The Game with Alex Hormozi - Can you Breathe in High Altitude? | Ep 151

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

"The air only gets thinner the higher you go. And so if you constantly reach for growth, you will always be out of breath.” 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:(1:11) - Reaching for growth causes breathlessness.(1:54) - Understand your plan B.(3:39) - As you go higher, competition gets fiercer.(5:24) - Personal problems get in the way of business.(8:35) - List out variables to overcome feeling overwhelmed.(10:19) - Discipline is necessary to implement ideas. Say no.Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

What's going on, everyone? I wanted to make this. Actually, I accidentally hit the button and start recording while I was writing some of this I wanted to cover, but I'm going to take this as a sign that I'm actually going to make this. So 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 the air is 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 today I had two conversations, one with a woman who's doing about $6 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 small 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 year was like, I just wanna talk to you about this.

And I wanna know 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 had struck, both of the people that I was talking to, both were feeling overwhelmed. They're very different parts of their business, right? 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.

And the reason for that is because, in the beginning, I had no real skills, right? And so my base floor, like I was like, if my gym fails, I'm gonna drive Uber and Strip. This was genuinely my plan B, and I knew I could do, I could make 100 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 locations, 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 training, right? Probably wouldn't be that hard, right? You'd be like, I could do that. I get this like a 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 high. 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, the air is thick. You can run for miles and you don't get tired, right? And so as 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 of 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 feel overwhelmed, 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 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 up I was like, I get that, but I 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 that. 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 if the air gets thinner? or are they going to pull you down? Are they someone who's helping you?

Are they neutral? 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 business woman 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 insurmountable, 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'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 it. Real quick, guys, if you can think about how you found this podcast, somebody probably tweeted it, told you about it, shared it on Instagram, or something like that.

The only way this grows is through word of mouth. And so I don't run ads. I don't do sponsorships. I don't sell anything. My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward to whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast that you do the exact same thing. So if it was a review, if it was a post, if you do that, it would mean the world to me and you'll throw some good karma out there for another entrepreneur. 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 overwhelm. 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 bloodied up and we choose to keep going because that's who we choose to be. 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, right? 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 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 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 why you can't have clear outcomes. Put all of them 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. Then circle only the things that actually make you money.

Not what you think that makes you money, not the 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 mountains,

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 everyone 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 um 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 play. 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 can do that you will be able to breathe more easily and adapt to that

new level and that is how you were 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 try and 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 um and so i guess the question i'll leave you with is can you deal with high altitude lots of love have an amazing one day i'll catch you guys soon all right uh for all my people be on Thursday emergency emergency webinar diagnostic sale sick it's awesome be on it i'll see you like bye

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