The Man That Makes Millionaires: How To Turn $1,000 Into $100 Million!: Alex Hormozi

21:42Right now I owe the guy twenty two thousand dollars in commissions. I in total now had twenty three thousand dollars. So I wired him the money and I had a thousand dollars left and it was December of twenty sixteen. And I was like I screen shot it because I still have the screen shot on my bank account. So I went from like six gyms turn around business all the stuff to one thousand dollars. And I was like this sucks. And Layla had just got six of her friends to quit their job to come do this turn around business with me. And they were starting two days later from the twenty fourth. So the twenty sixth of December because I planned on getting this under grand end and then being able to launch six gyms because they took about you know whatever.

22:22It was thirty three hundred dollars a day in cost to have six guys out there in the field selling thirty three hundred a day that I did not have. And so I saw a credit card that I had a thousand dollars limit on it. And so I'm at her parents house like in an extra bedroom. I haven't lost everything and the my one hell marry play of this launch the money did not come through. And I was like I think you should leave me. I think I'm a sinking ship right now. And I would respect you like we're cool if you want to walk away. Like we're good. Like I won't think less of you like I would walk away from you right now because this could this has a very high likelihood of not going right.

23:10And she pulled my chin towards her and she was like I would sleep with you in her bridge of a came to that. And it's hard to comprehend but like I had nothing you know like for her to have that kind of belief was was very. It was deep for me. So it was like fuck it let's go you know what I mean. And so then we we launched the gyms doing thirty three hundred dollars a day and mind you I had no way to process money still. So I'm collecting sixty to eighty contracts a day that I can't process. And if we're getting calls from customers like hey why have you run my car I have to run my car calling all these processors to be like hey can you please.

23:44As soon as you get shut down from a processor it's like a black mark it's like going bankrupt for credit cards. They're like something's weird we they just won't there's other people they can process the money for. Finally I get like a high risk process or that does like porn and casinos and stuff to like give me. And they're like yeah so it's going to be like eight percent processing and we're going to hold ten percent as like safeguard and I was like Jesus okay yes. And they're like and we can only give you fifty thousand dollars as your limit and I was like I need like two hundred. He's like well and I got this on the twenty ninth of January so this whole time thirty three hundred days running on this card and I have no money and I have no way to process it.

24:22And twenty ninth of January I can run fifty grand I run fifty grand in a day and he's like but it's by month he's like so February first you can run another fifty. So February first I run another fifty that hundred covers my cost from the month before. And then I get two more processors for fifty boom boom run those and then like I got a third one or fourth one like two weeks later and I was able to like start moving things around. And at the end of February we had made like a thirty thousand dollar profit and I was like okay I think we might be out of this. The next month we did a little bit more and I was like okay I think this is working and then all of a sudden Leila tasked me in the shoulder one morning and she's like she like turns her laptop towards me and it's our bank account and has all these negative transactions like hundreds of them.

25:08And I was like what's going on she's like well all these clients are calling me saying that the gym that we did this launch at month and a half ago the guy got in his chair and was like hey there's too many of you here like just go home just refund because I was the one who held the money they had to do the delivery that was the model is like I would fill a gym up I would sell I'd keep the money. And then they deliver on the services and after that they could keep the customers that was kind of like the setup. And then another gym the next week said hey this guy made a hundred grand out of my gym the average amount of makes thirty six thousand dollars of your take home.

25:42It's like this kid from the internet took a hundred grand out in a month screw that kid and so he told all the customers who were there after we left hey I'll keep delivering your thing refund him just pay me half what you paid him. After we you out right it was a flawed model like I didn't understand like I didn't get it at that point and so you know hundred fifty thousand dollars and refunds that I had to cover and I had no way of doing it. Why do you like laylis like we're going to do this I believe in you and so I'm like I'm like I can't sleep I remember because what happened is like the more we sold the more the refund like it was a vicious cycle so I had to sell more to cover the refunds from the ones that were coming in.

26:20And so our sales were going up and it was just like I just I couldn't breathe. And I was just I would wake up at night anyways and so I'm like writing down these ideas if like what I think I could do. We ate lunches that were supposed to lunch next month so I said hey layla you have this little weight loss business because she had her personal training business you converted her own her in person clients online during this whole process so she's making like three four thousand dollars a month and most of it is like I'm not stable. I'm like making all this big money and losing it all the making it losing and she's just like paying groceries and actually like making sure that I can eat.

26:51And I was like tell me more about that I was like what's your over and how much time does it take you and then blah blah I was like we're going to we're going to do your thing. We're going to we're going to call queen transformation I'm going to start running ads for it and we're going to take the sales team and we're going to put it on your thing. And so within 14 days she starts taking the phone calls because she was a good salesman she's doing a thousand bucks a day online. No no no all margin was a product it was a 16 week like weight loss program that you online yeah online exactly. And so it was 500 bucks to choose someone to have a day.

27:21And so I was like man we get the eight eight guys going we'll have eight thousand a day 240 after that. And I was like I can make 150 in profit and like we'll be in the clear. So I called the eight guys that were supposed to launch the next month the gyms. So I get on the phone with the first guy I was like hey we're going in the direction you know we're going to we're going to be a weight loss company still directing consumer. And he was like dude you launch my buddies gym like two months ago and like he can't stop talking about you it's like it's packed. Because there are other gyms that everything went fine with just the ones that didn't is the ones that crushed the business.

27:55He's like I know you can do it and I just refinance my house and I maxed out my credit cards to to to make this gym happen tonight. I'm going to lose it. And given what I had been through up to this point I was like that's tough man. Sorry about that. And then finally it was like can you okay instead of flying can you just show me what you did to tell my buddy out can you just give me like the system. And since I was like I'm going to get out of this gym business I was okay like selling my secrets. And so I was like all right man I'll give you everything I have but I'm not going to fly out there to save your ass if you can't sell.

28:30And I said no no it's fine. And so I picked up the highest number I could think of because you already told me he was broke. So I figured I could just get him off the phone so we could move on and I said $6 ,000 and he was like six grand and I was like yeah he was like oh done. And I remember like looking at the phone and be like oh shit $6 ,000 and I was like oh what card do you want to use for that? I wrote like a cardboard box and then the next call the same thing you know I was like well should I have to make this thing. I don't know the same conversation he's like how much I was like eight grand he was like yeah okay.

29:03And I each of the calls was like next call same thing 10 grand next call same thing 12 grand and then next you know the end of the day I sold $60 ,000 in licensing packages for all of the stuff that we did to do the turn around. Is that monthly or is that just it was a it was a I didn't have it. I was just like I'm just giving you everything I do. Yeah it became more like more it became a recurring model over time. It was a PDF. It was actually all my internal stuff. So it was like what I used to train my sales teams that would fly out and like what I would use to train them on how to do the nutrition orientation.

29:36Like it was all the internal stuff the only thing I actually made external was I had to create the advertising material. So I had to basically make a white label landing page for the gyms that they could put their logo on. And then I gave I licensed them the ads themselves that we already do converted. Right. So like the video is the copy everything they used like videos of me that we knew converted and I taught him out of random. And then that's that's what it did it. And we made $60 ,000 in a day and I like Layla came in from doing her two sales for weight loss. And I was like I think we're still in the gym business.

30:08And she was like what I thought we were doing weight loss like you just told me you sold me on weight loss being like the next thing. I was like I just I just think we were doing it wrong. And so I explained what had happened. And she's like so is this what we're going to do now. And I was like I guess I was like I can call the other 30 gyms that we did the turn around for. I was like they know we can do it because we just did it for them. And so I call all those guys up and we did like $300 ,000 in sales that month. And it was basically all profit and I covered the refunds and I covered everything and we were like in the clear.

30:40And then and then it was just and then all those gyms that we did that we sold the average gym did a 30 ,000 hours and extra cash collected in their first month using our our system. And so the key was that like if they didn't have to pay the overhead of the sales guy who's there every day at the hotel the commission for that guy like the rental car the protein like all the stuff that you have to incentivize and just like rented out of their own gym and work the leaves themselves it became incredibly profitable for them. And and then it just took off like wildfire like we went from like our first full 12 months of like January to January we did 26 million top line 17 million in EBITDA our first 12 like it was it was insane like it's hard to comprehend that like I like that was the moment I had been like dead broke in her parents house.

31:32And then like six months later I have $3 million in the bank account and then like 12 months after that I've got like 20. It was it was insane and I don't even know how you could pay taxes like I didn't I was like I was figuring all the stuff out but through that whole thing Laila was just like you can do this like we can do this like we've got this. And I think sometimes you just need one voice behind you that just just keeps believing what happened then so that's 2016 you turn things around yeah over the next couple of years what happens that you know leading up to where we are today in terms of your business can you give it a top line summary in terms of what yeah I give the TLD are continue to grow gym launch to years later we started a supplement company called prestige labs at this point we had thousands of gym owners that had licensed the business model and the ads and all the stuff that we were doing and so we sold through that distribution base that company grew pretty good pretty pretty quickly.

