← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Fan Favorite: Think Like a CEO and Dominate the Global Stage | Tom Bilyeu AMA
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When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done. If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now it's the final days of our Everything's on Sale event. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses. Our Memorial Day event ends Monday. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a Sleep Number store or go to sleepnumber.com to a good life sleep.
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You're listening to the Impact Theory podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers. Join host Tom Bilyeu, serial entrepreneur and co founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success. Welcome to Impact Theory. So our next segment is an ama, an amma, just to give you guys an idea is a nod to Reddit and their ask me anything platform. And I wanted to change up historically I because I process out loud, I would give very long, somewhat meandering answers and we usually only got to 1 to like 55 answers in an hour segment and we wanted to change that and create something where I got to practice being far more succinct and that turned into the AMA format. So this is where I try to give really holding my answers to no more than two minutes. It's very direct. It's just you and I and yeah, we go hard to answer all those questions. So this is a bit of rapid fire making sure that you guys are getting your money's worth. Our question is it seems I stick to my word when it comes to doing things for my loved ones but don't have integrity for my own wants and needs. How can I stick to my goals? That is a fantastic question. Okay, so all of this is going to really come down to identity. It's gonna come down to what are the things that you want. Once you know what you're trying to accomplish and you can work backwards from there, then you're one gonna know what you need to do. And once you know what you need to do, it becomes a lot easier to stick to it. So that is step number one. Identify goal. What is it that you're going to need to accomplish that? And then really from an identity perspective, keep bringing yourself back to center. Back to center, back to center. Like somebody had asked a question earlier what they do when they find themselves drifting their attention and constantly going off, going off and they have attention deficit disorder or whatever the case may be, how do they get themselves back to center? And that really is a question of identity. So make sure that you have that answer. All right. And that was by the way, if I didn't say it out loud, that was from Faxdi Fatty. I'm going to assume that's Fatty. Fatty Hassan. So there it is. All right. Fan question. It's. Nope, that's the same one. So do we have the next one or do you guys want me to up. There we go. So from Vic Bansal. Nope, there we go. Can you describe what you mean by going into the darkness? I can. All right. So going into the darkness. I think everybody is motivated by two different things. One, you have the beautiful things in your life, the things that are going well, the things that you're grateful for, the things you're moving towards. Instead of a way you have a compelling vision of your future. It's something that you're very excited about. All of those things are the beautiful things. Now the flip side of that equation are the things that it's people that doubt you, it's haters, it's things you're moving away from, it's fear based things, it's something that you absolutely refuse to let happen. So one that is incredibly potent to me are the people that want to see me fail. So it's very different than people who just think you're going to fail. I actually don't have a lot of aggression towards people like that. But people that want me to fail, those people I have a lot of aggression for. And I find in very acute moments the darkness serves you better. In very acute moments. Now the light, the things you're moving towards, the things that are beautiful, the things that you're grateful for, all of that is the only winning strategy long term because the darkness becomes corrosive, you start to become bitter, you start to be angry, you stop being optimistic, you stop seeing things in a way that's empowering and positive. And I mean just thinking about the deep limbic system, when it gets inflamed, you perceive things as negative. I Think negativity stops people from making progress. There's a whole host of neurological reasons and sort of mindset reasons why I think that being negative over the long run becomes very, very detrimental and holds you back. But from an acute standpoint, they've done studies on this. If you want someone to be able to endure more pain, the surest way to get people to endure more pain is to let them get angry, let them be aggressive. Doing that people are able to withstand. In the clinical trials, I'll say that it's probably more than this. But in clinical trials, they're able to withstand 30% more pain. So just straight being able to take more pain, anger and aggression lets you do 30% more. So that's why I think in acute ways and short term bursts, that the darkness will serve you. All right, I guess we're now live on Instagram and I'm supposed to be telling you guys to go over to Facebook so that you can join us for the 24 hour live. So go over right now, dearest. Instagram. In fact, Instagram. Why don't you come closer? Come close. Come see me. It's so good to see you. I've missed you all. Go ahead, walk on up. Stand right in front of the camera. It's very good to see you. Yay. Hi. So head over to Facebook. We're doing a live. It's 24 hours that we're gonna be live without stopping. So go check it out. I can't wait to see you over on Facebook where we have all these beautiful cameras that we can switch to. Also, we can answer your questions. So head over right to Facebook Live. I will see you guys there. All right, next question up. This one is from Steve Troutman, and Steve says, what is your top way to open people up to change? This assumes they're desiring change, coming to you for help, but they're locked in an identity that does not support what they want. Okay, so here's the real answer, and I get it. We all want to be as helpful to the people that we love and care about as humanly possible. But I beg all of you, don't proselytize. So view yourself as a filtering mechanism. You're looking for the people that already want to change. And I think that Naveen Jain said it best. He said, don't think of yourself as somebody who has to lead a horse to water and get them to drink. Don't even think about that. Instead, just try to make them thirsty. And I really, really like that notion. If you Think of your job is to either help people be thirsty or identify people that are already thirsty. Then they're gonna resonate with your message. But speaking for myself, I'm not in the game of changing people. I'm not in the game of convincing people to want to