The Game with Alex Hormozi - Honoring The Game (w/ Tom Bilyeu) Pt. 2 - Sept. '22 | Ep 482

Episode Date: January 7, 2023

How do you win at business? You win by not stopping. Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) as he guests on Tom Bilyeu’s Show to talk about our self-limiting beliefs in life, working in order to “honor the game”, and the frames of reference you live by. 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.Check out the episode on Tom Bilyeu’s YouTube Channel!Timestamps:(1:43) - What do I believe to be true that is not?(14:54) - Why you should be “honoring the game”(25:43) - How does Alex see himself now in his journey?(33:25) - Your frames of reference in life are everything(41:22) - Do not cast power to your excuses, because no one else will.Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

I think the difference between, like, rich people and poor people, successful people, not successful people is the degree to which they attribute or give power to their circumstance, right? And so the difference between a self-made billionaire who started with nothing and someone who else started with nothing is not the resources, obviously, because they both started at zero. So what else is it? Is their resourcefulness, not the resources? The wealthiest people in the world see business as a game. This podcast, The Game, is my attempt at documenting the lessons I've learned on my way to building acquisition.com into a billion-dollar portfolio. My hope is that you use the lessons to grow your business and maybe someday soon, partner with us to get to $100 million and beyond.

I hope you share and enjoy. Now the next question that people ask is, well, then does that mean that you believe things that aren't true? And the answer is unintentionally no. And the reason is unintentionally no is because that to me something is true based on its ability to increase your ability to predict the future and the outcome of your actions. That's what's true. If I touch this hot stove, it's going to burn me. I believe that to be true because, hey, I've touched hot things before and they actually do burn me. And so when you can, like in sales, if I structure the conversation in this way, it's more likely to lead to an outcome.

That thing is true just because you've run the experiment enough times to be like, yeah, that actually gives me the ability to predict the outcome of these actions. And when I encounter people that either don't even know what their own belief system is, and so they think, this isn't a belief, this just is true about, the world. I'm like, no, that is a belief that you've chosen to believe in. It's completely fucking you up. One of my favorite quotes, I think if there were to be a quote that would be on my tombstone, it's top three, which I love a lot of quotes. It's Orson Scott Card. He said, we question all of our beliefs, except for those that we truly believe and those who never think to question. Yes. And so it's because you truly believe it. And those are the ones, those are the pesky ones. Those are the ones, I think I was told it, because you get asked a lot, I'm sure,

like, hey, I'm going to talk to a mentor, what question should I ask them? And I got this really good one, which is, what do I believe to be true that isn't? Whoa. That's a great question. Right. And because I'm sure you see it. And if I talk to somebody, I can tell, like, they cast these views of what is and what isn't about business, about marriage, about health, whatever it is. And they say like, and then they operate off of that framework of assumptions, which is might be patently false. and then they wonder why what they're doing is not working. It's like because the entire foundation upon which you built this thing is just wrong. Right.

And so, you know, the easiest way to do that is to get people who are ahead of you who tell you, by the way, I don't think that belief is true, but you have to get into a place that somebody can actually communicate that to you and be open to it. Yeah. And then you have to do something about it, which most people don't. Otherwise you get one piece of advice than people are like, oh, God, you're not going to do anything with this? Yeah.

Like that, that's the hard part. So I have the same Impact Theory University where I always thought all I would ever teach is business and I found that to get people primed to do the business part, I first had to deal with all the lies that they were telling to believe, like the self-destructive behavior, all that, once you could get past that, then they had an actual shot at running business, but because success is the ability to go from failure to failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. And the ability to do that is predicated on the story you're telling yourself, about yourself, you believe that.

It was all like this fucking mindset, like rats nest of like, God, if I can help you, like peel this stuff back, you'll be able to get out of your own way, but most people can't. But it's really interesting. When you were saying that, I was like, like when you hear somebody speak and they really resonate with you, they give you the chills, you get excited. It's because they're either putting words to something that you felt, but you didn't know how to articulate, and now it's super concrete in your mind, or they make you realize you believe something that wasn't true. Yeah. And that's when it's like, you feel like you're being set free. Oh, totally. And that's like, that's really exciting.

It's like a weight vanishes. That's my, that's what I think sales is. Is that. Is that people have these beliefs and you have to know, like the process of being a good salesperson is being able to help people break the beliefs that they have about themselves or about the realities that are not true. And so I think if you can basically just unencumber somebody, then it becomes very easy to sell someone.

Because if you have the struggle, we have the solution. You believe that buying the solution will get you more likely, to get to the outcome you want. Yes. What are we doing? Let's go. You know what I mean? But talking to that person, you have to wait through all this stuff.

