YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Success Is Just a Side Effect of Following These Principles - Alex Hormozi

Success Is Just a Side Effect of Following These Principles - Alex Hormozi — Transcript

by Chris Williamson · 23,645 words · 3,540 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00If you suffered from racial inequality,
0:01if you suffered from gender inequality,
0:03you would be completely justified in the
0:04fact that you are not achieving the
0:05things that other people who didn't have
0:07this disadvantages have achieved. And I
0:09say this as a white guy who was born in
0:10America to a doctor father. But at the
0:12same degree, you have the opportunity
0:13that Chris and I have, which is that you
0:15can be an inspiration to people who went
0:16through the same thing. Because I can
0:17promise that there is somebody who has
0:18had it worse and has done it better.
0:24Alex Hormozi, welcome to the show. Thank
0:26you for having me. My pleasure, man.
0:28Uh one of my favorite things to do is to
0:29scrape through people's Twitters that
0:32are aphorists and come up with little
0:34pithy statements and then break them
0:36down. So I want to go through some of
0:38the things that I've learned from you
0:39over the last year or so.
0:41Going to those and then there's some
0:44talking points that I don't think I've
0:45heard you speak about before as well. I
0:46want to get on to. Yep. Beautiful. So
0:49the first one is so many lives would
0:51transform overnight if they realized my
0:54life sucks, I have nothing going for me
0:56really means I have nothing to lose and
0:59that makes you a very dangerous person.
1:02So
1:04in any kind of game position, so like in
1:06business, right?
1:08Every position has advantages and
1:09disadvantages. A lot of people look at
1:11the really big guys and they're like,
1:12man, they they they like they're they're
1:15looking at me like, must be easy for
1:16Alex, right? And I remember when we had
1:20Jim launch and we had a very big
1:21company,
1:22I would tell the guys who were coming
1:24up. I was like, if you're trying to
1:24compete against me, I was like, you have
1:26advantages. I was like, if you're on a
1:27sales call, you're like, listen, you're
1:28just a number to Alex. You're never
1:29going to talk to Alex, right? Here with
1:31me, you're going to get my attention.
1:33I'm the one, right? I was like, that's
1:34how you're going to throw stones at me.
1:36I was like, but on the flip side, if
1:37it's me marketing to the masses, I'm
1:39going to be like, this kid's in his
1:41mom's basement. He has no idea what he's
1:42doing. He's been in business for 12
1:43months. And of course he has no idea.
1:45Like, wouldn't you want somebody who has
1:46thousands of success stories behind it
1:48because we made a system? Like, both
1:50sides have advantages. And so what
1:52happens is people are in this small
1:54position where they're more nimble, they
1:56can give more personalized attention to
1:57people, etc.
1:58And they see it as a pure disadvantage.
2:01And so you can flip the fact that you
2:03have nothing going for you with you have
2:05nothing to lose. And that means that you
2:07can take lots of risks very quickly and
2:12end up in the exact same position you
2:13are, which is nothing. And so if you
2:15eliminate downside, it should decrease
2:18your action threshold. Meaning you
2:19should be able to do more things faster
2:21rather than do fewer things because you
2:23don't have a great life or things going
2:25for you. And so I think if people flip
2:26that,
2:27a lot more people would take action
2:29because they actually realize the
2:30advantage of their position. Jack
2:32Butcher says you get rich by taking lots
2:34of risk with small amounts of money and
2:36you stay rich by taking small amounts of
2:38risk with lots of money. Yes. I
2:41wholeheartedly agree. I didn't know that
2:42was his quote. Uh he may have repurposed
2:44it. There's there's something called
2:45Churchillian drift. Do you know what
2:46that is? No. So it's a a a phenomenon
2:50at the at the core. It's not the
2:52opposite. It's that
2:53quotes that weren't said by Churchill
2:55often get like erroneously attributed to
2:57him. It's like all quotes lead back to
2:59Churchill
3:00Yeah.
3:00And Socrates.
3:01Yeah, it's like it's just one of those
3:02things where it's like, I thought I I
3:04think that Churchill once said that you
3:06get rich by making large amounts it's
3:08like, no, he [ __ ] But there's another
3:09one as well
3:11that a good friend James Smith talked
3:12about, which is
3:13if you're succeeding at a job that you
3:15hate, imagine how good you'd be at a job
3:17that you loved. Mhm. And that's kind of
3:18the same this person is starting from
3:21essentially zero.
3:23How much [ __ ] worse can it get?
3:24Right.
3:25Is the downside. If you can eliminate
3:26someone's downside for action, it's like
3:28then
3:29the bias it should bias you towards
3:32taking action. Why is it that
3:35people in that case, if they do have
3:36nothing to lose, still feel like they
3:38have lots to lose? Cuz I think most of
3:40the times So this I think this is really
3:42important is that
3:44they have nothing objectively to lose.
3:47And so everything that they feel like
3:48they have to lose is purely made up in
3:51their mind. It's stories they tell
3:52themselves about what other people are
3:53going to think about them when those
3:55people aren't even thinking about them
3:55to begin with, right? But like that's
3:57where they live all of their lives or
3:59live out all of the potential downside
4:01is in the mirror reflection of what
4:03other people will think about them in
4:04the future should they fail. Mhm. And I
4:07think that is the Like if we were if we
4:08were trying to get real and I'm like
4:09talking to somebody like, well, I I mean
4:11cuz I know that they if I actually had
4:13somebody in front of me, they'd start
4:14squirming, right? If I said the first
4:15thing, right? Like you have nothing to
4:16lose. And then cuz then they do have
4:18something to lose and I just have to
4:19name it for them and be like, okay,
4:20who's the person in your mind? Who's the
4:22voice that's like, blah blah blah, six
4:24questions deep, it's my uncle. Okay, why
4:26like, let me state it this way. Will
4:29your belief that you're going to be
4:32viewed as a failure by your uncle be the
4:34sole reason that you live the rest of
4:36your life below your potential and
4:39regret everything that you don't do
4:41because of Uncle Tom?
4:42That's the wrong one. Uncle Harry.
4:46When you say it like that, all of a
4:47sudden they're like,
4:48I don't want to let Uncle Harry have
4:50that kind of power. And then all of a
4:51sudden it breaks and then they like get
4:52free of it. And so I think it's getting
4:54really specific and really narrow on the
4:56cuz people say it's society, it's other
4:58people, it's like it's usually one or
5:00two voices. And if you can get really
5:02specific on whose voice it is, then you
5:04can name it and then like I think I'm a
5:06big believer in like shame only exists
5:07in the shadows, which is like once you
5:09put it in the light, you look at it and
5:10you're like,
5:11my mom? That was really it? Like when I
5:14really think about it, it's because it's
5:15not even just my mom, it's my mom in
5:16this circumstance. When I come back home
5:19for Thanksgiving, I just am so afraid of
5:22the comment that she's going to make.
5:23It's like, well, what if we confront
5:24that? Okay, your mom, you sit down at
5:26Thanksgiving dinner and you haven't made
5:28money yet and you quit your job. Now
5:30what?
5:31Is that better than you spending the
5:33next 60 years hating her or resenting
5:34her for the fact that she held you back?
5:37And then it's like when you give the
5:38real scenario, they're like, well, [ __ ]
5:40And then like this weight comes off and
5:41they're like, [ __ ] I guess I should do
5:42this. And they're like, yeah. Shame only
5:44exists in the shadows is nice. I like
5:46that. And it it definitely is cleansing
5:49to just say be like, look, here it is
5:50out in front of you. Yeah. And it really
5:52you realize just how irrational it is.
5:53Cuz we don't want to look at it. Because
5:55it's in the shadow and we put it in the
5:56shadows because of how it makes us feel
5:58about ourselves, in my opinion. Mhm. And
6:00so it's it's so scary, we avoid it. We
6:03avoid it we avoid it avoid it. But it's
6:04like I think the faster you can kind of
6:06build that muscle of like, huh, I've got
6:09this hesitation. What is the real
6:10reason? Because like logically you I can
6:12do that whole thing. Cool, you have
6:13nothing to lose. You're poor. Great.
6:14Zero, right? Okay, but then what is it
6:17that I'm that I do have something to
6:18lose? It's relational capital. It's
6:21status within my tiny micro community
6:23that doesn't matter, but like my
6:24perceived status. Okay, name the names.
6:27And but but by pulling it out from the
6:29shadows,
6:31it all but like that confrontation from
6:33here to here is I think where all the
6:35fear is.
6:36Because it's embarrassing.
6:38To be like, it's my mom. The other
6:40perfect thing or great realization I
6:42think for anybody that's starting out
6:44and is feeling self-conscious about what
6:45other people are going to think is when
6:47you're starting out, by design, there
6:48are so few people looking at you that
6:50even if you do fail, no one [ __ ]
6:52sees, right? So this is something we
6:53realized when we were running nightclubs
6:55that we would try and launch a new event
6:57around freshers week in September and we
6:58would we would have this great idea and
7:00it would be everything would be about
7:01flamingos or everything would be it
7:03would be a smart night on a Tuesday so
7:05people could go out after they've been
7:06to sports club or whatever it was.
7:09And then it would flop, right? And we'd
7:10do 150 people and all of the guys that
7:13work for us would be stood outside
7:15looking destitute and upset and they'd
7:17go, oh, it's so embarrassing.
7:18so it looks like there's more room.
7:19Oh, dude, we had so many tricks. We'd
7:21pump the pump the room full of smoke. We
7:23would pad the back off so that everyone
7:24had to go to the front. We'd get the DJ
7:26to play music. All sorts of [ __ ] But
7:29all of the boys would be like, [ __ ]
7:30this makes us look so bad. Everyone's
7:31going to think that we're [ __ ] I was
7:32like, no, no, no, no, no. 150 people
7:34going to think that we're [ __ ] Like the
7:36advantage of running a [ __ ] business
7:38that doesn't reach many people is that
7:39not many people saw your [ __ ] business.
7:43And that's when you're starting out.
7:44People that are concerned about becoming
7:45a content creator. I I'm worried about
7:47starting a podcast cuz what if everyone
7:48sees how [ __ ] my podcast is? It's like,
7:49dude, no one's going to see your [ __ ]
7:51podcast. It took me three year three and
7:55a half years to get even an appreciable
7:57amount of people listening to this show
7:59and it was effort three times a week. No
8:02one cares when you start. So you can be
8:03liberated from that as well. And it's
8:05just objection handling objection
8:06handling objection handling all the way
8:07down. I think a lot of I think a couple
8:09frames that are just different frames
8:11around content making since we're on the
8:12topic
8:14that helped me was one is seeing it as
8:16practice rather than the game.
8:18So like when we're doing a podcast, if
8:19you start you're like, hey, we're I'm
8:21going to do a podcast and I'm going to
8:22post it. It's practice for me getting
8:23better for future me rather than like I
8:25am like this is the main game. It's
8:27like, no, the game is the whole thing
8:29and this is just like
8:30We're still in preseason.
8:31Yep. Like these these these scores,
8:33these touchdowns don't even matter yet,
8:35right? Now you can say yet even though
8:36like I can still feel like I'm in
8:37preseason, but I think from a mental
8:38framework, it actually decreases the
8:40stakes associated with doing it and I
8:41think that's been helpful for me,
8:42especially it was in the earlier days.
8:44The other one was kind of the equal
8:46opposite of this problem, which is not
8:48wanting to start because no one's
8:49watching because it feels like you're
8:51doing all this work. What's the point?
8:53And so I actually the little mental
8:56trick that I had was um
8:58one I track lots of stuff. And the more
9:00ways you track, the more ways you can
9:01win. And so that's a little thing that I
9:03found out. So like if you track 100
9:04stats and you only need one of them to
9:06go up so you feel like you made some
9:07progress. So that's like an easy one.
9:10And the second thing around the tracking
9:12is that I would look at like the biggest
9:14possible number. So a lot of times you
9:15can see like the impressions of, you
9:18know, a post that you make. Even if you
9:19only got like 16 likes, I got like 100
9:21impressions. And I thought to myself, I
9:23was like, well, if there was a a room of
9:25100 people, I'd be stoked. Like that
9:28would be awesome. Especially in the
9:28early days, I was like, that would be I
9:31would totally feel like that was
9:32worthwhile. And so taking those little
9:34impression numbers and pretending that
9:36they were like micro events that I was
9:38making the work or the content for, all
9:41of a sudden made it feel worth it for
9:42me. And so the combination of I can have
9:44a small room and I'm really impacting.
9:46Like when I get a view that has like 13
9:47views on it, you know, for like a video
9:50in the early days, I'd be like, well,
9:51shoot, I made this video and 13 people
9:53saw it. It's like a small room. Like
9:54that works. But looking at both absolute
9:58growth and relative growth. So it's
9:59like, "Okay, well, I went from 10
10:00followers this month to 15 followers
10:02this month." It's like, well, you can
10:04say that you only gained five followers.
10:05I was like, "Or you can say that you
10:06gained by you went up by 50%." And that
10:09was exciting. And so, then I cuz I'm a
10:11Excel projection guy, I'm like, "Okay,
10:13well, if I do this every month and the
10:15team does this cuz I I project
10:16everything out." I'm like, "If we do
10:18this cuz I I'll predict where we're
10:19going to be in like 12 months and
10:21usually hit it." Very. Really? Very. But
10:24how do you account for the unforeseen
10:275 million play
10:30video that comes in? Well, that's my
10:31padding. Right. Okay.
10:33well, like I'll project out with no
10:36white swan events.
10:37Yeah. Yep. Yep.
10:38what I mean? Where something good
10:38happens. But it just if we keep doing
10:40what we're currently doing at this
10:41trajectory, we compound at 13% a month.
10:44That's what it is right now. So 13%
10:46monthly and that's just on one of the
10:47platforms we're on. Um and so I can just
10:49see what we're going to be at 6 months.
10:50And that's exciting. So James Smith
10:52gamifies it in the same way. You know,
10:53does he? Yeah, absolutely exactly the
10:56same way. And he always says that it's
10:57just like playing uh levels on a
10:59computer game. And this month, wow, like
11:01I got another XP point or whatever. And
11:03I think that's very important because
11:04social media and the fact that it is
11:07associated with status, even though
11:08everybody says, "Oh, you know, it
11:09doesn't really matter and blah blah." It
11:11does. Like it's really hard for us to
11:12remove the human hierarchy from what is
11:15evidently just quantified [ __ ]
11:17status, right? On a on a screen.
11:19And what he did was he removed himself a
11:21lot existentially from that by saying
11:23it's not a comment on my worth as a
11:24person. It's not a comment on whether
11:26I'm you know, going to be loved or
11:28accepted by the world.
11:30It's me putting some stuff out. And wow,
11:31we won this month. Yeah. And this month,
11:33oh, maybe we didn't win. Why didn't we
11:35win? Well, I go back. The same way as if
11:36someone beats you at FIFA unless you're
11:38like a pro FIFA player or whatever. But
11:39again with that, what's the difference
11:40between the the amateur FIFA player and
11:42the pro FIFA player? The pro has put his
11:44existential connection right to his
11:47content and the success of it. There's
11:48so many little things on this that I
11:50want to go into. One of them is that So
11:52Dr. Cash is my closest friend. He's like
11:54a behavioral whatever. Loves studying
11:56why humans do things. Um and so people
11:58who are most successful a lot of times
12:00with their It's not that they
12:01necessarily have more willpower. They
12:03find ways to They find other ways to
12:05reward themselves.
12:07And so he's like, "The more skills you
12:08have, the more ways you have to reward
12:09yourself." And so, somebody who
12:12somebody can extend how long their time
12:14horizon is because they do gamify it. So
12:17people who don't have the skills of
12:18figuring out ways to reward themselves
12:19in the meantime
12:21can't make it the whole way. But that's
12:23like when you're doing cardio and you're
12:24like, "Okay, it's five you know, it's
12:26five times five to get out of here,
12:27right?" You You create micro games
12:28within the longer game to keep yourself
12:30going. And the thing is I've seen that
12:31across
12:33uh
12:34verticals. So like if you look at uh So
12:36Travis Mash is a Olympic lifter Olympic
12:38lifting coach um out of North Carolina.
12:41And he has this really cool way of
12:43getting lifters to PR every workout. So
12:45have a personal record every workout.
12:46And what he does is he have them
12:48map every single set and rep range for
12:51every single lift at every weight. And
12:53so what happens is all you have to do is
12:54go through your book of 200 lifts and
12:57every single weight and you can always
12:59find one that you did a year ago.
13:01god, this is my eight rep max PB on good
13:03mornings.
13:04Yes. And you're like, "Well, I can hit
13:05nine on this or I can add 5 lb to it."
13:07And so every workout they win. Yeah. And
13:09so they get excited because they get
13:11rewarded every workout. And so that's
13:13why it's like the more ways you track,
13:14the more ways you can win. And then I
13:15think that that's those little micro
13:17wins can keep you going over the long
13:20game that you have to just keep playing.
