← The Futur with Chris Do
The Futur with Chris Do
342 - Winning Requires More Than Just Mindset - With Tom Bilyeu (Part 2)
01:02:12
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- [00:00]
Chris Do
Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Tom Dilyeu. If you haven't heard part one yet, go check it out. We talked about the reality of making millions and how it can affect your relationships or marriage and why money doesn't change who you are at your core. In this half, we touch on something every creative and entrepreneur needs to hear. Why so many talented people never succeed. We break down the real reasons people stay stuck, the mindset shifts that actually matter and why just being good at what you do isn't enough. Trust me, we don't agree on it all. Enjoy the episode.
- [00:38]
Tom Bilyeu
This is Tom Bilyeu and you're listening to the future.
- [00:46]
Chris Do
You didn't give me a number. Is that on purpose?
- [00:48]
Tom Bilyeu
What number? No, give. I'm not even sure what that means.
- [00:50]
Chris Do
The take home from this exit for a billion dollar company. Oh, like what's, yeah, what is, what is. No, not the net worth, just like what was the number? Because here's something like a lot of people who look at people who are like, oh, I've ex out of this. Well, there's investors, there's partners, and then there are IRS concerns. So it's never as big as what.
- [01:10]
Tom Bilyeu
I tell people is nine figures.
- [01:12]
Chris Do
Okay, so nine figures. So you said something that I want to pull back up or to kind of circle back to, which is the money doesn't change you. Who you are before you make the money is who you're going to be after you make the money. So you're a driven, motivated person who has got a lot of ambition. And so just because money was deposited account doesn't change you overnight. And you said. I think I'm paraphrasing here. Hopefully. I got this idea, right? It's about the pursuit of becoming a better person. That's really interesting. That's the game that you're playing. Did I get that right?
- [01:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah.
- [01:42]
Chris Do
Okay. And so what would you say to folks who, and I get a lot of people like, oh, what is your goal? I just want to make money. I said you might make money, but the pursuit of money isn't usually what leads to you actually making money.
- [01:53]
Tom Bilyeu
Ironic but true.
- [01:55]
Chris Do
Okay, so for those people, because that's, that's my audience, they're like, okay, how come I don't have money? Why am I always fighting to kind of make ends meet? And they, they want to get there and I believe they can get there. It's not tactic.
- [02:07]
Tom Bilyeu
You give them as you have to.
- [02:09]
Chris Do
Be a different person.
- [02:10]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, I know your audience has heard it a million times. But yes.
- [02:13]
Chris Do
Okay, so number one, I think the pursuit of money is a hollow pursuit. Money, for me is a scorecard of impact that you make. You know, so the more impact that you can make on people's lives, the more money you will get as a reward. That's more purposeful, at least for me, and it's more aligned with the creative entrepreneurs I usually talk to. But impact to me isn't about, like, helping people make more money. It could just be improving their relationships or inspiring you, or giving you just that one moment in your day where you've been feeling kind of down and you read something, you hear something, you watch something, it just changes your mood or perspective for a moment. Or you make people feel connected in a community. You hold space for folks to. To be seen, to be heard, and to be understood. You make people feel loved. You help people overcome grief. Impact can be measured in a lot of different dimensions.
- [02:59]
Tom Bilyeu
Can we fight about this?
- [03:00]
Chris Do
Yeah, please, let's do it.
- [03:01]
Tom Bilyeu
Here is the hard reality. Being a good person is a terrible business model. Meaning, be a good person, don't be a good person. That's not going to matter. And we live in this weird age where people think, I'm a good person, therefore I'm going to be able to impact people and I'm going to make a lot of money. No, you have to be business savvy. Like, you actually have to know how to structure a deal. You have to know how to do a sales funnel, which I imagine a lot of people in your community care about. You can do those well, you can do those poorly. So you might have somebody that is just unbelievably gifted at impacting. Like, if you're sitting across from them, they're going to impact you. But they don't even have a funnel. They don't know how to do content. They're not looking at algorithms. And so the thing that I had to learn the hard way in my own life and with other people is you have to be a good person and be business savvy. And getting business savvy is excruciatingly difficult. And most people don't even know what that means. So I get what you mean in that if somebody focuses on tactics but they don't have the product that they put in, the world isn't effective. It doesn't do for the person what the person needs it to do for them to pay money for it. You're 100% correct. But let's say that you do have a product that has that impact. On people. But maybe it's a little too delayed. Maybe it's a little too hard to explain. It won't go anywhere. So if I tried to launch Quest today, it wouldn't go anywhere. It's already been done. It was that we did it before anybody else. So now timing becomes a part of why they don't have any money. And then, oh, God, please be mad. Yell, scream, challenge me. But I will make a statement that I hate more than you can imagine. But I believe that this is true. This is a game of skill acquisition and intelligence matters. And people need to really think about whether they have the ability to problem solve novel problems well enough or if they should be the number two or number three for somebody who is more aligned with that and able to do it. And I think we've built mythology that everybody could be an entrepreneur, and they're just not yet. And I think the reality is, how much risk are you willing to take? How much suffering are you willing to take? Because when you're the entrepreneur, you're the last one to get paid, the first one to get sued. It's a rough business. It's awesome. And for anybody that wants to do it, they should, but it's brutal. And so I look out at the world and I'm like, this is just too complicated. Most people are not going to be able to figure it out. Now, I hope everybody listening to me assumes they're the ones that can figure it out, but directionally, the number seems something like 2%.
- [05:38]
Chris Do
I'm not sure where you see the argument.
- [05:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, as long as we agree that. Because you said it's not tactics, it's impact. And I think people think impact immediately means sales, and it doesn't. But you may mean more when you say that than I am.
- [05:55]
Chris Do
Okay, let's dive in there because you had such a strong reaction. And I like to see if there is a point of difference, because I believe the tension that exists between two points of view is where maybe a new truth might live. And I'm willing, willing to go into those waters and I want to do that with you. So most people think that I just want to make money. And so then what do you do with that? I don't know what to do with that. And everybody wants to be rich. So somebody's making a hundred thousand dollars. I say, what's your goal? I want to make a million. My first question is, who are you going to become in the pursuit of that? Because it's just not going to materialize overnight. No one's going to just dump 10x what you're making if you're exactly the same person. And that most of the problems I see with entrepreneurs who are stuck is they have a mindset limiting belief problem. They have an unhealthy relationship with money. They don't, they didn't get enough love in their childhood and maybe we all need a little bit more and they, they don't. They're not capable of receiving love in the way of like a client saying, I, I think I should pay you more. They just don't want to respond to that. Somebody gives them a compliment since you, you killed it on that talk and they, they can't hear it because that's not their self, their own internal dialogue, their narrative. And so usually then it's like we have to reprogram you. Now. I think maybe you growing up had a certain set of circumstances hardwired, DNA wise that you looked at the world differently and so the opportunity is what you were looking for. And when you found it, you went all in on it. Whereas somebody else would be like, I don't know. Okay, I see a look on your face.