But I believe that, like, you know, by speaking that, it's like, I believe that you could start to college, just be like, you want to do it? And then just start from there, right, like, depending on what someone's consumed beforehand. But I'll tell you one of the things that's, that shaped my life in terms of business stuff is understanding the concepts of leverage, right? And so a lot of people are limited by either the skills, the beliefs or the traits they have. And so the skill deficiency is the easiest one to fix. It's like go do repetitions in a community of people who are also doing repetitions

to learn the same skill and you will learn it quickly. Right. That's the thing. Then you have traits and beliefs, which is a little bit more amorphous, right? And so from a belief's perspective, it's you need someone to tell you stories that you believe to be true that conflict with your view of reality. And then the evidence of their story being truer than yours, then And that, it's like a frame control.

That frame now wins. And that becomes the new lens that you see everything through. And so I had a friend who had a fitness app. And he was doing 20,000 a month. He was a CrossFit competitor, really high up. He didn't win, of course, how like all, it's like, he didn't win. So he didn't want to tell anybody that any app because he didn't think he deserved it.

He didn't deserve to have an app because he didn't want anyone to know because he's like, how dare I make a fitness app? Because I was only fourth in the world, you know what I mean? Or whatever. Is that it? Then all of a sudden, he talked to somebody, he got over it. And then he just started just telling people. people he had an app. And he went from like 20,000 a month to $100,000 a month. And so it's not that

his skills changed. It's not that his traits changed. He was still just as hardworking, same, looked the same, et cetera. I was like, it's just his beliefs. Right. And I'm sure in the, in the entrepreneur space, one of the most common traits is focus. People can't do the same thing over and never again. They just do all these half-built bridges. And so I know for me, my big explosion happened in my entrepreneurial journey when I went from having nine businesses. That is not a misspeak nine, is in one less than ten. At the same time that I was CEO of all of. So I had a dental agency, marketing agency.

I had a chiropractor marketing agency. I had gym launch where we'd fly out and do gym turnarounds. And then I had five gyms of my own. Jesus. At the same time. And I was somehow perplexed as why I wasn't making any money. Everything was always on fire all the time. And I always just sold my ass off enough to be able to pay all the bills and have nothing

left over. That was how I rocked it. And it was only, you know, when Layla came in and she was like, like, you know, I think maybe if we just did one thing, you could win. Because she was like, imagine if all you had to do is make one of these businesses work. How easy would that be? I was like, oh my God, if I'm going to make one of them work or be a joke. And like, I heard myself say that and I was like, you're an idiot. Why are you so dumb? And so like the treat that I was missing at that point was focus and or discipline. I couldn't say no. I didn't have that muscle. So that was a

trait I lacked. And so it's like, boom, and then that blew up. And so it's like sometimes the question is which of these things to people lack. And so since we don't always know because we don't have the perspective to judge ourselves often, it's like you just got to keep moving in all the directions, getting in those communities.

And then like that's ultimately, like I'm a big believer in the alternative education space. The whole guru space that everyone, you know, laments and hates, I learned everything from that space. That's going to go away. There's always going to be fake people that people will be dismissive of,

but we're just in a weird transitional moment now where traditional college is people are beginning to realize, eh, some of these degrees are dubious at best. And then B, and here's the thing that breaks my heart. A teacher, 99 times out of 100, has gotten good at one thing, teaching. So people are like, why don't they teach us this in high school,

finance, mindset, whatever? And I'm like, because they don't fucking know. Like, they can't do it in their own life. God bless them. There are so many things that I'm terrible at. And so I feel their pain. They've gone down the path of being an education. And so what they know how to do is educate, but they don't necessarily know finance, mindset,

whatever. And if they did, they would be off doing those things. And so getting somebody who's expert at that stuff to teach is next to impossible until now. Like when I grew up, you had to go to the library to like find a quote or something like that. It was insane how hard it would be just to find a cool quote. You would literally just like find, okay, this philosopher and you'd flip, anything cool on this page, flip anything cool on this page. And And then you would find something, you'd have to build like a whole argument around the quote you could find. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy.

So nowadays, you're able to get, like when I stop and think, okay, hold on, I've been in business now for 20 plus years. I've had an incredible career already and feel like I'm just getting started. And I pour my heart and soul into teaching everything I know as fast as I can fucking talk. And people can get access to that with a few clicks on the internet. Like, that's bananas. And so enough people that have a real track record are going to put courses together that then help people go on to have a career. You know one of the things that happened recently, I had this big epiphany moments. I'll share it with you. But I was talking to Caleb, my video, my man, and he was like, you know, I'm a competitive person.

And so I look at the grants and the garries and stuff. I'm like, man, by the time I'm their age, I was like, I'm going to be way ahead of them. Right. And I think it was Caleb who said it back to me. He's like, yeah, he's like, yeah, but. Gary didn't have Gary. It really like hit me, right? And so I think that there's, because, you know, there's Gen Z that's coming up and whatnot. There's always these disconnects and there's, I don't see wars. There's conflict between age groups, et cetera.

