this I've got that written down hey guys on Tuesday remember we've got to have that thing on Thursday does anybody need help anybody need anything cuz I will do whatever you want me to do and so people would give me stuff and I would do it and as long it was just like blunt-force trama and I didn't have to like have some high-level business knowledge I could get it done and I would do it with bells on they once gave me a list like seven hundred and fifty thousand keywords and I had to comb through it in an Excel spreadsheet and say either yes or no that took days and days and days of mind-numbing yes no yes no yes no yes no what do you mean 750 because this was back in like so we had words that did we want to advertise on do we want to advertise on these keywords like so you would buy a list of like powerful keywords on Google and this is all CPC stuff so do we want to show up on these keywords yes or no like here's our business you know we're doing what keywords would we want to show up on and so I'd have to go and clean the list there's no way no AI to comb through it for us so I would do that so anything like that where I could I just add value add value add value and everyone starts gravitating towards the person who's always upbeat great and honorable and never says no and is always asking how they can help it is a formula that will win for all time and so that was it and I just threw that that intensity at it cuz every day I was like I'm here to get rich I'm here to get rich and when I get rich I'm gonna go build my studio I'm gonna get rich rich rich rich rich and that was all I thought about obsessed over it now that would end up being my almost downfall but that was my obsession and so what happens they accepted it so for 8 and 1/2 years I'm doing that I am working seven days a week ignoring my wife at about the six and a half year mark my wife pulls me aside and says you're now damaging our marriage and I'm not willing to continue like this so I was like all right something's got to give and that forced me to really look and say I'm profoundly unhappy and showing up every day chasing money just isn't actually Who I am and I need to do something that makes me feel alive in the moment so it ends up being a cool part of my story but what I want people to know is when the following thing happened I was a wash in shame and so there I was the guy going hard by this point I've worked my way up now I'm the chief marketing officer of the company I own 10% of it all just through sweat equity they made good on their promise and I was so broken inside and so unhappy that I was like I have to leave I need to go back to filmmaking I need to do something that in an in an of itself like I will love and be passionate about and what I realized was the struggle is guaranteed the success is not now at that time I was a multi-millionaire on paper but as you all know being rich on paper is very different than having money in your banking audubon so I was rich on paper I did not feel rich and so I was like what am i doing all of this for so my wife and I talked and I'm like look I know I promised I would make you rich and I swear to God I will one day but I'm gonna have to take a step backwards first because I can't just muscle through like this I'm just losing so many years of my life I need to do something that if I'm gonna fail at least I'm gonna fail loving what I'm doing she was totally behind me she said what are now famous words in our marriage she said I bet on you I was like that means a lot so I go in and I quit and I said look here's your equity back I'm not gonna cross the finish line so I don't think I should get anything for this so you know take it and and do your thing and I'm gonna go to Greece we were gonna move to Greece and I'm gonna write and that's that and they said look we could do this without you but we don't want to and so what would it take for us to keep working together and I laid out a plan of if whatever I'm gonna be doing next it's got to be around value creation it's got to be around passion it's got to be something that we would love every day even if we were failing I want to build community I want to be myself and I said look this thing that we now call social media wasn't called that back then but social media I think is gonna change everything what you're is then this is 20 2009 okay so I'm like I think this is gonna change everything gonna change the way that people do business and actually this probably was a little bit earlier than that so the next company I want to be transparent I want our real personality personalities to shine through I want people to see like we actually want good things for them and so that for three very different reasons became the core of what we wanted to do and so we founded quest nutrition everyone told us we were crazy that we were leaving technology like the place where people actually get rich and going into food the place where you're in manufacturing is gonna be small margins you guys are never gonna survive this and so everyone thought we were done but our thing was we're never gonna make decisions based on profitability again we're gonna be making it based on like actually adding value to people's lives being passionate about what we do every day and loving our lives and so we actually made a promise to each of us and we said you're going to enjoy what you do on a day-to-day basis simple as and so if it's something weird like when I started doing in sidequest fine like even if it's not like we don't see the immediate yet ROI in the business if you love it and that's a part of what's making you a complete and full human being then let's do it and so we got into really crazy stuff ended up being amazing because we made that promise to each other so that was how all of that began and then we just really lived up to it about value creation about not just trying to sell people on something about building a real community to uplift people and it just so happened that we had the right product at the right time marketed in a totally new way because of my background in film we were creating all of our own content in-house we built an entire studio inside the company we were shooting everything