Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
hey everybody welcome to another episode
of impact theory today we're going to be
talking about aging and your career how
to make the most of your life no matter
what age you're at how to push through
limitations get things done get your
head in the right place and accomplish
extraordinary things which i promise you
can do
if you follow some of the things we're
going to be talking about today
all right without further ado
here are the questions at tom bilyeu
you've written before about having no
direction when you were younger until
you realized a growth mindset and
applied yourself what was and how did
you find the original motivation to see
change and break out of your old
patterns i find that's one of the
hardest things all right so this is of
course a very complex um
answer
to give you like every nitty-gritty
thing of how i ended up finally making
that shift would be it would take like a
six-part uh docu-series you know of four
hours each but
i'll shorten it to the the like trigger
moment that really changed everything so
i
go to my now father-in-law to ask for
his blessing to marry his daughter
and he says no
and i was like
whoa okay well at least you're being
honest and
i had said look i know you see as this
young broke
under-educated kid but i promise one day
i'm gonna make your daughter a wealthy
woman
and
he was like very kind very kind my
father-in-law has always been
extraordinarily kind to me but he was
nonetheless honest about that he didn't
see how i was going to take care of his
daughter and he even asked me directly
he said look
i have become very successful my
father-in-law and
i have given
lisa
a certain lifestyle
and how do you plan to take care of her
and
i was like
so full of that youthful like no you
don't understand like i'm gonna become
something
and then i had to reconcile that idea
because she ended up saying yes
and then i found myself laying in bed
four to five hours a day every day and i
didn't have a job and i was living in my
soon-to-be mother-in-law's house and my
wife well girlfriend at the time fiance
uh was working and my one job was to
make a sandwich for her when she came
home at lunch and there were times where
i was scrambling out of bed
to have that sandwich made before she
walked in the door and i was just like
this is gnarly how are you ever going to
make her wealthy if you're laying in bed
all day you barely get out of bed fast
enough to make her a sandwich at her
lunch break so she's already been at
work for hours and hours and hours
gotten up gotten dressed ready driven to
work gone worked for hours come back
home to see you you're scrambling out of
bed your hair is a mess you're wearing
the same thing every day
and not like in a steve jobs way in a
like i'm too lazy to get close way so
you look like a bum
not doing your hair
i was a total mess
and
i'm just like how do i reconcile
that i actually believe one day i'm
gonna make her a wealthy woman but i'm
not getting out of bed
and that was when i realized there's a
difference between ambition being a
dreamer
and having drive and seeing those dreams
to fruition
and so i set a rule for myself because i
felt ashamed
and for the first time in my life i
didn't try to hide from the shame but it
was in this period that i started to
think of my then fiancee soon to be wife
as a witness to my crimes
and i remember thinking
when i was alone i didn't feel that kind
of pressure to succeed i wanted to
succeed but i didn't feel
pressure because if i didn't nobody
suffered but me nobody lived in the
unfurnished apartment but me nobody had
to sleep on the air mattress but me
but now
my wife to be
was
going to be affected by whether i laid
in bed all day or not and that filled me
with shame and it filled me with shame
in a way that i didn't want to hide from
i felt like it was right to be ashamed
of my behavior not to think i was
worthless but to to say i need to earn
my worth
and so i set a rule which is that i was
going to get out of bed in 10 minutes or
less so from the time i realized i was
awake until my feet were on the floor
and i was out of bed was never going to
be more than 10 minutes
and in many ways that's become one of my
most important rules i live by it to
this day
some 20 years later
that i get out of bed in 10 minutes or
less doesn't matter no matter what's
going on i'm out of bed in 10 minutes or
less
and
that
one step
got me to start working and
it got me up and saying okay what are my
dreams what's the obstacle that stands
between where i'm at where i'm trying to
get to what can i do in the next 15
minutes that will move me closer to my
goal and i started doing those things
and it just became this routine this
habit to
get up and get moving and
i never would have gotten there had i
said something like who does my
father-in-law think he is to say that
money doesn't matter
you know he doesn't know what we're
about or what we want to do
and
instead i said
either
stop saying that you're going to
achieve greatness
and recognize what you want to do is lay
in bed
tell your fiance that's the truth of who
you want to be and where you want to go
which by the way is absolutely fine
but don't say you're going to do one
thing and then actually do another
there's no integrity in that
and that hurt and i didn't like the way
that felt to recognize that i was saying
something but it was just rhetoric
wasn't actually living up to it
and then it felt so good
so good so unbelievably good
to
do exactly what i said i was going to do
and
on a very long timeline it finally made
my wife a wealthy woman so i actually
did get this incredible moment which
will remain one of the greatest moments
of my life i'm sure forever
