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- [00:00]
Grainger Announcer
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- [00:46]
Tom Bilyeu
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. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Facebook Live. Q and A. I'm your host, Han Biliu, and I'm here with the Voice.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Hello, everyone.
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Tom Bilyeu
How you doing? Good. You ready for this?
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Cindy Bilyeu
Good. I'm really excited. This is a good Friday too.
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Tom Bilyeu
Nice. Oh, why is it feeling good?
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Cindy Bilyeu
I'm also saying that because we have our Captivate workshop and I'm super pumped about it.
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Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, so am I. It's gonna be a lot of fun.
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Cindy Bilyeu
It's gonna be like a great exploration into the minds of all of our teammates.
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Tom Bilyeu
I am very.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah.
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Tom Bilyeu
Can I ask a quick question? How'd the mics get back on the inside? They were literally set up on the outside and now I just noticed that they'. Fries.
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Cindy Bilyeu
I don't know. We changed them. I guess it is. Yeah.
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Tom Bilyeu
It is better though. So I guess we just have to block the tv. That's just.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Just a little. I think they're okay in the frame.
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Tom Bilyeu
All right, we'll just own it. There it is. All right, cool. I hope you guys are doing well out there. By the way, if this feed is adding value, please do share. Yes, it is amazing.
- [02:16]
Cindy Bilyeu
Thank you. All right, so I'll kick it off with some that came in through the Connect inbox. So this one comes from Daniel Breeze, the nerd writer said he recommends writing to become more self aware. I've been using the five minute journal for the last few months, but what other habits can I use to get into writing things down with the goal of becoming more self aware. How would you recommend I start small? And what could I work up to?
- [02:42]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, I'm intrigued why he wants more habits around writing. If you're. I would say if the five minute journal isn't doing it, then just make it longer. I don't necessarily think that you need more habits of writing. You need to figure out why you're not getting the most out of the habit that you already have. So I'm guessing that he's doing the five minute journal. Maybe he's not getting in the rhythm enough to really be able to get to the deep stuff. Because I know when I first start writing, if I'm which I don't journal very often, in fairness, largely because I have a slightly different strategy. So I'm still trying to get to that same end of like really clearing my mind and figuring out like what I should be focusing on. What is that quiet, whispery voice inside intuition? Like what's it saying? I use meditation for that. But I have done journaling before and I do find it pretty useful. But I find that the first probably five or ten minutes is really just a warmup and you're getting yourself in the process of thinking a thought and then writing something down. And then there is something sort of vaguely meditative about the act of writing. Like for instance, I would never try to do that with voice memos. I find that that like just the rhythm, the way you have to talk to get the voice memo to work properly doesn't work quite right. And I guess I'm actually thinking speak to type versus a true voice memo, which I would never want to go back and listen to and write down anyway. So I would never use that strategy. So I would say try just doing it longer so that you get past that sort of warmup phase and get into something where you're really getting into the depths of. You're not really getting into the depths of the subconscious, but you're giving your subconscious time to like really push the things up into your conscious mind. And that's one of the reasons that I, I like actually writing because the amount of time that it takes me to think, to type leaves enough time for my mind to also continue processing. So I'm always like a little bit ahead of what I'm writing. Which if you read back something that I write that I haven't proofread, you'll notice that I miss words every now and then because my mind is like already past that. And so part of me thinks I've already Written because I'm on to the next bit. And I find that that slight gap between I can think faster than I can type gives me room to come up with that next idea. But my body is sort of taken care of, as it were. Another strategy. This isn't the same, but just as I'm talking through other things that put me in that same state. So obviously, straight meditation and then driving, but driving in a straight line. So what I used to do was. This is bad. No, I would sort of. I guess I would go to the one, the California one, which is the coastal highway. So it's literally a straight shot until you decide to turn around. It will take you all the way to San Francisco. Yeah. So there are no turns, nothing. And I would just drive until I felt like if I don't turn around now, you'll end up in San Francisco. Yeah, I'm gonna be gone for a very long time. And this was back in my night owl days. So there was no traffic. And I would just drive and I would leave. Some leave at like 11 o' clock at night. And so then I would just drive, drive, drive. And there was something so hypnotic about that. Just sort of straight shot. The one side of the universe is pitch black. Cause it's the ocean at night, so there's nothing. And then the right side for most of the drive is just sort of a cliff face. So it was kind of like existing in this tunnel. I don't know how to explain. It was really, really interesting. And I would just get in this zone. And the only catch was I was always afraid that I was going to forget something. So. Because you're having like these really interesting ideas, but it's dangerous to, you know, in any way, shape or form try to mark that down. So if you can get over that. And sometimes I would just pull over and take notes and then start driving again. So it's not ideal. So I haven't done that in a very long time. But it's something that if people don't have a rhythm, like, you know, Daniel, if you're looking for something that's maybe more effective than writing for you, I would try something like that.
- [06:49]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah, I mean, for me, in terms of writing and stuff like that, journaling, I find that it is mostly helpful for me when it's like an intense emotion that I need to unpack. So the majority of the writing and journaling I used to do was whenever I'd like, have some type of anger or sadness or confusion or why did this happen? So it's almost my way of processing out exactly what it is. I'm feeling like trying to direct it and figure out where it is and then just like that release. So it could just be that it is more time that you need because five minutes was never really enough. Because the first five minutes is you kind of just like rawr. Like I don't know, like da da da. Like I'm really confused. And then it starts kind of getting into that place where you're like okay, so like when this happened, this is how I felt. Or like you just let your thoughts wander. So it's like that stream of consciousness writing. So I always found that that probably would err more so on the side of like 15 to like 20 minutes. So maybe you just need to increase your habit of writing or find a different way to kind of find that self exploration.
