The Resilient Mind - When Everything Falls Apart: How to Win The Day Anyway - Alex Hormozi

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Alex Hormozi is an entrepreneur, investor, and author known for turning struggling businesses into scalable, high-profit machines. He built and sold multiple companies before founding Acquisition.com, which helps businesses scale past $3M+ in revenue. With a no-BS style, Alex shares hard-earned lessons on business, mindset, and money to help others build real, lasting success.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠🌍 Proud member of 1% for the Planet — building resilient minds and a resilient planet.This episode is brought to you in partnership with Motiversity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to when everything falls apart with Alex Hormozy. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. Sometimes progress is the W. Like maintaining in some seasons is winning. This has been my big focus right now. And I'm not the first person to say this, but just winning the day.

And Bill Ackman had this hard season where he was getting divorced. he just lost $4 billion. And he was not him today. He was earlier on his career. I mean, it was just the worst. And it was just a terrible slog. And he said, one of the difficult parts about that period is that there was no one thing that was like, oh, I can tackle this today. Like you're not going to finish the divorce today.

You're not going to undo the $4 billion loss today. It's just like when you have these larger, more complex negative things that do scale, it's like how do you, how do you navigate through that? And for anyone who's listening right now, it's like, maybe it's the bad breakup. Maybe it's the, or maybe you're getting divorced, right? Or maybe it's like the business isn't working the way you want. It's like, and there's like 10 things that you have to fix. And so he had this very tactical advice, which I liked a lot, which is he just tried to make progress. And that was it.

And he said, you know, in a day, it's almost negligible, right? But at 30 days, you're like, okay, I moved this. And at 90, you're like, wow, does this mean that our mood is still being dictated by circumstance? Yes, I'll be honest. Yes, it does. But I think many of us have this ideal. We love to be in a great mood in the absence of things to be in a great mood about. But I had this one great podcast today.

I'm going to make that thing, the thing that's making this a great day. And then if I can make that great day, then maybe it could be a great week. And then trying to expand those, basically let those good moments eat up the season in actively trying to minimize all the down things and super, super focus on those moments and be like, cool, I had that good moments. moment, that's my day, days made, and I'm trying to even say that more. Basically, I've had to recalibrate my entire scale to how little of a thing can happen that makes my day, how little of a thing can happen that makes my week, how little of a thing can make my month. How crazy would it be if a year from now, I say, that was a great year.

I'm putting a huge amount of my discretionary effort into this because it's my belief that right now, what will prevent me from achieving my ultimate goals because that that motherfucker's not gone is running out of steam because I don't need to do this. Like, I don't need to work this hard. I have to, I prefer to make the ride more enjoyable. Realize it never mattered to begin with. What's that? If you want it all, life will give you nothing. We're willing to sacrifice everything that we have for the thing that we want. And then once we get the thing that we want, we want back the things that we sacrificed,

which really just goes to the heart of the human condition, which is we want it all. And we're not willing to make trades. And so one of the reasons that I've actually, I would say largely tossed out the deathbed regrets of most people, is that what they do typically

is they will have the bias of wanting the other path they could have taken without considering the cost of that path. So they say, hey, I was really successful when I did all these things. But, you know, I would give it all up today to have my family. It's like, well, yeah, but you didn't because you actually chose the path that you're on.

And you weren't willing to do that. But what you are saying right now is that you want it all. Sure. So does everyone. And so I've had a, you know, a few moments of clarity over the last, you know, a year or so. But we want everything without the cost and everything has a price. And you will never be able to get the sufficient price tax. paid on everything to achieve a monoc of success in any domain unless you are willing to trade

from another. And I think that that has significantly minimized my regret. We give up our 20s for our 30s. We give up our 30s for our 40s, our 40s for our 50s and we trade everything we achieved in our 30s, 40s and 50s to get back to our 20s. We give up the thing we have most of for the thing that we have least of. Then we give up the thing that we want for the thing that's supposed to get it. I will become happy when I'm sufficiently successful and I will sacrifice my happiness in pursuit of success so that I can become sufficiently successful so I can finally be happy. We spend our 20s wanting to be richer and older and have a family, then we start that in our 30s and we gain more wealth and do the family thing and then we get back to our 40s

and we've got more responsibilities. We've accumulated all of this stuff. And then we think, God, if only I could go back to my 20s. But you were fucking miserable in your 20s. You hated it. You had no idea whether you were going to be successful. You were constantly concerned about money. You were desperately needing validation from all of these people around you. You were permanently in dissatisfaction about this stuff. We already know how the movie ends when we go back and say we want to relive it. And you can't relive it into the same context because uncertainty is the largest part of the story.

