The Mindset of Success in Marriage & Business w/Tom Bilyeu EP 1095

This is episode number 1095 with Tom Bilyeu. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former Pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin. [Speaking of] Frank Ocean said, work hard in silence. Let your success be the noise. And Mark Twain said, the secret of getting ahead is getting started. My guest today is my friend Tom Bilyeu, and Tom is an incredible entrepreneur who's built his success from the ground up. He's the CEO and co-founder of impact Theory, a media studio created to influence the cultural subconscious by producing empowering non-fiction and fiction content across multiple mediums. He was also the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, which he helped grow to be the second fastest growing Inc. 500 billion company by 57, 000%. And in this episode, we discuss the types of personalities that Tom feels are intoxicating, the keys to relaxation and relationships, advice on marriage and creating rituals for Success. The one question Tom always asks himself when he makes mistakes, Tom's life, beliefs, rules and thoughts on identity, and his master plan to become bigger than Walt Disney. I'm excited about this. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. If you do enjoy it, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired as well. You can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this or use lewishouse.com/1095 and text a few friends or post it on social media as well. If this is your first time here and you're enjoying it, click the Subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify right now and leave us a rating and review sharing the part of this episode you enjoyed the most. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Tom Bailey Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness. Very excited, my man Tom Bilyeu was in the house. Good to see you brother.

Good to see you too, dude. I'm really happy to be here.

Very happy. You know the last time you were on us was five years ago.

Are you serious?

2015.

Whoa!

Five years ago you were on the show.

That doesn't seem possible.

It feels like two and a half, three years ago.

Yeah, I would have said three. Three is believable.

What do you think has been the biggest Accomplishment you've had in the last five years and the biggest lesson you've learned since that previous interview.

Well, I cannot believe that. So if it's five years, I hadn't even started Impact Theory yet. So, that's for sure. Co-founding Impact Theory with my wife.

Wow.

And very specifically because it's with my wife. That, I will say, is my biggest accomplishment by far. What was the second part of it?

Biggest lesson in the last five years.

It, so I'm at a place where it's more, I won't say that I'm not always sort of updating my way of thinking, but the big model of my life is pretty stable now. So I would say that how well the things that I have cobbled together work in high pressure situations.

You mean like your values, your principles, your frameworks for life.

How to deal with your emotions. That's probably the most important one, like when things are really going haywire, like, how do you center yourself? And I learned very early in my business career that the thing that, because I looked back, there was a bunch of us at Awareness Technologies that were given the same spiel. Don't think of yourself as an employee, think of yourself as a partner. If you act like a partner and achieve certain results, watch we make you a partner. And nobody did it. And so I was just like, why am I the only one that's doing this? And I realized that my ability to self-soothe was a huge part of that. So other people would get upset, they would derail, they would, take their eye off what they wanted to achieve because they were frustrated or whatever and I could just bring myself back to center. Now those are pretty small tests and obviously as things have gone on you start dealing with big numbers. You start to realize is this real? Like is this, can I actually center myself when say hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake? And then it's like okay this still works. And that was very encouraging, very encouraging because when you get a test that's sort of way beyond where you've been tested before, you're like, how's this going to work? So, that was pretty extraordinary.

How do you soothe under chaos?

It is a-- For yourself. The big thing for me was recognizing that I'm having a biological experience and that I need to understand the brain, like the brain, not just the mind, which is incredibly important. but the brain. What is the brain doing? How does it hijack me? What is neurochemistry? What triggers it? What are all the things that evolution has primed me to do? It's what I call the physics of being human. If you are a human, regardless of intellect or experience or upbringing, there are a certain number of things that are true. They're as universal as universal is going to get. And look, nothing is perfectly universal, but some things are really close, like an internal dialogue and an internal dialogue that skews negative, right? Which is where most people start. You get people like Kanye and one end who just cannot see themselves doing anything but the best, ever the greatest and all that. And then you get people who actually don't have an internal dialogue. Like there are no words going on in their head, which is crazy, but nonetheless true. But the vast majority of us live in a place where you have an internal dialogue and that internal dialogue is largely negative. And so once you know, okay, cool, this is a trick of evolution, and my brain, this is so that a guy named David Eagleman gave me this insight. He's a neuroscientist. This is so powerful. Louis, I hope it hits you the way it hit me. And he goes, think about this. Your brain is enclosed in a dark box. Light never touches your brain. Sound never reaches your brain. And everything you experience as being in the world out there beyond you is all happening in your brain. It is a virtual reality that your brain creates for you. And so I was like, my obsession with the Matrix. And I'm like, oh my God, even though I don't think we're actually living in a simulation, your brain is creating a simulation of the real world. And I forget, I had a physicist on the show and he said, Tom, objective reality is the number of photons reflecting off of any object. That's reality. But you don't perceive it like that. You look at something that's like, this is gray, that's white. Your shirt is sort of green. Sort of green, yeah. And you just perceive it like that. And so your brain is not making any attempt to represent reality. Your brain is making an attempt to keep you alive and help you navigate the world. And I just thought, oh, that's so interesting. So knowing the heuristics that my brain is using, the rules of thumb, the shorthand, it's not true, but it has this massive influence on my life. So something bad happens and you take it on as negative, it makes you feel badly about yourself. And so I just put in all these rules of like, well, that's not objectively true. So, if I'm not worried about objective truth, what should be sort of the North Star? And for me, the North Star became utility. What's useful? And so, once I shifted away from trying to like be objectively true about myself, realizing I'm probably not gonna ever nail that, but I can get to something that's very, very useful. And so, then I wrote my beliefs down and sort of started thinking about value system and And I will end this rant with one thing, which is recognizing that brain plasticity is real and so much of who we are, let's say it's roughly, science says it's roughly 50%. It's not me making it up. That 50% is hardwired and you're not going to be able to do anything about it. But 50% is insanely malleable. And I love this quote, so great, that you can't make a racehorse out of a pig, but you can make a really fast pig. And I thought, okay, cool. So maybe I'll never be a racehorse, but I can be a really fast pig. and so whenever I'm feeling badly about myself or something knocks me off center, I just come back to that idea of what's useful? How do you move forward? Like, even if you're not going to be the greatest of all time, does it benefit you to act as if you could become the greatest of all time if you pour yourself into it? And so I don't know that I'll ever end up being the greatest anything, but dude, acting like I can and like really practicing and moving through the world like I can become the greatest has Propelled me forward.

Yeah, because acting like you can't won't get you there.

Yeah.

Won't make you good probably or great if you're constantly obsessing over why I'm not good enough or why I'll never become great. So acting like you can at least gives you a much better chance of getting somewhere than nowhere.

100%. It's what I call the only belief that matters. The only belief that matters is that if I put time and energy into getting a new skill, I actually will get better at that thing. And if you then extrapolate that and say, and skills actually have utility, they matter. So knowing how to build a business that doesn't fall or build a business, build a building that doesn't fall down is very, very useful.

Or build a business that doesn't fall apart.

Right, that too, right? So those skills actually let you do things. And so that's become sort of my obsession is getting people to understand you don't read a book to check a box, you don't go to school to impress your parents. You do it because the skill that you will acquire lets you do something in the world that other people can't do or you wouldn't be able to do, and that has a material impact on your life.

Yeah, I feel like you and I are very similar in the fact that we talk about skills a lot and acquiring new skills. And I think when you have a down phase or a breakdown phase, that's when you should think about what are the skills I'm lacking that could benefit me so this doesn't happen again. I remember my early twenties, I had a lot of free time because I was broke on my sister's couch. I just obsessed over skills. And when you learn a skill that is hard that you don't think you can accomplish, and you actually master it, for me, I feel unstoppable. I feel like I can accomplish anything. I feel like even in a setting where I feel uncomfortable, as long as I know in the back of my head I've got these other skills that maybe they don't know about that I could pull out at any time, they just make me more confident. I don't know if you feel the same way about acquiring skills.

100%. And it's interesting, and I know you talk about it, so some people in your audience, I'm sure, have a sense, But I think of you very differently than they think of you. So I don't think of you as on-air talent, though you were obviously very gifted at that. Because I've spent so much time with you outside of that, like talking strategy around, how do you grow a podcast? How do you get good at YouTube? How do you build a business? Like whatever, and seeing how adept you are at those skills, that's where it gets interesting. So that people understand that all the things you talk about and all the training that you do and stuff, it isn't the part that they see. The School of Greatness is sort of the tip of this very large iceberg of skills that you're building. And that to me is the fascination. When you're not focused on the tip but you're focused on actually building that foundational set of skills, what you can do with your life and what you can make as the tip of the iceberg that other people will recognize becomes really, really interesting.

It's interesting. My skill was never I'm a good interviewer or a host or anything. I never would learn that skill. My skill was Actually, my fear was connecting with people. And as a teenager, I learned that in order to become successful in my life, I had to learn how to connect with people and build relationships. So I turned a fear into a superpower of building relationships. Then translating that into, okay, let me interview people was another thing I had to learn, but it was never my gift from birth. It was a skill I had to acquire and overcome. What was the greatest fear in the last five years that you had to overcome that has now become a skill or a superpower for you?

I think the only thing that I've sort of thought through like that is I feel like Kobe Bryant when he split from Shaq. And it was like he wanted to, he obviously had won a championship with Shaq, but could he win a championship on his own? And so my last company was so successful, but I did it with two partners. And so now to have a new partner in Leesa, it's like, okay, can I also lead this team? to a championship. And so that drives me in a way that I find so fun of like, okay, cool. Hey, as a part of that group, smashed it. But can I do it over here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that like reinvention, you know, trying things and letting myself feel the weight of like, hey, you gotta prove it, buddy. Like, you know, you had a big success once. Can you do it again? And so doing that under new circumstances, to me, like, I love that shit. Like, I love the excitement of, can I? Willy, won't he? So that's a lot of fun. But that's something that I think if I thought about the world differently, so I don't value myself for achieving it, so whether I achieve it or not is irrelevant. But showing up every day and sincerely pursuing it is what I value myself for. And I like to feel that sort of weight of like, hey, maybe you won't, maybe you're gonna fail. Maybe like it was only you as a part of this collective, hey, you did a great job there. Or maybe it was just that moment in time, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you wrote a wave. But like over here, can you create something from scratch? Can you repeat it? So yeah, that, it's not, I don't live in a space of letting that be a fear.

Sure, sure.

But it's like that is, it's a cousin of that feeling.

Like a stepsister or something. Yeah. What do you think all success starts with?

Well, the fast answer is mindset. Going back to the only belief that matters, you said it. It's your, the way you act is ultimately all that matters. And the way you act follows what you allow yourself to believe. or maybe a better way to say it is what you choose to believe. So if you choose to believe that your energy and efforts will result in more skill set, then you will actually put energy and effort into getting that, which means you actually will get the skill set. But if you think, well, my talent and intelligence are fixed, so no matter how much I work, I'm never going to get better, right? I can't be a fast pig. And if you don't think that putting time and energy into it will yield anything, then you won't put time and energy into it, and you thusly won't get the skills. So, and if you don't have the skills, then you can't do the things other people can do. And so people just get stuck because they don't have the only belief that matters. So, they don't put the time and energy. And so, that's like where everything starts is are you putting the time and energy into getting better yes or no? Yeah.

And when do you get the most angry? And reactive. Are the things that make you reactive?

Yes, very much so.

Maybe not angry, but like, well, no, this frustrates me. It's don't do that.

I think the same, and I think you're right. I'm not somebody who's quick to anger in 99.9% of my life.

You might not scream with anger.