- [07:57]
Tom Bilyeu
Right, yeah, I hear that.
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Cindy Bilyeu
And so our next question comes in from Ono Nikolai Northy. He says, how would you suggest regular Joes go about getting high profile endorsements for a book? For example? How could I get you to endorse mine? I've heard of typing out an endorsement and sending it to the person to sign, but I assume you get a jillion of these requests a day. Is there anything other than perseverance and. Or camping out on your front lawn and getting your five best friends to tell you not to call security?
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Tom Bilyeu
Man. So here's my real answer to that question. So when somebody sends me something asking me for an endorsement, I am never going to give them an endorsement unless I've read the book. Like that would be so gross to me. So if you see my name on something, it is not because someone sent me the thing that they want me to sign off on. It's because I've actually read the book. And so I've had this in the past. And because I don't know them, I don't know if the book is going to be any good. And I'm so freakish about what I give my time to. I'm like caught. So I don't read the book because I don't know them. I don't know if their ideas are going to be worth the time. So it's this catch 22 of like the only time I've ever read a book sort of on spec was when Ryan Holiday asked me for feedback on Ego is the Enemy. And that was like, dude, Ryan is the man. So that was a no brainer relationship. Exactly. So if somebody's sending me something cold, man, that's not My world. So that doesn't feed into, like, my goals to read a bunch of manuscripts and stuff like that. So the answer is you need to find somebody for whatever reason. Like, reading cold manuscripts is what they do. Otherwise you need to deliver just an absurd amount of value to them first and foremost. And honestly, like, my real thing is, like, deliver a crushing amount of value to a community of people that will clamor so loudly. Like, you can imagine if 150 people wrote to me on the same day that have brought value to this community and said, look, you need to read this guy's book. That's going to give me pause. Like, I'm at least going to give it a chapter. You know what I mean? And then if it captures me, I'll go on. So it's not about going out and just trying to get somebody to do something cold. It's about building it brick by brick and getting people, like, to take it seriously, because you're delivering a tsunami of value. So thinking back to when we first started Inside Quest and no one knew who I was, literally outside of the health and fitness world, nobody knew who I was. And even the vast majority of the people in the fitness world, they didn't know me me. They just knew Quest. So our whole thing was you start with the people that you can get and you do something where they walk away going, whoa, that was spectacular. And then that word of mouth travels and you just start small and you build and you build and you build. So probably like, this is exactly what I would do, because the endorsement from me is meaningless. What you actually want is people to buy your book. Can we agree? Okay, so I would sort of blog, like, look at what Eric Barker did. His blog is. It's in Japanese, the name. So I would just say, look up Eric Barker and barking up the wrong tree, you'll get to his blog. And he did that, I think, for seven or eight years before he wrote his book. Yeah, same here. So we've now been between Inside Quest and Impact Theory. We've been at this for over two and a half years. By the time the book comes out, it'd be like three and a half years. By then, we'll have, I hope, well over a million people in our ecosystem. So it's like doing all of that before you release your book. That's the right answer. Because first of all, your. Your ideas need to be serving people, in my opinion, before you put them into book form. And the book should be the way that you get it out to just a Much broader audience. But you want a lot of people that are vouching for your ideas before you go to the book. So then it would be much easier to get the attention of somebody. Because if I went to somebody and said, look, I have an ecosystem of a million people. I've had all these people on the podcast. This is. And we record people at the end of the podcast saying what their experience was like and send them like a little thing. Here are the people that have come on the stage, shared ideas with me. Here are the people that are resonating with what we've been doing. And now, by the way, I would like you to take a look at this. We're going to be taken a lot more seriously. So it's about really delivering value with your stuff, not trying to rush to a book. Like, go out there brick by brick, do the hand to hand combat, build the following.
- [12:31]
Cindy Bilyeu
Agree. And I mean alternatively, if you just want to write a book for the sake of writing a book, if that's something that drives you, then do that. Just know that, you know, building that following is probably the best way for you to actually monetize it and build it into something huge.
- [12:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I'm going to say don't write that book. It's interesting. And I'm gonna say, don't write that book. I guess based on the assumptions I'm making about writing a book, to me is really about feeding a channel and putting a billboard in the desert is the wrong idea. And the amount of energy it would take to write a book is so massive. Yeah, write a book if what you want to do is teach writing a book. But if you actually want to move units. I think that in today's day and age to write a book, getting it sold, moving units is brutally difficult. And you have people like. I remember talking to Ryan Holiday when his book was about to come out and he said, every author goes through this. You write this thing, you spend all this time writing it and then you're like, is anyone going to buy this? Like, is anyone going to care? And that obstacle is so big. I think it's way, way better now. Look, there was a time when you're only.
- [13:49]
Cindy Bilyeu
That was the only option.
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Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, but this is where. And it's, it's interesting that perhaps you and I disagree on this, but my thing is really looking at how are you going to be delivering that long tail value. Spend the time sharpening your ideas long before you do something that's just sort of internally gratifying. Like what's your goal and then work backwards. And I can think of precious few sort of end goals where it would make sense to lead with the book. Could be wrong. That's my gut.
- [14:23]
Cindy Bilyeu
I don't know. But I feel like I've. I. I just say this because I've. I've encountered some people, I guess, working well. I majored in English and creative writing, so there were those writers who were like, I just write for the sake of my art.
- [14:36]
Tom Bilyeu
Well, that's fascinating. So I'm definitely talking nonfiction.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Right.
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Tom Bilyeu
So fiction. You're right.
