How The 1% BUILD WEALTH (Copy These Millionaire Habits) | Alex Hormozi

Alex, hermosi, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, dude. I cannot be more excited, so I want to dive right in. If somebody is starting from scratch, what are the traits, skill sets that they should be cultivating in order to up the odds of their success?

They should focus on one thing in general, rather than lots of different things that you're not sure about. Because if you're starting out, everything looks like an opportunity. So the correct answer is all of them are opportunities, but all of them won't work unless you pick one right. So you have to say no to all the other mistresses. So boom, you pick one. And then from there, I always say six figures is sell something to someone; that's it. And if you want more detail, sell something to someone. So it's one avatar, one product, one channel. So you don't have to figure out how do I create 20 pieces of content across—it's like just pick one channel, one media source, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, you know, whatever, Twitter—consistently start going on that. Whether that's cold outbound, whether that's content, whether it's running paid ads, whether it's affiliates, word of mouth, whatever it is, um, start reaching out to people there to start selling your stuff. And so if you can just do that consistently—and I use something—all right, what's the skill set that's going to make somebody good? And this is six figures still, yeah. So what's the skill set in that? Is it getting good at the outbound? Is it good and good at saying no to the other stuff? Like how do we translate that into a skill set?

You have to learn how to advertise, which I define as the process of making known. So how do you let other people know about the stuff you sell? So you have to advertise; there's six ways to do it. I covered five just now, so there's there's six ways you can do it. And then once people engage with whatever advertisement you have, you have to sell them. Advertising is the first skill; selling them is the second skill; and then product would be the third skill, which is the thing that you're ultimately advertising and selling. Okay, so that gets us six figures. What gets a seven? Doing the same thing consistently. So usually once people do it in the beginning, they're sporadic; they're not consistent with it. Just the act of doing the same thing every day usually gets people to 100,000 a month, which sounds crazy—it's probably people listening—but most people who think that's crazy also haven't done it consistently for an extended period of time. And so I use something that I call the rule 100, which is 100 primary actions, whether that's 100 minutes of of content creation per day, 100 reach outs per day, uh, 100 of ad spend per day, uh, like you have to pick one of them, but 100 per day, and you do that for 100 days, and I promise you'll have—you'll be making six figures if you do that.

Most people won't. Yeah, I know, you know that they will fail at something. What is the most common thing that you see people fail? So you give them the blueprint; your ability to articulate a blueprint to success is insane, legitimately insane, dude. When I—so I'm gonna make a prediction right now: five years from now, in this space, you will be one of the biggest people on social media, 100% guaranteed, YouTube, podcast, whatever, because your advice is real. And I said I—I was about to tell you something, and I said I'm going to say it on camera, and I will tell you right now: I judge everybody that comes on the show by—when I'm doing the research to bring you on, which is a way bigger time investment than the interview itself—did I actually learn something? Did I move forward? Did I enjoy myself? Dude, it was awesome researching you; it was awesome; it was good for the business; it was good for the soul; good for the mindset, everything. So this is going to be incredible. But where do people fall down? Because most people, even knowing how articulate you are and know that people are still going to fail, is crazy, and I know that most people are going to fail, so where—where do people really struggle in that equation?

I think it's fear, mostly. Um, I know that's not a skill, but I think it's a character trait. And so people are afraid of val—you know, not getting validated, or they're afraid of judgment that they perceive from other people that exist or don't exist in their lives. Um, and so for whatever reason, they have this second voice that criticizes everything they do that in reality isn't even there, but it's constantly present. It's like the antithesis of whatever the god figure is, but just the negative voice. And so I think that's the thing that stops most people from doing the stuff they know they need to do. Because if you think about like whether it's—want to get in shape, or I want to have a better marriage, or I want to make more money—most people on some level, at a basic level, they know what to do. And my proof point of like even making money, right? Most of us have had a bill that came up that was unexpected—a tax bill, a car breaks down, a health thing, whatever it is—and we find a way. And so when it's for someone else, people are—will use the actual resourcefulness that they have to make the money, but for whatever reason they won't use that same resourcefulness to make it for themselves. And so I think that most people know—if they want to work out, uh, start to get in shape, or to lose weight, whatever—they know they need to eat fewer donuts and move more in general, but they don't, right? Because they're afraid of getting started, or they don't have the discipline to keep going, which is—they can't make the short-term sacrifice for the long-term achievement. So big picture, it's like there's usually some fear that's preventing from doing it. And then how it looks from a behavioral standpoint is they do not make the short-term sacrifice of discomfort for the long-term achievement, independent of whatever path they're talking about. You guys are going to want to say to the end—I'm going to give you my favorite Alex quote, but now I'm going to give you one that I actually think pertains to this. So you said, how to stay poor: assume you're always right. Yeah. And when I think about people failing, it's because—in fact, there's another quote—this one I didn't write down, but I'm going to get close: marketing is just a fancy nine-letter word for test. And once people understand you're going to fail, and you're going to fail a lot—if you can't deal with that failure, yeah, if you think that failing makes you a failure, if you think that it's a permanent state of being and you're never going to get better, then you won't do the things you need to do to ultimately be successful. You talk about consistency, but it isn't just consistency, because if you do it wrong, yeah, consistently, you're still going to fail, right? So this is—you have to be, in my own language, willing to stare nakedly at your inadequacies. Yeah. And if you can stare nakedly at your inadequacies, then you can actually get better. If you're running the tests and you're like, hey, looking at the data, did this work or did this not work? 100. Then you can actually improve. But you went through this—so in the beginning of your career, and this is one of the things I find most interesting about your story, is you failed—you actually pulled your now wife aside and said, I'm a sinking ship. Yeah. Uh, and if you wanted to leave, I would completely understand. Yeah. Uh, how did you go from that to—like there was something you figured out. Yeah, what—what is that thing you figured out?

Laughs. I think at that point, um, the—the reality of my situation was so bleak that I—I didn't conf—I honestly didn't even process the reality of my situation, because the more I thought about it, like the sadder, more hopeless I would feel. And so I focused on the few things that were under my control, which is like I can do these things. And so when I talk about advertising, I want to talk about selling; I talk about those things boiled down to the actual actions, because I had to think of it in that way, because it was the only way that it wasn't overwhelming. It's like I just have to make a hundred reach outs, or I just have to spend 100 a day, and I have to look at the ads, and I have to turn off the ones that are bad and do more of the stuff that starts to work. Um, and—and that—that was the process of getting me from kind of like dark to a better—a better outcome. But I mean, from that actual point, we did the only thing we knew how to do, which was at market and sell, and that was—that was how we got out of that. And honestly, that—that single skill of being able to generate leads, um, independent of the industry, has been like my get out of jail free card, um, which has allowed me to fail over and over and over again until finally, you know, I got it right. And even after that one, when we were at the rock bottom there, I had just—you know, nine—90 days earlier—got in a DUI, my mom was in the hospital, um, really bad shape, uh, that's when I had just lost all the money, which is when I pulled her aside. But then fast forward six months, basically repeated the cycle again, which is—I had—we had started doing these launches where he'd fly out and and turn gyms around, like Bar Rescue but for gyms, and when we were out there, uh, all of a sudden we came back home and we saw like two of the gyms refunded all of the transactions; they just told the people they could just sign up through them and just do it for half the rate after we had already spent the money for the hotels and the flights and all the ad spent and every, you know, a whole month of work. And so basically all the money that we had saved up in that—like I think we're out of jail free—lost it all again. Um, and only then did we accidentally, um, pivot into the licensing model, which ended up becoming the thing that was like the first very big success that we had. But like that whole period of time was five years of basically not having anything, even though on, you know, on paper, when I had the gyms, I materially looked successful because we had six locations, but I always just put all my money back into each, you know, each new location, so I had very little actual cash. I was asset rich and cash poor. I know that's real. Yeah. All right. And so—but then when I lost everything after that because I sold them, took the money, put in the new venture, and then lost it, I was like, wait, I just lost five years because I had nothing to show for it. And so that's probably what—what has created a lot of the hypothesis I have now around—I didn't lose the five years; I lost the assets, which were not the most valuable thing that I had earned over that time; it was the skills, the experiences, the character traits, because I still had those. And then using those three things, I was able to do the next thing. Unfortunately, um, yeah, I'm obsessed with learning. Yes. And it's interesting because I've had the level of success that I've had, and because I'm technically middle-aged, it's just crazy to say—I used to be the kid—I swear to God, uh, it is—it's really—there's a gravitational center in my brain that wants me to think that I have crossed some line, yeah, and that it's about looking backwards, and it's really dangerous. Like you have to be looking for—I mean, God willing, I've got, you know, another 40 plus years of life left, and every time that I get in that trap, it's—I just re-anchor around—wow, I'm still learning like all this stuff. I'm 46, but I've learned so much; I failed so many times, and I've acquired so much knowledge and skill set and all of that. And then you can think about—oh, cool, like as long as I've got the energy to keep pushing, to keep building, because I have to—your earliest point about what makes you successful—it's the—that is literally my kryptonite is I have a very hard time accepting the fact that I can do anything I want with my life, but not everything, yeah, and that I find deeply distressing, but like on a level that borders on mental illness. Yeah. And by focusing, cutting out the other stuff, and recognizing—okay, I've reinvented myself again, yeah, but a lot of that knowledge is going to transfer; it's going to be useful as I push forward. But getting obsessed with learning, yeah, like that would be the gift if I could give to people and say, okay, you—you want to be successful? I get it; everybody wants it, right? Now. But if you can stack these skills like—then if you've got the skill set and the methodology that you know you and others can really lay out incredibly well, it's like now you can do something. But if you have the methodology but not the skills, or you don't have the mindset and so you're broken by the failure, or you don't have the methodology—if you're missing any one of those, then you end up in a death spiral. Yeah. It's interesting what you're saying with the learning thing, because um, I think a lot of people said like the early—because I—I also have like I feel like two parts of the audience is that like follow my stuff—I've got the business owners who are trying to scale their business, etc., and then I've got all the people who want to start a business, and usually they're a little bit younger and whatnot. And I think there's a misnomer around like education. And so a lot of them—I don't know how explicit I can be—but like they mentally masturbate, so watching lots and lots of videos, they, you know, want the pump-up features; they buy the tickets to the things. And so they just learn, and I think that they think that exposure to information is learning, and I don't think that's true, or at least it hasn't been for me. So definitely not sure. So, you know, because I'm sure you get asked all the time like what are the books that you know transform your life, and I've had a handful of books that have been useful to me, but I would say 99 of the things that I have learned I've learned—they're doing. And so when I do the original rule of 100 and whatnot, it's because I think it's the most effective way to learn, which is—you force yourself on the one controllable that you have, which is the activities that you can take, and then it goes with the underlying assumption that you go off feedback and you're like, well, that opening message did not work. Yeah, right? And then I think most people have a dramatic underestimation of how much volume it takes to be successful, independent of the thing, right? They're like, okay, I should go on five dates and then find the girl I'm gonna marry. It's like, what if it was 500? To find the right girl you're going to marry, or I want to, you know, start this—this new channel, or I want to—honest—become an influencer, whatever it is, and they start doing, you know, one post a day for four weeks, and they're like, why am I not famous yet? And they find—I mean, real—true—and they find out that like, you know, we ended up doing 400 episodes before we made it to the top 10 on the podcast thing, and now we start doing, you know, 100 plus pieces of content a week, and it's just this volume game that you get the—the skill from the volume, the feedback from the volume, and there's all these like little things—I'm sure it's like from the exercise world because you come from that—um, like when you squat the first time you squat, you're—you're orienting yourself to your environment; you're barely actually squatting; you're just looking like you have a bar on your back, but you learn so much between that first rep and your ten thousandth rep of squats. And so I think for most people it's like—if we can—if I—my goal—like you with the learning—is like if I can just decrease the action threshold for people to begin and be okay with the fact that they're going to—to suck, and it is okay to suck; it is—you should expect to suck, and it would be unreasonable for you to be good if you haven't done it before. And so it's like—are you asking the universe to be unreasonable for you by expecting to be good on your first try? And I think that's where a lot of people—it's the expectation that destroys their ability to be successful, because they expect to win on the first shot, and no one does. Do you worry at all about people wanting to be on camera right from the jump, because that puts an expectation to be good?

