Matt Higgins on How to Eliminate Plan B and Guarantee Success (Fan Fav)

This is a fan fav episode. If you’re about that hustle culture life then you’ve either entertained the idea of burning the boats or you already took the leap. Is it necessary though? Is there a link to being successful and leaving yourself no option for retreat? Matt Higgins has been on Shark Tank as one of the sharks, he’s vice chairman of the Miami Dolphins, guest lecturer teaching at Harvard, and CEO of a private investment firm, RSE Ventures among other things. His success is mind-blowing and at a level very few people ever achieve. The plot twist is he grew up broke, selling flowers, working at McDonald’s and actually made the decision to drop out of high school at 16 years old! He’s sharing why Burn the Boats, the title of his latest book, isn’t the idea you think it is. Matt points out that 48$ of people have a plan A and believes that when you spend time coming up with Plan B you’re more likely to not even give Plan A the effort it deserves and therefore minimize your chance of success. This conversation is about getting real with yourself, facing everything that comes your way,and not retreating to Plan B, C or D. The idea that Matt Higgins shares is about being so totally committed to your Plan A that success is the only option. Eliminate choices. Fully commit. Experience new levels of success. ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 3-28-23 Follow Matt Higgins: Website: https://www.burntheboatsbook.com/ https://www.burntheboatsbook.com/%20 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BurnTheBoatsBook https://www.youtube.com/@BurnTheBoatsBook%20 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mhiggins/ https://www.instagram.com/mhiggins/%20 What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business:https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20showjoin me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show SCALING a business:https://tombilyeu.com/callsee if you qualify here. https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:https://tombilyeu.com/sign up here. https://tombilyeu.com/ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast,Tom Bilyeu’s Mindset Playbook https://open.spotify.com/show/47VE90Cittmo6TGGFqg2xf —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** Join me live on myTwitch stream https://impacttheory.co/4fitmnJ. I'm live daily from 6:30 to 8:30 am PT athttps://impacttheory.co/4fitmnJwww.twitch.tv/tombilyeu https://impacttheory.co/4fitmnJ ********************************************************************** LISTEN TO IMPACT THEORY AD FREE + BONUS EPISODES on APPLE PODCASTS:http://apple.co/impacttheoryapple.co/impacttheory http://apple.co/impacttheory ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=enhttps://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:https://twitter.com/tombilyeuhttps://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeuhttps://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Let's talk about the moment your side hustle becomes a real business. Now, I see way too many founders stay stuck running their business like it's a hobby, and then they wonder why nothing ever feels real. It doesn't feel real because it's not. I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs build real businesses through Impact Theory University, and the first step in the path to building a legit business is registering it. And Taylor Brands will help you do just that in a few clicks. An LLC, a limited liability company, is an official business structure. It's inexpensive to form and very simple to maintain. It's how you open a business bank account. It's how customers know they're dealing with a real company. And Taylor Brands doesn't stop at the filing.

• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Taylor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. What's up, guys? I'm super excited for this episode because joining us today is Matt Higgins, a wildly successful entrepreneur, Shark Tank guest star, former vice chairman of the Miami Dolphins and CEO of RSE Ventures. Matt's latest book, Burn the Boats, is a must-read for anyone feeling stuck and neutral, and he's here to share his secrets to success with all of us.

• 1:29Tom Bilyeu?

  From ditching your Plan B to committing fully to your goals, we'll explore the best ways to achieve your dreams and become the person you want to be. Do not miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn from one of the best. If you liked this episode, be sure you're following the podcast and share this episode with a friend. Really is the best way to support people that you love on their journey to becoming legendary. All right, guys, let's do this.

• 1:55Tom Bilyeu?

  What are the principles that you've lived by that allowed you to go from dropping out of high school, broke, selling flowers by the side of the road, to a net worth of $150 million?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  For me, it all comes down to this single decision I made to drop out of high school when I was 16 years old. I grew up in Queens, New York, very poor, living on government cheese and taking care of my mother, who was obese, which I don't talk a ton a lot, but was very heavy, and the byproduct of dysfunction and abuse, which only became clear later on. So just born into dysfunction, and everything was about concealment. Everything in my early days was about making sure that nobody knew just how poor I was, just how desperate I was. So there's all this concealment was what I was born into. It takes a long time to sort of shed that shame, but... And then, after years and years of realizing the cavalry wasn't coming, I had an epiphany,

• 2:52Speaker 01

  and it was actually born of watching my mother. She took her GED as an adult, and went from having no education to enrolling in Queens College. And she had a really fierce mind, and for her, education was about dignity. But as a kid, who was around 13, 14, I'm like, wait a second. I saw an ad in a local Penny Saver newspaper, and it said, "Deliver flyers for congressmen," college students only, but you'd make eight bucks an hour. The time I was scraping gum at McDonald's, making $3.75, or working in a deli overnight, and I was like, "What is it about this mythical college student thing that makes you make twice as much income?" I was like, "I want to be a college student." And I had a thought, "Why don't I do what my mother did by accident, but do it on purpose? Why don't I drop out of high school?"

• 3:36Speaker 01

  And when I excitedly told my guidance counselor this plan, like, "I gotta figure it out, Mr. Barkin. I'm gonna drop out of high school, get my GED, and enroll in Queens College at 16."

• 3:45Tom Bilyeu?

  And he thought you were a moron, I assume?

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, a moron.

• 3:48Tom Bilyeu?

  Why weren't you, though? Because that, like, if somebody came to me and said, "Hey, Tom, I'm thinking about dropping out of high school, getting my GED," even knowing your story, I'd be like, "That's a bad move."

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:58Tom Bilyeu?

  So what's the principle that made that a good move for you? Is it the burn the boats idea?

• 4:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:02Tom Bilyeu?

  Or is it something else?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Is the way I stayed stayed the course. The principle is that conventional thinking is built for the average story, the regression to the mean, right? Whatever works for most people. Our education system works for most people. When you have maybe two parents or at least one functioning parent, right? But the world is set up for the average situation. And when you are in an outlier situation, right? You need to take matters into your own hands. That was number one. And the second principle is trust your instincts. Don't outsource your judgment. Mr. Barkin and everybody else thought it was absolutely crazy. And they were right to think it was crazy. But they didn't have the full context of my life because I was concealing everything. When I presented to Mr. Barkin and the other people at school,

• 4:46Speaker 01

  they saw a kid who was pretty well polished, wearing Jordache jeans back then. And but they didn't have the full context. So the the principle that I am the greatest undisputed expert they'll ever be about myself holds true to this day. And we tend to look for confirmation from experts, confirmation from books on Barnes and Noble or TED Talks, instead of first consulting yourself. And my instincts told me that that if your mother's dying in the room next door and you are thinking about crashing your car into a tree half the time, you know, as time went on, that this decision makes perfect sense. But no one will ever understand because they don't have the context.

• 5:25Tom Bilyeu?

  I think instincts are trained in most people. And if you train them poorly, you're in real trouble. If I had steered by my instincts, I think I would have really led myself astray a lot of times in my life. And so I I am curious why at 16, had you developed self-awareness? Were you processing through it the way that you just explained it? Or like, how do you think about that? Because I've seen more people go wrong on their instincts than I've seen go right.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  And I think we could debate, is there a difference between the word instinct and intuition? Intuition is probably more of a proxy for pattern recognition, I would think, at the end of the day. But whether we call it instincts or intuition. I do think there's a difference between what our instincts are telling us in a non-crisis situation and what our instincts tell us in a crisis situation. I think we are all hardwired to survive. And when survival is on the line, which at that time, survival really was on the line, not just myself and my mother, I think our instincts or intuition are a strong guide. Now, normally, agreed, if I, is instinct a word for impulse? Very different thing. If I relied on my impulses, which sometimes I do, they lead me astray.

• 6:31Tom Bilyeu?

  That's interesting. How do you tease those two apart?

• 6:33Speaker 01

  You know you're relying on instincts when you're in a crisis situation, but two, when there, when no other option makes any sense, like when you have that clarity. I had such clarity that, one, my intuition or instincts told me my mother was gonna die eventually. She was gonna succumb both to her depression, but her obesity, right? My instincts also told me that I was gonna spend the rest of my life resenting her if I didn't take matters into my own hands, that there was no institution that was gonna help us. And at the four years I had to spend at high school was too much time to waste, right? I have to ascribe those to instincts because it wasn't on the internet, it wasn't from counseling or experts, it was bubbling up, but it all bubbled up from the crisis situation of recognizing that it's either do, it's a do or die moment.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Harder to replicate that clarity when we're not in a crisis.

• 7:20Tom Bilyeu?

  As an entrepreneur, as an investor that vets entrepreneurs, talk to me about the moment where you realize, nobody's coming to save you. That's a principle for me, that if I were going to say, okay, there's a small handful of things that led to my success, one of them is I take responsibility for everything. It's all my fault. If I never point one finger at anybody without pointing all 10 at myself first, what, what, how, what do you look for in people? How do you get them to take responsibility? Why should they take responsibility? We're in a moment now where that's very unfashionable.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  It's such a great point. Oh, I'll take you back in time to a conversation I had, sitting at the table with my mother, right? Again, dealing with all these different health issues and our relationship dynamic was upside down. I was parentified as a young child, and anyone out there who's a caregiver knows what I'm talking about. And when you're a caregiver, you're both anointed the caregiver in a way you didn't, you didn't want, but you're also led to believe that you are a savior, right? That you were born to do that. That was, that was my situation that, yeah, that I was, I was. Groomed is the wrong word because it sounds negative, but that I was anointed as the caregiver and the savior. And that became a lot of my identity. But my poor mother at the time was always grappling with depression and her weight,

• 8:36Speaker 01

  and she wouldn't take matters into her own hands. She would, I never talked about this before.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  So she would, she would never get surgery for her knees. And I would say, if you don't get surgery, like you're gonna die. You can't, you know, you can't, you can't move. And I remember this conversation where I would say, what's a better way to approach this life? Because she would say, you don't know what it's like to be dying. I'm like, well, I don't know, I don't think you have to be dying. I think you can get your knees replaced and do something. And then I remember saying to her, I had this epiphany. I'm no longer going to view the world as things happen to me. I would rather see the world as I happen to things. But I also had enough awareness and defiance and oppositional behavior to say, this is unnatural and it's going to lead to bad things.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  If I don't speak up, right? It's going to take decades of therapy instead of just years to unravel this. So it was in the context of me trying to reframe her thinking of saying, what's better? Should I see myself as a victim? Or should I see myself as an agent in my own rescue? So the point of saying that, don't mean to get emotional, but it's all still very raw, is that, that is the actual truth of the universe, that we happen to things, that we get the last word until our last breath. It's like a man's search for meaning, right? That, and so when I say to you instincts, I agree. I normally roll my eyes when people say, trust your instincts without nuance. But like, where did that come from? That was instinctive.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  And it's only because the situation was so desperate that I instinctively realized the relationship is upside down. It's going to leave me with lots of scars. But two, you're viewing the world as if you have no agency and no power. And that does not ring true to me, deep down, you know, in my DNA.

• 10:29Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I think that's one of the most important principles for anybody watching this, hoping to understand how to move forward. If they disregard that moment, they're never going to make it. And this is the thing that drives me crazy. We were also talking about this before we started rolling. So long before I had a show, I had a thousand employees that grew up hard as hell in the inner cities. And I had this like moment of, oh my God, I can help you. This is crazy. Like I was meant for this moment. I'm like, I have cobbled together like you. So I took myself from scrounging in my couch cushions to find enough change to put gas in my car to selling a company for a billion dollars. Like even I like, I get the chills now when I think that's not a story that actually happened.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Do you even feel that way, brother? Sometimes I'm like, I think I'm making it up.

• 11:09Tom Bilyeu?

  I'm more, I've said it so. Yes.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:12Tom Bilyeu?