Perhaps golden ears could only happen in our memory. Nobody believes that we're living through in golden era right now. We never think we're in the good old days. But the good old days are always now. I have spent a huge amount of mental resources accepting suffering and not saying that there's something wrong with something bad. Like a huge amount of mental resources has gone to this because I've been better and faster at correcting the loop of like, oh, I am not happy with this particular thing and therefore there's something wrong. So it fixed the story that I tell myself as opposed to fix this thing. And that's been super helpful with the addition of.

everything that I remember will always be better than it was. And the nice thing is that there's tons of science that backs us up, which is that we learn through reward and punishment. Punishment fades with time, no matter how bad it was. Like, you get drunk, you get hungover, you say, I'll never drink again. Seven days later, you're out drinking again. Why? The punishment of the hangover fades quickly. You are with somebody for a while.

You're like, this is crazy or this guy is crazy. and then you break up, and then all of a sudden, what do you remember? The good times. Because reward sticks. And in some ways, there's a little bit

of a hopeful message there, which is that when you look back on your life, you will disproportionately remember the good times, but it only becomes a problem if you limit the present, which is the only thing

you've ever actually lived in. When I think about a business and I want to grow it, for example, I would think, okay, what are all the things that can destroy this business? And this is Charlie Munger.

This isn't me. But basically, he says, invert, always invert. And Einstein said that too. And it's because, like, you get to use this way stronger horsepower engine of like, how do I grow my business? That's, you could obviously think that way. But the alternative would be like, how would I absolutely destroy this business in the fewest possible moves? And then when you list out those moves, you're like, cool, now let's do the opposite of that. And that has been, honestly, a lot of the, some of the sources of my greatest kind of

creative moments have come from these apparently obvious things that would kill us. Well, what if we did the even more obvious thing and did the opposite of what would destroy us. And it's worked better than I deserve. Figure out what you want. Ignore the opinions of others. Do so much work, it would be unreasonable that you fail. Realize it never mattered to begin with. Help others once you get there. You've already achieved the things you said would make you successful. Yeah, the first five steps there is my, is basically my master life plan. I had a pretty terrible first out of college experience of work. But from that, I learned some of the most important life lessons that I still take to this day.

And that boss particularly said one thing to me one day. She said, figuring out what you want is 99% of it. She said, once you know what you want, getting it's the easy part. And I kind of adopted that as a worldview because it's like once you're really clear, like this is what I want, that everything that's not that is what I'm willing to give up to get it. Now, that thing can change. And I think that's the part that people miss. And I think we should all have permission to change what we want in any given moment.

And not having basically sunk life bias of like, I put 10 years into this thing. And that's okay. And that's what I needed to do at that time. And today, I'm willing to, I'm going to change everything. It's been super helpful for me to not think of my changes as permanent. because it's allowed me to make such dramatic changes in my life or my business much faster than I think most people have been willing to because there's this this weight of forever on top of everything. Like I can do this for today and tomorrow, if it still works, I will do it for tomorrow. And if five days from now or 25 days from now, if I work this way, I then say, you know what, I need a day.

People are like, oh, he's burned out. It's like, I took a day because that's what I needed that day. And I think giving myself permission to have that freedom has allowed me to take significantly faster action because who am I apologizing to? One of my themes this year has been focusing on moments and on both the positive and the negative. And so like when we think back on, if I think back on the last year, right, I don't remember probably 95% of the year. Like I, you know, I did the same things. And so it's like it just didn't get recorded. Like nothing notable happened.

And so really like when we think about a year, we really just recall a handful of moments and that's it. moments in time are usually very short. And so I've been trying to think about the bad, you know, seasons as, well, maybe it wasn't a bad season. Maybe I had five bad days or really five bad moments that I then thought about for the entire season and turned what would have otherwise been five minutes times five into an entirely bad year. It's like, okay, well, if we can do that in the negative, can we do the positive, which is, you know, obviously the thing to exercise? I thought about that. It's like, If I were to boil everything down of all the skills that you can learn, if everything that we do eventually becomes irrelevant, then the single greatest skill that you can develop is being in a great mood in the absence of things to be in a great mood about. Most people don't question someone who's in a bad mood.

Like, I'm just in a bad mood. So it's like, well, if you can be in a bad mood for no reason, it's like you might as well be in a good mood for no reason because that one at least serves you. And so I've been trying to exercise like, because there's on one degree, there's like, let's count things to be grateful for. On the other side, it's like, why do I have to have things to be grateful for in order to be in a good mood? Like, why is trying to find things a requirement of being in that mood? Like, can I not find things and still choose to be in a good mood? Because I've certainly not had things to be in a bad mood about and been in a bad mood. And so I've been trying to flex that, which is like, sure, we can find things to be grateful for.

And when those things pop up, yes, and of course, it's a practice. You get better at it. But, like, what if I can just be in a good mood? And so I've just tried to try to break that. relationship between the two because then it makes it contingent on something that I can find. To take this to the absolute extreme, why should I be grateful? Why should I be happy? Why do I demand of my life that I must be happy during it? I think it comes down to, I use the word control before. Basically, if you can predict, it means you can control. But if you can predict

what's going to happen, it means that you know what the variables are and you can influence those variables, which we can influence the outcome. We have a set of behaviors or skills that will increase the likelihood of goal achievement, whatever that goal is, being spiritual, being a good husband, whatever it is. These behaviors will do that. To increase the likelihood of me doing these behaviors, then I have to have more good stuff, less bad stuff. I will down that hell. Beyond that, what is anything that happened prior to this matter at all insofar as it only works if I can use that same variable and then use it again to change my behavior yet again to be conducive to the goal? Expectation of life is that it's going to be, until,

I make the billion dollars until I get married to the love of my life, until I get these things, you're just holding your happiness hostage until something great happens. What if something small could be something great? People only root for others at two times. First, when they're at the beginning of the race, second, when they finish. Neither is when you need it. So you have to master the middle. The boring, exhausting, soul-crushing middle. That's where the winning happens on your own. People will only cheer for you as long as you can't beat them at the game they've you most. Friendly reminder that every person who doubts you is right until they aren't. It's a bug, not a feature. You know, the very, very beginning people say, you know, I'm really excited for you

that you're trying this thing out, right? And I noticed that everyone was very happy for me to try because I temporarily decreased my status. I actually became worse than them during that period of time. And then as soon as I achieved a level of success, which I then realized that their happiness for me was proportional to where they were on the latter relative to me. And so as soon as I pass some people, then they stop being happy and then they start, you know, saying bad things, right? And the people who were still always ahead were still like, keep it up, keep it up. And there's still people who have been that way my whole life. And I just wonder if and when I pass them, will they flip? I don't know. But also to the same degree, it was after you start the race when

you're in the thick of it because you'll quickly pass the people who've done nothing. But then you have this long period of time where you don't catch up to the people who've been doing it for a long time. And that's the part where it's very lonely because you don't have your initial posse. You have to leave them at some point. But then you don't get to the new group that's, you know, way ahead and actually has some proof behind them that you can actually like sit at the table. And so like today, I have, if I were to do something, I have tons of support. But I don't really need the support now. I needed it in the middle, right? In the many years that like, no one knew who Alex Formosie was. And that's, that's, that's, that's the heart.

part. And I think it's the story that Morgan Hassel tells, which is that you just don't know how it's going to finish. And that's what makes it hard. It's the uncertainty of like, what if I give up everything that I've done in my life for nothing? And then all of a sudden, if I knew that, then I wouldn't be willing to make this trade. But in retrospect, when you do have the thing, you're like, of course I was, like, if I knew that this was going to happen, I'd do you. To sure think now. I would happily make the trade. But you don't know. And so you're just putting the money down and they're rolling it, but you get to find out if you hit black, five fucking years from now.

It's why dealing with uncertainty is such a meta skill. And it's one that I, to be honest, it's one that I really suck at. I'm very, very not good at dealing with uncertainty. My required line of assurance in order for me to commit to a decision is incredibly high, which is why I've basically never failed at anything that I've done. All of the stuff that I've done a string of incredibly slow but very reliable successes, is just because my required number of sort of justification points is very high. And, you know, in retrospect, it might look like it was a risk.

It's like, dude, I took so long to fucking make this decision. On the friend point, it's a painful realization that the small number of good friends want you to win in case you take them with you. And the large number of bad friends are scared of you winning in case you leave them behind. the best way to know who a real friend is is how they react when you win and when that happens

you'll realize how few real friends you really have. Many people were like, sure, like good luck with that, but I knew that they just weren't really rooting for me. They were rooting for me to fail. They're rooting for me the wrong way. One of my rules is you should only

take advice from people whose dreams for your life are bigger than yours are, which is a very small number of people. sometimes it's your parents. Sometimes your parents really do have bigger dreams for you than you do.

The people who are closest to you in the beginning, if they're like true, like actual friends, then you recognize that because they actually want you to win and that's amazing. A lot of people don't have that. And so what I have felt, at least for me, was that when you're a little ahead

is where the friction is, when you blow them out of the water and there's no question, like it's beyond reproach. They will do one of two things. they will either be really happy for you or they'll change the game that they're beating you at. That's great, but I'm in better shape. That's great, but my marriage is better.

Or whatever game that they choose to play, people who doubt you will be right most of the time. And this further increases your uncertainty about the path that you're choosing to take. But on a long enough time horizon, most people who don't bet are guaranteed to lose. And so they get to win at being right more times than you get to win at being right. But what that equation doesn't take into consideration is intensity, which is, can I be so right one time that it makes all of the times that I was wrong or relevant? And in the nature of life, the answer is yes, almost a resounding yes for just about every domain. Like everyone can say that every person you've ever dated has sucked and they can predict that you're going to break up until you find the person that you're going to marry and in that moment who fucking cares about the other 90 people that you went on dates with that everybody said was a bad idea or that you have a bad picker or you don't have a good taste. It's like, well, you're not marrying them.

I date in a way that's different than you would prefer. Great. But I did end up finding this thing. The first thing that I ever did was an online fitness thing. And it kind of worked. And then I did my first gym and it kind of worked. And then I started all these other side projects. They got distracted and I didn't know.

And the downside risk is significantly smaller and more frequent. It's both. You're more likely to lose. And it's more likely to happen more times. It's just that upside is uncapped. And so, and I think about this one a lot. So there's the story of the guy. Do you know the guy who wrote Jingle Bells?

No. So. I didn't even know that that was, I thought it was like happy birthday. I thought he was just gifted to hear. humanity when we started. So there's this guy, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, and, like, did nothing but failed was a failed everything. And his entire life was nothing. He just happened to write the small thing called jingle bells. And it has become, you know, but it's like, you know, but I have one thing that actually makes a permanent impact. I was like, would I trade that life? for Aristotle's good life, where I'm out to nothing, but the whole time was good. And this is just one of my eternal battles where I think with myself that I have no answer for, to be clear.

But when I'm thinking through the periods where things suck, I'm like, well, maybe I'll get a jingle bells out of this. And maybe it'll just take 20 years longer than I thought. So not taking the shot is like saying, life, I don't want to scratch off this lottery ticket, but the lottery ticket's free. Why would you not scratch it off and try it? whatever reasons that we usually give ourselves in the beginning for why we can't achieve something, you can almost always find not only just someone, but someone who's achieved world-class levels of success with worse conditions than you currently have, which then means it's absolutely possible,

and then the only thing that it takes to get there is work. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.