Why Mindset is More Important than Diet with Tom Bilyeu | Feel Better Live More Podcast

Tom Bilyeu 0:00 Fixed mindset is where you believe your talent and intelligence are fixed. You're just born with it, is the way it is. Growth mindset is your talent and your intelligence can be changed through deliberate practice. Once you believe you can get better, then it opens up a whole world to you, like personal responsibility. There's no personal responsibility if you can't change anything. So once you accept that you can change, then taking responsibility and getting to work, everything becomes possible. Einstein said it another way. He said, "The most important decision people must make is whether you live in a friendly or a hostile universe." Are things working for you or against you? Can you change or not? When you decide to see things framed in a positive way, then the world opens up to you. Get your mind right, everything else will follow. That's where you must start. [upbeat music]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:48 So Tom, welcome to the Feel Better Live More podcast.

Tom Bilyeu 0:51 Thank you for having me, man. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:53 Yeah. Well, I'm actually in your house recording this. Um, and I gotta say, I feel pretty energized. Um, we've just had-- We've just gone super deep on your show.

Tom Bilyeu 1:04 We did. We did. It was a lot of fun.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05 A lot of fun, yeah, and you've definitely caused me to challenge some of my existing ways of thinking and hopefully evolve them and refine them a little bit, so I wanna thank you for that.

Tom Bilyeu 1:16 Dude, my pleasure. Same, man.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18 I've gotta say, Tom, your show on YouTube is brilliant. There is authenticity there. There is intensity there, and it intrigues me that you are moving-- You're still gonna do that, but you are moving to this newer format that I've just been on with you, um, for these longer conversations. So I'm interested, having watched your show for a period of time now, where does that intensity come from?

Tom Bilyeu 1:42 Wow, that's a hard right I wasn't expecting. Um, where does the intensity come from? So part of it is what I call an affectation layer. So it is me knowing that if you wanna communicate in a way that hits people in their bones, you have to be prepared to leverage all that human communication has to offer, right? Like, and it has a lot to offer, and a lot of times people are afraid to, um, really embody what they're feeling. And so I try to really embody what I'm feeling. Now, that's the second part. When you embody what you're feeling, your brain goes, "Whoa, this shit must be like really intense. This must really matter." And so then you actually start feeling that intensity, and then that makes embodying the intensity that much more easy, um, and you create this self-reinforcing loop. So and then part of it is just, like, I've always-- When I get into something, I... Two things. One, I am prone to getting excited or really having a reaction to it, and two, I understand the mechanisms and the feedback loops in the brain, so I can amp that all up to a much higher level. And so I used to teach, and one of my former students then hired me. And w- I was-- Obviously, when I'm teaching, it's very easy to get passionate. You've got a room full of people, and there's just a performance layer to it. And then he and I were alone, and I was breaking something down, and I was getting really passionate, and he goes, "Wow, you can do it even when there's nobody else around." And I was like, "What do you mean?" And he was like, "Your, your passion," like... And I was like, I'd never really thought of it. That was probably the beginning of me thinking of it. There is an affectation layer here. Like, part of this is at first I'm just doing it to communicate, like, to, to really get a point across. But then the more I try to get the point across, the more my brain goes, oh my gosh, this is something real. This is big. This is exciting. And then you actually start getting excited, and then it gets bigger and so.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 3:35 What do you mean by affectation layer?

Tom Bilyeu 3:37 So you have-- I don't like saying performance layer, but there is a performance layer to communication. And I-- A very long time ago, I wanted to be a stand-up comic. And I learned very early, probably about the age of 12, that the way you say something will determine whether it's funny, not what you say. Not just what you say. How about that? There's also the way you say it. And once you get good at the way you say something, you begin to realize, huh, it's not just that it makes it funny. It can actually give you the chills just with the way I say something. And so the brand of comedy that I pursued when I was pursuing it was I didn't tell jokes. I told stories, and I made them funny in the manner in which I told them. Then when I went away from comedy and I wanted to take myself seriously as a creator, which first manifested in film and then later business, it was-- it became passion. So but it was the same thing of understanding, interesting, the way that I modulate my voice, the way that I either tighten my diaphragm or speak from my chest or from my throat, like, all of it has these different reactions, and it makes people respond differently. And so I got very good at understanding how pacing and rhythm and all of that stuff helped my message get across better.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:02 So what I'm hearing as you say that is a listener of the show, let's say, who is looking for inspiration, who is looking to pick up some tips and tools that they can apply in their own life to feel better and live more, um, I'm hearing that you have figured out that the way you communicate, that the way you talk to someone or to a group of people impacts the feeling that they get and how powerful your message is. So to flip that, have you seen that people talk to themselves in ways that are either helping them perform at the level they wanna perform at or speaking to themselves in a way where it's actually harming them?

Tom Bilyeu 5:47 Definitively, but I would say that's more words than the affectation layer that we've been talking about. There is an element of performance that-- self-performance that would really be useful for people, which I just did on the word really, which is what I was talking about, where you need to embody it. So if there's something new-- And we touched on this ever so slightly when you and I were talking, and I was trying to explain, like, how malleable everything in our lives is. And one of the ways-- Like, when you really research the brain Everything you learn about the brain tells you how to manipulate yourself. So far more than it becomes like this useful tool for, um, relationships or being a better parent, it's like you're going to understand what your brain is doing so that you can leverage it for your own success. So one of the most important things I've ever learned about the brain is its absolute necessity to justify your amplitude of reaction. So if your amplitude is small, your brain goes, "Oh, it's not a big deal. Oh, my, um..." God, I'm using a hor- I was-- The first thing that came to my mind, Mother forgive me. My mom just died. It's not a big deal. You know what I mean? Like, your brain is, is going to try to make sense of that. If you freak out, your brain is gonna say, "Whoa, this really is a big deal. I just lost at a video game. This is crazy. My whole life is crumbling." Or Liverpool. If Liverpool were to lose, right? I'm sure before you began your separation from your obsession with the game, like you-- If I were to take your testosterone levels, they would drop when you lost, right? So your whole body is responding based on you building up this thing in your mind as important. So if people can understand the process of desire creation, part of it is just amplitude. Part of it is saying, "This is important to me. I want this," and like really embodying it, really getting into it, much like I'm doing right now. And in doing that, your brain starts to go, "Whoa, this is a big deal."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:47 So we can use that.

Tom Bilyeu 7:49 You better be using it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:49 We can be using that ourselves to amp ourselves up.

Tom Bilyeu 7:52 Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:53 You talk a lot about mindset. You talk a lot about value systems. Um, we touched on passion, right? And we didn't fully explore this, but there was something that I felt from you that actually-- You were saying that people can't say, you know, obviously, "I don't have a passion," right? And passion is something I've written about. I think it's super important. I think that regularly doing things that you're passionate about has been shown to make you more resilient to stress. So when people are saying to you, "Tom, I don't have a passion," do you believe them? Like, do they simply not have a passion? Or what are your-- what is your technique to help them find that passion?

Tom Bilyeu 8:31 Yeah, they, they-- I do believe them. They are almost certainly correct because people don't understand that passion is a process, so they want it to be like love, but I will say it is like love. Even love is a process. You have to go on dates. It starts maybe with sexual attraction. Then you actually want to get to know them, and then through that engagement with that person, it starts to blossom into something. Passion is exactly the same. Passion starts as a flicker of interest, and it seems pedestrian and kind of boring, and if it's like you with football, there's some other element, right? So I have the good fortune of you and I just went very deep down the Liverpool rabbit hole.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:05 Yeah.

Tom Bilyeu 9:06 And if I'm not mistaken, this is gonna be playing in Europe like gangbusters, so I will use this example. I'm married to a Brit, by the way.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:12 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 9:13 So I'm just gonna go deep on calling it football and the Premier League and all that good stuff. All right. So your story with Liverpool is, I think, super indicative of how a passion develops. So first of all, there's probably something innate in us that would draw us to sports anyway, even as a spectator, so there's already that going for you. Then you happen to have the immigrant journey of wanting to fit in, and your friends were into it, and you've got your home life where it's, you know, a very different cultural upbringing, and then you have the Westernized school life, and one anchor point would be soccer. And then it's this team spirit environment and all of that, and so you begin to feed into that. And what starts as like, "Oh, this is kind of fun. Oh, this is interesting," becomes, "Oh, my friends really like it, and it's a great way to bond," and, "Oh, I feel connected to them," and there's oxytocin going like crazy. There's dopamine rushes, and you're getting all this neurochemistry, and you're like, "Whoa, this is so cool." And so you start to embody it, and the first time you cheer, oh my God. Like, this is literally what happened to me. So I'm a diehard Spurs supporter now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:14 Wow.

Tom Bilyeu 10:14 Now, how did that happen? So my wife's family is all about Tottenham, and they took me to a game. Now, I really wanted to bond with my father-in-law. He did not. He was always very kind to me. I need to impress that upon people. But he was not particularly impressed by me in the beginning. So I was very eager to make an impression when I was a young, dumb kid, and he took me to a Spurs match. And I remember at first being like, "Okay," like, "I'm here to support the family, but I don't really care." And then you cheer, and then you sing, and then you win, and everybody's hugging, and you're going crazy, and all the neurochemistry for bonding is happening. And then they take you again the next year, and then you watch it on TV, and you go again, and it just starts becoming this thing. That is how you develop a passion. There's-- It starts with, "Oh, this is interesting. I have an agenda. I engage with it." It turns into a fascination. There's other neurochemical rewards. Now, for a, a typical passion, I will say there's part of what makes passion interesting to me is the acquisition of a usable skill set. So when I'm talking about a passion, I don't mean a, a more passive passion like a sports obsession. But even that, like when I think about that, it's the more you understand the game, the deeper your passion is gonna be for it. So even there, there's an element of that. But like, let's say music. The better you get at music, the more passionate you're gonna become. You've worked really hard for this set of skills, and that set of skills allows you to manipulate people's neurochemistry by playing these songs, and that makes you feel good about yourself. And so the better you get at it, the more passionate you are about it. And I think it, it becomes hard to develop a robust passion if you suck at something. Now, you're gonna suck in the beginning, but that's like the sort of fascination phase. It really becomes a passion when you start getting great.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:03 So if someone doesn't feel a passion towards something, they're like, "Yeah, I get all that, but I don't have passion. I don't have something that I'm that..." Interested about. What do you do then?

