The Game with Alex Hormozi - Sales: The Oxygen for Every Successful Business (with Dean Graziosi) Pt.2 - May‘23 | Ep 575

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

“I actually think a lot more people have ethics than other people give credit for.” Today, join Alex (@AlexHormozi) as he guests on Own Your Future Podcast with Dean Graziosi to discuss the importance of having conviction in sales and falling in love with what you're selling. He emphasizes the role of service in sales and how believing in the product can lead to better results. 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 Dean Graziosi's YouTube Channel!Timestamps:(1:33) - What drives you to love sales?(7:03) - Quitting before finding the root cause(15:39) - Hack for getting conviction(21:16) - Alex asks Dean "What pain do you cherish?"(27:16) - Who inspired you or supports you?Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

Conviction is the number one secret ingredient to sales is that you actually have to believe. And the things is the first person you always have to sell is yourself. And most people actually aren't sold. Number one. Number two is that conviction itself is not binary. It's not do you believe or do you not believe? It's how much do you believe. How deep do you believe?

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. All right. I'm going to switch completely here. Love this conversation. sales, influence, impact, you know, persuasion, whatever you want to call it. So many businesses, no matter if you're two employees, 200, 2,000, 5,000 a year to 50 million a year,

every company needs focus, exponential growth, shifting, evolution, innovation in their marketing and sales. But so many startups and people launching their business, not only they apprehends, they could be apprehend, of the sales, they could be, they, they, they, we're in a, I feel we are in a, in an error where sales is considered bad. When it's simultaneously, it is the oxygen for every successful business that exists. I have fallen in love with selling because of impact and have converted it to service. In your life, your evolution of sales, what has been the biggest lift? How have you fallen in love with sales? You're amazing at what you do. You provide an incredible product and everything you do.

What drives you and what could drive others to fall in love with sales through your lens? So I see sales as helping the person you're speaking to realize that they are in power. And the three things, like if we, like, you know, the more you sell, the more you hear the same excuses, right? And so in a lot of ways, selling is the first conversation to helping someone, make decisions to help themselves. And so there are three major buckets that that people use to blame, right? We said earlier about where the finger blame goes, so does the power. And so the widest area of this is, think about it like an onion. This is the best analogy I can give.

The outer layer is circumstances. So they're going to blame money. They're going to blame time. They're going to blame some particular aspect of the thing that they're buying that's not perfect for them, whatever it is. Right. But that's the first layer. Yeah.

And underneath of that, they're going to blame other people. They're going to blame their partner, their spouse, their kids, their wife, their co-worker, or whatever, right? That's the second layer. And then the final layer is that you have somebody. So if I make you realize like, okay, well, the difference between self-made millionaires and you is that you both started at zero. So what's the difference? They decided to do something, right? All of a sudden, like, you can start breaking down each of these beliefs.

And with other people, it's like, I'll give you a common one. It's like, my spouse, right? My spouse won't let me do this. And it's like, okay, well, let's play it out. Well, if every time you want to make these decisions that are going to help yourself, and every time your spouse says, no, three years from now, I was like, how are you guys going to feel? So, like, you'll, you probably resent your spouse because they've held you back this whole time. And so what happens is you're actually giving your spouse the responsibility over your success in life.

That's not fair to them. It's not fair to them. Not fair to your marriage. Yeah. And I was like, so you're literally, you're planting the seeds right now for a resentment tree to grow later. And so what I think you want is you're thinking you need permission. but you're asking, where you actually need a support. Yeah, you feel, I love those two layers.

And what's the center piece? The center layer is avoidance. So now you're talking to a person in power. So it's like, okay, it's not the time. It's not the money. It's not someone else. Yeah, it's not other people. What they try and then do is like, I'm going to think about it.

I'm not sure, right? It's avoidance. Now, we could get into like, is it shame? Is it fear? Is it self-doubt? Like, whatever it is. All I know is that they avoid the decision. That I can observe.

