Alex Hormozi: Why He's Trying To Make More Money & How He's Doing It

30:29Could I say today, would I hold on to it? Yes. But I don't think I could have done it then. And so a lot of the reasons, like transparently, if I had, I got more credibility from selling Gym Launch at 46 and it was valued at 150 before COVID. So to your point, it was a shit sale. But I was done. I was emotionally done with the business. I just didn't want to do it anymore. I still own a third of the business. So like when they crush the exit, the next exit at 250 million, I'll still get my$100 million check from that. But I was, I was emotional. I moved on. And my big thing is like all my friends, on the white list, we were like, dude, you sound depressed as fuck.

31:09You're not interested. And I was like, dude, I want to do this new thing. And they're like, dude, you light up when you talk about this new thing. And so I actually walked away from the deal during the deal process and then came back. And so it was not like, it's funny because people give me a lot of, I'm glad you brought it up because a lot of people give me praise for that, but they don't have context. Like, we had done 30 million in EBITDA the 24 months prior to the deal. so like you know selling at 46.2 is not like like i i told them i needed to be public about the number because i do know that the vast majority of people don't get it um and that that's that is enough to give me credibility for fucking tiktok um but it's not like the transaction itself isn't necessarily one that i'm like proud of i'm proud of what we built and that the company's grown 40 since we sold it um it's that they're gonna kill on that deal but now that I also understand how debt works, which I didn't understand that.

32:04Again, this is like knowing risk experiencing. I understood that they were going to get debt, but when I realized that 80 or 90 % of the money that they put in, they then just immediately pulled right back out, leveraging the company's books. I was like, well, shit, I could have kept the whole fucking thing and gotten 90 % of the money, not personally guaranteed, and de-risked myself. But with that, it created the same story of something that is sellable from a personal brand perspective. And I think the answer is no. And so I don't regret the sale. I think the sale was required for that step in my journey.

32:41I think that now, because we have the credibility, like no one cared that I'd taken 40 million in distributions. No one gave a shit. It didn't matter. The day I sold, my neighbors were like, I saw you on Forbes. Congratulations. So I was like, I was richer before I did the transaction. I was well there before that point. But it allowed us to do acquisition.com because I don't think I could have... My brand was still so... I was still the CEO as far as people were concerned of that company. And I needed to have that space so that I could create acquisition.com. Sean, what do you think? Would you have done that?

33:16I think he explained it beautifully. I think he explained it exactly beautifully and honestly, which is that... Two things he just said that resonate deeply with me. one this is the last thing you just said which is to have what you want sometimes you just need to make space and so this is like i learned this through relationships you're dating somebody you kind of they're not exactly what you want they're not bad there's nothing wrong there's nothing terrible about it so most people just stick with it for years and years and years and then they're kind of like well if there was like a much better option then yeah like i would feel more comfortable just like going being single but i've always been very quick to just if i know this isn't it I'll break up.

33:55I don't need to have another great option ready, uh, or, or, or like shown to me to make it real. I know that if I make space, then great things can appear. And sometimes you just got to do that. Like I've taken, like when we sold Bebo, it was the same thing. I had, I had been doing this thing for six or seven years and the business was doing okay at that point. And thought like, you know, but in my heart of hearts, I knew this is never going to be massive. And we had all gone into that business with basically like, yo, let's do something massive. So by other people's standards, it might've been a good business by our own mission.

34:27It was going to be a failure. I knew that. And so it was when I was out with a friend and he was like, I don't get what you're doing. And he's like, you just need to shake things up. And, um, you know, I was shook. I couldn't sleep. I was like, he's right. Like I've been doing this for too long. I need to shake things up. And so I went into our, our investor the next day and I just said, um, I think it's time we change things up. I said, I need to change things up. I said, you know, if you want to keep going, I will help you hire a CEO and you can have somebody else take this over. I'll give you back my shares.

34:59I don't need a thing from this. Like, I will do whatever I can or give me 30 days. I'm going to see if I can sell. Or I'm out. Like, either way, in 30 days, this is going to change. For me, I've just decided to make space basically for something. He's like, well, what do you want to do next? And I was like, I have no idea. He's like, well, no, really. Like, you know, usually people when they're, you know, they, they come to me, it's because they already kind of lined up something else. I was like, no, honestly, I have no idea. I just know that I need to make some space. And so that part resonates with me.

35:30And also the idea of like you, like when I look back now and I'm like, oh, like before I sold our company, if I didn't, if my company wasn't going to be the next big thing, I would just shut it down, literally just turn it off, take a zero on it. And then I just started looking around and I learned this word aqua hire in Silicon Valley. I was like, oh, people just sell failing companies. And then I learned like, you know, the asset sales. Oh, you could just sell the code and the assets. Like, wait, who are these buyers? And I didn't even really understand what my options were. And so when you talk about basically, I could have refinanced.

36:03I could have just refinanced based on the business assets, took 90 % of the value. I felt that same like stupidity later. But like, that's like life is basically looking back and being like, I was such an idiot. And that's how I mark years of time. not by like the calendar days, but by number of times I look back and say, God, I was so dumb. I didn't even understand this. I was sitting on something. I didn't even really under, I didn't really know what I should know. And knowing what I know now, I know exactly what I should have done. And at that time, I didn't even, I wasn't even aware that I was making a mistake.

36:29Well, the difference is like, I think that we all, us three actually have done, we are tacticians. So like, I understand how to grow shit. And I understand like, you build this page, you do this thing, you write these words, here's the customer, you talk to them, whatever. I think that the gap you have to bridge is becoming a from tactics to strategy. And I used to like make fun of all my buddies who are in finance. I'm like, dude, you're just like an Excel monkey. You don't know anything like you just this stupid fucking headshot. And maybe it makes money, but you don't know shit. And then I realized like when they talk about debt and stuff, I was like, I'm not going to pay attention to any of that because I think that's stupid.