13:22One of the other associated tweets that
13:24you did was if your life sucks, the
13:26easiest thing is to change your
13:27environment.
13:28Oh, yeah. This is something that I saw
13:29moving from a very good life in the UK
13:32to now a as excellent of a life as I can
13:35imagine in Austin. Mhm. And I'd met
13:38about a million people throughout my
13:39time as a club promoter and had a
13:41handful of friends. I was like, "Fuck,
13:42like I I feel like my people met to
13:45friend conversion should be higher than
13:47this. I feel like I'm the the the funnel
13:49is very wide and like the conversions
13:51are very low to use your terminology."
13:53Yeah. And uh then moved out to Austin
13:56and it's like I have more friends than
13:57people I've met.
13:58Which is just [ __ ] insane. So
14:01definitely changing your environment.
14:03What other ways, given that not
14:04everybody could move to Austin,
14:06what other ways would you say if your
14:08life sucks, the easiest thing is to
14:10change your environment? What other ways
14:11could someone do that? I mean, the
14:13environment is
14:14I mean, like you know, this is a I'm on
14:16a tangent and I'm going to come back. So
14:18if you've ever heard somebody say like,
14:19"Man, I hate Cincinnati. Cincinnati
14:20sucks, right?" They go some city and
14:22like they go there for 2 days and they
14:23make a judgment across the entire city,
14:25right? But it's like, okay, let's go
14:27really deep. You ate at three
14:30restaurants and you saw seven total
14:32people in Cincinnati.
14:34Does Cincinnati suck or do the two
14:35restaurants that you went to or the
14:37seven people that you were with not Are
14:39they not that cool? Well, it's so easy
14:41to just move like 2 miles down the
14:43street. It's the same reason people do
14:44staycations. It's like you don't even
14:45need to change cities. You can be in the
14:47same city and still change the
14:48environment. Like just moving out of
14:49your mom's basement, you know what I
14:51mean? And just going into another place
14:52with four guys can change the
14:53environment. And so like that's the the
14:56thing that to me was so telling on this
14:57was uh So heroin addiction
15:00super addicting, put it that way. Uh
15:02and when a bunch of soldiers came back
15:05from Vietnam, they had been addicted I
15:06don't know if you've heard of this,
15:07right? 25% of soldiers who went to
15:09Vietnam tried heroin. It was like an
15:12insane statistic. And in the US, 90% of
15:16heroin addicts who go to clinics
15:18relapse. So they have a 10% long-term
15:20success rate. Tough.
15:22The stats are completely reversed from
15:24people who got addicted or did heroin in
15:26Vietnam and then came back to the US.
15:28Which then you could make the You could
15:30draw the line, which is
15:32it's better to change your environment
15:34than to even do anything else. Because
15:35what happens is you eliminate all the
15:37triggers and cues that are associated
15:38with uh habit that you're trying to
15:40destroy. Do you see that the American
15:41government was absolutely concerned that
15:43there was going to be an epidemic? Yeah.
15:45They were They were adamant that all of
15:46these soldiers were going to come home
15:47and they were going to be these veterans
15:48that were all addicted to heroin. Yeah.
15:50Wild. And there are, for sure, but
15:53proportion so much proportion less than
15:55their quote should be. Yep. Because the
15:57problem with the current system of like
15:59for anyone who's listening,
16:01you can still extrapolate the principle
16:02or the concept. People are in the
16:04environment that they are addicted. They
16:06change environments and they go to a
16:08clinic. They change the environment,
16:09they change their behavior. And then
16:11they go back to the same environment and
16:13their behavior changes yet again to
16:15match the environment. And so it's like
16:16if you want to change your actions, the
16:19easiest thing you can do is just change
16:21the environment. Because if you can do
16:22that, a lot of times a lot of the
16:24negative things you have, you just don't
16:25get triggered. You don't get the cue for
16:26the behavior. It just gets extinguished.
16:29So the way that I've worked this into my
16:31home working setup is I think I have six
16:35or seven different places that I can
16:36work at. I do different tasks at each
16:38one of them. So I've got a place I'm
16:40writing a book. I've got a place that I
16:41write my book. That's first thing in the
16:42morning. I've got a place I do my emails
16:44at. That's a recumbent desk bike, which
16:46is
16:47[ __ ] unbelievable, dude. Zone two car
16:49180 minutes a week of zone two cardio.
16:51180 minutes a week of emails with zone
16:53two cardio. Uh place outside. I've got
16:56my studio record inside. We've got two
16:57living rooms at different houses that I
16:59can go into. I'm like, different spots
17:01for each one. And if I'm in this vibe,
17:02I'm over here. And it's
17:04everything's a bit Go for a walk, come
17:05back, move somewhere else. I'm at
17:07Now I'm in a different mode. Totally.
17:09And I I'm actually So it works in the
17:11equal opposite, too. It's if you want to
17:13start something. Right? So like what we
17:14were talking about was extinguishing bad
17:16habits by changing the environment by
17:17eliminating the cue. But on the flip
17:18side,
17:20if you want to start a habit, like for
17:21me one of my quote famous ones is like,
17:23"I want to put sunscreen on." It's like
17:24the It's like one habit that's like
17:2680/20. Why do you need to put sunscreen
17:28on so much?
17:29Because Oh, not not so much. It's like I
17:30just If you do like It's like kind of
17:32like walking. Like if you just walk once
17:33a day and if like if everyone just did
17:36that, like you'd add 10 years to
17:38everyone's life. It's like what are the
17:39few things? It's like baby aspirin walk.
17:41Like if you do that, crushing it. Uh
17:43from a like uh
17:45skin cancer prevention A and then B just
17:47like less wrinkled Alex future. Um
17:51suntan lotion or SPF stuff uh is like
17:54the the 80/20 of that, right? Instead of
17:56having a zillion other things. So it's
17:58like, "Okay, I don't like it." I
17:59realized the reason I don't like it is I
18:01don't like oil on my hands.
18:02Sounds so stupid. But like that's enough
18:04punishment for me doing it that I
18:05stopped doing it. And so I had to
18:07overcome two things. One was that I hate
18:09the oil on my hands and the second is
18:10that I don't remember. So I put
18:13one thing of sunscreen at each of my
18:15watering holes. So I get cued because I
18:17see it as soon as I sit down. So I eat
18:19lunch at the same table, I work at the
18:20same table, and I'm on my nightstand.
18:21Those are the three places that I spend
18:23my time. And so I have one on each of
18:25the three places. And then the type of
18:26sunscreen I have is that I have one
18:28that's dispensed through a thing. So I
18:30don't actually have to touch it.
18:32So it's like, "Do I know why It's like
18:33if you can identify why you don't like
18:35doing something, then you can isolate
18:36why am I being punished for this
18:37behavior?" And think, "Okay, is there a
18:38way I can fix it?" And the other is,
18:40"How can I cue myself on a more regular
18:41basis by changing my environment rather
18:43than setting an alarm on my phone where
18:44if it goes off right now in the middle
18:46of podcast, I'm not going to pull out
18:47suntan lotion." Or I'd have to carry
18:49everything with me, which I would never
18:50do.
18:51Right? That would punish me far more
18:53than just not putting it on to begin
18:54with. And so just thinking through both
18:55of those things, anyways, that has been
18:57really helpful for me in starting and
18:59queuing myself to do new behaviors that
19:01I want to do and then also stopping
19:03behaviors that I don't want to do. Very
19:04nice. Most distractions come dressed as
19:07easy opportunities. Oh, yeah.
19:09This is interesting because as people
19:13begin to accumulate the success that
19:15they say that they want, this becomes an
19:17increasingly big problem.
19:19Yeah. Um I think it was Andy Grove who
19:22said this. Probably Churchill. Um
19:25There we are. Chalk another one up for
19:27Winston. It might have been Packard. I
19:28think it might have actually been
19:29Hewlett-Packard. It might have been one
19:30of those guys.
19:31Um
19:32He said that businesses die of
19:34indigestion, not starvation.
19:37And so they overeat, they're not
19:39starving. It's the entrepreneur that And
19:41this is like you go back to human
19:42behavior, which almost all roads lead
19:44back to it. But
19:46the entrepreneurs get reinforced for
19:49changing direction because nothing
19:51worked, nothing worked, nothing worked.
19:52You change direction something clicks.
19:54And so what happens is you learn a
19:55lesson from that. You're like, oh, so if
19:57I change direction good things happen.
20:00But that's not the right lesson, which
20:01is one of the my favorite things about
20:02entrepreneurship is making sure that we
20:04learn the right lesson from the from the
20:05from the instance or the circumstance.
20:06It's like I hired a sales guy, he did a
20:09bad job, all sales guys suck. Not the
20:11right lesson, right? But that's actually
20:13something that it
20:14is pervasive in even the internet
20:17community of like lessons that people
20:18they'll tell the story and then they'll
20:19say the lesson, but sometimes the less
20:21all we know is the facts of what
20:22happened not necessarily the thing you
20:23took from it.
20:25Anyways,
20:26um
20:27I was making a point. Churchill,
20:28starvation, easy opportunities. So
20:32the the the higher up in business you
20:35get, the more attractive the
20:36opportunities that you have to learn to
20:38say no to. And this has been really hard
20:40for me because at every level, like I
20:43thought great, I have I can check the
20:45box on distractions. I've learned to say
20:47no to $10,000 opportunities. But then
20:49when you're when you're making $100,000,
20:52then you have to be able to say no to
20:52$100,000 opportunities. And the thing is
20:54is I call it the woman in the red dress,
20:56but the woman in the red dress, have you
20:57heard this like this little analogy I
20:59have? No. Okay. This is like one of my
21:01favorite analogies. So
21:03in the Matrix,
21:05Morpheus takes him through a training
21:06program to teach him one thing about
21:07agents. And so they're walking down the
21:09street and there's all these people
21:10going going and he says, were you
21:12listening to me or you looking at the
21:13woman in the red dress? And he says,
21:15look again. He looks back and the woman
21:17in the red dress you walked by is an
21:18agent pointing a gun at his head. And
21:21I see distractions the same way, which
21:23is that the better you become, the more
21:26attractive the woman in the red dress
21:28is. And so you can say no to a six, but
21:31what about a seven? What about a 12?
21:33Exactly. What about hypothetical
21:34thousand, right? Like that's that's
21:36really what it becomes because there is
21:37no limit on the upside. And so
21:40that's why having like some of the soft
21:41stuff of like this is the vision, this
21:43is what we're trying to do. And there's
21:45a hundred other things I could do, but
21:47each of the cost of those things is the
21:48one thing that matters most. And I think
21:50that
21:51one of the things that Leila's been so
21:53good at helping me with and I think a
21:54lot of my success earlier on was
21:57propelled by the fact that like when I
21:59met Leila, I had a chiropractor agency,
22:02I had a dental agency, I had five gym
22:05locations.
22:07I had a gym launch business where we did
22:09turnarounds. I had all of those things
22:10going on and there was no CEO besides
22:12me.
22:13I CEO of all of them cuz I didn't
22:15understand how the stuff worked. And and
22:16I also made no actual I mean, I made
22:18money from all of them, but no income.
22:21Like everything was just enough to break
22:22even and it was nine spinning plates and
22:24it was cuz like I was so opportunistic
22:26and it's very classic new entrepreneur
22:28to just say yes to everything. And
22:32Warren Buffett said that
22:34the difference between really successful
22:36people and the most successful people,
22:38this is me paraphrasing,
22:39is that the most successful people say
22:41no to almost everything.
22:43And I've tried to take that because it's
22:45so hard. And I think that a lot of the,
22:47you know, it's so simple and so hard,
22:49which a lot of success habits are, which
22:51is like if you do the same thing for a
22:52very long period of time,
22:54I think this is Neil uh
22:56Churchill. I can't remember the name,
22:58but I'll I'll I'll say the Yeah, it's
23:00Churchill again. Um he said success
23:02comes down to doing the obvious thing
23:04for an extraordinary period of time
23:06without convincing yourself you're
23:07smarter than you are.
23:09And I just love that quote. Why do you
23:11not need to convince yourself that
23:13you're smarter than you are if you're
23:13doing the same thing? I think it's
23:15because you think you can handle both
23:18and so you're like, oh, I got this.
23:19Oh, okay, because if you did think that
23:20you were smarter than you are, you would
23:21then start to take on more stuff. So a
23:23quote from John Maxwell which I
23:24absolutely adore that says, you cannot
23:25overestimate the unimportance of
23:27practically everything.
23:29Which is just [ __ ] perfect. And it's
23:32the quote it was so Greg McKeown's
23:34Essentialism is one of my top five books
23:36of all time and it's for this precise
23:38reason that it's an antidote to the type
23:40A fallout, right? I can do it all, I
23:43will do it all, watch me suffer and bear
23:45this burden. And you go like, look, you
23:47can do the hard work thing, right? You
23:50can you can do that. But the working
23:53hard and being spread thin are two
23:56different dynamics. And
23:59one of the one of the like
24:00interesting idea I've been playing
24:02around with a little bit recently is
24:03periodizing uh work.
24:06So in the same way as your weightlifting
24:08coach will have the guys doing his
24:10submax for 90 days, he is building up
24:13for 90 days, he has comp prep, he has
24:14blah blah blah blah blah, whatever it
24:15is, mobility. Um
24:17that's a much easier way to
24:20um blend what we're talking about here.
24:22It's maybe a little bit earlier. I think
24:23you need to specialize more as you get
24:24bigger and bigger because the
24:25distractions are going to be even
24:27greater. Specialize how so? So if you
24:29are uh the CEO of your company and then
24:32someone comes in with you've got so much
24:34more downstream from you that if you get
24:36distracted, the repercussions, the
24:37ramifications of you becoming distracted
24:39are magnified even more.
24:41What do you think about that? Do you
24:42agree?
24:43I I I think the the specialist piece is
24:45the piece that threw me because I always
24:47feel like the the higher up you go, the
24:48more generalist you become. In terms of
24:50skill set, but not in terms of projects
24:52or in terms of projects. Specialized in
24:55projects, generalized in skills. There
24:56we go. Yeah. Yes, I like that. We'll get
24:58back to talking to Alex in 1 second, but
25:00first I need to tell you about HubSpot.
25:0128% of some people's weeks are spent
25:04reading, deleting, and sorting emails,
25:06which means that very much email is not
25:07dead. Starting an email newsletter means
25:09that you've got direct connection with
25:11your audience. It means that you
25:11actually own your audience. It is the
25:13only way that you can own them without
25:16going through a third party like a
25:17social media platform. And from HubSpot
25:20right now, you can download their free
25:21email template that will teach you how
25:23to make your own newsletter. You can
25:25learn how to build an amazing email
25:26newsletter from scratch. They'll check
25:29out a compiled lookbook of awesome
25:30examples from real publications. Can
25:32learn what it takes to create a
25:34successful email newsletter with
25:36exceptional design, unique and
25:37compelling copy, clickable calls to
25:39action, and excellent user experience.
25:41And there is a step-by-step guide about
25:43how to get your newsletter launched. So
25:45if you've been thinking, I want to start
25:46doing a newsletter, this sounds cool,
25:47this sounds like a good way for me to
25:50start writing, to build an audience that
25:52I can then sell to or I can then move to
25:54other platforms as well, this is a
25:55fantastic place to begin. All that you
25:57need to do to download this free guide
25:59that will take you from no email
26:00newsletter to a fantastically designed
26:02email newsletter using industry inside
26:04information, all that you need to do is
26:06head to clickhubspot.com/modernwisdom.
26:10That's clickhubspot.com/modernwisdom
26:14to download your free email template
26:17today.
26:18The first step to achieving a massive
26:20dream is conquering tiny impulses.
26:23I think it's exactly what we're what
26:24we're talking about earlier. It's like
26:26if you like
26:31I I I got a there's a a tweet that I
26:33made actually you
26:35you were the one who made it go viral,
26:36right? Uh which was uh Well, when you
26:38quoted me quoting you to David Goggins.
26:41It's just this
26:42endless human centipede of [ __ ]
26:44homozy quotes being run through the
26:46years.
26:46who said it first. It was uh Churchill,
26:48thank you.
26:49Um but it's like you don't you don't uh
26:52you don't build confidence by shouting
26:53affirmations in the mirror, but by
26:55stacking
26:57I don't know. Having an undeniable stack
26:58of proof that you are who you say you
27:00are.
27:00Thank you. That's the
27:01Thank you there.
27:03I'll quote you to you.
27:06Which is a new a new low.
27:10So
27:11so that, right? Yeah.
27:14Um a lot of people were like, no, but
27:16what if you don't have any successes?
27:18Like how do you get started? And I still
27:21think that the the quote is 100% valid.
