Lisa Bilyeu : ON The Importance Of Having A Growth Mindset & Keeping Agreements With Your Partner

Is it possible to run successful businesses and have a fantastic marriage? In this video, Jay Shetty and Lisa Bilyeu, co-founder of Impact Theory, Quest Nutrition, and Women of Impact, discuss the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and life. Years of hard work and sacrifice not only strengthened her marriage, but helped her hone in on what really mattered. Hear how she discovered her true identity and passions walking side-by-side with husband Tom Bilyeu. Text Jay Shetty 310-997-4177 Want to have YOUR best year yet? Join me for my Free Online Workshop: 5 Intentions for a Purpose-Filled Year https://jayshetty.me/purpose A Word From Our Sponsors: Go to Grove.co/JAY you will get FREE FIVE PIECE Cleaning Set from Mrs. Meyer and Grove - a THIRTY DOLLAR value! Go to Blinkist.com/JAY try it FREE for 7 days AND save 25% off your new subscription. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:43Jay Shetty?

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• 1:26Jay Shetty?

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• 2:01Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised to yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 2:45Jay Shetty?

  AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and it's clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 3:09Lisa Bilyeu?

  Every time I would learn something, I would talk about it. Because I'm like, well, if I can find this piece of information out, what about somebody else? Maybe it may help one person. And if I can overcome my insecurities of talking about it and, you know, saying, yes, I'm sick. Yes, I'm struggling. If I can overcome that, just imagine the impact I could make.

• 3:35Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you. Thank you so much for taking out your time every single week to listen, to learn, and to grow with me. And you know that my guarantee to you is to try and find guests and bring on guests that I believe are their best, genuine, and authentic selves, and that their stories will inspire you to live a life on purpose. Now, today's guest is going to do just that. She's an amazing friend. I actually remember the first moment I met her. I actually met her through her voice. I heard her when I was visiting a particular home that we'll get into. And I was just like, I recognize that accent. And literally, all of a sudden, I felt this instant connection with her.

• 4:20Jay Shetty?

  And we became instant friends and very good friends with her and her husband. She's amazing friends with my wife, so this is a true pleasure. But beyond being my friend, she is way, way, way more than that. So this is why I want you to listen to it. Lisa Bilu is the co-founder and president of Impact Theory, a digital media production company focused on empowering content. In addition to co-founding Impact Theory, she co-founded the billion-dollar brand Quest Nutrition nine years ago. Her career trajectory has been an astonishing arc, from, in her own words, housewife to entrepreneur, and transforming her business focus from nutrition to entertainment media. Now jumping in front of the camera, Lisa hosts the show Women of Impact, that centers on all things from female empowerment.

• 5:05Jay Shetty?

  Welcome to the show, Lisa Bilu. Lisa, thanks for being here.

• 5:08Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yay, steady dude. I can't believe I'm here finally.

• 5:10Jay Shetty?

  I'm so glad you're doing this.

• 5:12Lisa Bilyeu?

  I'm so excited to be here.

• 5:13Jay Shetty?

  I'm so happy. And I'll tell everyone sitting at home why. Lisa, without a doubt, and this is before she had the hundreds of thousands of followers and, you know, the millions of views and everything. Lisa is without doubt one of the best storytellers on Instagram.

• 5:26Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, thank you.

• 5:27Jay Shetty?

  Like, in one caption, Lisa will make you cry, laugh, and have the deepest reflection. And so when I first started following her and seeing all of this after I met Tom, so I met Tom and Lisa January 2018.

• 5:38Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Jay Shetty?

  Can you believe it's only been two years?

• 5:39Lisa Bilyeu?

  It is. No, I can't believe that.

• 5:41Jay Shetty?

  It feels like, in one sense, I feel like I've known you forever. And then in one sense, I'm like, no, it was just yesterday I was there. But we've known each other for two years. And literally, the way you tell stories about your life and what you both have achieved and where it started and everything is so beautiful. Like, I actually love it. It's so effortless. And at the same time, I think you're teaching through it. You do it with no ego and you're teaching through it. And I love, that's what I love about you the most, I think.

• 6:07Lisa Bilyeu?

  Thank you.

• 6:07Jay Shetty?

  That you're so humble, so down to earth, so grand. And now everyone's gonna get to experience that.

• 6:10Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, buddy.

• 6:12Jay Shetty?

  But okay, Lisa, we're gonna go straight into it. Now, I know you like alarms.

• 6:15Lisa Bilyeu?

  I do.

• 6:15Jay Shetty?

  And you set a lot of alarms to let yourself what to do. So I've got three for you right now.

• 6:20Lisa Bilyeu?

  All right.

• 6:21Jay Shetty?

  So I want you to fill in the blanks.

• 6:22Lisa Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 6:23Jay Shetty?

  I like.

• 6:24Lisa Bilyeu?

  Ooh. My husband?

• 6:27Jay Shetty?

  Oh, nice. Okay, that's good. Maybe loves the next one?

• 6:30Lisa Bilyeu?

  I know, yeah.

• 6:32Jay Shetty?

  I wish.

• 6:33Lisa Bilyeu?

  But isn't like strong as well?

• 6:35Jay Shetty?

  Ooh, go on.

• 6:35Lisa Bilyeu?

  I love my husband, but I also like him.

• 6:38Jay Shetty?

  Tell me that. I love this, where this is going.

• 6:40Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.

• 6:41Jay Shetty?

  No, no, I love it. Do it.

• 6:42Lisa Bilyeu?

  I don't know, just because we all focus on like, who do you love? And who's meaningful to you? But like, I like being around him. He makes me laugh. And so when I think about what do I actually like? He was the first thing that came to mind.

• 6:54Jay Shetty?

  I love that. That's great. Okay, good. I wish.

• 6:56Lisa Bilyeu?

  I wish, uh, I wish my health was 100%.

• 7:02Jay Shetty?

  Yes, don't we all as well? And yeah, no, absolutely wonderful. And I wonder.

• 7:07Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, I wonder where I will be this time, exactly this date next year.

• 7:14Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Don't you love doing that?

• 7:15Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah. Oh, my God, I love it.

• 7:16Jay Shetty?

  I was literally saying to someone the other day, I was like, actually, I was telling my team the other day, Adon and Julian, I was saying, you should imagine you had a diary of the last decade of where you were on the 31st of December. Every single year. And you could look back. And I was like, I wish I had that. So I'm going to start doing that this year. Then I'm going to start doing a serious reflection. I want to have it in 10 years' time.

• 7:36Lisa Bilyeu?

  I love the phone thing now that they remind you like this time last year you were. And you look at the photos and it's just crazy. Like, I love that reminder. Because I love looking back at where I was. But I also love looking forward to where I'm going to go. But I think both of them are just as important.

• 7:51Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. Yeah, you've done such a phenomenal job of documenting your life. And I really admire that when I observe you. I feel like, I feel like a lot of people, when they're starting out, are scared to take pictures. They're scared to document the journey. Because the beginning is not glamorous. The beginning is scary and lame in one sense. It's like, you're not wearing the best clothes. You don't look the best, right? It's like taking that before picture. And you never post that before picture in the before until you have the after. But you've been so good at documenting your journey. So when I observe you from the outside in, I'm like, oh, wow, Lisa's got all these old pictures.

• 8:32Jay Shetty?

  When you started your journeys, whether it was with Quest, whether it was with Tom, whatever it was, have you always been someone who believed it was going to become something? Or were you someone who kind of went along with it and found out along the way?

• 8:44Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, no, I love the naivety of the beginner, right? So it's like every time I start something, I'm like, oh, so when we're huge, you know, like not realizing how difficult something may actually be to do. But yeah, I've always had that because I think it's so important to focus on your goal and getting there, not just like a mythical, like I will be there one day. I actually think, okay, when I'm standing on the stage, winning my Academy Award, I need a photo showing me with a camera in my hand. And it's that little mentality that pushes me when times are hard, right? When I am on set, like when we started Impact Theory, we'd just come from, you know, Quest Nutrition, Billy Dolan Company, but we treated Impact Theory like a startup. And so I was camera operating, I was figuring out what live switching equipment I needed.

• 9:29Lisa Bilyeu?

  And in those moments, I think about the future and because there's certain things I just don't enjoy doing. Right? And so to get me through those moments, I have to visualize where I'm gonna be and where I'm going and actually believe it, not just say it, but actually believe it. And so taking photos, I say all the time, like, oh, this would be a great before and after photo. Because when you're in those like moments of just, um, this sucks and why am I doing this? I just remind myself, Lisa, this is gonna be a great story to tell.

• 9:58Jay Shetty?

  Yes, absolutely. I love that one too. I always said, whenever things go wrong, I'm always just like, this is gonna make the story better. Like, I always say that to myself because it's like, if if your journey just worked out, it would be such a boring story to tell. Like, oh, I went from this success to this success to this success. And it's like, everyone's like, well, that can't be real and it isn't real.

• 10:16Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 10:17Jay Shetty?

  But tell me about this thing that was hardest to start? In all the things you've started, whether it was relationships, whether it was Quest, whether it was Impact Through, Women of Impact Now, like what was the toughest thing for you personally to start and why?

• 10:32Lisa Bilyeu?

  Um, I don't know about the starting, but the hardest thing I had to do was be a housewife. So, you know, and I don't say that, like, I think if you choose to be a housewife, it can be the most beautiful thing in your life, but I didn't choose to be. And so when we started on our entrepreneurial journey, it was all like, we wanna make movies, let's just make enough money to make our own films. You know, earning money shouldn't be too difficult. Um. And so we went into that thinking, okay, I'm just gonna be a housewife for a year. And our plan was Tom was gonna go um look, basically go after the money. And we looked at all the successful people in the world and we looked at Steve Jobs and we're like, how does he live his life? And we saw that he doesn't take time to choose his color shirt.

• 11:14Lisa Bilyeu?

  Because we only have a certain amount of decisions we can make in one year uh in in a day. So Tom was like, okay, well, if I took off the decisions off my plate from the house, then I can really concentrate on the money. So we made an agreement that for a year I would be the stay at home wife and I would do everything from him. From the moment he woke up, his clothes would be laid out for him. From um going and going to the gym and coming back, his work clothes were laid out for him. His lunch was made, like every single thing outside of business, I handled. Um. And so I thought, okay, this is as a partnership, we're going in this together. We've agreed what we're doing, how we're gonna do it. We've given ourselves twelve months. Twelve months came, two years came, three years came, four years came before we knew it was an eight year journey.

• 11:59Lisa Bilyeu?

  And that was the hardest thing because I hadn't planned on it. It wasn't what I wanted to be, it wasn't what I wanted to do. But I had almost tricked myself enough that every day I was doing something that was meaningful, that I wasn't addressing how I actually felt, right? Like I kept telling myself, you're doing this for this purpose, you're doing it for your husband, you're doing it for your mission, you're doing it because you guys agreed that you're gonna do it. And at no point did I stop and go, but I don't enjoy it anymore. Hmm. And that was the hardest thing because I would fill my days with mundane things, but just enough to get pleasure out of them. So I would clean and I would find pleasure in cleaning could I, so I could get through the day.

