The COMMON HABITS That Keep People POOR! (How To Become Wealthy) | Alex Hormozi & Lewis Howes

This is like when we talk about these perspectives that we have that are false that we think are true. Like this is what I thought reality was and it was false. And I've tried to, I couldn't even fathom the goal because literally how I thought I was achieved was wrong.

You don't make a billion dollars.

I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really? Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. I made this tweet that was just like how to stay poor, right? 'Cause I'm a big Charlie Munger guy. 'Cause everyone's like, I was talking about how to get rich. I was like, let me tell you how to get poor. Like no one's ever told you how to get poor. I'll tell you how to stay poor, right? And so I made a tweet and it blew up. And so then the next day I made another tweet on how to stay poor and then it blew up again and then I made another tweet. And so like 28 days in a row, I just tweeted another way to stay poor and it ended up becoming this big thing and we made a video on YouTube and I just consolidated all 28. And so they're surprisingly simple and the reason I talk about them in the anti is that Charlie Munger talks about inversion thinking. And so when we try and solve problems, It's actually easier to solve them in reverse. And especially when it comes to like making money and things like that, because we are naturally programmed to look out for threats. And so it's so much easier for us to find problems in things than it is like, why is it so much harder to be grateful than it is to find problems?

Sure.

So easy to find problems. But you can trick your mind into using that naturally ingrained mechanism, but to make you prosper, but you just trick it by saying, I want you to tell me how to stay poor. And you're like, Hey, Brain, tell me how to destroy my business. And you think about every way that you could destroy your business. And if you really want to add a little juice to it, you say, how could I destroy my business in as few decisions as possible? And then you reverse those decisions and you say, these are the strategic anchors that fuel our business. Right? Like if I had an email marketing business, like the first thing I would do is stop sending emails, right? That's the first thing I would do. The second thing I would do is probably treat my entire team like crap. And if I didn't incentivize them to do things that would be against the benefit of the business. So it's like you think through those few moves that would have the biggest swing on destroying your business and those become the anchors for your strategy. So from a personal perspective, you can think about the same way in terms of like, rather than saying like, I want to get rich, how do I get rich? It's like, how do I stay poor and then avoid that and then by default become rich?

Do the opposite.

So number one is how to stay poor, start tomorrow. Whatever it is.

Ooh, that's a good one.

Just start tomorrow. Whatever, even if it's, yeah, just wait. Find, number one. Number two, read books, do nothing. So just keep reading, keep consuming, take no action. It's the best way to just stay poor, right? Because that one's a good one, because it makes you feel like you're making progress, but you're still poor because you didn't do anything. Next one, take advice from poor people on how to get rich. Right? Best people to talk to, right? And all your friends are poor, you should totally listen to them on how to get rich because they've never achieved it, so you should listen to them. It's a great way to stay poor. They have no idea. Right?

Right?

Don't listen. And obviously with each of these you can take the equal opposite. And so instead of targeting tomorrow, start today. Instead of reading books and doing nothing, read the books and then take immediate action. Instead of taking advice from poor people on how to get rich, take advice from rich people on how to get rich. Number four, how to stay poor. Pick a spouse who makes you feel guilty about working. Oh man, that's the worst. Yeah, have the number one person who literally influences you more than anyone else, make you feel terrible about the thing that's going to help you achieve your goal. That's what you should do. Of course, you want to find somebody who supports your goal who's either in it with you or they're cheering you on from the sidelines. And the real thing is that most people don't even have a cheerleader. Most people have somebody who's at home doesn't even have the channel turned to the game that they're playing on and is just calling their cell phone the whole time while they're on the game and the game's on the line, they're trying to make this winning pass and trying to get them to get out of the game when the game's on the line. That's what most people have. And so, like, people think they have a cheerleader when, like, most people just benefit from not even having a liability, just a neutral. Yes. Number five, think the world is fair. Most people will sit there and complain for years about how the world isn't fair, rather than accepting the fact the world isn't fair and then making money as a result of that.

Yes.

Right? They just sit there. Fail once, quit forever. Great one for staying poor. So you finally get the mojo to actually start, fail once, and then just quit. Just do that. Because that'll help you stay poor. Because the worst thing you could do is try again. Because if you try it again, you might get rich. Right? How to stay poor. Expect the government to save you. Handouts, bailouts, yeah, because that's gonna get you rich is literally something that doesn't provide money handing you money. You have to provide value to get rich. It's never gonna get disproportionately shifted to you. How to stay poor, value the opinion of others over your own. It's a great one, because all the people around you, especially if you're poor, probably are also poor and you should value their opinions who don't like the stuff that you're doing that makes them feel bad about themselves. because when you start working, you stop not drinking, you start going to exercise, start eating healthier, you start listening to podcasts, you start watching YouTube videos, they walk into your room, Hey, why don't you watch Netflix? Like, all right, I just, I wanna watch this right now. Oh, come on, more of that motivation stuff? Like, yeah, just get people like that in your corner and they will just beat you down until eventually you won't be successful.

So that'll just keep you there.

It's a good one to have in your back pocket.

How to stay for it?

Avoid discomfort. As soon as it gets uncomfortable, just stop. Stop. Stop.

Stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Stop.

Stop. Stop.

Stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Stop. Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop. Ick. Yucky bears. How to stay poor. Make promises, break promises, repeat. That's it. So just keep making promises and then breaking them. Break them over and over.

Break them over and over.

Yeah. And especially to yourself.

Yes.

How to stay poor. Tolerate mediocrity from yourself first and foremost and others.

There you go.

Yeah, I mean it's the best thing to do. It's just a bunch of mediocre people around you and especially yourself. How to stay poor, blame your circumstances. That's it. Blame everybody. Put all the power that would normally be in you and give it something that you have no control over. It's a winner, it's a great combo. This is a good one. How to stay poor, wait for perfect conditions. Oh yes.

I mean, they're coming, eventually.

Eventually they're coming. And you know what it also means is that if you wait for perfect conditions, it means that if in the future after you've started in your perfect condition, if the conditions become imperfect again, it assumes that you'll stop. Yeah, perfect. Right. It's just like saying, I'll start when I'm not as busy. It's like, does that mean that when you get busy again in the future, you're gonna stop? For all those people who are trying to start their weight loss journey, by the way. If you want it to be forever, then you have, this is a belief I can give to the audience real quick. If you want it to be forever, then you have to assume that you're going to be busy again in the future. And so if you want to endure, the best time to start is when you're busy. Because then you learn how to do it when you're busy so that when you're not busy, it's easy. And when you're busy again, you can think, I've already done this before. I know I can get through it because I've done it. I have evidence. Right. So it's one of my favorite ones. How to support. Do what everyone else is doing. It's just such an easy one. Nothing unique. No, just do what everyone else is doing. Because I mean, think about it.

If you want to be the top.

1%, don't act like the 1%. Act like the 99. Yeah, absolutely. That's the easiest way. Yeah, just emulate the people who are also not succeeding. It's just a winning combo. How to stay poor. Avoid working on what matters most. So take action.

Just distract yourself sometimes, yeah.

100% just do busy work. Do things that don't actually add value. Do stuff that just like gets your juices flowing but actually doesn't drive the business because you just love continually editing the same thing over and over again rather than just making the 100 cold calls that you said you were gonna do and you haven't done for 10 days straight. Instead of doing that, which you know is gonna make you more money, Be afraid of it and avoid working on it.

Absolutely.

There you go.

It's perfect.

It's a winning combo. How does a day work? Do your best, not what it takes. So many people, they're like, I did my best. And the real talk is like, did you really? And then the second line underneath of that is that oftentimes when we start, our best is beneath what is required. And the sub-sub answer of that is that we just need to be better. Absolutely. And so rather than, than wanting, you know, like it's the classic, like don't want it to be easier, you know, want to be better, but it really does come down to that. A lot of people lament the fact that their best was given and it was not enough, and they lament the game rather than lamenting themselves and being like, how do I improve? How to save for, oh, this is a good one. Prioritize looking rich over being rich. Yeah.

Buy the Gucci bags, buy the fancy cars, and just go into debt.

