Millionaire REVEALS: How to Get RICH! Alex Hormozi

Everyone wants you to do well, but just not better than them. And so the people that will continue to root for you tend to be above you. The closer people are to you when you're at your bottom, the more they'll root for you at the bottom. But as you pass them, you remind them of the dreams that they gave up on. Whenever someone disapproves of my current activities, I'd say, like to be clear, you would prefer I live my life the way you want to live my life. Okay, I don't. And you have absolute autonomy to live your life the way you want to live it. I would prefer to build a life that the respite from my life isn't the highlight. You don't build confidence by sh. Putting affirmations in the mirror, but by giving yourself a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Outwork yourself. Doubt. So I wholeheartedly reject the notion that you can beat your chest and have charisma because I believe that confidence without evidence is delusion.

I think I first had you on. You're around 60 or maybe $80 million in assets now closer to 200 million range. Massive success. You've grown your audience so big. What has changed in you around mindset, behavior, confidence. To help you unlock this next level.

In the last year, I would definitely say it comes down, I think you.

Gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really? Yeah.

Please welcome.

Welcome back, everyone at the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Alex Hermosi in the house. Good to see you. The man who builds, buys and sells massive companies worth over 200 million in your assets now acquisition dot com. And you have built a 5 million person following in less than two years. And you had one of the biggest online events recently, which I want to talk about in a moment. But first off, you're known for making money. You're known for developing incredible habits. You're known for having a chiseled physique. And you're known for working extremely hard to get what you want in business and in life. But we were talking about before about behaviors, habits, and mindsets. What do you think is it within you that has allowed you to get to where you're at so quickly? And obviously there was a backstory and a background. We've talked about before where it was more than a decade of building yourself, but really, in the last couple of years, you've exploded without being on a big Netflix show, without having a celebrity movie come out, without Being a celebrity, you've exploded with celebrity status. Is it a mindset? Is it confidence? Is it behaviors? What is it that has allowed you to get there?

You know, definitely say it comes down to skills. And if we're just defining skills as things that you do when introduced to some sort of external stimulus that gets them an outcome. And I think simplifying a lot of the woo woo around mindset, performance, confidence, like all of that stuff, if you can boil it down to, at the end of the day, even identity, right? All it is is a list of behaviors that we do. And so I used to think earlier on when I would even explain to entrepreneurs, like when I was looking at entrepreneurs, we had a matrix for how we would kind of like score them. So you've got beliefs that will limit entrepreneurs, you've got traits that will limit entrepreneurs, and then you have skills. And that was my kind of. That was my framework for a very long time. And then I had a very long discussion with Dr. Kashi, my closest friend, and he was like, I really want to challenge you on this. I was like, okay. He said, can you teach someone a trait? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, well, let's say someone's loyal, right? Okay, you want to teach loyalty. That's a traitor. Loyalty is an amorphous word, but has like a lot of laundry list of mini skills underneath of it, which is, okay, when you go out with your friends and a girl comes up to the group of friends and let's say you're married, whatever, in that instance, and she says, can I buy you a drink? You say, no, do you think I can train someone to do that? And I was like, yeah, I think you could train someone to do that. It's like, okay, now take every other line item underneath of loyalty. That would be examples of loyalty. Those are behaviors that can be trained, which means that loyalty is a skill. I was like, huh? And he was like, now let's push on. Beliefs, right? Well, beliefs, it's like, okay, a belief means you see a certain way the world is, and then you behave a certain way as a result, which is still stimulus response, which means that you can train someone to respond based on a stimulus. And so that really simplifies a lot of performance, success, et cetera, to simply like, what do I need to do when this condition is presented? And then you get out of the like, how are my emotions feeling? And I need to think positively. And all of these things into simply, like, you can be as negative as you want. You can be as fearful as you want, you can be as angry as you want, you can be as ashamed as you want. If you still post this amazing piece of content in any of those emotional states, it will still perform the same. And so it's just that like the doing has to get done right, no matter what. And that's the only thing that moves the ball forward. And I think a lot of it has been able is, is cutting out a lot of the fluff and the noise that is very loud in the marketplace of the hundred things you all have to do in order to be successful. When I know just like you do a ton of incredibly successful entrepreneurs and their habits are actually incredibly varied. Some are night owls, some are morning people, some work all the time, some only like to work a couple hours a week. Some are huge and real estate. You know, like there's the, some are super healthy and health obsessed and others, you know, are Warren Buffett drinking Coke and eating in McDonald's. So whenever there's these rules that people like to put on and everyone wants to have these rules because they want to think, okay, if I do what Warren Buffett does, then I'll get what Warren gets. But what they do is I think they emulate the wrong part of Warren Buffett.

And so what should they be emulating?

You have to look back in time and I think that's one of the things people model the plateau, not the, not the rise. And so it's like, you know, we have a bunch of buddies mutual that have exited companies for hundreds of millions of dollars and then they get like really obsessed with their health and they have these massive morning routines and they just get upset, you know, all these supplements and red lights on us and ice luges and whatever.

Right, right.

And, and so what ends up happening is everyone who's watching says, oh, this person's successful, this is what they do, I should do that. But they what, what got them there is not what they're doing now now.

Right, right.

So it's like you wanna model the rise. And so a lot of times the.

Rise is a, it's not always healthy on the rise.

No. I would even getting out of like defining health. Right. But like I would say that there's, there are absolute trade offs and it's just whether or not you're willing to pay the price for it. And I think then we, we can, we can take off the label of like, this is good, this is bad, this is healthy, this is unhealthy and just simply say like if the Nikes that you want on the wall are 500, that is the price, you can just choose to pay it or not. But if you choose to pay the $500 for the Nikes, you don't then say this was unhealthy or this was bad when you label it. You just make the trade. And I think that that's where a lot of people spend all this time analyzing themselves, like feeling about their feelings, thinking about their thoughts, rather than just executing like one of the best morning routines I can, I can recommend to any person on earth is that you wake up and you decrease the time between when you wake up and when you start working. Like, I need 90 minutes before I can really.

