Kind: captions
Language: en
don't allow yourself to get bogged down
in a path which should be easily
discarded but don't give up easily on a
mission
which should be
far more firm
all right you guys ready we're gonna
have some fun we're gonna take the
energy get a little bit crazy i wanna
make sure that you guys end this on a
high note and honestly i will be wildly
disappointed in myself if all i manage
to do in this
is inspire or motivate you
at the end of this talk i will consider
myself a failure if that's all that
happens i will consider it a win on the
other hand if you guys go out and
actually take action
and at the end of the day all of us
we're not judged by our intentions
we are judged by what we actually
accomplish
and your accomplishments are going to be
entirely determined by what you actually
do and my talk is going to be about that
how to take action exactly what action
is made up of and why
it's critical
to recognize that humans lead with
belief
and so at the end of this talk hopefully
i will get you guys to understand why
right now you have everything that you
need already to believe in yourself to
be capable to do something that is truly
extraordinary and we're going to walk
through that path but for my talk to
make any sense i'm going to have to give
you guys a little bit of my backstory
not that i can see a whole lot but is
anybody familiar with me prior to seven
seconds ago
when you learned that i wake up wow
well i'm completely shocked by that
thank you by the way
so to give those of you who don't know a
little bit of background my story goes
like this growing up i did not show any
signs of success
my parents taught me to be a good
employee which i'll liken to the slaves
mentality to keep my head down do as
little work as possible and avoid
punishment at all costs
and that's how i started
i grew up in a family in tacoma
washington that teetered between blue
collar and white collar
and i was being trained to be a good
employee and when i left for college my
own mother who's always been my biggest
cheerleader i think that's important to
recognize just quietly assumed i was
going to fail
and every day since i left by the way my
mom all but forced me to go to college
kicked me out of the nest it was only
one of i think two people to leave the
state for my graduating class everybody
else stayed home i wanted to stay home
and my mom said you need to go chase
your dreams
but then every moment since then my mom
has done everything she can to get me to
move back to tacoma and so finally one
day i asked her and i said mom i really
don't get it like why you were the one
that pushed me you were the one that
kicked me out so why are you working so
hard to get me back and she said with no
malice in her heart
i just assumed you were going to fail
i assumed you were going to fail and
come home but i never wanted you to ask
what
if i have the chills on my face
remembering that
because that's the human condition
there is something inside of us that we
all recognize that says we could do more
we could be more we are capable of
becoming something
but it's that path to becoming that we
don't really understand and it's that
path to becoming that i want to talk
about today i love the theme of this
event
pivot
making a change while keeping your
center that to me really is what life is
all about but that's that's the hype now
how do we get into the tactical
realities of that and to explain that
i'm going to walk you through some of my
story
so my story starts when i go to film
school usc film school statistically
speaking is harder to get into than
harvard law
and i managed to get in
i had taken one of the teachers out
who was on the acceptance committee and
i said look i have really terrible sat
scores i got a 990 on my sats by the way
i took it twice that is my combined
score
monkeys with feces just rubbing it on
there get better scores than that
and i was mortified i went to the
committee to find out what i needed to
do to get into film school which was my
dream the thing that i most wanted in
this world and they said hey
as long as you've got good grades and
you have a 1300 on your sats no problem
and i was devastated because i was so
far from that
so i took one of the teachers out and i
said look i have a confession i got
really bad sat scores i took it twice
look i'm just not good on testing the
whole story
and he was like oh who cares he was like
there's two points of acceptance once as
an incoming freshman
where yeah we look at your sat scores
but the other is as an incoming junior
and then we don't care about your sat
scores which are merely meant to tell us
how well you do in college so i'm just
going to look at your grades so if you
get good grades i'm not even going to
look at the rest of your application
cool so i locked myself in my dorm room
for two years
i didn't date i didn't drink a drop of
alcohol i didn't go to a party all i did
day and night was work
and i studied
because my problem was my mom was right
i didn't show signs of early success
people that were looking at me expecting
me to fail had accurately assessed what
i was capable of at that moment
but what they didn't understand about me
what they didn't understand about the
human animal is our ability to adapt
grow and get better
the most fascinating thing to come out
of science in a long time
was when they sequenced the human genome
and they realized and by the way they
thought they were going to solve
everything they thought they were going
to cure cancer they thought this was
going to be the end of chronic aging
like all of the diseases that we
struggle with now they thought they were
all just going to go away once we
sequenced the human genome that was
going to be it was going to be like a
map to xanadu it's going to be amazing
and then they did it and what they
discovered was humans only have twenty
thousand genes
and some onions have forty thousand
so they're literally looking at the data
going are we really meant to believe
that an onion is more genetically
complex than a human being how can this
be possible oh and by the way they were
ignoring all of this stuff that they
were calling junk dna
now it didn't take them long to realize
that that junk dna plays a role we are
without question the most dominant
species this world has ever seen we are
an apex predator unlike anything you can
find us in the marianas trench which is
the deepest part of the ocean you can
find us in the arctic we have literally
sent human beings to the moon
and what that junk
dna really is
is epigenetics
now it's just a fancy word for
we respond to our environment
and more aptly
we respond to stress
in our environment
anybody ever seen a professional
bodybuilder
no
okay a professional bodybuilder hardly
looks human to me
they are
it's unbelievable what they're able to
do but they show in a very real and
tangible way what you can do to the
human body when you understand how to
put it under stress
now if you've ever been to the gym you
know that the real money is in tearing
the muscle down not building it up you
actually build up the muscle while
you're sleeping based on what you've
eaten
so the act of bodybuilding of actually
going into the gym is an act of tearing
down so you can create the stress so
that your body can respond now if you
remember nothing else from my talk
remember this humans
are
the ultimate
adaptation machine
just by being human
each and every one of you
is capable
of great change
who you are today
does not predict who you can become
who you can become is the answer to a
very simple question
what do you want
and what price are you willing to pay to
get there
what do you want
and what price are you willing to pay to
get there
kobe bryant one of the greatest athletes
of our time
would show up on game day and if he saw
anybody else at the gym as early as him
even though he was always the first on
the court
he would end up practicing longer than
that person and i had the honor of
interviewing one of those people one
time
and he said i went up and asked kobe
kobe we have a game in an hour like what
are you doing out here practicing so
long and kobe said i needed you to know
that i was willing to outwork you
and in that game they ended up winning
and that lesson stuck with that guy
forever
when you're willing to put in the work
when you're willing to take control of
your environment and put yourself
through the stressors required for
adaptation you literally can become
anything
and my life is proof of that
so i stand here
as one of the founders of a company
a company called quest nutrition that we
took from not existing
to being valued over a billion dollars
five years later
thank you
that was the guy whose mother
not too long before that just quietly
assumed he was going to fail at college
but what i began to understand
is that i could harness that ability to
adapt
that we can learn in any direction
nature has to make a choice with any
species option number one pre-program
everything think of a horse
when a horse is born it comes out it can
already run jump take care of itself
and then option
two be built for maximum flexibility
be able to adapt to your environment
a horse is a horse no matter where you
put it
but a human
depending on when and where it's born
depending on what it allocates its
resources to its time and attention it
can turn into a basketball player a
neurophysicist
a parent
a coach
a hair stylist
you literally get to choose you get to
decide what it is that you want to be
good at and i want you to think about
the first time that you picked up a pair
of scissors
you didn't know what you were doing it
didn't feel
like
it was an extension of your hand but now
when you step into that role when you
show up
the way that everything feels the way
that you set it around your station it's
all like it was meant to be it flows you
know right where things are how to cut
somebody's hair depending on the texture
of the hair the length the quality the
age of the person what they've done to
it you know it all you know how to mix
colors all of that stuff is from
training but the irony is people don't
stop and think about hey i got this far
in this thing simply by allocating the
time and the energy where else could i
go could i pivot
and the answer to that question is yes
the human animal is designed to adapt
that is literally
what we are sculpted to do
for me
the piece of advice that i always give
to somebody whether it's an entrepreneur
or somebody who wants to be the greatest
parent of all
time what is your goal
you've got to start with your goal
everything works backwards from that
for me
i wanted to get rich
and the irony is
when i started on my entrepreneurial
journey i was literally saying that to
people i want to get rich
i just want to make a bunch of money
and so i started as a copywriter
in a technology company
because i had failed to make it
in film school i actually ended up doing
horrifically
and i at the end of film school i felt
broken
embarrassed
lost
i had no idea where i was going
but i started teaching filmmaking
and as i was teaching that class i
realized wow
i don't know enough to teach these
students
i need to like research at night and
practice to be able to come in and
present this material
and a weird thing happened as i started