change. I'm merely in the business of entertaining, intriguing, and then helping to pull people out of the matrix that identify themselves as wanting to come out. Also, nobody sounds like a bigger asshole than the guys out there trying to convince everybody that their way is right. So I'm looking for people that resonate with the way that I think rather than trying to convince everybody to think like I think now. I happen my mindset is all focused around efficiency and being efficacious towards actually achieving your goals. So I think that there's something incredibly universal in that. But at the end of the day, it's really about finding people that are going to resonate with that rather than trying to convince people. All right, next question. Oh, by the way, just to orient people, we're doing the AMMA format. So this is based on the Reddit format of ask me anything. And this is different from our normal Q and A format, which is a little bit more free flowing, a little bit longer answers. I go down different branching chains of thought in the AMA format. What I'm trying to do is be very concise, keep my answers to roughly two minutes or less so that we can get to a lot of answers. And if you're really just joining us, this is our 24 hour live. We're doing this as a thank you of wanting to be service to you guys, a sign of appreciation because we've crossed. I don't think it's in camera anymore, but we've crossed 100,000 on Facebook, which we are insanely blown away by. So thank you guys so, so much for being a part of this community. It is amazing and we are insanely grateful and so we wanted to suffer a little bit in service of you guys and do this live nonstop for 24 hours. So thank you for tuning in. All right, this question is from Joe Trevino. How to motivate your girlfriend? I believe when she is lazy and doesn't want to work out. Oh God, the amount of horrifying things hiding in this comment. So my encouragement is always, always, always meet people with compassion. So I will assume you didn't mean it to come across this way. And I really am grateful for the question. But even if you're thinking inside your own mind, like this person is lazy I can't believe it. They don't want to work out. That is going to seep out of your every pore. So you have to be really, really careful. One that's going to turn them off, it's going to push them away, it's going move you farther away from your goal. And you know me, my thing is do and believe that which moves you towards your goal. And if your goal is to really get her to work out, you want to lead with excitement, you want to lead with encouragement, you want to make her feel good, you want her to feel better about herself when she's around you. In fact, that's just an important thing to note at all times. Your significant other, you should make your significant other feel better about themselves when they're around you than when they don't. And so you have to find a way to be loving, supporting, encouraging of her exactly the way that she is. And if that's impossible for you and it's so anathema and such a turn off for you, the way that they think or act or, you know, whatever it is about them, then you have chosen poorly. And getting involved in a relationship with somebody who you don't connect with and don't feel that connection that draw all of that is dangerous. And if they have slowly retreated over time and changed in a way that you perceive as being negative from the time that you got together, I say you have to take responsibility for that. So for whatever reason, you were not able to engage them in a way that they could hear and understand and emotionally respond to and go on that journey with you as you begin to work out or whatever it is path you're trying to take them down. But I promise there's it's some people you're just never going to change. So let's start with that. And then you're never going to get somebody to change with you if they don't feel loved, appreciated and connected to you in the first place. So meet them with empathy. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time
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So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Okay, next question from Carmi Engelbrecht. Tom, do you ever use 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Or do you just get up and do what needs to get done? So I wish that I had encountered that a very long time ago, 20 years ago. That would have been really helpful for me. Unfortunately, I didn't. So just in the intervening years I developed other strategies. The strategy that I use, so by the way, this is a reference to Mel Robbins and her 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 strategy, which I think is amazing. And I've had so many people write me, a shocking number write in and say how much it's helped them. So I have no doubt that it's a very profound strategy for people that haven't found an answer to that yet. My answer was different and it is identity. And I'm sure I'll talk about that in other questions. So I'll leave it at that. All right, next question is from Sim Land. Tom, how do you not get addicted to the darkness? One I don't find the darkness is very pleasant. The darkness is powerful. Darkness is very powerful. And it feels awesome for a minute and then it begins to be corrosive. And I find that the thing that really gets me excited, makes me feel alive, is optimism, is believing that things are going to work out, believing that I can do anything I set my mind to. So that for me is so intoxicating from the perspective of just being really excited and having joy for life and all of that, that, that's really, really incredible and powerful. So I don't get addicted to it because I don't find it intrinsically pleasurable for more than say, honestly, like probably 20 minutes. Like, I use it as a catalyst to get myself out of negativity, to get into a really positive place and get that momentum going again. But it really is, to me, it's like jump starting a car. Once you jumpstart the car, you don't leave it connected to the jumper cables, you take them off and it's back to driving as normal. So, yeah, I think if you don't even need to worry about whether you're addicted to it or not, just do straight math on how much of your time you spend there. And I think you should never, ever, ever for any reason ever spend more than 20% of your time there because it is ultimately corrosive for reasons that I went through a few minutes ago, so I won't go through that again now. But 80, 20, 80% of your time on the beautiful things, 20% of your time using the darkness to re spark you and get you going. All right, next question is From Nahomi Hernandez. How do you make sure that you actually focus on 80%, 20, 80% beauty and 20% rage? It's amazing. I find that I know this tool theoretically, but my mind still constantly drifts to the darkness and frustrating things. And I wonder whether I'm fooling myself in the process, even though I know the path. All right, so it's important to recognize that everything in