How Alex Hormozi Gets Other People To Build His $100M+ Empire

0:00:01 – The highest returns on capital we get
0:00:02 as entrepreneurs is talent.
0:00:04 Like full stop.
0:00:08 Where else do you get 10X, 20X, 100X return so reliably?
0:00:09 If I’m thinking from the like,
0:00:11 I really have to fill this role angle,
0:00:12 it’s like usually not the right person.
0:00:13 If I’m thinking like, I don’t even care
0:00:16 if I have a role for this person, I have to get them in.
0:00:17 It’s usually the right person.
0:00:19 – Once you get to like 5 million in revenue,
0:00:22 that’s what you have to become as a collector of people.
0:00:23 – It’s pattern recognition,
0:00:25 but especially when it comes to talent.
0:00:26 You have to grow fast.
0:00:27 And I do think that’s a virtuous cycle.
0:00:29 The faster you grow, the more talent you get,
0:00:30 which grows you faster.
0:00:32 And so it can also be vicious in the other direction.
0:00:34 – It’s mostly vicious in the other direction.
0:00:35 – Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:00:37 – I’m hiring for about six or seven roles.
0:00:38 What mistakes do you think I’ll likely make?
0:00:40 – Like if somebody comes in as a C-level exec
0:00:42 and has no network of people
0:00:44 that they’ve worked with in the past, that’s weird.
0:00:45 – Who have you hired recently
0:00:47 that is significantly better than you
0:00:49 or has taught you something?
0:00:50 Who takes you to school?
0:00:51 – This is something that I can only say now
0:00:54 with 14 years of business experience, which is.
0:00:56 – I feel like I can rule the world.
0:00:58 I know I could be what I want to.
0:01:01 – I put my all in it like no days off on the road.
0:01:02 Let’s travel.
0:01:05 – I just like, I think Sean does this as well.
0:01:07 You think in frameworks.
0:01:09 I don’t think like that at all.
0:01:10 That does not come naturally to me.
0:01:13 And whenever I hear you or we have a mutual friend, Ryan Dice.
0:01:16 – And Ryan was like, he was like making me feel like a jerk.
0:01:18 He was like, “You don’t think in frameworks?
0:01:21 Like how do you learn something and then think how you’re going to teach it to your team or whatever?”
0:01:24 And I’m like, “I don’t know, man. I’m like a Neanderthal.”
0:01:26 Like I just kind of like float by life sometimes.
0:01:30 And I just like, I don’t like reflect and think in a framework, but you do that.
0:01:37 – I think frameworks happen when you have to reteach or reuse the same thought process over and over again.
0:01:45 And so rather than re-deriving the same decision set, you create a framework to give yourself mental shorthand.
0:01:49 And so I think it’s just like, like I created the scaling.
0:01:52 Like you were at the implementation workshop, like the Mosey six or whatever.
0:01:56 It’s like more metrics, market, model, money.
0:01:59 And then underneath the model, there’s, you know, four offshoots and then finally manpower.
0:02:02 So it’s like, these are the six reasons that people get limited in their business, right?
0:02:07 And that was because I had to think like, “Okay, I’ve done so many Q&A calls.
0:02:10 There has to be, there is a decision tree.
0:02:14 Like it might be more complex than I thought it was, but there is a decision tree that I’m going through.
0:02:16 And so just actually crystallizing that.
0:02:19 And so you, you totally think in frameworks, you just haven’t documented them.
0:02:20 That’s my, that’s my two cents.
0:02:21 That’s my opinion.
0:02:25 – Well, like you had this cool, uh, like I’ve been watching your, I think I told you the other day,
0:02:30 I was watching your content, not on tactics of making money, but on tactics of leadership and management.
0:02:32 And you had this cool thing called the diamond.
0:02:33 – Yeah, it’s great.
0:02:37 – It was like, basically for the listener, it was like, uh, if you have an employee who’s not doing what you want them
0:02:40 to do, they’re either, they don’t know what you want done.
0:02:41 They don’t know how to do it.
0:02:44 They weren’t motivated or they don’t know, I think when that you want it done.
0:02:45 – Yeah.
0:02:46 Or there’s something blocking them.
0:02:46 Yeah.
0:02:51 – And when you come up with something like that, is that something that you make up or do you read
0:02:57 other books and you steal like, like cool bits of inspiration and you repurpose them for your need?
0:03:03 So honest truth. I really don’t read as much as I probably should. Almost all my stuff just comes from
0:03:07 like me doing it and then saying, man, there’s gotta be an easy way to describe this.
0:03:14 If I happen to come along some sort of, you know, if there’s some coincidence, I see that as corroboration
0:03:19 of an idea, but yeah, no, I really don’t consume anyone else’s stuff for, for like inspiration.
0:03:21 I like, I have enough shit going on every day. I have tons of stuff to talk about.
0:03:26 And so, yeah, no, the management document was like, all right, fundamentally people don’t do stuff for
0:03:30 a reason. I have to figure out what that reason is. And if there’s a way that I can have a framework that
0:03:34 I can have for this conversation that makes it less like, how do I not attack the person, right?
0:03:38 Rather than say like, you are a lazy piece of shit. It’s like, that’s unlikely to be productive and also
0:03:42 probably not the real cause of why they’re not doing things because most people do prefer to stay
0:03:47 employed and also prefer to, you know, do a good job, I think by and large. And so it’s like, if we
0:03:50 take that to be true and I want them to succeed and so do they, they’re like, what’s getting in the way
0:03:54 here. It’s like, well, I didn’t communicate that I wanted them to do this thing. Okay. Well, that’s
0:03:58 on me. I didn’t tell, like I told them, but then they’re like, cool. I don’t know how to do that.
0:04:02 That’s a training issue. Okay. You know, they, they, they didn’t know there was a deadline
0:04:06 associated with it’s a when problem. Right. And then it’s like, okay, well, they knew when to do it.
0:04:08 They knew how to do it. And they knew that I wanted them to do it.
0:04:12 Then it’s like, okay, well then is there something blocking them now? The motivation
0:04:18 one of like, they’re not motivated to is like technically correct, but it’s the last one that
0:04:22 I’ll go to because most times people are relatively motivated to do it. Now, mind you, there’s
0:04:29 definitely times when that’s just not the case. Right. Or the how component has a more, uh, generalized
0:04:35 skill that someone doesn’t have. So I’ll, I’ll say differently. Like if in order to do a role,
0:04:39 my position is like, you probably heard like attitude versus aptitude.
0:04:43 And that used to bug me a lot. Cause I was like, well, that can’t always be what it is. Right.
0:04:48 Because it’s really just that’s there’s, there’s a deficiency in someone’s skillset to enter an
0:04:53 organization to do a role. And so we want to hire for the small skill deficiency. If you’re hiring for
0:04:58 what people consider low skill labor. So if you run an Airbnb and need maids, or you have a
0:05:02 yogurt shop and you need to have people who do, you know, clean the counter and like check people out,
0:05:07 that’s very low skill technically. But in terms of hiring, you’re going to hire for attitude,
0:05:11 not aptitude. And that’s just because the amount of skills required to train someone on attitude
0:05:16 far outweigh the skills it takes to take somebody who’s already friendly, knows how to show up on
0:05:21 time, can smile, say hello, makes chit chat, uh, teach them how to use a cash register and clean
0:05:25 the thing could take like two hours. Like it’s not a lot of training in order to do that role.
0:05:30 And so it doesn’t make sense to hire someone for, uh, aptitude. Like I’ve done, I’ve worked
0:05:33 a cash register before, but I’m a dick. It’s like, well, that’s not going to be very helpful. Like
0:05:36 I’m going to have to train you to not be a dick. It’s not worth it. On the flip side,
0:05:40 if you want to have the number one AI researcher in the world, if that guy’s a bit of a dick,
0:05:43 then you could probably work with him on being a little bit, you know, better at communicating
0:05:47 with the team. You’re not going to take the person who was, you know, the yogurt,
0:05:51 yogurt store cashier register, assuming they take note, you know, they’re not on the side doing
0:05:53 all this stuff, uh, and make them the number one AI researcher. And so it’s like,
0:05:59 we always just should, at least in my opinion, hire for the person with the small skill deficiency.
0:06:03 And then we have to ask the question as the business owner, given that skill deficiency,
0:06:09 is it worth us or worth our resources to train them? And so I, I take the position that I think
0:06:14 every skill is trainable. It’s just, is it worth training? Like, are there other people I get higher
0:06:19 returns on? In which case, great, I’ll use them. And that for me is fundamentally like why I would say
0:06:23 that over my career, the biggest change in terms of my hiring practices is I, I hire
0:06:29 far more for general intelligence. Now the intelligence will allow someone to bridge the
0:06:34 skill gap faster. And so it’s a return on resources for where they are versus where they need to be,
0:06:39 whether it’s a quote attitude issue or quote hard skills issue. But I see soft skills and hard skills
0:06:45 is just skills. One, you know, hard skills are easy to easy to define and measure. Soft skills are just
0:06:50 hard to define and measure, but they still are definable and measurable. And so I want somebody who has high
0:06:54 intelligence because I define intelligence as rate of learning. And so if I can get someone who has a
0:06:58 high rate of learning versus somebody else, maybe that person starts a little bit behind, but in six
0:07:03 months, they’re going to pass the other person who might have experience. And so again, it all depends
0:07:07 on like what the timeline is. If I take a toddler, I can get them to be an adult in 18 years and be perfect,
0:07:12 but I don’t know if I have 18 years to wait. And so, you know, that’s, that’s kind of my general rubric.
0:07:16 When, uh, when you’re hiring for smart people, how do you figure out if they’re smart?
0:07:22 Really good question. Um, I think the quality, so a couple of things. So the, the, the quality of
0:07:27 the questions that they ask, let’s go deep in each one. So the quality of questions that they ask.
0:07:34 Okay. What’s a high quality question. So if someone said, Hey, I noticed that you guys have this media
0:07:39 brand here and you have this advisory practice here, what’s revenue retention around that is there’s
0:07:43 another vehicle that you guys have considered that, you know, isn’t in the pipeline right now.
0:07:47 I’d be like, wow, that demonstrated that they did a fair amount of research and they were able to
0:07:52 take a complex thought between these two things and, and asked me about it. So like, that’s a great
0:07:56 question. Whereas if someone says like, you know, what’s the five-year vision of the company? I don’t
0:08:00 see that as a bad question. Um, I just see that it’s like kind of a generic interview question.
0:08:00 Yeah.
0:08:07 And if that’s not already answerable online, which, you know, the, the, the pros and cons of our situation,
0:08:11 similar to you is that a lot of my stuff is public. And so I expect somebody to come in
0:08:15 with better than generic questions because I’ve already answered generic questions publicly.
0:08:21 Hey everyone, really quick. If you’re enjoying this episode on CEO stuff, so delegating, having
0:08:26 hard conversations with your team, hiring, then I’ve got something for you. So the team at HubSpot,
0:08:31 they actually went and put together a bunch of best practices that Sean and I use in our own companies
0:08:35 and they put it together and something that’s really easy to read and understand. And so if you want to just
0:08:40 save yourself 10 years of headache and heartache, then you should check it out. I wish we had this
0:08:44 a long time ago. It would have helped me a lot, but there should be a QR code on your screen that you can
0:08:49 scan or a link in the description. So check it out. It’s totally free and totally awesome.
