The Game with Alex Hormozi - I Married For Money | Ep 326

Episode Date: August 31, 2021

Who do you see yourself with for the long run? Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) talks about marriage and how it was one of the most important decisions in his life, his backstory with Leila, and what kind of person you need in your life.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:(2:02) - Alex shares story of meeting Leila, realizing compatibility, and marriage decision(8:41) - Life partner as cheerleader or fallback(11:15) - Relationships: problem to solve, dichotomy to manage, find middle ground(15:48) - Honesty and trust for unbreakable bond with life partnerFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

It is who you marry. And the reason that I think this is one of the most important decisions you make in your life, 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 than the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. The single most important decision that you have in increasing your net worth, do you guys know what it is? It is not the business that you start. It is not the industry even that you are in.

That's important. It is not the market. market you serve. It is not your pricing. It is not your legion strategy. It is one thing. It is who you marry. And the reason that I think this is one of the most important decisions you make in your life is because that person will either be constantly grading at you or that person will be supporting you. And I think the vast majority of marriages either fall in the grading category or the neutral category. And so the number one question that I get related to this is how do I get my wife, and this is more for the fellas, but for, for ladies, just reverse the genders. How do I get my wife to be like Layla? How do I get her to like business? And the simple answer is you don't, because you don't change who you marry.

They're not going to change, right? And so what I wanted to do is kind of explain to you how this came to be for us. And I think that we have a lot of counterintuitive or contrary in views on marriage and love. And I think that we have a very, very good marriage. And it has worked really well. And so I'll share some of the things.

things that have been different for us than most people. So when I met Layla, we actually went on a date and it was a 15-minute date because I'd try to get her to do Froyo because I said it was low commitment and if either of us was weird, we could dip out really quickly. And so she agreed. And so we went to Froyo and and you know within a little bit, we hit it off, but not in the way that you would normally expect. Like there was not any, there was really no romantic anything. There was no chemistry. I wasn't like, man, I think this girl is amazing. I was just like very interested in her. And I thought she was smart and I thought she liked the same stuff as me.

So I was like, this is cool. Like she's interesting. And so we ended up walking and talking for like four hours, but we didn't have any like romantic chemistry at all. And even like on our second or third date, Layla was like, I don't really get any vibes from you like romantically at all. I was like, okay, cool. But over time, obviously, we worked on that. But in that first couple dates, she was in fitness. And she was like one of the top salesmen at 24-hour fitness at the time.

And I was in fitness too. And I had a few gyms at the time. And so I said, gosh, you got to stop working for them. You should work for me. Because I knew if someone could sell, I knew we could make a lot of money together. And so I pitched her on the idea of quitting her job and coming to work for me, which of course she said no because she had just met me from the internet but but anyways uh i i did end up saying hey i'm going to do this thing called gym launch

and she was like okay i don't care i just met you and i was like it's gonna be it's gonna be something and so i went and um i flew and did the first three gym launches this is when we used to fly out and i did like gym turnarounds and we did i did three of those and i came back she picked from the airport we talked on the phone every night um and uh she was and i had not taken her on a date up to this point so now so now's been like two or three months at this point that we'd been quote dating. I had actually taken her out anywhere. It was always like, hey, if you just want to like hang out with me, I'm going to be working all day.

And it was kind of like, we spent every day together. But it was just like, I just enjoyed being around each other. And so, anyhow, we did this, right? I came back. She picks me up the airport and she was like, you better take me on a date. And I was like, okay, okay, one thing first, right? You got to help me process these contracts. And she was like, oh, fine.

And so we went, I poured us both a drink. and I taught her how to process the contracts, and then within an hour, we'd process $100,000 in sales. And she looked at me, she was like, what do you do again? And I was like, ah, now you're interested.

