#44 Tom Bilyeu- Impact Theory, Healthy Relationships, Unlocking your Potential

0 (0s): The whole thing about marriages, knowing that I don't care what weapon you give me. I don't even care what gnarly situation you put me in. I'm never for my own sake because of who I want to be. I will never weaponize that against you. Not and divorce. Not literally. You could go have 86 affairs. I've always told people if my wife goes and has untold number of affairs, I just stroke her a check for half of everything because she's earned it. And then I go do my thing, right? I'm not going to waste time being bitter. I'm not going to hurt her because that's not who I want to be. So when your partner is like that, then it gets interesting because now you can really talk at the level of what's really upsetting. 1 (41s): Hello, everybody at your listening to Chatting with Candice, I'm your host, Candice Horbacz before we get started on this week's episode, if you want to support the podcast, you can simply leave a five star review, share it with the buddy. And if you haven't left a review in a while, you can actually do that. And most the time he said, I don't know if he knew that another way that you can support the podcast is by going to Chatting with Candice dot com and you have two options. You can sign up for a patriarch account where you get early access to episode's and you got the opportunity to ask our guests questions, or you can click that little link that says, buy me coffee. Both things are super appreciated more than you probably know. And speaking of which I want to give a shout out to Brian, Brian, thank you so much for your very generous donation of 10 coffees. 1 (1m 26s): Holy cow. I really appreciate you. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, that's all for the housekeeping bit. This week, our guest really needs no introduction, but I'm going to do it anyways. We have Tom bill, you joining the podcast and Tom is probably most known for being the co-founder of quest nutrition, but he also has a wildly popular podcast of the zone and company called Impact Theory. So I highly recommend that you checked that out. Please help me welcome Tom Bilyeu. So first I want to sincerely 2 (1m 59s): Say thank you so much for giving me your time. 1 (2m 2s): I don't know where you found it. 2 (2m 4s): When I showed my husband that like us DM-ing and I was like, I think he is going to come on. And he's like, there's no way that there's no way. So I've been watching a ton of your podcasts where like you've been the interviewee, because I feel like it gives it a different vibe. And it seems like you're the type of person that accounts for every minute of your day, at least like five days a week. So I was like, curious why you're being a guest. Cause I noticed you on some other podcasts recently, like why you're booking yourself for guest spots when you have a massive podcast of your own, 0 (2m 37s): It it's so different to be behind the interview and be the one like asking questions and stuff than it is to actually get a chance to talk about the things that, you know, you're really interested to talk to talk about. And then also reaching a new audience and meeting new people. It's it's a lot of fun. And so for man, probably for about a year, a half almost, I wasn't doing any podcasts. I was just doing my own thing that I'm so busy, but the business that, you know, I felt like I missed it and wanted to reconnect. And there's a lot of new things that I haven't had a chance to talk publicly about. And so we're living in this era where you really have a chance to talk to the world about where your going and how you're steering things. 0 (3m 22s): And I don't get that much with my own podcasts. I get that much more when I go on somebody else's podcast. And so it's just a great time to one connect with new people like yourself that I've never met before, new audiences that I've not encountered before. And then to, you know, get to talk about topics that I otherwise won't be able to when I'm interviewing. 2 (3m 46s): Right. Cause then you kind of feel selfish if you're like hogging the mic. It's like my listeners get to hear me every week or multiple times a week. And this person is, you know, limited. So you don't want to take away from that. So I totally get it. It's also, I feel like it's a lot more playful too on the guest side. Cause there's like no pressure or there's ways to measure. And it is so 0 (4m 8s): True. Like right now, if people were to put side-by-side what I'm like when I'm interviewing versus like how I feel now, it is very different. I'm like, Hey, you have all the stress that you have to worry about dead space. Like, you know, when you're doing the interviewing, it's like dead air is on you. And whereas when you are the guests, it's like, if I'm done, I'm done and then you just have to figure it out. So 2 (4m 29s): Totally. And then I think with someone like yourself too, it makes it a little bit, I guess I'm like the pressure's on for someone hosting you because of how much time like your interviewing style, which I really appreciate. I try to do that as much as I can as well, especially because everything's remotely. I feel like you can't get the same like energetic connection with someone when you're doing everything, you know, via zoom or Riverside or whatever. There's just like a different, it's never going to be as good as in person. So I want to make sure I do as much homework as possible beforehand. So hopefully this is fun for you. I'm sure it will be on no doubt. So I was listening to one of your recent podcasts, by the way, like I was a huge quest fan when you guys first started, I was like, finally, there's something on the market that I can eat. 2 (5m 19s): That doesn't taste like junk. My listeners probably know like I have Grave's disease. So it's a thyroid auto immune disorder. So for a while I was like really fluctuating with weight. So people think because it's hyper that you're always going to be super thin and that's not really how it works out. Especially once you start introducing the medication, like you just, I went from 90 pounds when I wasn't on medication. So super, super thin. And then I got on medicine and I immediately shot up to like one 41 45. And it was like just, it was a lot, I'm like super small, like five, three. So that weight gain was like tremendous me. So it was like super conscious about what I was putting into my body as I was trying to like heal. 2 (6m 3s): So your products are like a huge lifesaver for me. So I just wanted to let you start off with that. Yeah. And my 0 (6m 11s): Wife has struggled really profoundly with gut issues. And so I know all too well, when you have food that you can eat that you love, that's safe. It's like a really big deal. So yeah. I always love hearing those stories. 2 (6m 24s): She like, did she start experiencing symptoms with that while you were creating quests? Cause I know that she's like a co-founder 0 (6m 32s): Yeah. Yeah. So she had, you know, telling her story, but she had a tumultuous relationship with food as a teen and that did not set her up well, and then she had chronic chest infections in sort of her late teen through her sort of mid twenties to the point where it was actually a factor in whether or not I was going to propose to her because I was like, she has stick all the time and am I really prepared to deal with that? Thankfully? I said yes, but it, but it really did. Like, it was a thing I thought about. And so she was on antibiotics a lot and that decimated her microbiome, but we didn't, I didn't even know that it was the thing yet. 0 (7m 14s): And so then through quest it was like, she was always the one with the most sensitive stomach. So we were like, all right, if Lisa can eat it, then we know we're good to go out to a broader community, but yeah, she, and then, right, in fact it was when we sold, we took a technically, it was just an early investment at one point. But we went from, you know, not having money to suddenly being wealthy. We popped a bottle of champagne and that was like a line in the Sanford. Cause she took a sip of that and it was some threshold event. And for the next five years, our life was a nightmare. And, and, and sadly, it was like this echo of that moment, that was meant to be a celebration. 0 (7m 59s): And she was just like, whoa, like that really upset my stomach. And then it just, it went downhill and, and it got so bad. There was a year, the first year I was legitimately afraid she was going to die. Like it was that kind of scary. And, and she was down. She is smaller than you. And so she's five, one and a half. She'd be very angry if I cheated her out of the house and she got down to like 84 pounds. So yeah. So it was, it was scary. It was like losing her hair. Her nails were breaking, she couldn't eat. It was just nuts. 2 (8m 28s): So when you said that it was like a decision that you had to make with her health, I wanted to kind of go there with you. So I got sick while I was with my now husband and we were kind of in the beginning stages of our relationship too. And he had a similar like fork in the road because when you're with someone and you don't know if it's going to get better, especially when it's that severe, it takes a huge toll on the relationship. So I guess like where, like what helped you make decision that like you were all in because that's not an easy thing now. 0 (9m 1s): So when, when I was making that decision, this was when we were in our first, I propose after eight months. So this is our first year of dating. Yeah. That's a crazy story. First year of dating. And I really thought long and hard about whether I was going to propose. She's having all these chest infections. I'm not a good caretaker. And so I was like, oh man, like, all I'm doing is caretaking. And you know, do I, do I not? And then I was like, the honest answer is either I'm never getting married or I'm marrying this woman. And honestly, like, while it does weigh on my mind, she's so rad that it ultimately is a small price to pay. And at the time I'm actually quite proud because at the time I just assumed it was going to be like that for the rest of my life. 0 (9m 47s): And I went into, it was like, yeah, like she's worth that and a whole lot more. And then it actually settled down for a lot of years until her stomach kicked back off. So I ended up like being tested and, and passing that test only to then be rewarded that she wasn't sick for a long time only to then like have it really goes south. But by then, I mean, we, I was, I always tell people deciding to propose. I really thought about once I decided to propose, I've never been nervous or wondered if I made the right decision. It's like that, like crossing that line and going and buying the ring. I was all in and I've got whole things where I don't even say the word divorce in my marriage. 