The Quest for Health - How to Build and Sell a Billion Dollar Company

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Quest for Health - How to Build and Sell a Billion Dollar Company"

Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF, hosted by Vivian Tu, delves deep into the transformative journey of entrepreneurs who intertwine financial success with personal growth and societal impact. In the episode titled "The Quest for Health - How to Build and Sell a Billion Dollar Company," Vivian sits down with Lisa Bilyeu, co-founder of Quest Nutrition, to explore her path from overcoming personal adversities to scaling a health-centric business to a billion-dollar valuation.

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1. Lisa Bilyeu's Early Life and Influences

Lisa begins by sharing her upbringing in a Greek Orthodox family, highlighting the traditional expectations placed on women within her cultural context. She reflects on the impact of her parents' divorce when she was seven, emphasizing how her grandmother's conservative views shaped her early beliefs about stability and the role of women.

Lisa Bilyeu [04:12]: "For me, it's super useful to go back and figure out why you believe what you believe and then question yourself. Do you still believe it?"

2. Meeting Tom Bilyeu and Shifting to Entrepreneurship

Lisa recounts her serendipitous meeting with Tom Bilyeu at the New York Film Academy, where initially, their shared passion was filmmaking. However, disillusionment with the respect and fulfillment found in the movie industry led them to pivot towards entrepreneurship.

Lisa Bilyeu [19:27]: "I realize I really don't give a about money. What I really care about is our happiness."

3. Building Quest Nutrition: Challenges and Triumphs

The couple embarked on creating Quest Nutrition with the initial goal of funding their passion for movies. Operating out of a cramped West Hollywood apartment, they faced numerous challenges, including perfecting their protein bar formulations and scaling operations manually from Lisa's living room.

Lisa Bilyeu [35:07]: "Every day I had to look nakedly at my inadequacies, call myself on those inadequacies so that I could identify what I had to do to get better."

Despite limited resources and expertise, their relentless determination and willingness to learn enabled Quest Nutrition to experience explosive growth, eventually becoming the second-fastest-growing company in North America and reaching a billion-dollar valuation within five years.

4. The Sale of Quest Nutrition and the Aftermath

Upon achieving significant growth, Lisa and Tom decided to sell a portion of Quest Nutrition to secure financial stability while staying true to their mission. The sale was a pivotal moment, bringing immense financial success but also prompting introspection about their true motivations.

Lisa Bilyeu [47:04]: "The reason why I say that is I feel like everything that I've done in that sense has really helped me get better."

5. Transition to Content Creation and Mission Focus

Post-sale, Lisa shifted her focus from business to content creation aimed at empowering women. She and Tom launched the Women of Impact platform, producing content that addresses mindset, confidence, and overcoming societal limitations. This transition marked a return to her initial passion for storytelling, now leveraged to effect positive change.

Lisa Bilyeu [58:03]: "If you have anxiety, you're not going to the gym. If you have depression, you may not be going to the gym."

6. Personal Insights and Lessons

Throughout the conversation, Lisa emphasizes the importance of aligning one's mission with personal values over mere financial gain. She shares her struggles with self-esteem, imposter syndrome, and the societal pressures that shaped her resilience and drive. Her journey underscores the significance of mindset in both personal fulfillment and business success.

Lisa Bilyeu [52:44]: "What really makes me happy, like viscerally too much freaking core, is when a woman says, 'Man, girl, you gave me the confidence to do xyz.'"

7. Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• Vivian Tu [08:03]: "Not having that confidence."
• Tom Bilyeu [22:11]: "We're still broke."
• Lisa Bilyeu [65:21]: "You have to look at all the reasons and excuses, and it was an excuse. I was fooling myself."
• Vivian Tu [66:18]: "Tell me about your biggest money mistake."

8. Conclusion

Lisa Bilyeu's narrative is a testament to perseverance, strategic pivoting, and the enduring impact of personal missions. Her story illustrates that true success transcends financial milestones, embedding itself in the lives she touches and the societal barriers she helps dismantle. As Quest Nutrition's co-founder turned influential content creator, Lisa embodies the fusion of entrepreneurship with purposeful living, inspiring listeners to prioritize happiness and impact over conventional measures of success.

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Where to Find Lisa Bilyeu:

• Women of Impact Show: YouTube - Women of Impact
• Podcast: Women of Impact Podcast
• Social Media: Follow Lisa at @lisabilyeu
• Upcoming Projects: Wish Academy – A superhero school-themed comic book for young girls, blending elements of Mean Girls and Harry Potter.

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Final Thoughts: This episode serves as an inspiring blueprint for aspiring entrepreneurs and individuals seeking to align their professional endeavors with personal missions. Lisa Bilyeu's journey reinforces the belief that success is most meaningful when it contributes to the greater good, fostering confidence and resilience in oneself and others.

Transcript

[Vivian Tu]

Ultimately end up creating a company together. And that tiny little startup idea, Quest Nutrition is now in pretty much every single drugstore, grocery store, health store. You walk in, you can see it, and it's not just like a little bit of the shelf, it's like a.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Lot of the shelf on this decision for us to make money.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

The problem is, of course we didn't bloody make enough money. Standing there with protein powder and sweetener.

[Vivian Tu]

And you just like look dead behind the eyes.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I'm just like, this is torturous.

[Unknown]

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[Vivian Tu]

What'S up rich friends? Welcome back to another episode of Net Worth and Chill with me, your host, Vivian Tu, AKA your rich BFF and your favorite Wall street girly. And you know what? I'm going to be honest with you. Every single year, you know, happy New Year, I make one resolution. I'm going to get healthy, I'm going to get fit, I'm going to eat right, I'm going to go to the gym and I do it for about two and a half weeks and then I'm back to doordashing tacos, getting Froyo delivered at 9:30 at night. And you know, let's be honest, that Equinox membership is collecting a little bit of dust. So I really want to focus now that I'm in my 30s, a little bit more on my health and not necessarily for some of those same shallow reasons that I certainly wanted to in my 20s. It's no longer about having the 16 pack ABS. It's more about how am I going to be able to live the best life today but also feel really good about my knees and my ankles and my hips when I'm in my older age so that I can still travel, Can I still do those things that bring me joy, Can I still run on the beach? Can I still swim? So today we are going to talk a lot about finding confidence, finding health, finding wellness, and what that actually means for each of us individually. I did kickstart my health fitness journey for my wedding last year and surprisingly, I've been Trying my best to kind of stick with it, but. But I could certainly use a little bit of a pep talk. So I have invited someone who is going to be able to give us the pep talk of a lifetime about all of these things. I'm beyond excited to show you guys all of the wonderful things that she's done and have her share all of her wisdom. She is the co founder of the Billion with a B dollar brand Quest Nutrition. She's an entrepreneur, an investor and host of Women of Impact. Lisa Bilyeu, thank you so much for being here.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Hello Pomi. So happy to be here. I've been excited and I am. Let's freaking go.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah. I am so excited. So in case you guys haven't already heard, I was on Lisa's podcast, I wanna say, last year.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

And the last time we were together we were chatting about everything. But one thing we didn't really get to get into was your childhood. You growing up. You came and did the deep dive on my psyche. Talk to me about little Lisa. Did you grow up rich? Did you grow up broke? How did that impact your childhood?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Such a great question. Because I think the foundation of what you're brought up on really does dictate your beliefs now. And when you think about why am I not where I want to be? Why have I not done X, Y and Z? Why haven't I lost the way everything comes to your belief system. Where do you use your belief system come from? Typically your childhood. So for me it's super useful to go back and figure out why you believe what you believe and then question yourself. Do you still believe it? So talking.

