The School of Greatness - The SECRET to GETTING RICH (They Don’t Want You to Know THIS!) | Alex Hormozi

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Alex Hormozi is a School of Greatness fan favorite and a powerhouse of wisdom and knowledge when it comes to breaking free from mediocrity and achieving excellence.In this transformative discussion, you will learn about the common barriers that often hold individuals back from reaching their full potential, with a special focus on the frequently underestimated and overlooked hurdles. Discover how to identify if you're playing small in your own life and gain practical strategies to conquer fear, a major obstacle to achieving excellence. Plus, we debunk the myths surrounding overnight entrepreneurial success, shedding light on the real journey to greatness. And don't forget to check out Alex's book, "$100M Leads: How to Get Strangers To Want To Buy Your Stuff." Join us in this enlightening conversation and start your path towards a richer and more fulfilling life today!In this episode you will learnThe common barriers that can hinder individuals from reaching their full potential and keep them in an average state.Which of these barriers is frequently underestimated or overlooked, and gain insights into why this occurs.How to recognize if you are currently playing small in your own life and what signs to look for.Practical strategies to start overcoming fear and take steps toward excellence, as fear often plays a significant role in keeping people from realizing their full potential.The common misconceptions surrounding overnight entrepreneurial success.Buy Alex’s book $100M Leads: How to Get Strangers To Want To Buy Your StuffFor more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1522For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes on crushing doubt and becoming a successful entrepreneur:How Your Beliefs Are Keeping You From Being A Millionaire w/ Alex Hormozihttps://link.chtbl.com/1324-podEmbrace Your Artistic Passion & Turn It Into A Full-Time Living w/ Harry Mack https://link.chtbl.com/1321-podHealing Past Trauma, Building A Business Empire & Finding Peace w/ Scooter Braun https://link.chtbl.com/1244-pod

My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Our brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times bestseller back to back weeks. And I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it and finished it already, and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful

exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life. 10 years ago, at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and the book I'm glad I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get your copy today. Again lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on Audible now so you can get it on audiobook as well. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. You don't build confidence by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by giving yourself a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you

say you are. Outwork your self-doubt. And so I wholeheartedly reject the notion that you can beat your chest and have charisma, because I believe that confidence without evidence is delusion. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Alex Hermosi in the house. Good to see you. The man who builds, buys, and sells massive companies worth over 200 million in your assets now, acquisition.com, and you have built a

5 million person following in less than two years. And you had one of the biggest online events recently, which I want to talk about in a moment. But first off, you're known for making money. You're known for developing incredible habits. You're known for having a chiseled physique, and you're known for working extremely hard to get what you want in business and in life. But we were talking about before about behaviors, habits, and mindsets. What do you think is it within you that has allowed you to get to where you're at so quickly? And obviously there was a backstory and a background we've talked about before where it was more than a decade of building yourself, but really in the last couple of years, you've exploded. Without being on a big Netflix show, without having a celebrity movie

come out, without being a celebrity, you've exploded with celebrity status. Is it a mindset? Is it confidence? Is it behaviors? What is it that has allowed you to get there? I would definitely say it comes down to skills. And if we're just defining skills as things that you do when introduced to some sort of external stimulus that gets them a outcome. And I think simplifying a lot of the woo-woo around mindset, performance, confidence, like all of that stuff, if you can boil it down to at the end of the day, even identity, right? All it is, is a list of behaviors that we do. And so I used to think earlier on when I would even explain to entrepreneurs, like when I was looking at entrepreneurs, we had a matrix for how we would kind of like score them.

So as you've got, you've got beliefs that will limit entrepreneurs, you've got traits that will limit entrepreneurs, and then you have skills. And that was my kind of, that was my framework for a very long time. And then I had a very long discussion with Dr. Cash, my closest friend, and he was like, I really want to challenge you on this. I was like, okay. He said, can you teach someone a trait? I was like, well, what do you mean? He's like, well, let's say someone's loyal, right? Okay. You want to teach loyalty. That's a trait. Loyalty is an amorphous word, but has like a lot of laundry list of mini skills underneath of it, which is okay. When you go out with your friends and a girl comes up to the group of friends,

and let's say you're married, whatever in that instance. And she says, can I buy you a drink? You say, no. Do you think I can train someone to do that? And I was like, yeah, I think you could train someone to do that. It's like, okay, now take every other line item underneath of loyalty. That would be examples of loyalty. Those are behaviors that can be trained, which means that loyalty is a skill. I was like, huh? And he was like, now let's push on beliefs, right? Well, beliefs, it's like, okay, a belief means you see a certain way the world is, and then you behave a certain way as a result, which is still stimulus response,

which means that you can train someone to respond based on a stimulus. stimulus responds, which means that you can train someone to respond based on a stimulus. And so that really simplifies a lot of performance, success, et cetera, to simply like, what do I need to do when this condition is presented? And then you get out of the, like, how are my emotions feeling? And I need to think positively and all of these things into simply like, you can be as negative as you want. You can be as fearful as you want. You can be as angry as you want.

You can be as ashamed as you want. If you still post this amazing piece of content in any of those emotional states, it will still perform the same. And so it's just that like the doing has to get done. Right. No matter what. And that's the only thing that moves the ball forward. And I think a lot of it is cutting out a lot of the fluff and the noise that is very loud in the marketplace of the hundred things you all have to do in order to be successful. When I know,

just like you do, a ton of incredibly successful entrepreneurs and their habits are actually incredibly varied. Some are night owls, some are morning people, some work all the time, some only like to work a couple hours a week, some are huge in real estate. Some are super healthy and health obsessed and others are Warren Buffett drinking Coke and eating at McDonald's. So whenever there's these rules that people like to put on and everyone wants to have these rules because they want to think, okay, if I do what Warren Buffett does, then I'll get what Warren gets. But what they do is I think they emulate the wrong part of Warren Buffett. What should they be emulating?

