Kind: captions
Language: en
so please join me in welcoming Mr Tom
[Applause]
Bilu
[Music]
hello first of all thank you guys for
that warm welcome Ryan it was awesome to
have been on the podcast what you put
together here is really incredible I'm
pretty Blown Away not only by the group
of people you put together but just by
the overall production is uh pretty
incredible all right so somewhere my
slides
exist all right the first thing to know
about me is am not a born entrepreneur
now there are many people that consider
themselves a born entrepreneur I am not
one of them I know that there were kids
out there that had lemonade stands when
they were like 6 months old they
couldn't hold their head up but they
could sell that was not me I was totally
when it came to stuff like that
I had a paper route and they gave your
money in two ways one they just gave you
sort of a blanket weekly payment for
delivering the paper but then the other
part of it was you were supposed to go
collect that money and I was too afraid
to knock on the doors to collect the
money so I never got that part but I
felt so obligated that I said I would do
it that I kept delivering the papers
essentially for free so that's where I
started as an entrepreneur my parents
biggest frustration was that I was
epically lazy and if they handed out
gold medals for being lazy I would have
won I assure you hands down there was a
period in my life where I would spend
between two and 3 hours in bed because
it was warm in bed and it was cold out
of bed all right that's true I I
actually did an interview with Joo
willink if you guys know him extreme
ownership his book totally blew me away
and in the middle of the interview I
confessed that and he said Tom don't
worry we'll let you edit that out and I
said Jo I don't I actually don't want to
edit that out because right now the
narrative about what it means to be an
entrepreneur is to be naturally gifted
and I call total on that
because I'm not naturally gifted I don't
have any natural talents and all of us
are born as this lump of jelly that
can't hold its own head up that poos in
it pants and we all learn to do things
and it's that ability to specialize that
makes us great and the things that you
choose to put your time and energy into
those are going to be the things that
allow you to accomplish something but
all of that is a choice now my
entrepreneurial Journey began because
even though I was a slightly chubby kid
growing up in a morbidly obese family in
Tacoma
Washington I always knew two things
about
myself one day I was going to be rich
and I was going to have six pack abs
like those are the two things is that
kid that was you know jiggling his belly
thinking one day I'm not going to have
to suck in my gut it's not going to be
pushing out my t-shirt I'm going to
figure that out I had no idea how I was
going to do it because what my parents
had taught me to do was eat really bad
food though my mom in her defense
wouldn't let me eat chicken nuggets cuz
those are clearly unhealthy so she let
me have turkey nuggets cuz those are way
better for you so I spent my teenage
years deep frying turkey nuggets and
living the dream it was amazing I
shuddered to think how much fried food I
have eaten in my life and that's where I
started I had the sense that I could do
more that I could be more but what my
parents were teaching me how to do was
to be a good employee and to them that
meant keep your head down do as little
work as possible and avoid punishment at
all costs and so at one point I actually
considered myself the king of remedial
jobs and I said it with pride I was so
excited every interview I went into I
would get the job I would know that and
how did I know because I would look
through the newspaper for jobs where I
knew the person interviewing me will be
less educated than I am and those were
the jobs that I actually went after now
that's where I
started now I'm going to tell you in a
minute how I end up very very very far
from there but I want people to really
think about that when I left for college
my own mother who had always been my
biggest cheerleader quietly assumed I
was going to
fail she was one of those amazing moms
she kicked me out of the house she
forced me to go she said you've got to
chase your dreams you've got to do this
and then once I left she spent every day
after that trying to get me back and I
said Mom what what gives here you
literally kick me out of the nest when
I'm 18 and then spend every day guilting
me into coming home why just kick me out
let's skip the middle man and she said I
never wanted you to say what if and I
just assumed you would fail and she said
it with No
Malice but I didn't display any signs of
being able to accomplish
I had cheated my way through high school
I didn't take it seriously so when I got
to college she just assumed that the big
bad world would eat me up but what she
didn't understand was I knew one day I
was going to be
rich now what I didn't know at that time
is that my quest for money would take me
to some amazing and interesting
places but first I had to meet my
version of the White Rabbit if you know
me if you follow me socially or anything
you know that I'm obsessed with the
Matrix if you don't know that now you
will definitely know that by the end of
this
talk and the reason I'm obsessed with
the Matrix is it is the perfect metaphor
for my life and I think for the lives of
many people and we'll get into the
detail of exactly how that is but these
two guys that were successful
entrepreneurs and bodybuilders happened
to walk into a class when I was a
teacher and I thought oh my God sixpack
abs and money it's right there like this
is what I've been looking for these guys
are my white rabbit I'm going to follow
them I'm going to figure out what it is
that they've done and they were just
starting a technology startup and they
said hey we need a copywriter why don't
you come be a copywriter they said but
don't think of yourself as a copywriter
think of yourself as an owner in this
company help us overcome these problems
you can have any job you want within the
company you just have to become the
right person for that job and so I was
just young enough and just dumb enough
to believe them and take them at their
word and I went all in and for the first
time I really got to show people that I
was wildly ambitious and that I was
willing to suffer and we all have a
superpower and my superpower may be the
willingness and ability to endure
suffering and I'm not necessarily saying
that's always a good thing and in fact I
want to introduce you to a quote which
hopefully most of you know and this is
the positive side of suffering this is a
nichy quote this quote is so meaningful
to me and you'll understand how this
idea ended up changing my life in a
minute and I'm going to read it because
it's worth everyone hearing to those
human beings who are of any concern to
me I wish suffering desolation sickness
ill treatment indignities I wish that
they should not remain unfamiliar with
profound self-contempt the torture of
self-mistrust the wretchedness of the
vanquished I have no pity for them
because I wish them the only thing that
can prove today whether one is worth
worth anything or not that one
endures that one
endures shitty things are going to
happen to you if they haven't already
and I'm sure they have many tragedies
have befallen every person in this room
and what I want you guys to recognize
right now is thank
God because those are the things that
weed out the sick and the weak those are
the things that weed out the people who
just they don't have the fortitude to
see it
through and if you don't need to be an
entrepreneur to succeed but you do need
something what is that something and I'm
here to tell you that something is the
ability to endure my ability to handle
suffering my ability to keep going when
something is boring my ability to learn
a new skill long after everybody else
has gotten over it and gotten bored and
they are no longer interested all I can
see is its
utility and in seeing its utility and
becoming obsessed with what that thing
is going to allow me to do I Endure no
matter how hard it gets no matter how
painful it is if it lives in service of
my goals I do it and that was the one
thing nobody could see that was the one
thing when I was a kid nobody could
understand they didn't know that the
reason I wasn't doing the paper route
was because I didn't care and because I
didn't care I didn't push it didn't mean
that when I found that thing I cared
about out that I wouldn't
push and the first thing was get rich
and I used to say to myself all the time
you're going to get rich or you're going
to die
trying and so starting as a copywriter I
started busting my ass step number one I
convinced my wife we're going to because
there were two other partners that hired
me I'm going to pick an apartment that's
no more than 5 minutes from either of
them that way if they call me at 2 in
the morning I'll be there in 5 minutes
and they're going to know no one else in
their company is as serious as me and
I'm going to claw my way up this company
and I'm going to get whatever job I
become the right person for and I'm
going to work my way up and by the time
we ended up selling that company I had
clawed my way through Sweat Equity into
owning 10% of the company and being the
chief marketing officer from starting as
the copywriter the person that everybody
asked who's the kid in the server room
was the only person that didn't have a
window they literally put me in the room
with all the computer
servers but starting from there I knew I
could wow people because I was willing
to grind it
out and that is one of the most valuable
things that anybody can do all right now
that company we grew to the point where
in 2010 that was a technology company it
was named as the 42nd fastest growing
technology company in North America I
had suffered a lot I hadn't taken a day
off in like 6 and a half years except
for Christmas and
fairness I wouldn't let my wife go on a
vacation because I was so hellbent to
get
rich and then I realized almost eight
and a half years in here we are we've
just been named the 42nd fast growing
technology company in North America
we're making money we're winning
Awards beautiful conference room
overlooking the Pacific Ocean and I
turned to my partner and I say I'm
completely miserable I
quit and I hand back your Equity I'm not
going to cross the finish line I don't
think I should get anything for
that and they said what are now famous
words for me we could do this without
you but we don't want to and in that
moment I realized what had been missing
I realized the reason I was living the
cliche of money can't buy happiness I
was realizing why what Tony Robin says
about success without fulfillment being
the worst kind of failure was because
what I cared about was
connection I'd gotten into it and gotten
to know these guys and along the way had
become so myopically focused on this
promise I had made my to myself as a kid
that I never stopped to ask why do I
want to get
rich what what is it that I plan to do
with the money the money in and of
itself it's aert it just sits there I'm
sure you guys have a bunch of it in your
pocket right now and it doesn't do
anything but it has latent potential but
the question is what are you going to do
with that potential
so ID finally had enough I had hit my
breaking point from suffering and I got
so mad and I was so unwilling to do it
anymore that the three of us said we're
now going to totally forget about money
we're not going to think about it we
can't take it anymore life is too short
this is your one go round so what are we
going to do we're going to build a
company that's predicated on value we're
going to build a company that's
predicated on passion we're going to ask
ourselves a fundamentally different
question
and boys and
girls the questions you ask yourself
will determine the course of your life I
had been asking myself what do I need to
do to get rich and it left me really
unhappy so I changed the question and I
started asking what would I do and love
every day even if I were
failing the second law of thermodynamics
is that everything moves towards entropy
life is chaos it takes an inhuman amount
of effort to bring order to that to find
success in the middle of that so while I
cannot promise you success I can promise
you failure I cannot promise you
happiness but I can promise
sadness so if you know those are the
guarantees and the other things are the
things you have to strive for you better
be striving in service of something that
in and of itself is interesting to you
there's an awesome quote often
attributed to Mother Teresa that says no
one will ask for the many but people
will act for the
few I started thinking about my mom and
my sister I had my sixpack
abs but they were profoundly overweight
I started thinking about my uncle who
ate himself to death when I was 12 years
old and how much that scared me and it
made me sad and it made me sad to see
that there were Millions if not more
than a billion people that were in the
same kind of abusive relationship with
food that my mom and my sister were so I
said I don't know if it's a big business
but I know it's a big
problem and that's the problem that
we're going to solve and so we decided
to build a totally new kind of
company based around value in 2014
private companies averaged 8% annual
growth we started Quest Nutrition in
2010 just as we were coming out of the
Great
Recession from 2010 to 2013 alone Quest
grew by
57,000 in
manufacturing we were engineering and
making our own equipment we were making
the bars I was wearing a hairnet and a
lab coat every day and my employees were
former gang members ex drug dealers Fons
we were in Compton and we literally told
everybody in the neighborhood I don't
care if you've been evicted of a crime I
just want to know if you're willing to
bust your ass to change your life and if
you are you're going to get an interview
and I'm not going to ask for your resume
I don't care about your resume your
resume tells me where you've been it
doesn't tell me the price you're willing
to pay to become somebody
new and that's how we were able to grow
so fast because we weren't focused on
the money the kids on the street that
were coming in working for us they
weren't focused on the money one of the
kids his sister was shot to death in the
heart with an AK-47 she bled to death on
his front lawn another guy his
stepfather was shot in the head and died
in his
arms okay that's growing up hard now
imagine you tell that person I don't
give a if you're a born
entrepreneur I don't care if you've been
to jail I don't care if you dropped out
a high school what do you want to become
and what price are you willing to pay to
get there you give that person hope that
their life up to that point is in the
death sentence that they can become
anyone they want to
become and Everything Changes you think
those guys were leaving at 2: a.m. on a
Friday when we had a deadline to hit
hell no one kid came up to me said You
Believe In My Success more than my own
mother that person will die for you and
when all you're asking them to do is
make a protein bar you're doing all
right and so we were able to move so
fast and in moving that fast in growing
our revenues as much as we did cuz we
were thinking about the customer make
sure the product was amazing that it
delivered results we got to number two
on the Inc 5000 you can't imagine how
perfect that number is for me just
enough to be amazing and just Far Enough
From First to piss me
off to put that chip on my shoulder to
make me want to keep going and keep
grinding all right we're valued at over
a billion dollars we became officially a
unicorn company startup no investment
capital from the outside our first eight
months I don't think we spent more than
$10,000 and we made a valuation of over
a billion dollars
all right that's how I ended up there
that's how we did it but to me this
stuff is
formulaic anybody can do this and I am
proof of that and what really winds me
up it's really easy for me to show you
guys my before and after when I used to
be fat when I was 230
lbs and to show you a picture of
six-pack abs and people go wow that's
amazing but it's really hard to show you
what it looked like when I was afraid
all the time when I believed to the core
of my being that I was stupid and
incapable that I could never start a
business I didn't know anything about it
I felt lost and hopeless and now to be
where I'm at now to have built a company
to have started as a copywriter and
climbed my way up to know time and time
again that as long as I can learn I can
do anything I set my mind
to so if you guys want to follow in
these footsteps you've got two jobs job
number one develop your mindset nobody
thinks about this this is crazy to me if
you want to talk about business don't
even worry about the mechanics of
business until you get the mechanics of
human psychology if you don't know the
anatomy yes the anatomy of the human
brain you are at a disadvantage why
because I do know
it and I know when that kid comes into
my office whether he's the wonderkind
out of Harvard or he's a kid off the
streets in Compton
I know what's going on in his brain at a
neurochemical level and I know what's
going on in mine I know when I'm lying
to myself I know when I'm lying to
myself and it doesn't help and I know
when I'm lying to myself and it does
help and I know when to do what we'll
get to your second job in a minute I
really want to go through job number one
The Matrix has you who's seen the movie
The
Matrix ah my kind of
audience all right the Matrix is just a
movie maybe we're living in uh a
simulation maybe we're not Peter
diamandis will be keynoting on at the
end of the conference ask him that
question he's an amazing guy can talk
pretty eloquently about how maybe we
really are living in a simulation but
right now I don't need you to believe
that but right now I do need you to
accept that you have pulled a veil of
Lies over your own
eyes if you believe that you're limited
in some way that there's something that
you can't accomplish if there's
something that you can't do like if you
say well man it's good enough that Quest
was able to grow their company from 0 to
500 million in Revenue in was actually
less than 6 years but you know that's
them I couldn't do that that's the
Matrix that's a lie and it's a
disempowering lie let me be clear I love
lies they're amazing I tell myself lies
all the time you're going to see one in
a minute but I only tell myself
empowering lies if you know the movie
you want to take the red
pill the blue pill you wake up back in
your bed you get to decide anything you
want about having heard of The Matrix
but the red pill wakes you up in the
real world the reason that this is
important is I'm not promising that it's
going to be easy or fun remember the
second law of Thermodynamics is that
things move towards
chaos it is going to be hard it is going
to be difficult and finding your way
through that maze will be some of the
most difficult things that you're ever
going to have to do but if you accept
that it's the truth you become in
control and I want to tell you a story
and the story is either going to Make
You Love Me Or Hate Me it has that
effect on people The Story Goes Like
This my wife is British some of the
story is true and some is made up I'll
try to delineate my wife is British that
really is true let's say that she was in
London visiting her
family she's in the bedroom that she
grew up in the doors are locked the
alarm is on her mother is sitting
quietly in the next room protecting her
from all kinds of woes and right at that
moment a meteorite comes screaming
through the atmosphere smashes through
the roof and kills my wife whose fault
is that now I know most people are
thinking it's nobody's fault it's Divine
Providence it's luck it's fate it just
is what it is that's not how I live my
life and I invite you all to adopt the
following belief system it's all my
fault now I use the word fault because
it Jabs people in the ribs it gets
people's attention it makes them angry
because they think I'm victim shaming or
blaming the victim and I'm not saying I
refuse to ever be a victim and if I
maintain control then there's something
that I could do about it now I use that
example because it seems so absurd and
yet at the same time I know this is true
there is a group that track what are
called near Earth objects and they're
trying to make sure that if one is ever
on a collision course for Earth that
we'd be able to do something about it
whether it's a laser or planted nuclear
explosion whatever the case may be now I
know they exist I even know where they
are I've never called them to give them
encouraging words I've never sent them a
dime of my money I've never sent them
ideas I know they exist I do nothing
about it so why on Earth if it comes
around and that decision bites me in the
ass and my wife is killed by a meteorite
would I blame anyone
else I could have done something and I
chose not to now here's the great news I
think it's a wise choice I think the
odds of that happening in my life are so
slim
that it would be a total waste of time
but it shows you the lengths to which I
had to take my mentality in order to
learn the skills that I needed to learn
to get where I wanted to go and the way
that I Define an entrepreneur is
somebody who encounters an obstacle and
gets really pissed because the thought
of giving up never occurs to them and
now they know they have to go over under
through it around it whatever but