[Vivian Tu]

Ooh, still believe.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. Because like I was brought up Greek Orthodox. My dad told me every single day that the goal of being a woman in the Greek Orthodox community was I was going to get married and have kids. And that if I did that, I'm solid, like my life is going to be okay. I. When I actually got married, my grandmother my. We went to Cyprus, took my husband there. My grandmother pulled me aside and said to me, you know what? I've got a words of wisdom basically. Okay, grandmother, tell me. She said, even if he hits you, don't worry. Maybe you deserved it. What now the reason why I'm saying, even though I flashed forward into that's when I was married, that's the mindset that I had growing up. Or not the mindset I had, but the mindset I was taught growing up now, why did my grandmother believe that? Like to her core, she actually believed it she wasn't like, I'm going to teach you something toxic. She was like, I'm going to teach you the lesson that's going to save your marriage and make you happy for the rest of your life. So she really came at it like, this is the best wisdom she could possibly give me. Now when I think about why that's crazy is where did I grow up? Where did my dad grow up? He grew up in a third world country, literally Cyprus in the mountains. His toilet was a hole in the floor.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So that's just one generation ago. Yeah, my dad grew up like that. So even though I was born in London, I definitely had like, I, I didn't have to worry about food or a roof over my head. I saw where my heritage come came from. I saw what that looked like and every way, every turn that I made. I was basically taught that my goal was to get married because that meant safety. That's why my grandmother told me stability. Because my grandmother was never went to school, she taught herself how to read by reading the Bible. And my grandfather was a goat herder.

[Vivian Tu]

A goat herder?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. So now think about my grandmother. She can't read, she's got four children her entire life. Her stability, being fed, having a roof over her head meant that the man makes all the decisions, the man makes the rules. And so hey, if he hits you, it must be my fault. Why? Because if you say anything, if you leave, you may starve to death, you may lose your children and you may not have a roof over your head. So that is the generational trauma that I think gets passed down through generations of the belief system that we then carry. Okay, so now growing up, I'm five, I'm seven, I'm nine, I think I have to find a guy. I have to think that that is the goal in life is to find a boy. And so when I'm getting 15, I'm being bullied, I can't find a boyfriend, I get teased for my looks, my entire confidence, self esteem was non existent because I felt like if a boy didn't like me then it didn't mean that I was worthy. So that just lays the groundwork to how we think as young girls. Yeah, I was actually had this grown man patted me on the head. I must have been about nine years old. I remember this clear to this day. He patted me on the head. He said, little girls don't speak until unless spoken to. So when we go, how on earth do we have so many women that dismiss their value, that don't believe they're worthy, that don't feel like they have.

[Vivian Tu]

A voice, don't demand more money, don't ask for that raise, don't go out and try to invest and do all these things. Of course, because we're telling them not to.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Exactly. So I then go as an adult, does that mindset serve me? Yes or no? And once I realized, oh my God, no, it doesn't serve me at all. Great, what am I going to do about it? And that became kind of the trajectory of how I started to pivot. Reorient, how I think about myself. Reorient, how do I build my confidence? What is my goal? How do I get there? And then I really dove into like mindset, education, knowledge, empowerment, confidence, all of that. But it all stemmed from not having that as a kid.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, not having that confidence. Can I ask, did you grow up like financially feeling very secure? Because what was that family structure? Like, did your mom stay with your dad so you guys would have financial stability? Like, what did that look like?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So, yeah, this is actually really interesting. So my dad was so brought up middle of nowhere, came to London, started off in the mailroom of an oil tanking company because the Greeks especially back then, that was their wealth, right? Always. So he started off as the mailman and he went to like night night school. So even though I was born, he had three young children, he was going to night school, learning, learning, learning. My mom was a stay at home wife. He ended up working his way all the way up the ladder to actually running the whole company. So he was very financially secure. Yeah, but my parents divorced when I was 7, so I lived with my mom.

[Vivian Tu]

Wait, was the grandma who gave you that advice your dad's mom or your mom's?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

My dad's mom.

[Vivian Tu]

I wonder what she thought of that.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

She did not like my parents divorcing. That was for sure. Because that was going against God's work. Yeah. So. So I find myself, I'm about 7 years old, my parents divorced. My dad is quite financially well off at this point. And my dad said, even though we're going to get a divorce, I want to take care of you and my kids. Like as a, as a Greek man, that was very important to him. And my mom said no. She said, if I go out and I buy my kids a gift, I don't want it to be from my ex husband. I want to know that I worked and got the money for my kids. So I had this father who was very protective and would definitely give us financial support. But my mom went out and worked every day and then came home and cooked for three children. So I kind of got to see that sort side of it also, because my dad came from nothing, like, literally hole in the floor as his toilet. He taught me the power of making sure you always work and you never are owed anything. And he was just like, if you want something in life, you've got to work hard. No one owes you anything.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And so I was able to have these. These two sides of it where my mom as a woman was like, no, I'm not going to just take money. Yeah. But seeing the struggle that she went through because it wasn't easy. So I saw how hard it was for her to work all come home, cook and clean for three kids, and then she would pass out on the sofa from exhaustion. So I got to see what it was like for a woman to do all that. I got to see what it was like for this man to really build his career. And so it really taught me all these different elements that I think really made up who I am today and how I show up in business.

[Vivian Tu]

Okay. What a perfect segue. I didn't tee you up.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

No, you didn't.

[Vivian Tu]

But I want to talk about business. But before we get into that, you actually successfully created a company with your husband. And oftentimes they say, don't get into business with people you get into bed with because you can bicker. But how did you guys meet?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

How did we meet? Oh, that's an interesting story. Okay, so I go to film school because I love the power of content. Like, you can make someone feel happy. You can make someone feel sad using music and cuts and things like that. And emotion was really important to me, like being able to move someone and communicate. And I was like, wow. Movies are the best form of communication for people that you don't know. I can literally touch someone's heart, and they've never met me before. So I go to film school. I don't feel like I've got all the education that I needed. I felt like I wanted more directing, someone to direct. I wanted more expertise. So I got a brochure saying that there's this film school in Los Angeles called the New York Film Academy. They shoot on the backlot of Universal Studios.

[Vivian Tu]

Okay, nice.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

As a young girl in London, that I get to come to America for two months and shoot on the back, lots of Universal Studios. We got to use their props department. I was like, this is a dream come true. So I walk into, like, first day of School. I walk in, and there's this really hot guy there. And I'm like, oh, my God. He's pretty sick. Like, hot American dude. Turns out he was my teacher that ended up turning out to be my husband.

[Vivian Tu]

Really?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So, yeah, so that was, like, the very long story short. But so, yeah, so he was my teacher. Which, of course, These days, in 2024 or 2025, it is frowned upon, for sure. First of all, I want to say it's a. It was a film school for adults. So he's only four years older than me.

[Vivian Tu]

Okay, so. Okay, so he wasn't, like, 4D years older than me.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Four years old. He was four years older than me. And we both thought on the first date, so, like, he was just my teacher for the first four weeks. Then it was hinting. Then it was, like, I guess subtly gave him my number. Then we go out, and it became one of those things that none of us. Neither of us had the pressure. Like, I was the person that I would. I'd have my little checklist, right? It's like, okay, is this car nice? Does he dress well? Does he have cologne on? Like, I was very superficial back then at 21.

[Vivian Tu]

As we all are.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

As we all are. Yeah, exactly. So I meet him. He comes picks me up for the first date. He comes straight from work, so he's wearing this old, tattered shirt that actually just said New York Film Academy on it. He walks me to his car. His car's like, a total piece of crap. If I could swear on this podcast.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, you can.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

His back seat was, like, looked like a U Haul truck because he, like, had so much strap in the back. And I was like, God, this guy's nothing like what I normally go for. And then he opened the car door for me, and I remember that. That was 24 years ago. And I remember that to this day because that was the first time any guy had ever been chivalrous, ever opened.

[Vivian Tu]

The car for you.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And I was like, wow, I guess I don't care about his dirty car because he opened the car door, and then he took me to a bee restaurant, which. Yeah, so the funny thing is, I didn't even know what a B restaurant was, but each restaurant gets a rating out of its cleanliness and its hygiene.

[Vivian Tu]

Oh, my God, it got a B health rating. I'm dead.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So he gets this B rating. It's, like, got rips, and I'm used to.

[Vivian Tu]

Which, by the way, do you know how much mouse poop they need to find to get you A B rating.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

It's like a lot of oh yeah, you just go into the restroom. It was like in a strip mall. So imagine I'm going to thinking. Cuz I was used to the superficialness that guys tried to flash their money to impress you. I'd never had anything else. And because I was told my whole life that, oh, you want a guy that can provide for you. Right back to the belief system. I was like, kind of like, this guy's interesting. Like I don't know how to.