And the old guys are like, these kids don't know what I had to go through. They've got it so easy, right? And these guys are like I was just saying three minutes ago. These guys are out of touch, right? But at the flip side, if you ask an entrepreneur what his goal is, he's like, the make the world a better place, to have an impact, et cetera. And it's like, well, if you want to make the world a better place, doesn't that mean the next generation has it easier? Like, doesn't that mean we did our job? And so there's this competition that I used to feel towards like the older

classmen. If you know, like, think about it like entrepreneurial grades. I just be like, I'm going to be further faster or whatever by that time than that guy is. But lo and behold, those guys helped me. So of course it would make sense that I get there faster. And like, I'm sure you've seen like, there are guys in their mid-20s with nine-figure companies that, and they're killing it. And that wasn't, it just wasn't, I don't want to say it wasn't possible. It was extremely, extremely, extremely unlikely 20 years ago. Right. But because of the access to information, the information's out there. And so somebody who's 26 can have the experience of somebody who's 60, 20 years ago. So they can be as good at the game, real talk, as good at the

game as somebody that much older is because they've had warm, buffers. that videos they'd be able to watch their whole high school about finance and investing and Charlie Margaret talking about character traits and all these things that you wouldn't you didn't have you know what I mean like you might have the shareholder letter and that's all you got and you just had to keep rereading it right and so anyways it's been a really interesting shift for me to also think about the fact that a lot of times we think like I want to be the greatest of all time I'm sure a lot of people right whatever but if I did my job I won't be because somebody else will be better than me if I did my job.

Yeah. And so that was like a really interesting point that I feel like shifted inside of me in terms of a competition and thinking like, I shouldn't be competing as these guys who are ahead of me. I should be thanking them because of course I'm going to be there sooner, faster than them. I was like, because I had them and they didn't have them. They were just figuring it out. You should be doing both because you should want to fucking crush all of them, right?

I believe I will. Me included. Dude, you're on such a rad pace. And here's the thing. The older guys owe it to the. themselves to be thrilled that business is a sport that you don't have to age out of. So my knees going bad doesn't fucking matter in business, man. And I should be able to capitalize on all the things that I know and all that.

So I should be able to keep going until I run out of desire to do all this. But my thing is, I don't want people to give up on competition. So I used to be afraid of competition because I sucked. And I didn't think I could get better. So with a fixed mindset, competition was not interesting. There's only one thing that I've ever gotten a disproportionate. return on and that is speaking. So I've always been highly verbal. But when I was coming up, how do you do something with that? I didn't want to be an actor. So it was like, well,

there wasn't a lot of avenues. It's obviously changed. And I've been able to capitalize on it, right? Now that once I had something to say and to camera, I wasn't an idiot. I'm like, I am so verbal, I will perform very well on camera. That was highly strategic. Nobody should feel bad for me. So it's like, cool, I got to finally leverage that talent. So I love that the young bucks are coming up. Yeah. It feels so rad. My whole thing is I have had to learn everything the hard way. It's just the way that I'm wired, whatever. So it stokes me out to be able to go, okay, I learned this through blood, sweat, and tears, a massive amount of pain and suffering. I'm going to tell it to you as fast as I can fucking talk. I'll do it for free. Like, yes, I have my paid shit,

but I'm also like, it's not like I'm holding anything back right now. So I will give people, all the information and my hope is that you come up but be aware I want to compete I want to be on the field I want these young guys who think they can check and job like I'm motherfucker like we're in this let's go but it's a light energy it's an expansive energy like if somebody beats me passes me whatever cool I'm all for it as long as you're down for me to be on the field and go as hard as I can and want to win and constantly push myself like it's fun because I no longer one I know what success is and people end up trapping them thinking it's money all that shit. Ha ha ha. Like they have a very painful awakening coming their way,

which I had to live through. And then also it's like being able to play is fun, man. And so if you lose sight of the fun and you're just worried like, oh, is somebody better than me or the outperforming me, whatever, you're going to miss out. I would see the both sides of it. You've got the guys who are ahead who I used to be like, I'm going to do all this, right? And the guys behind I'm like, they're so lucky, right? If only I had, right? That thinking. And I feel like at least, it was just that little quote like Gary didn't have Gary.

Like that thought process for me, I feel like for me, like my competitive drive's never going anywhere. Like it's going to be there forever. But the, I feel like I was able to, it was more like doing honor to the game. Yeah. That I'm going to bring to transform my potential into reality and drag it by the fucking balls if I have to to make it happen. Like it was more to honor the game and all the other.

players in it. Yep. Rather than me trying to like, and it almost felt small-minded be like, why am I going to pick this guy to compete against? Like, how about just doing a service to the game about being an excellent player? I love that. As long as you don't lose sight of the whole Kobe thing, like what made Kobe so interesting to me was that he was just diehard, dude.