life, everything in life is a process. So you may not be good at it at first, you may be downright bad at it. But if you keep doing it in a disciplined manner, calling yourself out when you're spending more than 20% of your time there, finding things like a mindfulness practice that literally limits the amount of time physiologically that you'll spend in what I'll call the sort of rage state, which let's define as being in the fight, flight, freeze mode. So you know that you're there because your heart rate is elevated. You feel anxiety, you feel stress, you feel depression. Like all of those things are that world of the overactive amygdala. You're in a state that is high arousal. And so you can actually do things to get out of that state because it's what is called a negative cycle. So you want to get into a negative feedback loop. And what that means is that you can't have them both elevated at the same time. So as you raise your parasympathetic nervous system, you by nature lower the sympathetic nervous system. So the sympathetic nervous system is fight or flight. The parasympathetic nervous system is rest and digest. So a mindful practice, meditation, what it's doing is actually forcing you into, or triggering, I should say triggering, the parasympathetic nervous system. You're slowing your breathing, you're lowering your heart rate. You're breathing from the diaphragm. You're forcing your thoughts back to your breath so that they're not wandering on negative thoughts, which then re trigger the sympathetic nervous system. So in doing that, because they won't both be high at the same time, you raise your parasympathetic and it pulls you out. So just from a math equation, you do the simple math. If you've been in the sympathetic side too long in the rage mode, that you need to just spend time doing something as simple as a mindful practice to get you back on the other side. Also, there's the reticular activating system, which is a fancy way of saying what you focus on, you're going to see more of. So spend your Time focusing on optimism, how things are going to go right. And it's manual. You just force yourself to do it. All right, next question is from Johan Lucena. Did you ever read about stoicism? What do you think about negative visualization? So I have read about stoicism primarily from Ryan Holiday. So I haven't read a lot of what Ryan Holiday is synthesizing. I tried and I found it way harder to digest the language is. Is more painful. And I just found that Ryan was essentially taking all of the stoic learnings and making it very accessible to me as a modern audience. So I was very, very empowered by his books. Excuse me. The Obstacle is the way and the Ego is the enemy. Both of those I found were very, very impactful. I don't know what you mean by negative visualization. Obviously, I can sound it out from the words, but I don't know if there's a theory in stoicism that says you should spend some amount of time meditating on the way that things could go wrong. And that's one of those, again, 20, 80%. If you spend too much time thinking about how things could go wrong, even though you'll feel prepared, you're actually triggering anxiety, you're hardwiring anxiety, or associating whatever it is you're about to do with all the possible ways that it could go wrong. And that I know because I spent decades there was will spiral you the fuck out of control into an anxious state. So I think it's better, on balance, to spend the vast majority of your time thinking about all the ways that things are going to go. Right. So that would be my advice. All right, next question. From Michael Anthony. If only we had hall at the end of that. From Michael Anthony. Have you come across thoughts put out by others that you don't personally agree with but are effective in the impact narrative? No, because. God. Depending on what you mean by the impact narrative, there's a lot of things in here I'd love to have defined. But the impact narrative, certainly, as I see it, is really what is effective. And that's how I judge everything in my life, what is effective. So I don't have a preset. Like, if I found that spending 80% of your time in negativity and rage were actually what is gonna move you towards your goals, then I would say do that. Spend 80% of your time there. But if what is true remains true, and I see that that isn't the answer, then I'm going to tell people to go to that. So I don't have a narrative that I'm clinging to something that needs to be true. Like, for instance, if traditional narrative and creating comic books, movies, TV shows, all that I realize isn't actually effective for pulling people out of the Matrix, then we'll pivot and stop being a studio. So it's all about being effective. All right, next question is from Lionella Todirian, Lionela to Darian. That's kind of a cool name. Feels like something straight out of Game of Thrones. Hi, Tom. What can I do when I feel like I'm falling off the wagon? For example, just after a period of high, Just after a period of high and being steady and consistent with my goal, I just let myself be pulled into someone else's craziness. And the fall seems so much deeper. What are some techniques that I can apply to set myself back on track? So, first and foremost, self compassion. In fact, everybody lean in nice and close. Self compassion. It's probably the most important thing that you can do for yourself, is when you fuck up, you need to forgive yourself. Okay? So that's really, really important. So. And I'll walk you through an example about whatever 20 minutes ago. I get really frustrated when people are trying to tell me something, but they're whispering. That fucking redlines me in a way that I can't even begin to tell you. And so it just happened while I'm here live on camera. And I hold myself to a standard of catching my emotions before they rise up. Now, this has happened twice today. The first time it happened, I caught myself. Yay. The second time it happened, I was like, for real? We're doing this again? And I got very frustrated. So I was very disappointed in myself for that. But I need to be compassionate towards myself. Forgive myself for that. Get better, use it as practice. And remember that life isn't performance. It really is about practice. So once you can meet yourself with compassion, then you can begin to let go of whatever it is that's really fucking with your mindset. You can get back on track, you can refocus, and don't wait till Monday. And that's a mistake that everybody makes. So if you fall off the wagon, like if I fell off the wagon at 9:58. At 9:59, I'm back on the wagon. So I'm not waiting even for 10 o'. Clock. Like, you literally do it right there at that moment, make it a part of your identity that you're the type of person that does that. So that is really, really critical. All right. Next question. Jonathan Rushton, how long before this event did you wake up? So I went to bed last night later than normal, specifically so I would wake up later. So I went to bed at about 10:05 and I got up at 4, like 35. So I got about 6. No, I