long before that was like a thing it was like we were doing that and everyone was like this is crazy but then we grow by 57,000 percent some first three years alone that's in manufacturing that's enough let me tell you that is absolutely nuts what you guys did in you know blue ocean strategy so a lot of time when you look at Lewisham strategy say wait a minute who doesn't have a bar everybody's got a bar you know this part that bar and you know all of them when you chew on them they either taste terrible a high protein or they stick to your tea know which ones I'm talking about like do you got like really have jaw muscles to separate them and then you guys come out and you do what you do with it you know but but the questions I want to I want to ask you is all this is taking place inside quest when did you start creating content with inside course what year was that [Music] inside Quest is a lot later in the journey so that was probably 2014 okay 15 so that when did you go impact Theory so impact Theory came in 2016 so we did a year and a half of inside quest and then I spun it out as a standalone company for impact theory in 2016 also you there is not two YouTube channels inside course and now inside quest became correct impact like we changed it from Patrick Wade ever to evaluate Emmy you went from inside course to I got it and then you said hey I'm gonna run this and you guys go out there and do what you're doing and then you stepped away so the questions I got did that I really wanted to get into as personality-wise you know as I as I listen to a lot of the stuff you say you know as a kid my son my son says I said what he wanted be when you grow up I want to be Peter Parker okay awesome you know what do you want to be when you grow up I want to be this I want to be that you cannot help yourself but talk about matrix right and you can't help your support Auk about Star Wars and and when you and I spoke at your house you're like yeah I'm well you know we're competing against we're gonna build a media company go against Walt Disney and all this other stuff and you know we were already creating comic books and stories and we're gonna do it oh your mind is already gone there and then when I look at your partner Ron Pena he says William when you asked him what was especially when in March of 1984 oh I won and went into martial arts why because I wanted to be a ninja but then also he wanted to be Batman like he's got this one picture doing the splits he looks like Batman and junk laughs and them combined and then you got your partner Mike Osborn who is the Iowa you know the whole farm boy all that stuff that he has did you guys all kind of get along where secret these like listen man I want to be Batman I want to be this and I want to be that like did it almost became okay to talk this crazy language that to the world is like you guys are corny and crazy or all of it like it was that level of connection because that that's almost what it seems like when I watch you guys yeah I won't throw a mic under the bus he that was definitely not his MO he was not into that stuff but yeah one of the first things Ron and I bonded over was comics and our love of Batman so my dog was actually named Batman when Metron serious yeah and I had been collecting comics since I was 16 so and the part of the reason that people gravitate towards Batman is because he doesn't have superpowers right so and the the fascinating thing about the comic industry is if you were actually in it it grew with the readers so they became very adult-like if you read Batman now unless you're reading like one of the ones aimed at kids it's dark [ __ ] man like they're really dealing with like loss and obsession and growth and like how much you're capable of and how much you have to hold yourself accountable it like Batman is is for growth mindset of people is the story I'm sorry yeah really you still reward like how often I try to read my fantasy would be to read every day I try to read every week that's great but like even now in my bag I was reading on the plane I'm reading a story called I am a hero but it's very adult zombie apocalypse but whatever I'm a baseball card again now do you have any overage like Superman one you can't afford any of these but like what do you have what especially have some Xavier stuff from the 90s so the problem was that in the 90s so much of it was made there was this huge speculation boom so it's like you may have something that's like a big cultural moment but it's one of a million that's right whereas now like there really is rare stuff where there may have only been 2500 printed period you have no desire to own that kind of stuff there's a like thing it isn't isn't the juice it's the yeah I really believe that the way that humans assimilate truly disruptive information is true narrative and so part of the way that I've changed my life that I've opened my mind to things like a growth mindset is through like the matrix it's not a mistake that the matrix came out the year that I was going through this like am I able to improve myself or not the movie comes out ends up becoming the dominant metaphor of my life I'd love to say that it was a lightning rod moment when I saw it my life has changed forever it wasn't like that but it planted a seed that I just kept coming back to oh man it's like neo in the matrix ah man like yeah like like Morpheus said you take the blue pill the story ends you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe you take the red pill you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes or like Yoda in Star Wars and you just start piecing together like these fascinating belief systems because a lot of times the wisest characters and films are often taken from like Yoda sounds exactly like Lao Tzu from the daodejing yeah so it's like basically you've got George Lucas who's very familiar with Eastern philosophy talking Eastern philosophy through this little puppet but especially if you hear it when you're young man like your mind isn't really open to it so because of Star Wars I end up becoming obsessed with the daodejing and then because of that that ultimately was my doorway to a growth mindset and then neo and all of