Spend the small amount of excess money you have on looking wealthy rather than increasing your earning capacity. Absolutely. It's just, it's the fastest way. Because then also, then you'll never be able to get out of it. Yeah, that's right. Because you're stuck in these leases and you don't have excess cash flow to actually invest in the earnings power. So you basically just sit there looking rich and being poor the whole time and then you also feel like a fraud. Which is a nice, it's just a side note.

Yeah, yeah, it's a real, it's what I recommend.

Side quest. Yeah, side quest. How to save poor. Be born in a dead end town, don't move.

Stay there.

Stay there.

Stay in the bad environment.

Yeah. It's just, I mean, if you're like, I want to get in show business and I'm in Cincinnati, it's like, then stay in Cincinnati. Perfect. Best thing you can do. How to stay poor. Say you're gonna do something, don't do it. That's just a winner. That's a timeless classic. How to stay poor. Talk more, do less. Especially if you can talk publicly. You know what I mean?

And do nothing as a result of it. That one always works.

Say the things you're gonna do and just never do them. Yeah, 'cause it actually makes you feel better to tell people that you're gonna do them, 'cause it makes you feel like you're doing them by telling them, but reality hasn't changed at all, but you feel better. And it's a great way to stay poor, 'cause it satisfies that temporary itch, right? When you feel bad, you talk about it more. Right. And then you feel better.

I'm gonna do this.

Yeah, 'cause then you feel better about it once you've talked. How to stay poor. Start something new today, start something new tomorrow. Repeat.

Every day start something new.

100%, start building that bridge. and then start building another bridge tomorrow and another bridge, and then you look back five years from now and you have a whole bunch of half-built bridges and no dollars that ever came across. That's great. But the nice thing is that makes you feel like you're making progress because you have all these half-built bridges. So I think that's a good one if you want to save money because you could stay busy on that one for a long time. A long time. Yeah, because if you focused on something, you might actually follow through and then you might make money. And so that's not the goal of staying poor. So you have to do that. How to support, believe what other people think of you more than what you think of you. Right. Yeah. Because those opinions are so important, you know?

Your parents especially, so deep.

Controversies on the internet. Oh, absolutely.

How can they say is so... Read.

And believe all the comments. Read and believe.

That should be another one.

I should probably add that to it. How to support be replaceable. This is also really for the employees. If you can think of a way that you can do the same thing everyone else can do and do it a little bit worse, I mean- that's easy. Yeah, it's a good way to stay poor. How to stay poor, complain about things you can control, and then don't change them. Yeah. Yeah. So, can I control what I put in my mouth?

What I eat? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, but I don't wanna change them.

You could complain about it though. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, there you go, got it. How to stay poor, make a mistake, repeat the mistake. Every day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially if you date a certain kind.

Of person, it's always the same person.

Just do it again. Just do it again. Do it again. Yeah, you get stuck in a certain point of business because you always get sidetracked and you start some side thing and then both things explode. Do it again. You know what I mean? Like, you hire a terrible manager that has these traits, hire them again, right?

Looks like the same person, just repeat it over and over again.

It'll just ensure that you're stuck in the same place. Just keep giving them more and more chances. Yeah, even better, right?

When they come back begging, just let them back in. How to stay poor.

Assume you're always right. Always right. Yeah. Even if I'm wrong, assume I'm right. Yeah. And if somebody has advice who's further along than you, don't listen. Yeah, I mean, 'cause you're always right, and what would they know? They've never lived your life. They've never gone through what you're about to go through. The best thing to do is experience.

Every mistake for yourself. Never have a mentor.

Right, I mean, we could do that. That's 29. Oh yeah, that's right. How to stay poor, find something that works, stop doing it. Because the thing is, if you find something that works, the best thing to do, 'cause like, if you did it.

Again, you might build momentum.

Right, right, right. And then you can do that. Right, and then volume starts increasing, you start getting better at it. You gotta nip that in the bud. If something works, get distracted and stop doing it. It's a great one. How to say poor, hire dumb people. This one is just, I mean, nothing destroys a company faster than you trying to destroy it, than having lots of people trying to destroy it at the same time. Because it's a more efficient way to destroy business than you just, because you only have two hands. But if everyone is destroying the building and the company, you can do it way faster. Need permission to be rich. Wait for somebody to make room for you. Wait for somebody to invite you to a seat at the table. Wait for those podcasts to just invite you. Wait for permission because everybody at the top wants to see you there too. Yeah, there you go. Right. Last one, how to save for focus on your lack of resources rather than your lack of resourcefulness.

Ooh, that's a good one. What's the one that you would add to it that has come to you in the last you know, period of time.

Change my mind when it feels hard. Whenever something feels hard, change direction.

Do you think affirmations help people make more money or have more belief in themselves to be able to earn potential?

I think if they believe they do, they do. So it's like, you know, I think Adel McRaven said, you know, he had that clip that went viral that, like, everything starts with, you know, making her bed. Making your bed. Exactly. And if you make making your bed mean I am somebody who follows through with my commitments, if I start with making my bed, then the next thing's gonna get easier. And those are the things that you believe as a result of making your bed, then by all means. But making your bed does not make you sell more stuff. Making your bed does not make you make more content. Making your bed does not get you to improve your product. But if you make making your bed mean something else, then sure. But I try to cut as many of those transmutations out and just get to the core as fast as I can.

Just take action.

Right. Yeah, which is like, how do we wake up and then do the thing?

Yeah, exactly.

So that's, you know, so to the degree, affirmations are important. I think they're important if the person thinks they're important. But I think the thing that affirmations are linked to are the beliefs that we have about ourselves. And so that belief that you have needs to be reshaped into something closer to what reality reflects. which you can either do by the stories we tell ourselves, right? It can be by the evidence that you present yourself, which is something that I obviously cling very hard to, evidently. Or it can be something that probably has been something that you've been told your whole life that you don't even know you believe, which is my other favorite quote. The one that'll probably be my tombstone is we question all of our beliefs except for those that we truly believe and those we never think to question. Who's that by? Orson Scott Card.

Speaking of the beliefs we were taught as kids, do you think you ever want to have kids?

Right now, no. Eventually, maybe. But at this season, if Layla got pregnant tomorrow, we'd have the kid. You know what I mean? But it's right now, like our baby is acquisition.com and all the stuff we're putting out. And we went to Tony Robbins thing and talked about the six human needs, and both of us were looking at it and we're like, this is why we haven't had the desire to have kids because it made sense to us.

It's not in your needs.

It's because all of our needs are being met through the machine. One of the things too is because Layla works with me, a lot of times entrepreneurs, Tony was talking about this, how many entrepreneurs don't have this huge desire to have kids. Some of them do, but many of them don't. So they have kids because their wife wants to have kids because not all of her human needs are being met. Right. And so that's where you get a little bit of friction, that's okay. But for us, since we're both in the business, I mean, Layla's CEO, I'm really just founder. And she definitely does more actual work than I do in terms of running this of the business. So we both get our contribution, all the aspects of human needs from that. And so for now, we're good just playing the game.

Based on what you were taught from your parents, around money based on what you know now, obviously not a parent yet, what would be three things you would want to instill in your kids or that you wish parents taught their kids about money?

About money.

To set them up for good beliefs around money so that at least they have a good foundation.

Yeah. I had very good personal finance hygiene that was taught from my parents. Another thing I was given, right? So number one is just spend significantly less than you make. I always did that. I got that just as a gift for coming into the world.

You didn't need more to feel good. You didn't need to buy more things.

That was always disconnected for me. My dad lived super cheap and I was used to that. He lived far below his earning capacity. So spend less than you make, number one. The second one is, I mean, it's what we were saying, which is that excess money, like we'll talk about investing, like the best investment is in increasing your earning capacity, is that you should be able to take that money and then invest it in a skill that makes you more money over time than it costs you to get it. Number two. Number three is that the fastest way to make more money is to gain access or buy access to communities of people who are making more money. because there are so many intangibles that come from those communities, masterminds, Facebook groups, whatever you can get access to, that you'll learn so many perspectives that you have that are wrong. Like it's too hard to quantify one because there's thousands of micro-beliefs. And so it's spend less than you make, take the money that you're now saving and invest it in your earning capacity and then get around those people who you want to emulate who are all on the same path as you. Because one of the best ways to become an amazing swimmer is to join a champion swim team. Because you get all, like Angela Duckworth looked at this inside of grit, that book, her book. It's like one of the best ways is that you just adopt all of the culture, the beliefs of the group of people who are further ahead. And so those are the three things that probably the biggest influence.

