The Game with Alex Hormozi - Success is the Best Revenge | Ep 570

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

“The only way you can stay in is to keep yourself in is to keep your head straight.” Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) talks about strategies for mental resilience, including how to deal with anger and become successful. He emphasizes the importance of understanding and channeling anger into something productive, and shares personal anecdotes about overcoming anger and finding success.Welcome to The Game w/Alex Hormozi, hosted by entrepreneur, founder, investor, author, public speaker, and content creator Alex Hormozi. On this podcast you’ll hear how to get more customers, make more profit per customer, how to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons Alex has learned on his path from $100M to $1B in net worth.Timestamps:(1:12) - Dealing with anger: understanding the causes and how to manage it(2:45) - Reflections on overcoming adversity and growing successfully(3:57) - How to diffuse anger and find closure(9:11) - Forgiveness and understanding in difficult situations(10:02) - How writing a story helped me overcome rage(11:46) - Dealing with stressful situationsFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition(This episode is a re-run. Original airdate was June 4, 2019)

To understand is to forgive. You can't understand and be angry at the same time. It's actually really difficult. The moment you really truly understand where someone is coming from and see their perspective truly, it's really difficult to be angry. The wealthiest people in the world see business as a game. This podcast, The Game, is my attempt at documenting the lessons I've learned on my way to building Acquisition.com into a billion dollar portfolio.

My hope is that you use the lessons to grow your business and maybe someday soon, partner with us to get to $100 million and beyond. I hope you share and enjoy. I was going to originally call this how to deal with shit, but instead I'm going with no pain, no gain. And so I wanted to outline two of the strategies that I think have helped me become more resilient in the face of like mental strife. And I think that as we continue to grow in entrepreneurship and the size of our countries grow

and impact, etc, like having strong processes, mental processes in place in order to safeguard yourself, become more and more important. And so one of the ones that I wanted to bring up is around anger. And so I think whenever anything bad happens, right, there's typically one of two responses, either you become angry or you become sad, right? Sometimes they happen in different order. You know, like some people never get sad. Some people never get angry.

Some people get both. You know, it's just kind of, it's a mix. I can really only speak to the anger side because I'm just not, I'm not like a sad. Like I just don't go that way. Like when something bad happens, because immediately even if I have a feeling of sadness, I get angry with myself for feeling that way, for feeling weak and not taking control, and then I get angry. You know what I mean?

So it's almost immediate. But then what happens is what do you do with that anger? And so for I dive into that, I just say like, why do we get angry? Right? We get angry because typically we feel wronged, right? And so that immediately comes from a place of elevation. Like you feel like you were above something. How dare someone do something to you?

And it's typically someone who you brought into your circle who then betrays you in a certain way, whatever that be. Now, in a business context, there's lots of different types of betrayal and relationships. There's lots of different types of betrayal. But usually it's just, you feel wrong, right? It's typically when a promise is made or an unspoken promise is made, and then it is broken, right? And then that is where you feel like justice is warranted, right? And so since you don't see that person suffering for the feeling that you have, you want to make them suffer, right? And that's kind of where the anger comes from, at least in my understanding of it. So, how do you deal with this? Right? Because the,

bigger you get the more times we are going to break things or break what you're perceived to be relationships and do things that are wrong. Like the amount of times we, I mean, just, I wish I could give you a laundry list of all the things that have happened. You know what I mean? To give context, but like, partnership stealing money. Like, I mean, like literally, you know, the employees going behind your back trying to tell people to refund against you and that they're going to do something for, like everything you can possibly imagine, right? You know, everything you can imagine has happened, right? And I think that in order to continue to grow, you need to have really strong processes in place in order to process these things where they will destroy you, right?

They'll destroy you. And so there's two corners and stories that shaped my life that I wanted to share with you. So the first one is from when I was in high school, when I was in ninth grade, at a teacher named Steve Givens, he's the one who stayed with me after school. A lot of the after school donation stuff that we do is a big part because of that. But he worked out with me after school every day. And so when I was in ninth grade, I remember I was such an angry kid, but I think a lot of people. You know what I mean? Ninth grade like you're confused, your kid, whatever.