32:28Year after that we started a software company that also helped gyms get leads in the doors just like an automated lead thing and then 2021 we sold all three of those companies the supplement and the licensing company we sold to American Pacific group which is a private equity firm out of San Francisco for 46 .2 million for sold to third the company and then the software company we actually sold to a strategic company. Fire like massive base and we said a better monetization system than they did and that was an all stock deal so we're just continuing to grow under their umbrella and they'll probably sell them for five years but from that and what we had taken in dividends during the licensing business for the five years that it was rock and it's still is rock and roll it we started acquisition knock on so that became kind of our family office.

33:22And so we started our first investments I think first investments we did was in 2020 so there is some overlap there and part of the reason that I was willing to sell it was because the investments the first. Through foreign investments we did it really well and it was like okay this is what I want to do is the next thing said you know I didn't want to be the gym guy for some of life because I had been you know at this point it been. I think more than a decade that I've been from like sleeping on the gym floor to having multiple occasions to doing the turnaround business to doing the licensing like I'd been in that game for a long time and I think that maybe I could have stayed there and could have just continued to compounded and started doing acquisitions under that fitness umbrella but I wanted to do more general business stuff and so that was that's what we did and so now we now we buy chunks of companies usually usually minority states 25 to 49 ish percent I mean we have.

34:13One that were in the toxic that we were originally minority stake in and we're going to take majority because it's been a great company and they want to the founder in the same position as I was like just wants to do other stuff and it's a great business and so but that's kind of how we we see it as like growth partners we come in we write a check we add value we help grow the business. What are you brilliant you know you kind of you kind of come to learn what you're good at based on comparison but you kind of understand your area of expertise what is your area of brilliant pretty answer expertise.

34:43I really want to ask Caleb Caleb West Caleb we can barely see. So Caleb sat over on the sofa in the corner of the studio he's a friend and creative director of Alex and I'm asking Caleb what Alex is good at what's his area of brilliance.

35:07Like it solving problems for companies simplifying complex things into more digestible actionable solutions as well and how would you answer that question if you were answering for yourself. I feel like I fundamentally a lot of times don't understand the world and so I think the reason that some people have found the content and things like that. Good or useful is because they feel like they can understand it is just because like I didn't get it right like terms like value I probably provide more value what does that mean. And so I just make a making attempt to define the terms that a lot of us use every day and then it makes a lot easier to solve for those things in business.

35:46And so a lot of people like I want to grow my business so I'm like all right what does that mean like well get more customers make them worth more. Okay so one of those two things all right well how do I make it more customers like well there's eight ways to do it or the eight ways which one do you feel like your best at. And just like kind of thinking through frameworks that way is it's just for me it's just been my way of being able to be relatively competent in a world that feels confusing. Like there's a few things I feel like I can understand and I just hold on it. I mean that's the very nature of innovation isn't it like asking the question.

36:17So often our lives just accept words and phrases and ways of doing things and then there's a few people who are really good like Elon's one of them. I just like asking why and then when you ask why like why can't you make an affordable quote quote electric vehicle that is fast everyone else said you can't. But why you know and then he's great at breaking it down into like the core components of that innovation so well if we buy the metal on the ion exchange we do this and this then we can do it. Yeah. So that's such an important thing in entrepreneurship is that there's some people who just ask why naturally.

36:52Yeah. So it's like to the point like to Elon it's like I don't understand why we can't like just explain to me why we can't so that I cannot think about this and I feel like that's you know. I would say that that's the most come to them like why is this company growing like I don't get it like explain it to me and then usually a lot of people it's like they're in this corner this loop you know what I mean of doing what they've always done or like believing that this is the only way. And I think a lot of times I've benefited from like not knowing because I my questions don't seem stupid to me but only to somebody who like knows what they're doing it seems stupid and so from there we're able to like I guess to your point innovate.

37:33Just by being like I don't understand. That's what Steve Jobs from everything that I've read about Steve Jobs and my brief conversation Steve was not once upon a time. Is he was just the voice in the room that never understood why they couldn't. And even like when we think about him removing the keyboard and doing you know not refusing to use a stylus and all these other crazy things he did not using JavaScript I think at the time and changing the port removing the iPhone Jack. That that is somebody who is so strong in their convictions in terms of like doing things anyway. How important do you think that is generally it like what in your view what makes a really good on trepina slash leader.

38:14I think that they have to have the power to influence and that is across lots of things. Just they have to be able to move other people and you can define sales as the ability to get people to comply with your request you can define leadership the same way management marketing to a degree is getting people to comply with a larger request you know publicly. But I think that fundamentally is a skill that people have to have if they're going to be successful on entrepreneurship. They have to have tremendous drive whether that's a combination of towards or away so they have a big mission that they really want to achieve or they have some very big fear that they're running away from either way I think the fuel works just from a pure entrepreneurship perspective.

38:52Third piece is impulse control is that they have to be able to say no to things on a regular basis for an extended period of time. And I think they have to be able to boil down the success of their business into inputs and outputs like if you do not know the inputs that are going to get the output that you want. And what are you doing. And so I think for most entrepreneurs like if they have those things if they have the ability to lead other people.

39:20So they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that they have to be able to control the output that for no control of them how to treat them.

39:47Why is that important Why is that important why do you think what is important why do you think, what is information available there same thing of Salesforce here, if they are not actually able to follow them, why is that important Why is that important why do you think do to those sales as a key thing. how does it just so does it just so does it just so does it just so does it just so is beneficial at a time or how would it actually make a difference for the network or do to which sounds weird sort of whatever open toха eventually would make a difference for the network, who would have a difference for the network, because having a prioritize that you are taller than they have to prettify characteristic of them you want their eyeover wrong.

40:17So the perfect scenario would be mentor, mentee, repeated exposure, fix this, try again, fix this, try again. And in sales, if you can survive that long, then you are good enough that you will have gotten enough feedback. Like for most people, if they can weather the first three months of sales, then they'll usually be fine. And so for the people who are coming up, I always tell them, like, go shout out to the best guy and do twice the volume he's doing because you're not as good as him. So like, do twice the volume that they're doing, work all of the hours, and you will get better faster because you're doing, you have to suck for X period of time.

40:49And so if you can condense how long that takes you in terms of calendar days, not hours, you can get there faster. But I think that it's important because when you have to learn how to get rejected and still keep going. And I think that's a very viable skill. And then too, there's lots of like little things that you learn in just interpersonal communication that allow you that you can use with teammates later. You can use in marketing because a lot of the best marketers started as sales people and marketing is just sales one to many, at least as I understand it. And so having that kind of repetition just develops a deep understanding of human psychology, I think.

41:21And I think it's important for if you want to get people to give you money for the thing that you have, having that as a base skill comes in handy. I think a lot of people aren't orientated towards developing skills. I think they're orientated to lifestyle, to what I can post on Instagram, to cool, whatever's cool. But this idea of developing skills requires this thing that's kind of absent in modern culture, which is patience. And like you said rejection, who wants that? You know, there was no glamour in what you said. Yeah. It's funny because a lot of us want traits, right? We want to be patient.

41:59We want to be humble. We want to be long suffering, whatever words you want to use. But in order to, if I would say, hey, how would you create, if you had to create a human, what would you put them through to make them tough? It probably wouldn't be a really chill life. What would you put them through to make them patient? We probably wouldn't give them things immediately. And so it's like we want these traits, but each of the traits has a price tag attached to it. And it's just like do you want to pay the price tag to get the thing? And so I think if people reframed the period of life that they're going through as the price that they're paying out of their wallet, but the wallet is their time is the seconds of life that they're trading for it, then I think more people will be willing to make the trade.

42:39Because at least when I look at myself like when I'm 80 something years old and I'm looking back on my life, I want to have these traits, but in order to have those traits, I know I have to go through these things. And I think for me, that's given me a lot of comfort in hard times. One of the things that kind of adjacent to that, which causes patience is the belief that you are at some point going to get that. So like, you know, it's all well and good you saying to me, you do this for five years, Stephen, you'll build the skill. But I go, well, listen, if I were to be a millionaire and I have low self belief, I'm going to have low conviction.

43:09So I'm not even going to take the bet. So how does one build that self belief, self belief is such an interesting thing because it feels like it's real. It's clear to some degree that you had it in that moment of turmoil. It also, the reason I say to some degrees because it doesn't seem like you had a plan to be anyway.

43:29You were already in your parents and those play room or whatever. So you're nothing to lose. So I don't know how it's self belief is applicable. But regardless to keep gracing those hurdles, self, you need some kind of conviction that like, this is the right way to go. How do people build that? You know, I hear that and just like to echo the point you just made, I hated my current existence. And so I think some people like don't hate their current existence enough. And so like, I don't think you know, like you either have to really believe that this thing's going to happen or you have to know that your life sucks.

44:04And I knew that my life sucked. And so I knew that if I did something else, it would have, it would have a higher likelihood of changing my life than not doing something. And at least that's how I say that I probably saw it in the beginning. It's not if it was going to work, but I knew that I wasn't going to start. I heard it quite some 10 years ago, which just came to mind when you said that on some YouTube family vlog where you said change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change. And in your situation, that sounds like, well, this is less painful.

