Tom Bilyeu : ON Breaking Negative Thought Patterns & Stop Being Lazy About Your Growth

What happens when getting rich is your only goal? Jay Shetty and Impact Theory founder Tom Bilyeu sit down to talk about how loving what you do is the key to being able to keep going when things get tough in your business. Although Tom started out just wanting to make money, over time he’s learned having an impact and making a difference is what he and wife Lisa really want. Tune into Bilyeu’s story and learn how he transitioned from money maker to impact generator. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:30Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and is clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1

• 2:59Jay Shetty?

  Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  And so, once you realize some things are a game of change, some things are a game of leverage. And so, leveraging the serotonin system, for instance, or here's one of my favorite things about neuroscience. This literally changed my life, this affected my marriage, and when I give people the answer, Jay, they're gonna think this is so dumb. When you take on a facial expression, you will feel the emotion, no matter what, whether you want to or not, you will.

• 3:40Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone, it's so good to be back with you. I am genuinely pumped for this episode. I'm so excited for this next conversation because our guest is not only someone that I highly respect as a businessperson, as an entrepreneur, as a visionary, but someone that I deeply respect as a human being, a friend, and an incredible man. He's an incredible husband, he's an incredible inspirer, and he's someone that has definitely been integral to my life in the short period of time. He's been someone that I've definitely become closer and closer to in so many ways, and I'm learning so much from. His name is none other than Tom Bilyeu. He's the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, the Quest Bars, you probably see them absolutely

• 4:25Jay Shetty?

  everywhere right now, and he's also the co-founder and host of Impact Theory.

• 4:31Jay Shetty?

  Of the leading self-development podcasts and interview shows on the internet. I mean, those interviews have been absolutely everywhere. I know anyone who watches them is receiving genuinely so much value and so much insight. And I was so fortunate to be on the show myself and definitely gave one of the best interviews of my life. Thanks to Tom. Today I try and repay that favor as a friend, as a supporter, as an advocate of everything you stand for, Tom. And I'm just so grateful to have you here, man. Dude, I'm excited to be here, man. Thanks for having me. No, absolutely, absolutely. And we literally just did that episode this January. Yeah, that's crazy. Which is crazy. That's crazy. It was January when I came over to you. It was the first time we'd met.

• 5:15Jay Shetty?

  And I was like, I need to share this story because I'd seen Impact Theory blow up. And I was just like, oh, like, I'd love to do an interview on Impact Theory because I enjoyed the questions you asked. And I'd seen the other guests you'd have. And I was thinking, how do I get through to these guys? Like, like, how do I get through to these guys? Because I'd send a DM and I think I DM'd you a few times or I even sent you an instant message on Twitter or something like that. I was trying to find a way. And then I found a friend who is Ashley Crouch. Yeah. And me and Ashley met at Forbes 30 under 30 in Israel. And we had a conversation and she said, oh, yeah, I know Tom and I know his team. And I was like, oh, can you get an intro together? And so then she sent a message and then Chris messaged back saying, oh, yeah, Jay, we invited you already when it was Inside Quest.

• 6:00Jay Shetty?

  That's right. And so I had an email in my inbox from Chris that said Inside Quest invites you ages ago. Yeah, yeah. And then I was trying to find a way to you. But anyways, it happened at the perfect time. That's funny. Yeah. Definitely, man. Well, timing is everything. Absolutely. And literally, we were at a conference, what, two weeks ago now, I think? Yes. Yeah, yeah. And Tom talks about hard work. And if you listen to Tom, he'll talk about how if you want to stand out in the noise, you have to put in the work. You have to be working harder than everyone else around you. Tom worked harder than every speaker there. I thought I was gonna work hard that weekend. I think I can second. But but Tom literally worked harder than every single person there. He was. In all the meet and greets, he spent time with everyone. He answered everyone's questions.

• 6:45Jay Shetty?

  Your work ethic, man, it's admirable, but but more importantly, it's real. Because you've got to love it to do that much.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that well said. You've got to love it to do it that much. Or here's the bad news. You actually don't have to love it to do that much, but you will burn out. And so one thing that I worry, and I actually worry about this in my message. So I used to post a lot about what time I was waking up. I'd show myself in the gym sometimes at like 2am. And so people started setting an alarm. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, that's not what this is like. I sleep as much as I need to. I prioritize sleep. So I stopped doing that. Because I didn't want people to lose sight of what I'm really saying, which is that fulfillment is the punchline. So if we can just literally skip to the end of like the whole thing that we're going to talk about, like all of life, the success that people are chasing, they think they want money and fame and all of that. And those things can be very valuable in a way.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  But what I want people to hear in my message about like working hard and discipline and all of that is the only reason that I put as much time and energy into it is because I love it. So me trying this method in something I don't love, I've lived that. I know where that ends and it ends with me quitting. And you know, that's something that I'm sure we'll get into later, but it was like I did that. The first six and a half years of my journey as an entrepreneur were about the typical grind it out stuff. And look, man, it it was an important phase in my life, but it ended up really chipping away at my soul. And I flirted with depression just enough in my life to know how dangerous it is.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  And dangerous because it will literally lead to somebody killing themselves. Or just dangerous in that, yeah, sure, you live a normal lifespan, but you hate every minute of it. And so just really understanding how you get out from under that and Like lesson number one, love what you do.

• 8:35Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, man. And you've said it before that when you started out, there was a time when it was just about money.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  One thousand percent.

• 8:41Jay Shetty?

  It was just about getting rich.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  That's it. I used to repeat that over and over and over.

• 8:44Jay Shetty?

  What, I just wanna get rich?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just wanna get rich. That's what this is. I kept saying to my wife, I'm gonna make you rich, I'm gonna make you rich, I'm gonna make you rich. Like, it was, it was the core of my identity. From the time I was probably pre-teen, because this was tied to my desire to be a filmmaker, was film was, I knew, like, inside I identify as an artist, far more than I do as an entrepreneur. And I was looking at, okay, I love poetry and I love filmmaking. Well, there's no money to be made in poetry, but I could become truly wealthy in filmmaking. So that for me was a creative endeavor that I could also generate tremendous wealth. And so that put me on a path, which of course was part of the reason that I went into being an entrepreneur in the first place was,

• 9:26Speaker 01

  I needed to control the art, I needed to control the resources. So I had to, like, learn business. And so going down that path and really realizing what it took to build a business and all of that, which is a whole universe unto itself, to have the will to push through all of that difficulty, it was, I'm gonna get rich, I'm gonna get rich, I'm gonna get rich. And then just realize that maybe for Scrooge McDuck, who wants to swim in his money, that would be like a self-sustaining motivation. But somebody even like a Warren Buffett, at the end of the day, it, money means something to him, and it's the thing that it means that drives him. It isn't the money in and of itself. And the problem was, I was literally chasing money in and of itself.

• 10:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And it's fascinating to see someone, and this I know about you, to be reflective enough and aware enough to be okay to switch. Because I think the sunk cost bias in us, the part of us that's just so invested and has built success with that mindset to some degree, but actually your success didn't come from that mindset, it came from switching away from it.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  It came from, yeah, a willingness always to switch. So I heard a quote one time, and it so terrifies me. This, in fact, over a long enough time period, people are gonna hear this quote from me so many times, because seriously, man, I'm not joking, this scares me.

• 10:43Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  And it scares me enough that it, it has a daily place in my life. And that is, genius is a young man's game. And when I heard that quote, I thought, whoa, the one thing that all of us touch for the briefest of moments is youth. And if you're lucky, what you'll get is a whole lot of middle age and then some old age, but you don't get a lot of youth. And so I just thought, ooh, that's really scary. And they were basing it on the number of people that win Nobel prizes. It's almost always for work they did in their twenties and thirties, almost always. And I thought, oh, I don't like that. And so looking at why that and the reason, I guess this is important to say, the reason that I didn't like it was I felt that my youth was really whipping by and I hadn't accomplished the things that

• 11:26Speaker 01

  I wanted to accomplish. So if I'm, you know, my youth is whooshing by me, how do I make sure that I can access genius at any time that and I'm a genius shorthand for like playing at the absolute best of your game and really changing things, like really having an impact. And this is one thing I think you and I share, like, no bullshit, I want to have impact in the world. So if I just wanted to be rich, Lisa and I would have bought an island and retired, you know, years ago. So clearly there's something more that's motivating me and that thing is impact and really touching lives. So it's like wanting to be able to do that. I don't want to say, well, I had this brief window in my youth and I either did or didn't make use of it. But even if I did, I don't want

• 12:08Speaker 01

  the rest of my life to be looking back on that. So another quote that drives me, your future should always be bigger than your past. So, all right, you've got genius is a young man's game and a personal belief of mine that you, you should always be looking towards doing something more than you've ever done. And so you put those two together and I just knew I had to solve for that problem. And the only solution that I have for it is switching things up. Like you said, to live at the edges and the same book was talking about the people that do end up getting either multiple Nobel prizes or prizes for work they did later, is it's people that would routinely change so that they would have these two overlapping areas. So like chemistry and physics and like where those two meet, like there's new discoveries and new ways to challenge your own thinking.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  And so always staying fresh, always challenging my own thinking, always looking at how am I wrong? Most people go into an endeavor with the confirmation bias. In fact, you just brought that up. So it's like, I'm so aware that by nature, like everybody, I just want to be told how right I am, how amazing the way that I'm thinking is. And because it feels good, right? That feels awesome.

• 13:16Jay Shetty?

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• 14:01Jay Shetty?

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• 14:44Jay Shetty?

  Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W A Y F A I R dot com. Wayfair, every style, every home. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision-making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbour, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  That's how I'm going to calcify into dogma. That's how I'm going to be another statistic in the genius is a young man's game thing. So I'm just always looking for disconfirming evidence. I'm always encouraging people. In fact, there's a part of every Monday team meeting at Impact Theory where it's take a minute, and not just me, but take a minute and point out anything in the company that's going wrong. So that we can address it. We call it principles from Ray Dalio's book. And that is so instructive to get that like raw feedback. And quite frankly, sometimes just naked criticism about where you are so that you can get rid of a blind spot.

• 16:04Jay Shetty?

  Oh, I like that. I'm gonna have to ask you to do that for me.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Oh, man, it's it's super important. So this is really interesting. And I don't know the structures of your interviews well enough to know if this tangent will pay off. But like just talking to you now as a friend, if we can get to that place where, because you and I share a very similar vision of who we want to be. And I don't know if you're talking publicly about what you told me before we started rolling. So I won't say it. But your vision of where you want to go and the type of person you want to become is so extraordinary. And I promise, nobody gets it. I have the chills. So like, that's gonna be really cool. And I have a similar sort of big vision of who I'm trying to become. And I don't think anybody really understands about me either. And so if you can find somebody high level who has that desire to push and progress themselves,

• 16:49Speaker 01

  that you can get to really no bullshit, give you that kind of feedback is so powerful. And when people say that your network is your net worth, that's partly what they mean is like, oh, who you know, it's not what you know, it's who you know. That's part of it for sure. And that's valuable. But the other part is like, well, if you have people in your network that know something you don't and can tell you and you can hear it, that will be life changing.

• 17:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  So, man, I'll take that. Like if if you're sincere, you can you can sign me up.