0 (10m 33s): So like, we're really hardcore about, you know, what it takes to build a thriving relationship for a year. And we've been together for 20 years now. So 2 (10m 41s): Yeah. Which is amazing. That's a rarity these days. It's a super, yeah, 0 (10m 47s): My wife and I were talking about that this weekend. Like when you get into like the really heavy shit and you're like, fuck, this is like really hard to navigate through. And I'm like, we all have gifts and one of mine is self-awareness and if I am struggling with this and I even understand my motives, even when they're petty, I know what they are. Yeah. So if even with that level of self understanding and ability to project myself and her shoes and see things from her perspective, if even I'm having a hard time, like, whoa, like this is really going to be tough. Like, let me tell you one, that's not for play. That's coming your way. Someday menopause menopause is not to be trifled with like the way that, that changes your hormonal structure. 0 (11m 33s): And it just makes women think in a different way and value different things. And so how do you go from my wife? And I got married. So not even when we met, we got married when she was 22. Wow. So how do you go from like 22? And you're about it to, you know, being, let's say 50 and you're on the, of childbearing years and suddenly you're like, yeah, I don't, I don't know if I'm worried about worrying about somebody else anymore. I want to know what I can do for my own self. And so like navigating those changes is crazy. 2 (12m 6s): Oh yeah. So I guess that's, I think one of the biggest things that kind of causes divorce or relationships to end is that people like tend to grow in separate directions, weather, and like so much of it. It's like, can you control it? Can you control if your interests change, can you control of your values change? So like, I think that's one of the number one conversations you have to have to have before you get married is like, do we align on values? And a lot of people don't want to have that conversation because like, they're all like hot and into like the fun part of the relationship. And they're like, I don't want to ruin it by asking about like kids or like expectations as far as like house work and spending time together, loved languages, all these things. 2 (12m 48s): And they're just going to like, pretend that those things don't exist and we're just gonna go with it because it feels right. So I guess in the 20 years that you two have been together, do you have any like tricks up your sleeve to make sure that you're constantly growing together and not spending too much time as like individuals? Cause I think it's a balance, right? Like you guys, obviously co-founded a massive company, but you also both have different podcasts, right? Like you're still remaining individuals, but also as a team, Candice, 0 (13m 17s): You're going right for like the deep end of the pool. So we, we have all kinds of tools and tactics. And so we actually do a show together called relationship theory where we talk about the stuff and on the show, I'm always like the way that people hear us talking now. And I'm sure sounds very clinical that they would laugh because that's actually how we talk. And so when we're like in a heated moment or something we'll actually go back into, okay, what are we really talking about? What, what, what are the base assumptions what's dry? Like what insecurity have I triggered in you? Or if you trigger me and let's talk about it like, oh, this is why I'm actually upset. 0 (13m 57s): I'm upset. Cause usually when you like really get worked up about something, somebody's pushing on an insecurity and the, when people fail to translate that insecurity into words and can articulate, Hey, you're, you're doing this thing, this, whatever, it's making me feel this way. It's a way I don't like to feel. And so now I'm on the offensive. And when you can articulate that insecurity to each other, know that you're partner, isn't going to Weil that as a weapon against you, which that is so huge. And it's something that thankfully my wife and I understood very early on was you can never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever weaponize someone's insecurity against them. 0 (14m 40s): And the crazy thing is, they'll give you a gift of revealing an insecurity to you one day and then six months later, you'll get in an argument and you, I could win this argument. If I remind them of this insecurity and there'll be done and I'll have won the argument and no uncertain terms, but they'll never trust me again because they, they have opened themselves to such vulnerability and said, here is how you damage me. And they've given you that ability to damage them. And the whole had the chills, the whole thing about marriages, knowing that I don't care what weapon you give me. I don't even care what gnarly situation you put me in. 0 (15m 21s): I'm never for my own sake because of who I want to be. I will never weaponize that against you. Not in divorce, not literally. You could go have 86 affairs. I've always told people if my wife goes and has untold number of affairs, I just stroke her a check for half of everything because she's earned it. And then I go do my thing, right? I'm not going to waste time being bitter. I'm not going to hurt her because that's not who I want to be. So when your partner is like that, then it gets interesting because now you can really talk at the level of what's really upsetting you. Even when it, it paints you and an ugly picture, like you're saying, Hey, when you say that, it makes me feel stupid. And I don't like feeling stupid. 0 (16m 1s): And so now I'm coming up. The reason I came at you hard because normally you don't catch it right away. So, you know, you might lash out a little bit and then you go, oh man, fuck, I lashed out because you made me feel dumb. And like, this just happened the other day. And my wife was like, how is it ever possible that you feel dumb? Because she has a vision of me of being smart, but that's not how I see myself. So I'm like, well, it's easy. That one, nothing in my life has taught me that I'm smart. Life has taught me that I learn, but not that I'm smart. And so, but I have like this desire to be smart. So now perfect cocktail. I have a desire to be smart. Life has taught me that I'm not, I'm not a fast thinker. So people confused because I'm a fast talker. 0 (16m 43s): They don't realize it took me three years to get that idea finally, in my head. So even my wife, who's close to me, confuses my ability to very systematically synthesize information until I have very useful ideas with being quote unquote smart, which to me is the ability to process raw data quickly. So I can't process raw data quickly, but I desire to. So she said something that made me feel stupid, right? Because I have this insecurity about that. And then I was able to just quickly admit it. Cause I know she's never gonna use it against me. Right. So that's that sort of cocktail of awareness, ability to articulate and then having a partner that will never weaponize. 0 (17m 25s): It is like one of our biggest techniques. 2 (17m 30s): So if you have a partner that tends to you made an Instagram post or the other day that I thought was like spot on and it was on relationships and it was something along the lines of like not using past transgressions against them, like constantly bringing up every week, like which wave, you know, failed or done wrong in the relationship. And that's like such common pitfall. It's so easy that like, let's say your husband doesn't take out the trash, like the 10th time. And you're like, and also last week you, you know, you were home late and you haven't given me like enough attention and, and you start giving them a laundry list of how they've come up short. So if you have someone like that, that's their natural tendency. 2 (18m 11s): Would you say that that's like a personality type that unless they become self-aware that there'll be able to fix? Or is it something that you have to try to maybe like nudge them in to the right direction or both? You 0 (18m 24s): Definitely have to ultimately become self-aware because if you can't tell what you're doing or you don't see it when you're doing it, you're just going to be in this vicious cycle. So yeah. Ultimately they're going to have to have that self-awareness but the big thing that I would say is, okay, let's assume that you've developed a self-awareness let's assume that you do the work to catch yourself earlier and earlier so that you don't lose a whole weekend to throwing things in their face. Now you have to ask yourself the, the really basic thing, what's your goal. And if your goal is loving connection, okay. When you beat them about the head, neck and chest with the things that he has failed at what neurochemical response do you suppose that you get that love and connection? 0 (19m 9s): Or is it shame and guilt? Is it anger and frustration that he's constantly being beaten about this? And if you realize, okay, my desire, my goal is love and connection, but my behavior, every time predictably gets me anger and frustration, then by nature, I am doing something wrong because I'm not getting the goal I want. And so my thing is always just be honest about what the goal you want. If your goal is actually to punish him, then stop saying you want love and connection and say, I want to punish you. Now we can at least have the real conversation where it's like, okay, because now let's jump to like the real hard one infidelity. Yeah. Okay. I was, I cheated on you. 0 (19m 50s): You have a desire to punish me. I actually get it. But I'm going to need to understand is how long, like a week, a month, a year, 10 years, because maybe I can get behind the week of punishment. Maybe the there's just, maybe it's not the smartest thing ever. But like I always told myself if I was ever paralyzed, I would give myself 30 days to mourn. And then at the end of the 30 days, I never again get to say woe is me because it doesn't serve me. And it doesn't move me towards my goal. Right. So it's like, okay, I get it. Even though it's probably a bad use of energy to punish me for this, probably better than that, we seek therapy. But there is like some finite period of time where I'd be like, I get it. But I needed to know that that is measured in days or weeks and not months or years. 