What's the thing to look out for for people that earn a lot of money if they're not prepared for the money? what is the biggest challenge that might happen to them if they're not emotionally, psychologically, physically prepared for money, big amounts of money that come into their lives?

I think you have to have a plan for the money. You got to know what you're going to do with it. So if you're having an exit or something like that, I think there's two big things. One is if you're actually exiting a business per se, I think you need to have a plan of what you're going to do next. 'Cause the big difference I see between the entrepreneurs who had big exits and are awesome now and are even better than the ones who haven't, is that they had a plan of what they were gonna do next. So I feel really grateful because I'm happier now than I was even when I had the first business, because I knew this is what I wanted to do and that's part of the reason why I sold it. 'Cause I was more excited about this than my current thing and I couldn't live like that. I was more excited about what I wanted to build. And so, I mean, to be fair, the day that I'm more excited about something else than acquisition.com, then you'll move on to it. Then I'll move on. Because how big this bone is, I think I can keep my vision big enough that I can keep reinventing it anyways. So one is having a plan for what you're going to do next, and then the second is having a plan for the money that you get. And now those might not be necessarily mutually exclusive. Like part of the money you get might be to invest in the next thing you want to do, but I think just having a plan for it rather than just being surprised by it and then trying to figure it out once you have it. Because the emotions around getting it, also shift your thinking. So it's better, in my opinion, to plan for it before you have the emotional experience because we're human, we experience things and that impacts our thinking in a negative way from a logic perspective. So we can make the plan before we become emotional and we can always go back to the plan that we made when we weren't, when we didn't have those feelings.

Real quick, I got a question for you. What if I told you one of the key secrets to making more money has to do with your mindset? I've spoken with some of the most successful entrepreneurs and investors and thought leaders over on the School of Greatness podcast over the past 10 years. And there's no doubt about it, your mindset absolutely matters. And that's why my team and I created the quiz to find your money mindset for you. It's totally free and it's a valuable way to understand your own unique perspective about money, abundance, and financial freedom. So if you want to learn more about your money mindset, Click the link to get started right now. What happens when we tie our emotions around the money that comes in? Like we're so excited or we're scared of it. What happens when emotions are connected to money in a negative way?

Well, when it goes away, you feel worse about yourself. What's interesting about that question, the reason I was hesitating is because almost every guy that I know who's had a windfall of some kind, some big wins, some big cash thing, almost all of them. Actually, I haven't had any of them that I've met to this point say they felt any different. And I think it's because you don't have context to process the information. Because it's so much, typically if it's a big windfall, it's so much outside of your realm of understanding size that you get basically no reading. Neutral. You're just neutral. No one's happy, no one's sad. They're just like, yeah, then a whole bunch of money showed up. Right. Right, now what do I do? Right? I guess I'm the same as it was yesterday. Like you realize that nothing actually changes in your life. Then you get evidence that nothing changed and you're like, oh shoot, I guess I have to deal with all these.

Other things anyways, right? Yeah, and it's getting back to like, what's my purpose now?

What's my vision now? Once you sell the thing, yeah. But I will say that you get a certain amount of credibility, which is helpful, right? That absolutely does help, especially if that's aligned with what you want to do next. You know, I got so much more credibility for Gym Launch when we sold. than we had when we owned it, even though technically my net worth was higher when I owned it because I hadn't had a tax event as a result of the liquidity. And so technically, I was richer before I did the sale, but I got more credibility after.

So just kind of interesting. So you said you want to do a billion and then to get it to 10 billion, what will you do with the billion and what will you.

Do with the 10 billion once you have it? What's the plan? So I won't have it because it'll just be the asset that I own, right? And so, all we're going to do is just keep doubling down on the main thing. I mean, the big epiphany that I had was I had probably three stages of my own development in terms of understanding a billion dollars, right? Because when I started out, billion dollars was like even too hard to even fathom, right? But then I started to think, okay, to be a billionaire, I have to make a billion dollars a year. That's what I thought being a billionaire was. That was the first thing. That's not true. This is like when we talk about these perspectives that we have that are false that we think are true, like this is what I thought reality was, and it was false. And I've tried to, I couldn't even fathom the goal because literally how I thought I was achieved was wrong. You don't make a billion dollars, you own worth a billion dollars. That's how you become a billionaire. So just fundamentally even the words and the verbs we use to describe the outcome are different. Huh, interesting. Second phase for me was I have to make a billion, $2 billion over my career, which after taxes are worth a billion dollars. That was my second phase of thinking what a billionaire was. In the third phase, which is my current one, hopefully, maybe I'll have one later. Is that you just have to own assets that other people would pay you a billion dollars for. Now that I also understand how businesses are valued, et cetera, for a business to be worth a billion dollars conservatively, you'd probably have to do about $80 million a year in profit, in EBITDA. That would be valued at 12 and a half times, which is pretty conservative.

Depending on the industry you're in.

Yeah, and you look at the S&P 500, companies that are being publicly traded right now, 20 is fairly normal in the stock market for companies of that size. you might be able to do it at $50 million in EBITDA to have a billion dollar valuation. For me, I've set the goal at $100 as my tactical goal. So I need to do $2 million a week in earned income from the assets that we have. And then that conglomeration of assets would be worth at least $1 billion, probably two, realistically. So that's the path to $1 billion now as I understand it. And you can see the evolutions of just even thinking through it. And you're not even making it. you're owning the thing because it's worth that. Sure, sure, sure.

What do you think are the three biggest skills you need to develop personally over the next few years?

Yeah.

That will help you get there as well besides the one we already talked about.

Yeah. Well, I mean, to consolidate that one, it's I have to be more comfortable with risk. I am more risk averse and I think I need to be more willing to go all in than I am. And so I have to be willing, I have to be willing to put more on the line. Period.

How much more do you need to put on the line you think? How uncomfortable do you think you need to be for a few months until you feel like, okay, I'm more comfortable at this baseline now?

Very. Yeah, I mean, I'm super risk-averse. I am. Like, I'm so afraid of being poor. I'm so afraid of being poor. I've made all this money. That's how afraid of being poor I am. You can measure how afraid of poor I am. Very. But yeah, so the risk aversion piece is number one, is the thing that probably has to change. that's the biggest one. I mean, that's really the biggest. 'Cause the other ones are tactical, you know what I mean? It's like, okay, I need to create more unique content around certain subjects that I wanna make. So I have some shows and stuff that are coming out, very excited about it. Ooh, nice. Yeah, very cool. So that is one of the things, in terms of talent, it goes back to risk. But Layla was talking to somebody who is dating the Former CEO of a massive top 10 company in the US, or like huge company. And she was saying that he doesn't hire anybody who doesn't make half a million dollars or more minimum. Like he doesn't even have them around him. And I love that.

At the company. I mean like his senior leadership team.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it was just, he actually ended up just recently quitting and starting his own startup. And so he ended up flying 50 of the top candidates in from like Harvard and like all these places. doing a full day of interviews with 50 candidates and then picking the 10 that he wanted or the five that he wanted to do his next thing. And all of them are like 500 base with multiple million dollars that they can make a year. And so for me, my perspective on talent has consistently increased. Now I have some employees that can make a million dollars a year, like right now, but not all of them. And so I just think that from a perspective standpoint, I have to be more comfortable with even higher levels of players on my team.

Who can execute high level tasks. Exactly.

That you don't have the time for. And it's because of risk. You know what I mean? Because whenever you, you know, it's always expensive. What if they don't mess up? It's 100%. Like when you hire a million dollar employee, you're making a million dollar per year bet that you're going to make more than that on the talent that they're bringing to the table. Now, all the best investments I've made have been, besides in myself, have been in other people. You know what I mean? All of them across the board. But I still have that fear. You know what I mean? I have one or two employees that'll.

Cross a million, you know, in income.

Not all of them, right?

And they're the ones who are generating the most sales and bringing in the most revenue for you.