Tom Bilyeu 12:13 So some of this comes down to we're all very different. So some people are gonna take to passion easier than others. Some people are gonna struggle with it, and they're gonna have to stay longer with this sort of habit formation element of it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:25 Is, is it a skill you can train?

Tom Bilyeu 12:27 It is, yeah, definitively. So humans are the ultimate adaptation machine. Everything, including whether you store white fat or brown fat, is a skill that you can acquire. Hear about the woman that swam the Bering Strait in, uh, a wetsuit? So crazy. She's like, "I wanna swim the Bering Strait," which is the space between Russia and Alaska.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:46 How far is that?

Tom Bilyeu 12:47 Far en- it could be a bathtub. That shit is so cold.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:51 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 12:51 Like, the fact that... I, I don't know. It isn't, admittedly, it's not like-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:54 It's far, it's a long way and it's cold.

Tom Bilyeu 12:55 Yeah, it's not like 1,000 miles, but I'm gonna guess it's 20 miles? I mean, it's something.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:01 It's a significant swim-

Tom Bilyeu 13:02 It is-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:02 ... in the freezing cold

Tom Bilyeu 13:03 ... it is a significant swim in a swimming pool, let alone in the freezing cold. So this woman, for a year, she sleeps in Alaska with the window open. You can imagine Alaskan winters, that's cold. So she ends up transforming some percentage of her fat from normal adipose tissue to the far more thermogenic brown fat and is able to swim and not die of hypothermia. So the, that's but one extraordinary example of the ways that humans can change. So when you understand that, okay, this is a game of adaptation, of directed adaptation, I'm going to pick this thing that I'm aiming at and I wanna get good at that, what is that thing? Maybe that thing is learning to desire. Maybe that thing is courage. Maybe that thing is playing the piano. All of these things are things that you can get better at. Grit is probably my favorite thing that people think of as, "Well, you're just sort of born with it. You either have it or you don't." No, even that can be developed. Meditation being one of the most extraordinarily simple ways to get better at being able to stay focused on something over and over and over, which is a key component to grit. So it's all learnable. That's the, the punchline there.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:12 This is one thing I really wanted to explore with you today, Tom, is this idea that a lot of these skills, um... well, a lot of these behavioral patterns that we think are, you know, they're innate. We've either got them or we don't.

Tom Bilyeu 14:27 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 14:27 You passionately believe that you can train these as skills, and I really wanna explore that because, um, why are you so convinced that we can train these things as skills? Where does that come from? And what are the ways, you mentioned with passion, but with other things. I mean, you, you have spoken before about your value systems, which I find incredibly fascinating and almost to the point that, you know, I don't know what you would say. Is it, is it possible to live your best life? You know, it's a very, very broad, generic term. Is it possible to actually, you know, do what you want out of your life, get what you want out of your life without clearly defined values?

Tom Bilyeu 15:08 No. So I think that one of the biggest, uh, mistakes that people make is they mistake their value system, their belief system, for objective truth, when in reality it is things that you have assumed through osmosis from your family, your friends, the greater culture around you. And once you recognize it as the construction, that we were talking about before, you can't unsee that, and you begin, like the, the easy example is to think about people that grew up in other cultures from you. They just see the world differently, and you look at them and think, "They're crazy," religion being the easiest one. But you grow up somewhere else in the world, and you just have a different default religion, and that different default religion gives you a whole lot of different base assumptions about life and, um, what it means to, uh, serve a higher power or just the way that it gives you a very different basic framework for right and wrong. And I mean, it's, it is really pretty extraordinary to me that humans, simply because they grew up in a different place, would go to war over a different fictional story and kill each other and die in the name of that story. But we do take those beliefs on. We do take those values of that culture on, like, to the core of our being, to, to the life and death point. So, or let's take a silly example. In America, like, 20 years ago, soccer just seemed stupid. It was something that kids did, and you didn't get many adults that pursued soccer. Whereas if you grew up in England, man, holy hell. So it's in those different cultures, your dad is cheering you on. He's got you a, you know, a kit when you're a little kid and, like, you just wear it as a default and you wanna connect with Dad. So you have the kit, and then you go to school and they have kits and it's like the neighborhood you grew up in, ah, like all who you support, right? So it becomes like a whole thing. Humans are so... Like, we are designed to sulk- soak in whatever environment we happen to be born into because not just, like, locationally, but, like, what's going on. Is food scarce? Is this a time of hardship, a time of plenty? And so making sure that we adapt to that. We don't come preprogrammed with as much as, say, a horse, right? A horse is walking day one. Like, it is crazy how long humans have to develop. We have a part of our brain, which [laughs] I'm telling a doctor here, but the prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing till you're 25. That's crazy. It's not made of different material. It's not like that material's harder to make. It forms last so that it puts sort of that capstone after you've taken in all of the information about your surroundings, figured out the culture that you're in, and then it sort of solidifies and cements. And the part of your brain that gives you the control and all of that comes after you've got your beliefs and your values and all those things settled into place. So when I think about the, like, almost certainly, you ready for the bombshell?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:09 Yeah.

Tom Bilyeu 18:09 Almost certainly, to answer the, the, the dark side of your question- We're probably complete automatons with absolutely no free will. That's almost certainly true. But if you act like that, your life is gonna be miserable. And so I just, I can't fathom a universe in which it makes sense to use volition, if you have any, to frame the world like that. It just doesn't make sense. So even if I am just simply pre-programmed to tell people that they can change their mindset and they can change their beliefs and values and all that, like it's, it has been so transformative in my own life to do that, to step back and go, oh, I was on a path that I was so unhappy [laughs] and I had, I had the world's most fixed mindset. So for anybody that hasn't read Carol Dweck's seminal book Mindset, fixed mindset is where you believe your talent and intelligence are fixed. You're just born with it, is the way it is. Growth mindset is your talent and your intelligence can be changed through deliberate practice. So I was headed down one path where I thought, eh, this is, I was just born with this, whatever this is, and my life was about putting myself in situations where I felt cool and smart and didn't believe I could get any cooler or smarter. And then when I finally realized, oh wait, that's actually a dumb way to frame the world, click, binary switch over to I choose to believe that I'm malleable, that I can get better, that I can get smarter, that I can learn something today that I didn't know how to do yesterday. And I went from... I mean, just to make this really gross for a second, I learned all of that in a dingy one-bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood with no furniture because I couldn't afford any, and we're now recording the podcast in my gigantic Beverly Hills mansion, right? A- and I'm saying that is a result of the mindset. That is not a result of me being better than somebody at something. That is a result of me figuring something out that I think not everybody can do, but anybody listening to this podcast, if they've made it this far, they meet what I call minimum requirements.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:11 I mean, that is an empowering story. What I'm getting from you, Tom, is this idea that change is available to us at any time.

Tom Bilyeu 20:19 Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:20 And you know, we, we explored this a little bit on, on my conversation on y- on your show about what does it take for us to change? Do we need adversity of a certain intensity to, you know, to ask ourselves to challenge our own belief system and, you know, make us change basically? And I guess this is, this is something I know you wrestle with. I wrestle with this all the time. I lie in bed thinking about this stuff, thinking, do you need fundamentally pain on one level to actually start the process of change? I don't think necessarily you do, but I think a lot of us unfortunately, that is what ends up happening. That certainly is for me. What was it for you? How did you go from changing from a fixed to a growth mindset? Because I've heard people say, you know, you've either got one or the other. You've either got your fixed m- mi- uh, mindset or you've got a growth mindset. And this fascinates me on an individual level. This fascinates me for patients that I see. Frankly, this fascinates me for my children, right? Two young kids under 10. I wanna learn from you about these different mindsets. If we are malleable, if we can adapt, if change is always available to us, then what are those things that we should be doing?

Tom Bilyeu 21:37 So here's the bad news about my story. It of course involves pain. So I didn't have to hit some crazy rock bottom, so I'm very grateful for that. So mine was a mixture of deep personal shame of feeling like I was talking a big game about being successful, but I was not doing anything to actually become successful, and my father-in-law certainly was lovingly calling me out on that, um, and made it clear that he didn't want me to marry his daughter because he didn't see me doing anything with my life. And his very pointed question was, "How do you plan to take care of my daughter?" And, uh, my response to him was, "I know what you see is a broke, out of work, undereducated kid, but I'm the most ambitious person you've ever met." And then the next day I laid in bed probably for four hours in the morning and had done that the day before and the day before and the day before and the day after and the day after and the day after. And it wasn't until finally I was like, man, I'm telling my wife I'm gonna... or my then fiancee, I'm gonna make it rich one day and I'm not doing anything to actually make good on that. And I've been saying this stuff for a very long time. I had been telling people I was gonna be rich probably since I was 11 or 12. And so I just thought, wow, I say this all the time, but I'm not doing anything. And the fact that my wife, then fiancee, is having to guilt me just to get out of bed, like that's a bad sign. So that begins a process. There was nothing binary unfortunately. It wasn't like some lightning rod moment where one day I have a fixed mindset, then I have a growth mindset. Like I'm, I'd started researching the brain by this point, and so I'm thinking like, yeah, man, like it is a little weird that I'm not doing anything. Like what do I know about the brain that would sort of explain this? And then as I begin learning about the brain and start coming across some of these ideas about brain plasticity and how much we can change and I start really buying into that, then I meet people that have... They wouldn't have called it a growth mindset. We didn't have that language back then. But they had a growth mindset and they believed that they could change. And so I was like, whoa, yeah, this thing that I believe, I'm actually seeing it here in reality. And so right then I got involved in being an entrepreneur. And being an entrepreneur is like if you want a growth mindset, put your house on a li- on the line and start a business. You'll get a growth mindset real fast because it's either that or you're gonna lose the business. 'Cause you just have to own, "I'm not good enough yet. I do not understand this. I'm too dumb to pull this off, so I really better get smart fast."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:08 So are many of us too comfortable then to develop a growth mindset? So if our lives are okay, if we have a roof over our head, if we can pay the bills, and you know, we're not, let's say, deeply fulfilled, but we're just going around living our life, we're waiting for the weekends, we get smashed on a Friday night, a Saturday night to sort of, you know, for, for a whole multitude of reasons, um, you know- You, you are making the case, I think, that you can just choose