that so the connection was there with you and Ron was with this area come oh yeah growth mindset for sure and then comics and Batman and an obsession over that rapid style storytelling where you can explore ideas very very quickly I mean he says he wanted to be Batman look would he still say that I don't know if he'd still say it but he was sincere like obviously that the ethos of Batman so not necessarily as a Caped Crusader Batman by the way to ask sits like this very you know he's got the jaw he talks like a very proper guy but in your teens what movie impact did he like the most give me each decade what would have been well Star Wars would have been when I was young would have been the main driver then the next one that really had a big influence on me as as a person would have been the matrix so I went from okay Star Wars is like my big thing then the matrix and now it's like the matrix is still probably the biggest but you know there been a lot of films that have shown me something like ordinary people I don't know if you've ever seen that but like seeing how people trapped themselves in a poor mindset like that movie to me was so heartbreaking because the mom just cannot get out of her own way so they've been a lot of movies that have like giving me some little peace but even like a movie that Kramer vs Kramer or Goonies grotty kid oh my god I should have led with that Karate Kid was wildly influential in terms of again getting picked on not liking the way people are treating you meeting somebody who can mentor you that gives you some yeah you know wise advice but then you actually have to do it and then I actually had a wax on wax off moment in my life this is crazy so for those that haven't seen the movie mr. Miyagi's training Daniel and Daniel's doing what ends up feeling - Daniel like housework you know waxing cars painting fences and he's like why am i doing all this and mr. Miyagi finally reveals to him that what he's been training are the motions for some amazing defenses and in my own life my dad always made me work and so through the summers I would always have summer jobs from the time I was 12 and I worked in a door factory paint factory paint store a paint warehouse I mean just like the worst jobs you can imagine for a young teenager and my dad always said like this is gonna pay off one day and I thought yeah yeah here we go and so imagine we request and we've ordered all this equipment and the equipment shows up in a big tractor-trailer and they back up we open the door and there's this massive equipment and we realize how the hell are we supposed to get this off the truck we don't have a forklift and even if we did no one has knows how to drive it and I was like actually guys our neighbor has a forklift and I'm a certified forklift driver and everyone turns I mean they're like what why are you a certified forklift driver but I was like my dad always made me work in these stupid places and he told me that one day would pay off so on camera Ron starts filming and I turned the camera as I'm on the forklift and I'm raising it up and I'm like dad wax on wax off this phone crazy store so but the the fascinating thing to me is that the movie gave me the language and the framework to understand it to assimilate that motion or that moment and now be able to give it to somebody else but you need that package like you need the narrative you need that moment something that hit you on an emotional level for you to make sense of it so that's a problem I could have had that same experience and not put two and two together it doesn't become part of my ideology I'm not able to tell somebody else I'm not even necessarily able to use it again in my own life because I have to relearn it every time but a film a story it gives you that construct so you can hold the in your head that's amazing that story you get there by the way your partner's three of you guys together obviously having a business partners difficult by itself but you're talking three of you so what ibn Battal were you guys all evenly split well I read a few plays you guys were 3333 was anybody 34 did you guys give one how'd you guys do the split was it literally split split looks everybody okay you were CMO will you see em oh uh I was president but I oversaw marketing and sales okay so who was CEO would you say mike is CEO Mike was CEO like we we kind of played with the titles because Mike for sure as an Operations guy and I'm for sure not I'm the people person but we just wanted to make sure that everybody had a title that made sense for equal partnership so almost look like you guys didn't want to give any titles is that a fair assessment we didn't for that in years okay so you guys have beef okay you have issue for instance you gonna have stuff that happens right was there ever so from observer everybody is in shape everybody's discipline so did you guys have a conversation about pulling your weight we never had to okay that's that's that's yeah like that that was one thing that you we would never need the conversation you're not pulling your weight but we would definitely have conversations you're wrong you're going in the wrong direction yeah whatever but ya know with those two guys and and I'll definitely throw myself in the mix like not working art I did it every get super super heated to the point where this is not gonna work out it was definitely one time where it got so heated I was like we actually about to throw punches but that was rare enough that we could still be functional but it was look it was high intensity you definitely have guys that aren't there to play around but at the end of the day there was so much respect yeah so much respect and a real desire to win and when you've got winners on your team the last thing you want to do is let like any sort of pettiness get in the way so we would actually have conversations about our emotions like hey when you did that it made me feel this way really yeah yeah yeah all of you yeah yeah did you guys have a code together like did you guys have something like a code of honor not stated or anything like that but yeah it was like look we're gonna be diehard we're going to do anything within our code of ethics to make this