The Power of Being Around Winners

Hey everybody, welcome to another rousing edition of AMA. I'm your host Tom Bilyeu and I'm here to answer your questions. So, by the way, do put your questions into the comment box. We have none other than Chase himself going through those right now. He's pulling them out, looking for gold. So, drop them in and we will get to as many as we can. Now, we do normally look for stuff that's on theme. Is that your goal? All right. So, the more on theme your question, the more likely your question is to be asked. Also, the um shorter, more concise, and to the point your question is, the more likely it is to be asked. And as always, thank you guys for submitting the questions. That's what makes this whole engine go. So, I really am very grateful for that. All right, our first question comes via Annie Cowden. This is from the Connect inbox, which is another way, did you escape and make it in? Uh another way that you can submit your questions and here goes this one. Book after book, speaker after speaker, talks about the importance of who you surround yourself with having a huge influence on you. I'm extremely positive and have my goals written, routines, etc., etc., but I do not honestly know anybody with the same motivation and drive as me. I am willing and ready to be around people who are more motivated than me and doing harder work than me, but I don't know where to find such a crowd. Did you experience this? Do you have any advice? Um so, no, that really um was never my experience. I found that there was always somebody around me that knew more than me. Um there was always somebody around me that was at least as motivated than me. I won't say that I was always able to find people that are more motivated, um but this really comes down to, now that the internet exists, there is always a way to find people that are more motivated, farther ahead of you, farther ahead than you. So, even if you're only able to spend that time with them online, that's still a massive advantage. And I always tell people that you're not only the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, you're the average of the five ideas that you spend the most time with. And this is where people can really leapfrog themselves, even if they're in a remote village somewhere, you can surround yourself with powerful ideas from authors, from people online. Um there's just no shortage of amazing ideas that the vast majority of the planet has access to. If you have access to books or the internet, you should be able to surround yourself with people that are thinking on a level that will be very, very beneficial to you. So, um that would be my advice if you don't have them around you. But assuming that you live even remotely close to a major city, um you just haven't done the right work if you're not able to find people that are farther ahead. They are all out there, they are doing meetups, they are trying to build an audience. We live in such an amazing time where people are pouring their heart and soul into not only content over the internet, but usually doing content on the internet are also doing meetups in real life. So, go be a part of those and you should be able to surround yourself with some pretty amazing people. Also do entrepreneurial meetups, that's another great place, or industry meetups, uh depending on what industry you're in. Doesn't have to be entrepreneurial, but you'll find people that are really trying to put themselves out there, meet people, and progress. And so that would be a great way. All right, next question is from Daniel Breeze, a fan favorite in the house. This one is from Facebook. How do you create the steps for executing on a goal that you've set? It would be nice to hear a breakdown of the steps in an example. For example, the book you're writing. Haha. What is the ultra-specific goal and what are the steps to execution? Okay, well, if you're going to bring up uh the dreaded book, um actually no, I'm not going to do that one. I'm going to do the comic book. That is far more fun for me to talk about. All right, so uh here's how it goes. So, ultimately the comic book is meant to be sold to um a studio. It's meant to be turned into either a TV show or a film. So, that's really, really important for me to understand. And then going a level even beyond that, the real goal of anything that we put out is to help pull people out of the Matrix. Okay, so I've got my very specific goal. Now, what do I mean by the Matrix? I mean that we all have a set of limiting beliefs that holds holds us back from really doing and becoming what we have the potential to do and become. So, I know that just from um what the idea has to be, it has to be empowering just to put a nice, really simple uh word to it. So, all right, I've got something that's meant to pull people out of the Matrix, which means that it has to be empowering. And if I want to reach a mass audience in the way that I think about it is, how can I reach people that are even antagonistic to the idea of change? Okay, so I know that it's going to be a mass medium because I want it to reach as many people as possible, people that are not seeking out empowerment. And I also know that if they're not seeking out the empowerment, that the empowerment has to be a layer below the entertainment. I think you have to entertain people before you have the right to {quote} educate them. And I also know that if you're entertaining people, and this goes back to Joseph Campbell and the power of myth, that you can put into the very entertaining story, the emotionally engaging story, a um lesson for a lack of a better word, and that really is a hateful word, and I don't think of it like that. But you can put characters that they look up to that embody principles that if anybody embodied in their real life that it would move them forward. So, and literally I'm this is exactly what I'm doing in my mind to work backwards. Okay, then because you've really got to think about like and let's to use me as an example, while I have credibility in the realm of being an entrepreneur, I don't yet have credibility in the world of creating comic books. And so this is actually creating a lot of frustration behind the scenes, boys and girls, because um with my charm and my reach, I'm able to get to people. But the question they ask themselves is if I could go right or be an artist for one of the major publishers, then why would I come be a writer or an artist for you? You're an unproven commodity in this. So, there are a few ways around this. One, to make sure that you have clarity of vision. Two, and this is really important, partner with people that do have that credibility. So, I'm out there meeting with people that are major publishers in the industry, people that also have credibility on the film and TV side so that people see I have partnerships and relationships in the comic book world, but I also have partnerships and relationships in the TV and film world. So, when I say that I'm going to take this property all the way through, I've got the meaningful relationships with very credible players all throughout that space. Then, keep going back. So, then you have to solidify those, get the contracts in place, dealing with the lawyers and all that, which by the way, not too long after I end this broadcast, I will be doing exactly that. And so, making sure that you have the things in place to make good on the promises that you're making. I worry that I'm getting too granular, but hopefully you're seeing like how you start with the end goal, what exactly it is at the highest level, and then just getting more and more and more concrete until it ends with call this person, convince them of this. And that once you're there and once it's things are super concrete, action is being taken, you have dates and deliverables, that's super critical, then you'll actually potentially get across the finish line. And then the rest is nuance, right? So, if I'm unable to convince a writer of a certain