Your biggest advantage is no one knows who you are

Do you want to hear something absolutely insane? If nobody knows who you are, it's actually a good thing. And so imagine this is you and you're here because you have no followers. And of course you're very sad by that, or at least you think you are. Maybe you're crying very sad tears, right? And you don't have this massive audience like these big celebrities or influencers do. And I'm just going to explain three reasons why this will help you win. My name is Alex Shamozi. I'm the founder of acquisition.com. we make huge sums of money that are unreasonable. So much so that I can have unnecessary extra camera angles like this one and this one and this one. But I will give you my quick disclaimer, which is that everything that I'll share with you, I'm an experienced business person and marketer. And so these are no way promises that you will achieve anything at all. Mostly because most people do absolutely nothing. That being said, let's dive in. So, number one is that you're an underdog. So the first and most important point of being unheard of is that every position actually has an advantage. And so, for example, let me tell you a story. So I had a company called Allen, which I ended up selling 75% of four years ago, 2021, however many years ago. That was while I was working inside of Allen. We had B2B customers, we had agency owners. And so an agency owner got on the phone with me and he actually was serving gym owners. Now, at the time, I still owned Gym Launch, the company that I ended up selling also in 2021. He said, I feel like it's not fair that I have to compete with you now, mind you, I'm like, here trying to help this guy grow his business, even though he is technically a competitor of mine. By selling to gym owners, I made this point to him that I thought was worth making, probably for you, which it doesn't really matter where you're at in business. Like, I think, one, you should always try and think like an underdog. If you're in the apparel space, you're always competing with Nike. And so, like, you're an underdog compared to Nike. But I think the underdog mentality is a winning mentality because underdogs are the ones who win ultimately. And the people who are at the top of the mountain are the ones who are fat and happy and end up getting taken over by the underdog. And so, I mean, Jeff Bezos talks about this. He says it's Always day one at Amazon is that we want to, they want to keep that mentality. And part of the reason is why they are so big is that they still maintain that flexibility. So I want to hit on some of these advantages in talking to this agency owner, he was struggling and he said, everybody who gets on the phone with me says, well, you know, you're not gym launch and you know, give me your track record, how long you've been doing this, things like that. And he was like, I just don't really have a good response. And so I said, well, have you considered that one, when I started I was in your position. And so one, it's possible, number two is that your advantage is that you're not me, right? So if we're the biggest person in the space, which Jim Wanch is arguably the biggest, the market leader in that, in that industry, the advantage that I have as gym launch is I'm going to say, hey, this guy Adrian is in his mama's basement and has no track record. And if you want Coca Cola Classic and you want to know that it's that you have success stories and there's tons of case studies and tons of proof of gyms just like yours. Seeing this level of success, we know that our system works. You just have to run the system, right? And so that's fairly compelling. Now what do you say in response to that? Well, what you would say to the prospect is like, listen, well, you don't want to work with Jim launch because to them you're just a number. You're never going to meet Alex, you're never going to even, probably even talk to him. He's not going to know your name, right? You're going to get assigned some account rep, right, that doesn't care either. And they're just going to be running through some like checklist with you. Whereas for me, you're going to have my cell phone number. If you need anything, you can call me whenever you want. And it's actually me. And so who you're really comparing is not, you know, my company versus gym launch, it's me versus their rep, who they would assign you to. And I can promise you I'm far more dedicated to seeing you succeed than they are compelling. Of course, both positions have advantages. And so you want to play the cards you're dealt. Only a loser's perspective, that their position in some way dictates how the end is going to happen, right? Because one of the beautiful things about having nothing to lose is that you also have everything to gain. And so what it means is that you also have unlimited shots on goal, because if you miss, you're just back at zero, which is exactly where you are. So you have essentially risk free unlimited upside, which I think people wildly underestimate the advantage of the underdog, which is why in terms of game theory, they're the most dangerous player on the board because they can't lose. And that perspective was ultimately what got me to even quit my job in the very beginning was, worst case scenario, I just get my job back. So that means that, like, I have risk free shots. It's like life giving you a lottery ticket. The only thing you pay for is with time, but you still have unlimited upside every time you scratch it off. To me, not a bad gig. And to be clear, I have the portfolio that we have now, and it's all this money and success, whatever. But, like, I had nine businesses that amounted to almost