The Iced Coffee Hour - Meet The $100,000,000 Man Who Sold Everything | Alex Hormozi

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

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The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan. Its sleek exterior makes a first impression you can't ignore. Step inside to find available full leather seats and wood accents. Under the hood, the available 201 turbocharged horse power engine gives it a fun to drive edge. The refined Tiguan, you deserve more style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SuvW, German engineered for all. I appreciate having me. And to the audience, like, I know that a lot of the stuff that I say can be

triggering and I want to make it clear that it's not my intention to do that at all. It's just me sharing beliefs that as I understand the world and that is no way projection on you or how you see the world, et cetera. It's just this is how I see the world. And these are beliefs that serve me well that helped me overcome a lot of things that I thought mattered. I'm Alex Ramose. Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour podcast, and this podcast has made $400,000 in the last 18 months. That's a good guess. It was a good guess. Dees, getting closer. Yeah. Yeah, it's $168,756. Okay. Yeah. I probably backtracked what current revenue is to earlier. That was probably... No, you were saying like, oh, we think of $40,000 a month and add, no way. No, nowhere close to that.

No, no, last probably 28 days, we probably did like $10,000? 10,000? Yeah. Yeah. Ad rates are down this year. Yeah. A lot. Yeah, my channel, which is not even like a legit YouTube channel,

does like 28,000 a month. How many views do you pull? Four million a month right now. That's why. Yeah. So we get, because we only post once a week. So we only post four episodes every month.

Okay. Because of that views are on like one to two million a month. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Because you probably have a big, I would imagine decent businessy audience. Because mine's pretty much all business owners.

Yeah. The RPMs are definitely pretty high in our audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we need to do, we need to post twice a week. That's the only way we can take this podcast to the next level, because we kind of hit, I don't want to say we've done as much as we could for one episode a week. Yeah. We've got to go to two.

Yeah. I think that's the next step. I agree. Thanks, Alex. As resident YouTube advisor, between everybody here, you know. And we'll do it. Yeah.

We'll do it. So I got to say, man, I've really enjoyed this story of yours. I listened to the My First Million podcast. of you. And I thought it was really good. And you gave such a complete breakdown on just like sales, being an entrepreneur, and making a ton of money. So tell us, yeah. That's the important part we're going to talk about today. So tell us your, tell us your story. Did you go to college? Yeah. What were you like as a student? How did you get these ideas? What did you want to be when you grew up? Wealthy. Yeah? Yeah, that was definitely like my primary goal. So I was, I was actually really good

students. I don't think I have the traditional entrepreneur like, you know, skill, like school failed me. Like I couldn't focus on classes or anything like that. Like, I was actually a really good student. I was vice president of the newspaper. I was editor-in-chief of the creative magazine, played three varsity sports, did well. Went to Vanderbilt for my undergrad, graduated in three years. Just kind of was always like trying to just push. A lot of that was because I'd like the traditional middle eastern parents who were like you had a hundred different tests that you got a hundred on but this one you had a 99 and then they're failure failure yeah what did you miss like that was actually like a just story and I was like I'll never place him okay that's useful to know um and so anyways I did that

and then kind of followed the path which was to do management consulting or investment banking um after you kind of go like through the white bread path um I did management consulting because it seemed like more interesting. I did defense contracting, so I was in the public sector. So we did space cyber intelligence for the military for two years. I say we. I did that for two years, which sounds really cool, but was actually just transcribing interviews and then compiling 600 pages of notes and then color coding them and then trying to give them to people ahead of me and so that they could make a 20 point slide deck that would be sold for $4 million. Back to the military of like how they should combine their assets to kill the most bad guys for least amount of money. Just like complex problems.

And so I did that for two years and then wanted to not do that. So I was going to go to business school and then was able to do really well in the GMAT. So I think I scored above Harvard's score. And so I was like, okay, cool. I think I can get into like with my experience. What's the GMAT? It's like the SAT for business school. So it's like a harder SAT, basically.

And then anyway, so I did that. And then I started applying to these business schools. on one of them it was like how will this business school MBA help your short and long-front goals? And for like four days, I just sat there and like couldn't answer this question because I wanted to like start a business. And I like couldn't figure out how was how spending like 200 grand and like two to three years of my life and not making money during that period of time was going to like help me. And so I was like, you know what? I'd rather just take the money and start a business and see. And so I'd saved up like I think 60 grand at that point.

So I was 24 or 23. It was 23 because I graduated early. So I took the money. I looked at a bunch of different businesses. And so I was going to start either a test prep business because I was good at that for like SATs or whatever because there's really good margins in that business. I frozen yogurt store because those were like blowing up like 10 years ago.

What year was this? 2013. Oh, 12 was when I was looking at. Yeah. So I was the exact same. For me, I wanted to open up a, a Froyo store. I think it was 2013 or 2014. We could talk about that a little later. I know a lot about the yogurt business. Oh, it's bad. Like cost per ounce, like percentage of people

do toppings versus like there's weight. There's a lot in it. But it was that. And then the third was just like do something about. Like I like fitness. Like maybe I'll do something there. And I didn't have enough money for the yogurt store. So that one was out. I had enough money for the test prep. And I did a bunch of work for it. And I was going to like partner with somebody for it. And then that kind of fell through. So it kind of like left. this weird taste in my mouth. So I was like, I guess I'll just do the gym thing. And so I knew from the consulting world that like the best way to learn is to consult with experts. Like that's how you rapidly like learn new subjects for like, I don't know anything about defense like about satellite mixes and stuff. But like you interview a hundred people who are experts in it and like you get a

pretty good idea pretty fast. And so I was like, okay, I don't know anything about the gym business. So I'll just email a bunch of gym owners and see if they'll just like let me work for free. And one guy got back to me. I emailed like 40 gyms. And he was like, yeah, come on out. you can work for free. So I was like, all right, awesome. So I left every, I like sold my condo, sold all my stuff, packed my car, and I drove straight to California from Baltimore, which is where I was. Showed up at this guy's doorstep and he was like, this is really creepy.

It was not really actually expecting you to do this. I was like, what do you want me to do? And he's like, I don't know. Like I have stuff to do. You can hang out here for a little bit. And he's like, where are you staying? And I was like, I don't know. I just got here.

I just drove to your gym from my house in Baltimore. He was like, so you have nowhere to stay. And I was like, no, I figured I figured out. Wait, where was this located? in California. So you drove from Baltimore to California? Yeah, it was 36 hours. I packed food.

You didn't do it. You slept though, right? Like you didn't do it? Yeah, I slept. I slept. But I didn't stop for food. Asking the important question. I'm amazed.

36 hours. And he was surprised you even did it? Yeah. You didn't call him while you're driving on the way. Like, hey, man, just letting you know. I'm like, I'm on the way. I mean, we talked once and I was like, all right, I'll be there. And then, I mean, I'm sure people say that kind of stuff all the time.

Yeah, you would think that like, hey, I'm on my way. I'll be there like this time. I didn't even have his phone number. What? You just showed up in his house? I showed up at his gym. Wait. Oh,

his gym. Yeah. So this, so wait, so if you didn't have this number, how did you correspond? So we email. So I opted in and then emailed me.

And then we, we did have a call, but I don't think it was a cell phone because I think there was like a work, like a business phone. It was like how many years ago. So anyways, he, what's your parents think of that,

by the way? Your parents were probably telling you do not do this. Wildly against all of this. Yeah. Like, because they wanted you to go into something more like academic. They were like just, They're like you ace the G-Met.

Like you can get into business school and then you can go continue on the path. And I mean, basically what I figured out was that the amount of money that I wanted to make, no job would pay me with the exception of investment banking and management consulting. So you can make $5, $10, $20 million a year as an investment banker or in private equity or as a management consultant. Like you can do that. But the path to getting there, the traditional way, you pretty much give 20 years. And then you start making that.

And I was like, well, I don't want to give up my youth to have money later that I won't have like the youth or energy to spend. So that was kind of the thought process was like, I'm guaranteed to not go what I want this way. And I have a chance of getting what I want this way. So I decided to go that way. And that was pretty, like, the risk adjuster return was I have 100% guarantee that I'm not going to go what I want here. Even though, like, people will think it's good. Which is kind of an interesting side note is that like every one of the big advancements that I've had in my life and I've like marked all of them, like I added a zero to my income, like per month. And each time it was by giving up something that everyone else told me was really good to have something that was better.

But it's like the one that you have and giving it up for something that you do not know exist yet, but you believe can exist. And I think that's the hardest, like, jump in life, like those jumps. It's like, I had a really good job. And I was going to start a business. It's like, but you have this thing that everybody will give you status for. But I want to do this. And then like I scaled that up to six locations, you know, fast forward three years. and well wait let's hear more about you're skipping you skip him too much okay no no you show up this guy's

gym and it's weird then what happens yeah so he was actually really cool about it um and i always remember this he actually just died last year um from COVID but no way yeah it was really sad um for a lot of reasons because he was also like incredibly jacked he's persian like me like really into the business scene was a pretty big influencer um so there's a lot of like similarities and we he had like a like a sort of father-son dynamic. You know what I mean? And so anyways, he was like, well, dude, if you don't want anywhere to stay,

you can stay at my place tonight. And I was like, oh, thanks. And so I went to his place and I stayed there for that night and his like wife made me food or whatever. And I was like, this is nice. Like, California is great. And then the next morning I went to the gym with him. And then he just like literally just asked everyone at the gym.

He was like, anyone have an extra room. And one guy was like, you can stay at my place. And so he had an extra room. I paid him like 400 bucks a month. And that was, that was how I, that was how I like, started living. I worked at that gym for for three months. So what were you doing at the gym now?

So he said you can be my apprentice. And so I mean, I think you recognize that I was like relatively intelligent and hardworking. And so he was like, just learn everything that I do so that I don't have to do it and you can do it. And I was like, okay, cool. Like, and so like, I was with him from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. every day. Because so like my early mornings kind of started with him because he was like be at the gym at 4. And I was like, okay, got it. You know, because in the consulting world, I was at the office at 10. So it was like a big difference. And so we would work out from four to five, and then we would start working at five. And so that was, and then he was like, man, everybody always says that, like, you can't, like, work really hard.

Like, you have to trade off. He's like, he's like, they're just not willing to wake up early. He's like, I get, I see my kids at four or five o'clock every day. He's like, I just wake up before they're up. There's something else here now. Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real.

sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now we're running out of time and we still don't know the rules don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch saving those children is how we all go home from binge all episodes exclusively on paramount plus and I was like what time does he go to bed he's going to bed at like nine yeah yeah I mean that's I go to bed at night

and so that actually is kind of stuck with me is that like there's so many hours before people wake up that like you can get like the high quality work done but anyways, did the three months with him and he was like, hey, there's this guy who's got a gym like close by to where you want to open a gym. Maybe you guys should partner up. And I was like, cool, sounds good. So I found a spot, met the guy. And we were like, okay, which is a terrible way to do a partnership.

Like you guys both have the exact same role and let's just split a facility, which makes no sense. But anyways, he was like, we should go to this marketing event. And I was like, sure, marketing is important. Like, I didn't know anything. And he's like, yeah, it's the guy said that. If you don't make $10,000 by the end of the weekend, you can get your money back. It was $3,000. And I was like, that's a lot.

You don't know what I mean? Of money. Like, I don't have a ton. And so I decided to do it because I was like, well, if I don't make $10,000, I'll get the money back, right? I didn't make $10,000. By the end of the weekend, I did not. But he did teach this thing that was kind of crazy and new at the time called Facebook ads. It was 2013.

And so learned enough to understand that there was like something here, went back to Sam's Jim, which is the guy who... Hold up, hold on. Did you get your money back? I didn't. No, I didn't ask for it. But I learned enough. So you didn't make the amount of money that they promised. I didn't make anything. But you made no money with your Facebook ads? But how did they promise will give you the money back and you didn't get the money back? Yeah. I said you can ask for it. It's just like I how much was it? It was three grand. He said if you don't make 10 grand by the end of the weekend, you can ask for your money back. How are people making 10 grand by the end of the weekend? I take it through setting up a Facebook, like a Shopify store, running Facebook ads. It would be like leading

ads to a call, then you sell them something. Got it. Yeah, I mean. So, like, and I was the only guy there who didn't have a business. So, like, from a selection standpoint, I shouldn't have been selected to attend. So it was like a tiny little workshop of, like, 10, 10 dudes who all owned gyms. And so they had businesses that they could, like, sell people into. I didn't have anything.

I was like, what am I supposed to sell? But I like, I understand. He had like, that's how you build landing pages. How you build ads. And I was like, just trying to, like, understand it. And I didn't. But, like, I got enough of it to go back to Sam and be like, we should run. Facebook ads. And he was like, it doesn't work. It's like, I tried it once. It's not for us. And I was

like, well, give me a budget. I'll, I'll figure it out. And so I ran ads at his gym and we killed it. And so I was like, okay, awesome. Like, I'm going to do this at at the gym that I'm now starting with this partner. And the night before the lease was supposed to get signed, the partner couldn't come up with half the money to do the gym. And so the night before, I ended up assuming the entire gym. How much did that cost? So it was supposed to be both, we're going to put 25 grand in. And I I had 60. And so it went from me having like some padding to no padding. So it was 50 grand and I had 60. And so I had like $10,000 left, which is enough for two months rent at that gym. So I stopped living at the place in Chino and started sleeping at the gym because I couldn't afford two rents. And so I remember selling the entire first month and making exactly $4,973, which is the exact amount of the rent. And so then I just watched it go back down to zero. And I was like, this sucks. But the next month we made 10 grand,

the next month we'd 15, then 20, it was like 5 grand a month, all the way up to like 35,000 a month, pretty much by month. Then I started hiring people and bringing people in. And then at by month like nine, it was all outsourced.

