The Game with Alex Hormozi - Redefining Problems: The Key to Success (Pt.1 - Sept. '23) | Ep 627

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

“It’s really just a teaching process of associating things they don't know with things they do know.” Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) as he guests on Going Deep With Chad And JT to share insights about how he approaches fitness, focusing on isolating specific muscle groups rather than traditional compound lifts, as well as how 'stoke' can be built into a brand. He also talks about business acquisitions and the criteria for assessing business viability, especially in the service industry. This is part 1 of the interview.Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.Follow Going Deep With Chad And JT on:➤ Instagram | Spotify | Apple | X / Twitter➤ Check out full episode on YouTube!Timestamps:(1:54) - Art of communication and public speaking(5:08) - Fraternity life and leadership(8:24) - Art of negotiation and merging fraternities(11:59) - Importance of high quality food and diet(18:10) - Science of strength training and exercise(21:49) - Transition from fitness to entrepreneurship(25:04) - Concept of cheat days and balanced diet(29:02) - The role of reading and learning in business(31:13) - Art of branding and creating a business(38:26) - Process of buying companies and building a businessFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

If you want to be a great deadlifter, then deadlift. If we're going to be a great squat or then squat. If you want big legs, then you need to take your legs to absolute failure. And so you basically want moves that isolate everything else except for the thing that you have, that you can just absolutely take it to near death. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more per customer, and how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

Our whole media team says like Max stuff. Oh, really? As a result of us? Yeah, there's a lot of you guys. Oh, we got to talk about the, let's get it on the pod. Oh, we're rolling? Cool. Sorry, I really want people to know that.

Oh, yeah. No, for sure. No, I saw that. Because that's sick. Yeah, I saw that clip where you were like town hall. I know you guys do a bunch of clips at town. Is it town hall? Yeah, that's great.

City Council. Yeah. And we were just talking about how like the Stoke was dying down in the community. And like, there needed to be opportunities for Max Stoke. Yeah. And I told Caleb, my director of band, I was like, did, we need more stoke. Yeah.

Do you think there's something, because I think the Stoke is always dying down in a way. It's like our human condition to believe that it used to be higher or could be higher in the future. But I think that's almost valuable, right, to believe that it will go higher at all times. It's hope. It's hope. Yeah, we're chasing Peak Stoke. But, like, you know, froth can only stay frothy so long. The moment you stop frothing it, like the bubbles.

Froth's a little more ephemeral. While Stoke is always there, we just got to reach it. It's an ideal that we always strive for, but never achieve. It's like, we kind of took it from Harvey Mill because in the movie. movie milk at least, he says, you got to give him hope. It's like the last thing that comes out of the box, Pandora. And that's what we think was stoke is like, you got to give them stoke. But it's not like ever going to be top top. You're trying to get there. Yeah. It's not. It is, I mean, it's the idealist top of mountain. What gets you stoked? Hard things worth doing. Whoa. Dude, you are such a lucid speaker. It's crazy. Is that something you practice or is the brain just a clear highway? No traffic. Yeah. How do you get it free of traffic, dude? I actually think it's super well lubricated.

Oh, nice. Yeah, more than there's... Good infrastructure. Yeah, right, yeah, good guard rails. No, I took, I spent, I spent, like, I had like a rocky cutscene of life that was, like, five years of me taking 20 plus 101 consults a day selling gym memberships. And so, like, I had to talk to everyone, like, all the time every day. And so, like, I think you just learn how to say stuff better. So people would just come into your gym

and it was just you convincing them to get a membership and you just got so good at giving them the pitch that it just carried over into all your thinking. Yeah. And then just like, I mean, I'm sure like I've gotten better because like the topics have gotten wider than just like, so what brings you in today? Like would you have so far? Like how'd you try that?

Like how'd that work for you? Would you like about it? You know, like you go through the same scripting over and over again. But like the first five minutes, it goes from like, you know, Mike the cop to Lepita the house cleaner to, you know, like, All different people. It is absolutely the masses.

You know what I mean? Like I got to talk to every walk of earth. And a lot of us are in these bubbles, like friend groups or whatever communities. We talked about Vanderbilt for a second. Yeah. Going from like the white collar world of Vanderbilt and then like a management consulting career

to haggling over a $99 a month boot camp membership was like, it was both humbling but also just like eye opening in terms of like how little I knew about like the world and other people and etc. And was your gym? it wasn't like a bougie one, right? Like it was like like price point wise, it had a wide demo. Yeah, because it was a service facility. So like even though it was 99 and then eventually like 150 a month,

it was service based. So it wasn't like you're like you wouldn't compare it to like an LA fitness because they would have 100 times more equipment and showers and all this stuff. I didn't have any of that stuff. I just had like me and I was going to train people together. Oh, okay. I just a group training. It was like, oh, nice.

And how did you come up with like the workout methodology that you use? I did the stuff that they wanted to do. Like, I didn't, I didn't train them the way I trained because they didn't want to look like me. So I trained him. They didn't want to be jacked? I know. Actually, I'll tell you a funny story.

