Q&A on Developing Your Self-Talk and Confidence (Replay)

Summary

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Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode: Q&A on Developing Your Self-Talk and Confidence (Replay)

Date: May 2, 2024

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Overview

In this replay episode, Tom Bilyeu and Lisa Bilyeu answer audience questions in a Facebook Live Q&A, delving into personal development themes—especially self-talk, self-confidence, constructive self-esteem, and handling adversity. Listeners get tactical advice, personal stories, and honest reflections, all delivered with their signature candor and energy. The episode is structured around live and pre-submitted audience questions, ranging from mastering self-talk, dealing with appearance-based self-esteem, performing under anxiety, to practical book learning and coping with hardship.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. The Origin and Mastery of Self-Talk

Timestamps: [03:28] – [08:16]

• Awareness of Self-Talk:

  • Tom first noticed obsessive thoughts in middle/high school but only started intentional self-talk in his early 20s during his personal development journey, inspired by reading and Tony Robbins.
  • Turning point was realizing the impact of thoughts on self-esteem.

• How Long Does It Take to "Master"?

  • Immediate results happen as soon as you attempt to change your self-talk, primarily through reframing.
  • Example: Stephen Hawking reframing his debilitating illness as an asset to focus and imagination.
  • “Reframing isn’t lying to yourself. It’s actually looking at the positive, even in the hardest things.” —Tom [05:29]
  • Tom is candid—he hasn’t "mastered" it, but it's a lifelong, continually evolving process.

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2. Practical Steps to Build Confidence Under Pressure

Timestamps: [08:26] – [12:29]

• Question: Handling adrenaline and anxiety that undermine self-confidence.

• Tom's Techniques:

  • Meditation and Breathwork: Trains parasympathetic response, even just before public speaking.
    • “Every time before I give a talk, you’ll find me somewhere, sitting, eyes closed, breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth.” —Tom [09:08]
  • Simulated Pressure Practice: Uses first-person shooter video games to practice remaining calm under stress.
  • Deliberate Exposure: Toastmasters, public outings, or any practice that puts you in the discomfort zone repeatedly.

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3. Constructive Strategies for Low Self-Esteem Around Physical Appearance

Timestamps: [12:29] – [19:23]

• Question: How to cope with self-worth issues linked to looks, especially in careers dependent on appearance.

• Tom's Response:

  • Recognizes the real impact of looks but urges maximizing what you control (style, fitness, grooming).
  • Shares the transformation of Neil Strauss as an example.
  • Warns against basing self-esteem solely on appearance, quoting Plato: “There’s two things you should never worry about—the things you can’t change, and the things you can.” —Tom [13:38]
  • Advocates shifting esteem to other attributes, skills, or pursuits when appearance can't be controlled.

• Lisa’s Perspective:

  • Beauty standards shift with time and trends—don’t anchor self-worth to fleeting ideals.
  • Focus on practices that build confidence internally and in your skills.
  • Personal story: Being tall and strong made her feel out-of-place, but later empowered her athletic success.

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4. On Fostering the Hero’s Journey and Impact House

Timestamps: [19:25] – [23:38]

• Tom describes "Impact House":
  • A collective for writers and creators, identifying talent via competitions, especially in serialized storytelling and comics.
  • Not mentorship, but an incubator for those who've already put in work.
  • Mission-driven, proximity-focused, aiming to foster a vetted creative community.
  • "There’s no substitute for proximity... We want people coming here, building together, meeting a couple times a week, building a cadre of creatives." —Tom [22:29]

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5. Applying the “Pursuer/Indifference” Dynamic in Relationships

Timestamps: [27:15] – [37:55]

• Question: The psychology of ignoring vs. pursuing in dating/courtship.

• Tom's Explanation:

  • Uses a “card-on-the-head” analogy for social value in attraction.
  • Early in life, failed with overt pursuit; learned confidence is more effective, not jerk behavior.
  • Shared movie reference ("Four Christmases")—confidence > niceness in attraction.
  • When ignoring, it’s not about game-playing, but displaying indifference until a genuine decision to pursue—then do so with confidence, not neediness.
  • "At the end of the day, people respond to confidence." —Tom [32:17]
  • Emphasizes knowing your goal and being honest about human behavior rather than denying it.

• Modern Dating Apps:

  • Discussion on how digital platforms complicate traditional signals and strategies in relationships.
  • Lisa shares personal experience of “dating fasters” and preference for real-life connections.

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6. The Value of Suffering for Growth

Timestamps: [42:43] – [52:09]

• Question: Should one deliberately seek out suffering to build character?
• Both Tom and Lisa agree: Purposeful suffering (like in the gym or through disciplined challenges) builds resilience.
  • Tom's personal stories: Doing manual labor as a child, not being allowed to buy a Nintendo unless earned, and how resented jobs built his character.
  • "Suffer, suffer, suffer. It’s super effective." —Tom [52:01]

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7. Dealing with Serious Health Challenges

Timestamps: [52:09] – [60:16]

• Question: Coping with chronic illness or injury and reaching unsatisfying levels of recovery.

• Tom’s Process:

  1. 30 Days of Mourning: Allow and honor grief, then move forward.
  2. Relentlessly Pursue Improvement: Either work for total recovery (like Dr. Hugh Herr with prosthetics) or redirect energy into a new pursuit (inspired by Stephen Hawking).
  3. Radical Ownership: Become the world’s expert—competitive drive and humility to study deeper than professionals.
     • Example: Owning his wife's health battle with the microbiome by self-teaching beyond medical advice.
  • "You’ve gotten subpar results because you’ve accepted subpar performance from yourself. Simple. Nothing more." —Tom [60:10]

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8. Techniques for Absorbing and Applying Book Knowledge

Timestamps: [62:29] – [64:26]

• Tom’s Approach:
  • Reads one book at a time; immediately applies any lesson worth using.
  • Learns in “swarms,” reading clusters of books on related topics for reinforcement.
  • Doesn’t memorize facts, but builds a toolkit to pull out when needed.
  • "Using it is the only thing that matters... As you go through your life and something presents itself, I’ve always been grateful to have a tool that I can pull out and use at that moment." —Tom [64:01]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

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• On Self-Talk:
  "Reframing isn’t lying to yourself. It’s actually looking at… the positive things that actually came out of this." —Tom [05:29]

• On Confidence vs. Pursuing:
  “At the end of the day, people respond to confidence.” —Tom [32:17]

• Beauty Standards & Appearance:
  "It is a very dangerous game to focus on something that… you can change it a little, but then there’s a point at which you can’t safely change it anymore." —Tom [13:18]
  "Beauty standards are always evolving and changing… do what you can with what you have." —Lisa [17:13]

• On Suffering:
  "Suffer, suffer, suffer. It’s super effective." —Tom [52:01]

• On Radical Responsibility:
  "You’ve gotten subpar results because you’ve accepted a subpar performance from yourself. Simple. Nothing more than that." —Tom [60:10]

• On Learning:
  "Using it is the only thing that matters." —Tom [64:01]

