The Game with Alex Hormozi - Rejecting Expectations, Labels, and Trauma (on Iced Coffee Hour) | Ep 528

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

"Desire is a contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until we get what we want." Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) as he guests on Iced Coffee Hour to talk about rejecting societal expectations, labels, and trauma. He also explores the concept of desire as a contract that leads to unhappiness until fulfilled and the importance of creating meaning in one's life without casting expectations, and touches on the role of language in shaping beliefs and the benefits of monitoring and controlling what we deem meaningful.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.Watch the full interview on Iced Coffee Hour’s YouTube Channel! Timestamps:(0:27) - Desire is a contract for unhappiness until we get it(5:26) - Language matters, how we say things is how we think(9:32) - Nihilism, emotions, and cultural traumas(14:22) - Control your responses, control your stimuli.(17:23) - False binary of belief, it's about how hard you believe(20:36) - We're given a token to enter the casino of lifeFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

I feel like in the casino of life, you get tapped on the shoulder by the Grim Reaper. He says, your time's up. And then all your chips get pushed right back to the middle of the table. And then you leave the casino empty-handed because it was a fake game with fake rules that didn't matter. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to sell more stuff to more people in more ways and build businesses worth owning. I'm trying to build a billion-dollar thing with Acquisition.com. I always wished Bezos, Musk, and Buffett had documented their journey. So I'm doing it for the rest of us.

Please share and enjoy. Deficits occur when we speak desires. Right. And so I love this statement. Desire is a contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until we get what we want. And so whenever we state a desire, like I want this amount of money, I want whatever, you literally sign a contract that says like I won't be unhappy until that happens. Right. And so like I had this thing earlier on where I was like, I want to have meaning. I want to have great meaning in my life. And I was talking to a guy who made a lot more money than me. And he was like, because I asked him, I said, how do you create and destroy meaning in your work? That was the question I asked him on a podcast. And he was like, why do you think life needs to be meaningful? And it was the same exact thing as the happiness versus like the meaning thing where it's like, I say life has to be meaningful and therefore everything that I'm doing. Like I create this expectation of life. Whereas if life just is, it just is. And it's the only way that you can actually be there.

It's just pure acceptance. Which is why like the whole like shoulds of like we should work, we should have balance, we should act. It's like I believe marriage is a compromise. Like these are just statements of belief that are casting expectations out in the world that are just bound to be untrue at some point. and then create dissonance. And so it's like, I believe marriage is marriage. And I believe my marriage is my marriage.

And I believe that I can work 24 hours a day if I want to. And that is all, period. Not and it's bad or and it's good. And there's no judgment on it. It just is. And so like if I get dopamine secreted in my brain when I start working, cool. Like, and I will optimize for dopamine. And if I die, I know that in a thousand generations, nothing I do anyways is going to matter.

So who cares? Like that's like the opening thing in my book is like there are no rules like we live in this like this like shoulds and have tos and like happiness everyone talks about it and it's just like everyone is unhappy because they say they want to be happy rather than being like accepting like happiness like I just am period and then like I don't need to judge the am it just is how do you what do you say to that? I don't know that makes sense yeah because so one thing I notice is if you're like I just want to be want to be happy. Yeah. Does that mean, Alex, that you think that at some point that will change for you or something? Or you live with fear that that will change? I think you guys maybe are taking what I'm saying the wrong way. I mean, like Alex is saying, you know, everybody has different beliefs and there's no one

rule fits all to everybody. And so if I say, I want to be happy, that doesn't make me wrong. Like, if I want to live my life that way, that's perfectly fine. But the thing that what Jack is saying is, no, I am like happy. But for me, I like to make like a conscious effort to work towards that. And Alex can live his life. Like life is life. My marriage is my marriage.

And it works for him. And that generates happiness, whether he's like thinking about it. But it doesn't have to generate happiness. That's the point. Yes. Yes. Like right. Like because it makes it like not because.

It's like when people say like, hey, work, set these goals, and the rest will take care of itself, it still makes the rest taking care of itself the reason that you're doing it, which means that it's actually not getting around it when people are like, you've got to be process driven. If you're like, if we focus on the process, the goals take care of themselves, it still means that the goals are important. So like if you want to make the transition from like a process driven life, which is like, I'm doing these things to do them, period, so that I can be happy, so that I can have a good marriage, so that I can have a meaningful life, has to disappear from the equation. It has to be, I do them, period, not because.