Oh yeah, that's rough. Um, I think it's so much—if we're—so many—so many feelings about this. Um, so you've got—you've got this whole space, right? And you look at like—if you're like, I want to be a business influencer, right? Well, it's like—we look at the guys who actually at the top of the business game, and virtually everyone—you, Andy, Ed, Gary, all those guys have killed in business, and most of them—even Gary—had gone to 60 million a year before he made his first content. And so I think the issue is that people look at that and say, I should make content like them, when you don't have—you can't answer the underlying question, which is—why should I listen to you? Which is always in the back of every audience—is mine, in my opinion at least; that's what I think—like when someone's like a relationship expert and I find out they've been divorced three times, I'm like, yeah, you know, maybe not, right? I mean, and as terrible as it is, they might be giving amazing advice, but it doesn't pass the first filter, which is—if I'm going to take military strategy from someone, I'd rather have a general that has a winning record, even if the other guy—Napoleon—said I'd rather have lucky generals. So even if you had two that were even, you'd rather have the lucky one. And so to the same degree, I think people use that filter because it actually takes less effort to learn from someone that you trust. And so it's like—if you've got the—the basement teacher that's telling you the dollar cost average of the S&P, and you've got Warren Buffett who's telling people to dollar cost average in the S&P, they don't want to listen to the teacher, even if the teacher is better objectively from a constant standpoint, because they just don't know if they should trust them. So you have to have two filters—I'm hearing the thing—sure, I trust the thing with Warren; you can just plug into whatever he's saying, just take it as truth, which takes less effort. And so I think most people don't get that point. And so I think you should make content, but the—if you're—or you should advertise the stuff that you sell; let people know about what you're doing, um, but it should be about the true expertise that you have, which is oftentimes just talking about the stuff you're doing, rather than saying—you should be doing this; this is what I am doing; hope you find it interesting; hope you find it valuable. And I think that's a big dynamic, which at first is like—how to—it's how I—just that little shift, and I think a lot of people would get much bigger, better audiences and actually make more money from the content that they're making, because everyone else is like—why should I listen to you? Yeah, yeah, with content—like I'm—I'm open; anybody that wants to make it—make it; people will watch it if it's adding value. Hopefully they don't do what you were describing earlier, which I'll call spiritual entertainment, where they're just learning—learning—learning—watching—watching—watching—getting motivated—getting inspired; they're not doing anything with it. But my big concern with people creating content is that they will trap themselves because they're afraid to suck. Like when I got a new camera, I was like, wow, I'm really rolling the dice now, because my life has taught me one immutable truth: I'm going to fail a lot, and there's nothing that tells me that that period in my life is over. Like—and—and it was never interesting to me to like ride into the sunset on—oh, I sold Quest. So I sold Quest, and then like [ __ ] Babe Ruth. I said, I'm gonna build the next Disney, right? Yeah. But I went on camera and said, look, honestly, the odds are stacked against me; the odds that I fail are way higher than I—that I succeed, right? And so going into that, I did not want to back myself into a corner where I was afraid to try things; I was afraid to step into an area where I wasn't good, because it's the only way that I know to get better, right? Which I call the physics of progress; I call it the physics for a reason. So I think it is truly the only way to improve, yeah, is basically the scientific method: you come up with an informed hypothesis, come up with a test that lets you actually try that out, you test it, you get results, you stare nakedly at those results, which will sting a little because it almost certainly did not work as well as you hoped, yeah, you will then get a little bit wiser, you will reformulate a hypothesis, you will retest, and you just—that's the loop, right? And you just go—go, and you see what works and you see what doesn't. But people are so interested in looking cool, yeah, that the content becomes the trap that stops them from actually getting good; it's the posturing; it's the external validation that they need to feel like the success they're not having in reality can be made up for with likes and comments and perceived success. Talk to me about the—so you said that you wanted to vanquish your dad. Yeah. So this—to me—is tied to that idea of like—you—you need something that propels you; you need something that pushes you to go through all of this, but also—trying—letting your dad control your actions is probably not the best move. Yeah. So like—how is it useful? And then—is there—getting to the other side of that? Yeah. So—um, and you know, to be clear, Dad, uh, the—I would say that the vanquishing thing is something that I was able to kind of recognize in retrospect, which was—it was all about beating my dad earlier on. So—and a lot of that was because I felt like a lot of the respect was withheld from me earlier on, and it was always like a moving target, which is—you know, if you need to be this, you need to be that—you have to be in shape; you have to date hot girls; you have to be top your class; you have to play all the Varsity Sports—like all those things, right?—be editor to the newspaper, be editor-in-chief of the—of the literary magazine—all those things at the same time. And still, if I got something wrong on a test, it was like—would you get wrong, you know, rather than—this is cool; I'm not 99 right; yeah, I'm not boohooing about it; is what it is; it's made me who I am, and I'm grateful for it. Um, but that was kind of the—the earlier part was I wanted to win the game that had been set out for me. And you know, first it was make a hundred thousand a year, and then it was make uh the same amount of—amount as my dad, and then it was make more than my dad, and then it was make more than my dad had ever made his entire life. And then once that happened, I looked around and I was like—I think I've been playing his game and not my game. And so I wasn't really setting any rules; I was just playing with the rules that were given to me. And so—and kind of thing like—is this even the game I want to play? And so that, you know, that took me, you know, a little bit of time to process. Um, and I think that—it ultimately—to your question—I think it did serve me a lot.

And I don't know how much of these reinforced behaviors that I learned during that period of time still benefit me today, but they're not fueled by the same thing. So I still have these habits of how I work and, and you know, being dedicated towards goals, etc., that I think were born of that but no longer are fueled from that.

Now you lay out three traits of ultra-successful people. Yeah, I don't know if they're yours or if you know them somewhere. They're not mine, so so brilliant. And when you said it, you put words to something that I have felt for a very long time. Yeah, um, if you don't remember them, I have them here, but if you remember them, I remember them. Yes, uh, and so it's there's three traits that people then they looked at because they were trying to find Habits of Highly Successful People. And when they actually pulled apart it's not, you know, and I hope I'm not contradicting anything, um, but there's people who are really rich who wake up really late and work really late, and there's people really rich who wake up really really early, and there's people who really rich who eat really healthy, and there's people really rich who drink Coca-Cola and eat french fries every day. And so there's all these things that we want to make as truths, but there there's easy examples that counter those things. So it's like what are the few things that are true, or at least that seem to be present in all of the situations? And it seems as though they were surprisingly fit. And so the three common traits that they had that they had found were: one, that people have a superiority complex; they believe they're better than others, and they believe that they deserve more than everyone else does, and that they can accomplish big goals. Right? So they have a bigger Vision because they believe they deserve it, or whatever it is that they were able to identify.

The second thing that they would identify is that they had crippling insecurity, and which which is a paradox of paradoxes; they feel they'll never be enough, um, and they'll always be measured against the things that they've achieved. And so you've got this crazy dynamic between they they think they're better than everyone, they think they deserve more, they want to go after this big hill, and at the same time they fear they'll never be good enough and they'll never actually achieve it, and they actually suck.

And then the third piece, which kind of adds the beautiful like mix of this, is impulse control. And so they're able to control their actions and focus on a single thing for an extended period of time. And so if you put those three things together, it's like you've got a big goal that's pulling you this way, you've got this big fear that you are running away from, and then you've got impulse control to keep you focused on the one thing that matters. Yes. And if you do that, if you if you are the type of person who has the those traits, then you are very likely to be successful.

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You gave me the chills twice while you were explaining that. So this is I'm often asked like, hey, you know, what does it take to be successful, or how did I get successful? And I'm like, from the time I was a little kid, so I grew up lower middle class, and but from the time I was a kid, I told everybody, I am going to be rich. Like you don't understand, I'm going to be rich. I was so angered by not being able to get the things that I wanted as a kid, and I had a little problem with authority, and so I felt like I was being told that I had this box to stay in, and I was like, no, no. I had always had these crazy dreams, and I just believed I could make it come true. Yeah, but I'm terrifyingly insecure that I'm not smart enough to pull it off. Yeah, and I have something I need to prove to myself, to my wife, my father-in-law, my own parents, like I just [ __ ] no matter how much I achieve, I still have this. Right? So I I have this crushing need to validate myself and to feel like, no, you really did it. Have a kid. Yes, and but I am psychotic at my ability to delay gratification. Yeah, like I can suffer and toil and grind and just like, I don't need to eat the marshmallow for a hundred years. Right? Which is stupid in some ways, but you put those three things together, and you just go and go and go. It's really, again, sorry.

