Paralyzed by overwhelm? How to overcome...
In this video Leila Hormozi, co‑CEO of Acquisition.com, tackles the common problem of feeling overwhelmed when starting or scaling a business. She begins by defining overwhelm as the combination of high demand and low clarity, explaining that the feeling stems from thoughts about circumstances rather than the circumstances themselves. Hormozi stresses that overwhelm is a normal human emotion and should not be labeled as bad. She identifies three cognitive distortions that amplify overwhelm: black‑and‑white (all‑or‑nothing) thinking, should/must (rigid expectations) thinking, and overgeneralization (extrapolating a single failure to a pattern). For each, she shows how to notice the brain’s “masturbating” thoughts and detach from them. Hormozi then outlines practical mindset tools: labeling stress as an “old friend,” building emotional tolerance through awareness (likened to exercising a muscle), and gaining clarity via experience, mentors, books, and videos. She argues that accepting uncomfortable feelings and acting despite them expands one’s capacity for both risk and reward, whereas avoiding negative emotions caps upside potential. The video concludes with a call to repeatedly practice these strategies, noting that repeated exposure reduces future overwhelm.
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What is up? Welcome to my channel. My name is Leila Hormozi. I'm co-CEO of Acquisition.com, which is a portfolio of companies that does about $85 million per year in revenue. And my goal with this channel is to get you from wherever you're at in your business to between $3 and $10 million in revenue annually for free. That being said, today's video is a little bit different than normal because it's a little less tactical and a little more philosophical mindset. And the reason for that is this is a question I got, I think I counted like 8 times at this event that I was at about a week ago. How do I avoid overwhelm while starting my new business? I was like, fuck, you know, like, I can't answer this in like one sentence. This is like a lot of stuff to unpack, and I really want to unpack it because I feel like, you know, so often what prevents people from progressing in business, from starting a business, etc., it's not the how and the tactics. Like, it's the mindset, it's the feelings. It's that you feel terrible, you feel like you're gonna die, you feel like you're in danger. And that's the stuff that really stops people when they're really trying to get started, right? And so I wanted to unpack this because You know, I can tell you guys, back in 2016 when we were starting Gym Launch, I consistently felt overwhelmed all the time. The state of being stressed was my norm. Like, not having cortisol constantly flowing through me was not normal. Like, we went on vacation, I still woke up at 4:00 AM. Like, there was no turning it off. I was consistently overwhelmed. I always felt like there was cortisol just like perpetuating through my veins. I didn't feel like I could catch a break. And honestly, I didn't drink and I didn't smoke, I didn't do drugs, I didn't do anything. And so it just like never went away. And so the first thing I'll tell you is like, you can absolutely still succeed while feeling overwhelmed and stressed. But you know, obviously like as we continue to amount more and more success, it got to a point where I was like, fuck, I just like don't wanna feel this way anymore. And I know that I also don't wanna change my circumstances. Okay? And so this video is for someone, if, if you're trying to start a business, if you're trying to move forward in business and you feel overwhelmed, but you're like, I don't want to stop going. Like, I'm not going to change my circumstances. I'm not going to stop doing business. I'm not going to stop trying to achieve my dreams. This video is for you because this is how I deal with this stuff. And so am I like a licensed, you know, behavior life coach therapist? No, I'm not. And honestly, that doesn't mean anything to me because, you know, just as there are bad doctors and there are bad, you know, gas station attendants and bad waiters and waitresses, there are also bad therapists, life coaches, etc. I've met many that are good, many that are bad, and I just this stuff that I'm sharing with you is what works for me. And so I am telling you from my own experience, from my own findings, from my own research, my own studies, my understanding of how emotions work and how they affect business, what I've kind of come to, right? And so like I said, when we started Gym Launch, like, I felt terrible all the time. And like, I don't think people understood. They would be like, congratulations, you're like, your business is killing it. And I was like, thanks, you know, like, I feel great. I was like, I don't feel great, feel like shit all the time. It's so funny because people always continue to congratulate you and you're like, Why do I feel so terrible if I'm succeeding, right? Like, I'm going in the right direction, but that doesn't necessarily mean it feels