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Cindy Bilyeu
So. Exactly. So they're writing for the sake of their art, and so they don't really necessarily care whether or not, like, a bunch of people buy it. So I'm like, you know, there are two ends of, you know, the spectrum, essentially, where it's like, if I were to write a book, I would sure as hell want people to read it.
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Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. No, but you're absolutely right. If it's fiction, there's. I mean, you can write short stories, I guess, but there really is no substitute to just writing.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Exactly.
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Tom Bilyeu
Hashtag truth.
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Cindy Bilyeu
There we go. All right, so these. This next one comes from Angela Sharina in the comments. We are starting a line of alternate alternative to junk sexy health food products like keto sugar free super delicious chocolate, combined with personal branding. What would you. What would be your advice to approach the design and bringing it to market with a new product for first time?
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Tom Bilyeu
First the design of packaging.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah. First essential action steps.
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Tom Bilyeu
Ooh. The first essential action steps to designing the packaging. I want to make sure that we're really clear about what we're doing.
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Cindy Bilyeu
This is your advice on approaching the design and bringing it to market?
- [15:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay. So obviously, first and foremost, make sure that your product is real, that it's metabolically advantageous. After that, you want to identify who is my target market, who am I trying to sell this to? And then you need to make sure that your design is representative not only of the ethos of your company, should hopefully give people the feeling that you want them to feel, but also in a way that they're going to be receptive of. So I'll give you an example. If your target market is Millennials, and your product, like, one of its core features, is that it's natural and organic. You're going to be in earth tones. Hopefully your packaging is going to be from, like, recycled material, that it's going to have vibe that it looks like it's from recycled material. And so that will give all these subconscious cues that it is what they're looking for. It got to the point where so many people were using a leaf to denote natural that if I'm not mistaken, like, you can't put a leaf on packaging anymore unless it actually is natural. So it was like there are a lot of subconscious cues that you can tap into. So really identifying who your market is and what the subconscious cues are that already exist. And then, and this is really important, how do you differentiate yourself? How do you stand out? And then here's something people really don't think about. Decide whether you're going online or whether you're ultimately going to end up in stores. Because the design for packaging that works online is so different than the packaging that works in a store. Because that is on when you're at the store, you're standing back, right? You're, let's say, 6ish feet from the the display. There may be hundreds of other products like yours there and you will get lost unless your name is really big and you have some sort of consistent color scheme. Doesn't have to be the same color, but it needs to be a consistent color scheme. So if you're like block colors, primary colors, if you're stripes, like whatever that's going to look like, it's something that you can see at a distance. Now online, you don't necessarily have to do that. You don't have to think of your product so much as a, like a unit, a family of products that need to look good together because people are looking at them one at a time. But I will say the consistency across your brand is incredibly important. So it can't feel schizophrenic. So you do have to think a bit more as a family of products, but working backwards from your audience. Who are you trying to sell to? What are the subconscious cues that they're familiar with? How many of those can you leverage? That really is the most important thing. And then don't be afraid to be wrong. So test it, try it out, show it to people, get feedback and then adjust accordingly.
- [18:26]
Cindy Bilyeu
Makes sense.
- [18:28]
Tom Bilyeu
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- [18:43]
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- [19:13]
Cindy Bilyeu
Makes sense. All right, so this next question comes from Lauren from the Connect Inbox. I've heard you talk about using bright lines in your life. What are your bright lines that you live by daily? How do you incorporate those bright lines into your life? Did you just decide one day and just do it and just did it not did it no matter what, or was there some trial and error?
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Tom Bilyeu
First of all, I read it and unfortunately I can't remember where I read it. And I think someone even put it in the comments once. I don't remember where I read this, so. But it's definitely somebody else's concept. I took that, the words. So it was one of those. As soon as I read it, I thought, this makes a lot of sense to me because I'm really good at all or nothing and I'm really bad at a little bit. So when they say, what was it Lays? You can't just eat one. Or ruffles. You can't just eat one. I was like, that's aimed at me. I literally cannot do Pringles. Is it Pringles?
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Cindy Bilyeu
I think so. Once you pop, you can't stop.
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Tom Bilyeu
There's that as well. Totally agree. So I, I fall prey to that in a big way. Like not doing something, I'm fine with doing it a little bit is very hard. So reading it, I was like, okay, this makes a lot of sense to me. So I can be super binary about it. And because I part of my identity is being disciplined, it was very easy for me to say, okay, I'm. I'm the type of person that when I say, these are the only calories I'm going to eat. These are the only calories I'm going to eat. Now, bright lines serve me the most in really two things. The way that I use my time and energy for the business and food. Those are two things where it's just like the crushing sense of identity that I bring to those two things. I, even when I'm like starving, I don't allow myself additional calories. And it's all because of that bright line thing. And practice is important. But I will say that this one more than its practice is derived from identity. And because I identity is effective because it follows you even when no one is looking. And that's what really makes identity powerful? Because if it were, I can't have additional calories when other people are around. So that's how people get into trouble, where they're eating at night and they're, like, sneaking food and, well, if I eat it in my car and not at home, it's okay. It's really fascinating the way that people, like, create these very bizarre rules for themselves.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Like a second life.
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Tom Bilyeu
Yes. One thing that I find fascinating is, like, when people decide to cheat and it's, well, I wasn't in my home state or I was, you know, traveling on business or like, it was in a hotel.
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Cindy Bilyeu
They're not in the same area.
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Tom Bilyeu
Right. It's like, wow. So that's where things like that, bright lines are very effective. Right. So it's just hard and fast. I don't do X, Y and Z. And yeah, those, I think, are incredibly, incredibly important.