0 (20m 32s): Right. Because at some point it becomes so damaging that it just doesn't make any sense. And so once you're at the real thing I need to punish you. Now we can have the real conversation about what that looks like, what the duration is and what do you hope to get out of it? Because being punished is going to break me, cow me. It's going to make me diminish me in some way. Is that really what you want? Or do you want to be able to trust me again? Yes, actually, that's what I want. I want to solve for my hurt because I have emotions I need to process through and I need something to happen to you that allows me to believe in you again. Okay, cool. Or, Hey, I can never trust you again. 0 (21m 13s): Amazing. Now we know that it's game over. Right. So, but until you get to like really, really don't judge yourself just for like one second, be honest about what you want. I want that motherfucker to burn, but now it's like, at least we know where we're at. 2 (21m 30s): I think that's so important. So asking like, what do you really want? And being honest about what that is, because I know so many people that have been in relationships were one of the people he might've cheated. And for some reason they can't be honest with themselves that they do want like either revenge or to, you know, M to dish out punishment or to constantly remind the person. They know that they can never trust the person again, for whatever reason. Like maybe it's that person maybe it's themselves. And yet the stay in that relationship. And I was like, you're doing both of yourselves, such a disservice because neither of you were, is going to be happy. Like that's a recipe for misery. So I think it's also important for the other person that when you do mess up that, like you don't constantly live there either because you're not like the worst thing you've done, like right. 2 (22m 16s): Like that. You're not some people may be, but I think very rarely, like, you're the worst thing that you've done. So you also have to have like that grace for yourself, even if your partner doesn't give it to you. Yeah. 0 (22m 27s): Honestly, if I were in a relationship where it was clear that the person was going to punish me forever, not trust me be cold, distant, even though it's clearly I was the one that violated their relationship. I would exit the relationship. Like if, if there can be no healing, if I can not be let off the hook, then why would I stay? I actually don't understand. I don't understand people that say I would mourn heavily that I had done something to destroy. I'm assuming this beautiful relationship, but I would, it doesn't make sense to me to say, well, the rest of my life is about a toning with no hope of moving forward. 0 (23m 12s): It, it just, isn't a life that I want to live. Especially knowing that if I stopped and now move forward, I can be sort of reborn. Right. I have a blank slate with the next person that I get into a relationship with. And that's just far more interesting. So it's like to me, I get it. I get it. If people don't even want to try to move on from a betrayal, I get it. I don't have any judgment over that. But if you're gonna move forward, you actually have to move forward. Like you actually have to let it go. And be honest, if you can't let it go, then say I can't let this go. And then it's just, we part, 2 (23m 46s): Do you have any exercises that you do for forgiveness? Like have you ever experienced like, like a deep hurt and then you'd also didn't want to like break off that relationship. So you had to put in the effort to like heal yourself and that person, like, have you like come up with, so like I asked, because there's this thing I've, I've talked about it at nauseum for my listeners. I'm sure. But it's called M via cyber. Not have you heard of it? No. Oh my gosh. I think it's something that he would be super into. So it's this neurofeedback like Alfa training and they have Alfa feta and the two select people though, the law for Delta training and, and you go for like five to seven days and they strap you up to, to like the speaker's and you can hear your brain waves coming out of the ideas that like buy the end of the week, that you can bring yourself into a higher alpha state and which helps to get into flow and all that good stuff. 2 (24m 41s): So we go and my husband brought me there and he went with like a different agenda. He's like, you're going to go. And it's going to make you all this money. And it raises your IQ by like 11 points, like all this stuff. And I was like, I'm in. So we get there. And the whole thing, like the, his way of getting you into this alpha state is to walk you through forgivenesses. And I was like, I'm outta here. Like, he doesn't know like these, like, you can forgive some people, but not everybody. And like, he's like, well, well, like we'll, we'll get you through this week. And it's fun. And I went in a completely different person than I came out. And like his forgiveness protocol to me was just like mindblowing. 2 (25m 23s): And it's fundamentally changed the way that I look at people or handle situations. And now, like if there is something that causes a deeper or if someone does something, I approach it in a different way. So I'm curious if you have something similar. 0 (25m 39s): It's interesting. So the way that the human mind is wired is so utterly fascinating. So I don't know if I can take claim for all of the way that I handle betrayal or not, but I'm certainly partly wired. It just doesn't bother me the way that it bothers other people. And then partly because of my belief system that I have hand constructed to be useful in my life, to me, the trail is about that person. It's not about me, so I don't take it personally. So I'm not hurt by it. I just get, especially, no one is going to betray me unless I know who they are. And if I know who that, like, like I've really let them in my life. 0 (26m 19s): Right. Which I would not do unless I know who they are. And I have some sort of fundamental understanding of who they are, because I know myself to have flaws and weaknesses. I'm not freaked out when I discovered that people that I love and care about also have flaws and weaknesses. And so when somebody who I'm like, oh, I know that that kind of person, like they have a, the way they see the world is XYZ way. As long as you never crossed them in their mind, you're fine. But if you do, then you're in trouble. So for instance, there's a phrase and I think is absolutely brilliant, which is you don't divorce, the same person that you marry, meaning that people feel hurt. They are like a different person. And there, they may have been loving one minute, they're going to come after you the next day. 0 (27m 1s): And my thing is, I'm the same person you're going to marry one person. You're going to divorce the same person, the same honor and grace that I showed in our life. Leading up to that point, I will show you and divorce. Now I've never had a marriage divorce, but I've been in business long enough. I've had business divorces. And my attorney, I was just on a call with him the other day. And somebody else had joined the call. And I said, we were, you know, negotiating some sticky point. And I said to the attorney for the benefit of the other people in the call, I said, and you know me, you've seen me go through a divorce and you know, I'm the same person through the whole thing. And he laughed because when we were going through it, I mean, we're, and we're talking about a lot of money. 0 (27m 42s): And he thought I was crazy because he goes, you have more leverage than this. Why aren't you using it? And I said, look, I am a certain person. I believe people should act a certain way. I don't hold other people accountable to, to my sort of code, but I live by a code. And so this to me is what's reasonable. I'll fucking fight to the death. Like if they try to cross this line. Right. But that line is what I think is reasonable. And, and I'm only going to go up to that line and I'm not interested in anything else. And so that to me is really, really interesting. So now people will come into my life and they, they will fall short of my code or whatever. And like, my wife was really intense about it and he gets really pissed off and like, that's a thing for her and for her to ever speak to that person again, she was like, they would have to atone for that thing. 0 (28m 29s): And I'm like, dude, they're flawed. They're, you know, they have insecurities and they have weaknesses and as do I, and so I don't stay in a relationship with them. So it's like, oh cool. You betrayed me. I see how that plays out. I'm not interested in that. I wish you the best. I'm going to go do my thing over here. And my thing is that, and again, this it's not like, oh, I'm cool. Or whatever. Some of this is just, this is just, I was lucky. And my way of being wired a certain way, that if I a relationship sours, I just stopped thinking about the person. And so it doesn't torment me. It doesn't haunt me. It doesn't stick with me. 0 (29m 10s): And so I feel bad. Like for my wife, it's just on her mind. It's not like she wants to think about it and it just keeps occurring to her. And it doesn't to me. So, yeah. So for better or worse, and my wife often jokes that she wishes, she had my memory because legitimately there are times where I'm like, did that actually happen? And she's like, yes. Actually having trust me, it just doesn't stick in my mind. 2 (29m 34s): So do you not tend to ruminate over things in general or just things in that category? Cause I'm like, you're the way I ruminate. 