Chicago Event 2013- Readers are Leaders watch to the end and do the exercise
“Readers are leaders” is the kind of phrase that dies from being printed on posters. You nod at it, you agree with it, and you don’t read. Toby and Layla Black came out after lunch at the Chicago “Get Money” Event in 2013, warned the room about the onset of “lunch butt” because the mind can only handle what the butt can take, and then made the real case for daily reading. Not with theory. With a sentence from a book that took Layla years to believe, and the breakthrough it finally detonated two nights before the talk.
First, the origin story, because it earns its place. Layla was the smart kid whose parents had her scheduled to become a doctor. She was in university, shooting photos in a bar for fun, when she saw a guy on stage with a red guitar and tattoos and decided she needed to know him. Not being the type to invite a stranger over, she invited thirty or forty people to a party at her house purely as cover. Toby, a Scotsman convinced like all Scotsmen that he was the toughest man alive, spotted the shrine of medals her proud father kept. Layla was a four-time national Greco-Roman wrestling champion in Canada. He looked at her and said, you think you’re tough? Within a split second she had him in a clinch. They’ve been together ever since, and they framed the whole thing as a question for the room: can you remember standing at the gate of something you knew would be good for you, feeling that nervous pull to turn around? They walked through anyway. Keep that image. The rest of the talk is about what gets you through gates.
What happens when a sentence refuses to agree with you?
Somewhere in a book, Layla read four words: happiness is a choice. Her first reaction was the one you’d have. Sure it is. Then why am I so miserable? Am I not choosing? She read it again in another book, and again in another, and each time it meant something different, because each time she was a different person. That’s the quiet mechanic of daily reading that nobody sells you. The words don’t change. You do. A line that bounced off you last year can crack you open this year, but only if you’re still reading when the moment arrives. For Layla, that line finally went off on the Thursday night before this talk.
What did the breakthrough actually unseat?
To explain it, she rewound. Layla had been one of the top leaders in a weight-loss company. She lost forty pounds, and was chosen to compete to be the company’s model, which meant walking a runway in the skimpiest bikini she’d ever seen in front of twenty thousand people. Backstage she sat among fitness models with perfect abs, panicking about her stretch marks, hyperventilating on the stairs to the stage, one step from running. She walked out instead, and owned it, for every person who had supported her and started their own journey because of hers.
Here’s the part that curdled. Somewhere in there, she welded success to being skinny. Then she was fired from the company. She stopped taking the product, started eating again, gained twenty pounds, and felt like a failure. Not about business. About worth. What am I worth? What did I do? That association ran her quietly for years, right up to being scared to walk onto the Chicago stage, hearing the mean girls in her head saying: you’re not that skinny model on a stage anymore.
On Thursday night she found herself talking it through with a woman she’d never met in person, Sanna from Sweden, the one with the crazy red hair up in the balcony, because this community carries a trust that makes people comfortable saying the true thing. Sanna asked one question: are you where you want to be? Layla’s reflex said no, size six or nothing. Then she actually sat with it, and the answer flipped. I’m exactly where I want to be. She had just run a boot camp for hundreds of women with not one ounce of exercise in it, and watched them come out smiling at mirrors, loving their lives, their children, their purpose, all of them still the same size. The sentence she’d been rereading for years finally landed with its full weight. Happiness is a choice, and she had been outsourcing hers to a bathroom scale.
Why do the leaders keep pointing at books?
With the story on the table, Toby made the pitch plain. If you’re searching for the one strategy, the one tip you think the leaders talk about behind the scenes and keep to themselves, here it is: reading daily. Everything you need to be successful is already between your ears. You haven’t lost it, he told the room, you’ve misplaced it, and daily reading is the fastest way back to it.
Then he told the light bulb story. He’d turned their basement into a music studio and spent weeks down there writing and recording, enjoying every minute but never doing his best work, because the lighting was terrible. There were bulbs on either side of the room and an empty socket in the middle, right above where he stood. It took two weeks of working around the dark before the obvious question occurred to him: I wonder what would happen if I put a light bulb in there? He did, and saw the room, and his music, the way it was supposed to be seen.
Reading daily might be your light bulb to see your business, to see your Empower Network business, to see your future the way it should be. And it’s as simple as just grabbing that little light bulb and screwing it in.
He then had the entire room mime grabbing a light bulb and screwing it in, three times over, which is exactly as silly as it sounds and exactly why nobody in that room forgot it.
What’s the exercise, and how do you run it at home?
Here’s the reason to stay to the end of this session. In Austin, Toby and Layla had closed with a guided visualization exercise. By the Wednesday before the Chicago event even started, four separate people had come up to tell them that exercise was the reason they were walking on stage that weekend. Toby corrected the record on the spot: it wasn’t what we did, it’s what they did. Then they ran it again for Chicago, cameras down, phones down. You can run it right now. Give it ten quiet minutes:
- Sit somewhere still. Pick a spot on the ceiling and stare at it until your eyes strain, then let them close, and notice the strain turn into relaxation. Take three slow breaths, letting each one double the calm.
- In your mind’s eye, watch yourself from the outside, leaving this lesson and going to work: at your computer, keeping your daily commitments, taking consistent action day after day.
- See the faces and hear the voices of the people you’re helping along the way. Keep your attention on the impact you’re making, not the outcome you’re chasing.
- Now jump ahead to the goal you’ve named. Toby and Layla used walking the stage at the next event. Watch yourself arrive there, with the work behind you and the people you’ve helped celebrating around you. However that feeling shows up, as an image, a sound, or a sensation, double-click on it and let it expand.
- Count yourself back, three, two, one. Open your eyes, and carry the feeling straight into the very next thing you do.
Notice what the exercise actually does, because it isn’t magic. It’s rehearsal. It makes the future specific enough that daily action has somewhere to go, and it points your attention at impact instead of income, which is where Toby and Layla insist the power was for them all along.
This talk is one session from the Chicago “Get Money” Event 2013 recordings.
The assignment is ten pages and ten minutes. Read ten pages of something that stretches you, today and every day this week, and run the exercise above once, all the way through, no phone in reach. The light bulb costs nothing. Screw it in.
Full lesson transcript
Lightly edited from the original recording — fillers removed, nothing added. Income disclaimer.
What was that thing he was doing? Is Lawrence Tam awesome or what? Hey, I'll share this with you. I've been doing this for 18, 19 years. Can I share something just really quick?
It is such a joy to work with these people every day. In case y'all are wondering what it's like backstage, it's a frickin' party. And it's hugs and it's high fives and we're talking about you. We're talking about, I was just talking to David Wood a few minutes ago and he's like, how's the room? I'm like, man, they're happy.
It's good. They're getting it. There's breakthroughs. Yeah? It's good.
David's got some amazing stuff. He's going to be out here in a little bit, but I want to introduce you guys to two more people that we all know and love. Funny. God, these people are funny. I'm going to be like right there in just a second just so I don't miss a minute of these two guys who once lived.
In the basement of a bar. Yeah? Oh, they don't need an introduction. Toby and Layla Black, make them welcome. Have fun, man.
Thanks, buddy. Super woman or what? So many beautiful people here. Yeah, baby. Awesome.
All right, TMA. So before we get rocking and rolling, does anybody want to know the story of how Layla and I got together? It's pretty funny. Some of you may know it.
Actually, how many people in the room, with a raise of hands, you can just raise your hand, have heard Layla and I's story thanks to the power of social media. Okay.
Plenty of people that haven't. It's going to be awesome. But before we get to that, I want to do a little exercise because I know that we had lunch and then LT just came up and killed it. Did he kill it or did he kill it? He absolutely killed it.
He killed it. By this time, lunch is starting to sit in. We call it lunch butt. Lunch butt is coming in. You know the mind can only handle what the butt can take.
What we need is everybody in the house that's able to, on your feet, please. That means the person beside you who's too lazy to stand up, that person, too. If they're still sitting down, if they can stand up, make sure you give them a little, hey, come on, the sexy people on the stage asking us to do something here.
All right. I want you to do is turn to the person to your right, give them a high five, and tell them that you believe in them. I believe. Turn to the person on the left and tell them you believe in them.
I believe in you. Give yourself a round of applause and sit down. So everybody always asks me, you know, how did you and Toby meet? How did this happen?
And just a little bit of background, I was, you know, one of those smart Asian kids like Lawrence in school. My parents told me my whole life, you're going to be a doctor. You're going to be a doctor. So picture me. I was going to be a doctor in university, and I meet this guy.
So I'm in this bar, and I'm a photographer part-time just for fun, and I'm taking pictures of his band, and he's got this red guitar and his tattoos. I'm like, oh, I need to know him. So I mustered up some courage. I'm like, oh, I need to know him. You know, I'm like, I don't know why I needed to know him.
Usually, you know, I'm not the type of person that would go invite someone to my house after the bar. That wasn't me. So I'm like, well, if I invite a whole bunch of people, it'll be okay. So I invite everybody back to my house for a party, really just wanting him. Before we get there, can anybody relate to a point in your life where you're kind of standing at the gate of something awesome, whether it be someone you're about to meet, whether it be a decision you're about to take?
A journey you're about to go on? And you kind of get this little nervous feeling like, I want to do that. I know it's going to be good for me, but I just don't know. Can anybody relate to that? Say aye.
Aye. So both of us are feeling this, obviously unaware, because obviously while I'm rocking out, supposed to be in the zone, I am, but the zone is Layla that I'm really focusing on. So we get together at the bar, and I used to live below this bar, right? So we come together, and she is just as nervous wreck as I am, asks, hey, I'm inviting people over to my parents' house for a party. Your band can come.
I'm like, wicked. I'm already half in the bag. That's going to be awesome. So we all get over to Layla's house. There's like 30, 40 people there.
We're downstairs. We're all partying away, and Layla used to be four-time national... National champion, Greek, Greco-Roman wrestler. That's the first time I've ever been able to get that right. Yeah, give it up for that in Canada.
So we're all down there partying away, you know, having a good time, and if you know anything about Scottish people, and especially drunken Scottish people, we think we're the toughest people in the world. So we're all partying away by the bar, and Layla's dad has a little shrine of Layla's, all her medals and all her incredible achievements that she's done. He's a proud father.
Absolutely. So he should be. And I catch this one picture of Layla, and she's like, ready to kill this girl she's about to go. You think, like, I'm talking in her eyes, if you were to look at a lioness before she eats a zebra or whatever, that's exactly what it was. So I'm immediately turned on by this.
So I turn around to her, and I go, what? You know what? You think you're tough? Big mistake. So within a split second, she has me in this clinch, and I kid you not, what was about to happen next, I would never, ever predict.
And maybe we'll get to that. So they wanted us to come out here and talk about reading daily, and you've seen a ton of books that the leaders have brought out here, and you know that readers are leaders. Well, I read something in a book one time, and have you ever read something that your mind didn't believe it? I read this on a page.
I read this on a page, and it said, happiness is a choice. I don't know. The first time I read it, I just, I was like, yeah, sure it is.
Why am I so miserable then? Why am I so unhappy? I'm choosing. Aren't I choosing? So, you know, the second time I read it, third time I read it, I read it from various different books.
And each time, the meaning of that changed. Each time, I was a different person. I had evolved. I had grown. So it meant something different to me.
And only on Thursday night, Thursday night, when I got here, the leadership meeting, I had a massive breakthrough. Huge. And it was all about that quote that I had read in a book, happiness is a choice. So, I'm sitting there.
Actually, before I tell you about the breakthrough, let me tell you something. Let me go back a little bit, just to give you guys some perspective. I used to be one of the top leaders in a weight loss company, okay? So, we won't say the name, but a weight loss company. And I lost 40 pounds.
I lost 40 pounds. Yeah, you can clap for that. So, I lost 40 pounds, and I was chosen to be their model, or to be in this competition to be their model. So, I had to go in front of 20,000 people. You think five...
It was 20,000 people. Walk a runway in the skimpiest little bikini I've ever seen. Yeah, baby. And I'm sitting in the back change room. We're all getting ready behind the scenes.
I'm looking at these girls beside me. They're all fitness models. They've got like perfect six-pack abs. I'm still worrying, you know, about my stretch marks right here. I'm like, oh, my God, people are going to see them.
Like, I'm freaking out. I'm like, what am I doing here? Do I belong on the stage with these girls? Do I belong on the stage with these models?
Not really. I didn't really feel like I did. So, I was hyperventilating. I'm behind the stage. I'm like, oh, my God, they're going to call me.
I was standing on the steps going up the stage, and I'm thinking, last minute, I'm like, I could turn around right now. I could run. What am I doing? I shouldn't be out there. I shouldn't be going in front of all those 20,000 people that are watching me in a bikini.
But for some reason, and I know what it is now, for some reason, I pushed it through. I stepped out on that stage, and I took it. I owned it, for all of the people, for all of the people that had supported me, for all of the people that were inspired by me, that were on their own journey because of me. And I used to, it was really interesting because the breakthrough that happened is that, you know, I associated a lot of my success to my weight loss.
And I started to create this problematic association with being successful, being up on stage, inspiring people, to being skinny. So what happened? Well, I got fired from the company. And I stopped taking the product.
I stopped, you know, I started to eat again. Yeah, we did. Hey, why did you look at me when you said that? And what do you know? In my belly.
So, you know, just so happens that I gained 20 pounds. I gained 20 pounds. And I think a lot of us, they know how it feels because it happened to them, right? So I gained 20 pounds, all of a sudden I felt like a failure. I was like, I had so much association to success as being skinny that the moment I put the weight back on, I was like, what am I worth, what did I do.
So the breakthrough happened on Thursday night with a woman I've never met before, met her on Facebook, probably seen her, she's got crazy red hair, her name's Sana, she's from Sweden. Sana, are you up there? Right here, there she is. So we were having a conversation, I've never talked to this woman before, and for some reason, you'll find with the people in Empower Network, there's just a comfort, there's a trust, you feel comfortable sharing yourself. And so I'm talking through this breakthrough of my association with my weight and how I was scared to come here in front of all of you.
I was scared. I was hearing those mean girls in my head that were in front of me. I was scared to come here in front of all of those people that were saying, you know, people are gonna think, you know, you're not, you failed, you've put weight back on, you know, you're not that skinny model on a stage anymore. And I started to diminish my value. And so when I'm talking to her through this, I'm talking to her and she's listening, she says to me, are you where do you want to be right now, are you where you want to be, and she was talking about my size, right?
I, the size I want to be, and first thing I thought, no, of course not, I'm gonna be heavy and I'm not gonna be that big, I'm gonna be a big girl. Of course not. I want to be size six again.
But then I thought about it. I said, I'm not where I want to be. And I thought, I'm exactly where I want to be. Exactly. And I've been working with women, right?
I'll give the mic back to you. I promise. Baby, you keep going, man. I've been working with women.
And we just did a boot camp. And I'll tell you, there was not one ounce of exercise in that boot camp. Not one. But hundreds of women that participated in it, I look at them now. They are smiling.
They look in the mirror. They are happy. They are inspired. They love their life. They love their children.
They love their purpose. They have found why they exist. And they're still the same size. So this concept of happiness is a choice that I read in a book once. Well, a few times.
Suddenly, it had this new meaning. Because I realized that it doesn't matter what I look like. It doesn't matter if I, you know, put on a couple pounds. It doesn't matter if I lose a couple pounds. All that matters is that I am exactly where I want to be right now.
So you have to understand that no matter where you're at in your life, if you're looking in the mirror and you don't like something about yourself, I feel you. I've been there. I was there on Thursday. I was scared to be here. Because I didn't have the courage to be there.
I didn't have anything to wear. Until she found that. So honestly, I mean, I have to thank you, Sana, first of all, for, you know, and Dave and Dave for creating this community where it is a safe place. It is a safe place to admit that you've failed, to admit that you've fallen, to admit that you've had a moment where you felt fear, where you let the mean girls get back in. Because we can't shut them out.
We can't shut them out. And I still feel them. I still feel fear. I still feel scared. But I know that the value of what I have to share, if I hadn't experienced that breakthrough, if I hadn't experienced that fear to step on stage and wonder if somebody's going to look at the size of my ass.
That's not me. Yeah, baby. Then I wouldn't have been able to stand here and express this message with as much passion. You know, I had a huge cry with my girls, Cindy and Sabrina, after this. I was, but I just let it all out.
I said, finally, you know, finally, I can let go of this association that I gotta be skinny to be somebody, and I've always had that purpose. I've always had that desire to help people feel confident, to help people get their power back. But I used to think that you had to change the way you look to do that because of, you know, I was getting paid to lose weight. I was making money to lose weight. So now, Empower Network has just opened it all up for me, honestly, I've stepped, I've stepped into my palace.
Give her a round of applause, please. Now, I want that cheering to go on forever, but we're short on time. So when we come off the stage, definitely make sure you blow up Layla. But guys, Layla and I are up here for a very, very specific reason. We're up here to talk about how reading daily can dramatically impact your life.
If right now, if you feel like you're searching for something, if you feel like you're searching for the one strategy, the one tip, you know, the one thing that us leaders talk about behind the scenes and don't give it to anybody, it's reading daily. It's the fastest way for you, up top, are you guys still awake? It's the fastest way for you to tap into your unconscious resources because whether you know it or not right now, everything that you need to be successful is between your ears. Maybe you've misplaced it. You haven't lost it.
You've misplaced it. And reading daily lets you directly get to that resource. If you believe that, say aye. Aye. If you believe it, say aye.
Aye. If you believe it, say aye. Aye. So I don't know if you know, but Layla and I are musicians, right? And over the past couple of months, Layla's lost me again to music.
I decided to turn our basement into our little music studio. So I've been going out and buying all this different equipment and being down there and having a blast. And I've been rocking out, writing new songs and putting things together. The next project, by the way, the next project is to soundproof our house. Yeah, definitely.
So I've been down there working away, putting together masterpieces. And the lighting in our basement isn't that great. So I'm working away, enjoying myself, but I'm not doing as fully as I could on the keyboard or writing because the lighting's so terrible. And I've gone through this for a couple of days, and then like a week and a half, and then two weeks, not seeing everything that I could be seeing in the basement and tapping in truly to my true power because the lighting's off. So then one day, I decide, hey, there's a light bulb missing here.
There's a light bulb on this side. There's a light bulb on this side. I'm kind of standing in the middle writing stuff, and there's not a light bulb there. I'm like, huh, I wonder what would happen if I put a light bulb in there? So I get a light bulb, and I put it in, and lo and behold, I see the room, and I see my music as I'm supposed to see it.
Now, take away from that story, reading daily might be your light bulb to see your business, to see your Empower Network business, to see your future the way it should be. And it's as simple as just grabbing that little light bulb and screwing it in. What I want everybody to do right now is go like this, grab that little light bulb, and screw it in. Thank you for playing along. So if, let me see, was there anybody in here that was at the Austin event?
Say I. Anybody that was at the Austin event, say R.
I just love a crowd full of pirates. So Layla and I did an exercise, and while we were doing it, you know, we needed to do something. Well, we knew it was going to be impactful. We knew that a lot of people were going to get stuff from it, us especially.
But we didn't know how big it was going to be. Do you guys want to know, for the people that weren't there, what that strategy was? Yes. Well, we might get there unless we run out of time. So on Tuesday when we came in, we'd just gotten in.
We met Dave and Dave. We had an amazing session. And then Wednesday, we were ready for action. And on Wednesday, two people, the event hadn't even started yet, but two individuals came up to me and said, what you and Layla did in Austin was the reason that I'm going to be on stage this weekend.
Since then, two other people have come up. So four in total, saying the reason I'm on stage getting a check, the reason I'm getting this is for the exercise that you guys did. Now, of course, it wasn't what we did. It's what they did. So can we have your permission to get really, really, really freaking into it right now?
Yes. Do we have your permission to go to an amazing next deeper place? Yes. All right. So if everybody would put the cameras down, put the phones down.
Over the next few minutes, we're going to do an exercise that's going to dramatically change your life. And as you listen to Layla and I's voice as we go through this, you might realize that your phone's buzzing. Maybe you start to see that the screen's a little bit brighter than it was before. Maybe one of the lights catch your eyes. And that's okay.
That's right. And you'll notice that as these things happen, you're actually becoming even more relaxed. What I want everybody to do is I want you to focus on one part of the ceiling. I want everybody to look up and find your spot. Strain those eyes to find your spot.
And when you find that spot in the ceiling, look inside that spot and find that other spot inside of it. And when you start to feel that strain on your eyes, they start to kind of shut. They start to shake almost. I want you to close your eyes. When you get there, when you feel that strain, I want you to close your eyes.
So everybody, close your eyes. And what you'll notice is that sensation that used to be a strain is now utter relaxation. I want you to take that incredible relaxation sensation behind your eyes and bring it all the way down to your toes. As you hear some people cough, as you hear some people's phone going off, you'll actually feel how relaxed you're getting with these sensations. In a moment, I'm going to count from the number one to the number three.
And each time you hear me jump up a number, you're going to feel double the relaxation. You're going to feel double the inspiration. You're going to feel double the clarity. We're going to take three deep breaths along with those numbers.
So in a moment, when I count from one to three, each time I say those numbers, each time we let out that breath, you're going to feel double the relaxation feeling you feel right now. One, two, three. That's right. What I want you to do right now in your mind's eye, is visualize yourself leaving this event here in Chicago.
Because you've already made this decision that you will be on stage in Denver. You leave this event, and I want you to look at yourself outside of your own body. I want you to visualize yourself behind your computer at home. I want you to visualize yourself, you following the eight core commitments every single day. I want you to visualize and see yourself taking massive action every single day.
I want you to see your teammates' faces right now. I want you to hear your teammates' voices right now. That's right. Now as you're looking out onto your team members right now and you're hearing their voice, I want you to just hone in to how relaxed and how inspired you now feel. I want you in your mind's eye to visualize working your behind off every single day on the run up to Denver.
You're on the Monday night call, you're marketing daily, you're blogging, you're doing everything that you need to do, you must do in order to get to the next level. And because you're not focused on the amount of income that you're making, you're focused on the amount of impact that you're making in people's lives, then lo and behold, you get to where you want to be. Right now you are where you want to be. And I want you to think about those days that you've spent taking that action and living on purpose. Every day from this moment on, every step that you take forward is on purpose, is for a reason.
As you get to Denver, you know you're going to be on stage, you know your hard work's paid off, you can feel that power inside of you right now. You may hear it as a noise, you may feel it as a feeling, you may see it as an image, however you feel it and see it, double click on that right now and expand it. Expand that feeling up. I want you to visualize you walking onto that stage. I want you to visualize your team members' faces high-fiving you, tears running down their face because you've helped them get to the next level.
You've helped them pay their car note. You've helped them move forward. And as you move onto stage, I want you to visualize yourself right now. Look at yourself on stage in Denver, holding that check, feeling amazing, feeling empowered because we are the Empower Network, feeling this is your purpose because we are the Empower Network. And right now I want you to feel that joy, that smile.
It's okay to smile right now because I know you're happy. You're on that stage. You've made it. Your kids are there. Maybe your parents are there and they're cheering for you.
The people that you have made a difference in their life supporting you, excited for you, and you feel that in your guts, in your bones, and every cell in your body feels like it is vibrating. Now in a moment, I'm going to count from the number three back down to the number one. And as I count back from three to one, when I get to the number one, you're going to open your eyes, you're going to feel inspired, you're going to feel happy, you're going to feel excited, and you're going to let everybody in the town of Chicago know that you are ready to transform your life by the volume in which we scream. You're going to let everybody know in this city of Chicago your dedication to move forward by how much we're going to cheer and we're going to explode. And as we come back from three all the way to one, I want you to just really think about and harness the power that you now feel.
Thank you. So we're going to take three big deep breaths together, and when I count to one, I want this whole place to erupt just like people in Denver are going to erupt for you when you're on the stage. Three, two, one. Let me hear it. Thank you for everything.
Go out there and empower everybody you possibly can. We love you guys. You're awesome. Give them a hand, guys. Toby and Layla Black.
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