44:38100%. I think, and I think that's the basis of most, either you have to have a word that is that that incentivizes you. The way towards or away. It's either we're going away from pain or going towards pleasure. I think a lot of people are really looking for that passion. It's going to be towards, but I think early days and I talk a lot about this, but like, I think negative motivation is poo poo too much. Like if you are angry, use it. If you are sad, use it. It's like, what else are you going to do with it? Like you might as well let it help you. Like, or it uses you, you know what I mean. And so I always like to see when I was in my earlier days, I felt like I was wielding my anger at least in a direction.

45:19And I think also a lot of people think that they have to get like it right on the first shot. But one of the beliefs that I had was that I just want to be directionally correct. Like if I move, I like, I know that I don't like this. And so this way is not where I am. And so I will start taking steps this way. And from the story of the early start, it's like, I'll ping pong a little bit to try and directionally move that way. And it's funny because Caleb seen plenty of things from what we do at acquisition. Not calm. We're trying to try it out. And if it doesn't work, they're like, oops.

45:49All good. Do you believe in yourself? I think that I have a high likelihood of repeating activities that I've done in the past. And up to this point, I have lots of evidence that would suggest that I will continue. Why didn't you say yes? Because I base the answer on that question of what I've done before. And I think it's been, it's just based on evidence now. So it's not like a like charisma thing, at least for me. It's just like, I've done these things. And so I think it's probable that I'll be able to continue. Is there a deeper reason to why you didn't just say yes? That's actually how I think about it.

46:31Is that because it feels difficult to say you believe in yourself? Yeah, it feels weird. I don't know if Hoki is the right word for what that feels like. For me, but like saying the way that I said it is how I feel about it. Have you been on a journey of in terms of self -doubt over the last, you know, 30 years? For sure. I think it was, I mean, fear was my big fear and anger, hint and hand, or my big motivators in the beginning. And I mean, maybe that's from self -doubt. I would say that I was very certain. I can feel this and I remember this. I was always certain that I wasn't going to stop.

47:15Like that, I didn't know, I didn't know whether I would succeed. I thought it was probable. But I did know I wasn't going to stop. And so for me, that was like enough to get me going or keep me going. It was like, what are the controllables? Me. Okay. Well, if I do this, so I'm big on making like unreasonable, like unreasonable, that it doesn't work out statements. Just like, if I do sales and I do more volume than everyone else on this team and I've shadowed the guy who's the best and I do that for five years, it's unreasonable that I won't be at least mediocre. It will be probable that I'm above average.

47:51And it's also probable that I'll learn other things along the way. And I'll also have the resources at that point in five years that I can jump into things now that I have more context or perspective from which to make a judgment on what a good next opportunity is. And so I like very easy to believe statements and then having the input output equation being like the output is that I will be a very good salesman. The input is that I have to do. I have to collect 5 ,000 knows. I collect 5 ,000 knows. I'll be a very good salesman. And that for me, like when I was a kid when I played video games, I would beat the same level over and over and over again.

48:24So that when I got to the next level, I would crush everybody because I had all the experience points maxed out. And so like those input output equations are really helpful for me. Like when I took the GMAT to get into Harvard, my first score was like, okay, it wasn't great. But I read this study on how to do well on standardized tests. And they had this graph. Anyone like this, it was just a straight line. It said number of problems practiced on GMAT score. So like the more problems you did on average, the higher your test score was. And I was like, done. So I bought 16 phone books of like they're like these thick like test prep books.

49:02And I did four hours of problems every day for three months. Every day I get home from work, I put you dinner, I do four hours of problems at a time or every day. And then I scored 99 point whatever percentile because it was just input output. Like I didn't I didn't I was nationally not even that good at math. But I just was like if I do 10 ,000 fucking problems, like I'll start to just understand how these problems get asked. And so like I was trying to find like what's the input output for this, the content game, I was like, okay, well if we post once a day on one platform, we will get some eyeballs.

49:33If we post on every platform every day, we will get more eyeballs. If we post multiple times a day on every platform, we'll get even more eyeballs. So let's do that. Let's build that system. 100%. And so like those are the like I try and make statements that I believe are unreasonable that if I do it enough, it will be true. And so that's for me, that's what gives me the confidence to say like, what if it's not work? I'm like it will eventually like if we just keep doing it, it will work. What does it take to want to do something potentially for you so that you can get it good at it? Because you know, there's going to be people saying, well, I want to be a great DJ, but I just can't find the motivation to spend every day three hours practicing Alex.

50:15Yeah, but like you probably won't be a good DJ. But I would be like, you like your current state enough that you like the pain of change thing. But like you're not enough pain. I said that to plenty of people we go speak and someone's like, how do I get motivated? I'm like, you're not going to get motivated. Like you have to hate for me. I'm like, I automatically go there. I'm like, you have to hate something. Like for me, I just hated my current existence. And so for me, that was powerful enough to get me out. There's got to be another way though. You know, I was thinking to you that moment when you took the leap.

50:46You know, I feel I often feel like most people that listen to this podcast often are at a point in their life where they're considering a leap. Yeah. Feel like we drug drag those type of people in. We kind of like we're a magnet to those people. So if they if they're in a situation that they don't like but it's not that painful, you know, it's comfortable. Well, that's the worst. It's comfortable, but little bit miserable. Yeah. How do you get them to take the leap when it's so comfortable? My boss is promising the information.

51:18I think about death all the time. It's like, I'm going to die. And I think you have to agitate the pain for yourself. Like you have to stoke the pain. Like if you can't get through through because like it would be it would be odd that you would be motivated by some weird passion. Like not everyone's moods are just like, I just love music. And I've been I see in, you know, see numbers and colors, you know, whatever. Like some people are like that. Most people aren't. And so if you're not that, then you only start really liking stuff when you get good at it in my opinion. And you only get good at it by doing it a lot of times before you're good.

51:55And so if you this is why I'm big big believer in this is that when you are starting out, I think you got to find the thing that's the pain and like pain motivates significantly faster and stronger than pleasure does. Like people were like, no passions the right way. It's like point of gun at a family member. All of a sudden 10 out of 10 motivation pain. And so like, I think people should use their pain more. And if they don't have enough pain, then one, maybe that's fine. And you're a dreamer. And that's okay. But I will tell you that a word that I can I read in my like six month journey between when I wanted to quit and when I actually quit, there was this word that just like pissed me off.

52:34And it was this in the self -help or entrepreneur book. And it said there are entrepreneurs and there are watcher printers. And it was like, and it was like watcher printers are people who read these books and don't do anything. And I was just like, I don't want to be I was like, I am one of these right now. And I just it just like felt so powerless. And I think that my entire life has been a lot of trying to have power. And I mean, then the true sense of just being able to direct influence and events. I've wanted to have more power to protect myself, protect the people I care about, et cetera.

53:07And I felt very powerless. And I think that I was in that comfortable like my data proofs of my current situation. I had a job that when I told people they're like, oh, that's fancy. But I felt powerless. And I hated that more than anything. And so I think I think if I want to say this to anyone who's listening, if there's anything you listen to, all the stuff that I described that was really tough that I went through was not as hard as me quitting my job. By far, the hardest decision of my entire life are none. Because the things that I was actually caught up with were the opinions of other people.

53:45opinions of my father and the opinions of the people that I went to school with who I thought would judge me for leaving this good job to probably become a failed gemmer. And how lame that would sound compared to consultant going to Harvard. And I was going to go from peak white collar to a very blue collar, you know, profession making significantly less because I quote loved it. And like I'll say this again, but like sometimes you have to let other people's dreams for your life die, for years to live. And for me, it was like when I when I continued to every day not want to wake up, that was my wake up call where I was like, either I continue to live this way and not want to be alive.

54:27Or I just risked the fact that I'll died everybody else. And I think that that like it was the hardest decision of my entire life. By far, all the all the hard stuff that went through, still the hardest decision of my life. How much was money on your mind when you made that decision? The desire to be financially free to the point where you had millions. It's weird money Caleb would know this money doesn't really motivate me. I would say that it would I mean, I love the game for sure. But I love playing the game and the tokens are there. But for me, it was it was it was it was beat in my dead. You know what I mean, I didn't want him to be right.

55:04I think that's what it was. I didn't want him to be right. I just I just I remember like I would I'd be sleeping on the floor. I'd be miserable at you know, when I had my gem and I had no trainers, I was teaching all the classes. And so I'd I'd wake up. I'd do four, I have five, I'm six, I'm seven, eight, eight, eight sessions. And then I would then work out for myself. And then I would do I do all the marketing in the ads and the stuff that I have to do the middle day. And then I would teach the four, the four PM, the five PM, the scripting, the seven PM. And then I would do sales consults at eight, nine, 10, 11.

55:35And then I would do the billing for all the all the contracts from 11 to like 12 to 12 30. And then I'd wake up again. And I did that for like six months. And like I started like lose my mind because I wasn't sleeping. But even during like those times, I just literally I would envision going back to Baltimore to my father and have in knowing that he would give me the false modesty of like, I know you tried to learn about it. Now let's get you back on this thing. And I knew that from that moment on, he would own me. And I just couldn't I couldn't I couldn't do it. I was like, I will do anything.

56:12But go back to that. And for me, that was my I would do anything. And so whatever that maybe you need to agitate some pain in your life, you know, to get out of your current circumstance. And just as a total side note, play it out. What if you just never do anything? Is like maybe some people just need to stop dreaming. Maybe they need to accept their current reality and actually enjoy it because there's a lot of people in their 70 and 80 and they didn't do their dreams. And if they went back, like they didn't do anything, but that whole time they were dissatisfied because they didn't try. But what if they were just like, I have a good life.