0 (29m 42s): I ruminate like a madman on business stuff. Like constantly, it will wake me up in the middle of the night. Once I have a puzzle to solve, I'm obsessed. Like literally obsessed. It is so fun. I love that kind of puzzle problem solving. But when it comes to hurt, no, it, it, it doesn't stick by nature. And then I don't reinforce it by design 2 (30m 10s): And that's really important. So I mean, I'm, since I, since like a huge thing, like you just seem to be someone who doesn't fall victim to like a lot of ego traps that I think people do, especially when you start to like, get a lot of followers or if you start to see like a lot of success and I won, I wanted to know like, is it like wiring? Or did you have like a really good, I guess, circle of friends and family? Like, why did you never, I guess that go out and buy like all the extravagant shit, put it on social media and say, I'm retiring. Like, there's a very different mentality of someone like you that's like a super founder, right? Like you're constantly building and scaling and like, what's next, what's bigger. 2 (30m 52s): And how can I grow versus someone who just means to an end, wants like a certain dollar amount and then that's it. 0 (30m 60s): So one I've bought my share of extravagant shit. I just don't flash it on social media. So we'll start there so that somebody doesn't, you know, dig through my receipts and, and call me out. But my ego is not tied up in it. So I learned some lessons very early on that have really served me. So the most important lesson that I've learned is that the, the, the whole game, the game of life is not success. It's not money. It's not famous, not adoration. It is literally one thing. And that is how do you feel about yourself when you're by yourself? That's it. So it's like how many billionaires have to commit suicide before you realize it isn't money? 0 (31m 41s): And because I spent almost a decade just everyday saying, I am chasing money and thinking it was cool by the way, and making on paper, which there's a huge difference between when somebody is worth something on paper and then actually having money in your bank account. But on paper, I was worth $2 million and I was more unhappy than I'd ever been in my entire life. And so I was like, oh my God, I'm living the cliche of money. Can't buy happiness. How is that possible? And so I realized, okay, money, isn't it. 'cause the way that I feel and the way I think about it. And I want to feel alive. That was my early phrase that I would say over and over and over now, I have a lot more clarity about what makes you feel alive, which I'll say is fulfillment. 0 (32m 26s): So what everybody's chasing, they think they're chasing money, fame, beauty, adoration. You're not you're chasing fulfillment. And once I realized that, oh, okay, this isn't, this is about. And then, so I learned that early and decide I'm never chasing money again and start building businesses around the principle of value creation and all the sudden build the billion dollar business after learning the lesson about don't chase money. So now, and here's the most fascinating thing about the way that I got wealthy was it was through equity in a company, which means you're building up, I'm worth hundreds of millions of dollars on paper. But in reality, I'm driving a beat up Ford focus with the leaky exhaust and, and borrowing rides home for my employees. 0 (33m 10s): Right. That was my reality. So a that will keep you humble real quick. And then one day the paper money actually becomes bank account money. So literally one day my wife and I are in a, our garage gym with spiders everywhere and hitting, refresh on our banking app until all of a sudden, boom, a lot of comments and zeros. Wow. And in that moment you go, and I feel exactly the same. Every insecurity that I had three refreshes ago, when I was poor, I still have, now that I'm rich. And I was like, oh my God, this is so important to understand that money is a narrative. You tell yourself about other people. 0 (33m 51s): You look at somebody that is wealthy and you think, oh my God, I want to be like them. They're so cool. They got the big house. You've got the flashy car. They can buy whatever they want flying. First class, you walk and buy them on your way to the back seat by the bathroom. Oh, one day I'm going to be as cool as them. And then you get the money and you realize, oh man, that was just the story that I told myself about them. I'm not actually in their head. So they have insecurities, they have fears. They have hopes, they have dreams. They should be chasing fulfillment though. They're probably not. And so I was like, okay, now I completely understand money. Cause it's easy to say, money's not everything when you're broke, but when you've got money and you're like, I've actually been on both sides. And now I realize money is extraordinarily powerful, powerful, more powerful than people realize, but it's not what they've been told. 0 (34m 36s): It cannot ever touch how you feel about yourself. It won't change your self esteem. It won't make you think you're cooler. It won't remove a single insecurity. All it will do. You can pay your bills. It will solve money problems. Now money is the great facilitator. It helps me build my dreams. Now it's very useful, but it does not make me feel one way or the other about me. And so once you realize this is a game of neurochemistry, then it's like, well, what do I actually have to do to manage my neurochemistry and the way that I want it managed. And so to retire, to buy an island, which my wife and I could have literally bought an island and retired and never worked a day again. But I knew that I need to have meaning and purpose in my life and that the only way to have meaning and purposes to engage deeply. 0 (35m 23s): So then it became a question of, well, now you have enough money to do whatever you want, but whatever you want is about meaning and purpose. So what are you going to build? It gives you tremendous meaning and purpose. And so then we created the ultimate company that would give us meaning and purpose, allow us to engage deeply and I'll even define fulfillment. So fulfillment is working really hard to garner a set of specific skills that matter to you, that then allow you to serve yourself and other people. And when you work really hard to develop a set of skills that allow you to serve not only yourself, but other people, you will feel fulfilled, even when you're failing. It's crazy. And I always tell people the question to ask isn't what would I do? 0 (36m 5s): If I knew I couldn't fail? The question to ask is what would I do and love even if I were failing. Now, if you put your time and energy into that, because I can't guarantee you'll be successful, I can guarantee that you're going to struggle. I can guarantee that it's going to be hard. And if you loved the hard, well, now you're winning. There's, there's no way for you to lose, but that's about meaning and purpose. That's about neurochemistry. That's about fulfillment. And so I had learned all of that when I was broke. So then by the time I got the money, it was just a realization of the one last piece. Now I get that. It won't change how I feel about myself. And so now it's like only invest in money in as much as it lets you do really powerful things, but it won't change. 0 (36m 47s): The thing that really matters, which is, do you respect 2 (36m 50s): Yourself? <inaudible> so is that something that you are teaching people through, like impact university is fulfillment or like finding a purpose 0 (36m 59s): That's like, it literally is that, Hey, you signed up for Impact Theory university. Let me give you the punchline. I'm going to teach you how to feel good about yourself when you're by yourself. That's it. And like once people get that in their head, it's like, I have recorded now Jesus, 18 months worth of monthly content. So I've got 18 hour long classes all about like attacking that same problem from all these different directions of exactly what you have to do and think in order to earn your own respect and you really do have to earn it. Like it is not sadly, it is not enough to just say I love myself because there'll be a voice in your head going. Yeah, really? 0 (37m 39s): Why, what have you done? And if you don't do something that you think is worthy, you won't have self-worth. 2 (37m 47s): Yeah. And I think it's also so important to recognize, like you're not that voice for the longest time. I always thought it was the same thing. And it was actually that Biocybernaut, that they were like were kind of explaining like their version of the ego and its purpose. And the fact that like they say like rom Doss, he says, as long as you have a body, you have an ego. It's just part of the human experience. So anyone who's like, I had an ego death with this Iowasca trip, it's like nonsense, right? Like Jamie wheels were like, one of those people that talks about I'm like the super ego. So the people that do all of these mushroom journey's and like there, and these startup companies and they're super hip and they actually ended up getting like a bigger ego than when they came in, which is really fascinating. 2 (38m 28s): So recognizing that's like a little saboteur and not to really listen to them. And when that happens to me too, and I like do these podcasts, like today, I'm like, I'm going to fail and I'm gonna sound stupid. And he is just not going to show up, like, you know what I mean? Like that little saboteur. And then I had to like say, is this, so I have a, like a business coach and he calls it like a Sage or a saboteur. So you have to say like, which one is that voice as the person? Is that voice helping you to your highest self? Or is it trying to sabotage you? And then you have to like, look for the, the evidence. Right? So if the voice was saying that you're stupid, you have to find evidence that you're not like to the contrary. Right. And usually it's pretty easy, like that voice and everyone's head doesn't usually have a lot of evidence it's just there to like tear you down, tear you down, tear you down. 0 (39m 14s): So true. Yeah. And, and having those frames, I mean, that's like cognitive behavioral therapy, which I think is so transformative of recognizing your cognitive distortions, interrupting them and then really getting your head on. Right. Like that's really, really powerful. I like that idea a lot, the Sage and the sabotage. Oh, it's 2 (39m 32s): So helpful. It's so helpful. Any moment that like, that voice is getting really convincing. I have to like remind myself, like, which category is this and, and where where's the evidence and then put them in that bucket and let them stay there. 