• 12:38Lisa Bilyeu?

  And that became an eight year journey where, looking back now, I was at my most miserable because I didn't address how I felt. And now in business and everything I do, I reassess. But I didn't have a growth mindset back then. So now I'm just like, am I enjoying what I'm doing? What is my life's purpose? And am am I doing that every single day? And I didn't do that back then. So that was the hardest thing for me.

• 13:06Jay Shetty?

  It's so hard to admit that, isn't it? When you're in the thick of it. And I know Thich Nhat Hanh calls it, "We rather live with familiar pain than unfamiliar pain."

• 13:16Lisa Bilyeu?

  So true.

• 13:18Jay Shetty?

  Right? And it's like, "We'd rather live with familiar pain because I know what's going to go wrong today. I know what makes me sad. And I would rather live with what I know will make me sad, rather than what I don't know might make me happy or sad." And that uncertainty, that unfamiliarity, we go, "No, I don't want that in my life." When did you feel confident enough to admit to yourself? And what was that process like of not just admitting to yourself, but then telling your partner?

• 13:44Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 13:45Jay Shetty?

  And was Tom aware at this time?

• 13:46Lisa Bilyeu?

  And that's actually a really good point in that I didn't want to let my partner down.

• 13:50Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 13:50Lisa Bilyeu?

  And so I thought like, "Well, if I say that I'm not happy, does that mean that I'm weak? Does it mean that I'm not a good wife?" Because he was going out every day busting his butt to try and earn enough money so that we could live the quote-unquote "dream" that we thought we wanted. And so I felt like, "Well, I can't be the one that's saying, 'No, I don't want to do this anymore.'" I mean, he's out every single day. I'm just at home. Right? That was the mentality I had. And so for me, I actually stumbled into finding my passion. So he'd come home, he was very miserable at work. We were just chasing money for the longest time, you know his story. And one day I just looked at him and I was like, "I can't do it anymore. I need my husband back. I've lost every ounce of..." Because he was so driven by money at the time,

• 14:35Lisa Bilyeu?

  his personality had completely, you know, gone. He was no longer excited about anything. He came home and didn't want to talk about work. And I said, "I don't care about money. I just want my husband. And if that means that we have to give up everything we've just spent the last eight years trying to build, then so be it. But I'm not willing to let my husband go over money or a career." So he turned around, he's like, I hear you. So he went in to quit. And at this point, he had um gained about two million dollars in shares equity in the company. But we agreed that if he doesn't cross the finish line, he doesn't deserve the money. And we went into that knowing that. And so he went in and quit and metaphorically passed over the two million dollars back to his business partners.

• 15:16Lisa Bilyeu?

  And that was kind of the first step in then us moving towards Quest. So he turned around, he's like, all right, babe. We're gonna try this new business. We're gonna do something that we both, all of us, love. And so I just need your help. And I was like, okay, of course, I'm a good wife, right? I'll help you. What do you need? He's like, I just need you to help us make these protein bars. So it's not a big deal. It's like, get a rolling pin and a knife, measure out some ingredients and then ship them from our living room floor. Because they were trying to then sell the company they were going to um distance themselves from. So I was like, yeah, of course, no problem. I'm a good wife. I would absolutely help. So I'm shipping these bars from the living room floor. In that moment, it was, I wanna be a good wife, I wanna support him like he's been supporting me, and our house was on the line.

• 16:01Lisa Bilyeu?

  So that was the next thing. He came home and he's like, all right, we all hate the company we're doing. My business partners, we all agree, we're gonna transition, we're gonna do this um protein bar company. But if we do, our house is on the line. And if it loo- if it fails, we lose the house. And so the famous lines that now he talks about is, I say, babe, I bet on you. Like, I don't care about house, I believe in you, and so I'm in. But of course, the reality is, I'm still, can I swear on this show? Go for it. Alright, so I'm still shit scared. Um that's, we're gonna lose the house. I don't wanna lose my house. So I'm shipping bars off the living room floor, I'm mixing ingredients, you know, in our kitchen, we're renting the kitchen, uh rental kitchen by an hour.

• 16:42Lisa Bilyeu?

  And so I'm thinking, it's in service of my husband and in service of me not losing my house. And in doing that, I started to learn things. So because we were growing so fast, we grew at fifty seven thousand percent.

• 16:55Jay Shetty?

  Every time I hear that, I don't think anyone can understand. Cause that was what, the second fastest growing company at the time?

• 17:01Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, and we went from zero to a billion dollars in five years. So.

• 17:06Jay Shetty?

  It's insane.

• 17:07Lisa Bilyeu?

  It's, it's pretty quick.

• 17:08Jay Shetty?

  Anyone can like even fathom what that means from a work point of view. And, and yeah, and just, I mean, I've, I've, I've spoken to Tom so many times about it and I've heard him say it, but. Yeah, anyway, just, I want to take a moment to just be like, that is amazing. Congratulations. Like just everyone listening.

• 17:22Lisa Bilyeu?

  But when you're in the weeds, right? It's, I, we weren't necessarily as focused, and maybe other people were, but I wasn't so focused on the growth as opposed to just don't drown.

• 17:31Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 17:32Lisa Bilyeu?

  It's like, don't sink, keep paddling, no matter what happens, stay afloat. Like, I've got to be strong for my husband. I've got to be strong for this business. I don't want to lose my house. And so every obstacle I faced, it wasn't, I didn't feel at the time like I had a choice. It was, you better figure it out. Like, you can't let your husband down. You don't want to lose your house. And so I never gave myself the luxury of being like, but what if this doesn't work? What if I fail? What if I can't do this? I didn't give myself that luxury. And so when I went from shipping bars for my living room floor, to then we got our first office and then we got our first warehouse. Everyone was like, oh, Lisa, you know how to do it. So keep doing it. So I was just trying to stay alive. I'm Googling literally on YouTube, like, how do you do freight shipping?

• 18:14Lisa Bilyeu?

  Where do I buy a pallet from? What the hell is a pallet? Right? And so I had no clue. I just kept learning, kept going on Google, kept researching. And me myself, just from shipping, I went from living, um, shipping from my living room floor, to we had eighty million dollars in inventory, I had forty employees underneath me and a ten thousand square feet in two years. And again, I just kept having to teach myself how to do it because I didn't want to fail. I didn't want to let people down. And that was the biggest thing that I was like, wow, I can do it. Oh my god, Lisa, you can actually learn this stuff. Here I was just trying not to fail and not to look like a fool, you know, to my husband and his business partners. But then I started to value the fact that I could learn, I could grow.

• 18:58Lisa Bilyeu?

  If I failed, I could pick myself up. If I didn't know something, I could teach myself. And that became like a drug to me and my purpose changed. And that was when I realized I really like this. I really wanna do more of this. And now I don't wanna be a housewife. And so that was the conversation Tom and I had to sit down and really have. Whereas like, once upon a time, I'd said, I'm gonna be, you know, a housewife, I'm gonna have kids. And I wanted a traditional Greek family, even though we had these dreams, I did want children. And now everything had changed. I didn't know if I wanted children anymore. I didn't wanna stay at home and put clothes out for my husband. I didn't wanna cook for him anymore. And so we had to really sit down and look at that and talk about that very openly.

• 19:42Jay Shetty?

  You know what, Lisa, I think your superpower is that, and I see you now, whenever I see Lisa, if you, and you should follow on Instagram if you don't already. When I see you post stories, and I follow you very closely because I love everything you post. So I literally know everything about what you're up to. But when you're posting, like, you're editing this and you're project managing this, like with everything with Impact Theory, and then you're hosting Women of Impact. And the one thing I noticed about you, which I really feel is your superpower, is that you know and you feel that you can learn anything. Because it seems that you've just constantly taught yourself, like you're talking about YouTube and Google and like reading about. And stuff like freight shipping, which is like the most, it sounds to me like the most random thing in the world. Like, I have no idea where to start with that.

• 20:24Jay Shetty?

  And so if you can teach yourself freight shipping, you can teach yourself how to upload a video onto YouTube, you know, it's like. But, but that seems like you've just, and, and if I'm completely honest, I think that's probably one of the best superpowers in the world. Is knowing that you can teach yourself anything. And just tell the audience, what did you study before this?

• 20:40Lisa Bilyeu?

  Filmmaking.

• 20:40Jay Shetty?

  Right, exactly. So just so that we're really aware.

• 20:43Lisa Bilyeu?

  Thank you.

• 20:43Jay Shetty?

  Filmmaking to freight shipping, right? Like, when they, when they make a movie about your life, who's gonna play you, Lisa?

• 20:48Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, I've never thought about that, Jay.

• 20:51Jay Shetty?

  I, I'm putting it out there.

• 20:52Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, right. Who do you think should play me?

• 20:55Jay Shetty?

  I don't know, let's think.

• 20:56Lisa Bilyeu?

  I know.

• 20:57Jay Shetty?

  Who would play Tom and who would play you?

• 20:59Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, that's true. I don't know. I used to get that I looked like Michelle, Sarah Michelle Gellar. I used to get that a lot as a kid.

• 21:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I could see that.

• 21:06Lisa Bilyeu?

  I don't think that anymore, no.

• 21:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, yeah, okay.

• 21:09Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, yeah, I'll have to think about it. I'll get back to you on that.

• 21:11Jay Shetty?

  Think about it. Get back to me on it. I want to know who Tom, who would play Tom as well. Or maybe you'll play you and then someone else will play Tom.

• 21:17Lisa Bilyeu?

  There it is. Well, then, yeah.

• 21:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 21:19Lisa Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 21:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, anyway, we'll get there. We'll get, think about it for the end of the interview. But no, but I think that's, that's incredible. You study filmmaking, you're in at freight shipping. Like, was it the pressure and the fear that got you to just get on with it? Was that what it was at that time? And, and how can people use fear and pressure positively? Like, how did you use it positively? Because I think a lot of people with fear and pressure just go, like, you just crumble.

• 21:41Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 21:41Jay Shetty?

  Like, what was it about you that didn't crumble?

• 21:44Lisa Bilyeu?

  At the time, it definitely was fear and pressure. It was like, I just don't want to lose my house. It was purely fear-based. So it's like, I don't want to lose my house. I have no idea what I'm doing, but let me tell you, the fear of losing my house way outweighed the fear of not knowing what I was doing. So that was number one. And then also, I just think like, now that I have a growth mindset, because I didn't have a growth mindset back then. I was just like in hustle, like, do it, do it, do it. Now I look back and I'm like, but what serves you? Like, what is that goal that you have and what serves you? If having fear and not doing something serves your goal, then great. It just didn't serve mine. So anything, any obstacle that I face, something now that I don't have, I'm like, okay, I can see it as, I can't do that. But that mentality doesn't get me to where I want to go.

• 22:26Lisa Bilyeu?

  So even if I'm scared, I tell myself I can overcome the fear and that gets me to where I want to go. So I just go like, does this feeling serve my mission or not? And then I run by that and it's like, no, it doesn't serve my mission. Okay, so why are you doing it? I don't know, that's definitely my driving force. And then I say, what's the worst that can happen? Like, honestly, what is the worst that can happen? I'd done public speaking for the first time earlier this year.