company successful we're gonna also support each other we're gonna look for ways to help each other shine we're not gonna like backstab like we were so cognizant that internecine battles are ultimately the thing that bring you down we were very cognizant the pairing up is a problem so if two of us are really close because I mean we were together for 14 years so over that time it's like inevitably up one time you're feeling close to one person the other you're feeling closer to the other person so it's like you you have to talk openly and say things like hey remember coupling is one of the most dangerous things that we could face in a triumph erence we have to be very careful not to let that happen making sure that we're talking about emotions that if something upset you that you put it out on the table that you talk about it and that we make sure that we're very open and honest and direct and I'll say that it became hard for other people because we were so direct with each other and so comfortable in that directness that if you then were direct like that with somebody else in a way that you loved because it was so clear people felt like you were being like cold or whatever like just to give you an idea if we wanted one of the other people to come to us efficiency was one of our highest values so you would just get a text it would say come and it wasn't hey can you please come to the office whatever it was you would just get a text come and so whoever sent it that meant go to their office but you would send the same text like you didn't think about it but we had that kind of just ultra direct everything is efficient now you have known each other since 1989 you you came in the picture earlier because they want to create a new position lay right I know I'm sorry you came in a picture late my apologies yeah I meant to say late so if you had to do it again or I guess this is the question um because a lot of people ask and say partnership partnership partnership do you see a benefit more in three than two because no matter when there's a to one unites or do you see benefit in two over three or solo who I don't I don't think there's any way to answer that question in the generic so let me walk through the advantages and disadvantages of each so as a solopreneur you will have the most fun but I think your likelihood of going out of business is the highest because you don't have anybody checking you so because it is very hard I know because I try every single day it is very hard to get your employees to challenge you especially openly so that means you're not all the good ideas and there's no universe in which you have all the good ideas I don't care how smart you are so when there's no one who's your equal it gets really hard to make sure that you have total clarity and that when you're acting in a way that does not behoove the company that somebody feels completely comfortable saying that's not working and when you don't have that that's dangerous but like having a vision and just being able to execute and not have to convince people is fun so and if you're right then hey it's great I think that's probably also where the it's lonely at the top phrase comes from now because I've never been alone at the top for me like that there's no ring of truth to that so I've always had partners now when I had three partners it was really complicated and trying to make sure that you're both doing what's right for the company and doing something that makes everybody feel good and then if you have different like parents that are of different religions on those areas we have a collision of values that's problematic because your likelihood of convincing somebody to change their mind is good your likelihood of convincing to change someone's values is virtually zero like it is so deeply ingrained in who they are they mistake it for the truth of the world right so it's like if I don't mean it in a religious context but when you start thinking about religious values you get how entrenched people become so take two parents that have different religions and they want to raise their kid so then mistakes are high the stakes may be this child will go to hell if they're not raised in the way that I want you have two people thinking the same thing so you could definitely run into that in business where you get that like if we do what you're saying we're gonna lose the business and they're thinking if we do what you say we're gonna lose the business right now you have a collision of values that's hard and so navigating your way through that is very very difficult but when you have three people that hold each other in very high esteem that have an insane degree of trust that have been in the trenches for a long time you've seen them at their most vulnerable and they still show up but you show up for you like when you have that kind of history then it's really extraordinary but if you don't have that history so finding a partner that you're gonna make an equal partner right from the jump is is tough now a partnership of two you can get into a deadlock and so at least when there's three there's a third person to be like yellow with this person on this and so there's always somebody to break the tie it's there's never like well how about this we were never in a situation where we were in a three-way deadlock so it was just far too easy one person knew wow this one's either close enough to what I want anyway or whatever I'm just gonna go with that and vote so somebody was always getting out voted ganas knew from time to time you're gonna get outvoted and this may be the key as long as everybody actually wants their other two partners to win it works so if I always want my way to be right and I don't give a [ __ ] about you or your feelings then it's gonna be bad you and I are gonna have animosity but if I actually want you to win it and so I'm like I think I'm right this time but I know what it's like to always have someone else's idea win and I never get to see if my idea work so even though I think I'm right I'm gonna disagree but I'm gonna commit to your idea and that hold disagree but commit was a big thing this is me but commit I disagree but commit like if when we walk out this