Alex Hormozi is a guy who gets shit done. With his brash, proven effective style, he leverages a deep understanding of business and social dynamics to offer guidance for how to make more money, the Good way. His insights are actionable and unapologetic, serving as both a blueprint and an inspirational message to liberate individuals from the excuses and narratives that hinder them from accomplishing their goals.  

In this live podcast session from Arkadia, we touch upon the principle of sacred reciprocity, actionable steps to both build a great offering and get it noticed, how to handle criticism and use comparison to your advantage, and where you can find the best mentor available (he/she is closer than you think). This is one of the most important podcasts on money and business I have ever been a part of. 

Learn more about Alex’s work at https://www.instagram.com/hormozi

AUBREY: All right, everybody. We're here at Arkadia with Alex Hormozi, the legend himself. Thanks for coming, bro.
ALEX: Damn.
AUBREY: See, you didn't think this was your crowd.
ALEX: No, I didn't. I really didn't. I didn't know if anyone even knew who I was.
AUBREY: Yeah, well, because the bottom line is, as much as we set our sights on our own personal transformation, our own growth, we also care about earning money, making money for our family, doing good things with that energy that we collect. We were just talking about the Tesla battery. We want to keep that battery full. The battery of our bank account is full, find a way that we can actually affect the world in a positive way, and support our own community, our own family in the best way possible. So, everybody gives a shit about it. A lot of people pretend they don't give a shit about it, but they're lying. And, so many people I've found in the spiritual community, they'll be like, "No, I don't care about money. Money is the root of all evil, blah blah blah." And then you have a little business deal that you put in front of them and they get greedy as hell. And you're like, "Whoa, where'd that come from?" So, the bottom line is that we all do care. Even if we care so that our desire is to share that money, we care. And if we don't care, that means we don't trust ourselves to do good things with the money we make.
ALEX: I agree with all of it. Funny, that red flag that you mentioned is almost like a decision algorithm that I go off of, which is, if someone says I value X over money in any business deal, for me, that's always this person I need to watch out for because they're being dishonest. It's been true every time, not just sometimes. Every time it's been true. This is a side note for you, guys. So, if someone's like, "I just value this relationship over..." If we both make money, we'll want to keep this relationship. So, just tell me what you want and I'll tell you what I want money wise. And if it makes sense, then we'll both be super happy. I'm getting right into tactics on this, but--
AUBREY: Let's go.
ALEX: Making deals as though I'm always dealing with a stranger has always been the best frame, because now we do deals for a living now for the most part. And then everything above the deal is gravy. So, rather than trying to factor in the intangibles, I just don't factor them in. I could employ my mother, and I would still do the same deal, which is like, I would do this for somebody of your experience. Because that way, all my downside is covered. Because this is the deal I would give somebody who's not my mother, who I don't X, Y, and Z and benefit in other ways from. And so, that way, I think that's how you unlock plus plus deals where it's the very worst case is that this is the same deal I'd give a stranger. Everything else is just a bonus. And so, that's helped me a lot. Even setting that frame at the onset, which is I only do deals with strangers in terms of how we do deals. Because if it makes sense for you, and our relationship didn't exist, then it will make sense if our relationship does exist. But if the converse isn't true then it won't work.
AUBREY: I've seen so many different partnerships develop amongst friends. There's an inequitable value proposition based upon the friends, but they're friends so they're like, "We'll go 50/50 on this deal." But actually, they can't contribute 50% to the business. So, it all sounds good, it feels good as you're kind of moving along. "Oh, this is great. We're going to do this together." But then one person with 50% of the business needs to do 90% of the work. Then over time, that just doesn't work because you're going to need to start selling more equity and then there's going to be more dilution and then things get imbalanced. So, the impulse is beautiful. It's a beautiful impulse, share everything evenly. If I have a sandwich, you have half a sandwich, I believe in those types of things. But then there's business, and business has its own codes and its own rules that also have to be acknowledged.
ALEX: There's probably a disadvantage for the spiritual community within the world of business that everyone kind of has to deal with. Because there's this, I imagine, because I sit probably on the exact polar opposite side of the world from the spiritual community. So, this is like the only time I've been in anything close to this. Seriously. I got in here, and I was like, "Are we going to talk about money at all or any of that stuff?" He's like, "No, we like making money." I was like, awesome, all right, I feel a little more comfortable. Because I'm like, if you die, nothing happens, and everything is meaningless, person. I was like, I don't know if that's going to vibe with this community. Because when you guys welcomed me, which I really appreciate, that meant a lot, because I'm surprised by that. Because I felt like most of this room would be like, I disagree with all of these things.
AUBREY: That's also one of the things that myself and Joe Rogan, and a lot of different people stand actually as a disruptive force saying, “no, no, all the spiritual stuff, all the beliefs, and we're going to fucking kill it in the gym, and we're going to be savages in the bedroom. And, we're going to also make as much money as we can, because we trust ourselves to do good shit with that money”. So, it's trying to embody this different model of you don't have to be one or the other. You can actually be all of it.
ALEX: I love that. So
AUBREY: How do we do it?
ALEX: Making money?
AUBREY: Yeah.
ALEX: One of the things I was kind of getting into with the part you were talking earlier about everything is equal in that perspective is, people equate their equity value with their human value. I think that's where the big misunderstanding is, especially people who are getting into business together. It's like, why aren't we equal, we're both even people? But we won't necessarily be contributors in the economics of the business. I have 100,000 followers and that's going to be the initial demand for this entire business. And right now, your skill set is something that I can hire for at a value of 70,000 a year. And so, if I can replace you for 70,000 a year, it's basically instead of me taking a loan for myself, or someone else for whatever, $6,000-7,000 a month, I'm giving you this slice. And so, $6,000 a month is only worth this percentage of equity, relative to the value of the company. So, I think, translating that, especially at the onset, because I don't know where everyone is. Actually, this would be really helpful for me. So, okay, I don't know how... I'll just do this the way I would do it, and you guys can be uncomfortable if you want to. So, if you don't have a business but would like to start a business, could you raise your hand for me? Okay, cool. That is helpful. If you are between like that, so you've made your first dollar and like 100,000 a year, could you raise your hand for me? Okay, if you're between 100-250. Okay, if you're between 250 and a million. A million plus? Okay, this helps me a ton in terms of what to be talking about. Alright, so we were just talking about equity, thank you. Whenever you start a business, you always incur debt. And so, the question is, what type of debt are you going to incur? So, you can incur financial debt, which is one that people can understand. You can incur management debt, because you hire people that are under skilled for whatever the opportunity is. You can incur technical debt, because you don't have the infrastructure to build the business off of. And so, you want to take on the debt that is easiest to repay as fast as possible. And so when you think about that, from the onset, it's not like we're going to do this thing debt free. You're always going to incur debt. And so when you think about that, you have way more levers to play with in terms of how you want to build this structure for whatever you're ultimately trying to achieve. Now, if your goals are to make 100,000 a year, or 500,000, or a million dollars a year, you can pretty much do all of that by owning 100% of the equity and just developing skills. I don't really think you need much more than that to do it. And, sub a million, everything comes down to sub a million. Everything comes down to marketing and sales. You have to let people know about your stuff, and you have to be able to convince them to give you money in exchange for it. Unfortunately, for what I'm about to say, product matters, significantly less at that level, because you honestly aren't making enough of a dent for the word of mouth to really catch up, given how big the world is. I'm saying that from a very realist perspective. If you just know how to market and sell, you can pretty much scam people for a million dollars a year for the rest of your life. I'm being very honest with you. And that's why there's a lot of bad advice that I think is out there for people who make around that, because that's true for them. And so they're like, that's all you need, and it's true, but I would imagine that this community doesn't want to be that way. And so, on the longest time horizon, the only thing that matters is product, which is how good is the thing that you're ultimately given in exchange for money? And, do people feel like they're always on the better end of the deal? I've gone like 180 degrees from when I first started in business until today. Where in the beginning, everything I cared about was sales. And then I learned that you could do sales one to many with marketing. And I was like, this is like sales on steroids, this is so much better. I got really good at that. But then I realized that it's a perpetual hamster wheel, because nothing stacks. And so, in order to get credit, in order to build something really big, you need to be able to get credit for work you did over time. And that means that I want to get paid today for work I did three years ago. The only way to do that is to have a product that somebody I sold three years ago is either still using today, or it still at least has positive things to say about me today. Otherwise, you're basically always hunting every month to find your next nut, or whatever it is. And so if you always want to, like everyone's going to always work, but you won't always accumulate. And you can only accumulate by building something that people always have good things to say about. That takes a lot of work. And now we build businesses very differently, which is, let's not put any gas on this until we get everything right, until everyone absolutely loves the product, can't help but tell other people about it. We get referrals every single month, we grow without marketing and sales. And then you add marketing and sales on top. That's how you build really big shit. But for, and I'll try and taper this because you can go all the way in the sky and talk about trends of what markets you want to go after, or it's like, "I just want to get to 20,000 a month, Alex." Are most people here doing products and services? Okay, if you're doing products and services, could you raise your hand? And is technology the other slice there? Okay, so it's mostly products and services. Okay, so if you're, and I'll shut the fuck up whenever.
AUBREY: No, keep going. Keep going. This is the sweet spot, baby. Let's go. Keep hitting these pitches, let's go.
ALEX: I'm always amazed at... It might be more prevalent in this community, not doing the math. And so, I know that there's probably a little bit more woowoo in this room than there would be in rooms that I'm accustomed to, just saying, on a comparative basis.
AUBREY: Definitely. Strong woowoo family here, representing.
