Modern Wisdom33 Brutal Truths To Stop Wasting Your Potential - Alex Hormozi
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,124 words- 0:00 – 7:45
The Hard Things Everyone Should Focus On
- CWChris Williamson
Welcome back, man. Another speed running podcasting booty call
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs] That's, that's the hope.
- CWChris Williamson
Do more hard things every day is a great mantra, but it should be less about ice baths and more about making that decision you've been putting off for three months.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. Um, I think that there's been a big misconception around hard stuff, which is just that, um, like running a marathon necessarily means that you can have a hard conversation with your wife, um, by saying like, "Oh, I do hard things." Um, but those hard things don't necessarily generalize. And so I think domain specificity is much more, uh, narrow unless you decide to generalize to an identity label of like, I am the type of person who can do hard things because I ran this marathon or because I do these ice baths, and then as a result, I can then generalize that label to other behaviors. Um, but if you can make that label and identify with it, then you don't need to run the marathon in order to do the hard thing. You just need the label.
- CWChris Williamson
What are the hard things that people should be focusing on more? What, what are the step change function hard thing capacity skills that people should focus on more?
- AHAlex Hormozi
I think it's being cognizant of what, what other... what outside forces are influencing your behavior in a way that is aversive or against your goals. And so if you're like, "I want to start a business, but I am afraid of what other people will say," then it means that we are allowing those other people to control your behavior. And I think when you say it in really plain terms like that, you're like, "Wow, I didn't know I was giving them that much power over my life." It's like I am not doing this because of them, which means they control me. And to me, like the hard thing is in some ways just not allowing that control to persist or to keep going.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. It is interesting how many people can do hard things physically but can't do th- hard things decisively.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I have... So I have, you know, our security team and whatnot, and this is, it's a discussion that I've had with probably each of them at different times 'cause they've seen combat and death and all that kind of stuff. Um, and what's funny is that like the amount of risk that they are willing to put their physical bodies in, like literally their lives at stake, but then s- how that doesn't necessarily translate to being able to have a like call it vulnerable conversation with a wife, spouse, lover, et cetera, um, is just interesting. And this is again back to like these things don't generalize. They look good, but they do not mean the same thing.
- CWChris Williamson
It's weird that we publicly admire the obvious hard thing even if that isn't the one that actually makes the biggest difference to people's life direction. It's not predictive of being a good friend. It's not predictive of being the best partner. It's not predictive of being a successful business owner. But because it's more obvious, because it's more publicly laudable-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, you can flex it online and you can tell people, "I ran a marathon-"
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... as opposed to, "When my partner asked me a difficult question, I didn't shy away from it. I told them the truth."
- AHAlex Hormozi
And to be clear, I think that those things are laudable in and of themselves. Like you go fight a war, you go do... like you go run a marathon. I think all of those things are, are praiseworthy. It's just the generalizable component of that hard being, oh, I can do all hard things is really the, the misconception. But I do think that if you... if for whatever reason you tell yourself a narrative that y- because, because you did this hard thing you can do all hard things-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... then that's amazing. And by all means, if someone's like, "I started doing jujitsu and it completely changed my life," it's like, that's awesome.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
But it probably isn't because you learned how to do guard better. Uh, it's probably because like what guard... what learning to do guard meant for you changed these other series of behaviors down the line.
- CWChris Williamson
How correlative do you think it is people that do hard things-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... physically versus people who develop the capacity to do hard things that matter?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Can you re- say that again?
- CWChris Williamson
Let's say that-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... doing hard things electively-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... versus doing hard things decisively. Uh, uh, the big difference between the two to me seems to be, uh, decisions that require emotion-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... and decisions that require effort. That seems to be one of the big delineations here.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So, so it's like the call it hard conversation versus hard physical tasks?
- 7:45 – 11:08
Why Stories Help Us Endure Hard Times
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. What's cool is, I think when you say we're talking a narrative story, personification, arc, hero's journey, it all sounds kind of wishful in a way, mythological, irrational, uh, uh, symbolic. But that's the way that humans' brains work. Like, we work in story, and even if it's not strictly the way that the neuroscience behind how the medial prefrontal lateral cortex works in order to make us a, a tougher person, if you are the kind of person that tells yourself the story that you're the kind of person that can get through this, that is functionally exactly what you're chasing. Like, what you're after is the story. And by putting that on the front end and going, "Okay, I'm just gonna keep on building stories that I'm gonna refer back to in future," I think you're actually being more direct than if you were trying to take a more rational view of exactly how behavior is put together. Like, the story is the rational view of how your behavior and your identity are put together.
- AHAlex Hormozi
There's a lot there. Um, I think, like, with the neuroscience and the, and the brain labeling and all that stuff, I have no idea. So that's, that's above my pay grade. Um, but yeah, I, I just think about all of our, all of our behavior is just in aggregate. We do what we've been rewarded for doing, and it doesn't mean we get a cookie. It could also mean a bad thing goes away. There's, you know, there's a lot of different types of reward. Um, and so if we remember a story, um... So, like, let's say you have that story of you went through this hard thing and then you survived. Then it basically serves as a reminder of the reinforcer of the behaviors you did to get through it. And so it's almost like, um, with a kid who's smaller, if you're like, "Hey, remember the last time you did this, you got ice cream," um, if you remind them of that reward, then they're more likely to repeat the behavior.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so I think we basically use that narrative as a reminder to, in the short term, increase the relative value of a reinforcer. And so if we think about like what is motivation in general, that's functionally what you're doing if you motivate someone. Like, if you sell someone something, for the short term, you increase the relative value of a specific reinforcer. You didn't wake up, uh, wanting to buy cologne, but you see an ad, and for the short period of time that the ad goes on, it increases the relative value of smelling good. Uh, and so as a result, it changes your behavior, and then you buy. And so I think stories function that same way, where we use them to motivate ourselves in the short term to do the desired behavior that might be less comfortable in the short term, but we're reminded about the larger reinforcing event that we had in the past.
- CWChris Williamson
How many people do you think are doing hard things publicly in order to not need to face the lack of capacity they have to do hard things privately?
- AHAlex Hormozi
I don't know them, so I don't know, to be honest with you. That's my honest answer. I don't know. I think some people really do hard things, and it's what they capture online is a fraction of what they really do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And I think there are people who 100% of the hard things they do are online, and they're not even that hard.
- CWChris Williamson
110% of the hard things they do.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, yeah. [chuckles] And they're not even that hard because they've got a squad of people behind them. Like, I always... I, I, I think there was a meme around this for a moment that was like, "But you had a camera there." [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's like, the girl collapses because of crazy news or something like that. It's like, "But you had a camera there." And so you... so there's just this, this, you know, this element of, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
Mithras performative nature.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- 11:08 – 15:48
The 3-Step Formula for Winning
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The three-step process of how to win.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Number one, realize no one is coming to save you. Number two, take responsibility for your current position. Number three, be willing to sacrifice who you are for who you want to be.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[sighs] I think that those three is really all about power, um, and the realization. So the, probably in sequence, probably the first one should come first, which is you own everything. It's like, okay, if I own everything, then you could still hope that someone saves you, but it still relies on s- someone else to change your condition. And so it's like, okay, I own all these outcomes. Um, I'm not going to rely on someone else to change my condition. But you're still there, which means you have to take the third step, which is that I have to sacrifice. I have to give up, um, something in order to get something else. And I think, I think where people actually stay stuck the longest in their careers from an entrepreneurship perspective or just from a personal development perspective is, um, the trades that we are unwilling to make. It's basically the desire to have everything at the same time. And, and the easiest analogy I have is like It is totally reasonable to want to have a mountain view and to be on the beach and be walking distance from a Whole Foods. Um, but you probably will not find a place that has all three of those [chuckles] because they are all at apparent contradictions or, you know, apparent odds. And so they're... But so, so what happens is we just stay in this paralysis of indecision because we feel like all paths are settling, and I think there's this-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... movement or narrative around, like, never settle and things like that. But people mistake never settle for never make trades. And so we have this obsession with optionality or optionality maxing, but options are only valuable when taken. And so when we never take the option, which means we don't cash in the option that we have available, um, like some options need to be taken, and when they are taken, other options disappear.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Because just having maximum potential does not mean maximum reality.
- CWChris Williamson
Because you need to commit.
- AHAlex Hormozi
You have to commit, which is the elimination of alternatives.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so, like, there... I mean, show me anything that was worth doing that did not require commitment, which is an elimination of alternatives, a trade-off. Um, and so in the beginning of our lives when we're younger, we are, we are praised for maximizing our potential, right? How can we have as many colleges accept us? How can we have all the best grades? How can we have all the paths in front of us? But I think many people know people who are really successful early on by... for maximizing potential but not realizing potential.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And I think the gap between the maximization of potential and the realization of potential is the commitments that we're willing to make, which is the trades, the elimination of the alternatives when we have to start cashing those options in and realizing that some of them are, are never going to come to fruition because we can only have one life, and some of those trades are permanent.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
You can only not have a kid until you have a kid, and then at that point, you have a kid.
- CWChris Williamson
You've had a kid.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. There's no going back, right? Um, you know, some decisions in life don't have refunds. Um, and, and I, I think, I think that is what I would say maybe in the earlier part of my, my career, especially single guys, 'cause I think a lot of that's, like, really prevalent in social media right now, um, is just o-options maxing.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, but we just... Even, even in the attempt to options max, you still close off other options, which is that, like, you will not have the benefits of, let's say, a committed marriage-
- CWChris Williamson
Early on-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... because you've kept your options open.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. And, like, you will not have the benefits of, like, a very large business if you try to pursue five-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... or don't pursue any because you want to not make commitments. And so I think that commitment is actually a really strong signal for maturation and growing up.
- CWChris Williamson
Lots of mistakes were made by standing still. Like, people think that inaction isn't a decision, but it is.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Totally. I mean, your conditions change through inaction still.
- 15:48 – 17:06
How to Escape Decision Paralysis
- CWChris Williamson
How do you think about overcoming that decision paralysis? Lots of good options in front of you. Spend a lot of time trying to maximize surface area of, of available options. And it's insane to say, but it's functionally true for humans that more options make you more miserable, not happier.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Super true. And also, we probably know someone... I mean, I can think of people off the top of my head that didn't have many options, but the option that they had was very clear. Like, this guy is a super nerd and just loves coding, and it was very clear straight on. And so there was a lot of things that weren't available to him physically. Probably wasn't going to be the sports star, maybe even in super great shape.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
But, like, it was almost like that path was predetermined. But then when you fast-forward, it's not like they're less successful. It's that because they just already knew what they were going to do, they got to start pulling the future forward down the one path and start walking. And so there's, again, this, this, like, fetishes- fetishization of having options and seeing that as a proxy for status when the reality is that you... they're all blank checks. You haven't cashed any of them in.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so, um, I think the original question ladders to, like, people get stuck because they don't know what they want. And I define what you want by what you're willing to sacrifice to get something.
- 17:06 – 19:40
Take Responsibility For Your Current Position
- CWChris Williamson
Take responsibility for your current position. What's that mean?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, it's identifying yourself as source. And to be clear, it doesn't mean that, like, your position in reality is 100% because of you. But from a pr- So this is a validity... This is a, uh, invalid but useful, more useful way of going through life, which is that it absolutely might not be your fault, but it is still your problem.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Since you are the only one who you can influence directly, then you are the one who is source. And because, like, you could still be correct in saying that, like, because I insert grievance, insert, you know, trauma, insert genetic predisposition, insert zip code I was born in, um, or language or poverty level or whatever it is, um, all of those things could be true, and yet you still have to take action as the only source that can change it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. No one's coming to save you.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. Which goes back to the first one.
- CWChris Williamson
The interesting thing about no one is coming to save you also means no one is coming to stop you.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Hmm. I think some people might. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I think actually as soon as you start, I think the, the lobster or crab analogy in the book is inc- is so true. I actually think that the, the hardest... I mean, I, I think f- I mean, for me, again, like, the hardest part of entrepreneurship was the first set of friends that you have to relinquish. Because once you do it the first time, you realize that you will still survive, you'll still make it through, you'll find new friends. But like in the first time, it's, it's sacrificing everything you've known and loved for something that you've never experienced and hope will happen and have no idea if it actually will. So the cost is known, the payoff isn't.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And that is why I think it is the riskiest and why so many people struggle to make the jump.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 19:40 – 23:17
Is Courage the Most Important Virtue?
