On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Leila Hormozi: Feel Like You’re Working Hard but Not Getting Ahead? (Use THIS Simple Filter to Focus on What ACTUALLY Makes You Money)

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

We spend so much time waiting to feel ready, not realizing that confidence only comes after we begin. Today, Jay sits down with Leila Hormozi to explore what truly drives success, not just in business but in becoming the person who can sustain it. What emerges is a powerful shift in perspective. Confidence is not something you chase, it is something you earn through competence. Leila shares candid stories from her early struggles with insecurity, rejection, and self-doubt, revealing that real growth begins the moment you stop waiting to feel ready and start taking action anyway. Together, they unpack a hard truth. The path to confidence is built through failure, humility, and the willingness to be seen as “bad” before becoming great. The conversation moves beyond mindset into the mechanics of success, including discipline, leadership, and emotional resilience. Leila reframes discipline not as a personality trait, but as a system you design within your environment, making the right actions easier and the wrong ones harder. Leila also challenges the belief that strategy or market conditions determine success. Instead, she emphasizes that the real differentiator is your ability to manage your mind and emotions under pressure. Through stories of entrepreneurs who lost everything, not because of poor tactics, but because they could not stay grounded, she highlights that inner stability is the true foundation of long-term success. In this episode you'll learn: How to Build Confidence Through Competence How to Take Action Before You Feel Ready How to Turn Rejection Into Growth How to Stay Disciplined Using Simple Systems How to Manage Your Emotions Under Pressure How to Lean Into Discomfort How to Create Consistency That Drives Results How to Lead People Without Losing Trust How to Build a Successful Business Without Losing Your Values How to Focus on What Truly Moves You Forward You don’t need to have everything figured out to move forward, you just need to be willing to start where you are. Growth isn’t about feeling confident every step of the way; it’s about showing up even when you’re unsure, uncomfortable, or afraid. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here: https://news.jayshetty.me/subscribe  Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast  What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 05:00 What Actually Builds Confidence? 06:40 Stop Waiting to Feel Ready To Take Action 11:28 You Have to Be Bad Before You Get Good 14:41 Lean Into Fear and Discomfort 20:25 What’s Actually Blocking Your Success 26:00 Can You Handle the Pressure of Success? 35:00 Discipline Isn’t Willpower 43:20 Is Work-Life Balance Possible? 49:41 How to Find Purpose in Any Job 53:00 What It Really Means to Be a CEO 57:24 The Hiring Mistake Most People Make 01:04:00 What Makes You Stand Out Instantly 01:12:00 The Most Overrated Leadership Traits 01:14:13 Should People Fear or Respect You? 01:18:00 The Secret to Building High-Trust Teams 01:19:00 Carrot or Stick: What Actually Works? 01:24:00 How to Give Productive Feedback  01:30:24 The Truth About Women and Independence 01:36:20 When Life Doesn’t Match Your Expectations 01:39:14 How to Handle Criticism Without Breaking 01:46:06 The Hidden Cost of Chasing Success 01:51:00 How to Rethink Your Relationship With Money 01:54:43 Leila on Final Five Episode Resources: Website | https://www.acquisition.com/  YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@leilahormozi  Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/leilahormozi/  Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/leilahormozi/  LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/leilahormozi  TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@leilahormozi  X | https://x.com/LeilaHormoziSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to Unpurpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guest is someone that I've been really, really looking forward to having on the show because I know you're always looking for advice around confidence, discipline, consistency, and actually making an impact in your career, your financial trajectory and ultimately your life. Today's guest on On Purpose is Leila Hormozi, self-made entrepreneur and investor who's built and scaled companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If you're someone who wants to grow your income, raise your standards, and build real wealth without losing your values, this conversation is essential.

Please welcome to On Purpose, Leila Hormosey. Lela, it's great to have you here. It's so exciting to be here. Yeah, it's very rare I get to interview someone and then interview their partner. Yeah. And the fact that we had Alex on the show last year and we didn't get to meet. and I'm so glad I get to meet you today. And it's so fun that I get to interview both within 12 months.

Yeah, I'm excited to hear what your conclusion is after you've done both. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So great to have you here. Like I said to you earlier, our audience is so aspirational. They're really excited about life. They want to do better, but things keep holding them back. And the question I wanted to start with you, I feel like we have this group of people today

who really believe that they have to have confidence in order to make a difference in their life. They've got to build this skill and they're trying to figure out how to build confidence. Could you define for me what confidence is to you? When I hear people say that they want to build confidence, the reason why it's so difficult to do that is because confidence is an output.

It's not an input. And so when you think about it, you don't get confidence by trying to be confident. Oftentimes confidence comes after you are competent in something. And so for me, I didn't realize, that. In fact, when I was 19 and I was overweight and I was drinking and I was doing drugs and I was just like completely spiraling. I remember I literally had a mirror in my bathroom and I had affirmations read all over it. And I would sit there and I would be saying these affirmations myself. I'd be like, I'm beautiful. I can do this. I work hard. I have money. I'm wealthy. And I would read them and I remember just thinking like, none of this is true. And it felt really weird to me because I kept thinking like this is supposed to work. This is what I'm supposed to do. And then like nothing would happen. And I was like, why am I'm not feeling confident. I was insanely insecure. And by the way, like, people that know me very well will say, like, you still are quite insecure. Like, it's in different areas. I kept waiting to feel ready.

And then I realized you don't ever feel ready until the second time that you do something. And that's because in order to feel confident, which is feeling ready, in my opinion, you have to build competence in something. And the only way that you build competence is by building evidence for yourself to understand that you can actually do the thing. In order to do that, you have to pay the price, which is by having never done the thing before. And so it wasn't until I said, I'm so sick of like being in my head, trying to think my way into being confident. And so I need to act my way into confidence. How would I do that? Okay, well, I have to get competent at something. Well, at that point in my life, you know, I was like, I'm not really that good at anything. I wasn't really that skilled

anything. So it would also make sense that you're not confident if you don't have that many skills, right? And so I learned sales. That was the first thing I learned. I moved across the country. I didn't know anybody. I had $5,000, and I was like, I'm going to learn how to do this. I am also, I was like viscerally opposed to the thought of sales, but I was like, I need to understand this. I need to understand these core skills. Otherwise, I'm never going to be able to build a business. And so, I drove out to California. I found the closest gym within walking distance. I applied to all of them, right? And then I took the one that was the absolute closest. And I got the job. And I remember I started, and they were like, cool.

So you understand how to help people lose weight and how to help people get healthy, but like you need to know how to market and sell yourself. And so that meant like walking to Whole Foods and trying to get solicit people at the Whole Foods. That meant like when somebody was doing cardio going up to them in the machine

and being like, do you need help? And I remember the first time I walked up to a lady on the treadmill. It was the first person I had ever walked up to him. I'm telling my boss at this time. I'm like, dude, I don't know what I'm doing. He's like, listen, it's not going to be that bad. What's she going to say? The first person I walk up to him, of course.

She looks at me and she was like, off. And I was like, ah! And I remember I ran into the bathroom and I sat on the toilet. In Whole Foods. Yes. And I was like, I literally think I'm going to have a panic attack. Like I felt so bad. I felt like my stomach was in my throat.

I remember telling myself, I was like, you can't let yourself down. You've got to make this worth it. Like you drove out here. You quit everything. You told everyone that you were going to do this. You told everyone you were going to be having an entrepreneur and have a business. So I was like, okay, I'm going to focus on what I can do. And so I focused on how do I get as many knows as possible.

and through getting all the nose and being rejected and seeing that I could handle it, which I was terrified of reduction part of this, by the way, like, bullied in school, not cool, like, didn't have that many friends, like, not cute, like it was just the whole thing. That was what built my confidence. And I think that so often we think that the thing that's going to make us confident is the thing that feels good. But what's good for us often feels bad in the moment. And what feels good in the moment is often bad for us in the long term. And that's really like the biggest lesson I learned.

And then I realized, I was like all the times that I built the most confidence in myself, I wasn't focused on being confident. I was focused on becoming the best version of myself I could be, which meant that I was becoming more competent. And then by consequence, I became confident. I never thought about, I've got to get more confident. After I realized, I was like, it just happens naturally if you do these things. That's such a powerful answer.

And I just want to break that down for people. You said, in order to feel confident, first we have to develop competence, which gives you the evidence. which then builds confidence. And what I really appreciate about that answer is, so many of us think confidence comes first. And like you said, you were saying the affirmations in the mirror. You're trying to believe it, whatever it may be.

And the reality is, is that what you actually needed was humility. Because what you just said is you went up to someone at Whole Foods and you try and sell something or whatever it may be, and they rejected you. And I think that's what's so interesting is that what we actually need is being okay with being bad at something. Yeah. Rather than the desire to want to want,

to feel good at it before you've ever even done it. And that applies to everything. The first time you go to the gym, you won't have a clue what to do. The first time you go on a date, you'll be confused. The first time you start a new job in sales where you've never made a sales call or a cold call, you won't know what to do. And so it's actually the skill we should be developing is not confidence. It should be wanting to be bad at something and being okay with being humble and saying,

I don't know. Yeah. And that's why you just said, which I love, is I still feel insecure about different things because there are different things where you're still at the beginning of the journey. A thousand percent. I love that you said that because I studied a lot of psychology and there's one thing that I realized I was like, where do so much of my insecurity come from? And so much of my insecurity came from wanting to be perfect, wanting to like create this illusion that I was like really good at something. And I had this motto that I've shared with a lot of people on my team where

instead of trying to be good, I say, how can I be bad? And so I'm like, I'm going to try and be a bad boss. I'm going to try and be a bad friend. And people are always so confused. about it. Like, why would you try and be bad? I'm like, because in trying to be bad, it means that I actually take the risks required to be good. And if I don't take the risks, that I'm never going to get it. It's like, you know, I had someone that interviewed me not that long ago and they said, hey, I saw from your first company some reviews on Glass Store from 2016. They were pretty bad. So, you know, do you think what you did really worked? And I said, do you think that I would have the massive success that I have at this young age right now if I wasn't willing to fail like that? I'm fine with looking bad. I'm

fine with messing up. I'm writing a book right now. The whole thing is all lessons and failures, because what's been so painful for me is that I think when I was on my journey of like, I want to be better, I want to be a high performer, I want to start a business, like I want to get in shape, I want to do all this stuff. Everything was so curated and fake. And everyone was talking about like the Lamborghini and they've got this crazy house. They've got this vessel of like perfection. And it was so hard for me to relate to people. And so also like as I've gone through this journey and starting to make content, I'm like, the one thing I never want people to think is that in order to have confidence, you're going to be perfect to have it. It's like, no, you have to have the bad in order to have the good. And I think it's just, are you willing to? I think so much of it comes down to are you willing to experience the emotions that you don't want in order to get the ones that you do want. And I think a lot of people say that they will and say that they're willing, but they're not. Because when everything inside of you feels like you're going to die, a lot of people run the other way. Because it might be stepping on stage makes you feel like you're going to die. Like maybe running a board meeting, maybe pitching somebody for the first time, selling something. Like I know, I know

that feeling where you want to crawl out of your skin. And I think people have to take a really hard look in the mirror and say, like, am I willing to feel that in order to get this thing I want on the other side? Absolutely. So then the next question is, how do you build that mindset that says, I welcome this opportunity, even though I may get laughed at, may get rejected, may feel like a failure? What is that then? What do we need to work on instead of confidence?

For me, a lot of it has been acceptance. more than it has been anything else because I think that I, so much of what I think pained me in my early life before I was able to have the success I had was that I felt like there was something wrong with feeling insecure,

with feeling bad, with negative feelings. And I actually see that a lot right now, which is we have, and I think labels are really useful in a lot of situations, but I think that we sometimes tend to use them too much. I realize I had these beliefs that feeling immense anxiety, feeling terrified of something, feeling depressed when I didn't get what I wanted, or I wasn't doing well, I felt like those were all really bad feelings that need to be avoided.

and it wasn't until I changed the narrative around that, and I said, I had this realization. I was super anxious when I was trying to lose weight, and I had just stopped drinking and doing drugs, and I remember it was like a Thursday, and everyone's drinking and all stuff, and I realized I had been feeling so terrible when I was doing that, right? And I remember seeing there in my dorm,

and I was like, I still feel anxious. And then I realized, I was like, wow, I've been doing all of this stuff, like buffering, suppressing and numbing to avoid these emotions that I still feel. In fact, I think they might be stronger. And it sent me down this entire journey to understand, like, well,

what is this relationship that I have with myself? And I had these beliefs that didn't serve me, which was essentially like all of these emotions I labeled as bad. Maybe because of past experiences I had that felt really scary and terrible and maybe because of things I saw with other people. But until I was willing to say,

I accept all of these in, and these are okay. and I'm totally willing to feel these feelings in my life, I wasn't able to achieve anything when it came to disciplining myself, confidence, et cetera, because oftentimes in pursuing something, that means that you're growing. And when you're growing, you're stepping into unknown territory.