56:51I have a life who loves me. I've got some kids. I have a job that I, you know, like I don't mind it. Pace the bills. I mean, if you go back 500 years, it wasn't people are like, man, this is my passion. It's like dude, I'm just rowing rowing a boat across a ferry. And that's what I do. And that's what my dad didn't his dad did. Like, this is how we eat. And so like we have these, these idealized versions of purpose that I think Instagram and all this stuff kind of make terrible. But like I think there's a lot of honor and work period. And I think a lot of people fool themselves by thinking that what they do for some reason is not honorable.

57:21And I think a lot of it is like the internal versus external scorecard of like, I was saying what I said earlier about like, I believe these things to be true about the universe or like the world. But a lot of those are like, what do I believe about myself? Which is like, I can choose to do work in this way, which then I can derive joy from. So like if I'm struggling shit, I can choose to be like, I will be the best shit shop roller because I believe that I will figure out how to do this more efficiently. And I will, you know, I will, I will get better and I will have calcies on my hands and I'll have a better back and whatever.

57:51But I will do this well. And I think you can find joy and work if you decide to do it. So on one hand, if you are, if you are, if you're a dream causes so much pain, then you will quit what you're doing and do it. And if it doesn't cause you enough pain that you're not pursuing it or that you don't, like if you don't feel like you're in a cage right now, then maybe you're not in a cage. And maybe you just need to like the life you have. And that's cool too. Previous guest on this podcast called MoGout, that said, we're unhappy one our expectations of how we think life is supposed to be going are unmet.

58:26And in that there's something very sort of linked what you just said there, which is we have this external expectation set by Instagram or whatever by people like us. Yeah.

58:39Who who are in a position of financial freedom and have built an audience who, you know, admire those people for what they've achieved. And if someone wants to be admired, they think, well, I need to be like Alex, right? And then I could be working in a shop actually objectively, like subjectively having a great time in the shop. But I look up at Alex and go, my life sucks. Right. And like, so in that, I'm like, it's very difficult because of the pressure of external, like I was just thinking when you said it, then I was thinking this whole idea of like passion and purpose is probably like 60 years old.

59:13Yeah. It's all brand new. And it probably originated when we were like connected, you know, like radio, TV, yeah, all of this advertising which made us change our expectations of our own lives when living in the village and like helping out at the bakery was probably delivered the same amount of happiness, core happiness, then being on the private jet and whatever else does it now. I think most people are just as happy and just like you're 50 % happy, 50 % sad for most of your life. If you're in an extreme circumstance, then change your life. If you're not like conditions, like people get handicap, they break their legs, they can never move again and they have a dip in their subjective well -being and they go back to the same baseline.

59:56And so like, the baseline is independent of conditions. And so the role wants to tell us that we need to change our, you know, change our circumstances and then we will be whatever. But like every modern religion, every Buddhist monk will tell you that all of that's from the inside, not the outside. These are words and words that mean you. Yeah, Kenzo. Don't follow. Yeah. Because I'm sure that you've experienced like the attainment of a goal and then I just need three times more. Yeah. I'm referencing a study there where they they ask people how much money they would need to be happy. And all the way up the income well spectrum, people said three times more than they have now.

1:00:32So people with 10k said 30 people with three million said, you know, six, nine million. Three times three times three. Yeah. And you imagine you still experienced that now, right? Yeah. Different reasons. But yeah, for sure. When is enough enough? I don't think it's enough thing. I think it's more like who I want to be. Who do you want to be? I want to be the person capable of doing that, doing X. Like we'll get to a billion and then after a billion, I'll make it 10. I already know that. You don't even, but like, I love playing the game. What is the game of business? To what end or just just for the play to play?

1:01:12Yeah, I'm sure you know more about this than I do, but like just game theory, like the finite and infinite games, Simon Sinek has a great piece on it. But yeah, with infinite games, you have known in unknown players, you have no agreed upon rules. And the point of the game is to keep the game going. And so a lot of teams people take a finite game where you have known only known players agreed upon rules and a set outcome for winning. And they will apply it to an infinite game. So people are like, I wanted to, they play a finite contract to health. They're like, I want to win health. It's like, you don't win health.

1:01:45Like, okay, you're in shape. Now what? You stay in shape. You keep staying in shape. I want to win at marriage. You don't win at marriage. You keep the marriage going. That's playing the game of marriage. If you want to win at business, keep playing the game of business. And so we want to take these finite contracts and put them on, on, on infinite games. And I think that's where people get it. Get in trouble because they're, they're like, I have to keep moving the goalposts. But if the goalpost is to play, then you win by playing. And so for that rate, like, sure, we said goals for the company, but like, I'm a thousand percent super motivated.

1:02:15And at the same time, if we never hit, I'm just going to be happy that I was able to play. I also know that in three generations, everyone will forget who I am. I saw you post about the queen. Yeah. It was as static. No, no, no, it wasn't for me if I've been honest. But it's an interesting cl - what did the post say? She massed more wealth than 99 .99 % of the world. She ruled for 70 years. Was, you know, a female monarch, which is insane, especially 70 years. It just like all that it's had amazing family, all this amazing, whatever. I don't know the tablets you do. And when I posted it, it had been, I think, five or six months since she had died.

1:02:56Exactly. And it was like, you probably haven't thought about her today, except for this post. She probably accomplished more in her life than we probably will. So if you were afraid of other people thinking about you, just remember the six months after you died, they're not going to be. And so it's like, we have all these spheres about other people, but like most of them won't even choke to your funeral, because they're going to be busy. And so like, I think about death all the time. And that's, that's what I think for me has given me a lot of freedom to take big shots. Because like at the end of the day, I think that it's not going to matter.

1:03:33No one's going to remember. People in Thailand don't know who I am today. Let alone in five, 10 years, 100 years. It's a trap that the mind can quite easily fall into. They're thinking you are the center of the universe. And with that comes an immense amount of weight and pressure and anxiety. Totally. I have a trick. I've never talked about this before. But whenever I feel myself slipping into the trap of kind of overstating my importance, what I mean by that is like thinking my problems are big problems. I go on YouTube and I type in. There's this one video that shows a camera on earth that just zoom out and it keeps going.

1:04:12And eventually, earth becomes this tiny speck. Then earth becomes this tiny speck, which is the galaxy, then the galaxy becomes this tiny speck and a bunch of galaxies, then you can't see any of it anymore. And then also this idea that like 100 years ago, I didn't feel anything, didn't think anything, nobody knew me, 100 years from now, exactly what you said. Absolutely. I mean, if I can five minutes after I die, I think and that feels really liberating. It relieves stress from my body, which is an interesting thing because a lot of people don't like thinking about the death. A lot of people think you were.

1:04:43Yeah. All the time. I know from doing this podcast that a lot of people won't click if we we post something about death. They won't because they don't even want to confront the concept of it, which is people are afraid of it just because they don't understand it. Kind of like the hate thing. How do you feel about death? I'm good with it. When you say I'm good with it, what would you mean if I died tomorrow, I'm good with it. Like, I want to leave it all on the field. I'm gonna try as hard as I can and I know that no one would remember me on a long enough time horizon and I'm good with that. Like, I'm cool with it.

1:05:26If I told you if I told you I'd die tomorrow, would you be sad? I probably am with Layla. A little I guess a little more than I always do, but like, um, I would say, I wouldn't be sad. I'd be bummed. Be like, Man, there's not a shit I want to do. But I don't think I'd be like depressed. I think I'd be, I mean, my due to be fair. Maybe I'll find out and maybe I'll be hit by a bus tomorrow. But no, I think like, I've lived life the way I want to live life. And I'm good with it. If you were to go today, had you really like given it everything? Had you lived the life you feel like you were really destined to live?

1:06:05Me, absolutely. An interesting mind trick around the same topic is, so when Betty White dies, right, at 99 or whatever, like people were like, she lived a good life. But when Kobe dies before his time, right, it's a big deal. And I see that as a contrast between expectations and reality. And I'm going to tell a story that hopefully people don't take the wrong way. But I had a cat and really liked the cat. And it died at two years old. Really liked it. Young guy, heart thing or something, whatever. And I remember being like really bummed about it. And I was like, huh? How can I not think that? And so I was like, the only reason I am bummed is because I think that he should have, should being the big word that everyone likes to you, he should have lived longer.

1:06:55I was like, what if cats only lived six months? And I got to have him for two years. I was like, I probably would be pretty stoked about that. And all of a sudden, I was significantly less sad about it. And I was like, I got to have him for two years. I was like, awesome. And so I think, like for me, for us, whatever, if we were to change our expectation, like people think they should live until, everyone thinks they're going to live to 100, which is kind of interesting, because like the average life experience needs 74. And if you're like 36 year middle aged, if you actually do the math, what's no one wants to do being middle aged 36?

