41 Harsh Truths Nobody Wants To Admit - Alex Hormozi (4K)

1. 0:00 – 10:14

   Do What You Want, No One Will Remember

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      We are back again, speed-insighting our way through stuff about how hard life is.

   2. AHAlex Hormozi0:05

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson0:07

      The Queen of England died 18 months ago. She ruled an entire nation and accumulated more wealth than 99.9% of humans, and yet you haven't thought about her, except for right now. No matter how big your dreams, you're gonna die. Everyone will move on. Do what you want. It sucks to not be liked, but it sucks more to not be yourself.

   4. AHAlex Hormozi0:28

      Yeah, it's really interesting when we think about what tactically happens when someone dies, right? Like, a lot of emotion exists in the vague but far less in the specific, because you plan your funeral, right, and then you think that everyone's gonna be standing there just forever changed because of the death and the impact that you had on their lives, but the reality is there's gonna be a caterer at the funeral. Some people are gonna like the food. Some people are gonna comment that it was too cheap, you know, the food that you had. Um, they're gonna have comment on the venue like, "Oh, I don't really... You know, it's a little hot." There's gonna be somebody who's gonna, uh, make a list of people, and they're gonna check them off. Some people aren't gonna be able to make it last minute 'cause things came up, and it got busy. And after the whole funeral is over, everyone's gonna go to a restaurant and just eat dinner and then move on with their lives. And so not to say that it... uh, you know, the people who, you know, mean a lot to you, uh, won't remember you to a degree, sure. But on the macro scale, when I think about somebody like the Queen who accomplished so much in her life as like the- the zenith of, you know, accomplishment, and most people probably haven't even thought about her today except for the fact that we just brought it up. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson1:39

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AHAlex Hormozi1:40

      And so I think that just... it, um... Whenever I have, uh, my harder times, that's my, my, like, reminder to self of, um, the absurdity of it all, which is like, "Someone's gonna argue over what appetizer they're gonna serve when I die. This probably doesn't matter that much." (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson1:57

      How does that change the way that you show up and operate in the moment?

   8. AHAlex Hormozi2:01

      I think it just decreases affect in, in the, in the acute moment. So I, you know, I define resiliency as the amount of time after an aversive stimulus, after a bad thing happens that you return back to baseline behavior. And so, um, and then there's a different one, which is how long is your fuse, which is toughness, and it's a whole different thing, right? But resiliency is like, "Okay, I've been cracked. You know, I've hit the fuse. The bomb's gone off," but the size of the bomb is irrelevant. Like, you could be super resilient, have a terrible day, your father dies, and the next day you're back. People are like, "Holy sh-" It's like you, like, go to the depths of hell, you touch the bottom of the pool, and then you shoot back up. And so I think about how many different tools can I have in my toolset to make the rebound from down to back up as V-shaped as possible?

   9. CWChris Williamson2:47

      What are those tools for you?

   10. AHAlex Hormozi2:49

       (sighs) Cosmic irrelevance is probably the biggest one when I think about, like... 'Cause it's so fast, I feel like I do it almost automatically now, which is like, "Okay, I'm on a planet spinning around a sun inside of a galaxy inside of a universe that will never reach the end of because it's tr- it's expanding faster than the speed of light. Okay. The fact that, you know, there was a mistake in my book printing, (inhales deeply) no one's gonna care. No one... It just doesn't matter," right? Um, so that's one of them. Another one's the frame of the veteran, which I use a lot, which is, um, if this inconvenience happened a thousand times in a row, on the thousandth time, what would I think about it? Well, I'd probably be like, "Well, this is just how life is." And then if I could feel that way on the thousandth time, then it means that I can feel that way on the first time right now, because it's just choice, 'cause the actual circumstance is the same. Um, those are probably, like, my two most prevalent or, you know, the ones that I like... my default ones that I... they're in my- my back pocket.