I do them. But then it goes back the other way. Why? Because you say so. Because you want to, right? Like, if you want to have, if you want to ascribe a meaning to why you're doing something, you can do it for whatever reason. Wow. This is deep.

I mean, this is where I spent a lot of my time thinking out because I have nothing else to do. And this is what my last year was, was like trying to figure out like why I didn't have, like, I felt the exact same way while I was, while I had nothing as to where I have now. I feel the same. Like, like, people were like, man, it was cool when the money hit my account. I felt nothing. Like, truly, like, not even, like, the two-day, like, it was irrelevant. How did you learn all of this?

Was this through speaking with other people who have been there before you? Thinking, I mean, my closest friend is a philosopher, and I use that in terms of, like, the actual meaning of the word philosopher, so, like, filet to love, and then Sophos's wisdom or knowledge. So, like, he's a lover of knowledge, lover of wisdom. And, like, we talk every week. It's like the only standing meeting that I have is we talk for like two hours. And we just talk about life.

And he's one of these guys who like lives in a cave. And it's like he got his PhD when he was 20. Like just a very brilliant guy. And so he and I just talk about things, you know. Should share his contact information. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's brilliant.

I mean, if you like, Dr. Gassi is brilliant. He's the smartest human that I know in terms of like brilliance and their ability to communicate it in a simple way. And so he helped me get over a lot of the things that I used to struggle with. And a lot of it was just, like, the language that we use matters a lot. Because, like, how we say things is how we think things. And so, like, what I was saying earlier, Alex, and this is not, like, a slight. I'm just saying, like, when I hear anyone talk, like, on my team or customers or whatever, it's like, people talk so many things over themselves.

And they're like, I don't know why I'm not successful. And it's like, well, define success. And why are you not? And then what are the, you know what I mean? Like, I just want to do this to be. Like, there's so many chains that they put on themselves that it becomes very difficult to live. And so, like, I spent a long time trying to not do that.

And it was just because, like, I was unhappy, and I didn't like being unhappy. And then I stopped judging myself for being unhappy. And then I stopped thinking about it altogether. And so I think that, like, I'll give you a really, real example for this. So one of the things that I'm vehemently opposed, and I'm, like, you know, no one give Graham Flack. You can give it to me. And, like, this is coming from a family who, like, had alcoholics and drug out of

and things like that. Like, I really don't like the alcoholics anonymous concept of every morning waking up and saying, I am an alcoholic, high, you know, whatever, and then they go into their meetings. Because what it does is it puts it at the forefront of their mind and they literally label themselves every morning is having this problem, right? When somebody who's not an alcoholic just doesn't think about it. They don't think I'm an alcoholic. I have to fight not drinking every day. They just don't think about it. And so I think to the same degree that like living a meaningful life is not saying like, I'm living. I'm living. a meaningful life. You just are, and you're not casting it. You're just, you just are.

But don't you think some of that is just that inherent belief that some people just have raised from that? They have positive experiences that turns into a spiral. But the people who don't have that, who are used to every day being like, I'm worthless, I suck at this, I am bad at this. Don't you think that maybe that like first step and like getting in that direction is positive affirmations of like, I could do it? Isn't that like, that's better than zero? Like, I feel like we're going to zero to one. I think it's exiting, I think it's exiting the equation altogether.

So it's saying, I am worthless. Instead of saying, like, I want to be worthy or I am worthy, just saying worthiness doesn't matter. But then wouldn't you get just people not caring at all? Yes. Yeah. So I'm 100% a nihilist. Yeah.

Like, I believe it would I, nothing happens. And like, you know, it is what it is. Right. And there are different ways to take that. Some people are like, life is meaningless and there's no point in any of it, which I would agree with them. And then the other people are like, there's no point in any of it.

of it. And so I'll do what I want. And some people see that as like very, very, very self-serving, which it might be. But to the same degree, like you are released from the chains of the expectations of others. And most people, in my opinion, that I have witnessed who are unhappy is because they are weighted down by the chains of their parents, of their friends, of their siblings, of the whatever things, the people that they believe are casting judgment on them. And they care so much about that person's disapproval that they don't want to do the things that they want to do. And so if I think It's easier to get someone to realize that none of it matters and then build from there than to try and flip the negatives. It's just to exit the equation altogether.