ALEX: And so, I think there's probably a misconception that you can woowoo your way to money. Some of you probably know that that's not true. And so, reverse engineering what you actually want the math to look like is probably the first place to start. So, I get a lot of inbound questions like I just want to make a million dollars a year, how do I make a million dollars in 90 days, which is a terrible question to ask. But if you just look at the number of units you need to sell, and I break things down into days and weeks, because that's a lot easier for me to comprehend. And so, okay, a million dollars a year is $20,000 a week. Okay, so divided by seven, so three grand a day. Okay. Well, how do I do three grand a day? We do investments based on the world's simplest formula, which is just the number of units sold, multiplied by lifetime value. That's it. So, if we want to grow the company, we either need to sell more units, or we need to make people worth more. That's it. Everything else really just overcomplicates it. And so, if you're in the beginning, and you're doing stuff, if you look at your calendar in terms of how you spend your time, because that's the asset you're going to be spending the most of in the beginning, if it's not contributing to either getting you more customers, or making them worth more, then stop doing it. You're wasting time, literally. You're just spending time. Because right now, if you work every hour of the day, and you're not making more money, you're working on the wrong stuff. That's at the most basic level. And if you can accept that, then it's great. Now I have room to improve. Because if you're not making any money that means you could probably eliminate 90% of the shit you're doing. And nothing's going to matter because you're already not making any money. So that stuff clearly isn't working. So, getting the more customer side is really about just letting people know about your stuff. I just recently came up with the leads book, and it was to try and simplify this for everyone. And, if you're starting out, so if you're sub a million, there's eight ways. Well, shit, if you're at a billion, there's still eight ways to let people know about your stuff. Four of them you can do, four of them you use other people for. So, you can just tell people that you already know about the thing you have, and you cannot be a scum ball about it and just say, "Hey, I'm starting this thing. Do you know anybody who'd be interested in it? And nine times out of 10 when you ask someone like that, it's way low pressure because you're not asking them for it. But on the flip side, and I'm told it's nine times out of 10, they're like, "Actually, I am kind of interested in something like that." And so they're like, "Screw my friends. Tell me more about that thing." And then you actually get a more meaningful conversation where you could probably help them. That's the cheapest thing that every single person can do. But people are like, "I'm so afraid of talking to my friends," but you're just asking them if they know anyone. And a lot of people still don't know, like, where do I go for that? Well, right now, every single person here has a means to contact probably at least 1,000 people. That's super conservative. When I challenge an audience with that, oftentimes someone's like, "Well, I don't..." Pull out your phone, search contacts, export into an excel sheet. That's list one. List two is you go into all the old emails and Gmails and Yahoos you've ever had, and look at every message you ever sent. Export those sent messages into list two. Go into social media, all the different social medias you have. Look at followers, all of those people have given you permission to contact them. Now, most social media are like that with the exception of YouTube. But Twitter you can DM people, Instagram you can DM people, TikTok you can DM people if they're following you. And you can export all of those into a list. So, just like that, if you took all your followers, all your friends on Facebook, all your DM contacts, your emails, your contacts on your phone, you put them into one list, you probably get a pretty decent sized list. I am a big fan of violence in terms of action. And, in general. Take a violent approach, which is okay, I will reach out to 100 people per day. And that takes about five hours. And if you're like, "Wow, that sounds like a lot of work," welcome to business. If you're starting out, it's welcome to business and being broke at the same time. It is what it is. And so, the asset that you have right now is time and you gotta spend as much as you can on it. And so, making sure that okay, if I'm putting five hours a day, that's 20 outreach attempts per hour, and that's very inefficient. The better you get, you'll get dialers and automation and technology that can help you do that stuff faster. But if you're like, "I'm poor, and I don't understand any of this shit," start with that. And that's your first five hours of the day. I, especially when I had less means, I started doing that around like four or five in the morning. And then I'd be done around 10-ish. Then at that point, I'd start my day. And so, your job as the founder at the beginning is always promotion. That's the job, is to let people know that you exist. Because right now you're just in obscurity, like no one knows. It only exists in your mind, you have to make it exist outside. See, a little spiritual. Know the audience, right?
AUBREY: Thank you for that. I want to double click on a few things you said. One is, one of the deep spiritual principles, which actually you talked about without knowing it is, there's a Quechua word, which is a medicine language that's largely associated with Ayahuasca communities. And the word is Ayni and the word is reciprocity. And so, one of the things we believe in that lineage, which I studied, is that this is a universal law of the universe, that reciprocity. That there is a natural give and take that when you're in accord with that give and take, things are going to be a lot easier, like a lot more fluid for you. It's actually going to help. So, when you're giving, there's a natural impulse for someone to give back. It's just actually a law of the universe. And when you are selling cheap shit, or taking advantage of people, you're going to be acting in accord with that reciprocity. Actually, there's going to be some aspect of yourself, which will make yourself fail, because you'll feel like you don't deserve it. Because you know your Ayni, your reciprocity is off. So, finding that right level of relation in reciprocity, that's the way it was with Onnit. I knew every time we sold an Alpha Brain for $30, that they were getting a $30 worth plus, or even more worth of that supplement they were getting. So when people ask, oh, you're selling so many, how do you feel? It's like, every single transaction, every customer service transaction, Ayni is we have a positive account balance. And whenever I can, I'm just depositing in that account balance. And it's proved to be, where the universe itself and people and myself always feel in right accord. So I think that's one of these principles, that's a crossover principle. It applies to business, and it applies to this more kind of spiritual mindset, as well. The other thing that I really want to double click on is, you kind of know when you got something that people really want. If you're hitting up your close friends, and you're trying to offer your service or the thing that you think is awesome, and you really have to convince them, like, "Oh, come on," and they're like, "I don't know, yeah, I'll try that when I get a chance and blah blah blah," it's probably not the thing. But I remember the most successful things I had, Alpha Brain of course was one of those. We had a sample batch. We gave it out to a few people who were curious, and then they couldn't stop hounding me to get more of my sample batch. I was like, "Yeah, we got a little more. I'm actually out, I'm sorry." You could just feel it, you could feel the demand coming in. And of course, that ended up extending out to the whole rest of the world. I'm starting another supplement company now, and there's another product. We've been exploring a lot of different things. People like, "Yeah, I tried it, I thought it was good. The caramel apple flavor was kind of weird for me but, blah, blah, blah." But then there's this one that we got, I'm not going to share what it is. But there's one thing we got and our whole team is, "Yo, you got any more of those samples?" And I'm like, "Oh, we got a winner here. We got a winner." Because I'm not having to convince my homies to take it, they're hounding me. "Hey, can I dip in that private stash?" And that's the same with services, too. One of the things that I don't do as a business, but I was apprenticed in a particular type of bodywork. I don't have to hound my friends if I want to offer him some bodywork. They're like, "Fuck, yeah. When? Now? Sure." "Well, don't you want to eat dinner?" They're like, "Nah, fuck it." You know what I mean? So when you know you have something good, it'll be reflected to you by your inner circle. And then when you feel that really like uphill, like it's uphill, come do this healing, come to this thing, and it's hard to get your friends to do it, it's probably going to translate to being hard to get the world to do it.
ALEX: I will double click back on giving out free samples. From a product perspective, you're giving it out for free. And so, fundamentally, you're incurring costs to give this thing to somebody. In your mind, you're incurring this huge cost, because there's also all the time of formulation and getting the right cap size, and all that stuff. You're giving them out. The person just receives it in two seconds, but they don't know that it took you five months to put that whole thing together. And so, you feel like, "You need to love this," right? But I think that you do it kind of effortlessly, just from the five seconds of me just saying this. Is that you're also giving without a lot of expectation. And the only expectation you have is that you tell me that it sucks. You serve me better by telling me it blows than by lying to me. And so, this is also just one of eight ways of talking to let people know about your stuff, is letting friends know. I just started there because it's the cheapest and easiest. But with services, you can do the same thing. But the nice thing with services is that you can change it kind of in real time based on feedback. And so, asking someone if you can do something for them, you can change what you're asking to do for them until they're like, "Yeah, I would love that. Can you take care of that for me?" And then all of a sudden, you can see the interest, their eyes light up, they engage with you. And you're like, okay, maybe this is right. But the whole time though, and maybe this community will love this aspect, is that if you give without reciprocity, you only get, sorry, give without expectation, then anything you get back is just a bonus. If you're giving in order to, then you will always be let down. That's just hard to take, but it's just reality. And so, I think the more you can do that, I mean, the reason I built my brand in this way, was just on the thesis that if I gave more stuff that was better than everyone else, in my mind, I'm sure there are many people who do better things, for free, that eventually, there's no monetization master plan, it's just eventually, an opportunity would come up that would make sense. And it has worked out that way. But the amount of people that asked me to do X, Y and Z for a quick, whatever money dollar is a lot, and it continues to increase. But it's because they can see that there's this goodwill deposit in an audience, and it's just that the audience size just starts really small, and it grows. When I was starting out, one of the easiest frames of mind that helped me get through that kind of shitty second way of letting people know is letting people know publicly, when you post stuff on social media for free. I would click and see the little views, and it'd be like 17 views. I actually imagined a room like this. So, I was like, well, if I would get in front of a room of 17 people or 22 people, and they wanted to hear something that... I was like, that would feel fine. I'd be like, "Oh cool." Just like a class presentation. And so, just framing it that way is like in the real world rather than like looking at Instagram and social media metrics and comparing those metrics to Mr. Beast, but just comparing it to the real world, I was like, "Wow, this is actually making an impact." So that actually got me through a lot of the early… Because what people don't know is, my podcast, I was telling you the beginning of the story earlier. I made a podcast for, I'm now on my sixth as of July, I think my sixth year making podcasts. For the first four and a half years, I averaged 2,000-3,000 downloads a month. And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But it stayed there for the entire time. But for me, I was like, I'm giving a keynote every month. All right, that's not bad. Three times a week, I'd do that. In total, all of those together is a keynote. And I was like, that's not bad. So if I had to talk for a full day because that's pretty much what a month of podcast was, I was like, for a keynote, that's a worthy trade. I think if you can reframe it that way, it can get you through the early rise.