   11. CWChris Williamson3:44

       There's a, a cool insight that the more you complain, the less accurate your model of reality. So complaining is you saying, "The world isn't delivering to me that which I anticipated or expected or desired from it," which is also you saying, "I don't understand how the world works until it comes and meets me in reality."

   12. AHAlex Hormozi4:04

       God, I, I haven't heard it phrased that way, and I really like it. Um, I, I think about, um, the, the hate, um, that we all get, whether it's from ourselves or other people, or the hate that we spew towards the external conditions is simply boiled down to, "This person lives their wife- life in a way that I would not prefer." And so I have translated every single negative comment that comes to me, um, where someone complains about me, so flipping the script, um, to, "Alex lives his life in a way that I would not prefer."

   13. CWChris Williamson4:38

       Mm. Mm-hmm.

   14. AHAlex Hormozi4:39

       And so it's actually been this very weird, like, oh, they said all this stuff, and I was like, "Does that mean they j- I live my life in a way they wouldn't prefer? Great, because they live their life in a way that I wouldn't prefer. And that's why it's their life, and I live my life," and it's just been this really (laughs) wonderful reframe that, like, just almost comically make, but, like, completely minimizes most things.

   15. CWChris Williamson4:55

       Yes.

   16. AHAlex Hormozi4:56

       But I think that complaints come down to that. The universe exists in a way that I would not prefer. (laughs) Right?

   17. CWChris Williamson5:01

       Yep.

   18. AHAlex Hormozi5:02

       It's like, and-

   19. CWChris Williamson5:02

       Why are you not bending to my will?

   20. AHAlex Hormozi5:04

       Yeah. And so, um, I think Jor- uh, shoot, I can't remember the psychologist. I'm gonna, I'm gonna butcher it, but one of the big guys, um, talked... I want to say Kinsey, but I don't wanna mess it up. Um, talked about there's three primary things that everyone, uh, casts all their pain and suffering to, which is you have circumstances, you have other people, and then you have self, and that's it. Those are the three, those are the three big ones that everyone puts all of their, all of their blame on. And so the first two obviously don't serve you. The third sometimes serves you depending on what you do as a result of it, right?

   21. CWChris Williamson5:38

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AHAlex Hormozi5:38

       And so, um, that... actually, those big three has just been a really easy filter is like, "Oh, am I blaming circumstance? Am I blaming other people? Am I blaming me?" And, um, obviously you wanna skip to you 'cause that's the only thing you can do anything about.

   23. CWChris Williamson5:49

       The idea that all of the things that you're working toward, all of the dreams, all of those things are going to stop. There is going to be a day when you no longer answer your emails.Like, I think about this. I think about-

   24. AHAlex Hormozi6:02

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson6:02

       ... how many, even now, right, email's not been around for that- around for that long of widespread. What, maybe 25 years, something like that that-

   26. AHAlex Hormozi6:07

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson6:08

       ... most people have had an email address, maybe 20 years. Uh, all of the people that have died between then and now, they just have email inboxes-

   28. AHAlex Hormozi6:15

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson6:16

       ... just accumulating stuff from-

   30. AHAlex Hormozi6:18

       Yeah.
2. 10:14 – 32:30

   The #1 Skill Everyone Should Learn

   1. AHAlex Hormozi10:14

   2. CWChris Williamson10:15

      The single greatest skill you can develop is the ability to stay in a good mood in the absence of things to be in a good mood about.