So I had the like a manager and some trainers and whatnot. Then I had two guys come in. There's a very long story here. Like I can, I can skip through it. But anyways, it started working, started opening a new location every six months

because we kind of did something a little different. we figured out I could liquidate the cost of acquisition for new customers and make money in the acquisition. So like I would put a dollar in and I would get $30 back before having a back end. So it was like it was almost more advantageous to just open more gyms. So what, what, what, but what was that one to 30? Yeah. So it's like walking through the process, it's like if I had $2 leads, right, and I know that I'm going to close one out of five leads, it's like my cost of acquisition is $10 and I'm selling a $500 thing. And then $40 hours later, I'm going to sell $250 to supplements.

And then three weeks after that, I'm going to sell them a year paid and full up front with a discount. And so if you follow the cash flow, it's like, I put $10 out, then I got $500, and then I got $250, and then I got $1,000. And so it was like, it was insane. What was the business model of the gym? Like how many people would be signing up for it? How many people would be actually showing up? What was the cost of that? Yeah.

So we sold, we kind of had a different model than most people. And I think that's why it ended up working well is that most gyms tend to like, I call it like the sell your soul problem, which is like they just give away as much as they possibly can on the. the front end to attract people, but it attracts in general, less committed people. They don't actually follow through because they don't really value it. And so we just kind of flip the model on its head, which is like charge people when they're the most excited upfront. So like charge them $500 for a fine in program rather than a membership because someone really wants a membership. They just want like a result. So sell them the result and then put like a really compelling guarantee around that. And so the offer that we had at that point was like lose 20 pounds and

you get all the money back. And so people are like, oh, that's awesome. So it's like they kind of like bet on themselves to hit the goal. but once they were in the mousetrap, it didn't really matter because as soon as they came in, we'd sell them products. So that would already cover even if they did refund because they were going to buy the products and that wasn't refundable. And then, you know, three weeks in, it's like, hey, you know, Lucy, you just lost 12 pounds. You need to hit 20. Once you hit 20 or are you like, you done forever, like your body's perfect. And they're like, no, I really want to keep going.

And you're like, right. So then you understand that this is not about six weeks. It's about six years. So why don't we just take that, you know, $500. I'll give it to you like you want it and we'll just credit towards you staying. And she's like, okay. And it's like, cool, new agreement, signed. And then the money disappears, right?

And so it didn't really matter. And so, and then, yeah, and we'd give them, you know, a paid and fool for the year discount if they wanted to, like, pay it all then, or we'd just discounted off of, like, the next 12 months or whatever. Got it. How did lose the 20 pounds? How do you stick with that? Is that with a trainer or is it, like, if you follow this planned outline?

Yeah, so there was three things. Right. I mean, I'm getting my fitness selling base, but it's like fitness nutrition accountability. So, like, fitness-wise, you got to work out of the gym three times a week with the trainer. We'll walk you through everything. We'll show what to do. Can you do that? Yes.

Cool. Second thing is nutrition. We'll walk you through a nutrition plan that's made specifically for you. You'll have, you know, grocery list for preparation instructions, eating out guides, everything that you need to make sure that you can get to where you're trying to go and make it as easy as possible. I've got kids who don't speak English and 12-year-olds who can do it. Do you think you can handle that?

They say yes. And he's like, great. Third thing is accountability. So it doesn't matter what plan. I sold 4,000 of these. So I can still do it and spend 10 years. And so it's like, you know, I can give you the best plan in the world and the best training, best nutrition.

matter, right? Right. Okay, cool. So the reason that we have such a success rate is that we have three forms of accountability. One is that you have peer to peer accountability of other people are going to be starting with who are in the same spot as you. Next is you have alumni accountability so people are going to be pulling you and cheering you ahead because they've done it. And then you've got expert accountability from the coaches who've done this 100 times, right? And the last one and the most important one is that the reason we have the success rate we do, which at that time we were doing about 78% of people who started will hit the goal, which is pretty impressive. It's actually way more impressive than most like weight loss programs is that people basically make a bet on themselves and so so you pay

five hundred dollars you do everything you hit the goal we'll give you the whole thing back right and that was pretty much the explanation so it's like that makes sense so how much money were you making from like actually selling the membership or whatever because you said you're giving that money back to them versus how much you're money we didn't actually if you follow the cash right so it's like right right versus how much money you're making like with the supplements and with like all of these other things so it was like about 50-50 in terms of like membership on the back end. Like in the beginning, there's way more front-end sales than there's back-in.

And then the back-end continues to grow and kind of compound. But yeah, we was like about 50-50 between front-end and back-end in terms of like cash flow. Got it. Because they know with a lot of gyms, don't they try to get a lot of people in around New Year's just expecting that like 80% of people are never going to show up?

It depends on the type of gym. So Jim kind of exists on a continuum. On this side, you've got like what I call facility leasage, gyms, which are like, you know, anytime fitness,

planet fitness. Like they just, the business model is based on 92% of people not showing up. Like, it couldn't work because if, if 100 people, 100% of people actually showed up, they would have to charge $200 to $300 a month

because there wouldn't be space. Okay. So once you've started expanding these gyms, yeah. Why not just continue on that? It was a great question. Yeah. So I,

yeah, I had six and I had my next four locations, so I was going to get to 10. I had United Fitness. It was going to be like America's gym. I was like very, motivated to do it. And I joined in internet marketing mastermind, which was like a ClickFunnels mastermind by Russell Brunson. This is like six years ago or seven years ago. And anyways, I went there.

And the sales guy was like, oh, yeah, there's tons of like gym owners here. And I mean, I, it's all like, we're all good. You know what I mean? But like, he's like, yeah, tons of guys like, you know, learn and they make even more money doing internet stuff or whatever. And I was like, all right, cool. If there's other gym owners and stuff like, cool. So I show up. I'm the only brick and mortar business owner. Every single person in the group is an internet person. And I was like, what am I doing? And I think at the time it was like $25,000.

So like I had more money at this time, but it was still a significant chunk of change. And so I got up there and I was like, well, I kind of just walked them through. What I just walked you through is like, this is my model. This is how we car customers. This is our LTV. This is our cost of acquisitions. How much it cost me to open a gym is how many like gyms I can open per per month based on this cash flow, whatever. And I like talked really fast.

And I was like, so what do you guys think? And Russell at the time was like, I don't think you should be in the gym business. And it like, it actually like killed me because I was like in front of all these people. I like gave this like whole spiel about like why I thought it was awesome. And he was like, I think you should be showing other people how to do exactly what you just talked through. And and then he said like the sentence that changed my life, which was, I think you have a level ton skills and a level two opportunity. He's like, I think you should be like building these types of businesses, not like opening and running. gyms. And so that really changed my life because at that point, I was like, well, either I don't

listen to the guy and just continue down this path or, you know, except that he has more money than me. And therefore, you know, I don't necessarily think is black and white now. But, you know, I was like, he has a lot more money than me. And if I don't listen to him, then why did I pay for this? And so I was like, okay. And so in the next 90 days, I sold all my gyms, not for a ton of money. I think in cumulative, like, I think I sold him for like maybe 300 grand. It wasn't a lot. It really, why so well? You were making so much money off the gyms. was making like there's overhead and every all the cash flow like I wasn't taking dividends which is a which is a lesson I can talk about later um so like I took all the cash in each gym and just opened up

new gyms right and that was like basically what I did um and like I understand like I feel like through like my entrepreneurial journey it's been like I very much have come from the the extreme side of like selling and value and building stuff that people want and then there's like this other extreme, which is like investors. And I think as you like age, you kind of meet in the middle. Because I've got some friends who like started investing and then they started buying small businesses and they started getting better at business. They started getting better at marketing, et cetera. And then, you know, I was on this side. Like I understood how to like make money. But then like didn't really understand like capital allocation and understand like how debt worked.

I didn't understand how like the equity in the companies actually had value. Like you know what mean? Like for me, it was just like, oh, all these gyms are a lot of work. I wonder if somebody will just like take them off my hands. And so, um, I probably could have waited like a year and like got them ready for sale and like, you know, cleaned up all the books and like done all that stuff. But, um, I've just been a huge proponent of opportunity cost. And like within 30 days, I was doing a hundred grand a month in the next business. So like, you know, and I was taking home a hundred grand a month, which was more than I was taking home from the six gyms. Um, so it was just like, okay, well, that worked. And so like at the end of the day, like, whatever we should be doing,

could probably make us 10 times more than what we're currently doing. And like the faster we can switch to that thing. Got it. Like it makes more sense. So how did you switch to teaching other people how to do that model? Yeah. So I was debating doing a franchise. So there's three basically different models that you can do to expand a brick and mortar service type business.

You can either franchise, you can license or you can or you can do, you can privately own them all. That's kind of like the three big paths. I had a friend who had done the franchise thing. I flew out to one of her facility. We spent the whole weekend together. She told me all the pros and cons. And she was like, it's really slow. It's very litigious.

And I was like, I'm like 26 at the time. I don't know if I want to deal with all that. That's kind of sucks. On the private ownership side, I had already done that. So I was like, I guess I'll license. And so, but the in between there was like, I wasn't even sure if I wanted a license still. So I was like, well, I just know that I make a ton of money opening gyms.

So I'll just go and open a ton of gyms. But I'll just give the gyms to the other people. So that's when gym launch actually started was I would fly out to a gym. and I would fill it up, doing all the stuff I knew how to do at my gyms, and I would just keep all the money, and they would get all the customers for free. So that was the deal. So I would risk my money, risk my time, do all that, like, run all the ads, everything. And all the cash that I collected was mine, and then they would get 200 free customers that they would convert on the back into their membership. How do you ensure that they actually do a good job with those customers?

That you don't bring them a whole bunch of people, and they were just like, all right, see ya. Excellent, excellent question. That was the hole in the model. And so all these gyms that were coming to me who wanted the help were typically not that good, you know. And that's not an insult to them. It's just, you know, they didn't know what to do. And so I would sell 200 people into a gym that currently had 70 members. They go from 70, 270 in like 30 days. And they didn't have the systems. They didn't have the bandwidth. They didn't have the trainers. Any of that. And so what ended up happening is I did that for and then we started getting like refunds and chargebacks. And I was like, what the hell? But like, I'm the one who carries the bag on the processing because I was the one

who processed the money. So they were doing a bad job. But I was the one who was holding the risk. And so I, like in two gyms at one point got on a chair and told every single person to refund because they're like, I just can't do with all these people. Like just go home. They're literally just really like, go home. And so I had like 150,000 dollars in refunds in a week. And that's when I was like, all right, I'm done with the gym business. Like, you know, I had my gyms. I did this turnaround thing, which was almost two years that Layla and I were flying out to gyms. We scaled up to like eight sales guys doing eight gyms a month. So like it became an operation. We're doing, I think a highest month was like like 350. You know what I mean? So like it was,

it was a decent sized operation. But we, anyways, they did that. And Layla, my wife now had this little like side online business where she would like train people. And so I was like,

you know what? Screw this. Why don't we make you the front person? I'll be behind the scenes. And we'll just take the eight sales guys and we'll just sell fitness direct and not do the gym thing anymore. And so that actually started to work.

And so we started doing a thousand bucks a day within like 14 days. And so I was like, we take the eight guys. We'll do 8,000 a day. Like this could work. How do you build these business? is so fast. Every single business you've told me so far. It's like, all right, in one week,

we're like doing 300 grand a year. It's like. So I mean, Acquisition.com, the reason it's called that is like acquisition has never been the bottleneck in any business I've ever had. Like, we know how to get customers. And so like we knew how to market and sell. And so we knew how to do that. And so that's what we did. So we knew how to run ads. When you had to get on the phone and talk to people who didn't know us and get them to give us their money. And so that's what we did. And then what ended up happening. This was like the craziest thing of my life is that I had. had eight gyms that were supposed to launch the next month. And we started, this thing started working, her, like the fitness thing. So I called up the first gym and was like, hey, man, like,

changing model, like I'm not flying out. And they didn't pay for me to do this. They basically just reserved a date and I would fly out or one of our team, you know, would fly out. We'd launch the ads and we'd sell. I was like, sorry, man, not going to happen. He's like, dude, I'd just refinanced my house. I'm maxed on my credit cards. Like, just to make this gym work. I've been doing this for three years. Like, you launch my buddy's gym and he's like, totally pumped and his gym's packed. It's like, I need, like, you have to do this. And I was like, all. All right. man um i'm not flying at like i'm not i'm not going to do what i did i was like but i can i can show you how to do it um i'm called my getting out of the gym business like sell my secret

um he was like well how much and i was like and i remember thinking like the highest number i could possibly imagine which was at the time six thousand dollars like that was like the highest number i could just to show you where i was um he was like done and i just remember like staring at the phone at me like holy shit six thousand dollars like hot damn um and so i you know called the next guy had the exact same conversation. He was like, how much? And I was like, eight grand. And he was like, okay. And I called the next six guys. And we did like $60,000 in sales in that day, just selling like my entire like system of how I would fill the gyms up and all that stuff. And I was like, holy shit. And I looked at Lela. I was like, I think we're still in the gym business.

I was like, I think we're just doing it wrong. And so then I called back all the 30, 40 gyms that we'd already done the turn around for. And I was like, remember how I filled your gym up? They're like, yeah. I was like, remember how I made all that money and you didn't? They were like, yeah, you for that. And then I was like, want me to show you how I did it? And they were like, really? And I was like, yeah, they were like, done. Because they'd seen how much money I'd taken out of their time. And so, like, overnight, I'd sold like, we did like 300 and, like, we again did like 300 grand. But this time, there was no operational drag because it was just like the same, like the cost of making the thing once versus selling it 100 times was the same.

And that was when I basically understood the value of having leverage. So could you explain Acquisition.com? So, yeah. What does it do? Yeah. What's the process? It's, it's, we call it value acceleration capital. But if you were to look at like three circles on the table and you've got like private equity, venture capital and then management consulting, it's kind of like the intersection of those three. So it's like we deal with companies that are typically smaller than most private equity. So ours are like one to 10 million dollars in EBITA. So so for people don't know what that means. It's just like fancy word for profit. Just use it as that. Right. The amount of money that a company is taken home. Most of the companies that we're working with are like

three is the minimum top line cut off. Most of the times they're like five to like, like, 25 million ish. I think the smallest company we have right now is 5 million. Next smallest is like 10. So like and then after that they're all bigger. And so what we do is we take a minority stake in the company. And I'm using this as kind of my way to practice being a majority owner without being a majority owner. So we're doing everything exactly as we would if we were to take over the entire company. And so we kind of follow a three step process. So the first thing we do is we get the data infrastructure in place. And so typically a company of that size that's doing like, you know, one million, two million, five million in EBITA, you know, they got there pretty quickly.