Yeah, so to the marshmallow point, because I think this is really interesting, and I don't think it's talked about enough, which is they they like to separate the kids into the two buckets, right? Like uh, the kid who waits for two marshmallows and the kid who just says, I want the marshmallow now. But I feel like they should have a third bucket which says, how long do they ask the kid to wait for the marshmallow? Right? Because it's not do you have like, because I like to think of things and like a lot of times we have false dichotomies, or we have binaries where like good or bad, you know, disciplined or undisciplined, I'm honest or dishonest. Right? When I think more reality is to what degree am I honest, to what extent am I disciplined, to what degree am I, you know, loyal? Oh God, there's a whole conversation. Yeah, yeah. And so I think that each of those three that we just went over, it's it's not do I have them or not for the people who are listening, because people like to think, yes, I have it or like, oh well, I have all three of those. It's not having them, and I'm sure you've interviewed some of the most successful people on the planet; it's how much do you have. Yeah, right. And so I think that like your ability to delay gratification, it's not just like, oh, I can wait a week or I can wait a month, but it I made this tweet that went pretty viral; it was like, if you can wait a year, you can make a ton of money. Like if you can do something for 12 months, you cannot need for financial goodness pretty much for the rest of your life. I'm not saying you're gonna be hella rich, right? But you're not going to need for anything if you can wait 12 months. If you can wait a decade, you're going to be above the one percent. If you can wait 10 years for an outcome, be able to do the doing without seeing the result for 10 years, you will be able to be above any most achievement of most people. And if you can wait a lifetime, and you don't even need to see the result of your doing this even while you are alive, but know that it may get done after you pass, then I I believe that you can change the world, and I mean that. And so I think that if people can just extend the time Horizon that they're measuring themselves on, they can just do so much more. I mean, you've probably heard the Bill Gates quote where he says, people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. I think it's the same thing, just continue to draw it out. And I think as I've as we've been able to, you know, achieve more leverage and make more money, etc., my Horizon has extended. And when I listen to the people who are the people who I want to emulate, I can almost tell by the measurement of money that they talk about and the measurement of time that they discussed how successful they are or how successful I think they're going to be. Like if I talk to a 25-year-old and he's talking about what he wants to do in two decades and his whole plan of what he's going to do, as long as he's not just blowing smoke because he's heard an interview from me, um, then I'm like, this kid's got it, he gets it, he gets it. And most people just don't think they can't wait 90 days; that most people can't even wait a month. Right? They start a diet, and 14 days later they don't have a six-pack, and they can't wait. But like if you do a year, you can look whatever way you want for the most part, you know, by and large. And if you wait a year for the ability to learn how to sell, you wait a year for the ability to learn how to Market, wait a year just providing value to a group of people for free and then delaying your ask, you can do whatever you want now.

And I don't know how you can react to this if we can separate that idea from being patient. Yeah, so I made a shirt that said [ __ ] patience. Okay, but yeah, if you're not playing the long game, you're screwed. So my thing with patience is you have to go all out at a sprinter's pace, totally, and run a marathon at a sprinter's pace if you want to achieve something. Yeah, that's where people fall down. You'll find people that can wait, but can they—and this is one of my all-time favorite quotes, I'm pretty sure it's Winston Churchill, though people often attribute things to him—yeah, who knows—uh, success is the ability to go from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. Now there are people that can go from failure to failure, but do they lose the enthusiasm? Can they attack it as hard? I was telling you at the at the end of this year, we have a plastic table that I'm going to smash into little pieces because it has come to represent like the hardest thing that I've built in my professional career; they're just all the [ __ ] problems that have been associated with it, and but I'm still going after it. It's hard every day. And when I think about like, so because I've had success and I know how many people are chasing it, I can just say, people, a lot of time, it's not going to give you what you think it's going to give you, so like don't bother chasing that kind of success. Yeah, uh, so an easy way to say it is, uh, don't worry about winning a championship ring; worry very much about becoming capable of a championship performance; that will be a far more interesting life because you really do want to get that good. Yeah, but in the pursuit of that thing, in getting that good, it's like it is going to take an inhuman amount of concentration, willingness to fight through the pain and suffering, and an ability to attach enough meaning and purpose to it, yeah, that you'll keep going when you're just getting kicked in the space over and over; like it's crazy. Yeah, and so knowing how badly people want that, I want for them that thing, like how whatever it is, and and I have a method that I can teach people how to do it, but most people still won't do it, which is to build the desire, to create an association between the doing that thing, yeah, and the meaning and purpose that you want to have for your own life, and that it's not going to seem self-evident; you have to bolt it on; it feels kind of fake in the beginning, but if you really invest, and it really is something that you care about, it can't be fake, but if it really is something that you care about and you build that intense Association, then you can fight through that. But boredom kills more entrepreneurs than fear or failure ever will.

When you say boredom, do you mean that they're starting something, it's starting to work, and then they just switch because they're ADD? Or no? I mean that doing something where you don't get the result that you want, and it's 10 years out, and you're going to have to do what Jeff Bezos calls overhead. Right? No matter how much you love your job, there's always overhead; there's boring [ __ ]. Yeah, and what I find is people, they can't stay on task. Yeah, I find in myself a strong desire not to stay on task because it is boring; it's just boring, or even worse, if it feels bad. Yeah, and you have to keep doing it, and you have to wake up every day and face that like, this is really going to be tough, and it's going to be tough for a very an undetermined amount of time. Yeah, so it's not even like I know it's going to be a year; yeah, it's there's an unknown amount of suffering before me, and I have to somehow continue to muster the enthusiasm and have faith, yeah, that this theory that I have is actually going to work out, or that I'll get better. Right? That maybe this Theory isn't the Right theory, but I'll be able to figure it out.

It's interesting you say that because, um, we talk about need-to-beliefs when we're thinking about a company that we want to like invest in, and so it's like, what are the, you know, we try to have as few native beliefs as possible for, you know, a growth thesis to happen, um, and then not only do we want to have as few as possible, interesting need-to-believe, like I need to believe that this is true for this outcome to be possible. Yeah, so how do we have as few of those as possible, and how do we have that those need-to-believe statements are as high-likely as humanly possible? Right? So it's like, do like, if we had a business that was reliant on, and you know, an inflationary period or something, I'd say like, okay, well, I believe that that's, you know, high likelihood that it's going to occur. Okay, so I feel okay about that one, and if that was the only thing I need to believe for this whole business to be successful, like where do I write a check? This is the only thing. Right? So it's how many of these are there? Right? And if there's a lot of them, then with each additional line, or likelihood of getting the outcome we want goes down, um, and so I think that if reversing that for success for somebody who's coming along is like, what amount of action would it be unreasonable for me not to be successful? And so for me, it's like, I I believe that if you do 10,000 cold calls, you'll you'll get better; like it would be unreasonable for you not to be good like after that level of effort. If you if you run, you know, if you take half your paycheck every month or a 30-year paycheck every month and you say, I'm going to advertising University, which is I'm going to spend money actually advertising trying to get people to click on this thing and give me their name and phone number, if you go and you spend that amount of money on actually advertising after a year, after two years, you'll probably you'll probably be pretty good, especially if you join a community of other people who are doing the same thing. Right? You see, got mentors who are doing who who have done and give you Frameworks that you can just work off, so you can shortcut your path to success. It becomes unreasonable that you wouldn't be more successful in the future than you are today. And so I like thinking about things in terms of directionally correct rather than will I hit it or not. Right? I think there's so many binaries because it's easy psychologically for us to say yes, no, honest, dishonest, etc., successful, not successful, um, but it makes making decisions really hard because you're like, is this the path for me? Is this the product, owned the business I'm going to start? Where I was like, well, if I started something, I would be more likely to be successful than if I did not start anything, and from there I will gain experience and perspective to then make the next iteration on the main thing. And I was Quest your first thing ever, first successful thing, but you've done other stuff before that and failed, and I I still I was referrals, like I hope Quest wasn't his first thing, um, most people had, thank God it wasn't, right? Most people had a graveyard of failures before they had their actual first success. And so most people spend all this time, um, a different tweet that went viral; it said like, with 20 hours of focused effort, most people can be pretty decent at something, whether it's guitar, it's singing, even cold calling; if you actually cold call it for 20 hours focused effort, you'd be decent, but most people spend years waiting to do the first hour. Whoa, whoa. And so it's like, how can I decrease that action threshold and get someone to just just just embrace the suck? And so it's like, how can I normalize no's? So it's like, if I'm teaching somebody to sell, it's like, dude, I need to get 100 of those, all right? Let's get 100 for me, okay? With the S, just get 100 no's. And the thing is, all of a sudden, if the no becomes the goal, then they realize that it's about the process, another outcome, and then they will become better salespeople because they stop being afraid of it. The same thing like for training salespeople, I want them to hear the gasp, right? Which is like, you say a price over the phone, everyone's afraid of saying the price; it's like, dude, if you didn't get a gasp, you didn't go high enough. Right? They're like, what? I'm like, oh, you failed, terrible sale; they didn't gasp. They're like, really? And so then it becomes, it flips it and becomes a point of Pride; it's like, oh, I got her; you should hear the gasp on this one. And so all of a sudden they stop being afraid; we normalize, we do like exposure therapy on things that people are most afraid of, and I hope that with all the stuff that we do that we can do that in a microwave for at least a handful of people, so they just start doing and realize that they're going to gain perspective, and the light of their knowledge will give them the next foot. But the thing is, they're stuck on the first one, trying to pick the first path when they have no idea what they're doing.