[Vivian Tu]

And by interesting you mean bad.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Like I don't know how to. But he was fascinating because there was like, you know when there's just a vibe of gay song. It wasn't like he was like, I'm so sorry, I'm taking you to this restaurant. He was just like, oh, I love this Chinese food. Like, let's go here. And he seemed so happy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And so in that happiness I was like, oh, well, I guess I should try their food. Yeah, we. He was so captivating in the discussion that within five minutes of that talk, I didn't care that I was at a bee restaurant. I didn't care that he had a crappy car. It was like, wow. He was massaging my brain that no other guy had ever done before. And he was challenging me. And this is where, going back to the belief system, I'd never been challenged from a belief system ever before until I met him. Because I was surrounded by everyone that was like me. I was surrounded by Greek Orthodox people or Turkish or Jewish who all have that same similar culture. So here I am, white boy from Tacoma, Washington, and he's going to me, so why do you believe in God? And I'm like, oh my God, did he just ask me that?

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

But he was so sincere in his curiosity. And so that was really the first moment where he was breaking me open from my belief system and just asking me why I believed it. And you know what my answer was when he asked me why I believed.

[Vivian Tu]

In God, Were you like, I don't know.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

At 21 years old, I said because my dad told me to. I actually didn't know why. I hadn't even thought about it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And so that really was. That was why I think I ended up falling so in love with him, like when neither of us meant to. We're like, this is the best fling ever. I have to leave the country. Like, I never have to see you again. Right. And he just come out of a relationship where a girl had been very clingy. So he's like, this is great. Her visa expires.

[Vivian Tu]

Her visa expires.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

She's going to get kicked out. She has to leave. So we both. And this is literally like, if I could have the mic drop moment. This was the moment where it was like we had zero expectations and we just went with it. And I didn't question, huh, Should I like this or not? Should. I was just like, wow, this is fascinating. Interesting. And that was how our relationship developed. And that was kind of the start of our, you know, we've been together now for 24 years.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Vivian Tu]

And, you know, you've mentioned you guys met at a film school. You grew up, you know, to, what is it? A Greek Orthodox family. Your Cypriot.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. Greek sobriety.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And I'm impressed.

[Vivian Tu]

And he's from Tacoma, Washington. At no point have you said the word gym or diet or nutrition yet. But you guys ultimately end up creating a company together. And that tiny little startup idea, Quest Nutrition, is now in pretty much every single drugstore, grocery store, health store. You walk in, you can see it. And it's not just like a little bit of the shelf. It's like a lot of the shelf that you got like chips, you got bars, you got everything. Why did you still start a health company?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Okay, so I will. It's obviously like anything, a really long story, but I'll give you like the main bullet points. So we wanted to make movies. We get married in England. He got. He converted to Greek Orthodox. That I could get married in a Greek church. That was really important to me. And we were like, okay, what does our future look like? We want to be in movies. So I go and get a gig on a movie set. I had a friend and it was a B rated movie, which means, like, it's like a million dollars. And it was like a horror film. I go on there and I'm a set, I'm a pa. And then for Ossie Davis, I don't know if you know who he is. Like, just an incredible. Unfortunately, he's passed away now. He gave the eulogy. Malcolm X's like, funeral. I mean, really important guy. Anyway, so I turn up on set, I do that, and then I do it very well that they ask me to do more. Oh, will you do photographs? Will you do this? Will you do that? So I end up helping out on set. And one of the actors in one moment in this night scene where he's lighting a match, not realizing that you need to. When you light a match on set, you have to do like eight Matches at a time for the flame to actually look. I was filling in for the props department because they needed help. So I was like, cool, I'll help you guys. I was the only one on set filling in for the props department. I have a box. And they're like, just give him the box. You're good as long as you've got this box. The matchbox runs out. We're in the middle of shooting, and he's like, I need another matchbox. Now, remember, you've got, like, a hundred people around, like, crew. And I'm looking in the box, I'm like, crap. No one. They didn't give me a spare box. The actor threw the matchbox at me in front of everybody.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Just, like, get me another one. In that moment, the unexpected fire Leo in me came out, and I stood up. I'm like, 22.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I stood up and I said, there's no need to disrespect me. I will find you a matchbox. Give me five minutes. And, girl, I freaking bolted back to, like, craft services, and I was like, who smokes? Who's got a lighter? Who's gonna. And I just found it, and I ran back. That's just one moment of probably five that I can count, where I was just utterly disrespected on set. And most. A lot of people are. That was the moment that I realized the dream didn't match the reality. Mm. And in I. And I had to ask myself the really honest and hard question, do I still want the dream now that I know what it really looks like?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And the answer was no. I'm not. Like, as much as I want to make movies, I'm not willing to put myself in a position where I get disrespected or put in a position where I have to step on someone to get ahead.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

That doesn't jive with my personality. My husband had an equally bad experience on movie sets. So we literally sat down one day and said, God damn, what are we going to do? And it turned out. Who? My husband. This is his quote. Whoever controls the resources controls the art. Which means that, baby, if we make our own money, if we have enough money, no one can get us to. Can tell us what to do. We get to dictate what script we do, what team we have on the crew. And if we don't expect disrespect, we fire people.

[Vivian Tu]

The person with the resources gets to create the art. That is such a word. That is wise.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So that was, like, the first step. Okay. Great. How do we then create the resources? That's where we went into at the time. Let's just look at the wealthiest people and how do they act on everybody?

[Vivian Tu]

So you actually didn't come up with the idea first. You were just chasing the money so you could make movies.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. This all started from that. So we're chasing the money now. And so we're like, how do you chase money? I mean, it wasn't that word. It was like, how do you make money so that we can make movies? And so we're like, all right, well, we know nothing about it. We're in this tiny, tiny, 700 square foot apartment in West Hollywood with no balcony, no windows. Like, it's like it's a jail cell. It's like, hot in there. Yeah. And so we're like, we just need to figure out who is doing it well and let's copy them. So we look at Steve Jobs at the time. He just released an article where he talks about that. An entrepreneur, when you're making decisions every single day, you only have a certain brain capacity to make those brain. Those decisions with clarity. And so where do you spend your time? And what decisions do you make that actually move the needle? And what decisions do you make that actually take up the brain capacity? And so he was like, that's why I always wear black shirts and jeans. I never think about it. I go into my decision fatigue. Yeah. So he doesn't have to decide what to wear. He just wears the same thing over and over. So me and my husband sat down, I said, all right, babe, what if you go and work and I take care of every other decision? Now we're doing it as a team. You're focusing on business because you've got some experience where I don't. I'll be the stay at home wife, if you will, for a year. I'll make all other decisions. I'll decide what you're wearing, what you're eating, everything. And then after a year, that should be enough, Right? We'll make enough money to go and make movies over the naivety of the beginner. So we end up cool. This handshake. Great. This will be a year to 18 months. We said a year to 18 months. Come and go.

[Vivian Tu]

You're still broke.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

We're still broke. I'm a stay at home. Wow. I'm taking care of his every need. So literally, when I say every need, I literally mean every need. I was like, you do not make a decision outside of business. And this was A team effort. It wasn't like he dictated. I thought this was a genius idea. So every day he wakes up, his gym clothes were right next to his bed. He would get out, he'd put them on, he'd go to the gym, he'd come back, he'd get in the shower, his work clothes were hung up for him. He'd come out of the shower, he'd put on his work clothes. He's leaving, I'm passing him lunch. He'd come home, his dinner's made. Like, I took pride being a 50, 50 partnership on this decision for us to make money.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

The problem is, of course, we didn't bloody make enough money.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah. So.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. So 12 to 18 months comes and goes. Another 12 to 18 months comes and goes. Before you know it, eight years go by.

[Vivian Tu]

Eight years.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Eight years. And now before I know how do eight years go by? I didn't speak up, I didn't say I was unhappy. And all of a sudden I look around, I'm like, I'm a stay at home wife and I never wanted to be. Now, let me just make sure I caveat this. There's nothing wrong with being a stay at home wife. It was freaking hard.

[Vivian Tu]

It was not for you.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yes. It wasn't my dream. And yet here I was, stuck in this freaking cycle.

[Vivian Tu]

And you've been married for eight years too, right now?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yes.

[Vivian Tu]

The whole time?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yes.