37:05And then I realized how it starts working. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's the strategy. So it's like, that's the strategy. and I was like, oh, I used to think, I've got good vision. I understand how this shit works. And then I realized how money worked a little bit more with debt and borrowing other people's money to do this and taking money off the table and all of these terms that I kind of heard about, but I didn't exactly understand. I realized, shit, if I'm going to be really good at my job, I got to be good. I got to understand the tactics. You really also have to understand the strategy, which Alex, it seems like you're actually, now you get the strategy of how money and business works, not just the tactics, which the whole$100 million offer book, which I read, I think it's awesome.

37:43That's mostly tactical. But the strategic shit is what you're saying of like, oh, you can borrow other people's money to do this. That's some big picture shit. Yeah, without a personal guarantee. So because I'll be like, why do I put that on the business? Because I don't want to risk that. It was like, you are not risking it. Like the business is risking it. And if you're willing to do a sale for X, it's like, well, are you willing to do? Like, because the business is going to take the risk on either way. I mean, depending on the acquire, but if you're selling a private equity, I know you have a bigger tech audience, but I probably have a bigger, I would say, everyday business audience.

38:16Guys who have massive roofing businesses or a huge chain of teeth whitening studios. You know what I mean? Just those types of businesses are the ones that tend to follow more of my stuff. And that's usually going to be a roll-up or a private equity acquire for the most part. Maybe a strategic if you have another big teeth whitening chain that wants to buy you. But that's about it. and I think I resonate with what you said Sam I always thought those guys like I was like you don't even understand business and I to a degree I actually don't think they understand business but they understand the macro level of business and I think where you get really dangerous is when you know both because you can play both games like you can because what they do they own almost purely inorganic growth they try and stable shit together that okay we bought four companies that do you know three million in EBITDA and so now we have 12 million in EBITDA and we're going to have some equity arbitrage and we're going to be able sell this thing financial engineering yeah saddle them up with debt and then it's just then it's just a math equation like it doesn't even matter about growing the businesses but it's like what if you do that and you could also triple all the businesses and it's like that's when you create these like breathtaking home runs and that's kind of what i mean that's what we're trying to do with acquisition and i don't i don't have i don't have a i don't have a huge need for more money unless it's a an enormous like there's nothing i can do i'm i'm have you ever i've ever feel like dennis's like how to be rich i think that's the name of the book yeah we love it we talk about that table a lot like the comfortably poor you know comfortably rich then you get to like rich rich it's super resonated with me it's like i'm the i'm the the comfortably rich but like not the super rich not the like so i like everybody here we can all consume whatever we want so we can fly on whatever planes we like you know you can fly private you can stay in the nicest hotels get the nicest air restaurant at the Michelin star.

40:05And you can do that for the rest of your life. Like you, your personal needs as a human being are satisfied, but I can't buy that skyscraper right there. And I can't buy this huge company. And so what happens is like the things that you want to buy change. And so you create a new deficit for the amount of wealth that you want. Again, this is just assuming you like the game. And so like, I like the game. And so I just want to keep playing it. The funny thing is that what you actually like is just playing the game. And if you just said, well, I'm rich enough, then you'd have to stop playing the game you really love.

40:35And so instead you start to come up with like things you want that in actuality sound a little bit silly. It's like, actually, I don't even think you want that skyscraper or to buy that. I don't even think that's actually what motivates you. It's just that I'm actually peak loving the game right now. And the game only works if you care about the score. And so, you know, it is impossible to enjoy that. You can't play the game. If you've said I've already scored the maximum number of points, then the game becomes kind of silly. And so it's funny, like this is with all of our friends. It's like, well, why are you doing this?

41:06Don't you, you kind of got enough money, man. And it's like, yeah, but I don't have enough enjoyment. The enjoyment that game is infinite. And the thing I enjoy the most is playing this game. And, um, you know, I'm, so I'm going to continue playing, but in order to do so, I have to like construct these silly, like dreams that I'm not even sure I really care as much about as far as just playing the game. Dude, that was huge. And as a side note, there's two ways you can create a deficit. So one is you can create a financial deficit by saying, I want this thing. It costs a billion dollars. And so I need to go make a billion dollars.

41:39There's my deficit between where I am and where I want to go. The other side is when you asked, what are you excited about? Because I know you said, what are the worst parts? But I'll tell you what's good right now, is that we have finally separated Mosey Media, which is basically my personal brand and the the content we put out, I would say the books kind of fall under that, like the courses, the books, all the materials we give out to Mosey Media. And so what we originally were saying when we started acquisition.com is that the mission was to make real business knowledge accessible to everyone.

42:06Like that was the mission of the company. And that is still very much the mission of Mosey Media. What we realized is that Holdco's team, so like our ex-consultants, our people who recruit talent, our heads of sales who build out sales teams, our heads of marketing, who build out marketing departments and marketing functions, our head of customer success who build out products in the client experience, et cetera. Those people didn't really resonate with making business education accessible to everyone. That wasn't actually what their mission was. And so we got really clear on what the mission of acquisition.com is, which is, and this kind of came organically.

42:39So it's really exciting for me. But one of the things I've always envied about Elon is that every company he gets involved in basically saves the world. He finds a way to tie the mission of what he's doing to saving the world. Let's say even Twitter, he was like, free civilization needs free speech. And it's like, boom. I was like, man, how did he take a meme platform with tweets of arrogant dudes, you know, and turn it into a free speech for civilization? Like, that's where I think a lot of his genius is. And so for us, I was like, what's that saying? And so we have the external gap of like, yeah, I want to hit the billion or whatever.

