The Game with Alex Hormozi - When I Realized My Success Didn't Hurt My Competition | Ep 252

Episode Date: November 24, 2020

You're not going to hurt anyone. Today, Alex (@AlexHormozi) talks about what he felt when he was younger, how that affected him moving forward, and what he learned from that experience.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:(1:07) - Overcoming the chip on your shoulder(2:04) - Surpassing a rival and finding personal growth(4:24) - A new perspective on competition and success(5:21) - Embracing collaboration over competition(7:33) - The power of positivity and the pitfalls of negativity(11:08) - Harnessing anger for growth, not destructionFollow Alex Hormozi’s Socials:LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Acquisition

that everyone wishes for the American dream and roots for you for the American dream until it comes true. 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. What's going on, everyone? Happy Saturday today. I wanted to make this podcast for you because I got off the phone with Ed Turney, and he and I had a long conversation about a wide breath of top.

and he was like, dude, you should talk more about this kind of stuff. And so what I want to do is actually share with you kind of my experience of having the chip on my shoulder and kind of where it got me and what I learned in the process. And so if you have any kind of like thoughts around like trying to beat someone and like, like you're going to take these guys down and like all this stuff. And I know many, many people in this space, you know, feel that way towards me. I can tell you, having literally gone through the entire process, it's really interesting. So, like, when I had my gyms, I wrote this huge essay, and it was for myself because I actually

have a creative writing background that most people don't know about. But I entitled it that everyone wishes for the American dream and roots for you for the American dream until it comes true. And I felt that way with my clients. You know, they were rooting for me when I was sleeping on the floor. They're like, good for you. like pursuing your dreams. And, but as time went on, you know, and I started to be able to hire people and we started

making more money. And eventually I didn't have to work in the business. They're like, oh, you're too good for us now. Like, oh, a big businessman, right? And everyone roots for you until you do better than them. And so what ends up happening is that you have to set higher and higher goals for yourself to drive yourself, right? And for me, I definitely was an angrier person.

or maybe I'm just better at hiding it now. I have no idea. But I was definitely angrier about stuff. And I set this goal that I was going to beat Beidros. If you guys recall who Bajros, Kulian, and he's a big guru or was big guru in the gym space. He and his fit body. And I started telling myself all of these things, you know what I mean?

Like how he's wronging people and he's ripping people off. And I would tell myself these stories, you know what I mean, to try and like get myself amped up about. like how I'm just going to like write the industry and and do everything and I'm going to be bigger than him and like all this stuff right and the reality is um you know as as time went on and and you know Jim Lynch grew and we grew and grew and grew and um you know I'm not I don't know what his numbers are but I'm fairly certain that our coaching program is and has been bigger than his in this space at least for a while and when I got there um you know I guess to

the heart, you know, to match that and surpass. First off, I found that it was incredibly empty. But secondly, I felt and realized that he was completely unaffected. He had, he was still incredibly wealthy. He had other entrepreneurial endeavors he was pursuing. And this, my success in no way affected his life. And it was one of the most, humbling and also freeing moments of my life when I realized that because he wasn't an enemy. And I doubt I was even like a blip on the radar during that time. And I mean, obviously they know who we are now, but it didn't affect his life. And all this malicious, you know, this vengeance, this vendetta that I had, like the only person it poisoned was me.

And, you know, there's two sides of this coin. On one side, you have, like, the drive. You know, if you guys have seen the Jordan documentary, it talks about how I used to make things up that other people would say about them that they never actually said. And I feel like it's kind of like that. And that chip on your shoulder does drive you. So I can't say it didn't drive me.

But I don't think it made me a happier person. Moza 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 apply anywhere on the page and talk to one of our team and see if we can help you get there. And believe me, I'm not the guy who's like, go hug trees and be happy. Like, I'm all about achieving stuff.

So, like, by all means, go do whatever works for you. But I can tell you that seeing it truly, seeing my success not in any way, impact someone else's success really radically transformed my feelings about competitors, about the space, about the industry, about other coaches in general, about what I was willing to do to help other coaches, et cetera. It really transformed me. I started calling up other people who were in our space and just saying like, hey, how can I help you grow? And they're like, seriously? And I was like, yeah, man, I'm like, I mean, you're not going to take my stuff. And I'm not going to take your stuff because people are attracted to different people for different reasons.

You know, people, like everyone has different psychographics that they attract. Like, I'm 81% male. Like, women in general don't find my content appealing. I'm just like, those are the, that's the data, right? Those are the stats. But the thing is, is that by freeing myself of this, I realize it didn't impact my success at all. And other people growing with my, you know, with me helping or without me helping didn't affect my success either. But it did massively affect my mental well-being. And so I guess there's two sides to this message that you can take. One is if you were the, you know, the line climbing of the mountain, by all means, stay hungry as hell. Do whatever it takes for you to stay motivated. But I would say don't, don't do anything stupid.

