Pod Insights The Impact Theory Podcast Success Won’t Save You: How to Rebuild When Identity, Culture & Confidence Collapse | Tom Bilyeu AMA (Fan Fav) About this episode Tom answers questions from the community.
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 2-6-19
SHOWNOTES:
How to love the process of getting better at whatever you want while overcoming self doubt and lack of confidence [2:11]
The new secret to success [5:09]
Where to draw the line with “everything is my fault” [9:02]
How to reward yourself when you stick with your goals and defeat negative habits [13:48]
How to outperform people’s perceptions of you and bury people with results [20:51]
How to avoid burnout at work [27:27] What to do if you’ve lost your “why” [31:33]
How to improve your mindset to overcome your weaknesses and develop mental resilience [38:04]
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Tom Bilyeu? Let's talk about the moment your side hustle becomes a real business. Now, I see way too many founders stay stuck running their business like it's a hobby, and then they wonder why nothing ever feels real. It doesn't feel real because it's not. I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs build real businesses through Impact Theory University, and the first step in the path to building a legit business is registering it. And Taylor Brands will help you do just that in a few clicks. An LLC, a limited liability company, is an official business structure. It's inexpensive to form and very simple to maintain. It's how you open a business bank account. It's how customers know they're dealing with a real company. And Taylor Brands doesn't stop at the filing.
0:45 Tom Bilyeu? Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Taylor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. All right, first question. Comic or tragic? My passion is stand-up comedy. I've been pursuing it for three years, and I've definitely gotten better since my first open mic. However, my biggest hurdle is my confidence. I feel very judged by other comics on the quality of my jokes, my stage presence, et cetera.
1:26 Tom Bilyeu? Because of this, I feel I'm not progressing as fast as I want because I'm so scared. Once my set is over, I feel ashamed that I was so scared on stage. Am I afraid of them seeing the real me? How do I teach myself to love, instead of hate, the process of building my set in front of comics that I believe are judging me? All right, so here's the great news. Those comics are judging you, and some of them are really hoping that you're gonna fail. Here's what you have to keep in mind. Never judge yourself through the lens of a moment. Judge yourself through the lens of a lifetime and know this about humans. On a long enough timeline, you can get extraordinary at anything.
2:08 Tom Bilyeu? Now, it doesn't mean that it's going to be equal, that as you put in energy and the person next to you puts in the same amount of energy, that you're both going to get the same result. There is such a thing as a natural predilection towards something. Some people pick things up faster than others. And I always tell people, don't worry about that. Worry about how much you love the process, because the process is all that matters. You may never, you may never, much to my dismay, you may never become the hot comedian. But if you love the process of getting good at it, if you're open minded, if you actually want to learn, if your actual self-esteem, your pride is tied up not in whether you go out and kill as a comic,
2:49 Tom Bilyeu? but whether you're able to move through the nights where you're just absolutely failing, that you can in the moment, remind yourself that this is just practice, that when someone's heckling you, that you're actually looking at, hmm, are they right about something? Or if they're giving you that kind of negative feedback live, can you play with it? Can you do something with that? That's funny. Can you control your emotions? Can you look at the people that think that you're going to fail? Really listen to their message and see, is there something in here that's empowering that I can extract and learn from? If that, that stuff, if that is the very basis of your pride, then this whole process is going to be amazing, because you're going to feel better every time. You're willing to stare nakedly at your inadequacies and grow and get better.
3:34 Tom Bilyeu? And when you're in learning mode and you're not thinking about, was I good today? You're thinking about, am I learning? Am I growing? Am I doing the things that I need to do to improve myself? And that's the thing that gets you hyped. Then you're going to win, because you'll stick at it long enough to really get great at it. And you'll enjoy the process all along the way. And then, even if you never hit the big time, like you want to hit the big time, you still had an extraordinary time going through the process. And now, lean the fuck in. If you guys want the secrets of success, here it is. This is a thing that I don't think people really understand.
4:08 Tom Bilyeu? You've got to learn the strategy of becoming big at something, at reaching that level of success. There is an art to that. You can be the world's most extraordinary comic and still never make it anywhere. And the reason that people end up going and getting agents and managers is because what they're saying is, I just want to get good at the comedy. I don't want to have to think about anything else. But now, if that's the case, you're at other, other people's mercy. Because if they don't see in you what you see in yourself, or you're not even good at getting their attention. You struggle at that, maybe you suck at networking, who knows? But you're unable to get those people on your side, and you don't know how to play the game, then you're really in trouble.
4:51 Tom Bilyeu? And this is something that I struggle with with people on my own team. They don't understand, at the end of the day, you've got to get fucking good at the game of comedy, in this case, or in our case, building the studio. It, it is a thing unto itself, not just being good and putting out a good show, or creating a great comic. That fucking isn't the whole thing. That's only half the game. The other half of the game is understanding how to move the pieces on the chessboard, understanding how to think 10 moves ahead. And so whether the comedy part comes easy to you or not, maybe you can overshadow that because you're good at the, the chess moves. You're good at knowing what club promoters you have to get to know. You're good at figuring out what time you need to go on stage.