- [07:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, so I'm not a born entrepreneur. I am one of the 2% of people that was like, oh wait, you can get good at this. But when I think about what I had to do and change, it really was, yes, you have to get past those limiting beliefs. But the only reason that getting past limiting beliefs matters is because the only thing that matters is the actions you take. And getting past your limiting beliefs does not mean you'll take the right actions. It just means you'll take actions that's better than just not taking actions. So getting past those limiting beliefs is absolutely critical. And that was the first entire half of my public Persona. I really thought by giving people mindset that it would have the same impact that it had on me. And then I watched and it didn't. And I was like, what is happening? Why do people still then not make that next leap of success? So then I started teaching people just like, okay, entrepreneurship is novel problem solving. It is the ability to solve a problem. Not only that you've never seen that nobody's ever seen. How do you do that? You think from first principles. Okay, cool. I start teaching first principles. Still doesn't do anything. I can't even get people to sign up for the course. So I'm like, jesus, what is happening? Like somebody with my track record is telling you the thing you need is to understand how to think from first principles. Nobody Signs up. So I'm like, okay, that's interesting. But if I teach tactics, people will show up. So now I'm like, very interesting. Now I think you and I are going to agree. Ultimately, only tactics matter. The problem is you'll never get to tactics because you're going to break somewhere else. So I think the vast majority of people, they don't have the emotional resilience to keep going. But being emotionally resilient is not the same as running a business. You have to have the emotional resilience. A psychotic desire to get better, to acquire skills, an ability to get the timing right, an ability to get people to follow you, to paint a vision, to create momentum. There are so many things after the limiting belief that it is not at all surprising to me that very few people are successful. Just not surprising in the slightest. So this is where, like, success, unfortunately, is going to ask you one question. How badly do you want it? And are you capable enough of getting the skills? And so I don't know what to do with that man, because it's not motivating. But I have such a profound fear of contributing spiritual entertainment to the world. That would have made me a lot more money in this arena. But it makes me feel like I'm lying to people, and I hate that feeling. So the reason I don't like it is some people that really are in the 2% and really could do this, they'll quit because I didn't just tell them they can do anything. So I think everybody should believe that they're in the 2% because better that at least you won't artificially stop yourself. But please know, solving your mindset problems is necessary but not sufficient. And if all you ever do is work on your mindset and you never say, elon Musk is my competition, I have to get better at this game than he is. If you don't say that, you're not going to beat him. I mean, he's just once in Lord knows how many generations. But if you're not willing to stare at that and say, oh, that's the task is to get as far on that journey as I can, you will lose. It's too hard. It's so hard.
- [10:39]
Chris Do
Let's draw maybe a parallel to some kind of analog where you can say, look, it's kind of like this. And then maybe I can start to see the differences between the way you think about it. Let's say it's a game of pickleball. So what are the tactics of pickleball versus what Is the mindset or the limiting beliefs around that? Maybe we can just start to see how it maps. Can we do something like that?
- [10:58]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, sure, of course.
- [10:59]
Chris Do
So for you, what is tactics for, like, pickleball?
- [11:02]
Tom Bilyeu
Tactics of pickleball are going to be, how close to the net do you stand? And this is where you have to go. You have to understand that certain tactics will be unavailable to you because you're short. So playing against somebody who's 65 runs a 4 4, their fast twitch muscle fiber is better than yours. And so now it becomes a question of, well, have you trained your fast twitch fibers? No, I haven't. Okay, we'll start there. Because maybe you can go a lot farther than you think you can. You're not six. And so now you're gonna have to figure out, okay, how do I as somebody, maybe you're 5 4. How do I, as somebody who's 5 4, change the way that I play the game so that I can beat the people that are 6 4? It's possible, but it's going to require you to have a totally different strategy for the game to do different things. Maybe you're training in a different way because you have to build up different muscles. Maybe this is about speed and cutback, whatever. Maybe you have to work on your hand eye coordination so that you can respond to balls coming over the net faster than the next person. So all of that, what you train, how you train is going to be different based on the natural gifts that you have. And that's going to ultimately translate not only into things you do in training, but how you hold the racket, how you topspin the ball. Maybe spin is all you focus on and you just become like a gangster of table tennis out on the pickleball court and you just slice topspin sideways, just get crazy with it. Those are the ways that that is ultimately going to manifest.
- [12:21]
Chris Do
Okay, now, what would be like, the.
- [12:23]
Tom Bilyeu
Mindset part of that, that you can get better? Mindset can be summed up in what I call the only belief that matters. The only belief that matters. If I put time and energy into getting better at something, I will get better. If you believe that and act in accordance, everything else will take you to the limits of your abilities. If you don't believe in that, then why would you try hard? You're not going to get any better. And you're right that you first have to get people to embrace that, which is all the limiting belief stuff you're talking about simplified into one thing. But you can be on the other side of that and start training as if you were 64 when you're really 54 and it's not going to work. And so there's so many other things that go into this. And by the way, not everybody is going to be able to make the Olympic team. So it's just one of those, okay, what are we doing? The easy one for me is in business, you are going to get emotionally battered about. And if you build your self esteem around being right, being better, being faster, being stronger, you're very quickly going to see that you're just losing probably more than you win. But when you win, you win big enough to make up for all the failures. Most people can't handle that emotionally. They're going to quit the first time. Like this story is as old as time. Budding entrepreneur starts their first company, begs their girlfriend to give them time and space to figure this out. They spend three years making their girlfriend sleep in some tiny apartment while all her friends are buying a house house and having kids. And that company fails. And then the girlfriend says, nope, no more. We're getting married, we're having kids. You're going to get a normal job. And that person's like, yeah, because that was grueling and I spent all my relationship capital. That person won't make it. Even though maybe they're smarter than I am, but they weren't able to face the embarrassment that I'm able to face.
- [14:07]
Chris Do
Wouldn't you consider that like more of a mindset?
- [14:09]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that when I'm trying to stay in your zone of it's important, it's just not sufficient.
- [14:17]
Chris Do
I'm not saying either. Neither of them are important. They're both important. But in my own experience, when I teach people tactics, which I love to do because it's very easy, it's pretty straightforward. You kind of have steps and you know where you're going to start and how it ends. The problem is you give people tactics and then they don't execute. It's like you tell them, this is how you slice the ball. Here's how you build up your cardio, here's how you get an advantage over a taller, shorter player. But then they just don't know do that. So for me, mindset is like, do you want to play sport? Do you care about your health? Or do you want, do you want to enjoy this life that you have? Is it even important to you? Because once they're properly locked in and committed to taking action and following through and building up the resilience past the frustration of, like, I keep missing that ball coach. I keep. No, stick to it. You got this. Then the tactics are really streamlined. I don't know what your experience has been like, but when you teach people tactics, do you track how many people actually complete and actually have success?
