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 Billiou, 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. All right, everybody, welcome to a Facebook live version of a relationship theory. Hi, I'm one of your host, Tom Billu. And I'm Lisa TheWife. Yes, so welcome, welcome. So we're gonna be taking your questions alive. We've gotten a lot of really great feedback

on relationship theory, which I'm really excited about. We have a lot of them doing it. So that's awesome. And it's our attempt to branch out, find out where people really want to see content from us. So yeah, we'll keep doing this as long as people are enjoying it. We are in the middle of a renovation right now on our house, what you can't see just on the other side of the camera, is total mayhem, plastic everywhere, dust, dirt. So if it looks a little foggy in here, I apologize. Yeah, you were just with the designer running around and setting up and... Yes, so also you may hear the wiki monster barking because we can't lock them as far away as we normally would. And you may hear the occasional polotape

from the couple remaining people that aren't on break right now. So bear with us. But she'll be like this for a few weeks. All right, without further ado, why don't we dive into some questions? Let's get started. So we're going to grab some questions from last week that we didn't get around to. So the first question was from YouTube, I'm from Sammy Arif. Arif, huge fan of you too. I just started dating the scale. I don't know how to articulate to her everything that I've learned from the past few episodes because my thoughts are scattered everywhere. So to keep things simple, can you please guide through the core values that I should communicate with her in order to figure out whether or not we both have growth mindsets. Consider me a young Tom who just met his Lisa, what are some things that you think of? That's amazing. So the first one is going to be, and it isn't so much identifying if you have a growth mindset, it's really identifying what the things are that are the building blocks of a growth mindset. And that really is to me the most important thing because if you're going to have a long, in fact, this really has to be answered two ways. When Lisa and I first met, it wasn't necessarily about establishing whether we had a growth mindset or not. It was about being aggressively who we were so that we weren't like the one game we didn't play. And this is interesting. I don't know if this is amazing, and we succeeded because of this, or if we succeeded in spite of this. But at the beginning of our relationship, we actually both thought it was gonna be temporary. And so she was here studying. I was only here for three months. It was an amazing teacher. Yeah, so very short period. My visa was only allowed to have a visa for three months for three months so you know my time was definitely limited. Yeah and what do you have like a month left on the clock? I had a month left on the clock yeah when you asked me out. So I literally thought to myself this is amazing she's legally obligated to give a background that you were in a relationship where the women went a little psychotic. I think that helps establish.

Yeah, I mean, yes. So at the time, I thought I'm never getting married. It's just way too much headache. I'm not a guy as you guys know, I'm introverted. So I'm not a guy that fears being alone. In fact, that's, I was always very comfortable on my own. So when we met, I thought, great, this is awesome. She's legally obligated to leave the country.

It's gonna be a fun fling and that'll be that. I don't have to worry about any long tail involvement. So I think that's what you didn't even bother to put on your ears and graces. It was like, this is who I am. Yeah. And also I was trying out a new strategy. So I had had no luck with women at all growing up.

I was utterly devoid of game and this is really pre-internet. So there was nowhere to go like look this stuff up. I think the book, the game had come out, but I'd never read it and never heard of it. So the pickup culture was, I didn't know anything about it. So I would literally write poems and bring flowers on the first day, which is crazy. It's bad, don't do that. It just does not set you up well. It does not.

It does not.

Desperation. really write poems and bring flowers on the first day, which is crazy. It's bad. Don't

