MONEY EXPERT Leila Hormozi: The Psychology of Making Money

1. 0:00 – 5:00

   Intro

   1. LHLeila Hormozi0:00

      Creating money is building a system that generates money. It's a form of discipline. It's a skill.

   2. JSJay Shetty0:06

      What do you see as the number one thing holding people back from having success in their life?

   3. LHLeila Hormozi0:10

      The number one trait of all that succeed is [beep] and it pays freaking dividends.

   4. JSJay Shetty0:17

      No one's ever said that before. [intro music] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is someone that I've been really, really looking forward to having on the show because I know you're always looking for advice around confidence, discipline, consistency, and actually making an impact in your career, your financial trajectory, and ultimately, your life. Today's guest on On Purpose is Leila Hormozi, self-made entrepreneur and investor who's built and scaled companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If you're someone who wants to grow your income, raise your standards, and build real wealth without losing your values, this conversation is essential. Please welcome to On Purpose, Leila Hormozi. Leila, it's great to have you here.

   5. LHLeila Hormozi1:02

      It's so exciting to be here.

   6. JSJay Shetty1:03

      Yeah, it's very rare I get to interview someone and then interview their partner.

   7. LHLeila Hormozi1:07

      Yeah.

   8. JSJay Shetty1:08

      And the fact that we had Alex on the show last year, and we didn't get to meet, and I'm so glad I get to meet you today, and, uh, it's so fun that I get to interview you both within 12 months.

   9. LHLeila Hormozi1:17

      Yeah. I'm excited to hear what your conclusion is after you've done both. [laughs]

   10. JSJay Shetty1:20

       [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   11. LHLeila Hormozi1:21

       So... [laughs]

   12. JSJay Shetty1:21

       So great to have you here. Like I said to you earlier, our audience is so aspira- aspirational. They're really excited about life. They wanna do better, but things keep holding them back. And the question I wanted to start with you, I feel like we have this group of people today who really believe that they have to have confidence in order to make a difference in their life. They've gotta build this skill, and they're trying to figure out how to build confidence. Could you define for me what confidence is to you?

   13. LHLeila Hormozi1:49

       When I hear people say that they wanna build confidence, the reason why it's so difficult to do that is because confidence is, it's an output. It's not an input. And so when you think about it, you don't get confidence by trying to be confident. Oftentimes, confidence comes after you are competent in something. And so for me, I didn't realize that. In fact, when I was, uh, 19, and I was overweight, and I was drinking, and I was doing drugs, and I was just, like, completely spiraling, I remember I literally [laughs] had a mirror in my bathroom, and I had affirmations written all over it. And I would sit there, and I would be saying these affirmations to myself. I'd be like, "I'm beautiful. I can do this. I work hard. I, I have money. I'm wealthy." And I would read them, and I remember just thinking like, "None of this is true." And it felt really weird to me because I kept thinking like, "This is supposed to work. This is what I'm supposed to do," and then, like, nothing would happen. And I was like, "Why am I not feeling confident?" I was insanely insecure. And by the way, like, people that know me very well will say, like, "You still are quite inse- [laughs] " Like, it's in different areas. I kept waiting to feel ready, and then I realized you don't ever feel ready until the second time that you do something. And that's because in order to feel confident, which is feeling ready in my opinion, you have to build competence in something. And the only way that you build competence is by building evidence for yourself to understand that you can actually do the thing. In order to do that, you have to pay the price, which is by having never done the thing before. And so it wasn't until I said, "I'm so sick of, like, being in my head, trying to think my way into being confident. Instead, I need to act my way into confidence. How would I do that? Okay, well, I have to get competent at something." Well, at that point in my life, you know, I was like, "I'm not really that good at anything." I wasn't really that skilled at anything. So it would also make sense that you're not confident if you don't have that many skills, right? And so I learned sales. That was the first thing I learned. I moved across the country. I didn't know anybody. I had $5,000, and I was like, "I'm going to learn how to do this." I am... Also, I was, like, viscerally opposed to the thought of sales. But I was like, "I need to understand this. I need to understand these core skills, otherwise I'm never gonna be able to build a business." And so I drove out to California. I found the closest gym within walking distance. I applied to all of them, right? And then I took the one that was the absolute closest, and I got the job. And I remember I started, and they were like, "Cool, so you understand how to help people lose weight and how to help people get healthy, but, like, you need to know how to market and sell yourself." And so that meant, like, walking to Whole Foods and trying to get... solicit people at the Whole Foods. That meant, like, when somebody was doing cardio, going up to them on the machine and being like, "Do, do you need help?"

   14. JSJay Shetty4:17

       [laughs]

   15. LHLeila Hormozi4:18

       And I remember the first time I walked up to a lady on the treadmill, it was the first person I had ever walked up to. I'm telling my boss this. So I'm like, "Dude, I don't know what I'm doing." He's like, "Listen, it's not gonna be that bad. What's she gonna say?" The first person I walk up to, [laughs] of course, she looks at me, and she was like, "Off." [laughs]

   16. JSJay Shetty4:32

       [laughs]

   17. LHLeila Hormozi4:32

       And I was like, "Ah." And I remember I ran into the bathroom, and I sat on the toilet, and I felt-

   18. JSJay Shetty4:37

       In Whole Foods.

   19. LHLeila Hormozi4:38

       Yes. And I was like, I literally think I'm gonna have a panic attack. Like, I felt so bad. I felt like my stomach was in my throat. I remember telling myself, I was like, "You can't let yourself down. You've gotta make this worth it." Like, "You drove out here. You quit everything. You told everyone that you were gonna do this. You told everyone you were gonna become an entrepreneur and have a business." So I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna focus on what I can do." And so I focused on, how do I get as many nos

2. 5:00 – 6:40

   What Actually Builds Confidence?

   1. LHLeila Hormozi5:00

      as possible? And through getting all the nos, and being rejected, and seeing that I could handle it, which I was terrified of rejection prior to this, by the way, like, bullied in school, not cool, like, didn't have that many friends, like, not cute. Like, it was just the whole thing. That was what built my confidence. And I think that so often we think that the thing that's gonna make us confident is the thing that feels good. But what's good for us often feels bad in the moment, and what feels good in the moment is often bad for us in the long term. And that's really, like, the biggest lesson I learned. And then I realized, I was like, all the times that I built the most confidence in myself, I wasn't focused on being confident. I was focused on becoming the best version of myself I could be, which meant that I was becoming more competent, and then by consequence, I became confident. I never thought about, "I gotta get more confident." After I realized, I was like, it just happens naturally if you do these things.

   2. JSJay Shetty5:50

      That's such a powerful answer, and I just wanna break that down for people. You said in order to feel confident, first we have to develop competence, which gives you the evidence, which then builds confidence. And what I really appreciate about that answer is so many of us think confidence comes first, and like you said, you were saying the affirmations in the mirror. You're trying to believe it, whatever it may be.

   3. LHLeila Hormozi6:11

      Yeah.

   4. JSJay Shetty6:12

      And the reality is, is that what you actually needed was humility.Because what you just said is you went up to someone at Whole Foods and you try and sell something or whatever it may be, and they rejected you. And I think that's what's so interesting is that what we actually need is being okay with being bad at something-

   5. LHLeila Hormozi6:27

      Yeah

   6. JSJay Shetty6:28

      ... rather than the desire to want to feel good at it before you've ever even done it. And that applies to everything. The first time you go to the gym, you won't have a clue what to do. The first time you go on a date, you'll be confused. The first time

3. 6:40 – 11:28

   Stop Waiting to Feel Ready To Take Action

   1. JSJay Shetty6:40

      you start a new job in sales where you've never made a sales call or a cold call, you won't know what to do. And so it's actually the skill we should be developing is not confidence. It should be wanting to be bad at something and being okay with being humble and saying, "I don't know."

   2. LHLeila Hormozi6:55

      Yeah.

   3. JSJay Shetty6:55

      And that's why you just said, which I love, is, "I still feel insecure about different things," because there are different things where you're still at the beginning of the journey.

   4. LHLeila Hormozi7:03

      A thousand percent. I love that you said that because, um, I studied a lot of psychology, and there's one thing that I realized. I was like, "Where do so much of my insecurity come from?" And so much of my insecurity came from wanting to be perfect, wanting to, like, create this illusion that I was, like, really good at something. And I, I had this motto that I've shared with a lot of people on my team, where instead of trying to be good, I say, "How can I be bad?" And so, like, I'm gonna p- try and be a bad boss. I'm gonna try and be a bad friend. And people are always so confused by it. They're like, "Why would you try and be bad?" I'm like, "Because in trying to be bad, it means that I actually take the risks required to be good."

   5. JSJay Shetty7:36

      Mm.

   6. LHLeila Hormozi7:37

      And if I don't take the risks, then I'm never gonna get it. It's like, you know, I had someone that interviewed me not that long ago, and they said, "Hey, I saw from your first company some reviews on Glassdoor from 2016. They were pretty bad, so, you know, do you think what you did really worked?" And I said, "Do you think that I would have the massive success that I have at this young age right now if I wasn't willing to fail like that?" I'm fine with looking bad. I'm fine with messing up. I'm writing a book right now. The whole thing is all lessons and failures because what's been so painful for me is that I think when I was on my journey of, like, I wanna be better, I wanna be a high performer, I wanna start a business. Like, I wanna get in shape. I wanna do all this stuff. Everything was so curated and fake, and everyone was talking about, like, the Lamborghini, and they've got this crazy house. They've got this vessel of, like, perfection, and it was so hard for me to relate to people. And so also, like, as I've gone through this journey and, and starting to make content, I'm like, "The one thing I never want people to think is that in order to have confidence, you're gonna be perfect to have it." It's like, no, you have to have the bad in order to have the good, and I think it's just, are you willing to? I think so much of it comes down to, are you willing to experience the emotions that you don't want in order to get the ones that you do want? And I think a lot of people say that they will and say that they're willing, but they're not. Because when everything inside of you feels like you're gonna die, a lot of people run the other way because it might be stepping on stage makes you feel like you're gonna die. Like, maybe running a board meeting, maybe pitching somebody for the first time, selling something. Like, I know that feeling where you, like, wanna crawl out of your skin, and I think people have to take a really hard look in the mirror and say, like, "Am I willing to feel that in order to get this thing I want on the other side?"

   7. JSJay Shetty9:07

      Absolutely. So then the next question is, how do you build that mindset that says, "I welcome this opportunity even though I may get laughed at, may get rejected, may feel like a failure"? What is that, then? What do we need to work on instead of confidence?

   8. LHLeila Hormozi9:24

      For me, a lot of it has been acceptance more than it has been anything else because I think that I-- So much of what I think pained me in my early life before I was able to have the success I had was that I felt like there was something wrong with feeling insecure, with feeling bad, with negative feelings, and I actually see that a lot right now, which is we have... A- and I think labels are really useful in a lot of situations, but I think that we sometimes tend to use them too much. I realized I had these beliefs that feeling an- immense anxiety, feeling terrified of something, feeling depressed when I didn't get what I wanted or I wasn't doing well, I felt like those were all really bad feelings that need to be avoided. And it wasn't until I changed the narrative around that and I said, [chuckles] I had this realization. I was super anxious when I was trying to lose weight, and I had just stopped drinking and doing drugs, and I remember it was, like, a Thursday, and everyone's drinking and all this stuff, and I realized I had been feeling so terrible when I was doing that, right? And I remember sitting there in my dorm, and I was like, "I still feel anxious." And then I realized, I was like, "Wow, I've been doing all of this stuff, like buffering, suppressing, and numbing to avoid these emotions that I still feel. In fact, I think they might be stronger."

   9. JSJay Shetty10:42

      Mm.

   10. LHLeila Hormozi10:43

       And it sent me down this entire journey to understand, like, well, what is this relationship that I have with myself? And I had these very, these beliefs that didn't serve me, which was essentially, like, all of these emotions I labeled as bad, maybe because of past experiences I had that felt really scary and terrible and maybe because of things I saw with other people. But until I was willing to say, "I accept all of these in, and these are okay, and it, I'm totally willing to feel these feelings in my life," I wasn't able to achieve anything when it came to disciplining myself, confidence, et cetera, because oftentimes in pursuing something, that means that you're growing, and when you're growing, you're stepping into unknown territory. When you step in unknown territory, your brain freaks out, and it's like, "I can't predict what's gonna happen next, so I'm gonna try and scare you so that you go back to the comfort

4. 11:28 – 14:41

   You Have to Be Bad Before You Get Good

   1. LHLeila Hormozi11:28

      cave," right? And in, every time it would happen, I would say, "Cool, I'm going back to the comfort cave." But when I finally said, "What if I befriended these emotions?" What if I said, "I will take them with me"? And I, I talk about this a lot, which is, like, I see it like anxiety used to be-- I would be in the car with anxiety, right? Anxiety would be in the driver's seat, driving us in some direction in my life, and it would be d- dictating where I was gonna go. Well, I still have anxiety in the car with me. The difference now is that I'm the one driving. It's sitting in the passenger seat or the back seat, but I'm still saying where I'm gonna go. It's not like the feeling has gone away, but my relationship with it has changed. And befriending those very, like, negative emotions, that has allowed me to do pretty much everything in life, and I think that's why I love growing a business. That's why I love, you know, try- I set out on making content, all these things. They were things that I felt like, wow-If I do those things, I will have to become the type of person who is able to really befriend more of those emotions, and that has made me more confident than any affirmation or any applause or any comment on Instagram [chuckles] has ever made me. It's just been doing that, being utterly terrified, being okay with being utterly terrified, and then doing the thing anyways. And then afterwards, having that feeling of absolute relief, and then proud of myself to be like, "You did it. Like, you were terrified and you did it anyways." And that's been, like, the key to everything for me. It's always been anytime I get stuck in life, it's like I look at where I'm at and I pull myself out, and I'm like, "You're not leaning into it. You're trying to avoid the emotion." And I have to catch myself, 'cause our minds are tricky, and say, "Nope, you gotta go into it." It's like I, I say that, "Get, get out of the comfort cave [chuckles] and get out into the world."