- [15:13]
Tom Bilyeu
We do, and it's a distressingly low number. But it looks something like this. Like you. We start with mindset, so we have what we call billion dollar habits. So cool. Anybody that's at the mindset stage, they're not sure where to start. You go there. If you are ready to start your first business, then we've got zero to founder. And that's for people that are like, oh my God, I'm ready to try. But I don't know. We start with mindset there, like as a sort of rst lne. For anybody that watches Wheel of Fortune, it's the table stakes. So you have to have your mindset right. Otherwise you're not going to take the right actions. Then the vast majority of zero to founder is okay. Now it's what are the skills that you're going to need to acquire in order to build a business? And then the third step on the train is how to scale a business. And that's where we're getting into essentially novel decision making all times. So it's entirely possible that we don't disagree on anything. I have gone through a brutal emotional journey on the mindset stuff because I really thought mindset was going to save the world. And then I realized, oh, no, adults are basically baked. And even though they could make change, they won't. Now. You cannot imagine how sad that makes me. And you're just a more optimistic person than I am, Chris. I mean, that's, I think, the reality of it. I really realize, huh, most people will never get out of this trap. And I find it very unfulfilling to answer the same questions over and over and over and over and over and over and over to the same person who clearly just is not prepared to do that. So I started going upstream. So we still offer it, but that's the thing that I engage with the least. They've got it. They've got all the information prerecorded. Go do your thing. If you graduate and realize, oh, I'm actually willing to do this now, cool, then we've got the next thing. Now we're in the thick of, like, you actually have to build a real business. And then we've got people making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in our scaling program. And so that's like, oh, okay. You're obviously going to get the most people at the very beginning on the mindset side. But I have, because of my own weirdnesses. I've just needed to. My content has changed over time because I want to interface with the most difficult problems, literally, on earth. How should the government run? How is money? How do you found a company with your wife? Like, how do you navigate? Yeah, like, I want that messy, messy stuff because I want to see if I can think through it. I want to see if I have tools that actually work in the knife fight of life.
- [17:43]
Chris Do
Okay, well, that addresses one of the things that I want to talk to you about. But I just want to circle back. You said this brutal emotional journey that you were on, is that tied to the beginning of a content game that you were playing, or is that something else?
- [17:54]
Tom Bilyeu
No, this. This. So Quest really broke me. So Quest went like this. When I was 18, I started big brothering for this kid. This is not tied to Quest yet, but it'll all come together. Big brothering for this kid in the inner cities for extra credit, they give you the worst kid in the worst school district in the nation, because I went to usc, which is in the middle of just an absolute horrifying area. And they give you, of course, the problematic child because they want to get him out of class. It's supposed to be eight weeks. I ended up big brothering for him for eight and a half years, and I was too young and stupid to actually help him. I showed him somebody loved him, but I was not able to change the trajectory of his life meaningfully. Flash forward 15 years later, I'm at Quest. I have 3,000 employees. A thousand of them remind me of this kid that I big brothered for. Grew up hard in the inner cities, going nowhere fast. And I was suddenly struck with, this is weird. Some of these guys are smarter than me, meaning they can process raw data faster than I can. So I'm like, they're smarter than me, but they're selling drugs.
- [18:55]
Chris Do
Right?
- [18:55]
Tom Bilyeu
Because we had this whole thing. It doesn't matter who you are today. Only matters who you want to become, the price you're willing to pay to get there. So hiring drug dealers, former gang members, like, all kinds of stuff. I mean, it's awesome. It was such an incredible, emotionally fulfilling moment in my life. And I say, look, I'm going to do Quest University. I will teach you anything and everything I know about entrepreneurship. I will teach you how to build a competing nutrition company. If that's what you want. I will not hold anything back. Anything I know I will teach you. This is long before cameras. I'm just trying to build a company, and I'm like, I want you to stay here not because you aren't qualified to work anywhere else, but because you've never had anybody invest in you the way I'm going to invest in you. And my hypothesis is that you're going to stay here because you believe I care more about your future than your own mother. This is one of the ways that Quest was able to thrive, because we had people that really felt like they had hope in their life. For the first time, somebody believed in them, gave them a second chance. Plenty of people took the piss and took advantage. It was fucking terrible, whatever. But there was a core group of people that. It was unbelievable. So I spent years with these guys only to find out, and these are rough numbers. It's not literal. 2% of them. It changed their life forever. Some of them have gone on to start their own very successful companies. It's incredible. And they ping me every now and then. Some work for other people, but have climbed the ladder and are making six figures. Unbelievable. The incredible success stories. And if I were wired for, like, as long as I help one person, I've done it. That just doesn't resonate for me. I'm glad it does for a lot of people. It does not resonate for me. That would not be a life well lived. I'd be like, well, at least I tried. Not going to cry about it. But if on my deathbed, tom, you helped one person, I'd be like, jesus, I'd be traumatized. Anyway, so I'm trying to scale this thing up. I realize only 2% of people do anything with it. I had two guys get in a fight. They grew up together as besties. And one of them, they were in the same Quest University. One of them got mad at his friend because guess what he did? He started reading. And so the other guy got mad and actually punched him in the face and said, I'm punching you in the face because you started reading. I asked him that question like, six times. So wait, the fight was over? You reading? Yes. Okay. So when he threw the first punch, he actually said to you, you've changed. You've started reading? Yes. I was like, I could not wrap my head around because that's not how I grew up. That somebody would punch you in the face because you've started reading. That was just the craziest shit I'd ever heard. In my life. So anyway, I begin to realize, oh, you have to give up on adults. I do not expect that to be a popular view. And thank the Lord that there are some people who are going to take that and say, I'll never give up on adults, Tom. I'm glad they exist. I realized this is a brain development thing, so I'm going to focus my energy because at the time I would have said, I'm trying to build a media company to help adults never even thought about kids. And then I realized, oh, this is a brain development problem. And I need to focus on something known as the age of imprinting, which is 11 to 15. It's when kids push back from their parents and they say, I'm now going to learn from culture. And I realized I can't influence who your parents are. I can't influence where you grow up, but I can influence what your friends think is cool. And so that's going to be my job, to put empowering ideas into entertainment so that nobody gets to the age of 15 without encountering a growth mindset at scale through story entertainment games, basically. And so that became the thing. But that really was. My heart was broken because these were real people to me that I wanted to see. You grew up in the hood, but you don't have to stay there. And I want to see all of these guys turn their lives around and they just don't. It is a very small for me. I'm perfectly willing to accept I'm just not good enough. Great. Somebody comes in behind me and shows there is a magical sequence of words or things that you can do and that adults really can change. But I have a very bad feeling they're all going to find the same thing I do, which is it is way better. Rather than pulling, imagine a waterfall. People keep falling off the waterfall and you scramble to pull them all out of the waterfall and you're like, oh my God. And you're drying them off and oh my God, there's so many people going by. There's like too many for you to rescue. And then finally one day you go, maybe I should go upstream. Figure out who's throwing them in the water in the first place. That's what I'm saying. I did. I realized, oh, all the people that are already. They've already fallen off the waterfall. Yes, I could pull some of them out of the water, but they're going by so fast. I just can't help enough people. Let me go upstream and stop them from being thrown in the water.
- [23:12]
Chris Do
In the first place, you have 3,000 employees. Two of them get into a fight. Is that the moment that breaks you or is that just a metaphor for a lot of things?