1:07:32I know, right? I know, right? But I think if we shift our expectations, then like expectations is the thing. It's the thing, right? And so we can, if we expected, if I expected that I was supposed to have lived 20 years and I made it to 33, stoked. Jesus lived until 33, did a lot more than I have. You know what I mean? And so I'm good with it. And if I died tomorrow, like only reason I would be upset is if I demanded from the universe that I live longer. But like 500 years ago, average life expectancy was like 35, you know? It was just not like dark ages. Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead.

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1:08:51Over 41 ,000 businesses have chosen to future proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, head to netsuite .com slash Bartlett. And free download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's netsuite .com slash Bartlett. Working hard. We talked about repetitions early. Working hard is quite a controversial topic in 2023. I'm just weird. Do you see what I mean, though? I'm probably not in the circles where it's controversial. They're like, gravies controversial. No, I'm going out. It's controversial in the sense that there's like toxic work.

1:09:31You know, there's toxic hard work. And there's, I think society prescribes a certain amount of work, which is good. Yeah. By their definition of like, I'm going to say some stuff that's going to bother some people. I work all the time. I have no hobbies besides working out. If you can consider that a hobby like four times a week. That's it. I work all the time. That's all I do. And I work until I can't work, meaning like my output pre -unit of time starts to drop precipitously. And then I know that I just need to take a break of some sort. And then I usually bend some sort of television. Because that's what for me works.

1:10:06Some people are like, I garden. That's not me. Netflix. I'm good. You know what I mean? Or dark room in a movie theater. Rockin'. Um, comma. And that's okay. Like, why do I need to take their expectation of what they want? Like, they're like, that's not healthy. I'm like, define healthy. I do as much as I can of the thing that I want to do with every minute of my day. Why is that not healthy? Why do you want me to do something that I would prefer to do less? Because I do what I do every other than the day because that's what I want to do. Almost like, how dare you cast your expectation of your life onto me?

1:10:38And to be fair, the same degree? They cannot work at all. Doesn't affect me. Like, I'm a big, big advocate for destroying should the word in general. Should is just like the expectation motor of like all of our psyches. You should go to school. You should get a degree. You should do this job. You should marry her. You shouldn't stay up so late. You shouldn't work so hard. You shouldn't, you should be more balanced. You shouldn't be working out so much. You're not working out. Like, there's all these sheds that other people tell us. And it's like, and you zoom out and then you see that it's a galaxy with a little dot of dust.

1:11:14It's like, should what? There is no should. Do what you want to do. At least that's how I see the world. That pressure applies to both ends of the spectrum. It doesn't it because people that quote and quote overwork, they get hit, come back into the middle. And that people that under work, they get hit work harder. And then the presumption there and within society is that there's this sweet error in the middle where it's optimal. And like the question should become then like, what is the measurement? Like, what are we measuring? Is it are we measuring when we're defining this amount of work as good work or healthy or whatever?

1:11:47Is the real measurement my happiness and my fulfillment in your view? Is that what you're like? Is that your measurement or is it just fucking how you feel? I work because I enjoy working. And I'm sure that if I stop enjoying working, I won't work as much. Like just being really like not being per I'm not being simplistic to be, you know, annoying. I work because I enjoy working. And if I and if for some reason I didn't get reinforcement from work, I'm sure that my amount of work would go down. Is there is is there a I think about like human needs. Yeah, but are there any human needs that are being sacrificed by always working in your case?

1:12:31I'm good. Yeah, I mean, which gets to the point of the measurement, which is like, how do I feel? I'm good. Yeah, I a lot of people really over analyze a lot of things and like, I don't think, well, I do, I do, I do. I do spend a lot of time thinking about death and things like that. But I usually use those as frames to give myself permission to do the things that I want to do. And just do them without hearing the judgment that I know that other people would probably cast on my life. So like, why don't you have kids? Like, I haven't wanted to yet. And that's okay. And if I want to later, I will.

1:13:05I'll tell you an argument that I got into. So I was at you go into an argument. I did. I got into an argument with my stepmother. So Layla's father's whatever does matter. Okay, it wasn't her. Different person. It's fine. Anyways, I was at the kitchen table and she said I would never want your life. And I was like, what? She was like, it's so unbalanced. I was like, okay, how? I was like, do you feel like I'm not in shape physically? I was like, do you feel like business -wise financially? I'm not fit. Do you feel like romantically? Like my marriage is in some way not good. And so I, like, would, where do you feel like I'm unbalanced?

1:13:59Or it's just that I do more than you. Or I do things differently than you do. Because it seemed great. I wouldn't want your life. And that's why I don't have your life. And that's why you don't have my life. So it's good that we don't want to... Each other's lives because that would be tough, wouldn't it? And so that was the argument that we got into in so many words. And it just came down to the idea that like, I think that person was casting judgment on themselves because maybe on some level, maybe they did want some aspect of the life that we had. And that, I hope, that doesn't sound like weird.

1:14:31But it's just like, I think we all do this. We see something. And then we look at our Delta. And then we either say, man, I would like that. Or we cast stones at it so that we don't feel bad to our ego. And say like, no, there's something wrong with it. They're not happy, whatever. And I just, I would say that if there's one thing that I will try and beat out of me until I die, is caring what other people think. And I think everybody cares what other people think. And I think over time, we just care a little bit less. And so I feel like I'm 30 % better than I was 10 years ago. And maybe in 10 years, I'll be like 30 % better than that.

1:15:04But that 30 % has been very meaningful for me. Because it's enabled me to do things. Like I got married in eight days. I've just known my parents were there. And I'm cool with it. Because that's what I wanted to do. And I work with my wife every hour every day. And people are like, is that healthy? I'm like, I don't know. We like it. Why do you care? Like, how does it affect you? Here's a trap, though. I can relate in many ways to what you're saying. And I mean, my team will know that instinctively. One of the traps we can fall into, one of the risks when we have that perspective is that we kind of cast that expectation on others.

1:15:38People that work with us. I think entrepreneurs oftentimes, when they have that drive, which is sometimes driven by a shame or an insecurity that comes from their childhood too often, so often, maybe not too often, but so often, that when they lead people who don't have that same insecurity shame, whatever, that predisposition to, you know, work or holism, whatever you want to call it, they struggle to relate. You know, yeah. Have you heard that? Sure. I think that's okay. Have you had to work on that? Layla's better. I say that, Joe. But like, realistically, I think we tried to maintain a culture of high performance, and we're like on the screening parts on the front.

1:16:24And we're like, these are the values we have. Here are examples of those values that play. So it's like, if your shift ends at five, and somebody asks a question that's going to take 30 minutes to answer at 459, what do you do? That's an interview question. And we need you to be honest, because if you say you would work, but you would actually be dissatisfied, you're not going to do either of us justice, because you'll come in and you'll get fired quickly, and that'll be hard for you and hard for us. So like, we want you to win at whatever you do in life. So Layla's very big on like human first, in terms of how she does everything that we do in the company.

1:16:56It's like human first and everything else. You can tell that's why we're in the Yang for this kind of thing. But I think it's really just about expectation setting, and being very truthful and as transparent as humanly possible, about like, this is what we expect. If you don't like that, or if your worldview is contrary to this, then you shouldn't work here, because there's another company that totally shares your worldview, and you would do great there. And there's other people who feel like misfits in the companies that they're in, and then work all the time, and they're frustrated that no one else does, and they're all like telling them they should slow down, coming with us, because we'll respond slack at 5 a .m.

1:17:31on Saturday, because we're on. But like, I just hardcore reject there is a right way to do things. In that example, you've touched on something I wanted to talk about, which relates to your first book, I believe, offers, making office to be there. I read that you said, if there's one skill you have, it's making office. What do you mean by making office? So offers are the terms of exchange. So I, right before I started my first gym, I went to this weekend workshop to learn how to market, and get this, this is 2013, it was on Facebook ads. And so I got lucky. So I learned how to run Facebook ads in 2013, two weeks before I started my gym.

1:18:19This is when you're getting penny clicks, and you could put a girl with a bikini, and say, wait, loss, click here, and they would run. And so at this thing, I had an open by Jim, and the guy was like a gym marketing dude, and he said, do you know the secret to sales? Because he could see I was way over my head. All the other guys there were gym owners except for me. And I was like, yeah, because I'd never, at that point, had never sold anything. I didn't even know the word sales was the thing. That's how out of it where I was. And so he pulled me over the side, and he asked me that question, and I like pulled my notebook out to like learn the secret to sales as those one line.

1:18:49And it kind of was. He said, make people an offer. They'd be, they feel stupid saying no to it. And I like wrote it down and I highlighted it. And that actually became like a core concept that we do in every business, in every business that we have, which is like, how can we make this offer better? How can we make it more valuable? And that was why defining value was such a key thing, because people like provide more value, make valuable content. And like, what does this mean? And so we boil down value into four variables. And then there's things that enhance value, but like core variables and then things that enhance it.

1:19:24So like, one is like, what is the overall dream outcome of the customer? And so a difference in juxtaposition is like, for guys, if I say I can help you make more money, versus I can help you lose weight, most guys would pay more for the thing that will give them more relative status. And so in that way, between two types, two categories of outcomes, this one will be more valuable. Okay, cool. Now, within everything, and let's call it weight loss, because it's an easy one, everyone can understand, within weight loss, every other thing, between a $5 ebook and a $50 ,000 lipo -section surgery, the difference in those prices are the other value variables.