   3. AHAlex Hormozi10:22

      I think that tweet has been my theme for 2025. Um, it's been, it's, it's funny 'cause that was the most shared tweet I've ever had. Um, and it was s- it was like, it's, it was almost, um... (sighs) not the opposite of ironic. It was fitting, right? It was completely fitting for the year. And it's been because like this year I've had a, a just, I'll, I would say, a series of unfortunate events, um, that has occurred and it's really tested my tools, right, tools in the tool belt, um, for reframing reality so that I can make my experience less, you know, miserable. And so I thought about that. It's like if I were to, if I were to boil everything down, um, of all the skills that you can learn, if everything that we do eventually becomes irrelevant, then the single greatest skill that you can develop is being in a great mood in the absence of things to be in a great mood about. And so one of the other frames on this is most people don't question someone who's in a bad mood. Like, I'm just in a bad mood. So it's like, well, if you can be in a bad mood for no reason, it's like you might as well be in a good mood for no reason 'cause that one at least serves you. And so I've been trying to exercise like, 'cause there's on one degree there's like let's count things to be grateful for. On the other side, it's like, why do I have to have things to be grateful for in order to be in a good mood? Like, why is trying to find things a requirement of being in that mood? Like, can I not find things and still choose to be in a good mood? Because I've certainly not had things to be in a bad mood about and been in a bad mood.

   4. CWChris Williamson11:53

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AHAlex Hormozi11:54

      And so I've been trying to flex that which is like, sure, we can find things to be grateful for and when those things pop up, yes, and of course, it's a pr- you know, it's a practice, you get better at it. But like, what if I can just be in a good mood? (laughs) And so I've just tried to, tried to break that, that relationship between the two because then it makes it contingent on something that I can find.

   6. CWChris Williamson12:10

      How successful have you been at that?

   7. AHAlex Hormozi12:11

      Mediocre. (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson12:13

      (laughs) Well, look, I think it's a, it's a, uh, lovely idea-

   9. AHAlex Hormozi12:17

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson12:18

       ... in isolation-

   11. AHAlex Hormozi12:19

       Sure.

   12. CWChris Williamson12:19

       ... uh, in theory, but I'm not convinced about how effective it is in practice for the reason that humans have a negativity bias. You know, it's our psychological entropy.

   13. AHAlex Hormozi12:26

       100%.

   14. CWChris Williamson12:27

       And your ability to detect things that are a risk to you significantly better than your ability to detect things that are just pleasant. Like, this morning I texted you and I was like, "Hey man, like, I really love the feeling I have of anticipation on a morning before we do a podcast." That's a normal, boring, mundane source of pleasure to me.

   15. AHAlex Hormozi12:48

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson12:49

       If I'm not really, really training myself to notice that-

   17. AHAlex Hormozi12:53

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson12:53

       ... I just f- it just fucking falls away with the fact that, huh, I asked for almond milk, and I bet this would've been better with, like, whole milk.

   19. AHAlex Hormozi13:02

       (laughs) That's the thing that ru- that ruins the day. And the thing is, is you do notice it though.

   20. CWChris Williamson13:06

       Mm-hmm.

   21. AHAlex Hormozi13:06

       Right? You do notice that. Um, so I've had, um... One of my themes this year has been focusing on moments and on both the positive and the negative. And so, like, when we think back on... If I think back on the last year, right? I don't remember probably 95% of the year, like, I, you know, I did s- the same things and so it's like it just didn't get recorded, like nothing notable happened. Um, and so really, like, when we think about a year, we really just recall a handful of moments and that's it, and those moments in time were usually very short. And so I've been trying to think about, um, the bad, you know, seasons as, well, maybe it wasn't a bad season. Maybe I had five bad days, or really five bad moments that I then thought about for the (laughs) entire season and turned what would have otherwise been five minutes times five into an entirely bad year. And so it's like, okay, well, if we can do that in the negative, can we do it in the positive? Which is, you know, obviously the thing to, to exercise. But to the point that you said earlier about our, our ability to detect threat and risk at such a, such better accuracy than our ability to d- detect good things, it's so interesting because if you use that side of your brain, um... Not to derail us, but like, I think that has been one of the things that's helped me a tremendous amount in business. Because when I think about a business and I want to grow it, for example, I would think, okay, what are all the things that can destroy this business? And this is Charlie Munger, this isn't me, um, but basically he says, "Invert, always invert." And Einstein said that too. And it's because, like, you get to use this, this way stronger horsepower engine of, like, how do I grow my b- my business? That's a, a... You could obviously think that way, but the alternative would be, like, how would I absolutely destroy this business in the fewest possible moves? And then when you list out those moves, you're like, cool, now let's do the opposite of that.