Yeah, they're the most strategic. I can trust them to lead because they have that skill, which means that I get even more leverage. You know what I mean? Because they can go in, parachute, already know what the problem is, already know what the solution is, build the team around it, and then they can lead it. I'm not involved at all. And that's the difference. And so, I remember this is, I think it'll be an interesting corollary, but like, Or a side note. But like, I remember when I hired my, you know, my first $50,000 year employee, because everybody before that was all minimum wage. And I heard, fire my first $50,000 year employee. And I was like, whoa. And yeah, and then I got so much out, I was like, this is, this is what I'm talking about. I need somebody like this. And then I hired my first $70,000 year employee. And I was like, oh my God, like that is what I need. I need more people like this. Then I hired my first six figure year employee. And it was like, okay, six figures has got to be the new benchmark. and then it was my first $250,000 a year employee. And then my first $500,000 a year employee. And then hearing this story about 500 base with, you know, almost unlimited cap on all of these different roles of everyone being, you know, a million, two million a year plus, it's just another-- Right. It's funny, it's like I have to-- it sounds ridiculous, but like, I have to learn these lessons at every level. You know what I mean? We all do. Yeah, yeah. And every time I think-- and I'm sure there's another one that's like, yeah, don't take anyone who gets paid less than 10 million.

Like if they're not getting paid less than 10 million, what are we talking about? Based on the scale you're at-- I mean, these people have, you know, 15-20 years of experience probably they've done this before. So it's all based on where you're at. Some people when you're starting out, you might need a minimum wage person. Totally. You can't afford these things. Of course. But it's based on where you're at, the risk you're willing to invest in. And I have friends who have like, I have a good buddy of mine who went on a four-month hiring process to find like a $350,000 lead of his team, right? He hired the recruiter, which is expensive. Then he did three or four months of interview process. This guy was like a former vice president at some big company. That was exactly what he wanted. And after three months, it didn't work out. And he spent all this money and he gave this big salary and it didn't work out. And so you have to also be aware that not everyone is going to be this, oh, they're outperforming everyone else. And if I could just find more people and pay them all this money, you have to learn the skill of leading. You have to learn the skill of culture, of building, of also managing, or having someone else who can do that. So, yes, and it's also a risk.

We had a CTO that we hired for our software company that we ended up selling. We paid, I think, $140,000 for just a headhunter, just for that headhunter. That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, it's tech, you know what I mean, to get that kind of talent.

Just to find the talent.

Just to find the talent, not even pay him, just find the talent. And we fired him three days later.

Oh my gosh.

And that was after three or four months of interviews and vetting, all that stuff. And it was just, we just immediately were like, this was wrong. It was immediately wrong. And so yeah, I've been there. It sucks.

And it's not fun.

Yeah.

And I think this is the risk of being an entrepreneur. It's not for everyone.

Right.

Not easy at times.

Yeah.

It can be, you know, that's why a lot of people fail at it or they're just like, oh, this is not for me. Yeah. And I respect that, too. It is freaking hard, man. Every day you've got to overcome a challenge. Yeah.

You know, one of the things that Layla said yesterday in her talk is she's like, you know, if I had one thing that I would, I'd wish it would be, like, left behind for me. So this is me just stealing Layla's stuff is I want to normalize hard. She's like, a lot of people feel things are hard, they get stressed, and then they have another voice that judges them for the stress. She's like, if we could just change the narrative to like, it's hard, comma, and or comma, of course it is, comma, it's okay. I expect it to be hard. Why wouldn't it be hard? It would be unreasonable for it to be easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it and then it wouldn't be worthwhile. And so, I remember this, this is a two minute story, but I think it'll drive home. So way back in another life, I was in a fraternity many, many, many, many lives ago. What school? Vanderbilt. And during the pledging process, invariably, two weeks in, it was like clockwork, two weeks in, the whole pledge class would come together and try and quit. And it happened every year. So I got you, I mean, the first time it happened, They were trying to make you quit? No, they try and quit the process and say, you don't want to do this, this is not what we thought it was going to be, this is way too hard, blah, blah, blah, blah. right, every time. Because it was such a shift in reality of like parties and fun and whatever and then you're pledging and you get none of that. At least that's how it was at our school. So like no drinking, you have to study all the time, you can't talk to girls, like it was this whole thing. Anyways, it was just the point was to make them commiserate so they get closer together. That was the whole point of the process. Anyways, so I remember when I was president, I got to deal with it, right? And so I'm the whole class was there, you know, the whole pledge class and I said, Hey guys, who here when you started thought this was gonna be easy. No one raised their hand. I was like, who here expected it to be hard? And they all raised their hand. And I was like, I want you to pause. I want you to close your eyes. I was like, this is what hard feels like. This is what it feels like. The feeling you have right now is hard. I was like, and that's what you said you expected. I was like, you just didn't know what it felt like. And so I think a lot of people are in the entrepreneurial game and they expect it to be hard. They expect the word, but they don't know the feeling of hard. I'm like, it's okay. It's hard. And you persist and you keep going. And so for me, like, learning what hard feels like, I think once you learn it, it's like, oh, there you are, my old friend. Right. This is hard. And that's why it's worth it.

Yeah.

And I think you get more comfortable.

With hard where it doesn't feel hard anymore. You're like, okay, I've done this for five years now. I'm used to this. I'm familiar with it. I've learned how to manage my emotions, my feelings around it. I'm becoming a better leader to myself. Totally.

And so this is more norm. It's not hard. And as a fun one, the feeling of the heart changes. So it's like when you're, in the beginning, the heart is that you don't know what you're doing. You just feel like an idiot all the time. You're like, I have no idea what I'm doing. And then the feeling is the giving up of control. Once you get into the seven-ish figures, it's like you have to give up control. you can't control delivery anymore. You can't control, you can't get on every sales call.

Like you have to give up control and that's hard.

And trust people. It's different, but it's hard. It's just different, right? And then as you start making more and more money, then it gets around focus. You can't pursue every opportunity you want. Like in the beginning you did because you only reported to you, but now you have an entire company that you're responsible for and you have to really allocate resources and you're like, I've got this idea for the show. I can't start it yet. I really want to, but I can't start it yet. And it might not be for a year. and you got to be like, okay with that. It's a different kind of hard. So at every level, if anyone's curious, the one after that is that your character, how you spend your time outside of work, starts to come into question. Because the level of talent you're able to attract is going to be attracted to who you are as a person and the values that you espouse, that you represent. And so you're like, well, what I do in my own time shouldn't be anyone else's problem. It's my own life. doesn't work that way. Humans can't separate things like that. They just see you for who you are on the field and off the field. And so it's like you have to start changing things. Like if you're somebody who drinks and does a ton of drugs, hey, more power to you. It's legal. It just might not be what everyone thinks is what they want to admire and emulate. And so it's like it's a different kind of heart. And so one is about being, one's about control, one's about focus, one's about ignorance. And so at each level the heart changes, but you're like, there you are my old friend, I was waiting for you to show up again. This is the heart. And being able to identify which thing you need at every level is, that's where the mentors come in, 'cause they'd be like, this is the next thing that's gonna come up here. You wanna get distracted, you gotta keep doing the thing. Or like right now, I think you need to quiet this outside stuff in your life, 'cause it's a distraction, you're not gonna be able to track the talent you need to get to the next level.

They're not gonna like that, right?

And then you have to change.

Inspiring stuff, man.

I want people to follow you.

Thanks, man.

They can go to Hermosi dot, or.

I guess Hermosi on Instagram and also on YouTube. Is that Alex Hermosi on this?

Yeah, Alex Hermosi.

If they type Alex Hermosi anywhere, I'll see it. But your YouTube's have been blowing up, your Instagram, your TikTok. Also, if you're a business owner and you want to partner with you, go to acquisition.com to learn more about that process. You can apply there.

This book is really powerful.

A lot of people have gotten this. How many copies have you sold now?

Couple hundred and something thousand.

Couple hundred thousand. So if you guys want to learn more, this will be an amazing investment for you. I think it's, you know, the digital.

Version is only a few bucks, I think, on Amazon.

99 cents. 99 cents. It is for anybody. So it'll be a great dollar investment for yourself. Make sure you check this out. If you're looking to really maximize your offers and build your business, check this book out. It's really powerful. Great examples. Again, you do a great job of creating frameworks, which I like. You know, it's like the You make it simple for someone like me who can't read with the images and the framework so I can visualize success.

I had to make them simple for someone like me. That's why.

