Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Leila Hormozi: The Leadership Mindset That Changes How You Operate in Business and Life | Leadership | YAPClassic

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's episode is sponsored in part by Shopify Quo, Indeed, AT&T business, prolon, cash shop, and Northwest registered agent. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business. Start your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash profiting. Quo is an AI-powered phone system that brings your calls, texts, and contacts together in one place. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash profiting. Indeed helps you attract interview and hire all in one place. Get a $75-sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast.

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Starting point is 00:02:24 from building discipline and hiring great people to giving honest feedback and raising your standards. Earlier this week, we talked about building a business that gives you freedom, and Layla shows us that freedom does not come from vibes. It comes from leadership. So listen in and learn from the one and only, Layla Hermosey. So Layla, when we look at personalities as adults, we can often drive the reasoning behind our strongest personality traits from our childhood. We can often see the experiences that we had sort of shape us as we're an adult.

Starting point is 00:02:55 So you are an extraordinary example of an entrepreneur. So I'd love to understand what were your experiences growing up? How do you think they shaped you as the entrepreneur that you are today? Yeah. You know, I think it's experiences and also lack of experiences, right? And so if I look at what I had as a child and what I didn't have as a child, which I'm really grateful for because it's made me who I am today, I didn't have a very present mother figure after a certain point in my life.

Starting point is 00:03:24 My parents got divorced when I was young. they got divorced. My mother kind of went off the rails, you know, into alcohol and drugs and just not down a good path. And I still continued to live with her during that time because when my parents were married, my dad and my mom, like, my dad was always at work. And so I wasn't really close with him. And so when the divorce came, it was kind of like, you're going to live with mom because she was a great mom up until that point in my life.

Starting point is 00:03:48 But at that point, a shift took. So my sister actually at that point, it was six years older than me, left the house. It was time for her to go to college. My dad left because they were getting divorced, and so it was me and my mom. Then her dad died, and that really set her off. And so that was when she went down and not great trajectory into alcohol. And I witnessed it as a young kid. And so there was quite a bit of like a lack of leadership because I would go to my dad's, I think, once every two weeks in the beginning.

Starting point is 00:04:17 But I hid what was going on from my dad because I was afraid that I would have to go live with him. And at that point, I didn't really have a relationship, which is crazy to say because now I'm so close with my dad. He's amazing. But at that point, we didn't have the closest relationship. And I was a kid, and I just wanted to be near my mom, right? And so she kind of continued down this spiral with alcohol, and I, you know, tried to, I think that honestly what happened was that I became the parent in the household at a very young age. And so she kind of turned into or regressed into acting more like a child. And so I naturally turned into acting more like an adult, like I would clean the house. I would take care of the animals because we had like a ton of animals at that point in time.

Starting point is 00:04:57 I would take out the trash. I would make sure there was food. Like I would take care of myself. So like I would go to my friend's houses. I would get food there. Like I would make sure like I was taking care of. I got my homework done on my own. I went to bed on time.

Starting point is 00:05:07 Like I learned it at a really young age. You know, I think that was between the ages of, uh, with all that happening. I want to say between nine and then it ended when I was 15. So, you know, it was a lot of, you know, her not coming home, being gone for days on and when she was home, being drunk and not present, and me having to, during that time, learn to be an adult, right? And so I think it really accelerated that process because I actually don't think that I would be who I am today

Starting point is 00:05:37 if my parents had stayed together. Wow. Like, I think both of them were very much, like, they came from the generation that became helicopter parents. And so, like, I think that if they had stayed together, I probably would have been, I don't know if I can say bad words on the pocket. I would have been not, I would have been a pussy. honestly it's like what I think that's like what comes to mind. I'm like I think I just would have been

Starting point is 00:05:55 kind of like really like sheltered my whole life. And so I'm really grateful that it happened because what it inspired within me was a motivation that I don't think I otherwise would have had. And I'll tell you the moment that I had this happen was I was sitting in the office of my my childhood home. And my mom, it was like 3 a.m. She had told me she was going to be home multiple days in a row, wasn't home. It's 3 a.m. I'm calling her. I'm like, are you dead? Like just tell me live, right? And at that point, it was just like, I just want to make sure she was still live. That was all it was. And I was sitting there and I called her like 10 times in a row. And I remember I put down the phone. I was like, this woman's not going to answer.

Starting point is 00:06:34 I was like, and I'm not going to change this woman. And I'm not going to change this situation. And like, I get chills every time. I think I'm like 10 years old at this point. Wow. And I remember thinking to myself, there's nothing I can do to change my mom. I can't change my mom. But I can't change my current situation and my life. And in that moment, I remember making a choice, which was, one, the rest of my life will make up for how shitty this is. Like, not having, feeling like you have a parent figure, right? Like watching them, like, degrade their lives, like go down the drain.

