 I spent so much time worrying about failure. What happens? Oh my God, this, you know, I don't want the shit to hit the fans. So like everything I was doing was in the fear of what if everything goes wrong? And then I realized, oh my God, I'm focusing on the wrong thing. I'm so worried about failure that I'm not getting started. But instead of worrying about failure, just actually embrace that every successful person on the planet has failed at some point. So if you're going to fail, it means that you're actually trying something new. So failure can be beautiful. So instead of worrying about it, think of it like it's a signal to you that you care about your life, that you're trying something new. And then instead of focusing on that, now put the goggles on and just go, how do I clean up the mess when I do fail? And now your perspective, you're focused on something different. You're focused on moving forward and then just saying, OK, well, what can I learn from this? All right, here's the giveaway for today's episode, the Shredded Summer Bundle. What's in that? Maps Aesthetic, Maps Hit, Maps Prime, the Intuitive Nutrition Guide, all of those you can get for free, but you got to do this. Leave a comment below on the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode to help us with the YouTube algorithm. Subscribe to this channel, turn on notifications, do all those things. If we like your comment, we'll notify you in the comment section that you won that bundle for free. Now, everyone else, that bundle is 50% off right now. OK, so it's half off all month long, and we also have an individual workout program that's 50% off. So if you don't want to get a bundle of programs, you just want to try one, Maps Hit by itself is also 50% off. So you can get the Shredded Summer Bundle for 50% off or Maps Hit by itself. 50% off. But you got to go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code June 50 for that discount. All right, here comes the show. Lisa, good to see you again. Oh, my God, it's like great to be here. Before we get into what you talk about in your book, which I think is great. Why write this book? What was the impetus that made you want to write a book about confidence and radical confidence? So everyone would look at me and be like, oh, my God, Lisa, you're so confident. Where did you get your confidence from? And I was like, they can't be talking to me because if you heard how I talk to myself, if you heard how insecure I really feel, there's no way you would think that I'm confident. And I just got it more and more. So I pause and it's like, what are they seeing? And what I realized was they were just seeing someone that acts. They see someone that goes in front of the camera. They see someone that steps into, let's say, a boardroom where there's maybe 10 men and I'm the only female. They see me move forward. And so what I realized was, and that's why I called the book radical confidence, because to me it's not about feeling great about yourself. It's not about feeling like, you know, you have all the energy and that you feel confident to do something. To me, it's you just have to keep stepping forward. So if you don't have the confidence, bring your insecurities along with you, bring all the things that you're not good at, but come up with a plan. I read a quote recently. There was like a goal is just without a plan is just a dream. And so to me, if I'm insecure about doing something, I don't focus on, am I confident to do it? The first thing is, I said, what is the goal I'm trying to get to? So people say, I want confidence for what? I want confidence to step in front of the camera. I want confidence to go on stage. So the first thing is focus on the goal, come up with a plan on how you're going to get to the goal. And the confidence will come at the end. It's like the byproduct. And so for me, the radical confidence is exactly that. Moving forward, coming up with a plan, even when you're insecure, even when you're petrified, even when you don't believe in yourself. And then eventually the competence part will then eventually lead into confidence. So if this comes from an insecure place and you're admitting that, do you remember at what point in your life when you kind of made that shift, when you became aware of it and then started, I guess, turn it on its head and use it? Yeah, it was, I think it was little stepping stones. So the first thing was when we started Quest, I had been a stay at home wife for eight years. I was a good supportive wife. My husband and his business partners start this protein bar company. And so as the Greek traditional wife, I was like, babe, how can I support you? And so I was shipping bars off my living room floor one day, but I didn't expect Quest would grow at 57000 percent. And so in that growth, I went from shipping off my living room floor one day to then shipping from a garage the next day to then shipping from a facility, you know, a few months later. And in that growth, every day I was facing absolutely my inadequacies. I was facing things I had no idea what I was doing. And because I end that moment, I was like, our house was up for collateral. So every time I faced an obstacle that I didn't know what I was doing, I had to choice, save, figure it out and save your house or let your ego, you know, take over and don't try. Now, when your house is up for collateral, that becomes very real very quickly. So as I was facing all these things, the negative voice is like, you can't do that. You have no idea what you're doing, Lisa. I had to do it anyway. I had to figure it out. So from like a small as we were shipping bars and the UPS guy turns up and he's like, you know, you can ship out a lot more boxes if you put it on a pallet. And I was like, oh, thank you. He leaves and I'm like, what the hell is a pallet, right? So I run back to the to my computer. I type in Google, what is a pallet? And I see an image. I'm like, oh, yeah, I kind of know what those are. Where the hell do I get one from? OK, all right. So I guess I get it from there and I just figured it out. So the next day I put the boxes on the pallet, the UPI guest, guys turns up and he's like, oh, great job. I was like, thanks. But that's a very small example of in those moments where the insecurity comes in, the insecurity in my mindset, saying, Lisa, you're stupid. You have no idea what you're doing or who are you to run a shipping department in the business, you're a stay at home wife. Because I just kept moving forward and said, I have to figure it out. Otherwise, I will lose my house. That was the biggest pivotal moment for me to realize. Oh, I don't have to feel confident to get started. And when I was at home, this being the stay at home wife for eight years, supporting my husband, I thought I needed the confidence to speak up and say I wasn't happy. I thought I needed the confidence to speak up and say I wanted to make a change in my life. But it wasn't actually, it wasn't the confidence that actually broke me out of what I call the purgatory of the mundane, where my life was just mundane enough for eight years. I was just fine. I was living a life of fine. And so being pushed out of my comfort zone, realizing that, oh, I can actually feel completely insecure, completely inadequate, and I can still do it. And so that was like the pivotal moment where anything I approached now, even in writing this book, the first words out of my mouth were, who on earth would buy a book from me? So the insecurity is still there, but I just give myself the grace now to say, all right, Lisa, you may not know, but you are the person that can figure it out. And that identity of being the person that can figure it out has allowed me to keep moving forward in being able to get in front of the camera, start my own show, write a book. What movie was that that broke down the fine as an acronym? Have you ever heard that freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional? I don't remember them. Have you heard that before? Yeah, you just said that and it popped to my mind. You know, it's funny they say they say that about how to build confidence in children is to give them challenges that they can overcome and then some they don't overcome, but then they figure out how to work on whatever it is. That's not that's keeping them from getting that challenge done and then doing it. And then they build confidence over time through that. So essentially what you're saying is this feeling of confidence and you just can appear, you have to go out and do things that are hard. And that's what helps build the confidence. You saw that you felt that yourself going through this process. Yeah. And even an allergy I write in the book is like, you wouldn't go to the gym and want glutes of steel after one set of reps, right? You know, okay, you're going to have to do more. It has to be practice. It has to be consistent. It has to be reps. You have to put in the time and the practice and the repetition. It's like, that's exactly what confidence is. And so, you know, I joke. It's like confidence is like butts. You need to do more than just one rep to get results. Yeah. So, so the first step has got to be the hardest then. Yes. And so how do you talk to people about taking that first? Because I feel like that's terrifying for people because they're waiting for the feeling. They don't have it. And, you know, I've been in that position before. You literally feel frozen. You feel frozen with fear and you're worried about what if, what if I do this and how is it going to feel? How do people take that first step? I love this question because for me, I literally thought I had to feel great about myself. And it's like people saying, like, I just want to be happy. It's like, but what does that actually mean? Right? Your happiness and my happiness are two very different things. And so is confidence. Right. The way I feel confident may be very different to how you guys feel confidence. So where I start is asking the person, you want confidence in order to do what? I want confidence to tell my parents, I no longer want to study biochemistry. And now I want to be a stand up comedian. Right. I want confidence to tell my partner, I'm not happy in this relationship. I want confidence to ask my boss for a pay rise. All right. Amazing. Now you've got the end goal. Now that's what you need to focus on. So I'll give you a real time example. My