good, right? Which is like the first point, which is like oftentimes the things that we should be doing, or the things that are in line with our goals in life, the things that will drive us forward, the things that will fulfill us, often don't feel good in the moment. And the things that actually are going to deter us, they're going to bring us backwards, they're going to detract us from our goals, those things actually feel better. And so that's the first thing, is like just because you feel overwhelmed doesn't mean anything's bad or wrong. Right? Like, it's a feeling. It's a natural human emotion. There's nothing wrong with it. And so I think the first thing is like to take off that label of being like, this is bad and wrong. Like, there are many days of the week that I feel stressed. I'm like, ooh, cortisol, my old friend. There you are again. Right? And it's a little joke I have for myself. It's like every time I feel that, I say that. I'm like, my old friend, there you are. Like, I imagine this little like monster hiding in the corner, right? It comes out to play again. But I'm not like, oh, this is bad. This is wrong. I need to change my business because I have all this stress. Right? Like, I don't, I don't think that. I'm like, oh, I'm a human with emotions, you know? I think that the society we live in tends to catastrophize and almost like medicalize the normal human emotions, like sadness, frustration, overwhelm, anxiety. Those are all normal. And yet society nowadays, you know, they're making so much money off of our normal human emotions that we don't know are normal, because it's not like we can jump in someone else's body and see that they're normal, that like people think there's something wrong with them for feeling that way. Right? And like, I just, I hate the whole industry. I hate it. There's lots of studies done on this, guys, and I'm not going to get into it. Um, but most people have nothing wrong with them, right? Um, if anything, the only thing wrong with you is that you, your label maker in your brain is broken, right? Like, you label emotions that are uncomfortable as bad. And like, it's taken me years to reverse this because you grow up your whole life and people tell you, oh, if it's bad, you should avoid it. If it's bad, walk away. If it's bad, go the other way, right? But it's like If it feels bad, it might be good for you. So that's the first thing I wanted to kind of start and preface with is just like, it doesn't mean it's bad. You know, like we were building this huge successful business. I was growing as a person. I was growing in my marriage. I was, you know, gaining a level of fitness and health, like all these things I had never before, but I didn't feel good. And so where does that come from, right? And so what I want to tell you is like my definition of overwhelm is overwhelm is usually high demand with low clarity. Now I'll explain that in more detail in a moment, but I I want to just put that high demand on oneself with low clarity, right? You have lots of things coming at you, you have lots of thoughts, but like no clarity about what is the next step, where should I go, what's the vision. And so that's usually what causes overwhelm. And what that feels like is usually feels like I'm stuck, I'm paralyzed, I don't know what to do to move forward, I feel like I'm stuck in the mud and I'm afraid, right? So you just stay in this place of fear and you feel powerless, you start to lose confidence, you don't feel good about yourself. And so what What I want to explain to you is that what I've realized and the conclusions that I have come to about overwhelm is that overwhelm has nothing to do with circumstances. It doesn't have to do with your kids. It doesn't have to do with your job. It doesn't have to do with this new business or fitness or the fact that you have to do all of it at once. It doesn't have to do with that. It has to do with your thoughts about those situations. And the reason I can tell you this from personal experience is that starting Gym Launch was the same amount of work as starting Prestige Labs, which was the same amount of work as starting Allen, which was the same amount of work as starting Acquisition.com. And guess what? Day 1 of Gym Launch, I was stressed out of my freaking mind. I was so overwhelmed. I felt terrible all the time. Starting Acquisition.com, excited, energized, ready to go. Same amount of work, if not more, with Acquisition.com because I know what to do now. I know exactly what the next 3 years look like, and I know how much work is yet to come and how much work I should be doing that I'm not doing yet, right? And so, The high demand that I am talking about, when I say we have a high demand and low clarity, the high demand is the demands that we are putting on ourselves. It's the demands from our thoughts, right? So it's our thoughts about these circumstances that lead to that overwhelm. It has not been that, so there's two things, right? It's the high demand, which is the thoughts that we're having about the circumstances that we're facing in the moment. And