I don't want to, Louis. That 0.1% really does get from me exactly where you're going, which is when I see somebody accept excuses, make excuses, do less than they can, and it impacts me. So if I'm honest, if it's just impacting them, I don't get angry, right? I feel compassion. But when it's like, and now you're dragging me down, now you're slowing me down, now you're trying to talk me out of something, now you're telling me I dream too big, now you're hurling stones at me or whatever, because of something that you've got on you and I'm freaking you out because of how I'm moving or what I'm going for or whatever, that actually does make me angry.

So how often does your team make you frustrated? If they're not taking responsibility 100% of the time.

Because we have like, so one thing I learned back at Quest, because we grew so fast and I just wasn't smart enough at the time, you're only as good as what you write down. And you can be small and sort of communicate everything in these interpersonal relationships, but as you get bigger, it goes away. And hope people have it memorized or something.

Interesting, you're only as good as what you write down. Correct.

When you're running a company. Yeah.

In terms of like having a process documented that someone could implement, not just a simple conversation that you hope they memorize.

100%. So coming into Impact Theory, you have to sign, it's not a pledge, but it's about as close to a pledge as you're going to get. And it's our culture code document. And it says things like, you will take 100% responsibility for your job. You will be expected to look beyond your role. I mean, just like all these things.

I love this.

And one of them is, I only want to play with hardcore motherfuckers. And it says, this is not a safe space. So do not come here expecting people to be kind. Like, look, here's the thing. I also expect you to elevate your team and to lift them up and to celebrate them and want them to win and like cheer them on and never worry about whether it was your idea. The only relationship worth being in, because all relationships are sacrifice, the only relationship worth being in is where you feel like, whoa, like this person really cares about me. And I want people to retire. at Impact Theory. At a time where millennials stay at a company for 18 months, I'm asking them to stay for 40 years.

Wow.

Now, to do that, I've got to give you emotional stability. I've got to give you somewhere where you can build trust, where people are honest with you. But in being honest, people are going to be direct. They're going to say hard things in the spirit of, I want to lift you up. I want to see you get better. Because remember, we believe that you can get better. And if you put your time and energy into improvement, that you actually will improve and therefore you get more out of your life, the company gets more out of your involvement. But I really had to be hardcore about that because you'll hear a lot people say, Don't hire for skills, hire for culture. Or John Wooden, sort of the best explainer of this, the famous basketball coach, I don't look for the best player, I look for the best fit. That really is true, man. When you get somebody who you can really relate to and you can say hard things and they're receptive and they say hard things and you know they're coming from a good place, it elevates you. and it's fun to be around, right? As a social animal, we just love that stuff. So that's huge, but I'm really hardcore on the way in so that once you're in, like we can give you grace. Like imagine if you were on my team and I don't, I try never to refer to people as employees. I slip up from time to time, but I really think of them as teammates. So if you're my teammate and you're like, Hey, look man, I'm really having a hard time. My girlfriend and I are, we're just in a dark place right now and I'm gonna need a couple weeks just to go sort it out. Don't even explain. I got it. Cool, I got you. Tell me what I need to know to be able to pick up the slack for you. We refer to vacations as being sacred. So we don't have, the only vacation policy we have is that it's unlimited. So do whatever you want. Get your work done. You need to be a high performer, yada, yada, yada. But like, if you need the time to deal with your girlfriend, the death and the family, whatever, take that time. Be an adult. Autonomy is huge for me. I assume it's huge for most people. But to do that, you've got to say, this is the criteria we expect you to meet.

You need to be high performing the rest of the time you're here.

And if any of this turns you.

Off, then it's not for you.

And it says that in the document. If this does not, if you're not prepared to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this, then this is not the place for you. Wow.

So is it literally saying a line, this is not a safe place?

Yes, this is not a safe space.

What does that mean, not a safe space?

It means that I'm going to make absolutely no effort to protect your feelings. I'm going to never, ever, ever sacrifice clarity for kindness. Now, I will be as kind, I wanna be kind, dude. I want you to be kind to me, I wanna be kind to you. My wife is my partner, I would never want an environment that was tearing her down. So it's like, in the spirit of trying to elevate people, I'm not a Machiavellian kind of guy. That's gross to me. that is such a turn off. I want to, like you would treat a friend, dude, if you're in a dark time, you're gonna underperform and I'm down. I'm with it. I will do your work for you to create the space for you to have that moment. Because I know at some time it's gonna be my moment. But that only works if I'm not parasitic, you're not parasitic. It's gonna be hard enough if you don't have ill intent. Now, if you are lazy, if you have ill intent, if you are trying to milk the system or whatever, then it's never going to work. But if it's just legitimately you're going through a period we will all go through, which is a very hard time for whatever the hundreds of reasons throughout our lives that we will underperform, be in a dark place, whatever, if at that moment people lift you back up, they brush you off, remind you of who you are and who you can be and they love you and they're there with you, cool. We all get it. But to do that, you really have to have a code of behavior on the way in. You just have to. The everyday of it all, what do we expect? And I want to be around hardcore people for their own reasons, right? I don't want to have to sweat you. I don't even want to think about you. Like I want you to go do your thing. I want to do my thing. I want to be able to count on you to crush it and you could definitely count on me to crush it. And then if I need you, I will ask and hopefully you will aid me. And if you need me, fuck, I'm gonna run to your side. to help you. But I don't want to micromanage. So, I want you to be good at what you do, to be getting better every day for your own reasons. And there is a certain subset of humanity that is like that. If you get them in your company and you set them free, they won't all get in the groove, but 80% is pretty magical.

What's the best hire you ever made?

My wife.

Besides your wife.

There have been a lot, dude. I'm super stoked on my team. How about instead of saying a person, I will give you types of personality that I find intoxicating. Number one, somebody who is so convinced that they're not yet good enough to achieve their dreams, but so believe they can get there and are what I call a relentless problem solver. A relentless problem solver is worth their weight in gold. I don't need them to be highly educated. They will educate themselves over time. Somebody who's not afraid to speak to power, that is a big deal. I have a very strong personality and unintentionally I shut some personality types down. And a quote that popped into my mind one day when a person who shall remain nameless didn't use these exact words but basically said, Slow down so I can lead. And I was like, yeah, no. That does not...

Someone on your team said that.

Yes. Not at Impact Theory. At a point in my life, somebody once effectively said, Slow down so I can lead. And I remember being insensed that this person would allow themselves to say those words. That's so anathema to who I am. I could see myself saying, I can't keep up with you, you need to lead. And then I would follow and be the greatest follower that I could be. So that notion of like, I want people that make me sweat. I want people that are like, they're trying to be so good for their own reasons that I'm like, yo, whoo, like keeping up with this person is intense. That's intoxicating to me.

So the times that most frustrate you, you have a code of ethics when people come in, so hopefully you're not frustrated because they understand their accountability, their actions, the behaviors, everything. But what are the times that frustrate you the most outside of your company?

Ooh, just in my personal life?

Yeah, just in life in general.

Inefficiency is the only thing that winds me up. It's the only thing that I will say I'm irrational about.

So active too. You see something and you're like, Nobody.

In the outside world would know because that's just ridiculous. I recognize that it's an offshoot of something that's very powerful in my life. My obsession with always doing things as efficiently as possible. But I also recognize that life isn't, like you can't, On my deathbed, I will never say, Wow, I was efficient. Efficiency is useful towards getting to a goal, and so I prize it and I love it and all that. But my wife has tempered me and shown me that sometimes just the connecting, just being with somebody, just sitting and being is joyful.

It's enough.

Yeah. Yeah, not even just enough. It is precisely what the doctor ordered. And I'm not great at that.

Not having to be efficient all the time at something.

I'll give you an example. My wife on a Saturday will be telling me a story and I'll be like, oh God, please, like narrow this down, like say this faster. And every single time I have done that, I have thought that was a really dumb way to handle this moment. Like let that part of your brain go. Part of this for her is the joy of telling the story. And if it takes her an hour and it's joyful for her, what does it matter? And having to sort of step in and out, like I've done everything I can to confuse whether I'm at work or at play. And moments like that where at work, the efficiency really, really serves me, but now at this moment with my wife, and we may even be talking about work, but it's in a different context. It's a Saturday, you know, and just sitting in the kitchen and, you know, enjoying each other's time. And she'll talk about something that bumps me back into a work mode, and now I'm just sort of coveting that efficiency, and it's just terrible for the relationship.

You know one of the Most fun moments for me of witnessing you in the last six years was?

No.

Can you guess?

I actually have no idea.

I think you saw me, we were in Puerto Rico and you were sitting with your wife on the beach. You were on a flatbed chair, sitting back, just holding her.

Oh yeah.

Just sitting there looking into the ocean, no phone, no nothing. Maybe you were thinking about business in some way. But I was like, that's a really nice moment to watch you be calm and be strong.

You're making me emotional, Louis.

No, I'm serious though. This just came to me because I only see you in Hustle, Walt Disney Land, out of the Matrix world, like let's crush it. But I was like, this is a really nice moment to just witness for a few seconds you be present with your wife. And I'm sure you do this all the time on the weekends and stuff, but I was like, I want to see more of that as your friend.

Yeah, yeah.

It can be 10 minutes a week. It doesn't have to be all the time. But this was a beautiful moment that I was like, that's what I think the world needs more in general in their own lives. I'm not saying that's what you're gonna do because your personality is driven on other things, but I think it's in some ways healthy as well.

I don't even think you have to couch it. It is extraordinarily healthy. I think it's absolutely necessary in everybody's life, mine included. you know, part of what makes my marriage my single greatest joy is Lisa is good at what I am not good at. And so very early in the marriage we said, okay, you're the canary in the coal mine, so I trust you. If you ever say we need to slow down, I will slow down instantly. You are more important to me than my business. So, and she is never abusive about it. So whenever she says something like, hey, let's go sit on the beach, I know, be there on the beach with her. I'm not like, hey, she's not looking at me, she's facing away on the ocean so I can think about whatever I want. No, no, no. It's like that's where you smell the nape of her neck and you like drink in that neurochemistry of that bond.

How do you silence your thoughts over the obsessiveness of what you want to create in the moment of being present and connected with your partner?

One practice, so I meditate a lot. out of necessity. And then two is understanding that when you reinforce a behavior, you really start to get something positive out of it. So when I'm there, like literally yesterday, there is a smell that my wife gets on her neck if she hasn't showered in a day. So she might skip a shower on the weekend, right? Oh my God, oh my God. It is the most intoxicating scent ever. And scent is the only of the senses that goes directly to the part of the brain, the emotional center of the brain. Everything else goes into a relay station first. It's the only part that goes directly into the limbic parts of your brain. So that's why when you smell a barbecue or whatever, you're like, I kid again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just in it. And when that smell is on my wife's neck, nothing else exists. It is just my wife.

So Lisa, just don't shower every other day. If you wanted to slow down or do something else.

I mean, that's one trigger. It's, yeah. So what do you prize, right? What is your value system? So nothing, not all the business success in the world has brought me the level, the sustained amount and the amplitude of joy that being in a relationship with my wife has brought me. So I have so much clarity about what my values are. It's just that they don't often conflict. But when they do, and my wife says, Hey, slow down, or, Hey, I need time, or, Let's make sure we take X number of days off a year or whatever, I do it no questions asked, even though I'm sort of hard charging the rest of the time. And so we do dumb stuff. We shut down for Christmas, our impact theory, my wife and I just talked about it this year, we will always and forever shut down for about two weeks at Christmas. And I don't expect anybody to work, I'm not going to be working, go be with your family, don't think about this stuff.

Does not working for you mean actually not doing any strategizing of the mind, not taking notes or working on an outline for a particular a potential book or I think, oh, this is a great character for my next movie.

I would do anything that's fun. But work is fun for you. Yes, so there will be some fun things I'm sure that I will do. But I'm more off the radar during Christmas than other times.