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Important Timestamps

• Becoming aware of self-talk: [03:28]
• Reframing and self-talk mastery: [05:01]
• Techniques for managing anxiety: [08:53]
• Appearance & self-esteem: [13:13]
• Creative collaboration/Impact House: [19:43]
• Attraction, confidence, and relationships: [27:39]
• Suffering as a tool for growth: [43:12]
• Overcoming health adversity: [52:29]
• Applying knowledge from books: [62:52]

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Summary Takeaways

• Self-talk is transformative but requires continued practice, reframing, and honesty; mastery is a lifelong journey.
• Handling nerves or self-doubt is possible with deliberate exposure and practical techniques, like meditation and incremental practice.
• Physical appearance impacts life, but self-worth must be anchored in controllable and evolving attributes—skills, confidence, style.
• When seeking excellence or coping with adversity, radical ownership and a willingness to suffer/learn harder than anyone else sets you apart.
• Confidence—in relationships, career, or adversity—is the visible marker of internal work and self-trust.
• Learning is only useful when applied; read widely but implement insights immediately, reinforcing by overlap, not just by volume.

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For more empowering discussions and actionable advice, follow Tom & Lisa Bilyeu’s Impact Theory and join their online community.

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Transcript

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[Tom Bilyeu]

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you know, I'm hitting the restaurants everyone's talking about. Plus with the digital entertainment credit, I'm even more excited to catch my favorite shows. All in all, I can $3,500 in annual value with benefits and eligible purchases across travel, entertainment and more. Learn [e-mail] Explore Platinum Enrollment Requirements monthly and other limits in terms apply. 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. What is up, everybody? Welcome. Welkee, Welkee. Welkee, everybody. It's so good to have you. Welcome to another edition of Facebook Live. Q and A. And before we go too hard, I have to say that today is Impact Theory co founder Lisa Billye's birthday. Big it up. Big it up, Lisa. Yay.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Make sure you share all the birthday love and social.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. Amazing. Hit her up for Swayze. For Swayze. And yeah. Now, without further ado, I don't know what just happened.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I'm struggling with birthday.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm having a stroke. Literally right now. It's happening. Are we going to introduce a special guest? That is amazing. Okay, okay.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

This is like special. All the way from London.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All the way from London is the one, the one, the only, the only Diana Billion.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

No.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Come on. And you have to kind of like duck down a little bit, sadly. But this is. This.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Is mom responsible for the lovely woman.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. The birthday girl. What is up? Who's hiding behind the camera? Oh, she's got a secret shirt on that she doesn't want to reveal yet. So.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

There's so many secrets.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There we have it. But this woman is amazing and she watches the content at all times. So she is very much an active part of the community here and has been an incredible mother in law to me. I cannot thank you enough, not only for that, but for this amazing birthday girl here today. And as Diana and I were talking about earlier, she was the one, really, that did all the hard work, so she deserves a little bit of the glow of the celebration. So there it is. All right, well, thank you for joining us. So good to have you.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

It's like, now she's on the other side of the screen.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. Now, the only catch is I will warn everybody out there watching, should you ever get the wondrous opportunity to meet Diana, don't you dare call her sweetheart. That's. That's a tip. I've learned. I've learned from experience. I didn't make the mistake, but I was there when somebody else did, and it was. It was pretty legendary.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

That's awesome. That's hilarious.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

All right, so we have, like, a whole bunch of questions that came in through the Connect inbox. So we're going to kick it off from Fazana, like, originally on YouTube, but he sent it over to the Connect box. He wants you to do a whole episode about, you know, self talk and tackling that. But, like, let's just dive into the question real quick. So when did you first become aware of your self talk and how did it. And how long did it take for you to master it and get results?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I. I don't know when I became aware of my self talk in the beginning, to be honest. I'm going to guess certainly becoming aware of obsessive thoughts in, say, middle school, high school about things that like, oh, God, like, I wish I could stop thinking about this, that kind of thing. But it really wasn't until probably my early 20s that I really started to think. I bet the way that you like the things that you think about all the time are important to pay attention to. And that was as I really began to read and start thinking about self development and coming in contact with Tony Robbins, and all of that sort of happened in my early 20s. That was when I really started to get a grip. But it wasn't until I started having the breakthroughs about self esteem and stuff like that that it really took center stage in my life.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Got it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And then was there a second part to that?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