It's good. Big pages, big spaces, big fonts. Exactly. I like it. But if you guys want to learn more, make sure you check this out. What is the thing you're most passionate about right now? Is it the content in the content world? Is it the long-form YouTube stuff? Is it Instagram? What's the place? we should go follow you if they're gonna pick one place.

YouTube or podcast. Yeah. Those are the two. I mean, podcast has been growing, too. Podcast is a really good audio, man. Yeah, we got number two on entrepreneurship.

I saw that, man. It's big. Yeah. I'm trying. I'm trying to be like you, man. I'm trying to be like you. It's awesome, man.

And what's the biggest results you've seen from your podcast and YouTube growth? What's the biggest benefit you've seen? It's just been, you know, people tagging me on. I mean, like, I don't. I don't. The only thing we quote advertise is that, yes, if you're a company doing $10 million a year or more, ideally, if you're a little below that, we'll look at the deal. But it allows me to just talk to more cool business owners. So the more the podcast grows, the more cool, interesting businesses come our way, and we get to grow them. And that's like, I don't know if I shared this last time, so we did our stats on, because now we've been doing it for two years. And so the average company that we work with increases their top line by 1.8 times in the first 12 months and triples their profit in the first 12 months. In the next 12 months, the average company increases their profit by 4.2, I think it's 4.27 times, or 4.75. There's a four and a seven in it.

It's not bad.

Yeah, in the next 24 months, it's like we can almost 5x the profit of the companies the first 24 months. And so that's just the average. So, yeah, it's cool. We love doing it. That's the stuff we live for. I mean, like, never been more amped to do what we do.

What do you feel like your future mentor self when it hits the billion dollar valuation would say to yourself now? If you were three years out, five years out, whenever you hit this billion dollar valuation and you could speak to yourself from the future, what would your mentor future self say to you right now that you need to hear?

Keep having fun. Because I mean it would be like, if I had hit that at that point, you'd be like, keep doing it. Like everything you're doing, you got here because you're having a good time. So just don't lose track of that because in three generations, everyone's gonna forget that you're alive. No one's gonna remember your name. You're not gonna be the greatest all the time because if you did your job, someone else will be even better and younger than you. And so, like, the only point of the game is to play. It would just remind me of something that I already know to be true, but it would just be from future me, hopefully who would just say it perfectly to my heart.

-Right.

-I would just become a new person. I would transform and I'd ascend, you know what I mean? And a halo of light.

That's hopefully what happens. -Love it, man. -Thanks for being here, brother. Appreciate it, man. Great stuff. -Thank you. -If you got value from that, then go ahead and stick around for more coming up right now. -What was the habit or the switch from one year to the next that started to bring in more abundance financially? Not in a Incremental 20%, but it was like, boom, this was 5x, 10x. What was that habit or mindset shift for you that started to develop more income?

So there's the science and the art kind of both sides. So the science side is just the leverage. So the amount of money you make is proportional the amount of leverage you employ in your life. And so four types of leverage, this is not mine, this is Naval's, but I'll just say them. So you've got labor, I use four C's because it's easier for me to remember. He says labor, I say collaboration. So funny that you said that earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just getting other people to basically use their time, right, for your cause. The second level of leverage is other people's money, is getting people to invest in your thing. And then the next two are, so these two are permissionless, the first ones. Like you need to get someone's permission to work for you, and you get someone's permission to give you their money. The other two are permissionless, so you can do them on your own. One is media, which is what you have here, because the cost of making one video and having one person see it versus a million people see it is the same cost. And then the other is code. So I say content and code. So those are my four C's. So collaboration, capital, content, code. And those are not binaries. It's not, am I using other people? Am I not using other people? It's to what extent am I using other people? Do I use other people's money? Yes or no?

No.

It's how much of other people's money am I using? And so each of these are continuums, not binaries. So somebody could just use other people's money and be a billionaire because of the extent they use it. But those are the types of leverage that exist. And so as my income went up, it was by proportion of the amount of leverage I was employing. Really?

What are you, what are these four.

Were you leveraging the most? So in the beginning, I had no leverage because I was an employee, right? I was using my own time. The next thing that I started doing was I became self-employed, right? So I had a little online training business that I started in between my quitting my job and starting the gym. And so when I started the gym, I started getting Labor was the first people. Yeah, not a lot of it, but I got some of it. And so that gave me that first next year.

I went from part-time interns.

Yeah, yeah. Five, I went from $5,000 a month to I think about $30,000 a month. So that was the big jump. It was just, I had a team, you know, I made a small team.

But I had a team, right? Now that's overall in revenue. That's not your take. No, that's not sales.

You might have been losing money or whatever. We made, I was probably making $20,000.

A month at that point. for yourself after expenses and team and everything. Yeah, that was then.

What did that feel like going from five to 20?

Did that make you feel something different? Was there a shift inside of you when you took that action? Because for me, when I started this.

It was all about vanquishing my father. So it was all about, I was Middle Eastern father, only child. So like I was raised by a single dad, it was just me and him. That was it for the vast majority of my life. And so he's Middle Eastern, came here with a thousand dollars. became a doctor, or he was a doctor, came here, learned English from watching television. You know what I mean? Has the American success story. Absolutely.

That's amazing.

And so, I was born here though. Speaking another language too?

French was my first actually.

There's a whole story around it, but anyways. French is your... How many languages do you speak? That's the best one. I'll just leave it at that.

But all of it was about making him proud, right?

That's what you did. You set out to do that. That's what I was trying to do. And then I think that Throughout my adolescence, I realized that it was something that was always going to be withheld from me. So it didn't matter what it was, the goalpost would always move so that-- He would never be proud enough. Right. And it was because he wanted the most out of me. And so if I got, let's say, a 99 on a test, it wasn't congratulations, it's what'd you get wrong. Oh, man. And that was always what it was. That's okay. We're cool. I'm very happy with my life. And I realized that, and so this desire to gain approval turned into a very deep anger.

And so towards the world, him, yourself, other people.

Mostly him. Mostly him. And most like him and myself probably split. Probably 50-50, you know what I mean? And so it was like my earlier, I'll say, quote, success was purely fueled by rage. Like it wasn't like it was rage, you know what I mean?

I was in the same boat, yeah.

Yeah, and it was like, and I, But there was probably some element of me that just like almost enjoyed the suffering because then like I just would get in the space when you ask like how did I feel by getting the extra 20,000 a month? First my goal was to make as much as my dad and then it was to make more than my dad and then it was to make more than my dad had ever made his whole life.

Wow.

And so once I had done that, the I wanted the success to be unquestionable. Like, it couldn't, there couldn't be a but, there couldn't be an asterisk. It had to be so undeniable that vanquishing was the word, right? And so for a five-year period after I quit my job, my dad did not support, he didn't support me quitting my job. Why not?

Even though you were making money and building a business?

Because he didn't, He's like, you're, what are you, a gym owner? Like, he's like, you went to Vanderbilt, you were on a management consulting crew. You got above Harvard's mid-score for your, you could have had a incredible career. Of course. Right. Gym owner doesn't sell well in cocktail parties. Right. What do you, you know, he's figured himself out. Yeah, he's doing this little gym as a side thing. How well's that going? Right. And so, and I mean, I made plenty of mistakes too when I had the gym. So it wasn't like all, you know, sunshine and rainbows for me. Like, I had a lot of mess-ups that I did, I got in I've had partnerships, I mean like all the things that you could possibly do. And over that five year period of me scaling to six locations with my facilities, at the end of that whole thing, I ended up losing it all. Really? Yeah. Lost everything.

Six locations, lost the whole business.

Well, I sold five of them, I shut one of them down. So I wanted to start doing this gym launch thing, which would be like flying around doing turnarounds, because I started.

That'S when I met Layla. You find a gym that's kind of.

Like not succeeding, And turn it around. And fly it. Yeah, we'd do a makeover. Yeah, exactly. Bar rescue, same exact thing. Same exact thing. I should have done a TV show with it. Believe me. The many regrets I have, right? That would have been an awesome one. We did 32 turnarounds. Wow. It was almost two years, yeah. And so we started doing that, and anyways, I lost everything because I took all the sale money and I put it into my last location, and then the partner that I had there siphoned the money out. Because I was like, yeah, I'll put all the money from the sale of these gyms into this thing. It doesn't matter. It was my own mistake, it was on me. But it was, even then it was, you know, we'll see, you know, we'll see how, like this isn't real, like we'll see. And then once I started, once Gym Launch really started taking off, it wasn't until I think we did like 17 million in EBITDA, like profit take home.