I had a guy come in. It sounds cool, but what's up? I had a dude come in once. And he just started off the conversation. He's like, hey, to be clear, he's like, I never want to look like you. I was like, okay. And so, like, naturally, you know, like, I've got like ego. You know what I mean?

And then I've got like closed the sale and just like take it. And so I went. with ego. How did you resist the urge to like grapple him there? Oh what I did. I went with the ego response and I was like don't worry you never well. And then I took a step back and I was like no because you don't overnight just like sneeze and become jacked.

I was like there's like a hundred thousand days between where you are and where I am and you can just like stop. And I'm measuring you right now and you don't have the determination you get there. I've weighed and measured you and there's no way that you're sufficient. Yeah. Were you naturally a people person before you gone to entrepreneurship? I think so. Or did you develop that skill?

I think so. Yeah. I was a fraternity president when I was. I was going to ask if you were fraternity president. I was. I was. Was it a tough election? Pike.

You're a pipe? Dude, I'm a Pike. No one. Yeah. Santa Clara. All right. Now it was a runaway election. It was a landslide.

Did you feel bad for the other guy? No, one guy, only one guy ran against me. And like, when we did the voting, he went to the other room. And he just shook my hand and was like, you're going to get it. I just promised myself that I would run no matter what. Oh, respect to me. Yeah, and I was like, dope. He ended up becoming VP, so it was like, all good.

Good VP too. He wasn't like, you know. Yeah, trying to upstage. Trying to betray you. Trying to organize a coup, right? No, he was a good dude. Take the trip from Pizmo to Cabo. No, I had, because some of the older classmen,

because like the older guys also want to make sure the house is in good hands with, and so they start like thinking like, hey, like, have you thought about, you know, right? And like, I hadn't thought about it until one of the older guys was like, you should totally run. I was like, oh. Dude, that's the best. They asked you to do it, to lead. That's nice. It worked out.

But it's funny because a lot of the, especially in like the internet world, anybody who is not in that world, which is most people, assume that it's like chief partier. And it's like not that. Because you like the guy that has to be able to be respected enough when he says, like, I'm pulling away the punch bowl. Like the cops are here. Or the guy who has to talk to the cops or like when a girl goes to the hospital

because she like drank too much. Like you want that guy who's going to have the conversation or who's going to like, you know, negotiate on your behalf with Vanderbilt with like, like how much trouble you're going to be in because you brought liquor on campus and you're not supposed to. Just like the hard conversations and that you want somebody who's going to do that. So in some ways it's like it's you get the prestige because of the title. But the actual day to day is like, do we have enough cups?

Do we have ice? Do we have speakers? Like where's the musician? Outside people underestimate that in like bro hierarchy that they think the top bro is the one who parties the most or gets laid the most. But it's actually the person who can do those things, but you still respect them ethically. You know that they'll do the right thing when it comes down to it. A party enabler.

long term. So it's like long term partying is all I was maximizing for. I even had this thing. I gave this like presentation on fratonomics to our our fraternity as an argument because it was really it was actually a huge, um, I got so much like life experience from this because I had to get a hundred dudes in college to do stuff they didn't want to do with no hard authority. Like I couldn't like there wasn't like punishment. You know what I mean? And so and they're also like friends of mine. So it's like how do I, you know, how do I get them to do community service? Because we have to do a certain amount of hours and they have to show up to the events and like like one of the things was we were notorious like our house was notorious for showing up really late and partying really

late and I was trying to explain to them I was like guys if we if we all show up earlier to the parties I was like our parties aren't going to be like twice as big I was like they'll be like five times as big and that's when I explained fratonomics I was like so if people are you know like girls are walking on the the you know the frat row or whatever and they see all these parties well if it's like 1030 or 11 that's like when people start walking to parties and you're going to look and you're going to see where the line is. Be like where the line is is where it's probably happening. If there's no line, there's no real party.

And so we're all getting there really late, but the guys who got a little bit earlier get the snowball effect. So then, like, they're all there. A line starts earlier. Then more people go to the fraternity, and then it just starts compounding. Right. And so I was like, we're not going to have twice.

We'll have five times. People love spectacle. Oh, yeah. White noise. I negotiated a merger between our fraternity and another fraternity. Oh, wow. Is it a hostile takeover or leveraged by a? Kind of.

It was a hostile takeover. Let's go. So we got, so we got kicked off campus for whatever. Yeah. And so we lost our house. Wait, what's whatever? What was whatever?

We got, oh, actually it was. It was a legitimate. It was a haze thing. It wasn't, actually. So we had apparently like 20 generations earlier, taken a loan from the institution to, to totally frat out the house.

But then we had never repaid the loan because whoever took out the loan was 20 alumni ago and had graduated and it didn't care. And so then, the university, we had no interest payments and then just called the loan due. And so we would have had to pay all of us out of pocket for a house we didn't own, but the, but the university did. So like, we took a loan to improve the real estate that the university owned, but then they called us 20 generations later for the, it was basically like all the houses had loans. They chose to call ours because they wanted us off campus. Yeah. That was like what they had other reasons, but that was

And then they caught you on? That was what they caught. Yeah. We got caught for, for, it's like Al Pacino with like male fraud or something. Like that was the male fraud for us. So we got kicked off campus.