When you step in unknown territory, your brain freaks out, and it's like, I can't predict what's going to happen next. So I'm going to try and scare you so that you go back to the comfort cave, right? And every time it would happen, I would say, cool, I'm going back to the comfort cave. But when I finally said, what if I befriended these emotions? What if I said, I will take them with me? And I talk about this lot, which is like, I see it like anxiety used to be,

I would be in the car with anxiety, right? Anxiety would be in the driver's seat, driving us in some direction in my life. It would be dictating where I was going to go. Well, I still have anxiety in the car with me. The difference now is that I'm the one driving. It's sitting in the passenger seat or the back seat. But I'm still saying where I'm going to go. It's not like the feeling has gone away,

but my relationship with it has changed. And befriending those very negative emotions, that has allowed me to do pretty much everything in life. And I think that's why I love growing a business. That's why I love, you know, I set out on making content, all these things. They were things that I felt like, wow, if I do those things, I will have to become the type of person

who is able to really befriend more of those emotions. And that has made me more confident than any affirmation or any applause or any comment on insisting on Instagram has ever made me. It's just been doing that, being utterly terrified, being okay with being utterly terrified, and then doing the thing anyways.

And then afterwards, having that feeling of absolute relief and then proud of myself to be like, you did it. Like, you were freaking terrified and you did it anyways. And that's been like the key to everything for me. It's always been,

anytime I get stuck in life, it's like I look at where I'm at and I pull myself out and I'm like, you're not leaning into it. You're trying to avoid the emotion. And I have to catch a, myself because our minds are tricky and say nope you've got to go into it it's like i say that get out of the comfort cave and get out into the world i love the visual of you driving and anxiety being in the backseat

because i love the idea of how we let anxiety have the wheel and then drive our life in all different directions and you're so right that i as in me included i still feel anxiety today i still feel insecure today i still feel like i have to prove myself today i still all those things yeah and it's those things that you've learned how to use, engage, discuss, debate, discover what they're really saying, what the signal is, but they don't disappear. And I think that desire we all have is that the day they disappear, I will discover what my passion is and live my purpose and whatever else it may be. It's like, well, that doesn't happen for anyone. Good luck. Yeah, I don't know anyone, even the, like, I've been fortunate enough to meet so many amazing people. And it's like, there's

Even the best athletes in the world that have won everything still feel scared stepping out to the court. And you could be like, well, why? Because they've done it a million times. And it's like, no, this is a different day. Their body's different. Their energy is different. Different meaning, more stakes.

Everything changes. And so this belief that we all have is that one day will get to a day where from that day onwards, everything will be easy. And I don't know anyone who feels that way because they're just playing in a different league. And so you're just going up the leagues and every league is different challenges. What do you see? You work with so many young people, business leaders, CEOs, you have people of different organizations coming to you for advice. What do you see is the number one thing holding people back from having success in their life? So often, you know, people come to me and they're like, I just want you to tell me the marketing hack or the sales hack or, and I'm like, listen, that's where I started. I started in sales and marketing. The reason I talk about everything else I talk about is because I realize that that's not what ends businesses. So I'll give you a story to demonstrate this. You know, we had a company that we worked with and that company was like crazy growth. Like we started with them. They were doing like two million a year. Within three years, that company is doing 90 million a year. crushing it, absolutely absurd. They get a threat from a competitor. That competitor starts to point out

things in their marketing on their website, all stuff like of all these things that like they're going to try and take them down for and they're going to copy. And their competitor start copying other stuff and then threatening other things. Their competitor then serves them with like a lawsuit and it's like, hey, I'm going to sue you for this thing. And we're like, dude, they have no grounds. Like, don't even worry about it. And I know because like when I had my first lawsuit, I'm like, up at night, you know, like, oh my gosh, it's so scary. And nothing happened. So they get, into this lawsuit, within six months of the lawsuit being served, the company was at zero. The company was not at zero because of the lawsuit. In fact, the lawsuit ended and they won.

The company was at zero because the founder, she was so unstable that she ended up shutting down the business because she couldn't handle it anymore. And I remember being on the phone with her and she literally said, she gives me all these reasons, right? It's the marketing, it's the sales, it's this that they're giving me, it's this piece that they're serving me. And it all came down to, I was like, but you could do this, but you could do that, but we can do this. Like, please trust me, this is why I'm your partner because I can get you through this. Like, I've been in many lawsuits.

And she was like, I just can't handle it. And it was like in that moment, I remember I was like the number one reason that people cannot grow a business and that they don't succeed is because they cannot manage their own mind. They cannot manage their mind and they cannot manage their emotions. And I've just seen it so many times. I'm like, the market doesn't put you out of business. You put you out of business. The same thing happened during COVID.

I mean, we had thousands at that time of customers that were business owners that we worked with. And I saw the amount of people that COVID didn't end their business, their inability to manage their emotions during COVID is what ended their business. Because eventually they would just throw in the towel and they would make up some excuse outside of themselves. It was the market. It was the lawsuit. It was the fact that they told us they to be six feet apart, whatever it might be. And it always came down to the fact that they didn't want to tolerate those feelings anymore. They had a low frustration tolerance. They couldn't tolerate the feelings of uncertainty. They couldn't tolerate the feelings of frustration. They couldn't tolerate the

feelings of unpredictability. And I have just seen every big business that I've seen go down, which I've seen, I would say five more businesses besides one I just told you about. It was always because the founder didn't have enough emotional management. They could not manage themselves emotionally during those turmoil, like those situations that felt like turmoil. And I will tell you, there was a time where I was in so much pain. I could, you know, I was working from the couch every day. I had four lawsuits on my plate. I was having issues with some stuff personally with my family. And in my business, I was also, I had 12 direct reports. I had four new people I had just hired, and I was performing three days a week. And the only reason that I was able to do that was I was like, I am going to

double down on making sure that I can manage this. And it was the hardest season of my life, but I got through it and I'm better for it. That's what breaks most people. It's when everything collides at once. And then how do I deal with the uncertainty? How do I deal with the frustration, the anger, the anxiety? And then they just say, they find some reason outside of themselves and they point to it and say, that's why it didn't work. Every time. I did not expect that answer. Really? Yeah, it's a great answer. I really like that. I can agree with you more. And now I'm just starting to think about so many people that I know and think about people that even made it and won. And you're absolutely spot on that it is so much to do with the mindset and you choosing whether you're staying in business or not. Talk to me about that first uncertainty you face, that first lawsuit, that first whatever it was that you decide to choose to answer this question. What was that first? What was that first uncertainty you face? What was that? first moment where you didn't have, now you have all this evidence and competence of dealing with markets changing, managing big teams, acquiring businesses and taking them. Before all of that,

the first time you hit uncertainty, how did you manage your mind in order to find the evidence that that was the answer? When I started my first business, I was 23 and by the age of 24, I had 120 employees and the business had gone from like zero to 50 million in like less than two years. And so my entire journey of like one being very young, having never managed anyone before, having just been this person who was like arrested in drugs and all this stuff, it was the most uncertainty I've ever found my life. I mean, to the degree that it was the hardest period of my life because of the amount of uncertainty, it was also where I grew the most because I didn't let it, I think about it like the first,

the frog boiling, it's like the water kept getting hotter, and I just kept saying, like, how do I, how do I also raise with the water? And so when I think back to what I was able to do, I had to put in place practices to take care of myself. And it sounds, you know, trite. You know, people say, they're like, oh, taking care of yourself, that's soft. Well, there's nothing soft about winning. So that's what I say in return to that. I learned very early on, like, what are the things that I have to do to maintain my sanity throughout all of this? And so, you know, I remember, I would have meetings starting at 8 a.m. And it would be going until, you know, 6 or 7 p.m.

And I said, great, then I'm going to get up at 4.30. I'm going to journal. I'm going to walk. I'm going to make breakfast. I'm going to have coffee. I'm going to listen to or meditate, whatever it might be. And then throughout the day, I was like, I need one period between a break here where I can take 10 minutes to get outside, go on a walk.

And I have been ruthless about doing that my entire career. I know what I have to do to keep myself in the right mental state. I have to have, I look about, think about like this, I'm pouring my cup out all day. And I'm also being that person that's there for everybody when it's uncertain. And I know it's uncertain because I'm feeling uncertain about it. I have to fill my cup back up. And it sounds so cheesy. But it has been the key to why I've been able to continue doing this. And I'm obsessed with studying how do people that are high performers keep, not, I don't care if you can win for five years. I really don't. I don't even care if you can win for 10. I'm like, who can win for 30 or 40 years? And I realize that there's a lot of similarities. around those people. And so I studied that ruthlessly in my free time, which was when I got up at 4.30 in the morning and after everybody went to sleep at night. And so the biggest thing I noticed is that they will absolutely do the things that they know needed to do to take care of themselves. So I think about it like this. If you saw an athlete that was performing, you know, you've interviewed many of them, right? Let's say Michael Jordan, right? And would you expect that

he's pushing himself all day? Like he wouldn't take a nap. He wouldn't get a massage. He wouldn't do physical therapy. It's like, no, that's like part of the plan is that there has to be recovery because you're pushing very hard. Your body needs it. I think about business the same way. It's like, what do you do to recover from all the output that you're putting out there? And I realized really early on that in order to deal with the amount of uncertainty I was dealing with, I had to create these anchors for myself where I felt a sense of stability in my own life. Like I had some sense of control, because there's so much we can't control in life. But I had to have these areas where I had these like little nuggets where I could control things

and I could bring myself back into the state of mind where I remember like, why am I doing this? Right? And the reason why is like, it's always been the same for me, which is I want to be the best version of myself I can possibly be. And then people say, well, why would you want to do that? Well, I guess it's my belief about life,

which is what else am I going to do until I die? I would like to know what this body and soul are capable of. And so I'm just like the only thing that will stop me is if I wear myself out, I don't train like it's a marathon. I train like it's a sprint. And that's the biggest thing I've realized over time is I've just seen so many people that

they get started in something, and then the amount of uncertainty, they don't have enough skills to take care of themselves that they end up opting out. So I think about it like this. A lot of people that are high performers, we have these skills.

We can push really hard. We can discipline. We can press on the gas. But you also have to have these skills if you're indexing here, which is like, do you know when to rest? Do you know when to take care of yourself? Do you know how to take care of your mindset?

Or are you just white-knuckling through everything? Which that runs out because that's not, that's not, that's not discipline. That's just willpower, which we have a certain amount of, but I would like to save it for the things that matter, not the things that don't matter. That's been what got me through a lot of times of uncertainty is whenever I have more uncertainty in my life, I say, great, now that I have more uncertainty, what more do I need to do for myself to get through it? And I treat myself like I would treat a friend. It's like, I'd be like, great, I have a therapist, I have coaches, I have mentors, I have people I consult with, I have people I can call, I have friends I can talk to. Like, I try to collect all. all sorts of support for myself so I can support the amount of uncertainty I have in my life. And if I don't have people to support me, I cannot support the weight of the uncertainty that is in my hands. You know, it's like when you walk into a building, no one ever goes, oh, this place has

amazing foundations. Yeah. Right? You've never said that. If you walk inside a beautiful building, whether it's in New York or Singapore or anywhere in the world, you walk in and you go, wow, and you look up. And you go, oh, this place is incredible. like it's so high and it's so beautiful.

And then you don't realize that there's these really, really deep foundations. Actually, the taller the building, the deeper and stronger the foundations are. But you don't see them. And it's the same as what you're saying, whether it was waking up at 4.30, journaling, listening, finding space, meditating, whatever your version of it was, that's your foundation. And that's exactly what you just said. The higher I wanted to go, the deeper the foundations have to be. The more people I needed to help me hold that anxiety and hold that unsettling. which is so powerful because I think so many entrepreneurs believe they just have to do it themselves

that a really good entrepreneur is someone who just does it on their own. And yes, those people weren't helping you build the business, but they were helping you carry your emotions. And that's such an interesting connection because I think we think of business success as so separate to emotional human connection. And it's according to you, and I see you shaking your head right now. It's crazy to me that people think that. Like it's absolutely. Absolutely crazy to me. And I mean, I will say this. I think that there are people that are anomalies. For the amount of anomalies there are, there are a hundred more people for everyone that are doing it because they have that kind of support. Yeah. And I also think about like, what kind of life do I want to live? And I want to be great. Like, I want to be the best version of myself I can be. But I also don't believe that I need to do it alone. And I don't think anybody wants to. I don't think that's fun. Yeah. You know, that's just like people like I'm burnt out. I'm like, what do you do you have friends? Are you doing things alone? Do you have people to support you? It's funny. It's like such a correlation there. It's like, they're often like, no, I have like one person.

Yeah. And people always say that statement of it's lonely at the top, but it doesn't have to be because it's a choice of building that. And I'm thinking of something really wonderful, actually, because of what you just said. I've noticed that as my career has grown, I talk more to my oldest friends. Yeah. And I have less time today. So it doesn't make sense. So I moved to the States 10 years ago when I started my online work.