5:36 Tom Bilyeu? You're good at supporting the other comedians, so they want to support you, and they're giving you opportunities that you might not otherwise get. Or they're willing to pull you under their wing and teach you and help you get better. Like, there are a thousand ways to come at this. So even if your natural talent isn't just going out there naturally being funny, and that part of it isn't effortless for you, and you really have to struggle through it, there's this whole other fucking side that I swear to God, the world is blind to, and they don't realize that that is also a skill set that they can build up, that they could go and work on those things, the, the fucking hustle of it all, the, the strategy, the being really strategic and plugged into something, and understanding how the game is played. And once you understand how the game is played, you can put aside your own emotions and the things that otherwise are going to hold you back and make you make a decision that isn't moving you forward.
6:21 Tom Bilyeu? Like, once you figure that side of things out, then you can really be great. Then you can lead yourself, you can lead other people, but you've got to fucking figure that out. You've got to understand that, like- The world isn't fair. The world doesn't act the way that you want it to. And you can't deal with the world the way that you wish it were. You have to deal with the world the way it actually is. And the people that really get somewhere in life, those are the people that understand that. And they understand the nuances of the game. They understand people's personalities and how that plays into it. They understand how other people's insecurities play into something. They understand how other people's pettiness plays into something. They understand how to add value to somebody's life. And that if they do that long enough, that it will come back to them at some point. They understand, like, all of this, when I say play the long game, all of this is wrapped up in that, like figuring all this shit out.
7:06 Tom Bilyeu? And when you're able to figure that stuff out, you're going to absolutely fucking crush. Stop worrying about whether you're scared on stage. Fine, you're scared on stage. Do things to get past that. Do not beat yourself up over it. That is only going to make it worse. Don't worry about whether people are judging you. They are, who the fuck cares? You're playing the long game. You're going to do this over a very long period of time, assuming that you're in love with the process. And if you're not in love with the process and you cannot face the idea of not hitting those milestones that you have in your mind, that you think are going to make you feel cool about yourself, which they are not, because the only thing that will is your gut check about going full steam ahead through the shit. As Winston Churchill said, "Success is going from failure to failure to failure
7:50 Tom Bilyeu? without a loss of enthusiasm." If you can cultivate that, you're gonna win. All right. Next up, this is from anonymous. "Over the past five years, I've been developing a growth mindset, a personal responsibility, and it has been super empowering. However, I recently had a long-term relationship end due to a difference in mindset. I could see how to grow through the trouble, but my significant other saw it as a sign that maybe we weren't right together. My question is this, how do I push through this? I don't want to put blame on the other party, but at the same time, I can only take so much considering, can only take so much considering I was willing to and did make the adjustments requested of me.
8:34 Tom Bilyeu? Where do I draw the line for everything is my fault?" All right, the reality is, let's see, I need to read the beginning of this again. So, all right. At the end of the day, for a relationship to work, you guys both really have to be thinking that everything is my fault. If one person is saying, "Everything is my fault," and the other person is saying, "You goddamn right it is," you got a problem. So, everybody has to be looking at what they're bringing to the table that's creating that problem. And if both people aren't coming to the relationship with that, then it really won't work because it's a sign that one person has a growth mindset and the other person has a fixed mindset. And that is something that I think, you can be at different phases.
9:17 Tom Bilyeu? Maybe one person's a little better at it at one point, or maybe you guys go back and forth and, you know, sometimes one person's struggling, sometimes the other is. But if you're both really committed to getting to that point where you were just absolutely coming with an open mind, looking for ways that you can grow, understanding that ownership isn't about, "Yeah, you take ownership for this one, and I'm totally off the hook, and maybe I'll take ownership for the next one." It's about each person really looking inward and saying, "What did I do to create this scenario?" And maybe an even more interesting question, "What could I have done differently to get a different result?" Because sometimes it really is true, one person fucked up. That was it. They were the ones that made the mistake. But now, it becomes, "What could I have done differently so that either they weren't put
10:02 Tom Bilyeu? in that position where they weren't capable of handling it? Was there something that I could have done to help their mindset along the way? Could I have helped them develop a better way to approach that problem? Or somehow protect themselves from either getting into that position or making a poor decision once they were in it?" And it comes down to the story that I always tell about, "If Lisa were hit by a meteorite, I would blame myself." And once you're taking that level of ownership, then it's like you're maintaining your power, you're maintaining your control, you're realizing that there's always something you could have done differently to get a different result. But if the other person, if Lisa were to say, "Yeah, it is your fault if I was hit by a meteorite," she's got to be thinking the same thing. So, otherwise, there's a power dynamic in the relationship that's off. It's like Tom is all-powerful, Lisa's weak, or vice versa, Lisa's all-powerful and Tom is weak.