nothing before I had my first real big win. And unless you're Mark Zuckerberg or you're Jeff Bezos, which is not common, most people fail the first time and the second and the third. And sometimes what happens is that the failures just become less failure. Like in the beginning, like, no one buys anything. But you do remember building the logo on the website and thinking that you had a business, but, like, nothing happens, right? And then finally you make your first sale, but you're like, this isn't a real business. Like, what's going on here? Like, I exchanged money, so I guess I technically am in business. Do I have to pay taxes on this now? Like, what happens, right? And then eventually you get to one where you're like, okay, now I'm starting to sell stuff and make money, but, like, I'm not actually making money. I'm making revenue, but I'm making no profit. And I'm like, incurring all this risk and all this in order to get it going. And you're like, still trying to figure it out. And then on like your fourth try, you're like, oh, what do you know? I made a profit and took me five years to get here. Every entrepreneur that I know, so I don't know Zuck and I don't know Jeff Bezos. So, you know, unfortunately I'm not there. But the guys that I know, almost all of us, like, failed for a while. Like, I don't know anybody who, like, crushed it in their first five years. Like, most people, like, basically ate glass and stared into the abyss. To quote Elon Musk, which is just existential. Dread at all points in time. And the eating glass is the fact that all you do all day is deal with problems which, which are mostly revolve around people and somehow you're supposed to get work done in between. So if you're in that kind of underdog position, you can pop open the leads book. And I have a chapter that I wrote on this which is called More Better News. So it's 161 and actually tells some of this story that I'm telling you right now. And one of the things that most smaller underdogs, really, no matter what size you are, relatively, have this belief that's false. And so I want to kind of crush it for you real quick. The reason for this ad is I'm throwing the entrepreneur event of the season and you're invited. This is going to be my biggest book ever. No, not like that. This is going to be my biggest book. Well, not even like that. This is going to be my biggest book ever. Actually, not even like that. This is going to be my biggest book ever. $100 million money models. And I've been preparing to release this book to you for over two years. And at the launch event August 16th, I'm going to be showing you how to get more customers to spend more money with you and less time, over and over again. It's the most valuable skill set I have. Now, on top of that, come check this out. I've got five mystery headliners that have all confirmed they're going to be there live and they've never before shared the same stage. And most of these people don't speak publicly. Now, on top of that, I have four amazing bonuses that are available to anyone who wants to preorder a book. You don't have to because you can register for free for that. You can show up for free. You can enjoy all of that for nothing. But if you want to preorder a copy of the book, I got four bonuses for you. Now, on top of that, I've got one project that I've been working on for the last two years that I'll be unveiling live. And I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you that it's better than an nft. It's less than a bitcoin, and every single person shows up live gets one. So if you want it, click, register. I'll see you there live, August 16th. Preorder a book if you want. It's going to be awesome. So number one is that the volatility that you're experiencing is a result of inadequate volume. So you're not doing enough, which gives the appearance of volatility. So let me say it differently. If you were to sell one person every, like, three to five weeks, and you're like, yeah, every month I get, like, one customer. Sometimes I get two customers. What that really means is that there's a certain amount of advertising activity that is occurring. Whether it's you doing it or it's other people doing it on your behalf, or it's word of mouth, any of those things are happening. And it takes that much volume for you to get one new customer. And so the question we have to ask ourselves is, how can I take the amount of advertising that's occurring over four weeks to get me one customer and crush it into one day? So I get one new customer every day. That's all it is. The volume. Increasing volume negates luck and will give you consistency. The second piece is understanding where you actually sit here, page 168. The size of the pie fallacy. So the issue is that most small businesses think that it's like this. They start advertising on one channel. They're really happy. Look at this big smiley face, okay? Then a competitor comes in, and they start advertising on the same channel. And then in their minds, they think, oh, no, I have half of this market now. And then all of a sudden, two more competitors come in, and now you're like, oh, no, I have a quarter of this market. It's shrinking fast. It's so saturated. But that's a fallacy. That's a lie. It's an illusion. This is what it looks like in reality. So most people see their market as one method, one platform, one medium. They're like, well, I make Instagram reels, and that's how I get my customers. So anybody else who makes Instagram reels, they're. They're my market, and it's saturated. But the reality is that there's so many ways to get customers. You can do warm outreach, you can do cold outreach. You can post content, you can run ads, you