The Game with Alex Hormozi - Finding Your Perfect Business Match (on BiggerPockets) Pt. 2 - July ‘23 | Ep 612

Episode Date: November 11, 2023

“Which one of these is going to make you wealthier? (…) as boring as it might be, is going to make you way wealthier than going from zero to five.” Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) and his wife Leila (@LeilaHormozi) as they guest on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast to discuss their unique relationship dynamic and how they navigate working together as spouses. They share their advice on involving your spouse in your work and emphasize the importance of finding a relationship dynamic that works for you, rather than comparing it to others. This is part 2 of the interview.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.Follow BiggerPockets on:➤ Instagram | Spotify | Apple➤ Check out full episode on YouTube!Timestamps:(0:56) - Thoughts on involving spouse in work(4:33) - Alex and Leila's advice on successful relationships(9:14) - Advice on finding the right person to work with(13:59) - Make money doing what you're good at and enjoy(16:23) - Sneak peek into Alex's upcoming book(19:23) - ConclusionFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

The biggest mistake that entrepreneurs will make at that point is that they then look at the greener grass on the other side of the fence and say, man, wholesaling is actually the thing. I shouldn't be doing flipping. I should be doing wholesaling. And then what they think is they see they have uninformed optimism. Right. So they go into it being like, this is going to be amazing. And then right after that, they get, you know, six months in and they're like, I now have informed pessimism about this opportunity. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more per customer and how to keep them longer.

and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. So you have husbands and wives. You've got work husbands and work wives. For y'all, it actually ends up being the same. Dave is my work husband, as much as he doesn't want to admit it. And I'm curious, you know, like I am actually at a point my wife does not work at the moment. She really does want to work.

She doesn't necessarily, she's not super passionate about real estate, but she wants to be a part of the business, right? What are your thoughts on, you know, involving your spouse and your spouse? your work. I mean, I feel like y'all can probably speak to this. Nose goes. Oh, got them. I think it was different for us because when we met, we both were incredibly, like, voraciously focused on our careers slash businesses. And it just so happened that they were in the same industry. And we had similar views on what that looked like and, like, what we want our futures to look like. I have a lot of people that come to me and say, like,

how can I get my wife, like, interested in, in the business? And I don't really have an answer because it's like I, it wasn't like that. It was like, you know what I mean? And I think that, right? I liked it on my own and then I met Alex. Does it sound like he's saying, how do I get this employee that doesn't really want to be in this role to like the role? Is that the same? Yeah, it's like, you know, if she herself has voiced interest, then I think that you make it easy for her to acquire knowledge about it, but I think that people have to autonomously, like, if someone's really actually interested, then they'll be like, can I come to work with you? Can I shadow your calls? Can I do all of these things. They start taking things from you. They start, yes. I can do that.

They insert themselves. And so just like anybody else would. I don't look at it like, oh, it's your wife. I look at it like it's a person. If they have interest, then they'll find those ways to do it, and they'll be very eager. I think that a lot of people have a great marriage and then say, well, could we also do this together? I don't know. You know, I think that there's so many things that we learned in the beginning and that, you know, our natural skills that fit together eliminated a lot of friction. But there was still friction. You know, I think in the beginning of working together, even though we had similar mission, values, complementary skill sets, like still learning to work together was a skill of its own.

And it's an ongoing thing that we have to continue to learn and get better at. And I feel like, I feel like every year, I'm like, gosh, we've gotten so much better. Because it just continues to, like, it's not, and you're never finished, right? We, and so I think, you know, we had a very different kind of scenario. I think that there's a lot of people who want to enter that. But I mean, like it's kind of like I said earlier, like you pay the toll. Like there's a toll that's paid, which is a learning curve. And I think it's not a matter of like weeks or months.

It's years of learning how to work with your spouse. Yeah, I was just going to say that. I think we actually fell in business love before we fell into like romantic love. And I've said this publicly before, but like I think Layla and I both loved each other the day we got married. But I feel like I felt more in love with her the more we did business together. Because business was like our first date was only about business and it was four hours long. I didn't even ask her about anything else because she was like, oh, I'm like, oh, you see this stuff?

And she's like, oh yeah, I heard about these Facebook ads. This is years ago, right? And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm running those. She's like what? You know what I mean? Like that was the whole kind of, like that was four hours, right? And at the end of the date, I pitched her on working for me. I was like, hey, this might not work out, but you should totally work for me.