0:08:52 Okay. And so what was the second one?
0:08:56 Oh, when they deconstruct a problem that they’re solving in terms of what they’re thinking with.
0:09:00 So, I mean, this is, to be fair, this isn’t like my invention, but like, uh, in the consulting world,
0:09:04 people do cases for a reason, right? They want to hear how, like, okay, if I need, how many,
0:09:09 you know, how many ping pong balls sit on a 747, right? This is a common question they would ask
0:09:13 in, you know, a college interview, not because they care about the answer. They care about how
0:09:18 you think through getting the answer because it demonstrates a level of horsepower. Um, and so
0:09:24 for us, I would say a practice that acquisition.com we use, especially at our higher level leadership roles,
0:09:28 is we actually, instead of presenting them hypothetical cases, we actually present them with the real cases.
0:09:35 And so, you know, worst case we get free consulting, best case, we get somebody who is capable of
0:09:39 implementing that solution that they just came up with. And so if they can use, uh, frameworks that
0:09:43 I wasn’t aware of experiences that I’m not aware of, those things will come out in that, you know,
0:09:47 complex, you know, uh, issue that we’re dealing with. But it’s also at least like way more interesting
0:09:53 of an interview for me, because now like they’re solving my problems. I’m like way more engaged.
0:09:59 So does that mean that like the hiring manager, or maybe you would have, um, someone at the company
0:10:03 has like a generic description of the company and what some of the numbers are. And maybe they’re
0:10:09 like fake numbers even. And then each role will have a specific problem that you need help solving
0:10:14 for at the company. And they get like a Google doc, like a two pager in advance. And it’s like,
0:10:17 prepare your thoughts, send it to me in advance. I’m going to read it. And then we’re going to have
0:10:22 discussion about it. So I’ll differentiate this by level of role and type. And so I’m talking,
0:10:26 because right now I’m like knee deep in like C level, like interviews. So that’s like what I’m
0:10:32 thinking with right now, if we’re trying to hire an editor or a salesperson, those are roles that are
0:10:36 super repeated. And as a result have incredibly structured, you know, interview processes and
0:10:42 whatnot. And so for those, like for a salesperson, for example, it’s like, we’re going to send a
0:10:47 script to every candidate that we want to invite to a group interview first. And so they’re going
0:10:51 to get the script ahead of time. And we want to hear them do, you know, a one minute, two minutes
0:10:56 downbite of the script. So if they, if they didn’t even take the time to like, go through a few times,
0:10:59 like they’re gonna sound horrible. And so immediately, either they, they don’t have the
0:11:02 skill or they don’t have the work ethic of either way, we can weed those people out. And we can tell
0:11:05 within a couple minutes, so we don’t need to waste a 30 minute call on somebody who’s wants to be a
0:11:08 salesperson, we can have 10 people on the call, one or two minutes, and we can find out if
0:11:12 someone’s got a little bit of game. From there, it’s like, okay, then we’ll say, hey,
0:11:17 you mess this thing up, tweak it, try it again. When we do that, we get to see how coachable they
0:11:20 are, how much ego they have, and how quickly they can learn intelligence.
0:11:28 I actually read a book that you suggested, the guy who founded HubSpot sales team wrote that book,
0:11:35 and we do the same thing here. And in the book, he actually says that IQ is the number one. He was
0:11:39 like, charisma is important, but it’s not the most important thing. It’s ability to learn quickly.
0:11:44 And I think part of that also, because they were selling to business owners, and so do we in
0:11:52 most of our portfolio is B2B. And so if a salesperson is being outgunned consistently by the people that
0:11:55 they’re getting on the phone with, the people on the phone feel like they’re talking to somebody who’s
0:11:59 an idiot and can’t actually help them solve their problem. And so yeah, I think general intelligence is
0:12:03 such an important part. But like, honestly, it started there. But like, I kind of just see it
0:12:08 across the organization, like show me exceptional organizations that employ dumber people like it’s,
0:12:13 I mean, there are some, but especially in the in the in the work that we type that we do B2B and
0:12:19 higher level, you need horsepower. So in terms of intelligence, like rate of learning, and we can
0:12:23 actually demonstrate them learning on a small level. And that works. Same thing with editors,
0:12:28 we follow a very similar process. Here’s some raw footage, send us a clip back with your edit,
0:12:31 we can look at just the final output. And that allows us to be more objective about like,
0:12:35 some people don’t present well, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad editors. And I think like interviewing
0:12:38 itself is a skill, just like anything else. And I don’t need somebody who’s great at interviewing,
0:12:42 I need somebody who’s great at editing, right. And so trying to pull that apart. And something that
0:12:47 Layla’s taught me, that’s been really helpful, like for me lately has been just like,
0:12:51 some people are incredibly smart, but are not very good at communicating. And depending on the role,
0:12:55 they might not have as much need for that level of communication. And so that’s where it gets a
0:13:01 little bit more nuanced. Or the other way around. Like I’ve actually talked to people that are very
0:13:05 charming, and they communicate wonderfully. And I’m like, I can’t fall victim to this. You’re
0:13:08 actually an idiot. I don’t think you know what you’re doing. I’ve hired these people before.
0:13:12 What was it? There was a, it was a, like, always go for an ugly surgeon or something like that.
0:13:18 But yeah, there’s some, there’s some razor that I just wanted to put my little disclaimer out there,
0:13:21 which is like, I by no means claim that we are perfect at hiring or anything like that. We just
0:13:25 like everybody, we take our licks. But I would say the hardest ones are always leadership because you
0:13:31 have fewer, like, you might appreciate this. Whenever I, whenever I go into a room of entrepreneurs,
0:13:35 I say, Hey, who here is on more than is on their second business or beyond? And like almost the whole room
0:13:39 raised their hands. I’m like, okay, cool. Now of those of you who are on your second business and
0:13:45 beyond who here at your current business grew way faster or past your first businesses and
0:13:50 like almost the entire room raised their hands. And I always think like, so why is that? And so I
0:13:56 think that at the most basic level, it’s pattern recognition, but especially when it comes to talent.
0:13:59 And so like, if you think about building, like, let’s say a million dollar business,
0:14:02 it’s like, first you have us, you have some marketing function, you have some sales function,
0:14:07 you have some delivery function, you know, whatever, uh, you know, across the board.
0:14:10 And for the first time ever, when, as soon as you know, maybe a million, maybe it’s three million a
0:14:14 year, whatever it is, like, it’s not you anymore. Like somebody else has to do some of this stuff.
0:14:18 And so you fought, you get your first pattern recognition of like, oh, this is somebody who can
0:14:22 do some advertising. This is some person who can do some sales. This is a person who can do some
0:14:26 low level management. This is a person who can do some, uh, you know, some delivery or whatever.
0:14:30 And so, and you basically keep struggling and keep plateauing at that level until you find that one
0:14:35 person who’s like competent. And then you’re like, oh my God, you could do the job. This is amazing.
0:14:38 And then the business grows until that next level, uh, you know, that next constraint.
0:14:43 And so then across the board by department, one by one, it’s like, you have these six month,
0:14:47 12 month periods where you go through interviews and interviews and hiring and onboarding
0:14:51 just to see if this person’s competent. And then whenever they’re not, you’re like,
0:14:54 I have to start over again. And then the business basically stays where it’s at.
0:14:59 And so I think that, um, I think the, the, the more experience we’ve had on each of these roles
0:15:02 of like, this is what, you know, uh, SDR looks like, this is what an SDR manager looks like.
0:15:05 This is what a closer looks like. This is what a senior closure looks like. This is what a closing
0:15:10 manager looks like. This is what, um, this is what a director of sales looks like. This is what a VP
0:15:14 of sales looks like. Like it took me time to learn each of these levels and obviously do that across
0:15:18 departments. But then after that point, when you guard these new, the new businesses you go after,
0:15:20 you’re not even building the business. You’re just assembling it.
0:15:24 Yeah. And that’s becomes, that’s, that’s actually quite frustrating. Um, not frustrating,
0:15:28 but it’s a hard lesson to learn because after, if we had to generalize it at my guess is somewhere
0:15:32 around 5 million or maybe like a million a year in profit or maybe half a million a year in profit.
0:15:36 Honestly, like there’s this, I grew up going to Catholic school and there’s this like one of the
0:15:41 most famous scenes of the Bible is like Jesus telling Peter is like, you are, you’re no longer
0:15:45 a fisherman. You’re going to come and work with me and you are going to be a fisher of men.
0:15:49 And I think like, once you get to like 5 million in revenue, that’s what you have to become as a
0:15:54 collector of people. And that is jarring, right? Because that’s not typically why a lot of people have
0:15:57 started their businesses, but in order to make something grow past 5 million, I don’t know where that
0:16:01 number is going to be, but you start just having to collect human beings.
0:16:06 No, and it’s the game. And I think a lot of it is just the pattern recognition around behavior,
0:16:10 traits and skills where you have to just say like, Oh, I know what this VP, I know what,
0:16:15 like I had a VP of sales. They were awesome. What does this person look like here? I also think,
0:16:18 and this is something that like, I can only say now with like, I guess, 14 years of business
0:16:24 experience, I’m just beginning to, to reap this, which is the snowball of talent, which is like,
0:16:28 if you’ve had multiple businesses, and you’ve had good outcomes, and you treated people well over an
0:16:33 extended period of time, some people start following you from thing to thing, right? And then you start
0:16:38 to have this core team that just like, they’re like, they’re good, like, and then when you do the next
0:16:43 thing, like, they’re all with you. And I think that like, I don’t know, but I would imagine that
0:16:48 in 20 more years, like the team of talent of those people who just prefer to operate the way we operate,
0:16:53 and like, like the culture that we have and like each other. It’s more like, like, if somebody comes
0:16:58 in as a, as a C level exec and has no network of people that they’ve worked with in the past,
0:17:02 I’m like, that’s weird. Like, you don’t have anyone from all the past roles you’ve worked with,
0:17:06 who either a you think is a stud, which is weird that you don’t think anyone was stud,
0:17:10 or alternatively, you think they were stuck, but they don’t want to come to like your new thing,
0:17:13 because you’re not a good leader. And so that’s a great, like litmus test in terms of like,
0:17:17 how good of a leader is this person is like, who do they have in their in their black book,
0:17:22 because we need to build out this function quickly. And I’m expecting you to bring some of that to the
0:17:28 table. Who have you hired recently, that is significantly better than you or has taught you
0:17:32 something because you’re in the role now, where you have to do all the talking and a lot of the teaching
0:17:36 for your audience and at your workshops and with the companies that you work with, who takes you to
0:17:44 school? Sharron does. Sharron’s when you’re president. He’s so knowledgeable on the, I mean,
0:17:47 he’s so knowledgeable on a lot of different things. But like, you know, he said two, he said two plus
0:17:51 billion dollar companies. And so obviously, acquisition is, you know, the third that, you know,
0:17:55 we’re shooting for, depending on, you know, when we have our third party validation. But basically,
0:17:58 it’s like, the bigger the company gets, I feel like the better he gets, you know what I mean,
0:18:03 like the more in his wheelhouse he is in terms of, like data pipelines, infrastructure,
0:18:08 real-time dashboards. How can we, like, how can, how can finance get weaponized? I would say that
0:18:14 Layla and like, Sharron’s so good at the finance function and understanding just like, just tax
0:18:19 ramifications, entity structure, like just a lot of the things that I, you know, for me, my, my, my
0:18:23 acumen is on like, how do we let people know about it? How do we get them to give us money for it? How
0:18:26 do we make sure that they really like it and tell their friends? Like that has been basically the core of
0:18:31 my skillset. Does that include not, is the, is the last thing you said there, is that product?