then it's the lack of clarity. And so why am I less overwhelmed now? One, I have worked a ton on my mindset around emotions and feeling negative, and I have learned to operate despite feeling like shit, despite feeling overwhelmed, despite being incredibly anxious, despite being exhausted. I operate despite all of those things, right? The second one is I have clarity now. I have done this before, therefore I understand what the next steps look like. And the reason our brain likes clarity is because it wants to set expectations because it likes predictability. It likes to know, where am I going next? I want to know that I'm safe. And so the only way to really manage overwhelm is to learn how to deal with those thoughts that are coming through. And then the clarity that comes with experience and time. Clarity is something that can be solved with externally, right? You can get a mentor, you can read a book, you can watch these YouTube videos, right? There's a lot of things that you can do to gain clarity. But typically the part that is hard for people is is lessening the demand. And the reason it's hard for us to lessen the demand is that most of the times these thoughts that come up around the circumstances that we're dealing with come from cognitive distortions, which if you've read, I think there's, I don't know, 21, 20-something cognitive distortions. I don't know, I read a book a long time ago. It's a really good book. And basically cognitive distortions are just ways of thinking that are not real, right? Many people tend to believe that the thoughts that come into our heads are true. Thoughts are not facts, right? Thoughts are actually just little blips that your brain is putting into your mind of things to keep it safe, right? And your brain will do anything to keep you safe. It's set up for survival, not success. And so what you have to learn, and the reason it's good to understand these cognitive distortions, is because then you can say, ah, there's my brain doing that stupid thing again. Stupid old brain, you know, like, you old brain, like, trying to keep me all scared and shit. That's literally like the stuff that I think, and that's what helps me. What I realize is that when I'm feeling overwhelmed right? There's usually 3 ways of thinking that I'm subscribing to. I'm believing what my brain is trying to give me the message of, right? The first one is usually black and white thinking, right? And so, you know, you're starting a new business and it goes into either you're perfect or you are a total failure. And so I can tell you that my brain did this and it went on complete wacko when I had to— we'd started Gym Launch and, you know, as I talked about in my video, my biggest mistake, I had to lay off a bunch of employees.. And I went from thinking that I was perfect to thinking I was a total failure and that nobody would ever take me seriously. And I was like, I'm a terrible boss, I'm a failure, I'm not a leader. Like I all of a sudden was nothing. I was none of these things that I had said I was for years. And it was my brain saying, oh, because you made this one mistake, you are X. And so a lot of the times, especially when you're starting a business, like the reason that so many people feel overwhelmed is because they're making mistakes all the time because they're learning, right? Right? Because obviously you suck at it, you're brand new, you've never done it before. But because you suck at it, because you're brand new, you're not accepting that. You're saying, no, I have to get everything right, I have to be perfect, like, this must meet my expectations. And the reality is that never fucking happens. And so half of the drama that's going on that's causing this overwhelm is just like the fact that you are either all or nothing, right? There's no in-between, there's no gray space. But the reality is like you probably suck and you're probably good at some of it. And like, maybe you made a mistake and then tomorrow you won't make a mistake. And it's a lot more gray than people let off or they want to even admit, because typically people that are starting businesses, they're being very hard on themselves. But the thing is, is that there is a point where being hard on yourself is no longer productive, is unproductive because it's keeping you stuck and keeping you paralyzed. So that's the first thing is identifying like, am I doing that all or nothing thinking? Am I saying either I'm perfect or I'm a complete failure and piece of shit, right? And then it's not about eliminating these thoughts. You can't eliminate thoughts, guys. Like, you can't. It's being okay with these thoughts and saying, ah, there goes my brain again being a little piece of shit. You know, today my brain's going fucking wacko, right? Like, I am not my brain. Like, my brain is part of me, but it's not all of me. And so it's understanding that if you can identify when your brain is doing that, you will feel much better, and you'll be able to understand, hey, even though this, this thought is kind of scary to me and it makes me feel like shit, It doesn't mean it's