Tom Bilyeu

So I, like you thought I was dumb and I was haunted by a movie called Amadeus.

And in Amadeus, there's a real life character, a guy named Solieri, who was a contemporary of Amadeus Mozart.

And, uh,

He lamented to God in the film, why did you make me just talented enough to realize I'll never be as good as Mozart?

And that was how I felt.

I always felt like I was like...

just smart enough to realize my friends were always going to be smarter than me and that they would go on to be successful because they were smart, but I wasn't smart like that.

And things like that didn't come easily to me.

And that lamentation carried me into my mid twenties and it was getting so dire.

And I felt so badly about myself and so hopeless that I

I started reading about the brain.

And I wish I could remember what the insight was that made me go, there might be an answer there.

Whatever it was, I started reading about the brain and came across this idea of brain plasticity.

Now, this is the late 90s.

So brain plasticity was still being debated.

Is it real?

Is it not real?

And I thought, oh, when I think of the world as if brain plasticity is real, then I get excited because that means I can get better.

When I think of brain plasticity as being something that ends when you're 12, then I get very, very sad.

And the neurochemical change in me was so profound and noticeable, I decided just to, even if it was a lie, I was going to believe that I could get better.