Tom Bilyeu 24:41 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:41 To change

Tom Bilyeu 24:41 I j- I don't wanna make it sound too easy because it, it is not and the brutally difficult... It's deadly simple, but it is very difficult for most people. So the problem is far more insidious than, oh, it's just people are too comfortable, 'cause you have billionaires killing themselves. So we're dealing with now a mental health crisis, and so to really unpack the answer of change, you can't... You can talk about it without talking about the microbiome, but it would be a mistake. And so getting to really understand your physiology I hope is one of the things that I beat the drum so hard that people really begin to research the brain, they begin to research, um, mood disorders, they understand exercise, they understand diet. Because what ends up happening is your mood is so dysregulated, your belief system is so dysfunctional, and the psychological immune system is so strong that you get that biofilm around your belief system that becomes impenetrable, and no matter what you say to people, no matter what example you show to them, they just cannot shake themselves out of dysfunction. So what's happening is people have... They have created an identity without realizing that they've created an identity. So when you-- If you're going to recognize that your identity in and of itself is a construction, and then ask yourself, "Okay, well, what would be the ideal identity to construct?" The answer is to be that of the learner. If you have a fixed mindset and your identity is something that is anything other than being a learner, it, it is very fragile. So to use Nassim Taleb's language, you need to build an identity that is antifragile, because if you don't, when someone attacks you, what happens? You feel badly about yourself, right? It's very easy to get under somebody's skin because you've triggered their insecurities. When you trigger their insecurities, the psychological immune system kicks in and it says, "No, no, no, Rangan, you're not bad. They're bad. They're dumb. They don't know what they're talking about. They're an idiot. Only a fool would not be keto or not be a vegan," or whatever their identity is wrapped around. And so they go on the offensive and they never stop to think, hey, when... Like, I'll give everyone listening, lean in, I want you to hear this part. When somebody tries to hurt you, they will almost always start with something real. So they're going to come at you with the thing that they know you're most insecure about. And so why do people, when somebody, um, people are always like, "Oh, if they come after you for your looks it's because they've lost." No, they, they're coming after you for something they know will hurt you. So people are coming after you at a place where they are most likely to trigger you. The triggering is the psychological immune system which is beneficial because people with the highest levels of self-delusion also report the highest levels of happiness. So that's incredible, right? That's super powerful. I'm so grateful for the psychological immune system. I can only imagine the number of times it's saved me from spiraling into despair because I see myself a little too accurately. So I get its use, but if you flip your mentality and say, "My identity is not as a entrepreneur, it's not as a vegan, it's not as a doctor or a podcaster. My identity is that of the learner. That's it. The only thing that I value myself for is my willingness to admit when I'm wrong and to learn." Now, the, the secret power there is one, it's antifragile so the more you attack somebody for being stupid, if they're a learner, I, I am literally asking one question when somebody says I'm doing something wrong or I'm dumb, "What am I doing wrong? In what way am I dumb?" Because if you give me that piece of information, I grow more powerful. So I'm always looking at the hilarious secret about wanting people to criticize you is like the more you try to hurt me with something real, I have the chills, the more you try to hurt me with something real, the more powerful I'm gonna grow because I'm actually going to open myself up. Even though you're, you're saying it to hurt me, you are actively trying to tear me down, you're probably gonna hit me with something that I can learn from. And so what I always tell people is when people are chucking rocks at your head, think of them as actually being gold nuggets or bricks or whatever, and you can take that gold to the bank, you can take that brick and build a house. Like, however you wanna think of it, but you have to let it hit you. You can't deflect it and send it flying off in another direction. You've gotta take it. It's gonna sting a little, but then you're gonna have that material with which you can do something. And so if you build your identity around being the learner and you're constantly growing, over time you grow more powerful, but you have to lower the psychological immune system, or you can tweak it. Much like you can go in and edit a virus to deploy something in the human body, you can edit the psychological immune system to say, "The only thing you can protect me with is that I'm the learner."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:38 Love it. I mean, I love that. I love this idea of being antifragile.

Tom Bilyeu 29:42 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:42 What a-

Tom Bilyeu 29:43 That's Nassim Taleb for you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:44 Yeah, what a beautiful concept. What a powerful idea, particularly these days, right, where we're all getting offended at every little thing. We can't put anything out without getting offended by someone.

Tom Bilyeu 29:56 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 29:56 But what does that tell you? You know, a- as we discussed, Tom, I mean, I love... These days I'm in a really good place where I feel I can... Any, any friction in my life, anything that starts to bother me, for me that's an opportunity to learn. That's an opportunity. Why is that bothering me? Why is that triggering me? Is there an element of truth behind this or do I disagree? I don't think I'm as antifragile as I would like to be. In fact, I know I'm not because I'm, you know, I'm constantly trying to grow at this stuff. But it is even just that flipping mindset whereby instead of looking at who's posted the comment and looking them up and thinking-

Tom Bilyeu 30:32 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:32 ... what do they know, right? That sort of thing. It's like, hold on a minute. Is there an element of truth to this?

Tom Bilyeu 30:37 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:38 Why is this triggering me? And I think that then comes back to this idea that you said when we realize that these ideas that we have constructed ... are simply ju- they're just constructs we put in our mind, right? But if you have not realized that, that, that is what you said you'd not realized.

Tom Bilyeu 30:55 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 30:55 So how do you help people? Is it possible to help people who have not yet realized or who, who don't accept that what is in their mind is a construct? That accept this is the way I am, this is my personality, I cannot change that.

Tom Bilyeu 31:15 So here's the very distressing and painful realization I've come to. It's probably possible. It does not violate the laws of physics, so there is some, like, magical answer that you get to, and as a doctor, you well know it's gonna be different for every person, so now it, it doesn't scale. And since I'm obsessed with scale, I just had to let go. If somebody's not already there, if they're not willing to go, "Okay, I buy that premise, and now I just need, like, the different paths and the ways that I go about this, but, like, the central premise I buy," um, I just don't put energy there. I actually find that very distressing, and my initial inclination, because a lot of this, of course, is born from there are people that I love that don't have a growth mindset. And so it started with, "Oh, I just wanna help that person," and then you realize, wow, man, I've been at this for decades, and I've made no progress. So this is certainly a function of me. I'm not good enough to make that breakthrough. So I can keep going and try to optimize my everything for that one person, or I can say, "You know what? When they're, when, when they have sort of terraformed their own mind to the point where they're receptive to this, I will be here. Um, but until then, I'm gonna go over here and just say, 'All right. Look, here's a, a base assumption that I have. If you agree with that and you wanna understand, like, where I'm coming from and how to use these tools and tactics, like, then I'm here.' But otherwise," there's a guy named Geoffrey Canada who introduced me to this concept, and I really wanna get him on my show because I think I'm quoting him accurately, but I responded so strongly, and I probably encountered this idea almost 15 years ago now. And he, um, grew up in Harlem and said, "I'm gonna go get a degree, and I'm gonna change the education system," and he ends up getting a full ride, I think, to Harvard, and goes back into the school system and realizes, whoa, you can't change it, and gets very influential in starting up his own education system and realizes that you can't save the adults. And so he said you have to give up on the adults and focus on women who are pregnant or may become pregnant, and all you need to do is get them to read to their children. Because it's the number of positive words people hear by the age of five that, like, he considered the single most predictive thing of their future success, which is exactly why he said your zip code is so predictive of your future success 'cause it basically says how many words, positive words you're gonna hear by the age of five. And I was like, fuck, that's crazy. But when you think about the language centers of your brain and, like, what that impacts in terms of future ability to communicate and get a good job and, oh, man, it's just crazy. So anyway, that whole concept of give up on adults, focus on kids, gave me the language to understand, give up on people for whom it would... It's not that it's an impossible task. It's that it is so hard it doesn't scale. Go where it's easy. And if you're talking about education, easy is young. And so when I think about mindset, I, the easy is people who already embrace the notion of a growth mindset. They may not have built one yet, but they believe in it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:26 So how do you build one?

Tom Bilyeu 34:28 So that's easy. Like, once we get to the part where, okay, now you're prepared, you just have to understand the confluence of things that make up your frame of reference. You can think of it sort of as a mini personality. So your frame of reference is going to be dictated by your beliefs, your values, your identity, your habits, your routines, basically all the things that fall into the default network of the brain, anything that you do automatically. So when you get a grasp on those things and realize that all of them are malleable, like beliefs people often mistake for objective truth, and it simply isn't true. Like, when you think about the fact that your brain is doing its best to create a virtual environment for you, that is in no way, shape, or form meant to objectively represent reality. Like, just think of the narrow band of the light spectrum that we see, the narrow band of frequencies that we hear. Like, it's really small, and our brain has just gone, "Eh, these are the ones that matter to us." But if you did the same to a bat, it would crash and die. So it's like it's different for every species. Every species took a different umwelt, if you will, strategy, and said, "Okay, here are the things that I care about. Here are the things that I care about to optimize my environment." I think that the byproduct of the nature of the human animal is what you see, which is a deep propensity for, um, self-loathing, which you, you don't accidentally escape that. I think that it takes a lot of work for people to become something that they're proud of, to contribute meaningfully to the group. I think that we have so many mechanisms designed to keep us alive. Don't resent the negative voice in your head that is saying bad things about you. That was so important at a time where if you were ostracized, let's say you were a sailor, and they left you on an island because you couldn't tell that you were pissing people off or that they didn't like you. Like, that was some real life or death stuff. So all of these mechanisms served a purpose. We just have to now also be grateful for our ability to be self-aware, to learn about the brain, to be recursive in our thinking and go, "Hey, does that belief serve me?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:36 Let's talk about a really tangible example. So we're talking about, um, beliefs that we have constructed. So a very common thing for people to have is negative self-talk, right? So, you know, I see it In friends, I see it, uh, in patients. You know, I- I'm, you know, I can't stick to any diet. Okay, um, this always happens to me, right? So there are universal truths, for sure, but are those statements universal truths? No, clearly not. So somebody who thinks, who is listening to this, who is, um ... He says, "Yeah, man, that's how I talk about myself. You know, I, I, I'm pretty hard on myself. I put myself down all the time, you know? I'm not the kind of person who exercises. You know, workouts, they're just not for me, you know? Oh, God, I'm the one who always gets passed up for that job promotion," right? Are these examples, in your view, of self-limiting beliefs that can be shifted?