Yeah. And so I'm not a sports guy. So never really thought about Kobe like that. Yeah. But I was so inspired by the way he would talk about things. never got to meet him, which I'm absolutely mortified by. But the way he talked about everything, I was like, wow, what a fucking competitor. And as I had gotten older and really learned the power of competition and being willing to put myself out there and go for broke and like really

find my limits, right? And I want to die. Like, I can already tell you just the way that I'm wired, I will be horrified by the personal limitations that I have because we all do, we're 50% hardwired, 50% malleable. I'm going to do the most that I can with my malleable. I'm already traumatized by my limitations, right? But like, you know, I'm going for it. But so watching Kobe, I was like, damn, like I'm so inspired by the willingness to push yourself that hard to see. Like, what do I have in me?

Yeah. And then that motherfucker went from basketball into my arena. And he came into film. And his first film, he won an Academy Award. Now, I was like, this fucking guy. But I was so inspired, right? And so I may be misinterpreting what you're saying, but what hits me is Caleb's comment took it from maybe a bit of a dark energy to like, oh, that's actually pretty rad that I had

an advantage that he didn't have. It makes me appreciate the game, makes me want to play with honor and honor these guys. So it becomes this expansive thing. But I would expect you to dunk on me if you can, right? And then be like, help me up, bro. It's one of the All-Star game. You know, it's all good. Like, we both fucking made it. But at the same time, like, I'm going to be trying to dunk on you. You know what I mean? But like with a smile and like a handshake and the way that you hear like the guys that were on that first dream team talk about each other and like repping the country, which is to me what you say when you want to honor the game. It's like, hey, we're fucking reping something in that case America. Basketball. But we're here to win.

But we're also here to have fun. And like that's my thing. And what I always tell, whether you're trying to be an entrepreneur or a better parent, whatever, is you've got to optimize for, the game's still being fun when you're losing. If you can't have fun when you lose, oh man, my heart bleeds for you because you're going to lose so often. It just is what it is. Even people that win, you just lose so many times, whether it's just a lead funnel that didn't work or you go up on stage and it fucking bombs, whatever. But there's going to be a lot of losing in your career. It's like Jordan's whole thing about I've lost this many games, taking this many winning shots and miss and I succeed because of all of that, right? So you've got to be able to

have fun in the loss because I can guarantee the struggle. I can't guarantee success. So you've got to be able to love that. But if you love that, there is something about going for broke that I'm so honored by even though that means that people are gunning for me. Yeah. It's worth it. It's funny because when I think about that, I think about game theory in general, which I'm sure you're very familiar with, right? And so it's shifting from like the finite to the infinite perspective. And so like how do you win at business? You win by not stopping. Yep. Like from an infinite. from an infinite, you know what I mean? And so that's always been one that's been interesting to me. But I'm super open to what you're saying with the competitiveness piece. And I probably share some

of the similar things to you of, I guess, when you were younger or at least my age, right? Trying to take the good of competition and cast out the bad of competition. And so trying to like separate those things. And I think this has been part of my attempt at doing that is reframing the game in that way and trying to look at it from the infinite perspective of like, there is no number one. Like there like is it is it because because if you're saying number one you say of what year over what time rising. That's exactly right.

Right. Is it by what metric? Is it by net worth? Is it by cash flow? Is it by age? Aid by net worth by per unit of time. You know what I mean? If Warren Buffett had died at 74, no one will care.

Right. And I will just give people the punchline. All that matters is how they feel about themselves and they're by themselves. That's it. Please only chase that. Now when you're chasing that at a grand scale, it's amazing because you're like, whoa. Here.

dude yeah i'm so curious to see if you agree with this so here's my whole thesis on life so first all chase fulfillment it's the only thing that's stable across joy and pain yeah process yep and then the best thing that life has off you the fucking best there is no emotional peak higher than the following you're working really hard at something and it's working yeah and if you pull this off there's huge upside. That moment, it's better than the actual huge upside. Like the moments in my life where I'm like climbing, this perilous cliff, I'm fucking looking down,

my fingers are just ice cold, right? And I'm just clinging, but I'm like, fuck, I'm making good progress. Like, I've really come a long way. I can see the peak. It's not that far. And if I get up there, there's like a crazy Vegas buffet and an orgy.

And it's like, oh my God, if I fucking get there, This is going to be the best. It's actually better than the buffet and the orgy. You know what I mean? It's like, it's that moment where you're like, your fingers are freezing, but you're going to make it. Like, that's the fucking juice. And so, hey, enjoy the food, enjoy the orgy. They're incredible.