can have affiliates, you could have referral networks, you could have employees doing this on your behalf. You could have agencies and headhunters who are bringing people in all of these different vehicles for advertising. And then within those vehicles now, you have the platforms of all those things, right? So it's like you're making content on LinkedIn, you're making content on Twitter, you're making content on podcasts, you're making content on. On Titter. TikTok, right. For however long it lasts. Right? So all of these different platforms, it's like, so really that little circle that you have is just this tiny, itty bitty circle here. And all of these other circles and all of these other methods and all of these other mediums are basically empty. And so the reality is no one knows you exist. And so the answer is you have to advertise more. You have to let more people know about your stuff. And so the way that we do this is, is we do the rule of 100. All right? And so by method, that means that's page 164. You either do 100 reach outs a day, cold or warm. You do 100 minutes of making content and post something, which for some reason I didn't put that in the book. No, I say release it one per day. Thank God. All right. But some people hear that first line and they're like, I'm making 100 minutes of content today. And I'm like, I haven't seen you post. They're like, well, I'm still working on it. I'm like, what are you doing? Post. All right, and then paid ads is 100 minutes a day of making paid ads. So that's doing the research, looking at other hooks, recording, editing, cutting it and spending money. Right? You gotta spend money. And the amount of money you spend, I would say per month should be relative to what you're willing to pay per customer. Okay, now I have an update to this that I'll share with you, which we learned from the school games, because I help a lot of people who are starting out now. It doesn't matter whether you're brand new or you're an experienced business owner. If you start a new channel, you're still starting at zero. Right? And one of the things that we added in for at least the content side of was most of the times you'll be limited by the amount that you can make and sometimes even the amount of DMs that you can do on a social platform. But one thing that's not really limited or less limited is the amount of comments that you can leave on other people's posts. And so what you want to do, the goal is to have the best comment on a post that is relevant to your avatar. So basically it's like all of these posts exist, they're almost like free ads that you think are attracting the attention of your avatar. And so what you want to do is have the most thoughtful response to that post and then you basically Kind of like hitch a ride on somebody else's views. And it's totally legal. So, like, do that on top of this. And this is for those of you who are like, I just don't know what to do. This is what you do. You reach out to people. You make content, you run ads. Pick one. And to be clear, this is Alex's 2 cents. So this is a personal opinion. I don't really tear people down. That's just, I just don't do that. Some people, like, make their whole brands on dunking on other people. I just don't like that kind of negativity personally. Like, in my life or otherwise. You're welcome to do whatever you want. My recommendation would be to give people flowers and basically give them props, which is what I think millennials say for when they do a good job. So I'm dating myself here. Flowers, tell them they did a good job and basically break down or add to it. Say, like, I love all this and, and I think that's a great way. So instead of saying basically this is. And thinking instead of. Or thinking. So my first piece of homework is write what your advantage is in your current position. So if you're Nike, and Nike, if you do want to respond to this video, I'm totally okay with it. But if you're not Nike, right? Talk about the unique angle that you have compared to the leader in your marketplace. Because let's be real, the vast majority of people who are watching this are not the leader, because there's only one leader, and everybody else who's not the leader is more people than the one. So the likelihood that you're not the leader is high. So talk about how you're different than they are in a way that is factually correct, that they cannot argue with, and drop it in the comments. I'd love to see them. And everything that I just talked to you about those positions is what I would weave into my sales and my marketing. Because the nice thing there is it's also, it's not like claims based. It's just like these are the facts and this is the reality of it. And if you ever want to make more compelling marketing, the thought that I would give you is just drill one level deeper. At the surface level, it's like, it's David and Goliath. But like, when you actually drill down, it's an unfair advantage because David isn't really competing against Goliath. It's competing against Goliath's like, kneecap, right? It's like it's the piece of the larger thing. There's this amorphous idea of Nike, but really all you're competing against is the person who's six levels down who got hired out of college to make their social media posts for one specific, you know, person or whatever. That's who you have to beat. And so like, the way that you beat the Roman Empire isn't by taking the Roman Empire on, head on, it's by tiny little nibbles on the edge of their kind of perimeter and just working your way in. And fundamentally that's how the barbarians over time, you know, crunch down on Rome. And so in this instance, we are the barbarians. Now, part