Did you still have the hangover? It was like the first time I drank in like two years. No, I felt okay that day. And at this time, she had a book of business already. So, like, she knew how to hunt. She knew how to kill. She had a full client roster as a personal trainer. And I was a gym owner just a few steps, you know, like a few career steps ahead.

I was also older than her. And so it seems divinely inspired that you guys got married. I'm sitting here listening to talk thinking like you couldn't have created in a lab, better partners for each other. I, yeah, I think that it was, it's very much like when people say, like, how do you win the game? It's like, you win in the draft. So what, I had two questions. One is, do you feel like you fell for her as a business partner before a romantic partner because your love language is business making money success?

You've mentioned that before, right? Which led me to the next question I was thinking is we typically do it the other way where we want romantic sparks. We want butterflies and we're like, I'll make all the practical stuff. work, but I really want to be attracted. You took the opposite approach. And from what we see now, it looks like the romantic stuff happens still. Like you didn't have to just wander through life until you found that person that exploded with passion. Do you think that's good advice for people in general that are trying to figure out who to marry? I will say that it has worked exceedingly well for us. And so I think Layla and I talk about this just on our own time a lot where like

all the relationships that we had before this kind of were those, you know, crazy chemistry, all that stuff. And in the beginning of Layla and I's relationship like literally on a second She was like, I just feel like you're like a friend type of guy. Oh, friends are like the second date. And he hadn't kissed me and I was like, what the hell? Yeah. Was that your way of trying to tell him he needed to do something different? Yeah.

I love it. Okay. And then I just gave like the most sickening belly laugh of all time. Yeah. And then it's never. First time my entire life I'd ever been like my entire life that any girl had been like, you've never been like I have never been friends on ever. I think he said, you know, you told me you're like I actually respect you.

Yeah. And that's what it was. And I was like, I was like, I enjoy talking to you. And I was like, I don't feel like I have to like pretend to wait for you to stop talking so that I can try and talk about something that I find more interesting. And so it's not like, okay, your turn now to talk about your day. I was like, I just want nothing to do with that. Like it just killed me inside.

And so I just liked hanging. And I think we hung out every day after the first date. And we didn't go on any dates for like a month. And until finally it was like, you have not taking me anywhere. But we spent all day. I was like, I'm going to be working. here if you want to meet me there. And then she would just work next to me.

And that was what we did after like the first date. And then I was like, I'm going to start this thing called gym launch. And she was like, okay. I was like, she quit. You should quit your job. Do my thing. You know, and still like she didn't. And then I did the thing and came back.

And I was like, look, it worked. And then she was like, I've heard you mention the moment that you were like, that's a girl for me. I don't remember the details of story, but had something to do with her going overseas or out of town to go crush a gym that you had just started. And you hammered the getting the signups. You basically filled it with life. blood so that it could exist and that was when like it clicked for you.

Yeah. Like there was something different. Did the romantic part change at that point? Do you remember? It didn't. It didn't change at that point. You just did inside. Like this, it made too much, I have too much sense is the right word.

But it was like I, she had basically like eternally earned my respect at that point. Like I already respected her, but like when she had gotten into that really tough spot or I was in that really tough spot. And basically, you know, at any other point, I would have expected, it would have been reasonable for any other person just like walk away because we split up and she went and so she'd quit her job to join me do this thing six months later i'm like i don't know if i can do this i'm so overwhelmed i've got nine businesses i've never making money you know i've got some of you stole from me i had all this stuff that's going wrong i just had a DUI my mother's in the hospital i'm just like i have nothing left

and so she was like well i'm going to go to the launch that we're supposed to do and then she broke every record she still has the all time record for the biggest launch and it was like she stood tall yes um when shit was tough. And I think that's where I was like, well, wherever I want to go, I'm going to need someone like that. I think that's where all my best friends came from, those moments when you don't feel strong, you feel vulnerable, you know you need somebody and they show up for you. Like it creates a bond that is deeper than just an attraction that can come and can go. She made $100,000 in 24 days. At a time when you needed it, more than any other time, right? Every dollar of it. Do you ever go to bed at night and just think like how awesome you are at that moment

All of this is because of me. You like, it was like the ninth inning, yeah. You have a mirror on the ceiling. Two outs, you know, two strikes, ninth inning, bottom of the ninth. And you hit the home run that led to the New York Yankees becoming the biggest brand. But to, I was just going to full circle it, which is just like a lot of people are going through the dating side of this or they're in the marriage side. There's two different seasons on this. Like if you're on the dating side, I do not give advice because I think so much of, like, there's so much individual variation that goes into relationships and whatnot.