  Cause I've said it so many times that I'll forget. It's not a catchy phrase. I actually was like, fuck, I don't have enough money to go for a job interview. I don't have enough money to put gas in my car to go to this job interview. What am I gonna do? I was like, oh shit, like there might be change. Now admittedly, gas prices were a lot lower than they are now. So I could actually get enough gas money. But when I look back and I go, okay, wait, I've never felt special. I've never thought like, oh, I'm better than other people. In fact, my story is the exact opposite. I always felt like Soliary from Amadeus, the movie. So real, real guy. And he was a contemporary of Mozart. And he, in the movie, anyway, he laments to God, God, why did you make me just good enough

• 11:56Tom Bilyeu?

  to realize I'll never be as good as Mozart? And I heard that at 16 and was like, oh my God, that sums up my whole life. Why did you make me just smart enough to realize I'll never be as smart as my friends? Or I'll never be as smart as the next business guy, whatever. And so when I end up overcoming that and I realize, oh, it's just skill acquisition. I start just going crazy, gobbling up skills, spending an obscene amount of time pushing myself, reading, researching, all that. So anyway, I end up getting good. I'm in front of these employees and I'm like, oh my God, like these ideas that I've cobbled together, they will work for you. But what I didn't realize at the time is 98%, obviously that's a rough number, just they're never gonna point all 10 fingers at themselves. They're never gonna do the work.

• 12:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Like, they, they, they don't have what I call the only belief that matters. The only belief that matters is if you put time and energy into getting better at something, you will actually get better. And if that is true to your mom, to you, to me, to everybody, it's like, oh, I can address my knees and I can actually get moving and I could lose weight. My life could be different. Oh, I could go to college and end up teaching at Harvard, which is crazy if people don't know that part of your story. My question is, like, you have lived the thing that wounds me the deepest, which is that there are people that I love, an unimaginable amount, and they won't do anything with the ideas. And I'm watching them do a slower version of what you watched your mom do. How do you deal with that?

• 13:23Tom Bilyeu?

  Because that really messes with me.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's hard. I mean, this book is my attempt to make the case that it is possible, that like you just said, I'm not extraordinary. I was in extraordinary circumstances and was able to open a portal to another world about what happens when you go all in with, with complete surrender. But I have the same feelings you do. The ideas are there. Why don't you do it? You know, why, why, why won't you just implement it? I think I wrote a book to try to achieve it. You should write a book too.

• 13:54Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, we'll see. So Burn the Boats, giving yourself over to your plan A. There's a reason Quince sells cashmere for $60, and it isn't the cashmere. It's real 100% Mongolian cashmere. It's the same stuff luxury labels charge a fortune for. Quince just works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman. So there's no need for a markup and no logo tax. The $60 goes to the actual sweater, not the fancy name on the tag. That's why everything they make runs 50 to 80% less. And it's not just the cashmere. I ordered a few things myself. Their fleece joggers, a couple of their tees, which I wear obsessively. First thing I noticed was the quality. Soft, well-made, built to hold.

• 14:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Hold up. They make down jackets and wool outerwear now too. So upgrade your stuff to things you'll actually wear. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Impact Theory. It's the best way to support the show. Let's talk about something that genuinely keeps me awake at night. My team at Impact Theory gets hit with phishing scams from bad actors pretending to be me all the time. And they keep getting more sophisticated attacks with details specific enough to look legit.

• 15:23Tom Bilyeu?

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• 16:08Tom Bilyeu?

  Incogni is I N C O G N I dot com slash impact. Promo code IMPACT. It's completely risk free with a 30 day money back guarantee. Talk to me about that because it, so I often tell people I'm not a burn the boats guy. Now I've read your book, so I actually do completely subscribe to the way that you talk about it. But give us the nuanced, make the case, the nuanced case in a nutshell that you make in the books is pretty compelling.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Okay, good. All right. I love it. The burn the boats is a bit of a Trojan horse, right? So, you know, some people who get frustrated, they pick it up, they expect a certain thing and it's totally another. As you pointed out, it's not the bombastic. It's not called burn the boats with you in it, or it's not called burn the boats. To hell with everyone else. This book is written for the forty eight percent of people. If you went on a train platform, this is actually true from a study and said, do you have a plan A? Forty eight percent would say yes. The other, you know, forty percent are lying. Most people do, right? This book is written for the angst ridden, anxiety laden, risk adverse people who I believe need it more than anyone else, not the self possessed. So the nuance of burn the boats and we all, I don't have to revisit the ancient, you know, theory of we perform best when we have no escape, right?

• 17:18Speaker 01

  But the, the boat in my book is meant to be a child's boat floating in a bathtub that you set fire to because the metaphorical boats that many of us have to burn begin with childhood and legacy issues, right?

• 17:31Tom Bilyeu?

  I think it is worth telling people where that ancient.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Okay, all right, let's start. Okay, so this is actually fascinating. Cortez in fifteen nineteen, a lot of people know the Cortez story, very bad man. Burned the boats while taking on the Aztecs and was able to win that battle by literally eliminating the boats, the escape route and eliminating food provisions. I'm more fascinated by, as I started researching this book, that if you go back to the beginning of recorded history, every culture in every century has a fabled military general. And the way they were to overcome insurmountable odds was to literally eliminate their escape, boats in a lot of cases, bridges sometimes, and destroy their food provisions. There's a story in two oh seven B C, China, same exact thing. They even have a word for it in Chinese for burn the boats.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  And Alexander the Great, Caesar, ancient Israelites. So I was like, why is it that military leaders intuitively understand that we in peacetime in modern day don't accept that the idea, the way to be successful is to actually eliminate choice? So I started looking at the science and said, well, maybe this doesn't hold true in peacetime. Maybe this is an outdated concept. We're too evolved and we don't need to burn the boats anymore. We need to like mend the bridges or something or whatever it is. And as a study in twenty fourteen at a Wharton, which is fascinating, they tried to identify what is the insidious impact of not having a plan B, but actually contemplating a plan B. And what they found in this study, the methodology.

• 18:54Tom Bilyeu?

  You don't have one, but you're just gonna think about.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  So they give, so they, yeah, they give permission to the students and said. By the way, if you just want to think of another way to get a snack or whatever the hell it was, right? Like, you can think about it. And what they found were two interesting things. One, the group that was allowed to just contemplate a plan B was statistically much less likely to be successful. But more importantly, the second part is what I was most interested. They were less interested in plan A anymore. They had lost intrinsic motivation to achieve it. So, my book is an attempt to make the case with that data and going back in time, it is 1,000% true that the only way to achieve extraordinary things is if you don't have a plan B. But now we have to get into definitions, because this is where the objections come. But Matt, I have to pay the bills, or I can't afford

• 19:39Speaker 01

  risk, you're a rich white guy, you know, like, you don't understand what it's like. Plan A, and this is why I say I'm the most paranoid risk taker you ever meet, Plan A 1,000% contemplates your mitigation strategy for when it might not work out. The difference is, you contemplated it at the beginning of the journey. Whenever I do anything hard, I'm sure you do the same thing, I ask myself, what's the worst thing that could happen? Because I catastrophize, going back to my childhood trauma, I embrace it. What's the worst thing that could happen? What would I do if the worst thing could happen? Back to that crisis mentality that we're all wired with, I 100% have within me at this moment the ability to mitigate any big decision I try to make, without even a moment's thought. If I ask the question, get the other job, go back to working for Bill, whatever I gotta

• 20:24Speaker 01

  do, right? Three, what's the statistical, what's the likelihood that I could forecast that the catastrophizing that I've just thought about is likely to materialize? Usually the answer is infinitesimally small, at the end of the day. And then four, and I'll talk about this in the context of Harvard, what wouldn't I do to walk into that classroom as a kid from Queens who had dropped out of high school and teach? It like, takes my breath away when I think about what I wouldn't do to make this book successful and help people. And the answer is, I would come within an inch of my life, for most of my, literally. I got COVID, double pneumonia, when I did my IPO, 30 days with acemeters on both fingers, like, I would, I would almost die to achieve the things I really care about. Compare that against the low probability that the bad thing's gonna happen if Plan A doesn't work

• 21:09Speaker 01

  out. It's so small. So- Point of saying this is my book is nuanced. It's gonna disappoint anybody who wants life to be about, you know, to hell with everybody else. It talks about empathy, self-awareness. And but the most important point, my boat is a metaphor for the internal and external things that prevent us from from fully committing. You were talking about that it's a child's boat. Yeah. Why? I find the greatest arbitrage entirely within our control is self-awareness. Right? And when I'm assessing a leader that I believe under indexes on self-awareness, when I try to identify why, why are they afraid to look within? Why are they, why are one, are they blaming others? Or worse, why do they believe they don't have the power to make change? Or worse, why do they feel not accountable?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  There's something blocking their willingness to look at themselves. And I find more than not, this could be confirmation bias, that the answer is a legacy issue. I I'll tell you one fact, Parker, and I find a lot with founders. They're living someone else's life to seek the approval that they can never get. The father who always wanted them to be an entrepreneur, or this like this, this elusive approval that they're seeking that they can never get. Maybe they have a partner of the foxhole who is their frenemy, who's pulling them down to earth when they should be releasing them. Right there, there are all these issues. So it's either legacy issues or psychological issues I find are the reasons that hold people back from being self-aware. And the hardest ones are those childhood ones. Legacy stop you from being self-aware?

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Because like, let's look at mine. You were talking to my mother and within five minutes, I'm like having, I'm getting emotional, which I regret at this moment. If you're carrying something that well, let's just call that overall thing shame. Because that's where shame prevents you for wanting to be seen, disclosure. If you have shameful legacy issues or frustration with yourself, you don't want to face them. And so that makes you not want to be self-aware. You want all the answers to be external and not to be internal.

• 23:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Man, so I know you've said I've debated getting a tattoo for forty plus years of my life, but if I was going to get a tattoo, it would say face everything.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:15Tom Bilyeu?

  What do you mean by that? That's, you just mentioned people don't want to face themselves.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  I wrote my books, I'd read my book. It's the number, again, I asked Rick the hell out of my life. Like, everyone listening, I think I have a lot of insights, I don't always implement them, which we don't acknowledge at our level, I feel like enough. But, the number one answer to everything is face everything. And yeah, if I had a tattoo on my chest, so I would see it in the mirror to remind myself, but it is the number one self-talk that I give. The answer is to face everything. That most of the anxiety that we all carry is anticipation of what would happen if we faced something, whereas you can make that anxiety go away if you just faced it.

• 23:51Tom Bilyeu?

  That's interesting. So I have a idea, which I think is actually the same idea that I encapsulate as action cures all. And what I'm trying to get people to understand, all that anxiety, all that worry, it will go away if you start taking action. Now, hiding in that is, yeah, you have to face it so that you can take action, but the idea is to get busy solving the problem. And I don't know how much you know about Andrew Huberman and the, you can reprogram somebody's thinking by getting them to move their eyes laterally. And the reason he hypothesizes, and this makes a ton of sense to me-

• 24:25Speaker 01

  I'm doing it now.

• 24:26Tom Bilyeu?

  Is that, yeah-

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Feel better.

• 24:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Is that when you move forward, your eyes are constantly scanning to the sides to keep you moving on your path. So it is the thing that we do when we are moving forward. And so you're giving the brain the subtle signal that I'm moving towards this, I'm dealing with this. And so there's a sense of like lowering of the anxiety, which a hundred percent I experience. Every time I'm like really concerned about something, I'm like, if I just start building out a plan and going in attacking this, I'm going to change my neurochemistry guaranteed a hundred percent. And it's the one thing, to your point, that people don't end up doing. Like, they never turn and face it because it, there is, there's the most friction right before you break through and are like, oh, now I'm dealing with it and everything's going down. Because you don't want to look at it, you don't want to deal with it, ugh.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  But we're also not taught that principle, right? Like, I love the way you just framed it. It is right on the precipice is when it's most painful. And then you cross the threshold and then you feel the relief. And I think there's a sub-point why it brings such peace is because anything that you could do that could zoom you into the present is going to make you happier, full stop, right? So for some people, like, are you meditating? It might be a walk in a park, nature, play with my kids. And then anticipation of the thing that which we haven't faced takes you out of the present, brings you into the future where it's not a happy place to be. So I think it's both the peace of just relieving of the anxiety, but it's also one less thing that's taking you out of the present.

• 25:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Hmm, that's interesting. I don't think about it as being about the present, though. Meditation for me is really profound. Why do you think? So here's, when people talk about being in the present when you're meditating, here is how I've used that to work for me. And is this what you mean? So when I focus on my breathing, it just occupies my mind. And so it doesn't let my mind drift. Like, for me, even listening to the sound of rain will help, which I do a lot, will help ground me to just, there's a thing happening in my brain. So my brain isn't wandering as much. It's very interesting.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, same point. The only, the only difference here is that there's a negative, which is preventing the ability to hear the rain or listen to the breath, which is the preoccupation with that, which we haven't faced. So it's just, to me, it becomes an impediment to zooming you into the moment. But same exact point, you know? It's, I just think it's not just about facing the thing that you haven't faced. It's about the obstacle to bringing you back to the moment.

