AI transcript
0:00:03 what I really thought about was, when does it end?
0:00:06 You know, like at eight arrests, at 10 arrests,
0:00:09 at 300 pounds, at 350 pounds.
0:00:10 I just really thought about that.
0:00:13 And I was like, what does my life look like in three years
0:00:16 and four years and five years if I keep doing this?
0:00:19 And that terrified me enough
0:00:23 to immediately change literally everything.
0:00:25 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:00:27 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:00:30 ♪ I put my all in it like days off ♪
0:00:31 ♪ On the road let’s travel never looking back ♪
0:00:33 – Okay, Layla, welcome to the show.
0:00:34 It’s exciting to see you here.
0:00:36 We’ve had Alex on a couple of times
0:00:38 and I don’t know, you guys are pretty kick ass.
0:00:42 We’ve, you’re like one of the few business like power couple
0:00:44 celebrity couples that are out there in the public.
0:00:46 Did you ever think you would be doing that?
0:00:47 Like, did you ever think,
0:00:50 oh, I’ll be the kind of like guru, influencer-y person
0:00:52 who’s gonna be out there giving advice
0:00:54 or giving frameworks or trying to be helpful to people?
0:00:57 Is that something you saw yourself doing?
0:00:58 – Not in the beginning,
0:01:00 because I think I just really enjoyed running the company.
0:01:03 And then I think once I realized that
0:01:06 after a certain point, the impact I wanted to have,
0:01:09 I would, it would be required that I learned that skill
0:01:11 and that it would be something that would be transferable
0:01:13 to what I did day to day as well.
0:01:14 Then that was when I was like, okay,
0:01:15 I think this is important for me to learn
0:01:18 because what I realized is I can be as good as I am
0:01:19 at running a business,
0:01:21 but if I’m not as good at running it
0:01:23 as I am talking about it, then it doesn’t really matter.
0:01:26 If I can’t communicate my abilities,
0:01:29 then that in itself is a limiter for me teaching my team
0:01:31 and transferring that skill to somebody else,
0:01:34 whether it be an audience, my team, a friend,
0:01:35 whatever it might be.
0:01:36 – I feel like when I hear you talk,
0:01:39 it’s like, okay, you’ve really got a super strong sense
0:01:41 of how you like to operate.
0:01:42 It’s like you got it together
0:01:44 and a system that works for you.
0:01:46 And that comes through experience,
0:01:47 it comes through trial and error.
0:01:50 But let’s rewind before you had all that
0:01:51 and let you tell your story a little bit.
0:01:52 ‘Cause there’s gonna be people who are listening to this,
0:01:53 don’t know your full story.
0:01:55 I don’t know your full story, to be honest.
0:01:57 I love this one tweet that I came out of the research.
0:02:01 You said, you can’t skip the struggle if you want the story.
0:02:02 So I wanna use that.
0:02:04 You can’t skip the struggle if you want the story.
0:02:07 So in telling your story, let’s start with the struggle.
0:02:09 Can you start where you didn’t have it all together?
0:02:11 You weren’t this sort of business terminator.
0:02:13 You were struggling, you were trying to figure it out.
0:02:14 Can you start there?
0:02:18 – Yeah, I would say that ever since I was like a teenager,
0:02:21 I always wanted to get into entrepreneurship
0:02:24 mostly because I had my father,
0:02:26 he was a tenured professor.
0:02:28 You know, he did everything by the book
0:02:30 and he honestly was miserable.
0:02:34 And so I really just felt like that wasn’t the way to go.
0:02:36 I just didn’t know what the way was.
0:02:38 And I got lost along the way so much so that like,
0:02:43 you know, when I was 19, I had been arrested six times.
0:02:44 I was drinking, doing drugs.
0:02:49 I was 230 pounds, like my life was going nowhere.
0:02:51 I was flunking out of college.
0:02:55 And that was when I really, when I turned my life around,
0:03:00 just learning how to live my life in accordance
0:03:03 with my goals and values rather than my feelings.
0:03:05 And that was really what taught me a lot of discipline.
0:03:07 I ended up losing almost 100 pounds.
0:03:10 I moved across the country by myself
0:03:12 from Michigan to California.
0:03:14 And I went to go to California
0:03:17 because I wanted to pursue a career in fitness
0:03:18 because then I had to finish school
0:03:20 for exercise science, useless.
0:03:22 But nonetheless, I had to finish school for it.
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0:03:52 – You just said a thing that in a movie
0:03:54 would have been like 60 minutes
0:03:55 and you did it in like 60 seconds.
0:03:56 So I want to zoom in.
0:03:59 So you were like, I’m 230 pounds, I’m drinking.
0:04:01 I don’t know what I want to do with my life.
0:04:04 I’m basically single, broken out of shape, right?
0:04:05 That’s kind of like the start.
0:04:06 And then you were like,
0:04:07 so then I decided I’m going to start living life
0:04:08 in terms of my goals.
0:04:09 And then I did, I lost 100 pounds.
0:04:11 And like, all right, hold on.
0:04:12 I’ve been there before.
0:04:14 I know that there’s something that happens
0:04:15 in between those, right?
0:04:18 If it was so easy to just live in accordance with my goals,
0:04:19 I probably would have been doing it earlier.
0:04:22 There must have been some wake up call,
0:04:25 some sort of moment, some sort of a tough conversation
0:04:27 with yourself where you decided
0:04:28 to start making that shift.
0:04:30 What was that moment?
0:04:31 – There was two moments.
0:04:36 The first one, which was like, okay, I want to stop
0:04:40 being a fat ass is I was at a party
0:04:42 or I went to a party as my friend’s birthday party
0:04:44 and it was college, right?
0:04:46 And so then she’s like, I’m going to invite these people,
0:04:48 which had been our friends in high school.
0:04:50 And I was like, oh gosh, that’s embarrassing
0:04:52 because like I’m pretty overweight now.
0:04:53 And so it’s like, I hope nobody says anything,
0:04:54 but nobody’s gonna say anything
0:04:56 because that’s really rude, right?
0:04:59 And so there’s, we have this party, everyone’s drinking
0:05:04 and I’m walking past a couple of guys
0:05:06 I went to high school with and going to the bathroom.
0:05:09 And I hear a guy and he’s like, what a shame.
0:05:12 And I was like, I was like, what?
0:05:16 And he was really drunk and I was like, what’s the shame?
0:05:19 And he was like, man, he’s like, you know, it really sucks
0:05:20 ’cause like, you know, you were really pretty
0:05:22 but you’re just really fat now.
0:05:23 – Oh.
0:05:26 – And I remember in that, no, but here’s the thing.
0:05:28 In that moment. – What’s his name?
0:05:31 (all laughing)
0:05:32 – In that moment, I was like,
0:05:36 but my internal voice actually was like, he’s right.
0:05:42 And I was like, I hate that, that what he said is true.
0:05:45 And so it was in that moment that I was like,
0:05:47 I don’t want somebody to be able to say that about me anymore
0:05:51 and avoiding the situation, avoiding real life is not,
0:05:51 it’s not cutting in.
0:05:54 So I remember I went home and I like, you know,
0:05:56 like wrote this Facebook post in pure rage.
0:05:58 It was like, you won’t see me anymore.
0:06:00 I’m going dark and like expect not to hear from me.
0:06:05 And I really was just like, I can’t keep overeating.
0:06:07 I can’t keep not taking care of myself.
0:06:09 I had stopped working out, basically stopped working out,
0:06:12 started eating like shit and drank all the time.
0:06:13 And if you do all those things at once,
0:06:15 like you just continue to gain weight.
0:06:17 And that was really the moment that did it for me
0:06:21 because I just, the fact that my response was,
0:06:21 I agree with him.
0:06:24 It wasn’t like, I’m mad at him, I’m anything,
0:06:26 I was like, yeah, he told the truth.
0:06:27 And I think that if you don’t want people
0:06:30 to say bad stuff about you, then change,
0:06:32 I’d rather just change the situation
0:06:33 than try and avoid people.
0:06:35 – Yeah, you type up the Facebook message
0:06:37 and say, I’m going dark.
0:06:40 Did you have a plan or you just had the fuel at that time?
0:06:41 – I just had the fuel.
0:06:44 I mean, and the funny thing is I remember
0:06:47 my plan was this, just eat half of what you’re eating.
0:06:48 (laughing)
0:06:51 – I mean, is that the worst plan?
0:06:52 – It really wasn’t.
0:06:55 And so like, I actually would just take what I was eating
0:06:56 and I would just eat half.
0:06:58 And that worked for me.
0:07:01 And I lost about 60 pounds that way.
0:07:04 And so, you know, the other 40, then I got into macros
0:07:06 and lifting and all that stuff.
0:07:08 And that’s really one, like that took me on,
0:07:10 like where I’ve probably been since then.
0:07:13 The second moment was the sixth time that I was arrested.
0:07:18 So I had been out at college, you know, drinking blacked out.
0:07:24 I wake up, I am in my bedroom at my parents’ house.
0:07:27 So like my childhood bedroom.
0:07:31 And I was like, oh my God, I don’t know what happened.
0:07:33 And I rolled over and I was in bed,
0:07:34 like pounding headache, feel like shit.
0:07:39 And there’s a ticket for my arrest on the bedside.
0:07:42 And I was like, fuck.
0:07:44 Okay, so they took me back to my parents’ house.
0:07:45 I don’t remember a thing.
0:07:48 And then I’m like, I need to go downstairs
0:07:49 to exit the house.
0:07:52 And so I just remember I grabbed the ticket
0:07:55 and I put on clothes and I walked down the stairs
0:07:59 and I see my dad sitting on the couch with my stepmom.
0:08:02 And I was like, okay, like I’m ready.
0:08:05 He’s just, he’s gonna just rip into me.
0:08:09 And I sat down and I was just expecting him
0:08:14 to just eviscerate my character.
0:08:16 And instead of eviscerating my character,
0:08:19 I remember he looked at me and he was like,
0:08:22 listen, I’m not gonna try and control you
0:08:23 or tell you what to do
0:08:25 or tell you that you need to change your life.
0:08:27 I just wanna tell you, I’m just,
0:08:31 I’m really worried because if you keep doing this,
0:08:34 I think you’re just gonna end up killing yourself.
0:08:37 And it was weird, but in that moment,
0:08:40 when he said that, it was like,
0:08:44 I think when you’re young, you feel invincible, right?
0:08:46 Like you drink, you feel like nothing will happen.
0:08:48 You drink and drive, you feel like nothing will happen.
0:08:50 You do drugs, you feel like nothing would happen.
0:08:51 And it was like in that moment,
0:08:53 I recognized that he was right
0:08:55 and that I’m no different from all these other people
0:08:56 who have gone down this path.
0:08:59 I could actually end up really hurting myself.
0:09:04 And I think the second to that was,
0:09:06 I felt so terrible that I made someone
0:09:08 who loves me so much and has invested so much
0:09:10 and only made my life better,
0:09:13 feel so shitty by who I was being.
0:09:17 And so, I left and I was like,
0:09:19 I can’t keep doing any of this.
0:09:21 Like, yeah, being fat and working on all that,
0:09:23 but like, I can’t keep drinking like this.
0:09:24 I can’t keep doing drugs like this.
0:09:25 This is not the life I want.
0:09:28 And I remember, what I really thought about was,
0:09:31 when does it end?
0:09:33 Like at eight arrests, at 10 arrests,
0:09:37 at 300 pounds, at 350 pounds,
0:09:38 what kind of drugs do you stop at?
0:09:40 And so, I just really thought about that.
0:09:43 And I was like, what does my life look like
0:09:45 in three years and four years and five years
0:09:47 if I keep doing this?
0:09:50 And that terrified me enough
0:09:54 to immediately change literally everything.
0:09:55 And this is a process again
0:09:58 that I just still haven’t figured out how to quite explain,
0:10:02 but it’s like the moment, in that moment,
0:10:05 the fear of remaining the same was so much greater
0:10:10 than any fear I had of change that I changed the next day.
0:10:12 Like, I threw out all my alcohol.
0:10:14 I decided I was moving out of the house I was in.
0:10:15 I lived with six people.
0:10:19 I said, I’m not drinking, I’m not doing drugs.
0:10:20 I’m gonna work out, I’m gonna eat healthy,
0:10:21 I’m gonna get a second job.
0:10:22 So, I got a second job.
0:10:23 So, I’m going to school, I’ve got two jobs
0:10:27 because I was like, I need to fill my time with something.
0:10:30 You know, I joined a gym and I started,
0:10:33 you know, in my spare time reading, watching YouTube videos
0:10:35 that were, you know, self development, whatever.
0:10:37 I just said, I can’t be that person anymore.
0:10:40 And it was like, I was so fed up with everything.
0:10:42 And then that moment, the pain was so high
0:10:45 that it made it fairly easy to change immediately
0:10:47 because I understood finally
0:10:49 that I was so uncomfortable as is.
0:10:52 And it’s like, I could remain uncomfortable
0:10:53 in the situation I was in
0:10:55 or I could be uncomfortable changing
0:10:56 only one of those is productive, right?
0:10:58 And only one of those turned my life
0:11:00 into something that I’m actually proud of.
0:11:02 And so, those were the two moments
0:11:06 that really caused me to change my life.
0:11:09 – Have you ever heard of the Dickens method?
0:11:10 – Mm-mm.
0:11:12 – It’s basically exactly what you just described.
0:11:14 If you ever go to like a Tony Robbins event,
0:11:16 like his big kind of events.
0:11:17 – Yeah.
0:11:17 – On one of the days he does this
0:11:20 and it’s basically the Dickens method is a technique
0:11:22 where you sort of vividly imagine,
0:11:23 you time travel to the future.
0:11:25 You’re like, okay, let’s play it forward a year.
0:11:27 Let’s play it forward five years.
0:11:28 I’m still doing it, I’m keep doing it.
0:11:30 I do more of it, in fact, ’cause I am increasing
0:11:32 whatever the bad habit, whatever the decisions,
0:11:34 whatever the thing I’m doing is.
0:11:37 And you play it forward and then how does that affect you?
0:11:38 How does that affect the people that you love?
0:11:41 And he sort of gets you to sort of go there.
0:11:45 And when I did it, when I went to his event,
0:11:47 it was like, I wasn’t really going through much at the time.
0:11:49 So I was like, I don’t know what this exercise for.
0:11:52 But around me, there was literally people screaming.
0:11:55 It was honestly a very uncomfortable moment,
0:11:57 but people were really feeling something in that moment
0:12:00 where if you play it forward and you vividly imagine
0:12:01 what the future looks like five years later,
0:12:03 10 years later, 15 years later,
0:12:05 and how that affects all the people around you,
0:12:07 it creates this like emotional charge
0:12:11 where it gives you, again, the pain of not changing
0:12:13 increases over the pain of change.
0:12:14 And just like you described.
0:12:15 – Yeah.
0:12:17 – Which by the way, I’ve talked about that in this pot.
0:12:19 I had a similar run rate.
0:12:22 I had about three arrests in three months.