goal was to create impact. Me and my husband, as you guys know, have created, you know, lots of content and that's what we do on a daily basis. And here I was saying no to going on stage. I was getting a lot of speaking gig offers and I was just saying no. And so Tom comes up to me and he's like, babe, you realize that you've said over here, your goal is impact. But over here, you're not actually acting in accordance because by getting on stage, it will help your goal. And so it's totally up to you. It's your life. You do what you like, but just so you know that right now your actions do not align with your goal. So I was like, OK, great, let me just take a second and actually assess that. Why am I not getting on stage? Because I'm so scared. Like you said, the anxiety, the fear, it is so crippling right now. And so what is that? That's the ego, right? The ego is saying, hey, don't get on stage. Don't mess up if you get on stage. You're going to embarrass yourself, Lisa. So the ego is just trying to protect me. All right. So now I've assessed that now with no judgment. I just need to ask myself, what's more important, my ego or my goals? Because that is the basis you have to decide. It becomes a decision. What is more important? Now, in that, I was like, well, my goals. OK, great. But to your point, how do you get started? Because there's one thing making a decision and then there's another thing of actually then acting. So I said, OK, my goal is impact. I'm not acting in accordance. OK, so this means I have to go on stage, but I'm so scared. How on earth do I get on stage? I have to come up with a plan because the voice in my head can absolutely take over and the voice in my head can convince me not to get on that stage. So I needed a game plan. And so I did it when I was emotionally sober, where my emotions weren't erratic, where I wasn't feeling the fear. I was just sitting down very, you know, even kill. And I was like, OK, what can I do to get on stage? Number one, I just have to say yes. How do I say yes? Great. I'm going to tell my team the very next speaking gig I ever get. Do not check with me. I need you to say yes. That way I can't bail. And so the first time it happened to be TEDx. And I was like, really? That was your first one. Yes. I was like, really, I know. But I had made a promise to myself and I told the team. So they had already said yes. So then they came to me saying, hey, Lisa, just so you know, you've got a TEDx talk. So I was like, OK, that's step one. Now, how did you feel real quick when you first heard that? Yeah. Can I swear on this podcast? Of course. Shit scared. So I then needed the game plan on how on earth I was going to get on stage. Because again, it's easy for someone to say, no, just be scared and do it anyway. But when you have crippling fear, that doesn't help. So I said, OK, what are the things that I know, the tools that I can use in order to encourage myself to get on stage? OK, number one, the power of music, right? Well, you guys, when you're in the gym, you're not think like when you put on like a song that really gets you, you can just do those extra reps that you thought you'd never be able to do. So the power of music, find your hype song. That's key number one. What is that song that you're going to keep playing? That's going to you can put in your ear and repeat over and over. Then, you know, kids, you guys have kids, right? So put a cape on a kid. What do they do? Oh, yeah. They're super cool. Immediately, right? The fist is in the air. They're jumping off a couch. The power of clothes. We don't use it as adults, but it's kids. Instinctually, we relate to something that we put on. We feel a certain way. So it's like, oh, I wonder if this works as an adult. What can I do in order to feel like I'm a superhero to take the pressure off it being so serious? So this necklace that I'm wearing, this Wonder Woman necklace. So I was like, OK, I know habits need to be created deliberately, right? You have to like, oh, sorry. To create a habit, it has to be deliberate. So how do I do that? All right, I'm going to buy this necklace that it's like Wonder Woman. And I'm going to, every time I put it on, I'm going to repeat to myself, I'm a badass like Wonder Woman. And I'm going to do it over and over and over and over again until that idea is now, you know, a dog when you like bring out the treats, they start salivating automatically. So I was like, that's how I want to feel about this necklace I'm putting on. So I'm going to create a habit that allows me to think about feeling like Wonder Woman when I put my necklace on. And so I just created these little tips and these little strategies. Someone told me, oh, if you public speak, Lisa, you're going to pee like a thousand times before you go on stage. And I was like, well, great. Now when I pee, I'm going to be nervous. You've implanted the idea in my head. So again, instead of judging myself for feeling nervous, I just said, what am I going to do to counteract this feeling if I'm going to get nervous? So I was like, I'm going to buy Supergirl underwear. And so I just bought Supergirl underwear. And so every time I went to pee, I had a little reminder that I was my own Supergirl. And so like these little subliminal things that I did, also 30 days reaching up to it, I was like, what's the empowering quote that I want to tell myself? And so it was, you got this with a little like muscle emoji. So I was well, I call you got this roulette. So I put it in my phone, I closed my eyes, I spun it, and I don't know when this alarm's going to go off. And I randomly do it every day for 30 days. And what it does is it just unexpectedly at seven in the morning when I'm having my morning coffee, it tells me I got it late at night. All of a sudden my alarm goes off, tells me I've got it. And so it just is like this little, I'm my own cheerleader. So it became this little cheerleader moment for me that was randomly going to be set off at any time in the day for the 30 days leading up to it. So that all these little tactics was exactly how before I got on stage, I had my necklace, I had my hairstyle because this is like the thing that makes me feel like a badass. I had like my knee high boots that I named bad bitch boots again. That was deliberate because I want when I was putting them on, I was like, how do I feel like I'm powerful every time I put on a piece of clothing? So I was like, oh, I'm going to call them my bad bitch boots. And so when I would zip them up, yeah, my bad bitch boots. And so you can imagine before I get on stage, guys, right? I've got my hair, I've got the song in my ear. I've got the Wonder Woman necklace. I've got my superhero underwear on. And I've got this random alarm that's going off. And so that really did allow me to go from utterly petrified that I just kept saying no to finally get on one stage. I feel so guilty now teasing Sal about a SpongeBob underwear pants. Yeah, I wear those to Noah. You know, you know, what's interesting about what you're saying is lots of performers and athletes have rituals. This is a part of what they do. And I don't know if they realize, I mean, you basically structured it and made it a part of your plan. Whereas people do it and they don't know why. You know, I got to wear these particular socks or every time I walk down the hallway, I can't talk to me. I say all the craziest rituals possible before a game because it's like you're trying to get in that zone. You're trying to find that flow state where it's like, you know, I'm super present right now and I'm powerful. Right. So it's like that whole you're your own hype, man. Nobody's going to want you to succeed more than yourself. Yes. Right. So yeah, I totally did. So let me ask you this. So you did all this before this totally petrified, scariest thing ever and, you know, for people watching, listening, it's like one of the number one fears is public speaking. Because it's number one fear for most people. So you get on stage. Did you go from petrified to not afraid at all or just not afraid enough to the point where you could get on stage? Like how much of a difference exactly? Yeah, literally, it just got me on stage. OK. So a big part of this also is so I have a chapter in my book called making negative the negative voice, your BFF, your bitch. Sorry, let me repeat that. Make the negative voice, your bitch and your BFF. And so the point of that chapter is really talking about the voice that's telling me I'm no good, the voice that's telling me, Lisa, you're going to go up on stage and tank. People are going to laugh at you. And so it really was the bitch in my head that was holding me back. And so I was like, how do I get over this voice? And I tried to shut it up and everyone in the mindset space. It's like, oh, my God, speak nicely to yourself. And I'm like, I'm trying. Like I really am. And then it became another thing. I was actually just beating myself up over because I couldn't stop the voice from talking to me. Add another layer of judgment. Exactly. So I was like, all right, this strategy doesn't work. And I'm all about what is the strategy you can use to get yourself to the goal that you're looking for? So I just kept experimenting. I was like, OK, well, what if it was like my best friend? Just like your guys as partners, right? Let's say you've got a girl like my husband came to me and said, babe, I love you, but you're saying no to these speaking gigs isn't aligned with your goal. And so by him telling me that it's stung, I didn't want to hear it. But he was being honest with me because he cares about me. So I was like, what if the voice in my head actually cares about me? What if she's just trying to warn me something like my BFF? What would that be interpreted as? OK, Lisa, you're going to tank on stage. All right. Why is she saying that? Maybe because I've never done it before. So she's kind of right. Like if I've never done it before and I'm not prepared, the chances are I'm going to tank on stage. So I was like, oh, she's telling me to get prepared. All right. So what does prepared look like? Well, Lisa, you don't you're going to freeze on stage and you're not going to have anything to say. All right. So how do I use that as a benefit? OK, so what I'm going to do and I created a plan based on this this bitch in my head being mean to me. So I created a plan. I'm going to write the speech. I'm going to have my