But I promise, as soon as they're over, you're going to be like, where is that next thing that I can get my fucking fingers freezing to death again? It just is. That's the human condition. And when people understand the game, when you understand that I can never take a, drink so thirst quenching that I'll never need another drink again. There's no meal so amazing that you'll never be hungry again. There's no sex so good that you'll never want sex again. That's just the way the human animal is wired. Like when people are at peace with that, ah, like then now you've really got a shot at loving your life, understanding the cycles

and that you're going to keep doing the climb and so you better love the climb. I love the Yeah. That moment before the moment. I was thinking, as you were saying, I was thinking back to like the few of those moments that I've had, like the first time, you know, you start running ads and like you start getting your first lead. You're like, holy shit, it's working. Like it's that, you know what I mean, that moment. Or the first, I remember I hired my first salesperson and they closed the sale and I wasn't there. So it was a first person that had made me money who wasn't me. Yeah.

And I was like, I pulled over the side of the road and I teared up because I was like, it doesn't have to just be me anymore. You know what I mean? I was just thinking about all these moments that I've had. I remember when we were, Layla, and I were sitting over the kitchen counter and we had just switched from flying out a sales team in person to do these turnarounds to switching the licensing. And I got on the phone to tell guys who I was going to launch the next month that we weren't going to do that anymore. We're thinking about switching directions.

And so I said, hey, you know what? I can't do it, but I'll tell you how I do it, but I'm not flying out there anymore. And they were like, oh, that's fine. How much? And I didn't want to do it. So I picked a super high number, which was $6,000 at the time. And the guy said yes. And I remember the moment being like, holy shit, what just happened?

And I had seven more calls a day. And like that day, I mean like $60,000. And I had just been, like the story I was telling, let's go full circle. Like I'd just been completely broken. Like in that moment, like Jim launch hadn't been created yet. There wasn't, you know, all these other things. But in that moment, I was like, what if this keeps happening? Are we out of it?

Like, did we finally? Is this the one thing that's finally going to get me out of like failure after failure after failure after failure. And so it's just like, what is the event that gives you the biggest predictor of the future success? So like there's micro wins of like, hey, the funnel's working. I've got leads. And then you have like a day of huge sales.

You're like, what if this happened every day? And then maybe you exit Quest. And you're like, what if I exit five more time? You know what I mean? Like, so anyways, I was just, that was really cool for me just even thinking through like those snapshots of moments. Hey guys, real quick, if you're new to the podcast, I have a book on Amazon called 100 million offers that over 8,000 five-star reviews and it has almost a perfect score. You can get it for

99 cents on Kindle. The reason I bring it up is that I put over a thousand hours into writing that book. And it's my biggest gift to our community. So it's my very shameless way of trying to get you to like me more and ultimately make more dollars to that later on in your business career. I can potentially partner with you. So that's my give. Go check it out. Amazon and back to the show. Yeah, it's very incredible. And you start to learn like, okay, what is it that I really love? And so for me, when we were at Quest and selling it, it was huge and it changes your life. And I mean, it was really bad. And here's going back to money.

So Quest ended up being two bites of the apple. There was like a first bite where we took a small investment, but the valuation was so big. It was life changing. That was the biggest like, oh my God moment. Because I went from my wife and I share one car. It's a beat up Ford Focus with a leaky exhaust, borrowing rides off my employees. who had nicer cars of me, delaying gratification and all of that, going from that to I now have a Beverly Hills mansion, that was the crazy moment. When I went from my starter mansion to my big mansion,

that wasn't as cool. It wasn't as need of a moment. Even though it was actually a bigger dollar amount change, it wasn't as like, whoa, I really feel this change. And then thankfully, I learned actually when I was still not really making money. On paper, I was worth $2 million. But I learned very quickly, A, the money is not making me feel better about myself, which I secretly thought it would. And then also there's a big difference between paper money and real money. But I learned that lesson.

So I never tied my sense of self-worth to the money or anything like that, which is something I constantly remind myself now, not to let my identity get tied up in that because the world reflects that back to me all the time. right so whether it's oh you sold a company for a billion dollars or amazing house or even just oh my god like what you've built socially it's incredible it's like i have to really disconnect from that because i'm like all of that is transient it's all transient i have no idea if any of it will be here tomorrow so it's like you have to be really thoughtful what is it you think about yourself when you're by yourself. What do you think about that? Like now you've been on both sides of the

coin. You've changed your physique, which is a big thing, but you change it so early that I wonder, how do you think about yourself? What's your self-image? What's it anchored to? I'm thinking it's ever asked me. I don't know. I think it's, unless I'm, unless I'm misunderstanding the question. But, you know, for me, it's, I think a lot of my definitions have been defined by my actions. So I am the person who has done these things and I will do things that will get me closer to the things that I want to achieve. And so a lot of my definition of self has always been based on evidence. And so I think it was harder for me in the beginning because I didn't have evidence to support what I hope to be true about myself, which at the time wasn't. And what did you hope to be true, that you could figure it out or was it always a result that you associated it to?

