The Power of Being Selfish | Tom Bilyeu AMA

everybody welcome to another episode of AMA live I am here to answer your questions so be sure to drop those bad boys in and if this is adding value to your life please do share it that would be amazing and today's episode is brought to you by everything is my fault which you can find like a Sesame Street episode you can find at shop impact Theory comm check it out if you want a self signal to yourself and empower yourself to do something amazing alright we're gonna dive right in first question is from anatolia Manuel from the connect inbox which by the way if you want to submit your questions ahead of time you can do that to connect at impact Theory dot-com all right I'm a single mother and want nothing more than to be able to provide for my daughter I'm torn between studying something that will help others or help my family profit there's a lot of other details but I'm gonna stop there so this is a classic conundrum that a lot of people are struggling with and it comes in a lot of different forms from mother or father is sick and do I give up my career to go take care of them and here's the reality there is power in being selfish the truth of the matter is you have one life to live and if you really want deep and lasting fulfillment if you want to make the absolute most of this life I'm telling you right now there is one formula for that and it goes like this it is what the ancient Greeks called techne the human-animal is designed to adapt and grow because of that nature has given a pleasure response to doing the things that actually get us to adapt and grow so that we can conquer our environment and that is learning is intensely pleasurable now it needs to be learning something that you actually care about and this is where it all comes back to technique technique is about gaining a set of skills that was very hard to acquire and is unique to you but is in service of other people and it's that combination of things it is something you're deeply interested in it is something that you fan the flames of until it really becomes a passion and it is something that was hard to acquire but becomes a set of skills that is unique to you now the expression of those skills the use of those skills in service of other people is the thing that's going to light you on fire so the great news here is the answer to your question to live a life that is going to be fulfilling to you is going to help other people but if you just lead with oh I want to go do something for other people you will find yourself in a nightmare scenario where you're not able to take very good care of them because you haven't spent the time to acquire a skill set that is actually useful to other people and on top of that you won't be fulfilled yourself and when you're not fulfilled you don't have the energy that you're going to need to do the hard things to take care of the people that you love the most so when I look at my own life and I look at the truth of the statement that's often often attributed to Mother Teresa but may or may not actually be a mother Teresa quote is people will not act for the many but they will act for the one so look when you're assessing what skillset you want to acquire first and foremost it needs to be selfish it needs to be something that you're interested in because in that selfish love passion excitement for that thing you're gonna have the energy to actually develop a skill set that'll be useable to other people now if you can find the areas of overlap where it's also something that's going to serve your family whatever that may be and you talked about your father having a construction business if I'm not mistaken but you want to become a lawyer yes so you're talking about potentially going and working for a non-profit to be a lawyer but that's not necessarily gonna give you what you want to help your family so the question is why do you want to become a non-profit lawyer and if you can work backwards from what it what is it in that that you're trying to do so if it's just helping people the real question to ask is is helping people as a non-profit the way that's going to utilize most powerfully the skill set that you want to build and then will it help a great number of people and quite frankly is it going to leave your family isolated so I think that you're going to have to take into consideration all those different things so finding the area of overlap where you're doing things like I'm guessing it doesn't take a lot to provide the kinds of resources to your family that you want this isn't like where you have to become a millionaire so the question is if laws interesting to you and you want to be able to take care of your family but you also want to be able to help people what's the balance in that so if becoming a lawyer is really the thing that's exciting for you a you can work somewhere that making the kind of money that you're gonna need to take care of yourself and your family but also allows you to do pro bono work so if I was in this exact situation what I would do is I would become the lawyer that I want to become if that's the thing that's really driving me I'm really passionate about that but I would find a law firm that is actually going to help me or going to allow me and in fact encouraged me to take pro bono work which many law firms do so Peter Diamandis has a law and he says when given an option between two things take both so when given an option between doing something for yourself and doing something for your family do both alright next question is from Michelle Kelly ah P Amato how do you take an idea and put it into action I am so great with ideas but freeze when it comes to getting started I actually just recorded some Alexa content around this and there's in it I broke down the four things you really need to do to get started let's see if I can remember them off the top my head number one start small I normally hate when people talk about baby steps but the reality is what paralyzes a lot of people from taking action is they're looking at the entire universe of what they're trying to accomplish and it is over whelming and because there's so many pieces of that puzzle you don't know or understand when you're trying to wrap your head around and really figure out how you go from where you are to the very end of the puzzle it actually is paralyzing in the sense you don't have the skill set you don't even have the understanding there are many many things you're not even aware enough about so even though that may be the goal that gets you excited and motivated don't get lost in all of the steps along the way just figure out what is the very first step so if you want to be a professional dancer don't worry about what it takes to go on tour with you know Justin Timberlake and this upcoming album go take a dance class and figure out whether or not you actually are going to enjoy it enough to continue to pursue it to that point just that simple step alright next it needs to be something that's number two it needs to be something that is exciting for you if you don't have the excitement this is why take that small first step that baby step just to see if you enjoyed it if you don't enjoy the very first step chances are that you're not going to enjoy the entire process and there's something called whoop w 200p whish outcome obstacle plan so wish what is your wish but outcome don't let it stay in the realm of like magic fairy land the actual outcome that you want from that wish so I want to be rich and famous okay what is the outcome you're actually looking for is do you want to be a business person do you want to be an actor like what is that actual thing how are you going to make that wish come true very very specific concrete path to that okay once we have that what's the obstacle that stands between your outcome and where you are today so once you identify that then you come up with a plan when you look at the wo o P all together how does it make you feel in your gut if it terrifies you then chances are that this isn't something that you have the excitement for you're gonna be willing to push through the difficulty of that obstacle part to actually execute on your plan if on the other hand when you look at whoop and you think whoa the steps that I actually have to go through some going back to the first question if the thought of becoming a lawyer sounds like torture to you that is not the path that you want to march down but if you look at