door no one will be able to tell which one of us disagreed because we will be so diehard about all of them so that was a real thing I love that so now my partnership is with my wife and when we created the company impact the impact just the two of you listen to no one else nothing any plans are bringing anybody in all of our employees have basically phantom shares so they have ownership if we sold they'd get a few but they don't vote or anything like that okay so no I would be shocked if we did that well Never Say Never but I'd be surprised and when we created it I told the lawyer create the ultimate divorce nightmare and my wife is like whoa you take 51 I'll take 49 like there's no need to do that the lawyers were like listen to her you take 51 she takes 49 it just makes things clear Tom and I said no fifty-fifty because a my marriage is my highest priority the business comes a distant second and - if I say to her were equals in every way but I don't trust you quite enough to give you equal percentage even though she agrees it sends a signal to her that there's I'm hedging my bets and the reality is I know that does the people psychologically so and that's the exact reason at Qwest that we were 33 and 1/3 each just there's you don't get any benefit by making it different and you get massive dissent when it's off so when you guys have an account flick then you're trying to make a decision was it Tom's the final this is you make grouse two out of three yeah so majority yeah all very simple so they're easy so hey 200 let's go with it I disagree but we got two out of three and it was it was a lot more interpersonal than that that was sort of the truth of it but we really did like there was such a deep Brotherhood yeah that that was a real presence in all of this it was like you're really talking through it you're being sensitive to how the other person feels so you're being strategic there's no question like you have to think of the business but we were always trying to walk that line of like I don't want to hurt you I don't want to like piss you off like it's not about that I'll push you if I have to no question and if you get upset even though that's not my intent that's gonna happen from time to time we all have to be big boys and deal with it and also you have to learn to let go and recenter yourself and not be emotional and so we weren't spiteful so it's like it's really [ __ ] complicated and that's why it wouldn't work for everyone but we did it for a very long time that's very impressive I got to tell you four to twelve three obviously to me it seems like Mike's the easiest personality that's what it seemed like you know simple guy came up you didn't see a lot of stuff he seems like a very simple guy well going back to the whole question about partnership are you still fully involved or not at all like you are not no board responsibilities like any sort of responsibility I have massive ownership day-to-day responsibility zero I just like when I exited the first time and I said hey here's your equity back this time I said look I can't expect to know what's right for the company if I'm off running this other company so I'm going to acknowledge that it doesn't make sense for me to hold a board seat so I'm gonna give up the boards knowing when I left I thought it is entirely possible that I never see another dime from this company cuz they could run it into the ground without me that's entirely possible so my still have a lot of paper wealth yeah oh yeah yeah you're okay with not having any I've made so much real bank account wealth that if I never make another dollar I'll still never have to work again so could you that to me like at some point you're so rich the only thing that matters is time and all of this the whole journey was I wanted to be a filmmaker and I only got in business to get rich so I could go make movies so it didn't make sense to me I and I stayed for like two years after we had a liquidation event and I was like I never have to work again I never have to do anything I don't want I could start making movies today Multi eight-figure check tap of a deal yes okay good so are you a from the mindset of Enzo and Walt Disney where they say you know we don't make movies to make money oh we don't make cars to make money we make money to race cars and we make money to make is that kind of your mindset as well sort of if you'll swap that out for I'm making I'm telling stories is the truest way to say it as a way to pull people out of the matrix by giving them an empowering mindset because I really believe the only way to reach the masses is on an emotional level I'm not good at music so that leaves film and television essentially that's great so what you and I were speaking I asked a question by kids and we had an interesting conversation by kids and I have a lot of respect on how you guys came with your decision and by the way I actually recommend the way you made your decision to some people because I think some people make the decision based on what everybody else is doing you guys didn't you know so you told me that at one point you and your wife said we don't want to have kids and we're totally okay with that how did you process that together so when we met we both just assumed we were gonna have kids and that seemed pretty obvious to me I really enjoy that kind of relationship being a mentor is something that's you know pretty powerful and to do with your own child seems really extraordinary I was a big brother for eight and a half years for one kid so when I say that I got to know him so much so that he was unfortunately being abused at home and so he was removed from his home and I was made the Guardian to help him into the court system like that's how close we were and so I get it man I get how beautiful and powerful that kind of relationship is but the reality is being a parent to me is about fulfillment it's about doing something so beautiful that it gives you something that you could not have gotten any other way which I'll shorthand if a film and I think it is an extraordinary path to fulfillment for a large swath of the population but it also changes the course of your life without question and I was asking people all the