The Game with Alex Hormozi - What I learned in a $500M Room... [How To Get Unstuck] | Ep 235

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

Do you know what’s holding you back? Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) talks about the time he attended a high-level mastermind and his takeaways from the event. He talks about the consequences of when we add certain emotions to thoughts about certain circumstances in our lives and how not getting to the bottom of why you’re not succeeding will not only damage you emotionally but also hinder you from going beyond your limits.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: (2:22) - Thoughts create emotions and drive action towards circumstances.(5:06) - Alex's conversation with Brooke Castillo: Fear of failure.(7:23) - Alex discovered losing self-respect was the root of his fears.(9:30) - Stepping out of thoughts reduces emotional control. Evaluate usefulness.Follow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

The nice thing is that those thoughts are our own, and the circumstances do not create those. We create those thoughts about the circumstances. 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. Hey, what's your one, everyone? Happy Monday, happy later day. I want to make this podcast for you, partially because I'm making it for myself,

because I'm really trying to document the process and the thought journey that I'm currently going through. So, you know, a few podcasts ago I talked about how we've been stuck at, you know, roughly 30 million for the last three years. And that's 100% my fault because I'm not developing as an entrepreneur or there's an obstacle or a bottleneck that I'm not aware of. And so over the last four or five days, I was just at a very high level mastermind. There were eight people there that the total yearly revenue of the eight people there combined to 500. over $500 million a year, just from eight people. And so it was a cool opportunity for me to be the second smallest business there.

And there was tons of tactical takeaways and recruiting talent and structuring for growth and all that kind of stuff. But I think the biggest takeaway I had was actually from Brooke Castillo. So she's a world-known life coach. And it became apparent in talking with these entrepreneurs that many of us get stressed at times

time's time so if you ever been stressed then this is 100% for you and so she presented her model so this is 100% her models is not mine of how she walks people through changing their lives right and so the model works like this there's five components to it it starts with your circumstances right circumstances are facts that no one can argue right like what will be presented in court Susie yelled at Dave is not something that you could present in court But you could say Susie said these exact words, right? And then Dave believes she's yelled that, you know, Stacey is yelling at him, whereas Stacey thinks she was just talking, right?

And so that's where circumstances have to be objective in facts. Circumstances that we experience like a car accident, like somebody dying, right? Create thoughts, right? And we have thoughts about those circumstances. The nice thing is that those thoughts are our own and the circumstances do not create those. We create those thoughts about the circumstances. from those thoughts we have feelings right we have emotions that are attached because we we give meaning to those circumstances and then from those from those meanings and emotions that we feel we take action

and then from our actions we have results right but the part that's most important as you can probably see is the thoughts that we have about the circumstances and so it's peeling those two layers apart and so when she got up and she basically was like there's no reason that you guys should be stressed. Business is not stressful. Your thoughts about business are what are creating stress in your lives. Right. And that was that was for me very, because I've been, you know, I get stressed all the time like many people do. But seeing that separation for me was really powerful. And so I'll give you a real, she does this in all. She does in marriage and substance of you. I mean, she does it for she's total. I mean, it doesn't, you can apply to anything, right? But one of one of the guys,

who's there was saying he was struggling with an aspect of his marriage, right? And there was something, you know, this wife wasn't doing that he wanted her to do or whatever it was, right? And one of the other guys pepped up and was like, that's so interesting because, and that guy, the first guy, when his wife wasn't doing that, he would feel rejected or unloved or whatever, right? But the second guy pepped up and had the exact same circumstance, but he'd interpreted it as something that was positive in his marriage, just something that actually made his wife love him more, not less. And so both entrepreneurs were presented with the exact same circumstance, but both had different thoughts about it.

And a result of those differences in thoughts, they had different feelings as a result of that about their marriage, about themselves, etc. And so this was really profound for me. And so this is probably what I was showing on the majority of the weekend, you know, while the sessions went in and out. And so the next morning or two mornings after she had presented, of that model. I was walking with Layla and we were talking about onboarding, right, for our software company. We wanted to get people activated faster. We're like, I need to get them

activated. I need guys to start taking action better, et cetera. And so we're really trying to rehaul this whole activation process. And I noticed myself get stressed. I could feel the stress. I was like, I'm getting, you know, I can feel to my chest. I was like, I'm getting stressed right now. And so we had been walking and I said, you know what? I'm just going to go back to the house and you keep walking. I feel like I'm not being good company right now. So I went packed the house and lucky for me I was actually bunking not bunking but you know I was in the same

houses as Brooke was so we were in two houses for everybody and Brooke was there drinking coffee and she was like hey you know what's up and so being the person I was I was like hey I'm trying let me like teach me how to walk this model with you right now right

I'm feeling the stress right so the circumstance is that Layla and I discussed onboarding right and that it wasn't as good as it needed to be The thoughts that I have a result of that were that, I don't know how to do this. What if I can't figure it out? What if this means that I'm going to fail? And then, and I basically had to pull that thread and keep pulling, right?