   2. JSJay Shetty13:10

      I love the visual of you driving and anxiety being in the back seat.

   3. LHLeila Hormozi13:14

      [laughs] Yeah.

   4. JSJay Shetty13:14

      Because I love the idea of how we let anxiety have the wheel and then drive our life in all different directions, and you're so right that I... as in me included, I still feel anxiety today. I still feel insecure today. I still feel like I have to prove myself today. I st- all those things.

   5. LHLeila Hormozi13:31

      Yeah.

   6. JSJay Shetty13:31

      And it's those things that you've learned how to use, engage, discuss, debate, discover what they're really saying, what the signal is, but they don't disappear, and I think that desire we all have is that the day they disappear, I will discover what my passion is and live my purpose and whatever else it may be. It's like, well, that doesn't happen for anyone.

   7. LHLeila Hormozi13:53

      Good luck. [laughs]

   8. JSJay Shetty13:53

      Because, yeah, I don't know anyone, even the n- like, I've been fortunate enough to meet so many amazing people and it's like, there's n- even the best athletes in the world that have won everything still feel scared stepping onto the court, and you can be like, "Well, why?" Because they've done it a million times, and it's like, no, this is a different day. Their body's different. Their energy's different. Different meaning more stakes.

   9. LHLeila Hormozi14:14

      Yeah.

   10. JSJay Shetty14:14

       Everything changes, and so this belief that we all have is that one day we'll get to a day where from that day onwards, everything will be easy, and I don't know anyone who feels that way, because they're just playing in a different league.

   11. LHLeila Hormozi14:26

       Mm.

   12. JSJay Shetty14:26

       And so you're just going up the leagues, and every league is different challenges. What do you feel... What do you see? You work with so many young people, business leaders, CEOs. You have people of different organizations coming to you for advice. What

5. 14:41 – 20:25

   Lean Into Fear and Discomfort

   1. JSJay Shetty14:41

      do you see as the number one thing holding people back from having success in their life?

   2. LHLeila Hormozi14:46

      So often, you know, people come to me and they're like, "I just want you to tell me the marketing hack or the sales hack," or... And I'm like, "Listen, that's where I started. I started in sales and marketing." The reason I talk about everything else I talk about is because I've realized that that's not what ends businesses. So I'll give you a story to demonstrate this.

   3. JSJay Shetty15:02

      Mm-hmm. Please.

   4. LHLeila Hormozi15:03

      Um, you know, we had a company that we worked with, and that company was, like, crazy growth. Like, we started with them. They were doing, like, two million a year. Um, within three years, that company is doing 90 million a year. Crushing it. Absolutely absurd. They get a threat from a competitor. That competitor starts to point out things in their marketing, on their website, all this stuff like of all these things that, like, they're gonna try and take them down for, and they're gonna copy, and their competitors start copying other stuff and then threatening other things. Their competitor then, you know, serves them with, like, a lawsuit and is like, "Hey, I'm gonna sue you for this thing." And we're like, "Dude, they have no grounds. Like, don't even worry about it." And I, I know 'cause, like, when I had my first lawsuit, I'm like l- up at night, you know, like, "Oh, my gosh, this is so scary"

   5. JSJay Shetty15:43

      Yeah

   6. LHLeila Hormozi15:43

      ... and nothing happened. So they get into this lawsuit. Within six months of the lawsuit being served, the company was at zero. The company was not at zero because of the lawsuit. In fact, the lawsuit ended and they won. The company was at zero because the founder, she was so unstable that she ended up shutting down the business because she couldn't handle it anymore. And I remember being on the phone with her, and she literally said... She gives me all these reasons, right? "It's the marketing, it's the sales, it's this that they're giving me, it's this piece that they're serving me." And it all came down to, I was like, "But you could do this. But you could do that. But we can do this. Like, please trust me. This is why I'm your partner, because I can get you through this. Like, I've been in many lawsuits." [chuckles] A- and she was like, "I just can't handle it." And it was like in that moment I remember I was like, the number one reason that people cannot grow a business and that they, they don't succeed is because they cannot manage their own mind. They cannot manage their mind and they cannot manage their emotions. And I've just seen it so many times. Like, the market doesn't put you out of business. You put you out of business. The same thing happened during COVID. I mean, we had h- thousands at that time of customers that were business owners that we worked with, and I saw the amount of people that COVID didn't end their business. Their inability to manage their emotions during COVID is what ended their business. Because eventually they would just throw in the towel and they would make up some excuse outside of themselves. It was the market, it was the lawsuit, it was the fact that they told us they had to be six feet apart, whatever it might be. And it always came down to the fact that they didn't want to tolerate those feelings anymore. They had a low frustration tolerance. They couldn't tolerate the feelings of uncertainty. They couldn't tolerate the feelings of frustration. They couldn't tolerate the feelings of unpredictability. And I have just seen every big business that I've seen go down, which I've seen, I would say, five more businesses besides the one I just told you about. It was always because the founder didn't have enough emotional management. They could not manage themselves emotionally during those turmoil, like, those situations that felt like turmoil. And I will tell you, you know, there was a time where I was, um, in so much pain, I could... You know, I was working from the couch every day. I had four lawsuits on my plate. I was having issues with some stuff personally with my family, and in my business, I was also... I had 12 direct reports. I had four new people I just hired, and I was performing three days a week. And the only reason that I was able to do that was I was like, "I am gonna double down on making sure that I can manage this." And I... It, it was the hardest season of my life, but I got through it and I'm better for it. That's what breaks most people. It's when everything collides at once, and then how do I deal with the uncertainty? How do I deal with the frustration, the anger, the anxiety? And then they just say, they find some reason outside of themselves and they point to it and say, "That's why it didn't work."Every time

   7. JSJay Shetty18:34

      I did not expect that answer.

   8. LHLeila Hormozi18:35

      Really?

   9. JSJay Shetty18:36

      Yeah, it's a great answer. I really like that. I, I couldn't agree with you more, and now I'm starting to think about so many people that I know and think about people that even made it and won, and you're absolutely spot on that it is so much to do with the mindset and you choosing whether you're staying in business or not. Talk to me about that first uncertainty you faced, that first lawsuit, that first whatever it was that you decided to choose to answer this question. What was that first moment where you didn't have... Now you have all this evidence and competence of dealing with markets changing, managing big teams, acquiring businesses and taking them. Before all of that, the first time you hit uncertainty, how did you manage your mind in order to find the evidence that that was the answer?

   10. LHLeila Hormozi19:27

       When I started my first business, I was 23, and by the age of 24, I had 120 employees, and the business had gone from, like, zero to 50 million in, like, less than two years. And so my entire journey of, like, one, being very young, having never managed anyone before, having just been this person who was, like, arrested and drugs and all this stuff, it was the most uncertainty I've ever felt in my life. I mean, to the degree that it was the hardest period of my life because of the amount of uncertainty. It was also where I grew the most because I didn't let it... I think about it like, um, the frog boiling. It's like the water kept getting hotter, and I just kept saying, like, "How do I, how do I also raise with the water?" And so when I think back to what I was able to do, I had to put in place practices to take care of myself, and it sounds, you know, trite. Uh, you know, people say, um, [chuckles] they're like, "Oh, taking care of yourself, that's soft." Well, there's nothing soft about winning. So [chuckles] that's what I say in return to that. I learned very

6. 20:25 – 26:00

   What’s Actually Blocking Your Success

   1. LHLeila Hormozi20:25

      early on, like, what are the things that I have to do to maintain my sanity throughout all this? And so, you know, I remember I had, I would have meetings starting at 8:00 AM, and it would be going until, you know, 6:00 or 7:00 PM, and I said, "Great, then I'm gonna get up at 4:30. I'm gonna journal. I'm going to walk. I'm gonna make breakfast. I'm gonna have coffee. I'm gonna listen to or meditate," whatever it might be. And then throughout the day, I was like, "Okay, I need one period between the... a break here where I can take 10 minutes to get outside, go on a walk." And I have been ruthless about doing that my entire career. I know what I have to do to keep myself in a, the right mental state. I have to have... I, I look about, think about it like this. I'm pouring my cup out all day, and I'm also being that person that's there for everybody when it's uncertain, and I know it's uncertain 'cause I'm feeling uncertain about it. I have to fill my cup back up, and it sounds so cheesy, but it has been the key to why I've been able to continue doing this, and I'm obsessed with studying, how do people that are high performers keep r- not, I don't care if you can win for five years. I really don't. I don't even care if you can win for 10. I'm like, "Who can win for 30 or 40 years?" And I realize that there's a lot of similarities around those people, and so I studied that ruthlessly in my free time, which was when I got up at 4:30 in the morning, uh, and after everybody went to sleep at night. And so the biggest thing I noticed is that they will absolutely do the things that they know they need to do to take care of themselves. So I think about it like this. If you saw an athlete that was performing, you know, you've interviewed many of them, right? Let's say it's Michael Jordan, right? And would you expect that he's pushing himself all day? Like, he wouldn't take a nap. He wouldn't get a massage. He wouldn't do physical therapy. He wouldn't... It's like, no, that's, like, part of the plan is that there has to be recovery because you're pushing very hard. Your body needs it. I think about business the same way. It's like, what do you do to recover from all the output that you're putting out there? And I realized really early on that in order to deal with the amount of uncertainty I was dealing with, I had to create these anchors for myself where I ha- felt a sense of stability in my own life, like I had some sense of control, 'cause there's so much we can't control in life. But I had to have these areas where I had these, like, little nuggets where I could control things, and I could bring myself back into the state of mind where I remember, like, why am I doing this, right? And the reason why is, like, it's always been the same for me, which is I wanna be the best version of myself I can possibly be. And then people say, "Well, why would you wanna do that? What..." Well, I guess it's my belief about life, which is what else am I gonna do until I die? I would like to know what this body and soul are capable of. And so I'm just like, the only thing that will stop me is if I wear myself out. I don't, I don't train like it's a marathon. I train like it's a sprint. And that's the biggest thing I've realized over time is I've just seen so many people that they get started in something, and then the amount of uncertainty, they're, they don't have enough skills to take care of themselves, that they end up opting out. So I think about it like this. A lot of people that are high performers, we have these skills. We can push really hard. We can discipline. We can press on the gas. But you also have to have these skills if you're indexing here, which is, like, do you know when to rest? Do you know when to take care of yourself? Do you know how to take care of your mindset? Or are you just white-knuckling through everything? Which that runs out because that's not, that's not discipline. That's just willpower, which we have a certain amount of, but I would like to save it for the things that matter, not the things that don't matter. That's been what got me through a lot of times of uncertainty is whenever I have more uncertainty in my life, I say, "Great, now that I have more uncertainty, what more do I need to do for myself to get through it?" And I treat myself like I would treat a friend. It's like, I'd be like, "Great, I have a therapist. I have coaches. I have mentors. I have people I consult with. I have people I can call. I have friends I can talk to." Like, I try to collect all sorts of support for myself so I can support the amount of uncertainty I have in my life. And if I don't have people to support me, I cannot support the weight of the uncertainty that, that is in my hands.

   2. JSJay Shetty24:09

      You know, it's like when you walk into a building, no one ever goes, "Ah, this place has amazing foundations."

   3. LHLeila Hormozi24:15

      Yeah.

   4. JSJay Shetty24:15

      Right? You've never said that. If you walk inside a beautiful building, whether it's in New York or Singapore or anywhere in the world, you walk in and you go, "Wow, this..." And you look upAnd you go, "Oh, this place is incredible. Like, it's so high and it's so beautiful." And then you don't realize that there's these really, really deep foundations. Actually, the taller the building, the deeper and stronger the foundations are. But you don't see them, and it's the same as what you're saying, whether it was waking up at 4:30, journaling, listening, finding space, meditating, whatever your version of it was, that's your foundation. And that's what, exactly what you just said. The higher I wanted to go, the deeper the foundations have to be, the more people I needed to help me hold that anxiety and hold that uncertainty, which is so powerful because I think so many entrepreneurs believe they just have to do it themselves, that a really good entrepreneur is someone who just does it on their own, and yes, those people weren't helping you build the business, but they were helping you carry your emotions.

   5. LHLeila Hormozi25:09

      Yeah.

   6. JSJay Shetty25:10

      And, and that's such an interesting, uh, connection because I think we think of business success as so separate to emotional human connection, and it's, according to you, and I see you shaking your head right now-

   7. LHLeila Hormozi25:23

      It's crazy to me that people think that. Like, it's absolutely crazy to me, and I mean, I will say this, I think that there are people that are anomalies. For the amount of anomalies there are, there are 100 more-

   8. JSJay Shetty25:32

      [laughs]

   9. LHLeila Hormozi25:32

      ... people for every one that are doing it because they have that kind of support.

   10. JSJay Shetty25:36

       Yeah.

   11. LHLeila Hormozi25:36

       And I also think about, like, what kind of life do I wanna live? And I, I want to be great. Like, I want to be the best version of myself I can be, but I also don't believe that I need to do it alone, and I don't think anybody wants to. I don't think that's fun.

   12. JSJay Shetty25:48

       Yeah.