two, it's actually much easier to figure out a smaller business than a bigger one. And let me explain. So you've probably heard the idea that if you have a boat, right, it's much easier to turn a dinghy than it is to turn the Titanic. Well, obviously you can't turn the Titanic because they did. Just kidding. The boat's dead. The people might still be alive. I have no idea. And I don't know if they had smoked stacks, but let's just pretend this is the Titanic before they had this big hole and everyone died. Okay? And so, and so the idea is it's much easier and more nimble to move a small boat. Now let me give you the actual math. So this is cute, but let me tell you the actual business that behind this we use a term that we call nail it, then scale it. And it's really nail it in order to scale it. And the problem is most people learn how to advertise, they learn how to sell a little bit and then think, oh, I just need to do more of that. But here's the problem with that. Until you find out what the compounding vehicle is within your business, you're bound to plateau. And so I've done this example before, but I think it's so powerful that it's worth repeating. Alright, so let's say that you have company A and company B, all right? And both of them sell 100 people per year. Okay, so 100 new customers per year. Sorry, A sells 100 per year, B sells 100 the first year, 200 the second year, 300 the third year. Well, which company would you rather have? At face value? You'd think, oh, I'd rather have B. But wait, there's more. Let's say Company B loses 100 customers every year because they're not that good at what they do, or they don't have a very good model. And so that means that next year they lose 200 and next year lose 300. Now, let's say company A keeps 100% of their customers. So year two, they actually have 200 customers. And year three, they have 300 customers. They have the original 200 plus this 100. So now it's 300 in total. So both of these look like they're 300 sales per year businesses. But which of these would you now rather have? This guy. Because the margins are going to be better because you don't have to pay to acquire all of these extra customers. They had to Pay to acquire 600 customers. Right. This one only had to Pay to acquire 300. All of that added cost drops straight to the bottom line. But on top of that, this is a business that literally will always keep growing. If you think about it, every year you could sell another hundred customers and it would just keep growing this business next year if you sell another 300, the only way to grow is to sell 400 customers next year just to keep up with a. And I can promise you one of the laws of nature is that advertising to acquire customers only becomes more expensive in time because you are going out to colder and colder audiences that are less and less of a fit. You, you're not getting the early adopters, you're actually getting the laggards and the late adopters. And so it costs you more to reach them. They're harder to sell, they're more price sensitive. Like it has all the negative things. And so this is common when companies look that are bigger if they're looking to exit the acquirers and who's an investor is going to look at this and say, how much Runway is there that's left? And is there a way that we one at the very least can maintain the customers we have and ideally have some sort of vehicle inside of it that allows those customers to bring us more customers. And so imagine that, let's say you're here and then you watch this video. And unfortunately, I've had a lot of business owners who watch my stuff like realize this is that they're like, oh no, I'm this business and I'm selling 300 people every year and I'm losing 300 people every year. Well, what do I do now? It's tough because you're in a rock and a hard place scenario. And this is why it's so important to nail it, then scale it. And so you just want to advertise and sell enough so that you can figure out what is required in order to keep customers and keep them happy, keep them referring, keep them paying. If you can't figure that out, there's basically no point to scaling. It's going to get more and more expensive, your margins are going to get thinner and it will feel more volatile because you probably rely almost exclusively on paid ads. That's tough. And so having a different way to think about it, which is you want to get the foundational unit right. Once you get that right, everything else gets much easier. You know, I'm a huge consumer of software startup, you know, founders, and one of the things that they talk about a lot is it's so much better to just build your product or build your service for 100 people to absolutely love you than to have a million people who kind of like you. I think part of this is that it's very difficult to build something for the amorphous, for like the faceless masses, but it's much easier to build something for a specific person of which there happen to be many, many of those people. And so I think getting really crystal clear, this is why having like an ICP or customer avatar, whatever you want to call it, some sort, and you can like name them, it's like, this is Jenny. This is our customer. She has three kids and she, you know, wants to lose weight or whatever it is, right? Would Jenny like this? Like, what would Jenny think about this, right? And some of the best companies that I've seen from a product and branding perspective always basically have Jenny sitting at the table or their customer avatar and they're like, well, what do you think Jenny thinks about this, right? And that's what allows them to make the best long term decisions for both the customer and the