How long did it take to master it and get results?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, well. So those are two very different questions. You're going to start getting results literally the minute that you do it. It's like a. There is right then in the moment, your self talk is going to impact your brain chemistry. So even if you're terrible at it, even if you've never done it before, the moment you start, like, reframing something, which is probably the most powerful place to start, like, to ask the question, how is the worst thing that ever happened to me, the best thing that ever happened to me? And not, like, in an empty way to really go through and think about, like, okay, what are positive things that actually came out of this? So reframing isn't. Isn't lying to yourself. It's actually looking at. So take Stephen Hawking, right? So has a just degenerative crippling disease and loses all function of his body. So literally, he has one muscle in his cheek that he can move and then his eyes. That's it. So for him to be able to really break down in his own life, like, how has this been useful? And he said that for sure, he would not have had the impact on physics that he's had if he hadn't lost the use of his body and that he wasn't taking. Taking his education very seriously. He was obviously always very smart, and so things came easily to him. And so because of that, he never really was putting in the effort. He sort of flitted about and he said that he was, you know, sort of one of the lads out drinking all the time. And as he began to lose the functions in his body, he realized A, he thought he was going to die very, very young. And so he had this tremendous sense of time pressure. And then secondly, there was nothing else for him to do. Like, he couldn't go out and play and walk and ride a bike. Like, all the things that so many of us take for granted, he just couldn't do any of those. And so instead of focusing on all the things that it had taken away from him, he really started to think like, whoa. Because of this, it's forced me to go internal. It's forced me to develop a very profound sense of imagination, to do experiments essentially entirely in my mind. And because of that obsessive focus, I'm now actually making use of, of my potential. And so that's like. I mean, look, everyone knows my obsession. If you watch Impact Theory, the main show, you know, I am freakishly obsessed with this notion of actually expressing your potential, doing something with it. And oddly enough, as he lost potential in one area of his life, it forced him to massively express it in another area. And so that's me's reframing that's really looking at, okay, this thing that clearly is the worst thing that's ever happened to him, but it gave him so much. And so if he focus. Focuses on that, then it, like from a neurochemical standpoint, right there in the moment would be transformative. And that's something that I think, you know, I would have gotten benefit from right away as I began to reframe and relook at things. And then how did I master it over time or how long did it take me to master it over time? Honestly, I still believe that there's so much more for me to do that I don't, I don't think of having mastered it. I definitely think that it's become useful for me and I've gotten a grip on it enough to really use it to accomplish goals. But there's a massive gap between me and mastery.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Right. And I feel like, you know, monitoring your self talk is just like an ongoing thing because it never really stops.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Very true.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. So our next question comes from Dan Bro. So I've been looking at ways to build my self confidence within certain situations and be 100% myself. I know it's my adrenaline going into overdrive which is forming my feelings of anxiousness or nervousness. I find it hard to overcome this feeling. When it kicks in, I'm finding that it starts to hold me back. What ways would you work on this so that I can always be myself?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, so the what's happening is you're kicking into flight or fight response. And so you need to practice getting out of that. So step number one is meditate. It is a great way on a daily basis to learn to de escalate your anxiety by breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth, diaphragm. Breathing, breathing. So for instance, whenever I give a talk, I get very anxious and so I have to like, if you see me and I'm about to give a talk, inevitably you're going to find me sitting on a chair somewhere with my eyes closed, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. Right. So in fact, you and I, when we were at Hustlecon. Thank you. When we were at Hustlecon, they came and I was scheduled to go on in like two hours or something. And they came out and they're like, actually, Tom, you're going up in like 10 minutes. And I was like, whoa. Normally I. Not normally I prefer to have like a good hour to really like get myself in a particular place. A mindset to. To just get everything in the right place. Didn't have that, no big deal. But I immediately excused myself from the auditorium and I went and found a place to sit down and I just started meditating just to like put myself in a nice, calm, creative state so that I could go do that. And, and I can do that rapidly because I've practiced it as much as I have. So I'm practicing that. And then, man, this is going to sound weird, but like, one of the things that I've gotten out of video games, first person shooters, I should say, it's very specific. One thing I've gotten out of first person shooters is you get yourself into these very intense moments. And by doing it over and over and over, you learn to recognize that moment where everything is kicking off and force yourself to get out of fight or flight, get into rest and digest. So you're moving from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system, practicing. What are the things that allow you to do that? And oddly enough, when I'm in a video game scenario, I don't change my breathing, but I really do force myself to relax, to not let. There's a sense of things speeding up and to not let that happen. And it's. I actually have a hard time describing what that moment is like, what it is that I'm doing. But I literally just say to myself, calm, like, you know, just relax. And in that, in doing that, like, the physiological responses all sort of happen through the autonomic system. So I give myself the command to calm, to stay calm. And I can just feel myself relaxing. But I. There is a part where you want to remain fast and that's the ability to assess the situation. So taking in all the stimulus without it becoming overwhelming. And because first person shooters, when you're playing against real people, there's a sense of like, the stakes, like you don't want to lose. And then also just there's so much stimulus coming at you, multiple people usually attacking you at one time. It's the only time in life I found where I can practice a. Something where it's so heightened. But at the end of the day, you're not going to, you know, fall on your face while giving a speech or something that, that has sort of grander echoes and can be replicated over and over and over. So you could do, you know, you could play 20, 30 rounds in a single day. And so you get to practice this over and over and over. So, and then like, if speaking is something that you're having trouble doing, you can go to Toastmaster or something like that, that just really practicing it over and over and over. Whatever it is that you want to get good at, if it's social situations, make sure that you're going out three or four times a week. Like, whatever that is just practice it

[Lisa Bilyeu]

a lot makes sense. All right, hopefully that helped, Dan. All right, so our final question before we dive into the Facebook Live questions, because those are coming in quick. This one comes from Laura K. She wants us both to answer this question. What's your advice on dealing constructively with low self esteem around one's physical appearance? Especially if being attractive, quote, unquote, is a factor that will affect that person's success in achieving their goals? For example, a professional model or a leading lady actress suddenly struggling with severe acne. Attractiveness is subjective, of course, but let's say it's a sliding scale from Angelina Jolie to Gollum.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That. That is an amazing sliding scale. Yeah, this is. This is real and this is terrifying since we all age and ultimately beauty is going to fade for everybody, even those that have it. And some people never were blessed necessarily with that. But I'm a big believer in whatever package you're giving, given to make the most of it. Right. And so, and I am very, very aware as I've spent more and more time in front of the camera, like, I'm very, very aware of how the way that any person looks affects the people looking at it. Now, I think you can transcend it and I think you can get so good that ultimately it doesn't matter. But at the end of the day, like, there have been times where I've seen guys that I just think are like, deadly handsome. And I'm like, I could take over the world if I had my mind. And their look, that has crossed my mind many, many times. But I think that it is a very dangerous game to focus on something that you like. You can change it a little, but then there's a point at which you can't safely change it anymore. So at that point, there's a great quote. I think it's by Plato. There's two things you should never worry about. The things you can't change and the things you can. Right. So change your looks as much as you can. Like whether that's just getting in shape, whether that's wearing your hair in a way that's flattering. Finding a style that's flattering for you do all those things. A great example of this is the. How am I blanking on his name? He's a former guest, Neil Strauss. So Neil Strauss, the guy that wrote the game where he had no game with women. He was short, he was going bald. Like, just really felt like he. A little bit maybe choppy. I can't remember if he's a Little chubby, maybe he was. But anyway, felt like he had a lot of things going against him in the visual realm. And he shows a picture of himself and then shows a picture of himself. Once he says, I'm going to take this seriously. I'm going to do everything I can within sort of my universe. Shaves his head completely bald. I think he may have changed the way he was wearing. His facial hair either went from contacts to glasses or the other way around. I can't remember. But like the, the night. And then started caring about the way that he dressed. The night and day difference from what he looked like when he was like, I don't care to like, no, I'm going to take this seriously was insanity. So there's so much anyone can do to just like package whatever you have. Well. And I think to pretend that that's not a thing to say, like, oh, people should just love me for who I am. Sure. But that denies the truth of the human condition. So we are wired to perceive things in a certain way. Symmetry we find beautiful. Like across cultures, there's just things that we find attractive. So do your best to package it up. Once you get to the point where, okay, there's not anything more that I can do there or that I'm willing to do, then you have to switch over into, I just don't care anymore about it. And what are going to be the things that I'm going to build my self esteem around. It's, you know, not going to be looks, it's going to be whatever. So if I were to come down with a crippling case of acne, I'll be the first to tell you, it would suck. I wouldn't enjoy it. And then I would immediate. I would do everything I could to deal with it. And then I would immediately move on to building my self esteem around something else. And that's critical, recognizing that what you build your self esteem around is a choice. So I like to believe Stephen Hawking's coming up a lot today. I like to believe that Stephen Hawking has massive self esteem even though, like, because of the deterioration of his body, I doubt he takes a lot of pride in his physical appearance. So it's, it really is just deciding what you're going to value yourself for. But it's actually like, I think meaningful to not pretend that the other things aren't real so that you do make the most of that as well.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, I mean, and a lot of it does come from like a place of self love. Like even in like, the little pieces that you can find to love. So, yeah, and, like, beauty is one of those weird things that, like, goes in and out, like trends. Because I feel like in the 90s, it was like, be super skinny and, like, wave thin and super pale, all of that. And then now it's like, everyone wants to be tan. Everyone wants to be, like, strong and curvaceous. And the standards of beauty are always evolving and changing. And so I guess you kind of have to do what you can with what you have. And then everything else kind of starts from a place of, like, inside. So, you know, building your confidence about your skills and becoming an actress or whatever the case may be. And also, in terms of acne, I mean, I'm a skincare junkie, so I, like, take care of my skin like crazy. So if you need any help, just, you know, hit me up on the DM and I'll, like, share all of my knowledge with you to the point that you're just like, wow, can you stop? And that was the choice that I made, because I don't really like wearing a lot of makeup. So I was like, I'll take care of my skin to the point that I feel like I don't need makeup. Because, you know, in your teens, you go through acne and hormones and all these different things that you're uncomfortable with, and then you kind of have to start ignoring it and, like you said, refocusing on what your strengths are, what you can do, or what actually moves you towards your goals. So, I mean, like, a great example of this was I was always taller than everyone, like, from a young age. And so for me, I was like, oh, this is really weird. Like, on the playground, I'm, like, beating all the boys. I'm faster than them. I'm stronger than some of them. That's, like, super weird. But those are the kind of things that kind of led me to become a really great athlete was I appreciated the fact that I was strong and I could get fit really quick and I was fast. And, you know, I took that to the lacrosse field. And, you know, those are the legs that helped me score goals. Not necessarily. You know, they weren't the classically attractive legs at the time, but now everyone really wants, like, strong, muscular legs. So it's like, maybe just wait on your cycle. But, yeah, so that's kind of my two cents.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Nice. I dig it.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

