The Secrets Of A $100m Business - Alex & Leila Hormozi

1. 0:00 – 0:24

   Intro

   1. AHAlex Hormozi0:00

      It doesn't take time to make decisions, it takes information to make decisions. And if you have the information to make the decision, then you should make it. And so a lot of people will belabor a decision when they are not gaining more information to make it. Time is not a requirement of decision-making like information is. (wind blows)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:17

      Worth a hundred million bucks in sharing a set of (laughs) headphones to get a podcast

   3. LHLeila Hormozi0:21

      We're OGs, just like middle school.

2. 0:24 – 8:10

   Beginners Undervalue ‘Doing’

   1. LHLeila Hormozi0:24

   2. CWChris Williamson0:24

      I saw a tweet from you not long ago that said beginners overvalue thinking and undervalue doing. Advanced people do the opposite. What's that mean?

   3. AHAlex Hormozi0:32

      So I think a lot of times, um, beginner... So the way most people took that as, is, was a, uh, everybody should be like advanced people and execute. That's what, that's what people thought I meant by that quote, 'cause I could just see that from the comments, which was not what I meant. Uh, what I meant by that is in the beginning most people overthink everything and they try and find like the perfect path. They try and say like, "Oh, this is gonna be the perfect business model," or like, "I want to nail my niche perfectly and get my, everything done," before they start, when in reality, like all you need to do is just sell shit to someone to get going. And so they overvalue, uh, the thinking and undervalue the doing. So it's really just productive procrastination for most people in the beginning. Whereas advanced people, they've got in the habit of doing things, right? And so they be- so what happens is the doing becomes compulsive. So they're just doing and doing and doing and doing, and they feel like activity is progress, because in the beginning, activity was progress. But as it gets bigger and the amount of work that is required to be done gets bigger, you need to be more strategic in what work you're choosing to do and how you're choosing to make sure work, ensure work gets done. Um, and so the whole thing flips where, uh, as you're becoming more advanced, it's more about what chess piece am I going to move, rather than even beginning the game. And so that was kind of the, the dichotomy or the flip between, uh, beginner to advanced. And I think there's a lot of those complete flips that happen in business, which is why the entrepreneurial journey is a, is a cool, interesting, and fun one.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:55

      The way that I see it, a lot of entrepreneurial journeys are kind of like an hourglass. So you start off at the bottom with a big wide set of doing things, and then you narrow in, and that's when you don't have any time to do anything anymore. You're constantly doing everything, and then you, you widen back out again to be this person who thinks about everything. But you're right. If you're not able to relinquish control and believe that the tools that got you here are going to be the ones that are going to get you there, you're gonna start bouncing off the ceiling of your own capacity. You, uh, no matter how leveraged you are and your productivity systems, everybody only has 24 hours in the day, right?

   5. AHAlex Hormozi2:25

      Yup, 100%.

   6. CWChris Williamson2:28

      Do you want to switch to that, Alex? Do you want to go back?

   7. AHAlex Hormozi2:29

      No, no, you're good, you're good. I'm just gonna put this in so it doesn't, doesn't fall out. (laughs)

   8. LHLeila Hormozi2:37

      Mine's fine.

   9. AHAlex Hormozi2:38

      No, my ear just doesn't... I've never had, like, good earphone ears. Like, this, this thing, this isn't falling out. We're good.

   10. CWChris Williamson2:43

       Right, so-

   11. AHAlex Hormozi2:43

       We're good.

   12. CWChris Williamson2:43

       ... you're using a set of AirPod Pro Max to hold-

   13. AHAlex Hormozi2:48

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson2:48

       ... in an earbud.

   15. AHAlex Hormozi2:49

       Now I feel great.

   16. CWChris Williamson2:50

       Fanta-

   17. AHAlex Hormozi2:50

       Now I'm, now I'm ready.

   18. CWChris Williamson2:51

       Fantastic.

   19. LHLeila Hormozi2:51

       He's probably doing it so he doesn't hear me. That's actually why.

   20. CWChris Williamson2:54

       Nice. Uh, what is-

   21. AHAlex Hormozi2:56

       It does feel more peaceful.

   22. CWChris Williamson2:57

       (laughs) What are some of the things that you struggled to let go of when it came to flipping from doing to thinking?

   23. AHAlex Hormozi3:08

       It's usually the things that you're best at, you know what I mean? Um, I mean, in the beginning, it's obsession that everything has to be done a certain way, wh- rather than certain outcomes need to happen and they can be done. Everybody has different flavors of and different styles of working. And, you know, in the beginning, you just think everything has to be your way, because to be fair, everything that was your way worked, because that's where you are where you are. But realizing that some things can be done differently and still achieve as good of a result, and oftentimes better, um, is something, it's a belief that has to get broken for most entrepreneurs. And then it's easier to break them in fields that they are not experts in, and then it becomes more difficult to break it in fields that they are experts in. So it's, like, easier for me to give up finance, HR, you know, maybe even customer support, customer success. Those are things that I might not have been as good at. But, like, product, uh, marketing and sales might be things that I feel, you know, much stronger in, and so I'll be more particular, more, more likely to want to micromanage or, you know, keep control. But usually, it's that control that ends up, you relinquish your freedom when you... You can't have both control and freedom.

   24. CWChris Williamson4:06

       What about you, Layla? What did you struggle relinquishing as stuff grew?

   25. LHLeila Hormozi4:10

       (sighs) You know, I think I had as hard of a time with not knowing everything that was happening in the business, because, like, in the beginning, Alex had to let go... I think Alex had to let go of more control in the beginning, and I had to actually take more control in the beginning. Because by the nature of how we structured the businesses, it's usually like, I'm going to have most people report to me. And so then at the point where he has, you know, me and one other person that he's talking to most of the time, and I have the eight, and I feel like I'm providing transparency to Alex and to, you know, anyone else that's asking about the business, and then I have to let go of that transparency. So I think it was relinquishing control of, honestly, being the internal, uh, I want to say, like, feeling like the internal leader, almost. And so I, it gave me a self, a sense of self-important that I didn't realize would be that hard to give up. Um, and so when we decided that we were gonna sell Gym Launch, I remember the feeling of not leading the monthly team meetings, and not leading the quarterlies, and not doing the leadership training, and not doing the management training, and feeling this, like, immense sense of loss. And, like, I realized that I didn't gain my self-important from, like, being forward-facing. Like, everyone's like, "Oh, well, don't you want to be forward-facing like Alex?" It's like, oh, I don't need that. I don't need recognition from others. But I didn't realize I was getting it from the team the whole time. That's where I was getting my sense of self-importance and from-

   26. CWChris Williamson5:25

       (laughs)

   27. LHLeila Hormozi5:25

       ... recognition was-

   28. CWChris Williamson5:25

       You're not immune to it.

   29. LHLeila Hormozi5:26

       ... in the team.

   30. CWChris Williamson5:26

       You've just got a different flavor-
3. 8:10 – 13:14

   Impact of Having Siblings

   1. CWChris Williamson8:10

   2. LHLeila Hormozi8:10

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson8:10

      Um, Alex, we're both only children. Have you reflected on what impact having no siblings has had longer term?

   4. AHAlex Hormozi8:21

      Not really, honestly. (laughs) I actually have, I don't give it any thought. Like, it's not a thought that I, I give. I also had step-siblings from, for all of high school, uh, so I had, like, there were other kind of kids in the house, you know, per se. We were obviously high schoolers, not, you know, lower than that, so there was that element, but I've never given it any thought.

   5. CWChris Williamson8:42

      I just find it interesting. I've got some friends that aren't, some friends that aren't, and I always wonder what ... There, there has to be a difference in socialization. There has to be a degree of difference, you know, real formative years, things before you can even remember them, that change and shape the way that you see the world, that you interact with people. Maybe you view social situations in a more deconstructed way. At least, uh, that, that's something I see as a, a common theme among- amongst some of the only children that I'm friends with.

   6. AHAlex Hormozi9:09

      I don't know. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson9:12

      What about you, Laila? How, how would you say-

   8. AHAlex Hormozi9:14

      I don't know.