- [23:21]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, it's not a metaphor, unfortunately. Real story. But that is an easy thing to explain and say, yes, it was a thousand little things that built up to that story where I could be like, okay, this is a straw that broke the camel's back. And it's easy to explain. So the people like, oh, I get the kind of thing that ended up breaking my poor little heart.
- [23:41]
Chris Do
Okay, is the content that you're making now the thing that's going to address the 11 to 15 year olds? No.
- [23:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Ironically, I cannot stop myself from making content for adults, but at least in a totally different way. So here's how.
- [23:52]
Chris Do
I don't know. It's like a slippery.
- [23:54]
Tom Bilyeu
I tried, I tried.
- [23:55]
Chris Do
Like, where are you going?
- [23:56]
Tom Bilyeu
All I can do is give you the truth. So that is why the primary focus of this company ultimately better end up being content aimed at 11 to 15 year olds. That's why I'm spending so much money and time and energy building the video game. It just takes years. So we've already been doing it for three years. Hopefully AI will speed up, make this a whole lot easier. But we've been building that for three years. Partner with Bruce Lee. We've got mentor characters in the game that, while you're being entertained, are giving you some of the dopest insights in the world and how to think. All mindsets, incredible. Shout out to Bruce Lee. I love those guys so much. Could not be more grateful. Bruce Lee changed my life when I was a kid. So just absolutely beside myself that we have that partnership. But the thing that I have proven the world wants from me is content for the 2%. So I see myself as a filtering mechanism for the 2%. I'm going to help you in the major aspects of your life from mindset, business, finance, world affairs, politics, the things that actually make up your adult life in the most monumentally important ways. Cool. I'm going to be there and I'm going to give you an angle on that stuff. And we're very good at content and so we do that. We make millions of dollars doing it. Yay. The business side, I think I understand this freakishly well. And so we've got amazing business humming along there. But in terms of what is it like about. About what's my legacy? Why haven't I written a book? Because if I stop to write a book, I'm not going to be writing a screenplay. I'm not going to be developing the video game. And those are the things that stop people from getting thrown in the river. All the other stuff is trying to pull people that have already gone off the waterfall.
- [25:35]
Chris Do
I understand the strategy. I think you're going to meet those kids where they're at, which is in the realm of entertainment games, and you're going to use that as a way.
- [25:44]
Tom Bilyeu
To teach them bigger ideas, introduce them to ideas. I don't think that entertainment works that way. I think you plant seeds that will influence their beliefs and their values. I mean, this is how society has inculcated their children with beliefs and values from time immemorial. You tell them stories, and the stories make it possible for you to put information in a hierarchy and to carry it with you in life. And I personally think in movies, so it's been very easy for me to build value system beliefs, even a moral compass based on things I've seen in stories and how that's played out and what all that stuff means. So I want to do that for the next generation.
- [26:22]
Chris Do
It is kind of a dark statement, but you're being a realist and you're saying, I'm giving up on adults because I've seen so much that it seems like at a certain age, there's very little I can do to influence that. So I want to go upstream, meet the more of that before the problem even occurs. Try and work on that in the way that I know how. What surprises me a lot about you is the different arcs you've been on from prequest, Quest, video games, comics, entertainment, the YouTube channel, and how it continues to evolve. I think I'll watch one of the newest episodes that you have, which is you kind of talking about relevant news, topical things, and it seems like, what an interesting, wild, crazy arc that you're on. And then I was thinking, what kind of person are you that you have information like this, that where you can talk about it in such a detailed, granular way? You studied film production, ufc.
- [27:12]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah.
- [27:12]
Chris Do
So, like, that's a very different start to, like, where you are now. What happened in between? Or was it always there and we just didn't know about this, like, this brain of yours and how it works and process information?
- [27:22]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, those might be very different questions. Okay, so if this were 10,000 years ago, I would not be the village chief. I would be the village storyteller, for sure. I think the thing that my brain is most adept at is understanding myself. That is huge leverage in understanding Other people. And I have had the belief, though I would not repeat this if I had to do it over again. I had the belief that I needed to control the finances in order to control the art. But ultimately, getting to the art has always been the point. From the time I was 12, I knew I was going to be a storyteller. And the way that my brain processes the world is through story in story. That to me is just the most powerful way to give or get information. And the business thing was like a sidestep to get rich so that I could build my own studio. Now, admittedly, when I started, I thought it would take 18 months. Very naive. Took 15 years, but it worked. And so in that time, I discovered what I wanted to make stories about. And so I probably would have just gone into just regular entertaining, blockbuster Y type stuff. But along the way realized, oh, whoa, there's this other thing that I care deeply about because of how much it impacts the world. So the right way to understand my brain is that my brain is wildly dysfunctional. I'm hyper lazy. I'm very easy to distract. And in order to get the money that I needed to tell the stories I wanted to tell, I had to learn to tame my mind. In taming my mind and getting control of it, I realized, oh, my God, this is just a set of ideas. This is not about Tom having a special mind. If anything, I've always felt like my mind is pretty dysfunctional. And the reason I'm good at the things that I'm good at is that I believe all instruction manuals should be written by the person who struggled to put that thing together, because they know exactly where you're going to get tripped up. So I can say, ah, here are the things that are going to mess you up. And I can walk people through that. Now, the reason that I know where you're going to get tripped up is I got tripped up. I had all the same emotional impulses that anybody else had, but I discovered that trusting my emotions was a mistake. I know that trying to suppress your emotions is also a mistake. So it's like, how do you navigate all that? So once you understand, okay, I am wired to help people, I'm just obsessed with it, but I'm also wired for efficacy. The thing has to actually work. So what I call spiritual entertainment doesn't make me feel good about myself. It makes me feel like I'm pretending. And so I really hate that feeling. And so phase one of my content, which was all mindset, I started realizing, oh, this is just spiritual entertainment. I have a two hour declining arc of influence. I will help people go through the realization that they can do anything they set their mind to, basically. But they wouldn't. And they would just come back the next week for that same two hour declining arc of making them feel like they can do anything, but they wouldn't do anything. And so then you get into, okay, well let me give you the tactics and on and on through all the things. And then ultimately just had to realize I throw the bat symbol in the sky, I take the 2%, I tell them what they need to do, and then I hope that they do it all while focusing my own energies on pulling people out. So that's the right way to understand me is I am trying to map the world in terms of truth. Truth is extremely hard to identify. The closest thing you can do is run an experiment with a predicted outcome, see if you actually get the outcome. If you get that outcome, your mapping of the world is close to the truth. If you do not get that outcome, your mapping of the world is inaccurate and you need to update your mapping of the world, come up with a new experiment to run. Run it with the predicted outcome, see if you got that predicted outcome. You just live in that loop and so your vision of the world gets more and more accurate over time. That's the right way to understand me.
- [31:13]
C
It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
- [31:25]
Chris Do
Enjoying the conversation you're listening to right now. You're going to love what we have for you inside the Future Pro membership. From live group calls with myself and vetted guest experts to over 600 hours of pro exclusive trainings and monthly networking, you'll have everything you need to fast track your growth. Check it out@future.com pro.
