The Game with Alex Hormozi - Three More* High ROI Habits...That YOU Can Start Doing Today | Ep 119

Episode Date: April 9, 2019

Sleeping more can make you smarter and wiser. Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) discusses the benefits of establishing routines to reduce stress and increase productivity. He shares personal experiences and tips for optimizing daily habits, such as wearing the same outfit daily and getting enough sleep.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:(1:32) - Establishing a daily routine: how decision fatigue can be avoided(3:09) - Eating healthy, exercising, and sleeping 9 hours every night(7:58) - Maximizing efficiency through minimizing decision making(11:09) - Establishing routines to reduce stress and increase productivity(13:10) - A daily routine for mental and physical well-being(14:14) - Tips for optimizing your life for maximum productivity and happinessFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

What's going on, everyone? So what I want to talk to you guys about today was something that I've been repeatedly requested after the last piece of content I made the four high highest ROI habits that I've developed. And there's honestly more feedback from that one piece than a lot of the other pieces that I put out. And so because people wanted it, which is always surprising me because I don't know, like there's some things that I think are super, super interesting.

A lot of times that is not what everyone finds interesting. And so these are some things that have, I wanted to give you three more habits because some people were like, well, tell us your nighttime habits. And honestly, the nighttime habits are somewhat covered in the first one. So these are the three high, like I would say the next three things that would be habits that I've developed that, that how like Layla and I live that seem weird to most people. But have been so part of our life that it, I mean, it's just like part of how we live. So first one for me, and this is one that's probably a little bit different for me than Layla, is that I actually wear the same thing every day. I change my shirts for content so that you guys don't, so that it looks different on the newsfeed.

But I actually wear this pretty much every day. So it's a gray shirt. I've got like six of them. They're from Lulu. I wear these blue sweatpants. And this is kind of like my winter outfit. And I wear red atomics, right? And I wear them because they're really comfortable.

And I don't have to untie or tie the shoe. when I wear them. So actually wear the same thing every day. Why do I do that? And you'll see the common theme between the things that I'm going to show you is that it's just decision fatigue. So when I wake up in the morning, I'm not like debating about what I'm going to wear. I just immediately put on the same thing and then I can like save as much juice as I can. So that's number one. May sound minor, but I think a lot of life is like adding up these tiny details that save you juice and then over periods of time it results in really massive things. The second, the second, The second one is that I eat the exact same thing every single day.

So I eat the same breakfast, I eat the same lunch, and I eat the same dinner, and I don't know about you guys, but there was times in my life when for like counting my macros and things like that, that I'd always be like, what am I going to have? And so I was like, you know, I would spend like 10 minutes like deciding and deliberating between what I was going to eat for lunch. You know what I mean? And I can't tell you how freeing it is to just like always eat the same thing and never think about it.

And so I would implore you to try and find the things. three meals that you actually really like and just stick with them. It also makes body composition really, really easy. So, like, it's really just a question of how much, not what. So it just, like, simplifies your life in that way. The third thing that I think I'm saving for last because I was actually going to do a challenge and I might still do it for the gym lords, but is actually sleeping nine hours every night. And so a lot of times, sometimes it's funny because, This is Trevor, Dr. Cash, he jokes about how, like, people need somebody with a PhD and all these fancy things to tell them to do things that they should already probably do. Which is like, yeah, you should probably like, eat this, like, don't eat like an asshole in his language.

And like, yeah, like, people are like, I'm so exhausted. I'm using all these stimulants. He's like, have you tried sleeping? Hmm. And so what's really interesting and like, I'm going to add on this a little bit because I think it's worth it for everyone who's on here. Like, all the research in the, like, the world about. sleep is like, it's really hard to get too much of it. Like most people don't oversleep.

Like, virtually everyone under sleeps. And so a lot of it's like, you were literally smarter when you have slept more. And so everyone's trying to get an edge on everything when like a lot of times, I don't know if you've ever had this happen. You've been struggling with something and all of a sudden you get like a great night's sleep. And then all of a sudden the solution seems obvious to you as soon as you look at the problem. You're like, well, duh, that's what I would do.