[Vivian Tu]

Okay.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And so my husband, he was just chasing money. So he meets these other guys, they're entrepreneurs. They're like, come with us, we'll show you how to make money. So those three try to make money. Try to try to try. They love the movie industry as well. So the goal was cool. You've met these guys. They're seasoned entrepreneurs. You guys are going to go and do make this business together and once you've got enough money, then I'll stop what I'm doing and I'll make movies with you. Eight years come by and there's no end in sight. And so in that moment, I realized I really don't give a about money. Can I swear on this podcast? Okay. I really don't give a about money.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I was like, what I really care about is our happiness. And we haven't been chasing happiness, we've been chasing money. And so I said to my husband, I, I haven't put pressure on you. I always support you because I knew who you were when I married you. I don't try and change you. I, I'm attracted to your ambition. So I'm not ever going to take that away from you. But right now, it's gotten to the point where this is damaging our relationship because you're miserable. You come home every day saying, don't ask me about work. I'm miserable because I literally feel like I'm lonely.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

What are we doing?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

It's damaging our relationship. And that's the only reason why I'm speaking up is now it's damaging that relationship that we promised and committed ourselves to. So that was really the pivot where he went in, spoke to his business partners. He says, I'm profoundly miserable. I freaking hate what I'm doing, and I just want to be happy. Me and my wife, we're going to quit and we're going to move to Greece and we're going to write. Like, it was like, you know, like, yeah, just do something dramatically different. They turned around, they're like, oh, my God, we're unhappy too. So that became the moment where they sat down and they said, what would we do every single day that we would care about? Now, I was brought up with a mum that was borderline anorexic. So you know how I said my mom would come home, she would work all day, she would sit there, she would starve herself all day, and then she would sit down at dinner, we would eat dinner, and she would eat one yoghurt.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, wow.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I saw that. And so you better believe, like, the understanding of the mental space around weight and body image really was important to me because then as an adult, she became morbidly obese. So my mum went from literally underweight, skinny as anything to morbidly obese. Okay. Health and fitness. Like, that's the thing that I had just done. I was a stay at home wife, so I was going to the gym every day. My husband was working out. His business partners were in the fitness industry. Like, we all just, like, liked working out, but we were all hand making bars for our husbands to take to work with us with them.

[Vivian Tu]

Oh, okay. Because you were, you were making every single decision. So you were making the bars.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Correct. So I'm. Now, look, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm buying protein powder online, I'm throwing it in with water. One of my business partner's wives was really into fitness. So she was like, oh, Belisa, if you add peanut butter, it actually tastes nice. I was like, oh, great. And a peanut butter. And I'm like, did you try crushed nuts in it? She's like, yeah, I did. And it's really great. And so we were just all making bars for our husband. Like, literally, like. And putting, like, on a baking sheet. Yeah, but putting them in the fridge, because the second you add water to any food, it automatically activates the molding process, so you have to refrigerate them. So here the guys are, they're all sitting around a table. They're going, all right, so if we were to quit this chasing money, what would we do differently? And they're like, well, our wives make us bars. We love fitness. There's no good protein bar on the market. Literally everything tastes like freaking sawdust.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

What if we try a protein bar?

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[Lisa Bilyeu]

So now my husband comes home. I think he's gonna quit. We're gonna move to Greece. And he comes home and become writers. And he comes home and he's like, all right, babe, I promised you that I would quit, but we've got a better idea. We want to do something that we actually care about so that even if we lose. Because here's the tip for, like, just entrepreneurs. When you're building a business, the success is never guaranteed. No, ever. You better believe the struggle will be guaranteed. So what do you struggle?

[Vivian Tu]

Always included, for free.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Always. And there's a bonus of an extra struggle. So what can you do every single day that you will freaking love, even during the struggle? And so we said, okay, well, my husband Actually, he read a quote from Mother Teresa, and it was, not everyone is willing to fight for the masses, but everyone will fight for the one. So who's the one person you're willing to fight for every single day? So it's going back to the weight thing was like, I wanted to lose weight, and then, like, two weeks later, it's because it's. So you're not losing weight for anything apart from just you want to feel good about yourself. But when you have that one person in mind that you believe that you can help and that gets you out of bed every day, that's your North Star. So for me, it was my mom. It was trying to figure out, how can I help the anorexic and obese community. My husband came from a morbidly obese family. Both his mom and his sister were morbidly obese. So you can imagine as we do this startup company, that we have no idea what we're doing. Every time we had a roadblock, every time we had something where we had no clue what we were doing. Like, I want to make sure you really understand we had no clue what we were doing every time we did that. How do you keep going? I would just ask myself, you can quit Lisa, or you can show up for your mom today. Which one do you choose?

[Vivian Tu]

It wasn't about the money anymore. It wasn't even about the money to make the movies. It was about mom.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So then it became now we have words for a mission. This is like 20 2009. Yeah, no one was talking about mission back then.

[Vivian Tu]

This is post housing crisis collapse. Startups aren't a thing yet.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Oh, and we just bought a house. So we bought this tiny little house off the money that my husband was making from the job that he hated. And so now we go to do this startup. So when he comes in, he tells me, hey, babe, we're gonna do this new protein bar.

[Vivian Tu]

You have a mortgage.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Well, what? He turned around to me and he says, but I need you to know that if it doesn't work, we lose our house.

[Vivian Tu]

I just literally got chills. Like, he looked you dead in the eye, and he was like, I want to take a gamble on something, and if it doesn't work, we lose the home over our heads.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. So there's two things here. Number one, realizing that you are not the same as your partner, so you think differently. And I hate to be gender biased, but this is just. It is too true to not speak about. Women see a house as a nest. Men see a house As a nest egg.

[Vivian Tu]

Yes.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And once you understand. Because, first of all, I was offended. I was like, what do you mean? How could you say that? And then I realized he just doesn't see the house the same way I do. So it's not right or wrong. I need to not pass judgment on my husband for wanting to do this. And then the second thing is going back to something I mentioned earlier, is I know the man I married. I was attracted to him because he had ambition and drive. And just because I've got a ring on my finger, you better freaking believe that doesn't go away. So what kind of wife and partner would I be to try and take the thing that makes him him? Just because I'm married and because I've bought a house now, that doesn't. That doesn't make me feel good. So I literally. I took a beat and I said, babe, sink or swim, we go together. Whoa. And I was like, let's. Let's freaking do it. I bet on you. Like, I bet on you.

[Vivian Tu]

I bet on you.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Because here's the thing. I could get another house. I can't get another tom.

[Vivian Tu]

I like how you didn't say, I can. I can get another husband. It was, I can get another Tom.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. So. And then that. The final piece really is really just let that fear speak. When I said, oh, my God, my house, my house, what was I worried about? Like, what was the true worry about losing my house? Let the fear speak. So number one was, well, what if I don't have a roof over my head, Lisa, Is that actually true? Like, actually, do I think that I don't have any friends or any family member that I would end up homeless? Because if that is true, you should really consider that. I actually urge you not to take that gamble. It wasn't true for me. I had friends. I had family in England if I needed to. So the fear I had wasn't actually a fear. It was more of an ego thing. What if I lose my house?

[Vivian Tu]

What if you have to call in for help?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

What if. Exactly. What are people going to say? That sort of thing. Other people's husbands have a stable job.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Other people's husbands don't risk their house.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So I had to let it speak for me to realize the truth, that I can then change my reactions to it. And then the other thing was, well, if we lose my house, so that means I'm going to starve to death. And then the same process. Am I really going to starve to death? No. Okay, cool. So I actually don't have to worry. What I really actually have to worry about is asking my husband to be a man that he's not. That is true. Consequences right there.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So that was how we ended up getting started on Quest.

[Vivian Tu]

So you start Quest. Do you like, how does it go from, oh, we're trying not to add water to the bars because mold starts to build to, oh, we have like a good product. It's getting on shelves.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. So we end up hiring a pharmacist who actually knows how to take formulations and make them shelf stable. So going back to my husband, our business partner's wife, she really understood nutrition way more than I do. I'm like, I'll do whatever you need me to. So she did the original formulation and then we hired a pharmacist that basically just tested everything. And more is a chemist, I think is the right word. So she would just test things. And when I say every week we would go and we would pick up prototypes and we would taste them and we would go back and we'd put them in the fridge and we'd keep them out and we'd put them in a warm room. We'd put them in a cold, cold room. So as a stay at home wife, though, at this point, this is actually going back to the belief system. At this point, I don't think about making movies anymore. I'm just like, I want my husband to be happy. So you need a different job. I need to be happy. So if you're happy, I'm happy. This is what I really thought. And then I was like, and I'm a great housewife. Like, I've actually proven that I'm the fucking, you know, Dom Perignon of housewives. Like, I feel freaking good.