27:24It's just that they don't realize the
27:25validity of the smaller things that they
27:27have done up to that point. And so it's
27:29being able to transfer your successes of
27:30like, okay, like did you get dressed
27:32this morning? Like did you did you get
27:34in front of the computer? Like you have
27:36evidence, it's smaller evidence, but you
27:37have enough evidence to make the claim
27:39that you can do this. And then you do
27:41that enough times that you have enough
27:42evidence to make a claim that you can do
27:44this and support it. And I think um
27:46that's where the
27:48big outcomes come from lots of of of
27:50constrained tiny impulses of saying
27:51like, you know what, I'm going to get
27:52this tiny victory and I know how to say
27:54no to that. I know to say say no to
27:56heroin today or whatever. Yeah. Um that
27:58would be a hard one, you know. A larger
27:59impulse, yeah. Probably larger. Um but
28:01that's the idea is just stacking as many
28:03of those
28:04pieces of evidence that give you proof
28:06that you are who you say you are. That
28:07you can you have done what you say you
28:08can do. Mm. Yeah, it's uh
28:11the
28:13the challenge of actionable belief first
28:15is something that I've been playing
28:16around with so much. And my friend
28:18James, he wrote a book uh The Confidence
28:20like confidence. It was a book about how
28:21to be confident, right? And um
28:24I do feel like a a big footnote summary
28:27could have been that quote from you.
28:28Proof. Uh and the problem is this is
28:30something that I've seen as well. Good
28:32example coming from a world where I was
28:34successful in business before I was
28:36successful personally. Mhm. Um I have a
28:38skill set now and my
28:41capacity within this particular skill
28:43set and the performance of what that
28:45does are intrinsically linked, right?
28:47There's almost a linear relationship. As
28:49I become better at networking with
28:51guests, with recording, with doing all
28:52of the other things, the show increases.
28:55When I run a business, there were so
28:56many degrees of freedom between my
28:58inputs to the business and the success
28:59of the business that someone with like
29:03malignant imposter syndrome could always
29:05explain away how things had gone well.
29:07So I would say, oh, it's because we
29:08timed the market right. Oh, it was
29:09because of like this member of staff
29:11that we brought in. I mean, I trained
29:12him, but really he would have been great
29:13without me or whatever. And um
29:16self-doubt can sort of weasel its way in
29:18in very sort of nefarious ways. When you
29:20do that. Um
29:22then switching to something where you
29:24have a relatively undeniable stack of
29:27proof, even undeniable to the part of
29:28you that wants to deny proof, right?
29:30Which is that imposter syndrome.
29:33After a little while, it's just a
29:35crushing weight that you
29:37I call it imposter adaptation. So, you
29:39know, if you continue to disprove your
29:41imposter syndrome in the real world and
29:42it persists, you have to admit to
29:44yourself that it's got nothing to do
29:46with your capabilities and everything to
29:48do with your addiction to feeling like
29:49an impostor. This is just a trend of how
29:51you think about the world. You're
29:53looking for competent you have
29:55competence without confidence, which is
29:57a lack of belief and
29:59confidence without competence is
30:01self-delusion. Right? So, you need to
30:03have this balance between the two. But,
30:05people when they say, "Well, surely
30:06self-belief becomes before action." I'm
30:08like, "Well, not particularly. Not if
30:10that's not your nature." I don't think
30:11like you're asking for delusion there.
30:13And it is significantly easier for you
30:15to think, "I am a fitness person." if
30:17you just went to the gym and did 10
30:18push-ups than "I am a fitness person
30:21when I go to the gym tomorrow and do 10
30:23push-ups." Like, where's the Show me.
30:25Spit and sawdust. Where's the [ __ ]
30:26reality of this? You know?
30:29I agree.
30:30Good.
30:33Opportunities only look like
30:35opportunities in the rearview mirror.
30:37Today, they look like risk. How does
30:39someone get around this this
30:41asymmetry between the fact that in
30:43retrospect it seemed totally obvious and
30:46yet the thing that you're looking at
30:48right now, looking forward, you go,
30:51"That might not be obvious in
30:52retrospect." Again.
30:54It's tough because um
30:56a lot of a lot of the big wins you like
30:58like Uber's the classic example, right?
31:00Like, let's start a business where
31:02strangers pick up girls who are 16. You
31:03know what I mean? And drive them to
31:04their friends' houses. Like, that sounds
31:07like a terrible idea, right? Like, it
31:08just it But, in retrospect, you're like,
31:10"No, it'll be totally fine because
31:11there's going to be a mutual rating
31:12system and blah blah blah blah." Right?
31:14Take out the fact that there are people
31:15who have been captured and whatever.
31:16Anyway, what We'll put that to the side,
31:19right? Um and the thing is is like just
31:22cuz we're on the investing side, what we
31:24found is that there are always reasons
31:25to say no to a deal.
31:27You can always find reasons to say no
31:29because there's nothing that's
31:30risk-free.
31:31Even treasuries have risk. The US
31:33economy could collapse and treasuries
31:35could be worth nothing. Like, and you
31:36could create a really compelling
31:37argument. Lots of influencers spend a
31:38lot of time doing that, right?
31:40Um
31:41is it likely?
31:42Maybe. I don't know, but it's probably
31:44less likely than than a bank failing.
31:46Cuz if the US fails, all the banks might
31:48have folded also failed. So, which one
31:49of you know, which of these is greater
31:50risk? So, then it gets then you start
31:52comparing risks rather than trying to
31:53eliminate risks. And so, if we're
31:56looking at opportunities, that's why I
31:57like risk-adjusted return is one of the
31:59things that a lot of investors look at,
32:00which is like, "Is there a way that I
32:01can appropriately adjust this risk to
32:03normalize different opportunities?" And
32:05I think that that single skill set is
32:09one of if not the most important
32:11important skill sets as an entrepreneur
32:12because fundamentally it's betting.
32:14Like, that's what we're doing. We're
32:15making bets. Every day we bet with our
32:16time, we bet with our money.
32:18Um with the limited constraints we have
32:19or limited resources we have against
32:21unlimited opportunities.
32:23Cuz that's the hard part is that there
32:24is unlimited women in the red dress.
32:26Now, there's some fours and there's some
32:27sixes and there's some eights, but you
32:29have to both rate the girl, right? The
32:31opportunity. And then also how crazy is
32:33she?
32:34Right? Or whatever you know, whatever
32:36risk factor you want to you know,
32:37associate with this. Is she going to
32:38stab me in my sleep? I don't know.
32:39Right? Does she have a crazy
32:40ex-boyfriend I don't know about? I don't
32:41know. Right? And so, that's why we do
32:42the diligence process. But like,
32:44the
32:45the way that we cuz I just just tied up
32:47this chapter in in the book that's
32:48coming out is when when we're organizing
32:51opportunities that we're going to pursue
32:52with a business, we look at what are the
32:54ones that we have the absolute highest
32:55likely to success that we have we we
32:57need no new skills and no new effort. If
32:59we can do that or the least amount of
33:01new effort and no new skills, that would
33:03be the first thing we're going to do.
33:04And then once we take off all the ones
33:06that take basically no effort and no
33:08extra skills, we're like, "Okay, which
33:09ones take more effort and still no
33:10skills?" And then once we do that, then
33:12we're like, "Okay, now we can start
33:14learning a new skill." And of the
33:15different skills that we could learn,
33:16which of these is going to give us the
33:17highest leverage as in most output for
33:19the least amount of input. And that's
33:21pretty much how we tick down
33:23which of these opportunities we want to
33:24pursue because those have the lowest
33:25likelihood of not happening.
33:27Does this work in the personal world as
33:29well? This isn't an investor that isn't
33:31in business that's just thinking about
33:33life opportunities. Do I want to learn
33:34to salsa dance or code? I think that the
33:37investor frame
33:39is a
33:40is is simply people who have been scored
33:42and quantified on their ability to make
33:44decisions. And so, I think that we can
33:46learn a ton from how investors make
33:48decisions overall. It's like why why Ray
33:50Dalio's book Principles became like a
33:53best-seller even though 99.9% of people
33:56who are reading the book aren't even
33:57investors or definitely not investors at
33:58his level. But, the principles of good
34:00decision-making are just quantified and
34:02we have a scoreboard for these guys
34:04being excellent decision-makers. Whereas
34:06most other people, you don't have a a
34:07real scoreboard so we can't tell how
34:09valid is their advice. And I think
34:11that's what makes
34:12taking advice from really world-class
34:15investors who've been doing it for
34:16decades
34:18as a great source of information because
34:20we can validate that they have a stack
34:21of undeniable proof that they are who
34:22they say they are. Very nice. Okay, so
34:25this was
34:27Not Churchill this time. So, this was
34:29this is something that I've actually
34:30relied on a little bit myself. Whenever
34:33I get to a low point where I think, "Why
34:35do I even bother?"
34:36I just remind myself, "This is where
34:38most people stop and this is why they
34:40don't win." And this relates to another
34:41one, which is a reminder for the
34:43gladiators in the arena who feel beat up
34:44and scarred with no hope in sight.
34:46Building a business is hard. Hard feels
34:48shitty. This is what hard feels like and
34:51this is why most people can't do it, but
34:53you can.
34:54This is what hard feels like.
34:57Mhm.
34:58Is so [ __ ] nice to lean on. It is so
35:02nice to lean on. Take me through that
35:04low point stuff.
35:05actually a story. I'm getting a little
35:06goosebumps telling it. So, um I was way
35:09back in my day um
35:11like you, a party party promoter. But, I
35:13was in a fraternity so I was president
35:14of fraternity masters. Yeah.
35:16And this was my first semester being
35:18president. And so, you have a pledge
35:20class you you get two pledge classes as
35:22a president. You get a fall and a spring
35:23and then that's your your tenure and
35:24then another president comes in.
35:25And what we knew, and this will be
35:27really interesting for the audience from
35:28a human behavior perspective, is that
35:30like clockwork,
35:32every time we start a new pledge class
35:33within 14 days, 10 to 14, it was like
35:35clockwork, they would all get together
35:37and they'd revolt.
35:38And they'd say, "We don't want to do it
35:39anymore. This isn't what we signed up
35:41for. This is way [ __ ] harder than we
35:42thought it was going to be. Like, we
35:43thought we were just going to party with
35:44you guys. Like, that's what we
35:45expected." Which also shows you how long
35:47it takes people to adapt or acclimate to
35:50a very a significantly more difficult
35:52situation, right?
35:54I'll tell you what happens after and
35:55then I'll tell you what happened in
35:56between.
35:58After we have this kind of talk that we
36:00had, and I'll tell you how I how I
36:01explained it when I was president, um
36:03all of a sudden it all vanishes.
36:05Because their expectations of reality
36:07have been completely reset. We break
36:09reality.
36:10Like, in the first 10 to 14 days, it's
36:12so painful for them because it's such a
36:13a contrast from what they expected.
36:16Not the fun stuff.
36:18What's not fun? Oh my god. I mean, they
36:20can't drink, can't talk to girls. The
36:22only people they could talk to are
36:23brothers or each other and we're mean to
36:24them. So, they could really only talk to
36:26each other. The whole point here is that
36:27we're trying to get them close together
36:28cuz there's a bunch of dudes who don't
36:29know each other from different parts of
36:30the campus, right? And then we have to
36:31get them in 8 to 12 weeks to leave as
36:34one unit of people who know everything
36:35about one another, that trust one
36:36another, that know everything about the
36:39other people in the house. So, it's
36:40like, how do you do that? Well, there's
36:41only X amount of communication you can
36:42have every day. So, let's cut out
36:43anybody who's not us. Okay? And then if
36:46we really want them to be close
36:47together, we'll also reinforce that
36:48we're mean. But, part of what they had
36:50to do is they had to learn everything
36:51about everyone else in the house. And
36:53so, every pledge has to do something
36:55that would impress a brother. And then
36:57they get a signature from the brother
36:58being like, "I approve of you." And you
36:59have to get every single brother's
37:00signature by the time you're done.
37:02Right? And so, that's where each of
37:03those side quests become
37:05as insane as you might imagine, right?
37:07And there's lots of you know, there was
37:09lots of hazing back in the day, which is
37:10not fun and you know, a lot of sleepless
37:12nights and things like that. And you go
37:14from like partying with girls, feeling
37:16like you're top of the world, all these
37:17brothers feeding you drinks, being like
37:18being like, "You're awesome, dude." to
37:20then like the next day, and this is
37:22literally how it happens. This is how
37:23like the breaking reality happens. We do
37:24this huge party to like launch the new
37:26class and the next morning they all wake
37:28up. They're all like they all sleep at
37:29the house cuz that's one of the the
37:31requirements.
37:32And they're all hung over or got their
37:33ties like vomit in the corner, whatever.
37:36And we're like, "Great. Clean it up."
37:38And they're like, "What?" Because up to
37:40this point they haven't cleaned after a
37:41party. Cuz all they did is got to party,
37:43see the girls, and then leave.
37:45But then all of a sudden they're like
37:47mopping vomit in the corner and they're
37:49hung over and they feel terrible and
37:50they're like, "What the [ __ ] This isn't
37:51what I signed up for." Right?
37:53So, anyways, 2 weeks of this, they get
37:55together and
37:57they wanted me to meet them and this
37:58always happens cuz they want to meet on
37:59their their turf. And I'm like, "All
38:01right, guys. What's up?" And so, it's
38:02just me, all right? And my vice
38:04president and like 25 guys. So, there's
38:06like a you know, there's like a size
38:08comparison of like
38:09just animalistically, there's way more
38:11of them than there is of me.
38:13And so, I just asked them a couple
38:14questions. So, I was like,
38:16"Who here before pledging started was
38:18like, 'I want to be a part of this
38:19house.'" The guys were like, you know,
38:21me. Okay. Like, "Okay, got it."
38:24"Who here thought it was going to be
38:25easy?"
38:27And they're like,
38:28"Who here thought it would be hard?"
38:30They raised their hands.
38:32I'm like, "Guys,
38:33this is what hard feels like."
38:37And all of a sudden there's just like
38:38this big exhale in the room. They're
38:39like,
38:41"Expectations get reset. This is normal.
38:45You wanted this thing. You expected it
38:47to be hard. Reality now matches
38:49conditions."
38:50So, our expectations now match
38:51conditions.
38:53This is what hard feels like.
38:55And then all of a sudden it's like they
38:56got permission to feel shitty.
38:58And by getting permission to feel
38:59shitty, they stopped feeling as shitty
39:00cuz they're like, "This is just my new
39:01world."
39:02And so,
39:03then you know, you're like, "Listen, you
39:05give eight weeks, you're going to get 3
39:06and 1/2 years. Other people going to do
39:08are going to drive you around late at
39:09night. Other people going to clean after
39:10you." Like, it's a good investment,
39:11right? And that it was a good deal.
39:13Like, you give one semester and you get
39:14the rest of them to just do whatever you
39:15want. Um
39:17but that concept like that quote on both
39:20of those came from that experience of
39:22having someone tell me, "This is what
39:24hard feels like."
39:26This is why most people stop and this is
39:28why they don't win. Is also another
39:31beautiful bit of motivation and given
39:33that I spent a little bit of time with
39:35Goggins and Cam Hanes, two guys. I was
39:37telling you about this before. You said
39:38it must be nice as we walked in. So,
39:40Cameron Hanes, bow hunter
39:41extraordinaire, lives in Oregon, and he
39:43has
39:45behind the power rack in his garage
39:48where he lifts, he has must be nice
39:50written. And I was like, "Why why why
39:52have you got that put up on there?"
39:54And he was like, "It's because everyone
39:55says, 'Must be nice to be you, Cam. Must
39:56be nice to be sponsored by Hoyt and all
39:58of these like top-level bow things and
40:00go on Rogan." He was
40:02There was a video that went super viral
40:03of Goggins losing his [ __ ] after Jon
40:05Jones won Mhm. last weekend. And the guy
40:08that he's hugging is Cam. So, it's like,
40:10"Oh, it must be nice for you to be
40:11backstage at UFC. Must be nice for
40:12this." And I've seen what that guy does,
40:14and that guy picks up a rock that weighs
40:16about 80 lb, and it's got the word poser
40:20written on the front of it cuz people
40:21call him a poser. And he carries it up a
40:23hill
40:24that is maybe
40:26like 1,000 ft of elevation, mile and a
40:28half high,
40:29with no fanfare at the end, no finish
40:31line, doesn't post it on social media
40:32unless the team's there filming it with
40:33someone else, and then carries it back
40:35down, puts it in the boot of his Raptor,
40:37drives away. And he just does that
40:39because he needs to remind himself that
40:41he's doing the stuff that is hard. And
40:44this is where most people stop, and this
40:46is why they don't win. Combined with
40:48this is what hard feels like justifies
40:50things being hard. Now,
40:53I do worry, and I find this in myself
40:55sometimes as well, that you can
40:58be so good at dealing with suffering
41:00that you can actually push yourself a
41:01little bit too far. And you go, "I'm
41:03starting to bear more burden than I can
41:05basically take on." And the art of not
41:08burning out is something that I think a
41:09lot of people if you if this resonates
41:11with you,
41:12the art of not burning out is something
41:14that you really really need to be able
41:15to feel. And like
41:16realizing what happens when you just
41:18start to glance off the bottom side of
41:20it and go, "Okay, like I'm just going to
41:22ease off the gas a little I need to take
41:23this afternoon to go
41:25sauna and and get some sunshine and
41:26chill out and get some food, and then I
41:27can put my foot back on maybe a little
41:28bit tomorrow and we'll temper it." Um
41:31but it just it it justifies the fact
41:33that
41:34I use this stat all the time. 90% of
41:36podcasts don't make it past episode
41:38three. And of the 90% of the 10% that
41:40do, 90% don't make it past episode 20.