   9. CWChris Williamson9:14

      ... are there any echoes from sort of your childhood that you see when it comes to the way that you operate as an adult? That's certainly for me, I'm, I'm always on the outside looking in a little bit. That was kind of th- a typical dynamic that I saw when I was a kid, and that's definitely one that I see reflected. Now, uh, maybe that's just my bias. Maybe that's just the frame we, through which I put everything for the world, but, uh ...

   10. LHLeila Hormozi9:35

       You know, I think I used to look through that frame a lot more. I don't really anymore. I think I kind of, like, thought about it enough that just my brain moved on. Um, but I think, you know, I was the youngest, uh, I had an older sister, and then I had a lot of step-siblings, and I was still the youngest. Um, I mean, I'm sure that I'm probably more receptive to, uh, authority than Alex, if I were to say, like, one difference. Um, like, I'm okay with people being, like, like, you know, I think there's a reason that Alex is more the visionary and I'm more of the integrator. Like, I'm, that's just, like, what I'm good at. Um, it's also what I enjoy doing a lot. Um, I would say that the, you know, the really, the things that are more impactful probably weren't, like, siblings. It was probably, like, being more autonomous in terms of, like, how I, I probably raised myself for, like, some of my more formative years, just 'cause of the nature of kind of how my family structure was. So, I think that contributed a lot, because I have a lot of self-trust and independence, I want to say. Um, but that's, I mean, that's how I would say it formed me. I guess what I would never say is that I don't think that it is an excuse for people who are dysfunctional adults to say, "Well, my childhood X." I'm like, well, you're a functioning adult now. You can figure out how to do it, you know?

   11. AHAlex Hormozi10:41

       Yeah, and if I can, uh, piggyback and maybe give a little bit more color to the original answer of I haven't thought about it. Um, I have difficulty ascribing reasons to current behaviors, because I think we just don't know why. So, it's like I could create 16 different stories around why I am this way, and I could probably find people who have similar character traits to me who were not only children. And so, was it the fact that I was an only child that made me this way? Who knows? You know, I know, I know that I am this way. I know that I behave in these ways in these conditions. And so, they are what they are. And I think a lot of people, I'm not saying this b- good or bad, I'm just saying I have observed that many people will create stories to justify the way, the reason they, like, "Well, you know, I, I never got, you know, chocolate as a kid, and that's why I eat chocolate now." I'm like, "Well, maybe you just like chocolate. Maybe it has nothing to do with the fact that you didn't have it as a kid. Maybe if you had it as a kid, you'd still eat a lot of chocolate. It has nothing to do with that," right? And so people use circumstances to explain current reality as though it's a reason for, rather than just, like, accepting it for what it is, which is, "I just am this way."

   12. CWChris Williamson11:42

       Post-hoc rationalization is a hell of a drug.

   13. AHAlex Hormozi11:44

       Yeah. (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson11:44

       Like, you can pretty much justify anything to yourself.

   15. AHAlex Hormozi11:48

       Anything.

   16. CWChris Williamson11:48

       I've got this narrative. And that's, that's one of the dangerous things, right? You start to see some sort of consistent theme in your life, and then everything gets filtered through that lens.

   17. AHAlex Hormozi11:56

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson11:56

       And you're like, "Look, it's not a one-size-fits-all thing." Maybe there was something. Maybe there is one singular piece of code-

   19. AHAlex Hormozi12:02

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson12:02

       ... right, that underwrites everything.

   21. AHAlex Hormozi12:04

       Totally.

   22. CWChris Williamson12:04

       It's the bootstrap upon which the entire program of your life's built.

   23. AHAlex Hormozi12:08

       Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson12:08

       But probably not, right? Probably not.

   25. AHAlex Hormozi12:10

       And who knows? And, and how, and how helpful is it 'cause if we won't, if we, if, is it important, is it knowable, you know, to quote Charlie and, uh, Warren. Is it important? Probably. Is it knowable? Probably not. And so, if it's, if it's not importable- important and knowable, they just don't focus on it, and so I've always, I've tried to use that to not drive myself insane.

   26. CWChris Williamson12:28

       That's a really good way for people to let go of things that they can't find answers to.

   27. AHAlex Hormozi12:33

       Definitely.

   28. CWChris Williamson12:33

       I'm in, I'm in Austin at the moment, and there's a lot of talk of trauma work and integration and, and healing past selves and, and stuff like that, and (clears throat) coming from the, uh, most working class town in the UK, this is language that I'm not, like, super familiar with, and-

   29. AHAlex Hormozi12:48

       (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson12:50

       ... uh, there's, there's part of me that thinks there's probably things that you need to do if it continues to play on your mind. Jordan Peterson has a thing, "If something continues to make you cry, write it down." Um, but I think that you can take it to the extreme where you just end up trying to create just so stories that sound plausible until you arrive at one that you then attach and start to see it as the lens for the world.
4. 13:14 – 22:10

   Motivation After Achieving $100M

   1. CWChris Williamson13:14

      you guys sold your businesses last year, somewhere in the region altogether 100 million bucks, something like that. Tell me what drives you to keep on going once you have $100 million in your bank account because when it comes to usable money, there's, there's nothing really, uh, unless you have an unbelievably ostentatious taste-

   2. AHAlex Hormozi13:37

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson13:37

      ... there's nothing that you need to buy that you can't already buy, so what drives you?

   4. AHAlex Hormozi13:43

      I mean, I think Laila and I both see all the things that we would have done differently or done better or just new things that sound exciting that we... Because we, Caleb and I were just talking about this before-

   5. LHLeila Hormozi13:54

      Yeah, we were.

   6. AHAlex Hormozi13:54

      ... uh, this podcast is that, you know, one of the biggest lamentations I have or things that I'm bummed about is that I, uh, I only have one life that I can live and there's so many lives I'd like to live in terms of, like, I'd like to start 100 different businesses throughout my lifetime, but I probably only have, you know, five, four or five good entrepreneurial seasons. And so we have to be really, really judicious because the way that Laila and I choose to operate in terms of how we do business is we prefer to have one big focus and then put all of our attention to it. There are entrepreneurs who have lots of different things going on, and they enjoy that kind of chaos, but Laila and I prefer to focus, you know, very heartedly on, on one thing. And so I think with this season, the thing that gets us excited is the opportunity that, you know, we spent 18 months before choosing to sell crafting and going back and forth with what business we were gonna do next, and we only sold because we were more excited about this business that we're building now than the ones that we had before. And so that was kind of our litmus test, and, you know, as a total side note for any founders who are thinking about exiting, I th- it's my belief that you should be crystal clear on exactly what you're gonna do next because I've seen so many of my founder friends, etc., who exited and did not have a plan. They just got the check, and then they were like, "What do I do with my life?" And they had no plan. Laila and I started working the next day because we were just so excited to start to building what we're building now.

   7. LHLeila Hormozi15:12

      So stoked.

   8. AHAlex Hormozi15:13

      Yeah.

   9. LHLeila Hormozi15:14

      Yeah, and I think just to go with that, um, in terms of why do we keep doing what we're doing.

   10. AHAlex Hormozi15:19

       (coughs)

   11. LHLeila Hormozi15:19

       You know, I think that there's... If you wanna become a certain kind of person, right? You're like, "This is who I see myself when I'm 80 or 90 being," it's a lot easier to become that if you put yourself in a condition or in a situation where there's conditions that put some pressure on you to do that. Now, it shouldn't be, like, immense pressure, like, your life is on the line. Like, I don't really wanna do that. I don't think I need that kind of pressure to change. But I think knowing that a company relies on me, knowing that people rely on me, knowing that I've committed to this mission publicly, I think that that kind of puts, like, artificial pressure on you to become the kind of person that you want to be. And I think a lot of people that are public-facing probably have that too, um, but I think it works, and it kind of keeps you... You know, one thing that we were just talking about before this is I was like, "I just never want to get soft." You know, we were saying, like, "We don't wanna be soft." You know, we've seen a lot of people who sell their business, and then they just become honestly, like, really weird, like, really particular-

   12. CWChris Williamson16:05

       What does soft, what does soft look like to you?

   13. LHLeila Hormozi16:07

       Like, "I can't go on this trip unless I have my special pillow." You know? Or, like, "I absolutely can't stay unless the hotel has XYZ-"

   14. CWChris Williamson16:13

       Hang on, is this-

   15. LHLeila Hormozi16:14

       ... "and the room is set to 63 degrees."

