The FUTURE of Personal Success | Lessons from Billionaire Tom Bilyeu

Greatness is the most demanding mistress you're ever going to encounter, and I understand the advice that I'm about to give you is not for everyone.

Most people should turn this off. The thing that gives you the most energy in life is something that you have no natural inclinations for, then go learn that. But if you don't learn to punish yourself, you will never get where you want to go.

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a man who went from growing up in an obese family and not having any money to pay his bills to eventually building a billion-dollar company and now being a force for good trying to take people out of the matrix. He's Tom Bilyeu, and here's my take take on his Top 10 Rules of Success, Volume 2. Enjoy. All right, let's kick things off with rule number 1: Pursue greatness relentlessly.

Greatness is the most demanding mistress you're ever going to encounter, and I understand the advice that I'm about to give you is not for everyone. Most people should turn this off.

But if you're gonna stick with me, if you're going to listen to what I have to say, it's because you want something tremendous in your life.

You want to stand out from everyone else. You want to do something more than other people think is possible. You literally want to stand outside the norm. And if that's the case for you, then understand that as Albert Einstein said, "Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master." For this reason, mastery demands all of a person. If you want to get great, if you really want to make a skill set your own, if you want to be able to do something, and at the end of the day, if you want to transform the world, if you want to make grand changes, if you want to do all of that shit All the empty words that people spout all the time. Let me tell you, the only thing that's going to separate you from all the other blowhards who are just talking words and will never do anything is to give yourself over completely, to let that obsession, let that thing that you love completely consume you. And in that, your only chance to really become great lies.

Rule number 2 is you can learn anything.

The only thing you have to believe in— lean close, hear my words— the only thing you have to believe in right now is that humans are capable of learning. That humans, for whatever reason, nature has chosen to not endow us with a whole bunch of like pre-programmed things. So for instance, A baby horse, a foal, I believe is how you say that, when they're born, they can already walk. Literally, boom, they come out and they're walking and all is well because that's all hardwired into them. But a horse is a horse is a horse, and they're gonna stay a horse, and that's that. And you're never gonna find a horse reading Chaucer, just not gonna happen. So that's all those decisions are pre-wired. Humans, on the other hand, come out, they cannot take care of themselves. They're a lump of flesh. Basically know how to suckle, and that's sort of the extent of it. But now humans have the ability to go in all these crazy different directions, and they can learn to become an astrophysicist, they can learn to become a carpenter, a doctor, an astronaut. Like, the number of directions that humans can go in is crazy. The amount of what was once known as junk DNA we now know as epigenetic signaling. The way that we can respond in all these different directions to our environment, to the things that we choose to focus our energies on, is truly unique to humans is just absolutely astonishing. So understanding that that's baked into the human animal is the ability to learn and go in any direction. So once you realize that humans are adaptation machines, that we can learn anything, now it's like, okay, whatever you wanna do, you can do it as long as you're willing to pay that price. I'm not saying that it's not gonna be hard. It is gonna be very, very hard. I'm just saying that it is doable. And that you will receive a return on investment in your energies. And that's what people need to know and believe to the core of their being, that my time in this direction will be rewarded. Now here's where people fuck themselves up. There is this retarded debate about whether or not it is, hey, am I pre-programmed? I'm good at math, and so that's it, and I should go do things that are math. Or I'm good at verbal, and I should go do things that are verbal. I'm naturally gifted as an athlete, so I should go be an athlete. Look, I'm not saying people don't get early wins. People get early wins. And if you happen to love the thing you're getting early wins in, that's awesome, man. And you will find it just a little bit easier. You've got a headwind or a tailwind, I guess. A tailwind. You have a tailwind. And so that, yeah, love that. But if the thing that gives you the most energy in life is something that you have no natural inclinations for, then go learn that. When I say that I have zero zero natural ability as an entrepreneur. I mean zero. I had to learn everything from not being lazy to problem solving to overcoming my paralyzing fear to look at world like a puzzle, dealing with anxiety. Literally, it was comical as I was going down my journey in the beginning as an entrepreneur to figure this shit out. It was ridiculous. And then I meet people who are like ripping flowers out of people's front yards and selling them back to them. Like when I say that that was not me. I had a paper route, and I was so chicken to go up to people's doors that I actually only got half the money that I could have gotten for the same paper route, the same amount of effort. But because I was so afraid to go knock on people's doors and ask to collect the money that was due, that for like 2 years I did a paper route for half the money. Okay, that's how spastic of an entrepreneur I was when I started. So you can learn this stuff. Now, my goals demanded that I learn entrepreneurship, so I learned it. So that's what I want people to understand.

What is your goal?

Work backwards from there. If it lines up with what you're naturally good at, that's amazing and congratulations. But there are going to be times where it doesn't line up and you've just gotta either change your fucking goal or recognize that I'm gonna have to figure these things out. And because I'm an adaptation machine as a human being, I can do all of that.

Rule number 3: Don't care what others think.

Any advice for somebody who is taking steps to make a positive change but he is getting all kinds of negative consequences for bad decisions he took in the past. At some point, in fact, I'll just quote Lao Tzu, the guy that wrote the Tao Te Ching. He said, if you worry about whether other people think about you, you will always be their prisoner. So unless you're prepared to be other people's prisoners, at some point, if they're hurling dirt on you, if they're constantly trying to rebury you under the earth that you're trying to claw your way out from, then you're never gonna get out. You've got to just stop worrying about what they think. So they can't actually affect you. They can only try to influence your mindset. So, and even now, if people hate you, slings and arrows, you could get a job digitally. You could go be a freelancer on Upwork or whatever. People don't even have to know who you are. So truly in today's world, they are not gonna be able to stop you from getting a job. But they can really mess with your head, but only if you let them. So I will say to that, do not let them. You've got to understand who you're trying to become, believe in your ability to get there, to become that person, to understand that to continue to beat yourself up for something in the past is not going to serve you. And so for that very reason, let it go.

Rule number 4, be laser focused.

This question is from Froso Maranu on YouTube. When your home life is less than desirable, it's not where you want to be living, but you're trying to break out, How do you not let the chaos around you affect your vision and drive? So this is a framing question. So what you wanna do, and this, this Tony Robbins asked this question, I think it's absolutely brilliant. How is the worst thing that ever happened to me the best thing that ever happened to me? So in your circumstance, how is being in a chaotic home life the best thing ever? Now I'll give you one example off the top of my head, and this is exactly why I play first-person shooters. Can you learn to stay calm in the chaos? Because my friend, I have the chills. If you can do that, it will serve you so well in every single area of your life. In a relationship, in business, if you wanna be an athlete, if you wanna play games, like whatever it is that you do, one of the things that you're gonna have to become great at is letting all of the noise drift away into nothing and getting into laser focus on that thing that you're working on. When I give advice like that to people, they think, well, how do I practice? The amazing news is the best thing that has ever happened to you is that you have a built-in way to do that. Your home life is mass chaos. So now you get a chance to practice. I have the chills. You get a chance to practice every day, tuning out the chaos and getting laser focused on something. That's framing. Now there are other ways, but that one is so powerful that I will end it there. Focus on that. It is practice, practice every day. Thank God you're living in this chaotic environment, man. Congratulations.

Rule number 5, build excitement.

This is somewhere that I think a lot of people get lost is they don't spend any effort making sure that the thing that they're doing with their life is actually something that generates excitement. It builds excitement. It gives to them more than it takes. Now, it doesn't mean I'm not exhausted at the end of my days. I am really tired. But I am having a ball. I'm having a ball. It's fun. I believe in what I'm doing. I'm excited by what I'm doing. And so that's where you should be spending the vast majority of your times. But that's all stuff about striving to do more, to be more. I'm excited to acquire the skills. I'm excited to push myself. It isn't a dark and dingy place. Like, I'm legitimately amped up to do it. And that's what I want people to understand. The amount of hours that I work, the hardcore way that I'm driven, the overwhelming majority of that energy comes from a place of excitement. It comes from a place of being enthusiastic about what I'm doing. There is 20%, it's the dark side. I fucking leverage it. It is a real thing for me. And it helps me in those acute moments when for whatever reason, the excitement just isn't enough at that moment. Then I will think about the people who wish me ill. Then I will think about the things that are dragging me down. Then I will focus on the inadequacies in my life. I demand that I get better at those things? 100%. But it's an 80/20 split. You've got to learn to balance that split. You've got to put something that you give a shit about at the center of your life. That is so, so, so important.

Rule number 6: learn to praise and punish yourself.

Andrew Kirby, YouTube. Do you believe in self-punishment, and if yes, why? I believe in this ferociously. This is advanced class shit, and I know that most people are gonna have a seizure when they hear me say this. But if you don't learn how to effectively, not destructively, because that's where most people go, they get into an endless loop of self-punishment, which is totally ineffective. But if you don't learn to punish yourself, you will never get where you want to go. Now, that needs to pale in comparison to the amount of time that you reward yourself. Now, you need to earn that reward. If you're just lavishing yourself with emotional praise and you haven't done anything, then I think that that will cheapen it, will ultimately mean nothing. And quite frankly, I don't think you can really bamboozle yourself. I don't think if you try to praise yourself for stupid shit, I think some part of you knows you haven't done anything to deserve that praise. But when you set a bar and you meet that or exceed that, to then tell yourself, hey, you did it, you said you were gonna do it, you did it, and that is worthy of praise. And getting good at praising yourself is incredibly important. And I think that most people have a very hard time doing both. Most people don't know how to effectively praise themselves. They don't know how to get themselves, first of all, to do things that are praiseworthy. And then when they do, they don't take the time to emotionally reward themselves, meaning you actually have to feel it. It can't just be intellectual. You've got to actually feel that. And the same with punishment. If you say you're gonna do something, even if nobody's watching, and you don't do it, then you need to emotionally punish yourself. None of you will ever know whether I actually get out of bed in 10 minutes or less or not, but I say I do all the time. But every time I miss it, even if I miss it by seconds, I just gave myself the chills. Even if I miss it by seconds, I will punish myself for that. Because I said I was gonna do it and I didn't do it. So the fact that nobody's watching is utterly irrelevant to me. It has everything to do with myself. Now, the reason that this is important, the reason that I think that people need to do this is because that's how you shape your behavior. So like water over time can create the Grand Canyon, or you can take a polishing rock and shape stones, you can shape your personality. You can certainly shape your identity. And shape your behaviors if you learn how to reward and punish yourself. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that. That is the truth of the human condition.

Rule number 7: Develop your passion.

Now here's how you develop a passion. It starts as a minor area of interest. You gain areas of interest by encountering a lot of stuff. So if you haven't encountered a lot of things in your life, go out there and encounter stuff. Go sailing, go, um, take a dance class, go study neuroscience. Like, whatever it is, just encounter a whole bunch of very broad, diverse things. From that, you're gonna get sparks of interest, like, "Oh, I actually found that interesting, I wanna learn more." Dive deep through engagement, not through pondering, through engagement, you're going to realize whether something is gonna turn into an area of fascination. So as you go deeper into it, you're gonna either become fascinated or you're not. If you're not fascinated, move on. If you are fascinated, then that's an area where you're gonna ask yourself one very simple question. Do I want to become the best in the world at that thing? If you do, if you wanna become truly extraordinary in that thing, then go down the path of gaining mastery. Now the reason I think that it's wise to ask that question going in is when you frame it of, I'm gonna become the best in the world at this, immediately people understand the amount of time, energy, and weight that it would take to become truly great at that thing, and I don't think that passion can happen unless you're becoming truly great at that thing. That's part of passion. I don't think people are deeply passionate about something that they really suck at, and I'll give you an example. I love video games. I absolutely love playing first-person shooters. I learn a lot from them. I get a lot out of them. I really just intrinsically enjoy the time. It has both that sense of eating a cake because it's just fun in in the moment, and I pull from it life lessons, business lessons. I practice getting out of the sympathetic nervous system into the parasympathetic nervous system. It's literally gamified, so I'm getting better. I have points. I can, you know, have my improvement turned into metrics. It's all of it I really, really enjoy, but I won't say that I'm deeply passionate about it, 'cause I'm just not that good at it. So that's one of those things, if I really wanted to develop a deep passion for video games, and put it at the center of my life, that then I would set down that path of really practicing. Now, this is like, this is the most important thing that passion will do for you, which is it's gonna pull you through boredom, it's gonna pull you through the hard times, and that's why it's really gotta be something that you just are prepared to become great at. Because when you're prepared to become great, there's just these insane moments of boredom, repetition, and all of that, and if you have this burgeoning passion coming out of that, that's what's gonna give you the energy to get through it. So it's this symbiotic relationship between a developing passion and how hard it is to actually really get great at something. So the things you get great at need to be something that is this developing passion. So there you have it, that's how you do it and that's why you do it.

Rule number 8, practice gratitude.

What is the best way to truly experience gratitude when you have a goal-oriented mindset? Well, I'll give you just like raw tactics. So first of all, I do this as a part of my meditation routine. I try to experience gratitude both in like the big things and in the small things. They're not always tied to my goal. It is purely something to get the neurochemistry pumping in the right direction, to be in a good headspace, to really feel and internalize on a visceral emotional level that sense of like real deep fulfillment, gratitude, appreciation for what you have going on in your life. So like I I said I'll pick something big and I'll pick something small. So it might be something like, you know, I'm so grateful for 17 years with my wife, somebody that really understands me, that knows my pettinesses, knows my like the dark ugly corners of my mind. Like they know all of that and they still love me. And they're with me on this journey and, you know, she picks me up and brushes me off when I'm down. I mean, it's just like beautiful. I'm literally slipping into it. Into the mindset right now. Like, I am so grateful for that moment. And by the way, that's how easily it happens. Like, you start, and this is exactly what I'm going through in my head. These are the exact words that I'm thinking in my mind. I don't say them out loud, but I'm thinking them in my mind, which then creates this neurochemical cascade, and you find yourself actually experiencing the emotions of that gratitude. Then I will pick something small. Let's say, take my dog Bonsai. Man, when he gets a haircut, there's some— his fur feels like velvet.

There it is.

I love to pet that dog. Just don't know when his hair is freshly cut. Super small, super stupid, but I'm actually grateful for it and it's amazing. So I might think of something small like that. I might think of like, whoa, on a warm day like that, cool breeze is just amazing. Or air conditioning. Air conditioning is amazing. Let's all take a second to just be appreciative of air conditioning. That again, literally, as I'm talking about this, I'm actually feeling the gratitude for these things. So it works just like that.

Rule number 9, meditate.

I have found in the absolute worst times of my life, meditation can get me back to zero every single time, meaning I have absolutely no physiological remnants of stress or anxiety. It is so amazing and so powerful that I only wish that I'd started doing it years earlier. And it was Mark Divine, the Navy SEAL that I was talking about before, that helped me realize 'cause I thought of it as very weak and effeminate, which growing up feeling like a weak effeminate kid, getting tough and getting stronger has been a huge part of my journey. So I didn't wanna do anything that I felt was moving me backwards. Now, he was the one that slapped me around and was like, "Look, it just makes sense. It's getting you out of that sympathetic and into the parasympathetic." And so I thought, well, if it's good enough for a Navy SEAL, then it's good enough for me. I tried it and it was great. Life-changing. And there have been times in my life since I started meditating, I honestly don't know how I would have made it through if I didn't have meditation, because that ability to get back to equilibrium, to zero, with what I call no background radiation, it's so powerful. So meditation has become a huge way for me to manage anxiety, which is really, really powerful. So there it is, and I will do one quick cycle so you can see how deadly simple it is. I normally sit cross-legged, so take that for what it's worth, but I'll do it just normally seated now. I do it with my eyes closed, and I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, and it looks like this. [SPEAKING CHINESE] Hey, hey, hey, there it is. All right, nice and easy. I did the second part of the cycle so you could see how long that I usually end up holding that exhale hold. Again, I just do it until it's not pleasurable anymore. I don't feel like I'm holding my breath. It literally just feels like an exhale, and it's so weird. Even in that short cycle. I almost forgot I was doing an AMA. That's how powerful meditation has become for me. I get lost so rapidly. If I'd had— this is the last thing I do when I meditate. I put headphones on, over-the-ear headphones, and I listen to the Calm app. I do not do guided meditation. Some people love it. I absolutely hate it. And I listen to the sounds of nature, and I find that insanely powerful. And if I had had had my headphones on. I do fear that I actually would have forgotten I was doing this, uh, but that's how quickly you can, with practice— and I've been doing it now for about 3 years, um— with practice, you can get into a super chill state.

And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is allow yourself to dream.

Never give up on what you really want to do.

