The Quest for Health - How to Build and Sell a Billion Dollar Company
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ultimately end up creating a company together. And that tiny little startup idea, Quest Nutrition, is now in pretty much every single drugstore, grocery store, health store. You walk in, you can see it. And it's not just like a little bit of the shelf. It's like a lot of the shelf. On this decision for us to make money. Yeah. The problem is, of course, we didn't bloody make enough money. Standing there with protein powder and sweetener. And you just like look dead behind the eyes. I'm just like, this is torturous. Yeah.

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What's up, rich friends? Welcome back to another episode of Network Than Chill with me, your host, Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF and your favorite Wall Street girly. And you know what? I'm going to be honest with you. Every single year, you know, Happy New Year, I make one resolution. I'm going to get healthy. I'm going to get fit. I'm going to eat right. I'm going to go to the gym. And I do it.

For about two and a half weeks. And then I'm back to door dashing tacos, getting fro-yo delivered at 9.30 at night. And, you know, let's be honest, that Equinox membership is collecting a little bit of dust. So...

I really want to focus now that I'm in my 30s a little bit more on my health and not necessarily for some of those same shallow reasons that I certainly wanted to in my 20s. It's no longer about having the 16-pack abs. It's more about

How am I going to be able to live the best life today but also feel really good about my knees and my ankles and my hips when I'm in my older age so that I can still travel? Can I still do those things that bring me joy? Can I still run on the beach? Can I still swim? So today we are going to talk a lot about finding confidence, finding health, finding wellness, and what that actually means for each of us individually.

I did kickstart my health fitness journey for my wedding last year, and surprisingly, I've been trying my best to kind of stick with it, but I could certainly use a little bit of a pep talk. So I have invited someone who is going to be able to give us the pep talk of a lifetime about all of these things. I'm beyond excited to show you guys all of the wonderful things that she's done and have her share all of her wisdom.

She is the co-founder of the Billion with a B dollar brand, Quest Nutrition. She's an entrepreneur, an investor, and host of Women of Impact. Lisa Bilyeu, thank you so much for being here. What up, homies? So excited.

So happy to be here. I've been excited and I'm let's freaking go. Yeah, I am so excited. So in case you guys haven't already heard, I was on Lisa's podcast, I would say last year. Yeah. And the last time we were together, we were chatting about everything. But one thing we didn't really get to get into was your childhood, you growing up. You came and did the deep dive on my psyche. Talk to me about little Lisa growing up.

Did you grow up rich? Did you grow up broke? How did that impact your childhood? Such a great question because I think the foundation of what you're brought up on really does dictate your beliefs now. And when you think about why am I not where I want to be? Why have I not done X, Y, and Z? Why haven't I lost the way? Everything comes to your belief system. Where do your belief system come from? Typically your childhood. So for me, it's super useful to go back and figure out why you believe what you believe and then question yourself, do you still believe it?

Ooh, still believe. Yeah, because like I was brought up Greek Orthodox. My dad told me every single day that the goal of being a woman in the Greek Orthodox community was I was going to get married and have kids. And that, if I did that, I'm solid. Like my life is going to be okay. When I actually got married, my grandmother, we went to Cyprus, took my husband there. My grandmother pulled me aside and said to me, you know what?

I've got a words of wisdom basically okay grandmother tell me she said um even if he hits you don't worry maybe you deserved it what now the reason why I'm saying even though I flashed forward into that's when I was married that's the mindset that I had growing up or not the mindset I had but the mindset I was taught growing up now why did my grandmother believe that like to her cause she actually believed it she wasn't like I'm gonna teach you something talk

sick she was like I'm going to teach you the lesson that's going to save your marriage and make you happy for the rest of your life so she really came at it like this is the best wisdom she could possibly give me now when I think about why it's crazy is where did I grow up where did my dad grow up he grew up in a third world country literally Cyprus in the mountains his toilet was a hole in the floor yeah

So that's just one generation ago. Yeah. My dad grew up like that. So even though I was born in London, I definitely had like, I didn't have to worry about food or a roof over my head. I saw where my heritage came from. I saw what that looked like. And every way, every turn that I made, I was basically taught that my goal was to get married because that meant safety. That's why my grandmother told me that. Stability. Stability. Stability.

Because my grandmother never went to school. She taught herself how to read by reading the Bible. And my grandfather was a goat herder. A goat herder? Yeah. So now think about my grandmother. She can't read. She's got four children. Her entire life, her stability, being fed, having a roof over her head meant...

that the man makes all the decisions. The man makes the rules. And so, hey, if he hits you, it must be my fault. Why? Because if you say anything, if you leave, you may starve to death, you may lose your children, and you may not have a roof over your head. So that is the generational trauma that I think gets passed down through generations of the belief system that we then carry.

Okay, so now growing up, I'm five, I'm seven, I'm nine. I think I have to find a guy. I have to think that that is the goal in life. Yeah. Is to find a boy. And so when I'm getting 15, I'm being bullied, I can't find a boyfriend, I get teased for my looks. My entire confidence, self-esteem was non-existent because I felt like if a boy didn't like me, then it didn't mean that I was worthy. Yeah.

So that just lays the groundwork to how we think as young girls. I actually had this. A grown man patted me on the head. I must have been about nine years old. I remember this clear to this day. He patted me on the head. He says, little girls don't speak unless spoken to.

So when we go, how on earth do we have so many women that dismiss their value, that don't believe they're worthy, that don't feel like they have a voice? Don't demand more money. Don't ask for that raise. Don't go out and try to invest and do all these things. Of course, because we're telling them not to. Exactly. So I then go as an adult. Yeah.

Does that mindset serve me? Yes or no. And once I realize, oh my God, no, it doesn't serve me at all. Great. What am I going to do about it? Hmm.

And that became kind of the trajectory of how I started to pivot, reorient how I think about myself, reorient how do I build my confidence, what is my goal, how do I get there. And then I really dove into like mindset, education, knowledge, empowerment, confidence, all of that. But it all stemmed from not having that as a kid. Yeah, not having that confidence. Can I ask, did you grow up like financially feeling very secure because –

what was that family structure like? Did your mom stay with your dad so you guys would have financial stability? Like, what did that look like? So yeah, this is actually really interesting. So my dad was brought up middle of nowhere, came to London, started off in the mailroom of an oil tanking company because the Greeks, especially back then, that was their wealth. Maritime stuff. Yeah, all in that. So he started off as the

And he went to like night school. Yeah. So even though I was born, he had three young children. He was going to night school, learning, learning, learning. My mom was a stay-at-home wife. Yeah. He ended up working his way all the way up the ladder to actually running the whole company. So he was very financially secure. Yeah. But my parents divorced when I was seven. So I lived with my mom. Wait, was the grandma who gave you that advice your dad's mom or your mom's mom? My dad's mom. Hmm.

I wonder what she thought of that. She did not like my parents divorcing, that was for sure, because that was going against God's work. So I find myself, I'm about seven years old, my parents divorced, my dad is quite financially well off at this point.

And my dad said, even though we're going to get a divorce, I want to take care of you and my kids. Like as a Greek man, that was very important to him. And my mom said, no. She said, if I go out and I buy my kids a gift, I don't want it to be from my ex-husband. I want to know that I...