true. It doesn't mean I need to do anything about it. It doesn't mean I need to change my situation. The second thing is should thinking, right? Basically what this is, is our brains like to set expectations, right? Expectations lead to predictability. Predictability can keep us safe, right? If we know what's going to happen next, we can protect against danger. The thing is, it's not helpful like nowadays because there's no really real danger going on, especially when you're building a business. It's just like you know, feeling embarrassed, like maybe making a mistake, like at most, like you lose some money. There's nothing dangerous about it. But our brain instead likes to say— we start off and we're like, I'm going to build a business and I'm going to do this and I'm going to do all these things. And we say, I should do this, I must do this, and I have to do this. If you look at Albert Ellis, he was one of the first psychologists. He talks about masturbation. I must do this or I will be a complete failure. I must do this or I won't succeed. I must get it right on this test or I'm never going to get it right. And that's the second piece that goes into the overwhelm is thinking if we don't do something or else, right? Like I have to, I must, I should, or else. It implies that there's some sort of punishment or some sort of negative if you don't do something perfectly. And a lot of us have those thoughts just ruminating in our heads all the time. And I've done that for a long time and I always and constantly have to just like observe my thoughts and say, like, where am I masturbating, right? Where am I thinking that I need to be doing something, should be doing something, have to be doing something? Where do I have this unrealistic expectation, right? And so I'll find it, and I'm like, oh, my brain, it's trying to create predictability by setting expectations that are unrealistic. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the situation. It just means, like, my brain's going a little haywire today. Like, maybe I need to just sit and kind of journal, write it down, something. Doesn't mean I need to stop doing what I'm doing, though. So that's the second thing. Now, how I— this used to show up for me, it was basically, I have to be perfect, I must be perfect. And this basically paralyzed me. And I think that's why I get really into it, making these videos, is because I used to be somebody who had so many musts and shoulds and have-tos. And what it did was it kept me really small. It kept me small because it's really hard to be perfect at everything. Because nobody has the same ideal of perfection. So if I'm perfect to myself, I'm imperfect to others. And if I'm perfect to someone else, I'm not perfect to myself. So you realize it's just this illusion and it's keeping you small. And I used to think I have to be the perfect wife, I have to be the perfect CEO, I have to be perfect at running a company, have to be the perfect leader, have to be the perfect coach, have to be the perfect body. Everything was like, have to be perfect, I must be, you know, like if I didn't cook dinner one night for Alex, I feel like shit about myself. If I didn't have a hard conversation the moment I knew I needed to, like if I had to wait till the next day because of meetings and shit, I felt terrible about myself. And that was the first time around running the company. And that is what caused so much of the overwhelm was having these, these crazy expectations that were unrealistic. And so it's like, if you can identify where you have your shoulds, your have-tos, your musts, the things that if you don't do them make you feel very anxious, they're typically not real. And so that's the second thing that I would say is being able to identify where are those shoulds, musts, etc. Where are you masturbating in your mind? Such a funny term that you can identify and then just remind yourself every time, like, hey, I'm just masturbating again. I'm telling myself I have to be a certain way. There are no fucking rules in life. You don't have to be anything. You just don't. And then the third piece is the last thing that I noticed that I do when I'm feeling overwhelmed is I overgeneralize. Okay, overgeneralizing usually is when you take one instance, which is typically negative, and then you label it as a pattern. And again, this is a way of our brain protecting us. It's saying, oh, this happened one time, now this situation is labeled as unsafe, and that means that I should— all the rest of the times this happens, you know, like, I want to avoid this situation. Uh, it's a pattern. It says, like, what do you need to do to fix it? And you start, like, looking around trying to figure out solutions. So I run lots of company meetings, like big company, you know, everyone's on a call, etc. Most of the time I do really well with them, right? One time I remember that I had had like something was going off work the night before with like an employee. I knew we need to fire that person. I didn't sleep well. I woke up, I felt like shit. I was super anxious. And I got on the