It's like if you're looking for those types of financial results.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. If you're looking, if you want more.

Of a balanced life and you love your morning routine to chill and relaxed and do you then know you're going to get totally the, the results that, what you put in there?

Yeah.

Do you think it's possible to get extremely wealthy or amass a large sums of wealth by having a lazy mindset?

I really like this question. I don't know if it's where, where you were wanting me to go, but I, I do like the question a lot. So yes, for probably a different reason than people might expect. So I actually think in some ways the lazier you are, if you can get over the initial hump, the more successful you can be. Because what happens is if you give a hard working person a problem, they give you a hardworking solution. If you give a lazy person a problem, they'll give you a lazy man solution.

What's the easiest way to do this?

Right. And a lot of times some of the best problems in the world get solved by deciding they're not problems.

What do you mean?

It's like let's say Layla says babe. And I don't like being called babe right now. I could, I could have a huge discussion about this and this is our plan so we can, you know, get you out of saying this because it makes me feel this way and it reminds me of my mom, Whatever, right?

Or you just let it go.

Or I decide that it's not a problem and it's way faster to solve problems that way by deciding they're not problems to be in with.

Interesting.

And, and so with, from the lazy, the lazy man's perspective, I'm a big believer in working smarter, not harder, with the massive caveat that you have to work incredibly Hard to get some work.

So what do you mean by that? You have to amass the amount of skills. You have to overcome your limiting beliefs. You've got to get more knowledge, take more classes, develop yourself, build more confidence, let go of these different challenges in order to get to that level.

Yeah. We all have to pay down the most expensive debt that we all pay every day, which is the debt of not knowing. Ignorance debt. And like, every single. I mean, I love this. This close that I saw at a presentation years ago, and I just. It's just so good. So man's looking out the audience, and he's got this whiteboard. He writes a million dollars across the top. And then he says, ma', am, how much do you make? And she says, $50,000. So he writes $50,000 underneath the million, and then he subtracts it, and it says $950,000. He looks at her, he says, every single year, he said, you pay life $950,000 for not knowing how to make a million dollars. And so the question is, like, how much is it? How much is that skill worth the difference? That's what it's worth.

Right. Whatever that difference is.

Right.

And however long it takes.

And so every. And, like, it's one of the haunting thoughts that I have of, like, man, why am I not making a billion dollars a year? It's like, because right Now I'm paying $800 million a year in ignorance tax for not knowing how to make a billion interesting.

Or to be fair, relationship tax or ignorance tax or whatever.

Yeah.

Timing tax. It could be a timing thing. It could be, you know, are you in the right industry thing, whatever it might be. And you got to. I mean, obviously, this is for people that, you know, you don't have to be a billionaire or make a million dollars. Yeah. It's like, okay, do I want to be at 100,000? Sure. I want to be at 70,000. Do I want to be at 350? Or whatever it is? First off, why do you want to be there, and why is it important for you? And are you willing to pay the price to be there? If not, then it's okay. Yeah. Live your life.

Yeah. You won.

I was just. You won.

You're not.

You're not obsessing over something. I was just watching this show alone. I don't know if you ever watched this show. It's fascinating. It's about people that live alone in wilderness, and they have to survive.

Okay.

It's on a history channel. I think it's actually Incredible. I'm like, I could last maybe three days. You know, it's like as long as my fat would survive me, it's like they're in Alaska. It's the winter. You got to do the whole thing. Right. And you're only allowed 10 items.

Oh.

So you have to choose your items wisely to be able to survive the longest you can in the wilderness. And after, like 50 days, there's like three people left. I think it starts with 10 or 20. Right. And all these people leave. They tap out.

Okay.

And they leave. And after the 50th day, the people are like, man, you've gotta. They start. You start to hear their mindset unravel as it gets harder and harder.

Yeah.

And you have to ask. They have to ask themselves, why am I doing this? Why? Why do I care? Now, there's a 500, 000 prize at the end for the winner, but you start to hear them say, like, I really don't need that much.

Yeah.

Like, I'm pretty happy. Like, it's just my girlfriend or, like my dog or like, you know, living on the land. Like, I don't need a fancy big home. I don't need this nice car. I don't need to impress people in a certain way. Like, I'm happy with where I'm at. And here's what I do need.

Yeah.

And this is going to bring me joy.

Yeah.

But for the people that. Why do you think people are so obsessed with making more money, though, and becoming a millionaire or becoming 100 millionaire or a billionaire? Why do people even think about it or are focused on that?

The whys are tough because I can never have insight into why other people do things rather than that they do them. But I would say that it seems like at least I would say more men than women are money focused. And that is probably because more women than men are finding are attracted to mates who have resources. And I love this quote by Idris Elba. He said, men fall in love with what they see. Women fall in love with what they hear, which is why women will always wear makeup and men will always lie. Oh, man, I just, like, love the quote because it's like, it just. It just, I think, speaks to the heart of, you know, how men and women at least socially measure status, which is kind of the second piece, which is people don't really want money, especially at the highest levels of the game. It's not about money at all. They have it. It's about status because, I mean, you can only, you Only it's only chicken and rice, even at the highest levels. Like, you can only eat so much food. You can't eat gold, you can't eat diamonds. And after a certain point, you can only consume so much. So then money's only purpose is to go make more money so that you can do what? Make more money.

Right. People care more about status, influence, or power.

With money always that, like, do they? Yeah. Which one?

Yeah, do people care more about, do you think, having status, having influence or having power?