We can only comment on the fact. that like this was a very different dynamic for both of us. And it just so happened to have worked out. And all I can share is that like if you think about something all day long every day, then it is very helpful to have someone else who also thinks about the exact thing thing thing. That's your love language. It sounds like, right? Like not many people could have figured out how to how to hit your love language there. Yeah, just talked to me about business all day. What about from your side? Keep it up. Like what advice would you give to guys that are trying to figure out how do I get a girl in my life? They can also work with me. How do I figure out if we're

partners. I think the first piece of advice that I would give is like what I'm so grateful for with our relationship is that we've never compared it to anyone else's. And I think that even people comparing their relationship to ours, you're going to lose because you can't be Alex and Leila. And I think what we've never subscribed to is like any traditional relationship norms, rules, is this okay? Is that okay? Is this bad? Is this good? One date, night per week. We literally will say we're like, put an encounter. We don't care if it's good or bad. we like it and it works for us. And so I think everyone has to find that in their relationship.

And I wish everyone could just release judgment of their relationship. And if you like it and it works for both of you, then keep doing it. I don't care what that looks like. I don't think anyone else does. But I think that we're so busy comparing ourselves and looking at, you know, people only see us on social media. And I do think that we're pretty transparent. But at the same time, it's like, you know, no one relationship looks the same. And so it's just hard to, you just have to stop judging yourself for whatever you do have.

if it's working for you. Yeah. Maybe it works better in other places that ours doesn't. You know what I mean? You're just seeing one side. You're like, hear us on this podcast. You're like, man, wouldn't that be nice? But maybe you have something else that we don't have.

You know what I mean? And we just don't know. It doesn't exist. Yeah. And we're good with that. Yeah. Yeah. 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.

Before we wrap up today, I did want to ask, you mentioned Dave Ramsey a little bit earlier. Did you recently have like a light bulb moment in how you invest your money? Well, I saw a podcast that he did with Graham Stephan, how I remember what it was. but Graham had him look at his investment portfolio. And he was asking Dave to just analyze it. And before Dave looked at it, he was like, well, what I can tell you is having talked to all the billioners that I know, they all tend to do one thing that they like and they're good at and they just do a lot of it. And so he asked the follow-up question to Graham. He said, okay, if this pie chart, this circle where your total knowledge and experience and resources and connections, what percentage of it would be like stock market stuff?

what percentage of it would be real estate, what percentage would be business, et cetera. And he's like, well, shoot, I'd probably say 85% of my knowledge is about real estate. And when he looked at the circle, 85% of his assets were real estate. And he's like, well, then I think this is a perfect distribution for you. Yeah. And that one bit was what ultimately gave me, it felt like gave me permission to do what we kind of wanted to do, but didn't feel like it was right because to the point about we're talking about relationships, you know, I had spoken to all the guys that I knew who had, you know, who were at 500, a billion and up, who were, head of me and I was like, what should I do with this money? Like, how should I invest? Like,

all this stuff. And literally every single person had an entirely different strategy. And so, I was like, maybe I should get in hard money lending. Maybe I should get into, you know, like fix and flip stuff. Maybe we should just buy apartment buildings. Maybe we should do business. But wait, are we doing business? What don't we just start another business? You know, like, I was going through all this stuff and I just didn't know what to do. Um, but when I thought about that, I was like, we like business and we're good at business. And so let's just, if I were to draw that circle, it would be a hundred percent business. Yeah. And so our circle of assets, though high risk from the outside, when you're buying companies that are doing $2 to $5 million in profit a year, which is usually around the size that we come in, those are from an investor class asset, considered risky, you know, risky investments.