They don't have infrastructure. The reporting that their finances are terrible. Like everything's a mess, but like they know how to sell and they've got some product market fit. And so we go in and just get all of the data correct so we can actually like make good decisions. So once we have the correct data, then we come up with kind of our strategic plan of like, okay, what kind of company do we want to build? Where do we think like the biggest leverage opportunities exist? And then we put them all out and then we're like, okay, there's a lot of things we could do. What are the two things we're going to do? And then we just disregard everything else and just ruthlessly focus on those two things. And then the third kind of arm of what we do is we're very good at recruiting. And so like the reason

we able to build so many companies that we're very good at finding talent. And so kind of interesting framework for for you guys or for your audience is I think a lot of times we talk about like pipelines in terms of like building businesses. It's like how do I turn raw attention into leads into prospects and the customers, et cetera. But there's a second acquisition channel, which is like, how do I market to get applications that I then interview, which is the same as the sale, just internal, right? And then how do I onboard, just the same as onboarding a customer?

And then how do I send, which is same thing. How do I send a customer? So there's mirror, mirror acquisition pipelines that are happening on both sides of a business. As this one flows in with new customers, you so too need one that flows in with recruiting to build the infrastructure of the company. And so most of the times the companies that we're working with have this sort of and none of this. And they don't have the infrastructure upon which to build. And so it's like, we get the right data to make the right decisions and we fill the people

that can actually execute that vision so that like a lot of times people, most entrepreneurs think and rightfully so usually would like under three million, five million. Like the entrepreneur needs to learn more. And typically the company will be a subset of the entrepreneur's knowledge. So it's like I can do every job in my company better than all the people who are currently doing it. and all of them have learned from me. That's a really terrible way to build a business because it's literally just you

and no one smarter than you. And businesses are always the accumulation of all of the brains in it. But if the brains are all a subset of yours, it's the accumulation of one brain, which the bigger brain, great. But like, it's way better to have like 10 good brains that all know different things.

And so that's when we kind of have to be like, it's not about you learning more. Like we need to get someone who's already done this 10 times in companies just like this. So we need to go find a director of finance. We need to go find a, you know, a control or we need to go find, you know, a recruiter. We need to go find X, Y, and Z to really build the company into what it needs to become. Rather than, like, the transition from the genius with a thousand hands, which is what most companies are at that point to, like, an actual company that has people who can drive growth in their respective apartments.

So I probably just talk straight for, like, an hour or so? What's the end goal with it? Do you want to now sell this? Or is your goal is to have a whole bunch of small ownership interests? I think eventually I'll do majority. buyouts. But I think for the next five years minimum, I'm focused on these minority deals to prove track record. But I'm not planning on raising money. I don't need it. I want to, there's a lot of checkboxes that Acquisition.com met, which is like I wanted to have something that

I would have a lot of new different businesses that I could like interact with. I wanted to still have one singular focus, which is a difficult balance to strike between those things, which is why I ended up selling the majority of those three to just go all in on the portfolio being the one thing, rather than like I have three companies and I have my portfolio, which for me I can't handle. Most people are probably better than I am. That's probably they can do it, but I can't do it. And so it had to have a way that I could actively get returns on my own money because like it's great to invest. But like I know the stuff that I'm buying. I know what it's worth and I know how to improve it. So I can just get so much better value from my money in doing these types of transactions and these types of deals.

Um, and so ultimately I want to build something that I don't ever want to sell. I don't think I'm going to transact like the only type of transaction that I would ever do would be some sort of like very minority participation of like Mosey nation, friends and family and things like that. I might sell like five percent to like everyone who knows me and just to be like, trust me, like just put this in your pocket and wait 20 years like because I, I think that we have a, a pretty cool opportunity and we're very good at like we've built six multi-figure businesses in the last five years.

So like, we know this process. And so I just want to prove it out with like 50 or 100. And in terms of like the why, because like I don't need the money, obviously. Like the mission of the company is like rings true to my heart, which is just like it's the document and share the best practices of building world class companies. It's like what I love.

It's like why I wrote the books, why I do the channel. So I make the courses. Like I just, I just love business. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck. salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like

playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon.

Do you invest? It doesn't sound like you invest at all. It seems like you no index funds, you know, no real estate. You're just like, why would I waste my time earning a measly 8% a year when I could just buy another business? No, I, um, so actually, you'd be surprised. I have, I've probably a quarter of my cash in indexes. Um, I've got, uh, probably, you mind talking numbers? Yeah, sure. I've got about 60 million bucks. Um, like, that's not like equities in companies that are not like publicly traded. So like, I would consider a commercial apartment building or a stock. Yeah.

stuff that people would accept as like money. Whereas like my equity in a company that's doing 30 million a year, what is it worth? It depends on the day. Right. You know what I mean. Um, so like that's what I have. And so like it's basically split up between, um, indexes, um, indexes, uh, real estate, just big multi, um, um, buildings. I try and do like fewer. So like just a handful of like multi dollar like um allocations because like at some point like it doesn't make sense to put like hundred million sorry hundred thousand dollar like 250 thousand dollar allocations like it just it's so are you investing in um like like syndicates for that money or you're doing it yourself well i'll share something with you so um i learned from a mentor um who sold his company which is in the

real estate um space for a 3.6 billion and i was like hey man who is it i i won't share because he doesn't want his numbers but right um but anyways he sold his real estate thing And I was like, so what do you think I should do? And he's like, well, with the, he's like, the slugs that you're putting in, he's like, you should just always have, you should always be participating in the GP. And so for everyone who's watching, like, you have your limited partners and you have your general partners. So limited partners normally will contribute the majority of the capital. General partners will actually run the deal and there's usually some sort of agreement between them in terms of the split. There's some sort of preference, you know, preference or some sort of, you know, split in terms of after the fact, like there's a million ways to structure those agreements. And so he's like, well, if you're going to be putting up the money for these. deals and if you can do like a third or half or more of the entire deal is like you should just also get a corresponding percentage of the general partnership and so like we realize that and then you know after talking to lots of different GPs we're like all right what are the handful of people that we want to do business with that we like and then we're just like listen we'll just fund all your deals like just like when you see another you know 30 million dollar building

I was like we'll just fund it like and then we'll just like there won't be LPs it'll just be us and we'll fund it and we'll just have a simple arrangement how do you do your taxes I'm thinking of all of this thinking like it's got to be a stack of like that. It's not as complex as you'd think because like all the stock stuff is like automatically generated. Right. Um, and then, you know, we don't and because of like in the very beginning, Layla and I were like, all right, let's try and participate in these like real estate things. And I think we allocated like one and a half million dollars between like eight deals. And I was like, this is stupid. Let's not do this. Because like they would be like, hey, can you sign?

I was like, dude, like the fact that you asked me to sign this is not worth the time. Um, and so, uh, we stopped doing that. We're like, all right, what's our minimum allocation size? like five million bucks those are the chunks that we're doing and so like if it's not that i don't care and so that's kind of like what and so now it's just like we have two or three operators that we work with that can that do that are doing deals in those sizes and so like when they come with a really good one and then we're like yeah we'll do it we'll take it down or we're like it's interesting i want to do that but they pre they like pre screen it you know i mean and and like the nice thing is that like when you're not on like the traditional LP you're not just like

on their their list of 100 investors that they're going to go and try and get 50 to 100 grand from right like you're just a nothing for us it's like dude, if we take the whole deal down, like, make it good. You know, like, I'm making your life easier, make my life easier. Right. So, like, everybody wins. That's awesome. Yeah.

So that's what we do on that side. And then, um, and then I still have a big chunk in cash. And, um, I'm just not that afraid of inflation. It's just not as big of a deal for me. Mostly because I just own businesses. Yeah. So, like, I can adjust prices if I need to. And like, just in terms of a percentage, it's like a three percent of your

portfolios and cash. Oh, no. It's like way hard than that. Even five percent. It's like way hard than that. 10? I don't know. We're like 25% cash.

25% of 60 million? Yeah. But 15 million? Why? Is that just for defined deals as they come up? Yes. Okay. I have considered actually putting it into like a dividend DTF and then just taking

loans against it to fund the deals. It's something that I'm literally actively thinking about. I think there's just like peace of mind. And as you probably just saw from my decision to sell. three companies in one year and a house and two cars. I saw everything last year, literally all my material possessions. Why did you do that? Just wanted to clean slate. You know what I mean? Like every five years or so, I feel like I've like, I had like three seasons. I like my college and management consulting season. Um, I had my gym ownership season. I had my gym launch, prestige labs, Allen season.

And then like this is like the season of acquisition.com. So it's like it's always been in like that three to five year season range. And so like every time I end up usually just like cleaning the slate focus. How does your wife feel about that? Oh, she does she care. She works with me in the business. She's co-coceeo. Cool.

So we actually met. So our first date, I just pitched around working for me. Because I was like, this might not. How did you meet her? Do that. I was like, this might not work out. But like if you can, because she could sell, she was the top salesperson for 24 our fitness for all of our family.

Is that how you met her? Not. I met her through. Bumble, but... No way. She told me she was the top sales rep, and I was like, like, if you can sell, we can make a ton of money together. And she was like, okay.

She was like, I want to learn how to market. And I was like, well, I just so happen to know how to do that. And so, yeah, so I was like, I'm going to start this company called Jim Launch. And then she was like, whatever. And the next time she saw me, I was like, look, I got the bank counts. I got the corporate. And she was like, oh shit, you're like really doing this. I was like, yeah.

Yes. I'm doing it. I was like, you quit your job and join me. And she was like, I literally just. met you. And I was like, yeah, you should totally quit your job and join me. Like, I'm going to go, like, fly around the country and launch these gyms. And she was like, uh, let me know how it goes. And so I launched the first three gyms, came back. Um, she picked me up in the airport. I hadn't taken on her a date yet. This is a funny story. And, um, and, um, and I was like, I will take you on

this date. I promise. As long as you do this one thing for me first. And she's like, what? I was like, you have to process these contracts. And so I had the stack of contracts that was like this pie. And so I taught her how to process them. And we processed like a hundred 20 grand in, in like an hour. And she was like, what do you do you do again? And then she like, before I could even answer, she was like, is it legal? But you know for a fact, when you're handing her a stack of contracts with 120 grand, you're like, yeah, come join now. You see these numbers. You see what we're doing.

You want to join. Did you start off as like employees first? Was she your employee first and then it evolved? No. So we were, it was literally like same time. Like we started dating and I was like, you should quit your job. And so like there was a lot of trust, obviously. You know what I mean?

And like, and while I went to go launch these three gyms, like I left and I was like, hey, here's my bank account and can you go pick up all the money at all my gyms. And so she was like showing up as this girl that I'd only known for 10 days, like with like a big bag where they would like put all the cash in. And she'd be like, thank you like a drug dealer. Like, and she'd go to the next gym and like they just put all the cash in. She was like, did they not pay with check or like? Well, so we had, so anybody bought physical products.

Well, people still use cash. You know what I mean? This was five years ago too. And so like we had a certain percentage of the sales that were. I didn't have a cash register because I didn't want to encourage cash, theft and all that stuff. And so if someone paid in cash, we had a little envelope system, where they would like, what was it for, the amount,

and then they'd slide it in the safe, and then we'd pick up the cash once a month. So what did you sell the other year? Like you said, you sold everything. Yeah. What was that? Like, what was the cars? It was a car.

So I sold Allen, the software company, the strategic buyer, which can't just close the price on that one. Okay. I sold the supplement company of prestige labs. I sold Jim Launch. I sold the majority shares of both of those, are all three of those.

And then I sold my house in Austin, which was crazy. It, like, doubled in value, which is cool. So he sold that. Since you sold it? No, no, so we bought it for 1.8. We sold it for four. Got it.

In three years, which is cool. And I bought that all cash, no mortgage. So I actually have zero debt, which is ironic. Everyone's like, that's all smart. I don't know, whatever. I might just be an idea. It's very possible. And so anyways, we sold that and then sold my cars.

I had a Bentley, which I only bought because, like, I hadn't spent money on really anything expensive. And then people were like, dude, you should buy something expensive. And I was like, all right, I guess we'll, like, we only only. had one car until like last year. What car was it? It was an I8 which I got as a gift for being an affiliate of ClickFunnels. So they gave you an I8? Yeah. We sent him a lot of business. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Did, wow. Does Russell send you that like personally? Basically he's like here's the list of cards you can get. And I was like, can I just get the money?

And he was like, no, you have to get the car. I was like. Why is that for like marketing? Yeah. Yeah. It's like you got you sent him a picture and then like a video like, hey, ClickFunnels is great. And then and then you get the car. So, yeah. So bought the I-8. Ironically, couldn't even, couldn't get a loan for the I-8. And we're doing like a million a month take home at the time. You know what I mean? Couldn't get a loan for it. No credit score? I've never had debt. Okay. I've like, I've never had debt ever. Yeah. So like I don't have a besides credit cards like which like business credit cards like we, I have no history of repayment. I bought my house and cash. You have no personal credit card. I have a personal credit card that gets paid off. you know, every month or whatever. But, like, I have no, like, loan. I don't have a mortgage. I have nothing. So I'm going to take, I think I'm going to try and take my first mortgage out

buying a house. So it'll be exciting. Why? Just to have a history with the mortgage? Oh, why am I taking the mortgage out? Yeah. And, you know, I think it makes, like, that seems like low risk debt to me.

You know, I was, I would say, you know, a lot of people poo poo on Dave Ramsey. He introduced the concept of debt to me that I thought was valuable, which is like, debt increases risk. Risk expended over a long enough time, and can get you to zero. And my tolerance for zero, like, the marginal utility I have of more money

is basically nothing. The the marginal cost of me going to zero is very high. And so, like, I want to risk money, I want to increase my risk to get more of something that I don't need and risk something that I do have that I do need. Like, you've just thought about it like that. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, and when I think about, like, how am I going to become a billionaire?

