Tom Bilyeu: How I Proved Everyone Wrong and Built a Billion-Dollar Brand | E62
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How did Tom’s early doubts and family reactions shape his drive?
If you want something, just go get better at it. You have to put a ton, an inhuman amount of discipline and energy into that thing.
Tom Bilyeu, co-founder of the billion-dollar company Quest Nutrition. You also started Impact Theory, a media company that helps others realize their full potential, build massive thought leadership. I mean, you have, what, 4 million YouTube subscribers, 500 million content views.
I'll tell you why I founded Quest. I didn't want to change behavior. I wanted to leverage it. You don't want to feel dumb. You don't want other people to see you fail. And because of that, you're never going to get better. Being a good person is not enough to build a good business. You have to understand you cannot guarantee the success. You can only guarantee the struggle. So make sure you're struggling at something that you care about. It is weird to me that people ask the question, oh, is it too late to enter the podcasting field, YouTube field, fill in the blank. And the answer that I gave when asked that question was.
Tom Bilyeu, co-founder of the billion-dollar company Quest Nutrition. FYI, my kids and their friends are huge fans, so I'm so excited, and they're gonna love this episode. You also started Impact Theory, a media company that helps others realize their full potential, build massive thought leadership. I mean, you have, what, 4 million YouTube subscribers, 500 million content views. It is incredible, massive impact. But Tom, will you take us back in time to Tom who was a teen? Maybe your mom kind of believed that you will not be as successful. Tom, take us there for a second.
Yeah, so the story they're referring to is when I left for college, my mom, who was always celebrating me, always encouraging me, but she quietly assumed I was going to fail, which I didn't find out till years later when I asked her, you essentially kicked me out of the nest. I was about to stay home. At one point, I was like, look, I don't think I should leave. And she recognized that that was just fear. And she basically kicked me out. She was like, you are going to go pursue your dreams. And... then has spent every day since then trying to get me to come back home. And so one day, it's probably 10 years ago now, I was finally like, mom, why work so hard to get me home? You kicked me out. I would have just stayed.
And she said, oh, I just always assumed you were going to fail. And I was like, whoa. So hearing that, it was very in keeping with how all the major people in my life had seen me. So my best friend said, oh yeah, I just assumed you were gonna marshmallow your way through life. And when I went to my now father-in-law and asked for his blessing to marry his daughter, he said, no. When I asked him why, he was like, look, I think you guys just come from very different backgrounds. And if I'm honest, I don't know that you can take care of my daughter. And I was like, wow, okay. So, hey, fair enough. And I said, look, I heard you. I get it. And I now looking back completely understand. But I said, I am going to propose to your daughter.
So please just don't tell her I'm going to propose. And he didn't. He did not say anything until after I'd proposed. But there was a lot of tears, a lot of drama because he tried to talk my, again, now wife of 22 years, talk her out of it and say, look, you guys are going too fast. I don't think this is the guy. And let me be very clear. My father-in-law has always been lovely to me, always. But he was honest. And I actually respect honesty tremendously. So yeah, when I was younger, nobody thought, oh, this is going to be the guy. But what I have found that I now call the only belief that matters is that if you believe that you can get better and you put the time and energy into getting better at something, you will get better.
And so I just spent the last, whatever, 30 years proving that that's true.
And to me, that is so strong because sometimes we look at people like you and we say, oh, it's all been easy. Their path to success has been all pink and roses.
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