It depends on the person, honestly. I mean, there's definitely from everything that, at least my beliefs around the world, I think there are people definitely who prefer to be behind the scenes and moving things, making the world the way they want it to be. And then there are other people who prefer to have. And that's also huge influence. It's just one is credit with the influence, and sometimes it's credit without the influence or the reverse. And so I don't know if I could answer for all of those people, but I think the motivations for making money can be diverse. But I think if I, if I'd have generalized with the broadest brushstroke, I would say for men specifically, we get more status when we have more money.

Do you think that's what men are chasing more is the status?

Totally. Really? Yeah. If women all of a sudden, only one, if they. If the hotness of the girl was directly correlated with how in shape the guy was, there'd be way more in shape guys. Right. I mean, let's, let's, let's flip the script because we actually have some evidence on this. So, like, if you look at gay men in general, men who are attracted to men, the gay population, I would say, has the stigma. And I say this, a positive, whatever a positive stigma is of being more in shape than straight guys.

Really?

Yeah. Oh, my God. There's way more like tons of super unshaped gay guys. Because men, look, they, they fall in love with what they see and they're.

Both, they're both fit. They're both fit.

And so they're both men. And so gay men will be, have to be or try to be in better shape, I would say, on average than Right. Because the person they're trying to attract has a different honey trap. You can be a fat slob, and if you're a billionaire, you're going to get whatever girl you want unnecessarily, whatever girl you want. But you will get a girl that you could probably still brag about.

Right? Right, right. We're speaking in generalizations, but this is overall is what you're, you're seeing here.

Yeah.

Why do you think people are, what do you think is keeping people trapped in staying average in their life or not wanting to go beyond where they're currently at? Is it confidence behaviors, skills, identity beliefs, what, you know, combination? What keeps people trapped in being average?

I think if you were to ask them, many of them would say something to the extent of I'm afraid of failing if you like peeled it back. But I actually think that's false. I don't think anyone's afraid of failing. I think everyone's afraid of other people seeing themselves fail and getting judged for it.

And that's what keeps people trapped.

Right. Because what it is, is a loss of status. Right. They're afraid of a loss of status. And you have a guarantee. There's like, there's short term pain that you have to go through when you do anything new. Unless you're immediately successful, which almost no one is, you usually have to take a step back in order to take two, three, ten steps forward. Right. Like if you have a high paying job. So I was a consultant, for example, and I had all the status for somebody at my age working at a, you know, big firm, graduated in three years, I had all that stuff. But then when I quit that to start basically being a personal trainer at a gym, that was a big decrease in status in terms of my like relative standing compared to my peers.

Because now you're starting something new. You have to break into an industry now you don't have credibility and relationships. You have to sell yourself all over again as a beginner.

Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. And I remember when I would have women come to the gym, be like, did you go to college? And I was like, I mean, I graduated Magnum ladder from Vanderbilt. Yeah. You know what I mean? But like, I remember thinking, wow, this doesn't matter at all.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter at all. And so I was really well equipped for not what I was doing. You were overqualified. Yeah. And under qualified at the same time. Right, right. For the actual job. And so it, there's a, there's a big pill of humility that I think a lot of people aren't willing to take because it hurts to drop in status. Like, you know, like, oh, you'll get there, man. Like, hey, we're rooting for you, you know. And it's interesting because I remember the early days at the gym when I was like sleeping on the floor. A lot of my clients were like, good for you, chasing your dream. You know, all that stuff, like, really rooting for me. And, you know, within nine or 12 months, I had hired some people and I had a manager, and I was able to not literally live at the gym, sleep there. I remember pulled up one day and I walked in, and, like, four or five ladies who've been there for a while were like, oh, boss man. See, you're like, I thought, you're too good for us. And they were saying it in jest, but I knew that there was, like, a hair of truth to it. And that was when I realized the truism, like, everyone wants you to do well, but just not better than them. And so the people that will continue to root for you tend to be above you. And then as you pass people. Because hate only comes from below. Like, no one above you is hating on you because they're not thinking about you. Because winners focus on the goal, losers focus on winners. And so, yeah, it's hard to be.

A creator and a critic at the same time. You don't see other authors leaving negative reviews for people's books on Amazon. They're not going there and saying, this is the worst book ever written, or, you're regurgitating everything or whatever it is. They're too focused on creating something and putting their art out there in the world. It's the critics who are unwilling to.

Try on the sidelines.

Right? That's the challenging thing. So when you were saying there is. When you were kind of living in the gym, building yourself up, and not successful, you had more people rooting for you than once you started to surpass a certain level, a group. Then they started to say, okay, you're too good for us now.

And so what's interesting. So I think about this stuff a lot. But the closer people are to you when you're at your bottom, the more they'll work for you at the bottom. But as you pass them in whatever material thing you're, you know, pursuit is, you remind them of the dreams. This is some paraphrasing of a conversation I had with Chris Williamson. You remind them of the dreams that they gave up on. And so you. You go from being the person who reminds them that they could go after their dreams to reminding them that they never went after them to begin with. And then what happens? At least this has been my experience, is that you go through this period where no one from your hometown or who knew you in the beginning approves, and then what Happens is absolute strangers from the Internet who never saw the beginning become a bigger fan of you because they can relate to the story, but because you weren't from, you weren't their next door neighbor, they don't feel blame for them not having achieved whatever yet. Because if everyone in your friend group when you're coming up, they all see that like as on some level, in my opinion, they see that they have the exact same access to resources, opportunities that you do. And then for some reason they haven't done something. So it's painful because I think there's some sting of inadequacy that they probably self judge as a result of that. Now, to be fair, plenty of people are secure and are very happy with their lives, which is awesome. But I think there's definitely some people who aren't as pumped about it, which then kind of gets into like to go all the way back to the very beginning, we say, like, why don't people do the stuff that they want to do? I think it's because they can't even hear their own voice because the only voice they can hear is everyone else's and they can like theirs is barely a whisper. And so I think like, if I had to give myself a goal of what my story or journey or trajectory has been, it's been to make my voice the loudest one that I can hear and for my approval of myself to be the one that I care the most about. I think Epictetus said something to the degree of if you need someone else to bear witness to whatever the thing is, you should be able to be your own witness. You should have enough integrity and belief in self. I'm massively paraphrasing, but he said that. And I just like, when I've had really tough times, I write in this diary to myself and it's to my 85 year old self. And so. Okay, you might really find this interesting. I think your audience.