And she was like, is it legal? I was like, yeah, it's legal. And she was like, okay, I'm in. And so at that point, she actually left her roster of personal training clients and joined me in launching the gyms. And so we very much started our relationship

in business together, and then learned the love and romance side. I think the business side, I think she said this too, it became natural to both of us. We naturally worked well together. And I think there's no coincidence that my business has exploded once I met Layla because she really was the yindamai Yang when it came to everything that we had to do. And this is important for anybody who has a partner in business.

The thing that got us from $400,000 a month to making millions a month was understanding the division of roles. And so I, you know, she was really naturally good at sales. And so was I. And so we were both kind of like just, you know, tag teaming. And that was cool in the beginning because everyone was kind of doing everything. But at some point, we needed to divide up responsibilities. And so we went to a mentor.

We drew everything on the board of what we needed to do. And there's this huge thing of just tasks and activities that we were doing every single day, every single week. And so he took this big marker and he drew a lot, you know, a big circle around like 80% of it. He was like, all right, all this goes to Layla and the stuff that was just marketing sales and product, he was like, this is Alex's. And I was like, oh, this is a great deal. Right. And the thing is is that Layla being as growth oriented as she is, basically I remember because she kept telling herself, she was like, I'm not going to be the reason this business fails.

And so she just learned all of this stuff, right? And I mean, I think that's one of the big reasons that that we were able to massively explode after that because we had an amazing operator who could basically fulfill on the promises and handle the flow that. I could generate. And so we started to working together and then it became kind of weird because, you know, business was growing really quickly and some of the employees were like, so you guys are just like dating? We're like, yeah. And they were like, they started to get worried because like, what if you guys break up? And we were like, oh, if we broke up, we'd still do the business together. But it got to a point where I was like, you know, this is, this is getting to, we need to make a decision about this relationship. And so I actually came to Layla and I had a,

true proposition, all right, like a proposal in the in the truest sense of the word. And so I said, what do you, what would you say if we got married? I was like, I think it makes a lot of sense. And she was like, I mean, I would say yes. And I was like, all right. I was like, well, here's my reasoning. And so I broke down the reason. I was like, we're both young. I was like, we're both have Persian backgrounds. We're both. So we have the same cultural things. Like we get that that side of ourselves. We both like fitness. You like business. We worked together all right. I was like, I feel like this makes sense.

Like, we should do this. And so she agreed. And so we went, we got in the car. And we went and I was like, I guess we got to get you a ring. And so we got in the car, got her a ring, came back 45 minutes later. He was like, well, shoot, I guess we got to get a church thing organized. And so we called him a pastor. And I was like, you free Wednesday night?

And he was like, yeah, I think it was like a Sunday. And he was like, are you sure? Like, this is fast. And we're like, yeah, we're sure. So we went to the back of the church and got married that Wednesday night. So we were engaged for like less than a week. And that was it. We actually told our parents after we got married.

So no one knew. We just we got married and then told everyone afterwards. And it was it was pretty cool. And it's been interesting though because our, the business always came easy and the romance and the relationship was the part that we had to work at. The love side of the relationship because we just, we mesh so naturally on the business side. And so I say this to say, for everyone who continues to ask the question, how do I make my wife like Leila?

I think that you're not going to do that. I think Layla is Leila, right? And I think that your wife is your wife or your partner is your partner, right? And so you have to figure out what that Yin and Yang relationship is going to be. And if that person is not in the business, it is Leila and I,

it's both of our beliefs, that there are really only two roles that that person can play in your life. They can either be, and I got this from Gary Vee, but I 100% agree with it. They can either be a chueling or they can be a fullback. All right? So the cheerleader is the person who's on the

sideline who's cheering you on to win the game, right? Because at the end of the day, the cheerleader who actually wants the team to win would never ask the quarterback to come out of the game when the game is on the line. All right? And you know the difference because if when the game is on the line, that cheerleader is asking you to throw in the towel, asking you to hang your locker, you know, put stuff up in the locker room and leave the game with that part, with them, then that's not a cheerleader. That's neither, right? And that's my point is that if they're not doing one of these two things, they are detracting from what you ultimately want to do. And there's nothing wrong with a spouse who's not in the business. That's totally fine.

