Tom Bilyeu’s ADVICE On How SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneurs THINK

Hey everybody. Today's episode is brought to you by Impact Theory University's own business decision-making workshop. If you're a business owner looking to scale your company, I can help. I've created a four-week intensive workshop that's going to give you the decision-making strategies that you need to scale your company. You can apply today. All right, I'll see you on the inside. Life is one of two things, the result you wanted or the result you didn't want. If you don't get the result you want, you are by definition doing the wrong thing and you must change. I think your belief about yourself and what you're capable of influences your accomplishments more than you can imagine. I'm in the skill acquisition game. Skills let you do things. I'm in the game of doing the things that my skills allow me to do. Go get extraordinary. Like don't worry about whether the system is broken or not. We built Quest, a billion-dollar company in less than five years coming out of the Great Recession. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That's just true. And but now it's become so common to say and it's like every Instagram post that I fear it's going to lose its meaning. Who are you spending time with? Because if you're spending time with people like you, you're spending time with people like me, I'm I'm raising you up or I'm just not going to spend time with you. So it's like now if you get in a mix of people like that who are like, "Man, we'd love for you to raise up to this level." But if you don't, it's fine. We're We're just not going to spend time with you. All of a sudden that desire to belong to something powerful that you can see is going to lead you to your dreams. And I remember saying to my wife over and over and over, "They are the surest path to my success. I don't know anything else. I just know if I can hang on to these guys, they're going to make me better." And so that was through all the years of being embarrassed and developing actually massive anxiety because I was always behind. I was always the dumbest person on the phone. I I always the dumbest person in the room. And it was like was I going to be willing to emotionally go through that to get great? And most people can't. So, here's the thing. Now, imagine I'm not the only person they said, "Hey, this is a startup. You can have any job you want." They I I saw 12 people, maybe more, come and go over the years. They just couldn't emotionally deal with it. And so, I remember thinking to myself, "Why is it that I'm able to do this?" And the answer was I could self-soothe faster than anyone else. So, I would get kicked in the face and I would do something really dumb. I'd be called an idiot, told how stupid I was. And then I just be like, "All right, I need to recenter." And that just became my obsession. I need to be able to emotionally get back to complete neutral so fast that you don't even see it register on my face. do it? How do you do that? Literally practicing. So, remember the same time I'm reading about the brain voraciously, I'm reading about people that understand human behavior. I'm getting into cognitive science, neuroscience, like really going into it. So, I'm reading all this stuff going, "Whoa, we're just a chemical processing plant. There are physiological hooks into these chemicals." So, hey, if you're mad, scared, whatever, but you force yourself to laugh out loud, you will change your neurochemical state. And you literally, your experience is the neurochemistry. So, I was like, "Whoa, so I could get I could be in a situation where I'm being berated or or I legitimately mess up and it costs money and it's like, "Whoa, that's on me and it is nobody's bad but my own." And I realized that what most people do, their strategy is to deflect it. It's your fault, it's not my fault. Yes. So, I started thinking of this as a metaphor. People are throwing gold at me. They're throwing it really hard and I can put a shield up and deflect it, but then I lose that piece of gold. If I drop my shield and just take the pain, let it hit me in the head, then I bend down and go, "This thing, which was me being stupid, there's a lesson here." And now I have this piece of gold. But the whole thing is I have to be defenseless. So, I have to own it, I have to take it, I can't fight. If someone is like, this to this day, if our team is like, "Hey, there's something we need to point out to you." I'll do this. Wow. I square up to it. I want them to know like, "Hey, I want to hear it. I want to know." Like, I want to be literally physically open. I'm not going to close down. I'm going to do everything I can to square off, to open myself so that they know I'm receptive to the criticism, right? Because that's the nugget of gold. What I know is it's going to hurt. It's going to sting. Yep. But if I can emotionally recenter so fast you don't even see that I went through something, now I can just process, how do I take this information you've given me and get better? Everything in my life is driven by how something makes me feel. And I