Activating Brain Plasticity with Tom Bilyeu & Jim Kwik

Limitless Together. Limitless Together. And I just want to do a quick audio video check. Yesterday, I think it was because the SpaceX broadcast on Zoom, but things were on video and audio were lagging. Can you hear me okay? How is everybody doing? We are good. Where are you tuning in from today? Where are you tuning in from today? We're broadcasting this on YouTube and Facebook and Facebook as well. And I'm excited about this session. This is our 3rd day of Limitless Together to answer this question: how do you become limitless in a limited world? And the answer is we do it together. And so this week we've had New York Times bestselling authors Jessica Ortner talking about reducing negative self-talk using tapping. We had Dr. BJ Fogg of Stanford University talking about habits around learning to become limitless. Yesterday we had the Champions Blueprint with Dr. Jeff Spencer, Olympian and a corner man to U2 and Tiger Woods. Also yesterday we had an amazing session with Shawn Stevenson talking about the power of energy in terms of limitless motivation. Now we are going to get started right now. This— I appreciate all the chats. And remember, we're— this is just as fear and viruses are contagious, so is positivity and performance. So keep it incredibly encouraging, just like you have the past couple of days. I'm very excited about today because this is a real opportunity for me. I'm actually excited. I would, I would do this solely to have this conversation alone with our first guest. Our first guest is none other than Tom Bilyeu. He is the co-founder of the billion-dollar brand Quest Nutrition. He's the co-founder and host of Impact Theory, which many of you actually, we've met through Tom. And he really helps people to develop the skills that you need to improve themselves, improve the world with Impact Theory, with Impact Theory University, with IIT Comics. And I'm really excited about this because I have had the honor to sit in his guest chair A number of times, and today we're gonna reverse the roles a little bit. So welcome Tom Bilyeu. Let's add him on right now, my buddy.

What's up, my man? How we doing?

How are you?

I'm good, dude. Anytime I get to hang out with you, I'm a happy man, so all is well.

No, I really appreciate you. Let's give Tom a warm welcome here. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. schedule to join us for Limitless.

Of course.

As I was saying, that I've had the opportunity to sit in your guest chair so many, a number of times and be on the receiving end. I'm really excited to switch roles here and interview you here. And actually we'll publish this on our podcast also as well. I want to talk about mindset. Everyone knows our Limitless model is we talk about mindset, motivation, and methods. And you are Mr. Mindset. For me, I just can't help but watch one of your videos or be in the same room with you, and it shifts in my mind what's possible. And earlier this week, I read a quote on Success Magazine saying this, and we're going to go into— let's be very tactical. Definitely take notes, screenshot this, everybody. Tag Tom in it, post it, say how much you love his work. It says this: I didn't always believe that I was capable of learning any skill. That I wanted to learn, that I could get better in any area. I used to feel like my talents, intelligence were fixed, and my job was to find the things that worked within those arenas. When I realized that I was bad at something that I really wanted to be good at, it was soul-wrenching for me. It was heartbreaking and painful for my ego to accept me telling myself, I'm not good at this, or I'm never going to be good at this. That's That's why discovering that I could do anything I set my mind to without limitation completely changed the game. How did that happen, Tom? What's that?

So yeah, with any of this stuff, of course, it all gets distilled down into sounding like it was a single moment, but of course it was a long time coming. But the punchline was I grew up, my dad, when I was 12 years old, made an offhanded comment that I took on as a part of my identity. Of course, none of this was conscious at the time, but He, he had introduced me to a camcorder. I started filming. I mean, to kids now this seems so self-evident, but back then it was really weird to have access to a camera. So I had access to a camera, started filming stuff with the intention of being in front of the camera. And then ultimately my dad ends up making this comment. He says, oh, I actually think you're better behind the camera than you are in front of the camera. And so I ended up— go ahead.

No, no, you're good. Your video froze for a second, but you're good.