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Cindy Bilyeu
And it's almost. Doesn't it kind of fall in line with that, like, cookie jar concept where, like, every time you accomplish it, you kind of get to, like, put a little cookie in the jar and say, good job.
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Tom Bilyeu
Most definitely.
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Cindy Bilyeu
Um, yeah. So maybe kind of, if you think of it that way too, along with just part of your identity and then also reward yourself for following through with it, then you'll be able to actually turn it into a habit.
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Tom Bilyeu
No question. Yeah.
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Cindy Bilyeu
All right, so this next. Oh, so we've got a couple shout outs that have come in. So we've got Zanette, Nicolas Zorzas from Greece.
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Tom Bilyeu
That's intense.
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Cindy Bilyeu
It's like there's the Greek.
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Tom Bilyeu
Little bit of Greek for you.
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Cindy Bilyeu
All right, so then Kayla Griffith from Canada and Brad Spann from Texas, tuning in live.
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Tom Bilyeu
There we go.
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Cindy Bilyeu
What's up, everybody? All right, so this next question is from Naomi Hernandez. Hi, Tom and Cindy. Thanks so much for all you do and for sharing. Genuinely, thank you for listening, Jess. So, Tom, what is your strategy for news intake? How much time do you dedicate to it and what time. Wait, what type of news outlets do you recommend?
- [23:16]
Tom Bilyeu
So I use Flipboard, and it's only an in between moment thing for me, to be honest. So the. The vast majority of data that I intake is books, and I pick them very specifically based on my goals. So I think everybody in this feed certainly knows that I am on a mission to become one of the world's foremost experts on the microbiome. I'm rationing up my claims here about where I'm headed. Originally it was just to help Lisa. Now I want to be a foremost expert, but I really am excited to learn about that. So that's a big deal. So I'm reading as much as I can on that. So I will not only choose books that come highly recommended, and right now I'm just working my way through. Naveen Jain gave me a list and I'm just going through the list and so far they've been exceptional books, very helpful. Has ended up having implications for my mom as well, who's had, like, thyroid problems, and so never would have guessed that those would be tied. But nonetheless, as you read about the microbiome, I promise you're going to keep encountering things about thyroid and then obviously, mindset. I just read insatiably about mindset, about the brain, seeing where that's all going, where the neuroscience is going. That's been very, very meaningful to keep my own thinking on the topics fresh. And then so if I'm reading about the microbiome, I'll then go into Flipboard so that when I have a moment of downtime, if I'm standing in line or I'm waiting for something, then I'll pick up Flipboard. And it's basically like a magazine that you curate. So I've got things obviously for the comic book industry, for the film industry, anything to do with the business of entertainment. Like, all those things that are obviously very important for what we're doing in the studio. I've got stuff in the microbiome and health I've had for a very long time, things to do with nutrition and diet. But I add things and subtract things as we go, and what's important and what really feels like it's matching my goals. And that's really it. It's books and Flipboard and podcasts. I do a lot of podcasts, but obviously I don't consider that reading. Yeah. Between those three things, which are highly curated based on the things that I'm trying to learn from my goals, and I just go deep, deep, deep on given topics. And I try to read in swarms. So when I'm on the microbiome tip, it's all microbiome all the time. I'm trying to get it from all angles, so I'm getting varied views and opinions. I'll follow people on my Instagram feed, I'll follow them on Twitter, on Facebook, like, so that no matter where I go, it's encountering it. Yeah, exactly.
- [25:52]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah, definitely. In terms of news intake, for me, I feel like I used to read the Daily Skim. It was like this email digest that comes to you and just kind of, like, gives you short, fun summaries of what's going on in the world. And then morning brew for, like, business news. It's also, like, one of those email newsletter things, but I realized that I feel like I just encounter it through, like, Twitter and, like, social and just following various outlets.
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Tom Bilyeu
Yeah.
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Cindy Bilyeu
So those are some of the ones we recommend. All right, so this next question comes from Corinne Davis. Hi, guys. Love you. As you know, she came to the Culver City Impact Hour, so super awesome. Great to see you again. So she says, okay, so you get subscribers in the world of social, and then what? How do you generate revenue from that? Quick and to the point.
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Tom Bilyeu
Well, let me tell you how. We're the wrong people to ask that question to. You will notice we don't monetize anything that we're doing. So I would highly suggest you go watch what Lewis Howes is doing. Grant Cardone is doing Tai Lopez. Like, those guys know how to monetize their following. But I will say at a high level, I understand the concept. And it goes something like this. You've got advertising, so if you have a podcast or something like that, you reach out to advertisers or brands. Excuse me. And say, hey, I want you to advertise on my podcast. Obviously, make sure it's something that will bring value to your users, because that's how you're going to bring value to the advertiser, and you want them coming back. So. But you reach out to them. You set a price. Usually it's based on the number of followers that you have. I am not the right person to ask sort of what the going rate is, so I would get out there. And I'm sure you can find up Agent Smith. Vid roll. Bid roll. We're going to get there eventually. Mid roll. Mid roll. I've tried every, like, consonant other than the right one. Mid roll. All right, so maybe Agent Smith should do, like, a tutorial on this at some point. Nice. So according to Agent Smith, mid roll will estimate what you can charge for your following. So there you have it. I'm guessing they look at engagement numbers and things like that. So, yeah, I'll stop there just because this is way outside of my lane. I don't know anything about this, really, other than sort of at a really high level. The only thing you can obviously sell in the long term is value. So finding a way to add value to your advertisers, to your community, it's the only way it is sustainable and Then course courses is a big thing.