10:47 Tom Bilyeu? Like, that's not interesting. Nobody wants to be in that situation where they're always taking care of the other person and the other person's always... Taking care of them. This is about two equals coming together, accepting full responsibility for everything, not worrying about pointing fingers at the other person. You have to be honest and you've got to talk through things and you've got to say, "Hey, when you did that." Luxury brands are not charging you more for better cashmere. You're paying for the storefront, the ad budget, the name on the tag, but Quince cuts all of that out. They work directly with ethical factories, they skip the middlemen, and sell 100% Mongolian cashmere, starting at just 60 bucks. 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Now, I gave one of these as a gift last year. It was a big hit and gifting is really the test of a brand.
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12:16 Tom Bilyeu? And they keep getting more sophisticated attacks with details specific enough to look legit. AI has made a lot of things possible, including scams like this, but AI still needs raw material. It gets it from data brokers who sell your name, address, phone number, to anyone willing to pay. Incogni goes after that supply. They handle removal requests across 420-plus harmful broker sites, and they keep checking back as brokers constantly try to relist you. On the Unlimited Plan, the Exposure Scanner hunts down your information, send a link, and their privacy experts handle the takedown. Track your progress in the app and get a monthly risk assessment showing exactly where you stand. Go to incogni.com/
13:02 Tom Bilyeu? Impact and use code IMPACT for 60% off an annual plan. Incognia is I N C O G N I dot com slash impact promo code IMPACT. It's completely risk free with a 30 day money back guarantee. It set me up this way and let me tell you how I'm gonna work on that. Like if it made you feel some kind of way, it ignited an insecurity. Don't pretend that it didn't. Don't try to win the argument. Try to really come to common ground. And a lot of times in these things, when one person is the one that very clearly fucked up, it becomes all too easy for one person to go, I know how to win this argument. Because that person fucked up, I'm gonna make them take ownership. I'm gonna shut them down. If in that moment, instead, you're showing grace and you're like, hey, I get it and I get why you're feeling the way that you're feeling.
13:47 Tom Bilyeu? And I want to help process through this. It could have just as easily been me that made that mistake. And that level of humility, knowing that that is true. All of us are at all times a hair's breadth away from making a mistake that we're really horrified by. And so knowing that not only has it happened to you in the past, it will happen to you again in the future. To extend that grace and understanding to that person and then try to process through. Then it's gonna work. But if you've got one person that is like, yeah, you've got to own everything and I own nothing, then you've got a problem. But I will say that you looking for where the, the line is where it stops being ownership on your part. There, there is no line for the reason of maintaining your own power.
14:31 Tom Bilyeu? So this isn't about just sitting in blame and shame. This is about you internally going, what this currently, the state that I'm in is not the result that I wanted. Therefore, by definition, I've done something wrong because I've not gotten to my goal. That's what it's about. It's not about the like, oh, I fucked up. Oh, I'm a bad person. It's just remembering I could have done something differently and gotten a different result. So how do I figure this out ahead of time? So next time I make the decision that takes me where I want to be. All right. Kieran Williams. My January has been off to a ridiculously awesome start. I've done your resolution reality checklist. Nice. Recently bought the impact journal. Thank you.
15:12 Tom Bilyeu? And I'm beginning to see the results from the work I've put in so far this year. My problem is I don't know how the hell to reward myself for all of this. I'm embarrassingly good at beating myself up and punishing myself when I'm not living up to the standard that I've set for myself. But when it comes to rewards, I just haven't found any that seem liable to stick over the long term. How can I go about building rewards that feel amazingly good when feeding negative habits? Without feeding negative habits, that makes more sense. Okay, so here is what I do. So there's a few things. One, I always have stuff that I want to do that I'm really excited about, such as the nature of being me. There's just things that I find there are sparks of interest and I build them up into real passions.
15:57 Tom Bilyeu? Now, the problem is that most of the things that I'm really, really excited about, or even all the way passionate about, they don't line up with what I'm trying to accomplish. So part of what I do, so let's take video games. So I love playing video games. And if I have been just crushing it and killing it during the week, then I know that on the weekend, I'm going to allow myself to play video games. So one of the reasons that I go so ham during the week is I want to leave it all out on the field. I want to have really crushed it so that on the weekend, I really can take time to do things that aren't built around ambition. It's not, you know, to move the company forward. It's literally just, man, this is fucking fun. And I'm going to allow myself to completely relax, to sink into it.