Yeah. And got the money for my kids. So I had this father who was very protective and would definitely, like, give us financial support. But my mom went out and worked every day and then came home and cooked for three children. So I kind of got to see that side of it. Also, because my dad came from nothing, like, literally a hole in the floor as his toilet, he taught me the power of making sure you always work and you never are owed anything. Mm.

And he was just like, if you want something in life, you've got to work hard. No one owes you anything. And so I was able to have these two sides of it where my mom as a woman was like, no, I'm not going to just take money from a man. Powerful. Yeah. But seeing the struggle that she went through because it wasn't easy. So I saw how hard it was for her to work all day, come home, cook and clean for three kids, and then she would pass out on the sofa from exhaustion. Wow.

So I got to see what it was like for a woman to do all that. I got to see what it was like for this man to really build his career. And so it really taught me all these different elements that I think really made up who I am today and how I show up in business. Okay, what a perfect segue. I didn't tee you up for that. No, you didn't. But I want to talk about business. But before we get into that,

you actually successfully created a company with your husband. And oftentimes they say, don't get into business with people you get into bed with because you can bicker. But how did you guys meet?

Had to be me? Oh, that's an interesting story. Okay, so I go to film school because I love the power of content. Like you can make someone feel happy, you can make someone feel sad using music and cards and things like that. And emotion was really important to me, like being able to move someone and communicate. And I was like, wow, movies are the best form of communication for people that you don't know. I can literally touch someone's heart and they've never met me before.

So I go to film school. I don't feel like I've got all the education that I needed. I felt like I wanted more directing because I wanted to direct. I wanted more expertise. So I got a brochure saying that there's this film school in Los Angeles called the New York Film Academy. They shoot in the back lot of Universal Studios. Okay, nice.

As a young girl in London, that I get to come to America for two months and she went on the back lots of universal students. We got to use their props department. I was like, this is a dream come true. So I walk into like first day of school. I walk in and there's this really hot guy there. And I'm like, oh my God, he's pretty hot American dude. Turns out he was my teacher.

That ended up turning out to be my husband. Really? So, yeah. So that was like the very long story short. But so, yeah. So he was my teacher, which, of course, these days in 2024 or 2025, it is frowned upon for sure. First of all, I want to say it was a film school for adults. So he's only four years older than me. Okay. So he wasn't like...

4D he was older than you. No, no, no. He was four years older than me. And we both thought on the first date, so like he was just my teacher for the first four weeks, then it was hinting, then it was like I guess subtly gave him my number, then we'd go out. And it became one of those things that neither of us had the pressure. Like I was the person that I would – I'd have my little checklist, right? It's like, okay, is this car nice? Does he dress well? Does he have cologne on? Like I was very superficial back then at 21. Yeah.

As we all are. As we all are, yeah, exactly. So I meet him. He comes to pick me up for the first date. He comes straight from work, so he's wearing this old tattered shirt that actually just said New York Film Academy on it. He walks me to his car. His car's like a total piece of crap, if I can swear on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, you can. His back seat looked like a U-Haul truck because he had so much crap in the back. And I was like, God, this guy's nothing like what I normally go for. Yeah.

And then he opened the car door for me. And I remember that. That was 24 years ago. And I remember that to this day because that was the first time any guy had ever been chivalrous with me. And I was like, wow, I guess I don't care about his dirty car because he opened the car door. And then he took me to a B restaurant. What's a B restaurant? Yeah, so the funny thing is I didn't even know what a B restaurant was. But each restaurant gets a rating out of its cleanliness and its hygiene. Oh, my God. It got a B.

B health rating. Yes. I'm dead. So he gets this B rating. It's like what rips and I'm used to. Which by the way, do you know how much

They need to find to get you a B rating. It's like a lot of poop. Oh, yeah. You just go into the restroom. It was like in a strip mall. So imagine I'm going to thinking, because I was used to the superficialness that guys try to flash their money to impress you. I never had anything else. And because I was told my whole life that, oh, you want a guy that can provide for you, right? Back to the belief system. I was like, kind of like, this guy's interesting. Like, I don't know how to make... And by interesting, you mean...

But he was fascinating because there was like, you know when there's just a vibe of getting something? It wasn't like he was like, I'm so sorry I'm taking you to this restaurant. He was just like, oh, I love this Chinese food. Like, let's go here. And he seemed so happy. Yeah. And so in that happiness, I was like, oh, well, I guess I should try their food. Yeah.

He was so captivating in the discussion that within five minutes of that talk, I didn't care that I was at a B restaurant. I didn't care that he had a crappy car. It was like, wow, he was massaging my brain that no other guy had ever done before. And he was challenging me. And this is where going back to the belief system, I'd never been challenged from a belief system ever before until I met him because I was surrounded by everyone that was like me. I was surrounded by Greek Orthodox people or Turkish or Jewish who all have that

same similar culture. So here I am, white boy from Tacoma, Washington, and he's going to me, so where do you believe in God? And I'm like, oh my God, did he just ask me that? But he was so sincere in his curiosity. And so that was really the first moment where he was breaking me open from my belief system and just asking me why I believed that. And you know what my answer was when he asked me why I believed in God? Were you like, I don't know? At 21 years old, I said,

Because my dad told me to. I actually didn't know why. I hadn't even thought about it. And so that really was, that was why I think I ended up falling so in love with him. Like neither of us meant to. We're like, this is the best fling ever. I have to leave the country. Like I never have to see you again. Right? And he'd just come out of a relationship where a girl had been very clingy. So he's like, this is great. Her visa expires. Her visa expires. She's going to get kicked out. She has to leave. So we both...

And this is literally like if I could have the mic drop moment, this was the moment where it was like we had zero expectations. Yeah. And we just went with it. Yeah. And I didn't question, huh, should I like this or not? Should I? I was just like, wow, this is fascinating. Yeah. Interesting. And that was how our relationship developed. And that was kind of the start of our, you know, been together now for 24 years.

And, you know, you've mentioned you guys met at a film school. You grew up, you know, to what is it? A Greek Orthodox family. You're Cypriot. Yeah. Greek Cypriot. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm impressed. And he's from Tacoma, Washington. At no point have you said the word gym or diet or nutrition yet. But you guys ultimately end up creating a company together. And that tiny little startup idea. Yeah.

Quest Nutrition is now in pretty much every single drug store, grocery store, health store. You walk in, you can see it. And it's not just like a little bit of the shelf. It's like a lot of the shelf. You got like chips, you got bars, you got everything.

Why did you guys start a health company? Okay. So I will, it's obviously like anything, a really long story, but I'll give you like the main bullet points. So we wanted to make movies. We get married in England. He converted to Greek Orthodox so that I could get married in a Greek church. That was really important to me. And we were like, okay, what does our future look like? We want to be in movies. So I go and get a gig on a movie set. I had a friend and it was a B rated movie, which means like it's like a million dollars. And it was like a horror film. Yeah.

I go on there and I'm a PA. And then for Ossie Davis, I don't know if you know who he is, like just incredible. Unfortunately, he's passed away now. He gave the eulogy at Malcolm X's like funeral. I mean, really important. So I turn up on set. I do that. And then I do it very well that they asked me to do more. Oh, will you do photographs? Will you do this? Will you do that? So I end up helping out on set.