   16. CWChris Williamson16:14

       ... is this a byproduct, a byproduct of selling a business for a high amount of money that you have, like, odd pillow connoisseur shit?

   17. AHAlex Hormozi16:21

       Well, I think it's, I think it's when you have, this is w- we were literally just talking about this-

   18. LHLeila Hormozi16:24

       Never.

   19. AHAlex Hormozi16:24

       ... before we got on. Like, when you have a tremendous amount of money and you have nothing to do, you still have these same tendencies of focusing on things, but you start focusing on things-

   20. LHLeila Hormozi16:33

       And control.

   21. AHAlex Hormozi16:33

       ... that are trivial, trivial in nature. Now, you can make the argument everything's trivial, but let's just, let's forget that one for a moment and, like, you start focusing on really trivial matters, but then everyone who's around you is only there because of money. And so you kind of create this realm of suspended reality that you, that everyone in it is, is someone who's receiving money from you, and so you don't actually get feedback from the world anymore, and so you just create more and more ridiculous beliefs, but you believe them because the feedback loop is positive, and you're like, "Oh, I guess this isn't ridiculous," but, "Oh yeah, if my, you know, if I can't fly private somewhere, then this is ridiculous. There's no way I'm going." It's like, well, you know, come on. Let's, let's-

   22. LHLeila Hormozi17:09

       Yeah, if the room isn't 63 degrees and I don't have this fluffed pillow and I don't have this and that, you know?

   23. AHAlex Hormozi17:13

       I can't function. Really, come on.

   24. CWChris Williamson17:15

       I'm pretty sure Good Charlotte write- uh, sang a song about this not long ago. Was it Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous? They're always complaining.

   25. AHAlex Hormozi17:22

       Yeah, I, I believe it.

   26. LHLeila Hormozi17:22

       Yeah, pretty much. I mean, because if you're not challenging yourself, you don't have something that you're driving towards, something really that's pulling you towards the future, then I think you're constantly fighting, focusing on the little stuff that doesn't matter because your brain doesn't have anything else to focus on. It has nothing to chew on.

   27. AHAlex Hormozi17:36

       Yeah.

   28. LHLeila Hormozi17:36

       You know, you don't have anything to gnaw on, so you gnaw on all these little things that don't matter, and they become these big things, and then I see a lot of people, it's like, they sell their businesses, they develop weird tendencies, issues, like all sorts of stuff, and then-

   29. AHAlex Hormozi17:48

       Maladies, they get sick, they start-

   30. LHLeila Hormozi17:50

       Yeah.
5. 22:10 – 29:09

   Importance of Creating Content

   1. CWChris Williamson22:10

      proper big league stuff.

   2. AHAlex Hormozi22:11

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson22:11

      What are you doing, what are you doing spending all this time on Instagram and making stuff for YouTube and, and things like that?

   4. AHAlex Hormozi22:17

      (laughs)

   5. LHLeila Hormozi22:17

      Okay. So I'll tell you the one thing is that we had a lot of time to think about not just what does the ideal business look like that, you know, achieves our financial goals and the impact goals, but also like what do we wanna do with our time, and like what do we wanna be known for? And so I think realizing that we can have more impact if we are more known, um, and through a series of different conversations that we had was probably one of the biggest realizations for both of us, because I think we both prior to that, myself more because I think Alex just had to do it for the business and so he was used to it, um, you know, enjoyed being more private. Um, but we said like at the end of our lives if we look back, you know, what will we be more proud of? What will we be, what will take us closer to the version of ourselves we want to be? And it's, you know, the- the mission of the company is to document and share the best practices of building world-class businesses because, you know, there's just a lack of people actually sharing tactically what really works for building businesses. And we're like, "What do we want to be known for?" It's like we want to be the people that put better free stuff out there than any courses that you could buy. And that's just because when we were coming up and we were building the businesses, like the amount of pain you have to endure because it's relative pain, right? Like, is this real pain? Like, no, we're not in like Africa like starving or anything like that. But like it feels terrible. Like, you feel like you're gonna die sometimes, which is like ridiculous, but you do when you have to like fire someone or a client steals something or someone says they're gonna sue you, like these things feel horrible. And if we can just save people that pain and make them realize like one, that's all completely normal and it's just part of business and you're okay and it's absolutely fine, um, and it's just something you need to accept, but then two, here's the tools that we wish we had had when we were doing it that if you use these you could probably at least mitigate the pain.

   6. CWChris Williamson23:52

      Yeah, that's a good, that's a good reason. I mean also as well-

   7. AHAlex Hormozi23:55

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson23:55

      ... when you think about what you guys are doing with acquisition.com, expediting someone's degree of trust in you to come in with some social status, you know, no one... The likelihood of you screwing somebody over when tons and tons of thousands of people on the internet know who you are decreases massively because the scandal would be way higher. Everyone's concerned, everyone likes the idea of like the- the secret master that lives in the cave that nobody knows about, but nobody would trust him.

   9. LHLeila Hormozi24:26

      That's interesting. I haven't thought about it like that.

   10. AHAlex Hormozi24:28

       (coughs) I haven't thought about that angle either.

   11. LHLeila Hormozi24:29

       Yeah.

   12. AHAlex Hormozi24:30

       For... And from a... So, Layla covered kind of one angle of why we're doing it. The other, you know, from a utilitarian's perspective, like, we have a lot of leverage that we can employ to do this. So like, we can, we can compensate people to do a lot of work on our behalf, that, that can expand what looks like a lot of time, when in reality, like, you know, if we do two podcasts a week, it's not a tremendous amount of time investment. But if those get chopped up and repurposed and, you know, across all the platforms, and the long forms go out, and we have podcast pieces, like, all that stuff can get done if there's people who can run it, and running teams is something that we're very, you know, we're fine doing it. And so, from a time, time to output ratio, there's much more output than there is input, and that's kind of the nature of building wealth in general. Um, in terms of the strategy, uh, behind it with acquisition.com, I think you're 100% right, because when I looked at, there was like... I had, I'll, I'll do it as fast as I can, but I had probably five or six things that happened in a row that on, on one angle when we started this, I had no desire to ever be famous. I just wanted to be rich, and that was... And I said that publicly, I was like, "I just want to be rich. I don't care about being famous. I want no one to know who I am." But then Kylie became a billionaire at 20, and that really affected me, because I was 20, I think, I don't know, whatever I, you know, and I, and I honestly was, like, depressed for a day. And I was like, "Why do I suck so much?" Like, "Why am I so bad at everything? I am just the worst." Right? And I was like, "I feel like I know more about business." But I have al- I have the fundamental belief that if someone's making more money than me, they are better than me in some way at the game of business, and I have to learn what that is, right? And so, that happened. And then, uh, uh, Conor McGregor came out with, uh, Proper 12, and it's now a $600 million, uh, enterprise. And then The Rock has Teremana, which is probably worth between two and four billion right now. And so I was like, "Man, having these massive audiences to people who weren't even necessarily business folks instantly gave them billion-dollar status." And I was like, "That's interesting." So, that was like big belief breaker number one. I still didn't want to do it, because I was like, "It's not worth it. I can just do it in the shadows and do the billion either way and just have no one know who I am." But then we had a, a conversation with Dean Graziosi, who's Tony Robbins' right-hand man, very good friend of ours, and he said, and I was like, "Don't you get weirded out by people, like, leaving weird messages at your door and, like, you know, just being weird?" Uh, and he said, "If that's the price I have to pay for the impact I want to have, I would do it every single day of the week." And when he said that, it, like, really hit both of us, because as, as, after we left the house, I was like, "Did you hear that?" And she's like, "Yeah, I know. I thought about it." And so that was actually, that was the turning point for us where we said, "If this is the impact that we want to have, we're willing to pay the price of, you know, some of the, the negative aspects of becoming more known."

   13. LHLeila Hormozi27:09

       Yeah.