time when I really was like we're sort of getting into the do-or-die years I would ask everyone I could should I have kids or not having kids and I just want to get their wisdom and this one guy gave me advice he said Tom have kids don't have kids it doesn't matter but whatever you do do it all the way and I said to him that's the best piece of advice I'm ever gonna get I'm gonna remember that for a very long time because the truth of it doesn't really matter it's just a life choice among many life choices that you can make and it will be beautiful and wonderful and if you do it you'll love it but you'll hate it if you do it but then wish that you were over here you know doing the entrepreneur thing a hundred and ten hours a week and you know but when you're there you're wishing you were at home with your family which is where you find a lot of really hardcore entrepreneurs and so I was like ok that's not the the Schism that I want I just want to focus on this thing and then it just became really easy once Lisa became an entrepreneur and she found fulfillment in that then we were both completely fulfilled by what we were trying to build so then it was like okay we that desire to have a child just basically went away purely logical yeah now what if Lisa says five years from now listen you have changed my mind where would you be unless I change my mind as well the talk would go like it went at the beginning if that's what I said to her cuz I came to that conclusion it's a very seriously over session a lot a couple seven I know you guys got a couples show that you do as well so you know this kind of stuff comes up yeah so I'll give people the magic words so here's what I said to her when she wanted kids still and I now knew that I did not and I said I would never deny that for you like if that's what you want then that's what we're gonna do but I want to be really clear about what the division of labor is going to be so I'm gonna be a good father and I'm going to put the time in that I need you to be a good father but I am NOT going to be taking them to school functions I'm not gonna be changing diapers I'm not getting up in the middle of the night I'll have a nanny do it for you it's not like I'm expecting you to do it I'm just letting you know I won't be doing it so if you're completely comfortable with that that I we'll be finding ways to build efficiencies so that only time spent that is quality time bonding time with a child that is the only time we'll be spending with them and all of the hard [ __ ] know that it's gonna fall on your shoulders outsource as much as you want but everything else that you want to take on don't get bitter with me because I'm not doing it so if you're comfortable with that and we'll lay everything out and like super detail and I said I'm even happy to draft a contract so that we're not unclear about what roles are then yes because I could never deny you being a mother if that's what you want so if she came to me in five years and said that that would be the speech concerns future wise you see a lot of people right now talking about well the biggest concern right now for the future is this the biggest concern right now for the future is this is there anything not as an individual you're not a guy that I foresee myself saying I'm concerned about anything like you say you say Pat the way I live is I live in a moment you know I literally can die in 15 minutes media can hit me no literally I believe that that's your mindset that you have but the average person like is there anything that you would say here are the two or three things or one thing that is going to probably impact everybody's life in the next 5 10 20 years yeah there's there's two things one is AI and robotics are going to disrupt the economy that that is just a for sure and I'll peg that I often say 5 to 7 years it'll happen within 10 years to be sure at a minimum it's going to displace 20 million drivers so I think everyone can get their head around that but if you've seen some of the agricultural robots that pick weeds and use less fertilizer and all that like their there are just things coming that people can't possibly predict and that's really gonna happen it's certainly not an accident that that's the theme of the comic book neon future that I'm writing so that I think is big and I think that people really have to prepare themselves for it and the way that you prepare yourself for it is the next problem which is generations move in cycles and no generation is better or worse than the other I just think that the personalities of a generation either suit them too or make them ill suited to what is happening to their generation so the generation right now is rebelling against the capitalistic die hard go get yours work your ass off work 110 hours and mass as many resources as you can so they think that's gross so they're pushing back on that hard now the problem with the push back is the way they see it is we should be taken care of there are just certain basic in a Leah Beale inalienable human rights that we should have things like universal basic income that we should have guaranteed outcomes stuff like that okay I get it emotion I get why they want that to be true the problem is the physics of the world and the physics of culture don't give a [ __ ] what you think or want there's just going to be a reality and you're either suited for that reality or ill-suited so we're about to hit an inflection point in the generation where with all of their amazing intentions and all the beautiful things that they're trying to bring to the world they're gonna realize that they're trying to put the onus to protect and serve on to exterior things rather than saying I have an obligation me and the example that I always tell people is if a meteorite were to strike my wife and kill her I wouldn't blame anybody but me that is entirely my fault and I can back that up because people like Tom is so ridiculous how could a meteorite striking your wife and killing or be your fault that's dumb luck divine providence like fate whatever you want to call it but Jesus man it's ridiculous to blame yourself and then I point out I'm on the board of the XPrize at the XPrize there was