something like being a professional gamer for instance random but an example that I use all the time because this is often the thing that people dismiss and say well I could never do that but if when you think about what you would have to do to become a professional gamer that the path the the stretch of difficulty in the middle of actually acquiring the skill something interesting to you lights you on fire gets you excited then that's gonna give you the energy that you need to keep pushing through so a lot of this just comes down to what is the thing that gives you the energy and so that's really the aim of whoomp is to figure out which of those things is going to give you that level of excitement okay number three man I really thought I was gonna pull this off with the the three things taking action let me just now make it up on the spot those are the first two things that's really important oh I do remember so the next thing you're gonna want to enlist a friend so this is a big deal because when you enlist somebody that has expectations that you're actually going to show up chances are way more likely that you're actually going to show up so that's a really big deal get other people that are going to reinforce his behavior you guys have heard it said a thousand times that you want to find or you're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with so part of what makes that so powerful isn't just the way they think it's that they're holding you accountable to the things you said you were going to do and then for the last thing is you want to make sure that you are leveraging identity actually tying your ident to the outcome so once you've gone and engaged with it in some way you've taken that first step you realize you have excitement you've looked at woop you're super amped up you've got somebody else that's gonna engage this with you you want to start telling anybody and everybody who will listen that you're gonna do that so I'm the type of person that is willing to become the personal dancer or profile personal dancer to become a professional dancer so whatever that thing is using that phrase I'm the type of person that I'm the type of person that will put in the work to do this then once you're committed to that you've been reinforcing it in yourself you want to tell the world at large that you're going to do that I'm gonna become a professional dancer you do all of those things not only you're gonna find out if you have the energy but you're gonna have the accountability to go through all right so that's how you take that first action go with that okay question from Olga Alvarado how can I find how can I find my true passion you said no question is off-limits if I find that when someone is very successful the one thing you must have is passion true passion for whatever that may be but if you are 100 years old and still don't know what your passion is how to figure it out okay so the question is the age-old question the question I get asked the most how do I find my passion so the awesome news is this is a step-by-step process and it goes exactly like this if this is a burning question for you and you're driving pull over write this down because following these steps is actually gonna get you where you want to go so it begins with identifying an area of interest to do that you need to encounter a whole bunch of things so go do a lot of things and right now inside of you is probably a vague direction that you want to go in so start encountering things in that arena so harkening back to the first question if it's law go intern at a law firm and see if you actually enjoy being around that is that a world that you actually want to be in before you end up going to law school or go take an online law class and see if that's something that lights you on fire but find some way to engage in that thing and engage in a breadth of things if it all humanly possible so that you really find out which of those things you want now once you find something that interest you you're gonna really engage with it so if it's you do the online law course let's say and then you go into a full-blown summer internship or something like that in a law firm to see if you really like it and that day after day after day engagement you're gonna see if your energy levels are going up or going down assuming that they're going up now we've identified a fascination once you have something that is a fascination now you're going to go through the process of gaining mastery in that thing and it is in the process of gaining mastery you'll figure out whether or not this is something that become can become a real passion now to make these transitions happen you've got to be Fanning these flames so when you go into the law office chances are the day to day is gonna be met and you've got to decide whether or not you're going to allow yourself to get excited not allowed that you're going to encourage that you're going to remind yourself that you're gonna pick up you're gonna remind yourself to get excited you're gonna pick up on some one small thing so let's say that thing is there's a particular case where somebody is I'll just use Jared Adam somebody who was on impact theory was wrongly convicted turns himself into a lawyer comes out and decides that he's gonna help other people do exactly the same thing right incredibly interesting I love that story so if I write a law firm and I saw that they had a case it was something like that where they were trying to get an innocent man off I would say holy hell like this is really fast I'm literally saying this to myself as a way to amp myself up and this is something that I think people don't do enough you need to cultivate in yourself an excitability you need to be able to get excited about things and in the beginning you're being your own hype man and it's gonna feel a little bit fake but you need to do that in order to actually get yourself excited and so that you're feeding that that neuro chemistry into yourself so that you're actually getting worked up you want to work yourself up now there's a really fascinating thing that happens from a neurological perspective where if you get amped up and this is true by the way whether you're getting angry whether you're getting sad whether you're getting happy frustrated falling in love whatever the case may be when you force yourself into a neurological state you're giving your brain the signal that it's worthy of this state so then your brain retro actively goes back and goes wow that was a really big deal this was something that I learned in my marriage realizing that when I allowed myself to get really frustrated my mind would actually then paint back onto whatever started that argument that yeah it was really worth going that hard and so like this really minor thing that from the outside seems stupid to you you justifies no no no that was really important that was worth getting that hyped up now flip it use that on the positive when you see that thing in this area of engagement if you want to turn it into a fascination then you need to start amping yourself up about it oh man this is really exciting you need to go tell the others the story to other people you need to be excited as you tell the story all of this is reinforcing in yourself that this is actually something worthy of excitement all of a sudden you're gonna find well like I was kind of just hyping myself up before but I actually really am hyped up now and so when that fascination solidifies that's when you go down the process of gaining true mastery and you need the energy and passion to get through the process of gaining mastery often times mastery involves a lot of boredom it involves a lot of overcoming obstacle after obstacle you've got to have a lot of tenacity and that's gonna be born of that compelling future that you see where once you have that set of skills that you're gonna be able to use to tell but the people and that it's enriching your life I mean all of those things that are getting you amped up you fan those flames and that's how it becomes a real passion but it is a process it is a process it is something that you're doing very cognitively you're thinking about it you're making choices all along the way the first choice to engage the second choice to fan the flames and the final choice to actually go down the process of and the words I use are becoming the best in the world if you're not prepared to become the best in the world at this if becoming the best