   14. AHAlex Hormozi27:09

       And so, that was, that was the, that was the big part. And from a strategy perspective, you know, you got it. It's much, it's much easier. Charlie Munger talks about this, but, like, trust is the ultimate lubricant in business. It makes business transactions much more fluid, faster, et cetera, and it's long-term greed for both parties if you can actually maintain trust. And so the idea is, if we can just put lots of stuff out there that, that is valuable, people who can utilize it already know it works, then we kind of operate on shared trust from the get-go, and it saves... It just saves so much time, so much effort, and it makes everything that we're doing better. So, that's, that's the big picture for us on the strategy.

   15. CWChris Williamson27:42

       Well, think as well about the fact that as you're putting this content out, there's gonna be future potential partners that you're gonna work with with acquisition.com that are going to see that stuff. Everybody... Uh, this is something that I thought the other day. You know, Elon Musk doom-scrolls YouTube. Everybody does. Everybody doom-scrolls everything. So, you don't know. If you're putting content out there, you don't know which person that you might really value connecting with. Some dude, some guy that was on Pretty Little Liars and is filming in Austin, reached out because he loves some episode. Never seen an episode of Pretty Little Liars. This guy's got 20 million followers on Instagram, and he's like a heartthrob of heartthrobs and all this stuff. And I was like, "Oh, cool." Like, we didn't... We haven't had a chance to catch up. But it's g- it's... If I needed a guy from Pretty Little Liars at some point-

   16. AHAlex Hormozi28:29

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson28:29

       ... I've got one, you know?

   18. AHAlex Hormozi28:31

       You've got it. (laughs)

   19. LHLeila Hormozi28:31

       I love that, though.

   20. CWChris Williamson28:32

       I'm starting to acquire the Pretty Little Liars community.

   21. LHLeila Hormozi28:35

       You know what's funny is because, like, we were talking about this the other day, I was telling Caleb, I was like, "I've had a bunch of, like, famous rappers reach out, and they're like, 'Dude, I love your content.'" And I'm like-

   22. AHAlex Hormozi28:43

       Very famous. You would know who they are. (laughs)

   23. LHLeila Hormozi28:44

       And I was like, "What?" You know, like, beyond confused, and I'm like, "They follow me?" And then I was like... And he's like, "Yeah, people, like... If you have good content, you just never know who's gonna see it." And I'm like, "Wow," you know?

   24. CWChris Williamson28:54

       Everybody doom-scrolls, man. Everybody doom-scrolls.

   25. LHLeila Hormozi28:56

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson28:56

       That's the, that's the lesson. So, I've heard you talk, Alex, before about, um, the fragility of a morning routine, basically sort of relating that to, uh, kind of like superstition-

   27. AHAlex Hormozi29:07

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson29:07

       ... that you create a particular

6. 29:09 – 36:29

   Creating Healthy Structure

   1. CWChris Williamson29:09

      standard for your day, that if it's not met, you begin to have a sort of a negative thought loop about the fact that you haven't prepared.

   2. AHAlex Hormozi29:16

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson29:17

      You can't deny, though, that there are certain ways that are better to prepare for things and other ways that are worse to prepare for things. If you were... You, you're going to make sure that you eat and sleep and drink and, you know, do the things, how do you balance those two? How do you guys both now have enough structure in your day that allows you to stay focused on the things that you need to whilst not committing this sort of superstition fallacy around having a very precarious put-together daily routine?

   4. AHAlex Hormozi29:44

      Yeah, I think it's more, I mean, to use Layla's, one of Layla's -isms, uh, it's more a dichotomy to be managed than a problem to be solved. So, I think it's really just managing the balance between those things. I think, you know, if you sleep well, yeah, I think everyone can agree that they feel better if they sleep well. But the question is, if you then create the story that, "I must sleep well," it's all the shoulds, have to, need to, all those, all of that language, if you make it a requirement to function, then that is where I would say the positive of having the belief that you... it is... it helps you is more... you get more negative ramifications from having the belief that you must have it. Whereas if you see it as a preference, um, I prefer to sleep more, but if I don't sleep, I'm still going to show up because, like, winners win. And so I think having different beliefs around behaviors is more useful. It has had higher utility in my life.

   5. LHLeila Hormozi30:33

      Yeah, I would say that, just echoing that, um, I think a lot of high performers, people who call themselves high performers, put, like, an exorbitant amount of pressure on themselves. And so, basically, trying to control things to an extent where the control that you're trying to exert on those things adds more pressure than if you were to not do the thing itself, right? So if you're like, "I must, you know, eat this way, sleep this way, drink this way, and feel this way to have my speech tomorrow," and then, you know, you miss a flight and you don't get meal, and then you sleep like shit, and you wake up, and you, you, whatever, you have a pimple. And then it's like, you fucking fall apart, right? And so, but we can't control a lot of those things. We just only have the illusion of control, and I think a lot of people, those routines create even more illusion of control than, you know, (sighs) people who don't have them. And so, you know, like, for myself, if I have, like, a big speech the next day or I have, like, a huge day, I actually, like, prepare myself. I'm like, "I'm probably gonna feel like shit, probably gonna sleep like shit. I'm gonna feel like I'm gonna get a stomach ache, a headache." Like, I'll just think all that and I'm like, "I'm gonna fucking crush it anyways." Because that's like, that helps me think, well then everything else is gravy because I know I can feel like absolute just terrible and I'm still gonna perform. So that relieves the pressure and also takes away that need to feel like I have to control the situations, like make sure everything's happening at the right times. And I'm doing all these things and having all these routines, because I feel like a lot of people kind of spin up in that way, and then there's so much pressure from that, it actually makes it worse.

   6. AHAlex Hormozi31:56

      Yeah, I think net-net, it's also just way less decision fatigue and-

   7. LHLeila Hormozi31:59

      And time-consuming.

   8. AHAlex Hormozi31:59

      ... way less mental effort. Just not, like, just not even worrying about it and just thinking like, uh, it's a, it's preferences with an overshadowing or an umbrella of acceptance. Prefer these things, but either way, I'll accept whatever, whatever happens.

   9. LHLeila Hormozi32:12

      I always like to tell myself, I'm like, "Life is not always fair," and like, "I don't deserve to feel good today." Like, there's no like, "I deserve to feel good," like, "I should be feeling great right now." I'm like, "I feel like shit, and like, life, like, I don't-"

   10. AHAlex Hormozi32:24

       That's okay.

   11. LHLeila Hormozi32:24

       "... deserve to feel any way."

   12. CWChris Williamson32:26

       Well, think about what the more heroic narrative of those two is as well. The much more heroic narrative is, "I didn't sleep right, didn't eat right, had an argument with the missus this morning, and I'm still going to go out there and, and close this." There's a great story from Ben Bergeron when he's talking about, um, the CrossFit Games in 2017 or '18, and it was the first day of the games, and they didn't realize that they were going to be flown out one day before the entire set of games started. They were told that they needed to be downstairs with passports and bags, no coaches, no nothing else, and they basically went and did an entire extra day of programming out at the CrossFit ranch. Nobody knew. Everybody was on the plane. It was four hours' sleep. No one had their coaches with them. Maybe somebody had left their special weight belt at home and stuff like that. And you had two types of athletes in this situation. You had one that said, "Oh my God, I don't have all of the right things," and the other one that said, "I've trained for this. I've gone into the gym a ton of times when I haven't slept enough, and I've said, 'What an awesome opportunity for me to see whether or not I can still eat shit whilst not being fully prepared from the day before.'" And that, I think, is, is like similar to the ethos-

   13. AHAlex Hormozi33:35

       100%.

   14. CWChris Williamson33:35

       ... that you guys have got here.

   15. LHLeila Hormozi33:36

       Yeah.

   16. AHAlex Hormozi33:37

       100%.

   17. LHLeila Hormozi33:37

       And...

   18. CWChris Williamson33:37

       What was the paradox to be solved, dichotomy to be managed thing?

   19. LHLeila Hormozi33:44

       Um, it was, uh, actually, I got it from a book. You know Esther Perel?

   20. CWChris Williamson33:49

       Yep.