0 (39m 45s): Okay. Yeah. And when that happens to me, my thing is I don't even care if it's true. All I care about is I have a goal will thinking that I'm stupid moving towards that goal. If it will then do it because I'm all about my goal. I think everybody, the choices we make in life should all be based on the goals that we have. Now, your goals should be exciting and honorable, but assuming that they are then steering by your goal is phenomenal. So it was a big relief for me to say, okay, maybe I really am dumb. Maybe I really am petty, maybe whatever. And now he does invested in that and repeating that to myself. Is that going to move me towards my goal? No, it's not. Well then why are you repeating it? Like, I don't care if it's accurate. 0 (40m 26s): I just care. What's propelling me towards this honorable goal. And so that was really helpful to me. And it like, so if I were in your situation, it's like, oh man, I'm dumb. And I'm really going to mess this up. I would say, okay, maybe that's true, but does it help you to repeat that, you know enough about the brain to know you become what you repeat? So probably a dumb idea to sit here and repeat that I'm going to mess this up. And so that one notion of, but is it helpful allowed me to stop beating myself up over things? 2 (40m 56s): Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense. I was curious. So when it comes to like, cause you're all about mindset, I hear you talk about mindset all the time. And then when you were first starting quests that you guys didn't have a lot of resources. And just because of where the facilities were located, that you ended up hiring like ex cons, which I actually think is really cool. So I'm actually trying to figure out, I know you're not a fan of five oh one C3 is I'm trying to figure out how to make a business out of an idea. But right now I'm still it's going in the nonprofit category. But I do want to do some work with people that are constantly written. I was curious if you had seen like a commonality in the success stories, people that maybe you and employed that you saw that just completely did a 180. 2 (41m 44s): And if there was a commonality amongst that, that group of people, because so many people, as soon as they check that box and an application where like, you can't even get an interview, right? Like they, there is no rehabilitation, but there has to be, I believe people change and, and people believe people grow. And obviously that's not for everybody, but there's gotta be some like diamonds in the rough. So I was curious with your experience with that. 0 (42m 7s): Yeah, it was really extraordinary. So here was the realization that I walked away with intelligence is distributed. Evenly mindset, frame of reference is not now if you've got all the high-end hardware in the world, but you run dumb software, then you get dumb outputs. And so when you have are the people you're talking about that are forgotten, whether they grew up in the inner city or they were abused or whatever, they're telling themselves a story about themselves and the way the world works, that is not useful. That is not helpful. And because it's not helpful, they lack what I call the only belief that matters. The only belief that matters, the reason that I'm willing to bet on a human is that if you put, and this, this is just true of the average human and you don't need to be special for this. 0 (42m 56s): The human animal shows and evolutionary path of basically only, pre-wiring about 50% of the things that we're born with as humans. And the other 50% is like, Hey, what's the environment? What are you born into? What do you need to get good at? And so it just soaks up cultures, soaks up the environment around it. And to make that strategy work, you have to get better. Like the brain actually has to adjust rewire and improve based on practice. So if you put time and attention into something, walking, talking like kids get really good at it. And we think, oh yeah, that's natural for a kid. But then that goes away. It definitely diminishes. And it is harder when you're older. 0 (43m 37s): There's no question, but you can still, I think it's like a hundred X, but even if it's only 10 X, you can improve your skillset and your life is unrecognizable. If you 10 X your skills. So the only belief that matters is if I put time and attention into getting better, I will actually get better. And then the second part of that is skills have utility. So you get better at something because it actually lets you do something. So architecture is probably my favorite example. So you get good at architecture and then you can actually build a bridge that spans two landmasses crosses water, allows people to walk over, drive over whatever. Like you you've literally Terraform that part of the planet. 0 (44m 20s): It's crazy. So now like whatever your skillset is that you want to get good at math, being a teacher of physics, science, making protein cars and whatever. Like if you put time and attention into it, you'll actually get better and getting better at that thing, lets you do something. And then one of my favorite quotes from Kobe Bryant, booze don't block dunks. So people were paid millions of dollars to try to stop that man from scoring baskets, he wants scored 81 points. I think in a single game, 81 in a single game, even though the other team was paid millions of dollars to stop him, they couldn't because he'd gotten so good at something. So there's I love quotes. 0 (45m 0s): There's another quote, this one's good. This one's really going to land with people. If you've ever doubted yourself, remember this, you can't make a race horse out of a pig, but you can make a really fast pig. I love that my life. Oh my God. It's so good. My life has the answer to what does it really fast pig look like? So maybe I'm not a race horse, but dammit, I'm a fast pig. And I put a lot of time and making sure that I'm one of the fastest pigs around and my life is just unrecognizable. When I think about, you know, being in my mid twenties scrounging and my couch cushions to find enough change, to put gas in my car. Cause that was broke, paying some bills one month, some bills the next month being on unemployment. 0 (45m 40s): I mean, it was gnarly to where I'm at now, knowing it's the same genetic material, but just what happens when for 20 years you everyday make a demand that you get a little bit better at something that matters. And then that just stacks. 2 (45m 54s): I couldn't agree more. I have a very similar situation. I was like the brokest human alive. At one point while I was in college, same thing, like no money for, to even put gas in my car. I was crashing on a friend's couch. I was out of dog food. I was like, how many feet? How am I going to feed this dog? Like low as I've probably ever been. And then I just like started making adjustments. I'm like, where am I going to invest my time? Who am I going to surround myself with? Because that's huge. I feel like people don't spend enough or time or like give enough weight to that. Right? Like they think that they can have like really shitty friends that they are going to be successful. And it's just not how it works. Like you are the accumulation of where you S what is it? 2 (46m 34s): Five people 0 (46m 35s): Do the average of the five people who spend the most time with you that, yeah. So 2 (46m 38s): It's like, maybe you should take inventory of that. If that like, you're the leader. If your life isn't where you want it to be. And so many people think that you can just say that if you like, you know, think positive and bla bla bla, that you'll get it. Or like, you know, the quick Gary V clips that you see, they want that answer, but it's like, you have to grind. Like you don't realize how much time goes into someone's success story. Right. And it's like, Mastery's seven years. You did. You were working with the guys, your co-founders for like 15. Was it like 15 years? 14 years. Yeah. So it's like, you have to put in the work and putting the time and then you get to see the progress. And then like, there's obviously outliers where you get genius. 2 (47m 19s): That just strikes right away. And all of a sudden it's instance like fame and success, but that's not, that's not the norm. I was curious. So I heard on one of your older podcasts that you were saying, one of your biggest fears with Impact Theory was that it wasn't going to work on adults. And I was curious if you've seen any like hurdles with like the material that you're putting out or like that was an unfounded fear. 0 (47m 48s): No, it's not unfounded. It is much harder to impact adults than I want it to be M 85 because of that. 85% of our energies are aimed at kids 11 to 15. So the whole period called the age of imprinting. It is so interesting. Like there's a book called a billion wicked thoughts. It is so good. I haven't read it. That has been recommended. It's so good. I like, for four months after I read it, I could not stop telling people. Have you read? You gotta read. That is amazing. So good. And it literally changed my business. We were at that point 85% and adults and 15% aimed at kids. And after reading that book and hearing about the age of imprinting and realizing like, this is crazy, basically all sexual fetishes develop between 11 and 14. 0 (48m 37s): So like all the weird shit that people end up getting into it's because of some thing that happened when the brain is like, Hey, cool, what should we be focused on? What's going to be our niche. And like, it just soaks everything. And this really unique way that's combined with puberty. It's so fascinating. And then after that, you begin to sort of prune how much of a sponge you are, right? So you begin to solidify and you like consolidate who you are. And then it's like, that's why, you know, sort of by the time somebody is 18, it's like, you got a pretty good sense of who they are and, you know, look like anything. I'm very different than if you'd met me back then. But the sort of foundational temperamental style is pretty locked in by that point. 