doing that i was actually learning a lot
more and so i was able to convey that to
the students and i was able to help the
students make their films better and it
made me realize whoa there's this weird
reciprocal loop
the harder i work over here
then go and explain it they actually can
take that knowledge and put it to use
building skill sets getting better at
something and i started thinking is that
something that i could do for myself and
at that moment these two very successful
entrepreneurs walk into my class
and at that time i was obsessed with two
things
i wanted to get rich
and i wanted six pack abs
now i grew up in a morbidly obese family
so for me that was real man and i used
to be 60 pounds heavier than i am now
and i wanted those six-pack abs man i
just had no idea how i was gonna get it
and i remember the first time that
somebody told me i think you already
have abs it's just under the fat
and i thought
what like that doesn't even make sense
because i had done like a bunch of
crunches and i'm like i still don't see
them so i don't know what the problem is
maybe it was all the licorice i had a
thing
what is up my friend you and i are
living in a golden era of
self-improvement we have books platforms
like youtube courses seminars virtual
events workshops the list really is
endless the internet has been so good
for people like you and me who want to
accomplish greater and greater things in
life and now my friend it is about to
get even better i've been spending most
of this year working on the single most
entertaining tool that you're ever going
to have around self-improvement and it
is called project kaizen it's a web 3
based game experience that will be
unlike anything else you've ever engaged
with in your life partly because the
technology is new and it's amazing if
you're not familiar with blockchain nfts
and all of that kaizen is going to be
the perfect introduction for you as it
is an excellent intersection of
entertainment and learning all backed by
the blockchain we're getting closer and
closer to launching this project for you
every single day we are working our
faces to the bone to get this thing out
there and my friend i want you to
experience it so click the link on your
screen and head on over to my discord
channel to stay up to date and be one of
the first to join me inside of project
kaizen which by the way gets its name
from the japanese term of never ending
improvement all right back to today's
episode so these two guys walk in very
accomplished entrepreneurs ripped
six-pack abs bodybuilder types and they
said hey you're coming to the world with
your hand out
if you want to control your art you have
to control your resources so if you want
to get back in the saddle and actually
become a filmmaker you're going to have
to learn to control the resources so
come with us be a copywriter but
understand this is a startup you can
have any role in the company that you
want you just have to become the right
person for that job
and so i took them at their word and i
pivoted and i left my teaching career
which had safety
and i looked to my wife and i said this
may fail but i've got to at least give
it a shot
and my wife said the words have become
famous for me which is i bet on you
thank you
now
what my wife was betting on
wasn't that i already knew how to do
what they wanted me to do because she
knew i didn't
what she was betting on
in me
is the same thing that each and every
one of you have
which is the ability to learn
and so i went into it knowing i was not
the right person for any job in that
company i'd never been in a company like
that before i'd been totally focused on
film this was software it was security
software it was nothing that i had any
interest in but i wanted to get rich
and so i did it
and for six and a half years
i put my head down
like those early days in my dorm room
and i worked my ass off around the clock
i didn't take vacations meaning if i
went somewhere i would literally guys
this is real i would take a camera
so that i could watch what was going on
back at the facility
i was always working around the clock
and at six and a half years i was so
different than where i started i had
worked my way up i was now the chief
marketing officer of the company they
had given me 10 equity in the company i
was now on paper a multi-millionaire i
had done what i set out to do i was
capable of things that i never would
have believed that i could do running a
team
building a website online advertising
marketing all things that i didn't know
i didn't even know when i started the
difference between sales and marketing i
had no idea what the difference was
but here i was now the chief marketing
officer of a company that was winning
awards it was making money
standing in this beautiful conference
room overlooking the pacific ocean and i
realize i'm miserable and i've been
miserable for a long time
and i learned a really powerful lesson
that i want you guys all to think about
right now
the goal that i had
did not take me where i wanted to go
i was living the cliche of money camp by
happiness
and i began to realize the game we're
all playing it's not success
it's not money
it's brain chemistry to sum it up in the
simplest way possible the only thing in
this life that matters
the only thing in this life that matters
is what you think about in your most
quiet moments about yourself when you're
all alone and the only thing you have
are your thoughts if in that moment
regardless of your worldly success you
feel good about who you are you feel
good about what you've done and how
you've touched other people's lives you
feel good about what you're striving for
and trying to accomplish you feel good
that in the times when it got hard if it
mattered to you you pushed through
that matters
that matters a lot
but the money doesn't matter
and so i quit
and i realized i was just not interested
in living a life no matter how much
money there was were in my quiet moments
i felt like i was wasting my life
i felt like i wasn't helping people
i felt like i wasn't connected i wasn't
connected to my wife i'd been ignoring
her for years i felt like i wasn't
connected to my business partners
anymore it was all just about the money
i didn't have a why
who knows simon sinek
pick it up for simon
[Applause]
all right
simon and i did a video that essentially
broke the internet about millennials
somebody watched it
what got simon on the world stage
is this whole concept of why
you've got to know why you're doing what
you're doing
if you're just showing up every day
to cut and dye hair
to keep your lights on
you're going to have far less energy to
make it through the hard times than
somebody who is there to help transform
somebody to help make somebody their
best to help them feel their best and i
hope that you guys saw that video not
too long ago of the hairdresser that
went around and he was doing makeovers
on homeless people
right
man
it was incredible it was so beautiful
the look on their face
at that moment where they see themselves
for the first time in front of the
mirror and they are seeing something
totally new they're seeing a version of
themselves that they did not know was
there
and the ability to give that gift like
it is so easy to get lost in the
day-to-day grind of what you do what any
of us do
but if at the core iving you is a deep
and unending why for what you're doing
you've got something
now you've got a chance
to transcend what you're doing and the
way that happens is very tactical has
nothing to do with like
being out in the air it's none of that
you're gonna have the energy that you
need to fight through people always ask
me how i generate energy
there's two ways number one take care of
your body there's just no way around
that at the end of the day it's a
biological
thing that's going on the production of
atp and the second thing is you need to
be excited about the future that you're
trying to create and when i went in and
quit
even though i had millions of dollars in
equity and i was making more than i'd
ever made
i quit
because i didn't have a why i didn't
have anything that gave me the energy to
keep pushing i didn't have excitement
for what i was doing anymore
my partners were stunned totally took
him by surprise i'm driving home i call
my wife and i say i did it i quit like
we're actually we were going to move to
greece
we were going to live for cheap on some
beach somewhere and i was gonna write
and that was gonna be that
and then i am pulling into the driveway
of my condo and my phone rings and it's
my partners
and out of love and respect i take it
i say hey baby give me a second i'm
gonna take this they're calling
and they said come out to dinner with us
and i went out
and they said look
we could do this without you
but we don't want to
and that was all i needed
to reconnect to something other than
money
and i remembered for a minute these were
guys that i loved
these were people that i had gotten to
know through good times through bad
times
through the hard times to the excitement
of the company growing
and in connecting to something other
than the money i was finally able to
really see and understand what it was
that motivated me and i confessed to
them that money was not my highest
priority in business my highest priority
was camaraderie i wanted to connect i
wanted to bring something of value to
the customer i wanted to think about the
customer i wanted to be myself and i
wanted to market in a way that was
inclusive and created a community
and in that community
we could do something more than just
sell products
and so we decided to sell that company
because they felt the same and they
wanted to do something based on passion
they wanted to have the energy and
excitement to see things through and for
three very different reasons we decided
to form quest nutrition now as i
mentioned i grew up in a morbidly obese
family so for me
i was never going to chase money again
and i told them that i was only going to
focus on value creation and it had to be
something that i had a deep and personal
connection to
so for me i started thinking every day
about saving my mom and my sister
my mom and my sister are both morbidly
obese and have been essentially my
entire life
and i knew that i was going to lose them
too soon if i couldn't solve the problem
of how they ended up there i wanted to
give them food that they could choose
based on taste and it happened to be
good for them
now if that doesn't sound hard let me
assure you that it is very hard and
there was one point in my life where we
were making the bars by hand and it was
so hard and so painful that i would wake
up this is a true story i would wake up
in the middle of the night with my hands
cramping closed
that's a weird way to wake up let me
just tell you right now
but i wanted it that
bad now we started producing the bars in
compton
and on the line this is another true
story
on the line we had bloods and crips
and in the middle of it you got the
crazy white guy
now the reason it worked
was because i was prepared to outwork
everybody else
i knew exactly what i wanted i had my
why i had my goal and it was very
specific and this is the thing about
goals they have to be incredibly
specific and my goal was to end
metabolic disease
not sell a lot of protein bars that was