stature, then you go to somebody who's less proven who might be more in the realm that I am where I have to have the ability to recognize their talent much like I'm asking other people to recognize that my talents transfer from the entrepreneurial arena to the creative arena. And so, finding that person that's an undiscovered talent, while not easy, may become exactly the thing that I need to do. All right, so I could keep going, but hopefully at uh a without getting into like the deep like tactical level of what I'm doing specifically, hopefully that answers your question. All right, Alexander Evergreen, this is from Facebook. And remember guys, if you have a question, drop it in. And we're trying to do a better job now of letting people know that their question has been selected and that it's going to be answered. Uh but this isn't real time. So, if you're watching this now during the live broadcast, know that we are pulling your questions in real time. So, uh whether you're on Facebook or YouTube, drop your comments in. We scour them both for questions. All right, how long did it take you to listen to books at 3x? Did you just start right away at that speed or did you have to ramp up over a period of time? I had to ramp up over a period of time. Uh I started at 1.5 and then when that sounded normal and I literally thought that I'd accidentally set it back to one, then I bumped it up to two. And then when that started to sound normal and I thought that maybe I'd bump that back down, then I bumped it up to three. Now, you can actually train yourself even better because YouTube will let you go in much smaller increments. So, you can go 1, 1.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, so on and so forth, all the way up to um I think the sound actually shuts off at at something like 4x or something like that. So, um you can go faster and faster depending on how quickly the person speaks. I find that natural language for me taps out around 2.3. So, if somebody's talking in their normal cadence like I'm doing now, that I'm probably going to tap out around two to 2.3 depending on how fast they talk. On an Audible book, because they intentionally speak very slowly and clearly, I find that I can speed it all the way up to three. Uh and there are certain narrators that I want to go above that, but Audible doesn't let you. Uh but you do have to work your way up to that. All right, next question is from Gagan Rayat. This is from Facebook also. How did you even have the audacity to start to create a protein bar in 2010 when there were so many around? Weren't you scared? What was it that kept you going? Was it yourself belief? Did you find something that wasn't uh part of the current lot? Did you know you would make a billion-dollar empire? Thanks. Okay, so don't scroll off. There's a lot of questions here. All right, how did I have the audacity? So, by the point by the time that we started Quest, I had been in the entrepreneurial game for almost a decade. I had won and lost um and just knew that at the end of the day, the only thing that was guaranteed was the struggle. The success was not. So, I wanted to do something that I was really passionate about that I could believe in even if we never ended up having success. And so, for three very different reasons cuz there were three of us that founded the company for three very different reasons, um we decided to go into the health space. For me, I grew up in a morbidly obese family, so it was very easy to stay focused and push um when I just had to think about the people that I loved, that I knew I was going to lose, literally lose to death if I didn't find a way to solve that problem. So, it was deeply personal and and easy to keep that energy going. I wasn't doing it because I thought that it was going to be a billion-dollar business. Although, we did understand that the market potential was massive. Um and honestly, we we when we set out, um we set out with the aim of becoming one of the largest food companies in the world, which of course would naturally make it a billion-dollar empire. But, we thought it would take a lot longer to get there than it actually did, which was really fascinating and obviously wonderful, um but a total surprise. Uh so, the reason that we had the audacity to do it even though there were so many other people out there was not only did we have experience as entrepreneurs and know how to build things and feel like we could at least get to the point of profitability, um there wasn't a single bar in the market that we would eat. So, we knew that there was at least a market of three people uh and we had a gut instinct that it was going to be a lot bigger than that. Um, and then a lot of things colluded just at the same time, the birth of social media, and we were entirely social marketers. Uh, we were focused on building a community. Um, we became our own manufacturer right as people were really becoming hyper-aware of ingredients and what they eat and all of that stuff. So, um, it was just really, really good timing. Um, self-belief, yes, was a huge part of it. Um, and I think that's all of them. All right, next question is from Daniel Bro, Dan Bro Fitness. Uh, when you started building your team, how did you start to find the best people for the job? I know it's trial and error, but would love to understand your process. Okay, so, um, we're literally hiring right now. So, by the way, if you're in Los Angeles and you're interested in being an administrative assistant or even an executive assistant, um, do hit me up. On LinkedIn, we have an active ad right now. Um, so, go there and apply. Um, and the way that I do this now is literally, it's so straightforward. Um, first of all, I tell people that I know and respect that I'm looking in case they might know somebody, and then I post an ad on LinkedIn, super simple. Now, the hard part begins. How do you know what you're looking for? So, one of the things that I look for is um, how do they describe themselves? So, if you're applying for a job and your self-description doesn't match the job that you're applying for, that's an immediate no-go for me. Um, next, how long do you stay at the companies that you stay with? If you're like, four months, nine months, six months, absolutely [ __ ] not. I don't want to have to like rehire every six to nine months. Um, so, that that would be a total nightmare. Um, also, I'm really honest in the description about what kind of company we are, what we're looking for, um, very detailed breakdown of what the job is exactly so that people, um, don't think it's going to be one thing only to find that it's another. Then, the real nuance begins, which is I then jump on a phone call with them and try to, whenever possible, be on a video phone call cuz I think that people give away, um, a lot more through their body language, their facial expressions than you're going to be able to pick up on on a phone call, and I want to know who they really are. So, I don't want to know who they're posturing to be. I actually want to know who they are, and I think that that's the secret to long-term relationships is really understanding who each person is, what their strengths, what their weaknesses are, and then being able to match them in a role that really suits their abilities. I find that that's There are certain things that are easy to identify in an interview, and certain things that are brutally difficult. So, I find it relatively easy to identify whether the person is collaborative in nature, whether they're egocentric, whether they like to be on a team, whether they're compassionate and pathetic. Those things are actually pretty easy to figure out. Now, whether or not they're wildly ambitious, and most terrifying because it's so hard to identify in an interview, is drive. Do they actually have the drive to see it through? Now, I didn't used to look at resumes literally at all. Um, and now that I'm more in need of professional managers, I find that I look at them much more