They avoid the decision. They just try. And so at this point, we then, at least if I'm trying to sell something to someone or trying to help someone make a decision, I help them make the decision, which is, well, what would it take in order for you to feel good about this? And at what point is it unreasonable for you to not believe that this would work? And so this is a, like, for example, if I had, because I sold a zillion gym memberships back in my day, if I said, if someone's like, well, I'm just not, I need to think about it.

I'm like, cool. Well, what are the main things that you used to? make the decision. And the reality is that you think you need that, right? You think you need time. What would you really want is information. And so we conflate time for information. So if I have more time, I must get more information. I was like, but I'm your only source of information. I was like, so what's your main concern? And let me give you that information. Right. And sometimes you just ask like, and like there's a lot of different ways of asking the same thing, but just saying like, what's the thing you don't want to have happen if you do this? What are you afraid of having

happen? Wow. So good. And a lot of times it just pierces right to the point where like, I just don't want to buy another thing and have my husband yell at me. Right. And you're like, and then you're like, I got it. I feel you. I was like,

so what if we do this? And like, and then you can now you actually just and have a real conversation. Exactly. Now we're not smoke screening. We're actually getting to the real stuff. And the thing is is that if you have like, I love this,

this quote, I don't remember I heard it, but it was closers ask hard questions. Right. And so most people hate sales because they were not sold well. Like true sales doesn't feel like sales. It just feels like sales. It just feels like making an informed decision with somebody who is an expert who helps you make the best decision for you.

Yeah. And you know what? And this is what I train all the salespeople to do. I was like, my goal is that you help the person that you're speaking to decide, not that they buy. Make a decision. Even if the decision is absolutely no, they made a decision. Yes. And they walk out, right?

Not the miserable maybe, right? Miserable maybe. Right. Write that one down. Right? Another year of almost, right? Who wants that? And so it's like we like, and this is, again, I've trained a lot of sales teams and whatnot. And so

I'm like, you have to train for no. You have to expect no. And this really comes with anything in life. Is that like if every person you just said, hey, you want to buy the thing? And they said yes. I was like, then you're not required. We could just put up a page. You know, and people would just go on Amazon and click buy, right? And so we have to expect that the people who are coming to us, and I, you know, I trained a lot of weight loss sales teams. If they could do it on their own, they wouldn't be here. Right. So we have to expect that they're going to have some demons in the closet that we got to help. We, like, think about it like this. You're side by side with them.

You've got a sword and they don't. And they're like, the monsters are in here. And you're like, all right, let's open the doors. Right. And like, that's the role of the salesman. It's like, you can kill these demons in front of them. You're like, it's not your husband's responsibility. Right.

It's not the fact that you don't have time because I can promise you. There's someone who's had it worse who's done better. Yeah. Right. And so you can have those real conversations. And so for me, that's where I get passionate about it because I think real sales. Because real sales is service. I mean, you're serving that person because if it's a gym membership, they've been putting off getting themselves in shape forever.

And if you quit before you get to the root cause, the peeling back the onion to get to the avoidance, the avoidance leads to the root cause of why they're not going to the gym. If as a salesperson, you got to solve that and they were in the gym, then you did good for the world by selling. And in every business that I've been a part of, every business I consult with, if that sales is service mindset doesn't exist, if it's just what? What is the average ticket? How much are we getting? What is that lead worth? I know that company's not going to make it. But when you, and you know this because you're buying companies faster than anyone I've ever seen.

When you go into a place where they're heart-centered and service-oriented and they have an amazing sales floor to get people to take the action, it changes their lives, that's a company I put money in. So I'm going to give you guys like the secret, like the real, like the key ingredient to making this work. And it's not, it's not like some words. It's not because the thing is that humans are exceptionally good at smelling out when someone's lying. We've years of years of evolution to see if someone's going to trick you and then, you know, steal your food or whatever it is. Like, we're actually really good and intuitively. Like, you don't know if someone's lying, but you're like, I just feel off about it.