really believe all you have in this world is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself. So, in that dark, quiet night, when you're all alone, do you feel good or not? And so, I steer by that. And when I start losing sleep because something is stressing me out or I think I handled something poorly, I have to correct that. And what are the tactics? So, part of this is you have a belief system through which everything is filtered. So, my thing is, okay, belief system, I can get good at anything I set my mind to. Uh belief system number two, having a growth mindset is the absolute ideal. So, that means that just because I'm not good at something now doesn't mean I can't become good at it, that I should only value myself for being a learner, I shouldn't worry about being smart, right, good, talented, nothing, just the willingness to stare nakedly at my inadequacies. So, if I've done something and it's making me feel badly about myself, I start running through those filters. Also, does this beating myself up, is it moving me towards my goal or away from it? Now, a little bit of beating yourself up actually probably does move you towards your goal because it kicks you in the ass, it gets you moving, taking it seriously, you're really thinking about it. But then too much of it begins to erode yourself. And so, I have to balance like, am I just beating myself up and now I've taken it too far and I'm losing sleep over something I just need to let go and focus on getting better instead of punishing myself? Like, just get better at it. Um so, those those are the tactics that I use. yet is a huge tactic for me. Tom, you suck. Oh, I'm not good at that yet. Okay, cool. Thank you, got it. Um I can get good at that. Um and and just keep coming back to those very simple basic building blocks of my belief system, what I value, where my priorities lie, what my goal is, having total clarity, am I actually moving towards it? And then just really holding yourself accountable to that without damaging your self-esteem. One of my like guiding principles is never do anything that diminishes you, and then never do anything that moves you away from your goal. So, again, goal, you have to have that clarity, so I know what I'm trying to do, okay? Well, if I know what I'm trying to do, does beating me beating myself up over this, is that going to help me or hurt me? Oh, it's going to hurt me because I'm going to be more likely to slide toward depression, to think less of myself, to be less bold, to take less action. Okay, well, then we're not going to do that. And I don't think people have researched cognitive behavioral therapy nearly enough. Pattern interrupting is like everything. Get better at pattern interrupting than LeBron is at shooting. Like, you just have to be a ninja. Like, you've got to be so hardcore, you've got to know about how to do that with yourself. So, if I have a negative thought that's recurring, I just tell myself, nope, you can't think this anymore. So, and every time it will come up because I can't stop myself from it popping up into my conscious mind, but you absolutely can control how the next thought goes. The next thought can be, oh, I'm Here's what I'll do with a negative thought. That's so rad. I'm so glad this negative thought appeared in my mind because that reminds me to be grateful for the fact that I'm friends with Jay Shetty, or that reminds me to be grateful for the fact I have a marriage that is so insanely cool that like I legitimately some days have to stop myself from just curling up in a ball with her and just chilling all [ __ ] day. Like, that is I'm super stoked. Even now, Jay, it's so funny, I had to stop and think, wait, I'm going through this list of things that I'm grateful for, what started this? And I'm like, oh, yeah, the negative thought. Like, that actually just happened to me right now. So, you can imagine in real life when like you train yourself, ah, every time the negative thought kicks up, don't don't sit in the emotion of the negativity that it will bring, instead use it it a habit loop trigger to think about something you're grateful for. And at first, it feels so awkward and it's like the negative thought just keeps coming back. But if you're diligent and suddenly negative thoughts become a habit loop trigger to gratitude, to positivity, to repeating your rules about I don't allow myself to think things that tear me down, so I'm not going to think about that. Even just saying that crowds out that thought and telling other people that hey, this is what you're doing. It is unbelievable. But this is why I'm saying I'm literally just a patchwork of all these like tools and techniques that allow me to protect myself from negative self-talk, from anxiety, from depression. I don't think I've ever officially been in depression, but I've been super [ __ ] close enough to know the feeling of staring into the void, which I don't think is accurate. It feels like the void is collapsing in around you and just everything is meaningless and it is all utterly hopeless. And I've had just enough of a glimpse of how hopeless that is to to get where people are