0:12:23 – Really?
0:12:25 – Yeah, I also weighed 230 pounds.
0:12:29 And I was a disgusting person.
0:12:33 And yeah, love booze and substances.
0:12:36 And so it had a similar issue of like,
0:12:38 after one arrest, you’re like, what the fuck, man?
0:12:39 What the fuck?
0:12:41 I didn’t live with my parents at the time,
0:12:42 but I did, I lived with my dog.
0:12:46 I had this dog and I like, he shit all over himself one day
0:12:48 because he got arrested and I was in jail for 24 hours.
0:12:50 And I was like, oh my God, I’m letting him down.
0:12:52 It was like, it’s so funny.
0:12:55 It was like a very similar, everything changed at that moment.
0:12:58 So you and I, we are the same.
0:12:59 – We had no idea.
0:13:00 – Yeah, we’re similar.
0:13:03 And what age were you when you moved to California?
0:13:05 What age were you when you met Alex?
0:13:08 – Yeah, I was 20, almost 23 when I met him.
0:13:10 – Wait, wait, describe the first date.
0:13:11 – Well, there are buds first, right?
0:13:13 Aren’t you guys buddies first?
0:13:16 – We were buddies, but we were dating.
0:13:17 I don’t know how to describe this.
0:13:18 – There’s a term for that.
0:13:19 – Yeah.
0:13:20 (laughing)
0:13:24 – No, but not actually, I’ll put it like this.
0:13:26 So like, yeah, that’s not what I mean.
0:13:32 We met on Bumble and we went on our first date.
0:13:33 He asked me to go to Froyo.
0:13:35 He was like, listen, it’s low commitment.
0:13:36 So if we’re weird, we can leave.
0:13:37 And I was like, I mean, good,
0:13:40 because I’ve been on some bad fucking dates lately, man.
0:13:42 And so we meet at Froyo.
0:13:44 He comes up, he’s not very friendly.
0:13:45 I just remember the first thing.
0:13:46 He was like, not smiling.
0:13:48 And I was like, what’s wrong with this guy?
0:13:50 We get in line and he’s still not smiling.
0:13:52 And I’m like, I’m like cracking a joke or two.
0:13:53 And I’m like, this guy’s tough.
0:13:56 Come to find out later the reason he wasn’t smiling
0:13:58 is ’cause I have a full back piece.
0:14:00 Like my whole back is tattooed angel wings,
0:14:01 which is traumatic and embarrassing,
0:14:05 but it’s because I got it when I was 18 and high and drunk.
0:14:09 And so he saw that and was like, oh man, one of these girls.
0:14:11 And so apparently he was judging me
0:14:13 the entire time for that tattoo.
0:14:14 – You and Max Holloway.
0:14:16 – Don’t judge a book by its cover.
0:14:17 Don’t judge a girl by her back.
0:14:19 All right, that’s the lesson.
0:14:21 Too painful to get undone at this point.
0:14:25 And so, we ended up staying down for Froyo.
0:14:29 And honestly, once he had a few bites
0:14:31 and I think it got blood sugar in his system,
0:14:35 Alex’s blood sugar is attached to how much food he’s eating.
0:14:37 And so I think once he ate, he was like, hi.
0:14:39 And I was like, oh, okay, you’re a nice person, let’s go.
0:14:41 And we actually just started talking about business.
0:14:43 Really picture this, right?
0:14:44 I had moved out there.
0:14:46 I was only focused on my career.
0:14:47 I didn’t have friends.
0:14:48 I didn’t have a boyfriend.
0:14:51 I had gone on dates, but I did not find anybody I’d liked.
0:14:53 So I was really just me in my work.
0:14:55 And I was trying to figure out like,
0:14:56 what do I need to do next?
0:14:58 ‘Cause I was doing online and in-person training.
0:15:00 And then I met him and he actually had the same story.
0:15:03 So he had moved out from Baltimore, Maryland
0:15:05 to pursue fitness, opened up a few gyms,
0:15:07 and was trying to figure out what he was gonna do next
0:15:08 as his next step.
0:15:10 Didn’t really have a lot of friends
0:15:13 and obviously didn’t have a girlfriend.
0:15:17 And so we didn’t really have anything else to talk about.
0:15:19 And so we ended up actually like eating Froyo
0:15:21 and then we went on like a four hour walk
0:15:23 and we talked about work the entire time.
0:15:26 And I remember leaving the date
0:15:29 because, you know, as Froyos was like 3 p.m.,
0:15:31 he had a dinner at like seven.
0:15:32 And so he actually asked me, he’s like,
0:15:33 will you come to the grocery store
0:15:36 and get stuff for this dinner barbecue thing I have?
0:15:38 And I was like, sure.
0:15:41 And we just talking the whole time still about business.
0:15:44 And once we got done, I got in my car and I was like,
0:15:46 that was the weirdest day I’ve ever been on.
0:15:47 Like it wasn’t even like a date.
0:15:50 We didn’t talk about anything romantic at all.
0:15:52 We just literally talked about work,
0:15:54 but like all I know is I want to keep talking to that guy.
0:15:56 And I went back and I told my roommate,
0:15:58 I was like, I’m just so interested.
0:16:00 Like he’s the first person that I feel like
0:16:02 I’ve had an intellectual conversation with
0:16:04 since I’ve moved here.
0:16:05 You know, ’cause most of the time
0:16:06 when I’d go out on dates with people,
0:16:08 it’s like they had zero ambition.
0:16:10 They had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives.
0:16:12 And it was California.
0:16:14 So that’s like a little bit more of the culture.
0:16:16 They also just didn’t really like the fact
0:16:19 that I was as ambitious and working as much as I was.
0:16:23 And so to meet somebody who actually saw that as a pro
0:16:26 had the same things in common and wanted to talk about them.
0:16:28 It was like the most enjoyable date I’d been on.
0:16:30 And then I think he called me the next day
0:16:33 and was like, hey, do you want to like work together?
0:16:36 And I was like, sure, sounds fun.
0:16:38 So I went over to his house and I like brought all my stuff,
0:16:39 my laptop and everything, we started working.
0:16:44 And that just like slowly kept happening over time.
0:16:48 And you know, maybe, yeah.
0:16:50 (all laughing)
0:16:51 Yeah.
0:16:55 – And then one meeting, we just started to get this.
0:16:57 – Yeah, I had a board meeting, for sure.
0:16:59 We kissed in a meeting, no.
0:17:03 No, I mean, it was just like, we had shared interest.
0:17:04 You know, I didn’t know when I met him
0:17:06 that he was also Persian.
0:17:07 So then I found out, oh, we’re both,
0:17:08 both of our fathers are from Iran.
0:17:10 We had that in common.
0:17:13 You know, we had both moved out there on our own.
0:17:15 We just had a lot in common that I was just not expecting.
0:17:18 And because of that, it just felt like
0:17:19 for the first time in so long,
0:17:23 I had somebody who saw reality the same way I did
0:17:25 and who didn’t want to make me into somebody I wasn’t.
0:17:27 You know, like I’ve always,
0:17:28 I can’t even tell you how many times
0:17:30 I’ve gone on dates with guys and they’re like,
0:17:32 you seem really great, but you’re kind of weird.
0:17:33 And like, you’re like a little obsessive.
0:17:34 And I was like, yeah, I know,
0:17:37 but I don’t really want to change that about myself.
0:17:39 Or they didn’t like that I worked as much as I did.
0:17:40 And I like working.
0:17:41 So I’m like, I don’t want to apologize for that.
0:17:44 And he was the first person I met that
0:17:45 saw all those things as pros
0:17:47 that everyone else had seen as cons.
0:17:49 And not only that, but, you know,
0:17:51 I think I saw the same in him
0:17:52 with a lot of things that people have complained about.
0:17:55 And so, you know, about a month in, he’s like,
0:17:58 I feel like you should not start this online thing
0:17:59 or do this in person.
0:18:00 I was basically like, do I open up my own gym
0:18:02 or do I partner with this woman
0:18:04 who wanted me to be her business partner online?
0:18:06 She already had a successful business.
0:18:08 And so, you know, four weeks in, I said, screw it.
0:18:12 Like, there’s nothing to lose to go do this with him
0:18:16 to start this business because I’m 23.
0:18:17 Like, if shit doesn’t work,
0:18:19 I’ll just go back to what I was doing.
0:18:22 But I will regret if I don’t take this chance
0:18:23 to see if it could work.
0:18:25 – And the thing that you’re talking about,
0:18:26 that’s gym launch?
0:18:28 – Gym launch, yeah.
0:18:29 And the first, you know, year and a half
0:18:32 was literally just like, he’d be at a gym,
0:18:34 I’d be at a gym, different locations,
0:18:37 different states, and we’d be filling them up.
0:18:39 And then we’d call each other every night and be like,
0:18:40 here’s what I’m doing, here’s what you’re doing,
0:18:42 like just like best practices.
0:18:46 And that was like the first year of dating,
0:18:49 which was like, we’re living out of extended stays.
0:18:51 We’re in different states.
0:18:52 We’re trying to launch these gyms.
0:18:55 You know, I’m 23, walking into some dude’s gym,
0:18:56 being like, I’m gonna fill up your gym.
0:18:58 They’re like, what is going on, right?
0:19:02 And so, you know, the first year of our relationship
0:19:05 was just like, the eating shit phase of business,
0:19:06 but doing it together.
0:19:13 – All right, my friends, I have a new podcast
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0:20:01 What do you mean by the eating shit phase of business?
0:20:03 – You know, it’s just like when you start anything,
0:20:04 when you have no skills,
0:20:07 you’re trying to accumulate all the skills at once.
0:20:09 You don’t know what you’re doing, you have no clarity,
0:20:11 and so you’re just throwing shit at a wall.
0:20:14 You’re probably not taking care of yourself the best you can
0:20:15 because you’re so focused on just trying
0:20:16 to make this thing work,
0:20:18 because you’re kind of just in survival mode,
0:20:22 because at that point, we have no money as well, right?
0:20:24 We’ve very much burned through all the money.
0:20:27 Then his business partner gets access to the bank account
0:20:29 where we’ve been putting all the money from these gyms,
0:20:30 steals the money.
0:20:32 I mean, it was just like thing after thing.
0:20:35 – Weren’t you guys living at your parents’ home as well?
0:20:37 – So we’ve lived a few different places,
0:20:38 but then at one point,
0:20:41 we moved back to my parents’ house for two months.
0:20:43 At another point, we actually lived with one of the clients
0:20:47 of one of the gyms, which was actually more fun.
0:20:49 – You know, I thought I was disappointed before,
0:20:52 but now, actually, somehow, this is worse.
0:20:56 So you guys, I wanted to ask you this.
0:20:59 So Jim Launch has a story.
0:21:00 Alex has come on the pod.
0:21:04 He’s told the story about how it went from figuring it out
0:21:05 to the business partner stealing the money,
0:21:06 and then he scales it.
0:21:07 If you want to listen to that,
0:21:09 there’s an episode we did with him.
0:21:12 But I’ve seen this now a couple of times
0:21:14 where sometimes you just get a business to work,
0:21:15 and you just crack a nut,
0:21:18 and it scales in a way that sort of breaks your brain.
0:21:21 And you may never even see that again.
0:21:24 So I think you guys did something like year one,
0:21:25 or year two.
0:21:27 It went from like zero to like something like
0:21:29 in the range of 15 million by year two,
0:21:30 something like 24 million.
0:21:33 I don’t know if that’s run rate or realized revenue, but–
0:21:34 – Realized revenue.
0:21:35 – Realized revenue.
0:21:38 That’s an insane curve.
0:21:40 What’s the summary of why that worked like that?
0:21:42 ‘Cause that’s not normal.
0:21:44 Could I go do that same business today?
0:21:46 So for example, if you started from scratch today,
0:21:49 if somebody, if the next Alex and Layla were out there,
0:21:51 and they wanted to do Jim Launch today,
0:21:53 could they go and do the same model?
0:21:55 Meaning is that problem still exists?
0:21:57 Is the model still great
0:21:59 where you’re getting upfront cash from these gyms
0:22:02 for doing that kind of this quick turnaround service?
0:22:04 Or is it saturated now and there’s too much competition?
0:22:05 Maybe the ad rates have changed, right?
0:22:07 There’s always these moments in time
0:22:08 where businesses can succeed.
0:22:09 And then 10 years later,
0:22:11 you couldn’t start that same business.
0:22:12 There’s a new version of that business
0:22:14 that those same people could go start.
0:22:17 Could somebody as talented as you guys
0:22:19 start Jim Launch again today
0:22:21 and have the same level of success in your opinion?
0:22:22 – No.
0:22:23 – And why is that?
0:22:25 – Because the market has completely changed.
0:22:27 I mean, think about COVID.
0:22:29 That completely changed the nature of fitness.
0:22:31 OZMPIC has changed fitness.
0:22:32 I think that the future of fitness
0:22:34 looks completely different than boutique gyms.
0:22:36 I think that, you know, I mean,
0:22:38 I know what they’re doing in the background in the labs,
0:22:41 which is like, people are gonna be able to soon take a pill
0:22:43 and they’re gonna be able to control their appetite.
0:22:44 Why do you wanna go to the gym every day
0:22:45 if you could just be skinny?
0:22:47 Lots of girls don’t give a shit.
0:22:49 – So what does the future fitness look like?
0:22:51 – Well, I mean,
0:22:53 lifting weights is a great long-term way
0:22:56 to sustain your body weight
0:22:58 and to prevent you from getting fat.
0:23:03 But short-term intervention, food is always ideal, right?
0:23:05 And that’s gonna have more of an effect on the short term,
0:23:08 like long-term muscle mass, short-term food.
0:23:10 And so I think that what you’re gonna see
0:23:13 is a lot more people just continuing
0:23:15 to lean into what they always have as humans do,
0:23:18 which is the short-term things that work,
0:23:20 which is eat less, which you can do with the pill.
0:23:23 And they happen to have pills that are gonna come out
0:23:27 that are, you know, I think a lot of people are probably
0:23:28 deter away from like ozempic and stuff,
0:23:29 ’cause it’s a shot.
0:23:31 And it’s like, okay, well, the moment that they have a pill
0:23:33 that can say, I’m gonna have,
0:23:37 I only need to have 25% of my normal appetite today,
0:23:39 well, then think about the cost of the gym,
0:23:40 especially for females.
0:23:41 It’s like, you have to get up,
0:23:44 you’ve gotta put on your outfit, maybe some mascara,
0:23:45 you’ve gotta look okay.
0:23:46 You have to drive there, you have to go there,
0:23:48 you have to do things that feel hard
0:23:49 and then you have to leave.
0:23:51 Or I could just take a pill and not be hungry and not eat,
0:23:53 so I don’t have to work out to worry about the food.
0:23:56 So I think that all of those things have changed
0:23:58 just a lot of companies in the fitness
0:23:59 and health space in general.
0:24:01 I can say that because we have other companies
0:24:03 in the portfolio that are in that space.