   21. LHLeila Hormozi33:50

       Yeah, so she talked about, uh, desire, and basically, you know, a lot of people think, like, wanting more desire or having, you know, not having enough security or not having enough desire are, like, problems to solve. Like, I need to feel more secure with my spouse, or I need to feel more desire with my spouse. And she said it's not a problem to be solved, but a dichotomy to be managed, and she kind of went on a little rant how people in America always want to solve these things, thinking everything's a problem, whereas they're not problems, they're just dichotomies that need to be managed. And I took that, and I was like, wow, this applies to everything that I see in business, things in your personal life, things in pretty much everywhere where everyone's like, "How do I solve this problem?" And you're like, it's not a problem. It really exists, like, on a pendulum, and you want to make sure that it doesn't swing too far one way or the other, but that you're able to manage it so it kind of just stays in the middle at all points in time. And I think that a lot of humans are really good at getting something to one side or getting something to the other side, but they're not great at keeping things in the middle. It's like moderation is actually usually harder than going to one extreme. Um, so we just probably both use that a lot with different-

   22. AHAlex Hormozi34:44

       Y-

   23. LHLeila Hormozi34:44

       ... aspects.

   24. AHAlex Hormozi34:44

       Yeah, and just for, for the audience for examples here, it's like, a dichotomy would be like justice and mercy. They're both i- both ideals, but you- you don't want to solve for perfect justice because then most people would say that that's probably not... Perfect justice in absence of any mercy is probably not the ideal outcome if we're just talking from a values perspective. And so, the same thing can be translated in business language, which would be like, uh, delegation versus micromanagement, right? Okay, well these are, these are two extremes. Like, we, we're not solving to eliminate delegation. We're not solving to eliminate micromanagement, we're sol- or abdication, rather. Um, we're f- we're trying to find that middle ground, so it's a dichotomy to be managed rather than a problem to be solved.

   25. LHLeila Hormozi35:21

       And I think that a lot of humans, when you see something, you immediately label it as a problem, and then you overcompensate to solve it, which then swings you in very far in one direction. You know, it's like you don't perform well on something, and so you think, "I'm a piece of shit. I'm a failure, X, Y, and Z. I need to go take a course on this, get a coach, do all these things." But it's like, in reality, maybe you need to tweak two things.

   26. AHAlex Hormozi35:40

       Or maybe it's not even a problem to begin with.

   27. LHLeila Hormozi35:42

       Yeah, maybe it's okay to suck.

   28. AHAlex Hormozi35:43

       Maybe it's okay.

   29. CWChris Williamson35:44

       This is the narrative that we come back to again, right? The framing that you put through things. If you want a lot more control, if you want to be able to fix the problems, then you're going to see every dichotomy as not just a little bit of discomfort that is par for the course of being a human. Maybe a human trying to run a business with a family, with a life, with some pursuits and some hobbies, it's like, well, yeah, obviously there's going to be th- there's gonna be paradoxes in there, obviously. Like, there's always gonna be things that are difficult for you to work out. So given the fact that you are, uh, at least preferences with, uh, your acceptance over the top of it, how do you avoid losing focus throughout the day? I- I- I wouldn't like to guess how many opportunities and phone calls and different things and bits and pieces you guys have potentially got to do. What is it that you do

7. 36:29 – 41:09

   Practical Ways to Stay Focused

   1. CWChris Williamson36:29

      to ensure that the day stays focused and that the- the things that need to get done get done?

   2. AHAlex Hormozi36:33

      We have different ways of- of running our days, dramatically different, and I think part of that is because of the nature of the work that we do is somewhat different.Um, and so for me, I've, I've probably only had two habits that I would ascribe the majority of my productivity to. Um, you know, the first one is that I wake up early and I begin work early. Uh, and for me that has worked. I think it's more ... But I also have multiple friends who are billionaires who, they work really late at night. And so I don't think it's like mornings are important or evenings are important. I think what's more important is to have dedicated time to think without distraction. And so for me, it works better in the mornings. And so that's habit one. And habit one paired with habit two, which is that I don't take meetings before lunch. And so I will have between 5:00 A.M. until noon roughly, uh, to have seven hours of more or less uninterrupted work to do whatever it is that I want to do to move things forward, to work on projects, to create SOPs, presentations, whatever it is. Um, and then after that, I can correspond with the team, respond to Slacks and emails and all the other things that kind of pull you in a million directions. And I've been more or less doing that for years, and that has worked for me. Um, I don't have any other habit besides that.

   3. CWChris Williamson37:46

      But your, your, your, your job role has changed, right?

   4. AHAlex Hormozi37:48

      Yes.

   5. CWChris Williamson37:48

      You've done different things throughout that time, but you've found that that same get up early and avoid interacting with other people until around about midday has served you well across all of the different domains that you've had to do.

   6. AHAlex Hormozi38:00

      Yes, and I would still even say even though my role has changed, the nature of my work is not, is not too dissimilar, um, over that same time period. What I was working on might have changed, but the nature of the work has not.

   7. CWChris Williamson38:11

      And what's the difference for you, Layla? What do you do?

   8. LHLeila Hormozi38:14

      I think because of the nature of my role, you know, I need to be a little more available to people and a little more, um-

   9. CWChris Williamson38:19

      Not in a cupboard.

   10. LHLeila Hormozi38:21

       (laughs) Not in a cupboard, yeah. Uh, I try to also keep my mornings clear, uh, at least like early mornings because I know that I have my list that I ... you know, I always have a working list basis, like backlog, what do I need to get done this week and then today. And so it's like I try to get my today tasks done before I start my meetings. But if I don't, because things pop up and I gotta hop on a meeting at 7:00 or at, you know, 6:30 or whenever it is, then I will and I'll just be flexible in terms of like I have my things that need to get done, but I can be flexible when they get done, if that makes sense. And then I would say that in terms of staying focused, if I'm looking at all the things that pop up during the day, if I'm feeling like I can't get done what I said I'm gonna get done for that day, then I'm not thinking strategically enough. What I'm typically not doing is I'm not thinking, "Who else can do this besides me?" That's usually when it's, when it's ... I can absolutely get these things done if I focus on the most important ones that only I can do. And so what I'll do is I'll look at my list, if I have like 17 things, and I'll say, "These are all the things I'm gonna delegate and here's who I'm gonna delegate it to." And then I just go do it immediately, and then I go back to focusing on my thing. And so-

   11. AHAlex Hormozi39:22

       I was gonna say, I've just observed Layla doing this, uh, just to give more context for the audience. Like s- she has now tuned her, like, mental muscle to whenever she gets this, like, level of, I don't want to say overwhelm, but, like, backlog of stuff that needs to be done that, you know, I would say earlier days having observed her, she would just, like, stress out, sleep, you know, sleep less, try and, you know, try and get it all done. And now she uses that as a warning flag or red flag where she's like, "Oh, I probably needed to del- I need to delegate this stuff." And so her, like, auto-correction cycle has, you know, sped up faster and faster since, since we've been together doing this.

   12. CWChris Williamson39:55

       It's just a threshold that you meet, and then at that point you start kicking some stuff out the side.

   13. AHAlex Hormozi39:59

       Yep.

   14. CWChris Williamson40:00

       Yeah.

   15. LHLeila Hormozi40:00

       Yeah, and I think honestly, it's usually a little bit reactive, unfortunately. Like, I should have been delegating those things anyways because my team has capacity, and it's an opportunity for them to learn and to take on more responsibility. And so I'm doing them a disservice when I forget to do those things. So ... But it's, uh, I'm probably in a season right now where, uh, for a good amount of time, it was like me doing everything. And then, you know, because even though we have all ... you know, we have the resources to, like, we could have built a team of, you know, 50 from day one. It doesn't make sense for business and it's, in my opinion, it's not the right way to build a business if you want the outcome that we want. Like, I do not think that everything is shaped at once. I don't think that hiring 10 or 15 people overnight is ideal. So we're trying to do things gradually, and I'm okay with being in some pain doing that. Um, but I have to also then remind myself like, "Oh, you've been in the habit of doing a lot. Now you've got to get in the habit of starting to delegate more." Because when I left iMunch, I was only delegating. There was barely any doing. And then I had to switch back to doing, and now it's kind of like a mix in the middle.

   16. CWChris Williamson40:58

       When it comes to hiring people, whether this be for personal or for business, what are some of the most important things or roles to hire for when you begin to

8. 41:09 – 48:28

   How to Begin Outsourcing

   1. CWChris Williamson41:09

      start making money? How do you outsource your life in a way that facilitates you guys to do as much as you can?