- [31:47]
C
And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
- [31:51]
Chris Do
I think when I was younger I thought that there's absolute truth and there are a few things that I think are seemingly can hold true. But there's a lot of interpretations of truth. My new, older kind of perspective on this is like, I don't want to miscommunicate this. There are multiple truths. Like your way of seeing the world is true to you and my way of seeing the world is true to me. I'm not going to say like my truth is stronger than yours or accept that yours is stronger than mine. And the weird thing about the truth is, as you say, as more information becomes available, what we thought is true wasn't true at all. It's just in that Snapshot in time, it felt true. And so I'm always a little kind of tentative when I hold on to what I think is the truth. Like I don't want to grip it so strongly that if a better truth comes along that I can't let go. And one of those mindset things that I try and help people through is you've told yourself a story for a really long time and you didn't even check the facts. And now when new, better, more relevant information comes, you reject that information. So you're holding on to that old truth where it's not even serving you. So what are your thoughts on this thing, this pursuit of truth? Is there such a thing?
- [32:56]
Tom Bilyeu
Every word you just said is accurate, so there will be no debate. The only thing I will say is that the truth is out there. And the reason, like you, I have strong convictions, but they are very loosely held, is I want to have a one for one relationship between what I think will happen when I do something and what actually happens when I do something. And I have to have a vision of, okay, I believe this, I think this is what's going to happen. I have to have that story, otherwise I won't move. So I construct that story. It's like there are stars in the sky and I draw a constellation, okay? But the constellation isn't quote unquote real. It's not necessarily true. But if by looking at a certain constellation I can navigate the seas, that constellation has high or low utility. So I'm just looking for. Since I don't think humans can really identify what's true, we don't even understand full physics, then I'm just going to go off utility. So utility for me is a stand in for an approximation of the truth. And so when I believe this and do this, I get my desired outcome. I'm going to keep doing and believing that. The second I'm like, well, when I believe this and then do this thing, I get an outcome that I couldn't have predicted. Then I'm like, ooh, the thing I believe is wrong. So I need to update my thinking on that thing. And so I'm just constantly like, what is wrong about what I believe about the world? This is why I say, don't trust your emotions because your emotions create those constellations I'm talking about. And they're often deformed and they make no sense, but they feel right because you're angry. And now you're like, this is how those stars connect. They're there, a constellation of war and so I'm going to go to war with my husband. And it's like, that doesn't work. Like, I just saw a video of a woman in a mall with her husband pushing a baby stroller. The husband is wearing a board on each side claiming that he cheated on his wife while she was pregnant. And the woman's yelling at him, saying, this is a real video. My husband cheated on me. We agreed to have a second kid, but he was having an affair the whole time. And I was like, oh, this is somebody who thinks by giving into the desire for vengeance that they're going to get the life they want. So they believe a thing. They think when they do a thing, they're going to get this desired outcome. And what they're going to find is they're going to get vengeance and it won't feel good. And they're going to get very confused. And so now they're going to be like, oh, I haven't satisfied my vengeance. I've got to punish him more. And not realizing, oh, this is going to create the very thing I don't want. Now, the reality is she just had the wrong belief. That's not how you get what you want. The way you get what you want is to either find forgiveness and a path to building trust, or you get divorced and you start over. But castigating him in front of everybody, diminishing him, doesn't make him a better husband, doesn't make you feel better about what happened. So to me, it's like, I don't cast a moral judgment on her. She's stuck. She has a bad belief. She doesn't understand the actual relationship between her belief embodying that emotion and the result that she's going to get. She probably doesn't even understand. The result she's looking for is to feel at peace and to feel loved. And because she doesn't understand what her North Star is, she can't even steer. So she has a wrong belief and an unknown North Star. And so that's how people get themselves into a really wacky place.
- [36:12]
Chris Do
As you're exploring the truth, are you looking into metaphysics, quantum entanglement, multidimensional parallel universes, and things of that nature.
- [36:23]
Tom Bilyeu
This is an emotion I won't trust in myself. But I go crazy when people use quantum to mean magical. There's no magic in quantum. There's only what we don't understand, so we don't understand. There are plenty of things that I can't tell you how they work. I just know when People use the word quantum like you're going to cure cancer by tapping into the quantum realm. I am running in the opposite direction as fast as I can because that is a belief that I don't think is going to move you forward. Now, if I were diagnosed with stage four cancer, I'm going to try everything, including, yo, bro, I'm getting in the quantum right now and I'm going to cure all my cancer. For real? For real. So don't let me sound like I'm above it. I'm going to try everything, but I would not do that to the exclusion of my chemotherapy and other things. So, yeah, I just have a. As somebody who's always trying to figure out what has a one to one relationship between belief and actually getting the desired outcome. People, they want beliefs that make them feel hopeful. And I get that, but this is how Steve Jobs ate apples and died of cancer.
- [37:25]
Chris Do
Well, you mentioned before, I love the way you phrase it. I'm not going to be able to do it, but maybe truth and utility, you kind of look at what's useful and you kind of make moves on that. So some of the magical thinking, it's like, if it's not moving you forward, I have challenges with that as well. So as you are exploring these other kinds of explanations about how the world may work in the actual physics and things like that, does it influence some of the things that you think are utilitarian? And if so, is there anything that you've come across that you are.
- [37:56]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, look, if I've always said I don't worry about whether something is true, I worry about whether it has utility. So I only do and believe that which moves me towards my goals. Now what people miss in that is the reality is if believing something gets you the desired outcome, odds are that you're getting pretty close to the truth. But the reason I say that I don't worry about whether it's true is that I know I'm prone to believe very negative things about myself. So it's like whatever they talk about, the nine to one ratio for every negative comment, you need five, nine positive comments to feel balanced. So it's like, okay, well if I know that that's true, then it's like, well, that means I'm more likely to think something negative about myself that isn't true. And so if I believe negative things about me that aren't true, that hold me back, I don't want to be in that position. So I'm just not going to allow myself to believe negative things, even though a lot of those negative things probably are true. But if they're stopping me from moving forward, then I'm not going to. But if, by the way, I need to believe those negative things about myself in order to fix something, well, then I'm going to believe in it because that has high utility to go well, that actually might be true. So I'm going to believe in that. I'm going to act in accordance. The key is not to let believing a negative thing about myself damaged my self esteem. I want to just correct it. I want to improve my thinking, my actions, my behaviors, whatever, to get the outcome that I want, which is something that we haven't said, I should say expressly. One of the biggest problems is people don't have clarity on where they want to end up. And if you don't know where you're trying to go, you're never going to.
- [39:23]
Chris Do
Get there when you keep describing different ideas. I just think you have a really healthy frame of how you see things. So it's like reality plus your reaction equals I'm spacing out but that expression. But like you have a very strong, healthy, positive mindset about how you look at certain things. Right. So if you're like, if there's negative comments and it isn't useful to me, then I'm not going to pay attention to it. But if it is, you will. Where? How did you develop this way of looking at the world? Because I think if more people can have that mindset, I think they'd be able to achieve more, at least be happier.