when jesus
13 years later
my father-in-law came to visit
this is when i was at quest and there's
300 000 square feet
a thousand employees walking around
protein bars coming off the line at like
1.5 million bars a day
and i said andreas
do you remember asking me how i was
going to take care of your daughter he
said yes
and i said how am i doing
and
he just started to cry and it was so
awesome
like i said he'd always been so kind and
once we he knew that we were going to
get married whether uh he wanted us to
or not he never did anything but support
us but to have that moment
for myself for him for lisa for it to
all have been
the result
of a simple rule
to get out
within 10 minutes
and start doing whatever my goals demand
and that was all it took a little bit of
shame
acted on
all right guys if you're going to unlock
your potential and achieve everything
you've ever wanted you're going to have
to constantly be making progress towards
your goals so what do you do when you
get stuck the bad news is getting stuck
happens to everyone at some point it's
pretty much unavoidable but the good
news is that if you're willing to take
action there is a framework that you can
follow to get back on track if that
sounds familiar or if you're stuck in a
rut and not achieving your goals as fast
as you want i've pulled a class out of
impact theory university that you need
to watch right now it's called six steps
to getting unstuck and you can watch it
for free at unstuck.impacttheory.com
inside i'll teach you about how to use
cognitive reframes my four-level value
stack to becoming unstoppable as well as
the single most important thing to start
doing today
to regain momentum to watch this free
preview for impact theory university go
to
unstuck.impacttheory.com
i'll see you on the inside guys all
right take care and now back to the
episode
how can you escape and start to do what
you love without compromising your
responsibility to your family i'm a
father who works eight hours a day five
days a week is it still possible for me
to pursue what i love and how i know i
need to come up with an escape plan i
just feel it's too risky okay nights and
weekends nights and weekends nights and
weekends so i get it
between working your job and the kids it
is not going to be easy
you either have to find a job that pays
you what you're getting paid now that's
at least closer to what you love or you
need to find a way in your spare time to
put energy into getting the skills you
need to get a job that's going to move
you closer or to start your own business
or whatever but when we started quest we
were running awareness technologies a
software company by day so i was working
a full not like 40-hour week 70-hour
week and then on top of that doing all
the things that quest demanded to get
that off the ground literally
late night with rolling pins in our
hands making these damn bars by hand and
it wasn't until they were profitable
that we started to transition and when i
first transitioned from awareness to
quest
i took a massive pay cut
so i took all my expenses whittled them
down to as close to nothing as i could
get them
i sold one of our cars and so i was at
times having to bum rides off my
employees
lisa and i stopped going out to eat
we hunkered down it was as inexpensive
of a diet as you can get no
entertainment or at least hyper cheap
entertainment and
just cutting our expenses to the quick
as much as humanly possible and living
off of as little as possible so that we
could build that dream and again doing
it where you're working 100 110 hour
weeks
it's just what it takes
but it was fun
so you have to get yourself where you
know what you want to do
and
the thing that you want to do
the doing of it is enjoyable so there
should be a amount of just joy in doing
that thing the greatest trick i have
ever pulled was in the structuring of
impact theory so
exit quest sell it for a billion dollars
never need to work again
and
when you know what you want as meaning
and purpose you know you want to build
something new but you start asking
yourself i'm not going to turn this into
something that i don't enjoy so what is
it that i would like doing on a
day-to-day basis where even if i were
struggling even if i were failing that i
would love my day-to-day life
and then i built that
so there is a job out there there is a
company out there there is a side hustle
that you can do that the doing of the
thing
is call it at least 70
joy there's always going to be overhead
there's always going to be stuff that
you don't enjoy doing but if you can get
that ratio to 70 30 you're laughing you
have to be very careful about what you
decide to march towards that dream
test it out you better actually like in
failure the day today so we're
struggling it's not going the way that
we thought but man i'm still getting to
do this
right at impact theory
if i were failing i get to answer rad
questions i get to spend time with
people that are trying to improve their
life i get a right
manga like come on
it's amazing
so even if i fail my day-to-day is
extraordinarily joyful
so that as you think about building that
escape plan those are the things to
think about
how do you overcome the inner voice that
keeps telling you that it's too late to
redefine your life or take the time
needed for redefinition at 36 i'm scared
more than ever to lose therefore not
trying these what-ifs are shaping my
fears
okay here's the good news at 36 homie
you are young you are young the average
person lives at 78.
so it's like what are you
you're roughly halfway so you've still
got a lot of years left to me i think
you can work all out i work 93 hours a
week i think i can work all out 93 hours
a week until at least 65.