Was selling ever hard for you? Like the idea of selling, not that I'm sure you were bad at it at one point, but was the idea of trying to convince somebody to buy something? Yeah, I uh, so when I quit my job, um, my dad's buddy was in private Wealth Management in Maryland, and so he called me up and was like, hey, you should sell for me, and I to this day he jokes about it now with me, um, I said, ah, sales, I was like, I'm not a Salesman; I was like, I'm an academic, you know what I mean? I just come for a, you know, on the bones, and I thought, you know, whatever, and um, and then lo and behold, I signed my lease, I slept on the floor, and I was like, how do I pay rent? And a woman walks in the door, and I was like, I need to get her to give me money so I can pay rent, and I was like, oh, this is sales, and I didn't know. So for me, it was just begging people to give me money in the beginning, like, I promise I'm going to give you the best results ever, um, but the idea of sales was very, I I thought it was beneath me; I thought it was scammy; I thought it was used car sales, you know, just like the abhorrent black, you know, that'd be the right word, but um, yeah, and then I through exposure I realized that it was, and I ended up, I in life's irony, being something that I've really fallen in love with. There are there are people on the internet, I will let them remain nameless, that they give me the heebie-jeebies; I am deeply uncomfortable with something in the way that they sell, and I've actually never taken the time to figure out what it is, and I probably should; I'd make a lot more money, but there are people that made me deeply uncomfortable, and then there's something about you. So I'd never heard of you; somebody pinged me, was like, yo, you need to check this guy out, and I looked at your stuff, and I'm like, there's something about the way that you talk that is super matter-of-fact; it isn't the I have nothing to sell you because you're an incredible salesperson, so even when I interface with the way that you sell, it doesn't creep me out. I've I've not thought about it enough to know why, but I bet you have. What is it that makes a salesperson creepy, and why aren't you creepy? Why aren't you creepy? The the best the best interview question I've ever had, um, so I I think a lot about this because I'm outlining the next book, which is so the next book is leads, and I'm already done the draft, and you know how that is, where I'm like, oh, I'm not done that book, but like I'm like, I can't wait for the next book, um, and so I'm thinking through like, what what is it that that sales is overall, right? It's structuring a conversation to increase the likelihood that the person who's on the other side gives you money; that's what it is; it's structuring that conversation that way. And structuring that conversation, I heard you mention something that you call, and I I am so only vaguely aware of like proper sales, oh, but you said holding the frame. Oh yeah, like it's not about the words you say, it's how you say them, and whether you can hold the frame; is that what you mean by structure of the call? All of it, yes. I mean, so what is what is the structure? What is holding a frame? Like what does that mean? So in I have like I love sales, so so when you're when you're when two people interact in general, no matter what, man, woman, child, whatever, two frames collide, and I believe it's animalistic, whatever it is, there is a there's a decision of who is Alpha. Now the alpha is also contextual, and so you can be Alpha in like the president, United States is Alpha everywhere until he goes into a doctor's office; he tells him to pull his ass, and he sticks his finger up. Right? Frame, right? In that room, the doctor is King; he is the alpha in that setting, in that context. And so the ability to hold the frame for most for most salespeople is really having a that sounds crazy having a clear agenda and controlling the conversation, which is why are we here? Right? Because a lot of sales is clear communication because if you clearly communicate because the biggest advantage that a salesman has is that the person that's already said they have a problem most times. Right? So if someone responds to a Content piece and says, hey, can you help me? They've already enunciated they have an issue; they have a problem, and so you already have the inherent advantage of the frame, which is you said you needed help; I'm here; how can I help you? Right? And so it starts with that; right? It's it's being clear about why we're here, and then we get agreement that we understood the problem that they said they had next. And then from that point, we have to turn the desire into a decision, which is okay, you say you want these things; here's the frame that I want to give you to analyze the decision; can we agree to this Frame? Right? And so for example, if I were selling marketing services and I so whenever we we rework a sales script

With any of the portfolio companies, which is one of the things that we do to make them grow, a lot of times they have all this gobbledygook right. And so I like the shortest possible scripts we can because a lot of communication is wasted, right.

So what happens a lot of times on a sales call is they say hello, build rapport, talk for 30 minutes, see that there's time that's running out, and then realize they have to pitch, right. And so then they motor mouth and then just awkwardly ask, right. And it is to your point about it seeming icky, right, or sucking; um, is that it's not normal human communication, and you're not providing value to the other person. And so if giving clarity to someone on a decision is tremendous value, and so if you can sell in a way that clarifies a decision, my objective always when I teach sales, the goal is not to get the person to buy; the goal is to get the person to decide.

And I believe that people don't decide for only three reasons, and this comes from Albert Ellis—this is not me—but people blame all the woes of their lives on circumstances, other people, and then ultimately themselves. And so when we're overcoming obstacles in a sale, we have to make sure that we are accounting for the circumstances, which is taking away time as a reason they can't do it; taking away money is a reason they can't do it; taking away particular aspects of the product, there's a reason they can't do it. We have to make sure that they don't cast their power to other people and saying, "I can't make this decision; someone else has to make it." And then finally, when they're with themselves, they want to avoid the decision; they want to delay it; they want to not make it, "I'm not going to think about it," right.

And so the idea is that I believe that if you sell properly, you can talk to an empowered person, and you have to basically sift through the crap that they're telling themselves about why they can't decide, why they have to talk to their husband, why the circumstance of their situation matter. And so I think that if you can do that and communicate that in a conversation, you are—you have made someone feel powerful and you've given them the tools to make a decision. And then in making that decision, they take a step towards the life they want to have. And so if you can structure a conversation that way, it's not icky; it's value-additive, and then ultimately you do make more money, but you're not focused on that because you're focusing on helping them make the call. And if we can do that, you can sell whatever you want, and I think that's like—that's what I try and structure, and that's why I'm so excited for the sales book when it finally comes out.

But most of it's clear communication. When I listen to sales calls, because I still kind of do it because I like it, um, it's like therapeutic, you know what I mean? Um, there's so much—there's so much waste; there's so—there's no—there no people aren't direct. It's like, "Why are we here?" You and someone's like, "I just want to get more information." That's an obstacle; no, you didn't. You're not here because you want more information; you're here because you're suffering from a problem. You don't just hop on sales calls all day to get information; no, you're trying to solve something, right? "What are you trying to solve? What are you in pain from?" Got it. So let me make sure I understand this; label the problem, right.

So it's like a lot of people just don't know how to talk, and they just make face noise at each other, and no one's listening and no one's talking; they ping pong back and forth; no one actually is listening. Yeah, they're not communicating at all, right. They say a statement; I mean, someone says, "I'd literally just reviewed a sales call yesterday; guy says, 'Uh, I'm not sure now's a good time.'" Salesman then responds with, "Uh, well, you know, I'm not sure if—if you're a good fit, if you're—if you're not sure," because it just goes off on this weird tangent, and then there's a pause, and the guy just asked another question. No communication happened; it was like, "I have a question; you just said a bunch of words, and I guess it's normal for me to say something else now." And so then he just asked another question, right. And so it's clear like what—and then normally when you overcome these—sorry, I could talk about this forever—but like when you overcome these obstacles with somebody's like, "I don't have time," right. I'll just give you a simple one because this is one—this is for everybody who's listening because right now you're probably not doing something because you're like, "I'm too busy; I'll start when it's convenient," whatever. If you say that as the excuse for not doing something, then there's an assumption underlying that that says that if I get busy again in the future, I will stop. And so do you want the success that you want to be long-term? Yes. Then do you believe that you'll never be busy again for the rest of your life? No. So that you might as well start when you're busy so you have the most support because if you learn how to do it and you're busy when you get—when it gets quiet, you'll succeed even more, and when it gets busy again, you know how to do it because that's how you start it, right? Obstacle overcome, and then one step closer to make a decision.

And so what happens is in the—even in the obstacle process when people are trying to sell stuff, people start from the outside in. So it's so easy to say, "I don't have time"; it's the easiest thing; it's out of time after money, right. And then once you peel—you show them how that's a fallacy; it's a logical foul; it's a distortion of reality. You peel that back, you get one layer closer to them: "My wife won't let me; my partner won't let me; my kids." So you can feel like it's—it's closer to you, right. And you peel that out because how do you overcome that? Well, five years from now, if you didn't do the things that you wanted to do with your life and you blamed your wife the whole time because she wouldn't let you do it, you're gonna play it her; is that fair for your marriage, for your relationship? What do you think now? So I think what you're doing is you're asking permissions instead of support, all right? Let me show you how you have that conversation with your wife, right. So now we're—we're sliding the other side of the table and be like, "Let's play this out," right. It's not going to go the way you think it's going to go because if you keep repeating this habit, you're going to end up five years from now, you're gonna look at your life the same way you're looking at now and hating it, and who you're gonna blame now? You're five years in; you still kind of like your wife; five years from now, you might not so much because you've had 10 more times you've tried to do something she said no. So it's today the day, right. And so we peel one layer, and then finally you're the person who's squirming there, right, because you've forced them to confront reality, which is now they don't want to make the decision, right, because they're like, "I'm just going to avoid it; I'm not sure," et cetera, et cetera. And you're like, "Hold on; like I've got you," you know what I mean? Like we're gonna get through this because you—because you're just wading through this [ __ ] that people tell themselves, right.

And so finally, when they're in the avoidance part, the biggest fear they have is making a mistake, right. They don't want to be seen stupid; they don't want to lose status as a result of this decision. And so when we're—when we're—when we're dealing with that, it's making them understand that you don't need time to make a decision; you need information. And if the only source of the information you have is May, then let's talk; what are the variables you can use to make the decision? And a lot of people haven't even thought through that; it's like, "Well, if you don't know what they are, why don't I walk you through four that might be useful?" "Does this thing solve the problem the way you want it to be solved? Yes or no. Yes. Do you want to work with us? Yes or no. Yes. Do you know someone you have access the amount of money to get started with this program? Yes or no. Yes. Great, let's do it," right. And so you can walk someone through it, and it's like, "Oh," like—and like you feel like just one of this magical journey of like all these things of why the reason they haven't—they decided not to make decisions. But so many people are stuck in that same spot for why they're not taking action, whether it's selling a product or selling themselves. And I think that those frameworks of thinking through each of those problems, and there's—I have a zillion of them for each of those things, um, I had to develop because I use those on myself. So I was like, "I have to give myself a compelling reason to start doing stuff; I have to give myself a compelling reason to make decisions when I don't want to; I have to give myself a compelling reason that I can explain to a partner of why I made this decision," right, later. And so by doing that, it decreased the time between me getting information and acting, and then it sped out my decision loops in my life in general, and then obviously I applied that to sales, but I've applied it to everything.