• 17:18Jay Shetty?

  I'm being serious, man. I think I think we all need it. And like you're saying, it just gets harder and harder and harder as you go on. I was just saying the other day to someone. And and my structure with these. Podcast for me really is to have a conversation beyond an interview.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:32Jay Shetty?

  Because I learn so much more when I'm just hanging and actually that's when I have the best conversations. And I have a format, I have my questions, I know you well enough of research, but I'm like, I wanna go beyond structure. I love flow state. My videos are created in flow state. I'm fascinated by when I go beyond checking and filtering everything that I'm saying and hearing and trying to match everything you say with what I've read a million times, because that again is giving me confirmation bias.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:00Jay Shetty?

  How am I able to kind of take all that away and, and hear from you differently?

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:05Jay Shetty?

  And, and not judge or filter everything you say and box everything you say and, and learn more from it. So, I mean, that, that leads me to a quote, when you've been sharing two quotes, the, the first quote that did come to my mind, which I've never said to myself, so I'm gonna share it, is, you know, youth is wasted on the young. Like, we hear that too. We hear that too at the same time, which totally goes against the genius one you spoke about.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that one is coming from a very specific place as somebody who's older, right? It, it is the, the exact parallel to somebody, um, saying, I've got all this wisdom now, but I've lost the benefits of youth, you know, not exactly a catchy quote, but like, that's, that's the sentiment that it's coming from, you know what I mean? It's like, and I do feel that way, like, you know, I'm looking at Johnny here, Johnny's 20 years old. And I think, oh my God, if I had, and, and really what I mean there is, there, there are not only physical things that you can get away with when you're younger. Look, I'm young enough and I've really focused on staying in shape, so I don't have a lot of deleterious effects of getting older.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  But if I had that period of my life where being poor doesn't matter and nobody is like holding it against you, like, he can walk into a meeting and what people are gonna be thinking about is, oh, is this the next young Turk, right? They forgive everything else. But if I walk in, You know, at 42 with like the same level of accomplishment or whatever they think, okay, well, if he's not married now, there's something wrong with him, right? The old adage. So it's like, there's just, the world perceives you very differently. And so I think it's a, it's a fair comment. Like he, he honestly, like he's in a better position because he's that impact theory. So I'm hoping it helps, but like, he doesn't

• 19:47Speaker 01

  have the context, you know what I mean? To really know where he's at in his life, what to do, like the fact that he and I both dyed our hair ridiculous colors at almost exactly the same age. It's like, there's just this predictable in that experimentation phase where he's trying to figure out who he is and make some noise and like establish that. So now imagine you're already done with all that. Now you're deep wisdom. Now you're like making impacts. How do I make this change? I've spent decades of my life working on myself and I'm still 20. Like that would just be an intense game. It would. That I would love to play.

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• 20:53Speaker 03

  Mr. President, my company formed me of the explosion on our rig.

• 20:56Speaker 04

  On October 2nd.

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me.

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You're stalled, you're freezing, that's what.

• 21:13Speaker 04

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 21:17Speaker 05

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 21:18Speaker 04

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only appears October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not admitted without parent.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  But I feel like you're still playing it now. I am in some, in some instances, and this is interesting. So here's, anybody that knows me that's followed my content knows I plan to live forever. And so I emphasize the word plan because one, I know that it's not going to happen by accident. I'm not doing anything to make the medical breakthroughs that are going to be necessary. So right now I am without question on a collision course with death. And I know that and I'm aware of that, but also at the same time, I'm structuring my life so that I'm never thinking, oh, I only have so many years left. I always think about what's the like biggest impact that I could have on others and myself. I wanna for sure have impact, positive impact on myself as well. And so I'm looking at it through that lens and not through the lens of my age, which is very tempting. And so I'm, you know, I constantly issue that.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  But the thing that's conflicting is everyone is delusional about death. And we either obsess over it too much and it feels too imminent, or you get people like me who deny it so completely that it doesn't at all influence their day to day. And I do worry sometimes that I have so pushed death off as a reality that I may be blind in the moment to a truth that could be useful. And so I'm constantly, again, looking for, you know, disconfirming evidence. I'm constantly checking that to see like, how much of this is fear of death and just pure delusion? And how much of this is really useful? And I try to stay deep into useful territory by reminding myself I could have an aneurysm

• 22:51Speaker 01

  before the end of this podcast and be dead, and that's real. With, but don't think short sighted, you know, otherwise I would just go, you know, eat some ice cream and call it a day. But, you know, to really invest.

• 23:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely. And anyone who's listening to this podcast right now, I hope you're enjoying it because if you wanna know about Tom being an entrepreneur, you can go and find that online. If you wanna hear about Tom, learning about how he got funding and how he built a business and how he built a strategy, you can go find that online. My role here is to be the monk that I am and speak to Tom beyond all of that, being a friend of Tom's, I hope I could say that.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Oh, aggressively.

• 23:30Jay Shetty?

  Being, being a friend of Tom's. My time with Tom has shown me that he is an entrepreneur. He's an extremely successful entrepreneur, more than millions of people will ever be. But beyond that, he has so much more to offer. You're a real visionary. You really push the boundaries. You, your self-study is on an insane level. And, and I want that to come out. Like, that's what I want people to hear about, and I can hear it already. And that's what I'm excited for people to know you as. Because to me, that's that why, that's that pillar, that's what's built everything else that's coming from you. So, so far, so good.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  And I really wanna be the poster child for changeability and. A large part of that is because I, I really, just as sort of like the raw materials, I was not voted most likely to succeed. My own mother quietly assumed I was gonna fail when I went to college. She later confessed that. When I finally asked her, you know, you all but kicked me out of the nest when I was 18 and have spent every day since trying to claw me back. Like, why did you encourage me to leave? And she was like, oh, I just assumed you were gonna fail. And the way she said it was like totally devoid of malice. It was literally just like, I didn't want you to wonder what if. It was self-evident to me that you were going to fail. And it was that, like this notion that it was just

• 24:46Speaker 01

  self-evident. And it was self-evident because I was so lazy. And so, everybody looks at me and I'm sort of the walking after picture from an entrepreneur's standpoint, and there's no way to show a compelling before picture. And so, everyone, so I was on, on a podcast not too long ago, James Altucher, and who was really fun, by the way, I really enjoyed my time with him. But his conclusion was, Tom, you're just smarter than you think you are, or smarter than you're willing to admit, or whatever. And I had to laugh, because I'm like, this is where everybody goes. They try to make me special, instead of going, oh, that's how much humans can change. And when it, when it comes to muscle, people

• 25:28Speaker 01

  get it, right? When you can show somebody they have no muscle, one year, and then, you know, 10 years later, they don't look like the same species, they've put on so much muscle. And all I'm saying is, the same thing is true of the brain. And you can make the same kind of radical transformations, and still be the same underlying person, and this all comes back to epigenetic change. The reason that humans are the apex predator is because of our ability to adapt. That's it. Like, our DNA, when they first sequenced human, the human genome, they thought they'd find some extraordinary amount of gene encoding, or trait encoding genes. And what they found was there were only 20,000. And so, they're like, okay, we have onions that have 40,000. So are we really supposed to believe that

• 26:10Speaker 01

  an onion is twice as biologically complicated as a human? It just doesn't make sense. They were like, well, there is all this junk DNA, but it doesn't seem to do anything. And of course, whenever scientists To say that, flash forward five or 10 years and suddenly they figure out what it actually does. And that's epigenetic signaling. So we have all these genes. All they do is tell our other genes how much to express based on what's happening in our environment. And so the brain is as prone to those radical changes as is the body. And so to avoid falling into a depression after a failure, I'll just shorthand all of, you know, a very long story. But in film school, my final senior thesis, which was like a miracle that I got chosen to do it. And it was like, I beat all these odds and I thought I was the shit and I just thought I was winning and better than everybody.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  And then I failed and realized, oh, actually, the reason I failed was because I don't have talent. Now, for most people, and myself included, at the moment that I had that realization, that was for me a permanent state. I have no talent because I am talentless. I will always be without talent. And so I started sliding towards depression because I had no idea where my life was going to go. I had this vision of me as a filmmaker and now it was just dead. And so I was like, whoa, what do I do with that? And as a part of this, I don't even remember how I stumbled upon it, but I started reading about the brain. And in reading about the brain, I realized, oh, there's this hotly debated, this is the late 90s. There's this hotly debated notion of brain plasticity. Can the brain change the way the body does? And I was like, I choose to believe it can.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  And I don't know that I'm right, but it just thinking that I could get better, lifted that dark cloud that had set over my life. And at the time I was teaching. And so as I'm teaching, I realized, well, I can help the students make better films. And if I can help them, why can't I help myself? And so that is the seed that gets planted that turns into me going into entrepreneurship and self-development and all of that stuff. And really making just massive radical changes in my life.

• 28:05Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely. Yeah, we start making permanent decisions based on temporary feelings.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:09Jay Shetty?

  And we slot it in and we think it won't change. And this, I'm so glad you went there because I don't think people know this because you're always interviewing everyone. The thing is that you have so much studied and read neuroscience and about the brain. And you can talk about it from a really educated standpoint, which wasn't always the case, obviously, as we've just found out. What's the latest thing that you've been reading or heard or something that's kind of stuck with you from that background where you've just been like, this is what I'm testing right now. This is what I'm experimenting with.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the thing that I recently came across that is shocking is not going to be news to a lot of people, but have you read Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life?

• 28:52Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Okay, absolutely extraordinary book. His book Maps of Meaning is actually even more impactful, but it's dense. But when he talked about lobsters and how the serotonin system is present in lobsters, it's like getting people to understand, because here's the other thing that people will mistake in my belief system. They think what I'm saying is humans are just blank slates. We're not. I wish we were. That would be so much more interesting to me that we're literally blank and you can just paint anything you want on that canvas. It's not like that. But it is like, using the body as a metaphor, it is like the person who weighs, you know, 135 pounds soaking wet and then they, you know, become a 250 pound, just muscled out, strong as an ox beast.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Like that level of transformation is very real. And so getting into that and realizing how innate some of these things are. And so some things aren't about changing or overcoming, it's about leveraging. And so once you realize some things are a game of change, some things are a game of leverage. And so leveraging the serotonin system, for instance, or here's one of my favorite things about neuroscience. This literally changed my life. This affected my marriage. And when I give people the answer, Jay, they're going to think this is so dumb. But I'm talking to the six of you out there right now who are actually going to do this.

• 30:14Jay Shetty?

  That I would.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  It will change their life, dude. You ready?

• 30:18Jay Shetty?