- [28:29]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yes, courses are huge. All right, so this next question came in through the Connect inbox from Nick. He says, I love training, weight training. A lot of, and a lot of training for sports. Squats and deadlifts, sled dragging, et cetera. I love training in Jiu Jitsu. I have two daughters and I learn every day to pass it on to them really. But I've always been a person that really likes to focus on a few things and really kick butt at it. The weight training is easier to fit around my schedule. The Jiu Jitsu is a lot more challenging. And I train the grappling really to teach my girls as they get older. But not being able to go but one to two times per week slows down my momentum for grappling. I played college baseball and was really an all or nothing person. I don't like dabbling in stuff again. I like to go all in on stuff and have always done better when I only juggle a few things. How would you go about this, this, how, solving this situation?
- [29:27]
Tom Bilyeu
Man, that, that's a pure personality thing. So if you really don't like dabbling and you really want to create momentum in something, then imagine yourself in the room with a thousand doors and your job is to shut 999 of them. Right? So the, the solution is in the question itself. If you're not having fun and your only concern is being able to pass it on to your daughters, then just wearing your value system, does that fall? If you care more about that than you care about the weightlifting or something else that's going on in your life, make it a PR and stick to it alternately. If that's not the case, then don't. And I will just say that I don't think people should be, I don't think people should live for their children. Obviously you should make your children feel loved at all times. But like, my dad's obsession was cars. I hated cars. We, we've come out okay. So I, you know, I don't think that at the end of the day, I don't think that, that, that people need to say whatever my kids need is like number one priority. And I'm just going to do and do and do for them. I think that people really need to take care of themselves first, even parents. So don't lose yourself to your daughters. If being in Jiu Jitsu is something that's really important and that they actually enjoy, then send them to Jiu Jitsu themselves. And you don't necessarily have to be doing it yourself. And conversely, again, if that's your highest value, then structure your day in such a way that you can do it. But there is a finite amount of time that we all have. Like you, I share that notion of I don't want to be a dilettante. Like, I don't want to go from thing to thing to thing. I really want to pick a few things and go hard on them. And when I think about just all the topics I want to read about, it is endlessly torturous to me that I can't read about everything that I want, that I can't become an expert in everything that I want. So what I build my pride around is being able to identify what serves my goals and then pursuing that period. And here's something I'm thinking more and more and more about, and people write into me about this all the time. And I'm just telling you right now, you just decide. So you just decide that the thing that's most important is jiu jitsu for the girls, right? You just decide. And there's going to be a hundred times in that process where you're like, this isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right. And you just got to keep soldiering on until the point at which you realize, you know what? But it's so not right that now I'm going to switch it back to I'm going to lift, and that's more important. Cool. Changing is not a problem. Like, you've decided that's not it. Boom. Now I'm going to go over here. But in fact, I just. Somebody highlighted this. I think it was in Ryan Holiday's new book, which, full disclosure, I have not read. But when I saw this highlight, I thought it was really interesting. And his new book is called Perennial Seller. Very proud of myself for remembering that. And what it's about is how do you. How do you create something that will last? Like, not something that's sort of that momentary flash in the pan, but that will be selling 50 years, 100 years from now. And I think he's actually quoting somebody else in the part that I saw highlighted. But regardless, the thing that destroys the most people that could potentially create a perennial seller is they try to do multiple things that. That have nothing to do with each other. And I cannot tell you literally every day, and this is a confession to the team. Almost every day, I think, is the. The studio, like, is that the answer? Because what I care about is pulling people out of the Matrix, Right. So is the studio the answer? Is the studio the answer? And it's like I have to keep coming back to. There are other things that I want to try as well. And then I just remember, dude, focus is the answer. Staying on a path is the answer. And regardless of what you choose, pick one. Go hard.
- [33:15]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah. And going back to what you said, you could just as easily have your daughters take jiu jitsu or, like taekwondo or karate or whatever, kind of so that they can build those skills and see if they like it and then just figure out what you want to do.
- [33:34]
Tom Bilyeu
Yep.
- [33:35]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah. All right, so if this feed is adding value to you guys, please make sure that you share it. We're always looking to grow. That's a big part of what our ethos here is, building the community. And then we also have a couple community events coming up.
- [33:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Nice. Let's hear about it.
- [33:50]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah. So we've got Impact hour in downtown LA August 16, so next week. And then we have you and Lisa in London for a meet and greet at Bar Soho. Both those events are on your page. And then also in Eventbrite.
- [34:07]
Tom Bilyeu
Excellent.
- [34:07]
Cindy Bilyeu
So rsvp and Tom's coming to Impact Hour, by the way. I made it happen.
- [34:14]
Tom Bilyeu
Nice.
- [34:15]
Cindy Bilyeu
I made sure it happened.
- [34:16]
Tom Bilyeu
There we go. I'll see you guys there.
- [34:19]
Cindy Bilyeu
So definitely come hang out with us. It's gonna be fun. Really like that venue.
- [34:24]
Tom Bilyeu
Nice.
- [34:24]
Cindy Bilyeu
All right, so this next question comes from Gabrielle Angel Delilly. D. Lily. How do you make time to read all the books you consume and still get business done?