In one year.

In one year that my dad, I was 27.

That's crazy.

My dad called me and he's like, are you sitting down? I remember like at this point, like we were like not talking too much. few months, it'd be like a five-minute phone call. And so I was like, Sure, yeah, I got time. What's up? And he's like, you,'re gonna want to hear this. And I was like, okay, what? And he was like, I'm sorry. And it was the first time he'd ever apologized to me in my life. And what's interesting to me though is that it didn't feel like anything. I didn't care. Why not? Because I had stopped caring about what he thought about me a long time ago. And it was like when I quit my job was the day that like I I accepted dying to my father. Wow. Because very much to me at that point was, I was really, really sad at that point in my life when I had the job, because I had really done everything that he had wanted me to do. I finished Vanderbilt in three years. As president of fraternity, I had won writing awards. I'd done like a bunch, like, I'd done everything, you know what I mean? I was vice president of the powerlifting team. Yeah, every club. All the stuff I could possibly do. Yeah, finish it. Yeah. While still being president and did it in three years, right? and got a management consulting job that was like a good job, had all the credibility. And it just, I knew it wasn't enough and I knew that. And so I knew that the choice for me was that I either had to die to him or I had to die to myself. And that was ultimately like the choice that I put in front of myself. And that was whenever I was like, maybe I should just, I was like, die to him or die to you. And so that was what gave me the confidence to break that. And then I physically moved because I couldn't be in the same area. Wow. So I actually.

You're what?

23 at this point or 20? Yeah. So I called my dad when I was, like, in Ohio, and I'm from Baltimore. I called him when I was there, and I was like, hey, by the way, I'm doing the gym thing. He was like, okay. He's like, why don't you come over? We'll talk about it. Because he knew. Because he knew that, like, if he came over with enough battering, I would be like, fine, I know this is smart. thing, I'll take the, you know, I'll apply to, you know, Booth and Harvard, whatever, and I'll get the, I'll do that whole thing. And that, because that was a cycle, I just kept doing that. And I was just like, no, I'm not gonna do it. So I was like, well, I can't, I'm in Ohio. He was like, what do you mean? And then the tone totally shifted. And he was like, you always do these crazy things. And you're always like, he's like, you're never balanced. It's always extreme with you. There's no middle path, blah, blah, blah. And so anyways, I, you know, I did that five years gyms, lost it all anyways. And then started gym launch and then that's when, and then that really took off. Sure. And then, but when he called me and he apologized, and this is where I like, you know, I'm ashamed of myself, but like, I could have just let it lie and been like, thanks, appreciate it, you know. What'd you do instead? Instead I said, I was like, you know, when people get up on stage and they're like, hey, you know, they get awards and they're like, hey, mom and dad, I just wanna say thanks so much for always believing me. I was like, I won't say that. Oh my gosh. I was like, because you never did. I was like, the only time you.

Accepted me was once every other person.

On this planet had accepted it too.

Oh my gosh, man.

And so, that's, so I said that.

That's intense. On the phone, you said that?

Yeah. What do you think of that? He said, well, we'll see how long it lasts.

Oh my gosh. So that was, so he was still.

Kind of in competition with you. Yeah. And to be fair, when he apologized, he said, you know, I'm sorry, he said, but in my defense, if it had been in my time, I would have been right. And so, you know, but all that to say, like, I should have just said, like, appreciate the apology, you know, thank you, because you know, Tony Robbins said something that I thought was really impactful was like, for the vast majority of my life, it's been like how my father shaped me or whatever. But rather than thinking like, what can I use from this dynamic? Like what gift do I have?

Yeah, like from his mother kind of like beating him or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. Like what do I, like what do I, you know, they're blaming for the good, right? And so like I have so many things to blame for good. from that and I'm very, very happy with my life. That is why $20,000 a month didn't feel significant to me because the goal that I had, my expectations weren't to make money. My expectation was that I had to make more than he had ever made. And so I had a very big vacuum to drive towards, which I think in a lot of ways was a gift because I blew past $100,000 a month, $500,000 a month, $1,000,000 a month, $1,000,000 a month, $2,000,000 a month. I blew past those things because it was never about having enough money for me. It was about feeding this monster. But once I got there, I realized that what I had done was set up a game to win by my father's rules. Ooh. And so then I-- and you could never win. Right.

And to be fair, would I want.

To win a game that I was, wasn't for me? It was making you suffer. Sure.

You're playing the wrong game. I'm playing his game.

And so I did win, but I won at his game, not mine. Right, right. And so that was kind of what I think making that realization was, it was kind of the the slow shift that happened from there.

So when you won the financial game or the game of like, I've made more than you in a month or a year than you've made your whole lifetime, how did that make you feel? And when did you realize you needed to start playing a different game? And what would that game become?

Okay, there was three questions there. What was the first one?

How did they make you feel the moment you crossed the finish line of the game of making so much more than he'd ever made in a short amount of time?

Relief, because we actually got our relationship back. Not like, you know, I wouldn't say we have like sunshine and rain, but like we have a functioning relationship. I would say it's role-based. Like I'm a father, you know.

Yes.

But what happened was we are both very like strong personalities and it wasn't until I think that he accepted me as off in our relationship that we were able to kind of like move forward again. Because before that, my dad's, he's a doctor, so he's always had, you know, like decent money. and I wanted to be beholden to no one, you know what I mean? Including him, like I didn't want his money. I didn't want anything, you know? And so I think I had to establish my own, I had to really plant my own flag to be seen as a man in his eyes. And so I think once that happened, I think I felt there was some level of like, there's no conflict here anymore. Like, this is undeniable. This is beyond reproach. I have an attractive wife who's really nice and awesome. I have a business, so I'm in good shape. And if you think about it, like the way, I mean, I'm just being really real with you, I blame my father for the many things that I have become in a lot of ways, right? Because everything that was not perfect was criticized, right? And so, like, I've had a six-pack since I was 15. And it was because he used to always criticize everyone who was overweight and being that they're undisciplined and they don't try hard, right? And then I've, you know, like, and then it was like about having pretty good, nice, everything, perfect women, right? Not just pretty, but like everything has to be perfect, right? And then making lots and lots of money. And so it's like all of these elements I had to max out to again win at that game. But my whole life was designed to be bulletproof, was that so that I just wouldn't be criticized? And so that was, 'cause that was what I just, I knew that if I could criticize myself harder than anyone could, then if they did say anything, it was never as mean as what I would say to men.

What's the meanest thing you say to yourself?

Oh, like, it's all around just not being good enough.

Right now.

I mean, oh, not now. Not now. But I was 100. And it was, it was about being, to be fair, the actual thing would just be being weak. And so it was all about strength.

Mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, everything.

Just weak.

That's how you felt.

Yes.

You felt powerless for most of your 20s and 20s for sure.

And so everything that I did was to counteract that, right? Like, what can I do?

She's big and strong as I can get.

Yeah.

I'm gonna make as much money as possible. I'll have all the women I can get.

Yeah. Exactly, 100%. And so I pushed against that to try and to quell that, that need or that desire, that feeling.

Did it satiate that need when you had all those things?

Yes and no. Yes, because when I got there, it forced me to change my perspective. perspective is what changed the way I felt. Basically realizing that those things were never going to solve anything is what allowed me to. Les Brown, I think, says this where he says, Everyone knows that money doesn't make happiness, but everyone's like, I'll see for myself. You know what I mean? And so I think it was one of those, I had to cross all the, and I say this not as a slight to anyone else, but I had to check off the easy ones from the list, which is getting in shape, getting the good wife, getting the money in the business, all that stuff. Those are circumstantial. That means I can push with enough effort, I can change my conditions, I can change my surroundings in my environment. And if I can change those things, will they make me feel better? And so I think once I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that couldn't, that didn't work.

Maybe they helped in some ways, but not the internal ways. So what did you have to shift your perspective or what was that shift where you could still have it all and then have it all internally as well?