Yeah. Right. And so there's one thing that I know, well, there's two things that can fix it. One is years and years of training of trying to fix your tonality, pausing at the right time, speaking fast if I really want to get someone really excited or slowing down so that you really pay attention to what I'm saying right now. right? Like you can shift how you're feeling. Like pros can do that because they've trained for it. Yeah. But if you're a beginner, there's one thing that's even more powerful than that, which is just you just believe in it. And so here's my example for you. Have you ever bought something that you were like, this is amazing, right? And when you go to your aunt, you're like,

you got to try these shoes on. They're so, or like, I got this new thing that covers. Yeah. And the thing is, is the way you talk about it, that's what gives you conviction. And I'll ask a question that might, you know, trigger some people. But if you've ever met somebody who who found a new religion, right? And they're like on fire about the religion. If they say it enough, sometimes the person who believes more, you're like, maybe I don't know wrong about this, depending on how convicted they are. And so the thing that will fix your tone will fix the things that you will say is actually believing in the product. And so we see this with sales teams. And I can tell you, I can fix a sales team rather than training them on drilling obstacle overcomes

and things like that by simply saying, what's happened in the last seven days, four, days, 30 days that made you believe in this less. And solving for that. And sometimes there's a legitimate problem with a product or a service. And it's like we're on it. And then we start giving updates every day of the things that we're doing to solve the problem that they brought up. Right. So good. So it's like we're just fixing the act. Like we're getting to the heart of it. So you can fall in love with what you're selling. Right. Because if you don't believe in it, you know what? You shouldn't sell it. That's the real. Like if you don't believe in it, you shouldn't sell it. And the problem is so many people sell things they don't believe in to make a paycheck.

And that's why sales get a bad name. Exactly. Yeah. When people, it's funny, I love, I love, I love, I love listening. I love being a student. I love hearing this. When people say to me, how did you guys do the biggest launch? How do you so good at sales? What I always say is, because I love what I do so much that I feel bad if they don't get it. Yeah. And people are always looking, people always say, give me the secret to say. Like, just what you said, is it the slow down? Is it the speed up? Yeah. I've never studied any of that. I've just, I've just, fallen in love, again, back to Agmendino's book, the world's greatest salesman. The second, the most important one is, I will meet this day with love. And he said, they might not like my

clothes. They might not even like my product. They might not like my voice, my complexion. But if I'm in my head saying, I love you. Yeah. I know it sounds a little hokey, but if they're saying, I love you, there's no way they could say no to me. Because if you meet this day with love, if you don't just love your product, don't just love the success of your company. You actually love the person you're serving. You wouldn't sell them something that sucks, but you also wouldn't do them the disservice of them not having it, right?

If you fall in love of the movie, you want everybody you love to go see it. You fall in love with going vegan. You are praising from the roof. My arthritis went away. I feel better gold. Again, right? When you love a product or a service

or the company you're launching or the coaching program, you're not selling, you're feeling bad by not persuading someone to take that action. And when I see that, passion in someone or a company, I know where they're going. The top, the number one salesman for like the last five years at my old company, you could listen to his sales calls and he was unbelievably persistent, but it wasn't in a pushy or coercive way.

I would watch these sales calls and someone, you know, someone would be on like their sixth to know. And he would just, he would take his glasses off and he'd rub his face and he's like, Pete, I'm not giving up on you, man. He's like, you said that you're struggling to pay your mortgage. right now. And like, I know because I have all of this proof behind me that like there's something that's stopping you emotionally from doing this. Like help like let's work on this together. Let's figure this out. Decision. Right? Exactly. And so the thing is, is it what like I love saying this is that it's not

sales is a dance, not a fight. Right? You're just you're just working with the person. And a thing is I, and if you're ever selling a physical environment, you always want to be on the same side of the table. Because it really signals what the relationship should be, which is we're on the same side of the table here. I'm trying to help you make a good decision. And you know what? And this is the thing about having integrity as a salesperson is that if you find out while you're talking to them that it's not a good fit, then you will be able to, you will sell so much better if you let a couple people go that you know it's not going to be a good fit for because then you know why you're doing it. Because then you have more conviction in yourself that it's not that I just sell

every person with a heartbeat. I sell the people that I think really need this thing. And some people might not need this thing because they have a different demon they got a sleigh. You know what? Then make them a recommendation because you do care about them rather than the sale. So conviction over commission. Like that's the... And that's at the end of the day, it boils back to that love thing, that service thing, that caring thing. And it is the unfair advantage to sales.

