The Game with Alex Hormozi - The FOUR Key Questions I Ask Myself Every Morning...(that you can STEAL from me) 😅 | Ep 121

Episode Date: April 16, 2019

How do you start your day? Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) discusses the importance of morning journaling and offers four questions to ask oneself every day to cultivate gratitude and start the day off right. He also emphasizes the importance of showing appreciation for those around us and provides tips on doing so.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:(0:33) - The benefits of morning journaling(1:59) - The four questions to ask yourself every morning to cultivate gratitude(4:53) - Reflecting on stressful situations as an entrepreneur(6:18) - Preparing for a successful day: 4 questions to ask yourself(9:01) - Setting one goal per day(10:58) - Four questions to start your day rightFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

What's going on, everybody? Hope you guys are having a two times Tuesday, Tech Tuesday, Tuesday, Turndown Tuesday, which is what we were doing at gym launch. Tuesdays are a day that we do not have meetings, and we do that so that we can get more stuff done. Along the common theme that I've been getting a lot of questions, and so I've been trying to cater my constant towards

what y'all have been saying you like. And so I thought today would be something that you might also enjoy because a lot of people ask me, I think I got more questions about what journal I use and all that kind of stuff after I posted a picture of it on my Instagram a while ago. And so I wanted to talk to you about, I think about the most important part of the morning journal for me. And it's the four questions that I always ask myself to start my day. And so first off, I am not perfect.

I do not do this every day. I try to. And I, you know, I try to. And I don't like the word try, but my intention is to do 100%. So I just don't want to pretend like I'm perfect. I'm not. But I know that the days that I do ask myself these questions, I am in a better state. I show better as a leader. I make better decisions. I make wiser decisions. And so I figured I would share them with you. And this one shouldn't be too long. But I'll tell you each of the questions. And

you know, Layla and I, I mean, Layla is even better at this than I am. But we've gone through so many different journals in our lives, you know, looking at, you know, the, like, which, which ones of, like, we've used apps, we've used books. I mean, it's makeshift, like, what app, right? And I would say that the, like, let me talk about the common things you see and the things that I stopped doing. And I'm sure maybe if you've ever, you journal, you stop doing, and then I'll just, I'll tell you the four questions that I think that are the most important. So, I think if you look at every journal, they're always like, top three things I'm grateful for, right? Like, you know, you start that. But what happens is if you start doing this every day,

usually you start running out of things to be grateful for. And then you either just start skipping it and feeling guilty, then you're like, wow, I guess I'm not grateful for anything. And I don't know if anyone else has experienced that. But of course we're grateful for things. But sometimes it's like, especially in the morning where you drink coffee, you're like, man, like, I'm grateful for the air conditioning that it's the right temperature today. You know what I mean? You start getting weird because you don't want to repeat the same things. But, you know, sometimes you're grateful for the same stuff.

I'm grateful for Layla every day. And I don't think that's bad, but I think the question necessarily isn't as good as a daily thing. So that's just an example of some questions that you find regularly that aren't as, you know, useful in my opinion. So anyways, here are the four things that I ask myself every morning. The first one is, what person do I want to send a note or token of thanks to say that I'm grateful for? And so it's a little bit different than saying what I am grateful for because a lot of times when you try to think of what you are grateful for, it's hard. You kind of draw up on blanks. But who you are grateful for, I think is a lot easier.

And then it allows you to take action on it. And so, you know, people from my team, people from my family, you know, people in your life. Like, it could be employees, it could be customers, but literally starting your day by writing someone a small note and just sending it to them via email, via text, whatever, and just saying that you're grateful for them, it just gets you in the right zone. And I can't tell you how much it means to a teammate, you know, like people that you think know how much you appreciate them, you know, on a regular basis. Maybe it's your operations manager. Maybe it's your head trainer. Like, I can't tell you how much it will change your culture. if you just say, hey, like, you are valuable. I appreciate you. Like, we could not do this without you,