41:43So, by making 21 podcasts, you're in the
41:45top percentile of all podcasters ever in
41:48history.
41:50That's what hard feels like. And that's
41:51not even hard, it's just consistent.
41:53[ __ ] me. It's less than half a year.
41:55Yeah.
41:56Insane. I hear stats like that, and I
41:58just think, "Man, it is so easy to win."
42:02Like that I mean that like when I hear
42:03that, that's exactly what I think. I'm
42:04just like, "Man,
42:06for everyone who's like struggling to
42:07win, it's like
42:09you like most of the pain that people
42:11experience is purely in their own minds.
42:14And so, to your point, I think there's
42:15an interesting one between like burnout
42:18versus hard.
42:19And so, like for me, burnout is when my
42:21I would define it as my output per unit
42:23of time decreases.
42:26So, I can see that. That's measurable,
42:27right?
42:29Now, like I can say like number of pages
42:31that I edit or the quality of the
42:32content that I create like my output per
42:34time like the team knows when I like
42:35when I'm like 6 hours, 7 hours into
42:37recording something, they're like I
42:38literally start like slumping. You're
42:40like like physically I just start like
42:41slumping, and I like my my cadence isn't
42:43as like I'm just not as sharp, right?
42:46There's that versus
42:49emotional burnout, which I think people
42:52mislabel as burnout when really it's
42:54just like they don't know how to reframe
42:55reality.
42:57And so, what it really is is they got a
42:59comment on a post that bugged them.
43:02And like again, it's like pulling it
43:05from the shadows. It's like, "No, this
43:06stuff doesn't work." It's like, "Hold
43:07on. What's the one voice that actually
43:09is coming through? What is the real
43:10thing?" Well, there is this comment.
43:12Okay, great. It's embarrassing to even
43:14have to say that. But when you say it,
43:16then you admit it, and all of a sudden
43:17you put it in the light, and the shame
43:18kind of starts to evaporate. Because
43:20then you can name it and be like, "Is
43:21this comment better than my bigger than
43:23my future? Is this comment bigger than
43:24me?"
43:25And one of the things that I um
43:28that has helped me was saying like,
43:31"What's true about this?" We'll get back
43:33to Alex in 1 minute, but first I need to
43:34tell you about Seed. Seed's DS-01 Daily
43:37Synbiotic is one of the most advanced
43:39probiotic and prebiotic on the market.
43:42It's a 24-strain broad-spectrum
43:44probiotic and prebiotic formulated for
43:47digestive, gut immune, and additional
43:49system benefits with 53.6 billion AFU.
43:53It's a two-in-one ViaCap technology
43:55capsule-in-capsule protects against
43:57stomach acid, digestive enzymes, and
43:59bile salts for viability through your
44:01digestion. It means that the probiotics
44:03will actually make it to the end of the
44:05small intestine for delivery, which
44:06massively increases how successful this
44:08is going to be for you. All together, it
44:10means that your digestion is going to
44:11move more smoothly. So, if you've been
44:13thinking that you want to make an
44:14upgrade to your digestion, you've been
44:16considering using some probiotics and
44:18prebiotics for a while, Seed is the most
44:21advanced option on the market. Also, you
44:23can get 15% off your first month if you
44:25go to seed.com/modernwisdom
44:28and use the code modernwisdom at
44:30checkout. That's s e e
44:31d.com/modernwisdom
44:34and modernwisdom at checkout.
44:37Are you familiar with Byron Katie? Do
44:38you know her? I've heard her name.
44:39Yeah, The Work. She does The Work. And
44:41um the the one of the first questions
44:43that she asks you is uh is it true? How
44:45do you know that it can be true? Yeah.
44:47And so, it's like the same thing, bring
44:48it from the shadows, right? Into the
44:50light. Okay, you have this sense. Yeah.
44:52There's no [ __ ] It's like a [ __ ]
44:53smell. It's like
44:54Yeah.
44:55I've
44:56Maybe something's a bit Maybe
44:57something's Maybe I might be like a
44:59piece of [ __ ] Maybe I'm not competent.
45:00Maybe I'm not whatever. And you go,
45:01"Okay, let's And the next one is like,
45:03what if we confront it and say like,
45:05"What if they're right?
45:07Now what?"
45:09Cuz a lot of I think a lot of effort
45:11gets put into trying to deny deny
45:12reality, right? Like there's this clip
45:14that I shared uh from Tom Bilyeu and
45:16he's talking about how he gets made fun
45:17of for his ears being big, right?
45:20And I think it's a really good clip cuz
45:22his point that he was making um cuz it's
45:24such a visual easy example for people to
45:25understand. Um he's like, "Is that It's
45:28true. I do have big ears.
45:31And
45:33And so, that's that's like the if
45:35they're like, "You have no right to be
45:38making content." Are they right? Okay.
45:42And Yeah. I'm still going to do it
45:44anyways. Because the thing is like I one
45:46of the things that I had earlier on in
45:47my career was like I didn't think I was
45:49a really good person. Like I was like,
45:51"I'm not a good person." Like some
45:52people like, "Yeah, I just had that,
45:53right?" And I had a history you know
45:54whatever.
45:55And one of the things that gave me a lot
45:57of respite or relief from that kind of
45:59thought process was like, "Comma, that's
46:01okay. Because I can still do the things
46:05that create success and not deserve it
46:07and still get it."
46:09And that actually felt very powerful for
46:11me. Because it was like, "I don't have
46:12to deserve to success. I can still just
46:14do the stuff that gets it." It's like
46:15you don't have to do you don't have to
46:16deserve the girl, but you can still do
46:18the things that get her.
46:20And do you deserve her when you have
46:21her? I don't know. Who knows? I hate the
46:23word deserve to begin with, right? Yes.
46:26But like that concept because also I I
46:28could segue into like gratitude around
46:30like if you think you deserve it, then
46:31you don't you don't enjoy it. But
46:33um that has been super powerful for me,
46:34which is like, "What if they're right?
46:37And
46:38because a lot of people just try to they
46:39spent so much effort trying to fight the
46:42fact that the comments might be right.
46:44This might have been a [ __ ] terrible
46:45thumbnail. You know what? This might
46:47have been a boring video. This This post
46:49might have been regurgitated content.
46:51This post might have been inspired too
46:53closely by someone else's post, right?
46:56What if they're right? And Yeah. Does it
46:58make me a piece of [ __ ]
47:00What if it does? And
47:03You end up getting down to base, which
47:05is pretty much nothing. Right. All that
47:07there is is actions. All that there is
47:08is what you're going to do in response
47:10to this. You know what? Another
47:11brilliant
47:12uh
47:13add addition to this that you kind of
47:15mentioned,
47:16Yeah. which is the fact that this is
47:19what hard feels like. Most people get to
47:20this stage, and they decide to stop, and
47:22now the bar is set so low. Goggins said
47:25this in the episode with me, and it gave
47:27me chills when he said it. He was like,
47:28"It's so easy to be successful nowadays
47:31because people are weak." Yeah.
47:33Everybody's weak. Dana White says it as
47:34well. I tell my kids, "It is so easy. If
47:37you are even a
47:39like weekend savage, Yeah. you will run
47:42these kids over." And for every single
47:44person It's giving me chills again. For
47:46every single person that
47:48likes to castigate the
47:52very padded victimhood mentality of the
47:54modern world. Okay, cool. Like you can
47:56you can rail against people that say
47:58that the world is against them even
47:59though it's not and etc. etc.
48:02How does that inform the way that you
48:04should operate in the world? Right.
48:05Well, okay. What you're saying is
48:08everybody else is
48:10fallible, weak, fragile in some way or
48:13another. Yeah. How does that inform the
48:15way that you act? The way that you
48:16should act is holy [ __ ] if I have even
48:19a modicum of resilience, Right. this
48:22makes the market environment for me so
48:24much easier. Whether I want to get the
48:26girl, buy the house, become successful
48:29in whatever domain I choose to, the bar
48:31is set so low. Yeah.
48:34This uh if we're going if we're going
48:36tweets, um
48:37this segues into one of my favorite
48:39ones, which is uh
48:41"You stay in poverty until you learn the
48:42first lesson of poverty, which is two
48:44words, my fault."
48:46And so,
48:47when I was younger, I was really angry
48:50at my parents like many people are,
48:51right? Justified or not, doesn't really
48:53matter. I was very angry, and I blamed
48:55them for the woes of my life.
48:58And I realized at when I was 19 that
49:01these people that I hated,
49:03I was giving all the power over the fact
49:06that I wasn't the person I wanted to be.
49:08And I was like, "Well, it's their
49:09fault."
49:10And the idea that I had actually given
49:13these people that I hated power over
49:16my success
49:19was ultimately something that made me
49:20feel sick to my stomach and was what
49:22allowed me to point the finger of blame
49:24inwards
49:26and say my fault, and then at least take
49:28ownership over the fact that like
49:30and like sure, maybe your dad didn't hug
49:33you enough, or maybe your mom wasn't
49:34present, or whatever it is, right? It's
49:35like and and like
49:38I said this the other day and it'll
49:39probably piss off a lot of your
49:40audience. So, you know, we can put our
49:42soft earphones on.
49:43Um
49:44like, if you were if you if you suffered
49:47from racial inequality, if you suffered
49:49from gender inequality, if you suffered
49:50from being born in Bangladesh, if you
49:52were raised uh not raised uh sexually
49:54abused your entire life,
49:57you would be completely justified in the
49:58fact that you are not achieving the
49:59things that
50:01other people who didn't have those
50:02disadvantages have achieved. And I say
50:04this as a white guy who was born in
50:05America to a doctor father.
50:07I understand that.
50:09But to the same degree, you have the
50:10opportunity that
50:12Chris and I have, which is that you can
50:13be an inspiration to people who just who
50:15went through the same thing
50:16and succeeded come to spite those
50:18circumstances. Because I can promise
50:19that there is somebody who has had it
50:21worse and has done it better.
50:23And I think that that one single point
50:25of proof, and like there's a global
50:27point of proof that you can look for for
50:29sure, but like you can be that very
50:31local point of proof in your community
50:32or subcommunity. And I think um
50:35as soon as we shed that, that's like I
50:37just I'm a big fan of uh power follows
50:40the blame finger.
50:41So, like wherever you point the blame
50:42finger is where the power follows. And
50:44so, it's like if you point it if you
50:45point it at the government, government
50:46has the power. If you point it at your
50:47your spouse and say like it's their
50:49fault that I'm I'm not in shape, it's
50:50their fault, they never let me do
50:52anything, it's like, well,
50:53you're giving them all the power. Mhm.
50:55And so, it's like until you're like,
50:56"It's my fault." It's also becomes my
50:58responsibility. What is?
51:00What if it's not your fault?
51:01It doesn't matter. And?
51:05Mhm.
51:07Like, I can't run marathons because I
51:10lost my leg at birth.
51:13And?
51:14Either you can just never try or you put
51:16the metal thing on
51:18and you do it anyways.
51:19So, this is one of the themes that I'm
51:22very interested in to do with your work
51:24in general and it's one of the reasons
51:25why it bridges the gap from what we're
51:29going through which it you know, some
51:30really lovely philosophical insights and
51:33all of the rest of it.
51:34The difference is
51:37you seem to have a knack to be able to
51:39drag yourself out of the philosophy and
51:43get yourself into action.
51:45There's not too much mental masturbation
51:47that goes on. So, let's say that there's
51:48someone who's listening to this podcast,
51:50you know, thousands of people that are
51:52listening who are that person. Millions.
51:54Thousands of people that are that
51:55person. There'll be there'll be a lot of
51:57people that are listening. Don't don't
51:58worry.
52:00That person that goes, "I I love when I
52:03hear these aphorisms and and things and
52:06maybe it goes on the whiteboard that's
52:07on the front of my fridge for a couple
52:08of months.
52:09How does that person get from
52:12mental masturbation Yeah. around it to
52:15action that this this impacts my life in
52:17a tangible way that actually makes a
52:19difference to me. Any of the things that
52:21we go through today? All right. Two
52:23things. One is knowing the input-output
52:25equation, the second is knowing what
52:26your fuel is going to be. So, if you
52:28can't define the inputs and outputs that
52:29are going to get you what you want, then
52:32there's no way to start, right? Cuz you
52:33don't know what you're supposed to do.
52:35So, you have to define it down to like
52:36the most basic first actions. So, it's
52:38like if I want to start creating
52:39content, then it means I have to post
52:40something. If it means I have to start
52:41doing cold I always think in terms of
52:43business cuz that's what I'm in, but
52:44like I'm either doing a cold reach out,
52:46I'm doing a cold cold call, cold email,
52:48cold DM, whatever that is. I have to
52:50make a piece of content, I have to post
52:52it, I have to make a podcast, I have to
52:52make a YouTube video, I have to make a
52:53short, whatever that is, make a blog
52:55post.
52:56Um
52:56I have to run an ad, right? I have to I
52:58have to run the ad, I have to press go,
53:00I have to spend the money, whatever it
53:01is. Like, whatever that core initial
53:02action is that
53:02gym, lift a weight, put the shoes on,
53:04get in the car.
53:05the input is,
53:06you have to define what the input is
53:07that's going to get you the output you
53:08want. Now, once you know what that
53:10input-output is, the next one is why
53:12aren't you doing it?
53:13Right? And so, I think a lot of people
53:15are looking for something
53:18that is very hard to find. And so, and
53:20then they attribute their lack of
53:21success or lack of action because they
53:23don't have passion or motivation, right?
53:27And I was the same way. And so,
53:31the short story around this was that I I
53:33I watched all the TED Talks in college.
53:35Like, that was like what I was like,
53:36"I'm not watching YouTube, I'm watching
53:37TED Talks." And I was like, and then I
53:38realized and then I heard the term
53:39mental masturbation and I was like, "Oh,
53:40that's definitely what I'm doing."
53:43I was like, "My life hasn't changed at
53:44all." And then I got my job so out of
53:45college and I would read all the
53:48self-help books. I read like every night
53:49that's all I did. I just read all these
53:50self-help books and I found one of them
53:53that said, "There are people who are
53:55wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs."
53:58And I remember hearing that word
53:59wantrepreneur and I was like it made me
54:01feel sad. I was like, "I don't want to
54:02be [ __ ] wantrepreneur. I was like,
54:03I'm not some bitch." Like, you know what
54:04I mean? But like but I but I was like,
54:06"But what if they're right?
54:08I am a wantrepreneur.
54:10I'm not an entrepreneur. I want to be
54:11one and I'm not."
54:13And from that point, it took me 6 months
54:15to quit my job to actually decide to do
54:18the entrepreneurial thing. And the thing
54:21There are many things that contributed
54:22to me being able to leave. And I think a
54:23lot of it's not like people are looking
54:25for one thing. It might be a big bag of
54:26whys, a lot of them, right? That add up
54:28together to be above your action
54:29threshold. And
54:31I think in the early days, people are
54:33looking for the big carrot. They want
54:35the big vision. They want the big
54:37passion.
54:38But they don't have it.
54:40But I want to I'll give you the first
54:41rule of entrepreneurship that I've
54:42learned, which is use what you have.
54:45And a lot more people have pain. A lot
54:47more people have anger. A lot more
54:48people have shame. And if you can use
54:50that as your gas in the beginning,
54:53you'll eventually get to a point where
54:54you can get out of that loop and then
54:56find something that you are really
54:57passionate about. But if you can't tie
54:58your shoes, you can't lift the weight,
54:59you can't send the DM, then you have to
55:01start with whatever you have. And so,
55:03for me, it was hatred of my current
55:05existence. I hated being a
55:07wantrepreneur. I hated being a wannabe.
55:09I hated being one of those people who
55:10like talked about all the things they
55:11were going to do and didn't do anything.
55:13Um
55:14I hated living
55:17the life that my dad wanted me to live.
55:19I was I was his [ __ ] That's what it
55:21was. I was his [ __ ] I was living his
55:23dreams out, not mine.
55:24And that was, you know, led to that
55:25other tweet, which was um
55:27sometimes your parents' dreams have to
55:29die in order for yours to live.