When I say these beliefs, I don't say these as a—an affront to anyone who shares different beliefs, to be clear, um, but for me a very core belief that has been, I think, intrinsic to at least the material success that we've experienced has been a belief that meaning is self-ascribed; so that there is no inherent meaning in the things that we do, um, or the actions we take, or the outcomes that happen, but only that which we ascribe to it. And so because of that, I feel like it's allowed me to—the point of what you're saying about like the amount of pain and the amount of suffering that you have to go through in order to—to achieve the things on the other side, I think it's been able to—it's allowed me to reframe a lot of the discomfort into, "What if this just is how it always has been?" Or, "What if this is actually amazing?" And, "What if this is exactly what it should look like?" And so I think a lot of times it's the—it's the discrepancy between our expectations in reality that shape the emotions that we have in response to any given situation, bad, good, etc. And so I think a lot of people can't control their state, and I—we deal with this with a lot of the portfolio companies; is it's like—it's funny because I don't even necessarily want to get in this; I want to talk about like the business and what's the strategy, how we're going to execute the stuff, but you know there's a big percentage of time where they're stressed, and they think there's something wrong with that. And so I feel like a lot of people feel like there's something wrong with experiencing human emotions, and so they are stressed and then think there's something wrong with them, or they are sad, and I know this is the thing that the keyboards are—you know, the fingers are right on top of it—it's my belief—it is contrarian; I accept that—that it's—it's the beliefs we have about our emotions that are the things that drive us mad, facts. And so somebody's sad, and then they tell themselves that they're—they're bad because they're sad, or they're wrong to be sad, or they're a piece of [ __ ] because they're sad, um, rather than saying, "Isn't this a beautiful thought about the human existence? Like if I could not be sad, then I would not experience joy. So like if I say that I don't want to be sad anymore, then I would also have to give up joy. Am I willing to do that? No. Well, then this is just a part—like I can't say that I want sunny days if there are no rainy days; like we don't say weather is good or bad; it just is." And so I think to the same degree, the human experience is also that way too, at least how I define it. And so I think having that as my backbone frame in terms of my worldview, although contrarian, has helped me a lot in dealing with the things that often derail entrepreneurs on their path to getting what they want. And so for me that's been very helpful.

So from a contrarian standpoint of like, "Bully," you know, Peter Thiel's question like, "What closely held belief do you have that most people don't agree with?" That's one of them, um, I'm scandalized by the way that—that one is something that people don't hold. I think that people get themselves in trouble because they believe the opposite of the following quote: "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so," yeah. And they think that, "No, there are things that are objectively good and bad," and I'm simply recognizing the truth that is—that's certainly what I struggle with the most in my own life—that I was simply—when I had a negative view of myself or anything else—that I was simply recognizing the truth of the situation, not understanding how the belief I had about the thing was influencing my behaviors, and my behavior is entirely determined; my outcome. And so then I was like, "Well, hold on; if—if my behaviors are predicated on my beliefs and my outcomes are predicated on my behaviors, and my outcomes are actually linked to my beliefs," totally. And so I've got to go in and make sure that I'm believing things that are effective. And so my whole thing is I only do and believe that which moves me towards my goals. Now the next question that people ask is, "Well, then does that mean that you believe things that aren't true?" And the answer is unintentionally no. And the reason is unintentionally no is because that to me something is true based on its ability to increase your ability to predict the future and the outcome of your actions; that—that's what's true. "If I touch this hot stove, it's going to burn me," yeah. I believe that to be true because, hey, I've touched hot things before, and they actually do burn me. And so when you can—like in sales—if I structure the conversation in this way, it's more likely to lead to an outcome; that thing is true just because you've run the experiment enough times to be like, "Yeah, that actually gives me the ability to predict the outcome of these actions." And when I encounter people that either don't even know what their own belief system is, and so they—they think, "This isn't a belief; this just is true about the world," I'm like, "No, that—that is a belief that you've chosen to believe in; it's completely [ __ ] you up." One of my favorite quotes—I think if there were to be a quote that would be on my tombstone—it—it's top three, which I love a lot of quotes, um, it's Orson Scott Card; he said, "We question all of our beliefs except for those that we truly believe, and those who never think the question yes." And so it's because you truly believe it, and those are the ones—those are the pesky ones; those are the ones I think—I was told—because you get asked a lot, I'm sure, like, "Hey, I'm going to talk to a mentor; what question should I ask them?" And I got this really good one, which is, "What do I believe to be true that isn't whoa?" And so it's a great question, right? And because I—I'm sure you see it, and if I talk to somebody, I can tell like they—they cast these views of what is and what isn't about business, about marriage, about health, whatever it is, and they say like—and then they—and then they operate off of that framework of assumptions, which is might be patently false, and then they wonder why what they're doing is not working; it's like, "Because the entire foundation upon which you built this thing is just wrong," right.

And so, um, the easy—you know, the easiest way to do that is to get people ahead of you who tell you, "By the way, I don't think that belief is true," but you have to get in a place that somebody can actually communicate that to you and be open to it, yeah. And then you have to do something about it, which most people don't; otherwise you get one piece of advice, and people like, "Oh, God, you're not going to do anything with this," yeah; like that—that's the hard part. So yeah, I have the saying, "Impact Theory University," where I always thought all I would ever teach is business, and I found—yeah—that to get people primed to do the business part, I first had to deal with all the lies that they were telling—to believe—like the self-destructive behavior—all that—one—once you could get past that, then they had an actual shot at running the business. But because success is the ability to go from failure to failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm, and the ability to do that is predicated on the story you're telling yourself about yourself, you believe that it was all like this [ __ ] mindset, like, yeah, rat's nest of like, "God, if I can help you like peel this stuff back and be able to get out of your own way," but most people can't. But it's really interesting when you were saying that, I was like, "Part of what makes—like when you hear somebody speak and they really resonate with you, they give you the chills, you get excited, it's because they're either putting words to something that you felt but you didn't know how to articulate, and now it's super concrete in your mind, or they make you realize you believe something that wasn't true," yeah. And that's when it's like—I—you feel like you're being set free, totally. And that's like—that's really exciting; it's like a weight vanishes. That's my—that's what I like; that's what I think sales is—is that—is that people have these beliefs, and you have to know like the—the process of being a good salesperson is being able to help people break the beliefs that they have about themselves or about the realities that are not true. And so I think if you can basically just unencumber somebody, then it becomes very easy to sell someone because if you have the struggle, we have the solution. "Do you believe that buying the solution will get you more likely to get to the outcome you want? Yes. What are we doing? Let's go," you know what I mean? Just—but talking to that person, you have to wade through all this stuff. But like I believe that—I'd like, you know, if I—speaking that was like, "I believe that you could start a college," be like, "You want to do it," and then just start from there, right? Like depending on what someone's consumed beforehand, um, but I'll tell you one of the things that's—that's shaped my life in terms of business stuff is understanding the concepts of—of leverage, right. And so a lot of people are limited, um, by either the skills, the beliefs, or the traits they have, right. And so the skill deficiency is the easiest one to fix; it's like, "Go do repetitions in a community of people who are also doing repetitions to learn the same skill, and you will learn it quickly," right; that's the thing. Then you have traits and beliefs, which is a little bit more amorphous, right. And so from a—from a beliefs perspective, it's—you need someone to tell you stories that you believe to be true that conflict with your view of reality, and then their—their—the evidence of their story being truer than yours, then that—it's like a frame control; that frame now wins, and that becomes the new lens that you see everything through. And so I had a friend who had a fitness app, and he was doing 20,000 a month; he was a CrossFit competitor, really high up; he didn't win, of course—how—like all he's like—he didn't win, so he didn't want to tell anybody that he acts—he didn't think he deserved it; he didn't deserve to have an app because he didn't want anyone to know because he's like, "How dare I make a fitness app because I was only fourth in the world," you know what I mean? Or whatever. And then all of a sudden he talked to somebody; he got over it, and then he just started just telling people he had an app, and he went from like 20,000 a month to a hundred thousand dollars a month. And so it's not that his skills changed; it's not that his trades changed; he was still just as hard working; same looked the same, etc. I was like, "It's just his beliefs," right. And I'm sure in the—in the entrepreneur space, one of the most common traits is—is focus, right. People can't do the same thing over and over again; they just do all these half-built bridges. And so I know for me my big explosion happened in my entrepreneurial journey when I went from having nine businesses—that is not a misspeak—nine as in one less than ten—at the same time that I was CEO of all. So I had a—I had a dental agency, marketing agency; I had a chiropractor marketing agency; I had gym launch where we'd fly out and do gym turnarounds; and then I had five gyms of my own; Jesus, at the same time, and I was somehow perplexed as why I wasn't making any money; I was—there's like everything was always on fire all the time, and I always just sold my ass off enough to be able to pay all the bills and have nothing left over; that was the—that was how I rocked it, um, and it was only, you know, when Layla came in and she was like, "You know, I think maybe if we just did one thing, you could win," because she was like, "Imagine—imagine if all you had to do is make one of these businesses work; how easy would that be?" I was like, "Oh my God, if I want to make one of the mark would be a joke," and like I heard myself say that and I was like, "You're an idiot; why are you so dumb?" And so like the trait that I was missing at that point was focus and/or discipline; I couldn't say no; I didn't have that muscle. So that was a trait I lacked, and so it's like boom, and then that blew up. And so it's like sometimes the question is which of these things do people lack, um, and so since we don't always know because we don't have the perspective to judge ourselves often, it's like you just got to keep moving in all of the directions, getting in those communities, and then—like that's ultimately—I'm a big believer in the alternative education space, the whole guru space that everyone, you know, laments and hates, um, I learned everything from that space; that's going to go away; there's always going to be fake people that people will be dismissive of, but we're just in a weird transitional moment now where traditional college is—people are beginning to realize A, some of these degrees are dubious at best, and then B—and here's the thing that breaks my heart—yeah—a teacher 99 times out of 100 has gotten good at one thing: teaching, yeah. So people like, "Why don't they teach us this in high school? Finance, mindset," whatever. I'm like, "Because they don't [ __ ] know; like they can't do it in their own life; God bless them; there are so many things that like I'm terrible at," yeah. And so I feel their pain; they've gone down the path of being an educator, and so what they know how to do is educate, but they don't necessarily know finance, mindset, whatever. And if they did, they would be off doing those things. And so getting somebody who's expert at that stuff to teach is next to impossible, until now, yeah. Like when I grew up, you had to go to the library to like find a quote or something like that, right? It was insane how hard it would be just to find a cool quote; you would literally just like find, okay, this philosopher, and you'd flip anything cool on this page, flip anything cool in this way, and then you would find something; you'd have to build like a whole argument around the quote you could find, yeah. Is

Crazy. So nowadays, you're able to get like, when I stop and think, okay, hold on, I've been in business now for 20-plus years. I've had an incredible career already and feel like I'm just getting started. And I pour my heart and soul into teaching everything I know as fast as I can [ __ ] talk, and people can get access to that with a few clicks on the internet. Like that's bananas. And so enough people that have a real track record are gonna put courses together that then help people go on to have a career.