got six and a half hours, whatever that makes it. So, so must have been right around 5:00'. Clock. Um, so I got six and a half hours. So yeah, right around 5:00am is when I woke up. And yeah, that was it. Right. That was the sum total of that question. There we go. Uh, oh, no. Nicole Northy, do and believe that which moves you towards your goal. Have you ever had a stubborn belief that was difficult for you to change? More than I've had a stubborn belief, I'll say that I've had stubborn behaviors that are hard to get to go away. So we all have those things that trigger us. And I find that it's really fascinating where the trigger lies. The work needs to be done. So for whatever reason, like when I don't understand something and maybe this in fact let me process, which I won't do too much of because this is amma but processing out loud, I felt dumb as a kid. And so it's a trigger for me when I don't understand something and I feel that somebody is essentially thinking that I'm stupid. Yeah. So like when somebody. I'm put in a situation where it's impossible for me to actually get the information that is that like redlines me in a way that I'm working on. So yeah, that, that's a big one. And so getting things like that, recognizing that if that's a trigger, that's a you thing, not a them thing, and trying to figure out why that's a you thing, I think is pretty important. All right, next question from Thomas Enriquez. What would your strategy be for implementing a quick start? Morning. If your 15 alarms on three different clocks don't always wake you up, that is sleep through them. Even with eight hours of sleep, I'm at a loss for why I need so much sleep. Okay. So, man, I would need to dive into your world to really see what's going on. It's very possible that you. But you're not sleeping as well as you think. So you may want to use a device that is going to track your sleep so you can see how many times you're waking up. So you may be in bed for eight hours, you may have your eyes closed for eight hours, but you may have sleep apnea you may just wake up a lot. You may drift up into a lighter type of sleep, I forget phase of sleep, rather than being in the deep phases of sleep that you need to be in. So you probably just aren't getting quality sleep. Or, or what may also be highly likely, or what is highly likely is that you sleep cyclically. So you may not get enough sleep a lot of nights, but then you sleep eight hours and think, I should be back to this. Or you may even sleep eight hours a night for a week, but you still need more and you haven't caught up. And so if you think of the brain as essentially doing construction while you're sleeping, if you're chronically sleep deprived, the work just isn't being done. So it isn't like one good night of sleep is gonna get all of that road work done. You have to sleep until the work is finished, not until you get one good night's sleep. So it may take you months, literally months of sleeping without an alarm, sleeping as many hours as you need. Sometimes you'll sleep 8, sometimes you may sleep 10, 11 hours just getting that work done. In the brain, it's literally removing. I'm outside my realm of knowledge. It's removing things build up byproduct from the brain, taking it out. You need the reduction in inflammation in the brain in order to actually get it out. So. And that only happens when you're sleeping. So there's all kinds of things that have to be done. All right, so grand prize, we're giving away so much stuff today. Every segment, except maybe the ammas, has prizes. And we are doing one big prize at the end of the day, which is all of the individual segments put into one Master Mama Jama. We've got all kinds of things from Quest products, no Better Foods products, the Modius health device, a bunch of IT swag, subscriptions to Audible, all kinds of amazing, amazing stuff. So you're gonna have to find there are seven Easter eggs that are going to be planted throughout the 24 hour live. And if I'm not mistaken, and admittedly I could be, but if I'm not mistaken, we've already done two. I think that's accurate. So just to give you guys an idea, over the next 24 hours, we're gonna be placing those things and make sure you either tune in or certainly watch at some point the late night ones, because I know that we'll be doing some then to reward people that are rocking with us through the night and anybody that can identify all seven Easter Eggs are we doing the first. The first person to identify all seven Easter eggs is going to be the winner of the grand prize. And it's like multiple thousands of dollars worth of prizes. I mean, it's massive. We're not fucking around. Why aren't we fucking around, boys and girls? Because we are insanely grateful to this community. We are doing this whole 24 hour live. I haven't even taken a pee pee break yet. We're doing it because we crossed 100,000 on Facebook. We are insanely honored and grateful for that. So thank you guys so much for helping us get across that the numbers really are meaningful to us in terms of putting us in a better negotiating position to build out the content studio. So we're not just doing, we're not just doing the numbers for vanity. Although it is amazingly gratifying, we're doing it because that really will put us in a position, we can get more guests on the show, which is super, super important to bringing you guys value. We can also go into a studio when we're selling the content that we're making and leverage that to maintain the rights to merchandising and things like that, which is going to be really important
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to us day or night. VRBoCare is here 247 to help make every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply need a little guidance, support is ready whenever you reach out from the moment you book to the moment you head home. We're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support. And hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery, so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
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All right, so segment giveaway question. All right, so the next segment. Are we moving on to the next segment at this point? Oh, so we're doing a giveaway for the Emma. All right, cool. So the segment giveaway question is where do you see Impact Theory in five years? We want to know. All right, so where do you guys see Impact Theory in five years? Be very interesting to hear that answer. And the prize is next to me. Oh, this is. We did announce this at the head. All right. I looked over and I saw nothing, or so I thought. But it's actually tickets to Success Live, which is going to be a lot of fun. I'm one of the speakers there. This is soon. This is in September, early September, if I'm not mistaken. 8th, 7th, and 8th. 8th and 9th. Somewhere around there. We'll announce that later at some point. All right, so that's the question. Where do you see impact theory in five years?
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All right, shout out IG Live.