And so that obviously is like a death, you know, like, because everybody's on campus is going to have best access to talent. It's everything. And so there was this other fraternity that was like dying.

But they had a really sick house, but like no bros. And I was like, dude, we have bros, but no house. And I was like, I feel like we could. figure something out. And so they're big concern. And they were actually pretty okay with it because

we had a ton of girl. We had a lot of good rep for that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. We had some cash. Yeah. We had some cash. That's sick. And but they were like, hey, and they were a southern fraternity. And we were like, what about the clash? Like literally some of the negotiations were like, how much country is going to be played versus like how much house music? And we had to go like, we had to like go like term by term. Right. And so I was explaining to them because some of their older guys were like, I don't want to change anything. I was like, listen, we pull from different girl pools. Like you pool southern girls. I was like, we pull northern girls. I was like, so there's no overlap. We're just going to have bigger, better parties and a more diverse crowd. You're

going to see chicks you've never seen before. We're going to see chicks we've never seen before. And so the final term of the negotiation was how do voting rights work? Because everything gets voted on. And they were like, because you guys have like 120 guys. And they were like 30 guys. So we basically came up with the three-fifths compromise. Just yeah, just like just like, you know, back in the day, like the forefathers. And so that's actually what we worked on. And so like every pike vote was worth one quarter of every one of their votes. That makes sense too. Yeah.

And so, but the problem was that influence doesn't work that way. If three quarters the guys want to do one thing and a quarter the guys don't, like the peer pressure is just insurmountable. Right. And so we ended up being able to, that's where like the hostile component came over. You got most of your like agenda across. Yeah. So then as soon as we did get, as soon as we infiltrated and merged, we became one. When you're playing chess like that, do you know it's going to work out that way?

just playing one move at a time and hoping that if you do your best on that move, it'll work out the way you want. I take all the, all the, all the, all the, all the plays from the last thing that I want to have happen and try and work backwards. Wait, explain that. So like, um, this, this crosses like, even like business stuff or whatever, but if I'm, if, if, like, decisions become more complex when you're trying to serve more than one master. And so if we're trying to get something to happen, then it's like, I don't want to also say, well, I also want the, I also want a house that has great checks. I also want a house that it's like I needed to keep our house on campus.

That was the goal. And so everything back down to, okay, of all the different places I could do a deal, which one's most likely that would accept a deal? Okay, where do we have the most leverage? Okay, well, you know, and then it's like, okay, this is the highest likelihood target that I could go after. And then it just step by step from there. Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, they had the most leverage. Because they had the place. They had the house. But I had bros. Yeah, I had bros. But you guys were Ronans. Yeah. Yeah, we were nomads.

You guys were bromads. We were bromads. Is there a legendary lore about your parties at Vandy? Yeah. We had a Catalina wine mixer and I got an ice helicopter on the front yard. Yeah. Everyone with like some of the seniors like, you spent $1,000 in this? I was like, I know.

I only spent $1,000 on this. Can you imagine? But the Fratonomics just took over because they quickly saw the line out. Because as soon as you see a half to scale ice sculptor of a helicopter, like you know they mean business. Is there the Alex Hormozie book of Fratonomics? There are some moves that have been that have been patented and trademarked. I came back to campus five years later and I was in the cafeteria and two freshmen I didn't know were in front of me and like couldn't make this up.

And they check out and as I check out after them, I go to like the ketchup and whatever station and one guy turns to the other and says, dude, I just pulled a hormosie. Really? Because he stole a chicken breast. And so the way that way back in the day You'd put a chicken breast underneath your salad And you could also have a chicken breast on the side So you could get two chicken breasts

But you'd have one meal credit So like you couldn't have more than one You'd have to pay extra So I put one under my salad And that way I could get it through But they started That's cool on two levels Because it's also a healthy meal

Like you're focused on just trying to get more jacked And well to put clean Were you as jacked in college as you are now As shredded not as jacked Smart Yeah that's awesome I was lighter I hadn't come into my man body yet

But but so they but the but the administration started catching on with us. So they started like asking people to push their salad aside to make to show that there was nothing underneath. They got hit to it. But we stayed we the royal we stayed you know a step ahead and so I started getting newspapers because they had newspapers in the cafeteria. And so I'd have my plate and I would have a newspaper like this but then I threw chicken breast and then I could put like two or three chicken breasts lining the inside of the newspaper. Whoa but now you're getting pigs get fat hogs get slaughtered. I mean at what point are you like I'm I'm taking too much. much chicken. I felt like it was kind of like how Lindsay Lohan approached that issue in mean girls.

Like the limit does not exist. Oh. Yeah. I felt like you have said that. No. That's the first time? Natty. Bro, you pulled it.

Is there such a thing as too much protein? That's a good question. Spiritually? Or? No. Like, metabolically. So for what outcome? Like, you get as much protein as you want.

It's just like how much of it is going to be? like use to gain muscle. Like you max out from that perspective. That's pretty well studied. Like if you eat like more protein gets you more muscle until it doesn't anymore. And so then after that point, it's just calories the same as a carb would be. There's like an asymptote. Right.