0:24:05 And I also talked to a ton that are,
0:24:07 it has definitely changed the nature of that landscape.
0:24:10 – You guys, you know, Alex did something kind of interesting.
0:24:13 I think he said that like you bought him like a $50,000
0:24:17 consult with like Grant Cardone or something like that,
0:24:20 like right before the sale of gym launch
0:24:23 where he published that, which was like pretty wild,
0:24:25 where he was like, here’s how much cash we have,
0:24:26 we’re thinking about selling.
0:24:28 And then I think there was even like a part two
0:24:29 and a part three after the sale.
0:24:32 And so it was pretty cool to see that that was all public.
0:24:36 What did you guys, and what, three parts,
0:24:38 what did you do with the money once you sold?
0:24:40 Like, did you have a plan on where to invest it
0:24:42 or did you just let it sit there?
0:24:45 The second thing is, did you have like a 10, 20 year plan
0:24:46 on where you wanted to go?
0:24:47 Or is it like, I don’t know what we’re going to do.
0:24:48 Let’s figure it out.
0:24:51 And then we’ll answer those two first.
0:24:52 – Yeah, yeah.
0:24:55 The idea with the money was we can put it, you know,
0:24:58 in stocks in the short term, we had some real estate deals.
0:25:00 We have one person we do real estate with specifically
0:25:02 that we put some of the money in.
0:25:05 And then the rest of it was for acquisition.com.
0:25:07 So it’s like, how do we get our first few deals?
0:25:09 We’re going to use this as like the nest egg
0:25:11 to invest in those deals.
0:25:14 Part two to that is we knew we wanted a headquarters.
0:25:17 And so, you know, the headquarters was obviously,
0:25:20 I mean, it’s almost 40,000 square feet.
0:25:20 It’s quite expensive.
0:25:23 So that was a big investment as well.
0:25:26 So most of the money has gone into the first few deals
0:25:27 plus the headquarters.
0:25:30 The rest of the money we put in real estate deals
0:25:32 that, you know, have done really well for us.
0:25:35 So, and then I would say remainder, you know, stocks.
0:25:37 We have an oh shit fund and things like that too.
0:25:41 But, you know, most of the times we want to be investing in
0:25:43 how are we going to use the money
0:25:44 to grow acquisition.com faster?
0:25:46 That’s really what we think about with the cast.
0:25:47 – Did you have the idea of that
0:25:50 before you even sold Jim launch?
0:25:53 – The day after we sold, we started acquisition.com.
0:25:54 – That’s crazy.
0:25:55 – Yeah.
0:25:56 – And what was the genesis of that idea?
0:25:57 I’m sure of many conversations,
0:25:59 but like, do you remember kind of what the,
0:26:00 what would you call the origin?
0:26:02 – Really, it actually started with,
0:26:04 what am I best in the world at?
0:26:06 What is Alex best in the world at?
0:26:08 Right, that’s one piece.
0:26:13 The second piece to that is what is the ideal day today
0:26:17 for Alex to sustain so that he knows
0:26:18 that he’s not going to want to quit
0:26:19 because the work he’s doing
0:26:21 with the people he’s doing it, he doesn’t like.
0:26:22 Same for Layla, right?
0:26:25 So it’s like, do things you like with people you like.
0:26:28 That’s how you sustain performance in my opinion.
0:26:30 So then what does that look like for each of us?
0:26:34 And then what is a business that where there’s room
0:26:38 in the market that we can capitalize on both of our skills
0:26:39 when we build?
0:26:43 And so, Alex is, he’s constantly thinking of ideas.
0:26:44 He’s like, well, what about this?
0:26:46 But I’m like, no, no, no.
0:26:48 – What were some of those ideas?
0:26:49 – Well, I mean, there was like,
0:26:51 we could go direct to a consumer, for example.
0:26:53 We thought about the fact that he’s so good
0:26:55 at generating demand and I can build a big team.
0:26:57 That’s really like, well positioned
0:26:59 for a direct to consumer business,
0:27:02 whether it be in beverages, whether it be in food,
0:27:05 or whether it be in some kind of like commerce.
0:27:07 That was an idea.
0:27:11 Another idea that we had was essentially
0:27:14 like an actual like health business.
0:27:17 So like building a platform for, you know,
0:27:19 people who wanted to lose weight or get in shape
0:27:22 using some kind of technology, integrating an AI
0:27:24 and then everything we know about
0:27:27 how to actually help people, you know, lose weight.
0:27:29 But then we saw, you know,
0:27:31 a Zempik coming down line really fucked up.
0:27:36 And so those were two like strong front runners, I would say.
0:27:38 And they were things that I could get passionate about.
0:27:40 But then acquisition.com was the one
0:27:44 that I just kept coming back to because I was like, you know,
0:27:46 the reason that I wanted to sell Gymlaunch was
0:27:49 I just asked myself,
0:27:50 do I want to be in the fitness industry
0:27:52 for the next 10 years?
0:27:52 And the answer was no.
0:27:56 I was like, and I understand that I would probably
0:27:59 get better returns on my time staying in the fitness industry
0:28:01 because I know it so well, right?
0:28:02 We’re already a market leader.
0:28:03 We know everything.
0:28:04 We’ve come up in this.
0:28:05 I’ve been doing it since I was however,
0:28:08 whatever age it’s been over a decade now.
0:28:09 So has he.
0:28:11 We have a competitive advantage here.
0:28:13 But I was like, I don’t want to be
0:28:14 and hit this the rest of my life.
0:28:17 And the reasons for it, to be honest with you,
0:28:20 are just like the networking into the fitness industry
0:28:24 felt less appealing to me than the networking
0:28:26 in private equity, for example,
0:28:28 and the people that I would be competing with.
0:28:29 And I think that who you compete with
0:28:32 or who you compare yourself to, right?
0:28:35 Is like that sets the tone for who you wish to become
0:28:36 in many ways.
0:28:39 Like if I get in the room with whatever,
0:28:41 you can just say Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or whatever.
0:28:43 And I have a company that I aspire to have like theirs.
0:28:45 Like I’m going to compare myself to them.
0:28:47 Versus when I met some of the people
0:28:48 I had some of the biggest fitness businesses,
0:28:51 they were not, though I could compare myself to them.
0:28:52 And yes, they had done better by many measures.
0:28:54 They were not necessarily people I aspired to be like.
0:28:58 And so I just wanted to be in a different industry
0:28:59 to get around different people
0:29:01 and to acquire different skills
0:29:04 that I didn’t think I was going to get staying there.
0:29:06 And so when we looked at acquisition.com,
0:29:10 I was really like what kind of person do I want to be?
0:29:11 And then what kind of business
0:29:14 will allow me to become that person?
0:29:16 And then what kind of people do I need to have on my team
0:29:18 to build that type of business?
0:29:20 And so I think a lot of it actually like circles back,
0:29:22 you know, I was talking about this last night to like,
0:29:24 who do I want to be?
0:29:26 And the business is just a vehicle
0:29:28 for personal growth in many ways.
0:29:29 And so for both of us,
0:29:31 I think that we are better entrepreneurs
0:29:34 and better people for building acquisition.com.
0:29:36 And I think that some people choose businesses
0:29:38 that make them worse, not better.
0:29:42 And this one is definitely one that I think
0:29:43 helps maximize our skills,
0:29:46 but also gets us to be better people.
0:29:49 You know, Alex has shared publicly many times,
0:29:52 like he was like, when we first started acquisition.com,
0:29:54 he kept saying like, I really want to be more patient.
0:29:58 And you must be patient for this business to work.
0:30:01 And so because he wants the business to work
0:30:02 more than anything, right?
0:30:04 Then he will learn to be more patient
0:30:06 as a byproduct of that.
0:30:09 And for me, in order for acquisition.com to work,
0:30:12 and not just work work, but like really fucking work,
0:30:14 like win and be number one,
0:30:17 I have to learn how to make content and be public facing
0:30:19 and be a better communicator overall.
0:30:23 And so it’s not that every day I wake up excited to do that,
0:30:25 but it’s that I want to win.
0:30:27 And I know that in order to win,
0:30:28 I have to learn these skills.
0:30:31 And so it forces me to learn those things
0:30:33 in order to achieve my goals.
0:30:34 – That’s pretty badass.
0:30:35 I, yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
0:30:38 – Everything you said makes sense
0:30:40 and is very aligned with how I view life.
0:30:43 Yeah, I always say this is a vehicle.
0:30:45 It’s a means to have the type of life
0:30:47 you want and become the type of person you want.
0:30:49 And then you think, okay, if this is a vehicle,
0:30:52 who’s getting in the, who do I want on this road trip with me?
0:30:54 And that’s your co-founders, your partners, your investors.
0:30:56 Who are the people I want in this car ride?
0:30:58 Because we might get lost somewhere along the way.
0:31:00 And I’ve really got to think that through.
0:31:02 And I think it’s very important to have that mindset
0:31:04 because I think people think the vehicle is the end itself.
0:31:06 And obviously it’s not.
0:31:08 You see that because people do one vehicle
0:31:10 and then they need the next, they need the next.
0:31:10 And why do you keep,
0:31:14 why does Jeff Bezos needs to go do his rocket company?
0:31:15 And why does he need to buy the Washington Post?
0:31:17 Why do they need to do these things?
0:31:22 Because that business itself was just a,
0:31:23 it’s like a piece of workout equipment.
0:31:25 It’s like going in and you see the bench press.
0:31:27 It’s there to, for me to get the workout,
0:31:28 for me to get the gains,
0:31:30 it’s there to provide some resistance
0:31:32 for me to get what I want out of life.
0:31:32 – Yeah.
0:31:34 – I have a question for you about acquisition.com.
0:31:35 So you guys, you said you’ve seen,
0:31:37 I don’t know, 1,000 businesses.
0:31:38 I was talking to you before we started recording
0:31:41 about businesses that surprise you
0:31:42 ’cause they’re just kind of kick ass.
0:31:43 Maybe it’s a business that you had,
0:31:45 maybe a category you hadn’t heard of
0:31:47 or just a business that people would overlook
0:31:49 or maybe would underrate.
0:31:51 But, and you don’t have to name the names of these businesses,
0:31:53 but I’d love for you to describe a kick ass business
0:31:54 that you’ve seen somewhere along the way
0:31:55 at acquisition.com.
0:31:57 Whether it’s one you guys bought or not.
0:31:58 – Yeah.
0:32:01 I will say this, more businesses suck than you would think.
0:32:03 So what I learned in starting acquisition.com,
0:32:05 no, seriously, in starting acquisition.com
0:32:07 was just the amount of bad businesses there are.
0:32:08 – What’s the profile of bad and good?
0:32:11 Or like, what’s like, what’s that threshold?
0:32:14 – I think product market fit is not,
0:32:16 it exists on a scale, it’s not yes or no,
0:32:20 but like poor, like weak product market fit,
0:32:25 weak founders, low margin, low potential.
0:32:28 – You say weak with so much disgust.
0:32:28 I love it.
0:32:30 (all laughing)
0:32:31 – Yeah, I just need that clip.
0:32:33 That’s my alarm clock when I wake up from that one.
0:32:34 – I say weak again.
0:32:36 (all laughing)
0:32:38 – ‘Cause it’s like, I’m like, let me fucking help you,
0:32:40 but like I can’t if you’re just fucking weak.
0:32:44 So it frustrates me ’cause I’m like, tough love,
0:32:46 but like, this isn’t gonna work.
0:32:48 And so I would say like, that has actually been more
0:32:50 surprising than the good businesses that I’ve seen
0:32:52 is just the amount of businesses that I’m like, wow,
0:32:55 it’s shocking, it’s still here.
0:32:57 Or it’s like, wow, I can’t believe this person
0:32:59 actually started this thing.
0:33:02 And so there’s been a lot more of that.
0:33:05 I would say in terms of businesses that are really cool,
0:33:09 and I think have inspired me in different ways.
0:33:11 It’s people that are actually able to take something
0:33:15 traditional and make it and innovate it.
0:33:17 It’s like, I always find those businesses really interesting,
0:33:20 like, you know, it could be anything like publishing books
0:33:22 and turning that into, you know what,
0:33:25 instead of publishing books the way that we have been,
0:33:28 instead let’s learn how to use AI to publish books
0:33:30 and make the entire process automated.
0:33:34 That’s a really cool business that I’ve seen play out.
0:33:36 I think that looking at a school,
0:33:38 which people know that we publicly associate with,
0:33:40 like that business I have a lot of admiration for
0:33:44 because of, if you look at it by all,
0:33:47 like by all stats and metrics of that business,
0:33:51 it is mind blowing and that they’ve been able to take
0:33:54 this element of community that people only really feel
0:33:57 in person and bring it online to such a degree
0:34:00 that now people also are doing it offline
0:34:02 and it’s just, it’s been really cool to see
0:34:06 the network effect through that business.
0:34:10 And then I would say like more traditional businesses
0:34:14 like bakeries and how like traditional bakeries
0:34:18 that make cookies or whatever have integrated tools
0:34:21 like AI and technology to learn like,
0:34:23 okay, what type of cookie profile
0:34:24 is this person going to want to order?
0:34:27 And like just ways that people can integrate
0:34:28 that kind of stuff like technology
0:34:30 into like traditional businesses.
0:34:32 – Do bakeries that use AI, is that,
0:34:36 was that a thing, does that make it better really?
0:34:39 – I think that is all perception.
0:34:41 Like I think value for a customer in many ways,
0:34:42 it is perceived, right?
0:34:44 And so it’s like, if you feel like this cookie
0:34:46 is custom to you because of this technology
0:34:48 that they have and they are able to like make it
0:34:49 right there for you, then I think, yeah,
0:34:52 people will pay a lot more money for it, that’s for sure.
0:34:56 I mean, I would, but clearly cause it works for them.
0:34:59 So I think those have been some of the cool businesses.
0:35:00 – What about this workshop stuff?
0:35:02 So you guys start, I started seeing ads for these workshops
0:35:05 and I think you guys have probably done like,
0:35:06 I’m just doing some napkin math,
0:35:09 like something like $10 million of workshop revenue,
0:35:11 which was a little bit surprising to me
0:35:13 ’cause I was like, why are they doing this
0:35:14 is like a lot of time for me.
0:35:17 – The, the, the, the mapping supposedly,
0:35:19 or you maybe said this, I think 1,800 people
0:35:22 have gone through an acquisition.com workshop.
0:35:25 And I think on your website, it’s $5,000 to go.
0:35:27 – And by the way, I know a couple of people who have gone
0:35:28 and they said it was great.
0:35:29 So that, you know, I’m not saying in a bad way.
0:35:31 Well, I guess what I’m saying is,
0:35:31 I was surprised you guys were doing that.
0:35:33 I was like, oh no, this is actually great,
0:35:34 you know, alignment, right?
0:35:39 They like to teach its deal flow at a like a proprietary level.
0:35:40 And then, you know, it’s a win-win.
0:35:41 Other people should get some value out of this.
0:35:43 They come in, they get to focus on their business.
0:35:45 What I wanted to ask you about is,
0:35:48 what’s the number one recurring problem you see?