  I'm ready.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  When you take on a facial expression, you will feel the emotion. No matter what, whether you want to or not, you will. And when I realized that the brain and the body are in a feedback loop, meaning that the brain gets as much information. So the vagus nerve, I think 82% of the signals running on the vagus nerve, which is the biggest nerve in your body, 82% is your body speaking to your brain. Not your brain telling your body to do something. Your body telling your brain what's up, how to feel, sending signals that end up influencing massive amounts of both conscious and subconscious behavior. So it is truly a loop. So I used to, I don't get angry easily. And this actually used to really wind my wife up.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  And, or I should say, but when I did get angry, I would stay angry. So it'd be like, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Boom, now I'm pissed. And now I'm gonna be pissed for the next eight hours, or a day, or two days, or God, there were times I'd be mad for like three days. Oh, wow. And I thought, it's funny. I've never once come out of one of those periods and thought, you know what, I'm glad I was mad that long. That was a great use of a Saturday with my wife. This is really just a smart way of living. Every time I came out and thought, this is moronic. I don't know what you're doing. You're wasting your time. So I had read this study that said, if you hold a pencil in your mouth, and then have somebody which sort of forces you into almost a smile, and then have people rate their levels of happiness, they'll rate it higher.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  And I thought, that can't be true. And so the study goes on to talk about getting people to laugh out loud and all this stuff. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna try it. So I would force myself to laugh out loud, and it would change my mood. Now, I felt stupid doing it, for sure. And then, but about like six seconds in, it's so dumb and so ridiculous. And now you're getting that feedback loop, that it actually becomes real and your mood lightens. And so I wrote this letter to myself, and I gave it to my wife to read to me if ever I was in a bad mood. And she only had to read it to me once and it worked so profoundly that I realized I don't need somebody to read the letter because the notion of and the letter was basically because whenever you're in a fight with somebody and they try to soothe you, you reject that because

• 32:33Speaker 01

  you think, well, they're just doing that because they've done something to wrong me. I'm legitimate. I have a legitimate reason to be upset. They have an incentive, a perverse incentive to see me forgive it. So I'm not going to forgive it. This is real and some deep recess of your brain, you feel it needs to be punished. And so in that mode, you won't believe what they say because they have motive. So I had to read this letter and it was like, hey me, it's me. You know, I have no motive in this. I want nothing other than when you're looking back on this for you to feel like you made the right decision. And so what I want you to do right now is laugh out loud. That's it. Just take 10 seconds, laugh out loud. And at the end of that, you know, it's going to change your brain chemistry. And I remember citing the study and I was like, you know, it'll work. So just do it. And so she read it to me. I laughed out loud. It felt

• 33:18Speaker 01

  ridiculous. I didn't want to do it, by the way. I did not want to laugh out loud. But the code that I live by is, man, you always do that which moves you towards your goals. I want to have an amazing marriage. So I did it. I laughed out loud and it changed my mood on a dime. And I was like, I can't believe this is real. So that like, and it goes on and on. If you've read BS Ramachandran.

• 33:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And also.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 33:37Jay Shetty?

  Karen, no Karen.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Just, yeah, there are so many cool studies like that. There was no punchline to that. Just that if people haven't read him, he is extraordinary.

• 33:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. And I think it was only last year that, or a couple of years ago now, where Harvard did their study on power poses.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:53Jay Shetty?

  And they talked about if you stand like Superwoman, or if you stand like Wonder Woman, or if you stand like Superman, then all of those things are going to boost your mood before an interview or before speaking to a stage of a thousand people or whatever it is.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Do you want to get into the like, the weeds of this?

• 34:05Jay Shetty?

  Let's do it.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Purely.

• 34:06Jay Shetty?

  Let's do it.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Experientially.

• 34:08Jay Shetty?

  Let's do it.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  I find if I'm feeling anxious and I try to do power posing, it makes me feel exposed. There's a reason when you have deep levels of anxiety that you close in, there's a protective mechanism, but the emotional rewards you get is that you are safer. And I find in moments of like overwhelm or high stress, I want to be in small spaces. Nothing is more pleasant than sleep, like I sleep under a blanket, fully under a blanket, blanket wrapped up over my head. There is nothing more comforting than that. So now what you have to do is train people to do that, not right at the height of their vulnerability. This is me speculating, by the way, just like my gut instinct about having used some of this

• 34:46Speaker 01

  because I have suffered from massive anxiety for years and that one didn't serve me. But what did was to use that prior to remind myself to stand up straight or to remind myself to do those poses so that I don't feel exposed when I'm in that posture. So that when I'm anxious, that becomes something that soothes me rather than just makes me feel super vulnerable. But I find that that stuff and certainly N of one experimentation where you're just running this stuff on yourself to see, you know, where are you? Is it working for you or not? Like it may work for one person, but not for you. But yeah, there's really extraordinary stuff coming out on the brain. It's pretty gnarly.

• 35:26Jay Shetty?

  I love that. And I love that you studied that. I read one recently that that literally changed the way I work through everything. And luckily I read it. I read it after I came on the show. I probably read it in March or April of this year and then started really putting it into practice, especially seeing as my content this year became so much more of a commitment than it's ever been. It was the first time in my life we started making three videos a week and 12 videos a month. And I read a study that said your brain, you can't physically be creative and logical at the same time.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  That's interesting.

• 35:58Jay Shetty?

  You can't be creative and logical at the same time. So you can't really be authentically in flow state and creative and at the same time have a business meeting and conversation, talk about your accounts or taxes or numbers or sales or whatever it is. And I was like, that's really interesting because I felt that anytime I had done that in the same day. So sometimes I'd go and I'm sure people listening go from being in a business meeting to then try and write a script, to then running back to another business meeting, to then trying to have like a creative time with their wife or partner, or whatever it is, or maybe play an instrument. And I used to find that I could do it for some time, but then you start seeing burnout. And what's basically happened is you're just stretching your ability and you're stressing yourself out and you're just getting tired. If you are pulling it off right now and you're going, Jay, you're talking nonsense, basically you're just getting tired.

• 36:43Jay Shetty?

  And eventually you run out. So what I started to do was I started to have creative weeks, where I would be creative for a whole seven days. And that would allow me to go so deep into my creativity. I wrote some of my best video scripts at that time. I got immersed in my creativity and how I could really deliver the message better. And I was able to accelerate my creativity. And then for the rest of the month, I'd just be in networking events. I'd just be in business meetings. I'd just be connecting with people. And it just lifted me. It just completely took off the creativity ever feeling like a burden or a weight. And let me just be creative. And I was sharing that with a lot of creators recently who've been going through mental health or burdens or whatever it may be.

• 37:25Jay Shetty?

  Anyone who's doing something creative on a regular basis, I highly recommend testing it.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  That's really interesting. So right now, obviously, there are two sides to my life. There's the public side that people see me on camera, all that stuff. And then there's the, we're building a studio. So we're writing comic books. We're prepping screenplays and movie pitches. And so that is like, there's those two, you almost could group together. But then there's the other side of I have whatever 21 employees. And so it's like the day to day of dealing with HR and, you know, what are we doing with people's health insurance? I mean, it's just like a thousand things like that, right? So and bouncing back and forth between the two is. Is very stressful and I'm not deeply efficient at switching gears.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  So some people are, I'm like, whatever the spectrum is, I'm like way low on the spectrum. So going back and forth for me is a nightmare. It's interesting though, I've never thought to like really chunk it out like that in terms of weeks. I've thought about this half day or something like that, but. And I always think of it as project specific versus being project type, which may be even better. That's really, really interesting. I will have to try that out.

• 38:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, try it out. Let me know, let me know what you find from it. It definitely has been working for me and I've been trying to hold true to it and trying to stop myself from. I've been having two creative days a week for the last two months.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 38:44Jay Shetty?

  So I don't do anything. I just pick up random books, write notes, think, read. It's just, it allows me to really get into a zone.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  That's, yeah.

• 38:52Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  That's sexy. Like the thought, like hearing you describe it like that, like makes me want to do it immediately. Cause when you can get into the zone, so I think it was Einstein that said, um, a lot of working hard looks like staring out the window. And there is some truth to that. It's like, sometimes you, you need to let go, like your mind has to relax. It's part of the reason that I like meditating so much is you go into an alpha wave state. So you're calm and creative. You're making these far-flung connections in the mind. They seem to cough up into your consciousness. Like you're not working for them, you're not chasing them. And so like, there was something that you really captured when you said, you know, I might just walk over and pick up a book. It's like, yeah, man, like you chase that thread, you pull at that and then some idea comes out of it.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Like I was talking with my writers the other day and we were talking about something else and they said something and I felt bad. They said something, but it clicked an idea so hard for me that I didn't hear them, literally probably for 90 seconds. Where my mind was just like, I was off, like chasing that idea and like, you know, that story and what that story would look like and all that. And then finally at, at about 90 seconds of like being down that rabbit hole, I was like, guys, guys, I'm so sorry. I'm going to stop you because I am not hearing you at all. Like you triggered this hard idea, but when you're in that mode, you're in creativity, you're sitting with writers, you're all talking. Or you can just pick up a book or you can watch a movie or something and just get inspired and you're drawing all these inspirations in. It's crazy, like where your mind will go.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Like one thing I like doing is going to like a Comic Con. Have you ever been to a Comic Con?

• 40:21Jay Shetty?

  I've never been. I really want to. I've been watching, I've been following you. I've been living.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Here's the thing, if, if you're not into Comic Cons, it'd be a total waste of your time.

• 40:27Jay Shetty?

  I'm into comics.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  But when I go, it's like.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  It is the, the thing that I like about the art form of comics, even though it has, they have catastrophic drawbacks. But the reason that it is an art form that has survived as long as it has is because there's no medium that can give you like big ideas really fast, like comics. Like they've just really figured it out. An economy of language, um, just everything is ultra high concept. It's, it's utterly fascinating. So when I'm walking a con, it's like I get into a meditative state. I will literally walk with my hands clasped behind my back. There's, and I don't know why, just intuitively, I always do that where I'm like almost shutting my body down. I walk really slowly and I just let the bombardment of ideas hit me.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  And it puts me into like this super creative space where ideas start sparking for me. Right? You go look at a piece of art or you see a headline on a comic or something. It's crazy, man. So yeah, getting into that, that realm where you're, you know, essentially staring out the window. But that's where the work gets done, the mental work anyway.

• 41:34Jay Shetty?

  Hmm. Yeah. Because otherwise we're so on autopilot. We, we all have morning routines. We know what we're doing. Everyone's running on default and then everything kind of just adds up and stacks up. And yes, we're effective and productive, but I found that in the focus of being effective and productive, I was losing that raw creativity, which I crave and love and enjoy. So yeah, no, good. I'm glad, I'm, I'm interested to try, try yours too. And I, I definitely have been doing that more so, the physical to the mental, because I spent so much of my life mastering the mind that I often neglected the body. And it's funny because I've kind of come back the other way and been like, okay, no, I wanna, I wanna bring my body on the journey now.

• 42:15Jay Shetty?

  Like I don't wanna just let it kind of fade away and die, you know, just in the expense of the mind. Okay, let's, one thing I wanted to go with you was around your self-awareness. You're so self-aware, you're always trying to be more self-aware. When I see relationship theory with you and Lisa, by the way, if you don't know Lisa Billy, Tom's wife, incredible, absolutely amazing woman. Love her Instagram stories, go follow her. She's, she's incredible. The way she tells, I told her, she's one of my favorite Instagram storytellers, like hands down.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Can we for a second dive into that? So yes, she is my wife. What I'm about to say is not because she's my wife, she's my wife because I think she's cool, not the other way around. So. She is in our company. She is the best social content creator we have. Like, oh, for sure, I'm including myself in that. I don't know what it is. She's just got a knack for like, understanding how to be raw and vulnerable, but in a way that you can package.