• 26:48Tom Bilyeu?

  So what is the value in being present? Is it so that you can deal with it? Or is it a neurochemical shift that just stops your mind from spiraling out of control?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  I just think present is the only truth. And so when you reconnect intellectually, neurochemically with the only truth, the only thing we're given and granted, there's a lot of peace. I mean, I have an app on my phone, since my kids think I'm crazy. But after I had cancer, Actually, let me tell you a little bit of backstory. I had testicular cancer when I was 32 years old. And what I found after going through the fear that I might die, I connected with this idea of zero time, that all I would sit in my car because I didn't know where to go. And I hadn't gotten the full diagnosis. They thought I was a later stage cancer. And I was like, okay, I don't, the New York Times real estate section doesn't resonate anymore because I'll be dead before I can buy the brownstone. Like, all my thoughts don't hold up to the prospect of imminent

• 27:41Speaker 01

  death. And yet, we walk around all day with that prospect. And once I knew that I wouldn't die, I had to go through, you know, surgery and lots of, and I still carry a lot of the consequences of being a survivor, but I wasn't going to die. I began to savor the experience, to be honest. I began to enjoy the fact that something brought me into this moment to such an extent. And I've tried to hold on to that my entire life.

• 28:07Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so I want to differentiate between being in the moment during meditation, which is like, literally, I'm here with my breath.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:14Tom Bilyeu?

  And being in the moment that I don't have years. And so now I'm thinking very differently. These feel like two very different ideas.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  They do, they do, but similar outcome. And they're sort of corollary, cousins, maybe, that the awareness, let's talk about face everything. We are afraid to face our own mortality. We don't know why we're here. We don't know where we're going. A lot of people are, at least. And I think our relationship with it is inverted, which I didn't realize until I thought I might die, that actually contemplating our mortality, a lot, relieved me of caring about the future anticipation, the things that were taking me away from the moment, from the presence. And I started going deeper into like, why is that? And then you read the happiest people on earth are in Bhutan. They contemplate their mortality five times a day. And so I have an app on my phone called We Croak, that in, throughout the course of the day, is reminding me in very

• 29:05Speaker 01

  lyrical, beautiful ways, you know, Descartes, Socrates, that Matt, you are in fact going to die. And what it does, it zooms me back in to the moment. So, slightly different, but similar, that I think that the happiest place that you could spend your time is here now with you.

• 29:19Tom Bilyeu?

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• 30:02Tom Bilyeu?

  My link gets you an exclusive 30 days free instead of the usual 14-day trial. There's no credit card payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com/impact to get started. Again, that's pipedrive.com/impact and you can be up and running in minutes. It's really interesting. I'm going to make a hypothesis. You tell me if you think this is true. So I tried for a long time, the thing that was most beneficial to me was to think about living forever. And that got me really motivated. There's a book called Einstein's Dreams and every, it's a bunch of short stories and all the short stories are about time. And one of them is a world where you live forever. And in that story, everybody bifurcates into one of two kinds of people.

• 30:46Tom Bilyeu?

  People that do nothing because there's always time to do it later. And people that do everything because now the statement that haunts my dreams is no longer true, which is that you can be anything you want, but not everything. And so I very much fall into that second camp of if I could live forever, I would do everything. I'm like, oh my God, these skills are going to stack and stack and stack and stack and stack. It's living forever is as close as you could get to a superpower just because you could get good at so many things. And so for a long time, that was my meditation. No, you might live forever. Go as fast as you can, acquire as many skills as you can. You could do it all. And it was really motivating. And then somewhere in my mid 40s, that started to feel like it wasn't the right way to think about it.

• 31:29Tom Bilyeu?

  And so then I started to think about, okay, as of today, you're not going to live forever. But it's interesting. I get why you're calling it putting me in the moment. But here's what I did. This is my hypothesis. The reason that dying is so cathartic for so many people, especially if you come out the other side and you don't actually die, that thinking you're about to die is so cathartic. Jim Carrey has a whole story about being in Hawaii when the missiles are coming, a nuclear missile strike on its way. This is not a drill, that whole thing. And he was like, well, I guess this is it. And he said he's been able to carry that idea with him forward. The reason I think that that is so effective for people is you no longer have to give a shit about what other people think.

• 32:09Tom Bilyeu?

  Now, every theory is autobiographical, so that clearly is the thing for me. But the idea of like, because I think we're all the shout and the echo. I don't think there is a way, like the shout is the things you do and the echo is what people tell you about the thing that you did. I don't think there's a way to get away from that. I doubt even monks are completely abstracted from that. I'm sure they care about what other monks think, whether they want to say they do or not.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  It would be off-brand though.

• 32:35Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, yeah, very true, but nonetheless, probably true. What do you think about that?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Wow, it's a lot to unpack. I, I think for me, why it brings relief and peace is exactly what you said about you stop caring what other people think, which is similar to also stop worrying about outcomes and to the extent to which they judge.

• 32:55Tom Bilyeu?

  I wondered if that's what you meant about legacy.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think, I think back to death for half a second. Like when you, when you, well, number one, it's technically true. We're facing the prospect of imminent death, right? We don't know when, so it's actually true, right? No conjecture about that. Could be when I walk out this door, right? And the second thing is, I know that if I were to take, go back into that moment with a reasonable degree of certainty, I'll probably regret all the things I cared about. That just did not matter. And so reminding myself tries to make me not, not, tries to make me ameliorate that future regret, right? Or to mitigate that future regret in the very, in the moment. So it's, you know, very convoluted, but that's why I think it brings me at least peace.

• 33:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Have you been able to hang on to that? Cause that was.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  No, unfortunately, because here's why. When I went through cancer and I had these wonderful epiphanies, that's completely impractical to implement, but theoretically true. I was like, wait a second, though. I, like you, I'm motivated by the pursuit of excellence. And if I eliminate, if I'm no longer vested in the system, because it turns out I may die in 15 minutes, what's going to motivate me to do what you were, I'm going to accumulate skills, I'm going to learn everything. Like, if theoretically, it could be over very soon, you know, it's very nihilistic view, right? Like, how will I be great? And then, but then I did realize there is another motivational system, which is the attempt to figure out, what is my, what anomaly is what are my purpose here on Earth? But what is the total capacity I was granted? Let me touch the ceiling of

• 34:22Speaker 01

  my capacity of my potential. And that motivates me just as much as this vesting in the system, right? I gotta get a better job, prestige, money. I can achieve the same degree of success by wanting to touch the ceiling of my potential or my capacity.

• 34:36Tom Bilyeu?

  At that moment? So I don't understand. So if time is now super finite?

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 34:41Tom Bilyeu?

  And let's say you're like, oh.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Well, then what do I care? What does it matter? Well, it's my, it's my answer to my mind saying, well, if mortality is, is, or death is imminent, or could be, then what makes me vested in showing up today, or caring, or giving a great presentation? But I think, for me at least, I'm just as motivated.

• 34:57Tom Bilyeu?

  You want to perform like an athlete on the field? I want to see how well I can perform right now today.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  That I think that brings me close to God. Like, oh, what, I mean, if we're all made in his or her image, whatever that may be, and I'm particularly religious, but I'm spiritual, that knowing what I'm capable of feels like I'm, I'm closer to the origin, or wherever, whoever put me on this earth, right? So it's, that to me is just as motivating. Let me see what I can, let me see if I could write this book. Let me see if I could touch people, if I can move people. Let me see what happens.

• 35:26Tom Bilyeu?

  What do you think now that you have kids? Is it a different game for you?

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:31Tom Bilyeu?

  I assume you did not have kids at that point?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  I just had had a kid. It was, he was.

• 35:34Tom Bilyeu?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was three months old.

• 35:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Oh.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is, that did require, that, that, that made a quick reframing instantly. It's all I desperately want to do is be there for the handoff, whatever the handoff is.

• 35:47Tom Bilyeu?

  Did you like end up writing letters or anything to?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  I, I, I didn't, because fortunately, it was a relatively short period of time when I thought like I could die to like, statistically, I'm a big statistics person. I was like, eh, this cohort, probably a waste of ink. I also didn't want to put me in the group that writes a letter to their kid because then I thought maybe then I'll be in that death court.

• 36:06Tom Bilyeu?

  It's your plan B.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's my plan B. But, but.

• 36:10Tom Bilyeu?

  But with an A-Live, Plan B document.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it did do one thing, which I would encourage everyone to do. It did clarify me saying, what do I want my epitaph to read and work backwards?

• 36:20Tom Bilyeu?

  And now what did you want it to read?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was the, that was.

• 36:23Tom Bilyeu?

  No, no, I want to know.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Herein lies a great dad who did the best he could. I really, and again, you don't get a lot of words in an epitaph, so it's kind of effective. I wish I could have subtitles, and he also changed the world. But like, it really, I think, and I think everyone feels that way. But for me, it was partly to break the pattern. I wanted to break the pattern. Like, like, I felt like if I could just, it wasn't just a good me. It was, it was a pleading with God or the universe, like, let me get this right, please. So that I don't, you know, carry on. Because all the patterns that we're subjected to, we're either repeating them or we're, or we're doing the opposite of them, creating their own new bad patterns. So it was sort of a bargaining with the universe, like, please, like, let me get this right. But when it's all said and done. And that was only because I had, I obviously had kids.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  If you don't have kids, you're not, you don't understand how powerful that is.

• 37:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I can only imagine. But even, even though I don't have kids, I get like that sense of what that would be like to want to leave something for them, to want to do well for somebody else. In fact, that is the thing I understand so well that I get how that would be dialed to a thousand.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  So you have that with your wife, right? Your amazing relationship with your wife. I love reading about what you talk about with your relationship with your wife. And, and you're, not a lot of people talk about the importance of partnership and as a force multiplier. And this book doesn't exist without my wife. My show doesn't exist without my wife.

• 37:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Which you make very clear in the book, by the way, which is definitely one of the things that I want to talk to you about. But the, the idea of wanting to do well for somebody else, I'm wired for that. Whether I should be or not is a different story. But again, going back to the idea of every theory is autobiographical, I always tell people, you, whatever you're going to pursue, if you want to get through it, you're going to have to. Find a way to connect it to serving other people. Like if you don't, and I think it's as close to universal as you're gonna get. But saying that I'm doing this thing for me can be very motivating. But saying that I'm doing this thing for somebody else like is, for me anyway, is just unbelievably powerful.

• 38:26Tom Bilyeu?

  It's interesting. I'd never thought about, why do I feel so like, I get it so much when parents are like, yo, for my kid, I would do anything. That's why.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Do you think, were you always that way? Were you that way in your twenties?

• 38:37Tom Bilyeu?

  I've been that way since I was a little kid. One of my earliest memories is throwing a Easter egg hunt. So my sister, who's four years older than me, could win. And I was five or six. And I was like, I know how much this is mean to her. And so I'm gonna not, I'm gonna pretend I don't see that egg and make sure that she finds it. So yeah, I have been, I'm wired for that. I think we're 50% hardwired and 50% malleable.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, I actually don't think that everyone is wired that way.

• 39:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Definitely not.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  I think there's a certain percentage that are sociopaths. There's a cousin named narcissist, you know what I mean? Like, and that's been a hard thing is to retain my empathy, uh, which I think is my gift.

• 39:15Tom Bilyeu?

  It's been hard to retain?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  No, not hard. Wrong word. It's not hard. I'm defensive, I'm protective of it. It's to operate in a world where you allow your empathy to flow freely, but also protect yourself and be committed to self-defense. But at the same time, I like, I never hold grudges, for example, because I don't want to let somebody be able to take away my empathy. But I am capable of making sure I beat you to a draw and then I'll let the empathy flow again.

• 39:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Really interesting. So we're gonna have to give people a little bit more of your backstory. So you are an extraordinarily accomplished investor and entrepreneur. Been on Shark Tank as a shark.

• 39:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Invested in a lot of amazing things, uh, including VaynerMedia. For people that know Gary Vee, you were his first client, essentially. Own a piece of the company. Um, so some really big wins.

• 40:03Tom Bilyeu?