Tom Bilyeu 37:41 Definitively, and-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:42 Definitively?

Tom Bilyeu 37:43 Yeah, yeah. So the-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:44 In every, in every case

Tom Bilyeu 37:45 ... 1,000%. Those particular examples, 1,000%. So my thing, a rule that I live by and a rule that I aggressively try to give anybody that will take it, is only do and believe that which moves you towards your goals. So if you want to feel badly about yourself, then telling yourself, "Yeah, I always get passed up for a promotion. The world is against me," like that, that is a dark place to live. Um, if you want to have the confidence that's needed, the lightness, the charm, like, then you've got to internalize that, oh, man, like, if you add value, you're gonna move forward in life. Like, this is all gonna work out. It's gonna be amazing. Like, the amount of almost delusional optimism you need to be a successful entrepreneur is hilarious. Because if you can't believe, you certainly can't get anybody else to believe. And so you've got to have this willingness to say things like that in your head. Like right now, my stated goal is to build the next Disney. Now, you can imagine the odds of me pulling that off border on zero, but I don't think like that. I can't allow myself to think like that. So it's like I have to say, okay, this is interesting enough to me, and what I'm, what I value myself for is the sincere pursuit. So I've completely divorced myself from the outcome. I don't care. Whether I do it or not is irrelevant. What I value myself for is, did I show up every day and actually go for it? Not rhetoric. Did I actually go for it? Was I constantly checking myself? Am I actually making progress? Am I doing the right things? Could this possibly lead me where I wanna go? And if it can, then I get to celebrate myself at the end of the day, and if it can't, I'm just BS-ing, and I'm just saying things to, like, say something cool and get people's attention, then I don't get to feel good about myself. So when you are able to go, oh, it wouldn't behoove me to sit here and focus on this is impossible. There's only one Disney for a reason. I'm never gonna be able to pull this off. Like, if you can recognize that if you tell yourself you can't win, you will act in accordance with that belief. Like, you will only push so hard, whereas if you believe, no, no, no, it's not going to be easy, but through deliberate practice, I can get so good. I can learn all the things that I need to learn. I can get the right people excited. I can get people motivated. I can make mistakes. I'm gonna make a lot of mistakes, but I'm gonna learn from those mistakes, and I'm the kind of guy that learns from mistakes. I'm not afraid to make mistakes. I just keep trying and trying and trying. And people like being around me 'cause I'm uplifting, I'm high energy, I'm a lot of fun, so I'm gonna be able to attract the right people. So when I meet somebody, I'm not thinking, he's never gonna like me. Like, you just ... There's enough going against you to not be fighting yourself with self-defeating, I'll even, I won't even say beliefs, just repeating self-defeating things. Repeating even negative things. You just, you have to get your... Understand the power of repetition. People do not understand the power of repetition. You repeat negative things, you're gonna believe negative things. You repeat positive things, at first it will sound like BS to you, but over time you'll actually be very comfortable with the idea.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:48 This is different, though, isn't it, from just saying the right things? 'Cause you shared that, you know, back in the day, I don't know, maybe in your 20s, you would say, oh, well, it started you're a lot younger, "I am going to be rich," okay? I'm gonna ... I don't know if you said, "I'm gonna be a success," but you were saying the right things, right? So you had that positive language.

Tom Bilyeu 41:09 Yep.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:09 Yet you were not doing anything to actually make that come true, right?

Tom Bilyeu 41:14 This is, this is not the secret. I'm not saying say positive things and everything changes. I'm just saying you remove one roadblock. Did you ever see The Secret?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:24 I have not yet.

Tom Bilyeu 41:25 So I'll, I'll give it to you super fast. So The Secret is half amazing and half absolute BS. The half that's amazing says you, if you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you can't. And that is true, dude. The, the, the way the mind works, man, if you believe it is possible, then you're the Roger Bannister effect.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:48 Yeah.

Tom Bilyeu 41:49 It stood for decades. People thought that the four-minute mile was humanly impossible, that the human body just couldn't do it. One guy was like, nope, it's not true. Ends up running the four-minute mile, okay? A, a barrier that stood for decades. He breaks the four-minute mile, and then within 45 days, I think, somebody else breaks the four-minute mile. It had stood for decades, and then within the year, three people break it in one race. So once you believe something is possible, all of a sudden it gets a lot easier.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:14 It's like the 100 meters. I remember as a kid th- this, there was this magical 10-second mark, right?

Tom Bilyeu 42:19 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:19 I don't know when it got broken, but now in most races, everyone's under 10 seconds.

Tom Bilyeu 42:24 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:24 Do you know what I mean? Everyone's like at various things. It's the same kind of thing. So beliefs are powerful. Um, but I think it's, it is important to clarify that point because it's not just about saying the right thing. So again, trying to bring it back to a listener who may be struggling with their weight-

Tom Bilyeu 42:40 Yep

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:40 ... and who has a bit of s- negative self-talk around that, that I, I just, I can't lose weight. I have tried. I've tried every diet.

Tom Bilyeu 42:47 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 42:47 You know, it's too hard. So they could hear this conversation and go, okay- I get what Tom's saying. I think I get what he's saying. I need to be positive. But you're not just saying you have to be positive, are you? You're saying something more difficult than that, or certainly something that requires a bit more work than that. So what is that that you are saying? Let's take that as an example. Somebody's trying to lose weight. They can't. They feel they've tried every diet. They feel they can't get a consistent pattern going in working out, et cetera, et cetera. So h- break it down for them. Is it several steps? How do they start changing their mindset in that particular situation?

Tom Bilyeu 43:29 Yeah. So when somebody is talking about weight loss, my first thing is always, you've got to love yourself where you are at. Now, that's not gonna be enough, and I'm not one of those people that's like, "Oh, just stare at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself you love yourself 10 times a day." It's not gonna work. But it really does have to come from a place of compassion. You're not gonna be able to whip yourself into great shape. Like, you, one, have to get very comfortable that you're worth making the change, otherwise you're not gonna stick with it, and then two, you have to get to the laws of physics. So does anyone think that if I put them in a prison cell for three years and I gave them no food, that they would walk out morbidly obese?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:15 No.

Tom Bilyeu 44:15 No, right? N- nobody thinks that. Now, they will think that's unreasonable. The person would die of malnutrition, which, depending on your level of obesity, is actually not true, and I think the longest water-only fast was something like 384 days. It was absurd. It was more than a year. So you can... Water only. I wanna be very clear about that. So no one... Like, if you really get down to brass tacks, everybody gets that no one is in a position where it would be impossible to lose weight. So then it becomes, okay, if we know that it's not impossible, then it becomes a question of, what are you willing to do? Then you have to ask, am I willing to do what it's going to take? And if you're not, that's fine. Like, it is an absolutely reasonable life to me to say, "I know what it would take to get in better shape, and I don't want to do it." Okay, cool. And but if you're gonna live that life, I have one recommendation. Live it fully. Really enjoy it. Say, "My life is gonna be a lot shorter than it would otherwise be." The one area where it gets tough is your level of inflammation is gonna be so high that it's just gonna be hard to enjoy your body, but let's say that you're able to get past that. Lean into it. Enjoy it. Relish it. I always tell people, the only thing that is heartbreaking... Eating a bowl of ice cream is not heartbreaking. Eating a bowl of ice cream every day is not heartbreaking. Eating a bowl of ice cream and being sad about it and being ashamed of it, that's sad. That's heartbreaking. So whatever path you choose, know that you're a worthy human being regardless of what path you choose. So now if it's like, "Well, I've tried the being out of shape path and, and I don't like that anymore, and I wanna go to the other path," okay, rad. Let's get excited about that. Like, let's go all in. Part of it is you can't just do it for health reasons. You've gotta understand there is a part in the human mind, I am absolutely convinced... I don't know that there's been any studies done on this, but dude, I have never once met a human being who didn't, when they lost the weight, didn't say, "Yeah, secretly I did not like being overweight, and I feel so much better about myself now." I think there's an innate part of the human brain that tracks how you look, how you feel, and how much effort you put into it. And when you put a lot of effort into creating a positive feedback loop, dude, something so magical and beautiful happens, and I'm just telling you, there's nothing more rad than getting strong and feeling good about your physique. There's nothing. And it is so petty, and that's why no one wants to talk about it, but that is the God's honest truth. Like, six pa- I-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:42 You were overweight, right?

Tom Bilyeu 46:43 I was 60 pounds heavier than I am now. I was a little chubby. That's, that is the right way to frame where I was at. Growing up, I thought of myself as completely normal, 'cause my family was morbidly obese. So even though I was slightly chubby, I didn't think I was chubby.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:56 Relative to them-

Tom Bilyeu 46:57 Correct

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:57 ... you were slim.