0 (49m 19s): And so just realizing, Hey, I, because I have so much compassion for people that have ended up in their adult years and not achieve what they want and they're suffering inside because they don't have the right frame of reference, their mindset's broken. I'm always going to serve that group just like they have my heart. But when I think about actually having the kind of impact on the world that I want to have, it's like, don't, don't make it harder than it needs to be. You know, go where people are most sort of wide open to being influenced. And quite frankly, because I'm like, what Impact Theory really is like my theory on how to impact people at scale is storytelling. Right? So when I think of impact theory, I think of it very differently than most people on the outside looking in, because it takes so much longer for us to do like the traditional Hollywood stuff. 0 (50m 6s): But I think of it, the storytelling and kids, man, when you think about the movies and franchises and stuff that you love, it's usually something you were into when you were 12. And so creating for kids when they love it, they love it, man. And they go crazy. The adults are way more cynical. They're way less likely to like really fall in love with something. And so it's, it's really rewarding to play in that space. So not only do I think it's more effective, it's more emotionally rewarding. 2 (50m 33s): <inaudible> have you seen that new company called Dreamworks 0 (50m 40s): Dreamworks, like Dreamworks SKG 2 (50m 43s): Dreamworks. They're doing the stuff with VR and they just got like, did a partnership with Arizona state university. 0 (50m 52s): I don't know them personally. I would. And your sure they're called dream works. Cause I would 3 (50m 57s): Think that way, sorry. Nope. Dreamscape dreamscape. Yup. Thank you for that correction. 2 (51m 3s): Yeah, I saw that I was reading about them today and it was making me think of you. So I was curious if you were like planning on implementing like AR with your content. 0 (51m 13s): Yes. And thank you for asking. So this is an area I'm totally obsessed with. So we're now making huge investments into technology. The blockchain showed me sorta what the intermediary step between now and true sort of ready player one style and immersive VR is. And once I saw that, then it's like, okay, we started developing aggressively, starting and NFTs. And then we'll be branching out into a metaverse gameplay where we'll develop our own games on somebody else's metaverse and then possibly at some point looking at, do we develop our own metaverse? But if I'm honest, as of right now, I would rather learn on the back of somebody else's technology and then sort of, I don't, I don't ever need to build the technology that creates the metaverse, but having our own instance so that you could go to, you know, impact the land or whatever that would, that is definitely something that will be in our future just because we're creating so much IP, there's so many different characters and so many different stories. 0 (52m 15s): So for people to be able to go in and, you know, be a part of those worlds, I think will be really, really good. 2 (52m 21s): Do you have a timeline for that? 0 (52m 24s): Yeah. So our first piece of technology launches July 14th, we're now what like six weeks out. So that will be our first blockchain technology is an NFT platform focused on anime, manga and video game art. And then we're going to be leveraging that to actually create a NFTs that will turn into an NFT game where the players actually own the content. So if you build a character, you actually own that, you can sell it, you can rent it or whatever, and then will be simultaneously that we'll be integrating with Metta versus, and, and I would expect sort of our early experiments to be late 20, 21, early 20, 22. And then VR for us is probably realistically, probably 23, 24, somewhere around in there. 2 (53m 10s): That's still really fast considering 0 (53m 13s): I, I have an obsession with speed and momentum and being aggressive. So yeah, I'm horrified that it's not all happening in 2021. So, you know, I'm trying to be disciplined here and my answers. So do 2 (53m 24s): We get like a sneak peek at maybe one of the storylines that you plan on launching 0 (53m 30s): Sooner? I have a whole belief and what you're doing and you never know who might help you. So yeah, we have seven projects and development actively right now, M two that have been completed. So one is called neon future. We did two full seasons on web tune. He spent his entire life cycle in the top 10 of its category, which I was super excited about. Got nominated for a web tune award, which is very exciting. And that's that 30 years in the future and an America where advanced technology has been outlawed. And there's a brewing civil war between those who have augmented their body with technology and those who refuse to do so. And our story follows the world's most famous anti-tech Crusader who dies and is resurrected using the very technology he's war to destroy us. 0 (54m 19s): And so now he has, what's called augmented and he's out shunned by his family and his family is very high ranking and the government does anti-technology. And so it's his journey of like, who am I, you know, can I be accepted by the people that I had hunted down and very cool journey they're that he went on for? I've been working on that for like almost four years now. I think really cool, long running story that we're technically on hiatus right now. We've done two full seasons may come back for a third and we'll see, we just have so many other projects now and development. And another one that he did his whole life cycle again, top 10, the whole way through called hexagon and hexagon is a set of the eighties, but a young boy whose dad refuses to let him play video games. 0 (55m 7s): So of course, to impress a girl, he sneaks out beats a video game on the first quarter and thinks, you know, oh my God, I'm like some savant. But when he doesn't realize is that that video game was created specifically to find him. And when he played it, he beat it because he's actually an alien, which he didn't know, it launches an alien invasion. They come kidnap is dad. And then the whole story is him trying to get his dad back and uncovering, you know, what the hell, I'm an alien really, really fun story. And we have a bunch more and development won that my wife would be mortified if I didn't mention because it's her baby it's called wish academy, all about female superheroes. I'm going to an academy specifically for young girls. 0 (55m 49s): And it's about a girl who has abilities, but she wants to use them and it got her mother killed. And so she now doesn't want to use her abilities. And it's like about her sort of coming out of that hard edge rebellious teenager. Who's really trying to mask hurt as she, you know, leans in needs the sort of really bad-ass chick called detective Mamba, who teaches her to like, Hey, fuck it. Like you gotta use these powers help me, like, or you're never going to get anywhere in life. And of course it gets incredibly dangerous and she ends up having to use the powers to save yourself and some other people. And it's a mystery and things unravel. It's really cool. I'm so proud of my wife for putting together this just extraordinary story, female creative team, top to bottom. 0 (56m 31s): So that's really exciting. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait for that one. I think it's going to be going to be a smash they've they've approached it really, really smartly and then yeah. A bunch more, but I won't bore your audience to death. 3 (56m 44s): I'm really proud of them. Yeah. Really 2 (56m 46s): Exciting. So when it comes to team augment yourself or don't, I'm pretty sure I know at camp you fall into, but which one would you, are you going to decide to go into? Because I feel like it's going to happen within the next five years. You want to start seeing it? 0 (56m 60s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that shit is real today. Like Elon Musk has already through his Neurolink company, he's got a pig brains where you can literally watch every sinaps in a certain area. I think it has to do with their nose fire. You've got humans, cochlear implants are already real. So I will definitely be team augmentation. I just won't be an early adopter making sure that technology's nice and, and proven before I do it. But yeah, I think ultimately the only way forward for our species is to augment. And so I think that's, that's really an inevitable part. And because I would, if I could, I would truly live forever. 0 (57m 42s): Like I would have no beef with that whatsoever. And I, the only way for us to pull that off is to augment long enough that we can solve some of the other problems so that we can live, you know, say 150 or 200 years. So yeah. And, and whether it's machine interfaces or whether it's, you know, biological upgrades, like growing Oregons and vats, which they can actually do. I don't know, nor do I really care. I just want to see as much of the future as I can. 2 (58m 14s): So do you ever get, so I'm, I totally agree. Like I want one of those narrow links again, after it's been on the market for a little bit. So if there is any recalls, like I'm not in the first, second or maybe third wave, but you see a lot of people that are very anti this and they're like, well, what if the wrong person gets their hands on this technology? And now they can do mind control cause that it automatically goes to the mind control. Right. Do you think that that's like, that's a possibility or do you think you have to just like trust the founder? Right. Like I don't obviously don't know Elon Musk when he seems like a pretty great guy, so I trust him with my brain. 