I do like this.

So there's something called the Solomon Paradox. Are you familiar with this?

Explaining.

Okay, so the Solomon Paradox basically states that humans give better advice to other people than they follow themselves. Yes. And like they've proven, they whitewash staff, they even describe people's own life to themselves, but change the names, et cetera, and then say, what should this person do? And what they recommend the person do differs from what the person actually does. And it's because we have some sort of emotional context of the situation and so then we can't make logical decisions as a result. So they're Making poor decisions. Right. So take that AS data point 1. We give better advice to other people than we follow to ourselves. The second, you know, kind of issue that I've had overall is I've never, I've never had a lot of success with the therapies and things like that. Personally, a lot of the time it's because I feel like I have to one, provide huge amounts of context for a single decision, which becomes, you know, 90% of my conversation is just trying to give context around the session's over.

Right, exactly where we're going. Yeah.

And the third part is aligned incentives. Right. And I speak purely from a mechanistic perspective here, which is that if you pay someone, they want you to continue to see them 100%. It just is what it is. And Charlie Munger, I think said people will ignore all sorts of facts if their paycheck relies on it. He thinks the entire wealth management industry is just a complete farce. And so he uses that as his example because he's like, they're incentivized to not see that they have no value at.

Right, right, right.

That's. Everyone rationalizes around that. And so you've got this misaligned incentive, you've got someone who doesn't have context and you've also got this idea that we can give ourselves better advice than anyone else can. And so in thinking about those three things together, I was like, maybe I can be my own therapist, but don't do it for myself. Today, talk to my 85 year old self. And so I actually run these chats. It's my first morning meeting on Monday every week. It's called Solomon time. And so I talk about what's on top of mine. Now I also to self.

Yeah, yeah.

So I chat like it's like a DM chat. So it's like, hey, this is what's going on right now. And then it's future me. Like my hat changes and it's, you know, this is, you know. Well, what would you, you know, why are you saying that?

Like what, you psychologically go into that state of a future you.

Yeah.

That's beautiful.

And it's cool because that version of.

Me, it's not AI you, it's just me.

That version of me has a completely aligned incentive. He wants me to win.

Yes.

More than anyone. Because at the end of the day, like people don't want what's in your best interest. They want the version of you that best serves them at any level. Now the closer they are, like your family has tremendous alignment because if you do, like if you become a billionaire, they all benefit, probably, but they've got.

Doubts and insecurities for sure.

So like they're still flawed, but compared to a stranger. Right? So it's like the closer someone gets, the more natural alignment would occur where if you do well, they might do well by proxy or by extension you might be able to give them a favor, et cetera. And so that's why when you get famous, I can't remember what this quote is, but like when you get famous, it's actually other people, I think, who treat you differently because you actually have more utility, because they might be able to. Willing to put up with stuff. You're late, you're. You're not as responsive, all these things because if you tweet their name, it changes their life because there's that chance of huge utility. And so people change their behavior. And so anyways, with Solomon, who I call my older version of myself just for simplicity's sake, he has absolute aligned incentives. He has complete context, so I don't need to explain everything. He already knows everything I know, right? And potentially more and a longer term time horizon. And as I'm going through these exercises, you know, the most common ones, you know, the, the common responses I get is what problem are we solving? Which is, you know what classic old me would say number number two is are you sure that's a problem? Which is more just a retort. And recently I had a really tough thing that I went through and it like really drove. It's probably the worst, probably the worst day I'd had in five years. So until from the last time I felt that bad was when my partner had taken all the money that I had in my account after I sold all my gym. So sold everything. And then all the money was straight. That was like the worst, that was the worst day I had in a long time. So I had one recently and he said this line to me and this is kind of what I go through when I'm trying to think through these kind of like, you know when you have these vicious cycles where you just keep reliving a conversation or scenario and you're like, I just want to shake this right? Even sometimes it's, you have a relationship and you break up with a person and you're like, I want to get over this person, whatever it is. I usually need to get to this statement. And once I get it, it solves it. It's like, I just need a frame shift. And I remember when I was getting over someone a very long time. Long time ago. I'm married seven years now. But the statement that I needed for that situation was, you can have multiple. You can only have one love of your life, but you can live multiple lives. I really liked that. I thought it was very beautiful. Like, you don't have to. You don't have to negate a relationship or the positive, because what would you want to do? Destroy every memory you've had except for the person that you get married to? That's terrible. That means that every single. Every moment you've had in your life before, that was bad, which is not. I don't think that's the right way to reconstruct your memory. It's like, I'm different now than I was then. So I've lived multiple lives, and I'm sure, like, if I look at my life, I've had clear chapter, you know, I'm sure you're in the NFL, Right. Like, just. You're a different person now.

Yes.

And so it would make sense that you can have a love of your life then. You can have a love of your life now. And that was like. As soon as I got that, it was like, I get it. That was my frame shift. And so with this particular bad scenario that happened, I had worked really, really hard for something. Like, very, very hard. And something had gone wrong that was outside of my direct control. Now I can still say everything is under my control to a degree, and I can.

It's like a business deal went wrong or lost a lot of money or.

Exactly. I lost 15 million bucks in a day.

Yeah.

It was a deal. So, I mean, you know. Right. And so my. And so Solomon just said this statement to me, and he said, I know everything that you did, and no one else will know, and I approve, and my approval is enough. Wow. Period.

And so whose approval were you wanting in that moment?

Right.

For it not to go through.