- [39:58]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, so this one has a really specific moment in my life. So I was working with two guys who were far smarter than me and I had just lost every battle we'd ever gotten into and it was really starting to hurt my self esteem. And we got into another argument about what we should do with the business and I started fighting for an idea that I knew was bad. And there was a voice in my head screaming, you know, this idea is bad. But I needed to win the argument. And I needed to win the argument because my self esteem was built around being smarter than other people. And so I was like, oh, they're showing me over and over and over and over and over and over and over that they're smarter than me. I can't lose another one of these. It's just too devastating. And so I end up winning the argument and we all agree we're going to do this thing for the business and I know it's the wrong answer. So they walk out of the room and I'm like, uh, oh, I'm now having an existential crisis because I told my wife I would make her rich. And she's at home right now as I'm arguing for a terrible idea so that I can be right. She's at home clipping coupons. So which is it? Do I want to actually become successful or do I want to be right? Do I want to feel good about myself? And I was like, I actually want to be successful. And so my initial impulse was to stop building my self esteem, to just let go and accept I'm gonna feel hopelessly bad about myself, but I'm gonna end up becoming successful. And I was like, that sounds like a high risk endeavor. So I was like, could I build my self esteem around something that would move me ever towards success? Now, I would call this an antifragile mindset, but I had not read Nassim Taleb's book yet, so. Nor Carol Dweck's book, which both of those books held the secrets that I so very much needed. But alas, this was before they wrote them. And I was like, ooh, what if I built my self esteem around learning instead of trying to be right, identifying the right answer no matter who it comes from. And so, if for no other reason than to not let my father in law be right about me because he thought I was going to fail to not leave my wife at home clipping coupons and to become the person I wanted to become, I was going to switch my self esteem to only valuing myself. Meaning I only would emotionally reward myself for times where I was like, oh, that person's idea is right. I can see it's right now. Boom. And I'm going to champion that idea. I'm going to put all the energy behind that. And this is all in business. And I'm going to say, yeah, this is the one. Or in my marriage, I'm not going to argue with my wife. Oh my gosh, you're right. You're right. You're actually much better at that than me. And so my wife's at home like, whoa, like, this is so cool. Thank you. I feel so seen my business partners are like, oh, wow. Like this guy really will put the energy behind whatever he thinks is the right idea. It changed everything in my life. And I was like, okay, now I have to put work into. Because even today, 25 years later, I still feel awesome when I'm just right. Like, that feels rad. But I'm like, that's a trap. I cannot trust that emotion. I've got to always be looking for what's the right answer. Champion who it came from. Don't steal their idea. Shout them out. Let them know, hey, thank you for that. But it's crazy how people will fall behind the person who puts all the energy into something and is like, this is the right one. Let's create some momentum. Let's go, let's go. That was transformative. So I value myself for my ability to stare nakedly at my inadequacies. And that switch changed my entire life.
- [43:24]
Chris Do
How old were you when you came to this moment?
- [43:26]
Tom Bilyeu
26.
- [43:26]
Chris Do
Okay. And was there something that preceded that moment where you had this internal dialogue where you're, you're saying to yourself, I could try to prove that I'm right, or I can just get the job done. And at this point forward, I'm going to choose get the job done.
- [43:41]
Tom Bilyeu
It was an endless parade of horrible decisions where I was making my life smaller and smaller so that I could be the smartest person in every room I was in. And suddenly you're in a room where people are smarter than you and you realize, whoa, like I'm actually going to get somewhere now. This is crazy. I can't believe I'm around these people. They are making me think better about everything. This is awesome. And you find yourself wanting to eject out of that room because you don't feel smart anymore. I was like, okay, that's a fool's errand. So I remember I had a phrase. I was like, as long as this group of people is the surest path to my success, I'm going to stay here. And the day it's no longer the surest path to my success, I will leave. And it forced me to build my self esteem around something different. Because when you're not the smartest person in the room and you value yourself for being the smartest person in the room, you're in a dark place. And so if I hadn't been making all those dumb decisions once, I was in a much better situation because I was driven by that desire to be successful. So when they said, hey, you should come work with us, I was like, yes. Like, this is amazing. Not realizing the day to day grind of feeling like the dumb one. And so you just look back at your life and you're like, oh my God, I've been doing this for years where I'm putting myself. Like I was selling video games retail after getting a degree and all that. And I was just in A video game store getting people to buy used video games. It was crazy. And I lived for those moments where the guy interviewing me be like, why are you applying for this job? You seem too smart for this. I'd be like, yes, but at the time I really was excited. That felt awesome. And so not realizing how dysfunctional that was. And so then suddenly I'm in a better place. Things finally feel like they're on track. I realize I made a good decision by coming here, but it's destroying my self esteem. I was like, oh, the one thing I will say, I did not earn this realization, but that I had it. I will be eternally grateful for that. I didn't lie to myself and I said, you know what's happening right now? You are arguing for an idea that you know to be terrible because it makes you feel smart. Not even that it makes you feel smart, it makes you feel good that they think you're smart. And so I was like, oh God, this is a trap. And, and so I could just look out at my life. Getting married has been so important for me because I was like, there's now a witness to my crimes. There's now somebody that's going to be punished because of that decision I'm making. Her life is now going to be worse because I need to feel good about myself for having the right answer. I'm like, jesus, that's dumb. And so, yeah, anyway, wanting her life to be better, wanting to really honor what I told her when I was seducing her essentially to marry me, was like, I'm gonna make you rich. I'm gonna make. This is gonna be awesome. I know I'm a broke kid right now, but I'm not gonna be forever. I'm the most ambitious person you've ever met. Like, I'm really gonna do something. And so I painted this dream for her and she got on board and she married me. And so I was like, I gotta make good on this.
- [46:34]
Chris Do
So your identity, how you defined yourself and your esteem self worth, was about being the smartest person in the room. Your intelligence. And then that identity meets a different reality. And then there's this conflict that you're now in the room with really smart people that you objectively identify as much smarter than you. So then you have to now reinvent your identity or at least define it differently.
- [46:57]
Tom Bilyeu
My identity, I had to change what I built my self esteem around.
- [47:00]
Chris Do
Okay, so.
- [47:02]
Tom Bilyeu
And I mean, look, yes, you could play that out because I will often say that I adopted the identity of the Learner. But it really is about what you build your self esteem around. And that was game changing because now to feel good about myself, I was constantly on the hunt for how I was wrong, how somebody else's idea might actually be better than mine. I didn't have any over investment in my own ideas. And that just works at every level. And if you're surrounded by awesome people and you don't throw up the traditional ego roadblocks, gonna be able to get some stuff done.
- [47:36]
Chris Do
And you said it's such a clear moment in your mind and you know exactly what, where it was, how old you were. Is this you laying in bed? Is this you like driving the car where you.
- [47:45]
Tom Bilyeu
I was in the office. They literally walked out the door and I was like, oh, like that was dumb. I can't believe I just did that.
- [47:52]
Chris Do
Oh, I see.