• 22:52Jay Shetty?

  It was amazing, by the way.

• 22:53Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, bless you, thank you. But I was so scared. I mean, I was getting heart palpitations two months leading up to it. That's how scared I was. And it was like, oh no, you've got it, but you, you're good in front of the camera. It's such a different ballgame that, so in a way, my, my anxiety was through the roof. I don't normally suffer from anxiety. And so I was like, what is going on? Okay, I could have said no. What's the worst? But then I said, what's the worst that can happen? I go on stage and I freeze. And what? Like literally, when you think about it, and what? Nothing. People may go, well, she was terrible. Okay, I can live with that. But I can't live with the voice in my head that said you were too scared to try. And so I just assess how I feel about certain things and what I'm gonna regret. And let me tell you, on my deathbed, I would have regretted not stepping on stage

• 23:38Lisa Bilyeu?

  because I don't know what that could have led to. And that is my driving force on how I always overcome the fear and not let it stop me. Because it's not that I don't have it. I tried to stop the negative voice. I tried to stop the fear, realised that was a wasted time because I just can't do it. I'm always gonna be fearful. I always have a negative voice. So now what can I do to overcome it instead of trying to stop it? That is energy well placed.

• 24:01Jay Shetty?

  Hmm, I think that's great advice. And do you know what I love about this whole interview so far is like, everything that you're saying, I feel is so much the voice that everyone has in their heads. Like, everything you're saying is so much like what I think is the widespread challenges that we all have today in our heads. And when I'm hearing you saying it, I'm hoping that everyone who's listening and watching right now is going, I sound like the voice in my head sounds just like that, right? Like, I'm sure everyone can relate to everything you're saying. I think the fear of losing your home, the fear of not impressing your husband and the business partners, the fear of scaring your husband that now you're not gonna do this. Like, I think these are very real fears. And I think we forget that everyone has them.

• 24:43Jay Shetty?

  And that there are people in the world who've had these very real fears. And I can almost feel your fear from that time, not now. Tell me about that tough conversation. Tell us about that conversation of sitting down with Tom.

• 24:55Lisa Bilyeu?

  After I decided I didn't want to be a housewife?

• 24:56Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yeah.

• 24:57Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, so I'd been, it's in my head for a long time, kind of think, wow, I really love this. And I was trying to do both, right? So I, like most women, right? I was trying to be the perfect wife, still put out his clothes, make his lunch, everything. And then still explore this side of me that I'd never seen before. This interest in learning new things. And I was trying to do both and realised that I just couldn't. And so I sat him down and I said, babe, I don't know what to do this. Not like I had an answer. I was just like, I need to be honest with you. I freaking love coming to work every day. I freaking love having to deal with all these problems. I love doing all this stuff. But at the same time, I wanna be a good wife, but I don't enjoy cooking for you anymore.

• 25:40Lisa Bilyeu?

  Um. But I don't wanna be that person. I mean, you know, we've been married and I said that I was going to, you know, have kids. And so how do you feel about me changing that and changing who I want to become? And God bless that man. He just looked at me and he said, babe, look, who doesn't want their food made every day? Who doesn't wanna wake up and have their clothes ready for them? He's like, it's amazing. So to pretend it's not, is me being, you know, I'm not being real with you. He's like, but the only thing that would make me happy is to see you happy. And if you're happy doing business, if you're happy doing that, he's like, what kind of husband would I be if I didn't support you on that? And so we had to, you know, and so he said, let me mourn, and that's very important. Let me mourn the wife you used to be.

• 26:25Lisa Bilyeu?

  You know, and not in like a sad crying way, but I have to, you know, I have to adjust and I have to adapt. And you need to give me the leeway, excuse me, and the time to be able to adapt. And so I said, I totally understand, you know, we'll wean you off, you know.

• 26:40Jay Shetty?

  I'll put out your shirt.

• 26:42Lisa Bilyeu?

  Exactly. So like day one, just your clothes are there, but not your food anymore. And, you know, and so I had to respect where he was coming from as well. And so we slowly developed, you know, so that he would um slowly not get his food ready or have his food ready. And then it became the puppies. We have two puppies.

• 26:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 27:00Lisa Bilyeu?

  And we had to agree, okay, well, what does that look like? And because of my health, it wasn't doing me a service. I was just um running myself into the ground. And so bless him, he said, all right, you know, we'll make a deal, contract. It's kind of how we have. Um. And I'll, I'll look after the puppies and you do it on the weekend, you know. So we have like these kind of, um, and I know you actually did a post recently about relationships shouldn't be contracts, which is fascinating. I so wanted to talk to you about that. Because it's actually served us. And it's not like we write it down or anything, but for me and him, it's ea- it's easier for us to have an agreement like that. Okay, you're going to do this. I'm going to do that. So there's no misunderstanding. There's no animosity that's building up inside us where he's like, but you're the wife. You should do this.

• 27:45Lisa Bilyeu?

  Because the truth is, is technically, um, well, technically, but I guess how people think and feel and myself as well. I should be looking after the puppies as the quote unquote mother. And again, my health just wasn't great and I really wanted to, you know, focus on the business. And I love my puppies, but to think about, oh my God, having alarms on my phone, when am I going to feed them? He's like, no, I'll take care of it. But we had to talk about it so that there was no animosity building up. Where it's like, oh, I can't believe he's not doing it. Oh, I can't believe she's not doing it. And to the point where, okay, if someone breaks in, who's gonna, you know, get out our bed? And he's like, well, of course it's going to be him, but we've discussed all that.

• 28:22Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 28:23Lisa Bilyeu?

  You know?

• 28:24Jay Shetty?

  I love that. So I'm actually with you when I hear that. I love the language of agreement versus contract.

• 28:30Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh.

• 28:30Jay Shetty?

  Cause I feel like contract, and this is again, perception, it's totally analyzing words. But when I hear the word contract, I always think of give and take. I always think of like this awkward, like trying to get more out of the other. Like contracts, when you think of legal, especially in the US, like you think of law. But when I think of agreement, I'm like, we've really thought about this together. We've come to an agreement. So we're gonna honor.

• 28:51Lisa Bilyeu?

  So is it the meaning behind the word specifically that makes you feel like it takes the love connection out of it?

• 28:57Jay Shetty?

  Correct. Like, I like the word agreement. I love the word agreement. Like, when you said that, oh, I like that. And I've never used that, but I like the word agreement because I feel, oh, we're agreeing to this. We're coming together for this. I just watched Married Story on Netflix. I don't know if you've seen it.

• 29:11Lisa Bilyeu?

  I haven't.

• 29:12Jay Shetty?

  It's really painful. It's like watching a real life divorce from a very intimate perspective. And you see the legals of a divorce. And so that's what's sparking me with contracts and legalities and that kind of thing. Whereas I feel agreements are different. But again, I'm with you on it. I agree with you that. I think, and I always talk about this with me and Ravi, like, we talked about the tiniest of things. And how they affected both of us, where we lived, how much we worked, what we did on weekends. All of that stuff, which, which I know you do too. And I think that's so important. Because it's that stuff that people break up over and that stuff that we argue about. You don't argue about the other stuff.

• 29:49Lisa Bilyeu?

  It's so true.

• 29:50Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like, like, tell me a bit about, so I love this, by the way. So you have the courage to have this honest conversation with your husband. Tom being the amazing man that he is and and the man that you know, the man that we know he is today as well, even even more.

• 30:04Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 30:04Jay Shetty?

  He has the decency to be honest again with you and say like, I need, which is such beautiful. Everyone who's listening, watching, like, this is how relationships need to function more with honesty, but with realism.

• 30:14Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Jay Shetty?

  Right. It's not like you were like sugarcoating your feelings and he was sugarcoating you. It's like, oh babe, don't worry, I'll do it all myself. And then the next day, he's playing the guilt trip on you.

• 30:22Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, yeah. It doesn't serve you to do that. Again, going back to what I was saying earlier, right? It doesn't serve you.

• 30:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah. What did, tell me, you know, now that you've like, you've built, built Quest, you've built Impact Theory, which is insane. Like, I love all the programming you do, Women of Impact, like. Now that you've built all these incredible things, what did little Lisa want to be growing up in North London, which, which is what I love, that we grew up probably about, what, like 10 minutes away from each other?

• 30:49Lisa Bilyeu?

  Not even that. When we were saying where we lived and grew up, it's crazy to think.

• 30:53Jay Shetty?

  What was your road again?

• 30:53Lisa Bilyeu?

  Um, so I am, um.

• 30:55Jay Shetty?

  Don't visit.

• 30:56Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:56Jay Shetty?

  Please do not, yeah.

• 30:57Lisa Bilyeu?

  Well, I live in Southgate. How about that? Went to Southgate School. What school did you go to?

• 31:01Jay Shetty?

  Garfield Primary in Honest Grove.

• 31:03Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, Honest Grove. Very close.

• 31:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, very close. Anyway, yeah. So, so it's just like, what did little Lisa want to be? And what did little Lisa expect from her life versus, were you always that dreamer?

• 31:14Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah. Well, I'm actually, so I'm still working towards that little Lisa dream, which is to win an Academy Award. That, that's the. And Tom and I do these romantic dips that we always take photos where he does like the Prince charming and he dips me. And the, the vision I have is to be on the Academy Award stage, win the Academy Award for a show, a, a movie that we've produced and him to dip me. So that's very clear girl. And growing up, it was, I wanted to live in America. Um, yeah. I wanted to be a lawyer, an artist or a film director. Um, I realised being a lawyer, I had to maybe defend people that were guilty. So decided I don't want to do that.

• 31:51Lisa Bilyeu?

  Um, and then, um, I just, yeah, I love filmmaking. I love storytelling. I love how powerful storytelling can be. I hold on way more to people's stories than I do, um, like a class or a lesson. And so storytelling for me in film was just always a way to, um, escape. To always be inspired, um, to be impacted. So I've always want, so I want, really wanted to be in the film industry. And then it was that stepping stone of like, okay, well, I guess you have to live in America to be in the film industry. And I, you know, got all the naysayers like, well, what, who do you know in America? Like Hollywood, please, you know, your heads are in the clouds. I got that all the time.

• 32:32Lisa Bilyeu?

  And I just kept pushing. I was, I was naive enough again to go, well, why can't I live in America? Why can't I make a movie? And it's kind of, yeah, so I met Tom and, um, ended up living in America and, but I'm still on that path to that dream. And fighting every day. So that was our steps of Impact Theory, building the studio. So Quest was, we were able to get enough finances to build the studio. Now the studio, we have two divisions of it. We have the nonfiction, where you were on our show, Impact Theory, and then the fiction side of it. So we're creating graphic novels. I'm doing a female empowered graphic novel with women superheroes, called The Wish Academy. Um, so I'm, I'm in production with that now.

• 33:13Lisa Bilyeu?

  And that's kind of the next stepping stone into creating storytelling to then do into television and movies.

• 33:19Jay Shetty?

  And are you painting all of those?