[Vivian Tu]

You're like, grandma would be proud.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, Grandma would be proud. So I said to my husband, like, how can I help? As the good wife, how can I help? And so this is where they had had to leave their other business they developed, but they had to still be there to then exit. So they're like, okay, we have to sell this company that we hate, that we're making money, that we just feel like we're, you know, a money horse and we're not doing anything, but we need someone to help run this bar company until we can do that. Do that. So they're like, well, Lisa, do you mind help? I said, no, I'm. I can do whatever you need. They're like, we just need you to ship bars from the living room floor. Great. So I'm literally once a day, I'm like, do any orders? Oh, my God, we got an order. We got an order. Like, it was so exciting. And I'm literally on my living room floor. I'm filling out the little like address thing. I'm like licking and stamping. Like, I. It was all manual. We then ended up, which we couldn't have predicted, we grew at 57,000%.

[Vivian Tu]

I literally can't even wrap my head around what 50, 57,000% year over year growth looks like.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So, yeah, it looks like basically go from in three years, we go to the second fastest growing company in North America. And then one to five years, we went from a zero company to a billion dollar company in five years. And so you can imagine, I go from shipping bars on my living room floor to the next thing I know, I'm blinking, I'm like, oh, I've got like a box full. And it's like, huh, I've got a bag full. Huh. I don't know how I'm going to carry these anymore. And so, like, I'm like, oh, I can actually call the UPS guy and he can come to my house. Like, this is magic. So you can imagine growing that fast, being the stay at home wife, not knowing anything about entrepreneurship every day was a constant struggle. Every day I had to look nakedly at my inadequacies, call myself on those inadequacies so that I could identify what I had to do to get better. And I think sometimes we don't want to just look nakedly at it. Like, we just want to pretend like, oh, well, I'm not good at that because that doesn't serve you. I literally had to say right now, I'm just, I don't understand shipping. All right, Lisa, then you have to get to know shipping. So I just like, how do I find out? Education. There's this thing called Google. So like UPS guy comes and I would put these garbage bags outside, and he's like, you know what? It'd be really much quicker if you just put it on the palette. I was like, okay, great. He leaves. I'm like, what the hell is a palette? I don't bloody know what a palette is. I was born in England. I went to film school. Yeah. So I'm literally on Google. What's a pallet? And it shows this little wooden thing. And I'm like, oh, all right. Yeah, I've seen those. Type in again. Where do you get a pallet? Zip code. Oh, okay. If I just pay, they'll deliver it great. That was literally how I took our shipping department from my living room floor to two years later, I had a facility that was 10,000 square feet. I had 44,0 employees in my team alone that I was overseeing in two years. How the hell did I manage that? I just kept telling myself, lisa, I'm not special. I don't think I'm highly educated in any way, shape or form. I was just willing to always knock down the barrier and find the solution. I was willing to overcome the imposter syndrome that told me time and time again, lisa, you don't deserve to be in this room full of entrepreneurs like, you shouldn't be speaking up. I had to overcome that on the freaking daily basis. I had to work on my confidence. I had to build my self esteem. I had to figure out all the problems when my marketing director comes running to me one day and he's like, oh, my God, Lisa, we've got a chance to get bars into Justin Bieber's hands now. This is before, like, influencing was really the thing. And like, we had people, like, almost like, doing it for free. You had, like, Ryan Seacrest was posting about our bars for free. Cause back then, people didn't realize the power they had as an influencer.

[Vivian Tu]

They didn't understand platforms.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

They didn't at all. So we're like, we've got a chance. Justin Bieber's cousin loves Quest. He's about to go visit him. He said that if we get him bars, that he will try and get a photo of Justin holding the bar. You can imagine this is like, this could be a game changer for the business.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And so I was like, great, I'll just ship them. And he's like, but hang on, there's a caveat. Dun, dun, dun. Of course there's always a caveat. It has to be shipped to Dubai. And I had something like 48 hours to get them there. Now Dubai's restrictions on imports, import of food. Holy smokes. And then 48 hours, especially back then, it's not as rapid as the services you have now. So I'm like, all right, let me just figure. Let me just call my UPS guy. So I call him up and he literally just laughs at me. He's like, that can't be done.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

In that moment that imposter syndrome comes in where I'm like, is it wrong if I tell him that I don't believe him? Is it wrong that I just think that he's being lazy? Like, but who am I Lisa, you can't tell him his job. You don't know anything. You're still a shipping guy. Yeah. And I'm telling myself, you're still the stay at home wife. So my mentality of what I stood for and who I was and my identity didn't feel good. So I was like, you can't tell him. But in that moment, this is the question I asked myself. No one's gonna fight for your dream more than you. No one will fight for your dream more than you. And to him, what am I actually asking him to do? Make his life harder.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

He wants a Lee. He wants a punch in, punch out, maybe. And I'm just making his job harder. Once I realized that, I was like, oh, I cannot take no for an answer. Let me ask for a supervisor. So I asked for a supervisor. His supervisor laughs in my face. Asked for the manager. The manager comes on. He was very respectful, but he's like, look, it just can't be done. And I said, all right. I play a game called no bullshit, what would it take?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Because sometimes you may not just be thinking about the extent of which you're willing to go to get something done.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So I was like, all right, no bullshit. What would it take? And I was like, okay, what if I just filled out more forms than I need to? What if I just spent half a day reading all the import and export rules? What if I overpaid? What if I got the phone number of the UPS recipients in Dubai, called them now and told them, hey, here's a package that may be coming. I beg of you, I'll send you free product. I'll do whatever. If you can just keep an eye on it, that is what. No bullshit. What would it take to get bars within 48 hours? And you freaking better believe I got those bloody bars to Dubai within that timeframe. Now, the joke, unfortunately, is Bieber still didn't bloody take a photo with it. But here's the thing that. That taught me. I mean, this was. I'm talking like Maybe this was 15 years ago, but I still remember the story. Why? Because that was one of the pivotal moments. That was one of the pivotal moments. I didn't take no for an answer. That I realized everything was on me. It is my responsibility, and if I just blamed them, where would I be? I at least proved to myself and to my business partners that I was capable of getting the job done.

[Vivian Tu]

You went from an external to an internal locus of control. You said, I am in charge of this story. I am the narrator, you better listen up.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yes. And then what will it take? And here's the final piece. Even if I didn't get it, I would have. Like, I did everything I could and.

[Vivian Tu]

Feel really proud about that.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Exactly. It's when you stop, you say, I'm not good enough or you blame other people, that now you're starting to tell yourself a story that then you take with as your business grows. And that's, I think, why a lot of business ends up stalling out.

[Vivian Tu]

Mm. But yours didn't.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So I am.

[Vivian Tu]

Yours didn't. So I wanna talk a little bit about, I think, a moment that a lot of founders, startups, just people fantasize about. Your company is valued at over a billion dollars. You obviously have co founders Tom among with other people, but you guys end up selling Quest Nutrition for a eye watering sum. Literally, it's a billion dollar valuation. What does that feel like? Because there's so few of us on earth who will ever get to experience that. I mean, did you feel just amazing? Did you want to go to Bora Bora? Like, what do we do?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

All right, so I'm going to take you back a couple of years before that evaluation, because this is the setup. I'm in a warehouse house. It's Easter Sunday.

[Vivian Tu]

And you are Greek Orthodox.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I'm Greek Orthodox. Easter's bigger than Christmas. Easter is bigger than your birthday. I mean, Easter is the. The holiday. The holiday, yeah. I'm in a warehouse on Easter Sunday. I'm in a hair net. It's freezing. I've got. I actually have a photo. I can send it to you because I literally. My husband took a photo and I just look pissed. And I've got layers and layers because it's freezing in the warehouse and I'm doing formulations and literally I'm just standing there with protein powder and sweetener.