But I was a pretty angry kid. And he, I was like, man, I can't wait to come back at the high school reunion. I'm going to show everyone, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, that doesn't actually work in reality. And I was like, what do you mean? It isn't where I was like, I'm going to show them. And he was like, if you actually come back 10 years from now and you go up to somebody who's like bugged you and you tell them that like, look at you now, he's like, you're going to look like an idiot because they're going to know that you've been thinking about them this whole time

or they didn't even think about you like they forgot you existed he's like so there's you can't do that because then you'll actually have already lost and i was like shit like what do i like how do i mean how do i get this out you know what i mean how to get this this rage out what do i do right and so you left me with a statement that whenever i get really angry about something i turn to which is success is the only revenge and so that's been something that's always cycled in my head whenever i get really upset about something like really angry where I feel like someone wrongs me. Success is the only revenge because it's the only thing you can do if you think about it. There's nothing else you can do, right?

You can't go hurt people. That's not going to serve you. You're going to get hurt in the long run, right? There's a lot of people who've said this statement, but I like it a lot, which is like being angry is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Right. And so all it is, you just brood and get angry and you become less effective, right? And so then sometimes it starts turning towards yourself.

You start becoming self-destructive instead of destroying the other person. And then it's like, then they went even more. And then it makes you more angry. You know what I mean? And so it's a cycle. And so the only way that I've been able to break that is by understanding and continually repeating that, which is like success is dealing revenge, which then allows you to sublimate, which is taking a negative emotion and getting a positive

outcome from it. And so I learned about that, what that is sublimation. It's like when you were upset, go for a run. And then all of a sudden, something that was negative in your life becomes a benefit, becomes a positive, right? And so for me, and it obviously depends on the level of the grievance that you're going through, how much anger you have and how much you need to expend in order to kind of come back to baseline, right, is with the initial burst of rage, and I think I would describe it more as rage,

or at least that's how I experience it, just like, you know what I mean? But for me, it's the only way that I've been able to get around that stuff. And the thing is, the longer in the game, the more things like this will happen just because you're exposed to it by the nature of time, right? you're going to be wrong for more times, the bigger you are and the longer you stay in, right? The more beat up you are in the arena. And so the only way you can stay in is to keep yourself in is to keep your head straight. And so success is the only revenge.

And so channel everything into that, the thing that's going to be the only revenge you have, which is continuing to succeed. And yeah, that's it. So that's like cornerstone story number one that has helped me deal with anger. And that's in the immediate. So how to diffuse it in the moment when you want to go. and write some nasty Facebook post or do some really mean live or blah blah blah whatever it is right whenever you have that feeling and you type it up and you're like I shouldn't

send this like you probably should right and just remembering that it's like being ingrained in my mind and maybe it's because it was such a young age that I heard it but it was like I was so angry at that time and then that's when I started lifting harder you know what I mean I was just she's like take it out on the weight man he and like and so he helped me push that in the right direction and I'm always grateful for it and obviously as you get older sometimes like you can push it into the weight I am going to go work out, but sometimes there's still some left over, you know? And so what do you do with that? And so when you have the leftover anger or the anger after the dust settles, you're still enraged about something, right? What do you do? Real quick,

guys, you guys already know that I don't run any ads on this and I don't sell anything. And so the only ask that I can ever have of you guys is that you help me spread the words so we can out more entrepreneurs, make more money, feed their families, make better products, and have better experiences for their employees and customers. And the only way we do that is if you can rate and review and share this podcast. So the single thing that I ask you do is you can just leave a review, but take you 10 seconds or one type of the thumb, it would mean the absolute will to me.