The person with big dreams is more powerful than the person with all the facts.

H. Jackson Brown.

Truer words have never been spoken. It is one of the most interesting things about the human condition that all of the facts in the world, no matter how true something may objectively really be, the only thing that matters is whether or not you've got the energy to see through to the end of what you want to do. And the energy comes not from truth. The energy comes from your dream. The energy comes from what it is that you want to do. The energy ultimately is born out of what you want to create. It's born out of a willingness to allow yourself to dream. It's born out of a willingness to think that you actually can do it. It's born out of a willingness to take that first step. But the only reason that you're gonna take that first step is you believe that you can actually make your dreams come true. And that sense of this thing that you have in your mind, that you can make it real, that you can bring it into the real world and have that excitement that you've long fantasized about and understand and really feel in your gut that that thing that you've dreamed about can be real. And when you have that, that's when you're going to have the energy that you need to push and to fight and to go through all of the difficult things that you're gonna have to, to get on the other side and make that dream real. As Ferdinand Foch said, the most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. But the human soul can't be on fire without a dream. A human soul is not fed by facts. A human soul is fed instead by a belief that it can accomplish what it wants to accomplish. It's fed by that thing, that idea that you've had in your mind, that you fanned those flames of interest and turned it into a real fascination and fanned those flames further into excitement and allowed yourself to truly embody that belief that you can make it happen. So right now, whatever it is, whatever crazy dream you have— and we all have one— stop judging yourself for it. Stop telling yourself that you can't do it and understand when you cultivate that fire, when you take that little ember and you fan it into a raging inferno, that that thing, that huge stole on fire is what's going to allow you to build something that the world has never seen before. But it starts with that dream. It starts with your willingness to cultivate that, to think about it, to allow yourself to do that. Because so many people stop themselves. They think they're inadequate. They think that they could never do it. And even if that is a fact, it's not something you that's gonna help you live a life that excites you. It's not something that's gonna help you excite other people. The one thing that will do that is the dream. So right now, allow yourself that, simply to dream.

Now I've got a very special Tom Bilyeu bonus clip around not wasting time that I think you're really gonna enjoy, but first I want you to make the commitment of the day You watched this video, you learned a lot from Tom. Don't just watch another video. What are you committing to making a change in your life or in your business? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon and enjoy the bonus clip.

As Walt Disney said, If you can dream it, you can do it.

Now what makes me laugh is I know right now some of the people listening to that, they say that's bullshit.

There are just limits to what humans can do.

And I get that response, I understand it. I used to respond to everything like that. I used to see only the difficulty. I used to see only the ways in which it couldn't work out. And I couldn't see, I was literally blind blinded by fear. I was blinded by some bizarre sense of pride that wanted to justify my limited existence, that didn't want to have to face that I could be doing more, that I could be more, that my life was somehow less than what it could be. And so I would laugh at quotes like that. And I know right now, I have the chills, I know right now there are people that are laughing at that and all they can think about are the limits. Limits. All they can think about are the things that prove him wrong. And guess what? He is wrong.

There really are limits.

But if you fucking waste your time focused on that, you're never going to create the momentum that you need to actually make something come true in your life. You can build virtually anything, but if you get hung up on the fucking virtual part, if you let that stop you, if you immediately go to the things that ultimately limit you and hold you back, that is where you're going to stay for forever because if you argue for your limitations, guess what, my friend? They become yours and congratulations, you now get to live in that box, you get to live in that self-defined prison but if, like Teddy Roosevelt said, instead of that, you keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground and you don't act like somebody who can't see that sure, there are limits, there are edges to this universe but you're you're looking not at that, you're looking at how do you really execute. You're dreaming big and you're remembering that your feet ultimately is that contact point. It is where the rubber meets the road. It is that moment of doing. And so if instead of rejecting it because your feet must stay planted on the ground, remember that in keeping your feet on the ground, that's the moment That's the moment of doing something about it. That's the moment of seeing the fucking possibilities and then moving, doing something, making it real. So right now, give up on those weird mental mechanisms that make you actually want to fight for the things that aren't possible, to get people to believe in it, to get people to understand why you've chosen to stay. Stand still. Instead of that, convince yourself that you should be moving and go do what you know you're destined to do. So let me give you the one, one secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy. The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.