husband coach me on writing the speech because to me, he's like the best in the business. So step one, have the husband coach you. Step two, write out your script. Step three, practice, step four, read it in front of your husband. And I just literally started writing all these steps and I was going to read it, not read, but practice in front of my team that that went from one person to 20 people. So I was coaching myself into this bit by bit, getting more comfortable, getting more prepared, having slides because I was worried that I would forget what I was going to say. So again, instead of judging myself for worrying about forgetting, come up with an idea to counteract it. So the counteract in part was come up with a slide that will activate the next idea. So I developed this whole slide that I could put up on the projection behind me so that if I froze and forgot what I was going to say, I had basically a cheat sheet. Got it. And so I just practice. And one of my favorite movies of all time is Karate Kid. Wax on, wax off, prepare, practice, practice, practice so that when you... Yes. That's the second thing you have in common with Sal. He's a big Karate Kid person. I love that movie. And I'm unaware of it. This is crazy. I'm also from the Mediterranean. There is that, yes. This is great. So that all became the preparation part because I listened to the bitch in my head. She gave me the guidance in order to put a plan in place that I could then have so that when I was on stage, I could just keep moving forward. It wasn't I felt great about myself. It was at least just get through it, Lisa. And that was the thing. It wasn't even like I pressured myself to be amazing. I actually just gave myself the grace to say, you know what, you may be total crap, but be proud of yourself that you got on stage because you were the person that wasn't getting on stage. So that was my North Star. Just get on stage and do everything you can to bring value. And so even if after that I was bad, I can at least use that one moment of credibility for the next challenge, for the next time I feel anxiety, for the next time I'm fearful. And so it becomes these stepping stones where the confidence comes as the byproduct of taking action. And then, sorry, the competence comes from taking action. And then the confidence is the byproduct from the competence. And then the last little thing that I was so fearful of, what if you mess up and you freeze and there's no words left? Have you guys ever seen speak people public speaking where they freeze and like their voice quivers? And then you just feel really bad for them. And so now you're not empowering them. The audience just feels bad for you. So that was something I was really worried about. I was like, I don't want to switch. I'm supposed to be empowering them. And the last thing I want now is for everyone to feel badly for me. So I was like, OK, this is another real fear. What are you going to do? What is the plan if that happens? And so I said, it's like a kid when they fall on the floor and they look at their parents and they're like, should I cry a laugh? You know, they're like waiting for your reaction. So we understand mirroring. So it's like, OK, what is the mirroring that I want to do? And I was like, oh, just laugh. If I laugh at myself, the chances are other people aren't going to freeze. They're going to mirror me. They're going to laugh too. And then I can totally smart. So that literally was my my plan. And of course, two minutes into my speech, I totally messed up. And I'm telling this story about how my my father gave birth to my grandmother. And I was like, oh, crap. Oh, crap. Like in that moment, I was like, that didn't come out how I wanted it to. And so I just was like, what was your plan? Laugh. And I was like, well, that would be weird. And I just started laughing. Everyone started laughing with me and I just moved on. That's wonderful. I tell people that my daughter did some she did a speech recently. And I told her, I said, you know, if you're feeling nervous, sometimes letting people know you're nervous and laughing about it. It totally breaks the knowledge. And it's all cool. So how did that speech go then for you? That was your first one. Yeah. How did it go for you? It's all right. I mean, it's on YouTube. You can check it out, but it's not. I mean, now how did it go for you? I'm not talking about like, yeah, yeah. It was one of those that I was so freaking proud of myself. And that was it, right? It becomes that notch on your belt that before I was the person that kept saying, no, I was the one that was like, I could never do that. I would look at my husband and being like, you know, that is impossible. That is not me and proving to yourself what you're capable of, that you're the person that went from that is never going to be me to really facing yourself, facing all the things that you feel are dictate who you are. Right. I thought of myself as the person that was scared, the person that had anxiety, the person that could never go on stage. And in just going on stage, I was now able to actually alter my identity and how I saw myself. And so that, to me, was the most beautiful part of it. How many talking have you done more speaking events after that? I have. I've done like maybe two or three more keynotes. And now I actually just came before I came here. I had to speak and get yesterday, but it was on stage. It was a Q&A. But now it's like, I love them. I like go in. I still wear like some funny things. So like I wore socks yesterday that said, you got this. You know, I wear Wonder Woman socks sometimes. It's just like the fun of it. But now it's like I enjoy the growth part of it. That's great. And my mindset has changed into not being the person that gets it right and perfect, but rather I'm proud of being the person that just shows up even if I'm scared. And that becomes then the next part of the confidence tool belt. So you brought up a chapter six. You gave, actually, you're talking about what you talk about in chapter six in the title. So I want to take you, I want to go through some of these chapters with you and kind of give us an idea. I mean, I love the titles on all of them. So I want to know a little more about each one. The very first one is your dreams are a gamble and bet on yourself. So tell me a little about what that means. So for eight years, I was supporting Tom cooking and cleaning for him. And I never once questioned why I let go of my dreams. I never said, hey, you know, I really want to achieve this in my life. Like I never spoke up. I never said why I was that I was unhappy. And so I was kind of just waiting for the external sources to change my life. I was waiting for my husband to come home every day and, you know, entertain me, quote unquote, is like, make me happy. You know, I had no stories to tell because I was basically home alone all day. And so the stories I had was like, oh, the checkout counter lady loved my accent. You know, and so for happiness, for excitement, I was waiting for my husband to do that. And when I look back now on how much I was waiting, it was really the fact that I never just said, you know, this is the dream that I won and I bet on myself. And the question is, like, if you're not willing to bet on yourself, who is? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so for you, that look like what would it betting on yourself look like? So it really is about speaking up, saying what you want. In that chapter, I talk about a game that Tom and I play called No Bullshit, What Would It Take? And this was a pivotal moment in just the way that we think in general. So it's like, set a goal. I want to do X, Y and Z. Let's just say, I want to. Does anyone play the guitar? You have guitars in this room. That's Justin. OK. Have you you play the guitar? Have you guys wanted to play the guitar? Um, you know, I tried. I was terrible. Yeah. OK. Amazing. The girls liked it. Yeah. Great. OK. So you were terrible. Yes. But if you were saying, but I really want to be a guitarist. So then you play the game, No Bullshit. What would you take to be as good as him? Right. And so now what it is two weeks of hard study. Not true. Yeah. But it may be, OK, for the next fight, if I want to get as good as him, I will need to give up the mind pump podcast. I would need to tell my wife that date night isn't going to happen, that there's only be one date night a month. Those vacations that I took, I can't take those anymore because you need to make up the hours, right? And so you play the game of what will it actually take for you to get to your goal or your dream? Yeah. And then the beautiful thing is to say, are you actually willing to do it? Because how many people like may even look at you guys and say, oh, my God, I want a podcast like you guys. Well, if they really hear what it takes to create a podcast like you guys, then they can actually say, oh, you know what, I actually don't want that. And now what the beauty in that is, is saying in a year and two years and five years when they look back and they say, you know, my podcast isn't as big as the mind pump guys. You can actually say, oh, it's because I actually decided that's not the life I want. Right. And so me and my husband, we never played that game at first. And then we played it and then we were like, oh, OK, so we want to create enough money to make our own movies. So that was our goal, make movies, create enough money. So no bullshit. What would it take to actually do that? I'll stay at home, babe. I'll support you like Steve Jobs. You don't have to make any other decisions apart from business. Yeah. You know, it's funny that you we use the guitar thing and the fact that I didn't do it. I naturally played that game with myself. And I realized that in order to get as good as someone as Justin, it would take probably hours a day every single day consistently for years. And I wasn't willing to do that. I didn't want it bad enough. Right. I mean, I picked it up one time or a few times to try it because I had some friends that were playing it, realized, holy shit, this is really hard. It's going to take a lot of practice. And that meant I would have to sacrifice at that time in my life. I was playing video games and going out and doing shit like that. And it would mean I would have to sacrifice those nights in order to do that. And at that time in my life, those things were