1:19:58And so the second variable is perceived like a div achievement, which is if I buy this thing, how likely do I think I will get the outcome? And so if I have a surgeon that's going to do this lipo -section, for example, and it's the first surgery they've done out of medical school, and there's another surgeon that has done 10 ,000 and has 10 ,000 five stars, which one would I be more likely to go to, the 10 ,000 five star surgery? Even if it takes that guy less time to do it, how unfair? But my perceived likeative getting what I want is significantly higher. So it's actually the equal opposite of risk.

1:20:28Those are the things that we try and enhance in the offers. We try and have a very compelling dream outcome, try and make it very likely that they're going to succeed, and give that there's lots of elements that make someone feel like it's likely to succeed. On the bottom half of the equation, so it's a fraction, there's two on the top, two on the bottom. You have time delay between when they buy and when they get. So if someone were to click a button on a website and immediately look at their stomach and have a six pack, that would be incredibly valuable, right? On the flip side, if it takes them two years in order to get that, it's significantly less valuable.

1:21:00And so for that same reason, you have to arm wrestle someone to get them to buy a personal training package, you have to spend an hour and a half to get them to buy a 20 pack of training sessions, whereas women walk into the doctor's office to do liposuction and drop 20 times that amount of money, because the time delay is nothing. You get on the table, you wake up and you're thin, right? Then the last variable is effort and sacrifice, which is two sides at the same coin. So effort are the things that you have to start doing that you don't want to do as a result of this purchase. Waking up early, getting sore, like in the workout example, eating foods you hate.

1:21:36On the flip side, the sacrifices are the things that you have to give up that you don't want to give up as a result of this purchase. And so that might be sleeping in, eating the foods you enjoy, margarita Mondays, whatever. And so when you look at these variables, each of them has an evil twin, right? So you've got perceived like a Vichimu, which is the positive, and then you've got risk, which is the negative. You've got time delay, which is the negative version, you've got speed, which is the positive version. You've got effort and sacrifice, you've got ease, right? And so when we're trying to make an offer, we try to think through each of these elements of value, and think how can we maximize the upside, make it super, super likely that they're going to hit it, paint the vision that they have it, and then on the bottom side, minimize the time delay between when they buy and when they get, and how much they have to do.

1:22:16Because in a perfect world, the moment someone says, I want that thing, that beautiful dream outcome. They would be virtually guaranteed they would get it, it would happen immediately, and it would be effortless. And I think that is the perfect ideal that we look at in terms of value, and as entrepreneurs, we innovate our way to just keep trying to chisel towards that perfect ideal outcome that we'll never actually get to. The other variables are like scarcity. If I have one gatorade bottle left on planet earth, it's significantly more valuable. I didn't change anything about the bottle itself, but it's significantly more valuable than if there's unlimited gatorades, right?

1:22:44Urgency is, if gatorade, no matter how many gatorades the world on planet earth, I'll give it a different example. If Jackie Rowling decides that she's no longer in a cell Harry Potter digital copies, ever again, as of tomorrow, there will be a lot of sales of the digital copy, even though there's unlimited units. Scarce is a function of units, urgency is a function of time. And so, scarcity and urgency add to the value by enhancing those other four variables. There's more, but those are the core things that we look at in terms of when we're trying to make an offer for a business. And so, that becomes very relevant when we're trying to increase price for a business that we take on.

1:23:24So I'll give you an example. We had a PR company that we invested in. That was a generic PR company for small business owners. And they had really high churn, but they had a really good sales engine. I was like, okay, there's something here that I think we needed to, I just really like the founder. 85 % of their customers were small business owners and turned out in like three or four months. 15 % of their customers bought the most expensive package and stayed like forever. And I was like, hey, crazy idea. What if we only served these customers? And they were people who wanted to get fundraising, very different than the traditional like dry cleaning store, plumber, whatever.

1:23:59And so we re -did the entire business model around finding only that niche. We only called, called, called email people who were in that very narrow window. We're able to 10X our prices because we, and we got higher response rates than we did before because now we were targeting and speaking very specifically to an avatar. And now we can provide so much more value to that specific person. And so that's the maybe if, if Kaleboard answered it from a business perspective, like solving that equation is probably the thing that I enjoy the most because it is how I feel like I've unlocked the most value in a business, which is like, what are all the, what are all the good things this business has?

1:24:40What are all the things it can do? Okay. Is there a way that we can rearrange it for a specific customer that will make significantly, that will make what we do significantly more valuable to them? And then that's what we try and repackage. And when we do that, that's oftentimes when we get like, with Jim launch for me, I had the knowledge of how to help people lose weight, have the nutrition plans, I knew how to sell, I knew how to market. But it was only when I like rearranged the variables that I went from making a few million dollars a year in top line revenue and basically no profit to millions and millions of millions of dollars a year in top line and bottom line profit.

1:25:16Simply by rearranging the variables. And that was just so ingrained in me that from that point going forward, I was like, I just have to make things that are so good that people will feel stupid saying no. And if we can't get enough people to say yes, we need to make the offer better. And to me, that's been like the single thing that it affects all aspects of the business. It's the highest leverage thing I think you can do in the business, which is why it was the first book. Because answering the question, what do I sell? Is the first book, the second book leads is, to whom do I sell it? I got to get leads, right?

1:25:44And that's the second book. But that affects pricing, it affects profit, affects marketing, it affects sales, affects delivery, like getting the offer affects everything. And it's one of the hardest things to change because it affects everything, but it also has the most ability to unlock incredible wealth or value in a business. And the concept there is incredibly transferable when you are going through the equation, trying to in some parts similar to an equation we used to have for competitions when we were trying to get people to sign up to competitions. The idea, when we were sort of like a, it was an equation where on one end, little investment, so just click here and you're entered high perception that you have a chance of winning.

1:26:20So if there's 10 prizes and you can see there's 10 entrance, your brain goes, okay, all I had to do was click. And then in the competition aspect, we thought a lot about credibility. Because that's a big factor in competitions. Like, do I think anyone's going to win and trust these people to even give out a prize? And it's even the same thing and it's even the same thing in content when you're thinking about a title for your YouTube videos. Five minute six pack abs. Yes. Yes. Is a fantastic equation. A little investment, high potential reward apparently. And that's also, you know, there's even another thing which I've thought about which I've not been able to necessarily explain, which is why people are more likely to click on things.

1:27:06I guess it's ease when it says things like five steps to finding love versus like how to find love. Five steps. I guess it's that ease point feels more accessible. Just five steps. Yeah, proceed like an achievement. Like, what's my risk of not achieving if there's five steps that feels easier than just how to maybe. When you think about where you are in your journey as an entrepreneur and you think about it, maybe it's like steps. How far are you at that staircase? Would you not know? I felt like that was going to be the question that you were going to ask and I was thinking it's like, I feel like every entrepreneur feels like they're just getting started.

1:27:50Like you talked to guys in their 70s, they're like, I'm just getting started. I mean, I'm about to cross a decade of big. No, I am right. Just at the decade point for me from the first business I started to know. So I feel like I've got a few seasons left, you know, if I can keep living, which I'd be stoked about if I can. Let me ask a different question. Caleb in the corner who works for you. He's a creative director. If Caleb said to me, you know, Caleb said to you, he said, Alex, I want to be a millionaire.

1:28:23What would you say to him? What advice would you give to him? He says, listen, I've heard you doing all these podcasts, you're running around, I've been filming the camera, but I've been filming, I've been listening. And this millionaire stuff, this sounds amazing. So what advice, how old do you, Caleb? 29. What advice would you give to 29 year old Caleb? If he said to you, Alex, how do you know me? How do you think I become a millionaire? He says a lot of ways to do it, which depends on which way you want to go. So say, first off, you can stay at acquisition. Not come. That'll probably happen on a long enough time.

1:28:53Just because we're going to get really big. We're already pretty big and we're just getting started. So like I genuinely believe that and that's 100 % my goals at every single person that that we have. Becomes very, very wealthy because I'm going to die and it's not going to matter anyways. And if everybody else can make some too, great. So that is a path. Another path is he peels off and goes on his own and starts a business of some sort. And so it depends on whether he wants to make the business itself, what his core skill is, which would be like media and maybe services around media. Or using the skill that he has of media in an opportunity and he gets two or three other people to maybe co -founded with who have other complimentary skills.

1:29:34And then he just runs that division or portion of the business within the larger context. And that's like a classic question of like, I'm really good at making wallets. Like, what do I do? It's like, well, you can continue to make them. And then when you can't make as many as you have demand because you're so good at it, you can either raise the price. And just continue to keep raising the prices until eventually become Versace of wallets. And you make tons of profit, but you don't have tons of units. And that's okay in your luxury brand. Or you put on the, put on the business owner hat and you say, okay, how do I mechanize the wallet building process?

1:30:08And I become more businessy. And so I think it's like, do I want to be the artist or do I want to be the entrepreneur? Both of them are fine. It depends which one you feel like you're more naturally inclined to or have a higher likelihood of success doing. I like the game of business. I've played lots of different games in terms of industries. Like, I like the game overall. I don't feel like I have a particular art. Like, I don't think I'm really good at any aspect of business. I feel like I've been decent enough to not make one of them the constraint. Like, I'm not a great copywriter, but I'm good enough that that's not going to be the limiter.