And everyone's different, right? Like I always, and I don't know anything, but I've always felt like diet, like, me neither. Every person's different, right? Like there might be a more, there might not be one diet that fits everyone. There's an ideal diet for every person, but it might not be an ideal diet for all people. So how do you find out what's the ideal diet? diet for you. The thing you can stick to. Right. So it's just about like real function. Yeah.

Like if I I mean, I had a lot of weight loss and fitness conversations in my life. But like I would have this talk a lot and I had to have this talk with my trainers too because they would want to, you know, a power lifter wants to train everybody like a power lifter bodybuilders want to train every like bodybuilders. Cettleball girls want to train everybody like kettleball girls, whatever. I was like, if we get these people in shape for six months of their entire life and then they go back, I was like, what did we accomplish? Nothing. I was like if we get everyone to walk 10 minutes that day for the rest of their lives. I was like we won. Because like you can add 10 years of someone's life by just getting them to walk for 10 minutes a day. Like that's how little it takes. And so it's

way more about at least in my perspective of like if you can't do it forever, don't do it for a day kind of thing. Because you're just going to feel like you're going to stop eventually. Like if you're going to stop eventually why start. So I want to think like how little do I need to do that I will actually be able to persist to do that I'll get the most from for the least amount of work. That's a I found that with diets because I dabbled in I did keto I did carnivore for like two weeks but I made the mistake of eating in-and-out patties so we were like shooting the video and I was like sick he was a little tired that day he has max energy most days in that day I was like you might need some broccoli dog yeah you have a flint stuff by yeah well I was like because I watch this guy's like

doesn't matter where it comes from just as long as it's meat yeah which but then I found that just high-quality food is the best because You felt better? You can just maintain that. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Actually, that was like the best shape I had been in.

It's just high quality food consistently. And then not even working out too hard. Like I would just, you know, go max effort. And then just not even working out too hard. Just like kind of listen to your body, I think. Yeah. Whatever you stick with. What kind of?

Are you doing like hypertrophy? What's your like? That's your main thing? Yeah, I just strength train because that's what I like. What's your rep target? It's more, it's more of, I mean, it's a range. You know what I mean? It depends on the actual.

Depends on the exercise. I'm talking the main ones, the compound lifts. Even then, depends. So you'll do 20 reps on squat? I don't squat, but for leg lifts, for sure. Is it because you just don't want disc degeneration? For, so barbo lifts, like for the whole concept of like doing it for everything, like, you don't see many 80-year-olds barbell squatting. And so I just see that as like most people can't mechanically do it for a long-off period of time.

I'm about to give it up right now. I'm sad to move over to like the leg press, but I'm doing Pilates, which is great for the lower half. I haven't done barbo lifts. years. Are you, how are your trunks? You big? They're solid. Yeah, those calves are nice.

Oh yeah. So how do you keep the legs? How do you keep the legs big when you're not hitting the squats and the dead legs? You can get them bigger without doing that. No way, bro. A hundred percent. Dude, come on. A hundred percent.

Well, tell us. Well, think about the limiting factor. Unless it's like proprietary and you can't give it. No, no, no, no. But you'll give it away? Yeah. All right. We'll put this one behind a paywall.

Yeah, good call. Just make sure. Now we're switching to only fans. Only gains. Anyway, so. 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. So if you think about the limiting. So you want the muscle that you're trying to train to be the mechanical limiter of the lift. So that that's the one that actually goes to true failure

in order for you to stop doing the reps. If you're squatting, most times when you fail squatting, you fall forward, right? Like, if you actually go to failure, you fall forward. And it's because your core gives out before your legs do. Like if you can leg press 1,000 pounds,

if your body were perfectly rigid, you'd be able to squat a thousand pounds. And so the best squatters have cores, core strength that are just like out of this world. They have turtle shell abs out to here. And it actually doesn't even look that good because they have so much hypertrophy in the literal sense of their abs that it almost looks like it's called a power gut.

It's like you have this really strong gut. Which I think a lot of people maybe then misinterpreted as being a result of HGH or some kind of supplementation. Yeah, I'm sure some people do. But oftentimes that's just from what you're saying, just training. Yeah. But I'm sorry, I knocked you off. Keep going.

No, you're good. And so like, you know, same thing with like deadlifts. It's like, well, if you want to be a great deadlifter than deadlift, if we need to be a great squatter than squat, if you want big legs, then you need to take your legs to absolute failure. And so you basically want moves that isolate everything else except for the thing that you have that you can just absolutely take it to near death. And so that's like hack squats come into place where you have full range of motion on the joint that you're trying to work. Like you can hit, like with a hack swat, you can go all the way astogras or, you know,

hamstrings to cabs and go full stretch, full squeeze. And you think that's best? Astegras. For in a hack squat because of the way that a well-designed hack squat will allow you to do that with limited mobility. Like most people don't even have the mobility to deadlift properly without rounding their backs. How do you feel about the hex bar? So more people have the mobility to do a trap bar deadlift than a straight bar deadlift. And so what ends up happening with that is that like a trap bar that is a great overall body lift because like it works your grip, it works your back, it works your traps, it works your glutes. It works everything. And there's nothing, again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm saying if you're going to train, if your goal is like, I want to train this

muscle, then I want to have the exercise that is going to get me the fullest range of motion on the joint that I can do the most volume on that I can load in a way that's incremental that is safe for everything else that I do. And so if I check all those boxes, and that's pretty much how I look at the exercises that I select, they're ones that I know that I can do a ton of volume on without hurting my joints. Because I got a certain, like, I'm almost 20 years in a training, like competitively or at like a real training level. And so it's not even like, I can squat right now, but I can't hit the same volume on squats as I can on banded leg press or hack squats or, you know, a Smith press, you know, whatever. Lunges?

