Lisa Bilyeu – Take Ownership Of Your Life

Lisa Bilyeu talks about how she went from being a devoted housewife to a woman who has a huge impact on millions of people

Lisa bilyeu : “It doesn’t matter since you’re going to be a stay-at-home wife anyway,” she says.

When Lisa Bilyeu’s father learned she was serious about pursuing filmmaking, he said these words to her.

Bilyeu, Co-Founder of Quest Nutrition and Impact Theory Media Studios, was raised in a “very traditional Greek” environment and took no objection to the conclusion.

Bilyeu kindly says, “He didn’t say anything to be rude.” “However, when it came to women, that was clearly the Greek mentality.”

Despite her family’s views on what a woman’s position should be, Bilyeu sought to tear down barriers for women in the film industry, but she and her husband Tom required equity to build the studio and films they wanted.

Taking a page from Steve Jobs’ book on simplifying daily decision-making, the couple decided to spend a year in traditional marital roles, with Tom working outside the home and Lisa remaining the stay-at-home wife she had been groomed to be, supporting her husband as he brought in the funds they needed to fuel their dream.

Bilyeu realised the pair had lapsed into the kind of boredom she had been striving to avoid her entire life after 8 years of pursuing money with no film business to show for it and both genuinely unhappy.

She agreed with Tom that he should stop. Tom’s partners, who were similarly depleted by the company they’d developed, decided to launch Quest Nutrition, a brand with a cause they believed in and could stand behind.

Tom asked Lisa if she might help by completing orders for the company’s protein bars from their living room floor because she wasn’t working at the time.

“At first, I wasn’t really a part of it. “I was like, well, I’ll support my spouse because I’d been training for 8 years and eventually believing that was my purpose,” Bilyeu says.

Bilyeu worked carefully to learn everything she could about the practicalities of scaling, using the fear of losing her house and marriage as an incentive to succeed.

Unafraid of the low expectations placed on her as a child, Bilyeu said that she helped Quest Nutrition grow by 57,000 percent in just three years, achieving a billion-dollar value and the title of #2 fastest growing business in North America by Inc. Magazine in 2014.

Bilyeu was convinced that she could achieve anything she set her mind to.

Despite all of the praise and pride she had received, it was clear that she was still unhappy.

Bilyeu was able to make a valuable shift in perspective from the dread of losing everything to the joy of striving to expand her business after delving deep into a process of self-examination.

With this shift in mindset, Bilyeu was able to launch her first cooking show with fitness influencer Cassey Ho, build the state-of-the-art set for Inside Quest, co-found Impact Theory Media Studios with her husband Tom, become Host and Founder of Impact Theory’s Women Of Impact talk show, and help all of her shows reach over 300 million people. Bilyeu discusses how she was able to obtain the perspective she needed to finally feel like a powerful woman.

Make Your Passion And Purpose Clearly Visible

“Passion is something I feel so deeply inside that I can’t turn it off. When I wake up in the morning, I’m so excited to do something that I’ll go out of my way to do it, even if it’s to the damage of my health.

I can’t stop myself because I’m so passionate about it. It’s like to a fire. Bilyeu exclaims, “A burning fire!”

“I believe I use that scorching fire to focus on purpose. So my purpose is to have an impact on people, but I need to have the passion and the fire first, because if I don’t have those, I don’t think I’ll be able to fulfil my mission.”

Bilyeu began to see the work she had done with Quest as a stepping-stone toward fulfilling the aspirations she had before being a stay-at-home-wife after remembering her childhood enthusiasm for filmmaking.

It became easier for her to achieve her purpose once her passion became evident.

Consider whether the worst-case scenario is worthwhile

Looking at the best and worst possibilities and balancing them is what has motivated Bilyeu to push above her anxieties and make a lasting effect.

“What could possibly go wrong if I tell this storey? People may despise me or try to humiliate me; that’s just human nature. But what are the worst-case scenarios?

The best case scenario is if my tale has an influence on at least one person.

Is the fear of embarrassing myself, or putting myself down, or exposing anything that would humiliate me, going to exceed the influence I’m going to have?”

Forget about what you’re supposed to be doing.

Bilyeu wishes that we all recognise the necessity of determining what is best for us and following it solely.

When confronted with excessive self-care advice urging work/life balance, Bilyeu reveals how she battled with the practise at first and became stressed, but eventually came to the conclusion that balance is BS for her.

“I realised, you know what, I don’t want balance at all. I’m not looking for equilibrium.

‘I am looking for harmony,’ as Lisa Nichols puts it. I want to be at ease in my own skin. And for me, there isn’t a balance in that regard.”

Bilyeu wants all women to feel that it is possible to forget what they should do and do what they want, from her decision to be the only woman in her Greek family married without children to pouring herself into her profession instead of customary wifely obligations.