Kind: captions
Language: en
don't allow yourself to get bogged down
in a path which should be easily
discarded but don't give up easily on a
mission
which should be
far more firm
all right you guys ready we're gonna
have some fun we're gonna take the
energy get a little bit crazy i wanna
make sure that you guys end this on a
high note and honestly i will be wildly
disappointed in myself if all i manage
to do in this
is inspire or motivate you
at the end of this talk i will consider
myself a failure if that's all that
happens i will consider it a win on the
other hand if you guys go out and
actually take action
and at the end of the day all of us
we're not judged by our intentions
we are judged by what we actually
accomplish
and your accomplishments are going to be
entirely determined by what you actually
do and my talk is going to be about that
how to take action exactly what action
is made up of and why
it's critical
to recognize that humans lead with
belief
and so at the end of this talk hopefully
i will get you guys to understand why
right now you have everything that you
need already to believe in yourself to
be capable to do something that is truly
extraordinary and we're going to walk
through that path but for my talk to
make any sense i'm going to have to give
you guys a little bit of my backstory
not that i can see a whole lot but is
anybody familiar with me prior to seven
seconds ago
when you learned that i wake up wow
well i'm completely shocked by that
thank you by the way
so to give those of you who don't know a
little bit of background my story goes
like this growing up i did not show any
signs of success
my parents taught me to be a good
employee which i'll liken to the slaves
mentality to keep my head down do as
little work as possible and avoid
punishment at all costs
and that's how i started
i grew up in a family in tacoma
washington that teetered between blue
collar and white collar
and i was being trained to be a good
employee and when i left for college my
own mother who's always been my biggest
cheerleader i think that's important to
recognize just quietly assumed i was
going to fail
and every day since i left by the way my
mom all but forced me to go to college
kicked me out of the nest it was only
one of i think two people to leave the
state for my graduating class everybody
else stayed home i wanted to stay home
and my mom said you need to go chase
your dreams
but then every moment since then my mom
has done everything she can to get me to
move back to tacoma and so finally one
day i asked her and i said mom i really
don't get it like why you were the one
that pushed me you were the one that
kicked me out so why are you working so
hard to get me back and she said with no
malice in her heart
i just assumed you were going to fail
i assumed you were going to fail and
come home but i never wanted you to ask
what
if i have the chills on my face
remembering that
because that's the human condition
there is something inside of us that we
all recognize that says we could do more
we could be more we are capable of
becoming something
but it's that path to becoming that we
don't really understand and it's that
path to becoming that i want to talk
about today i love the theme of this
event
pivot
making a change while keeping your
center that to me really is what life is
all about but that's that's the hype now
how do we get into the tactical
realities of that and to explain that
i'm going to walk you through some of my
story
so my story starts when i go to film
school usc film school statistically
speaking is harder to get into than
harvard law
and i managed to get in
i had taken one of the teachers out
who was on the acceptance committee and
i said look i have really terrible sat
scores i got a 990 on my sats by the way
i took it twice that is my combined
score
monkeys with feces just rubbing it on
there get better scores than that
and i was mortified i went to the
committee to find out what i needed to
do to get into film school which was my
dream the thing that i most wanted in
this world and they said hey
as long as you've got good grades and
you have a 1300 on your sats no problem
and i was devastated because i was so
far from that
so i took one of the teachers out and i
said look i have a confession i got
really bad sat scores i took it twice
look i'm just not good on testing the
whole story
and he was like oh who cares he was like
there's two points of acceptance once as
an incoming freshman
where yeah we look at your sat scores
but the other is as an incoming junior
and then we don't care about your sat
scores which are merely meant to tell us
how well you do in college so i'm just
going to look at your grades so if you
get good grades i'm not even going to
look at the rest of your application
cool so i locked myself in my dorm room
for two years
i didn't date i didn't drink a drop of
alcohol i didn't go to a party all i did
day and night was work
and i studied
because my problem was my mom was right
i didn't show signs of early success
people that were looking at me expecting
me to fail had accurately assessed what
i was capable of at that moment
but what they didn't understand about me
what they didn't understand about the
human animal is our ability to adapt
grow and get better
the most fascinating thing to come out
of science in a long time
was when they sequenced the human genome
and they realized and by the way they
thought they were going to solve
everything they thought they were going
to cure cancer they thought this was
going to be the end of chronic aging
like all of the diseases that we
struggle with now they thought they were
all just going to go away once we
sequenced the human genome that was
going to be it was going to be like a
map to xanadu it's going to be amazing
and then they did it and what they
discovered was humans only have twenty
thousand genes
and some onions have forty thousand
so they're literally looking at the data
going are we really meant to believe
that an onion is more genetically
complex than a human being how can this
be possible oh and by the way they were
ignoring all of this stuff that they
were calling junk dna
now it didn't take them long to realize
that that junk dna plays a role we are