2 (58m 54s): So I would just like, you know, S shop different companies before deciding like if it was a government ran thing, like absolutely not, but you know, the private market, if I had liked the guy and then sure. 0 (59m 6s): Yeah. I mean, a, I do think it's a real thing. I think people have to be really, really careful. I think that what you're going to find is they will use something like the blockchain. So to make a change to your brain, all 250 million as of today, computers would have to come to an agreement about, yes, this is an authorized change. So hacking something like that would be very, very difficult. It only becomes plausible when you have that kind of hacker resistance, because the one that really freaks me out, like imagine that consciousness is something that you can sort of grab, right? You can upload it or whatever you could change somebody's sense of time, make them feel like they were trapped for a thousand years and have them suffer at peak amplitude for the entire thousand years. 0 (59m 52s): Right? Like that that's and terrifying shit. So you of course have to protect against that, but it's like, there's so many things that we have to protect against now. So trying to remove yourself from the world, I understand the impulse and for sure. And that's part of what we were trying to explore a neon future, which by the way, don't think, I don't see over your shoulder. Thank you. That's very kind that is that bifurcation of knowing that some people will in, in a religious fashion refuse and that the species will, and I I'm saying this is actually going to happen, whether it happens in 10 years and it happens in 10,000 years, I don't know, but it will happen. 0 (1h 0m 33s): It will bifurcate. And some people will be what in the comic I referred to as authentic. And then you'll have the other side, which is augmented and eventually they won't be the same species. And so it'll be, you know, I mean, there, there are people that look at that with, you know, sort of great horror and disdain. And for me, it's, it's such a fascinating exploration and because I'm not nihilistic and I believe in humanities, like groping for a more beautiful future and on balance. Cause there will be tragedies, but on balance somehow some way, despite the odds and how cruel humans can be on balance, we've moved in one direction. 0 (1h 1m 15s): Right. And that's up and to the right. So, you know, I think that that will continue. 2 (1h 1m 21s): Yeah. I agree too. I'm like, if you look at it at scale, we uproot, we continue to improve over time. Like, yeah, there's still some garbage in there and some people still stuck and that's just a net, you know, that's going to be inevitable as long as there's people, but like overall we're doing pretty good. I had two questions one, well, the one that I remember right now, so I know, and a lot of other interviews you've and they were a little bit dated. So I know with, especially with a person like you, like that could be totally different now, but you were saying that you don't think anything happens after we die. It's just like, kind of that's it. So I was curious if you a changed your mind or be considered like maybe like a spiritual consequences of not dying. 0 (1h 2m 10s): I have not changed my mind. It seems absolutely self evident to me that given what we know that when you go, you go, now it's also self evident to me that I don't know shit about it. So it is, you know, the great mystery of life to me is when you think about a house being built, that house has to be built on a plot of land. That plot of land is on earth. Earth is in the cosmos. It is stuck in space-time and space-time I'm being asked to accept is expanding. What's it expanding into? And you know, when you think about that and I've had people on the show that can explain sort of what that expansion is, and they will use the example of a balloon. 0 (1h 2m 57s): And they'll say the universe that we exist in is like being stuck in the rubber layer of a balloon. So as the balloon expands, it's still the same amount of rubber, but it's just, you know, it's getting farther and farther. So if you had to cross one distance, that distance is now farther. And my thing is cool, but what the balloon end like the balloon is in something, some sort of space, hyperspace, other dimensions, whatever. And so, because everyone just sort of gets to the point where they say something like higher dimensions or we don't know, or whatever you're left with. Have you heard that phrase turtles all the way down? Oh God, I love that story so much. 0 (1h 3m 37s): So this to me is brilliant. And this is, I think the state of quantum quantum mechanics right now. So there was a person trying to explain it to this old woman and a village. Hey, the earth is round. And she was like, get out of here. The earth is obviously flat. You can see that it's flat. And the scientists thinking that he's got her asks her, well, if it's flat, what's it on? And she said, well, it's resting on the back of a gigantic turtle. And he's thinking I got it now. And he goes, what's the turtle resting on? And she goes, don't be silly. Everybody knows it's turtles all the way down. And that's where we get is like, you just get into some sort of ultra recursive. 0 (1h 4m 17s): Like there is no answer right to you. You either, even if you accept like a multi university theory or like a bubble universe theory where it's like, we're all these bubble universes in like this foam, what's like, what's the foam in? Where are the foam come from? Like you, you ultimately get back to the UN, I don't know. And because I fully accept that I get down too. And I don't know. So I don't take any pride in saying that nothing happens after we die. I don't think I'm cool for saying, Hey, nothing happens. It just seems wise to me to assume that nothing happens because there's nothing that I've seen that like, if you know Phineas, gage, I dunno how people overcome the Phineas gage problem. 0 (1h 5m 2s): So Phineas gage like 1890, whatever he was working on the railroad, you wouldn't believe that there are photos of look them up. Phineas gage. There are photos of him with the tamping rod. It's like six feet long or something ridiculous. Hit the tamping. Rod shoots up under his actually it's through his M right under his cheekbone up through the top of his head and out, he loses a teacup, teacup, teacups worth the brain matter. Never loses consciousness. He literally vomits brain matter. Oh my God, it's so crazy. And yeah, but does not lose consciousness from that moment on is never the same. Everybody says he goes from like the most lovely guy to a total asshole. Couldn't hold down a job, total nightmare to be around. 0 (1h 5m 44s): So now I ask you, if all you had to do was fundamentally to fundamentally change his personality is damaged. The physical structures of his brain, which version of him goes to heaven, the damage around damaged version. And if it's the undamaged version, why, why is it that his whole time and earth is fundamentally fixed to the physical nature of his brain? In fact, I don't even need to damage his brain. Let me just get max to see. He will be a totally different person for a couple of hours. Let me give him massive amounts of acid, be a totally different person. So it seems so clear that we are the result of the physical structure and the neurochemistry of our brain. I just don't see why that would suddenly live beyond anything now. 0 (1h 6m 28s): But again, I don't feel cool for saying that. It just like just seems obvious. Now, are there spiritual implications to living forever? Yes, but now we would have to define spiritual. So to me, how you spend your life is a spiritual consideration. If you really believe that if I put time and attention into getting good at something and I can get good at anything I want, then how you spend your time is a spiritual consideration. What are you going to get good at? You're going to get good at helping people, building things, tearing things down, doing something for yourself, something for other people like it all matters, right? And we're a wildly interconnected social species. So it's not like any of these choices are consequence free. 2 (1h 7m 8s): Everything is the trade off. 0 (1h 7m 11s): Everything's a, trade-off everything has a cause and effect, right? You do this and it impacts other people in this 2 (1h 7m 17s): Way. So I've also heard you say, and I feel like it's one of maybe your like limiting beliefs. Cause like you don't seem like a guy that has a lot of them, but you're like, oh, the way it gets, sometimes it gets really sad when I think about all of the things that I want to do. And there's just not enough time. And that's like one of your driving forces for M like longevity. So I was curious if you are like considering kind of like creating and AI version of yourself, like creating synthetic consciousness. So I don't know if you know, like Tony Robbins is, I guess like working on that right now. And he's trying to create like a synthetic Tony. So Tony dies or when he dies, there's going to be an AI version of him. 2 (1h 7m 57s): So almost like that black mirror episode where you're uploading your consciousness into the cloud. So I could see you doing that. I'm curious if you've ever thought about it. 0 (1h 8m 6s): It's interesting. We looked at it really hard from like a, maybe more basic version of what Tony's trying to do, where it it's consuming so much of your content, that it basically knows how you would answer questions. And so it's like a really advanced chat-bot. And we, we looked at that and got pretty serious. And I think that's going to be very real in the next three to five years where you can truly create an AI version. It looks like me, it can move my mouth, make my expressions just because there's so much content for someone like me, who's filmed. I mean, I can't even imagine how many hundreds of hours of content I put out there. 