Tom Bilyeu 46:58 Relative to them, I was shredded.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:59 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 47:00 And then I met... So when I went to college, long story as to why, but I ended up losing, like, 25 or 30 pounds. So most people-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:08 Intentionally.

Tom Bilyeu 47:09 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:09 You were trying to do it.

Tom Bilyeu 47:10 Totally accidentally.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:11 Okay.

Tom Bilyeu 47:11 And like I said, long story about work and work ethic and a whole thing, but anyway, I end up losing a lot of weight and not having enough money. But when I bumped into a girl who I hadn't seen since high school, she was like, "Oh my God, I always thought of you as the chubby kid." And I was like, "Wait, what?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 47:30 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 47:30 I replayed my whole life like in The Sixth Sense, and I was like, "I was the chubby kid?" I had no idea. So anyway, I was slightly chubby growing up. Nothing crazy. By today's standards, not in the slightest. And then in my 20s, late 20s, early 30s, I was 60 pounds heavier than I am now. So when I got lean and had, like, just razor-sharp six-pack abs, dude, it's rad, and don't let anybody tell you that it's not rad. It is super rad. It is as cool as you think it's gonna be, but it's a lot of energy and effort. So I don't need people to do that, but whatever path you're gonna go down, go down with enthusiasm. So if they choose they're gonna go down that path, you have to start telling yourself a different story. Anybody can lose weight. They have to do the right things. There's a lot of individual variability, so I'm gonna have to experiment. I'm gonna have to stick with something. There are basic nutritional things you're just gonna have to get right, and I don't know that we'll agree on this, but if you gave me... In fact, I... Can I tell you a show that I actually want to do?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:27 Please do.

Tom Bilyeu 48:28 I wanna get a, an apartment complex with let's call it four units, but you can't leave the unit. It's the only catch. Once you're in... It's like Big Brother, but Big Brother for diet. And now I'm going to do different experiments in different quadrants, and we're gonna see how frustrated do people get, what's the diet like, are people irritable? We're gonna take blood levels. They cannot eat anything I don't give them. There's no sneaking chocolates. Nothing. I know exactly what you're eating.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:57 It's like prison.

Tom Bilyeu 48:59 It's like prison, but cheerful.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:00 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 49:01 It's Big Brother. So in my Big Brother experiment, if you and I get to dictate different diets, I'm gonna put my money in terms of rapid weight loss for the greatest number of people, I'll put it on keto with restricted calories. They will be the least frustrated and irritated, and they will lose the most fat, and muscle maintenance is the only thing that I have seen is a bit dicey.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:28 Is this what you think I'm gonna disagree with?

Tom Bilyeu 49:30 I wasn't sure where you fell on, like, what the optimal diet is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:32 No.

Tom Bilyeu 49:32 People are normally like, "Ah, you can't give everybody one diet." And admittedly, I'll say I'll ballpark it at 85% of people will respond perfectly to a keto diet. Blood levels, everything, cash money. 15%, maybe not so much.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 49:45 Hey, I, I don't necessarily disagree with you. I have seen... I've ne- I've never measured ketones in my patients. It's just not something I do, but when I have used particular strategies l- low on refined, uh, and processed carbs with certain patients, particularly those with metabolic issues like type two diabetes or high insulin, high fasting insulin levels and high blood pressure, yeah, I have seen, you, you g- absolutely get rapid weight loss. You get rapid reduction in inflammation.

Tom Bilyeu 50:12 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:12 So things like even joint pain that people think they've had for years, which actually they think was down to their weight, often, not always, but often the joint pain gets better.

Tom Bilyeu 50:22 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:22 Because actually suddenly it's not the weight that was causing the joint pain or it w- not the whole story, it was the inflammation in the body that was driving it.

Tom Bilyeu 50:30 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:30 I have seen this. I have also seen other diets work. So I guess-

Tom Bilyeu 50:34 Yeah, yeah, and that, that's why I'm saying it's not a one-size-fits-all. I'm just saying other people will get amazing results from other diets, but if you said you have to blanket, like, what's the, what's the one horse you would back? That would be the one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:47 Yeah. I'm not sure I'd necessarily say that's the one horse I would back, but I've seen incredible results.

Tom Bilyeu 50:51 One of us has an MD, okay?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:54 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 50:54 And one of us doesn't.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:55 Everyone's-

Tom Bilyeu 50:55 You, you've worked with 10,000 patients. I've worked with-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:57 Well [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 50:57 ... zero, so I... my money is still on you in this one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:00 No, but, but look, I'm, I'm... I've become relatively diet agnostic for the simple reason that I've gotta help the people who come in and see me, right? So if people have got a certain belief system around food, I still have to be able to help them.

Tom Bilyeu 51:14 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:14 I still have to be open-minded, and I think passionately that I should not put myself in a camp as a doctor. If I'm gonna be open-minded, if I'm gonna help everyone who comes in-

Tom Bilyeu 51:24 True

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:24 ... if someone who comes in and they want to be vegan, I wanna be able to help them. If someone comes in and they passionately have had good results on low carb and wanna stay low carb, I also wanna help them. So I wanna help people around their belief systems. Sure, I wanna do things that may ultimately challenge them and force them to actually change their belief systems. But, but you mentioned how do you get short-term weight loss? I think there are a million ways to get short-term weight loss, but if you do this experiment, right, where you have them not locked up, but you have them in their voluntary, uh, confinement of eating what Tom Bilyeu's gonna give them to eat, then what is the goal of doing that? Would that, would the goal of that be doing what gives someone short-term weight loss? Is the goal there to show someone what is possible, or is the goal... Should that be a goal, short-term weight loss? Is, is that a valid goal? And again, I have never really been overweight. I have not been obese.

Tom Bilyeu 52:19 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:19 I can only speculate what that feels like. I do not know. But do you think that that is a worthy goal when long-term can be a very, very different case from short-term?

Tom Bilyeu 52:32 I would only optimize for long-term in the fantasy land. If we're actually... 'Cause keep in mind, I'm building a studio, so if you're talking what would I do if it were an actual TV show, you have to manufacture some drama, so let's keep it 100% real over here.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:46 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 52:46 Uh, but in, like, just my real life, yeah, you wanna optimize for long-term for sure. But I think that there are some incredibly powerful things like a keto diet, like just cutting out carbs and sugar, where you will get a rapid reduction in weight loss. You're not gonna get, like, Biggest Loser numbers, but you're gonna get... Like, over the course of a year, you could easily drop 60 pounds, 70 pounds, depending on how heavy you are.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:09 We've also... You know, we, we both know and consider Rich to be a, a good friend of ours.

Tom Bilyeu 53:15 Rich Roll, baby.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:15 Rich Roll. And obviously Rich would take a different approach here, right? Rich has obviously, um, he's gone vegan, and-

Tom Bilyeu 53:24 But you can vegan keto.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:25 You can vegan keto, sure, but he's not done that, and of course he is a endurance athlete as well.

Tom Bilyeu 53:30 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:30 But he also speaks with a lot of people who resonate with his message and find that their health is improving, their weight is dropping.

Tom Bilyeu 53:37 All right, let's talk about this. Let's talk about this.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:38 Yeah, so I guess the point I'm trying to make is different things work for different people.

Tom Bilyeu 53:43 Yes. Now-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:44 You agree with that anyway

Tom Bilyeu 53:45 ... aggressively, and let's get real specific. I know I'm totally derailing and this is your interview, and now I'm just-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:49 Hey, man

Tom Bilyeu 53:50 ... coming in here like a monocle-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:51 I don't mind where these things go

Tom Bilyeu 53:52 ... mystic.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:52 That's the fun thing for me.

Tom Bilyeu 53:54 This really bothers me. We have a kid here. He's from Vietnam, born and raised. As Vietnamese as you're ever gonna see a person. This kid can eat rice like it's going out of style, and his blood sugar, normal. His HA1C level's normal. Dude, if I... I once watched him cane an entire, like, box of blackberries, and his HA1C levels are, meh, normal. Like, if I ate like that, I would be in a diabetic coma. It is so crazy. I'm... You're gonna think I'm joking. I'm not joking.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:23 No, no, I, I believe you.

Tom Bilyeu 54:24 If I eat white rice, I can see it. I can see it. I'm talking like a quarter cup. I can see it in my love handles, dude. It is insanity. When I eat carbohydrates, the... I could eat from his bowl.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:37 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 54:38 The same white rice, and dude, you hear me getting fatter. It's bananas. So and then my wife, we can... My wife is ha- not quite half my size, so I'm like, what, buck 75-ish. She's like 95 pounds. We can go calorie for calorie, okay? Cal- calorie for calorie. She will get hot at night. I will not. She will sweat through the bedsheets. I will not. She won't put on fat. I will. So There is no question. Dude, food is a signaling molecule. It tells your body to do things. It is not the second law of thermodynamics, which every- it doesn't violate the, the second law of thermodynamics, obviously, but it tells your body to do certain things, and your body can decide to burn off the calories. It can decide to lower your metabolic rate and store the calories. So your body gets to decide what it wants to do with the energy, whether it gets rid of it or keeps it. I've never understood that whole fucking argument. So it, it is so different for different people. And like the vegan thing, I've never done the experiment. That is a very fair statement to make, but when I increase my vegetable intake, I certainly don't feel better, and if anything, anecdotally I start to feel a little less. Whereas if I start going towards a, um, carnivore diet, I feel better and better, baby. So it is, it is so variable it makes me angry, but I think that there are some bordering on universals. Nobody, nobody gets better blood levels on a Twinkie diet. Zero people.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:14 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 56:14 Exactly zero people.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:15 Agrees.

Tom Bilyeu 56:15 So there-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:16 And Twinkies, for people listening in the UK, are?

Tom Bilyeu 56:19 Oh my God, that's right. Uh, what do you guys have?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:21 [laughs] W- what I hear this term-

Tom Bilyeu 56:23 I don't use snacks

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:23 ... I have, I have Mark Hyman said it talks about Twinkies before. I mean, what is a Twinkie?