55:30And
55:32for me, I realized that the idea that my
55:35father had of me as his son, that image
55:37had to die
55:38in order for the image of myself that I
55:40wanted to be to live. Because I kept
55:43trying to quit my job and go be an
55:46entrepreneur. And every time I'd have
55:48the conversation, he'd be like, "Ah,
55:49come over, we'll talk about it, we'll
55:51have dinner, you know." And he'd always
55:52talk me off the ledge. It was always
55:53over and over again.
55:54But a salesman. Yeah. And or great
55:56authoritarian. Uh
55:59You don't need to persuade when you have
56:00compliance. Um and so
56:02uh and so, everybody has that person or
56:05or it it might actually be somebody
56:06who's talking you off the ledge. Um or
56:08it might just be a voice in your head.
56:09It doesn't really matter cuz that that
56:11voice and person that only happened once
56:12or twice probably keeps talking to you
56:14when you're at home. Mhm. Um
56:16but the big thing for me when I when I
56:18decided to make the jump, and mind you,
56:19I was such a [ __ ] about it that I I had
56:20to drive across the country before I
56:22called him to tell him that I left.
56:23Yeah, I remember that.
56:23I didn't want to Yeah, I didn't want to
56:25confront him. Um
56:27which he then like flew off the handle
56:28about. Um
56:30but
56:32I just knew and this is the Tony Robbins
56:34quote, but it's just the when the pain
56:35of staying the same is greater than the
56:36pain of change. And I think that
56:39I think pain moves people far far more
56:41effectively than pleasure does.
56:43Like, the easy thing to way to prove it
56:45is
56:46like
56:47point a gun at someone's head and you
56:48have absolute compliance and they will
56:49do what they need to do, right?
56:51Automatically, just like that.
56:53Like, death is the great motivator and
56:54the gun just reminds you.
56:56And so, I think that if you can create
56:58the figurative gun to your head
57:00of the pain that you're experiencing and
57:01then I'm a I'm a big fan of future
57:04casting out negative scenarios. So,
57:06people talk about like positive
57:07visualization, I prefer negative
57:08visualization, which is what if I keep
57:10doing what I'm currently doing for the
57:11next 10 years? What will my life look
57:13like then? That usually takes my current
57:15pain and then just magnifies it. And
57:17then that allows me to get my action
57:19threshold high enough that it goes over
57:20the edge so that I can take that first
57:22move. And so, if you know what the
57:23inputs-outputs are of what you need to
57:25do, the guy who has the little quote on
57:26his wall, and you figure out whatever
57:29fuel you've got, not the one you wish
57:31you had, but the one you've got, and you
57:32use that to do the first input, you've
57:35crossed the line. You're in the game.
57:37I told a story on the episode that I did
57:39with Goggins about bullying in school.
57:41And this is something where I like
57:43opened
57:46up about a topic that I haven't spoken
57:48about a ton because it made me
57:50But
57:53one of the things that's only really
57:54recently happened and it's actually been
57:56assisted by the guy that reached out and
57:57messaged me. This dude messaged and and
57:59said that he was sorry for what had
58:00happened. His daughter was going to
58:01school and it reflect made him reflect
58:03on his time
58:05at school and how he treated me and he
58:06was like, "Dude, I just wanted to say
58:07that I'm sorry. I don't even know if
58:08you're going to see this. I'm happy that
58:10you seem to be happy, but you know, I
58:12just had to get it off my chest." And
58:13that really helped. Not that I was
58:14carrying much, but one of the questions,
58:17you know, you'd spoken about your dad in
58:18this kind of like authoritarian
58:20relationship and and living out that
58:21dream. How
58:23did you
58:25avoid or how have you got yourself to a
58:27stage now where you're no longer driven
58:30by a chip on your shoulder toward him?
58:32Because I think that there are a lot of
58:33people that go through challenges in
58:35their past Yeah. that
58:37find fuel in it and they go, "Wow, I I'm
58:40I can be fueled by hatred. It's
58:42phenomenal. I I can alchemize this toxic
58:44thing into something which is useful."
58:46Totally.
58:48But
58:49I would imagine that that has a a shelf
58:52span, right? That if you keep on using
58:54that for long enough, there are more
58:55optimal ways that you could start to
58:57move perpetually under your own motion
59:00transmitted into something else.
59:02How did you get past having this chip on
59:05your shoulder about the relationship
59:07that you'd had with your dad and where
59:09it had set you back or forward or
59:11whatever?
59:12Um
59:13Or have you?
59:15Yeah, I think I have. Um
59:17I think my realization was, you know,
59:20first the goal was make as much as my
59:21dad, then it was make more than my dad,
59:23then it was make more than my dad had
59:24ever made. And I realized that the
59:27approval that I had
59:29that I sought was always going to be
59:32moved, right? Um I mean, I've told this
59:34story before, but maybe not your
59:36audience.
59:37But like when I when I My dad and I
59:39didn't really speak a ton. You know, we
59:40texted or you know, 2-minute phone call,
59:42"Hey, are you you're alive? Okay, cool."
59:44But for that was kind of like for like
59:46five-ish years after I left home
59:48to go do the gym thing.
59:50And only once Gym Launch was like
59:52printing money. And so we were I think I
59:54was taking home a million and a half a
59:56month at like 27 or something like that.
59:59And
1:00:00he gave me a call out of the blue. Like
1:00:01my dad doesn't like cold call me.
1:00:04And so I'm sitting at dinner and I I
1:00:06step outside
1:00:08and he says,
1:00:09"Hey, you're going to want to sit down
1:00:10for this." And I was like, "Okay."
1:00:11He's like, "I'm sorry."
1:00:14And I was like, "About what?" He was
1:00:15like,
1:00:16"Everything."
1:00:19And I remember in the moment actually
1:00:21feeling nothing.
1:00:23And thinking that was curious. And then
1:00:25being like, "Huh.
1:00:27Okay."
1:00:28And I probably should have just like
1:00:30accepted it for the olive branch that he
1:00:32was probably trying to like lean out to
1:00:34me. Um
1:00:35But here's what I said instead.
1:00:37I said, "You know how
1:00:39people get up on stage when they win the
1:00:40awards and they're like, 'I just want to
1:00:42thank my mom and dad for always being
1:00:43there, always believing in me.' I was
1:00:44like, 'I'm not going to say that.' I was
1:00:46like, 'Cuz you weren't and you didn't
1:00:47believe in me.'"
1:00:49And
1:00:52right after that, he was like, "Well,
1:00:54we'll see how long it lasts."
1:00:56And so
1:01:00it was after that phone call that I
1:01:01realized that everything that I'd done
1:01:03to that point was to try and beat him at
1:01:05his game. Because everything my dad
1:01:06cared about And not everything. He's a
1:01:08good guy. Like you know, we're fine now.
1:01:09But like when I was growing up and it's
1:01:11kind of fairly common in most foreign
1:01:13families to be very like money driven.
1:01:15And I always knew that kind of
1:01:16subconsciously And he would never say
1:01:17this, but like I felt it because
1:01:18whenever he introduced somebody, he'd
1:01:19tell me how much they made immediately.
1:01:20He'd be like, "This is John. John makes
1:01:21this." Like this is Bob. He makes this.
1:01:23Like it was just it was just like the
1:01:24worth and the name was like immediately
1:01:27tied together.
1:01:28And so I realized that I was trying to
1:01:32win his game rather than playing my
1:01:35game. And I think when that happened, it
1:01:38was the same instance of kind of like
1:01:39the blame finger,
1:01:40but just at a different level of saying
1:01:42like, "Okay, well, I don't blame my dad
1:01:43anymore, but I'm still playing his
1:01:45game."
1:01:46And so I'm winning not my game, I'm
1:01:48winning someone else's. And so I think
1:01:49when I was like, "Okay, well, then I
1:01:51have to define the game and the meaning
1:01:53of the game that I want to play, I have
1:01:54more responsibility now cuz I have to
1:01:56define the rules of what matters most to
1:01:57me, etc."
1:01:59But that was where I feel like I got And
1:02:00maybe there's more that I'll unpack
1:02:02later, but that was kind of the next
1:02:03level at least for my awareness of how I
1:02:06perceived what I was going after.
1:02:09Do you remember you I think you spoke
1:02:12about people that
1:02:14break the law in an attempt to make
1:02:16money. You said, "We sacrifice the thing
1:02:18we want for the thing that's supposed to
1:02:19get it. So we sacrifice
1:02:23freedom for money in the hopes that the
1:02:25money will give us freedom."
1:02:26Yeah. Downstream from that, this is one
1:02:28of the best things that I learned for
1:02:29all of last year. And you created the
1:02:32framework and then I filled it in. So I
1:02:33talked about the tension between success
1:02:35and the desire to feel like we're
1:02:36enough. I think that this speaks to what
1:02:38you're on about here. Success is a
1:02:40strange thing. Presumably we want
1:02:41success because we think a more
1:02:43successful life will bring us more
1:02:44happiness, meaning, and fulfillment.
1:02:46Here's the problem. We sacrifice the
1:02:48thing we want, happiness, for the thing
1:02:50which is supposed to get it, success.
1:02:52Failure can make you miserable, but I'm
1:02:53not sure that success will make you
1:02:55happy. And if you end up with an
1:02:56equation, if you could imagine like we
1:02:58sacrifice happiness to achieve success
1:03:00in the pursuit of happiness. Like if you
1:03:02just remove success from both sides of
1:03:03the equation, what you're left with is
1:03:04just happiness.
1:03:06There are um
1:03:09we can't deny the fact that we're
1:03:10statusful beings, that we you know, we
1:03:13require external validation. We can't
1:03:14just you know, go and live in a cave and
1:03:16in peaceful bliss and all the rest of
1:03:18it. Like there are things that we needs
1:03:19to do, but I do feel like a lot of the
1:03:21time we overclock our lives with regards
1:03:22to success and the pursuits that we go
1:03:24through in an attempt to to do this. And
1:03:27that we sacrifice the thing we want for
1:03:29the thing which is supposed to get it is
1:03:30like
1:03:31I see that all the time. I always ask
1:03:32myself, "Am I overcomplicating this?
1:03:34Like am I am I doing more than I need to
1:03:36do? Is there a simpler way to do this?"
1:03:38Mhm.
1:03:39I think um
1:03:41I mean, I think this is a actually a
1:03:43game theory thing. Um and you're
1:03:45familiar Okay. So
1:03:47I can I can I can go on or or I can not
1:03:49if you want. Okay.
1:03:49Bring it on. Bring it on. Yeah, so I
1:03:50mean Simon Sinek popularized this, but
1:03:54you have finite and infinite games,
1:03:56right? Finite games where you have known
1:03:57known players, agreed upon rules,
1:04:00um and an outcome that that wins the
1:04:02game, right? Uh and then infinite game
1:04:04you have known and unknown players, no
1:04:07rules, and the point of the game is to
1:04:08keep the game going. And what happens is
1:04:10that people apply finite rules to
1:04:12infinite games and then they wonder why
1:04:14it's not working. What's an example?
1:04:17So a finite game would be like baseball.
1:04:19You know the players. At the end of the
1:04:21game, the person you tally up the ones
1:04:22with the most runs and you win. And
1:04:24there's you can't you can't run you
1:04:25can't hold the ball and run it around
1:04:26the bases. Like there's rules of play.
1:04:28With an infinite game,
1:04:32the Vietnam War is an a simple example
1:04:34that Simon Sinek gives, which is
1:04:35basically the US lost the Vietnam War
1:04:37because they were they were applying a
1:04:38finite structure, which is we're going
1:04:40to win this war. And the Vietnamese
1:04:41people were were playing an infinite
1:04:43game structure, which is we're going to
1:04:45stay alive and keep fighting. And as
1:04:46long as someone is staying alive and
1:04:47keeping fighting, they will beat the
1:04:49person who's trying to end something.
1:04:51And so the infinite frame always
1:04:52conquers the finite. And the thing is is
1:04:54that most of the games worth playing are
1:04:55infinite. And so if you were trying to
1:04:57get in shape, you don't win getting in
1:04:59shape. The point is to stay in shape for
1:05:01the rest of your life. You don't win at
1:05:02marriage. The point is to stay married.
1:05:04You don't win at business. The point is
1:05:06to stay in business and keep doing
1:05:08business. So the point of the game is to
1:05:09keep playing. And I think if if the
1:05:11success and I would imagine success, if
1:05:14you put all of those things together,
1:05:15it's an infinite game. And so the point
1:05:18of success is to do the things that make
1:05:20you successful. And so if you're doing
1:05:22the things that are making you
1:05:23successful, then you are by definition
1:05:24winning. And I think that for me
1:05:26redefining what is a perfect day
1:05:29and doing as many of those days in a row
1:05:31as I possibly can, to me that's winning.
1:05:33And I and I obviously have a relatively
1:05:35contrarian worldview, but what which is
1:05:37that like when we die, nothing happens
1:05:38and you know, we know what it was like
1:05:40to die because we've all been dead
1:05:41before, which is when we were before we
1:05:42were alive.
1:05:44Um
1:05:44but I don't think that what I will do
1:05:46will ultimately matter in 500 million
1:05:48years. And so that kind of eliminates a
1:05:50lot of the pressure for me around like
1:05:52the external outcome. Sure, I'm human.
1:05:55There are definitely motivators. But if
1:05:56I can just over time chip away at how
1:05:59much that weighs on the scale and I can
1:06:01keep putting more and more coins on the
1:06:02other side
1:06:04towards the infinite game of like the
1:06:06point of the game is to keep playing.
1:06:08And like there are some things that I
1:06:09remind myself over and over again. It's
1:06:10just like the point of the game is to
1:06:11keep playing. That's the point. That is
1:06:14the point. It's to just keep playing.
1:06:15The point of the game is to keep
1:06:16playing. I very much like that. What was
1:06:17that you found out
1:06:19the three trait the three most common
1:06:21traits of highly successful people? Do
1:06:23you remember those? Yeah, it was um
1:06:25it's it's so funny.
1:06:27A superiority complex. So the three most
1:06:30common traits of hyper successful people
1:06:32that they looked at. And it was
1:06:33interesting cuz there's
1:06:35the influencer world wants to be like,
1:06:37"You have to wake up at 5:00 or you have
1:06:38to do cold plunges or whatever the [ __ ]
1:06:40right?" But the thing that that but
1:06:42there was actually very few that they
1:06:43all had in common. So number one was
1:06:45that they had a superiority complex.
1:06:46They thought they were better than other
1:06:47people and that they deserved more.
1:06:49The second is that they suffered from
1:06:51massive insecurity and feeling that they
1:06:52would never be enough.
1:06:54And third, they had impulse control.
1:06:56And so you've got this combination of
1:06:58people who are like, "I want to do this
1:06:59big thing." So there's big toward thing.
1:07:01And they've got this big away pain
1:07:02that's like, "I'm never going to be
1:07:04enough. I always have to do more." And
1:07:05then they have impulse control that
1:07:06keeps them focused on the goal.
1:07:08Without seeing the woman in the red
1:07:09dress or getting pursued by her. And
1:07:11that like
1:07:13So it's like shoot high, have a big
1:07:15thing that that motivate like have a big
1:07:16tiger behind you, and stay on the path.
1:07:18Have you ever heard Jordan Peterson talk
1:07:20about that study of starving rats in a
1:07:22tube with a spring attached to that?
1:07:24No. [ __ ] brilliant. This is this is
1:07:26what you're talking about. So
1:07:28starving rats are placed into a tube.
1:07:30Yeah. And they have a spring that is
1:07:32attached to the tail that can measure
1:07:34the force that they pull at. And that's
1:07:35a proxy for desire. Then they waft the
1:07:38smell of cheese in from the front of the
1:07:39tube. And the rat pulls and they measure
1:07:41how hard they want to go. And you think
1:07:43these rats are starving, they would be
1:07:44pulling pretty hard. Then they do
1:07:45another iteration of the study. This
1:07:47time they waft the smell of cheese in
1:07:49from the front, but they waft the smell
1:07:50of a cat in from behind.
1:07:52And the rats pull harder. Yeah. And
1:07:53what's the lesson? That you not only
1:07:54need to run towards something that you
1:07:56want, but you need to run away from
1:07:57something that you fear. Yeah. Now the
1:07:59problem and this is I I like super
1:08:01superiority complex, crippling
1:08:02insecurity, impulse control. I like
1:08:04that.
1:08:05The problem is
1:08:08the people who we admire the most due to
1:08:10the most success in the real world
1:08:13don't necessarily have the most
1:08:14admirable internal states. That to me
1:08:17isn't necessarily the most peaceful,
1:08:20blissful way to live your life.
1:08:21Mhm. What does it say that especially in
1:08:24the modern world, we revere the people
1:08:28who have external accolades of success?
1:08:30Mhm. And yet, the three most common
1:08:32traits of these super successful people
1:08:34lead from a place which is almost
1:08:37objectively
1:08:39miserable?
1:08:40unadmirable.
1:08:41Yeah. How do we how do we square this
1:08:43circle? I think it's just what are we
1:08:45solving for?