brand. Like, for the love of God, if the economics that you have when you're small aren't amazing, they're not going to get better when you get bigger. And so if you're like, okay, that's great, Alex, but how do I tactically improve my offer or like my offering to the marketplace? So inside the offer book I talk about this, which is creating your grand Islam offer, part one and two, which is basically the problems and solutions. And so I think one of the best exercises that anyone can do with their team is, and if you're just the team, then it's just you, right? Is to sit down and say, let's write down what here, I'll walk you through it. So the first thing we're gonna say is what's the dream, right? What does Jenny want? What is her big outcome that she wants to have happen? Okay, now that we define that, we want to be as crystal clear about that as we possibly can. It also feeds in the messaging, sales scripts, copy, et cetera. The second thing is we're going to talk about what are the problems? What are all the things that are getting in the way of her getting her dream of accomplishing what she wants to accomplish. And we want to be again, as specific as possible here. Now, typically, there's really one big dream, right? But there's many problems that get in the way of that dream, right? It's very simple to just say, oh, I just want a six pack. That's a dream, right? But what are all the things that are preventing you from getting your six pack? It's probably like, you don't know how to cook food. You don't know how to grocery shop. You don't know how to weigh yourself. You don't know how to count calories, you don't know how to lift weights. You don't have time to go to the gym. You have to make different food for you as you do for your spouse. Like, there's almost unlimited problems that can manifest. And all you have to do is ask somebody who's just give. Listen to their excuses. That's what the problems are going to be. All right, now once you have the problems, what I want you to do, and this is a mental exercise, is you list them as solutions. So you take. So after you have all the problems, you're then going to list them as solutions. So the solution is going to have two parts to it. One is you want to have some sort of name around it that's like, okay, you don't know how to cook food. So we have our you don't have to cook food system. All right? Now underneath of that, we're going to have every possible way that we can think of. And this is probably the most creative, fun part, right? You're going to list every possible creative way that you could solve it. And I'm saying, like, you can't think about cost. You have to be purely brainstormed. And so by the way, fun rule for brainstorming is that you never say no. You just add to things you say, that's amazing. And so it's a lot of. And thinking not or thinking. There's a lot of good ideas are on the third or fourth iteration. All right? And so, for example, with this meal thing, I could myself drive to their house and I could cook Their food for them. I could do that. Right? Like, let's write it down. What else could we do? We could hire a chef to do that. Okay, cool. What else could we do? Maybe we hire chef for lots of people. Oh, okay. Well, that's kind of interesting. Oh, what else could we do? We could do a grocery store where we actually take them shopping. Okay, well, could we do a recorded version that. We could do a recorded version of that too. Right. And so all the things you think about, all the different ways you could solve it, when you think about this, you're like, wow, there's like 20 ways I could solve this problem. Right? Which then leads you to step four, which is, I call the trim and stack. And this is probably the most business oriented part of the five steps. All right. Which is you have this big list and you say, okay, if we were to rate these on which of these are very high value and which of these are low cost, we want the ones that are super high value, super low cost to be our first priority. Now the second bucket. And this is something that I've probably changed, that's, that might be a little different than what I have in the books, is a little bit of an update, is I am more okay with what about some things that are incredibly high value that have some cost? Because a lot of people immediately go to zero cost solutions because they want to just have something cost, nothing. The thing is, is it's very crowded in the zero cost solution market. But you know what's not that crowded? The little bit of cost solution or the medium cost solution, but very high value. And so the thing is, is that this process is an unconstrained ideation process. And the reason for that is we have yet to determine our price. And so you might be like, well, I can't drive out to their house. Could you? For a million dollars? Probably. Well, then it's not off the board yet. Right? So we just want to think what is the most valuable combination of these things. Then we go to step five and we say, this is now our valuable thing, our valuable grand slam offer for whatever amount of money that you want to charge that makes sense relative to your trim and stack in this process. I'm telling you, if you're like, man, my customers aren't in love with my product yet, then build this out. And here's the thing, in the next 60 seconds, I'm going to show you the system that's responsible for the vast majority of my material success. And inside this, I'm doing this at the live launch event, I'm going to show you how to get customers to spend more money with you in less time, over and over again. But that's not all. On top of that, there's going to be four amazing bonuses that are available to