Tom Bilyeu: nutrition, fasting, meditation, mindset, immortality, and the secret formula of fulfillment

**Peter Attia** (0:04)
Hey, everyone, welcome to The Peter Attia Drive. I'm your host, Peter Attia.
The drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality, more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode and other topics at peterattiamd.com.
In this episode, I interview my friend, Tom Bilyeu. Tom is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition. Many of you have undoubtedly heard of this. They make, obviously, Quest bars and a number of other products, but I think Quest bars are sort of what put them on the map and keeps them on the map. Tom is one of three co-founders, and I know two of the three quite well, including Tom. He's also the host of something called Impact Theory, which we actually spend quite a bit of time talking about. I knew a lot less about Impact Theory and his work there than I knew about Quest. Now, his mission in creating this was to create this sort of idea of what he calls an empowering media-based platform for accelerating mission-based businesses. Tom is incredibly driven, and I think that comes across in this discussion.
I've sometimes been accused of being a little too hyper, but when I'm around Tom, I actually sort of feel like I'm on Quaaludes or something, given how much he's just sort of salivating and just so passionately jumping out of his seat to basically tell you about something that is generally really interesting and really, really helpful. He's just a completely driven mission guy. And I learned a lot about Tom on this episode that I didn't know. I've known Tom for probably five years, maybe six years, but one thing I didn't know was that in the history of Quest, he basically interviewed virtually every person that was hired. And this is a behemoth company. And I'm not just saying that he was interviewing people who were applying for jobs in the C-suite. I mean, if you were applying for a job on the production line, Tom wanted to interview you. And he would always ask people the same sorts of questions. And there was one question in particular that he asked everybody. I was actually kind of surprised by the answer. But in this sense, his time at Quest became a little bit of a laboratory for what he ended up doing later on and really what he's doing today and where I think he's going. So in this episode, we're gonna talk a lot about Tom's history with dieting and how he changed his views on fat and fasting. And he had quite a radical transformation there. His quest for immortality, which if you've ever heard me talk on this subject, I'm not convinced that that's desirable or plausible, but I certainly love hearing about others talk about it. His background and what led to the co-founding of Quest, probably one of my favorite stories because it really speaks to following your bliss versus following the dollars, which I think many great entrepreneurs will tell you is their secret. What he describes as a growth versus fixed mindset, I think this is a really important concept and I think it is worth paying attention to that.
Why he would interview everyone he talked to or hired at Quest and again, I was surprised by that. That was a completely new fact.
We talk about why he started Impact Theory and we talk about what fulfillment means to Tom. Now you'll be able to find a lot more information about Tom and some of the things that we talk about on the show inside the show notes, which will be at peterattiamd.com forward slash podcast. So without further delay, here is my discussion with my friend, Tom Bilyeu.
Tom.

**Tom Bilyeu** (3:38)
Yes.

**Peter Attia** (3:39)
Thank you so much for inviting me to your lovely place.

**Tom Bilyeu** (3:42)
My pleasure, man. I have wanted to get you on my show forever, so I am excited.

**Peter Attia** (3:46)
I know, I feel like a real kind of jerk because you've been asking me for so long and I've been saying, yep, yep, yep. And then I pulled the bait and switch and got you on the lead. But I promise you, if you still want me, I'm yours.

**Tom Bilyeu** (3:57)
Oh, dude, in a heartbeat, it would be amazing.

**Peter Attia** (4:01)
Well, just before we started, I met your wife for the very first time.