Because right now, like, I'm probably over, like, 100 million if you like took the other 40 million from my equities of the other companies that I own. And so it's like I just have to 10x over the rest of my life. And so, but like I don't think I'm going to get there through indexes. I mean, I could if you put it 45 years out or whatever. Sure. But I think that it like it's the appreciation of equity, which is where I'm going to get it through these companies that become something big. And so just realizing that that's actually where my wealth is going to be built. I just everything in my life is built around just minimizing the amount of headspace that it takes up so I can put it in the vehicle that,

that I get the highest return on. I wouldn't even get a mortgage. Why? I would just pay it on. Just continue doing what you're doing. Yeah. It's not even worth it. I think we might.

I mean, like, it's a non-decision. Like, I don't have a lot of emotional investment in it. Okay. Yeah. Why is through like a normal day? Like, what time do you get up? Because you said like,

you shut up here and you're like, no, I don't want coffee. You already had two coffees. Yeah, I was like, I told you. I was like, we should do it at night. And you're all, okay, sure. And I said, sure, 730.

I said something like that. you're like, oh, man, that's late. I was like, you party in. No, like, we usually get up at four or five. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, we don't have an alarm clock. But we, I have like, I have a mental alarm clock for when I'd get exhausted and get sleepy. What time is it?

Yeah, like between nine and ten. Nine and ten. I'm usually going to bed. Okay. So I thought, you know, fall asleep at 10, wake up at four at six hours. Like, it's fine. So if I need more sleep, I'll sleep till five. You always been a morning person?

Since I did that thing with Sam. Since I went from like, waking up and I mean I've always been okay in the morning like I I I definitely now would be what I can't I can't strong word I don't work past like four so I'm like a like I usually work from like four or five until like 11 and that's when I get all my work done and then from like 11 to three or four is when I do like meetings and stuff then I've structured my day like that for a while and it works for me what advice do you have for us see I need to pick I need to pick your brain on this. Yeah, I'm here. Let's rock.

Give us advice. How do we make more money? Well, you have, like, an insane audience, and so I think it's just, like, figuring out what, you know, I was talking to Mr. Beast, and he was, like, and I still have this recommendation, so if you do, if you are watching this, I'd still stand by what I said, which is I feel like he should have an energy drink called, like Beast Mode or something. I was like, every single, like, it's because it had to be something that, like, kids could consume, it had to be something that was mass market.

It had to be something that had good repeat purchase it. It had to be something that had good gross margins. And I was like, so I thought about it for a while because we were talking about stuff. And I feel like he should have that for his channel. And so I use that as an example of like, I think that there has to be something that within your audience would be really awesome. That would be a good vehicle. Like, I know you know Grant Cardone, right? Like he's been able to build, you know, a billion dollars worth of equity because he used a better vehicle than all the YouTubers.

but he doesn't have more reach than YouTubers. He has a better vehicle. And so I think that it's that. It's like, I think the vehicle that most of them are like, the ad revenue and like course sales are like, meh, like, who cares? I mean, like, nothing wrong with it,

but like there's better ways to skin the cat. And so I think it's really figuring out what high leverage play you can make there. So that's where like fund vehicles or high leverage plays, you know what I mean? Like anything that's investment related is always a higher leverage play. And it's like, well, I don't know what I would necessarily invest in.

It's like, well, then go acquire that scale or go find the guy. who has that scale, bring them in, cut them a piece, and then be like, cool, here's this guy, he's awesome. Like, I'm putting all my money with this because X, Y, Z, and you can do it, or whatever. Obviously, there's regulatory and all that stuff, but, like, you can do it, legit. There's nothing different about that versus, you know, a guy on Wall Street doing the same thing. He's just, like, calling friends and family and calling lists from trust funds. You know what I mean? And you would just be hitting your own audience, which gives you your own upside.

You mentioned Grant Cardone. I noticed that you posted this one video. I paid, at Cardone. It was $120,000. Yeah, over $130,000 over like, what was it? It said $120, I actually now, I remember. I think it was $130. Got it. Yeah, and that was over, what, like, four sessions? Yeah, so my wife got me a Christmas gift as a surprise. Yeah. And so she was like, what can I get Alex? And so she, like, called Grant's office up and was like, I want to pay.

Yeah. 120,000. Yeah. I know. She skimped this year. I'm like really upset about it. I don't know. I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. Magic. call it, no, just give me the money. You think so, right? Do you guys have joint accounts? Yeah. I mean, I don't, I've never logged into our account, so I don't, I could,

all this money I could be making up. I have no idea. Like, and I mean, in terms of, I'm not making it up, but I'm saying like, right, you just don't check it. Yeah, she'd manage all this stuff. I don't look at any. Okay. So when you're purchasing it, I mean, how often would you say you purchase things?

I mean, daily. And do you ever like think when you swipe? No. It's just like, okay, I think I need it. I kind of want it. I've always been curious about, though. So if you guys share an account and she buys the $120,000, is that gift kind of like you both are paying for it? Yeah, I mean, yeah.

It's not like her money. You know what I mean? I was hustling on the side on OnlyFans just for you. I was like, I'd rather you just not do that. No, but she, I mean, she co-owns everything with me. You know what I mean? So she's half the money is all hers anyways. Wait, what did you get her?

That was for Christmas? Yeah. What did you get her? Actually something pretty cool. I told her, I was like, this is my best present for five years. Like, you just got to give me credit next year too. So I got her to this, there was like a whole presentation behind it, which my assistant helped me with. But got this photo book that had like all these pictures in it from like the early days until now, like hundreds.

It was like really well done. And then it was like, hey, we've made lots of memories together. Maybe we should make some more. And so got like the lady who does the photography sessions for Vogue to do like a joint. Like we need more head shots and stuff. it's been like four years since we've done the last one so I was like maybe I'll make a thing of something that would be a business expense um and so we're going to do like a full day like uh like photo shoot for like you know it's new season new new new all my stuff's like gym stuff so it's like

new season new pictures so that was the gift sounds lamer now that I'm describing to you but like no it's cool the boat photography yeah yeah it's nice yeah it's cool and there was like some stuff around it but yeah that was uh that was but anyway so she got me that because like what do you get somebody who like like it's like money has very little margin utility. Once you have enough, there's added values very low. Right. And so I was like, well, like for me, everything I always value is like if I can get education or some sort of scale or belief that needs to be broken, like, that's all that I try and spend my money on. It's the highest and like is the best thing that I've gotten, honestly, in a long time. And so she called them up and

they were like, you can't do that. And she was like, just name a number. I'll do it. And then they was like, I'm not sure. I'm going to have to call you back. And then the guy hung up. And she was like, I thought this was a sales organization. She's like, I'm here saying, I will pay you whatever you want. As anyways, the manager called back and was like, you will be dealing with me directly. Forget about that guy. And he's like, we can absolutely facilitate this. And so I think it was $30,000 a call or something like that.

How long were the calls? An hour, ishish. Would you say you got $130,000 worth of value out of that? So explain the call. So like, how does the first call go? Have you met him yet at this point? Not in person. I mean, we met on Zoom.

So you had to spoke to him. previously. The first call I had with Grant was a Zoom call. Oh, that was the first time you've ever spoken to him. Exactly. But wouldn't you think, when was this actually? About a year ago. I still haven't used all the calls.

Got it. Okay. I've done two calls so far. I would just think at your level even a year ago that you would have access to Grant Cardone without the... Maybe. I mean, he's pretty busy. You know what I mean?

And like, I'm, I don't, like, I'm, I'm no. one from like a like I you know I mean like a year ago I didn't have an audience I started making YouTube stuff a year ago so like okay all that's new sure um but yeah so I mean I didn't have anything to offer besides money I was like I will I would happily pay you for so what what happened in the first call um I said you know these are the four kind of areas that I'm looking at and I'd like your context and one of the things that's unique about grant is that like he's he's he's he's followed a similar trajectory obviously you know he does his own vibe he does his own thing But like in terms of like actual doing this, like he was a car sales guy.

And then he started teaching car sales. And then he went broader and started teaching sales. And then he transitioned to marketing briefly. And then he transitioned to real estate, which has been the main thing now. And so with each of those kind of iterations, he's grown bigger and wider in terms of what he's done. And so I was like, okay, you know, I was a gym guy and I started teaching gyms. And I started going more general. And so like there's a similar path there.

And he also has a, I think a good dynamic with Elena. that I was like, I think that's cool. I think they have a good thing going there, which I, which most people don't. So I was like, okay, I would like to understand the fame machine. It's like my bullets. I would like to understand the fame machine. I wanted to understand more about how his actual businesses functioned.

I want to understand the wealth machine in terms of how he sees it. And there was a fourth one. I can't remember. But I did have four. And those are the, I mean, obviously, I guess those are the ones that I care about most now. But,

but yeah, so I asked him for context on the income thing, which actually did help. direction for acquisition.com. So for me, like, did I make the $120,000 back, like, in five seconds? You know what I mean? And I think one of the things with, like, people see the prices, but like, I think it's understanding, like, relative income and also relative to upside, which is, like, for,

for context, it's like if you make $10 million a year, right? It's like, I'm making 20 times more than the average American household, right? Is that 10 million or 200? 200. 250. There it is. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, So 200 times more than the 50K. So take whatever price something costs and divide it by 200. And that's the relative cost. And so it's like, okay, I can't believe you got to $200 dinners every night. I'm like, well, it cost me a dollar. Would you go out to a five-star dinner for cost you a dollar? Sure.

Well, that's why we do it. You know what I mean? And like would you pay this $120,000 if it cost you, whatever that is divided by $200, right? Less. Yeah. You know, whatever that is. It was $600 to talk to, $800 or $800 to talk to Green Cardone. yes, I would do that.

Absolutely. And so that's why we do that. And then relative to upside is like, I, like, only way that I could, like, people are like, I wish I could have access to Bill Gates, right? Yeah, $150 to talk to grant credit. Right. So it makes sense.

Like, to talk to Bill Gates, right? It's like, there's nothing that Bill Gates can tell me, I don't think, at this point that I could ever get what it would cost me to pay him for his time. I have to be bigger in order to have enough leverage to use whatever he would give me. So if I'm at like a billion and he's at a hundred billion, he's a hundred times bigger than me. But like he could give me something that for the relative small amount of time to pay him, I get enough leverage to go from one billion to ten billion. Like that's reasonable.

But if you're like a hundred thousand dollars, you don't, there's no lever you can pull on, right? That's going to make up the delta. And so it's like I'm a big believer in like try and go two steps ahead, but like 10, steps ahead. That's smart. It makes no different. It's fair. Like they're so far like the cost because we're like, I should pay grant card on. You're like, I'm like, dude, you're a sales guy.

There's nothing he can tell you besides like save your money, which there you go. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. Like for me, I had things that I was like, I've got these three portfolio companies. This is what I'm doing with my money. I'm considering, you know, and like when I was thinking about doing the sale, I talked to him about that. I was like, what do you think about this? And, you know, he basically said like, don't don't sell if it's financial.

He's like, but there are other reasons to sell, which if you don't want to own it anymore, you want to do something else, then do it. You know what I mean? But it's not from a financial standpoint. It doesn't make sense. And so we were an agreement on that, but I ended up pulling the trigger for other reasons. How many calls have you done with them so far? I did a podcast, which has got what got aired.

That actually wasn't a coaching call. That was a podcast for like the community. But so I've done three calls technically, but two of them were coaching calls. And the two calls that were coaching calls were not aired. Not because I didn't want to, but they weren't recorded for whatever reason. There was like a technical malfunction. It's funny that you paid $40,000 or whatever it was per call, 30,000. And then you held on to like the tickets that you have, like the coupons or whatever for the calls.

What if you held on for like 10 years? Yeah. And Grant is then worth, you know, like billions of dollars or something like that. Then you can you still use this? Probably. That's funny. I mean, Grant, so as much as like a lot of people talk a lot of crap about Graham, but like haven't met Grant. He was incredibly respectful.

He's super attentive. He writes notes during the calls. He like pays attention. Like, and he genuinely came from place of trying to help. And so, like, I have, I have nothing but, you know, respect. And he's been nothing but helpful for me for me. You were telling me something earlier about the mustache as far as branding is concerned. That's why I mentioned jack shaved the mustache.

I shaved my mustache. I got to say, I'm not a fan of the mustache personally. I thought you're going to say that you're now, like, realizing that it was good for me to have a mustache because it looks to naked. In your podcast, the My First Million, that you did. You're talking about personal branding. Could you explain this? Because I do think it's really interesting.

And I do think that, uh, Jack, you should probably hear this. And I'm, I'm going in with an open mind. Well, I just don't understand why you'd get rid of so much raw masculinity in one foul swoop. You know, you're like, I'm not a fan of the stash. It's like, I'm not a fan of the feminine face. No, I'm just kidding. Um, no, but, uh, but on the, on the show, I read a book by Dan Kennedy.