without question the most dominant
species this world has ever seen we are
an apex predator unlike anything you can
find us in the marianas trench which is
the deepest part of the ocean you can
find us in the arctic we have literally
sent human beings to the moon
and what that junk
dna really is
is epigenetics
now it's just a fancy word for
we respond to our environment
and more aptly
we respond to stress
in our environment
anybody ever seen a professional
bodybuilder
no
okay a professional bodybuilder hardly
looks human to me
they are
it's unbelievable what they're able to
do but they show in a very real and
tangible way what you can do to the
human body when you understand how to
put it under stress
now if you've ever been to the gym you
know that the real money is in tearing
the muscle down not building it up you
actually build up the muscle while
you're sleeping based on what you've
eaten
so the act of bodybuilding of actually
going into the gym is an act of tearing
down so you can create the stress so
that your body can respond now if you
remember nothing else from my talk
remember this humans
are
the ultimate
adaptation machine
just by being human
each and every one of you
is capable
of great change
who you are today
does not predict who you can become
who you can become is the answer to a
very simple question
what do you want
and what price are you willing to pay to
get there
what do you want
and what price are you willing to pay to
get there
kobe bryant one of the greatest athletes
of our time
would show up on game day and if he saw
anybody else at the gym as early as him
even though he was always the first on
the court
he would end up practicing longer than
that person and i had the honor of
interviewing one of those people one
time
and he said i went up and asked kobe
kobe we have a game in an hour like what
are you doing out here practicing so
long and kobe said i needed you to know
that i was willing to outwork you
and in that game they ended up winning
and that lesson stuck with that guy
forever
when you're willing to put in the work
when you're willing to take control of
your environment and put yourself
through the stressors required for
adaptation you literally can become
anything
and my life is proof of that
so i stand here
as one of the founders of a company
a company called quest nutrition that we
took from not existing
to being valued over a billion dollars
five years later
thank you
that was the guy whose mother
not too long before that just quietly
assumed he was going to fail at college
but what i began to understand
is that i could harness that ability to
adapt
that we can learn in any direction
nature has to make a choice with any
species option number one pre-program
everything think of a horse
when a horse is born it comes out it can
already run jump take care of itself
and then option
two be built for maximum flexibility
be able to adapt to your environment
a horse is a horse no matter where you
put it
but a human
depending on when and where it's born
depending on what it allocates its
resources to its time and attention it
can turn into a basketball player a
neurophysicist
a parent
a coach
a hair stylist
you literally get to choose you get to
decide what it is that you want to be
good at and i want you to think about
the first time that you picked up a pair
of scissors
you didn't know what you were doing it
didn't feel
like
it was an extension of your hand but now
when you step into that role when you
show up
the way that everything feels the way
that you set it around your station it's
all like it was meant to be it flows you
know right where things are how to cut
somebody's hair depending on the texture
of the hair the length the quality the
age of the person what they've done to
it you know it all you know how to mix
colors all of that stuff is from
training but the irony is people don't
stop and think about hey i got this far
in this thing simply by allocating the
time and the energy where else could i
go could i pivot
and the answer to that question is yes
the human animal is designed to adapt
that is literally
what we are sculpted to do
for me
the piece of advice that i always give
to somebody whether it's an entrepreneur
or somebody who wants to be the greatest
parent of all
time what is your goal
you've got to start with your goal
everything works backwards from that
for me
i wanted to get rich
and the irony is
when i started on my entrepreneurial
journey i was literally saying that to
people i want to get rich
i just want to make a bunch of money
and so i started as a copywriter
in a technology company
because i had failed to make it
in film school i actually ended up doing
horrifically
and i at the end of film school i felt
broken
embarrassed
lost
i had no idea where i was going
but i started teaching filmmaking
and as i was teaching that class i
realized wow
i don't know enough to teach these
students
i need to like research at night and
practice to be able to come in and
present this material
and a weird thing happened as i started
doing that i was actually learning a lot
more and so i was able to convey that to
the students and i was able to help the
students make their films better and it
made me realize whoa there's this weird
reciprocal loop
the harder i work over here
then go and explain it they actually can
take that knowledge and put it to use
building skill sets getting better at
something and i started thinking is that
something that i could do for myself and
at that moment these two very successful
entrepreneurs walk into my class
and at that time i was obsessed with two
things
i wanted to get rich
and i wanted six pack abs
now i grew up in a morbidly obese family
so for me that was real man and i used
to be 60 pounds heavier than i am now
and i wanted those six-pack abs man i
just had no idea how i was gonna get it
and i remember the first time that
somebody told me i think you already
have abs it's just under the fat
and i thought
what like that doesn't even make sense
because i had done like a bunch of
crunches and i'm like i still don't see
them so i don't know what the problem is
maybe it was all the licorice i had a
thing
what is up my friend you and i are
living in a golden era of
self-improvement we have books platforms
like youtube courses seminars virtual
events workshops the list really is
endless the internet has been so good
for people like you and me who want to
accomplish greater and greater things in
life and now my friend it is about to
get even better i've been spending most
of this year working on the single most
entertaining tool that you're ever going
to have around self-improvement and it
is called project kaizen it's a web 3
based game experience that will be
unlike anything else you've ever engaged
with in your life partly because the
technology is new and it's amazing if
you're not familiar with blockchain nfts
and all of that kaizen is going to be
the perfect introduction for you as it
is an excellent intersection of
entertainment and learning all backed by
the blockchain we're getting closer and
closer to launching this project for you
every single day we are working our
faces to the bone to get this thing out
there and my friend i want you to
experience it so click the link on your
screen and head on over to my discord
channel to stay up to date and be one of
the first to join me inside of project
kaizen which by the way gets its name
from the japanese term of never ending
improvement all right back to today's
episode so these two guys walk in very
accomplished entrepreneurs ripped
six-pack abs bodybuilder types and they
said hey you're coming to the world with
your hand out
if you want to control your art you have
to control your resources so if you want
to get back in the saddle and actually
become a filmmaker you're going to have
to learn to control the resources so
come with us be a copywriter but
understand this is a startup you can
have any role in the company that you
want you just have to become the right
person for that job
and so i took them at their word and i
pivoted and i left my teaching career
which had safety
and i looked to my wife and i said this
may fail but i've got to at least give
it a shot
and my wife said the words have become
famous for me which is i bet on you
thank you
now
what my wife was betting on
wasn't that i already knew how to do
what they wanted me to do because she
knew i didn't
what she was betting on
in me
is the same thing that each and every
one of you have
which is the ability to learn
and so i went into it knowing i was not
the right person for any job in that
company i'd never been in a company like
that before i'd been totally focused on
film this was software it was security
software it was nothing that i had any
interest in but i wanted to get rich
and so i did it
and for six and a half years
i put my head down
like those early days in my dorm room
and i worked my ass off around the clock
i didn't take vacations meaning if i
went somewhere i would literally guys
this is real i would take a camera
so that i could watch what was going on
back at the facility
i was always working around the clock
and at six and a half years i was so
different than where i started i had
worked my way up i was now the chief
marketing officer of the company they
had given me 10 equity in the company i
was now on paper a multi-millionaire i
had done what i set out to do i was
capable of things that i never would
have believed that i could do running a
team
building a website online advertising
marketing all things that i didn't know
i didn't even know when i started the
difference between sales and marketing i
had no idea what the difference was
but here i was now the chief marketing
officer of a company that was winning
awards it was making money
standing in this beautiful conference
room overlooking the pacific ocean and i
realize i'm miserable and i've been
miserable for a long time
and i learned a really powerful lesson
that i want you guys all to think about
right now
the goal that i had
did not take me where i wanted to go
i was living the cliche of money camp by
happiness
and i began to realize the game we're
all playing it's not success
it's not money
it's brain chemistry to sum it up in the
simplest way possible the only thing in
this life that matters
the only thing in this life that matters
is what you think about in your most
quiet moments about yourself when you're
all alone and the only thing you have
are your thoughts if in that moment
regardless of your worldly success you
feel good about who you are you feel
good about what you've done and how
you've touched other people's lives you
feel good about what you're striving for
and trying to accomplish you feel good
that in the times when it got hard if it
mattered to you you pushed through
that matters
that matters a lot
but the money doesn't matter
and so i quit
and i realized i was just not interested
in living a life no matter how much
money there was were in my quiet moments
i felt like i was wasting my life
i felt like i wasn't helping people
i felt like i wasn't connected i wasn't
connected to my wife i'd been ignoring
her for years i felt like i wasn't
connected to my business partners
anymore it was all just about the money
i didn't have a why
who knows simon sinek
pick it up for simon
[Applause]
all right
simon and i did a video that essentially
broke the internet about millennials
somebody watched it
what got simon on the world stage
is this whole concept of why
you've got to know why you're doing what
you're doing
if you're just showing up every day
to cut and dye hair
to keep your lights on
you're going to have far less energy to
make it through the hard times than
somebody who is there to help transform
somebody to help make somebody their
best to help them feel their best and i
hope that you guys saw that video not
too long ago of the hairdresser that
went around and he was doing makeovers
on homeless people
right
man
it was incredible it was so beautiful
the look on their face
at that moment where they see themselves
for the first time in front of the
mirror and they are seeing something
totally new they're seeing a version of
themselves that they did not know was
there
and the ability to give that gift like
it is so easy to get lost in the
day-to-day grind of what you do what any
of us do
but if at the core iving you is a deep
and unending why for what you're doing