- CWChris Williamson
The world will reward you in proportion to your courage, not your intellect.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
The most dangerous person in the world is the one who continues to show up every day, even when the rewards are not guaranteed. Your potential is determined by the amount of uncertainty you're able to tolerate and how long you can tolerate it for. You can beat 99% of people if you can master the shame of rejection, the boredom of repetition, and the pain of feedback.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I was asked, um, "If you could transfer only one trait to your son, what would it be?" Um, and I've really thought a lot about it, and I was like, "Of all the traits, what would I tra- what I would transfer?" And I think it's courage because if you don't have courage, nothing else matters. Like, you can't take the f- you can't take any action, you can't do anything worth doing, you can't stand for anything because you have no courage. Um, and so I think that's why it's, it's so much more preferable to be a failure than a coward, and I think that I would hope that I could transfer just that lesson and try and reinforce as many times as I can in his upbringing that, like, you have to, you have to take jumps, and you have to lose, and you have to be willing to lose and then realize that losing doesn't actually make you a loser because losing is the, is the, is the first signal on the path to winning. But, like, not playing is the actual [chuckles] signal for, for a forever loss.
- CWChris Williamson
What is courage to you?
- AHAlex Hormozi
That's a really good question. I need to define it better. Um, being willing to take action where there's a large short-term cost with an uncertain delayed benefit. So if you want to start a business and you think that you are going to get made fun of or snide remarks or like, "Oh yeah, you're doing your podcast thing again. Oh yeah, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't miss out." Right? You know, "Don't wanna miss Friday next, your big podcast." Um, you know you're going to suffer that short term. That's a known cost, and then the payoff is delayed and uncertain. Like, not only will it come later, if it were guaranteed, if you knew you were going to make a million dollars-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... doing a podcast, then you'd be like, "Whatever. Fuck it." Like [chuckles] it d- it takes significantly less courage. But I think it's the fact that it is unknown and delayed, so you basically have to be willing to get kicked in the nuts, and multiple times, and sometimes for extended durations-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... before the hope that you will get something. But I think the only way to, to, to get through that kind of kicked in the nuts period f- for however long it's going to be, um, is realizing that you have two paths, one that is guaranteed, which is that the path you're currently on will not get you where you wanna go, and the other path is not guaranteed to get you where you wanna go, but it's the only one where you have a shot where you do.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's where your potential is determined by the amount of uncertainty you're able to tolerate and how long you can tolerate it for.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And I think that also goes to the bigger the games we play, right? Like, the longer the game you play, the bigger the game you play. And so if you wanna create rockets that go to the moon, you have to be able to deal with uncertainty for just an absolutely absurd amount of time compared to most humans on any endeavor.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- 23:17 – 26:32
Why Feedback Hurts So Much
- CWChris Williamson
There's a line at the end, "pain of feedback."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm interested in that.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, I mean, rejection hurts. Uh, failing hurts. And I think when you, when you, when you give it your all and then the market, society, the universe, whatever, determines that you are still not enough, that is very painful. Um, I think that in time you learn that feedback is fuel rather than failure. And once that new association gets paired... I mean, you've had plenty of incredibly successful people on this podcast, and I would say many of them have the same kind of, I would call it lesson as like it's not, it's not failure, it's feedback, or it's not failure. Um, but it just means that, like, fundamentally they have a different pairing for losing. And so everyone has to go through this because, like, like losing, losing is good, and feeling bad about losing is good because it forces you to change, and that change means that over time, as long as you're changing in the correct direction, you get better.
- CWChris Williamson
Or else you would continue to do the strategy that caused you to lose last time, and you would just run it back again.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And this is why I have this, like- I actually, I thought o- o- o- on the way over here, I was thinking about this and, um, like, I think one of the big losses or failures of society right now is that we are trying to castrate the teeth from the pain of loss. We're trying to not allow kids, people, the feeling to feel bad.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's like we have determined that feeling bad is bad, but feeling bad is not bad. Feeling bad is a signal so that we need to change. Because if no one feels bad ever, then it means that everyone is doing what they want to do all the time, and that is not how a functioning society works. Sometimes people do stupid shit and need to know and feel bad for it.
- CWChris Williamson
Eventually, reality is gonna come into contact with your decisions.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
And the more that that's put off, the less likely you are to come up with a way to avoid that reality coming into reality.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so, so the way that, you know, right now what's going, and this is probably the, the f-more frightening part about, like, co- some of the media that's out there is, like, trying to just redefine reality and create a fantasy where you losing and you feeling bad isn't true, but it doesn't change reality. It just changes someone's perception of it for the short term, and then they have to pay reality back with interest and time.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And, like, the check always comes due. It's just, like, the interest is much bigger. And so, um, in light of, you know, my son, my child that I have in the future, like, I want him to experience the pain of loss so that he can learn. 'Cause, like, how else can you learn? You have to. Otherwise, it's just, it's everything's, quote, you know, going by feeling. And then also somehow thinking that feeling bad is bad, and also that feeling good is good. And there's tons of things that you can probably do that feel good that are not good.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And there's tons of things that you can do that feel bad that are not bad.
- CWChris Williamson
But what a gift to give somebody to say, "You can feel bad and not feel bad about it."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. It's, and like, and that's okay. Like, you lost. What will we learn? What will we do next time? Great.
- 26:32 – 36:51
The Lessons Learnt From Losing
- AHAlex Hormozi
Do it again next time.
- CWChris Williamson
That feels like resilience.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
As opposed to any time that you feel this emotion which is negative, that is worthy of rushing in and panic and control and distance. Uh, that, uh, that's almost like a formula for fragility.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So laddered onto this, I know we haven't talked about, so this is, this is fun, um, is the idea that we need to, like, that because you, because you feel bad, it means that the path that you're on, like, you need to change something. And so it's equal opposite, which is like, okay, if we know that we're on the path getting kicked in the nuts right now, and I know I'm on my 17th or 100th podcast and I'm still not, like, a millionaire yet.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I, I have not achieved what I want yet. It does not mean that I have to change course.
- CWChris Williamson
But earlier on-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... you said that bad feelings-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... feeling bad are important to update-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yes
- CWChris Williamson
... the way that you're-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... approaching this situation. So how do you distinguish-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... between the two?
- AHAlex Hormozi
No, and that's, and that's, uh, and I would say what you, what you hit on is, is the, is the crux of it, which is judgment. Which is like, and this is one of the hardest ones, is like, how do you help someone recognize patterns of when you need to... Basically, it's the eternal question of when do I push and when do I pivot, right? When do I push through the hardship versus when do I adjust?
- CWChris Williamson
Am I giving up on this set in the gym because-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm being a pussy, or am I giving up because I'm about to injure myself?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And so I-
- CWChris Williamson
Push or pivot. I like that.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And I've, and I've worked with this a lot because it's a pretty classic entrepreneurship issue of like, do I have product market fit or like do I need to just keep pushing? You know, like, you know, where am I just trying to push up a hill? Um, is that if one of the fundamental assumptions that you began your quest with has been proven untrue based on the feedback, then that is where pivoting makes sense. So if you said like, "I think that I'm gonna create, um, a, a doggy skateboard because I think that, um, a lot of dog owners will want to buy skateboards for their dog." Um, it would be like, and I believe that the percentage, like, and I would make a, you know, a billion dollars doing this, um, that would mean that there's this size of the market, this percentage needs to be the take, right, in order for me to get that, that market share. It's like, okay, if, if I talk to 100 dog owners and none of them want to buy my, my doggy skateboard, I would not say that is a push situation. I would say that is a pivot situation-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... because our fundamental assumption that we started this quest with is false.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so we need to take that feedback and then pivot. If as we're going through, they're saying, uh, "I, maybe, but like, I don't know what you have in your hands. What the hell is that?" So it's like the assumption's not proven, but it's more of an execution issue. And so it's like, okay, I just need to get better. I need to push through. But I'm saying it is definitely one of the harder, um, lines to, to know, like, where, when should I push, when should I pivot?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 36:51 – 45:21
How to Choose the Right People For You
- CWChris Williamson
On the I want you to do this, but I didn't tell you, it's that Neil Strauss line, "Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentment."
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughing] Right. Yeah. Probably not-
- CWChris Williamson
Like, why didn't you do this thing that I didn't tell you to do?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, probably not deliberately-
- CWChris Williamson
And then-
- AHAlex Hormozi
... 'cause I think a lot of people do it not on purpose
- CWChris Williamson
... of course.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But it, it's a, a unconscious premeditated resentment.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
The, the investment that you are making will be a resentment in future that you aren't aware is about to come about.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Another thing on the, uh, people's map of reality is inaccurate. I think one of the most obvious realizations that you can have when you hear somebody who complains a lot is that their framework of reality is incorrect.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Oh, by a mile.
- CWChris Williamson
A complaint is you saying, "Why is reality not delivering that to me which I anticipated?"
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And reality doesn't care.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Reality is just going to continue to deliver to you that which it is giving. Why is there all of this traffic on the way to work? There shouldn't be all of this traffic. I didn't anticipate all of this traffic.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I assumed there wouldn't be traffic. Reality disagreed with me. Reality is not wrong.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's undefeated.
- CWChris Williamson
Reality is undefeated, yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
It's 1,000,000 and O.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
1,000,000 TKOs.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughing] So this is really... I mean, I can talk about this as long as you want. You know this. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Of course
- AHAlex Hormozi
... so with it... what this becomes really interesting is, um, how often this misconception of reality causes people to get fooled and keep peop- keep the wrong people in their lives and keep sometimes the right people out of their lives. And so, um, I call this, uh, malicious benefit or, um, well-intentioned harm. And so on one hand, uh, if there are a number of people who make, let's say, negative videos about you, they intend to harm you. But when you look at your media and the way that you are compensated through the impressions that you earn and the amount of relevance that you have, you make more money. And so though they intended to hurt you, they have taken their time and effort, which you normally have to pay people for, and then for free promote you. What a gift. It just means that they are incompetent at doing harm, which is wonderful. You want all your enemies to be incompetent in their harm doing. On the other hand, you have somebody who loves, I'll use this in quotes, right, "loves you," uh, means you well, but is also incompetent, and as a result, whenever they enter your life, your life gets worse. They cause negative consequences to occur. And so a lot of people care a huge amount about intention, and this was one of the larger shifts that I think happened in my, I'll call it career, but just my life, um, was completely stripping people of their intentions and only looking at their outputs. And that made navigating relationships significantly easier for me because it allowed me to remove the noise from the signal of the person. And so there are some people... Like, I mean, honestly, the reason that one of the... This is, like, probably the very beginning of this kind of thought change was with Layla. Like, I had a, a, an advisor, if you wanna call it that, at the time, and I was like, "I'm not sure if I, I wanna marry this girl. I don't... You know, help me, you know, make this decision." And he said, "Well, just look at your stats." And he's like, "Are you in better shape?" And I was like, "Well, yeah. You know, she eats healthy and she goes to the gym, so I, you know, I go with her." And he's like, "Okay. Um, so you're, you, you're exercising more. You're eating better. Okay. Are you drinking as much?" I was like, "No, she, she just really doesn't drink, and I like drinking. I'm probably a bad influencer." [laughing] He's like, "Okay. So she decreases this kind of negative thing. Okay, got it." And he's like, "What about, what about business-wise?" I was like, "Oh, I'm, I'm making more than I've ever made, and, and she's helping me do that." And he was like, "Okay." And so he just went down the list of all these different kind of components of my life that I could measure, and he's like, "It seems like your life is significantly better with this person in it." Um, and when I contrast that to some of the, call it relationships I had in the past, it was almost the opposite. Like, I would get into the relationship and all of a sudden I, like, I wouldn't work out as much and I wouldn't eat as healthy and I would go out more and, uh, my business would suffer. Um, and so, like, all the things that I cared about would go down. And so even though I don't think that person had any malicious intent, I think they had good intent-
- 45:21 – 55:55
Why Hard Wins Mean More
- CWChris Williamson
Mark Manson dropped this unreal line that reminded me of you.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
"Do hard shit, not because it's fun, but because the win actually means something. You bled for it. You broke for it. You earned it. Easy wins are forgettable. Hard ones change you. That's the point." And it's your line: "Everything is hard, and no one cares."