• 33:20Lisa Bilyeu?

  I'm not. It takes too long. I, I joke, I say, Tom can't afford me, um, because I love drawing.

• 33:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you're phenomenal. Like you're insane.

• 33:29Lisa Bilyeu?

  Thank you.

• 33:29Jay Shetty?

  Again, if you don't follow, uh, Lisa already, go and check out her art. Like when you're, I mean, your drawings are insane.

• 33:34Lisa Bilyeu?

  Thank you.

• 33:35Jay Shetty?

  They're out of this world.

• 33:36Lisa Bilyeu?

  But I realized though, that it's a passion of mine.

• 33:38Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 33:39Lisa Bilyeu?

  And that's actually like that fine line about what are things that you love doing? But I don't want it to be a business. Like, I don't want it.

• 33:46Jay Shetty?

  Let's talk about, this is really good. I like this. I like where this is going. This is awesome. Tell us that difference.

• 33:51Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah. Um, I could easily do it as a job. And before we started Quest, I was designing websites. And I had clients that were picking things I didn't like, right? Cause I, I tried to give variations, right? Here's a logo, here's a website design, here's three different variations. And they always chose like the ones I didn't love. And I realized it was just breaking my heart. And I realized what I loved about creating, specifically in drawing, it was, it was passion for me. It was being creative in my own space. And even though I've tried to meditate, I find it very difficult still. My mind is still racing, but I found peace in drawing. And so I've said from the get go, or once I stopped drawing through Quest,

• 34:33Lisa Bilyeu?

  which was heartbreaking for ten years. I was just focused on making money, building a business, making money. And then I was like, I I need to bring back that passion that I had. And so now I draw on Sundays. It is my meditation time for me. I will not do it as for work at all. Tom's like, oh, you should draw this and you should draw that. And you should do it digital so we can blow it up. And I keep saying no. I'm like, if the image doesn't empower me, I'm not drawing it. And I don't want to do it on a computer because I I do. Everything else in my life is learning to do something to get to that next step and drawing I just want for me. And that has made such a difference to my health, going back to having health issues. It's have that time for you, that selfish time.

• 35:16Lisa Bilyeu?

  People don't like to use the word selfish, but I think it's so important. And every week, Tom and I, we sit down and we look at each other and we say, what selfish time do you want this week? And that means I'm gonna do whatever the hell I like without him, with him. But I will say what I want to do. And I will create and carve time out just for me. And I've learnt to get over the guilt of that because, you know, I say no to friends going out. I say no to calling my family on Sundays. I say no to a lot of things and I had to get over the guilt guilt element because I knew this was good for me. And so that is why I don't draw. I'm not gonna be drawing my graphic novel. I'll hire artists that can do it.

• 35:56Jay Shetty?

  I love that. I I think that's such an important lesson for so many people too, because I think we live in a world right now where there's a lot of pressure to like, oh monetize that. I'll figure out a way to sell that on Amazon or whatever it is. And I'm just like, yeah, but that like, and and Radhi gets all the time too. So Radhi knows that when it everyone's always like, oh, why don't you do catering or clients and this? And she's like, I like cooking for my friends and family. Like, that's her passion to cook for them. And yes, she may release products in the future that are consumer products, et cetera, and food, but she doesn't want to be a cook for. You know, high profile clients, whatever, that doesn't excite her because it's she wants to cook for people she loves and that's her offering. And I've always like wanted her to to honor that and keep that. And I'm like, it doesn't matter how much money you can make

• 36:39Jay Shetty?

  from this, because if you hate, if you ended up hating painting, or like artistry, then what would be the point of doing it?

• 36:45Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, there's just too many billionaires who have committed suicide to think that money is going to be the answer to, you know, what your desires are like.

• 36:54Jay Shetty?

  Wow, that's really powerful, what you just said. That's, yeah.

• 36:57Lisa Bilyeu?

  It's crazy when you think about it, because everyone, I think, when you don't have the money, you so focus on money's gonna make all my problems go away. And I think it's because you look at people that have money and you may admire certain things that they have. And so that admiration, you think you're gonna have for yourself when you get there. And the truth is, it's still you looking in the mirror staring back at yourself. You may just have a nicer mirror, but you know, but it's the truth.

• 37:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 37:24Lisa Bilyeu?

  So yeah, I won't ever sell my soul for that.

• 37:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I, and I know that you mean that. And I feel that with you guys all the time. Whenever I spend time with you and Tom, I never feel any different. And I love that. That if I, I think if I would have known would, would greet, uh, Southgate, Southgate Lisa is, is the same as Hollywood Lisa.

• 37:45Lisa Bilyeu?

  Dude, I can't believe it. Like even now, I'm just like, holy crap. I really wanted to live in LA and be married to the man of my dreams and live in the hills and have an amazing view in Hollywood. Like, it is all coming true, but I don't focus on that. Because that's also important, right? It could all go away tomorrow.

• 38:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 38:06Lisa Bilyeu?

  It easily could go away tomorrow. Like, I'm not naive to think that it couldn't. But as long as I have my husband, and I remind myself that every day when I think about, oh my God, how cool is this? How cool? I'm sitting with Jay Shetty. But like, all these things, like, I get excited about and I allow myself to get excited.

• 38:22Jay Shetty?

  I love that, yeah.

• 38:22Lisa Bilyeu?

  But I also remind myself, it could go away tomorrow. And if it did, what actually matters? And it is my husband. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna cry. It doesn't mean that I'm not gonna weep and like, be horrified that I've lost everything. But I remind myself because it could and I don't wanna have my value based on the dreams that are coming true. I don't wanna base my value on the the money that I have or the house that I have or the successes I have.

• 38:49Jay Shetty?

  Um.

• 38:49Lisa Bilyeu?

  Because anyone could take it away. I mean, you know, we had fires here very recently.

• 38:54Jay Shetty?

  Yes, we were messaging.

• 38:55Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, yeah, you're so sweet. But eh everything could have gone, right? My house could have gone. And in those moments, it's it's a beautiful reminder, even though it's scary. It was beautiful reminder to say, yeah, as long as my dogs are okay, as long as I have my wedding photos, right? Like, nothing else really matters. Um, it would suck. Don't get me wrong, it would suck.

• 39:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, of course.

• 39:18Lisa Bilyeu?

  Um, but ultimately, if the house went down, it is what it is.

• 39:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I I I feel that. I think it's so interesting when I'm hearing and I love hearing about how other people thought it because, you know, I always thought we were gonna live in England.

• 39:30Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Jay Shetty?

  I always thought we were gonna live in Watford because that's where my wife's from and that a lot of my friends grew up in Barnett, Stanmore, Edgeware, that sort of area. And and I believed I would spend the rest of my life there and but I knew one thing when I left being a monk, that I wanted to wake up and do something I loved every day. And I said, I wanna wake up every day and I want to do what I love every day. And I don't wanna compromise on that because when I was a monk, I felt like I got to do that. And when I left, I was like, oh, wow, now I feel like if I ever get a real job, I'm just gonna hate it or if I.

• 39:58Lisa Bilyeu?

  I hope it's a real job, right?

• 39:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, forget it. Yeah, because I still, you know, pinch myself like, wow. And that's why I'm so grateful to everyone who listens, everyone who watches. If I bump into people, I'm always and I always say on all my program, I'm like, if you see me on the street, come and say hello, like, I'll give you a hug, like, come and say hello because you've allowed me, like, you've given me the opportunity to do what I get to do today. And I don't take it for granted at all. I feel I'm blessed every single day to get to wake up and do what I love in a way that serves people. And that's because of the people that allow me to serve them. And and so that's what I live for. And and then everything else that's come around it. Of course I appreciate, and that's what you're saying, of course I appreciate, you know, having a good life and taking care of my wife properly and all those things.

• 40:41Jay Shetty?

  But at the same time, it's, that's not the reason that we do it.

• 40:46Lisa Bilyeu?

  But you've done an incredible job to build your life and myself, like I've really worked and to build the life around what fulfills me.

• 40:53Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 40:54Lisa Bilyeu?

  But to also be able to monetize it, because like I'm a massive fan and advocate for monetization and wealth creation.

• 41:00Jay Shetty?

  Hundred percent.

• 41:00Lisa Bilyeu?

  I think that you can do incredible things when you have money. It does bring you the ability, I mean, look, right, we're sitting here on your set with Shida, you know, these lights cost money. And so you building your life around your purpose, but also saying, okay, well, how do I monetize it? How do I live a life of, you know, abundance and luxury? Like, I'm all for luxury, I love getting my hair done, right? Like, I'm not gonna pretend.

• 41:21Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Lisa Bilyeu?

  So to be able to do the, the two combined is just so beautiful, so I'm so happy for you.

• 41:27Jay Shetty?

  No, same, yeah, and I think that's what we need to encourage more, because that's what I realized. I, I remember at one point, I had a hundred million views and I was four months away from being broke.

• 41:38Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Jay Shetty?

  Right, and this was beginning, like 2016, 2017, so I had a hundred million views and I was four months away from being broke. And, and it wasn't a matter of, and it's exactly what we're talking about now, it wasn't like, oh, I don't wanna be broke. It was like, well, wait a minute, if I get broke, that means I can't create content anymore. Because who's gonna pay for the videographer and who's gonna pay for the editing? And who's gonna pay for the, if I wanna make bigger videos and cooler videos? Like this year, we made a video in the, in a plane set.

• 42:01Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh my god.

• 42:02Jay Shetty?

  Right, it's like set in a plane and we've got chairs and it's like, oh, that, that costs some money, but I wanted to. And that video performed really well, so people loved it. And I was like, oh, well, if we would have shot that, like on my couch.

• 42:11Lisa Bilyeu?

  Right.

• 42:11Jay Shetty?

  It wouldn't have looked like a plane. So, you know, there's so many things, and I realized that I didn't want my creativity to ever feel fixed. I wanted my creativity to be abundant, and for my creativity to be abundant, I need it to be abundant. And, and I think we get lost in that, oh, if you're doing good, then you can't be abundant, you know?

• 42:29Lisa Bilyeu?

  Right, like, oh, my god. Yeah, and look, you probably get it way more than me, because you were a monk. So it's almost like, well, if you're a monk, what, you have to like not care about money or care about finances? Like, to, to me, that doesn't make sense. I think that everybody can use it for good, or it's like having a superpower. You can use it for good or you can use it for bad, it's your choice. You know, I'd rather have the superpower and use it for good than not have a superpower.

• 42:51Jay Shetty?

  Totally. Others were saying that only the bad people have superpowers.

• 42:54Lisa Bilyeu?

  Right, exactly, exactly. So um yeah, I've um I've found a way to embrace that side of things because I definitely was worried about how can I say that I'm doing good and really focus on financing finances? And I just, you know, going back to what you said at the beginning, I just try, I'm just me. And it's like, I love expensive clothes, you know, and to deny that, why would I deny that? It doesn't mean that I've I put my value on expensive clothes, where I don't value myself and who I am on expensive jewellery, but at the same time, I freaking love it. So why not? But I don't put that first. I don't make that my mission. I don't hold

• 43:35Lisa Bilyeu?

  my worth to it. I don't hold mine and Tom's success to it. So it's it's a constant battle and a ying and a yang of embracing the beauty that it has with it and saying, yes, I have a Gucci watch and not being embarrassed about it, but also saying, but that doesn't define me. That's not just who I am. That doesn't mean that's my the value I put on myself. It just means that I really like Gucci watches, you know?

• 44:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 44:01Lisa Bilyeu?

  And to own that and not feel like I only have to be one thing. I only have to be bringing impact to people and not care about the lifestyle that I live. It's like, no, I, as you know, we, you know, leaving Quest, we put every penny we had into building Impact Theory. And to say like, our goal is to impact, period. That is our first goal. And everything else, if I can monetize that, if I can bring wealth to that, then beautiful. I'm not willing to sacrifice. I'm not willing to do things to make money and it not be impactful. Right? I'm not willing to do that for money. So having that fine line, having that line of owning it, being happy for yourself when you've achieved it, but not putting so many,

• 44:44Lisa Bilyeu?

  so much um uh value to it, that it then starts to dictate how you live your life, the decisions you make. And so, yeah, that's kind of how I've, I still struggle with it, of course, um, you know, but I definitely remind myself every day of just own it.

• 45:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, definitely. I want to dive into that with you offline more as well. We'll talk about all of this stuff again. But what what is the, you you mentioned your health a few times. And I know that you, in such a beautiful way, are so open about it on social media too. Like, you're very open about like, today I've had a good day. And today my health's been bad, or, you know, I went out for dinner, but I had to take dinner with me. Or, you know, you're so open about the challenges you've had with health. And I think they're great because I think when I first started to struggle with my health and started talking about it with people, I didn't realise that everyone had like a lot of the same issues. And again, I always feel that way because we don't talk about our issues. You don't realise that actually we're all in the same boat. We could probably go to the same doctor together and it'll probably help us all.

• 45:42Jay Shetty?

  So, tell me about the experience you had when you first felt that your health started to become an issue? And you started to notice that health was a priority for you personally?

• 45:52Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, so it's been a long journey. I've been discovering what had happened, but about four years ago, we'd bought the house of our dreams. I had envisioned, you know, Tom and I, when we were dirt broke, we were driving around, you know, Beverly Hills, dreaming of the day that we would have our own house with a pool and a waterfall. And I used to joke that I want to be, recreate that scene from a rap song, where I want to be in a bikini and pour like champagne down me and, you know, just me and Tom. But like, I had this dream and I used to joke about it. Well, finally, we've got the house, we had a waterfall and we had a bottle of champagne. And I chug it and then, from, this was four years ago, about 10 minutes later, my digestion felt like it literally erupted. And I've discovered kind of what had happened since, but that's how it felt. Half an hour later, I could barely stand up.

• 46:37Lisa Bilyeu?

  An hour later, I was in so much agony. That was a year's journey of not being able to eat pretty much at all. So, my hair was falling out, I wasn't getting the right nutrients, I didn't have an appetite. My stomach was cramping to the point of, I literally couldn't stand up for longer than five minutes. I had to shower sitting down.

• 46:58Lisa Bilyeu?

  That was for over a year. Now, at this point, Quest was number one. We'd already been announced as a billion dollar company. We were one of the largest nutrition companies in the world. And here I was, I could barely eat. Someone else were brittle. I didn't tell anybody because I was embarrassed. I was, you know, going back to like the ego thing. I hadn't, you know, had a growth mindset back then. So I was just ego protective. I was like, wow, I can't be, I can't be this, you know, sick and say I can't even eat our product. What does that look like to Tom? You know, like a reflection of him and the reflection of his business partners in the company. So I just didn't tell anybody and, you know, Tom knew and his partners knew, but I would go into work every day and I would come home and I would just crash.

• 47:37Lisa Bilyeu?

  And over time, I started to realise that um I can't do this, you know, at that intensity. So I started to tell people. Cut to impact theory, cut to like developing a growth mindset and talking to just friends. And like you said, realising, wow, people actually have this too. And over time, I started to talk about more and more and I started to realise that there was a few things that I could just, in just talking about could help people. So what number one, I'm very fortunate enough to be able to um go to the best doctors. And so I was going to the best doctors, learning lessons, visiting different doctors, holistic doctors, um gastroenterologists.

• 48:18Lisa Bilyeu?

  Every doctor I could possibly find. And every time I would learn something, I would talk about it. Because I'm like, well, if I can find this piece of information out, what about somebody else? Maybe it may help one person. And if I can overcome my insecurities of talking about it and, you know, saying, yes, I'm sick, yes, I'm struggling. If I can overcome that, just imagine the impact I could make. And to not speak out because I'm being tied up in my own insecurities and ego doesn't serve the person I want to be. And the person I want to be is to impact people. So that's how I started to start talking about it publicly. And the more I was talking about it publicly, the more people were like, oh my god, me too.

• 48:59Lisa Bilyeu?

  And then I started to realise there was comfort in people saying, wow, even her, who owns a nutrition company, can have health issues. And so that just encouraged me even more to talk about it and help people. And then get over the emotion side of it, which is, as a woman, I don't feel sexy. Right, when I'm sick, I don't feel sexy when I have stomach cramps. Um, I don't necessarily wanna pounce on my husband when I'm not, when I'm feeling like that. And so it made me feel like less of a woman and less sexual. And all of these things I had to really start to be honest about and open about. And talking to Tom about it. And then talking publicly, women have come out saying, thank you for saying this.

• 49:43Lisa Bilyeu?

  And how did you handle it with your husband? And the truth is, I'm just always honest about it. So it kind of started to fuel me talking about it more because people were reaching out saying, thank you for being honest about it. Thank you for talking about your journey. Thank you for talking about, you know, the really hard things because like you're going to the Academy Awards, you know? And I have to think about what I'm gonna eat then, you know, as soon as I put on that dress. Because I have to make sure that, you know, so last year or this year, I did get to go to the Academy Awards, yeah.

• 50:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, you guys look great.

• 50:12Lisa Bilyeu?

  I wasn't nominated, so let's say that.

• 50:15Jay Shetty?

  Didn't do the dip. No, you did do the dip.

• 50:16Lisa Bilyeu?

  Did do the dip outside.

• 50:18Jay Shetty?

  Outside, yes.

• 50:18Lisa Bilyeu?

  But it has to be on the stage, Jay. That's the goal. That's the vision.

• 50:22Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 50:22Lisa Bilyeu?

  Um, but I have to think about what am I gonna wear, what am I gonna eat? Before I put on this dress, because the truth is, I may need to run to the restroom. And, you know, trying to be very honest here, I may have to run to the restroom. And so it has to be something that doesn't take me thirty minutes to take off. Um, it has to be something that I get a lot of bloating. So these are realities I have to do. And to pretend that I'm just this person that's being glamorous and I'm going to the Oscars and wow, look at me in my lovely dress, is misleading. And I don't wanna mislead anyone because I don't think that's gonna help. Going back to my mission and my purpose is to actually help people, not to BS and give them a false um, vision of what my life is like. No, this really is my life. I have to make sure that I eat hours before I put the dress on.

• 51:07Lisa Bilyeu?

  I have to make sure that I don't eat anything that can upset my stomach, which means I can't eat out, which means I have to do it home cooked. So all of these things I've just discovered, and again, going back to, I just don't wanna mislead anyone to pretend that I've got this glamorous life and I never wanted my social page or anything to be other, anything other than, this is me, the good, the bad, the ugly.

• 51:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 51:28Lisa Bilyeu?

  The beautiful stuff, but the terrible stuff as well.

• 51:31Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, yeah. And I think what we forget is that. And everyone who's going through this knows it, that the physical pain also comes with the emotional pain that comes with it, right? And sometimes it's the emotional pain that's actually heavier than the physical pain.

• 51:44Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 51:44Jay Shetty?

  The physical pain is already bad enough. And then it's the ego, then it's the feeling that you can't be there for someone, then it's the, oh, but how am I going to tell someone that I can't eat out with them?

• 51:53Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 51:54Jay Shetty?

  Right? And all that kind of stuff. And I know that me and Radhi struggle with this too, because we have a very specific diet. I have a very specific diet. I can eat only various particular things as well throughout the day. My diet's pretty much the same every single day to maintain mine. And when we lived in New York in our tiny 500, 500, 600 square foot apartment, like the pressure and the stress and the pressure cooker of being in New York and then eating out and networking, it took a toll on my body too. And so I've seen how much health has been such a shaken pillar in my life. And then you start going, well, yeah, if I don't get that right, how can I give myself? And, you know, how much can I extend myself?

• 52:29Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Jay Shetty?

  And so I'm grateful that you share so much of that journey and I'm happy you do. And, and, and, you know, everyone, just so you know this, Lisa doesn't claim to be a health expert, but she knows a ton about health.

• 52:39Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 52:40Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like Lisa knows so much. So like, if you follow, you, you'll actually get so much advice from that health perspective as well. Tell me about, and you're so honest, like literally you go from telling me, oh, today, yesterday I had a great day, today's terrible. Like, that's how honest you are. Like, it's so, health is one of those weird things that it can be so flippant. Like, mine's like that too. Like, there are days when my stomach feels great and there are days when I could eat something tiny, like a tomato, which I shouldn't eat much of. And it just, you know, triggers everything. It's like, how do you maintain your focus and discipline when actually the results are sometimes so nor here, nor there, right? Because usually you have a process and you have a formula and you do it and then you get a result.

• 53:22Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 53:22Jay Shetty?

  Right? Like, if you're working out, if I do enough of these lifts, like, and you, and you work out a lot.

• 53:26Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 53:27Jay Shetty?

  How do you keep a strong resolve when actually sometimes the results are totally unpredictable?

• 53:31Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah. So as you know, the mind is very powerful.

• 53:33Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:34Lisa Bilyeu?

  And so if every time I, you know, got sick or something happened, I'm like, well, what's the point anymore, right? Well, I'm never going to get better. Like, I can't tell myself like, oh, well, now you're in the, you know, you're not doing well and your health is terrible, so you may as well give up. That mentality doesn't serve you. And so I go, okay, what are the variables that I know? And what are the variables that I don't know? And be open to the fact there are variables I don't know. And so at any point, yes, something could go wrong. At any point, my health could, you know, go bad. Um, but as long as I know, okay, I've done everything in my power today to serve my health. Then I'm good, but there were days I know that I haven't, right? And I've noticed that even if I eat the same food.

• 54:17Lisa Bilyeu?

  So I have a chef that comes and cooks for me so I can guarantee the oils that are in my food. And so, and the seasoning, so the chef comes, cooks for me. I may have three days in a row where I've eaten exactly the same thing, like you were saying. And then the third day I have massive stomach cramps. It means I have to cancel meetings. It means I have to do phone calls instead of face to face things. It means I have to be in my pajamas, lying in bed, doing Skype calls with people because I can't present, you know, be there presently. And I've done everything that's exactly the same. Well, yeah, I could say like, oh, my God, why me? Throw my hands up, I can't believe this is actually happening. Or, or I can say, okay, you know, you did everything in your power to get things, you know, like to eat the same thing. Or did you? Let's look back, Lisa, what did you do these last three days? Because it's a knock on effect.

• 55:02Lisa Bilyeu?

  And I look at my lifestyle, okay, did I give time to myself? Was I frantic these last three days? Did I have a lot of pressure on myself? And so I try to identify what that cause was. And I really try to be open and say, it could be your fault and that's okay. Like, I don't blame myself if it's my fault, but I need to identify if it was my fault or not. And I see if I can figure it out. If I can't, I just go, it's one of those things. Pick yourself back up and keep going. Because if I lick my wounds, if I stay down too long, if I say, why me? I'm never going to achieve my dreams and my goals. And I can't let this get in the way. And my mind is so powerful that I know if I just sit there and lick my wounds, what's going to happen? My body's going to start to listen. Oh, Lisa, it's poor you time, great. Let's shut down then.

• 55:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:48Lisa Bilyeu?

  Or it's like, oh, Lisa, you're telling yourself that you've got this. You've telling yourself that you can pick yourself up, that you're strong enough to get through this today. What's going to happen? My body's going to react. And so I just repeat that over and over again.

• 56:02Jay Shetty?

  I love that. I love that. And I think that's kind of where we all need to start repeating like it's, and this is, and I love this about you and Tom, because I know you're very scientific.

• 56:10Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Jay Shetty?

  And you both love science. And I'm kind of, I love science and spirituality. Like, I'm very like, both worlds. And it's like, talking to your body and talking to yourself is both scientific and spiritual. Like, it works on both fronts. And I think what you've just told us now, it says like, I think most of what we say to ourselves is wallowing in our own pity or sympathy, rather than the empathy with ourselves of trying to, you know, push ourselves forward. Tell me about some of the, tell me about some of the experiences and agreements that you and Tom made. I want to focus a bit on relationships, because I know my audience loves relationships.

• 56:43Lisa Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 56:43Jay Shetty?

  I love sharing from my relationship. I have a plan, and I want you to know this, because I'm putting it out there right now. I want to do an episode where me and Rani sit down with you and Tom.

• 56:53Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, my God, I would like that so much.

• 56:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, so we have to do that. So we're doing it next year. I want to do that episode. So I want to get you and Tom on together, and me and Rani.

• 56:59Lisa Bilyeu?

  I love that.

• 57:00Jay Shetty?

  Because I'm setting up a new series of episodes next, next year, which is that.

• 57:03Lisa Bilyeu?

  Very cool.

• 57:04Jay Shetty?

  So I want to do that. But tell me about some other agreements and how you formed them with you and Tom, that have been really powerful for your relationship.

• 57:12Lisa Bilyeu?

  All right.

• 57:12Jay Shetty?

  Because you're both powerhouses. You're both doing so much.

• 57:15Lisa Bilyeu?

  Thank you.

• 57:15Jay Shetty?

  But you both support each other. I love the funny pictures you take in the back of Ubers and Lifts. So, so, so Rani's version is when Rani's doing a crazy dance in the car, that's usually when I'm thinking or working. And she will just get me in the background. And I see you posting Tom in there, and you're like, oh, he's working.

• 57:31Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, he gives me like the look, like, again, another IG photo story.

• 57:35Jay Shetty?

  So we're, me and, me and Tom are so similar in so many ways. It's hilarious. Yeah. So anyway, okay. So tell me some other agreements and how you came to them as well, the stories behind those agreements.

• 57:44Lisa Bilyeu?

  Okay, so there's actually two that came to mind. So one's business and one's personal.

• 57:48Jay Shetty?

  Love it.

• 57:48Lisa Bilyeu?

  All right, which one do you want me to start with?

• 57:49Jay Shetty?

  Uh, start with business.

• 57:50Lisa Bilyeu?

  All right, let's start with business. Okay. So starting Impact Theory. When we were at Quest, because initially I was like, I'm just gonna help out, I'm just gonna help out. I became running, I started, I was running our shipping department and then moved on to running our media department. But technically, on paper, I was still working underneath our Director of Marketing. So my title was, you know, Studio Creator. I can't remember what the title was now. So I technically, he was basically my boss, in essence. But when we went over to Impact Theory, we sat down and we said, what are our roles? And we discussed every little detail. And I was more than happy for him to take fifty one percent. I'll take forty nine because I know he's gonna put more time and energy into it than me. So I was like, it makes sense that you would get more of the percent legally than I would.

• 58:36Lisa Bilyeu?

  And he turned around and said, no, it's gonna be fifty percent. I don't care. This could be, you know, we joke, or in fact, we don't joke about the word divorce. We never say that word. But when he was speaking to his lawyer, he said, create the best, the worst divorce scenario ever. Because I need my wife to know she's equal here. So, so we, on paper, we're equal, but still titles. We had to figure out what's the title. Now, our goal is to build the company to be a freaking juggernaut. Okay, that's an agreement. Let's say we're sitting with our team and a decision needs to be made and we don't agree. So he's CEO, I'm president. And we'll just say we don't agree on the decision. Okay, well, we can debate it. He can try to persuade me, give me every reason why he's right. I can do the same. But at some point, what if we still don't agree? What happens next?

• 59:21Lisa Bilyeu?

  We hit a brick wall. You can't. If you really want to grow your business, you have momentum matters. So you have to keep going. So to stop and hit a brick wall doesn't serve our goals. So we sat down in, we call them the emotional sober moments. We sat down emotionally sober and said, okay, when we hit a brick wall, who has the final say? Because at some point, we need to keep going. And so together, we said, he's gonna have the final say. And we've been in business now, Impact Theory's been around for three and a half years. About six months ago, we had the very first time where neither of us could convince each other. Because normally, we're very respectful. It's like, hey, I'm gonna tell you why I think I'm right. And then one of us is like, okay, yeah, you're right, let's do it. This time, neither of us would agree. I'm like, no, I think we should do this.

• 1:00:06Lisa Bilyeu?

  And he's like, no, I think we should do this. And we're in front of our entire team. There's twenty five of us. And he turns around, he's like, I hear you, but we're going with my, my idea. And in that moment, oh my god, it stung. Oh god, it stung. And I sat there and I just reminded myself of the agreement we'd made. And I said, Lisa, in your sober moment, no matter how much you think he's making a mistake right now, you had decided together, the right decision for your business and the right decision for your goal is that he's going to make final decision. And so he said, we're gonna move forward. And so I turned around and I said, I disagree, but I commit. And that's a phrase that we use within our company, because it doesn't mean you have to agree with it. Not everyone is going to agree.

• 1:00:49Lisa Bilyeu?

  But what do you need? You need to know everyone's going to commit to it, because you can't be fighting two battles.

• 1:00:55Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:00:56Lisa Bilyeu?

  And so that was an agreement we made in that moment. I was actually very proud that I was able to say that out loud, because my ego is definitely hurt. I definitely thought he was making a mistake. But we'd agreed, and so we moved forward. So that's the type of communication we have, so that we don't hit brick walls. That's our business one.

• 1:01:14Jay Shetty?

  Love that. That's great. That's such great advice. And I love that too. You can always commit.

• 1:01:19Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 1:01:19Jay Shetty?

  Because I think, I think you're so right, that often when we disagree, we, we take our energy away with us. And life, and business definitely doesn't work like that, because if your partner's made a decision, and that's what I love also, that you're not just partners metaphorically, you're actually partners on paper, which I think is phenomenal. Like that's, I don't know if that's what people usually do when they're couples in business, but I think that's a really smart way of doing it. Because when your partner's on paper, it's like, this is real, this is serious. And now we're seeing each other. So you're now at work expecting of your wife what you'd expect of a business partner.

• 1:01:56Lisa Bilyeu?

  Correct.

• 1:01:57Jay Shetty?

  She's not your wife at work and he's not your husband at work.

• 1:01:59Lisa Bilyeu?

  Right.

• 1:02:00Jay Shetty?

  Which is great, because it really separates that.

• 1:02:02Lisa Bilyeu?

  And we've had to separate it. And this has been an evolution of going from quest to impact theory, but we've had to separate it. And, you know, we've got like little tricks, for instance, where he'll, um, cause he literally works up until he goes to bed. I mean, he's brushing his teeth while listening to podcasts and, you know, he takes his headphones off as he's climbing into bed. And so I realized with my health, I can't do that. And I've had to accept that and not um, think that I'm bringing less to the table than him. I've had to actually work on that and get over it. But I, um, but I have to stop at least an hour before bedtime. And he would come in, cause he's still in work mode and he'd walk in and he'd start asking me business questions. And at one point, I'm just like, babe, I I'm in um family mode. You're my husband now. I'm no longer your business partner. So you do you have, oh no, you're you don't eat me.

• 1:02:47Jay Shetty?

  I used to.

• 1:02:48Lisa Bilyeu?

  If you go to a Brazilian restaurant.

• 1:02:49Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:02:50Lisa Bilyeu?

  They have like these little like things that says you want more meat or you don't want them to bring you in.

• 1:02:54Jay Shetty?

  Oh, I've never seen no idea.

• 1:02:55Lisa Bilyeu?

  Cause they bring meat around to your tables. And there's like a little chip thing or different restaurants have different things, but it says more meat or no meat. I said to him, we need something like that, where it's like a little like working, not working. And so for a while I had a lamp in my room and I would switch the lamp on. And that would be basically if I was why, if I was no longer working. So he would walk into the room.

• 1:03:14Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:14Lisa Bilyeu?

  See the lamp on and then literally just back up and go, all right, love you babe, and then walk back out. Um. So things like that where, you know, it may sound funny, but you actually have to implement things like that so that you don't cross those lines. Because my relationship is so, is the most important thing to me. And stress and business is real.

• 1:03:31Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:32Lisa Bilyeu?

  And so how do you actually come up with actual things to do to separate the two? It's one thing saying it, it's a whole other world just actually doing it.

• 1:03:41Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:41Lisa Bilyeu?

  So we've had to come up with little tricks like that to separate the two.

• 1:03:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, I get that. I remember when last couple of years before twenty nineteen, like I was always on my phone, working this and this, this. And when we were together, I'd be always working and doing this, this, this. And I I developed this and I'd never really clarified to Rady that that's what I was doing. And it's weird when you work social media.

• 1:03:58Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 1:03:59Jay Shetty?

  Because it also looks very casual.

• 1:04:01Lisa Bilyeu?

  Right.

• 1:04:02Jay Shetty?

  Like sometimes it's like when I went around my parents and I'm on social media or whatever, they'll just be like, but why are you on social media? I'm like, no, no, but this is my, this is my work, like, as in I love it, it's my purpose, but it's also my work. And I need to be on to see, uh, you know, what video we shared today and reply to comments and DM people and connect and all this kind of stuff. And so at the start, it was like for her to realize that what I was doing was actually impactful for our lives. And at the same time, me being respectful back and saying, okay, we're gonna make a commitment, what works for us? So then we made a commitment that I would never be on social media when we're together, if we're out on a weekend. Or if we're doing something together, which is a couple time.

• 1:04:39Lisa Bilyeu?

  Right.

• 1:04:40Jay Shetty?

  Then I can't be on my phone, no matter how important it is. And if I do, I have to say, hey, I just really have to post this right now. And I'm gonna take a second, give me one moment and just draw these very clear boundaries because it's all lost in the the miscommunication. I mean, sorry, the misinterpretation. Is all lost when there's no communication. And so I feel like drawing clear boundaries is so powerful. Tell me why, before we get to the personal, tell me why you don't joke about divorce, because I love that point you just made there.

• 1:05:04Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, we literally don't.

• 1:05:05Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 1:05:06Lisa Bilyeu?

  We don't even say the word. We say the D word, just so you know. It's like, it's that, like, forbidden. I think it's.

• 1:05:14Jay Shetty?

  Voldemort.

• 1:05:16Jay Shetty?

  You like Harry Potter.

• 1:05:18Lisa Bilyeu?

  Should not be named. I think it goes back to mindset. It's like the second that you think divorce is an option. Now, look, it is an option for some people. And if he, I have rules. If he ever lays a hand on me abusively or ever cheats on me, he's out the door. I will absolutely.

• 1:05:33Jay Shetty?

  Same rule.

• 1:05:34Lisa Bilyeu?

  So I've made, really, same with you guys. It's amazing.

• 1:05:37Jay Shetty?

  Exactly the same.

• 1:05:37Lisa Bilyeu?

  But setting those rules and say, yes, it's not like I'm saying he can, we can, you know, we will survive anything. No. If he cheats on me or lays a hand on me physically, like, we're done. So it's not that I'm naive or closed off to that. But other than that, I don't even like to think that that's an option. Because the second it comes into my mindset, it makes you go, oh, well, he was really horrible to me. He's been neglecting me for weeks or whatever. So we just took it off the table. It's like, it's not an option. So don't even joke about it. And so that's like, yeah, one thing.

• 1:06:11Jay Shetty?

  I like it. And I like the point there that I'm picking up on is just not joking about things. Because we always say, we always hear this, like, whenever you joke about something, there's an element of truth.

• 1:06:18Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 1:06:19Jay Shetty?

  Always. You never joke about something that there's no element of truth. And so when you joke about these types of things and you keep becoming more comfortable to joke with them, then it can very easily turn into reality. And that's why it's so important for us to be conscious about what we joke with about with our partners.

• 1:06:33Lisa Bilyeu?

  Why?

• 1:06:33Jay Shetty?

  Like, I would always, and this is a mistake I made, I would always joke with Radhi about like, oh, you know, I was a monk. I can, I can live on my own. Like, I would always joke that. And it was just, it was terrible for our relationship because all it did was push her away. Because all I was, and I was joking about it. I'd be like, oh, yeah, you know, I lived as a monk for three years. I'm, I'm pretty good on my own, you know? And all it did was. Basically tell her, oh, Jay's good on his own.

• 1:06:56Lisa Bilyeu?

  He doesn't need you.

• 1:06:57Jay Shetty?

  He doesn't need me. And so that's what we had in reality because of stuff like that that I joked about. And then I think I would joke about once, like, I would joke with her, like, oh, you know, I know that your parents are your first love and I'm your second. And I would joke about that, but there was an element of truth in that. And the funny thing is, when you say that over and over again, it becomes a reality.

• 1:07:13Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Jay Shetty?

  Whereas when I've stopped taking those, when I've, when I've stopped making those jokes over the past few years, our relationship has just flourished because now I'm like, no, I miss you.

• 1:07:23Lisa Bilyeu?

  Why?

• 1:07:23Jay Shetty?

  I do need you in my life. I love you. I, I know that you prioritize me as your number one in this area of your life, you know, and and we've, our jokes also reaffirm what happens to us. And I think we forget about that. So I love that you don't joke about divorce.

• 1:07:36Lisa Bilyeu?

  And I love that you said that as well, because I noticed sometimes if I joke with Tom, I'm like, oh, why did you just joke about that? Is there an element of truth to it? Because you're right, because I so believe that.

• 1:07:46Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:46Lisa Bilyeu?

  And I'm just like, but it's not like I mean to say something real, but when I joke about it automatically, I'm like, huh? What are you trying to tell yourself?

• 1:07:54Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. And, and it was also like, sometimes like a joke, there's like a slide dig in there as well.

• 1:08:00Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Jay Shetty?

  I do that to Riley. I, she's not, I do it way more to her than she does to me. It comes from my parenting and other challenges. And it's like, I'll always say something and I was like, I could have said that.

• 1:08:10Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:10Jay Shetty?

  I didn't have to joke and dig at the same time. I could have just told her that I feel this way.

• 1:08:15Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Jay Shetty?

  And, and yeah, jokes, jokes are interesting. As in, we laugh a lot.

• 1:08:18Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:20Jay Shetty?

  The jokes about, about the truth are not as fun. Tell me about the personal one.

• 1:08:23Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, God, okay.

• 1:08:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Lisa Bilyeu?

  The personal one was us having kids.

• 1:08:26Jay Shetty?

  Okay.

• 1:08:26Lisa Bilyeu?

  So a grown up was gonna, I wanted four children. That was my thing.

• 1:08:31Jay Shetty?

  Big Greek family.

• 1:08:32Lisa Bilyeu?

  Big Greek family, exactly. Tom, when I met him, he was like, I could get married. I don't, you know, he'd never had those dreams of, I want to get married and have kids. So when I met him, he was like, I want to marry you. And then it was like, well, kids. And he's like, you know, I'm definitely open to them. I love the idea of them. I wanted four. So he was like, of course, like, let's have kids. That was when we first got married. But then I started to assess my lifestyle. I loved business, started to really find myself, started really to grow into the person I am today. Loved challenges, loved the business world, really still want to make movies. And I started to assess, wow, I don't know if I want to stay home with children anymore. And I looked at what I was doing, my lifestyle, and I was like, okay, I'm the type of person, I know this about me. I like to go all in.

• 1:09:15Lisa Bilyeu?

  So if I have kids, personally, not there's anything wrong with it, but if I have kids, I wanna be with them. I don't wanna have nannies bringing them up. Right now, my dog goes to our assistance more than she comes to me, you know, and even that stings a little. But I'm like, okay, I've chosen this life, they feed them, she walks them, of course she's gonna go to them more than me. I'm not home as much, but that's a reality. And I was like, I don't want that as a to have kids. I'd rather not have children than have my kids be brought up by somebody else. And that was just something that was important to me. Then I looked at, okay, well, are you willing to stay at home? And Tom and I sat down, I said, okay, babe, what does our lives look like? And we said, we literally laid out, what does a Tuesday look like?

• 1:09:58Lisa Bilyeu?

  What does a Saturday look like? And we, okay, we wake up and what happens? So Tom was like, well, babe, I re- I'm, you know, driven. I would love what I do. I wanna build, I'm not gonna work less just because we have kids. He's like, I need to be honest with you about that. So he said, if you want to have kids, I'm, you know, I will be there, but I'm not going to be changing diapers, getting up in the middle of the night. I just, that's not where my priority is. So he was very clear, very clear about that. So I said, okay, on a Tuesday, I wake up in the middle of the night, I wake up to feed them, he goes off to work. I stay at home and I laid out every hour, he's gonna come home, he said, he's not a nine to five. He never comes home for dinner. I don't eat dinner with him, period, unless it's the weekends.

• 1:10:42Lisa Bilyeu?

  I don't even know what time he eats dinner these days. So he's not gonna come home for dinner. He's always fast. Yeah, exactly, that too. So he's gone all day. He gets home when he gets home. How am I gonna feel about that? How am I gonna feel that he wasn't there to put the kids to bed? That now I'm changing all the diapers, I'm feeding them, I'm, you know, doing all this. Well, he's been very honest with me, so I can't resent him for not doing it. And so we looked at, okay, that's how the life was gonna be on a Tuesday. What does a Saturday look like? Right now, he's my number one in life. I'm his number one. Um, nature makes sure that when you have kids, especially for women, that that changes. And so he was honest. I don't

• 1:11:24Lisa Bilyeu?

  wanna be your number two. I know that when we have kids, they will be your number one, and rightly so, but he doesn't wanna be the number two. But again, that doesn't mean that we don't have kids. We're just being honest with each other. And so then he said, when he comes home from work, if the kids are awake, if he has time, he's gonna spend it with them, not with me. Because he wants to be a good father. On the weekends, if he's not working, he wants to spend it with the kids. He wants to, you know, help be a part of their lives. So again, where do I go? Do I go to number three? Do I go to number two, depending if work's more important at that time? And so we started to look and we're like, wow, we're doing a lot to change our relationship. And right now, I honestly feel like I have the best fucking relationship in the world. Like, he is everything

• 1:12:08Lisa Bilyeu?

  to me. And I get that when people who have kids say, look, you'll never know love until you have children. I get that's true. But I don't know that love. The love that I know now is the love I have for my husband and the love he has for me. And why on God's green earth would I do something to change it when I'm not looking to change it? And so we had that open communication, that hard talk of, I don't know if I wanna be a mother anymore. He had to have the honest talk of hearing that, of does he really want children? Um, am I now going back on my word? When we first got married, that I said I was going to have kids. We just had to let all the, you know, ego go and the thing of like, yes, we're both growing and we're both changing. And the one thing I freaking

• 1:12:50Lisa Bilyeu?

  hate is when people are like, you're not the person I married. I hope not. Right? Like, if the whole point is growing and learning and becoming a better person every single day, why on earth would you want that person to be the same they were? You know, Tom and I have been together for nineteen years. Why on earth would I want him to be the same man, you know, that we got married seventeen years ago? I wouldn't.

• 1:13:11Jay Shetty?

  Totally, totally. I completely agree with that. I love that. No, and I think you explained it so well and. Anyway, when I summarize, that's definitely left a massive point for me. Is there any experience or story that I haven't asked you about today that was so life defining? That you're like, Jay, I have to share this with your new audience. You're like, this moment of, for me personally, or this, starting this, or ending this, or breaking up with this? Or is there any moment that I haven't asked you about, or you haven't shared today? That you're like, Jay, I really want your audience to know this.

• 1:13:39Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, giving you the big keys of the things that were really defining. Money was another thing for us, I think, because that is like literally, I think, I think it's number two. The biggest cause of divorce is finance. So maybe that may be beneficial to talk about for people. But with Tom and I, at first, because I was staying at home and he was going out and working, it was very weird for me to feel like the money was also mine. But I didn't like the feel of asking him for permission. So I had to figure out, okay, well, if he's going out to work and I'm staying at home, we've both agreed, this is what we're going to do. So it was a partnership. So even though the cheque is in his name, it is equal. And he was the first to say, babe, you earn half of this.

• 1:14:25Lisa Bilyeu?

  Just because I'm out with the cheque in my name. We've agreed, this is the lifestyle we're going to live. And so this money is both of ours. Okay, so that emotionally felt good. But still, when I'm out, let's say I'm at Target and I'm getting stuff for us and I see a shirt I like. Well, do I still ask him, even though it's both of our money? So it just became like, I was feeling uncomfortable. I wasn't feeling like an adult. He was feeling the same because he loves comic books and things like that. So he wants to pay for things, but should we keep checking in with each other on like, if we should do it? Or like, what's the fine line? Is it over $10? Anyway, it was all just very uncomfortable. I didn't feel like an adult. He didn't feel like an adult.

• 1:15:08Lisa Bilyeu?

  So we just sat down and said, okay, we're going to have an account that is our expenses. So all bills go into this account. We're going to put X amount percent in our salary. I like saying our salary. In our salary, we're going to put to this. Okay, after that, how much do we collectively agree to save for future? There's a tornado and our house falls apart, whatever happens. How much do we save? Okay, we agree we're going to put 15% or whatever that was. Then we have our spending money. We split down the middle, 50/50. You spend whatever you like. Literally, like, burn it if you want. It's your money to do. And me, I would spend whatever I like on mine. And that was so fundamental in changing how I felt about myself with finance.

• 1:15:53Lisa Bilyeu?

  Because I'm like, I'm not asking for permission. This is money I've earned. I would do whatever I want with this. If I wanna save it for a rainy day, I'm gonna save it for a rainy day. And go on a vacation with my sister.

• 1:16:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Lisa Bilyeu?

  If that's what I wanna do. But it is my money. And so we started, we were very honest about the emotion behind it, how it made us feel. And then how to act accordingly to fix it. Um, and now that that was back when we didn't have money at all, now things are slightly different. Um, but it's the same premise. It's the same premise of saying, how much money goes to your family, how much money goes to my family, how much is yours to spend and burn if you want? And having those conversations, because honestly, if Tom wanted to gamble, alright, gamble your money, babe, it's your money. There's, you don't ever have to feel guilty about it. It's money you've earned. And if you want to literally burn it away or go to vacas and throw it all on the, you know, the roulette table,

• 1:16:48Lisa Bilyeu?

  it's fine. It's your money. You should never, you, right, yes, he would never, he actually hates gambling. But given an example where people start to put pressure on each other and their partners of what you're doing with your money. But if you want to spend it literally and just make it rain with one dollar bills, go ahead and do it. It's, you know, it's your money. Um, and that gave us the independence and freedom to, to really, um, handle it the way we felt was, um, yeah, independence, going back to that. We're both, we love being codependent, but we also want to be independent.

• 1:17:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Lisa Bilyeu?

  So it's this blend.

• 1:17:22Jay Shetty?

  I love that. Lisa, you've been amazing. You've been an incredible guest. I've learned so many in insane things today. Genuinely, there've been so many insights in this. And I love the way you shared through story because I think when I'm listening to you and I know when everyone else is listening to you today, it's just like, yeah, that's me. You know, like, I can hear everyone saying that, like, that's what my voice sounds like. That's what my mind sounds like. So we, and every interview, the final five is a final five rapid fire questions. So you have to answer in one word or one sentence max.

• 1:17:52Lisa Bilyeu?

  Okay. And you know, I'm quite wordy, Jay.

• 1:17:54Jay Shetty?

  I know, I know. I will cut, I will cut it down. Yes, okay. I will cut it down. Usually I'm the worst because I always get guests to go, oh, tell me more. So I have to try not to do that. All right. So what have you recently started doing in your life that has brought you peace?

• 1:18:10Lisa Bilyeu?

  Taking selfish time.

• 1:18:11Jay Shetty?

  Perfect. Love that answer. Second, what are you not okay with?

• 1:18:16Lisa Bilyeu?

  People being cruel to get ahead.

• 1:18:20Jay Shetty?

  Oh, I love that. Okay, great. Number three, what's your greatest accomplishment to date?

• 1:18:26Lisa Bilyeu?

  My marriage.

• 1:18:28Jay Shetty?

  Love that. Question, I was expecting that, but I was like, I have to ask it. I have to ask it. Question number four, what's something you now value that you once took for granted?

• 1:18:35Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, my parents.

• 1:18:38Jay Shetty?

  Oh, that's so true, isn't it?

• 1:18:39Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah. Oh, my God. How much do you take your parents for granted when you were a kid?

• 1:18:43Jay Shetty?

  Hundred percent. Yeah, I think that's beautiful. Radhi did something recently, which I think is wonderful on this. She interviewed her grandma to keep all her stories.

• 1:18:51Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yes, we did that with my dad.

• 1:18:53Jay Shetty?

  Oh, did you?

• 1:18:54Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah, like legacy videos.

• 1:18:55Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:18:56Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, my God. Yeah, we have to do with everyone in our family, but you've got to do it with your family as well, Jay.

• 1:19:01Jay Shetty?

  I just feel especially Indian parents, I don't know what Greek parents are like, but Indian parents are very, they don't really talk about their history because it's almost like no one ever asked them. And, and I, and I kept, I was saying this to someone the other day when I was being interviewed for something, I was like, I think everyone, like we, we're lucky, we get to be interviewed, so we get to reflect on our life. But most people never get interviewed, whereas I think everyone in the world should get interviewed. Because I feel like everyone's had such an interesting life in their own way. And we almost only think that people in the public eye have interesting lives, which is not true at all. There are some people that people have never heard of that have phenomenal stories, so.

• 1:19:36Lisa Bilyeu?

  Could you imagine if we had interviews of our great grandparents, the stories they would have?

• 1:19:41Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 1:19:41Lisa Bilyeu?

  And you don't really need, doesn't cost anything. I mean, put up your iPhone and literally ask your parents or your grandparents questions.

• 1:19:47Jay Shetty?

  Edit into a movie or anything, yeah.

• 1:19:49Lisa Bilyeu?

  Love that so much.

• 1:19:50Jay Shetty?

  Okay, so that was a great answer. Okay. And question number five, how do you deal with regret? What's your game plan for regret?

• 1:19:55Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, um, I try not to use the word regret because I like to think of it as a lesson. And I think words matter. So anytime that I've done something like, oh shit, I shouldn't have done that. And I'm like, all right, what was the lesson you learned? Because that's the only way I can empower myself because I naturally go into the negative. I actually do, like my, my default is like to go to the negative. And it may not seem like that in this interview, but I've worked so hard. Like to get over that, to overcome the negative. And so, yeah, that's.

• 1:20:24Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. Thank you, Lisa.

• 1:20:26Lisa Bilyeu?

  Oh, great. How are you?

• 1:20:29Jay Shetty?

  It's so cool. We have to show it off. Look at this.

• 1:20:32Lisa Bilyeu?

  It's a Christmas jacket.

• 1:20:32Jay Shetty?

  Look at this. I love it. I love how much we both love Christmas.

• 1:20:35Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:36Jay Shetty?

  And when I say I love, I love Christmas music, I love Christmas decoration, I love gifts, I love trees, like. So, but thank you, Lisa, for doing this. Like, I'm so grateful that you came on, honestly. Like, this is. You're, you're an amazing person, inside and out, and I'm just so grateful that we got to sit down and do this. And I know everyone's gonna learn so much from it. And just thank you for genuinely, authentically, always showing up. Like, I've never felt that anything else when I've met you and spent time with you, and Tom too, but definitely, I've never felt that. And I just, I just love who you are as a person. So, thank you for coming on.

• 1:21:07Lisa Bilyeu?

  And back at you, when I first met you, you were just up and coming. And so to see what you're accomplishing now and the impact you're having on people, dude, it's so just incredible. You have an incredible way of articulating your voice and your message, and I freaking love it. So, yeah.

• 1:21:25Jay Shetty?

  Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm excited for two North Londoners in LA for a long, long time.

• 1:21:31Lisa Bilyeu?

  I wonder how trippy this podcast is for people to listen to with the accents.

• 1:21:35Jay Shetty?

  People pick this up from, I hope everyone back home where we grew up, listen to this.

• 1:21:39Lisa Bilyeu?

  I know. Delgate in the house.

• 1:21:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, would agree. I really hope so because, yeah, it's, yeah, I, there's so much I learned from growing up in that area. So, yeah, thank you, Lisa. Amazing. My three big takeaways from today, which I want everyone who's listening and watching to, to remember and kind of go back to is, one, that Lisa has the superpower of learning anything. And that doesn't come from education, or it doesn't come from what she studied at university, or college, or any of that stuff. It comes from her ability to say, I need to learn stuff.

• 1:22:13Lisa Bilyeu?

  Can I be honest? I'm gonna interrupt you. This is like the worst, I'm like the worst guest. I think everybody has that superpower. They just don't believe it. Right, it's like, honestly, um, anyone can learn anything. And the other day I told this story, I was watching a movie with Tom and someone was playing the piano. And I was like, oh, wouldn't it be great, I wish I could play the piano. And he looks at me like, isn't it amazing that you still could? And I was like, yes, yes, I could. If I chose to, right? It doesn't mean it's gonna be easy. I could, I'd have to give up my life, I'd have to quit my business, I'd have to be a terrible wife. But if I put in the time and effort, yeah, I could. And it's so empowering, so sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

• 1:22:48Jay Shetty?

  No.

• 1:22:49Lisa Bilyeu?

  I think everyone has

• 1:22:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:50Lisa Bilyeu?

  the ability to learn. You just have to believe that you can and be realistic about what it's gonna take to get there.

• 1:22:57Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. And I, and I think that's my point that you've done that. And I'm hoping that people listening will be inspired that you don't have a background that makes you that way.

• 1:23:06Lisa Bilyeu?

  Correct.

• 1:23:07Jay Shetty?

  It's, it's something that you had to learn. It's not like you went to, I don't know what learning school is called. You know what I mean? Like, you, you weren't a jack of all trades growing up.

• 1:23:14Lisa Bilyeu?

  Right, no.

• 1:23:14Jay Shetty?

  It's not like that. It's not like you were a general manager growing up. It's, it's not coming from any background, it's coming from that mindset of wanting to get on with it and learn something. The second thing that I thought was beautiful is you and Tom both, you don't resent honesty. And I think that's really powerful in a relationship because I think we often in our relationships judge people for their honesty. That's why people lie in relationships. And that's why you don't move forward in a relationship because everyone's scared of hurting the other person. So they lie about their feelings, they lie about how they feel about the other person. And now no one knows each other anymore. And then the next thing you know is you're breaking up or you're moving apart because you've forgotten who each other are.

• 1:23:51Lisa Bilyeu?

  So.

• 1:23:52Jay Shetty?

  And so I think you both not resenting each other's honesty is huge. So when your partner's honest with you, build up that bond where you can be honest back and don't resent them. I think that's awesome. And the third and final one that I love is this agreement building of getting into every corner and saying, well, if we woke up with a kid on Saturday night, what would that be like?

• 1:24:10Lisa Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:10Jay Shetty?

  Right? Or like, if we start a business and next week you're going to have to travel halfway across the world, how am I gonna feel about that? Like, it's, it's exposing, especially in a relationship. I think when you're just taking care of your own mind, you can kind of be flexible. When you're taking care of two minds, you've got to explore each of those scenarios. So anyway, those were three of my biggest takeaways and there's so many more, so thank you.

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