more important to me than actually getting good at a guitar. So that's how I went through a phase of not having any girlfriends. That's where you did it. Lots of sacrifice. A lot of good songs came out of that program. Yeah, exactly. Real angsty songs. So that makes sense, because then you can you get real clear on what you're willing to do and what real dreams you have or goals. Exactly. And then even in the language that you can use right now, Adam, you don't have to say, I can't play the guitar. You can say, I chose not to learn how to play the guitar. Much more empowering. So empowering. OK, so the next one is make up your mindset. Yeah. So what do you mean by that? It's really, I mean, right, we talk about mindset a lot. If you believe you can, you'll find a way. If you believe you can't, you won't even look to see if there is a possibility. And so that became a chapter on a growth mindset versus a fix. How to use the language, how the language we use. Like I can't play guitar versus I choose not to learn. Is the difference between what I think holds people back and actually allows people to move forward and create the dream of their lives. Yeah, now we talk about that with nutrition all the time. It's like the difference between saying, I don't want that slice of pizza and saying, you know, I can't. What do you mean you can't, right? You either don't want to or you do. And it's much more empowering to to know that you're choosing rather than feeling like you're forced. What's that famous quote, whether you think you will or won't? You're probably right. Exactly. Can or can't. Yeah. So my mom on that note. So as we're building Quest, it becomes a billion dollar company. So at this point, my mom is severely overweight, like clinically obese. And so I'm like, oh, this is great. I now have the finances. I can hire a chef for her. I can hire a trainer and I kept saying, mom, like, what do you need? How can I support you? Because I want my mom around forever. So like it's purely selfish for my sake. And she her answer was, I can't lose the way. I'm too old over and over again. That's the answer I got. And in building Quest, we realized quest bars were wonderful for people who believe that they were worthy of taking something healthy. But what about the hundreds of millions of people that don't even believe they're worthy to walk into the gym or to make a healthy choice? And so someone like my mom, how on earth does she change? How does she get healthy? And it became the mindset and it happened to have been a pivotal moment where we transitioned from quest to impact theory. My mom retired. And so every day she started to listen to Tom's content within a year. My mom lost 120 pounds. Wow. Wow. That's fantastic. And she went from the person that was saying, literally saying, I can't lose the weight. I'm too old to one day I called her up and I was like, mom, how's the health journey going? I don't like to say weight, how's the health journey going? And she was like, well, it was really raining today. And part of me was like, OK, here comes a list of excuses, right? The old habits. And she was like, so what I did is I drove to the biggest grocery store in our area and I had my little Fitbit and she's like, and I walked five miles up and down the aisle. That's great. And she said, and after she was finished, she bought an apple and left the store. Oh, good for her. You want to talk about mindset? That is freaking a growth mindset right there. That's awesome. Let's talk about validation. One of the titles of your one of your chapters I love is Validation is for parking. So what do you mean by that? So validation for me, I was seeking external validation. I think a lot of us do. It's the pets on the back. So for me, being a stay at home wife, I was told that that was what I would end up from my very traditional Greek family. My mom, my grandmother, my dad all said that eventually I'd end up being a stay at home wife, taking care of my husband. And so when I ended up there, I didn't question it because I thought that was kind of where I was going to be. And then I was getting amazing validation from being that. I was getting validation from my husband. He was like, you know, I've got the best wife. I don't even have to think about what clothes I put out. Like she just has the food ready. And so because I felt badly about myself, that validation was like I was feeding off. I needed it. And so what ends up happening, I think to so many of us, is we get the pets on the back for something we do, being a great daughter, being the people pleaser, being a great podcast host, right? So now imagine you guys, everyone's saying you're so good at podcasting, you're so good. But now let's say there's something you actually don't want to do anymore. And then you want to try something new. But the trying something new, you may fail. Which means all the validation, all the accolades that you are thriving off may go away. And so what happens is, I think it keeps people exactly where they are. Oh, interesting. It kept me literally as a stay at home wife for eight years. Because I was like, well, if I try anything new and I fail, how am I gonna feel good about myself? And so that whole chapter is about how you can stop seeking external validation, tap into who you want to be, and then pivot your identity. Because it's the identity piece that I think a lot of women especially hold on to. I'm a great wife. I'm a great supporter. I'm a great mother, right? How many women that, I mean, I don't have children, but I know so many women that when their children leave the home, they have big problems in adapting. Because of their identity has been wrapped around feeling great about being a good mother. Maybe they get it from their children. They get it from their spouse. They get it from their parents. And so now the thing that has made them feel good about themselves is no longer there. And I think that's why so many women struggle. So the chapter really is about how to shift that identity, how to shift the validation, and then cause internal validation and give yourself the pat on the back instead of looking outside yourself. And so for me, the pat on the back, the validation was, I'm the person that tries new things. I'm the person that keeps getting back up. No one can touch that, right? If I fail and it was, oh my God, you failed. It's like, I don't need that. Like, or even just that the insult, really it's not a validation, right? It's the insult. It's like, but I can validate myself by saying, yes, I may have failed, but I just got back up. And that type of validation is something I can feed myself every single day. I think this has to be one of the harder ones. Oh, that's huge. For people, for sure. Because we get good at something. You spend a long period of time getting good at something, then you get good at it, then you get all the accolades, you get all the validation. And now you identify with that. Heaven forbid, you go try and switch and change that and go through that whole process of sucking and then getting better. That has to be pretty scary for most people. Now a personal question, when you made some of those changes, you were worried about losing the validation from like family and friends. Did that actually happen or were they more supportive than you would have imagined? So at the first of all, when I was transitioning, I was just helping my husband at Quest. So I kept saying I was just helping out. So the validation of being a good requirements that helps out her husband, I was still getting. Now that transitioned when I realized I didn't want to take care of my husband anymore. I love him more than life itself, but I don't want to clean for him. I don't want to cook for him anymore. And now how do I make that decision? Because I was building Quest, I was building our shipping department. So within two years, I went from shipping on a living room floor to 10,000 square feet, 40 employees underneath might meet alone and we were shipping out like $80 million of product. So as I was going through that transition, it was like, well, I was building something but Quest wasn't quite there yet. So I was getting the accolades for being the person that could do both. Oh my God, you support Tom. You cook for him and you build this. But of course it was breaking me. My health was going to like crap. My mental state was going to crap. I wasn't sleeping because I was trying to do both perfectly. And it wasn't going well. So I was like, okay, I have to make a decision. So I decided that I loved entrepreneurship. So I had to sit down with Tom. We had that discussion. Tom, you're gonna cook your own food now and make him get your own food. Yes. So here was the thing. I literally had to say to him, babe, I love you more than life itself. But I really, I have been profoundly unhappy for eight years because cooking for you isn't making me happy. Cleaning for you doesn't make me happy. But this Quest stuff, like building this department, I found who I am and what I'm capable of. And so how do you feel about that? And he said, look, babe, what kind of husband would I be if I put clean underwear ahead of your happiness? And so we have to work through this together. It becomes a, how do we do this together? What is that communication piece? And so I suggested, I was like, well, what if I wean you off? I was kind of like, I could try that. I was like, so next week, I'm just gonna cook and clean for you six days. And then the week after that, I'm just gonna do five days and then four days. And how do you think about that? He's like, thank you. That actually sounds really great. And so in that negotiation, it became, I was showing him respect that I wasn't coming in saying, hey, this is who I want to be and you're just gonna have to accept it. He felt the respect that I was saying, look, I'm changing, that I was willing to have the conversation with him and that we were in it together. And so that transition made me feel better about myself. But to be honest, as I was transitioning with the validation thing, and I actually stole this from Tom, where build your identity on being the learner. Now, as the learner, if I can say, okay, I'm transitioning from being a good stay at home wife to building this department, if I fail, that's the fear, right? That if I fail, no one's gonna validate me. How on earth do I overcome that? All right, being the