1:30:37Like, I'm good enough at hiring that I can make sure that that's not the limiting factor. Right. And so that's kind of how I think about it in terms of business growth overall. And so it'd be the same thing with Caleb. It was like, we have to identify with the constraint of the system is and then de -constraining it. When you say talent stacking, if I do say that a few times, what do you mean by that? So this is one of my favorite topics. Many skills like one plus one equals five when you put them together. So let's say you have somebody who's really good at math in the beginning. That as a skill, not super monetizable.

1:31:12Okay, well then you learn bookkeeping. Okay, well now you had a proclivity for math, but you learn something that has value in the business world. Okay, then you learn to get your CPA and I become an account. Okay, more valuable. Then you start studying around tax law and insurance. And you're like, oh, significantly more valuable. Then you learn how to how capital markets work and how debt markets work. Right. And you understand how mergers and acquisitions work. And all of a sudden you're a CFO and then you learn how to sell and promote a little bit. And all of a sudden now you're a rainmaker.

1:31:43And so you still need to be good at math. But when you stack these other skills on top of it, the original math skill becomes significantly more valuable when you have these skills on top. But each one kind of requires the one before, which is why one of the things I hate about kind of the entrepreneur world a little bit is like, they'll learn something new and then poo poo the thing before. It's like, I'm not upset the teacher who taught me arithmetic because I learned algebra. One was necessary for the next. And so as entrepreneurs, a lot of times it takes, I think the self awareness to say like, where am I at on my skill stacking adventure.

1:32:20Right. And each skill every skill you add to your skill tool belt makes the rest of your skills more valuable, which is why I think it's so cool, which is why I'm such a big advocate for education overall. And that's I mean mission of academic business successful, everyone. That's why put all this for stuff out there is because like if we can give people enough skills, they'll be able to stack them on their own and then just achieve whatever they want in a totally different way if you allow me to go there is like you look at Jay Z, right. Maybe you some of you naturally had rhythm, right. And so then all of a sudden he learned how to rap.

1:32:49Okay, took his rhythm, put in a rap. Okay. And then he made his first CD. Okay. And then he learned how to promote. Oh, significantly more valuable. And then he learned how to make a label. And then he learned how to recruit other artists. And so he still needed to learn how to know how to promote the other artists. If you did how to promote it all, he wouldn't have been able to do it. But once he had the label, he got significantly more leverage on the skill of promotion. And he could recognize people because of his skill in rapping and rhythm. And so like each of these skills stacks on top and then eventually he he pinnacle into Beyonce as his top skill.

1:33:24I'm just kidding. Yeah, where's he going? But no, but like that's the idea. So like it and that's why I'm just like learn the skill, find the next skill. And the nice thing is that it doesn't even matter how disparate the skills are like if Jay Z is really get it math and understands capital markets and understands the label. Those combined to do another cool. Malone or some other French word like mix of skills. That's like unique to Jay Z. And the longer you play the game, the more skills you get and the more unique your mix of skills is. And that to me is like the coolest part about business and just like education in general.

1:33:59I stumbled across a bit of a similar but maybe a Jason idea in my career where when I learned when my company went public on a stock exchange in Europe. I then learned from an investment bank when we're having the meetings with the banks. We went on this road show met 20 different investment banks. We're considering an IPO in another country. They told me that our business would be worth four times more if it was just on a different stock market. If you move it to the last act, the exact same business would be worth four times more which meant that my net worth would be four X just by taking the exact same business and moving it to a different stock exchange.

1:34:40And I thought about that a couple of years later when I was thinking about the skill set that I had acquired in my career, which was this skill set of marketing and social media and entrepreneurship. And I was thinking you have to not just have the skill but know what market to apply it to and what ended up happening. I've never told this story before. But I looked I looked for an industry where my skill set was in least supply but highest demand and return the greatest and it turned out that industry in terms of social media marketing and storytelling. I felt was most in demand and would return the greatest value for companies that were about to IPO because essentially when you're going to IPO, if you have a good story, it can swing your valuation by hundreds of millions or in the case of the first company I worked with when there are a few listed at three billion billions.

1:35:35And so my skill set of social media and marketing I could do what with it I could go help with local gym and get paid a thousand bucks or I could go help a company that was in the lead up to an IPO that was where I can potentially had hundreds of millions and value and take seven million as part of an equity deal. So upon leaving my first company, the equity arrangement that I had was valued somewhere between four I'm going to say between the expensive shares price fluctuated. But I think on the day of the IPO, the equity that I got for the nine to 12 months work that I'd done was worth in the region of seven to eight million dollars.

1:36:11Nine months work, basically freelance, same skill stack, but applied to an industry that would pay me more for the same skills. And so I thought a lot about that and that's ultimately why we started our company, which is now called Flight Story, we have probably the time of the airing this about a hundred people we started the company about a year and a half ago. And that's basically that's applying the skill set we have to industries where that need it and we started out in the IPO market did a little bit of work in this biotech market. And now we've kind of broadened out, but people don't think about that a lot.

1:36:45You like my skill set, where is it in high Simone can pay the most? A hundred percent. I thoroughly agree with everything you just said. I also think that that's a skill. I wish I would just said it to me. Totally. And that's the information to me. The biggest debt, one of the things that I love saying this, but the biggest debt all of us pay is ignorance. And so I heard this close at this pitch years ago and this guy got on stage and he was like, hey, ma 'am, she's like, how much do you make? She was like $50 ,000. So you're at $50 ,000 on the whiteboard. And then you wrote a million dollars on top of the 50 ,000 and he subtracted it and said $950 ,000.

1:37:27He said, you pay life, $950 ,000 every single year for not knowing how to make a million dollars a year. And it was a crazy concept and he was using it to close the audience. But I like the most expensive thing that all of us are paying for is the information that we don't know. And that's like both frightening and also incredibly exciting because like fish in the best ponds. Right? Like a good fisherman knows where to fish and everybody can put a hook and a thing and stick it over the water. But like the best fisherman know where and when, et cetera. And that's exactly the story that you said is like, I had the hook and I had the real and all that stuff.

1:38:02But like I went to where the best or the best fishing was and like to me that skill. Same work. Same amount of time. Same rod. More zeros. One of the things in the first book is like you want to sell better customers. So if you want to sell better customers. Yeah. Like this is the exact same thing you just said, which is like if I were to do CRO work so conversion and optimization for a website that's e -commerce. And I work for a store that's doing a million dollars a year and I say, cool, I'm able to increase your conversion air site by 20%. Okay, cool. So now that's doing $1 .2 million a year.

1:38:35I made $200 ,000 in value and maybe I can get 10 % of that. I get 20 grand. Okay, cool. I do the same work to a business doing $100 million a year. I make them $20 million from my 20 % bump and I get 10 % that and I make $2 million. 20 ,000, $2 million, $100 ,000. Same work to your point. And to me that's skill. Like to know that simple simple fact like I had this tweet that was super viral, which was solve rich people problems. They pay better. A lot of controversy around that. But it's true. And so find the people and a different way of saying it is find the people who value what you have the most.

1:39:18And I'm sure you've heard this. Have you heard the story of the father and the son with the car? No. Okay. So maybe I have fun. Okay. No, it's good. It's good. So there's a father who gives his son an old beat up car. And he says, you know, hey, I don't know if it drives or not, but you can take it down to the dealership down the street. You see if you can trade and get some money. He's like, okay. So he goes down the street, goes to the dealership. They say, give you a thousand bucks for it. And he comes, you know, here's a mount comes back. He's like, dad, they say give me a thousand bucks. He's like, okay, he's like, go to the impound yard where they break the cars up just for metal.

1:39:53He's like, see what they'll give you. Goes there. And the guy's like, I don't know, this might be 500 bucks of metal. He's like, you know, comes back home. He's like, dad, you know, say it was going to be 500. He's like, okay, he's like, hey, go down the street to that antique dealership. See if they've got anything that you use carlite. He's like, okay, see, goes down there, talks to the guy, comes back home, super. He's like, dad, you won't believe it. He's like, this is a historic car. There's only like 10 of them left. He's like, it's worth a hundred thousand dollars. And so the father smiles.

1:40:26And he's like, and the less than I want you to know is that it's not necessarily who you are, but the people that value you the most. And so you can talk to different people and go to the people who value you. And I just, I love that story because it's a huge business story in terms of like sell where the fish are. Where the big fish are. Like if you're going to go hook fish, go where the whales are. It takes the same work, but a lot of it's just belief. People don't think it's possible. And so a lot of times you have to just keep leveling up and you sell your first 10 ,000 or thing. You sell your first 100 ,000 or thing.

1:40:57Sell your first multi -million dollar package. You realize that's the exact same thing. It's just so maybe if anybody's listing right now, it is the same thing. It's the exact same thing. And sometimes it's easier. It's so many easier. Like, you know, you've seen that meme that says like, so what exactly am I going to be getting for this $50 thing? And then it's like 50 ,000 dollar clients like wire sent yesterday. Like, what do you else do you need? Like it's, and that's totally true. But I think there's a skill in understanding where to fish. Certainly a skill. Information. It's information.