43:15But I think the internal one is that we want to build a company off of praise and not punishment. And so we have this huge thing in terms of how we try to build things. It's like, you can punish people or you can praise them. And we believe that you get more performance out of praise. Now you look at Goldman Sachs, you look at JP Morgan, you look at McKinney, you look at Bain, you look at these massive companies, even some of these huge ones. And it's a lot of people are like, man, it's a toxic work environment. It's really hard, blah, blah, blah. And so those are usually punishment driven cultures.

43:42And so we want to... And so what's happened is like by doing that, that has aligned all of our hold code team in terms of how we want to build these companies. And the billion dollar Alex mark is basically irrelevant because like to really win by their standards, we need to build something that's 10 or 50 or a hundred billion. You know what I mean? And that might take the rest of my lifetime. It'll probably happen after I die. But if we can do that, then we can prove one thesis, which is like people want to work and most environments are set up to punish people. And all you do is you raise the bar of what it takes to not get punished.

44:17But what happens is people churn out of work, they burn out, they hate their jobs, they hate their lives. And I think that there's a better way. And Layla and I are going to try and dedicate the rest of our lives to try and improve that. And so that is the mission of acquisition.com and what we do with the companies. And we can show that, that it's not just like floofy stuff. And I think if it were just Layla, it'd be a woman driven thing. People are like, oh, it's a girl who's saying you should be nice to people. But I think I, given how I look, how I talk, I can probably deliver that message.

44:45And it may take the rest of my life to do it. But I haven't felt fucking amped about anything in a long time. The last time I was this pumped was when the mission of Gym Launch was to take the gym industry from his knees to his feet because the average gym owner takes home$36 ,000 a year in personal income and has maxed out credit cards and has 18 days of cash on hand. And I was like, I want to fix this. And what ended up happening is because I wasn't emotionally mature enough. I took enough licks from people really close to me, both clients and employees, that I just needed to put distance. I had 17 different people who worked for me try to start their version of my business.

45:23You know what I mean? I had clients trying to start their... Because it was a business based on consulting, right? It was a consulting business. So once you had models, you could, in theory, try and compete with us. Now, no one has succeeded, did. Um, but it was enough that I was like, dude, you were bankrupt and like, and like on the brink of divorce and used all this stuff. And then like you scaled to three locations and sold them. And now your family's financially set off. I'm like, now you want to attack me? Like it happened enough times to your feet. And then you kick me. This is how I get repaid for this.

45:55That's how it felt. That's how it felt. And so I wasn't, I like, I think now I can handle it a lot better, but at the time I just like, I felt so disenfranchised. I just felt hurt honestly, because I really poured my soul into trying to fix the gym industry. And so when I felt that way, we created space and then it just became an asset we own. And that's why I was open to selling it. But like, I haven't felt like that until now. And maybe it took two or three years for me to refine what that big mission was. But that's something I can get behind. Like that's something I'm fucking amped for. It's so funny you mentioned the Elon big mission thing.

46:28Like this guy, he did it with Twitter too, which was really funny. And then while he was doing that deal, news came out. I was like, oh, Elon Musk impregnates this woman who worked for him. And he's like, he was like, he's like, underpopulation, we were at risk of population collapse. It's actually the biggest risk of all. And he's like, I'm just doing my part. And I was like, this guy, the Teflon done, how did he get away with it? He spun that shit. Like he did his whole 540 on that thing, spinning that to be like, actually, actually, I was also saving the planet with that one too. You're welcome.

47:05I was like this man you're welcome what's that thing they call it where it's like just like the male bullshit like the abilities for some men to just absolutely bullshit their way out of everything and Elon's got that like he is the world he is the world leader in that I think there's wisdom in it though like in terms of like because even thinking if I wanted to create a stronger narrative because like I'm already amped about this narrative but like I would just look up stats on worker involvement and talk about how like it's the end of work and until unless something changes. And so it's like, we're saving work.

47:38Yeah. It's all what story you're telling yourself because then you'll tell that story to others. And if that story serves you, then great. I mean, I think I personally, I think this is the Silicon Valley, like PTSD or whatever, where it's like, anytime I hear a mission statement, I'm like, just shut the fuck up. Like, tell the truth. You want to make money. Great. You want your own life value to increase. And you realize that in order for you to get that value, you had to create more value in the world. And so you identified some people that needed something and you provided that value in spades, whether that was dentists need better software or that's, uh, you know, the world needs a social network or we want to send disappearing photos back and forth to each other's phones.

48:19Like, um, you know, you hear Evan Spiegel, like you go look at the original landing page of Snapchat or the emails that he sent to the sororities and fraternities where he's just like, the landing page is like two chicks in a white bikini, like kind of like do it like taking like a naughty selfie basically. And then there's a giant timer where like the photo is going to disappear. And same thing when he's emailing the frats and sororities telling me, he's not saying I'm trying to, you know, reinvent the way that humans communicate. Actually, you know, 75 % of our brains is wired for images, not text.

48:51And so I wanted to make a messaging app that was image-based and that, you know, and then you hear him do the pitch and he's like, you know, for too long images have only been used for memories, but I wanted to use images for communication. the way we originally did with hieroglyphics and shit. It's like, bro, it's okay that you thought this app was fun and cool and that it might be a hit and it took off in these schools because people wanted to get around their teachers or parents being able to see photos on their femoral. That's okay. But they always do this. They always tie it back to some giant mission.

49:25Now it's the D word. It's democratize. Oh, yeah. We're going to democratize access to private limos. Really? And then, of course, what does it become, right? As the marketing teams get in there and the consultants get in there, they're like, our mission at Uber is to make transportation as readily available as running water. That became their mission statement. It sounds fucking awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds amazing. But I want to get laid by showing up in a black limo. Yeah, you didn't start. And literally, the early stories of anybody who knew Travis and Garrett at Uber was like, they would be like, dude, check this out.