and I'm super grateful to have you on this team. And, like, I look forward to doing all the things that we do together, and you did X, Y, and Z that one day, and I can't tell you how much it meant to me. So I just want to say sincerely thank you. And all your effort doesn't go. I noticed. Like, it doesn't need to be, you know, extremely long,

but it just has to be heartfelt and genuine. And I can't tell you the amount of times that I have people who message me back and are, like, saying, like, you made me cry this morning when you sent me that and it's just like if you have that ability which we all do like use it and it starts your day awesome like you feel great so instead of saying what you're grateful for see who you are grateful for and then like what note you want to send them so there's kind of an action tied to it like who could I send so the question would be like who could I send a

gift or a note to say thank you and that you're grateful for all right so that's the first one The second one is, what am I excited for? So I think that's like a little bit, it's a different phrasing, but it like kind of gets you excited to think about. Like, what are the things that are coming up today that I can get excited about? And so in some ways, it positively framed your day so that you're looking at a lens of like your day as opportunities basically to be excited, which is cool. Because I feel like excitement is something that's a little bit of a childish emotion.

And sometimes I think we all should be a little bit more childish. You can connect with that. And so it's just like, these are things that are excited about. These are like these are some meetings that I have with some developers. These are this is a meeting I have with employee, whatever it is. Right. And sometimes it, even if you have some mundane things, you can get excited about them just by saying you will. The third one is kind of a piggyback on that one, which is what things could stress me out today?

And how would the best version of myself handle it? I think this is one of the most profound questions that I've grown the most from because just like as a leader, you know, we have to show up every day. we have to be the rock, you know, for our company. And a lot of times entrepreneurs are really emotional people. We're crazy. That's why we like stopped our job and like decided to start doing this thing without any knowledge of what we're doing, right? Like, that's not normal.

So taking the extra steps to ground ourselves is really important, you know. And so what are the things that could stress me out today? What are the things that could possibly, you know, throw me off? And what's interesting is that like when you actually ask yourself that question, it's usually not that big of surprise the things that will throw you off. You know the things that probably drive you nuts. A customer could reach out and ask for a refund

all of a sudden, out of the blue. An employee could show up late or not do something that they're supposed to do. You can know what these things. We already know what these things are. Or if you have a meeting, that's why I said it was piggybacked on the excited. If you have something that's important to you

that you are excited about, the flip side is if it's not good, it could stress you out or bum you out, right? Hey guys, real quick, if you're new to the podcast, I have a book on Amazon called $100 million offers that over $8,000 five-star reviews and it has almost a perfect score. You can get it for 99 cents on Kindle. The reason I bring it up is that I put over 1,000 hours into writing that book. And it's my biggest gift to our community. So it's my very shameless way of trying to get to you to like me more and ultimately make more dollars to that later on in your business career.

I can potentially partner with you. So that's my give. Go check it out, Amazon, and back to the And so if you know what your day looks like, then you just write down the, you know, like I do not write sentences, period. I don't write sentences. I ain't got time for sentences. Like I write a word or like the beginning of a word because it's just the thought that matters, in my opinion. Some people like journaling. I mean, that's cool. I don't. I got I got shit to do. So with the possible stressors, when you write how you, your best self would respond to that stressor, it comes. It comes. You. It kind of pre-programs you so that when that happens, everyone's like, man, he was on it or she was on it. Like, she didn't even skip a beat. Like, she was totally present and, like, responded in the best way ever. And so, like, people start to gain more respect for you because they're like, man, like, she is unshakable. He is unshakable when something that totally would have thrown me off was. And your vendors will respect you more because you're not emotional. And I can't tell you one of the biggest things in the world is, like, if you're dealing with

vendors, if you ever do, like being emotional or being all over the place sucks for them. You know what I mean? Because then they're like they don't know what to expect. And when you ever have people, just like with your team, if people don't know what to expect from you, then they're always on the defense and then they don't produce their best work. And so a lot of times you can even take full responsibility for a vendor's work, which is something people don't do, but you can totally speak into a vendor and start and praising them for the things that you want them to do.