in the world isn't exciting to you actually thinking about what it would be like to be the greatest of all time at the thing that you're pursuing if that's not exciting then that's not the path but that's how you create a passion there it is alright next up this is from vince Nance what do you think is the most destructive or dangerous thought process that someone can engage in okay so I'm gonna take a step slightly to the right on this one because it's on my mind I was creating more Alexa content around this which by the way if you guys aren't watching if you have an Alexa an Amazon echo or any one of the Alexa pieces of hardware subscribe to my daily briefing I'm putting a lot of energy into this and it's become the beginning of the funnel for me where I'll think of these short little concepts I'll spend I'll do a 90 second piece of content around which you can listen to daily on the Amazon Alexa and then from that like it really starts putting on my mind so one of the things I was thinking about that's super dangerous that people don't even realize they're doing is you have these invisible beliefs and one of the pieces of content coming up in the next on a week that I just recorded this morning was about asking yourself like there's certain questions that you can ask yourself I came up with four again like if I can remember them off the top my head let's see so number one the first to come from Einstein the first one being ask yourself to really identify these beliefs that are invisible and by the way the reason that they're invisible is because you just assume that they're true like you've never stopped to think about the fact that at some point you chose to believe this and that that was a choice and that there really there is no objectively true answer to a lot of these things so again the first to come from Einstein number one is do you live in a friendly or hostile universe and Einstein said that was the single most important decision and I love that he called it a decision it's a single most important decision that any human being will ever make so you just decide is the universe working for you or against you okay number two is everything a miracle or is nothing a miracle again there's no objective truth to that you just need to decide like when you look outside at even the snow right and the cold and think about the passing of the seasons and how spring will rejuvenate everything like is that a miracle to you or is it you just look outside and it's [ __ ] cold and you want anything to do with the cold and so it just sucks right those are both choices number three yeah I don't remember off the top of my head what the other questions are but identifying what those beliefs are in your life that you just take for granted is insanely important and I'll give you one that I didn't put on the list because it was too cheesy but it's actually really really true and that's do you see the glass as half empty or half full this is again it's a choice you simply decide and whether to be optimistic or pessimistic will color the entire rest of your life so really going through and looking at the invisible beliefs that you have because those invisible beliefs are controlling your life and they are the most empowering are the most dangerous things you can engage in alright from a thought process perspective alright next question is from doctor Jack Callahan do you describe do you subscribe to the idea of Tai Lopez's four pillars for good life of health wealth love and happiness or do you have your own version let's think through those health fresh ways wealth yeah I mean I think wealth is as long as your basic needs are being met that becomes more of a personal thing love and happiness yeah I so I think of it slightly differently so here's how I think of it I think that people should be focused on a life of fulfillment now fulfillment is made up of things and many of those things are in that list right there health being a massive one of those I think wealth is a lot more personal so I think that there are monks out in the world who have totally issued anything worldly and I think that their life is just fine and I would guess if they really loved that pursuit of enlightenment or whatever word they use to capture it that that they are deeply fulfilled by that especially if they're helping other people for me however being ambitious and having grand things that I want to make come true in my life wealth is very important to me because it's the great facilitator but it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish so coming up with something Universal the only thing I can think of that's Universal is going to be a neurochemical state and the easiest way to sum up the best long-term neurochemical state because it allows for struggle suffering all of that is fulfillment because I actually think fulfillment is born out of suffering it's not born out of a momentary happiness so there you have it so I don't think ty is crazy for that I think man those four are gonna speak to a lot a lot of people and they're certainly gonna speak to the people that resonate with him and I my gut is that those are entirely true for him I just don't think that they're all universal okay next question is from Louis Zamudio this is from Facebook what is one advice that no one told you but that you learned in the process of becoming successful this is my big one lean in you've heard me talk about this a lot and if it hasn't sunk in hopefully this will be that lightning rod moment what you build your self-esteem around matters and it matters more than almost anything else in your life if you build your self-esteem around being right being smart being good being valuable any of those things you are setting yourself up for tremendous failure you need to build your self-esteem around something that is anti fragile by that I mean something that the more you attack it the stronger it gets you also need to build your self-esteem around something that is always moving you towards your goals so if you think about building yourself esteem around being right it doesn't always move you towards your goal because sometimes being right which is gonna make you feel good actually isn't the right thing to move you towards your goal so that was certainly the thing that created the moment of crisis in myself that let me realize that that's what I was doing so once I realized that holy hell like here I have my goals on one hand and I have the desire to feel good about myself on the other and they're not mutually they're not always anyway mutually compatible so I need to give one of them up and then thinking through that I realized that doesn't make any sense because people who no longer feel good about themselves and believe that they'll never feel good about themselves again they commit suicide so that's like a pretty important thing I would say in people's lives to have something that makes you feel good about who you are and on the other hand a very goal-oriented so I do want to accomplish this so I thought well the only option I have is to build goals that always speak to my fragile ego which doesn't seem to make sense because it was fragile because I was priding myself and being smart and I was constantly encounter with people who were smarter than me or being right and I was wrong more than I was right so I decided to switch my self-esteem to being the learner and being willing to admit when I was wrong that then I didn't have the words at the time but that I began to realize once I read in the same Talib's book is the only anti fragile way to think and on top of that it's the only way that I can that I can think of to think that is always going to move you towards your goals because if you're always willing to admit when you're wrong you have the barometer by which to judge right or wrong which is it moves me towards my goals or it does not so if your barometer is hey this either moves me towards my goals or it doesn't and you're always willing to admit when you're wrong and you're always willing to learn from other people because you're the learner like suddenly it's everything about yourself and going back to that notion that we started this off with there is power and being selfish so if you're selfishly wanting to make yourself feel good about who you are and self-esteem is built around being humble always listening always learning always being willing to admit when you're wrong now suddenly the most selfish act you could do is be