so because I need to know like, what have you done historically? Have you shown grit, perseverance? Have you been able to move up in an organization, in the same organization ideally, and not just bounce from company to company, which is super common these days, but holds very little interest to me, and I'm really looking for long-term relationships. Also, in the interview process, I bring up the principles so that people have to very comfortable with hearing the raw, naked truth, and understand that here at Impact Theory, the best idea wins, and that that means that you have to have an unending pursuit of truth. So, yeah, those are the things, and I find that there's no way short of working with somebody to know if they have grit and perseverance. You can get a hint of it from their resume, but at the end of the day, that's the one thing I feel almost completely incapable of really identifying in an interview, and it's one of the most important things. And I look for three things in an employee, by the way. I look for grand ambition, drive, and compassion. Um and you can get a whiff of the ambition. Most people tell you that they're ambitious whether they are or not. Uh I think that most of the time you're totally blind to drive. But compassion, you can really understand. Um and then you can just see, do they pass the layover test? Are they fun to be around? Um when you lower their anxiety cuz interviews like literally seem like they were designed from the ground up to trigger every amount of anxiety that a person has. Uh so, trying to help them relax and really just display who they are and then reveal who I am. All right, I could keep going, but I'll stop. Michael Casas, question. You mentioned in your last AMA about skills that are necessary to survival and mentioned being able to read faster. What are three additional skills you feel are necessary to get great in order to not only be happy, but increase one's odds becoming successful? Um well, there's really only one skill that I would say is necessary for becoming successful, and that is the ability to learn. Now, there are other things around that that I won't necessarily say are skills. Being deeply inquisitive, um that's super important because if you want to read, you're going to read a lot more than somebody that does it only because they think they have to in order to get ahead. So, um fanning the flames of your natural inquisitiveness, I think it's really, really important, that curiosity. Um pursuing something that is an area of deep cultivated passion, so that you're really on fire for that thing you're going hard to learn about. I think that that's really important. That's going to give you the energy to keep pushing to do the things you need to do to really get great. Um and then what you build your self-esteem around really matters because you need to be focused on being the learner. That's really I and I this all keeps coming back to that. Like I'm the things that are important to succeeding in life are all the things that optimize for learning. And so, getting your ego out of the way, not worrying about whether you're good, smart, right, worthy, any of that, put all of that aside, and think obsessively about being the learner, building your pride around that, your willingness to learn, your willingness to admit when you're wrong, your willingness to sit at somebody else's feet, and humbly beseech them for their knowledge. Um all of that is just really, really important. And I think there's few things that hold you back faster than thinking that you're a master. There's an amazing quote I cannot believe I'm forgetting who that it's by right now, but it's you can't learn that which you already think you know. And I that's like, let that hit you. You cannot learn what you already think you know. Like, people will just shut down. They think they've already got it, and that's why it's rarely the master that goes on to create the disruptive company. It's usually the person too stupid to realize that they don't know what they're doing that go in and think totally originally. And as long as they've got that belief to keep going, and they're excited, those are the people I'd bet everything on every time. So, if you look at my successes historically, I started out in software, which I knew absolutely nothing about. I went from filmmaking to software, then I went from software to nutrition, then I went from nutrition to filmmaking. Um so, you can see the people I hope that this continues to be true for me. The people that have the most passion, willingness to learn, and the just raw naivete to not understand how big the problem is that they're facing, those are the people that go on to do something. And I try to remind myself every day to not let myself get overwhelmed by the enormity of what we're trying to do, which is build the next Disney. Now, on a similar timeline, don't plan to do that in the next 10 years. Um but it's a good thing that I don't know all the problems that are coming for me. I will just say that. All right, next up, Michelle Blum. Michelle Blum. All right. What is your strategy for engaging in constructive contemplation? It's easy to sit there for too long and get stuck in rumination rather than adequately reviewing your life and formulating plans or goals. You know, it's interesting. I was just thinking about this today. So, here's something that I do. I don't just sit and ruminate. I'm always looking for something to write down. I want to create a list of action items. And once I have a list of action items that I can begin immediately executing against, then I start to feel good. And there is something for me. This is just my process. Maybe it is a crazy process. But, it goes like this. I sleep all the as much not all the time as much as I can so that I'm cognitively optimized. I work out in the gym first and foremost. And then immediately after that, I meditate. And in that meditation, um you're getting your mind to a calm creative state. I literally just wrote a newsletter about this. So, sign up for the newsletter if you want more on that. Um but, you're in quieting your mind. I think, and I have nothing to back this up other than intuition, I think that you're basically creating the ability for your subconscious to speak to your conscious mind because you've quieted the conscious mind to the point where it can hear the little whispers of the subconscious, which is always how it's it's just a slight feeling. It's a mild sense of intuition. It's not like loud and pronounced. So, once you're there, then I open my computer. I have it sitting on my lap. And my sole goal in the universe is to come up with things that I can write down that are execu- table. So, my mind knows that that's its task. I don't just sit there and stare out a window. I have that computer. And by the way, I I and I find this really helpful. I put on the app Calm, and I play their what they call scenes. So, it's like uh meadow at dawn or um the ocean at sunset. It you know, it's all kinds of different things. There's something about those natural sounds that really lock me in. I don't hear anything else. There are no distractions. And I do think that it has something to do with that it's the sounds of nature that really um put me in an amazing place to hear those whispers of my subconscious so that I can translate my biggest business problems into action items. So, when there's something that I'm stuck on and I'm just like, "God, you know, what am I going to do to solve this?" I'm literally sitting there staring at the screen which uh very rarely is blank. And so, I've got my list as a living document. I'm changing it all the time, pretty much every day. And so, there's none of that weight of a blank page. But, I'm just looking at those things that I'm already supposed to be doing and I'm really asking myself, "Are these going to be the things that actually do it?" And then I do the no [ __ ] what would it take? So, no [ __ ] what would it take? Um and a lot of