- [34:38]
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- [35:08]
Tom Bilyeu
So I have a very strict schedule that I keep to. So, first of all, I go to bed at 9pm I wake up when I wake up sometimes that's as early as 2am so I'll give you a fantasy day. The days that I love and I cherish more than you can imagine. And then I'll give you a day where I feel rushed. So this is what a day looks like when I have all the time in the world. So I think it was early this week. I woke up at 2am I had five hours of sleep. So I was like, yes, I hit my minimum. I get to get out of bed. This is going to be amazing. I went to the gym, I spent about an hour in the gym, which takes us to like probably 3:20 by the time you factor like moving around, taking care of the Minuccis and all that and then meditate for probably about 20 minutes. So what's that take us to like 3:40, something like that. And then I think a Tate that takes us to about 4:00am and then at 4:00am man, it's on and I can start reading. So then I. I literally read for at least an hour. I might push it, read for an hour and a half because my day started so early and if it's really clicking, I might. It's rare that I read for much more than an hour and a half, if I'm honest, but I might let myself occasionally read. Nope, that doesn't feel right. It is rare that I read for more than an hour and a half. So let's say I read for about an hour and a half and then I start going. If I woke up that early, then I'll start doing things exploratory. Like I'll see what's going on in the world of comics, who's doing something that's exciting, what's going on in entertainment news, what's happening that we might be able to leverage. What on my important things list sounds like fun? Because I consider anything sort of before 6:00am for sure to be a little bit like 6:00am to like, yeah, goal oriented. But still my time only till 8 at after 8, it's contracts, it's all that stuff.
- [37:03]
Cindy Bilyeu
Okay.
- [37:03]
Tom Bilyeu
But until from like 6 to 8, if there's something fun that I can do that's on my important things, it has to be on my important things list. But if it's on my important things list and it seems like fun, even if it might be like item four or five, I'll still let myself do it till eight. Come eight, it's like whatever's at the top of the list and then I get into it. So that's a day where I've had an hour and a half to read without feeling like I'm at all impacting the business in a negative way. Now, keeping in mind that reading is important, ideas in, equal ideas out. So it. I certainly don't feel guilty about it. But on a day where I wake up, let's say I slept terribly, I woke up in the middle of the night, I'm Tossing and turning. So to get my minimum five hours sleep may take me to like, like 5 or 6am so then if I wake up at 5, I'm still headed to the gym. If I wake up at six, I'm gonna start truncating my workout. So but if I wake up at five, I'll do a full workout. If I wake up at 6, it's shortened. And then I would go still through. I'd probably skip meditating if I'm honest. If I wake up at six, no way. I'm not gonna meditate. I'm not gonna meditate or think a tate I'll get a little bit of think a tating done in the shower. I'll read. But I may only read for 20 minutes because by 8am no matter what, I'm at the top of my important things list. So that's how we do it. Are there days when I don't get to read it all? I sure if something really weird is going on, yeah. But for the most part I'm gonna always be able to sneak in at least 20 minutes of reading. That's sort of a bare minimum. And then yeah, I mean the rest of my day I almost, almost all of my reading is done in the morning. But let's say that I've had a week where I haven't gotten a lot of reading in like a lot of days. I'm waking up late or I've got early morning stuff or whatever is messing that schedule up. Then I will really binge read on the weekend and try to make up for it. But reading, it's important to me to denote reading for me is one of the most enjoyable and exciting things that I do. So that's not like while I bucket it as work because it's not fiction, it's all non fiction. It's all stuff that's moving me towards my goals. That falls into the like if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life life kind of thing. So I love to read. So when you love something, you're gonna find time for it.
- [39:13]
Cindy Bilyeu
That makes sense.
- [39:14]
Tom Bilyeu
But I think going to bed is actually the secret answer to all of this. Go to bed early.
- [39:19]
Cindy Bilyeu
Go to bed. What's funny is that I saw that Instagram story of you like in the gym at like 2:30 in the morning and that that night I had like fallen asleep, I think around like 1 or 1:30. And so I was just like, yeah, that's so weird.
- [39:36]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. Yeah, I love those days. It's so funny. How much you couldn't have convinced me when I was in my 20s that I would ever love that. But I love that I was like,
- [39:46]
Cindy Bilyeu
maybe I'm still there. I don't know.
- [39:48]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, look, this stuff changes over time, right? And because I'm not waking, like, I used to sleep more. By the way, I have a suspicion that the Modius vestibular device is making me sleep more because they gave me the new one on Wednesday. Right. And so I'm using it, and it's way more powerful than the first version that they gave me. Also bizarre how rapidly I've adjusted to it. So the first time I put it on, I was like, whoa. Like, this goes way beyond a glass of red wine into like, I should not operate heavy machinery.
- [40:19]
Cindy Bilyeu
Dude. I remember that I actually have the. The video.
- [40:22]
Tom Bilyeu
Yes. But now it. It feels like it felt before. It's very subtle. So it's interesting how you adjust, but because its whole thing is supposedly that it's making your. Your brain think that it's very active in order to reset the set point, I think my body's going, man, you're so.
- [40:42]
Cindy Bilyeu
You're so tired.
- [40:43]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, that's my. It doesn't make me tired during the day, but it makes me sleep.
- [40:47]
Cindy Bilyeu
Right.
- [40:48]
Tom Bilyeu
Like very soundly.
- [40:49]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah.
- [40:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Which. That. That's off label, so I don't know that that's true. Could be total, totally psychological coincidence, whatever. But the last two nights, I've slept more than I normally do, which actually, for me is not ideal, if I'm honest. I prefer six hours. Six hours? Six hours. At six hours, I feel like a million bucks. A million bucks. Absolutely no fatigue. And I have all the time in the world to get things done. When I start sleeping, like, seven hours.
- [41:16]
Cindy Bilyeu
Oh, you hit like, diminishing returns for yourself.
- [41:19]
Tom Bilyeu
For me, yes.
- [41:19]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah.
- [41:20]
Tom Bilyeu
Because I want the time. If I could sleep zero and be cognitively optimized, I would for sure, without question. So, yeah, that's.
- [41:29]
Cindy Bilyeu
Well, brains don't work like that.
- [41:31]
Tom Bilyeu
Angry, you're right. I'm angry that you're right, but you're right.