I mean, it was, I want to make more money than my dad. You know, that was, that was the thing, you know, for me. And that was, that was all I needed. I remember thinking in college because I, you know, you're young in college. And it's like, be happy and all that stuff. And I just remember being like, fuck happiness. And that was like a moment for me. I was like, fuck happiness.

I don't care about happiness. I want to do this. Why didn't you care about happiness? That's very counterintuitive even now, super counterintuitive at that age. Yeah. Because I was obsessed with how not happy I was. And so in being- So the things you were doing that weren't designed

to make you happy, that's what's weird. So I was so obsessed with like positive psychology and I was reading all these stuff and watching these TED talks. I remember this whole period of my life and I was constantly assessing my mood as a determination of whether I was happy or not. And it became so obsessive

that I was just like, fuck all of this. I was like, I'm just gonna do shit. And that's all. I was like, I'm just gonna do shit. And hopefully it works out. Did you ever define what works out means? if it isn't happy. Be less unhappy, I would say was my thought process, which was like, I'm just going to do the things. And so I shifted from a lot of introspection, internal mood

regulation and thinking and stuff. And I think a lot of the reason that I have the worldviews I have about, you know, emotions and whatnot have come from this kind of initial experience. It's like I had that. And then I just started working. And then I found myself actually looking up after, you know, a decent period of time. I'm actually, I haven't thought about happiness in a long time. And I think I might be. And so I also don't really like the word happiness because it's circumstantial versus joy, but like I experience joy significantly more now than I did than when I was younger.

And I think it's partially because like you can be mournful and joy. It's like an appreciation of the human experience. Like this is terrible. But like even in the suffering, there's beauty in that. You know what I mean? Because it's purely human. And so I think it was disconnecting. It's interesting that that it matters to me as well, but I've never had to articulate it.

What is the connection to like the human experience that is so valuable that it's joyful even in mourning? I think it's just understanding both sides of the coin. I feel so like so like if there's few things that I believe it is that. Is that like I right now there, you know, there's things in my life that I don't like that I wish for better and there are things in my life that I really like. and 10 years ago, it was the same way, and 10 years from now will be the same way. And when I die, there will be stuff that I will not have accomplished that I will wish I had. There will be things that I had done better that I will not have done. And there will be things that I have done that I am proud of.

And so, like, those things are not going to change. And so if the only thing I – I mean, this sounds hoping not overly tripe, but it's like all I can do is just enjoy the game. And it took me a really long time to get there. Like, it took me a really long time to get there. Or at least it felt that way. Or at least it felt like I suffered a lot on that process, which is why I have a heart for people who were like,

like, dude, I'm super sad, I'm super depressed, whatever it is. And it's because I judge myself so much on not being happy all the time because I thought there was something wrong with the fact that I wasn't happy that I drove myself insane not being happy rather than just being like, you know what, maybe I'm just going to do the stuff and just fuck happiness for a minute. And so I think it's like when we have these like, am I happy, am I not happy? My opinion is that you have to rise above it so that you can just see, you can feel the spectrum, which is just being present.

Because I think, again, Alex is two cents, have been around that long. If you are present, you're present. Like most people aren't present ever. And so it's like, if I can just be present, even in my suffering, I'm there, right? Then I can experience joy for being human and having this experience that I only get once. And the biggest frame shift that I've had in terms of my experience of living has been, it sounds weird, but it's something I'll call the grandfather frame, which is I've learned how have become apathetic, right? Because that took me time to stop feeling pain. You know how the brain

tries to predict the next word somebody's going to say, apathetic was not the word I was expecting. You had to learn to be apathetic. Yeah, because I cared so much about everything. Care about what everyone thought. I cared about it. Like, I cared about what everyone thought. And I probably still do just less. You know what I mean? I still do care, just less. And so the frame of the veteran taught me that, which is if this negative thing were to happen a thousand times over and over and over again, how would I feel in the thousandth time? Well, probably not that bad. Well, why don't I just choose to feel that way now. Right. And so that really helped me a lot, just the frame of the veteran, right, whether it was traffic, whether it was a breakup, like, whatever it was, like, whatever it was,