And I talked to my best friend who was my best man at my wedding. I talk to him like three times a week right now and I don't know where I find the time but somehow I do and I'm thinking that's the reason I do it I didn't even think about it that way until you've said it I just thought our relationship's just got better

and even though he lives in a totally different time zone we find a way to connect with each other but it's exactly what you're saying because my anxiety is increased and because the amount I have to hold is increased and the amount I have to give is increased I lean more on the people in my life that have been there the longest to know me

the deepest, who know me the best, and even if I'm doing it subconsciously, that is the reason why it's happening. Oh, a thousand percent. It's interesting you say that because like we, you know, we brought on a third partner, his name, Sharon, and we work together like all day, every day. And we had a conversation like two weeks ago. And he came to me and he said, I had a revelation last night. I said, what? He said, we both do better the more we talk. And he's like, so let's set up, like, because we'll talk in the morning at night, whatever's convenient. We're like, cool. So we set up three calls a week. We're like, let's just get them so they're on the books. And, and, And we were talking about it.

We're like, there's so much hard stuff to do. And it weighs on us. But if you can share it with somebody and that can support you, it just feels so much lighter. Yeah. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Od. And that's exactly what the show is about doing whatever it takes to be the odds. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers and breaking generational patterns.

I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Longoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me.

Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part. of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than no grip. A new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series. Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the under-explored pockets of F-1, including the astrology of the current grid. Lewis Hamilton, Crapicorn Sun, Cancer Moon. Wouldn't you know it, Michael Schumacher is also a Capricorn Sun, Cancer Moon.

the story of the sports most consequential driver's strike. We have one man who, upon hearing that he was going to be fired, freaked out, and apparently climbed out the window of the bathroom. And was Daniel Ricardo's illustrious F1 career, a success story, a cautionary tale, or some combination of both? He started getting all this attention, and he maybe started to think, I'm bigger than this, I'm better, and plenty of other mishap scandals and sagas

that have made Formula One a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 70s. 25 years. Listen to no grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist. And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur. Anyone can build an app.

And it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future. And we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI, companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this. We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history. And let's be honest, that can be messy. There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you.

But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment. Mostly human will show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit. The reason I say agency is because if we can give power back to people, then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health. Listen to mostly human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This idea of journaling and also taking a business from $2 to $90 million, there's this gap filled by discipline. Yeah.

Because getting up and like you said, you've never compromised on those habits in your career, and then being able to scale multiple businesses to $50 million your first or $90 million with the example you just gave. that takes discipline and consistency. But one of the things we see today in the world, I think people have started to recognize discipline's important. But it's the thing that we all massively struggle to build. People kind of will make, they'll post a video every day for a week and then give up. Or people will wake up and go to the gym for a month and then give up.

And we know that that's the common trait that happens. What's the difference between people who build discipline and those where it always breaks down? What's the difference between those two types of people? there's no difference in the person. I think that's like the biggest fallacy that I see people, like you're disciplined. It's like, no, you know how to build discipline. Discipline's a system.

And so the easiest way to explain it is that if you want to be disciplined, make it easier to do the things that you want to do to achieve your goals and harder to do the things that work against your goals. So a great example is this. People are like, I'm just not disciplined. You know, like I'm eating ice cream every night. I just can't seem to lose weight. Well, discipline, if we look at it like a system, you have a prompt in your house.

You have ice cream in your refrigerator. That's a literal trigger for you to eat the ice cream. So let's remove it. And then let's insert, I don't know, vegetable sticks or I wouldn't do that. But like I would do like a hot cocoa diet hot cocoa. That's a good one for me. And I would put it in the same place. And so it's interesting because like when I went to lose weight, I didn't say to myself like,

oh, you're a piece of shit because you can't lose weight. I was like, oh, I don't have good systems in place. how do I make it as easy as possible for me to do the steps that I need to do to lose weight? How do I make it as easy as possible for me not to drink? How do I make it? So, okay, let's look up each of those. Easy as possible not to drink. Easiest thing I did.

I lived with six people who all drink. What did I do? Move down. Like, it's so simple. But it's like half of the trigger, like I would say 50% of my desire to drink went away immediately because I was around people doing it all the time. And it was constant prompt, hey, remember, Remember, you like drinking, drink, drink, drink,

prompting me all day. Now, on the other hand, when I was like, okay, I'm trying to lose weight. The first thing I did, I did two things. I was like, I'm getting rid of all the junk food in my house. The second thing, I deleted and got rid of anything on my phone that I could order food with. Because what are the two ways that I'm going to get junk food? It's either me in my house, I'm going to order it. Now, if I want junk food, I'm going to drive.

Oh, my God. Now there's like so many reasons why I'm not going to do that. That doesn't mean, I think a lot of people think, in order to be disciplined, it means that you have more desire. No, my desire for that ice cream was hot. But there's so much friction to get it that it's just like, oh, fuck, I guess I'll just deal with the desire.

And most people have it working in the opposite direction because a lot of people say they're like, you know, they look at discipline, and I think discipline is just doing things consistently to get you to what you want. Lots of people do things consistently to not get what they want. You consistently eat the ice cream.

You consistently don't go to the gym. You consistently, so you have systems set up to make it easy for you to not achieve your goals. And so we have to switch those systems. That's it. So good. It's a terrible thing that so many people, like, you're not disciplined. No, you don't have the skill of building disciplined systems around you.

It's such a different way to look at it. And some of these things are very easy. Like, if you were to look at my phone, you know, when I open my phone in the morning, the first thing that I have is that I have a notification for Insight timer, which I use. And it says, like, time to meditate. I have meditated. It's now 179 days in a row. And that's when I first started, I'm going to meditate every day at this point in my life.

You know, the second thing I have is that I have my My Fitness Bell. And it pops up and I have a prompt on it where I put a little prompt for every time I eat, where it comes up on my phone as a reminder from my iPhone and it says, log your food. I don't, is that discipline or is it my environment reminding me to do something? Yeah. Memory is a liability. A lot of people think I need to remember. I'm going to remember that I want to lose weight and that I want to be an amazing girlfriend

and that I want to build a business, and my memory and desire should create the result. That is a fallacy. There are going to be so many things that take your attention all day. So how are you going to build in systems that grab your attention? Just triggers. It's like it could be a piece of paper. It could be a note you write for yourself. It could be not having the food in your house.

It could be a friend that calls you, a text you have. We have to make it easier to achieve our goals, not harder. That is the best breakdown of systems I've ever heard. Honestly, because I've heard this idea of systems before, but the way you just put it as to how we already have systems in place that are actually failing us. And I always joke about how to some people, like, we have the most miserable snack drawer in the world. And what I mean by that is it is full of great snacks, but they're all healthy because my wife will not allow for anything that has a certain level of sugar in the house, a certain level of this, level of this, level of this, artificial products, whatever. And it's almost like, when I was a kid, I thought, God,

if I ever had a house on a snacked road, be full of like, you know, sour patch kids and M&Ms and this and that. My wife was like, nope. And you're so right, out of sight, out of mind. It's the simplest rule in the book, yet we make it hard for ourselves. And then we think we're not disciplined people and we think we're not a good person and we think we don't care enough and we think we don't want it enough. And we think people like us don't get there and we internalize all these poor systems. And then you feel worse about yourself when it was never about you at all.

Because like you just said, if I had chocolate fudge cake right now in my refrigerator, that is exactly why I would eat tonight. That's what I desire. If you ask me what I desire right now, that's what I want. I'm addicted to chocolate. But if it's not available and you're right about the apps,

then I have to all this friction. And so I love the idea of creating friction because we think there's friction to get to our goals, but the friction is just what you already have around you. A thousand percent. You know, it's funny because I look at it in every aspect of life like, okay, you want to get married. And people are like, well, this guy cheated this and that. I'm like, well, he probably made it really easy to cheat.

And then they're like, what do you mean by that? Something that me and Alex was one of the first piece of advice that we got from, I'll say, a mentor when we got married. He said, if you don't want to cheat, don't go out with your single friends. And at the time, I just thought, okay, but then I really thought about that with this new lens later on. And I was like, oh, don't put yourself in environments where you're prompted to cheat. What's the easiest way not to cheat? To put yourself in environments where you're reminded of your amazing marriage

and to not put yourself in environments where you're constantly tempted to cheat. Yeah. And I think there's been a lot of studies on that that I've seen come out where it is like the more single friends that you have, the more likely you are to cheat. No way. Yeah. Versus the more married happy friends you have, the more likely you are to stay happy and married. It's like because your environment, the people around you, the things around you,

all the, that prompts you. Yeah. And so it's actually saying that me and Alex talk about a lot because, you know, either of us, for example, if we get invited to a bachelor or bachelor party, we say no. And we're like, well, why? We're like, well, they're just going to go out and get single and, you know, try and get with people. We're like, I don't want to put myself in that situation. We're not like, oh, you don't have enough willpower not to cheat on me.

I'm like, no, don't do it. I ain't going to do it either, okay? Like, we're just not going to put ourselves in the situation. Yeah. It's kind of like, okay, if I don't want to drink and do drugs, maybe I shouldn't go out past 11 because what happens after 11 with anybody sober, not much. Yeah. And it's also like why put yourself in a position where you're always testing yourself, right?

It's like your life's hard enough. Why are you making it harder to do the things you really want to commit to and push yourself? Because you're just testing yourself. Now every evening is an exam and every weekend's an exam. And it's like why are you trying to pass and fail the test? Because chances are you're going to be exhausted by the end of the week. You will fail the test, whatever that may be, whether it's waking up early, whether it's building a business,

if you're partying all weekend and you're surrounded by people who are not building a business, of course you're not going to wake up early on a Monday morning and get to work. No. Because you've failed the test

because of course you're exhausted and of course you've just been trying to live life. Yeah. Talk to me about this idea of work-life balance because it feels like it's still a big conversation and it feels like in today's generation

it's almost like seen as the biggest priority where we want to have the biggest win but we want to have the biggest break. Talk to me about how you've seen that in your life and in the people you mentor. I don't know if my opinion is popular, but I think that a lot of people talk about work-life balance because they associate work with pain and suffering.

And so I see a lot of people say I need work-life balance because they don't actually enjoy their work. And I think that's a skill to know what kind of work you will enjoy. When I tell people, I'm like, oh, you know, yesterday was a light day. day, I work 12 hours. You know, and it's like, what? But I work with my spouse. I have, I'm friends with all the people that I work with. I genuinely want to talk to all of them. I work with my father. I work with my family. Like, why would I not want to be doing that? Like, I enjoy it. I genuinely do.

And I find a lot of meaning in what I'm doing. And so I think that, one, I think that, unfortunately, a lot of work, like for people that have jobs, they've had such terrible jobs and they've let that kind of taint their vision, their version of like, what does work mean to you? And I get that because I had a terrible boss once. Well, actually, I had an amazing boss. And then a year after, he was the one that, like, got me into sales and, like, helped me get through that season. They switched him out with a different boss. He was a terrible boss. And I went from, like, loving my life to being like, I don't want to, I'm, like, crying in the parking lot. I don't even want to come into work any day. I feel miserable. And I remember realizing, looking back,

this is why people don't like work and work gets a bad rap, because there's so many people that almost like make the work so much harder than it need be because it wasn't work that I didn't like. It was him. And I think a lot of people have negative associations with work. And that also makes sense because you spend most of your time at work. Things are going to happen that are going to suck. Things are going to happen that might really rock you. But if you allow that narrative to stick, then I don't think you can get to this other side where work can act because you be something that you enjoy. So I think that's one piece. It's like I really feel like that's a difficult piece of it. And I also think that kind of goes hand in hand with like, and I see a lot of people who want to be entrepreneurs,

they want to have status, they want to have fame, but they don't want to be good leaders. And that is hard because I think that that also taints people's view of work, people that are not entrepreneurs, right? It's like, now you have bad leaders, you have negative associations of work. So yes, people like, I need to be done at five because this is painful for me to be doing this all day. I'm exhausted and I don't like it. But if you like it, if you like anything, you want to do more of it. And so when I thought about like, what do I want in life? I want work that doesn't make me want to stop working. Like, if I feel like I have to end at five,

which, by the way, you probably want to end doing anything at some point in the day, because you're just fucking tired. I don't know what else to say. Like, I could be with my husband and be like, I'm done with you. Like, we've been around each other enough today. I could be working out and be like, I'm exhausted, I've been in the gym three hours.

I could be talking to girlfriends. I'm like, I'm done. Like, we have nothing to talk about it for hours. So anything at some point in the day, you only have so much energy. But when you build this association, thinking that this thing called work needs to be, it's like this,

Associations to build that, it's something that you dislike, and it's hard and bad. We live in this world that is so freaking cool right now. So many people get to choose what they can do, and there's so many options. It's not just, do I get this job or this job, it's I can build this thing, I can do this online, I can become an influencer here, I can sell here, I can do, there's so many options. And I think it's mostly that people are optimizing for the wrong outcome, which is, I'll tell you this, this will wrap it all up. A lot of people sit down, they think, what do I want to, what they really are thinking when

they're thinking, what job do I want, what business? do I want is what are people going to applaud me for? And then because of that, they sign up for saying that they don't actually like. They're not good at and they're not engineered for. And then they don't like it. And then they need balance. When I started Acquisition.com, it was weeks of thinking to myself, what do I like doing every day? Who are the people I want to be surrounded by? What are the things I like doing? What could I see myself doing for 30 years? Then build the business off of that, knowing that I can still be doing those things throughout the whole time. That's why. I love what I do now, even more than my first business. My first business, that was not how I built it.