So you up the radar for Christmas. In two weeks, it's more productive than most people's entire year on the radar.

Well, so, and we can talk about that because that I have gone way, way, way out of my way to make sure that I built, so Lisa and I had enough success, I never needed to work again. So if you're going to work, then you might as well structure for two things. The moment, like the in the moment joy, so doing this hard thing, I actually find intrinsically pleasurable. And I will say 40% of my life, work life is that. 60% is not. But 40% is I would do this whether I was building a business or not.

Getting paid or not for it. You love it.

That's huge. And then the other is impact. So if you can make impact doing something that you would be doing anyway, that's amazing. But really at Christmas time it is we wear onesies. So I don't know how much you know about the neuroscience of like how humans biologically sync up. If you put three women in a house together, their periods will sync up based on hierarchy by the way of who's considered the sort of dominant female in the household. It's crazy. But heart rates will sync up, breathing rates sync up. Nuts! So my wife and I, when we shut everything down, even though yes, I'm still doing fun work, we dress the same. So we'll wear matching Christmas onesies. We listen to Christmas music together. We dance a lot. We watch the same movies. We just do all this stuff to really sync up as much of our minds and bodies as humanly possible. It's absolutely phenomenal. I love it so much.

Wow. How long have we been together now? 20 years?

20 years.

Was there a time where you ever thought you'd get divorced?

No, no, no, no. Deciding to propose, I threw my heart and soul into that. I was pros and conning it, 'cause Lisa used to get sick a lot.

You were analyzing the whole thing, listing down.

Project out, never gonna sleep with another woman. I am, she gets sick and I am not a caretaker. I don't enjoy, like some people do. I do not.

I am not a caretaker.

So I was like, okay, I'm going to be caretaking a lot. Am I going to be okay with that if she worth, you know, all these sacrifices? And in the end, I was like, either I'm never getting married or I'm marrying this woman. And so once I flipped that switch in my mind, I never looked back. So getting married was not stressful. Deciding to get engaged, I really weighed that decision. And then, so I don't know how much we've talked about this. So I believe in ritual. I think it's missing from today's world. I think we're suffering huge consequences of the lack of ritual, especially coming of age rituals. Read this book called the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and he said that he thought part of the reason that marriages were ending in divorce was you weren't a different person before your marriage and after your marriage. So, I wanted to go through a ritualistic scarification.

Like killing your old self.

Correct.

Killing the ego, the identity, the man you once were and becoming someone new. So how did you do this ritual?

So, I hate needles. I never wanted a tattoo. So, because of the time, it was sort of the biggest fear that I had that wasn't life-threatening. I got a tattoo as a ritual. I designed it all this. It was like my sort of credo to my wife and it's in Greek. So her, you know, not native language because she learned English first, but like she's fluent in Greek and so there was just all this stuff tied up about, you know, taking on this sort of new identity as a as a unit and all this stuff. Anyway, so I get the tattoo and as I'm doing it, I wanted it to be painful and as they're doing it, I'm saying, I am now a new man. I'm a different person. I'm stepping into this marriage. I will never look back. Divorce is not an option. We will be together forever. Now, admittedly, if she cheated on me, that would be the end. So it's not like, oh, no matter what happens. But when I say, we don't even say the D word. In our house, it's called the D word. I tease her about everything in the world, but never about breaking up with her. Ever. I don't make a joke about it. Nothing. Never. Because I don't even want that like taste in my mouth of that idea. And so I've told her, hey, you get horribly burned in an accident. You and I are staying together, homie, and I'm gonna find a way to be attracted to the scars and all that. And it's just, that's commitment. And I needed her to know that because look, one day she's gonna be 85 and she's gonna be a bag of wrinkles. And she might be beautiful, but odds are at 85 she's not gonna be hot. And she needs to know I'm still gonna be with you. I'm gonna be into you. I'm gonna be more into you then because what I value is a shared life. And by the only thing you can't fast forward, right? So yes, there will come a point. There's gonna be hotter chicks than you. You never have to worry about me chasing that because you and I are building a life together and that's what I value.

So how old were you when you got this tattoo?

I would have been 26.

26. Fresh out of USC film school. You're a professor.

Four years out.

You're a professor. We're teaching there at this point.

I was teaching at the New York Film Academy. I've never taught at USC.

Yet.

Yet. Yes, Louis. Yet.

I bet someone watching at USC will.

I lectured at USC though, believe it or not, but I haven't done it in a while.

I'm sure you could be a teacher there if you wanted to, but may not be the best use of your time. So 26 when you got this tattoo, you read this book Power of Myth before that? Yeah. And thought to yourself, I need a ritual in order to anchor myself into this marriage, into this commitment, into this new identity, and not have a way out. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Yeah, the last part of that is not how I thought of it. I didn't think of it as not having a way out. I thought of it as being completely committed to always making sure that the most joyful thing in my life is this marriage. And so I'll never joke about ball and chain or anything like that. It's like the most joyful thing in my life is my marriage. And therefore, I will treat it with the reverence it deserves. I will never neglect it, betray it, nothing. And so it's.

Was there a phase where you were like, man, this is really tough though?

Marriage is a series of compromises. And so in any moment where you're arguing, it's like, oh my God, this is not how I want to be spending my Saturday. But never did I think anything other than this is me not being good at something yet. And so I need to figure out where was my failure of communication? Are my emotions running away with me? What am I failing at right now? And thankfully, that's an idea that I learned very early in my marriage that like if I look at why I was wrong, why I created this argument, what I could do differently, then I don't have to spend an entire Saturday in a fight. I can get us out of it. And if she's doing the same thing going, what have I done wrong here? How could I get us out of this? Now you've got two people that are like, Ooh, we'll actually say, oh, this is that point of no return. We've got one last sort of stop here before we're just angry enough that we just have to part ways for a couple of hours and it's gonna be a waste. So let's take a second, let's dial it down, remind each other we love, we actually say this stuff. And that has been ridiculous. If you were watching from the outside, our arguments, I'm sure look ridiculous because we're externalizing our internal narrative. Like, hey, when you said that, it made me feel like this. And I know I shouldn't, I know that's not what you mean, but it's really triggering an insecurity. So we say all of that stuff and that helps us like keep everything calm and like remind us that we want to connect and you know that we love each other. That's a big thing in a fight. Does this person love me?

Yes, when you know you're right in an argument but the other person is unwilling to for whatever reason, they're irrational, they're reactive, they're insecure, they're hurt, whatever. But you know in your heart I am right with this thing, this situation, and you can't get your partner to see your point of view. But you know it's going to cause more and more stress and chaos if you continue to be right. What is the solution so you can get back to love and peace? And are you okay with knowing you're right, but having to say, you know what? Well, I'm just going to let this go. Even though I know this is the truth, facts in the world right now.

No, probably not. We would need to come to a resolution. because that's one of those things that really could fester. If I'm right about something immaterial, then I might just be like, what exactly am I arguing about? A lot of times in those moments, it's just space. It's just like, let's just take a minute. Because a lot of times, let's say she's right, and if she gives me an hour, I might just be like, yeah, actually either it doesn't matter or she actually is right about this. And you can sort of, once you've de-escalated and you get back to the easiest way to explain it you're at a place where you want them to win. Where the idea of them being right is like you get joyful even though it does mean that you were wrong. It's like you're back to a place where this is, I would literally die for this woman. And if I would literally die for this woman, I can't be wrong for this woman. Like, that seems like a much lower bar. So you get back to that place of like, I actually want her to win. Not necessarily I want her to win all the arguments, but her having this win is now I can frame it as a joyful thing. And that helps a lot. And I'll say that's probably 90% of the issues just go away when you both step back, you get time to recalibrate your neurochemistry and you can approach it just from like, oh yeah, I love you more than anything in this world. And I can actually feel that now. And so I want to concede anything that's true. And, you know, now we get to a point where we can move forward. Now if it's like this just really like both of us at different times, I will say this is maybe a particular strength of mind. is I'll say, no, no, no, we have friction here. And it would be very easy to pretend that we don't. It will only get worse. It's gonna manifest in something down the line.

Give me an example. Maybe not something specific in your relationship, but something.

This has become a famous one for us, where we were out one night for dinner, and she was upset that I hadn't said that her new shirt looked good. And she'd gone to all this effort. You know, this is a time where I was working a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.

So we didn't get-- this is impact.

Theory or pre- this is early quest. And we didn't get a lot of time together when we weren't working. I mean, making protein bars together is.

Time together, but it's not exactly quality time.

It's not hanging on the beach. Yeah. So we were at dinner and she'd put on this new shirt and she loved it and thought she looked amazing and I didn't say anything. And so we're at dinner. That's gonna be a key part of this equation in a minute. So we're at dinner. And yeah, she says, you know, what do you think of my top? And I'm like, it's all right. And she was traumatized. Traumatized. And just very upset. You know, we have very little time to come out and you're not sort of appreciating me and why didn't you tell me before we came out? And so what I ended up saying was, look, it would have been very easy for me to just gush and say you looked amazing. and the reason that I'm not is because if I tell you the truth now when it's hard, then when you're 85 and I say you're beautiful to me, you know I'm being serious because it was hard a thousand times before this and I said what was true. Why all of a sudden would I not say what's true? And so I need you to be able to cash that check that I have been honest in a thousand, 10,000 hard moments leading up to this one time where I need you to know, I know it's counterintuitive, but I'm telling you, I think you made the right business call or whatever. And no, I'm not pandering to you. No, I'm not telling you what you know.

You need to hear.

I think you need to hear whatever. Like, this just really is true. Like, you really nailed that. And I know it was hard and maybe you're embarrassed, but I really think you did the right thing. And I'm very impressed. And she'll be able to say, whoa, okay, like, that really is real. that's one example. Another example was what we call the famous tea argument. The biggest fight my wife and I have ever been in was over a cup of tea. And it all goes to insecurities. So it's very early in our marriage and we were dirt poor. I never took time off work, but she had said, we need to take time off. We need to go away for the weekend. Now go away for the weekend for us is one night in a hotel. It's all we could afford. And so I thought, Hey, we're gonna pay for a night in the hotel. I want to be there the second they will let us check in and I'm gonna stay like extra late check out. Like I want to maximize, right, for the money. For her it was, Will we get quality time together? And you're taking a breath and for her to finally slow down and to have that moment in the morning where we're about to drive off to this beautiful hotel and it's gonna be so amazing. and I'm sitting there watching her have this cup of tea, like, I cannot believe that she's wasting this, I've taken time off work, I'm paying for a hotel, and she wants to sit and have a, you can have a cup of tea anytime. What the hell is going on? And so I start reacting like that, like, what are you doing? This is insanity. Come on, let's go. And so now we're literally screaming at each other over this cup of tea. And we were halfway to Santa Barbara and I turn around and we're driving back and something snaps in my head.

Wow. You turn around because you're still arguing.

I'm so angry. I'm like, this is a waste.

I'm not even gonna keep the kids.

Let's go home. This is stupid. And so when I actually take the exit ramp and actually get back on and I am going back home, we are actually going back home, I was like, you,'re being a child.

To yourself. To myself. Yeah, yeah.

You're being a child and you're now ruining this.

Is this internally or out?

Internally.

Okay.

And so finally I said, this argument isn't about the tea. What are we actually arguing about? And so I broke down what the cup of tea meant and all the things that I just said to you about I never take time off. I'm so freaked out about taking time off from work because I'm poor. I have made you poor. You are clipping coupons. I'm panicking about spending money on, you know, whatever, $140 hotel. I'm freaking out. The only way that I can sort of justify the time and the money is if we make use of every second. And I feel like you're being disrespectful to my sacrifice.

To your money, your time, your- You're.