To say none of this matters. Therefore, I will start my YouTube channel and not care if my dad says that YouTube isn't real. Like, it's not about being worth it. Like, this is one where they're like, I deserve success. Like, no, you don't. No one deserves anything. But you can do the stuff that gets success independent of your deservingness. You need a terrible person and become successful.

So that person doesn't deserve it, but they did the things that create success. If we define success as some material, whatever. And so I think, like, if you can exit the equation of, like, labeling yourself and then just doing because what else will you do while you are alive, it creates some levels of freedom that allow for clarity of thought. And also for the ability to take risks that most people can't take. And I, candidly, I understand the difficulty. It's not like I'm some perfect, like, you know, like nihilist who just, like never believes

anything matters and doesn't get upset. Like, of course I do. but like my instant self-help is like whenever something happens, it's like, I'm going to die and it's not going to matter. And that like, it's like, it just got so ingrained in me now that like it's okay. But would you consider yourself emotional? Yeah. I mean, probably. I think I have emotions. 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 that you help me spread the words, so we can out more entrepreneurs, make more money, feed their families, make better products,

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. If it's taking 10 seconds or one type of the thumb, it would mean the absolute world to me. And more importantly, it may change the world with someone else. Got it. Because a lot of the times, at least in my experience, like what I've seen, people that are nihilous, it's easy to, that's like an easy out. If something bad happens, if something good happens, it's just like, oh yeah, that's fine, sweep it under the rug. It's not like it matters anyways.

Something bad happens. And it's not like you actually deal with their process, whatever event or action occurred that make you felt that emotion. If we believe that we have to, like, why should we? Why should you feel that emotion? Why should we process a traumatic event? What does that mean? Well, I do believe that there are like, you know,

things in your brain biologically that if they are deprived of something or there's like some bad traumatic event or something, like that will affect your biological. So what makes it that traumatic versus non-traumatic? I mean, I feel like the definition of the word trauma would probably. But what would be the line between like, okay, and like let's give an example of something terrible, right? Actually not because it's a podcast and people might hate on grab.

So let's just say something bad happens that we describe as bad in this culture, right? In another culture that might not be bad. it's trauma in this culture it's not trauma in this culture so if the circumstances the same why was it traumatic circumstances weren't the same why not

because the culture the facts were the same well we describe the facts as changed which means that we can choose to call something trauma but wouldn't isn't it doesn't it make sense

that people would be built up due to culture and environment 40 year old guy sleeps with a 15 year old girl terrible right rewind 200 years 40-year-old guy, sleeps with a 15-year-old girl, 100% normal, right? How is it trauma now and not trauma that? And mind you, like, this is not my statement.

I'm just, you have to pull an extreme example if we're going to talk about trauma to illustrate the concept, right? So if it's traumatic in one instance and not traumatic in another, then it means that we can basically change the cultural narrative that we're ascribing to our context and make it not traumatic. That makes sense. Right. Which means it didn't matter.

which means the only thing that matter is that you chose to make it meaningful. Well, let's say like the passing of a parent or like a loved one or something like that. If we think, like we feel like we have this, we have a narrative that says, if I don't mourn, it means I didn't care about them, right? That's a statement of belief. I could say that if I don't mourn about them, it means I totally cared about them. like why does my morning have any indication of how much I cared? They're non-correlates, right? But it's just because we have, like, we have so many of these belief statements that, like,

quote society or things that we inherit, right? But we just choose to say that this is how life is. And so I think it's just like monitoring what those statements are. And so, like, one of my favorite, one of my favorite sayings, probably like if I had one thing on my tombstone, it would be a permutation of a quote by Orson Scott Card, which is we question all of our beliefs, except for those that we truly believe and those we never think to question. That's a good quote. Right.

Yeah. And so it's like, we like, oh, of course I'm opening to questioning my beliefs. It's like, what's trauma? Like when someone's like, I was traumatized. It's like, were you? Or do you just choose to label this trauma? And then now you fucked up the rest of your life because you call it trauma when 200 years ago it was life. And a thousand years ago, having your parent killed in front of you was just nature,

if you want to go biology, right? And so we're just like, we just choose to create meaning around things. And so like at the end of the day, like end to end, bottom, bottom, bottom, rude. Yeah. All our brains do is just create a instrument. And so we say, this is a threat. This is not a threat. We make, like, we need to reinforce this behavior.