And it's a decision and that's okay. But you still need to be supportive. Hey guys, love that you're listening to the podcast. If you ever want to have the video version of this, which usually has more effects, more visuals, more graphs, you know, drawn out stuff. Sometimes it can help hit the brain centers in different ways. You can check on my YouTube channel. It's absolutely free. Go check that out if that's what you are into. And if not, keep enjoying the show. All right. So the question, are you going to be supportive in that? You are covering the other aspects of your lives together. And the role that that cheerleader plays is that when you are not at work, it helps you detach from works. You gain distance, gain perspective, can realize

that there are other things that are important in life, which ultimately will actually make you better business person. Because if business is the only thing you have, right, then all of your chips are always on it, which makes you more emotional and erratic, it makes you make worse decisions. So if you realize, it gives you context and perspective, which is why whenever you have a death of someone who's close to you, the gift of that death is the perspective that it gives us, right? And so that is the role that that cheerleader has is they give you perspective and context to the importance or relative importance of business in your life, right? But they are supportive because they understand that it is for the team, right?

The other role is the dynamic that Layla and I have, which is the fullback role, which is that one person is blocking while the other person carries the ball down the field. And we're rotating, right? One person blocks, the other person carries. one person blocks, one person carries. And that has been the role that we have had, is that we're both on the field together. And so each of those has different pros and cons, right?

And we were big believers, are big followers of Esther Perel, who's a relationship expert. And I think this was such a, I'm going to share this with you because I think it's so valuable. As Americans or many of us in the Western world, we want to solve problems. When in reality, many times there are dichotivism. that must be managed but cannot be solved.

I'll give you a business example. How do you solve micromanaging versus, you know, abdication or delegation, right? How do you, how do you solve that? You don't solve it. It is a dichotomy that must be managed. And relationships, as we see them, have the same dichotomy between closeness and familiarity and distance and intrigue,

all right? And so what happens is in the beginning of most relationships, because you are so distant and you have some similarities, if you take some steps towards close, the relationship improves, right? You get to know the person better, you start to trust them more, and you're like, this is awesome. But what happens is that if you continue down that path, you become brother and sister, and you just become roommates because you live together, you're so familiar, there's no variety and there's no mystery, there's no intrigue, right?

And believe me, as Layla and I, we work together, we live together, we're in the same house, we work out at the same jet, like we spend all of our time. So what we have to do is we actively create space. And so I think what's important is to figure out where you are on this dichotone. and figure out what action or where you need to lean towards in your tendencies in the relationship to find the middle ground. And obviously it's going to sway. It's like a pendulum, but you try and keep it in the middle. And so for us, like I said, because we're in business together, we actually have to actively create space. So we have different offices. There are opposite sides of the house. We try and not be on the same meetings and things like that. Because at the end of the day, if I want to say,

hey, would you do today? Actually, don't answer. I was on every meeting with you. There's no space. everything is familiar and familiarity, though comforting, is not attractive. Right? And so, which is why, you know, like, it's like joke, the joke is like, it's like a brother or sister, right? Like you live together, but like it's like, uh, right? Because you're so familiar, right? You know everything about that person. Now, the flip side is a complete stranger. There's all the mystery, but there's no trust, right? And so to have the long-term relationship, it is our belief that you have to manage both of those things. And so the flip side is a lot of people get married, right? And one person works and one person doesn't work,

and that's okay. But what happens is they start to grow apart. And because they're not sharing the same reality, they grow for their further or further part until the person feels like a stranger to them. Right. And you've probably heard that for people, right? And so if you're in one of those relationships, then the goal should always be how can we share our experience? How can we create a shared reality? How can we grow together and make sure we are growing in the same direction? Because the entrepreneurial stimulus that you're going to get from business is going to change you. It is going to force you to adapt and by extension grow. And the stimulus that your partner is going through is going to force them to adapt and grow. And the goal is how can we align

that growth so it's in the same direction so that we look at each other 15 years from now? We don't think, who did I marry? Right. And the person you might have changed and so might have they. But I think that in order to maintain the relationship, it's maintaining the middle ground of that dichotomy. And so for us, our process around this is we always create space to be missed. And I think that some of you who have maybe had a spouse or somebody who you spend a lot of time with, if you actually go travel somewhere and then come back, it's almost like your relationship, in my opinion, I feel like my experience has been, it's been better. And so it's like you're like miss the person.