humble the most selfish thing you could do is listen to somebody else the most selfish thing that you could do is acquire new skills or admit when you're wrong or realize that you have an inadequacy and to stare at that inadequacy it this is a very long answer because this is very important it is the single most powerful thing that you can do in terms of changing the way that you think all right next question is from Nick Perez hi Tom how do I deal with people who make passive-aggressive comments at work how do i balance being kind but not overly nice to the point of where I'm being taken advantage of okay here's the reality I'm gonna put myself in your shoes and I've actually done this and I've done this a lot and at times it has bitten me in the ass so you're gonna have to follow me through follow my logic to decide whether or not you want to do this so first and foremost I believe in principles which is truth is the highest thing principle not coming up the great word there so read Ray Dalio book principles in that he talks about if you're really goal oriented you need to know the truth at all times at all costs and even if that means taking on something that's very hard to hear so because that's my highest value then I'm going to live by that first and foremost so I'm going to make sure that I'm not being passive-aggressive that I'm not doing stupid [ __ ] that I prove to people time and time again that I'm willing to have somebody point out something about myself to always be brutally honest with me that basically there's no reason to be passive-aggressive that you can tell me the truth but if I haven't created that space where somebody can just tell me what they really think so that they don't need to be passive-aggressive I can't blame them for not being able to just directly confront me so first and foremost lead by example make sure people understand that the principles are all I care about that I want to know the truth that I welcome that that I don't bite back if somebody tells me something that's true even when it hurts and by the way if you really want to welcome people to telling you the truth in your life you've got to get to the point even if they're doing it to be a dick that you welcome that with open arms that you really want to hear it now of course it sucks when people are being a dick and they're saying something to be hurtful but if you rebuff the way that they say it which by the way they will stop doing it that way over time we'll explain how in a second but first you've got to be willing to take it however it comes ok now once I've established that if somebody gives me a remark like that I'm gonna say that makes me feel like you're being passive-aggressive I'm just gonna call it out but I'm gonna own that maybe I'm wrong and so that ideally if it's happening around other people I'm gonna ask them hey this is how that makes me feel but I'd like to know if I'm crazy or not and that way people get a chance to either say yes no or stay silent right and if they stay silent then it's like okay I get it like this is a very uncomfortable thing but like please understand that truth is my highest priority and I would actually walk people through that now that's what you're doing when you're not the boss ideally I would encourage you to find a company that deploys some version of this because trying to do this as a grassroots measure in a company that doesn't reinforce that is going to be a nightmare so the truth is that I would really try to get out of that now if you're in a company and this is how I'll explain why the person is gonna stop being passive-aggressive over time if you're in a company where that's rewarded and you're leading by example and it really is like a part of who you are when you call that person out and people give feedback now they're going to see either that they are being passive-aggressive or you're gonna realize that you're wrong and that you're miss reading it either one's great it's a win because you're getting to the truth so getting to that truth always calling people out and stuff like that but not in a jerky way but just saying hey this is how it makes me feel I'd like to get other people's feedback and that's how you do it and we actually do that here at impact theory it is [ __ ] amazing it sounds crazy I get it and when we first started doing it even I was like oh god is this gonna work it's amazing it is life-altering and I wish for everybody that you could work in a company that prides themselves on getting to the truth in all things that nobody thinks that they're above the law that nobody comes the table assuming that they're right and that everybody knows that on some things are credible and on other things are not now according to Ray Dalio I don't have enough experience with this to vouch for it or not it seems true but he says about 30 percent of the world just can't get on board with it so there you have it you're inevitably going to encounter people that just can't ever get behind that I wouldn't let them work here so that is that's just the truth anybody that's not into the truth it's not my friend so there you have it all right next question is from Mary Jessa and Facebook how can you motivate someone who admits he she does not have a goal in life how can you handle the fact that your image of success is being overshadowed by someone who does not have the same ideals and vision like you how can you handle the fact that your image of success being overshadowed so let's take these are two very different questions okay so how can you motivate someone who admits he she does not have a goal in life you don't and I want to be abundantly clear and right now the image in my mind even though I've never seen it it's Rocky Horror Picture Show when this question is answered I want to know that I could aim the mic at the crowd and you guys would all say in unison you don't you don't motivate other people the whole idea you've got to find people that are self-motivated you've got to find people that they have that in them I'm not in the game of trying to change people so if you think of the matrix my favorite metaphor ever at the end of the day you've got to give people a choice red pill blue pill if they choose to take the blue pill and go back to the matrix and continue a life that has no goals that's for sure man that is their choice and I don't pass moral judgment on that if that's the life that they want to live that is absolutely awesome I have nothing to offer them I cannot help them or be useful I will seem crazy to them without question because I'm falling over myself to take a pill that wakes me up in the real world so that I can see the truth and really understand what I'm like what skills I have what skills I don't have and be able to improve them and actually accomplish my goal all right don't scroll off I need to see the second part of that question so that's the first part second part how do you handle the fact that your image of success is being overshadowed by someone who does not have the same ideals and vision like you I don't understand what that means actually so I'll answer it what I thought you were asking was how do you deal with somebody who's outshining you [Music] like easily like they don't have some big vision that they were chasing that's what I thought you were saying so let's just answer that since I understand that question this is one of those things that's insanely frustrating so I will talk about weight loss my wife who outworks me in the gym without question every single day the woman is a beast but before she got into that routine I remember saying to her you don't put out a fat as easily as I do we would go on vacation and we would cheat on our diets and we would she would match me calorie for calorie now I'm twice her size she would match me calorie for calorie and wouldn't put on weight and I would which essentially means I'm eating half of what she's eating and putting on fat she's eating twice what I'm eating and not putting on fat and I remember being really frustrated by that but the thing is that's the reality that's the truth and I can sit there and lament that my wife has better genetics and I or I can accept that that's the reality and that to get the result that I want I have to do different things now spending my time being frustrated is not going to help me it is not going to move me forward so someone outshining me and doing it easily without the level of effort that I have to put in it may be