times like it the answer is something that I know other people aren't thinking of because they're conflicted about um their goals, quite frankly. So, they're conflicted about like I'll give you a great example. This is a real story, by the way. So, somebody that I know, someone who may be listening right now. They um they're in the film business and they were being blackmailed, which I can't believe is real. Like, who the [ __ ] does that? That's crazy to me. But, anyway, they were being blackmailed and so they were asking my advice, "What do I do?" And my advice was very simple, "What's your goal? Now act in accordance with your goal." And their goal was they wanted to get the film that they were working on done, period. And that was the most important thing to them and the fact that somebody else was going to get some of their money, um that was the quite frankly in the hierarchy of their desires was a lesser desire than their desire to get the goal. So, there you have it, move forward. Um so, once you're not conflicted about your goals, then you can really start to see what the real path is to that. Um so, paying people just to answer your questions while maybe you shouldn't have to and maybe they should do it out of kindness or maybe they should do it cuz you've done things for them in the past. Like, that's somebody who's conflicted. I'm not conflicted. So, if I've got to pay somebody who I've spent a thousand hours doing [ __ ] for free and I need to pay them a thousand dollars a month to, um, you know, answer two or three questions, I'll do it because those two or three questions I may be able to turn into hundreds of millions of dollars. So, that to me, like, just understanding what you want and having absolute clarity about what's important and what's going to get you there um, and then executing against it. So, that's how I avoid just sort of ruminating and I certainly don't waste time sitting in the past. All right, this next person is Greek or I will eat my shoes. Um, all right, let's see. I'm going to butcher this. And this is weird. I should be good at these names. Apostolos Theophanopoulos. That is almost certainly really [ __ ] close. All right. If you could choose two of your favorite authors to write a book together, who would they be and what would you like them to write about? What an amazing question. Okay. I'm going to go with Tony Robbins and Ray Dalio. That's a [ __ ] book that I would read. Now, Tony Robbins interviewed Ray Dalio, so that was interesting and I highly encourage you all to watch that. Uh, but them writing a book together would be off the charts, no question. I would read the [ __ ] out of that. All right. Thank you for that. That was so much fun. That was a really enjoyable mental exercise. I'm very grateful for that one. All right. Kila Herrera, "Hey Tom, I have been following your content for a little while now and I love that you are a super that you are a super honest about how you used to be the late used to be lazy. I still am. Do you have any advice on how do consistently overcome that? Indeed I do. Uh, I have days where I'm busy and actually getting what I need done, but then I have days where I'm lazy and I want to limit those days even more and be more active in doing what I need to do, uh, which is mostly studying for law school. All right, here is just the hard hard reality. The only thing that I found as ways around this is identity. So, I really want to be a certain kind of person and I get a massive amount of chemical joy. Joy. I am a heroin addict, a cocaine addict for being the kind of person I want to be, acting in accordance with that, being tough, doing the work, grinding it out, pushing forward, having a goal, going after it, developing myself, being the learner, like seeing how much potential I can actually wring out of myself. I can't tell you like all the [ __ ] that I say in these AMAs and when I do interviews and stuff, they are so real to the core of my being. Good [ __ ] luck catching me out because this is what I do because because of that neurochemical rush that I get every time where and don't let Chase hear this, but like when I'm up and I'm working at 4:00 a.m. and I know all my employees are sleeping, all my competitors are sleeping and I'm [ __ ] grinding it out. And when I got up at 4:00 a.m. and I was working my ass off and then at literally 8:45, knowing that I will be in bed and I will be asleep in 15 minutes, I'm still working. Now, the other part because you're wasting your life if you do all of that for something that you don't care about. And this is where it gets terrifying. You've got to be excited about the future that you're building. That is the key. You've got to be really amped up about it. It's got to give you energy. When you think about doing that thing, it's got to really amp you up. And if it doesn't, then dear god, what are you doing? There's no moral obligation to go hard and live your life like I live mine, but man, let me tell you right now, if you're not doing things that excite you, if there's nothing in your life that you have built into this incredible pyre of excitement, you are really missing out. That literally to me is what life has to offer. We are this creature that is immeasurably excitable, but you have to create that. You've got to decide that something's going to become an excitement for you and that you're going to feed into like, for instance, I have not yet seen Altered Carbon. Chase, have you? I have not. No one has. Although, unless it's already come out. But, it comes out today at some point and I'm over the moon excited about it. Now, it could be a total disaster, but I decided that I was going to get myself excited about this thing so that I would be literally chomping at the bit to sit down and watch this thing, which I am now. And literally just because I've decided that I'm going to get excited and I fanned the flames. And why am I excited about this? I love things that deal with the future. Oh, that's so cool. I know the imagery is going to be badass. I watched the trailer. I talked to Casey about it all the time. Casey and I are feeding off of each other, but that was all super conscious on my part. I literally saw Casey mentioned it. She said, "Oh, there's this new show coming out called Altered Carbon. I think you might be into it." I went, I watched the trailer and I said, "You know what? I'm going to get excited about this [ __ ] thing." I have no idea if it's going to be any good, but I'm going to get excited. Now, deciding about that, fanning those flames, doing all the things that I just went through, that makes this thing legitimately exciting for me. And I do the same thing about my business goals, my marriage, my friendships, like you can literally decide that you're going to get excited about it. And if it's real, if there's a nugget of something real, like I can't get excited about going to the dentist. There's virtually nothing. It's so funny, my [ __ ] mind. Even now, I'm like, you could get excited about going to the dentist, about leaning into the pain and like proving to yourself you're tough. So, anyway, that's a sickness, but you can like do this with things that are legitimately interesting to you. You can fan those flames until they become full-blown excitement. So, if law school is your stick, you've got to find a way to fan those flames to get excited about law school, about what it represents, about what it's going to allow you to do, whatever that is. Even if law school is your version of going to the dentist, hopefully you're doing it because there's something on the other end of getting that law degree that you care about deeply. And that does excite you when you think about it. And if it doesn't, and you don't think that you can breathe that excitement into it in an authentic way, change gears. Literally go in today and quit if that's what you need to do. But don't waste your life doing things you don't give a [ __ ] about. All right, next up, Ruth Preston. This is