Lunges are brutal, but yes. You throw those in? I would. So with lunges, I would probably do like a Bulgarian split squat if I wanted to, like, isolate glutes. So you'll throw a foot up on the bench and come forward like that? Yeah, because then your glued is the mechanical limit. So you're really trying to maximize the focus on it. And so with compound lifts, do you almost avoid those because you want to focus so much?

Like a hack squat is still a compound lift. Right. Like it's still a multi-joint movement. But it's just offering a bit more focus and a bit more sustainability. You get stability on the things that are not core to the lift so that they don't become limitors. Right. My hip flexors will get in the way of my squats.

Totally. That sucks. Yeah. So you have mobility limiters and then you just have like strength limiters. So like your core might be a strength limiter for squat. You might also have hip flexibility limitations like on the movement. So you actually can't even do it properly to feel the muscle that you want to because your because your mobility won't allow you to get the muscle.

muscle in the position that it would be the limiter. When you were, when you were starting out in entrepreneurship, like deep into- This is the most I've talked about fitness in probably like seven years. Good. Like, legit. No, like, Caleb's, like, I have not been asked about fitness in like seven years. Good, I'm glad. Yeah, I think I am glad, yeah.

When you were, like, starting an entrepreneurship, like, deep into, were you lifting as much as you are now? Were you able to maintain that lifting schedule? Yeah, I've lifted pretty much the whole time. Yeah. Do you lift with bros? I go brolo for the most time. but

Sorry, is that a single bro or no bro? That's, I'm the solo bro. Oh, I'm brolo. I'm brolo. I am brolo. I live brolo. I think you're thinking like low bro, like he's solo bro. Yeah.

Oh. Like solo brolo is me. Copy. I should have known that. No, it's all good. It's all good. And I'm, Jay, cut that. Don't keep it because people might be confused.

Yeah, they might not know. They might not know. Yeah, and it's good if I'm vulnerable. Yeah, it's good. It's authentic. Yeah. No, it's, so I prefer to train with training partners. I just happen to train brolo for the most part.

Same, but it's hard to hit those same. You're going to push yourself harder if you have some friends with you, especially if they're stronger than you. Totally. And I have trouble. I work out by myself. Typically at the end of the day, I'm very tired. I don't go to failure on every sec because I don't have like the horsepower internally

to get there. But I know if my dogs were there, I'd probably hit it. Oh, yeah. But then I might get hurt too. I mean, there's a downside to it as well. And that's where I think the exercise selection is so, like, key with that stuff. Like, it's really tough to get, I mean, you can get hurt on a hack squat, but it's, like, a lot less likely. Like, you can't take squats to failure.

There's fundamentally, you can't do it because you just, like, it's massively risky to take squats, like barbell squats to failure. But taking a hat squats to failure, fine, you know what I mean. Yeah, when you watch football players hitting their max in college, they've got 20 guys around them. There's like three guys watching the bar. Everything's shaking. It's a big event. You can't just do that in your garage. No.

And to be fair... That's how my friend Teddy... Stop being Teddy. Yes. But even then, like, from a hypertrophy perspective, everything comes down to just volume times intensity. And so those kinds of lifts, if you, like, get super jacked up and do that thing,

like you end up having more central nervous fatigue. So that actually impacts your future volume and intensity for the rest of the week. And so there's a tradeoff that happens where, like, it makes sense to do those lifts if you're getting close to a competition or you need to have a peak event of some sort. Yeah, you need max performance.

Right. But for the most part, you're really just trying to accumulate volume and fatigue on the muscle so that you adapt to it. So do you think guys who get super hyped up before a set are actually doing themselves kind of a physical disservice? Because that's just more like pomp, but it's not really helping their body. It's about how much you, not to give you like really willy-nilly answers here, but like,

if you do it every once in a while, then it's like, then it can serve you. It's just like intensity techniques. Like if you do drop sets or you do one and a half reps or you do slow eccentrics or anything like that to make a set more intense, you can do that. If you do it on every set, then you'll end up fatiguing in the wrong way. Right. What's your favorite thing to talk about? I almost exclusively talk about making money in business, which is great.

I'm loving this. So this is like a breath of fresh air. So I'm right. Yeah, I was wondering. I was like, well, is he tired of talking about weight lifting or this is more of like a detour for you? This is fun. This is a side quest. Oh, nice.

But like a worthwhile side quest. Do you believe in cheat days? I believe in cheat life. Cheat life. What does that mean? So I just want to, so like I eat pretty much fruit, meat, and dessert. Nice.

