The Game with Alex Hormozi - Jacked or Shredded? | Ep 599

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

Consistency will always beat intensity. Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) talks about conditioning your body at the gym has similarities to growing your business and how the total volume of work outperforms the total effort.Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.Timestamps:(1:58) - Skill development through consistent action(4:00) - Importance of knowledge and learning from mentors(7:15) - Value of earning while learning and gaining experience(10:29) - Self-awareness and adjusting expectations in business and fitness(13:17) - Intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation(14:46) - Consistency beats intensity(16:10) - Liking business for successFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition(This episode is a re-run. Original airdate was Oct. 12, 2021)

My observation, who have become super fit, right, or super successful in bodybuilding our business are people who can do it for a long time. And the best way to do it for a long time is to be obsessed with it, is to actually enjoy doing it. 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. So I was having this conversation with a friend of mine who exited his business for for 15 million. And he was like, I think that you're so successful in business because of the principles that you learned from bodybuilding. And I thought, and we had like a 30-minute discussion about that one topic. And I think it's really, really important.

Some of the things that we talked about are just very interesting. And so the nice thing about what I want to talk to you about today is if you're really good at business and you want to get jacked or shredded, everything that I'm about to tell you will apply. And if you are really good at being jacked and shredded and really bad at making money, then everything about to tell you will apply because there's actually so. many similarities, but not in the way that you would think. And so as I was thinking about this, right, between bodybuilding and business, one of the key things that matters is consistency, right?

A lot of people think that intensity is what wins. So they work really, really hard at business for a short period of time, and then they stop. And they look and they're like, I haven't made a lot of money, right? Or they work out really, really, really hard for a couple weeks or a couple of months. And then they're like, hey, I don't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Like, what gives? And then they stop, right? And so I would always rather have somebody work out with a 70% intensity for 10 years, right, then somebody work out with 120% intensity for one month, right? And the same degree happens within business, right? If you just consistently do something for a long period of time, you're going to be really good at it because the total volume of work performed will surpass

the total effort from that guy who's being really intense for a short period of time. Because one of the things that happens, I think, over time is that you develop the skill set of persistency. Like it in and of itself is a character trait that you develop through doing it. So if you're like, I'm not that good at sticking through things, then the best way to get better at sticking through things is to stick with things because then that just like a muscle becomes better for you. All right? So here's another really cool similarity between bodybuilding and business. There are a lot of guys who are really good at one thing. So they're really good at entrepreneurs, really good at sales, right?

Or they're really good at marketing. Or they're really good at product. Or they're really good at whatever. And to the same degree in bodybuilding, there are people who have really good chests or really good backs or really good legs. And then they have other weaknesses. is. And so in the world, you probably heard this before, which is you need to double down inner strengths. And I think that there's a certain degree of truth of that. There's also a big lie that's woven in. And so here's the similarity between the two of bodybuilding and business.

Your weakest link in your business will be the constraint of the business. You don't necessarily have to be the person who fulfills that weak link, but the business must be balanced. So just like your physique must be balanced, so too much to the business. And so just like, just like, like you have body parts, you have departments, right, within a business. So you've got marketing and sales, you've got your biceps and triceps, right? And so you have these similarities that are there, but you can't just be all sales and marketing, right? You have to have a back end. You have to have good culture. You have to have finance. You have to have good accounting. These are all things that must happen in order for the business to overall be successful over the long term.

And to the same degree in bodybuilding, you can't just have all chest because over a long period time, and you'll be unbalanced and you'll probably enter yourself. And you won't look good the whole time because the more you get that unbalanced, the more unbalanced your body will look and it looks stupid and doesn't work. Right. So over a long enough time horizon, you can be unbalanced in the beginning. It's natural for some people to have naturally better legs or be naturally better at sales and marketing. Be naturally better at products and fulfillment. But over time, you have to develop those weaknesses because otherwise those would be the things that constrain your business and your growth and the overall physique or business that you built. So I thought

that was a really interesting parallel between the two. Another one's really good. Hold on. So skill comes from volume, right? And it's high quality volume. So this is ones that's really interesting. So I've worked out with friends of mine who are entrepreneurs. And I can't tell you how many times they've worked out with me. And I'm like, hey, man, change this, do this, move your elbows this way. You know, reposition your body. And for some reason, it's happened almost every time with back training.

And they were like, dude, I've been training for 10 years. And these aren't like fitness people. They're like business people who are like, hey, I'll go work out with you. And they were like, dude, I've never felt my back before. Like today, with you, I've realized that I've never felt my back when I trained. And so think about this for a second. For 10 years or five years, these guys have been training. They're consistent, right? For 10 years or five years, they've been training and thinking that they were training their back, but they weren't. And so the question is how many people are in business and thinking their marketing, thinking they're selling when in fact they are not. And so what's interesting about this is, and of all Rob Kahn said this about specified or specific knowledge, right? Is a specific knowledge is is knowledge that can be learned but cannot be taught. And so the The way that people learn it is through application and doing. If you can learn it in school, it's not valuable, right?

And so the way that it is learned is through apprenticeship and mentorship, right? And that's why I'm such a big proponent of finding people who have done what you want to do. And learning from them because there's so many nuances and whips and details and how they execute that create the excellence. And so I'm going to go on this tangent for a second because I think it's really important. So one, my good friend, Dr. Jericho, PhD, one of the top two smartest people I've known my whole life. He looked at this big research study that they looked in academia, which was that people who have mentors in academia accomplish four times more than people with identical character traits, identical degrees and pedigrees and all that stuff, who did not have a mentor. Think about that. Four times the production because of the level of specific knowledge that gets transferred from one person to another, right?

And so for me, I think about that. I'm like, man, so how much specific, not, like, what does it take to get specific? acknowledge because people ask me they're like, man, you sound so convicted. Like your content seems so different than some of the stuff that I see out there. And I was thinking about this for a second. I was having a conversation with Brooke Castilla, who runs a $50 million a year life coaching business. She's one of our really close friends. And she's like, I get the same feedback too. And she's like, I wish I could teach that thing. And so we're having discussion about it. And I was like, I think what it is is its first principles like derivatives. Like most people that you see have not done the thing that they are teaching. What they do is they are.

They are spouting things that they have heard and just regurgitating them. And so they do not understand why it is that way. They are saying it is that way, but they lack the details. They lack the nuance of having done it and being able to troubleshoot it because they didn't actually build the thing. They observed it being built and then relayed it to their audience. And most people haven't done it. And that is why things sound different, right?

So anyways, back to the specific knowledge and the difference between bodybuilding and business. right and so you have to do the thing well like training your back well do the sales well in order for your skill to improve and the way to do that is a lot of times by having somebody who is much better than you teach you how to do it all right because unfortunately the academic system that exists sucks and so we have to pay or learn in other ways and I think you can either go to a company and learn those skills specific knowledge from doing it or you can or you can do it yourself right I like the idea of getting earning while you learn, right? Go to a company.

Get paid to learn, right? I think it's like one of the best things in the entire world. My 18 year old are now 19 because he's, he's grown up one year. My 19 year old neighbor really wanted to learn how to sell. And he was like, how do I learn how to sell? And I was like, why don't you just start working on our sales statement? Like, you'll learn how to sell. He was like, okay.

And now, you know, a year later, he's one of our, he went through three ranks of salespeople, of sales positions in our company. He's got promoted twice. And so, and now he's a really good salesman. And he couldn't sell for credit. like a year ago, right? And he learned the skill by doing it, right? And now he can teach the skill because he's done it, right? And so anyways, back to the, back to the thing. So a lot of people try and do things too fast, right? You got to feel it, just like in bodybuilding. Like, you have to,

you have to do it with the specific intention behind it. So so many people go through the motions and they think their marketing. They think they're marketing. But really what they're doing is they're like, no, no, we do the marketing. We do that, we do that stuff. Right. No, no, I do some of that back stuff. I do some of that stuff. Right. So these similarities between the two because people think they're executing, but they're actually not. And then they wonder why they look the same or why their business is the same level as it was when they started. All right? Real quick, guys, you guys already know that I don't run any ads on this and I don't sell anything. And so the only ask that I can ever have of you guys is that you help me spread the words. We can out more entrepreneurs, make more money,

feed their families, make better products and have better experiences for their employees and customers. And the only way we do that is if you can rate and review and share this podcast. So the single thing that I ask you do is you can just leave a review. It'll take 10 seconds or one type of the thumb. It would mean the absolute world to me. And more importantly, it may change the world for someone else. And so let me transition to one of the most important points that we hit on, which is that for bodybuilding in business, nothing replaces hunger. Nothing replaces fanaticism. And I think this is really interesting because a lot of people think, this is a really good one,

because I've dealt with a lot of fitness professionals. They think that they are very disciplined. They think they're very disciplined. But I'll tell you what, they're not. Because they like fitness, which is why they do fitness, right? And they've done it for a long time because they enjoy doing it. But when it comes to business, they don't enjoy doing it. And so they're not disciplined because if you were disciplined,

you would do it even though you do not enjoy doing it. So they think that they do this thing of fitness because they're disciplined, but it's because they enjoy it. And other people do not enjoy it. And so they assume because other people do not enjoy it, that because they do it, it means they are disciplined. And that is not the reality. They do it because they like it. Right.

And so with that, the only people who went in the long term, the only people that in my observation, who have become super fit, right, or super successful in bodybuilding or business, are people who can do it for a long time. And the best way to do it for a long time is to be obsessed with it is to actually enjoy doing it. Right? Because most fitness professionals that I know have been fit for a long time, they spend their free time reading about fitness. They spend their free time reading books on nutrition. They spend their free time trying new exercise selections, like different training philosophies. They try all these different things because they love it and they think about it and all their free time. And so when I think one of the things that takes to be successful in either, there is the self-awareness of like, if you want to have an exceptional physique, right, the way to do it is to like it.

And if you don't like it, then you may want to adjust your expectations because you're not going to beat someone who does like it and also works that long. And so to the same degree in business, if you're like, let's say in fitness and you wanted to get in business, and mind you, this is not a channel for fitness business stuff. But if you were in that shoe and you want it to be good at business, but you just don't spend your time reading about it and you don't spend your waking time thinking about it. You're not always reinvesting because all you want to do is just consume more information on business, then you're not going to beat someone who does, right? Because they're beating you in their off time. They're working 16 hours a day, high quality effort because they love it and they're fanatical. about it. And so if you were a technician of any kind and you don't love business, then the likely that you're going to be very good at business is very low. And so I think people need to

adjust their expectations. You can be a technician to make $200,000 a year, and that's totally fine. That's totally okay. Just be really good at the thing that you do. You don't need to be good at business. Right. But you need to adjust your expectations in thinking, well, I've been in business for however long. I've been going to the gym working back for however long and not doing it, right? because you don't spend any time thinking about it, right? But if you spend your time thinking about all day long, you will eventually correct your form, you will eventually do it right, you will seek out the mentors and people that you need who can actually get you unstuck, all right?

So one of the last points that I figured out for myself is I actually have different working styles in business than I do in fitness. So this is kind of interesting. So hear me out. So in fitness, and this has taken me now 17 years to figure out, is that I actually like working out with people, not necessarily with them, but in an environment where their other people are. Because my whole life, I was like, man, I want to have the sickest home gym of all time. And now that I have the sickest home gym of all time, for those you don't know, if we have like a ridiculous home gym, I'll just put it that way.

I actually realized that I enjoy going to a $24 a month large box gym that has all the equipment and other people around me. I train harder. I train longer when there are other people around me. And I think that's just because I'm insecure or I have, you know, tendencies towards insecurities. and I like going to the gym and proving myself and proving in front of other people that I can still work hard. When I'm alone, I have significantly less motivation to do so. But here's what's interesting. The flip side is that in business, I work better alone. I work better in isolation, right, with no one around me.

And I think that it's important to figure out what your motivator is. Like, I love business and I'm intrinsically motivated to do it because I love it. All I do all day long is think about business all day long. And when I work out, I have an extrinsing motivator. So if you can think to yourself, like, what is my intrinsic motivation for or what is, what is my motivator? And this is funny for me because I just figured this out. Like I have this home gym. And since pretty much I opened my first gym in 2013, right? Since then, I've always had a gym that I owned that I would work out at and it was always alone. And my motivation for fitness pretty much

dropped in 2013 until now. Now, I have discipline as a character trait. So I'll continue to work out, but not nearly as hard as I used to. And I used to like really look forward to it. And I haven't really looked forward to it for a long time, right? But now, as I, as I'm traveling more, I'm working out in other gyms and I'm realizing that I actually look forward to going to other gyms more than I look forward to going to my own gym, which I thought was really interesting. So I figured I would just share that with you. So to bring this home, I want to hammer the big points that I think matter most. All right. The first thing is the people who like the thing are the ones who are going to succeed in the long term. If you don't like the thing, you're never going to win because

you're not going to beat someone who does like the thing, period, right? Two, if you want to advance faster than find somebody who has specific knowledge in the thing, whether it's business or bodybuilding. You have to do it right in order to make progress. Number three, consistency will always beat intensity. So if you're really, you're like, hey, man, I've done 100 reach out. I got this one the other day. Someone was like, hey, man, I did your rule of 100. And over the last eight weeks, I did 160 reachouts. I was like, well, you're about 9,000 to reach out short. So you didn't do the rule of 100. The rule 100 is 100 every day, not 160 over eight weeks. Hmm. Right. And so you can't just be intense for a tiny period and then expect it to work. It's like you have to go to the

gym every day. You have to go, you have to put the reps in for your outbound calls or outbound reachouts or making 100 ads or whatever it is every single day and you have to do it for a long time because then you'll get better, right? Number four, the people who who are intrinsically motivated I think will work better on their own. People are extrinsically motivated work better in in areas where they can show off. So if you like that, then join the masterminds, join the groups where you're you can show off. I'm going to be real with you. Everybody cares about whatever else thinks. I don't care what anyone says. Right. And so if you have that deficiency, like I do, crippling insecurity, then try and harness the insecurity to help you, help it help you, right, rather than have it hurt you.

And then finally, just like bodybuilding and business, there's always going to be weak links in your game, right? Weak links in your physique. You can be really good at sales. You can be really good at benching, right? You can be really good at one thing, but in order for the business overall to succeed, you have to fix the weak link. And it either means you need to learn how to do it or you need to find who already has that skill and can fix it within your business for you so that your overall physique or your overall or your overall business itself is balanced. So I hope you found this valuable. We've found this interesting. I thought it was a great conversation I was having with a good friend of mine who's also really interested in fitness and business. And we're talking about

the similarities. And last one is that if you're a, if you're a fitness professional and And you are, and you're not making money. It's not because you are so disciplined in fitness. You're really good at fitness because you like fitness. And so the key is to figure out how to like business in order to be good at it. Because that's the only way you're going to do it for a long enough period of time and be consistent with it. So anyways, keep being awesome. And the last thing, you know what?

I'll add this last piece in. Last piece is that most people think in months. When the people who win think in years, if you want to have a champion physique, you want to look like you're absolutely ridiculously in shape. it doesn't take months it takes years if you want to have the business this is my opinion that is what you want it to be it's not going to take months it takes years and if you look up after six months or nine months or two years and you're like i'm not where i want to be first off i'm not where i want to be either so that's not going to change right but if you feel like you're not making the progress that's

proportional it's always a hockey stick right there's always the years of eating crap for a long bit of time and then everything starts taking off because you put all the pieces together and unlike a physique because you have your body whether it's bad or not, right? In business, it works a lot like a pipeline in that if you can get leads but you can't sell, you don't have a business. If you can get leads and you can sell but you can't fulfill, then like it's very like you have to hit each one of the steps in the pipeline in order for the business to grow. And once all of those things are right, then you add more in the front and then the whole thing grows. And just like bodybuilding, once your whole body is balanced, now you add more volume and then the whole thing grows.