0 (1h 8m 45s): So every weird face that I make, every, you know, sort of sly comments, my inflections, my pauses, my jokes, my theories, you know, all of it. You could shove into this thing and they're getting very sophisticated at how they cough it back up. So I think it will be inevitable that say three to five years from now, you go to my website, you're greeted by me and you can ask me all this sort of basic FAQ stuff and I'll give you really good answers, but it will be, I don't see until computers have a body, which they could get. 0 (1h 9m 28s): I mean, it's a very doable thing, but until they have a body, I don't think that it'll ever get good at predicting what I would say. It will never be able to say something that I've never said before. And it will be able to give you the things that I've said in a very shrewd way. You know, thinking about I'm thinking out loud here, it would amalgamate from other people maybe that are like me. And so it's drawing on somebody else and giving you what looks like a unique thought of mine, but it's actually, maybe I'm taking a little bit of something Toni said and something you said, and now I say this new blended idea of those two things. I could see them doing that. But the reason I, I think that there's a body component is there's a, a nerve in the body, the Vegas nerve, that's the biggest nerve in the body. 0 (1h 10m 14s): And it's, it sends 80% of feedback from the body to the brain. And so just knowing how much of communication goes from the body to the brain. I just don't think this is ever going to happen until there's body feedback coming in. 2 (1h 10m 30s): That's so interesting. So I haven't thought about putting it into a body, but so do you think that there's ever a point where that synthetic consciousness is indistinguishable from actual consciousness? And then do you kind of get into a moral dilemma if that 0 (1h 10m 47s): Ooh. Yeah. In terms of like, can you force them to work for you? Do you need to pay them a wage? I, there is a point if something is truly conscious, like if it, if just like us then yeah. I don't think it matters if it has a Silicon body or not. I think he really have to say like, it's a conscious being. So the real, like scary part is, what about if it can mimic consciousness? Like then what, where it's really just a chatbot, like truly for what w let's pretend that there's a test that you could run and you can say definitively, this is just a chat bot, but it emotes and makes you feel like it's feeling something, then what do you do? 0 (1h 11m 27s): I still don't think that we could do it. I don't think that we could treat it poorly it, and if you can, you're like a sociopath. It's like, I, I actually speak kindly to Siri. I can't help it. It, like, I feel like such a Dick, if I'm like, you know, Hey, do this. It's like, Hey Siri, can you, you know, and then you fill it in. And I don't know, I feel it makes me feel differently about myself even to be bossy around her. And I worry what it would do if people grow up where they are just, they don't even think about it and they're just Bossie and then robots get better. And then robots seem semi-conscious and kids are still just like kicking it and bossing it around. It's like, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about. 0 (1h 12m 9s): And admittedly, it's just sort of a fun thought exercise, but that's interesting. 2 (1h 12m 15s): It really is. So, I mean, I guess the pressure is on with the content you're making to make sure that we're kind of raising these kids to be empathetic and, and nice to robots to that. They're in turn nice to the, the human cyborgs. 0 (1h 12m 28s): I would be surprised if it didn't matter. I really would. Something tells me that, especially for kids, if their brain doesn't wire to practice kindness and communication and things like that, that it will just sort of spill over 2 (1h 12m 41s): <inaudible>. I think you'll see that a lot now too, with technology. So it's like, it's a blessing and a curse. So it's one of those things, like when do you introduce technology to a child, right? Cause if you do it too soon, I feel like that's going to have a huge negative implication on their self-worth because they start comparing, like, that's one of my biggest Achilles heels. So like, one of my things that I ruminate on is I constantly comparing myself to other people. And I know its like the worst thing that you could do. And its like the quickest way to like take away things that you can control and like your own worth and praise and all of that stuff because you'll never be that other person. So I feel like I do that and I'm pretty, I'm much more self-aware than like a teenager or a young child. 2 (1h 13m 21s): So it's a, when is that spot where you, you don't want them to fall behind either. Right? Like, cause you know, a lot of parents just give their kid an iPad pretty much out of the womb. So like that kid knows how to work, any apple product blindfolded and you don't want your kid to be behind that curve, but you also don't want them to be suffering from these mental disorders that we see on a huge rise right now. So I'm curious with all the people that you talk to, if you have like a sweet spot recommendation, 0 (1h 13m 48s): My sweet-spot recommendation is don't have children. I don't want to deal with this. Like legitimately when I think about, oh my God, like so bullying, right? The scary thing about bullying is it used to be, once you were at home, you were safe and you had like the thoughts running through your head, but you were safe now. It's like, man, you're only as safe as the distance you keep from your phone. Like they can get to you in your house. That shit is so scary. So what would I do if I had kids, I would for sure dramatically limit the amount of time that they spend on it. I wouldn't have like a zero tolerance policy to your point about one. It is a good way to get a kid to be quiet for short periods of time too. 0 (1h 14m 33s): It's going to be training them for just a world in which they're growing up with technology and handicapping. That would be foolish. That's exactly why, you know, people make fun of boomers because they don't know how to do it. Then they're going to be making fun of, you know, me as a gen X-er and then they're going to be making fun of millennials. It's like it isn't about what generation you're born. And eventually they're going to be making fun of zoomers. It is entirely as you get older, you stop learning the new stuff. You're busy, you've got a lot going on. So to handicap the kid and already have them be behind the curve, I think is a mistake. But you really do have to limit the amount of time that they spend on it. You've got to make sure that they're moving their body. You've got to make sure that they have loving connection. I mean, there's just things you have to do for a brain to develop well, and, and that's another reason I don't have kids like the things you have to do to make sure that that brain develops well is so complex and it's like, you can't control it all. 0 (1h 15m 26s): Oh God. Like I am eternally grateful to all you parents. Thank you for raising the next generation because I wasn't willing to do it. It is. Yeah. It's talk about a beautiful job that is really, really difficult to pull off and to do it well. And so I will just say to anybody out there and stressing over that, there is no magic answer. Don't let them just go all in. I, if I had kids that were under say, I mean, God, maybe under 18, I would have some period where they, they, you know, okay, it's it's 7:00 PM. There are no more phones in this house. And maybe as of dinnertime, it's like your phone gets left and a little basket out here. You're not taking it into your bedroom with you. 0 (1h 16m 7s): And what I have the discipline to do that. Yes I would. My parents refused to let me have a TV in my bedroom. They wouldn't buy me a Nintendo. And so I get it. I get kids being angry about rules, but at the end of the day, the rules are the rules and then you do other things. So yeah, that seems like from a mental perspective, making sure that they have a few hours to decompress where they don't have access to people saying shitty things. And like, there's this really weird, like even so social media is a huge part of my business. So I'm on social a lot and I can feel myself sometimes getting in these loops where my brain just feels different. My brain just wants to go from one app to the next, to the next to the next next, you know, next image, next comment reply. 0 (1h 16m 51s): And, and it's weird if that makes my brain feel weird. And so as somebody who's very good at managing my own neurochemistry, I'm like, whoa, if this is getting me to the point where I have to consciously set it down, create space, like literally meditate. Then for people that haven't developed, those skills could be really gnarly. I 2 (1h 17m 14s): Call it a screen hangover. So I am the same way something will happen and I'll get stuck in this loop. And time is just gone. And before I know it I've wasted like an hour, just flipping through things, replying, same thing, just like consuming, right? Like so gross. And then if it's for a really long period of time, like usually like that hour mark or even sometimes longer, it's like, you just feel like, first of all, you're like aware of your brain in a weird way. Like you're like, there's something there and it kind of is like throbbing. And then the entire next day, I'm like, I'm not at my best. Everything's a little bit less than I'm moving slower thinking slower. Like there's just like this really real physiological effect. 2 (1h 17m 56s): And so the same thing, it's like, I'm in my thirties and I can't can control that. You know what I mean? I don't expect a 13 year old to do it or even understand what's happening. 0 (1h 18m 6s): So yeah. And I have a prefrontal cortex, so they can't stop themselves even if they want to. Yeah. And that's the 2 (1h 18m 12s): Thing you have to remember too, right? It's like we treat these people like they're fully functioning and fully complete adults and that doesn't happen for a long time. So you're giving them a lot of responsibility. They're not ready to handle yet truth. So I guess before we wrap up, do you want to plug anything, tell the listeners how they can follow you, how they can support you and any projects that you're working on. 0 (1h 18m 37s): Absolutely Impact Theory. University is the place to go. Everything that I talk about, like this is exactly what I teach. And then if people just want to follow me socially, I'm at Tom Bilyeu everywhere and I'm super active. And if you're into anime and manga, I want to hear from you now that'll be a very niche population, but hit your boy of DME. 1 (1h 18m 59s): Awesome. Well thank you again so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. It was wonderful. That's it for this week's episode. If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review and don't forget to hit that subscribe button that you can also share this podcast with a friend. It helps my podcast grow and I really appreciate that. I hope to see you next week.