- [47:52]
Tom Bilyeu
And so literally in that moment I was like, okay, no judgment. If you just need to be the smartest person in the room, quit and go back to working the remedial jobs. Because it felt great. We weren't going anywhere, but it felt great. And so I literally remember saying in my own head, I'm not going to judge myself right now. I just want to know what's true, what do I really want? And I was like, no, I really do want success. And I wouldn't have had the words back then, but what I would say now is goals make demands. And so the demand that my goal made was that I need to surround myself with people that know more than me. If I can find people that know more than me and are smarter than me now, that's really going to be something. So I was like, these guys are the surest path to my success as of right now, today. And so I need to find a way to be here, but I don't want to feel like I'm a loser. So what can I do to be proud of myself and achieve success? And the punchline was a self esteem thing.
- [48:53]
Chris Do
Okay, so it was in the direct aftermath of you doing the thing that you said you're going to do to.
- [48:58]
Tom Bilyeu
Literally the next 30 minutes after that, I was just like, oh, what do we do? What do we do?
- [49:02]
Chris Do
Right? And then they walked out. And you're like, okay, I think I won the war, but I've lost something else.
- [49:06]
Tom Bilyeu
Yes.
- [49:07]
Chris Do
Okay. Wow. I'm impressed by your ability to recall things, your clarity of thought and your phraseology. How does one develop this? I'm curious.
- [49:16]
Tom Bilyeu
Ooh, well, my recall is terrible. I am mortified by my recall. I'M highly verbal by nature. So every bit of energy that I put into getting better at speaking, I really get a return on that. Do it a lot for a lot of years. So when I was 14, I started doing stand up comedy. So I would stand in front of the mirror for hours finding the funniest way to say something, how to cadence something out to change the meaning or the way that it felt. And then you get into business and you're constantly talking and then whatever. Nine years ago I stepped in front of the camera and so now it's like, okay, I'm talking all, all the time. So you do something enough and you're going to get better. And if you have a natural inclination to something, then you're really going to get better. With my recall, what I say to people is I remember about 10% of what I encounter. So I just encounter a lot of stuff. And so the 10%, even though it really like this, is when I have to be careful not to let it damage my self esteem because when I think about if I could remember 20% of what I encountered, oh my God, oh, I'd be so much farther in life. It really is a thing of distress for me. But it is what it is and so it comes with trade offs. I think the very reason that I can't hold onto things is because I don't get stuck. So I don't have emotional trauma in the way the average person does because I'll forget it happened. But it also means that I read a really cool business lesson and then I'll forget that too. So it giveth and it taketh away. So it is what it is when.
- [50:49]
Chris Do
You phrase something because I think you're really clear in how you phrase stuff. Is it you working on like writing this out or you've said it enough times that you start to find the way? It sounds good in your mind.
- [50:59]
Tom Bilyeu
You're in my greatest hits. So when I'm doing the Tom Bilyeu show, you will get people in the feed be like, damn, he talks a lot. And the reason they say that is I'm encountering the ideas in a novel fashion. So I am a verbal processor. So for me I either have to write or speak if I want to understand something. So I'll encounter an idea for the first time and my mind is like a branching tree and I'll hit dead ends and come back. And then 15 minutes into talking about a topic, I suddenly have a connection with something else and I'm like, oh, wow, okay, that's Interesting. So that I sound very different when I'm doing that versus when I'm talking about things that I've got very crystallized ideas. And then it's like what I talk about putting in a VHS tape of like, okay, cool. Yeah, you got me in, like, things I know so well. So, yeah, depending on what I'm talking about, I either sound like I'm doing a Donald Trump weave and I'm like, talking in these weird patterns of people like, where is he going? Or I can be really crisp, but I am. I'm not always crisp, much to my dismay.
- [52:00]
Chris Do
Okay, let's do something fun because my brain hurts. I have to admit, you've given me more to process than. Than a normal person sitting in front of me. When I say normal, I don't mean, like, you're abnormal, but, like, I like, it's hard for me to keep up with what you're saying, so I have to, like, re. Listen to this a couple of times. But let's do something fun. I like to ask you a couple, like, random questions. If you can just give me short answers, maybe we have some fun.
- [52:22]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay.
- [52:23]
Chris Do
You said your goals make demands. I love that. So what's the. Your next big goal for the. I guess your next 10 or 15 years?
- [52:30]
Tom Bilyeu
I have to get really good at game development, and I have to be at the absolute bleeding edge of AI Okay.
- [52:36]
Chris Do
Are you doing any more comics?
- [52:38]
Tom Bilyeu
Yes, but only if AI Makes them effectively free. Comics cost a lot of money and make effectively zero.
- [52:44]
Chris Do
Okay. You've had a lot of guests on your show. What's one guess that you'd love to get on the show? Haven't been able to yet, for whatever reason.
- [52:51]
Tom Bilyeu
And why Elon Musk? Because he is the most profound entrepreneur of our generation. Maybe ever.
- [53:00]
Chris Do
What is one episode that you thought was a total banger? Great conversation. Either somebody talking to you or you talking to them where it just did not perform. What's that episode? So, like, we can go there and dig that one up like a sleeper question.
- [53:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, man. I had a history guy on Graham, something I loved. Did not perform. Did I think it was a banger, though? I don't know. I thought it was good. I definitely thought it was better than the performance would have you believe. That's a terrible answer. Asking about back catalog is where I really fail you. Okay, apologies.
- [53:33]
Chris Do
Well, we'll include in the show notes after there.
- [53:36]
Tom Bilyeu
I can look one up for you for sure.
- [53:38]
Chris Do
Absolutely. We'll do that.
- [53:39]
Tom Bilyeu
Send you. Absolutely.
- [53:40]
Chris Do
Okay. Guilty pleasure you had that. You did As a kid, that was just purely for fun, but kind of stupid.
- [53:46]
Tom Bilyeu
I used to swim in my front yard, but there was no swimming pool. But really, I just read something about this that explains to me why kids under the age of seven, I think, are in a theta wave state, which is the same as dreaming. Because I remember as a kid being like, I am really scuba diving in my front yard. It was awesome. Yeah. So that was incredible. It's some of my strongest memories of being a kid. But nonetheless, it was just me wandering around my front yard with goggles on.
- [54:16]
Chris Do
Favorite game that you play that maybe is under the radar?
- [54:19]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, that's going to be Project Kaizen, the one that I'm building. Because I really play a small handful of games and they're all mahusive. So Minecraft. I'm obsessed. Fortnite. I'm obsessed. Under the radar. Project Hyzen.
- [54:32]
Chris Do
Okay, are you a PC or a Mac guy?
- [54:34]
Tom Bilyeu
I game on PC exclusively, but I use a Mac for all work things.
- [54:39]
Chris Do
And that's for the street cred guys. Because if you said Mac for gaming, they roll their eyes.
- [54:43]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, they'd be like, there's no games on that. Come on, bro.
- [54:45]
Chris Do
Like, my son works on a Mac, but he games on a PC. I'm like, you have to.
- [54:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Apple has done us all dirty. It does not need to be that way. But Apple is so unfriendly to games. As a developer, we wanted to develop for Mac. It is a nightmare.