0:18:37 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then, but like everything outside of that, um, is definitely not what I
0:18:40 would say, like my core core is like Layla is so good at that. Like a lot of what we were talking
0:18:46 about there is me somewhat relaying Layla’s, you know, or, you know, Layla’s, uh, MO around people
0:18:51 and people and talent. But Sharron’s so good at like enterprise value structuring, just like a lot,
0:18:55 just a lot of the things that, you know, a public CEO would be good at. And that’s,
0:19:00 that’s what he comes from. Um, but he’s also is like, and I would say like from an observation,
0:19:09 personally, like the true, a, a, a talent one, they’re not employees. They are partners and they
0:19:13 see themselves as partners. And if you don’t see them as partners, then they are not a, a plus,
0:19:17 you know, how do you treat a partner differently than an employee? Like, how would I know if I have
0:19:22 a partner? Well, I think if you go to them because you’re not sure what to do and they’re giving you
0:19:27 advice to me, that’s a partner. If you’re constantly directing them and saying, this is what we’re going to
0:19:30 do, this is what we’re going to do. There’s nothing wrong with that, but they’re not a thought
0:19:34 partner. And I also use that as a great limits test for like the true C level executives that we have
0:19:40 is like, do I want to talk to this person about this complex problem? If I don’t seek their advice,
0:19:46 then it means that I don’t see them as a value add. And so then they’re not like they’re, they’re not
0:19:50 super essential, which is not good. But yeah, so he, I think that, and then the other piece,
0:19:54 and this is something that again, I feel like I’ve learned more recently because I’m super deep
0:20:00 in C level stuff right now, but it’s clouds to dirt. So vertically integrated full stack skill sets.
0:20:08 And so like, I think like the best sales leaders can go, like they can hop on the phone and get a cold
0:20:13 lead to book an appointment from an SDR level all the way to building sales strategy of like,
0:20:18 which starts to merge into marketing, right? It’s like, what kind of messaging do we need to look at?
0:20:22 What kind of avatars have the highest likelihood of buying our stuff? Um, how can we weave that into
0:20:27 our process and our scripting? How can we, uh, you know, cut our training time and onboarding new rep?
0:20:32 Like they’re really thinking about the sales organization, but they can also do almost every
0:20:37 job. And I just have yet to find like truly exceptional people that aren’t full stack.
0:20:42 Today’s episode is brought to you by HubSpot because using only 20% of your business data is
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0:21:03 data makes all the difference. Learn more at HubSpot.com. So you’re right now, because of your
0:21:08 size, you’re competing and I’m in the type of person you need. You’re competing with a lot,
0:21:13 you’re in a very competitive industry in terms of talent. Um, yeah. And so I, I imagine you’re, um,
0:21:17 competing against some of the AI guys, you’re competing against a lot of tech companies and the
0:21:23 value and PE and the value that they provide. I had to guess it’s just lots and lots of money,
0:21:28 which I think you have the ability to do that. Yeah, we pay well, but they also have the ability
0:21:32 to offer like equity for this, like lottery ticket, maybe. I don’t know what else, but I’m sure there’s
0:21:38 many things that they offer that you can’t. What do you have to offer to them other than
0:21:44 market rate or above market rate money? Yeah. Um, it’s growth and impact.
0:21:48 Like if you were to ask everybody in the company acquisition.com, what’s the number one thing that
0:21:53 they come for? It’s growth. Like they, like none of those companies are like, not none. So a lot of
0:21:57 those companies aren’t growing at the rate that we’re growing. And so there’s so much career advancement
0:22:04 and opportunity. Um, we are very meritocratic. And so like anyone can come here and move up
0:22:10 independent of age, you know, even, even independent of tenure. Like we had a guy who came here 90 days
0:22:14 ago and got a very large promotion after coming in at a pretty high role already, just because he
0:22:18 demonstrated he was great. And we’re like, great. We have this opening. We think you’d be the best fit.
0:22:23 And the growth is the, the revenue of the company, which then means you pull people up to higher roles.
0:22:27 So then basically in order to attract a plus talent, you have to, you have to grow fast.
0:22:31 Yeah. I mean, yeah, exactly. You have to grow fast. And I do think that’s a virtuous cycle,
0:22:35 which is like the faster you grow, the more talent you get, which grows you faster. And so
0:22:39 like it can also be vicious in the other direction. It’s mostly vicious in the other direction.
0:22:44 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re shrinking and you have no money to give people. Yeah. It gets, it gets tough.
0:22:48 But you are like, a lot of businesses are like growing only 20 or 20% a year. I don’t know,
0:22:55 something like fine, but mediocre number. And it’s like, where do they start if they don’t have growth
0:22:58 in order, not growth in terms of just the money to pay people, but growth in order to impress
0:23:03 the right people to join them? I think it all depends on what, like the opportunity and the
0:23:07 level of tech, like the pool that you’re competing against. You know, like if you are an AI, true AI,
0:23:10 you know, company, you know, it is super competitive on the flip side though. Like
0:23:17 if someone’s going to start a new division for us, I can just say, like, I can guarantee you demand.
0:23:22 Not a lot of people can do that. And so like, it’s not a question of whether this will work or not.
0:23:28 Is it’s, is this the best use of the demand that we have? And so it becomes an opportunity cost
0:23:34 question. But a lot of people in some ways, it’s like, it’s less risky to come to ACQ because we
0:23:39 have so much demand. And there’s just, there’s so much opportunity. That’s basically like, if you’re
0:23:44 working for Jimmy said, you know, use a different brand, like Mr. Beast, like he has virtually a
0:23:50 limitless demand. And so if he’s like, Hey, can you help me spin up? Whatever, pick up, pick a random thing.
0:23:54 If Mr. Beast was going to say, Hey, let’s start an umbrella brand. It doesn’t mean like,
0:23:59 he for sure will sell umbrellas. It’s just not the best use of his resources. Right? And so it’s like,
0:24:04 we need somebody who can come in and recognize the best vehicle for, for the demand that we have,
0:24:08 and then be able to obviously execute it on it. But a lot of people don’t have that,
0:24:13 like built in guaranteed, you know, they just don’t have that. And so that becomes actually
0:24:17 significantly riskier, despite, you know, what other quote perks might exist. And so it’s like,
0:24:21 you’ve guaranteed demand, you’ve basically guaranteed growth as, as, as fast as you can
0:24:26 grow, we can grow. And that’s, and we also still pay exceptionally well. And so with those, you know,
0:24:30 those things put together, we can get very, very good talent. And there’s also people that are just
0:24:34 very mission driven. Like we have a lot of people who come in and are like, I’ve consumed your stuff
0:24:40 for years and I saw the recruiter reached out to me and I was stoked. And that was it. Like, there’s just,
0:24:45 in some ways it’s like, you know, private equity number 17. It’s like, they’re all, it’s almost,
0:24:50 it’s just commoditized. Like the, their business is commoditized. It’s just not that interesting. And so they
0:24:55 have to compete on price. And so their price is their comp. Whereas if you have a value proposition,
0:24:59 like what’s the, what’s the grand slam offer from an employee perspective, rather than a grand slam
0:25:03 offer from a product perspective, because it’s still the exact same process of acquiring talent
0:25:08 as it is to acquire customers. It’s just a reverse funnel. Uh, what mistakes do you think most people
0:25:15 make when it comes to hiring? Oh man. Um, or maybe you could say, maybe answer it differently.
0:25:19 I’m hiring for about six or seven roles. What mistakes do you think I’ll, I’ll likely make?
0:25:24 Well, what’s the role or what are some of the roles? Yeah. So we could say, uh, what’s like
0:25:28 a really a salesperson. That’s a, that’s a simple one. Um, but I’m hiring other roles. So I’m
0:25:33 hiring, um, chapter leads. So we have 13 chapters that we, uh, my business is based in and we’re
0:25:39 having hiring people to manage each chapter. I mean, the easy answer is settling, but it’s so
0:25:43 tough because there’s, there’s trades because these things don’t exist outside of time.
0:25:49 You know, it’s like, I have to fill this role and I want to find somebody, especially if us,
0:25:52 obviously for us at the C level, cause that’s what’s top of mind for me. It’s like,
0:25:54 I have to have somebody that when I’m on the phone with them, I’m thinking,
0:25:58 I have to have this person. And if I don’t have that, but I’m like, man,
0:26:03 I really need this role. And so if I’m thinking from the, like, I really have to fill this role
0:26:06 angle, it’s like usually not the right person. If I’m thinking like, I don’t even care if I have
0:26:09 a role for this person, I have to get them in. It’s usually the right person.
0:26:13 Are you willing to pay them more than you originally thought was reasonable?
0:26:18 Yes. A hundred percent. Not even a question. Have you ever, have you ever been like, I got to come up
0:26:22 with enough money? Like, I hope I can get enough sales to afford this person, but I have to have
0:26:26 them. I haven’t had the second part because we’re a super cashflow positive company. So like that
0:26:30 hasn’t been a problem. I mean, fundamentally, as long as I can just pencil out the ROI of the role,
0:26:33 then yeah, I’ll do it. I mean, it’s just a return on capital.
0:26:39 What’s, what, what’s your desired return though? Amazing. Oh yeah. Well, it’s like,
0:26:43 I mean, it’s, I still think the heights allow you to put amazing in equals amazing.
0:26:49 Mind it. I think, I think the highest returns on capital we get as entrepreneurs is talent.
0:26:55 Like full stop. Like what, where else do you get 10X, 20X, you know, returns, 100X returns,
0:27:00 uh, and, and, and can do so reliably. Like talent is one of those places you can do it. I will also say
0:27:04 that typically the higher up the org, the higher the arbitrage.
0:27:10 Are you fast to fire? Uh, we continue to get faster. I’ll say that. I think we get faster.
0:27:17 I would say that, um, our firing practices do somewhat, uh, rely on the constraint. So like
0:27:23 sometimes, you know, Layla says this, but like some fires aren’t, aren’t kitchen fires. They’re like
0:27:28 the, the, the trash can in the driveway is on fire. It’s like, it’s a problem. Like we’ll get to it,
0:27:33 but it’s not the thing that’s limiting the business. And so if we have somebody who’s not as good as they
0:27:37 should be, but they’re not in a role that’s right now, like limiting the company, it’s probably not
0:27:43 going to be our first priority to, to, to, to take them out. But as soon as that becomes the constraint,
0:27:46 then it like quickly gets unearthed and then it gets handled.
0:27:49 Have you ever, uh, followed Dave Portnoy, uh, Barstool Sports?