All right, hopefully I'm back. So in making that comment, it got me thinking, oh yeah, I guess I do know where to put the camera to make something funny or to work or whatever. And so that sent me to film school. And I thought that I was naturally talented. I, you know, based on that comment and my worldview, I just thought, oh, I have a natural gift for this. And at the end of film school, I had done very, very well. I was one of only 4 people selected to direct a senior thesis film, which is a big deal. And my senior thesis film was a flop, like a catastrophic And I realized in that moment that I didn't actually have innate talent. And so that was like this brutal thing to recognize. It slid me towards depression. I spent several years in that mindset believing this thing that I loved and that I wanted to be my life and that I had just taken on massive amounts of debt to get a degree in, I actually sucked at, and that was a permanent state of affairs. So sliding towards depression, I started doing anything I could to alleviate that, and that led me to reading about the brain. And there was this notion then that was really hotly contested, but now I think people just accept, which is brain plasticity. And so I decided to believe that brain plasticity was real. And that ends up becoming now what I call the only belief that matters, which once you believe that energy invested into getting better at something, you will actually be rewarded with improved skill set. And once you believe that, then your actions are to go and try and get good at something. And the reward is you can do things other people can't do. And so Actually being able to do things other people can't do is what changed my life. And so being on that path of just one foot in front of the other— I suck at it today, but that doesn't mean I have to suck at it tomorrow— and just doing that over and over and over in, into many different arenas ended up allowing me to change my life financially, emotionally, um, and just, yeah, make the punchline of all of that a total liberation from this feeling that My talent and intelligence is fixed.

That's amazing. And that goes into— I hear you say a lot on your show that we are the— human beings are the ultimate adaptation machines. Can you go into that?

Truth.

Yeah.

So that is my obsession. So every species has a choice to make. You can either hardwire everything into that animal like a horse, and a horse comes out and a horse can get up and run around within like an hour. You take a human and 3 years in, like if you left that kid at a playground, it is dust. Like no way that kid survives on its own. So when you think about the difference, then you have to ask, okay, why? So the human brain, the prefrontal cortex is not finished developing until you're 25. Now that's not because that brain tissue is harder to form or something. It is purely leaving you open like a sponge so that you can drink in all of this information. And then roughly by the time you're 25, you've You've taken in everything that you need to from your environment, and you sort of put a cap on all of that, and your brain goes into a pruning process, which— and that's oversimplifying. It actually starts pruning probably around age 11, but that's when like everything is sort of solidified, the last piece is in place, and now your biology is saying you're baked at this point. Now, that's giving you 25 years to epigenetically respond to your environment.

Yeah.

And culture becomes the most incredible tool that humans have. So when you think about our ability to exploit every single niche on this planet, if you dive underwater into a cave, Jim, you're going to find a sign in that cave that says, hey, be careful, you could die in here. But the fact that there's a sign there tells you that people go there. It's fucking crazy. So humans are able to go everywhere, thrive everywhere. Because we can teach each other. So you don't have to relearn, right? Literally what we're doing right now. It's so funny when I watched people pour into this, I was like, the reason that people are pouring into this is because Jim is fucking real. He gives people actual usable advice, which, you know, I value you for tremendously. Most people do not do that. They're all sort of esoteric and talking big words, but they're not telling people, do this, get this result. And because you do that, They learned something that took you a whole lifetime, but they literally learn it in a week. It's— that's nuts. So human culture is extraordinary. That, that's the period.

Love here. Everyone's calling you the GOAT. I love this. Um, we've talked about this. I was looking at that, that conference, that article again I was referencing before, saying not to focus on limits. So why is it important to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to without limitation? The key phrase being without limitation. It's important because you and I both know it's a lie. And I talked about in the book, lies are limited ideas that we entertain. You're a lot— you're a big inspiration for the mindset section of this book. He says, if I go onto a rooftop and I would try to walk off and fly, I'm going to crash into the ground. I know that there are limits. But to believe in the limits, to focus on the limits doesn't make any sense because they don't move me towards my goals. Even though it's a lie, I tell myself that lie and I choose to believe in that lie because it empowers me. So it's a choice.

Yeah.