16:38 Tom Bilyeu? And it comes down to that mental switch of saying, it is absolutely okay to completely turn off right now, to just play, to just have fun. And I'm able to do that because I know that I left it all out on the field during the week. So that is one huge way that I'm able to reward myself. I do similar things with food. So if I've just been uber on point, you know, I'm eating perfectly, my weight's where I want it to be, my strength in the gym is where I want it to be, my blood sugar is where I want it to be, like, everything is just where I want it to be, then I know on the weekend, hey, I'm going to make movie style. Popcorn I allowed because I'm so fucking hardcore about my diet all the time that I allowed myself to buy a movie style popcorn maker. So this motherfucker makes popcorn like you're
17:22 Tom Bilyeu? in the theater. It is so good. And so that's something that I get to look forward to is like, I get my treat of my movie style popcorn here at home. And so that's a way now if I was off during the week and I wasn't eating the way that I wanted to not only would I not allow myself to have those things, I wouldn't be able to enjoy them even if I did. So that's where we get into the second part of this, which is some of this is just about mentally rewarding yourself saying to yourself, I'm proud of you. I'm proud. You did what you said you were gonna do. You said you were gonna fill out the journal, you filled it out. You said you were gonna do your important things. You did your important things. You made real concrete steps moving the business forward. You take your cold showers, like whatever it is that you said you were gonna do, and now you
18:04 Tom Bilyeu? did, you've got to take the time to be like, yo, you're a badass motherfucker and I'm proud to be you. And whether that takes the form of standing in front of the mirror and being like, fuck, yes, you did. You crushed this, or it's just saying it in your head. Man, I say that shit in my head every day. When I get out of bed in 10 minutes, imagine that every day, my day starts with me going, you said you were gonna get out of bed in 10 minutes and you got out of bed in 10 minutes. And I know for some people, that is fucking ridiculous and they have no problem jumping out of bed. But I value, I value the fact that I found this rule and I live by that rule and I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less and I'm never going to take that for granted. And I'm glad that it's hard because that makes it a very clear reminder. I never take for granted
18:49 Tom Bilyeu? the fact that I actually drug my ass out of bed, even though I didn't want to in 10 minutes or less. And there I am, the first thought of the day is well done, man. You crushed it. You said you were gonna do it. You did it. You've got this whole fucking history. You've got years now of saying you were gonna get out of bed in 10 minutes and you did it. And it's like, yeah, like I start off with that good vibe. Then it's like, all right, put your gym clothes on. It's time to go to the gym. I went to the gym. I'm feeling good about that. If I push myself in the gym, I'm feeling good about that. So it's like all these things, I take the time to emotionally be like, hey, you said You were gonna do it, you did it. Your life reflects that. And like, that narrative is running in my head, the way that a lot of people have that negative tearing you down narrative running in your head. I don't let that shit play in my head.
19:31 Tom Bilyeu? First of all, I'm doing so many things to be proud of, even though they're often small things, that even just acknowledging as I'm doing it, like if I eat um three or four meals a day, that's three or four times a day where I get to say, this is exactly what you said you were gonna eat and you're eating exactly that. When I check my blood glucose and it's on point, I'm like, first of all, the fact that you're able to manage your glucose is rad. Second, how many people are willing to wear a continuous glucose monitor? You motherfucker, when I take a cold shower and I'm like, God, this sucks. But I'm doing it. I know why I'm doing it. I faced it. I don't hesitate. Part of what I love about me, if we may for a second, and this is how I'm talking to myself, is you're gonna get in that fucking shower, you're not gonna hesitate, you're gonna walk in, you're gonna turn the cold on.
20:16 Tom Bilyeu? Like, you're not gonna stand there, you're not gonna have to hype yourself up, you're gonna walk the fuck in, you're gonna turn the water on, boom, without a moment's hesitation. And when I do that, I get to feel good about myself. So I'm saying in my head, you got this. Then I'm standing in the cold water and it's like, I can feel myself, I wanna get out. Like, there's a sense of urgency that the cold water is kicking off and it makes me like, you know, wanna get out and take the deep breaths and all that. And then in the middle of that cold shower, I'm like, hold on. You've got control over your mind. You've got control over your body. Calm down. And as soon as I calm down, I think, that's you. You're able to do that. You're able to get control of your mind. You're able to relax and calm down. And so you can see all these little times throughout the day, all these times,
20:59 Tom Bilyeu? fifty, sixty times throughout the day, I'm doing some little thing that's in accordance with who I wanna be, with how I wanna act, and I take the time to acknowledge it. It's not like a ten minute thing for every little thing that I do, but I acknowledge the little things that I do. And in valuing those things, in making it a part of my identity by talking about it, then when I'm saying that, living up to it. I feel good. I've taken the time to build that neurochemical response through repetition by in the beginning, really taking the time to belabor it, to going and telling my wife, you know, in the beginning, when I first set the rule about getting out of bed that I would tell her and still with the showers, man, half the time I'm like, yo, baby, I did it.