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughing] Um, I'm sorry accomplishing your dreams wasn't fast, easy, and risk-free. Like, they wouldn't be dreams if they were, and you wouldn't call them wins if they were easy, 'cause they would just be you tying your shoes. And what it was once a win when you were five is no longer a win when you're competent, and with increased competence comes increased stakes. You have to be willing to bet more, put more on the line to win bigger, which means, like, if you're a billionaire, playing $10 hands of poker is a complete waste of time.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, Gabe from I Prevail, he's the drummer from I Prevail.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"You will always think you suck. That's okay. It's okay to suck compared to your standards. As you grow, so will your standards. That doesn't mean you actually suck."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, I think it would just be the, the actuality of sucking versus the perception of sucking. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. It's that as, as you increase in capacity, you increase in standards.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And given that your standards will always outstrip your capacity, there will always be this felt sense lack between where I am and where I want to be. But yeah, that Mark Manson line I think is really s- important in sort of an era of AI because you can speed run or shortcut getting the outcome without putting in the requisite inputs. Now, because everybody's obsessed with leverage and trying to get as many outputs from as few inputs as possible, that does make sense. But when you begin to fully detach it from it and you don't focus on the journey that got you there in the same way, and you're not scrutinizing the outputs with the same level of finitude and, and resolution that you used to-
- AHAlex Hormozi
'Cause it was lower cost. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Yes. And it's not just the outputs that matter. It's not just the output. And this is why the sort of leverage crowd doesn't fully come into reality. It doesn't come into contact with the way that humans are telling themselves the story of their life. If all... If you could come up with some sort of super quick code that would write hundr- $100 million leads for you-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... the entire project would feel different. Your process of getting that, it could be word for word the exact same. Take every word-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right
- CWChris Williamson
... that I've written and create this book based on this brief. Dink.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm. I would prove that AI knew a lot about leads, but not me. And I think that... I mean, um, I think this, this, this sits at the discrepancy between saying the output of your life is who you become and the aggregate set of behavior that you've learned over your life, or if the output of your life is the stuff that you, that exists as a result of you being here. Um, and that is more of a philosophical question than I think it is a, like, right or wrong. I think you can make arguments for either side of, like, the purpo- the purpose of your life is what changed as a result of you being here.
- CWChris Williamson
What you did or who you became.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. Um, or the purpose of your life is all of the outside only existed to change the inside. And I think there's, there's arguments for both. I have-- I'm, I would say I have strong affinity towards both definens- definitions because, um, I would say that when I go through harder times I lean more towards like this is happening for me. And when I'm going through easier times, it's like I'm hap- I, I am happening to it. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I'm happening to reality.
- CWChris Williamson
But the binary of that-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... seeing it as only one or the other will create a kind of fragility. If all that you're focused on is outcomes, then you're never going to think about becoming the person who can generate those outcomes because you're gonna find shortcuts that don't necessarily work. And if you're only ever focused on inputs, you're never gonna actually work out if all of this suffering amounted to anything. Show me some-- George, uh, in the house last night was reading one of these books, and he, he wasn't happy with the way that the author had put together the sentence.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And he says, "Show me something I can drop on my foot."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- 55:55 – 57:34
You’re Not Behind, You’re Just Early
- CWChris Williamson
checkout. You're behind because you're in a rush.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're in a rush because you feel behind. And you feel behind because you're in a different season than the people you're comparing yourself to. You're not behind. You're just early.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, it's measuring the output difference with, um, without comparing the input difference. I think that's basically it. It's like, uh, why isn't my pod- podcast like Rogan's? And it's like, okay, well, he's got 10 more year... I don't... You, you would know the, the answer to that, right? 10 more years and however many more podcasts, um, more. And so it's, okay, well, if I were to match that and have done it back in time, [chuckles] would I have the same? Would I be bigger?
- CWChris Williamson
With the same skill-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... with the same-
- AHAlex Hormozi
All of that. And so it's, it's, it's, it's comparing outputs without comparing inputs, and I really just think it comes down to that at the most basic level. Now, most of the time, um, you are early because most people who make that, I would call it, uh, error in judgment are earlier in their careers. And I also don't think there's anything necessarily wrong. Like, a lot of people are like, "Comparison is the thief of joy." Um, I don't agree with that. I think comparison is how you measure things. [chuckles] Like this, this, this is the discrepancy. Labeling the discrepancy as bad is the thief of joy.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Comparison in general is how you can know what the discrepancy looks like between what you want and what you have so that you can fix it. So we should compare. Absolutely. You should compare yourself to Rogan. I'm just using you. But, like, you know, I, I should compare myself to Elon. Of course I should. Um, so I could look at the massive discrepancy [chuckles] between, between me and Elon. Um, and that just gives me clarity on what things I need to do to try and decrease that.
- 57:34 – 1:05:39
The Power of Documenting Your Journey
- CWChris Williamson
How do you think about getting rid of the label of bad?
- AHAlex Hormozi
I think that the first, the first action you take when you have not been reinforced for an action, you do through modeling. So... And this is why we do these types of podcasts, I assume, I mean, is that if you haven't done the hard thing or the hard thing that you want to do or taken the bet or taken the risk, we look for other people who have been the penguins who jumped off the edge first, and was there an alligator? Well, no alligators for penguins, but polar bear at the bottom, uh, to, to eat them. Or did they swim and get to the next iceberg, and then they found whatever? Um, so we look at other people, and so modeling is a very real way. It's how you learn everything when you're a child, is you look at what other people do. Good things happen to them. Okay, I'm gonna do that. And so in the short term, we model. The long-term play is that once you take that first step, ideally you don't get eaten by a polar bear, and instead you also get a fish, and then you go up, and then you get reinforced for that. And then basically every moment after that is your own experience becomes the loop. But the first jump comes from looking at whatever everyone else does and then takes the jump. Now, where that's so difficult to do is that you're looking at what everyone else is doing, or at least the people that you want to emulate, which is, you know, really important. Like, don't listen to people closest to you. Listen to people closest to your goals, um, which is not necessarily [chuckles] same people, often not. Um, I want to listen to them. I want to look... I want to model their behavior. Um, but then also still ignoring all other p- So it's like I'm listening to these people. I'm ignoring these people. But behavior is tough because you're still valuing other people a lot.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, and so I think this is why so many... I would say, again, I come from the entrepreneur side, but, like, successful entrepreneurs have a very first principles approach of thinking because at some point, no one has gone to the moon. And you just have to say, like, "Does physics prevent me from doing this?" And then when you reason everything from the ground up, um, you're able to find discrepancies between what people believe and what's true, and that's obviously where opportunity exists.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. You're David Deutsch-pilled with that, "Does physics prevent me from being able to achieve this?" If not, then I just need-
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's possible.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it is possible. Yeah, I think one of the reasons that these episodes resonate is that a lot of people who want to do things aren't around people who know how to do them.
- AHAlex Hormozi
100%.
- CWChris Williamson
And the harder the thing is that you're trying to achieve, the rarer it is to find people who are able to support you in the doing of it or, and not even just support you, but give you legitimate advice about how to get there.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I, I 100% agree, and this is something that I've, I've, I've struggled a lot with because the... What gives you the credibility to gain media and attention is being exceptional in some domain most of the time, and being exceptional in a domain makes you unrelatable. And so it's kind of this very difficult, uh, catch-22 where all-
- CWChris Williamson
Credibility and relatability are inverse.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. And I... But, like, to your point, poor people are surrounded by other poor people and then assume that that is everyone because it's everyone they know, not everyone that exists. But it's their everyone as far as they're concerned, and I think that's what makes it so difficult in the beginning to, to get out of that first bubble, is because you have to look outside and look at some people who might even appear unrelatable and try and grasp at the straws of their character, their origin story, where, again, people could hear me say that I slept on the floor, that I didn't have enough money, whatever. But, like, they only see me not then. [chuckles] No one's interviewing the gym owner who's sleeping on the floor- Who's going to someday become something because they don't know yet. And-
- CWChris Williamson
That's your one regret or one of the regrets that I have that's the same as yours, which is I didn't track the early journey enough.
- AHAlex Hormozi
If anyone is listening to this, I, I, I'm not a big advocate of regrets in general, but, like, a behavior that I would have changed that I don't think would have changed the outcome is, like, document. And you don't have to share, you don't have to share it publicly. Just take pictures, take voice notes, email yourself, whatever, whatever catalog you want. I remember one of the most important personal moments that I had was when I lost everything for the first time. Um, I screenshotted my bank account. So I went from having, you know, six successful gyms to losing all of it and having $1,000 to my name. And I remember looking at my bank account and I was like, "Wow, that's what the bottom of the barrel looks like." That is... And I hadn't, you know, seen a number that low in a very, very, very long time. Even in high school, I had more than that just because I had jobs and I didn't have expenses [chuckles] . And so, um, I screenshotted it, and it was this very cathartic moment for me because I was like, "Never again." Like, "I will not let this happen, and I will have this be part of the story I tell." And I still have that screenshot-
- CWChris Williamson
I've seen it
- AHAlex Hormozi
... and I show it because like... So basically, you want to document it because you believe that you will be the hero that will overcome. And I think that if you can, if you can really just grasp it, like just beginning the documentation story, like even the fact that Kanye had some of those early videos, it's like he believed that he would make it and he believed he would use it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so I think one of the, one of the greatest things you can do is... And it was like, it was almost like at that point, like I, I, I believed when I took that screenshot that I was gonna win, and I did believe I was gonna get it back. Um, and so the earlier you can have that realization that like, "I have to document this monster, otherwise I won't be able to tell the story."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And the story, the receiver of that story, biggest beneficiary of that story is you.
- CWChris Williamson
I wish that I'd done the same. I wish that I'd done the same. You know, all the way back in my previous life, there was a, a period in my placement year, I would've been 20. I was living in Scotland, and one of the problems that you have with running businesses in events, especially long single outcome events, is that it's all costs until you finally get to cash in the revenue. And there was a dwindling pot of money that we had because we were putting all of this time in and driving from Edinburgh to Glasgow to Stirling to Dundee to come back to hand out flyers, to manage the guest list, to restock the bars with the T-shirts, to sell the thing. And the event wasn't gonna happen for another month, and that just meant it was all output. I needed to pay for my gym membership and I needed to eat food and I needed to drive to these different places. Dwindle, dwindle, dwindle, dwindle. And we're not gonna get to withdraw this money until it happens. And I had a, a friend who came to help me hand out flyers because my business partner needed to look after Freshers Week in Newcastle, and I was gonna look after Freshers Week across all of Scotland. I had my friend who came up, a bit of a rough dude, but nice guy, and he'd grown up in serious poverty in the northeast of the UK. And this was the first time that I was out of money, com- zero, zero money. And I could have rung my parents, and I'm sure that they would've sent me some cash, but I had too much pride and I, I felt too ashamed to do it. And there was this moment where we were in this flat on, uh, S-Stockie Hall Street in Edinburgh, on the far side of Edinburgh. Uh, sorry, Dean Park Road. Dean Park Road on the other side of Edinburgh. And I was saying, "Hey, man, like I, um, we're out of food in the house and I, I don't know where we're gonna get it from." He's like, "Oh, don't worry, man. I'll just go and steal some."
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
And his background, his background from his upbringing was that when you run out of money, you go and steal food.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
And I remember thinking-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, it's wild
- CWChris Williamson
... "I've got myself to the point in life where stealing food is a realistic decision." And that... Do I want to video my friend Dean, like, stealing sandwiches from the Tesco around the corner? Probably not. But the fact that that story only exists for me in my mind, and then the only way that I can communicate the lessons that I took from it and the way that it made me feel is by having to go through this retelling. Uh, yeah, capture shit, especially in the beginning.
