From Rock Bottom to Breakthrough (if you're feeling down, watch this)
Alex Hormozi describes hitting rock bottom: his mother hospitalized, a DUI, sleeping in his gym, then payment processors freezing his funds. Desperate, he sold his gym system and hit multiple $100k launches, scaling fast enough to pay off debts and eventually build a company worth around $200M.
Chapters
Dui Mom's in the hospital. I just lost everything. Holy sh t. I had nothing. How the am I gonna get out of this? So I was hanging out with my team, and they asked me some of the biggest struggles that I had gone through in building the companies that we have now and the wealth that we have now. Opening my gym, I thought it was gonna be really cool being like, yeah, I'm sleeping on the floor. I'm, like, hustling. Because that's what I thought, like, sounded cool. It was incredibly lonely. I was in a state that I didn't know anyone in a city, that I didn't know anyone in a warehouse, that there was cars that would drive over all night long. And it was like a gunshot. It was like. And it was all concrete walls and there was no ac. And so I sweat and be awake. And I was working the other hours of the day because my first client would get there at 4:00'. Clock. My last person would leave at 9:00pm I was just, like, incredibly sleepless. I lived there. My clients would do my laundry for me, and then I would shower at LA Fitness. That was hard. That was very hard. After I, like, built all the gyms up, I got out of that and then I sold them. Put all the money into this new venture, and the money was gone. The processor got shut down so that I couldn't get the new money that I had made. Just felt like it was quicksand. It's like every time I took a couple steps, I would just sink again. That was very frustrating. This was like the worst six months of my life. It started in October. Mom got sick, went to the hospital. I flew out. While I was there to keep myself occupied, I started launching gyms. That's when gym launch actually started because I left my own gym. So I was like, I gotta keep myself occupied. Reached out to some people in my hometown. I was like, hey, you know anybody? And they're like, yeah, I know a guy. So that was like the first big gym launch. So I had the mom thing, and then I got into dui, and then the money that I had put into the business got taken after I sold all my gyms to go all in on this new thing because it was working. So now I have, like, a dui. Mom's in the hospital. I just lost everything. We had to do this launch to cover the refunds from the last gym that I had to shut down. And so we got the 100 grand from the first launch, was able to pay all of the refunds. And I was back at zero again. Did another launch, had 100 grand. That was what got taken by the processors because they saw it was like a regular activity. I had six guys selling like 8,000 a day in sales that I can't collect on. And I had no money. And so I put it on a credit card. Like this could fucking go horribly wrong. That was that whole month. The last day of the month, I got a processor for 50k. I ran 50. The next day was the beginning of the next month, I ran another 50. So it was 100. We did 30 or 40k in profit. And I was like, did I just escape death? And then the next month, the gyms from January, February started refunding the clients and telling them to sign up with them. And so then all of that money that I made in profit the last month went back in and we were 150 negative. And I was like, how the am I get out of this? Because the thing is, the more I sold, the more I'd have to refund. Was there a moment in that time where you were like, maybe I'm not cut for this. And think about it. I had too many other problems. I was just in so much pain. I just wanted to like, get out of it. I just had to pull like something out of my ass. That was why I had this big belief that like some of the best businesses get made out of desperation. I was 100% backed up. I had nothing. And so that's when we were like, you know what? Jim's has been a good run. That was when I called the guys up for the next month and was like, hey, we're out, Sorry. And they were like, can you show us how? I remember saying this to the first guy. I was like, call up my getting out of the gym business sale. Selling my secrets. That's what I said. I was like, I'm selling my secrets of everything I've learned from all my gyms and all my locations and filling up 30 plus gyms and doing turnarounds. I'll give it to you. He was like, how much? And I said, six grand. I'm still a salesman. I mean, I can recognize when something goes easy. And I was like, fuck, 6k sure done. It was so fast. I was like 8 and it was like, yeah, 10. Yeah, that works. I did 60 grand that day. So I was like, holy shit. I made 100k in like 4 days. And that day was when like we switched to licensing. That was the lead up. And I remember like putting the money into my bank account. Cause I didn't have, like, another location to open or, like, more equipment to buy. Like, that's mine. I had repaid the processors, employees. I'd paid back the refunds from the closed gym. I was clear of everything. And then there was like 100 grand left. And I was like, I'm rich. I mean, I remember a buddy of mine calling me. Cause I'd, like, checked in with him a couple times. And he knew I was like, just going through a lot. And he called me like a month apart. He's like, how you holding up? And I was like, bro. I was like, I just made 400 grand last month. And he was like, what? I thought you, like, had the. Is it selling the membership thing. I was like, no, no. Like, selling the membership system. And he was like, dude, running as hard as you can, 407 80amillion. It's 1-215-182. It was nuts. It was literally, me, Layla and I, we had a. We had an assistant. I was it over the kitchen table. My rent was 1200 bucks. And I told Layla, I was like, I don't know how long it's gonna last. That's why I kept our expenses. So I was trying to make money. Like that was it. Not trying to build a company. I don't wanna make something that's gonna change the world. I was like, I'm trying to get rich. I was gassing the shit out of it. Pure. Getting away from pain. I had feelings that I didn't wanna feel. And so it's just like anything that would make me not feel that way was what I wanted to do. Business became my feel better drug. I really didn't wanna be poor again. And I really was getting reinforced heavily by the marketplace that I was good at this thing. And so it just gave me, like, complete alignment of just like rocket fuel that way. And then magnet this way. We didn't take a vacation, we didn't take weekends. We didn't see friends. We didn't go out. We didn'. I drink and this up. I will hate myself. We can go get friends later. I just took everything out of my life that was not this. Like, what about work, life balance. I'm like, people don't understand how little I gave a. This just like, feeling horrible and then finally seeing some success. I was like, anything that's not this. Like, if every person who ever met me at that point was like, you, Alex, die. I would have been like him. Like, whatever. Like, I'm doing this thing. We blew past wealth numbers before 10, 14, 20 kind of came up for air past 20. And then I was like, oh, we have 120 employees and we have, like, a company. And then somebody was like, your company's worth $200 million. And I was like, really?