0:35:50 ‘Cause now you’ve seen 1,800 founders come in
0:35:52 and they’re, they paid a bunch of money
0:35:54 to come to the workshop ’cause they got a problem.
0:35:56 What’s the common problem you see
0:35:58 and what’s the solve that, that you,
0:36:01 that you think would help most of these businesses?
0:36:03 – The number one problem that I see is not technical.
0:36:06 And it’s not even a practical problem,
0:36:09 but more of an emotional problem,
0:36:11 which is, I think founders lie on one of two spectrums,
0:36:13 which is either they’re incredibly impatient
0:36:18 and because of that, they never wait long enough
0:36:21 to see if any kind of strategy will work.
0:36:22 They just change it.
0:36:23 And so it, it doesn’t even,
0:36:25 they don’t even give it a shot to see if it’ll play out
0:36:27 because they change too soon.
0:36:28 And on the other side, you have founders
0:36:33 that are too tolerant and they basically just want
0:36:36 to be liked at all costs and they don’t make good decisions
0:36:38 for their business because of that.
0:36:40 So I actually don’t think that any of the problems
0:36:42 that I see are technical problems.
0:36:43 – Is there a way to put like a benchmark?
0:36:45 Like for example, are you talking about like, you know,
0:36:46 you should, for a lot of people,
0:36:49 they should be waiting a year to get, to get results
0:36:52 or, you know, or they react in weeks
0:36:54 when they should be reacting in quarters.
0:36:55 Is there a-
0:36:57 – Yeah, I think a lot of people think
0:36:59 that waiting a quarter is a long time
0:37:00 and that’s probably the issue.
0:37:03 They think, oh, well, I waited three months.
0:37:05 And I’m like, try waiting 18.
0:37:07 You know, I have things I’m doing acquisition.com
0:37:08 that you might ask about the workshop.
0:37:09 So I’m like, all right,
0:37:10 well, if you see what was going to come out
0:37:11 in the next four months,
0:37:13 which I’ve been working on for the last 12 months,
0:37:15 you’ll see why it all makes sense, right?
0:37:18 But a lot of people, I think one,
0:37:20 don’t have the ability to wait that long
0:37:22 and two, don’t even know how to build something
0:37:23 that takes that long.
0:37:28 (upbeat music)
0:37:28 – Hey, Sean here.
0:37:30 I want to tell you a little story about Winston Churchill.
0:37:32 So Churchill once said,
0:37:33 first we shape our buildings
0:37:36 and thereafter they shape us.
0:37:38 And I think this is true not just for the buildings
0:37:39 we see in cities,
0:37:41 but also for the building blocks you choose in your company.
0:37:43 For any company that I start,
0:37:45 I use Mercury for all of my banking needs.
0:37:47 Why, well, it was built by a YC founder.
0:37:49 And you could tell this is built by a founder
0:37:51 who understands the needs of other founders.
0:37:53 Second thing is this modern, it’s clean, easy to use.
0:37:54 The design is really nice.
0:37:56 You’d never have to drive somewhere, park,
0:37:58 put coins in the meter, get out,
0:37:59 just to do one simple task.
0:38:01 You could do everything in just a couple of clicks.
0:38:03 They got bill pay, checking account, savings account,
0:38:06 wire transfers, everything you need, they got it.
0:38:07 I use it for not one,
0:38:09 but actually six of my companies right now
0:38:10 and actually even have a personal account with them.
0:38:11 It’s kind of amazing.
0:38:13 So if you’re ready to operate in the future,
0:38:16 head over to mercury.com, apply in minutes.
0:38:18 Disclaimer, Mercury is a financial technology company
0:38:19 out of bank banking services provided
0:38:21 by Choice Financial Group
0:38:23 and Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC.
0:38:25 Thank you to Winston Churchill for that little ad segment.
0:38:27 All right, back to this episode.
0:38:33 – Your husband seems a guy who is stereotypical
0:38:35 of a person who does not have patience.
0:38:39 You know, you said that he said I want to be more patient.
0:38:42 So I assume that means he didn’t have patience.
0:38:44 Has he been able to like go with the flow of like,
0:38:48 look, we’re planning 18, 36 months out
0:38:49 and that’s what we’re working on.
0:38:50 So you’re not gonna see,
0:38:52 ’cause I know when I’m working at something like,
0:38:54 why don’t I see results immediately?
0:38:55 We’re investing all this money and all this time
0:38:57 and we don’t have fucking results.
0:38:58 Why aren’t you out launching an MVP
0:39:00 and talking to potential customers?
0:39:01 Don’t tell me about it, you know what I mean?
0:39:02 Like that’s like how I feel.
0:39:04 And I think that’s why I understand
0:39:06 probably how he feels.
0:39:08 – Yeah, I think something I’ve gotten a lot better at
0:39:10 is showing him progress.
0:39:13 So because I, this is what I’ve realized,
0:39:14 which is just patience,
0:39:16 it’s just figuring out what to do in the meantime.
0:39:17 The reason I can be more patient
0:39:19 is because I’m fucking busy doing all the shit
0:39:21 to make the thing happen, right?
0:39:23 But if you’re not the one in there having the meetings,
0:39:25 hiring the people, recruiting the stuff,
0:39:26 putting the tech in place,
0:39:29 then it feels like it takes a long time.
0:39:32 And so because he sits more on the like demand gen side
0:39:35 and doesn’t have the whole team rolling into him,
0:39:37 he doesn’t get that reinforcement on a daily basis
0:39:39 of seeing that progress.
0:39:41 And so I look at myself as like my job
0:39:43 is to tell him all of those things that are happening
0:39:46 to show him, look at all the shit that we’re doing
0:39:48 and where it’s gonna end up and how close we are.
0:39:50 And it might actually happen faster than we thought.
0:39:52 And so I think that a lot of the times
0:39:55 people feel impatient because one,
0:39:56 they’re not seeing progress
0:39:57 because maybe they’re removed from
0:39:59 what’s actually occurring.
0:40:02 I think that the second thing is, you know,
0:40:05 I always look at it as for him and for anybody,
0:40:08 if he’s not, you know, in the day to day operating,
0:40:10 making the plan happen,
0:40:12 then he’s working on something for the future.
0:40:14 You know, he’s writing books, he’s making content.
0:40:17 He’s, you know, oftentimes when we have really big problems
0:40:19 in the business, maybe we’ll have two or three
0:40:21 at the same time, it’ll be like, okay, you know,
0:40:23 I don’t know that these teams don’t report to you,
0:40:25 but I’m over here solving this problem.
0:40:27 How about you solve this problem?
0:40:28 And then, you know, we’re gonna communicate
0:40:29 about these things.
0:40:31 And so it’s like, I also think he can do special projects.
0:40:34 That’s something that like you do in the meantime.
0:40:36 You know, I think from a traditional standpoint,
0:40:39 I think what’s really good about him in many ways
0:40:41 is that he’s impatient with things.
0:40:43 And so because of that, I’ll say this, okay,
0:40:44 I think it’s good to be patient.
0:40:45 It’s also good to be impatient with things.
0:40:47 It just like, which one?
0:40:51 And so I think what I love about his impatience at times
0:40:53 is that he’s able to isolate it
0:40:55 to the way that people do things.
0:40:57 Why does it take this long to do a video?
0:41:00 Why does it take this long to talk to a customer?
0:41:02 Why does it take this long to build a department?
0:41:04 And he questions things that other people
0:41:07 just accept as fact, because somebody else
0:41:09 and some book said that’s how you do business.
0:41:11 And I love that he questions those things
0:41:13 and is impatient about how inefficient things
0:41:14 in business can be.
0:41:15 I think that’s fantastic.
0:41:17 – Naval has the best quote on this.
0:41:20 He said, impatient with actions, patience with results.
0:41:23 So impatient on the inputs, patient with the outputs
0:41:25 is the sort of unstoppable formula.
0:41:29 – 100%, it’s an advantage because I am patient with results.
0:41:32 I can also be too patient sometimes with the action.
0:41:34 And so I have learned from him.
0:41:35 I think we do a good job learning from each other.
0:41:38 I think that he’s learned from my patients with results.
0:41:41 I’ve learned from his impatience with inputs or actions.
0:41:44 And that’s benefited the business a lot.
0:41:45 – We gotta ask you.
0:41:47 We used to say we have seven female listeners.
0:41:49 And I think as the podcast has grown,
0:41:52 there’s now tens out there.
0:41:56 And I’m sure you get a lot of women who look up to you
0:41:57 who ask you for advice.
0:42:00 So this is the, you know, here’s the mic.
0:42:02 And if there’s a female entrepreneur watching this,
0:42:04 what’s your message to her?
0:42:06 – You might think that because you’re female,
0:42:10 things are less fair or that people will treat you differently
0:42:11 or that business is harder.
0:42:14 And there are things that you’re gonna have to overcome.
0:42:16 And while all those things might be true
0:42:18 in certain circumstances and certain times,
0:42:21 and that some are irrefutably true,
0:42:23 the question to ask yourself is, is this useful?
0:42:27 You know, a lot of people come to me and they say,
0:42:29 isn’t it hard to do business because like, you know,
0:42:31 you’re a woman and you’re married to Alex?
0:42:32 Like, do people take you seriously?
0:42:34 I’m like, I don’t know, is that a useful thought?
0:42:36 If it’s not, then why the fuck would I focus on it?
0:42:41 And so I just completely abolish any of this like,
0:42:46 female entrepreneur, what’s it like stuff?
0:42:48 And I’ve made one video about it
0:42:50 because I wanted people to understand,
0:42:54 yes, there are differences, there are also advantages.
0:42:57 So like you can either focus on what sucks
0:42:59 and what’s worse, or you can just focus on,
0:43:01 you know, maximizing your strengths
0:43:04 and taking advantage of the advantages.
0:43:07 And also just choosing to focus on shit that’s useful.
0:43:07 You know what I mean?
0:43:09 Like, we can all point to reasons
0:43:11 as to why people treat us differently.
0:43:12 We can also just like be better.
0:43:14 I’ll tell you this, which is like,
0:43:15 a joke between me and Alex is like,
0:43:17 so many people have tried to break us up.
0:43:18 And like the key line is always like,
0:43:21 Layla, you know, he’s suppressing you
0:43:24 because he’s, you know, Alex.
0:43:26 I always just like have this internal dialogue,
0:43:29 which is like, and that is why you will not win
0:43:32 because you see people that are powerful
0:43:34 as having an ability to suppress you.
0:43:36 When I look at people who are powerful
0:43:38 as what can I learn from them to be better?
0:43:39 So that when I’m in a room,
0:43:41 people would not say that about me.
0:43:43 They would not say, oh, you’re being suppressed.
0:43:44 Like what do I have to learn to be a person
0:43:45 who is more powerful?
0:43:50 And I think that a lot of women throw around these terms
0:43:52 and do these things, but it’s like,
0:43:57 you can either look at it as a disadvantage
0:43:59 or something to be an advantage to you.
0:44:01 You know, I think that I’ve had to probably accumulate
0:44:04 more skills that some men would not have to
0:44:06 because I’ve had to learn to be better at things
0:44:08 to be taken seriously in certain ways, right?
0:44:11 Or I’ve had to accumulate emotional skills
0:44:13 that I wouldn’t have to otherwise.
0:44:14 I think those are all pros.
0:44:16 And like if I have more challenge,
0:44:18 I also get the opportunity to acquire more skills.
0:44:22 So I just don’t look at it like a bad thing.
0:44:24 And I look at it if anything like a good thing.
0:44:27 And any thoughts that arise that are not useful,
0:44:29 I do not focus on ever.
0:44:31 – You’re the shit.
0:44:32 – Perfect answer.
0:44:35 – You’re fantastic.
0:44:39 You know, you guys are, what an interesting couple.
0:44:40 You know, typically like,
0:44:45 like my wife and I are fairly different
0:44:47 in a lot of different ways,
0:44:50 but you guys are both very similar in your intensity,
0:44:54 but also in your way to like come up with like
0:44:56 interesting ideas and interesting theories
0:44:58 as to why the world is the way it is
0:45:01 and how you’re gonna react to that.
0:45:02 Most relationships I don’t think are like that.
0:45:04 And so it’s so, it’s so funny.
0:45:09 You guys are both like highly intense and great ways.
0:45:11 It’s just so fascinating.
0:45:14 – I’m gonna make that my new profile, highly intense.
0:45:16 – Yeah, we’ll LinkedIn endorse you on that.
0:45:16 – Yeah.
0:45:20 – My best compliment to you guys is,
0:45:22 I think what’s really admirable about your relationship
0:45:24 is that I think you both have a very high desire
0:45:26 to self-improve.
0:45:28 And it takes me back to like one of my favorite quotes
0:45:29 about relationships is, you know,
0:45:31 I’ll take care of me for you.
0:45:33 And you take care of you for me.
0:45:34 Whereas I think most people approach
0:45:35 relationships as the opposites.
0:45:36 You’re supposed to take care of me
0:45:37 and I’m supposed to take care of you
0:45:38 and you’re never doing enough for me
0:45:39 and I’m never doing enough for you.
0:45:42 And I think it is really great.
0:45:44 You guys are an A plus example of two people who say,
0:45:48 “I’m gonna self-improve in all the ways that I can.”
0:45:50 And that’s what makes me a great partner for you.
0:45:52 – Yeah, and I think honestly,
0:45:54 I just wish for everyone that listens to this
0:45:57 to take that to their business relationships
0:45:59 and to their personal relationships
0:46:00 because I think it applies to both.
0:46:01 – All right, well, thanks for coming on.
0:46:02 I appreciate you.
0:46:04 – Thank you guys.
0:46:05 – That’s the episode.
0:46:07 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:46:10 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:46:12 ♪ I put my all in it like my days off ♪
0:46:15 ♪ On a road let’s travel never looking back ♪
0:46:18 (upbeat music)
0:46:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]
0:00:06 You know, like at eight arrests, at 10 arrests,
0:00:09 at 300 pounds, at 350 pounds.
0:00:10 I just really thought about that.
0:00:13 And I was like, what does my life look like in three years
0:00:16 and four years and five years if I keep doing this?
0:00:19 And that terrified me enough
0:00:23 to immediately change literally everything.
0:00:25 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:00:27 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:00:30 ♪ I put my all in it like days off ♪
0:00:31 ♪ On the road let’s travel never looking back ♪
0:00:33 – Okay, Layla, welcome to the show.
0:00:34 It’s exciting to see you here.
0:00:36 We’ve had Alex on a couple of times
0:00:38 and I don’t know, you guys are pretty kick ass.
0:00:42 We’ve, you’re like one of the few business like power couple
0:00:44 celebrity couples that are out there in the public.
0:00:46 Did you ever think you would be doing that?
0:00:47 Like, did you ever think,
0:00:50 oh, I’ll be the kind of like guru, influencer-y person
0:00:52 who’s gonna be out there giving advice
0:00:54 or giving frameworks or trying to be helpful to people?