in those moments. But anxiety, that I've been in the thick of. So, that one I know and I've used CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, to do interrupts on that. I have a very well-developed negative voice, so I have had to use tools and techniques to stop that. I never would have become a successful entrepreneur if I couldn't learn to self-soothe. And at one point, that was what I would have said was my secret power. That my secret power in business was I can self-soothe faster than anybody else. I just keep coming back to being the learner, right? So, your identity isn't group A, politic this, politic that, tribe this, tribe that. It is I'm a learner first and foremost. I'm somebody that wants to bring value to myself and to the world first and foremost. So, it's like once you get to that, then as people are assaulting you, chances of them triggering a self-esteem like in like if somebody wanted to hurt my self-esteem, they would need to call me out on on are you really spending time learning or have you really improved? I think you're the same that you were 2 years ago. Like, woah. Like if I really, like you said, felt that that might be true, then I would really, that would call some [ __ ] into question for me. Because that's my identity. Right. If somebody came to you and said, "Actually, you're not a learner." For me, where my belief is now, that's so absurdist that I would brush it off. But if they were able to like compel me to see it, the funny thing is being a learner then kicks in again, and I'm like, "Shit, if they're really right, then here's my chance to finally actually be a learner." But so that's why I think that one's antifragile. But that's where it's like you can get yourself into trouble if they're hitting on the very thing that your identity and self-esteem are tied to. Recognizing that brain plasticity is real, and so much of who we are, let's say it's roughly, science says it's roughly 50%. This is not me making it up. That 50% is hardwired, and you're not going to be able to do anything about it. But 50% is insanely malleable. And um I love this quote, so great, that you can't make a racehorse out of a pig, but you can make a really fast pig. And I thought, "Okay, cool. So maybe I'll never be a racehorse, but I can be a really fast pig." And so whenever I'm feeling badly about myself or something knocks me off center, I just come back to that idea of what's useful. How do you move forward? Like even if you're not going to be the greatest of all time, does it benefit you to act as if you could become the greatest of all time if you pour yourself into it? And so I don't know that I'll ever end up being the greatest anything, but dude, acting like I can, and like really practicing and moving through the world like I can become the greatest, has propelled me forward. Yeah, because acting like you can't won't get you there. Yeah. Won't make you good probably or great. If you're constantly obsessing over why I'm not good enough or why I'll never become great. So acting like you can at least gives you a much better chance of getting somewhere than nowhere. 100%. It's what I call the only belief that matters. The only belief that matters is that if I put time and energy into getting a new skill, I actually will get better at that thing. And if you then extrapolate that and say, "And skills actually have utility. They matter." So, knowing how to build a business that doesn't fall or build a business build a building that doesn't fall down is very, very useful. Or build a business that doesn't fall apart. that too, right? So, those skills actually let you do things. And so, that's become sort of my obsession is getting people to understand you don't read a book to check a box. You don't go to school to impress your parents. You do it because the skill that you will acquire lets you do something in the world that other people can't do or you wouldn't be able to do and that has a material impact on your life. Yeah, I feel like you and I are very similar in the fact that we talk about skills a lot and acquiring new skills. And I think when you have a down phase or a breakdown phase, that's when you should think about what are the skills I'm lacking that could benefit me so this doesn't happen again. Everybody leaning in if you're listening to this. This is one of those things that audacity is is nothing. Don't don't worry about being audacious. The reason people fear being audacious is they don't want to be me 10 years from now when this all fails, right? They're thinking, "Oh man, what if this doesn't work? This guy's going to look like an asshole." And it's like, "Yeah, maybe other people will think that I'm a total dumbass." It doesn't matter. And why doesn't it matter? Because of techne. Because if I know how to build a house, I can build a house. So, my thing is I'm not trying to posture or be cool. I'm telling you I have a set of [ __ ] skills. That set of skills lets me do things. I'm just interested in doing those things. So, whether or not I hit my timelines does not matter. I'm in the skill acquisition game. Skills let you do things. I'm in the