unfair but what the [ __ ] does that matter that is not going to help me so wasting even an ounce of energy lamenting that is an ounce of energy that I'm not putting towards actually accomplishing my goals so you just got to deal with it the world is not fair but you can accomplish anything that you're willing to pay the price to accomplish so just focus on that and crush it next question Jalen Holmes hey Tom I was wondering if you could explain the meaning behind the saying on your t-shirt Thanks I can and thank you for asking which by the way if you're just joining us this is one of the impact Theory special shirts which you can find a shop that impact the recom it's all about self signaling reminding yourself of an important idea that you want to be reminded of and today everything is my fault now this is the notion of taking extreme ownership in your life it is the thing that will change your life 100% so once you decide that you can learn anything you set your mind to and the being incompetent is an in permanent state that at any time you could choose to allocate your time and energy to that thing and get good at it that's gonna free you up from riah from not wanting to accept the truth about where your skill set really is because when you believe that accepting something like that is a permanent sentence and that failing means you're a failure being bad at something means you're forever bad at that once you realize you can change it then all of a sudden that weight of recognizing staring at your inadequacies and accepting you're not yet good at that thing like you can move forward and getting good at that so I remind myself that my life is not reflective of my circumstances it is reflective entirely of the choices that I've made so the things that I have not managed to succeed at in life those aren't some other things fault it's not the economy it's not the way that I was raised it's not my genetics it's the result of the things that I've chosen to get good at period so the story that I always tell is if my wife were killed by a meteorite I would not blame fate luck divine providence anything like that I would blame myself why because I know that there's actually a group of people that tracked what are called near-earth objects they're trying to find some way a nuclear explosion lasers whatever the case is gonna be to knock that thing off course I know they exist I've never sent them an idea I've never sent the money I've never sent them even encouraging words now I think that that's smart I think the likelihood of my wife being killed by a meteorite is virtually zero so spending my time and energy there does not make sense but if I end up being wrong about that my wife is killed by a meteorite I'm not gonna blame meteorite now once you're willing to take that level of ownership in your life and say I'm making me money at my job that I'm making because of choices I have made instead of blaming the economy instead of blaming the generation before you or whatever and you just own I can make different choices and get a different result and here like I'll just any Millennials out there I will just promise you right now let's just assume that you were dealt the shittiest hand of all time what the [ __ ] does that matter how is that gonna help you there will be millionaires and billionaires self-made in your generation so the question is why not you and the answer is because you haven't decided to get those skills period end of story and once you're willing to accept that regardless of how the deck is stacked against you you can either be mone that or do something about it my advice do something about it no matter how hard it may be if you care enough about it go make it happen all right that's the shirt next question is from Carolina Wilk from Facebook how often do you catch yourself on the foot on the following on following the invisible beliefs and how often do you ask questions to yourself about your daily activities so I used to catch myself with disempowering invisible beliefs all the time I'm talking 20 times a day it was ridiculous as I began to really adopt a growth mindset I saw how often how insidious those invisible beliefs are because I was finally aware of them and then once you're aware of them you see them everywhere it was insanity I don't see that much anymore every now and then there's stuff where it's like oh wow like I can't believe even I went pessimistic on that in fact there was something that happened recently it was a failure of principles so a failure of imagination for me when I was at Quest I didn't think that you could structure the organization entirely around truth it it didn't even occur to me that you could hold people to that standard that every time someone was passive-aggressive or every time somebody said something that wasn't true or when somebody just failed that you could just call them out in a very simple direct and honest way of just like hey you've fallen down there what do we need to do to make sure that this doesn't happen again that you could literally score people on their belief ability and certain things that there is a difference between a meritocracy where the best idea wins and a democracy where the most votes wins and I literally once I read principles I couldn't believe that I had just failed to think big enough so that was a time where yep an invisible belief had had really had a profound and negative consequence on my life I was mortified to wake up to the truth of that but also super [ __ ] excited that Ray Dalio had taken the time to write that book which has changed everything about my life and has certainly changed this company for the better I think it's empowering I think everybody should read it it is it is from a business book perspective it is the most important book I've ever read there you go alright question from Jeremy Stickney hi Tom my question is do you think you can pull everyone out of the matrix or pull a select few to overcome the system I ask because the way civilization is run is based on a fixed mindset I just got done talking about invisible beliefs here's the truth though and it's probably an invisible belief but I don't think that I can pull everyone out of the matrix I'm not even trying to pull everyone out of the matrix so I'm looking to find people that want out and help them out that's the reality so I I feel like and I could be wrong and Lord knows I am open if someone can show me how I'm wrong that would be amazing and not with a [ __ ] trite statement about you can do anything you set your mind to which I'm guilty of saying all the [ __ ] time but I try to back people up with how you go about that so if someone can show me how I could actually pull everyone out of the matrix without spending all of my time and energy on the people who don't want out which seems like a total catastrophic waste I will change in an instant but right now my belief is that that's impossible and that my it is not impossible but a way better allocation of my time and energy into pulling the people out that want out because there are so many of them that don't know how to get out that it's just way better to spend my time there now if I am fortunate and we're able to pull so many people out that I'm just left looking for people that one out that haven't already gotten out then I'll start trying to figure out exactly how to pull the people out who are actively antagonistic I will say though secretive secrets that's what I think that the films are meant to do so I believe in a multi-generational approach of planting seeds so that ultimately people just never end up in the matrix so very different than thinking I can pull everyone out my hope is I can keep people from getting in but that takes a multi-generational approach of creating content that it forms people's belief system that points out the invisible belief so that people don't adopt them so generation after generation fewer and fewer people have a fixed mindset so there you have it all right next question is from Joshua T Tom in today's age how necessary is a college education and how does that justify the debt that comes out of it okay so first of all it entirely depends on what you want to do so the success that I've had in my life absolutely did not need to go to college so if it's an industry we're simply being better than everyone else is enough then you don't need to go to college however I think that there are some people that college is wildly beneficial for and I