0:00:57 Is that something you saw yourself doing?
0:00:58 – Not in the beginning,
0:01:00 because I think I just really enjoyed running the company.
0:01:03 And then I think once I realized that
0:01:06 after a certain point, the impact I wanted to have,
0:01:09 I would, it would be required that I learned that skill
0:01:11 and that it would be something that would be transferable
0:01:13 to what I did day to day as well.
0:01:14 Then that was when I was like, okay,
0:01:15 I think this is important for me to learn
0:01:18 because what I realized is I can be as good as I am
0:01:19 at running a business,
0:01:21 but if I’m not as good at running it
0:01:23 as I am talking about it, then it doesn’t really matter.
0:01:26 If I can’t communicate my abilities,
0:01:29 then that in itself is a limiter for me teaching my team
0:01:31 and transferring that skill to somebody else,
0:01:34 whether it be an audience, my team, a friend,
0:01:35 whatever it might be.
0:01:36 – I feel like when I hear you talk,
0:01:39 it’s like, okay, you’ve really got a super strong sense
0:01:41 of how you like to operate.
0:01:42 It’s like you got it together
0:01:44 and a system that works for you.
0:01:46 And that comes through experience,
0:01:47 it comes through trial and error.
0:01:50 But let’s rewind before you had all that
0:01:51 and let you tell your story a little bit.
0:01:52 ‘Cause there’s gonna be people who are listening to this,
0:01:53 don’t know your full story.
0:01:55 I don’t know your full story, to be honest.
0:01:57 I love this one tweet that I came out of the research.
0:02:01 You said, you can’t skip the struggle if you want the story.
0:02:02 So I wanna use that.
0:02:04 You can’t skip the struggle if you want the story.
0:02:07 So in telling your story, let’s start with the struggle.
0:02:09 Can you start where you didn’t have it all together?
0:02:11 You weren’t this sort of business terminator.
0:02:13 You were struggling, you were trying to figure it out.
0:02:14 Can you start there?
0:02:18 – Yeah, I would say that ever since I was like a teenager,
0:02:21 I always wanted to get into entrepreneurship
0:02:24 mostly because I had my father,
0:02:26 he was a tenured professor.
0:02:28 You know, he did everything by the book
0:02:30 and he honestly was miserable.
0:02:34 And so I really just felt like that wasn’t the way to go.
0:02:36 I just didn’t know what the way was.
0:02:38 And I got lost along the way so much so that like,
0:02:43 you know, when I was 19, I had been arrested six times.
0:02:44 I was drinking, doing drugs.
0:02:49 I was 230 pounds, like my life was going nowhere.
0:02:51 I was flunking out of college.
0:02:55 And that was when I really, when I turned my life around,
0:03:00 just learning how to live my life in accordance
0:03:03 with my goals and values rather than my feelings.
0:03:05 And that was really what taught me a lot of discipline.
0:03:07 I ended up losing almost 100 pounds.
0:03:10 I moved across the country by myself
0:03:12 from Michigan to California.
0:03:14 And I went to go to California
0:03:17 because I wanted to pursue a career in fitness
0:03:18 because then I had to finish school
0:03:20 for exercise science, useless.
0:03:22 But nonetheless, I had to finish school for it.
0:03:28 – Hey, let’s take a quick break
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0:03:52 – You just said a thing that in a movie
0:03:54 would have been like 60 minutes
0:03:55 and you did it in like 60 seconds.
0:03:56 So I want to zoom in.
0:03:59 So you were like, I’m 230 pounds, I’m drinking.
0:04:01 I don’t know what I want to do with my life.
0:04:04 I’m basically single, broken out of shape, right?
0:04:05 That’s kind of like the start.
0:04:06 And then you were like,
0:04:07 so then I decided I’m going to start living life
0:04:08 in terms of my goals.
0:04:09 And then I did, I lost 100 pounds.
0:04:11 And like, all right, hold on.
0:04:12 I’ve been there before.
0:04:14 I know that there’s something that happens
0:04:15 in between those, right?
0:04:18 If it was so easy to just live in accordance with my goals,
0:04:19 I probably would have been doing it earlier.
0:04:22 There must have been some wake up call,
0:04:25 some sort of moment, some sort of a tough conversation
0:04:27 with yourself where you decided
0:04:28 to start making that shift.
0:04:30 What was that moment?
0:04:31 – There was two moments.
0:04:36 The first one, which was like, okay, I want to stop
0:04:40 being a fat ass is I was at a party
0:04:42 or I went to a party as my friend’s birthday party
0:04:44 and it was college, right?
0:04:46 And so then she’s like, I’m going to invite these people,
0:04:48 which had been our friends in high school.
0:04:50 And I was like, oh gosh, that’s embarrassing
0:04:52 because like I’m pretty overweight now.
0:04:53 And so it’s like, I hope nobody says anything,
0:04:54 but nobody’s gonna say anything
0:04:56 because that’s really rude, right?
0:04:59 And so there’s, we have this party, everyone’s drinking
0:05:04 and I’m walking past a couple of guys
0:05:06 I went to high school with and going to the bathroom.
0:05:09 And I hear a guy and he’s like, what a shame.
0:05:12 And I was like, I was like, what?
0:05:16 And he was really drunk and I was like, what’s the shame?
0:05:19 And he was like, man, he’s like, you know, it really sucks
0:05:20 ’cause like, you know, you were really pretty
0:05:22 but you’re just really fat now.
0:05:23 – Oh.
0:05:26 – And I remember in that, no, but here’s the thing.
0:05:28 In that moment. – What’s his name?
0:05:31 (all laughing)
0:05:32 – In that moment, I was like,
0:05:36 but my internal voice actually was like, he’s right.
0:05:42 And I was like, I hate that, that what he said is true.
0:05:45 And so it was in that moment that I was like,
0:05:47 I don’t want somebody to be able to say that about me anymore
0:05:51 and avoiding the situation, avoiding real life is not,
0:05:51 it’s not cutting in.
0:05:54 So I remember I went home and I like, you know,
0:05:56 like wrote this Facebook post in pure rage.
0:05:58 It was like, you won’t see me anymore.
0:06:00 I’m going dark and like expect not to hear from me.
0:06:05 And I really was just like, I can’t keep overeating.
0:06:07 I can’t keep not taking care of myself.
0:06:09 I had stopped working out, basically stopped working out,
0:06:12 started eating like shit and drank all the time.
0:06:13 And if you do all those things at once,
0:06:15 like you just continue to gain weight.
0:06:17 And that was really the moment that did it for me
0:06:21 because I just, the fact that my response was,
0:06:21 I agree with him.
0:06:24 It wasn’t like, I’m mad at him, I’m anything,
0:06:26 I was like, yeah, he told the truth.
0:06:27 And I think that if you don’t want people
0:06:30 to say bad stuff about you, then change,
0:06:32 I’d rather just change the situation
0:06:33 than try and avoid people.
0:06:35 – Yeah, you type up the Facebook message
0:06:37 and say, I’m going dark.
0:06:40 Did you have a plan or you just had the fuel at that time?
0:06:41 – I just had the fuel.
0:06:44 I mean, and the funny thing is I remember
0:06:47 my plan was this, just eat half of what you’re eating.
0:06:48 (laughing)
0:06:51 – I mean, is that the worst plan?
0:06:52 – It really wasn’t.
0:06:55 And so like, I actually would just take what I was eating
0:06:56 and I would just eat half.
0:06:58 And that worked for me.
0:07:01 And I lost about 60 pounds that way.
0:07:04 And so, you know, the other 40, then I got into macros
0:07:06 and lifting and all that stuff.
0:07:08 And that’s really one, like that took me on,
0:07:10 like where I’ve probably been since then.
0:07:13 The second moment was the sixth time that I was arrested.
0:07:18 So I had been out at college, you know, drinking blacked out.
0:07:24 I wake up, I am in my bedroom at my parents’ house.
0:07:27 So like my childhood bedroom.
0:07:31 And I was like, oh my God, I don’t know what happened.
0:07:33 And I rolled over and I was in bed,
0:07:34 like pounding headache, feel like shit.
0:07:39 And there’s a ticket for my arrest on the bedside.
0:07:42 And I was like, fuck.
0:07:44 Okay, so they took me back to my parents’ house.
0:07:45 I don’t remember a thing.
0:07:48 And then I’m like, I need to go downstairs
0:07:49 to exit the house.
0:07:52 And so I just remember I grabbed the ticket
0:07:55 and I put on clothes and I walked down the stairs
0:07:59 and I see my dad sitting on the couch with my stepmom.
0:08:02 And I was like, okay, like I’m ready.
0:08:05 He’s just, he’s gonna just rip into me.
0:08:09 And I sat down and I was just expecting him
0:08:14 to just eviscerate my character.
0:08:16 And instead of eviscerating my character,
0:08:19 I remember he looked at me and he was like,
0:08:22 listen, I’m not gonna try and control you
0:08:23 or tell you what to do
0:08:25 or tell you that you need to change your life.
0:08:27 I just wanna tell you, I’m just,
0:08:31 I’m really worried because if you keep doing this,
0:08:34 I think you’re just gonna end up killing yourself.
0:08:37 And it was weird, but in that moment,
0:08:40 when he said that, it was like,
0:08:44 I think when you’re young, you feel invincible, right?
0:08:46 Like you drink, you feel like nothing will happen.
0:08:48 You drink and drive, you feel like nothing will happen.
0:08:50 You do drugs, you feel like nothing would happen.
0:08:51 And it was like in that moment,
0:08:53 I recognized that he was right
0:08:55 and that I’m no different from all these other people
0:08:56 who have gone down this path.
0:08:59 I could actually end up really hurting myself.
0:09:04 And I think the second to that was,
0:09:06 I felt so terrible that I made someone
0:09:08 who loves me so much and has invested so much
0:09:10 and only made my life better,
0:09:13 feel so shitty by who I was being.
0:09:17 And so, I left and I was like,
0:09:19 I can’t keep doing any of this.
0:09:21 Like, yeah, being fat and working on all that,
0:09:23 but like, I can’t keep drinking like this.
0:09:24 I can’t keep doing drugs like this.
0:09:25 This is not the life I want.
0:09:28 And I remember, what I really thought about was,
0:09:31 when does it end?
0:09:33 Like at eight arrests, at 10 arrests,
0:09:37 at 300 pounds, at 350 pounds,
0:09:38 what kind of drugs do you stop at?
0:09:40 And so, I just really thought about that.
0:09:43 And I was like, what does my life look like
0:09:45 in three years and four years and five years
0:09:47 if I keep doing this?
0:09:50 And that terrified me enough
0:09:54 to immediately change literally everything.
0:09:55 And this is a process again
0:09:58 that I just still haven’t figured out how to quite explain,
0:10:02 but it’s like the moment, in that moment,
0:10:05 the fear of remaining the same was so much greater
0:10:10 than any fear I had of change that I changed the next day.
0:10:12 Like, I threw out all my alcohol.
0:10:14 I decided I was moving out of the house I was in.
0:10:15 I lived with six people.
0:10:19 I said, I’m not drinking, I’m not doing drugs.
0:10:20 I’m gonna work out, I’m gonna eat healthy,
0:10:21 I’m gonna get a second job.
0:10:22 So, I got a second job.
0:10:23 So, I’m going to school, I’ve got two jobs
0:10:27 because I was like, I need to fill my time with something.
0:10:30 You know, I joined a gym and I started,
0:10:33 you know, in my spare time reading, watching YouTube videos
0:10:35 that were, you know, self development, whatever.
0:10:37 I just said, I can’t be that person anymore.
0:10:40 And it was like, I was so fed up with everything.
0:10:42 And then that moment, the pain was so high
0:10:45 that it made it fairly easy to change immediately
0:10:47 because I understood finally
0:10:49 that I was so uncomfortable as is.
0:10:52 And it’s like, I could remain uncomfortable
0:10:53 in the situation I was in
0:10:55 or I could be uncomfortable changing
0:10:56 only one of those is productive, right?
0:10:58 And only one of those turned my life
0:11:00 into something that I’m actually proud of.
0:11:02 And so, those were the two moments
0:11:06 that really caused me to change my life.
0:11:09 – Have you ever heard of the Dickens method?
0:11:10 – Mm-mm.
0:11:12 – It’s basically exactly what you just described.
0:11:14 If you ever go to like a Tony Robbins event,
0:11:16 like his big kind of events.
0:11:17 – Yeah.
0:11:17 – On one of the days he does this
0:11:20 and it’s basically the Dickens method is a technique
0:11:22 where you sort of vividly imagine,
0:11:23 you time travel to the future.
0:11:25 You’re like, okay, let’s play it forward a year.
0:11:27 Let’s play it forward five years.
0:11:28 I’m still doing it, I’m keep doing it.
0:11:30 I do more of it, in fact, ’cause I am increasing
0:11:32 whatever the bad habit, whatever the decisions,
0:11:34 whatever the thing I’m doing is.
0:11:37 And you play it forward and then how does that affect you?
0:11:38 How does that affect the people that you love?
0:11:41 And he sort of gets you to sort of go there.
0:11:45 And when I did it, when I went to his event,
0:11:47 it was like, I wasn’t really going through much at the time.
0:11:49 So I was like, I don’t know what this exercise for.
0:11:52 But around me, there was literally people screaming.
0:11:55 It was honestly a very uncomfortable moment,
0:11:57 but people were really feeling something in that moment
0:12:00 where if you play it forward and you vividly imagine
0:12:01 what the future looks like five years later,
0:12:03 10 years later, 15 years later,
0:12:05 and how that affects all the people around you,
0:12:07 it creates this like emotional charge
0:12:11 where it gives you, again, the pain of not changing
0:12:13 increases over the pain of change.
0:12:14 And just like you described.
0:12:15 – Yeah.
0:12:17 – Which by the way, I’ve talked about that in this pot.
0:12:19 I had a similar run rate.
0:12:22 I had about three arrests in three months.
0:12:23 – Really?
0:12:25 – Yeah, I also weighed 230 pounds.
0:12:29 And I was a disgusting person.
0:12:33 And yeah, love booze and substances.
0:12:36 And so it had a similar issue of like,
0:12:38 after one arrest, you’re like, what the fuck, man?
0:12:39 What the fuck?
0:12:41 I didn’t live with my parents at the time,
0:12:42 but I did, I lived with my dog.
0:12:46 I had this dog and I like, he shit all over himself one day
0:12:48 because he got arrested and I was in jail for 24 hours.
0:12:50 And I was like, oh my God, I’m letting him down.
0:12:52 It was like, it’s so funny.
0:12:55 It was like a very similar, everything changed at that moment.
0:12:58 So you and I, we are the same.
0:12:59 – We had no idea.
0:13:00 – Yeah, we’re similar.
0:13:03 And what age were you when you moved to California?
0:13:05 What age were you when you met Alex?
0:13:08 – Yeah, I was 20, almost 23 when I met him.
0:13:10 – Wait, wait, describe the first date.
0:13:11 – Well, there are buds first, right?
0:13:13 Aren’t you guys buddies first?