50:00push a button while they're at their Michelin star dinner and be like, watch this. Car shows up and they're like, yeah, that's right. It's baller, right? I can see where he's at on the map. This is amazing. This is my private driver. I summon him through my app. And it's like, there's always to me the disconnect between what I think the truth is, which is a little bit skeptical and jaded, and then the revisionist history story that sounds really admirable and noble. And I personally have just come down and I've landed on I'm like, I'm okay with the truth. I get the human nature. We're kind of just primal animals, and it's okay.

50:34You seek pleasure. You avoid pain. You like status, and you don't want to be low status. But Alex's mission, so like, you know, Alex, maybe it started as like, the mission of our company is to get your money and to put it in our bank accounts. You know what I mean? Like, we're changing our bank account$1 at a time, and we're starting with your dollar by making it our dollar.

51:03Have you heard of South Park where Cartman has Crack Baby Basketball League? And he's like, someone's like, look, we need to pay our babies, our athletes more money. He goes, look, ma 'am, I don't make up the rules. I just think them up and write them down. Like, what do you want me to do?

51:20Because inevitably, I imagine it started with, I just want to get rich and do dope shit. And then it changed to, you know that's pretty grand thing of changing work through instead of using praise when did that change I think it's a yes and so Sean I'm like like the bullshit-o-meter etc like I I full-heartedly hear you on that and I think that one is that the truth can change and what I mean by that is because it's not like we're not talking about a fact we're talking about truth of of why someone does something and so like why someone does something can change so like when I started a gym launch, I've said this as many times, like the mission of gym launch was to not be broke.

51:59Like that was the mission of gym launch. But what happened is after I saw the lives that got transformed from it, and I was no longer broke, the mission had to change because I had accomplished that mission. So the mission had to get bigger in order to continue to expand that because I had families who relied on me, employees, et cetera, customers. And so it did truly become to take the gym industry from its knees to its feet, right? And so like acquisition.com started with the thing that I was passionate about, because the only thing I was passionate about I was just spreading good business. I love talking about business.

52:27It's my favorite thing in the whole world. I don't think about business. I write books about business. I make courses about business. I make content about business. And then I do business in the meantime. I fucking love business. And so that was the only thing that I felt passionate about. And so that's what I made the mission about. But as we've walked the path, realizing that the reason the businesses have done really well for us is because of the cultures that we create. And we believe that those cultures create better businesses and honestly, also better working environment, like generate really good bottom line, but also really great experiences for the people who work there.

52:57And so like, I haven't been amped about it. And so like the truth of why I want to go there now, and now I see that a much bigger picture than I did when we started it two or three years ago. Um, I think that, I think your reasons evolve. And so I think that it makes sense that I think it's both, honestly, like Evan Spiegel's personal goals. He was like, he had transferred money from that person's account to his, to the degree that he could buy whatever he wanted and so i think you just think more about it and you're like why do i want to do this because you have to have a reason otherwise you just you you go to a ball of nothingness and so yeah well look i mean in the i think the best way to actually learn that um we were talking about the last episode we talked about uh what's the uh restaurant panda express guy yeah and then and we were like you know he he just sells like orange chicken Like that's not exactly inspiring, but like he, he, he employs like 20 ,000 people and he like gives these guys, I think he, we were talking about, I have my notes here.

53:54He gives them all, like he pays a little bit for them to go to Tony Robbins. He gives them like the think and grow rich books and like all these books. And he's like, yeah, like the whole chicken shit, like that's kind of cool and all, but like, I'm actually like taking an hourly wage worker and we're trying to like elevate them. And so I'm like, Oh, I can get behind that. I'm in on that. And if you look at like a lot of non-tech or non-Silicon Valley companies who employ like 30 ,000 people and they're like, yeah, you know, we sell tires and that's cool. But I'm really just trying to like, we create jobs and that's very fascinating and that's really exciting and that's cool.

54:24It's better for the economy or like, you know, some of these like really boring brick and mortar businesses. I think that's actually where you see a lot of really cool missions. Have you ever read about the Koch brothers? Oh, you mean Koch Industries? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Coke industry. So basically, it started with the dad. He was like an oil guy. And then they use the byproduct of creating oil to create all types of plastics and whatever. And so now it's arguably, it goes back and forth of the biggest privately owned company in America. And he was like, No, like, my whole thing is like freedom for people, you know, and I want to like teach them that they have autonomy and like through working here.

55:02He's got a whole book on his management systems. And he's like, more so what I'm inspired about is like, is like giving empowering people. And so anyway, when I read about those older companies, I actually think that that's a bit more inspiring than some dork saying that he's changing the world one computer ship at a time when it's like, I don't know. That's not exactly inspiring. Maybe it hasn't played out yet. Yeah. Bill Gates said when he started it was like, I want to have a computer. Everyone's like, okay. And then he did it. I think part of it is also what snapshot on the timeline are we looking at?

55:36But dude, I 100 % agree with you. like I love, like you have, it has, because basically it shifts from internal to external. Like in the beginning, you do it for you. Obviously you do it because you get, you get praise instead of punished. Like you have good, more good shit than bad shit. So you keep doing it. But once the thing that was good, no longer like the diminishing return of the pleasure of more money isn't there anymore, then you have to find a new, you find a new goal, like you said. And then, and if it also coincides with other people being motivated by not making Alex rich, but by proving a point that we can create companies that reward instead of punish and actually have better returns, like I'm juiced.