0:27:55 Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, he’s quirky, right? He’s crazy. He, uh, one of his jokes,
0:27:59 but it’s not a joke. He’s like, I don’t fire people. He’s like, I just, I don’t want to fire people.
0:28:02 And if they’re a loser, I’ll just keep paying them and they’re going to sit in the corner and be a loser.
0:28:08 But I don’t fire anyone. And, uh, I kind of thought that was hilarious. It’s funny because
0:28:11 he’s a content company and he can make content out of it and get an ROI out of like, just making fun
0:28:15 of someone who wants to fire. But I was like shocked that that would be his take on it because
0:28:19 he seemed like a pretty brutal guy, not a brutal guy, but he seems like a very blunt and he has
0:28:23 no problem firing people. And he was like, I do, I suck at it. I don’t like the confrontation.
0:28:27 I don’t like people feeling bad. And so I just don’t do it. I’d rather lose money.
0:28:31 And, uh, when I asked you about firing, I thought that you were going to be like, yeah,
0:28:37 like I fire fast, but I sensed a small bit in your voice where it sounded like potentially
0:28:41 you were slow to fire because maybe I’m, I’m, I’m reading too much into your sentiment or your
0:28:43 tone of voice, but it was like, I just don’t like it.
0:28:48 I don’t think anybody likes it. I think we’re, we’re fast to fire if it is the constraint of
0:28:51 the business. And clearly that person is the one limiting us. Like we will not sacrifice the
0:28:54 company’s growth and the opportunity of all the people who’ve trusted us with their careers
0:29:00 to, to not have a, uh, you know, a comfortable conversation. There’s also levels of this. And so
0:29:04 like, let’s say there’s like, you know, uh, red, yellow, green, right? If someone’s like, well,
0:29:08 green, they’re great. Fine. So basically just maybe like a yellow, orange, red. Let’s use that as the
0:29:13 three levels for me. Like if somebody is just not, doesn’t have the complete competence, but it’s
0:29:17 not like they can still do their job, but they’re not doing it as well as they should. And they’re
0:29:21 definitely not going to grow and they can’t take on new opportunities. Then that to me is like a
0:29:27 yellow. If they’re like, for sure, like they can’t actually do their, their, their role right now.
0:29:32 That’s an orange. If red is like, you can’t do the role right now. And that thing is required for us
0:29:37 to grow. And so that’s, that’s kind of like, I would say, like we, it’s, it’s, it’s a combination
0:29:43 of like, what is the business need? Um, and how incompetent is the person? And so the rates of
0:29:46 firing, I think would depend on both of those things. Obviously we want to like, in a perfect
0:29:50 world, we get everyone out who’s not a fit as soon as humanly possible. Um, it’s just that sometimes
0:29:54 some people do turn it around, uh, with good feedback and coaching. And that probably happens
0:29:58 half the time. Like, I guess asking myself the question, like, why do I feel bad about making this
0:30:05 decision? And then trying to make sure that I’m not acting in the global bad for local good, like local
0:30:09 versus global. Like I think about that as like my way of trying to break through that, like terrible
0:30:13 feeling you have and you’re like, I have to let this person go. It’s like, well, if I don’t, I’m
0:30:18 choosing short-term comfort over, over, over long-term discomfort. And I think most of life can be boiled
0:30:22 down to people doing that over and over again. They take the local win, they take the short-term win for
0:30:27 the global loss. It’s like, if you do that enough times, you get a global, a global catastrophe.
0:30:33 And so that’s what I try to avoid. And I just put the greater good as the frame, um, as my like
0:30:38 little, my little spiritual, spiritual armor, if you will, of going into it, knowing that like this
0:30:43 person might get upset. Um, and this might even, you know, dramatically inconvenience this person’s
0:30:49 life in the short term, but like I owe it to the other zillion people who also have put their,
0:30:55 you know, their careers, their, their, their lives in, in, you know, my hands to a degree from a
0:30:59 decision-making process, like I owe it to them. And so that’s what kind of gets me over the hump to pull
0:30:59 the trigger faster.
0:31:08 Yeah, it’s awesome. I love it. And, uh, I love reading biographies, um, of like historical
0:31:16 entrepreneurs. And a common thing that I get from the founders podcast is patience and basically like
0:31:20 doing something for decades. That’s another thing that I’ve gotten from your content, which is like,
0:31:23 things take a long time. They take longer than you think it’s gonna be harder than you think.
0:31:30 And I believe that to be true. But then also I see people like you. And if you go to your YouTube,
0:31:37 I think on every description, it was like age 26. I was here age 27. I was here age. And I’m like,
0:31:43 I don’t think he was very patient. That doesn’t read that. That doesn’t read like a patient person,
0:31:48 because I think you, if I remember correctly, I’m just making this up. I think you started acquisition.com
0:31:54 at something like the age of 31. And then by like 33 or 34, you had the seminar business,
0:31:58 that you guys do. And it was probably doing many tens of millions, probably eight figures,
0:32:02 mid eight figures in business and very profitable. And I’m like, well, that doesn’t seem like something
0:32:08 that was, I mean, I was pretty fast. How do you talk about being patient all the time, but you’re
0:32:11 moving at a wicked, a wicked pace and getting results quickly?
0:32:15 I think the patience is relative to the outcome that you’re going for.
0:32:23 And so like, if you, if you’re trying to climb Everest, right, your rate of ascension in terms of
0:32:28 altitude is going to be significantly faster than somebody who’s trying to climb a foothill.
0:32:34 The percentage growth will might, might be the same though. And so a patient person might be willing
0:32:39 to grow at one, two, three, four percent per year towards their ultimate Everest. But it’s just that
0:32:43 four percent of Everest is significantly faster than four percent of a foothill. And so the absolute
0:32:47 difference will be different, but the relative difference, which is like what I’m quote measuring
0:32:51 myself against is where I feel patient. And I think that’s where, um, the whole macro, you know,
0:32:56 macro speed, sorry, macro patients, micro speed is, um, is super important. It’s like, we still need,
0:32:59 we still have deadlines. We still need to move the ball forward. We still have to act with urgency.
0:33:02 We still have to ask the question of like, what would it take in order to do this in half the time?
0:33:06 What would it take for us to do this in a fifth of the time? And can we do that? Let’s do that.
0:33:10 And I think I honestly see a lot of the job of the manager or the driver or the operator,
0:33:15 depending on what term you want to use as doing that, which is just consistently pulling,
0:33:19 like pulling the future forward faster. And like when you’re having, you know, even at the tactical
0:33:22 level, like you’re having a team meeting and you say, Hey, when can you get that done by?
0:33:27 They will give you a date. And then like the follow up, like, you know, a level one manager,
0:33:31 a level zero manager doesn’t ask when there’s, when there’s, when the deadline is a level one manager
0:33:34 would be like, would just accept the deadline. Like a level two manager would be like, well,
0:33:39 what else do you have? Uh, that’s blocking you right now from getting that done. Uh, and they might
0:33:42 say, well, I have these three things. And at that point they might say, well, this is more important
0:33:47 than those things. So do this first. And then with that new knowledge, what is your new deadline?
0:33:51 And they might say like, okay, instead of end of week, I can get it, you know, two days earlier
0:33:55 earlier than that. It’s like, okay, how many actual hours do you think this work will take?
0:33:57 And they might say like, well, I think it’ll probably take four hours. And it’s like, okay,
0:34:02 well, it’s noon now. So why isn’t it not four o’clock today? Right. And I think somebody who’s
0:34:05 willing to continue to ask this questions and they’re like, well, I could do it, you know,
0:34:10 today. And I just wanted to give myself some time. It’s like, well, why? Right. And so I think that’s,
0:34:15 that consistent pulling forward. And the thing is, is like, it’s almost like many confrontational
0:34:20 conversations that I think are required in order to move an entire organization at breakneck speed.
0:34:25 I mean, I look at Elon a lot, you know, as an inspiration from a business perspective and
0:34:30 all of his competitors talk about that, just like the maniacal sense of urgency that he carries.
0:34:34 And I think a lot of it is that it’s just like consistently challenging, like what would it take?
0:34:38 And is it worth us doing, like, is it worth it for what it would take? If the answer is yes,
0:34:43 then let’s do it. And a lot of people will kind of like, they make their decisions within their frame
0:34:47 or their realm of reality, uh, when that’s not based on anything besides their own conjecture or
0:34:53 some arbitrary timeline of what they think it should take. I’ve always been like curious as to how
0:34:58 people get to that level, because, uh, like, for example, I was, um, a track athlete in high
0:35:03 school and college. And I remember thinking in high school, I’m the shit. Cause I was so much better
0:35:07 than like everyone else. And then you like get around division one guys and you’re like, oh my
0:35:13 God, like I’m a, I’m nothing. Like there are so many levels. And, and then you like get risen up to
0:35:18 that level or you don’t, or you get hurt and you just don’t, you’re like, oh, I’m just, I’m not good
0:35:23 enough. And then when I’m hanging out with guys like you, or when I think of Elon Musk who have these
0:35:28 like super intense things, like I’ll read something you put out. You’re like, when I get a new lead,
0:35:33 I called them in 60 seconds. And if I can’t do that, I hire someone in her full-time job is
0:35:38 calling someone in 60 seconds. And I’m like, that makes so much sense. Why did I think that
0:35:43 calling someone in 15 minutes was adequate? And this is just a really small example,
0:35:46 but then it goes all the way up to like building rockets, you know, where it’s like, oh, I’m not,
0:35:51 I’m not going to leave the warehouse for three weeks. So how do you think that people get their
0:35:57 standards to be raised to this like extreme level? Like were you around other extreme people and you’re
0:36:01 like, oh my gosh, there’s so much more to do. That’s now the standard. Or do you think that
0:36:07 some people are just born extreme and, and they, they just get there and they bring others to that
0:36:07 level?
0:36:11 I think it’s probably a nature nurture question. And to be clear, I don’t know the answer. This is
0:36:17 just my two cents. I’ve always been a really intense person. Like my, my father, my whole upbringing used
0:36:21 to always say like balance. He’s like, you’re so unbalanced. You’re so unbalanced. Because like,
0:36:25 as soon as I’d find something, I would just want to do nothing besides that thing until I had like
0:36:29 finished it or, you know, whatever it was. And so I do think there’s a component of that. The other aspect,
0:36:34 though, is like, I for sure have had called beliefs broken, you know, uh, frame shifts from
0:36:40 people who were ahead of me, like me, even observing Elon, you know, it, it, it stretches the horizon of
0:36:44 what, you know, I think we can accomplish. And, you know, it’s actually in some ways very refreshing to
0:36:49 think like, okay, well, you know, where was Elon when he was 36, right? Versus, you know, 56 or
0:36:54 whatever, you know, however, however old he is now. And he had such an exponential crescendo in his
0:37:00 career, that to me, it’s like, it’s actually very, like, inspiring that it just, it just takes time.
0:37:03 And a lot of the I think what takes time for entrepreneurs is there’s just so many skills
0:37:10 required to be a good entrepreneur. And you have to be like, very good at all of them. That’s why I see
0:37:13 entrepreneurship as the single greatest path of personal development, like you get real time
0:37:20 feedback that you suck. And then at some point, most of us on some level get to a level of success
0:37:25 and then say like, this is enough, or I’m not willing to make the trade-offs beyond this point
0:37:30 in other areas, because it depends on the entrepreneur that you ask. But I would say the vast majority of
0:37:35 entrepreneurs want to win the game of life. And business is a component is one of the games within
0:37:41 the larger game of life. Some people get lost to whatever game they’re in, um, or they just consciously
0:37:46 choose that that game is more important to them. I mean, like Steve Jobs accomplished a lot. I think
0:37:50 there’s, there’s been a lot that’s been documented about his, you know, personal life suffering,
0:37:54 you know, as, as a result of his professional career, you could make an argument that he was
0:37:59 amazing net positive for humanity, but on the micro level, he lived a harder existence. Elon is probably
0:38:03 another one of those people. A lot of people don’t, wouldn’t want Elon’s life. And he says,
0:38:09 you wouldn’t want my life. That’s probably a lot of my, a lot of my free, like shower time right now is
0:38:14 like, when you know the price of the thing you want, like, it’s okay to go into a store,
0:38:19 see something you like, and then not buy it. Why are you questioning that now? Is it because
0:38:24 you just had this huge launch and you like hit a, hit a milestone that you’re like, oh my God,
0:38:26 I wanted this the whole time and I finally got it. And maybe I didn’t want it as well,
0:38:32 as much as I want. Or do you feel, well, I had a confluence of three things happen within 30 days.
0:38:38 So I had call it a four plus year project come to an end, which was a lot of my shower time
0:38:43 was around the whole hundred million dollar series and the culmination of the money models launch.
0:38:48 Uh, so that was one there’s obviously, you know, a financial outcome that was, you know, quickly,
0:38:52 you know, happened, um, at the launch. That’s the second thing. Then the third thing is my
0:38:57 mother died within 30 days. And so it was a very interesting mix of different emotions within that
0:39:02 period of time. And so I have, I, you know, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on like,
0:39:07 what are the things that matter most? And so like in writing, I mean, I think everyone’s heard the
0:39:11 advice, like write your own eulogy and then try to live that way, except most people don’t actually
0:39:16 take the time to write their own eulogy. But in writing her eulogy, it was, it was interesting to
0:39:21 see like what portion, if we had a pie chart of this eulogy is going to be dedicated to her
0:39:27 accomplishments and she was a relatively accomplished person, um, compared to the rest of it, which was
0:39:31 about service and character. And the vast majority of it was service and character.
0:39:35 And so in thinking about that, it’s like, okay, well then if I were to apportion my time
0:39:43 based on what my eulogy percentages would be, I would probably not have the same pie chart that I do now.
0:39:49 Now that being said, you know, life is, has a lot of years. And so maybe that slice of pie chart,
0:39:55 that’s the first two or three sentences or whatever might be 15 years. And then there’s just another
0:39:59 period of 15 years afterwards or 30 years afterwards that are different that chart.
0:40:04 Yeah. If you, if you live right. Maybe she had a freak accident. So hers was a sudden death.
0:40:09 And so, yeah. So that’s what I think about a lot is, is the trade-offs because I think most of like,
0:40:13 because obviously I have a lot of content that’s going out there just because people tend to ask me
0:40:17 stuff about hard work. And the reason I think I tweet so much about it is because it’s always top
0:40:21 of mind for me. So like, I don’t have a, we talked about this at the beginning, but like, I don’t have a
0:40:25 content schedule or I don’t have like a, you know, I’m looking at trending tweets and thinking, oh,
0:40:30 how do I do my own spin on this? Like, that’s not how I make content. I tweet, whatever is top of
0:40:33 mind. And the things that come out are the things that I’m thinking about. And you’re going to kind
0:40:37 of like see the, the trends of whatever I’m thinking about a specific season. But if you just take the
0:40:40 aggregate of like a month of tweets, it’s like, oh, I was thinking about this right now.
0:40:45 Yeah. You’re like in a lawsuit and you’re like talking about like being tough or having grit or like,
0:40:47 you know, like overcoming an obstacle.
0:40:50 Yeah. Like people betraying you and like all this stuff has been a part.
0:40:53 Where you’re making all this money and it’s like gratitude. You know what I mean?
0:40:57 Yeah. And so I think there’s two things that I think make entrepreneurship hard.
0:41:02 Number one is uncertainty. It’s just the, the absolute kind of like soul crushing uncertainty
0:41:06 that is always present throughout your day, every day while you’re making decisions. And it’s just
0:41:11 always this idea, like you might lose and you don’t know. And then the, the other component that makes
0:41:17 it so difficult is the known quantities that you believe that you’re going to have to trade
0:41:20 in order to get the unknown. I guess there is some uncertainty there too.
0:41:24 The unknown upside. And so it’s like, we can always quantify the downside, the thing that we trade and
0:41:30 we cannot quantify the upside. And so I think about that a lot because I think a lot of entrepreneurship,
0:41:33 you know, a lot of entrepreneurs that I see, especially common with like, you know,
0:41:36 the lifestyle entrepreneurs, cause I get tons of flack from that community and that’s okay.
0:41:40 Like I just, I just see that. It’s like, we all get to whatever level that we’re willing to trade,
0:41:47 trade for. Um, but I just see them as trade-offs. And I think most of the regrets that people have
0:41:53 are wanting the upside from a decision or a path not taken without taking into account the downside
0:42:00 this is for the folks out there who have a business that does at least $3 million a year in revenue.
0:42:05 Because around this point, that’s when you’re able to look up after being heads down for years,
0:42:09 building your company. And you realize two things. One, you’ve done something great,
0:42:13 but you’re still a long way from your final destination. And two, you look around and you
0:42:20 realize I am all alone. I’ve outrun my peers, which means you’re now making $10 million decisions
0:42:26 alone by yourself. And that is when mediocrity can creep in. My company, Hampton, we solved this
0:42:31 problem by giving a room of vetted peers of other entrepreneurs who are going to hold you accountable,
0:42:36 call you out on your nonsense and help show you the way. Because the fact is, is that there’s only
0:42:40 a tiny number of people in your town who know what you’re going through and who have been there.
0:42:45 And they’re hard to find. The biggest risk is not failing. You have a company and it’s working,
0:42:49 you’re going to be fine. But the biggest risk is waking up 10 years from now and saying,
0:42:55 “Shit, I barely grew in business and in life.” And for people like you who are ambitious,
0:43:01 wasted potential and regret is what we want to help you to avoid. We have made so many of these groups,
0:43:05 and we have a thousand plus members. And I know this stuff actually works. It can change
0:43:10 your life. It changed mine and I know it will change yours. So check it out, joinhampton.com.
0:43:14 What’s the pie chart like now?
0:43:22 I mean, I think for now it’s almost entirely business. I would say like I probably have 15%
0:43:29 that’s probably dedicated to like marriage stuff, like marriage, Layla stuff. And probably 15% that’s
0:43:34 dedicated to like health stuff. So I’m probably like 70% work, 15 health, 15 marriage.
0:43:37 What do you think when you’re in the, when you’re thinking about what it should be?
0:43:41 Do you ever think like, well, I would like to try on this style or this?
0:43:44 Yeah. I think I would love to see a world where like
0:43:51 25 to 30% is business. I’d love to see what happens there. I also think that there might be
0:43:56 like, and I, and I say this understanding like the position that I’m in to say this, which is
0:44:05 I’m approaching a point where more hours really doesn’t like so much more of it at this point will
0:44:11 be the leverage of the decisions that I make more than the work that I do. And so I think I’m, I’m,
0:44:14 I’m feeling, I’m feeling that transition right now. And so it might be,
0:44:21 that could have been earlier though. I mean, I, you know, I just feel it now for whatever that’s
0:44:25 worth. He’s got a good team, I guess. Yeah. The team is, the team is getting,
0:44:28 is getting better and better and better. We have a huge, a huge amount of, of a true
0:44:32 a level talents coming in. Very excited about that. But yeah, a lot of the leverage is on the decision
0:44:37 making. And maybe it’s just that some of the bets that I made five years ago have come to fruition
0:44:42 and have paid off, which then then just give more, more leverage, right? Because I mean,
0:44:46 fundamentally output is just volume times leverage. And so, I mean, I could maybe make
0:44:50 the argument if I did even more, Elon still works a lot. So if you do a lot of volume in with a lot
0:44:55 of leverage, you build rockets and build trillion dollar businesses. So like, you know, I don’t say
0:45:00 that thinking that I’m somehow immune to it. 25% business. What else? Oh, it would probably just
0:45:04 be a more even spread. It would probably be like maybe 25%, you know, I probably keep,
0:45:08 I think health would probably be still around 15 ish percent. I might change what I do there,
0:45:11 but that I think I have an appropriate amount from the health, the health category.
0:45:18 I assume I’ll just, I’ll bucket Layla as just family, um, wife at all. I just think,
0:45:21 I just think the percentages will change. I, you know what? I’ll just say that. I don’t know what
0:45:24 they are. I think they will change from what they currently are. I feel confident in that.
0:45:27 What’s a non-business pursuit that you’d want to put in there potentially?
0:45:31 I don’t know. And I think I, I need to, I think I need to create the space in order for
0:45:35 that to get filled. Like, I don’t think I will have a difficulty in finding things to fill my time.
0:45:40 I think I don’t know of you to have any, we’re buddies, but not, we’re not terribly close,
0:45:45 but I, I don’t, I’ve never like, we’re not that close. Well, we’re like, we’re like, uh,
0:45:49 I would say we’re, we’re friends, but like, um, um, we’ve known each other for, uh, off and on for a
0:45:53 couple of years now. And I’ve never seen you shown interest in hobbies. Like over the, like, I like
0:45:59 history. I’ve loved, I like buying clothes. I think clothes are cool. Uh, I like cars. I like
0:46:04 motorcycles. Uh, like I have like hobbies where I’m like, I’m passionate about X, Y, and Z, but I have
0:46:12 never heard of you to like anything other than your wife and working out and business and business.
0:46:16 Yeah. Those have been my, my big three. I would say that I would, I would define myself as for the
0:46:22 first time in, in 15 years, not even 15. Cause I wanted to start making money when I was like 15.
0:46:27 So it’s, I guess it’s been 21 years. Um, it’s the first time in my life where I’ve,
0:46:31 I’ve been open to having other priorities. I don’t know what they are like straight up. I don’t know.
0:46:35 I don’t know what they will be. Um, and maybe, maybe I’ll just discover that I, I like the life
0:46:42 that I have now, but it’s the first time that I’ve been like, huh, I am open to this mix changing.
0:46:47 Uh, Andrew Ross Sorkin. Um, he’s got this new book called 1929. I’m in the, I’m in the,
0:46:50 in the middle of reading it. I think you read sites science fiction, right?
0:46:55 Yeah. It’s just surely. Yeah. I like science fiction. I like, uh, some of the more popular
0:47:00 ones, but I’m a big history guy. And this book, uh, 1929, it’s about the, um, great depression
0:47:07 and how it came to be. And basically credit had just become a thing. So credit GM, uh, invented it.
0:47:12 So you could get a car on a loan and then eventually other appliances on a loan. And then Sears was like,
0:47:16 Oh, we’ll do a layaway thing. We’ll give you credit so you can buy clothing. And then Citibank,
0:47:21 which back then was called national bank. Uh, they said, let’s do it for stocks and bonds.
0:47:26 So you can borrow money and we will let you buy stocks. And they did it at a 10 to one ratio,
0:47:31 meaning for, uh, every $10 of stocks that you have with Citibank, we’re going to loan you a hundred
0:47:39 dollars. And so the great depression happened because, uh, when the market went under, which
0:47:44 happens occasionally happened during COVID, it was just like a domino effect because everyone was
0:47:49 incredibly over leverage. And he tells this amazing story about it. And there’s like probably 20
0:47:54 characters in the book and they’re like the Jamie diamonds of the time. And they give you the day
0:47:58 to day life of these characters. And it’s really fascinating. And my biggest takeaway from this book
0:48:03 so far, well, there’s been a bunch of takeaways, but one takeaway is that the executives of these banks,
0:48:08 they didn’t work that hard. And they were like, they were in the Jamie diamonds at the time and
0:48:12 their income was the equivalent of a hundred million dollars a year. And like one guy had a
0:48:17 routine where he’s like, I’m up at six. I am exercise. I’m at the office at 10. I’m home by five.
0:48:21 Another guy had a similar routine as that, but then he would take off. He took summer off to go to
0:48:26 Europe with his family and going to Europe meant taking a three week boat. And same with Andrew
0:48:31 Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie was popular in the late 1800s. He died probably in 1920 or so. He did the
0:48:36 same thing where he would barely work. And I read about some of these, like, I think Brian Halligan,
0:48:40 who’s the founder of HubSpot just tweeted, he’s like, you don’t move mountains working nine to five.
0:48:46 And all these people, yourself included and myself included, talk about hard work. But I like see
0:48:50 all these other examples and I’m like, isn’t it crazy how much you can get done by actually not
0:48:54 working hard? And lately I’ve been like interested by some of those examples. Have you ever read about
0:48:59 that? I haven’t read about it, but I’ve definitely observed it with some people that are further ahead
0:49:05 than I am. I think what’s always difficult is like, do I model the top of the mountain or do I model the
0:49:11 climb? Like, am I trying to extrapolate how someone currently lives for what they did to get there?
0:49:15 Um, and that one’s always a really dangerous one that I try and catch myself on, which is like,
0:49:19 you know, we’re in different seasons. And so I have to make sure that I’m comparing this person’s
0:49:24 spring, uh, you know, to my spring, not, not my winter to their spring.
0:49:29 Well, like all these, like, I’m just, I can list so many people where I read these books and I’m like,
0:49:34 you don’t work hard at all. What the hell? It’s like, what am I doing? Uh, like Ted Turner was another
0:49:38 guy. He, he, Ted Turner, when he built CNN, which made him a multi-billionaire, he was also a
0:49:43 professional sailboat racer where he was gone for three months at a time racing sailboats.
0:49:47 Uh, and so anyway, I could, I could give you so many examples of that. It’s just crazy.
0:49:52 Wait, let’s, let’s take that for a second. Cause I think that like, let’s say, let’s say like within
0:49:57 your business, let’s say that you could find the perfect Sam just as a thought routine, right?
0:50:02 The perfect Sam that you could hire and whatever you could pay the perfect Sam to do, and he could do
0:50:08 everything you can do just as well as you can. It’s like, so whatever your current profit is minus Sam’s
0:50:11 compensation. If you could do that, then you would have almost the same amount of money you have now.
0:50:15 And maybe in two years, perfect Sam would grow the pie so that you’re making the same or more
0:50:19 than you’re making right now, but you’re still not working at all. And so if that’s the case,
0:50:24 then it’s like, we’re always like in the hypothetical world, we’re one hire away from somebody who could
0:50:28 do 100% of what we’re currently doing. And the business would be able to continue to grow.
0:50:32 I think, um, to that point about patience is like, but most entrepreneurs are like, well,
0:50:36 I’ll, I’ll find that person. I’ll give it to that person. And then I’ll start the next job.
0:50:40 Whereas some other people just say like, I’m just not going to start that next job
0:50:43 and then just be willing to let the company continue to grow with the team that I’ve assembled.
0:50:47 And I think both like fundamentally, if you work or you don’t work, as long as the business performs
0:50:51 these functions, it will grow. I heard you say something kind of interesting. So a lot of people
0:50:58 shit on course makers and I was thinking about my life and like, I’ve bought a lot of courses actually.
0:51:05 and many of them were, were not only great, they changed my life. Uh, one of my good buddies,
0:51:09 Neville Madora had a copywriting course, changed my life. I took it. It changed my life. Um, and
0:51:15 there’s been a bunch of others. Have you ever bought or taken any courses and which one, if you did,
0:51:17 was game changing for you?
0:51:21 The biggest things that have really changed my life was actually like, had been, had been
0:51:25 net like networks of people, um, more than anything, like getting in the room
0:51:31 with people who were ahead of me within the current realm or even across realms from me.
0:51:36 That was the stuff that really changed my life the most for sure. From the tactical level books,
0:51:41 courses, things like that, workshops, seminars, like those things. Absolutely. Like I’m at,
0:51:46 I am a product of the alternative education world. Like I have no reservations about that. I am. Some
0:51:50 people were able to learn on their own. I was willing to pay to learn for people who were ahead of
0:51:56 me and I, it was more than more than worth it. But I think that the biggest, so basically there’s two types of
0:51:59 knowledge, right? You have declarative knowledge, which is knowledge about stuff. And then you have,
0:52:04 uh, procedure knowledge, which is knowledge, how to do stuff. The, the, the courses and DIY stuff
0:52:08 is predominantly procedural, uh, which is, here’s how you set up a landing page. You say write copy.
0:52:13 Here’s how you structure a video sales letter or whatever. Right. And then there’s the, I see that
0:52:17 the, the, the networks and affiliations. And when you meet people who are further ahead of you,
0:52:21 those are where you get their quote beliefs broken. That’s where you learn about stuff
0:52:25 that you didn’t know was possible. And that about stuff could be like, I didn’t know you could work
0:52:29 four hours a week and make that kind of money. I didn’t know that real estate worked that way. I
0:52:33 didn’t know that the insurance industry was so profitable or whatever it is. Right. And those
0:52:37 were, I think where I had my order of magnitude increases. So let’s say like my incremental
0:52:40 increases in, in business were always just, you know, developing more blocking, tackling skills.
0:52:44 Like I have to learn how to do a webinar. I have to learn how to do a sales call. I have to,
0:52:48 you know, all these things, but where they like increment, like the large step, step function
0:52:52 increases have been, um, through association with people that were just way further ahead. And we’re
0:52:55 like, Hey man, let me tell you what the next five years looks like. If you keep doing what you’re
0:52:59 doing this week, you need to do instead. Who’s on your list of, um, of people who you’d,
0:53:03 you’d kill to meet and spend, and spend time with our shadow for a day.
0:53:06 Uh, most of mine are the obvious ones. Like I would love to,
0:53:11 I’d love to shadow Elon. I’d love to shadow Zuck. I’d love to shadow Bezos. I’d love to shadow,
0:53:15 honestly, I’d rather love to shadow Bezos like 10 years ago. Cause actually I’m not even sure what
0:53:20 his, what his working, you know, what, what he’s doing next. He’s got blue origin and he’s got,
0:53:24 you know, I think he’s got other things going on, but like people who are in the thick of the game.
0:53:29 Um, I would love to, cause a lot of it is just like, how are they like, what frameworks are they
0:53:32 using to think through these decisions? Cause they’ve made these decisions a bunch of times. So like,
0:53:36 I would love to just get that framework. Cause if I could apply that to my current state, then
0:53:37 I would move faster.
0:53:43 I hear you learn these frameworks and I’m like, man, that is crazy that he is memorizing this stuff,
0:53:48 but not just memorizing it. But he, when I hear him talk about it, I believe that he actually uses
0:53:55 this in his day-to-day life. And, uh, I, I would like to get better at that. I’m just amazed at how
0:53:56 much information you retain.
0:54:01 Thanks. I think that if you are not good at predicting what is going to happen next,
0:54:06 life will be hard for you. And the better you get at predicting what’s going to happen next,
0:54:11 the more you will get what you want. And so then being able to predict what’s going to happen requires
0:54:18 an accurate framework of how reality works. And I think that that’s where, you know,
0:54:21 if you’ve lost everything and then you can rebuild it again, it’s because you
0:54:25 accurately review, view reality. And it wasn’t luck. You can redo it again.
0:54:29 And so for me, I think a big part of it was like, or still is,
0:54:34 I find like the most people don’t know what they’re saying. Most of the time,
0:54:40 like the vast majority of people spend their time regurgitating and repairing things that they never
0:54:45 thought about and saying words that they don’t understand. Because if you ask someone when they
0:54:49 say, Hey, I think you should do this. I would just feel like define that or like, Hey, my goal
0:54:54 is I want to insert thing. Like I want to feel great about myself. And I’d be like, well, what does that
0:54:58 mean? And then they can’t define it. I’m like, well, no, you haven’t hit it. You can’t even define
0:55:04 what you’re going for. Right. And so I think that the single greatest razor that I have for
0:55:14 defining reality more accurately has been removing all sentiment, emotion, and quote, psychology from
0:55:20 the equation and only looking at it from a behaviorist frame of what can I observe and just
0:55:25 say like, and so basically like, if you were to, if you were to, you know, alien comes on earth or a
0:55:29 toddler, depending on how you want to see it and say like, Hey, you know, what does trust mean?
0:55:33 Right. Like, Hey, you’re not very trustworthy. I’d be like, well, what does that mean to you?
0:55:37 Right. And most times people will just say like a bunch of nonsense back to you. And it’s like,
0:55:41 well, of course you don’t know. Like, and so I find that that’s most people and that’s why they
0:55:45 can’t, they can’t communicate well. And as a result, they don’t receive communication well from
0:55:49 the world because they don’t like, it’s two people saying words that neither of them understand.
0:55:52 And then they’re, and then they just roll the dice to see if they get what they want. And that’s how
0:55:54 most people live their lives, which is why they don’t get what they want. Cause they didn’t define
0:55:58 what they want. Like the beginning of every one of my books defines terms. The beginning of every
0:56:03 legal document, there’s a recitation of definitions. And it’s like, you need that in order to be precise
0:56:04 about what you want.
0:56:08 What’s that mean? So like defining what a win would look like, what does success look like? What does a
0:56:09 fail look like?
0:56:13 Yeah. Well, that’s that. Those are like the, I would say like the big obvious ones,
0:56:16 but underneath of that, it’s like the day-to-day life that you have. It’s like, you ask your wife,
0:56:19 it’s like, I’d like you to be more loving towards me. It’s like, well, what does that mean?
0:56:25 Like for real? Like, what is, what is you saying the word? I need you to love me better mean.
0:56:31 Does that mean, Hey, when I walk in the door, can you come and give me a hug? That’s observable.
0:56:36 I can see that a court witness could say he came in and did that. Right. And so, but like,
0:56:40 again, this is like getting as granular as everything. If we just bring everything down
0:56:44 to what is observable in reality, then we can all get to agreement. That’s where like,
0:56:48 I think the content that I have somehow seems both the same and different from the stuff that’s out
0:56:51 there. They’re like, man, I listened to her. You’ve got marketing stuff. And like,
0:56:54 he says things that I know, but he says it in a different way. And it’s like, well,
0:56:59 it’s because I just think about like, okay, well, what is selling? Right. And then a lot of people
0:57:04 are like, it’s a transference of feeling between two parties, you know, over a bridge of trust.
0:57:08 Right. And I would say something like that 15 years ago. And I would yell at it to salesmen.
0:57:12 I’d be like, dude, sales is just a transference of belief over a bridge of trust. It’s like,
0:57:17 that sounds amazing. There’s nice visuals. It’s like, but what the fuck does that mean?
0:57:22 Like, how do I go transfer belief over a bridge of trust? I’m like, go transfer belief over a bridge
0:57:24 of trust. And they’re like, I don’t know how to do that. It’s like, of course you don’t.
0:57:29 Of course you don’t. I don’t either. Of course you don’t.
0:57:34 It’s a bridge. I need a fucking bridge. Who’s got a bridge? And how do I give them this belief,
0:57:42 right? And so it’s natural to use shorthand with language because it’s faster to transfer ideas,
0:57:46 except neither party define the term. And that’s where a lot of quote miscommunications come from.
0:57:50 And so I think to be an accurate communicator, it’s like, we have to define terms before we can actually
0:57:54 engage in this conversation, which is annoying for some people. But it’s also required if you
0:57:59 want to have like effective communication. And so for that whole like salesperson thing,
0:58:02 it’s like, well, what is selling? It’s increasing the likelihood that someone makes a purchasing
0:58:05 decision. Done. That’s all it is. We just increase the likelihood. And so that is your job is to
0:58:08 increase the likelihood to make a purchasing decision. And we know that there’s a number of
0:58:13 variables that affect that percentage. And that’s what the ones that we can affect that we can observe.
0:58:17 And I think we just leave it there that we get all of this hullabaloo and all of the
0:58:20 the manifestation and the synchronicities and the energy and the men, you know, all this,
0:58:25 this crap out of there. And maybe that stuff’s true, but I can’t see it. So, and so how do I
0:58:29 transfer it? I don’t know. And so I just talked about the observable world and has made my life
0:58:34 so much better and my ability to predict what’s going to happen next. So much better.
0:58:39 Dude, this is why I like, by the way, uh, Dale Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people,
0:58:43 very tactical. So like the, the takeaway that everyone will have in that book,
0:58:46 well, at least one of them will be, you say someone’s name, say someone’s name,
0:58:51 because that’s the most beautiful sound in the English language. Very tactical. And another
0:58:55 really tactical thing that I love reading that more people should do, particularly if you’re,
0:59:00 if you work in the internet world, old school, direct response, copywriting books.
0:59:05 So Claude Hopkins, um, David Ogilvie is a little bit newer. Joe Sugarman’s a little bit newer.
0:59:11 Uh, Kennedy. I love reading those books. Those books are my favorite because they are the most
0:59:14 tactical, but they also teach you about life. They’re also great writers.
0:59:19 You know, who’s the best I think is Felix Dennis. Have you read Felix Dennis? How to get rich?
0:59:26 Yeah, dude, the best, the best writing I’ve ever read or like Dan Kennedy, who, uh, is a copywriter.
0:59:31 Somehow he has books on like management, which I’m like, don’t, don’t read that book.
0:59:35 He’s like in the beginning. Okay. So in the beginning of the book, he’s like,
0:59:39 I don’t have any employees because I hate employees, but let me write this long book
0:59:44 about managing a company. And I read it and I’m like, you are a quack man, but some of your advice
0:59:49 is actually quite good, but he’s so good at telling these stories and he makes them tactical, which is
0:59:53 what a really good copywriter does. And so it becomes quite actionable. Maybe you’re gonna take the wrong
0:59:58 action. Uh, but it’s very, it’s very actionable. Do you ever read those old, old school copywriting
1:00:02 books? No, I did when I, basically when I was, when I was in my like Rocky cut scene of learning
1:00:05 marketing, I read all that stuff. Um, I haven’t read much of it lately because I feel like,
1:00:11 uh, you know, like the midwit meme. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like the midwit meme is one of my
1:00:16 favorite memes of all time because it just, it’s, it’s been so true for me in so many domains of my
1:00:21 life. It’s like, you know, when I started lifting, it was like, add more weight, eat protein,
1:00:24 try hard, you know what I mean? Like do it over and over again. And that was like, that was it.
1:00:29 Right. And then I got into like, you know, periodization and like, you know, volume blocks,
1:00:34 then, you know, peaking cycles and like, you know, you know, we have to have undulating periods and we
1:00:36 have to have like, you know, this is better for pressure for you. This is better for stress.
1:00:40 I get into all this like complexity. Right. And then like fast forward now, it’s just like, dude,
1:00:45 just, just eat protein, add, add more weight to the bar and, you know, thank your parents for
1:00:49 your genetics, like whatever. Now, of course the comments will be like, and Alex takes testosterone,
1:00:52 which I’ve been public about. So deal with it. And so I think the same thing with marketing.
1:00:58 And so like a lot of it is your testosterone make you more Persian. Was it Persian testosterone?
1:01:03 I don’t know. Maybe I think it’s all genetics. Is that the PED is being bored Persian?
1:01:09 If anything, I think, I think the testosterone would decrease the amount of hair I have on my head,
1:01:13 at least. But anyways, but yeah, but like with marketing, it’s like, it’s so much like,
1:01:20 no persuasion occurs in the vague, like persuasion occurs in the specific. And so when it’s like,
1:01:27 oh, I knew he, he just like, if you can articulate someone’s pain to them more accurately than they
1:01:33 can, they will buy what you have to sell without even hearing much about whatever your offer is.
1:01:36 If someone describes every pain in your life and excruciating to each other, you’re like,
1:01:40 if this guy knows this much about my pain, he has to know how to solve it. And what’s also nice
1:01:46 about pain specifically is that pain is more motivating than promise. And so it’s also more
1:01:50 compliant. Because if we think about like, what, like, what is a salesperson? What is marketing in
1:01:53 general? Like, we just simply motivate someone to take action, right? We increase the likelihood that
1:01:58 they see this message, they take it desired action. And so it’s like, well, then where’s the basis of
1:02:02 motivation come from, which is a super complex question. And so for me, motivation comes from
1:02:10 deprivation. And we have to deprive the prospect or increase their perception of deprivation around
1:02:15 the out, the, you know, the action that’s associated with whatever thing that we want them to do,
1:02:19 or so the outcome associated with the action we want them to take. And so that comes from like,
1:02:22 when people were like, the pain is the pitch, which is one of my, my little isms is like,
1:02:27 the pain is the pitch. Like if you, if you can accurately do that, and it’s not about like fancy
1:02:32 words. It’s not, not at all. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s short words, short sentences,
1:02:38 clearly defined that it takes no brain power to process. And yet it still has emotional resonance
1:02:42 because of the specificity. So like lose weight fast probably worked as the first, first weight
1:02:48 loss ad in 1930. And then everyone was like, wow, that’s short words. That’s amazing. But then they
1:02:52 had to get like more nuanced. And so it’s like, you just have to keep breaking words down into like,
1:02:57 what does that really mean? Like, it’s like, what is like, have you ever been like
1:03:02 the overweight girl who, uh, wanted to take the photo instead of being the photo? You know what I
1:03:07 mean? Yeah. Yeah. No. And that’s real. Like, have you ever walked? Yeah, I know your thighs chafed
1:03:11 together. Have you ever always had a coverall when your friends were in bikini? Like, have you felt
1:03:16 weird about, you know, you putting your own sunscreen on? Have you been like in pictures you said,
1:03:21 like, do you, do you duck out? Uh, when you put your pants on that you used to wear, do you keep,
1:03:24 do you find yourself holding your breath for longer and longer in order to put them on?
1:03:28 Like those are best, you know, specifics. Right. And like, that’s where copy is driven,
1:03:32 which is why you have to know the customer, which is why in my opinion, some of the best marketers,
1:03:38 like the truly goaded marketers can advertise pain that they have not experienced. But the vast
1:03:43 majority of marketers who are good in specific spaces know the avatar because they are the avatar,
1:03:48 or at least were the avatar. One time we, um, I had this designer when I lived in San Francisco
1:03:52 working for my company to hustle. And we had this like new product that we were testing.
1:03:57 It was like $300 a year. And, uh, she made this beautiful page and I’m like,
1:04:01 you guys are insane. The design of this means nothing. And they’re like, what do you mean?
1:04:05 It’s like, they’re like, I spent so long on this logo. I’m like, oh my God, watch this.
1:04:09 And I like wrote out a Google doc. And then I, at the bottom of the Google doc,
1:04:14 I had a link to an event bar event bright page because that was the fastest way I could create.
1:04:18 Like I was like, this isn’t actually an event, but it’s just the easiest way that I can accept your
1:04:21 money. And once I get your money, then I’m going to send you the product manually.
1:04:24 The most jankiest thing ever.
1:04:29 We drove something like $5,000 of Facebook ads to each of the things.
1:04:35 The pretty one drove, it was like next to nothing. Just the Google doc, I made $50,000 off of,
1:04:42 I think only $5,000 in ad spend. And, uh, I’m like, please listen to me. Copy matters more than
1:04:48 anything. Now, if you can marry copy with good design, then that’s, that’s ideal. And I was like,
1:04:53 go and look at like, I was like, I don’t know, man, go look at like Apple’s page for the iPhone.
1:04:57 Like it’s the most known product of all time. There’s tons of words. And also there’s tons of
1:05:02 images and an image. It really is worth a thousand words. Or I was like, go look at Kindle, go look at
1:05:08 the Amazon listing for Kindle. You literally only see copy. There’s 10,000 reviews and it’s just copy,
1:05:12 copy, copy, copy. Copy is the way to go. And I was trying to like convince my team. And that was
1:05:17 like the final example. I was like, I told you just good words can sell way better than anything else.
1:05:21 Yeah, I agree. Also, I actually think that that’s true with content as well. Like if you’re an
1:05:24 educator, to be clear, if you’re an entertainer, that’s different. But like, if you’re an educator,
1:05:29 which most, you know, B2B, anybody who’s a business, uh, whatever, most businesses are,
1:05:33 if they make content is more on the educational side, um, whether you’re a plumber or otherwise,
1:05:37 like you tell people about toilets and then people buy your stuff, right? I did this experiment with my
1:05:42 team because sometimes my, my editing team gets like, they get cute, you know, they get, they want to get
1:05:47 fancy. So I said, Hey, this next one, we’re going to do the entire thing on an iPhone. All right. So the whole
1:05:52 thing is on an iPhone. The audio is crap. It’s shaky. A guy’s holding it. No tripod. Like, no,
1:05:57 that’s all it was. But, um, it was just about like a concept that I knew was going to do really well.
1:06:01 And it got like, you know, 1.7 or something, you know, almost 2 million views, uh, from that video.