- AHAlex Hormozi
The worst case scenario is you delete it. Like that's the... I'm just saying for like what's the downside of doing it? The downside of doing it is that you, quote, "don't use it" and that you delete it. But the be- like the upside of having it as an artifact of kind of the stepping stones of, of who you wanted to become, I think is invaluable.
- 1:05:39 – 1:10:14
Why Success Isn’t All About Luck
- CWChris Williamson
Everything looks like luck to the unskilled. Ignore them.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Um, you have to have skill in order to perceive and recognize skill. You have to have a base level of skill. Now, you don't have to have the same level of skill as somebody else, but the greater skill you have in any domain, the more you appreciate the skill of somebody who's exceptional. So for example, if you don't understand the rules of basketball, it's just guys passing a ball around and you don't know who scores or how it works or why they're d- wearing different shirts. Like you have no understanding of what's going on.
- CWChris Williamson
Brazilian jujitsu is a great example of this.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
No idea. Is that go- is he, is the guy-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Is he winning? [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. Who's winning?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Who's winning?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. And then the, and then the greater your skill, the m- greater your appreciation for how, how good someone is at that thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Tighter resolution, more dexterity.
- AHAlex Hormozi
100%. And so like for that reason, if, if people who are around you as, as you begin to walk, you know, up the ascension of beginning to get successful, you have your first signs of life like, "Oh my God, this might actually start working." Um, and you get angry, um, only speaking from experience here, when people attribute the success, um, to luck rather than effort. The reality is, one, there was probably some luck. Two, um, they don't have the skill to recognize your skill. It's a question of competence, not, um, malicious intent. And I think just, just defining it that way has made it significantly or made it significantly easier for me to realize was like, oh, they, they, they don't have the ability to recognize [chuckles] what I didn't... Because if they did have the ability to fully comprehend the skill that it took, they would be able to do it too.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mark Manson, James Clear have got an idea that's similar to that. You only envy the lives of people whose sacrifices you cannot see.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It doesn't make sense to continue wanting something if you're not willing to do what it takes to get it. If you don't want to live the lifestyle, then release yourself from the desire. To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee disappointment. You only envy the lives of people whose sacrifices you cannot see.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, I love Jimmy Carr's, um, "People want what you have, but not what you did to get it." It's just so good, you know? I, I, I think the first time I heard that, I was like, "Fuck, I wish I'd written that."
- CWChris Williamson
That was on this pod.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
So good.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I wish I'd written that. Um, but yeah, and I think, I think part of it is just like it goes back to what we started with around trades is like they're just price tags and you can totally say that something costs too much. Like that is good. Like those shoes are nice. They're not worth a billion dollars-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... or whatever that relative-
- CWChris Williamson
To me.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, to me. And so I think that being able to say... Like I think it is okay to say something is both good and not worth it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And people have a hard time with that, so they say it must be bad because I'm not willing to pay the price for it. But it's like they might be great shoes. They might not be worth it for you, but they're still good shoes.
- CWChris Williamson
I think what particularly hurts is when you as a person who's put a lot of effort in see the price that you paid to acquire a skill-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... and it appears to be dismissed by somebody that doesn't understand it.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Or when you buy the shoes and then someone says, "I can't believe you bought those shoes. There's no way I would ever do that." And you're like, "I know you would never do that. That's why you don't have them." [chuckles] And it's okay that you don't have them either. I'm not saying that as a judgment on you. It's like you don't have the shoes. I do. I thought they were worth it. You didn't. And guess what? We both are different people who live different lives, and so we have stated the obvious.
- 1:10:14 – 1:12:35
The People You Need to Avoid
- CWChris Williamson
Avoiding people who make it harder for you to achieve your goals is the highest form of self-care.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
The fastest way to change your life is to get around people whose minimum standards are your life goals.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's like I violently agree with both of these statements that I wrote. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
I agree with me.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs] Um-
- CWChris Williamson
It'd be great if you didn't agree with you.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs] If I was like, "Whoever wrote that is a fucking idiot." Um, this is at the heart of the... And I, I was... I wrote that, um, right in the thick of my thinking around malicious goodwill or mali- sorry, um, uh, malicious benefit and, uh, and well-intentioned, uh, harm.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Was just, um, I think I had some people around me at that time that had, had done me harm and had said, "But I didn't mean to." Um, you know, "I had good intentions." And if you were telling that as the person who was texting and driving to the wife of the person whose husband you killed, um, I don't think... I think they are justified in not caring. And I think that if that person who continues to drive while texting afterwards because they lack the skill to not drive without texting and continues to run over your spouse or whatever, um, you are justified in removing them from your life despite their good intention. And I just think intention is desired result, which is like if I... my intention was this, this is what I wanted to have happen, and it, it's literally just a lack of competence. And competence is incredibly rare. So it makes sense to remove many people who are not competent at helping you. And either-
- CWChris Williamson
Well-intentioned but incompetent.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And so I think that's why being really clear about like, "Hey, if you do this, this would help me. This decreases my risk of failure. That would be helpful for me," um, makes serving, and I say that like serving you as a friend or as a spouse or as a whatever, um, it gi- you give people the tools to help you, and I think that you should totally do that. If some- if you give someone the tools, um, and then they choose not to help you, then I think you are also justified or it would be, it would be rational for you if you value your goals more than you value the relationship-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... to sacrifice the relationship for the goal. And again, we would say which one you love more by the one that you're willing to give up.
- 1:12:35 – 1:17:30
More People Are Rooting For You Than You Think
- CWChris Williamson
The harshest truth every young man must eventually learn is that everyone was always rooting for you. Your parents want you to be a great son. Your wife wants you to be a great husband. Your boss wants you to be a slam dunk hire. Every first date you've ever been on, they've been rooting for you to get laid. Every time you started to tell a joke, people hoped it would have a hilarious punchline. Your proximity to anyone is a reflection of themselves, meaning the deck is never stacked against you and your failures are completely your own. Denzel Rust.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I was gonna say, I was like, "Who wrote that one?" Um- It's all your fault. No one's coming to save you. Sacrifice who you are
- CWChris Williamson
But people aren't against you, especially the people that are in proximity to you. People's proximity to you is a reflection of themselves. We hang around with people who we want to be like and who we want to win so that we can be in the collective glory of it.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So this is where the worldview, I think, is, is super important for me at least, which is like we hang around people who, who've rewarded us for being around them.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So either they've removed stuff that we hate or they, um, give us stuff that we like. And I think where, where it becomes difficult is where you have competing priorities, where you have multiple things that you like and you want to shift. It's where you begin to change. Basically, your motivating factors start to change, but your environment hasn't. And so what was once reinforcing for you or w- was once rewarding no longer is as much.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so this is where people feel this tension between desired of like, "This is the life I want to live versus the life that I have."
- CWChris Williamson
Trade-offs.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. I mean, I could... I've, I've given a tremendous amount of thought to trade-offs, and I really think it comes down to that, is that people are just unwilling to make trades.
- CWChris Williamson
Why? Experientially, why?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Because we want everything. And when we get everything we wanted, we no longer want it because we have it. And I think there's this amazing comedian, I think his name's Conan. I'm gonna mess it up. But he says... He has this awesome bit on this. It's like more philosophy than comedy. And he says, "All the joy is in the getting." He's like, "But once you get it, you just have it." He's like, "And getting, so much better than having." Having... He's like, "But the only thing worse than having is losing. And then you lose and all you want is to have it again." [chuckles] Um, it's like a two-minute bit and, and he's like, "You know, you don't, you don't get kids, you have kids." And he's like, "You are have, and that is why you will never be satisfied." [laughing]
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing] But yeah, you only either live in the desire or in the have.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And the have is unsatisfactory, and the desire is always compelling and out of reach.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Layla, um, has been talking to me about this more recently, where she's like, you know, the things that, that make you, us, et cetera, like very good at business is always seeing where things could be better, where things could be improved. And it's this incredibly... You said earlier, these habits that have been reinforced, these grooves of behavior that lots of water has run through, right? Um, and being able to live life with two modes I find incredibly difficult, which is like all I am in one part of my life is dissatisfied and seeing the imperfections in what we do.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And then the key to satisfaction of life is saying everything is great. [chuckles] Or rather, I accept everything as it is and I do not wish to change it. Um, and I think that conflict is, I would just say just one that I, I've not conquered, just one that I walk through.
- CWChris Williamson
It's that line about a problem to be managed, not paradox to be solved.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. Dichoto- Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a problem to be managed, not a dichotomy to be solved. Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I, I don't... And I think many of these things, like there, there is no, uh, oh, number 42, that's the answer. Like, that is the answer to this. I think they... We just, we do the best we can. And I think, again, to the question at the start of with, which is why do people have such a hard time with trade-offs? Um, which is that the trades... We don't want to make the trade. We want to be able to date everyone and have the benefits of a committed relationship. And when you begin to walk down one of those paths and see the other one start fading into the distance-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... people have an emotional reaction, and then they change course, and then they flip-flop back and forth between these two things, but then they never actually get to realize any of them.
- CWChris Williamson
Because loss is more painful than gain. If you lose five pounds, it is more painful than finding five pounds.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
And that means that you're always going to try and avoid loss as opposed to expedite gain, even if you would be happier by doing that because the pain of the loss is always gonna be felt more, more-
- AHAlex Hormozi
And probably short-term, long-term-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- AHAlex Hormozi
... as well.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- 1:17:30 – 1:21:27
Why Do We Choose Long-Term Misery Over Short-Term Gain?
- CWChris Williamson
Bill Perkins has got this line. He says, "People will endure years of misery to avoid a couple of min- minutes of pain."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Oh my God. Yes. Incredibly true. [sighs] And again, when we think about motivation, it's just that, that, that short-term pain is always immediate, and so it autos- always motivates you not to do it.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So you al- you have many motivating operations that are, that are working on us at any, any given moment.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so even though something is short-term... Like even... It's funny 'cause, like many people... Obviously, there's some people who just lo- love going to the gym.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
There are significantly more people who don't love going to the gym the moment they get to the gym. Then you warm up, then all of a sudden you feel good again, right? But there's this, this period where you're like, "I don't necessarily want to go right now." And so you have a motivating [chuckles] operation at all times that is working against your, your ca- best wishes-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... or, you know, your best desires. And our goal of motivating ourself is to tell ourselves those stories so that in the short term, we can overcome the short-term discomfort so that we can get the long-term benefit that we ultimately want, that we know we want, but we're reminded. And the first time you work out, it only looks like pain. And then we model, we look at somebody else who's already done it for a long time and say, "Well, I want that."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so we model that and we borrow that credibility, that outcome of the penguin that jumps off the cliff-
- CWChris Williamson
That's modeling
- AHAlex Hormozi
... and say like, "I want the fish, so I guess I'll try and do that." And then after that, the, the, the loop takes over.