Like I love hearing your perspective. You're so good at sales, Alex. I've watched you train it. I've watched you train it. I watch you talk about it. But it always starts with that caring. And I've never met anybody consistent. Listen, I can see someone who's got a business doing a million a year.

And when I watch them, and I'm not saying a million years bad, please, I'm not, a million years amazing. But they want to go to 10. And I could tell the way they sell. I could tell what they've rehearsed. They don't believe in what they're doing. And in my head, I know you will never pass that. There's no way beyond where you are unless you change how you feel.

If you sell someone and then think, gotcha. Yeah, it's not. You're not going to make it. Yeah, you're not going to make it. Yeah, you're not going to make. because what happens is, one, you'll foster a whole army of people who hate you. But secondly, like that, like if you have any ethics at all, which most people do, I actually think a lot more people have ethics than other people give credit for. It starts to eat at you. And Dean and I have

been doing this business game enough to see, we've seen people bottle rocket their way up and then fizzle. Bottle rocket up and then fizzle. They create another new product every 12 weeks because- If it's crypto, they got a crypto program. If it's AI, there's a new AI program. Rather than going deep, falling in love, and actually making transformation. So if you're in business, starting a business, thinking about business, even in your career, what if tomorrow, if we challenge you to say, how can I fall in love with this business? How can I fall in love with my product? And if you don't love it, here's what I'll tell you.

Just go fix it. Go fix it. I love this. So I'm going to go real deep on this real quick. So it's usually like I'm, I look at a lot of business. every day. It's usually the biggest, most obvious thing is that the, like, the sandwich shop isn't doing well. They're like, it's our marketing. It's the location. I was like, your sandwiches just aren't that good. It's all it is. They're just not, they're just not good enough. It's all like,

they're like, we just need more customers. I was like, if you serve the customers you had well enough, you wouldn't have this conversation with me. You'd already have a line out the door every day at lunch. When you have the sand, I mean, we're using a sandwich. Yeah. When you have a killer sandwich, Yeah. What do you do? You post it. Nobody even wants to see a post about food. Like, please, why? Right? But you do compared to good. And you and I both know some companies. We talked about one earlier. That's a really good marketer.

Yeah. But the company's kind of like a cullender that you put spaghetti in. They market so good, but they keep falling through the holes because their product's not amazing. Yeah. Moise Nation, real quick, if you are a business owner that has a big old business and wants to get to a much bigger business, going to $50, $100 million plus, we would love to talk to you. And if you like that, we would like to hear more about it. Go to Acquisition.com.

You can play anywhere on the page and talk to one of our team and see if we can help you get there. And this is at least my hack for getting conviction. Okay. So, like, my next book's coming out. I spent 2,000 hours writing it. Wow. And my editor spent 1,500 hours. So it's 3,500 hours of time went into this thing.

And I'm not saying that for the book, but I'm saying, my understanding of the level of effort that is required to make something that is world class or excellent has continued to move up my bar and my expectation of self. And so like the guy who has the sandwich shop, sometimes I sit down to places. I'm like, how did someone think this is my life's work? And they made this sandwich. I'm like, if I were going to open a sandwich up, I'd spend a year trying every sandwich I possibly could and thinking like, how can I make, I would go to the best, I would drive to the best sandwich shops and think like, okay, how do they set up their menu? What are the few items that they have? Like, how do they source their ingredient? Like, I'd,

it's doing the actual work because the thing is is that when you do that work, and I'm about to invest in a company that does no strips, so it's kind of exciting because I've like, you've had no strips on forever. Yeah, I know. And I was like, and I was telling this guy the creator. And I was like, this is what we need to look at in terms of how long the residue stays on your nose.