• 43:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Which is hard, man. As soon as you start trying to package it, you somehow lose something in it. She knows how to keep it, dude. So, literally, I was watching her IG feed and I was like, damn, like, it's so much better than mine. What the fuck? So, I pinned her down and I was like, you gotta help me, man. What you're doing over here is amazing. And so she was like, alright, post this picture and then just, whatever comes to your mind, talk about it. And so she would like, start feeding me all my throwbacks and my Transformation Tuesdays and all that. And she was like, you know, whatever comes to mind, just go on it.

• 43:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  And so, doing that, picking like, you know, the weird photos of me, the ugly office, instead of like, anything cool that I'm doing, like, just all raw, vulnerable, like, all of it, and then just riffing off of it, is amazing. That's all her, man. She just crushed it.

• 43:55Jay Shetty?

  I love it. I love that you guys have documented everything. It's insane. Like, when I see your pictures happen, even the, you know, physical changes, job changes, home changes, everything, it's unbelievable to see it all documented.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  All of our lives are worse because you didn't take pictures of yourself when you were a monk. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna put that out there right now.

• 44:13Jay Shetty?

  I've got two. I've got two pictures.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  You have to milk those forever.

• 44:17Jay Shetty?

  I wish I could.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Because having that before to show people, even, and maybe you don't need this, but this has been very valuable for me, is, one of the biggest benefits that I have is I don't live in the past. So, my past sort of fades, which is wonderful. And I read this book one time. I can see by, for people not watching this, just listening, Jay is agreeing vehemently. And I used to be really bothered by this, and then I realized, oh my god, this is why I don't have hangups. Because things just like, drift away from me. And... I read this book and it was talking about this character who was immortal, but he only had a 10-year memory. So 10 years is enough to form really deep connections. So he wasn't lacking that in his life. But it also has these weird consequences of there's no sort of grounded you. You are just this 10-year window.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  And I thought, that's actually really interesting. And that feels very much like my life. And if we hadn't been documenting this stuff, I've already been with Lisa for almost two of these 10-year cycles. So when I think back even now to just when we first got together, it's like it's fading. And so having the photos, having documented it, having video, where you can really see your attitude, right? Where it's not like, like when I look back on that and I can see, yeah, that mopey side that I worked to get rid of, like that was there. And you see it in the videos and it's embarrassing. And it reminds you, yeah, I don't want to be like that. And so having that, being able to see and be reminded or to recapture like, whoa, we really did start with nothing.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  You know, and to just, yeah, see something that sparks it off that I wouldn't be holding on to anymore. But it's very valuable for somebody to understand like, no, no, no. This is where I started. You're seeing me today, 20 years into a journey. But this, this is what I looked like 20 years ago.

• 46:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, the message is even if you have nothing, take pictures.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:07Jay Shetty?

  Usually wait.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Especially if you have nothing. Because then when you build something, you're gonna be like, I wish we had taken photos at the beginning.

• 46:13Jay Shetty?

  Totally, totally. I can so identify with that. My life's not very documented in pictures or video at all. I don't know why, it just never was a conscious decision. I, I never thought I'd be anywhere. So I was kind of like, what am I gonna take pictures for? But it's, but, but now I value it. And when I see your, both your feeds, I really value it. I learned so much by reading about both of your throwbacks, the work, the energy, the effort, and you both live it beautifully. But the reason why I was bringing up Lisa, apart from that, was I also feel that you are constantly working on yourself, whether it's health. Relationships, impact, you're constantly working for yourself. What I wanna know is, how did, not did, how did you build that mindset? But what is that mindset of constantly working on yourself without judging yourself to a deeper level?

• 46:58Jay Shetty?

  Without doing it in a way that always pulling you down, but always pushing you up? And you're doing that in your relationship. Whenever I watch Relationship Theory, I think the conversations you and Lisa have, incredible. So it seems like you're doing it in all areas of your life. Which area did it start in? Which areas did it evolve to? Let's just break that whole.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let's answer that question. So where did it start and where did it go? So the honest answer is that like many of the most amazing things in my life, they were born of misery. And I was deeply and profoundly unhappy, dissatisfied with who I was, what I was capable of, where I was in life, all of it. I was just really unhappy about it. Now, the one good thing is I've always met things like that with, and what can I do? And I have a bias towards action. And then I've cultivated that bias towards action, which is how it's gotten extreme and has permeated into every area of my life. Okay, so it starts with it's this dark place, this, like I said, I failed in film school. I didn't fail in film school, I graduated second in my class.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  But there was a failure that was so emotionally catastrophic that everybody else would have been like, oh, you gotta be, like, what's the problem? Sure, I gotta be in the class, but I didn't walk away with a thesis film that I could use to get a job as a filmmaker. So for me, it was like, whoa, I just lost massively. So I'm, you know, in this very dark place. I'm broke as the day is long, I can't afford furniture. I literally sit on the floor in my unfurnished apartment like that, you know, just, it's a normal phase that people go through. But then put on top of that, that I'm feeling down and stuck, like I don't know where I'm gonna go. Propensity towards action kicks in, I start reading, I'm learning about the brain, figuring out how much of this can I change? I realize I can change it. And then that change felt so good.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  And even, let's do a thought exercise. This is for people listening, cause you're already there. But for anybody listening, and you're listening to Jay because you wanna get there. You see something, which by the way, you feel when you're with him, it is real, and I love that about you. But like this sense of peace, like the normal slings and arrows of life, he's found a way to deal with it. I won't say that he doesn't have them, but he's found a way to deal with it, and that's what you're looking for. So going into that, it's like.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  If you are in a dark place and you hear change is real, change is possible. Doesn't that lift your mood? Don't you want that to be true? And once you allow it, because you have to allow it, once you allow that to lift your mood and you're like, "I feel better just by thinking I can change." That was huge for me. That was like, moment one was when I realized I actually can change. So this thing that feels like a death threat, this like smothering cloud of just like despair, it can clear away. And it immediately, and it's not like, "Oh, it went from gray skies to blue skies." It wasn't that immediate, but it was, it literally immediately, a lighter load just because I realized I can change. So I was like, "Whoa, I can change."

• 49:53Speaker 01

  None of this is a death sentence. That's so like, just amazing. That was enough to get me going. And people are always looking for, "How do I have that energy? I'm depressed, I'm down on myself. How do I get the energy to push through?" Man, you've got to find a way to find energy in that. You can change. So whatever position you're in right now, you can change, no matter what it is, no matter how horrific, no matter what you've been through, no matter what you've done. Like, there is a way out from under it. But part of it is allowing that sense of lightness to be there. So I allowed it. And so it began to lift off my shoulders, which then encouraged me to take more action, to read more, to get better. I started my obsession with gaining skills that reading isn't about checking a box. It's about actually getting better at something unless you do something. And I need a better way to explain this. This is one of those things, like, if people really understood what I'm talking about right now,

• 50:38Speaker 01

  this one fact would change their life forever. You don't get skills because it looks good on the resume. You get skills because it lets you do the thing you want to do. So let's, uh, let's use sports as an example. It's just all too easy not to use it. So if you want, you're in poverty and you're Lionel Messi and you realize, actually, I think, um, who's the other one?

• 51:03Jay Shetty?

  Cristiano Ronaldo.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Cristiano Ronaldo, thank you. He was in the grips of poverty. And nice, that's perfect. So Cristiano Ronaldo, in the grips of poverty, realizes that playing soccer is a way out for him. And so he goes and gets the skills. Why? Because if he can win on the soccer field, then he can actually elevate his family out of poverty. Like, when you see that trail, it goes back to the Nietzsche quote. If you have a why, you can survive almost any how. So, how am I gonna get there? The, the amount of work that Cristiano Ronaldo has put in to become one of the greatest, if not the greatest The greatest. Football player of all time, is, it's inhuman. Anybody else would look at it and say, nope, not willing to do that.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  And fair enough, but it was somebody who said, if I gain these skills, it will let me dribble around people, score when other people can't score, galvanize a team around me, leverage it to be wanted by teams, to turn into financial resources, to make me famous, so that I can get brand deals and things like that. All the things that he would need to do to pull himself out of poverty. Like, this stuff isn't an accident, it's about skill acquisition. So there's another kid that had the same dream, I'm gonna use soccer to get me out of poverty, and did nothing about it, therefore did not have the skills, therefore could not elevate their family out of poverty, and looks at it like, well, this is all circumstance. It's not circumstance, it's cause and effect. It's how much energy do you put into actually gaining the skills? And did you gain them?

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Or, did you just put in the energy and the effort, thinking that should be enough to gain it, but you didn't actually gain them? So this is what, it's, it's like, the gift I want everybody to receive is, you can get good at anything you set your mind to.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  But do you actually set your mind to it? Do you have that inhuman level of follow-through? Do you keep pushing and fighting long after it's stopped being fun, deep into boredom? Because you have a why. You know why you're doing what you're doing, and you're just driving towards that. And when you have that, you can accomplish this extraordinary stuff. But I really think, people now are doing it for the gram. You're doing it for the gram. You wanna go to that thing and do it because it's like, oh, this is gonna look good on my gram. And look, I've done that a hundred times, I get it. But at the core of my existence is not that. The core of my existence is, I'm going to, in the amount of time that I have, I'm going to be acquiring skills. Now, to acquire those skills, going back to what you were asking me, it's like, you have to be self- So as a part of the formula of knowing that skills have utility,

• 53:21Speaker 01

  that I can put that utility to the test in service of something bigger than myself that helps other people, makes me have meaning and purpose, also helps me generate finances, do the things that I want in my life, all of that. But it comes down to that acquiring those skills. So going into something, knowing that like, oh my God. Okay, first it lightens my load a little bit because I realize I can change. Then I realized these skills actually have utility. They're going to let me do stuff. So now I really want to go hardcore into that. And so I poured my attention and energy into making that emotionally rewarding. We all get to decide, in fact, I will be writing a book about this. We all get to decide what our values are, what our belief system is, what our rules in life are, the code of ethics that we live by.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  Those are all decisions that people mistake for empirical truth. But if you want to know how just unempirically true it is, look across all societies, they don't share it. So we just decide that stuff. It's usually handed to us by our parents, which is what makes us confuse it with just being true. But the reality is that we're all constructing this belief system, value system, honor code, all of it. And it's going to determine what we do and how we do it. Now, if you choose to breathe life into from a value and belief standpoint, putting in that work to get those skills, then suddenly that energy of like, whoa, this is going to let me do something that lets me serve. All of a sudden, like, wow, that's uplifting in and of itself. So you feel good as you're doing it. Now, as you're feeling better about it, you're going to want to do it more.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  And so that became that self reinforcing loop of I want to do this more. But to do it more, I have to become aware of my blind spots. And that's where self awareness comes in. But just like any other skill, like you have to cultivate it, you have to get better at it, you have to seek disconfirming evidence. You have to come to realize where you have been blind. Now, often those moments where we realize we've been blind, they are emotionally devastating. So the one going back to film school, in creating that final thesis film, the realization, the removal of the scales from my eyes was to realize I did not yet have talent as a filmmaker. Now, I didn't know the word yet at the time, so I just, you know, felt like a forever, but it was like. That's the truth. I did not yet have talent. Okay, well, at least now I know. Now I can address it. Had I known that on an earlier film,

• 55:33Speaker 01

  I wouldn't have made the mistakes in my thesis film because I would have known I'm not John Woo. I'm Alfred Hitchcock and the night and day difference with which they approached films. And so what I had to learn as a creator was, oh, I'm Alfred Hitchcock. I have to plan everything to the nth detail because I can't think fast enough to do it on the fly. I have horrible spatial relations. Film, oddly enough, is massively about spatial relations. So like being able to hold that in my head, I can't. So I have to get a computer program. I have to literally do what are called animatics if I want to shoot a film. So the next film that I directed, I animatic the whole thing out, literally. Every shot, camera angle, lens choice, everything was made in like two months leading up to the shoot. And then on the shoot, it was just like, what does my animatic say? Oh, it says the camera's going to move from here to here.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  We're going to be on a 35 millimeter lens. It's going to be at four foot, seven inches. It was all mapped out. So I could watch it and say, is it working or not? Because I can't hold that in my head. That's a limitation of me. Okay, fair enough. But like that self-awareness allowed me to address it with a set of skills, which was animatics. So that's my like whole obsession. I don't know if I got every nuance of what you were asking in self-awareness. But it's like you can train even self-awareness.