Starting point is 00:07:05 It sucked. And I was always stressed and it felt like it was living in a constant state of fear. And so I remember thinking, like, I have to make up for this later on. And I want to be an inspiration to others who are in similar situations. And I don't know where that came from, but it was just the first thought that popped into my mind. And then the second thought that came with that was, I will no longer sacrifice my life for hers. Because what I was doing at that point was my whole life revolved around making sure my mom was still alive, making sure that she wasn't drinking too much, hiding the bottles, pouring them out, like doing all that.

Starting point is 00:07:37 And I realized that I couldn't do that anymore. And so within, I think, a matter of months, she actually, you know, kind of went even further and further down. And I ended up calling the police one day. They came. And that was the last time I ever lived with my mother. I went to go live with my dad after that. So that was after about five or six years of living with just her in that condition. And it was actually really weird because going to live with my dad was very uncomfortable.

Starting point is 00:08:08 And the reason it was uncomfortable is because I had parents. And I felt like for those years that I was living with her, you know, I would see my dad once every two weeks for a day or two. but like I felt like this huge portion of my childhood, I didn't have any guides. I didn't have any parents. I didn't have anyone watching over me in the sense that, you know, I didn't feel supported. And so it was a very tough transition. I think I rebelled a ton. It took me into a very angry place. I had a lot of anger for the fact that, one, I felt like I knew how to parent and lead myself, but now I had to be in this household where I had siblings who I didn't really know well. They were my steps siblings, right? Not like they're bad or anything. They're just, you know,

Starting point is 00:08:47 around them. I'm the youngest also, so everyone treats me like a kid. And I'm thinking to myself, I've been taking care of myself for the last five fucking years, you know? And so it felt very much, like, in reverse, like these things should have happened in the opposite order. Yeah. And so it turned me into a very angry teenager. You know, I started kind of going down the path of just rebelling against anything my dad wanted me to do. You know, I'd always been, despite everything with my mother, like a very good student. I still was a very good friend. I was like a very, I had a lot of integrity and I kind of started going the opposite direction. You know, I started drinking. I started sneaking out. I started doing a lot of stuff, but it was intermittent because that was during high

Starting point is 00:09:24 school. And there's only so much you can do. Yeah. Right. And so I think that it kind of, you know, snowballed when I got into college because I remember that right after I graduated high school, the feeling of freedom I had, you know, being like, I now don't have authority anymore over me. And still having this intense anger inside of me and also anxiety going into college and it just manifested in, you know, first getting invited to parties and then like going and drinking too much. And then going to parties, not just on the weekends, but on weeknights. And then it was like, you're partying all the time and you're drinking all the time. And that led to me getting arrested six times in 18 months. And people always ask, what did you get arrested for? I'm like literally just all alcohol. It's all

Starting point is 00:10:08 alcohol related. And so it put me in a really dark spot, you know, because I'd spent the better part of my life up until then, being this almost like hero to my mom, being like the parent figure. And then it was like the moment that, you know, I got out of the house and I went to college and I had access to all these things, it was like 18 months of just ruining my body and myself

Starting point is 00:10:32 and, you know, losing a lot of respect for myself during that time. Yeah. And it got to a point where, you know, there was an incident where I was, I think, I passed out on someone's like deck and the police found me. And they took me to my dad's house. And I remember I woke up in my dad's house and I was like, oh, fuck. You know, like, what did I do?

Starting point is 00:10:56 I was not here. Right. I was living on my own at this point. And I was like, I'm at my dad's house right now. And I don't remember what happened. I was like, this is not good. And I came downstairs and my dad was like almost in tears. And he sat me down.

Starting point is 00:11:07 He was like, I'm not going to try and change you. And I'm not going to try and tell you you shouldn't do these things. like you're out on your own now. He's like, but I'm just telling you, like, I think that you could kill yourself if you continue with this behavior. And that was really hard to hear from my dad, who I have so much respect for. And, you know, he's such a good person. He's always tried to be the best parent possible. And it was in that moment that it was almost like a flash came in. And I was like, who was that little girl? Like, remember that little girl that was sitting in the office with her, you know, of her mom's house who just wanted to be a better version of herself, who just

Starting point is 00:11:43 wanted to be an inspiration to others. And all of that almost seemed to like flood back into me. And it fled back again, I think in the form of anger, which again, it's interesting, but it's a theme you'll see here. I was angry at myself. But I think that, and I think a lot of people will say, oh, you don't want to be angry with you. It was a very useful emotion for me at that time because I was angry of where I let myself go, that I'm so smart and knew better and still went down that path. And I use that anger to fuel myself to lose 85 pounds, to get good grades in college, to, you know, start pursuing, you know, self-development, personal development outside of that, you know, to start pursuing mentors. And that was really what propelled me to turn my life around