  That is normally associated with somebody who's a little sinister. They're not afraid to step on people. How have you been able to be successful? Be a shark, I mean, it's literally called shark. To be a shark and maintain that sense of not only integrity, but empathy.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, great question. The answer is I'd probably be more successful if I had less of it. Maybe that's the honest answer, right? Like, I am not a sociopath and I do care. I think you, if you marry empathy with intellect and pattern recognition, I think you can go pretty damn far in life. And the empathy unlocks a ton of value. I always say, when I look back at this crazy story of me post-cancer, I don't think I told you this story, when I had cancer and I was 32 years old, my number one concern was not not not dying, not right away at least, was not having one testicle, was not even whether I would be infertile. It was it was whether I would be picked apart by the villains who are waiting for me to be finally show my weakness.

• 41:06Tom Bilyeu?

  I get it.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  I mean, I was nuts looking back, so nuts that after I was diagnosed, you go real fast. They want that tumor out of your body because they think it's spread to your lymph nodes and whatnot. I had it within 24 hours of surgery. It's like, well, can I can I say goodbye?

• 41:21Tom Bilyeu?

  From diagnosis?

• 41:22Speaker 01

  From diagnosis to removing my right testicle. That's not a long time to say goodbye, like a pretty important. It's not a particularly attractive body part, but I was still like, can I sit with this decision for half a minute? And then 48 hours later, within 48 hours, I was like, how do I show everybody that I'm not defeated? And there was a dinner for all the coaches at the Jazz. Eric Mangini was at the time.

• 41:42Tom Bilyeu?

  You and I have a very different reaction to this story. Very eager for you to tell people.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Okay, all right. So I'm curious to hear your reaction. So I I I show up at this dinner and everyone's having wine. And I sit at the table, I have an ice bag in between my groin, right? Like clear that I have just been operating on. And I'm like showing them how tough I am and I had a little toast to everybody. Let me tell you what my new motto is that I'm soon to put on dog tags and it says, half the balls, twice the man. The 32 year old version of me thinks that that's cool and tough. But before I say my interpretation of that story, I want to hear your interpretation of my story.

• 42:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Well, so I know your punchline.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Okay. But act like you don't and feel free to judge. I don't mind.

• 42:23Tom Bilyeu?

  No, no, no, no judgment. It's, uh, it may say something more about me than it says about you. So, uh, I'll give people your idea because I think it's better that they hear that first. So you realize, hey, this is cringey. And when I show up moments after surgery, it sends a message to everybody else. I don't give a fuck what you're going through. You better show up and you better do your thing. And I get that. And I try to be very protective that my team feels like, hey, if you need time, take that time. We're here to protect you. We use that language here. It's sacred. You're, we just had somebody, their mom fell, broke their hip in the hospital. They had to fly back to their home country, deal with it. I was like, we got you.

• 43:06Tom Bilyeu?

  Like, do not worry about a thing. We are on it. We will take care of you. Could be any one of our moms the next time and I want you to protect me. But I love that hardcore shit so much. Like, I love that you showed up. Now, if you expected other people to do that, I would be grossed out. But the fact that you want to do it for yourself, the fact that you were like, I'm not going to let this beat me. All of that resonates with me still and I'm, I can't, you know, claim you.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  No, but I like, but I, I, so I think let's meet in the middle because I don't disagree with you. Let's talk about behavior that's changed and behavior that's not changed. So for those listening, my 30 year old version of me thought that that was like, you know, so tough. Right. But the, with a little bit more perspective, and this only occurred to me when I went to my own divorce. Right. I realized not only was I expecting me to show up with one testicle and I was back the next day. I was not understanding why everyone wouldn't want to show up. Right. Like surrender to the mission. The, the, um, when I went through my own trauma, that was much more significant than, than cancer. Um, I realized I have been ignoring or overlooking, or, you know, basically deciding that it's not that big a deal.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Everyone's trauma and expecting generally the same that I, that, the behavior that I was modeling. And that's not reasonable, it's not fair, and it's not good leadership. However, what I haven't changed is I still put myself through tremendous duress to which you grade things. When I teach, uh, when I taught at Harvard Business School, you know, three weeks ago, I was going through something really tough on the home front, right? And I had a choice to make. Do I succumb to that? Do I not teach this class that I've worked on for almost a year? And do I, but I have to show up for the family situation? Do I not do that? And then I was like, oh, there's a third choice. I will stay up for four days straight.

• 44:58Tom Bilyeu?

  God.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Like literally, I mean, I try to sit an hour here, hour there. I will put myself to the brink. And that's my choice. And I, so I don't deny myself the right to make that choice when I'm trying to do really hard extraordinary things. But I make sure that I, that I do the best I can not to model that behavior, not to. So the way you just said about one of your employees that was going through, uh, loss of a family member, right? Like, and you, you went out of your way to say it's okay. Like, I try to do that to the best of my ability and I wouldn't have done that at thirty-two. That's the difference.

• 45:25Tom Bilyeu?

  It's very interesting. So I-

• 45:26Speaker 01

  The only difference I would say too is the last point. I think anybody objectively watching me go ahead and show up at that dinner two days later, would understand that that behavior is born out of dysfunction, that has unregulated behavior. It's such an outlier. I don't think that there's anything proud about, you know.

• 45:40Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't know what to do with that.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  I'm sorry. I don't mean to challenge your whole idea.

• 45:44Tom Bilyeu?

  I love it.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Cause I'm, I, I, I work non-stop on this book. Like, it's not that I'm not crazy about my work effort. It's just some things just don't really make sense.

• 45:53Tom Bilyeu?

  No, I love it and I, I love encountering people that don't think the way that I think. So I will keep exploring the edges of this. So, um, I think it's very important to make other people feel like the choice that they need to make is a hundred percent like make it. So my wife taught me this, uh, in that she just, her body cannot handle the amount of stress that my body can. And so for her, she'll start getting sick. If she tried to match me hour for hour, she'd get sick. And

• 46:20Speaker 01

  My wife, Silver, one time she started crying. She's like, I can't get up at four.

• 46:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  I'd be like, come on, babe. Like, let's go. Let's do math. She'd be like, please.

• 46:30Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  I can't do it.

• 46:31Tom Bilyeu?

  And so at that moment, you're a dick. If you're like, come on, like,

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Come on already, everyone, you know, right?

• 46:36Tom Bilyeu?

  Not fun, not cool, no respect for that whatsoever. But at the same time, I want to see if he's here. He is here. So that guy right there came to me one day and he said, I want to be the CEO of Impact Theory one day. And I was like, don't say that if you don't mean it. And he's like, no, for real. And I was like, okay. So let me tell you, I'll treat you the way I treat myself. And I'm not going to hold anybody else to that standard because they did not come to me and say that they want to be the CEO one day. And I love it. I love talking to him more than anybody else because I can just be like, yo, motherfucker, what are you doing? Like, you need to get going. And he, he has a phrase that he took from Goggins, who we were talking about before this. And Goggins says, carry the boats, right?

• 47:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Now, I've said many, I love Goggins. I'm inspired by Goggins. I don't want to be Goggins, but I want to have that gear. And so being able to talk to him and push him in that way and see him like, yeah, yeah. I do love it, but I am very aware that the, it was Alex Hermosy. I don't know where he got it, so I always credit him.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 47:40Tom Bilyeu?

  But he said, there are three qualities that make somebody successful.

• 47:45Tom Bilyeu?

  An undying belief that you can do something great.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 47:49Tom Bilyeu?

  A terrifying fear that you're not worthy.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Agreed.

• 47:52Tom Bilyeu?

  And the ability to delay gratification.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  I totally agree.

• 47:55Tom Bilyeu?

  And I was like, oh, my God.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  I always say, I was like, I say, I, what do you say? Because I always say, like, when I was going through something really bad on the personal front and I was overweight, whatever, I trained for a marathon in my basement and I would only train on a treadmill in the dark. And I would stare at a red light on the, on the wall for months. That's how I trained.

• 48:13Tom Bilyeu?

  Because you didn't want people to see you.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  No, because I was trying to, to get a different muscle, which is the ability to persevere through something with repetitive motion. But I'm always manifesting through power through something. You can't power through a marathon. You'll burn out. So it was like practicing, you know, that level of deferred gratification and, and that, that, that patience muscle that maybe doesn't come totally naturally. But I like all three of those. I agree.

• 48:34Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I mean, I hate the second one, but when I think about the reality.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Is that still true for you, the second one?

• 48:39Tom Bilyeu?

  A hundred percent.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Doesn't it annoy you?

• 48:41Tom Bilyeu?

  It does, and you're the first person I've heard talk about it in the book where you said, I don't know about you guys, but I make progress and I regress.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:48Tom Bilyeu?

  And so I talk about this in ITU a lot, which is, hey, everybody, I've never been able to get rid of the negative voice. So I've learned not to death loop on it. So I can't stop the first thought. It's gonna arise whether I want it to or not, but I can stop myself from indulging in that, like, you're never gonna do what you want and all that.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  I talk about that in the, in the book too, and I bet you can relate to this. I think a lot of the packaging on Instagram, this, first of all, there's a, there's a, we're overweighting now anybody who's gone through like crisis and reemerged like a phoenix. And, but it actually reinforces a myth because if you are telegraphing to the world, I have figured it out. And I went through a bad thing like you did. Now I've figured it out. But you don't share the regression. Most people can't relate to that. So they're appreciative of the answers to the test.

• 49:36Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you care about people being able to relate to it?

• 49:38Speaker 01

  I do. I a hundred percent.

• 49:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Really? I just care what's true.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  No, I, I, I care. I don't want to be robbed of my origin story. I don't want to manifest in the world as a guy on Shark Tank.

• 49:48Tom Bilyeu?

  But what if it was all of that, your whole origin story, all, but people can relate? And they could only relate to natural talent. And they're like, oh, I don't, I don't even understand this guy, like, not being born with it.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  It was like, it was like a death sentence. And it's like, it feels, you know why? It's useless. That would mean that.

• 50:03Tom Bilyeu?

  If they can't relate.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Yes. That would mean my whole thing, I think, is objectively useless if people can't find a point of intersection and join me.

• 50:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, help me break through then. So here, I, I struggle with something.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  It's useful to me. It's just, I just think it's useless in terms of a higher order to things, right? Like, I can't do anything more with my story than, other than self-enrichment.

• 50:22Tom Bilyeu?

  It's interesting. So you have a base assumption that if people can't relate to you, they're never gonna take your advice?

• 50:29Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I do think authority matters. I think like of these nice brands that I've collected Shark Tank, right? I'm at HBS. Like, they matter because they give me presumed authority. But to me, that's the usefulness of those things writ large, right? But I do think that people are looking for reasons to say, yeah, but yeah, I can't. And so I won't ever really break through, break through if they can't find a place to intersect. And it doesn't have to be factual intersection. It has to be emotional and spiritual. Like, maybe you can't relate to the idea that a guy drops out of high school at 16, self possessed enough to know to do that, ends up in these terrible situations. But you can relate to somebody who had to overcome imposter syndrome, or you know what I mean? Or life brings them to... Those things anyone can relate to. And

• 51:14Speaker 01

  what I'm most proud with the book at the moment is the extent to which every socioeconomic demographic has reached out to me. That's hard to do when you're at where I'm at. So I think I got that right. But yeah, I would, I would, I just keep thinking in terms of utility of my life beyond myself. And if people can't connect and intersect, then it just doesn't have as much utility. And I don't want to manufacture it. But the stuff I put in the book, as you could say, it's not manufactured. It's painful. And, and people are now joining me on the journey.

• 51:44Tom Bilyeu?

  It's interesting. I may just be blind to the fact that I respond more to being able to relate to people than I think. The reason I like your book isn't because I can relate to it, though I can. The reason that I respond to your book is my bullshit meter pegs so fast with people. The reason... So I used to only interview people like you, which I'll call in the empowering camp. It's tactics, principles to live by, it's going to make your life better. Which I can vouch for 100% of your book, you, everything. Like, it's all that. And people should dive in if that's what they care about. But I stopped interviewing just that, because so many people are full of shit. And so the reason that I like your book, I think, isn't because I found it relatable. It's because the advice

• 52:28Tom Bilyeu?

  is actually real. And if people take your advice, whether they can relate to you or not, it will make their life better. This is interesting. I'm discovering something about myself. I'm going to keep going for a second. So I have an allergic reaction to the moment that we're living in right now, where people are like... Yeah, like it's okay, blame the world, like this has happened to me. And that makes me so angry because it won't fucking help you.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  That's like a lie.