- [55:00]
Chris Do
I was admiring your collection of manga, your figurines, all this stuff that's around here, the artwork. Maybe it's nerd. Just seeing another nerd. What are some of your favorite characters in comics or anime or manga?
- [55:13]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay. Deku is the character that I will forever be sad I didn't create my hero. Academia is exactly the kind of story I want to tell. It is unbelievable. I love it so much. Now, my favorite anime, like, for me, for me is Neon Genesis Evangelion. But like, I'm not telling people to go watch it because you're going to be like, this is sus. But it is so good. Oh my God. It is like a European art house film, but as a cartoon. The whole time I was watching it, I was like, they made this for kids? It's unbelievably good. Unbelievably good. So that is by far my favorite. But yeah, character wise, I'm going to go with Deku from My Hero.
- [55:57]
Chris Do
Okay, now for more mainstream stuff. Marvel or dc?
- [56:01]
Tom Bilyeu
Marvel.
- [56:01]
Chris Do
Any particular character or franchise?
- [56:03]
Tom Bilyeu
I grew up absolutely loving Spider Man. What they did with Iron man in the movies is absolutely, unbelievably cool. I was a huge fan. The whole up through endgame, I just thought was unbelievable. I am so blown away by what they did. I don't think people give it enough credit.
- [56:23]
Chris Do
Okay, this is a deep cut question for Tom, your favorite Spider man comic book artist.
- [56:28]
Tom Bilyeu
Ooh, Todd McFarlane.
- [56:30]
Chris Do
Okay. What is it you loved about.
- [56:32]
Tom Bilyeu
He made it hyper detailed. Like, the way that he did the webbing and stuff was nuts. Todd McFarlane, at least for people my age, was unparalleled. When he spun off into Image Comics, I was just like, bro, this is crazy. I was buying everything unreal. And by the way, a big reason why I hate that this is true. A big reason why American comics have essentially become a failed state and Japanese comics rule the world. But it was. When it was happening, it was pretty cool.
- [57:02]
Chris Do
It was pretty magical to be alive around that time, at the height of comics. Are you a fan of Robert Kirkman's work?
- [57:07]
Tom Bilyeu
I have. Very much so. Incredible storyteller. Incredible.
- [57:11]
Chris Do
Yeah. I think he became the first non artist to become a Image founder or a partner. Right.
- [57:18]
Tom Bilyeu
I think you were right about that. I didn't know it was non artist, but I knew he was one of the cause. He wasn't there for the founding, but they made him a, like, equal partner. I can't swear to equal, but they made him a partner. But, dude, what he's done from a storytelling perspective is unbelievable. He just gets the economy of storytelling that's necessary in comics. Unbelievable. And the whole Walking Dead world is just amazing.
- [57:42]
Chris Do
Are you still watching?
- [57:44]
Tom Bilyeu
We just started up the newest one where. What's his name? Reedus. Norman Reedus.
- [57:50]
Chris Do
Yes.
- [57:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Washes up in France.
- [57:52]
Chris Do
Yeah.
- [57:52]
Tom Bilyeu
So we're only one episode.
- [57:54]
Chris Do
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:55]
Tom Bilyeu
That's the character name.
- [57:56]
Chris Do
Yeah.
- [57:56]
Tom Bilyeu
I'll report back, but we enjoyed the first episode.
- [57:59]
Chris Do
Okay, but you've. You've watched the entire series? No.
- [58:03]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay. We've watched maybe 40 of it.
- [58:05]
Chris Do
Okay. I think the peak of Walking Dead madness and emotional hooks was Negan and the whole. What happens? Did. Are you there? I don't want to say anything.
- [58:17]
Tom Bilyeu
I know of Negan, but we didn't see his arc. He's the guy with the bat with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got some bad things through the primary prison. They left the prison. Then we watched some of the stuff with Negan, but he's in Manhattan, so we don't know, like, his whole arc. But spoiler away. I mean, it's been out for whatever 10 years.
- [58:35]
Chris Do
Well, I, I, I think that scene when they're all kneeling on the ground and he's walking around with this baseball bat and he tells everybody to get in line because if they don't somebody's going to die. And then he, he bashes Glenn's brain out. It broke my heart. And, and he, they, they took Steven Yeun's character out and he was the heart. I think I even get emotional thinking.
- [58:59]
Tom Bilyeu
It broke the show.
- [58:59]
Chris Do
It broke the show. Yeah. Because then it just became like we're just moving through. There's more dead people and more new members coming in. But it started to kind of feel like the heart was gone.
- [59:10]
Tom Bilyeu
Interesting. I love that that makes you emotional. That is so interesting. That's our story.
- [59:14]
Chris Do
It is. I mean there's moments when in the hands of crafted like good craftspeople and they know how to frame it and set it up and get you hooked in and emotionally involved. Like Game of Thrones before it got mad was amazing.
- [59:25]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. Game of Thrones is incredible. Basically until the last season.
- [59:28]
Chris Do
Yeah.
- [59:28]
Tom Bilyeu
Than it was.
- [59:30]
Chris Do
Okay, last question. Light fun 1. What is a movie or an anime that you're most looking forward to seeing that's going to be released sometime in the future?
- [59:39]
Tom Bilyeu
Ooh, I haven't seen Sakamoto Days yet. I think it's out. But I really enjoy the manga. Manga that may have already been made into anime and I just don't know that. I would love to see. What have I read that's super dope berserk but that already has an anime. Would love to see that. Did they make Trigun into an anime?
- [60:01]
Chris Do
I played a video game.
- [60:03]
Tom Bilyeu
They must have. That would probably because it feels a bit old fashioned now as a manga. But I have a feeling that the anime be pretty dope because it was in that 90s time frame. I think ish. So that would be interesting. There's not. Other than Sakamoto Days. I think everything that I like in manga is already out in anime. Oh, you know what's crazy? Dan. To Dan. Dude, have you seen anime?
- [60:24]
Chris Do
No.
- [60:24]
Tom Bilyeu
It's so fun. Oh my God. They're doing a phenomenal job. That's sick.
- [60:29]
Chris Do
Your level of knowledge around manga and anime is like surpasses eclipse anything that I could pretend to.
- [60:35]
Tom Bilyeu
People that really know it are going to be like this guy. So yeah, I'm definitely a lightweight just given the time. But I won't lie. There have been a few times where I have fantasized about like I'm just going to take a year off and I'm going to watch and read everything. Every. There's something in my brain that it triggers, like a collector vibe in me to have seen it.
- [60:55]
Chris Do
Yeah, I hear you. I see the collection in another room. Do you cosplay?
- [61:00]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't. I'm really weird about that. I don't like playing dress up, but I love when other people do it, but I don't like doing it.
- [61:07]
Chris Do
Okay.
- [61:07]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm surprised even I'm like, huh, that's kind of weird. But yeah, okay.
- [61:12]
Chris Do
Tom, it was great talking to you. Thanks for having us in your studio.
- [61:15]
Tom Bilyeu
Thanks for having me on the show. This is Tom Bilyeu and you're listening to the Future.
- [61:26]
C
Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Future Podcast is hosted by Chris do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefuture. Com and you'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.