now i want to stay in such great shape
that i can push that by the time i get
to 65 i'm like 65 why would i have to
slow down now 75 let's go
so doing the things that i love making
sure that i'm taking care of my mental
health making sure that i'm taking care
of my physical body right i treat my
mind and my body the way that lebron
treats his it's like business is my game
and i want to play this game for as long
as humanly possible so the real question
is what is it that you can fall in love
with enough
that makes all the fighting through the
negative voice and all of that worth it
so that's number one it's just to
recognize that you've got a long
timeline ahead of you but let's say that
the person that's asking this question
is 65 and they're like oh my god the
technical revolution that's going on i
don't want to have to learn this stuff
stop
that's just being afraid of change
there is a process that you can go
through that instead of being about
change is about falling in love
it starts with belief
your behaviors follow your belief and if
you believe that you're too old to learn
something new then you won't learn
something new so what i want you to do
is focus on how fun learning is it
doesn't even need to be this big change
or swing in your life just the act of
learning is fun the second thing i want
you to focus on is that when nobel
prizes are won they are typically one
where two big areas overlap so in
reinventing yourself you're not getting
rid of all of your old experience it's
going to age you in ways that you can't
yet understand so for instance
i went from technology building security
software well first filmmaking right
teaching film
to building security software as random
as you get so seem like oh there's no
overlap here then i went from
and what i realized was being a
filmmaker made me a better marketer
then at awareness technologies i've
learned all this tech i've learned much
more about marketing now i go into
nutrition and i realize okay hold on all
the things that i learned about
marketing and storytelling now go into
quest and in fact was one of the reasons
that we grew as fast as we did was i was
approaching content creation as a
storyteller and not as a traditional
advertiser or marketer would and so i
did that before other people were doing
it because i had the experience in the
other areas now if i hadn't had the
experience in those other areas that it
seemed like i was leaving behind i was
just reinventing myself
then i'm sure that would have been super
scary but the reality was recognizing
whoa like all of this stuff comes with
me i'm bringing this experience with me
and now as i went from quest to impact
theory i've been able to see things very
clearly so take when we first started
into comics we were in physical print
comics we spent about four months in
physical print comics i realized how
their distribution works i was like this
is a joke you have to be kidding all my
experience at quest you know with like
40 000 points of distribution or
whatever was massive tens tens and tens
and tens and tens and tens of thousands
of individual points of distribution you
get reporting on all of it you know
exactly where your product is going it's
incredible so i was like
the way that they're reporting over here
in the comic industry is a joke you will
never be able to sell very well this is
obviously going to die so we immediately
got out of that and went purely digital
now i wouldn't have had that insight had
i not had the experience so it's
recognizing having a different belief
about your previous experience what your
age means
if you let your age determine that oh
you know there's very little life left
for me to live and i'm trying to retire
by 50 or whatever it is story that
you're telling yourself you tell
yourself a different story which is that
the more i learn the more different
areas that i can really develop some
mastery in the more likely i am to have
fun and be successful as i go along and
that's a critical thing and then the
last one
this is a weird game
are you ready for it
it's what i call the brain
in a vat
thought
experiment this sounds dumb but the
number of
mental traps this gets me out of is
extraordinary
so what i say if i'm lamenting that oh
my god i'm 45 like am i ever going to be
able to pull off the things that i want
i would say this to myself
tom for all you know you're a brain in a
vat
and that all of this is an illusion and
i mean that literally that first of all
everything you see really is an illusion
your brain is encased in total darkness
and yet you feel like you see all this
stuff but light never actually touches
your brain let that sink in
and
but it's even possible that this is
actually a simulation like matrix style
simulation i'll let you can do the
research on that to see that
mathematically it's actually more
probable that you're in a simulation
than you're not no i actually don't
believe you are but it's a fascinating
thought experiment that has some
credibility to it so okay since this
could be a simulation
what if i just became conscious this
moment
and everything prior to this moment is
just programmatic context that's needed
for my human brain to work the way that
it's supposed to work and so age is
literally just a number the belief that
i have that you know i'm getting over
the hill and it's probably too late for
me and it's too late to you know
reinvent myself and i've got mortgage
and i've got kids and you know it's just
irresponsible for me ah
those are all beliefs that were
programmed in me to get me to act a
certain way now so if i could change
those beliefs it would give me different
feelings and different behaviors right
now and since this is all just a
simulation anyway and none of those are
real i don't have to feel beholden to
those now i know how absurd that sounds
remember i don't actually think we are