0:13:16 – We were buddies, but we were dating.
0:13:17 I don’t know how to describe this.
0:13:18 – There’s a term for that.
0:13:19 – Yeah.
0:13:20 (laughing)
0:13:24 – No, but not actually, I’ll put it like this.
0:13:26 So like, yeah, that’s not what I mean.
0:13:32 We met on Bumble and we went on our first date.
0:13:33 He asked me to go to Froyo.
0:13:35 He was like, listen, it’s low commitment.
0:13:36 So if we’re weird, we can leave.
0:13:37 And I was like, I mean, good,
0:13:40 because I’ve been on some bad fucking dates lately, man.
0:13:42 And so we meet at Froyo.
0:13:44 He comes up, he’s not very friendly.
0:13:45 I just remember the first thing.
0:13:46 He was like, not smiling.
0:13:48 And I was like, what’s wrong with this guy?
0:13:50 We get in line and he’s still not smiling.
0:13:52 And I’m like, I’m like cracking a joke or two.
0:13:53 And I’m like, this guy’s tough.
0:13:56 Come to find out later the reason he wasn’t smiling
0:13:58 is ’cause I have a full back piece.
0:14:00 Like my whole back is tattooed angel wings,
0:14:01 which is traumatic and embarrassing,
0:14:05 but it’s because I got it when I was 18 and high and drunk.
0:14:09 And so he saw that and was like, oh man, one of these girls.
0:14:11 And so apparently he was judging me
0:14:13 the entire time for that tattoo.
0:14:14 – You and Max Holloway.
0:14:16 – Don’t judge a book by its cover.
0:14:17 Don’t judge a girl by her back.
0:14:19 All right, that’s the lesson.
0:14:21 Too painful to get undone at this point.
0:14:25 And so, we ended up staying down for Froyo.
0:14:29 And honestly, once he had a few bites
0:14:31 and I think it got blood sugar in his system,
0:14:35 Alex’s blood sugar is attached to how much food he’s eating.
0:14:37 And so I think once he ate, he was like, hi.
0:14:39 And I was like, oh, okay, you’re a nice person, let’s go.
0:14:41 And we actually just started talking about business.
0:14:43 Really picture this, right?
0:14:44 I had moved out there.
0:14:46 I was only focused on my career.
0:14:47 I didn’t have friends.
0:14:48 I didn’t have a boyfriend.
0:14:51 I had gone on dates, but I did not find anybody I’d liked.
0:14:53 So I was really just me in my work.
0:14:55 And I was trying to figure out like,
0:14:56 what do I need to do next?
0:14:58 ‘Cause I was doing online and in-person training.
0:15:00 And then I met him and he actually had the same story.
0:15:03 So he had moved out from Baltimore, Maryland
0:15:05 to pursue fitness, opened up a few gyms,
0:15:07 and was trying to figure out what he was gonna do next
0:15:08 as his next step.
0:15:10 Didn’t really have a lot of friends
0:15:13 and obviously didn’t have a girlfriend.
0:15:17 And so we didn’t really have anything else to talk about.
0:15:19 And so we ended up actually like eating Froyo
0:15:21 and then we went on like a four hour walk
0:15:23 and we talked about work the entire time.
0:15:26 And I remember leaving the date
0:15:29 because, you know, as Froyos was like 3 p.m.,
0:15:31 he had a dinner at like seven.
0:15:32 And so he actually asked me, he’s like,
0:15:33 will you come to the grocery store
0:15:36 and get stuff for this dinner barbecue thing I have?
0:15:38 And I was like, sure.
0:15:41 And we just talking the whole time still about business.
0:15:44 And once we got done, I got in my car and I was like,
0:15:46 that was the weirdest day I’ve ever been on.
0:15:47 Like it wasn’t even like a date.
0:15:50 We didn’t talk about anything romantic at all.
0:15:52 We just literally talked about work,
0:15:54 but like all I know is I want to keep talking to that guy.
0:15:56 And I went back and I told my roommate,
0:15:58 I was like, I’m just so interested.
0:16:00 Like he’s the first person that I feel like
0:16:02 I’ve had an intellectual conversation with
0:16:04 since I’ve moved here.
0:16:05 You know, ’cause most of the time
0:16:06 when I’d go out on dates with people,
0:16:08 it’s like they had zero ambition.
0:16:10 They had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives.
0:16:12 And it was California.
0:16:14 So that’s like a little bit more of the culture.
0:16:16 They also just didn’t really like the fact
0:16:19 that I was as ambitious and working as much as I was.
0:16:23 And so to meet somebody who actually saw that as a pro
0:16:26 had the same things in common and wanted to talk about them.
0:16:28 It was like the most enjoyable date I’d been on.
0:16:30 And then I think he called me the next day
0:16:33 and was like, hey, do you want to like work together?
0:16:36 And I was like, sure, sounds fun.
0:16:38 So I went over to his house and I like brought all my stuff,
0:16:39 my laptop and everything, we started working.
0:16:44 And that just like slowly kept happening over time.
0:16:48 And you know, maybe, yeah.
0:16:50 (all laughing)
0:16:51 Yeah.
0:16:55 – And then one meeting, we just started to get this.
0:16:57 – Yeah, I had a board meeting, for sure.
0:16:59 We kissed in a meeting, no.
0:17:03 No, I mean, it was just like, we had shared interest.
0:17:04 You know, I didn’t know when I met him
0:17:06 that he was also Persian.
0:17:07 So then I found out, oh, we’re both,
0:17:08 both of our fathers are from Iran.
0:17:10 We had that in common.
0:17:13 You know, we had both moved out there on our own.
0:17:15 We just had a lot in common that I was just not expecting.
0:17:18 And because of that, it just felt like
0:17:19 for the first time in so long,
0:17:23 I had somebody who saw reality the same way I did
0:17:25 and who didn’t want to make me into somebody I wasn’t.
0:17:27 You know, like I’ve always,
0:17:28 I can’t even tell you how many times
0:17:30 I’ve gone on dates with guys and they’re like,
0:17:32 you seem really great, but you’re kind of weird.
0:17:33 And like, you’re like a little obsessive.
0:17:34 And I was like, yeah, I know,
0:17:37 but I don’t really want to change that about myself.
0:17:39 Or they didn’t like that I worked as much as I did.
0:17:40 And I like working.
0:17:41 So I’m like, I don’t want to apologize for that.
0:17:44 And he was the first person I met that
0:17:45 saw all those things as pros
0:17:47 that everyone else had seen as cons.
0:17:49 And not only that, but, you know,
0:17:51 I think I saw the same in him
0:17:52 with a lot of things that people have complained about.
0:17:55 And so, you know, about a month in, he’s like,
0:17:58 I feel like you should not start this online thing
0:17:59 or do this in person.
0:18:00 I was basically like, do I open up my own gym
0:18:02 or do I partner with this woman
0:18:04 who wanted me to be her business partner online?
0:18:06 She already had a successful business.
0:18:08 And so, you know, four weeks in, I said, screw it.
0:18:12 Like, there’s nothing to lose to go do this with him
0:18:16 to start this business because I’m 23.
0:18:17 Like, if shit doesn’t work,
0:18:19 I’ll just go back to what I was doing.
0:18:22 But I will regret if I don’t take this chance
0:18:23 to see if it could work.
0:18:25 – And the thing that you’re talking about,
0:18:26 that’s gym launch?
0:18:28 – Gym launch, yeah.
0:18:29 And the first, you know, year and a half
0:18:32 was literally just like, he’d be at a gym,
0:18:34 I’d be at a gym, different locations,
0:18:37 different states, and we’d be filling them up.
0:18:39 And then we’d call each other every night and be like,
0:18:40 here’s what I’m doing, here’s what you’re doing,
0:18:42 like just like best practices.
0:18:46 And that was like the first year of dating,
0:18:49 which was like, we’re living out of extended stays.
0:18:51 We’re in different states.
0:18:52 We’re trying to launch these gyms.
0:18:55 You know, I’m 23, walking into some dude’s gym,
0:18:56 being like, I’m gonna fill up your gym.
0:18:58 They’re like, what is going on, right?
0:19:02 And so, you know, the first year of our relationship
0:19:05 was just like, the eating shit phase of business,
0:19:06 but doing it together.
0:19:13 – All right, my friends, I have a new podcast
0:19:15 for you guys to check out.
0:19:17 It’s called Content is Profit,
0:19:20 and it’s hosted by Louise and Fonzie Kameo.
0:19:24 And it’s brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.
0:19:26 After years of building content teams and frameworks
0:19:29 for companies like Red Bull and Orange Theory Fitness,
0:19:31 Louise and Fonzie are on a mission
0:19:33 to bridge the gap between content and revenue.
0:19:34 In each episode, you’re gonna hear
0:19:36 from top entrepreneurs and creators,
0:19:38 and you’re gonna hear them share their secrets
0:19:41 and strategies to turn their content into profit.
0:19:42 You can check out a recent episode
0:19:45 called The Secret to Content That Converts,
0:19:48 and they break down our buddy Alex Hermozzi’s blueprint
0:19:51 for effective video production.
0:19:54 So you can check out Content is Profit
0:19:56 wherever you get your podcasts.
0:20:01 What do you mean by the eating shit phase of business?
0:20:03 – You know, it’s just like when you start anything,
0:20:04 when you have no skills,
0:20:07 you’re trying to accumulate all the skills at once.
0:20:09 You don’t know what you’re doing, you have no clarity,
0:20:11 and so you’re just throwing shit at a wall.
0:20:14 You’re probably not taking care of yourself the best you can
0:20:15 because you’re so focused on just trying
0:20:16 to make this thing work,
0:20:18 because you’re kind of just in survival mode,
0:20:22 because at that point, we have no money as well, right?
0:20:24 We’ve very much burned through all the money.
0:20:27 Then his business partner gets access to the bank account
0:20:29 where we’ve been putting all the money from these gyms,
0:20:30 steals the money.
0:20:32 I mean, it was just like thing after thing.
0:20:35 – Weren’t you guys living at your parents’ home as well?
0:20:37 – So we’ve lived a few different places,
0:20:38 but then at one point,
0:20:41 we moved back to my parents’ house for two months.
0:20:43 At another point, we actually lived with one of the clients
0:20:47 of one of the gyms, which was actually more fun.
0:20:49 – You know, I thought I was disappointed before,
0:20:52 but now, actually, somehow, this is worse.
0:20:56 So you guys, I wanted to ask you this.
0:20:59 So Jim Launch has a story.
0:21:00 Alex has come on the pod.
0:21:04 He’s told the story about how it went from figuring it out
0:21:05 to the business partner stealing the money,
0:21:06 and then he scales it.
0:21:07 If you want to listen to that,
0:21:09 there’s an episode we did with him.
0:21:12 But I’ve seen this now a couple of times
0:21:14 where sometimes you just get a business to work,
0:21:15 and you just crack a nut,
0:21:18 and it scales in a way that sort of breaks your brain.
0:21:21 And you may never even see that again.
0:21:24 So I think you guys did something like year one,
0:21:25 or year two.
0:21:27 It went from like zero to like something like
0:21:29 in the range of 15 million by year two,
0:21:30 something like 24 million.
0:21:33 I don’t know if that’s run rate or realized revenue, but–
0:21:34 – Realized revenue.
0:21:35 – Realized revenue.
0:21:38 That’s an insane curve.
0:21:40 What’s the summary of why that worked like that?
0:21:42 ‘Cause that’s not normal.
0:21:44 Could I go do that same business today?
0:21:46 So for example, if you started from scratch today,
0:21:49 if somebody, if the next Alex and Layla were out there,
0:21:51 and they wanted to do Jim Launch today,
0:21:53 could they go and do the same model?
0:21:55 Meaning is that problem still exists?
0:21:57 Is the model still great
0:21:59 where you’re getting upfront cash from these gyms
0:22:02 for doing that kind of this quick turnaround service?
0:22:04 Or is it saturated now and there’s too much competition?
0:22:05 Maybe the ad rates have changed, right?
0:22:07 There’s always these moments in time
0:22:08 where businesses can succeed.
0:22:09 And then 10 years later,
0:22:11 you couldn’t start that same business.
0:22:12 There’s a new version of that business
0:22:14 that those same people could go start.
0:22:17 Could somebody as talented as you guys
0:22:19 start Jim Launch again today
0:22:21 and have the same level of success in your opinion?
0:22:22 – No.
0:22:23 – And why is that?
0:22:25 – Because the market has completely changed.
0:22:27 I mean, think about COVID.
0:22:29 That completely changed the nature of fitness.
0:22:31 OZMPIC has changed fitness.
0:22:32 I think that the future of fitness
0:22:34 looks completely different than boutique gyms.
0:22:36 I think that, you know, I mean,
0:22:38 I know what they’re doing in the background in the labs,
0:22:41 which is like, people are gonna be able to soon take a pill
0:22:43 and they’re gonna be able to control their appetite.
0:22:44 Why do you wanna go to the gym every day
0:22:45 if you could just be skinny?
0:22:47 Lots of girls don’t give a shit.
0:22:49 – So what does the future fitness look like?
0:22:51 – Well, I mean,
0:22:53 lifting weights is a great long-term way
0:22:56 to sustain your body weight
0:22:58 and to prevent you from getting fat.
0:23:03 But short-term intervention, food is always ideal, right?
0:23:05 And that’s gonna have more of an effect on the short term,
0:23:08 like long-term muscle mass, short-term food.
0:23:10 And so I think that what you’re gonna see
0:23:13 is a lot more people just continuing
0:23:15 to lean into what they always have as humans do,
0:23:18 which is the short-term things that work,
0:23:20 which is eat less, which you can do with the pill.
0:23:23 And they happen to have pills that are gonna come out
0:23:27 that are, you know, I think a lot of people are probably
0:23:28 deter away from like ozempic and stuff,
0:23:29 ’cause it’s a shot.
0:23:31 And it’s like, okay, well, the moment that they have a pill
0:23:33 that can say, I’m gonna have,
0:23:37 I only need to have 25% of my normal appetite today,
0:23:39 well, then think about the cost of the gym,
0:23:40 especially for females.
0:23:41 It’s like, you have to get up,
0:23:44 you’ve gotta put on your outfit, maybe some mascara,
0:23:45 you’ve gotta look okay.
0:23:46 You have to drive there, you have to go there,
0:23:48 you have to do things that feel hard
0:23:49 and then you have to leave.
0:23:51 Or I could just take a pill and not be hungry and not eat,
0:23:53 so I don’t have to work out to worry about the food.
0:23:56 So I think that all of those things have changed
0:23:58 just a lot of companies in the fitness
0:23:59 and health space in general.
0:24:01 I can say that because we have other companies
0:24:03 in the portfolio that are in that space.
0:24:05 And I also talked to a ton that are,
0:24:07 it has definitely changed the nature of that landscape.
0:24:10 – You guys, you know, Alex did something kind of interesting.