You know, one of the things that happened recently, I had this like big epiphany moment, so I'll share it with you. But I was um, I was talking to Caleb, my video, my my man, um, and he was like, you know, I I've I'm a competitive person, um, and so I look at the the Grants and the Garys and stuff. I'm like, man, by the time I'm back at their age, I was like, I'm going to be way ahead of them, right? And I think it was Kayla who said it back to me. He's like, yeah, he's like, yeah, but Gary didn't have Gary. Hmm. I like it. Like, really like, hit me right.

And so I think that there was because, you know, there's Gen Z that's coming up and whatnot; there's always these disconnects, and there's there's I don't see wars; there's conflict between age groups, etc. And the old guys are like, these kids don't know what I had to go through; they've got it so easy, right? And these guys are like, these guys I was just saying three minutes ago, yeah, these guys are out of touch, right? But at the flip side, if you ask an entrepreneur what his goal is, he's the work, make the world a better place, to have an impact, etc. And it's like, well, if you want to make the world a better place, doesn't that mean the next generation has it easier? Like, doesn't that mean we did our job? And so there's this this con, this competition that I used to feel towards like the older classmates, if you know, like think about it like entrepreneurial grades, I should be like, I'm gonna be further, faster, or whatever, by that time than that guy is.

But lo and behold, those guys helped me, so of course it would make sense that I get there faster, and like I'm sure you've like there are guys in their in their mid-20s with nine-figure companies, and they're killing it. And that wasn't it just wasn't how do I say it? It wasn't possible; it was extremely, extremely, extremely unlikely 20 years ago. Yeah, right? But because of the access to information, the information's out there, and so somebody who's 26 can have the experience of somebody who's 60. Yeah, 20 years ago. So they can be as good at the game, real talk, as good at the game as somebody that much older. It's because they've had Warren Buffett videos; they've been able to watch their whole high school about finance and investing and Charlie Munger talking about character traits and all these things that you wouldn't you didn't have, you know what I mean? Like you might have the shareholder letter, and that's all you got; you just had to keep rereading it, right?

And so anyways, it's been a really interesting shift for me to also think about the fact that a lot of times we think like, I want to be the greatest of all time. I'm sure a lot of people do, right? Whatever. But if I did my job, I won't be because somebody else will be better than me. If I did my job, yeah. And so that was like a really interesting point that I feel like shifted inside of me in terms of competition and thinking like I shouldn't be competing against these guys who are ahead of me; I should be thanking them because, of course, I'm going to be there sooner, faster than them. I was like, because I had them, and they didn't have them; they were just doing both because you should want to [ __ ] crush all of us, dude. You're on such a rad pace. And here's the thing: the older guys owe it to themselves to to be thrilled that business is a sport that you don't have to age out of. Yeah, so my knees going bad doesn't [ __ ] matter in business. Yeah, and I should be able to capitalize on all the things that I know and all that, so I should be able to keep going until I run out of desire to do all this. But my thing is, I don't want people to give up on competition.

So I used to be afraid of competition because I sucked, and I didn't think I could get better. So with a fixed mindset, okay, competition was not interesting. I there's only one thing that I've ever gotten a disproportionate return on, and that is speaking. So I've always been highly verbal, yeah. But when I was coming up, ah, how do you do something with that? Yeah, I didn't want to be an actor, so it was like, well, there wasn't a lot of avenues. It's obviously changed, and I've been able to capitalize on it right now that once once I had uh something to say and a camera, I wasn't an idiot. I'm like, I am so verbal; I will perform very well on camera. That was highly strategic; nobody should feel bad for me. So it's like, cool, I got to finally leverage that talent. So I love that the young bucks are coming up. Yeah, it feels so rad. My whole thing is, I have had to learn everything the hard way; it's just the way that I'm wired, whatever. So it stokes me out to be able to go, okay, I learned this through blood, sweat, and tears, a massive amount of pain and suffering; I'm gonna tell it to you as fast as I can [ __ ] talk. I'll do it for free, like, yes, I have my page [ __ ], but I'm also like, it's not like I'm holding anything back right now, so I will give people all the information, and my hope is that you come up. But be aware, I want to compete; I want to be on the field; I want these young guys who think they can check a job like, all right [ __ ], like we're in this, let's go. But it's a light energy; it's an expansive energy. Like if somebody beats me, passes me, whatever, cool, I'm all for it, as long as you're down for me to be on the field and go as hard as I can and want to win and constantly push myself. Like it's fun because I no longer one I know what success is, and people end up trapping themselves thinking it's money, all that [ __ ] like they have a very painful awakening coming their way, which I had to live through. And then also it's like being able to play is fun, man. And so if you lose sight of the fun and you're just worried like, oh, is somebody better than me? Are they outperforming me? Whatever, you're gonna miss out.

I would say the the um the both sides of it, right? You've got the guys who are ahead who I used to be like, I'm gonna do all this, right? And the guys behind them like they're so lucky, right? If only I had, right? That that thinking, and I feel like at least it was just that that little quote, like Gary didn't have Gary, like that thought process for me, I feel like for me like my competitive drive's never going anywhere; like it's going to be there forever, but the I feel like I was able it was more like doing honor to the game, yeah, that I'm going to bring to transform my potential into reality and drag it by the [ __ ] balls if I have to to make it happen. Like it was more to honor the game and all the other players in it, yep, rather than me trying to like, and it almost felt small-minded, be like, why am I going to pick this guy to compete against? Like, how about just doing a service to the game about being an excellent player? I love that. As long as you don't lose sight of the whole Kobe thing, like what made Kobe so interesting to me, yeah, was that he was just die-hard, dude. Yeah, and so I'm not a sports guy, so never really thought about Kobe like that, yeah, but I was so inspired by the way he would talk about things. I never got to meet him, which I'm absolutely mortified by, but the way he talked about everything, I was like, wow, what a [ __ ] competitor, like, and as I had gotten older and really learned the power of competition and being willing to put myself out there and go for broke and like really find my limits, right? And I want to die like I I can already tell you just the way that I'm wired; I will be horrified by the the personal limitations that I have because we all do; we're 50 hardwired, 50 malleable. I'm gonna do the most that I can with my malleable; I'm already traumatized by my limitations, right? But like, you know, I'm going for it. But so watching Kobe, I was like, damn, like I'm so inspired by the willingness to push yourself that hard to see like, what do I have in me? Yeah, and then that [ __ ] went from basketball into my arena, and he came into film, and his first film he won an Academy Award. Now I was like, this [ __ ] guy, but I was so inspired, right? And so I may be misinterpreting what you're saying, but what hits me is Caleb's comment took it from maybe a bit of a dark energy to like, oh, that's actually pretty rad that I had an advantage that he didn't have; it makes me appreciate the game; makes me want to play with honor and honor these guys, so it becomes this expansive thing. But I would expect you to dunk on me if you can, right? And then be like, help me out, bro; let's run the All-Star Game. You know, it's all good; like we both [ __ ] made it. But at the same time, like, yeah, I'm gonna be trying to dunk on you, you know what I mean? But like with a smile and like a handshake, and the way that you hear like the guys that were on that first Dream Team, yeah, talk about each other and like repping the country, which is to me what you say when you want to honor the game; it's like, hey, we're [ __ ] repping something; in that case, America, yeah, basketball, yeah, but we're here to win, but we're also here to have fun, and like that's my thing, and what I always tell whether you're trying to be an entrepreneur or a better parent, whatever, is you've got to optimize for the game still being fun when you're losing. Yeah, if you can't have fun when you lose, oh man, my heart bleeds for you because you're gonna lose so often; it just is what it is. Yeah, even people that win, you just lose so many times, whether it's a just a lead funnel that didn't work, or you go up on stage and it [ __ ] bombs, whatever. But there's going to be a lot of losing in your career; it's like Jordan's whole thing about I've lost this many games, taking this many winning shots in this law, and I succeed because of all of that, right? So you've got to be able to have fun in the loss because I can guarantee the struggle; I can't guarantee success. So you've got to be able to love that. But if you love that, there is something about going for broke that I'm so honored by, even though that means that people are gunning for me. Yeah, it's worth it.