And one of the actors in one moment in this night scene where he's lighting a match, not realizing that you need to, when you light a match on set, you have to do like eight matches at a time for the flame to actually look. I was filling in for the props department because they need to help. So I was like, cool, I'll help you guys. I was the only one on set filling in for the props department. I have a box and they're like, just give him the box. You're good as long as you've got this box. The match box runs out. We're in the middle of shooting. And he's like, I need to know the match box. Now remember, you've got like a hundred people around, like crew. Yeah.

And I'm looking in the box. I'm like, crap, no way. They didn't give me a spare box. The actor threw the matchbox at me in front of everybody. Yeah. Just like, get me another one. In that moment, the unexpected fire Leo in me came out and I stood up. I'm like...

Yeah. I stood up and I said, there's no need to disrespect me. I will find you a matchbox. Give me five minutes. And girl, I freaking bolted back to like craft services. And I was like, who smokes? Who's got a lighter? Who's got? And I just found it and I ran back. That's just one moment of probably five I can count where I was just utterly disrespected on set. And a lot of people are. That was the moment that I realized the dream didn't match the reality. Yeah.

And I had to ask myself the really honest and hard question. Do I still want the dream now that I know what it really looks like? Yeah. And the answer was no. I'm not. Like as much as I want to make movies, I'm not willing to put myself in a position where I get disrespected or put in a position where I have to step on someone to get ahead. Yeah. That doesn't jive with my personality. My husband has an equally bad experience on movie sets. So we literally sat down one day and said, God damn, what are we going to do?

And it turned out, my husband, this is his quote, whoever controls the resources controls the art. Which means that, babe, if we make our own money, if we have enough money, no one can tell us what to do. We get to dictate what script we do, what team we have on the crew. And if we don't expect disrespect, we fire people. The person with the resources gets to create the art. That is such a word. Yeah.

That is wise. So that was like the first step. Okay, great. How do we then create the resources? That's where we went into at the time. Let's just look at the wealthiest people and how do they act on an everyday basis. So you actually didn't come up with the idea first. You were just chasing the money so you could make movies. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. This all started from that. So we're chasing the money now. And so we're like, how do you chase money? I mean, it wasn't that word. It was like, how do you make money so we can make movies? Yeah.

And so we're like, all right, well, we know nothing about it. We're in this tiny 700 square foot apartment in West Hollywood with no balcony, no windows. Like it's like hot in there. And so we're like, we just need to figure out who is doing it well and just copy them. So we look at Steve Jobs at the time. He just released an article where he talks about that an entrepreneur, when you're making decisions every single day, you only have a certain brain capacity to make those decisions automatically.

With clarity. Yeah. And so where do you spend your time and what decisions do you make that actually move the needle? And what decisions do you make that actually take up the brain capacity? And so he was like, that's why I always wear black shirts and jeans. I never think about it. Decision fatigue. Yeah.

So he doesn't have to decide what to wear. He just wears the same thing over and over. So me and my husband sat down. I said, all right, babe, what if you go and work and I take care of every other decision? Now we're doing it as a team. You're focusing on business because you've got some experience where I don't. I'll be the stay-at-home wife, if you will, for a year. I'll make all other decisions. I'll decide what you're wearing, what you're eating, everything. Yeah.

And then after a year, that should be enough, right? We'll make enough money to go and make movies. Oh, the naivety of the beginner. So we end up, cool, this handshake, great. This will be a year to 18 months, we said. A year to 18 months.

come and go. You're still broke. We're still broke. I'm still, I'm a stay-at-home wife. I'm taking care of his every need. So literally, when I say every need, I literally mean every need. I was like, you do not make a decision outside of business. And this was a team effort. It wasn't like he dictated. I...

I thought this was a genius idea. So every day he wakes up, his gym clothes were right next to his bed. He'd get out, he'd put them on. He'd go to the gym, he'd come back, he'd get in the shower, his work clothes were hung up for him. He'd come out of the shower, he'd put on his work clothes. He's leaving, I'm passing him lunch. He'd come home, his dinner's made. Like, I took...

pride in being a 50-50 partnership on this decision for us to make money. The problem is, of course, we didn't bloody make enough money. So 12 to 18 months comes and goes. Another 12 to 18 months comes and goes. Before you know it, eight years go by. Eight years? Eight years. And now before I know it, how did eight years go by? I didn't speak up. I didn't say I was unhappy. And all of a

I'm a stay-at-home wife and I never wanted to be. And let me just make sure I caveat this. There's nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home wife. But it's not for you. Yes. It wasn't my dream. And yet here I was stuck in this freaking cycle. And you've been married for eight years too right now. Yes. The whole time. Yes. Okay. And so my husband, he was just chasing money. So he meets these other guys. They're entrepreneurs. They're like, come with us. We'll show you how to make money. So those three...

Try to make money. Try to, try to, try. They loved the movie industry as well. So the goal was, cool, you've met these guys. They're seasoned entrepreneurs. You guys are going to go and make this business together. And once you've got enough money, then I'll stop what I'm doing and I'll make movies with you. Eight years come by and there's no end in sight.

And so in that moment, I realized I really don't give a shit about money. Can I swear on this podcast? Yeah, yeah.

But right now it's gotten to the point where this is damaging our relationship because you're miserable. You come home every day saying, don't ask me about work. I'm miserable because I literally feel like I'm lonely. Yeah. What are we doing? Yeah. It's damaging our relationship. And that's the only reason why I'm speaking up is now it's damaging that relationship that we've

promised and committed ourselves to. So that was really the pivot where he went in, spoke to his business partners. He says, I'm profoundly miserable. I freaking hate what I'm doing. And I just want to be happy. Me and my wife, we're going to quit and we're going to move to Greece and we're going to write. Like it was like, you know, like just do something dramatically different. They turned around, they're like, oh my God, we're unhappy too. So that became the moment where they sat down and they said, what would we do every single day that we would care about? Now I was brought up with a mom that was borderline anorexic.

So you know how I said my mom would come home, she would work all day, she would sit there, she would starve herself all day and then she would sit down at dinner. We would eat dinner and she would eat one yogurt. Oh, wow. I saw that. And so you better believe like the understanding of the mental space around weight and body image really was important to me because then as an adult, she became morbidly obese. So my mom went from literally underweight, skinny as anything to morbidly obese. Yeah.

Okay, health and fitness, like that's the thing that I had just done. I was a stay-at-home wife, so I was going to the gym every day. My husband was working out. His business partners were in the fitness industry. We all just liked working out. But we were all hand-making bars for our husbands.

to take to work with them. Oh, okay. Because you were making every single decision, so you were making the bars. Correct. So I'm, now look, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm buying protein powder online. I'm throwing it in with water. One of my business partner's wives was really into fitness, so she was like, oh, but Lisa, if you add peanut butter, it actually tastes nice. I was like, oh, great. Peanut butter.

And I'm like, did you try crushed nuts in it? She's like, yeah, I did. And it's really great. And so we were just all making bars for our husband, like literally like. Like on a baking sheet. Yeah, but putting them in the fridge. Because the second you add water to any food, it automatically activates the molding process. So you have to refrigerate them.

So here the guys are. They're all sitting around a table. They're going, all right, so if we were to quit this chasing money, what would we do differently? And they're like, well, our wives make us bars. We love fitness. There's no good protein bar on the market. Literally everything tastes like freaking sawdust. Yeah. What if we try a protein bar?