1:08:46So like I mean, a lot of people I love
1:08:49watching Last Dance, which is Michael
1:08:50Jordan's, you know, mini docu-series.
1:08:52Yeah, unbelievable.
1:08:53Um
1:08:54I think most people could see him there
1:08:56and be like, "I don't know if I really
1:08:57envy this guy's life." Like he still
1:08:59seems like pretty upset despite being a
1:09:01billionaire, despite all the you know,
1:09:02these
1:09:03these other things. And so I think that
1:09:05if like what are we solving for? Like my
1:09:08my closest friend, Dr. Kashi, he has a
1:09:09statement cuz he coached Olympic Olympic
1:09:11teams. He was like, "Champions are
1:09:13broken."
1:09:15I was like, "Huh." He's like, "They
1:09:16people look at champions and try and
1:09:18find something that that champion has
1:09:19that they don't have." He's like, "But
1:09:21it's not that at all." He's like, "They
1:09:22lack something everyone else has, which
1:09:24is an off button.
1:09:25They just don't stop.
1:09:27And
1:09:29at the end of the day like
1:09:32if we're if we're optimizing for
1:09:33outcomes, then the most broken person
1:09:35will win. The person who has the
1:09:37absolute biggest, you know, desire for
1:09:38achievement, the absolute biggest fear
1:09:40or pain that they're running away from,
1:09:42and the hardest impulse control. Now,
1:09:43impulse control most people would agree
1:09:44is a good thing. The other two, not as
1:09:46much.
1:09:47And so,
1:09:50what are we optimizing for? What problem
1:09:51are we solving? It's my favorite It's
1:09:52probably the number one most frequently
1:09:54asked question that I ask to our
1:09:55portfolio companies whenever we're about
1:09:56to do anything, which is what problem
1:09:57are we solving? If the problem that
1:09:59we're solving is that I want to be
1:10:00content,
1:10:01well, there's a lot of ways to do that,
1:10:02and you don't need to do all these other
1:10:03things. If the problem you're solving is
1:10:05that you want to be the richest man in
1:10:06the world,
1:10:07well, you're going to have to have a lot
1:10:09of superiority complex, you're going to
1:10:10have a lot of crippling insecurity, and
1:10:11you're going to have a lot of impulse
1:10:12control, and you're going to have to
1:10:12wait a long time.
1:10:14There's a quote from Jason Pargin that
1:10:16says, "Accept that all of your heroes
1:10:17are full of [ __ ] Your heroes aren't
1:10:19gods, they're just regular people who
1:10:21probably got good at one thing by
1:10:23neglecting literally everything else."
1:10:26Yeah.
1:10:27I just I agree with the statement.
1:10:28[ __ ] money. I I
1:10:30it's just so interesting to me. I've
1:10:31been thinking about this to do with
1:10:33Billy McFarland. Uh Let me Let me just
1:10:35get this in. Hit it. And that's okay.
1:10:38Because if they wanted that, then that's
1:10:40the problem that they're solving for.
1:10:41Like, I get criticized all the time for
1:10:43work-life balance. People are like,
1:10:45"Well, you don't have any hobbies, Alex,
1:10:47and you don't whatever." Right? And I'm
1:10:48like, "I don't [ __ ] want any."
1:10:51So, why do I have to sacrifice things
1:10:53that I would prefer to do to do things I
1:10:54don't want to do to satisfy your
1:10:56objective measure of what you deem as
1:10:57work-life balance?
1:10:59Why? So, that's what what This is what
1:11:02you were talking about Was it optimize
1:11:03for the outcome or what's the metric of
1:11:05success? Uh Yeah.
1:11:07You were saying like what what is it
1:11:08that people are optimizing for?
1:11:09Right.
1:11:11It seems to me that
1:11:13you have stepped back and decided
1:11:17axiomatically, this is the thing that
1:11:20I'm optimizing for. That I enjoy most
1:11:22doing. Yes. That's I enjoy playing the
1:11:24game. And so, everything I do is about
1:11:25the game. Yes. My podcast is called The
1:11:27Game. I draw pictures all day about
1:11:29business. I write books about business.
1:11:30I make content about business. I spend
1:11:31the rest of my time
1:11:32never seen a picture Oh, dude, 100
1:11:33Million Dollar Offers.
1:11:34Zillion pictures in there. Oh, are they
1:11:36done by you? 100% all of the drawings
1:11:38are mine. And 100 Million Dollar Leads
1:11:39has like 100 doodles in it. Is there any
1:11:41good? Oh, yeah. Are they nice? I think
1:11:43so. Have they got Yeah, are they cute?
1:11:44Yeah. Have they got little animals in?
1:11:45Yeah. If they don't have animals in, I'm
1:11:46not I'm not I'm not going to look at
1:11:47them. Oh, there's there's little bag of
1:11:48money, big bag of money. Like, that's
1:11:50how Nice. Dead serious. Sweet.
1:11:52but like and and I spend the rest of my
1:11:54day doing business.
1:11:56And so, it's like,
1:11:57"Well, why don't you garden?" Cuz I
1:11:59don't care. Here's the Here's the other
1:12:00thing, right? I I I always talk about
1:12:02this. Steffi Graf, um they one of the
1:12:04greatest female tennis players of all
1:12:05time, and she gets tested when she's 10
1:12:08years old, 11 years old, and she's in
1:12:09some tennis academy. And they gauge the
1:12:11players on two criteria. They gauge them
1:12:14on desire to train
1:12:16uh and skill set. All right.
1:12:18And she was 10 out of 10 on both. Mhm.
1:12:20So, okay, not only has she got the raw
1:12:22materials to make a phenomenal tennis
1:12:24player, but she'll outwork you, and to
1:12:25her it won't even feel like work. That's
1:12:27[ __ ] terrifying. Yeah. And that's why
1:12:29I do think for the people that look at
1:12:32yourself and say
1:12:34uh Alex is on a a road to burnout, it's
1:12:37because you are using your theory of
1:12:38mind about how you would feel if you had
1:12:41to work as much as you do.
1:12:42Yes. But okay, what is the thing that
1:12:44you can do longer than anybody else, and
1:12:46to them it looks like work, and to you
1:12:47it looks like play or feels like play?
1:12:49What would that be? Oh, well, for me it
1:12:50would be uh computer games or knitting
1:12:53or rock music or whatever it is.
1:12:55Okay. So, imagine if you just got to do
1:12:57that all day, but instead of it being
1:12:59rock music, it was [ __ ] business.
1:13:01Yeah. Uh someone commented the other day
1:13:02um was it your sprinting on a treadmill?
1:13:05Uh they were concerned that the pace
1:13:06that the show is going out at was going
1:13:08to cause me to burn out. And in
1:13:09retrospect, I'm, you know, in 5 years'
1:13:10time I might go, "Fuck, yeah, I was
1:13:11moving too quick." But I don't think I
1:13:13don't think that. Like,
1:13:15I work at the pace that I like to work
1:13:17at. And I also like to see where those
1:13:20limits are, and that's exciting to me to
1:13:22go, "Okay, just how much harder can I go
1:13:25here?" And then again, you've got to
1:13:27temper it with
1:13:28That's burnout. Like, that's just the
1:13:30beginning of it. And you only know that
1:13:31after you've burned out like 30 times.
1:13:34Uh
1:13:35but that's It's trite to say after
1:13:37Atomic Habits by James Clear, right? But
1:13:38the intersection of like
1:13:40what you love to do, what you're good
1:13:42at, and what you can be paid for is like
1:13:43slap-bang in the middle of it.
1:13:46Slaves worked all the hours they were
1:13:49awake for their entire lives.
1:13:53In American history, in Egyptian
1:13:55history, in the rest of the world that
1:13:57had slaves, which is most of the world
1:13:58at some some given point.
1:14:01I think like if they can do it, so can
1:14:03I.
1:14:03Now, you're like, "Well, did they have a
1:14:05happy existence?" Well, they didn't get
1:14:06to pick the work they did, but it means
1:14:08that you can work. That's if you have
1:14:10the cat behind you, you can work every
1:14:12hour of the day.
1:14:13I'm like, "Well, if you get to have the
1:14:15cheese, and you get to eat the cheese
1:14:16the whole way you're going,
1:14:18then I mean, there's the famous quote
1:14:20you know, the person who
1:14:21the person who loves walking walks
1:14:23further than the person who loves the
1:14:24destination, right? And so, like I think
1:14:26it's the same thing, but
1:14:28the
1:14:33Everyone so many people want to project
1:14:35their idea of of what they think your
1:14:37life should be like onto you.
1:14:39And it's just completely irrelevant. It
1:14:41just doesn't matter. Like, if all I did
1:14:43if I if I weren't married, right? Cuz
1:14:45people are like, "Okay, well, he is
1:14:46married." And like I am in shape,
1:14:48but I also just like working out. But if
1:14:50I didn't have either of those things,
1:14:51and all I did was work all day, more
1:14:52people would talk about the work-life
1:14:53balance thing for me than they currently
1:14:55do.
1:14:57And who cares?
1:15:00I just like I just I fundamentally I'm
1:15:01like, "You are going to die, and you're
1:15:03not going to matter, and I'm going to
1:15:04die, and I'm not going to matter. So,
1:15:05why do I care about what you're going to
1:15:07say when you're not even going to show
1:15:08up to my funeral? Who gives a shit?"
1:15:11In other news, there has never been a
1:15:13better time to start an online side
1:15:15hustle, and Hostinger is making creating
1:15:17a website as easy as possible. If you're
1:15:19looking to start your own website or
1:15:20online shop, but don't have the
1:15:22technical or design skills, you can look
1:15:23no further than Hostinger. With
1:15:24Hostinger, you can launch your own
1:15:26website or online shop in minutes and
1:15:28thrive online. For $2.99 a month,
1:15:30Hostinger provides an all-in-one website
1:15:32builder, domain, hosting, and
1:15:34professional email service. It's the
1:15:36most affordable option for getting your
1:15:38online hustle started, and it's
1:15:39ridiculously simple to use. With
1:15:41Hostinger, you can launch a WordPress
1:15:42website in just one click, or use their
1:15:44drag-and-drop website builder. Plus, you
1:15:47can choose from over 150 beautiful and
1:15:49fully customized templates for
1:15:50e-commerce, blogs, portfolios, landing
1:15:52pages, and more. If you need a logo,
1:15:54Hostinger has got you covered with their
1:15:56AI logo maker powered by ChatGPT's API,
1:15:59you can create a logo in seconds and
1:16:01make your brand stand out. Head to
1:16:03hostinger.com /modernwisdom for an extra
1:16:0610% off if you use the code modernwisdom
1:16:09at checkout. That's h o s t i n g e r
1:16:13.com /modernwisdom
1:16:15and modernwisdom at checkout.
1:16:18What is it that you're taking enjoyment
1:16:19from then? The one step deeper than
1:16:22this, there is something that you're
1:16:23optimizing for.
1:16:24I love I love the reward. What reward?
1:16:26The micro rewards I get every day. Of
1:16:29operating a business. Of all things
1:16:31business-related.
1:16:31Yep. So, I love writing the book about
1:16:33business. I love talking to my editor
1:16:35about what we're changing. Oh, that's a
1:16:36really way better way to say it, right?
1:16:38Or I like tweeting about the thoughts
1:16:40that we have. I love doing discussions
1:16:41like this cuz I talk about my favorite
1:16:42topic, which is business,
1:16:44for the most part. Um
1:16:46like and
1:16:48I actually am pretty averse to
1:16:49punishment. I've learned that about me.
1:16:52Like, I do not like it.
1:16:54And when I say punishment in the formal
1:16:55sense, like things you don't like,
1:16:56right? And so, like I avoid them like
1:16:58the plague. I don't do them. And so, I
1:17:00just do as many of the things I can that
1:17:02reward me as frequently as possible. But
1:17:03from the outside to a lot of people,
1:17:04that looks like punishment. Right.
1:17:07Yes. Interesting. How can someone
1:17:10uh cut through
1:17:12societal expectations, the ways they've
1:17:14dealt with past trauma, expectations
1:17:16from parents, all of the things that
1:17:18aren't their thing? Yeah. How can
1:17:20somebody Because what you've done again,
1:17:22axiomatically, a priori, this is the
1:17:24thing I want to optimize for. How do
1:17:26people find the thing that they want to
1:17:27optimize for? I don't have a thing,
1:17:29Alex. That's [ __ ] great for you with
1:17:31your business. It just happens to be
1:17:32something else that's at the
1:17:33intersection of making a [ __ ] ton of
1:17:34money. Yeah.
1:17:36How do I find
1:17:36I was lucky with that.
1:17:37Yes. That that just happened to be the
1:17:39intersection. Cuz if I loved knitting,
1:17:41and I didn't like business, Yeah. that's
1:17:42a whole set Cuz like, you can turn
1:17:43knitting into a business, but like if I
1:17:44only like knitting, then there's a way
1:17:46to make a living from that. But to to to
1:17:48get to the person who's like, uh how do
1:17:50I find my thing? Um
1:17:53I'm a big fan of being directionally
1:17:55correct rather than absolutely correct.
1:17:57And so, I think what happens is most
1:17:58people are trying to find the perfect
1:18:00answer when they have no perspective
1:18:02from which to make a judgment. They're
1:18:04trying to find the perfect thing to do
1:18:05when they haven't done anything. So, how
1:18:06would you have perspective to make a
1:18:07judgment?
1:18:08Like, if you try a lot of things in the
1:18:10beginning, which you have to know what
1:18:12your inputs and outputs are, decrease
1:18:13your action threshold enough with either
1:18:14a cheese or a cat, whatever you need,
1:18:16most people have more cats than they
1:18:17have cheese in the beginning, so use the
1:18:19cat to start running towards something.
1:18:21And the thing is is
1:18:22the rat, it's so simple. It's like,
1:18:24there's cheese here.
1:18:25But what you really just need to know is
1:18:26that there's cheese out there.
1:18:29And there's a cat behind me for sure.
1:18:31And so, if I just go anywhere away from
1:18:33the cat, I will have a higher likelihood
1:18:36of getting closer to the cheese. Not
1:18:37that I will find it, but I will get
1:18:38closer to it. And I think it's And I've
1:18:41lived my life through a series of rapid
1:18:43iterations, not trying to pick the right
1:18:45thing. Because I just like even when I
1:18:47was starting my first business, I I was
1:18:48between frozen yogurt, test prep, and a
1:18:50gym. Those are the three businesses that
1:18:52I was I was choosing between.
1:18:53Makes complete sense, yeah.
1:18:55A lot of things that I like, right?
1:18:57And so,
1:18:58so I was choosing between those things.
1:18:59And like,
1:19:00why were those the things? I was like,
1:19:01"Well, I was pretty good at taking tests
1:19:03in college, so I get that. I like frozen
1:19:06yogurt.
1:19:07And I I mean, it sounds simple, but like
1:19:09I was like, "Everybody likes something,
1:19:11right?" And I actually didn't know that
1:19:12I was going to like business. That's the
1:19:14crazy thing. Cuz also, hey, when you and
1:19:15I were younger, Instagram wasn't there.
1:19:17You like, none of the [ __ ] existed. And
1:19:19entrepreneurship wasn't cool yet. And
1:19:21so, I just hated my job a lot and I
1:19:25hated where I lived a lot. And so, I was
1:19:27like, "Well, I will just not be here.
1:19:29So, cat, don't know what city I'm going
1:19:31to go to, but just not this city." I
1:19:33went across the furthest place from
1:19:34Baltimore, which is California. And then
1:19:36I was like, "Okay, well, what do I hate
1:19:38doing? Well, let me not do that." Which
1:19:40is, you know, sitting on meetings all
1:19:41day and doing whatever, you know, doing
1:19:43grunt work for [ __ ] that I felt like was
1:19:44meaningless.
1:19:45And instead, I was like, "I'll do
1:19:47fitness cuz I like fitness." And I was
1:19:48like, "At the very least, I'll do
1:19:49something I enjoy." Which I liked
1:19:51fitness at the time. And if you're like,
1:19:53"Well, I don't like doing anything."
1:19:54It's like, "Well, then that's
1:19:55impossible."
1:19:56Because
1:19:57your brain is wired to be rewarded for
1:19:59things. And so, you are doing things
1:20:01that reward you. That's why you do them.
1:20:03Like everything we do is because we've
1:20:04been rewarded for doing things like that
1:20:05in the past. And we project the same
1:20:08activities and we predict that
1:20:11doing things like we did in the past
1:20:12that reward us will reward us again in
1:20:13the future. That's where our behavior
1:20:14comes from. And so, it's like, "Okay,
1:20:16well, what has rewarded you in the past?
1:20:18Where's the cat? Go the opposite way.