• 56:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  It's often going to come from pain, but you can, and we can get into it. I don't know if it's of interest, but there are ways to train yourself to be more self-aware.

• 56:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, let's do it. I love it. The reason why I love this one is because I believe that this is the root of everyone's biggest challenges.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  All right, then let's get into it. So the biggest thing is if you're trying to march down a path of self-improvement without clarity, without a terrifying level of clarity, you're never going to make it. So start there. What do you want exactly? What skill, what trait, what ability, what belief? What are you trying to make yours? So once you identify that.

• 57:16Jay Shetty?

  Notice he did not say a thing there. Like you said, right? Like you said, what ability, what trait, what quality? You didn't, you didn't ever say what house, what car?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  What Lambo, yeah.

• 57:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, right. It's important.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:29Jay Shetty?

  Because, because I think that's too much. I mean, when I remember first getting into self-improvement, sorry to cut you off.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Please.

• 57:34Jay Shetty?

  I'm saying this because I, I think it's such an important point that you made that you did not let that word even come into a list. And you named like seven things and it didn't come in. Because when I started self-improvement, so much of what I heard in the West was always about a vision board of having stuff. And it was just like, put a picture of that ideal house, put a picture of that car. And I've always struggled with that. Always struggled with that being the object of obsession. So I'm glad you didn't bring it up and you can carry on or go on that or whatever.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, well, part of it is because I certainly don't want to be disingenuous like there are also material things that I chase and am inspired by and all that, for sure. I just come at it from a like, what's the skill that I'm gonna need, even if that ultimately is where I want to get. It's like all of that stuff people will find, and God, I hope people have heard this a thousand times. It's so transient. It is never going to fulfill you, right? But it's still fun. Go ahead, chase it. Have fun. Like, I get it. But you will ultimately come back to something more meaningful, for sure. So the, once you know what you want, you have that level of clarity. Now it's about, okay, where am I in that? And that's where it requires you have self-awareness to know where you are in developing that skill. So if you, one, are willing to be honest with yourself,

• 58:48Speaker 01

  you, you've already won. The single most important part in learning to be honest with yourself is to accept that you must have self-esteem. And the problem is, most people build their self-esteem around something stupid. So, most people build their self-esteem around being right, being good, being smart, being worthy, and they see all of those as permanent traits. And so anything that challenges them being smart, which is my big one. Oh God, even to this day, if I really want to get into a bad place, I'll just go hang around people that are just legitimately smarter than me and then focus on how cool being smart is. Now I can be around them when I value myself for being the learner. But the second I let myself slip into just wanting to be cool for being smart, then being around those people is like getting kicked in the face. It sucks, man.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  And so I had this, I went through this phase in my life that I call the king of remedial jobs phase. And I wanted, so this is post film school, post like realizing that I don't have talent. I just need to be smart, man. I just need to build myself back up by being smart. And so I would apply for jobs. Like I worked, I sold video games retail. And I sold insurance door to door. I did anything that I could where I knew that the person interviewing me at some point during the interview was gonna say, "Why are you applying for this job? Like, you're too smart for this." And be like, "I'm right where I need to be." Which is crazy and sad, but absolutely true. And so I did that for a couple of years. And in that phase, it was, I just didn't want my intelligence to be challenged.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  So flash forward now, I'm working with these two entrepreneurs. They hire me as a copywriter. I'm in an entrepreneurial environment for the first time. And they're clearly smarter than me. That, that isn't even up for debate. And I'm arguing with them for this idea because I needed to win. I just, I couldn't take another time where it's like, "They're smarter than me, they're smarter than me." So I was like, "All right, I'm gonna win on this idea." And somewhere in the argument, I realized I was wrong. And there was a voice in my head screaming, "You're wrong, dude. You are wrong, you know you're wrong, shut up. Like, stop pushing for this, what are you doing?" And I kept going and I finally like whittled them down and they finally just gave up. And so they said, "Yep, we'll do it your way, fine, whatever." And right then and there, it's the one time in my life that was truly a lightning rod moment,

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  where my life can be divided before and after. And that moment was realizing that I was telling everybody that I wanted to get rich. But the way I was acting was like, I just wanted to feel smart. And I thought, "Hey, no judgment, I'm totally cool. Whichever it is, like, we can craft a life where that will be wonderful." So if what you really want is to just be smart and to feel smart all the time, you have to quit. You've gotta get out of this environment because they make you feel stupid all the time. And that's not a great place to be. Feeling badly about yourself all the time, for any reason, even if it's self-inflicted, it's not a bad scenario, or it's not a good scenario, you've gotta get out of it. So I was like, "Okay, so that's option one.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Get out of this scenario, go back to being the king of remedial jobs." Or if you actually want to get rich, start acting in accordance with it. Start making decisions based on that. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna have to give up my self-esteem. I'm gonna have to like, stop worrying about feeling good about myself. And I was like, ooh, that is clearly a losing proposition. There is no way to come in and feel horrible every day and think that I will have the energy to see this through. So I was like, God, what else could I do? And I was like, well, I guess I could build my self-esteem around something that is sort of impervious to being around people that are smarter than me. And what would that be? Being the learner. And I thought, okay, well, I could choose to do that.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  I could choose to build my self-esteem around being not right, but finding the right answer. Not being smart, but working hard to learn. And so that became just like the core of my existence. I decided in that moment, I'm going to start valuing myself for how rapidly I can admit when I'm wrong. How much I learn, how much time and energy I put into learning. And once I switched that and I switched my identity and my behaviors around to being the learner, then all of a sudden, everything changed. And that's when I went on hockey stick growth. Because all of a sudden, if we were arguing and I realized you were right, I'd be like, dude, he's right. You're totally right. I see it. Oh, my God, thank you so much. And so I started earning a reputation. I never just backed into a corner. I never argued for something just because it was my idea.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  I was legitimately on the hunt to find the right answer. And so now I'm getting the internal feedback of, hey, you said that you were gonna always focus on being the learner, you're doing it, you said you'd always admit when you're wrong. And I would try to shorten that timeline down. So I wasn't like, taking an hour to finally admit it, or even three minutes that I was trying to get to it like, dude, if I realized I was wrong, three seconds, 30 seconds max, like, I'm, you know, just finally saying it. Look, you're totally right. I'm with you. Yep, I see it. And then the world was like, whoa, working with this guy is awesome. He's not trying to take credit for other people's ideas. He will change on what he was saying in a heartbeat when he, you know, he fights for what he believes in. But the second you can convince him, he's convinced and then he moves on. And it just became a really awesome environment.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  So that was hugely transformative, but it forces you to constantly be on the lookout for where am I wrong?

• 1:03:58Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:04:01Jay Shetty?

  Anyone who's listening, I'm taking a moment to take it all in. Because that's... The reason why I find that fascinating is because most of the time, we always hear just like, you know, self-awareness starts to just, "Just observe yourself, do what you're good at," you know, that kind of stuff. Which, which I think is not bad advice, I think it's on there. But you're actually flipping it totally. When I'm listening to you, what I'm hearing is that you literally had to shift the way you saw yourself and what you felt was making you feel significant. Because you were getting so much significance from being the smartest. And you had to take that away and find a new significance. It was still significant.

• 1:04:43Jay Shetty?

  It wasn't like being a learner was insignificant, or subordinate, or inadequate. You saw it with the same level of significance?

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  I, I had to, and that's the thing, you can decide what to value. And so this is another part of, it's not really self-awareness, but this is another part of the, the rebuilding process. Of somebody that wants to completely transform who they are. You have to change your identity. So, who am I? I'm, I'm the smart guy, and that's how I thought of myself. Like, I thought of myself as being smart. And then the life slapped me around and I realized, oh wow, I'm really actually not that smart. I just grew up in a small town. And so, in my small town, I was smart enough, I was still never the smartest. But then I moved to LA and all of a sudden, fucking people smarter than me were just like growing on trees. So I was like, wow, I really don't feel smart anymore. So, that was like a, a hard adjustment. And so then putting myself into these smaller and smaller rooms was the solution, but

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  I realized that I'd been sort of taken as a default value intelligence. Maybe it was the family I grew up in, or the movies I watched, I don't know. But I just had this default that being smart was the thing everyone should chase. And then I realized, "Oh, I can actually change that." Not everybody values themselves for that. And so I could swap that out with something else. And... I want people to understand that those things that are just deeply within you that seem as if they are innate human qualities, challenge them all. Some things you won't be able to change, but some things are far more malleable than you thought. And a lot of what you value comes down to what you repeat. And so just repeating myself, I'm the learner, I'm the learner, I'm the learner. It began to be my identity and then rewarding myself emotionally when I did that.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Repeating it, rewarding, repeating, rewarding. Then it's like through that repetition cycle, it actually starts to be meaningful that you're the learner. And by the way, I was telling everybody, I'm the learner, I see myself as a learner, I'm the learner, I'm the learner. And because I was telling people, then I really felt the sense of congruence with wanting to act like the learner. And so when you say you're going to do something and you do it, you earn self credibility. So now I've got this loop going. I said I was a learner, here I am reading this book, here I am being willing to admit when I'm wrong. Seeking out knowledge, looking for disconfirming evidence, like I get to feel good about myself for that. And that cycle of getting good at emotionally rewarding and if your audience is ready for this, emotionally punishing yourself and knowing that it's gotta be never more than an 80/20 split.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  You can never be like a 70/30 and spending 30% of your time in the negative, you just can't. It's just something about the human being and is it actually 20? It's, it feels ballpark there, but like if you think about, you should be spending at least four more times thinking about all the things you're doing well, all the good things you're bringing into this world, the things you're grateful for. Spending at least four more times amount of your time there, then you do the negative stuff, the things you're doing wrong, the things you could improve. And just the easy barometer is even if you have to take it down to a point of, you know, 0.1% of time in the negative. It's the, the way to know if you're spending too much or too little is

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  the second something begins to chip away at who you are and what you think about yourself, stop. Because all of this should be building you up. Even the things that I'm saying to myself, I'm not doing well at that. I'm, I have like protection from, and that's okay because you're the learner. I'm not good at that yet. Like I'm so hardcore about things like that, that I make sure that I'm, I always remind myself that just because I'm not good at it yet, doesn't mean that I'm not going to get good at it. So you start reinforcing that and you really can begin to build yourself up. These beliefs and habits and routines and core values, identity, it's all malleable.