AUBREY: Comparison is such a challenging thing to deal with. Because you start comparing yourself to the people that you follow, and the people that you like, you can get into some really negative psychological feedback loops. I remember my podcast kind of plateaued around 2015, 2016, like 25,000, 30,000 people and it was just stuck there. And I got kind of hella discouraged. Then somebody goes, "Hey, when was the last time you went to a basketball game, man?" I was like, "Oh, yeah, I went to a Lakers game a little while ago." He was like, "How many people were sitting there?" I was like, "I don't know, 20,000." "Yeah, yeah, your podcast is reaching more than that." I was imagining that stadium, I was like, "Oh, shit. You're right. Why am I being disappointed?" It was because I was looking at Rogan's numbers, looking at Tim Ferris's numbers, and these are my homies. I was like, well, these are my friends, and they're fucking killing it, and I'm stuck. But that perspective shift shifted everything. It reinvigorated my love for the podcast. And, it's important to yes, look out at the field, and be aspirational about it. But comparison is really the root of all difficulty. One thing I say is, competition is sacred, comparison is profane. You know what I mean? Like compete, go out there, compete. Set your sights on some of those people and be like, alright, I think I got the goods, I'm coming for you in that loving, friendly, competitive way. Same way I'll come at it on the basketball court, I'm going to come for you. I'm going to come for your ankles, let's go. Then at the same time, not getting lost in that comparison which then demoralizes you and then puts you into a state of inaction.
ALEX: I actually really like this topic a lot. I won't spend too much on it, but the nuance of comparison, I find really interesting. Because I find comparison to be an exceptional tool. It's the judgment of the comparison that hurts, right? So, I can say that Rogan is doing better than me, period. That's objective, there's nothing wrong with that. He's doing better than me, he's got more listeners, all that stuff. It's where it's like he's doing better than me, and therefore I suck, it's the second part, I think that people get in trouble with. So, I love comparison from a measuring tool perspective, just not as a judgment tool. I think that's been helpful for me, because then I can look at everyone's stuff and say, "What is he doing better than me?" Because one of my big rules in business is that if someone's making more money than me, they're better at the game of business in some way. And that has served me really well. Because a lot of people don't like to... "Well, I don't like what they do." It's like, do they make more money than you? Yeah, but they're not... What are they doing better than you? Because they're making more money than you. The nice thing in business is that it's a very objective game. You can see how someone's doing objectively. They're doing better. And so, it means that they're doing something or they did something prior to that point better than you did. I think dissecting that... The reason that I'm on this stage right now is because Kylie Jenner was on the front of Forbes when she was 20. When I was 27, I felt really cool. I think I took home just under 20 million that year, personally. And I was like, "I'm good at business." And then she was a billionaire, and she was a girl. She was eight years younger than me. And I was like, "What the fuck?" And so, now, I do feel terrible. But I was like, she is doing something... She understands something that I don't understand. And at that point, it was a brand. I didn't get it. I was super transactional with business which was just like, I was all about conversion, optimization, what are our CPM? Cost per impression. How much are we spending? How much are we making? What are our conversion rates across the whole process? Where can we do more upsell? All that kind of stuff. It was all quant. And, when I saw her just overnight become a billionaire, I questioned my fundamentals around business. And it was that, and then the Rock, and then Clooney, and then Conor McGregor and Huddah Beauty, all of these people starting these billion dollar brands overnight that I was like, I don't understand brands. And so, that's what actually launched me into doing this. It was only because of that. But I think if there had been a flipside of well, it's just because Kris Jenner's her mom and whatever, to protect me, my ego, then I don't think I'd be here. And so, I think it is valuable to compare and be able to pull out what they're doing better than you, and then just look at that objectively. I'm not saying I want her brand, but I can see what she did. And then emulate that in my way, or at least that's how I see it.
AUBREY: And, prove it. If you believe you're better, go prove it. That's the reality. So many times, you'll get this, and people do it with me all the time. They'll be like, "Oh, yeah, must have been nice with daddy's money." My dad went insane when I was 30, literally, lost his mind. And I started Onnit at 31. There was not a dollar that came from my family, or came from my parents, but my dad was a very successful commodities trader. He's written about in books and things like that. People don't know the fucking story, but they want to say that I was successful because, oh, it must have been daddy's money, must be nice. Must be nice. And you get all of these things where people try to discredit your success based upon their own things, because they don't want to look hard at themselves and say, shit, maybe I could have done that too. I mean, I raised 100... Onnit started as a ultimately a nine-figure business. It started with... I scraped together $110,000 from one of my best friends, Bodie, and another, this investment banker who I've done a lot of work with and working with other companies and making pitch decks for him and just helping them out. And neither one of them even looked at the business plan, but they loved me. And they're like, yeah, bro, are you into this? I was like, "Yeah, I'm into this." We never had a Series A, we never raised any other money. We just grew it from that amount of money to a nine-figure business. And that's just actually how it went. Now, I'm not going to discredit my father's implanted psychological ideas, because he made his own money. He started with a $30,000 account, turned it into 40 million as a pioneer in futures trading. So, he believed in himself, and he gave me that belief. And that is a privilege that I had as a model of somebody who said, "Son, if you're good enough, you'll be able to make it." But that's what I got. And that's invaluable, granted. But people will always try to discredit what you do because they don't want to look hard in the mirror and say, "Fuck, I could do that, too. It's possible for me."
ALEX: I really like this a lot. No, I do. I really do. Because the must be nice perspective is actually one of my favorites. Because I feel like, if you're playing like chess, they're like making a chess move at you, like it must be nice, and they want to discredit whatever it is. But, I've spent a lot of time trying to think about what's the right answer. And at least for me, it's been, "You're right." And then you just keep living your life, you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, like let's say all of my success, I owe it to my father, which I came out as a sperm, so sure. You're right. And, to the same degree, I was born in America, I was born as a man, both my parents were there for the first five years, you know what I mean? So, sure, you're right. And? Because at the end of the day, the stuff needs doing. So, to build a business of this size, these are the activities that create that. And so, you can be an absolute douchebag, you can be a white guy, a black guy, a girl, in Pakistan, whatever. And if you do those things, you get the outcome. If more people find out about your stuff, you will make more money. Fight me. I try to make bets on the objective truths. And so, I'm circling back to money, or get back to it. You want to win on plans that don't require luck. And so, if more people find out about my stuff, I'll make more money, okay. If more people like my product and tell their friends, I'll make more money. If every person who bought my product told at least one other person, I would never need to advertise ever again. So, if that were the actual problem, why would I not put all of my emphasis on solving for that? That alone. Because if you accomplish that one thing, you're done. And so, people spend a lot of time on the logo, the brand, the website, the colors, the whatever, when it's like, how do I make it so good that people A, are like, oh, my God, I have to get this. And, let me tell my friends about it after I've consumed it. And if that's where you put the disproportion amount of your energy, you'll get a leveraged return. And so, I talk about leverage a lot, because I just believe the game of business is about leverage. And to define leverage, it's the difference between what you put in and what you get out. So, if I DM people one on one, I put a certain amount of effort in, I get something out. If I use a dialer that does 10 times the amount, I put the same amount in in terms of effort, but I might get 10 times back. So, that technology gave me leverage, right? If I can borrow someone else's money to start a business 10 times bigger right off the bat, that's leverage, right? It's just the difference between what you put in and what you get out. And brand, for example, the reason I think it's a worthwhile endeavor to invest in it is because if you build it one time, then you can use it multiple times. Just the idea of build once, sell twice. So, if you can build things that... I mean, you spent a long time on Alpha Brain. And the work that you did on the onset of Alpha Brain continues to pay dividends to this day. That's a high leverage activity. In those early years, you put a lot in, but then there was significantly more on the tail. And so, the rush is ultimately what kills most people, because they're so concerned about, I need to make money tomorrow, and I can appreciate the short term need for that. Any of you guys know my story. I get that. But as much as you possibly can, balance how can I solve a problem for good so that I can just move on to the next boss, rather than having to keep fighting every month to pay payroll or pay myself or make whatever nut I need to make. So, building a brand works like that, in terms of, if my reputation can spread on its own, then I don't need to do more advertising to get more customers. So, I'm going to hit the eight real quick, just because I think it'll be helpful for you guys. But you can reach out to friends one on one, you can reach out to strangers one on one. That's cold calls, cold DMs, cold messages, whatever. You start with friends because they're a little nicer, go to strangers. You can post content publicly or you can run paid ads. Those are the only four things that you can do to let other people know about your stuff. And so, right now, if you're the majority of my day, I'm not making money and I'm not doing those four things, you're fucked. You're not going to make more money. Those are the only four things that one person can do to let other people know about their stuff, period. Now, the more leverage is getting other people to do that stuff for you. And so, version number one is that you get your customers to do those core four for you. They tell their friends, they tell strangers, they tell their audience by posting about your stuff, leaving a review, leaving a testimonial, whatever. They're probably not going to run ads for you. But those are the four things that that customer could do on your behalf. You could get an employee to do that. So you hire somebody, you say, hey, I've got this system where I reach out to this many people, or cold email this many people, or cold call this many people, or make this amount of content. I'll record these videos, can you edit it and cut it so I can do more? So, you get some time back. So, now you just record and then they do all the cutting and distribution. So, you get more for what you put in, leverage. You can hire an advertising agency to either make content for you or run ads for you. Those are things that... There's also cold outbound agencies that do that as well. You can hire an agency to do it. And then finally, you can get affiliates, which are just other businesses that already have your customers. And so, affiliates also work like influencers. So, like Rogan would be an affiliate... No, he had equity and whatnot. But fundamentally, somebody who already has your customer base, they've already done all of the work to assemble everyone, they already have everyone's attention. And then you make... And this is why the thing that we started with is, with deals, you make an agreement that makes sense. And so, maybe you do have a friend that has a medium-sized following. Treat them as though they weren't your friend, and ask them to treat you like you're not friends. And then if you can still come to a deal, then you'll both benefit, because you would have done it anyway with a stranger. And so, those are the four ways that you get other people to promote your stuff. So, right now, if you're not using the core four, because you can use the core four to get those other ones. So you can use the core four; paid ads, outreach, posting content to get employees, you can use those to get affiliates, you can use those to get agencies, you can do those to get customers. And then that's the cycle. So, you'd use those four, get customers, and then those customers use the core four to get you more customers. Use the core four to get affiliates who then get your customers. And then it goes on around and around. Is this making sense? Okay, so if you're not spending your time doing that, you're not spending your time trying to build your business.