1:20:20Yeah. So, the the reverse role model is
1:20:22something similar, but you're almost
1:20:24taking this into a lifestyle
1:20:26perspective. So, the reverse role model
1:20:27is if you live in a town or you grow up
1:20:30somewhere and there's no one around you
1:20:31like the sort of person that you want to
1:20:33be like, but there are tons of people
1:20:34like the person you don't want to be
1:20:35like, you can say there's a way marker.
1:20:37I don't want his relationship with
1:20:39gambling. I don't want the way that he
1:20:40handles his finances. I don't want the
1:20:41way that him and his wife communicate
1:20:43with each other. It's like, "Okay, there
1:20:44we go." Warren Buffett amongst us says
1:20:47like an amazing amount of success has
1:20:49been achieved by not trying to avoid
1:20:51being stupid. Uh so, there's your way
1:20:53markers there. But what you're saying is
1:20:54that this is almost like a
1:20:57abstracted lifestyle version of this.
1:20:59These are all of the things that I hate
1:21:01to do. What's the opposite of that?
1:21:04And the
1:21:06uh challenge of I don't know precisely
1:21:09what the exact thing is, therefore I
1:21:11can't move toward it is one of mine,
1:21:13which is perfectionism is
1:21:14procrastination masquerading as quality
1:21:16control. I was going to say it's it's a
1:21:17it's a it's a fallacy.
1:21:19It's a it's a decision-making fallacy.
1:21:22It's the same It's This is why investor
1:21:23frames can be so useful. Like if you're
1:21:25looking for the perfect investment, you
1:21:26won't find one. There's always
1:21:27downsides. Every Every investment has
1:21:29risk. Right? And so, using that frame,
1:21:32you're like, "Well, there's all these
1:21:33paths. Which one do I choose?" It's
1:21:35like, "Well, you have The one thing
1:21:36that's guaranteed is if you keep the
1:21:37money, it will go down
1:21:39in value cuz it'll inflate, right? So,
1:21:41not investing is the only way you're
1:21:42guaranteed to not get a return on your
1:21:43investment. Is that a The fact that
1:21:46inflation exists, do you think that's a
1:21:47useful motivating force for business
1:21:49people? You know, you could imagine a
1:21:51different form of
1:21:53world economics where, you know, like
1:21:54embedded growth obligations weren't
1:21:56there and like, whatever, you know,
1:21:57inflation didn't happen.
1:21:58Do you think that that sort of motivates
1:22:00people to actually be like, "Oh, [ __ ]
1:22:01like I need to I need to do something
1:22:02with this money. I can't just sit sit
1:22:04and leave it in the bank."
1:22:05I think it would motivate investors.
1:22:06Yes. More Yeah. But I mean, the the
1:22:08business people would just like probably
1:22:09keep more coins in their in their vault
1:22:10and just keep transacting. Is that
1:22:12Scrooge McDuck? Yeah, they'd be less
1:22:14likely to
1:22:15they'd be less likely to deploy capital
1:22:17faster. Mhm. Cuz if you feel like
1:22:18there's a cost of capital that's higher
1:22:19for keeping it like letting it sit
1:22:21there, then you have a higher urgency to
1:22:23do something with it. If you have less
1:22:24urgency, then you only do it when you
1:22:26know it's going to crush.
1:22:29You gain nothing from underestimating
1:22:31your opponent. Mhm.
1:22:34How does this relate to your
1:22:37world?
1:22:40So, a lot of the tweets that I have
1:22:41actually come from conversations I have
1:22:44with our portfolio CEOs. And so, they'll
1:22:45say something, right? Um and they're
1:22:48like, "Oh, we're way better than those
1:22:49guys."
1:22:50And I think somebody said like something
1:22:52like that on a meeting. And I just
1:22:54thought about it and I was like, "What a
1:22:54stupid thing to say."
1:22:56I was like, "You gain nothing from that
1:22:57statement." I was like, "You literally
1:22:59gain Like what do you gain from that?
1:23:00You gain complacency? Right? You You You
1:23:03increase the likelihood of looking
1:23:04stupid in the case that they do crush
1:23:06you, right?" I was like,
1:23:08cuz on the flip side, like how many ups
1:23:10Like the only things that upset the guys
1:23:12who are on the top of the mountain is
1:23:12hubris.
1:23:14Like there's really no reason that the
1:23:16guy on the top of the mountain should
1:23:17ever lose. He has the most resources. He
1:23:19has the most He has the most the highest
1:23:21perspective. He has the most vision.
1:23:22Like he has everything. He's all the
1:23:24food at the top of the mountain. And
1:23:25yet, history shows us humans act like
1:23:28humans. And so, we lose because of our
1:23:30egos and because it it hurts to say,
1:23:33"What if that person's better than me?"
1:23:35And so,
1:23:37I think that
1:23:39if you It's It actually is is really
1:23:41parallel with a a different tweet that
1:23:44that kind of took off, which was
1:23:46people underestimate how much smarter
1:23:47you can seem if you have 20 minutes of
1:23:48preparation. Yeah. That dude's That's so
1:23:50[ __ ] true. Right.
1:23:52It's unbelievable.
1:23:53People get into businesses and like,
1:23:55"Well, what if you actually had to face
1:23:56this team?" People are like, "Well, I
1:23:57don't want to practice." It's like, "Why
1:23:58not? Like why wouldn't you prac- Like
1:24:00for a lot of fighters show up not having
1:24:02prepped for the fight, not really hard."
1:24:04And like, "What do you gain from that?"
1:24:06Because if you practice really hard, you
1:24:07get better.
1:24:08Period. And like all it is is purely an
1:24:11ego play.
1:24:13The only The only win you get from not
1:24:15prepping and showing up to the fight is
1:24:17that you appear to be more naturally
1:24:21gifted, and I would rather be known for
1:24:22my work ethic than my natural gift as an
1:24:24aside, but you appear to be more
1:24:26naturally gifted, and then you win by
1:24:27less than you would if you prepared.
1:24:30You gain nothing.
1:24:31And so, it's purely an ego thing, but
1:24:33you you we do it all the time. And so, I
1:24:35wanted to like my my Twitter stream is
1:24:38just thoughts to self. I deleted it cuz
1:24:39I didn't have enough room in my profile
1:24:41to say, but it was originally like notes
1:24:42to self. And it's just like to remind me
1:24:45of things as they come up because I fall
1:24:47into that trap, too. I'm like, "Oh, I'm
1:24:49going to We're going to outperform this
1:24:50guy or like this company's going to
1:24:51crush it." I'm like, "But we don't gain
1:24:52anything from that." It's like, "So, we
1:24:54just have to assume that we're always
1:24:56the underdog and then they've got a
1:24:57trick up their sleeve that we don't know
1:24:58about."
1:24:59It's like that's the whole the only the
1:25:00paranoid survive.
1:25:03A reverse of that or something that's
1:25:04interesting to do with people at the top
1:25:06of the pyramid is there's only one way I
1:25:09know to beat people who copy you. Get
1:25:11bigger. It's not by direct conflict, but
1:25:13by making them shrink into irrelevance
1:25:15by comparison. Mhm.
1:25:19Agreed.
1:25:20I just
1:25:22I mean, especially when it comes to
1:25:23content creation, I imagine that this is
1:25:24something that
1:25:25Yeah, that you know, you see one thing
1:25:27that becomes effective and then
1:25:28downstream from that a lot of stuff
1:25:29happened. And you know, if you've done
1:25:32the hard work of forging ahead,
1:25:34trailblazing, pathfinding, split
1:25:35testing, wow, we finally came up with
1:25:37this thing. And then within 4 weeks,
1:25:40you're like, "Oh, brilliant. This is all
1:25:42over the internet now."
1:25:44Well, I always see it as like a a
1:25:45first-mover thing, which is like
1:25:47they need me, I don't need them. Yeah.
1:25:50They require me in order to iterate
1:25:51their content, I don't because I don't
1:25:53look at theirs to make mine. Yep.
1:25:55And so, and it's cuz like Everybody
1:25:57knows man as well. Everybody knows.
1:25:59Every single person that's copying
1:26:01thumbnails, that's copying subtitle
1:26:03subtitle styles, that's, you know, going
1:26:05after the same talking points. They know
1:26:07deep down that what they're doing is
1:26:09creating a rough-hewn pixelated
1:26:11equivalent of what they think they can
1:26:13try and be. At at best, what you can
1:26:16hope for is being the second best Alex
1:26:17Hormozi in the world.
1:26:18Right. And I'll win that game, but like
1:26:21they would beat me at being whoever they
1:26:23are.
1:26:23Correct. I mean, it sounds so trite, but
1:26:24like I
1:26:26I want I'm trying to say this in a
1:26:27different way so that it hits because
1:26:28like people have heard like there's only
1:26:29one version of you like there's just so
1:26:32much actual
1:26:34meat to that concept because
1:26:37this is this is, you know, Gary
1:26:38originally did the document don't create
1:26:40thing. And I think that the the reason
1:26:42that the content that we have is quote
1:26:44original is because like we document I I
1:26:47document through Twitter the things that
1:26:49come up in my actual life. And so, it's
1:26:51not like, "What's trending right now?"
1:26:52It's like, "Well, I had this meeting
1:26:54with a CEO and he [ __ ] said that
1:26:55thing about the competitor." And that's
1:26:57my tweet.
1:26:57wasn't somebody else in the meeting also
1:26:59going, "Oh, brilliant. That's a lesson
1:27:01that I can take that I can use for my
1:27:02Twitter."
1:27:03Right. And so, it's all from like
1:27:06original source. And if everyone else
1:27:10like and this is on the flip side, if
1:27:11you're the person who's doing this, like
1:27:13you need to find what your original
1:27:14source is of content because like you
1:27:16will always be second.
1:27:18Or
1:27:19second You'll never be first is really
1:27:20the is really the statement. And like at
1:27:22least for me, if I'm playing a game, I
1:27:24want to play for the long haul, and the
1:27:26point of the game is to keep the game
1:27:27going. And if you want to keep the game
1:27:29going, then you can't be dependent on
1:27:29someone else.
1:27:32There was another one that I thought was
1:27:33quite interesting, especially given the
1:27:34kind of current world of
1:27:37men's advice and rich guy
1:27:41existence online.
1:27:43More people stay poor because of their
1:27:45egos than get rich off them.
1:27:47Yeah. At the moment, it seems like egos
1:27:49are being valorized on the internet,
1:27:51especially among men's advice. Yeah. How
1:27:54is it that more people stay poor because
1:27:56of their egos than get rich off them if
1:27:58there's a bunch of examples of people
1:27:59with seemingly big egos that also have
1:28:01money? I think that's
1:28:03What's the fallacy?
1:28:06Whatever the Whatever the cognitive
1:28:07fallacy for what's in front of your
1:28:09eyes.
1:28:09I think there are far more people Was
1:28:11it? Availability bias. Yeah. Um I think
1:28:14there are far more people who are
1:28:15successful and insignificantly more
1:28:16successful than the people who are
1:28:18visible on
1:28:20content who And I would say many of
1:28:22those people aren't actually that
1:28:23successful. And so, if we're looking at
1:28:24the objective measure of success as like
1:28:26net worth, just for just for the sake of
1:28:28this conversation, there are far more
1:28:30people who are rich and anonymous than
1:28:32there are people who flaunt their
1:28:33Lamborghinis that they rented for a day.
1:28:34Now, there I mean, if you really think
1:28:36about the influencer world of business,
1:28:38there are not that many guys who
1:28:39actually like
1:28:41are really in the game.
1:28:42Like most of those guys sell something
1:28:45from their platform about building a
1:28:47platform. Like that's that's 90 Not even
1:28:5095, it's probably like 98, 99%. And so,
1:28:53there's only like a very small select
1:28:55And And to be fair, those guys
1:28:58are all pretty humble.
1:29:00Like you look at the Garys, you look at
1:29:01the the Andys, you look at the
1:29:04Tom Billieu like these Ed Mylett like
1:29:05the you know, like the guys who have
1:29:06become, you know, in in the business
1:29:08space, like
1:29:09they're not particularly egotistical
1:29:11guys, and it's usually because they know
1:29:13what hard feels like.
1:29:14And they know what it's like to be
1:29:15inadequate over and over and over again
1:29:17because you only can be inadequate if
1:29:18you go to another level. If you feel
1:29:20amazing, it's cuz you haven't moved up.
1:29:22Does that mean that if somebody wants to
1:29:23be successful and they feel like they've
1:29:25still got an ego, that they need to do
1:29:26some work on dissolving that? I think
1:29:28they just need to do harder things.
1:29:30Like you need to fight harder opponents.
1:29:32Like you're you're beating in this
1:29:33little pool.
1:29:34way you can maintain an ego is by
1:29:36believing that you're a big fish in a
1:29:37little pond. Right.
1:29:38Or a big fish in whatever size pond you
1:29:39think it is. And if you're a big fish,
1:29:41you're not in a big enough pond.
1:29:42It's totally delusion.
1:29:45It's hard to comprehend like Bezos, if
1:29:47you've heard any of his interviews,
1:29:48seems like a very humble guy. But like
1:29:50you could have a hundred billionaires in
1:29:52a room and he is worth the same amount
1:29:54as them.
1:29:55And then if you had each one of those
1:29:57billionaires is a thousand millionaires,
1:30:00he's still worth the same the same
1:30:01amount as 1,100,
1:30:04whatever, 100,000 millionaires and then
1:30:07him.
1:30:08So like there's just levels to it and I
1:30:10think the moment you get the ego is the
1:30:11moment you stop growing because you feel
1:30:12like you beat the level, but you just
1:30:13keep repeating the level rather than
1:30:14moving up because there is a harder
1:30:16boss.
1:30:17And they just haven't faced it yet.
1:30:19I suppose
1:30:20it's an easy way, you know, if you were
1:30:23uh going to a karate class and but you
1:30:26decided instead of going to the adult
1:30:28one to go to the one that's under 11s
1:30:30and you're going to kick the [ __ ] out of
1:30:31all of these
1:30:32Yeah. And you video it and you're like,
1:30:33look at me and it just happens to be
1:30:34that they're the same size as you and
1:30:36like just imagine they're like dumb on
1:30:37the inside but they're human you know,
1:30:38adult size and you're kicking the [ __ ]
1:30:39out of them. It's like, yeah, do it to
1:30:41Jones, right? Like not going to happen.
1:30:43And so like
1:30:46I'm going to say this
1:30:47I'm going to say I'm going to try and
1:30:48say this the way that I take this the
1:30:50way I mean it. I get comments from
1:30:52people who are like, love your humility,
1:30:53Alex. And like I don't think I'm that
1:30:55humble of a guy, being real, at least
1:30:57internally in my own head. But
1:31:00I am reminded daily of my inadequacy
1:31:03on the business game. Because like right
1:31:04now we've moved up a level in terms of
1:31:05like now we're now we're doing deals.
1:31:07Now we're investing in companies, we're
1:31:08taking on big risk, we're writing checks
1:31:09like the another level of the game than
1:31:12just only what not to say that only one
1:31:14business and growing it is not hard. It
1:31:15absolutely is a different kind of hard.
1:31:16But like I'm getting into this game and
1:31:17I'm absolutely the small fish. Like
1:31:20Warren Buffett made 90 billion dollars
1:31:22on the trade he made in Apple in 2020.
1:31:24One move, right? And so I'm like I am
1:31:27entering into a like how could I say
1:31:29that I'm good like
1:31:31even if I was exceptional, it's still
1:31:32going to take 20 years to prove it.
1:31:35So like I can't say anything. And by
1:31:37that point, I'll probably have other
1:31:38guys who are you know, who are [ __ ]
1:31:39titans at that point to remind me of the
1:31:41fact that I'm not as good as them. So
1:31:43in your estimation, is the presence of
1:31:47an ego something which artificially
1:31:49limits the size of the vision of how
1:31:52high you want to climb? Yeah, 100%
1:31:54because it's you cannot you can't both
1:31:57say that you are
1:31:59you cannot admit deficits and say you're
1:32:01awesome at the same time, in my opinion.
1:32:04Like I can't say like I suck at all
1:32:05these things and then also be like, I'm
1:32:07the best like you can't do it. You
1:32:08either like you suck at all these things
1:32:10and it's I think it's the Dunning-Kruger
1:32:11effect, which is like the more you the
1:32:13more you learn about something the more
1:32:14you like the more you realize you don't
1:32:15know. And so I think that if you have a
1:32:17tiny tiny subset of things that you are
1:32:19studying and a tiny subset of people
1:32:21you're comparing yourself to, then it's
1:32:22really easy to feel awesome about
1:32:24yourself. But if you compare yourself to
1:32:26I mean I compare myself every day to
1:32:28Warren Buffett.
1:32:30And like he's my him and Munger are like
1:32:31my heroes. Mostly cuz the way they lived
1:32:33life and what they like just everything
1:32:35about the way they lived is something
1:32:36that I just love. And like I have
1:32:40Buffett's net worth by age tracked and I
1:32:42have like mine tracked and I'm like, all
1:32:44right, just got to stay above that line.