[Vivian Tu]

And you just like, look dead behind the eyes.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I'm just like, this is torture. And my husband's got such a. Like, he's always enthusiastic about it. He's like, oh, my God, we're doing this. And I'm like, I wanted to be in movies. I came all the way from England. I had to dream. And I'm in a warehouse with a hair net on Easter Sunday making a protein bar. Like, how did my life go so wrong? That was literally in my. How did my life go so wrong? I ended up here. So in those moments, I reminded myself going back to my North Star, okay, if this works, you help your mom. You could potentially save your mom's life. If this works, you can save your mother in law. If this works, you save your sister. Like those are real world consequences. And you better believe I will fight for that. Like way more than my, my, my, my misery of being in a hairnet. Right? I'm like, no, this is actually real world consequences. But how do you stay motivated? Because yes, a mission is one thing, but if you just can't even get out of bed because you don't feel good about yourself, it doesn't matter who else you help. So what we ended up doing is we found ways to try to keep us motivated. So we would drive in our, in our Ford Focus that if you went over 60 miles an hour, the steering wheel would shake because there was a hole in the exhaust. But we didn't pay for it to get fixed because we were like, that's money we can put in the company. Yeah. So we just like literally just left the hole in the exhaust. So we would drive around Beverly Hills and growing up in England, watching Beverly Hills 90210, you'd look, I'd look, yeah. And we would have real conversations about what kind of house we would buy once we got wealthy. Now it's interesting to think about once we're wealthy because in my head I was like, you know, we've got $20 million.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Like, of course selling for a billion is a big gap. But like it was like, oh my God, what dream house? So we would drive around on days that we just felt badly and we would end up, oh, babe, I love that house. He's like, no, I don't like that. I like that. And I was like, look, I'm not buying that. So we would actually feel the emotion of buying a house, number one. Number two, it wasn't tied to the wealth itself. It was tied to a vision. So I was, I thought to myself, imagine how proud that 14 year old girl that was in London that felt bad about herself, that was bullied for my looks, ends up buying in Beverly Hills because I was watching that's The American Dreams. 90210. Exactly. So these were little things. And then the final thing is, I'm a hip hop chick. I grew up loving Tupac and Biggie and all of those. So I was like, I want to do a rap video, babe. I was like, when we buy a house, I want it to have a water fountain and I want Dom Perry on and I'm going to put on a bikini and I'm going to pour that champagne down my body and I'm going to twerk for you.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

It wasn't. I want 10 bedrooms with an elevator. Like, it wasn't that.

[Vivian Tu]

It was an idea.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

It was the vision of what would make me happy in real time.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So you flash forward when we get to the evaluation, and then we put the company up for sale, we start hearing rumors within, you know, like, the business. Okay, someone's accepted the offer. They're going to pay. They're going to buy it. Is it really going to happen? Oh, my God. Our lives are going to change forever. But we were just selling a small portion at the time. We weren't going to sell the whole company. Because just in case people are wondering, with food manufacturing, unfortunately, it's like if you accidentally kill someone with a bar, your company goes bankrupt, and you go from a billion dollars to zero. Obviously, we had so many health checks, so I don't want to say, you know, insinuate, but I'm just like, anything could happen. Covid could hit, right? Yeah. So many things could happen. So we're like, let's just sell a small piece of the company so that we're all just financially stable, and then we can continue on this mission of helping our families, because that was so true to us. So the valuation hits, we get the rumors that someone's about to buy. My life has changed overnight. We were in our little makeshift gym at our house, and Tom's got his phone, and we're like. We hear rumors it's going to hit today.

[Vivian Tu]

Okay.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So he's got his bank account open, and he's refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. And I'm like, anything yet? He's like, no. I'm like, all right, do a couple of crunches. Anything yet? No. No. And then, like that, A lot of zeros are fricking added to our bank account.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I take a selfie.

[Vivian Tu]

More money than you've ever seen in your entire lifetime.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I can't even say the. More money than I could ever have possibly imagined. Dream upon dreams. I was gobsmacked, literally. We took a.

[Vivian Tu]

You don't have to tell me the exact number, but are we talking seven digits? Eight digits?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Eight.

[Vivian Tu]

Eight. Damn. So it's the dream.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. And it's pretty decent. 8. So, yes, it was game changer. So we couldn't believe it. I was like, bae, we've got to take a selfie. So I have a selfie.

[Vivian Tu]

A selfie?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. I took a photo of me and him in the gym with him holding up his phone.

[Vivian Tu]

Okay.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Being like, oh, my God.

[Vivian Tu]

And you guys Went on vacation?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

No, no. So we're in our garage, we take the selfie, and then we're like, all right, we kiss each other and then we get dressed and go back to work.

[Vivian Tu]

Are you joking?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

No, Lisa. So bear with me.

[Vivian Tu]

I want to be a Bourbora right now with my eight figures of money.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So here's the thing. Because the reason why the company ended up working is because we believed in what we were doing, because it wasn't about the zeros. And now I. Peace out. So as we're getting dressed, it's like, oh, we've still got work to do. My mom is still overweight. So just because my bank account has changed, I haven't reached my goal. Because my goal was to help my mom. My goal was to take my mum from living until Maybe she was 65 to living to 100.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I haven't done that. My mom hasn't lost a pound. She didn't lose a pound.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So I was like, the job isn't done. And my husband was like, no, the job isn't done. So we get to work. I called my dad. He had no idea what was happening. So I'm like, all right, dad. So I got some news. You may want to sit down. I tell him. He's like, that's unbelievable. Because remember, he's like, what are you doing working? He's like, why aren't you having children? That was actually a piece that I missed out because now I'm building quests. And he's like, you're a Greek woman. You don't need to work. Why aren't you having kids? And so when I call him, it was almost a moment of pride for me.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, you're like, f you. I made the right call.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I could do this. Yeah, I could do that. I wasn't F you, because my dad was always very, like, supportive, but it was like, look, I'm. I did it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And we hang up. Two minutes later, he calls me back and he's like, I'm sorry, can you say the number again? I just want to make sure I got it right. Because he was like, you did say. And I was like, yeah, I did say that. And he's like, I'm so proud. I'm so proud. So I get to work, I don't tell anyone. Tom doesn't tell anyone. I told my mom, I told my dad, and we got straight back to work. Why? Because the money didn't matter at that point. We started, we changed and pivoted because we were Unhappy. We had a mission that we really cared about. And so even though the house was the element of like, you know, every day when you feel badly, because that's immediate, momentary happiness. So there's the momentary and the long term happiness. The house is the momentary. But what's the long term? Yeah, it's knowing that I'm helping my mom every day. So we didn't tell anybody. And so my husband texts me like during the day. And like every so often I'm like, can you believe it? And we would eye each other in the hallway and you're just like, hehe.

[Vivian Tu]

And like, smile.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he goes, so, babe, what do you want to do? So I was like, all right, let's. Let's do something to celebrate, right? And the dream was always like, I'd walked past Cartier. So I was like, all right, in a couple of days, let's go to Cartier and maybe I'll buy something. So we walk in, I had a heart attack over the price. I was like, what? This is a waste of money.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And my husband's like, no, you said you wanted something here. You are not going to convince yourself otherwise. So I get a Cartier ring. It was freaking amazing. I still have it to this day. But then he's like, where do you want to go for dinner? I'm like, the Cheesecake Factory. Of course. I love the Cheesecake Factory. He's like, babe, you can go anywhere. Anywhere. I was like, but I like the Cheesecake Factory food. So we go to the Cheesecake Factory and celebrated at the Cheesecake Factory.

[Vivian Tu]

I love that.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So, yeah, so that was. It's a fun story to tell.

[Vivian Tu]

I love that so much.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And it's important to tell it to remind me and anyone listening that every time you think you're chasing the money to make yourself feel better, it's. It just won't. When you tie yourself in something you really freaking care about, like, that will make the difference. Knowing that. I mean, like, that's a fun story to tell. But you know what other story that I tell is the time that I remember when I was in shipping and unboxing myself and I got an email from a woman who was anorexic. And she said, I just want to thank you for introducing me to calories again.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I remember the freaking line to this day because that shit moves me to my core. So every day that I wake up and I feel badly and I'm like, lisa, you're terrible. You're useless. You failed you don't know what you're doing compared to these guys. That was going on my head every day. But how did I keep going? I was like, all right, you can quit. You can quit, absolutely. But then you're not going to help this anorexic girl that just thanked you for helping them become okay with calories again. There was another time that there was a woman who. Her kid was type 2 diabetic.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And. Sorry, type 1. And he was like 4 or 5 years old. And she messaged us, and she's like, for the last five years, I felt like a terrible mother because every time my kid goes to a kid's party, I have to take candy away from him because he doesn't understand that he can't have it, but he can have your Quest bars. It doesn't spike his glucose. So she said, I just want to thank you for making the bars because you made me feel like a better mother. Like, that is real. That is way more important to me than the Cartier ring and the.