We don't need to reinforce this behavior all through meaning. And so if you can control what you de-meaningful, you can massively shift the odds in your favor because you don't need to ascribe meaning to. Well, couldn't that be, let's say, like, 500 years ago you see like a parent killed in front of you? Isn't that because all you have in your mind is like food, shelter, wand? Sure. And now that we have those things taken care of, our minds go to other places. Sure. I just don't think it changes the actual facts.

So it's like we have, there's stimulus response, right? And so like we get to control the response. We control the stimulus. And so like, was it, it's either Seneca or Epictetus who's like, no one yells at a rock. Right? And so it's like, if you are the rock, then like, just it doesn't matter. Right? like you just like eventually like people just fuck off and just leave you alone and so like and if you

see stimulus of life that way in terms of like how you deem things or label things traumatic or not traumatic or good or bad you know it's the same thing of i'm sure with like the hate comments and whatnot is like if you deem the comments of of the fans as meaningful then you will both care about them being positive and you will care about them being negative but if they're not meaningful at all to begin with then like i don't think you can do either i think you just either have to participate in both sides or you remove that is also a belief statement right so like maybe you can. So how did you transition from, I'm assuming you used to care a little bit more about beliefs and stuff like that? How did you transition from that to now not caring? And like,

did you have to completely change your mindset to where your automatic response to things was just like, what, what are these chains of emotions and like the cultural constraints and stuff like that that are making me feel this way? Yeah. Did you just switch that light switch? Or do you still on occasion catch yourself slipping thinking stuff? I just did it right now. I was like, I just said that as a belief. Right. That's what I figured. 100%. Yeah. I mean, I think you systematically, you hear, like, that's why the talking is so important. Like, what words are we using? What do those words mean? Like, you say trauma and, like, define that. What do you mean by that? Which is why, like, when you hear really good writing that's academic, like the first few pages will

be like, we're going to talk about this and this is how we define this. And this is how we define this. It's like we're putting constraints around the words that we're using because they mean, they equate to thoughts. They're just buckets, right? That we like say a word, like trauma. And like, it means something different to all three of us. So it's like we have to agree on the definition before we can talk about it. Does that make sense? So I definitely made a conscious effort. So when I was like 19 or 20, I became a born again Christian. The dunk, the whole thing was like, oh my God, life's amazing. Jesus is great. And then I ended up falling away from that because I was like, I don't know if this is true. And then I spent the next five years dedicated to apologetics,

which is defensive faith of the Christian faith. So just learning the arguments around like why Christianity is true, right? I ended up not believing in it. And I can give a variety of reasons. but I'll give you the simplest one. Hopefully I'm not insulting anyone. This is just my belief that I'm sharing, which is one of the strongest arguments for Christianity against other world religions is that other world religions say like,

so if you do a good job, you're to the good place, right? And fundamentally, it's a hard paradigm because it means that at what point are you 51% good versus 49%? Should I have just held one more door open and I would have gone to the good place forever? Right.

Not even talking about like finite circumstances and creating infinite outcomes, but like whatever. And so if you can draw that line, then it kind of makes it kind of makes it ridiculous. right it like kind of breaks down on the like be a good person system right and so that's all worldviews with the exception of Buddhism and Christianity with Christianity they're like you don't have to be good you just have to faith if you have faith in Jesus and you go to the good place right and so

the reason that for me fundamentally I didn't believe in that was because you actually create another false binary which is believe or not believe when in reality is to what extent you believe it's how hard you believe and again you create another 50% line which is I believe 1% more and then I would go into the good place forever right anyways the point is is that I studied apologetics for a long period of time and then I was really sad and I was just like fucking sad I was like for happiness I was like I'm just going to do stuff that I think is cool and that was like that was like the first break in the chain for me my slogan to myself was actually just fuck happiness and that was wildly freeing because I stopped judging myself for not being

happy. And then I was just like, oh, I'm like, I am unhappy. I'm like, cool, whatever. And I just kept going. And all of a sudden, just like stop mattering to me. Like, I don't think about it. I genuinely, like, I don't think like, does this make me happy? Does it? Like, I don't think about it. You just do what you want to do in the moment. Just do whatever if we're doing. And it's not like it's like all short term, like all pleasure seeking, whatever. Like, I still have a long term perspective of like, this is what I want to build. Yeah. Like, I want to write these books. I want to build these courses. I want to do this stuff. But it's like, those are things that I enjoy.

So that's what I do. I love it. Great. All right. I don't have anything to say that. I mean, I had questions, but now I know the answers to him just based up here. I'm just listening. I'd rather just listen and not saying it.