a prize presented that would allow us to track near-earth objects better than we are today I voted it down there because I don't think it matters I don't think that the likelihood is high enough but it's there I know that there's an organization right now that already tracks near-earth objects I've never sent them a dime of my money I've never called them to encourage them I've never sent them an email with ideas nothing now I know all of this stuff exists and I do nothing to stop it from happening so the only thing that I can say if my wife were killed by a meteorite is I did nothing to stop it I could have made a different decision and got a different outcome I need to focus on that to remind myself I can always make a change I can always do something different and get a different outcome so if you come in and you disrupt my industry my first thought is not the world what are you doing this is so terrible and sinister we have to stop AI or whatever my first reaction is how do I become more adaptive and people are putting so much energy into thinking like I'm frail and weak I have to be protected that they become frail and weak when in reality they are not my favorite quote on the planet is Darwin is often misquoted as saying is the strongest of the species that survived he did not say that what he actually said was it's not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent but rather the most adaptive to change that's how humans became the apex predator we are the most adaptive species on the planet you can take us anywhere and we will thrive and it is that ability to adapt mentally and physically that makes us amazing but you have to believe you can get better so it's this freakish irony of you have all this latent potential but if you don't believe it's there you can't manifest it and so the very first thing is people have got to reject this notion that they have to be protected from the outside and putting all their time and energy into that be the [ __ ] change you want to see in the world if you want to see people strong enough to withhold a better wait then don't worry about trying to fix systems just [ __ ] get tough watch how people respond to you watch all your kids look up to you watch how your family members look up to you watch how people turn to you and want help people we have an innate desire to get strong we don't have an innate desire to have something else protect us all of us if two buttons man one of them is you're such a badass nothing can ever hurt you you can get it you know how to figure it out you fight your way out of anything or a magic fairy will follow behind you and just walk things away the terrifying thing is this button the magic fairy is going to get pressed a [ __ ] of a lot more than this button but this button no one dies of suicide with this button this button [ __ ] race towards suicide and depression and if you want to know why we're having a pandemic of that and I don't want to cheapen it cuz it's largely microbiome and there's all kinds of health things that are going on I'm not taking that away but on the mental side of what's driving a lot of people not believing in that is we're just culturally reinforcing that like we're stuck we're trapped there's nothing we can do that people don't understand the fulfillment has to be earned you can't tell someone to just love themselves you have to tell them how they earn self-respect you have to tell them that doing hard [ __ ] that you don't want to do and doing it anyway that's exactly how you gain self-worth you can't tell someone to feel worthy and [ __ ] man I want two more than the next person like I I spend an inordinate amount of my time every week talking to a camera trying to help people to touch their lives for real like my wife and I made so much money we could have actually bought an island and retired and never worked again but that's not what I want like I want that fulfillment I want to do hard [ __ ] I want to touch people's lives I want to lift them up actually want to transform and change them and so I believe in people and I'm Way compassionate this is not me saying like Oh kids today get off my lawn this is like I get it this is the nature of cyclical cycle yeah like in in culture this happens you rebel against your parents and since my parents were coming out of the the war and they believed that like the world could be better and the world was better for them like I caught the tail into that and so I'm so optimistic about [ __ ] so when I encountered a growth mindset I was ready to take it in but now we have like a generation that's really pushing back on those notions of just like self ownership self authorship of recognizing no one's response no one is responsible for the difficulties in your life but you that's powerful very powerful so so to stay on this so you're not a fan of the universal basic income of $1,000 a month to any American no matter what and adding two trillion dollars to of cost every year you're definitely against it here's the thing I don't know [ __ ] about it I know I know the psychology of humans and if somebody showed me that by doing that that people in droves would go develop themselves and they would stop asking for a lighter load and they would start working for stronger shoulders if that really is what happened and it just like hey Tom you you free up that layer of panic over safety and now people really are empowering themselves I'd like to give them more but I have not seen the truth of that in the way that humans are I find that they get terrified that that will go away they try to hoard more resources and it it just goes bananas it's not even that it's just people lay around and play xbox I don't think they're gonna get enough to lay around and play xbox so it just gets into this how do I get people to give me more and man I've seen that play out like giving a severance package that you know is crazy generous and then people like are offended by it you're like what it's crazy time you know that about a night I know exactly two questions before we wrap up one is you're you're big on learning a lot of skill sets right what would you say has the highest what skill set has the highest up set highest