Starting point is 00:12:26 was, you know, that moment sitting there with my dad feeling just like, honestly, like a piece of shit. Yeah. Like I hate saying that, but I just felt like, I felt like a dirt bad. Like, I just felt so bad about myself. And I was like, I have to see out what I said I would do when I was younger. I want to become that person. And this doesn't have to be the end. Like, I was like, I'm young. You know, at that point, I'm 19. I'm like, I can turn this around. I did all that in 18 months. Imagine how fast I can go in the opposite. And so it really was that. It was channeling some of the same emotions to go in the opposite direction. And that was what really propelled me to change my life and really, you know, I think I have a strong focus on behavior change because I've done it

Starting point is 00:13:09 so much for myself. Yeah. And I think a lot of the reason I'm drawn towards leadership is because I think that I have learned to lead myself over the years. And I've also learned to lead myself out of a bad spot. And I think that a lot of people, especially nowadays with social media, nobody wants to talk about, you know, their setbacks. And if they just want to show that they're perfect and they don't want to show that they've fucked up. And I want to share that I've fucked up. And you can still come out the other side. Like, there's still time. 100%. I mean, there's so many lessons to be learned in this story. And I also was like party aunt. Me and you are both of Middle Eastern descent. We're locked up in high school, right? Like, they don't let us date do any.

Starting point is 00:13:52 I mean, for me, at least, like I was locked up during high school. When I went to college, I was in party mode. But like you, I ended up turning it around when I was like 19 and kind of getting back on track. And it's not too late. And I, like I mentioned to you, we really started recording. Most of my listeners are male, right? They're young male listeners. And I had Scott Galloway on the show, who's a New York,

Starting point is 00:14:14 NYU Stern professor, best-selling author, huge podcaster. And he always talks about men are in trouble right now, young men. And he told me some troubling statistics. He believes young men are struggling to compete

Starting point is 00:14:25 because women and men now have an equal playing field in terms of education and business. So soon two women will graduate college for every one man, male earnings are declining. It's leading to lower marriage rates, lots of other problems. And in general, I feel, because my young male listeners reach out to me and DM me and send me voice notes all the time

Starting point is 00:14:46 about how they're so unmotivated, they're unfocused, they can't stop partying, they're playing too many video games, they're not, you know, joining communities, and they're just lost, you know. And I feel like this point in your life, you did turn it around. And you did, you know, go on the, you know, go on this self-development journey. And so I really want it to unpack what you actually did to get yourself out of this party mode and to turn things around. Yeah, fam, I built an app in 15 minutes. And before you ask, I didn't suddenly become a software engineer. In fact, I've never written a line of code in my life. But now I'm turning out apps like it's my day job. And that's because I learned how to do it through Mindstone.

Starting point is 00:15:33 It's an AI transformation company that helps close the gap between having access to AI and actually getting value from it. So this all started when I attended their breakthrough AI weekend. I learned how to build apps. And I also learned about their platform rebel, which basically acts as a second brain. And it actually helps you use AI in a way that completely transforms the way that you do your work. It changed my life. I left that weekend thinking that I have to roll out Mindstone to my entire team. And we did.

Starting point is 00:16:00 So we started with the four-week AI competency. program. It's online. You don't need code. It's made for non-technical professionals. And it's really affordable. And so I sent 60 people on my team to take this training. And with that training, you get access to this platform called Rebel, where you can ingest your email, your Slack messages, your fireflies, all your drive resources. And then you can basically use it as a coach, as a tool, as a thought partner every day. Before I hop on a meeting, I ask Rebel, hey, what do I need to know for this meeting? What do I need to bring up? And it's a coach. And it's a team, will scan Slack and even send me things that I didn't realize what was going on in my company.

Starting point is 00:16:37 You can create skills, which is create a process that might have taken two or three people and going into different apps and it can do that on your behalf. It is amazing what you can do with this platform. It has drastically improved our efficiency at Yap Media so much so that we're pausing, hiring on a lot of roles. I recommend you start with their four-week AI competency program. You can get access and get 10% off at experience. dot com slash yap. That's experience.

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Starting point is 00:20:15 I, you know, I started listening to Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn, which now it's kind of funny. I think they're probably outdated at this point, and the younger generation doesn't listen to them. But I learned a lot from them. And one of the first things was, what am I consuming and who am I hanging out with? And so the first thing that I did was I stopped watching Netflix. I remember I like got rid of my subscription. I started watching YouTube. I started watching like there was different like platforms at that point of online videos.

Starting point is 00:20:42 I started watching Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn. I started listening to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I started pouring myself into education rather than entertainment. Right? That was the first thing that I did. And that was a swap I made in my head. I was like, no more entertainment, only education. For now this season.