game of doing the things that my skills allow me to do. So, I want to impact people's lives. Maybe I'm not able to pull it off at a film level. Oh, I'll find another way. Or maybe it takes me a lot longer to pull it off. Okay, fine. As long as I love what I'm doing even when I'm failing, there's nothing to lose. No, because you know, on this idea of techne, along the way you are fulfilled with every step on the journey, right? Every time you upload a new, you know, conversation, new episode of your show, it's a it's a it's a cool feeling to be able to put that out there and know that it is, quote unquote, you know, impacting people. And it is. It is. And that's the thing, you know this. Like you you say something into a microphone. Like right now, the the feeling that I have, while I know people are listening, the feeling I have is it's just us in this room. But one day somebody's going to come up to you or me and say, "I heard that podcast you guys did and it really touched me and it changed me in this way." That's all I need. So, I'm not I'm not afraid to be audacious cuz I know that you're never going to exceed what you're aiming at. So, your only your hope is to hit some percentage of what you're aiming at. So, I might as well dream massive. And one, it excites me. And then two, I'm not afraid of the failure. So, once you have that like, "Oh, it's exciting for me to dream big and I'm hyper conscious of you break it down in small pieces. Like I'm not I'm not worried about building theme parks and all that stuff right now. What I'm doing right now today is make a good comic. Put out a good interview show. That's it. That's what my life consists of. Stay in business. Be profitable. Like those are the things that I think about. So, I keep my, you know, my goals, my immediate term goals very manageable, but I make sure that they're feeding naturally into the grand vision. But I don't get scared or lost in thinking, "Oh my god, I have to do all that." Nope. Right now today, I need to read a script. I need to make sure it's okay. I need to authorize it to be drawn. That's it. That's today. And as long as you're able to focus on that and get good at that and then just always push yourself to make your skill set better and better and better. As long as it's leading towards that thing and you have clarity on where you're trying to go, so that you make sure the skills you're acquiring will actually lead you there, you'll be fine. I love the mindset stuff. I love it. And it's changed my life. And I love watching somebody's eyes light up when they get it for the first time. And so I created Impact Theory University and it is the book but in lecture form. Yeah. And so I've already created that stuff. Now I know that I would open up a much bigger market if I were to make the book so that those people could go, "Oh my god, this stuff is life-changing." And then I say, "You like the book? You'll love Impact Theory University. Sign up today." And it would quintuple our business overnight. I can pretty much guarantee it. When you say no to something that comes with a lot of zeros, you do so because of your value system. And what I value when I think about Tom Bilyeu on his deathbed, if I may speak in the third person, I think to myself on my deathbed, I don't regret not writing the book but I regret tremendously not telling stories. Because I think if I want to impact 100% of the world, 2% of them can be impacted with what we're doing right now. Where you say, "Think like this. Act like this. It will make your life better." And 2% will do it. It's amazing. Now I don't mean 2% of your audience. Your audience is the 2%. They have selected themselves out. They watch your show. So now some ungodly number of them are going to go out and do it because they belong to that very rare group. The 98% though, they will not. And the I became obsessed with this because working at Quest, I had 3,000 employees. A thousand of them grew up in the inner cities and many of them could process raw data faster than I could. They were smarter than me but they did nothing with their life. They were not going to do anything with their life. Not that would be remembered or anything that even they valued. And when I boiled down to why not, it came down to they didn't have a growth mindset. They didn't have the only belief that matters. So I thought, "Okay, well how do I get it to them?" So I we created Quest University and I would show up early. I would stay late. I would tell anybody anything they wanted to know about mindset, building a business, whatever. And 2% of them did it and it was life-changing and it's amazing. And I still get phone calls for people who are like, "You you changed my life." And it's amazing. But it's only 2%. The other 98% are either apathetic or actively antagonistic to change. So, how do you reach them? Entertainment. The punchline is you have to get to the limbic system, which you do through entertainment. So, you tell them stories. TV, movies, yeah. I really believe that the way that humans assimilate truly disruptive information is through narrative. And so, part of the way that I've changed my