And I think in some paragraphs somewhere, he was like, people who have recognizable facial features are or more easily remembered. And so it helps for branding and things like that. And so I was like, okay. And I fell into the mustache. It wasn't supposed to be like the stash. I had that in the back of my mind. But I ended up just doing a porn stash for my first event because I was like so nervous to like,

I was like, what if I tank or what if no one likes me or whatever. And so I was, I did that to like look at myself in the mirror and be like, you will survive. You have a porn stash. Like this is all a joke and it's all going to be okay. And so anyways, I got out and I think the. event went really well and like two-thirds of the dudes the next week all had porn stashes who came to the event. And so it's so like instantly just became a thing. And so then I was like, I guess I can't shave this. And so five years later, like I didn't shave it pretty much until

until COVID hit. And then I was just like burnt out at that point. But I'll probably bring the stash back at some point. But now I have a beard. So. But you're telling me, what was it, a buddy in college? Yes. I also had a mustache. So he was dipping. Well, he was dipping. That was. his issue. So, um, I'll tell you. Yeah, what's dipping? Uh, really? Oh, like putting like tobacco in your lip, like dip. Oh, like the baseball players. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So there's chewing tobacco and then there's like dip, which is like smaller pouches and stuff or dirt. Um, but anyways, I was in college, I was a pledge and this guy that I was driving home because that's what you do when your pledges drive, you know, drunk brothers home with the girls that they have in the back. Um, and, uh, and this

girl was with this guy who was like notorious for like always pulling the hottest girls and all the stuff. and he was like a senior. And he was still dipping while this girl was like, while he was like making out with this girl. Like he still had tobacco at his bath. Still like, and she was like, ah,

dip is so disgusting. And he was like, pledge. He was like, life lesson, listen. And I was like, oh God,

because either he's like going to haze me or something or, you know, and he was like, she's more attracted to the fact that I don't give a shit about what she thinks than she's disgusted by the dip in my mouth. And I, which was ridiculous, but also probably true. And so I think the stash is a lot like that,

which is like, I think you asked me, like, how does your wife feel about the stash? I think at the end of the day, like she would care, she'd be more attracted to me being me than she would be unattracted by a choice of haircut. If I was not being me to have a more, quote, attractive haircut, that would be a far bigger turnoff

than me just being me. I think that's very true. That was my, that was my porn stash and dipping, life lesson experience. I just thought that was really interesting, but from like a brand standpoint. Well, I actually had to license out likeness for the stash in the sale of the business. So it was definitely a thing enough that it was like had to be listed as a line item on intellectual property.

So is the beard intentional too for? No. I just happened to have one. And I, like, it was like, it was like, keep it. It seems like you're going for kind of a look, though. Like, like a, like you just came out of the wild. You know, no, it's a lumberjack. You look like a huge jack.

Dude, they're so comfortable. These are so comfortable. Well, look, this is stretchy. I know. Well, I noticed because there's no way to get your biceps through like a normal non-stretched flannel. Well, I've been looking at them the whole time, man. They're insane.

Oh, yeah, man. We're going to go. No. Oh, yeah. We're going. Oh, yeah. We're going all the way, man. We're going all the way.

I got to hit the gym right after this. No, me too. Seriously. Do you want to go to the gym now? Anyways. Wow. It wasn't really. So I've been consistently just always trying to optimize off function.

And so, like, these shirts are super comfortable. But I also have, like, four. Because like right now I'm a little hot. And so like, so there's four temperatures with the shirt. And I actually stop wearing t-shirts because like beaters are awesome. And so I just like recently discovered these. And I was like, I will wear these forever. I think you should do that.

Yeah. Beaters? Like five cents. It's for nothing. Oh, you're talking about the beater. I thought you're talking about the beaters. Oh, the flannels. These are actually really expensive.

I'm kind of embarrassed by expensive. I'm guessing probably 250 or $100. What? They're like one. Yeah, they're like 200 bucks. I thought that looks like you got it from cost time and get like 30 or $30 or $30. You should be getting this for free. I probably should.

but I'm not good at the influencer game. You know what you should do is a handlebar mustache? Well, that's what I kind of had for, it was like Gunslinger. Yeah, but I think go all the way down. All the way? Yeah. I could.

I could just connect with the chest hair and just all the way down. But yeah, so this is cool because if it gets cold, I can button up and then I can roll the sleeves down. If it gets a little warmer, I can roll the sleeves up and keep it buttoned. I can open it and keep the sleeves rolled, or I can keep it open and roll the sleeves down. So I have four different temperature settings. and I can take it off.

So, like, I have tons of temperature adjustment with one setting. And with this, I have the beater and I've got, like, basically Hawaiian shirts and I've got flannels. So it's like when it's summer, I'll switch to Hawaiians and it's winter and I'll have flannels. And I can just have beater as the base and I'll have any T-shirts. I feel like you need an affiliate link. Like, you've got to buy a minority stake in this company. I probably should. I have a lot.

I literally have all of the colors of this shirt. Oh, my gosh. Now, Jack, do you want to tell them about your walk? Do you want to mention that? Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. So, all right. This is also something I haven't told you.

So basically I planned on walking from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Okay. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Actually? Yeah. That's insane. Okay.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And basically, I talked with Graham about it. I kind of wanted to make a video around it. I walked this amount of X miles, 300 miles for a Tinder date. That was the plan of the video. And then I spoke with Graham about it.

And Graham was like, you know, it's not really different if you walk 300 versus 100. at least for the audience. And 100 might even look better than 300. And I was like, well, make sense. It's a lot less walking, too. I just figured Los Angeles to Las Vegas because it's like, I drive that all the time. And I was like, yeah, why not?

It sounds kind of fun. So I might actually now just walk 100 miles. It still sounds terrible. Really? I mean, it's a lot. I mean, that's like four marathons. Well, here's my thought. Five.

Yeah. Well, it's St. George. So, yeah, 120. It sounds good to say I walked from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Yeah. Is it really? It does. Yeah.

But your title was, I walked 300 miles for a Tinder date. Terrible, right. And so I thought between 300 and 100, people can conceptualize 100 more than they can, 300. Just like we say how to make $100 a day in passive income. We never say how to make $300 a day, even though that's three times more. See, I figured I walked to Las Vegas from Los Angeles is not that great of a title because it's like it's restricting your audience. Because you have people to know the difference. That's true.

The distance between, you know, L.A. and. in Las Vegas. But if you say I walked this amount of miles for a Tinder date, then it's universally. What about you said hours? If you like, I walked for, no. No. No. Here's how you do it.

I walked from Los Angeles to Las Vegas would be your title and the thumbnail would show 300 miles. Boom. That is better. I was going to do a Matthew Beam type thumbnail like day six and it's me like like this and like I have like the crazy, you know, I bags and stuff like that. And you could do that. It just depends on the title.

Yeah. But the thing is that if you don't. walk all the way and you want something like walking to a Tinder date, then that gives an alternative title. So for Tinder date, I think it's 100 miles. I think Tinder date's probably the way to go. I think that's pretty clickable. But I'm planning on doing that. And I think we're going to leave for St. George now instead in Utah, it's 120 miles. So you have to find a day. I don't know, man. I think you sold yourself short there. What are you talking about, Alex? That's it. That's it. That's all you're going to say?

I mean, you're going to say anything else? up this whole while you've been telling Graham and I, oh, I'm going to walk to. Yeah, Alex, but every single... And you're like, hold on. But before this video idea, the whole reason you told us that you wanted to do this walk was, you know, you were so passionate about it. You want to do it. And then all of a sudden now it's like, oh, well, now I'm doing a video. And then now it's like, well, you know, a hundred miles does seem better clickable.

So now I'm just going to walk a hundred. Alex, you know what it was? You know what it was? shifted from a personal adventure to a YouTube video and optimizing for it. Well, if I'm going to do it, it makes sense to do it for a YouTube thing. Are you letting the YouTube tail wag the life accomplishment dog? It's a hard analogy for me to understand, but I'm assuming no. It's the tail wagging the dog.

I don't think so. No, it's not. But here's the thing, man. I brought this walk up to you guys. And you guys shot it down and you kept saying it's stupid. It's dumb. It's idiotic. You should not be doing this.

And I'm like, and now all of a sudden when I change the range, so it's not 300, it's 120. You guys like, oh, no, you know, you're doing it for the whale. The whale tagging. When Jack brought this idea to me, he was filming. He was filming and I was critical of the idea because we, and we were both filming. So I was filming for the vlog and Jack was, Jack was filming for his channel telling me about this idea.

And I'm thinking, well, you know, if you look at the value of your time, what are you going to get from this? What is this going to do for you? And I was like, we should use that time to get more sponsors. And like that was, like, every episode is completely filled with sponsors. But we could do more. I don't want to put in more. I just thought there were other things like from a utility point of view.

And then he was explaining it's not utility point. It's a personal thing that he wants to do for himself that would help his personal growth. It's a lot of things. Yeah. And then I was like, okay, well, then you know, well, then you just got to do it. What if you just did it and didn't YouTube it? I would do that. But the thing is, but I don't think it's smart to just take two weeks off to do this walk.

And also I've been training recently for this walk a little bit, 10 mile days. and it kills my legs. My legs are toast. Wait, so you don't. So you don't be walking to take two weeks off for a week. Yeah, but it's hard. So here's the thing. It's hard, man.

Like, I had to ice bath my legs. Oh, my God. Jack explained this to me, like, because I was like, Jack, how are you going to take, like, 10 days off? What about, so, like, a podcast episode comes up, like, what's going to happen?

And Jack explained to me, well, you know, it's no different than me going on a vacation for a week or two. And it's like, you wouldn't say this if I went to the Bahamas for a, I was like, okay, you know what, you're right. But now Jack's saying, well, it's, you know, he doesn't want to think. Graham, this is so silly because I went and I got dinner with Graham.

And Graham spent probably 20 minutes trying to convince me to walk 100 miles instead of 300. And all of the sudden, when I say, you know what, Graham, I think that's a good idea. No, Jack, you should go back to do it 300 miles. And taking more time off. The reason why was because it sounded like you wanted to optimize for a YouTube video. And between the two as a YouTube title, I think 100 miles is easier to conceptualize. Yeah, and also I'm getting the same experience. Like I'm walking a marathon a day for, what would that be, five days, maybe a little bit less for six days?

Camping in a tent on the side of the road, it's still going to be the same content. It's still going to be the same experience. You know what I mean? Personal growth and everything. Yeah. I don't know. Just keep telling yourself. Yeah.

What do you think? You're a neutral third. Yeah. You have a lot of experience in this. I think you just got to. He has a lot of experience. I do a lot of experience. I think, so I have a big personal thing.

which is like no half measures. And so a lot of times we, we compromise on the goal and try and mix two priorities. So it's like either I'm buying my dream host or I'm buying a good investment. And a lot of times people are like, well, I'm going to try and buy my dream house, but also make sure it's a good investment.

And you end up with a mediocre investment and not your dream house. So it's like you have to just figure out like, is this something I'm doing for me or is this something I'm doing for YouTube? If you're doing it for YouTube, then just make it for YouTube and accept it. Or you're like, I'm doing it for me, period.

Wow. That's good. That was, wow. I agree with that. If it's YouTube, I think 100 miles Tinder date, optimize for that and make a great video out of it. And then you can still do the 300 for yourself if you want to. I also thought it would be somewhat idiotic to walk 300 miles after only walking 10 miles

two times. I told Jack to be transparent. You were like 30 times this. I told Jack to train try to get like 25 miles a day because that's how long. We were supposed to do that yesterday, but Apple was like, oh, too much work. and that's the guy I'm doing it with. So we didn't do it. And I wanted to.

You know, 10 miles a day would take you 30 days. I know. That's insanity. And the thing is, it's like, I could damage my body doing that. And I don't want to do that. Why don't you just bike? Because, man, I like, I do really like walking. And a part of it is like, I just want to walk and just walk for as long as I can.

You know what you should have to do that 300 miles. No, Alex. 10 miles for a tender date and then just be exhausted when you get there. That's the thing. I'm going to walk straight into the date. Well, I'm saying like just just 10 miles. Like just walk the whole day and then go. No, because I want to walk for multiple days.

Like that is a desire of mine. I want to ask you this. So here's my question to you. I've had a really difficult time scaling. Mm-hmm. Because everything is. Is this? Yes.

Okay. I would say the entire Graham-Stef and brand. I would say brought on Jack. We scaled through. the iced coffee hour. There's been a few other things here and there, but I would say

the iced coffee hour is the only one that really hit. But I find myself no more productive. We got Alex on now. I'm not getting any more work done.

I'm not getting any extra content done. Obviously, we could go to two times a week on the podcast. That's something I know we could probably double growth on the podcast

by doing two times a week. I'm kind of tapped out on what I could do. Because I can't make more videos in the main channel. So, like, the main channel is optimized. Yeah. I've been starting to outsource some of the editing with Alex. I'm not getting any extra work done because it's not like I could get an extra video done on the main channel.

Some of that's new. What's the objective? I would say both longevity because I really enjoy it. But I also don't like just feeling like I'm in the same place or, like, doing the same things repetitively. I'll ask you a better question. So you said, we're having trouble scaling. Scaling what? Scaling influence, scaling money.

scaling, income scaling. Probably all of it. Probably all of it. Money, Graham. It's money. Well, okay, so for... Don't just give them a straight answer, man. But it's not just that, but it's like,

for scaling money, I know it's sponsorships. It's getting more sponsorships. Is it though? No, it's not. I don't have any sponsorships. It's not sponsors. I just don't want to feel, well, I would say money is a component of it, but I wouldn't say it's the entire thing.

Do you want to be a business guy or do you want to be a media guy? or do you want to be a media guy? It's a genuine question. I don't, like, have a dog in the fight. I don't know. I like the media aspect of it, but I'm worried of how fickle it is. Totally.

It's way riskier to do that. And so part of me would like to maybe over 10, 15 years scale back on that and be more of a business person than a media person. But right now, I know I've got a unique media opportunity here that I don't want to waste it. But I also know, like, how easy it is to, You know, I've seen just what could happen with a cancel culture or you don't even do anything,

but you get accused of something and then your brand is kind of tarnished. And I've had so much writing on just like a clean image. Scaling media, you have this unique opportunity right now. You don't want to waste it because something could happen because you have a clean image. Right. So in my opinion is that you have like my opinion is that unless you monetize it in some way. And it doesn't have to be now, but like as long as there's some sort of plan to do so, then it then it isn't wasted.