- CWChris Williamson
It's like hyperbolic accounting rather than hyperbolic discounting.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm. And it happens both ways. So like for example, if I'm... If I want to set an alarm, right? If I set an alarm at 5:00 for f- the night before for 4:00 in the morning, I'm gonna wake up super early and I'm gonna do all this shit, right? We get the benefit of the idea of our productivity when we set the alarm. But the cost is discounted because it's in the future.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
But when we have to pay the cost, it's immediate. And so the benefit of hitting the snooze button is immediate And the cost [chuckles] of getting up is also immediate, and so we hit the snooze button. And so it's like w- it... That, that... I feel like that is the microcosm of humanity, of setting, setting an alarm 12 hours before or eight hours before you're supposed to wake up and being, like, super jacked about it because you only get the benefit and there's no price attached to it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
But then in the moment that you have to make the trade, all of a sudden your, your priorities change because the motive operations have changed.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. And the long-term benefit of what will happen to your life if you become the sort of person who gets up early is also in future.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm. And if you do it a few times in a row, then you tell yourself, "I am the type of person who does this." And then that becomes a second operated, operation which can help you overcome the short term. Like, I'm a big believer in, um, in I am statements as motivating operations, meaning, like, I am this type of person. Um, I tend to be really hesitant to say I am statements 'cause I believe they're very powerful in terms of changing behavior. Um, but it's also something that I feel like I listen to a lot when I'm talking to other people. Like, what... I mean, this happens a lot, especially in dating. The f- y- Think about first dates, second dates. Um, people are like, "Well, I'm a..." Like, in, in, in the first meeting they'll give you, like, 20 I ams. Like, "I'm a, I'm a neat freak, I'm a blah, blah, blah." Like, they just give you, "Okay, here's my lattice work of my beliefs about myself."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, when in reality all of these things are just shorthand for a number of behaviors underneath it. They're saying, "I'm great at basketball and I'm also great at swimming," and you're like, "Whoa, there's so much here." Um, but where it gets difficult is when, um, you need to stop dribbling and start passing, but you said, "I'm great at basketball," but I'm supposed to do both, but I actually need to change only one of them. And that's where people get into these really hard times, which is why I think defining everything at the granular and then moving it back up, but being able to go clouds to dirt on these definitions of behavior allow you to change who you are much more fluidly. Because you, you understand that the label is actually just that. It's just shorthand. It's not reality.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's just a bucket to make communication easier. If I-
- CWChris Williamson
Because I can't be bothered to describe all of the things-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Of course
- CWChris Williamson
... that this particular term means.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And it would be unreasonable. If I had to say, "He's a good basketball player," but instead of saying that I'm like, "Oh my God, he's really good at, at taking his right foot and putting it in front..." Like, it would, it would, it would be ridiculous.
- 1:21:27 – 1:25:19
The Hidden Cost of Doing Nothing
- CWChris Williamson
This tension between excellence and satisfaction-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... is an interesting one. I had this line this year which was, "What you are praised for in public, you will pay for in private."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
A lot of the time the things that make you fantastic operator when it comes to business and your career often can be totally unadaptive, maladaptive when it comes to the kitchen table.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Competing priorities.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And I... Like, this is, this is such a... This is one that I, I think, I think a lot about this. Um, because there is a priority. There is one that you want more, and I think people have a lot of trouble with that.
- CWChris Williamson
This is why people who are monomaniacal often get so much further than people that don't, because even just the thinking cost of managing, navigating the trade-offs-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... that's why... Someone asked me basically, "How, how monomaniacally should I go after my career?" And I said, "Well, it depends on what phase you're in." Uh, but I think it is almost impossible to make a big swing, make big progress in your life without going complete sicko mode for an extended period of time.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah, it's about 10 years.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I mean, I've just... I think it's, it's, like, about 10 years-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- AHAlex Hormozi
... of just going, um-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm not gonna compromise.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. It's no compromises.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's no... There's this, um, episode in, in Breaking Bad, and the tit-title was, I think, No Half Measures. And I think it was about whether you punish someone or kill them, but that was... [chuckles] But I remember watching that episode and the, the line stuck with me a lot, like, no half measures. Either do or don't. And I think that half measures yield null outcomes.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, it's not that you get half results.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And so what many people are plagued by is they are doing half measures in four domains and have yield in none. And they feel like they are trying all the time. They're working every hour that they're awake to pursue or serve four different masters, and it's the realization that compromise on one means getting neither. And I think that people have a hard time with that because they're unwilling to say, "I, I, I want one thing more than another." And I think you just have to be able to say, like, "I'm willing to sacrifice this thing, not forever, but for now."
- CWChris Williamson
Obligation because of anchoring bias, because of the momentum of where you are now, because of the fear of regretting it. This is where, this is where the inaction thing comes back in. People think that inaction has no cost, but it-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... it does have a cost.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Usually it's higher. Like, um, it's like money loves speed, wealth loves time, poverty loves indecision.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And if you think about inaction as an action, we are, we are always doing something. Even if you are watching television, you are taking an action. It's just not make... It's not making any progress. Well, maybe you're making progress in a show. Maybe m- you're making progress in your, in your relaxation. Maybe your resting heart rate drops. Like, you... Like, things are always occurring.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, and I think it's just whether we're voting with our behavior about the outcome that we truly want. And most of the outcomes that we truly want happen at a delay, which is what makes them worth wanting-
- 1:25:19 – 1:32:07
Does Success Require Isolation?
- CWChris Williamson
Don't listen to other people's opinions. Friendly reminder that most people are fat, poor pansies, and don't listen to them when they try to deter you from whatever it takes to succeed. The average person will always try to keep you average. It makes sense that if you want to be extraordinary, you will do things that an ordinary person would see as extra. This is the really hard part that I had to come to terms with. It's that a lot of people want to see you fail because it justifies the risks that they chose not to take. We always have to think about listening to the people who are closest to our goals, not closest to us
- AHAlex Hormozi
We yearn for the approval of many people who don't have lives that we want. And so if they have a specific life, then it means that that is what they think is valuable. And if we don't want what they have, then why would we value their weight on our decisions?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so it's like you have this... They're like, "We have this mold that is my life. Your life no longer fits my mold." And you're like, "Right, I don't like the pot that that mold makes." And so somehow when people state the obvious, which is that you are living your life against my preferences, we somehow feel like that needs to change because when we're younger and growing up, we-
- CWChris Williamson
You can't leave
- AHAlex Hormozi
... Yeah, you can't leave, and you do need to live your life according to your parents' preferences, your teachers' preferences, your classmates' preferences, your principals' preferences. Um, but when you get older, you do have to break the mold and decide what mold you want, and in so doing, you will be against their preferences. And if the vast majority of people have a life that you don't want, then you're going to do things that the vast majority of people don't agree with.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. I think the average American adult is obese, likely to be divorced, and has less than 1K in the bank. And doing what everybody else does sounds like a great idea, but it's actually a reliable route to a life that you're probably not looking for.
- AHAlex Hormozi
This is-- I feel very passionately about this particular topic because it means that the path to exceptionalism is lonely. And loneliness is something that we decry as a society, that there's something wrong with it, there's something bad, there's something wrong with you if many people disagree with you. But this is... But success and pursuit of large endeavors is one of those few domains where everyone disagreeing with you is a signal that you are actually doing something different. Now, sometimes you doing something different is the wrong move. [chuckles] I think, um, Larry Ellison said this. He said, uh, "If everyone thinks your idea is stupid, either they're right [chuckles] or you're right."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
"And if you're right, then you're likely to make a lot of money." [chuckles] I'm loosely paraphrasing, but basically it's like we have to be willing to do exceptional things in isolation and deal with the pain of rejection. Um, and some of rejection isn't people saying, "No, I don't wanna buy from you." Some of rejection is people just rejecting your behavior, rejecting who you're becoming, rejecting the choices that you're making.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, and I think that rejection oftentimes is harder because it often surfaces as snide remarks-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... jokes that are demeaning, that have a little bit too much edge to them, like a little bit too much truth.
- CWChris Williamson
Or even just being excluded, a more silent version of that. Not commission, but omission.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"Oh, we won't invite them out."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"Oh, you, you, you turned up to squash practice. I didn't know it was on. I just thought that... I don't know. Are you guys not telling me?" "Oh, yeah. Well..." "All right. Come on, join."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. Those, those moments, and I think those moments are very painful. Um, but you, you trade those moments for the many moments when you're at home alone, looking at your life around you and saying, "This is not what I want."
- CWChris Williamson
I don't wanna be here.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. I don't wanna be here. I don't wanna be who I am.
- CWChris Williamson
And I don't wanna be there with them either.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. And so it's no man's land. Um, and I think that that is, like, the beginning of the metamorphosis. It's the beginning of the transformation.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the single most powerful idea that me and you have come up with-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... the Lonely chapter, by far, by far. And I think the reason that it speaks to people is that the amount of doubt that you have to endure when doing this for the first time, when nobody around you understands what you're trying to do, when you're actively being discouraged from making changes and you have no promise of glory or success on the other side of it, is one of the most perfect cocktails of pain and discomfort that you can go through.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And this happens on every mountain. So it happens on your first mountain, and it happens on your second mountain. Like if you are... You've achieved some level of success that everyone around you deems as successful enough by their standards, not yours. When you pursue the next summit, they then-- All of it begins again. The machine begins again.
- CWChris Williamson
I actually think that for a lot of people, the first big Lonely chapter that they will feel will be after their first success.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm.
- 1:32:07 – 1:38:37
Why It's Okay to Change Your Goals
- CWChris Williamson
letting go. I, I, I've kind of been... Hold that thought. I j- I just g- I, I really wanted to talk to you about the difference between having fallen off and having nev- never made it.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And having fallen off a lot of the time is somebody going from one local maxima to another local maxima that's higher, or to a global maxima. Like, sure, some fall offs occur not through choice, but that evolution might be somebody going, "My priorities have changed."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"And you are judging me on the scorecard of the game that I used to play. I'm not bothered about that anymore." "Oh, that guy fell off."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Man, I have two, two completely different thoughts about this. Um, one is short and then I'll, I'll make the longer one. Um, I realized when I was r- I was writing something a while ago, um, that when you haven't... When you have no evidence or no proof that you're going to be successful, everyone will ask why you're working so hard. And then once you win, everyone asks why you're working so hard.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. You know, that was the Mark Manson one that he said will tell you how lucky you are.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Oh, is it? Did he say-
- CWChris Williamson
And you liked the idea of-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Ugh.
- CWChris Williamson
No, they just ask you again why you're working so hard.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And-
- CWChris Williamson
It was a funny remix.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And, um, and it was just a realization that people were literally always going to ask me why I was working so hard or why you were working so hard, and why you're pursuing your goals because they're saying that your goals are not the goals that I would pursue and to which you would respond yes. The second thing was, um, I was, I was talking to an entrepreneur, really successful, and they were saying, "Hey, I really want, um, I wanna dominate my market. I wanna put everyone else out of business," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I- I, as somebody who has put people out of business, um, I will say that it doesn't come with parades and it doesn't come with balloons, and it's not Goliath versus Goliath because by the time you actually beat them into s- true submission, it's really like a giant beating a child.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Because it's almost never a true fair fight, and there are no rules and there is no referee and no one determines you the winner. And so what ends up happening is you get bigger and bigger and bigger and then they shrink into irrelevance, and then you see a Facebook post that says that they've changed their goals and that they actually determined that this isn't as important to them as it once was.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And I think that, one, that's okay. Um, two, it's not satisfying at all. Three, when you see the, the jobs and the employees that actually worked at the company that were just, you know, living their lives and have kids and-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... all of a sudden, like this idea of this conquest that you're going to beat someone feels significantly less rewarding. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Less glorious.
- AHAlex Hormozi
100%. And I used to, I used to joke that when losers lose they change their goals rather than say they lost. And I think it's more that they might have at some point while they began to lose, maybe it's the first quarter or the second quarter of the game they're down by a few points, they might have some awareness of what it would take in order to win, but they determined at that point that the trade was no longer worth it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And I think that that's okay. And I would say that that has... That is a shift that I've had personally, is that if someone no longer determines that the price is worth it, then amazing. They've made a, they've made a conscious decision. What I w- what I, I would say I advocate against is having that decision made for you because you weren't conscious of the decision being made to begin with.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And then just basically accepting it.
- CWChris Williamson
Can vengeance be deranging in that way then?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Say it again.
- 1:38:37 – 1:42:39
How to Learn Any Skill in One Day
- CWChris Williamson
You can get competent at nearly anything in 20 hours. The problem is most people spend a decade delaying the first 20 hours. More potential is wasted through inaction than incompetence.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I saw a TED Talk years ago where a guy talked about how he learned how to play the guitar in 20 hours, and that TED Talk changed my life not because I learned to play the guitar, but all of a sudden, complex tasks or seemingly complex tasks felt incre- much, much more attainable. Where I was like, okay, I might not be the best website developer in the world, but in 20 hours I can have a website.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And that 20-hour mantra for me has just been like two days, two full days, two 10-hour days fully focused. You can pretty much go from zero to not hero, but zero to competent. Um, and when you string hundreds of those 20-hour days together, I think you become incredibly dangerous. We were talking earlier about Range, the book. I think being cross-departmental, being cross, um... What's the- cross-
- CWChris Williamson
Multidisciplinary.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Thank you. Disciplinary. Multidisciplinary is, is, is hard to calculate how valuable it is because of the... Because the, the first 20 hours of almost every discipline is probably the biggest, most meaningful concepts from that discipline.