life, that I've opened my mind to things like a growth mindset, is through, like The Matrix. It's not a mistake that The Matrix came out uh the year that I was going through this like, am I able to improve myself or not? The movie comes out, ends up becoming the dominant metaphor of my life. I'd love to say that it was a lightning rod moment when I saw it, my life has changed forever. Wasn't like that, but it planted a seed that I just kept coming back to. Oh man, it's like Neo in The Matrix. Oh man. And you just start piecing together like these fascinating belief systems because a lot of times the wisest characters in films are often taken from, like Yoda sounds exactly like Laozi from the Daodejing. So, it's like basically you've got George Lucas who's very familiar with Eastern philosophy talking Eastern philosophy through this little puppet, but especially if you hear it when you're young, man, like your mind is really open to it. So, because of Star Wars, I ended up becoming obsessed with the Daodejing. And then because of that, that ultimately was my doorway to a growth mindset. I hope you guys are enjoying this episode, which is brought to you by Impact Theory University's Business Decision-Making Workshop. With nine full-length classes and weekly live case studies with me, the Business Decision-Making Workshop is a hands-on approach to honing your abilities to scale your business. I'm going to be in there with you, working through your hardest problems so that you'll be able to master how to overcome any impediment by getting the most foundational way to think through novel problems and that my friends is exactly what you need to do if you want to scale your company and have the kind of crazy success you've always dreamed. I promise it is possible. This is teachable. This is something that you can learn. It is a process that you can deploy against your business and be able to move confidently forward. Just go right now to decision.impacttheory.com to apply. Do not delay my friends spots are limited. Again, go to decision.impacttheory.com and apply today. I'll see you guys on the inside. If there only three books you could recommend to people that this all the books they could read in their life. This is the hardest thing probably but if you were like three books to live a better life to understand the world and to just thrive. What would you say are those three books? It's not a hard question but it's one that I'm sure I will answer differently every time somebody asks. Number one is mindset by Carol Dweck. It's great. It's the most important book in the English language. Number two is The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday which is an absolutely extraordinary book and then number three is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. He's great. And Leif Babin, shout out to Leif. The first is read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, period. It's it's so critical man and it just lays the foundation for how to think. Um that that's step number one. Step number two is you will only ever get in your life what you absolutely must have. Your absolute obsession. Is it you that says your obsessions become your possessions? That is so true and so getting people to understand that that level of like I must have this until it is that like whatever it is, if it's taking care of your wife, if it's doing something rad for your mom, if it's having a beach house, whatever it is, until it you need that like you need oxygen, you won't get it. It It is going to demand so much of you. You're going to fall so many times. There's going to be so many obstacles. And unless it must happen in your life, one of them will make you stop. Like you said, you can't be for sale. Like if your will can be bought, it doesn't make you a bad person, man. It really doesn't. But if your will can be bought, you're just not going to get it. It's all your fault. Everything. Every bad thing that has ever happened to you is your fault. And if tonight a meteorite comes screaming through the atmosphere, crashes into my bedroom, and kills my wife, I will know that that is my fault. Now, I use the word fault to shake people up. I know that it's making you mad right now. I know that it winds you up, and you think that I'm victim shaming. And when you get beyond that, and you realize all I'm trying to do is remind you that you were never ever ever ever a victim unless you choose to be, everything in your life will change. You're always in control, even if that's a lie. And I don't care if it is. Even if a meteorite coming in and killing my wife couldn't possibly be my fault, I'm going to own it. Because the second I give away my power to somebody else, I'm now at something else's mercy. And there is some line that I can't cross, that I'm no longer in control, and I refuse to do that. Um if I could give anybody a gift, it would be that, for you to own that completely, top to bottom, and to know that every good thing that's ever happened in your life, how much it seemed like luck or coincidence, that was you. You earned that. You put yourself in that position. And as you move