learner means if I fail, I can go, oh, what did I learn from this? So now that idea, the identity that I've gone from being the good Greek wife, to now having the identity that I am the learner has allowed me to now transition the validation that I was getting from external sources to now internal. So that every time I was failing, every time something happened that went wrong, I was like, Lisa, good on you. You're growing. Yes, you're growing, well done. And now it becomes no one can tear me down, no one can give me the pats on the back and influence how I feel about myself. And that was really key. Was there any guilt in the transition from leaving being that, because I imagine if you had put so much energy in being this great supporter and wife, and now you've decided, okay, I know what I want and I'm gonna make this transition, did you battle with guilt at all of leaving that behind? Yeah, massive guilt. And also deciding not to have children, because I married Tom and I said I wanted four children. Oh, wow. So it wasn't like, oh, I just didn't want kids. And it was like, I said, he was like, where I could give or take half kids. He wasn't really bothered. And I was like, I want four. He got christened so that we could christen our children and we can get married in a Greek church. Like it was pretty hardcore. Like he started to learn to speak Greek for three years so that he could speak Greek to our children. I didn't know all this. So we were like in it. And so as I started to realize, I've never felt so alive as building, learning new things, realizing what I'm capable of. And so we just had to be very open in the communication and I had to be open about the guilt that I had. And that was actually very freeing for me and being able to be honest with him about that. And I was like, look, I understand I'm the one changing our agreement. And so I need to give you the space to tell me what, you know, how you feel. And he said, look, I'm not gonna lie. It's wonderful having someone that just takes care of all your needs. And so I came up with the idea of us mourning the wife I was. And so I said, what would that look like? And I said, I had to mourn. I had to mourn the idea that I wasn't gonna have kids because I think that we so focus on like, oh, we want this in life, but we don't actually say, but I'm sad that I'm giving this other thing up. And so I just had to be honest with myself and say, I love entrepreneurship. It's the right thing for me, but I'm absolutely sad that I'm giving this other part up of being a mother. And I think that I have every right to speak that out loud and say, hey, look, I'm sad about this and I need to grieve it. And what does that grieving process look like? And so that guilt part in order to grieve helped me release the guilt and the shame of making that decision. Interesting. Yeah, you know, what's cool about being a learner is it's formless in the sense that you can be anything. If you're gonna learn, you can be anything. And you're never really gonna be stuck because learning is inevitable. Or judged. Yeah, you're not leading or telling others or standing on a pedestal. You're coming from a place of learning, then no one can fault you for being wrong or failing or whatever. And not yourself, especially not yourself. And to help me get over a lot of insecurity. So I mentioned earlier, like at Early Days of Quest, Tom had eight years of business experience under his belt. His business partners had like 15 years of business under their belt. And so here I was literally walking into a boardroom with, you know, five to 10 guys all with business experience from our purchasing manager to, you know, our CFO and I'm like, I think of myself as little old me, you know, like I've been a housewife for eight years. And so I was so petrified to even just walk in the room. I felt extremely intimidated and that's my own insecurity. It's got nothing to do with them. And so how on earth do you keep moving forward? How on earth do you walk into the room so that you can, it's, but being the learner? So I was like, oh, with this idea now, I'm not fearful to walk in the room. I go in the room going, ah, these guys know so much more than I do. Right, and you rub your hands together, you get all excited because I'm the learner. Awesome. Now, what does it mean to embrace the ick? You know, in one of the chapters, you talk about that and opening a can of worms. Yes. So the can of worms is asking yourself the hard question. And for me it was for eight years I didn't do it. And the question was, am I happy? Sometimes, or like some people, the example I give in the book is like, am I happy in this relationship? Now, so many people won't ask that question because the ick that comes with opening the can of worms is, it's like endless. It's like, okay, what if you ask the question, am I happy in this relationship? And the answer is no. You don't just end there, right? It's like the ick is, well, do we go to therapy? Are they willing to go to therapy? Do we get a divorce? If we get a divorce, who gets the house? Who has full-time custody of the kids? Who gets them a Christmas? Am I gonna die alone? Oh, the questions that come along with this one simple, hard question to ask. And I think so many people live their entire life with avoiding the question. And the amount of like even just therapists I've interviewed, especially even when it comes to relationships, they said, you know how many people when they sit on the couch and they eventually let's say a year or two down the line, they're like, yeah, we knew that we weren't gonna make it. And it's like, you just don't wanna ask yourself the hard question and be honest with yourself. And it's like, if you can just ask that, the amount of years you'd be able to save yourself in then making the change in your life and then actually having the life you want, I think could be incredible. So it all comes, starts with just embrace that you have to ask yourself the hard questions and then you can deal with the ick of whatever it comes with it. Yeah, and the irony is when you don't ask that question, it still shows up in your life in many other different ways. So it's... What is it about us as humans that do that? I feel like it's such a natural thing that people do is that they'll just suppress it. And instead of facing it, is it the fear of what will come on the other side of it? Like, what is it that causes us to do that? I think it's the fear, but it's also, in my opinion, it's not just the fear, but it's the mis... I think you believe if you avoid it, it's gone, but it's not, it's still there and it pops up. And for example, if you're in a relationship and you're unhappy and you don't wanna ask yourself that question, how's it gonna pop up? Irritability, I'm gonna snap a person, complain all the time. Contempt. Yeah, maybe escape with, you know... I like what Justin said, I think that change, right? The difficulty of change, that's kind of, because you know if you're unhappy, something has to change, right? And so if you have to face that, you've gotta do something different than what you've been doing. And there's gotta be a lot of fear that's connected to doing something different. Even if you're not happy and you think your current relationship or situation is awful, the thought of, oh my God, something new or different, what if it's more awful? You know? It's the unknown. Yeah, the unknown. The change in fear. Huge and dramatic, or it could be a small thing that you could just address and move on, but the unknown of that, I think the fear, tied into that, it's really tough to face. I feel like that goes into the next chapter, which is that life is not a fairy tale, save yourself. So what does that mean exactly? So this whole chapter is about my health issues. I've suffered from gut health issues for over six years now and... I remember when I first met you, we talked about this, because I've suffered from gut health issues. Yes, that's right. I mean, even now, I still have to bring food with me, I have to think about it, I have to check what oil is, if I go to a restaurant, what things they use. But I had SIBO, leaky guards, candida, and because I had all that, I couldn't get rid of a parasite. I mean, it was just endless on all the problems that I had. And so in that unhealthiness of just my gut, Tom was always definitely there for me, he was supporting me the whole way through. And it was one day where I was on a photo shoot and I was hiding my health issues because I thought, talking about shame, I thought, oh God, how shameful we've got, like one of the largest growing nutrition companies in the world and I can't even eat our product. So I just hid it, I was like, so shameful. And so there was one day, there was a photo shoot, I didn't tell the people that I had gut issues and I literally got the worst stomach cramp to the point where I could barely breathe and I wanted to like fall to my knees. So I excused myself quickly, I was like, excuse me guys, I'm just gonna be back. Run upstairs, we're in my house, I run upstairs and I actually fall on the floor in our bathroom. And me and my husband have a deal, we're business partners and we're life partners. So we have these rules. If you need to reach me as a partner, as a life partner as my husband, I call him three times or he calls me three times. I know this rule about you guys. It's so good, right? Cause it's like number one, if you call once and it's like, well, maybe she's saying hello. I just caught him busting you out on one of the last times when you were, Oh he did. Yeah, when you were late for a, you guys were talking to each other via Zoom or whatever like that. Zoom, you're so right. Yeah, he busted you out on that one. Yeah, he did. So the point is, is that you can always make sure that you're there for each other in your personal life, no matter how busy you are. So the first call, it may be a work thing you can ignore it. The second thing may be another work call or you can ignore it. But if I ring you three times or if he rings me three times, it doesn't matter who you're with. You could be with the president of the United States. If I ring three times. Emergency. Literally, sorry, I gotta go. And so we've got this rule. So I'm on the floor in my bathroom, clutching my stomach, unable to breathe, saying I need my husband, I need my husband. So I grab the phone, I call him once, he doesn't