Doing all of this. And she was like, I just want to be with you. I just want to spend time with you and a way for me to soak in the moment is to slow down and have this cup of tea. And I was like, Whoa. I have the chills now. This was like 17 years ago. And I remember thinking, Let's never do this again. Let's always ask ourselves or say we're arguing about the tea. And so now to this day, 17 years later, we'll say we're arguing about the tea. What's really going on? And then when you really, it's always insecurity. you get into like, oh, I'm insecure about something. You've poked on some insecurity that I have, what is it? Ah, it's this. And because we have this whole thing about never weaponize your partner's insecurities ever under any circumstance, even though you could win an argument by hitting them with that insecurity, you can't do it not even once. And so when you find it and you say it and then we celebrate the other person for acknowledging that and saying that, yes, cool, okay, now I understand where you're coming from. coming from, here's why now that you mentioned it, like this is what was really bothering me and you can get to that. Now look, there's now we're very fast with navigating through the emotional hijack, but your emotions still hijack you. It's not like I don't get mad or she doesn't get mad or we don't sort of miss each other or like, you know, we're miscommunicating. But because we have names for this stuff and we have best practices and, you know, tools, you find ways to to center yourself.

What's your greatest insecurity now? And what was it in the first five years of marriage and kind of business?

My greatest insecurity, I think, will always my greatest insecurity has been the same since I was like 12. And that's that I'm not smart enough to play with the big boys.

Who are the big boys?

Einstein, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Walt Disney, like the people who history remembers. And I actually don't know if I have the raw intellect to pull it off. Now, I think that I meet minimum requirements. And so I act as if I just need to keep acquiring skills. And I have yet to reach a point of diminishing returns. I still am learning so much so quickly that I'm encouraged that I could accomplish enough to be remembered. Now keep in mind two things. One, I don't think about legacy ever. So it's a north star of seeing if I am going to be a fast pig or if I actually am going to be a racehorse. But knowing the only thing that I value in a conscious active way because clearly my desire to be smarter is tied to something. Maybe that's truly intrinsic and maybe we all have this desire to be the best at something. Maybe that really is like every single human will live a less joyful life unless there's some narrow band somewhere, something where they're the best at. I'm the best at picking weeds, drawing a straight line, pouring milk, whatever. But there's something, right? That like, have you ever seen the documentary the King of Kong? No. The guy who holds the world record for Donkey Kong.

So, that's gonna, I gotta watch that.

Right, but we all like, We found his thing. Yeah, like some niche and you go ultra hard and it's like, I'm the best at this. So, maybe that's true, I don't know, but maybe it is.

But you don't wanna be great at.

Some niche, you wanna be great at something grand. Yes, but what I'm trying to separate here is, I don't consciously value myself for intelligence. It is proven to me that that is an emotionally dangerous game because All too often I meet people that are smarter than me, and I'll even define smart, the ability to process raw data quickly. So I routinely meet people that can process raw data more quickly than me. There are some sub- what type of.

Raw data are we talking about? Like numbers or what?

If I said, Louis, should we think more about the School of Greatness YouTube or the School of Greatness podcast? Now, I will come up with a profound answer to that if you let me think about it for two weeks. But there are other people that will come up with a profound answer in seven seconds. And I find that just astonishing. And I'm so in awe of the ability to think quickly. And because I speak quickly, people think I think quickly, but I don't. And other than my wife, I don't think anybody believes me when I say that, but I assure you that is true. I just think a lot. And because I think a lot, I've solved problems in my own life and some number of those problems that I have solved in my own life are useful to other people, but it's rumination.

So who are the five icons that you look up to the most, whether alive or dead?

Can I just multiply Elon Musk by two and Walt Disney by three? It's like those two to me tower over everything, but really the people that I just listed, Walt Disney, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Einstein, Einstein, but even I'll pull him off. Because he's, while I find that kind of intellect very powerful, there's nothing in my life that even hints at that. I've never sort of tasted that kind of view on the world, whereas the other guys, I feel like I get them, though I do not compete with them. I get them. Steve Jobs, if I didn't already say that, that's an area I can picture him Spielberg. That to round out, I think that's five. If I could mash them all into my brain, I would be a very happy man. A very happy man.

No, but some of those people weren't this, I mean, I think of Elon, sure, okay, Steve Jobs, maybe, but was Walt Disney the smartest? Or the most creative?

So this is where it gets to.

Separating the, wasn't he like an average Drawer or something?

He was, he was good from a job at a newspaper for not being creative enough. But that's one of those like early, sort of who you are early, I don't get too much in a twist about because it was the fact that he spent some ungodly number of hours creating animation in his garage, literally, that just put him ahead of other people. So, I mean, if you really want to talk about success, Success is a large amount of discipline and timing. And so he had both. He was working in a garage when there was no money to be made and everybody said, what are you doing? All the animations played out. Well, animation's dead, baby. It's dead. And he just loved it enough that he was there and ready for that second wave of success.

Timing.

It's exactly what happened with Tony Hawk. Tony Hawk was huge and then skateboarding died. Died. But he loved it. And so even when it was just like backyard skateboard competition, He just kept going and going and going and going and going. For no money. For no money whatsoever, no prestige, nothing. And then it has this resurgence in the 90s and he's the only one that anybody knows because everybody gave up. And so now it becomes Tony Hawk Pro Skater and boom he's like the biggest name by a factor of 100. So that was the same thing with Walt Disney. He didn't need to be the smartest. He needed to be the one that put in all the time when everybody else gave up and then the world had to meet him. They almost went out of business during World War II. and Roy Disney sort of keeps them afloat and they do like sort of propaganda films and stuff and then they come out of it as like the only survivors. And because he had been so passionate working so hard and he had that discipline and that work ethic of what he was doing in the garage to innovate, so you have this guy that wants to innovate so he's doing things other people aren't doing at a time where not only were there no other innovators, everybody else had fallen by the wayside and given up because there was no money and now he he was the best of the best and he had that discipline and the work ethic and then the timing met him and it's just, you get these, so dude, I will just say this to everybody watching because it'll be, this will be a time capsule in five years. I mapped something out seven years ago that is now coming to fruition. Louis, I promise you, I have a vision. People can go watch it right now. I mapped it out. It's called, if you in YouTube type Tom Bilyeu and Master Plan, I laid the whole And I am executing against it every single day.

Seven year plan?

No, no, no. It just happened to be seven years ago.

Okay.

It was the first time I said out loud, this is what I'm doing. So then, whatever, three years ago, I said, we need to record this. So four years into it, I said, I want to plant a flag so it's not people having to believe. No, no, no, I really did have this master plan.

Yeah.

That I have it and people can watch me execute it and see if I pull it off. because I think I know where the puck is going to be and that there's something happening right now in media that's opening up this a moment of tremendous timing that I'm aimed precisely to be in the middle of that timing so that I can create another gigantic, successful company. This one will take longer because I have to have built something up to be ready to take advantage of that opportunity that's coming in a way that like when you're selling something people can eat, it's not the same problem. although we did have our own lucky timing there. Yeah.

Yeah. So it sounds like, I mean, you've got the work ethic and the discipline like Disney. He had timing.

He had timing. It's a big part of it.

Because it could have been no one cared. So it's like he wasn't more brilliant. It seems like he was brilliant, but it wasn't more brilliant. He was dedicated in a craft that had timing and.

That's why I don't follow through with my obsession with, because you just asked what my insecurity was. That's the truth. Whether it makes any sense or not is a totally separate debate.

Because you don't need to be smart to be iconic.

It is entirely possible that I meet minimum requirements to become an icon, yes.

I don't know yet.

I don't think you need minimum requirements.

You don't need that.

You do, you do, my friend. We both know that. In terms of intelligence, I think, I don't want that to be true, but it is true. The US military has run the experiment. They said if you have a below 84 IQ, I think it is, that they would rather just not have you because even peeling potatoes, you'll create more chaos.

I don't even know if my IQ is that high. It's not 84, I swear.

I promise you.

I have no idea.

I promise you, no matter how much you may struggle with reading or whatever, your IQ is well above that. And then on top of that, like you're sort of dancing around, there are other things other than your ability to process raw data quickly, which will sort of round to IQ. There are things that are just as important, maybe more important than IQ. I heard this real story once, and I want to do a fictionalized version of this, that at one point in the US, the guy with the highest IQ in the world lived in the US and he was working as a bouncer in a bar and had done nothing with his life.

What?

Now imagine that. A guy who, if I remember the numbers correctly, Einstein is 160, and this guy was like 220.

Shut up.

So think about that. The average in the US is like 115, I think. So if 115 is normal and then Einstein is 160, there's a bigger gap between Einstein and this guy than Einstein and your average guy. And the guy was a bouncer at a bar. Because if you don't meet minimum requirements in sort of all the areas, social skills, interpersonal skills, the ability to manage your own emotions, Right? Maybe this guy had suffered trauma and he just could not get himself to a place where he could engage or wanted to engage. You know, so it's like, I get it. I somehow at some point in my life chose subconsciously to value intelligence. I'm in awe of it when I see it. I wish I had more of it. I don't, I don't cry myself to sleep tonight, you know, at night about it. But if there was a button in front of me that said, you could be the smartest person in the world. The only thing that makes me hesitate is would I still be able to enjoy my time with my wife? Because I used to say yes, I would hit that button. And then Lisa was like, I know this is make believe, but if I could put a request that you hesitate before hitting it, because she said, would we still relate to each other? And I was like, I actually don't know. So if I knew that I would still relate to my wife, I would pound the life out of that button.

So why is this the biggest insecurity? Because it's- Because you're doing pretty well for yourself.

I really feel like I have, I don't spend a lot of time in insecurity, but I'm trying to give you a real answer. So when I think about things that still do like, oh, that sucks, it's when I see, like when I look at Elon Musk, I am not equal parts because I'm more inspired than I am crestfallen that I just don't have that ability to process data like that. that's astonishing. Like when you see what he's done, I am, I'm going all out to build the next Disney. And I think I might pull it off. But he's building a company to take people to Mars.

Yeah.

While building the most dynamic car company on the planet.

And an underground tunnel company, right?

And yes, and Solar City. It's like Hyperloop is, he just had an idea and so he published what multiple companies are now using to build he gave away his patents. I mean, it's insanity. The guy is the chief engineer of SpaceX. He taught himself rocket science. He taught himself. He got books and taught himself rocket science. That's insane. So that to me is, I choose to let it be on inspiring. Even if there I could only ever be a fast pig, and who knows, I'm not running the experiment. But I I think in terms of there are some areas where you get disproportionate rewards on your time. If it has to do with verbal or emotional abilities, I get disproportionate return. Me and somebody else could read the same books and I'm just gonna walk away with more. I could give the same number of speeches as somebody else and I'm just gonna be a little bit better than they are. So that's an area where I've really poured myself into.

If you could hit a button right now that would say you You are one of the smartest people at, what did you say, something with data?

The ability to process raw data.

Raw data. Same data? Yeah. Be the smartest or one of the smartest in the world right now, or guaranteed to be the same level intelligence you are for the rest of your life, or incrementally better with the amount of process you take and be bigger than Disney, guaranteed.

That's so easy. Bigger than Disney. Nothing brings me more joy than storytelling. Nothing.

So why obsess over the, the, the.

I'm not sure that it's smart. I don't know that it's a good use of my cycles. But I, you're so good at asking like that really pointed question and, and it's tempting to dodge, right? And just be like, give you some BS answer. The truth is, for whatever weird reason that I have not been held back enough by to worry about, the thing that I worry about in my life, at least some small amount, is my intelligence. So it's probably stemmed from growing up, I was just always around, maybe it's pure luck, maybe if I had grown up anywhere else, I would have been the smartest kid, but I was in a group of friends where I was not the smartest and so I became the funniest and that has served me very well.