56:14And like, we haven't proved it yet. That's fine. We haven't proved it yet. We will. I want to ask you two questions. The first is around people you admire. So we talked about the Panda Express guy on our, just our own last episode, because we were featuring, it was like crazy rich Asians basically was the third of the episode. And then it turns out he lives near you or whatever, like, you know, you're both in Vegas. um who are some people that you admire so um i always find this interesting to hear who kind of like stands out and why uh for for different folks so who are some people that you admire either past present you know people that you've met um because i know that this kind of like getting famous on youtube thing opens up a bunch of doors you meet a bunch of cool people that like you otherwise you expand your circle of people you you get to know um through this stuff So who are some people that you admire?

57:01Well, I definitely admire Andrew Payton from Panda Express because they're a married couple who built this whole thing and they never took out outside money and they've owned the whole thing privately. They have 2 ,600 locations. They do 3.7 billion a year with 27 % net margins and they take$935 million a year in personal income. And I think that's only possible because they have created a new vision for what they wanted the company to be about, which is about their employees. I am inspired by Warren Buffett. You know what I mean? I mean, I, I, I am because of the long-term mentality that he has and he built Berkshire Hathaway.

57:31And in some ways I feel like he, he built it. He has like a beautiful life story of like just believing in the power of compounding and patience. And like, that's what I feel like his virtues are that he's demonstrated in rational decision making. Um, I would say that for us, it's like, if we can build something like that, but just with our own, our own spin or own zest, which is around praise not punishment and building companies that like we can win by their scoreboard, but we do it our way. Um, so that's the Warren angle. and I mean I admire Elon a lot a ton you know just like what we were talking about earlier like his ability to see vision and connect to a larger mission he's seen he's been able to masterfully do that in every single company he's been a part of and his track record is incredibly fucking impressive and he just continues to like defy the laws of like what seems to be like normal or possible over and over and over again and so I think just like how he just like stares into the abyss and says like let's do it I think that's something that I really really admire he obviously has flaws like all of us do but i think he also has been really good about like owning his flaws um and being public about that he's just a human and i think he may create a new model for how big public ceos rather than maybe that you know maybe we're in the beginning of of that world um and uh i think on the totally other side of the coin i think i admire what like mr beast has done from a personal branding perspective um i've been able to get to know really well um and uh and jim's jim thinks really big and uh has a tremendous work ethic and i think seeing the merger like seeing where all these things are like elon has been able to build a personal brand and you know in a lot of ways like if you're a fan of elon you want to buy all of the things but he just happens to have enormous monetization vehicles um and to your point sam about like how they use like yeah sure we make tires.

59:14Yeah, sure. We sell orange chicken. In a lot of ways, I see all the companies that we have in acquisition.com is like, yeah, of course we transact, we build businesses, but the reason we do it is this. And I think that's really dope. And so those are probably the... If you were to mix, what are the things that I'm drawing inspiration from at Kern? And if you look at what we're doing, it probably would make sense to see all three of those as the three biggest kind of influencers. You got Mr. Beast on personal brand side here. You've got Warren Buffett on the the investment side, then Elon from like the big vision.

59:43And I feel like those three things are probably where I draw the most inspiration from in terms of like our day to day and what we're trying to do. What's interesting about you is that you're pretty good at, you're very catchy. So like the whole knees to feet thing is, is pretty awesome. Um, and then, uh, what was the line for your current company? It was a reward versus punish. Yeah. Uh, you're pretty, we would have beat them. We would have beat them at their game and we wouldn't do it our way. well you said we want to beat them on we want to use their scoreboard but do it our way so you've got you're quite lyrical um you've also done a few there's like actually a handful of things that you've talked about very uh like casually that i've caught on to that i really like so for example you say uh you say dessert what do you say dessert every day or never skip dessert never skip dessert and then you also because your whole like dieting thing is you eat all of your protein earlier on and then you're like all right now i have uh fat and carbs i we can go big on those uh like you've done like a few things outside of business that i find like almost more impressive or i actually use on my daily life more so than your business stuff which i actually found is pretty funny uh you also have i don't know if you've seen this sean but if you google like there's this like 23 year old alex who does a thing where he's like i'm gonna do a bulk over the next like eight weeks and he has like before during and after photos and like that stuff i look at significantly more than a lot of your business stuff i find that some of your fitness uh and diet stuff like more interesting applicable in my day-to-day life than the business stuff um i'm shocked that like this a living for like i like i joked about it in the comments once i was like people like admire our like my way of thinking about things in business and i was like for a decade i did that with fitness i just don't talk about it because everyone feels entitled to opinion because they have a body and i just and i hate i hate getting into the they're like what about salt i'm like dude just fuck off like just like you know i mean like i have so little patience for it because i'm like look at you and like if you were more in shape and by the way no one who's been more in shape than me has ever criticized any of the content it's just like people who are wealthier than you never say shit about business advice like about you know i'd be like no one ahead of you ever shit on?

1:01:59Well, the cool thing about it is I use the fitness analogy a ton in business because I'm like, well, it's hard, but it's simple in that if you lift this much weight and eat like this for a year, you're not necessarily going to look like Arnold or be lean or whatever, but you're going to be pretty good or better than where you are now. And you just got to do it for like two years and you got to be fairly strict about it. So that's why the carryover is quite fun watching you do both those things. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, simple, not easy. I feel like it's the, it's the fucking theme of so many things like fitness, nutrition, marriage, business, like simple to do or simple, simple to understand conceptually, very hard to do.

1:02:41What's the simple, not easy for marriage? I mean, I think it's reward more than you punish. I mean, it actually comes down to that. So like, okay, if I want my wife to scratch my back more, I have to wait until she scratches my back of her own volition. And then I have to reward her immediately. And then she will want reward more. And so she will do it again. Very Pavlovian of you. Well, yeah. I mean, I think we're all that. You know what I mean? Fundamentally, there's three things you can do when anyone does anything around you is that you can punish them for doing it. You can ignore that they did it, or you can praise them for doing it.