0:24:13 I think he said that like you bought him like a $50,000
0:24:17 consult with like Grant Cardone or something like that,
0:24:20 like right before the sale of gym launch
0:24:23 where he published that, which was like pretty wild,
0:24:25 where he was like, here’s how much cash we have,
0:24:26 we’re thinking about selling.
0:24:28 And then I think there was even like a part two
0:24:29 and a part three after the sale.
0:24:32 And so it was pretty cool to see that that was all public.
0:24:36 What did you guys, and what, three parts,
0:24:38 what did you do with the money once you sold?
0:24:40 Like, did you have a plan on where to invest it
0:24:42 or did you just let it sit there?
0:24:45 The second thing is, did you have like a 10, 20 year plan
0:24:46 on where you wanted to go?
0:24:47 Or is it like, I don’t know what we’re going to do.
0:24:48 Let’s figure it out.
0:24:51 And then we’ll answer those two first.
0:24:52 – Yeah, yeah.
0:24:55 The idea with the money was we can put it, you know,
0:24:58 in stocks in the short term, we had some real estate deals.
0:25:00 We have one person we do real estate with specifically
0:25:02 that we put some of the money in.
0:25:05 And then the rest of it was for acquisition.com.
0:25:07 So it’s like, how do we get our first few deals?
0:25:09 We’re going to use this as like the nest egg
0:25:11 to invest in those deals.
0:25:14 Part two to that is we knew we wanted a headquarters.
0:25:17 And so, you know, the headquarters was obviously,
0:25:20 I mean, it’s almost 40,000 square feet.
0:25:20 It’s quite expensive.
0:25:23 So that was a big investment as well.
0:25:26 So most of the money has gone into the first few deals
0:25:27 plus the headquarters.
0:25:30 The rest of the money we put in real estate deals
0:25:32 that, you know, have done really well for us.
0:25:35 So, and then I would say remainder, you know, stocks.
0:25:37 We have an oh shit fund and things like that too.
0:25:41 But, you know, most of the times we want to be investing in
0:25:43 how are we going to use the money
0:25:44 to grow acquisition.com faster?
0:25:46 That’s really what we think about with the cast.
0:25:47 – Did you have the idea of that
0:25:50 before you even sold Jim launch?
0:25:53 – The day after we sold, we started acquisition.com.
0:25:54 – That’s crazy.
0:25:55 – Yeah.
0:25:56 – And what was the genesis of that idea?
0:25:57 I’m sure of many conversations,
0:25:59 but like, do you remember kind of what the,
0:26:00 what would you call the origin?
0:26:02 – Really, it actually started with,
0:26:04 what am I best in the world at?
0:26:06 What is Alex best in the world at?
0:26:08 Right, that’s one piece.
0:26:13 The second piece to that is what is the ideal day today
0:26:17 for Alex to sustain so that he knows
0:26:18 that he’s not going to want to quit
0:26:19 because the work he’s doing
0:26:21 with the people he’s doing it, he doesn’t like.
0:26:22 Same for Layla, right?
0:26:25 So it’s like, do things you like with people you like.
0:26:28 That’s how you sustain performance in my opinion.
0:26:30 So then what does that look like for each of us?
0:26:34 And then what is a business that where there’s room
0:26:38 in the market that we can capitalize on both of our skills
0:26:39 when we build?
0:26:43 And so, Alex is, he’s constantly thinking of ideas.
0:26:44 He’s like, well, what about this?
0:26:46 But I’m like, no, no, no.
0:26:48 – What were some of those ideas?
0:26:49 – Well, I mean, there was like,
0:26:51 we could go direct to a consumer, for example.
0:26:53 We thought about the fact that he’s so good
0:26:55 at generating demand and I can build a big team.
0:26:57 That’s really like, well positioned
0:26:59 for a direct to consumer business,
0:27:02 whether it be in beverages, whether it be in food,
0:27:05 or whether it be in some kind of like commerce.
0:27:07 That was an idea.
0:27:11 Another idea that we had was essentially
0:27:14 like an actual like health business.
0:27:17 So like building a platform for, you know,
0:27:19 people who wanted to lose weight or get in shape
0:27:22 using some kind of technology, integrating an AI
0:27:24 and then everything we know about
0:27:27 how to actually help people, you know, lose weight.
0:27:29 But then we saw, you know,
0:27:31 a Zempik coming down line really fucked up.
0:27:36 And so those were two like strong front runners, I would say.
0:27:38 And they were things that I could get passionate about.
0:27:40 But then acquisition.com was the one
0:27:44 that I just kept coming back to because I was like, you know,
0:27:46 the reason that I wanted to sell Gymlaunch was
0:27:49 I just asked myself,
0:27:50 do I want to be in the fitness industry
0:27:52 for the next 10 years?
0:27:52 And the answer was no.
0:27:56 I was like, and I understand that I would probably
0:27:59 get better returns on my time staying in the fitness industry
0:28:01 because I know it so well, right?
0:28:02 We’re already a market leader.
0:28:03 We know everything.
0:28:04 We’ve come up in this.
0:28:05 I’ve been doing it since I was however,
0:28:08 whatever age it’s been over a decade now.
0:28:09 So has he.
0:28:11 We have a competitive advantage here.
0:28:13 But I was like, I don’t want to be
0:28:14 and hit this the rest of my life.
0:28:17 And the reasons for it, to be honest with you,
0:28:20 are just like the networking into the fitness industry
0:28:24 felt less appealing to me than the networking
0:28:26 in private equity, for example,
0:28:28 and the people that I would be competing with.
0:28:29 And I think that who you compete with
0:28:32 or who you compare yourself to, right?
0:28:35 Is like that sets the tone for who you wish to become
0:28:36 in many ways.
0:28:39 Like if I get in the room with whatever,
0:28:41 you can just say Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or whatever.
0:28:43 And I have a company that I aspire to have like theirs.
0:28:45 Like I’m going to compare myself to them.
0:28:47 Versus when I met some of the people
0:28:48 I had some of the biggest fitness businesses,
0:28:51 they were not, though I could compare myself to them.
0:28:52 And yes, they had done better by many measures.
0:28:54 They were not necessarily people I aspired to be like.
0:28:58 And so I just wanted to be in a different industry
0:28:59 to get around different people
0:29:01 and to acquire different skills
0:29:04 that I didn’t think I was going to get staying there.
0:29:06 And so when we looked at acquisition.com,
0:29:10 I was really like what kind of person do I want to be?
0:29:11 And then what kind of business
0:29:14 will allow me to become that person?
0:29:16 And then what kind of people do I need to have on my team
0:29:18 to build that type of business?
0:29:20 And so I think a lot of it actually like circles back,
0:29:22 you know, I was talking about this last night to like,
0:29:24 who do I want to be?
0:29:26 And the business is just a vehicle
0:29:28 for personal growth in many ways.
0:29:29 And so for both of us,
0:29:31 I think that we are better entrepreneurs
0:29:34 and better people for building acquisition.com.
0:29:36 And I think that some people choose businesses
0:29:38 that make them worse, not better.
0:29:42 And this one is definitely one that I think
0:29:43 helps maximize our skills,
0:29:46 but also gets us to be better people.
0:29:49 You know, Alex has shared publicly many times,
0:29:52 like he was like, when we first started acquisition.com,
0:29:54 he kept saying like, I really want to be more patient.
0:29:58 And you must be patient for this business to work.
0:30:01 And so because he wants the business to work
0:30:02 more than anything, right?
0:30:04 Then he will learn to be more patient
0:30:06 as a byproduct of that.
0:30:09 And for me, in order for acquisition.com to work,
0:30:12 and not just work work, but like really fucking work,
0:30:14 like win and be number one,
0:30:17 I have to learn how to make content and be public facing
0:30:19 and be a better communicator overall.
0:30:23 And so it’s not that every day I wake up excited to do that,
0:30:25 but it’s that I want to win.
0:30:27 And I know that in order to win,
0:30:28 I have to learn these skills.
0:30:31 And so it forces me to learn those things
0:30:33 in order to achieve my goals.
0:30:34 – That’s pretty badass.
0:30:35 I, yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
0:30:38 – Everything you said makes sense
0:30:40 and is very aligned with how I view life.
0:30:43 Yeah, I always say this is a vehicle.
0:30:45 It’s a means to have the type of life
0:30:47 you want and become the type of person you want.
0:30:49 And then you think, okay, if this is a vehicle,
0:30:52 who’s getting in the, who do I want on this road trip with me?
0:30:54 And that’s your co-founders, your partners, your investors.
0:30:56 Who are the people I want in this car ride?
0:30:58 Because we might get lost somewhere along the way.
0:31:00 And I’ve really got to think that through.
0:31:02 And I think it’s very important to have that mindset
0:31:04 because I think people think the vehicle is the end itself.
0:31:06 And obviously it’s not.
0:31:08 You see that because people do one vehicle
0:31:10 and then they need the next, they need the next.
0:31:10 And why do you keep,
0:31:14 why does Jeff Bezos needs to go do his rocket company?
0:31:15 And why does he need to buy the Washington Post?
0:31:17 Why do they need to do these things?
0:31:22 Because that business itself was just a,
0:31:23 it’s like a piece of workout equipment.
0:31:25 It’s like going in and you see the bench press.
0:31:27 It’s there to, for me to get the workout,
0:31:28 for me to get the gains,
0:31:30 it’s there to provide some resistance
0:31:32 for me to get what I want out of life.
0:31:32 – Yeah.
0:31:34 – I have a question for you about acquisition.com.
0:31:35 So you guys, you said you’ve seen,
0:31:37 I don’t know, 1,000 businesses.
0:31:38 I was talking to you before we started recording
0:31:41 about businesses that surprise you
0:31:42 ’cause they’re just kind of kick ass.
0:31:43 Maybe it’s a business that you had,
0:31:45 maybe a category you hadn’t heard of
0:31:47 or just a business that people would overlook
0:31:49 or maybe would underrate.
0:31:51 But, and you don’t have to name the names of these businesses,
0:31:53 but I’d love for you to describe a kick ass business
0:31:54 that you’ve seen somewhere along the way
0:31:55 at acquisition.com.
0:31:57 Whether it’s one you guys bought or not.
0:31:58 – Yeah.
0:32:01 I will say this, more businesses suck than you would think.
0:32:03 So what I learned in starting acquisition.com,
0:32:05 no, seriously, in starting acquisition.com
0:32:07 was just the amount of bad businesses there are.
0:32:08 – What’s the profile of bad and good?
0:32:11 Or like, what’s like, what’s that threshold?
0:32:14 – I think product market fit is not,
0:32:16 it exists on a scale, it’s not yes or no,
0:32:20 but like poor, like weak product market fit,
0:32:25 weak founders, low margin, low potential.
0:32:28 – You say weak with so much disgust.
0:32:28 I love it.
0:32:30 (all laughing)
0:32:31 – Yeah, I just need that clip.
0:32:33 That’s my alarm clock when I wake up from that one.
0:32:34 – I say weak again.
0:32:36 (all laughing)
0:32:38 – ‘Cause it’s like, I’m like, let me fucking help you,
0:32:40 but like I can’t if you’re just fucking weak.
0:32:44 So it frustrates me ’cause I’m like, tough love,
0:32:46 but like, this isn’t gonna work.
0:32:48 And so I would say like, that has actually been more
0:32:50 surprising than the good businesses that I’ve seen
0:32:52 is just the amount of businesses that I’m like, wow,
0:32:55 it’s shocking, it’s still here.
0:32:57 Or it’s like, wow, I can’t believe this person
0:32:59 actually started this thing.
0:33:02 And so there’s been a lot more of that.
0:33:05 I would say in terms of businesses that are really cool,
0:33:09 and I think have inspired me in different ways.
0:33:11 It’s people that are actually able to take something
0:33:15 traditional and make it and innovate it.
0:33:17 It’s like, I always find those businesses really interesting,
0:33:20 like, you know, it could be anything like publishing books
0:33:22 and turning that into, you know what,
0:33:25 instead of publishing books the way that we have been,
0:33:28 instead let’s learn how to use AI to publish books
0:33:30 and make the entire process automated.
0:33:34 That’s a really cool business that I’ve seen play out.
0:33:36 I think that looking at a school,
0:33:38 which people know that we publicly associate with,
0:33:40 like that business I have a lot of admiration for
0:33:44 because of, if you look at it by all,
0:33:47 like by all stats and metrics of that business,
0:33:51 it is mind blowing and that they’ve been able to take
0:33:54 this element of community that people only really feel
0:33:57 in person and bring it online to such a degree
0:34:00 that now people also are doing it offline
0:34:02 and it’s just, it’s been really cool to see
0:34:06 the network effect through that business.
0:34:10 And then I would say like more traditional businesses
0:34:14 like bakeries and how like traditional bakeries
0:34:18 that make cookies or whatever have integrated tools
0:34:21 like AI and technology to learn like,
0:34:23 okay, what type of cookie profile
0:34:24 is this person going to want to order?
0:34:27 And like just ways that people can integrate
0:34:28 that kind of stuff like technology
0:34:30 into like traditional businesses.
0:34:32 – Do bakeries that use AI, is that,
0:34:36 was that a thing, does that make it better really?
0:34:39 – I think that is all perception.
0:34:41 Like I think value for a customer in many ways,
0:34:42 it is perceived, right?
0:34:44 And so it’s like, if you feel like this cookie
0:34:46 is custom to you because of this technology
0:34:48 that they have and they are able to like make it
0:34:49 right there for you, then I think, yeah,
0:34:52 people will pay a lot more money for it, that’s for sure.
0:34:56 I mean, I would, but clearly cause it works for them.
0:34:59 So I think those have been some of the cool businesses.
0:35:00 – What about this workshop stuff?
0:35:02 So you guys start, I started seeing ads for these workshops
0:35:05 and I think you guys have probably done like,
0:35:06 I’m just doing some napkin math,
0:35:09 like something like $10 million of workshop revenue,
0:35:11 which was a little bit surprising to me
0:35:13 ’cause I was like, why are they doing this
0:35:14 is like a lot of time for me.
0:35:17 – The, the, the, the mapping supposedly,
0:35:19 or you maybe said this, I think 1,800 people
0:35:22 have gone through an acquisition.com workshop.
0:35:25 And I think on your website, it’s $5,000 to go.
0:35:27 – And by the way, I know a couple of people who have gone
0:35:28 and they said it was great.
0:35:29 So that, you know, I’m not saying in a bad way.
0:35:31 Well, I guess what I’m saying is,
0:35:31 I was surprised you guys were doing that.
0:35:33 I was like, oh no, this is actually great,
0:35:34 you know, alignment, right?
0:35:39 They like to teach its deal flow at a like a proprietary level.
0:35:40 And then, you know, it’s a win-win.
0:35:41 Other people should get some value out of this.
0:35:43 They come in, they get to focus on their business.
0:35:45 What I wanted to ask you about is,
0:35:48 what’s the number one recurring problem you see?
0:35:50 ‘Cause now you’ve seen 1,800 founders come in
0:35:52 and they’re, they paid a bunch of money
0:35:54 to come to the workshop ’cause they got a problem.