And you became the hardest working and you became...

I haven't tracked enough of them to know, I was not then, I will assure you of that. Now whether I'm the hardest working of all of us now, but we're a bit of a Stephen King bunch where everybody's scattered to the wind and we have not stayed in contact. But I do think like that line in Stephen King that you never have friends like you had when you were 12. That is true. Like the friends that I had at the age of 12 was like a magic Stephen King novel. And but unfortunately I have not stayed in contact except for one of them, which is a whole thing unto itself. He's a fucking fascinating guy. Wow. But anyway they were smarter than me.

Many of them. Don't you want to not be the smartest person in the room?

Yeah. You're gonna, you'll end up in a death loop because I think it's dumb. I should not be obsessed about wanting to be smarter, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't. Like it is an area where, yeah, it would be cool. I won't lie. But I know how to emotionally center myself. I know how to be beyond grateful for the talents that I do have. I am able to generate an extraordinary amount of joy with the talent and intelligence. Like if 50% is hardwired and then the other 50% is making the most of that, I am really having a ball making the most of what I was given. So I'm good. But am I insecure? Yes. Am I paralyzed by insecurity?

No.

Do I invest in that insecurity? No. I don't think it makes any sense to wallow in like, oh, I should be smarter. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not stuck there. But that's the honest answer.

That's interesting.

A very pointed answer.

That's interesting. In terms of the thing that keeps coming up for me is your ability to self-soothe. under whatever adversity or frustration or anger moments in business with team, with partner, personal let downs you might have. What is the strategy you've learned from all the people you've interviewed and your own just personal tests and experiments of soothing and kind of getting back to a place of heart rate slowing down, getting back to a rational state of mind, letting go of the hurt 12-year-old that's not smart or whatever it may be that's hurt in that moment and reactive. What are those soothing techniques besides having a blankie when you're a child and sucking on thumb?

Well, so I'll get the mechanistic one out of the way. Meditation is big. That has been a lifesaver for me. That's helped me manage stress in very stressful situations. But the thing that maybe people haven't heard before is I always ask myself one question. So I have a goal. I know what my goal is. That's very, very important in my entire rubric. Everything that I say assumes that the person knows what their goal is. Big goal or the goal just in that moment. So let's say your goal is I want to feel good about myself. So getting back to center. Okay, I want to feel good about myself, but I just did something to embarrass myself. And it has real world consequences, right? It really was embarrassing and it really will stick with me maybe if for a year, maybe 10 years, maybe this is a thing that now is associated with me forever, right? It's out in the internet, whatever. So how am I going to recenter? I use one question. Will it serve me to feel badly about myself because of this? And if it does serve me, and by the way, sometimes it does, like you need that sting of like, I messed that thing up. I don't want to mess up like that again. And being upset by it, never more than 20% of your time, but in that 20% leaning on what I call the dark side to be like angry about it, be upset, hold yourself accountable and not just let yourself off the hook. Be like, yeah, you screwed that up. You weren't paying enough attention. Your skill set wasn't ready, whatever. But nine or eight times out of 10, I guess the right answer is no, it's not going to serve me. And even if kicking my own ass served me for a little bit, it's not going to serve me for long. so I need to very rapidly transition into forgiveness, into just not focusing on it, letting it go, and knowing that, so I have a belief that I've consciously instilled in my life that I only do and believe that which moves me towards my goal. So, even if it's true that I'm a moron, believing that isn't going to serve me. So, I just go, okay, well that's not going to serve me, so I need to at least believe I can get better. Okay, I can get better, cool, then I'm just going to focus on that. And that simple reframe pulls me out of that. And I just, it's a pattern interrupt, right? Using cognitive behavioral therapy language. I don't allow myself to death spiral.

About what a moron I am. You know what's interesting? I probably spent 27, 28 years of my life, maybe 30, obsessing over being a moron internally, right? Internalizing like, God, stupid, you're an idiot, whatever it was, around a relationship or something in my business, something. I would obsess about it. And I think when I turned 30, I finally was like, well, that doesn't really serve me anymore. And I feel like a lot of people in the world continue to obsess about calling themselves something negative, that they're no good or a moron or a god or an idiot for doing this thing. And we obsess over it. Why do you think we obsess so much for decades of our lives until we die, most people, it seems like.

You'Re having a biological experience. so one of the physics of being human, this is the actual structures of the brain are designed to do the following. It's designed to keep you alive long enough to have kids that have kids. That's it. Now, you trying to be the alpha in your tribe is actually very dangerous. You're gonna have to put yourself out there, take risks, try to build alliances, all that. So that's why people are so afraid of making a mistake, public speaking, doing something that could get them ostracized. Now in a modern context, it doesn't make sense anymore to have that fear, but the programming is there. So also we have a negativity bias. So if you think of it as the sort of snake stick effect, you are better off assuming that a stick in the grass is actually a snake than you are to assume a snake in the grass is a stick. Because if a stick is, you know, just a stick, but you react like it's a snake, you look silly and people might chuckle. But if it's actually a snake and you react like it's a stick, you're dead. So you're way better off skewing to the overreactive. Same with negative. You are way better off going, Louis, you really embarrassed yourself. You never should have done that.

You should have just kept your mouth shut.

Stay safe. Stay safe, yes. Because you are better off fitting in than you are sticking your head up. Now, if you win the lottery and you become the alpha male and you get access to more females and you procreate, It's a risky strategy, but when it pays off at Genghis Khan and it pays off, you know, I mean, he can, his impact can actually be measured in the gene pool. It's insane, but it's a dangerous strategy, man. So that's why you have all this like negativity bias. You're something like five or seven, I forget what the stat is, seven times more likely to believe something negative than you are to believe something positive because if it's positive, then it's just you didn't get ostracized, but you don't get a lot more out of it. whereas if you really misstep and you're in danger of being put out of the group, you need to address it immediately and go into damage control.

Have you ever done anything where you felt like, oh, I really messed up?

I mess up daily.

But I mean, like, oh, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that thing. Or I got too much negative comments than I normally get. And is there a moment you can think of that. stands out where you felt like, I held on to this for a few days of beating myself up because I knew I needed to take accountability. You're asking about whether I hold on.

To something too long or whether I make mistakes. Were there legit mistakes?

What was the mistake that was a big one for you where you were like, okay, I had to beat my, not beat myself up, but like, I had to hold myself accountable for a.

Few days longer than I normally would to recover. I don't have a quick answer to that. Yeah. Partly because I don't lash myself for mistakes and haven't for a very long time now. I make mistakes routinely. I've made huge mistakes with building culture.

Really?

Dude, you want to talk trial and error? Trying to figure out how to build a culture in a company was very, very difficult. When I used to mentor somebody, I would do this thing where I would say, they would come to me inevitably and say, Hey, I want to be you in 10 years. And I would say, okay, then I'm going to start talking to you the way that I talk to myself. that was a mistake. Most people are not ready for that and like finding a way to stair step them into that and sort of help them begin to process things. You know, I've had my entire life to earn my own respect or credibility with myself. So and then also I could never understand and Lisa really had to show me. She was like, when you speak, people don't hear Tom Bilyeu the teammate. They hear Tom Bilyeu the CEO. And it's like, she was like some of your staff has only ever interacted with you when you're on camera. And so to you, it's like you have both the sort of you're the boss, you pay their paycheck and you're a celebrity in a very micro way. Trust me, I'm well aware of that. But like that's the perception that they have. But because I don't think of myself like that, I don't feel that way internally, that I cannot think that, oh, when I say this thing and I'm a very forceful person, so now I'm saying it forcefully, but I don't I don't want deference. I assume you're not giving me deference, but in reality that person is hearing the CEO, this guy could fire me, and he's, you know, now he's coming at me hard, which he did ask my permission to do because I came and said, but it just, it didn't work. So I don't use that strategy anymore. Just a lot of little things like that where it seemed like I really was trying to do something amazing, but it was a terrible strategy.

Yeah. What would you say is the wrong way about getting into a business partnership with your married couple as a married couple and the right way to do it? What have you learned in the last five years that's really worked and what has been like, man, maybe we shouldn't have done a business together if we would have went down this way?

If your relationship isn't high functioning, if you don't have insight seen levels of emotional stability, a sense of longevity, you know that you're in this forever, and that you've shown over a certain period of time that we have the chops to solve disputes. That's the key. The second key is what are the roles? Maybe I don't care who takes what role, but you better have some roles. So for instance, when Lisa and I created Impact Theory, we said to the lawyers, make this the ultimate divorce nightmare. Lawyer said, no, no, no. One of you should take 51%, trust me, everybody thinks this is all gonna be sunshine and rainbows. And Lisa was like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tom should have 51% and I'll take 49. And I said, Over my dead body.

Wow.

You are taking 50%, this is half your company. You have earned over the life of our marriage, you've earned half of everything that we have. Like if my wife were cheated on me with an entire football team, I would still give her half because half of it is hers. She has earned that half and becoming a horrible wife does not negate that she earned her half. I would just close that chapter. I would give her half and never look back and just go do my thing. Because I believe that to the core of my being and I believe it for two reasons. One, she really has earned her half and even if she hasn't, the only way to make sure that my marriage is my number one priority is to say to her, no, no, no. I trust you implicitly. If you're gonna burn this business down, do it. Please don't mess up our marriage, but like, I don't care about the business like I care about you. And I wanna be very clear and I want my actions to show. It isn't like, oh no, it doesn't matter. But you know what? I'll just put the 51 down. Just till you know, the lawyers are telling us, no, no, no, 50-50. But let's be very clear. I will try never, ever, ever to move forward without us agreeing. and you will convince me sometimes I will convince you I am very open and I she knows me. I never argue for an idea just because it's mine. I know where the company is trying to go. I've built a skill set over multiple businesses in many, many years of being good, not perfect, but being good at knowing which movement is most likely to get us where we want to go. So, my beloved wife about to be my business partner, if we ever find ourselves At an impasse. I can't convince you. You can't convince me. We've exhausted our ability to communicate, you know, to move each other. We will every single time go with my idea. Now, if you're comfortable with that.

We're 50/50 though.

Correct. But we have roles. Yeah, I am the CEO. I am the visionary.

Interesting.

She is an unimaginably good executor. And she has also amazing visionary ideas, just as I know how to execute. But when you look at the dominant trait, I am dominant when it comes to vision, she's dominant when it comes to execution. So if it's something around execution and I think she's crazy, we're gonna go with her idea because I know she is the right person to listen to. But when we get to loggerheads on something where let's say we were equal, like no one has more experience, no one has proven to be better at this thing, then ultimately I'll make that call. Now, 'cause that's your role. That's my rule.

And again, you're not gonna step on her execution role if she's like, no, we're gonna do it this way and her 1% will probably win out over that. Is that true or no?

Whoever is the right person to listen to, like Jocko Willing makes it very clear. If you wanna be a good leader, you have to know when to follow. And that's another thing that we talk about in the culture document. You better be prepared to lead, but you also better be prepared to follow. So I would follow her. Like, I have no problem with that. There's no ego tied up. It's just, Somebody has to be the tiebreaker. When there's only two of you, it has to be agreed upon ahead of time who has the final say. Interesting. And that will force you to cross a line in your relationship where it's like, we're gonna say it, we're gonna write it down, there's gonna be no uncertain terms. When we don't agree, and if it's area by area, we're going to write the areas down. Right. And then when something falls into a gray zone, who makes the decisions in the gray zone?

Write it down. So it's clear. Yeah. Very clear. Now you had 15 years under your belt of building a successful marriage and partnership of trust and relationship and shared experience together. What if someone's in the first two years of their marriage? Would you say you should it's still good chance you'll have a great business experience together and not crush your marriage in those first?