Hey there, I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, a show about technology and media and the future. And this has been a tremendously busy couple of weeks for the tech industry. There's Donald Trump and his embrace by the men running the world's most powerful companies. There's TikTok and its future of the US. And there's DeepSeek, the Chinese AI engine that just shook Silicon Valley and Wall Street. I wanted to get an insider's perspective on all of that. So this week I turned to Jessica Lesson, the veteran tech journalist who runs the Information

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Okay. So it was that random. Yeah. So now my husband comes home. I think he's going to quit. We're going to move to Greece. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Become writers. And he comes home and he's like, all right, babe, I promised you that I would quit, but we've got a better idea. We want to do something that we actually care about so that even if we lose, because here's the tip for like just entrepreneurs when you're building a business, the success is never guaranteed. No. Ever. You better believe the struggle will be guaranteed though. Yeah.

Struggle always included for free. Always. And there's a bonus of an extra struggle. So what can you do every single day that you will freaking love, even during the struggle? And so we said, okay, well, my husband actually, he read a quote from Mother Teresa. And it was, not everyone is willing to fight for the masses, but everyone will fight for the one.

So who's the one person you're willing to fight for every single day? So it's going back to the weight thing was like, I wanted to lose weight. And then like two weeks later, it's because it's so there's, you're not losing weight for anything apart from just you want to feel good about yourself. But when you have that one person in mind that you believe that you can help and that

gets you out of bed every day, that's your North Star. So for me, it was my mom. It was trying to figure out how can I help the anorexic and obese community. My husband came from a morbidly obese family. Both his mom and his sister were morbidly obese. So you can imagine as we do the startup company that we have no idea what we're doing. Every time we had a roadblock, every time we had something where we had no clue what we were doing, I'd

Like, I want to make sure you really understand. We had no clue what we were doing. Every time we did that, how do you keep going? I would just ask myself, you can quit Lisa or you can show up for your mom today. Which one do you choose? It wasn't about the money anymore. It wasn't even about the money to make the movies. It was about mom.

So then it became, now we have words for it, a mission. This is like 2009. No one was talking about mission back then. This is post-housing crisis collapse. Startups are nothing yet. Oh, and we just bought a house. So we bought this tiny little house off the money that my husband was making from the job that he hated. And so now we go to do this startup. So when he comes in, he tells me, hey, babe, we're going to do this new protein bar company. You have a mortgage.

Well, what he turned around to me and he says, but I need you to know that if it doesn't work, we lose our house. I just literally got chills. Like he looked you dead in the eye and he was like, I want to take a gamble on something. And if it doesn't work, we lose the home over our heads. Yeah. So there's two things here. Number one, realizing that you are not the same as your partner. So you think differently. And I hate to be gender biased, but this is just, it is too true to not speak about.

Women see a house as a nest. Men see a house as a nest egg. Yes. And once you wonder, because first of all, I was offended. I was like,

what do you mean? How could you say that? And then I realized he just doesn't see the house the same way I do. So it's not right or wrong. I need to not pass judgment on my husband for wanting to do this. And then the second thing is going back to something I mentioned earlier is I know the man I married. I was attracted to him because he had ambition and drive. And just because I've got a ring on my finger, you better freaking believe that doesn't go away. So what kind of wife and partner would I be to try and take the thing that makes him him

Just because I'm married and because I've bought a house now, that doesn't make me feel good. So I literally, I took a beat and I said, babe, sink or swim, we go together. Whoa. And I was like, let's freaking do it. I bet on you. Like, I bet on you. I bet on you. Because here's the thing. I could get another house. I can't get another Tom. I like how you didn't say, I can get another husband. It was, I can get another Tom. Yeah. So...

And then the final piece really is really just let that fear speak. When I said, oh my God, my house, my house, what was I worried about? What was the true worry about losing my house? Let the fear speak. So number one was, well, what if I don't have a roof over my head? Lisa, is that act?

Yeah.

What if I lose my house? What if you have to call in for help? Exactly. What are people going to say? That sort of thing. Other people's husbands have a stable job. Other people's husbands don't risk their house. So I had to let it speak for me to realize the truth so I can then change my reactions to it. And then the other thing was, well, if we lose my house, that means I'm going to starve to death and in the same process. Am I really going to starve to death? No. Okay, cool. So I actually don't have to worry.

What I really actually have to worry about is asking my husband to be a man that he's not. That is true consequences right there. Yeah.

So that was how we ended up getting started on Quest. So you start Quest. Do you like how does it go from oh we're trying not to add water to the bars because mold starts to build to oh we have like a good product. It's getting on shelves. Yeah. So we end up hiring a pharmacist who actually knows how to take formulations and make them shelf stable. So going back to my husband my business partner's wife she really understood nutrition way more than I do. I'm like I'll do

I'll do whatever you need me to. So she did the original formulation and then we hired a pharmacist that basically just tested everything. And more as a chemist, I think is the right word. So she would just test things. And when I say every week we would go and we would pick up prototypes and we would taste them and we would go back and we'd put them in the fridge and we'd keep them out and we'd put them in a warm room, we'd put them in a cold room.

So as a stay-at-home wife, though, at this point, this is actually going back to the belief system. At this point, I don't think about making movies anymore. I'm just like, I want my husband to be happy. So you need a different job. I need to be happy. So if you're happy, I'm happy. This is what I really thought. And then I was like, and I'm a great housewife. Like, I've actually proven that I'm the fucking, you know, Dom Perignon of housewives. I feel freaking good.

You're like, grandma would be proud. Yeah, grandma would be proud. So I said to my husband, like, how can I help? As the good wife, how can I help? And so this is where they had to leave their other business they developed, but they had to still be there to then exit. So they're like, okay, we have to sell this company that we hate, that we're making money, that we just feel like we're a money horse and we're not doing anything.

But we need someone to help run this bar company until we can do that. So they're like, well, Lisa, do you mind helping us? I'm like, no, I can do it. What do you need? They're like, we just need you to ship bars from the living room floor. Great. So I'm literally, once a day, I'm like, do we have any orders? I'm like, oh, we've got an order. Like, it was so exciting. And I'm literally on my living room floor. I'm filling out the little, like, address thing. I'm, like, licking and stamping, like, the bar. Like, it was all manual. Yeah.

We then ended up, which we couldn't have predicted, we grew at 57,000%. I literally can't even wrap my head around what 57,000% year-over-year growth looks like. So yeah, it looks like basically go from, in three years, we go to the second fastest growing company in North America. And then one to five years, we went from a zero company to a billion dollar company in five years.

And so you can imagine I go from shipping bars on my living room floor to the next thing I know, I'm blinking. I'm like, oh, I've got like a box full. And it's like, huh, bag full. Huh, I don't know how I'm going to carry these anymore. And so like I'm like, oh, I can actually call the UPS guy and he can come to my house and pick them up. Like this is magic. So you can imagine growing that fast, being the stay-at-home wife, not knowing anything about entrepreneurship,

Every day was a constant struggle. Every day I had to look nakedly at my inadequacies, call myself on those inadequacies so that I could identify what I had to do to get better. And I think sometimes we don't want to just look nakedly at it. Like we just want to pretend like, oh, well, I'm not good at that because that doesn't serve you.