[Vivian Tu]

It's priceless. You can't put a price tag on that.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Priceless. The way that. And that became my North Star every time. So it is so important to tie yourself to a mission that you care about, that nothing will derail you.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, I absolutely love that. But I do want us to pivot into kind of a different conversation. You've obviously had such entrepreneurial success with Quest in this space, but I want to go back to your first love. Making movies, making content. So you got all this money now.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

And I will say I've been to your house.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

You have?

[Vivian Tu]

Man, that. That entryway with the water and everything, it was sick.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Thank you.

[Vivian Tu]

But the thing that I was most stunned by as a content creator myself, I was green with envy when I saw your studio set up.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Thank you.

[Vivian Tu]

I was just so jealous. How did you get back to the making of the content, the making of the videos? Your ultimate, first true love when you had the resources to fund the art?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, okay, great question. So I think it's really important that we always call ourselves on our own excuses, because in the moment, excuses feel very real. So Quest has become a billion dollar company, and we're like, oh, the dreams come true.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

No, it hasn't. I'm not making movies. I'm not making movies.

[Vivian Tu]

You put it on pause, but it never went away.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, exactly. So I wasn't making movies. And then two, we were saying, like, every day I wake up and I want to help people, and I was ignoring the Reality that I had just built a massive company. I had every, you know, piece of resource now that I could put towards my mum. Mum, Free Quest bars. I'll hire you a private chef. I'll hire you a trainer. And she didn't lose a pound. Why? Yeah, I can't ignore that. So I had to look. And every time I would ask her, like, mom, I'll get you a trainer, she'd be like, no, I'm too old to lose the weight. I can't. That's when we realized the power of the mind. People weren't using the word mindset. Yeah. But it was. It was like, I was like, wow, my mum just doesn't believe that she's worthy enough to pick up a Quest bar. Wow, that mindset is really strong. So I had pivoted from running our production company to running our studio at Quest. We were making cooking shows. I don't know if you know Cassie Ho Blogalati. So she was a host on one of our cooking shows. We did so many. We did commercials with all these influencers. So I had an entire studio now where we were doing all this content. I had directors and producers and editors and. But we still weren't helping my mom. So my husband had just read. Read the book Mindset by Cowell Dweck. And he was the one that was like, we need to do content, like, go back to our love. Because this is really going to help people think in the way that we, you know, that is positive thinking in order for them to be able to pick up the Quest Bar.

[Vivian Tu]

Right.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So he starts to do this talk show.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And he's like. He comes to me as the head of the studio and he's like, all right, I need you to build me a set. I need you to get me producers. This is the type of show I want to do. I was like, cool, I'm on it. So we start doing this. It's amazing. The show does start doing very well. We put it on YouTube and I'm sitting in the back as, like, the executive producer. And I'm just learning every single day. Then the next day I would be on set of, like, a big commercial that we're shooting. And it got to the point where we were so successful that I had a million dollar budget to shoot a commercial.

[Vivian Tu]

A million dollar commercial budget. Okay.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

We hired Katy Perry's number one, the singer, the songwriter that wrote a couple of her number ones. She wrote a couple of, like, Britney Spears number ones. We hired her to write a song for us. We rented out a school where we could recreate Grease, the movie. We recreated the whole, like, on the Pitch and Summer Lovin'we. Recreated it with a Quest song that had our Quest Bar in it. I mean, it was. We had cranes. We hired, like, the top, top dancers in, like, in the industry. And I'm standing there looking at all of this, and I'm not happy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And I'm like, I want to go back over to this show that my husband's doing. Like, it's making me feel better. It's giving me the tools that I need to think differently. Women are crying in the audience because they're so impacted by the discussions. This Cranes and these. Like, it's cool. It's cool. Cool.

[Vivian Tu]

The flashy lights.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. It's like, it's great for my ego.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

But I'm not changing someone's life anymore. Quest is on its own path now. Like, it. Like, yes, this commercial is amazing. But to be honest, the Quest Bar would sell by itself. We don't need this commercial. So that's where I'm like, where's my value? Like, what is. What is my true value that I really believe in, that I am working towards every single day? And so I was realized it was the power of the mind, and it was this. This show. And so that show ends up being the thing that me and my husband fell in love with. We realized that if you ignore the mind, you can't help the body, because the mind would definitely come first. If you tell yourself you're not worthy, you're not going to the gym, you're not picking up a Quest Bar. If you have anxiety, you're not going to the gym. If you have depression, you may not be going to the gym. Like, there's so many reasons why you won't be picking up the Quest Bar and looking at your health because you don't feel good.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So it was. Now going back to. What I said is you have to look at all the reasons and excuses, and it was an excuse. It was. I was fooling myself. If I was. That I'm here to try and help people. If I. If I. If I ignore the. The mind.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So me and my husband were like, all right, do we double down on this? It's back to our roots.

[Vivian Tu]

Just two film geeks. Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So. And our business partners didn't agree that that was the way to change the business. So we said, cool. Like, we have realized now money doesn't buy happiness. I got very sick from a gut issue that I'VE been battling with now for the last 10 years. So I had got that quest. So I'm like, I'm as wealthy as ever. I'm as sick as ever and I can't buy my way out of it. That's a real freaking wake up call that money is not the answer. My mom is still overweight. She's still going to die at 65. It is a real wake up call that money is not the answer. So that's where we were like, all right, sink or swim, either way we go together. Ride or die, let's do it. So we left the company. We left all of our shares in the company, but we walked away literally. We didn't want on the board, we said we didn't want any involvement and let's just go all in on content creation. Let's use every penny that we've ever made and let's really help people from a mindset standpoint. And so that's where when you came in, you saw my studio. But the studio is, that's the forward facing content. Our other part of the business that feeds the other part of the business which is helping young girls and young boys. Now obviously for me it's young girls. But again, going to. No bullshit. What would it actually take to help women on a global scale? If you think there's over 7 billion people in the world, let's just round out to. There's around 4 billion women. I want to help 4 billion women. Like I don't say that as a joke. I actually want to help 4 billion women. Cool. No bullshit. What would it take for me to help 4 billion women? Okay, number one, get them like on YouTube. Try to get content to them. I understand that. But when they're young, you even started. Where did you grow up? Lisa And I even said our belief system is the foundation of where we end up up. So I there was all the studies and there's this book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And have you heard this book before? So this book, it was taken by like Google engineers or something and they were like, we really want to know what people actually think about. It's around like sexual orientation, like sex and what people actually fantasize about. Because it's one thing me sitting in front of someone saying what do you know what turns you on? It's a whole other thing to see how people actually think. And so they took just all the Google data.

[Vivian Tu]

Oh, the Google data.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

Of people actually are looking up.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

People look up. And to cut a very long story Short, the conclusion was everyone's fetishes pretty much come from the age of imprint. The age of imprint is between 11 and 15. So now when you look at anything, take away, obviously the sexual fantasy thing, take away what do you watch, what music do you listen to, who your friends, who are your teachers, who are your parents, what school do you go to? All of this between 1115 will shape basically your belief system. Now, I can't impact the school you go to, I can't impact who your friends are. But you better believe I can impact culture. I can impact. If I make a song that does well, I can impact culture. If I make a movie that does well, it impacts culture. So that's where we do storytelling for young girls. For me specifically, I have a whole team, writers, artists, writing stories for young girls that gets financed by my content that I do for older women. So when I stepped back, I know this was a long way to come around. But this is where I can now go back to my roots of understanding content, understanding the power of content, understanding the ability to manipulate. And I mean that in a way that manipulation can be used for good or bad, just like money. So to manipulate someone into feeling a certain way. So for me it's, how do I make a woman feel like a badass? How do I make a woman feel confident? Music, camera angles, cuts, things like that. I go back to my roots. So that is why we end up building the studio. My husband has his show, he focuses more and again, I'm sure people will hate the fact that we do this, but I'm just always very real is I understand what it's like to think as a woman. Yeah, my husband understand what it like for him to think like a guy. And whenever we talk, sometimes we feel like I'm talk, I, I sometimes feel like I'm talking to an alien. He doesn't mean to, he just thinks differently to me. And don't even get me started on like the whole brain construct between men and women. I've already, I've read books, I've done studies on the actual structure of the brain is different if you look at a man and a woman. So in knowing that I go, how do I help women? What's the type of content I do? How do I make sure that I don't ignore a certain demographic? And then what do I show up every day like, who's that one person? And now it's the 14 year old Lisa. The 14 year old Lisa that got bullied, teased, was told that she was no Good. My trigger. Even to this day. Just because I adore you. And I'm always very transparent. I feel very comfortable saying this, is that I'm stupid.