- [41:35]
Cindy Bilyeu
Okay, well, so this next question comes in from the comments from Marquis Perkins. Tom, I'm a new follower and I've grown to love your lectures because they are so powerful and compelling. Did you always know that you'd become a major enthusiast or was it a specific life changing experience that marked your destiny?
- [41:54]
Tom Bilyeu
What is a major enthusiast?
- [41:57]
Cindy Bilyeu
I will. I don't know, but like, I would say maybe like a speaker.
- [42:04]
Tom Bilyeu
Did I always know That I became
- [42:05]
Cindy Bilyeu
a compelling and powerful speaker.
- [42:07]
Tom Bilyeu
I've had a viewer. I had a suspicion that this would be a thing for me for more than a decade. But I wouldn't say that. I always knew that. So I. From the time I was 12, I thought I would be a filmmaker. And I knew that my. So I've been focusing on learning to communicate since I was in the seventh grade. Like, actively focusing on it. It was my thing. When my sister was good at sports, I got into drama, speech, debate, like all that stuff. So that became my arena. And then standup comedy and all that. So that became my arena. So, yes, I've known that. It's a tool that I've been focusing on for a very long time. And it is good to use the tools that you've developed. Otherwise, why are you developing them? But no, it didn't become clear that this was an intelligible path to anything until I started Inside Quest. And that was when I realized, okay, the world has shifted so fundamentally. Social media has changed things to a degree I could not have predicted as a kid. That it became something that was in line with my goals. You know me, I'm only going to do the things that serve my goals. And I probably was about two years late to the party, if I'm honest. But that was when it sort of hit me that, wait a second, this actually is in alignment with my goals. And so then I started doing it. But yeah, that. That's the truth. I had been building the skill set without realizing how it would manifest as me on stage, and that that would somehow be valuable to my skills. So I didn't do it until it fell in alignment.
- [43:36]
Cindy Bilyeu
And that also goes back to the whole point of skill acquisition is you never really know when you'll need it, but if you're interested in it, you should learn it.
- [43:44]
Tom Bilyeu
You know, that's interesting. So you're going to hear me give a mix of two things. So, yes, you should encounter a lot
- [43:50]
Cindy Bilyeu
of things in the beginning, especially when you're young. Like, you know, there are skills that I never thought I would use, and I feel like I'm using them here.
- [43:59]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, you. You do. You have to hit a whole broad spectrum of stuff to find out what you really enjoy, for sure.
- [44:07]
Cindy Bilyeu
Oh, word. That's it.
- [44:09]
Tom Bilyeu
That's it. There it is. Drop the mic.
- [44:11]
Cindy Bilyeu
There it is. Okay, so this next question comes from Ankal. Fee Doan. Love the show. All fantastic values the Impact Theory team are putting out. Smile. I have the question regarding advice mindset to choose how do you know which advice or mindset that you should follow and which ones you should avoid? In other words, sometimes I hear some gurus advise this way, this way, while some others advise the other way. How can I know which one I should follow? So I guess conflicting viewpoints, who to follow, who to listen to.
- [44:47]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. So at the end of the day, you should be doing whatever is moving you towards your goals. The question is, how do you begin to identify that early? So I would say a baseline is if somebody is talking about anything other than being empathetic, compassionate, self empowering, doing things that make you feel alive, like finding a way to really express your true potential, make the world, world a better place. Like anything that deviates from that, like every alarm bell I have goes off because those are going to be the things that make you feel in alignment with what I think is just the innate human condition. Right. There's just certain that we are a tribe animal, we want to contribute to the group, we want to feel good about ourselves. We need self esteem, we need to I believe, push ourselves to really see how much we can make of our own potential. And I believe the very meaning of life, life is to find out how many skills you can acquire that have utility. Right. And, and put that utility to the test in service of something larger than yourself. So hiding in that to me are like the fundamentals of the human condition. We are the ultimate adaptation machine. So to fail to really exercise that potential to me is just a waste of a human life. So like, but all of those things are my attempt to get at the things that are actually going to help you feel fulfilled. The things that are actually going to help you be proud of yourself and live a life that is neurochemically rewarding so that you'll actually enjoy this journey and this process and all of that. So that, I mean, I've never thought about this before, but that's my answer. Like the things that make you feel most alive, feel good are helping others. Like beyond that. Like then it's flavors, right. So I'll throw out some people that I think are doing amazing stuff and we don't agree on everything. And I don't think you can go wrong. So Gary Vee, I think is, is the man. Tony Robbins is the man. Lewis Howes the man. Like there are a bunch of people out there. Jim Quick, the man. Like there are a bunch of people out there talking about amazing. It's crazy empowering. Like are all of us different flavors? Yes. Do I think that you could go Wrong with any of those people and 150 other people? No, I think the. The flavor becomes irrelevant. Which one do you respond to?
- [47:05]
Cindy Bilyeu
You.
- [47:06]
Tom Bilyeu
Are there people out there that I think are doing, like, dicey shit? Yes. So.
- [47:12]
Cindy Bilyeu
And that's part of the human animal.
- [47:14]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah.
- [47:17]
Cindy Bilyeu
So this next question comes from Dan Morrell. What do you think is the most important factor when motivating a team? I want to. So I want so badly for my team to win, but I struggle in motivating them to want to win for themselves.