Facebook. How do you deal with people giving criticism about the way you do things? How do you know how much to take in and apply to your life, and how much you to just let go of? Basically, how much is true and how much is them? All right, so first of all, I whenever someone gives me criticism, I try to ask myself, regardless of how it's presented, regardless if it's clearly meant as an attack, I'll say, "Is there any truth in this?" Now, why do I do that? I do that because if somebody can point out a blind spot, even if in yourself, even if that hurts, once you're no longer blind to it, you can address it by acquiring a skill. Once you have that skill, that skill has real-world implications. And this is where I think people fall down. They like they want to acquire skills either to please their parents or to um pacify their boss or whatever it is. They're not thinking about this skill is actually going to let me do something that I couldn't otherwise do. And once I can do that thing, it's a form of power. I can leverage it, and I can go where I want to go. So, when you start thinking about it like that, then all of a sudden it's like no matter why the criticism is being laid on you, you want to see if it's true. You want to immediately scan the realities of your life and say, "If what they're telling me will actually let me go to my goal faster, more efficiently, then I'm going to adopt it even if it was meant as an insult, even if they're trying to hurt my feelings, um even if they're crazy, out of their [ __ ] minds. This is some another thing that drives me crazy. People looking for reasons not to listen to somebody else. Don't ever look for a reason to not listen to somebody. They may be totally crazy. They may be literally crazy. Like actual mental illness crazy. And I will still ask if what they're saying to me has potential merit. Have they been able somehow through all the madness been able to give me a nugget that I can use in my life and to meet that with gratitude. Man, I'm just telling you that that is like one of those secret sauces. There's so many people that waste [ __ ] time on the internet arguing with people, which I will never understand. Every minute you spend arguing is a minute you don't spend deploying the skills that you have. So, regardless of how something is meant, regardless of how much it hurts, ask only one question. Will taking this advice move me towards my goals or not? If it does, do it. If it doesn't, ignore it. All right, you've got to get good at that. There's no question. You've got to get good at assessing that, but where most people get tripped up is the emotion. So, get over that one. All right, next up is Citsi Karkusashvili. Man, it's not a lot that really like [ __ ] stumble me up, but I think Citsi is pretty close. All right. Hi Tom, I'm curious how should we go through times when our goal is not clear and we're lost. There are so many things that I'm interested in. I'm not sure which which path I should choose. All right, you're going to think I'm being cheeky in how brief this answer is going to be. And I want everyone, if that question resonated with you, lean the [ __ ] in. Pick one and go. That's it. Don't [ __ ] debate, just pick one and go. And if 10 steps down the path you're like, [ __ ] I really should have picked the other one, then go pick the other one and run down that path. If you find yourself do that more than three times, you're just being wishy-washy. Pick one and go and don't stop even when you get that pang of oh, I should be doing something else. See it all the way through. Set yourself a goal, whether that's um you know, running a marathon or if you um God, there's so many things. You think you want to be a professional dancer, go um sign up for a dance class and see that all the way through to the end. Like pick some length of time that no matter what, even if you hate it, you're going to see it through. But that that's where people fall down. They they don't just pick one and go. Nothing is ever going to seem right. So, pick one, go, develop it into a passion. All right. Next up is Three Rhino Media. If you could choose two historical figures, not living, to do an episode of Impact Theory together, who would they be and why? Man, we got a real thing for togethers today. Um not living. I'm going to go with Einstein. Which if you guys haven't watched that episode of Genius or the the season of Genius that um shows his life, really, really amazing. Um and then, God, who would be fascinating to pair with him? This is super random and and this may I may want to tear my own hair out, but I'm going to say Steve Jobs. So, it'd be really interesting to put those two together, especially because I know that Steve Jobs admired Einstein. Uh they've both been written about by uh Isaac Walter Isaacson. I always want to say his name backwards. Um so, yeah, that would be really fascinating. And I don't have a great why for you. I'd really have to sit down. My gut is those are two people that I am immeasurably fascinated by that are both dead. Um and yeah, they've got enough things like connecting them that um I think that we could weave a pretty fascinating narrative about how they achieved and accomplished tying in all the things that Walter Isaacson wrote about. Yeah, that would be a [ __ ] good episode, man. Now I'm just sad. Thanks three Rhino Media that that will never happen. All right, Lindsey shoots. Hey Tom, how can I be authentic at work when my office constantly thrives on gossip and subplots? That's an interesting way to say that. I've been here for almost 6 years and desperately want to leave but don't have a skill set to get me away from this industry, so I'm miserable and it's hard to hide what I'm feeling. How can I cope here while I build up other skills? Thank you. What would I really do? I have the cheap cheesy answer which I'm going to give you really fast and then I'm going to we're all going to give me like 7 seconds to just sit blankly and think. Um, my cheap and cheesy answer is that um, I would start looking for what's the ideal industry that I want to be in and I would identify that and I would then say okay, like vision board it, hang it on the fridge, whatever, like I want to get into this world I'm really excited about and deeply passionate. And then I would start nights and weekends working to acquire the skills and I would set myself a goal. And honestly a year is plenty of time. A year is plenty of time for you to get enough skills that you could go into an interview and convince them that you know what you're talking about and it's worth taking a shot on you even if that means taking a pay cut. All right, so that's kind of answer that we've heard from me a thousand times. Uh, it's very true, it's very real and that may be exactly what I would do, uh, but I really want to think about this for a second. So, I'm fascinated by how much of the culture can you change from within? And I think it's hard as hell. I think it's one of the most difficult things that anyone can undertake, which is really trying to flip people. But I really want to know, like if you couldn't leave, like if for 5 years you had to just grind it out to get the skill set that you wanted to acquire, um, what would it look like to find a path to happiness inside the company? Here's what I would do. I am utterly convinced that people will recognize you if you get good enough. And I would start getting so [ __ ] good at my job that people would want to steal my ideas. So that would be step one. I would want to put myself in a position where my managers are stealing all my ideas. Because now they're going to have fear of loss whether they say it or not. If you're the one actually generating the ideas, they're going to have fear of loss. Also, if you can execute against that, then they're really going to be afraid to lose you. Now that puts you in a position of power. Second of all, and that that power is going to feel good, right? So you're going to be progressing, you're