answer. And I know he's in the house. I grab my phone, I call him the second time, he doesn't answer. I call him the third time, he doesn't answer. And I'm on the floor going, I need my husband, I need my husband. And in that moment, I'm like, I got nowhere to go. Like my husband is an answering. And then I was like, oh, I don't need him. I want him, but I don't need him. Lisa, you're your own effing hero. Get off the damn floor and save yourself. And I got up and I took some deep breaths and I went and finished the photo shoot all by myself. And then later that evening, Tom came and he was like, babe, I can't believe I missed your call. Is everything all right? And I was like, yeah, I got this. And from that moment on, I realized the words I was using in my head that I need this actually was holding me back from rescuing myself. And that mentality, that idea of stop waiting, you are your own hero, I took now into every aspect of my life, from my diet to healing my gut, to my relationship with my husband. If something's going wrong, I look at what my responsibility is with my business instead of saying, well, this happened and this happened. What is your response? Are you your hero? Are you waiting for someone else to come and rescue? Or do you step into that? And so it just changed my life. You know, the first like five years of my relationship with Katrina, I used to tease her all the time because her, she used to say this thing to me that I've never heard another woman say to me for, but she would constantly remind me that I don't need you. I want you. And so, and she would say that all the fucking time to me. Where does this come from? But she would remind me that all the time. Adam's like, I'm gonna marry you. Yeah, exactly what ends up happening, right? And I've been with her forever, right? But isn't that beautiful though? It is beautiful. When I started, when I first heard it, it was like, what the fuck does that mean, right? Or whatever, and that was the attitude. But over time, I realized this is the reason why I love this woman is because she is so self-confident, that she has that inner that she doesn't, she doesn't feel like she needs me, but it's even more powerful that she wants me. Exactly. And I learned to embrace that and love that aspect of her, but I had never heard anybody ever say that to me until her or so. Because she's with you, not out of necessity. That's right. And so that actually is really beautiful. And even this story, by the way, it still crushes Tom. He gets so upset when he hears me tell her. When he heard it in the book, so we were listening to it together. So we put it on all the boards that he could listen to it. And he started crying. And he was like, you break my heart every time you say that. And I was like, I know I do, babe. Because his identity, you wanna go back to identity. His identity is being, as my husband, the guy that has always saved me. And he still likes that as his identity. And so we've had to be honest without communication. I was like, babe, I understand why you need that. And that's something that you need to work through. And I'm here as your wife to help you. But this is an identity that means a lot to me. And so I can't let you take that away, right? Like I understand you want me to make you feel better. And it would be so easy right now for me to say, oh, of course, babe, you're my hero. It would be easy, but it's not true. And I think that the power of that is allowed me to step into being confident over time. And that's the person that he loves, so. Do you mind if I ask a little bit about the journey to improve your gut health? Okay, because I know how frustrating that can be. It's an area where you often don't get very many answers. And you have to keep searching and you question what the hell is going on? Is it just in my head or what the hell's happening here? What was that process like for you? And how did that challenge or did it challenge your confidence and how you felt about yourself? Yeah, 100%. And that hero piece was I was looking for the doctors to be my hero. So I was going to every doctor. I was like, oh, well, it must, it's all their fault. They gave me all the antibiotics that ended up wrecking my gut. So it's their fault. And so if it's their fault, they're the ones that have to fix me. So I was trying to go to a doctor and I'm like, hey, what should I take? What pill should I take? Should I have an operation? Should I have a transfusion? Like what should I do? And nothing worked, nothing worked. And I got to the point where I was blindly listening to them. And this realization, this moment I just told you guys of me in the bathroom floor, flipped my thinking. And I was like, all right, if I'm my own hero, what would that look like with my health? And I was like, it means that the doctor didn't do this to me. I did it to myself. So I was the one at the age of 16 that had an unhealthy relationship with food. I thought fat was bad. I thought carbs were bad. And so I was the one that was sort of strict in my calories. I was then getting sick because as you all know, the 70% of the immune systems carried in your gut. So I was getting sick. So I was going to the doctors and the doctors were giving me antibiotics. Now over time, as the doctors were giving me antibiotics, they were like, you know, we probably shouldn't give you this many antibiotics. Not once did I ask why? Not once did I go home and Google? What is the problem of taking too many antibiotics? I was the one that swallowed them. They didn't force it down my throat. And so this realization that it wasn't the doctors for, it was actually my ownership, my responsibility. Now it gave me my power back. And giving me my power back allowed me to say, okay, then this means I can heal myself. And what does that look like? It means to stop blindly following doctor's orders when they're telling me, so I was only able to pretty much eat fatty beef. Pretty much that's it. I was like three or four ingredients for a year. I couldn't eat any vegetables. I couldn't eat any oils. I couldn't have pepper on my food. It was like that limited. And it was the only thing that actually felt good. Now I go to a dietitian and they're like, oh, you're allergic to beef. So you should eat raw vegetables. I freaking ate the raw vegetables because I listened to them. Knowing that they would wreck you. Yes, because I'm like, well, maybe there was something I missed. But the doctor said, I'm allergic to beef. I must be allergic to beef. So in that, in the realization that I am my own hero, I need to stop blindly looking at doctors, listening to doctors. I was like, what does true ownership look like? So I sat down and I said, okay, Lisa, you have to be, you're assessed yourself. So from now on, from today onwards, for at least three months, I'm gonna do an inventory of every single thing I drink, every single thing I eat, what time I eat, my bowel movements, how I slept, how many hours I slept, how I felt the next day. Because I was on paper sleeping like 10 hours and I was waking up exhausted. And so I was like, okay, well, if I'm the hero of my own life, it is on me to figure out why. So I got an aura ring. I got a continuous glucose monitor and I started to track. When I ate this at this time, I slept this long. My glucose monitor said that I got a crash to my glucose levels were a 40 or something at 1 a.m. And it's like, oh my God, I wasn't getting REM sleep. It interrupted my REM sleep. And so I started to make the patterns myself and start identifying, well, hang on, Lisa, you know what, actually, if you eat three hours before bedtime, you wake up feeling amazing, huh? Well, what if I ate four hours before bedtime? How would I feel? And then I'm like, oh, okay, I got a crash in the middle of the night. So four hours doesn't work. So I literally just started biohacking myself and figuring out what worked for me, what didn't, what times I should eat, how it felt when I was eating and working, what it was like when I was eating and not working. And then I just created my own health ritual. That way you see me today. I have a very strict, I try not to be too strict, but a very habitual morning routine. When I'm traveling, I've come to travel with you guys. I have to bring all my supplements with, I have these little pill packets that say AM and PM and I have to take them. I make sure that I have water with me. I make sure that I have food because I know that if I don't eat for too long, that I may start getting brain fog and what is it, like forgetting my words. What is it? We're forgetting my words, right? So it's like making sure, okay, I eat before I come on this podcast. And all of that is all because I took full ownership of my health. Yeah, it's just so powerful because literally no one's gonna do that for you. Everything you listed, you may find some brilliant, gut health specialist out there that's gonna tell you to do all this stuff. Maybe, but no, no one's gonna follow you around. No one's gonna do all, you have to do all this stuff. So it's brilliant they did that. And even though you have these regimens, you feel empowered now. You know what to do, what not to do. You don't feel out of control. That's a very different feeling from feeling out of control like, what do I do here? Now one of your chapters is getting off the couch. Talk about that a little bit. What do you mean by that? Put those bad boots on. The bad bitch boots on. Yeah, you talked about those. Yeah, it's really about motivation. So it's like when you really feel badly about yourself, it's like, all right, let's, in fact, let's back up. If you don't eat for a while, hangry is a real thing, right? So we all know just by not eating, just by potentially not sleeping, you feel a totally different mood. So I don't judge myself for days that I don't feel motivated. I just accept that as part of my, as a human nature. And so now how on those days where I don't feel motivated, do I still show up? Because when you're developing a business, when you're growing a business, you don't, you cannot have too many days where you're just sitting on the couch feeling badly about yourself. So really it is, what on earth do you do in order to get out, get off the couch and motivate yourself? And I use, so one of it is my bad bitch boots because to me, when I don't feel motivated, I go back to what I said about the getting on stage. What are