call and there was like 100 people on and I felt like I was gonna cry the whole time. And I ran that meeting and when I got done, I was like, I fucking bombed that. It was terrible. I was like, I wasted the company's time. You know, I didn't show up how I wanted to. It was the worst meeting I've run in all 5 years. Like, I just felt terrible about myself. I took that experience and then thought like, oh shit, what if like all the meetings from here on out, I'm just like gonna suck now? Like, because I missed this one, like now I'm gonna suck at all the rest of the meetings. My brain is ignoring the fact that I've run 300 other meetings like that very, very well. And it's taking that one instance, it's extrapolating it out because again, it's trying to predict what's gonna happen next. It's trying to keep me safe. And like, I appreciate that. I don't need it though, because like running a meeting is not dangerous. And so for me, using these, understanding these 3 cognitive distortions is how I manage my overwhelm. Like the biggest thing that I will tell you is like you don't fucking eliminate and you don't fucking avoid overwhelm. You can manage it, you can understand it, you can educate yourself on it, but don't run from it. And the reason that I say that is because every time that you run from stress, and you run from overwhelm and you run from anxiety and you try to change circumstances to lessen it, you lessen your capacity for life and you lessen your capacity to reach your dreams. Because in order to win big, you must be willing to lose big. In order to feel amazing emotions, you must feel terrible emotions. And so it's like if you want the big upside, you have to be willing to feel and experience the big downside. And I wish that this was something I had, I feel like I've just finally gotten this in the last 18 months. It's like every time you try to buffer the bad feelings, you also limit yourself from feeling the good feelings. So like, if you feel really anxious about starting a business and because of that you don't start the business or you don't move forward or you don't hire that person, you don't take that sales call, you will never have a big amazing business because you're trying to lessen the downside. And because of that, you will cap yourself on the upside. And same could be said for something like public speaking. Right? People are terrified of public speaking, and so they think, I can't public speak, I don't want to, I'm just nervous, etc. But they're like, I would love to be an amazing public speaker, but it just feels so uncomfortable. So they cancel every speaking engagement that they have. They are never going to be a world-class public speaker. They are never going to have their dreams of being this amazing influential person because they're not willing to experience the shit. They're not willing to experience the overwhelm. They're not willing to experience the stress. And because of that, they'll never feel the amazing, the joy, the fulfillment that you have on the other side. If you're feeling overwhelmed right now, watch this video on repeat, take notes on it, continue to observe your brain. Your brain is not always— it's not always telling the truth. Like, thoughts are not facts. The things that pop up in your head, sometimes I'm like, this shit it's coming up with today is fucking insane, right? Does that mean I'm insane? Does that mean there's a problem with me? It just means that my brain is built to make me survive. And so the more I can educate myself on how it does that, the more I can learn how to manage it and act despite of it. And so it's almost like using a muscle. What I've noticed is the reason that things have become so much easier for me over time in terms of like building a company, managing a company, like taking more risks, doing more things that I could be completely embarrassed and fall on my face, right? Which I continue to do more and more of those things that make me really uncomfortable. The reason I'm able to do that is because I'm able to use this muscle, which is awareness, right? I have learned to become more and more and more aware of how my brain is trying to hold me back. And then my muscle that says, hey, I hear you, but I'm gonna go the other way instead, despite what you're saying, has become stronger and stronger and stronger. And so it's like a muscle. Is it gonna be easy at first? No. But the first step is always the steepest. And after that, it gets much easier. And so if you can continue to try and flex that muscle over and over and over again, eventually what you'll see is the same situation that overwhelmed you will not overwhelm you again. So that being said, I hope this video was of use to you. I hope that if you're feeling overwhelmed, this can be of help to you. Again, like I said, this is just what helps me. It's just like my findings. It's how I get through life. It's how I'm able to do things that are uncomfortable on a consistent basis, because yes, I am uncomfortable plenty of the time, but I can do things despite that. And I will see you guys on the next one.