anyone who wants to pre order before the event. And on top of that, I've got one secret project that I've been working on for over two years that I'm going to be releasing live at the event itself. Now, I can't tell you what it is yet, but I can tell you that it's better than an NFT and it's less than a bitcoin. And every single person who shows up live gets one. But you got to be there August 16th. So click register. I'll see you there live. It's much easier, and this is unfortunate, but it's much easier to promise these things than it is to deliver them. And so the reason that I emphasize the nailed and scaled is that if you do have multiple components to your service, your product that you want to deliver and have this be incredible, valuable thing, this is very compelling when you present it to somebody, which is why you can raise your prices, you can make more profit, you can market better, can sell better when you follow this framework. But if you can't deliver, you don't want to scale it yet, you want to keep working on it. And the reality is that it's going to take a lot longer than you think. This has just been a very hard lesson learned for me, is that what you think should take you six weeks oftentimes takes six months, sometimes a year. And so what you realize the longer you do business is that there are just far fewer things, fewer new things that you can take on than you really think. And so there's always going to be an issue with translating these things to your team so that they can actually execute and forget about new people coming in who haven't even gone through this process. They're just adopting this final solution, but they don't know how you got here and how you derived it. And so being more patient about the idea, and I'll give you a pro tip, this is a little side quest for you. So in any given function, let's say that this is your baseline of performance, all right? Now, whenever you change anything, in my experience, you get about a 20% decrease in performance immediately. All right? So if you change a sales script, you get a decrease in performance, you change your ad copy, you're going to decrease in performance oftentimes you change your landing page, most times the page that you had probably was working. And so something that's not that has a lower likelihood of succeeding than something that is more of that. So a lot of times when you make a change, and this is especially operational changes, more so than anything else, oftentimes you get a decrease or decrement in performance. And so if I know that I'm guaranteed to have this 20% decrease, then it means that I need to make changes that I have a very strong idea that they're going to have at least a 20% increase effect. And so the result of this line of thinking, which has made me a significantly better entrepreneur, this is a huge breakthrough for me is that number one, some things will never get fixed. And that means that some things are like, man, this could be 5% better. The cost of the change if you are constantly changing things, because here's the thing is you're like, well, it's still, I would, I'd be willing to give the 20 to four months from now have that, you know, return to baseline and they get the 5% improvement. Yeah, but that assumes that you're going to change nothing else in that four month period. But you might be an ADD entrepreneur and you might just change it, which means that you're actually permanently kind of sitting at this 20% decrease in performance because you've never given anyone a chance to get good at their job. You're always changing shit. And so I traditionally will over index now on stability because we get consistent improvements in performance across the team because people just get better at their job. Right. And then if I really think that something's worth changing, it better be north of 20%. And so it's like, man, I keep doing the math. Like I think this is like a 30 to 50% boost for us. If that's the case, then it's probably worth the bet. But most of the small changes that I used to mess around with my company where I'd be like, oh no, I'm Steve Jobs, every detail has to be there. Like if you're building a physical product that is manufactured, that's different. If you're building software, one time change different. In a service business, if you're changing process that people have to execute very tough, make sure that it's worth it. And to bring this whole offer stack idea back to being an underdog, if you do this when you have zillions of customers, way harder than if you just have a handful because you can change the back, like you can Be more nimble. And so the smaller your team is, the, the more agile they'll be, the less this decrement in performance will be as a result. If it's just you, I mean you don't need to communicate it to anyone, you could just change, right? And so like again, think about that as that natural extreme on one side, it's just you. So there's basically no change in or decrease in performance. Now you have to learn stuff, but you'll learn it quickly, right? But if you have to translate it to a 50 person team, it's like you better be darn sure that it's good and worth it. And so this is another advantage that you have of being smaller. So nail it first so that you're not going to have to change this later because it's going to be costly. And so the third big reason that there's a huge advantage being an underdog is that your competition changes over time. Let me kind of break this down for you. So in the beginning, the big competition, you can maybe make the argument this one's always there, right? Is you, you are the competitor, right? Like you have to get yourself off the couch. Like