#33 Why You Need GRIT to Reach Your Goals with Tom Bilyeu

Tom Bilyeu (0:00)

Whatever thought you articulate in your mind over and over and over will manifest as physical wiring in your brain. So if you're saying, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, oh, this is really hard, this is really hard, this is really hard, you will wire your brain to think those thoughts more easily. And so if you get people that are farther ahead in their journey and you get them to play that game, why am I about to fail and what would I have to do to guarantee my success? And they may give you absurd answers, but the absurd answers will help you identify what the critical pieces in the puzzle are. In that moment, I was really thinking about that's super fucking dangerous. Don't be too impressed with yourself.

Remember, if you think you're already a badass, you're not going to get any better.

Siim Land (0:53)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land, and behind me, there's Los Angeles. You might have heard of Tom Bilyeu, the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, and you might have heard of Impact Theory as well.

So Impact Theory is his new company, and they had this competition amongst their followers, and I basically won. I basically won the competition, and they flew me out into LA. It was quite a fun experience for me to, you know, hop on someone else's livestream, and answer some questions. So it was fun. So definitely check it out. Body Mind Empowerment.

SPEAKER_3 (1:28)

Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven.

Siim Land (1:34)

Everything the body needs.

SPEAKER_3 (1:35)

Control your mind.

Siim Land (1:38)

What we're gonna do today is simply gonna go through some of the questions that I have for Tom, and some other people who have reached out for me as well. From the community, so.

Tom Bilyeu (1:48)

Well, that's cool.

All right, let's kick it off. What's that first question? Hit us up.

Siim Land (1:52)

Well, the first one is like, what personality trait or quality are you most proud of as an individual?

Tom Bilyeu (1:57)

Wow. Grit, perseverance, 100%. Just being willing to grow and improve at all times requires that you have the ability to see it through. And it's the one thing that as a kid I didn't have. So I've always been ambitious. I've always had big dreams, but I didn't always have the fortitude to see it through. And the fact that you can learn that, that you can teach yourself that, develop that, like I had to put a lot of work into that.

And because I had to work so hard for it, that's part of the reason that I'm proud of it.

That's a cool question. I haven't really thought about it.

Siim Land (2:35)

Like what, how did you go about actually developing it?

Tom Bilyeu (2:39)

Well, the honest answer is a deep and abiding amount of shame. And this is something that I think people don't use enough.

I was really ashamed of myself and I was in love with this chick who's now my wife and it was for the first time really a mirror into who I was and I thought, wow, like I've told this woman I'm going to take care of her. I've told her and her father that I'm super ambitious and one day I'm going to make her rich.

And the reality was as I'm giving my father-in-law that speech, I know that that morning I laid in bed for like four hours. And so I'm like, oh, God, like there's such a disconnect between what I want, what I'm saying, and then what I'm actually doing.

And having Lisa like now be tied to me and what I'm able to accomplish and that our life is going to be the summation of what we can do together, if she's pulling her weight and I'm not pulling mine, like that just felt super shitty. So and look, I'd been developing like pieces of a growth mindset by then. And so that was the first step. So having enough shame to like propel me to really change and do something different. And then I was reading all the time and beginning to get the bits of a growth mindset that said you can learn anything. Okay, well, if I can work out in the gym and I can develop bigger muscles and I can get stronger, can I push myself? Can I force myself to stick with things that are hard or boring long enough to actually get good at them? And you and I were talking earlier. So right on the other side here is a painting of Michael Jordan. I don't follow sports, but it's from the infamous Flu Game where Jordan played a championship game. I think it was like game six with what was almost certainly food poisoning at 103 degree temperature. And he just showed up and played.