1:03:13I've heard the Tony Robbins, like, I forget what he calls it, but it's like the four, the four styles of being in a relationship. He says something like this. I don't know. Have you heard this thing? It's like the first one. Let me see if I can remember it off the top of my head. So basically he goes, you know, first one's like a baby. It's like, I need love and I don't have to give anything to you. So it's just like, I cry, you give, and that's it. Like, you better be happy with that arrangement. So that's like one relationship you can have, one style of relationship you can have. And obviously like, it doesn't work out very well once you're an adult.

1:03:45You can't just cry, expect to be given everything you want. and then not have to do anything in return. Baby love. So that's baby love. Then he has the next one, which is basically tit for tat. This is where almost everybody falls into. This is probably going to sound familiar, at least to an extent. And it's probably the root of all problems in relationships is tit for tat. Which is you measure what you get and then you give based on that. When you're giving a lot, you give a lot, but then as soon as somebody breaks the cycle and they short you consciously or unconsciously, they don't do what you wanted.

1:04:18Um, you also withdraw or pull back some amount of giving and then they reciprocate, uh, give, they, they also measure and pull back and both sides do that. And you end up with a sort of a race to the bottom. And so that's tit for tat. And that's where most people stand. And they, it's just a cycle that resets over and over again. Um, the next one is unconditional love, which is basically I give regardless of what you give back. Uh, I give cause that's who I am. Uh, I give cause that's how I, that's how I want to roll in my relationship and I control what I control. And obviously that's way better.

1:04:50And like, to me, that's the simple, not easy in, of being in a relationship is just go, go unconditional mode rather than tit for tat. And then he has like some higher one, which is monk, monk love or something like that. He calls it where it's like, spiritual love. It's like, I love you, even though you hate me. Like a monk can be like, I, I, I pray for and love even my enemies and those trying to hurt me. And he's like, you know, nobody gets there, but like that's what you could, what you could get to as well is like, you know, the love, like a monk who loves even their enemies. and those who try to cause harm.

1:05:20And so those are the four levels of love I remembered. Alex, do you ever, so like, I saw this video of you the other day and now everyone's like giving you a hard time or they're just teasing you in a good way about like your outfit because you wear the same clothing all the time. And so you made a funny video about it. And you go, instead of just saying, oh, it's comfortable. You go, dude, I'm just more Darwinian than them. These shorts, you want to go work out? I can go work out. You want to go to a restaurant? Yeah, that's what he said. He goes, you want to go swimming? These are waterproof.

1:05:49You want to go out to a restaurant? These look just good enough that I can go and do that. I can do anything. I can do anything. I'm Darwinian. You're not. I win. You'll lose. I bought the shoes you had mentioned because you were like, these sandals, these are the perfect sandal for working out, walking through rain, climbing a hill, or being at the office. And in the comments, everyone's like, yo, what's the sandal? What's the sandal? Where's the affiliate link? We can't find it. And then some dude, like 50 comments down, he's like, dude, that's what the, it's this brand, the nightshade color of this thing.

1:06:21I was like, all right, respect to this guy for finding it. I'm going to go buy this thing. But do you ever like, does your mom and dad ever like, hey, quit being such a douche and just wear what we bought you because be nice. Like, at what point do you like, are you like, this makes sense for me and also like it's good for the brand versus like live a little and like, let's just fuck around. Do you know what I mean? I think, yeah, like good for the brand is actually not like really a thought when it comes to it. Like I believe that like brand comes as a result of rather than like conscious. You know what I mean?

1:06:53Like, like people are like, so when did you think of never skip dessert? I was like, I was making fun of fitness people because my original audience was fitness people who obsessed about like not eating cookies. And I was like, fuck off. You know what I mean? Like eat dessert. You know what I mean? But do it in a way that you can sell a six pack the whole time. So that was why I never skipped dessert. It was always like never skip leg day, never skip Monday. I was like, never skip dessert. um like the calves thing is because like i genuinely have started training i started i start every training session since since a girl told me that she thought that my calves weren't big uh it's been like 12 years 14 years that i've i start every session with calves um and so like my calves have grown a lot and so everyone's like oh janet like my calves were sticks and i trained the shit out so like is it part of my brand yeah because it's in some ways like it's true lindsey yeah yeah thank you for motivation lindsey 14 years of fuel you gave me and it's the the outfit thing is actually because my it's my content team that wanted to make content about it because they're like dude you're fucking maniac with this like i feel like people should know this because everyone who knows you like in person knows that like like when they walked in for like almost a year and a half there was stacks of shoe boxes and i would wear different shoes for a day an hour a day, a week, and they kind of graduated to like, if they're good enough or I can walk around the apartment, then I'll walk around for their day.

1:08:13If I can walk around with them for a week and I still like them and most of them never got there. So I have a few finalists that got to that point, but like, I think I just like obsessed about making things better. Same things. Like if I do end up doing a, you know, if there is a good enough company that does no strips, like I'm going to iterate the product a bunch of times until I think it's absolutely untouchable. And then I'll say, this is the one I use. And I can say that, I say that with confidence because I, I did the work on it. For me, I just hate having to change. I don't know what it is.

1:08:40It means that I started my day not thinking about what I was going to do. So I was like, okay, well, if I can create a setup or a uniform for myself that I can be in the most environments. So for me, I'm really never in less than 40 degree weather ever because I usually tend to be in warmer spots in the country in general. And so this outfit goes 40 to 120 degrees. And I can go to the gym. I can go to the pool. I can walk for hours. I can walk all day. I can go to a nice restaurant. I can do all those things. Because if they need it. But that's crazy because your wife, who I've seen, she dresses lovely.