And for me, as I continue to pull that thread, for me, it was I think that my dad's not going to love me anymore. I don't think he's going to respect me anymore. And so, like, for me, that's like my central core thing, right? That's something that I've struggled with. It's my own demon. right but in kind of saying it out loud I feel like I released a little bit of it and so after saying that and I'm being like okay she's like well you're going to have to deal with that and so I called my dad up actually this morning and I was like hey I just need to tell you that my my

biggest fear is that you don't love me if I fail right like if I if I lose everything because my dad's really proud of me and he's you know he voices that over and over again but the fear that I have is that I would I have the potential lose that right is that if I make a mistake or make the wrong call or make the wrong bet that I'm going to lose that and so it's a fear of potential loss and so I'm talking to him about it's like there's nothing you could do that would make me not love you or not respect you etc but what was interesting is that after he said that and he was he got emotional about it because he was like I don't want you to ever think I wouldn't love you or wouldn't respect you and blah blah blah and the thing is is whether I believe him or not the point is

is that for me, I didn't feel any relief after hearing that. I didn't feel any better. And so it made me keep thinking and keep walking, keep thinking to myself. And I think what it came down to for me and the reason I'm making this podcast is one because I want to document this, but two, if there's anybody else who's, you know, thinking through these thoughts, then hopefully this will be a value to you. But what I basically just came to is that my real fear is that I lose respect for myself and that I stop loving myself, right? And I think that I, I, I think that I, I, I have loved and respected myself conditionally, not unconditionally. And so when people ask me, you know, how are you so motivated?

How do you keep pushing? How do you keep pushing? I think the deep dark piece of that is that I'm just afraid of losing respect for myself, of thinking that I am worthless, of thinking that I'm useless, of thinking that I'm no good, that I'll never be good enough, right? Hey guys, love that you're listening to the podcast. If you ever want to have the video version of this, which usually has more effects, more visuals, more graphs,

you know, drawn out stuff. Sometimes it can help hit the brain centers in different ways. You can check on my YouTube channel. It's absolutely free. Go check that out if that's what you are into. And if not, keep enjoying the show. And so for me, I'm not saying I've solved this equation by any, by any stretch of the imagination, but by walking through that thought model.

And now I'm actively just trying to stay attuned to when I feel something, what is the thought that generated the feeling? And is that thought reasonable from the circumstance or the fact? that have been created is there are alternative thought that I could replace in that model to create a different feeling which would then create a different action right and then ultimately a different result of my life and so for me my goal right now is I think the reason that that I've been limited at 30 there's plenty of reasons probably but one of the reasons that we've been limited at mid 30s is that I have not confronted this

because I run this business off of fear I'm afraid of failure rather than the being able to be clear-minded and go 100% all in and kind of do away with the fear and pursue the goal with reckless abandon, which I think is what's necessary to get to the next level. And so for me, that's something that I'll be working on in thinking about my own thoughts. And one of the interesting things about this is that when you step out of yourself for a moment, when you feel the stress or when you feel the rejection or when you feel the anger or feel the sadness or you feel whatever it is you're feeling

whether it's something with your wife or with your business or an employee or whatever right when you step out of it for a second the emotion loses a little bit of control over you because you get to observe it as a third party and think is this thought serving me right is the thought that created this emotion serving me is it true right and for me

and asking my dad flat out if I lost everything would you still respect me you said obviously he said i respect your effort not your outcome but i don't think that i've respected my effort i've only respected my outcomes and so what's interesting is that when i think about this within the context of our business and our clients i respect the hell out of people that i see who hustle every day but i actually don't apply that to myself right i didn't respect myself i did not love myself i'm not trying to be soft with you i'm just being real with you um while I was going through it.

I was not happy. I was not satisfied. And it was just an intense amount of pain that drove me out of that period of my life. And so when I was talking with Brooke, she was like, you know, fear and pain is what got you to 30 million a year. You're not going to pain your way to 100 million. Right? You're not going to pain your way there. You have to figure out how to get out of that so that you can make decisions without fear.

and so that is the chapter I'm currently in on a personal level because I truly believe that businesses are only limited by the entrepreneur they're only limited by the owners and I think I've been a limiter for my business and so maybe some of this may apply for you maybe it may not but I wanted to at least document part of this journey for myself on the way so anyways hope you guys have an amazing Labor Day coming up with some cool checklists for our side to improve that onboarding process what I was talking about that was that was giving me anxiety and I hope you guys have an awesome day and keep crushing it and accomplishing your goals and most importantly respecting yourself for the effort that you put

forth rather than the outcome and the nice thing about that is the only person who can judge you on your effort is you so anyways lots of love everybody hope you crush it and I'll get you soon bye