   22. CWChris Williamson14:55

       Yeah.

   23. AHAlex Hormozi14:55

       And that has been, um... Honestly a lot of the, some of the sources of my greatest kind of creative moments have come from these apparently obvious things that would kill us, well, what if we did the in- even more obvious thing and did the o- the opposite of what would destroy us? (laughs) Um, and it's worked, it's worked, um, better than I deserve.

   24. CWChris Williamson15:13

       So this is the problem.

   25. AHAlex Hormozi15:14

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson15:15

       Uh, you can be rec- rewarded professionally-

   27. AHAlex Hormozi15:19

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson15:19

       ... for focusing on things that you do not want to focus on personally. And Ryan Long taught me this. He was talking about how he sp- he's a comedian, Canadian comedian, really funny guy. He spends all of this time, you know, dialing in these bits and obsessing-

   29. AHAlex Hormozi15:35

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson15:35

       ... over how it could be better, and then he says to himself, "Yeah, but I don't want you to do that in your relationships. No, can you let that go when it comes to the way that you show up for your partner or your friends or your b- body image or whatever."
3. 32:30 – 47:31

   How To Not Let 1 Bad Day Spiral Into More

   1. AHAlex Hormozi32:30

   2. CWChris Williamson32:30

      "You're not having a bad year. You've had a few bad days that you're thinking about for the rest of the year. I've found it helpful when I'm in a bad season, like I'm in right now, to just focus on having a good day. A good day and a bad season is a bite-sized victory. String a few of those in a row and a bad season feels less hard. I'm pretty sure the difference between a happy life and an unhappy one doesn't come down to how many good or bad days you have, but which days you think about over and over again. In some seasons of life, maintaining is winning."

   3. AHAlex Hormozi33:04

      Couldn't have put it better myself. (laughs) Um, this has been the, this has been my, my big focus right now is, um, and I'm not the first person to say this, but just winning the day. Um, and Bill Ackman had this, uh, I heard him on a podcast talking about this hard season where he was getting divorced. He just lost four billion dollars in Pershing Square, his investment firm. And he was, not him today, he was earlier on his career, so I mean, it was just the worst. And because he had lost his money, the divorce was for way more money because it was based on his net worth that didn't exist anymore, and it was just a terrible slog. And he said one of the difficult parts about that period is that there was no one thing that was like, "Oh, I can tackle this today." Like, he's, you're not gonna finish the divorce today. You're not gonna undo the four billion dollar loss today. And so, it's like when you have these larger, more complex negative things that do scale, it's like how do you, how do you, how do you navigate through that? And for anyone who's listening right now, it's like, maybe it's the bad breakup, maybe it's the... or maybe you're getting divorced, right? Or maybe it's like the business isn't working the way you want. It's like an, there's like 10 things that you have to fix. And it's like, well, I can't fix that change in the, in the logo until the next run. So, I just have to see this every single day.

   4. CWChris Williamson34:12

      Yeah.