going to be getting better, that's going to be feeding your your confidence, your self-esteem, which is very, very helpful when you're dealing in a difficult environment. Then I'm also going to never, ever, ever engage in gossip or anything like that. And I might, now I'm not sure, I would have to really read the situation because you don't want to come across as a total douche, but one thing I might start doing is go the next time somebody's like being really gossipy about somebody, I would say, "You know what's really interesting? I'm practicing the saying I heard this piece of advice on this random guy's web series and he said you get what you focus on. It's really interesting. So while that may be true about that person, I've I'm trying this new method of flipping my criticisms into compliments. And I don't know, you guys might think I'm crazy, but what do you think about this?" And then I would compliment that person. Or just get the [ __ ] out of that conversation. But if I thought I could pull it off without being a douche, I thought I might be able to begin swaying people's ways of being and I trust me, I know that that would take a very long time cuz humans are prone to gossip. It is by the way, one of the ways we transmit ideas. So you may not ever be able to stop the gossip. We may not even want to as a species stop the gossip, but 80/20, right? 80% of the time should be about the things we're excited about, cheering people on, totally amped up, super excited for them. So because I'm such a huge believer in the principles, which is only talking truth, um not saying things behind somebody's back that you wouldn't be willing to say to their face. I would just start implementing that in my own life, and I would walk people through. I would tell them why I'm doing it. Um I really could go on and on about that, and I'd be so interested to see if that would really work in real life. Um but I don't think that you have to choose between those two. So, I know that on the other hand, nights and weekends, getting the skills to get out, um that you can do. And also, honestly, what I would do is cut your expenses to the quick, so that you don't need as much money, so that you can leave sooner. Intern for somebody nights and weekends. If you can go part-time, do it, and then start interning for the industry that you want to be in um on the day or days that you're able to free up, or go be a freelancer. I don't know what industry you're in, so I don't know how easy it would be to freelance. Um but that would be incredible, but I would get out of the toxic environment as much as as rapidly as possible. All right, thank you for being indulgent, letting me think out loud on that one. Um I'm really fascinated by that. All right, next question is from Edwin Degaldo. How do you engage employees after layoffs? How do you engage yourself? Uh I'm going to make the assumption that you mean how do you engage the remaining employees after you've done a round of layoffs? And I think that this is where radical transparency comes in. If people really deeply understand why you're doing what they're doing, and you're doing it for a sound reason, I think that you can get people back on board, especially because they're the ones that survived. Explain to them why they survived. Explain to them how they're going to be able to contribute. Explain to them what your vision is for getting the company going in a positive direction again. If all of those things make sense, and they can really follow your logic, and they buy into that, um that is going to make it a lot easier. Now, how do I engage myself? Because I haven't been an employee for now north of 15 years, um I might be a little delusional on this one. So, for me, it's all about I I need to believe in the vision before I can move on it for anybody else. And every day I'm trying to sharpen where we're going, how we're going to get there. Um I'm constantly communicating that to myself. Um in fact, we had to institute weekly meetings so that I could um communicate that to the rest of the team because I find that my own vision of where we're going and how we're going to get there is changing um in exciting ways all the time and that that changes so rapidly because I think about it so much that if I don't weekly stop to take time to tell the team um that when I do say, "Hey, here's where we're going." um it feels very jarring. So, that's a long way of saying you should always be um refining that within yourself, always believe in it, always be excited about it. And if you're unable to do that, you need to find somebody that can. Um and you may need to own and this was really interesting in the episode that I did with Tucker Max where he said, "I'm not the right person to be the CEO for the company and I know that. And even though I founded it, I hired another CEO. And even though he offered to take the president role and let me keep the CEO role, I knew that didn't make sense. And so, he got his own ego out of the way and he hired somebody else." So, I would do that. All right, next up is Violet Danka. This is from YouTube. Hey Tom, I'm super excited to know more about your comic book project. What are requirements the artist needs to meet to get a chance to be a part of the project? Thank you. All right, Violet, here is the hard, hard, hard answer and I don't want this to be true because I love this community so much and you can't imagine it is like shoving bamboo shoots under my fingernails every time somebody from the community submits something and I'm like, "It's just not where I need it to be." Um the honest answer is you've got to be unreasonably talented. You've got to be unreasonably talented at telling stories. And I also find that most artists are um really good at cover art and really bad at sequential art. Um so, that is that is that's been one of the frustrations, but I want to be proven wrong by you. That would be amazing. And we're working right now and I've really slowed down on this because the submissions that we were getting were not where we needed them to be, but my original vision for all of this was we were going to have a submission process um, where we sent you a document and said this is what you can expect if we um, which I guess as an artist it really doesn't matter. In fact, as an artist this becomes much easier. Send me a link to your portfolio. I will look at it. If it is amazing, uh, I will reach out to you, but it's got to be amazing. So, and like if it's not amazing, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't mean you're a bad artist. It just means you got to keep progressing. So, um, thank you for your excitement. I really want your portfolio to be amazing. Uh, send it in. Anybody else that's listening, that would be incredible. Uh, yep. So, I'm excited for this to become more and more real so that people can see what we're really up to behind the scenes. Um, it's going to be a lot of fun. All right. Jake Odissa. Yep. Hey Tom and Impact Theory team. With your content and the guests you have had on your show, I found stoicism. Nice. What is your feeling on stoicism and other philosophies? Okay, so my reading of that question was super [ __ ] awkward and I apologize. Uh, stoicism as interpreted by Ryan Holiday is amazing. I couldn't get through the original stoic text, so maybe bad on me, maybe that's a weakness that I have, uh, but I found Ryan's books to be un- Ryan Holiday for anybody that doesn't know. Uh, I found his books to be unbelievably powerful. And so The Obstacle Is the Way, um, Daily Stoic, um, Ego Is the Enemy, all of them were amazing. So, I highly, highly encourage you to read that and it's basically like extreme ownership, everything's my fault, what's the opportunity in this bad thing, this supposed bad thing? And I just think that's the way to live. Other philosophies, the only other philosophy that I'll say that I understand well enough to really like plant a flag in it would be Taoism. I spent many years actually in my youth