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What is up IG Live? You guys should really go over to Facebook if you can. I'm sure some of you are staying on IG because you don't have access to Facebook. But if you head over to Facebook, we have all kinds of multiple cameras and pretty angles and all kinds of amazing stuff, and you can get your questions answered over there. So, so highly encourage you if you can head over to Facebook. Otherwise, thank you for joining us on Instagram. All right, next question. This is from Mark Santiago. Could you please talk more about the concept where you think so much about your goals that sometimes you don't achieve them because it feels like they. You've already achieved them. I feel that this is happening to me. How do I get out of this? All right, so it's a psychological principle that all call pacifying yourself. I don't remember the actual name for it, but there's this amazing release valve in the mind that when you think about something becoming true, it actually makes you feel a little bump of the dopamine that you would feel if it actually came true. So it's really powerful as a way to get you moving. And that, in fact, is how you create a compelling future. You think about something that you want to come true. You actually feel it. You see how exciting, exciting it would be. It gives you the directional, emotional evidence as to whether that's something you would actually like enough to pursue. But then if you spend all of your time thinking about it, then it becomes this release valve where you're spending so much time in the chemical joy of imagining it, that part of you forgets that it actually hasn't happened. And so you don't go out and do the work that you need to actually make that thing happen. And that's where the 8020 rule comes in, where you're gonna spend a lot of time thinking about that thing that you're moving towards. You're also gonna spend time kicking yourself in the ass and reminding yourself that it hasn't come true yet. And also, may I suggest really falling in love with the process and making sure that what you're doing is something that you enjoy so that you're actually getting a bigger dopamine response from the things you do on a daily basis that you have intrinsically designed to actually move you towards those goals. That's really, really a critical part of that process. So yep, that's the principle. Beware of that. But also remember that you're going to need that to create that compelling future. All right, question is from Anna Maggie Harrop. What do you have for breakfast on a usual day? So it depends on whether I'm in a protein mode or I'm in a keto mode. So I roughly alternate week to week. So one week I'll be ketogenic, I'm always by the way, ketogenic on the weekends, but I'll be ketogenic ketogenic one week and then the next week, Monday through Friday, I'll be high protein. And the reason that I cycle in and out of ketosis is because I find that my muscle softens and from a body composition standpoint I just don't look as good or feel as good from a strength perspective as when I alternate with high protein. And I do the ketogenic side because of all the cognitive benefits, the way it changes your relationship to food. And I find it infinitely easier to lose fat when I'm on a ketogenic diet. And most importantly, and the reason that I fell in love with keto is because of its anti inflammatory properties. So I struggled with joint pain for almost two decades and it was only a ketogenic diet that got me out of that and it was very, very profound. So my breakfast on a keto period is going to be Quest keto cups. I do fear that. I think they are actually stopping making those and very sad to report that. So finding other ketogenic products so that something ketogenic in the morning, anything that's high fat, low protein and virtually no carbohydrate right now because I bought an absolute stockpile or I got an absolute stockpile from Quest. That is what I live on for my ketogenic breakfasts. If I'm doing a high protein breakfast, then I'll do Quest protein chips. And by the way, this isn't just self protected promotion. Actually what I do, I eat two bags of chips and then the Quest protein cups, one of them. So it's two bags of chips, one cup. All right, next question is from Sabi Singh. Can having an addictive personality be beneficial or destructive? In your opinion? I think it can be both. And there are some very interesting studies about what happens to people when they have an addictive personality. It can actually be something that makes you compulsive as an entrepreneur to push, to keep going, to get obsessed, to drive harder than anybody else. Because you become so myopically focused on that thing where the brain chemistry of the pursuit is so addictive that you keep going or you've gamified the experience and you literally become obsessed. And that's one thing about addictive personalities. They're very obsessive. So they get incredibly focused. And while I don't know this is true, my gut instinct is that it is true. Somebody who finds themselves flirting with or is in full blown anorexia is also the same person that could have an addiction problem. Because any of those obsessions I find is you get such an amazing reward from gamifying something. So from the outside, when you look at somebody that has anorexia, you think, what the fuck are you doing? Like this is so clearly self destructive and leading you on a one way path to your death. But if you were inside that person's mind, the chemical rewards they give themselves for being disciplined enough to do it and the myopic focus on getting skinnier and skinnier and skinnier and skinnier is crazy. And then of course the obsessive thinking on the negative side about being fat and all that. So it's just obsessive loops. Obsessive loops. But if you can point those obsessive loops at something empowering and positive, then all of a sudden you can leverage that same just like unending will and drive to do something in a positive direction. So it really depends on what you pointed at. All right, next question is from Nancy Voigt. How are you enjoying this? Doing this 24 hour live feed so far? This is amazing to me. I'm not enjoying it nearly as much as I will be around 3am when it sucks and I fucking hate it. And once you understand why, literally that is the time that I'll actually enjoy it the most. Then you'll really have an insight into me. Because right now it's still chemically fun. It will become truly, deeply fun, fulfilling and fun when it hurts. And I know that most people wouldn't be willing to do it because identity, this is really important. Identity is far more rewarding from a fulfillment standpoint, a depth of emotion standpoint, a grandeur of emotion standpoint than the momentary happiness of getting to interact with you guys. Knowing that we're engaging and that you're asking questions that we're building this company and that the team is rallied around. And it's all that is awesome and I love it. But it's not nearly as big of an emotion as being true to an identity that you're proud of. Which is why for me, you're gonna hear me talk about identity a lot. Because that is one of your most potent allies in becoming the person that you wanna become. Just constructing that identity and then living up to it. All right, fan question from Jeremy Thompson. Any suggestions for helping with delegating? I have a habit of taking on too much work because I have a vision for how I see a finished product. And I can't trust my coworkers to see a project through to my admittedly high standards. Okay, so this is a very big question. I'm going to give it to you really systematically. You're going to have