• 52:56Tom Bilyeu?

  It won't help, even if it were true. So I was giving a talk at Google of all places. And an African American in the front row said, Tom, do you think things are going to be harder for me? Because I'm black. And I was like, yes, almost certainly. But now what? And so you can be angry, you can blame people. Or, and I think there's only two options, you can go try to change the system, Martin Luther King. Or you can get so fucking good that no one can stop you, Kobe Bryant. And it's like, those are your choices. And I have an allergic reaction to people that aren't interested in doing one of those two things.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Totally agree. My reaction is both allergic and a little bit empathetic. And the reason why, having been in politics before, my early like Republicans and Democrats are like cousins. You know, like one, one genetic strand difference between the two. I think I have a cynical view of it all. But I think actually those people who have chosen to adopt the victim narrative, through every spectrum of type of individual background, they're being sold something that won't help them. And I feel like you're actually being manipulated with that narrative. Because it's, it's, it's an attempt to, to change the subject, to make you look away. And to make you not try, to be honest with you, like generally. But at the same time, I do think I tried hard in my book,

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Back to Connecting with Different Individuals, on a first pass of somebody reading it. A woman had read it and she's from an immigrant family. And she said, I love your book and I, and I, and I love so much about it. The only thing I kept finding when I was reading is like, but I don't quite see me in it. And I was like, really, why? And then she's like, because at the end of the day, you were a white male in this society. And of course, I first react like, but wait, I was dropped at high school, I was poor, I went through all this stuff. And then as I sat with it, I thought, you know what? If I was from a different demographic, a minority group, right? The act of dropping out and getting a GD might to a racist seem confirmatory. And the act of me, you know, growing up with a degree of privilege is aberrational.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Right? And that somebody would look harder at my story to find the why. And then I became obsessed with, I need to show who was ever reading this book from whatever demographic that I see you and I acknowledge you. You know, without whether or not this victim doesn't come into it, right? It's just that I see you and I hear you. And I tell the story in the book, which I love. At the end of one of my classes at Harvard, I was talking to two black women. And they were talking about one of the speakers I had who used a lot of profanity in the class. And they said, it was amazing conversation. And she goes, and it was Tracy, she goes, you know, I could never say that in this class. I was like, why? And she goes, because if I did, everybody would instantly judge me and conclude that I'm only here for whatever reason.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  But more importantly, I'm ruining it for everyone that comes after me. Every black woman who walks into this classroom now because will be judged by my behavior. And I was like, that's unbelievable. And I chose to put that in the story because I thought that is undeniable proof that I had an advantage. Even eating government cheese, being a poor kid, I had undeniable advantage because I don't represent anybody but Matt Higgins. And if you come from a minority group, you carry the weight and the burden of everybody who comes, you know, after you. But now what? Fair. I don't get into the now what because I think my book is. Your whole book is now what? Exactly. I love talking to you, by the way. My book is, no, seriously, you're so, the reason why people will take you is not because you sold a billion dollar company. It's not, that's not anything. It's because you drip empathy and humanity.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Like, it's like, I don't know if it's a god complex or what, but like, honestly, I. I really hope not. No, but it is not in a positive way because I feel like somebody put you on this earth. But like, it exudes you. It's why I got emotional talking about my mother. Like, you create this safe space and you're only delivering the facts. The now what I think is the book is the burn the boats. But if people can't see themselves or can't join me, I'm saying this to you to say, everybody can join you because of your empathy. That radiates through all your content. Like, you really give a shit. That is very true. The, so I react very strongly.

• 57:11Tom Bilyeu?

  There's two, my wife will, she'll, she will vouch for this. There are two reactions when someone hurts themselves. "Oh my God, are you okay?" And, "Hey, be careful, what the fuck are you doing?" I am very much that, "Hey, be careful, what the fuck are you doing?" So, when I see someone I love hurt themselves, I'm just like, "Yo, there is a solution, stop smashing yourself in the hand with a hammer." And I, I, I, it upsets me so much to watch people struggle. Like, I hate that so much, I wanna see everyone win. And I have wasted so much of my life trying to help people, help people. And I say wasted, because some people just aren't going to do it.

• 57:52Tom Bilyeu?

  But what I, what I really want people to hear, it doesn't, if, if you meet minimum requirements intellectually, which unfortunately exist, but if you're listening to this show and you've made it this far, I guarantee you meet minimum requirements intellectually. But once you meet that, the world is stacked against some people way more than others.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:17Tom Bilyeu?

  A hundred percent. I'm just begging you, take Kobe Bryant's advice. Booze, don't block dunks. No matter how much people may have hated Kobe, no matter how, the best scouts in the world were paid millions of dollars to go around the world and find people that could stop him from scoring baskets. They trained athletes, five of them, to be on a court at a time with their sole mission of stopping him from scoring points. And, and fans in the crowds booing like crazy, going nuts, despite all of that, that man scored 81 points in a single game. There are games that only score 80 some points. And so, that, that is so inspiring to me, that, oh, wait,

• 59:00Tom Bilyeu?

  there are a set of skills that I could acquire that would let me get so good at something, people can't stop me from winning. They, they can't stop me. No matter how much they want to, they actually can't. And that, to me, is so inspiring. Like, that's all I want people to get. And dude, it's hard, and it really sucks that it's gonna be harder for some people than others, a hundred percent. And trust me, when I look at Elon Musk, I am angry that I'm not that smart. And so, he's just always and forever.

• 59:35Tom Bilyeu?

  It feels like he's always going to be able to out execute me just because he can process data faster than I can. It's really, he's a superhero living among us. You can hate him.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I'm with you.

• 59:45Tom Bilyeu?

  But he is.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  We're living with Thomas Edison.

• 59:47Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  I hate the way he uses his platform.

• 59:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Fair.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  I hate it. Like every day I hate it more, but you know, I don't take away the fact.

• 59:54Tom Bilyeu?

  It's hard to deny what is built though.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  No. Wait, back to you for half a second. What you were saying a second ago, when you respond to like the putting your hand in fire or whatever and you know.

• 1:00:03Tom Bilyeu?

  Stop smashing yourself in the head.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that one. Yeah. Stop. What the fuck are you doing? Even as you said it though, it didn't seem judgmental. It's still, it seemed like an anxiety response.

• 1:00:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  So I don't, I still think it's coming from the same place.

• 1:00:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  It's more just like, ah.

• 1:00:16Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, but it manifests as I, dude, look, I'm just so desperate for people to win. I want people to win. This is the thing where I could spin myself off emotionally. You have no idea. So first of all, in that way, I've earned my stripes. So at Quest, it was basically all minorities and I don't give a shit. Like, I don't care. I didn't care that they had criminal records, that they were drug dealers, former or current. I just wanted people to understand there is a set of ideas. You can totally change your life forever. But you have to put it to use.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  I think people don't fundamentally believe it's possible is the, I think they just, I think they just don't believe it's possible. And I think it's not going to happen with a bunch of empty Instagram, you know, platitudes about like, just do it. I think it takes more nuance than that. And we're not a world built on nuance. They just don't believe it's possible. They think the deck is stacked. I think we're sold a lot of bill of goods to believe that, you know, it can't happen or conspiracy theories and whatnot. They, we've just, we've lost our way from the celebration of the individual, you know?

• 1:01:22Tom Bilyeu?

  You just gave me the chills. Say that again.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  We've lost our way from the celebration of the individual. Like, we, it's like lost in society for some reason. And we experience the world first individually and we need to experience it together. But obviously the individual is at the center of the journey. And yet we want to, we want to dilute the individual experience and we want to remove the individual from causation. We want to like. It's like this vast conspiracy to take the individual out of the equation. And you look at somebody like Emerson's incredible writing. Favorite piece of writing I ever, if I had one piece of writing on an island, it would be Self-Reliance. That one essay I would read over and over and over again.

• 1:01:57Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't know it, I've never.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Oh, I'm so excited to share this with you.

• 1:02:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Please.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Oh, great, yeah, Self-Reliance. It's just really, all is incredible. One of the, one of the most central premises of it is one, don't outsource your judgment. It starts with a phrase in Latin, which is, "Do not seek outside thyself." And it talks about the indignity of having an incredible idea, like an epiphany, but you refused to accept it because it was your own. And then later on, you're forced to accept it from another. And the indignity of being force-fed your own insights from others. Yeah, it's an incredible piece. But the individual has lost its place in society. And it's almost become like a Republican thought or an Randian thought. Whereas to me, it's just facts. But when you say things in a bombastic like, "Just do it," it's very hard for people to implement. It's too simplistic.

• 1:02:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I agree with the too simplistic thing.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so getting out of the simplicity and into the nuance. I wrote down a bunch of the things that I took away from your book.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  I'm emotionally drained now, though. I don't know if I can do any of that.

• 1:02:56Tom Bilyeu?

  We've got so much more to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're just warming up. One of the things that I like is, so you're telling people to burn the boats, don't have the plan B because, and there's just a psychological principle at play that if you have it, you're not going to fight as hard. Then on top of that, you tell people to aim high. So this is, one of the things that allowed me to be successful was I had the audacity, going back to those three things. I had the audacity to believe that I could, that there was nothing that I couldn't accomplish. Now, actually, as I get older, I think that there are. I have really tasted my limitations. Now ironically, even though I have, I've developed enough scar tissue

• 1:03:37Tom Bilyeu?

  that I'm like, ooh, there, there are probab-, there is a ceiling to my abilities, but I don't know that I'll ever reach it. And so it's this fascinating, like, oh, I can see now that there are limits. There are things I won't be able to accomplish. But since things like...

• 1:03:54Tom Bilyeu?

  The aiming high for anybody, let's say, is a ratioed distance from where you are now. So my aim high may not be Elon Musk's aim high. I mean, he's literally talking about terraforming a planet. I admittedly don't have that belief in myself, and so I'm not even pursuing that. But I am trying to build the next Disney, which for me is like, whoa, like this is dizzying. And the irony is when we started, I said to my wife and co-founder, "I'm not good enough yet to build the next Disney." And so there's somewhat of a leap of faith in a shared belief that you and I have that you have to aim high. Like, go for something crazy, go for something that actually exceeds your current grasp.

• 1:04:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Burn the boats in your way, and now figure it out.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  There is this gravitational pull towards incrementalism, right? That we believe that life and experience unfolds like sedimentary rock. But you only perceive sedimentary rock in retrospect when you look back millions of years, and it looks nice and organized. So what I mean by that is like, you first need to have the lemonade stand, and then you get to have a bigger lemonade stand, then you get to have a business. And I think people look at their progression of their experience and success completely the wrong way. But the first thing we always have to consider is a step change. A step change meaning something that's completely detached from the experience that came before it by and large. And you envision opening the $100 million lemonade stand before you open, or eliminate business before you open a lemonade stand.

• 1:05:25Speaker 01

  And the reason why is, once you, and you've experienced this, once you have a company when you have a thousand employees and you think back to when you had, you know, 20, the problems are generally the same, because most problems are people problems. And once you begin managing people, you have people problems, right? And so I find that if you bypass the step of saying, "Well, what if I went for a step change? What if I went all at it, that reach goal?" You'll never be able to ask that question again. You can only ask it at the beginning. And most people believe that they have to have this approach towards incrementalism, and they deny themselves the benefit of reaching really far. So I'm always trying to put myself in positions that are tremendous reach. I'm always questioning why not. I never taught anywhere before Harvard Business School. It would have been more logical to go Queens College, I certainly could have.

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Maybe Fordham Law, right? But I was like, why can't I try to teach it the best? I think I have it in me. Now, back to my instincts, trusting your intuition. There was nobody who could have confirmed for Matt that he was capable of walking into that classroom. Right, that to tell me, there's no data. So I feel really passionate that anybody out there is listening. If you have a dream, do not submit to incrementalism before you've tested the idea of a step change.

• 1:06:34Tom Bilyeu?

  But how do you pull that off? Like, so I know what it takes to run a business. There are times where I'm teaching people business and I'm like, Jesus. Like, to get across the complexity of these ideas, it is so hard. It's so complex. Like, even the throwaway comment, I want to burst out laughing because I know what's hiding in. Oh, you have people problems? It's like, wah! Like, that is, that's tones this of how to deal with said people problems and all the variations that they come in. So how the hell have you figured this kind of like? Going back to this idea of principles.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:11Tom Bilyeu?

  How do you start like, okay, I'm gonna sort of bucket these like?

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:07:15Tom Bilyeu?

  Is it vision first? Like, you have to be able to see it before you can execute it? Is it convincing other people? Is it understanding? Are you a visionary or an operator? Like, how do you begin to help people?

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  I think the first thing is, one, just as a general principle, never let anybody put you in a box and make sure you're not putting in your own box. So you have to sort of, you know, unchain yourself from what conventional wisdom is that says, this is what I am. This is what.

• 1:07:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Because you'll end up limiting yourself?

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  Yes, because like for me, I never taught before. So if I'm listening to the peanut gallery, they'd be like, where do you get off? You're not, you don't teach. And I always have to deal with that response to my audacity all the time. Like, what are you, now you got a book? What do you know? You know, some lifestyle guru? That's the question. I'm like, no asshole. I have something to say. But whatever, you go write a book. It only takes three years.

• 1:07:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Live a life worth writing a book about.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 1:08:01Tom Bilyeu?

  That's the real challenge.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  So, so this isn't a screed against expertise. Expertise does matter. It's a warning that you should be your own litmus test, at least start there, of whether you have what it takes. So my process is, whatever audacious thing I'm looking to do, including like Shark Tank, right? Start there. How do you get on Shark Tank? Everyone asked me, I was like, there is no, you know, go on the internet and put your name in. Like, it was a year's worth of meetings. But I had to start, like, because there is no litmus test, by saying, what does it fundamentally to be, mean to be on Shark Tank? Well, one, you have to have a history of being an investor. Well, I did that. Two, you have to be presumed to have some platform, some reach of that and

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  perform well under a camera so that they want to put you in front of one. Think I have that. Four, have a good compelling origin story, right? Well, I think I have that, right? So now it's the how. The how is a lot easier, actually. Everything has a how. I just have to look for the how. When it came to Shark Tank, it was a guy named Reed Bergman. He had helped A-Rod get on the show, like he's my agent, you know, there was a how. It was the first part of deciding what's the litmus test and relying on my own judgment to say that I belong on that show. Cause if you don't do that, then you're just delusional. I'm not one of these people that's like plan A or all in. Like I go through a process to determine whether the goal is delusional. I just don't rely on external validation because external validation will always tell you it's not your time. Or you're not good, right? You're not good enough.

• 1:09:29Tom Bilyeu?

  I really hope people heard what you just said, that you don't have a delusional plan A and burn the boats. And then you're like, well, I'm now fucked.

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  No, not at all. I'm very risk averse. And my plan A allows pivoting and iteration, but like every audacious goal. You know, like I have a hierarchy of goals with the book, right? My number one goal, which was the hardest one is like, let me connect with people in a way that's unusual. Let me not write a boring business book that's redundant after the third chapter. Let me write a story. Well, story takes a fuckload of work. I was like, well, I was a journalist when I was a kid. I was a little reporter. I was nominated for a Pulitzer when I was 19, you know?

• 1:10:00Tom Bilyeu?

  The hell?

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Anybody can be, you and I can nominate each other, but Carl Bernstein nominated me.

• 1:10:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Jesus.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  He was on the board of directors of my company. So I always have to caveat that very clearly. Anybody can be nominated. But I won a lot of awards for investigative journalism. Oh, I, I have the skills to tell a story and I have a vision. I'm going to do it different. Then I have something to say. Point is, there's nobody for me to go on the internet. Does Matt Higgins deserve to write a book? And could it be a book that gains traction? And I think that's where people go wrong. They, they, there's a gravitational pull of incrementalism. Because incrementalism is the only thing for which we have data to validate our choices. Incrementalism, like, oh, I know that the person who opened a lemonade business would probably have evidence of having a lemonade stand, you know? So there's a conversation in my book about Jesse Daris. And we ultimately created a communications firm together and we went for this epic walk.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  And he's a risk averse human and, and his mind kept telling him, let me be the partner at this firm first before I'm capable of running my own business. And I was like, why? What is it about getting the imprimatur of being a partner, you know, on a door that actually makes you more qualified to run your own firm? Because society told you that that was the logical sequence of events. And then in the end, we created the firm, obviously, Russell wouldn't be in the book, and he sold it for tens of millions of dollars. But those are the most transformative, trajectory-changing conversations I have with people when I challenge their bias towards incrementalism. And we break down, and people always know, when it's right, they always know, oh, for me to run my own private equity firm, all I have to have is access to deal flow, a

• 1:11:29Speaker 01

  great network to raise money, the tenacity to keep going, and like, and off we go. There's a student in my book, Harvard student, was about to take a job with a soul-crushing private equity firm, and he was in my office, trying to help make, decide which crappy firm to take. And as he was talking, I was like, can I ask you a question? And I was like, why aren't you just creating your own firm? And he goes, well, who's gonna give me money? I was like, nobody, until the one person who gives you the money. And when they fucking do, you're gonna have your own firm. True story, leaves my office after giving that speech, I'm like, I don't know, he's, he came from the military, so he's used to corporate, you know, military hierarchies. I'm like, I don't know if he has the willingness to break out of that gravitational pull. Three months later, whatever, he calls me up, so let me get your address. And I'm like, why?

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  I want to send you the swag from the firm I created when I walked out your office. I raised $10 million, and now I'm raising 50 million. That was a long way of answering your question. I guess the question is not, it's really about containing within yourself the ability to decide whether you have the expertise necessary, not whether somebody else grants you the expertise necessary or validates.

• 1:12:33Tom Bilyeu?

  So you've done a lot of crazy things. I think I'd heard you throw away that you were a journalist, but that one didn't sink in.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:39Tom Bilyeu?

  So the fact that you've done that, people don't even know about your time in the government, what you did with 9/11, the memorial, what you've done in the NFL, I mean, ah, it's like... Your story is crazy. You should be 75 to have the biography that you have.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Chill 75.

• 1:12:53Tom Bilyeu?

  It's pretty, pretty nuts.

• 1:12:56Tom Bilyeu?

  How do you learn? Like, how do you go and, okay, I'm gonna do this crazy thing that is new. It's a step function ahead, but at some point, you actually have to get good at that thing. How have you gotten good at that?

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Such a great point. I, I, I, I'm sure like you do. I have that voice in my head that's, that's does say like, where do you get off, you know, a bit, right? And then I have this tremendous desire to do well and to do right, to honor the whoever granted me entrance to the, to the setting, you know, or a seat at the table. There's always somebody who decided, yeah, I agree. I agree with your litmus test. You do have what it takes. I'm going to open the door to you. Now I'm gonna vouch for you. I might even put myself in a harm's way by letting you in this room. I feel such tremendous obligation to confirm, even at my age.

• 1:13:44Tom Bilyeu?

  How do you convince people to do that? Are you really good at that? Cause like your firm, RSE, uh, you guys say we're about connecting the dots.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Tom Bilyeu?

  And the testimonials, I don't know if you prompted people, but they were all like, oh, they know how to connect dots. Uh, that, that is my crypto night. How, how do you find?

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Wait, what do you mean? In a good way or a bad way?

• 1:14:05Tom Bilyeu?

  No, no, I'm terrible. I don't, networking is my crypto night.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I hate networking. I hate networking. I'm the most introverted human. This is the first meeting I've had in a year. I don't even leave the house. I just hang out with my wife.

• 1:14:14Tom Bilyeu?

  You and I are the same.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  No, I'm really so introverted. People, people don't believe it because I have charisma.

• 1:14:18Tom Bilyeu?

  You have charisma, right?

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Charisma is just an accident. Like, I'm so introverted. I'm lost in my head. So when I say connect the dots, it's more people, you know how these investment firms put such a bullshit narrative to make things tidy? Like, we are only doing in this, you know, Series B, whatever. Like, I don't have the need to do that because it's myself and Steve Ross. We're partners, right? But he connects.

• 1:14:41Tom Bilyeu?

  For those who don't know, it's Steve Ross, Steve Ross.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, Steve Ross, right. So, you know, largest developer in the United States, tremendous entrepreneur. But he gives himself permission to play in such attenuated places and spaces and doesn't care what anybody thinks. But when you look back, how did he get here? And I'll give you an example. For those who don't know, my firm does, you know, consumer broadly. We're in food. I'm partners with Dave Chang and Momofuku. I've done a lot in sports, huge international soccer business. But there was a time when Steve and I decided we would buy Formula One. And I had, based upon my experience in sports, know that the asset was completely under optimized. Spent two years attempting to buy the entire sport. It does not work out, right? For a variety of reasons. Uh, and, uh, but the consolation prize, but we understood enough about the sport and what was

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  wrong with deal structures on these races that we ended up incubating a race in Miami. So now we have what I believe is one of the coolest races in the world that takes place every May in Miami.

• 1:15:35Tom Bilyeu?

  Is it a Formula One?

• 1:15:37Speaker 01

  Formula One race, yeah. We brought a Formula One race to the United States. And I never would have done that. So if you are looking for a tidy narrative, an F1 race and a sea of other things next to Momofuku might not make sense, but there's a reason. So when I use connected dots, it's actually leveraging that which came before to put the pieces together. It's not so much networking.

• 1:15:56Tom Bilyeu?

  That's really interesting.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  So but my, but my body, I'm not my body, me as an individual, as the self, is operating under the same general principle. And that I, I don't know how much you're into real estate, but there's a phrase in real estate zoning or philosophy called highest and best use. It's a way to ensure that you don't have a piece of property sitting in the middle of a metropolitan area that's zoned to only be a two-story church, you know, into your 2023, right? So you want to make sure a property is always put to its highest and best use. I treat myself like a piece of property that's constantly being rezoned every week. Sounds a bit crazy, but I ask myself every week, sometimes every day, what is the highest and best use of Matt Higgins today? And the reason why that question is so important, I am an amalgam of all these accumulated

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  experiences that now give me permission for a step change into a new environment. And so

• 1:16:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Dude, I like that so much.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Wow, thank you.

• 1:16:47Tom Bilyeu?

  That's really powerful.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm obsessed with that thought. And that is really the formula that I'm operating upon. So when I finished Shark Tank, which was a great experience, I remember sitting with my wife on the second time on the set and, and I kind of went all in and I was like, babe, let's just sit here for a minute because I don't think I'm ever going to be back on the set. She's like, no, you're a recurring shark they named you. I was like, don't think I'm coming back. I don't know why, but, but it's okay.

• 1:17:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Was no longer the highest and best use?

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  It would, no, no, well, be just because I feel like they'd move on and they were more charismatic, you know, whatever. I just thought that the journey would end here, right? And, and my point is, once I did that though, I said, What would actually be better than now that I've done Shark Tank? What's the highest and best use of Mad Higgins now that I've done it? Oh, creating your own Shark Tank. And fast forward, I partnered with Mark Burnett to create our own show called Business Hunters, right? And then after I did that show, I was like, huh. Well, now that I know how to do a show, wouldn't it be better to like own the show outright? And so I created a production studio with Gary Vaynerchuk and Eric Wattenberg. So I'm just showing you how that mentality. Now, people listening are going to say, this is exhausting. So I don't, you know, like, I'm sorry, I apologize. It doesn't have to be like that. I'm just trying to show how you can make big hopscotches if you want in your life.

• 1:17:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Interesting. I really, maybe they will, but I would be, if people are exhausted by it, I'm learning. So let me start with that.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  And so because this is the thing that, um, this really changed my life.

• 1:18:10Tom Bilyeu?

  So I met entrepreneurs that they were just farther ahead than me. And while they didn't have the words that you're talking about, about aim high and all that stuff. It was like, I watched them do it. And I was like, oh, I'm playing way too small. Interesting. Oh, I can be way more aggressive than I'm being. Interesting. Like even now, to your point about people problems, the, when, when I have people problems in the company, it's almost always because people underestimate what they can pull off. And so they're not moving with urgency. They're not being aggressive enough. They're not like reaching far enough, making demands of people, et cetera, et cetera. So hearing how you move, hearing your story, hearing what you've done in soccer, hearing how you spent your time in the NFL, what you liked, what you didn't like.

• 1:18:54Tom Bilyeu?

  It's really interesting because I'll add something. I think you're going to agree with this. So you're, you're looking for what's the opportunity? What's underserved? Like you said, F1 is an underutilized asset. That also ties into what you were talking about with Emerson, where it's like, you have to have a, an epiphany and then trust it. And look, you're going to get slapped in the face sometimes because you're going to be wrong or mistimed or whatever.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:24Tom Bilyeu?

  But if you're learning from that every time and you act with a boldness and you look for how do I connect the dots? I mean, this really is like, so the, the step function changed. God, the step function change, I'll explain, I'm nesting ideas, but the step function change of really reaching beyond what you're currently capable of is the path from getting out of your sort of rut, nine to five, like I'm only ever gonna achieve this much, and doing something really extraordinary. Okay, now that that idea is finished. Just yesterday, one of my students from Impact Theory University applied for one of our jobs, got on the call, and he's not the right fit,

• 1:20:06Tom Bilyeu?

  and I told him so, because he doesn't have enough experience in that thing for me to feel like, okay, like, you need to go get knowledge that would be useful in this job. But, as he was telling me his story about what he had applied, that willingness to step function, he'd gotten into surgery. And so he's on the, uh, there's a name for it, I'm forgetting now, but basically, they sterilize everything, and they're the ones, when you say scalpel, they had to do the scalpel, that whole thing. Okay. This kid took himself from Watts, which if anybody is familiar with South Central LA, Watts is rough, rough. And so we used to hire a lot of people out of Watts, so I, I know what, I've seen Watts up close.

• 1:20:51Tom Bilyeu?

  That's one of the few places I've been scared in broad daylight. It is, it's, it's a whole thing. And so he took himself from that to getting all the way there by saying, "Okay, I'm gonna believe that I can learn, I'm gonna push myself." He was taking a bus four hours a day to go to school. Just really incredible, when people get out of that rut, start looking at, okay, what is, uh, the highest and best use of my current skillset? How do I get out of my, um, God, what'd you call it? You're challenging the conventional wisdom? So, something along those lines. Gravitational pulling? Yeah, no, no, no, one of the very first things you said, like, you really have to break outside of that,

• 1:21:35Tom Bilyeu?

  like, oh, this is the standard path, and most people just do that, and that's it. So you end up, like, for him, the standard path would have been basically day labor, and, you know, that's that. And so for him to push outside of that, get on a surgical team, it was really amazing to hear him talk about, "Hey, I'm deploying these ideas, and I'm using it to, like, make these leaps." So anyway, this is all a reaction to you saying that people are getting exhausted, but that, to me, there, there's a nugget there that's hard to encapsulate, which is... You need to be getting yourself in new rooms with new people that force you to learn new things. You need to be freakishly looking for what's the opportunity here? How do I connect dots that other people aren't connecting? And then just keep leapfrogging.

• 1:22:19Speaker 01

  For me, giving people practical advice, well, how do I identify that breach? Right? What is the thing, you know, the opportunity or the arbitrage? Like, where is it? I feel convinced that everybody has, within their life, a proprietary insight that could be the seed of, if not a new business, not everybody has to be an entrepreneur, but at least a promotion or a step change of their life and sort of to unpack that. When we think about the best businesses of the last, you know, 20 years that stick with us, the brands like Airbnb, for example, they're not, they're not inventions like Shark Tank leads you to believe. They, Shark Tank leads you to believe that you have to have an invention to, you know, to have your own autonomy and run your business. Nothing could be further for the truth. Usually it's a refinement or an improvement of a process.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Right? And so when you look at Brian Chesky and his co-founders of Airbnb, you know, he slipped on a futon at one point was like, maybe other people would want to rent futons, which is a preposterous idea in 09, like everybody's going to steal shit. You know, they're not going to pay like this. I don't know how he had that insight. But for some reason, him and his three friends recognized that the sharing economy was going to explode and extend to houses. And now he has a hundred billion dollar business because of a proprietary insight. Everybody listening to this right now sees something that is a proprietary insight that in order to bring it to fruition now, you have to eschew incrementalism and have the courage to make a step change. So when I was on my show, Business Hunters, and the whole purpose was to take somebody

• 1:23:44Speaker 01

  who wanted to start their own business and give them, and help them determine which business to buy, like House Hunters, right? This is a show that did not air. We're still trying to find a home. But I was sitting there talking to these two sisters from the Bronx. And I was asking, what do you do now? I was like, well, I have five Airbnbs. I'm like, where are they? I think they were in, you know, Georgia. I'm like, oh, well, why there? He's like, well, we have a lot of visiting nurses there. And I, and I know the visiting nurses can stay for extended stays 30 days and they pay better because they're subsidized. I'm like, huh, well, how'd you figure that out? Well, I used to work in a hotel. What'd you do at the hotel? I was just at the, at the, at the front desk. But I would always hear visiting nurses come in and wonder why they were staying so long and we, and they, and we charged them more because, you know, that's, that was the setup

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  with the visiting nurses. And I thought if I could create. And Airbnb is a network of them for visiting nurses. I could have an annuity business. I'm like, that was my, I was like, mind blowing. That's a proprietary insight. So for anybody listening who are like, wait, I've had one of those. You know, that's what gets me excited about the book and I can I deconstruct what it looks like to have both a proprietary insight? And what a step change would look like. She could easily have said, well, before I can run my own Airbnb, I need to be the manager of a hotel first. So I'm going to wait three or four years. This is what most people do. And I just, for whatever reason, I don't know if it was my mom or God, but I was like, I was not wired to accept that was boundaries. I challenged them until one of them beats me into submission, which happens regularly.

• 1:25:09Tom Bilyeu?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:25:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Dude, this is so interesting. So you're, here's a trick that I do. So I want to help people cross a bridge. So people are going to hear this and they're going to get in the room now and they're going to be looking for that proprietary insight. And they're not going to know how to manufacture it. I think there's a way. So here's what I do. This is how I interview. This is how I read books. This is how I come up with a vision for where to take the company. I'll look at something. And so I did this with your book. So I read your book and I start myself with the question, what's interesting here? And then what I try to do is break down what I think your thesis is without going back to reread, just without looking at my own notes, what, what's interesting? What is this thesis?

• 1:25:55Tom Bilyeu?

  What's the, the narrative thread that you've woven? And what it forces you to do is understand it. And so if somebody finds themselves in the room, in F1, soccer, you're in over your head. You have no idea what's happening. The, the thing that changed my life is when I get in that room, I'm not afraid to look stupid. Because if I ask until I understand, I can have a proprietary insight because now I actually understand it. But if I, if I'm just like, oh yeah, and I want to look cool and I'm, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get that for sure. Yep, yep, yep. And then you don't understand it. You can't synthesize it at the end. And so you, you have to push yourself and you're, it's going to make you feel like an idiot. At least it does me. So I always end up feeling really stupid for a second. So I'm like, wow, I don't actually understand this. What is this?

• 1:26:39Tom Bilyeu?

  How do I connect that? And I have to ask, what about this?

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:41Tom Bilyeu?

  And. But once I get it, and I think of myself like AI, and I'm like, I need to feed the tom bot. I need to to force the data into my brain and go, okay. Once I understand it, then my subconscious will start working on like how it's usable, what it can be deployed against. It will interact like almost like, you know, chemicals interacting with each other in ways that I couldn't have predicted. So again, a nested idea. In the Nobel Prize, typically they're one at the intersection of two things, biology and chemistry, whatever. And so it's like, when you have two worlds colliding, you'll get far more unique insights. So I had this happen very profoundly for me in comic books. So this was six years ago.

• 1:27:26Tom Bilyeu?

  We're launching Impact Theory. I know that comic books are a traditional feeder into film and TV. So I'm like, all right, let's do comics, low dollar amount, potentially big win. So we create a comic, we get it printed, we get it distributed. And I'm, I've had 40,000 plus points of distribution in at Quest. So I know what real distribution looks like, real volume, like 2.5 million bars a day or whatever. It was just insane, all over how many hundred countries, whatever it was. Amazing. Yeah, nuts, right? And so I'm used to knowing what shelf I'm on, who's category captain, like all of like, ah, like what, how am I selling in Poughkeepsie with this SKU, right? And you're getting it almost real time.

• 1:28:10Tom Bilyeu?

  And I go into comics, there's one distributor and they give you no information. And so I was like, timeout, this is so crazy. I'm like, either we buy the distributor or we get out of this completely. And so we ended up getting out of it because it was self evident to me. Because I understood distribution, I could have a new chemical reaction of what I knew from, even though it was from nutrition manufacturing, it was helping me in comics because I understood it. And it's like, if you force yourself to understand and synthesize, now as you go into a new space, you can make unique connections, get these proprietary insights. Anyway, I wanted to give people a way to connect that.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  And if anybody's listening to what you just said, because this is where the mind goes, they'll be like, yeah, but when I, when I ask questions, I feel stupid because I kind of exposes where I came from, my background, my deficiencies, the way I immunize myself is what, because I do exactly what you did. I don't, I don't give a shit. I'm, I'll ask questions. I'm not afraid. I, I, I, I transport my, this whole room that I'm in to a different, to my playing field, where I know they'd be out of their depth. And I imagine, well, and this could be as simple as, you know, you play Twitch all day and you're a great gamer, whatever it is that your little patch of dirt that you own, transport that room to your territory and imagine them out of their depth, because everyone's out of their depth and you are always in your element somewhere to immunize yourself from the insecurity. But love the way you put the pieces together.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  For those listening who want to say, okay, but make it even more actionable. I tell the story in the book, I love this story because this is irrefutable evidence of what a proprietary insight, what somebody could do with a step change. Michelle Cardaro Grant was a, uh, maybe like a director at Victoria's Secret in the marketing department. And she kept being alienated by her own marketing, thinking it feels like we're talking to women only as, you know, objects to please men. And all the branding around our branding, maybe, and maybe I'm being too harsh, maybe it wasn't as harsh. Sorry, Michelle, if that's not exactly what you said, but whatever. And so, but I believe there's another, um, demo cohort that would like to wear this clothes for their own edification, to feel good, body positive, sexy, whatever it is. But I'm just

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  an executive at Victoria's Secret, right? So what does she do? She's like, I think this is a proprietary insight, didn't use those words, creates a, you know, a, a community to crowdsource it, creates a waiting list. It like blows up, right? So now she knows there's a market for this, but the problem is she's an executive, right? She has to make this, she can either now go work for someone else's company, or she could lobby Victoria's Secret to create a new line, or she could cross the threshold and say, I think I have what it takes to be a founder and a CEO. And I'm gonna do it. She quits based on the strength of the community. So my point is to everybody out there, don't be afraid to share your idea with others. You know, people always worried on somebody's gonna steal it. When somebody says they're worried about somebody's gonna steal

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  it, it's the end of the meeting for me. It's like you're, there's a great line in the Social Network movie, if you had invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook. Like, don't be afraid. She shares her idea. She quits. She creates a company called Lively, which is all premised on this idea. And she sells it for a hundred million dollars within five years.

• 1:31:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Wow.

• 1:31:18Speaker 01

  So now she's a woman of color. She was never a founder before. She had no money. There, you cannot remove yourself from the, from the truth of that story. So anyone out there listening that wants a case study, reach out to Michelle and say, how'd you do it? But I believe everybody, that insight was so simple, right? Like, why, why aren't we talking to this other group? Everybody has an insight like that within their grasp. Not that everybody needs to be a founder. Michelle could have leveraged that for a promotion too. So I don't want to just talk about like, fetishizing the entrepreneur. I hate that crap. But you know, anyway, I just love that story. The elegance of it.

• 1:31:52Tom Bilyeu?

  It is a great story. Yeah, having the gumption to act on that and to start your own company, it's very impressive.

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Right. And she didn't take on a co-founder. So I use it for two reasons. Cause, cause and you talk about partnership all the time with your wife. Like, one of the top questions that people have at Harvard, at the, at the end of these 17 classes, they always want to know how the founder chose their co-founder and how to decide whether you need a co-founder. She actually didn't have a co-founder. And in the book, I go through her process for deciding she didn't need one and how she thought she could pull in.

• 1:32:26Tom Bilyeu?

  I remember that.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:27Tom Bilyeu?

  Walk people through that. It's actually, so I have always had a co-founder and probably always will, going back to, I love winning as a team. The idea, I like to see other people succeed, which makes me like being on a team, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Tom Bilyeu?