He's like, and I was like, how much coverage it has, how long it sticks. I was like, I think the plastings needs to defermer. And I'm like naming all these things. He's like, no one has ever broken down with all this detail. And the thing is, is that once you feel, fix every single one of those things. You make sure it's toasted for exactly 17 seconds. And you make sure it gets flipped at this way and this time. Why? Because you did it at 30. You did it at five. And you found out that 17 was perfect. When you go to talk about the sandwich, you'll have

the conviction. That's what I was going to say is. And people don't realize they're saying, well, I have a good product, but it doesn't sell. Is that true? Yeah. Because when you know that product is the best, the conviction goes through the roof. Sales go through the roof. What a, what a, I'm so glad I asked you that question about sales today because, no, because listen, you see more companies than me. I'm in a place right now. I don't have time to consult. I don't have to, I invest in about a company a month, but smaller. I don't take them over. I just invest in. But we have so much opportunity coming our way. And I see the companies that are stuck, especially for years when they asked me to consult on sales or marketing. Yeah. And it's because they don't have conviction. They, it's such a great analogy. I'm going to think about this for the rest of my life. They're selling a crappy sandwich. And, and trying to overlook, trying to fix it with better marketing, the magical money machine, better, better opt-in funnels, better upsell process. Like, no, just go fix the sandwich. Right. And that's the work that has to be confronted. And that's the work that most, like, because if you got into the sandwich business because you wanted to make money,

then that's why you're not passionate about. Like, I can talk about no strips I'll take because I've, I've had two nose surgeries. Like, I just breathe bad. And so I know all the different things. I've tried every single brand and I've done them all for 30, 40, 50, whatever days. And I can tell you all the differences about them because it's, I'm passionate. You can see how I'm talking about it. Like, I'm passionate about it, which is ridiculous. But like, but if you have that for the product or service that you're, you're getting into, you'll know the details. It's why mastermind.com with Tony and I. Yeah. We've been in the self-education for so long. It changed our lives. It made us better humans. It allows to take care of our family.

We get to feed, you know, between him and him way more than me, but hundreds of millions of people. Like, we get to do this cool stuff. So when I talk about selling what you know or creating an information product or I'm not it's my life I would I'd be fixing cars if that didn't come into my life so it's not if my conviction is an 11 out of 10 yeah I'm going to give you this line for everybody was listening to this so conviction is the like if you've gotten anything from what dean and I was talking about is that conviction is the number one secret ingredient to sales is that you actually have to believe and the thing is is the first person you always have to sell as yourself and most people actually aren't sold number one number two is that conviction itself is not binary

It's not do you believe or do you not believe. It's how much do you believe? How deep do you believe? Wow. Yeah. And so you can look at a sales team and I can say like he's a he's a two out of 10. He's a four out of 10. If I were to just judge them based on how much they believe in the product,

that would map significantly more to what their closing percentage was more than anything else. Wow. But the cool thing is is that because conviction is measurable and it is changeable, it's also something that you can work on and you can outwork yourself doubt. So if you're not like, if I did. think the book was good that I would work on the book until I thought it was good. And then my doubt would go away because I have evidence that I've done this thing to make it exceptional.

And so if someone then says, I think your book's shit, I would just say like, well, here's all the evidence of all the things that I did. Like I rewrote the section. Circling back all the way we talked about the beginning. A hundred percent. And so I want to tell your first book, it was purifier. I have recommended that book more than any other book, especially when it comes to marketing and sales. What's the name of your new book coming out? Can you share it or not? No, no, I can't. A hundred million dollar leave. $100 million leads. Yeah. Yeah. How can people follow you? We're not done yet, but I got a couple more things, but I just want people to be able to follow you. I mean, if you're on the podcast, I have a podcast called The Game, Alex Tremozoo, you can just type my name in, but pretty much on every social media platform. So Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. If you don't have his first book, 100 million dollar offers. Yeah, it's on Amazon. It's on Amazon. Go get it and be on a lookout. Okay. And so you know, we made it as cheap as Amazon will let me make it and make it a book still. So if you if you're strapped for cash, it's 99 cents for the Kindle. Like, you know,

It's just, I just wanted as many people to have it as possible. Well, and a lot of people got it. So, it's a nice work. No, it is, it is my go-to when somebody asks me questions. I'm like, go get that book. We've, in the last four or five podcasts, people have asked me a question. A lot of times in life, same as you. People are always like, dude, how did you do this?