to look at a few different things. One, you have to ask really honestly the question, am I an asshole? It's very possible that right now you're just an asshole and you have an ego that is out of control. You need to check that. And so, and I'm speaking as somebody who lived there, so this is. I'm not judging you. Like, I really do meet you with empathy, but you just have to be really, really honest. Are you being an asshole? Are you displaying the traits of an asshole? Because you can very easily get out of this. So are you doing it because you always think you're right? Are you doing it because you pride yourself on being right? Are you doing it because you pride yourself on being smart? Because that's how you're gonna turn people against you. That is when you're in that zone. So first, failing to delegate is like the worst fucking possible strategy as a leader. So even if you're not an asshole, you're a shit terrible leader. Okay, just hashtag keeping it real. So I have been there. I have been a piss poor leader. So again, I'm not judging. I'm just saying that is a truth that you have to fucking face. So are you being an asshole or are you just being a bad leader? One of those two things or both are true. So once you realize that is a terrible fucking strategy. And now we have to delegate. Now you have to figure out, if you can't trust the people, why can't you trust them? Can you not trust them because you've created that environment where people don't trust you and they don't want to help you. Because you've been a know it all asshole up to this point or you act like you're better than them. So if that's the case, how do you begin to engender trust? How do you win them over? And I will tell you that finding ways to bring value to them and one of the ways is they may value autonomy, they may want like a really exciting project that you also want. And you can give them that project and let it be something that they're excited about. You can help them see what they're good at. Don't bullshit them. But if there's something that they're really good at and you want to delegate a project to them based on skill set and say, look, I need somebody that has XYZ skill. I think you're amazing at that. As long as that's sincere. And if they are amazing with that, say I want to give you this project. Now the key here is if you cannot yet trust them to do it well, but you believe that you can't trust them because of the environment that you've created. This is where you let them fail. You support them all the way. Tell them that you're going to be there, that you will help them in any way, shape or form that they want help. Make sure that you pre plan a check in so that they can come and ask questions that they don't have to ask for that check in and then in that check in be that sounding board and if they don't really have much, let them go and really let them see what they can do. And then at the end assessment how well they did and if they did well, then hey, reward them. And now you know, whoa, like I really can trust them more than I thought. And if they fail, meet that with compassion, meet that with empathy, don't punish them for it and figure out what do we want to learn from this and then help them learn that and move forward. You start doing that and look at first they're not going to trust you, it's not going to work. It's going to take assume it's going to take you a year. If you go into it knowing I'm going to have to be consistent with this every time, I'm going to have to be facilitating them shining, I'm going to take a total backseat. All of my energy is going to be focused on making sure that my team shines. If you do that for a year, at the end of that year your life will be different. I promise I'll stop there because I'M being succinct. All right, next question is Vic Bansel, what is your advice on what to expect on the length of time before realizing success? I have been working on my craft for 2.5 years and have seen much improvement on a year by year basis, but am not where I thought I would be by now. I love this question. So here is the important part to understand. The struggle is guaranteed, the success is not. So the answer is you may never succeed. That's just the truth. You may never get where you want to be. And I've never once ever in my life been where I thought I should be. So quest grew faster than I thought. There's no question about that. But as we started growing fast and I wanted more, I demanded more. I was pushing myself harder and loving it, by the way, not feeling badly about it, not feeling like stress or anything. It was so much fun to see. Like, how far can we go? So that's my personality. You have to be honest with what's real to you. But two and a half years is absolutely fucking nothing. You need to be thinking in decades, right? Once you can have your timeline be measured in decades, like, I've been in my craft for 20 years or 30 years, that's when you just won't be able to stop yourself from getting amazing. If you're putting the time and energy into acquiring a new skill every day, right? Or pushing a skill that you have just to get better a little bit better every day. Every day. Every day. Like, there's an awesome quote from Tony Robbins. He says, people always overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in 10, and I think that's really powerful. But if you just go all out every day and stop and look back at the long horizon. So this year, look back on where you were ten years ago instead of where you were two and a half years ago and really think about how far you've come. And if you're 21 and you're looking back on what you were like at 11, awesome. Never will there be a more powerful comparison to when you were really young and you think, Jesus, like, you didn't understand things like paying your taxes, you couldn't walk to your friend's house without having to worry. Like the dark scared you. Like, just in those 10 years, really think about the tremendous way that you transform. And I promise, 10 years from now, when you look back, you'll feel that same degree of change. When I think back to how I was at 31. Oh, dear God. So really taking that long term perspective, I think will be very, very empowering. Next question from Stacy Lee. Will you be having impact hour in Canada? How are the meet and what are. I think it should be, what are the meet and greets? Like, around how many? Okay, these are a lot of questions. Let's take them one by one. Will you be having impact hour in Canada? Yes, we have a chapter in Toronto. Perfect. So there'll be an impactivist meetup in Toronto. Once you guys hit a certain threshold, there'll be a certain number of people that need to be coming to your events before. I will come just because it's travel. But once you're at that threshold, I will come. How are the meet and greets? What are they like? The meet and greets are amazing and they follow this rough format. When I show up, they're different. When I'm not there, if I show up, it's meet and greet. You guys are getting to know each other. A couple people inevitably will be kind enough to come over to me and say hello. And then at some point, say maybe 30 minutes in, 45 minutes in, I will take center stage and answer questions. And probably roughly an hour into that, I'll let people know that A, I'm a selfie junkie, so come, let's take selfies because I know that people inevitably will have to leave at different times. So come take a selfie if you want. That breaks up the Q and A. The people that want to then go back to spending time with each other can do that. The people that need to leave can do that. And then the people that want to stay and ask more questions, I'll stay and answer questions until there are no more questions, no matter how long that takes. So that's the rough format around how many people have been attending. So the one in London probably had 35 people. The one here that we did in LA was somewhere around 50 or 60. And it's gonna. 65 you said. So 65 people. It'll vary depending on your location. And obviously over time, the goal would be that more and more people start coming. What has been the most memorable for you and the team at the meet and greet? I think we're all blown away each and every time by that. It's real people with real dreams that are trying to do something in the world that come in person, take time out of their lives to even just say hello. And it will be our mission, no matter how big we get, to never lose sight of that. I Did not see whatever that was. Okay, perfect. So that is amazing. And if we ever lose sight of that, you have my permission to. I know if I say punch me in the face, someone will actually punch me in the face, so don't do that. But you can tell me in very stern words that you think that we've lost sight of that. I think that that would be disgusting and so gross. I can't imagine. But that really is the thing that drives us. All right, next question. Oh, God. Jeff, you told me how to pronounce your name, and I have already forgotten. But you did make clear that I brutalized it. So Jeff N is in the feed. Thank you, Jeff. It's so good to see you again. Hey, Tom. My question is, if life is a game of neurochemistry, why wouldn't you take the blue pill if it existed, if it gave you the feelings of bliss? What a fucking great question. There's a second part, so don't move this one yet. So here's the answer. If you want to take the blue pill, you should take the blue pill. And if the blue pill makes you happy, that is absolutely the pill you should be taking. And when I say no judgment, I mean no judgment. And I meet people with empathy and compassion that decide that they want to take the blue pill. I've got no hate for Cypher until he starts trying to kill people. Then I've got mad beef. But here's why I've taken the red pill and why I call myself a filtering mechanism. So I'm looking only for people that want to take the red pill. And the red pill is shorthand for you wake up in the real world. Now, what does that mean? You wake up realizing that you can do anything you set your mind to. But once you realize that, how you spend your time becomes a spiritual consideration. So that's why I say the very meaning of life is to find out how many skills you can acquire that have utility and then put that utility to the test in service of something larger than yourself. So now you become in service. You're doing things not just for yourself. You do things for yourself 100%, but not just for yourself. And you have a bigger vision, and you push yourself every day to get better because you know you can. But at the end of the day, the game is neurochemistry. So if you are fulfilled, if you are content, if you are happy, there's nothing else to do. It's just that I wasn't content or happy when I felt like the world was happening to me. And I wasn't in control. And I didn't believe that I could do anything I set my mind to. My life was a fantastic misery. And so I. The reason that the notion of the red pill in the Matrix was so powerful for me was because it gave me hope that I could do anything I set my mind to, that the real world was waking up to the reality that I was in control. And then if I was willing to take responsibility for everything in my life, that the reward for that was power. All right, the next part of that question. Could you expound on your feelings about free will? Because I know before you've said that to you it doesn't really matter as long as you feel like you have a sense of control. So here's the truth. From a neurological perspective, a cognitive perspective, the research is pretty clear. The sense of being in control, the sense of having free will, is fake cognitively, meaning that your subconscious makes a decision long before your conscious mind decides. And since people think of themselves as is their conscious mind, what we traditionally think of it just isn't real. It's an illusion. But you'll notice I don't have much interest at all in what is objectively true because I find that people get themselves into really negative situations by believing things that they think are objectively true and they're really not. I'm dumb, I'm stupid, I'm fat, I'm whatever. I'm limited. I can't do that. I was meant for this. Whatever. There's only one person that could ever love me. All these things that are going to fuck up your life because I've seen so much danger in believing that there is objective truth that I've just said, Okay, I don't care about objective truth. I'm going to believe anything that moves me towards my goals. So that's become my obsession, is whether I'm dumb or not is irrelevant to me. I choose to believe that I can learn anything. Whether there are limits to human potential or not, I don't care. I choose to believe that it's limitless so that I won't ever stop myself from trying. So I think that all of that is important. So whether free will is real or not is totally irrelevant to the way that you will experience the world and totally irrelevant how you should be making decisions. All right, next question is from Rachita Anka. I invested a lot in myself in the last years, and now I find myself wanting to do things differently than others around me and being misunderstood and criticized by them. And when I try to explain my decisions, it becomes really difficult to express it in words, which makes me become defensive and think secretly in my mind that they are criticizing me because of their ignorance. I know this is not okay, but how can I change this? Okay, it starts with recognizing that just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean that you have to believe that feeling. So you've already got the self awareness to understand that they're not necessarily criticizing you, that that's really your own mind kicking up that belief. So you need to believe it's better to err on the side of they're not criticizing me and I'm just going to keep keep moving forward. But that if a critical notion pops into my head, whether it's me or it's them, is there merit to this? And once you're no longer valuing yourself on being right or being smart, you can tolerate a failure because in that failure is the opportunity to learn, to practice, whatever. And it's only when people view themselves through the lens of a moment. I can't stress this enough. So if I were to view myself through the lens of any one moment, even right here in this, like the number of questions that I've already answered in a way that disappointed me or earlier when I got frustrated, like any of those moments, like if I were to say that is me, then you wouldn't be looking one, you just get caught in that negative loop and then you're not looking for how do I practice? How do I leverage this moment to get better? And that at the end of the day is really, really key. You've got to be able to realize that life is a performance, it's practice, and then you can get better at anything. And whether that's the emotional management of understanding that whether or not people are criticizing you shouldn't matter. You should be doing the things that you believe in, the things that move you towards your goals. Your goals should be yours and not dictated by other people. So once you find that center within yourself, you've won. So that really is the goal, is just to keep coming back to that emotional center. Emotional center. And remember that outside people criticizing you isn't nearly as difficult