Why did I not see this before? Because you weren't capable of it because you didn't have all of your horsepower at your disposal. And so, like, if you want to be wiser, you want to be smarter, right? Like, you want to show up better for your team. You want to be less reactive. You want to be less emotional, right, so that you can make good decisions. Sleep, like, for real.

Like, actually get good sleep. So everyone hears, like, oh, Alex sleeps, you know, wakes up at 4 a.m. Like, it means Alex, Alex is working all the time. Like, not really. Like, I finish my day at 4. So, like, at 4 p.m., I'm done. After 4, I usually take 30 minutes to, like, slowly sip on pre-workout. and it also like I partially do that because when I drink pre-workout like I get all tingling and then I have to work out.

So that's like one of Alex's tricks is like I just drink my pre-workout when I don't want to work out. And then by the time it hits me, I'm like, oh shit, I should I should go to the gym because otherwise this is going to be really uncomfortable. And so from like 430 to 6, 430 to 630, I lift. And then after that, I ate the same same exact brand, same exact dejorno pizza every single night. I have a whole pint of caramel macchiato halo top. I eat that every single night and I eat with chocolate sprinkles. You don't know, I mean? I eat the same stuff.

And then after that, Layla and I watch one episode of whatever Netflix show we're watching at that point. And we're done at like 830. So I finished lifting and then we have two hours between 630 and 830 that we basically eat and like unwind. And like people are like, well, I mean, there's a lot of things about like sleep hijacking. They're like, don't do screen time. screen time, I don't know. We watch, you know, we watch Netflix and it has really affected my sleep. Who knows? I mean, I have my phone out while I'm doing it, usually responding to people. I don't know. I mean, I'm just telling you what, like, what we actually do. And then when we

actually go to sleep, like, we're usually asleep by nine. So not like, well, I get into bed and then it takes me an hour and a half to get like, we're asleep usually by nine, latest nine 30. And so when you go to sleep at nine, you've got three hours before midnight that you're asleep. And then you have another four, four and a half hours that you're asleep if you wake up at 4.30. So like if you think about REM cycles, I mean, I look into sleep a lot. And so everything happens in 90, 90 minute cycles with REM sleep for the most part. I think mine are like 80, but most people run around 80 to 90 minutes cycles for REM sleep. So if you're like, if you're going to sleep, it's like sleep either three hours, four and a half hours, six hours, seven and a half hours or nine hours.

And so what I'll say is like for me, I usually see about seven and a half. And I usually just wake up. So I haven't said an alarm and I can't tell you the last time I said an alarm in the morning. I sleep as long as I can. And so I think the biggest secret is to kind of piggyback on the last one that I made is like, just got to go to sleep earlier. like for real and if there's some things that stretch you out don't do it at night i know this stuff sounds like super simple but like a lot of times when like we get up on stage and people are like what are the secrets it's like most people know like what they're supposed to do

they just don't do it right like that's like for real right like most of your clients know how to lose weight they need to stop eating shit and they need to start moving like for real like they kind of know that's what they need to do and so sometimes it's like man i got to listen to this person who apparently is doing all these like none of our stuff's rocket sentence right like we go to like we wake up earlier because it's quieter and we can get a lot of stuff done and get like basically get ourselves into a good state so that we can show up off of the team so we can show up all for our clients so we can not be reactive so we can make better decisions and we're well rest it because we went to sleeper right and then I try and decrease all the decisions that I have to make during the day so I wear the same thing I eat the same thing everything in my entire house is labeled so every single light switch I don't know if you can see it there's little little letters underneath of each one of those switches there it is all those letters it just says what each one of those lights says what each one of those lights are Anything that I have to think about, we try and take away, right? Like, everything that we have to think about, we have to take away.