the person you're competing gets this like lazy version of you, version of you that you think you need to be better than right now let's say that you're like, you know what? I finally believe that I could do this. Okay, well who's the next big person that you're going to have to have to face? It's going to be your family and your friends because now some of you guys have amazingly supportive friends and family and I am so grateful for you. But for everybody else, a lot of those people aren't going to believe you. They're not going to believe in you, they're not going to believe you, they're not going to believe in your idea. And they'll say sometimes tonight, remarks, sometimes they'll scoff at the trade offs that you're willing to make, right? Like you're like, well I can't go to that event because I, we need to keep working on this. And all of a sudden now you're costing them, right? Because the thing is that fundamentally they have this relationship with you and it's based on these expectations. And you're saying, you know what, I'm changing the expectations of our relationship. And most people don't like when things change. And the reality is that I'd say that in the earliest part of my career, this was by far the biggest part that was painful is the friends that you move on from because you say, hey, this is the terms of our new relationship, if you want to call it that way. And they'd be like, well, I don't agree to those terms. And you're like, well, then I guess you can't really be here anymore. It's kind of tough because the thing is, like, I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs, like, they will just say, you know what? I would rather have these friends than my dream. And if that's you, amazing, you won. You made a decision. But I would just advise you to say, like, is it really worth it? And I would say that a lot of people that I've had in my life have come and gone, and I've been very grateful for the work that I've been willing to do. That's a, you know, Alex, one thing. You can do whatever you want, and I don't know anything. I have three. I do have three cameras, though. So, you know, just saying, all right, so what's the next competitor? So now the next one is going to be employees. Now, it's not necessarily that you're going to be employees. So think of these more as, like, bosses you have to face that you have to get over. And these never go away. So it's like they add on top of each other. You're still going to have to conquer yourself at every level. You're still going to have new pressures from friends and family at every level. Now here, now, you got to sell employees on your dream. You have to recruit really smart people, because if you want to do something good, you're going to. You're going to need help. All right, like, there's an old African proverb that I love, which is, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And I think big things are accomplished with teams because fundamentally, like, anything that's really big and worth doing takes a tremendous amount of expertise, and it takes time to learn all these different skills. And so, like, you can't live 20 lifetimes. And so, like, no matter how smart you are, it's. It's. You have a lot more leverage finding people who are exceptional at these things and just bringing them in. So, like, oh, I'm going to leverage this 20 years that they already spent there. I don't have to spend those 20 years. I have all that experience and skill set. I'll just bring them on in right now. The next level that ends up coming up, and this is the bigger businesses will hear Me in the room. You're gonna have marketplace changes because now you're big enough where, like, markets do move you, right? When you're really, really small, like, basically, like, it doesn't matter how small the industry is. If you're trying to make $100,000 a year, you can do it, because the industry is probably, if it is an actual industry, it's gonna be significantly larger than $100,000, right. In terms of revenue. And so it's almost an inconsequential amount of money. Not saying to you as a person, but in general, for a marketplace, it's not a lot of money. And so as you get bigger, like, if a market shrinks by 20% and you're a huge part of that market, that will affect you, right? And also to the same degree, as you make more money, regulators begin to target you and try and find things that you are not being compliant for. Like, Elon talks about this. Now, this is not a political comment. I'm just saying, like, if you look at Amazon, look at Fortnite, look at Reebok, just in the last year, all of them been hit with FTC suits around something that's not compliant. And so I will just say one thing on this, then I'll move on, which is, fundamentally, when 100% of businesses are not obeying some law, then there's probably a deeper question, which is, is the law just. And who are the ones who are making these laws? And are these people people who are qualified to make them based on their business experience? And so I want to be clear. I think there's always. There's important. You know, it's important to have rules of the game in order to play any game. But I do also subscribe to Elon's perspective of, like, if there are too many referees on the field, you can't play the game at all. And so. But these are things. These are facts of life. And so to loop this to what I was talking about at the beginning, which is the advantage they have as an underdog, is you don't need to worry about all these other things yet. And these things are coming, but you don't have to worry about it yet because, like, you're not big enough for a regulator to give a shit about you honestly, right? Like, your