21:43 Tom Bilyeu? I crushed this cold shower because she knows she's doing it too. She knows what it's like. So taking those time to solidify that neurochemical response and then making sure that you feed that neurochemical response, that's huge. All right. If you do that, it will serve you very, very well. All right. We've got another anonymous. I'm a 29 year old female in commercial real estate. I work for a very large and well-known firm and I have recently earned a promotion into a high level position. My job involves constant communication with C-level executives throughout the industry. Throughout the industry, it's primarily men. When I am in meetings, these men often make some sort of comment about my age. I don't take it offensively. For example, they may say something like, that was before
22:28 Tom Bilyeu? your time. These comments, though, make me feel subordinate and my confidence takes a hit as if I'm not being taken seriously. I do look younger than I am. I'm a small female with a young looking face. I do dress appropriately for my position. What tips would you recommend to make my age a non-issue? Or to appear older, more mature, or to simply not let these comments impact my self-esteem and thoughts about my capacity in the field? This is fucking rad. Thank you so much for asking this question. All right, here's the reality. Everybody steps to one tune and that is performance. And if you know that you're crushing it, you just got to tune these motherfuckers out. And know that if they're making little digs at you, that shit is insecurity.
23:11 Tom Bilyeu? That is, if they're trying to get one up on you, if they're trying to show you that they've got something over you, that they've got something better, whether that's history or whatever, man, you've got to understand that that is the comment of a weak person. And see it for what it is. And once you recognize it as weakness, somebody that is afraid That you're going to race ahead of them, that you're going to beat them or be better than them. Then just feel bad for them, but do not waste one second letting that shitty, weak ass technique work on you. Because at the end of the day, all that matters is performance. It doesn't matter if you're an old woman who looks terrible for her age. If you're killing it and you're closing deals and you're finding homes for people that they fucking love.
23:56 Tom Bilyeu? And you're doing something that is helping make the company stronger. Man, then it's all about just putting your head down and doing the work. And then to be cheesy for a second, to kill people with kindness. Like, don't even worry about that. And if they're throwing shade at you, you can still be ultra respectful to them. And if they do something awesome, be the first to point it out. Oh, man, that's amazing. And when it's like, wait a second. Everybody around you sees that that person like they're never supportive of you. They're nitpicking you and they see you rise above it. And in the beginning, by the way, they might just think, oh, like she's trying to curry favor or whatever. Just keep at it. Just be that person. And on a long enough timeline, which is the punchline to half of the things that I say. On a long enough timeline, you're going to earn the reputation of being somebody who's legitimately supportive.
24:41 Tom Bilyeu? And if you're able to support what I'll call, you know, a demon coworker. Then imagine the people that really are being kind to you, how well you'll take care of them. And man, you will earn that reputation of just being amazing. So enjoy the fact that you look young now. Unfortunately, the reality is that youth is super helpful. Especially in a sales oriented field. I wish that it weren't so as somebody who now finds himself in his 40s. But that is the reality. So don't let anybody make you feel badly about that. The only thing that you should ever even momentarily feel badly about is if you're underperforming. So don't let people fuck with your confidence. Don't let people fuck with your skill acquisition. Stay on point, stay focused and bury everyone with results.
25:26 Tom Bilyeu? Speaking of getting amazing results, I want to talk to you about a way that even here at Impact Theory, we've got some rad results. And that has been through the use of Skillshare. These guys are absolutely amazing. They're an online learning community for creators. And they have more than 25. Thousand classes in design, business, and more. You'll discover countless ways that you can fuel your creativity and your career, getting those skills that I'm talking about. And when you're talking about burying somebody with results, it really is about buckling down and learning stuff. And with Skillshare, you can take classes in social media marketing, mobile photography, creative writing, or even illustration. So whether you guys are looking to cultivate a new passion,
26:11 Tom Bilyeu? start a side hustle, or gain new professional skills, Skillshare is there to keep you learning, thriving, and reaching those new year's goals. So I highly recommend that you join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for this community. You're going to get two months of Skillshare for free. That's right, Skillshare is offering Impact Theory listeners two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. So to sign up, just go to skillshare.com/impacttheory. Again, that's skillshare.com/impacttheory to start your two free months now.
26:56 Tom Bilyeu? That's skillshare.com/impacttheory. And I really can't rave about those guys enough. I am just an absolute psycho about getting skills. And we use them to help us with a comic book and a whole bunch of other stuff. So yeah, I think those guys are super legit. What is up, Impactivists? You guys know that becoming a voracious reader and applying all of that knowledge is exactly what allowed me to break out of the matrix and build a billion-dollar brand. And I want to introduce you guys to something that will help you do the same kind of thing, and that is Blinkist. If you guys don't know, Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the best-selling nonfiction books and distills them down to their most important and impactful elements
27:40 Tom Bilyeu? so you can read or listen to them in under 15 minutes all on your phone. If you're like me, the list of books that you want to read and that people are recommending to you is absolutely massive. And the challenge is having the time to digest. All of it quickly. I'm telling you right now Blinkist is going to solve this problem for you because they're doing all the hard work for you and they have an awesome offer for everyone in the Impact Theory community. Blinkist is offering you guys a seven day free trial that is completely free. Go to blinkist.com/impact right now for this special offer. That's Blinkist spelled B L I N K I S T.