Animal-based. That works for me. So I just get all my protein in really easily before I go to dinner. And then when I go to dinner, I eat whatever. You don't know what I mean? And that way, so basically,

I just back in from... So all the people that I know have been incredibly fit for a very long time have a much more simplified version of how they stay fit. Because anybody who's like adhering to any kind of strict anything,

they're not going to until they're 80s, so like, don't care. Are you friends with any fat people? Well, they're friends with me. Right. Right. And you don't say anything, but there's a, you harbor some detachment. No, not at all. Of course. Because you know you can't count on them if a fire starts. No, I'm being ridiculous. No, of course I. I'm sorry. No, of course I do. What people choose to do with their bodies is their choice. But as far as I'm concerned from the food perspective, I know what my calorie intake needs to be. And I've been, you know, I count of calories for years of my life to the point now. Like I know what's in everything. Ballpark enough. And since.

I also don't have a tremendous amount of food variety. I know what all my meals are. And so, like, the easiest hack in the world for anyone who's trying to, like, get back in shape is, like, most humans, 90% of their meals are the same 10 meals. Like, if you think back over the last week, you probably have the same, like, two or three things you rotate for dinner, two or three things you rotate for lunch and maybe two or three things you rotate for breakfast, if that. And so if you want to change your entire life, all you have to do is just change what those 10 meals are. It makes it way easier for people to, like, you don't have to change everything. It's like, you just need to find, like, two or three breakfast that you like that actually help you rather than hurt you or whatever. And so for me, I have the same breakfast and the same lunch every day.

And then that knocks out almost all my protein macros for the day. And then when I go to dinner, because that's when I usually have social things, business dinners, whatever, I can be way more flex. And I just know what my rough calorie intake is. So I can have dessert. I can have drinks. I can do whatever. And so like I've drank for almost the entirety of being shredded and jacked.

I've basically stopped drinking for like three years just because the business was like blowing up. And I was like, I'm not going to be the reason something gets fucked up. But since then, you know, I've been drinking the last four years. And I drank for my whole life before that from the time I was a toddler. And I was shredded the whole time. Meaning if you just get the, if you just know, at the end of the day, it's just, again, this is apparently controversial, which is ridiculous. But like, you burn a certain amount of calories.

You take in a certain amount of calories. The difference is what you gain or you lose. Right. So was the choice to keep your dinner option, to keep your dinner open diet-wise, also to optimize business? because the social aspect would be better. I think you're just optimise life. Right, you need to have some fun. Yeah, and just, like, not be the guy

who's going to bring Tupperware or be a pain in the atmosphere. Because that can kill the vibe. Yeah. The stoke would definitely be diminished. And then when you're drinking, like, are you able to, do you ever, like, just let loose? Yeah.

Like, loose loose? On special occasions. Yeah? Yeah. How many times per year? Once a year? Maybe twice. How do you know the day is coming,

or is it surprised you? You can feel it. Yeah, you're just halfway through the day and you're like, I think I'm getting fucked up today. I think it's before I even start, I'm like, oh, my God. You can feel that burning. The demon needs to come out.

So you don't put that in your schedule? The demon coming out. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this is a demon day? So my birthday, my birthday corresponded with the book launch that I just did. And so, like, after the book launch was over, the team came and I was like,

there was a time for work and there's a time for play. I was like, it is now a time for play. And, like, Lela came to pick me up from the pool cabana like six hours later. And she was like, I knew. Yeah. Do you just finished a book, bro?

You get to rage. Yeah. That's been true throughout all of history. Yeah. I mean, even BC, like 2000 BC, like Seneca was shockoning. Yeah, all the Greeks, dude. When they finished one of them plays, they were like, bring on the wine. Yeah.

Suckling from the Epictetus. For sure. Yeah. So Fawkes, he got after, dude. Yeah. Are you a big, do you like literature a lot? Do you read a lot? Not a ton.

What do you read? Not a ton. Oh, that's interesting. So how do you get information, mostly from communication? Like how'd you learn about business? Just through doing? Doing for the most part, honestly So you don't read like Barbarians at the Gates or shoe dog or any of that stuff? Not a ton. Lela does more reading than I do and then she just like tells me what you read. I'm like that's good. It's through osmosis. She picked up from the people around you. That's smart. I do. So my learning so everyone learns differently. But for me, when I want to like go into a new category or learn about something, I'll I'll usually read a ton of books on a very narrow topic. So I would like it's really unlikely for me to read a big mass market book. But like when we started getting into like doing deal with that was notcom or like eight books on dealmaking in a week.

And then I called everybody I knew who does deals for a living and is an investor. And I just asked every question I could possibly think of and then compiled all their answers with all the notes I have in the book. And then had some sort of working thesis of like, okay, I think this is what I want to do. Was the book helpful or was it more just that you put in the effort to read the book that you think kind of fortified you in the deal making? No, the books were helpful. Oh, so they do work. Yeah. Okay.

I think books definitely work. I've heard you talk about before that you view, because I feel like a lot of people, though they have like these motivational things where it's like you got to read a book a week or whatever and you're like that's just an excuse that's just like a waste of time well like if you if you if you boil everything down to like brass tax it's like you need to do the things that will make you successful and the book is not one of those things be the person that someone writes the book about sure I mean that's like Benjamin Franklin said uh to to to be remembered you either have to do something that people write books about or write books worth reading like this the only thing that can like live on but for for for my

perspective, totally lost my train of thought. I was going to ask if you ever wrestled a book because I lost my train of thought. Okay, perfect. Have I wrestled one? Yeah, I don't know. My brain went scramby. Dude, I'm right there with you. I think we hit a natural kind of time to set up again.

Yeah. Just chill, relax. Figure it out, dude. We had a refraction period. That happens. Yeah, I feel like all three of our brains were just on a collision course and it just hit, you know, fusion, boom. New energy.

Yeah, what do we, I mean? Where do we go from here? That's crazy. I don't know. And I know like we got our hands on the wheel, but I feel like it's just, yeah. Have a Jesus sick over. How do we, how do we turn Stoke into a business?

Stoke. Is Stoke? Oh, well, Stoke is a brand. Right. Is for fucking sure, like a brand? And so I think, can we call it something else or does it have to be a brand? And I love Stoke as a brand. Okay.

But if it, but if Stoke, but Stoke feels like it can't be a brand, right? Why wouldn't it be? I know, because then I guess I'm wary of commodifying it, but we have to because I want to have a good luck. So I think, so the stoke is an ideal, right? And so like Nike is victory. It's an ideal that everyone strives toward. And so stoke is also an ideal, different. And to build stoke, you associate stoke with as many stoke-like things that you guys determine it is.

And so the more associations you say like, you see like this epic wave and you're like, that's stoke. For sure. And then everyone's like, I'll co-sign a wave. They're like, yeah, of course, right? Hancock all over it. And you're like, okay, that is stoke. And people are like, oh, so epic wave, Stoke. So charge five bucks to ride the wave?

No, what you do is you basically show pictures and have discussions about Stoke next to and about things that you agree on that you co-sign are also Stoke. That you'd just be like, if Stoke were a bucket of ideas, you'd be like, that's, like, you know, what's the, shoot, it was like the Wilderberries? Traveling Wilderberry?

No, there was a, there's the, um, okay, so there was this band and they had like an in-crew and they called them. Yeah, it was like Tom Petty. You're talking about the super group? No, there's, uh, it's basically just call it cool kids, right? And so it's, uh, it's like, if you were to say like, what about Sarah?

Is she a cool kid? You're like, nah, she's not a cool kid, right? And you're like, what about John is like, definitely a cool kid? Whatever that is, it's like you basically do that yes or no, hot or not, but for a brand. So there's way more things that would be not stoke than stoke. Yeah, you have to be selective. Of course. Otherwise, then it's everything.

Because I got to hurt people's feelings. But hey, there's, we got to protect it. It's up here. It's an ideal. Right. And so basically once you make enough associations of stoke with other stoke-like things, then eventually stoke in it of itself, everyone will have a shared context of what Stoke means and what it means to them. And then you say, this T-shirt is stoke. Because now you've associated the wave and other epic things with this icon, this brand, this logo is ideal. And then you put it on a white t-shirt and it goes from being a $5 t-shirt to a $500 t-shirt because like if you think it like Louis Vuitton T-T-shirt versus Old Navy T-T-T-shirt, same t-shirt. different logo. The meaning, the perception of the meaning. So if you think about what brand is, I'm going to get a little on this. But so if you go back to what brand originally was, brand was like what you seared onto a cattle, right? It was a brand. And so if you have two cows,

and one of them has a brand and the other one does it, why do we do that? They did that because it would change the person who was looking at its behavior. And so if I look at a cow that doesn't have a brand, I'm like, I might have that cow, that might be my cow. I might take that cow for myself. But if you see a brand that's got, you know, Tom's, Tom's thing on it, you might fed a certain thing, it lived a certain place. Or you might return it. You'd be like, oh, this is Tom's cow. I'm not going to mess with it because it's Tom's cow.

It has his brand on it. And so the point of brand is to change behavior at scale. And so if I have no brand on a t-shirt, the likely that someone buys it is low. If I put a Nike swoosh on it, the likely that someone buys it as high. And so that brand over lots of time of branding has changed the behavior of zillions of people. And so when you are branding, you're just associating an idea that people don't know about, Stoke. Now, some people know about it, but not a lot of it. enough people know about it. And then we have to teach the masses what Stoke really is. And so you have

to teach them. So like branding is really just a teaching process of associating things they don't know with things they do know. So who's an artist that you've seen well integrate their ideal into a brand? An artist. So you're talking about like an individual? Yeah, or like a content creator. I mean, I think what like Rihanna did with Fenty is like a really elegant example of that. Like she can't. And that's just a single person with a brand. Most times it's the opposite is that brands are going after artists and creatives that all embody similar. values that they want to associate with. So our work is basically to be Stoke Sultans.

To, to, yeah. I feel like you need a stoke bell. I've been hanging on to that word for like three minutes. You're like, I've been waiting just to just. I'm just repeating my head. That's good. So, and then so we need to teach. Because I feel like we're kind of, we kind of been doing that.