It was like, okay, well, this worked. It made money. Let's build it. And then I was like, why do I not, I need, I was exhausted. I felt like I needed balance. I, like, needed to not look at slack after a certain time. It felt punishing. And with this, it's so different. And it's because I engineered it to be that work is something I like doing. And so I think rather than thinking, like, how do I put more balance in my life? It's thinking, how do I make work something that I enjoy doing? And I don't think, that people put a lot of thought into that. And some people might listen to this and maybe think, well, Lela, I can't do that.

Like, I can only work this job. I only have this many resources. I only have this money. I mean, I can even tell you that when I was a cashier at a smoothie stand, I remember talking to my boss, and she inspired me so much because she said,

how can you make just every person's day better by working here? Because I said the job is kind of boring. I just want to go home. And so I made it into almost like a video game. I was like, how is it that every person that walks up? I can just make them smile when they walk away.

And it sounds so cheesy. But then I started liking work because I saw that I made all these people smile just by being a cashier. And then eventually, like, I didn't want to stop working. And it's funny because now I look back on, I'm like, that was one of the best jobs I ever had. And it had nothing to do with the work and everything to do with how I viewed the work. Yeah. And so I think it's like either, I think there's two ways you hit it, which is how do you make sure that the thing that you do for work is something you like to the best of your ability? And then how do you make sure that you don't have a shitty mindset about anything you're doing?

and a lot of people have such a negative filter at which they see everything in the world. They don't see the opportunity to become a better version of themselves and anything that they're doing that it just feels like this boring, tedious thing you're doing every day. It's like, yeah, but this right here,

the tedious thing you're doing is exactly what people who lose don't do and who don't become the person that they want to be. And so those are the two ways that I think about it. Again, probably not popular, but... But there's a great study that I read that backs up that point of view. it was a few years ago by

Amy Vriesniewski and her team at Yale. So in 2019, they went out across America to discover what they believed was the most difficult job in the States. And so they spoke to lots of jobs, interviewed lots of jobs, and they decided it was being a hospital cleaner. Now, this was before the pandemic.

You can only imagine how much harder it became, but I think we can all agree that being a hospital cleaner sounds like a pretty tough job. Cleaning plates, toilets, bed sheets, floors, cleaning up after people use those things, cleaning up after people pass away. So really tough job. So they went into hospitals and they interviewed

hospital cleaners. And these cleaners that they interviewed described themselves in their own words as low-skilled labor. They cleaned toilets, bed sheets, floors, etc. Then they carried on interviewing them and they found this other group of cleaners who called themselves healers and carers. And they were like, wait, what do you mean? You work the same hours. You get paid the same amount. You work in the same hospitals, you do the same exact jobs, but these cleaners call themselves cleaners and these cleaners call themselves healers. So they asked the healers, why do you call yourselves that? They said, because we believe that a clean hospital is integral to the healing journey of a patient. We believe that if the hospital is clean, people's family will spend more time with them in their time of need. They

won't want to rush out of a dirty place. And actually, if the hospital is clean, then people feel a sense of dignity at a really tough time in their life when they're going to the bathroom or when they're eating off a plate. And so how could we not see ourselves as part of healing and caring? Now, these people had more purpose. They felt happier. They had more meaning. They were just more positive about the work they were doing going back to your point of it wasn't the work. So Amy and her team coined this term called job crafting, which is this idea that it's not what you do for work that makes you happy. It's how you feel about what you do for work that makes you happy. And for them, they felt that they were healing people. And I'm like, wow, like if you can do that

as a hospital cleaner, like doing one of the hardest job in the States, then we can all adopt that mindset. We can all be job crafters. And I love that you've done that in your job, as you just mentioned. And I know I've done it in previous jobs when I was employed. And I think that mentality was what gave me confidence and competence and skills that has now led to a full-time thing that I'm doing. So cool. Yeah, it's such a cool study. I love it. Yeah.

I was so happy when I found it because I was like, wow, I always wanted to find a way of showing how meaning was so powerful and how making meaning is up to you. And that study kind of really put it into perspective. But in that, in making meaning, in people finding work-life balance and whatever that means to them and falling more in love with work, you talk. you talked about being a leader and that being a real lack today. I think one of the reasons why people don't like work is bad leaders. And one of the reasons why people struggle becoming successful is being a bad leader.

And leadership is your obsession. It's what you do day and day out. I believe is that the work you would say you chose to love every day? Like that's what it was to build leadership. What is actually the job of a CEO? I think the job of the CEO is to, influence the behavior of everybody in the company in a way that is effective for them and the company

when they're not in the room. It's a great definition. If I had to, like, boil it down to what it is. And, you know, with that, you know, maybe people vision cash. Talk to me about that story. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, when I think about people, are you taking care of the people?

Do you have the right people in the business? Do you have the right people supporting the business? Do you have the right vendors, partners, clients? So it's just all the things surrounding people. That's the job of the CEO. the first one, in my opinion. So that could be product market fit. That can be, I say, like, employee business fit. And that can be partners that you have. Do you have the right people supporting this thing that you're building? Vision, where are we going? Now, this has become

harder than ever for anybody because of AI. And I think that that tends to be difficult for people. But I don't think that your vision needs to be so detailed in that way. I think it has to be like, what are we trying to represent in this world? And for me, that's, okay, I have what I call like our DSS, our desired superior state, which is the quantitative and qualitative measures that I would like the company to be at in three to five years. And then I always tell people, like, by the way, it could all change. Because AI can come faster than we think. And so like, this is just like, but it's the ethos of what we would like to build. I tell people all the time in Acquisition.com, I say, listen, when in 10 years when people are talking about the company they build,

I want them to say I worked with Acquisition.com. I want people to hear the word business and think Acquisition.com. Not Alex and Layla. I say, I want them think Acquisition.com. That's it's a harder task. And then when I think about cash, I think about cash is outside of people, the most valuable resource in the business. So how are we allocating cash? Are we investing in things that grow the business? Do we have too many liabilities on the business? Are we, you know, what's our return? Like our LTV to CAQ, which is like how much money does it cost to acquire a customer? And then do we keep the customer for long enough that it makes sense for it to cost them to even get them in the first place? Those are all things that the CEO needs to be thinking

about at a macro level. And so I would say like after the leadership piece, like those are the three things that I focus on, like on a daily basis. And I would say like an underlying piece of that is like you're kind of chief everything officer, which is like the biggest problems, the messiest things, like they all come to you. And it's interesting because like, you know, Alex owns the company 50-50. So I'm founder of the company and CEO. I don't need to be CEO. Like you don't have to do both, but I really like the job. Like I genuinely find a ton of meaning in it and I love the craft of it. I love crafting the vision. I love figuring out how we're

going to get there. I love assembling the right team and people. It really is fun for me. It also has a ton of the bad feelings, but I find it worth it. I really enjoy that. What was that? D.S. Desired superior state. Desired superior state. I was missing the middle word. I loved that. Yeah, I read a book by Salim Ishmael called Exponential Organizations in like 2010. and he had something that he called MTP, which is massive transformational purpose.

And so he was saying that companies like Uber, Google, they all have an MTP. And so Google's was organizing the world's information. So we think it's building an ads machine. But it's to your point, their vision is organizing the world's information. And organizing the world's information can be ads, email, Waymo, driverless cars, right?

Because all they're doing is organizing data. Maps is organizing the world's information. information and that's their vision of what they're building and I always thought desired superior state is just such a better way to think about where are we going because it allows for like organizing the world's information is relevant in a hundred years and it's relevant 10 years ago and it's relevant in three months yeah it's always going to be relevant it's not building a search engine which if it was then AI has replaced that and it's irrelevant to your business now yeah so it's such a I love the desired superiors

period of stay. I've never heard that before, and I like that. I like that idea. If I love the breakdown of people vision cash is like very specific things. When was the last time you looked at a resume? Yesterday. Oh, wow. Okay. Actually this morning. No way, really. Yeah. Wow. Because you're that embedded in every single person that comes through. I have plenty of people in place to do that, but there are certain roles that work close with me. Like right now, we're building out our family office separate from acquisition.com. And so looking at the person that's going to help run that, I'm looking at their resume, because that person is going to be like a right hand for myself, because that's a little, it's interesting. It's like once the business becomes big enough,

you have a family office and a business and it's like a, it's an interesting place to be. But yeah, so I was looking at the resume. I will say this, like when it comes to looking at resumes now, it's a lot different than it used to be because people use AI to write the resumes so often. And so I think the importance of interviewing is actually more than ever, because people can BS their resumes six ways to Sunday. And lots of people also, you know, there's a little quippy things people do. Like they'll be like Harvard business. It's like, okay, you got a certification online. Great. You didn't go to Harvard Business School, which I don't know if I give a shit about either of those things. But I don't like it when people lie or try to make it

look a certain way. Yeah, that's not fun for me. I'm like, listen, I want to community college. I'm not judging over here. I will say that when it comes to looking at the resumes, now it's more of the skill of the interviewer. And I'll tell you what I've found to be like the skill of the best interviewers is they do not trust what people say they trust what they do. So what does that mean? People are like, hey, one of our values is be honest. Can you tell me about time when you were honest? Why don't you just ask them something that would prompt them to either lie or be honest? Yes. You know, for example, when I say sincere candor, which is one of our values, and I say people have to be able to give and receive hard feedback. And so one of the things

that I do in a final interview is I look at all the red flags that my team has given me on a person. and then I say, great, I'm going to read them to them. And so I'm like, hey, I get on the interview and I'm like, so this is the number one red flag that my team has about you. Can you give me a little insight on that? How they respond to it tells me if they have the value of sincere candor. Me asking them, do you have sincere candor? Is irrelevant?

But if in the moment they're like, that shit, you know, why would they say that that's totally and they start defending and they start fighting me, which 50% of people do. Interesting. Yeah. Then I'm like, oh, no. But then when they're like, wow, I really see that and I am working on that. Great. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Yeah. The same comes for competitive greatness. People are like, how do you see that out? I'm like, in the negotiation. And they're like, what do you mean? Competitive greatness by our standard is people that are looking for the work because they want to be the most excellent version of themselves, not because they want the most money. And every single person in our company that embodies that has taken, has not gone to, you know, a crazy, you know, Yale and

Harvard teaching thing or a crazy consulting job or a CEO job because they really believe in Acquisition.com. And so usually they take even a pay cut, even though we pay well. And what I've noticed is that when it comes down in negotiation, if somebody tells me like, no, I'm competitively great, I'm doing this to be excellent. And they're like, hey, I need an extra 10 grand. And these are people that are already being paid well. This is not like a, you know, this is well above six figures. I'm like, are you really competitively great? And so then I tell people, I'm like, no, don't give it to them. And they're like, why? And I'm like, because that's not competitive great. And so I don't want them on the team.

it's like, don't tell me, show me. It's like that's the biggest thing. You don't tell somebody who you are, you show them. So what are the observable behaviors of the person I'm interviewing? How do they respond to the email? What do they say when I ask this question? What are they negotiating through the process? What do they say matters in the contract?

Like, that is how you break somebody down rather than ask them a question. I'm like, this is just BS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so true. I couldn't agree with you more. I think those questions are so outdated. and it's amazing how when you actually ask a question that's also a surprise to someone how well they deal with it

as opposed to the example you just gave. I wanted to, so talking of AI and resumes. Oh, yeah? So we created two resumes on AI. And so we want you to, we want, I don't want you to tell me which you'd hire because they're for different roles, but I want you to tell me, well, actually,

they're for, they could be for similar roles. They've done different things. So we asked AI to build two resumes, and I want Leila Holmose to rate them and give some feedback on each resume. Can you do that for me? Yeah. You can take your time as well.

Here we go. Okay. All right, resume A. And it's AI made, so they're not real people. Okay, I'm not going to offend Alexander chain. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, starting off, engineering executive of 12 years leading platform,

infrastructure organizations through high growth and enterprise environments, vague language, not detail at all. So it's like, okay, it's vague engineering executive. What does that even mean? Are you a CTO? Are you a leader engineer? Are you a principal engineer? Platform and infrastructure organizations through high growth and enterprise.

Like, have you noticed that people put so many words? All the time. On LinkedIn profiles, that's all I ever see is just random words. Just so many words. No one outside your industry even understands. And especially people like us who are building outside of industries or new industries that may not have existed. It's kind of a bit like, I have no idea what that is. It's very ambiguous.

known for disciplined execution, architectural clarity, and building durable systems. So this is what I would call corporate fucking jargon. It just sounds like you think it sounds cool, but it's unclear. I think the best thing you can do

on your resume is be clear. What were you? I was an engineering principle at two startups that went from $30 million to $300 million. I built out there. AWS servers. I built out there.

That's what I would be going for. Selected Impact. Led 20 engineer platform, infrastructure. So you're using, they use, okay, supporting 18 million MAU. What is MAU? Yeah.

I don't know. Directed multi-year migration from monolith to modular services, reducing critical incidents by 41%. Decent. Reduced cloud spent by 23% through infrastructure consolidation and performance optimization. Okay, but can you back it up? Establish company-wide architecture review council to standardize technical too much jargon. Education.

So this one I would say is short and vague. So it feels like not a lot. Like I don't know who this person is. by reading this resume. I don't feel, I don't see what they've done in organization. I think one of the biggest things when you build out a resume is the beginning is very clear about who you are and what you do. Why should you listen to me is what I think for like an entrepreneur for a resume. It's, why should you keep reading this? That's what you've got to do in the first. It's like, that's the headline. Yeah. And so this is a very boring headline with a lot of jargon. So I'm not

going to pay attention. So instead I need something that catches somebody's attention. And then I'm going to go went to let me give you the proof. So it's like, let me catch your attention, hook, and let me prove to you why that hook is true. What was the best catch your attention you ever saw? I actually think the best that I ever got was I had a candidate instead of anything, he actually left me like three emails with voice messages. And I was like, what the fuck is this voice message? And the title of it was like, I swear these voice messages are not a scam. And I was like, what? and then because I wasn't even paying attention and then I opened up

and I listened to this voicemones. I swear to God, this resume is not as bad as many of the others you're reading and it was just like a hilarious voice memo that he sent in with his resume that was the best thing I forgot. Yeah. It's like trying a novel way to do it.

I'm sure you have as well. I have a lot of DMs from videographers or editors that want to work with us and I love that. I take it as such a massive compliment and it means the world. The reality is we get so many of them that it's hard for us to really look at them

and we might even be missing amazing talent sometimes. So I try my best, my team tries our best, but of course, you miss out on some. Now there was one guy who sent me reels and pictures and he said, I took Junie with me, which is mine and my wife's tea. I took Junie with me to Hawaii this weekend, and I thought I'd make some content for you guys.

And he sent some pictures of like Junie underwater and like Junie like being thrown around and it was in Hawaii and it looked beautiful. And I sent it to my team immediately. I was like, guys, we need to figure out who this guy is. Now he works with us. Yeah. And he's a contractor with us.

He's not full time, but we bring him in to do certain. And I'm like, if he hadn't made those things, that was his way of doing something novel. And it was a cool story. It was like, I took it to Hawaii. And I made all these, you know, piece of content that really represented like the flavors and the trouble. And it wasn't, I'm not saying he made like 27 things. Yeah. He made like two pictures and two reels that were great.

And they were short and simple. And we were so, it was just so. easy for us to know that he had the skill and the talent that we wanted. And going back to your point of being novel, I think it makes such a difference. And it stood out immediately. The show don't tell. Yeah, show don't tell. Going back to that point too. I mean, I would say if you're like, what stands out? Because we get the same thing. It's like people who rather than tell me what they're going to do, they show me, they make a slide deck, they make a presentation, they make a loom video, they edit content ahead of time. I mean, we have a guy on our team. His name's Maddox.

he was in high school and he was making so many clips of Alex someone on the team DMed him and was like dude what are you doing he's like I'm just doing it for fun they're like do you want a job

and he was like sure and now he moved to Vegas works in our office Maddox is like one of the youngest ones we can't go to anywhere that can't do 21 up because of Maddox but that's awesome

he showed us we were like oh he has the ability he was clipping six clips a day wow I was like great do that for us yeah exactly I love that all right next one All right, next one.

Take a look. If it's any better. Jordan Patel, engineering leader with 11 years, regular partner CEO during, honestly, this looks very similar. I think that the difficulty is, one, is this actually what AI does for resumes? And that's so sad.

Literally. It's really bad. It's really bad. I think what it does is because it doesn't have detail, it fills in a filler language. And then it makes things very difficult. But that's what humans do too, funnily enough, right? Like, that's, we get a lot of that.

Like, I feel like a lot of LinkedIn profiles, a lot of stuff I read. It's to what your point that you're saying that show don't tell I feel like a lot of what we get is telling. Yeah.

Yeah, what would be your feedback? What would be your take? Because you also mentioned earlier that AI, a lot of people are using AI anyway. I think there's a couple things which is like you want to tell your story. That's what a resume is.

People want to be able to read it and know the story of who you are and what you've done for your work. And so when I say the first piece is a hook, it's like even when I'm posting for a job, I'm starting with why I even do this, I have this business. Why does it exist?

What are our values? values, resumes should start the same way. Like, why do I do this for work? Why am I interested in engineering? Why am I interested in operations? And then what are my values and what do I abide by? And then here's a, essentially like my story, right, which is all the proof. And so you just think like, okay, let me go through my story from most recent to least recent. Let me tell them everything I've done and accomplished. And you talk about the things that you have been able to accomplish rather than the skills that you say that you have. If you've accomplished those things, things, then by proxy, you obviously have the skill. And what are we looking for in resumes?

We're looking to know that the person has the skill to do the job. If you say you have the skill, that's one thing. But if you show it by increased this from 8% to 12%, you know, decreased cac by 20% by instituting a campaign for ManyChat on the Instagram. I think that how is so important too. Correct, because you cannot BS it. Yeah, because I see so many people say, grew a channel from 2 million to 200 million. I'm like, but tell me how. Oh, I've got 100 people online who have done that for me. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's what I mean, right? And it's because it's like, how did you do that? Like, you just said, like ManyChat or I understood YouTube from this and thumbnail strategy. Like, I want to know the strategy too because that's the thing I'm believing because I know how to do that. But I need to know that you know by telling me how you did it. What was the strategy? What was the method or the approach? A thousand percent.

So I think it's like, you think of it like there's a hook. There's the proof, which is telling them the how. So it's like, okay, they're not BSing me. And then I actually think that every resume is a CTA, which is like, this is what I would do for you if you hire me. Yeah. These are the first things I would do. Or some people will be like, I will do X and Y for free through the interview process if you've already read this resume. Yeah.

That actually has really gotten my attention because somebody then saying at the end, like, here's what I, they're not waiting for you to tell them what to do. They're saying, hey, if you give me the green light, I will do this immediately and then you can actually see my work. Yeah. They're offering up some sort of free work samples, some sort of, you know, like something for free to show you as the CTA. That's very good. I love that because it already shows you they're a self-starter and it already shows you that this is not someone I'm going to have to micromanage and this is not someone I'm going to have to handhold and tell them what to do every step of the way. This person's actually going to come in and maybe even have an influence on the company, which is what you want is someone influential. A thousand percent.

And I think most people nowadays at least are just like letting AI write everything for them. And they're not thinking, what does this person really want to know from my resume? They just want to know that you actually have the skill to do the job. What's the best way to show them you have the skill, to show, not to tell. How can you show through paper? And that CTA point is huge. I just want to say that I've never heard that before. And also, I think we think about resumes too much as a bio sheet.

Like it's just like a date of fact, like just back to back where I've worked. and you just said it's a story of who you are. It's an introduction to who you are. It's proof of who you are. It's a CTA of what you're willing to do. That is completely changing the way we view a resume. And you're so right that if any leaders saw a resume like that, it would stand out instantly because you're not getting resumes like that.

No. It's just not happening. They're not. And I also think nowadays with social media, like they're going to take your resume and they can verify your places of work, et cetera, with all sorts of things. Like, there's no hiding anymore. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called The Gets, against all odds, and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be thoughts.

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What do you believe is the most overrated leadership trait? One of the more overrated skills is, I would say, like, when people say, oh, he's really motivating. And it would probably be, like, loud, maybe, like, boisterous, charming. Some of the best leaders that I have in my organizations are the quietest people. And it's because I think that the best leaders don't need to take the credit. They're giving the credit constantly, and they're actually taking the blame. I've seen time and time again, people who are the loudest get the most attention. Maybe people like to watch them do something.

I'll put them in a leadership position and then they fail. And it's not because of the fact that they're loud, but it's because typically people are loud or people who want attention themselves rather than want to pay attention to others. And I've just seen that time and time again. Like I have two leaders I can think of in my company who are so quiet. But when I walk into their team meetings, they are such amazing leaders. They're praising people, building them up, investing in their team,

having hard conversations, and they don't need the credit. They just want truly to do right by the people on their team, and that's all they care about. Like, they will live and die by that. You know, we see anomalies of people who are, oh, yeah, like this. I'm such a great leader. I mean, even for me, like, I'll just tell you, like, Alex says all the time, he's like, dude, like, your biggest issues, you don't take credit. Like, he's like, tell people what you've built. Like, I tell people and they believe me more than you because you won't, like, take it all. I'm like, well, because we did it together. Like, we did it. I didn't do it. And it's, it's a lot. And it's, like goes against my leadership instinct. And I really believe that the best leaders that I know,

which I know have built multi-billion dollars companies, et cetera, they all say the same thing. Like I know it's so hard. Like when you go out in the public and you're doing PR, you're doing this and you've got to be like, I built this thing. They're like, it feels awful. I'm like, I know. And I think that that's how most great leaders are. Now, I think you can have a boss, but I think that's very different than a leader. Because if you have a great, you know, if you have a boss, then that's somebody who maybe has the title and the authority. But when they're not there, people don't act in a way that helps the company or themselves. And so I wouldn't say that they're a leader. Yeah. Should a leader aim to be loved, respected, or feared?

I think that whether you want to be those things or not, you will be all of them. Unfortunately, a lot of how a leader is seen is through the past experiences of people that work with them. I would say that I am love, respected, and feared by people in my company. I think that the difficulty is this. If you want to be respected and even loved, you will also be feared. because you have power. And anybody who's in a leadership position, the reason why people fear somebody in a leadership position

is because they have power. What is power? It means that they can change something in your life. So now you fear them because you fear, what if I do something that makes them angry? What if I, even if you see that they're the nicest person,

there's always the what if? What if the bear, you know, the tiger that has been so nice that I've been petting, what if it turns on me, right? And so anybody that's in a place of power will always be feared because people always wonder,

what if they use it to do something bad to me? And I do not have power to change their life, but they have power to change mine. So I think that's a default. Unfortunately, it's going to come with anybody. I think that's why leaders need to overindex on praise, etc. I would say that the way that I see respect and, like, getting respect from somebody

means that I see respect is letting something maintain its state, meaning they try to not interrupt your day as much as possible, not throw you off, not deter the path, also not mess up anything in the company. Like when I think about respect, I think about like, I'm going to let you be you. I'm not going to interfere too much. When I think of loved,

I think of people would sacrifice a lot for you. How much are they willing to sacrifice for you? And so when I think about great leader, I think that they are respected and loved in the best situations, which is the people on your team want to let you maintain as you are. They're not trying to change you.

They're not trying to interfere with your day. They're not trying to, you know, I would say like interfere with anything that's going on. And at the same time, they would sacrifice a lot to keep you as their leader. I think you want both of those things in an ideal situation. I think that the difficulty day is that most people don't know how to do both. It is so much easier to yell at people than it is to learn how to get people to respect you and like you

and also do what you need them to do. That is so much harder. It's like why is it that people at a fast food restaurant are yelling at people? Because it's so much easier. You don't have to teach somebody to yell at people. And they're going to be feared because they're going to be scared and do it. what they say because that person is power, whether they're a leader or not. I remember early in my career, I always coming from my monk background and how we were trained

in empathetic leadership and servant leadership, there was such an energy of me wanting to love the team. And obviously when I was starting out, I had a very new team, everyone hadn't had a job before, people were, this was their first job because that's what we could afford as well. Yeah. And I found it so fascinating that people didn't know how to receive love because probably before then they'd only ever been controlled by fear. So whether it was at school, whether it was their parents, whatever it may have been, it was fear was the language. And then it was almost like love was just going over their head. And I remember reading Daniel Coyle's Culture Code. I don't know if you've read that book.

It's a really good book. And he talks about in the first chapter, he talks about how like the core leadership trait you need is not love or control. It's safety. And he's like, if people feel safe, they'll perform better. And I was like, oh, that's like, that's like, that blew my mind. I was just like, because to me also, I was like, I'm an innovative leader. I've always felt when you challenge people and when you are pushing for greater things. And he was like, no, people just don't feel safe. And they can't receive love or they can't respect you or they can't, or they'll fear you because they don't feel safe. But the other two have to be there. And I was like, wow, safety is something I never even thought about because I've always considered I'm safe.

Yeah. I feel safe in the chaos. I feel safe in the discomfort. As an entrepreneur, you get used to that. And then I was like, oh no, but everyone's, I'm always considered. I'm safe. I feel safe. I feel safe in the here works with me because they want to feel safe. If they loved being unsafe, they'd be an entrepreneur. That's what they would do. And so it's just a fascinating thing. And I love what you're saying about how you inevitably will become all three. And so you can't hang your hat on and say, I just want to be loved. I just want to be respected. Hopefully you don't just want to be feared. Naturally, you'll become all three. But you just said, knowing how to balance them is the hardest bit, what have you developed, what are the skills and tools you've developed in order to allow for that safety,

in and amongst all of these three. Yeah, I think the first is like finding yourself on, like, there's the scale of, you know, when you think about, there's like carrots and sticks, right? And everyone tends to lean to one or the other. Either you're all carrots or you're all sticks. And that typically means you have a weakness on the other side. So for me, for example, like, I was all carrots. I would praise people. I would acknowledge people. I would like pour into somebody and just believe in them and hope for the best. I'd be like, they're going to do amazing. And I always saw the best in people. And that meant that some of this other side, like having the hard conversations, challenging people, pushing them to grow, et cetera, it was week 12, 13 years ago. The first place is

asking yourself, are you carrots, are you sticks? Where do you tend to lean? And it's like, okay, great, then I need to work on the other side. I need to work on the thing I'm bad at, right? And so then I said, okay, I've got to work on this one. I've got to work on using this skill, because I've got this skill down. I don't have this skill down. And so I think that's the first place that we have to start. When it comes to, I would say, like, learning that skill, I think about it in terms of reinforcement, which is just like getting something, you know, what happens after an event. And so a lot of times what I would do is that any time something happened, it's like I do, I praise them, I say it's okay, I reassure, I do something positive.

But then I realized that there were cases in which people didn't abide by the culture. Maybe they were mean to somebody on the team. You know, they did something unethical. That requires a different skill. That's, okay, I need to make something less desirable for them to do again. Okay, well, what does that look like to show that? And so, you know, I have found ways to do that that feel right and ethical to me, but also reinforce the entire picture, which is either end that you're coming from. It's not about the one person that you're talking to in the moment. It's about the team. And so, do I need to use more carrots or sticks? I don't know. What's best for the whole team? I think about like this, I tell all my leaders. Everything that you do is seen through a microscope

and heard through a megaphone. So assume that every conversation you have will get put on blast because it will. Everyone will tell everybody. And so how do you want the team to feel after this conversation that you have that is in private,

but that you're having? What do you want them to say about what you did? What's going to reinforce the culture we're building here? And then people like, oh, that's a really interesting way to frame it.

I'm like, right. So we have to think in the frame of the team. Like, I see it as like the job of the leader is you're the coach. If you were thinking of a basketball, I always think of John Wooden, right? I'm thinking like, you're coaching the team. You have to keep the culture, which means like there have to be some sticks. There also have to be carrots. I think it's the ratio that you have to pay attention to. And also knowing your natural proclivity,

match with the player's natural proclivity. Some people are going to test you all the time. And they are not really faced by you kind of like fighting back. It just doesn't phase them, right? They're just, that's the culture they come from. There's other people who, if you even look at them sideways, they've already punished themselves seven times this Sunday. So there's There's nothing you could say that hurts more than what they've done to hurt themselves. And you just, you kind of have to just be there for them and allow them to just tell you what they did wrong. And so I think there's, when you're a leader, I really think that one of the most underrated skills is being a chameleon. It sounds crazy.

And some people say that sounds manipulative. I don't think it's manipulative if you're trying to help people achieve their goals at the same time. And so I am a completely different leader to my CFO, to my president, to my CFO than I am to my creative producer. my director of brand, my director of sales, my customer service rep, I do not act the same to any of those people. When I walk into the sales room, what do you think I'm going to be leading with? Well, it's usually like 25 to 30 year old guys who are all rah-rah all day. I'm like, what's up guys? What's going on? Like, let's get it. Then when I walk into the media room, I'm like, hey, I'm like, love that clip. I'm so good. Let's look at this. You have to be able to be flexible. And so I think it's knowing

what side you come from and then working on that other skill so that you have tools for any situation that you come into. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's being able to speak other people's language, not expecting them to speak yours. Like the idea of, if I'm going to, I always said that, you know, when you grow up in England, you go to Europe so much, and you always hope that everyone speaks English, and it's so ignorant to do that. Yeah. Because if you could go to France and speak French, and if you go to Italy and speak Italian and go to Spain and speak Spanish, like you'll have so much more impact, as opposed to just going there and hoping everyone speaks English. And I feel like leadership's always like that where you're going to someone else and speaking English and hoping they

know. Yeah. And it's like, well, no, that person responds to the rah-rah motivational speech and that person is the softer touch. And like you said, the example of your great leaders who are really quiet, they require a different sense of importance and significance. And I think that's what's always been fantastic to understand as well is how do you reward people and how do you give feedback to people? Like I feel those two things are so unique. Like some people want to be rewarded in public. Some people want to be rewarded in private. Some people want it at the big company event.

And some people just want to be told every day. Like you're doing great. Like keep going. And I feel like that chameleon approach is so important to figure out. I don't think it's manipulative at all, actually. I think it's a really good point. How have you learned how to give feedback without losing someone's faith, loyalty and connection to the mission?

It's actually really easy once I understood it, which is you're not giving them feedback about themselves. You're giving them feedback of how to achieve their goal. If you don't know someone's goal, you cannot give them affected feedback. Because feedback is essentially the discrepancy between where they are and where they need to be, want to be, which one? Well, I would say it's kind of both, which is, for example, when somebody first comes in, I'm like, what is your ultimate goal? Why do you want to work here? I need to know because I need to know what you want to get out of this job. and then say, you know, I have a person to see level who said, one day I want to be able to be, I want you to deploy me to be CEO of one of the operating companies. And I said, okay, great.

So every time I see something, my brain is going, is he acting like a CEO of an operating company? And if he's not, what is the gap? And the gap is the feedback. And so every conversation I start with somebody when I have to give them feedback. I'm like, hey, I start with the goal. I don't start with them. You want to be CEO of an operating company one day, right? I'm like, yeah.

I'm like, okay, cool. In service of that goal, here's some feedback I have about that conversation. If you were the CEO of the operating company, you would say it like this rather than how you said it. So two things. Anchor to the goal. You start with that. You have to frame everything that matter. It's kind of like when you're with your spouse. It's like, we want to be married forever, right? In fact, I've done this with Alex many times. I'm like, we want to be married for life, right? You still want that? He's like, yeah. I'm like, okay, cool. If we want to be married for life, I would love if you did this instead. And that's the second part, which is I'm not going to punish them for. what they did poorly. I'm not going to say you did this so shitty. I can't believe you didn't get me this for Valentine's Day. You didn't, you know, I can't believe on that meeting. You said that to your team. It sounded so stupid. I'm not going to focus on the past. I'm going to reorient them to what they need to do better next time. Do this instead. It's a complete skill in a zone to even think do this instead. I teach peers to give feedback this way too. They're like, well, I didn't

like what they did on that meeting. I said, what should they have done instead? They're like, well, I'm not their boss. I'm like, shut the fuck up. You can tell them what they could have done instead. it's actually very powerful to get it from peers. And so it's, I'm going to anchor to the goal and then tell them what to do instead. So, for example, in that situation when we had this meeting and I was watching this person

was aspiring to be a CEO, he gave feedback to somebody in a way that was very timid and it was not clear. And so I said, hey, in service of that goal of wanting to be a CEO, here's how I want you to give the feedback next time. Say this, and I give them a script.

So often, people are like, they just don't have the skills, to give the feedback or they don't have the skill to have that conversation or they don't have the skill. No, they don't have a script. It's not a skill, it's a script. You just don't know the words to say. Someone just needs to give you the words to say it sometime. And so when I'm giving feedback, it feels very easy because I'm on the same side of the table. I'm trying to get them to the goal that they shared with me. It's actually very similar to sales. Sales has been incredibly helpful in learning leadership, which is you told me the goal. My job is to get you to that goal. Okay, I'm telling you that we're not on

the path right now. So I'm also going to tell you what the path does look. like and then you just need to walk it. That's it. And it makes it really easy. That's the best feedback advice I've ever heard. I'm going to use that all the time now. Really? Yeah, no one's ever said that before. I've never heard that. I've heard so many different ones that I've liked, but that is without a doubt the clearest one because I love the idea of making feedback not about the person and not about their performance in that way, but in reference to where they want to be because then it becomes obvious that they should do it. It's not about them as a human or, Not that it ever was, but I think so much feedback just sounds like, you could do this better.

And if you did this, then you could do this. And it's almost like, well, no, if we just start at you want to be here. This is the role you want to have. These are the skills required to be in that role. And we're here to invest in you and help you get there. And we want to be a part of that journey. But this is the change we want to see. And I love the focus on the change of behavior, the change of focus, not stop doing this, start doing this, is such a brilliant way of switching the

conversation because to stop doing this or you did this last year is so demoralizing and depressing to hear. Well, I always ask people this. Do you want them to feel bad or do you want them to get better? And I will ask people that and they'll be like, I actually kind of want them to feel bad. I'm like, great, then you're not ready to give them feedback. Because if you want to make someone feel bad, talk about what they did wrong over and over and over again. If you want someone to get better, tell them what they can do differently next time to be more effective. I always ask myself, even when I'm really upset with something. I'm like, do I want them to get better? Do I want them to feel bad? And I'm like, a little bit of both right now. And I'm like, all right, wait until you just want them to get better and give feedback in that service. And I think a lot of people, the reason that when they give feedback, it feels so poor to people and people don't like to receive feedback is because most people don't know the difference between somebody and insulting somebody. An insult is when you associate is when you associate is somebody with something negative versus a critique is telling them the gap between where they are and where the ideal is. And so an example I like using is, by the way, I'm a fan and friends of some of the girls, but selling sunset. When you know, Mary is giving feedback to, oh my gosh, Christine. And she's like, you just, I need you just, she goes, stop being a bitch.

You literally just told her what not to do, anchor her into the past. And you told her to stop being a bitch, a negative association. And then they wonder why Christine is upset about this. And I'm like, well, you didn't tell her. She goes, well, what was I actually doing? And I remember the conversation. I was like, oh, my God, this is it. She's like, what was I actually doing?

And she's like, you were just being a bitch. Just stop acting like a bitch. That's all. She just stopped having like, bitch, okay? And then it's like, it wasn't specific. It didn't talk about Christine's goal. And it associated with her as something negative, which the moment that we associate someone with something negative

and we insult them, the immediate interaction with a human is I'm going to fight you. And so now you've just set it up for a battle. And so it's like, who wants to deal with that? Yeah. Whereas a critique is, hey, you said this. Say this instead next time. That's it. But it takes a lot more thought to critique somebody than it does to insult somebody.

I can just tell you, hey, you remind me of my last day. boyfriend that cheated on me. Hey, you really sound like your dad right now. It's like those are all very digging insults. Nobody's going to change their behavior based on that. They're just going to dislike you. So true. Talking about selling sunset and women in business, what something that women have been told they have to do in leadership, that's completely wrong. I don't know if they've been told this or shown this, that you need to be this very independent, hyper-independent, hyper-responsible person. and it almost creates this illusion of what a real leader is because I think going back to the first part of our conversation,

a real leader isn't doing it alone. And I think that in order to be great and to do great things, you have to depend on other people. I think the biggest lie that women are fed right now is that they need to do it all themselves. In order to be great leader, I actually think you must depend on others to do other things for you

so that you can do only the very most important things that you can do as a leader. And I see a lot of women, and I'll be honest, like a lot of women come to me And they are, like, they have nothing left to give. They have no time. They're exhausted. Their bodies are fighting against them.

They're having health issues. And I see it. It's coming from this place of wanting to be hyper-independent for the sake of wanting other women to like them. You know, and I talk about it. I'm like, listen, I get it because for the longest time, it was really hard because, you know, I'm married to Alex. We're business partners and it's like a constant, you know,

in the beginning, I was like, how do I, but I was like, I will never disregard my value or what I want in my marriage to create an image publicly. And so people are like, oh, well, you know, you must, you know, do everything or wear the pants. It starts going in that direction actually now. And I'm like, no, I depend on him for plenty of shit. And he depends on me for plenty of stuff. And why is that bad? Why is it bad?

I depend on him. I depend on my other partners. I depend on my staff. I depend on my friends. I depend on my family. why is that a bad thing? And why do I feel like right now, it feels like in culture, it's like women have to be able to do everything at the same time. Otherwise, they are not bad ass boss bitch. And I don't know how to do everything on my own, let alone at the same time. And I don't even have

children yet. So God, I don't know. But it feels like this very, this facade because I'm privileged to know a lot of the women. And I wouldn't want their life, the ones that try to look that way and try to be that hyper-independent. I wouldn't want it. It's lonely and it's exhausting. And at times, I think miserable because, you know, I've had seasons where maybe I felt like I need to start and I feel myself going into it and I also feel myself becoming miserable when I go in that direction. And I think for a lot of women, the biggest piece of advice I would give them is you don't need to be hyper-independent to accomplish your dreams. And if that's the cost, do you even want the dream? because who wants to get to the end

and have nobody to celebrate with? Not me. Because, like, winning, it's at the same time people always want these things. That's often why we do things because we want to accomplish something. But at the same time,

I always think I pick my goals because of the process, not the goal. And so if you don't enjoy the process, what is the point? And I wouldn't say enjoy. I said maybe find joy in the process. It's not going to be enjoyable the whole time.

I don't even know how to put words to it, but I do see that as, like, the number one issue I feel like with women right now is it's like in fear of looking soft we become hyper-independent and in becoming hyper-independent we create the misery we're trying to avoid

and that's all pressure that's been put on women as well to have to be that way I think women putting it on women Oh women putting it on women What men want women to be hyper-independent I don't know a man that wants a woman to be hyper-independent than what use does a man have Yeah so it's coming from within

I think within and from women wanting to prove something It's almost been like a rebound effect I think that there is a common ground. I think that you can be soft and be hard. I think that you can be kind and be fierce. I think that you can be really smart and really beautiful. I do not think that you have to be either one of these things. And I think that you can be very independent

and also choose to depend on people, not because you're incapable, but because you choose to. It's so interesting hearing about that because, yeah, you're spot on. You're absolutely right about just that, false pressure and that pressure is on everyone like that pressure of showing like we talked about as an entrepreneur even that I really don't like that title of self-made yeah because it's just like it proclaims this idea that like I'm going to do it all on my own and that's what that person did

and we've been talking this today it feels like that's been like the trend of our conversation or the underlining of our conversation which is whether it's your friends whether it's your partner for you whether it's the leaders in your company the organization there's so many people who are embedded in your journey of success and it's unhealthy to try and do it yourself or even make it look like you're trying to do it all yourself. Yeah. It's crazy. And why, I just think it's not cool. Yeah, no, for sure. Tell me what little Leila thought her life was going to look like. So if we reround back to 16, 18, like what did you think life was going to look like? from that vantage point.

I thought, like, actually I thought my life was going to look like. I thought that I would be successful. I thought that I would get into business. I never pictured it would be as big of a business as it is. I thought that I probably wouldn't get married until I was like 30-something. I thought that I would be probably doing something more when I thought about like what business I was going to start. It was fitness.

So I thought I'd be like totally in the fitness industry completely. So I had an idea of a vision for myself that was not, it's not like that hasn't been accomplished, but it was so much smaller than the vision I have now. And I think, you know, it's funny because like people used to be like, what's the vision you have for yourself? And I always felt like wrong for not having this enormous one. But I realize now I'm like, my brain just needed evidence that it was even possible to get to the first step. And I actually think it's worked really well for me because with every vision I set for myself or for my companies, I'm not thinking, oh my God, what is the absolute biggest version of what this looks like? I'm thinking like what is a very like a challenge, but something that I think is doable, though very hard.

And so even for myself, that's been really helpful for me because I'm I'm naturally a more insecure person. and I also set goals primarily because of who I want to become, not because of what the outcome is. And so for me, it was like if I could become that person that could build a business that could make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and I could really be helping people and bettering their lives, like that would be awesome for me. Like I remember saying like if I could just help, you know, 20 people, 10 people and like really impact their lives, like I would feel really good. and it's so much more than that, which is kind of crazy to think about. But I think at each level, I mean, you probably experience this. It's like you take one step and now all of a sudden the sky is clearer. And each step you take up the sky is clearer and clearer and clearer.

And I don't know if that's a deficit on my part or just how it works, but it's helped me because I think looking back and I think about the vision I had for myself, I'm like, wow. If only you would know, like I always hoped to be built for, something bigger, but I think it's like a mental trick of mind that I undershoot because I don't want to beat myself up if I don't accomplish it. I have flaws. What are you still insecure about today? Plenty of things. I think that I feel like, you know, I think sometimes when I look at my self, my perception of myself, like my brain, I'm like, I feel like I'm a little weird. Like doesn't make sense. Like I'm like, I don't know if I make sense sometimes. And I think I'm a little quirky. I talk weird sometimes, sometimes not as articulate as I want to be. I would say I make a lot of weird faces. I think insecure about these things.

I think I've been, okay, I'll tell you saying I'm actually insecure about it over this last year. I've changed my mind about a lot of things over the last year. And that's been something that at first I was really insecure about because I felt like, do people now think that I was lying or playing them? But it's like, no, I've just changed as a person. But it was really hard for me at first. I was like, I don't really know how to talk about this. You know, I think when I first started making content, I was insecure about a lot of things.

I was insecure because, like, everybody would call me and be like, you're just married to Alex. And I was like, oh, my God, I wish I was insecure about. And we're like, God, I wish I wasn't insecure about that. I'm like, I don't. Because I never want stuff to get to my head and not forget that I am flawed human. And I actually deeply appreciate that for that and for the fact that I wanted to get over, you know, feeling badly when people would say those things. And so I had a challenge for myself is that for a year, I just read everything.

I read every comment someone left in relation, and I did nothing. I didn't respond. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't let it ruin my day. I didn't comment back. I did nothing because I said, I want to expose myself to the stressor

and teach myself it's okay. And I kept making content. I said, I'm not going to stop no matter what. And then at some point it kind of turned, and then people would say more nice things than bad things. But it's made me very humble. I've kept a lot of humility, which I mean, I would hope I would have anyways, but I think sometimes life helps us out. And the second thing is that it really taught me how to do things

when people are constantly judging you. And now I say, I'm like, dude, I don't even care what happens anymore. Like, there's nothing that could feel more demoralizing than some of the comments I had in the videos that were made about me in the beginning. There's no, I don't, I was like, I'm trying to think about it. I even chat GPT it. I was like, there's nothing. I don't think there's anything that could now test me to that degree. And I'm so great. for that because I'm so proud of myself because I'm genuinely unbothered now. And I think what it taught me is the price of greatness is being misunderstood. You are going to be so misunderstood. And if you spend time trying to get the critics to understand you, you're never going to achieve the greatness because

they're going to be distracting you. It's like you're on this path. And it's like they're constantly trying to pull you off and distract you. And I'm like, no, I've built so much of that muscle. I don't care what they say. Another video can go viral with a million views about my voice. And it's like, I don't even care. People are like, don't you want to comment on it. on it and tell, nope, don't care. Genuinely don't care. And I've, I feel so happy with myself for doing it because that is such a

hard place to get to when it comes to criticism. And I think, yeah, that was something that was insecure about for a long time. And now I feel like, like I would have never brought that up on a podcast and be like, God, now they're going to Google it. Go ahead. You know? It's like, it makes me me. And I am weird and flawed and unique, and that's okay.

I appreciate you being so honest and vulnerable because I think it just shows that someone who's so successful and a huge public figure has not had it easy to get there. And I think often people do the opposite. They say people are only there because of their looks or only there because of this or only there because of that. And I think it's fascinating because then when other people do it and they also make it, then we say, oh no, but you can't do it with that looks or whatever that may be.

And it's just they're all excuses. They're all excuses because the reality is that the reason why people are listening to and taking your advice is because it works and people are feeling value from it and I felt listening to you today. I picked up so many great insights that I'm going to use tomorrow in my company and I'm like, that's huge. Like that's the real impact. And all the other stuff is like stuff we don't control and don't, you know, aren't in charge of. I had polyps in my throat years ago and lost my voice. And when my voice came back, it was really squeaky and soft and like really like a bit not high, I wouldn't say high-pitched, but it was soft.

And then it slowly got back to where it is now. And I just remember when I first spoke it, I was like, oh, my God. It was a scary, yeah. It was a scary feeling because I was writing on a chalk. I was writing on a small whiteboard for what I wanted for lunch and dinner to my family. Like it was, I lost my voice fully. And so I'm like, having a voice is like such a blessing. And like the fact that we can go around making fun of people for that in 2026 is ridiculous.

Like I just, I find it crazy that we're still living in a world that, on one end of the spectrum cares about mental health and how people feel and tells people to be more mindful and then makes fun of, like, ridiculous physical appearance or whatever it may be. I think people feel like they can put people down who have what looks like a good life. It feels like it's justified, at least something I've noticed.

And it didn't start that way. No. I always joke, I'm like, mac and cheese on the inside. Still, like still mac and cheese, little trash on the inside. Like, it hasn't gone away. Like, I don't know. There's only so much you can do. I understand because like there's a lot of people who see people with money and power and status

and they think they're just trying to do evil and they're this and that. It's like I, I think maybe 15 years ago I would think that about some people. And then it takes you a while to realize like for me it's like I have more of that than I could have ever imagined and I am literally the same person. Just amplified. Like I think I have more ability to show my empathy to show my strengths. I also, my weaknesses are also amplified. It's like it just amplified everything, but it didn't change anything, at least not for me. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little

different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Lave, maybe. Davis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name. And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more. Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny.

Share each day with me each night, each morning. Say you love me. You know I... So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lori Siegel, a long-time tech journalist.

And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur. Anyone can build an app. And it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future. And we're going to break down

what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to real. is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this. We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history. And let's be honest, that can be messy. There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you.

But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment. Mostly human will show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit. The reason I say agency is because if we can give power back to people, then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health. Listen to mostly human on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl. You may know me from my It Girl series I've done on the streets of New York over the years. Well, I've got good news.

I am bringing those interviews and many more to this podcast. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also. talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work with the women's shaping culture right now. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard and you have to push the narrative in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Each week, I have unfiltered conversations with female founders, creatives, and leaders to talk about ambition, visibility, and what it really takes to build something meaningful in the public eye. Because being a it girl is,

isn't about the spotlight, it's about owning it. I think the negatives need to be discussed and they need to be told to people who maybe don't do this every day just so they know what's really going on. I feel like pulling the curtain back is important. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You believe you can be successful and still have deep values and be a good person. I will tell you this. Like there are so many deals, businesses, partnerships that have come my way that have been so, like, you know, multi-nine-fews.

figure opportunities. And I just, I have no, I am so happy to say no to because they don't align with my values. And like, I think the reason why I can do a lot of the things that I do and be willing to accept a lot of these negative feelings and things that happen in life and uncertainty and hold the space for people is because I look at it, like I, I think about this every day. I have a board of directors. I was like, I don't actually have board directors, but for me, my board of directors are my values. And my values are what I orient everything I do by. it's like as long as I'm acting in accordance with my values, no matter how it feels,

I find a sense of joy in the process because I am who I say I want to be. And I think at the end of the day, it's like if you can accept the shitty parts of life, but then still orient yourself towards a values-driven life, that's all that matters. Like money and everything, like, listen, people used to tell me money won't make you happy, and I was like,

I'm going to find out, okay? And then, you know, I got there. I'm like, yeah, really doesn't make you happy at all. In fact, sometimes it can make you more unhappy. You have more problems and more people don't like you, which, you know, I'm privileged to say that. But still, it's just interesting how it works. I think the only thing I think about now is just every single day, how do I live by my values is what it is. You know, I think I'll give you an example of that.

So we had, I don't know if you remember the Texas freeze. Yeah, so there was the Texas freeze and they emailed everybody in our neighborhood. And we lived in a really nice neighborhood in Texas at this point. And they said, hey, like, if everyone could. turn their heat to 50, then we can get everyone through this freeze. And we have a lot of kids in the neighborhood. And I was like, oh my God. So I turned the heat down to 50. Alex is like, I'm fucking freezing. What are you doing? He's like, seriously? And I was like, yeah, dude, we've got to turn down. I'm like, there's kids. And we have the neighborhood just had a baby and like all this stuff.

Six hours later, they're like, hey, we ran out of heat. So everyone's going to feel it soon. I was like, how did that happen? I was like, we turned it down to 50. Everyone turned down to 50. So I'm in a text thread with like six other neighbors. And I text them, I'm like, I don't even understand. And they said, oh, we turned it up. And I said, what? They like, I turned my house to 85 to 90 to the. And I said, what? Why?

And they said, well, I'm not about to, you know, it's once we did lose the heat, I didn't want my house to be super cold. And I just sat there. I remember Alex was like, oh, my God, Layla, I can't believe you're the only one that turned it down. I said, honestly, I don't care. Yeah. Because the fact that I couldn't, I can't be that person that's like, yeah, let the children be cold. No, I'm going to sacrifice my comfort for them because that's part of it. my values. I have the value of being in service of others. So it's like everything I do is going to

orient to that. And if that means I have to suffer more than so be it. I feel the same way. I mean, I grew up in a home where we didn't, we always had just enough. And that's how we got by. And if we ever went to someone who did well, it was always like my extended family would always use the language of, oh, they make dodgy money or, you know, it's a bit shady what they do. Whenever we went to someone's a nice house. And we had a small house. But whenever we went to a nice house to a friend or family or wedding or whatever it was. It would always be like there was something wrong about what they were doing that they had money. And I think I grew up for a long time feeling the same way. And it was only when I had to rewire my entire relationship with money to recognize,

you know, at one point I remember having like 200 million views and being four months away from being broke. Wow. And I was like, wait a minute, this makes no sense. Like I'm having all this impact and people are saying I'm changing their life. But like, I'm living in scarcity and I don't really understand why I'm still in that way. And it was all because my belief was you had to be broke to do good. And I had to really look at that because I was like, wait a man, I'm going to give up doing what I love that helps people and impacts people because of this value that I have that isn't true that I've adopted somewhere. And now being an association. And association. And now being on the other side and being like, oh, well, actually, I've realized the value in being able to have more to

do more good. And that was my, that's what became the value. And I started to realize that, yeah, like, people who have more can, can have the opportunity to do lots. And my parents had amazing values. They didn't have a lot. And they still did a lot. And so that came, that value came through as well of like, you can do a lot with a little. But if you could have more, then how much more could you do? But it's, it's a fascinating paradigm that we have to work against because I think it's also the, it's also the mindset that keeps you stuck. Like the mindset that, oh, because we're scared of our own success and our own potential. we're scared we might change.

Yeah, that's a tough one. I think through, do you remember Spider-Man? Yeah. Remember in the moment where he's like, Peter, with great response power comes great responsibility? I think about that when I think about money. It's just like with great power comes great responsibility. And I think about that a lot for myself.

At the same time, when I first started doing, you know, just getting into business. I mean, I had the same belief, which was like, I just want to help people. And if I just want to help people, then like the money will come. Well, not really. Yeah, exactly. I know lots of very well-intended people that. Totally, I believe that too.

Don't understand how to make money. And so until I learned how to sell and how to market, didn't matter how much desire I had, I didn't have a system. Yeah. Like, creating money is building a system that generates money. It's a form of discipline. Yeah. It's a skill. You know, I see it the same way because I think, I remember I read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and that like changed everything. It was like, oh, my God, my dad was a poor dad. Love you, Dad. But you were.

And I was like, wow, I've just had this negative association with money. I need to build positive ones. So if I do good with my money, then I think that will help me change my perception. And I did, and I still do, and it makes me happy. I love how complimentary this episode is to Alex is. Yeah? It's so good, and it shows why you're such a great team.

So anyone who's been listening to this episode, make sure you go listen to Alex. And anyone who's listening to Alex, make sure you come listen to this one, because it's this perfect balance between, like, Alex kind of came in and talked about all the, like, marketing systems and the funnels and the sales and, you know, like the breakdown

and you're here talking about everything from Valiener, to the belief system, to managing people and thinking about what businesses and how they're building and where they're going and how to find the right teams. And it shows why you're such a great partnership because it takes all of those things to run, like you said, at the beginning of this, not to run a business for the next five to 10 years, but a business that lasts 30 years. Yeah. It needs this. And for a business to be successful, it needs what he was talking about. And I'm sure you share some of those skills as well, but you can tell how complimentary they are. We are completely obsessed with completely different things in business, and it works well.

It shows and it's awesome. Layla, we end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one sentence maximum. However, sometimes I break my own rules. So question number one, what is the best business advice you've ever heard or received? The only skill that matters is leadership. Your business starts out small. You can do everything.

As your business gets bigger, you have to start doing less and less of things. as your business gets really big, if you want to be good at something, you have to be completely all in, diabolically good at that thing. At some point, it doesn't make sense for the founder of the company to be good at anyone's skill in the company

because the skill outgrows them because of the volume and the size of the company. And so where do you get the most leverage? You get the most leverage understanding leadership because leadership influences all the people that have all the skills. How do people act, you're not in the room. If they act in a way that's in accordance with their goals and the

company goals, then you're an effective leader. And that means that you can multiply all the efforts of everybody else in the company rather than doing the effort yourself. Time, time again, I will find myself maybe fixating on something in the business. Then I'm like, what am I doing? This is not where I get the most leverage on my time or my skill anymore. And so at some point, that is the only thing that matters. And it is the only place you're going to get the most leverage. Like, you cannot at some point, outsell, out customer service. out finance, out legal leadership. Question number two, what is the worst business advice you've ever heard or received?

Do what you love. I think instead of do what you love, a lot of people, one, I don't think they actually know what they love. Two, think that they love things they're not skilled at. And three, I think it's taken out context. I think if you want, in my opinion, better advice. do stuff you like with people you like in an environment you like. And if you do that and you engineer the business to do those three things, then you will probably be able to stay in the game,

long enough to have a really successful big business. But just doing what you love, I'm not sure that that is a complete picture of what the best advice is. Because if I just did what I love, well, I also love baking and I love fitness and I love talking about mindset and I love all these things, sometimes the hard thing is that when you build a business, you think, I'm going to do what I love. But when people think that, they think, okay, well, you love to bake. So I'm going to get into, I'm going to open a bakery. Well, eventually, you're not going to be baking at all. You're just running a company that bakes as a product. And so do you love running a business or do you love baking? Very different things. Very different things. And so I think that when it comes to business, that's very poor advice,

because even if you start off doing something you love, baking the pies, you do not end there. Totally. And that is why I think. a lot of people end up miserable because they're a baker of the pie. They're not a constructor of the business. Yeah, great advice. I was thinking, my first love is football, soccer. Like, I love football. Like, anyone who knows me knows.

And it's like, I've never thought about, first of all, I could never be a football player. I was never good enough. So that wasn't, if that worked, I would have, that's what I'd be doing. But it's like that, that was never going to happen. And I don't want, I love it as, and I love it as it is. I almost don't want to be, like, everyone's like,

oh, would you ever wanted to be a coach? And I've worked with athletes coaching them on mindset, which I love because it's my business, it's my work. And it's my passion too, I do love it. But if you think about what I love, love growing up, it was a sport, but that's not what I've ended up doing and I'm happy about that.

Like, yeah, it's sometimes better to leave it be that passion. I agree. Okay, I've got this little what? What is this? So, if I had a million dollars to invest in your business,

what are the top three piece of advice you have for pitching for money? First thing I would say is that you've got to show them the meat on the bone. Nobody wants a bone that's been chewed to bits that looks like a piece of shit and there's no meat left on it. So the first thing that you've got to show people is where's the meat left on the bone? So for an example, when we were selling gym launch, we said, you know, we've tapped this piece of the market. We have small, you know, small group class gyms. We haven't tapped big box gyms, yoga studios, Pilate Studios, Pilate Studios, cross.

We haven't tapped any of that. And so then we said, what's the size of that? How much meat is left on the bone there? That's the first thing is that nobody wants to buy a business that has run out of opportunity. Yes. And a lot of people, unfortunately, come to investors too late when they have run out of opportunity. Right. That's the first piece. It's like where, where do you have opportunity meat on the bone? The second piece is when you're pitching somebody to invest in your business, I would say that you're selling them on the team rather than yourself. I think that when people look at investing in a business, specifically myself, it's like great if it's an amazing founder, but you're one person. And if you die, get hit by a car, anything happens, then like, who's behind you? And so I'm like, I want to know that the team has got this business, not just the founder. And so you're going to have your team on the calls, have your team in the pitches, have your team be able to do the pitch. I mean, I did that when I was selling my company. It's like, they were literally there pitching the company because I was like, you think that I run this business and I'm in the day to day, watch the people who actually are. Like they'll pitch the company for me. It's like, what's a bigger move than that?

So that's the second piece. And then the third piece, probably specific to me, but I think it is the way in which you go about the negotiation, that tells me more about the founder and about the company than anything. And so if I were trying to, if I were an entrepreneur, I were trying to get someone to invest a million dollars in me, I would demonstrate through the negotiation process of trying to get the money the type of. the type of person I was. Because at the end of the day, you pick the jockey, not the horse. A great entrepreneur

can turn a shitty company into a great company and a shitty entrepreneur can turn an amazing company into a piece of shit. And so it's really about them and how they show up during the process.

Are you early to calls? Are you late? Do you show up well? Are you prepared? Are you calling in with, like, I have people that they would call in. They'd be like, sorry,

I'm on the road right now. It's like, I'm immediately like, okay, to sit down and take this call is how seriously you don't take our investment. It's how they treat you. And I think that that says a lot about somebody. How they're going to treat somebody that they're trying to get money from, I would assume that they treat you better than anybody because they're trying to have you give them money.

But if they don't, imagine how they treat their team, imagine how they treat their employees, their clients, not well. Yeah. Question number four. What's the one thing for each of these stages? What's the one thing a company needs to focus on to get to our? 100K in revenue, to get to a million in their first 100k in revenue,

their first million in revenue, and their first 10 million in revenue. What's the difference in what they need to be focused on? So to get to your first 100K, you need to sell one thing to one person through one channel, one-one-one. Like so many people,

they're just scattered-rained. And they're like, I've got, you know, I've got this type of client, I've got this, I'm working with hairdressers and then, you know, coaches and fitness. And I'm like, no, no, no. One avatar, one channel, one sales process.

That's it. You have to keep everything super simple to get to 100K. Now, in order to get to a million, it's actually not a lot different to that. It's, you have one channel, one avatar,

one way that you're selling, one product, but then you have to learn to be consistent. Because to get to 100K, you can have a good week and a bad week, and then you can try for a week,

and then turn your marketing off, and then you can post content one day and not the next day, and you can get to 100K K being really inconsistent. To get to a million, you have to have some element of consistency in place, which is, are you able to do the same things? Can you take 20 sales calls a week every week, not three weeks, but four weeks a month?

Consistency is the, like, it's basically the amplifier on there to get to a million. And then to get to 10 million, you have to then get other people to be consistent for you. And so... That's great. Love that. Right. It's how do I get other people to do those consistent actions so that I can, and then what you're going to go do is build the next probably product tier,

which is typically when you get to $10 million, what you realize is that you're like, oh my gosh, I actually have, I think I need a different product for these customers. I have a lot of customers I'm selling into this thing, but they're not all happy. Why is that?

Well, because you actually have, you need a different product for this different type of customer. In order for you to build that, you can't still do this other stuff that you've been doing to consistently be at the million or seven figure mark. And so you have to get other people to be consistent here so that you can go build this backend here and then probably branch out to your next channel, et cetera.

That's the way that I see getting from zero to 10. Love that. I'm going to add a 4B because you're giving such great advice. I have to ask you one more question before we get a five, because five's always the same for everyone. So my second question is, to that regard, is if someone's in their 20s, what are the top three skills they should be building right now? No matter their job, no matter what industry,

what are the top three skills you'd say they should invest in? patience, patience, patience. It is like the rarest thing that I see nowadays for people in their 20s. And I will tell you this, I have 30, 50, yeah, in their 20s, gosh, maybe 75 people on my team in their 20s. And the number one trait of all of them that succeed is patience. They are able to do the boring work, to focus on something, to not be distracted by shiny object syndrome, to not be distracted by what their friend is doing to make a quick buck online, and it pays freaking dividends.

I mean, we have a director of sales. This name's Jacob, shout out to Jacob. And we've known him since he was 16, and he's about to be 23. He's our director of sales for Acquisition.com. He runs one of the largest teams we have. He's 23. What does he have that other people don't have? I tell them all the time I use this example.

He has patience. When he came to us and we said, we need you to just be an SDR. This is our first company. He came to Acquisition.com. And he said, just call the phones. He never said, when do I move up? He never said, when do I do to this next? Nothing.

He just got ruthlessly good at the skill in front of him. And he did that so much, and he focused so much, and he was so patient, not trying to get to the next level, that he got so much better, so much faster. The irony of it is that when you're distracted with trying to move up so quickly or trying to get this next skill so quickly, you don't actually acquire the level of expertise in the skill you're focused on to get to the next level. And I see it with all of them. Yeah. It is the number one reason they are not succeeding is they are not patient. And I will say as somebody who's like a freaking advocate for patients, I have a lot of it. It is why I fucking crushed my 20s.

I mean, I hate, they're like, what do you say? If you were in your 20s, you would do different. I was like, I fucking crushed my 20s. I really feel proud about what I did. And I was very patient. I was never trying to get to the next level. I was just trying to get really fucking good at where I was at. I mean, I read, got 12 books on how to run.

a meeting because I'm like, I just need to nail this. And I think that patience encompasses a lot of different skills within it. I think focus. I think the ability to tolerate boredom. I think the ability to tolerate distractions. And if you can acquire those skills in your 20s, dude, I'm like, he's, I told him, I was like, I'm going to be working for you when I'm 45, okay? I love it. Fifth and final question, we asked us to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Leave everyone and everything better than you found. Yeah, that's a great rule. Yeah, well said. Lela homozy, thank you so much. This was, I learned so much, again so much. I know my audience is going to get so much value out of this

conversation. I hope you will keep coming back. I feel like there's so much more we could unpack together and so grateful to have you here today. Thank you so much for making the effort to travel all the way and be here with me. Oh yeah. It was awesome. Thank you, too. Yeah, thank you. If this is the year you're finally ready to start that business, level up your goals, or build real momentum in your life, you need to hear my conversation with Alex Hormosey. I have a very simple framework that I encourage people who are starting out to follow, which I call closer. So C stands for Clarify, which you begin the conversation like, hey, why'd you respond to my thing?

What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become a real. overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult?

NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka Neurolinguistic Programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on? Biggie.

You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable? Because I want to get confident. This is DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy, a new podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist, 12 months, 12 areas of your life. Money, love, career, confidence. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for your entire year. Listen to DJ Hester Prins, Music is Therapy, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Bailey Taylor, and this is It Girl.

This podcast is all about going deeper with the women's shaping culture right now. Yes, we will talk about the style and the success, but we are also talking about the pressure, the expectations, and the real work behind it all. As a woman in the industry, you're always underestimated. So you have to work extra hard in a way that doesn't compromise who you are in your integrity. You know, I like to say I was kind of like a silent ninja. Listen to It Girl with Bailey Taylor on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.