But to quote Warren Buffett, it's only risky if you don't know what you're doing, right? And a lot of times, I'm sure there's real. I mean, to be fair, there's always there's always bodies. You know what I mean? But at least if you know which closets are going to have the bodies, then you're like, oh, I know there's going to be bodies there. And you don't get, I mean, sure, we still get surprised every once in a while, but you have fewer surprises. And the damage that you suffer from the surprises continues to go down and down. And so you can get outsized returns because you have an information advantage. And so that's, that was the piece that Dave gave us. And then that's why acquisition. We're like, well, what are we really good at? We're really good at scaling brick and order, really good at scaling services, both consumer service, professional services. And it's like, that's what we're going to buy. Man, I watch you do that. I watch you do that. I watch you do that market is very misoperative. Should I have you illustrate it.

That's great advice, though, because everybody else is looking for what they're doing wrong. What's the secret? Oh, I'm making money this way, but it could be better if it was over here and they're bouncing around. And no one asked the question you said, what are you good at and what are you happy doing? You can make money in that. And it's going to be a much lighter lift when that's what you're doing. And if I can tack on to that, like, let's say you've been doing something for like three years and you're making some money at it, right? In my opinion, the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs will make at that point is that they then look at the greener grass on the other side of the festival.

and say, man, wholesaling is actually the thing. I shouldn't be doing flipping. I should be doing wholesaling. And so what they do is that, and that's actually even a little bit too close. They, you know, they say crypto trading or whatever, right? Something a little bit more outside of the loop. And then what they think is, they see, they have uninformed optimism, right? So they go into it being like, this is going to be amazing. And then right after that, they get, you know, six months in and they're like, I now have informed pessimism about this opportunity. And then they go into the value of despair. And that's usually where they're at at, you're three-ish, right? But the thing is like the next part of that loop is informed optimism. Is it like, okay, I remember the things that I

used to, that I, that got me into this. And those things are true, but there are these other things that you also have to account for. And then you get to the fifth step, which is just like mastery, achievement of the goal, whatever it is. And so most people just do step one, two, three, over and over again. They find uninformed optimism, informed pessimism, value of despair switch. Uninformed optimism, informed pessimism, value of despair, switch. And so like the thing is, is that when you're at year three, the gains that you get from year three to your four are greater in terms of absolute return than the gains that you get from year zero to year one. Now, you'll learn more in the first year than you do any other year. But the time that you get the outsized return is

year 10 to 11, is year 14 to 15. And that's where like when you're, if you're thinking about like business value, it's way easier to take a business that's doing 20 million a year and take it to 25 million a year than take company from zero to five million. But in terms of absolute of like, which one of these is going to make you wealthier. The 20 to 25, as boring as it might be, is going to make you way wealthier than going from 0 to 5. And so, like, a lot of people start over when they really just need to push further.

Yeah, I love that. So, yeah, you're always going to be asking if the grass is greener. It's always shit on the other side. You always want to know, what does tasty wheat taste like? I'll call back this from The Matrix. Yeah, I know. That's good. You don't have to explain your own joke.

It's a good joke. I do it ever hear my movie was. You don't know if I get your, The Matrix? I've been sitting on that one for 50 minutes. He's just waiting. There will be an opportunity for tasty wheat. Well, awesome. Well, before we wrap up, can you tell us a little bit about your new book coming out?

Yeah. A little preview? Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the first book, $100,000 offers has sold just under 500,000 copies with no advertising. Thank you. Pretty pumped about that. Just word of mouth, which has been cool. And that book answered the question, what do I sell?

Right. It's like, what do I sell to anyone? Right. And that's usually when someone gets into the entrepreneur journey. That's what they're trying to figure out. The next thing is like, okay, I know what I'm going to sell. but who do I sell it to? You need leads, right? And so that was the reason I put offers before I put leads, even though I wrote all of these, like this book and that book actually at the same time,

but I was like, I have to put offers out first. And so leads shows how to get, I'm going to rewind. If I said, hey, what is a lead? People are like, oh, I know what a lead is. We talk about leads all the time, but I had a friend of mine who's not at all in business and very smart be like, what's a lead? And I was like, uh, you know, like, uh, like some, like a name and a, and a phone number. And he was like, so is an Instagram follower a lead? And I was like, well, I, I, I get, I mean, yeah, I guess that that that is also a lead. He's like, what about a YouTube subscriber? And I was like, well, that I guess that's not, that's not really a lead. He's like, why not? And that discussion became like the pillar that leads was built off of, which is a lead is a person you can contact, period. That's what it is. But then when you realize that that's the definition of a lead, you realize you don't actually want leads. You want engage leads. You want someone who's shown interest in the stuff you sell who you can also contact. And getting someone from a lead to an engaged lead, you create something to make them take that switch. And then from there, it's like, okay, if I know how to get people to engage, what do I do to do that? It's like, well, you have to advertise. And so there's four ways that any one person can advertise.