• 1:08:17Jay Shetty?

  And if it's all malleable, that's where I'm going back to that question that I'd asked initially. And you were like, did you answer all, and you literally answered 99.9% of it apart from this one. Was when you're building that, how do you build it without letting that then become negative judgment on yourself? Or every time you're questioning yourself, or you're okay with being wrong, how are you stopping that from being so heavy?

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is where rules come in.

• 1:08:41Jay Shetty?

  Right, yes.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  So you have that rules in your life.

• 1:08:43Jay Shetty?

  I love that point you made at the event.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so.

• 1:08:45Jay Shetty?

  You talk about rules and barriers and boundaries. I think I answered the question and you were like, because you're a monk, you're allowed to say that. And then you went and gave the practical answer. I was like, that's a great answer. So yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  So the way that I view myself is like Voltron. I'm all these like random bits and pieces that come together to make a whole. But the reality when people look at me or they look at my success, what you're seeing is my identity, my values, my beliefs, my rules, my habits and my routines. They've all come together and they form a set of behavior, a set of seeking skills and working hard and wanting to impact and touch lives and to be a good partner to my wife and all of that. That's what you see, but it's all things that I very consciously and very routinely comb over, prune what's not working, add something new as I learn it. And that is, at the end of the day, you have to have a rule that you don't do anything that diminishes yourself.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  So for instance, if I'm in a dark place, I'm going to spend zero, zero percent of my time punishing myself. Right? Because it doesn't make sense. So one of my like guiding principles is never do anything that diminishes you. And then never do anything that moves you away from your goal. So again, goal, you have to have that clarity. So I know what I'm trying to do. Okay. Well, if I know what I'm trying to do, does beating me, beating myself up over this, is that going to help me or hurt me? Oh, it's going to hurt me because I'm going to be more likely to slide toward depression, to think less of myself, to be less bold, to take less action. Okay, well then we're not going to do that. And I don't think people have researched cognitive behavioral therapy nearly enough. Pattern interrupting is like everything.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  Get better at pattern interrupting than LeBron is at shooting. Like you just. Have to be a ninja, like you've got to be so hardcore. You've got to know about how to do that with yourself. So if I have a negative thought that's recurring, I just tell myself, nope, you can't think this anymore. So, and every time it will come up because I can't stop myself from it popping up into my conscious mind. But you absolutely can control how the next thought goes. The next thought can be, oh, I'm, here's what I will do with a negative thought. That's so rad. I'm so glad this negative thought appeared in my mind. Because that reminds me to be grateful for the fact that I'm friends with Jay Shetty. Or that reminds me to be grateful the fact I have a marriage that is so insanely cool. That like I legitimately some days have to stop myself from just curling up in a ball with her and just chilling all fucking day.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Like, that is, I'm super stoked. Even now, Jay, it's so funny. I had to stop and think, wait, I'm going through this list of things that I'm grateful for. What started this? And I'm like, oh yeah, the negative thought. Like that actually just happened to me right now. So you can imagine in real life, when like you train yourself, ah, every time the negative thought kicks up, don't, don't sit in the emotion of the negativity that it will bring. Instead, use it as a habit loop trigger to think about something you're grateful for. And at first it feels so awkward and it's like the negative thought just keeps coming back. But if you're diligent and suddenly negative thoughts become a habit loop trigger to gratitude, to positivity, to repeating your rules about I don't allow myself to think things that tear me down. So I'm not going to think about that.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Even just saying that crowds out that thought and telling other people that, hey, this is what you're doing. It is unbelievable. But this is why I'm saying I'm literally just a patchwork of all these like tools and techniques that allow me to protect myself from negative self-talk, from anxiety, from depression. I don't think I've ever officially been in depression. Uh, but I've been super fucking close enough to know the feeling of staring into the void, which I don't think is accurate. It feels like the void is collapsing in around you and just everything is meaningless and it is all utterly hopeless. And I've had just enough of a glimpse of how hopeless that is to, to get where people are in those moments. But anxiety, that I've been in the thick of.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  So that one I know and I've used CBT, uh, cognitive behavioral therapy to do interrupts on that. Um, I have a very well-developed negative voice. So I have had to, um, use tools and techniques to stop that. I never would have become a successful entrepreneur if I couldn't, um, learn to self-soothe. And at one point that was what I would have said was my secret power. That my secret power in business was I can self-soothe faster than anybody else.

• 1:12:55Jay Shetty?

  You're like, you can self heal, like Wolverine. Yes. Yeah. Well said. Yeah. I have to start bringing out the comic book. I loved it. It was good. No, it's true. Yeah. And that is such a beautiful quality because it's so funny you say that because we used to do exactly the same thing with sex as monks. That's interesting. Because every time you have the thought of sex, which was opposing to the celibate lifestyle that we're chosen to think of, the natural thing would be obviously to entertain it. Right. That's a very natural thought to go down because everyone's had experiences before. The other thought that you can go down is, no, that's bad. Don't think about that. Oh, my God. And you start criticizing yourself. Start beating yourself up. You start feeling guilty. You're just surrounded by monks and like, oh, my God, everyone's so pure and I'm so impure. And then that's another rabbit hole that you can go down, which I've done too.

• 1:13:40Jay Shetty?

  And then, and then the third one you go down is just, just the feeling of, oh, no, actually, let me use this as a springboard, as a launchpad to find the next thing I need to find or to switch that thought into something positive. Or to switch that thought. And we were always taught about how sexual energy could be used as enthusiasm for service. And the more that it was transferred and transformed, the more it could be used for that, like, because, I mean, that energy is what creates, like, creates the planet. Right. So it's like the amount of creativity that sits in that energy is so high that you can kind of inject that into a baby, a project. You can do so many things with it. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So, no, it's fascinating that you say that. And I, I think everyone who's listening, Tom's just shared some like super practical advice.

• 1:14:25Jay Shetty?

  Like, that is so where I, actually hearing that, I so believe that's where everyone should start. Because that is a skill, even though it's not your superpower right now, that is a skill that's going to last you forever. For sure. And it will apply to everything, whether you do business or relationships or whatever you're going to end up doing. That's like the one skill that's just self healing, self soothing. I love that. Thank you, man. That was amazing. Absolutely. That's brilliant. That's the best I've ever heard it explained. Genuinely, it was so clear and I really feel, I really hope that everyone's going to go and do a bit of CBT, take a break, like, go and learn the skill. And we take it for granted. It was like, yeah, I meditate for 10 minutes a day now. It's cool. I'm not criticizing anyone who does 10 minutes a day, but I'm like, if you really want that benefit that Tom's talking about, it's going to take a bit more effort.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 1:15:11Jay Shetty?

  It takes a bit more work.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  And constantly, and it never goes away. It does get easier for sure.

• 1:15:15Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  But because it becomes your default reaction, but it's never gonna go away. And people, I used to ask me like, oh, how do you get rid of the negative voice? I'm like, I don't know that you want to. Like, the negative voice is a powerful reminder to practice gratitude. It's also a good reminder that maybe something is wrong. Maybe you are doing something wrong and you should adjust and you should rethink.

• 1:15:36Jay Shetty?

  I was just about to say that sometimes your negative voice is what protects you, sometimes. Not all the time, but there can be times when it's protecting you.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  In fact, I'll say it like this. It probably does protect you all of the time, but it's so repetitive that you touched this issue and now we're into the 9,000th replay of this, that's where it becomes stupid. And so the one thing, yep, cool, got it. I do need to work on that. You're absolutely right. And then just letting it go, right? And not clinging on to it, not beating yourself up over it and all that stuff. But it has a use, which is why it's so powerfully with us.

• 1:16:11Jay Shetty?

  I always get more fascinated by how much we are aligned on so many things. Because when we first met, I remember it could have been opposite because same with that, with the thought, I was talking about like, you'll never get rid of the negative thought. You'll only think about it for less time.

• 1:16:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:25Jay Shetty?

  And it's like the Roger Bannister four-minute mile. I always use that analogy because it's, everyone always believed that it took over four minutes to run a mile.

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:35Jay Shetty?

  And then one person breaks and then from then, everyone breaks it.

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  So crazy.

• 1:16:38Jay Shetty?

  And so all that changed was when you run a mile, maybe someone's gonna do it in a second one day, maybe. I don't know. It could be possible. But the point is that it will always be for some time. You can just make it less time.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:49Jay Shetty?

  Right? You can't get rid of it. And I think that's the problem. We're all trying to get rid of stuff. So don't be worried if you have negative thoughts. With these tools that Tom's been sharing, just find a way to let it sit in your brain for less time. Awesome, I love that. And you brought up this, and I'm glad you did, about you being insanely grateful for your relationship. I want to dive into relationship, because I don't think you get to talk much about, on interviews, about relationships.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  No, hardly ever.

• 1:17:11Jay Shetty?

  And my audience loves relationship-based content.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Nice, let's go, man.

• 1:17:15Jay Shetty?

  So I really want to get into it for the last kind of, the last mile of our interview, is really going to your advice on relationships. I've seen you and Lisa together. I love the relationship that you have. Whenever I watch you both on Relationship Theory, I learn a lot from it, personally, which I find fascinating. Like, I really love hearing you guys talk about relationships, because you've been together for so long. How long's it been now?

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  Eighteen years.

• 1:17:37Jay Shetty?

  Eighteen years, congratulations, man. It's incredible. You both look so young, so it's kind of hard for me to be like...

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  We got together early.

• 1:17:43Jay Shetty?

  I know, yeah. It's the thing, but eighteen years, it's incredible, it's beautiful, and it's real. I can say that, because I've seen you guys together. Let's start with people who are in relationships, struggling with... Actually, let's start there. What do you think are the top three things that people in relationships struggle with?

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Communication.

• 1:18:04Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Communication. Communicate, I mean, that really is what it comes down to. And it's things, though, that, to not cheat you out of some more answers, it's communication in ways that they're not really thinking about. So, one, defining terms. So, we all come to a relationship with like, expectations about how we think people should act. And unfortunately, we don't recognize our expectations as expectations, we recognize them as truth. This is how the world is, it is how the world should be. And when somebody, we think that they have those same beliefs and values and rules and all that. And so, given this scenario, there's only one way to act that is certainly obvious. And so, when the person doesn't act like that, we take it personally, like, whoa, do you not respect me? Do you not love me? Do you not care about me?