And I think that we need to create more space to be missed, especially if you work with your spouse. And so for us, the relationship has been very much a love logically format. We both share the belief that you can create love through actions. And so we did not have the romantic love. We learned it. We actually, I, you know, I would not say that I was in love with Layla when we got married. Real talk. I was not in love with Layla when we got married. I loved her as a person.

And I thought that the decision made sense, but we were not in love. And it took us, I would say it took us until, I'd say it took us until 2020. December of 2019, we kind of came to a head and we both said that we didn't want to keep living our lives this way. So we had, you know, we were just making, I mean, a lot of money. and we still do, but like, our lives are very different now, right? And it was all because the money that we made for both of us was out of scarcity and lack, right? We were so fear-driven that we were going to lose the thing that we made. And so just so you know, as you're building your business, in the beginning, you fear being poor.

As you kind of transition in the middle, you fear losing the status that the money has gotten you, right? And so the fears change over time. But anyways, we've gotten to this point, and I think we had made. made $30 million in profit in the last 24 months. And we both were like, I don't want to keep living this way. And so that was when we decided going into 2020 that we were going to like prioritize our marriage. And so what's interesting is that in 2020, despite the fact that our businesses got hit because of COVID and whatnot, we have a lot of brick and mortar based businesses, our marriage

probably like tripled that year in terms of how much better it is now, et cetera. because we actively spent a lot of time. Making sure that there was no space between us from a, from a, not in the way that I meant earlier, but that there were not things between us. I think she uses the couch metaphor that like whatever sits between you on the couch that you got to make sure there's nothing there. And so I think that there were some things that I had held on to that I had resented and I think there were some things that she had done to or whatever.

I mean, minor stuff, but stuff that grows. And I think even the fact that we were unhappy in. working and making as much money as we were was grading at both of us because we we both saw each other working so hard. We were like, well, I don't want to be the one that's not working hard. And so we both felt like we'd be letting the other person down. And so I think we're even saying, hey, I'm not really happy with how life is going for us was actually really valuable because then it was like, oh, you feel that way too? I feel that way. And then all of a sudden it was like, this whole thing diffused. And it was this big fear that we had that if we voiced that we weren't

happy with how something was going, the other person would be like, well, I am happy. Right. and that wasn't the case at all. And so by even just admitting that we had a shared reality, it allowed us to move forward with a perspective of like truth and integrity first. And so not integrity in terms of line, but truth and radical candor about where we were out emotionally in the moment. We really tried to keep that and it's been, it's served us very well. And so if you have a spouse who's in your business,

I think figuring out whether the person is a cheerleader or a fullback is, an important step, right? And then adjusting, whether you're trying to get closer or trying to get farther away from that person and create space if you need it or create closeness if you need it to manage that dichotomy is important. And then finally, understanding that, at least for us, love was something that we were able to create rather than something that we got had to marry for. And so we married for logic. We married for business reasons. And I, honestly, it was one of the best decisions, if not the best decision business-wise that I have ever made in my entire life. And so if you are in that situation, then those are just a handful of perspectives.

I'll share more as more come to me. But I thought that it would be valuable since a lot of people continue to ask me about what is the working dynamic like between Loyal and I. And hopefully this video does a little bit to put some context to it. So, Mosey Nation, I love you. My name's Alexermosi Ownacquisition.com. We do $85 million a year. Like I said, I have nothing to sell you.

If you enjoyed this, hit the subscribe button. And I will see you guys the next video. keep being awesome. Bye.