friends and family, like, maybe you're just getting started. And so these are things that are coming. The competitors will change in their sophistication and in the pressure that you're exposed to. And you just gotta stand tall and deal with it. But as an underdog, you're, like, not my problem right now. I just gotta focus on what's in front of me. And so that's the advantage that you have. And part of the difficulty with the friends and family and sometimes customers is, well, I'll just tell you a story that I think will illustrate it. So I wrote this narrative when I was a gym owner, when I was probably 23, 24 years old now. I like writing. I got a creative writing scholarship back in the day. I ended up not taking it, but I like writing. I was head of the Creative Literary magazine in high school and something I enjoyed. So I wrote this article, basically, or essay called Everyone Believes in the American Dream until it Comes True. I was struggling with this difficulty of my reality, which was that, you know, when I started out in the gym, which is my first business, I didn't have enough money for two rents. And so I'd saved up all my money for two years to start the gym, and I didn't have enough money for rent. So I just slept at the gym, which I was fine with. And, you know, customers basically could figure out because they could see my pillow in the corner. Like, they kind of got what was going on, and they were like, good for you for, you know, pursuing your dream. Like, that's awesome. Like, keep at it. And then, like, the gym started to grow, right? It started, you know, started to fill up. We started. I started to be able to hire employees. And, you know, probably nine months later or a year later, you know, I'd come in, and at this point, I have a manager for location, and it kind of runs not without me, but, like, I owned it more than me running, you know, working inside of it. And I would show up and then, like, you know, the clients would be like, ah, bossman's here. You know, And I remember being like, wait, I, like, you guys said that you were rooting for me to pursue my dream, and now that I have accomplished my dream, you guys make snide remarks at me. And it was. You know, I've said this before, but it was the first time that I realized that people want you to do well, just not better than them as you continue to achieve. You will see that in the vast majority of people now, I believe that special friends exist who truly want you to win. And if you have those people, like, hold them close, because most people aren't like that, Most people will be happy, either overtly or more likely, subconsciously or under the surface when you lose, they're Happy because it makes them feel better about the things they didn't take on the risk they didn't take. And so it's tough. Business isn't for the faint of heart, but at the same time neither is life. And so I think everything is hard. And I think that the only real flaw in the system is that we have a belief that it shouldn't be and that if we somehow change our conditions it will get easier. And it basically just never does. And I think that's been something that's like helped me kind of get through my woe is me wallowing moments that I have, which is like if I had a job that I wasn't satisfied with, I would be unhappy. If I have stressors of day to day business that occur that also can make me. Now of course you make the argument nothing makes you happy or unhappy. But I am human, probably like you. And I have things that definitely have, I have better days and worse days. And I think that more or less across all of these situations, I have more or less stayed the same. Right? Like I think there are things that money buys you that make life more convenient. And it's definitely one of those things that you never believe people until you have it. So I'm not going to try and dissuade you from doing it. My whole channel's about helping you grow your business. But I think that it helped me get over a lot of stress in thinking that this should not be this way. Like just like what demand of the universe am I making? That isn't true. Business should be easy, it should feel better, it shouldn't be this stressful. Like it shouldn't have this many people problems. And also comparing it to the alternative, which also has problems. And so I think a lot of times we get in this really negative spiral as business owners, which is we compare ourselves. We look at the, we look at the grass on the other side of the field, but we don't know that it's lined with manure. Right? That's what makes it grow. And I think I try to remind myself of that. Like whenever there's a green pasture, it's like it's built on. And so that helps me just say like, okay, I just don't know what the is on the other side, but it's there. And that kind of gets me, you know, kind of back in the saddle and focused. And so I will, I will wrap with this, which is that if you were an underdog, you have advantages. Every position has an advantage. You have to nail it, and then you scale it and be grateful that the competitor that you're competing against right now is smaller, because they only get bigger and stronger as you get bigger and stronger. So if you're a business owner, I just started doing these real business breakdowns of business owners that actually have come to our headquarters and from the audience, some of you guys. And I'll spend an hour or two with them and basically break down what they need to do to scale their business at a super tactical level. I think it's some of the best stuff that we're putting out. I'm super proud of it. Very excited about. Go check that video out, watch it, enjoy it, and let me know.