   5. AHAlex Hormozi34:13

      And so, he, he had this very tactical advice, which I liked a lot, which is, he just tried to make progress, and that was it. And he said, you know, in a day, you, y- it's almost, it's almost negligible, right? But at 30 days, you're like, "Okay, I moved this." And at 90 you're like, "Wow, you know, this, this is really, this has really materially changed, um, in what's happened." Now, does this mean that we're, our mood is still being dictated by circumstance? Yes. I'll be honest. Yes, it does. But I think, I think many of us have this ideal. We'd love to be able to in a great, be in a great mood with, in the absence of things to be in a great mood about, but sometimes progress is the W. Like, maintaining in some seasons is winning, and I've had to tell myself that also, that we, we can have these different w... Like, on the, on business vector, I'm murdering it. I'm crushing there. But like, I had, I tore my quad this year, uh, which sucked. I had a, a... yeah, painful. Um, I have a, a neck thing that's just been bugging the hell out of me, right? So it's like, and I have two great fears in life. One is that I lose my mind, which is really just more that I'll be a burden to everybody else. I won't know, 'cause my mind will be lost, right? Um, and the other is chronic pain. Those are like, my two great fears in life, because chronic pain is really tough. Like, the first thing you think about when you open your eyes in the morning is pain. And it's like, "Fuck." (laughs) and it's like, and now, I have to be in a good mood, right? Because I demand this of myself. And so, um, when, in, in navigating those, those scenarios, um, just trying to chip away, and also, to take the reverse of, "I had this one great podcast today. I'm gonna make that thing the thing that's making this a great day. And then if I can make that great day, then maybe it could be a great week." And then trying to expand those, basically, like, let those good moments eat up the season, and I made a conscious decision on May 1st, and I think I s... Did I send you the, the screenshot on my HRV?

   6. CWChris Williamson36:02

      Yes.

   7. AHAlex Hormozi36:03

      So I, it was May 1st, I was like, "Fuck this." (laughs) I was like, I s- I s- I told Laila, I was like, "I have decreed that the rest of the year will be good." (laughs) And so, I'm putting so much mental effort into this, which is why this is so timely from, from the, from us talking about it, um, in actively trying to minimize all the down things and super, super focus on those moments and be like, "Cool. I had that good moment, that's my day. Day's made." And I'm trying to even say that more.

   8. CWChris Williamson36:29

      Mm.

   9. AHAlex Hormozi36:30

      Like, "Oh, this podcast made my day. This podcast made my week." Now, I used to think, "Oh, this made my week." When someone would say something small, I'd be like, "That's what made your week? Like, you must not have a lot going on."

   10. CWChris Williamson36:42

       So true.

   11. AHAlex Hormozi36:43

       Right? Like, ment... like, like my own judge, judge machine, right?

   12. CWChris Williamson36:46

       That's lame.

   13. AHAlex Hormozi36:47

       Yeah, exactly.

   14. CWChris Williamson36:48

       What a stupid thing. Oh, my God. How-... feeble, how-

   15. AHAlex Hormozi36:51

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson36:52

       ... small is your life that something so unimpressive is a source of gratitude to you.

   17. AHAlex Hormozi36:56

       Yeah, for a week or month.

   18. CWChris Williamson36:57

       And yet-

   19. AHAlex Hormozi36:58

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson36:58

       And yet-

   21. AHAlex Hormozi36:59

       Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson36:59

       ... your life is made up of small days like this. That is what life is.

   23. AHAlex Hormozi37:03

       Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson37:03

       And if your expectation of life is that it's going to be, well, until I play the main stage at EDC-

   25. AHAlex Hormozi37:12

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson37:12

       ... until I make the billion dollars, until I get married to the love of my life, until I get these things, you're just holding your happiness hostage until-

   27. AHAlex Hormozi37:20

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson37:20

       ... something great happens.

   29. AHAlex Hormozi37:21

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson37:21

       And what if, again, what we said before, what if something small could be something great?
4. 47:31 – 58:57

   The Sacrifices Needed To Be Successful

   1. AHAlex Hormozi47:31

   2. CWChris Williamson47:31

      Personal observation. You get absolutely better returns at the top ends of achievement because oftentimes, assets pool to the winners. The problem is, to achieve the highest levels, you have to give up proportional amounts of the things you hoped the achievements would get you. There comes a time when the hard work you have to do is learning that you can't work any harder any longer, and that you have to change what got you here to what will get you to where you want to go. You can work to get anything you want, but you have to sacrifice the other things you want to keep it. And that's sometimes harder than the work.