1:32:45And like he's got he's got to love it at
1:32:47the moment. I am right now. But like I
1:32:48had a you know, like
1:32:50his world was different. Yeah. Like I
1:32:52got
1:32:53Warren didn't have Warren to learn from.
1:32:56Yes, very interesting. It's um I mean
1:32:59you took we spoke about this at the very
1:33:01very start where you were saying you
1:33:03have the opportunity of using the
1:33:05blueprint that has been laid down by me.
1:33:07Yeah. Like if you've got nothing to
1:33:08lose, do do the me thing. You know, you
1:33:11have all of the mistakes, all of the
1:33:13failures and all of the successes and uh
1:33:17there was another one where you said the
1:33:18rarer you are, the rarer the people are
1:33:20who share your perspective. In this way,
1:33:22the greater your success, the fewer
1:33:24people you can share it with. I was
1:33:25playing with this quote from Alain de
1:33:27Botton from the School of Life for ages,
1:33:29which was
1:33:30uh
1:33:32loneliness is a kind of tax you have to
1:33:34pay to atone for a certain complexity of
1:33:36mind. Mhm. And I'm really not sure
1:33:38because since I've been in Austin, the
1:33:40complexity of mind thing, which is that
1:33:42hasn't stopped, but the loneliness
1:33:44changed. Mhm.
1:33:45And I figured that that was a big
1:33:47function of change of environment and
1:33:48maybe like whatever, embracing or
1:33:50acceptance of of what was going on.
1:33:53But again, is this a byproduct of
1:33:56success that
1:33:59a lot of people don't necessarily
1:34:01realize it's a price that's going to be
1:34:03need to be paid. If you want to achieve
1:34:04a ton of success, you end up at this
1:34:06rarefied strata out in the troposphere
1:34:09somewhere and you're like, well, I've
1:34:10got like
1:34:11five people that I can talk to that
1:34:13understand what I'm going through at the
1:34:15moment. Or another question is, well,
1:34:17is that combination of hubris and
1:34:20self-delusion? Like is that true? Yeah.
1:34:22Are there things that the
1:34:24bus driver or the lady that serves you
1:34:25at Whole Foods can actually like relate
1:34:27to you on?
1:34:29So two questions. One is I would
1:34:31probably reject the notion that it's a
1:34:33price
1:34:34overall because like
1:34:37being in like if you think about it as a
1:34:39mountain, there's less there's less
1:34:41square footage at the top of the
1:34:42mountain. Just is. There's fewer people
1:34:43there. And the air is thinner. It's
1:34:45harder to get there, harder to breathe,
1:34:47right? You have to adjust to it. You
1:34:48have to acclimate. And the people that
1:34:50are around you, like there are fewer of
1:34:52them, but you could make the argument
1:34:53that they have even more context than
1:34:54anyone else possibly could. And so maybe
1:34:55the the relationships you have are
1:34:56potentially deeper. Even if they're not,
1:34:59humans don't need that many
1:35:00relationships. So like you just have a
1:35:02smaller pool to choose from, but like
1:35:04most people only have two or three good
1:35:05relationships in their life anyways. And
1:35:06so like you just have a narrower pool
1:35:08that you can make that selection from.
1:35:10And um I mean of the people that I have
1:35:12interacted with who are far above that
1:35:13above me on the mountain, um that's been
1:35:16their that's what they've relate to me.
1:35:19Um
1:35:21But it's only bad if you think it's a
1:35:22cost.
1:35:24If you're okay with it cuz there are
1:35:25plenty of people who are lonely right
1:35:26now and don't have [ __ ]
1:35:28So and there's you know, and you already
1:35:30know this, but like there's a difference
1:35:31between being lonely and solitude.
1:35:34You know, um
1:35:36and one is seen as bad, the other is
1:35:39seen as fine or good. So in in some
1:35:41circles that's seen as self-care. So
1:35:44uh so to me it just means that like I
1:35:47think your tolerance or your standard
1:35:51for friends raises. And
1:35:54I'll share this and hopefully it comes
1:35:56off the right way.
1:35:57I entered communities as I was coming up
1:36:00and was like, wow, everyone here is
1:36:01bigger than me. And then I was able to
1:36:04through achievement rise through that
1:36:05and then I lost context with that group.
1:36:08And so I think there's just more free
1:36:10agency of friendship that happens on
1:36:13your climb up because you're just moving
1:36:15between strata more frequently than it
1:36:18is that if I settled at one of these
1:36:19levels, then I would eventually find all
1:36:21the people at that rung. But if you're
1:36:23constantly on the move up the mountain,
1:36:24then more of that is in transitionary
1:36:26period on the on the climb. And it's
1:36:29only a problem if you hate it.
1:36:32I don't.
1:36:33What don't you hate? You don't hate the
1:36:35fact that sort of people come and go,
1:36:37that some of these relationships are
1:36:38kind of transient? Yeah, it just doesn't
1:36:40bother me.
1:36:42Cuz I think it's like a should
1:36:43statement, which is like one of my big
1:36:45things. It's like, why should I? Why
1:36:47does it have to be? Why must it? It
1:36:49doesn't must anything. It just is that
1:36:50way.
1:36:51And that's fine.
1:36:53Talking about social media, we mentioned
1:36:55this earlier on. What are your
1:36:57predictions for the next
1:37:01six months to couple of years in terms
1:37:04of what you think is going to be
1:37:06big, any focuses or any interesting
1:37:08trends that you're noticing at the
1:37:09moment?
1:37:12I will state first off that I'm not a
1:37:13social media expert by any stretch, but
1:37:15just you know, I think AI is going to be
1:37:17the main driving force behind the future
1:37:19of social media and I don't know how
1:37:22we're going to deal with it. Um I mean
1:37:24there's already the deep fakes of Rogan
1:37:25doing entire podcasts with Steve Jobs
1:37:27that have gone out there and the entire
1:37:29thing is both created and recorded with
1:37:31AI. And so I think it'll be really
1:37:33interesting because right now it's still
1:37:35not as good as the best creators, but in
1:37:37a few machine generations, it'll make
1:37:39the best content every time in seconds.
1:37:42And I'm not sure what's going to happen.
1:37:45I think that I know the verification
1:37:46check mark is going to matter more.
1:37:48It'll change in its meaning. Right now
1:37:49it means status, in the future it'll
1:37:50mean real person. Um
1:37:53so that I'll make that prediction that
1:37:56the verification of bot versus human
1:37:57will become more important in the
1:37:58future. I can make that prediction. Um
1:38:01and that there will be more AI generated
1:38:03content in the future than there is
1:38:04today.
1:38:05Um
1:38:06and how we respond to it, I don't know.
1:38:09It's scary to think that what we
1:38:11basically had for the last
1:38:13five years or so since the algorithm
1:38:15started to get really tight is a
1:38:18three-way feedback mechanism from
1:38:20algorithms designing
1:38:23better delivered content to users. It
1:38:25also nudges the users' preferences so
1:38:28that they are easier and more
1:38:29predictable to predict. That was that
1:38:31two-way street was something I learned
1:38:32from Stuart Russell, he's [ __ ]
1:38:33amazing. Uh everybody needs to
1:38:35understand that. It's not just you
1:38:37programming the algorithm, it's the
1:38:38algorithm programming you. And it's one
1:38:40of the reasons that it explains
1:38:41increasing division and extremity
1:38:43because if you are far right or far left
1:38:45or super whatever or super the other
1:38:47thing, it makes you way easier to
1:38:49predict and that's a byproduct of any
1:38:51algorithmic optimizing function.
1:38:54And then the third element of that is
1:38:55audience capture by the creators because
1:38:57they are the third element of the
1:38:59creation of the content, right? That
1:39:00they go, "How
1:39:01how well did that perform? Uh well,
1:39:04we'll red meat that a little bit more
1:39:05and a little bit more and a little bit
1:39:06more." And then you end up on your knees
1:39:07like cooking for the audience, right?
1:39:10Yeah. The fourth element of this is
1:39:13going to be then you are able to
1:39:16algorithmically create content that
1:39:18understands the back end of the
1:39:20algorithm, that can nudge preferences,
1:39:22and can get feedback, and all of that. I
1:39:25mean, that to me is
1:39:27[ __ ] me, if we think that, you know,
1:39:28like the degree of overbearingness
1:39:32that social has on our lives at the
1:39:33moment, like that's a very, very big
1:39:36deal. We could cut out the middle man.
1:39:38The creator being the middle man, and
1:39:39then it just becomes a vertically
1:39:41integrated platform that creates content
1:39:43on its own using AI and just feeds it
1:39:45directly to the audience. That's what I
1:39:46said, as soon as those
1:39:48the AI images of hot girls came out and
1:39:51then ChatGPT, you go, "Look, like
1:39:53OnlyFans, you're no longer an agency,
1:39:55you're now a tech company." That should
1:39:57be the move that you make. Every single
1:39:58person should have their own curated
1:40:01wifey, girlfriend online, and that's
1:40:04that's what you that's your thing. And
1:40:07it would be infinitely scalable, you
1:40:08know, like the perfect dirty talk,
1:40:10completely curated and twiddled to your
1:40:12specific whatever it is.
1:40:14Uh but
1:40:17that doesn't bode particularly well for
1:40:18how much limbic hijack and freedom
1:40:20people have from social media, because
1:40:21it is only going to become more and more
1:40:23compelling,
1:40:24which isn't necessarily a good thing. I
1:40:26mean, I
1:40:27good, bad, no idea.
1:40:29Um
1:40:30I I think there'll probably be a little
1:40:32bit of a counter movement um
1:40:34of people who want to do more things in
1:40:35person.
1:40:36Make social media human again.
1:40:38Well, you know, an interesting thought
1:40:39experiment that I had, I was like, cuz
1:40:41we've we've taken some things, and I I
1:40:43do think AI's going to happen, but like
1:40:44as in it will continue.
1:40:46Um but I was like,
1:40:48we accept all technology as inevitable.
1:40:51And I was thinking about this, and I was
1:40:52like, has there ever been a technology
1:40:53that humans have created that we were
1:40:55like, "Nah, we shouldn't do this." I
1:40:58thought about it, I was like, there is
1:40:59one. Nuclear bombs.
1:41:01We all were like,
1:41:03"I think it's better if we don't. We
1:41:05should just not do this." And everyone
1:41:06just like agreed, we're like, "We're not
1:41:07going to do this."
1:41:08And I I think the the rate of AI, how
1:41:12disaggregated it is, like will prevent
1:41:14that from happening, but I just thought
1:41:15about that as like it just there hasn't
1:41:17been any other technological thing that
1:41:19I've seen besides nuclear bombs that we
1:41:21all together were like, "This isn't good
1:41:22for us." Have you seen how tabletop
1:41:25genetic sequencing machines work? No.
1:41:28This is a really good example of what
1:41:29you're talking about. So,
1:41:31the way that pretty much all of them are
1:41:33cloud-based,
1:41:35and in order to sequence whatever it is
1:41:37that you're looking to sequence, it
1:41:38sends the the request up to the cloud.
1:41:40And there's three gradings, there's
1:41:41green, amber, and red. And if it's
1:41:43green, you can just do it, no one
1:41:44checks. If there's amber, you have to
1:41:45submit a proposal for what it is, where
1:41:48it's going, BSL level, et cetera,
1:41:50security, security. If it's red, you
1:41:51just can't do it. And then, presumably,
1:41:53someone comes around and goes, "Excuse
1:41:55me, what the [ __ ] are you doing? Trying
1:41:56to make smallpox." Yeah. Um but that
1:41:59there's been I think it's
1:42:02either two or three times in the history
1:42:05of gene sequencing there has been a a
1:42:08moratorium placed globally on this.
1:42:11Everyone's gone Every [ __ ] machine
1:42:13goes off. Everything stop until we work
1:42:15out what's going on. So, there are
1:42:17situations
1:42:18It's a great example, like cloning
1:42:19humans.
1:42:20As you just said,
1:42:21as soon as you start to atomize that and
1:42:24disaggregate it and distribute it
1:42:25between enough different actors, Yeah.
1:42:27how are you going to be able to control,
1:42:29you know, and and the the other thing is
1:42:31with genetic sequencing, the the kind of
1:42:34machines that you need, the hardware is
1:42:36complex.
1:42:37Yeah, and it's expensive and it's rare.
1:42:38Yeah. The hardware is not complex for
1:42:40Anybody can code. And the reward is
1:42:43everything. It's the world. It's the
1:42:44world. It's It's It's domination. It's
1:42:47money. It's success. It's all of those
1:42:49things. This is why I don't know, man,
1:42:50like the [ __ ] the techno-optimist
1:42:52thing, ever since I read
1:42:53Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom five
1:42:55or six years ago, I just don't see an
1:42:58AGI future where stuff doesn't get
1:43:00[ __ ] Uh I don't know what whether we
1:43:03get the general bit of AGI, super AGI is
1:43:05like still up for a big part of debate.
1:43:08But if you end up creating this very
1:43:10strange world in which everyone's
1:43:11limbically hijacked with their own
1:43:13personal newsfeed of like perfectly
1:43:15Remember Cambridge Analytica and the um
1:43:18the scandals around the Hillary Clinton
1:43:20ads? It's like, "I know your
1:43:21preferences, and we're going to create
1:43:22these perfectly done ads." It's like,
1:43:23"Okay, I mean, the ads were still
1:43:25created by a human, and it was still you
1:43:26were bucketed into a content with other
1:43:28men of this age with these interests in
1:43:30this area with these voting habits."
1:43:32Imagine if every single newsfeed, not
1:43:34just post, newsfeed was perfectly
1:43:37curated to maximize time on site.
1:43:38Chris."
1:43:39Like it's the first line of every ad.
1:43:41Yeah. Crazy. Wow. But it might just be
1:43:43the same as email the first time there
1:43:44was personalized email. All of a sudden
1:43:45you you stop becoming responsive to your
1:43:47own name.
1:43:48Um
1:43:49So, like I think there'll I think
1:43:50there'll there'll there'll be push-pull
1:43:52um
1:43:53on that stuff, but uh I'm with you on
1:43:55the
1:43:56AGI long-term. You know, as a as a as a
1:43:59weird thought experiment, if you think
1:44:00about what God looks like in terms of
1:44:02most most definitions, they're like an
1:44:03omniscient, omnipotent being. And I
1:44:05think we're just creating that. Like,
1:44:07what does AI know? It knows everything.
1:44:10Right? What can it do? Everything
1:44:11immediately.
1:44:13Like, weird.
1:44:15Usually, God would be benevolent.
1:44:18Yes. Rolling the benevolence in there
1:44:20Yeah, yeah. might be good if we could.
1:44:23It's long God's long-term benevolent.
1:44:25Uh but short-term sometimes mean Yeah,
1:44:27you are true.
1:44:28wrath. Yeah.
1:44:29It almost always is.
1:44:31What are you working on now? What can
1:44:32people expect from you next? Uh 100
1:44:35Million Leads, 100 Million Dollar Leads,
1:44:37which is the second book in the 100
1:44:39Million Dollar series,
1:44:41um is going to come out this year. Uh
1:44:43so, that's exciting. Uh we will we will
1:44:45be done
1:44:46the the edited final draft uh within 7
1:44:49days. So, I'm like, it's been uh we put
1:44:51in 3,500 hours um together, my editor
1:44:54and I, um combined over the last 2 years
1:44:57doing it. So, it is the first 4 to 6
1:44:59hours of my day every day. Like, before
1:45:01I came here, I was editing the book, and
1:45:02that's what I did yesterday, and that's
1:45:03what I did the before.
1:45:05Um
1:45:06So, that it could be really, really
1:45:07good. And so, that's that's the that's
1:45:09the big creative side of me is the is
1:45:13the book. It'll be 99 cents. There you
1:45:15go. I get 33 of that, by the way. Um
1:45:18Yes. Yeah, right. I'm going to get rich.
1:45:20Um and then the rest of my life is all
1:45:22about deals. It's just we've got some
1:45:23really interesting companies that we're
1:45:24investing in.
1:45:26Um they're very, very pumped on that
1:45:27side.
1:45:28Um
1:45:29So, yeah, if you've got a $1 to $10
1:45:30million EBITDA business, uh
1:45:33and you would like a growth partner, go
1:45:34to acquisition.com and let us know.
1:45:37Dude, I really appreciate you. I really,
1:45:38really enjoyed this today. It's been
1:45:40cool to come and see Dude, thank you for
1:45:41having me. Appreciate it. Hopefully, the
1:45:43audience got what they wanted.
1:45:45What's happening, people? Thank you very
1:45:47much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that
1:45:49episode, then press here for a selection
1:45:51of the best clips from the podcast over
1:45:53the last few weeks. And don't forget to
1:45:55subscribe.
1:45:57Peace.

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Success Is Just a Side Effect of Following These Principles - Alex Hormozi by Chris Williamson, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 23,645 words across 3,540 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.