Because if you have monetized it, then it's like, cool, this thing happened and, like, I've set myself off for life. That's done. And then you can just continue to play the media game. Because like right now, like, if I had your size audience, like, I mean, I would have a billion dollar thing. And so, like, I feel like you're working on something that's not the constraint of the system. You're like, I need more eyeballs. But, like, you don't need more eyeballs. You need more monetization of the eyeballs you have. I guess my problem is that I feel like I'm so good at the media aspect of it that anything that diverts my attention away from that. kind of kills what I have going for me. Fair. I just see the world through a business lens. And so, like, I'm like, man, just attach a business to this gigantic media machine that you have here. I mean, you could just do the media play. I mean, I still think that, like,

the easiest types of businesses are the rock, you know, tequila or like McGregor, tequila or Kylie tequila. Actually, they're all doing, or, you know, what's his name, McGregor's in whiskey? But, like, that's why I said the beast thing with the soda. It's like, what's an operationally simple business that you can do partnership with somebody and then you push the traffic and it makes sense. I have the coffee brand bankroll, but our margins are so slim. Yeah. And it's a good business. It's just everything's

reinvested. Yeah. I don't make anything myself. Yeah. And I don't know how long term to make money without either raising prices. Yeah. In which case we might upset some of our customer base, probably not the end of the world. Yeah. Or eventually partnering or selling a portion of that to a much larger established company. It seems like those are the only two outlets on that. But I started it really just for fun. Yeah. So I think rather than starting it necessarily for fun, it would be like looking at a number of different, like the thing with the soda thing, it's like the cost on making a soda is very low, which is why Coca-Cola still is here, because they make so much money. Um, like their gross margins are amazing. And so it's like, I think I like, I only want to get into a product and if I can sell it for like,

usually at least five to 10 times what it costs like, or I'm just not interested. It's just too, it's just too difficult. Um, for me. That's probably because I'm convenient idiot. So like I just want things to be easier. If I can, like we get to choose. So it might as well choose the easier. thing. And so like I think that the simplest business like media selling media because you make media is very simple because it's sponsorships. But like the people who are buying your sponsorships are getting 10 times their money or more from the sponsorship, which is why they continue to buy them. So it's like, well, what is everyone else selling on my channel and which of these things could I also just do myself? Like that would be like maybe the first thing I would look at. Yeah.

You know what I mean? But or like creating some partnerships like and you're doing the sponsorship deals, but it might also just be valuable to say, like, I don't want money, like, give me equity in the company, and I'll push the traffic. So it's very difficult to do that. I believe it. But you're you and you can just choose to say, like, it's kind of like the GP thing with the real estate. People are like, you just ask for it. I'm like, I just don't do deals unless it's this. And so I think you can just draw a new line and say like from here on forward like the grand stuff and show just like I'm not promoting anyone that I don't have equity in. Period. So if you want to be on the show. Yeah, I tried that for all of 2020. And there was only one company that agreed to equity.

And it's interesting, the other companies that agreed to equity were terrible companies. I mean, they're the ones. Oh, yeah, no, we'd, we'd rather do that. Give that away. But I found that either they're overpriced, they want some crazy high number or-valuation for that. Yeah, crazy evaluations, where it's like, well, there's all the upside. I'm paying a premium for that. I'm not going to do that. Or they're just crappy business. All the good businesses that I've seen. guard that so heavily. Like they never want to give up equity. Like that's their bread and butter.

And they know their potential. They know their 10x. Mm-hmm. So. I have so many thoughts. Okay. Yeah. But like,

I mean, it's either like I am a media company. It's all I want to do. I'm going to stay in my lane. It's like like either way that that business component has to get looped in. Yeah. So it's either you partner with somebody or you build the simplest business possible. So I know you have,

I think you have a teachable thing. Yeah, I do. So it's like you could do more stuff like that. You could do a higher version of that, which, you know, but that it creates a business. So it's like you might want to just bring somebody in who is a businessy guy if you want to just keep focusing on what you like doing. We can learn that game, which I think my opinion is that like everyone who stays in the game long enough, like everyone does kind of meet in the middle. Like I feel like you've come from like the personal finance, savings investing side. But like the more complex and the more your assets grow, like I feel like you'll like you continue to start walking more and more towards the value.

you creation, buying, marketing, selling, you know, like running, operating a business. Yeah. So that's just, I've come from this world and walked this way. I think you're from this world to walk this way. But I think you do end up in the middle out of necessity. Like you have to know how to allocate capital and you have to know how to get a return on the capital. Yeah.

The only thing I could think of is working a real estate syndicate, similar to what Grant Cardone does. And that makes a ton of sense to me. I think a lot of people would trust you to do that. And you can either do it yourself or just say like, it's me and I am the fund rate. Like it's, it's really typical in a fund to have three parties. Like, you've got the guy who does the money, the guy who does the actual investing, and then the guy who, like, operates the fund. Like, those are like kind of the typically the through rolls.

The guy who does the thing, the guy who gets the money and the guy who runs the little shop, right? And so, I mean, you could sometimes have two, you know, in that instance. But, like, I think just getting the partner who goes and, like, operates all of the, um, the, the units or whatever you're buying. Yeah. And then you raise the money. I think those are really good partnerships. and that would make a ton of sense for you.

Yeah. Any other advice that you have in terms of like productivity or getting more accomplished? Because I feel like, you know, I could bring five more people on the team, but I wouldn't get any more done. I think it's something of a big belief in the theory of constraints,

which is like, it's kind of like you getting more media. Like the constraint on all the scaling stuff is not the media. You have more media than like anyone. So like you're working on the wrong side of the bridge. So it's like the reason, it's my belief that we've been able to move quickly professionally, I'll use quotes here, like, quickly.

Because it's like only focusing on what is the thing that is stopping us from getting to the next level. And then ruthlessly working on that thing until it is deb bottlenecked. And so it's like having the awareness to say, okay, I have this thing. I can do more of this, but it's being pushed through a pinhole. So I can just try and get more water. It's like where I can just expand the pinhole. And so I think that right now, like the pinhole is the opportunity vehicle that you're working off of. AdSense is not an efficient vehicle.

Teachable's okay. but like it would be way better if you had like a sales team and a phone system and like you had an actual like you'd 10 like you'd go to a million a month like two seconds like one second you'd be at a million a month probably two million a month or three million a month if you had like chops around doing that um like seriously um or you know um the syndication thing given just given what i'm like the very limited amount that i have met so take this with a gigantic himalayan grant of salt um I think this indication play makes a ton of sense because you just get to still be pretty much in the position that you're at in terms of like your day to day. It's just like make stuff that people like and find value in. Let people invest with me because they're probably already asking to, I would imagine. Yeah. And then find somebody who does that full time and has been doing it for 20 years. And then just like, and that's it.

And then you just participate really like very well because you can build it yourself and you're not asking for equity. You're building equity. I mean, that would be the easiest way for you to just like go to $100 million. and like skip all these in between stuff. Yeah. Definitely good food for thought. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Otherwise you have to build a business, which is then like you can either sell a service or you can sell a product. And so I don't think you'd want to sell a service because it's difficult. Yeah. Or it's more operational complex. And so a product would make the most sense,

but it has generally lower margins because you have cost of goods unless you can figure out like a Coca-Cola or, you know, something that's very, very like, you know, when you saw like stickers, you know what I mean? Or like there was a girl I know who sold magnet lashes, right, or whatever. It's like the cost in those, like 10 cents you sell it for 20 bucks. It's like great.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Where you can just sell air, right? Like that's always been my like moniker for when I'm looking at businesses, this unique expensive sticky air. So I want something that only I can sell. I want it to be very, very expensive premium air, very low cost and sticky, something that people keep buying.

And so like if I look for all four of those things, then I try and find a manager who is, hardworking, has an impeachable character, and is super sharp. And so if I, it has a long-term owner mindset. So it's like, if I put those things together, like I have a business. Interesting. Thank you. Yeah. Any advice for Jack? I think I'm pretty perfect. Jack's like, do not get any more advice, please. Yeah. Mustache and get ripped. Yeah, it just gets folded. Yeah. I'm trying on. I can't wait to see this Tinder date. Yeah. She was worth it? I was about to ask. Is she worth it?

We'll see. We'll see. Does she know you're walking out? Are you finding somebody and like, I'm working on it. That's the real challenge, honestly. What if she stands you up after? Actually, it'd be better for that. That's good content.

It really is. Yeah. But then you're doing it for the tube. Well, it's a, I disagree. I think, what? Let's hear it. You sold out. Guys, you will know when you see Jack's video on his channel, if he releases the, I

walked 100 miles, he's, sold out and he's doing it for YouTube. If he walks the 300 miles, you know he stayed true to what he told Jack, Graham and I. Here's the thing. If he walks 300 miles and doesn't film it. Yeah. Alex, you hated that idea. You hated it too, Graham.

I didn't like the idea. Well, I was kind of, okay, I'm all for, like, personal goals. And I think that Graham needs to, like, do more fun things. Graham. And, uh... I don't think so. No. Okay, anyway.

But, you know, so I was kind of giving you some slack because it's like, you know, we're vlogging, we're having fun. But if it's truly like your goal and it's truly what's going to make you happy and it's going to give you life fulfillment, then I say do it. And, you know, but if you're changing your goal based on doing a YouTube video, then it's not really like, unless your personal goal is like being fulfilled by YouTube. But when you pitched it to Graham and I, you know, you said it was for you. So, you know, I got to say, from my experience, and you know this too, I think,

filming it ruins it. It takes you out of the moment. And I have to force myself to film, but, like, there's some things that's like, I have less of an experience because I have a camera up. Yeah. And even just thinking of the camera or trying to get the shot or trying to think of, like, how I could structure it. Well, I have one quick one, because you said something, Alex, to Graham about, like,

the working thing. I mean, a lot of people used to get on me about, like, need more work, life balance, like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, I just, like, I just, like, you have one life and they are your terms and no one else's terms and we optimize typically for the things that we enjoy doing and like if you have more stimulus from working than you do from not working then like work and then if you feel like at some point you have traded off something that you don't want to trade off for then you can adjust that's how i've always felt i enjoy working

like what was it my mom um so we have we have like a wedding to go to on uh the day after my birthday. So we were talking about, you know, we have to fly up on my birthday. She's like, oh, we could do this on your birthday and this. I was like, no, I just want to work. She's like, no, but it's your birthday. You shouldn't have to work. And I was like, I want to work. Yeah. That's all I want to do. I just want to do. Even Santa Monica, my birthday. I was like, the only thing I want to do. Just wanted to work. I mean, everybody wants to, they're like, man, do something you love and you'll never work another day in your life. But like, it's just because everyone has this really poor definition of work. But like, if,

if you have accomplished that, which obviously you have, like, you're just living. Yeah. And like what you do in life. So I'll rewind something really quickly, which is like 2021, I did nothing. So like I owned all the companies pounded out a lot of cash flow and I did nothing. And it was a very miserable year for me because I tried to spend the money that I was making and I couldn't. Like it was just not even really a possibility. And so like I got into a place of like, why.

why am I even doing this? Like, what's the point? Like, I'll never even able to spend this money that I have. Like, why have I been doing all the stuff? And in starting acquisition.com, or at least making that the sole focus now again and being able to build all the infrastructure, you know,

hire the teams and all the stuff that we're doing on that side of the business. Like, I have so much joy getting back into the game. Because I feel like I've been kind of like in a super high leverage position for like an extended period of time. That I exited the business because I thought that that was what the next natural step was supposed to be,

which is like you go from CEO to owning it as a share or board directors, whatever. And that is very much what happened. But I realized that for me, at least, it's like, I work to create options, not to not work. And so a lot of people, like, they work really hard to not have to work later. It's like, no, it's like, I work to have the option to work. And so I can choose to work. And that choice is the freedom that I have. And so, like, if I'm choosing with the optionality that I have to work, then that is exactly what I want to do. And so just being on the other side of it of like going to the, like, going to the, like, like there's literally no way I can spend this money for the rest of my life.

Mountain Top, um, like the only thing that I wanted to do was the thing that got me here, which is like, I love working. And so it's the thing that I find meaningful. And I think that maybe you shift direction in terms of like, maybe some of the stuff that you create,

like maybe there's some things that you create that are for YouTube versus like for gram. And I just think that it just slowly optimizes to only doing things for Graham. Which a lot of times still ends up being that, but like you get there backwards. Yeah. It's like if you made it purely. for you, then you might be able to make a video after that.

It's like, I walked 300 miles and I didn't film anything and this is what I learned. Like, that would probably be a really valuable video because you probably would have some interesting insights. Like, I didn't film either of the Grant Cardone videos and then just like made videos about the calls of like my takeaways and they were still really great videos. Interesting. Okay. So my only thought to that is like you are in a very unique position because you run this,

this business with your wife and, and, and, stuff like that. And I think that marriage plays a big part in my life. And I think marriage is a compromise. And so my wife doesn't like it when I work as much. And her, I guess her, her, like, love language is what quality time or whatever. And I think Graham's girlfriend, Macy, is similar. And I think that there's a compromise there where, yes, Graham, if all he wants to do is work, that's great and he can work and work and work. But I think that marriage, a successful marriage is truly a compromise. And if it turns out that, you know, like you...

This is really good. I have like so many thoughts right now. Yeah. It's stimulating conversation. And I think everybody's in a unique position because, you know, definitely like there's, you could say, well, you know, I'm going to grind away now so that, you know, I don't have to work in the future and we can spend time together. or you can kind of balance and live in the now and live in the future.

But I think everybody's kind of in a unique position. But I think that that part of your life is always going to be a compromise to some sort of extent. So I think it's a belief that you choose to define it that way. Yeah, I'm okay. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Compromise is a belief statement. Like, that's not a statement of fact. That is a belief.

And so, like, I don't believe that marriage is compromise. Tell us your experience with that because I have a, because I'm sure we all have different experiences. Yeah. Mine in the beginning was that I did. find that there was a compromise because Macy came from the mindset like you know five or six p.m. comes around. You're done with work. Yeah. And you're free. And my mind works 24-7. I tried that and I woke up really early. I'd wake up at like 5 a.m. so I could be done by 5 p.m. and half the night. And that worked for actually quite a while because I actually found I was so

productive in those morning hours that I could be done by 5 and be like, oh wow, this is great. but over a long trip trying to figure out like a balance I found myself I wasn't myself like I was really I felt anxious I was just like uptight I was um why about what part like no because because because I couldn't work during the hours that I wanted to work like sometimes you just you just have those days where it's just like no no I'm so focused and I got it like you have that concentration you just have to continue and so having it freedom for me if I don't have that I just wasn't myself and I was miserable yeah I mean, this is what I'm going to say, and I, I have very strong views and they are not common.