the tools that I'm going to use and how do they impact me? And in the book, I really do say, what is that for you? Because there's kind of different moments of motivation that's lighting the spark in the first place. And I kind of liken that to like Tom Hanks in Castaway, you know, where he's like, f***ing the things together just to get the spark going. That takes energy. That takes effort. So in order to create that spark, it doesn't just happen by accident. Like you have to assess in you, what is that thing that is going to get that spark going? Maybe it's identifying your mission and really attaching yourself to your mission so that in those moments, you can remind yourself of why you show up. But you have to create tools in those moments that you can go to to use to get motivated. But then there's the other part of maybe you've got the spark. How on earth do you actually make that fire now into a fricking bonfire and keep that bonfire, you know, like a light and, you know, fanning those flames. And I liken to, did you guys ever see the proposal, the movie, The Proposal, where you've got Sandra Bullock and Betty White dancing around the fireplace, singing Sweat Trip Down My Balls? It's like, you know, they're chanting and they're doing the whole thing. It's like a different type of energy than Tom Hanks with the sparking. So it's like, I love fun analogies to attach myself to it so that I can then, in moments where I'm on the couch, in moments where I just don't feel good about myself, I have these fun things that I can revert to, these fun tools that I can use like my bad bitch boots, that when I really need to show up and I don't feel good enough or I don't feel motivated, that I can access them easily. Can't catch momentum without movement first. Yeah, and I want to just add to that. I know I said this earlier, but if you're listening to this right now, think of things that you really value in your life that you yourself consider very important. You probably have some kind of a ritual before you do it. Like if you're really big into working out, 30 minutes before you probably do your pre-workout, you get your headphones, you get your workout clothes, like we tend to do this naturally. And I think what you're talking about really is implementing these rituals. Well, we tend to do that naturally to things that we like or want to do. The trick is learning how to do it on the things that maybe you don't want to do so much is learning how to be intentional. Yeah, absolutely. And even just looking at other people. So for me, I used to see other people especially other women as intimidation, but now I use women as motivation. And so being able to, in moments where I don't feel motivated, I just look at people that I admire and I get inspired by them, like, oh, okay, don't feel good, but freaking Sarah Blakely can do it, you know? And so it gives me the motivation. And so... That's also very positive. That's so contrast to the comparing and then making yourself feel like shit. Exactly. And that's all about the mindset, right? Is that I used to see women as intimidation because I saw that as a reflection of how bad I was, but now I see women as, you know, inspiration because I can see what's possible. And that's the little flip. So even if it's like, hey, like if you've got someone that you look up to, how can you use that as your motivation to get off the couch? Maybe it's you put a photo in your wallet, maybe you have them as your screen saver on your laptop. You know, like there are different tools I've given the book that allow you, it's not just like, believe that you should do it and get motivated and come on. It's like, no, no, no, you need things that are actually tools to go to in those moments. Excellent. All right, so the next chapter is get unpissed and with emotional sobriety, or go from... So unpissed, I know in England or in the UK, being pissed means you're drunk. Here it means you're angry. You're talking about emotional sobriety. Which one are you referring to? The funny thing is it never dawned on me. Really? Yeah, never. That wasn't on purpose. No, it wasn't. That was a wordplay for sure. No, I like love that. I'm so used to the Americans that I used it as mad. Like, yeah, I love that you just said that. But you said sobriety with it. Yes, it was all deliberate, guys. It was all deliberate. You were accidental genius with that. Yeah, I know, exactly. So do you guys ever had alcohol? Yeah, of course. All right, never woken up the next day and you're like, I had a little too many shots. I'm a little embarrassed. I probably shouldn't have done that. I probably shouldn't have said that. And you kind of regret it. It's exactly like emotions. How many times have you been mad or upset? And then the next day, you're like, oh, God, I can't believe I acted like that. It was just a moment of emotional turmoil. And so in hindsight, when you become emotionally sober, you can actually see the situation for how it clearly was. And so to me, it's about understanding your emotions, not like neglecting them, but really like embracing them and feeling them, but knowing when they serve you and when they don't. And then knowing how many times like you can take, let's say the red flags as the shots of anger, right? How many shots of anger are you going to take before you erupt? You have to know yourself. You have to know, oh, okay, here's a red flag. Oh, here's a red flag. I know that if I keep going down this path and having this conversation with this person, I know where it leads because I've been there before. I've had this many two shots in the past. And so in that chapter, it's about saying, identify the situation that, let's say, you were last mad and you regret. Now, write it down like a screenplay. And the reason why you write it down in a screenplay is because I want you to actually not put how you felt, just put the words that were actually said. And now what you do is you write the words and then you put how you felt, as they were saying it. So when Sal said this, I got triggered. Okay, so it's the triggering I have to notice, right? And so I go, what did Sal say? Oh, you know what? He mentioned like your nose, at least you're really freaking sensitive about your nose. And so like, he really did trigger you. And so when someone said something about your nose, you can see he didn't mean to be cruel. He just said, oh my God, your nose is like mine, right? It's like European or whatever. And you may have meant that as a compliment. So you write down the words, but it triggered me because I was teased as a kid from having a big nose. And so now I've identified what the red flags were that made me over time get mad at Sal, right? It was like, he didn't mean to, but like for 10 minutes down the line, all of a sudden I'm mad at him. So identifying what those flags are. And then the last part is rewrite the script now in hindsight. What would you have said the moment that you yelled at Sal for making fun of your nose, right? What would you say differently? What is that flag that happened that maybe you just need to walk away? The whole point of it is, is assessing how much you can take emotionally knowing when you need to walk away so that you don't regret anything you say or do the next day. What a great practice. That's a serious self-awareness, but you have to develop it over time because everybody says be self-aware. What's the practice to develop that? I like what you're saying about hindsight because looking back, we have like you say the emotional sobriety and we can say, okay, let me analyze that moment. But when you're in that moment, it's impossible. Exactly. I think a lot of people try to do it in the moment or worse, you have to train yourself to get there. Or your partner is telling you to do it in that moment. Like good luck. It's like trying to talk, like you said, like a drunk person into becoming sober. Yes, exactly. And it doesn't work. So I almost, like I haven't come up with a strategy to not get there. I'm just like, I don't be myself up. I use my past experience as actually a lesson. And so I look at when was the last time that I got mad and how or upset or whatever, and then how do I adjust it? And so like Tom and I, you know, when we first got together, we would argue and sometimes the arguments would last like two days. And it's like, you know, after the two days of going, you're like, I can't believe that we've just wasted this vacation arguing. And how do you make sure that you don't just keep doing it? So for Tom and I, it was always assessing what happened, where those flags were in the middle of our argument and how, who's like the responsible party to maybe say, hey, look, maybe it's time we walk away. And instead of judging ourselves or beating ourselves up that we spent two days arguing, now together, we just come up with a plan in order to get that time period of two days, shorter and shorter and shorter. Instead of seeking perfection, just say, oh my God, last year, babe, it took us two days to recognize that we were both being emotionally drunk. And so, you know, now it only takes us one day. And now it actually only takes us three hours. And you know, today, most of the time Tom and I can do it in real time, where we may be in the middle of arguing and I'm like, babe, I love you. I'm just gonna walk away right now and we'll reconvene in like three hours. Is that all right? And he's like, yes. And so we'll just have that in real time so that we know, there's no regret afterwards. There's no like, oh my God, I can't believe that I said that to him or it's just able to get shorter and shorter period and then be proud of yourself. That you're the person that felt it escalating. So it's not about ignoring that you had the feelings, but that you were able to put a pin in it, assess it, emotionally regulate, and then come back together and then be proud that you were able to get that. Great practice. That was Smoke Bombs. Yes. And I'm out. It's actually what we call the Magician Act, but basically it's the same thing. You really have Smoke Bombs? No, I wish I did, but I feel like that'd be a cool addition. That would work, right? Totally. Totally distracting. So you're talking about a great practice, but it's a practice. It's challenging. Who is it more challenging for you or Tom doing this? I think both of us, because we both still today have different ways of handling it. So