   13. LHLeila Hormozi25:49

       You know? That's just like, people are like, "I'm burnt out." I'm like, "All right, what are you... Do you have friends? Are you doing things alone? Do you have people to support you?" It's funny. It's, like, such a correlation there. It's like, they're often like, "No, I have like one person."

   14. JSJay Shetty25:59

       Yeah.

7. 26:00 – 35:00

   Can You Handle the Pressure of Success?

   1. JSJay Shetty26:00

      And people always say that statement of, "It's lonely at the top," but it doesn't have to be because it's a choice of, of, of building that, and I'm thinking of something really wonderful actually because of what you just said. I've noticed that as my career's grown, I talk more to my oldest friends.

   2. LHLeila Hormozi26:15

      Yeah.

   3. JSJay Shetty26:15

      And I have less time today. So it doesn't make sense. So I moved to the States 10 years ago when I started my online work, and I talk to my best friend who was my best man at my wedding, I talk to him, like, three times a week right now. And I don't know where I find the time.

   4. LHLeila Hormozi26:29

      Yeah.

   5. JSJay Shetty26:29

      But somehow I do, and I'm thinking that's the reason I do it. I didn't even think about it that way n- until you've said it. I just thought, "Oh, our relationship's just got better and-"

   6. LHLeila Hormozi26:37

      Yeah

   7. JSJay Shetty26:37

      ... even though he lives in a totally different time zone, we find a way to connect with each other. But it's exactly what you're saying. Because my anxiety's increased-

   8. LHLeila Hormozi26:45

      Yeah

   9. JSJay Shetty26:46

      ... and because the amount I have to hold has increased, the amount I have to give has increased, I lean more on the people in my life that have been there the longest, who know me the deepest, who know me the best, and even if I'm doing it subconsciously, that is the reason why it's happening.

   10. LHLeila Hormozi27:00

       Oh, 1000%.

   11. JSJay Shetty27:02

       Yeah.

   12. LHLeila Hormozi27:02

       It's interesting you say that 'cause, like, we, you know, we brought on a, a third partner. His name's Sharon, and we work together, like, all day, every day. And we had a conversation, like, two weeks ago, and he came to me and he said, "I had a revelation last night." I said, "What?" He said, "We both do better the more we talk." And he's like, "So let's set up, like," because we would, we'll talk in the morning, at night, whatever's convenient. We're like, "Cool." So we set up three calls a week. We're like, "Let's just get them so they're on the books." And we were talking about it. We're like, "There's so much hard stuff to do, and it weighs on us, but if you can share it with somebody that, and that can support you, it just feels so much lighter."

   13. JSJay Shetty27:35

       Yeah. Yeah. This idea of journaling and also taking a business from two to 90 million, there's this gap filled by discipline.

   14. LHLeila Hormozi27:45

       Yeah.

   15. JSJay Shetty27:45

       Because getting up and, like you said, you've never compromised on those habits in your career, and then being able to scale multiple businesses to 50 million your first or 90 million with the example you just gave, that takes discipline and consistency. But one of the things we see today in the world, I think people have started to recognize discipline's important.

   16. LHLeila Hormozi28:02

       Yeah.

   17. JSJay Shetty28:02

       But it's the thing that we all massively struggle to build. People kind of will make... They'll post a video every day for a week and then give up, or people will wake up and go to the gym for a month and then give up, and we know that that's the common trait that happens. What's the difference between people who build discipline and those where it always breaks down? What's the difference between those two types of people?

   18. LHLeila Hormozi28:24

       There's no difference in the person. I think that's, like, the biggest fallacy that I see with people. Like, you're disciplined. It's like, no, you know how to build discipline. Discipline's a system. And so the easiest way to explain it is that if you want to be disciplined, make it easier to do the things that you want to do to achieve your goals and harder to do the things that work against your goals. So a great example is this. People are like, "I'm just not disciplined. You know, like, I, I'm eating ice cream every night. I just can't seem to lose weight." Well, discipline, if we look at it like a system, you have a prompt in your house. You have ice cream in your refrigerator. That's a literal trigger for you to eat the ice cream. So let's remove it, and then let's insert, I don't know, vegetable sticks or I wouldn't do that, but, like, I would do, like, a hot cocoa, diet hot cocoa. That's a good one for me. Um, and I would put it in the same place. And so it's interesting 'cause, like, when I went to lose weight, I didn't say to myself, like, "Oh, you're a piece of shit because you can't lose weight." I was like, "Oh, I don't have good systems in place. How do I make it as easy as possible for me to do the steps that I need to do to lose weight? How do I make it as easy as possible for me not to drink? How do I make it so..." Okay, let's look up each of those. Easy as possible not to drink. Easiest thing I did. I lived with six people who all drink. What did I do? Moved out. Like, it's so simple, but it's like half of the, the trigger, like, I would say 50% of my desire to drink went away immediately because I was around people doing it all the time, and it was a constant prompt, "Hey, remember you like drinking. Drink, drink, drink, drink," prompting me all day. Now, on the other hand, when I was like, "Okay, I'm trying to lose weight," the first thing I did, I did two things. I was like, "I'm getting rid of all the junk food in my house." The second thing, I deleted and got rid of anything on my phone that I could order food with. Because what are the two ways that I'm gonna get junk food? It's either gonna be in my house or I'm gonna order it. Now if I want junk food, I've gotta drive.

   19. JSJay Shetty30:13

       [laughs]

   20. LHLeila Hormozi30:14

       Oh my God. Now there's, like, so many reasons why I'm not gonna do that.

   21. JSJay Shetty30:17

       Mm-hmm.

   22. LHLeila Hormozi30:18

       That doesn't mean... I think a lot of people think in order to be disciplined, it means that you have more desire. No, my desire for that ice cream was high.

   23. JSJay Shetty30:26

       [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

   24. LHLeila Hormozi30:27

       But there's so much friction to get it-

   25. JSJay Shetty30:30

       Yes

   26. LHLeila Hormozi30:30

       ... that it's just like, "Oh, fuck. I guess I'll just deal with the desire."

   27. JSJay Shetty30:33

       Yeah.

   28. LHLeila Hormozi30:34

       And most people have it working the opposite direction because a lot of people say, they're like, you know, they look at discipline, and I think discipline is just con- doing things consistently to get you to what you want.

   29. JSJay Shetty30:42

       Mm-hmm.

   30. LHLeila Hormozi30:43

       Lots of people do things consistently to not get what they want. You consistently eat the ice cream. You consistently don't go to the gym. You consistently... So you have systems set up to make it easy for you to not achieve your goals.
8. 35:00 – 43:20

   Discipline Isn’t Willpower

   1. LHLeila Hormozi35:00

      if I don't wanna drink and do drugs, maybe I shouldn't go out past 11 because what happens after 11 with anybody sober? Not much.

   2. JSJay Shetty35:05

      Yeah. [laughs] And it's also like why put yourself in a position where you're always testing yourself, right? It's like your life's hard enough.

   3. LHLeila Hormozi35:13

      Yeah.

   4. JSJay Shetty35:13

      Why are you making it harder to do the things you really wanna commit to-

   5. LHLeila Hormozi35:16

      Yeah

   6. JSJay Shetty35:16

      ... and push yourself? Because you're just testing yourself. Now every evening's an exam, and every weekend's an exam. And it's like why are you trying to pass and fail the test? Because chances are you're gonna be exhausted by the end of the week. You will fail the test, whatever that may be, whether it's waking up early, whether it's building a business. If you're partying all weekend and you're surrounded by people who are not building a business, of course you're not gonna wake up early on a Monday morning and get to work-

   7. LHLeila Hormozi35:40

      No

   8. JSJay Shetty35:41

      ... because you failed, you failed the test because of course you're exhausted, and of course you've just been trying to live life.

   9. LHLeila Hormozi35:47

      Yeah.

   10. JSJay Shetty35:47

       Talk to me about this idea of work-life balance because it feels like it's still a big conversation, and it feels like in today's generation it's almost, like, seen as the biggest priority, where we wanna have the biggest win, but we wanna have the biggest break. Talk to me about how you've seen that in your life and in the people you mentor.

   11. LHLeila Hormozi36:07

       I don't know if my opinion is, um, popular, but I think that a lot of people talk about work-life balance because they associate work with pain and suffering. And so I see a lot of people say, "I need work-life balance," because they don't actually enjoy their work, and I think that's a skill, to know what kind of work you will enjoy. When I tell people, I'm like, "Oh, I... You know, yesterday was a light day. I worked 12 hours." You know, and it's like, "What?" But I work with my spouse. I have... I'm friends with all the people that I work with. I genuinely wanna talk to all of them. I work with my father. I work with my fam- like I-Why would I not want to be doing that? Like, I enjoy it. I genuinely do, and I find a lot of meaning in what I'm doing. And so I think that, one, I think that unfortunately, a lot of work, like for people that have jobs, they've had such terrible jobs, and they've let that kind of taint their vision, their version of like what, what does work mean to you? Um, and I get that because I had a terrible boss once. Well, I- I actually, I had an amazing boss, and then a year after, um, he was the one that like got me into sales and like helped me get through that season. They switched him out with a different boss. He was a terrible boss. And I went from like loving my life to being like, "I don't wanna... " I'm like crying in the parking lot. I don't even wanna come into work any day. I feel miserable. And I remember realizing, looking back, this is why people don't like work and work gets a bad rap. Because there's so many people that almost like make the work so much harder than it need be. Because it wasn't work that I didn't like, it was him.

   12. JSJay Shetty37:36

       Mm.

   13. LHLeila Hormozi37:37

       And I think a lot of people have negative associations with work, and that also makes sense because you spend most of your time at work. Things are gonna happen that are gonna suck. Things are gonna happen that might really rock you, but if you allow that narrative to stick, then I don't think you can get to this other side where work can actually be something that you enjoy. So I think that's one piece is like I really feel like that's a, a difficult piece of it, and I also think that kind of goes hand in hand with like... And I see a lot of people who wanna be entrepreneurs, and they wanna have status, and they wanna have fame, but they don't wanna be good leaders. And that is hard because I think that that also taints people's view of work, people that are not entrepreneurs, right? It's like now you have bad leaders. You have negative associations with work. So yes, people are like, "I need to be done at 5:00 because this is painful for me to be doing this all day. I'm exhausted, and I don't like it." But if you like it, if you like anything, you wanna do more of it. And so when I thought about like what do I want in life, I want work that doesn't make me wanna stop working. Like if I feel like I have to end at 5:00... Which by the way, you probably wanna end doing anything at some point in the day 'cause you're just fucking tired. I don't know what else to say. Like, I could be with my husband and be like, "I'm done with you."

   14. JSJay Shetty38:39

       [laughs]

   15. LHLeila Hormozi38:40

       Like, we've been around each other enough today. I could be working out and be like, "I'm exhausted. I've been in the gym three hours." I could be talking to girlfriends and be like, "I'm done." Like, we have nothing to talk about for four hours. So anything at some point in the day, you only have so much energy. But when you build this association thinking that this thing called work needs to be so- it's like this association's been built that it's something that you dislike, and it's hard and bad. We live in this world that is so freaking cool right now. So many people get to choose what they can do, and there are so many options. It's not just, do I get this job or this job? It's, I can build this thing. I can do this online. I can become an influencer here. I can sell here. I can do... There are so many options. And I think it's mostly that people are optimizing for the wrong outcome, which is... And I'll tell you this. This will wrap it all up. A lot of people sit down and they think, "What do I want to..." Th- what they really are thinking when they're thinking, "What job do I want? What business do I want?" is, "What are people gonna applaud me for?" And then because of that, they sign up for something that they don't actually like, they're not good at, and they're not engineered for, and then they don't like it, and then they need balance. When I started acquisition.com, it was weeks of thinking to myself, "What do I like doing every day? Who are the people I wanna be surrounded by? What are the things I like doing? What could I see myself doing for 30 years?" Then build the business off of that, knowing that I can still be doing those things throughout the whole time. That's why I love what I do now even more than my first business. My first business, that was not how I built it. It was like, "Okay. Well, this worked. It made money. Let's build it." And then I was like, "Why do I not... I, I need..." Like, I was exhausted. I felt like I needed balance. I, like, needed to not look at Slack after a certain time. It felt punishing. And with this, it's so different, and it's because I engineered it to be that work is something I like doing. And so I think rather than thinking like, "How do I put more balance in my life?" it's thinking, "How do I make work something that I enjoy doing?" And I don't think that people put a lot of thought into that, and some people might listen to this and maybe think, "Well, Leila, I can't do that. Like, I can only work this job. I only have this many resources. I only have this much money." I mean, I can even tell you that when I was a cashier at a smoothie stand, [laughs] I remember talking to my boss, and she inspired me so much because she said, "How can you make just every person's day better by working here?" Because I said the job was kind of boring. I just wanna go home. And so I made it into almost like a video game. I was like, "How is it that every person that walks up, I can just make them smile when they walk away?" And it sounds so cheesy, but then I started liking work because I saw that I made all these people smile just by being a cashier. And then eventually, like I didn't wanna stop working. And it's funny 'cause now I look back on it, I'm like, "That was one of the best jobs I ever had."

   16. JSJay Shetty41:12

       Mm.

   17. LHLeila Hormozi41:12

       And it had nothing to do with the work and everything to do with how I viewed the work.

   18. JSJay Shetty41:15

       Yeah.

   19. LHLeila Hormozi41:15

       And so I think it's like either... I think there's two ways you hit it, which is, how do you make sure that the thing that you do for work is something you like to the best of your ability? And then how do you make sure that you don't have a shitty mindset about anything you're doing? And a lot of people have such a negative filter at which they see everything in the world. They don't see the opportunity to become a better version of themselves in anything that they're doing that it just feels like this boring, tedious thing you're doing every day. It's like, yeah, but this right here, the tedious thing you're doing, is exactly what people who lose don't do and who don't become the person that they wanna be. And so, uh, those are the two ways that I think about it. Again, probably not popular, but...

   20. JSJay Shetty41:50

       [laughs] But, but there's a great study that I read that backs up that point of view. It was a few years ago by Amy Wrzesniewski and her team at Yale. So in 2019, they went out across America to discover what they believed was the most difficult job in the States.

   21. LHLeila Hormozi42:05

       Yeah.

   22. JSJay Shetty42:06

       And so they spoke to lots of jobs, interviewed lots of jobs, and they decided it was being a hospital cleaner. Now, this was before the pandemic. You can only imagine how much harder it became, but I think we can all agree that being a hospital cleaner sounds like a pretty tough job. Cleaning plates, toilets, bedsheets, floors, cleaning up after people use those things, cleaning up after people pass away. So really tough job. So they went into hospitals, and they interviewed hospital cleaners. And these cleaners that they interviewed described themselves in their own words as low-skilled labor. They clean toilets, bedsheets, floors, et cetera. Then they carried on interviewing them, and they found this other group of cleaners who called themselves healers and carers.And they were like, "Wait, what do you mean? You work the same hours, you get paid the same amount, you work in the same hospitals, you do the same exact jobs, but these cleaners call themselves cleaners, and these cleaners call themselves healers." So they asked the healers, "Why, why do you call yourselves that?" They said, "Because we believe that a clean hospital is integral to the healing journey of a patient."

   23. LHLeila Hormozi43:09

       Mm.

   24. JSJay Shetty43:10

       "We believe that if the hospital is clean, people's family will spend more time with them in their time of need. They won't want to rush out of a dirty place. And actually, if the hospital's

9. 43:20 – 49:41

   Is Work-Life Balance Possible?

   1. JSJay Shetty43:20

      clean, then people feel a sense of dignity at a really tough time in their life when they're going to the bathroom or when they're eating off a plate. And so how could we not see ourselves as part of healing and caring?" Now, these people had more purpose. They felt happier. They had more meaning. They were just more positive about the work they were doing, going back to your point of it wasn't the work. So Amy and her team coined this term called job crafting-

   2. LHLeila Hormozi43:46

      Mm

   3. JSJay Shetty43:47

      ... which is this idea that it's not what you do for work that makes you happy. It's how you feel about what you do for work that makes you happy. And for them, they felt that they were healing people. And-

   4. LHLeila Hormozi43:58

      So cool

   5. JSJay Shetty43:59

      ... and that... And I'm like, wow, like if you can do that as, as a hospital cleaner, like doing one of the ha- the hardest job in the States, then we can all adopt that mindset. Like, we can all be job crafters. And I love that you've done that in your job, as you just mentioned, and I know I've done it in previous jobs when I was employed. And I think that mentality was what gave me confidence and competence and skills that has now led to a full-time thing that I'm doing. So-

   6. LHLeila Hormozi44:23

      So cool.

   7. JSJay Shetty44:24

      Yeah, it's such a cool study. I love it.

   8. LHLeila Hormozi44:25

      Yeah.

   9. JSJay Shetty44:26

      I was, I was so happy when I found it because I was like, wow, I, I always wanted to find a way of showing how meaning was so powerful and how making meaning is up to you, and that study kind of really put it into perspective. But in that, in making meaning, in people finding work-life balance and what- whatever that means to them and falling more in love with work, you talked about being a leader and that being a real lack today. I think one of the reasons why people don't like work is bad leaders, and one of the reasons why people struggle becoming successful is being a bad leader. And leadership is your obsession. It's what you do day in, day out. I believe, is that the work you would say you chose to love every day? Like, that's, that's what it was to build a leadership?

   10. LHLeila Hormozi45:07

       Totally.

   11. JSJay Shetty45:07

       What is actually the job of a CEO?

   12. LHLeila Hormozi45:10

       I think the job of the CEO is to influence the behavior of everybody in the company in a way that is effective for them and the company when they're not in the room.

   13. JSJay Shetty45:22

       Mm. That's a great definition.

   14. LHLeila Hormozi45:25

       If I had to, like, boil it down to what it is.

   15. JSJay Shetty45:27

       Yeah, yeah.

   16. LHLeila Hormozi45:27

       And, you know, with that, you know, maybe people, vision, cash, uh, [laughs] uh, 'cause, you know, there's-

   17. JSJay Shetty45:32

       Talk to me about this. Yeah, go ahead.

   18. LHLeila Hormozi45:33

       Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, when I think about people, are you taking care of the people? Do you have the right people in the business? Do you have the right people supporting the business? Do you have the right vendors, partners, clients? So it's just all the things surrounding people. That's the job of the CEO, the first one, in my opinion. So that could be product/market fit. That can be, uh, I say, like employee business fit. Um, and that can be partners that you have. Do you have the right people supporting this, this thing that you're building? Um, vision, where are we going? Now, this has become harder than ever for anybody because of AI, and I think that that tends to be difficult for people. But I don't think that your vision needs to be so, uh, detailed i- in that way. I think it has to be like, what are we trying to represent in this world? And for me, that's, okay, I have what I call like, um, our, our DSS, our desired superior state, which is the quantitative and qualitative measures that I would like the company to be at in three to five years. And then I always tell people, like, "By the way, it could all change." [laughs]

   19. JSJay Shetty46:26

       [laughs]

   20. LHLeila Hormozi46:26

       'Cause AI can come faster than we think, and so, like, this is just like... But it's the ethos of what we would like to build. I tell people all the time in acquisition.com, I say, "Listen, when, in 10 years, when people are talking about the company they built, I want them to say I worked at acquisition.com." I want people to hear the word business and think acquisition.com, not Alex and Leila. I say I want them to think acquisition.com. That's a harder task. And then when I think about cash, I think about, uh, cash is, outside of people, the most valuable resource in the business. So how are we allocating cash? Are we investing in things that grow the business? Do we have too many liabilities on the business? Are we... You know, what's our return, like our LTV to CAC, which is like how much money does it cost to acquire a customer, and then do we keep the customer for long enough that it makes sense for it to cost that much to even get them in the first place? Those are all things that the CEO needs to be thinking about at a macro level. And so I would say, like, after the leadership piece, like, those are the three things that I focus on, like, on a daily basis. And I would say, like, a underlying piece of that is, like, you're kind of chief everything officer-

   21. JSJay Shetty47:23

       [laughs]

   22. LHLeila Hormozi47:24

       ... which is, like, the biggest problems, the messiest things, [laughs] like they all come to you. And it's interesting because, like, you know, being, uh, Hal, Alex, Alex own the company 50/50. Um, so I'm founder of the company and CEO. I don't need to be CEO. Like I... You don't have to do both, but I really like the job. Like, I genuinely find a ton of meaning in it, and I, I love the craft of it. I love crafting the vision. I love figuring out how we're gonna get there. I love assembling the right team and people. Like, it really is fun for me. It's also has a ton of the bad feelings-

   23. JSJay Shetty47:55

       [laughs]

   24. LHLeila Hormozi47:55

       ... but I, I find it worth it.

   25. JSJay Shetty47:56

       Yeah.

   26. LHLeila Hormozi47:56

       Like, I really enjoy that.

   27. JSJay Shetty47:58

       What was that, DSS?

   28. LHLeila Hormozi47:59

       Desired superior state.

   29. JSJay Shetty48:00

       Desired superior state.

   30. LHLeila Hormozi48:02

       Yeah.
10. 49:41 – 53:00

    How to Find Purpose in Any Job

    1. LHLeila Hormozi49:41

       hand for, for myself, um, because that's a little s- It's interesting. It's like once the business becomes big enough, you have a family office and a business, and it's like a ... It's an interesting place to be. But yeah, so I was looking at the resume. I, I will say this, like, when it comes to looking at resumes now, um, it's a lot different than it used to be because people use AI to write their resumes so often. And so I think the importance of interviewing is actually more than ever because people can BS their resumes six ways to Sunday, and lots of people also ... You know, there's little quippy things people do. Like, they'll be like, "Harvard Business." It's like, okay, you got a certification online, great. Uh, you didn't go to Harvard Business School, which I don't know if I give a shit about either of those things. But I don't like it when people lie-

    2. JSJay Shetty50:22

       Yes

    3. LHLeila Hormozi50:22

       ... or try to make it look a certain way.

    4. JSJay Shetty50:23

       Or try to make it look a way, yeah.

    5. LHLeila Hormozi50:24

       Yeah. That's not fun for me. I'm like, "Listen, I went to community college. I'm, I'm not judging over here." [laughs]

    6. JSJay Shetty50:28

       [laughs]

    7. LHLeila Hormozi50:28

       Um, I will say that when it comes to looking at, um, the resumes, now it's more of the skill of the interviewer. And I'll, I'll tell you what I've found to be, like, the skill of the best interviewers is they do not trust what people say, they trust what they do. So what does that mean? People are like, "Hey, one of our values is be honest. Can you tell me about a time when you were honest?" Why don't you just ask them something that would prompt them to either lie or be honest?

    8. JSJay Shetty50:54

       Yes.

    9. LHLeila Hormozi50:55

       You know, for example, when I say, um, sincere candor, which is one of our values, and I say people have to be able to give and receive hard feedback. And so one of the things that I do in a final interview is I look at all the red flags that my team has given me on a person, and then I say, "Great, I'm gonna read them to them." And so I'm like, "Hey." I get on the interview and I'm like, "So this is the number one red flag that my team has about you. Can you give me a little insight on that?" How they respond to it tells me if they have the value of sincere candor. Me asking them, "Are you s- do you have sincere candor?"

    10. JSJay Shetty51:26

        [laughs]

    11. LHLeila Hormozi51:26

        Is irrelevant. But if in the moment they're like, "That's shit. You know, why would they say that? That's totally, uh, divi- " And they start defending-

    12. JSJay Shetty51:33

        Yeah

    13. LHLeila Hormozi51:33

        ... and they start fighting me, which 50% of people do.

    14. JSJay Shetty51:36

        Interesting.

    15. LHLeila Hormozi51:37

        Yeah.

    16. JSJay Shetty51:38

        Wow.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi51:38

        Then I'm like, "Oh, no." But then when they're like, "Wow, I really see that, and I am working on that," great. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

    18. JSJay Shetty51:44

        Yeah.

    19. LHLeila Hormozi51:44

        The same comes for competitive greatness. People are like, "How do you see that at?" I'm like, "In the negotiation." And they're like, "What do you mean?" Competitive greatness by our standard is people that are looking for the work because they want to be the most excellent version of themselves, not because they want the most money. And every single person in our company that embodies that has taken, has not gone to, you know, a crazy, you know, Yale and Harvard teaching thing or a con- crazy consulting job or a CEO job because they really believe in acquisition.com, and so usually they take even a pay cut, even though we pay well. [laughs] And what I've noticed is that when it comes down to negotiation, if somebody tells me, like, "No, I'm competitively great. I'm doing this to be excellent," and they're like, "Hey, I need an extra 10 grand," and these are people that are already being paid well. This is not like a, you know ... This is well above six figures. I'm like ... I say, "Are you really competitively great?" And so then I tell people, I'm like, "No, don't give it to them." And they're like, "Why?" And I'm like, "Because that's not competitive greatness. I don't want them on the team." It's, like, don't tell me, show me.

    20. JSJay Shetty52:38

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    21. LHLeila Hormozi52:39

        It's like that's the biggest thing.

    22. JSJay Shetty52:40

        Yeah.

    23. LHLeila Hormozi52:40

        You, you don't tell somebody who you are, you show them.

    24. JSJay Shetty52:43

        Yeah.

    25. LHLeila Hormozi52:43

        So what are the observable behaviors of the person I'm interviewing? How do they respond to the email? What do they say when I ask this question? What are they negotiating through the process? What do they say matters in the contract? Like, that is how you break somebody down rather than ask them a question. Like, this is just BS.

    26. JSJay Shetty52:59

        [laughs] Yeah,

11. 53:00 – 57:24

    What It Really Means to Be a CEO

    1. JSJay Shetty53:00

       yeah.

    2. LHLeila Hormozi53:00

       You know?

    3. JSJay Shetty53:00

       That's so true. I couldn't agree with you more. I think those questions are so outdated, and it's, it's amazing how when you actually ask a question that's also a surprise to someone how well they deal with it, as opposed to, as opposed to the example you just gave. I wanted to ... So talking of AI and resumes.

    4. LHLeila Hormozi53:16

       Oh, yeah? [laughs]

    5. JSJay Shetty53:17

       So we created, uh, two resumes on AI.

    6. LHLeila Hormozi53:22

       What? [laughs]

    7. JSJay Shetty53:23

       And so we want you to ... We want... I don't want you to tell me which one you'd hire 'cause they're for different roles, but I want you to tell me ... Well, actually, they're, they're for... They, they could be for similar roles. They've done different things. So we asked AI to build two resumes.

    8. LHLeila Hormozi53:35

       [laughs]

    9. JSJay Shetty53:36

       And I want Leila Hormozi to rate them and give some feedback on each resume. Can you do that for me?

    10. LHLeila Hormozi53:42

        I'm down. Yeah.

    11. JSJay Shetty53:42

        You can take your time as well. Here we go. Here we go.

    12. LHLeila Hormozi53:44

        Okay. All right, resume A.

    13. JSJay Shetty53:47

        And it's AI made, so they're not real people.

    14. LHLeila Hormozi53:49

        Okay, I'm not gonna offend Alexander Chain-

    15. JSJay Shetty53:51

        Yeah, exactly

    16. LHLeila Hormozi53:52

        ... Chen. Okay, well, starting off, engineering executive with 12 years leading platform infrastructure organizations through high growth and enterprise environments. Vague language, not detailed at all. So it's like, okay, it's vague. Engineering executive, what, what does that even mean? Are you a C- ... Are you a CTO? Are you a leader engineer? Are you a principal engineer? Platform and infrastructure organizations through high growth and enterprise. Like, have you noticed that people put so many words? It's too many words.

    17. JSJay Shetty54:18

        All the time. On LinkedIn profiles, that's all I ever see is just random words that-

    18. LHLeila Hormozi54:22

        Just so many words

    19. JSJay Shetty54:22

        ... no one outside your industry even understands, and especially people like us who are building outside of industries or new industries that may not have existed. It's kind of a bit like I have no idea what that is.

    20. LHLeila Hormozi54:31

        It's very ambiguous.

    21. JSJay Shetty54:32

        Yeah.

    22. LHLeila Hormozi54:32

        And known for disciplined execution, architectural clarity, and building durable systems. So this is what I would call corporate fucking jargon. It just sounds ... Like, you think it sounds cool, but it's unclear.

    23. JSJay Shetty54:42

        Mm.

    24. LHLeila Hormozi54:42

        I think the best thing you can do on your resume is be clear. What were you? I was an engineering principal at two startups that went from 30 million to 300 million. I built out their AWS servers. I built out their ... That's what I would be going for.

    25. JSJay Shetty54:55

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    26. LHLeila Hormozi54:56

        Um, selected impactLed 20-engineer platform infrastructure to... So you're using, they used, okay, supporting 18 million MAU. What is MAU?

    27. JSJay Shetty55:06

        Yeah.

    28. LHLeila Hormozi55:06

        I don't know. Directed multi-year migration from monolith to modular services, reducing critical incidents by 41%. Decent. Reduced cloud spend by 23% through infrastructure consolidation and performance optimization. Okay, but can you back it up? Established company-wide architecture review council to standardize technical, too much jargon, education, MS. So this one I would say is short-

    29. JSJay Shetty55:28

        Mm-hmm

    30. LHLeila Hormozi55:29

        ... and vague.
12. 57:24 – 1:04:00

    The Hiring Mistake Most People Make

    1. JSJay Shetty57:24

       and it was in Hawaii, and it looked beautiful. And I was, I sent it to my team immediately. I was like, "Guys, we need to figure out who this guy is."

    2. LHLeila Hormozi57:29

       Yeah.

    3. JSJay Shetty57:29

       Now he works with us.

    4. LHLeila Hormozi57:30

       Yeah.

    5. JSJay Shetty57:31

       Uh, and he, he's a contractor with us. He's not full-time, but we bring him in to do certain... And I'm like, if he hadn't made those things, that was his way of doing something novel, and it was a cool story. It was like, I took it to Hawaii, and I made all these, you know, pieces of content that really represented, like, the flavors and the trop- And it wasn't... I'm not saying he made, like, 27 things.

    6. LHLeila Hormozi57:49

       Yeah.

    7. JSJay Shetty57:49

       He made, like, two pictures and two reels that were great, and they were short and simple. And we were so... It was just so easy for us to know that he had the skill and the talent that we wanted. And, and going back to your point of being novel, I think it makes such a difference. And, and it stood out immediately.

    8. LHLeila Hormozi58:06

       It's show, don't tell, right?

    9. JSJay Shetty58:07

       Yeah. Show, don't tell, going back to that point too.

    10. LHLeila Hormozi58:08

        Yeah. I mean, I would say if you're like, "What stands out?" 'cause we get the same thing. It's like people who, rather than tell me what they're going to do, they show me. They make a slide deck. They make a presentation. They make a Loom video. They edit content ahead of time. I mean, we have a guy on our team, his name's Maddox. Uh, he was in high school, and he was making so many clips of Alex. Alex, uh, someone on the team DMed him and was like, "Dude, what are you doing?" He's like, "I'm just doing it for fun." They're like, "Do you want a job?" And he was like, "Sure." And now he moved to Vegas, works in our office. Maddox is, like, one of the youngest ones. We can't go to anywhere that, can't do 21 and up because of Maddox, but [laughs]

    11. JSJay Shetty58:42

        [laughs] That's awesome. That's so good.

    12. LHLeila Hormozi58:42

        But he, he, he showed us.

    13. JSJay Shetty58:44

        Yeah.

    14. LHLeila Hormozi58:44

        We were like, "Oh, he has the ability." He was clipping six clips a day.

    15. JSJay Shetty58:46

        Wow.

    16. LHLeila Hormozi58:47

        I was like, "Great. Do that for us."

    17. JSJay Shetty58:48

        Yeah, yeah, exactly.

    18. LHLeila Hormozi58:49

        Yeah.

    19. JSJay Shetty58:49

        I love that.

    20. LHLeila Hormozi58:49

        Yeah.

    21. JSJay Shetty58:49

        All right, next one.

    22. LHLeila Hormozi58:50

        All right, next one.

    23. JSJay Shetty58:50

        Take a look, if it's any better.

    24. LHLeila Hormozi58:53

        Jordan Patel, engineering leader with 11 years, regular partner, CEO during... Honestly, this looks very similar. I think that the difficulty is, one, is this actually what AI does for resumes? And that's so sad [laughs] because-

    25. JSJay Shetty59:06

        It really

    26. LHLeila Hormozi59:07

        ... it's really bad.

    27. JSJay Shetty59:08

        It's really bad.

    28. LHLeila Hormozi59:08

        It's just like, I think what it does is because it doesn't have detail, it fills in with filler language.

    29. JSJay Shetty59:12

        Mm.

    30. LHLeila Hormozi59:13

        And then it makes things very different.
13. 1:04:00 – 1:12:00

    What Makes You Stand Out Instantly

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:04:00

       but when I walk into their team meetings, they are such amazing leaders. They're praising people, building them up, investing in their team, having hard conversations, and they don't need the credit. They just want truly to do right by the people on their team, and that's all they care about. Like, they will live and die by that.

    2. JSJay Shetty1:04:16

       Yeah.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:04:16

       You know, we see anomalies of people who are, "Oh, yeah, like this. I'm such a great leader." Well, I mean, even for me, like, I'll just tell you, like, Alex says all the time, he's like, "Dude, like, your biggest issue is you don't take credit." Like, he's like, "Tell people what you've built." Like, "I tell people and they believe me more than you because you won't, like, take it all." I'm like, "Well, because we did it together."

    4. JSJay Shetty1:04:34

       [laughs]

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:04:35

       Like, we did it. I didn't do it. And it, like, goes against my leadership instinct. And I really believe that the best leaders that I know, which I know have built multi-billion dollars companies, et cetera, they all say the same thing. They're like, "I know, it's so hard." Like, when you go out in the public and you're doing PR, you're doing this, and you've gotta be like, "I built this thing," they're like, "It feels awful." I'm like, "I know." And I think that that's how most great leaders are. Now, I think you can have a boss, but I think that's very different than a leader. Because if you have a great, you know, if you have a boss, then that's somebody who maybe has the title and the authority, but when they're not there, people don't act in a way that helps the company or themselves. And so I wouldn't say that they're a leader.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:05:12

       Yeah. Should a leader aim to be loved, respected, or feared?

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:05:18

       I think that whether you want to be those things or not, you will be all of them. Unfortunately, a lot of how a leader is seen is through the past experiences of people that work with them. I would say that I am loved, respected, and feared by people in my company. I think that the difficulty is this: if you want to be respected and even loved, you will also be feared, because you have power. And anybody who's in a leadership position, the reason why people fear somebody in a leadership position is because they have power. What is power? It means that they can change something in your life. So now you fear them, because you fear, "What if I do something that makes them angry? What if I..." Even if you see that they're the nicest person, there's always the what if. What if the bear, you know, the, the tiger that has been so nice that I've been petting, what if it turns on me, right? And so anybody that's in a place of power will always be feared because people always wonder, "What if they use it to do something bad to me?" And I do not have power to change their life, but they have power to change mine.

    8. JSJay Shetty1:06:12

       Yeah.

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:06:13

       So I think that's a default. Unfortunately, it's gonna come with anybody. I think that's why leaders need to over-index on praise, et cetera. I would say that the way that I see respect and, like, getting respect from somebody means that I see respect as letting something maintain its state, meaning they try to not interrupt your day as much as possible, not throw you off, not deter the path, also not mess up anything in the company. Like, when I think about respect, I think about, like, "I'm gonna let you be you. I'm not gonna interfere too much." Uh, when I think of loved, I think of people would sacrifice a lot for you. How much are they willing to sacrifice for you? And so when I think about great leader, I think that they are respected and loved in the best situations, which is the people on your teamWant to let you maintain as you are. They're not trying to change you, they're not trying to interfere with your day, they're not trying to, you know, I would say, like, interfere with anything that's going on. And at the same time, they would sacrifice a lot to keep you as their leader. I think you want both of those things in an ideal situation. I think that the difficulty today is that most people don't know how to do both.

    10. JSJay Shetty1:07:15

        Hmm.

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:07:15

        It is so much easier to yell at people than it is to learn how to get people to respect you and like you, and also do what you need them to do.

    12. JSJay Shetty1:07:23

        [laughs]

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:07:23

        That is so much harder. It's like-

    14. JSJay Shetty1:07:24

        Yeah

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:07:24

        ... why is it that people at, you know, a fast food restaurant are yelling at people? Because it's so much easier. You don't have to teach somebody to yell at people. And they're going to be feared because they're gonna be scared and do what they say because that person has power, whether they're a leader or not.

    16. JSJay Shetty1:07:37

        I remember early in my career, I always, coming from my monk background and how we were trained in empathetic leadership and servant leadership, there was such an energy of me wanting to love the team. And obviously when I was starting out, I had a very new team, everyone hadn't had a job before, people were... This was their first job, because that's what we could afford as well.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:07:57

        Yeah.

    18. JSJay Shetty1:07:57

        And I found it so fascinating that people didn't know how to receive love because probably before then they'd only ever been controlled by fear.

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:08:05

        Yeah.

    20. JSJay Shetty1:08:05

        So whether it was at school, whether it was their parents, whatever it may have been, it was fear was the language. And then it was almost like love was just going over their head. And I remember reading, uh, Daniel Coyle's Culture Code. I don't know if you've read that book. It's a really good book. And he talks about, in the first chapter he talks about how, like, the core leadership trait you need is not love or control, it's safety. And he's like, "If people feel safe, they'll perform better." And I was like, "Oh, that's, that's like..." That blew my mind. I was just like... Because to me also, I was like, I'm an innovative leader. I've always felt when you challenge people and when you are pushing for greater things. And he was like, "No, people just don't feel safe, and they can't receive love or they can't respect you, or they can't... Or they'll fear you because they don't feel safe. But the other two have to be there." And I was like, "Wow, safety is something I never even thought about because I've always considered I'm safe."

    21. LHLeila Hormozi1:08:54

        Yeah.

    22. JSJay Shetty1:08:55

        I feel safe in the... I feel safe in the chaos, I feel safe in the discomfort. As an entrepreneur, you get used to that. And then I was like, "Oh, no, but everyone here works with me because they wanna feel safe." If they loved being unsafe, they'd be an entrepreneur. That's what they would do. And so it's just such a fascinating thing, and I love what you're saying about how you inevitably will become all three, and so you can't hang your hat on and say, "I just wanna be loved, I just wanna be respected." Hopefully you don't just wanna be feared. Naturally you'll become all three. But you just said knowing how to balance them's the hardest bit. What have you developed? What are the skills and tools you've developed in order to allow for that safety in and amongst all of these three?

    23. LHLeila Hormozi1:09:34

        Yeah. I think the first is, like, finding yourself on, like, there's the scale of, you know, when you think about, uh, there's, like, carrots and sticks.

    24. JSJay Shetty1:09:42

        Mm-hmm.

    25. LHLeila Hormozi1:09:42

        Right? And everyone tends to lean to one or the other. Either you're all carrots or you're all sticks, and that typically means you have a weakness on the other side. So for me, for example, like, I was all carrots. I would praise people, I would acknowledge people, I would, like, pour into somebody and just believe in them and hope for the best. I'd be like, "They're gonna do amazing," and I always saw the best in people. And that meant that some of this other side, like having the hard conversations, challenging people, pushing them to grow, et cetera, it was weak 12, 13 years ago. The first place is asking yourself, "Are you carrots? Are you sticks? Where do you tend to lean?" And it's like, okay, great, then I need to work on the other side. I need to work on the thing I'm bad at, right? And so then I said, "Okay, I've gotta work on this one. I've gotta work on using this skill, because I've got this skill down, I don't have this skill down." And so I think that's the first place that we have to start. When it comes to, I would say, like, learning that skill, I think about it in terms of reinforcement, which is just, like, getting something, you know, what happens after an event. And so a lot of the times what I would do is that any time something happened, it's like I do- I praise them, I say it's okay, I reassure, I do something positive. But then I realized there were cases in which people didn't abide by the culture. Maybe they were mean to somebody on the team. Maybe they did something unethical. That requires a different skill. That's, "Okay, I need to make something less desirable for them to do again." Okay, well what does that look like to show that? And so, you know, I have found ways to do that that feel right and ethical to me, but also reinforce the entire picture, which is either end that you're coming from, it's not about the one person that you're talking to in the moment, it's about the team. And so do I need to use more carrots or sticks? I don't know. What's best for the whole team? I think about it like this, I tell all my leaders. Everything that you do is seen through a microscope and heard through a megaphone. So assume that every conversation you have will get put on blast. Because it will. Everyone will tell everybody. And so how do you want the team to feel after this conversation that you have that is in private-

    26. JSJay Shetty1:11:36

        Mm-hmm

    27. LHLeila Hormozi1:11:36

        ... but that you're having? What do you want them to say about what you did? What's gonna reinforce the culture we're building here? And then people are like, "Oh, that's a really interesting way to frame it." I'm like, "Right." So we have to think in the frame of the team. W- Like, I see it as, like, the job of the leader is you're the coach. If you were thinking of basketball, I always think of John Wooden, right? I'm thinking, like, you're coaching the team. You have to keep the culture, which means, like, there have to be some sticks. There also have to be carrots.