And there's four ways that you can get other people to advertise on your behalf. So there's only eight ways that you can get other people to know about your stuff. And so fortunately, we've actually built, we've done over eight figures in sales in each of these eight types, obviously in some of them more than that. And so I feel really confident that I know how to build referral systems that generate real amounts of traction. I know how to build affiliate systems that build real amounts of traction. I know how to run paid ads and know how to make content. I know how to do cold outbound. Right.

I know how to run an agency to do these things on our behalf. I know how to get employees to do these actions on our behalf. And so these are all the different ways that you can get other people to know about your stuff. And if you just know one of them, you can make good money. If you're not to do a couple of them, you can pretty much just write your own check. And that, for me, bridges the gap for especially the newer entrepreneurs who are coming in. Or the more experienced entrepreneurs who are like, okay, I'm at a million a month. I want to tell me 10 million a month.

Like, what does that look like? And so the book starts chronologically with like, you have nothing. And then the end of the book basically paints the pictures of how do I have $100 million plus lead machine and just step by step how to build it. And so it took two years, 2,000 hours of writing time. So six hours a day for two years. It was the first six hours of my day every day to write the book. I'm incredibly proud of it.

And I do think it will be bigger than offers. My last question for you guys. We've been asking everybody this today. My social media handle is David Green 24. I've been getting roasted by all these marketers that say it's boring and nobody likes it. Your guys are professional opinions. How terrible is it? And can I just keep it?

We're wondering if he should drop the 24. Someone suggested earlier maybe that he adds a 7. So it's David Green 24-7. Thoughts. You won't hurt my feelings. Oh, no. I think it's just on brand. Yeah, I think if you've been riding it this long, it's funny.

Yes. That might just be part of the brand. I personally... Yeah, we're laughing with you, bro. Yeah. I don't know if you can get your handle at this point because, like, trust me, I've tried to get mine. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, for 300 grand. Yes.

I'm like, hold me hostage. My URL for 20 grand, and I was like, no. No, I have the URL. I have the website. But if I switch it, now I got to go, like, try to get all the new stuff, right? And I am kind of a straight shooter. I'm not really known for being this big marketing scheme. So it's, so you guys are saying, David, not a moron because you...

I think it's kind of quirky if you keep the 24. And that's a good thing. It's kind of funny. It's all right. Okay. Yeah. I suggested thy David Green that's been shot down in every room we're in. By David.

Or the- I don't trust the advice that I've been given right now. Well, then there's also like the real David Green, but I said you should do the realist. The real. Or the real real. I'll just give a funny anecdote on this. So I used to poo-poo everything brand-related and was like it's just quant, right? It's just conversion and all that stuff.

And so our supplement company, I called Prestige Labs and I did it out of jokingness, out of prestige worldwide, which was... Right, and it was because my whole point was that, like, the name doesn't matter. Xerox is made up. You know what I mean? Like, we ascribe meaning to it after the fact. And so, you know, I don't think it matters.

Like, one bit. Acme supplements or something. Yeah, I don't think it matters one bit. Michelin Star Restaurant from Michelin Tires. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Awesome.

Well, if you want to find David on the socials, David Green 24, or possibly thy David Green. We'll see where we land with that. And you can find me at Raw Built over on Threads. Instagram, YouTube. Zanga? Mine. Vine.

Oh, wow. Nice ball back. Yeah. Unfortunately. Well, thank you guys. Thank you guys for having us. Thanks for coming out. Awesome interview.

And thanks for sharing so much of your personal lives as well. I mean, obviously people like to hear the business stuff, but I think there are a lot of human beings that are hearing this and thinking, oh, I'm not crazy. I don't have to do what other people are doing. I can look for a partner that fits into my life from a practical element before we run off and try to get into a honeymoon.

and I don't have to swipe 7,000 people on Tinder to find the one that hopefully ends up working out. There's a better approach. She's out there, bud. Chase that beautiful butterfly.