1:06:09 And I was like, we spend so much time in post on some of these videos and like, it doesn’t matter. Now it
1:06:16 might matter a little bit. It might matter 10%, but are we appropriately, appropriately allocating the
1:06:19 resources towards the thing that’s going to get us the highest return? And the answer is almost always
1:06:24 no, because the words are the hard part, the words you have to think. And that’s what most people avoid.
1:06:27 You know, last time we talked, it was about 10 days ago or something like that. And, um,
1:06:32 I needed, uh, someone to, uh, I wanted to talk to you today because I enjoyed our conversation. And
1:06:35 I was like, I don’t want to plan. I just want to have a conversation with Alex. And like,
1:06:38 Ari made a joke. She was like, I want you to talk in soundbites. I was like,
1:06:41 that’s the exact opposite of what I want. I don’t want you to talk in any soundbites. I just want to
1:06:44 see what’s up and just catch up with you. And I’m happy we did that.
1:06:49 No, I am too, man. Ari, I’ll, if you want, I can just read like five tweets in a row and then Sam
1:06:54 can react. Yeah. You’re, you’re a fortune cookie. That’s what you are. You’re a fortune cookie.
1:06:58 Would that be better? I’ll just, I’ll just read. Wait, so is that really your writing process? Do
1:07:05 you just like write like one set, one sentences? Well, for tweets, yes. Um, that’s exactly what it is.
1:07:12 Um, like literally that’s, that’s a hundred percent what it is. Do you use ChatGPT? No, no. I,
1:07:18 I don’t use any AI for, for the, for the tweets. Come on. Dazzle me. Why not die me with some lines?
1:07:24 Either sell extremely expensive to a select few or sell something super cheap to everyone. The
1:07:30 middle is where people die. You’re making me weak at the knees, Alex. Keep going. Right. Poor people
1:07:35 stay poor because they want a fast way to get rich. If you’re in your twenties and want to stand out,
1:07:39 do what you say you’re going to do. Even if no one is there to give you applause. The fastest way to stand
1:07:44 out is to put in more effort than everyone else. Show up early, use names, do your research at a time,
1:07:49 smile when you greet people, do more than your fair share, follow up quickly. Work ethic is the universal
1:07:53 currency of respect and it costs you nothing, but can give you everything. That was a Facebook post of
1:07:58 yours the other day. I liked it. Well, they, they repurposed it for my Twitter. Uh, you must first become
1:08:04 misunderstood before you can become great. Yeah, man. These are great. Yeah. How to win. Realize no one is
1:08:07 coming to save you. Take responsibility for your current position. Be willing to sacrifice who you
1:08:12 are for who you want to be. The fastest way to become confident is to build evidence. Build yourself
1:08:17 a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Do so much volume that you don’t have to
1:08:22 doubt whether you can do it or not. That one broke the internet. Yeah. Uh, it’s very hard to have a
1:08:27 vision when you have bills to pay. I said that one at the workshop and like the whole room let out like
1:08:31 an audible gasp. And so the team was like, all right, that one’s pre-tested. We know that one
1:08:36 won’t work. That one was a freestyle. That was a riff. You raw dog that one. A bunch of these were,
1:08:40 but, um, that one was like word for word. I didn’t change anything. Fast way to change your life is to
1:08:43 get around people whose minimum standards are your life goals. Kind of like what we were talking about
1:08:49 earlier. Friendly reminder that feeling lost, anxious, and uncertain are good signs. It means you’re
1:08:54 pushing past where, you know, they’re called growing pains for a reason. Do the work tired,
1:08:58 do the work nervous, do the work imperfectly, do the work even when you don’t feel like it. Because
1:09:03 no matter how bad you feel when you start, you know exactly how you feel when you finish.
1:09:08 You have to risk looking broke to get rich. You have to risk looking weak to get strong. You have to
1:09:13 risk looking desperate to get loved. Egos hold back more dreams than failure and rejection ever will.
1:09:17 Everything. Like you just speak in like ad headlines. This is amazing.
1:09:23 Avoiding people who make it harder for you to achieve your goals is the highest form of self-care.
1:09:28 What do you write all this on? I just, I just use like an automation tool, like just a generic one.
1:09:33 Also, one of the ways that I’ll do it is nicely, like a lot of my audience will like hear a live
1:09:38 stream or whatever. And then they’ll like, they’ll tag me in a quote that they heard me say.
1:09:43 And then I’ll be like, Oh, great. So I like quote them quoting me.
1:09:46 Yeah, as my tweet. I’m like, Oh, they thought that was good. So I’ll just say that.
1:09:49 It’s like Michael Scott doing the Wayne Gretzky quote.
1:09:53 Well, I think some of it, like, because part of what we’re talking about is, is rhetoric,
1:09:56 right? There’s the idea and then there’s how you communicate it. And some of these things have like
1:10:00 rhythm to them. So it’s like, when you have opposites, you have good and then bad. You have,
1:10:05 you know, high and then low, uh, you’ve given them get like their set. There’s opposites that
1:10:09 happen in, you know, contrast that happens in the words. There’s typically power in threes.
1:10:15 People like having threes when you have sets, repetition, um, alliteration. Those are all things
1:10:19 that like, if, if you’re thinking about like, okay, how can I say this in a way that would sound
1:10:23 better than just like, Hey, do, do hard stuff. What permutation of that can I, you know, combine
1:10:27 some of these other kind of writing elements into it to make it easier to remember?
1:10:32 I think you were talking about the midwit meme. I was joking with Sean where I was like,
1:10:36 in the beginning of my career, I listened to all motivational stuff and self-help stuff.
1:10:41 And then, and then like, when I was building my first company that kind of made me, uh,
1:10:45 you know, get a little something, I did not do anything. I was like, no motivation stuff. I just
1:10:50 need to get to it. Now that like, I call this like second mountain stuff, which is like,
1:10:55 I’m now focused on thriving, but also raising a good family and like building a legacy of a
1:10:59 company. I’m not particularly, I mean, getting riches or making more money. That is a nice,
1:11:04 I want that no doubt about it, but it’s like not number one. And once I’m in that phase of my life,
1:11:07 which I am, I am back to the motivational stuff.
1:11:13 Totally. I think when we change goals, we become deprived around some other thing. Like we notice a
1:11:17 discrepancy in our lives. And I think we saw for the greatest discrepancy. So like in the beginning,
1:11:21 like the biggest discrepancy was for me, it was like, I’m broke, dude. Like, it doesn’t matter
1:11:24 what, like I’m broke. I can’t do anything. I can’t make an impact. I can’t support a family. I can’t,
1:11:30 I can’t, I can’t live where I want to live. Like I just, all of that. So that becomes the glaring hot
1:11:35 pain in my life. And then like, once that’s solved, it’s like, okay, well, what I’m, I’m not pain-free,
1:11:39 right? Like there’s still pain. And so then you have other things that become the pains of your life
1:11:44 and those become the things that you’re deprived of. I do think that we’re exceptionally good at finding
1:11:47 problems. So I don’t think that’s going to like go away. I think you just get different problems
1:11:54 as you level up. And I will also say like, on a personal note, I’m about as happy as I was two
1:11:58 years ago, as I was probably two years before that. Like I’m not, I’m not like materially different in
1:12:05 terms of my like subjective wellbeing. And so I think I, it’s like, well, what else am I going to do?
1:12:09 And when I also think about these things that quote, you know, could potentially stress me out,
1:12:12 or even these opportunities that I want to pursue, I try to fast forward the president,
1:12:15 which is like, I’ll probably be just about as happy and content as I am now,
1:12:19 which also eliminates a lot of the FOMO, which I think some people suffer from a lot of like regrets
1:12:22 of like, oh, I should have done that thing, or I should have ended up this opportunity or should
1:12:25 have made that better. I should have dated that girl or whatever your thing is, right?
1:12:30 It’s like, well, you probably be about as happy or unhappy as you are right now. And that actually
1:12:35 like has dramatically quelled down the amount of attention that I allocate to those paths not
1:12:37 taken because they’re just completely unproductive.
1:12:42 Yeah. But I think people get there. Like I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m so happy. I’ve never been happier
1:12:48 my whole entire life right now. I like my job. I love my family. I’m happy with my fitness. I like
1:12:53 living where I live. I love my unit, my apartment where I live. I love living near my in-laws. I like
1:12:58 my team. And, uh, you know, Aristotle has this idea of flourishing where he was like, you have to live
1:13:03 a virtuous life. And like, one of the virtues is courage on one end of courage is like being reckless.
1:13:06 And the other one is being like a pussy, like to be, I think that’s what he said.
1:13:09 Uh, that’s an exact quote.
1:13:15 Yeah. And there’s like 14 virtues and like, you want to like be in the middle, like, which is
1:13:20 courage. Um, same with like being charitable. You know, you don’t want to be like ostentatious and
1:13:24 you don’t want to be tight. You want to be charitable. And I was like, I’m, I’m kind of in that right now.
1:13:29 I love that. And so I’m happier than I’ve ever been. And I think that you have to get in what
1:13:33 Aristotle also says is you need money to do that. He was like, you don’t need a lot of money,
1:13:37 but you need enough money to own things that make you happy, that are beautiful. And you also need
1:13:41 enough time to have leisure time because leisure time is important. And what’s interesting is like,
1:13:45 you were saying like that you’re, you’re, I think you said you’re happy right now, but you said you’re
1:13:50 not going to be happier probably with anything else. I would argue, it sounds like you’re looking for
1:13:54 leisure time actually, which is, I didn’t really, I didn’t realize that until just now since talking
1:13:59 about Aristotle, like that’s the way, like the one thing that like hobbies is basically what he said,
1:14:04 like you need a hobby and business has been your hobby for a long time. But maybe like, maybe you’re,
1:14:06 that’d be kind of fun to see like, what is actually your hobby going to be?
1:14:10 I think I’ll probably, I’ll probably like, I am happiest when I write.
1:14:11 Yeah.
1:14:18 And so I will probably write a book that has no real financial benefit for me. So I’ll probably
1:14:23 end up writing a book about some of the topics we talked about today around like learning and behavior,
1:14:29 because it’s something that I’m endlessly fascinated by. And I think that’s like the defining terms,
1:14:34 I think that will be something that I will write. And I think it has the potential to change more
1:14:36 people alive than all the other books put together. But we’ll see.
1:14:40 Dude, I’m so happy you came on. All right, that’s it. That’s the pod.
1:14:44 I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to.
1:14:50 I put my all in it like no days off on the road. Let’s travel never looking back.
1:14:54 Hey, let’s take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is
1:15:00 called The Science of Scaling by Mark Roberge. He was the founding CRO of HubSpot. And he’s a guest
1:15:04 lecturer at Harvard Business School. The guy’s smart. And he sits down every week with
1:15:09 different sales leaders from cool companies like Klaviyo and Vanta and OpenAI. And he’s asking
1:15:13 about their strategies, their tactics, and how they’re growing their companies as head of sales
1:15:18 or chief revenue officer. If you’re looking to scale a company up, if you’re a CRO or head of sales,
1:15:21 just looking to level up in your career, I think a podcast like this could be great for you.
1:15:25 Listen to The Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.