Tom wants to like, you're not leaving until we fix this and settle it. And it's like 14 hours late and you're exhausted and now you're just going around in circles. But you just said three hours ago. And so I'm the one that's like, because I'm the one that says something that I will regret. And I know that about myself. I'm a heated Greek girl. So I'm just like, babe, I need to step away. I need to step away. And so because he doesn't like that, he now realizes though, over time, that it actually is the best thing for the both of us. Yeah, allow you to go process it. Yeah, exactly. But then the key that I also talk about in the book is you can't just walk away and then stew. No. No. That doesn't help. So, or you don't walk away and then call that friend that you know has your back. No. It's like, I can't believe it. They stir the pot, right? Well, the secret is recognizing always. If you're the one that gets triggered, it's actually never about the other person. It's always about you. No one should ever be able to take your emotional power away from you. And no one should be able to affect you like that from externally. So if I get upset at my partner about something and I react and I say something heated, I always, or I've taught myself to know that it's always my fault. No matter how bad and mean or whatever it is that she said, I should never allow myself to get that affected by that. And nine times out of 10, it's always some deeply rooted insecurity. But we cannot gloss over how hard that is. Well, here's the practice. I can't believe you. I talk about this all the time, is the development of self-awareness started for me at nighttime, every night, lying in bed and going through my, taking a count of my day. And I wouldn't look at the positive and the negative. What things took me on emotional highs? What made me feel really good? Oh, I had a great conversation with Sal, Justin and Lisa and it was fun. I'm like, oh, those are important things. Have I checked that off at a box? I need to foster that in my life. Then there was something that happened in my day where I got really angry and frustrated. Doug pissed me off. I yelled at him, we got into a fight and stuff. And then I would go, okay, well, what caused that? No, why did I get so mad? You know, what did Doug say or do that caused me to get so emotional? Even if it wasn't a big fight, even if it just made me upset inside, I would take it, count and then start to unpack. What was it? And normally always it's some sort of an insecurity that I have. Maybe Doug commented something related to business and I feel insecure about my knowledge in that side of the business. And it made me feel insecure. So it has nothing to do with Doug. You know, it has everything to do with how I feel. And then that's where the work is at. You practice that every night if you really want to get good at this. And then eventually it does become real time. Then eventually those moments arise, right? Where Doug says something, maybe you're again related to business. I catch myself getting all heated, but I calm myself down. How do you catch it? Yeah, I catch it and I go, oh, this is me. This isn't Doug, this is me, you know? So you got to practice it though first. Like it has to become, and it was a nightly thing for me every night. And I used to journal it and then it being no more journaling, I could do it in my head. And then eventually came to a place where I could do it in real time. I love it. Now you write about when the shit it's the fan put on some goggles. I picture that by the way, that's just one saying that when people say, I literally picture- Close your mouth. A fast fan in a second using this and add to it. So what do you mean by that? I spend so much time worrying about failure. What happens? Oh my God, this, you know, I don't want to shit the fans. So like everything I was doing was in the fear of what if everything goes wrong. And then I realized, oh my God, I'm focusing on the wrong thing. I'm so worried about failure that I'm not getting started. But instead of worrying about failure, just actually embrace that every successful person on the planet has failed at some point. So if you're going to fail, it means that you're actually trying something new. So failure can be beautiful. So instead of worrying about it, think of it like it's a signal to you that you care about your life, that you're trying something new. And then instead of focusing on that, now put the goggles on and just go, how do I clean up the mess when I do fail? And now your perspective, you're focused on something different. You're focusing on moving forward and then just saying, okay, well, what can I learn from this going back to learning? And so at Quest, this was like the perfect lesson. It was early days of Quest. We were, you know, just like hand-making the bars. We just actually had escalated to having a machine, hiring a couple of people to make the bars. And we, one of the guys comes in to the office and he's just me, Tom and a couple of guys. And he looks horrified. He's like, oh my God guys, I'm so sorry. He thinks he's about to get fired. He's like, I've ruined a batch of the bars. And in a startup, like that's $5,000 was like potentially death to the company. And so I start panicking and I'm like, oh my God, this is, you know, I go into panic mode and my husband's very cool. So he's like, let's just see what we got. So we walk into the facility and the guy starts to explain. He was making a peanut butter, supreme bar. Then he was making a mixed berry bar. Then he was making like a lemon bar. And he was like, I was putting the batch of the peanut butter and I was putting the peanut butter flour in and the peanut butter flavor, peanut butter in and the protein powder in. And I accidentally grabbed the mixed berry flavoring from the batch that I was going to make afterwards. And so we're like, oh God, that's terrible. So Tom's like, look, let's just try it. So we're all holding our breath. We try it and someone's like, it tastes like PB and J. Oh no way. Are you serious? Immediately we've got silver wrappers. We wrap them. We blast on Facebook. We've got a prototype limited edition. Only 200 boxes available. Guys, we freaking sold out like that. Then on Facebook, because that was our marketing at the time, you know, this is 2011 or something like that. Everyone who bought the bars were freaking out about how good they were. So they were posting on Facebook, all the people that didn't buy the bars started now to get massive FOMO. Cause they're like, what the hell? There's a PB and J bar. We haven't tried the PB and J bar. What a great story. Within three weeks, we got the wrappers made and boxes made. We started shipping them officially and it became our number one selling protein bar. What a great story. So the point of that is there's in every failure, there can be an incredible opportunity. Oh, I love that. That's excellent. I love that too. All right, so finally you say be the hero in your story. First of all, are you the hero in your story? Do you feel like you are now? Yeah, I do. So what do you mean by that specifically for other people? It kind of goes back to like the saving yourself and everything I've just spoken about. Every subject we've touched upon today is really about taking the ownership. This is about you. This is about your life and who you want to be really dictates how you think and what you're willing to do and how much you're willing to work, you're willing to put in and how much you're willing to look at yourself. And so that really becomes like in order to be the hero of your own life, it takes all of these things. Yeah, excellent. I can really feel like you feel like you have a sense of purpose with this. Like this is your purpose. I can really feel that, your energy and passion behind it. It was great having you on the show. And the reception's been great. It sounds like it's been really well. It has, yeah. The one piece that I actually didn't get to say to you guys and it's like a lot of people are really resonating with this. And if you don't mind if I just share it with you guys quickly, was so when I was stuck for eight years, I was using, you know, we're talking about mindset and how important that is and how we think about how important, you know, the words that we use. And so at the first couple of years of my life when I was supporting Tom, I was using gratitude as a beautiful way to help me get through, right? Perspective is everything. It's like when you think about, oh my God, I don't like enjoy this. It's in the life that I wanted. You go to gratitude to think positively. But the gratitude piece was the thing that also kept me stuck for eight years. Because after the first year, after the second year, after the third year, that gratitude was like, well, I'm so profoundly unhappy. But Lisa, how ungrateful are you to ask for more when you have a husband that loves you, when you have a roof over your head? So these were things that I was using to keep going. And then it was the exact thing that kept me stuck. And so the gratitude piece, there's a lot of, you know, talking social media now about using gratitude to really help in life. I just wanted to add that piece of that. It can be also a little dangerous if you don't assess what you're being grateful for. And I think ultimately, you can absolutely have one thing in your life that you're utterly grateful for and love like for me, my husband. I am so utterly in love with him and grateful for him being in my life. But that doesn't mean that I can't be completely dissatisfied and unhappy with other areas of my life. And I believe I have every right to want this other area to be just as good as my wife. What an interesting perspective. I wonder how many people gravitate towards all those gratitude practices that are really suppressing what they really want or need to do in their life but feel they're fearful of making that change or taking that step. And so they gravitate towards all those gurus that talk about that. I think every powerful tool has two sides, right? Gratitude is very powerful, but I can see how it can also be used as a way to keep you comfortable or where you're at or away from your fears or away from change. It's a very powerful tool. You just have to use it the right way. Excellent. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you guys for having me. Thank you so much.