   3. AHAlex Hormozi48:05

      Yeah, 2025. (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson48:08

      In the

   5. AHAlex Hormozi48:08

      Oh, yeah. Um, the, the, the hard remains the same. Actually, so I've, I've given this a huge amount of thought. So, like, what makes something hard? Like, just in and of itself, like, what actually makes something hard? And so, if we think about this as an aversive stimulus or a negative stimulus, then you have... Because habituation happens on both sides. And this is what I think is so fascinating 'cause it's like, okay, well, you know, I wanted this big thing to hap- I wanted the Rolls-Royce, I wanted the Ferrari, whatever. Saved my whole life and here I am, right? And I was happy for a week, and then all of a sudden, I got used to it, right? So I was like, "Why can't I habituate to the suck?" Right? Why can't I habituate to the suck? And the thing is, is that you do. The only thing is, is that what makes the suck keep sucking is what makes punishment effective, which is increasing intensity and variety. And so, if you want to effectively punish someone, you can't just keep punishing them the same way. You have to increase intensity and change how you do it. And the beautiful thing is that life doesn't fight fair.And so life will change the intensity, and will give you more variety. I mean, how many times have you been like, "I didn't know life could suck in this way"? Like-

   6. CWChris Williamson49:09

      (laughs)

   7. AHAlex Hormozi49:10

      (Laughs) Like, this is a new one. You know, like, wow.

   8. CWChris Williamson49:13

      Yeah.

   9. AHAlex Hormozi49:13

      Like, you spin the roulette of life and you're like, "Oh, here's another one that sucks," right?

   10. CWChris Williamson49:17

       My dick was kicked from another angle.

   11. AHAlex Hormozi49:18

       Yeah, exa- had no-

   12. CWChris Williamson49:19

       Congratulations.

   13. AHAlex Hormozi49:19

       (Laughs) Had no idea. And so, so in thinking about that it was like, okay, I think the reason that the hard persists is because the nature of the currency that you pay or that you exchange for the thing that you want changes.

   14. CWChris Williamson49:31

       Yeah.

   15. AHAlex Hormozi49:31

       Because in the very beginning you basically have to like, you know, conquer your friends and family who tell you that this might be a bad idea. Okay, fine, you get over that. And then you have to conquer yourself in the most basic level of like, "I have to do something." Okay, so you start, you start taking action, you start learning, you start learning how to learn stuff, which is learning through failure and learning to do it. So you start doing that, and you realize you're not gonna die if you fail. Okay. Then after that, then it's like, okay, but then now you have this dramatic skill deficiency, right? So you have to very quickly level up in a ton of different things, um, in whatever, whatever domain you're in, right? And then that, that has many failure loops that have we, have we, have we habituated to failure? No, it's too, it's too, uh, generalized. So the failures that o- that occur are specific, and so it's just like, "Oh, I didn't know I could fail in this way."

   16. CWChris Williamson50:15

       Mm-hmm.

   17. AHAlex Hormozi50:16

       Right? Like, we had an event, um, so we ho- we hold an event at our, at our, at our headquarters, uh, like monthly, and when people come out, I remember it was like three times in a row there was this thing at the front desk that got messed up, and I was like, "How?" Like, it was the can thing, I was like, "How?"

   18. CWChris Williamson50:34

       (laughs)

   19. AHAlex Hormozi50:34

       (Laughs) How? Right? And I swear to God, they, I got, I got the message back and they said, um, "Well, the system messed up in a different way this time." (laughs) And I was like-

   20. CWChris Williamson50:47

       The same issue rerouted.

   21. AHAlex Hormozi50:48

       Yeah, exactly.

   22. CWChris Williamson50:49

       Yeah, yeah.

   23. AHAlex Hormozi50:49

       And I was like, and it, it happened three times in total. And so it was the same problem three complete... They're like, "Well, we fixed that version of the problem, but then this one came up," and so it's like it still sucked. And so the thing is, is that I think failure is our, our habituation to failure is so narrow that every new type of failure, all three of those hurt.

   24. CWChris Williamson51:07

       Micro novelty.