- CWChris Williamson
From not being able to ride a bike to being able to ride a bike.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yes. Being able to not read to read, um, even if you can't read Shakespeare, but you can read all of a sudden like 80% of-
- CWChris Williamson
Or the world of Shakespeare is now opened up to you. It's just a, a matter of time before you get there.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And even if you could never read Shakespeare, the 80% of the books that you can read as a result of a, a sixth-grade reading level is basically more books than you have time to read. Um, and you will get the largest returns from those first 20 hours. And so there's a very strong argument for trying to collapse the time between, uh, wanting something and beginning those first 20 hours and because the, the 80/20 of your... of the skills you gain that are, that have utility, like that your usefulness across a huge amount of domains is multiplicative, not additive. So I, I, I've said this example before, but like, you know, Jay-Z in the very beginning, it's like he might have had some rhythm or something and then all of a sudden he, you know, learned how to rap and then he learned how to sell. Now some people say maybe he sold earlier than that, but I'll just leave it there. He learned how to sell and then all of a sudden he learned how to market. And with each of these additional skills, his income didn't go up by like, oh, one plus one equals two. It went, you know, one... Well, one's a bad number. So two to the 10th power all of a sudden becomes significantly greater, um, than what you can do. And so when, when unsure about what ste- like when you're not sure what to do, [sighs] build potential because when the opportunity does come you want to be ready. And so it does make sense in the beginning of your career to maximize optionality.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's just that you have to be willing to trade it in. And so when you're not sure what to do, the logical thing to do is I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow, but I'm gonna get, get a good night's sleep. I don't know what I'm gonna meet and mate, but I'm gonna start getting in shape now. I don't know what I'm gonna sell, but I'm gonna start building an audience and making content. There's always an argument for like you... If you don't know what to do, there's still plenty of things to do and... But the goal is not necessarily to do those things forever. It's to do those things to then use them as the launchpad to get the thing you really want.
- CWChris Williamson
The trap is opening up so much optionality without the concordant decisiveness that you end up being trapped.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You end up being stuck because you think, "I've got all of these directions that I could go in. I've spent all of this time building up a panoply-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- CWChris Williamson
... of routes that I could take my life down and I do not have any ability to decide on which of those to take."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Panoply.
- CWChris Williamson
Panoply. You like that?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. Myriad.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Cornucopia. A plethora.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Two people that are obsessed with language-
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... have a, have a war with each other.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
But one is British so he wins.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- 1:42:39 – 1:53:49
Never Let Others Mock Your Mission
- CWChris Williamson
[laughs] You only need to get rich once, so you might as well work as hard as you can to get it done as fast as you can. The fastest way to attract what you want in life is to deserve it by doing so much work it becomes unreasonable not to achieve it. Do so much work it would be unreasonable that you fail. The seat at the table is yours if you want it. Do the hard work. Build the skills no one can ignore. Adjust your mindset to match where you want to go, then pull up a chair and sit down. You want to work with such relentless obsession that when people see you they're grateful they don't have to compete against you. The fastest shortcut is to stop looking for shortcuts. Do the work.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Are those all mine?
- CWChris Williamson
All one.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Violence is the answer. There's, there's two, there's two quotes on the, on the, in the first few pages of our sales handbook at terminal8acquisition.com. One is "Volume negates luck" and "Violence is the answer." And I would say that those are like credos that, that the team lives by and I think-
- CWChris Williamson
A violent team.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm. They are. Um, and violently successful. Um, I think, I think there's a lot of power in ... in knowing that you're doing every single thing you possibly can to win.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Because if you are, if you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, "I have controlled the controllable," I think there's some level-
- CWChris Williamson
Entirely
- AHAlex Hormozi
... entirely. The controllable, not the uncontrollable. Those things can happen. I could do my book launch and there can be a lightning strike and there can be no power in Vegas. That can happen. But in the event that that happens, if you, if you leave it all on the field, if you have nothing left in the tank, I don't think there's a feeling that's more satisfying as a man than knowing that you've given everything that you had to give to an endeavor that you deemed meaningful. And so Layla and I have this thing that we say a lot, but, um, a man must have a quest, and I just really, really like that. It's like you need to do something. You need to go towards something. And your quest could be the best- being the best father. It could be, it could be being the best musician or the best podcaster or the best businessman or the best tire replacer or the best sweeper.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Whatever it is. But, like, I think, I think being questless, being aimless, and never being able to use the violence that you are capable of in the pursuit of endeavor that you find meaningful is where people find themselves lost and without hope. Because hopelessness comes from a perceived lack of options. We don't know what to do. Anxiety comes from many options but no priorities. And so there's many things to do, but we're not sure which one.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so a quest remedies both of those because you have one path that you're clear on and you know the only thing that you have left to do is destroy everything in your path to getting to where you want to go. And I'm using strong language on purpose rather than saying that you literally need to destroy everyone, but more so the ideas, the thoughts, the doubts, the r- the perceived risks that aren't even really risks. Um, those are the things that we have to march triumphantly b- towards. And I think, um, having someone in your corner, uh, who believes in that better version of you is one of the, the rarest ges- gifts that you can have in life. And there's a line from "300" that I love. The queen says to Leonidas, she s- she says, um, "Come back with your shield or on it." And I think that we all want a spouse or a partner who can, who can reward us for the good fight because what that queen is saying in that moment is not, like, "I want you to win." She's like, "I want you to die trying."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So... and I think that that's, that's like all we... I mean, to be fair, that's literally all we will do is die trying. [chuckles] All of us will die trying. And I think, um, well, rather all of us will die, some of us will die trying. And I think that's, that's about as good of a life as I think anyone can really ask for.
- CWChris Williamson
One of my least favorite groups of people are those without a quest mocking those who have one.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Wastes of space.
- CWChris Williamson
It causes doubt. This is another reason why the lonely chapter thing resonates so much, that people who are in it have their certainty about wanting to get out of it diminished by people who can't see the fact that they're in it. And you go, "Fuck, all of my friends are saying, 'Well, why, why are you staying in?' 'Cause you wanna go to the gym in the morning. What does it matter if you miss... what does it matter if you miss your workout? It doesn't matter if you w- it doesn't matter if you miss your workout tomorrow, dude." Go, "No, I really, really want this thing, and my wanting of this hard thing and the efforts and sacrifices and trade-offs I'm having to make in order to get there, the doubt that already exists inside of me is being multiplied by people who are outside of it." And if I could give everybody a gift, it would be the ability to turn down the volume on people who don't understand the goals that you're trying to achieve. It shouldn't be your job to explain yourself to people who don't understand what you're trying to do. And the confusion of this person gets it and understands it and this person doesn't, you shouldn't be listening to them at equal measure.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I have a lot of live translation that I think, um, I've wired into being able to handle some things that were difficult, um, which is, like, I pretty much translate all hate into you live your life against my preferences. And so whenever they're saying all of these things of like, "No, you don't have to go to the gym. We, we're doing this other thing," it's just saying, "You're living your life in a way that's against my preferences. You're valuing things that I don't value." And you're like, "You're right." And so it doesn't mean... like, we don't need to have the same values, at least in the short term. Um, and I think just accepting that that is okay and that you can still be friends, at least in the short term, is fine. And what they're really trying to do is get you to comply with their way of living because maybe, not always, when you live in accordance with your new values and new preferences, it brings into sharp contrast how they are not living in accordance to theirs.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. This was, what, 10 years ago when as a club promoter I decided that I was gonna take six months off from drinking, which now sounds like commonplace. Now is almost a caricature of something lame that people do too much, and drinking has come back around. But 10 years ago, I was on the fucking frontier.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
And I remember when I stopped drinking, so many of the people that I would hang out with went from being surprised to ribbing mockery to almost offended, and I think a lot of that was people realizing, "Oh, shit The fact that Chris has stopped drinking throws the fact that I need to drink in order to feel social into harsh contrast. My bad habits are being highlighted by the fact that someone near me has broken them.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And what's really interesting about that is that you made money from other people drinking, and so you clearly had no problem with anyone drinking. You just chose not to drink for you so that you could grow the business, get more in shape, whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
Which makes it feel even more elective, which makes it feel like even more of an insult.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. Which is... Which makes it also more, more ri-ridiculous how violent they were about opposing this choice because you were like, "I'm not projecting anything on you. I would prefer it if you drank."
- CWChris Williamson
Please.
- AHAlex Hormozi
"Please spend as much money as you can at the club." [chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Continue. Continue.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[chuckles] Right.
- 1:53:49 – 1:56:00
Why Everyone Should Try the ‘Buy Nothing’ Challenge
- CWChris Williamson
If you're poor, try the ‘Buy Nothing’ Challenge.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
The Buy Nothing Challenge. For 30 days, buy nothing except food, rent, gas, and insurance. Don't bring your wallet with you when you leave home. Pack lunch. See how much you save. Repeat until you have as much as you want. Brackets, pairs well with working 12 hours a day. Being good with money literally just means spend less than you make and put the extra in things that go up, not down.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Financial education in two tweets. Um, the hardest part about most things isn't knowing what to do. It's doing it. And the hard part about doing it is that you're often more rewarded for every action except for the one that you need to take. And so there's 100 things you can spend money on. There's only one nothing. [chuckles] And so every... It's so exhausting to not spend money when you don't have any because every single thing that you want or many things that you want have price tags associated with them, and you have to, at all moments in the day, say no 100 times in order to, quote, "spend nothing." And so it's this muscle that we have to build. But I, I s- I strongly encourage the Buy Nothing Challenge because, one, you realize how little you can really live on.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And when you realize how little you can really live on, you realize how much more risk you can actually take. Because the apparent downside of what if I lost everything becomes incredibly tangible, which is like, well, I lived on $200, $500-
- CWChris Williamson
It's not even that bad.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. It's actually... And when you realize that, and this is, I think, Morgan Housel, I don't want to say his name right. Um, when we look back in time at some of our happiest moments, uh, we think we were happy when we were poor. Um, but I'll just say on an anecdotal level, um... Well, I'll say, uh, my, one of my own words. Um, we often say that we'll be happy... Like, we already have the things that we said we want that would make us happy.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And yet, here we are. [chuckles]
- 1:56:00 – 2:01:18
Will 2026 Ever Be ‘The Good Old Days’?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. There's a nostalgia discount-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah
- CWChris Williamson
... for sure that- Nobody ever believes that we're living through a golden era. Golden eras only ever occur in history
- AHAlex Hormozi
The good old days?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It's always the good old days. I asked a question actually recently, which was, there's certain periods that people look back on n- nationally-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... as times that were particularly wonderful. I did ask the question, do you think anyone will look back at 2026 and think that it was the good old days at some point? Uh, every generation believes that we're living through a moment which is markedly different than the generations before. This one does feel particularly unremarkable in that way. To a degree, yeah. I think when I... I'm trying to project forward stuff that currently we think about with loving nostalgia from the past, and I'm not sure. But then probably during the '90s, right, did people think that WWF and F-16 fighter rocket, the fighter jets and, and Limp Bizkit were going to be what people in three decades' time would look back on with loving tenderness?
- AHAlex Hormozi
So I'm gonna say two things that I think are, um... So one, uh, behaviors can explain the, the, the nostalgia paradox-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... which is that across species, negative consequences fade.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Fading affect bias. Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And but positive doesn't.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so that's why you have your ex that you always want to go back to because you forget how crazy she is, and then you see her, and then you're like, "Oh my God, I forgot how crazy you were." Um, and why you drink and then the next morning you say, "I'm never gonna drink again," and then seven days later you're drinking again.