It's funny because when I think about that, I think about game theory in general, which I'm sure you're very familiar with, right? And so it's um it's shifting from like the finite to the infinite perspective. And so like, how do you win at business? You win by not stopping, yep, like from an infinite from an infinite, you know what I mean? And so um that's always been one that's that's been interesting to me. But I'm I'm super open to uh to what you're saying with the uh the competitiveness piece, um, and I probably share some of the similar things to you of I guess when you were younger or at least my age, right, um, trying to trying to take the good of competition and cast out the bad of competition. And so trying to like separate those things, and I think this has been part of my attempt at doing that is reframing the game in that way, um, and trying to look at it from the infinite perspective of like, there is no number one, like they're like, is it is it because because if you're saying number one, you say of what year, over what time? That's exactly right. Right? Is it by what metric? Is a buyer net worth? Is my cash flow? Is it by age? Age by net worth, buy per unit of time, you know what I mean? If Warren Buffett had died at 74, no one would care, right? And I would just give people the punch line: all that matters is how they feel about themselves, and by themselves, that's it. Please only chase that. Now, when you're chasing that at a grand scale, it's amazing because you're like, whoa, here, dude. Yeah, I'm so curious to see if you agree with this, so here's my whole thesis on life. So first of all, chase fulfillment; it's the only thing that's stable across joy and pain. Yeah, process, yep. And then the best thing that life has off you, the [ __ ] best, there is no emotional peak higher than the following: you're working really hard at something, and it's working, and if you pull this off, there there's huge upside. Yeah, that moment; it's better than the actual huge upside. Like the the moments in my life where I'm like climbing it, this perilous cliff, I'm [ __ ] looking down; my fingers are just ice cold, right? And I'm I'm just clinging, but I'm like [ __ ], I'm making good progress; like I've really come a long way; I can see the peak; it's not that far, and if I get up there, there's like a crazy Vegas buffet and an orgy, and it's like, oh my God, if I [ __ ] get there, this is gonna be the best. Yeah, it's actually better than the buffet and the orgy. You know what I mean? It's like it's that moment where you're like your fingers are freezing, but you're gonna make it; like that's the [ __ ] juice. And so hey, enjoy the food, enjoy the orgy; they're incredible. But I promise, as soon as they're over, you're gonna be like, where is that next thing that I can get my [ __ ] fingers freezing to death again? It just is; that's the human condition. And when people understand the game, when you understand that I can never take a drink so thirst-quenching that I'll never need another drink again, there's no meal so amazing that you'll never be hungry again, there's no sex so good that you'll never want sex again; it just that's just the way the human animal is wired. Like when people are at peace with that, ugh, like then now you've really got a shot at loving your life, understanding the cycles, and that you're gonna keep doing the climb, and so you better love the climb.

I love the uh the that moment before the moment. That was like I was I was thinking as you were saying, I was thinking back to like the few of those moments that I've had, like the first time, you know, you start running ads and like you start getting your first lead, you're like, holy [ __ ], it's working. Yeah, like it's that, you know I mean, that moment or the first I remember uh when I got uh I hired my first salesperson, and they closed the sale, and I wasn't there. So as the first person that had made me money who wasn't me, yeah, and I was like, I pulled over the side of the road, and I teared up because I was like, it doesn't have to just be me anymore. You know what I mean? It's like I was thinking about all these these moments that I've had, um, I remember when we were Layla and I were sitting over the kitchen counter, and we had just switched from uh flying out a sales team in person to do these turnarounds uh to switching the licensing, and um I got on the phone to tell the guys who I was gonna launch the next month that we weren't going to do that anymore; we're thinking about switching directions. And so I said, hey, you know what, I can't do it, but I'll I'll tell you how I do it, but I'm not flying out there anymore. And they were like, oh, that's fine; how much? And I didn't want to do it, so I picked a super high number, and then uh which was six thousand dollars at the time, and uh the guy said yes, and I was like, and I remember that moment being like, holy [ __ ], what just happened? And I had seven more calls a day, and like that day I made like sixty thousand dollars, and I had just been un like the story I was telling, let's go full circle; like I just been completely broken. Like in that moment, like Jim Launch hadn't been created yet; there wasn't, you know, all these other things. But in that moment, I was like, what if this keeps happening? Like, are we out of it? Like, did or like did we finally is this the one thing that's finally gonna get me out of like failure after failure after failure after failure? And so it's just like at what is the what is the event that gives you the biggest predictor of the future success? So like there's micro wins of like, hey, the funnel's working; I've got leads. And then you have like a day of huge sales; like what if this happened every day? And then maybe you exit Quest, and you're like, what if I exit five more times? You know I mean, like so anyways, I was just that was really cool for me, just even thinking through like those those snapshots of moments. Yeah, it's very incredible, and you start to learn like, okay, what is it that I really love? Yeah. And so for me, when we were at Quest and selling it, and it was huge, and it changes your life, and I mean it was really bad, and here's going back to money, so Quest ended up being two bites of the Apple; there was like a first bite where we took a small investment, but the valuation was so big it was life-changing. Yeah, that was the the biggest like, Oh My God moment because I went from uh my wife and I share one car; it's a beat-up Ford Focus with a leaky exhaust, borrowing rides off my employees who had nicer cars, me delaying gratification and all of that, going from that to I now have a Beverly Hills mansion. That was the crazy moment when I went from my starter mansion to my big mansion. That wasn't as cool. No, it wasn't his need of a moment, even though it was actually a bigger dollar amount change; it wasn't as like, whoa, I really feel this change. And then thankfully I learned, actually, when I was still not really making money on paper, I was worth two million dollars, yeah, but I learned very quickly a the money's not making me feel better about myself, which I secretly thought it would, uh, and then also there's a big difference between paper money and real money, yeah, um, but I learned that lesson, so I never tied my sense of self-worth to the money or anything like that, which is something I constantly remind myself now not to let my identity get tied up in that because the world reflects that back to me all the time, right? So whether it's um, oh, you sold a billion-a-company for a billion dollars, or uh amazing house, or even just oh my God, like what you've built socially; it's incredible. It's like I have to really disconnect from that because I'm like, all of that is transient; it's all transient; I have no idea if any of it will be here tomorrow, so it's like you have to be really thoughtful. What is it you think about yourself when you're by yourself? What do you think about that? Like, now you've been on both sides of the coin; you've changed your physique, which is a big thing, but you change it so early that I wonder how do you think about yourself; what's your self-image; what's it anchored to? I think anyone's harassment; I don't know; I think it's um unless unless I'm misunderstanding the question, but you know, for me, it's I think a lot of my definitions have been defined by my actions. And so I am the person who has done these things, and I will do things that will get me closer to the things that I want to achieve. And so a lot of my definition of self has always been based on evidence. And so I think it was harder for me in the beginning because I didn't have evidence to support what I hope to be true about myself, which at the time wasn't.

And so and what did you hope to be true that you could figure it out, or was it always a result that you associated it to? I mean, it was I want to make more money than my dad, you know I mean, that was that was the thing, you know what I mean? I didn't I didn't have there was I remember thinking uh in college because I you know it you're young in college, and it's like be happy and all that stuff, and I just remember being like [ __ ] happiness, and that was like a moment for me. I was like [ __ ] happiness; I don't care about happiness; I want to do this. Why didn't you care about happiness? That's very counterintuitive, even now, super counterintuitive at that age. Yeah, um, because I was obsessed with how not happy I was. And so so the things you were doing that weren't designed to make you happy, that's what's weird. So I was I was so obsessed with like positive psychology, and I was reading all these stuff and watching these TED Talks. I remember the whole I remember this whole period of my life, um, and I was constantly assessing my mood as a determination whether I was happy or not. It became so obsessive that I was just like [ __ ] all of this; I was like, I'm just gonna do [ __ ], and that's all I was like; I'm just gonna do [ __ ], and hopefully it works out. And did you ever define what works out means? If it isn't happening, be less be less unhappy, I would say was my my thought process, it's which is like I'm just gonna do the things. And so I shifted from a lot of introspection, internal mood regulation, and thinking and stuff, and I think a lot of the reason that I have the world views I have about, you know, emotions and whatnot have come from this kind of initial experience. So it's like I had that, and then I just started working, and then I found myself actually looking up after, you know, a decent period of time being like, you know, I'm actually I haven't thought about happiness in a long time, and I think I might be. And so I also don't really like the word happiness because it's circumstantial versus joy. But like I experienced joy significantly more now than I did than when I was younger, and I think it's partially because like you can be mournful and enjoy, but we'll have to say like, so like if someone imagine someone like it's like an appreciation of the human experience; like this is terrible, but like even like even in the suffering, there's beauty in that, you know what I mean? Because it's purely human. Yeah. And so I think it was disconnecting. Interesting that that it matters to me as well, but I've never had to articulate it. What what is the connection to like the human experience that is so valuable that it's joyful even in mourning? I think it's just understanding both sides of the coin. I feel so like so like if there's a few things that I believe it is that is that like uh right now they're you know there's things in my life that I don't like that I wish were better, and there are things in my life that I really like, and you know 10 years ago it was the same way, and 10 years from now it'll be the same way, and when I die, there will be stuff that I will not have accomplished that I will wish I had; there will be things that I wish I had done better that I will not have.

Done, and there will be things that I have done that I am proud of. And so, like those things are not going to change. And so, if the only thing—I mean, this sounds hopefully not overly trite, but it's like all I can do is just enjoy the game. And it took me a really long time to get there; like it took me a really long time to get there. Um, or at least it felt that way, or at least it felt like I suffered a lot on that process, which is why I have a heart for people who are like, "Dude, I'm, you know, I'm super sad, I'm super depressed," whatever it is. Because I judge myself so much on not being happy all the time, because I thought there was something wrong with the fact that I wasn't happy. That I drove myself insane not being happy, rather than just being like, "You know what? Maybe I'm just gonna do the stuff and just [__] happiness for a minute."

And so I think it's like when we have these, uh, like, "Am I happy? Am I not happy?" I think my—my opinion is that you—you have to rise above it so that you can just see—you can feel the spectrum, which is just being present. Because I think, again, Alex's two cents—um, have been around that long—uh, if you are present, you can—you're present. Like most people aren't present ever. And so it's like, if I can just be present, even in my suffering, I'm there, right? Then I can experience joy for being human and having this experience that I only get once.

The biggest frame shift that I've had in terms of my experience of living has been—it's—it sounds—it sounds weird, but it's—so I call the grandfather frame, which is: I learned how to become apathetic, right? Because that—that took—that took me time to stop feeling pain. You know how the brain tries to predict the next word somebody's gonna say?

Apathetic was not the word I was expecting.

You had to learn to be apathetic.

Yeah, because I cared so much about everything; cared about what everyone thought, cared about—but I like—like I cared about what everyone thought, and I probably still do, just less, you know what I mean? I still do care, just less, right? And so the frame of the veteran taught me that, which is: if this negative thing were to happen a thousand times over and over and over again, how would I feel in the thousandth time? Well, probably not that bad. Well, why don't I just choose to feel that way now, right? And so that really helped me a lot, just the frame of the veteran, right? Whether it was traffic, whether it was a breakup, whether—like whatever it was, I could apply that: like I got broken up with every single day for a thousand straight days, how much would it have bought? I'd still be here, you know? Okay.