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  And it just isn't that. They have a different set of beliefs and rules. There's enough nuanced difference that they're not... If they're intending to hurt you, you have a whole different set of problems. But assuming that they're not intending to hurt you, then you have a communication problem. So Lisa and I actually define our terms. So, we have a few words in our marriage that they mean something. So if I say, "Hey baby, it's important to me that you leave that, you know, glass of water on the table." Then there she just wouldn't move it, period. Simple as. Like, the the word important like comes in all caps with exclamation points glowing red. Like, that's like when we say it, like, it's a drop whatever you're doing, like, it's important that you do X, Y, Z.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Now, the big thing is when you define a word like that, you can't ever abuse it. So like, I would never say it's important to me that you leave it. You know, it's gotta be just extraordinary. Like, how many times do I tell her something's important in a year? I don't know, six, seven times in a year? So it's like, it's really gotta be limited. And then another one is promise. If I say, I promise I'm gonna do that, dude, I'm going to do that. Like, there's no two ways about it. So you never throw around promise, ever, under any circumstance. And so, dude, it's like, you really, really have to be hardcore. And so, and the other way that we use promise is, um, if if uh, she says, you know, how does this dress look on me?

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  I'm like, yeah, it looks great. And she's like, you promise? Then it's like, alright, alright, it makes you look fat. What can I say? You know what I mean? It's like, but then you you cut to like, the chase on something. Now, the thing is, you can't say that all the time. You can't be like, how's this dress make me look? Fine, promise. Uh, what do you think of this dinner? You like it? Yeah, I love it, promise. Like, if you're doing that, it loses everything.

• 1:20:37Speaker 06

  Totally.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  But if you're saving it for like, in fact, God, I almost don't remember the last time I asked Lisa to promise something like that. Um, but you know that you haven't. We certainly use it more in the early days of our marriage. But even then, like, how many times a year? Three or four? I mean, it's like, but it it really forces you to respect these things that you make sacred in your relationship. And then just being honest, even when it sucks. Because let me tell you how many times it's gonna be where if you just lied, oh, God, it would be so much easier and you would probably get away with it and. But it, the way that I explain lying to people is, you get away with it 50% of the time. And so it tempts you to think it's a good strategy.

• 1:21:21Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  But the other 50% of the time, it is cratering trust. And once you can't trust the person, all hope is lost. And there's nothing more beautiful than being in a relationship with somebody who makes you feel like they're your number, they're number one. And that you totally trust them. And Lisa wrote this Instagram post about how she could see a photo of me with my arm around a woman or resting my head on a woman or hugging her, whatever. And she, it wouldn't even make her radar to question it. So that's the fun for us is having that level of trust. Now, it's like, I think it's Buffett that said, you spend your entire life building your reputation. It only takes five seconds to lose it. So it's like, we're so careful.

• 1:22:06Speaker 01

  We, for 18 years, we've been earning trust with each other. So like, dude, so especially when I was back at Quest and it was, women would come and flirt and hit on me because they wanted something, wanted to be sponsored by the company or whatever. And I was around bikini, literal bikini models, like, all the time. And so if ever there was going to be a moment of insecurity for my wife, it would have been that period. A, she wasn't insecure and B, the thought of throwing away 18 years of shared experience of all that trust and everything, it's, sex is like rad and super exciting and I love it the most, but like compared to what I would have to give up for something like that, it just doesn't rate on the radar.

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  So, and by the way, think, something like I'm saying now, which most people would hide from their spouse, oh, that, yeah, of course I find other people attractive. What are you talking about? Like, we just openly talk about that. Like, she'll nudge me and be like, oh my God, don't you think she's hot? It's like, that's just, we set up early on in the relationship to be aggressively ourselves. And one thing that we both were really honest about was, I was like, look, it is human nature. You are going to find other guys attractive and I will actually trust you more if you admit when you find somebody attractive than if you say something stupid like, I only have eyes for you. Oh, really? You're the only human in all of history to like, you know, transcend their human nature? Like, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. And then that's a super fragile place to me because what happens if I get older? What happens if I get injured or scarred?

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Like, then I'm really supposed to believe that suddenly you're more attracted to somebody with a scar than somebody without? Like, it doesn't make sense. So we all live in this fragile bubble of, well, as long as they lie to me, it's okay. And as long as I'm willing to believe and even though secretly I know it's a lie. And then it's the more pious than now, like, oh my God, she's thinking all these nice things about me, but I'm actually finding other people attractive and I'm just lying about it. And so then you're like, wait, if I'm lying about it, is she lying about it? And so it just, it erodes all that trust. So from the jump, we were like, look, you're going to find other people attractive, I'm going to find other people attractive. But let me introduce you to this magical word called commitment. Now, I'm with you because I love you, because I respect you. But I'm also with you because I'm committed to you. And so you don't have to worry that I'm gonna be looking over my shoulder for a more attractive woman.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  There are gonna be more attractive women than you, for sure, especially as you age. Who the fuck cares? You're my wife. We have shared an experience, we've shared a life, we've built this around each other. And commitment means something to me, going back to having that code that you live by. And the rules and the code that I live by, I'm never gonna betray that. So it's like, we've always said, I may break up with you one day. Because I'm not saying that like, oh, there's nothing you could do that would make me break up with you, for sure there is. But I'm never gonna cheat on you. I may come and say, I'm breaking up with you because I'm gonna go have sex with somebody else. But I'm absolutely not going to go have sex with somebody behind your back, never gonna happen. So, like, having that trust and knowing who the other person is, like, all that stuff is, is super meaningful.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  And look, there's just more and more and more stuff, but those are some big ones.

• 1:25:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that. And, and, and it's nice to see that. It's true, I think when I hear you say it, and I'm hoping that everyone who's listening, when they hear you say it, they're just like, yeah, I want that, and I get why it works, as opposed to the hiding lies, you know, white lies, whatever it is that we cover everything up with. I'm hoping it was like, yeah, that's what I want. And I think, one of the reasons why I think people fumble, and I wanna get your thoughts on this, is compatibility and what that means. Like, there's so many studies about liking the same stuff, not liking the same stuff, having the same goals, not having the same goals. Is it even about compatibility, or is it something completely different?

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  It is very much about compatibility, but I think people fundamentally misunderstand compatibility. So you're never gonna get one simple thing that says, oh, either opposites attract, or they don't. The reason that this stuff is continuously debated is because there's some truth to both sides. On certain metrics, opposites do attract, like my wife and I, in conscientiousness. I have, I'm like, I think literally a 2% on the big five for conscientiousness. I do not think through things. So, I am very open, I'm high on openness, I'm high on aggressiveness, so I'm always just out there trying, trying, trying. And if things fail and I leave chaos in my wake, so be it. My wife, on the other hand, really thinks through things. So we work perfectly. When it's something that needs to be fresh, spontaneous, like a business, where you have to have somebody thinking of new stuff and pushing boundaries,

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  then we need to lean on me. But when it's the finance side, or it's planning a trip, we need somebody who's thinking through everything and can see the consequences. Now, here's where people get in trouble. One person who, let's say, like me, not being conscientious, they don't value the conscientious person. That's the problem. It's not compatibility, it's valuing it. So, she and I are not compatible on it at all, which is a good thing in this particular instance, but I value her. She values me. And we talk openly about it. And we'll say, "This is where you shine." I don't shine here. And that, by the way, took me a long time. So for any guys out there who want to be better than their wife at everything, because you think that's the only way she's going to find you attractive, I can help you with that one. It's just not true.

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  And think about anybody that, one, there's two things all of us humans like. We like to be better than the people closest to us at things. It's fun to win. And then, two, we really, truly want to have our areas of just like shining, that we know in this relationship that you're going to want me to do, and that's amazing. And in that moment where you reveal vulnerability in yourself, I find you more attractive. So you've got, we want to win, and we also love when people are vulnerable. So you put those two together, and as long as both people have both, the person who wants to win then can also be vulnerable at times, then you can have a really powerful marriage. In the beginning, I would really frustrate her, and it really made me feel insecure,

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  because my wife is better at traditionally male things than I am. So she's better at spatial relationships. She's better at organization. She's better at systems. And finally, I was just like, did you ever see the movie Daryl? No. Oh, God, it's so good. It's about this kid, he's an android. And his mom is heartbroken because he's perfect, because he's programmed to be perfect. And the father pulls him aside and is, "Look, sometimes people just need to be needed." And I thought, I saw that probably when I was eight. And I was like, "That's so powerful." And so, with my wife, I had my Daryl moment, where I realized, "Oh, my God, what am I thinking? She needs to be needed." Like, which means I can't try to be better than her at everything. Like, let her shine, man. Who doesn't want to shine? So finding that was real. But then there are things that I think from a deep value system.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  If you have a true collision of values, you're gonna fight over it every time until you figure out how to deal with it. So like, take, and this goes back to conscientiousness. I don't value cleanliness and my wife does tremendously. And so it's like, I see it as this just catastrophic waste of time. And I'm like, oh my God, when I think about what we're trying to build, like this is crazy. You're really gonna make me like go pick up a dish? This is madness. And so we collide over that over and over and over. Because no matter how much I look at her point of view, from knowing that I'm all about do what moves you towards your goals, it, it doesn't make sense. And so because we collide over that, we've just had to find a way to say, how do we deal with this? Because this is, I'm not gonna convince her, she's not gonna convince me.

• 1:29:22Speaker 01

  So knowing if you have a true collision of values, that you're gonna have to address it in behavior. And then if you have a true collision of values at something deep and fundamental, that's where relationships fall apart. And then there's a whole lot of other things. And this is one thing for great relationships, have sex. Have sex. And I like, the weird thing is in my personal life, I am not bashful about talking about sex in the slightest. I will make your eyelashes curl back. But for some reason, in my public persona, I'm really like, um, like a bit standoffish. It started because I was at Quest and I represented a brand and I really felt like I had to be super professional and respectful. And it's continued to carry on. But having a hot sex life is so important. Like people do not let yourself become your partner's roommate.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Like you have to spice it up. Yeah, that one is super important. And because especially males crave novelty, like you have to find a way to keep the relationship novel and exciting. And then you have to know how to keep a fire burning. It's funny, we actually used to teach people how to keep literal fires burning, where it's like, okay, you stack the wood in such a way that oxygen can get in and you put the easier to burn stuff in the middle. It's called kindling. And then you use something really flammable to light it. And like, we knew how to do it. And then you feed the fire and this is how you keep the oxygen going.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  But we don't think of relationships the same way, but they take the same amount of constant care and attention, but if you give them the same constant care and attention, it will stay that same raging inferno. But you have to do it, you have to put the energy in.

• 1:30:49Jay Shetty?

  I love it, man. If anyone wants more advice from Tom on relationships, hag out in relationship theory, check it out. It's definitely, it's great to see you guys talk about it together. I think it's really powerful and I think especially with the busy lives we lead, the amount you travel, the amount your wife travels, the amount me and my wife travel, it's so important to talk about these things because in this entrepreneur hustle, grind culture, being married men and for them being, you know, married women, it's so often just like kind of shoved to the side. And, and we find that so often that so many successful entrepreneurs end up having really broken marriages at home or broken lives and hence broken children and then just perpetuating the cycle all over again. So, thank you, man.

• 1:31:32Jay Shetty?

  Thank you for being a great example and thanks for sharing it. All right, final five, I always have final five questions for you.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  All right, I love these kind of things.

• 1:31:38Jay Shetty?

  These, yeah, I love them too. I, you can try and be quick, but I, the ones I've chosen for you are, they're deep too, so I, you can try and be quick.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  I'll give you quick and deep, this is amazing.

• 1:31:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, quick and deep, if you can be quick and deep.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:31:50Jay Shetty?

  Okay, so the first one is, you say you want to break people out of the matrix.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:31:55Jay Shetty?