28:20 Tom Bilyeu? You're probably paying two salespeople to do one salesperson's job. That's where today's sponsor, Pipe Drive, comes in. An intelligent AI-powered sales CRM loved by growing sales teams. Pipe Drive just launched meeting intelligence built right into the CRM. Before every call, it pulls deal history and past conversations into one brief. During the call, it records and takes notes. After it, it drafts your CRM updates to review and approve. So there's less admin and more selling. Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using
29:02 Tom Bilyeu? Pipe Drive. My link gets you an exclusive 30 days free instead of the usual 14-day trial. There's no credit card payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com/impact to get started. Again, that's pipedrive.com/impact and you can be up and running in minutes. Blinkist.com/impact to try out Blinkist for free. Get after it, guys, and be legendary. All right, next question is from Bailey Briand. "I recently switched career paths from working in a marketing agency to being a teacher and it's the most rewarding job I've ever had. I was
29:45 Tom Bilyeu? extremely passionate at the beginning and it has slowly faded as I've passed the honeymoon phase. I know I need to find reasons and uncover my why to have something that pulls me into the future because willpower itself will not last. What strategies can you give to help me cultivate my why?" So I can preserve persevere when things get difficult. I care deeply about the future of children and fear that I will eventually burn out. All right, so what's helped me is having very specific people in mind and then to continually repeat to myself and out loud the things that I care about. So in your case, I would think about things like a teacher that really impacted you so
30:29 Tom Bilyeu? that you can feel how much somebody can be impacted by a teacher or think about a bad teacher and the impact that it's had on your life or somebody that you know. Then think about some kids that you've actually helped. You can picture them. You know who they are. You helped them through, you know, a bad time when they thought they were dumb or something bad was going on at home and you helped them unlock their potential in class and that helped them really get away from that. And you know, especially if you're listening to this show, you know, at the end of the day, man, it is about the skills that you learn. It is about the mindset that you build and you have this opportunity to really impact people on an insanely in-depth way. And as long as those people are very real, you can think about who they are, you can
31:14 Tom Bilyeu? picture them, you have that warm feeling for who they are. They are not abstract students or abstract kids. It's little Sally. It's Timmy. It's whoever like it's picture people you've actually touched and follow them. See where they're going after they leave your class. Stay in touch with some of them and see how what you've done has impacted their lives. It is like teachers are in this magical space of really being able to have huge impact and you've just got to stay connected to that. And you've got to be repeating to yourself that this is something that you care about, that you value it, that it's your highest value, if that's true. But like, remember you just get to decide what your highest value is. So if you're there and you're committed to it and you want to make it work, then I would
31:59 Tom Bilyeu? start talking about how, I mean, maybe you have a significant other and they're the highest highest, but like non-significant other values, it's my number one. I would write it down. I would have things on the fridge. I would put things up in the class. I would hold on to those images. Those very specific children, I would journal about this shit. And I would turn my want to help these kids into an absolute burning, crushing need. Now I'll, I'll take you where I would go. And I would just start thinking about, hey, how do we really impact kids at scale? And I would start trying to solve a very big problem. I would research people like Jeffrey Canada. I would look at people who are out there building schools that are revolutionary and doing it right. Because when you think you can get better at it, when you think that you can gain mastery and improve.
32:43 Tom Bilyeu? And it isn't just like, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life. It's like, shit, I'm going to get better at this every time. And I'm going to impact next year's class even more profoundly than I did this year's class. And it's about me becoming the best teacher that has ever lived. Because then you've got meaning and purpose and drive. And you can go out there and you're getting better and you're pouring yourself into self-improvement. And you feel yourself turning into a beast and you see how you're able to help kids more and more as the years pass. Man, that's the juice. Humans have an innate desire to pursue mastery. And when you really tap into that and you're really trying to become extraordinary, then amazing things happen.
33:29 Tom Bilyeu? But you've got to put in that energy to build that fire, to be getting great, to be getting better, to see how it serves you and other people. All right.
33:42 Tom Bilyeu? Nina Zari. I'm writing to you because I have lost my why. November 2016, I suffered a devastating sports loss in a semifinal game. And I pretty much haven't been the same since. The sport was my biggest passion, but since that day, I haven't been able to play without anxiety and overthinking. I berated myself into believing the loss was primarily my fault and I no longer have it. This unfortunately translated off the field as well and my confidence plummeted. It's now affecting my relationships and work as I no longer speak with confidence and have become much more reclusive. To add insult to injury, I tore my ACL this past September and haven't been able to play since. How would you go about reigniting the fire and getting the spark back? All right, motherfucker, you ready for this?
34:28 Tom Bilyeu? Literally just yesterday, I talked to a Super Bowl champion. And this Super Bowl champion said, Tom, I need some advice. I have accomplished an insane amount of things in my life. Things that I never knew that I would be able to accomplish. And each and every one of them felt like I was checking a to do item off of a grocery list. And there was no joy. There was only emptiness at the end of it. And when I had accomplished everything I thought I ever wanted to accomplish. I realized one very sad fact. I had allowed my identity to become that of the athlete.
35:09 Tom Bilyeu? And the reality is that was what I did, but it isn't who I am. And that is a very powerful insight. And my advice to him was you get to choose what you value. You get to choose what you value yourself for. So I'll give you a gift. Just assume it really was your fault. You fucked it up. The whole reason you lost entirely you. Now I'll say this, who the fuck cares? Nobody really knows. Like in the outside world, nobody's thinking about it. Sports pundits, maybe, but even they like they're thinking about their own family and what they've got going in their life and what's important to them and meaningful. You are not an athlete. That may be what you do, but it isn't who you are.
35:54 Tom Bilyeu? You may have fucked up, but that again, isn't who you are. Mistakes, failures, they're all things to learn about. The purpose of your life was not to win that match. And now that it's over, oh my God, your purpose is is gone forever. And your confidence should be forever shot. Your confidence should be built in the following manner. And this was the advice that I gave him. Your pride, your confidence, your entire value system should be about progress. It should be about getting better. And if you show up every day and sincerely pursue something, that should be all that matters. So the things that you are checking off your list right now, that you think are the things that your whole life is geared towards.
36:36 Tom Bilyeu? Being successful in that means that you're a valuable person and that your life has been worth living. But here's the reality, the success isn't guaranteed for anybody. The struggle is so falling in love with getting back. Better at something. That's the juice. So, hey, you've got an injury. Can you rehab it better than it's ever been rehabbed before? Can you see what you're made of as you go through that and prove to yourself that you're a badass? Not only did you get to an elite level in a sport, which is already awesome and was already about dedication, discipline, pushing yourself, growing and getting better. Now, hey, maybe that career's over, but who the fuck cares? You've got your whole life ahead of you to get great and extraordinary at other things you care deeply about.
37:15 Tom Bilyeu? And sports, like being at the high level, is there anyone in any sport that's at the high level beyond their like mid 40s? No, most sports tap people out in their early 30s. Sometimes in the 20s, like esports, you're over the hill if you're 25. It's crazy. And if you let your identity be tied up in that, then there's going to be a huge swath of your life that is going to be awash in emptiness. But only if those are the things that you try to value. Now, the reason I say try to value is when they get there, you will feel empty because you will have accomplished it and you will realize this. You don't feel any differently about yourself. It's just like when you're in business and you think the goal is to get a bunch of money.
38:00 Tom Bilyeu? I will tell you right now, if you win at your sport, yay, it's awesome. You'd be able to tell people. Same with money. Yay, cool. It allows you to do things. In fact, it's much more valuable than, um, you know, a trophy or, uh, setting a record. Because it actually has real, um, value in the sense that it can facilitate things.
38:21 Tom Bilyeu? But the money will not in any way, shape or form, make you feel differently about yourself. Whatever insecurities you have, you're going to keep having. Whatever positive things you think about yourself, you're going to think. You're not going to think them anymore because you have money. So the fascinating thing about earning your money is a lot of times along the way, you've had to learn to toughen yourself up. You've had to learn to be emotionally resilient and you'll begin to value yourself for those things. And so the money becomes this natural outcropping of this mental journey you went on to become resilient, to figure out how to be passionate, to fight through failure, to learn from failure. As I mentioned earlier, the Churchill quote that you teach yourself how to maintain your enthusiasm,
39:05 Tom Bilyeu? even though you're failing over and over and over. And that kind of thing, that is worth being proud of, doing all those hard things day in and day out. Then it's not attached to that outcome. And the greatest gift that I could give you would be for you to be more excited. Like when you cross a finish line, that you're just already thinking about the next thing. Because for you, it's about progress. It's about seeing how extraordinary you can become. And once you put all of your self-esteem and everything in that basket, that you're showing up every day sincerely, trying to get better than you were the day before, at whatever, at being the best mom, the best dad, the best lawyer, the best athlete, whatever, it doesn't matter. But that you're trying to show up every day and be awesome at something and push yourself to the limits.
39:49 Tom Bilyeu? And so now that you've got the torn ACL, man, this is the perfect time to meet yourself, to make yourself proud, to put in that fucking work, to not worry about whether or not you ever get back in playing, just to do the rehab, like that rehab has never been done before. That you're just going to that animalistic place where you're pushing yourself. You're forcing yourself to grow and develop. If you do all of that and you tie your self-esteem up in that, you can't lose.
40:20 Tom Bilyeu? All right, Nikki.
40:23 Tom Bilyeu? I currently, I'm currently reading Can't Hurt Me by my boy David Goggins. Great book. There he makes the notion that if you're fundamentally broken or wasn't afraid or wasn't right from the start, you can build whatever you want on top of it. But as soon as life hits you with real problems, everything will fall apart again, even when you were doing great before. Any idea on how to find out what's wrong with the fundamentals? And how I can, how I could improve it to build long lasting things on top of it? So the way that he talks about it is callousing your mind. So I will say that I'm not sure that we ever really get rid of our weaknesses or the, you know, the things that have happened to us. We can definitely process.
41:08 Tom Bilyeu? Through it a lot. We can definitely come to a reframe of it. We can definitely be in a much better place. But what I have found is it's really about tools and techniques to be mentally and emotionally resilient. Meaning, the negative voice, at least in my head, has never gone away. So I still have the negative voice that tells me I'm not good enough, that tells me that I'm going to fail, that tells me this time, Tom, you really have bit off more than you can chew and you're never going to make it. Now, I've had that voice, literally, my entire life. And I have found that I just keep scaling what I'm going after and I keep being able to figure it out. Now, it takes a lot of falling down, embarrassing myself, and failure, and loss, and, you know, all of that shit. But it's like, I just know not to believe everything I think.
41:48 Tom Bilyeu? I know that on a long enough timeline, I can get good at anything that I set my mind to. On a long enough timeline, I'm going to win because most people will fall away. Most people do not take the time to build in that discipline. And that is what Goggins is talking about with callousing your mind. You're going to do hard shit and you're going to keep doing it, day after day after day. And the amount of credibility that you will earn with yourself is extraordinary. The amount of mental muscle that you will have to keep pushing, the tools that you will have at your disposal when it gets hard, you're freezing, you're fatigued, you're exhausted, and the only thing left is one simple question. Why, oh why, dear God, am I doing this?
42:34 Tom Bilyeu? And if in that moment, you've found a way to call up a powerful answer, one that gives you the chills, you'll keep going. And that is the foundation. It's not your youth, it's not the bad things that have happened to you, or the weakness that you've had in years past. It's this new foundation of mental toughness that can be built on top of anything. And as long as you have that belief system. That you'll be able to figure this out as long as you put in the work to toughen
43:17 Tom Bilyeu? your mind to become more resilient, you'll win. And it's not like something is going to catch you off guard that you can't handle. What's going to happen is something from your past or your present is going to bite you in the ass, it's going to rear its ugly head. And in that moment, all those years of callousing your mind, of putting in the work, they're going to come to your rescue and you're going to know how to deal with it. And you're going to be emotionally resilient and you're not going to crumble and you're going to realize that even though you have a voice in your own fucking head telling you that you can't do it, you've now heard that voice tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of times.
44:01 Tom Bilyeu? And every time you've conquered it. That doesn't mean that you don't have your weak moments, but it does mean that you don't spiral. You grab it, you get control of it, you refocus and you begin moving forward. And what it's about is building those techniques, learning how to respond, earning credibility with yourself and doing it time and time and time again. If you do that on a long enough timeline, you can beat anyone at anything, even that negative voice in your own head. All right, guys. I hope this brought you a ton of value.
44:46 Tom Bilyeu? I appreciate you guys so much. Thank you for sending in your questions. Thank you for engaging in this community and being one of the most beautiful things in my life. I'm beyond grateful for that. For those of you that don't know, we've created a comic book. I am on a mission to change the cultural subconscious, to pull people out of the matrix by giving them an empowering mindset. I do it by talking into this mic and I do it by creating stories that give people anchor moments that they can hold on to in their own life. If you're into comics, and this is not one that you do if you've never had any interest, but if you're into comics, if you're into visual storytelling, go to your local comic shop, put it on your poll list. It's called Neon Future. I did it in conjunction
45:29 Tom Bilyeu? with Steve Aoki. I am super proud of this thing. I think it's come out tremendously well. It's a monthly book. The whole team here, we are pouring our guts out into this thing to make sure that it is rad. So if you would, it would be tremendously helpful if you went to your local comic shop and put it on your poll list. If you don't know what a poll list is, then this probably is not the ask that you want to respond to. Because if you put it on your poll list, I want to make sure you go back and actually get it. But that would be tremendously, tremendously meaningful. All right, guys, as always, thank you so much. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary.
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