I could apply that. Like, I got broken up with every single day for a thousand straight days. How much would have bothered? I'd still be here, you know? Okay. And then I was like, is there a way that I can think of a frame that would allow me to feel? Because it's something that I've, I've struggled to feel, right? Like, I definitely get the dry feeling, got that one done. In spades. But gratitude, not so much, right? I've done the habits and things like that. And for me, It didn't work. I say it doesn't just for me. And so I thought of this frame, which was I call the grandfather frame, but if I went into a time machine, I'm 85 years old, right? I'm like close to dying, a little creaky. You know, I've got tons of money, not a lot of time. And I somehow sacrifice all

the money I have just to be my age again. So I wake up in the morning and I'm my 85 year old self living through my 30 year old body. And thinking through that frame of how I would wake up and be like, oh, my elbows don't know. Oh, look, I have muscles. I haven't had those in forever. Right? And I look it. I'm like, oh, Layla, she's so young. I remember when she used to look like this. And I look outside. And I'm like, man, this is Vegas before they did all the helicopters and the flying cars. I'm like, look at it. God, it's changed so much. Right. And then you walk downstairs, you get her like, man, coffee. Ah, look at these mugs. Remember we had mugs? Isn't it crazy? And so it's this weird frame where it just drills you to, it just pegs you to the present.

and you get to experience the current state from a future state for the first time. And so it's been one of the things that's been really profound for me in terms of like dealing with stressors with getting into, like when I get into one of these like, I'm like, hold on, I'm 85. I'm waking up. Like, all of a sudden, I'm like, I remember when I used to stress about these business things. I was like, it works out. It's fine. And if it doesn't, who cares? I was like, I'm going to be 85. I'm going to die. I'm going to give all my money away with us. Who cares? And so, and I'm like, but isn't this cool that I'm like, look at me, all trying to play the game. You know, I'm like, you got it, bud. And so it's like it gets me into this really interesting

place where I can feel like I can get above myself in the game and just be like, those frames have served me very well. And I hope that other people can use those in some way in their life to do stuff that they weren't otherwise going to do. That was the, that's my two frames that have served me well. Dude, frames of reference is everything. This is actually what started impact theory in the iteration that it became. So I'm at Quest and I've got a thousand employees who grew up hard in the inner cities, but intelligence is evenly distributed, right? So just like you have dumb friends in an upper middle class neighborhood,

you're going to have dumb friends in the inner city, but just like you have smart friends, you're going to have smart friends. And so there were plenty of people that I was like, damn, like you are smart. But your frame of reference is stupid. And the way that you view the world is so ineffective, meaning it doesn't move you towards your goals or your goals are idiotic. And I mean that if your goals lead you to suffer and you don't want to be suffering, I would say it's very plain that your goals are idiotic.

So anybody that wants to write in the feed that, you know, oh, you can't just somebody gets the goals. Yes, I can. Very much so. Because you either have goals and you're moving towards them or you don't and you're not. And so I'm looking at it and I'm like, wow, this is a mindset problem. This isn't an intelligence problem.

You have the ability to process raw data, which is how I'll say intelligence is. And they have that, but the software that they use to process that raw data leads to such a bizarre frame of reference for how the world works or what they're capable of that their behaviors become ineffective. So I was like, okay, so the thing I'm going to try to do is help people change their frame of reference. Now, I use two really potent frames of reference for me. One is very similar. So I'll use. a deathbed frame of reference to say, okay, how will I think about this? Now, I don't get trapped, though, because I don't live for my deathbed. I think that's a mistake. And I think a lot of people optimize for something they're going to go through maybe it lasts a week, maybe it lasts a year, but it isn't the bulk of your life. And so to over-optimized for that, I think is a mistake.

But to get the perspective of like, oh, my God, I remember when I used to stress about that, like, come on. This doesn't mean anything when you're facing your mortality. So that's super useful. And then the other frame of reference that I use is the brain in a vat. And so I'm like, imagine that you're just a brain in a vat and that this thing that you're really stressing, because normally you're going to be worried about something that happened or you're obsessing about something that happened and what makes you think about. Or it could be the future. But either case, you can't change either of them because one's not real and one's in the past. And I was like, what if this thing that I'm really worried about that's already happened that I can't

change is really just context for this brain in this, you know, VAT living in a simulation, to just to get you moving. And that all these memories that are trapping you, they are fake. And there's something about that that lets me off the hook. I don't need to beat myself up over it. It's just a frame of reference. It's context to get me moving. And then I remind myself, I actually am just a brain in a VAT. It just happens that the VAT is the chemicals that, you know, my brain is sitting in and the glass of that jar is my skull. And so all of this really is a simulation. Even if it's an accurate simulation, it's a simulation nonetheless.

And I won't derail the whole conversation on that. But it's very easy to recognize that the world really is a simulation because reality is the number of photons falling on an object. But you perceive it as color or whatever, not math. And so putting myself in either of those, like, hey, this isn't really going to matter at some point. And oh, that thing that's creating your sense of identity, it could be made up anyway. I don't think it is. But like, it's very helpful to remind myself that those are malleable things. That's been, I mean, when we started the conversation, it was like, why do you think people aren't successful?