But I also think that I don't want to live a common life and so that I cannot have common views. Right. So just like as a big disclaimer to that. Like I've only seen two dynamics that work in relationships over like an extended period of time. One is kind of the like we're in it together. And the other is like the, you know, cheerleader and quarterback like cheer. like cheering you on. But the thing is, I can speak a lot to the,

you know, we're in the game together. For me, I know personally, like I had two very long relationships that were cheerleader dynamics. And to me, I could not imagine living life that way,

having now lived what I live now. Because like, there's a certain amount of shared respect that you never get with somebody who does not know what it's like to be in the battlefield or in the arena. And if I'm like, I need to work for the next three days and like write five book chapters,

like there's not a discussion. It's like, of course, do your thing. There's no like, there's no like, I can't believe you're like, uh-uh. And to the flip side, in the cheerleader dynamic, a cheerleader who's really rooting for the team doesn't ask the quarterback to come out when the game's on the line. And so I think that a lot of people are running in what they consider to be cheerleader dynamics, but they are inverted dynamics. They're actually sabotaging the game.

And I think that it's like in that dynamic, it's harder, in my opinion, to do the cheerleader quarterback because you have to have a very aligned mission and goals of like the relationship. It's easier to do that in the dynamic that you're working together because it's so clearly stated with the mission and the goals of like, this is where I want to go and this is how I want to get there and like do you want to come with me. And then you're very much operating on this shared sense of reality. And it also becomes difficult for entrepreneurs in my opinion now like, I mean, I'm sure you've seen plenty of people get divorces that they get older. or whatnot. Is that like if you're like, all right, this will be interesting. So typically, when people become attracted, so Esther Perel, if you've heard of her, she's really interesting like relationship person. She's like one of the top TED talks on it. There's a thing that's called mating, mating captivity is her book. But in the beginning, you have kind of this mystery because

you don't know each other and that's what creates like the excitement, right? And as you get to know each other over time, you swing like from mystery to familiarity, right? You get a little bit more security, you get to know each other better, and it feels like more and more amazing. And so what you do is you just keep trying to do that, right? But what's up happening is that you overcorrect and then you become siblings. And then it's like, ah, well, that's not good. And so it's not a problem to be solved, but a dichotomy to be managed, right, in terms of like how much space do you create versus how much familiarity. What happens when people, like entrepreneurs specifically, like have their business and they have the wife, they spend more time in the beginning and all of a sudden

they don't spend as much time together and then they grow apart because they're also exposed to different stimuli, right? And so you adapt to the stimuli that you have and you grow apart. On the flip side, if you're in my scenario where we're like doing the same thing together, the downside of this one, these couples make five times more money than any of the other versions that I just said. But the, you can become too familiar and then you just become siblings. So for us, we actually create more space. So it's like we try to work on separate sides of the house. We don't attend the same meetings. So like at the end of the day, we can sit down at dinner,

I'd be like, how was your day? And she can tell me something rather than me saying like, oh, I was there, I know. Right. Yeah. And so the happiest couples are actually couples that have, uh, both have careers that are not necessarily together. So on average, these couples are the ones that,

because they have a shared goal in terms of like, this is what we want to do. They have shared values in terms of how they want to get there. Um, and they respect one another and they respect each other's goals. And then they walk kind of in parallel. So you've got the, like, I'm working the entrepreneur and you've got the stay at home wife. There's many times everyone's seen that one go wrong.

There's the like, we're both working together in it where you, so these people have to correct for trying to create more familiarity. These ones have to create more space. So you have the space to be missed. And then these ones tend to be in the middle already and so they just kind of like have to keep walking. And so for me, it was actually just interesting seeing the different dynamics and like how we had to correct in the beginning.

Like we were weight, we spent all day every day together and the business was small. So it was like she was there and I was here and we worked out together and we ate together. And we did that for like two years. And I was like, you know, maybe I'll sit on different meetings than you. Yeah. But like seeing the level of like commitment and loyalty that you get from that. And I don't know. So I want a little bit of a tangent there.

But I have strong beliefs around that. And I think that you don't have to compromise anything if you don't want to. That's it. I think maybe we just have different goals because my goal is not to make a boatload of money with my wife. My goal in life is to be happy, have a great relationship and just enjoy life. And honestly, if I live my entire life, like, you know, as long as I don't go broke, I think I'm going to be happy. And that's okay to disagree with somebody and have different goals because everybody, yeah, everybody has different goals. So does that mean you would, you would agree with Kelsey in the sense that, like, you'd rather be, have a more like predictable schedule, spend more time together, build a family?

I think it's a balance for me, right? because that's my like long like if if if this job if I was working for you and it was so intense and I knew it was going to be intense like till the day I die like to the fact where it's going to affect my relationship I don't care how much money I'm making like personally but it's also a balance because we want like I'm not oblivious to money right like I want to make more money. I want to reach for more. I want to do things. But I still want to keep my first goal in mind, which is to be happy. And like I said, I don't, I think one time, like, Graham, like, pulled me aside and asked me, like, how much money I want to make in the future. We were just having, like,

conversation. And I didn't have, like, a specific number, but I was just like, you know, just enough to, like, you know, not have to stress about money. And, you know, that's a different number for different people because we all have a different. It also changes. Yeah. But Alex, do you feel like, because you're above that number now, do you feel like you stress about money still? Yes, but I feel like that's only because I have that, like, I live like I'm like going

to be broke the next day mentality. Like I'm like, like, like, in my head, I'm like, well, if this all just disappears the next day, like. Because I remember you, you telling me that number and you're, you're, you're above that number. And I think we could double it from here and you would still have the exact same mentality of just like, well, you know,

still live. You get a hundred, I'll just tell you. Yeah. It doesn't go away. So how do you, how do you, as somebody who's made a ton of money in it?

And, you know, how do I, because Graham's right. Like, I, we kind of reached that number. And I'm like,

I, I've accepted the fact that this thought, right, is not going to go away. So what do you do? Like, what do you do? Like, I really, I'm kind of, I, maybe you could give me some advice about that. Maybe I'm the one you should be giving advice to, I guess.

There's so many statements I was trying to, like, keep track, but like, you make a lot of belief statements. And so, like, when I'm, like, a lot of people make statements like, they're like isms, like, this is this way. I'm like, I have this thought and it is. And you're like, and I've just accepted that, like, I'm always going to have this. Like, I would just never speak that over yourself, just right off the bad. because like you're just saying, I'm never going to get over this thing. Like the statement you said earlier about like,

at the end of the day, I just like, I just want to be happy. Like when you admit that you just want to be happy, then what happens is you create a deficit between your current reality and happiness, which means that it doesn't matter what happens because there will always be happiness

that is outside of yourself. Does that make sense? Kind of, yeah. I mean, but I would consider myself happy. No, he didn't get that at all. No, I got it because I'm like, oh, man.

But I thought, okay, so here's my, here's my interpretation of it. If I'm telling myself that I just want to be happy, then I will never be happy. Correct. That's what you're saying. Right. But I'm telling you right now that I am happy now.

Good. So, but, okay. Wait, Graham, I, why, do you still think I don't understand that? No. No, but I think the, the, so like deficits, deficits occur when we speak desires, right? And so I love this statement. A desire is a contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until we get what we want. And so whenever we state a desire, like I want this, I want this amount of money, I want

whatever. You literally sign a contract that says, like, I won't be unhappy until that happens, right? And so like, I had this thing earlier on where I was like, I want to have meaning. I want to have great meaning in my life. And I was talking to a guy who made a lot more money than me. And he was like, because I asked him, I said, how do you create and destroy meaning in your work? That was the question I asked him on a podcast. And he was like, why do you think life needs to be meaningful?

And it was the same exact thing as the happiness versus like the meaning thing where it's like, I say life has to be meaningful and therefore everything that I'm doing. Like I create this expectation of life. Whereas if life just is, it just is. And it's the only way that you can actually be there. It's just, it's just pure acceptance, right? Which is why like the whole like shoulds of like we should work, we should have balance, we should act.

It's like, I believe marriage is a compromise. These are just statements of belief that are casting expectations out in the world that are just bound to be untrue at some point and then create dissonance. And so it's like, I believe marriage is marriage. And I believe my marriage is my marriage. And I believe that I can work 24 hours a day if I want to. And that is all, period. Not and it's bad or and it's good. And there's no judgment on it.

It just is. And so like if I get, you know, if I get dopamine secreted in my brain when I start working, Cool. Like, and I will optimize for dopamine. And if I die, I know that in a thousand generations, nothing I do anyways is going to matter. So who cares? Like, that's like the opening thing in my book is like there are no rules. Like we live in this like this like shoulds and have tos and like happiness. Everyone talks about it. And it's just like everyone is unhappy because they say they want to be happy rather than being like accepting like happiness. Like I just am. Period. and then like I don't need to judge the am it just is how do you what do you say to that I don't know that makes sense yeah because so one thing I notice is if you're like I just want to be happy yeah does that mean Alex that you think that at some point that will change for you or something or you have you live no I think that that will change I think you guys maybe are taking what I'm saying the wrong way I mean like like um Alex is saying you know everybody

has different beliefs and there's no one rule fits all to everybody. And so if I say I want to be happy, that doesn't make me wrong. Like if I want to live my life that way, that's perfectly fine. But the thing that what Jack is saying is, no, I am like happy. Like I, but I, for me, I like to make like a conscious effort to work towards that. And Alex can live his life. Like life is life. My marriage is my marriage. And it works for him and that generates happiness, whether he's like thinking about it. But it doesn't have to generate happiness. That's the point.

Yes. Right there. Yes. Like right. Like because it makes like not because. It's like when people say like, hey, work, you know, set these goals and like the rest will take care of itself. It still makes the rest taking care of itself the reason that you're doing it, which means that it's actually not getting around it. When people are like, you got to be process driven.

If you're like, if we focus on the process, the goals take care of themselves, it still means that the goals are. important. So like you have to, if, if you want to make the transition from like a process driven life, which is like, I am doing these things to do them, period, then the so that I can be happy, so that I can have a good marriage, so that I can have a meaningful life has to disappear from the equation. It has to be, I do them, period, not because. I do them. But then it goes back the other way. Like, but why? Because you say so, like. Because you want to, right? Like, if you want to have, if you want to ascribe a meaning to why you're doing something, you can do it for whatever reason.

Wow. This is deep. I mean, this is where I spent a lot of my time thinking of it because I have nothing else to do. And this is what my last year was was like trying to figure out like why I didn't have like, I felt the exact same way while I was,

while I had nothing as to where I have now. I feel the same. Like people were like, man, it was cool when the money hit my account. I felt nothing. Like truly like not even like the two day high. Like I,

it was. irrelevant. How did you learn all of this? Was this through speaking with other people who have been there before you? Thinking, I mean, my closest friend is a philosopher, and I use that in terms of like the actual meaning of the word philosopher. So like, Filet to love and then Sophos's wisdom or knowledge. So like he's a lover of knowledge, lover of wisdom. And like we talk every week. It's like the only standing meeting that I have is we talk for like two hours. And we just talk about life. And he's one of these guys who like lives in a cave. And it's like he got his PhD when he was 20 like just a very brilliant guy. And so he and I just talk about things, you know. Should share his contact information.

Yeah. I look for some guests on the podcast. Oh, I mean, he's brilliant. I mean, if you like, Dr. Gashi is brilliant. He's the, he's the smartest human that I know in terms of like brilliance and their ability to communicate it in a simple way. And so he helped me get over a lot of the things that I,

that I used to struggle with. And a lot of it was just, like the language that we use matters a lot. Because like how we say things is how we think things. And so like what I was saying earlier, Alex, and this is not like, this is not like a slight. I'm just saying like, when I hear like when I hear anyone talk like on my team or or customers or whatever it's like

people talk so many things over themselves and they're like I don't know why I'm not successful and it's like well define success and why are you not and then what are the you know what I mean like I just want to do this to be like there's so many chains that they put on themselves that it becomes very difficult to live and so like I spent a long time trying to not do that and it was just because, like, I was unhappy and I didn't like being unhappy. And then I stopped judging myself for being unhappy. And then I stopped thinking about it altogether. And so I think that, like, I'll give you a really, real example for this. So one of the things that I'm vehemently opposed, and I'm like, you, no one give Graham Flack. You can give it to me. And, like, this is coming from a family

to, like, had alcoholics and drug addicts and things like that. Like, I really don't like the alcoholic synonymous concept of every morning waking up and saying, I am an alcoholic, hi, you know, whatever, and then they go into their, in their meetings. Because what it does is it puts it at the forefront of their mind and they literally label themselves every morning is having this problem, right? When somebody who's not an alcoholic just doesn't think about it. They don't think I'm an alcoholic. I have to fight not drinking every day. They just don't think about it. And so I think to the same degree that like living a meaningful life is not saying like, I'm living a meaningful life. You just,

are and you're not casting it. You're just, you just are. But don't you think some of that is just that inherent belief that some people just have, they're raised from that, they have positive experiences that turns into a spiral, but the people who don't have that, who are used to every day being like, I'm worthless, I suck at this, I am bad at this.

Don't you think that maybe that first step and like getting in that direction is positive affirmations of like, I could do it, I can, isn't that like, that's better than zero? Like, I feel like we're going to zero to one. I think it's exiting, I think it's exiting the equation all together. So it's saying, I am worthless. Instead of saying, like, I want to be worthy or I am worthy, just saying,

worthiness doesn't matter. But then wouldn't you get just people not caring at all? Yes. Yeah. So I'm 100% a nihilist. Yeah. Like, I believe it would die. Nothing happens.