Starting point is 00:20:57 Does that mean I can't watch an episode of something later on? No. But for right now, I've had so much more. momentum in the wrong direction, I need to get momentum in the right direction, right? inertia is real. And so I was like, I need to turn this around immediately. So I went all in on self-development in terms of Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, rich dad, poor dad. So it was a lot of behavioral change, mindset, and even money beliefs, right? Because I felt like I didn't have the best beliefs around money. The second thing I did was looking at all the people I was hanging out with and really doing an audit of,

Starting point is 00:21:29 do these people want me to succeed or are they feeding the bad habits I have today? Not because they're toxic. I hate that word. I'm like when people are toxic, I'm like, you step some boundaries. We're adults, right? Like, just set boundaries. And so I was like, here's my new boundaries. Some of these people I'm not friends with. Some of these people I see once a month. Some of these people I only talk on the phone to. And I wrote it down in my notebook, what I was going to do with all of my friends. And I don't even think I've told any of them that to this day. And a lot of them probably don't have the best things to say because I kind of disappeared from the face of the earth for a while. But I knew that's what I needed to do because I just knew that

Starting point is 00:22:02 I'm such a, at that point, I was such a people pleaser. Like I wanted to, it's almost like, you want to excel in any theater. I also wanted to be the biggest partier that could drink the most. That was the coolest. That could throw the biggest parties. And so it's like, I needed to channel that somewhere else. I need to get around people who didn't think that that was something that would drive status, but instead thought that was something like you looked down upon. Right. And so then I started saying, okay, who are the people that I want to get around? I realized I didn't have any at that point. There was nobody in my inner circle that I felt like would contribute to my growth. And so this was while I was in college, right? I was like, I have to move. Like I can't right now. I'm going to graduate. But I set my eyes on it. I was like, I'm moving to California. I remember I decided it one night when my friends all went to the bar and I went with them sober. And I was like, I'm so fucking over this. I was trying to still do some things with them. It was like once a month I'd go out and I'd be the D.D. or whatever.

Starting point is 00:23:00 But I was like, I hate this. I would rather be trying. I would rather be doing something that was driving me towards my goals, not doing something just to like maintain friendships that are pretty much just surface level now. And so it was that night. I remember I told my friends, I said, you guys, I'm moving to California after I graduate.

Starting point is 00:23:15 And they were like, what are you talking about? I was like, yeah, I just decided. I like decided in that moment. And then I told everybody that night, I told everyone, I'm moving to California after I graduate. I'm moving to California after I graduate. And then that was it. And so after I graduated, that was the biggest, that was one of the biggest, if not the most,

Starting point is 00:23:32 like the unlock for my personal growth was I moved all the way across the country when I didn't know anybody. I didn't really have a plan. I didn't have anything over there waiting for me. And I didn't know how I was going to make money or how I was going to make it work. And I'm like a young woman, right? Like it's not like I'm like, you know, I'm 20. When I went over there, I think I was what, 21?

Starting point is 00:23:52 And that was what stirred up so much for me because, you know, I think a lot of people like, tell me the books that you read. Tell me the stuff. What I did was I put myself in a situation where my back was against the wall. And I was insanely uncomfortable, like to the point where like when I would move there, I remember on a weekly basis having panic attacks. I didn't know anybody. I didn't have any support system.

Starting point is 00:24:14 I didn't know how I was going to make money. I mean, it was terrifying. And not to mention, I bought or I signed a lease for an apartment online that ended up being like in the ghetto with like hard wire on the fence and shit. So I get there and I'm like, you know what I mean? And so it was a really unsettling experience. And I quickly learned, you know, that I had to make it work for myself.

Starting point is 00:24:38 Nobody could do it for me. No amount of affirmations and mindset work was going to go do the work. And I think that that is where a lot of people go wrong is it's great to have positive things you say to yourself. It's important in much of a sense that you talk to yourself like you're your best friend. Yes. But if you take no action, none of that matters. And I think that a lot of the times nowadays, people are spending so much time in their heads. That's what I feel like this generation is doing. They spend more time in their heads than they do taking action. Feelings and beliefs can follow the action. If you can just get yourself to take action when you are scared shitless, you will change your

Starting point is 00:25:15 thoughts and beliefs. You can act despite not believing it's going to work. And that is exactly what I did. I didn't know how I was going to make it work. You know, and then I went and I applied and I worked at, I applied to every gym within walking distance of my apartment. And I got, except to all of them, but I was like, they're like, oh, you have a three month training program. You get paid like $9 an hour. And I was like, fuck no, I'm not going to not be able to pay my rent.

Starting point is 00:25:36 So I went to the only gym that was like, you can make money immediately, which was 24 hour fitness. And that was where I learned how to sell. But then you have to understand, I went there, having only knowledge of like how to lose weight, nutrition, whatever I learned in college that didn't really matter. I go there and they're like, you need to go sell some shit if you want to make money. Like, you go get your own clients.

Starting point is 00:25:54 And I was like, oh shit. Again, my back's against the wall. I'm like, what do I do? Like, I'm not a salesperson. I never identified as a salesperson. I was like, the last thing. It kind of disgusted me even the word. And I was like, fuck, I have to.

Starting point is 00:26:08 What else am I going to do? And I remember the first time that I approached someone at the gym, I was terrified. And I went up to this woman. They were like, go talk to people on the elliptical. on the gyms that you see not doing things right, whatever. Go try to get them to your clients. And I went up to this woman, I was like, excuse me. And she was like, she looks at me, she stops.

Starting point is 00:26:27 She goes, fuck off. And that was my first experience. There's just rejection from day one. And so it was really hard. But that feeling of stress and anxiety, I channeled into learning. I was like, I cannot, I won't, no amount of thinking is going to get me out of the situation. I need to learn these skills and I need to become this different person in order to get out of this situation. And so I took all that anxiety and all that stress, all that frenetic

Starting point is 00:26:59 energy that I had and I poured it into learning. I poured it into learning sales. I poured it into learning how to retain customers. I poured it into learning how to become a teammate because I didn't even know how to do that. Right. And that was when I spent a lot of my time doing. And so I think that a lot of the times when people are asking about self-development and, you know, personal development, I think that there's a piece missing, which is a lot of people believe that you have to have, you have to think a certain way and you have to believe something before you do it. And that's just never been the case of my life. If you had told me, like, did you believe you were going to make all this money by the age of the fuck no?

Starting point is 00:27:34 Like, no. And then they're like, do you believe the acquisition.com is going to become a billion? No. But I'm doing it because I know logically that it makes sense and I'm capable. Yeah. Does that make sense? 100%. It's like this small, consistent action taking action.

Starting point is 00:27:50 And I say something really similar. And I say it when it's when it comes to rejection. I've been rejected a lot of times. Like I almost had a show on MTV. I got rejected. I almost was a host on Hot 97. I got rejected. It's serious like some.

Starting point is 00:28:02 And I always say the reason how I like became successful is I just every time I got rejected, I just channeled it until into learning something new. Just learning a new skill and getting amazing at it, you know? And that's what I did every time. And it sounds very similar to what you're saying. So let's move on to your sales skills because you said that you knew nothing about sales when you went to California,

Starting point is 00:28:22 but you ended up being the top selling personal trainer in your region, I think within a year, right? If you didn't have any sales experience previously, you said you got it from experience, I guess what would you say your top things that you learned as a salesperson during that time was because now you've carried that skill and used it in multiple ways throughout your career?

Starting point is 00:28:42 Yeah. I think that there's two things. Because, you know, Alex and I, when we met, for example, like, we both had sales aptitude, but we sell completely differently. And I know that because we sold side by side for a year with each other. And our conversation sound completely different. And we both had, like, around the same closing rate. I can sell things, and most people can sell things that they believe in, right?

Starting point is 00:29:06 And so I think that a lot of times people are trying to, like, if you look at the mechanics of sales, we're trying to fake belief. Like salespeople, sales training is often faking. belief in the product. When I think I found a product that I believed in, which was personal training, nutrition, losing weight. Like, I truly believed in that. And that was the first thing. And that's why I advise a lot of sales people that reach out to me. They're like, I just, I'm not getting it. I'm like, do you believe in the product? And they're like fundamentally no. I'm actually, you know, it's like a vegan selling meat or something. Like it fundamentally doesn't match with

Starting point is 00:29:39 their belief systems. The first step is that you have to make sure that you are being integrous, which means like what you think, what you say and what you do are all aligned. And so for me, the one thing that I realized by speaking with different people, especially, I think my boss at that time, he was a sales manager, he was really good. He was like, Layla, do you believe in this? And I was like, absolutely. He's like, well, then why do you not feel convicted to try and get people to buy it? And that was the unlock for me was if you believe in something and you really know it's the right

Starting point is 00:30:06 option and the best option for somebody, I'm obligated to try and get them to buy it. Because I'm thinking, I'm like, what other options do they have? not many right like this is the way that actually has to go it's the hardest and it's the most expensive but it's definitely the best and so i think that it was the first one is having having integrity about the product that you're selling which sounds super cheesy it's not tactical at all but a lot of people are very misaligned you'd be surprised about people that message me and they say i'm just not selling and then i say do you even believe in the thing they switch jobs and then they're the top closer and that was the first thing for me was i had done it myself i had lost all the way i had seen how it changed

Starting point is 00:30:43 my life. It's not hard to preach that to other people. It's not hard to try and sell someone that because I would if it wasn't paid. Yeah. Right? Yeah, you need that conviction. Yeah, you need that conviction so you have the confidence when you're selling. Otherwise, people can just see right through you. A hundred percent. And if you really believe in it, the conviction comes naturally. You don't have to fake it. But the second thing that I did learn that was a skill was having the right frame for the conversation. Because a lot of people who really believe in a product, are still people-pleasing while they're trying to sell. And so because they're trying to get that person to like them

Starting point is 00:31:20 rather than trying to get that person to buy or to make a decision, that's what they're really doing, right? They want the person to like them more than they want the person to buy or make a decision. And so they're trying to tiptoe around it. I had to make that frame shift. And I realized I have to be the authority. Just like, you know, if someone's the leader in a business, you're not going to be liked all the time.

Starting point is 00:31:39 It's important, though, that you're able to positively influence people in the business. Does that mean they're always going to like you for it? No, but will they be better for it? Yes. It's the same in sales. And so I had to learn how develop more confidence and more of an authoritative frame within myself, how I spoke, how I led, how I led the conversation. I didn't let them lead the conversation. That was the biggest unlock for me, was realizing that I have to be the one leading them through the conversation. I'm the authority in this conversation. And I should be because I actually give a shit. Yeah. Like, who better to be an authority than someone who actually cares about the person on the other

Starting point is 00:32:11 side. Yeah. So it's like telling them, telling them something like the truth, even though it hurts and it's not going to make you the most liked person, but it's going to help them accomplish their goal. I can't tell. I mean, a man could never say this to a woman during consultation. But the amount times I said, when's the last time you had sex with the lights on to a woman? Because I knew she didn't because I wouldn't have either when I was fat? Nobody wants to see that. You don't want to see it yourself. I was like, when's the last time that you like put on clothing in front of a mirror? because they don't. If someone's out of a weight, they don't even look in a mirror.

Starting point is 00:32:44 So it's those questions that though they hurt and they don't feel good in the moment, I was like, that is what's going to make someone. That's what's going to get someone to make a decision that's going to better their life. And I think the difference between manipulation and influence is manipulation is getting someone to do something that's detrimental to themselves, whereas influence is getting someone to do something that is beneficial for themselves and in line with their own personal goals and autonomy. And that's what I, that was really the one piece that I needed to succeed in sales.

Starting point is 00:33:09 was understanding that I was the authority. And I had all the evidence to, you know, back that I should be the authority. And I also had the give a shit where it made sense to me to be. Yeah. Makes total sense. Great advice. Yeah, bam, I'll admit it. The first time I heard somebody explain Bitcoin, I felt like I had accidentally walked into a finance bro TED Talk.

Starting point is 00:33:33 Charts everywhere, acronyms flying around. One guy saying decentralized, like it was a personality trait. I nodded along and understood absolutely nothing. And then I just didn't touch it. I didn't invest in Bitcoin for years. But here's what I've learned in business. Sometimes things are not actually complicated. They're just explained in the most complicated way possible.

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Starting point is 00:34:21 Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner, Bitcoin services provided by Block Incorporated brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.com slash legal slash podcast. So let's talk about your agenda at one point to find a man, right? I heard a story. I've heard you say the story that you were doing a Bumble Date every single weekend because you realized that dating was sort of a volume game.

Starting point is 00:34:51 And then you met Alex. So I'd love to hear that story. Yeah. So I'll tell you how it started, which was I actually worked at 24. And my boss at that time, who was a sales manager, he was like, I told him, I was like, I got on, you know, Tinder and Bumble. I was like, Tinder's disgusting, but Bumble seems fine. And he was, I remember I said, like, you know, I'm going to try and go on a date every

Starting point is 00:35:12 couple of weeks, something, something. And he said, you know, Layla, he's like, I think dating is a lot like sales. I was like, how? He's like, well, I think it's a numbers game. Like, think about how many consults you have to have with somebody in order to get a client? I was like, yeah. He's like, well, how many dates do you think you have to go on in order to get somebody to be a boyfriend, maybe even more?

Starting point is 00:35:29 I was like, interesting. And he's like, and I remember he said this. He's like, don't you think that dating would be very good practice for sales? And I was like, how so? He's like, well, you're meeting strangers. You're having to basically sell yourself to them. And you're in uncomfortable situations. And I was like, huh.

Starting point is 00:35:43 So he essentially sold me on this concept. And so I said, okay, well, how do I work leads right now in my sales job? Okay, I'm just going to do that but for dating, which was, you know, I had a time set aside every day. Or it was like for an hour, I called all the leads and whatever, maybe more than an hour. And I would bang the phones. And so I said, okay, what can I commit to for date? I have my lunch break every day. It's minimum 30 minutes.

Starting point is 00:36:09 I will just literally swipe and do nothing but swipe while I eat for 30 minutes. And so that was what I did. And that was what I promised myself. I said, my goal is to get a date a week if I swipe for 30 minutes. And so that's what I did. And I started going on dates and a lot of them sucked. Like I had one guy try and sneak me into a movie theater, not telling me because he didn't want to pay. I had like another guy who took me to a dinner and then told me he wished I wouldn't talk.

Starting point is 00:36:34 I mean, like, I had so many bad dates. The difference was that I didn't let it discourage me from going on another one. And so I talked to a lot of women now, and they asked me about this. And they're like, listen, Layla, I did that for three months. I'm like, girl, I did that for 18 months. Like, get back to me when you've swiped every day for 30 minutes, gone on 60 dates, and then tell me what you think. And so I think that it really is, you know, just like you're looking for the ideal client. if you're in sales.

Starting point is 00:37:07 Dating is the same way, which is, you know, you have your criteria of what you're looking for and you're going on dates trying to find it. And it's just a funnel that you're trying to continue to work through and through and through. And so, honestly, I just took the same sales learnings that I had. I applied them to dating. And I just didn't give up. You know, I refused.

Starting point is 00:37:23 I'm like, I had enough confidence in myself at the time that I was like, there's somebody out there for me. Like, I know I'm a little weird and I'm a little different. You know, like, I really like business. I really like working. But I was like, I will event. eventually find someone. And so I think having that, you know, knowing that that was the case and understanding that it was just a numbers game made it much easier to get through the emotional

Starting point is 00:37:43 up and downs because I think that if dating is just an emotional game for you, then you're going to stop. Because the moment you have a bad date, you're like, oh, there's no boys out there for me. I'm like, shut the fuck up. Like, you're saying half the population sucks. Please, like, I hate when people say it. All men are horrible. I'm like, this is called cognitive bias. You are overgeneralizing. Your brain is saying I had one bad boyfriend now all men are bad. That's not true at all. And then the second piece is understanding that I think a lot of people, what they do is they go on a few dates. Maybe they get in with a few people and maybe they date somebody for like a month or two and then they break up.

Starting point is 00:38:15 And then they take the same amount of time that they dated the person to get over the person. And I think that a lot of that comes from social stigma of, oh, it takes you, you know, half the amount of time that you dated someone to get over them. I'm like, you know the best way to get over somebody to go on another date? Like, what do you do when you lose a client? You go get another client. Like, I just, I refuse to believe a lot of the things that society tells us. So I was like, am I actually upset about this person who I dated for eight weeks? No.

Starting point is 00:38:45 But I think I'm supposed to be upset. And I think that's what a lot of people do. And I think the reason I was able to go through very quickly and find somebody is because I didn't let that stuff stop me or drag me down or make the process take longer. Yeah. So smart. And I have to say, Layla, I love your personality. You are so funny. and just give such good advice.

Starting point is 00:39:03 I love talking to you. I think the audience is going to love this conversation. So you met Alex, right? Talk to us about that first date. What was he like? And what did you see in him? I mean, you had all these suitors and you decided on Alex. Honestly, it was tough because, like, I'll be really real.

Starting point is 00:39:20 And you've probably had this too or run into this as a woman who's ambitious. A lot of guys didn't like that. Yeah, 100%. A lot of men just wanted me to be a housewife. They wanted to have kids very soon and all these things. And I was like, that's just not in the cards for me. They think they want it. And then they realized like, oh, she's going to be more successful than me.

Starting point is 00:39:39 I don't know if I want it after. 100%. Yeah. So if it wasn't, oh, I don't want you to do this thing. It was, oh, I'll try and suppress you so I'm better than you. Yep. Which, listen, I don't have anything against people who do that. I just don't want to be in a relationship with them.

Starting point is 00:39:54 So when I met Alex, it was interesting because we matched on Bumble. and then Alex, I messaged him because it had to be the girl. I don't even remember what I said. I was so bad. I was like, hey, what's up? Like, I never said anything cool. I was kind of nerdy. So I was like, hey, you know, how's it going or something like that?

Starting point is 00:40:11 And he messaged me. He was like, fuck this app. Let's get off this app. Can I call you? And I was like, I like that. Like somebody who's like serious about this who takes it like literally. So we get on the phone. I remember the first thing he said.

Starting point is 00:40:23 He was like, listen, he's like, this is basically like a first date. So what we're doing right now is we can have our first date now on the phone. and then later when we actually have a first date, we don't need to talk about all this stuff because we ever talk about it. It'll be a base of our second date. I was like, this guy's efficient, which I liked, because that was kind of how I was running it as well.

