You're listening to the Impact Theory Podcast, your source of empowering ideas and actionable techniques from the world's highest achievers.

Join host Tom Billio, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the billion dollar brand Quest Nutrition, on a journey to unlock your potential and realize your vision of success.

Welcome to Impact Theory.

Everybody, welcome to Impact Theory.

You were here, my friends, because you believe that human potential is nearly limitless, but you know that having potential is not the same as actually doing something with it.

So our goal with this show and company is to introduce you to the people and ideas that will help you actually execute on your dreams.

Today's guest is essentially the real life fresh prince of Bel Air, after being placed in special ed class, becoming very angry and rebellious, and finally narrowly escaping a fate that saw several of his friends shot and one of them killed, he asked his parents to send him away.

Without knowing where he'd end up, he found himself stepping off a plane in Pittsburgh and being welcomed in by a family friend who lived in one of the wealthiest public school districts in the country.

Now, the only black man in the entire school, he discovered that while the context was different, it was just as easy to find the drugs, gangs and destructive behavior that had sent him packing in the first place.

But, in this new context, with different expectations, the same behaviors had a very different result.

His new and old friends both acted the same, but his old friends were headed to jail and his new friends were headed to Yale.

The realization that merely changing the context could have such a dramatic impact on everything, he began to question everything.

What followed was a slowly unfolding parade of insights and self-reflection that would ultimately see him transform his entire life from an angry, hard-headed, self-identified dumb kid that people said was closed off,

including the founder of Love Mob and the self-proclaimed Chief Love Officer of Zone Company, which is designed from the ground up to spread love and connection.

Today, he didn't go to jail or Yale, but instead travels the globe building clean water wells, giving life-changing seminars, creating video content and touching lives wherever he goes.

He's also an author with Simon & Schuster and has written two books, Love Louder and Now or Never, co-authored by his wife Alexi Panos.

Help me in welcoming the CEO and founder of Motivational Messenger and the Bridge Method, the man that Jack Kenfield best-selling author of Chicken Soup for the Soul calls Unstoppable, Preston Smiles.

Thank you.

It's good to have you, man.

Indeed.

I was waiting for that.

I've seen so many of your videos and I'm like, if I don't get the woo woo, I'm gonna give it to you about seven times today.

...