will put myself in that category so while the degree has not been necessary in my life in any way shape or form what has been necessary in my life is I was profoundly lazy I needed people to expect things of me and put deadlines on me for me to get the momentum going that I needed to and excuse me while I was in college I really be and to learn how to learn and that was incredibly empowering and I developed the systems how to in a shorter and shorter period of time to really learn and understand something it was also very hands-on which showed me that I learned really really well by doing that was incredibly valuable for me so school ended up being really really valuable I walked away with $25,000 in debt even though I was working multiple jobs while I was in college to help pay for my way and much love to my parents for also helping me but I did walk away with $25,000 in debt that took me more than a decade to pay off but that was worth it now if you told me that I was gonna walk away eighty or a hundred thousand dollars in debt absolutely [ __ ] not so that's crazy and you're starting out behind the 8-ball in such a profound way that it just I don't know how you're ever gonna get out from under that so but there are certain things like being a lawyer and stuff if that is your deepest passion then just know that you may walk away with so much debt that you have to become really incredible and this is so interesting even to me as I'm saying this out loud I'm saying to myself well I would just become a lawyer that was making if I owed $250,000 of the law school then I would give myself ten years to be making five million or more annually as a lawyer and I would [ __ ] do it there's always a way man there's always a way so the truth is I can't even get to my own answer without saying at the end of the day if it's what you love and you're willing to set tremendously big goals for yourself there is a way to make the revenue to make that back but it's scary and if it were my kid and that they were they had a choice I would not encourage them to take on say north of 50k like 50k feels about right it's gonna be brutal to burn your way through that and I wouldn't and it's all proportionate to what are you pursuing like if if you had to take 50k and you want to go be a teacher [ __ ] that that would be pure insanity your life will be a financial misery so I would say decide what you're gonna do realistically what standard are you gonna hold yourself to from a pay scale perspective understanding that in a normal 9 to 5 job you're gonna make what the going rate is like even if you're making 10 or 20% more than the going rate for that like when how long would it take you to pay off your debt given a certain lifecycle or lifestyle so this is a math question run the math figure it out if you're super young which I'm guessing you are then work backwards from what do you want to do does it require a degree how much debt would you have to take on to get that degree are you lazy do you need people holding you accountable all of that and figure out what you really need to do and if you're willing to if your entrepreneurial minded and you want to get out there and try and start your own business it will almost certainly fail so let's be very honest about that but the money that you will spend on that like what you'll learn and that would be incredibly just have to be open to the truth all right next question is from Sarah Bella what advice would you give to the middle-aged people out there who hit the who hit the ground bad feeling lost and never achieved anything meaningful who feels time is up they are old and don't know what to do in life how can they decide what to do to achieve greatness god I love this question okay everybody man if you feel that you're too old I want you to lean in right now I'm gonna give you the [ __ ] secret you ready the only thing that matters is your neurochemical state the game that you are playing is not money it is not success has nothing to do with the choices that you've made up to this point it has everything to do with your neuro chemistry if you get your neuro chemistry in the right place you will feel good about your life right now today and I will tell you that one of the things that's going to change everything for you is the word yet so I'm not good at this yet I haven't done anything extraordinary yet but you can do it right now today so the word yet hopefully relieves you of all that pressure now and the pressure that I'm speaking of is that whatever you've done like let's say you're 55 let's say you're 60 let's make this real [ __ ] tough you're 60 years old and you're thinking I haven't done anything with my life my life has been a waste let's say that you've got five years left you're gonna die in five years okay which I think most people at sixty you're gonna live another 30 or more years especially given the state of medical science and where it's headed but I'll just say you're gonna live five now that may inform what you do you're probably not gonna go to law school but you've got five years left to do something that makes you proud and I will just tell you in the last 12 months we've done something with impact theory that I am immeasurably proud of and I've poured myself into creating content that I think helps people's lives that's 12 months so what can you do with five years it all comes down to acknowledging that tomorrow isn't guaranteed for any of us the only thing that matters is the neuro chemistry what is it that you give a [ __ ] about and are you really going down the path of gaining mastery when I committed to trying to pull people out of the matrix I was sincere about that and I'm checking myself every day as to whether or not I'm actually making progress to that and in 12 months I've had the best year of my life and the best year of my life from a neurochemical standpoint so what is it that you want to do let's say you're trapped in a job let's say you cannot retire you can't get out you [ __ ] hate your job right now today let's say you can't leave which is [ __ ] by the way but I'm just gonna grant you that you've got some story that I can't imagine where I'd actually go yeah you're right you can't leave you can't leave starting right now today let's say you're on your lunch break and you're watching this when you come back from your lunch break to gain your brain chemistry and get to a place where you want to be what you're gonna say is whatever my job is I'm gonna become the greatest person of all time at my job and I'm going to serve other people as I do that so right now think about the people you have this really [ __ ] antagonistic relationship with and it is making your workday toxic you're going to start getting so good at your job you're gonna seek the truth you're gonna be building your ego around something anti fragile being the learner being willing to admit when you're wrong and you're going to get really good at your job and you're gonna start helping those people that you haven't antagonistic relationship you're gonna find out how you can do your job even better and help them you're gonna serve those people you're gonna serve the company you're gonna be you're gonna tell people what you're doing you're gonna say I have a growth mindset as of right now today I'm gonna be developing a growth mindset and if you're sincerely on that path two things are gonna happen one as you develop a set of skills that serve other people you will feel so [ __ ] good about yourself I cannot emphasize that enough building a set of skills that is unique to you was hard to you was hard for you to do is in an arena that you care about you find interesting in doing that and then helping other people you're gonna start to feel good about yourself now if you can leave your job even [ __ ] easier cut your expenses to the quick quit your job figure out what you need to live what's that wage start making that wage and then quit your job you can go to up work oDesk which doesn't exist anymore it's called up work go somewhere like that and do work on an outsourced basis like there's so many ways to make money now you just need to understand what the absolute minimum is that you need to make make that get out of your toxic job and then focus on finding that thing that is really gonna light you on fire but it is just a game of neuro chemistry it is not a game of money it is not a game of legacy it's not about trying to be remembered it's about in the moment are you excited about what you're doing and techne is the answer to that so your age doesn't matter I could have an aneurysm and die before I reach the end of this Amma so I operate in the friction between I'm gonna live forever and I could die in the next 30 seconds right so when you find that friction do the things that you're gonna enjoy the struggle do the things that tap into the pleasures that Nature has given us and one of the most profound is getting good at something so find that thing that you want to get good at make progress in it that is going to change your perception of your life my fear is that you've got like I didn't become President of the United States and that's what's [ __ ] you up who cares about that don't worry about legacy worry about brain chemistry all right next question is from business mastery Academy a damn fine name and if your parents named you that you're my hero or they're my hero I guess technically Tom how do you change when you're at a time in your life when you're so weak and you can't find the strength to even do the simple things okay so first we need to figure out if this is an intellectual weakness or if this is a physical weakness so I really believe that mindset is in position three so first is diet and exercise and the reason diet and exercise in terms of having the energy and the passion and all of that the reason that those two things come first is you need to optimize at a biological level I don't want this to be true this isn't fun or sexy to talk about this is the truth so you've got to optimize your physicality before you need to start worrying about mindset and the irony of ironies as you deal with your body your mindset is gonna get to where it needs to be because you're gonna start earning credibility with yourself because one of the simplest but most difficult things you can do is show up at the gym everyday and not eat a bunch of sugar and carbohydrates so if you start doing just those two little things day after day after day you're gonna feel really damn good about yourself from a psychological perspective but you're also going to have more energy and the reason you're gonna have more energy is because your mitochondria are functioning better and you're actually generating more ATP you actually have more energy in your system in order to be passionate in order to develop your mind so diet and exercise hard as hell deadly simple in fact they're so simple I would give them to you right now start walking that's it walk a mile a day if you're doing less than that already just start walking a mile a day wear a Fitbit get your you know whatever I'm not sure if 10,000 steps equals a mile but they say that sort of the minimum threshold but I'll say do a mile if you're walking a mile a day you're gonna love life do that for a couple weeks and start walking a mile and a quarter than a mile and a half then two miles start doing that every day and just cut out sugar and carbs if you do that my friends your life will transform you will be unrecognizable even from an inflammation standpoint your life will be so [ __ ] different you won't be able to see straight it is absolute madness so give it a shot those are simple not saying they're easy but they are very very simple all right next up violet Christine and this is from Facebook do you have routines to short-circuit unproductive emotions eg insecurity grief frustration thinking about experimenting with tDCS Oh Trent transcranial direct current stimulation which I've heard as electromagnetic transcranial stimulation doesn't sound right but anyway that's the idea but what do you do so first of all if you do transcranial direct current stimulation let me know how it goes I'm not really fascinated by that it comes down to turning areas of the brain off which I find interesting for instance people that think they can't draw if you hit them with transcranial magnetic stimulation TMS there it is if you hit them with that then they can draw better that's so [ __ ] weird that means that there's a part of your brain that's actually stopping you from drawing well so very very interesting and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that I've never done it do I have routines Oh short-circuit unproductive emotions absolutely so a lot of this comes down to your belief systems and what I call the psychological pachenko machine so I've got all these beliefs that you know negative emotions and things have to bump through the biggest one for me is does this move me towards my goal so does this emotion anger frustration grief whatever move me towards my goal if it does then I embrace it if it doesn't that I don't so first of all the cycles of grief you almost certainly do need to process that grief so what I do there is I get myself a timeline so if I've gone through something that is really traumatizing I'll give myself say a week or ten days or a month whatever it is but I would never give myself more than a month ever I've not had my parents die so I will say that right now my arrogant self believes that I could deal with in a month maybe I couldn't but that's certainly the thing that has worked for me with every traumatic experience up to this point as I've gone through and I've gone through some pretty heinous ones every single one of them has I've capped myself at 30 days so that is I think very important to have a time limit and then to remember that you get what you focus on and this is so right behind just having a time limit this is the big one so if you focus on the negativity you're gonna get more negative things if you start focusing on for instance with grief asking how is this the best thing that ever happened to me so let's say that it's the death of a parent how is this the best thing that ever happened to me does it inspire me to live my life differently does it inspire me to help carry on the things that my parents stood for does it inspire me to be a better parent like what are those like how is it actually a good thing how is it going to bring something beautiful to your life because the bad is going to be there no matter what so wallowing in that is just not going to help you and that holds true for everything I just used the parent because it seems like the most extreme example so how do you even people to get paralyzed so for the first year typically they find that people it's really disruptive and emotionally traumatizing but then a year later they will actually say that it was the best thing that ever happened to them that's the psychological immune system at work it's getting what you focus on it's finding ways to really be empowered by what happened even Stephen Hawking who's completely lost the use of his body except for a muscle in his cheek which is crazy he says that it's the reason that he's had the break through some physics that he's had so you get what you focus on so those are two of the big ones all right next question is from Cynthia Gutierrez from Facebook what was the driving force and getting you interested in neuroscience can you offer a few websites authors and research papers that you have found enlighten your perspective absolutely okay so first and foremost the thing that got me interested in it was realizing that I wanted to empower myself that I wanted to get better that I wanted to move towards my goals and the things that were holding me back were my mind so one my belief system and then to my skillset and so I needed to know how do humans acquire skills neuroscience to how our belief system built and how are they changed again neuroscience so once I realized whoa my brain is the thing that's creating this world so and that brings us to the first person that I encourage all of you to read David Eagleman start with his book incognito absolutely fascinating also as a PBS show called the brain check it out and what he said is the brain is encased in total darkness in a bone box and from this bone box it tries to recreate through its mr. Potato Head input devices of eyes ears nose touch all of that tries to recreate the world but light never actually reaches the brain let that sink in for a minute light never actually reaches the brain so it is taking electrochemical signals and turning it into this world that you think is so real it's creating this sense of depth all of which is [ __ ] this is all happening in your brain once I realized that that's when I realized whoa my brain is making [ __ ] up it's lying to me maybe with the best of intentions but nonetheless it's