If your relationship is high functioning, you'll just learn the lessons in a business context. So, a marriage is way more high stakes than business. All that's at stake in a business is money. what's at stake in a marriage is a shared life and there's no way to fast track that. So you can break up and start over but like let's say you stay together for 10 years and then you break up. The only way to get to an 11 year relationship is to start back at one. Whereas by then that marriage would have been a 20 year marriage. So it is a to me with my value system the thing that I protect most ferociously is my wife and my marriage. So that's just so easy. Now I play for keeps with the business. I'm not just like laws I care about. Like, hey, whatever. But it's like when they collide, you need to know what you care about. In rank order, which I find people have a very hard time doing.

What do you think? We've heard a lot of the habits and mindset strategies you have, but what do you think are some things when you feel completely stuck? And I don't think you ever feel stuck, but in general for people, what are some habits they can take on along with meditation to help them get unstuck in that moment to at least stepping forward in the actions they want towards their goal?

So a couple things. One, you really have to have beliefs and two rules.

Beliefs and rules and values or...

Values will come into play, but just to keep it simple. We can talk to all three if you want. It is the full cocktail is beliefs, values, identity, rules, and habits. That's like the whole thing. You could sort of put routines in there, but they're so related to habits.

These are what you live by.

That is how I make sure I accomplish what I want to accomplish.

What are your beliefs?

I have 25 of them. These I've actually published. So while I don't have them memorized.

If somebody wants to know my goals.

I only do and believe that which moves me towards my goals. I can do anything I set my mind to without limitation. Then the next one is, I know that's a lie, but that's an empowering lie, and I do and believe that which moves me towards my goals. So there's 25 things like that. Human potential is nearly limitless. Sure. On and on. So it's all things to basically get you moving in the right direction. And the reason that I bring up rules is they need to have a rule that when they're indecisive, they immediately act. And I will just promise you, you're going to embarrass yourself because you'll be wholly unprepared. And there will be times where if you'd sat down and thought about it longer, you would have come to the right answer, but you didn't because you hit ine decision, you have a rule in your life that indecision equals action. And I will just promise you, it isn't like two to one, it's a thousand to one. So while there will be consequences, you will suffer consequences for living this way, but what you would get is so much bigger that it's like, it's not even close. And so in my life, I don't allow indecision. How many rules do you have? I'm actually, so I, you know, I got a book deal on, oh, look at that, yay. Seven figure book deal, I turned it down. so I'm no longer writing it. And what I was going to write in that book was going to force me to come up with actually write my values down because I've never done it. So it's kind of like pornography. I know it when I see it. I'll get into a situation, I'll ask myself, what do I value? And because I'm totally unafraid of rank ordering things, I just rank order them. So for instance, the one that was really hard to do, my wife, my business, family and friends. What order do they come in? Because you don't get two number ones. My wife, my business, my friends and family.

-Wow.

-That'S just being real.

-Yeah.

So, but saying that out loud, that was not easy.

-It doesn't mean you're not going to hang out with friends and family.

-It doesn't mean that I don't absolutely like I'm obsessed with my family and there is almost nothing I wouldn't do for them. I wouldn't die for them and leave my wife alone. But like in a moment of my mom falls in a river and I have to risk everything to save her I would do it 100% so youo know that that's easy, but that's that's just me being honest about like Ultimately the order in which those three things.

So why not take the seven figure book deal? What's that to do with your rules?

Because that is I love the mindset stuff. I love it. And it's changed my life. And I love watching somebody's eyes light up when they get it for the first time. And so I created Impact Theory University and it is the book but in lecture form. And so I've already created that stuff. Now I know that I would open up a much bigger market if I were to make the book so that those people could go, oh my God, this stuff is life changing. And then I say, you like the book, you love Impact Theory University, sign up today. And it would quintuple our business overnight. I can pretty much guarantee it. When you say no to something that comes with a lot of zeros, you do so because of your value system. And what I value, when I think about Tom Bilyeu on his deathbed, if I may speak in the third person, I think of myself on my deathbed. I don't regret not writing the book, but I regret tremendously not telling stories. Because I think if I want to impact 100% of the world, 2% of them can be impacted with what we're doing right now, where you say, Think like this, act like this, it will make your life better. And 2% will do it. It's amazing. Now, I don't mean 2% of your audience. Your audience is the 2%. They have selected themselves out. They watch your show. So now some ungodly number of them are gonna go out and do it because they belong to that very rare group. The 98% though, they will not. And I became obsessed with this because working at Quest, I had 3,000 employees, 1,000 of them grew up in the inner cities. And many of them could process raw data faster than I could. They were smarter than me, but they had done nothing with their life. And they were not going to do anything with their life. Not that would be remembered or anything that even they valued. And when I boiled down to why not, it came down to they didn't have a growth mindset. They didn't have the only belief that matters. So I thought, okay, well how do I get it to them? So we created Quest University and I would show up early, I would stay late, I would tell anybody anything they wanted to know about mindset, building a business, whatever. And 2% of them did it and it was life-changing and it's amazing. And I still get phone calls from people who are like, you changed my life. I mean, it's amazing. But it's only 2%. The other 98% are either apathetic or actively antagonistic to change. So how do you reach them? Entertainment.

The punchline is you have to get.

To the limbic system, which you do through entertainment. So you tell them stories.

TV movies, yeah.

So... Star Wars. Storytelling, yeah. Star Wars affected my life tremendously, the Matrix. It's how you sway culture. So the only way that I'm going to sway culture with my skill set.

Because I'm not a musician, would be telling stories. So the book, you weren't able to do the book because it wasn't-- It just took your time. It just took your time. Yeah. Got you.

And now I do admit, I might at some point cross the bridge and go, hey, this is just taking Impact Theory University and putting into book form. Transcribe it and get him to do it. Like Ryan Holiday, I would have him do it. It's only sort of been recently that I've crossed that bridge, because he was gonna work with me on the book. But that was when I was like, now I gotta write every word. Well, do you have to? But now I'm like, man, just send Ryan into ITU and say, you know, spend four months watching all the content and just write it as a book. And that might be the punchline. I haven't thought beyond it. And then you could impact the storytelling.

I hear, that's powerful. What are other rules that you live by? Have you written those down or no?

No, the only ones I've written down are the beliefs. Part of what got me interested in doing the book was, oh, it's gonna force me to write down my values and my rules. so here, I'll just give you a few. I'm out of bed in 10 minutes or less. If I've had more than five hours of sleep, I'm out of bed in 10 minutes or less. If I wake up after three hours.

Sleep, I'll lay there for two hours.

Trying to fall asleep. I'm talking about during the weekday, but not the weekends here. No, even on the weekends, I don't have a hard rule about it, but rule of thumb, I'm still usually out of bed in 10 minutes or less. So I'm out of bed in 10 minutes or less. And most everything I'm going to say, just assume I mean Monday through Friday. I'm out of bed in 10 minutes or less. I, if I'm awake, I'm either working or working out. So like, spoiler alert, I don't have sex during the week. That's just like with rare exceptions. That's a no-go. I do hard things.

It's funny, at night you don't relax?

No, I work until I go to bed. Wow. Even when I brush my teeth, I'm.

Listening to a podcast.

Legitimately efficient with all your time. From the moment I wake up Monday through Friday, it's very different on the weekends. Monday through Friday, if I'm awake, I'm either working or working out. And when I'm working out, I'm still listening to a podcast. So that one's actually double duty. Wow. Those are some easy and fast ones that I live by every day. If I'm stressed, I meditate. I never blame other people. I always take on responsibility myself. I only do things that move me towards my goals. So I'm very careful about what my goal is and another rule, my goals must always be exciting and honorable. And I'll define exciting is just like I'm amped up. It gives me more energy. I wake up excited to go do that thing. Honorable is it serves not only myself but other people.

Okay. And what about identity? How does that play in everything?

That to me, as far as I can tell, there's only one smart way to go about identity, and that is to adopt the identity of the learner. So instead of valuing yourself for being something, it's all about becoming something.

Having something or what you've acquired or.

Or being smart.

This.

In fact, this is how I got myself out of the death loop. I was in my 20s around being smart, where I was making all these dumb decisions and I only wanted to be around people that were dumber than me. I was actually thinking. this. This wasn't like some subconscious program. I was like, oh man, that person is smart. Oh God, I don't want to be around them. And so there's this movie called Amadeus. And it's true story, probably fictionalized, inspired by Amadeus Mozart, it's real life. And there's this real guy, his name is Salieri, and he laments in the movie, and I remember watching this at probably 17 years old and instantly going, this is my life. And he says, he laments to God and said, why did you make me just good enough to realize I'll never be as good as Mozart? Like, you could have made me better than Mozart or you could have made me so dumb I can't tell.

But when you're like, it's so close, but you'll never get there.

He said it was too heartbreaking. And I sucked that into my soul and for more than a decade, I was like, I am solieri. And like you with realizing, hey, calling myself a moron is not serving me, I finally had to say, thinking of myself as the person who's just good enough to recognize that other people are better, stop doing that. And now start thinking relentlessly about acquiring new skills. That's it. Like, whatever. Be inspired by people that are better than you. Great. That's amazing. But don't sit there and lament, which is what I used to that you're not as good as them. Find out how close can you get?

Yeah. You know what I realized?

Ah, man.

My nephew is 16 and he is able to spend so much time learning new skills right now. He can obsess over something all day and try this sport and do this thing and read this book and try everything. He's cooking class, like all this stuff is happening and he seems like he's got all the time in the world. Even though he's in school and homework, but he's like, I'm just gonna do whatever I want and learn. How hard is it for you to learn a really great skill that you want to learn at this stage? When you don't have that much time, do you?

We all have 24 hours. No excuses.

But when you're working so much on the business.

Make sure you align what you want with that. So, what are the things you're learning?

What are the skills you want to learn?

You ready? I just, to my wife yesterday, made a proclamation.

Let's hear it.

I'm going to become the greatest writer of what's called shoujo manga. the world has ever seen. Now, shoujo manga is aimed at women. It's typically written by women for women. And I am so excited to learn what makes good shoujo manga. For anybody that watches my interview shows, they're gonna see whenever I have a guest on that can talk intelligently about the differences between men and women, I'm like pinning them down. Not because I care sort of intrinsically about the differences between men and women, though I do find it interesting. But if I'm going to write this stuff for them, I have to really understand it. because people can say what they want. Maybe the numbers speak for themselves, Louis. Dude, have you read A Billion Wicked Thoughts?

No.

Oh, Louis is going to change your life. You're going to love it so much. So, it's a crazy book. Jordan Peterson makes an off-handed comment in one of his lectures about, oh, there's this crazy book called the Billion Wicked Thoughts. And if anybody's wondering if men and women are the same, read this book. And I thought, oh my God, I have to go read this. Google engineers are interested in understanding what are people's sexual desires when nobody's looking. And they said, there's this fundamental flaw that people lie because even if you say, as the researcher, no, no, I'm never going to tell anybody. This is totally anonymized. People are like, ah, too many data breaches, I'm not sure. And they just don't tell you.

And the engineers were sitting there going, wait a second, we have search history.

We have the data. Trillions of searches. Men and women from around the world. And now let's look at what they search for, or what porn they watch. Dude, it's insane. It's so revealing, dude. So this book is about... It goes through what do men and women search for? What does it tell you about them? Where does this come from? Like, it is absolutely insane.

Give me the 60-second Cliff Notes of...

Of like a difference between men and women?

Of this book.

Well, so the punchline of the book is that just from an evolutionary perspective, you would expect men and women to have to respond sexually to different things because they have different agendas. So guys have two mating strategies. One to pair bond and mate with that person and then the other is to basically, oh God, there's a funny name for it. It's a rhyming way of basically saying plant and dash. So you put your seed and then you just bail. Right, right, right. Forgetting what it's called.