I literally had to say right now I'm just I don't understand shipping all right Lisa then you have to get to know shipping yeah so I just like how do I find out education there's this thing called Google so like UPS guy comes and I would put these garbage bags outside and he's like you know what it'd be really much quicker if you just put it on the pallet I was like okay great he leaves I'm like what the hell is a pallet I don't bloody know what a pallet is I was

England I went to film school yeah so I'm literally on Google what's a palette and it shows this little wooden thing and I'm like oh all right yeah I've seen those type in again where do you get a palette zip code oh okay if I just pay they'll deliver it great that was literally how I took our shipping department from my living room floor to two years later I had a facility that was 10,000 square feet I had 40 employees in my team alone that I was overseeing in two years wow

How the hell did I manage that? I just kept telling myself, Lisa, I'm not special. I don't think I'm highly educated in any way, shape or form. I was just willing to always knock down the barrier and find the solution. I was willing to overcome the imposter syndrome that told me time and time again, Lisa, you don't deserve to be in this room full of entrepreneurs. Like,

You shouldn't be speaking up. I had to overcome that on the freaking daily basis. I had to work on my confidence. I had to build my self-esteem. I had to figure out all the problems. When my marketing director comes running to me one day and he's like, oh my God, Lisa, we've got a chance to get bars into Justin Bieber's hands.

Now, this is before, like, influencing was really the thing. And, like, we had people, like, almost, like, doing it for free. You had, like, Ryan Seacrest was posting about our bars for free because back then people didn't realize the power they had as an influencer. They didn't understand platforms yet. They didn't at all. So we're, like, we've got a chance. Justin Bieber's cousin loves Quest. He's about to go visit him. He said that if we get him bars that he will try and get a photo of Justin holding the bar. You can imagine this is –

Like this could be a game changer for the business. And so I was like, great, I'll just ship them. And he's like, but hang on, there's a caveat. Of course, there's always a caveat. It has to be shipped to Dubai. And I had something like 48 hours to get them there. Now, Dubai's restrictions on imports of food, holy smokes. And then 48 hours, especially back then, it's not as rapid as the services you have now.

So I'm like, all right, let me just figure, let me just call my UPS guy. So I call him up and he literally just laughs at me. He's like, that can't be done.

Oh. In that moment, that imposter syndrome comes in where I'm like, is it wrong if I tell him that I don't believe him? Is it wrong that I just think that he's being lazy? Like, but who am I, Lisa? You can't tell him his job. You don't know anything. This is a shipping guy. Yeah. And I'm telling myself, you're still the stay at home wife. So my mentality of what I stood for and who I was and my identity didn't feel good. So I was like, you can't tell him.

But in that moment, this is the question I ask myself, no one's going to fight for your dream more than you. No one will fight for your dream more than you. And to him,

What am I actually asking him to do? Make his life harder. Yeah. He wants a punch in, punch out maybe. And I'm just making his job harder. Once I realized that, I was like, oh, I cannot take no for an answer. Let me ask for a supervisor. So I asked for a supervisor. His supervisor laughs in my face. Ask for the manager. The manager comes on. He was very respectful. He's like, look, it just can't be done. And I said, all right.

I play a game called no bullshit, what would it take? Yeah. Because sometimes you may not just be thinking about the extent of which you're willing to go to get something done. Yeah. So I was like, all right, no bullshit, what would it take? And I was like, okay, what if I just filled out more forms than I need to? What if I just spent half a day reading all the import and export rules? What if I overpaid? What if I overpaid?

What if I got the phone number of the UPS recipients in Dubai, called them now and told them, hey, here's a package that may be coming. I beg of you. I'll send you free product. I'll do whatever. If you can just keep an eye on it.

That is what, no bullshit, what would it take to get bars within 48 hours? And you freaking better believe I got those bloody bars to Dubai within that timeframe. Now, the joke, unfortunately, is Bieber still didn't bloody take a photo with it. But here's the thing that that taught me. I mean, this was, I'm talking like maybe this was 15 years ago, but I still remember the story. Why? Because that was one of the pivotal moments. That was one of the pivotal moments that I didn't take no for an answer, that I realized everything was on me. It is my responsibility.

And if I just blamed them, where would I be? I at least proved to myself and to my business partners that I was capable of getting the job done.

You went from an external to an internal locus of control. You said, I am in charge of this story. I am the narrator. You better listen up. Yes. And then what will it take? And here's the final piece. Even if I didn't get it, I would have like, I did everything I could. And feel really proud about that. Exactly. It's when you stop, you say, I'm not good enough, or you blame other people.

people that now you're starting to tell yourself a story that then you take with as your business grows. And that's, I think, why a lot of business ends up stalling out. But yours didn't. So I... Yours didn't. So I want to talk a little bit about, I think, a moment that a lot of founders, startups, just people fantasize about. Your company...

is valued at over a billion dollars. You obviously have co-founders, Tom, among other people. But you guys end up selling Quest Nutrition for an eye-watering sum. Literally, it's a billion-dollar valuation. Yeah.

What does that feel like? Because there are so few of us on earth who will ever get to experience that. I mean, did you feel just amazing? Did you want to go to Bora Bora? Like, what do we do? All right. So I'm going to take you back a couple of years before that evaluation because this is the setup. I'm in a warehouse. It's Easter Sunday.

And you are Greek Orthodox. I'm Greek Orthodox. Easter's bigger than Christmas. Easter's bigger than your birthday. I mean, Easter is the holiday. I'm in a warehouse on Easter Sunday. I'm in a hairnet. It's freezing. I've got, I actually have a photo I can send it to you. Because I literally, my husband took a photo and I just look pissed.

And I've got layers and layers because it's freezing in the warehouse and I'm doing formulations. And literally, I'm just standing there with protein powder and sweetener. And you just like look dead behind the eyes. I'm just like, this is torturous. And my husband's got such like, he's always enthusiastic about it. He's like, oh my God, we're doing this. And I'm like, I wanted to be in movies. I came all the way from England. I had to dream. And I'm in a warehouse with a hairnet on Easter Sunday making a protein bar. Like, how?

Like, how did my life go so wrong? That was literally in my, how did my life go so wrong? I ended up here. So in those moments, I reminded myself going back to my North Star, okay, if this works, you help your mom. You could potentially save your mom's life. If this works, you can save your mother-in-law. If this works, you save your sister. Like those are real world consequences.

And you better believe I will fight for that, like way more than my misery of being in a hairnet, right? I'm like, no, this is actually real world consequences.

But how do you stay motivated? Because, yes, a mission is one thing. But if you just can't even get out of bed because you don't feel good about yourself, it doesn't matter who else you help. So what we ended up doing is we found ways to try to keep us motivated. So we would drive in our Ford Focus. If you went over 60 miles an hour, the steering wheel would shake because there was a hole in the exhaust. But we didn't pay for it to get fixed because we were like, that's money we can put in the company. So we just like literally just left.

The hole in the exhaust. So we would drive around Beverly Hills. And growing up in England, watching Beverly Hills 90210. You'd look.