AUBREY: What about for people who are listening right now and they're like, "Damn, I don't know if my products are that good. I don't know if my service is that good." And they're thinking, I think I got to go back and ideate and figure this out. What advice do you have for that type of person?
ALEX: So, there is a baseline of promotion that you have to have. Because again, let's base this on absolutes. If no one knows about your stuff, you will make nothing ever. So, someone has to find out about it. You have to promote first, you have to let people know that you have a thing. Now, scaling that promotion, you only want to do it when you know the thing's good. But in the beginning, you will have to let people know and you have to accept the fact that it won't be as good. And the reason I'm a big fan of the samples is that it lowers the stakes, especially on your personal reputation. So you're like, "Hey, I've got this new service that I'm trying out, can I give it to you? Can I gift this to you, please?" Now, if no one wants to take your free thing, that's great feedback. This is probably not something they're going to pay for. But if people are willing to take the free thing, there's three ways you can make money from somebody you give away for free. Number one is that they become a paying customer. Awesome. They're like, hey, I've given this to so many people that I actually can't take the demand anymore, and so I have to put a paywall up because my time is limited. And people get that. "Of course, well, I am willing to pay”. Great. Person number one. Person number two is, they say, "You know what? I can't financially, whatever right now, but I think this is awesome." You're like, great, can you leave me a review? So then they leave you a testimonial case study, whatever, so that you can then use that to get you another customer. And, the third way, I have my book, but I forgot what it is, but it's in there. But basically they can leave you a review, they can send you a referral, or they, actually I think I just called two as one. They can get you another customer as a referral. So, they leave a review, get you another customer or they themselves become a customer for you. And all of those come from you just giving something for free. So, if you're like, "Okay, well my shit sucks." Fine, give it to them for free and then ask them for feedback. So if you want to make a trade, it's like, "Listen, I'm not going to charge you. I just want honest feedback on how I can make it better." That's it. And if they like it, review. If they don't like it, personal review. Not public review. And then you spin the wheel of iteration. And if I can drill this into everyone's mind, you're not going to get it right the first time. I mean, I love "The Matrix". It's my favorite movie of all time, but it's just like everyone falls for the first time when they're talking about Neo trying to make a big jump. I just think it's so true with the business stuff. Everyone falls the first time, and everyone has this idea that they're going to be Jeff Bezos on their first swing. Almost every entrepreneur with the exception of Bezos, and Zuck have many a graveyard of failed attempts, but they're not really failed attempts. They're like, oh, yeah, that's when I learned that this thing was really important. So then my second business, I did this better. And that one did better than my first business did. But then your second business, you're like, "Oh, I didn't understand this part." And then you make your third business. And so, every one of the businesses just becomes lessons to ultimately build the asset that matters, which is you. That's at least how I see it, which is that the friction we get from the marketplace, only serves to build who we become. Because at the end of the day, we're going to die, everyone's going to forget about us. And it's not ultimately going to matter whatever accumulation we have here. So, I see that as my in progress journey, so that I can get rewarded for the actions that I'm doing despite not necessarily having money manifesting, there you go, in front of me immediately. I got it. That's at least the framework that I have with it. But if your shit sucks, give it to more people and ask them for feedback, and then just ask them what it would take to suck less, and eventually, it'll be good.
AUBREY: One of the things that's really been helpful for me is, there was a time when I was trying to develop like this mouse trap that would be valuable, not an actual mousetrap, using that as an example. Some thing, some widget, some service that would be beneficial to this niche audience that I was imagining existed. And that never fucking worked. The only thing that ever worked was, "Do I want to be a customer of this now?" What do I want now? Alpha Brain was born out of a conversation with me and Joe Rogan, what supplement would you like the most? Because I had a couple other failed supplements. They worked for me, but I was in this kind of unique position, saying, no, I'd like an all-natural cognitive enhancer and nootropic. It's like, alright, great, we're going to make one, because I wanted one too. So, I was a customer, and I'm still a fucking customer. I think I got a fucking Alpha Brain in my pocket right now for my talk coming up. It's in my other pocket. But regardless, trust me. I was a customer. I was a customer. And that's one of the important things. Then it's not only, are you a customer now? You can also go back in time and be like, Man, when I was 25, what would 25-year-old Aubrey really have fucking loved? Because you have that data and you know it. You know that if you would have bought this when you were 25, then maybe that's your audience. That's okay. Or maybe you're hypothesizing what is the me of tomorrow, or five years from now, or three years from now? What does that person really want? But using yourself as a guide, and then not only using yourself as a guide, but then also, if you're going to be the founder of this, you've got to actually embody and represent what that thing you're selling. Onnit's slogan or tagline was total human optimization. If I was a lazy, fat slob, and I'm trying to market a company about total human optimization, people will look at me and go, "Really, bro? Really?" Because you have to have the clout also to represent that. So, if you're offering even a service about regulating your emotions, but your emotions are all over the place, maybe that's not the right service for you. Find what you're actually competent at and then say, alright, what could have helped me get more competent if I would have offered that to me five years ago, et cetera? Sometimes it can work. I do know some people who sell weight loss supplements who are about 100 pounds overweight, and it's like... But they still are able to do it. So, it's not that it always fails. But to me, that's the surest guideline to be, alright, what's your core competency? Can you prove it? Do you have the evidence to back it up? And are you a customer? Or, were you a customer? Or, will you be a customer? And all of those have to hit the checks.
ALEX: I agree wholeheartedly with all of that. I would honestly make the same three points in a different way, just to add color or texture to it. So, number one is Y Combinator. If you're familiar with them, they're pretty big investors in Silicon Valley. And now one of their stipulations is that they want founders to have lived with the problem for five to 10 years. So, whatever the problem that you're trying to solve, you're like, "Man, I just wish this didn't suck this much." And, if you've really lived with it. Like I've had breathing problems for my whole life, and so I've always thought about... If I were to start some sort of business around that, that would be one that I've tried every solution that's out there, and I can tell you the pros and cons. And, I would want to become, which is point two for you is, I'd want to become a customer of that business. From a tactical perspective, so point two, this is services specific. What I'd recommend doing is giving way more away than would be reasonable to charge for. So, you start with the kitchen sink and you basically keep adding things to how much you're willing to do for someone, until eventually you're like in their house cooking them dinner, and you're like, "Okay, would you do this?" They're like, "Yeah, fine." Okay, now I can start trimming things from this and thinking, okay, there's 100 things that I committed to doing for these first five people. It turns out 80% of them, they don't really care about. And I can actually charge the same price and eliminate 80%. So it's, get the yes, and then work backwards. Because with physical products, you basically have to keep iterating on the product until you get the yes. With services, you can just keep adding. And then when you get the yes, work backwards. And so, that's just a tactical thing. A story about that. When I was starting in the gym business, I kept trying to sell memberships, and it just really didn't work well for me. Now, that's probably because I sucked at sales, and I didn't really think gym members were that valuable myself. I was a cheapskate. I know, 50 bucks, what? You and me, sister. But then I was like, "Well, what do they really want?" What they really want is to lose weight. They don't really care about the gym, they just want to lose weight. So, I was like, what would it actually take for somebody to lose weight? I was like, well, what if I texted you every morning just to make sure that you were on point? What if you could send me all your meals every day, and I would make sure that they were matching? What if, like when you go out to eat, I'll give you a list on how you can do that at restaurants, and can I drink? I'm like, you can if you do it this way. And when you work out, do you want me there with you? Yeah, that'd be awesome. Okay, I'll do that. So, I started adding all these things and supplements that you probably want to take along the way, and I had this big amalgamation of stuff that everyone needs. Because whenever you're solving a problem, there's always another problem that's going to happen if you actually solve it. But there's also 100 micro problems. So, if someone joins a gym, it's like, well, you're like, shoot, I don't have gym clothes. I don't know how to buy the right food, I don't know how to cook the food, I don't know how to store the food, I don't know how to make food taste good. I don't know how to work out. There's all these other problems. So, I was thinking forward of like how I can solve all of them. That becomes this huge thing. Then I started offering that, and people were like, "Yeah, I'll do that." And I was like, "Great." But I was able to charge way more than I did before, because I was actually solving the problem rather than selling a commoditized solution that they could price to compare me with somebody on the street. That was point two is, give away the kitchen sink, and then trim down to make it profitable. Because in the beginning, you're not worried about that yet. You want to get people to actually want to buy your shit. Then you can worry about the profit. Then, the third point that you made was about legitimacy. So, I see this on the content side, too. And I'm sure many of you guys see this, which is, the girl who's an emotional wreck giving emotional advice, or the couple that you're like... And they're like, "Come to our love workshop." And you're like... I don't know if I want to. So, I'm just a big advocate of proof over everything. Because your message is consumed within a context. So, Elon Musk can tweet, shits are awesome, I'm on the toilet. It'll get a million likes. But if you tweet that, you probably won't. So people will be like, "Are you okay? Did someone steal your phone, right?" But it's consumed within that context. So, I would say that the context on a scale from one to 100 of the message, 90% of the message is your background. 10% is the actual thing that you're saying. So, I'm not an idiot when it comes to the fact that I had to go build a $100 million net worth, have a $50 million exit, all these other things before people listened to my podcast. I made the podcast for five years, no one gave a shit. But then when I had objective proof, then people went back and listened to five years of podcasts on road trips straight through, like, "This is gold." And then they told people, but they couldn't consume the message because there was no context around it. So, I would say solve for context, and then the message kind of takes care of itself. Because also, when you do have the proof, you also will have the pudding, because you got there. So, you do know how to get there. Whereas if you were on the journey, and I think there's an element to like documenting something, like hey, we're working on our relationship is very different than come listen to me for my relationship. It’s, “I ate this for breakfast, I thought it tasted good”. Versus, “this is what you should have for breakfast”. It's nuanced, but it's different. So, if you're on the come up, I would stick to how I rather than how to, and it will protect your reputation when you're making this content, because no one can shake a finger at you. You're like, I'm just saying what worked for me. You can do whatever you want. This is what worked for me. I think that will help you get over some of the creation block for those of you who do choose to make content to advertise your stuff. And it certainly has helped, and has worked for me.