return the the baseline thing people have to have is emotional resilience so you have to and this to me is a skill you have to learn how to emotionally recalibrate so when I was the kid in the server room and there was a whole bunch of people farther ahead in their entrepreneurial journey than I and they all heard the same message about you can be a partner and none of them did anything with it I started asking why aren't they doing anything with it and I realized the answer was I could self-soothe faster than they could and so yeah it hurt when I was told I was an idiot that really sucked especially hearing it from someone you really respect but I decided to not spin out of control not waste three days being hurt by it but instead to recenter and just ask are they right because if they're right there's something to learn here and if they're not right just move on and if they are right learn the lesson and so I just slowly started collecting it and the lessons and the image I started thinking was whenever somebody throws an insult at you you have two options you can let it hit you in the head or you can raise your defenses and defect it and your defenses are the psychological immune system they're real I'm not making that up so all of us have this thing that comes to our aid when somebody says something that hurts you then you're like oh well they're mean anyway they're a jerk they're a bully whatever I don't have to take them seriously and so that makes you feel better and you believe maybe that they're being cosmically punished in some way being a bully is its own punishment and all that so and I like that allows you to relax and they've done studies that show people with the highest level of self delusion are the happiest so there really is something to it but the people at the highest levels self delusion are usually not the ones that go the farthest because they don't stop to recognize where they really are to own the pain of that so I thought okay instead of raising my defenses I'm going to lower my defenses I'm gonna let that rock hit me in the head because at my feet now is actually a nugget of gold and I'm gonna pick up that nugget of gold and format a lesson that the person is throwing at me and here's the thing to realize when people really come at you they're really trying to hurt you they have sinister intent they're gonna come at you with something that's true nobody comes at you with the stuff that's not real they're gonna hit you with like the thing you're the most secure about in the world so even the people with the gravest of intent are the ones that are giving you the most powerful gift because you may be blind to it or maybe you didn't want to acknowledge it but if you can let it hit you as much as it hurts then bend down pick it up and learn from it now you can do something know that person will become unstoppable very very true Tom how do you process issues how do you do you have a system of where you go through something happen something comes up in your brain is there step process you go through yes what is it starts with the goal so what is my goal well first it starts with clearing the emotion because probably whatever I was told just had some emotion I recenter myself the thing that I probably repeat to myself the most is you can do anything you set your mind to on a long enough timeline so I know I can learn anything so if the thing that hits me is overwhelming because I'm scared I don't know how to do it you can do anything you set your mind to so at the end of this thinking through is going to be the question are you willing to set your mind to it or not and then I identify okay what's my goal does this move me towards my goal yes or no I think through the process of has somebody done it is there already a well-laid path from where I'm at to actually completing this which is how I decided that we're gonna take on Disney because looking at the only studio ever in the history of time to be disciplined enough to only tell one kind of story from a thousand different angles so much so that they gave birth to Americana is Disney no other studio everyone else is all over the map if I say I'm gonna go see a Sony movie or a Paramount movie you don't know anything about it but if I say I'm gonna go see a Disney movie you already know something so their name brand means something so I could see oh there's a path from where I'm at to the impact that I want to have so I throw that out just as a reminder of the path that I'm walking more than I have some particular obsession with Disney fascinating and by the way and you're in your mind do you see it already that vision becoming a reality on question no question no question about it for sure and look I have days of where I'm like how the you're gonna do this but then you come back - you can learn anything you set your mind to so just keep marching forward yeah I like what you said was you said you know the whole thing about when you get to 75% you know you're they're like man it's gotta happen why isn't it kind of happening already you know that whole thing we're about to score a touchdown where would you say you are right now on the on the process of doing that division it's a 70 year plan so we are we were on our app salute infancy but I think that we're you could put me up against just about anybody else and on the same amount of time I'd say we're ahead of anybody else really for sure that confident yes powerful well Tom it's been great having you by the way if you're watching this right now you heard so many different things we talked about business partnership should you have kids should you not have kids you ought to go out there and follow this content as what we're gonna put all the link here below but having said that brother thank you so much for coming out I think you're very interesting sitting on with you yes

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 100,714

Rating: 4.915977 out of 5

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur Motivation, Entrepreneur Advice, Startup Entrepreneurs, valuetainment, patrick bet david, tom bilyeu, impact theory

Id: jSvTTh93dY0

Length: 78min 26sec (4706 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019