  But she had a really logical way of thinking about how she could get around it. Cause it wasn't like, oh, I can do everything myself.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  No, it was, it was basically she, she honestly asked herself, what are the deficiencies in my skill sets or my expertise or desire? And can I backfill that? Or augment those by hiring people versus equitizing a co-founder. And as she went through each one of them, supply chain, all the other issues, she felt like I could hire that person. Now, oftentimes, people get that equation wrong. And they think, I find this a lot with like robots, people who are kind of like robotic. And they want the world to be driven by Excel or AI. That they have a disdain for marketing and EQ and they're like, I'll just hire some TikToker, you know, with almost like disdain, that never works out. So. But the conclusion in my Harvard class, whenever we asked successful co-founders, how'd you choose? They always contradict what the students believe.

• 1:33:32Speaker 01

  They said, um, complementary skill sets is way subordinate to value overlap. I chose my partner Bob or Sally, whatever, because we looked at the world the same way. And why that mattered is companies fail when things go wrong and we can't survive. And when you have value overlap, we're able to survive. So I thought that because conventional wisdom is augmenting where you're weak. And they said, actually overlap where you're strong, which is your value system and then subordinate is maybe. But if not, you know, winners will, winners will figure it out.

• 1:34:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I'm a big believer that choosing a business partner is like choosing a spouse. I think you want somebody who overlaps on your values, like 80%, 85% of your values better be the same. Otherwise, you're going to have collision. There are two collisions that can really cause a breakup. And that is a values collision or a collision of base assumptions that you never recognize. And I see that one a lot. Like if you're having a problem in your marriage, I guarantee it's either a values collision or a base assumption collision. Basis, I think people will get values, but base assumption is that I invisibly think the world works in XYZ way. And the other person invisibly thinks the world works in a different way. Values is ought, the world ought to be this way.

• 1:34:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Base assumption is it is this way. And so often, people don't realize you have codified the world in that way. It's not necessarily objectively true, or at least not in some binary way. And so I found this was from working with my former business partners. I would sit there and be thinking, they're a fucking idiot. And they're talking to me like they think I'm an idiot. And so I'm like, I know they're not, and I'm not. So what is happening when two smart people think that the other person is a moron? And I was like, oh, wow. For, because I, I'm a writer by trade. And so I always go back to if I were writing this person as a character, what would they need to believe for them to be acting this way? And so I was like, he would have to believe that this is true. And I remember one day I stopped him and I was like, do you think this is true? He's like, yeah, obviously. And I was like, oh, my God.

• 1:35:30Tom Bilyeu?

  And so then I was like, okay, this, we're gonna call this base assumption from now on. So your base assumption is this, my base assumption is this. Now we can actually talk about it. One of us is probably right and one of us is wrong. But at least now we're talking about the real thing. And yeah, I think that's really important. So anyway, you have to have overlapping values with your founder, spouse, whatever. But I do think that you want to have, that you will be best suited if you guys don't think the same way. So you value the same things, but you don't think the same way. There's a great quote, I don't know if you've heard this before, but that if in business, you and your partner think the same way, one of you is irrelevant. And I've, that really resonates.

• 1:36:11Speaker 01

  I, I, so I would agree with your caveat to value overlap. I think at the end of the day, when, when there's not a clear reason for why both of you exist, that is a recipe, can be a recipe for a disaster. So whether it's saying, you know, think exactly the same way, or it's, you know, a, a, a bias towards one particular area of the business is actually helpful. I find where people, where partnerships go wrong, because I'm often stepping into like a failed partnership or trying to work it out. I mean, that fact pattern recurs over and over again, because that's where opportunities happen, right? There's a lot of value destruction when partnerships go wrong. And I found, when I look at the genesis, like how did this partnership form? And oftentimes, it's because there was a, there was an interloper into an industry that had a vision for doing things differently.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  But they either believed that they were deficient in some area, or they needed subject expert, subject matter expertise.

• 1:37:02Tom Bilyeu?

  Wow.

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  They go ahead and they choose a partner. The problem is because they had the courage to invade the industry, that only lasts like four months before they're like, this is all stupid. You guys are all stupid. And then now they're stuck with the co-founder, who is born of that industry.

• 1:37:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Yep.

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  And not born of disruption. And then eventually the disdain or, you know, conflict sets in.

• 1:37:23Tom Bilyeu?

  That makes a lot of sense and there really is a temptation to do that. To get somebody that really knows the space.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  It's logical. That's why I thought Michelle Cridera in the book. I'm like, well, she didn't have that because she was from the industry. She knew what she wanted to disrupt, but I see that fact pattern over and over again. I don't think it applies to personal, personal life. I think that augmenting, you know, or fill, completing applies more to personal. But I see that in business all the time with failed partnerships.

• 1:37:48Tom Bilyeu?

  That's so interesting. All right, I have to ask, were you the one that brought Kim Kardashian to Harvard?

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  I was. Well, I shouldn't say I, I have two co-professors. They're professors. I'm a fake professor. I'm an executive fellow. But they, one of them had a relationship with Jens, who's her partner. And then we did multiple calls to, you know, what are we going to talk about? Is it comfortable? And then sure enough, it happened. That's my class though.

• 1:38:11Tom Bilyeu?

  So I, I am very impressed with what she's done. And I remember I heard about her saying like, basically, God, if I'm misquoting, I hope not. But basically, hey, ladies, like, don't let anything hold you back. Just work harder or get up and work or whatever the quote was. And when I heard it and didn't know people backlash, I was like, yes, that's so dope. And I was like, hell, yeah.

• 1:38:32Speaker 01

  Don't say that again.

• 1:38:33Tom Bilyeu?

  No, I have to because I really believe it.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:35Tom Bilyeu?

  So, uh, did you get backlash for bringing Kim Kardashian? And then what do you think of what she's accomplished?

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  The answer is not enough backlash.

• 1:38:47Tom Bilyeu?

  Not enough backlash?

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  I was hoping for more because it's entertaining, because I don't care. And I was a little annoyed that it like didn't come land. You know, it took like a few days before I was on CNBC and I was asked about it. And the reason why is she has built a multi-billion dollar business. I'm an investor, actually, but that's not.

• 1:39:03Tom Bilyeu?

  Really?

• 1:39:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I am an investor in SKIMS, but you know.

• 1:39:06Tom Bilyeu?

  Congratulations.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  Thank you, but that's, but that's beside the point. She has built an amazing business and I love the lack of intellectual curiosity to say, well, why was she invited to Harvard? And the reason why, my course is called Moving Beyond Direct to Consumer. And this year's, every year's a sub theme that I like to introduce that would surprise the students or like at that demographic might be slightly beyond their reach. So this year's sub context was TikTok is, is the new Google, right? Like, and that's where search begins. That was one. And two, and two, that CAC on the DTC model is, is out of whack. It rhymed, I didn't mean to, but the CAC is out of whack and that acquisition costs are really expensive. And a lot of DTC models are broken and they raised at these inflated valuations and

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  they're not sustainable because now investors are demanding profitability, blah, blah, blah. So that was like the whole thing. So we brought in Scarlett Johansson, I'm an investor and her business and advisor. We brought in Bobby Brown to demonstrate that somebody in their 60s could dominate TikTok. And we brought in Kim Kardashian. The common thread between those three is they're all using their community and celebrity to generate subsidized CAC with outrageous numbers and their businesses are printing. And so it was entertaining to watch everyone judge Kim in this very superficial way. Now, I don't keep up with the Kardashians, literally. So I had no idea,

• 1:40:31Speaker 01

  honestly. And when I saw her in that class, she was there for almost two hours. It's not like the students hold back. You know what I mean? Watching her volley with everyone in that class and watching her hold her own with all the founders was pretty remarkable. I was incredibly impressed. But I love those situations when you have total conviction and like, you don't really care. And then I was waiting for more of the backlash and it wasn't quite intense enough.

• 1:40:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I, so going back to things I'm allergic to, I don't understand people that look at somebody that's successful and look for reasons to dismiss them and why. Well, that's a terrible example because XYZ. It's like, man.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Well, not only that, if every celebrity could slap their name on the brand, they'd all be moguls, right? They'd all be billionaires. It's not easy what she did.

• 1:41:16Tom Bilyeu?

  She also stayed relevant for a long time.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  Right. And she also founded an amazing sliver of the market, built a direct to consumer business that is valued in the, I don't know what it would be valued now, probably $5 billion.

• 1:41:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Jesus.

• 1:41:28Speaker 01

  Right. And yet, there was this desire to dismiss. Now, in fairness, you reap what you sell, right? I mean, I even said to her off camera, this actually probably be on the Hulu show, I was like, I don't follow you, so maybe that everyone knows this about you, but I would not have perceived you as somebody that could go in Harvard Business School and hold your own with the best consumer founders in the country. She actually said, I want to show more of this of me, but when I had my Sean E, they never wanted to show it. They said it was boring and people don't want to see me in this light. So.

• 1:41:57Tom Bilyeu?

  It's admittedly, it's, it's not entertaining in that way.

• 1:42:00Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:42:01Tom Bilyeu?

  So I get E like they've, what they've done is amazing.

• 1:42:04Speaker 01

  And again, you and I don't keep up with the Kardashians, maybe you more than me. I have a feeling as time goes by, she will become more than even a Paris Hilton figure, right? You know, Paris Hilton had her own redemption story, right?

• 1:42:15Tom Bilyeu?

  A thousand times bigger.

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  But my point is we will see Kim Kardashian in the light of the mogul that she is. And there'll be an integration.

• 1:42:23Tom Bilyeu?

  I mean, if she keeps this going, God, you, you just, you can deny somebody only so long. So she's winning people like me over who I'm not immersed in her world. And so for all I know, she's saying just absolutely atrocious things on social media. But I mean, watching her move as a business person, I'm like, damn.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  But if she was sitting at the table right now, you know how we're having this intellectual conversation about partnerships and bad equity structure and product? She would be keeping up with us. And I, I was, I was like, is this on purpose? You know, and they also didn't work very hard to get the story out in a business context that she was coming there. So maybe I thought, ah, maybe it was like a grand plan.

• 1:42:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Man, there's an intriguing question there. Like, is that brand damaging for her?

• 1:43:01Speaker 01

  No, I think maybe it's all just like, we're living in a Truman Show called Kim Kardashian. I don't know. Maybe it was all calculated. I don't know. It was pretty amazing.

• 1:43:09Tom Bilyeu?

  So interesting. Dude, the book is amazing. Where can people find you?

• 1:43:13Speaker 01

  Thank, I'm, uh, I'm on Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn. I spend a lot of time. I can't stand Twitter. I'm there, but it's.

• 1:43:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Just at Matt Higgins?

• 1:43:20Speaker 01

  At Matt Higgins, land of hate. Can we talk one more before we go?

• 1:43:23Tom Bilyeu?

  Please.

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  About, um, your spouse.

• 1:43:25Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  I, I love your relationship with her.

• 1:43:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Thank you.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  And, um, I talk about my wife all the time as my, basically my co-founder. And that, um, I, no matter what environment I am, the, uh, the, uh, the, my conditions are always, I need to do it with Sarah. Because we're better together. And so when I teach at Harvard, people know that Sarah's in the back of the room and she does. So my wife does the logistics for the course because they're.

• 1:43:51Tom Bilyeu?

  Dude, you're playing into a thesis I have. So my wife is all about logistics is utterly amazing. Obviously my co-founder. Uh, yeah, we'll need a lot more time to talk about how that ends up happening. But that's amazing.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:06Tom Bilyeu?

  So you went through a divorce. It was utterly soul crushing by your own admission. How did you rebuild? And how did you find somebody the second time that actually really fit you?

• 1:44:16Speaker 01

  I think I went online, to be honest. Like, I think get more data was the first starting point. But I think we don't believe that we're either entitled to something or that something exists. And the change in my mindset was maybe that that person does exist. That's right for me. And maybe, and maybe I deserve it. People can be cliche, like, I just want to thank my partner. Like, like, no, no, no. Like, I dedicated the book to her for a reason. And she unlocks all this potential because there's value alignment, but also there's no ego. And so the secret, my secret sauce is that we are doing it all together in these different environments, which can seem a little bit unconventional. But back to you guys. I admire the way you talk about each other.

• 1:45:01Speaker 01

  And I feel like by modeling it, this is the point of my story. You take care of one of the two issues that I just brought up, that maybe it, maybe it doesn't exist, or maybe it does exist. If somebody models that kind of dynamic, then people believe that it's out there. And so when I see you two on the internet, it's like, oh, you're telling millions of people that it, that it exists.

• 1:45:20Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, everybody, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break. And that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water, and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient dense superfoods,

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