I think that the whole ego death concept that we were talking about at the very beginning, I try not to talk about this too much because I think it's a lot of people take offense to it and I don't mean it that way. I share this is just what worked for me and not as a criticism of anyone else's beliefs. For me, the idea that there was no such thing as legacy, that when I died eventually everything that I had would become dust, and that anything expanded over a long enough time horizon disappears, right? Which if you are like Christian, for example, it's the whole book of Ecclesiastes, if you. And I think the realization of that allowed me to quiet my ego a lot so that I could be more present in the idea that, like, this moment will only be here in my mind, and anything that I do here will not last. And so it shifted how I worked. It shifted how I saw relationships. And a lot of my thinking is around, like, my 85 year old self. I feel like my number one Mentor is like, my fictitious 85 year old self because it's the only person that I really believe has my best interest at heart and has no ulterior motive. And so there's this, there's this tweet that I had that went pretty viral, but it was like listening to a billionaire or a millionaire. I'll just use that. Like, when I was in my 20s, I wanted to be a millionaire. And when I was a millionaire, I wanted to be in my 20s. And so the idea that my future self would trade all the money. he had to be poor in 20 again made me really reanalyze how I saw living life in the moment. If I literally in the future will value my present moment more than the achievement of the thing that I'm seeking right now in the present, then something's off. Because even my future self knows that. Because right now I would pay all the money I have to get 10 years back. Not even thinking about it. And so then all of what I'm going to achieve in the next 10 years, I would happily give up to be right where I am right now. Yeah. And so I think thinking about that really shifted a lot for me because it helped me quiet, I'm not saying eliminate, but quiet some of the thoughts that are more ego driven because the ego always wants to like separate and isolate from others and prove that it's better. And if I know that it will all be dust, there is no better because we're all gonna be dust. And so in that same way, if like if we're all going to be dust and we're all siblings, like two very strong frames for me at least. It helped me quiet that aspect and I think in that way I was able, I think, ask my people, but like I think I was able to show up better as a leader. I think I was able to show up better as a husband. Show up better like to make content, things like that. Like I don't think I could have made the stuff we make now five years ago because I still think it would have been more, it would have been too proving something. Yes. Perfect.

Numbers of improving.

100% of improving someone, proving a fictitious foe wrong. Right. Right. They're all talking about me.

Right. No one cares about you.

Exactly. And so that was really, and it's like I had to shift from like no one cares about you to like, I really want to have a shirt that says no lives matter, but I feel like it would get way too much hate.

No one cares about you.

But I think there's like a lot of like to that where it's like if we can, because in that way we are all equal. And so I think it's almost the most egalitarian perspective is that like in the end we will all be dust. And so I think in that way that's like we have these exchanges that we have and in some ways it makes it more beautiful.

Why do you think so many people care about power and respect so much?

It usually was withheld from them, I think. I think the things that were withheld from us are the things that usually we seek the most, I think. How many really successful guys have daddy issues? You know what I mean? So many. And so it's like, okay, well, I didn't get his respect, so I'm gonna have to compensate with my circumstances, with my environment, so that everyone respects me. And some people do that through fear, some people do that for violence, some people do that through success. It really just depends what vehicle you choose. But like, I feel like the deep need is the same.

Yeah, there's something like, I can't remember the statistic, but a number of US presidents, a big number of them like grew up without a father or their father died early in their life and there was, I can't remember the stats, like 30 or 40% or something of like the US presidents lost their father or didn't have a father or something like that early on and it's like, well, you know, now they're going to go prove something or go to be something, you know, to, what about the the habits that you learned of the wealthy people once you started to really earn and scale your wealth. Were you studying wealth or were you just fixated on, like, how do I get one more customer and increase my prices, make better product? What did you learn about the habits of the rich? I haven't learned much about the habits.

Of the rich at all, to be very gandened with you. I think that maybe there are some beliefs that, because, like, my dad was a doctor. I wouldn't say he was, like, you know, Ultra wealthy, but, like, we lived in upper middle class. you know, lifestyle. But in terms of like wealth, as I think you and I would probably understand it, I didn't know anything about that. And I don't think I've ever really studied it very much. I would say that my heroes now, like I started studying wealth after I became wealthy.

So like- what did you learn about it afterwards? And what do wealthy people do that.

You think poor people don't do? They pick higher leverage opportunities in a sentence. So like rich dad, poor dad, like poor dad says get a job. Poor dad says get a higher paying job. like Rich Dad says, and the thing is there's so many innate beliefs that seem commonplace. Like, well, of course, you know what I mean? Like, well, of course, you know, and you know, you buy some real estate and it'll appreciate over time. But of course you invest in some stocks, like, yeah, of course. But like, poor dads just don't say that. And so you have to like learn that, I think, and I didn't, so I'm grateful in that I didn't have to learn that because I heard that just was, of course, yeah, once you have some money, like, of course you don't spend your whole income. Of course you don't. And so there's a lot of of course you don't that I think I inherited just by being like a saving father. But there's also some upper middle class people who don't save anything. But I think my dad did a lot of, I think he helped a lot with like money hygiene. I think I've had a lot of really good money hygiene from my dad. The big breakthrough that I had for me was when I stopped focusing on, and this is gonna sound backwards, but when I started my gyms, I was all about building the business. Right? And when I built the biggest companies that I've had and now recently sold and now we have our portfolio, it was about how do we make the most money? And I know that sounds completely backwards, but the only way that you can make the most money is to provide an exceptional valued service and charge a ton of money for it. And because I optimized around making money, I started going for low capital expense businesses because I had lost everything after that. five year stint. And so I was like, never again am I going to reinvest every dollar from the business back into the business because I've lost it before. So when I started the next business and every business I've had thereafter, we take dividends every month. And we do that because you don't.

Wait till there's an exit 10 years later. I mean, put all your money in.

I'd love to do both. Why not both?

Sure. And so that was-- take a dividend and get a bigger return.

Yeah.

But not just put money in and wait. and get no money back?

100%. And the thing is, and this was a fallacy I had because people always talk about reinvesting in their business, but I realized that that just meant that they weren't making profit. And so the vast majority of businesses, even the software world is somewhat shifting in this, but they want to see profit. And then even better is if you have net free cash flow, which is just a fancy word for the amount of money that you can take out every month after making necessary investments in the business. And so I wanted to have businesses that pumped cash flow because I had lost it all before. And so I think there's a lot of, like every one of my business seasons, I would say I've had three business seasons. I had my gym ownership period, I had my turnaround and early gym launch day period, and then I had Prestigious Labs, the licensing business in Allen. That was like my last season.

Where you exited all of them.

Yeah. And then I'd say now we're in our third season, I guess. So brick and mortar gyms, licensing, supplements, and software. And then, you know, third season is what we have now. And each of those has a huge, huge magnitude of leverage that was added to it. And so, you know, this was like, gym launch was started on accident in that. I was like, this might be a.

Way that I could make money. Because people were like, hey, you're doing this pretty well for your own gyms. Can you help me?

Exactly what it was. Yeah.

You're like, can you teach me what you've done?

It was exactly. All right, let me go in here and.

I just helped them double their revenue in 60 days.

Maybe I'm good at this. People pay me more for that than they'll pay me to help them lose 20 pounds.

Right.

And so that was when I went from B to C to B to B. And then from there, to be honest, it was just going up another order of magnitude because now instead of just building the one business, now we're building lots of businesses at the same time. And so that's why acquisition.com, I think, has a much higher-- has bigger feet for lack of a better term. Right.

You mentioned you'd always created something from a lack.

Yeah.

But now it sounds like there's a different intention for why you're building something. What happens when people shift their intention from scarcity, lack mindset to growth, impact, service, whatever it might be that you're coming from?

I'm so excited for this question. So I think the biggest thing that changes is time horizon.

Time horizon, what is time horizon?

And I think the single greatest differentiator between the poor and the middle class, middle class and rich, rich and the truly wealthy, is how they see time. And if you think about money as simply a condensed unit of time, right, that's all money is, like you trade it for time. I mean, you can trade time for money, so like it is, they're almost equivalent units. And the people who know how to master their time the most mean that they know how to master their money the most, right? And so really, if you want to master to the original question of like, how do wealthy people come wealthy is because they master their time. And so Time Horizon is just like the perspective from which we see what we want to achieve. And so if I am doing, if I'm building a company from the place of like, I believe that this company should exist. I believe this problem is worth solving. And that is where you start it from. Then you build it differently.