not the goal i wanted to end metabolic
disease and that informed every choice
that we made as entrepreneurs every time
that we had to answer a hard question
one that might impact profitability or
how late we were going to have to work
or what we were going to have to do and
it almost always was difficult including
by the way we had to become our own
manufacturers which we did not want to
do
we wanted to outsource it we just wanted
to be marketers
but nobody would make the bar for us
or they would but they said that we had
to add sugar to it and we asked a simple
question will that help end metabolic
disease yes or no if yes we'll do it if
no we won't and it wouldn't so we didn't
it starts with that specific goal
and then because i had my why
my hands cramping closed in the face of
doing something to save my mom and my
sister it was not a hard choice in fact
i wouldn't have been able to look myself
in the eye and say i was not able to
help them
because it was hurting my hands
right it sounds ridiculous when you say
it like that but most people don't have
a personal tie to what they're doing
mother teresa has an amazing quote no
one will act for the many
but people will act for the one
and so as you guys go into your jobs and
you think about what you're trying to do
find a way to stop making it a job find
a way to make it a calling a vocation
something that really meets that why
your desire to connect or do something
great for people
which by the way when i say that the
game that you're playing is brain
chemistry what i'm talking about is
fulfillment
there's a difference between happiness
and fulfillment a bowl of ice cream
brings me happiness
it does not bring me fulfillment
fulfillment is often born of suffering
fulfillment is about doing the things
that are hard in fact the greeks have a
word for it it's called technique
technique means that you acquire a set
of skills that is unique to you the
acquisition of those skills was very
difficult and here's the important part
those skills
serve other people
to me i believe that the very
reason that we're all here
is to see how many skills we can acquire
that have utility
and then put that utility
to the test in service of others
that's going to be the thing that lights
you on fire you're busting your ass
you're really getting good at something
you are taking action you're moving
forward you're doing the things you need
to learn to do to learn and trigger that
adaptation response that humans have
you're putting yourself under this
stress you've identified a goal you're
working your way backwards
to where you are today
and that's the key it's what i call
minding the gap
there's a gap between who you are today
and who you will need to become
in order to execute against your why
that thing in you that's burning that
you really care about enough to get
across the finish line that you care
about enough to keep doing even when
it's making your hands cramp clothes
that you care about enough even when
you've got to come in and work between
rival gang members it's the thing that
you care about enough that you really
will work so hard
that the rival gang members fall in line
behind you because you're leading by
example
thank you
and that became my mission every day
i'm gonna show up and outwork everybody
i'm gonna be the first one here i'm
gonna be the last one to leave and most
importantly guys
i really hope you were listening to
robert gialdini whose books i have read
and all but memorized
the key is
you want to
connect with them you want them to fall
in love with you you want them to be
inspired you want them to feel better
about themselves when they're around you
than when they're not
and if you can pull that off they will
go to war for you
and in the beginning
when all we could do because we didn't
know production we just had to throw
human capital at it and i needed people
there not kidding
at 2am on a friday night
i had a bunch of
ex-convicts
in their early 20s with the tattoos on
the face the teardrop and all that
grinding it out to make protein bars
because i gave them hope
because i showed them
that it doesn't matter who they are
today
it only matters who they're trying to
become
and the price that they're willing to
pay to get there
and so when you guys
walk out of here
that's what you've got to ask this whole
theme of pivoting this whole theme of
keeping your center
is about knowing what you want
and believing you can make it a reality
but the only way to make it a reality is
to put in the work
you've got to put in the work the change
is hard the change is difficult the
change will demand everything of you
but man if inside you really believe in
what you're doing you really see how you
can get to that goal that you want if
you really see how you can serve other
people doing what you do with this skill
set that you've worked your ass off to
acquire
then you can actually make change in
people's lives and that's what motivates
me getting the skills has real world
implications it took me from scrounging
in my couch cushions to find enough
change to put gas in my car to building
a billion dollar business
it is absolutely limitless what you can
accomplish
now think about that if that's really
true if what i just said is true that
human potential is limitless
then how you spend your time becomes a
spiritual consideration you're the
average of the five people you spend the
most time with that's just true and but
now it's become so common to say and
it's like every instagram post that i
fear it's gonna lose its meaning who are
you spending time with because if you're
spending time with people like you
you're spending time with people like me
i'm i'm raising you up i'm just not
going to spend time with you
so it's like now if you get in a mix of
people like that who are like man we'd
love for you to raise up to this level
but if you don't it's fine but we're
just not going to spend time with you
all of a sudden that desire to belong to
something powerful that you can see is
going to lead you to your dreams and i
remember saying to my wife over and over
and over they are the surest path to my
success i don't know anything else i
just know if i can hang on to these guys
they're going to make me better and so
that was through all the years of being
embarrassed and developing actually
massive anxiety because i was always
behind i was always the dumbest person
on the phone i was always the dumbest
person in the room and it was like
was i going to be willing to emotionally
go through that to get great and most
people can't so here's the thing now
imagine i'm not the only person they
said hey this is a startup you can have
any job you want they i saw
12 people maybe more come and go over
the years they just couldn't emotionally
deal with it and so i remember thinking
to myself why is it that i'm able to do
this and the answer was i could
self-soothe faster than anyone else so i
would get kicked in the face and i would
do something really dumb i'd be called
an idiot told how stupid i was and then
i'd just be like all right i need to
re-center and that just became my
obsession i need to be able to
emotionally get back to complete neutral
so fast that you don't even see a
register on my face how'd you do it how
do you do that
literally practicing so remember the
same time i'm reading about the brain
voraciously i'm reading about people
that understand human behavior i'm
getting into cognitive science
neuroscience like really going into it
so i'm reading all this stuff going whoa
we're just a chemical processing plant
there are physiological hooks into these
chemicals so hey if you're mad scared
whatever but you force yourself to laugh
out loud you will change your
neurochemical state and you literally
your experience is the neurochemistry so
i was like whoa so i could get i could
be in a situation where i'm being
berated or i legitimately mess up and it
costs money and it's like whoa that's on
me and it is nobody's bad but my own and
i realized that what most people do
their strategy is to deflect it it's
your fault it's not my fault yes so i
started thinking of this as a metaphor
people are throwing gold at me they're
throwing it really hard and i can put a
shield up and deflect it but then i lose
that piece of gold if i drop my shield
and just take the pain let it hit me in
the head then i bend down and go this
thing which is me being stupid there's a
lesson here and now i have this piece of
gold
but the whole thing is i have to be
defenseless so i have to own it i have
to take it i can't fight if someone is
like this to this day if our team is
like hey there's something we need to
point out to you i'll do this
i square up to it i want them to know
like hey i want to hear it i want to
know like i want to be literally
physically open i'm not going to close
down i'm going to do everything i can to
square off to open myself so that they
know i'm receptive to the criticism
right because that's the nugget of gold
what i know is it's going to hurt it's
going to sting but if i can emotionally
recenter so fast you don't even see that
i went through something now i can just
process how do i take this information
you've given me and get better
everything in my life is driven by how
something makes me feel and i really
believe all you have in this world is
how you feel about yourself when you're
by yourself so in that dark quiet night
when you're all alone do you feel good
or not
and so i steer by that and when i start
losing sleep because something is
stressing me out or i think i handled
something poorly i have to correct that
and what are the tactics
so part of this is you have a belief
system through which everything is
filtered so my thing is okay belief
system i can get good at anything i set
my mind to uh belief system number two
having a growth mindset is the absolute
ideal so that means that just because
i'm not good at something now doesn't
mean i can't become good at it that i
should only value myself for being a
learner i shouldn't worry about being
smart right good talented nothing just
the willingness to stare nakedly at my
inadequacies so if i've done something
and it's making me feel badly about
myself i start running through those
filters also does this beating myself up
is it moving me towards my goal or away
from it now a little bit of beating
yourself up actually probably does move
you towards your goal because it kicks
you in the ass gets you moving taking it
seriously you're really thinking about
it but then too much of it begins to
erode yourself and so i have to balance
like am i just beating myself up and now
i've taken it too far and i'm losing
sleep over something i just need to let
go and focus on getting better instead
of punishing myself like just get better
at it
so
those those are the tactics that i use
the word yet is a huge tactic for me tom
you suck oh i'm not good at that yet
okay cool thank you got it um i can get
good at that um and and just keep coming
back to those very simple basic building
blocks of my belief system
what i value where my priorities lie
what my goal is having total clarity am
i actually moving towards it and then
just really holding yourself accountable
to that without damaging your
self-esteem one of my like guiding
principles is never do anything that
diminishes you and then never do
anything that moves you away from your
goal so again goal you have to have that
clarity so i know what i'm trying to do
okay well if i know what i'm trying to
do does beating me beating myself up
over this is that gonna help me or hurt
me oh it's gonna hurt me because i'm
gonna be more likely to slide toward
depression to think less of myself to be
less bold to take less action okay well
then we're not going to do that and i
don't think people have researched
cognitive behavioral therapy nearly
enough pattern interrupting is like
everything get better at pattern
interrupting than lebron is at shooting
like you just have to be a ninja like
you've got to be so hardcore you've got
to know about how to do that with
yourself so if i have a negative thought
that's recurring i just tell myself nope
you can't think this anymore so and
every time it will come up because i
can't stop myself from it popping up
into my conscious mind but you
absolutely can control how the next
thought goes the next thought can be oh
i'm
here's what i'll do with a negative
thought that's so rad i'm so glad this
negative thought appeared in my mind
because that reminds me to be grateful
for the fact that i'm friends with jay
shetty or that reminds me to be grateful
the fact i have a marriage that is so
insanely cool that like i legitimately
some days have to stop myself from just
curling up in a ball with her and just
chilling all [ __ ] day like that is
i'm super stoked even now jay it's so
funny i had to stop and think wait i'm
going through this list of things that
i'm grateful for what started this and
i'm like oh yeah the negative thought
like that actually just happened to me
right now so you can imagine in real
life when like you train yourself ah
every time the negative thought kicks up
don't don't sit in the emotion of the
negativity that it will bring
instead use it as a habit loop trigger
to think about something you're grateful
for and at first it feels so awkward and
it's like the negative thought just
keeps coming back but if you're diligent
and suddenly negative thoughts become a
habit loop trigger to gratitude to
positivity to repeating your rules about
i don't allow myself to think things
that tear me down so i'm not gonna think
about that even just saying that crowds
out that thought and telling other
people that hey this is what you're
doing it is unbelievable but this is why
i'm saying i'm literally just a
patchwork of all these like tools and
techniques that allow me to protect
myself from negative self-talk from
anxiety from depression i don't think
i've ever officially been in depression
uh but i've been super [ __ ] close
enough to know the feeling of staring
into the void which i don't think is
accurate it feels like the void is
collapsing in around you and just
everything is meaningless and it is all
utterly hopeless and i've had just
enough of a glimpse of how hopeless that
is
to to get where people are in those
moments but anxiety that i've been in
the thick of
so that one i know and i've used cbt
cognitive behavioral therapy to do
interrupts on that um i have a very well
developed negative voice so i have had
to
use tools and techniques to stop that i
never would have become a successful
entrepreneur if i couldn't
learn to self-soothe and at one point
that was what i would have said was my
secret power that my secret power in
business was i can self-soothe faster
than anybody else
i just keep coming back to being the
learner right so your identity isn't
group a politic this politic that tribe
this tribe that it is i'm a learner
first and foremost i'm somebody that
wants to bring value to myself into the
world first and foremost so it's like
once you get to that then as people are
assaulting you
chances of them triggering a self-esteem
like in like if somebody wanted to hurt
my self-esteem they would need to call
me out on on are you really spending
time learning or have you really
improved i think you're the same that
you were two years ago like whoa like if
i really like you said felt that that
might be true then i would really that
would cause some [ __ ] into question for
me because that's my identity right so
if somebody came to you and said
actually you're not a learner for me
where my belief is now that's so
absurdist that i would brush it off but
if they were able to like compel me to
see it the funny thing is being a
learner then kicks in again and i'm like
[ __ ] if they're really right then here's
my chance to finally actually be a
learner but so that's why i think that
one's anti-fragile but that's where it's
like you can get yourself into trouble
if they're hitting on the very thing
that your identity and self-esteem are
tied to 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 um 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 a build a business that
doesn't fall apart
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 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
everybody lean in if you're listening to
this this is one of those things that
audacity is is nothing don't don't worry
about being audacious the reason people
fear being audacious is they don't want
to be me
ten years from now when this all fails
right they're thinking oh man what if
this doesn't work this guy's going to
look like an [ __ ] and it's like yeah
maybe other people will think that i'm a
total dumbass it doesn't matter and why
doesn't it matter because of techne
because if i know how to build a house i
can build a house so my thing is i'm not
trying to posture or be cool i'm telling
you i have a set of [ __ ] skills that
set of skills lets me do things i'm just
interested in doing those things so
whether or not i hit my timelines does
not matter i'm in the skill acquisition
game skills let you do things i'm in the
game of doing the things my skills allow
me to do so i want to impact people's
lives maybe i'm not able to pull it off
at a film level i'll find another way or
maybe it takes me a lot longer to pull
it off okay fine as long as i love what
i'm doing even when i'm failing
there's nothing to lose no because you
know on this idea of technique along the
way you are fulfilled with every step on
the journey for sure right every time
you upload
a new you know conversation a new
episode of your show it's it's it's a
it's a cool feeling to be able to put
that out there and know that it is quote
unquote you know impacting people and it
is it is and that's the thing you know
this like you
you say something into a microphone like
right now the the feeling that i have
while i know people are listening the
feeling i have is it's just us in this
room
but one day somebody's gonna come up to
you or me and say i heard that podcast
you guys did and it really touched me
and it changed me in this way that's all
i need so i'm not i'm not afraid to be
audacious because i know that you're
never going to exceed what you're aiming
at so you're only your
hope is to hit some percentage of what
you're aiming at so i might as well
dream massive and one it excites me and
then two i'm not afraid of the failure
so once you have that like oh it's
exciting for me to dream big and i'm
hyper conscious of you break it down in
small pieces like i'm i'm not worried
about building theme parks and all that
stuff right now what i'm doing right now
today is make a good comic put out a
good interview show that's it that's
what my life consists of stay in
business
be profitable like those are the things
that i think about so i keep my
you know my goals my immediate term
goals very manageable but i make sure
that they're feeding naturally into the
grand vision but i don't get scared or
lost and thinking oh my god i have to do
all that nope right now today i need to
read a script i need to make sure it's
okay i need to authorize it to be drawn
that's it that's today and as long as
you're able to focus on that and get
good at that and then just always push
yourself to make your skill set better
and better and better as long as it's
leading towards that thing and you have
clarity on where you're trying to go so
you make sure the skills you're
acquiring will actually lead you there
you'll be fine 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
yeah 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'll 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
bill you 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
two percent 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 two percent
will do it it's amazing now i don't mean
two percent of your audience your
audience is the two percent they've
selected themselves out they watch your
show so now some ungodly number of them
are going to go out and do it because
they belong to that very rare group
the 98 though they will not
and the i became obsessed with this
because working at quest i had 3 000
employees a thousand 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 right 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 i
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 two percent of them did it
and it was life-changing and it's
amazing and i still get phone calls from
people like you changed my life it's
amazing but it's only two percent
the other 98 are either apathetic or
actively antagonistic to change so how
do you reach them
entertainment the punch line is you have
to get to the limbic system which you do
through entertainment so you tell them
tv movies yeah
i really believe that the way that
humans assimilate truly disruptive
information is through narrative and so
part of the way that i've changed my
life that i've opened my mind to things
like a growth mindset is through like
the matrix it's not a mistake that the
matrix came out the year that i was
going through this like am i able to
improve myself or not the movie comes
out ends up becoming the dominant
metaphor of my life i'd love to say that
it was a lightning rod moment when i saw
it my life has changed forever it wasn't
like that but it planted a seed that i
just kept coming back to oh man it's
like neo in the matrix oh man and you
just start piecing together like these
fascinating belief systems because a lot
of times the wisest characters and films
are often taken from like yoda sounds
exactly like loud zoo from the daodejing
so it's like
basically you've got george lucas who's
very familiar with eastern philosophy
talking eastern philosophy through this
little puppet but
especially if you hear it when you're
young man like your mind is really open
to it so because of star wars i ended up
becoming obsessed with the dow dejing
and then because of that that ultimately
was my doorway to a growth mindset
there were 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 uh
number one is mindset by carol dweck
that's correct it's the most important
book in the english language
uh 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 jacob willing
and leif babin shout out to leif the
first is read the book mindset by carol
dweck period it's it's so critical man
and it just lays the foundation for how
to think
um that that's step number one step
number two is you will only ever get in
your life what you absolutely must have
your absolute obsession so you that says
your obsessions become your possessions
that is so true
and so getting people to understand that
that level of like i must have this
until it is that like whatever it is if
it's taking care of your wife if it's
doing something rad for your mom if it's
having a beach house whatever it is
until you need that like you need oxygen
you won't get it
it is going to demand so much of you
you're going to fall so many times
there's going to be so many obstacles
and unless it must happen in your life
one of them will make you stop
like you said you can't be for sale
like if your will can be bought
it doesn't make you a bad person man it
really doesn't but if your will can be
bought you're just not gonna get it
it's all your fault
everything every bad thing that has ever
happened to you is your fault
and if tonight a meteorite comes
screaming through the atmosphere crashes
into my bedroom and kills my wife i will
know that that is my fault
now i use the word fault to shake people
up
i know that it's making you mad right
now i know that it winds you up and you
think that i'm victim shaming and when
you get beyond that and you realize all
i'm trying to do is remind you that you
are never
ever ever
ever a victim unless you choose to be
everything in your life will change
you're always in control even if that's
a lie and i don't care if it is even if
a meteorite coming in and killing my
wife couldn't possibly be my fault i'm
going to own it because the second i
give away my power to somebody else i'm
now at something else's mercy and
there's some line that i can't cross
that i'm no longer in control and i
refuse to do that
if i could give anybody a gift it would
be that for you to own that completely
top to bottom and to know that every
good thing that's ever happened in your
life no matter how much it seemed like
luck or coincidence that was you you
earned that you put yourself in that
position and as you move forward life is
one of two things the result you wanted
or the result you didn't want if you
don't get the result you want you are by
definition doing the wrong thing and you
must change if you get the result that
you want then you did the right thing
simple as no gray nothing in between
that's it it's all your fault
and that's the best news possible i
don't think that thinking something or
saying something makes it true but i
think that thinking something and saying
something makes you believe it and the
things you believe you will
unintentionally guide yourself towards
um i think your belief about yourself
and what you're capable of influences
your accomplishments more than you can
imagine just because you don't put in
the extra mile of effort or whatever
that it was going to take because you
don't believe that you can or you don't
even allow yourself to dream it if you
don't dream it you're never going to
come up with a plan so it is wildly
influential in terms of what happens
just not in a mystical way in a very
like tactical you just end up either
doing or not doing the things you should
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 this sincere
pursuit
so greatness to me is not about
achieving something it's about playing
all out sincerely pursuing it
i'm chasing money for eight and a half
years my mantra is i want to get rich
that's it there's no rich father i want
you rich you've promised you're gonna be
rich you always wanted to be rich when
you were young 100 right so and that
didn't that wasn't a dirty word for me i
didn't understand people who were
conflicted about money i was like it's
powerful so i want to get rich and and i
just made it all about that and so for
six and a half of those years i didn't
take days off even when we would go to
london for christmas i had like a video
camera that would allow well this is
actually slightly in the future but a
great example i would take a video
camera that would let me watch the
production line at quest
so like that kind of obsessive like i'm
all in back of the technology company
same kind of thing but i would either be
working on the tech company or trying to
start other companies at night so we
talk a lot about we had like five or six
companies fail all side hustles yeah but
it was like we just kept trying to learn
and figure this out
and so growing in that becoming better
understanding marketing helping elevate
the company really rising up to a pure
status watching other people fall away
because they couldn't emotionally hang
in the environment and yeah then they
made me i didn't ask for a raise for
five years i was like i want to be i
want to be so valuable that they feel
gross for what they're paying me yeah
and so because i wanted the equity i
didn't want the i didn't want the salary
yep so i was like dude i'm in this for
the equity you don't have to worry about
me equity equity equity i just kept it
on their mind like hey you said that was
a possibility i want you to know that
means everything to me and that's why
i'm here and so hit the six and a half
year mark i'm 10 owner in the company
and i'm completely miserable and i
burned out and i realized that
entrepreneurship had given given given
it was making me stronger bigger faster
and now i was beginning to take away
because i didn't care about the product
i didn't love what we were doing i
wasn't passionate i was just chasing
money and money just wasn't that
interesting at that point on paper we
both know the difference between paper
money and real money right but on paper
i was a multi-millionaire
and i went in and i said guys here's
your equity back i'm quitting um i'm not
crossing the finish line so i don't
think i should get anything for this
and it actually ended up being like a
really cathartic moment where
we could all say what we've been feeling
which is yet none of us are happy
and so it became well if we're going to
keep doing this if we're going to keep
building businesses because by then it
was very clear to me the struggle is
guaranteed the success is not
and so
i'm going to go do something i love
and they agreed they felt the same so we
said okay well what would we build that
we would love even if we were failing
and so for three very different reasons
that became a nutrition company and for
me it was i grew up in a morbidly obese
family my uncle essentially ate himself
to death when i was 12 years old and it
was scary and sad my mom is morbidly
obese has been my entire life my
sister's morbidly obese has been almost
her entire life
my dad at one point was morbidly obese
and then lost weight but it was like
that's just where my family lived
and so i was like they're going to die
far sooner than they need to and there's
this great mother teresa quote
nobody will act for the many but people
will act for the one and so i just
needed to wake up every day and think
about my mom and my sister and that was
it and i thought i can show up every day
and fight for them it's not about the
money anymore i can fight for them
and look we a lot of business acumen
went into this this was not just we had
good intentions and it built a big
business it was we understood business
right i had now been in business for
eight and a half years grinding it out
building this technology company which
was hard as hell yeah and
but now we were able to marry that and
by the way we took the um tech company
through the recession and everything so
i mean it was like i'd taken some knocks
so we really understood business at this
point and so now we're going to start
something predicated entirely on value
creation that was like our mantra
doesn't matter what's more profitable
matters what adds more value
and so we we literally were saying these
things and we also we didn't actually
throw our hands in a pile of wish we had
to be a cooler story but like all but
that said and each of us needs to have
fun every day what makes you happy
the the easy answer and the most
truthful answer is time with my wife the
other answer to what makes me happy
there's really two things so time with
my wife
and then the pursuit which i'll put in
all caps right so the pursuit of
whatever the pursuit of getting better
the pursuit of impacting the world the
pursuit of building something big that
that matters
the pursuit maybe i never get it i don't
care about that i care about the pursuit
i care about whether sincerely i'm
actually trying to make it happen not
bullshitting yeah not just like empty
dreams but like for real i'm actually
giving myself over to this and i spent a
lot of time in the inner cities i big
brother for this one kid for eight and a
half years completely changed my life
and then having 1400 employees and about
a thousand of which grew up hard
in the inner cities hard i mean most of
them grew up in compton i mean it was
just some of the most extraordinary
stories i've ever heard and i realized
that those people are as extraordinary
as anybody barack obama um oprah winfrey
tony robbins like they
all those same raw materials exist in
people in the inner cities that nobody
believes and nobody think will ever go
anywhere and they won't because they
don't believe in themselves and so we
were talking at our most honest like
what what are we really driven by and
i'm driven by that moment of awakening
which i had in my own life where i
finally realized wait
i can learn new things so just because
i'm not good today doesn't mean i can't
be good tomorrow and and that filled me
with so much excitement i want to see
that in other people and i want to see
what the world looks like when other
people realize wait a second that steve
jobs quote that the world is made by
people no smarter than you is actually
true and so if you're believing that
these people are smarter than you
because you did bad on your sats i'm
just going to tell you right now stop
so you can develop yourself so my
obsession became that humans are the
ultimate adaptation machine we are
literally wired from the ground up
in order to grow and improve under
stress and pressure so it's like what's
the phrase uh pressure can burst pipes
but it also creates diamonds so it's
like you need the pressure and yes it
can hurt but it can also make something
amazing if you're willing to put
yourself in that situation so it's a
weird twist of fate that humans um in
order to build the muscle you first have
to tear it right yeah so but once you
accept that that's how it works you can
do extraordinary things today we are
going to be talking all about
dealing with disappointment this is
something i know a lot about i'm sure
all of you know a lot about this but
there is a way to get over it and to
make sure that we don't waste any time
stuck in that period of disappointment
we may need to do a period of morning
but that we don't allow ourselves to get
stuck there we're able to mourn and move
past it and get going again
all right first question is how do i
stop myself from beating myself up for
trying to do something that failed
miserably and then continuing to
overthink everything about what happened
thank you so much for any advice and
assistance that you can provide okay
here is how to conceptualize
failure and the disappointment that goes
along with it
once you understand that what the human
animal is designed to do is learn then
you have to ask yourself if what has
made the human animal the most apex of
apex predators the world has ever seen
the most capable of completely changing
its environment
what is it that allows them to learn
fast
and the answer is failure now the reason
that failure is truly useful and i'm not
just saying that to make you or myself
feel better in fact i wish that it
wasn't the way to learn the fastest but
the reality is the reason that it works
so well
is that when you fail you trigger areas
of the brain that are focused on
memory and focus so you've got the
memory side so you're going to remember
this you've got the pain this does not
feel good i do not want to go through
this again so you've got that which
heightens your emotions which makes you
more likely to remember this thing
moving forward and then it also narrows
your attention so you're really looking
at
why did this go wrong and when you have
this sense of i never want to repeat
this and you're looking very closely at
why did this go wrong now all of a
sudden
failures because of what it does to your
brain and quite frankly because you're
in the mix you're trying things and we
learn better from doing than from
reading about it or hearing about it
so failures suddenly become the most
information-rich data stream on planet
earth heightens your likelihood of
remembering and it focuses you in on
exactly what's the problem so now even
though failing sucks part of what makes
it valuable is that it sucks in fact it
may suck in order to make it
valuable
let that sink in that nature went huh
when this happens in order for this to
be useful for this animal for this
evolutionary creature i need to make
sure
that it becomes advantageous so that as
they make mistakes assuming that they
don't get eaten by a lion i want to make
sure that they don't put themselves in
that position again and so we have to
learn from
some method and the method that gets us
moving taking action trying things
feeling the pain focusing that's going
to be the thing that we're going to get
the most takeaways from so now
as you reframe what failure is
failure is not
proof that you're a loser
failure is the process by which you
become better okay failure is not the
process that reveals that you're a loser
failure is a process by which you become
better that is the name of failure so
now when you fail why would you beat
yourself up over it it's the nature of
progress itself
there is no way to get better without
failing it's the fastest way it is the
most effective way it is necessary you
have to do it and by the way for you to
have failed at something you showed the
courage to try it
so instead of wasting time beating
yourself up over the fact that something
went wrong we're going to say
that's the nature of progress we have to
try something it's not going to work as
well as we want it to or i may fall flat
on my face i may outright embarrass
myself and if i let that break me i will
fail to learn the lesson
but if i do what nature is compelling me
to do
and i focus
on what went wrong why did this happen
because i never want to go through this
again
you stack enough of those what went
wrong i never want to go through this
again
enough of those together
and you actually get good
and translating potential into skill set
is the name of the game and you will
never do that more efficiently than you
will through failure and mistakes so
allowing yourself to wallow in
disappointment
doesn't make any sense
it's the learning process this is what
you have to do in order to get good so
there's no reason to spend a lot of time
being disappointed you brush yourself
off you pick yourself up you dust
yourself off and you get going
that's it that is the physics of
progress
all right guys if you're going to unlock
your potential and achieve everything
you've ever wanted you are going to have
to constantly be making progress towards
your goals so what do you do when you
get stuck the bad news is getting stuck
happens to everyone at some point it's
pretty much unavoidable but the good
news is that if you're willing to take
action there is a framework that you can
follow to get back on track if that
sounds familiar or if you're stuck in a
rut and not achieving your goals as fast
as you want i've pulled a class out of
impact theory university that you need
to watch right now it's called six steps
to getting unstuck and you can watch it
for free at unstuck.impacttheory.com
inside i'll teach you about how to use
cognitive reframes my four level value
stack to becoming unstoppable as well as
the single most important thing to start
doing today
to regain momentum to watch this free
preview for impact theory university go
to
unstuck.impacttheory.com
i'll see you on the inside guys all
right take care and now back to the
episode
how do you restructure yourself and your
goals after falling off of a designated
path should goals be fixed or malleable
depending on the journey undertaken all
right
first of all everything in life is
ultimately malleable
to some extent we are not blank slade so
you can't just infinitely change
yourself but things are pretty
changeable uh as heather hein says we
are not a blank slate but we are the
blankest of slates and i think that's
the right way to look at it so
here's how i break it down i've got my
mission my north star my like proper
goal the thing i'm trying to do
then i have what most people think of as
goals which are the paths
so
i want to
win a gold medal in the olympics that's
a goal
maybe i think i'm going to win a gold
medal in gymnastics but i find that i
can't pull it off i aged out and i never
quite got there and so i switch over to
archery i'm making this up but this
archery is actually an event where you
can be successful deeper into your life
the goal win a gold medal at the
olympics the path swimming tennis
archery whatever and so i'm going to be
flexible on what my path is now in
business
man let me tell you i'm trying to build
the next disney all right rad now the
path to get there i wouldn't have told
you two years ago was going to be nfts
and now nft is a huge part of my
strategy so the goal of pulling people
out of the matrix at scale using
storytelling that remains true and
that's why i'm building the next disney
so that's my goal that's my mission
that's my north star that's what i'm
trying to do
now
do i do that through youtube videos do i
do that through
um
nfts do i do it through getting a show
on netflix what's it going to be i don't
really care to be honest i want to do
what is whatever is most efficient and
effective at getting me
to the goal which is to pull people out
of the matrix at scale
through storytelling okay so you have to
learn to differentiate between your
mission
and the path to get there
because you could say that my goal is to
um let's say make a in fact five years
ago i would have told you that i want to
have printed comics and comic book
stores and absolutely killing it i want
one of those comics to be turned into a
major motion picture um that you know
ends up in theaters
and that would be one path but now i'm
like i want to do an nft forget about
printed comics they're absolutely
laughable uh we do web comics now but
that was a whole big transition that i
wouldn't have anticipated so that was
already one switch of
some would say goal i would say path now
nfts has become a huge part of that and
so not focusing on the web comics in
isolation but the webcomics and how they
can feed into the nfts or even the nfts
can feed into the comics and then how we
translate that ultimately into let's say
a series that's going to end up on
streaming okay so a lot of the elements
if you'd asked me five years ago would
have sounded very different than they
sound now so i don't think of that as um
i would never want those to be fixed
where it's either i get printed comics
to work or i don't it's like you get in
there and if it doesn't make sense
anymore there was a whole host of
reasons why it didn't make sense to
pursue printed comics but i didn't know
until i failed at printed comics so
that's another thing to think about
because by getting in there
trying it and seeing what the problems
were i was like wow why would anybody do
this this does not make sense this is
absolutely antiquated this is the past i
want to be involved in the future
but i needed to get in there and do it
and until i did that i wasn't going to
be able to figure those things out i
couldn't think my way through that
problem i had to feel my way through
that problem so
that's really the key
my
north star my mission that's pretty
static and i won't say that it never
changes because it was at when i was at
quest it was ending metabolic disease i
moved over to impact theory and it
became pulling people out of the matrix
at scale using stories okay so two
different things
was able to pivot that but now once i'm
in there until i give up on my north
star which something absolutely major
would have to happen meaning i would
have to believe it is no longer worthy
of pursuit now if i believe it is no
longer worthy of pursuit then i will
change it or i'm not having fun pursuing
it whatever the case may be
but my paths
my paths are just questions of good
sense
what's working what's not working what
can i change to get there more
efficiently more effectively so don't
allow yourself to get bogged down in a
path which should be easily discarded
but don't give up easily on a mission
which should be far more firm
all right
next up
what should someone do when trying to
make a career out of passion and that
fails
the answer is what do you mean fails so
we've already covered that failure is a
key part of the process of progress so i
think a
key insight that will help
is that if you want to achieve anything
significant in your life you have to
understand that it's a game of attrition
okay it's a game of attrition what do i
mean by that most people quit
it isn't that the people that end up
winning never failed it's that they
didn't quit when they failed now why do
people quit when they fail it isn't
because they lose money
that hurts that's going to make it
harder but that's not why they quit why
they quit is it becomes emotionally
devastating and they're not able to
re-center themselves
self-soothe
remind themselves why they started
right that north star the mission why am
i doing this why do i care about this to
reorient themselves around i care about
this for a reason it is bigger than
myself this is not just about money i'm
here to add value to help people to
elevate whatever trust me you want to
attach yourself to that
because when you're doing something that
only stands to benefit you it won't have
the motivating factor that helping
yourself and
other people is going to have definitely
want to help yourself but you also want
to help other people and when you have a
north star goal mission that is that
it's what i call honorable and exciting
okay it's honorable and that it elevates
not only yourself but other people it's
exciting you're just into it whether you
should be or not as a relevant you are
into it and it serves humanity okay when
you have that goal that's exciting and
honorable
now all of a sudden when you quote
unquote fail
you're just asking yourself am i still
into this do i still love this is this
still my passion because if it is i'm
going to get back up and keep going i'm
not going to quit i'm not going to allow
myself to be another one of those people
that when they fail and it hurts that
they just give up
don't let that be you there is a
phenomenal quote from winston churchill
and it goes like this
success
is the ability to go from failure to
failure to failure without a loss of
enthusiasm
now
when you can go
from failure to failure to failure
without losing your passion you're
really onto something
but that's going to be up to you because
there's not going to be anybody there to
encourage you to coach you to push you
on you have to do it yourself and so
you've got to do the work of making sure
that you're really connected on a deep
emotional level
to that thing that you're pursuing
now if you do that
then that real
passion and belief will be there waiting
for you
when the absolute gripping sting of
failure occurs
because at that moment you're gonna ask
yourself one question we all do it
why am i doing this
and if you don't have a compelling
answer you will quit
but if you have a compelling answer
and you really are passionate about this
thing then it's just about self-soothing
and recognizing that failure is part of
the game
and so we pick ourselves up
square ourselves off
and get moving again
and that is the only way
to succeed
emotion should never stop you from
achieving your goals so if you feel
stuck overwhelmed low on confidence
you're beating yourself up or you feel
like you're not deserving of the things
you want in life i have something to
tell you emotions are not facts and you
should never let them hold you back and
yet i find that people do this all the
time they mistake that feeling for
objective truth and it sends them this
downward spiral
reaching greater levels of success in
life means knowing how to use your brain
and if you're in a rut right now or if
you've been struggling for a while to
achieve your goals then i've pulled a
class from impact theory university to
help you get back on track it's called
six steps to getting unstuck and it's
for anyone who wants to know the exact
steps to achieving big goals when life
puts challenges in your way if you want
to check it out go to
unstuck.impacttheory.com
to get access it's a free preview
alright guys i'll see you on the inside
now let's get back to today's episode
how do you discern preventable mistakes
from ones we simply could not see at the
time with the knowledge we have how do
we truly appreciate and learn the
lessons of these failures okay so i
wouldn't worry so much about whether a
mistake was preventable or not because
that implies you want to know when you
should beat yourself up for the mistake
and when you shouldn't the only thing
that you should be doing when you make a
mistake is learning immediately go into
learn mode assume everything is quote
unquote your fault that all of this
could have been prevented if you had
made a different decision
but
we're not going to punch ourselves in
the mouth over this we simply want to
understand okay what could i have done
differently to get a result that i
wanted because to me there is an answer
to did i make the right or wrong
decision and it goes like this if you
made the right decision it moved you
closer to your goal if you made the
wrong decision it held you neutral or
moved you away from your goal
once you understand everything just goes
through that filter now it's just okay
cool so this was a wrong choice in that
it held me neutral or moved me away from
my goal and if either of those two
things is true it doesn't say that i'm a
bad person or i'm a loser i'm a failure
it just says what i tried didn't work
now if what i tried didn't work my next
question is what could i have done that
would have worked or at least had a
higher likelihood of working now to do
that you have to completely take
responsibility this did not work because
i made the wrong decision and it was the
wrong decision for this reason now
when you can do that and say that
sentence without feeling badly about
yourself because you're going to push
back you're not going to want it to be
your fault you're going to want it to be
anybody else's fault but when you do
that you failed to learn the lesson
which means you failed in vain which
means you're not going to get anything
out of that other than emotional
distress you're going to have to
constantly try to wall yourself off from
the reality
when on the other hand you embrace
that
this really is important i have to
figure out to get to my goal i have to
figure out what to do differently so by
owning it you keep the control you
recognize that you can do something
different and then it's just all about
figuring out what that next thing is so
don't worry about um
whether you should have known better or
any of that because if you fail even if
you couldn't have known better how is
that helpful
you just need to figure out cool what
can i do next time what can i do next
time how do i start again more
intelligently that should be the only
question on your lips
next
how do you deal with the time lost from
failure especially when you have nothing
to show for that time for example i just
got rejected from a job that would have
changed my life but now i have to spend
upwards of three to five years just to
get to that level of income experience
somewhere else
okay
that's not true
so right now the only path you see
before you makes it seem like it's going
to require you three to five years just
to get to that level of income
experience but let's remember we had
that opportunity present itself once
before who says it's not going to
present itself again tomorrow now the
fact that we didn't get that role
that's what we have to figure out why
not and what can we do next time to
ensure that we do there's a great quote
i forget who it's by forgive me but it
goes this is a paraphrase but it goes
like this
luck is like a bus
and another bus is going to come five
minutes later the question is do you
have the fare to get on the bus
that [ __ ] is dope
once you understand that luck favors the
prepared meaning that the people who are
quote unquote lucky are the ones that
actually have the skill set to take
advantage of that luck and that's why
the awesome way to think about it is
like a bus there's going to be another
one coming all the time they're
constantly coming but if you can never
get on one because you don't have the
skill set to take advantage then you're
never going to be quote unquote lucky
even though all of those opportunities
have presented themselves so this is
really a question of skill set now i
promise you if you gave me three to five
years and pointed me out whatever it is
you're trying to do i would by leaps and
bounds i'm going to try to get there in
six months so if we really think it's
going to take five years i'm gonna try
to get that good at that thing in six
months and i will just tell you i have a
history of being able to pull that off
now
why
am i better
am i smarter
no
i am definitely not remember i'm the guy
whose mother quietly assumed i was going
to fail my best friend said i just
assumed you were going to marshmallow
your way through life my now
father-in-law when i asked for his
blessing to marry his daughter he said
no these were not people that
misidentified me they had accurately
identified me but what they didn't
factor in is that i could change
and so i just set about turning my
potential into actual skill set so
instead of being somebody with a lot of
potential like we all are i became a
person with a lot of skill set and that
skill set i have leveraged to do
extraordinary things with my life but it
was a lot of [ __ ] hard work around
one making massive demands of myself so
not allowing myself to say oh my god
it's gonna take three to five years [ __ ]
that it might take the average person
who's not willing to do what i'm willing
to do three to five years i'm going to
spend way more time and i'm going to be
constantly owning everything in my life
so that i can get better i can try
different things new things i'm going to
stare nakedly at my inadequacies and
figure out why did i get rejected i will
ask hey guys out of curiosity and trust
me i have thick skin it would really be
powerful to me and my career
if you could tell me
what made you choose somebody else what
was it about me and i can take anything
if i don't seem educated enough
knowledgeable enough i'm not uh i don't
speak fast enough i'm not funny enough
whatever i just want to know the truth
you hated my shoes i just want to know
the truth and you'll be surprised people
will actually give you an answer it may
not be the full totally unfiltered
answer but they'll usually give you some
pretty useful information if you make it
clear that that's what you want you
don't want them to pull punches and that
this is really something designed to
help you get better
and that's the key and if you can make
them see that
boom you're off to the races but in all
of this you've got to really want it you
got to really want it
and you have to be willing to fail over
and over and over because
success is going from failure to failure
to failure without a loss of enthusiasm
and there it is that's how we do it
that's how we avoid wallowing and
disappointment that's how we put
ourselves back together and get going
and learn and learn at a supercharged
rate
failure is your greatest teacher
but you have to be willing to admit
you've made a mistake
and that's it if you can do that oh my
god the universe will open up to you
never retreat
never explain
get it done
and let them howl
and that's the point
get it done
do the thing
[Music]
the accomplishment is what you're after
the performance is your opportunity
it doesn't matter what other people
think it doesn't matter if they want you
to win it doesn't matter if they
actively want you to lose what matters
is building that set of skills becoming
capable of doing the thing and in doing
the thing you will silence the critics
it's the man in the arena who knows that
he's showing up with the abilities that
he has to do battle the question is
will you prepare the question is will
you do the work the question is will you
be able to get the thing done and
everybody spends their time focused on
what other people think instead of
realizing
the only thing that matters is how good
you get
[Music]
right now i want everybody listening to
this the only thing that matters is how
good you get that's the point that's the
purpose of all of this don't [ __ ]
worry about what people think
just get so good
that you can't be denied get so good
that you can't be stopped it's so good
that your performance speaks for itself
if you get that good
my friends you
and you alone control your life
if you are honest with yourself about
where you are
and you know exactly where you want to
go
you can go
anywhere
[Music]
as jim rohn said without a sense of
urgency
desire loses its value
what do you want badly enough
to suffer for
what price are you willing to pay to
become the person that you want to
become
when you do that when you have the
skills no one and nothing can stop you
[Music]
really think about that for a second
there is a level of ability a level of
skill set where you can get so good at
something no matter how much people hate
you no matter how much they want to
bring you down no matter how actively
they come for you you can stand before
them and say i will not fall
because you can outperform
[Music]
it's not about convincing it's not about
politicking it's about getting better
and when you understand that that is
what the human animal is capable of when
you understand
that that's what you're capable of
everything in your life changes it just
becomes a simple choice
[Music]
what do you want that badly that you're
gonna turn that one into a need that
you're gonna do the work that you're
gonna show up nights weekends you're
gonna put in the work when other people
are out partying all you can think about
is becoming so good
that they can't stop you
becoming so good they can't stop you
that's the greatest joy you're ever
going to experience in life is being
truly and uniquely yourself
[Music]
through a cruel
twist of fate
the only way for a human to really
develop themselves and to become what
they're capable of becoming
is through suffering
it's by pushing yourself
[Music]
as ralph waldo emerson said unless you
try something beyond what you've already
mastered you will never grow
[Music]
but to push yourself beyond what you've
already mastered is to really embrace
discomfort it's to push yourself to the
edges of what you can take it's to go
beyond the physical emotional and
intellectual limits
it's about redefining who you are it's
about redefining what you can stand
it's about redefining your breaking
point and literally becoming capable of
more but that process
through that twist of fate
requires us to put ourselves in
tremendous
stress and pressure but if you can do
that if you can find a way to step to
that edge to look over the abyss and to
push yourself farther into the unknown
into a realm of danger if you can do
that
if unlike everyone else who seeks
comfort
if you can push yourself past pain
then you can become something more than
other people but your life will
ultimately be defined by what you do
[Music]
not by what you think
not by what you want what you actually
do
[Music]
and as leonardo da vinci said i have
been impressed with the urgency of doing
knowing is not enough we must apply
being willing is not enough we must do
and that's got to be the guiding light
of your life if you want to find out
what you can do if you want to impact
people if you want to help if you want
to touch lives all the proclamations
that people make if you actually want to
do that and not just be talking
you've got to push yourself you've got
to make demands you've got to hold
yourself to a standard that other people
think is crazy you've got to become
stronger you've got to become more
capable
[Music]
because when you get to that point when
you are stronger when you're more
capable then you're actually able to
execute against the things that you want
to do you're able to help people you're
able to push yourself you're able to
become something more
[Music]
but that process of becoming is an
active process and it is an active
process of discomfort pain pushing
suffering and growth it's beauty it's
wonderment it's hurt it's anguish it's
all of it rolled together but at the end
of the day it's your control it's your
willingness it's your why it's knowing
why you're pushing yourself that's going
to determine whether or not you push
beyond what other people think is
possible
[Music]
in
that standing at the edge of uncertainty
not knowing if you're going to succeed
or fail not knowing if you're going to
live or die
it's in that moment that you realize who
you really are
we've all had days that go wrong
where despite your best efforts
everything crumbles and as you near the
end of that day you realize that this
was a lost day nothing came together you
weren't able to do what you told
yourself you were going to do at the
beginning of the day
but as eleanor roosevelt said with the
new day comes new strength and new
thoughts
that's up to you
you control what you think you don't
have to let your thoughts run away with
you you've got to take that moment to
decide that you're going to think those
new thoughts to let it be a rebirth to
let it rejuvenate you
[Music]
and you can't
live in the past you can't let the noise
of what didn't work you can't let the
noise of the ways that you failed the
things that went wrong you can't let
that noise drown out the signal of your
life you can't let it become the only
thing that you hear you can't let it
begin to shape the actual structures of
your mind to overly focus on the things
that went wrong and so you have to make
that choice every day to decide that
today is a new day to decide that you're
going to have new thoughts to decide
that you're going to see potential in
this new day
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
i want greatness for you
and i'm willing to bet that everyone in
your life that loves you
wants the same thing they want to see
you make your dreams come true they
hunger for it to see you win the way
that you hunger for it yourself
but what they know
that you may not yet be willing to
accept
is that as rabindranath tagore said you
can't cross the sea merely by standing
and staring at the water
[Music]
if you're gonna make those things come
true in your life if you're gonna make
that vision that you have a reality
you've ultimately got to go out into the
cold and unforgiving water you've got to
be willing to face the swells you've got
to be willing to face the most
terrifying thing of all
the unknown
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
it isn't that the sea is dangerous that
scares people it's that you can't see
what's beneath the surface and that is
going to be the challenge that you're
going to have to face that is going to
have to be the fear that you stare
directly into the eye is the truth is
you don't know what you're capable of
the truth is you don't know if you're
going to succeed the absolute truth is
you may fail
[Music]
you may
get swallowed by the darkness
but at the end of the day that's going
to be your choice because whether or not
you fail does not mean you have to be
consumed by that failure you can get
back up and keep going
but that is a choice you have to make
that's the fortitude you have to develop
within and it is a development process
it is something that you do
[Music]
you choose to be stronger than the sea
you choose to be stronger than the
unknown and you choose to be brave
enough to go out despite the unknown and
try to conquer something to try to build
something in your life to do the things
that other people think cannot be done
it is in facing that fear that you win
the battle understand finding the island
making it to the new world that's not
the [ __ ] point
[Music]
[Applause]
the point is setting out the point is
being willing to get a nadine and to go
off into the sea
the point is being willing to face the
challenge
if you can do that regardless of what
comes you've already won
because you've proven something to
yourself
that you're willing to try
the truth will set you free
but first
it will piss you off
the reality is if you want to achieve
something great in your life you've got
to be willing to accept who you really
are right now you've got to know exactly
what you're good at and what you're not
and the reason that the truth is going
to piss you off is it's going to hurt
it's going to hurt to acknowledge that
you're not yet who you want to be it's
going to hurt to know that you're not
yet capable of the things that you want
to be capable of and it's really going
to hurt
to know that the things that people say
behind your back the things that they
say to hurt you
that they're actually true
[Music]
that they're right
they have a point you aren't good at
that thing you aren't as good as you
could be you did embarrass yourself you
have fallen down all of those things are
almost certainly true
but when you can look at those things
when you can stare nakedly at your
inadequacies when you can really stop
and not protect yourself with ego but
protect yourself by knowing that you're
going to learn from where you failed
you're going to learn from the places
you've fallen down you're going to learn
your inadequacies so that you can build
something new
and as michio kaku says
all great ideas come from a picture
you've got to know what you want you've
got to know what that thing is that
you're building towards you've got to
know exactly who you're trying to become
and once you have that crystal clear
vision of who you want to be
it is far easier to acknowledge who you
really are
[Music]
so you've got to start with that picture
you've got to accept the reality pain
and all but you've got to have that
picture you've got to know where you're
going you've got to know what the skills
are that you need to build in order to
get there and once you do that once you
have that picture and that picture is
your obsession it's the thing that you
think about you dream about you put it
up on your wall you tattoo it in your
mind you know exactly
who you're trying to become
[Music]
if you're honest with yourself about
where you are
and you know exactly where you want to
go
you can go
anywhere
[Music]
knowledge isn't power
used knowledge is power putting that to
use to actually do something
understanding it well enough to create
from that thing that's the end goal so
don't worry about what other people
think don't worry about what other books
other people have read don't worry if
you ever make it to the last page of
anything
simply ask yourself do i understand what
i need to understand
to build the life i want to build to
bring to this world the things that i
want to bring
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however counter-intuitive however weird
it doesn't matter
if it's a moment of beauty for you and
you understand how to build it build it
[Music]
that's the greatest joy you're ever
going to experience in life is being
truly and uniquely yourself
but first you have to do the work to
understand who you really are
do that work
[Music]
and as brene brown said you can choose
courage or you can choose comfort
but you can't choose both
so as you look out at what you want to
do and it scares you
in that moment you've got a choice
it's not about not having fear it's
about rising up in the face of it it's
about accepting that this is going to be
hard it's about accepting that you might
fail it's about accepting that right now
you really aren't good enough
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
you're not good enough to do what you
want to do but you can become
good enough and if you make that choice
if you step out into the unknown if you
wade into the water if you go with
everything you've got regardless of
whether or not you could fail if you do
that
then you've got proof
you know that you have value because
you're willing to take that chance
and the willingness to take the chance
is courage itself
the only thing
that you should demand of yourself
is courage
if you don't stop
you can't be beaten
you control your mindset
you control how you feel about yourself
nobody can actually get you to feel some
kind of way about yourself
you allow that [ __ ] in right that's like
the cheesiest self-help [ __ ] you're ever
going to hear but it got cheesy because
it's so true so people repeated it a lot