I've told this in past things. well, I won't get too off track. So, first thing is, who could I send a thank you note, a note of gratitude that I appreciate them? The second is, what am I excited for today? What are the things that get me jazzed up? And I think that's just a positive lens on your day, which is good. The third is what things could stress me out, what things could stress me out, and

how am I going to respond to those things if they come up? And we all know what they are. And then the fourth one is, what are the things that made me uncomfortable yesterday? And so there's probably, sometimes you have these lingering cobwebs, you know what I mean, lingering anxieties from the day before that came up, right? And so it's like, what? Like my mom called, why did that bother me? This person reached out. Why did that bother me?

And so a lot of times they're also, like you can use the stressors from yesterday to inform the things that could stress you out today. And so when you, the reason that we, like, you write those down is said, that you can think about how can I fix these things? Is this a person that I need to hire? Is this a project or is this a process that need to put in place so that I no longer experience this? Because whenever you are uncomfortable, you need to fix it, right?

If your gym sucks, you need to fix it. That's just a joke for those of you who don't know. But if you have things that make you uncomfortable, like you have to change that because if you don't change it, it will ruin you, right? It will continue to dream from you over and over and over again. So like writing out those things, of the things that bothered you yesterday are just going to,

and also it just makes you aware of the, like, of yourself, really. And the things that bother you, you might not even know what bothered you. So those are the primary four. And then I'll give you one bonus, bonus question that I ask myself, which is like, what one thing do I need to get done today? Like I, you know, some people are like,

what are the top five? I'm like, shit, man. If I did five things every day, I'd be stoked, right? Like, what's the one thing that I got to get done today? Right. no matter what, like if you have, like, if you do the one thing, you'll do other things. But I feel like if you give yourself, like, I'm a big believer in setting goals that I can absolutely demolish. I'm not a big stretch goal person. That's just me personally. Some people

are like, shoot for the moon, land them on the stars. Like, I just don't like failing. And so, like, I want to dominate every goal that I set. And so if I start my day, it's like, well, let me get momentum and just crush this one thing. And then when I do that, I feel like everything else is great. It's all bonus time. And I know that if I'm only picking one thing that I have to get done, only one, that I'm going to pick the highest priority thing, whereas sometimes you're like top five, you don't do the hard work, the wise work, of thinking which of these top five is the most important. You're like, well, these are all things they need to get done.

But like, which one of them is the most important? And so that's my opinion of like how, like, how do you stay organized out? It's like, I'm not that organized. And so I just try and do one thing that's really important. And then that moves a lot of the big pieces forward. And then after that, I'm like on, I'm on free time. I'm on borrow time. So it's like, sure, I'll redo this thing.

I'll redo that thing. But like, I did the one thing that I needed to do. And so, I mean, there will always be more work to do. And I think that writing down a shitload of things just stresses you out. And then you keep carrying forward this to do list from page to page to page. And by like two weeks in, you've got like 26 things that are on your list. And like, it just stresses you out because I feel like a failure. Right.

Because you're like, I'm not doing this stuff. And so then you just like, all of a sudden you like skip two days and you start over your list. So it's like just pick one and actually do it. I know this sounds ridiculously simple, but the advanced people aren't advanced because they knew, they know sexy things. It's just because they just never don't do the basics. So those are the four questions I ask myself every morning. If you could tap one of those those like things, common things, all that good stuff, I would always appreciate it. I'm sure somebody else who you tag would appreciate it too. But recap for the four questions, who am I going to tell that I'm

thankful for today? And who am I going to tell, like actively? Like, what am I going to write to that person what am I excited for today what are the things that could stress me out how I'm going to do with them what made me uncomfortable yesterday and then what's one thing that I'm actually going to get done today no matter what so that's how I start my day when I'm being super Alex and not not basic Alex and so hopefully you guys feel that useful for you guys to start your days just the right way so lots of love have a tactical Tuesday turn down Tuesday get stuff done Tuesday lots of love get you guys soon Bye.