Like, we use Instacart, so we don't go grocery shopping. Like, we have the buttons from Amazon, so if something runs out, we just hit the button. Like, all of these things we do to just make our lives easier so that we just have as much decision-making ability as we possibly can. And that anything that would potentially throw us off during the day doesn't have the opportunity to do that. Hey, Mosin, a minute, quick break just to let you know that we've been starting to post on LinkedIn and want to connect with you. All right, so send me a connection request and note letting me know that you listen to the show and I will accept it. There's anyone you think that we should be connected with, tag them in one of my or Layla's posts. And I will give you all the love in the world.

All right. So let's get back to the show. And so, uh, Lela was telling me a staff from the Harvard Business Review that was like, it was like 80% of terrible hiring decisions are done because somebody's tired. And so it's like, it's the simple stuff. It's just like, it's so simple that no one does it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's so simple that no one actually.

does it. I can tell you when you sleep really well, you make better decisions. You're smarter. You're wiser. You show up and you're happier. And like if you are happier and that compounds over time, like your team is happier and you show up better and your business improves. So like maybe you don't need some hack about culture and leadership. Maybe you just need to sleep in extra 90 minutes. Real talk. I remember I was, I watched, not watched, I was in college and there was a macroeconomics professor. He was showing a graph about subjective well-being, so like happiness and income. And basically, from zero up to $70,000, the more money you make, you actually get happier. Like, you are happier when you make, like, people who make $70,000

year are happier than people who make $50,000 a year on average overall, right? Take home. And so, like, people actually get happy. And I think part of that is just because it allows, like money up to a certain point allows you to avoid pain, right? And so money can really, really, really help you avoid pain. Can't buy happiness. But it's just because it allows you. can really help you avoid the negatives, which is, I think, very valuable. But after that point, there's no real correlation between how much you make and how happy you are. But what's interesting is that they did another study that was like most people would be happier if they just slept 90 more minutes than if they made an extra $50,000 a year.

Like the actual impact on their subjective well-being, which most people who are entrepreneurs started their business because they wanted freedom, they want to be able to do their own thing, and they honestly just wanted to be happy. At some point, that's really what people want is they want to be happy. They want to be fulfilled, right? And like, what if all of these other things that we're doing would be better served by not doing them

and just sleeping 90 minutes? So I'm hitting on this heart because it's like, for real, for real, my life improved when I slept more. Like, I didn't need to use all these stimulants during the day because I slept more. So, like, my use of stimulants is going down. And then, I mean, I still enjoy stimulants. I'll be very honest with you.

I do, but I don't need them. And so, like, I drink decaf every morning with Layla because I like the habit of drinking coffee. I like our time together, but I don't like the caffeine per se. And so I'll use stimulants during dedicated periods of time. And then when you are well rested and you don't, like, I don't know if you guys have done this. Like, if you're tired and then you need stimulants, they, so Trevor is something that they mask fatigue more than they enhance. And so, like, it just helps you operate in a shitty. your state better rather than taking you from like good to great if that makes sense so anyways

uh point being like big secrets here are like we do the same things every better and we don't make exceptions for weekends i've got a friend who's coming into town and he knows that we don't drink and he's a friend he's my longest friend my oldest friend well he's the same age but like he's my oldest friend in my life um so he's visiting for two days uh he's an fbi agent kind of cool he's actually wanted to be an fbi agent since we were in middle school And he is. And my senior superlative was like, I think I've told you guys was we'll own an operator chain of global gyms.

So like everyone knew what we were up to. But anyways, so he's coming into town and he knows we don't drink. And so like we literally don't make exceptions for this. Like we just, we make zero exceptions. We don't take on speaking events if we feel like travel is going to be tiresome. Because like our routine is so important to us, not because of some like weird reason about like routine being some like magical thing. It's just that like it decreases the stress in our lives.

And like as you continue to grow, the stress only gets higher or the potential to be stress only gets higher, which means you have to make everything else in your life less reactive. Think about it from a fitness standpoint, right? When we're squatting, when we're trying to generate power, you try and solidify everything else. You try and solidify like chest up, bump back. You're like, you hold your breath so that you can be rigid so that you can transmit power. And I feel like it's the same thing is like if we can make everything else in our lives rigid, when we need to make. decisions we can output maximum power in one direction rather than being so unstable because we're like because we have all these microdrains that happen throughout the day.

And so my last habit that I will give you, and you guys, if you've been following my stuff for a while, this won't be a surprise. I don't, I pretty much cut off my communications. So like right here I'm on Facebook, but I don't have the Facebook app on my phone. Simple stuff, man. I'm not like, none of this is rocket science. I take all the things Anything that gives me anxiety

I take it away Anything and so like some people are different You know some people getting like I don't get anxiety from Instagram And I think it's maybe it's just because the people like Like no message is weird Like it's also because of all our groups are Probably on Facebook and there are no groups on it Or maybe they are groups I don't even know how to use the app that well

But like Instagram doesn't stress me out Facebook stresses me out And so I don't I have the Instagram app on my phone But Facebook and I don't I don't And so like if you have things that stress you out like don't put them on there because like they will detract from your like mental power and then you will become less able and you become less wise you become more reactive and then your team and everyone else around it feels it so to recap this for you do the same stuff every day right like

if you have a shirt that always fits you right then just buy five of them and then don't think about anything else right it makes it easy like eat the same stuff every day it also makes uh buying groceries really easy it makes keeping everything like you never run out of stuff like every Everything is system-wise and then body recomposition-wise, it's really, really easy because all the variables are control. So if you're like, whatever you fit and not think a lot about it, eat the same stuff. I know. It's crazy. And then beyond that, try and get as much, like try and wake up every day without an alarm. Like, that's the goal.

And so for me, I do that by just going to bed early. And I don't really usually need much beyond, you know, seven and a half. Sometimes I need nine. And sometimes I'll sleep a whole nine. And I'll be like, damn, how about that? And so, like, yesterday I woke up at six. So I slept nine hours yesterday. I don't know why.

Maybe I trained really hard. I have no clue. But I felt amazing all day. I was like, man, I wish I could sleep nine every day. But, like, that will literally make you happier, make you wiser, make you smarter than, like, books will on, like, positive, like, the power of positive thinking, like, sleep 90 minutes more. Like, try that.

Like, how to be happy to your team, how to lead well, like, sleep 90 more minutes. You'll be happier and you'll make better decisions. And then finally, like, take the mini, the mini drains out of your life. So all the things that piss you off on your phone, don't put them on there. Like, anything's like the drawers in your, on your, ah, whatever you keep your clothing. All those drawers label, all the lights label, all your, where you put your clothes, label where you want to put your shirts, your dress shirts, you're like, all that stuff. So that you never have to think about anything. Like put all those Amazon buttons.

Like those are investments in your time. So like put all those Amazon buttons, eat the same shit. And then after a while, like life becomes automatic. And then you're basically running your human existence on autopilot so that you can use all of your horsepower to develop the big things, the fun things. So you're not thinking about what you're going to eat tonight. You know what I mean? Or like, do I have to have butter?

You know what I mean? Like you don't have to think about that stuff because all that stuff is taken care of so you can put 100% of your power towards that. And it's your well-rested power so that you're like extra wise and extra-sraise and extra part because you have all the potential. So anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this. If you, if you did, you know, I always appreciate a like. Throw a comment if there's anything that you're curious about. I'm always having to make more stuff in this direction. If this guy, this is what you find interesting. I'm always amazed because I don't know. You know what I mean,

like, I don't know what, like I thought the talent stack thing I made yesterday was freaking awesome. Like I think that like I geek out on that so hard. But I let the, I let the likes in the comments to the, to the talk. And so if this was interesting, you, you drop a drop a comment. And Otherwise, have an amazing day, and I will catch you guys soon. Bye.