I'd look. Yeah. And we would have real conversations about what kind of house we would buy once we got wealthy. Now, it's interesting to think about once we're wealthy because in my head I was like, you know, we've got $20 million. Yeah. Like, of course, selling for a billion is a big gap, but it was like, oh, my God, what dream house. So we would drive around on days that we just felt badly and we would end up, I'd be like, oh, babe, I love that house. He's like, no, I don't like that. I like that. And I was like, look, I'm not buying that. So we would actually think

feel the emotion of buying a house. Number one. Number two, it wasn't tied to the wealth itself. It was tied to a vision. So I was...

I thought to myself, imagine how proud that 14 year old girl that was in London that felt bad about herself, that was bullied for my looks, ends up buying a house in Beverly Hills because I was watching Beverly Hills 90210. That's the American dream. Exactly. So these were little things. And then the final thing is I'm a hip hop chick. I grew up loving Tupac and Biggie and all of those. So I was like, I want to do a rap video, babe. I was like, well, we buy a house.

I want it to have a water fountain and I want Dom Perignon and I'm going to put on a bikini and I'm going to pour that champagne down my body and I'm going to twerk for you. Yeah. It wasn't I want 10 bedrooms with an elevator. Like it wasn't that. It was an idea. It was the vision of what would make me happy in real time. Yeah. So you flash forward when we get to –

the evaluation and then we put the company up for sale we start hearing rumors within you know like the business okay someone's accepted the offer they're gonna pay they're gonna buy it is it really gonna happen yeah oh my god our lives are gonna change forever but we were just selling a small portion at the time we weren't gonna sell the whole company

Because just in case people are wondering, with food manufacturing, unfortunately, it's like if you accidentally kill someone with a bar, your company goes bankrupt and you go from a billion dollars to zero. Obviously, we had so many health checks, so I don't want to say insinuate, but I'm just like anything could happen. COVID could hit, right? So many things could happen. So we're like, let's just sell a small piece of the company so that we're all just financially stable. And then we can continue on this mission of helping our families because that was so true to us.

So the valuation hits. We get the rumors that someone's about to buy. My life has changed overnight. We were in our little makeshift gym at our house. And Tom's got his phone and we're like, we hear rumors it's going to hit today. Okay. So he's got his bank account open and he's refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. And I'm like, anything yet? And he's like, no. I'm like, all right, do a couple of crunches. Anything yet? No, no. And then like that.

A lot of zeros are freaking added to our bank account. Yeah. I take a selfie. More money than you've ever seen in your entire lifetime. I can't even say that. More money than I could ever have possibly imagined. Dream upon dreams. I was gobsmacked. Literally, we took a- You don't have to tell me the exact number, but are we talking seven digits? Eight digits? Eight. Eight. Damn. So it's- The dream. Yeah. And it's pretty decent. Eight. Yeah.

So, yes, it was game changer. So we couldn't believe it. I was like, babe, we've got to take a selfie. So I have a selfie. A selfie? Yeah. I took a photo of me and him in the gym with him holding up his phone. Okay. Being like, oh, my God. And you guys went on vacation? No, no. So we're in our garage. We take the selfie. And then we're like, all right. We kiss each other. And then we get dressed and go back to work. Are you joking? No.

Lisa. So bear with me. I want to be a bar of honor right now with my eight figures of money. So here's the thing. Because the reason why the company ended up working is because we believed in what we were doing. Because it wasn't about the zeros and now I peace out. So as we're getting dressed, it's like, oh, we've still got work to do. I've...

My mum is still overweight. Yeah. So just because my bank account has changed, I haven't reached my goal because my goal was to help my mum. My goal was to take my mum from living until maybe she was 65 to living to 100. Yeah. I haven't done that. My mum hasn't lost a pound. She didn't lose a pound. Yeah. So I was like, the job isn't done. And my husband was like, no, the job isn't done. So we get to work. I call my dad. He had no idea what was happening. So I'm like, all right, dad, so I've got some news. You may want to sit down and...

I tell him, he's like, that's unbelievable. Because remember, he's like, what are you doing working? He's like, why aren't you having children? That was actually a piece that I missed out. Because now I'm building quests. And he's like, you're a Greek woman. You don't need to work. Why aren't you having kids? And so when I call him, it was almost a moment of pride for me. Yeah, you were like, F you. I made the right call. I could do this. Yeah, I could do that. I wasn't F you because my dad was always very supportive. But it was like, look, I did it. Yeah. And

We hang up. Two minutes later, he calls me back and he's like, I'm sorry, can you say the number again? I just want to make sure I got it right. Because he was like, you did say. And I was like, yeah, I did say that. And he's like, I'm so proud. I'm so proud. So I get to work. I don't tell anyone.

Tom doesn't tell anyone. I told my mom, I told my dad, and we got straight back to work. Why? Because the money didn't matter at that point. We started, we changed and pivoted because we were unhappy. We had a mission that we really cared about. And so even though the house was the element of like, you know, every day when you feel badly, because that's

immediate momentary happiness so there's the momentary and the long-term happiness the house is the momentary but what's the long term yeah it's knowing that i'm helping my mom every day so we didn't tell anybody and so my husband texts me like during the day and like every so often i'm like can you believe it and we would eye each other in the hallway and you're just like and like smile yeah yeah yeah and then he goes so babe what do you want to do so i was like all right let's let's do something to celebrate right and the dream was always like i'd walked past cartier

So I was like, all right, in a couple of days, let's go to Cartier and maybe I'll buy something. So we walk in. I had a heart attack over the price. I was like, what? This is a waste of money. And my husband's like, no, you said you wanted something here. You are not going to convince yourself otherwise. So I get a Cartier ring. It was freaking amazing. I still have it to this day. But then he's like, where do you want to go for dinner? I'm like, the Cheesecake Factory, of course. Yeah.

I love the Cheesecake Factory. He's like, babe, you can go anywhere. I can take anywhere. And I was like, but I like the Cheesecake Factory food. So we go to the Cheesecake Factory and celebrate it at the Cheesecake Factory. I love that. So yeah, so that was, it's a fun story to tell. I love that so much. And it's important to tell it to remind me and anyone listening that every time you think you're chasing the money to make yourself feel better, it just won't. When you tie yourself in something you really freaking care about,

like that will make the difference. Knowing that, I mean, like that's a fun story to tell, but you know what other story does I tell is the time that I remember when I was in shipping and I'm boxing myself and I got an email from a woman who was anorexic. And she said, I just want to thank you for introducing me to calories again. Wow. I remember the fricking line to this day because that shit moves me to my core. So every day that I wake up,

And I feel badly. And I'm like, Lisa, you're terrible. You're useless. You failed. You don't know what you're doing compared to these guys. That was going on my head every day. But how did I keep going? I was like, all right, you can quit.

You can quit. Absolutely. But then you're not going to help this anorexic girl that just thanked you for helping her become okay with calories again. There was another time that there was a woman who her kid was type 2 diabetic. Yeah. Sorry, type 1. And he was like 4 or 5 years old. And she messaged us and she's like, for the last 5 years, I felt like a terrible mother because every time my kid goes to a kid's party, I have to take candy away from him because he doesn't understand that he can't have it.

but he can have your quest bars. It doesn't spike his glucose. So she said, I just want to thank you for making the bars because you made me feel like a better mother. Like that shit is real. That shit is way more important to me than the Cartier ring. It's priceless. You can't put a price tag on that.

priceless. The way that, and that became my North Star every time. So it is so important to tie yourself to a mission that you care about that nothing will derail you. Yeah. I absolutely love that. But I do want us to pivot into kind of a different conversation. You've obviously had such entrepreneurial success with Quest in this space, but I want to go back to your first love, making movies, making content, making

So you got all this money now. Yeah. And I will say, I've been to your house. You have. Man, that entryway with the water and everything, it was sick. Thank you. But the thing that I was most stunned by as a content creator myself, I was green with envy when I saw your studio setup. Thank you. I was just so jealous. Thank you.

How did you get back to the making of the content, the making of the videos, your ultimate first true love when you had the resources to fund the art? Yeah. Okay. Great question. So I think it's really important that we always call ourselves on our own excuses because in the moment excuses feel very real. So Quest has become a billion dollar company and we're like, oh, the dreams come true. Yeah. No, it hasn't. I'm not making movies. Yeah.

I'm not making movies. You put it on pause, but it never went away. Yeah, exactly. So I wasn't making movies. And then two, we were saying like every day I wake up and I want to help people and

And I was ignoring the reality that I had just built a massive company. I had every, you know, piece of resource now that I could put towards my mom. Mom, free quest bars. I'll hire you a private chef. I'll hire you a trainer. And she didn't lose a pound. Why? Yeah. I can't ignore that. So I had to look. And every time I would ask her like, Mom, I'll get you a trainer. She'd be like, no, I'm too old to lose the weight. I can't.

That's when we realized the power of the mind. People weren't using the word mindset yet, but I was like, wow, my mom just doesn't believe that she's worthy enough to pick up a Quest bar.

I was like, wow, that mindset is really strong. So I had pivoted from running our production company to running our studio at Quest. We were making cooking shows. I don't know if you know Cassie Ho, Blogilati. So she was a host on one of our cooking shows. We did so many. We did commercials with all these influencers. So I had an entire studio now where we were doing all this content. I had directors and producers and editors. And

But we still weren't helping my mom. So my husband had just read the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.

And he was the one that was like, we need to do content, like go back to our love because this is really going to help people think in the way that we, you know, that is positive thinking in order for them to be able to pick up the quest bar. So he starts to do this talk show. And he's like, he comes to me as the head of the studio and he's like, all right, I need you to build me a set. I need you to get me producers. This is the type of show I want to do. I was like, cool, I'm on it. So we start doing this. It's amazing. The show starts doing very well. We put it on YouTube. Yeah.

And I'm sitting in the back as like the executive producer and I'm just learning every single day. Then the next day I would be on set of like a big commercial that we're shooting and

And it got to the point where we were so successful that I had a million dollar budget to shoot a commercial. A million dollar commercial budget. Okay. We hired Katy Perry's number one, the singer, the songwriter that wrote a couple of her number ones. She wrote a couple of like Britney Spears' number ones. We hired her to write a song for us.

We rented out a school where we could recreate Grease, the movie. We recreated the whole like on the pitch and Summer Loving. We recreated it with a quest song that had our quest bar in it. I mean, it was, we had cranes. We hired like the top dancers and like in the industry. And I'm standing there looking at all of this and I'm not happy. Why? And I'm like, I want to go back over to this show that my husband's doing. Yeah.

Like, it's making me feel better. It's giving me the tools that I need to think differently. Women are crying in the audience because they're so impacted by the discussions. This cranes and these, like, it's cool. It's cool. The flashy lights. Yeah, it's like, it's great for my ego. But I'm not changing someone's life anymore. Quest is on its own path now. Like, yes, this commercial is amazing. But to be honest, the Quest bar would sell by itself. We don't need this commercial. Yeah.

So that's where I'm like, where's my value? Like, what is my true value that I really believe in that I am working towards every single day? And so I was realized it was the power of the mind and it was the show. And so that show ends up being the thing that me and my husband fell in love with. We realized that if you ignore the mind, you can't help the body because the mind would definitely come first. If you tell yourself you're not worthy, you're not going to the gym. You're not picking up a quest bar. If you have anxiety, you're not going to the gym. If you have the

depression you may not be going to the gym like there's so many reasons why you won't be picking up the quest bar and looking at your health because you don't feel good yeah so it was now going back to what i said is you have to look at all the reasons and excuses and it was an excuse it was i was fooling myself if i was saying that i'm here to try and help people if i if i um if i ignore the the mind

Yeah. So me and my husband were like, all right, do we double down on this? It's back to our roots. Just two film geeks. Yeah. So and our business partners didn't agree that that was the way to change the business. So we said, cool. Like we have realized now money doesn't buy happiness. I got very sick from a gut issue that I've been battling with now for the last 10 years. So I had got that request. So I'm like, I'm as wealthy as ever. I'm as sick as ever.

and I can't buy my way out of it. That's a real freaking wake up call that money is not the answer. My mom is still overweight. She's still going to die at 65. It is a real wake up call that money is not the answer. So that's where we were like, all right, sink or swim. Either way, we go together, ride or die. Let's do it. So we left the company. We left all of our shares in the company, but we walked away. Literally, we didn't...

We weren't on the board. We said we didn't want any involvement. And let's just go all in on content creation. Let's use every penny that we've ever made. And let's really help people from a mindset standpoint. And so that's where when you came in, you saw my studio. But the studio is that's the forward facing content. Our other part of the business that feeds the other part of the business, which is helping young girls and young boys.

Now, obviously, for me, it's young girls. But again, going to no bullshit, what would it actually take to help women on a global scale? If you think there's over 7 billion people in the world, let's just round out to there's around 4 billion women. I want to help 4 billion women. Like, I don't say that as a joke. I actually want to help 4 billion women. Cool. No bullshit. What would it take for me to help 4 billion women? Okay. Number one, get them on YouTube, try to get content to them. I understand that.

But when they're young, you haven't started. Where did you grow up, Lisa? And I even said, our belief system is the foundation of where we end up. So there was all this studies and there's this book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts. Yeah. And have you heard this book before? Mm-mm. Okay.

So this book, it was taken by like Google engineers or something. And they were like, we really want to know what people actually think about. It's around like sexual orientation, like sex, and what people actually fantasize about. Because it's one thing, me sitting in front of someone saying, what turns you on? It's a whole other thing to see how people actually think. And so they took just all the Google data. Oh, the Google data, yeah, yeah. People actually are looking up. People look up. And to

To cut a very long story short, the conclusion was everyone's fetishes pretty much come from the age of imprint. The age of imprint is between 11 and 15. So now when you look at anything, take away obviously the sexual fantasy thing, take away what do you watch? What music do you listen to? Who are your friends? Who are your teachers? Who are your parents? What school do you go to? All of this between 11 and 15 will shape basically your belief system.

Now, I can't impact the school you go to. I can't impact who your friends are. But you better believe I can impact culture. If I make a song that does well, I can impact culture. If I make a movie that does well, it impacts culture. So that's where we do storytelling for young girls, for me specifically. I have a whole team, writers, artists.

writing stories for young girls that gets financed by my content that I do for older women so when I stepped back I know this was a long way to come around but this is where I can now go back to my roots of understanding content understanding the power of content understanding the ability to manipulate and I mean that in a way that manipulation could be used for good or bad just like money so to manipulate someone into feeling a certain way so for me it's how do I make a woman feel like a

badass? How do I make a woman feel confident? Music, camera angles, cuts, things like that. I go back to my roots. So that is why we end up building the studio. My husband has his show. He focuses more. And again, I am sure people will hate the fact that we do this, but I'm just always very real is I understand what it's like to think as a woman.

Yeah. My husband understand what it's like for him to think like a guy. And whenever we talk, sometimes we feel like I'm talking, I sometimes feel like I'm talking to an alien. He doesn't mean to, he just thinks differently to me. And don't even get me started on like the whole brain construct between men and women. I've already, I've read books, I've done studies on the actual structure of the brain is different if you look at a man and a woman. So in knowing that,

I go, how do I help women? What's the type of content I do? How do I make sure that I don't ignore a certain demographic? And then what do I show up every day? Like who's that one person? And now it's the 14-year-old Lisa. The 14-year-old Lisa that got bullied, teased, was told that she was no good. My trigger even to this day, just because I adore you and I'm always very transparent, I feel very comfortable saying this, is that I'm stupid. Really? Yeah.

Even to this day. Really? And I'm mildly dyslexic. So you can imagine I'm in school. I'm doing my B's and my D's backwards, my G's and my J's. So everyone's laughing in school. My brother and my sister are whippet, whippet smart at math. And my dad would give us math equations around a table. And you couldn't do them. I'm an artist. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know.

I can't even get my B's and my D's straight. So I understand it's a belief system from childhood. But I think, I mean, maybe you know this, but there's something like the amount of like entrepreneurs that are actually dyslexic is insane. And I really think it's because I work harder to overcome it. I so know what it's like to be bullied and made fun of and look stupid that I pour so much time and effort into making sure that I don't, which means that I have to read online.

I read like two books a week at least. Audio books, but I read books because I'm always trying to learn because I'm so petrified that I'm going to look stupid. Now I've embraced that that actually makes me me. That's what has allowed me to get me where I am. But I still carry that with me. Yeah. I don't think you need to be carrying something like that that doesn't serve you. I think you've shown time and time again that just because...

you are being graded on something that you're not good at, such as reading or the math, it doesn't mean you're stupid. If you grade a fish on its ability to climb a tree, a la Einstein, you're going to think a fish is really bad. But in fact, a fish is meant for swimming. Jaguars are meant for climbing trees, what have you. I love that. Here's the thing, though. I think it does serve me a little, if I'm going to be honest. The chip on your shoulder because you're always trying to prove that. Yeah, yeah.

So I think a big part of my success, if you will, is I'm very good at holding two competing ideas in my head at the same time. Like I'm fucking badass. I'm a genius. No one can touch me. I can keep learning and I can keep growing. I can, you know.

One idea, I'm a real freaking dumbass and I don't want anyone to see the truth. Yeah. I hold those two competing ideas in my head all the time. And I've trained myself to know back to what you were saying of what serves me in this moment. Got it.

If right now it serves me to actually feel like a dumbass because that's going to push me. And I know I like to use this language. So guys, please understand I'm not trying to trigger anyone. You need to use the language that actually gets you moving into action. Calling myself that moves me into action. It doesn't make me feel badly anymore, but it moves me into action. Puts a fire in your belly. Yeah. So if you think about them as gears, if you're driving, I've got more

gears we all have the problem is we want to go from zero to five but I actually realize sometimes I just want to stay in two because that's what I need right now yeah and once you identify those gears and you've practiced going back and forth it becomes easier yeah so we've talked a lot about your story but I want to ask you one final question as we are coming up on time

You have had so much success, whether it be through your company quest, through the content you and Tom have created, through a really happy marriage. But like we talked about, the struggle is in fact not sold separately. You get it for free. It's a buy one, get one struggle deal. Tell me about your biggest money mistake, whether it be personal, whether it be through business, whether it be through your content and how you fix it.

Oh, biggest money mistake? I don't think I've ever been asked that question before. Hmm. I don't know if I've made a big money mistake. And the reason why I say that is I feel like everything that I've done in that sense has really helped me get better. But I don't want to give you a cheesy answer. That feels like a cop out. It feels like a cop out. I want to give you a real answer. Maybe buying my house.

Really? Yeah. The one that I went to? Yes. No, that wasn't a mistake. It was great. It was perfect. It was beautiful. I loved it. Let me tell you why. It's kind of what I was saying earlier about momentary happiness versus long-term happiness. What really makes me happy, like viscerally to my freaking core, is when a woman says, man, girl, you gave me the confidence to do X, Y, Z. The momentary happiness was pulling up to that house and being like, oh my God.

I own this house. Yeah, it's sick. But it hasn't changed my life. And when I think about like everything that I do, even to this day, you're going to laugh, but like I'm like, do I fly first class right now? Because if I do, the cost difference, I could make another video. Yeah. I still think in videos. Yeah. Because the videos are what helped me reach that 4 billion women. And

This I think is part of my success is I never lose sight of who I want to talk to and why I show up every day. And I'm not blind to the fact that money is – it can come and go. Like it can come and go. I think we all saw with COVID that life can change just like that. So I don't pretend that something couldn't happen in the world where –

my money just disappears. I mean, who knows? China invades. I mean, like, right? It could be, or like Russia. Like, it could be anything. Like, anything that could happen to this country and my wealth is gone. Now what? I make sure I never tie my self-esteem to my wealth ever. So when you said that, I was like, the house was great for myself. I love showing it. I love the house. Don't get me wrong. I freaking love it. Yeah.

but it's one of those like from a financial it's like do I really need a house that big does

Does it really make a difference to my life? So it's like, and then also I was brought up in a world where because my dad came from nothing, he was like, buy a house because buying property is security. It's a different world now. I never would have thought that, but buying a house isn't a sign of security. So I think also I just had an old mentality that I wanted to own because that young Lisa told herself that one,

day you're gonna buy the house yeah um but I learned a lot of lessons and I still live the house I still love the house so yeah I love the house I'm coming over yeah thank you so much for being here I feel just ready to take on the world I feel like I could lift up a tree right now hells yeah but

Please tell everyone listening and watching where we can find you. Yeah, you are my show. So you can go to on YouTube, Women of Impact, or if you listen to podcasts, Women of Impact podcast is really where I'm pouring my heart and soul. And then if you want to follow me, you can follow me at Lisa Bilyeu and stay tuned because I've developed a story for young girls. It's a comic book.

book so it's actually going to be coming out early this year so stay tuned but it's called Wish Academy so it's Women of Impact Superheroes Academy so it's a superhero school for young girls and it's Mean Girls Meets Harry Potter oh

Ooh, I love both. And it's really addressing the real things that young girls go through, you know, being bullied, being made fun of. And the main character's personality or superpower is empathy. And so everyone thinks that's ridiculous and they make fun of her for it. So it's really trying to impact young girls, you know, subliminally with an empowering message on things that they really resonate with. So that's, I've just poured, that's been five years in the works. Five.

years of my life has been poured into that. So stay tuned for that. And you can just follow me at Lisa Bilyeu and I'll give updates there. Yeah. Bilyeu spelled B-I-L-Y-E-U. Thank you. Nice. Thank you so much. Thanks, homie. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcast at yourrichbff.com. Follow Net Worth and Chill Pod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news. And you can follow me at yourrichbff for even more financial know-how. See you next week.