1:41:32It's even knowing that there was another lake over there in part. And that's why like listening to conversations like this is so valuable for people because it lifts a curtain. And you know what the fuck you guys were behind here the whole time partying. That's what my business life has been like. It's like a gradually like the, I think I heard Kevin Hart describe on Joe Rogan one time where he said, there's this other room. Yeah. Where these people are playing this other set of money games. Yeah. And then when you get in that room, you get your almost pissed off that nobody told you this room existed.

1:41:59But then there's another door. And then you get through there maybe a couple of years later and you find these other people, these fucking billionaires that are playing another set of games and you're going, what? And they're chilling. They're just making some guys, they're not even doing any hard work. And you go, tell me the games that you guys have been playing in here. Yeah. And then again, the frustration is, and that's kind of what I feel like in my business life, it's been like where, at the jump I'm charging, I don't know, I remember my first, we found our first deck from 2014 charging.

1:42:27I remember the package we'd gold silver and bronze. It was like, you know, like $200 package for like support and then $500 and then the gold package. Well, we threw everything in for $1 ,000. And I remember one of my first clients accepting that. And then I think today, like the only difference, okay, the skills that have increased. But information is the big thing. Knowing how to do it, you know. When you think about curtains that have lifted, that have really shifted the games you play from a value money perspective, like where someone's tying the lights on you. Oh, of course. Yeah. Is there anything else that comes to mind?

1:43:04Like big macro games. Yeah. I think a big, you know, when I, the big, I will answer it with the stair steps of how each order of magnitude change in my income. So when I went from being an employee to self -employed, I went from making four figures a month to five figures a month. And that was for me just like, I am now in control. The level above that was I started having other people who worked for me. I didn't even know that was possible. It sounds crazy. But like I was like, you can hire people because my members of my gym were like, you know, other people can work here. I'm like cleaning the floor and doing the marketing and teaching the class.

1:43:40They're like, I didn't think about that. Bunk off. Right. And then went to six figures a month. Right. And then from there, stayed there, did the turnaround business, still had the same organization structure, had another degree of leverage. And so the next degree of leverage was that I started licensing. So it was digital, right. So the cost per, you know, cost of goods was basically nothing. And then that's when things started skyrocketing. That got me two seven figures a month. And then eight figures a month was using leverage through capital, which is where, you know, we're at now. And I would imagine that nine figures a month will probably be some level of technology or more media on my side.

1:44:14But all of these things are about leverage. And so this is like one of my favorite topics in the whole world. But we define leverage as the difference between what you put in and what you get out. So if you have a lot of leverage, you put a little bit in, you get a lot out. If you have no leverage or low leverage, you put a lot in, you get a little bit out. And a lot of times people who are listening to this and are not making as much money as they want, they're putting lots of input in and not getting a lot out. They have low leverage opportunities. And so understanding how to get more for what you put in is the game overall.

1:44:42And so the first level that I described was labor. It's just work. First I was working for someone else that I worked for myself. And I got other people to work for me. First level in each of those levels was more leverage. Above that, I had media, which is the thing that I was licensing out. So another degree of leverage I made at once and I could license that out in infinity. On top of that, I have capital. I can take capital. I don't have to sacrifice time in order to get something for it. So it's high input output. Above that would be some sort of technology. You build the code once in theory.

1:45:11Obviously you continue to improve the code, but theoretically you build the thing once and then a million people can use it. And so you want to stack as many types of leverage as you can and as much of them as you can. Because like Joe Rogan also has a show and somebody else has a podcast. They both technically are using media as their vehicle for leverage, but he has significantly more of it. So it's not just like, I'm going to use all these, right? Yes, but it's also how much into what degree. But like Facebook had other people's money. He used media, had other people's work, max leverage, Amazon, same thing.

1:45:42They used every element of leverage and they matched all of them out. And that's at least the curtain that Naval talks about this from Larry Naval, Robocont. He talks about these things as the elements of leverage or four types of leverage. And understanding that for me has kind of been a blueprint for wealth overall. And then capital, there's degrees of capital. First you can get friends and family to give you money. Then you can get institutional money. And then you can get public money, right? Which you saw like the IPO money. Like the fact that the NASDAQ was 4X, the Düsseldorf exchange, is that where it was?

1:46:20There's just significantly more capital in that market. And so it same work, more zeros. And so I love this topic because I think that that's fundamentally like the people who move faster in life. Don't actually move faster. They get more for every step. Are you happy? I'm stoked. Max Stoke. You know, I'm not asking this question for a long time, but I thought I'd ask it because it's kind of similar to what we've been talking about today. But if happiness was like a list of ingredients, it was a recipe. Is there anything missing from your recipe that would make you even more happy? And sometimes that recipe is about balancing the ingredients.

1:47:02You need two eggs and 100 eggs. Yeah, one cup of flour. Yeah. For me, it's always been about autonomy. I just want to be able to do what I find interesting. And that's been the core of it. And what I do will change, but the core of having the freedom to do it has been the center of it. And so for me, I don't think my freedom is, I mean, not in recent history. My freedom hasn't fundamentally changed in any way. And so I would say that I'm the same level of contentiveness as I was last year. But I find engagement in what I do. And that's, that's, I'll give you my definition of happiness, which is doing what you like to do with people you like.

1:47:46And doing that as much as you possibly can. And that's my simple definition.

1:47:53Interesting. I've tried to, I've tried to figure that out that like professional, like, I guess it's not even a professional thing, but I've tried to figure out and summarize. That's a wonderful summary. The place I got into is if you're surrounded by people you love, you're doing something that challenges you, which I think is an interesting one. You've kind of encapsulated it just by saying things you like, but yeah, that challenges you. It gives you a sense of forward motion and progress towards a meaningful goal. And that's a subjective thing could be raising a kid or making a million dollars, whatever.

1:48:23I think that's kind of what I call it my echo guy. If I fight, if I'm in that state and it's a state, I think I'm happy. We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest. Oh, without knowing who they're going to be asking it to, I'm terrified. Why does everyone get so scared when I do this? My question's scary. Everyone's going to like, right, stick the note. I'm going to think of it. We have these conversation cards where we've taken all the questions written in this book and we've made them into cards. People can play at home. I'm actually going to slide them over to you and just ask you to pick one conversation card.

1:49:06I've picked a couple there that I think are stitch ups. Let's go from middle. See what that's all we got there. And the question is, what are the failures you cherish the most?

1:49:21I'm going to give two. I am very grateful that I hated the job that I had because I think that I am the type of person, because of how hard it was for me to quit, that if I had liked a job enough, I don't think I would have left. And I think I would have gone to the business going on the next thing. Like if I had had a job worked for me, whatever it was that I enjoyed enough, just enough, I might not be where I am now. And I think that I cherished the fact that it was so miserable that it got me to change. Like that, that job changed my life. From a like sole perspective, going through what I did with Leila, I cherish those times because a lot of people live worse, case scenario, years into their marriage, years into their relationship, and then they kind of like see what the other person is made of.

1:50:19I got to do that before I married the person. And so there haven't been any surprises since then. And it's something that's like shared misery to a certain degree, but like spiritual strength or spiritual, whatever you want to call it. But I know she's got my back. And there's an element to that story that I didn't tell. But when we really needed money at one point, I flew Leila out to do this launch. I couldn't go with her. And I actually, I don't want to say broke up with her, but I was like, I can't do this right now. And so for 28 days, we were not together. And most girls, people, would probably have been like, screw this guy.

1:51:01But instead, Leila set the all time record for a launch that still hasn't been broken.

1:51:11And when she came back, I was like, she stood tall when everything in my life was crumbling around me. And she made it happen. And I knew that wherever I wanted to guide, he did something like that with me. And so I cherish the failures of that entire season because there were many because I wouldn't know what I have today if I hadn't been through those tests with her. Man, that's beautiful. We have another question, which is the question that people leave in the book. I thought I'd just nailed it. I thought that was it. This is the new tradition. I'm talking about the old tradition. One last question, Alex.

1:51:49But you did nail that. So I'll be honest, you stuck that landing. When do you feel the most emotionally connected to yourself? Literally my heartbeat thought was when I'm working. Like the first heartbeat thought. And then like, if I had to be really specific, when I'm in the throes of writing, I had a writing scholarship coming out of high school. I was the vice editor of the newspaper. I was the editor in chief at the literary magazine when I was in high school. I enjoyed writing. It's one of those things that for me, like you said, like challenge. Writing is a thing, is a monster that only gets stronger and stronger.

1:52:27And you get better and better at writing. And you see the flaws in your writing, the better you get at writing. And so it always feels like it matches the difficulty matches my ability at all times. And so it is the thing that I experienced the greatest degree of flow in the most regularly.

1:52:46Makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of questions that we've talked about earlier on as well. Alex, thank you so much for your time. And being here, it's been an incredibly diverse and enlightening and honest and vulnerable and inspiring and for soul filling conversation and so many respects. And I know for sure you're just at the very start of your journey asked you about the staircase. I know that you've just got one foot on the first step. And I think it's going to be incredible to watch the next couple of seasons of your life. Because you're destined for incredible things. There's absolutely no doubt in that.

1:53:19So thank you Alex. Appreciate your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. It's a code of words.

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