you've got something
now you've got a chance
to transcend what you're doing and the
way that happens is very tactical has
nothing to do with like
being out in the air it's none of that
you're gonna have the energy that you
need to fight through people always ask
me how i generate energy
there's two ways number one take care of
your body there's just no way around
that at the end of the day it's a
biological
thing that's going on the production of
atp and the second thing is you need to
be excited about the future that you're
trying to create and when i went in and
quit
even though i had millions of dollars in
equity and i was making more than i'd
ever made
i quit
because i didn't have a why i didn't
have anything that gave me the energy to
keep pushing i didn't have excitement
for what i was doing anymore
my partners were stunned totally took
him by surprise i'm driving home i call
my wife and i say i did it i quit like
we're actually we were going to move to
greece
we were going to live for cheap on some
beach somewhere and i was gonna write
and that was gonna be that
and then i am pulling into the driveway
of my condo and my phone rings and it's
my partners
and out of love and respect i take it
i say hey baby give me a second i'm
gonna take this they're calling
and they said come out to dinner with us
and i went out
and they said look
we could do this without you
but we don't want to
and that was all i needed
to reconnect to something other than
money
and i remembered for a minute these were
guys that i loved
these were people that i had gotten to
know through good times through bad
times
through the hard times to the excitement
of the company growing
and in connecting to something other
than the money i was finally able to
really see and understand what it was
that motivated me and i confessed to
them that money was not my highest
priority in business my highest priority
was camaraderie i wanted to connect i
wanted to bring something of value to
the customer i wanted to think about the
customer i wanted to be myself and i
wanted to market in a way that was
inclusive and created a community
and in that community
we could do something more than just
sell products
and so we decided to sell that company
because they felt the same and they
wanted to do something based on passion
they wanted to have the energy and
excitement to see things through and for
three very different reasons we decided
to form quest nutrition now as i
mentioned i grew up in a morbidly obese
family so for me
i was never going to chase money again
and i told them that i was only going to
focus on value creation and it had to be
something that i had a deep and personal
connection to
so for me i started thinking every day
about saving my mom and my sister
my mom and my sister are both morbidly
obese and have been essentially my
entire life
and i knew that i was going to lose them
too soon if i couldn't solve the problem
of how they ended up there i wanted to
give them food that they could choose
based on taste and it happened to be
good for them
now if that doesn't sound hard let me
assure you that it is very hard and
there was one point in my life where we
were making the bars by hand and it was
so hard and so painful that i would wake
up this is a true story i would wake up
in the middle of the night with my hands
cramping closed
that's a weird way to wake up let me
just tell you right now
but i wanted it that
bad now we started producing the bars in
compton
and on the line this is another true
story
on the line we had bloods and crips
and in the middle of it you got the
crazy white guy
now the reason it worked
was because i was prepared to outwork
everybody else
i knew exactly what i wanted i had my
why i had my goal and it was very
specific and this is the thing about
goals they have to be incredibly
specific and my goal was to end
metabolic disease
not sell a lot of protein bars that was
not the goal i wanted to end metabolic
disease and that informed every choice
that we made as entrepreneurs every time
that we had to answer a hard question
one that might impact profitability or
how late we were going to have to work
or what we were going to have to do and
it almost always was difficult including
by the way we had to become our own
manufacturers which we did not want to
do
we wanted to outsource it we just wanted
to be marketers
but nobody would make the bar for us
or they would but they said that we had
to add sugar to it and we asked a simple
question will that help end metabolic
disease yes or no if yes we'll do it if
no we won't and it wouldn't so we didn't
it starts with that specific goal
and then because i had my why
my hands cramping closed in the face of
doing something to save my mom and my
sister it was not a hard choice in fact
i wouldn't have been able to look myself
in the eye and say i was not able to
help them
because it was hurting my hands
right it sounds ridiculous when you say
it like that but most people don't have
a personal tie to what they're doing
mother teresa has an amazing quote no
one will act for the many
but people will act for the one
and so as you guys go into your jobs and
you think about what you're trying to do
find a way to stop making it a job find
a way to make it a calling a vocation
something that really meets that why
your desire to connect or do something
great for people
which by the way when i say that the
game that you're playing is brain
chemistry what i'm talking about is
fulfillment
there's a difference between happiness
and fulfillment a bowl of ice cream
brings me happiness
it does not bring me fulfillment
fulfillment is often born of suffering
fulfillment is about doing the things
that are hard in fact the greeks have a
word for it it's called technique
technique means that you acquire a set
of skills that is unique to you the
acquisition of those skills was very
difficult and here's the important part
those skills
serve other people
to me i believe that the very
reason that we're all here
is to see how many skills we can acquire
that have utility
and then put that utility
to the test in service of others
that's going to be the thing that lights
you on fire you're busting your ass
you're really getting good at something
you are taking action you're moving
forward you're doing the things you need
to learn to do to learn and trigger that
adaptation response that humans have
you're putting yourself under this
stress you've identified a goal you're
working your way backwards
to where you are today
and that's the key it's what i call
minding the gap
there's a gap between who you are today
and who you will need to become
in order to execute against your why
that thing in you that's burning that
you really care about enough to get
across the finish line that you care
about enough to keep doing even when
it's making your hands cramp clothes
that you care about enough even when
you've got to come in and work between
rival gang members it's the thing that
you care about enough that you really
will work so hard
that the rival gang members fall in line
behind you because you're leading by
example
thank you
and that became my mission every day
i'm gonna show up and outwork everybody
i'm gonna be the first one here i'm
gonna be the last one to leave and most
importantly guys
i really hope you were listening to
robert gialdini whose books i have read
and all but memorized
the key is
you want to
connect with them you want them to fall
in love with you you want them to be
inspired you want them to feel better
about themselves when they're around you
than when they're not
and if you can pull that off they will
go to war for you
and in the beginning
when all we could do because we didn't
know production we just had to throw
human capital at it and i needed people
there not kidding
at 2am on a friday night
i had a bunch of
ex-convicts
in their early 20s with the tattoos on
the face the teardrop and all that
grinding it out to make protein bars
because i gave them hope
because i showed them
that it doesn't matter who they are
today
it only matters who they're trying to
become
and the price that they're willing to
pay to get there
and so when you guys
walk out of here
that's what you've got to ask this whole
theme of pivoting this whole theme of
keeping your center
is about knowing what you want
and believing you can make it a reality
but the only way to make it a reality is
to put in the work
you've got to put in the work the change
is hard the change is difficult the
change will demand everything of you
but man if inside you really believe in
what you're doing you really see how you
can get to that goal that you want if
you really see how you can serve other
people doing what you do with this skill
set that you've worked your ass off to
acquire
then you can actually make change in
people's lives and that's what motivates
me getting the skills has real world
implications it took me from scrounging
in my couch cushions to find enough
change to put gas in my car to building
a billion dollar business
it is absolutely limitless what you can
accomplish
now think about that if that's really
true if what i just said is true that
human potential is limitless
then how you spend your time becomes a
spiritual consideration you're the
average of the five people you spend the
most time with that's just true and but
now it's become so common to say and
it's like every instagram post that i
fear it's gonna lose its meaning who are
you spending time with because if you're
spending time with people like you
you're spending time with people like me
i'm i'm raising you up i'm just not
going to spend time with you
so it's like now if you get in a mix of
people like that who are like man we'd
love for you to raise up to this level
but if you don't it's fine but we're
just not going to spend time with you
all of a sudden that desire to belong to
something powerful that you can see is
going to lead you to your dreams and i
remember saying to my wife over and over
and over they are the surest path to my
success i don't know anything else i
just know if i can hang on to these guys
they're going to make me better and so
that was through all the years of being
embarrassed and developing actually
massive anxiety because i was always
behind i was always the dumbest person
on the phone i was always the dumbest
person in the room and it was like
was i going to be willing to emotionally
go through that to get great and most
people can't so here's the thing now
imagine i'm not the only person they
said hey this is a startup you can have
any job you want they i saw
12 people maybe more come and go over
the years they just couldn't emotionally
deal with it and so i remember thinking
to myself why is it that i'm able to do
this and the answer was i could
self-soothe faster than anyone else so i
would get kicked in the face and i would
do something really dumb i'd be called
an idiot told how stupid i was and then
i'd just be like all right i need to
re-center and that just became my
obsession i need to be able to
emotionally get back to complete neutral
so fast that you don't even see a
register on my face how'd you do it how
do you do that
literally practicing so remember the
same time i'm reading about the brain
voraciously i'm reading about people
that understand human behavior i'm
getting into cognitive science
neuroscience like really going into it
so i'm reading all this stuff going whoa
we're just a chemical processing plant
there are physiological hooks into these
chemicals so hey if you're mad scared
whatever but you force yourself to laugh
out loud you will change your
neurochemical state and you literally
your experience is the neurochemistry so
i was like whoa so i could get i could
be in a situation where i'm being
berated or i legitimately mess up and it
costs money and it's like whoa that's on
me and it is nobody's bad but my own and
i realized that what most people do
their strategy is to deflect it it's
your fault it's not my fault yes so i
started thinking of this as a metaphor
people are throwing gold at me they're
throwing it really hard and i can put a
shield up and deflect it but then i lose
that piece of gold if i drop my shield
and just take the pain let it hit me in
the head then i bend down and go this
thing which is me being stupid there's a
lesson here and now i have this piece of
gold
but the whole thing is i have to be
defenseless so i have to own it i have
to take it i can't fight if someone is
like this to this day if our team is
like hey there's something we need to
point out to you i'll do this
i square up to it i want them to know
like hey i want to hear it i want to
know like i want to be literally
physically open i'm not going to close
down i'm going to do everything i can to
square off to open myself so that they
know i'm receptive to the criticism
right because that's the nugget of gold
what i know is it's going to hurt it's
going to sting but if i can emotionally
recenter so fast you don't even see that
i went through something now i can just
process how do i take this information
you've given me and get better
everything in my life is driven by how
something makes me feel and i really
believe all you have in this world is
how you feel about yourself when you're
by yourself so in that dark quiet night
when you're all alone do you feel good
or not
and so i steer by that and when i start
losing sleep because something is
stressing me out or i think i handled
something poorly i have to correct that
and what are the tactics
so part of this is you have a belief
system through which everything is
filtered so my thing is okay belief
system i can get good at anything i set
my mind to uh belief system number two
having a growth mindset is the absolute
ideal so that means that just because
i'm not good at something now doesn't
mean i can't become good at it that i
should only value myself for being a
learner i shouldn't worry about being
smart right good talented nothing just
the willingness to stare nakedly at my
inadequacies so if i've done something
and it's making me feel badly about
myself i start running through those
filters also does this beating myself up
is it moving me towards my goal or away
from it now a little bit of beating
yourself up actually probably does move
you towards your goal because it kicks
you in the ass gets you moving taking it
seriously you're really thinking about
it but then too much of it begins to
erode yourself and so i have to balance
like am i just beating myself up and now
i've taken it too far and i'm losing
sleep over something i just need to let
go and focus on getting better instead
of punishing myself like just get better
at it
so
those those are the tactics that i use
the word yet is a huge tactic for me tom
you suck oh i'm not good at that yet
okay cool thank you got it um i can get
good at that um and and just keep coming
back to those very simple basic building
blocks of my belief system
what i value where my priorities lie
what my goal is having total clarity am
i actually moving towards it and then
just really holding yourself accountable
to that without damaging your
self-esteem one of my like guiding
principles is never do anything that
diminishes you and then never do
anything that moves you away from your
goal so again goal you have to have that
clarity so i know what i'm trying to do
okay well if i know what i'm trying to
do does beating me beating myself up
over this is that gonna help me or hurt
me oh it's gonna hurt me because i'm
gonna be more likely to slide toward
depression to think less of myself to be
less bold to take less action okay well
then we're not going to do that and i
don't think people have researched
cognitive behavioral therapy nearly
enough pattern interrupting is like
everything get better at pattern
interrupting than lebron is at shooting
like you just have to be a ninja like
you've got to be so hardcore you've got
to know about how to do that with
yourself so if i have a negative thought
that's recurring i just tell myself nope
you can't think this anymore so and
every time it will come up because i
can't stop myself from it popping up
into my conscious mind but you
absolutely can control how the next
thought goes the next thought can be oh
i'm
here's what i'll do with a negative
thought that's so rad i'm so glad this
negative thought appeared in my mind
because that reminds me to be grateful
for the fact that i'm friends with jay
shetty or that reminds me to be grateful
the fact i have a marriage that is so
insanely cool that like i legitimately
some days have to stop myself from just
curling up in a ball with her and just
chilling all [ __ ] day like that is
i'm super stoked even now jay it's so
funny i had to stop and think wait i'm
going through this list of things that
i'm grateful for what started this and
i'm like oh yeah the negative thought
like that actually just happened to me
right now so you can imagine in real
life when like you train yourself ah
every time the negative thought kicks up
don't don't sit in the emotion of the
negativity that it will bring
instead use it as a habit loop trigger
to think about something you're grateful
for and at first it feels so awkward and
it's like the negative thought just
keeps coming back but if you're diligent
and suddenly negative thoughts become a
habit loop trigger to gratitude to
positivity to repeating your rules about
i don't allow myself to think things
that tear me down so i'm not gonna think
about that even just saying that crowds
out that thought and telling other
people that hey this is what you're
doing it is unbelievable but this is why
i'm saying i'm literally just a
patchwork of all these like tools and
techniques that allow me to protect
myself from negative self-talk from
anxiety from depression i don't think
i've ever officially been in depression
uh but i've been super [ __ ] close
enough to know the feeling of staring
into the void which i don't think is
accurate it feels like the void is
collapsing in around you and just
everything is meaningless and it is all
utterly hopeless and i've had just
enough of a glimpse of how hopeless that
is
to to get where people are in those
moments but anxiety that i've been in
the thick of
so that one i know and i've used cbt
cognitive behavioral therapy to do
interrupts on that um i have a very well
developed negative voice so i have had
to
use tools and techniques to stop that i
never would have become a successful
entrepreneur if i couldn't
learn to self-soothe and at one point
that was what i would have said was my
secret power that my secret power in
business was i can self-soothe faster
than anybody else
i just keep coming back to being the
learner right so your identity isn't
group a politic this politic that tribe
this tribe that it is i'm a learner
first and foremost i'm somebody that
wants to bring value to myself into the
world first and foremost so it's like
once you get to that then as people are
assaulting you
chances of them triggering a self-esteem
like in like if somebody wanted to hurt
my self-esteem they would need to call
me out on on are you really spending
time learning or have you really
improved i think you're the same that
you were two years ago like whoa like if
i really like you said felt that that
might be true then i would really that
would cause some [ __ ] into question for
me because that's my identity right so
if somebody came to you and said
actually you're not a learner for me
where my belief is now that's so
absurdist that i would brush it off but
if they were able to like compel me to
see it the funny thing is being a
learner then kicks in again and i'm like
[ __ ] if they're really right then here's
my chance to finally actually be a
learner but so that's why i think that
one's anti-fragile but that's where it's
like you can get yourself into trouble
if they're hitting on the very thing
that your identity and self-esteem are
tied to recognizing that brain
plasticity is real
and so much of who we are let's say it's
roughly science says it's roughly 50
it's not me making it up that 50 is
hardwired and you're not going to be
able to do anything about it but 50 is
insanely malleable
and um i love this quote so great that
you can't make a racehorse out of a pig
but you can make a really fast pig
and i thought okay cool so maybe i'll
never be a racehorse but i can be a
really fast pig and so whenever i'm
feeling badly about myself or something
knocks me off center i just come back to
that idea of
what's useful how do you move forward
like even if you're not going to be the
greatest of all time does it benefit you
to act as if you could become the
greatest of all time if you pour
yourself into it and so i don't know
that i'll ever end up being the greatest
anything but dude acting like i can and
like really practicing and moving
through the world like i can become the
greatest has propelled me forward yeah
because acting like you can't
won't get you there yeah won't make you
good probably or great if you're
constantly obsessing over why i'm not
good enough or why i'll never become
great
so acting like you can at least gives
you a much better chance of getting
somewhere than nowhere 100 it's what i
call the only belief that matters
the only belief that matters is that
if i put time and energy into getting a
new skill i actually will get better at
that thing
and if you then extrapolate that and say
and skills actually have utility they
matter so
knowing how to build a business that
doesn't fall or build a business build a
building that doesn't fall down is very
very useful or a build a business that
doesn't fall apart
right so those skills actually let you
do things and so that's become sort of
my obsession is getting people to
understand you don't read a book to
check a box you don't go to school to
impress your parents you do it because
the skill that you will acquire lets you
do something in the world that other
people can't do or you wouldn't be able
to do and that has a material impact on
your life yeah i feel like you and i are
very similar in the fact that we talk
about skills a lot acquiring new skills
and i think when you have a down phase
or a breakdown phase that's when you
should think about what are the skills
i'm lacking that could benefit me so
this doesn't happen again
everybody lean in if you're listening to
this this is one of those things that
audacity is is nothing don't don't worry
about being audacious the reason people
fear being audacious is they don't want
to be me
ten years from now when this all fails
right they're thinking oh man what if
this doesn't work this guy's going to
look like an [ __ ] and it's like yeah
maybe other people will think that i'm a
total dumbass it doesn't matter and why
doesn't it matter because of techne
because if i know how to build a house i
can build a house so my thing is i'm not
trying to posture or be cool i'm telling
you i have a set of [ __ ] skills that
set of skills lets me do things i'm just
interested in doing those things so
whether or not i hit my timelines does
not matter i'm in the skill acquisition
game skills let you do things i'm in the
game of doing the things my skills allow
me to do so i want to impact people's
lives maybe i'm not able to pull it off
at a film level i'll find another way or
maybe it takes me a lot longer to pull
it off okay fine as long as i love what
i'm doing even when i'm failing
there's nothing to lose no because you
know on this idea of technique along the
way you are fulfilled with every step on
the journey for sure right every time
you upload
a new you know conversation a new
episode of your show it's it's it's a
it's a cool feeling to be able to put
that out there and know that it is quote
unquote you know impacting people and it
is it is and that's the thing you know
this like you
you say something into a microphone like
right now the the feeling that i have
while i know people are listening the
feeling i have is it's just us in this
room
but one day somebody's gonna come up to
you or me and say i heard that podcast
you guys did and it really touched me
and it changed me in this way that's all
i need so i'm not i'm not afraid to be
audacious because i know that you're
never going to exceed what you're aiming
at so you're only your
hope is to hit some percentage of what
you're aiming at so i might as well
dream massive and one it excites me and
then two i'm not afraid of the failure
so once you have that like oh it's
exciting for me to dream big and i'm
hyper conscious of you break it down in
small pieces like i'm i'm not worried
about building theme parks and all that
stuff right now what i'm doing right now
today is make a good comic put out a
good interview show that's it that's
what my life consists of stay in
business
be profitable like those are the things
that i think about so i keep my
you know my goals my immediate term
goals very manageable but i make sure
that they're feeding naturally into the
grand vision but i don't get scared or
lost and thinking oh my god i have to do
all that nope right now today i need to
read a script i need to make sure it's
okay i need to authorize it to be drawn
that's it that's today and as long as
you're able to focus on that and get
good at that and then just always push
yourself to make your skill set better
and better and better as long as it's
leading towards that thing and you have
clarity on where you're trying to go so
you make sure the skills you're
acquiring will actually lead you there
you'll be fine i
love the mindset stuff i love it
and it's changed my life
and i love
watching somebody's eyes light up when
they get it for the first time
and so i created impact theory
university
and it is the book but in lecture form
yeah and so i've already created that
stuff now i know that i would open up a
much bigger market if i were to make the
book so that those people could go oh my
god this stuff is life-changing and then
i say you like the book you'll love
impact theory university sign up today
and it would
quintuple our business overnight i can
pretty much guarantee it
when you say no to something that comes
with a lot of zeros you do so because of
your value system
and what i value when i think about tom
bill you on his deathbed if i may speak
in the third person
i think of myself on my deathbed i don't
regret not writing the book but i regret
tremendously not telling stories
because i think
if i want to impact 100 of the world
two percent of them can be impacted with
what we're doing right now where you say
think like this act like this it will
make your life better and two percent
will do it it's amazing now i don't mean
two percent of your audience your
audience is the two percent they've
selected themselves out they watch your
show so now some ungodly number of them
are going to go out and do it because
they belong to that very rare group
the 98 though they will not
and the i became obsessed with this
because working at quest i had 3 000
employees a thousand of them grew up in
the inner cities and many of them could
process raw data faster than i could
they were smarter than me but they had
done nothing with their life and they
were not going to do anything with their
life not that would be remembered or
anything that even they valued right and
when i boiled down to why not it came
down to they didn't have a growth
mindset they didn't have the only belief
that matters so i thought okay well how
do i get it to them so i
we created quest university and i would
show up early i would stay late i would
tell anybody anything they wanted to
know about mindset building a business
whatever and two percent of them did it
and it was life-changing and it's
amazing and i still get phone calls from
people like you changed my life it's
amazing but it's only two percent
the other 98 are either apathetic or
actively antagonistic to change so how
do you reach them
entertainment the punch line is you have
to get to the limbic system which you do
through entertainment so you tell them
tv movies yeah
i really believe that the way that
humans assimilate truly disruptive
information is through narrative and so
part of the way that i've changed my
life that i've opened my mind to things
like a growth mindset is through like
the matrix it's not a mistake that the
matrix came out the year that i was
going through this like am i able to
improve myself or not the movie comes
out ends up becoming the dominant
metaphor of my life i'd love to say that
it was a lightning rod moment when i saw
it my life has changed forever it wasn't
like that but it planted a seed that i
just kept coming back to oh man it's
like neo in the matrix oh man and you
just start piecing together like these
fascinating belief systems because a lot
of times the wisest characters and films
are often taken from like yoda sounds
exactly like loud zoo from the daodejing
so it's like
basically you've got george lucas who's
very familiar with eastern philosophy
talking eastern philosophy through this
little puppet but
especially if you hear it when you're
young man like your mind is really open
to it so because of star wars i ended up
becoming obsessed with the dow dejing
and then because of that that ultimately
was my doorway to a growth mindset
there were only three books you could
recommend to people that this all the
books they could read in their life this
is the hardest thing probably but if
you're like three books to live a better
life to understand the world and to just
thrive what would you say are those
three books it's not a hard question but
it's one that i'm sure i will answer
differently every time somebody asks uh
number one is mindset by carol dweck
that's correct it's the most important
book in the english language
uh number two is the obstacle is the way
by ryan holiday which is an absolutely
extraordinary book and then number three
is extreme ownership by jacob willing
and leif babin shout out to leif the
first is read the book mindset by carol
dweck period it's it's so critical man
and it just lays the foundation for how
to think
um that that's step number one step
number two is you will only ever get in
your life what you absolutely must have
your absolute obsession so you that says
your obsessions become your possessions
that is so true
and so getting people to understand that
that level of like i must have this
until it is that like whatever it is if
it's taking care of your wife if it's
doing something rad for your mom if it's
having a beach house whatever it is
until you need that like you need oxygen
you won't get it
it is going to demand so much of you
you're going to fall so many times
there's going to be so many obstacles
and unless it must happen in your life
one of them will make you stop
like you said you can't be for sale
like if your will can be bought
it doesn't make you a bad person man it
really doesn't but if your will can be
bought you're just not gonna get it
it's all your fault
everything every bad thing that has ever
happened to you is your fault
and if tonight a meteorite comes
screaming through the atmosph