All right, so this next one comes from Joe Cross in the feed. Tom. I'm super stoked for the moment. You start producing content around the hero's journey. What are you looking for when it comes to helping create or produce? What's your plan of bringing people into the process?

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's an awesome question. And Joe has been really, more than anybody in our community has really been engaged, sort of behind the scenes means like asking questions like this and finding out ways that he can help, which is very appreciated. Thank you, man. Basically, what we're going to be doing is trying to bring creatives together in what we're calling Impact House. So literally holding here, I'll walk you through sort of how I see it in my fantasy land. We're going to be holding some writing competitions, maybe some short film competitions, but definitely writing competitions where the. The process is meant to help us identify people that have skill. And I don't believe that that's something that you're born with. But we really like this isn't just. And I'll put it more bluntly, it's not designed to be a mentorship program. It's meant to find people that actually have been putting in the work and are actually good at storytelling. And there's going to be two ways that we go about it. They're going to be ideas that we have that we want to incubate at Impact House. And our strategy is to start with comic because it gives us a chance to build community. But we're certainly open to also books as well. But serialized things are very, very meaningful for building community. I also think that we're living through the golden age of television. And so things that are serialized by nature I think is more powerful right now than filmmaking as sort of a one and done. But we're also going to be doing those as well. But our primary focus will be finding things that are serialized, so bringing writers in, having a contest that has financial incent at the end of it. So, you know, top three people get money, whatever that's going to look like. But the goal would be to find more than those three people that we can really bring into the ecosystem that we can partner up with artists and start putting out comic books. So that's going to be step one. Our plan is to absolutely own Comic Con 2018. I've talked about it so much here, I can't remember if I've talked about it on camera. But Comic Con was just an amazing experience for me. And by the way, if we have any writers or artists in the feed, don't hesitate to get ready to submit your artwork. Don't submit it yet. We're working on the legal side of that, it's obviously very complicated because we're in house developing ideas. And so legally, you have to tell people, like, hey, the chances are that we've already developed an idea that's similar to yours, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so competition, meeting the writers and artists that we're going to need to bring in, we'll break them into teams. We. Some will basically, we'll present here are the ideas that we want to move forward. And anybody that gravitates towards one of those ideas then can run with it. And then people that have their own ideas that they want to incubate, we would be looking for them to go do that on their own. And then if they want to present the finished work, then we're all for that. Or if they would like to pitch the idea and get it approved as one that we will officially incubate, then we're open to that as well. So that's sort of how that process will work, I believe. There's no substitute for proximity. And we're very much trying to create a cadre of creatives that are working and developing this stuff. So we actually want people that have been vetted coming here to the house and developing their projects and meeting a couple times a week to be a part of a collective of other artists that understand what our mission is from a ideological standpoint. That's very, very important to us and I think is how we're going to make a name for ourselves is everything will be consistent. All right, I could go into more detail on that. I'll stop there. I think there's a better format for that, kind of sort of deep dive on that stuff. But that's a nutshell.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. Look out for information. We'll definitely put that stuff on our website or the Impact Theory League. Those two places we kind of announce things like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Definitely.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So just shout out to Jim. Quick. Really quick in the feed.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Jim is in the house. What is up, homie? You've got to know. You've got to know that. I think of Jim when I wear shirts like this. Oh, man. I really want to remember Jim. I just met somebody. Oh, this is at that super secret thing. If you're not already. What is with all the. But these are like fun secrets. But if you're not already in the newsletter. I talk about this in the newsletter. Go to impacttheory.com right now. Sign up for the newsletter. I talk about a super secret thing that I went to. This was so weird. This was actually kind of amazing. So imagine getting a letter that goes something like, you've been invited to a secret meeting of influencers and you come to this location. Do not give people your name. Do not tell them what you do. Don't tell. Don't ask about what they do, what else was there. If you recognize somebody famous, do not acknowledge that you recognize them. Just keep going. If you RSVP that you're coming and you don't come, you'll never be invited again. If you RSVP that you're coming and you're late, you won't be allowed in and you'll never be invited again. But that's it. And this is the time and the place. Show up. And Jim, one of the people there knew who you were and they were raving about you. They knew that you'd been on the show as well, which was cool. It was just. It was an amazing experience. I cannot disclose the people that were there. It was absolutely incredible. I was so mortified that my wife was sick because she didn't get a go. It was awesome. It was awesome. It was like. Yeah, it was awesome. It was really cool. I had a great time. It made me want to do things like that.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I love stuff like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, man, it was so cool.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I love stuff like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It was really, really, really neat. There's some amazing people out there in the world that you just. You literally like some of the random things that people did. Oh. And they make you guess. So you spend like a couple of hours with people and then you have to guess, like, what they do for a living. And the guesses were hilarious. And then the truth was like, whoa, that's so interesting. But it was amazing.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

That's fun.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, amazing. So. But anyway, Jim, you were there. You were. You weren't there, but you were being talked about very positively. So Jim is everywhere. He's one of those guys that like a. He knows everybody and then everybody knows him. It's. Yeah. Fascinating.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Good stuff.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love me some gym. Anyway, to be shout out to Jim.