You have to look back in time. And I think that's one of the things people model the plateau, not the rise. And so it's like, we have a bunch of buddies, Mutual, that have exited companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. And then they get really obsessed with their their health and they have these massive morning routines and they just get upset, you know, all these supplements and red lights on us and ice, ice luges and whatever. Right. And, and so what ends up happening is everyone who's watching says, Oh, this person's successful. This is what they do. I should do that. But they, what, what got them there is not what they're doing now. Right. So it's like you want to model the rise. And so a lot of times the rise is a lot of imbalance.

It's not always healthy on the rise. No. I would even getting out of like defining health, right? But like I would say that there are absolutely trade-offs and it's just whether or not you're willing to pay the price for it. And I think then we can take off the label of like, this is good, this is bad, this is healthy, this is unhealthy. And just simply say like, if the Nikes that you want on the wall are $500, that is the

price. You can just choose to pay it or not. But if you choose to pay the $500 for the Nikes, you don't then say this was unhealthy or this was bad when you label it. You just make the trade. And I think that that's where a lot of people spend all this time analyzing themselves, feeling about their feelings, thinking about their thoughts rather than just executing. Like one of the best morning routines I can, I can recommend to any person on earth is that you wake up and you decrease the

time between when you wake up and when you start working. Like I need 90 minutes before I can really, it's like. If you're looking for those types of financial results. Totally. Yeah. If you want more of a balanced life and you love your morning routine to be chill and relaxed. Then do you. Then know you're going to get the results that way you put in there. Yeah. Do you think it's possible to get extremely wealthy or amass a large sums of wealth by having a lazy mindset? I really like this question.

I don't know if it's where you were wanting me to go, but I do like the question a lot. So yes, for probably a different reason that people might expect. So I actually think in some ways, the lazier you are, if you can get over the initial hump, the more successful you can be. Because what happens is if you give a hardworking person a problem, they give you a hardworking solution. If you give a lazy person a problem, they'll give you a lazy man solution. What's the easiest way to do this? Right. And a lot of times, some of the best problems in the world get solved by deciding they're not problems. What do you mean?

It's like, let's say Layla says, babe, and I don't like being called babe. I could have a huge discussion about this, and this is our plan. So we can, you know, get you out of saying this cause it makes me feel this way. It reminds me of my mom, whatever. Right. Or you just let it go. Or I decide that it's not a problem and it's way faster to solve problems that way by deciding they're not problems to be in with. Interesting. And, um, and so with, from the lazy, the lazy man's perspective, I am a big believer in working smarter, not harder with the massive caveat that you have to work incredibly hard to get smart. So what do you mean by that? You have to

amass amount of skills. You have to overcome your limiting beliefs. You've got to get more knowledge, take more classes, develop yourself, build more confidence, let go of these different challenges in order to get to that level. Yeah. We all have to pay down the most expensive debt that we all pay every day, which is the debt of not knowing. Ignorance debt. I mean, I love this close that I saw at a presentation years ago and it's just so good. So man's looking out the audience and he's got this whiteboard and he writes a million dollars across the top. And then he says, ma'am, how much do you make? And she says, $50,000. So he writes $50,000 underneath the million. And then he subtracts it and it says $950,000. He looks at it and he says, every single year, he said, you pay life $950,000 for not knowing how to make a million dollars.

And so the question is like, how much is that skill worth? The difference. That's what it's worth. Right. Whatever that difference is. Right. And however long it takes. And so it's one of the haunting thoughts that I have of like, man, why am I not making a billion dollars a year? It's like, because right now I'm paying $800 million a year in ignorance tax for not knowing how to make a billion. Interesting. Or to be fair- Or relationship tax or ignorance tax or whatever, right? Of, yeah.

Timing tax. It could be a timing thing. It could be, are you in the right industry thing? Whatever it might be. And you got to, I mean, obviously this is for people that, you don't have to be a billionaire or make a million dollars. Move the zeros. Yeah. It's like, okay, do I want to be at 100,000? Do I want to be at 70,000? Do I want to be at 350 or whatever it is? First off, why do you want to be there? Why is it important for you? And are you willing to pay the price to be there?

If not, then it's okay. Yeah. Live your life. Yeah. You won. I was just, you won. You're not, you're not obsessing over something. I was just watching the show alone.

I don't know if you ever watched this show. It's fascinating. It's about people that live alone in wilderness and they have to survive. Okay. It's on a history channel, I think. It's actually incredible. I'm like, I could last maybe three days. You know, it's like,

as long as my fat would survive me. It's like, because they're in Alaska, it's the winter, you got to do the whole thing, right? And you're only allowed 10 items. Oh. So you have to choose your items wisely to be able to survive

the longest you can in the wilderness. And after like 50 days, there's like three people left. I think it starts with 10 or 20. Right. And all these people leave, they tap out and they leave. And after the 50th day, the people are like, man, you've got to, they start, you start to hear their mindset unravel as it gets harder and harder. And you have to ask, they have to ask themselves, why am I doing this? Why, why do I care? Now there's a $500,000 prize at the end for the winner, but you start to hear them say like, I really don't need that lunch. Yeah. Like I'm pretty happy. Like it's just my girlfriend or like my dog or like,

you know, living on the land. I don't need a fancy big home. I don't need this nice car. I don't need to impress people, um, in a certain way. Like I'm happy with where I'm at and here's what I do need. Yeah. And this is going to bring me joy. Yeah. But for the people that, why do you think people are so obsessed with making more money though and becoming a millionaire or becoming a hundred millionaire or a billionaire? Why do people even think about it or are focused on that? The whys are tough, um, because I can never have insight into why other people do things rather than that they do them. Um, but I would say that it seems like at least I would say more men than women are money focused. And that is probably because more women than men are finding are attracted to mates who