1:09:16She like it. It's fashionable. Her hair always looks nice. You know what I mean? You just said it goes 40 to 120 like a car goes 0 to 60. This flannel, this jacket right here, this thing goes 40 to 120. Once it's below 40, I get cold. So I have to put pants. but like up until then I'm pretty much good within that range and so like I can button think like this thing can go full full sleeves and like that's when I'm in like mass cold mode or if I go to a restaurant there are fire sleeves I can have that right but otherwise you know like I'm in beater mode like we go to the gym you know what I mean we go to the pool we go to the beach we go wherever I'm gonna be in beater mode you know what I mean and this is the lightest thing I try to sport drive yeah sport mode like a car well my whole outfit has sports mode people are like prox is more like my whole outfit has sports mode and comfort mode and weather mode and i can i can do that and so i mean like i i enjoy i enjoyed finding each of these things almost as much as i enjoy wearing them and i and i every morning and this is like every morning when i put this on i get like a little a little boost where i'm like i know that i've picked every single one of these pieces out i have no doubt that this is the best thing for me, like for my day.

1:10:35And so like, I know that the brand of white beaver that I have on right now, I tried 40 or 50 other brands on. And I went, I did this one sat where I wanted to sit. It wasn't too thick on the shoulder or too thin. It didn't drop into some string on the back. Some people liked that. I didn't want that. Like beaters themselves are thinner than tank tops. They're ribbed so that they fit right. I think even like, have you ever seen those Under Armour tank tops or those shrink wrap ones, they don't look good. I think they look synthetic. For me, I think they look kind of synthetic-y. I don't like it.

1:11:05I like cotton better. And so it was just a number of iterations. If I talked about this year, I could tell you a zillion things that I looked at. I mean, I just... I have an Excel sheet that... I thought you would have. I have a few friends like that. I'm not as extreme, but I like buying and testing a ton of stuff. I think Sean did. Sean ordered 20 of the same shirts. What products... This is actually interesting. I don't think this is too inside baseball. but what products and brands do you obsess with and love in your daily life? Well, I won't say them because I'm in talks with Hassan. Correct me.

1:11:41To try and figure something out. But I will caveat that with, I think that in general for people, my life might be different than theirs. And I think just being deliberate, so many people just sleepwalking through life, that they're always sitting there with their pants that just don't fit just right or always don't have this thing. Like a lot of stuff I modify. So like my gym bag, like there was a video about my gym bag. Like I tried out a bunch of different bags and I finally found a bag that I liked and then I modified the shit out of it. And like that bag. Now, every time I go into a gym, people are like, dude, that bag's awesome.

1:12:14I was like, I know because I made it for this function and it's great and I love it. It's really good. So I think it's more just like finding the, like whatever your 40 to 120 is, because maybe you live in Michigan and it's always cold. And it's like, well, you're gonna have a different standard standard wear what shorts are are they i thought you used to wear just jorts i used to make fun of you for wearing i used to wear jorts but jorts yeah so i'll tell you i used to wear jorts because they were more comfortable um and i could do more casual settings with them right they're like always showing up in like athletic shorts i mean just like it just it looks it looked like almost too casual i think um and a lot of restaurants are like no athletic wear and so i was like okay well that's annoying and so then it went through this whole thing where i had to find like the best short.

1:12:57And then while I was doing that, like the ones that I have have back hooks on them so that if I can hang them too dry, I've got an iPhone pocket in there that's built in. So like, cause I hate having to sit and then you take it out of your pocket. Yeah. Every time it's like, it's such a pain, like, well, there should be a pocket for this. Everyone has one. Right. And there's like a little place that I can put like an iPad, iPad pencil in my shorts. Cause I use my iPad a lot. Um, like I've got cargo on the other side and, these are stretchy, but not too stretchy, but they're stretching. what freight you hauling in there buddy what do you got what type of what do you need the cargo gummy bears no a lot of times it's mike packs so a lot of times it's mike packs because we're getting like right now my mike packs in my cargo pocket um but like i could fit a water bottle in here if i need it um or uh or hotel key like hotel keys there whenever we're traveling uh or i use my nicorette because i actually nicorette so i'll have nicorette in my pocket if i go on a podcast so I just I'd like always have the stuff that I I need there you know well it's just the best the best way possible man this is these are my favorite kinds of pods when you you find out you know it's like I want to see you're weird uh that's when I know you until I see you're weird I don't actually know you I feel this is my this is my personal my personal thing and uh I'm glad we went down this rabbit hole because I got to see you're weird it's funny because when we're Right now, my...

1:14:18I'm not going to show you the brand, but I've got this backpack here, right? And this backpack, I wore... I can wear it... When we travel, I can wear it everywhere and it has everything that I use to travel and I can travel for four weeks because all I have to pack is three pairs of shorts that are identical that are multi-everything and then I just have an amount of tanks that is whatever the laundry cycle of the trip is and that's it and I could put one flannel on top and I'm good like and I don't even have to use the expansion part of that backpack which I have options if I need it uh and so like and it has a cool front thing for all my wires that's flat so it doesn't take up space like there's just a lot of like and I went through a zillion different bags to find that I went through a zillion different bags to find the gym bag but like now whenever I pick it up I'm like this is the best bag for the job.

1:15:12You seem like a clutter free guy. Like you have a cleaner who comes to your home very, very often and someone who does laundry. And also do you own, do you not own a lot of stuff? I don't Layla does. Right. And so like I, I, that backpack and like tank tops, like I can fit my entire wardrobe in my bedside table. And so super easy. Uh, and like when I was trying stuff on, uh, you know, one of our assists will come and they'll return, you know, anything that, that I don't use or whatever. But like, I think we're, I think the underlying point here, there's like Layla doesn't do that at all. Like, cause that's like, that's not real.