Right. Other people's. Whatever it is. And so if the ultimate goal of my life, at least as I. As I say it, is to become the best version of me that I can, then it makes sense that to become the best version of me, I have to suffer, I have to go through hardships, I have to fail, because no one who literally wins all the time becomes, you know, I mean, like, you don't build character through good times. You build it through hard times. And so it's like, if I want to have strong character, then I have to be willing to pay the price tag, like the $500, Nikes, like the price tag for the $500 shoe of a human that I want to be is tough, tough stuff. And so I have put a lot of effort into only judging myself on my actions, not my feelings around the actions or the outcomes. And so I'll give you a micro example. So I am typically a pretty impatient person. I always want things now I want it yesterday.

Yeah, of course.

Right. And I've been slowly, over time, people have begun to describe me as a patient person, which. Right. Just as surprised as I am. You're like, I don't know about that. And so a big, huge breakthrough for me was that I could feel impatient and still do the actions that align with patience and then be patient as a result. And I think that that works with, you know, I mean, any of this. Like you can feel unloving, you can feel angry and still act loving, and it doesn't mean you're unloving. Now that, that, that diverges from a lot of classical religious thoughts. So that's, you know, a lot of sin is in the mind, et cetera. So like, I tend to reject that because I would rather somebody really, really be mean to me in their head and do only nice things.

Right, right, right.

To pick. Yeah, yeah, right.

As opposed to be mean in their head and do mean things. Yeah, that.

But then the flip side is, would you rather somebody like really love you and then only make your life harder? That's the real one. Right, right. Because a lot of times we are that person.

99% of the time we're that to.

Ourselves and we tell ourselves, well, I had good intentions, but it's like, but you ended up hurting that person, so what matters?

And we hurt ourselves more than anything.

And so, yeah, anyway, so that has been my, my framework that has served me really well.

I've heard you say a few different things so far. One of them about, you know, I'm coming back to the word confidence for some reason because it's a self belief thing. It's learning how to, you know, the fear of failure, the fear of judgment, which is all about. Yeah, it's kind of my framework with, with, you know, the greatness mindset is learning how to understand and be aware of, do you fear failure, success or judgment? And they're all kind of intertwined in some way. And when we can learn that, at the root of that is I'm not enough. I'm not enough. And that's why I'm unwilling to take the steps forward to get what I want to Pay the price. So I'm going to wait, I'm going to hesitate. I'm going. Gonna be in friction as opposed to in flow. Right. I'm gonna not put myself out there.

Yeah.

And I get the specific rewards for doing that. Right.

And I.

And I pay a certain price and I get those certain rewards.

Yeah.

How can we then build confidence if we don't understand the skill of confidence and we've never had it?

Okay. I love this. So statement that. That has gone incredibly viral is that you don't build confidence by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by giving yourself a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Outwork yourself, doubt. And so I wholeheartedly reject the notion that you can beat your chest and have charisma, because I believe that confidence without evidence is delusion. Like, if someone says, I can build a skyscraper, and they can say it as confidently as they want, but if they don't know how to build a skyscraper, they're not building a skyscraper. And the best way to know that you can build a skyscraper is having built one before now. You might be like, well, well, what about the first skyscraper? It's like, well, of course he didn't build a skyscraper first. He probably built a half skyscraper before that, or a house, an apartment building. And before that, like a multi, you know, a fourplex. Right. You. You build to it and it. And that concept for me, is what has allowed me to do well in situations where I feel like I didn't deserve to do well. Right. Like, so for the book launch that we were talking about earlier, before we got on, like, you know, if you have 500,000 people, it's a whole city. Right. And I truly. And I. People, can you. Can you watch the vlog? I truly wasn't nervous. And it wasn't because I'm some czar at presenting. It was because I had done the presentation full three times a day for the 30 days leading up to it. So I'd done it once in my mind, once out loud, and recorded it. And then I would watch the recording and then edit my slides every day. Every day.

Wow.

And so when I got there, the staff was like, I've never seen. I'm sharing this because one of the hardest things to do is have context when you don't know anyone else who's doing what you want to be doing in your life. And I'm not saying I'm the person that people are trying to emulate. I'm just saying that maybe there's an element of that they can take from it. Which is when I got there, the staff is like, I've never seen anyone so calm for something so big. And I was like shaking them. I was like, you're good, we're good, we got this, it's going to be okay. And the reason was I was like, I've done this before. I know how this presentation goes. I can say it backwards. And so I don't have to worry about what I'm going to say because I have outworked myself out. And until I felt like, of course this is always how it is. Then you don't feel like, I remember. I'll rewind to the first time outwork your self. Doubt came out in my life. So I gave this presentation to a very small group, 50 people, and a lady in the front row said, you sound so certain, like, how do you get rid of the imposter syndrome? And I had just given a presentation on how our sales process worked at our brick and mortar gyms. And I said, I don't, I'm not, I didn't. First of all, I was like, I don't really understand the question. I was like, I'm just presenting what, what is. I was like, there's not really an opinion. You can't be like, alex, you didn't do that. I was like, I mean, that is what I did. Like, this is the exact process. These are the pages, these are the fob scripts. This is how we schedule this, how we, you know, everything. And so there is nothing to contest. And so if I'm going to make, if I want to make sure that I'm confident in a situation, then let's define confidence as the percentage likelihood that I do what I say I'm going to do. And so I said I was going to present this thing and I want to make sure that I control the controllables. And so for me, because Solomon is always watching, because if I got up there, because I do have at this point, I have presented enough times that I could probably still do a good job. And I think many people would be like, that was awesome. And with not a lot of prep, but I would know and Solomon would know and he wouldn't be proud of me. And so it's the double edged sword of like to make that man proud. The bar is so high for what I have to do that his bar is higher than everyone else's. And so if there are hateful comments or there, whatever, it's like your approval isn't the one that I'm going for.

Right.

And so it shields you because that's, like, that's why you have earned my approval, and that is enough. Wow. And so, like, that's been my shield during that process. And we can talk about the launch stuff later. But there was a key moment, right, where, like, it looked like the world was burning down during the launch.

Really?

Oh, yeah. Well, because I was a. It was a. It was a faux pitch, so I looked like I was doing a huge stack and, you know, price anchoring and adding all these bonuses, and everyone's like, oh, my God, he's a sellout. Blah, blah. Like, it completely turned. And then I gave it away for free. But for 15 minutes, I could see the chat.

This guy's. Yeah, yeah, this is sales paycheck.

Yeah. And I genuinely felt absolutely at peace about it because, one, I knew where we were going, and two, I had done this before. And so me walking through that process is like, it doesn't require confidence. It appears like confidence on the outside, but if everyone saw the amount of hours that went into it, it would seem obvious. And so I think that's the big misnomer is that people are like, he's so confident. Either the guy is confident because he's delusional. And I mean, that is in the truest sense, like, he is claiming he can do something that he has no evidence that he can do, which to me would be delusional, or he had lots of insecurities or concerns about his performance on xyz, and then he tried to simulate that experience as many times as he possibly could until he no longer felt afraid. And so if you want to get rid of a fear of spiders, the way you do that is you lock yourself in a room with spiders and eventually.

And that makes you more terrified. Or eventually.

And eventually you acclimate.

Right? Eventually.

And then you walk out and you're like, I can deal with spiders.

Or you're traumatized.

Either way, over a long enough time horizon, you get. You'd get over it because you'd realize that you didn't die.

Yes.

You'd wake up from a panic attack, and then you'd have another one, and then you have another one, and then eventually, like, here I am.

I'm with the spiders.

Yeah, I'm spider boy. Right.

You know, like, I am Spider Man.

Yeah, it's. And so that. That concept is. Is, I think, at the core. And the reason that people don't like it as much is because it's not romantic. Because it sounds cool to hear me say that I did it three times a day for an entire month beforehand.

But it's not fun.

No.

And it takes you. Takes so much time and energy. It's not. It's not enjoyable.

The rocky cut scene in movies lasts two minutes. In real life, it might be five years. That's true. And so, like, it's really, really cool to watch it for two minutes. But when you're on your seventh month of your business, like, not really making money, and you quit your job and people are judging you and people are telling you, hey, you know, maybe let's be a little more realistic. You know, I think, you know, what if. Hey, come where it's nice and warm and safe. Right? Like, get my approval. Right. Like, get my approval.

Come down here and you're seeing other people succeed or win online. Right.

And you don't see the background. Right. Like, people who see me now in the last 24 months be like, oh, my God, like, he just came out of nowhere. It's like, except for the decade before that, where I built multiple very large companies to gain the credibility to be able to say what I'm saying.

Yeah.

And I think.

And the confidence. Yeah.

From evidence. Right. Like, that's, that's. That. That's like, that's everything.

What would you rather have, a unwavering confidence or a strong mindset?

I don't know if they're different because I think the evidence leads to the confidence and evidence gives you the strong mindset. If someone comes to me and says, alex, you're a short king, I was like, I'm almost six feet tall. Like, I'm not a short king. Like, I don't. I don't need. Like, I'm not going to be hurt by that because I have evidence that I know that's not true. Right. And so I think that a lot of people's feelings get triggered because they don't have that backstop of proof. And so it's like, if you want to be bulletproof, give yourself evidence that you can lean on. So if someone's like, alex, you don't know anything about business, I'd be like, I totally accept that. That's your frame. Here's the evidence that I have, and this is what that marks down on. From a percentile basis of, like, where I'm at versus everyone else. I don't think I know more than a lot of people.

What if you were just starting out.

Yeah.

And everyone was saying, hey, you don't know anything about business. Or marketing or social media or whatever. Relationships, and you don't have evidence.

I would agree with them.

And then you just got to take the time to build the evidence.

They're totally right. And I probably shouldn't talk about. About business and marketing and all these things because I haven't done it. And that's, in my opinion, the big underlying problem with the majority of the influencer world. So there's the entertainers, and then there's the educators. Entertainers do their thing. The educators. I believe that context is the thing that matters most. So, like, for, like, I'm trying to give a really kosher example here. How do I not say names here?

Calling someone.

Yeah. So broad brushstrokes. If an. If somebody gets online and wants to talk about growing their social media, your social media file, and they're like, hey, you need to do this and add these hashtags or whatever, and you see that they have 500 followers on Instagram. I don't need to listen to what they're saying to know that they don't know what they're talking about.

Right.

Like, there was a book that was called how to Market a Book, and it had 14 reviews on Amazon. It'd been out for four years. Right. And I started my presentation with that for the. For the book launch. And I said, this is what I hate, is that I have evidence in the real world that nothing inside of this book works, because if it did work, they would have sold. They would have marketed this book, which they clearly didn't. And so the issue is that there's this big, glaring sign above everything of the content that people are making, which is the context that they're making it in. And so they're trying to be a fitness expert, but they don't really look like they're in shape. Right. They want to be a marriage expert. Except, like, most people see them, you know, like, not. I don't know if I really want that marriage. Right. And so, like, it's way easier to immediately start giving advice to people. And your advice might be valid, but you have no proof. And proof's the hard part. But proof is the only thing that matters in my opinion, and especially in the court of the public. Like Warren Buffett, I don't think is a particularly charismatic individual, but if he gets up and says, hey, guys, this is. You should dollar cost average into the S&P 500 for your investing, somebody might be like, oh, my God, his advice is so simple, like my advice, Michael Hunt, and so much better than Warren Buffett, it's just like, you know what? And it might be, except you just Forgot to build $100 billion company.

He's got proof and credibility, context.

And the reason, like, I've thought about this a lot, and I think the reason the context is so important is it actually becomes a faster and easier decision. So as a consumer, if I'm looking at 100 different information sources, because now information is too much of it. And so we have to segment signal for noise, right? Okay, how can I get all this noise out so I can just hear the stuff I want to? Well, the first thing you want to do is go to a trusted source. And so if this is the richest man or top five richest men in the world and he's giving investing advice, I don't actually have to take each kernel of advice and weigh it and say, do I agree with this? Do I not agree with this? You can actually take it pretty close to his truth because he has so much authority that you think, okay, I will take this as is, which is less cognitive effort than listening to a teacher, no offense to teachers giving investing advice who barely has a million dollars saved up. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. But I don't think I can actually almost guarantee that your investing advice will never get as much press as Warren Buffett's. Even if your content and the production and your hashtags and all the other things are perfect, you lack the one thing that matters most, which is proof, proof, credibility. And that's the part that takes five years or 10 years, because now Ray Dalio can get up here and talk. And Ray, you know, Ray doesn't care. I mean, I saw. I'll do. I'll tell a quick story to wrap this radalio up. I saw this dude on TikTok, white guy, older dude, and he was giving financial advice, and these TikTok comments were just destroying him. He was talking about how to, like, prepare for an economic thing, whatever. And so people are just. Just savage, right? The guy was Ray Dalio, really? Because at the end of the day, everyone who doesn't know who you are doesn't know who you are. And it makes sense that they would be skeptical because many people in the past have been fakers. And so to want to win in the court of public opinion, especially if you're coming up even with all the proof in the world, doesn't matter, because they don't know yet, which is why you have to know so that you can take it, because, you know he's worth 38 billion. If they're like, you don't know what you're talking about. He's like, doesn't mattered by this. Yeah.

I don't care about your opinion or your approval.

Right. Your opinion is irrelevant because I have facts.

Yes.

Now, if he was worth $10, it would probably destroy him because they're right.

That's true.

And I think that's really what a lot of people reject. The. The opinion of, like, if I had, you know, massive ears or something, you know, like, I mean, people right now, they're like, oh, Alex is on trend gear. Steroids, whatever. Right. Like, that's the. That's, you know, some of the comments that I'm trying to. Does that mean it's just a. It's a steroid.

Okay. Trend gear.

Yeah.

Like a steroid term.

Yeah. Yes. So there's. There's Captain America gear and there's Iron man gear. Iron man gear is a suit. Captain America. Gill, you're in Jackson.

Oh, gosh. I'm like, no, sorry, I know nothing about.

I go to the fitness world. Yeah, it's so.

So they're saying you're on steroids.

Right, Right. And the answer is, like, it makes sense that they would say that because I probably have more muscle than most of the people that they know, and most people have lots of muscle. Take steroids, especially the professionals.

Yeah.

So, like, should I be angry with them? No, it makes absolute sense that they would make that conclusion. So why can I be. Why should I be upset by that? I agree with you. Right. I do look like a tickster. Thank you. Like, would I rather them think I'm. They're like, oh, we know he's natural. Like, like, would I rather have the.

Reverse send it to me? I'm like, okay, yeah.

And so anyways, all that, all that, all that. To say that the hard work is in accumulating the undeniable stack of evidence that you are who you say you are, and the first person you have to convince is you. Because if you sell you because you know what you did to get here, then everyone else's opinion just doesn't matter.

What if you're always trying to seek the approval of someone else as well as you?

I think it's a trade off over time. I mean, I don't want to pretend like I. I don't seek approval from others. I think it's.

But you used to, you know, you talked about in the previous episode about, you know, really wanting to see the approval of your father and try to Vanquish him eventually. Right. Should we be seeking the approval of other people or is it more about our future self?

I think that the approval seeking behavior is super difficult to break in general because as children, we are trained to be humans through approval. Right. Like you did. Well, you did not. Like. And that's how you learn how to.

Be human to survive.

Right? Exactly. Don't cross the street. Yeah. I mean, like, there's so many reinforcing events that, that make it that I will listen to the opinion of others. You get older, you find out that they don't know what they're talking about. But I think that there's the reason that a lot of people who are like really into classical religions is that they just switch who they get approval from. They get approval from their heavenly Father, which you might as well say that Solomon for me is my heavenly father in my own way. I just, you know, characterize the future version of myself that is idealized and ask him what he thinks I should do. But fundamentally, I don't know if I've necessarily gotten rid of that approval. I've just shifted where I try to get it from.

So you're not seeking from others like audiences that you don't know. You're seeking from your internal self. Yeah, that's big.

But if you're real about it, if you're really real about it, then I think it's the highest bar. Because that guy knows whether you cut corners. That guy knows whether you could have done another rewrite of the book. That guy knows if you could have just taken a little bit more time to make this better. That guy knows if you could have prepped for that interview longer than you did. And so if you can earn that guy's approval, then you walk into the interview completely unshaken because you already won. Because that guy knows what you did to get there. And so then you can be loosey goosey, Right.

Be relaxed and not stressed about it.

Perspective.

What else do you think keeps people trapped in not reaching their potential?

So if we were to take the reverse of like what guarantees someone success? Right. It would be that they do the things that create success. And so I think we'd have to boil it down to what are the obstacles to taking action? So either you take the wrong actions, which is a knowledge deficit, which is why everyone who's listening to this, it's like, you want to learn. Right. Which is great. And just for some fun definitions for everyone here, I define learning as same circumstance or same condition, different behavior, meaning if I show you a flashcard that's red and then I slap you. If I show you the flashcard again and you duck, then you have learned same condition, new behavior. Intelligence is the rate of learning. So how quickly do you change your behavior with the same condition? So if I show someone a red flashcard and then I slap them and then I showed them again, they don't move and I slap them. I showed again, and I slap them like, what are you, Right? The rate of learning is not as fast. And so to the same degree. And this is for. I know this is going to. I'm going to. I'm going to poke my finger in this hole real quick for everyone who's listening to this. If you continue to listen and listen and listen and listen, and your conditions externally have not changed and your behaviors have not changed, then it means you have learned nothing.

You've learned it, but you haven't applied it.

Definition, same condition, new behavior. If the behavior doesn't change, you did not learn. You spent time watching something.

Yeah, sure, heard it, but you haven't learned it, right?

You learn through a change in behavior. And so going back to, why are. Why do people not change their behavior? I think that there's. Sure, there's lots of fear of punishment from. And so, like, you can try and take this apart as saying, okay, I need to increase the reward. I need to decrease the punishment that people associate with taking action, right? So it's like, okay, the whole first part of this conversation was about decreasing the punishment associated with taking action. And to a degree, if you can make approval of yourself higher than other people, then that also gives you a reward for taking action. Now, there's also an element of ignorance, which is like, you might take the wrong action, but I can promise you, if you're taking action, you'll figure it out pretty quick. Like that part.

This isn't working. Okay, let me try this thing.

The third piece is environment, which is at the most mental extreme level. If I'm chained to a wall, right? And someone says, go pick up the soda over there, I might have all the right skills in the world to do it, but I have environmental conditions that prevent me from doing it. And so it's like, I don't have a fear. I have a clear reward. I have the skills to do it, but I have environmental conditions that prevent me. And so one of the easiest ways to change behavior is to change your environment. Like, if I. So B.F. skinner is a really famous behavioralist, and he came on the space and got A lot of flack, because he had very controversial views. But he has this quote that is just like he says. You know the old saying, if you lead a horse to water, you can. The old saying is, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. He said, well, if I bled the horse and I dehydrated it enough and I put the water right in front of its mouth, he said, I can veritably guarantee that I can make a drink. And the idea there is that if you can control enough of the environment, you can get anyone to do anything, which is to the same degree. We even kind of accept this culturally as, like, if someone kills somebody, we say, was there temporary insanity? What were the extraneous conditions that created this behavior? Now, if there's like, he, you know, he came home from the military and his wife was in bed with somebody, and he just went into a fit of rage. Well, that was a condition. Now we then say the guy who, you know, premeditated, and that, that's a bad guy. But then you zoom out a little bit more and you're like, well, what conditions created that behavior?

Right?

So these conditions are excusable, and these conditions aren't, which gets into a whole different argument. But the point is, is that if you want to change your behavior, the strongest way to do it is to simply change your environment. Because you can have huge leaps and bounds in how much your behavior changes without even having to get better. Which is why one of the best ways to get good at anything is to join a team of people who are excellent at that thing. And you know this from the sports world. Like, if you can join a championship team, you automatically adopt the cultural norms, the rules of behavior of that group, and you either get assimilated or you get rejected if the culture's strong enough. Championship team. And so that is the fact now, if you get into that team and all of a sudden your. Your game just levels up, you know, five, you know, five years faster than it would otherwise. Is it because you've inherently changed or because you change your environment? And so I think that that is the absolute shortcut that the cheat code to getting what you want is changing everything around you. So, like, if everybody around you is poor, don't listen to them about how to get rich, and don't seek their approval for your behavior, because everything that they're going to approve of is keeping you where you're at. And so I think if you. If you have enough money to leave home, then do so if you can't leave the town you're in, then move across town, just go 30 minutes away, just go on the other side of town. Make it more convenient to do the things that you want to do. Make it less convenient to hang out with the people and do the stuff that you don't want to be doing. And if you do enough of those, make it easier, make it harder, trade offs, eventually you start doing more of the stuff that you want to do and less the stuff you don't. And that compounds. And I think a lot of times that is a lot easier than trying to willpower your way through anything, because willpower is finite. But if you can change the environment, it actually makes it easier. So you're actually not using any willpower. If there are, if there is no ice cream in the freezer and you have to get in your car to then go somewhere to get the. Like, it's a lot harder. It's a bigger thing, right? So it's like, how can I make it as inconvenient as possible to do the things that I don't want to.

Do that I know are going to influence me to do bad things as well. Just got to delete postmates next.

And so that's like the triangle. If I was looking at somebody who, like, why, like why are you not doing what you want to do?

What's the triangle?

You fear some sort of punishment which we can reframe as failure isn't failure. Only your fear of judgment upon failure is the thing that you're afraid of. You can reframe reward as like, I want to get my own approval rather than some external outcome. Because if you knock on 100 doors and you don't make a sale and you're getting into solar sales now, you might have gotten rid of the fear of rejection, but you haven't gotten the win yet. And you're like, oh, maybe this isn't for me. And so if you can change what you're measuring yourself on to the activities rather than to the outcome, you say, I'm the type of person who will continue to do without seeing the result of my doing, then the world will belong to you. Because there's only a handful of people who can keep working and keep doing without seeing the external benefit. And those are the people who can.

Beat everyone and they win every time they win.

And then the third piece is the environment. So if I can, if I can increase the reward, which you can do through reframing it and redefining what you reward yourself by the activities and the controllables. If you decrease the punishment of the things that you're afraid of and reframe that punishment as, what if it wasn't a problem to begin with? What if you agree with them that you don't have evidence they're right, that's okay. And you get out of the environment that continues to shape your behavior in the direction you don't want to. You do those three things to likely be able to change your behavior that people do every day that they hate doing. Like, and a big one. A big misnomer, I think, is that people think they need to have a new thing. You can start a cleaning business, become a billionaire. You can start a lawn care business, become a billionaire. You can start a roofing business, become a billionaire. Like, there's clear problems. Like, all you have to do is just do what everyone else is doing. Learn how to sell, learn how to deliver consistently, and learn how to lead. If you do those three things, you can do just as well as everyone else and just do it better.