You know, don't, don't say anything. Don't take massive, you know, malicious attacks. I didn't do that. But I'm just saying like, don't do that because you will end up burning bridges. I've had a lot of people do that to me. And I'm sure Badros has had it too. And some of the guys who've been in the space for a long time have had people do that. And what ends up happening is that you just kind of burn your reputation. And, you know, what's going to happen is somebody who's taking a massive, you know, swipe at me, you know, they're going to want to do a deal with someone else.

And that guy's going to call me. And he's like, what do you think about this guy? And I'm like, I think he's a little bit. I think he's naive. I think he's, I think he's new, I think he's small bones. I think he's an emotional person. I don't think he's able to restrain himself. I think he's very volatile.

I wouldn't do business with him if it were me. You can do whatever you want. And I would just be like, this is my experience with it. I don't touch people like that with a 10-foot pole, but do what you want. And usually when people hear that, you know, from someone that they think is less volatile, they will usually heed that advice. And there's been probably a lot of people who have taken attacks at me who somehow find things that just fall through for them. and that may or may not have been as a result of me, but the point is that I think that that anger,

use it to fuel yourself, but don't use it to attack. It just doesn't end up going well. And also, people make associations with how they feel about what you say. And so if you're always talking negatively in general about other people, people will not remember who you were talking about, but they will remember how you made them feel and they will associate the negativity with you. And so that's something that I learned early on in some of the persuasion books. And I was like, oh, okay, I need to watch out for that.

And so it's hard for me, especially because I was like so angrier when I was younger, that to not do that, right? And so that's one side of it, right, is if you are climbing the mountain. And I guess the message to the other side is that like it's just you're not going to affect anything. Like you're not going to hurt anyone by your success. And that's like, that's probably the biggest message I can give is like you're not going to hurt anyone. Like it's not like you're not going to hurt anyone. Like when people make swipes at me,

it doesn't hurt me. Like it doesn't affect me at all. Like it doesn't affect my business. It doesn't, it just affects you. And I'm only sharing this because like it was something that I think really hurt my mental well-being when I was younger and I, and if I can provide value, you know, I hope that that doesn't affect those people if they see this. So anyways, and maybe that's you. You know, maybe there's a competitor in your space or maybe there's another, you know, another business down the street that you're like, screw this guy, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can promise you, you would make so much more money if you guys just like talked and

shared like best practices because there's so few markets where it's actually winner take all. There's so few. You know what I mean? That it actually works that way and it's a zero-sum game. The reality is that most businesses can't even handle the amount of demand that there is for the service and the solution that they have. or the problem that they solve.

And the other reality is that there's a lot of people that like things solved in different ways. You know, if Layla and I were entering the weight loss space, it's not like I have to start attacking Weight Watchers. You know what I mean? Like there's just certain people who are attracted to that type of messaging. And if Layla and I got into that space, we'd probably have a very different angle, brand message look and feel than they would. And we would attract different types of people with different values.

And so there's a lot of room and the ocean's very, very big. much bigger than everyone gives it credit for. And that's, I think I told a story recently about a competitor, quote competitor, another company is in our space who's doing this like the same amount as we are. And they're not even like marketing on Facebook. And I'm like, are you kidding me? And they have an entire outbound team. And when I heard that, I was just like, gosh, I just like, I continue to have my mental barriers stretched around these concepts of like, the game is so big. And the only person you hurt when you spit hate is yourself. You hurt. You hurt your long-term prospects because people at the top do talk.

Like, there definitely is like, I think I heard Andy Fasel say this. It's like, everyone at the top is just like hanging out. Like they're all just like, most of us know each other. You know what I mean? And like, we text each other and hey, how's this working for you? Hey, how's this work? Like, there's no animosity. Like, I'm friends with a lot of people who are in the gym space who serve gym owners.

Like I have no malicious intent. If someone's like, hey, should I work with someone? I'm like, give them a shot. You know what I mean? Like, everyone has a different way of doing things. You know, this is what ours works well with. and if you like our style and you like, you know, you like selling hard, you like going high ticket, you like marketing hard, uh, you like focusing on metrics.

Like that's us. You know what I mean? Like there's people who like more done for you stuff. Like that's cool too. Like there's guys who do that really well. So anyways, I, uh, I wanted to share this with you because, uh, Ed inspired me to share this message with you because, um, if you, you know, if you are angry or you've, you have this, uh, anger inside of yourself, I want 100% get you.

I feel you. But I would just say, try and use it to spur yourself on. Do not use it to throw shade because it will not benefit your well-being. And it won't benefit your long-term success. So anyways, hope you found that valuable. Hope you enjoyed this. If you did, leave a like or comment or review or just listen solemnly. But anyways, I hope you have an awesome day and a happy Saturday.

And I'll catch you guys soon. Bye.