1:15:49Like she doesn't like that at all. Like she grew up really poor, always wanted to have nice, nice clothes. And now that she can, she loves wearing nice clothes and she feels good wearing nice clothes. And she gets hit up by the designers to like go to the runway things because she, she wore like one piece of her wardrobe is the entire cost of my wardrobe. Like one piece, like a top. What is the best way you spend money for you personally? Not like a business investment that you think it's a great ROI or you get a bunch of joy out of it or it's like dope for you. That is, let's say, not your content team and not like something that's directly in the business.

1:16:29Yeah. I mean, I would say JSX is wonderful. It's in the Southwest. So it's like summer private flying. Yeah. It's pretty good. oh it's great i mean it gives you so like i the only reason we fly private is because it's safe it's the only reason we do it like and you a lot less hassle but jsx allows you all the benefits of private flying this is like a fucking jsx plug but it's really good um and it tickets like 300 bucks when it would normally be like 50 so if you want to fly jsx from vegas to saw leg or vegas to Scottsdale or Vegas to LA, it's 300 bucks. It's nothing. And you walk up to the plane, you get on the plane, and then you walk off the plane.

1:17:12That's it. You know what I mean? It's just like private. There's just a few other people there. And private flying, in my opinion, has the most benefit for the shortest travels and the least benefit for the long travels. Because long travels, you want to fly as high as possible, as fast as possible. the bigger, you know, the bigger the plane, the better. And, um, and by percentage of the trip, you know, the, the going through security and dealing with the hassle, if you have a five and a half hour flight, five and a half hours versus like seven hours of transit, does it like the day's through?

1:17:43Like, it's kind of like, it doesn't materially change a lot, but on a short travel where you're going like sub, I would say sub two hours, like you can, you can double the length of the trip or triple the length of the trip by going in reverse, cut it in half or by a third by flying private. And so that's where I feel like you get the highest marginal benefit. It's also the cheapest private flight to the shortest ones because it's by hour. So that's kind of like when we go back and forth. And usually the only times we'll fly private is if we can't get a direct JSX flight. We'll wrap up in a second here, but last time you were here, Sean asked a question about your portfolio.

1:18:21And I want to follow up on it. What's your portfolio looking like in terms of both your private investments as well as what are you doing with your money? Are you keeping it in equities, bonds, cash? I think last time you were super heavy cash, if I remember correctly. Yep. All treasuries. Yeah, that's what it was. It was treasuries. You're like, I'm almost entirely treasuries. What's it looking right now in terms of if you could do a pie chart and percentages? Probably still half treasuries. Except now they're a lot better than before. Yeah. So we're probably half treasuries. Probably have a quarter in just like indexes.

1:18:58And the other quarter is in private companies. So pretty simple. Yeah. Probably not by value. Over time, that treasury part is going to continue to decline as we do more and more deals. But yeah, I still think that like, I mean, I don't know what the future looks like. I tend to like having lots of cash. I never want to not be able to do a deal that's going to 10X because I don't have cash. The cost of missing the 10X is well worth the, quote, inflation that I'm suffering for the difference between the treasury yield and the inflation cost. And I would imagine you probably don't own a car. And you seem like you'd be running a car.

1:19:34So Layla has one of those H2 electric Hummer pickup trucks. Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. Yeah, the huge one. yeah massive she was like i want it i was like okay they're actually you know it's not really mine would be if it were me i would have a dodge caravan that was like all blacked out tinted windows with the tvs you know i mean in the back like sliding door as i pull up uh that would be more my my my style and are you renting you're renting still or do you own that place uh no we actually just bought we just bought a place um we we were running for a couple years and then And Layla found one that she was like, I want this one.

1:20:10So I was like, all right, get it. So I'm actually, so we just moved today, actually. Or yesterday was the official move. So that's why my background is now my office closet. But we're actually retrofitting a closet here to be my office. Dude, I heard that Derek from More Plates, More Dates, I had heard a story. So he basically started his whole video thing when he was, you know, no one. And he just had a shitty apartment. and I had heard a story that he the original video was just him on a white wall that he cut that white wall and put it into each of his now nicer homes or apartments. I had heard he took that wall with him everywhere so even the shade was the same.

1:20:50I don't know if that's true but I had heard that and I thought that was pretty funny. I'm a big believer that like Derek obviously knows what he's doing. I just always just want like if I move you guys like my background will change and you'll know that like something's changed my life you know what I mean well he's way more private than you yeah he's way more private he doesn't want anyone to know his last name etc um different strokes I think on a long enough time horizon everyone will find out your last name I mean Lady Gaga I tried to go by Gaga but like you can Wikipedia her name so like you know you can you can find it if you get famous enough and I figured that like we will get famous enough and so it hasn't been something that I've tried to protect you know a ton well thank you for uh coming on again you um if you go to our youtube page my first million you're actually like the i don't know what they call that video but you're like our main page it was like the pinned video for a while yeah and it's like a quote of like i've come to the conclusion that i just like to work and i don't like when people ask me why am i working all the time or something like that but uh thanks for doing this again and uh uh we really appreciate it no i mean thank you guys for having me on and thank you to the audience for maybe making requests to have me back on.

1:21:56So I appreciate it. And it means a lot to me. So thank you guys for just being awesome hosts in general. Awesome. Well, that's the pod.

1:22:19Hey, let's take a quick break because there's a quote that I love. I want to read you. It's that we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us. And as an entrepreneur, if you're using a bank that was built in the 90s, you're operating like you're in the 90s. And trust me, I've been there. Clunky portals, random holds on your money,$50 wire fees, and then being told, please visit your local branch. Well, that's why I switched to a different type of banking solution, Mercury. It turns your financial chores into a smooth workflow. You can do wires, invoices, cards, reimbursements, two clicks, and I'm done.

1:22:49If you're already using Mercury, respect. If you're still using one of the old big banks, I got questions for you. So go visit mercury.com and give it a test drive. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, Column A, and Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC.