The Game with Alex Hormozi - Can You Breathe High Altitude? | Ep 676

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

“Most businesses fail because the entrepreneur gives up.” Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) discusses the struggles of scaling a business and offers advice on how to deal with the pressure and overwhelm. He emphasizes the importance of having a plan B, focusing on what makes money, and having a supportive partner.Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.Timestamps:(0:36) - The high altitude of business growth(2:13) - Understanding your plan B(4:32) - The entrepreneurial journey: challenges and choices(8:27) - Focusing on what makes money(9:42) - The essence of entrepreneurship: discipline and focus(10:37) - Embracing the entrepreneurial struggleFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition(This episode is a re-run. Original airdate was on September 18, 2019)

There is no winning. The game is infinite. The point of the game is to keep playing. And so if you understand that that's the point, then you need to recalibrate how you view the game because there is no winning. You're going to keep playing. And so you have to think about is how do you want to play. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff to more people in more ways and build businesses worth owning. I'm trying to build a billion dollar thing with Acquisition.com. I always wished Bezos, Musk and Buffett had documented their journey. So I'm doing it for the rest of us. Please share and enjoy. What's going on, everyone?

I'm calling this for now. Can you deal with high altitude? And what I mean by altitude is not like high altitude training, you know, training in the mountains and whatnot, where it's harder to breathe because they're thinner, but the altitude of growing your gym, right, of growing your business. And the reason I wanted to bring it up is because the amount of times

that I get asked about bottlenecks in scaling a business or the difficulty of scaling a business or the trials personally, professionally of scaling a business, it's almost every single day. And like I had two conversations, one with a woman who's doing about six million a year, has four kids, and she was talking to me about the struggle

that she's having in terms of balancing her priorities. And I had another call with a smaller business owner who was doing, you know, probably half a million a year. And the thing, what was interesting is that the way that they were talking to me was exactly the same.

And to be candid with you, it's the same way that I would talk to you, is that the air only gets, thinner, the higher you go. And so if you're constantly reaching for growth, you will always be out of breath. And like, I just want that to sink in because like people look to me so many times for the answers. And this woman who was doing six million air was like, I just want to talk to you about this. And I want to know like the solution. And I was just like, you will literally never stop feeling this way as long as you want to grow. And the things that like, well, then the question is

like, how do I stop feeling overwhelmed as I continue to grow the business, right? So if you're feeling overwhelmed, we do. And the actions around that for me, and this is what I took, both of the people that I was talking to, both were feeling overwhelmed at very different parts of their business, right? It is first understanding what your plan B is. And so as I have grown in business and skill sets, my plan B has changed. The base floor of my building has elevated, right? And the reason for that is because, like, in the beginning, I had no real skills, right? And so my base floor, like I was like if my gym fails, I'm going to drive Uber and strip. This was genuinely my plan B and I knew I could do, I could make a hundred grand a year doing that and I

could start doing something else after I saved the money. That was genuinely my plan B. Once I learned how to make the gyms and I knew how to sell, I knew that selling was going to be my plan B because I had learned the skill of sales. And so I was like, I can go to a car dealership and I can make a quarter million a year doing sales just hustling. I know I can do that. And so that became my new base of the building. And as you continue to grow, it goes higher and higher and higher. And so now I can very, I can very comfortably say that, like, we'll be fine because of the skills that we've acquired. Now, what's interesting about that is that if you think right now to yourself, what, like, think right now, those of you who are gym owners, right, maybe multiple

location, whatever it is, how difficult would it be for you to go back in time with the skills that you have now and manage a personal training business? Like for yourself, like just be a personal train, right? Probably wouldn't be that hard, right? You'd be like, I can do that. I can just walk in the park, right? Because you've developed the lungs, right? And I bet you that when you started that business, you felt like you were hustling and dying, right? Because it was difficult for you at that time because the skill set that you had was not good enough, right? It felt like a stretch to get to where you are now, but now you have the lung capacity to breathe, thinner air. And so when you go back down to baseline, there's thick. You can run for miles and you don't get

tired, right? And so, as you have you, you have the lung capacity to breathe, and so, and so, you continue to go up the mountain, the air only gets thinner and the competition gets fiercer. The problems you have get harder. The decisions that I make when I make mistakes are bigger. I remember when I made my first $50,000 mistake. And I was like, wow, that was expensive. I can tell you two mistakes this year that now, at this level in business, have cost me over a million and a half dollars each. Real mistakes, right? The game just elevates. The poker chips just become different colors that you're playing with. So like the pressure doesn't go away.

And so if you if you feel overwhelmed to understand one, what's your plan B? One, you know that you can always like knowing what your plan B is, what the base of your building is can always give you peace because you're like, I'm okay. All of this is a game I choose to play.

I'm choosing to climb this mountain, which is one of the discussions I had with the mother who was doing six million years. I was like, you're choosing to climb this mountain. like this is your choice. You don't have to make it this hard. You can go down to three million a year and it'll feel like a walk in the park. But she's like, I want to grow.

I was like, I get that. But understand that that's your choice. Right. And so for everyone who's listening, you have a choice. You don't have to grow if you don't want to. If it's a tradeoff that you're not willing to make, that's fine. But just be okay with it. And be okay with the fact that like your stretch isn't going to be in this area of your life.

the next part about going up in the elevation in terms of dealing with high altitude is like can your spouse or partner deal with the altitude can they come with you the air gets thinner or are they going to pull you down are they someone who's helping you are they neutral or are they hurting right a lot of times like the things that are stopping people in their business have nothing to do with their business most times in fact it has nothing to do with their business most business problems are straightforward right it's the personal shit that gets in the way, which is probably why the number one, like, most watch or downloaded podcast is the entrepreneurial golden resource, which is attention, right,

is that they have other things they're bringing to the table. The smaller businesswoman that I talked to, she had all of these other things that happened in her life. Well, no wonder the business was stressful because she had no attention left over for it. And so small tasks seem insurmeltable, right? It takes more effort for them to happen. The mother of four, she has an entire family. She's got to do all this stuff for it. And she's got another site, another business. that she's running. Like, it's unbelievable. And I'm, and I'm impressed, but when I see someone who's operating at that level, all I can think of is, man, if you just had one business, you do so much better. Right? Because like, it's just the attention, right? You got, you're splitting

your attention. You're still able to operate at this level. Man, if you just had one thing to focus on, you'd crush you. Hey, Mosin, Asian, quick break just to let you know that we've been starting to post on LinkedIn and want to connect with you. All right, so send me a connection request and note letting me know that you listen to the show and I will accept it. There's anyone you think that we should be connected with, tag them in one of my or Layless posts and I will give you all the love in the world. All right. So let's get back to the show. And so that was ultimately kind of the last thing that I wanted to leave you with was so when you're feeling these, these moments of overwhelmed. First, understand that it's your choice to climb this mountain. We choose to be in the

arena. We choose to play the game. We choose to get bloody out and we choose to keep going because that's who we choose to be. Right. And the game never ends. Right. Everyone thinks they're going to win. There is no winning. I'm telling you, there is no winning. I have more money that I will need for the rest of my life. There is no winning. The game is no winning. The point of the game is to keep winning. The game is to keep playing. And so you have to think about it is how do you want to play, right? If you're going to stay in and not get beat out. And the only way you get out is by choosing out. Most gyms don't fail because, in fact, most businesses don't fail because they run out of money. Most businesses fail because the entrepreneur gives up. They say this is too hard. There's too much shit. This isn't worth it.

I just don't feel like making this sacrifice for this outcome anymore. And that's the point where the business fails most times. And so if you're in that vice, right, you feel the pressure. What can you do? Right? What can you do? First is understand your plan B. Second, stop doing everything that doesn't make you money.

Everything that you feel like you have to do, stop. The easiest way to do this is list out all of the stuff that you have in your brain. If you feel overwhelmed, it's because you have lots of variables in your head and you have decisions that have not been made. and they're partially decided and you keep changing them because variables change, right? And that's what you can't have clear outcomes. Put all of them on a piece, like on a piece of paper, on a whiteboard or whatever, right? And then arrange them and organize them into categories. And then once you see them, all of a sudden the problems and the noise in your life will start going down.

I do this regularly. I download stuff on my whiteboard. And that's what you usually see in the background is I start getting stressed and I'm mind up. Right. Then circle only the things that actually make you money. Not what you think that makes you money, not things that's good for you. That's good for the blah blah, blah, branding, whatever. The stuff that feeds you and then erase everything else.

And give yourself permission to just do that. That's it. Nothing else. Because when the air gets thinner, your vision gets foggy and you have to focus on fewer things. And what I can tell you is that the higher up I go and the more guys I talk to who are higher up in the mountain, what you can see across the board is singular focus, is they know exactly what they're doing and the one thing they're focused on from a strategic perspective as an individual, as a company, is they're focused on one thing.

We're not going to beat them in X, Y, and Z, but we're going to be the best at this. That's what we're going to focus on. And so one of the signs of a new entrepreneur is because they have a million ideas and they just want to vomit their ideas on you, right? zillion things that they want to do, all of this potential, great. You have vision. So does every. Ideas are easy.

Implementation is hard. And so what you have to do is develop the discipline to say no. And that is what allows you to climb the mountain and be able to breathe and not suffocate because it gets thinner and harder the higher up you go. And so all that to say, if it feels hard, it's okay. It doesn't mean you're not succeeding. In fact, it might mean you are succeeding. Because it feels hard for me all the time, right?

It feels hard every day. And that's okay, because that's part of the game and we choose to plot. And so if you are not sure what's going to happen, you're stressed, know your plan B, know what it is, so that you can believe that you're going to be okay, no matter what, and then look at all the shit that you have to do, cut out everything that doesn't make you money, and just focus on that. and then be abundantly clear with the spouse or partner that you have that this is what you are going to do and these are the tradeoffs that you're willing to make and make sure that they are aligned with that.

And if you could do that, you will be able to breathe more easily and adapt to that new level. And that is how you are able to get to that level in a point where then you start getting bored there. And then your lungs, you're like, I can keep running here for a while. This isn't really stimulating anymore. And then what do you do? Inflict more pain upon yourself and trying to grow. And we do this over and over again because,

we're entrepreneurs because we're addicted to it. We're addicted to the pain, we're addicted to the struggle, and maybe you aren't, but I am. And so anyways, that's for you. And so I guess the question I'll leave you with is, can you deal with high altitude?