Investing in Yourself with Tom Malloy

My guest today is my good friend critically acclaimed actor, writer, producer Tom Malloy. Tom wowed Hollywood with his stunning turn in the indie-cult favorite Gravesend in 1998, which was produced by Oliver Stone. Tom became a trend setter as one of the first successful triple-hyphenate Actor/Writer/Producers. Tom starred in the 2019 thriller Trauma Therapy opposite Brian Krause (Charmed) and Chase Coleman (The Originals). Prior to that, Malloy starred in the found footage horror/thriller #Screamers, which was in theaters via Dread Central in 2018. Previous roles include the lead male role opposite Ray Wise in the drama Shattered (on VOD through Cinedigm); and Hero of the Underworld, directed by John Vincent, starring Malloy, Nicole Fox and Quinton Aaron. In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Tom is an accomplished author whose book Bankroll: A New Approach to Financing Feature Films was considered the "gold standard" of indie film financing instruction. He now co-owns the filmmaking instructional site www.filmmakingstuffhq.com. We discuss various topics throughout our conversation including the importance of personal development, the film industry, web3 and the metaverse, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing the importance of personal development and investing in yourself. Tom stresses that the best investment anyone can make is to invest in themselves. Tom also touches on the lack of motivation within our culture to put in the work and how that is preventing a lot of people from reaching their full potential. Tom does an excellent job at illustrating how personal development is the best way to become wealthy. One of my favorite moments in the conversation is when we discuss the parallels between poker and investing. Our conversation transitions to the business of filmmaking. Tom discusses economics of the film industry and production process. Tom dives into film financing and the difficulty of producing a film. Tom explains how filmmakers finance independent films and some of the major road