I know. Like, I don't want to mess it on. But then I created a belief that now I'm going to mess it out. Oh, God. Why does it matter, man? What does it even matter that I mess up? Doesn't. And you can't mess it up.

And then the comments are going to be, well, why does that matter? I know it's, I mean, I know it's crazy stuff. Like, I think that, like, if you want to, like, you can't do what 99% of people are doing if you want to be in the 1%. Yeah. Like, fundamentally. And so, like, you have to have, like, what I would consider, like, maybe uncomfortable conversations is to be like, that's okay. Like, cool.

Like, I just, I'm going to do my thing. And then they're like, and the thing is a lot of times if you just even just make your statements of like, this is how I believe, like, people feel like you're attacking them. Especially if you articulate it well. Because they're like, well, I don't, like, cool. I don't get, like, do whatever you want. Like, it's all good to me. And so which is why I don't talk about it as much probably. How about this?

Yeah. What bothers you? There's got to be something out there that like... I also have a question. People wasting your time. That's a really good answer. That's a great answer, yeah. It's the only thing I don't have a lot of.

This may seem like a silly question, but if you go to a restaurant and you order something, let's say you order a steak and you order it medium well and it comes back medium rare. Yeah. Do you say something? It's not worth his time. No, I don't, actually. You don't? No.

would I I don't care but at the same time I was like well a lot of people would be anxious to say something and I figured you probably wouldn't care about those emotions right I wouldn't even have an emotion first I mean that's such a non yeah yeah yeah I mean maybe like in a like we have a big ad campaign that's supposed to go out and like I get all the creatives the day before and it's supposed to launch like would that annoy me I'd be like yes but let's fix it

you know like this is bad we can't run this let's try again you know and in the end it won't matter because we're all going to die and this money's going go back to the game. I'll give you this one analogy. This might be a good wrap-up. So this is like my mental analogy that I, that I, that I don't make sense to me, which is like if life were a game, right, and all of us are given a token to like enter like a casino because we're in Vegas, right? So we're all, get a, you know, a token, we enter the casino. And we sit down at the table to play poker, right? And everybody's playing. Everybody's got cards. And all, you know, we're dealt cards. Everybody's dealt different cards. And we got to play the hand.

We're dealt. And depending on our level of skill, we amass. more and more chips throughout the game, right? And at the end of the game, the difference between the real world and the game of life, right? In the real world, you just go and you can cash out your chips and you walk out with money and there you go. There's your day. But I feel like in the casino of life, you get tapped on the shoulder by the Grim Reaper. He says, your time's up.

And then all your chips get pushed right back to the middle of the table. And then you leave the casino empty-handed because it was a fake game with fake rules that didn't matter. and so like we accumulate these chips that I'm just going to push back in the middle again that other people are going to play on and like the reason that that analogy became real for me is like I bought this piece of land in Austin and I was like that's neat and then I was like how many people have owned this piece of land it's like the guy you know the guy before me owned it and the guy before him owned it and the guy before him owned it and I was like and they were like this is mine and then they die or they sell it and someone was this is mine it's like there's just a just chips that just get played with and they just get amassed and then they get redistributed. It just doesn't matter. Like death taxes everybody 100%. So like everyone's like estate planning. It's like, dude, 500 generations from now, like a, your, your offspring are, you know, 500 to the, you know, 0.5 or, you know, one half to the 500th power of like diluted. They're basically just humans at that point. So if your wealth somehow is A big enough that it can be diluted that much and it lasts that long, the people who own it are just humans. So they're just as close to me as you are.

You know what I mean? It doesn't matter. Right. And then the alternative is the people that I'm giving this to are just the ones that I care about are the immediate family. But then when people get resources that they didn't learn how to use or manage, then it destroys them because it's too much potential energy. They can't handle it. And so it's like it's really for nothing. And so like if you want, you can build something that you think is cool.

But like at the end of the day, like we're just going to cash the chips in. So anyways, Alex's worldviews. Wow. That's a great analogy. I'll have to think about this one. Yeah, I don't have to rewatch this. You know what's funny. I was actually thinking I would never listen to podcasts over.

But never. This segment. I would actually listen to this. Yeah. Money, income, no earth. Investing, indexes, savings accounts, what credit cards? That's good.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Alex, for coming on. This has been an incredible podcast. Yeah, really. I think so.