   25. AHAlex Hormozi51:08

       Yes. And so, um, and so when I think about that is like when, like m- like I said, this year financially has been the best year of my life, right? And so that's been awesome. Um, but I've had all of these, I mean, I've had he- uh, I've had health stuff, Leylat had heal- health stuff that was separate, we had legal things which is another, another whole thing, 'cause-

   26. CWChris Williamson51:27

       Business stuff, book stuff.

   27. AHAlex Hormozi51:28

       Yeah, there's, yeah, there's the book st- eh, and then there's like-

   28. CWChris Williamson51:30

       Staffing stuff.

   29. AHAlex Hormozi51:31

       Yeah, there's a lot of things. (laughs) Um, and so all of those things happened, and I was like, "Oh," I was like, "So it's just that the currency has changed, the currency that I'm paying." And so I'm very happy to pay the long hours currency, I'm very happy to pay the what am I willing to give up in terms of social life. Like, that to me I've habituated to that price, that's not hard for me. I, I don't even consider it a sacrifice anymore, which is, I think, what you want, 'cause, uh, people, people will sometimes maybe see you or maybe they'll s- they'll see me and think of like the Goggins, uh, you know, work until your eyes bleed. The thing is, is that like, and maybe, maybe, uh, I don't know Goggins, but, well, I'll just speak for myself. I don't, I don't really push that hard, like, I don't really push. I do it and it, I've already habituated to this, like, this is not a, this is not an excess for me.

   30. CWChris Williamson52:15

       You pushed in the initial-
5. 58:57 – 1:13:13

   Hormozi’s Flip To Discovering Happiness

   1. CWChris Williamson58:58

      The problem is to achieve the highest levels, you have to give up proportional amounts of the things you hope the achievements would get you.

   2. AHAlex Hormozi59:04

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson59:04

      What's that?

   4. AHAlex Hormozi59:10

      I'll give a micro-example of a sacrifice that I've chosen to reverse, which is that I love training. I love working out. I've been, I've been doing it... It was, it was my first love, the first thing I ever liked, like really got obsessed with. And over probably the last, you know, however many years, I still obviously trained. I was still, you know, in shape, but my training was, you know, sometimes two days a week, sometimes three days a week. It would be, you know, 60 minutes, maybe 90 if I got lucky. Um, and I had this realization. It was during this year, 2025, where I was like, "You know, I have all this fucking money and I can do whatever I want." And I was like, "And I can't even have my workout be as long as I want it to be?" And so I basically made a rule for myself that I will not work out if I am rushed. That's the deal. And so I will work out for as long as it takes to work out, and that's that. And so that means that if my workout takes two hours or it takes two and a half hours, or I'm with a friend and it takes three hours because we're just like talking between sets and having a great time, there are three things in this world that bring me joy. Working out with somebody that I like, eating food with someone that I like, ideally after I worked out, and writing. The three things that bring me the most joy in life. And I was like, "Why am I sacrificing one of the only three things in this world that I know that I enjoy to get something that I hoped would buy me the freedom to work out as much as I wanted whenever I wanted?" And so what are the things that I put on the altar of the success? So what are the things that I sacrificed for this, this god of achievement? And I was like, "This one I'm not willing to sacrifice anymore." And so I think part of the reason that like has been a life, a lifeboat for me or a life raft while this kind of worst season has happened, it's like I've put on like 20 pounds of muscle so far this year because I've been able to like... I've been using that as a really wonderful outlet, and I was like, "Man." And I'm focusing more on this. Like, my training partner every day, I'm like, "Dude, thank you for doing this with me." Like, this is, this is awesome. Like, this is great. Like, my... I won the day. Like, if I did nothing else, I get to the end of the day and I'm like, "I crushed this workout." And that was... And that's enough.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:01:09

      It's a big pivot, dude. And it's one that I think everybody that's driven by the sort of hatred of past self, whip yourself into submission, puritan work ethic thing, will inevitably come to realize after a time. Uh, there may be some outlier for whom their, (laughs) their capacity for discomfort and for sacrifice is literally greater than the duration of their life.