do that. It just does not set you up well. It does not. Desperation. No question. But that's sad, right? Because women want men to be romantic. Women want confident, tough men to be romantic. Yeah. That's what I was like. There's that like fine line between and it's tough, right? Like the poor guys out, the guys out there, they're being romantic, they hear that that's what women want. And yet they show up and that's what they kind of get pushed aside for. So it's all about timing and strategy. Yes. And I don't, I want to get back to Sammy's question. So that was the setup. I realized that I needed to be playing a different game. And so I thought, you know what, I'm going to be me. I'm gonna to be exactly who I am, I'm going to be confident, I'm going to fill myself with confidence, that's very important. So you want to be faking it, you want to actually fill yourself confidence, which by the way is possible even when you're not a confident person. It's a chemical state. And so find the things that are triggers for you, whether it's a song, but get yourself into that confidence state. So I went into the date in a very confident place and just was super myself and said the things that I thought, and I thought, well, if I push away, it is what it is. I just thought, this is me. This is what I enjoy. These are the things that are fun for me. And so I was it from a place of passion and excitement. And I think that you picked up on that. And so yeah, I was aggressively myself. You were aggressively yourself. And I think both during the first day, both of us were like, whoa, like this person is very, very interesting. Yeah. It was the way you were acting. It was like, I'd never met a guy that was was like that honest before and I think that that really made a difference. Like so and look I fell in that trap. I was so used to putting on airs and graces on our first date that you know like so I'm a very picky eater. Push that aside you can't. This is amazing. You can't show that side of you, you know, don't show that you're picky. You know, like the typical women things like sip your drink, don't go up if you're starving, still pick it, it slowly don't go up. But yeah, like there's so many things that like on that first day you feel that pressure, right? Like all these things that you think you need to be your best at and with you because we didn't,

or at least I didn't think it was going to be a permanent thing, I thought, hey, this is going to be a fun fling that I get to, you know, tell my friends back in England about this hot American teacher that I, you know, had a summer romance with. And so I didn't really put on those airs and grays because I didn't think of it as long-term either.

And it's so the right thing to do, like going back, like I would have done that on every single day every time now, because the truth is if you're looking for that first date to turn into something, then they're going to find out the real you anyway. So why are you hiding it on your first date? Why are you hiding at the beginning of the relationship? So, you know, as an answer to this question, it's like, be just aggressively you, like in every way, shape and form. And if that person doesn't like, if that person doesn't respond to you, then that just means you found out early. All right. And so now for those really paying attention and Sam, we back to your question. So here are the two competing ideas you have to hold in your head if you really want to be successful. You need to be aggressively yourself and yet you need to understand the laws of attraction and they are there. And so I was very much being myself when I wrote poems and showed up with flowers. Like I wanted to make the girl feel good and that was important to me and I loved that. And if that had been a winning strategy, would have kept doing it it but the fact that it wasn't a winning strategy was not lost on me and I realized that I had to change but at the same time I didn't switch over into being somebody else I was framing myself in a different pattern of behavior and I think that's really important to understand so be yourself and yet be cognizant of what it takes to get somebody else attracted to. And this is where I lose a lot of people because I very much believe that you should deal with the world the way that it is, not the way that you wish it were. And I wish it were so that women were attracted to poetry and flowers off the jump, but they're not. And so abandoning that and filling myself up with confidence, focusing more on confidence, conveying that, projecting that, and then at the same time being myself, but you can be yourself in like this, head down, feet shuffling, like you're insecure about it way, or you can, the exact same traits, beliefs, all that, but presented in a way that's utterly confident, like take it or leave it, and not like a dick, like I know what people are hearing right now. Would you say that I was very warm

and welcoming on our date?

Yeah, I'm tripping. I wanted to know about her. I wanted to hear what she was about. If you want to seem interesting, be interested, right? So you want to be asking questions and really listening and really trying to get to know them and find out who they are. Then once you've created this space, And I always think about it with somebody new,

creating a safe space, right?

If you watch me interview, one of the, like,

a huge region of my book. And once you've created this space, and I always think about it with somebody new, creating a safe space, right?

If you watch me interview,

one of the, like, a huge region of my brain, from the moment they walk in the door at this house until we wrap the interview, is on making them feel safe. Making them understand that like, I wanna get to know who you are. And so if you tell me something, maybe you don't tell other people, you're telling me that because you know I'm not going to use it against you.

And that's a huge thing.

So those are three really critical things.

So fill yourself. So if you tell me something, maybe you don't tell other people, you're telling me that because you know I'm not going to use it against you.

And that's a huge thing.

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