Tom Bilyeu 56:27 So a Twinkie is a yellow sponge cake made of almost entirely sugar, loosely held together by flour, and injected with a cream that is even more sugar. So it is just like sugar on sugar on sugar.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:41 So it's a highly processed-

Tom Bilyeu 56:43 Yes. And there was, there was a guy who did-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:44 ... food-like substance?

Tom Bilyeu 56:46 Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:46 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 56:46 A highly processed sugar, like, infested food-like substance. There was a guy that did the Twinkie diet and he wanted to prove, dude, this is all the second law of ther- thermodynamics. If you keep your calories low enough, you can eat Twinkies and you're gonna get lean, and that is absolutely correct. If you take your calories low enough, you can eat anything you want-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:06 Yeah

Tom Bilyeu 57:06 ... and you're gonna get leaner and leaner and leaner. But you are quite literally, your cells are made of the things that you eat.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:12 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 57:13 So if you believe that, if you recognize that your cells turn over, what? Every single cell turns over in seven years. So if all you eat for seven years is Twinkies, one, you're dead long before that. But even if you could make it-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:25 And that's why I'm not a huge fan of weight loss as a goal necessarily in and of itself. And ag- again, I fully appreciate I've never carried excess weight before, so I don't know what that feels like, but it's, for me, it's about health. It's so much more than just simply weight loss.

Tom Bilyeu 57:40 You and I are aggressively on the same page.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:42 Tom, I'm gonna ask you this. You mentioned that this friend of yours who can eat 85%-

Tom Bilyeu 57:49 Oh, Will?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:50 Will.

Tom Bilyeu 57:50 My teammate?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:51 Your, Will, your teammate.

Tom Bilyeu 57:52 Will Vu. Are you listening, Will?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:53 [laughs] Okay.

Tom Bilyeu 57:53 You rice-indulging-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:56 So [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 57:56 ... eat-whatever-you-want...

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:57 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 57:58 Yes, that's Will.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 57:59 So the fact that you mentioned that you can have a little bit from Will's bowl-

Tom Bilyeu 58:04 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:04 ... and you will put on weights. The fact-

Tom Bilyeu 58:06 I've actually gotten fatter just talking about this right now.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:08 [laughs] I can-

Tom Bilyeu 58:08 I can feel it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:09 And the fact that you said that for 85% of people, a keto diet is the way to lose short-term weight-

Tom Bilyeu 58:15 Correct

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:16 ... is that a belief system or is that an absolute truth?

Tom Bilyeu 58:21 I won't know until I test it, and dude, when I say I'm open to being wrong, I do not need to be right about this.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:26 Yeah.

Tom Bilyeu 58:26 I just want the truth.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:28 Yeah. [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 58:28 I wanna know, like, what i- what is the thing that I think would impact the largest swath of humanity based on my nowhere near N of 1, this N of, in real life that I've met, N of 35? The thing that I've seen impact people the most dramatically is keto. Every theory is autobiographical, so of course the keto diet was wildly useful for me. Nothing impact... I used to ice my wrist every night for 15 years. I had what I thought were permanent burn marks on the back of my wrist from having ice on them all the time, and because I just had such high levels of inflammation.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:06 So is, is your belief system now biased towards keto because of your personal experience?

Tom Bilyeu 59:11 Um, s- yes, of course, but-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:13 And that's not a criticism.

Tom Bilyeu 59:15 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:15 I have the same thing going on with me.

Tom Bilyeu 59:16 It can be criticism. I don't mind. But my thing is I have a strong conviction loosely held. So my identity-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:22 Now, this excites me.

Tom Bilyeu 59:23 Oh, dude, I wish I'd thought of that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:25 A strong conviction loosely held.

Tom Bilyeu 59:27 Correct.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:27 Now, that sounds to me like an absolute truth or something that I w- would like to live my life by.

Tom Bilyeu 59:33 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:33 So please expand.

Tom Bilyeu 59:34 So I don't remember where I heard this. It's a very famous, at least here in the States, phrase. So to believe something, I mean, you've experienced it. Like, you, you know it's real, but at the same time, you've been wrong before [laughs] . So it's like always keeping your mind open. I'm trying to optimize, right? I'm trying m- ... If you ask me what the point of life is, it is every human has an just insane amount of potential, and the point of life is to turn that potential into skills. The only way to do that is to go, "Oh, I'm not optimized yet. I'm not good enough yet," with- without damaging your self-esteem. Me saying that, I'm proud of myself for being willing to say that. So, hey, the things that I believe have gotten me this far, they're not gonna get me any farther. So I always wanna know, where am I wrong? I'm wrong about a lot of things, and I'm blind to most of what I'm wrong about. So I believe things. I'm not gonna be paralyzed. I'm not gonna pretend that I don't have things that have worked very, very well for me. But just like Newtonian physics is useful but not entirely true, and quantum physics is useful but not entirely true, so it's like you just have to keep being open to where you're wrong, keep finessing it. So, yes, I believe that keto's insanely powerful. If somebody came tomorrow and said, "Actually, let me show you how it's killing everybody who tries it," I'd be like, "Oh, okay. Cool," and I would just move on to the next. My handle does not have keto in the title. Like, you recognize-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:52 So it's not become your identity?

Tom Bilyeu 1:00:54 Definitively not.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:00:55 Yeah.

Tom Bilyeu 1:00:55 I don't care how people get there. Will- I love him to death. I'm watching the way he eats. I'm looking at his blood levels and going, "Okay, well, it's obviously working." I'm not gonna go, "His blood levels are wrong. They're doing it wrong. Nope, you can't... Will, you can't eat rice." That would be stupid. So looking at it, it seems like, well, he's come from a rice-bearing culture. So it would make sense that the people would be optimized over how many millennia to be able to process-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:19 Exactly

Tom Bilyeu 1:01:19 ... rice well.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:20 In a particular environment as well, and I think-

Tom Bilyeu 1:01:22 Interesting

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:22 ... this is the piece that often gets missed in, in this whole picture on diet as well. So we look at different cultures, and we look at their diets. I do this as well. And I look at the Okinawans, for example-

Tom Bilyeu 1:01:34 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:34 ... who are eating 80% carbs, and, uh, they're put... You know, and they're not putting on weight, and they don't have insulin resistance, and by and large, they don't have high rates of type 2 diabetes.

Tom Bilyeu 1:01:44 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:44 Right? Yet, they're eating 80% carbs. Therefore, if we say carbs are the problem and they are the cause of obesity, it simply cannot be true on one level when we look at this population.

Tom Bilyeu 1:01:58 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:58 For something to be an absolute truth, it has to be consistent in every single situation. Agreed?

Tom Bilyeu 1:02:03 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:03 So-

Tom Bilyeu 1:02:03 I'll give you one absolute truth on diet, and let me see if you agree with this. Your microbiome, whatever it is designed... Designed is the wrong word. Whatever it is optimized to metabolize will determine how what you eat impacts you. You gonna give me that?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:21 Absolutely.

Tom Bilyeu 1:02:22 All right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:23 And I actually think... Well, I'm gonna circle back to this because just to finish the point about the, the Okinawans, their diet works for them, A, from, you know, how they have evolved. B, from the environment in which they are currently in. So they live in a low-stress environment.

Tom Bilyeu 1:02:42 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:42 They have adequate amounts of sleep every night. They don't eat meals in a rush. They sit together and have communal mealtimes. They have a strong sense of community. Their diet is minimally processed and is seasonal. When we look at them, we cannot take the diet of 80% carbs in isolation. We have to look at the whole picture around it. So I have speculated in my first book, could it be that the low-carb diet, which I agree works super, super well with many, many people, certainly, at le- definitively in the short term. In the long term, it's arguable with certain people, for sure, from what I have seen. I have used this with my patients. People have seen me. Five million people in the UK have seen me on television put type 2 diabetes into remission with a, what would be considered a low-carb diet.

Tom Bilyeu 1:03:31 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:31 But the fact that I refuse to put my identity about being a low-carb doctor is something, you know, a strong conviction, loosely held, right? I, I wanna be open to everything. I don't wanna get so caught up in my own identity and my own belief system that I can't see something else that is going on. It is true that many people experience amazing improvement on a carnivore diet, an all-meat diet. That is true. You see this being posted everywhere. People say their joint pain's gone. Their bloating is gone. Their indigestion is gone. Now, do we know what it does in the long term? I have not seen research yet that, that makes me feel that we are confident what happens in the long term, but I have seen this work. I have also seen a low-fat vegan diet that's done from minimally processed food work. And I have speculated in my first book, could it be that in the West, when we are a sleep-deprived culture, which dries out your blood sugar and makes you insulin resistant, we are a stressed-out culture, which dries out your blood glucose and makes you insulin resistant. We are physically inactive, so we're not just moving our bodies enough. We're not getting all the anti-inflammatory benefits of exercise. Could it be that in this culture, a low-carb diet seems to work so beautifully well for so many people? Could it be? I mean, are you open to that as a possibility?

Tom Bilyeu 1:04:44 Can I hate... I am, but can I hate you for it? Because you're almost certainly right that there's all these other variables that confound everything.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:52 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 1:04:52 It is so frustrating. [laughs] But yeah, for sure. I can totally see. One, I will say, no matter what, that's all wildly influential, whether it, um, negates things like culturally where you were raised or your, whether it trumps microbiome. Who knows? But yes, you're, you're touching on powerful variables.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:12 But I think it's all part of the picture, and I think you actually accept this, Tom, because you said, if you accept that you can lose weight... You know, you said a number of things, but you also said you're gonna have to accept that there are multiple ways to... That you're gonna have to go through a period of self-experimentation. That is exactly what you said, maybe not verbatim word for word.

Tom Bilyeu 1:05:29 No, 100%.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:30 But you said something like that, and I think that's the point. I think when we... You know, we look at, you know, these gurus, these diet gurus, and we think that that is everything. "I must follow this." I, I... The reason, when we had our conversation on your show, when you try and push me on, "Okay, so how many times a week?" Or, "What is the exact thing you should do?"