  What is the matrix and how do you do it?

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  The matrix is the limiting beliefs that everybody has that they mistake for the real world, not realizing that their assumptions and beliefs and rules and everything passed on mostly by your parents, but also by the society around you. So, I want to pull people out by giving them an empowering mindset that lets them realize they can do anything they set their mind to.

• 1:32:13Jay Shetty?

  You're doing it. Human potential, you say, is nearly limitless. Every time you say that on one of your videos or the introductions, and when I see them, I'm just like, what does he mean, like nearly limitless and why nearly?

• 1:32:25Speaker 01

  Here's the thing, I, I've actually moved more towards just saying it's limitless. The reason I said nearly, which is more true by the way, we actually are limited. It doesn't do good to focus on our limitations, most people gravitate towards their limitations. And I say nearly just because I don't want to get into stupid internet debates about, you know, yeah, walk off your roof and see if you can fly, Mr. Limitless, right? So you'll get dumb stuff like that and I just don't want to deal with that. So, my thing is, you can do anything you set your mind to without limitation. That's a lie, but we do it anyway, right? So like my belief system, literally, I wrote it out. It's called the Impact Theory Belief System. You can download it at impacttheory.com. And it actually has a call and answer. So it's like you can do anything you set your mind to. Number four, number five.

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  Number four is a lie, but we do and believe that which moves us towards our goals. So it's like you're, you're going to make more of the right decisions if you believe that you're limitless than you will if you're just a glasses half-empty, always seeing the way things can't be done.

• 1:33:22Jay Shetty?

  Nice. What's the best advice you've ever given?

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  That I've ever given?

• 1:33:27Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  To read the book Mindset.

• 1:33:28Jay Shetty?

  Ooh, nice.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  That will change your life. If you read it and do it and live accordingly, truly, it's the most important book in the English language.

• 1:33:36Jay Shetty?

  Nice. Beautiful. What's the worst advice you've ever given?

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  I've ever given?

• 1:33:41Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Um, wow. I've given my share. What is bad advice? I said something recently, this probably isn't the worst, but just thinking of it fast. It was an Instagram post that said something like, "Don't point out a flaw unless you have the answer." That's pretty bad advice. You should speak up. I just, what I meant was don't just bitch, which is what most people do. Be solution-oriented, but the way I said it would lead to bad behavior.

• 1:34:12Jay Shetty?

  And what superpower are you trying to get right now?

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  Oh, that I'm trying to get?

• 1:34:16Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  Ooh, yeah.

• 1:34:18Jay Shetty?

  I know you've thought that.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  What superpower am I trying to develop right now? I'm so focused on leadership, but that's like the, when I say terrifying clarity, when people say, "Oh, leadership's like which aspect?" So I will say that I'm trying to understand people's fundamental personality in real time and let that actually influence the way that I communicate with them, instead of just communicating at a high level, using my normal, what would work on me. And oddly enough, I think I'm actually pretty bad at that. So this is something that I'm really trying to get great at.

• 1:34:49Jay Shetty?

  Nice. That was the final five. You were quick, Andy. That was impressive, man. That was impressive. Let's, let's talk, just before we finish off, I just want to talk about Neon Future, everything else that you've got coming up, just because I think, just the fact that you're, you inspire me because you literally lead every life you want.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Wow, thank you.

• 1:35:08Jay Shetty?

  And, and I think that's a beautiful thing. That inspires me too. Like when people are like, "Well, where do you want to go now?" I'm kind of like, "I want to do this and that and this and that." Not that I'm going to do all at the same time, but... I do believe that we live in this beautiful world where you don't have to choose your title anymore. You don't have to if you don't want to, right? Yeah.

• 1:35:28Speaker 01

  This world is changing so fast. It is, but...

• 1:35:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, people are like, "What do you do to me?" And I'm like, "I don't know what to say." Like, I don't even know how to describe it, in a good way.

• 1:35:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:35Jay Shetty?

  As in, I'm glad that I can't put a title on it. So, let's talk a bit about Neon Future, because I'm excited by it. It looks awesome. You've been talking about it lots. You've been showing it everywhere, sharing it everywhere. Let's talk about it.

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  So, Neon Future is a comic book that we plan to turn into film or TV. And this started with me asking the no bullshit question. What would it take to give somebody an empowering mindset that is actively antagonistic to it? I thought, "God, how would you do that?" And the reality is that the way that humans formulate their beliefs that lead them to act in a certain way is always through narrative. The story they tell themselves, the stories that they incorporate from where they grow up. And again, this is one of those things, we mistake it for truth. We just think, "I'm not telling myself a story." Money is money. No, money's a story. And the second we all stop believing in that story, it will fall apart and be totally meaningless. And once you understand that you're telling yourself stories on that same kind of like, it seems self-evidently true level,

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  but it's really a made-up story that you could shift and change at any time. So, I thought, "Okay, well, if the way that humans assimilate truly disruptive information is through narrative, then I'm gonna be playing the game of narrative." And getting in and looking at mythology, which is why earlier I said Jordan Peterson's book, The Maps of Meaning, is just extraordinary. He talks about, he's basically picking up where Joseph Campbell left off, who wrote The Power of Myth, which is what Star Wars wasn't based on, but it was like, George Lucas went to... Yeah, exactly. Went to Joseph Campbell and said, "Help me tell the ultimate hero's journey." Now, the hero's journey is the story that, across cultures, even before they met, they were all telling the same story in different guises. Why? How is that possible for every culture to tell the same mythology?

• 1:37:18Speaker 01

  It's just bizarre. But it's because it's a fundamental thing in the human condition. It is the life that we were meant to live, right? The resistance of the call. Finally, hearing the call and going out and being in way over your head, having to go through some sort of pain and suffering to learn a lesson. You finally learn the lesson that lets you defeat the great enemy. You come back with the spoils of that and you teach to the rest of your tribe. That is life, my friends. That whole cycle of first you have to learn. Go on a journey of self-discovery. Do something hard. Go through pain and suffering. Come out the other side with some knowledge that's allowed you to like change your life. And now, as the true act of the hero's journey, you teach. And so I want to tell stories that do that. That is very much Neon Futures, our first thing. Now, why Neon Future?

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  It's based on a Steve Aoki, the DJ, based on an album series that he did. And I just knew that comic books come out like one every 30 seconds or something. I mean, it's just bananas. Insane how many comics come out. So I thought, alright, to break through the noise, I need a partner on this at Celebrity. And he is just an amazing collaborator. And love his ideas about the future. And so that's why that particular project, which is that 30 years in the future in a world where advanced technology has been made illegal. And our hero goes on the classic hero's journey, so.

• 1:38:38Jay Shetty?

  I love it, man. What else can you talk about? What else is coming up? That you want to talk about?

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  On that side, we have other projects in development. This one, your audience may really like. I'm just beyond obsessed with this idea. And it's about these two identical twins. And one of the identical twins, they're 12 years old. One of the identical twins is visited by an alien who gives him superpowers. And instantly overnight, he becomes one of the most famous people on the planet. And he's incredible and is able to do all this amazing stuff. But our story centers around the brother who didn't get the superpowers, who is genetically identical to this now super brother. And he feels worthless and he feels completely depressed. Yeah, it'll start as a comic. And what he has to realize is that he can develop what will seem like superpowers to other people. But he's just gonna have to do it through hard-ass work.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  So it becomes a sort of Superman-Batman parable of one guy's given everything and how does that affect his life? And the other guy's still working for everything and how does that impact his life? And also, I think it's really important right now, given where we are, to show somebody walk out of depression and what that looks like.

• 1:39:41Jay Shetty?

  I love how you're using entertainment, man.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  Thank you, man.

• 1:39:43Jay Shetty?

  It's so awesome. I love the creativity. Where are these ideas coming from? From sitting together?

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Well, those two in particular. The first one came from an idea I had off of Steve Aoki saying that he wants to be cryogenically frozen when he dies.

• 1:39:57Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  And I thought, all right, what if Steve Aoki actually had the power to use technology to save lives?

• 1:40:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  And so that was the beginning of it. Ends up not being him. He's not actually a character in the book, although one of our characters looks exactly like him.

• 1:40:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  But that's a whole, long story. And then the codename Power Less, because his name is Lester. Get what I did there? So that one was literally just me obsessing over this idea of Batman and Superman and what they represent, and how could we tackle that in a modern context? Because the problem is people always think, oh, somebody's better than me. And I thought, well, what if they were identical twins?

• 1:40:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  And one of them

• 1:40:35Jay Shetty?

  I love that.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  somehow just became convinced that he wasn't as good as his brother. And I thought, how interesting it would be if, like, let's say they were either of equal self-confidence when this happens, or maybe even the brother who falls into worthlessness is more confident than his brother for whatever reason. And then the brother rockets by him. And we see, just because he compares himself to one person in the world, his self-esteem falls to nothing. And I see this all the time with people.

• 1:41:02Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. I love the way you're tackling comparison, mental health. It's genius, man.

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:41:08Jay Shetty?

  That concept is awesome. I absolutely love that.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm excited about that.

• 1:41:11Jay Shetty?

  I'm so excited for you, man. So, so excited for you. It's amazing. I'm so excited for the world. I'm excited for everyone listening and watching right now because I just feel like we're in this time where, and the fact that we're all friends, which is beautiful, but everyone's committed to trying to change the stories the world's telling themselves. And that is exciting because this is media, it's mainstream, it's scale. So it's going to affect a lot of people.

• 1:41:35Speaker 01

  We are living through a crazy time.

• 1:41:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Super exciting.

• 1:41:39Jay Shetty?

  We keep hearing that, and I want people to just, I've heard that so many times. Every time I go to a conference or anything, everyone's like, "We're living in a really impactful time right now. We're really amazing." And I'm like, literally take a moment to recognize that. Like, we really are. Yep. It's, it's, yeah. It's, it's perfect for whatever you want to do. But thank you. Tom, thank you so much, man. You're absolutely incredible. I learned so much today. Thank you. I'm excited for everyone to test it. I highly recommend that you listen back to the parts where Tom was decoding things and take notes, test, experiment, try again. Don't just listen and be like, "Oh, that was really impressive." And, "Oh, that's so cool." And Tom was on fire then. Like, that's all good. Like, that's cool. And if you come and tell me, or you post on Instagram saying,

• 1:42:22Jay Shetty?

  "Oh, this episode was epic," that's cool for me too. But I'll be more impressed if you actually go and try and test and then come back to me and Tom on Instagram and tell us what you tested and what worked. And what didn't work, because we both want to hear that too. For sure. So, go do that. You can find Tom on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, anywhere else that you are that I don't know. Those are the good ones. You can find him absolutely anywhere. Tom Bellew. Thank you so much, man. Thank you for being my friend. And thank you for being an amazing, amazing human. Dude, thank you. Thank you, man.

• 1:43:53Speaker 02

  On our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:44:08Speaker 03

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:44:11Speaker 02

  On October 2.

• 1:44:12Speaker 03

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:44:17Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is.

• 1:44:18Speaker 04

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out.

• 1:44:22Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 1:44:24Speaker 05

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:44:29Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:44:32Speaker 05

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:44:33Speaker 02

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2. Rated R, under 17, not admitted without parent.