referring to myself as a Taoist, which I don't anymore, but that was that was I would I went hard for that Taoist cake. Way into that and I think that there are a lot of similarities to Taoism and Stoicism Stoicism, there we go. In that you're looking at you're trying to identify the truth of the situation, get the ego out of the way and really understand how you can move towards your goal, whatever your goal may be. So, those are the only two that I can speak with any degree of certainty. All right, frivolous TV YouTube. Tom, what's your interpretation of people that constantly say I'm stuck? My interpretation is that they're not excited about what they're trying to accomplish. When you're excited, like when you really want something or as Tony Robbins would say, once your want becomes a crushing need in your life, you will find a way. Most of the time people are stuck, it's like they're just unhappy enough to be complaining, but they're not unhappy enough to do something about it. Or maybe even more terrifyingly, they've let that unhappiness become a chronic state and because it's neurological, they don't see the way out of it. And because they don't see a way out of it, they don't try because humans lead with belief and you have to believe that you can get to the other side of it before you will start putting action in place because you have to believe that your actions will be rewarded with progress in order to take that first step. So, being stuck is basically the thing I've dedicated my life to and the whole idea of getting people a growth mindset and doing it through a studio that creates content is the content that you're hearing right now is content for the choir, right? So, I'm preaching to the choir right now. The stuff that we're doing on the traditional narrative side, the comic books, TV shows, movies, that's all for people that are antagonistic to change, that they actively don't want a growth mindset. Um I think even those people, hopefully, can be flipped, but it isn't going to be through talking to them, and it probably isn't going to be um like a full transformation. I think of it more generationally. So, rather than maybe a better way to say it would be maybe I can't save that person, but I can save their family, so their progeny, the their lineage. And so, multi-generational, the first person maybe gets that hope for their kids that like, "Hey, things could be better for you, and this is how you should think, and these are the characters you should look up to." And then their kids just take it for granted that that's the way the world should be, and then their kids obviously don't know anything else. Um that's my fantasy, and we'll see how true that is um over time. All right. Robbie Gutless, is that really your last name, or is that That's from YouTube. So, my guess is that's fake. Robbie, I've got a whole thing about usernames. You got to be real careful with those usernames. Uh Mr. Bill You, I was on my way to Australia on a work visa for a physical job for a physical job, but I ruptured my Achilles tendon. This is the biggest setback I've ever had. How would you deal with the downtime? Um so, nobody has better advice on this topic than Kobe Bryant. Him specifically for sure, and then there are probably countless other athletes that have talked about this. Um in fact, Jay Williams, who was on Impact Theory, um he talked about all the downtime and what he did with it. Um he's got a book. I forget the title of the book. Uh God, what is it? It's a cool title as well. I'm very upset. Um but Jay Williams, look him up. He's talked a lot about it. Kobe talks a lot about it, about how you have to just [ __ ] get over the like frustration of it. Just start putting in the work to um do the physical therapy, to get better, to know that on the other side of this you're going to be stronger than ever. And also, the downtime, take the time to strengthen your mind, and I think that that's critically important, and it is sort of it sucks, but it's going to free up some of your time. If you put that time into learning, to growing more excited about what you're going to be doing, to diversifying, like maybe you realize that whoa, the body has a shelf life, and man, do I ever wish that wasn't true, but the body, at least as of today, has a shelf life. And so, what are things that I could do to diversify my potential um careers. Like, are there other things that I can begin investing in now while I still do have years left in my career where I'm doing something to set myself up for the next phase, and ironically enough, Kobe, I am not a sports guy at all, but I saw Kobe speak, and dude, what he's doing on the media side is rad. And I think his short film, Farewell to Basketball, I think it's called, or My Letter to Basketball, anyway, something like that. I think it was nominated for an Academy Award, and it is unbelievably good. And he said he started working on that before he'd even retired from basketball because he knew, obviously, I'm going to be retiring, and it's going to be relatively soon, so I need to start thinking about what that next phase is. So, take the time to do that. All right. Mike Pursacelli. Hi Tom, I'm almost finished reading The Power of Habit, and it talks about a keystone habit that acts as a lead domino for everything else in your life to fall into place. Could you identify yours? Learning, in no uncertain terms. Every day I am reading. I read obsessively. I am constantly trying to get more information to improve myself, to become capable of more than I was the day before. That, like, just read, read, read, read, read, making sure that that is a part of my daily [ __ ] routine, that is for sure my lead domino. The fact that I spend a lot of my time also reading about the mind, that's huge, so mindset is also another part of that. Those two are very much intertwined for me. All right. Nikhil Wada, YouTube. Hi Hi I'm trying to understand myself doing that by journaling, thinking about how I feel about various things, remembering where I come from helps me be happy. How do I understand myself better? You've already laid out some pretty good things. Um, so the other I would say is when you have an emotion, begin to recognize, oh, I'm having a strong emotion. What is causing that emotion? And then what is the underlying cause of that? So, uh, I I'm having an emotion and my emotion is anger. And my anger is based on, um, my uh, girlfriend asked me to um, stop reading so much. And then I realized that that makes me angry because I'm insecure about my ability to provide for her. Okay, well, cool. Now we've identified what's really going on and we have an insecurity around being able to provide. Maybe we have an insecurity about a role as a man, whatever the case may be. It's like, okay, you've identified it now. Now it's not going to have much hold on you. And that process of, I'm having an emotion, cool. What's driving the emotion, got it. And then what's the underlying cause of that driver, that that's really, really critical and that's going to help you continue to identify those emotional things that drive you. And I find that most people are driven by their emotions, but they never take the time to figure out why at their most petty, insecure, just basest human level, what's actually driving that emotion. And if you can identify that, then you can deal with it. All right. Next up is from Mia Lavoy. Hey Tom, would you rather have the excitement and joy of a growth mindset and be broke living in poverty and never get out, or would you rather be a billionaire but ha be the billionaire you are, for the record I'm not a billionaire, uh, but have received it by inheritance or the lottery with no growth mindset? That is not even difficult. I would much rather have a growth mindset. I'm telling you right now, the only thing the only thing that matters is how you think about yourself when you're all alone. That's it. So, that is like hands down 100% money is uh amazing and I am super honored that