- CWChris Williamson
Decade of my life.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Right. [laughs] And so, um, but, like, even being cognizant of the fact that punishment fades and reward sticks is helpful for making decisions in the future. So that's thing one. The second is that, like, when I really think about at least the eras of my life, so I'll just talk personally. When I think about when I was, you know, sleeping on the gym floor, um, in a lot of ways, that was, like, the good old days. Like, I was, I was fighting really hard for something I really cared about. And then, you know, there was a moment where it started to work and I started, you know, launching gym to gym to gym with Layla, which was, like... Wasn't necessarily the good old days, but, like, it was she and I, and we were figuring it out, and I think I have a lot of respect and admiration for that kid who was just working his ass off even though I didn't know what I was doing. I just try-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- AHAlex Hormozi
... I tried.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, and then obviously when things started working out with gym launch and it was really scaling, it's like I remember that period and, like, I think you can, you can ascribe a good old days, especially on a personal level, to, like, almost every season of life when you look in retrospect, but just because the, the negative has faded.
- CWChris Williamson
Of course.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, and so it's one of these things that's like it's, like, a great way to feel bad about how you feel today because you know you should feel better because you know you will feel better about today in the future because-
- CWChris Williamson
Bingo
- AHAlex Hormozi
... the future will have today without the negative consequences and the stressors of today that in the future seem irrelevant. Um, and so it's like whenever you think about this stuff, like what is my... What, my, my operation for gratitude is imagine something good, imagine losing it, and then im- realize that you haven't lost it. That is how you feel gratitude-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... at the most basic level.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so whenever you repeat that operation, either in your mind or in reality, like, you feel gratitude. And so I think nostalgia is a flavor of that as we go back in time. Um, now we, we can't get it back, um, but I guess we can see it through a new lens.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the memory dividend thing-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm
- 2:01:18 – 2:04:39
Make Life Easier, Not Simpler
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. There's a, a... Adam Lane Smith taught me this a couple of years ago. I think it's really, really true. "Your life does not need to be easier. It needs to be simpler. Your system is designed to handle stress and challenge, but not complication."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"You probably handle hard things pretty well but feel overwhelmed when they become messy. Do not attribute to difficulty that which can be explained by complexity."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Preach.
- CWChris Williamson
Really cool.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Really cool. And I think that's, that's where a lot of stress is felt, and this is the line from whatever, fucking four episodes ago, where, uh, there's no such thing as being overworked, only under rested.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
That overworked is the asterisk. Overworked at a small bucket of things But there is such a thing as being spread too thin and overworked across a larger bucket of things. If all that you have to do for the next six months or two years is write a book, it's gonna be stressful, but it's gonna be enjoyable. If you have to write a book and raise a kid and manage finances and go to work and try and get in shape and c-connect with your partner and your mum's ill and ... It doesn't ta- It only takes two or three of those and people fall apart. System is designed to handle intensity but not complexity.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I think, I think most people would be astonished at how much they can accomplish if they remove things. Because I don- I don't think focus is also not additive but multi- multiplicative in that the best things that I've ever made, books, things like that, the best works that I've created have been things that had many coats of paint. And so I can look at the same project over a long period of time when I'm on good days, on bad days, it rains, it's, it's, it's sunshine, Layla and I are good, Layla and I are bad, like through all these different seasons. And so I look at the work through as many lenses as I can, and then it, it creates, it creates the texture to the work that gives it that depth.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Of... And I like the many coats of paint because like you have to let it dry. Like it's very rare that something on the first shot is very good. It just takes a lot of attempts. But you, you can't get that surface area of thinking if you can only think about it a handful of times. And so there's only so much thinking time that you have, which means that if you give it to five projects rather than one, getting one inch deep on five projects is rarely a novel concept. Like you rarely will come up with something that is in- is inherently unique because many people can give one inch deep thought towards any idea. Like-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, uh, also somebody who is one-fifth as good as you at doing that thing are giving 100% of themselves, so you're basically curtailing your capacity by spreading it across multiple things.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And again, I relate things back to business, but, um, in some ways you believing that you can pursue multiple masters is actually arrogant because it assumes that the people that you compete against can't beat you when they're fully focused on one thing and that you can somehow compete with three or four or five people at the same time and still win. And maybe you can, but I think the vast majority of people just lose.
- 2:04:39 – 2:10:25
Don’t Be Limited By Your Resourcefulness
- CWChris Williamson
Stop whining. Every position has an advantage. Younger means cutting edge. Older means more experience. Smaller company means more personalized. Bigger company means longer track record. Rich means resources to use. Broke means nothing to lose. You aren't limited by your resources, only your resourcefulness.
- AHAlex Hormozi
There's always a way to win. Just not always a enough desire to win.
- CWChris Williamson
The, uh, position of simplicity as well, I think. So much of today is about trade-offs. It's cool. Looking across all of these, I can't see any of them that would be improved by complexity. Young, old, small, big, rich, broke. M- It's a universal rule that cuts through all of them, which I think is really interesting. But yeah, d- uh, everybody is able to find a reason why the situation that they're in is either great but more typically not great because finding all of the ways that the thing that you have or don't have either limits you or restricts you in a way that it wouldn't if you were somebody else or in a different situation allows you to front run why you might fail in future.
- AHAlex Hormozi
This is the reason why inversion is one of the most powerful ways to get what you want, because we are hardwired to survive, and part of survival is threat identification. What are all the problems that exist around me in my environment, in my life that threaten me? And so when you try to think about what's good with your life, you have to sit there and be like, "Okay, I have to do my five-minute journal in the morning and think what three..." And you're like sitting there, you're like, "Okay, what three things am I grateful for?" Right? And you have to like try to do that, especially if you do different things every day, right? But what's interesting, and this is why I think Munger was so, was so brilliant with this, is if you frame what are all the threats that I have to accomplishing what I want? What are all the things that are gonna get in my way? Um, if I had to guarantee failure, what would I do? It's much easier to come up with the list of all the things that will guarantee failure-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- AHAlex Hormozi
... because we're programmed to find those threats. And then all you have to do is just flip it as soon as you've figured out that monster list of the things that guarantee your failure, and then you just do that.
- CWChris Williamson
You know what's a cool version of this? If you were to design a day or a lifestyle for your worst enemy who's trying to beat you-
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... what would it be? Uh, and the inversion of the inversion is imagine that you were going up against you-
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... but with a mustache.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
It's you versus a mustache, and this version of you is doing everything that they can to beat you. They know all of your failures, they know all of your shortcomings and your fears. What would that person do? Just do that. Do what that person would do that would beat you. Do what you with a mustache would do to beat you, and that's one of George's ideas, and I think it's really cool. It, it's the same as basically what would you do if you had 10 times the agency?
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Because presumably that person would have way more agency. They wouldn't doubt themselves as much. They'd be more decisive. Uh, they would, uh, reduce complexity. They would be less distracted.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So there's, there's a, there's a frame in the investing world, which is if someone else were to come and buy 100% of your company today, what would they immediately do in the first, you know, 30 days?
- CWChris Williamson
Holy shit, I can't believe that they're spending this much money on catering.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs] I can't believe they still have that guy, um, who was good two years ago and just shows up for work now. Um, and I think it's because what that frame provides you is an emotionless view of your current situation.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Your, your best... The person that you would... Your, your, your worst enemy would have no emotion around-
- CWChris Williamson
With a mustache
- AHAlex Hormozi
... a val- Yeah, with a mustache, would have no emotion around making the hard call because he's not you, he's someone else.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And the person he's firing is not your best friend Todd. It's just this inadequate person who's no longer upskilled. And so when we make these... when, when we talk through, you know, when we have these podcasts around feelings and emotions and whatnot, like, there is the, there is the feelings that we ex- there's the experience of life, of the things that we feel while we go through it, and then there's the, the decisions that must occur in reality.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And I think trying to serve both masters is where people get, I don't want to say in trouble, but at least they understand that they are making a trade. "I keep Todd on because I feel guilty." Okay, we at least understand that Todd is hurting your business and you would rather hurt the business than have the conversation with Todd.
- CWChris Williamson
Show me your priorities.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And we know the priorities.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's just are the priorities the priorities you want?
- 2:10:25 – 2:19:55
Why Risk Is Less Dangerous Than You Think
- CWChris Williamson
Above your intelligence, above your work ethic, you will be compensated in proportion to your risk. Pro tip: if you're afraid to take the risk, write down in excruciating detail what you're actually afraid of happening step by step. What happens next when you fail? You'll often find it's not so bad when you spell it out. Fear exists in the vague, not the specific.
- AHAlex Hormozi
So risk comes in a handful of flavors. One is what we know we will give up that we hope we will get something back from that's bigger. There's also the we want something bigger, but we will pay a cost, so different ways of saying the same thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Like, it's gonna be, uh, lose something good, get something bad-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... um, are the, are the things that risk presents for us. A different view on risk that I've been thinking a lot about is proportionality of risk. And at the most basic level, this is a lot of what, you know, investing really is, which is there is always risk, but is the risk priced appropriately? And Peter Thiel had this commentary around Elon where if he had just had one of his three companies succeed, it would have already been a crazy win. But somehow he got all three of them to become, I guess now, you know, multi-billion, trillion dollar plus companies. And he said he must know something about risk that all of us don't understand. And I think there's something incredibly powerful about studying the person who's accumulated the most wealth in history, or at least in present day, um, and that, that man's understanding of risk is different, and it's probably a more accurate view of true risk rather than perceived risk. And he often talks about like, well, the downside of trying as hard as you can is basically nothing. You are... If you're in the developed world, the likelihood that you starve to death is almost nothing, and there are f- there is free shelter if literally no one in your social construct would allow you to crash on a couch. And that assumes that during the day you are incapable of working in any way that generates money, which there are many ways to generate money that do not require tremendous skill, at least today.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so the downside is nothing. And so that is why the risk of going after whatever it is that you want is mispriced by the vast majority of people, because they have this fear of the big thing that's good that's gonna go away or a big bad thing that's going to come as a result. But the big bad thing is nothing. But the big thing that's good that they miss out on is everything.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so the risk is almost always mispriced because our brains are wired to misprice it, because if you mess up once, you don't pass on your genes and you die. But it is n- in no way wired to maximize your potential and what you're capable of.
- CWChris Williamson
This mismatch between ancient programming and the modern world is kind of hilarious. We got a nervous system that was built to fight bears, and now it's worried by group texts.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, it's true. It's true. And, uh, how do you think about-
- AHAlex Hormozi
Let me add one more piece on that risk piece. Um, I was talking to an entrepreneur, um, a week or two ago, and she had grown her great-grandmother's business from four million to forty-four million in three years. It was, like, awesome. Super cool story. And it became obvious to her that her brand and needing to create more content was kind of the constraint of her going from, call it forty-five million to, you know, two hundred million and beyond. And she said, "Okay, so do you think I should, like, hire an editor?" And what was interesting, she's like, "Well, how much is that gonna cost?" And so the business is doing a million a month of profit now and What was interesting to me is that oftentimes we don't also recalibrate our appetite for risk as our exposure to opportunity expands.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so it's like you right now are still operating from the $4 million business owner risk angle where you were making a million dollars a year and one or two editors was 10 or 20% of your net income. When you're making $12 million in profit, we should be thinking about how do we make a two, three, $4 million bet that we think is going to result in an extra 200 million or 100 million on top of that, which is a phenomenal return. And so, I mean, I open up the offers book with one of my top two quotes from Jeff Bezos, where he talks about how if you have a 10% chance of 100... of 100x payoff, you should take that bet every time knowing that you will be wrong nine times out of 10. The difficulty with that example contrasted with reality is that if you were at a casino and you had a 10% chance of 100x payoff, of course you should take that bet, but then just assume that the minimum bet is 10 years and you only have three hands to play.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And that's the reality of life. That said, when we look at what that loss of that 10%, when that 10%... when the 90% of the time that it fails isn't actually a loss though.
- CWChris Williamson
You've accumulated a lot along the way.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And you've g- you've gained experience, you've gained lessons, you've gained skills, you've gained network, you've gained relationships, um, perspective. And so you only move forward by taking these shots on goal. And I think that if every risk was only seen as zero downside, only upside, and either I win or I learn-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... which w- we are not the first people to say that, but whatever version of that narrative you need in order to realize that life has given you an endless amount of scratch-off tickets and you just get... have to cash them in-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- AHAlex Hormozi
... I think that more people would take bets and more people would win.
- CWChris Williamson
It's way better to be high conviction and wrong than low conviction and wrong.
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
You know? Like I'm, I'm just gonna go for it.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Because at least if you're high conviction and wrong, you move sufficiently quickly to be able to update your system based on the results that you got. It's why indecisiveness, again, and that inaction thing, inaction has a cost. Do not make the assumption that inaction has no price. So it does have a price.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Yeah. And it's, and it's, and it's a... This is one of those labels that we were saying at the very beginning about shorthand. It's like inaction isn't even inaction. We are always taking action.
- 2:19:55 – 2:25:52
Are Life Lessons Just Clichés?
- CWChris Williamson
I was thinking about... It's been a, a m- almost exactly a year since me and you sat down.
- AHAlex Hormozi
I know, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Um, a lot of the... This is seventh time you've been on maybe something like that.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Is it really?
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe, yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Huh.
- CWChris Williamson
Sixth or seventh, plus we did the one with me and you, me, you, and Layla. And I think there's always an interesting progression. So one of the things that I've noticed Looking at the time capsule of the last year of your writing and what I've been thinking about too is, uh, risk, uncertainty, and decisiveness seem to be themes that are in there a lot. And I came across this Nabeel Qureshi quote that is maybe a little self-serving, but I think it, it's really true about why drilling 20, 30 hours, 40 hours, however long me and you have spoken, why it's-- why I think it's important and why I don't get bored of it. And he says, "A cursed fact of the world is that the most important life lessons you learn are the hardest to communicate to others because they always sound like cliches."
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And there's a bit of me in the back of my mind that hears, [sighs] it's not that deep, bro. You're overcomplicating it. You don't need to look at life with this level of resolution. This seems to be unnecessarily dissecting. Uh, this is, uh, majoring in the minors. Uh, this is taking too seriously things which don't matter in that sort of a way, paying too much attention. It's a kind of fragility of optimization, et cetera, et cetera. And the fact that lots of things that are important sound like stuff that you've heard before doesn't discount the fact that you need to hear it. Because if you know it that well, why the fuck are you still in the same place? If you're bored of hearing about how important cold, dark quiet is in order to prepare your bedroom for sleep, why does your sleep still suck? Why does your sleep still suck? If you're bored of hearing how it's important to integrate emotions but there are times when you need to put them to one side, that they're information, not a master, why is it you still don't have a good relationship with your emotions? If you know this stuff, if it's so obvious, if this is the sort of thing that you should have been taught by your father or you should have learned in school or you shouldn't have had to wait until you're in your 40s to understand, why is it you haven't mastered it? And the most important life lessons that you learn are the hardest to communicate to others because they always sound like cliches.
- AHAlex Hormozi
We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. And so that means that the gap between what we have and what we want is typically not a lack of information, but a lack of execution. And so if it's a lack of execution, then it ladders up to what are the motivating operations that are either preventing me from doing it or that are insufficient to compel me?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so this is why I think Chris and I go into this very, very minute detail about, okay, you would just sleep on your friend's couch and how bad is that? And trying to actually spell out that the downs... Like, how do you put the picture, like we were saying earlier with, uh, the, the, the waiting room or the, the hospital bed?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
It's, it's trying to take three steps forward into the reality of what living through your downside would look like so that you can realize that the downside is 10 times worse in your mind than it is in reality. And if it's 10 times worse in your mind than it is in reality, then it means that you can take actions in reality because the downside doesn't really exist.
- CWChris Williamson
And the excruciating detail is needed in order to be able to bring this imagination into reality. Oh, I'm-- I can feel that. I imagine what it would be like to be on my friend's couch. I know it would be brown. It would be on the left-hand side of the room. I would have a little thing on the floor. That would be a mobile desk that I might work at.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And sometimes it takes actually reaching out to a friend before you take a big jump and say, "Hey, if all this... I'm about to do something wild. If this went to shit, would I be able to crash at your place for, like, an extended period?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
"I would be willing to do X, Y, and Z. I don't think it's going to happen, but would you be willing to do it? Because you saying that you're willing to take me in is going to allow me to do that." I would say that if you actually have real friends, 10 out of 10 of them would be like, "Yeah, dude, go for it."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
"Like, I got you." And I think having... Like, I had... There was a handful of people that, um, I probably called every single night during the six months leading into me quitting my job, where I basically rehashed the exact same decision 100 times, uh, with them and rederived it.
- CWChris Williamson
I think people would be surprised to hear that.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
I think people would be surprised to hear that-
- AHAlex Hormozi
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
... Mr. Decisive seemingly would need to have that conversation. I also think it's cool to hear that story because it legitimates somebody's bravery in the face of uncertainty and repetition. I think a lot of the time we feel like we're a burden to our friends for asking them for advice about the same problem that we've come to f- with before. I've done it with you. I'm like, "Hey man, I-"
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
"Yeah. No, no, it's not new."
- AHAlex Hormozi
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
"Yeah, no, it's the... Yeah, it's the, it's the, it's the same thing again. I'm sorry. Is it... Yeah, I need to say... No, no new perspective. No, I need to say the ex- I need... I... Yeah, it's gonna be, it's the conversation from last week, ex- but, but now again." Is that... Cool. So the, the, the license, giving people the license to be boring in their learning and in their need for support from people. It's like, I'm sick of moping about this situation, and I have a friend that's prepared to sit in it with me. That feels really good.
- 2:25:52 – 2:35:07
How Alex Overcame Doubt to Start His Career
- AHAlex Hormozi
To give more color to that, that period, because one of the things that Layla and I were talking about was she has a desire to make successful people more relatable so that people who don't have successful people around them can feel like it is attainable.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, so I'm gonna add a handful of colors to that little chapter, and hopefully people will be okay with it. Um, so in that, in that time period, um, many people know this, but I got fired And so be like, who would fire Hormozi, the hardworking maniac? Well, I just wasn't that good of an employee. Um, and so I basically just read books all day instead of working. Um, and I read most of the self-help books that you've heard of, um, Hundred Million Dollar Offers, Hundred Million Dollar Leads. Those are the books I... I'm kidding. I wasn't reading those [laughing] . No, but I was reading, you know... And, and to be fair, I don't think any one of them re- I'd say, like, I can, I can say a handful of them s- phrases in entire books stuck with me. Um, one phrase I heard in a book, can't remember which one it was, was wantrepreneur. And the phrase disgusted me so much because it was like, oh yeah, all those people who just want to be entrepreneurs, and it just said it flippantly. It wasn't even decrying the term. It just said like, "Oh yeah, this is how we define these people who are, like, not there, but, like, business interested."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, the nonchalance is even more insulting.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Exactly. And that's why... And I, I was like, "I'm that. I am this disgusting thing. I don't want to be this." But that still wasn't enough to motivate. It was a negative operating... You know, it, it was negative, but it still wasn't enough. Um, I listened to Arnold's Ladder of Success speech that he gave. This is obviously 15, 16 years ago. Um, it was this speech, I found it on YouTube, and I listened to it, like, every morning before I'd go to work.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, you cannot wa- climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets, you know? Um, and I listened to that every morning. I, um, I read, uh, Relentless by Tim Grover, and it was basically the first book that I think gave me permission to use called the dark side-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah
- AHAlex Hormozi
... to get things done. And I'd be like, I would say now I don't necessarily operate 100% from that same perspective, but it was what I needed at the time. And I called a friend of mine, his name was Victor. He was considering quitting his job too, and so every night we basically just, like, planned and schemed about how we're gonna... our exit plan of how we were gonna... We just mentally masturbated the idea of, like, what freedom would be like if we actually left. And I would have this, I, you know, I had to have, uh, an early Bluetooth thing, which is a piece of ship now. Um, and I remember I had this cowhide carpet in my apartment that I got from Ikea that the path that I would walk on while he and I would talk started getting treaded. Um, so there was this line in the middle of where I would-
- CWChris Williamson
I've done that in my house
- AHAlex Hormozi
... where I would pace. And, and the, and so the things that, that... And I, and I, and I would have the lunch with my dad, the like, "Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quit my job and do my own thing." I didn't have that lunch one time. I had that lunch many times. And each time he would reasonably talk me off the cliff and say, "Listen, this is the boring chapter. You're just gonna do your few years, and then you're gonna go to business school, and, like, this is the plan."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
Um, and so it was very clear that I was following a path that was trod upon. And to be fair, my dad absolutely did what he believed was best, and I think his intentions were perfect. Um, and so all of these things were happening with me, for me during that period of time, and I just remember having read as many self-help books as I could, you know, get my hands on, and then I looked around my room and apartment and realized that my life hadn't changed at all. And that was when I googled online and decided that I was gonna start a business. I narrowed it down to three, and then one guy got back to me who had a gym. And even then, when I had my first conversation with him, I was like, "I really wanna start a gym." He's like, "So you don't have a gym?" I was like, "No." And he's like, "Okay. Well, basically, uh, you're gonna need to, like, do something before I can help you." And he says, "You need to make a serious commitment, make a decision." So I, I thought about this for a while, and then, um, a few weeks later, I texted him. I said, like, "I'm ready." And so I called him back up again, and he's like, "Well, okay, great. So you have a lease. What's the, you know, what's the..." You know, it's just like, "Oh, oh, no, no, no, I don't have that." And he was, and he was disgusted, and he was like, "Lose my number, dude." Like... And he was disgusted by how little I had done in that meantime. And so all of these things happened. It wasn't one of them. And so as much as I could say, like, "I just read this one book and my life changed," like sometimes you have to hear it 100 times before it either sinks in or there's enough negative or enough positive or both that it gets you over whatever perceived threshold of action that you have. And so it was only when all of those things happened, and I came to the realization, and I also applied to business school 'cause I was like, "What do I do in the meantime?" So I was doing four hours of GMAT, uh, problems every day because I, I, I was still violent then, um, so that I could ace the GMAT. And then I got above Harvard's mid score, and then I was starting... I was doing all the applications 'cause it's something else that, that you can do that you can procrastinate with.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- AHAlex Hormozi
And so I did all the applications into business school, and one of the questions that came up was, "How will a, a Harvard MBA or a Booth MBA," I can't remember, "help your short- and long-term goals?" And I remember belaboring over this, this question for three days, and I answered all the other questions, and I was thinking about it, and I was like, "I don't think it is gonna help my long-term goals." Because I looked at the math of like, okay, this is gonna cost me $120,000. This is at the time. Um, and I won't be able to make money for two years, so I'm gonna stop making money, and it's gonna cost me 120, and then the starting salary was 120, or like average starting salary post business school. And so I thought to myself, could I take two years, $120,000 and within that period of time believe that I could get to the point where I could make $10,000 a month, but I would own a business rather than having a job to then maybe someday own a business? And I believed that that bet felt reasonable. And so even then you're like, "Okay, so that's when he quit and did it." [chuckles] No. And so it was all of those things, and then finally the realization that I... that it was never going to get easier. And so then the fear that I was never going to start the business that I said I wanted to someday start, the fact that the, that I actually had an exploding offer from life, which is that it was only going to get harder, and that I realized how hard it had been for me to that point to still not have made a decision, and it was the fear that I was never going to make it which compelled me to make it And that's what got me to pack all my shit, drive my car halfway across the country, and then, then and only then call everyone and tell them that I had left so they couldn't talk me out of it. And so if anyone is like, "Man, the so decisive Hormozi," or whatever, like it took a Herculean effort and to, to suspend a shitload of doubt and risk aversion. And also in terms of when I talk about the stuff with caring about what other people thought, I cared so much about everyth- th- other people thought that I, I knew that I cared so much about what other people thought that I wasn't even willing to hear them because I knew if I did hear them, they would talk me out of it.
Episode duration: 4:08:54
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