   2. LHLeila Hormozi41:15

      I think general advice for people would be that the first thing that you want to do is you want to outsource anything that's non-genera- non-revenue generating. So a lot of people, because they're spending all their time doing sales or marketing, they think, "I should go get somebody to do sales and marketing." But in reality, you don't want to outsource the thing that makes the money and that you're good at. You want to outsource the things that you're bad at and probably aren't making money, like the fact that you're probably doing your own books, the fact that you're answering all the customer support questions (laughs) , the fact that, you know, you're the primary source of value or innovation in the product. And so I think there's a lot of things that you want to outsource first, and it's usually things that you suck at and, uh, don't like doing. That's what I usually like to say. And then adding on top of that that are non-, uh, revenue generating. So it's just like, do you suck at it? Do you, uh, hate it? And then does it not generate revenue? Then it probably makes sense to outsource that first.

   3. CWChris Williamson42:05

      What about personal life? Chef, cleaner, gardener, masseuse?

   4. LHLeila Hormozi42:10

      Yeah, except I think there's trade-offs, which is like, you know, we've outsourced everything. We've had like house manager and stuff like that, and like we do outsource a lot, like cleaning and food and things like that. We just, I mean, we just don't eat much besides dinner. But, um, it's ... At some point, when you outsource so much, then you actually have like a team you're managing. So what you have to kind of ask yourself is, "Would I rather do the thing or would I rather manage the person?" Like, I know for us having a house manager and having a big house, like we literally are not getting a house because people are like, "Dude, you don't have to manage your own house." I'm like, "Oh, we're aware, but we don't want to manage the people that are going to be running the house." (laughs)

   5. AHAlex Hormozi42:47

      We just don't care enough. There's a lot of extra decisions that have to be made constantly on the house. Like, you've got... I mean, if you, if you have a bigger home, you've got landscapers, AV guys, the pool guy, the, you know, the cleaners, the, the laundry people, like, the cooks. Like, there's all these other things that people don't think about. And, uh, you know, we did it and we were like, "This is terrible." Like, I'd rather have a tiny, tiny footprint and have, and just... And we get our, our, our food delivered, we eat it. That's it. It goes straight in the trash. We dump it down at, at the, next to the hallway, next to the elevator. Done. Like, we... It's all, it's all, you know... And the cleaners come twice a week when we're not here. Just simple.

   6. CWChris Williamson43:23

      I think oppor- uh, optimizing for, uh, as little friction and as little annoyance as possible, especially if that's... Like, you can't get away from the annoyance in your business. That's literally what you're paid for.

   7. AHAlex Hormozi43:32

      (laughs)

   8. CWChris Williamson43:32

      You're paid to make difficult decisions, right? That, that are hard to work out. And then to come home and find out that Paolo's not been this week, so they've had to get somebody else in to do the pool, and, and that's been a nightmare.

   9. AHAlex Hormozi43:44

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson43:44

       And, uh, do you... Like, the payment's not gone through. Oh, well, it's because someone changed their account. Like, no, no, no, no. Yeah, that, that does make a lot of sense. Although I didn't, I didn't think about houses that were so big that you basically need a, a second business.

   11. AHAlex Hormozi43:56

       Staff.

   12. CWChris Williamson43:56

       Yeah, in or- in order to-

   13. AHAlex Hormozi43:57

       You need a staff.

   14. CWChris Williamson43:58

       Yeah, I-

   15. LHLeila Hormozi43:58

       Right. And then you, I mean, you have your own problems with that staff, you know? We, one time, we were running our quarterly meeting, and our house manager we'd had for like five months, I guess her boyfriend broke up with her. So she comes in, we're running the quarterly meeting, just a frigging mess. Makeup everywhere, bawling, and we're like-

   16. AHAlex Hormozi44:12

       Howling. Really, like, howling.

   17. LHLeila Hormozi44:13

       Like, h- yeah. It was almost like scream-crying. And we're like, "Uh," and then we're like, obviously we would send this woman home, but we had a huge delivery of gym equipment coming that day.

   18. AHAlex Hormozi44:22

       (laughs)

   19. LHLeila Hormozi44:22

       And so we're like, you know, we're running this quarterly meeting, we're like, "Just sit in the garage and just tell them not to break anything, please." And she's, like, sobbing. You know, we come out-

   20. CWChris Williamson44:30

       Carrying, carrying kettlebells in, like, wipe- wiping tears away with kettlebells and stuff.

   21. AHAlex Hormozi44:34

       (laughs)

   22. LHLeila Hormozi44:34

       Yes. This is not even an exaggeration, yes.

   23. CWChris Williamson44:35

       That's not-

   24. LHLeila Hormozi44:36

       And so, you know, it comes with its own... It's like, if you wanna have... We would just rather not have enough stuff that we need a lot of people to outsource it to.

   25. AHAlex Hormozi44:44

       Committed. Yeah, exactly.

   26. CWChris Williamson44:44

       Would you say, be- because you guys had nice house, houses, Austin, fancy car, last year, got rid of it all. I've been playing around with this idea for ages about your materialism set point. So kind of like a, a degree of manifested wealth in the things that you have that impacts your level of happiness. It seems like you guys kind of, uh, tested the water last year to see if having more stuff would make you happier, and th- the answer came back as a resounding no. Is that right?

   27. AHAlex Hormozi45:19

       More or less. And I would say it wasn't like we tested it last year. I would say it was slowly accumulated, and then we just looked around, and we were like, "I..." And, you know, we traveled, um, not that, not that long ago to a, um, a, a, just a tiny little place, and we had been only in our massive house for a while, and we were there for a few weeks, and I was like, "I don't need more than this." Like, I like not having all the excess. I feel less wasteful. And I remember when I threw away, like, 90% of the clothing that I had, I felt better every time I walked into my closet. And I was like, "Man, this conferred not even, not even neutral, it was a negative." Like, having more stuff was negative. And so that was kind of eye-opening, at least for me. Um, and Layla and I are, have, have slight differences in preferences around those things. And so those are a little bit more individual. But for us, I think I probably have a lower materialism set point than Layla does. Um, mine is arguably very, it's odd. (laughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson46:08

       But you, you understand that most, most high-net-worth individuals, uh, they're, that's outwardly expressed, right? And not through, like-

   29. AHAlex Hormozi46:14

       That they do that?

   30. CWChris Williamson46:15

       Yeah, that they've, you know, like, you are worth a lot of money. It's obvious that you're worth a lot of money. And not through, like, real niche things, like expensive flannel shirts and, like, you know, trips, trips away with friends and stuff like that. Like, through actual ostentatious, like, horse shit. So yeah, I, I wonder whether it's kind of back to the start, you know, how you were talking about people become rich and then they start sort of obsessing over certain things. I wonder whether there's an expectation that when you're rich, you do the things that rich people do, what do rich people do?
9. 48:28 – 53:15

   Using Insight & Instinct to Make Decisions

   1. CWChris Williamson48:28

      a- an- an insight of thinking, right? There's a bit of inspiration there, but a good bit of just sort of gut and commitment. That's been... The way that you guys met was you basically saying, "Do you want to start working together?" And then from there, very quickly, Layla's going around collecting cash for you on, on your behalf. Like, that's... You can't, th- th- you can't have thought your way through all of those things, right? You, you, you can't have logically played out every single step. So there has to be a, a little bit of insight and then a ton of gut that just says, "Yeah, we should go for this." Or you upped stakes and decided to move to, like, California to go and-... work in some guy's gym, and you just rocked up and he wasn't even expecting you. Like, that, again, it's a little bit of insight but a ton of gut. And, uh, i- increasingly I see, maybe it's been since COVID as well, a lot of people are in their own heads, people are very cerebral, they rely on cognitive horsepower to get themselves through things, and that stops them sometimes from tapping into that more, sort of, gut intuitive sense. Is that a tension that you ever feel, sort of knowing that something's right and stopping yourself from talking yourself out of something that is good?

   2. AHAlex Hormozi49:31

      This is definitely something I'm sure Laila and I will both enjoy jamming on. Um, at least I'm of the belief that you learn a lot more through doing than you do through thinking. Um, not to say, not to counter what I was saying before, um, but, like, from a learning perspective, you learn more, uh, from doing. Now, there are some lessons that are worth not doing. Not... Learning without doing (laughs) , right? Um, but I think that both of us would agree that when we are afraid to do something, and I would say it's a f- it's a fear, it's not like jumping out of a building, that's, that's the good fear. You know what I mean?