You need to be Stokebasseters. Stokebassers, yeah. Right? And spread the message. Spread the good news. This is what it is. Stoke baiters. debaters of Stoke.

Oh, dude. I thought you said another word. So we need to really sort of like, because we say the word. Yeah. But we don't really say what it is enough. But I think there's power in not saying what it is, too. Like you don't want it too clearly define the ideal, do you? Because does that minimize the meaning?

Well, you're giving contextual clues. Right. You point in a direct. You just say not yes, not yes. But you don't ever give the Webster's, you don't want it to be too prescriptive. So the way that I think about Brandon from a visual perspective, is like imagine a bouquet of flowers, right? So you have all these different flowers inside of it. If we were to break the vase and scatter all the flowers, it's all the same components,

but now it's not a bouquet anymore. So did the bouquet ever exist to begin with? Oh, this is kind of like the pirate ship wood plank thing. Not sure, but I think I do. The philosophical ideal, if you replace all the same wood planks on a boat, is it the same boat? Yes and no. And so if you have all the flowers there, right? So when you have all the flowers there, right, so when you put all of them together, the bouquet has an identity, right? Because it's association between all the flowers. It's the relationate, yeah. Basically amalgamizes into one concept.

Now, if you take out one flower and put it in a different flower, it does shift it a little bit. Now, if I break one of the flowers or make it rotten, it really shifts it. Which is why if you get a DUI or you rape a girl as a really good guy, all of a sudden, it completely shifts the bouquet, despite all the other flowers that you've done and associated with. Yeah, those flowers are bad now. Right, exactly. You can't hand your girlfriend just one flower that's rotten. They should be like, why did you get me? A rotten bouquet, even though the rest of the flowers are totally fine.

And so brand works a lot the same way, which is like you're assembling a bouquet of like, so you're like, a wave is one of the flowers. But it's not all waves. That's just an example of something that is stoke, right? And then you put another one in another one. And then eventually people get a conglomerized idea of what Stoke really is. And it has to be a very careful, like, thought out arrangement. 100%.

Like each one has to fit perfect with one another. Or because people can suss that out if they see any kind of like incongruity. They're like, oh, those pedals are bad. brand. Yeah. It doesn't look like it goes with the rest of it. Oh, sorry. No, yeah, you're good. Like, if we made videos where we're like at the beach for Corona, we're like, this is stoked. Yeah.

And then you go to like a crime scene, you're like, it's not stoked. Yeah. They do things. That would totally work. Just keep doing that. That would totally work. You need to know what it is. You need to know what it's not. Because people will throw things and be like, like, this is stoked too. You're like, it's not stuff. Yeah, like, we did a sports movie. We were drafting the best sports movies last night. People were thrown in like Airbud and like snatch. And I was like...

I was like, Jerry McGuire. But that was, I think that was better than what these people were thrown in. And that's spoke to your heart. Yeah, you're a romance. That's part of your stoke is the romance of sports, but literally romance. Yeah, I'll say it. So what... And time cruise is timeless, which is also staked.

Dude. So what's your primary business now? Stoke. Oh, fuck. Well, I can be hearing from my lawyers, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Acquisage.com is the primary business. And what do y'all do?

We'd buy companies. Okay, so do you help other people buy companies or you buy companies? We buy companies. And so how do you, what makes a company like... Buiable? Appealing. Yeah. A lot of things.

But the biggest, the first and biggest one is, is it a company that we feel like we can add a lot of value to? And so a lot of that just comes from like, what's our expertise, what's our experience in? And so for us, our biggest successes in what we continually double down on is just brick and mortar chains. So small businesses, you know, like a photography studio chain or, you know, or a, you teeth whitening chain or a nail salon chain like those are you know gym chain these are all like brick

and mortar service businesses that are simple operating units and tactile experiences you got to be in there to do i like services personally like i don't do retail um i like services because it gives lots of people jobs um we're pretty good at training and teaching and so that's what is a lot that's what allows you to to scale uh service-based business um we're we're really big on culture and being able to scale culture which is really just a set of rules of how we behave and so being able to explain that to the masses allows everyone to act in the same way on brand. And that's what allows you to scale like a service-based business, which can be really profitable. And so we like those types of businesses. So number one is, can we add value to it? The second is, you know, how big is, is it

big enough for us to get into? You know, if someone has this one location, it's really, it's hard to say that they have a good model or are they just a good operator and they're like, have a lot of razzle-dazzle, which is totally fine. You don't know if you can reproduce that else. Exactly. It's not, it's not a system. It's really just a really charismatic founder, which is fine, but it's not what we would probably invest in. We'd want to see at least three, arguably, ideally five or more locations with good unit economics, meaning each individual box makes money

and it makes sense in terms of how it makes money. And then for us, like, how big is the overall market that we're going after? Like if someone has a tiny little weird grocery store thing, then I might not be super interested in that. Again, that's not service. But I'll just give you the last one, which is the founder itself.

And I would say that most of the time, we DQ founders more than businesses It's like, man, I love that business Didn't like the founder, no stoke Interesting And what decue is the person They just don't have the charisma

Their ethics or it could be a multitude of things Honestly, biggest one is ego That's the most, that's the majority of time Interesting Yeah