forward, life is one of two things, the result you wanted or the result you didn't want. If you don't get the result you want, you are by definition doing the wrong thing, and you must change. If you get the result that you want, then you did the right thing. Simple as, no gray, nothing in between. That's it. It's all your fault. And that's the best news possible. But I don't think that thinking something or saying something makes it true, but I think that thinking something and saying something makes you believe it. And the things you believe you will unintentionally guide yourself towards. I think your belief about yourself and what you're capable of influences your accomplishments more than you can imagine. Just because you don't put in the extra mile of effort or whatever that it was going to take cuz you don't believe that you can. Or you don't even allow yourself to dream it. If you don't dream it, you're never going to come up with a plan. So, it is wildly influential in terms of what happens. Just not in a mystical way, in a very like tactical, you just end up either doing or not doing the things you should. To me, greatness is leaving it all out on the field. Like, you can't guarantee results, but you can guarantee, like, did you really play to win? Mhm. And this is something that I am heartbroken for other people if they're not playing to win. And the only reason to not play to win is if you don't think you can win and you value yourself for winning. So, my thing is, maybe I can't win. I think the odds are actually against me building the next Disney. But it's such a fun game to play because I only value myself for the sincere pursuit. So, greatness to me is not about achieving something. It's about playing all out, sincerely pursuing it. So, I'm chasing money for 8 and 1/2 years. My mantra is I want to get rich. That's it. There's no Father-in-law wants you rich. You promised you're going to be rich. You always wanted to be rich when you were young. 100%. And so, and that didn't That wasn't a dirty word for me. I didn't understand people who were conflicted about money. I was like, it's powerful. So, I want to get rich and and I just made it all about that. And so, for 6 and 1/2 of those years, I didn't take days off. Even when we would go to London for Christmas, I had like a video camera that would allow Well, this is actually slightly in the future, but a great example. I would take a video camera that would let me watch the production line at Quest. So, like, that kind of obsessive, like, I'm all in. Back in the technology company same kind of thing but I would either be working on the tech company or trying to start other companies at night. So we talk a lot about we had like five or six companies fail all side hustles. Yeah. But it was like we just kept trying to learn and figure this out. And so growing in that becoming better understanding marketing helping elevate the company really rising up to a peer status watching other people fall away cuz they couldn't emotionally hang in the environment and yeah then they made me the I didn't ask for a raise for five years. I was like I want to be I want to be so valuable that they feel gross for what they're paying me. Yeah. And so because I wanted the equity I didn't want the I didn't want the salary. So I was like dude I'm in this for the equity you don't have to worry about me equity equity equity. I just kept it on their mind like hey you said that was a possibility I want you to know that means everything to me and that's why I'm here. And so hit the six and a half year mark I'm 10% owner in the company and I'm completely miserable. And I've burned out and I realized that entrepreneurship had given given given it was making me stronger bigger faster and now it was beginning to take away because I didn't care about the product I didn't love what we were doing I wasn't passionate I was just chasing money and money just wasn't that interesting. I at that point on paper we both know the difference between paper money and real money. Right. But on paper I was a multi-millionaire. And I went in and I said guys here's your equity back I I'm quitting um I'm not crossing the finish line so I don't think I should get anything for this and it actually ended up being like a really cathartic moment where we could all say what we'd been feeling which is yeah none of us are happy. Mhm. And so it became well if we're going to keep doing this if we're going to keep building businesses because by then it was very clear to me the struggle is guaranteed the success is not. Mhm. And so I'm going to go do something I love and they agreed they felt the same so we said okay well what would we build that we would love even if we were failing. And so for three very different reasons that became a nutrition company and for me it was I grew up in a morbidly obese family my uncle essentially ate himself to death when I was 12 years old and it was scary and sad. My mom is morbidly obese, has been my entire life. My sister's morbidly obese, has been almost her entire life. Um my dad at one point was morbidly obese, and then lost weight, but it was