AUBREY: One of the things that I really like about what I've heard you say on other shows before is that we can look at anything as a trainable skill. We can look at anything as a trainable skill. One of the probably most beneficial skills that I've had, that has been absolutely invaluable and inextricable from my success, is the ability to make friends. The ability to make friends. Somebody will think, oh, well that's just natural, you're just born with it. Well, yes, there's some certain attributes that some people have certain personality traits, etc. But actually, learning how to make friends is also a trainable skill. Part of that trainable skill... Like how did Joe Rogan and I get to be friends? Well, I realized early on that people were interested if I had vast experience, or unique, novel things, stories I could share, things that I could talk about. So, by the time I met Joe Rogan, let's see, I met him when I was 28. So, I was 10 years into my own psychonautic journey, and I heard him talking about psychedelics. And I was like, "Damn, I got a decade's worth of experience. I can tell him some crazy stories. And we can talk about that." It was hella hard to get that first meeting. I had to come up with all kinds of different reasons and advertising this Fleshlight on his podcast. He was like, "This is so weird." But there was no podcast advertising. So I was like, "We should meet for coffee to talk about it." He's like, “really, I'll just send you the check”. I was like, "No, no, let's meet for coffee." Because I trusted that if we met, that we would become friends. I trusted that. So I bet the whole thing on even willing to lose the deal. Nope, no deal, unless we just meet for coffee. Well, that coffee turned into a three-and-a-half-hour dinner, turned to him inviting me on the podcast, and turned into a two-year friendship. That two-year friendship turned into a business partnership. That was one of the ways that I was able to be successful. And, it's still one of the ways in life today is, I trust that through all of the different experiences, the challenging things that I've done, the interesting books that I've read, becoming a really interesting person, a person that someone wants to hang out with. Also, knowing how to navigate and regulate my energy so that I'm bringing a super positive, fun, competitive, whatever vibe into a situation so that my presence is additive to their experience with me. That's something that not only is somewhat natural, but also I'm constantly cultivating. And I think for people out there who want to know how do I build a network like Aubrey, how do I have all of these friends that you can do stuff with, well build mastery. Mastery is irresistibly attractive. Like I will talk to the world foot ping pong champion, if they're... Like I see those on Instagram. I don't know, my Instagram feed is always people doing the craziest shit. I'm like, "Whoa, I will fucking have lunch with you." You're playing soccer ping pong, and you're killing it. If you've done something, put yourself through the path of mastery, I'm going to want to hang out with you. Maybe that friendship won't last long. But there's something to training that skill, so that you can become a friend to anybody that you meet.
ALEX: I love all of that. I do. I agree with all of it. Okay, so this might be really valuable for you guys. Right now, there's the person you are, and there's probably hopefully, the person you want to be, and there's a gap. Right? Do we agree on that? Okay, so that person that you want to be has traits and has skills that you don't have. I think that traits have been a word that we use as shorthand for bucket of skills. When I say it that way, I think it'll help make more sense. So, we might make the argument that if you were more charismatic, you would make more money. Let's say that that was the argument we're gonna do. Okay, for whatever profession I'm in, that would be true to me. Okay, fantastic. Be charismatic. What does that mean? So, the more skilled you are, the more general a command can be given to you, and you can still be effective. So someone can at this point, say, "Hey, Alex, can you start this business?" And I'd say, "Sure." That's a very general command. Now, one level below that, it might be like, can you advertise this product? I would say, "Yeah, I can do that." One level below that would be, do you think you can make a post that people would click on to buy this thing? And I would say, yes. We can keep going down. But the point is that if you have a skill set that you want to attain, and you don't know how to attain it, it's because you're using a bucketed word that represents many smaller skills. So, I'll use charisma as an example. So, if we say this guy is so charismatic, you have to ask yourself, or at least I asked myself, "Why?" Well, I describe him as charismatic because when he walks in the room, he greets everyone immediately. He uses people's names. He shakes their hand and he makes eye contact. When someone is talking to him, he makes eye contact and he nods his head. When he talks, he looks there, and he looks at them and he bounces back and forth. He asks questions to the other person about themselves when he's talking. Now, that's seven things. If I said, do you think you can nod your head when someone else is talking and keep eye contact? You'd probably say, "Yeah, I can do that." Great, that's one of seven skills that it takes to master until eventually people will describe you as charismatic. So, if you don't understand how to do something, you just need to break into a smaller chunk. Because we teach toddlers how to speak by approximating sound. We keep doing it until eventually, they're like... And you're like, "Yeah!" So that's their first word. Then you start comparing things between what they know and what they don't know, and making an association. You say, bottle, right? And then they're like, "Bottle." They can see with their eyes, something they know, and then they don't know the word. And so that's how we teach things. I like to think of myself as a toddler from a learning perspective, because it allows you to take your ego away from a skill. So, a lot of times, the skills that we need to learn are on the other side of just kind of like humbling ourselves and saying, you know what? If someone said, "Go advertise," I don't think I would be able to do it. So, okay, well, let's break it down into six things. Do you think you can message someone? I can do that. Well, that's a component of advertising. Do you think you could make a post that talks about something that's interesting? Maybe. Okay, well, do you think that you could ask a question in the beginning of a video that someone would find interesting? Yeah, I can do that. Okay. Well, then after that question, we then will make some sort of explanation around why we asked that. Okay, I think I can do that. Right, okay, then at the end, we want to reward them for the ultimate thing that we asked them to begin with. Great. Oh, great. If you record that, you post it, that's a piece of content. Okay, I can do that. So, the reason that I write the books that I do and I try to make the content in that way, is if there's a trait you want or a skill you want, and you don't understand how to get it, it means you just need to break it into smaller pieces. Because if you break it down low enough, you'll be able to do it. Then when you have that, I'm going full 180 here. So remember when I talked at the beginning about you just need to figure out how much money you want to make every day. I need to make $3,000 a day. Okay, that means I need to sell this many units. Well, then you connect that and you sell this many units to whatever activity or input you have to do. Because if you look at your calendar in terms of the things that you actually have to do with your time, then it gets a lot easier to plan and allocate. Because your time is your only resource especially if you're starting out. And so, it's like, I need to make 100 DMs because that will get me one customer, and one customer is worth $200. Great. That means that if I do this every day, I'll make $6,000 this month. Okay, based on the economics, will those people buy again next month? If so, then great. Next month I do 12, next month I do 18. Add that month, I hire somebody who's going to do it for $3,000 a month, and then I can keep stacking. Now I've got one person doing the same thing, and the business keeps stacking. I'm like, "Wow, I'm a businessman.". But that's the idea, I believe in breaking things down to the absolute lowest level so that you can make it manageable. The more skilled you become, the more you can bucket all of those activities. Like if someone's going to say, hey, Alex, go advertise that... If Aubrey is like, hey, I want to do this thing with you, this new supplement. Do you think you could write an email and this is the headline for the email? I'd be like, I got it. I'm good, understood. But if he was talking to somebody who was super junior, that's probably how he would describe it. But the only instance is that you are the person who's junior in this conversation, and you are the one talking to yourself. That's the gap. What is this person that I want to become in terms of skills and traits? Can I break those things down into individuals? And then can I break that into activities that I can do on a daily basis? And does that ladder up to the amount of money that I ultimately want to make. If so, what's stopping you?

AUBREY: Let's go. There's certain traits that people think, also that you just have but you don't have. One of those would be humor, right? Humor. Well, humor is something that some people have a natural affinity towards. They're just kind of naturally funny. They've probably been funny for a while, maybe they had a funny parent. I don't know what it is. However, there's improv classes that are available in every fucking city that help you think fast, think in unique ways, and actually practice. You practice being funny. This idea of, oh, he's so funny, and of course, everybody wants somebody around who's funny because if you're hanging out and someone's funny, then the whole energy of the environment rises to another level. So, your energy is actually cultivating another positive energy feedback loop because you're creating laughter in the space. So, go to a fucking improv class. Practice being funny. And then you get more funny. Then you find that meeting somewhere out there, and something's going on, and you come up with that funny thing, or you improv this little skit, and then you get a couple of people laughing and then the people gravitate more towards you. And they're like, "Oh, shit." Then all of a sudden, that friendship can blossom off of this thing where you just have given yourself, well, I'm not that funny. Well, okay, work on it. Get better. There's very few things that you can't train yourself up to that you want.
ALEX: Just height.
AUBREY: Yeah. But then there's also, alright, how do I appear with that kind of largeness of presence and being? That's also trainable. Literally all of these things. Even your physical attractiveness. They've even done studies about how you stand, how you present yourself. I've seen a lot of people who look a lot of different ways, but you just look at him and you go, "Wow, that person is beautiful." It's not actually the visage that they're wearing, and all of these people chasing all this Instagram filter beauty, to me, I'm like, that's not beautiful to me. To me, in my eyes. I don't see that. Yes, I recognize that there are physically attractive traits and qualities. But beauty is something that also can emanate from within, is a skill that you can actually train yourself to actually be participatory in to the highest degree possible. So, all of these different disclaimers of why you can't be this or do this, throw all that shit out the window. Whatever you want, you can train that skill. I really believe that.
ALEX: I'm going to piggyback on that with violets. The reason I want to bring that up is because, I'll tell you the story, because I think it might hit home. So when I was starting my first gym, I had a mentor, and I wanted to advertise and get people to find out about my gym. He had a bunch of tanning salons. I was like, "Hey, man, how do you get people in the tanning salon?" He's like, "Oh, we just put fliers out." I was like, "Duh, I'll go do that." So, I printed out 300 flyers, because paper was expensive, and I was broke. So, we put out 300 fliers. I got back to the gym, and I was like 300 fliers, 300 members, boom, I'm going to be full. I did get a call, and it was a guy and he was like, "Hey, did you put this flier on my car?" I was like, "I did as a matter of fact, kind sir." But he was like, "You scratched my Mercedes." I remember just immediately hanging up the phone. I didn't even think about it. It was, "I don't have the money for this." Thank God he never called back, but that was the only call I got from my 300 flyers. So, I called the mentor backup kind of pissed off. I was, "Hey, man." He's like, "How'd that fliers thing go?" I was like, "I'll tell you. It went terrible. I spent money on the fliers, we went out there, put them all out. All I got was a call from a pissed off guy." He's like, "Well, how many did you put out?" I was like, "I put out 300." He's like, "300?" "Yeah, 300." He's like, "Ah, you can't really know anything off 300." I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "I mean, we test with 5,000 just to see if like one flier is good or not. If it's good, we do 5,000 every day." I know. I heard that, and I felt like such a pansy. I remember thinking to myself, that was 150,000 flyers a month that he was putting out to market his business. I was calling him to get pissed off at him for the fact that my 300 didn't work. So there's this big misconception when you're starting out about the volume of effort that is required to win. One of the fastest shortcuts is to get around somebody who's already doing that level of volume because you leapfrog levels, right? I remember I had a guy... And just for context on that math. I was doing 1/5000th of his effort. So, a lot of people are like, "Oh, he doesn't work twice as hard." He was working 5000 times harder than me. So, people can't comprehend that because everyone's a special snowflake and whatnot. But from an output perspective, I was a rounding error. I literally was rounded to zero in terms of my level of effort. A lot of the beginners that I see who are getting their business going... When I say beginners, how do I say that the right way? Making less than a million bucks. I'm still including that in this kind of concept with volume, that it takes so much more volume and for so much longer than you expect. So the best thing to do that I found is to find people who are actually succeeding at that level and find out how much volume they're doing, and then double it. The reason I say double it is because they're probably better than you at it. Like if I make 100 phone calls, and you make 100 phone calls, and assuming no reputation, whatever, I'll probably be better than you at it. Why? Because I did it for a long fucking time. That's all I did for a very long time to get people into a gym. So, my skill gives me leverage, what I get back from what I put in. So, I put 100 calls in, you put 100 calls in, I get 10 appointments, you get one or zero, more leverage. But if you do 200, you'll be able to start catching up to me in terms of skill. You'll start getting better and better and better until eventually you're also getting 10. You're getting 10% of 200, now you're getting 20. You're getting more than I am. But you have to put that... There's the work that you do to match someone, and then there's the work that you do to catch up. And I think that frame has been helpful for me when I was coming up because I don't know where everyone's at in terms of their family, their life, whatever. But, I remember looking at, mind you, I started really young. Well, really young nowadays isn't young. But I was 23 when I started my gym. There was a competitor down the street, and I remember seeing him on Facebook, posting a picture of him and his wife and his kids. And I was like, "Fuck yeah. He's enjoying his time, I'm fucking calling right now." I was like, I'm getting ahead of him. I'm competitive like that. So, I kind of like those rocky cutscene days. But the issue is that the rocky cutscene lasts like two minutes in a movie, and it can last five years in real life.
AUBREY: Yeah, this is something that I think we lose sight of. We think of that, we imagine that these rewards are going to be instant, they're just fucking not. It's a grind. And, it's not only a grind. If some business just seems to pop off and take off, what you're not seeing is the countless failures that happened for 10 years prior. So, that gave them the leverage so that when they started this new thing, it just took off. There's no getting around that amount of effort and that amount of work. And again, you can disclaim and say, oh, must be nice. Or you could say, "Huh, interesting. What did that person do to get them in that position to be that way?" How did Brent Pella get to be as funny as he is? How did he get to be on "Wild n Out" and clowning everybody else out there? Well, he's got the reps, he's got the fucking reps to do it. He's put in the time and effort. And yes, yeah, keep going. And you guys are going to get to hear him.
ALEX: Who's Brent Pella?
AUBREY: Get him. That's the fundamental thing. So, I want to shift gears a little bit, because you have a really powerful tool. It's a tool that I use as well, and the tool is the psychological tool. The psychological tool, and I'll let you explain it is you actually talk to an older version of yourself to give yourself the kind of guidance, and the pep talk, or whatever it is that you might need. So, tell us how you came to that practice.
ALEX: Okay, so first off, if we're looking at... Who here could use advice on something in their life, right? I mean, everyone. Everyone could use advice. So, if I'm looking at a source for advice, I want three things. I want competence, I want context, and I want alignment. So, if someone's competent and they have context, but they're misaligned, that is a recipe for getting fucked. They know exactly what they're doing, they know exactly what would hurt you, and they are not aligned with you. It's a great way to get destroyed. So, one of the issues that I saw with a lot of modern therapies, etc. was that I felt like the incentives were misaligned. I would often spend a lot of time trying to, I would spend 90 minutes trying to provide context for one decision to somebody who might not even be as competent as me within whatever the regard was, and their alignment was for me to come back again next week. So, I was like, I'm missing two or all three of the three things here. So, that just felt like a broken model to me. So, I was like, okay, well, then what would it look like to have somebody who has all three? So, I stumbled upon this psychological principle called the Solomon Paradox. King Solomon as you know, is a biblical figure known for his wisdom and his wealth. But what was interesting about him as a character was that he also had a personal life that was in shambles. So, he was known for cheating on his wife and partying, his son was a mess, and he died, and all this stuff. So, how can this man be so wise, and yet the other side of his life is a mess? That's why they call it the Solomon Paradox, is that people would come to him because his advice to other people was so good, but he wasn't very good at following it for himself. So they've now proven this, that when they whitewash someone's own life, they literally feed them back the stats about their own life just as a whitewashed character. So they don't know they're reading about themselves. And they said, "What do you think this person should do?" They give better advice than what they actually do as the person that they're describing. So, it means that we give better advice than we follow. I thought about that. And I thought, well, most of the time, I feel like I know what I should do but I'm just a pansy about it, or I want someone else to tell me. But I don't have the alignment, I have to provide context, I have the same three issues. So, I was like, what if I could talk, because the ultimate version who would have all three of those things would be end of game Alex, right? 85-year-old me that's accomplished the things that I want to accomplish, who embodies the traits that I want to embody. What would he say to me in this particular instance, because he already knows how the game finishes. Now nine times out of 10, he's like, "Fuck off, this doesn't matter." He's a dick. "Treats me like a kid, doesn't understand." But the way that I do it is that every Monday, the first hour of my week, it says Solomon on my calendar. And for whatever reason, I call him Solomon, even though it's me in the future. Basically I do it like a chat to you. Now, I don't think you need to do it, though. You could probably do a voice memo, you could do a video, you could do whatever you want. But for me, I think through writing. That's why I like writing books and things like that. Basically, it's me, and then I hit Enter. Then he's like, "Well, tell me about this." Then I do this. He's like, "Well, why do you think that?" The nice thing too, is that sometimes my session is seven minutes. I just got to the answer, and it's like, alright, that's it. Oftentimes, I'll tell you one story. Hopefully, it'll resonate with someone here. I had this really big thing that I'd been building up to, it was a multiyear project. All this anticipation, all this excitement around it. It happened, and then there was something that just didn't go the way that I'd wanted it to go. So, I was very disappointed about this. But the thing that happened was actually... Now, everything is ultimately under our control. But this one, a promise was made by a vendor. They had said that they would do that, and based on the decision making criteria that I had at the time, which was that other people had done the same thing that I had done with this particular vendor, I felt like it was a reasonable decision just to have trusted this vendor to be able to do their job. They did. So it cost me about $15 million. It was real money. It sucked. I had to work through this. So, I had this session with Solomon. He knew the amount of time that I'd put into this project. He said, I am the product that you were building, not the thing. I know what you put into that, and I am satisfied. That is enough. I was like, "Okay. That was it. So, for me that kind of... I believe in nothing. The thing is you can be absolutely real, at least for me with Solomon, because there's zero ego there. He knows if I'm bullshitting. He's like, "Come on." I usually keep going until I get to actually a resolution, which is that I am the product, and I am satisfied. That is enough. The thing is, is that, to be fair, his satisfaction is fucking tough. Because he knows if I could have tried harder. And so one of the tough parts is like... I'll say this to everybody who considers themselves a winner in the room. Once you start winning, it's easy to impress other people. So, the only way to raise the bar is, then how do I impress me? Future me knows the difference between how hard I tried and how hard it looks like when I try when I have nothing left in the tank. That delta is what Solomon pushes me towards. Because I get the question a lot, which is, okay, Alex, how do you still stay motivated? I'm sure you have stuff like that. For me, it's because that has been the game, is like, how do I close that delta? Because I think I'll die, and I don't think people will remember. And that's okay. But I will know, at the end, how hard I tried, and that is what I've been trying to make my W which is leaving with nothing left. So, that's what I really, really try for, and I feel like Solomon is aligned with that, and he holds me accountable in a way no one else can, because I could talk to a therapist and say all the things that I did. They're like, you must have tried hard. But, I know I could bullshit someone.
AUBREY: We can do that with our friends too. We can enroll any one of our friends into believing our story, especially we're in like a relationship conflict. We talk to a friend, we can enroll them in our belief system so easily. It's so easy to get other people enrolled. And you can even enroll yourself. That's the tricky part. If you're not careful, you'll enroll yourself in your own story. But then if you really go beyond that, and then go into your own version of Solomon, some part of you really knows. Some part of you really knows what the real truth is, what really happened. That I think is also one of the key components to really loving yourself. What you said is, that is enough. That feeling of, yeah, you gave it everything, man, that was enough. And of course, that's the best of you that'll say that, but it will also hold you accountable. It's what Don Miguel Ruiz calls ruthless self-love. Like, you could have given that more, you could have stood more firm in your beliefs, you could have more courage, you could have hustled harder, you could have tried more, you could have given another chance. You could have done that. So, get after it. That's the wisdom that we all have the availability to tap into if we use this kind of device.
ALEX: I also think that the frame of Solomon has been especially powerful, because it removes external judgment to a large degree. Imagine telling your 85-year-old self, imagine it. So, sometimes there's a weird, fun gratitude thing, if you're into that. I've struggled with gratitude. People are like, "I write a journal." Right now, can you guys name 10 problems in your life? I got 20. But if it's named five things that are good, I just stand there, and I'm like, "I am alive..." A really fun one for me has been imagining Solomon reborn as myself in the present moment. So, it's weird and trippy, but you wake up, I'm next to my wife. I'm like, "I remember when she was this young. Look at us, we're just kids." I look out the window, and I'm like, "Man, I remember when Vegas looked like this." It was before all the flying cars and shit. Then I wake up, I'm like, "Oh, my back doesn't hurt. My knees don't hurt. Man, it's nice to be up." It's a very weird experience to just imagine what life would be like as an 85-year-old you, and then actually live through that. 85-year-old me doesn't even give a fuck about what Susan thinks about my decision. So, a lot of times, and I've gotten better at this as I've gotten older and whatnot, but, I remember when I was trying to sell the company. We were trying to sell the company. I was really not sure if I wanted to do it or not. I was like, "Why am I hesitating?" What is this? And it's, "What will people think?" But it's never people, it's two people. And then you name the two people. Then I was like, "Do I really want John's opinion to be the reason that I..." And I was like, "That's fucking dumb." As soon as you name it, then it becomes real rather than this amorphous thing. And, Solomon just makes me name shit. He's like, "You really don't want to become me because of Tom? No, you should do that. Do it." I mean, he's a dick. But lovingly.
AUBREY: Ruthless self-love.
ALEX: Yeah. I also just think it's a really powerful frame for getting around. There's the thing that you want to do, and there's the thing that everyone else thinks you should do. And if everyone else thinks you should do it, it's probably not the right thing to do.
AUBREY: Another thing that I've used before in my life is very similar to that. It's imagining that I got beamed into my body in my life right now, as like a fresh new consciousness that came from another dimension, and I beam in. I use this when I'm really kind of in a shitty mood, or down on myself or whatever. I kind of look around, I'm like, "Wow, look at my wife. That's fucking awesome." "Wow, I can ball. That's cool." "Oh, wow, my house is beautiful." All right, well, maybe there's these things that I don't like. Well, I can fix that. I can fix that. I can work harder in this area, I can bounce back from this. But we get saddled by all of our past regrets, our past grievances, all of this baggage that we carry, because we're blaming ourself of the past, and then holding ourself as the person who made that mistake rather than the person who grew and evolved from that mistake. But if you can come in clean slate, and just go, alright, where am I at? Oh, fuck, I'm at Arkadia. Damn, this is cool. What am I going to do? Fuck, I'm going to have a blast. Then after this, I'm going to go home and I'm going to figure some shit out. I just heard Alex Hormozi, fuck, I'm going to fucking grow my business, I'll make some money. Alright, I can do this. Because you lose that history that keeps you saddled to what you once were, but you're not that person. Heraclitus said, one of my favorite quotes, no person steps in the same river twice because it's not the same river and they're not the same person. You're the person who grew and evolved and learned from everything you did. So, if you can give yourself that blessing of just being like, alright, here it is. Clean slate, right the fuck now. What are we going to do? Build something awesome. Be something awesome.
ALEX: I love that because there's... The river thing slapped. That was great. So, I was involved in this lawsuit a few years back. It was something that I'd invested a lot of time in, and was a really big amount of money. Right at first, you're like, I feel wronged. It's the immediate that's not fair, whatever. I played it out through a Solomon frame, like, alright, well, what changes about your life if it goes the way you want it to go, and if it doesn't go the way you want it to go? I was like, well, if it goes the way I want it to go, I'll be young, wealthy, happily married and have a little bit more money from this lawsuit. What if it doesn't go the way you want to go? I was like, I'll be young, married, less work, because I won't be working on this thing anymore. He's like, it sounds like a win-win, bro. It was just very weird. Because a lot of my dissatisfaction was only about the expectation that I had of what I thought I deserved, rather than what is it gonna change about my life? I remember, especially if I ever get into a pansy mode about being super sad about something. It's like, well, I had nothing and was pretty happy, too. So, the worst case is like that. That wasn't that bad. So, just how much is it actually going to change my life? I think the reason that I think developing frames like this is so powerful is that the vast majority of the time, the thing that limits us in business is not knowledge. I used to sit down with women all day long, because that's what I did for weight loss stuff. And, I'd be like, "Suzy, let's be real." They'd be like, "I just don't know what to do." I'd be like, "Do you?" They would just look at me like, did he just say that? I'd be like, "What do you think's gonna..." Because they'd be like, tell me about the program. I'm like, what do you think it's going to be? I'm like, I don't know. I was like, "Well, do you think you need doughnuts all day?" They're like, "Well, no." I'm like, "Do you think you're going to move more than you do now?" They're like, "Yeah." I was like, "You're on the right track." I'd tease out the point, and then I'm like, knowledge is not the issue, you're going to stop eating shit, you're going to move more, right? That's not the problem. The problem is that you're not doing it, so let's tackle that. If you guys are in the I want to grow my business phase, that stuff is straightforward. Let more people know about stuff, give them shit in exchange for money. And if you're like, what do I give them? Give a lot of people free things until eventually somebody comes back and says, I want more of that. That's it. But, why are you not doing that? I think a lot of times the frames like this, like Solomon frame and whatnot, are to hopefully, debaggage you or whatever, release the weight that you're carrying around. Tom who's like, "Did you DM my wife about your business?" "Yeah." So, a lot of times, the absolute acceptance frame has been super powerful, which is like, must be nice. You're like, "It is." It just melts people? If you're in these, like you get in a comment or something, and they're like, it's because your dad gave you everything. You're like, "You're right." It's just because we have this fear of being labeled something by somebody. Well, I don't label myself that, but if you do, that's cool. Because you're going to die, eventually. So, why? But if you're going to die, eventually, it means it won't matter either. So, fine, then I can use it both ways. That's just been really helpful for me, just because my ultimate expression of myself in terms of Solomon and me is just absolute agency. I do what I truly want to do. Now, obviously, that's not hurting people, things like that. But like, did I do it without fear? I think that's what I really spent a lot of time trying to tackle, which is, what am I afraid of? It's not the monster and whatnot, it's usually just judgment, rather, perceived judgment from people who aren't thinking about me. Then it comes from a combination of discounting the value of their judgment, and increasing the perceived value of Solomon's judgment. I think that over time, if I can just keep sliding more and more marbles into just gaining Solomon's opinions, or Solomon's approval, I think it's a better version of me. I just see it as a continuum, rather than a binary of I am this person or I am this person. It's just like, I'm more this person today, and I'm going to keep sliding more marbles on to the side until most people describe me in this fashion.
AUBREY: I love what you're saying too, about how to deflect those kinds of comments and judgments that come in this more, yes and model. Your dad gave you everything. Yes, and, he gave me way more than you possibly could ever imagine. Because he gave me beliefs, and he gave me a field of value, and he gave me a lot of these things that you will never even quantify. So yeah, you're right. And yes. So, instead of trying to combat people and getting in this battle, just like, yeah, and?
ALEX: This will be really fun for you guys. So, if we transitioned into Q&A or something like that, I'm not saying we do that. But if that were to happen, someone would get up and say, well, here's why that won't work for me, special reason 16B, whatever, right? Because I've done a handful of Q&As now. I've just realized it's been more powerful to just say, you're right. Next question. Then they're like... No, no, this is the reason that I can't succeed. You're like, yeah, you're right. You'll never succeed. And then they're like, "Well, yes, I will." And you're like, "Right. So, here, the fighter showed up. Great." You were fighting on the wrong side. It's silly, though. But, we do this contrarian thing for no reason to give ourselves excuses. But if someone were to say, you're right, you'll never succeed, you're like, "What the f..." Okay, great, then you don't have any questions. So, move on, right? It's just a conflict for no reason. So, I think that right now, if you have a certain excuse, because right now, there's probably a reason that you're like, whatever it is, is the reason that I am not winning. I used to call this, because I do a lot of sales training stuff, too. I call it the reason ‘close’. But it's insane how effective this is, because it's so silly sounding. Whatever the reason they say is, just say, and that's the perfect reason you should do this. They're like, "I can't sign up for this weight loss program, because my husband doesn't support me." You're like, "The reason that you should sign up for this weight loss program is because your husband doesn't support you." "I can't do this because I don't have the time." That's the perfect reason to do it. "I can't do it right now, because I'm really busy." Cool. "I don't have it, because I don't have the money for that." Well, that's the perfect reason you should do it. It doesn't really matter. Whatever reasons you have are basically irrelevant. Because the doing just needs doing, and it doesn't really care if you have a reason, or you don't have a reason, or if you're a good person or a bad person, or what you think about yourself, because really shitty people can still win. I'll tell you something that's kind of weird for me, but for a very long time, I considered myself a very bad person. Maybe somebody here has a similar belief, but I had that internal feeling about that, which is, I feel like the bad guy, I feel like the villain. A very freeing thought for me was that I can still do the stuff that successful people do and still win anyways. That was kind of cool for me, because it was like, oh, this is still under my control. It's not like only the good guys win, bad guys can win too. I identified as that. So, I just like boiling things down to behaviors, because everything else I find to be completely distracting, which to be fair is probably why I have been, I would say, on the other pole, which maybe when you go all the way around, we're in the same spot from 180 degree perspective. But, I have spent very little or zero time thinking about manifesting and thoughts and psychology and like all of these things, at least as I understand it in this community. I can be totally wrong, but I'm saying as I see it. Because I just never felt like it mattered. Because if you do 100 reach outs, more people will find out about your stuff, whether you set affirmations in the morning, whether you wooed it into existence. It doesn't matter. So, just focusing on the behaviors, and the activities that I needed to do has just been my absolute razor to cut through the noise. And if you have that frame, you will also be able to basically throw out 90% of the bullshit that you hear every day on your newsfeed from people who haven't been there and never did it anyways. Because they have to fill lots of fluff in their content, because they have no substance, because they don't know the actual activities that did it. So, if you get to the end of something... Alright, I'm going to go on a little thing here. So, I'm going to find two terms that I think are very meaningful, learning and intelligence. So, intelligence, I'll start with that. Well, fine, I'll do ‘learning’ first. So, learning is the same condition, new behavior. So if I showed you all a red card, and then I slapped you, you'd be like, "Whoa." I don't say anything, then I show you a red card, and then I slap you, you'd be like, "Whoa." Then I showed you a red card, and you duck. Same condition, new behavior. You learned. Intelligence is the rate of learning, it's speed. If I show you that, and it takes some person 10 times for them to duck, and one person the second time they duck, the second time person is smarter, they're more intelligent than the 10-time person. So, a lot of you here, I'm looking at you, think you're really smart. But you go back home to the same condition, and you do the exact same thing. So, how smart are you? Red card, slap. You don't change. So, by defining it that way, it actually makes intelligence under our control. I'm sure you wanted to grow to some degree by coming here for this whole event, and obviously you guys here today. But if you leave here, and your behavior doesn't change in the same conditions, it means you learned nothing. I think that's been a really powerful frame for me. Because if I go somewhere, I'm like, what behavior will I change from this? If you go somewhere, and there is no behavior that changed, then maybe you shouldn't go there anymore. Or, maybe you should change. One of the two, because either that didn't give you anything, or you're not receiving anything. So, that has been helpful for me in terms of how I consume information, which is like, will this change anything about my behavior? No. Well, then either this wasn't valuable, or I need to change something.
AUBREY: I remember there's a story that, when I was working for... So, I had kind of a boutique marketing company. Again, I've already mentioned it. So, my stepdad is the founder of Fleshlight.
ALEX: I did not know that.
AUBREY: Yeah, I know, it's crazy, right? So, I was helping him out with his marketing. He brought me into the office one day, and he fired me a couple of times, actually, which was rude, I just felt like.
ALEX: Must be nice.
AUBREY: But he brought me in right before he fired me the last time, which I'm super glad that he did. But he brought me in and he goes, you know what? He just brings me into a meeting in his office, which eventually became my office. I took over his whole building. He goes, "You know what, Aubrey, you will never be successful without me." I go, "That is a fucking dick thing to say." And I'll be like, "Mark my words, motherfucker." I remembered that. I remembered him saying that and our relationship was strained for some years, because I was like, "That is a fucked up thing to tell your stepson." And, finally, and actually, I was sitting Shiva from my father who passed, and I brought my stepdad, because my step dad knew my father. I brought him in, and we were just sharing, it was just me and him. I said, "Hey, man, this one fucked up thing that you said, and you brought me in that office day, and you said, you never be successful without me. Why did you say that?" He goes, "Because I knew you were a fighter. I knew you were a fighter. And I knew if I said that to you, you wouldn't rest a single fucking minute until you proved me wrong." And I was like, goddamn. For him to have that awareness and know that that was exactly the right thing. He could have been like, "You're going to be so successful. I've seen how hard you work. You're a hard worker, you're going to do it." That wouldn't have accomplished a fraction of what that one thing. And he knew he was going to have to bear the price. He knew that I was going to resent him, I was going to hate him for a little while. But he knew that that would propel me because he knew me. He told me, I watched you, I was a basketball player and our crosstown rival was the Buoy Bulldogs, fucking Buoy Bulldogs. This the rowdiest crowd. I mean, the bench was right in the stands. They'd literally spit on you when you're on the... It was fucking savage. We hated each other. I remember I shot an airball that day. I was team captain and they were just fucking ripping into me. And I was like, "Fuck you, guys." And I just went on a tear, I just went on a run scored like 10 in a row, and one foul. I'm at the free-throw line. They're chanting, "Airball, airball." I just take my time, and I look over at the visitor stands, and I just winked at him, and swished it. My stepdad recalled that, and I don't think about that that much, it was high school basketball. I remember that moment. He's like, when I saw that, when I saw you after all of the whole crowd turned against you, and you went twice as hard and you just wouldn't be stopped. And then you looked at all of those people who were chanting in unison, air ball, and you just winked at them, and you hit that shot, I knew you were a fighter. I knew that's what would bring the best out of you. It's not everybody pumping your tires, but someone to say that you couldn't. I was like, fuck, thank you. Thank you, Steve. Thank you for that gift. So many of these people, so many of these detractors that you have, you can look at it like, I can't believe they're saying this, I can't believe they're doing this. Or you can go, thank you, watch me. Watch me. Yeah, bro. Any closing words you'd like to leave the people here with? Any final sentiments?
ALEX: Ricky and Devon need to go somewhere for sure. I don't know what to serve you guys the best. But, I talk about this thing in my book called the rule of 100. So, I'm just going to close on something tactical. Already gave you the learning thing, which is if you don't do anything different, when you go back to the same condition, you've learned nothing. That's probably not what you want, which means you probably should change your behavior. The rule of 100 is pretty simple. You do 100 primary actions every day until you get to your goal. The hard part is figuring out what the 100 primary actions are. Those 100 primary actions, if you're in a business, are probably going to be some level of promotion. That might be a promotion to get an employee. You can use this stuff to get customers, you can use it to get employees, you can use it to get affiliates, you can use it to get influencers, you can use it to get agency, whatever it is. But set a timer. Kitchen timer works, $5, and do the 100 reach outs, do the 100 minutes of content, spend $100 a day on ads, whatever it is. Start your day with that. And if you ever look away to your phone, or you go to get a drink of water, or you go to the bathroom, pause the timer, and see how long it actually takes you to do it. Because I found that a lot of times my fear around doing some of this stuff is, it makes it feel, I think this is a Leila quote that she says but it's like fear is a mile wide and an inch deep. So it looks like it's an ocean, but you take a step into it, you realize it's really shallow. So, we have this fear of rejection, fear of making content, of making the post, whatever it is for a bad comment. But when I started quantifying things based on the amount of time that it was going to take to do whatever that action was, then it's like, alright, my 100 is going to take me two hours and 15 minutes, or it's going to take me three hours and 12 minutes on average. All right, it's seven. All right, I'll be done at 10:15. Then you just crank the timer, and you start. And so a lot of times, there's been a lot of, recently and I like to speak out against it. A lot of woowoo around these extended morning routines, and things where people have to prepare to work. They masturbate about the idea of working. I'll tell you, the best morning routine is the one that gets you to work fastest. So, the work needs doing, and the faster that you start, the faster it will be done. So, everything that I do before that moment is just actually elongating that time. If it's seven o'clock now, well, if I do an hour of prep, and then I still have three hours and 15 minutes of work, it's like I just want to fucking start. I think if you can just confront the work, and disassociate the long term reward for the actions that you're doing, and reassociate the work with Solomon, or whoever that person is that you want to be, as you chopping the wood or sculpting the marble of the person that you want to become, and giving yourself that basket of skills and traits that they eventually ladder up to, then every day you feel like you are crafting that masterpiece. The thing that I'm spending the most of my mental energy on right now is defining winning by level of effort. I only get to win if I leave nothing in the tank. By doing that, it's going to take longer, awesome, I'll have less in the tank. Oh, it's going to be even harder, awesome, I'll have a bigger opportunity to empty my tank because that's the only way that I win. So, I think if you can redefine it that way, the external winning takes care of itself really easily. So, that is my parting words is that if you don't change your behavior, you learned nothing. That is tactically what I would do if you don't know what to do. Start it first thing, start a timer, and do not stop until the timer is done.
AUBREY: Let's go. Let's go. I love that as the parting words. I just also want to say like for people who claim they don't have enough time, just take a gander at your screen time calculator on your fucking phone. Take a gander. Then come up with that excuse to somebody whilst showing them your screen time calculator on your phone.
ALEX: You're right, you're never going to be successful.
AUBREY: So, fundamentally, we all have more capability than we need to. Steven Pressfield when he's asked about how he writes, he says, I just fucking sit in my chair at nine o'clock every fucking day or whenever he ends up starting. And that's just where I am, I show up. That's what he talks about in turning pro. That's how you turn pro. You just show the fuck up. You put in the effort, you do the work, and the results will come. Love you guys. Let's have a fucking great time. Thank you, Alex.
ALEX: Thank you, guys. Thank you.