I mean, look, people, you have limited time, you have limited energy, limited focus. So what you are putting your focus on, you're going to see more of. To me, this is all about recognizing you're having a biological experience. Whether we live in the matrix or not for real is sort of irrelevant. Your brain is creating a simulated environment for you. Your brain has no interest in presenting you the truth. Your brain only has interest in keeping you alive. And when I heard what truth really is described, I was like, oh my God, you realize how useless, like, raw objective facts are. So for instance, what, what is real right now, Jim, is there are a certain number of photons being projected from my computer to my eye. And if all I did was represent the reality, I would just be counting photons, right? So it would describe you and where you're at in the computer and the lights and all that around me. But at some point, my brain has to give that meaning. It has to say what it is. I have to understand collision detection, right? That if I walk into something, it's going to hurt. So your brain begins to say, all right, it doesn't really matter what's true. It matters what knowledge is functional. So I'm just saying, look, there, there's no question that you're limited. If you focus on that, you will be shocked at— if you think your limit is here, I promise you it's way over here. So rather than that, like, I'm just not going to worry about that. I hope, Jim, nothing would bring me more joy than actually, like at the end of Truman Show, running into a wall of my limitations. But I have put so much time and energy trying to do that, and I just find No matter how much I do, no matter how hard I go, I run out of energy before I run out of potential. So just don't worry about that. You will stop caring long before you run out of ability. So just keep pushing, try to get as good as you can, act as if there are no limits.

Hmm.

I mean, when you talk about Truman Show, I think about Jim Carrey and other people's concern. And you've seen these interviews where he's wants to free people from concerns of others. That's why he acts so insane on camera. You know, you have a very strong internal frame of reference. What do you say to the people who are watching that it's, you know, like other people's expectations, with their opinions of you, fear of making mistakes? What's that conversation like in your own mind?

So this may surprise you, may surprise people listening. I think recognizing what is real and what is true Can, despite all the things that I just said, can also be a very wise thing to do. So for instance, I never try to get rid of the negative voice in my head. So I'm not trying to get rid of my reaction to what people think. People are going to think some kind of way. I will have a reaction to that. If they hate what I'm doing, that's not going to feel great. But in that friction, I'm going to say, okay, am I doing this to connect with them? Or is there some greater utility to this belief or this behavior? So, Jim, the entire world could come after me and tell me that I'm a moron for believing that skills have utility and that I'm wasting my time and that I'm a fool or a fraud or whatever they want to say about that. There is nothing you could say that would make me stop because I've seen in my own life it's real. If you know how to build a bridge, That is real. You can actually cross a body of water. Like, that's pretty undeniable. So it's like, what do you want me to say? It would be like, um, Elon Musk worrying about what flat earthers think. You, you can call him crazy, the motherfucker launches spaceships into outer space. So it's like, in understanding escape velocity and, um, you know, rocket telemetry and all this, he's able to do things other people can't do. So what are you going to tell him? There's nothing to say. So there are some things, if my wife said, yo, that really hurt my feelings, I'd be like, Oh, your love and this bond and this connection is the most meaningful thing in my life. I'm going to adjust my behavior immediately. I'm going to devalue my own sense of, you know, thinking that I was doing the right thing because you just gave me data that matters to me a lot. And so I'm going to pay attention to that. So I don't want people to think that there's any way to elevate yourself to the point where you don't care about your fellow humans. There are going to be people that you care deeply about what they think. You're going to let it influence your behavior. It just needs to come back to utility. What's your goal? Is what you're doing moving you towards your goal? If it is, keep doing it no matter what anybody says. If it's not, and, and somebody is giving you the truth in an attempt to hurt you, still listen. So my thing is, yo, I need to know what's going to help me achieve my goals. And that's it. So I can't let people drag me down if that's not useful. So I'll break myself away from the emotional tie to their response. But if what they're saying is going to be helpful, then I want to take it in. I want to know.

The feedback is extremely useful. You have this— you talk about taking shots and taking risk. How do you perceive risk?

So I'm— I worry sometimes— that's sort of ironic. I worry sometimes that I'm too comfortable with risk, that I have a sense of like, if, if I wasn't married, Jim, oh my God. The number of risks that I would take would startle people. This is part of why I don't have kids. So it's this whole concept that I call witnesses to your crimes. So when you're single and nobody's relying on you, there's no witnesses to your crimes, right? If you fuck up, you lose everything, it doesn't matter. If you have a wife, you have kids, or a spouse, I should say, if you have a spouse, kids, parents that need you, whatever, then all of a sudden it's like, okay, if I make a mistake like this, could really impact people. And so I've employed Boys, man, I've got a wife, I've got a family. It's like, I maybe should be a little more thoughtful than I am, but I value in myself a willingness to take risks. But I recognize the truth of the following statement: those with the strongest home life take the biggest risks. So it is because I have this core of care at the center of my life. I have a wife who will support me emotionally that I know that While I may one day be financially destitute, if I continue to invest in that relationship, I will never be emotionally destitute, which I'm far more concerned about than finances. So I focus on keeping that core strong, and then from there, risk is relatively easy. I'm not without thoughtfulness, but I'm not as hesitant maybe as a lot of people.

Well, your wife Lisa is extraordinary, and she represents Limitless to so many people, especially with with her show and her brand also as well. What about this conversation that you have around patience? You know, patience. People hear, you know, you should be patient. And what does that word mean to you? I know words have effect on our brains. You know, is there a sense of, for you, when I talk to you, there's a sense of urgency to do this. But how do you look at patience?

There is. So first of all, I will say, tying this patience to our last point. So somebody in the feed said, Jim, please tell Tom to stop swearing because there are kids in the feed. So that's one where I so value the energy that I can create in myself by using swear words, which is why I do it despite people always telling me not to. But I will say I respect that. This is your group. So all the parents out there with kids, there will be zero more swear words in the remainder of this. So respect, right? So I— that, that was great feedback. Now the reason that I tie that to patience is my whole thing is F patience. And I will not say what the F stands for, but I'm sure people can figure that one out. So my thing is momentum is everything, man. So if you want to really get something done— so going back to escape velocity, escape velocity is the right way to think about success in life. So there are just so many things that are going to try to stop you— other people's opinions, all the real difficult things in life, general inertia, the second law of thermodynamics, which is that everything moves towards chaos. That, that is, that is a true fact of nature. So to get beyond all of that, you have to create so much momentum in your life. And the only way to do that is to cultivate urgency. So when people tell you to be patient, I get it. I get emotionally what they want. They want you to realize, look, this stuff takes time. And I really do understand the motivation. And now it's one of those things I'm begging you to hear. If your life has not yet gotten where you want it to go, I promise you, I promise you, one of the keys is you haven't hit escape velocity. You have not created enough urgency. You don't want it badly enough. Like, there is a ferocity with which you must attack things if you want to achieve extraordinary results. I mean, it's just like it's in the definition, right? You can get ordinary results by doing ordinary things, but if you want extraordinary results, then you're really going to have to go above and beyond. And so Patience comes from a great place. People want you to not feel badly about yourself. They want you to understand you have to invest in the long run. And I would just say differentiate between playing the long game, which I think everybody should do, which means sometimes you will go slower than you want to, to build a strong foundation. But at all times, be desperately trying to cultivate urgency and moving as fast as humanly possible and eschew patience. Whenever possible.

What would be an example of that in your life right now? People don't see— like, I watched Lisa's posts about how you— how the two of you started, and it wasn't always, you know, what people see right now. Did you see it then in your mind?

Well, I'll get— yes, I'll give you an example of what we did that is indicative of how we think. So We were about to launch, we had launched Impact Theory, and we had a guest book, Michael Strahan, who was, if I remember, something like November 4th or something. And we, that deadline was like ticking away, and we were desperately trying to find a building. We were either gonna buy a building or lease or something, as we were looking all over and we were scrambling, we were going as fast as we could, we just could not find anything that made sense. And so we were like, well, should we put Michael off? And I said, Absolutely not. Over my dead body. I'll build a set in our house before I will put that interview off because we need to hit escape velocity. It's all too easy to push, oh, end of November, you know, and then it becomes mid-December and it's like, well, it's the holidays, let's just do it after the first of the year. I was like, no way, under no circumstance. We are shooting on that date. That date doesn't move. And so I'm like that with everything. And as you know, we end up building the set in our house and it ends up being Very useful and powerful to have had that in our house. So I'm doing things like that all the time. Like the number of times where things will collide. You know what, I could just take care of that tomorrow. And my motto is, why do tomorrow what you could do today? Why do today what you could do right now? So it's like, you've got to be doing something this minute. So my life is a series of prioritized activities. not thoughts or emails, activities that are the most, at least as far as I can tell, the most effective thing at moving me towards my goal. And so I'm always trying to just get through those, get through those things with joy, with passion, all that. I don't want to make it sound like it's drudgery. It's not. I've been very careful in how I craft my life. But doing things right now, that is one of the most important things that— important changes people can make in their life.

So you're consistently looking at the outcome and then you go back and say what has to happen in order to be able to do that, and you're just relentless independent of the noise that's going on?

Yeah, I'll say it in a slightly different way, and this is like what I'm about to say, if people could grab onto this and never ever ever ever let go, like their life will change forever. Write down your goal and make sure it isn't the concept of a goal, It is hyper-specific. It contains the what, the how, and the how much. So, and by when. So it's like, by when are you going to do exactly what? So people normally, they think their goal is, I want to win a gold medal. Okay, in what, the Olympics? Yes, fantastic. Winter or summer? Summer, great. Swimming or tennis? And it's like, you finally get down to the year you wanna win it, in exactly what sport, because that's going to dictate what you do to get there. You do very different things if you wanna be a gold medal breaststroke swimmer than if you wanna win a gold medal in tennis, right? You're gonna work out different muscle groups, you're gonna practice different, you're gonna find a different coach. And so it's all about getting your thinking in the right place that your behaviors actually move you towards your goal. At the end of the day, you're just trying to control your behaviors. But you have to align your thinking first.

Do you ever feel in your mindset, do you ever feel defeated?

Yeah, yeah, but it's one of those like, and this is where I want people to understand the way that your mind works. So I feel defeated because I don't think you can eliminate the negative voice in your mind. So I might contemplate, oh, I'm never gonna be good at this 30 times in a day. And then I just have to remind myself that's not how the human animal works. So this is why I come back to that notion of the human animal is the ultimate adaptation machine, because it was hugely freeing for me to realize I actually— because I had big fears that I was average. And the day that I had the realization I am average, I am hopelessly average, but I am a hopelessly average human. And humans are designed to grow and change. So it's like, okay, well, where's the biggest impact? Is it what I'm born with? Or is it what I can change? And as far as I can tell, and many, many scientists will say this, it seems about 50/50. 50% of who you are, you're born with. 50% is malleable. The 50% that's malleable, dude, will 100x anything that you want. So one of my favorite quotes in life is— everybody ready? You can't make a pig into a racehorse, but you can make a really fast pig. Dude, I love that so much. So my life is about becoming the fastest pig. So I get it, I can't beat LeBron James in basketball, but I could 100x my basketball skills. I— maybe I'll never be as good as Steve Jobs at business, but I can 100x and did 100x my business skills. And it took me from scrounging in my couch cushions to find enough change to put gas in my car— that is a real story— to building a billion-dollar business. So it's like What, what do you want to get good at? You can get so much better than you are now, even if you never become the greatest of all time. Though, if I'm really honest, I'm always striving to be the greatest that ever lived. I just don't value myself on whether or not I achieve it. I just value myself for actually trying. So in holding myself to that crazy standard is how I become the fast pig.

Hmm. What do you think some core, core competencies or abilities or skills as people are going through some, some changing and turbulent times right now? What are the kind of things that you would recommend people who are watching or listening that they, that they dive into?

Jim, I owe you a hug for asking me this question. I am living right now for this moment. I think we're going through a really weird time, and I think that a lot of people with microphones and cameras are not speaking to what you should actually do. So let's talk about what you do. Let's take a gnarly scenario. You just lost your job. You're not able to make ends meet. First of all, scale your life back to the least expensive version of your life at all humanly possible with no loss of self-esteem. So talk about begin with the ending in mind. You're going to think about where you're going to be in 10 years. Okay, don't worry about where you are today. I always tell myself, and I will give other people this advice. Do not judge yourself through the lens of a single moment. Judge yourself through the lens of a lifetime. So yeah, right now may suck. This might really be lame. You may really have messed up, but none of that matters. What matters is what are you going to do with the next 10 years? So over the next 10 years, we're going to do something extraordinary, and it starts with cut your expenses to the quick. Number 2, recognize that skills have utility. They let you do something, right? So we talked about that earlier, but I— this is something I say and people don't really internalize what it means. When you learn something, you're not reading a book to check a box. You're not taking Jim's course to say that you did it. You're learning to read faster so you can read more books and gain more knowledge more efficiently, so you can go do the thing that that knowledge is about. So bridge building I talked about earlier, being able to build a house, whatever your thing is, being a better parent, being a better teacher, whatever it is that you want to do. You actually can improve at that thing, and getting better at that thing will reap rewards. It could reap rewards of status, could reap financial rewards. It could just allow you to accomplish something in your life that's deeply meaningful to you. But all of that comes from getting better at something. So the notion from Steve Martin of get so good they can't ignore you, that, that is the single most important thing for a human being to understand. You can get so good you cannot be denied. Okay, you can get so good you cannot be denied. There were people that were born slaves, dude, in America that have gone on to be some of the most remembered and celebrated people in the world because of what they created, whether it was ideas or physical things. It's like, yo, they could not have had the deck stacked against them any harder. Viktor Frankl, who ends up writing this book called Man's Search for Meaning, which has echoed through decades and decades and decades after his Death. He survived 4 concentration camps, man. So it's like, I can't imagine how bleak that would have felt when he was in the middle of it. But yet he got so good at understanding humans that he could end up writing this book about it. He was a trained neuroscientist. I mean, just really incredible. But it comes down to what skills have you acquired? So in this dark time, dude, be focusing on skill acquisition. Write your goal down. Then Read in swarms. So taking your class makes all the sense in the world to me because it is so foundational. You're learning how to learn. Now apply it to something very specific that is meant to lead you to a goal that you have written down that has a date attached to it. So you know exactly what you're trying to accomplish. And then you're learning about it so you can acquire those skills and then put those skills to use immediately. If you learn something today, use it today. Now I could— dude, this is a tirade. I could go on and on and on and like keep going down. And I always want people to press me on it because there, there's nowhere to run. I will just tell you, it is the only path forward. None of us want to be in this situation. This is a gnarly situation. People are dying. People are losing their jobs. It's all real. It all sucks. But if you focus on that, that's all you're going to see. If you focus on the other side, that there is so much that you can control. And you take advantage of that, on the other side of this, you will be so much farther ahead of everyone else that gave into fear and anxiety. And action cures all.

I'm gonna leave you with that. Tom Bilyeu, amazing. Your impact really is undeniable. I want— let's, let's give a hand for Tom. Take a screenshot of this, please, to honor Tom, your time and your sharing here. Take a screenshot, tag Tom, make sure you follow him on social media. Tom, bill you and share one of your big ahas. Look at this. Wow.

And dude, as always, man, we need to have you back on the show.

And, um, and I want to know, man, I'm always down. I want to thank you for all you do. You are one of the most congruent, aligned, integrated souls that I know. And thank you for the help and hope that you've given so many, for me and so many others. I appreciate so much. Thank you so much, brother.

Thank you, man. Thanks for having me on. Thanks to everybody in the feed, and, uh, hopefully I will see you all soon.

Tom, Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, Impact Theory University, Impact Theory Comics. Follow this man, uh, follow his words. Most importantly, walk the path. You don't have to walk on the same path, but we're all on this journey to be able to realize and reveal our fullest potential. Tom Bilyeu, thank you so much, my friend.

I love it. Thanks, brother.

Peace out.

Very.

Kwik Brain, it's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number 2, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing, if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: 310-299-9362. Did you remember that number? 310-299-9362. Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question. And I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video. Bye.