Why do you think people fail? And it's, I think it comes down to those things. It's like it's the fear of photons that fall in an object that prevent people from starting. or when they do get hit one time, extrapolate that out till their deathbed and say, I will fail forever, and therefore I will not continue. And so I think that those frames are the things. Like, if there's things that I would take with me until I die, it will be the frames. Because like, you can lose it all. And then, like, if you lost everything tomorrow, you'd be back in 12 months. You know what I mean? I remember when I lost everything the second time. And I, you know, I just lost all the gyms and all the

money and everything. And it was just like thinking that that was the thing that I had lost rather than the thing that I had gained that was non-material being the more valuable of the two. That was like one of my big lessons. And I feel like you obviously have far more of those than I do, but that that one stuck with me. It's interesting. I have a slightly different belief based on all that or at least way that I look at it, which is if I lost everything tomorrow, I might not ever gain it back. It's entirely possible. Now, I think I have a set of skills. I'm never going to worry about money and all that. But I really, life has taught me that I cannot guarantee myself the success because I've failed multiple times at businesses. So it isn't like, oh, it's guaranteed because I've

had a success before. It's guaranteed I'll never go hungry, barring head trauma. But it is, you know, it's an unknown. And that's why I'm very careful not to let that be my identity. Or like, I don't know if you've ever read Stephen King's book, The Stand. I've read that one. Oh my God. So there's this thing, I'm so glad I read this when I was a kid. Yeah. Because so one of the main characters is a guy who's just finally gotten famous as a singer. And this is back, read this probably late 80s. So getting famous was like the most insane thing you could do.

Getting rich was far easier than getting famous. And so he finally got famous. His songs everywhere on the radio. And then the end of the world happens and nobody cares. And I remember thinking, whoa. Like you could achieve. that thing, the impossible thing, and then the next day is just gone. And so, especially at the moment we're living in now where there's a lot of uncertainty,

I'm just like, don't tie your sense of worth or the thoughts you think are useful because they have resulted in wealth. The thoughts that I think are useful because they've resulted in fulfillment. That's the thing, like, I really want people to anchor around. But yes, I certainly take the point. Transparently, I'm probably not there. I don't think I've like I'm not I don't think I I don't think I'm as optimized on that as like you are I think you have more of that than I do in terms of like optimizing around fulfillment. I think I definitely still have a degree of myself worth wrapped in the things we do and the companies we own and stuff like that.

Like if all of those because the thing is like if in the magic situation where that all vanished there would be something that I had probably done wrong. Now there are occasions, you know, where you own a gym. business in COVID, where you're like, man, there's some stuff that would it be reasonable for me to have predicted this? Probably not. Okay, I'm not going to beat myself up up with this one. But like, if barring a true act of God's situation and they were just good old fashioned, I'm the only one who loses everything and everyone else doesn't, I probably would be upset. I'd be upset. I'm not a fucking monk. I just, I remind myself to, yeah, yes, totally. You're like, how do you judge yourself when you're naked in the mirror at night? I'm like, well,

on that day, I would feel badly. Just not feel good. 100%. Dude. So I've got the final quote that I want to share with people. That is my favorite quote from you. But first, I want you to tell people where can they follow you? If you listen to podcasts, you can just search my name, Alex Ramosey, and you'll find

the game. If you are on YouTube, you can search my name and you'll find my YouTube channel. If you're on TikTok, Instagram, there, all those places. Twitter, actually, I'm super active on Twitter. You can find me there just by searching my name. Amazing. All right. Now I want to give people a quote, I love this so much.

Do not cast power to your excuses. Own your circumstances because no one else will. So I think the difference between rich people and poor people, successful people, and not successful people is the degree to which they attribute or give power to their circumstance. And so the difference between a self-made billionaire who started with nothing and someone who all started with nothing is not the resources, obviously, because they both started at zero. So what else is it? Is their resourcefulness, not the resources?

And so if we give power to circumstance, then we cast power outside of ourselves. If we give power to other people, we cast power outside of ourselves. And so it's, you know, it's controlling the controllable. You know, when I say that quote, a lot of that is, is how, that quote is how I see selling. It's people cast power to their circumstances in my job is to get them to unfuck themselves. around the power that they have just cast to something they cannot control. And so if I can just get them to own, even just own the fact that they suck, that's good enough because they actually can own it and there is pride in that.

You can take pride in the fact that you admit that there's a deficit, right? But the only thing you can't take pride in is casting and being a victim. Like no one moves forward. Even if you're right, it doesn't serve you. Right. If you're born with one less leg than you should, you're right. You have a disadvantage at being a sprinter. You have a disadvantage, but it doesn't serve you in any way to admit it.

And so it's owning the fact that you are the only person who can actually change anything about your life because you may blame your circumstances, but no one else will care.