Oh man.

And because we have these two strategies.

So guys, men have both those strategies.

Men have both those strategies. But for because for a guy, it's like sperm is cheap, the encounter is cheap. If the woman has to raise a child, even like the nine months of gestation, the woman has to go through all that man is off scot-free. So he's always looking for those opportunities where he can just impregnate a female and then bounce. And when you think about it as a legitimate mating strategy, women also use that strategy to attract men. the difference between being hot and being beautiful. Hot is advertising sexual availability, whereas beauty is often sort of a more internal thing. It's about who the person is, it's the sort of totality. So somebody can be standoffish and still beautiful, but hot comes from the allure of they could be accessible. And that is like, that's fascinating. And when you think about the things that really turn women on, get ready, vampires, billionaires, Pirates. It's like the number one female fantasy is Beauty and the Beast. Not literally that story, but that archetype of the sort of out of control beastly man who is tamed by one woman and brought into a loving relationship with one woman.

Why is that dude?

Think about it. You've got to get this high status male into a monogamous relationship.

It's like the hardest thing to do.

Hardest thing to do. And it's the thing to get that high status male to not use you and then leave, but to pair bond with you, fucking trips them out, right? And I love that. But here, before we go laughing at women, guys, they're porn, genitals. That's it. And now if you really want to freak yourself out, there is the number of porn that's like one guy, two girls is tiny compared to one girl and multiple men. No. Yes. Have you not heard of sperm competition? What? Yes, it's this sexual selection. This shit is crazy. Wait a minute.

Guys like watching porn with two men.

I don't say like.

The data shows.

The data shows, they watch way more of it. So, with two guys and one girl. Do you know how they get a horse? Like if they want to make sure that a horse impregnates another horse, they'll have it be around another stud so that there's another male present.

So it's like who's bigger, stronger?

You ejaculate more semen if you've just watched another man have sex? If your wife has been away for something like three days, when she comes back, you'll ejaculate more because you don't know who she's been with. Dude, it's insane. I don't know how much you want to get into this on your show, but it is like a week you can go deeper. It gets weirder and weirder the farther you go, but human sexual selection is absolutely fascinating and it gives these powerful insights into how you can sort of feel more at ease with your own sex and be able to talk in a way and feel understood and seen and all that. And then when it's the opposite sex, there can be these misunderstandings and what the hell is going on? And the way that I explain it is being around other men is easier, but being in a mixed group is more productive because you get heterogeneity of thought. So people are coming at it from different angles. It's way more explosive in terms of what you can get get done, it's awesome. And so I always seek out like the different modes of thinking in groups because it's way more powerful. But I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't easier when I'm in just a group of guys.

With all the things that you've learned from personal experience of marriage, an intimate relationship, and the psychologists you've been interviewed, the books, the billion negative thoughts. Negative, wicked thoughts. Like all these things you've experienced, If it could boil down a healthy, happy relationship to three things that each partner needs to do and take responsibility for in order to create and cultivate a long-term healthy, happy relationship, what would you say of those three things?

Number one is the one that everybody is ready for, communication. Number two is you've got to, what I usually refer to as fill your heart with love. But I'll say another way, which is want them to win. You need to elevate your partner. If your partner doesn't feel better about themselves when they're around you, then when they're not, you are in real trouble. And then third, lots of sex.

But only on the weekend for you.

For me. But I make up for it, Louis. I make up for it.

The whole weekend is just sex.

It's not crazy like that.

All we get is being around other dudes. And then just with your wife.

0% of that. It is entirely pair bonding. Sex is a big part of that. Touch is a big part of that. Cuddling is a big part of that. Sharing something, food, watching something together, touching while you watch it, massage, like dude.

So it doesn't have to be sex, but some type of physical touch.

For sure. And sex, sex, I do mean that one. sex is important, otherwise you become roommates. And bed death is like this whole thing.

Bed death.

Yeah, in relationships where you respect each other, you're fond of each other, but you're not having sex anymore. So sex is important, it's very important.

Those are the three things.

Those are the three.

How do you communicate when you think differently, act differently, believe differently, or first it's different background?

Recognize that we really do overlap. not far more than we're different. So the commonalities are so overwhelming that it is powerful. I mean, there's no human I feel more connected to or more understood by than my wife. But there is an ease when you're with like-minded guys. I mean, you could be with the guys and be like, fuck, these guys are, I can't even stand to be around them. But there is like a camaraderie and stuff which I'm sure you'll get.

Relaxing.

Yeah, it's just easy, right? I don't have to worry about, Ooh, I need to phrase this in some kind of way to be more careful about how you might feel. I can just say it, right? And if you had a problem, you can be like, Dude, don't be a dick. And so it's very easy. And women likewise, they are more protective, everyone's included. They default to that. They don't have to deal with the Neanderthal guys in the group. But there's so much overlap. So anyway, Lisa and I have to be thoughtful about, oh yeah, you're right. The classic one that everyone jokes about is, I'm trying to solve your problem, but you just want to be heard, right?

Yeah.

So that's sort of the easiest one that people be like, oh yeah, I can totally relate to that. So you have to navigate some of that, but the communicating, even when you have differences, just rules of engagement, right? Like, say, what do we do in an argument? Do we step away? Do we keep going until we get to the end of this? Do we go to bed mad? Do we not go to bed mad? Can you leave the house? Do you have to stay in the house? Right? Like, can we name call? Can we yell? Can we raise our voice? Like, if you raise your voice. Raise your voice. Yeah, like this is how we fight. This is fair. This is not fair. Like, Lisa and I, never ever, ever, ever, ever, under any circumstances, not even once, weaponize the other person's insecurities. It's powerful. Can't do it.

And so that would be such a violation of trust that we just don't. Yeah, that's good.

What's the thing you admire about your wife the most? And that's a long list. The most thing is that my wife has an unbreakable will. And there have been times where it actually annoyed me because there were times early in our marriage where I just thought, I'm just gonna wear her down and just be like, don't do this or leave me alone about that or whatever. And I'll be so inhumanly consistent that she'll back off eventually. She'll just give up. And once she believes in something, And dude, I need to go deeper on this because I'm going to get myself in trouble with a little generalization here, but there is a book. It's very profound and I highly encourage every human being to read it called the Gulag Archipelago written by a man who was put in the gulag, the Russian, like, internment camps. I'm not sure what the right way to call it.

The gulag what?

The gulag archipelago. So it's basically like the groupings of the gulags. And he got pulled into the Gulag system. And it's terrifying, far more terrifying in terms of number of deaths than the Nazi concentration camps.

What year was this?

This would have been post-World War II. Really? Yeah, yeah. His name's Alexander Solzhenitsyn is the author. Real guy, really survived the Gulag.

It's kinda like a Viktor Frankl type of book.

Yes, but this guy is enraged. So it is, Jordan Peterson wrote the foreword to the, sort of updated reprinting of it or whatever. And he talks about how when you're reading it, you feel like Solzhenitsyn is screaming for 800 pages or whatever it is. It is, it's one of the most chilling books I've ever read. Like it's sort of akin, it's not quite because the Gulags were different, but imagine you're reading the book written by Viktor Frankl, but instead of having found this sort of beautiful insight, he is enraged and points out how we ended up here. This is how you end up creating a system that's so inhuman. Absolutely breathtaking. Anyway, in it he says, most people under torture will eventually say whatever you need them to say. But he said, when you heard that someone was tortured to death, he said, I'd put a chip that it was a woman. Because he said, once they latch on to something, they're not backing down. They will die. I just will not let go. It's right and it's right. What's right is right and that's it.

They're willing to die for it.

And I was like giving the chills now. And I so see that in my wife. When I read that, I was like, this is my wife. Like she has this thing of like when she believes it should be this way. And she's just like- She's gonna die for it. Yes. And at times though, Lou, where good sense is telling you to back down, you don't need to die for that. It's okay to lie and say yes, you were right. Like that didn't make any sense. And truly from the outside, I would be begging my wife to lie to give up her principles. Like I want you alive and you're being tortured, this is crazy. But she really would be tortured to death before she would give on that. And it's like, it's awe inspiring.

Wow.

Now it's awe inspiring until it becomes pathological. And then it's terrifying. But like really, really, really. When I, because I think I am hardcore. But that woman, man, once she like, she has true righteous indignation and she just becomes unstoppable.

Wow. Okay.

So.

The Bulag.

Bulag, Gulag.

Gulag.

The Gulag is like their prison.

The Gulag. I got to read this book. If there are only three books you could recommend to people that this all the books they could read in their life, this is the hardest thing probably. But if you're like three books to live a better life, to understand the world and to just thrive, what would you say are those three books?

It's not a hard question, but it's one that I'm sure I will answer differently every time somebody asks. Number one is Mindset by Carol Dweck. It's the most important book in the English language. Number two is the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, which is an absolutely extraordinary book. And then number three is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. He's great.

And Leif Babin, shout out to Leif. What is it the thing that you think most people misunderstand about you?

That's very easy. They think that I'm trying to be the next Tony Robbins. And I'm trying to be the next Walt Disney.

Yeah, I get that a lot too. And I'm like, I'm not, I love Tony. I think he's amazing. I don't want to run an events business and me being the one leading people in that way. I feel like that's a lot of pressure. And I'm just not that good at it, I don't think, you know, compared to someone like him. Tony's the model.

Tony's the goat. So I won't put either of us in that category, but you are amazing at it. And seeing the, what you've built around you is a reflection of how you're able to influence people on stage, but more importantly in this is something that only a precious few people in your audience know what you're like in person. And for anybody, and I know you must get this comment a hundred times on every video, Louis, you're such a good listener. What they'll never understand is the way you look at people. And it's always like, how do I look? You really do have a sparkle in your eye. You really are like, you,'re here. You are with me. You are present. There's just something about the way you look when you're listening to somebody that is awesome. Yeah. It you really do feel heard and like somebody's present and all that. And so anyway, I know how that plays out in business as well. So it's like all those things that you can do will only continue to get bigger and as long as you love it and want to do it, it's gonna keep going. But I certainly get that Tony does a thing and it's amazing. And he's still doing it first of all. So let Tony be Tony. But yeah, I don't I It's not the game I want to play. It's incredibly powerful and it's a necessary part of my master plan to play in that realm. But the closest thing and of course, I'm not trying to be a clone of Walt Disney, I really want to be Tom Billings, all the people saying, oh no, just be yourself. Yes, yes, yes. I'm just saying, But that's a model that he's built. Having a model that helps you have something to aim at. And also it's just an organizing principle.

For people to understand. And what's the hardest skill that you want to learn?

I don't yet know what's going to be the linchpin thing that I need to know how to do. Right now it is I'm running a strategy in Hollywood. So Hollywood is known for bull. And I don't think it's actually that anybody's doing it on purpose. Creative things are really, really hard. It's really hard to know what's going to pop.

We don't know.