0:35:56 What’s the common problem you see
0:35:58 and what’s the solve that, that you,
0:36:01 that you think would help most of these businesses?
0:36:03 – The number one problem that I see is not technical.
0:36:06 And it’s not even a practical problem,
0:36:09 but more of an emotional problem,
0:36:11 which is, I think founders lie on one of two spectrums,
0:36:13 which is either they’re incredibly impatient
0:36:18 and because of that, they never wait long enough
0:36:21 to see if any kind of strategy will work.
0:36:22 They just change it.
0:36:23 And so it, it doesn’t even,
0:36:25 they don’t even give it a shot to see if it’ll play out
0:36:27 because they change too soon.
0:36:28 And on the other side, you have founders
0:36:33 that are too tolerant and they basically just want
0:36:36 to be liked at all costs and they don’t make good decisions
0:36:38 for their business because of that.
0:36:40 So I actually don’t think that any of the problems
0:36:42 that I see are technical problems.
0:36:43 – Is there a way to put like a benchmark?
0:36:45 Like for example, are you talking about like, you know,
0:36:46 you should, for a lot of people,
0:36:49 they should be waiting a year to get, to get results
0:36:52 or, you know, or they react in weeks
0:36:54 when they should be reacting in quarters.
0:36:55 Is there a-
0:36:57 – Yeah, I think a lot of people think
0:36:59 that waiting a quarter is a long time
0:37:00 and that’s probably the issue.
0:37:03 They think, oh, well, I waited three months.
0:37:05 And I’m like, try waiting 18.
0:37:07 You know, I have things I’m doing acquisition.com
0:37:08 that you might ask about the workshop.
0:37:09 So I’m like, all right,
0:37:10 well, if you see what was going to come out
0:37:11 in the next four months,
0:37:13 which I’ve been working on for the last 12 months,
0:37:15 you’ll see why it all makes sense, right?
0:37:18 But a lot of people, I think one,
0:37:20 don’t have the ability to wait that long
0:37:22 and two, don’t even know how to build something
0:37:23 that takes that long.
0:37:28 (upbeat music)
0:37:28 – Hey, Sean here.
0:37:30 I want to tell you a little story about Winston Churchill.
0:37:32 So Churchill once said,
0:37:33 first we shape our buildings
0:37:36 and thereafter they shape us.
0:37:38 And I think this is true not just for the buildings
0:37:39 we see in cities,
0:37:41 but also for the building blocks you choose in your company.
0:37:43 For any company that I start,
0:37:45 I use Mercury for all of my banking needs.
0:37:47 Why, well, it was built by a YC founder.
0:37:49 And you could tell this is built by a founder
0:37:51 who understands the needs of other founders.
0:37:53 Second thing is this modern, it’s clean, easy to use.
0:37:54 The design is really nice.
0:37:56 You’d never have to drive somewhere, park,
0:37:58 put coins in the meter, get out,
0:37:59 just to do one simple task.
0:38:01 You could do everything in just a couple of clicks.
0:38:03 They got bill pay, checking account, savings account,
0:38:06 wire transfers, everything you need, they got it.
0:38:07 I use it for not one,
0:38:09 but actually six of my companies right now
0:38:10 and actually even have a personal account with them.
0:38:11 It’s kind of amazing.
0:38:13 So if you’re ready to operate in the future,
0:38:16 head over to mercury.com, apply in minutes.
0:38:18 Disclaimer, Mercury is a financial technology company
0:38:19 out of bank banking services provided
0:38:21 by Choice Financial Group
0:38:23 and Evolve Bank and Trust members, FDIC.
0:38:25 Thank you to Winston Churchill for that little ad segment.
0:38:27 All right, back to this episode.
0:38:33 – Your husband seems a guy who is stereotypical
0:38:35 of a person who does not have patience.
0:38:39 You know, you said that he said I want to be more patient.
0:38:42 So I assume that means he didn’t have patience.
0:38:44 Has he been able to like go with the flow of like,
0:38:48 look, we’re planning 18, 36 months out
0:38:49 and that’s what we’re working on.
0:38:50 So you’re not gonna see,
0:38:52 ’cause I know when I’m working at something like,
0:38:54 why don’t I see results immediately?
0:38:55 We’re investing all this money and all this time
0:38:57 and we don’t have fucking results.
0:38:58 Why aren’t you out launching an MVP
0:39:00 and talking to potential customers?
0:39:01 Don’t tell me about it, you know what I mean?
0:39:02 Like that’s like how I feel.
0:39:04 And I think that’s why I understand
0:39:06 probably how he feels.
0:39:08 – Yeah, I think something I’ve gotten a lot better at
0:39:10 is showing him progress.
0:39:13 So because I, this is what I’ve realized,
0:39:14 which is just patience,
0:39:16 it’s just figuring out what to do in the meantime.
0:39:17 The reason I can be more patient
0:39:19 is because I’m fucking busy doing all the shit
0:39:21 to make the thing happen, right?
0:39:23 But if you’re not the one in there having the meetings,
0:39:25 hiring the people, recruiting the stuff,
0:39:26 putting the tech in place,
0:39:29 then it feels like it takes a long time.
0:39:32 And so because he sits more on the like demand gen side
0:39:35 and doesn’t have the whole team rolling into him,
0:39:37 he doesn’t get that reinforcement on a daily basis
0:39:39 of seeing that progress.
0:39:41 And so I look at myself as like my job
0:39:43 is to tell him all of those things that are happening
0:39:46 to show him, look at all the shit that we’re doing
0:39:48 and where it’s gonna end up and how close we are.
0:39:50 And it might actually happen faster than we thought.
0:39:52 And so I think that a lot of the times
0:39:55 people feel impatient because one,
0:39:56 they’re not seeing progress
0:39:57 because maybe they’re removed from
0:39:59 what’s actually occurring.
0:40:02 I think that the second thing is, you know,
0:40:05 I always look at it as for him and for anybody,
0:40:08 if he’s not, you know, in the day to day operating,
0:40:10 making the plan happen,
0:40:12 then he’s working on something for the future.
0:40:14 You know, he’s writing books, he’s making content.
0:40:17 He’s, you know, oftentimes when we have really big problems
0:40:19 in the business, maybe we’ll have two or three
0:40:21 at the same time, it’ll be like, okay, you know,
0:40:23 I don’t know that these teams don’t report to you,
0:40:25 but I’m over here solving this problem.
0:40:27 How about you solve this problem?
0:40:28 And then, you know, we’re gonna communicate
0:40:29 about these things.
0:40:31 And so it’s like, I also think he can do special projects.
0:40:34 That’s something that like you do in the meantime.
0:40:36 You know, I think from a traditional standpoint,
0:40:39 I think what’s really good about him in many ways
0:40:41 is that he’s impatient with things.
0:40:43 And so because of that, I’ll say this, okay,
0:40:44 I think it’s good to be patient.
0:40:45 It’s also good to be impatient with things.
0:40:47 It just like, which one?
0:40:51 And so I think what I love about his impatience at times
0:40:53 is that he’s able to isolate it
0:40:55 to the way that people do things.
0:40:57 Why does it take this long to do a video?
0:41:00 Why does it take this long to talk to a customer?
0:41:02 Why does it take this long to build a department?
0:41:04 And he questions things that other people
0:41:07 just accept as fact, because somebody else
0:41:09 and some book said that’s how you do business.
0:41:11 And I love that he questions those things
0:41:13 and is impatient about how inefficient things
0:41:14 in business can be.
0:41:15 I think that’s fantastic.
0:41:17 – Naval has the best quote on this.
0:41:20 He said, impatient with actions, patience with results.
0:41:23 So impatient on the inputs, patient with the outputs
0:41:25 is the sort of unstoppable formula.
0:41:29 – 100%, it’s an advantage because I am patient with results.
0:41:32 I can also be too patient sometimes with the action.
0:41:34 And so I have learned from him.
0:41:35 I think we do a good job learning from each other.
0:41:38 I think that he’s learned from my patients with results.
0:41:41 I’ve learned from his impatience with inputs or actions.
0:41:44 And that’s benefited the business a lot.
0:41:45 – We gotta ask you.
0:41:47 We used to say we have seven female listeners.
0:41:49 And I think as the podcast has grown,
0:41:52 there’s now tens out there.
0:41:56 And I’m sure you get a lot of women who look up to you
0:41:57 who ask you for advice.
0:42:00 So this is the, you know, here’s the mic.
0:42:02 And if there’s a female entrepreneur watching this,
0:42:04 what’s your message to her?
0:42:06 – You might think that because you’re female,
0:42:10 things are less fair or that people will treat you differently
0:42:11 or that business is harder.
0:42:14 And there are things that you’re gonna have to overcome.
0:42:16 And while all those things might be true
0:42:18 in certain circumstances and certain times,
0:42:21 and that some are irrefutably true,
0:42:23 the question to ask yourself is, is this useful?
0:42:27 You know, a lot of people come to me and they say,
0:42:29 isn’t it hard to do business because like, you know,
0:42:31 you’re a woman and you’re married to Alex?
0:42:32 Like, do people take you seriously?
0:42:34 I’m like, I don’t know, is that a useful thought?
0:42:36 If it’s not, then why the fuck would I focus on it?
0:42:41 And so I just completely abolish any of this like,
0:42:46 female entrepreneur, what’s it like stuff?
0:42:48 And I’ve made one video about it
0:42:50 because I wanted people to understand,
0:42:54 yes, there are differences, there are also advantages.
0:42:57 So like you can either focus on what sucks
0:42:59 and what’s worse, or you can just focus on,
0:43:01 you know, maximizing your strengths
0:43:04 and taking advantage of the advantages.
0:43:07 And also just choosing to focus on shit that’s useful.
0:43:07 You know what I mean?
0:43:09 Like, we can all point to reasons
0:43:11 as to why people treat us differently.
0:43:12 We can also just like be better.
0:43:14 I’ll tell you this, which is like,
0:43:15 a joke between me and Alex is like,
0:43:17 so many people have tried to break us up.
0:43:18 And like the key line is always like,
0:43:21 Layla, you know, he’s suppressing you
0:43:24 because he’s, you know, Alex.
0:43:26 I always just like have this internal dialogue,
0:43:29 which is like, and that is why you will not win
0:43:32 because you see people that are powerful
0:43:34 as having an ability to suppress you.
0:43:36 When I look at people who are powerful
0:43:38 as what can I learn from them to be better?
0:43:39 So that when I’m in a room,
0:43:41 people would not say that about me.
0:43:43 They would not say, oh, you’re being suppressed.
0:43:44 Like what do I have to learn to be a person
0:43:45 who is more powerful?
0:43:50 And I think that a lot of women throw around these terms
0:43:52 and do these things, but it’s like,
0:43:57 you can either look at it as a disadvantage
0:43:59 or something to be an advantage to you.
0:44:01 You know, I think that I’ve had to probably accumulate
0:44:04 more skills that some men would not have to
0:44:06 because I’ve had to learn to be better at things
0:44:08 to be taken seriously in certain ways, right?
0:44:11 Or I’ve had to accumulate emotional skills
0:44:13 that I wouldn’t have to otherwise.
0:44:14 I think those are all pros.
0:44:16 And like if I have more challenge,
0:44:18 I also get the opportunity to acquire more skills.
0:44:22 So I just don’t look at it like a bad thing.
0:44:24 And I look at it if anything like a good thing.
0:44:27 And any thoughts that arise that are not useful,
0:44:29 I do not focus on ever.
0:44:31 – You’re the shit.
0:44:32 – Perfect answer.
0:44:35 – You’re fantastic.
0:44:39 You know, you guys are, what an interesting couple.
0:44:40 You know, typically like,
0:44:45 like my wife and I are fairly different
0:44:47 in a lot of different ways,
0:44:50 but you guys are both very similar in your intensity,
0:44:54 but also in your way to like come up with like
0:44:56 interesting ideas and interesting theories
0:44:58 as to why the world is the way it is
0:45:01 and how you’re gonna react to that.
0:45:02 Most relationships I don’t think are like that.
0:45:04 And so it’s so, it’s so funny.
0:45:09 You guys are both like highly intense and great ways.
0:45:11 It’s just so fascinating.
0:45:14 – I’m gonna make that my new profile, highly intense.
0:45:16 – Yeah, we’ll LinkedIn endorse you on that.
0:45:16 – Yeah.
0:45:20 – My best compliment to you guys is,
0:45:22 I think what’s really admirable about your relationship
0:45:24 is that I think you both have a very high desire
0:45:26 to self-improve.
0:45:28 And it takes me back to like one of my favorite quotes
0:45:29 about relationships is, you know,
0:45:31 I’ll take care of me for you.
0:45:33 And you take care of you for me.
0:45:34 Whereas I think most people approach
0:45:35 relationships as the opposites.
0:45:36 You’re supposed to take care of me
0:45:37 and I’m supposed to take care of you
0:45:38 and you’re never doing enough for me
0:45:39 and I’m never doing enough for you.
0:45:42 And I think it is really great.
0:45:44 You guys are an A plus example of two people who say,
0:45:48 “I’m gonna self-improve in all the ways that I can.”
0:45:50 And that’s what makes me a great partner for you.
0:45:52 – Yeah, and I think honestly,
0:45:54 I just wish for everyone that listens to this
0:45:57 to take that to their business relationships
0:45:59 and to their personal relationships
0:46:00 because I think it applies to both.
0:46:01 – All right, well, thanks for coming on.
0:46:02 I appreciate you.
0:46:04 – Thank you guys.
0:46:05 – That’s the episode.
0:46:07 ♪ I feel like I can rule the world ♪
0:46:10 ♪ I know I could be what I want to ♪
0:46:12 ♪ I put my all in it like my days off ♪
0:46:15 ♪ On a road let’s travel never looking back ♪
0:46:18 (upbeat music)
0:46:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Episode 650: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Leila Hormozi ( https://x.com/LeilaHormozi ) about being broke at 22 to making $1,200,000.month by 23.
—
Show Notes:
(0:00) Broke, overweight, going no where
(3:53) Wake up calls
(11:25) The Dickens Method
(13:29) Dating Alex Hormozi
(18:49) Starting Gym Launch at 23
(20:39) Repeating $0 – $15M in 12 months
(23:38) Life after selling gym launch
(25:15) “Who you compete with is who you become”
(34:28) $10M workshops
(35:30) Impatience with actions, patience with results
—
Links:
• Acquisition – https://www.acquisition.com/
• Alex Hormozi on MFM – https://youtu.be/4KfuQwB5rIs
—
Check Out Shaan’s Stuff:
Need to hire? You should use the same service Shaan uses to hire developers, designers, & Virtual Assistants → it’s called Shepherd (tell ‘em Shaan sent you): https://bit.ly/SupportShepherd
—
Check Out Sam’s Stuff:
• Hampton – https://www.joinhampton.com/
• Ideation Bootcamp – https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/
• Copy That – https://copythat.com
• Hampton Wealth Survey – https://joinhampton.com/wealth
• Sam’s List – http://samslist.co/
My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano