Alex Hormozi - Blueprint to Millions | Ep 022

I remember I was looking out of my balcony and I was 22. All I could think about was how I just didn't want to be alive. A lot of my decisions have been in the face of my mortality because it's like, apparently, the only thing they get me to move. Is my opinion of what my father thinks of me more valuable than what I think of me? My dad called me and this is after we had probably taken home 20 million. He was like, "Hey, you might want to hear this." And I was like, "What?" I like stepped out from dinner and I was like, "What?" He was like, "Are you ready?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he was like, "When you're starting these businesses, did you just figure out a formula and then you make sure these businesses fit that formula? Or did it just so happen that you'd start a business and you're like, "How come can we get these needs without paying for it?" In terms of the checkboxes for a business, I have five that I look at. What do you think's been the scariest moment along your journey so far? I would sit there in an empty gym, be like, "What the fuck am I going to do?" That was by far emotionally the hardest and I think it was because I was the most world. Do you think you made it without Leyla? How many years of knowledge would you say is packed into this? Thousands. I mean, it's just our knowledge of stealing our business. Our businesses, rather, you know, from one second. And how many mistakes do you think you made along the way? A lot. I can directly attribute probably like $7 million in profit of mistakes that I did not make just from just like one chapter in that book. Do you think that most of the mistakes you made do you think is from your own experience? Do you think it's from hiring other people and then doing what they say? But it doesn't work out the way you thought it would. Or maybe it's a miss. It's a good question. I would say, you know, I would say sure it's other people's stuff. But like, I've also listened to other people, so it's not like I can like write other people off. It's just, you know, especially when you're starting out, you have mentors and coaches and things like that. And part of it is taking other people's experience, you know, at face value and going for it. And a lot of the things early on did work out for me. I think as we, as we got much bigger, you know, a lot. And I know that you found out later, you know, how much we were doing for a much longer, you know, period time that most people knew. The people who were giving advice hadn't even made the amount of money that we had made. And so it was just very difficult for me to find people who I could, whose perspective I could trust. And that was, that was a very difficult thing for probably like a two or three or period, which is, you know, why we started acquisition. Not comment what not said to hopefully provide that for people who are going from 10 million to 30 million to 50 million, et cetera. Yeah, did, was it, I mean, was it hard to find those people? I'm genuinely curious like I've had that same feeling and I'm at your level. So that's how I felt was when I was looking for people. Is trying to find those individuals who are truly at that level. Was it hard for you to find them? Yes, but I think you can get there like as much as like there's periods of time where you have to grind and like put your shutters on. I think there's like, I think you execute until like all of the things that you have wanted to execute are executed. And then I think you have to look back up again and look around until like, okay, I need more information and new frames and new lenses to see what I can't see right now. Because like I always think like if I were to talk to you on musk, like I wouldn't want to ask him questions. I would just say like, what do you see that I don't see from my perspective, given my resources, skills and character traits that that you would recommend I should do given what you see. Because I wouldn't want to ask my questions are stupid, you know what I mean? It's I mean, candidly, it's like there was a there's a an acquaintance of mine who ended up sitting down with a guy who was a billionaire at the time and he was really fresh in his career and he was in the fitness space. And he ended up spending like the whole lunch asking about where to source equipment from. And he always looks back at how stupid it was that these are the questions that he was asking this man. But it's because he just didn't know anything right and I think that that's what I try to avoid when I'm talking to people who have, you know, experienced a different level. As I try and I try and get them to ask the questions that I should be asking. Yeah, so that's a great point. I'm on the same mind frame where when I'm trying to ask someone ahead of me, it's like, is this a good question? Because you sit there. I sit there in the debate. I'm like, this sounds like a good question. Like, no, that's a question. That's like stupid. I like, how do you get better at that? Do you feel like it's a skill you've learned over time? 100%. I think asking good questions is probably the single greatest skill that an entrepreneur can have. Because asking good question shows depth of thought. Like you can, in my opinion, you can tell. How intelligent and what at what level someone's at based on their questions, far more than the answers. And if you ask bad questions, you get bad answers. And if you have stupid questions, you get stupid answers. And so I think a lot of times, like, even when we're looking at our business, right, there's, there's a circumstance or a situation or a problem that arises. A lot of times it's like, though, they'll ask a quite like even my team will ask a question. I'm like, do you think that's the right question to be asking right now? Yeah, because usually it's not, it's not important at all. It's a totally different question. We should be asking. Like, I'll give you, I'll give you a fun example. So I had, I had a very close friend of mine. She does about 50 million a year. And she takes about 20 home. And she came to me and she was like, Alex, need your brain. Okay, what's up? And she said, I need you to show me how I can make $5 million an extra profit without doing anything extra. And in 60 minutes, we did it. And then she made an extra five million takes me an extra four and a half million from one change in pricing. And so, and so be caught. But like the thing is, it was so evident because she was like, she wasn't like, how can I grow a top line? It's like, well, duh. There's a million ways to grow a top line, right. But she was like, how can I and she adds constraints to her questions. And so a lot of times now, the questions I have have constraints and the goals that I have have constraints. How can I get to 100 million working two days a week? Can you run her million? I know what I need to do. But how do I do it doing two days a week? You think different. Yeah. No, I love that. I mean, that makes total sense. Is there is a behind that you just said two days a week? Like, is it more of the challenge for you? Or is there a reason you would do it like in two days a week is just an example? But is there a reason behind that? It's just more than half the challenge. It's so like many things. I think there's multiple reasons behind it. So one is I think it would be a fun challenge. The second is I know how to get thing. I know how to accomplish things through sacrifice. But I know that when I accomplish things to sacrifice, I end up presenting the thing and I don't want to resent the thing. So in order to then shift the perspective outwards, the only games worth playing are games that you can continue to play. So it's like if I'm helping Susie lose weight and I help her lose weight for six months and then she drops off and then gains all the way back who cares. I'd rather have Susie just walk every day if she can absolutely keep walking and if she does that for the rest of her life, I've genuinely added 10, 20 years to her life and probably made her truly fit in a way that's reasonable and acceptable over the longer period of time, which is the only thing that matters. And so for the business component, it's like I know that the person who can stay at it the longest most of the time will win because this is just I have there's too much time out of the bar. It would be unreasonable for me not to win because I just have too much more experience than everyone else. So if that's the objective is like, how can I play this game the longest, then then the question is, how can I do that? And so for me, it's like, all right, well, if I spend two days a week and truly working, I'm going to put quotes here because the other days I'm obviously doing stuff from writing the book and recording videos and things like that, but those are things that are like, I love doing those things like those are I genuinely enjoy. I feel like doing it. Was that not like actually inside the business just other tasks. Yeah, exactly. And those are those are fun creative flow tasks for me, like those are fun. And so that was the idea is like, if I can create the structure under which are circumstances under which I could continue to do this for for perpetuity, then I will win because I won't quit or switch gears because that's usually I mean entrepreneurs don't really quit. Because they just can't stay there. Right. I was going to ask you, do you think part of your fitness background is why you're so successful? Do you see that trend among people who have a strong fitness background and maybe business success? I actually don't think so at all. I don't think they're related. I think that I think that people who have work ethic, then can learn fitness, but most people who are who are really into fitness. This is what I think is kind of interesting. I think people who are really into fitness actually are really into fitness and never really developed the work ethic. They actually just do it because they like it. And so then they expect and they preach that. They're like, I have discipline and waking up at five. I'm like, you love taking pictures with your shirt off. You love going. This is not this is not you showing it because here's the thing. That same person won't fucking do a hundred messages every day. Right. Right. Right. They won't they won't call call. They won't they won't message. They won't run ads. They won't do the stuff that they're supposed to do. Because it's hard. And so they think that because it's hard for other people to do fitness, that because they do fitness, they are hardcore or disciplined. When in reality, they just have a preference or a proclivity to doing something that other people just tend not to, not to do. But if you find me an entrepreneur, who's a winner and who has the work ethic and then you say, hey, go into fitness, that person will be successful. They might not become a body, but because they're not super passionate about it, but they'll get fit. I love that perspective. What do you think is been the scariest moment along your journey so far. I have a guess what it might be for me and your book, but I'm curious what you. Actually, the worst part so I know that I think you might have read the gym watch book. The most so it's like the worst and most painful period was when I started the first gym. That was by far emotionally the hardest and I think it was because I was the most alone. Like I travel to a new area. I didn't know anyone. Like when people left it was just me. I had no friends. I had no family. I had no I had no nothing. And so I was sit there in an empty gym, be like, what the fuck am I going to do. And it was terrifying. You know, I just, but I was so insecure and of having a fearing failure and feeling the judgment of what I thought other people would say about me, that that was like the only thing that really compelled me. And so it was kind of that pain that I was running away from. The second probably hardest time was the one that I talked about in the book where we were basically lost everything. That was that was pretty shitty. When I read from the book and won't have a later question on it, but I feel like, you know, my parents had similar feelings about business and so forth as yours did and I didn't feel a lot of support. You think there's just you see a trend among successful people who almost like they're running from not being a loser or not being disapproved of in a sense because I know how you said that that was 100% my motivation. I think, I think it's different for you know, like you look at Michael Jordan, you know, and for him, it was the comparison to his brother, right. And so I think that I think I'll rewind real quick. I think humans experience pain and then it just takes certain types of people take the pain and let it beat the strength into them and other people take the pain and let it beat the strength out of them. The person who caused that pain as the reason they are not successful, rather than saying, I will not give this person power anymore over my life. And so as a result of the pain that they beat into me, I will become stronger and as, and I will prove them wrong or whatever it is. And I think that most people though, the level of success, I think in some way in the beginning is proportional to the pain that you experienced. I do think that there is a switching point because once you have satisfied, and I think that you're rubbing into this like right now in some of the conversation we've had, it's like, there comes a point where you're like, it's not really reasonable for anyone to say that I'm not successful anymore. It's not, and like, there's no more marginal utility for money, like another million dollars or another $10 million truly changes nothing about my life. And so then I think that the motivation has to change, and I don't think it happens overnight, but I think that it does switch from a fear based drive to a to a pool based drive. And as a fun quote that I like a lot is that most people don't know the difference between fear and motivation. Most people just, they conflate the two, they just, they assume the feeling they have right now, maybe some people are listing this, that drive, they might think it's motivation, but it's actually fear. And then when fear is gone, because you've satisfied all of your needs, then they don't know what motivation actually feels like, because it feels different. That's a good point, you know, I see even on like a YouTube channel, that thing took off like a rocket ship, bro. You know, I think the thing that resonates with people is just your thoughts or like, it's almost like where did you get this perspective? Do you feel that a lot of your thoughts now come from just, I mean, obviously, building a business to your size, you have to gain perspective, but is it more that people you've been around, is it the books you've read, or is it just literally just the experience of doing it. I think I spent a lot of time not doing much, so counter to the grind culture, most of my day is empty. I don't have anything after this, I didn't have anything until noon today, three days a week, I have nothing on my calendar. So, you know, and so a lot of time, you know, I occupy my time just reading stuff that, you know, that seems interesting and they're usually totally disparate books, and it could be anything from like religious stuff to pricing to whatever. And I also think that my closest friend, Dr. Cashy, is basically a philosopher and he and I spent a long time talking about ideas, and I think a lot of that comes into the context of of death, honestly, so we talk about death a lot because I think a lot of people don't like talking about death, but in doing that, I think we get a lot of perspective on what is important and why. And so that's been helpful for me. That makes it, that makes sense. When, when putting together offers getting back to your, you know, your chapter in your book, do you think people have a natural tendency to make them complicated or not to listen, like when I read it. It just seems so clear, but do you still have people who fight you on and try to over complicate it? I don't really really almost no one's following on the book, like every person is like, I mean, we've gotten a lot of good feedback from the book, and so not really I haven't had any negative feedback from the book so I'm like waiting for that, but no, I think I think it's a fairly clear structure and most people just see at least two or three elements that they could include in their offer to make it more valuable. And most times when people like as a thought experiment for everybody who's listening to this. And in my opinion, besides the marketplace you're selling to is the most powerful lever you have on how much money you're going to make, right, at least on the ability to sell stuff, which obviously is a skill of itself. But if you have a really good offer, it's much easier to sell, right, makes your job easier. And so if I were to say, for example, that anyone here, hey, I will double your business in the next 30 days, guaranteed. Or I'll pay you twice what you paid me, right. That is an offer structure, there's an outcome, there's a timeline, there's a guarantee, right, and I'm only taking two people, right, there's some scarcity for you. And so just like that, that would probably be right now a compelling offer to most people here, right. And depending on the price, they just have to factor into what doubling the profit or doubling their business would value to them. You know, if you're making 10 grand a month and I charge a million dollars for that, then it might not make sense. But if you're making a million a month, that it totally makes sense, right. And so then it's a very easy decision for the prospect, it doesn't take a lot of salesmanship, it's just a simple decision, right, best case worst case here it is, right. And so, if that's the extreme example, then if we take that extreme and just say, how many steps backwards do we need to take until we arrive at something that's reasonable. Yeah, I would say reasonable first and then scalable second, because maybe a certain percentage of people listening to this, it's so funny, there was a guy who went to high school with, he, he got furloughed because he was a car tractor. So we graduated from car practice as a doctor, a car tractor, and they got furloughed like the next month after COVID and was like, bro, I need to make money. And I was like, do you want to make money being a car tractor or do you want to make money? I'd rather just make money. And I was like, okay, so we just put him in gym lunch and I said, just sell weight loss. And so he's selling, literally 90 days later, he's doing 20 grand a month and he's stoked, right. But the reason that I brought this up was that before he started making the money, he was like, hey, here's my offer, I'm trying to put these pieces together. You know, I'm afraid that, you know, if I, if I give away too much, it's not scalable. And I was like, bro, you don't have any clients. You have a scale issues, are you worried about right now? You have no clients. So it's like, worry about scale later, once you have cash flow. And to prove the point of how much I believe in this, I spent two years launching gyms. So people were like, Alex, how did you build such a big coaching business in gyms? It's like, because I launched gyms for two years. I flew out, I showed up at the front desk, and I sold membership for 24 days. And then I flew out and did it again, and then I flew out, and then I did it again, right. And then I had other guys that were flying out with me. So I was running a sales team and doing that. They're like, are you so good at it? It's like, did as many fucking times, right. And so I think so many people aren't that good at the thing that they think they're good at, which is why they don't make me fucking money, right. And so anyways, great over. But in terms of scalability, I think it is far better to get good at the thing and think, how, how can I provide so much value that this person wouldn't say no. Get the yeses, get the cash flow, and then determine what people find valuable, what they don't find valuable, and then peel back the offer until you still have the ultra valuable stuff. But you can pull back some of the things to make a little more skill. Yeah. That's a good perspective. In fact, I mean, I didn't do the gyms, but I did do the online. And that's kind of what made it. And in fact, I got to that point where I had to start to sign am I going to go low ticket fitness, or am I going to go or high ticket and, you know, I had like trainers lined up out the door that were like, hey, can you do this for me. And that's actually how I got into this. I never thought I get into this back to your back to your point and what you just said, something I found interesting that you keep bringing up is when you talk about scaling, getting to the next level. Is not not doing too much, right. So not having too many offers, not getting too convoluted. So is there a litmus test to know when you're adding in too much share offer. So let's say you have a coaching offer and then you throw in the agency and then you do this done for you that and then emails and all of a sudden you have all these offers. Is there a litmus test of that to know when it's a good idea when it's not a good idea. I think it's a really good question. Got to have one a day involved. Yeah, it's a really good one. I wish I gave you a perfect answer, but I don't know if I have one. Yeah, I don't want to give a false answer. I don't know. I mean, I know when I see it, you know what I mean, but I'm in terms of like what framework would I use to say this is too much or too little. Most times, the easiest litmus test that I was like from if we're going big picture, the easiest litmus test that I would think of is, are we changing avatars. That'd be the first, the first litmus test. The second would be, are we changing place in the market? And so, so there's four major strategic positions in any marketplace. You've got ultra low, which is like what you can, like VA's for $400 is ultra low price. Right, then you've got your low price, which is Walmart, right, and then you've got premium, which is more expensive than the average stuff. And then you've got luxury, right, which where demand increases as a result of status and price where the higher the prices, the more the status that's associated with it. Now, people who might be listening to this might think they're in luxury. They probably aren't. They're probably in premium, which like your program, my program, they are premium products. They're not luxury products. No one did no one has status associated with how much they paid you. Right. And so, if I, if I were changing where I sit on that graph, then that would be another thing where I would say, OK, we still want to occupy one position. Number one, number two, we want to serve one avatar. And I think that to, I think part of the reason that the question is so difficult to answer is that. There has to be context behind it. So like right now, we have six businesses that were that were in, like, heavily in, right. And so you're like, people might hear that and be like, well, Alex, I thought you told me to focus on the thing. And the answer is yes, but it's also at what point do I have the skill setting character traits that would allow me to do these things. And so I think like when I started my second business, which is prestige labs, I did that out of sequence. I should not have done it as soon as I did it. I have it now. It took me, it took me a long time of failure and suffering during that period of time of transition of being CEO of two companies that I can now see that in retrospect, I don't know how things would have turned out differently, et cetera. But I think that there's a skill set thing. Could you have multiple offerings if you have champions for each of those product lines? Yes, I think so. If you can run multiple companies, you can run multiple product lines, but most people don't have the skill set to do it. So as a broad statement, for most entrepreneurs who are under $10 million a year, I say, focused on selling one product on one channel. And then the second going from, you know, three to 10 million is just increasing the back in lifetime growth profit per question. With your businesses, the thing that's impresses me the most is the fact of skate how much scale you've had with essentially not maybe wrong, but in your portfolio, I still believe you don't run hardly any ads is that that's accurate right overall. One of the companies one of the companies runs a lot of that's not too much different ones. One I want to say so to me, that's the most impressive and the reason is I thought my profit margins were high. And then I heard cheers and I go, well, shit, I guess if I didn't run ads, they'd be that high too. So, but then what impresses me further is the amount of scale. So when you're starting these businesses, did you just figure out a formula and then you make sure these businesses fit that formula? Just so happen that you started business, you're like, how can we get these leads without paying for them? I think it's both those thought processes, honestly. Now in terms of the check boxes for business, I have five that I look at. So it's my little modikers unique expensive sticky air and managed with a person of integrity who has a long term mindset. So those are the five things on packer real quick so unique is like is there something that we have a unique thing that only we can do that we have unique. And it might not even be the thing that's different, but do we have a unique story that can still differentiate us like for me and Jim wants, there's nobody who's had as many gems as I have or who did two years of turn around that's unique angle that I know that I'm better at right. Expensive is going to be just a function of pricing and it's more than it is expensive in absolute terms. It's more what is the gross profit of the business, right, which has a function to do with the second thing. You need expensive sticky air and the air is this or the fourth thing is basically no marginal cost. How can I, how can I sell something that costs nothing right so that I don't want to have 80% or 90% margins. I want to have 97 and a half percent gross margins. And the difference between a 90% gross margin, and a 95% gross margin business is twice. That's what everyone fucks up. A 95% gross margin business is twice as profitable as a 90% gross margin business. Because it means I can I would have to sell twice as many units right or for each increment of cost I can sell to versus one and that is why it's twice. It's not 5% right and everyone messes that up. So unique expensive sticky is how can I make it recurring and have some sort of habit forming component to it and either it's recurring because of the model or because of how good the product is. So how can I have some element of recurring that's going to come into it right so unique expensive sticky air those are the four and then managed by someone who has integrity was a long term perspective. And then that way they'll make the right calls at the right time and not sacrifice short term for a quick pop. And so that's in terms of like the businesses that I'm looking at in terms of the question about how do I, how do we have such low ad spend related to our revenue. So this is this has been evolved over time having spoken with all like all the guys I know are worth 250 million and up right. What was interesting to me is that the vast majority of them want to do one time inputs with compounding returns. So most people do the opposite they do things that they have like spending money on advertising for example you have to come up with a whole campaign you have to write all a copy you have to put money in it and then it stops working eventually right and you have to do it again and it stops working eventually now contrast that with. I'm going to write a book and it's and it has to be so good that on its own if I give it to 10 people that though that more than 10 people will get it as a result of those first 10 people. Each of those 10 people sensitive to people and those people presented to people and so right now this book was almost a test for me of that concept giving the book in the course. And that has actually worked so I mean one post on Instagram and that was that was my promotion of run no ads for this book and it's something 1000 copies of that. It's not right I mean 1000 copies you can multiply the math like it's a lot right but there's no advertising. And so when when you look at to round that point off if you look at the six ways of getting customers right so you have paid ads you have urge media which is the followers that we all have right we have owned media which is all the people who've given us permission to contact them so all of our all of our the followers in their inboxes the DMs etc your phone context CRM. And then you've got manual outbound I know you know this I'm just saying this for everyone else manual outbound which is the actual cold DM so same concept but we're doing it to on a 101 basis to people who haven't given us permission. We have affiliate so people already have the pool of customers that we have that we can partner with and make a full integration to their business so that they can keep sending us the clients and then finally you have word of mouth and referrals right now if I want to ask the audience right which of those is quadratic compared to which of those is linear. Which of the six is which they might think for a second because we're only talking and I can't see the comments I will answer the question right referrals word of mouth is the only one is quadratic so if I put a dollar advertising and I get $10 back then I get then I put $100 and I get $1000 back it is linear in the relationship right it's a straight line. Same thing with outbound if I do 100 calls versus 200 calls versus 1000 calls and it's the same same response rate more or less love large numbers with referrals if we make the product good enough then I can give it to one person and that person gives it to two to give to four or give to eight and then it multiplies it's quadratic right and so when I look at the people who make the most money they spend all of their time or disproportionate amount of their time truly getting product market fit and a lot of people talk about product market fit but they don't actually ever achieve it. They get their their idea of product market fit is that people are buying that is not the way that product market is actually determined product market is actually determined based on the fact that these customers state and continue to pay and want to buy more. And so the idea is we shouldn't be promoting just enough to keep fixing the product until the product itself does enough selling force that it becomes a virtuous cycle but most people just learn how to make that first dollar and then try and max out and then they're really disappointed by the fact that they're not making as much money or profit as they'd like to make and then also feel shitty about things. And so when I look at that if i'm trying to build something that has compounding returns it's like how can I take a one time effort and really go well in on the product I know enough about promotion how to make sure that I can get the first sales throw and then keep tweaking this until eventually it is good enough that I get an outsize return on any effort I do and then at that point i'll turn the other ones on. Because then it becomes very because then making the advertising profitable is basically inevitable because for every customer getting one or two more customers yeah the biggest lessons i've learned from you recently is I mean simply i've seen that so i'm like what what can I do different to where I don't have to market so hard because I can mark it I can mark but but I cannot out beat that performance with marketing. And then also it's wrapping my head around okay maybe these offers what do I have to do to change his offers what you offer what I need to hit that criteria because I have a lot of experience I think it's easier for me to wrap my head around that but that means like what i've seen is it's like he's doing stuff in a way where it's like only fun where it's like we don't really have to do anything. To sell this the cold calling especially I think is absolutely ridiculous right that you can call someone the offer so good you're just like yeah I was just kind of do it with you whatever if it doesn't want to pay us and they're like all right I will do it and it's brilliant it's brilliant. One of the questions I wanted to ask is you know in the book and and I understand this but you said if your company isn't growing it's dying. And I think some people don't understand that they they think like well my company's here like it's not can you can you give me an example of because you said it really black white in the book that people can understand what you mean by that statement. So if you look at the more like the marketplace in general the marketplace is growing at 10% right and so if you are not growing by 10% year relative to the market you are shrinking and so that means that you are dying and I use grow or die as a very polarizing term because it's memorable right but fundamentally most businesses if they are not adapting or innovating we'll get outpaced by the marketplace and then eventually vanish into nothingness and so the idea is that we must continually grow and must continually innovate. To keep our product sharp and and top the game. And you have you ever had you know what time in your business where I finally saw it this year where I feel like this was the first year where I was like man I got to start changing or we're not going to keep going up. Did had you had that happen in your business at all. Yeah I got kicked him nuts or in code because I strip chimps but I didn't know you I didn't know you well enough them but I remember I I said a distinct prayer and I was like thank you Lord I'm not Alex from Aussie during this. So yeah you know I mean I definitely you know I've definitely experienced it in the book you know your dad questions whether what you were doing or legal you know after one of the pictures from your events. So you didn't initially have that support from your family. What would you say to people who are watching or kind of that same boat I see it's a lot with beginners to how to deal with that because it's easy I think it's easy to maybe say now. But I know when I start I don't know how you felt but I got very close to quitting a few times which in retrospect is crazy but you know getting kicked in the nuts over and over is tough how did you deal with it or how will you deal with it. I'm just getting kicked in the nuts over and over and especially you. So I mean I'll I'll briefly share the story that got me got me started because I think it might have relevance because for me the hardest decision was actually quitting my job. So that was the hardest decision I had to make because I I was actually a very good student. I graduated from Vanderbilt Magickum Louting in three years and I got a good job as a management consultant and I got paid good money. And so I had I pretty much had done everything that I was told to do up to that point I was president for fraternity I you know I mean I was editor of the things like I did all that stuff right and so I followed everyone's path and I was miserable and so I remember I was looking out of my balcony because I owned a condo and a high rise. I was 22 and I all I could think about was how I just didn't want to be alive. And so it was and that's why I say like a lot of my decisions have been in the face of my mortality because it's like apparently the only thing they get me to move. And so and so one I was faced with the fact that like I was like if I'm driving tomorrow I was like I could just accidentally go on the other lane and like it would be all right like no one would no no it would be fine and I wouldn't wake up and it would be over right. The thing is just like this kind of passive ideation was something that like occupied a lot of my time and so I was like it got to the point where I was in so much pain of just living this existence that I didn't want to live that I was like well. At least if I started business it'll be doing something that I like and I won't like I won't be thinking about fucking killing myself every day and so that was really that was like was when I was faced with my mortality of like well I've got the judgment of my parents I was like where I could die and I was like well. I guess judgment of parents is better than death and so that was how like straight up that was how I made the decision. But then even when I did make the decision I still had the same level of like fear of failure and judgment and I told you so and I would been right all along and you should have listened to me that I never wanted to hear. And so when I started the business it was just that fear that I just like I and I had so much anxiety every hour of every day which is why I didn't I didn't take I didn't take a vacation until December of 2019. I can relate to a lot of that and I remember just deeply after you know finishing football that was my whole life I just want to play in the league I mean I was an engineering class out of year left and I was like I can't this can this just is not going to work. And it really hit me because that was like my I was looking at that for the rest of my life so I can 100% relate that I didn't even know that part about your story that young. And for it to answer the question for the people who are struggling with like their parents stuff or their sister or whoever that person is. Like I think the quit because like a lot of people are like I'm so afraid of what people think but if you really narrow it down there's only like two or three people whose opinions you actually care about and maybe it's just one. And so then if you can actually just narrow it down instead of making it the faceless like everyone's opinion but like who's that one person who's opinion you care about then it's asking a more pointed question which is like is my opinion of what my father thinks of me more valuable than than what I think of me. And I think if you can answer that question and hopefully it's like I think what I think is more important than you can take that first step I mean I remember my dad called me and this is after we'd probably taking home 20 million at this point Internet mean this a few years ago and he was like hey. You might want to hear this and I was like what I like stepped out from dinner was like what he was like you ready and I was like yeah he was like I'm sorry first time he's ever politics and I was like and I was like for what he was like you know for everything he was like you were right he's like but in my defense if it had been in my time I would have been like. And what was interesting was are you saying sorry dad but I remember when he said that to me though that my my response was I was like you rooting for me now when literally everyone else in the world has already recognized that I am good at this means nothing and I was like if I cared about your opinion I would have never quit to begin with and I was like you know when people can stand on stage and the first thing they say is hey mom and dad thanks so much for always being there and believing me I was like. I was like I'm not going to fucking say that because you weren't and I was like so I'm glad that that's apology made you feel better I was like but your opinion stopped mattering to me a long time. And so that was the conversation that I had with my father hopefully it was you know less targeted than that for everyone here but I guess you know well conversation you want to have and if you never quit then you won't fail and that is like that's the prerequisite of entrepreneurship if you do not quit you won't fail. And so they can never say I told you so until the moment that you give up. Sorry man that just resonates with me so much like that's the number one thing like I say that all the time I'm like as long as you don't quit and you don't have a mental disability seriously and you can make decisions like that didn't work that didn't work don't do that again you eventually will hit success it's just time that's it it's just time. Do you think in a minute made it without Layla. So I had six gyms before I met Layla you know what I mean so I think I think I had I had a reasonable level of of competence but I wouldn't have made it as big or it would have taken me much longer. Yeah well I mean was it easier with her is oh my god yeah I mean everything blew up when I met Layla and that's because I always had half the equation right I didn't have the other half. And so half the equation is marketing and sales right and she had product operations with film and so that was once I had that piece because I could always out sell my problems but I just couldn't I couldn't keep people I didn't know I didn't I didn't get that part yet which is which might be funny for people listening to this compared to how I just talked about the first half of the talk right. But like it was because I've learned that lesson right I've learned how much more powerful it is to not have to tell you it's so much more profitable to make the products exceptional and then get people to buy over and over and over again you make so much more money. And so like although I came up from the marketing and sales perspective I would no longer consider myself that just much more of a business person now at least I consider myself that way. Having Layla as early as I did I kind of got to leap frog a lot of the pain I otherwise would have had to figure out the hard way it was just like you take all that stuff because I don't like dealing with that and she was like okay and that you crushed it and so by doing that it just blew up and then in retrospect I was like oh that was really important I need to make sure that that's always there. And so now when we create businesses it's like front end back end shared ops and we always have all three with everything that we do it in that way they work on the first try. Do you well let me ask you this I mean a lot of people I feel like I got a good concept of what you do now but everyone's always like what's the day in the live look like Alex what do you do so what what is that kind of look like now that you know you stepped out of most things and you're basically just being an owner. I mean it's like it's like not a lot. I mean I spent my time yeah I mean I spend my so like today I was reading this book. It's okay it's not great it's okay you know I was writing these books I still have book two and book three that are written I'm just going to the editing processes now for those. The only things that are set on my schedules that I'm using with the CEOs of the acquisition dot com companies I'm with those guys once every week every other week. And that's that's like that's the majority of that's that's like my those are my have to do's and all the and everything else right now my focus right now is promoting the book you know I wrote it so I figure I should promote it a little bit so. That's that's that's pretty much that's it like I like Saturdays and Sundays there's nothing I usually have one or two days a week that are completely blank Monday after news is when I do the meeting so that was a nice tweak if you if you are for everyone else here okay yeah so we so so number one heart attack time in the in the US is first thing Monday morning and so. Mentor remind so does company for 3.4 billion he did heart rate variability on all of his executives and found out they were most stressed in the morning so he just pushed all the meetings back until afternoon and everyone's okay and so I can tell you it changes the feeling of everything it's weird it's so weird I just don't work Monday mornings. And like my first meetings that like new that's so interesting first time I've heard I might have to try that so interesting it's weird it's tripping like it's you're like I feel like I'm cheating like I'm not stressed right now and so all of a sudden no one else is stressed either and then it eliminates this false urgency feel because it's like first thing that got to do stuff on Monday morning it's like no you don't like because. Just deciding now versus 4 hours and now it's going to change nothing but like the stress levels go way down so my Monday afternoon it's been like 3 or 4 hours in meetings and then I have Thursday mornings I do a little bit that's it. Final two questions Alex what what's next for you what's next for you got the portfolio companies are you just going to keep on to it what are you going to do next. Yeah it's all that's that's a hundred percent my focus was like how can I play something so so I spent probably two years trying to think about what the next thing was going to be I know you and I've had offline conversations about this but like. I have no I really have no more marginally Tony for money so money only solves money problems and once you've solved all the money problems that exist in your life there's not a lot more that money can do and I recently. I did my will and my state plan or updated it and like I don't have kids and all the stuff that I have I'm going to be donating anyway when I die so like there's really no reason for me to like. I for me the idea of legacy is kind of silly because. In a hundred generations my gene pool would be done even if I did have kids and if I did have kids I probably wouldn't give the money because I think it ruins them which means that I can't give the money to anyone anyways and even if I did in a hundred generations so it's going to remember who I was to begin with so it doesn't really matter so. All that to say I had to think like what are what is my ideal day look like and then how can I create a company that is that that fits that and that was that was it was like a two year I have I still have a note on my phone that has like 11 different big business ideas of what I was going to do next. And piece by piece I started crossing them out until I was like the acquisition not common just kept feeling right it kept coming back to like I would have moments where I was like this one might be cooler but I would always come back to that one. And so that's why that's why I think I'll be able to win with it because I keep coming back to it and I think that. I'll be able to do it for very long time and so if I do it for very long time then I think it'll grow much bigger than anything else I've done. So for everyone who's listening it's we're we're acquiring minority positions and in education or training based companies that are really 5 million plus like 5 to 15ish the biggest company in the portfolio is doing 35. Smallest companies doing 8 million so just for like context but that's that's kind of the range but 5 million plus is kind of the kind of at least where we kind of don't want. Yeah so we're looking at those companies and saying hey we've already done this like a zillion times now so you know helping someone get to 30 million or 50 million or whatever like we understand how to do it. Yeah it doesn't isn't too difficult for you. Thanks Alex thank you so much man guys make sure you go to Amazon get his book and then Alex when do your next folks drop. The next the next book will drop when I think it's good enough that when people read it they'll tell their friends. So you know I think I mean it's it's done now I have a whole rewrite in my head though I've rewritten the second one three times now so I'll probably end up rewriting it two more times so I'll probably read it one more time. When you're writing it Alex are you doing pretty much the heavy work as well like you're not getting a lot of help. I do everything. That's yeah I do. Yeah because it's a lot of people are watching this it's not easy to write a book by the way so incredible in a good books even harder. Yeah yeah it's really yeah so it's it's um it's how can I make that like it has to be so simple and so digestible that because like what I'm reading because I've read this book is zillion times because every time I edit it I basically read it. It's like where is it that my eyes I get I gloss over like where is it where I lose interest or where is it that it's like chunky it's like I have to rewrite it and massage it and how can I break this idea I give a different different example. And I think what happened the reason I like the writing stuff so much is because I get better. I get better at explaining the concepts so like my depth of understanding my perspective on on expertise is how deeply you understand the basics I don't really think that there's a lot of advanced stuff in business I think it's how deeply do you understand. Like people use the term value right for how long have you heard people say value and no one had a fucking equation for it. People like provide more value like what is that me right in it's true like even that that equation if you took that whole book in the game in those two pages that was when I got out of the book that was worth the read for me because I was saying they're going so if I just do one of these four things then that makes it better and then it's easier to sell and as soon as you start implementing it or I have at least already. It's easier and so that's what's interesting about that is that it ends up creating scalable enterprise right because like you know how to build sales teams I know how to build sales teams right but what really scale sales more easily rather than having absolutely savage sales people on that's very important and good and amazing sales training is just giving an offer that would be so easy to sell and then all of a sudden you don't have to take nearly as much time to ramp up you don't have as much. Cost and sales that are not closed by a new closure when you put them on the roster like there's all these other costs that are mitigated when you have a much better offer and people are more convicted about it because they believe in what they're selling yeah 100% I've already seen that across the board. Everyone please get his butt thanks so much for your time and I know you're just so busy today. Absolutely read I loved it that's part of why I wanted to do this and he had a birthday yesterday so spam his walls make sure to bother and I think he's 22 or something today so just make sure to give them some birthday love. All right guys I'm gonna turn off the livestream until next time see ya.