in a simulation i don't actually think
that i'm a brain in a vat other than
just the way that the human animal
actually is
but running that thought experiment
reminds you of one simple truth
your beliefs govern your behaviors
so if your beliefs govern your behaviors
and by the way beliefs are not
recognized truth
they're simply choices that you've made
along the way
beliefs are not objective truth
you have to recognize that
so they're decisions that you've made
about what you're going to believe in so
okay if these are just decisions that
i've made then i can make different
decisions i can believe different things
and if my behaviors are governed by my
beliefs and i change my beliefs then i
will change my behaviors and so that's
what i would do if i were having a
thought like that and then i would just
remind myself i love learning new [ __ ]
so now i'm just going to go learn
something that could lead me down a path
that i want to go down and recognize
that it's going to take a long ass time
and that's fine because it's fun
learning and getting better
emotions should never stop you from
achieving your goals so if you feel
stuck overwhelmed low on confidence
you're beating yourself up or you feel
like you're not deserving of the things
you want in life i have something to
tell you emotions are not facts and you
should never let them hold you back and
yet i find that people do this all the
time they mistake that feeling for
objective truth and it sends them this
downward spiral
reaching greater levels of success in
life means knowing how to use your brain
and if you're in a rut right now or if
you've been struggling for a while to
achieve your goals then i've pulled a
class from impact theory university to
help you get back on track it's called
six steps to getting unstuck and it's
for anyone who wants to know the exact
steps to achieving big goals when life
puts challenges in your way if you want
to check it out go to
unstuck.impacttheory.com
to get access it's a free preview
alright guys i'll see you on the inside
now let's get back to today's episode
how do you balance having a sense of
urgency and being patient these ideas
seem paradoxical and these ideas are
paradoxical so first of all i'm not a
big fan of being patient so i used to
wear a shirt that said f patients as in
[ __ ] patients and
when people talk about patients i know
what they mean so i can already hear
people typing in the
feed that you have to have patience and
i will say this you do not have to have
patience you have to play the long game
and the reason that i worry about
patience
is if you're trying to achieve something
grand in your life you're going to come
up against an unrelenting number of
obstacles and an easy way to analogize
it is a rocket and what's known as
escape velocity
for you to escape the gravitational pull
of the earth you have to get going at a
certain speed and then you can finally
break free
if you cannot get to that speed and
sustain it you will never
reach escape velocity and you will
always come crashing back down to earth
so
to accomplish anything grand you have to
get that escape velocity that escape
velocity requires that you generate
momentum to generate momentum you have
to move as as if everything has to be
done right now today now of course
you're never going to be able to do
everything right now today but if you're
constantly like oh just be patient
things will happen in due time it gives
you a passive posture if on the other
hand you switch it ever so slightly and
you say look most things do take an
incredible amount of time so i'm going
to play this sustainably i'm going to
show up every day in a way that i can
show up for decades okay i'm not going
to burn myself out or go so crazy that
it's not fun i'm going to love this in
fact joy is a part of sustaining it so
i'm going to play this in a way that i
can sustain that's full of joy that
gives me fulfillment but i'm going to do
everything with urgency i'm going to do
things as fast as i can i'm going to be
as bold as i can and by being bold and
moving with urgency but playing in a
sustainable way that fills me with joy
and fulfillment now i've actually got a
shot of hitting escape velocity now as i
hit obstacle after obstacle after
obstacle i'm never accidentally waiting
for something or someone else because
i'm in a
hey it's all good you know take your
time
[ __ ] that
don't be patient don't be a dick either
if people think that the opposite of
patient is [ __ ]
then yeah of course i understand why you
push back on it but the opposite of
patient is not [ __ ] the opposite of
patient is
persistence enthusiasm joy momentum like
that's the opposite of patient
you always have to play the long game
you always move with integrity you
always go for the referral and never the
sale
because
those are the things that actually allow
you to go fast
i'm just saying do the things that
actually allow you to go fast stop
thinking you need to be patient in order
to be kind stop thinking you need to be
patient in order to
love your life you don't need to be
patience is not going to serve you
anything that makes you passive is going
to be a problem
never play the short game
never try to cram something down
somebody's throat
find a way to make this joyful it's the
only way to play the game for a long
time but never put off till tomorrow
what you could do today and never put
off until this afternoon what you could
do right now and never do the second
most important thing first
ask yourself this question
what would i have to do
to make my 10-year plan come true in six
months shout out to peter thiel for that
question it will force you to think of
radically new scenarios it's not about
incremental improvement it's about
quantum leaps forward now when you start
thinking like that you can actually
build something big
but if you're prepared to be patient and
let let things happen in due time things
don't happen like that
the second law of thermodynamics states
everything moves towards chaos
and the only way to defeat that chaos is
to pour energy into the system patience
is not energy poured into the system
poor energy into the system but do it in
a joyful way
how do i become so focused on my
individual journey and goals that i stop
comparing myself and translating the
success of those around me to mean that
i've failed
okay time for another silly idea that's
obscenely impactful
fill your heart with love
you've got to want to see other people
succeed you've got to get excited by
that you've got to want to help other
people
when you have a heart full of love
you're excited to see other people win
you want to see other people win
and
you want to beat them
at their own game that you want to go
head-to-head to them in a fair
competition where you're even doing
kindnesses and helping them and still
win
now you're playing the game right
that's going to put you in a position
where emotionally it doesn't hurt
anymore to see them win because you're
like [ __ ] i love that i love to see good
people win i love to see people doing
something innovative i love to be
inspired by what other people are doing
and i'm not going to judge myself
through the lens of a moment
i'm going to judge myself to the lens of
a lifetime so maybe in a moment they're
ahead of me maybe right now they're
doing this better than me but i'm
playing this forever this is a forever
game i want to be in this for a long ass
time and so cool i'm inspired by what
they're doing i'm stoked that they're
winning i want to celebrate that it
fills me with the light energy it makes
me feel good i can connect with them
more easily i can celebrate other people
it doesn't always have to be me which
just attracts other people by the way
people want to be around the person
that's like oh my god you're killing it
man that's so amazing look over there
this guy's really doing something
special and by the way i'm super
inspired by that i'm learning from that
i'm elevating that
then all of a sudden people want to
elevate you they want to help you and
when you're down there in the mix
people are going to come to your aid now
here's the important part what you build
your self-esteem around
matters and it matters a lot and if you
build your self-esteem around winning or
being better than them
that's a recipe for a miserable life
if on the other hand you build your
self-esteem
around the sincere
pursuit
the sincere pursuit of something
so i'm trying to build the next disney
i'm trying to make sure that nobody
makes it to the age of 15 without
encountering a growth mindset
okay word will i ever pull it off
disney has a 90-year head start in
billions of dollars
on me
so maybe i don't maybe i'm never able to
pull it off
but i don't value myself for whether or
not i achieve that in fact
to value myself only for whether or not
i have achieved it means i have to feel
bad the entire journey
there's no logic in that that doesn't
make any sense the whole punch line of
life
is to feel good about yourself when
you're by yourself
to live a life that is full of joy to be
fulfilled
okay that's the punchline it's not money
not wealth not fame not adulation not
winning
it's
joy
so
what i reward myself for emotionally
isn't the having of it
it's pursuing it sincerely not rhetoric
not showing up and saying oh i want to
build the next disney but it's really
just talk no no i'm actively trying to
figure out what skills i need to get
better at what people i need to get on
here what i need to fix in my approach
in order to actually
build the next disney and actually make
sure that nobody gets the age of 15
without encountering a growth mindset
and i'm honest with myself about when
i'm making progress towards that and
when i'm not
and the reason that i'm so honest with
myself because that always stings when i
realize i'm not
it makes me a just course and means that
i
have a much better shot of actually
getting there because i actually am
really truly sincerely trying to get to
that goal i just don't value myself for
getting it i value myself for sincerely
actually showing up and doing the things
i need to do to make it come true
and so as i struggle and fail and fall
down and get back up and wipe the blood
off my face and try again that's the
very thing
that makes me feel good about myself
and when you make that subtle shift from
oh i had to win to feel good to i had to
play to win to feel good
everything changes in life especially
when you could be like damn the person
that just dunked to me
damn
that was impressive
and i'll give you a hint
i practice this with video games
i play a game called destiny 2 it's a
first person shooter you're playing
against real people
sometimes people that teabag which is
deeply unpleasant emotionally
and
and you can get close sometimes so close
you can taste it you know you're gonna
win and you lose and then they tea bag
you and at that point you have to be
able to say yo
they played well
i'm super impressed i don't like the tea
bagging but i'm impressed
and
instantly your energy shifts and it's no
longer about poor me or i'm a loser it's
just like damn that was quality play
and then if you played badly you don't
lie about it like yo i completely messed
that up
here's what i should have done better
you take that to your real life
and
you'll have that same light energy you
will constantly refine your skill set
you will constantly get better and over
the course of a life
you'll see that you did something pretty
special and that you only valued
yourself for the journey anyway
that is one of the great secrets of life
and a tremendous place to end guys thank
you so much for joining me put those
things to practice in your life it will
change you forever alright until next
time my friends be legendary take care
peace