have resources. And I love this quote by Idris Elba. He said, um, men fall in love with what they see, women fall in love with what they hear, which is why women will always wear makeup and men will always lie. Oh man. I just love the quote because it just, I think, speaks to the heart of how men and women, at least socially, measure status, which is kind of the second piece, which is people don't really want money, especially at the highest levels of the game. It's not about money at all. It's about status. Because I mean, it's only chicken and rice even at the highest levels. You can only eat so much food. You can't eat gold. You can't eat diamonds. And after a certain point, you can

only consume so much. So then money's only purpose is to go make more money so that you can- Do what? Make more money. Right. People care more about status, influence or power with money. Oh, is that like, do they? Yeah. Which one? Yeah. Do people care more about, do you think having status, having influence or having power? It depends on the person, honestly. Um, I mean, there's definitely from everything that at least my beliefs are on the world. I think there are people definitely who prefer to be behind the scenes and moving things, making the world the way they want it to be. And then there are other people who prefer to have, and that's also huge influence. It's just one is credit with the influence and sometimes it's credit without the, or the, the reverse. And so I don't know if I could answer for, for all of those people, but I think the motivations for making money can be diverse. But I think if I had, if I had a generalized with the broadest brushstroke, I would say for men specifically,

we get more status and we have more money. Do you think that's what men are chasing more is the status? Totally. Really? Yeah. If women all of a sudden only one, if they, if the hotness of the girl was directly correlated with how in shape the guy was, there'd be way more in shape guys. I mean, let's, let's, let's flip the script because we actually have some evidence on this. So like, if you look at gay men in general, men who are attracted to men, uh, the gay population, I would say has the, uh, stigma. And I say this is a positive, whatever a positive stigma is, of being more in shape than straight guys. Really? Yeah. Oh my God. There's way more, like tons of super in shape gay guys. Because men,

they fall in love with what they see and they're both men. They're both fit. Right. And so they're both men. And so gay men will have to be, or try to be in better shape, I would say on average than straight men. Because the person they're trying to attract has a different honey trap. You can be a fat slob and if you're a billionaire, you're going to get whatever girl you want. Okay. Not necessarily whatever girl we want, but you will get a girl that you could probably still brag about. Right, right, right. We're speaking in generalizations, but this is overall is what you're seeing here. Yeah.

Why do you think people are, what do you think is keeping people trapped in staying average in their life or not wanting to go beyond where they're currently at? Is it confidence, behaviors, skills, identity, beliefs, what, you know, combination, what keeps people trapped in being average? I think if you were to ask them, many of them would say something to the extent of, I'm afraid of failing. If you like peeled it back, but I actually think that's false. I don't think anyone's afraid of failing. I think everyone's afraid of other people seeing themselves fail and getting judged for it. And that's what keeps people trapped. Right. Because what it is, is a loss of status, right? They're afraid of a loss of status and

you have a guarantee. There's short-term pain that you have to go through when you do anything new unless you're immediately successful which almost no one is you usually have to take a step back in order to take two three ten steps forward right like if you have a high-paying job so i was a consultant for example and i had all the status for somebody at my age uh working at a you know big firm i graduated in three years i had all that stuff. But then when I quit that to start basically being a personal trainer at a gym, that was a big decrease in status in terms of my relative standing compared to my peers. Because now you're starting something new. You have to break into an industry and now you don't have credibility and relationships. You have to

sell yourself all over again as a beginner. It's hard. Yeah. And I remember when I would have, uh, when we come to the gym and be like, did you go to college? And I was like, I mean, graduate magna cum laude from Vanderbilt. Yeah. You know what I mean? But like, I remember thinking, wow, this doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. And so it was, I was, uh, really well equipped for not what I was doing. You were overqualified. Yeah. And underqualified at the same time. Right. Right. For the actual job. And so there's a big pill of humility that I think a lot of people aren't willing to take because it hurts to drop in status. Like, you know, people are like,

oh, you'll get there, man. Like, hey, we're rooting for you. You know? And it's just because I remember the early days of the gym when I was like sleeping on the floor. A lot of my clients were like, good for you, chasing your dream, you know, all that stuff, like really rooting for me. And, you know, within nine or 12 months I had hired some people and I had a manager and I was able to not literally live at the gym, sleep there. I remember pulled up one day and I walked in and like four or five ladies who'd been there for a while were like, ah, boss man. So you're like, ah, I thought you're too good for us. And they were saying it in jest, but I knew that there was like a hair of truth to it. And that was when I realized the truism, like everyone wants you to do well, but just not better than them. And so the people that will continue to root for you tend to be above you. the people that will continue to root for you tend to be above you. And as you pass people,

because hate only comes from below. No one above you is hating on you because they're not thinking about you because winners focus on the goal, losers focus on winners. And so that was a huge lesson. It's hard to be a creator and a critic at the same time. You don't see other authors leaving negative reviews for people's books on Amazon. They're not going there and saying, this is the worst book ever written, or you're regurgitating everything or whatever it is. They're too focused on creating something and putting their art out there in the world. It's the critics who are unwilling to try. On the sidelines. Right. That's the challenging thing. So what you were saying there is when you were kind of living in the gym, building yourself up and not successful, you had more people rooting for you than once you started to surpass a certain level, a group.

Then they started to say, oh, okay, you're, you root for you at the bottom. But as you pass them in whatever material thing your pursuit is, you remind them of the dreams. This is some paraphrasing of a conversation I had with Chris Williamson. You remind them of the dreams that they gave up on. And so you go from being the person who reminds them that they could go after their dreams to reminding them that they never went after them to begin with. And then what happens, at least this has been my experience, is that you go through this period where no one from your hometown or who knew you in the beginning approves. And then what happens is absolute strangers from the internet who never saw the beginning become a bigger fan of you because they can relate to the story.

But because you weren't their next door neighbor, They don't feel blame for them not having achieved whatever yet because if everyone in your friend group When you're coming up They all see that like as on some level in my opinion They see that they have the exact same access to resources opportunities that you do and then for some reason they haven't done something So it's painful because I think there's some sting of inadequacy that they probably self judge as a result of that now To be fair of people are secure and are very happy with their lives, which is awesome. But I think there's definitely some people

who aren't as pumped about it, which then kind of gets into, like to go all the way back to the very beginning. We said like, why don't people do the stuff that they want to do? I think it's because they can't even hear their own voice because the only voice they can hear is everyone else's. And they can, like, theirs is barely a whisper. And and so i think like if i had to give myself a goal of what my story or

journey or trajectory has been it's been to make my voice the loudest one that i can hear and for my approval of myself to be the one that i care the most about. I think Epictetus said something to the degree of, if you need someone else to bear witness to whatever the thing is, don't, you should be able to be your own witness. You should have enough integrity and belief in self. I'm massively paraphrasing. But he said that and I just, when I've had really tough times, I write in this diary to myself and it's to my 85 year old self. And so, okay, you might really find this interesting.

I think your audience would really like this. Yeah, I do like this. So there's something called the Solomon Paradox. Are you familiar with this? Explain it. Okay. So the Solomon Solomon paradox basically states that humans give better advice to other people than they follow themselves. And like they've proven they've, they whitewash the staff. They even describe people's own life to themselves, but change the names, et cetera, and then say, what should this person do? And what they recommend the person do

differs from what the person actually does. And it's because we have some sort of emotional context of the situation. And so then we can make logical decisions as a result. And so they're making poor decisions, right? So take that as data point one, we give better advice to other people than we follow to ourselves. The second kind of issue that I've had overall is I've never had a lot of success with the therapies and things like that personally. A lot of the time it's because I feel like I have to one, provide huge amounts of context for a single decision, which becomes, you know, 90% of my conversation is just trying to give context around. And then the session's over. Right, exactly. Like where are we going? Yeah. And the third part is aligned incentives,

right? And I, and I speak purely from a? And I speak purely from a mechanistic perspective here, which is that if you pay someone, they want you to continue to see them. 100%. It just is what it is. And Charlie Munger, I think, said, people will ignore all sorts of facts if their paycheck relies on it, right? He thinks the entire wealth management industry is just a complete farce. And so he uses that as his example, because he's like, they're incentivized to not see that they have no value at it.

Right, right. So everyone rationalizes around that. And so you've got this misaligned incentive. You've got someone who doesn't have context. And you've also got this idea that we can give ourselves better advice than anyone else can. And so in thinking about those three things together, I was like, maybe I can be my own therapist, but don't do it from myself today. Talk to my 85 year old self. And so I actually

run these chats. It's my first morning meeting on Monday every week. It's called Solomon time. And so I talk about what's on top of mind. Now I also- To self. Yeah. So I chat, it's like a DM chat. So it's like, hey, this is what's going on right now. And then it's future me, like my hat changes and this is, why are you saying that? You psychologically go into that state of a future you. Yeah. That's beautiful. And it's cool because that version of me- It's not AI you, it's really-

No, it's just me. That version of me has a completely aligned incentive. He wants me to win more than anyone. Because at the end of the day, people don't want what's in your best interest. They want the version of you that best serves them at any level. Now, the closer they are, your family has tremendous alignment because if you become a billionaire like if you become a billionaire, they all benefit probably. But they've got doubts and insecurities. For sure. So like they're still flawed compared to a stranger. Right?

So it's like the closer someone gets, the more natural alignment would occur where if you do well, they might do well by proxy or by extension, you might be able to give them a favor, et cetera. And so that's why when you get famous, I can't remember what this quote is, but when you get famous, it's actually other people, I think, who treat you differently because you actually have more utility because they might be willing to put up with stuff. You're late, you're not as responsive, all these things, because if you tweet their name, it changes their life because there's that chance of huge utility. And so people change their behavior. And so anyways, with Solomon,

who I call my older version of myself, just for simplicity sake, he has absolute aligned incentives. He has complete context. So I don't need to explain everything. He already knows everything I know, right? And potentially more and a longer term time horizon. And as I'm going through these exercises, the most common ones, the common responses I get is, what problem are we solving? Which is what classic old me would say. Number two is, are you sure that's a problem? Which is more just a retort. And recently I had a really tough thing that I went through and it really drove me. Probably the worst day I'd had in five years. So from the last time I felt that bad was when my partner had taken all the money that I had in my account after I sold all my gym.

So sold everything and then all the money was drained. That was the worst day I'd had in a long time. So I had one recently. And he said this line to me, and this is kind of what I go through when I'm trying to think through these kind of like, you know, we have these vicious cycles where you just keep reliving a conversation or scenario. And you're like, I just want to shake this, right? Even sometimes it's, you have a relationship and you break up with a person and you're like, I want to get over this person, whatever it is. I usually need to get to this statement. And once I get it, it solves it. It's like, I just need a frame shift. And I remember when I was getting over someone a very long time, long time ago, I'm married seven

years now. But the statement that I needed for that situation was you can have multiple, you can only have one love of your life, but you can live multiple lives. I really liked that. I thought it was very beautiful. You don't have to negate a relationship or the positive, because what would you want to do? Destroy every memory you've had except for the person that you get married to? That's terrible. That means that every single, every moment you've had in your life before that was bad, which is not, I don't think that's the right way to reconstruct your memory.

It's like, I'm different now than I was then. So I've lived multiple lives and I'm sure like, if I look at my life, I've had clear chapter, you know, I'm sure you were in the NFL, like just, you're a different person now. And so it would make sense that you can have a love of your life then, you can have a love of your life now. And that was like, as soon as I got that, it was like, I get it, that was my frame shift.

And so with this particular bad scenario that happened, I had worked really, really hard for something, like very, very hard. And something had gone wrong that was outside of my direct control. Now I can still say everything is under my control to a degree and I can learn from that. It's like a business deal went wrong or lost a lot of money or. Exactly. I lost 15 million bucks. In a day? Yeah. It was a deal. So I mean,

right. And so my, and so Solomon just said this statement to me and he said, And so Solomon just said this statement to me and he said, I know everything that you did and no one else will know. And I approve and my approval is enough. Wow. Period. And so- Whose approval were you wanting in that moment? Right. For it not to go through. Right. Other people's, whatever it is. And so if the ultimate goal of my life, at least as I say it, is to become the best version of me that I can, then it makes sense that to become the best version of me, I have to suffer. I have to go

through hardships. I have to fail. Because no one who literally wins all the time becomes, you don't build character through good times, you build it through hard times. And so it's like, if I want to have strong character, then I have to be willing to pay the price tag, like the $500 Nikes. The price tag for the $500 shoe of a human that I want to be is tough, tough stuff. And so I have put a lot of effort into only judging myself on my actions, not my feelings around the actions or the outcomes. And so I'll give you a micro example. So I am typically a pretty impatient person. I always want things now.

I want it yesterday. Yeah, of course. Right. And I've been slowly over time, people have begun to describe me as a patient person, which, right. Just to surprise Zion, you're like, I don't know about that. And, um, and so a big, huge breakthrough for me was that I could feel impatient and still do the actions that align with patients and then be patient as a result. And I think that that works with, you know what I mean?

Any of this, like you can feel unloving, you can feel angry and still act loving. And it doesn't mean you're unloving. Now that, that, that diverges from a lot of, uh, classical religious, uh, thoughts. So that's, you know, a lot of sin is in the mind, et cetera. So like, I tend to reject that. Um, cause I would rather somebody, uh, really, really be mean to me in their head and do only nice things. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. As a be mean to me in their head and do only nice things. Right, right, right. If I had to pick. Yeah, yeah. Right?

As a person who'd be mean to their head and do mean things. Yeah, yeah, right. That's worse. But then the flip side is, would you rather somebody really love you and then only make your life harder? That's the real one. Right. Right? Because a lot of times, we are that person.

99% of the time, we're that to ourselves. And we tell ourselves, well, I had good intentions. But it's like, but you ended up hurting that person so what matters and we hurt ourselves more than anything and so yeah anyway so that has been my my framework that has served me really well i've heard you say a few different things yeah so far um one of them about you know i'm coming back to the word confidence for some reason because it's a self-belief thing it's a learning how to yeah you know the fear of failure the fear of judgment which is all about yeah it's a self-belief thing. It's a learning how to, you know, the fear of failure, the fear of judgment, which is all about,

it's kind of my framework with, you know, the greatness mindset is learning how to understand and be aware of, do you fear failure, success, or judgment? And they're all kind of intertwined in some way.

And when we can learn that at the root of that is I'm not enough. I'm not enough. And that's why I'm unwilling to take the steps forward to get what I want, to pay the price. So I'm going to wait. I'm going to hesitate. I'm going to be in friction as opposed to in flow. I'm going to not put myself out there.

And I get the specific rewards for doing that. And I pay a certain price and I get those certain rewards. How can we then build confidence if we don't understand the skill of confidence and we've never had it? Okay. I love this. So, um, statement that, that, that has gone incredibly viral, um, is that you don't build confidence by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by giving yourself a stack of undeniable proof that

you are who you say you are. Outwork your self-doubt. And so I wholeheartedly reject the notion that you can beat your chest and have charisma because I believe that confidence without evidence is delusion. Like if someone says, I can build a skyscraper and they can say it as confidently as they want, but if they don't know how to build a skyscraper, they're not building a skyscraper. And the best way to know that you can build a skyscraper is having built one before. Now you might be like, well, what about the first skyscraper? It's like, well, of course, he didn't build a skyscraper first. He probably built a half skyscraper before that, or a house, an apartment building. And before that, like a multi, you know, a fourplex, right? You build to it. And that concept for me is what has allowed me to do well in situations where I feel like I didn't deserve to do well. So for the book launch that we were talking about earlier before we got on, if you have 500,000 people, it's a whole city. And I truly, and people can, you can watch the vlog, I truly wasn't nervous. And it wasn't because

I'm some czar at presenting. It was because I had done the presentation full three times a day for the 30 days leading up to it. So I had done it once in my mind, once out loud and recorded it. And then I would watch the recording and then edit my slides. Every day. Every day. Wow. And so when I got there, the staff was like, I've never seen, I'm sharing this because it, one of the hardest things to do is have context when you don't know anyone else who's

doing what you want to be doing in your life. And I'm not saying I'm the person that people were trying to emulate. I'm just saying that maybe there's an element of that they can take from it, which is when I got there, the staff was like, I've never seen anyone so calm for something so big. And I was, I was like shaking them. I was like, you're good. We're good. It's going to be okay. And, and the reason was, I was like, I've done this before. I know how this presentation goes. I can say it backwards. And so I don't have to worry about what I'm going to say because I have outworked myself out. And until I felt like, of course, this is always how it is. Then you don't feel like... I remember, I'll rewind to the first time Outwork Yourself Doubt came out in my life. So I

gave this presentation to a very small group, 50 people. And a lady in the front row said, you sound so certain. Like, how do you get rid of the imposter syndrome? And I had just given a presentation on how our sales process worked at our brick and mortar gyms. And I said, I don't, I'm not, I didn't, first of all, I was like, I don't really understand the question. I was like, I'm just presenting what is. I was like, there's not really an opinion. You can't be like, Alex, you didn't do that. I was like, I mean, that is what I did. Like, this is the exact process. These are the pages. These are the fob scripts. This is how we schedule this. I was, you know, everything. And so there is nothing to contest. And so if I'm going to make, if I want

to make sure that I'm confident in a situation, then let's define confidence as the percentage likelihood that I do what I say I'm going to do. And so I said, I was going to present this thing and I want to make sure that I control the controllables. And so for me, because Solomon is always watching, because if I got up there, because I do have, at this point I have presented enough times that I could probably still do a good job. And I think many people would be like, that was awesome. And with not a lot of prep. But I would know. Solomon would know.

And he wouldn't be proud of me. And so it's the double-edged sword of like, to make that man proud, the bar is so high for what I have to do that his bar is higher than everyone else's. And so if there are hateful comments or they're whatever it's like your approval isn't the one that I'm going for right and so it shields you because that's like that's why you have earned my approval and that is enough and so like that's been my shield during that process and we can talk about the launch stuff later but there was a key moment, right? Where like, it looked like the world was burning down during the launch. Really? Oh yeah. Well, cause I was a, it was a, it was a faux pitch. So I looked like I was doing a huge stack

and, you know, price anchoring and adding all these bonuses and everyone's like, oh my God, he's a sellout. Like it completely turned. And then I gave it away for free, but for 15 minutes, I could see the chat. This guy's yeah yeah, yeah. It's a sales page. Yeah. And I genuinely felt absolutely at peace about it because one, I knew where we were going. And two, I had done this before. And so me walking through that process is like, it doesn't require confidence. It appears like confidence on the outside, but if everyone saw the amount of hours that went into it, it would seem obvious. And so I think that's the big misnomer is that people are like, he's so confident. Either the guy is confident because he is delusional. And I

mean, that is in the truest sense, like he is claiming he can do something that he has no evidence that he can do, which to me would be delusional. Or he had lots of insecurities or concerns about his performance on XYZ. And then he tried to simulate that experience as many times as he possibly could until he no longer felt afraid. And so if you want to get rid of a fear of spiders, the way you do that is you lock yourself in a room with spiders. And eventually- Either that makes you more terrified or eventually- And eventually you acclimate. Right, eventually. And then you walk out and you're like, I can deal with spiders And eventually you acclimate. Right. Eventually.

And then you walk out and you're like, I can deal with spiders. Or you're traumatized. Over a long enough time horizon, you'd get over it because you'd realize that you didn't die. Yes. You'd wake up from a panic attack and then you'd have another one and then you have another one. And then eventually like, here I am, I'm still here. With the spiders. Yeah. I'm spider boy, right?

You know, like- I am spider man. Yeah. And so that concept is, I think think at the core and the reason that people don't like it as much is because it's not romantic because it sounds cool to hear me say that I did it three times a day for an entire month beforehand, but it's not fun. No. And it takes you, it takes so much time and energy. It's not, it's not enjoyable.

The Rocky cut scene in movies last two minutes. In real life, it might be five years. That's true. And so like, it's really, really cool to watch it for two minutes. But when you're on your seventh month of your business, like not really making money and you quit your job and people are judging you and people are telling you, Hey, you know, maybe let's be a little more realistic. You know, I think, you know, what if, Hey, come where it's nice and warm and safe, right? Like get my approval, right? Like get my approval, come down here. And you're seeing other people succeed or win online. Right. And you don't see the background, right? Like people who see me now in the last 24

months be like, Oh my God, like he just came out of nowhere. It's like, except for the decade before that, where I built multiple, very large companies to gain the credibility to be able to say what I'm saying. Yeah. And I think that's- And the confidence, yeah. From evidence, right? Like that's, that's, that's like, that's everything. What would you rather have?

A unwavering confidence or a strong mindset? I don't know if they're different. Because I think the evidence leads to the confidence and evidence gives you the strong mindset. If someone comes to me and says, Alex, you're a short King. I was like, I'm almost six feet tall. Like I'm not a short King. Like I don't, I don't need, like, I'm not going to be hurt by that because I have evidence that I know that's not true. Right. And so I think that a lot of people's feelings, uh, get triggered because they don't have that backstop of proof.

And so it's like, if you want to be bulletproof, give yourself evidence that you can lean on. So if someone's like, Alex, you don't know anything about business, I'd be like, I totally accept that that's your frame. Here's the evidence that I have. And this is what that marks down on from a percentile basis of like where I'm at versus everyone else I don't think I know more than a lot of people. What if you were just starting out? Yeah, and someone was saying hey, you don't know anything about business or marketing or social media or whatever Relationships and you don't have evidence. I would agree with them and then you just got to take the time to build the evidence

They're totally right and I probably shouldn't talk about business and marketing and all these things because I haven't done it. And that's, in my opinion, the big underlying problem with the majority of the influencer world. So there's the entertainers and then there's the educators. Entertainers do their thing. The educators, I believe that context is the thing that matters most. So like, I'm trying to give a really kosher example here. How do I not say names here? Not calling someone. Yeah. So broad brushstrokes. If somebody gets online and wants to talk about growing your social media following, they're like, hey, you need to do this and add these hashtags or whatever. And you see that

they have 500 followers on Instagram. I don't need to listen to what they're saying to know that they don't know what they're talking about. There was a book that was called How to Market a Book and it had 14 reviews on Amazon. I'd been out for four years. And I started my presentation with that for the book launch. And I said, this is what I hate, is that I have evidence in the real world that nothing inside of this book works. Because if it did work, they would have marketed this book, which they clearly didn't. And so the issue is that there's this big glaring sign above everything of the content that people are making, which is the context that they're making it in. And so they're trying to be a fitness expert, but they

don't really look like they're in shape. They want to be a marriage expert, except most people see them like, no, I don't know if I really want that marriage. And so it's way easier to immediately start giving advice to people. And your advice might be valid, but you have no proof. And proof's the hard part, but proof is the only thing that matters, in my opinion, and especially in the court of the public. Warren Buffett, I don't think he's a particularly charismatic individual, but if he gets up and says, hey guys, you should dollar cost average into the S&P 500 for your investing, somebody might be like, oh my God, his advice is so simple. My advice, Michael Hunton, so much better than Warren Buffett. It's just like, you know what?

And it might be, except you just forgot to build a $100 billion company. He's got proof and credibility. Context. I've thought about this a lot. And I think the reason the context is so important is it actually becomes a faster and easier decision. So as a consumer, if I'm looking at a hundred different information sources, because now information is too much of it. And so we have to segment signal for noise, right? Okay. How can I get all this noise out so I can just hear the stuff I want? Well, the first thing you want to do is go to a trusted source. And so if this is the richest man or top five richest men in the world, and he's giving investing advice, I don't actually have to take each kernel of advice and weigh it and say,

do I agree with this? Do I not agree with this? You can actually take it pretty close to his truth because he has so much authority that you think, okay, I will take this as it is, which is less cognitive effort than listening to a teacher, no offense to teachers, giving investing advice who barely has a million dollars saved up. And again, there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think I can actually almost guarantee that your investing advice will never get as much press as Warren Buffett's. Even if your content and the production and your hashtags and all the other things are perfect, you lack the one thing that matters most, which is proof. Proof, credibility. And that's the part that takes five years or 10 years, because now Ray Dalio can get up here and talk. And Ray doesn't care. I'll tell a quick story to

wrap this Ray Dalio up. I saw this dude on TikTok, a white guy, older dude, and he was giving financial advice. And these TikTok comments were just destroying him. He was talking about how to prepare for an economic thing, whatever. And so people were just savage, right? The guy was Ray Dalio. Really? Because at the end of the day, everyone who doesn't know who you are, doesn't know who you are. And it makes sense that they would be skeptical because many people in the past have been fakers. And so to want to win in the court of public opinion, especially if you're coming up, even with all the proof in the world, it doesn't matter because they don't know yet, which is why you have to know so that you can take it because you know he's worth 38 billion.

If they're like, you don't know what you're talking about, he's like, I'm not bothered by this. Yeah. I don't care about your opinion or your approval. Right. Your opinion is irrelevant because I have facts. Yes. Now, if he was worth $10, it would probably destroy him because they're right. That's true. And I think that's really what a lot of people reject the opinion of like, if I had, you know, massive ears or something, you know, like, I mean, people right now, they're like, ah, Alex is on trend, gear, steroids, whatever. Right. Like that's the, that's the, you know, some mean people right now they're like oh alex is on trend gear steroids whatever right like that's the that's the you know some of the comments that i'll try and what does that mean it's just a it's a steroid okay um trend gear yeah it's like a steroid term yeah yes so there's there's captain america gear and there's iron man gear iron man gears suit captain america

gillian jackson oh gosh i'm like no sorry i know nothing about it i go to the fitness world yeah it's so um so they're saying you're on steroids. Right. Right. And the answer is like, it makes sense that they would say that because I probably have more muscle than most of the people that they know. And most people who have lots of muscle take steroids, especially the professionals. Yeah. So should I be angry with them? No, it makes absolute sense that they would make that conclusion. So why should I be upset by that? I agree with you. I do look like a tixier. Thank you. Would I rather them think I'm... They're like, oh, we know he's natural. Would I rather have the reverse? They said that to me. I'm like, okay.

Yeah. And so anyways, all that to say that the hard work is in accumulating the undeniable stack of evidence that you are who you say you are. And the first person you have to convince is you. Because if you sell you because you know what you did to get here, then everyone else's opinion just doesn't matter. What if you're always trying to seek the approval of someone else as well as you? I think it's a trade-off over time. I mean, I don't want to pretend like I don't seek approval from others. I think it's- But you used to, you know, you talked about in the previous previous episode about you know, really wanted to see the approval of your father and totally vanquish him eventually, right? Should we be seeking the approval of other people or is it more about our future self? I think that the Approval seeking behavior is super difficult to break in general because as children

We are trained to be humans through approval, right? Like you did well, you did not like, and that's how you learn how to be human. To survive. Right, exactly. Like don't cross the street. Yeah. I mean, like there's so many reinforcing events that make it that I will listen to the opinion of others. You get older, you find out that they don't know what they're talking about. But I think that there's the reason that a lot of people who are like really into classical religions is that they just switch who they get approval from.

They get approval from their heavenly father, which you might as well say that Solomon for me is my heavenly father in my own way. I just, you know, characterize the future version of myself that is idealized to ask him for what he thinks I should do. But fundamentally, I don't know if I've necessarily gotten rid of that approval. I've just shifted where I try to get it from. Ah, so you're not seeking from others, like audiences that you don't know if I've necessarily gotten rid of that approval. I've just shifted where I try to get it from.

Ah, so you're not seeking from others, like audiences that you don't know. You're seeking from your future self. That's big. But if you're real about it, if you're really real about it, then I think it's the highest bar because that guy knows whether you cut corners. That guy knows whether you could have done another rewrite of the book. That guy knows if you could have just taken a little bit more time to make this better. That guy knows if you could have prepped for that interview longer than you did. And so if you can

earn that guy's approval, then you walk into the interview completely unshaken because you already won because that guy knows what you did to get there. And so then you can be loosey goosey. Right. You're relaxed and not stressed about it. Perspectives. What else do you think keeps people trapped in, in not reaching their potential? So if we, if we were to, if we're to take the reverse of like what, what guarantees someone's success, right? It would be that they do the things that create success. And so I think we'd have to boil it down to what are the obstacles to taking action? So either you take the wrong actions, which is a knowledge deficit, which is why everyone who's listening

to this, it's like you want to learn, right? Which is great. And just for some fun definitions for everyone here, I define learning as same circumstance or same condition, different behavior. Meaning if I show you a flashcard that's red and then I slap you, if I show you the flashcard again and you duck, then you have learned same condition, new behavior. Intelligence is the rate of learning. So how quickly do you change your behavior with the same condition? So if I show someone a red flashcard and then I slap them and I show them again, they don't move. And I slap them. I show it again and I slap them. It's like, what are you? Right? Their rate of learning is not as fast. And so to the same degree, and this is for, I know this is going to, I'm going to, I'm going to poke my finger in this hole real quick. For everyone who's listening to this, if you continue

to listen and listen and listen and listen, and your conditions externally have not changed and your behaviors have not changed, then it means you have learned nothing. You've learned it, but you haven't applied it. Definition is same condition in your behavior. If the behavior doesn't change, you did not learn. You spent time watching something. Yeah, sure. Heard it, but you haven't learned it. Right. You learn through a change in behavior. And so going back to why do people not change their

behavior? I think that sure, there's lots of fear of punishment. And so you can try and take this apart as saying, okay, I need to increase the reward. I need to decrease the punishment that people associate with taking action. So it's like, okay, the whole first part of this conversation was about decreasing the punishment associated with taking action. right? So it's like, okay, the whole first part of this conversation was about decreasing the punishment associated with taking action. And to a degree, if you can make approval of yourself higher than other people, then that also gives you a reward for taking action. Now there's also an element of ignorance,

which is like, you might take the wrong action, but I can promise you, if you're taking action, you'll figure it out pretty quick. Like that part- This isn't working, okay, let me try this thing. The third piece is environment, which is at the most mental extreme level, if I'm chained to a wall, right?

And someone says, go pick up the soda over there. I might have all the right skills in the world to do it, but I have environmental conditions that prevent me from doing it. And so it's like, I don't have a fear. I have a clear reward. I have the skills to do it, but I have environmental conditions that prevent me from doing it. And so it's like, I don't have a fear. I have a clear reward. I have the skills to do it, but I have environmental conditions that prevent me. And so one of the easiest ways to change behavior is to change your environment.

Like if I, so BF Skinner is a really famous behavioralist and he came on the space and got a lot of flack because he had very controversial views. But he has this quote that is just like, got a lot of flack because it's very controversial views, but he has this quote that is just like, he says, you know, the old saying, if you lead a horse to water, you can, the old saying is you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. He said, well, if I bled the horse and I dehydrated it enough, and I put the water right in front of his mouth, he said, I can variably guarantee that I can make a drink. And the idea there is that if you can control enough of the environment, you can get anyone to do anything, which is to the same degree, we even kind of accept this culturally as like, if someone kills somebody, we say, was there temporary insanity? What were the extraneous conditions that created this behavior?

Now, if there's like, he came home from the military and his wife was in bed with somebody and he just went into a fit of rage, well, that was a condition. Now, we then say the guy who premeditated, that's a bad guy. Then you zoom out a little bit more and you're like, well, what conditions created that behavior? Right. So these conditions are excusable and these conditions aren't, which gets into a whole different argument. But the point is, is that if you want to change your behavior, the strongest way to do it

is to simply change your environment. Because you can have huge leaps and bounds in how much your behavior changes without even having to get better. Which is why one of the best ways to get good at anything is to join a team of people who are excellent at that thing. And you know this from the sports world. If you can join a championship team, you automatically adopt the cultural norms, the rules of behavior of that group. And you either get assimilated or you get rejected if the culture is strong enough, if it's a championship team. And so that is the fact that now if you get into that team and all of a sudden your game just levels up five years faster than it would otherwise, is it because you've inherently changed or because you changed your environment?

And so I think that that is the absolute shortcut, the cheat code to getting what you want is changing everything around you. So if everybody around you is poor, don't listen to them about how to get rich. And don't seek their approval for your behavior because everything that they're going to approve of is keeping you where you're at. And so I think if you have enough money to leave home, then do so. If you can't leave the town you're in, then move across town. Just go 30 minutes away. Just go on the other side of town. Make it more convenient to do the things that you want to do and make it less convenient to hang out with the people and do the stuff that you don't want to be doing. And if you do enough

of those, make it easier, make it harder trade-offs, eventually you start doing more of the stuff that you want to do and less the stuff you don't. And that compounds. And I think a lot of times that is a lot easier than trying to willpower your way through anything because willpower is finite. But if you can change the environment, it actually makes it easier. So you're actually not using any willpower. If there is no ice cream in the freezer and you have to get in your car to then go somewhere to get the... It's a lot... It's harder. It's a bigger thing. So it's like, how can I make it as inconvenient as possible to do the things that I don't want to do? That I know are going to

influence me to do bad things as well. Just got to delete Postmates next. And so that's like the triangle. If I was looking at somebody who like, why are you not doing what you want to do? What's the triangle again? You fear some sort of punishment, which we can reframe as failure isn't failure, only your fear of judgment upon failure is the thing that you're afraid of. You can reframe reward as like, I want to get my own approval rather than some external outcome. Because if you knock on a hundred doors and you don't make a sale and you're getting into solar sales, now you might've gotten rid of the fear of rejection, but you haven't gotten the win yet. And you're like, oh, maybe this isn't for me.

And so if you can change what you're measuring yourself on to the activities rather than to the outcome, you say, I'm the type of person who will continue to do without seeing the result of my doing, and the world will belong to you. Because there's only a handful of people who can keep working and keep doing without seeing the external benefit. And those are the people who can beat everyone. And they win. Every time. They win. And then the third piece is the environment. Environment. So if I can increase the reward, which you can do through reframing it and redefining what you reward yourself by, the activities and the controllables. If you decrease the punishment of the things that you're afraid of and reframe that punishment as, what if it wasn't a problem to begin with?

What if you agree with them that you don't have evidence? They're right. That's okay. And you get out of the environment that continues to shape your behavior in the direction you don't want. You do those three things, the likely that you'll be able to change your behavior is very high. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over

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over at greatness.com slash newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.