14. 1:12:00 – 1:14:13

    The Most Overrated Leadership Traits

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:12:00

       I think it's the ratio that you have to pay attention to, and also knowing your natural proclivity matched with the players' natural proclivity. Some people are gonna test you all the time, and they are not really phased by you kinda, like, fighting back. It just doesn't phase them, right? They're just, that's the culture they come from. There's other people who if you even look at them sideways, they've already punished themselves seven times this Sunday, so there's nothing you could say that hurts more than what they've done to hurt themselves. And you just, you kind of have to just be there for them and allow them to just tell you what they did wrong. And so I think there's, when you're a leader, I really think that one of the most underrated skills is being a chameleon. It sounds crazy, and some people say, "That sounds manipulative." I don't think it's manipulative if you're trying to help people achieve their goals at the same time.

    2. JSJay Shetty1:12:44

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:12:45

       And so I am a completely different leader-To my CFO, to my president, to my COO, than I am to, uh, my creative producer, my director of brand, my director of sales, uh, my customer service rep. I do not act the same to any of those people. When I walk into the sales room, what do you think I'm gonna be leading with? Well, it's, it's usually, like, twenty-five to thirty-year-old guys who are all rah-rah all day. I'm like, "What's up, guys? What's going on?"

    4. JSJay Shetty1:13:07

       Yeah.

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:13:07

       Like, "Let's fucking get it."

    6. JSJay Shetty1:13:08

       Yeah.

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:13:09

       Then when I walk into, you know, the, the media room, I'm like, "Hey." I'm like, "Love that clip. It was so good. Let's look at this. Let's look at..." You have to be able to be flexible.

    8. JSJay Shetty1:13:17

       Yeah.

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:13:17

       And so I think it's knowing what side you come from, and then working on that other skill so that you have tools for any situation that you come into.

    10. JSJay Shetty1:13:24

        Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. It's being able to speak other people's language, not expecting them to speak yours. Like, the idea of if I'm going to... I always said that, you know, when you grow up in England, you go to Europe so much, and you always hope that everyone speaks English, and it's so ignorant to do that.

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:13:39

        Yeah.

    12. JSJay Shetty1:13:40

        Because if you could go to France and speak French, and if you go to Italy and speak Italian, and go to Spain and speak Spanish, like, you'll have so much more impact as opposed to just going there and hoping everyone speaks English. And it... I feel like leadership's always like that, where you're going to someone else and speaking English and hoping they know.

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:13:55

        Yeah.

    14. JSJay Shetty1:13:56

        And it's like, well, no, that person responds to the rah-rah motivational speech, and that person is the softer touch. And like you said, the example of your great leaders who are really quiet, they require a different sense of importance and significance. And I think that's what's always been fantastic to understand as well, is

15. 1:14:13 – 1:18:00

    Should People Fear or Respect You?

    1. JSJay Shetty1:14:13

       how do you reward people and how do you give feedback to people? Like, I feel those two things are so unique. Like, some people wanna be rewarded in public. Some people wanna be rewarded in private. Some people want it at the big company event, and some people just wanna be told every day, like, "You're doing great," like, "Keep going." And I feel like that chameleon approach is so important to figure out. I don't think it's manipula-manipulative at all actually. I think it's a really good point. How have you learned how to give feedback without losing someone's faith, loyalty, and connection to the mission?

    2. LHLeila Hormozi1:14:47

       It's actually really easy once I understood it, which is you're not giving them feedback about themselves. You're giving them feedback of how to achieve their goal. If you don't know someone's goal, you cannot give them effective feedback, because feedback is essentially the discrepancy between where they are and where they need to be, want to be. Which one? Well, I would say it's kind of both, which is, for example, when somebody first comes in, I'm like, "What is your ultimate goal? Why do you want to work here? I need to know because I need to know what you wanna get out of this job." And then say, you know, I have a, a person at the C level who said, "One day, I wanna be able to be a ce- I want you to deploy me to be CEO of one of the operating companies." I said, "Okay, great." So every time I see something, my brain is going, "Is he acting like a CEO of an operating company?" And if he's not, what is the gap? And the gap is the feedback. And so every conversation I start with somebody when I have to give them feedback, I'm like, "Hey," I start with the goal. I don't start with them. "You wanna be CEO of an operating company one day, right?" And they're like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Okay, cool. In service of that goal, here's some feedback I have about that conversation. If you were the CEO of the operating company, you would say it like this rather than how you said it." So two things. Anchor to the goal. You start with that. You have to frame everything that matter. It's kind of like when you're with your spouse. It's like, we wanna be married forever, right? In fact, I've done this to Alex many times. I'm like, "We wanna be married for life, right? You still want that?"

    3. JSJay Shetty1:16:06

       [laughs]

    4. LHLeila Hormozi1:16:06

       He's like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Okay, cool. If we wanna be married for life, I would love if you did this instead." And that's the second part, which is I'm not gonna punish them for what they did poorly. I'm not gonna say, "You did this so shitty. I can't believe you didn't fucking get me this for Valentine's Day. You didn't, you know... I can't believe on that meeting you said that to your team. It sounded so stupid." I'm not gonna focus on the past. I'm gonna reorient them to what they need to do better next time. Do this instead. It's a complete skill on its own to even think, "Do this instead." I teach peers to give feedback this way, too. They're like, "Well, I didn't like what they did on that meeting." I said, "What should they have done instead?" They're like, "Well, I'm not their boss." I'm like, "Shut the fuck up. You can tell them what they could have done instead." It's actually very powerful to get it from peers. And so it's I'm gonna anchor to the goal and then tell them what to do instead. So for example, in that situation when we had this meeting and I was watching this person who was aspiring to be a CEO, he gave feedback to somebody in a way that was very timid, and it was not clear. And so I said, "Hey, in service of that goal of wanting to be a CEO, here's how I want you to give the feedback next time. Say this," and I give them a script. So often people are like, "They just don't have the skill to give the feedback," or, "They don't have the skill to have that conversation," or, "They don't have the skill..." No, they don't have a script. It's not a skill. It's a script. You just don't know the words to say. Someone just needs to give you the words to say it sometime. And so, um, when I'm giving feedback, it feels very easy because I'm on the same side of the table. I'm trying to get them to the goal that they shared with me. It's actually very similar to sales. Sales has been incredibly helpful in learning leadership, which is you told me the goal. My job is to get you to that goal. Okay, I'm telling you that we're not on the path right now, so I'm also gonna tell you what the path does look like, and then you just need to walk it. That's it. And it makes it really easy.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:17:47

       That's the best feedback advice I've ever heard. I'm gonna use that all the time now.

    6. LHLeila Hormozi1:17:49

       Really?

    7. JSJay Shetty1:17:50

       Yeah. No one's ever said that before. I've, I've never heard that. I've heard so many different ones that I've liked, but that is without a doubt the clearest one, because I love the idea of making feedback

16. 1:18:00 – 1:19:00

    The Secret to Building High-Trust Teams

    1. JSJay Shetty1:18:00

       not about the person and not about their performance in that way, but in reference to where they wanna be, because then it becomes obvious that they should do it. It's not, it's not about them as a human or... Not that it ever was, but I think so much feedback just sounds like, "You could do this better," and, "You... If you did this, then you could do this." And it's almost like, well, no, if we just start at, "You wanna be here. This is the role you wanna have. These are the skills required to be in that role, and we're, we're, we're here to invest in you and help you get there, and we wanna be a part of that journey, but this is the change we wanna see." And I love the focus on the change of behavior, the change of focus, not stop doing this, start doing this, is, is such a brilliant way of switching the conversation, because the, the stop doing this or you did this last year is so demoralizing anddepressing to hear

    2. LHLeila Hormozi1:18:49

       Well, it's, I always ask people this: Do you want them to feel bad or do you want them to get better?

    3. JSJay Shetty1:18:54

       Yeah.

    4. LHLeila Hormozi1:18:54

       And I will ask people that, and they'll be like, "I actually kind of want them to feel bad." I'm like, "Great, then you're not ready to give them feedback." Because if you want to

17. 1:19:00 – 1:24:00

    Carrot or Stick: What Actually Works?

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:19:00

       make someone feel bad, talk about what they did wrong over and over and over again. If you want someone to get better, tell them what they can do differently next time to be more effective.

    2. JSJay Shetty1:19:08

       Mm-hmm.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:19:09

       I always ask myself, even when I'm really upset with someone, I'm like, "Do I want them to get better or do I want them to feel bad?" And I'm like, "A little bit of both right now."

    4. JSJay Shetty1:19:14

       [laughs]

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:19:14

       And I'm like, all right, wait until you just want them to get better, and give them the feedback in that service. And I think a lot of people, the reason that when they give feedback it feels so poor to people, and people don't like to receive feedback, is that most people don't know the difference between critiquing somebody and insulting somebody. An insult is when you associate with somebody with something negative, versus a critique is telling them the gap between where they are and where the ideal is. And so an example I like using is, I, by the way, I'm a fan and friends with some of the girls, but Selling Sunset. When, uh, m- you know, Mary is, um, giving feedback, uh, to, uh, oh my gosh, Christine, and she's like, "You just... I need you to just..." S- she goes, "Stop being a bitch." You literally just told her what not to do, anchor her into the past, and you told her to stop being a bitch, a negative association. And then they wonder why Christine is upset about this, and I'm like, "Well, you didn't tell her..." She goes, "Well, what was I actually doing?" I remember the conversation. I was like, "Oh my God, this is it." She's like, "What was I actually doing?" And she's like, "You were just being a bitch. Just stop acting like a fucking bitch. That's all." And she's, "Stop acting like a fucking bitch, okay?" And then it's like it wasn't specific, it didn't talk about Christine's goal, and it associated with her something negative, which the moment that we associate someone, someone with something negative and we insult them, the immediate re- interaction with a human is, "I'm gonna fight you."

    6. JSJay Shetty1:20:23

       Mm.

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:20:23

       And so now you've just set it up for a battle.

    8. JSJay Shetty1:20:25

       Yeah.

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:20:25

       And so it's like who wants to deal with that?

    10. JSJay Shetty1:20:27

        Yeah.

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:20:27

        Whereas a critique is, "Hey, you said this. Say this instead next time." That's it. Um, but it takes a lot more thought to critique somebody than it does to insult somebody. I can just tell you, "Hey, you remind me of my last ex-boyfriend that cheated on me. Hey, you really sound like your dad right now." It's like those are all very digging insults. Nobody's gonna change their behavior based on that. They're just gonna dislike you.

    12. JSJay Shetty1:20:49

        So true. Talking about Selling Sunset and women in business, what's something that women have been told they have to do in leadership that's completely wrong?

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:20:57

        I don't know if they've been told this or shown this, that you need to be this very independent, hyper independent, hyper responsible person, and it almost creates this illusion of what a real leader is because I think going back to the first part of our conversation, a real leader isn't doing it alone. And I think that in order to be great and to do great things, you have to depend on other people. I think the biggest lie that women are fed right now is that they need to do it all themselves. In order to be a great leader, I actually think you must depend on others to do other things for you, so that you can do only the, the very most important things that you can do as a leader. And I see a lot of women, and I'll be honest, like a lot of women come to me and they are... Like they have nothing left to give. They have no time. They're exhausted. Their bodies are fighting against them. They're having health issues. And I see it, it's coming from this place of wanting to be hyper independent for the sake of wanting other women t- to like them. You know, a- and I, I talk about it. I'm like, listen, I get it, because for the longest time it was really hard, 'cause you know, I'm married to Alex, we're business partners, and it's like a constant... You know, in the beginning I was like, how do I... But I was like, I will never disregard my value or what I want in my marriage to create an image publicly. And so people are like, "Oh, well, you know, you must, you know, do everything or wear the pants." It starts going in that direction actually now. And I'm like, "No, I depend on him for plenty of shit, and he depends on me for plenty of stuff, and why is that bad? Why is it bad I depend on him, I depend on my other partners, I depend on my, my, uh, staff, I depend on my friends, I depend on my family? Why is that a bad thing? And why do I feel like right now it feels like in culture it's like women have to be able to do everything at the same time, otherwise they are not badass boss bitch." And I don't know how to do everything on my own, let alone at the same time, and I don't even have children yet, so God, I don't know. Um, but it feels like this very, this facade, because I'm privileged to know a lot of the women, and I wouldn't want their life, the ones that try to look that way and try to be that hyper independent. I wouldn't want it. It's lonely, and it's exhausting, and at times I think miserable, because, you know, I've had seasons where maybe I've felt like I need to start, and I, I feel myself going into it, and I also feel myself becoming miserable when I g- I go in that direction.

    14. JSJay Shetty1:23:16

        Mm.

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:23:17

        And I think for a lot of women, the biggest piece of advice I would give them is you don't need to be hyper independent to accomplish your dreams. And if that's the cost, do you even want the dream? Because who wants to get to the end and have nobody to celebrate with?

    16. JSJay Shetty1:23:32

        Mm.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:23:33

        Not me. 'Cause like winning, it, it's at the same time people always want these things. That's often why they, you know, we do things, 'cause we want to accomplish something. But at the same time, I always think I pick my goals because of the process, not the goal. And so if you don't enjoy the process, what is the point? And I wouldn't say enjoy. I say maybe find joy in the process.

    18. JSJay Shetty1:23:53

        Yeah.

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:23:53

        It's not gonna be enjoyable the whole time.

    20. JSJay Shetty1:23:54

        Yeah.

    21. LHLeila Hormozi1:23:54

        I don't even know how to put words to it, but I, I do see that as like the number one issue I feel like with women right now is

18. 1:24:00 – 1:30:24

    How to Give Productive Feedback

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:00

       it's like in fear of looking soft, we become hyper independent, and in becoming hyper independent, we create the misery we're trying to avoid.

    2. JSJay Shetty1:24:09

       And that's all pressure that's been put on women-

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:11

       Yeah

    4. JSJay Shetty1:24:12

       ... as well, to have to be that way.

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:13

       I think women putting it on women.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:24:14

       Oh, women putting it on women.

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:15

       What men want women to be hyper independent?

    8. JSJay Shetty1:24:17

       Mm.

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:18

       I don't know a man that wants a woman to be hyper independent. Then what use does a man have?

    10. JSJay Shetty1:24:21

        Yeah.

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:22

        You know?

    12. JSJay Shetty1:24:22

        So it's coming from within.

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:23

        I, I think within-

    14. JSJay Shetty1:24:24

        Which is even harder

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:24

        ... and from women wanting to prove something. It's almost been like a rebound effect.

    16. JSJay Shetty1:24:28

        Mm.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:24:29

        I think that there is a, a common ground. I think that you can be soft and be hard. I think that you can be kind and be fierce. I think that you can be really smart and really beautiful. Like I do not think that you have to be either one of these things, and I think that you can be very independent and also choose to depend on people, not because you're incapable, but because you choose to.

    18. JSJay Shetty1:24:51

        It's so interesting hearing about that, because yeah, it's... You're, you're spot on. You're absolutely right about-Just that, just that false pressure. And, and that, and that pressure's on everyone. Like, that pressure of showing, like we talked about as an entrepreneur, even that I really don't like that title of self-made.

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:25:07

        Yeah.

    20. JSJay Shetty1:25:07

        Because it's just like, it proclaims this idea that like, "I'm gonna do it all on my own," and that's what that person did. And we've been talking this... Today it feels like that's been like the trend of our conversation or the underlining of our conversation, which is whether it's your friends, whether it's your partner for you, whether it's the leaders in your company, the organization, there's so many people who are embedded in your journey of success. And it's unhealthy to try and do it yourself or even make it look like you're trying to do it all yourself.

    21. LHLeila Hormozi1:25:38

        Yeah.

    22. JSJay Shetty1:25:38

        It's, it's crazy.

    23. LHLeila Hormozi1:25:39

        And why? I, I just think it's not cool. [laughs]

    24. JSJay Shetty1:25:44

        [laughs] Yeah, no, for sure. Tell me what little Leila thought her life was gonna look like. So if we rewound back to 16, 18, like what did you think life was gonna look like from that vantage point?

    25. LHLeila Hormozi1:26:00

        I thought like, like actually thought my life was gonna look like, I thought that I would be successful. I thought that I would get into business. I never pictured it would be as big of a business as it is. I thought that I probably wouldn't get married until I was like 30-something. I thought that I would be probably doing something more, um... When I thought about like what business I was gonna start, it was fitness, so I thought I'd be like totally in the fitness industry completely. Um, so I had an idea of a vision for myself that was not... It's not like that hasn't been accomplished, but it was so much smaller than the vision I have now. And I think, you know, it's funny 'cause like people used to be like, "What's the vision you have for yourself?" And like I always felt like wrong for not having this enormous one. But I realize now, I'm like, my brain just needed evidence that it was even possible to get to the first step. And I actually think it's worked really well for me because with every vision that I set for myself or for my companies, I'm not thinking, "Oh my God, what is the absolute biggest version of what this looks like?" I'm thinking like what is a very, like a challenge, but something that I think is doable, though very hard. And so even for myself, that's been really helpful for me because I'm, I'm naturally a more insecure person, and I also set goals primarily because of who I want to become, not because of what the outcome is. And so for me it was like if I could become that person that could build a business that could make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and I could really like be helping people and bettering their lives, like that would be awesome for me. Like I remember saying like, "If I could just help, you know, 20 people, 10 people, and like really impact their lives, like I would feel really good." And it's so much more than that, which is kind of crazy to think about. But I think at each level, I mean, you probably experience this, it's like you take one step and now all of a sudden the sky is clearer, and each step you take up the sky is clearer and clearer and clearer. And I don't know if that's a deficit on my part or just how it works, but it's helped me because I think looking back and I think about the vision I had for myself, I'm like, "Wow, if only you had known." Like, I always hoped to be built for something bigger, but I, I think it's like a mental trick of mine that I undershoot because I don't wanna beat myself up if I, I don't accomplish it. I hit pause. [laughs]

    26. JSJay Shetty1:28:32

        [laughs] What are, what are you still insecure about today?

    27. LHLeila Hormozi1:28:35

        Plenty of things. Um, I think that I feel like, you know, I think sometimes when I look at myself, my perception of myself, like my brand, I'm like, I feel like I'm a little weird. Like, doesn't make sense. Like, I'm like, I don't know if I make sense sometimes, and I think I'm a little quirky. I talk weird sometimes. Sometimes I'm not as articulate as I want to be. I would say I make a lot of weird faces. [laughs]

    28. JSJay Shetty1:28:56

        [laughs]

    29. LHLeila Hormozi1:28:57

        I've been like... I, I think insecure about these things. Um, I think I've been... Okay, I'll tell you something I'm actually insecure about over this last year. I've changed my mind about a lot of things over the last year.

    30. JSJay Shetty1:29:06

        Mm.
19. 1:30:24 – 1:36:20

    The Truth About Women and Independence

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:30:24

       helps us out. And the second thing is that it really taught me how to do things when people are constantly judging you. And then now I say, I'm like, "Dude, I don't even care what happens anymore." Like, there's nothing that could feel more demoralizing than some of the comments I had and the videos that were made about me in the beginning. There's n- I don't... I really... I was like, I'm trying to think about it. I even ChatGPT'd it. I was like, there's nothing. I don't think there's anything that could now test me to that degree, and I'm so grateful for that because I'm so proud of myself 'cause I'm genuinely unbothered now.

    2. JSJay Shetty1:30:52

       Hmm.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:30:53

       And I think what it taught me is the price of greatness is being misunderstood. You are going to be so misunderstood, and if you spend time trying to get the critics to understand you-You're never going to achieve the greatness 'cause they're gonna be distracting you. It's like you're on this path, and it's like they're constantly trying to pull you off and distract you. And I'm like, "No, I've built so much of that muscle. I don't care what they say." Another video can go viral with a million views about my voice, and it's like, I don't even care. People are like, "Don't you wanna comment on it and tell-" Nope, don't care. Genuinely don't care. And I've ... I feel so happy with myself for doing it because that is such a hard place [chuckles] to get to when it comes to criticism. And I think, yeah, that was something that I was insecure about for a long time, and now I feel like, like I would have never brought that up on a podcast. I'd be like, "God, now they're gonna Google it. Go ahead." [laughs] You know? It's like, it makes me me, and I am weird and flawed and unique, and that's okay.

    4. JSJay Shetty1:31:43

       I appreciate you being so honest and vulnerable because I think it just shows that someone who's so successful and, and a huge public figure has not had it easy to get there. And I think often people do the opposite. They say people are only there because of their looks or only there because of this or only there because of that. And I think it's fascinating because then when other people do it and they also make it, then we say, "Oh, no, but you, you can't do it with that looks," or what- whatever that may be.

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:32:09

       Yeah.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:32:09

       And it's just a fa- It's just they're all excuses. They're, they're all excuses because the reality is that the reason why people are listening to you and taking your advice is because it works, and people are feeling value from it. And I felt listening to you today, I picked up so many great insights that I'm gonna use tomorrow in my company, and I'm like, "That's huge." Like, that's the real impact. And, um, and all the other stuff is, like, stuff we don't control and don't, you know, aren't in charge of. I rem- I, uh, I had polyps in my throat years ago and lost my voice. And when my voice came back, it was really squeaky and soft and, like, really, like a bit, not high... I wouldn't say high-pitched, but it was soft. And then it slowly got back to where it is now. And I just remember when I first spoke again, I was like, "Oh my God." Like, it was a scary-

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:32:51

       [laughs] I think I... Yeah

    8. JSJay Shetty1:32:51

       ... it was a scary feeling 'cause I was writing on a chalk... I was writing on a, a small whiteboard for what I wanted for lunch and dinner to my family. Like, it was-

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:32:59

       Wow.

    10. JSJay Shetty1:32:59

        I lost my voice fully, and so I'm like, having a voice is, like, such a blessing, and, like, the fact that we can go around making fun of people for that in 2026 is ridiculous. Like-

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:09

        It's crazy

    12. JSJay Shetty1:33:09

        ... I just, I find it crazy that we're still living in a world that on one end of the spectrum cares about mental health and how people feel and tells people to be more mindful and then makes fun of, like, ridiculous physical appearance or whatever it may be and, you know.

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:21

        I think people feel like they can put people down who have a, what looks like a good life.

    14. JSJay Shetty1:33:25

        Yeah.

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:25

        It feels like it's justified.

    16. JSJay Shetty1:33:27

        Yeah.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:27

        At least something I've noticed.

    18. JSJay Shetty1:33:29

        And it didn't start that way. Like it, it-

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:31

        No

    20. JSJay Shetty1:33:31

        ... that was different. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    21. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:32

        I, I always joke. I'm like, "Mac and cheese on the inside still."

    22. JSJay Shetty1:33:35

        [laughs]

    23. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:35

        Like, still mac and cheese, a little trash on the inside. [laughs]

    24. JSJay Shetty1:33:38

        [laughs]

    25. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:38

        Like it hasn't gone away. Like, I don't know.

    26. JSJay Shetty1:33:40

        Yeah.

    27. LHLeila Hormozi1:33:40

        There's only so much you can do. Um, I understand 'cause, like, there's a lot of people who see people with money and power and status, and they, they think they're just trying to do evil and they're this and that, and it's like I, I think maybe 15 years ago I would think that about some people. And then it takes you a while to realize, like for me, it's like I have more of that than I could have ever imagined, and I am literally the same person.

    28. JSJay Shetty1:34:05

        Mm.

    29. LHLeila Hormozi1:34:06

        Just amplified. Like, I think I have more ability to show my empathy, to show my strengths. I also... My weaknesses are also amplified. It's like it just amplified everything, but it didn't change anything, at least not for me.

    30. JSJay Shetty1:34:18

        You believe you can be successful and still have deep values and be a good person?
20. 1:36:20 – 1:39:14

    When Life Doesn’t Match Your Expectations

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:36:20

       ran out of heat, so everyone's gonna feel it soon." And I was like, "How did that happen?" I was like, "We turned it down to 50. Everyone turned it down to 50." So I'm in a text thread with like six other neighbors, and I text them. I'm like, "I don't even understand. We all turned..." They said, "Oh, we turned it up." And I said, "What?" They're like, "I turned my house to 85, to 90, to the..." I said, "What? Why?" And they said, "Well, I'm not about to, you know, it's... Once we did lose the heat, I didn't want my house to be super cold." And I just sat there. I remember Alex was like, "Oh my God, Leila, I can't believe you're the only one that turned it down." I said, "Honestly, I don't care."

    2. JSJay Shetty1:36:50

       Yeah.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:36:51

       "Because the fact that I couldn't... I can't be that person that's like, 'Yeah, let the children be cold.' No, I'm gonna sacrifice my comfort for them because that's part of my values. I have the value of being in service of others." So it's like everything I do is gonna orient to that, and if that means I have to suffer more, then so be it.

    4. JSJay Shetty1:37:06

       I, I feel the same way. I mean, I grew up in a home where we didn't... We always had just enough.And that's how we got by. And if we ever went to someone who did well, it was always like my extended family would always use the language of, "Oh, well, they make dodgy money," or, you know, "It's a bit shady what they do."

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:37:21

       Yeah.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:37:21

       Whenever we went to someone's nice house.

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:37:23

       Yeah.

    8. JSJay Shetty1:37:23

       And we had a small house, but whenever we went to a nice house to a friend or family or d- or wedding or whatever it was, it would always be like there was something wrong about what they were doing that they had money. And I think I grew up for a long time feeling the same way, and it was only when I had to rewire my entire relationship with money to recognize... You know, at one point I remember having, like, 200 million views and being four months away from being broke.

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:37:46

       Wow.

    10. JSJay Shetty1:37:47

        And I was like, "Wait a minute, this makes no sense." Like, I'm having all this impact, and people are saying I'm changing their life, but, like, I'm living in scarcity, and I don't really understand why I'm still that- in that way, and it was all because my belief was you had to be broke to do good. And I had to really r- look at that because I was like, "Wait a minute, I'm gonna give up doing what I love, that helps people and impacts people, because of this value that I have that isn't true-

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:38:11

        Yeah

    12. JSJay Shetty1:38:11

        ... that I've adopted somewhere." And now being at-

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:38:15

        It's association.

    14. JSJay Shetty1:38:15

        Uh, sorry?

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:38:16

        An association.

    16. JSJay Shetty1:38:17

        Yeah, an association. And now being on the other side and being like, "Oh, well, actually, I- I've realized the value in being able to have more to do more good." And, and that was my... That's what became the value, and I started to realize that, yeah, like, people who have more can, can have the opportunity to do lots. And my parents had amazing values. They didn't have a lot, and they still did a lot. And so that came, that value came through as well of like you can do a lot with a little, but if you could have more, then how much more could you do? But it's, it's a fascinating paradigm that we have to work against because I think it's also the, it's also the mindset that keeps you stuck.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:38:49

        Mm-hmm.

    18. JSJay Shetty1:38:49

        Like, the mindset that, oh, because we're scared of our own success and our own potential because we're scared we might change.

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:38:55

        Yeah. That's a tough one. I think through, um... Do you remember Spider-Man?

    20. JSJay Shetty1:38:59

        Yeah.

    21. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:00

        Remember the moment where he's like, "Peter, with great response power comes great responsibility"?

    22. JSJay Shetty1:39:04

        Yeah, of course.

    23. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:05

        I think about that when I think about money.

    24. JSJay Shetty1:39:06

        Yeah. Yeah.

    25. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:06

        It's like, it's just like with great power comes great responsibility, and I think about that a lot for myself. At the same time, when I first started doing it, you know,

21. 1:39:14 – 1:46:06

    How to Handle Criticism Without Breaking

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:14

       just getting into business, I mean, I had the same belief, which was like, uh, I just wanna help people, and if I just wanna help people, then, like, the money will come. Well, not really. [laughs]

    2. JSJay Shetty1:39:21

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:23

       I know lots of very well-intended people that-

    4. JSJay Shetty1:39:24

       Totally, I believe that too, yeah

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:25

       ... don't understand how to make money, and so until I learned how to sell and how to market, didn't matter how much desire I had. I didn't have a system.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:39:33

       Yeah.

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:34

       Like, creating money is building a system that generates money. It's, it's a form of discipline.

    8. JSJay Shetty1:39:39

       Yeah.

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:39

       It's a skill. You know, I see it the same way because I think... I, I remember I read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and that, like, changed everything because I was like, "Oh my God, my dad was a poor dad." Love you, Dad, but you were. And, uh, I was like, "Wow, I've just had this negative association with money. I need to build positive ones."

    10. JSJay Shetty1:39:54

        Yeah.

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:39:54

        So if I do good with my money, then I think that will help me change my perception, and, and I did, and I still do, and it makes me happy.

    12. JSJay Shetty1:40:00

        I love how complimentary this episode is to Alex's.

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:40:02

        Yeah?

    14. JSJay Shetty1:40:03

        It's so good 'cause... And it shows why you're such a great team. So anyone who's been listening to this episode, make sure you go listen to Alex, and anyone who's listened to Alex, make sure you come listen to this one because it's this perfect balance between, like, Alex kinda came in and talked about all the, like, marketing systems and the funnels and the, the sales and, you know, like, the breakdown. And you're here talking about everything from values to the belief system to managing people and thinking about what businesses and how they're building and where they're going and how to find the right teams, and you... It shows why you're such a great partnership because it takes all of those things to run, like you said at the beginning of this, not to run a business for the next five to 10 years, but a business that lasts 30 years.

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:40:40

        Yeah.

    16. JSJay Shetty1:40:40

        It needs this.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:40:42

        Yeah.

    18. JSJay Shetty1:40:42

        And for a business to be successful, it, it needs what he was talking about, and I'm sure you share some of those skills as well. But, uh, you can tell how complimentary they are, so this is gonna be-

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:40:50

        We are completely obsessed with completely different things-

    20. JSJay Shetty1:40:53

        Yeah

    21. LHLeila Hormozi1:40:53

        ... in business.

    22. JSJay Shetty1:40:53

        Yeah.

    23. LHLeila Hormozi1:40:53

        And it works well.

    24. JSJay Shetty1:40:54

        It, it shows, and it's awesome. Leila, we end every episode of On Purpose with a Final Five. These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum. However, sometimes I break my own rules.

    25. LHLeila Hormozi1:41:04

        [laughs]

    26. JSJay Shetty1:41:04

        Uh, so, uh, question number one, what is the best business advice you've ever heard or received?

    27. LHLeila Hormozi1:41:10

        The only skill that matters is leadership. Your business starts out small. You can do everything. As your business gets bigger, you have to start doing less and less of things. As your business gets really big, if you wanna be good at something, you have to be completely all in, diabolically good at that thing. At some point, it doesn't make sense for the founder of the company to be good at any one skill in the company-

    28. JSJay Shetty1:41:33

        Mm

    29. LHLeila Hormozi1:41:34

        ... because the skill outgrows them because of the volume and the size of the company. And so where do you get the most leverage? You get the most leverage understanding leadership because leadership influences all the people that have all the skills.

    30. JSJay Shetty1:41:47

        Mm-hmm.
22. 1:46:06 – 1:51:00

    The Hidden Cost of Chasing Success

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:46:06

       It's like they were literally there pitching the company. 'Cause I was like, "You, you think that I run this business, and I'm in the day-to-day? Watch the people who actually are. Like, they'll pitch the company for me." It's like, what's a bigger move than that? Um, so that's the second piece. Um, and then the third piece, probably specific to me, um, but I think it is the way in which you go about the negotiation. That tells me more about the founder and about the company than anything. And so if I were trying to... If I were an entrepreneur, I were trying to get someone to invest a million dollars in me, I would demonstrate through the negotiation process of trying to get the money the type of person I was. Because at the end of the day, you pick the jockey, not the horse.

    2. JSJay Shetty1:46:48

       Mm.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:46:48

       A great entrepreneur can turn a shitty company into a great company, and a shitty entrepreneur can turn an amazing company into a piece of shit.

    4. JSJay Shetty1:46:56

       Mm.

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:46:57

       And so it's really about them and how they show up during the process. Are you early to calls or are you late? Do you show up well? Are you prepared? Are you calling in with like... You know, I have people that they would call in, they'd be like, "Sorry, I'm on the road right now." It's like I'm immediately like, "Okay, so you don't even have time to sit down and take this call? Is this how seriously you don't take our investment?" Um, it's how they treat you.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:47:16

       Mm.

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:47:16

       And I think that that says a lot about somebody. How they're gonna treat somebody that they're trying to get money from, I would assume that they'd treat you better than anybody because they're trying to have you give them money. But if they don't, imagine how they treat their team. Imagine how they treat their employees, their clients. Not well.

    8. JSJay Shetty1:47:32

       Yeah. Question number four: What's the one thing for each of these stages, what's the one thing a company needs to focus on to get to 100K in revenue, to get to a million in... their first 100K in revenue, their first million in revenue, and their first 10 million in revenue? What's the difference-

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:47:49

       Yeah

    10. JSJay Shetty1:47:49

        ... in what they need to be focused on?

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:47:50

        So to get to your first 100K, you need to sell one thing to one person through one channel. One, one, one. Like, so many people, they're just scatterbrained, and they're like, "I've got, you know, I've got this type of client, I've got this. I'm working with hairdressers, and then, and, you know, coaches and fitness and that." I'm like, "No, no, no. One avatar, one channel, one sales process." That's it. You keep, you have to keep everything super simple to get to 100K. Um, now in order to get to a million, it's actually not a lot different than that. It's you have one channel, one avatar, uh, one way that you're selling it, one product. Um, but then you have to learn to be consistent.

    12. JSJay Shetty1:48:29

        Mm.

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:48:29

        Because to get to 100K, you can have a good week and a bad week, and then you can try for a week and then turn your marketing off, and then you can post content one day and not the next day, and you can get to 100K being really inconsistent. To get to a million, you have to have some element of consistency in place, which is are you able to do the same things every... Can you take 20 sales calls a week every week? Not three weeks, not, but four weeks a month. Consistency is the n- like, it's basically the-

    14. JSJay Shetty1:48:54

        Yeah, yeah

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:48:54

        ... amplifier on there to get to a million. And then to get to 10 million, you have to then get other people to be consistent for you. And so-

    16. JSJay Shetty1:49:03

        That's great. Love that

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:49:04

        ... right. It's how do I get other people to do those consistent actions so that I can... And then what you're gonna go do is build the next probably product tier, which is typically when you get to 10 million, what you realize is that you're like, "Oh my gosh, I actually have... I think I need a different product for these customers. I have a lot of pro- I have a lot of customers I'm selling into this thing, but they're not all happy." Why is that? Well, because you actually have, you need a different product for this different type of customer.In order for you to build that, you can't still do this other stuff that you've been doing to consistently be at the m- you know, million or seven-figure mark. And so you have to get other people to be consistent here so that you can go build this backend here, and then probably branch out to your next channel, et cetera. That's the way that I see getting from-

    18. JSJay Shetty1:49:44

        Yeah

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:49:44

        ... zero to 10.

    20. JSJay Shetty1:49:45

        Love that. Uh, I'm gonna add a 4B because you're giving such great advice, I have to ask you one more [laughs] question before we get to five, because five's always the same for everyone. So my second question is, to that regard, is, uh, if someone's in their 20s, what are the top three skills they should be building right now? No matter their job, no matter what industry. What are the top three skills you'd say they should invest in?

    21. LHLeila Hormozi1:50:08

        Patience, patience, patience.

    22. JSJay Shetty1:50:10

        Interesting.

    23. LHLeila Hormozi1:50:12

        It is, like, the rarest thing that I see nowadays for people in their 20s, and I will tell you this. I have 30, 50... Yeah, in their 20s, gosh, maybe 75 people on my team in their 20s, and the number one trait of all of them that succeed is patience.

    24. JSJay Shetty1:50:30

        Wow.

    25. LHLeila Hormozi1:50:30

        They are able to do the boring work, to focus on something, to not be distracted by shiny object syndrome, to not be distracted by what their friend is doing to make a quick buck online, and it pays freaking dividends. I mean, we have a, a director of sales. His name's Jacob, shout out to Jacob. Um, and we've known him since he was 16.

    26. JSJay Shetty1:50:48

        Mm.

    27. LHLeila Hormozi1:50:49

        And you know, he's about to be 23.

    28. JSJay Shetty1:50:50

        Wow.

    29. LHLeila Hormozi1:50:51

        He's our director of sales for acquisition.com. He runs one of the largest teams we have. He's 23. What does he have that other people don't have? And I tell them all... This is all the time I use this example.

23. 1:51:00 – 1:54:43

    How to Rethink Your Relationship With Money

    1. LHLeila Hormozi1:51:00

       He has patience. When he came to us and we said, "We need you to just be an SDR." This isn't our first company. He was- we- he came to acquisition.com. We said, "Just call the phones." He never said, "When do I move up?" He never said, "When do I do this next?" Nothing. He just got ruthlessly good at the skill in front of him, and he did that so much, and he focused so much, and he was so patient, not trying to get to the next level, that he got so much better so much faster. The irony of it is that when you're distracted with trying to move up so quickly or trying to get this next sto- sk- skill so quickly, you don't actually acquire the level of expertise in the skill you're focused on to get to the next level.

    2. JSJay Shetty1:51:36

       Mm.

    3. LHLeila Hormozi1:51:37

       And I see it with all of them.

    4. JSJay Shetty1:51:38

       Yeah.

    5. LHLeila Hormozi1:51:38

       It is the number one reason they are not succeeding, is they are not patient. And I will say as somebody who's, like, a freaking advocate for patience, I have a lot of it. It is why I crushed my 20s.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:51:48

       Mm.

    7. LHLeila Hormozi1:51:49

       I mean, I hate... They're like, "What would you say? If you were in your 20s, you would do different." I was like, "I crushed my 20s."

    8. JSJay Shetty1:51:54

       [laughs]

    9. LHLeila Hormozi1:51:54

       I really feel proud about what I did, and I was very patient. I was never trying to get to the next level. I was just trying to get really good at where I was at. I mean, I read, God, 12 bics- books on how to run a meeting because I'm like, "I just need to nail this."

    10. JSJay Shetty1:52:08

        Mm.

    11. LHLeila Hormozi1:52:09

        And I think that patience encompasses a lot of different skills within it. I think focus, I think the ability to tolerate boredom, I think, um, the ability to tolerate distractions. And if you can acquire those skills in your 20s, pfft-

    12. JSJay Shetty1:52:23

        Yeah

    13. LHLeila Hormozi1:52:23

        ... dude, I'm like, he's... I told him, I was like, "I'm gonna be working for you when I'm 45, okay?"

    14. JSJay Shetty1:52:27

        [laughs] I love it. Uh, fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

    15. LHLeila Hormozi1:52:37

        Leave everyone and everything better than you found.

    16. JSJay Shetty1:52:40

        Hmm. Yeah, that's a great rule. Yeah. Well said.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:52:44

        Thanks.

    18. JSJay Shetty1:52:44

        Leila Hormozi, thank you so much. This was, uh... I learned so much, gained so much. I know my audience is gonna get so much value out of this conversation. I hope you'll keep coming back. I feel like there's so much more we could unpack together, and, uh, so grateful to have you here today. Thank you so much for making the effort to travel all the way and be here with me.

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:53:01

        Oh, yeah. It was awesome. Thank you, Jay.

    20. JSJay Shetty1:53:02

        Yeah. Thank you. If this is the year you're finally ready to start that business, level up your goals, or build real momentum in your life, you need to hear my conversation with Alex Hormozi.

    21. SPSpeaker1:53:13

        I have, um, a very simple framework that I encourage people who are starting out to follow, which I call CLOSER. So C stands for clarify, which you begin the conversation by like, "Hey, why'd you respond to my thing?"

Episode duration: 1:53:23