And like, you know, it is what it is. Right. But, um, and there are different ways to take that. Some people are like, life is meaningless and there's no point in any of it, which I would agree with them. And then the other people are like, there's no point in any of it. And so I'll do what I want. And some people see that as like very, very, very self-serving, which it might be. But to the same degree, like you are released

from the chains of the expectations of others. And most people, in my opinion, that I have witnessed who are unhappy is because they are weighted down by the chains of their parents, of their friends, of their siblings, of the whatever things, the people that they believe are casting judgment on them. And they care so much about that person's disapproval that they don't want to do the things that they want to do. And so if I think it's easier to get someone to realize that none of it matters and then build from there than to try and flip the negatives, it's just to exit the equation altogether. Just say none of this matters. Therefore, I will start my YouTube channel and not care if my dad says that YouTube isn't real. Like, it's not about being worth it. Like, this is one where they're like,

I deserve success. Like, no, you don't. No one deserves anything. But you can do the stuff that gets success independent of your deservingness, you mean a terrible person and become successful. So that person doesn't deserve it, but they did the things that create success. If we define success as some material, whatever. And so I think, like, if you can exit the equation of like labeling yourself and then just doing because what else will you do while you are alive, it creates some levels of freedom that allow for clarity of thought. And also for the ability to take risks that most people can't take.

And I, candidly, I understand the difficulty. It's not like I'm like some perfect like, you know, like dialist who just like never believes anything matters and doesn't get upset. Like, of course I do. But like my instant self help is like whatever something happens, it's like I'm going to die and it's not going to matter. And that like it's like it just got so ingrained in me now that like it's okay. But would you consider yourself emotional?

Yeah. I mean, probably. I think I have emotions. Got it. Because a lot of the times at least in my experience like and what I've seen, people that are nihilists, It's easy to, that's like an easy out. If something bad happens, if something good happens, it's just like, oh yeah, that's fine.

Sweeped under the rug. It's not like it matters anyways. Something bad happens. And it's not like you actually deal with their process, whatever event or action occurred that make you felt that emotion. If we believe that we have to, like why should we? Why should you feel that emotion?

Like, why should we process a traumatic event? Like, what does that mean? Well, I do believe that there are like, you know, things in your brain by a, biologically that if they are deprived of something or there's like some some bad traumatic event or something like that will affect your biological. So what makes you that traumatic versus non-traumatic? I mean, I feel like the definition of the word trauma would probably.

But what would be the line between like, okay, and like let's give an example of something terrible, right? Actually not because it's a podcast and people might hate on grab. So let's just say something bad happens. that we describe as bad in this culture, right? In another culture, that might not be bad. It's trauma in this culture. It's not trauma in this culture.

So if the circumstances are the same, why was it traumatic? Circumstances weren't the same. Why not? Because the culture. The facts were the same. Well, we describe the facts as changed, which means that we can choose to call something trauma. But wouldn't, isn't it, doesn't it make sense

that people would be built up due to culture and environment? 40-year-old guy sleeps with a 15-year-old girl. Terrible, right? Rewan 200 years. 40-year-old guy sleeps with a 15-year-old girl. 100% normal. Right? How is it trauma now and not trauma that?

And mind you, like this is not my statement. I'm just, you have to pull an extreme example if we're going to talk about trauma to illustrate the concept, right? So if it's traumatic in one instance and not traumatic in another, then it means that we can basically change the cultural narrative that we're ascribing to our context and make it not traumatic. That makes sense. Right, which means it didn't matter.

Which means the only thing that matters that you chose to make it meaningful. But let's say like the passing of a parent or like a love one or something like that. If we think, like we feel like we have this, we have a narrative that says, if I don't mourn, it means I didn't care about them. Right? That's a statement of belief. I could say that if I don't mourn, mourn about them, it means I totally cared about them. Like, why does my mourning have any indication of how much I cared? They're non-correlates, right? But it's just because we have, like,

we have so many of these belief statements that, like, quote, society or things that we inherit, right? But we just choose to say that this is how life is. And so I think it's just like monitoring what those statements are. And so, like, one of my favorite, one of my favorite sayings, probably like, if I had one thing on my tombstone, it would be a permutation of a quote by, Orson Scott card, which is we question all of our beliefs, except for those that we truly believe and those we never think to question. That's a good quote. Right.

Yeah. So it's like, we like, of course I'm opening to questioning my beliefs. It's like, what's trauma? Like when someone's like, I was traumatized, it's like, were you? Or do you just choose to label this trauma? And then now you fucked up the rest of your life because you call it trauma when 200 years ago it was life. And a thousand years ago, having your parent killed in front of you was just nature,

if you want to go biology, right? And so we're just like we just choose to create meaning around things. And so like at the end of the day, like end to end to end, bottom, bottom, bottom root. All our brains do is just create and destroy meaning. And so we say this is a threat. This is not a threat. We make, like we need to reinforce this behavior. We don't need to reinforce this behavior all through meaning.

And so if you can control what you de-meaningful, you can massively shift the odds in your favor because you don't need to ascribe meaning to the values of order. Let's say like 500 years ago you see like a parent killed in front of you. Isn't that because all you have in your mind is like food, shelter, water? Sure. And now that we have those things taken care of, our minds go to other places. Sure. I just don't think it changes the actual facts.

So it's like we have, there's stimulus response, right? And so like we get to control the response. We control the stimulus. And so like, was it, um, it's either Seneca or Epictetus who's like, no one yells at a rock. Right? And so it's like, if you are the rock, then like just, it doesn't matter, right? Like, you just, like, eventually, like, people just fuck off and just leave you alone.

And so, like, and if you see stimulus of life that way in terms of, like, how you deem things or label things traumatic or not traumatic or good or bad, you know, I mean, it's the same thing of, I'm sure, with, like, the hate comments and whatnot is, like, if you deem the comments of, of the fans as meaningful, then you will both care about them being positive and you will care about them being negative. But if they're not meaningful at all to begin with, then, like, I don't think you can do either. I think you just either have to participate in both sides or you remove.

that is also a belief statement, right? So like maybe you can. So, you know, interesting thoughts. So how did you transition from, I'm assuming you used to care a little bit more about beliefs and stuff like that? How did you transition from that to now not caring? And like, did you have to completely change your mindset to where your automatic response to things was just like, what, what are these chains of emotions and like the cultural constraints and stuff like that? That are making me feel this way. Yeah. Did, did you just switch that light? or do you still on occasion catch yourself slipping thinking stuff? I just did it right now. I was like, I just said that as a belief. Right, that's what I figured. 100%. Yeah, I mean, I think you systematically, you hear, like, that's why the talking is so important.

Like, what words are we using? What do those words mean? What do those words mean by that? Which is why, like, when you hear really good writing that's academic, like the first few pages will be like, we're going to talk about this and this is how we define this. And this is how we define this. It's like, we're putting constraints around the words that we're using because they mean, they equate to thoughts.

They're just buckets, right? That we like say a word like trauma. and like it means something different to all three of us. So it's like we have to agree on the definition before we can talk about it. Does that make sense? And so no, I had, so I definitely made a conscious effort. So when I was like 19 or 20, I became a born again Christian. The dunk, the whole thing was like, oh, my God, life's amazing.

Jesus is great. And then I ended up falling away from that because I was like, I don't know if this is true. And then I spent the next five years dedicated to apologetics, which is defensive faith of the Christian faith. So just learning the arguments around like why Christianity like is true, right? I ended up not believing in it and I can give a variety of reasons, but I'll give you the simplest one. Hopefully I'm not insulting anyone. This is just my belief that I'm sharing, which is a lot of, one of the biggest, one of the strongest

arguments for Christianity against other world religions is that other world religions say like, if you go to the good place, so if you do a good job, you to the good place, right? And fundamentally, it's a hard paradigm because it means like at what point are you 51% good versus 49%? Should I have just held one more door open and I would have gone to the good place forever, right? Not even talking about like finite circumstances and creating infinite outcomes, but like whatever. And so if you can draw that line, then it makes it, it kind of makes it ridiculous, right? It's like kind of breaks down on the like, be a good person system, right? And so that's all worldviews with the exception of Buddhism and Christianity. With Christianity,

they're like, you don't have to be good, you just have to have faith. If you have faith in Jesus, then you go to the good place, right? And so the reason that for me, fundamentally, I didn't believe in that was because you actually create another false binary, which is believe or not believe, when in reality is to what extent you believe. It's how hard do you believe. And again, you create another 50% line, which is I believe 1% more. And then I would go into the good place forever, right? So anyways, the point is, is that I studied apologetics for a long period of time. and then I was really sad. And I was just like,

fucking sad. I was like, fuck happiness. I was like, I'm just going to do stuff that I think is cool. And that was like the first break in the chain for me. My slogan to myself was actually just about happiness. And that was wildly freeing because I stopped judging myself for not being happy. And then I was just like, oh, I'm like, I am unhappy. cool whatever and I just kept going and all of a sudden just like stop mattering to me

like I don't think about it I genuinely like I don't think like does this make me happy does like I don't think about it you just do what you want to do in the moment just do whatever feel like and it's not like it's like all short term like all pleasure seeking whatever like I still have a long term perspective of like this is what I want to build yeah like I want to write these books I want to build these courses um I want to do this stuff but it's like those are things that I enjoy so that's what I that's what I do I love it great All right. I mean, I had questions, but now I know the answers to him just based off here.

I'm just listening. I'd rather just listen and not saying it. Like, I don't want to mess it up. But then I created a belief that now I'm going to mess it out. Oh, God. Why does it matter, man? What does it even matter that I mess up? It doesn't.

And you can't mess it up. And then the comments are going to be, grab messed it up. Why does that matter? I know it's, I mean, I know it's crazy stuff. But like, I think that, like, if you want to, like, you can't, do what 99% of people are doing if you want to be in the 1%. Yeah. Like fundamentally. And so like you have to

have like what I would consider like maybe uncomfortable conversations is be like, that's okay. Like cool. Like I just, I'm going to do my thing. And then they're like and the thing is a lot of times if you just even just make your statements of like this is how I believe. Like people feel like you're attacking them. Especially if you articulate it well because they're like, why I don't, I'm like, cool. I don't get to like do whatever you want. It's all good to me. And so which is why I don't talk about it as much publicly. How about this? Yeah. What bothers you? This got to. be something out there that like I also have a waste of my time people wasting your time that's that's a really good answer that's a great answer yeah I like it's the only thing I don't have a lot of this may seem

like a silly question but if you go to a restaurant and you order something let's say you order a steak and you order it medium well and it comes back medium rare yeah do you say something it's not worth this time no I don't actually you don't no why would I I I don't care but at the same time I was like well a lot of people would be anxious to say something and I figured you probably wouldn't care about those emotions right I wouldn't even have an emotion first I mean that's such a non yeah yeah yeah I mean maybe like like we have a big ad campaign that's supposed to go out and like I get all the creatives the day before and it's supposed to launch like would that annoy me I'd be like yes but let's fix it you know like this is bad we can't run this let's try again you know and in the end it won't matter because we're all going to die and this money

is going to go back to the game I'll give you this one analogy this might be a good wrap up So this is like my mental analogy that I, that I, that I don't make sense to me, which is like if, if, if life were a game, right, and all of us are given a token to like enter like a casino because we're in Vegas, right? So we're all, get a, you know, a token. We enter the casino and we sit down at the table to play poker, right? And everybody's playing. Everybody's got cards. And all of, you know, we're dealt cards.

Everybody's dealt different cards. And we got to play the hand. We're dealt. And depending on our level of skill, we amass more and more chips. throughout the game, right? And at the end of the game, the difference between the real world and the game of life, right? In the real world, you just, you go and you can cash out your chips and you walk out with money and there you go. There's your day. But I feel like in the casino of life, you get tapped on the shoulder by the grim reaper. And he says, your time's up. And then all your

chips get pushed right back to the middle of the table. And then you leave the casino empty handed because it was a fake game with fake rules that didn't matter. And so, like, we accumulate these chips that I'm just going to push back in the middle again that other people are going to play on. And, like, the reason that that analogy became real for me is, like, I bought this piece of land in Austin. And I was like, that's neat. And then I was like, how many people have owned this piece of land?

It's like the guy, you know, the guy before me owned it and the guy before him owned it and the guy before him to own it. And I was like, and they were like, this is mine. And then they die or they sell it. And someone else, this is mine. It's like, they're just chips that just get played with. And they just get amassed and then they get redistributed. It just doesn't matter. Like death taxes everybody 100%.

So like, everyone's like estate planning. It's like, dude, 500 generations from now. Like, A, your, your offspring are, you know, 500 to the, you know, 0.5 or, you know, one half to the 500th power of like diluted. They're basically just humans at that point. So if your wealth somehow is A big enough that it can be dilute, that that much and last that long, the people who own it are just humans. So like they're so, they're just as close to me as you are. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter. Right. And then the

alternative is the people that I'm giving this to are just the ones that I care about are the immediate family. But then when people get resources that they didn't learn how to use or manage, then it destroys them because it's too much potential energy. They can't handle it. Right. And so it's like it's really for nothing. And so like if you want, you can build a little. something that you think is cool. But like at the end of the day, like, we're just going to cash the chips in. So anyways, Alex's worldviews. But it's a great analogy. A lot to think about this one. Yeah. I don't have to rewatch this. You know what's funny. I was actually thinking I would yeah. Yeah, we never listen to podcasts. No, but never. I would actually listen to this.

Yeah. Yeah. Money, income, no earth. Investing, indexes, savings accounts. What credit cards. that's good thank you so much thank you Alex for coming on this has been an incredible podcast yeah really so I appreciate I appreciate having me and to the audience like I know that a lot of the stuff that I say can be

triggering and I know that at different points of my life if I had heard someone say what I'm saying in the position that I am I would be offended and I want to make it clear that it's not my intention to do that at all it's just me sharing beliefs that as I understand the world and that is no way projection on you or how you see the world, et cetera.

It's just this is how I see the world. And these are beliefs that served me well that helped me overcome a lot of things that I thought mattered. You thought, there we go. That was it. That should be our intro. That could be our intro on it. That's a good segment to put right there in the beginning

because it's going to catch people to the day where they were like, what's offensive? What am I going to disagree with? Perfect. do that. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on, man. It was nice meeting you too. Thank you. Good luck on your Tinder Day. Thank you. Thanks.

Should grow the stash out by then. You think so? I mean, if you want to slide. That's why I shaved it last night, by the way. Oh, yeah. One sec. Oh, my, that was incredible.