And then I was like, is there a way that I can think of a frame that would allow me to feel gratitude? Because it's something that I've—I've struggled to feel, right? Like I definitely get the drive feeling; got that one done in spades, but gratitude, not so much, right? I've done the habits and things like that, and for me it didn't work—I say it doesn't just for me. And so I thought of this frame, which was—I call the grandfather frame—but waking up: if I went into a time machine, I'm 85 years old, right? I'm like close to dying, a little creaky, you know? I've got tons of money, not a lot of time, and I somehow sacrifice all the money I have just to be my age again as I wake up in the morning, and I'm my 85-year-old self living through my 30-year-old body and thinking through that frame of how I would wake up and be like, "Oh, my elbow's—daughter—oh, look, I have muscles; I haven't had those in forever, right? Now look, I'm like, oh Layla, she's so young; I remember when she used to look like this." And I look outside and I'm like, "Man, this is Vegas before they did all the helicopters and the flying cars," I'm like, "Look at it; God, it's changed so much," right? Then you walk downstairs, you get like, "Man, coffee—ah, look at these mugs; remember we had mugs? Didn't that crazy?"

And so it's this weird frame where it just drills you—it just begs you to the present, and you get to experience the current state from a future state for the first time. And so it's been one of the things that's been really profound for me in terms of like dealing with dressers, with getting into—like when I get into one of these like, "My hold on—" I'm 85, I'm waking up—like all of a sudden I'm like, "I remember when I used to stress about these business things," I was like, "It works out; it's fine. And if it doesn't, who cares?" I was like, "I'm gonna be 85; I'm gonna die; I'm gonna give all my money away; who cares?" And so—and I'm like, "But isn't this cool that I'm like—look at me, all trying to play the game," you know? "My God, bud." And so it's like it gets me into this really interesting place where I can feel like I can get above myself in the game and just be like—and I—I think for a lot of people, if they can—those frames have served me very well, and I hope that other people can use those in some way in their life to do stuff that they weren't otherwise going to do. Um, so that was the—that's my—my two frames that have certainly—wrong—do—frames of reference is everything. This is actually what started Impact Theory in the iteration that it became.

So MacQuest and I've got a thousand employees that grew up hard in the inner cities, but intelligence is evenly distributed, right? So just like you have dumb friends in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, you can have dumb friends in the inner city, but just like you have smart friends, you're gonna have smart friends. And so there were plenty of people that I was like, "Damn, like you are smart," yeah, "but your frame of reference is stupid," yeah, "and the way that you view the world is so ineffective," meaning it doesn't move you towards your goals, or your goals are idiotic, yeah. And—and I mean that: if your goals lead you to suffer and you don't want to be suffering, yeah, I would say it's very plain that your goals are idiotic. So anybody that—that wants to write in the—the feed that, you know, "Oh, you can't judge somebody's goals," yes, I can, very much so, uh, because you either have goals and you're moving towards them, or you don't and you're not. And so I'm looking at it and I'm like, "Wow, this is a mindset problem; this isn't an intelligence problem." You have the ability to process raw data, which is how I'll—I'll say intelligence is, and they have that, but the software that they use to process that raw data leads to such a bizarre frame of reference for how the world works or what they're capable of that their behaviors become ineffective, yeah. So I was like, "Okay, so the thing I'm going to try to do is help people change their frame of reference."

Now I used two really potent frames of reference for me; one is very similar—so I'll use a—a deathbed frame of reference to say, "Okay, how will I think about this now?" I don't get trapped though, because I don't live for my deathbed; I think that's a mistake, and I think a lot of people optimize for something they're going to go through—maybe it lasts a week, maybe it lasts a year, but it isn't the bulk of your life, yeah. And so to over-optimize for that, I think is a mistake, but to get the perspective of like, "Oh my God, I remember when I used to stress about that," like, "Come on, this doesn't mean anything when you're facing your mortality." So that's super useful. Um, and then the other frame of reference that I use is the brain in a vat, okay? And so I'm like, "Imagine that you're just a brain in a vat, and that this thing you're really stressing—" because normally you're going to be worried about something that—that happened, or you're obsessing about something that happened, and what makes you think about—or it could be the future, but either case you can't change either of them, because one's not real and one's in the past. And I was like, "What if they're saying that I'm really worried about—that's already happened that I can't change—is really just context for this brain in this, you know, vat living in a simulation, just—to get you moving?" And that all these memories that are trapping you, they are fake, yeah. And there's something about that that lets me off the hook; I don't need to beat myself up over it; it's just a frame of reference; it's context to get me moving, yeah. And then I remind myself I actually am just a brain in a vat; it just happens that the—the vat is the chemicals that, you know, my brain is sitting in, and the glass of that jar is my skull. And so all of this really is a simulation—even if it's—it's an accurate simulation, it's a simulation nonetheless, yeah. And I won't derail the whole conversation on that, but like it's—it's very easy to recognize that the world really is a simulation, because reality is the number of photons falling on an object, but you perceive it as color or whatever, not math. And so putting myself in either of those: "Hey, this isn't really going to matter at some point," and, "Oh, that thing that's creating your sense of identity, it could be made up anyway." I don't think it is, but like it's very helpful to remind myself that those are malleable things. That's been—I mean, when we started the conversation, it was like, "Why do you think people aren't successful? Why do you think people fail?" And it's—I think it comes down to those things; it's like it's the—it's the—it's the fear of photons that fall on an object that prevent people from starting, or when they do get hit one time, extrapolate that out till their deathbed and say, "I will fail forever, and therefore I will not continue." And so I think that those—like those frames are the things—like if there's things that I would take with me until I die, it will be the frames, because like you can lose it all, and then you—like if you lost everything tomorrow, you'd be back in 12 months, you know what I mean? Um, and it's like that's—I remember when I lost everything the second time, um, and I, you know, I just lost all the gyms and all the money and everything, and I—it was just like thinking that—that was the thing that I had lost rather than the thing that I had gained that was non-material, being the more valuable of the two—um, that was like one of my big lessons. And I feel like you obviously have far more of those than I do, but that—that one stuck with me.

It's interesting; I have a—a slightly different belief based on all that, or at least way that I look at it, which is: if I lost everything tomorrow, I might not ever gain it back; it's entirely possible. Now I think I have a set of skills—I'm never going to worry about money and all that, but I really—life has taught me that I cannot guarantee myself the success, because I failed multiple times at businesses. So it isn't like, "Oh, it's guaranteed because I've had a success before," it's guaranteed—I'll never go hungry, barring head trauma, but it is, you know, it's—it's an unknown, and that's why I'm very careful not to let that be my identity, or—like I don't know if you've ever read Stephen King's book *The Stand*, however—that one—oh my God—so there's this thing—I'm so glad I read this when I was a kid, because—so one of the main characters is a guy who's just finally gotten famous as a singer, and this is back—I've read this probably late 80s—so getting famous was like the most insane thing you could do; getting rich was far easier than getting famous. And so he finally got famous—his songs everywhere on the radio—and then the end of the world happens, and nobody cares. And I remember thinking, "Whoa," like you could achieve that thing—the impossible thing—and then the next day it's just gone, yeah. And so, especially at the moment we're living in now where there's a lot of uncertainty, I'm just like, "Don't tie your sense of worth or—the thoughts you think are—um, useful because they have resulted in wealth"—the thoughts that I think are useful because they've resulted in fulfillment—that's the thing—like I really want people to anchor around—um, but yes, I certainly take that transparently—I'm probably not there—like I don't think I've—like I'm not out of the guy—I don't think I'm as optimized on that as like you are. I think you have more of that than I do in terms of like optimizing around fulfillment. I think I definitely still have a degree of my self-worth wrapped in the things we do and the companies we own and stuff like that—like I—if all of those—because the thing is like if in the magic situation where that all vanished, it would—there would be something that I had probably done wrong. Now there are occasions, you know, where you own a gym business in COVID, um, where you're like, "Man, there's some stuff that—would it be reasonable for me to have predicted this? Probably not. Okay, I'm not gonna beat myself up with this one," but like if barring a true act of God's situation and there were just good old-fashioned—I'm the only one who loses everything and everyone else doesn't, right—um, I probably would be upset—um, I'd be upset; I'm not a [__] monk—I just—I remind myself to—yeah, yes, totally, you're like, "How do you judge yourself when you're naked in the mirror at night?" Of like, "Well, uh, on that day I would feel badly," you know? I could just not feel good 100%, but anyways—dude, so I've got the final quote that I want to share with people that is my favorite quote from you, but first I want you to tell people where can they follow you.

Um, if you listen to podcasts, you can just search my name, Alex Ramosie, and you'll find the game. Uh, if you are on YouTube, you can search my name and you'll find my YouTube channel. If you're on TikTok, Instagram—there—all those places—Twitter—actually, I'm super active on Twitter—um, you can find me there just by searching my name.

Amazing. All right, now I want to give people a quote—I'd love this so much—"Do not cast power to your excuses; own your circumstances, because no one else will." So I think the difference between like rich people and poor people, successful people, not successful people, is the degree to which they attribute or give power to their circumstance, right? And so the difference between a self-made billionaire who started with nothing and someone who else started with nothing is not the resources, obviously, because they both started at zero. So what else is it? Is their resourcefulness, not the resources. And so um, if we give power to circumstance, then we cast power outside of ourselves. If we give power to other people, we cast power outside of ourselves. And so it's, you know, it's controlling the controllable, uh, and when I, you know, when I say that quote, a lot of that is—is how that quote is—how I see selling—it's people cast power to their circumstances, and my job is to get them to unfuck themselves around the power that they have just cast to something they cannot control. And so if I can just get them to own—even just own the fact that they suck—that's good enough, because they actually can own it, and there is pride in that. You can take pride in the fact that you admit that there's a deficit, right? But there is—the only thing you can't take pride in is casting and being a victim, right? Like no one moves forward, even if you're right, it doesn't serve you, right? If you're born with one—you know—one less leg than you should, you're right—you're not going to be—you have a disadvantage at being a sprinter—like you have a disadvantage, but it doesn't serve you in any way to admit it. And so it's—it's owning the fact that like you are the only person who can actually change anything about your life, because you may blame your circumstances, but no one else will care.

I love that. Speaking of ways you can change your circumstances, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, and until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. My default place is to do this. I think you have to know yourself. I think if your default is to not do those things, then yeah, giving yourself a break and being kinder and gentler is the absolute worst thing that you could do to yourself. In my case, man, it's been a lifetime; I was never a child; I was never a little boy; that five-year-old, I was literally not a child.