   3. CWChris Williamson50:01

      (coughs)

   4. AHAlex Hormozi50:01

      But fear of failure, fear of risk, uh, like starting a business, I mean, there... I guess there is some sort of gut reaction that, that has to, that has to happen. Um, I feel like this is a poor answer that I gave, actually.

   5. LHLeila Hormozi50:14

      A gut reaction as in...

   6. AHAlex Hormozi50:17

      Yeah, I think I gave a poor answer.

   7. LHLeila Hormozi50:19

      (laughs) Um, I, you know, I, I, I know for myself at least, like, I've never... It's, it's, you could say it's gut to, like, maybe pull the trigger, but it's probably things I've thought about for a long time. So, like, when I moved to California, you know, like, immediately after I graduated, like, I was like, "That makes sense to move to California because logically I know that the industry there is booming that I wanna be in, so it makes sense to move there." You know, when I met Alex, he literally fit the bill for, like, every single thing that I'd been looking for in someone, and I just knew... Everything. (laughs)

   8. AHAlex Hormozi50:52

      (laughs)

   9. LHLeila Hormozi50:52

      Um, and I just knew that, like, I'm like, "Laila, if he matches everything that you've been looking for, like, why are you waiting on this? Like, just do it," you know? And so I think it's usually been, there's supporting evidence.

   10. AHAlex Hormozi51:03

       Yeah.

   11. LHLeila Hormozi51:04

       And it's like, there's supporting evidence that's obviously there, but my brain is going crazy usually being like, fear, fear, like, scared, fear of unknown, and I just say, like, "Oh my God, my brain is freaking out right now, but I am totally aware that this makes no logical sense." And so I'm able to talk myself into being like, "My brain is making up these wacko stories again." You know, it's not like I'm telling, I'm not saying I'm crazy or making up wacko stories, but my brain is making them up, and I'm like, "You've gotta go do it anyways." And so I think for me at least, that's usually how I've gotten myself to take action is just, like, there's, I pay attention way more to the evidence in the situation rather than the belief that I may have, because oftentimes, the belief comes after you do something. You know, I think most things that I've done in life, I have not believed that they would be possible until after I did them. Even now, it's like, I know, and this is a funny thing, it happens with every business we have, I'm like, we lay out the numbers and it's like here's where we're gonna get to, and I'm like, "Yeah, that makes complete sense." In my mind, I'm like, "Oh, I don't think so." (laughs)

   12. AHAlex Hormozi51:53

       (laughs)

   13. LHLeila Hormozi51:53

       And then we get there and then I'm like, "Oh, that was nice." It's, like, every time still, like, I still... And a lot of people I think think you have to have the belief, you gotta believe in yourself to do it. I'm like, "No you don't." Like, I have not believed in so many of the things that I've been able to do, and to a, like, a very large degree too.

   14. AHAlex Hormozi52:09

       And just as a, as a one-liner, um, like, we are of the, of the belief that it doesn't, it doesn't take time to make decisions, it takes information to make decisions. And if you have the information to make the decision, then you should make it. And so a lot of people will belabor a decision when they are not gaining more information to make it. Now, if you have emotions that are involved and you wanna decrease the time, you know, so that you can be less emotional, then I can understand that, but decisions are, time is not a requirement of decision-making, like information is. And so if you have the right, if you have the evidence that would support it, so that probably, to, to delineate what I was saying earlier, like good fear or bad fear, like if you have the evidence that would support that this is a good decision, then if you still have fear, then that is more a fear of the unknown, uh, or of the hypothetical, which is not knowable. We don't know what's going to happen. But we have this evidence that would, so it'd support that this decision makes sense. If we still don't wanna make it, that is not logical. And so it's making sure that we can recognize, like, logical versus illogical fear.

   15. CWChris Williamson53:04

       I saw a tweet from you a little while ago saying, uh, "Nine months into dating Laila, I lost everything I had. I stared at her and said, 'I'm a sinking ship. If you want to leave me, I 100% respect that.' At which point

10. 53:15 – 1:02:30

    When Alex Lost Everything

    1. CWChris Williamson53:15

       she grabbed my chin to tilt my head up to meet her eyes and said, 'I'd sleep with you under a bridge if it came to that.'" What's the story there?

    2. AHAlex Hormozi53:22

       Uh, the Laila and Alex love story. Um, so I, um, so I had a chain of gyms, Laila came in, she started collecting cash for me, I wanted to start the gym launch business. Um, I started flying around doing these launches, they started working, she quit her job, followed me, we started doing launches together. Um, series of unfortunate events, uh, I, th- there were multiple. I'll tell you there's three big ones, but I'll, there are five, there's like six big ones, but, the, I'll give you the highlight version. Uh, I had (laughs) a head-on DUI, uh, that I got in a head-on co- collision, uh, right after that, I put all the money from selling my five gyms into a new company, um, and then the partner that I had in that new company ended up taking the money. Um, after that, uh, thought we were, like, okay, clean slate. We lost everything, you know, uh, we're at zero, and we then did a-another launch to give us cash to do the next business. We had about $100,000 that was supposed to come in, which when you have zero, 100,000 was a lot. Um, didn't come, got on the phone with the, uh, processors, like, every single day for 10 days straight, and then finally, and they kept giving me the runaround, and then, uh, on that day, they were like, "Oh, uh, we're not gonna give it to you." And so, uh, the last money that I had was, uh, $23,000 left to my name. I owed the salesman who had made the $100,000 in sales $22,000 in commissions, so I had $1,000 left, and so I paid him the 22 on money that I hadn't received. And so the next day, uh, and this is Christmas Eve, uh, so on the 26th, uh, I w- and that's when I found out. Um, mind you, at this point is when I'm meeting Laila's family for the first time. Uh, the guy that, from the internet that she quit her job for and are immediately sleeping together in motels around the country, so her father loved me, Dr. Kourosh for the win. Um, this guy's a winner. And so (laughs) I had now lost everything multiple times. He was like, "This guy knows what he's doing." And so (laughs) , uh, Christmas Eve, find out that we're not gonna get the money, Christmas Day happens, uh, and on the 26th-... she had gotten six of her friends, pretty m- all of her friends from high school to quit their jobs to start this next business with us. And this is before I didn't know that I wasn't gonna get the money to start the business. So, they had all quit their jobs, and it was spar- starting f- 48 hours later. And for that model to work, we were going to spend $3,300 a day, per day, uh, on advertising, hotels, airfare, rental cars, per diems for food for all of these sales guys, all six of them, to fly out to these locations, and then do the launches that we were doing successfully. And so, uh, it was at that moment where I said, "I have $100,000 limit on this credit card," which w- I still had from my gym th- that Amex hadn't canceled yet. So, for whatever reason, I still had the credit limit. They didn't know that my life was in shambles. And, uh, I'm at her parents' house, sleeping in their, in their room (laughs) 'cause we couldn't afford anything. And at this moment, uh, I was like, "Okay, this could go horribly wrong. Uh, I'm about to spend, uh, I'm gonna be going into debt at $3,300 a day. And given my track record up to this point, which has been now all failure, um, I think it would be wise for you to exit, uh, 'cause this is probably not gonna be pretty, but I really don't know what else I'm gonna do, so I'm gonna do it." That's when I, it was like, "I- I think I'm a sinking ship right now. Like, nothing else has worked, and so, like, I respect you if you wanna dip out. Like, I, we're cool." And so that was when she said she would, she would stay with me. And so, um, for me, that was a big, a big moment where I knew that she was, she was going, she was willing to hang with me when shit was going to be hard, and I knew that where I wanted to go was not going to be calm waters, and I knew I needed somebody who wanted to be next to me and would wanna weather those storms. And so a lot of people can claim that. Very few people can walk it, and she did. And so she gave me evidence to support that. And so I felt, I mean, for us to get, you know, married after that, both of us were like, "Yeah, I think we should get married," and we didn't have any stress about it, and just got married six days later, and it was, not from that point, but, you know, a few months later. Um, and yeah, and so it's been, it's been the same since.