[Vivian Tu]

Really?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. Even to this day.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Really.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And I'm mildly dyslexic. So you can imagine. I'm in school. I'm doing my B's and my D's backwards, my G's and my J's. So everyone's laughing in school. My brother and my sister are whip it, whip it smarter. Math. Math. And my dad would give us math equations around a table and you couldn't do them. I'm an artist.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I'm like. I don't know. I can't even get my B's and my D straight.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So I understand it's a belief system from childhood. But I think. I mean, maybe, you know, the stat. But there's something like the amount of, like, entrepreneurs that are actually dyslexic is insane. And I really think it's because I work harder to overcome it. I so know what it's like to be bullied and made fun of and look stupid. That I pour so much time and effort into making sure that I don't. Which means that I have to read all. I read, like, two books a week, at least audiobooks. But I read books because I'm always trying to learn. Because I'm so petrified that I'm going to look stupid. Now I've embraced that. That actually makes me me. That's what has allowed me to get me where I am. But I still carry that with me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

I don't think you need to be carrying something like that. That doesn't serve you. I think you've shown time and time again that just because you are being graded on something that you're not good at, such as reading or the math, it doesn't mean you're stupid. If you grade a fish on its ability to climb a tree a la Einstein, you're going to think a fish is really bad. But in fact, a fish is meant for swimming. You know, jaguars are meant for climbing trees, what have you.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I love that. Here's the thing, though. I think it does serve me a little, if I'm going to be honest.

[Vivian Tu]

The chip on your shoulder, because you're always trying to prove that.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So I think a big part of my success, if you will, is I'm very good at holding two competing ideas in my head at the same time. Like, I'm fucking badass. I'm a genius. No one can touch me I can keep learning and I'm. I can keep growing. I can. You know, one idea. I'm a real freaking dumbass and I don't want anyone to see the truth.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I hold those two competing ideas in my head all the time. And I've trained myself to know. Back to what you were saying. Of what serves me in this moment.

[Vivian Tu]

Got it.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Right now, it serves me to actually feel like a dumbass because that's going to push me. And I know I like to use this language. So guys, please understand. I'm not trying to trigger anyone. You need to use the language that actually gets you moving into action. Calling myself that moves me into action. It doesn't make me feel badly anymore, but it moves me into action.

[Vivian Tu]

Puts a fire in your belly.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. So if you think about them as gears, if you're driving.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I've got multiple gears. We all have. The problem is we want to go from 0 to 5. But I actually realize sometimes I just want to stay in two because that's what I need right now. And once you identify those gears and you've practiced going back and forth, it becomes easier.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

So we've talked a lot about your story, but I want to ask you one final question as we are coming up on time. You have had so much success, whether it be through your company quest, through the content you and Tom have created through a really happy marriage. But like we talked about, the struggle is in fact not sold separately. You get it for free. It's a buy one, get one struggle deal. Tell me about your biggest money mistake. Whether it be personal, whether it be through business, whether it be through your content and how you fix it.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Oh, biggest money mistake. I don't think I've ever been asked that question before. I don't know if I've made a big money mistake. And the reason why I say that is I. I feel like everything that I've done in that sense has really helped me get better. But I don't want to give you a cheesy answer that feels like a cop out. It feels like a cop out. I. I want to give you a real answer. Maybe buying my house.

[Vivian Tu]

Really?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. The house, the one that I went to? Yes.

[Unknown]

No, that wasn't a mistake.

[Vivian Tu]

It was great.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

It was beautiful. I love it. Let me tell you why. It's. It's kind of what I was saying earlier about momentary happiness versus long term happiness. What really makes me happy, like viscerally too much freaking core, is when a woman says, man, girl, you gave me the confidence to do xyz. The momentary happiness was pulling up to that house and be like, oh, my God, I own this house. But it hasn't changed my life. And when I think about, like, everything that I do, even to this day, you're gonna laugh. But, like, I'm like, do I fly first class right now? Because if I. I do the cost difference, I could make another video. Yeah. I. I still think in videos.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Because the videos are what helped me reach that 4 billion women. And this, I think, is part of my success is I never lose sight of who. Who I want to talk to and why I show up every day. And I'm not. I'm not blind to the fact that money is. It can come and go. Like, it can come and go. I think we all saw with COVID that life can change just like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So I don't pretend that something couldn't happen in the world where my money just disappears. I mean, who knows? China invades. I mean, like, right. It could be. Or like Russia. Like, it could be anything. Like, anything that could happen to this country. And my wealth is gone now. What? I make sure I never tie my self esteem to my wealth ever. So when you said that, I was like, the house was. Was great for myself. I love showing it. I love the house. Don't get me wrong. I love it. But it's one of those, like, from a financial. It's like, did I really need a house that big? Does it really make a difference to my life? So it's like. And then also I was brought up in a world where my. Because my dad came from nothing. He was like, buy a house because buying property is security.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

It's a different world now. I never would have thought that. But buying a house isn't a. A sign of security. So I think also I just had an old mentality that I wanted to own because that young Lisa told herself that one day, you're gonna buy the house. Yeah. But I learned a lot of lessons, and I still live the house and I still love the house. So.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, I love the house. I'm coming over after coming for tea.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Vivian Tu]

Thank you so much for being here. I feel just ready to take on the world. I feel like I could lift up a tree right now.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Hells yeah. But.

[Vivian Tu]

But please tell everyone listening and watching where we can find you.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, you on my show. So you can go to. On YouTube, Women of Impact, or if you listen to podcasts, Women of Impact podcast is really where I'm pouring my Heart and soul. And then if you want to follow me, you can follow me at lisabillew. And stay tuned because I've developed a story for young girls. It's a comic book, so it's actually going to be coming out early this year, so stay tuned. But it's called Wish Academy. So it's Women of Impact Superheroes Academy. So it's a superhero school for young girls and it's mean girls meets Harry Potter.

[Vivian Tu]

I love both.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So. And it's really addressing the real things that young girls go through. You know, being bullied, making, making fun of, being made fun of. And the main character's personality or superpower is empathy. And so everyone thinks that's ridiculous and they make fun of her for it. So it's really trying to impact young girls, you know, subliminally with an empowering message on things that they really resonate with. So that's, I've just poured. That's been five years in the works. Five years of my life has been poured into that. So stay tuned for that and you can just follow me, LisaBillew and I'll give updates there.

[Vivian Tu]

Yeah, bilious spelled B I L Y E U.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Thank you. Nice.

[Vivian Tu]

Thank you so much.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Thanks, homie.

[Vivian Tu]

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part.

[Unknown]

Of the Vox Media podcast network.

[Vivian Tu]

If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcastorrichbff.com follow net.

[Unknown]

Worth and Chill Pod on Instagram to.

[Vivian Tu]

Stay up to date on all podcast related news.

[Unknown]

And you can follow me at YourRichBFF.

[Vivian Tu]

For even more financial know how. See you next week. Bye.

[Unknown]

Support for Net Worth and chill comes from AmazonOne Medical. When you think of Amazon, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Probably convenience. Fast delivery. Everything you need with the click of a button. Now, when you think of healthcare, what do you picture? I'm guessing the exact opposite. Well, not anymore, because Amazon is now getting into healthcare. It's called Amazon One Medical and it offers 24. 7 virtual care so you can speak to a provider within minutes. And they've also got Amazon Pharmacy. So after your virtual visit, Amazon can deliver your prescriptions directly to your door. After all, convenient, fast delivery is what Amazon is known for. Thanks to Amazon Pharmacy and Amazon One Medical, healthcare just got less painful. Learn more at health.Amazon.com.