How did you do that? So I know you said earlier, you got one for me. Oh, what pain do you cherish? Ooh, I knew you'd get a good one. I knew that would be good. What pain do I cherish? I know the answer, though. Credibly, I know the answer.

So I'm going to make it light for a second. So Alex and I are the co-founders of the DLB Club. Daddy's little boy. We both had a time in our lives when we wanted to go for our own thing that our dads weren't so supportive. I won't go deep on it. And we have some similar life stories of that'll never work. You'll, you know.

So there was one day, Alex, I don't even know how it's hard, but I said to you, I said, I called you Daddy's Little Boy or something. And we just, we laugh so hard, I think I dropped my phone. Yeah. But if we take the funny part out of joking about the Daddy's Little Boy Club, that sounded weird even putting his words together. But when I was, when I was about 12 years old, my father was the youngest of 12. I'm going to take just two minutes to give you context to this question.

And when I was, my dad was the youngest of 12 was physically abused. He was sexually abused. Come from an old school Italian family. So he did not get help. He just suffered through it. And my dad had so much resentment for his own father who knocked his teeth out. That he was confrontational with everybody and couldn't control. Never physically beat me, but I had a bleeding ulcer at 11 years old.

I threw up blood at 11 because my dad would fight with everyone. If we went to a restaurant and the waiter was rude, five minutes later, my dad would be on the floor, punching a guy in the face. Like a flag guy doesn't hold the flag fast enough. My dad's on the side of the road fighting a construction guy. Like my dad hit a guy with a bat in front of me when I was, like, and I hate confrontations. I don't watch fights. I don't watch, you know, extreme fight.

I watch none of it because I still don't like it. Long story short, when I was 12, my mom got remarried to a guy who was amazing. His name was Lenny Rizzo. It was her high school sweetheart. She married this guy. He was the most amazing stepdad. Had stepbrother, step sister's got a mongoose BMX bike that we couldn't afford before. that. I lived in a cul-de-sac. It was like, I went from the trailer park to, oh, right? And my dad

couldn't handle it. And there was one day my dad, my stepdad, my dad was screaming at me, yelling at me. I was shaking. And I could talk about this stuff. Now my dad's 87, still alive. And I talk about this in front of him. He knows. And I know he's got the, he's got a pound of regret, a thousand pounds of regret. But anyway, my stepdad says to my dad, he's in Florida. We're in upstate New York. He said, hey, why don't you calm down? You don't know what this is doing to your son. You can't see your son until you calm down. My dad got in the car, drove 14 hours straight to our house with a bat,

knocked windows out of cars. We got so scared. I know it's a long story, but I want to share this with you because most people don't understand we all have our shit. So we get in a motorhome and we hide from my dad for a month. We're going from campground to campground, and we can't go home. We're afraid, right? So finally, I get my older.

sister, we walked downtown. This is how long ago it was. I bring a quarter, go to a pay phone. I call my dad. He picks up the phone. Where the hell are you? Where tell me where you are right now. And I'm like, dad, this got to stop. And like, you know, sometimes you got to mature up. I was manning up at 12 or 11, whatever it was. And I said, how will this stop? God? I can't take it anymore. And I was afraid for my mom. I thought he was going to kill her. Like I didn't know, I don't think he would have, but I was afraid. He threatened he was going to kill. I thought he was going to. Yeah. I know it's getting deep, but I want to, I want to answer this question. And I said, He said, move in with me.

I'll leave her alone for the rest of her life. I walked back and said, Mom, moving in with dad. She's like, are you insane? No. I said, I am. You can't stop me. I call them up. He's picking me up.

I walked back down to that pay booth. My father picked me up. I moved in with my dad. I moved in with my dad. And when I got there, he didn't have heat in his house because he couldn't afford it. And he had an electric heater plugged in. And at night, he was sleeping in the bathroom because a little electric heater could heat the bathroom. I slept in the bathroom for six months with my dad.