our I'm not even honored. I'm super grateful that I've made the kind of money that I've made in my life. But, boy, oh boy, let me tell you that the thing that I'm proud of, the thing that is the backbone of my joy, my happiness, my fulfillment is my willingness to stare at my inadequacies and work to become someone that I'm immeasurably proud of. That's it. It is my willingness to become. My willingness to become. It isn't that I am, that I have, none of that. My willingness to become. That is entirely a growth mindset. So, yeah, that my my entire universe of pride, joy, and fulfillment is centered around that and I think that that's humans by nature, growth, progress, those are fundamental drivers of fulfillment. So, that's it. All right. Next question, Jeremy Stickney. What sentence would you want on your tombstone to say about you when you're gone? This is all my fault. Because I didn't solve the death problem. That's actually what I think about death. I would just be pissed that um it I banked on other people solving a pretty important problem in my life and they didn't solve it and I died. So, yeah, this is all my fault. There it is. All right, Linda Roy. Can you comment on learning from reading versus watching documentaries and etc. online? Reading Reading touches one part of your brain and video another. Is one better or not? Um I don't think that one's better and whatever you learn from, that's incredibly powerful. Now, I find that books have a much um deeper density of information. It's the same reason I don't listen to um as many podcasts as I read books. And by the way, it is the reason that I stopped doing um AMAs in a more conversational style and I moved to me trying to give answers as rapidly as humanly possible. I'm trying to make the density of information in this the most density-rich or information-rich podcast ever. So, that's why I um while I love documentaries and I love filmmaking, the density of information is just not there. So, that's for people that need that emotional ride um and quite frankly, the other thing that storytelling gives you is the metaphor with which to hold on to in your life to come back to. I think it's far easier to remember that stuff. Um so, you've got memory cuz it's triggering emotions, making it really visceral, characters that you can identify with, um situations that you can use to explain something to other people or even to yourself, and then you've got just the density of information that comes in books. And great books, obviously, a lot of times will use stories and analogies and things to try to capitalize on some of that other stuff. Um so, yeah, I don't think that one is better than the other. I think that both serve different functions, but I spend the majority of my learning time uh in books just for the pure density of information. Okay. Next up, Justin James from YouTube. What do you believe Why do you believe people are so attached to money so much that it affects all other areas of their lives? All right, are you ready for this one? And I really want people to listen to this. Money is real. Money is real. Money is the great facilitator. It will change your life, not necessarily forever cuz you could lose it, but it will change your life profoundly. Bill Gates is going to end malaria, and he's going to do it because he has access to the resources. So, money in and of itself is inert. It is not going to make you happy. It will not change how you feel about yourself in any way, shape, or form, but people will chase it forever and ever and ever because it is real, and it allows you to do things, and you are able to facilitate your greatest dreams, whatever they may be, because you have money. Now, if you don't understand money, if you don't understand that money won't change how you feel about yourself, if you don't understand how transient money is, and that you can spend it, and then it is all gone, and if you don't understand how you will feel about that, because society will judge you, it's actually harder to deal with having made a lot of money only to lose it in terms of public perception than to never have made it at all. People don't necessarily feel sorry for the person that's making $45,000 a year, but they like literally like there's a mixture of like heartbreak and cynicism to the person that made 45 million and then lost it. So, that is uh you got to be real careful. You got to know who you are. Like the the most interesting thing that happened to me in getting wealthy was realizing that the money did not in any way, shape, or form change how I felt about myself. I thought it would, because I looked up to people that had money. I thought, "Oh my god, they're amazing. They've accomplished all this stuff." Like I thought they were so cool that I just thought, "Well, if I am one of them, if I have the outwardly affectations that they have, that I would feel that way about myself." That's not how it works at all. So, do the work to become the person that you want to be, to believe in yourself, to love yourself, all of that, regardless of whether or not you have money, because the money tang going to change anything. But it will let you facilitate your dreams, and that is so intoxicating that people will chase it forever. So, all right, we're at the end here. All right, last question. Magic Hammer Photography, this is from YouTube. Hey Tom, knowing that the brain is designed for survival, what strategy would you recommend to bend the evolutionary curve towards happiness rather than survival? I I don't think this is uh really a question of bifurcating them, because I think happiness is the pleasure that nature has given us to make sure that we do the things that ensure the survival of our progeny, and that's very important to differentiate. So, nature isn't so worried about you, nature is worried about making sure that you are able to raise children long enough that they get to the point where they will have kids who will then survive, so on and so forth. But, just like nature incentivizes sex through pleasure nature incentivizes cooperation, teamwork by making fulfillment the longest-lasting, most stable neurochemical state. So, sex is amazing, but it comes and goes, right? It's a very brief experience. Whereas, fulfillment, knowing that I have a skill set that I worked my ass off for, and this skill set has real-world implications to people other than myself, it's able to serve other people, and that is what brings human beings the deepest sense of fulfillment. And I think once people begin to understand that building that skill set that is hard to acquire, that serves other people, is the key to fulfillment, then I think that you can literally leverage what nature has already given us to have that deep and lasting fulfillment. I just think that there's enough weirdnesses in modern society and all that that it that doesn't happen automatically anymore, and so that's what may make it feel like, "Oh, we have to totally um bend the curve away from something." Um that is how we survive as a group, as a collective, to make sure that our children live on is to protect that group around us. So, do things not just for yourself, but for other people, and I think that you will find a deep and lasting sense of fulfillment awaits you. All right, that's it for today. Guys, thank you so much for joining me. As always, thank you so much for submitting your questions. Absolutely amazing. By the way, I can't believe I forgot to mention this. Today's episode is brought to you by Do the Work. Go to shop.impacttheory.com right now, get yours. All about self-signaling. You guys know my obsession with self-signaling. You try to tell the world something about yourself, but you end up telling yourself even more. So, go get it. There's a bunch of other really cool ideological things. Get those, remind yourself, empower yourself to become the person that you want to become. All right, guys. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends. Be legendary. Take care.