Tom Bilyeu 1:05:52 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:52 And I wasn't trying to be deliberat- deliberately sort of... I, I didn't wanna not answer your question, but I really truly believe in personalization. I truly believe that actually the, the route to long-term success, short-term and long-term success, is when you figure it out for yourself, is when you do something, not because I told you to do it, not because you heard Tom Bilyeu tell you to do it, but because you used something that you heard as inspiration. You tried it. You experimented, and you th- "Hey, actually, this is working for me."

Tom Bilyeu 1:06:22 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:22 Brilliant. Great. Then you've got that empowerment. Then you understand. That then makes you feel good. Then you get the identity change, and that is what I have seen work. That makes sense to me.

Tom Bilyeu 1:06:33 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:33 That feels clear to me, um, that that is what is possible. So on the carnivore diet, I do accept that people get great results. I happen to think, my view on this is that these changes are being, um, are, are basically happening through the microbiome. I think that many of us have got disrupted microbiomes these days. ... if, if not most of it. In fact, we know that all of us do to a certain degree-

Tom Bilyeu 1:07:00 Oh, sure

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:00 ... compared to modern hunter-gatherer tribes. We know that, right? So we've all got, uh, s- what we are currently considering with our current belief systems-

Tom Bilyeu 1:07:09 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:09 ... which again, could change, suboptimal microbiomes. And I think the thing that often drives suboptimal microbiomes, when you have a suboptimal microbiome, too many carbs for some people, especially too many of the wrong kinds of carbs, the highly processed, refined carbs, can cause problems. So therefore, I think when you go to a carnivore diet, I think initially at least what is happening is that you are, you're not driving those, uh, imbalances in your microbiome. I do not have proof of this. I, right? So I'm giving an opinion at the moment.

Tom Bilyeu 1:07:41 Sure.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:41 I wanna make that super, super clear. But I think about this a lot because I am not oblivious to what is happening on social media. I'm not oblivious to these reports. I'm not oblivious to patients telling me, "I've gone to an all meat diet and I feel fantastic," right? We're not getting into the environmental issues-

Tom Bilyeu 1:07:56 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:56 ... and all of that, so that is another rabbit hole that, you know, I'm not sure I wanna go down necessarily today.

Tom Bilyeu 1:08:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:02 Um, but I think just to be super clear on that, that is, that is certainly my view, um, which I actually happen to think is consistent with your view. Um, 'cause I think that whole thing about strong convictions, loosely held, if that is how you live your life, which I think it is from what I've seen of you on your YouTube channel, but even from spending time with you today, I think that is a great way to be. And it stops this whole identity culture where we become so defined by the way we eat. You know, that is everything about us. Um, and I, I actually think social media on one level has made it, has made it challenging, you know, you know, because you go on Instagram, people's handles, the, the... It's almost defined by one of the choices they've made.

Tom Bilyeu 1:08:44 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:08:45 And on the face of it, I don't think people think that this is a problem, and I don't think I did until we're having this conversation. As I think about it, I think could that be a sign? Do you see where I'm going here? Could that be a sign of something deeper? Could just the simple thing of, "Hey, I'm setting up my Instagram accounts. Oh, you know what? I love eating this way at the moment. I'm gonna call myself," you know, whatever, right? If language is important, and I think we both agree that language is important, if belief systems are important, then what does that do when your identity that you are putting out to the world now becomes defined by a particular way in which you eat? Do you think, Tom, that that can be problematic?

Tom Bilyeu 1:09:30 Wildly. I always tell people be, "Man, be so careful what username you pick." 'Cause people will do like Fat Man, Fat Man Lazy 101. It's like, yo, like y- that is not what you want to put your finger on and say, "That defines me. That's who I am." Or Born to Lose. I, I'm... These are legitimate-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:49 Yeah

Tom Bilyeu 1:09:49 ... things that people reach out to me with stuff like that, and I'm like, man, you just cannot reinforce that. Like every time, every time, every time you're on Instagram or Twitter or whatever, it's like reinforcing this negative view that you have of yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:02 And you, you've been speaking about repetition, right? What you repeat-

Tom Bilyeu 1:10:05 Mm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:06 ... you become. What do you repeat each day? And by doing that, what have you become?

Tom Bilyeu 1:10:11 You know, I, I don't wanna give you a BS answer. So I have a list of beliefs that I used to repeat. They've become so automatic now that I don't, but if anybody's interested, I actually put them up for free download on impacttheory.com. It's called the 25 Point Belief System. Um, so those are all the things. Human potential is nearly limitless. You can do anything you set your mind to. Um, doesn't matter who you are today, it matters who you wanna become, what price you're willing to pay to get there. The, there's a whole bunch of things like that, that were exactly what I had to start believing in order to change my life. Things that I repeat now, I can figure this out. That's probably the thing that I think the most often because I'm s- often so daunted by what I'm trying to build, that to stay playful and to enjoy it, I have to keep reminding myself I don't know how to do it yet. That's okay. The process is what this is all about. I'm committed to sincerely pursuing. I'm not worried about the outcome. I can figure this stuff out. And then getting excited about learning. Like I really, really love learning, and I don't love learning for an abstract reason. I love learning because skills let you do things, and the best example of that, I think, is architecture. Like when you learn architecture, you can build things like bridges that don't fall down when cars drive over them. I mean, that's pretty extraordinary.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:28 Yeah.

Tom Bilyeu 1:11:28 Or building a house that can keep somebody safe during an earthquake. It's like there's some pretty amazing things that humans can learn how to do. A- being an MD, [laughs] actually saving lives. So that is born of learning something that you at some point didn't know. You learn it, and then you're able to do things. So the glee that comes with learning for me is because I know I'm actually going to be able to do something I couldn't do 10 days ago or whatever.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:11:55 And what is this thing you're trying to build?

Tom Bilyeu 1:11:57 Disney, man. I'm trying... So my whole thing is I don't-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:00 Really?

Tom Bilyeu 1:12:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah. For real.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:01 Oh, wow.

Tom Bilyeu 1:12:01 I... Now, the question becomes why? Why am I building that? So I have chosen, 'cause I don't believe that anything is given to you or it's your divine right or mission from birth or anything, but my mission is to pull people out of the matrix at scale by giving them an empowering mindset through narrative. So I want to tell people stories for all ages, kids, adults, everywhere in between, that give them stories that are entertainment on the surface. Think of The Matrix, but if you take Morpheus's advice, your life will actually be better. Or Star Wars, if you take Yoda's advice, your life will actually be better. Um, Yoda led me to Daoism. Daoism really dictated a lot of my early life, which led me to understanding the brain and things that help me calm myself down and get out of my own way and learn how to deal with the shame and the negative voice and all of that stuff. Um, so I wanna give people stories that are, on one level, pure entertainment. They can just enjoy them, and it doesn't feel like they're being preached to. But on another level is actually giving them beliefs and values that can propel them forward. I'm way distressed by the fact that people, the number one predictor of your future success is your zip code, not your, not your IQ, which that would suck, but at least I could get behind that. But your zip code? So that's way too distressing for me. So I wanna create all forms of media that Change the course of people's lives

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:31 I'm blown away by that mission. I think it's incredible. I hope you get there for sure. Um, but I guess even if you don't, it doesn't matter because you'll be [laughs] doing something incredible-

Tom Bilyeu 1:13:39 I'm sincerely pursuing it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:39 ... along the way. And is this idea to be almost counter to Disney? Is that the drive?

Tom Bilyeu 1:13:46 It is definitely trying to be a force for good. I don't think of it as being pitted against Disney.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:52 No

Tom Bilyeu 1:13:52 So the way that I see it is Disney created the most magical place on Earth by telling one kind of story from a thousand different angles. They're the only studio that's had that kind of discipline. So my question is, if they can create the most magical place on Earth, can I create the most empowering place on Earth? And I mean, literally, I don't plan to build an actual Disneyland, but, um, I think that having consistency of storytelling, making sure the brand means something, only telling one kind of story, always around empowerment, hero's journey, um, that- that's the goal. And I think that there are archetypal stories. They are archetypes for a reason. They speak to something very primal and very deep within us, and I'm trying to tell those kinds of stories in a way that has context enough that somebody can extract the values just as we would from stories around the fire camp and ages of old that really begin to tell you the values and mores of the society that you're growing up in. And for me, it's all about personal responsibility. It's about the ability to change, to be courageous, to, you know, stand up and contribute, all that good stuff.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:14:55 Is that what Impact Theory's doing? Is that part of it?

Tom Bilyeu 1:14:58 100-- That is it. We see ourselves primarily on the friction- fiction side, and then what we do to drive awareness and market is the social side. So I, my belief is that if Disney were founded today, it would look like this. It would have social content, and it would have fiction content. You would start with the fiction, that's sort of the top of the funnel, and then you graduate to the nonfiction. So we get you with the ideas of, you know, an empowering mindset, growth mindset, personal responsibility, all of that, and then we graduate you to the speaking direct into a camera and saying, "Think like this, act like this, and it will give you the most fulfilling life and allow you to do extraordinary things for yourself and to help others," and all of that. And so that's sort of the- the way that we see people walking the path, but being honest about what my skill set was. You know, when I started all of this, it was like I'd had so much success in business that I knew I could go from nobody knowing who I was to building an audience off of largely that credibility that I had earned by building such a big company. And then once I had people's attention, I could begin to show them that there's something more here, um, around mindset about how I built the company, about what I had to do to my mind from going from a relatively bad employee to a hyper-successful entrepreneur. Um, and so-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:18 Wow

Tom Bilyeu 1:16:18 ... that's- that's- that's sort of the wrapping, but the- the message is just to give people that empowering mindset.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:25 I- I'm almost lost for words. I mean, that is such a fantastically inspiring mission. I wish you all the success possible in- in getting there. Um, as we start to wrap this thing up now, um, one of your values that I once heard that I found super fascinating was this rule. Sorry, not value. One of your rules. I don't know how many rules you do live your life by, but one rule I heard was this idea that basically when your alarm clock goes off-

Tom Bilyeu 1:16:56 Hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:57 ... you have to physically get out of bed, is it within 10 minutes?