Right, so you want to tell everybody, because you're not sure, you want to say, Hey, this could be amazing. Or, this is amazing, kid, I love you. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do this, man. I love it, I love it. Now what you're really trying to do is buy yourself time to get feedback from other people, to see will this person keep going, to see if it starts to generate heat. So you want to get as close as you can and yet push them off. So you want to create a relationship where you're the natural person for them to turn to when they've got heat behind them. But you want to-- oh, they're big enough, I'm a man time. Keep them at arm's length until they have momentum. You gotta tell them, yeah, I love you, man. Yeah, yeah, what you're doing is amazing, you're a talent. And so I get it, and I don't think it's sinister. I don't think it attracts ugly people or anything like that. I think it is so difficult to know what's gonna hit, you need to create that sort of weird friction. So anyway, I come into this and I say, I've already had all the financial success in the world. I don't have to think about that. So I'm only gonna play the Hollywood game as long as it's interesting. It's only interesting to me if I can be real. So I tell people when I meet them for the first time, I'm building a reputation and I'm building my reputation by always saying what is true. And so it may be uncomfortable because if I don't like your project, I'm gonna say I don't like your project. And my hope is that that will be refreshing and you will always know exactly where you stand with me. And dude, it's coming back around to me. I don't know that it's a winning strategy yet. I've gotten some early interesting feedback where I'll say no to an early project. So I'm like, this just doesn't line up. And then they'll come back a year later and be like, Hey, I really like the way you move. And because I can get things done, which is like my ability to create momentum is sort of my secret superpower. And people will come back and be like, Hey, I see what you're doing. I see how much you've accomplished in the intervening years. It's amazing. And you were really honest. And so I know I can trust you. So, but I also, I had a, an agent and they just flat stopped calling because in a meeting I was like, I'm tired of you guys saying this. You keep saying it every time we meet.

Nothing happens.

And I'm like, what are we doing? And I literally said, I said, Stop the meeting. What words do you need to hear from me to know that I'm serious and I'm ready? Because every meeting they'd be like, Hey, if you'd like this idea, we should do it. I'm like, Ah, I'm doing it. Every meeting I have said the same thing to you. I am in, I'm ready to move.

I'm ready to move now. And I said, maybe everybody else you.

Deal with That means let's have another meeting. It doesn't mean that with me.

We don't need another meeting. Let's make it happen now.

Right now, what words do you need to hear from me?

Oh, what did they say?

They left. And they were visibly annoyed and because I wasn't playing the game in the standard way. Yeah, yeah, you weren't playing. And they never called me again. It was the absolute end of the relationship. And I was like, fine. You're not the agent for me if A, you're gonna loop around the same thing. We don't create momentum by talking, we create momentum by doing. And if this is a project that's not ready and it's two years off, then just say, this is a project in two years. Cool. But let's talk about the projects that are now. So I actually don't know. I may alienate a lot of people. And Hollywood is very incestuous. So I try to be in a space where I can control my destiny, which is why I'm so obsessed with comics, because Webtoon is the YouTube of comics. So I can publish, I don't have to give anybody's permission. I can build a following. I don't have to ask anybody. Building community is what I know how to do. So it's like that is where I can really focus and control what we're doing. But yeah, I don't know if the strategy we're working on.

What do you think you need to let go of in order to get to where you want to be faster? Well, it's intrinsic or extrinsic.

I don't think that there's anything holding me back. So when I think about, I think that the strategy that I'm running right now on a long enough timeline ends in the next Disney. So because, now I check that all the time to see if that remains true. Because the obvious thing is I need to stop doing interviews because they take a lot of time.

Yeah, a lot of time, a lot of research, everything.

But they also bring people into my ecosystem. So I run the thought experiment very frequently. of should I stop doing the university, should I stop doing the interviews and just focus on creating the intellectual property? And the reason I don't is twofold. One, the other stuff generates revenue that allows us to put towards the creation of PIP, which is expensive enough. And then the other thing is all the breaks that I've gotten, executives that have just given me access that I wouldn't otherwise have, are all people that are like, I watch your show, I love it. And so if there's ever anything I can do to help, and it's like, whoa, I've now got, I've got executives in Japan that are helping me find talent there. I've got executives here in the US, all from the content. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. Louis, there are people in Mogadishu who know who you are. That is crazy. So we're living, talk about timing, we're living-- Mogadishu? I promise you, you have somebody in Mogadishu. What's Mogadishu? Mogadishu is a, oh God, is it a country or a city? It's one of the two. It is my placeholder for someone from far away.

Gotcha, I see. So when you look online, you see that someone's watched here.

Oh, yeah.

Gotcha. I see.

I have people from everywhere.

Every country. Every country.

It's almost every country. I mean, it's really close.

So, they allow the content to be in.

Yeah. It's amazing. So that is extraordinary. And so you never know who's gonna be able to open a door for you. And because I'm so aggressive, about telling everybody what I'm up to, people DM me all the time. Oh, I might be able to help with.

Right. When do you think will be the day you stop doing interviews?

When I no longer need it as a way to get people into the ecosystem. And I feel I'm having more impact through the stories. Because right now the interviews are massively impactful on myself and other people. So that it is quite joyful for me and I do love it. Just when I think about the sort of 98 8% versus the 2% and I weigh that up and truly I love interviewing and I love researching but I love writing even more.

Do you think in order for you to be Walt Disney like you'll be able to do it by you writing or by you directing the writers?

Directing the writers. When I say writing oftentimes what I mean is just editing. I'm shaping the story, I'm working on the story. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, ultimately every time I'm actually writing a script something is broken. It's just, I'm too slow. I'm a very, very slow writer.

So it's you seeing the script, editing it, being the creative director.

And I understand story structure and things like that. And also I just have, Louis, I have so much energy and so much willpower and I can get people excited that I can get projects across the finish line. And that is my ultimate contribution, even more than like knowing what's a good story and when a story's ready and who's got talent and who to assign where. Even more than that, just like, I love it so much. I will drag my entire team across the finish line if that's what I have to do. And then surround myself with people that I don't have to drag, right? Yeah. So it's like the ability to get a team, get them excited, and then also lead from the front and just go, go, go and refuse to give up and do whatever it takes. And look, we've had success. Two years ago, I told my team we're getting into comics and they were all like, What? Even though I had already told them that when we founded the company. But it's like people get caught up in the day-to-day. I said, Hey, it's time we're officially launching. People were like, what? 10 months later we had a comic. And now two years into it, we have two of the top 10 spots. We only have two projects active right now. Both of them are in the top 10 of Webtoons sci-fi. Which is like the YouTube of comics. Yeah, and they post rankings and they do it by genre. And both of them happen to be science fiction that we we've put out so far, and they're both, they were four and five. That's pretty cool. Top 10. Now when they're one and two, I'll be much happier. But the fact that an unknown publisher.

Is coming out of nowhere with nothing with their first two projects hit four and five. It's pretty cool.

It's pretty cool. Where can people follow the comic side of things? They can read the comics on Webtoon. So one of them is called Hexagon, one's called Neon Future, and then on.

Instagram they can follow us @itcomics. So they go to itcomics on Instagram, follow you there, then there'll be a link to where they can go read them. On webtoons or whatever. Absolutely. It's been powerful, man. I've got a couple final questions for you, but I want people to follow the comics. They're amazing. I love when you send me the first copies. They're unbelievable. Follow that, follow Impact Theory. You have the YouTube show that has been crushing with content. So follow that. What do you have, 2 million now?

Subscribers? Just under. Oh.

Trying to get that before the new year.

I don't think we're that close.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, a few months away. Make sure you follow that there, follow you on Instagram, probably one of the most positive accounts on Instagram with some of the greatest content that I've seen with you and Lisa doing a lot of great stuff there as well. Follow Relationship Theory. If you want to master your relationships. YouTube show. You guys are doing amazing on that. It's own channel now for anybody paying attention. Blowing up. It's not just content in the feed.

It'S its own channel, separate. It was a smart move. Yeah, it was getting the love that I thought it deserved because it's gonna attract a different audience. I think our content there is fire.

It's really good.

Two decades of us making every mistake you can make and finding our way through it. Is that weekly you do it once a week?

Multiple times a week, yeah. That's pretty cool. Check that out. How else can we support you?

Man, that's it. If you've got somebody that's into comics, please send them to Webtoon. That's my big thing. if anybody is trying to change their life, Impact Theory University is legitimately one offer the most aggressive money-back guarantee you're ever going to get. No questions. If you told me that you didn't get 10 times your money, I'll give you your money back. But this is what, if you want to be successful at whatever it is that you're trying to do, this is it.

This is all the stuff that they.

Should teach you in school.

-That'S great. There you go.

And then, is it tombill.com? Do you have that? -We do, but it's impacttheory.com, YouTube is Tom Billings.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Okay, cool. So check all that stuff out. I'm curious, the last time I had you on five years ago, I asked you what your three truths were. I don't know if you remember them. I'm not gonna tell you them, but I'm curious, I have them here. I'm curious what they are now, years later.

Yeah, they're still the same.

To see if they are. So if you could only share three things with the world and it's your last day and we have no access to your Walt Disney-esque Animation studio, movie empire, all that went with you. All the content you've ever created goes with you to the next place. And you can only share three final things. What would those three things be?

Number one, the human animal is designed to grow and get better. You have to put the time and energy in. Number two, fulfillment is all that matters. Don't chase money, don't chase fame, don't chase success. The only thing that matters to actually enjoying your life is to feel good about yourself when you're by yourself. That's it. And getting people to recognize that, like if I were to give you one thing that I'm trying to do, it's that. And then number three, love deeply, man. Nothing will ever reward you like the connection with another human being. that's true.

That's true. Well, all three of those were different on the previous.

I'm surprised.

So if you want to hear what those three were, make sure to go check out the other immune we did five years ago. We'll have it linked up below this. Amazing, man. I want to acknowledge you, Tom, for. For constantly showing up and leading the way. You do an incredible job of using your willpower, your mindset, and your consistency showing up. and obsessing over the process. And it's such an inspiration to be your friend. It's such an inspiration to watch you just freaking take over and build something so powerful that impacts the world in a massive way. And I love that you are willing to take a massive risk on your beliefs and your values and your dreams and really put something out there like a comic series that maybe isn't the the decision most people would make, but you're doing something based on what you know is going to pay off 40 years from now and not something that's going to be hugely successful financially or whatever it may be in this year or moment or a big return right away. And I think playing the long game is one of your strengths. You know how to execute the short game in a big way to still get results for the long game. And I think that delayed gratification process really inspiring, man. So I acknowledge you for that and many other things. And I really acknowledge you also for being such a committed husband. No one knows behind the scenes what really happens, but it feels like and it seems like that you're so committed to this in a world of social media where it's easy to be distracted in other relationships or in other people all the time. to constantly make that your number one, I think is really, that's the thing I think I'm most inspired by. So I'm proud of you for leading the way when so many people are lost in that direction. Final question for you, man. What's your definition of greatness? We'll see if this is the same as well.

To me, greatness is leaving it all out on the field. Like you can't guarantee results. but you can guarantee like did you really play to win? And this is something that I am heartbroken for other people if they're not playing to win. And the only reason to not play to win is if you don't think you can win and you value yourself for winning. So my thing is maybe I can't win. I think the odds are actually against me building the next Disney. But it's such a fun game to play because I only value myself for the sincere pursuit. So greatness to me is not about achieving something, it's about playing all out, sincerely pursuing it. Mmm. Thanks, man.

Thank you so much, my friend, for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed the stories, the lessons, the insights, the inspiration from Tom Bill you. Make sure to check out the comics and magazines and everything that he's up to over at Impact Theory and over on social media as well. Some inspiring content on social media. If this is your first time Tom here. Please click the Subscribe button over on Apple Podcast or Spotify and leave us a rating and review of the part you enjoyed the most about this episode from Tom, something he shared, an Insight, a strategy, a tool. Feel free to post that over on Apple Podcast right now with your review and your insights. And if you want inspirational messages sent to your phone from me every single month, every single week, then text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 to get on Secret Texting Community List. That's right, text the word podcast to 614-350-3960. And I want to leave you with this quote from Aristotle who said, We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. I hope you are enjoying the constant repetition of great minds that we bring here on the School of Greatness. Every single week we bring you three big episodes, three big insights, interviews to to support you in your growth, in developing your mindset, developing your character, the qualities, the skills for your life. So continue showing up every single week here, and we'll keep bringing you the greatest Minds in the world to help you unlock the greatness inside of you. I'm so grateful for your time today, and I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.