Never told my mom. Said it was fine. And my dad literally, I realize now that I'm older, bipolar, whatever you want to call it, a little bit of schizophrenia, would be the greatest man in the world. Let me drive to school at 15 years old. Talk me to hunt, fish, do all kinds of cool things. And also the guy that gave me a bleeding ulcer.

Long story short, the pain of when my dad lost it was so bad. I would shake and be fearful. And I thought it was the worst thing in the world. But over time, by the time I was 14 or 15, I could read my dad's mood. I could feel his emotions. and I knew how to treat him in advance so I could keep him out of crazy Paul,

his name's Paul, and be more of the dad that I could love. And at the time I thought, what a burden for a kid my age I have to deal with. I can't tell my mom, can't tell my sister because it'll cause shit, and I was afraid if I told him he would kill my mom. Like that's how serious it was for a 12-year-old,

the 14-year-old. Now I look back. That was the greatest gift in the world God gave me. I feel I can go in front of an audience of 30,000, or next week I'll be in front of an audience of a half a million. I can go in front of half a million people and I think I can feel what they need

and it's because I had to feel what my dad need. I had to do it through empathy and compassion. It wasn't just a normal father-son relationship and I think I get to sell the way I sell, I get to care the way I care I get to build 13 different companies I get to do all that because

of that shit I went through so it took me a long time to get there and that was a long answer but hopefully that helps somebody today. It was a real answer. Yeah. So, man, I appreciate you so much. Thanks for being a friend. Thanks for all you do for the world.

The last couple podcasts as well. I'm just getting in the groove of this. And I thank God for all your listeners. Thank you for sharing. Go listen to the last three. You got great ones. Matthew McConaughey was amazing. Trent Shelton was amazing.

There's so many good ones. Go listen to last three. Make sure you share it with a friend. We'd love to get this out there. We do these podcasts for free for you. If you love it, share it with somebody. But lastly, I'd love to ask you if there's something. someone in your life you'd like to thank, whether it was something they did wrong that inspired

you or somebody that just is the gas to your engine or the wind behind your sale. Who would you like to think? I think it's Layla. Yeah. I think it's Layla for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's honestly of all the things that we, that, you know, we already think this way. Like we have accomplished because it's been, you know, she and I, even though I had businesses before her. Like, I think our marriage is rarer than our business success in terms of like percentage of people who, you know, do anything. And so I'm very grateful for that because for the women who are listening or the guys, actually everyone, I had a decent amount of success when she and I met. And pretty much within like three or four months after we met, she went all in on me

and then I lost everything. And I didn't just lose everything. I actually lost everything twice. And it's a story we'll tell it another time. But at the like the absolute rock bottom of that whole period of time, I actually told her I thought she should leave me. I was like I, you know, I'm self-aware enough. I was like, listen, there are better guys out there who will treat, like, you know, I respect her, I cared about.

I was like, we're cool. Like if you leave like, I'm good, like, we're, I respect you and I, and I was trying to sell her on leaving me. And she grabbed my chin and she pulled it towards her. grabbed my chin and she pulled it towards me and she was like, I would sleep with you under a bridge if it came to that. And like, I think that kind of conviction, like we talk about conviction, right?

To go full circle is that in some ways, like she sold me on me. And so she was like, I guess that was her, you know, burning the boats. Mind you, I'm sleeping at her parents' house. People, I'm not, we're not married yet. I'm just the guy she met on the internet who lost everything and now we're crashing at her parents house for a little bit,

like real winner. And that's the most. where she's like, I'll sleep with you on her bridge if it comes to that. And I think that that, I think every guy- I understand the power of that. I have that in my relationship and I feel beyond blessed. I'd answer the same way. But I get to see that in you. It's not a, you guys don't have an Instagram relationship. It's an, no, it's an amazing connection. And I knew you'd say that. You led me on. No, yeah. No, she's, so that's to Leila. And Leila, if you're listening,

you are awesome. Alex, thank you so much, man. Appreciate you coming in today to be here.