Versus.

Versus I need to make money. I need to make money this week. I need to make money tomorrow.

Because What can I go make money with?

Exactly. And so I think, I mean, you've built this amazing brand here. If people were able to not ask for 12 months and just serve.

Dude, this is what I did when I launched this. 'Cause I literally sold another company. I didn't make that much, but I had enough for like two years to live. And I was living pretty frugal. I wasn't like, I never bought anything fancy. It was like, you know, whatever. Food and travel maybe, right? But I was still sleeping on couches back then, you know, just because I wanted to save. I wanted to spend it on hotels. I didn't start spending hotel rooms until about four or five years ago. I would always find a way. Who do I know in that town I can crash on? Anyway, side note.

You've been married for how long?

Five years. Five years in a relationship or six years or something. Six years in a relationship, five years married. This is something that I've been on curious about a different decades of my life, right? I'm 39 now. I just turned 39 in March. and in my 20s, I didn't think it was. I was like, how is it possible to be with one human being for the rest of your life?

Right? Yeah.

Like, there's so much adrenaline and testosterone and just, you know, desire. You know, I was thinking from a place of desire, not from a place of, I don't know, from a spiritual foundation, let's say.

Right.

More of a sexual desire. And I would study these different men over the years. And the ones that I really respected were the ones who had amazing long-term relationships and who had healthy businesses that impacted people in positive ways and had, you know, semi-healthy families in general, right? I'm curious, why did you decide to get married, I guess, at 25-6?

I was 20. She was 23 or 24 and I was 26 or 27.

Why decide to get married in your 20s?

Yeah.

And how has that been beneficial towards your inner peace, your health and your wealth?

Yeah. So I think getting married is a great hack for making money. I have a lot of thoughts on this. First one is because at least if you're anything like me, probably 80% of my attention went to Chasing Tail. And so getting all of that attention back automatically just makes you more money. Right.

All your energy is spread out.

100% if you're doing that. It's spread all over the place. And so that was, that's just like, honestly, just getting into a relationship accomplishes that. Going from a relationship to marriage though was really surprising to me because I was, I would say fairly against marriage for most of everything. And it's by happenstance Laila and I got married almost like as a dare and then we're still married and it's been awesome. Total, we'll get into another time. But When we did get married, it was actually really interesting. And maybe this is just my own personal experience, but I felt this very sincere shift of knowing it felt secure. Even the long term, I'm like, why do we need a government body? Why do we need someone? Why do we need an external party to validate our relationships?

Find a document from the government.

Yeah. But there is some level of commitment that comes with it that makes it more stable. Knowing that it was like, oh, she's in it with me. Just knowing the barrier to exit was significantly higher for both of us, I think increased our commitment to the relationship. But it gave me so much more stability for risk taking in a lot of ways, knowing that she was there and knowing she had my back. And, you know, I was texting a buddy of mine who was living the fast life.

Yes. Girls every other night.

Yeah. And it was like, how do you think through this? and I thought about it and I think that when you get into the committed relationship or marriage, you trade novelty for loyalty. And for me, to me, loyalty, I was trying to define this for myself, but for me, loyalty matters more than love or is a form of love or the one that I value the most. And then as a secondary, because I was trying to define, like whenever someone says, what is love? Right? Like if you actually like start trying to peel the word back, most people just describe activities that people who are in love do. Well, it means, and then they use a laundry list of activities. And so the best definition I have, I know this is me out there, is of how much, like measuring love, is how much are you willing to endure to keep it? And so if you have a relationship with someone, and like, and I would say love and liking to me is the same thing because it's really difficult to differentiate between the two. if you have a relationship with someone and you're not really willing to like, let's say, wait 30 minutes later to go to dinner with them, probably have very little liking in there, right? If you have kids, you're probably willing to do a lot for them. And so, like, I'll give you an example that a friend of mine said. He was like, man, he must love, he's like, if you have a car that you've been working on all the time, like a lot of guys like tinker with.

Must love that car, right?

That thing's a piece of crap. He must love that thing. It barely runs. because of what he's willing to put up with. And so it's kind of interesting when you think, like you can measure love by your willingness to sacrifice or endure in order to keep it.

Do you think we should endure a toxic relationship though, or something that's not adding value equally or putting forth a level of effort?

To be fair, the toxic relationship, I'll use the quotes here, because defining toxic would be another call. Another video, right? I think that there are moments in relationships that are negative, but if you love someone a lot, because you had a lot of benefit. So going the other direction, right?

But if it's more toxic than it is.

Then you wouldn't put up with it. So then is it worth putting up with anyone having a negative experience? It depends on what you have to gain. And the more you love someone, the longer you're willing to wait for another positive reinforcement. So if I meet somebody and I have a negative experience immediately, I'm probably done. Right. Right? If I meet someone and I have positive the next day, positive two days later, positive a week later, the next one I might be willing to wait two weeks. And then four weeks. And this really just becomes a question of human conditioning rather than love. Not to get, like I love this stuff, but anyway, I can get us back to marriage. But marrying Laila gave me a lot of the security that I needed to take the big risks and knowing that she had my back. Layla and I have very uncommon views on marriage.

What's the, I guess, unique views on marriage you guys have?

So most people get married because they feel a chemical attraction. Yes. And then they just wait, right? Until eventually it's long enough.

And it goes away. Yeah.

And then they're like, I guess we should get married. We had the first date, we talked for four hours about business, all business. And at the end of the day, I said, you should quit your job and work for me. I was like, Was this a date.

Or was this a-- It was a date. Okay.

It wasn't just like a casual encounter. No, it was 100% Tinder date.

It was Bumble, but it was a date.

Bumble, date. Yeah. All business, all night. The whole thing. We walked for four hours just talking.

About business and the very end I said, you,'ve got to quit your job and work for me.

And she said, no, I just met you. Not quit your job and date or date me, but I quit your job and work for me. And I said, Listen, even if I don't come with a deal, like this needs to make sense for you. Like, this is how much I'd pay you. I was just like, this is how much I'd pay you, this is how much you'd make. like you should totally work for me. And she said no, but I kept working on her and eventually three weeks later she quit her job and she joined me. And we hung out every day after that one and we did not have a super chemically...

Sexual attraction.

Not at all. We just liked doing the same stuff and we both wanted the same outcome. And so at least as I see it, it's like you have to have an aligned mission of what you want to accomplish in life, values of how you want to get there.

Man.

And then ideally, this like bonus, bonus points for similar interests. Dude, it's so funny you say that.

Because I say that, you know, from all the mistakes I've made in the previous relationships that are all my mistakes, it all comes to values, vision and lifestyle. And having shared alignment, it doesn't have to be 100, but it's like an alignment and values, vision and lifestyle.

Yeah.

Not in, you know, if you have the sexual chemistry, which we do, which is great, but. Not using that as the main value. The sexual chemicals. Because in 2, 5, 10 years, they may not be there. But if you don't have the values of vision and lifestyle, or what you call values, mission.

Mission. Because it's all business. Mission is what we're trying to accomplish. Values is how we're gonna get there. And then interests is like, what do we wanna spend our time on? Exactly. That's so funny. Yeah. So that's what I think. And if you have those things, you create a relationship, in my opinion, at least this has been my human experience, that becomes very difficult to get out of. And I say that intentionally in that the best way to stay married is to figure out how to stay married. And so, well, let's stack all the chips in our favor. We like doing the same stuff, we like talking about the same things, and then I think in a very important way, if those three things are aligned, you will get exposed to the same stimuli. And if you get exposed to the same stimuli, you'll have the same adaptations provided you have the same values. So if we get this exposure and we both have the same values, we'll both grow in the same way. Or I think what happens for many people is they're opposite sides and they attract, right? And what happens is you get on this, you probably Esther Perel. I just had her on a week ago. Yeah.

And then I'll have her on a few weeks. I'll just stop.

Go ahead. Yeah, yeah. Well, now I feel silly. Quote her. My understanding of mating activity is you've got familiarity, right? And you've got, I say, variety and then familiarity because this is how it is. And so in the beginning.