The Game with Alex Hormozi - Not All Friendships Will Matter... (w/ Ken Coleman) Pt. 2 - Nov. '22 | Ep 470

Episode Date: December 10, 2022

“Understanding the motivation of the person who's influencing you to stay put is useful.” Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) as he guests on Ken Coleman’s Show to talk about why not all friendships matter as you grow, the sacrifices you need to make if you want to be successful, and how parental expectations may or may not control the way you achieve your goals. 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 Ken Coleman’s YouTube Channel!Timestamps:(1:26) - 95% of our success or failure in life is directly related to the people we spend the most time with(7:55) - I want to be successful, but my family is holding me back…(15:51) - The condition of parental expectations(19:18) - The roles of men and women in the workforce today(25:09) - Fear of failure is actually worse than failure itselfFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

I would rather have died than let him be right. I could not accept an existence where I would have to come back with my tail between my legs and then if I had not succeeded there, I would have basically had to become a slave for the rest of my life. 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. I want to talk to you about another very important topic. I think we're probably very much in agreement. And if I could gather every young person in the room, and I only had one message, this might be the message. And I'm going to tee you up. And actually the data bears it out.

Harvard, of course, everybody knows Harvard. They've got the longest study ever done on relationships. They follow people from birth to death. People are still in the study in a life, of course. and one of the professors who was leading the study said this, that the study proved to them with data that is indisputable that 95% of our success or failure in life, Alex, is directly related to the people we spend the most time with.

And of course, you know, Jim Rohn, legendary motivational speaker, said, you know, the people you've spent five people who spend the most time. So it's anecdotal as well. But the reality is when you think about failure, in every area of our life, relationally, physically, emotionally, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, I mean, this is so, so true.

And yet I feel like we walk around like zombies, you know, just doing our thing, hanging with the people we hang with, and we don't take critical inventory of the people we spend the most time with. Thoughts on friends in your life, people around you,

how guarded are you? And I don't mean like from a privacy standpoint, but I mean with your time. No, so I am, and maybe it's because I'm still young, but I am pretty ruthless when it comes to the people that I have in my life. And I tend to have a relatively contrary in view on relationships, which is that I do believe that all relationships are transactional. It sounds hard to say, but if you never got anything positive at some point, most humans will cease to continue the relationship. And so if we think about human behavior in terms of reinforcers and punishers,

because those are the only two things, sticks and carrots, right? The people that we've had a longer period of time with, we are willing to wait a longer period of time before we are reinforced to continue to spend time with them. So we will wait longer periods of time before we get another carrot, which then kicks it out again, right, for the next carrot to come. And so for me, when I look at the relationships that I have, I try to cut off the backside, which is I don't want to keep a relationship because I have always had it. I don't want to give value to something because it has existed. But only insofar as it will continue to add value and more so that that it is aligned with where I want to go.

Right. And so if I feel, at least as I see them, the people or actions we take are either going to get us closer or further from our goals. That is all. And so I want to stack the deck in my favor with the most amount of people who help me get the furthest or closest to my goals

compared to other things. And so oftentimes, at least in my experience, the higher up I've gone on at least the material ladder of success, the fewer people can hang. And it's because of maybe their skills, their character traits, their beliefs. If I feel like I am overwhelmingly giving in the relationship, and there's really not much that comes back over an extended period of time,

my time to cut the relationship has just decreased over time. And a lot of this, I think I read some studies of older people, because I like studying elderly a lot because I think that they have some perspective. Yes, they do. To Gen Z, I feel like y'all should listen to old people. They really should. Yeah. But if you see a happiness curve on subjective well-being,

it's actually like a smiley face. So people are happiest when they're like 10 years old. And then they go slow and steady down where the value of despair is like 45 to 55. And then they start to come up the other side once they get into elderly and retirement age. And one of the biggest things that they attributed it to is that the things, the relationships and circumstances that people used to deal with or suffer through, they would say they literally didn't have time for that. they're like, I only have 10 years left.

I don't have time for Susie. She's negative. She's always talking smack behind my back. Rather than keep this relationship, I just make more time for the people who don't. And I think that if I am going to be that way eventually, I might as well enjoy the benefits of making those types of decisions now, despite it not being in vogue.

Yep. Well, I think that's absolutely right. And that's incredible. Let me ask you this. How would you define a person who would be called a friend of Alex What do they need? What's that transaction need to look like between you and them? Yeah, a high ratio of positive exchange per unit of time. So fancy for they need to lift you when you're around them.

That suck the life out of you. Per the amount of time. So like if I have a relationship that I only, you know, we text once a quarter and it's always something cool or something interesting, very low time investment, but low, positive back, but still positive, right? So I think it's just the ratio of. Gotcha. I mean, this is what you put in versus what you get out.

So a friend would be somebody who has a high ratio of what I put in versus what I get out. Exactly. But I mean, what would you say your circle of close friends is right now? What would you? What's the number? How many people, if I'm hanging out with you and I'm around you 30 days and I go, okay, he's got three close friends. He's got five, seven, ten. What is it?

Three. Yeah. That's what the data shows. Let me ask you this. How many of those three close friends go way back more than 10? 10 years. That's what I thought. My wife's seven, if that counts. No, it doesn't count. She's your wife. We can't, yeah, yeah. Two. Okay. Okay, two. And do you think that that is healthy? Would you like it to be more? Is it just perfect? I don't ascribe a label to it.

Good. It just is what it is. It's the rhythm you're in and the pace you're running. I enjoy the life that I have. And if I had no friends that I enjoyed the life that I have, that I would be with that and if I had 20 friends I would enjoy the life that I had. So I think a lot of, I think a lot of mental duress comes from ascribing a positive, it's like the weather. Like is, too rainy and is five sunny? Or is it just, they just are that way? And this might also be a season of my life that I'm in a little bit more of a building season. And I might not have as much extracurricular time that I can allocate towards friendship. So maybe my ratio for friends is higher now that it might be in the future. I don't know. I suspect it will raise, honestly. But,

and I just wanted to add one caveat to the friend, friend comment. I believe just like capitalism where both people, you know, one person buys and the other person gives a product and both people say thank you, that in an exchange with a friend, it's my hope that both of us are better off. It's not just like Alex taking,

because then they would be justified in saying that they should, I would say you shouldn't be friends with me if I'm only taking from you. And so the hope is that, at least with the relationships that I have that I frequent most often, that the exchange makes both of us better. Yeah, I want to go, let's go deeper on this, because I get this call a lot on the show.

It sounds a little bit like this. And it's some fun. I'm going to tee you up for what a call would be for me. And instead of me telling you what I say, I want to know what you say, all right? So it goes like this. Alex, I've got some tension with family members. And I know what I want to do.

I know why I want to do it. But they're not very supportive. And it's killing me because it matters a lot to me. And I'm torn. My heart to do what I believe I'm supposed to do. But then my heart from my heart from my heart. family. It's an open-ended, and of course, I dig in. Where do you go with that question? So I say first we have to define some terms. So the first one is, at least for me, is that

love is defined as what you're willing to give up to maintain something as I define it. And so, for example, if you have a project car, if you've ever worked on a car or something, if you're a long time, it's like, man, he must love that thing because he works on it forever and it doesn't do anything. Like, I'm willing to incur lots of costs before a carrot because I love something. I'm willing to sacrifice a lot in order to keep it. So, I think the question for the person would be, which are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to sacrifice your dreams?

Are you willing to sacrifice a certain amount of influence that your family has over them? And so I think that if we can divorce, like you can still have people, you can still have a relationship with people, but they don't necessarily need to be the majority of your time. And so if you have people who, I like fast forwarding because I'm a big frame guy.

So it's like if we're 85 years from now and all the people that were in your family, who are older than you are now dead, because they will be, and you have not realized the dreams or even attempted to because of the fear of their judgment, how would you feel? Okay, scenario one. Scenario two, you do pursue those dreams and you don't have the family at the end of your life, but you did accomplish them. Which one do you feel better with? Now, there is a third path, which is you start pursuing the dream, and then they change their opinions and catch up with you, which is the vast majority of the time. That's correct, because we'll be real.

Materialism is a real thing. Status is a real thing. thing. If you kill it, they will want to, they will want you in their group. That's right. It's just that oftentimes it's the crab, the crab in the bucket scenario. Yeah. Where one crab wants to get away and the fact that they're trying to, that you're trying to spin out of the circle of mediocrity that they are in, you make them feel bad about themselves. And so that bad feeling, they project back onto you and it has nothing to do with you. Yeah. There's everything to do with them. And so for me, I'm just, I am, I am ruthless in terms of what I am willing to sacrifice for my goals because I do, at least in my opinion, in my worldview, if I provide

enough value, I will always have access to those people if I desire it. I agree. I couldn't agree more because I think what happens is if we choose temporary disappointment of the family member over long-term resentment. Well said. Then I think what's going to happen is they're going to say, all right, I'm disappointed, but I'm happy for you. And just like the crap, we pull them. and we've got to choose that, the gravitational pull that we can have on our loved ones. I tell a quick story here.

Yeah, I want you to. Yeah, go for it. And I think you said it way better than I did, by the way. When I, when I, so I did everything that my dad was, you know, told me to do. So I finished Vanderbilt in three years, you know, with all the honors and all the stuff

and president of the fraternity. I was vice president of the powerlifting club. Like I did, you know, I did all the things, right? And then I got the Swanky consulting job right out of college for, And I remember thinking, like, is this it? You know what I mean?

Because I was 21 at this point. I'd graduated college. I had the good job. I had my own condo that I had bought because I'd save the money. And I was looking out over the high rises. And I was like, is it just more of this? Is this it? And I knew that I was not satisfied with the job that I wanted.

I knew that I wanted to start a business. And every time that I'd gone to tell my dad that that's what I wanted to do, he would end up talking me off the ledge and saying, you know, we will go to business school and then you'll go, you'll go back to the management, or you can go to investment banking if you want to do that. And then after that, you'll save some money and then then you can start a business, right? And it got to the point where I was so incredibly depressed that I wanted to not wake up every day. So I would go to bed hoping that I wouldn't wake up. And for me, many of the biggest decisions my life have come down to

life or death. And I say that only as a decision-making filter, not that, you know, I was at this crossroads, but death for whatever reason is very motivating for me. And so the conclusion that I had to come to for me to make this move, despite my father, who had a tremendous, amount of influence over me, especially at a younger age, was I can either die to him or I can die to me. Wow. And so I knew that by leaving this path and quitting and then starting a gym, which is kind of like the electrician job, a trade, especially in the Middle Eastern world where you can be a doctor, an accountant, you know, I mean, me being in business was already like, kind of, I was pre-med originally, you know what I mean? I just convinced I hated it. I had no desire to

have his life. Because his plan for me was that I was going to take over his practice. That was the whole deal. And it made sense on paper. The guy makes a million bucks a year. Yeah. And he's like, you could inherit it when you're 29, making a million dollars year. He's like, why would you not do? And I get the argument. Yeah. But I would have been dead inside the entire time. And I would have been, it would have been a prison for my whole life. And so when I did make that move, and this is for everybody who's looking for the happy ending, it did make a huge fissure, you know, our huge gap in our relationship. And for years, we didn't, we'd barely spoke. And it was only after not only that I had made more money and then made more money

than he ever made was did the did the dynamic shift to one where he respected what I had done. And it took probably almost a decade. You know what I mean for that to actually happen. And so I will say that if you are going through this and you feel dead to yourself in the current existence and the current path, it will not get better. You will only have put more time in burning at, you know, burning time of your own life that is limited. That's right. To fill someone else. his dream. And it was his dream of what he wanted for my life as it reflected on him as a parent. Oh, yeah. And I get where he was coming from. So it's like you can understand why they have this

belief and then yet also disagree with it and act in according to your belief. And so that it's just I, it's very real for me because I went through that. It was very, very, very hard for me. It was probably the hardest, it was the hardest decision in my life was disobeying my father because it was like disobeying. Sure. Sure. It was, I was being. disobedient and then doing this on my own. And I, I, to show how much influence my dad had over me, I only called him to tell him I was doing this when I was six states away. I started driving. I was in Ohio or something and I called him to tell him that I had gone. And he said, hey, just come back for lunch. We'll talk it over because it was always the same thing. Oh,

you know, Alexander, because that's what he calls me. Alexander's having one of his little fits about life. You know, he'll come back. I'll talk him out of it. I was like, I'm gone. He's like, and then the flip switch. Then it was. And then it was. like, why do you got to be so crazy? You're always so extreme. You always have to, you know, all these things. And it stayed like that for a while. But like at that point, then that was where the fear came from where the fear of him being right. And then that was the big driver for a very long time was that even when things were so hard for me in the very, because they were very difficult for me in the beginning, I just, I would rather have died than let him be right. I could not, I could not

accept an existence where I would have to come back with my tail between my legs. Because what would have happened is if I had not succeeded there, I would have basically had to become a mislake for the rest of my life. At least that's how I saw my life playing out. If I had not been able to make this work, and so I just, I just did everything. I just couldn't go back to that. Real quick, guys, if you can think about how you found this podcast, somebody probably tweeted it, told you about it, shared it on Instagram or something like that. The only way this grows is through word of mouth. And so I don't run ads. I don't do sponsorships. I don't sell anything. My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward to whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast that

you do the exact same thing. So if it was a review, if it was a post, if you do that, it would mean the world to me and you'll throw some good karma out there for another entrepreneur. It's a powerful motivator, but man, it sucked for you. And parents, I mean, I don't know who's watching this, but if you got a little one, I hope you rewind that story because I think that the parental fear can turn into a nightmare for our kids. And luckily, for you. for you, luckily. Maybe not luck depending on your, I don't believe in luck on this situation,

but the way you were wired, it turns you into a diamond, but I just want to call out. And I know this is heavy for the audience, but there are a lot of kids that aren't wired like Alex, and that can destroy their life. You talk about big time depression, I mean,

just crazy amounts of soul-crushing, stuff. So parents, we've got to be careful here to not crush our kid's soul. I'm glad it worked out for you. As am I and, you know, dad love you. No, we love, yeah. And by the way, let me just say, none of this is dishonoring your father because he's just as normal as every other American, this is not a, it's not a Middle Eastern thing. This isn't your dad. This is the normal pressure that parents feel, and we've got to call it out because it comes back to full circle to discussion we had earlier about college and pushing kids into stuff. And if there's another even wrinkle on this, I think understanding the motivation of the person

who's influencing you to stay put is useful. Because once you could under, like I think Pascal said, to understand is to forgive. Yeah, that's right. So for me, when I understood that my father and I had the same goals for my life, he wanted me to be successful. I wanted me to be successful. It was just we wanted to get there in different ways. And there's only one of us that actually has to go through it. And so I felt like my opinion mattered more. And so I think that if we can delineate those things, it is helpful in understanding that they are not adversaries. They

actually want your best. This is me all half talking to the kids. They want your best. But sometimes to the parents, the kid also wants their own best. You know what I mean? And they might not they haven't shared with you or they were afraid to share it with you. And in so doing, you might actually have an incomplete picture. They did

just as a fun side note, they did a survey on political beliefs between whether they're inherited, you know, with kids and parents. What was funny is that I think it was like 45% of kids weren't actually sure of their parents' political beliefs when they actually were asked to name them. Of course. And then 75% of parents didn't know their kids' beliefs. And so we think that we know so much about these people that we spend all this time with. And yet on the things that matter most, the harder conversations we know very little. So true. And so much could be dealt with easier if we sat down and parents shared

their fears with their kids and the kids shared their fears and boy it's it's so good Alex I recently read that seven million American men age 25 to 54 are not working and it's on purpose it's not because they were laid off or fired they're choosing not to work and I study this every day because I'm I'm focused on the world of work helping people do work they love and then cover it from all angles. And so there's been economists are just scratching their head for the last two years coming out of the pandemic as we've seen the jobs gap, right? Or he had, right now I think it's about 10.3 million jobs available, posted jobs, and then a little bit over 8 million unemployed. And that's down from 11. So we had this huge job gap. Well, now we're starting to see what's going on. Seven million men

in America, all right, are choosing not to work. Now, you're a numbers guy. So we look at this and we go, some of these are, they've done well, right? Maybe in their 40s or 50s and they're cashed out, they're doing it. And you've got some living in their base with mom and dad, right? Some are falling on hard times. I mean, there's a big group of people here, so I don't want to be too general. But the same time, I don't mind telling you, I think this is a crisis. I think it's a crisis.

I think it's a soul-level crisis for the majority of those $7 million. Does it concern you when you hear that? Do you have thoughts on why you think that is the way we look at work, the way that you and I both believe that we were created to contribute through our work? I believe that. Thoughts on that number because I was honestly, I gasped. And who uses that word anymore for all you young people, that's GASPED? It's an old term, right?

I emotionally was just like, whoa, seven million dudes. What are your thoughts on that? So I think I would love to know the psychograph. of the 7 million. So, I mean, sure, there's the retired folks, you know, who cashed out, whatever. Right. And then I think there's probably a sub camp. Now, are these people getting unemployment?

Are they just getting unemployment? They are just not in the system at all. They're just like happily not working or I don't know if I could use that phrase. I don't think that's true. So that brings up, I would imagine two camps. So one, because they're being supported somehow. That's right. So they're being supported.

It's not through government. Then they're being supported by family. or a spouse. That's right. In the other camp, you've got people who are being supported by, I would say, I'll say you've got the spouse supported ones, and then you've got the like family supported ones.

That's correct. That's exactly right. If you were to look at those two things, I actually think that despite the fact that the stay-at-home dad with the breadwinning mom has a use case and then the other, and the basement mom's basement kid, I actually, and I'm probably going to get a lot of flack for this. But I actually think it has,

I think it has stems all the way down to masculinity in general and how it's being redefined. And so, and this is, again, I'm not the big labeler of good or bad. I'm just trying to say at least what I observe is that I think being a man and working and providing 30 years ago, 50 years ago, were inextricably linked. Being a man and providing for your family were one and the same. That's right.

One was a requisite for the other. You cannot call yourself a man if you do not provide for your family. That narrative has shifted. And so I think that in the spouse, you know, the wife works, dad stays at home. There are arguments for that. I'm very conservative when it comes to like how I like to live my life with my wife, etc. Like I don't imagine a world where I would not be the provider ever.

It's just, and again, I was raised with very conservative Middle Eastern values. So like, that's innate to my DNA, good or bad, who knows. But that's, I think men, based on my experience, men are built to work. That's that. That's right. On the other side with mom's basement, right. I think that there's an entire subset of men who feel completely hopeless and disheartened and feel like the system is out to get them.

Now, there are, there's the other side of the aisle that says, you know, if you're a man, you're born with all of these privileges and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We can say whatever we want. In my opinion, human suffering feels the same if you were the one suffering. That's right. and so a 10 out of 10 pain for one person from being beat up by their dad versus a 10 out of 10 pain for being sexually abused by an uncle. I'm just getting real here.

10 out of 10 still feels like 10 out of 10. Now, we could make an argument that maybe just being physically abused getting beat up versus being sexually abused, you'd rather be physically abused if you had the pick, right? but I think in terms of how humans experience reality pain is pain and so we like to objectify things and quantify them but I think that for that subset they still feel like they're being told all the time that they have these advantages and yet aren't succeeding and so it's easier for the ego to say I'm not going to try because at least now I'm not failing that's exactly right and so I think a lot of people have opted out because the pain of failure is

too great for them. And because they feel like the chips are stacked against them and they feel their self-esteem is rock bottom because they can't keep promises to themselves. And so they continue to perpetuate that. And I do think it's a massive problem. And I think that again, as contrary as this is, I think I think guys, especially younger guys, need a lot of help. And I think there's a lot of anger. They do. But I think that like the proliferation of like Andrew Tate and some of those types of characters, I think that what they did was they gave a voice to some of that disenfranchised group. It wasn't like eliminating Tate doesn't eliminate the root, which is that a lot of men feel emasculinated. They feel disrespected. And to be fair, they are not worthy of respect because they have not

done anything respectable. And so it's a bit of a chicken and the egg problem, but like someone needs to start the flame to say like, if you want the respect, you have to do the stuff that gets you it. As much as we could say, I wish the world gave unconditional love. I wish the world gave unconditional respect. It doesn't work that way. And so rather than lamenting the way the world is, We can see it for what it is and then play within those boundaries. I think you and I are probably both big on personal responsibility, right? So I don't want to in any way confuse. But I want to address what you said, Alex, because I think you're right.

But I think a lot of the problem lies on the first and second floor, not the kid, not the grown-up kid in the basement on his screens, getting the dopamine. And I think what's happened is that we have bubble-wrapped our kids to the point where the fear of fear, failure is actually way worse than the failure itself. So there was a little study that said that it takes about 20 hours to become, you get the most amount of gains in a new skill in the first 20 hours.

Like it, you want to learn the guitar, you want to learn the guitar, you want to learn a cold call. First 20 hours, you get by percentage of skill acquisition, you get the most in that first 20. The problem is that people will wait years to start the first hour. That's correct. Because they're so afraid of the pain of not being good enough because they expect for everything to be easy. And I think it circles back to what we said at the very beginning.

That's it. I mean, and that to me is the crisis. And certainly you addressed a lot of issues. It's not all one thing. But my goodness, I think it's not popular to say what you said anymore. I'm glad you said it. But there is inherently in a man a craving. Men and women are different. And I don't think that's controversial to say. But there's a craving. There's a craving in a man to go do something. And so we're seeing a lot of this now. They've never been pushed. They've ever been challenged. to do anything and it's a big scary world out there. And as a, so I study a lot of human behavior stuff because I think it's really interesting just for motor forces, persuading, et cetera. And so I have the belief that all humans are addicted. Everyone's addicted. And the question is, what are we addicted to? And so, like, I am addicted to the dopamine rush that I get or the serotonin, whatever,

from lots of grit and then pay off, right? So I know, I understand that cycle well. And so I like to play it as many times as I can. I think that with some of this. this seven million that you're talking about, they have, they also have an addiction, but they got addicted to something that was not pro-social or it was not pro-work. And so to your point about the video games in the basement, they are addicted to that. And they do get dopamine.

They do get their dopamine in a way that is superior to anything that happens in the real world. And it's being enabled by the parents that continue to subsidize that addiction. Yeah. So true. Wow. Good stuff there. All right. I want to give you the final word here.

Just a fun question. I love to ask a lot of my guests, right? Who is your, how would you describe your demographic, your core audience? What would you say they are? Probably 25 to 35-year-old. Okay, yeah. Nails. All right, that's 90%.

Yeah, that's certainly mine on YouTube, which is YouTube in general. So let's say you're talking every 25 to 35-year-old dude in the world. All right, you got the loudspeaker, maybe you got the old classic, you know, horn, and you're talking to them, one message. Only one from your guts today. What do you tell them? You must pick a goal and do so much work that it would be unreasonable for you not to succeed, that if you were to look back, having done an amount of work, that it would be virtually impossible for you to fail,

that you said, I did that. And I can promise you that if you do that level of work, that volume of activity over an extended period of time, and to quote Neil Strauss, without thinking you're smarter than you are, you will probably get there in half the time. But you have to start. You have to start that first hour and not wait a decade to get there.