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[Lisa Bilyeu]

All right, so this one comes from Leah or Lee Marshall, one of the two. Hey, Tom, in a past episode of Relationship Theory, you said you ignored Lisa for the first month and a half. That was. And that was necessary. Can you explain what you mean and why? And. And Lisa said that that was attractive. Whereas I feel attracted to guys who pursue me. Can you elaborate on the psychology and the biology there?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, for sure. So I'm. I'll start with my absolute shock. I would need so much more clarity, because if we were sitting together and I could scratch at that I'm really attracted to guys that pursue me thing, it's going to fall apart. And the reason I think it's going to fall apart goes back to sexual market value. So let's play a game. You get in a room, and everybody has a card that you draw randomly from the deck. You don't know what your card is. You affix it to your head facing out, so you can't see it, but everyone else in the group can. Does that make sense? So you're walking around. You could be a 2. You could be an ace, right? Ace is high. And your job in that environment is to convince the person with the highest card to be your partner. So that's what everybody's doing, right? So let's say that I was a two and you were an ace. And I'm like, hey, Cindy, it's so great to meet you. Like, I'd really like to be your partner. And you're like, oh, my God, that'd be so cool. I just want to mingle a little bit more and, like, get. And then I'm like, ooh, okay, well, I'm not an ace. Like, I get that. Maybe I'm not even a king. Oh. And so as I start to go around, like, I begin to recognize sort of where I fall. And finally I get to the person who's a four, and they're like, hey, no. Oh, my God. So good to see you. Like, and then we. And I'm like, oh, man. Like, I'm low. I don't know if I'm a six, a five, a two. Like, but I know sort of like, four is what I can get, basically. So I think there's. There is a signal that when you're pursuing somebody that the person goes, oh, okay. Well, I'm certainly On par with them, am I A little bit more. And I don't. This is one of those, like, I don't want it to be this way. Which is why my opening strategy was always to write poetry and show up with flowers. It just didn't work. And so clearly the active pursuing. And I will say that at this point, you guys know a little bit about me. So I wasn't like, falling over myself. I wasn't gross about it. But if I was interested in somebody, I was not trying to play games. I was just, hey, I'm interested. Like, here it is. I think it's a neat part of the courtship ritual to show up with flowers. I'm not writing in the poem that I love you and I would die without you. It's nothing like that. It's like something that explains what it is that I find interesting about you and that's it. So, I mean, and I start by saying that you guys know enough about me at this point to know, hopefully I have enough self awareness I would know, like, if I were coming on like, oh, my God, you're the greatest thing ever. And when I look in your eyes, I get lost and I fantasize. It's not like that. Like, it was legitimately just something trying to express, like, hey, there are unique qualities about you that I really found interesting. And so it was like that. And even that wasn't getting me anywhere. And so it really was me going to somebody who was very successful with women. And I asked, what do you do? And he said, I'm a jerk. And then I was like, that can't be. And so I started breaking that down. And. And what became apparent to me was, he's confident. And so. And oh, wow. I don't remember what song this is from. Or maybe it's from a movie. I know exactly what it's from. It's from Four Christmases. Have you seen it?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I don't know.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This sums up a part of courtship that I did not understand. And that once it clicked, I was like, oh, my God, that makes so much sense. So in the very beginning of the movie, Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, they're actually married. But they do this thing where they pretend they don't know each other and they go through, like, they play these characters and stuff, but you as the viewer don't realize my wife's. They, they. You don't realize as the watcher that they're married. So you just see, like, Vince Vaughn come up and he's making a move and he's like, a little unconfident, but he's very complimentary and literally doing all the things that I would have done. And she says, can. I'm going to stop you right there. And she goes in, like, this whole diatribe, she's like, you've done everything right on paper. You've been nice. You've shown an interest in me. You complimented me. But I want somebody whose hand doesn't shake when he sticks it up my blouse. And I was like, yeah, fuck yeah. I fully get it. And that was where I was stuck at that point, at some point in my life where it was, you're not approaching somebody with confidence. And so at the end of the day, people respond to confidence. So that once I learned, like, I was not willing to be a jerk that doesn't, like, honestly being a jerk, I'd rather be single. Like, that's just not interesting to me. So there was no way that I was going to do that. That. But once I understood, okay, like, I get it, you want somebody who's confident. You want somebody who's secure in themselves. The, like, what that would trigger from an evolutionary perspective when selecting a mate. Like, think about, you're on the savannah, man. You don't know if you're gonna eat. Like, put yourself in that space. And now it's like, okay, am I going to align myself with this person? Are they going to be able to help me have a child that's going to survive? Are they going to be able to help me have a child that's not just going to survive, but it's going to thrive? Are they going to be able to help me raise that child? Are they going to be to, like, from both sides of the equation, right? Like, you want somebody who's confident, and that is why being pursued, like, hard can work. If there's a sense that this person can take or leave it. Right? Like, once I pursued her, then I was pursuing her. And it literally our courtship in a nutshell, when something like this, this. I ignored her in the sense that I didn't show any interest. It wasn't like I wasn't talking to her. She was one of my students. So we had interactions.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

School for adults.

[Tom Bilyeu]

School for adults. Thank you. We had interactions. So it wasn't like she had nothing to go off. It just. I did not display any interest. I wanted to show indifference. I can take it or leave it. But then when I decided to make a move, I wanted to show, I'll be honest, not only confidence, but dominance and so one day we were on the back lot. She was filming something. She was about to leave, and I said, where do you think you're going? Sit your ass down. In a fun way, with a big smile on my face, all that. And she sat down. Now, at that moment, if she had said, like, yeah, whatever, and turned away and walked off, then it would have been okay. I played my card. It didn't work, and I wouldn't have pursued her. But because she literally, as if her knees collapsed, sat down. And then I was like, okay, so that worked, right? Like, that's something that she responds to. So. But then it was like, I want her to see that I'm interested, not too interested. And the funny thing is, I actually think that we. We think what happened next is different. And I will just tell you the. The God's honest truth. I started to panic because I had asked her out. Essentially, I told her to sit her ass down in front of other people in her class. And I started to worry that, man, if I take this girl out and it's perceived as a date because she wanted me to go out with her whole group. And I was like, if I go and it's perceived that I went to sort of be with her on a date, like, this could end really badly. So I was exhausted. I just went home and went to bed. And I didn't call her as she had asked me to do. And part of me knew, like. Like, okay, that's not the end of the world that I'm not calling her. But I didn't do it to be smooth. I did it because I was worried about losing my job. So that's the truth. Now, did it work to my advantage? Because she thought I was being like, oh, my God, he really doesn't care. Like, maybe. But the. The truth was I was just worried. And then. Then I finally asked her out, when I can go with just her. And I have the COVID of It's a Friend's Movie, and she's at film school, and I'm a film teacher. So it's like, if this really turns out to be a disaster, I could be like, I don't even understand why she thought it was a date. Right? So all of that setup worked out very, very well. But that's why going back to the card example on the forehead, that's why you don't want to overly pursue. And if you do decide to commit, then you have to continue to do it from a place of confidence. It has to be seen that you could take it or leave it. So if I had gotten a negative signal from her, I would have immediately backed off. Not to protect my ego, because that's the only way that I could ever then re approach her again in the future. If something presented itself, she would need to know that she gave me a no. So it was a no. So I'm off to the next thing. Like, you're lost, right? And you've got to build back up that sense of why isn't he paying attention to me? In order to make it work, I will say this. Know what your goal is. And it really winds me up when people are like, I don't play games. Okay, well, then you're ignoring a fundamental part of the human condition is what it is. So, yeah, I don't get that. I'm. My intrigue with Tinder culture continues to grow. Like, the more I see that come across on Reddit, the more I'm just like, the game isn't set up right. I don't know what I would do because thankfully, I'm not in a position where I ever have to think about it, but I don't know what I would do. But when I see the mistakes that. Not even the mistakes. Like, what do you do when. How do you come up with a unique opening line when all people get all day long is opening lines, opening lines, opening lines. You've removed so many elements. Like, all the things that I just detailed with my now wife. None of those would have been possible. How do you show confidence and sort of indifference at the same time? You reached out. You sent the message. Ugh. I don't envy people that have to deal with Tinder culture. I would just say that. All right, I'll stop there.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I mean, and there. There are so many different apps now. So, like, does it really matter?

[Tom Bilyeu]

What do you mean, does it really matter?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Because, like, you can. So you can choose to be on Tinder knowing, like, they're. They probably have the biggest audience, but they're. There's more likelihood that you're gonna get, like, the weird, creepy people. Because, like, there was one time I redownloaded my Tinder, and I just. I literally saw this dude's messages, and I was like, I need to get off of here. This is why I left in the first place. But then there's Bumble, which, like, the girl reaches out and you have 24 hours to respond and, like, make a connection. Then there's, like, Hinge. There's the league, there's OkCupid there. It's. Yeah, you can kind of like select now too, and then match if you're older and you're actually serious, I guess, about dating. So I don't.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And then real life, that's another option too, because there's still a lot of people who aren't on dating apps or

[Tom Bilyeu]

who've, like, yeah, really, I would be on them, like, if I were single for sure.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I mean, so there was a. There was a period of time. Now we're going on a tangent now. You're gonna learn about my dating life.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let's do it.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

So there was a period of time that I just, like, deleted all my apps. Like, I just didn't have apps. And I was like, kind of on like a dating fast hiatus, I guess for. Ended up being nine months. Ish. Just because I was like, I don't really want to swipe through. Like, I was like, I was just tired of that because it does turn into a game. And then you don't even really take the other person, like, the people in this app seriously because it's like playing Candy Crush. You're just like, like, whatever. And so I just deleted all of them except for Bumble, and that one was set to, like, meet friends. So I was like, I'll put it in BFF mode because, like, I do want to find someone to, like, hang out and, like, get a coffee or get my nails done or whatever. So I made a friend on Bumble bff, which I was like, awesome. But then after that, I, like, made my one friend, and I think I deleted it because it's like the same thing. I was not really taking any other people that seriously. And then I just started meeting people in the wild, if you will. And then I was coming across people who also weren't really on apps or people who had recently deleted their apps. A lot of times you get back into them as a way to, like, kickstart dating. Like, that mindset for yourself. At least in my experience. It's like, okay, well, now I'm like, I feel like I would like to. To date again or go out, see what's out there, whatever. You kind of download your selected apps and then you kind of get into that mindset of like, okay, like, talking to a new person, doing the normal things, where it's like, okay, like, let's get drinks on a Tuesday or like, let's do this, or Saturday at this food truck festival or whatever.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

And yeah, all right. So you can go back and forth. Yeah, but like, my sister's on OkCupid, like I think exclusively at this point, but there are so many different apps that you can kind of choose. And OkCupid has like very detailed profiles that you fill out. So that speaks to her, like she's very detail oriented like that. I'm kind of like, I guess lazy about dating.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's interesting because so part of my jam when I was hiring a lot was I don't read resumes. And the reason I don't read resumes is they lie and they are not an accurate representation of the person. And I felt like I got more out of three minutes with a person than I would get out of like reading, you know, three hours worth of their resume. It's like meh. So it's interesting because I've always thought that I, if I were single now, that I would turn heavily to dating apps because it allows you to go through a lot of numbers. But I do worry that it's just a bad system for identifying potential connection.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Right. And that's, that's how I personally feel. And I still to this day prefer meeting people in real life because I just, I trust that I'm very good at reading people and reading what works for me and what doesn't work for me. Whereas like on these apps a lot of times they're like, eh, like this one's okay looking, but if you met them in person, suddenly they're like way more attractive because of the other things, like those non digitally seen things, I guess. And so I don't know, I leave myself open.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Word.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Anyway, what else do we have? Oh yeah, questions. All right, so this next one comes from Daniel Breeze, our boy. Yup.

[Tom Bilyeu]

In the house.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

I haven't done any suffering in my youth to be okay with the fact that to be successful you need to suffer. However, I'm well aware that most successful people have suffered in their childhood or youth. Would you put yourself through suffering purposefully in this case? And what kind of suffering specifically?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Definitively, Yes. I think that suffering is a test, it's a gut check. It lets you know where you are. But more importantly for success, I think it's about really getting good at something. I just think there's an inherent amount of suffering to pushing through boredom, to push through the hard times, to face your inadequacies. But yeah, you don't grow unless you are going through a stressful. So. And that stressor is in and of itself suffering. But like when I say suffering, I'm not talking about like man, if you've managed to Avoid like someone you love dying if you've managed to avoid getting, you know, traumatically injured. Like, things that, by the way, if they happen, you can harden, you can get something great that comes out of that. But I would never seek that out.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

But there are ways, like the gym is the most obvious one. Go and suffer a fast, fast. Go and suffer for sure. And I would build these things into my world because it forces you to learn strategies to deal with when you don't want to do something. So, for instance, right now, I am doing intermittent fasting. I would really much rather not be much like I. You can't imagine how often I think about, there are people out there right now who they can eat essentially whatever they want, and they're lean. And not only that. Like, have you ever seen. So there was this guy. I'm. I'm just gonna call him out. There's this. He is an amazing human being. His name is Evan Dollard. Look him up. He is like, he can just get away with murder from a diet perspective. Now, the guy does incredible things physically. He's a American ninja warrior guy. Just unbelievable. He won American Gladiator as, like the contestant. This dude is just. Have you met Evan?

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah, I think so once a question once here.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now the thing about Evan that drives me nuts, his fat distribution is. Is perfect. Like, every ounce of his body, the fat is distributed evenly. So whether he's like 10 body fat, 6% body fat, he's got abs, it makes me want to punch him in the head. And here's why. It's even when I was at my leanest leanest, leanest. I still have fat in my love handles. Like, it drives me mad. Like, literally, I will look like a concentration camp survivor in my face because for whatever reason, like, that's where I lose weight. And in fact, when we were on. We were on vacation, and we set up the camera to do the live, and I thought, ooh, based on the way the light is hitting me, I look so fucking gaunt. And somebody wrote in the feed, like, hey, Tom, your diet's really working. I can see it in your face. And I wanted to say, actually, I'm on vacation. I have, like, I'm less lean, but my fucking face, like, just loses fat so rapidly. And my love handles will hang on it, like, until the end of time. And I remember one time, like, my forearms were, like, scary shredded.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But, like, I could poke, like, into my elbow on my love handles. I was just like, what is happening? So there are times where I'm literally, I am so frustrated that. That I don't get to eat whatever I want. The fact that I have to do intermittent fasting, like, all of it, it winds me up. But in doing that and forcing myself through the suffering and forcing myself to do things like that, you have to get good at techniques. You have to get good at. Like, how am I going to avoid this? Gamification is something that works really well for me.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Whoa, that's you.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There's no way this is happening. I can only apologize. I have no idea what happened. I never set alarms before 11. Am I all right? That. That was terrifying. Yep. I know. Shame. He's been on both of you, Both

[Lisa Bilyeu]

of you this week.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I have earned the shame. So gamifying things for me is. Has really, really been big. My alarm going off is making me sweat. That's how I have rules against that gamification. The reason I check my blood levels obsessively, when I'm really trying to do something with my diet, it is because then it's fun. I can gamify it. It's one of the strategies that I use. The other strategy is welcoming it like an old friend. The other strategy is being proud of myself, being willing to do something that other people aren't willing to do. Like, those are the strategies that you're only going to develop if you're suffering. It's the same thing in the gym, right. I show up every day, I put in the work. Other people aren't willing to do this. I'm willing to do it. Learning to focus on results instead of just the process. Like Hey, I want this thing, I want to get something. It's not about this rep, it's about the result. Right? So knowing that you're pushing for specific, all of those techniques which you can use in myriad other places in your life, only come if you're willing to push yourself, you're willing to go through the hardship. So yes, I think suffering is very important. I think people should absolutely force themselves into places where they're suffering. And, and I say this from the safety of not having children. You need to make your kids suffer. Now that's one of the reasons I don't have kids, because I'm not prepared to do it. So trust me when I say I know that this is advice that I make. I probably would do it, but it would be, it would be very, very hard. So compassion, empathy, no judgment, but I do think it's a good strategy. Yeah, there it is.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Now I'm trying to think. I was like, was there a lot of suffering for me, like from my parents side of things, but I don't know, I didn't feel like I suffered a lot. But I still feel like there's a lot of drive and we, we really

[Tom Bilyeu]

have to like break down. Like, what do you mean by suffering? Yeah, because like my childhood was essentially idyllic. Okay. My parents were very kind. They stayed together until I left for college. So I felt like, hey, I grew up with two parents my entire life. They were amazing to me. They frustrated the life out of me. Don't get me wrong, I was very rebellious as a teenager and it drove me nuts. And I do not do well with authority. But they, they always made me feel loved. I mean, just really, really incredible from that perspective. But my parents were big fans of manual labor and they made me do a lot of manual labor. My parents refused to buy me a Nintendo, which to this day I hold on to that. And I had to get a job in a door factory at 12 because my parents said if you want a Nintendo, you have to buy it yourself. Now $100 just for the system plus games to a 12 year old is an absolute fortune. And so I had to take a job in my uncle's door factory. And if I remember right, and I think I'm almost certain he paid me $2.10 an hour, okay? It was well below minimum wage. It was also child labor laws were broken. And I remember like having to carry, like I would have to lacquer things. Actually that's not true. They were lacquered. And then I had to sand Them and then I think they lacquered them again. But anyway, I had to carry them. And by 12, I already had some hair on my forearms. And when you would carry them, then the lacquer would get in your hair and you had to rip it out. Oh, it sucked. And also when you're sanding, you'll end up getting splinters, but like harpoons that would go, like through you. I used to hide in the bathroom. It was such a miserable experience. But I always had jobs like that, so. Worked in a door factory, a paint factory, a paint warehouse, a paint store. Like, just really, really horrible because I was always doing whatever, wherever my dad was working or a family member. Like, that's how I got my jobs. I spent an entire summer building this big ass fence. And so when my neighbor tore it down, I went ballistic. That's a whole nother story. But yeah, manual labor, it sucked. I hated it. But because of that, I knew I was hell bent to do something else with my life. And my dad always said, this is gon build character. And it did. Yeah, I hated it. But I. I had to do it. And so I had to somehow find a mental trick, procedure, whatever, to get through it. So suffer, suffer, suffer. It's super effective.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

All right then. All right, so this next one comes from Jacob Bucci. Hi, Tom. How would you approach a serious health condition that you've had for a while? Say you've been living with brain injury for four years and sought out a ton of treatment and found yourself at an unsatisfactory level of functionality, what would you do?

[Tom Bilyeu]

This is amazing. This is exactly what I would do. So first and foremost, I would take 30 days. He's well past that. But I'll just walk you through the whole process. If it were really something traumatic where I knew, like, whoa, this is bad news, I would take 30 days to mourn. And for 30 days, I would allow myself, like, all the, like, sadness and trauma in the world because I think it's an important part of the recovery process. At the end of the 30 days, on day 30, fucking one, no more. Never again. I will not tolerate any of that for myself. I am moving forward, and I'm moving forward with aggression and optimism. And the only thing that matters is total fucking recovery. And I'm going to. Not only am I going to recover, I'm going to be better than ever. And if that means reallocating, like, if I lose my legs and I know I'm never going to run the same way, now I've got two Choices. I can hew her this, look him up. Where's Dr. Finesse? I'm trying to get this guy on the fucking show. He was in a climbing accident. He lost both of his legs. The prosthetics that this guy has created, he becomes an engineer specifically to solve that problem. The prosthetics he's made are so unbelievable that you can run all out like a, like an Olympic sprinter, all out with these things. And they don't look like the ones that you see like Blake Leaper wearing. They look like fucking legs. And he all out. When you see him in pants and he's walking you 100%, you cannot tell that he has prosthetics. Absolutely unbelievable. So that was a guy who decided, I'm getting my legs back. Cool. That may not be the path that I choose. So if I decide, you know what? I'm not pursuing the Hugh her, like rebuild strategy, reinvent, make this stuff up, do whatever I have to do mine asteroids to get the resources, whatever. I'm gonna just do the Stephen Hawking approach and I'm gonna allocate myself to something else, whatever it is, but I'm doing something all in. I'm gonna be better than I ever was before at that thing. I'm still gonna try to be world class as something I am going to waste exactly zero time feeling sorry to my for myself post 30 days. Because in the 30 days I wallow. But then day 31, absolutely no tolerance in myself for sympathy. I will tell my wife this is day 31. Don't you give me an ounce of sympathy, empathy all day long, compassion all day long, but do not give me sympathy. Yes, that's really, really important. And then you just relentlessly begin that rebuilding process. Now you're going to have to educate the life out of yourself because to really transcend this, you're going to have to know more about that than anyone else. That means think of the world's greatest expert, the person that won the Nobel Prize in that area. And you're going to have to outperform them. For instance, medical science has failed my wife in the microbiome. So now I've taken it upon myself. I have to learn this. I have to go hard on the microbiome. Can I, can I a second. All right, so I go to the super secret dinner. There are amazing people there that you wouldn't believe. The guy sitting next to me is a world class doctor, which is how he ends up at this super secret weird influencer dinner, right? And long story short, Somebody, I, I don't like to speak up when I don't know people well. And this is going to be hard for people to believe given what I do for a living now. It's true, guys, but like, I don't, I don't preach, I don't proselytize. I, like, I am not trying to convince people unless you ask me a question like, yeah, I'm just gonna stay nice and quiet. It. But there was a guy there whose wife was having a C section the next day. And I was like, oh God. Everything that I've learned about the microbiome, like, C section is just not an optimal way to start from a microbiome perspective. And you have this super limited window and everything that I'm reading says, dude, this is the one thing we don't know how to fix later. So, like, if you're C section born and you don't get a vaginal swab and essentially then smeared all over the baby, like, it just does not set them up well. And science has yet to figure out how we make up for that. So you have like this, it's ridiculously short, like a 36 hour window to, to seed the microbiome properly. So I'm like, oh God, do I say anything? Like, I don't want to be that guy. And so I was like, just look it up. Like, get your wife vaginally swabbed. Ask the doctor something. And then I tried to stop and then of course it was like it opened this, oh my God, what do you mean? Like, and turns into this whole conversation. And at one point I'm like, I need to say this. I know nothing. I am merely exploring, like, this is just what I've come across. And the guy, the doctor next to me goes, this guy knows more about medicine than most medical doctors. That's what you have to do. Okay? That's what you have to do. And I was so proud of that, because I know nothing about it. My wife has a problem. I let her suffer for years because I did not take it upon myself to learn. I did not make the demands of myself that I could go in and educate myself. And so as just a normal dude, I finally said, I've gone to every fucking doctor I know to go to. I've tried everything. Anybody that I thought had any degree of competence in this area, I've tried what they told me me. And. But I'm, I've not yet made myself the expert. And so now I'm gonna make myself the expert. And so I'VE just dove headlong into learning, learning, learning, and that's what you have to do. Like, you've just gotta decide. I'm not gonna wait for anybody else. Like medical science has gone so far in terms of learning. Just to use his example, brain damage. Cool. I'm going to learn everything I can about that and then I'm going to start pushing the field forward right this, you just have to do that. And that's what like made Quest great was. We said, okay, well, this is as far like his food science has gone. And now we're going to have to push it forward. This is as far as manufacturing science has gone. Now we're going to have to push it forward. And that's what's going to make us great here. Like, we reinforce in each other, like the world has gone so far. We see what the film industry looks like, we know what, what, you know, where it is today. We're going to push it forward. We're going to reinvent what we have to reinvent to, to move things forward. We're looking at how do you, at scale impact people's belief system. We see what the world has done so far of intentionally developing that. Now we're going to push it forward. Like, at some point you just have to own, I'm going to become the world's expert. And that's when people say, like, I don't know what I want to do with my life. It's like, what do you want to know more about than anyone else? Than anyone else. And people just aren't prepared to say that about themselves. And our society says it's so icky. Like even I had to ask for permission to say that because even I feel a little bit icky. But you've just got to push yourself forward to say, I'm going to become the greatest in the world at this period. And if you can have the arrogance of belief in yourself that you will do that and at the same time have the humility to learn, right? To say, ha, I don't actually know. I am just learning. I'm learning, I'm learning, I'm learning. And I'll share with you what I've learned, but I don't know that will keep pushing you forward. So keep in mind in my head are the two things I will become the greatest in the world at this. I don't know anything, right? It's the friction between those two ideas that, that will make you great. So to this person, I say become the greatest in the world. You've gotten subpar. You ready for this one? You've gotten subpar results because you've accepted a subpar performance from yourself. Simple. Nothing more than that.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Wow. All right, well, I want us to get to this one last question. We only have like a few minutes left. Okay. This is a follow up to Showing confidence and indifference. This one comes from Yousef Ali. Any tips on how you can show that indifference and confidence combo in a long distance relationship where you have, where you have to call. Hard to show indifference when you literally just called.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, God, we'd have to be sitting together. There's. There's so many trip minds in that. Like, if you're in a relationship with somebody, you don't want to show indifference. Understand? It is. It is a very short lived technique to get someone interested in entering into a relationship with you.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Courtship.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. But yeah, courtship, like, like that's dating.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Like early courtship.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It. You're talking like old school, like 1940s courtship. Yes, like the. Before you start going on a date. But let me once I'm dating somebody while I'm not like doing the flowers and the poetry too early. Like, I'm really trying to reveal myself. I'm really trying to get to know them. I'm. I'm not pushing them away. I'm like, so for instance, God, how did this. Is my wife here? No, she wandered off somewhere. It went something like this. Like we went on our first magical date. It was unbelievable. She wouldn't sleep with me. I was totally mortified. I go to drop her off at her house and I'm like, when can I see you again? And she was like, oh, I'm not sure yet. And so she then was playing hard to get. And she said on my face was a look of such horror. Now I wasn't like, oh my God, no, please, we have to go out. Just cool, let it go. But. But I wanted to see her again. So it wasn't like, oh, yeah, it was great to see you, like, see you sometime. I was like, hey, I really had an amazing time. I'd like to see you again. So if you're in a relationship and the person is long distance, don't be playing hard to get a B. If you're not in a relationship, trying to build one with somebody who's already far away just seems weird. Like you don't have an investment yet. Don't set yourself up for something so painful and difficult. So find somebody local. Yeah, yeah, word.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

A local bae, if you will.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Exactly.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

Yeah. All right. Well, this, I guess we have another time for one more, so we've got Christy in the feed. What is your method for absorbing and applying the information you read in books? I'm an avid reader, but there can be so many theories, ideas, and tips you read in books that it's sometimes overwhelming to absorb and apply them all at once. Once.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, so is she implying that she reads multiple books at the same time? So I read one book at a time. So for me, that's, like, easy. As I'm reading the book and I gain a new piece of knowledge, I'm trying to put it into use that day. So I don't wait till I finish the book. Like, if I read something on page one that I'm like, whoa, this is usable. I am trying to use it that day, trying to make it a permanent part of my repertoire. And then when I finish that book, and a lot of times, I'll read in swarms. So, like. Like, the book before, the book that I'm reading now is called the Human Superorganism. I moved from the human superorganism to the disease delusion, and now they're, like, overlapping. They're talking about a lot of the same things. So it's like reinforcing. Reinforcing these ideas. And I'm. I've. For the first time in my life, I've sort of bifurcated my educational path, and I've got the pure play on Lisa's health, the microbiome, and then I've got the standard sort of mindset stuff that I'm always pursuing. And so I'm sort of reading two things, but they're so different that it doesn't overwhelm me because they're very different sort of tracks in my mind, but using it is the only thing that matters. And so I never feel overwhelmed because I'm not, like, just trying to memorize a bunch of useless facts. It's like, as you go through your life and something presents itself, I've always been grateful to have a tool that I can pull out and use at that moment. So I'm not letting myself get into some sort of schizophrenic state with that stuff. So.

[Lisa Bilyeu]

All right, well, that was our sign to wrap up. All right, guys, so thank you so much for joining us today. And if this feed brought you any value, be sure to share it. Definitely. Check out the impact theory lead. We're constantly trying to build and grow and keep continuing these kind of discussions that we have here.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. So thank you guys so much. This is a weekly show. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary. Take care 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 deliver as much value as possible and you guys rating and reviewing really helps with that. Alright guys thank you again so much and until next time my friends be legendary. Take care.

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