they're not going to slow down and
they're not going to stop whereas an
employee might be a beautiful human
being but when they hit an obstacle they
think finally I can can
relax and I used to be
there I was the king of if the cats away
the mice will play and then I remember
one day asking wait a second if I'm
actually trying to get at the time Rich
then why would I ever want to slack off
why would I ever want to let off the gas
pedal and if I don't actually want to
get rich and what I want is an easy life
why am I doing this weird ass in between
where I work really hard if somebody's
watching and then I stop as soon as
they're not
like just embrace the world that you
want to live if you want to chill chill
man I've got no moral judgment on the
person that wants to smoke weed all day
hang out chill and eat a bowl of
munchies like I'm down if I could ask
that it be like maybe a quest cereal bar
or something that would be
awesome but truly I don't pass a moral
judgment on it's just not the life that
I want to live but I wanted to be honest
with myself about what life I wanted to
live so I took the red pill I accept
that we make our beliefs we choose to
believe things every belief that you
have and I'll even throw in gravity just
to make this really obnoxious every
belief that you have is a
choice now if you try to disbelieve
gravity you're going have a real hard
time or so I suspect but maybe that's me
with a limiting
belief someone in the front here is
already thrown it out no gravity for
them but the things we choose to believe
really are choices and this is something
that I see time and time again when
somebody uh was it word that said
whether you think you can or you can't
you're right I love that that was one of
those quotes it hit me so hard and I
realized wow cuz here's the thing maybe
I'm wrong maybe there's just limits and
humans can't do as much as I think they
can and that we're all going to fail but
what would happen if I scaled back my
belief system I believe I would
accomplish less so that's a big one for
me I choose to believe that human
potential is nearly Limitless I think in
movies by the way so you're going to see
a lot of film references here and this
was the belief that changed my life
because once I realized
if you truly believe really think about
this for a second if you truly believe
that human potential is Limitless how
you decide to spend your time is a
spiritual
consideration right because you can do
anything and when I look at Elon Musk
the man is going to make us an
interplanetary species like that's
crazy but he's going to do it because he
had the audacity to believe that he
could and he's aiming
his high-powered belief system at what
he sees as being some of the world's
biggest problems showing exactly what I
mean when I say that once you believe
that human potential is Limitless how
you spend your time is a spiritual
consideration so whatever your business
is going to be make sure that it matters
and I'm going to tell you why that's
going to make you a lot of
money all right mind the gap here's the
hard truth you're not yet the person you
need to be in order to achieve all the
things you want to achieve the great
news is you're here because you realize
that most people fight against that
you're here because you want to learn
something you're here because you're
actually
open but what you have to figure out is
what is your kung fu you have to figure
out what is that set of skills that I
need to learn and that's how when asked
so I do an interview show and at the end
of the interview I used to ask people
what do you think essentially is the
meaning of life I didn't use those words
but that was the
gist and in the beginning I realized it
was cuz I didn't know the answer for
myself and I wanted to hear what other
people were going to say and then in
hearing enough people say it and really
thinking through my answer I realized
that for me the very meaning of life is
to see how many skills I can acquire
that have utility and then put that
utility to the
test said another way I want to ring
every bit of potential out of myself
that's possible because having potential
is very different than doing something
with that potential and in all of us I
believe is a massive reservoir of latent
potential that can be applied to
accomplish the extraordinary but you
have to know what it is all right here's
my method for developing new skills to
cross that skill gap between who you are
today and who you're going to need to
become in order to execute on the things
you want to execute on number one always
be
reading I believe the greatest gift that
any great thinker can offer the world is
to take the time to write down all of
their insights they say a fool school
never learns a smart man learns from his
mistakes and a wise man learns from the
mistakes of others now I don't know
about you guys but for me I have spent a
lot of time being a fool I've spent a
reasonable amount of time being smart
but oh man it is precious few times when
I've truly been able to be wise and
learn from someone else but virtually
every time I was able to get some wisdom
it was at the hands of an author when
people ask me who my mentors were I
always tell them it's the authors that
I've
read books contain the secrets to the
universe and right there on my slide if
you can pull that back up is the most
important mathematic equation you're
ever going to see I I equals IO ideas in
equal ideas out that is so important if
any of you have ever struggled with
feeling worthy because you don't have
original ideas do not fret I'm willing
to accept fine all the original ideas
that are ever going to be thought
they've already been thought uh doesn't
matter to me it's totally
irrelevant what makes each and every one
of us the beautiful snowflake that we
all know that we are inside is that we
make unique connections between old
ideas the very time that you're living
in with the very experiences that you
had mean that you're going to make
connections that other people just
wouldn't make but you've got to be
getting that stream of ideas in in order
to make those connections and might I
suggest meditating which puts your brain
into an alpha wave state which makes
weirder connections between more remote
areas of the brain um I didn't meditate
for a very long time it sounded so woo
wooy and then finally I met an ABV seal
uh who made me feel cool about
meditating and I finally did it was like
oh my God this is amazing because it
lets you calm your nervous system down
and your brain begins making really
unique connections all right next open
yourself to being changed whenever I
read a book I actually say to myself be
open to being changed by this
information it's incredible to me how
many people encounter a book an idea a
speaker a movie whatever and it's
amazing and they go out and they're
jazzed and they tell people about it but
they're not actually changed by it they
don't actually go out and act in
accordance with that new piece of
information and at the end of the day
the
takeaway the takeaway from my talk is
this is all going to boil down to
execution it's all going to boil down to
your ability to to do it and to do it
really well so open yourself up to
letting ideas actively change you and
you're going to have to do things create
habits in order to make sure that they
stick all right realize that what you
believe is a choice we've talked about
that be an eternal student in all things
I'm always trying to learn I know this
is a room of people who already get this
but if we all remind each other and
remind ourselves that everyone we meet
has something to teach us we'll be able
to collect those pieces of information
that go into our brains into that math
equation of ideas ideas in equal ideas
out I will take a good idea from
wherever it comes we're going to talk
about building your self-esteem around
that
later all right who has read antifragile
by Nim
TB you guys are in for a treat you're
going to want to read this book this
book changed me you want to talk about a
book I was open to it it came in it
completely impacted my life this book is
absolutely incredible it's so important
we're going to go through it in detail
in a second and the last thing is
develop
grit we'll talk about Grit as well all
right becoming
antifragile the important thing here to
note is that everyone needs an ego
everyone needs self-esteem everyone
needs to feel good about themselves and
the crazy thing when you really stop and
think about suicide and this is a new
obsession of mine if you stop and think
about suicide what has happened that
person believes falsely but they believe
that they'll never be happy again that
they'll never feel good about themselves
again and that's why it's referred to as
a permanent solution to a temporary
problem because that will
pass but in that moment it feels like it
couldn't ever go
away so we need to find things that make
us feel good about who we are because
when you lose a sense of feeling good
about who you are life truly feels
hopeless so that's critical and people
often talk about you know to stay away
from an ego to not pride yourself on
things but I'm telling you that person
Prides themselves on not not having an
ego and so it becomes what you pride
yourself on is absolutely incredible now
don't make the mistake that I made I
used to want to be smart when I talked
about being the king of remedial jobs
was because I wanted to put myself in
situations where I was the smartest
person in the room and in doing that I
was always going into smaller and
smaller rooms but it felt so good to be
right and the problem was I was wrong a
lot of the times now when this one
finally came to a head my business
partners who were far smarter than I am
in terms of IQ process processing data
which I Define IQ as your ability to
process data rapidly they could process
data very
rapidly and we would get into arguments
and I would always lose and it was very
frustrating and I remember one day
finally I actually convinced them to do
something my way and I
realized oh I just won the argument
but I know I'm wrong and so now what
I've gotten what I thought I wanted I
finally won this Victory I'm if I don't
feel smart myself at least I'm getting
reflected back to me that I've I've
solved the
problem and now I feel totally stuck
because if I really want to move towards
my goal of getting rich it does not help
to do things that I know are against the
company just to be right and in that
moment I realized what I had to do was
switch my self-esteem from being right
to pursuing the right answer faster than
anyone else and then putting energy
behind that and being like Oh my gosh
Timmy came up with the idea or it was
Sally and Sally oh my gosh it's amazing
and giving them so much energy to try to
see it through because that's the right
idea and then I began to develop my
reputation of being the guy that even if
3 seconds before that I had been
fighting for another idea once I
realized I was wrong I would admit
it and it's amazing what reputation you
can build around that and it is way more
effective for business all right grit if
you haven't read Angela Duckworth's book
on grit I highly recommend it it is am
amazing I'll give you some of the key
takeaways the biggest part about grit is
sustained effort over
time if you lose interest quickly in
something once or twice no big deal it
is what it is you realize that it wasn't
your thing but if you lose interest over
and over and over and over and over and
you always only enjoy the you know first
six months of a business and then you
want to move on you lose interest very
quickly you need to work on developing
your grit being able to sustain that
over time CU building any business
you're going to encounter hard things
you need to be able to do those hard
things focusing on the hard things in
fact I try to start every day with one
of the hardest things to get it out of
the way to remind myself that I'm
willing to attack that all right you
want to be able to persist through
boredom and suffering I told you guys
that's one of my superpowers long after
everybody else gives up because they're
not having fun anymore I'm still there
banging away at it that's really really
important in order to create momentum to
keep things moving and to finally get
them across the finish line a lot of
people are able to get something to the
50 yard line or maybe even the one yard
line but they just can't quite push it
over the finish line and that is a
difference between somebody who's a
wantrepreneur and somebody who ends up
being successful the way that they want
they can get it across the Finish Line
all right learn to tell the difference
between a lack of grit and genuine
disinterest if you're not interested in
something you need to move on quickly uh
but like I said if that becomes serial
you may have a
problem um and if you're only good in
the beginning that's uh the sign that
you like grit all right who here already
has their
passion man that's awesome I did not
expect people to be honest I thought
everyone would raise their hand okay
that's amazing the number one question I
get and I get this question so much you
can't imagine how do I find my
passion the good news is passion is not
something that's handed to you it is not
a lightning bolt moment it's another
nice simple mathematical equation first
of all you need to identify your areas
of Interest everybody's interested in
something and I find the big problem is
people stop themselves because they say
yeah well the thing that I'm interested
in couldn't possibly be a business so
let's take video games back in the
80s back when everybody thought that
video games were a joke you're ruining
your brain it's like intellectual candy
kids get off the computer go play
outside Nintendo's a joke it's
ridiculous and then we have an entire
industry now that's borne up around
video games games that has made Untold
numbers of millionaires I met one of the
founders of Riot games that created
League of Legends the guys like I don't
know 31 maybe younger I mean just crazy
they do a billion dollars a billion
dollars in revenue from
microtransactions of things that are not
essential to play the game the game is
totally free to play you don't need to
pay for anything imagine that for a
second you're in an industry where they
don't need to buy anything to get full
use of your game and yet you do over a
billion dollars in Revenue because they
said I love this I like being around
games I like the competition of it I
think it's
amazing I'm going to find a way I'm
going to be inventive I'm going to look
for areas to add value and so they have
and more people now watch Esports the
finale of League of Legends then watch
the finales I think of all major sports
combined it's crazy they fill
Arenas it's absolutely Bonkers but that
was somebody who said this is something
I love it's something I want to be
around it is an area of interest and I
don't care if other people tell me that
it can't be a business it's what I want
to be around with enough
Ingenuity and enough forethought into
what actually can be a business because
some things can't you can really do
something with something that's an
interest all right so an interest you
need to gain Mastery in it during the
process of gaining Mastery you'll find
out whether you actually like that thing
enough to become great at it it is my
belief whatever it is you set out to do
as a business there should be one litmus
test you should be able to ask and
affirmatively answer the following
question do I want to know more about
this than anyone else in the
world don't get into something unless
you plan to be the best that's my piece
of advice I know that's not going to sit
well with everybody but if you want to
have the passion to make something big
to make big change it's got to be
something that you believe in Beyond
reasonable doubt it's got to be
something you've just got to make happen
so ask yourself do I want to know more
about this than anyone else because
you're going to have to get better at it
than anyone else if you want to be
excellent and deliver on the promise all
right interest over time plus Mastery
equals passion that's how you find your
passion all right you had two jobs I
mentioned in the beginning job number
two is build your business here's how
we're going to do it it's a new world
and a new world Demands a new kind of
company now the reason that Quest went
so fast wasn't just because we had done
something to our minds and gotten to the
point where we were so angry that we
were going to push us forward no matter
what it was understanding the timing of
the marketplace and the technologies
that were emerging and the technology
that was emerging in 2009 when we first
started thinking about the company
everybody thought Facebook was a joke
everybody thought it was a huge
distraction and what we understood was
it was just a
megaphone we didn't pass judgment on it
we just knew it was a megaphone and it
was a free
megaphone and if we could give them
reason to say something good within a
couple of minutes of an interaction with
us they could have a global audience and
tell people about that so we saw that
the timing was right there and we also
understood that people want to have
impact take this superhero Iron Man the
movie franchise is off the charts and
what is it at the same time that you
have people occupying Wall Street you
have them
celebrating one of the richest people on
the planet
why because he dresses up like a
superhero and he tries to save the world
people don't mind money people don't
mind that you want to create a beautiful
lifestyle for you and your family they
don't mind people getting rich but they
care a lot about how you do it they care
a lot about what you do with it once you
have it nobody like Scrooge McDuck don't
ever leak a photo of you swimming in
your money I promise it will not go
well but if you have a vision for how
your company could make the world a
better place and you use social media to
allow people to touch and be evangelized
by your brand if you're thinking how can
I make a product or a service that
actually makes the lives better of the
people that work at the company and the
people who buy the product if that's the
question that you're asking man they
will rally around you and we live in
this amazing time and you've got to take
advantage of that and it really freaks
me out when people think that we're like
either the social movement is cresting
or it's behind us it's only gaining
steam the TV's going away the mobile
phone is becoming the television like
these changes are a one way ticket to
difference I don't know exactly what
it's going to look like I just know it's
not going to stop and it sure as hell
isn't going to go in
reverse and what I always try to do is
get to the psychology of the problem
Elon Musk talks about in his business
it's all about breaking things down to
the
physics if you sell to people the
physics in your world is psychology and
understanding what motivates them so
your company needs to have a why if you
know Simon s and His Brilliant book
start with why you'll know what we're
talking about the Golden Circle most
people know what they do they may even
know how they do it but they often times
don't know why they do it why did we
launch Quest Nutrition because we wanted
to end metabolic
disease now nobody knew that from
looking at a protein bar but our
marketing material was about that we
didn't do features and benefits we said
stop
sacrificing we said you should hold food
companies to a new standard it's
ridiculous that food companies aren't
engineering new equipment to make food
that's both good for you and delicious
it's just ridiculous nobody's held their
feet to the fire people have been buying
the same junk products for years they're
not going to change unless you force
them to and so we came along and said
we're going to be the bearer of
Standards we know why we're doing what
we're doing so I can't release a product
that has sugar in it why because that's
not going to end metabolic disease and
that is my driver I show up to work
every day not thinking about making it
rain and counting my money I'm not
swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck I'm
coming every day thinking about two
people my mom and my sister and I ask a
very simple question is this
advantageous for my mom and my sister
yes or no if it is I do it if it's not I
don't now a lot of times what's
advantageous for my mom and my sister
was really expensive it was
super annoying to have to do it because
it was like you watch your pro margins
like oh
God but it becomes an easy filter and
every business has to have a filter
every business needs to know what they
say yes to and what they say no to and
if you don't have that blinding Guiding
Light when you scale you will fall apart
and the reason you will fall apart your
customers won't know who you are they
won't know how to communicate your
message to somebody else your employees
won't know who you are they won't know
what to communicate to each other let
alone the outside world so it has got to
be blinding you have to be able to write
it down it has to be super clear it's
got to be direct and it's got to be
meaningful and it has to be real it's
got to actually be something that drives
you because let me tell you
on those 2: a.m. Friday nights when my
knuckles were bloody because no one knew
how to repair our machines because we
had engineered them
ourselves that was frustrating that
sucked I would have much rather been
doing something else at 2 a.m. on a
Friday but I believed in what we were
trying to accomplish the team believed
in what we were trying to accomplish and
we weren't going to let ourselves down
and we weren't going to let our
customers
down be
transparent it's a new world order man
when I was coming up you didn't be
transparent you put a marketing message
out you spun that like you tried to
be as close to the truth as you could
but you didn't worry about
transparency but these
days consumers expect transparency they
want to know who you are they want to
know what you're doing they want to know
what it means to support you because
it's not enough that your product is
good they want to know that your company
stands for
something but it's also incredibly
meaningful to your employees you want to
keep top quality Talent around for a
long time you want to make sure that
they know what's going on in the company
all right focus on value only value is
sustainable you want to make sure that
you're delivering value at every touch
Point your customer service should
deliver value your marketing message
should deliver value your advertising in
and of itself should deliver value your
ads should be served to the people who
even though they can skip skip it after
4 seconds they don't that's when you're
actually delivering value all right be
authentic God this is embarrassing but
this is actually my wife and I we
actually go see Santa Claus every year
and I actually posted this on my
Instagram account why because it's real
that's really who I am my wife and I are
goofy as hell uh and one of the things
that we bonded over originally was that
got a big response people love seeing
that kind of thing they want to know who
you really are now everybody has to
decide where to draw the line for
themselves most people would say I
should have drawn the line before this
one uh but this that's us all right it's
about Connection in today's day and age
you can argue about whether social media
is fake connection or real connection
but I will tell you this it is the
predominant form of connection and one
of the things we all need to think about
stop passing judgment on this stuff man
just look at the truth of how it's being
used go where the attention is if people
are using technology and you're like
yeah but I don't think it's real
connection someone else is going to eat
your lunch because they get how to talk
to people in the lingua franka okay
people today consumers today my mom and
dad are on Facebook so leverage
technology to connect all right don't
build or don't Market build a community
this is so important social media is
going to allow you to have real
meaningful relationships with your
customers I will tell you one very fast
in the very early days of of quest when
all of us had to go out and actually
make the bars I'm out making bars our
chief marketing officer out making bars
like everybody's out there there would
be periods of time where we wouldn't
respond to somebody on Facebook but this
one woman started responding and we
thought wow that's so weird like is did
somebody create a fake account like is
that one of you guys and everyone's like
no man we didn't do that that's the real
person and she would tell people like oh
don't worry I'm sure to get back to you
quickly they're really great company and
we were so and this is like early 2010
we like what is
happening and so we reached out and said
hey we want to put you on payroll she's
like I don't want to be on payroll and
I'm like whoa okay now I'm getting
freaked out like what do you want and
she was like I just want you to continue
to deliver a service I'm a nutritionist
and I use your bars with a lot of people
I just want to make sure that you're
around so we developed this really cool
relationship with her we all got to know
her she held us to a standard she was
not always nice she was always fair but
she wasn't always nice if we were doing
something poorly from a product
standpoint like we weights and measures
will let you ship product That's Heavy
you just can't ship light okay so
imagine get your B your Doritos your B
your Doritos is going to be heavy it's
never going to be light now so we're
thinking okay cool we have to comply
with weights and measures but we're a
health and fitness company so people are
like if I'm buying 60 grams and that's
what I have in my diet plan I want to
make sure I'm eating 60 grams and not 65
and so she would call us out on it so we
ended up buying a piece of equipment
because of that relationship that we had
with this woman that we never met
and then one day she went
silent we wrote to her mom hey is
everything okay and her mom said she
passed away she was like
28 and I got like really emotional and
I'd never met her and I'm not like that
guy but I got legitimately emotional and
I
wrote a Manifesto and I said to everyone
in the company basically we exist to
serve these people every one of them is
trying to do something we may know
nothing about and they're using our
products and so we started celebrating
her her name's Joy Rita we've been doing
it for four years now the joy Rita Super
Fan award we bring somebody in that's
been amazing to the community we just
give them a big blowout party at our
headquarters getting behind the scenes
access to cool stuff just to say thank
you and that's when we really realized
it it may not be the kind of
relationship you have with your mom or
your brother or your sister or your
spouse but it's meaningful man in a way
that business relationships haven't been
since like the local General Store and
you saw the same people come in every
day it really is like if you can flip
that switch in your mind and see it as
something beautiful I'm telling you it
will open you up to a whole new way of
interacting with your customers because
there's a lot of amazing stuff going on
in your communities that you may not
even know about or that you could really
feed into and build into something
amazing and if you stay focused on it
being a community of people that are
supporting themselves each other and
your company
then you can do some pretty incredible
things all right this is how you build a
community this is very straightforward
understand this pyramid of influence at
the top you have thought leaders thought
leaders are the people that nobody
understands they are the doctors they're
the person that talks over your head
they're um the people that never make it
on radio or TV because nobody knows what
they're talking about under them are the
influencers now the thought leaders are
the ones that really get it they're the
ones that can explain a KB cycle to you
so for instance by the way I own a
nutrition compy company but I am not a
thought leader I'm an influencer I have
a thought leader that I trust that I
listen to happens to be my business
partner but I'm the one that then
translates that for the masses so when
you're trying to build a community the
person you're looking for at the top you
want to make sure the thought leaders
believe in your product so you're going
to send it to them you're going to
explain it to them you're going to make
sure that your product is real cuz they
will smell BS BS a mile away now if
they're into it it and then you go after
the influencers who will then ask the
thought leaders what they think thought
leaders will give it the green light the
influencers then will begin telling the
masses influencers in my world are
people with six-pack abs they're the guy
at the gym they're the girl at the beach
in the Bikini people that other people
walk up to and say whoa what did you do
to get in such great shape and we wanted
to make sure their answer was I ate a
Quest Bar and that was how we grew the
business and we wrote individualized
letters to a bunch of influencers and a
bunch of thought leaders saying hey we
know who you are which by the way we
were very sincere it was all real we
know who you are we think this product
brings value to you and the people that
follow you and we just want you to talk
about it if you hate it tell people you
hate it and if you love it tell them you
love it all right you want to find your
thousand screaming fans the Thousand
screaming fans are those influencers
that are going to get attention for you
identifying them most people think of
these people as getting to your thousand
screaming fans for you but what they
should be thinking about is this now I'm
sure most of you knew the people in the
previous slide and I'm sure most of you
don't know any of the people in this
slide but this woman here anybody know
who Jenna Marbles
is show of hands I hear a couple yeses
there we go all right Jenna Marbles has
a daily reach of 20 million people
that's bigger than the biggest show on
TV that's
crazy this is the world of social it
seems hidden to most people over 35 but
it is in plain
sight these are the people that you're
going to be going after Jenna Marbles we
sent her dogs
sweatshirts and a whole stack of our
product now why did we send her dog
sweatshirts because her dogs are little
Chihuahuas they're skinny as hell and
they always look cold so we had some
custommade sweatshirts sent to her she
loved them so much she started promoting
the bars and showing people what we had
sent her and Thanking us now no money
exchanged hands it was just us doing
something that she would think was cool
that her followers ERS would think was
cool and we got to tap into that reach
That's The Power of social all right I
won't belabor these points social is
still disp you may think largely free
it's realtime connection raw feedback
think 30 years ago how much you would
have paid for real-time feedback from
your actual customers written right to
you telling you if they think you're
amazing or a jerk or whatever they may
think it's absolutely incredible and
they want you to respond and win them
back over it is amazing it lets you test
things rapidly which is amazing and it
lets you build a community very rapidly
all right this is my favorite meme what
if I told you customers hate your
content because they probably do most
people are so focused on selling they
forget to add value so let the test be
when you run an ad on especially YouTube
If you give people the option to skip it
do they and if they do your ad
sucks data data data right trust the
data that's the beautiful thing and look
I have put up so much content that
people hates that's just the way it is
but you've got to look at it iterate
change adapt to make sure that you're
adding value at every touch point that
you have because only value is
sustainable we talked about that all
right execution this is our final
movement only execution matters being
able to close your eyes and envision the
future the way that you want it to be is
meaningless unless you can open your
eyes and then EX excute against that and
it starts with step one have very clear
goals I find most people have a nebulous
idea of what they're trying to
accomplish but they don't have the
clarity of something that can be
transmitted so let that be your test can
this idea be rapidly transmitted down a
line of people or after one or two
people does it become unintelligible
because people don't know exactly what
you're doing because you haven't
codified it made it tight and concise in
terms of what you're trying to
accomplish all right don't be romantic
be
pragmatic you may love and this has
happened to me so many times it hurts
and I share your pain you may make an ad
a video uh we once made a video called
the 12 days of questus and we wrote this
we wrote a song and we had carolers come
in and sing it and there was actual snow
it was unbelievable everybody in the
company was freaking out it was so fun
and so cool and if you were my mom you
loved it but if you weren't my mom you
did not care and so nobody watched and
we even had wow was eating the bars it
was so cool but we had to be pragmatic
we thought it would be neat we thought
it captured the spirit of the brand but
nobody cared about it so we have not
repeated that mistake you want to make
sure that you're looking at the data all
right going back to that earlier
conversation we're having about knowing
more about something than anyone else in
the world that is the position you want
to put yourself in and my father-in-law
once gave me this advice he was the
first person I met that had really been
successful successful and he said what
you want to do is know more about any
situation than anyone else in the world
and I actually remember what I said to
him I said yeah my boss doesn't really
think like that I have since apologized
my father-in-law for giving me such an
amazing piece of information and me
doing nothing with it for like six years
but once I understood that the only path
to Excellence is to truly become an
expert the only path to Excellence is to
actually get good at something these
days in a hyperconnected world where
within minutes of an interaction with
you your product whatever someone can
have a global audience and tell people
what they think that product better be
awesome but the great news is the
world's been democratized now you no
longer have to have a $150 million ad
budget in order to cut through the
clutter in our first eight months we
were profitable at month six in our
first eight months we didn't invest more
than
$10,000 because we had a product that
actually delivered
value our marketing message delivered
value and if you focus on that if you
focus on making something that's better
than what other people are doing now you
really can cut through the noise very
very
quickly and you got to grind baby grind
that was me for almost two
years people see where the company's
gotten they see me up giving speeches
but what they don't see is that in the
middle of the night my hands used to
wake me up cramping
closed because all day I was making
protein bars and in the very beginning
we were running the technology company
during the day and then going and making
protein bars by hand at night with
rolling pins and handheld blades that we
cut the bars and then wrapped them three
at a time we wrapped them three at a
time we would make 1,200 bars I think
nine of us made 12200 bars over a six or
seven hour period now in a day we make
1.5 million
but that's where it starts it starts
with the willingness to persist long
after it's boring it starts with the
ability to focus on your end customer
long after you're exhausted it starts
with the ability to think about those
people that you really want to serve
when you're scared and have no idea how
you're going to pull it off but you
chose to believe that you could do it
you chose to believe that and because
you chose to believe that you were able
to achieve
Excellence all right I'm going to leave
you with
this this is the central Mantra of my
life it doesn't matter who you are
today it really doesn't so if you feel
like you're incapable of something maybe
you are
today but just because you're incapable
of something today doesn't mean that
you're not capable of learning that
thing so it's not about who you are
today it's about who you want to become
and the price you're willing to pay to
get there and I promise you the day that
you're willing to pay any price you'll
achieve what you want to achieve thank
you get it up for Tom bellu
thanks man thank
you so I'm I'm very curious to see that
that slide of you making bars making
1,200 of them a day yes one two skip a
few 99 a few
million
and now the company is where it is today
what happened in
between well it it really is just a
learning proc I mean it it you could go
down so many branches so when we started
um I think the only thing I really
understood was human psychology so the
first phase was manufacturing and that
was sort of the everyday um and then we
were in the business of giving bars away
and that was it we just wanted people to
try them and we knew that was going to
be our most powerful marketing message
so then it was about building up the
infrastructure learning how to forecast
like here's a problem that I never saw
coming as a kid when people tell you
that you're never going to use math if
you could just punch punch them in the
mouth that would be awesome because I
believed them and then found myself in
math hell uh where imagine that you
double month over month in sales which
happened to us all the time and you have
a six- week lead time on an ingredient
so now you have to order and factor in
the amount of time that it takes for the
product to get there but remember if
you're doubling month over month that
that's actually an exponential number so
it's not simple in your math so now a
you probably don't have a lot of cash so
that gets real hard real fast and then B
do you really roll the dice because you
have to be so Shure to say yeah
yeah we'll double again right like that
you get into these terrifying situations
so half of my life was just do I have
the guts to place this order so that was
like you know where we spend a lot of
time or convincing someone to sell you a
pallet of protein you can't imagine how
hard that was no one knew who we were
they didn't want to sell us protein
protein is hard to get if you don't know
protein is tied to cheese and so wayy
protein is a byproduct of creating
cheese and at some point bodybuilders
realize hey hey hey give that over to us
and but still the cheese business so
dwarfs the protein business that protein
can't grow faster than cheese so unless
people eat more cheese the protein
business is is tapped out so it's
everyone's fighting for those
incremental gains every year what was
the infrastructure built out what was
that process like because it's one thing
thing to say do I have the guts to place
this order it's another to say do I have
the guts to place this order on this
person's salary and then navigate those
Waters and you said on the podcast at
first it was like hire bring your bring
your down trro and into Quest and we'll
like turn everything around but at some
point that had to change so what was
that process like to both develop the
the grit in the ordering process but
also then becoming a person who hires as
well
well becoming a person who hires was
pretty easy because we were doing that
right off the bat and we had a company
before that so at a much smaller scale
we were actually way more used to hiring
people that were white collar workers um
and hiring Blue Collar was totally new
for us um it really the thing that I did
really really badly was recognizing
those transitional moments of it doesn't
make sense anymore to hire the you know
the former drug dealer like now it's got
to be people with real experience and I
was all I always felt like I was a
little too late to that like it it
required some major pain point because
I'd gotten so close to like I loved at
one point in the early days I had this
huge fantasy about how we were really
going to be able to transform things in
inner cities and that that was going to
be just a big part of what we did and
then as you get more into knowledge work
it's it it gets tough how did you make
the margins work because I I I know that
food is a a pain in the rear to bring
everything in and then get those margins
to work it you said that you you were
able to do it profitably from day one so
from day one but we like month six I
think is about where we were profitable
um the the thing that we did was we we
made a really critical decision early on
to sell online only and the stores were
coming to us and saying hey you know you
should be selling with us and we just
kept saying no no no no no because their
contracts are so predatory so when
people think oh my God I'm just I'm
going to get into you know Kroger Ralphs
or whatever and HB we're in Texas uh I'm
going to get into HB and like all my
problems are going to be solved but they
don't realize that HB knows that like
they know that they're the king maker
and they're going to act in accordance
with that and so a lot of little Brands
find themselves making a decision to get
in the game at the expense of winning
the game so and this goes back to
understand what year we in right it's
2016 almost 2017 it's like social social
social you can build you're not going to
build build your I mean hey here's a
limiting belief this is how the Matrix
gets you I was going to say you're not
going to build a billion dollar brand
online but you could right so you're at
in this kind of business you're always
trying to get on the Shelf but we were
willing to be patient for a while till
we had some clout so that we could push
back and say we're not willing to agree
to those terms and then we had built so
much momentum online that when they
wanted us we got on shelf didn't pay
slotting fees and then they wanted us to
do promotions and we refused so we were
a premium brand we were already more
expensive expensive we didn't do
discounting and we had a contract that
was actually reasonable and the strategy
was just e-commerce right I mean in the
beginning and and it was I mean right
now the guess the monthly auto ship is
is really hot just because Brands like
Dollar Shave Club have have done that
really well what was it at the beginning
with Quest what was the actual strategy
of getting eyeballs into into customers
enough to be able to prove the model for
us it was to be online that's all we
cared about wanted to Market socially
wanted to build a community wanted like
basically every gym rat every trainer in
the world to be talking about our
product and then to when they came to
touch the company to find that there was
this really warm ecosystem of people
that wanted to celebrate your victories
we wanted to know if you'd lost weight
or added muscle or gained weight which
we were huge still are huge in the um
anorexic Community which was totally new
for us and and literally was like w
what's happening but ended up being just
this really beautiful relationship
between people were struggling in a
direction that hadn't really thought
about um so that was really neat so it
was it really was going back to build a
community build a community make the
product available and then we said no to
Major retailers for over a year at one
point we actually hired somebody to say
no more artfully because we were and
it's funny but it was like we were
starting to damage relationships where
they were like hey at some point I asked
so many times I stop asking and so you
have to be really careful about where
people will then do things to spite you
and there are still um um there are
still some regions of some very very
famous stores regionally that won't
carry us because of those days when we
kept saying no huh who are the The Hires
that you found to be the most
advantageous during that time of scaling
up the online presence do you remember
what metrics were were being measured
and who was managing those and who you
brought in to really develop the online
presence yeah we had two really critical
hires our chief marketing officer who
was just young enough that he really
understood social in a way like now I
get Social I did not get it at all like
when if to this day if you follow me on
Facebook it's going to tell you that my
birthday is January 1st it's not I was
so paranoid I didn't want to put my real
birthday out there so that's like this
sort of lingering artifact and now I've
got the photos of my wife and I on
Santa's lap it's a whole different ball
game like I get now what the game is um
but didn't at the time he really really
did and then another key hire for us not
to do with marketing but was was um
production you know we were three guys
we didn't know anything about production
at scale so we finally had to bring on
somebody that didn't just work hard that
actually knew that world what do you
mean when you say production so um you
mean product production yeah yeah the
actual manufacturing okay I see you have
uh you've transitioned out of any
day-to-day operations you said you're in
a Founders role now I think we were talk
maage would we say the chief cheerleader
of of of more less yeah Chief evangelist
yeah that's right so how would do you
describe your role now and how did you
transition from making the bars for
several years to now being the
Evangelist yeah so seems like a quick
transition it it is and it isn't I mean
so my partners and I have been working
together for 14 years um and and the
business is kind of changed but our
roles very much um stayed the same in
terms of what parts of the company that
we handled um so originally I was doing
production just because I had to there
was nobody else there and everyone knew
that wasn't um going to be a long-term
strategy uh so that was one of the first
things that we replaced got somebody in
that could do that and then we got to
the point where we built up enough
infrastructure within the company that
to look at the way Richard Branson has
handled his businesses you know his big
thing is hire really really smart people
and then get out of the way and so in
doing that I was moving more into um
really telling The Narrative of the
company internally doing the show inside
Quest we're bringing on just amazing
thought leaders um and that was really
an important thing to me because when we
launched Quest the three of us each said
okay this company needs to be a platform
because it's going to be a forever
company it's not something we're looking
to just build up and sell and so if it's
going to be a forever company what are
the things it would have to accommodate
and for me there are two pandemics that
I believe is my calling to address uh
pandemic one is the pandemic of the body
you got people two 300 PBS overweight
and they're dying of malnutrition really
impacted my family I've already lost
people that I love um to food
essentially didn't want to lose more but
the other is the pandemic of the mind
and you've got people who on the sort of
bright and cheery side of the um
Spectrum just feel lost uh feel that the
system is corrupt and broken and having
gone from scaming in my couch cushions
to find enough change to put gas in my
car to you know fantastic wealth all
through hard work discipline learning
learning to um get the timing right all
that stuff um I realize that it is the
mindset that's holding them back and I
want to know what happens to the world
if we find the next 10,000 Elon musks
like what happens I I've worked a lot in
the inner cities from uh I big brothered
for eight years when um I was younger
and saw what it really really means to
grow up hard and uh my big brother for
this kid who was adopted and being
abused and I was the ward of the Court
when they took him away from his family
and so I'm through that so I've seen
like the real impacts of generational
poverty and then when we were doing
manufacturing and the inner cities again
working with people that just really
really have suffered at the hands of
what I call generational poverty which
is a mindset it has nothing to do with
money I mean it it echoes in money
because they don't understand it and
they don't know how to escape that sort
of vicious cycle of keep your head down
do his little work as possible and avoid
punishment um but so that I wanted to be
able to do that um and I feared that the
I wasn't going to be able to make the
two gel and that it would um be bolting
something on to this thriving beautiful
amazing business business I didn't want
to confuse it but for me like that's a
must in my life I I need to be able to
do both of those things um so Quest had
gotten to the point where it's mature
it's stable and so I felt it was time
for me to to launch the new Venture
which will'll be announcing January 4th
uh which I'm incredibly excited about uh
but it's all focused on on the mind but
um not in I don't believe in the
efficacy of pure philanthropy I just
don't think it's as good as com
so it's Amen brother well thank you um
but I believe it can do more good so um
in fact ask Peter dandis his feelings on
that and he says you know a lot of your
creativity as a philanthropist is
stifled by some of the um the
governmental regulations around those
bodies and so part of knowing that I
wanted to make this a commercial Venture
was from his wisdom so um knowing that
you know we could create something self-
sustaining that could have true Global
impact be a billion-dollar business um
so that's what we're doing I I think
quest so represents the idea that
Commerce and free markets solve problems
better than any other way ever devised
at solving a problem if you want to end
metabolic disease you profitably create
the infrastructure and the products that
people want and they vote with that
whereas you could throw a government
program at something and get nowhere and
in 50 years even make the problem worse
right so when you're setting out to
solve this big challenge you have this
entire Suite of products now but what
was the conversation like when you're
saying okay we have this big audacious
goal was it product driven first being
like let's make let's make a bar with
the perfect macronutrient profile or was
it here's the problem now how do we
solve this problem it leads me to this
snack what which came first yeah in the
company itself would started as a bar so
we knew there is a Niche it's
underserved we were making bars and
taking them to work ourselves because
there was nothing on the market that we
would eat there was nothing that didn't
have sugar which we later find out the
reason for that is because the equipment
can't produce things without sugar and
nobody was willing to engineer their own
equipment so we knew that okay if we're
going to have this Grand effect like it
really does have to start there but the
grand effect was it hadn't been boiled
down into like a marketing message that
we could transmit in the you know first
whatever six or eight months it was hey
we know that there are people out there
that want to eat health like we want to
eat but they want it to be delicious as
well um but every day I was thinking
about my mom and my sister and how this
was important to them and that's the
reason that I could get behind it
because I mean we went through a whole
debate about what is the next company
going to be and it was one of those
where it had to be something that we
cared about you know we had started this
whole gation of selling the technology
company because I was so pissed and so
tired of chasing money and I wanted to
do something that I believed in I wanted
to do something that mattered that had
impact so the only reason that I was
interested in getting into nutrition was
cuz I felt that it one it could save the
two people that I was most worried about
in the world and two I thought that it
could address what I saw as the greatest
Health the greatest Health crisis we
face as a a species quite frankly so
Health question for you because I've
been very curious about this does Quest
consider themsel when you when you say
you want to solve metabolic disease do
you consider yourself a low carb company
because you believe that is the the the
most advantageous way to eat and you
consider yourself a ketogenic company
what do you consider yourselves and and
what about the macronutrient makeup of
your products do you think is the most
advantageous from a health perspective
woo that's a big question we could do a
six-hour lecture on that one uh goes
something like this we're a choice
company we don't want to tell people how
to eat we want people to decide how to
eat themselves we just want them to know
if we put our name on it that it's
healthy ingredients and that it's going
to be delicious um but at the end of the
day here's the real there's two types of
nutrition there's what I call blunt
force trauma which is what I used to uh
drop whatever 60 70 lbs and then there's
calculus which is what you have to do if
you want to be up on stage in a bikini
um I've never gotten into the calculus I
just it's too it just takes too much
time and energy um so I like to do
things that are really simple so the
really simple answer is drop carbs that
that already just solves a lot of
problems especially sugar and then cycle
eat different things at different times
like I'll tell you how I eat 4 days a
week I eat high protein low carb and
then three days a week I eat ultra high
fat low protein zero carb which is
called a ketogenic diet um I do that for
inflammation and just general well-being
it feels awesome there may may nobody
knows for sure qualification
qualification there may be um advantages
from anti-cancer properties
anti-alzheimer's there's a lot of very
interesting research coming out in k
genics so and it makes me feel good so
that's how I eat tell me more about the
new company that has a completely
different Mission and I'm curious what I
Quest has the same Mission and so here's
and I know how confusing that is trust
me so super confused right to me so
let's take my um myself for a second I
hate working out I hate working out I I
go to the gym 5 days a week absolutely
hate it and the reason that I go to the
gym
is twofold one yes it's good for me and
I am interested in longevity and so
that's part of why I go to the gym but
the more important thing I needed to
earn credibility with myself I needed to
make a promise and then keep that
promise and I wanted it to be a micro
promise so you're going to go to the gym
5 days a week and so when I make good on
that promise it's like hey I said I
would do it I did it and now I can tell
myself a story about being the guy that
does things he says he's going to do so
at the end of the day for me the body is
a way to get to the mind and the body is
a reflection of the mind and if you see
someone struggling with the body I
promise you they're struggling with the
mind for sure so I want to help people
with that I see um Wellness as a
holistic thing it isn't just body it
isn't just mind and I promise you every
Stitch of research that comes out from
this moment forward you're going to see
they're going to more and more say huh
it's weird there actually is no
delineation between the mind and the
body right you have neurons neurons in
your digestive tract neurons like how
crazy is that so when you say you have a
gut feeling it's because you actually
have neurons in your gut your brain
literally it's it's nuts but like the
more that we really begin to understand
the body and trust me we do not
understand it yet the more we begin to
understand the body the more we begin to
understand the brain the more we're
going to see that they're linked what I
care about every company that I will be
involved from Quest forward has to do
with one thing that moment of Awakening
that somebody has where they realize
they control their life that's it and
whether that was you were obese and now
you got in shape whether that was
because um you were anorexic and you
want to get healthy whether you were
tired of being pushed around and so you
want to add muscle like whatever you
want to make sure that your kids grow up
with a good diet and that they have
every advantage that they can awesome
man and seeing that people go whoa like
you guys are really doing the things to
put me in control right which is why we
don't say oh you should be ketogenic or
you should be low carb I I'm not telling
people what they should do I just want
to make sure they know that they're in
control and so the other company is
going to be literally as foundational as
you can culturally be um to help people
understand that they a are in in control
and B that they have the tools that they
need to execute against that you are
speaking my language my friend man I
asked this question to Gary vaynerchuk
last year and he took it down a
political way and and I didn't intend
for it but my my question is what you
just said is it feels like there's
almost this split of there's more
opportunity and there are more choices
now than ever and some people have used
that to get better and to create more
and to do more and to achieve more and
then there also seems to be the fact
that there's just more stupid people
alive than than ever before that just
wait for like just BL do do the blame
game like we we see more out in the
world and it's easy to pick and and and
just blame and and be victims to the
situations that we have do you think
that
things are trending in the right
direction there do you think that we
have way more work to do do you think
it's inevitable either way what's your
take on kind of
the psychological direction that has
resulted from social media and all the
opportunity and choice that's available
today so I think that we've hit a really
really fascinating time where you've got
the most optimistic people feeling the
most
disenfranchised and I think all we have
to do is nudge them and if you guys read
the book Nudge it is so powerful and it
talks about and gives really amazing
examples of a small little change that
you can make that will send somebody's
life in a completely different direction
in amazing so I think right now when I
and I don't know how you guys felt and I
really don't mean for this to be
political I'm not a political guy but
when I saw Occupy Wall Street it it made
me so sad because here I was a child of
the80s who just believed that you could
get rich that you could do what you set
your mind to which is why it was so easy
for me as a little kid even though you
know my family teetered between white
collar blue collar at one point my dad
was working as a mechanic and I mean but
it never dawned on me that I couldn't be
rich if I put in the work but now people
really believe that that system is
corrupt and it's broken and sure it is
assume that it's all terrible and it's
all bad but how does that help you you
need to identify how it works and what
you can do to come up in it and thing is
don't worry about whether the American
dream is alive or dead ask what is the
American dream because the American
dream used to be that if you um abided
by the rules you got a good education
you did well in school you were going to
get a better job than your parents you
were going to have the house with the
white picket fence you were going to
have 2.5 kids you're going to retire
with the gold watch like that there was
going to be this mechanism that took
care of you simply for doing the right
things yes that is dead it never existed
by the way the thing that did exist
probably because 2.5 kids is really hard
to have not impossible though not
impossible we'll talk later about how
you pull that off um talk to Peter um so
it is now it really is we're living in
the era of the entrepreneur and all of
us here know that most people aren't an
entrepreneur meaning that they're never
going to get a company across the Finish
Line why because they won't enjoy it and
I don't I don't think they should and I
think everybody's different and some
people are meant to be stay-at-home dads
and write just amazing poetry and other
women are meant to be CEOs of Fortune
500 companies and crush it and and I I
really think once we let go of who's
supposed to do what people will get to
what they want to pursue and notice I
did not say natural inclination because
my natural inclination is to lay in bed
all day but I have I have other drivers
that make me want to get better now but
that was it my driver was to get better
to improve and I believe that humans are
an active species you put them in any
room and they're going to try to hold
dominion over it they will first explore
it and then they will try to master it
right that that's just what humans do so
you can put them in the Arctic they will
explore and then Master you can put them
on Mars they will explore and master
that's what humans do we have that
innate drive it's what made us the most
dominant species on the planet so now
you take that same species And you Let
it Loose in this world today and they
still want to explore and master but
they feel like there's some part of that
system that's broken and it's you know
coming down on them if you can remove
move that get them back into their
natural state where they're trying to
explore and master you just have to
teach them how to answer some very
fundamental questions how do you find
your passion most people don't know and
so they sketch off into the corner
because they're expecting someone to
hand it to them and be like you love
race cars right and they're like oh I
guess I live race cars so people have no
idea how to find that passion and then
on top of that they're they think that
they're supposed to be in this system
and they're not they're supposed to be
doing the hard things to develop their
potential in a very specific direction
that they have chosen by cultivating
their passion into something that
they're really interested in display
grit and see it through like that's the
American dream the American dream is
still alive for anybody if you're
willing to learn and grow first of all
if you're willing to accept you're not
yet the person you need to be to execute
at the highest level you're willing to
acknowledge your deficits and understand
what skills you need and then go out and
relentlessly acquire those skills that
have utility and then be willing to put
that those skills to the test against
something for me the test is business
it's the test I enjoy it's not the test
everyone enjoys but that's what quest
was largely me asking and answering the
question am I acquiring the right skills
in order to end metabolic disease yes or
no and if the answer was no I changed
we're we're sadly out of time but I
there's one question I just really want
to ask you and it's that when Quest was
founded you were complete Pioneers you
built products that were very very
unique to the marketplace and then
within a few short years OAB bars Julian
Bakery all all these other companies
that were very similar started to pop up
how did you navigate those Waters and
continue to grow and I asked this
because there are a bunch of people in
the room who are just terrified that
they if they even talk about their
product that other people are going to
come out and steal it yeah and you put
it out there and are like bring it on o
y bars bring it on muscle tech and they
did and you continue to grow so how did
you navigate that so only value is
sustainable and let's be honest our
sales be way bigger if those guys hadn't
come in no question like they've come in
they've taken sales from us that that's
the reality of competition so enjoy the
time if you get it where you're sort of
the Lone Wolf and you're out there and
nobody else is doing what you're doing
put a clock on it know that it's
probably 18 months to two years is sort
of about the max um sock away some money
for a rainy day and most importantly
innovate innovate there's so many other
problems that people are facing there's
so many other things that they want that
they need from your company and if
you're putting the the resources behind
developing that stuff then you're
ultimately going to win because there is
only one thing that wins and that's
value and if you're delivering value
people will come to you time and time
again and if you fail to deliver value
then you will go away simple as Tom I I
think capitalism is the way we solve all
the world's greatest challenges I think
quest is a shiny example of that so
thank you for what you do let's give it
up for Tom Bilu thank you guys
thanks thank you so real pleasure
appreciate it