as the inside voice. And people's criticism only lands when you believe it. And so we just had Preston Smiles on here yesterday. He has a really cool concept he calls the blue frog concept. He said if somebody calls you a blue frog, you're going to brush it off because it's so ridiculous and obvious to you that you're not that it almost doesn't register, just seems kind of stupid. It's only when somebody criticizes you for something that you secretly believe about yourself that it stings. So when you find that something is stinging, that's your subconscious telling you this is where you should, should really be focusing on and doing the work. So if you're feeling criticized, you obviously aren't sure of yourself yet. You're not convinced that you're either worthy or good enough or capable of learning or you're building your self esteem around being right or whatever that fragile thing is that you've built into your belief system or your ego. Work on that. Get that out. All right, next question is from Angelica Morgan. Hey, Tom, when are you going to release your book? The plan is somewhere between summer of 2018 and fall of 2018. But very excited. It is actively being worked on. Next question from Missy Harnall Wolf. Missy Harnold Wolf. Nine years into my business, got a late start. I'm 51 years young. That's awesome. Business is growing very fast now after lots of work these last years. Best advice for growing leadership team and knowing that even though it's my vision, everyone has their own opinions how to balance that and keep everyone moving towards the goal. Like you, I'm a great leader, not a strong manager. Okay, so here's what I did and obviously your situation is going to be very different. But when I invited people to be on the team, I said, here's my vision. This is what I see, this is what I'm willing to sacrifice for and totally give myself over to, to build. You can expect me to play at the highest level, to show up every day to really lead from the front, bleed for this team, protect you guys, create opportunities. Okay, but that's the vision, okay? The very specific thing. And I'd already laid out all the stuff that we put on the website, all the things you've heard me talk about with the studio and all of that. I laid all that out in the beginning so they knew exactly what they would be signing up for. And I said, but I want to be very clear, that's my vision. We're going to be building towards it and it will always be my vision that we're building towards. If I can be convinced to change it, to pivot, whatever, and it's based on this mission, I will be true to that mission, even if the path changes. But that's what we're building towards. If you're comfortable with that, then this could be amazing for you. I totally understand if it's not. And if you have a vision for your own life and you want to go off and do that and find people that believe in that vision and are prepared to follow you, like, absolutely, totally understand. But if you're coming on like that's what we're doing. So laying that out out front, not being wishy washy, not being afraid to take that ownership, not being afraid to tell them what they can expect of me, which I think is only fair because, look, I know in giving a speech like that, you run the risk of really sounding like a dick. And so you have to make people feel that you're going to be taking care of them in that vision and that you believe, and this was 100% true of everyone that's on this team, that I believed I couldn't achieve that vision without them and that I needed them to play with autonomy and at the highest level in order to execute against the vision. So I think in them recognizing that they were going to be able to bring the full weight of their skill set, the full weight of their personality, that I wanted to listen to their ideas, that I couldn't do it by myself, but that it was only one vision that we were going to be following, like clarity and leadership is very, very important. All right, next question. Kim Litvak. Hi, Tom. When deciding to look away from objective truth and pay attention to what propels you forward, how did you snap out of it in the beginning? Notes on bathroom mirror. And everywhere you look, I believe I have ADD and I can go down a rabbit hole before I remember to yank me out. Okay, So I do my processing internally and verbally. So long before I was doing a true meditation practice, I would obsessively think about things. And one thing that I was always thinking about is I want to be rich. Right? That was my thing in the beginning. And substitute for that, my now, I think, much more beautiful goal of wanting to pull people out of the matrix. But I want to ever sort of revisionist history. And my goal was to get rich. But that was so compelling for me and so exciting for me that it was always very clarifying. And I would just keep coming back to that, keep coming back to that. And I had an identity crisis where I realized that my ego and my desire to feel good about myself was coming into conflict with my desire to get rich. And that was deeply, deeply problematic. So in recognizing that conflict, I had to walk my way through. How do I stop doing that? And how do I get to the point where Those are one in the same where my ego and what I'm trying to accomplish in life are in lockstep. And once I did that, I realized I had to change what I was building my self esteem around from being smart and being right, which is what I was doing before, to being the learner and identifying the right answer. And once I did that, then I could keep pursuing at the time, getting rich. Giveaway. Ding, ding, ding. Giveaway winner announcement time. There it is. Corinne Davis. Corinne Davis, who has. If she's not returning, she's been with us the whole time. She was like there from the beginning, right? She asked one of the earliest questions or maybe she submitted it ahead of time. Either way, Corrine, you've been a part of this from the jump. Thank you so much. We answered one of your questions earlier. Super, super stoked to have you in the feed. Congratulations. You're going to be joining me at Success live in Long beach. No dates, but two tickets. I think it's September 7th and 8th, but it's certainly early September. I will see you there. Make sure you come say hello. I can't wait. I'm super excited. For those of you that don't know, by the way, if you're local here in Southern California or willing to travel, I suppose I'm going to be speaking and then doing a Q and A after. As always with Q&As, I will stay and answer questions until every question has answered. At the last Success live event, I did six hours of Q&A just right there. One. Not one on one, but group of people around me answering questions until there was virtually none. And by the way, one of the people that was at that Q and A is now an intern, Shaun Z in the house, met me at the one that we did in Texas and is now on board. The team literally moved here from Texas. That's pretty amazing. I don't know where Shaunzi is right now. Downstairs. Oh, boo. Well, I know you can hear me, Shaunsy. So mad love. So, yeah, magical things happen at these live events. So do come out everybody. Thank you so much for listening. And if this content is delivering value to you, please go to itunes, go to stitcher rate and review us. That helps us build this community and that is what we are all about right now. Building this community as big as we can to help as many people as we can deliver as much value as possible. And you guys rating and reviewing really helps with that. All right, guys, thank you again so much. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.
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