   6. AHAlex Hormozi1:01:37

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:01:38

      Th- they would have got there eventually, they just died first.

   8. AHAlex Hormozi1:01:40

      Yeah. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson1:01:41

      You know?

   10. AHAlex Hormozi1:01:42

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:01:42

       And, but I think that for most people it's not, and you reach, I would call it something like, sort of, uh, lifestyle escape velocity, uh, where you go, "I'm, I, all of the objective metrics are right, and the subjective ones aren't," which is a good example, uh, of sort of what you've hinted at. And you go, "How can I assume that the solution is fixing subjective metric problems with more objective metrics?"

   12. AHAlex Hormozi1:02:08

       And g- and, and then, and I, and I'll say this for anybody who's in the season where like, listen, you're 22 years old and you're like, "I need to work my face off," you do. You need to w- you need to work your face off. But the thing is, is like, th- there will get to a point, we're fast forwarding, you know, however many years, but there's nothing, like I don't regret the amount of work that I've done, um, and I, and I, I, I don't regret it at all, and I think that it was absolutely the right decision, and I work a lot now. But people make this extrapolated moment, they t- take a moment of your life and they will extrapolate it to forever, and assume that if you change your mind, that what you did before this was wrong. But it wasn't wrong, it was right for that time-

   13. CWChris Williamson1:02:47

       Dude.

   14. AHAlex Hormozi1:02:47

       ... and then we got feedback during a different time, and this is right for me now. And so I'm going to course correct now, and if something else changes, guess what? You're free to change your mind tomorrow.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:02:56

       Yeah. I, I love this, and I think about it so much, that one of the issues with asking anybody who's successful for advice is that they tell you what they do now-

   16. AHAlex Hormozi1:03:10

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:03:10

       ... not what they did when they were in your position.

   18. AHAlex Hormozi1:03:12

       1000%.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:03:13

       And you should not ask somebody, "How are you maintaining your success right now? How did you achieve your success when you were at the stage that I was at?"

   20. AHAlex Hormozi1:03:21

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:03:22

       That is the question that you need to ask. And m- it's the same thing, uh, stupid people see somebody changing their mind as a weakness not as a strength.

   22. AHAlex Hormozi1:03:34

       Uh-huh. Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:03:34

       And if you are the sort of person who goes, "Huh, this strategy worked for me previously, or didn't, or I thought it worked for me and it didn't, I'm gonna update the way that I operate." Perfect example, I've been on this sort of a flex, similar to yourself. I would say my, uh, lifestyle escape velocity, I needed to reach a lower altitude than you-

   24. AHAlex Hormozi1:03:55

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson1:03:55

       ... so I was, you know, getting into coast, uh, as opposed to still using the booster rockets earlier.

   26. AHAlex Hormozi1:04:00

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:04:01

       Um, but I started talking about how, uh, like purposeful de-optimization, um, you know, w- what is it that you're doing the things for, transitioning from the work until your eyes bleed to a different mode of, o- of reward and stuff like that. And some people that I think don't understand me super well, which is fine because no one's supposed to understand you, especially not random people on the internet, but people will see snippets of whatever's been sort of the most salient narrative, and, uh, a bunch of them said something to the effect of, uh, "Bro sold us the problem, now he's selling us the solution."

   28. AHAlex Hormozi1:04:33

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:04:34

       And I was like, "Huh, that's really interesting, because what I'm doing is saying, 'This works for me right now,' and what I was saying in the past was, 'This works for me right now.'" Nothing has changed and this is why there's often, when it comes to sort of internet advice, it's very patronizing the way that the audience is treated by people that are critics, as if they're sort of these agency-less, undiscerning sponges-

   30. AHAlex Hormozi1:05:02

       Yeah.
6. 1:13:13 – 1:28:06

   Alex’s Blueprint For A Successful Life

   1. AHAlex Hormozi1:13:14

Episode duration: 4:00:00