And more importantly, it may change the world for someone else. So for me, obviously we've been angry more times and once in your life. And so a deeper anger was towards parent ahead. And so our stuff have. And the way that I dealt with that was I actually had a paper that I had to write in college and it was on mental disorders. And so we had to pick someone we knew. Actually, and then and then look at what potential disorders they might have. It was a weird kind of paper, but it was interest psychology or something like that. So anyways, I took it and you had

to look at all of the person because you have to look at psychology in terms of how people development. You know what I mean? Like, you know, where were they at each of these developmental stages? What things are they going through based on what you have? You can interview them, asking more questions so you get more insight. And then you write a paper, you know, about that person and and what factors may have potentially created who they are, their identity, their personality, their value system, right? All that stuff. And once I wrote this, the person that I was extremely upset with was what I wrote it about.

And by the end of finishing a paper, I was no longer upset with them because I understood them. And I understood why. And so the second kind of big quote. So the first one is success is the only revenge. I think the second quote is to understand is to forgive. You can't understand and be angry at the same time. It's actually really difficult. And so the moment you really truly understand someone or truly understand where someone is coming from and see their perspective truly, not just say like, I get where you're like, I get your side, but not like what they're saying, but what experiences

they went through to create the value system that creates that worldview. Like true deep understanding. Once you have that, it's really difficult to be angry. And so I think in like the 911 urgency moment, you have to like channel it into something that's going to supplement, something that's going to be a positive benefit to you from the initial rage. Right. And then after that, after you have your, you know, your big adrenaline rush or whatever and it's gone, then you have to look at like, okay, what experiences do this person go through? What upbringing? What, what things have happened? What things have happened recently, what things have happened long term, that might have created an environment inside of this person where they would think this was okay. Right. And so a lot of times

thinking about it, like, and like really get in there. And so I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say that. So I was heartbroken once in my life, not by a girl, but by my best friend. And what I mean by that was I had dated a girl for two years and then I had split up with her. And it was a hard split up for me. I mean, I was the one who initiated that. but like it's still, you know, like you can break up with anyone, it's still, it's a hard period of your life. And so I leaned on my friend, right? And then he was kind of nowhere to be seen. And I was like, I don't really get this. And a year later, I found out that basically the moment that I had split up, he had started dating her in secret for a whole year. And then they told me. And they kept it private

from everyone, the entire school. They only met in secret. It was like this really super dodgy thing to show you kind of like how fucked up it was. But anyways, the moment I found. doubt about that. It was like pure rage. You know what I mean? That like how dare they do? They like keep this for me and be, you know, do this in secret like so deceptive and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? Like just rage that I was experiencing. But I knew that as soon as it happened that I was going to be able to grow a lot from it. And so the way that I was able to get over that rage, right, and not do something really stupid was I wrote a story, their love story from his perspective.

And so I wrote this to try and understand, like, how would, if I were him, how would I explain this? How would I tell this story if when people were like, oh, my God, how did you meet, right? How would he see this experience through his own lens that would allow him to be okay with making that action in secret despite us being best friends and all this kind of stuff, right? And then once I went through that whole thing, I understood. And then I was no longer angry. I'm not saying that I thought it was right. But the emotion that was associated with it diffused.

And then I was able to continue to function and then go back to the primary, which is success is the only revenge. And so that's been kind of the one, two pillars of dealing with like massive emotional issues in short periods of time. Because you have to have those tools, you know what I mean? in your arsenal, that kind of armor, because the higher up you go, the harder it gets, it doesn't get easier. It gets heavier and thicker. You know what I mean? And the attacks get more direct and more personal and more whatever, right? That's why, like, I have no idea why people want to get into politics. Like, maybe sometimes, like, I have no clue how they go into it and just like, or like, this is worth it. I think that's really, it's like, I don't know how

they're like, this is the tradeoff. I'm going to get destroyed publicly. And everyone's going to hate me for the rest of my life. Half the universe is going to hate me for the rest of my life. That's rough, you know. But anyways, those are two of the cornerstone stories of my life that have dramatically shaped how I deal with very stressful things that happen. And I hope that helps you if you ever have to deal with stressful things or things that anger you. I don't have one for being sad because that one's not, that was not super real for me right now.

Maybe if I get really sad in the future about something, I'll let you know how I do. But right now, whenever I get sad, I get angry about the fact that I'm sad and I get right back to anger.