making this stuff up so what is the reasoning behind that how does that all work what can i hijack what's hijacking me all of that so that's why I got obsessed with neuroscience Reed David Eagleman Reed vs Ramachandran both by the way who've been on impact theory and this is not a shameless plug for impact Theory they came on the show because they were the people that really shaped my thinking the most so those two will get you started also watch their episodes both of them are amazing the Moran Cerf episode is also incredible he's another neuroscientist check those three out they will really get you started all right how much time do we have left okay so next question is from Kevin Olsen this is on Facebook you've stated that you only need a minimum of five hours sleep and sexually not what I've stated of the little research I've done it says six hours minimum for our age group what is the truth thank you for everything you and your team do you've helped me so much already that's amazing all right so Kevin here's actually what I say so I can get by on five to six hours sleep that's my fantasy six is my magic number if I get six hours of sleep I'm golden I don't have any sense of fatigue if I get five hours one night I'm fine I can actually sometimes get away with a four hour night's sleep but if I get five consistently I start getting really tired so it may take me a week but eventually I start like if I'm not if I'm at five hours even consistently if I'm really engaged intellectually I don't have any sense of fatigue but the second I'm not intellectually engaged I start falling asleep if I've gotten five hours let's say for more than four or five nights in a row it's super weird I once was getting my hair cut and I was like wow so you can imagine that's bad to be falling asleep during your haircut so five hours is not the magic number for me six is the magic number I love punctuating a bunch of sixes with a five here and there because then I still don't experience fatigue and I like to get as little sleep as I need but I prioritize sleep and I want people to hear that my wife sleeps eight to nine hours a night so and that's exactly what she should do if that's how much sleep she needs she should get it sleep is a good thing sleep helps you optimize cognitively and optimizing cognitively for me at the end of the day is the single most important thing you could do so if I needed nine hours of sleep I would get it so I don't set an alarm to be very clear when I wake up at six hours I just wake up so that isn't me trying to sleep only six hours all right next question is from Christian Thomas Facebook when you switch to the mindset of a learner was it an instantaneous transition or did you take specific steps over time to grow into that mindset so it's the one realization that I will say was an epiphany meaning it felt like it came out of nowhere and I realized in a bolt of lightning how true it was and that I needed to make an immediate lasting change but I did find myself slipping back all the time all the time even now I have to laugh at myself at how [ __ ] awesome it feels to be right that's just the truth being right still feels amazing now being willing to admit when I'm wrong feels equally amazing but even in understanding how dangerous it is to love the feeling of being right let's all admit being right is awesome so that's just the truth so yeah you have to be very careful and in the beginning it was ridiculous I was constantly sliding about constantly constantly constantly but at least I was catching myself and I was doing it so it's a process all this stuff is rewiring your brain and creating a network of positivity does not happen overnight but the decision to begin down that process does happen overnight the the decision to begin is not a process okay that should a binary you're either doing it or you're not and that's one area that people frustrate the [ __ ] out of me is when they act like the decision when they act like the decision isn't binary that drives me crazy you don't need 20 years to decide to begin the process you just begin the process right now okay next step Katherine Benedict was that like a double from her or am I going crazy anyway Katherine Benedict I'm a teacher both high school and fitness how do I create a sense of empowerment in the students I teach how do I create group exercises of flow I'm entirely the wrong person to answer that question but may I point you in the direction of the people at the flow genome god we were just talking how am i blanking on this man's name I love this guy Jamie Weil Thank You Jamie fly to my house and punch me in the mouth right now I love you to bits and pieces I can't believe I blanked in your name that's [ __ ] yeah sorry I know people hate that word so Jamie wheel is the guy behind the flow Genome Project he knows all about flow go after that how do you create a sense of empowerment and students I teach leading by example to growth mindset is really the right way I'm not being afraid to admit when you're wrong introducing them to the word yet especially when it comes to the physical fitness side you can really show them like for instance I remember in school they in PE and middle school they had us do a pull-up which I remember when I try to pull up I actually thought they were joking and because my name is B I was one of the first people to do it so everybody before me couldn't do it couldn't do it got to me that's partly the third or fourth person couldn't do it and couldn't even begin to do it and so I actually thought pull-ups aren't possible like why are we doing this that's legitimately how it felt so you can imagine my surprise when Christian Russell ended up going and doing like 22 pull-ups even though he'd never done a pull-up before in his life and I was like what just happened so then they test you again at the end of the semester but never once in between did they have us practice doing pull-ups or trained to do pull-ups so you're literally like what did they expect to change so if you test them on a pull-up at the beginning in the end the middle of the semester better be all about how you get to the point where you can do not only one but ten or twenty or however many pull-ups so that then it becomes about how much work that they put in to do that that would be an amazing reinforcer of how you can grow and get better at something which is the ultimate empowerment so they have it all right this is probably gonna be the last one you'll each oh hey Tom how do we ensure that the next generation of kids will think outside the box if they will be following the system in which we're in right now so first and foremost the two things that really have the biggest influence on how somebody thinks is their parents and where they grow up so you've got a massive impact on your kids so teaching them showing them leading by example reinforcing reinforcing reinforcing them how we get better at something also play this content for them long may it serve them so getting them to think in a certain way that is absolutely critical introducing it to them early children's books Jaakko willing wrote a children's books oh man I haven't read it so I can't vouch for it but something tells me that it's going to be all about extreme ownership so I would definitely look into that getting them in a martial art could be amazing but at the end of the day just reinforcing them over and over and over that they can get good at something through a process learning getting better than just because you start bad as something does not mean that you're gonna end up that way the humans are the ultimate adaptation machine they can get good at anything that they're willing to put the time and energy and effort into and just because somebody else gets better at it faster does not mean that they can't get good at it it doesn't even mean that they can't become the greatest in the world at it it just may take more effort and energy on their part all right that's gonna do it for today thank you guys so much for joining me as always it is an honor to be on here and to answer your questions thank you so much for submitting them dig the shirt go to shop that impact Theory com we've got not only the shirt that I'm wearing today everything is my fault we've got a whole bunch of self signaling empowering ideas for you to swaddle your body in and remind you of the person that you're trying to become and until then my friends be legendary take care [Music] [Applause] you