like, that's just where my family lives. Yeah. And so, I was like, they're going to die far sooner than they need to, and there's this great Mother Teresa quote, "Nobody will act for the many, but people will act for the one." And so, I just needed to wake up every day and think about my mom and my sister, and that was it. And I thought, I can show up every day and fight for them. It's not about the money anymore. I can fight for them. Mhm. And look, we a lot of business acumen went into this. This was not just We had good intentions, and it built a big business. It was we understood business, right? I'd now been in business for eight and a half years grinding it out building this technology company, which was hard as hell. Yeah. And but now we were able to marry that, and by the way, we took the tech company through the recession and everything. So, I mean, it was like, I'd taken some knocks. So, we really understood business at this point. And so, now we were going to start something predicated entirely on value creation. That was like our mantra. Doesn't matter what's more profitable. It matters what adds more value. Mhm. And so, we literally were saying these things. And we also We didn't actually throw our hands in a pile. I wish we had. It'd be a cooler story. But like, all but that said, and each of us needs to have fun every day. What makes you happy? The The easy answer and and the most truthful answer is time with my wife. The other answer to what makes me happy, there's really two things. So, time with my wife, and then the pursuit, which I'll put in all caps, right? So, the pursuit of whatever. The pursuit of getting better, the pursuit of impacting the world, the pursuit of building something big that that matters. The pursuit. Maybe I never get it. I don't care about that. I care about the pursuit. I care about whether sincerely I'm actually trying to make it happen. Not bullshitting, not just like empty dreams, but like for real, I'm actually giving myself over to this. And I spent a lot of time in the inner cities. I big brothered for this one kid for eight and a half years, completely changed my life. And then having 1,400 employees and about a thousand of which grew up hard in the inner cities. Hard, I mean, most of them grew up in Compton. I mean, it was just some of the most extraordinary stories I've ever heard. And I realized that those people are as extraordinary as anybody, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins, like they all those same raw materials exist in people in the inner cities that nobody believes and nobody think will ever go anywhere. And they won't because they don't believe in themselves. And so we were talking at our most honest, like what what are we really driven by? And I'm driven by that moment of awakening, which I had in my own life where I finally realized, wait, I can learn new things. So just because I'm not good today doesn't mean I can't be good tomorrow. And and that filled me with so much excitement. I want to see that in other people and I want to see what the world looks like when other people realize, wait a second, that Steve Jobs quote that the world is made by people no smarter than you is actually true. And so if you're believing that these people are smarter than you because you did bad on your SATs, I'm just going to tell you right now, stop. So you can develop yourself. So my obsession became that humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. We are literally wired from the ground up in order to grow and improve under stress and pressure. So it's like what's the phrase, pressure can burst pipes but it also creates diamonds. So it's like you need the pressure. And yes, it can hurt but it can also make something amazing if you're willing to put yourself in that situation. So it's a weird twist of fate that humans in order to build the muscle you first have to tear it, right? So but once you accept that that's how it works, you can do extraordinary things. Thank you for watching this episode, which again was brought to you by Impact Theory's very own business decision-making workshop. If you guys are ready to take your business to the next level by investing in yourself and learning the first principles of business, then I want you to take action right now and go to decision.impacttheory.com to apply. I promise you I am giving you every piece of information that you will need to overcome any obstacle that your company is facing, to stare down problems that will arise a year, five years after you take the course. This is the strategies of business decision making that every successful entrepreneur has to learn to deploy against their company if they want to grow. All right, guys, I promise it will deliver 10x the value of what you pay for it, and if it doesn't, I'll give you your money back, no questions asked. You know me, I live in the public eye, there's nowhere for me to hide. This is me trying to give as much value as humanly possible. I really think this class would be transformative, and I hope you will sign up. Now, we'll see you in the next live class. All right, guys, take care and be legendary.