    3. CWChris Williamson57:16

       How was that from your perspective, Layla?

    4. LHLeila Hormozi57:19

       (sighs) Um, you know, I think there's a few things which is like, you know, when I, when we started doing everything together, you know, not to sound, you know, I'm super young, Alex has, like, a lot going on. It was a lot of chaos. And I didn't know how the game was gonna turn out, and I just kept, I- I kind of just always play out worst-case scenario. I'm like, "Worst-case scenarios, I end up at my dad's house, like, 'Hey, I, like, stopped doing everything I was doing, I gave up all my clients, I, like, stopped pursuing my own stuff, started doing this thing with this guy, it didn't work.' And so what? I start over. Like, I'm 23. Who cares?" You know, I've gained a ton of experience and a ton of knowledge, and I've had a lot of good, you know, takeaways from that stuff. And so that was kind of my mindset going into everything. Um, but then, you know, upon, like, getting to know Alex and seeing everything, I think I just had, like, this unwavering belief in him, um, despite circumstances (laughs) and evidence.

    5. AHAlex Hormozi58:09

       By the evidence.

    6. LHLeila Hormozi58:09

       Like-

    7. CWChris Williamson58:09

       Despite evidence to the contrary. (laughs)

    8. LHLeila Hormozi58:12

       I, and honestly, like, I think that the way that I saw it was I was like, "He's so brilliant, I just don't think that he has been surrounded by the right people." Like, I think there's a lot of people that are around him that didn't necessarily amplify his strengths or maybe took advantage of his strengths or maybe... yeah, I wanna say, a- and not everyone, because he had some really great partners, but there were some that, I think, you know, we were both young, it's just like... And, and I was like, "If he just was in a different situation, didn't have 17 businesses, and had people who actually really believed in him and supported him, like, I really think that he could, he's gonna do something huge." And so, I think I just always saw that, and I always wanted to be the person that could help bring his vision to life, just because I, you know, and I have, I probably have more vision now than I did then, but, but I've always wanted to be the person that can do that for somebody that has that. He has so much to give that, I think when he said that, it was almost, like, funny to me. I was like, "I'm not going anywhere," you know? Because I could just see it. And I remember, there were so many moments where it was really tough for us, and I could just see, I was like, "I just know that there's a version of us that gets out of this-

    9. CWChris Williamson59:14

       Yeah.

    10. LHLeila Hormozi59:14

        ... and is great together. And I think that we can make some really big shit." And I think that just seeing the amount of progress we were even able to make while going through all that stuff, str- stressful stuff, I was like, "Imagine what it'll be like when we don't have these kind of circumstances, how much progress we'll be able to make in our lives, in our relationship, and in our business." And so I think it's, you know, just being able to see the worst of someone, but still see the light in them, um, 'cause it's not hard, I think... You know, everyone now is like, "You bought low, like, must have seen it coming." And I was like-

    11. CWChris Williamson59:42

        Penny stock, yeah. No-

    12. LHLeila Hormozi59:44

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson59:44

        ... no, he was an, he was an idiot.

    14. AHAlex Hormozi59:46

        (laughs)

    15. LHLeila Hormozi59:46

        No, I think it's just, you know, I see it a lot and I, w- we see it a lot and they're, like, people that have businesses, you know, where like, where we pick the businesses on acquisition.com, it's like, I see it in so many of them, and they probably resonate with Alex, like, they just need the right people around them. They've got people who are taking advantage of them, they've got people who don't understand them, they've got people who are telling them their dreams are too big. And it sucks. And so I think, you know, I've just always wanted to support someone who does have that, like, big creative vision like Alex does, and that means also being there when shit sucks.

    16. AHAlex Hormozi1:00:13

        And mind it, like, this was the first, like, seven months of us being together. Like, that, everything I just said all happened the first seven months of us being together. And I remember there were a couple of, like, refrains that we went back to, and she was like, "Think about how epic this story is gonna be, like, when we make it." You know what I mean? Like, "How cool is that gonna be, you know, for us?" And so that was, that was always, like, very powerful. And, um, I think I always valued loyalty above love, um, 'cause I just, uh, like, me personally, it was just something that was very meaningful for me 'cause I... she was just always down. You know what I mean? And like, d- I was like, "This fucking might not work." And she's like, "Cool, let's go." You know what I mean? Like, "Giddy up." And, um, and like, I, in my first book, I said, like, ride or die, and I mean, I've very much like... Layla and I are not religious, but in the Bible, there's only one thing that it says about picking a mate. Like, literally only one. Everything else is about marriage, but only one thing about picking the right person. And in it, it's, it's an Old Testament verse, and it says that you should pick someone that you'd go to war with.And I think that's a really interesting frame to think about for, like, selecting a mate. And it felt like we were going through a battle the entire time, and I can say truthfully, like, the first 12 months of our relationship were significantly harder than any period that we've had since. Most people are like, "Marriage gets harder over time." It hasn't been that way for us. I'm not trying to deflating thing, but it- it mean, the first 12 months (laughs) were- were tough.

    17. LHLeila Hormozi1:01:39

        (laughs)

    18. AHAlex Hormozi1:01:39

        Um, and so we're like, "Well, if we can get through being broke multiple times, losing everything, stabbed in the back, DUI," my mom was in the hospital, uh, after a, I'll just, uh, I'll put it that, just, uh, uh, tough circumstances, all of that, in that same period of time. Um, "If we can get through that then, like, the rest of it should be easy."

    19. LHLeila Hormozi1:01:59

        Which has been true.

    20. AHAlex Hormozi1:02:00

        Which has more or less been true.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:02:02

        That's a baptism of fire. If you start it off so difficult that nothing after that can be any more difficult, where, wh- where... So, we can only go up from here, you know?

    22. LHLeila Hormozi1:02:11

        Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:02:12

        Um-

    24. AHAlex Hormozi1:02:12

        That's what I kept telling her. (laughs)

    25. LHLeila Hormozi1:02:14

        (laughs)

    26. CWChris Williamson1:02:15

        (laughs)

    27. AHAlex Hormozi1:02:15

        This can't get poorer. (laughs)

    28. LHLeila Hormozi1:02:16

        (laughs)

    29. CWChris Williamson1:02:16

        How do you... So, one of th- one of the things that you talk about is- is the fact that, um, you've obviously got this, sort of, collaborative vision. You guys are working together, even though you try and separate your days a little bit, which I think is quite interesting, that you're working separately so that if you sit down at

11. 1:02:30 – 1:11:17

    Keeping a Relationship Fresh

    1. CWChris Williamson1:02:30

       dinner on a nighttime, you can actually say, "Well, how was your day?" And you don't just go, "You were there, idiot."

    2. AHAlex Hormozi1:02:34

       Yeah. (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson1:02:35

       Like, "I- I was with you." Um, how do you avoid becoming bros instead of lovers?

    4. LHLeila Hormozi1:02:43

       I think that's been something that has taken time. You know, I think that in the beginning, it was a conversation that we would actively have, which is like, "I feel like we're spending so much time together." Um, and I think it's because we also hadn't really figured out how to, you know, separate things. Uh, you know, how to distinctively separate our roles, how to kind of like come into, there's the things we do together and the things we do apart. We have our own interests and things like that still. Um, and I think now we've come to a point where we're much more defined in terms of what each of us do and then what we do together, and we have a lot of shared interests, which is really nice because that means that outside of work, we have things that we enjoy, both enjoy as well. Um, but we also have things that we like and do differently. You know, like if people were to observe us on a daily basis, they would think they are very different in a lot of things they do as well. Um, and so I think the way that you don't become that is you always, you're always looking at ways that you can add in variety. And I think that the ways that we add in variety are doing new things together especially. You know, I think that if you're doing constantly the work together, because a lot of people that have spouses, you know, they're working together doing that same stuff. What you wanna do is, like, go travel together, go to- to new restaurants together, go watch a new show together, go meet new friends together. And so it's not that, um, you need to change anything about the work, but probably adding in things of more variety to your relationship. And so I think, like, us, I love when we travel together, and we go meet new people together, and we go do new experiences together, and I think we do a lot more of that now than we used to because I think, one, we both just like it, but also I think that's really good for a relationship.

Episode duration: 1:28:08