- [47:32]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, God, what an awesome question. This is so big. And you want to talk about flavors. Like, this is. Man, there's. There is a right answer. I was going to say there's no right answer. There's no right flavor, but there are right answers. Okay, so it goes something like this. First and foremost, your culture matters. Now, why do I say that? Because there are so many different cultures, and people will take the flavor of that culture. So I've given my fruit salad example before. So. So the fruit salad example goes like this. I get very angry at fruit salads because I love watermelon, I love grapes, I love strawberries, I hate melon, I hate cantaloupe, I hate pineapple. Now, when you put them all together, hate with, like, a ferocity that I can't explain. So again, it's no right or wrong. It just is. So I don't want that stuff mixed. Now, when people come into your group, they're going to take the flavor of that group, I promise you. So make sure that you're very careful about what you build into your culture, so that when people take on that flavor, that it's empowering, that it's positive, and quite frankly, a lesson I've learned the hard way, that there's one culture and not multiple cultures where it becomes schizophrenic. So like a fruit salad. So you want to make sure that your culture, then you hire for people that are going to fit. That doesn't mean that the people that don't fit that culture are bad people. They're just a different flavor. So. So be very careful. Bring people into the culture that are going to make it a better place to work. Like the one cardinal sin. I will say, if you come into impact theory, like, the moment you're going to find that we just have to go our separate ways is the day you're now making this a worse place to be.
- [49:18]
Cindy Bilyeu
Okay.
- [49:19]
Tom Bilyeu
Doesn't mean you're not brilliant at your job. It just means you are making this a worse place to be. That's not okay. So that'll forever be the guiding light that we have here. So it isn't that you're amazing, it isn't that you bring the company more money. You may be both of those things. You may be the highest revenue generating employee that we have, you may be the most talented at your position. But if you aren't making this a better place to be, can't have you. So now the real thing that you asked is you can't seem to motivate people to want it for themselves. I'll quote Naveen Jain here. Don't worry about leading a horse to water and getting them to drink. Make them thirsty. So you can't want it for other people. It's a very frustrating thing. I'm sure there are many people in your life that you care deeply about, you may even love. And they just don't seem to want anything for themselves. You can't do that. I wouldn't waste your time with that. Think of yourself as a filtering mechanism. Your job in bringing people into the culture of your company is to find people that resonate with that, that have excitability, that get what you're about. They get your methods. Like for instance, if you don't want to be pushed to your absolute limits, impact theory is not the place for you. Because that to me is absolutely central to who I am and what I want. I want to be pushed. I want to be around people that are pushing me to be a better version of myself. So if I'm in here, I'm always having to drive the energy, I'm always having to push people, then nobody's pushing me. And that's not interesting to me. So I want to make sure that I'm surrounded by people that want something as badly as I want it, that are willing to push themselves as hard as I'm willing to push myself, that don't look at me like I'm a fucking crazy man when I start pushing them. So it all comes down to what do you want to create and have you found the right people that are going to resonate within that? And my guess is if you're not able to get people enthusiastic either your culture isn't as coherent as you think it is, your message actually isn't motivating, which is possible, or you've hired the wrong people, any one of those could be true. Maybe all, maybe a mix. Yeah, you can change at any time.
- [51:23]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah. And that's, I mean that's the beauty of culture. It's Very fluid. And it does, you know, it is contingent on the people that are within it.
- [51:32]
Tom Bilyeu
No question.
- [51:33]
Cindy Bilyeu
Yeah. All right, so this next question comes from Alex Biles. What's your favorite scene from the Matrix?
- [51:40]
Tom Bilyeu
Ooh, very easy, actually. That's interesting. And my brain is like.
- [51:44]
Cindy Bilyeu
Your brain's like, no, no, no, wait.
- [51:45]
Tom Bilyeu
That wasn't my favorite moment, and it gets me every time, is when he sort of resurrects himself at the end. He's been shot. He's dead on the ground. Spoiler alert. He's been shot. He's dead on the ground. And. Yes, but still. And they shoot more bullets at him, and he just raises his hand and says no. Like, really calmly. That was always the thing that I loved about it. And the bullets just stop. And he picks one out of the air. And then the agents realize we're. I love that. And then I love the scene with the Oracle. And what I love is when she goes, don't worry about the vase. And he goes, what vase? And because of that, he bumps it. It falls on the floor and shatters. And he's like, I'm so sorry. And she goes goes, don't worry about it. But what's really going to bake your noodle later is when you wonder if you would have knocked it off if I hadn't said anything. And that's when I was like, I have the chills now. That's when I was like, the Wachaskis, man. Like, they know what's up. Like, they've thought through this so far. Because that's exactly what I thought when he knocked it over. Well, would he have knocked it over, though, if you hadn't said anything? So when the Oracle actually says that,
- [52:56]
Cindy Bilyeu
that's why she's the Oracle, 100%.
- [52:58]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, my God, my jam. So. So you're right. That was an awesome question. So thank you, guys.
- [53:03]
Cindy Bilyeu
All right.
- [53:04]
Tom Bilyeu
Out of time, Sort of. Actually, I'll just tell you the truth. We lost Internet. And so we're wrapping up now, sadly. Much to our dismay. But thank you guys so much for joining us. And if this has brought you value, please do share it. That's how we build this community, which is so important to us, will help us achieve our goals, which are legion. So, guys, thank you so much for being a part of the community and for engaging and make sure that you
- [53:26]
Cindy Bilyeu
check out some of our community events. And if you're in the Toronto, Berlin, Chicago, Seattle, or London areas, we now have impactivist clubs that you guys can be a part of.
- [53:40]
Tom Bilyeu
Boom. Love it. Guys, thank you so much for joining us. This is a weekly show so if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.
- [53:49]
Cindy Bilyeu
Bye guys.
- [53:52]
Tom Bilyeu
Everybody, thank you so much for listening. And if this content is delivering value to you, please go to itunes, go to subscribers, 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.
- [54:21]
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