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:01 Correct. 10 minutes or less.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:02 Do you still apply this rule in your life?

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:03 Every day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:04 Okay. Good, good.

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:04 It's the only thing I do every day. Not Saturday and Sunday, but even then, I'm pretty religious about it

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:09 So this is, so this is one of those things that you repeat day in, day out.

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:12 Oh, yes. This w-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:13 Right

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:13 ... when you said repeat, I thought you meant out loud in my own head.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:16 No, no, no, no.

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:16 Um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:17 I meant what are the practices-

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:18 What do I do daily?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:17:19 What do you do daily?

Tom Bilyeu 1:17:20 Oh, oh, oh. So I-- That one is- is the most religious. So I, because I am so-- I'd be really interested to be studied because I really do think that I have a harder time clearing whatever neurochemistry from sleep there is. I have a harder time clearing that out than most people. Um, so waking up for me is- is very painful. So I've had to create that rule, otherwise I lay in bed for three and four hours. I'm not joking or exaggerating. Um, so that's been really important. I meditate almost every day. I work out almost every day. Um, I eat clean almost every day, including the weekends. Um, so that is-- those are like the things that I do daily.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:04 But where did that come from?

Tom Bilyeu 1:18:05 And read. I learn every day.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:06 You learn... Ah, of course. It's a learner.

Tom Bilyeu 1:18:07 Especially on the weekends. Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:09 Yeah. I mean, I think that is very much under values and- and maybe- maybe next time you're on the show, we'll sort of go down that rabbit hole and explore that. But where does this come from, this, in particular, the one about getting up within 10 minutes of your alarm clock going off? I'd just love to dive into that.

Tom Bilyeu 1:18:24 Well, so I should've, I should've corrected you. I don't set an alarm clock. So it's, I get up 10 minutes after realizing I'm awake. So once I realize I'm awake, I immediately look at the clock. I see what time it is. I have 10 minutes to get out of bed. I try never to wake up to an alarm. So I prioritize sleep. I get as much sleep as I need. Um, and I go to bed early, so I go to bed at 9:00. My wife is out of town, so I might go to bed early tonight.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:48 [laughs]

Tom Bilyeu 1:18:48 Uh, but I go to bed at 9:00, and then I wake up when I wake up. Sometimes that's 3:00 AM, sometimes it's 7:00 AM. Depends on what's been going on and, uh, but I find being tired a unique form of misery. So anyway, once I realize I'm awake, the 10-minute clock starts. I get out of bed immediately and then, against your wishes, I-- well, that's not true. So usually I will meditate very first thing I do. I'll meditate for 15 to 25 minutes, and then I go straight to work. Or, yeah. Now, I used to work out after. I used to do this in a whole different order. I used to work out immediately, then meditate, then work. Now I meditate- Then I typically will start working and then go work out and that, in that elapsed time is usually about three hours before I go to the gym.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:37 Right.

Tom Bilyeu 1:19:37 But this is all happening so early in the morning, but-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:40 But ju- just to clarify, it's not that that's against my belief system at all actually. You have created an intentional life for yourself, right? You have gone through various processes. You have put in habits. You have done the self-experimentation.

Tom Bilyeu 1:19:52 You would not like the level of stress in my life, though, I'm gonna be really honest [laughs] .

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:55 Hey, I've got a high level of stress in my life, but I would argue that the things that you are doing on a daily basis are making you more resilient to that stress.

Tom Bilyeu 1:20:03 I'm gonna give you that.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:04 So therefore, stress is not necessarily about... The whole conversation about stress doesn't always have to be about I need to reduce the stressors in my life, 'cause for some people they simply can't.

Tom Bilyeu 1:20:15 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:15 You know? If you, if you can't afford to eat properly, if you're working two jobs, if you're on benefits, you don't feel, and I've worked in practices where this is the case with people, you know what? I'm realistic. That is stressful, right? That is real stress, right? It doesn't mean I can't help them be a little bit more resilient so they can tackle that stress a bit better and they can manage their life a bit better. That's what I'm passionate about. You know, whether you're living in a mansion in Beverly Hills or whether you're in inner city, uh, town in the UK and you're on benefits and you can't afford to properly eat, you know what? We've all got different stressors. It doesn't mean we can't become more resilient. So I would argue that you do daily things that make you more resilient. I also would argue that you have created an intentional life where you, as you say, you work out every day, right? So you are literally relieving stress from your body every day. If you're working out every day, that is more than what most people do, right? S- exercise is one of the best stress relievers. It doesn't matter to me that you are working maybe 15, 20 minutes after you wake up because you're meditating first and you are making sure that you have time later to put in the things that are gonna help you. So look, as I said on your show, it's all about personalization. You have gone through the process and now you can personalize the life for you and I find that inspiring and that's what I wish for every listener of this podcast. On that, to finish off, Tom, I'm gonna make it two questions rather than one question. And I know we're both tired because we've been talking for a long period of time.

Tom Bilyeu 1:21:46 [laughs] We're still here, man. We are ready to rock.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:49 Pen- penultimate question.

Tom Bilyeu 1:21:50 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:51 Right?

Tom Bilyeu 1:21:51 Good use. You don't hear that word enough.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:53 [laughs] You have interviewed over the past three, four years?

Tom Bilyeu 1:22:01 About four years, yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:02 Four years, you have interviewed some of the most influential and high performing people in the world. So in all those conversations, from the learnings from all those conversations, is there a consistent theme? Are there some common themes that you have learnt and would you be open to sharing them?

Tom Bilyeu 1:22:24 Yeah, of course. So the only one that I'll say is just absolutely universal, you have to take responsibility for yourself. That's the, the simple as. And that's why, man, it is so hard when you're talking like weight loss. It's like I wanna love people at the same time and then tell them, "It's on you, man. It is on you." There, like it might be harder for you. I get that. It's, it's gotta be the hardest for somebody, and that somebody might be you. I understand. I feel like I am... It is brutally hard for me to lose weight, brutally hard for me to gain muscle. Um, but man, you just cannot make excuses and I say that with like love-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:22:57 Yeah

Tom Bilyeu 1:22:58 ... shooting out of every pore that I have. But it's like it is the only path. It is a law of physics. You have to take responsibility. You have to take action. No one is coming to save you. No one is going to do it for you. Everyone that has ever achieved something extraordinary comes to grips with that realization and then gets to work. Period.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:19 I mean, that was powerful.

Tom Bilyeu 1:23:22 That, that is, that is the gospel truth.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:23 That is the one thing that has come through from pretty much everyone, I guess.

Tom Bilyeu 1:23:26 Not pretty much. Everyone. Everyone. I'm talking people that have been horribly victimized, people that have had it great. They all come to the same conclusion. I have to take responsibility for myself. That's it. Like I can control what I do. I can't control the outside world, but I can control what I do and if I really go hard, I can win, but I have to be open that I'm wrong, that I have to learn and just responsibility.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:23:53 And it's powerful that from all these people you've spoken to, that is the theme that keeps rising to the top for you.

Tom Bilyeu 1:23:58 Literally every interview I've ever done is a variation on that theme.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:01 Yeah. Wow. Well, that in many ways might negate the final question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway. This podcast is called Feel Better Live More.

Tom Bilyeu 1:24:10 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:24:10 When you feel better in yourself, you get more out of life. I've seen this over and over again. You have no doubt heard this over and over again. What I love to leave my listeners with at the end of conversations is simple, actually they don't have to be simple, some actionable tips, things that they can think about applying into their own life immediately to start improving the way that they feel. You have a lot of wisdom, Tom. You've got a lot of thoughts, but I wonder if you'd be open to condensing them right at the end and leave the listeners with some take home tips.

Tom Bilyeu 1:24:45 No question. There's only one thing that they need to do and that is develop a growth mindset. Everything stems off of that. Like when I interviewed Carol Dweck, the author of the book Mindset, I asked her if she meant it to be as foundational as it is. I don't know that there's anything below it. I don't know that there's anywhere to go below it. It's like that's where it starts. You either believe that your talent and intelligence are fixed traits or you believe that you can change them and get better. Once you believe you can get better, then it opens up a whole world to you, like personal responsibility. There's no personal responsibility if you can't change anything. So once you accept that you can change, then taking responsibility and getting to work, everything becomes possible. So it really does, as much as that's like airy, it's, that's where you must start. So Einstein said it another way. He said, "The most important question any, or the most important decision people must make is whether you live in a friendly or a hostile universe." Are things working for you or against you? Can you change or not? Like when you get those things down, and I don't mean, I hate it when people say the universe is working for me. I don't think that's what Einstein meant because I don't think anything is working for you and that's why I think you have to get to work. But I think that if you decide, 'cause he called it a decision, when you decide to see things framed in a positive way, then the world opens up to you. Get your mind right, everything else will follow.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:09 Tom, love those final two thoughts from you. Super helpful. Super helpful for me. Super helpful for the listeners. If people wanna catch up with you, where can they find you?

Tom Bilyeu 1:26:19 @TomBilyeu. I am super active socially. Um, the last name is spelled a little weird. It's B as in bravo, I-L-Y-E-U.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:29 Guys, check Tom out on social media. Let Tom know what you thought of the episode today, of his ideas. I'd highly recommend you check out his YouTube channel. Check out Impact Theory. It is brilliant. You will learn a lot. Tom, thank you for inviting me into your home. Thank you for agreeing to come on my podcast and I hope at some point in the future we get to repeat this.

Tom Bilyeu 1:26:47 Most definitely. Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:26:49 Thanks, man. [upbeat music] Press subscribe to get more inspiration and ideas on how to feel better so you can get more out of life. And if you have a moment, why not check out this conversation that I've picked out as a perfect follow-up? Remember, lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better, you live more.