Starting point is 00:40:40 So I was like, this is a good match. And I remember feeling like, I don't really know. Like this guy's kind of like blunt to the point harsh. He's not really flirty, but I appreciated it. And so we meet for Froyo for our first date because it's low commitment so we could leave if we didn't like each other. That was the agreement. And we go and I'm sitting there waiting for him and he comes up from behind me.

Starting point is 00:41:04 And I remember he was like, okay, like not smiling. And I was like, what is this guy not even smiling at me? Turns out, so what some people don't know is I have an entire back piece. And I was wearing a tank top dress. And he saw I have angel wings on my back when I was 18 and getting drunk. And he saw them and I guess like he really doesn't like tattoos. And so for the first like 15 minutes of the. date. He just didn't even look at me. Like we go in line for Froyo. He's not really looking,

Starting point is 00:41:33 making eye contact. I'm like not knowing what's going on. And then finally we sit down, we start talking and, you know, I just start asking about his business because he owned some gyms at the time. And then it was like he lit up. And then from that point on, the conversation, we talked for, I think, four and a half hours. We went on a walk. Walk like, I don't even know how many miles. It was insane. And by the end of it, I just remember thinking, like the one thought I had was like, I just want to keep talking to him. Like, I don't even care if we're dating or not. I just, like, finally feel like I found somebody who sees reality the same way as me. I felt like he wanted the same things from life and was looking for the same things. And it was

Starting point is 00:42:13 just, it was like a breath of fresh air to talk to anybody, you know, female or male that actually felt that way. And honestly, from that point on, it was, we hung out every day. I think he had to go to like a dinner later that night. And then he called me after. and we talked to like 2 a.m. And then the next day, he came to my work during my lunch break. And then I went to his house afterward. And then it was just like from that point on. But we weren't working together at that point.

Starting point is 00:42:40 You know, we were just dating. And I want to say like two weeks in, he was like, you know, you should really just work for me. And I was like, because he knew that what I was trying to decide of is like, am I going to start my own gym or am I going to have an online training business? And I had opportunities on both sides. I wasn't sure what to do. and I was telling him about this decision, he was like, I think you should do neither of those things. And instead, you should come do this with me and we'll make way more money than either of those things. And I was like, yeah, but then I'm working for you.

Starting point is 00:43:10 Like, this is weird. We're like dating right now. He was like, whatever. We've only been dating two weeks. I remember he said that. And I was like, true, good point. You know, it hasn't been that long. And I was really torn.

Starting point is 00:43:23 But at the same time, I was like, all right, let me look at all the decisions I've made that have been the best decisions in the line. putting my back against a wall, putting myself into a situation where most people would fail or falter, right? And putting myself into situations that there's risk. I was like, there's really no better time that if I were to do something like this than to do it now, because I'm young. And so I talked to a few mentors. I did a lot of thinking. And I was like, I think after he went and he did a launch on his own for gym launch, what was to become gym launch. And I saw that it actually worked. And a lot of people, by the way, they give me shit for this because I was like, I saw that he made $100,000 launching this gym. Of course I want to see that he made money.

Starting point is 00:44:06 I was making plenty of money on my own. I'm not going to go stop to go through something with somebody who hasn't made any money or proven a concept. I'm like, I have my own shit, my own business going on. And so once I saw that it worked, I was like, okay, this makes sense for me financially. So it makes sense to take this risk. And that was when I think the next week, I talked to all of my clients. I talked to the gym that I was working at the time. and I just got rid of everything. And I had a week between getting rid of everything and flying out to the first gym to do the launch

Starting point is 00:44:37 for this idea for this company gym launch. And that was really the beginning of not our relationship, but our partnership. And so if you really think about it, like we only had, I don't know, six weeks that we weren't working together, like in our entire relationship now, which has been seven years.

Starting point is 00:44:56 And the rest of it was, you know, from that point on, it was learning how to navigate, you know, being in a new relationship with somebody that you're also building a new business with while losing money, living out of motels, you know, basically eating shit every day. And it was really hard. So that was, I was like, I was just realizing where I was going with that. I was like, that's the story of our relationship. I mean, it's so interesting. And now you guys are such a powerful couple. And I'm sure starting a business and able to have you guys bond together, but also, you know, spending that much time together probably was really tough and

Starting point is 00:45:31 maybe felt like you guys needed your own experiences and things like that. So I guess how did you deal with that? How did you deal with keeping it romantic still, even though your business partners? Oh, God, it wasn't romantic at all for the first two years. There's no romance. It's funny because people ask that stuff. And I'm like, no, the first two years were us trying to not be poor. Like, we were just trying to not go bankrupt at that point. You know, our relationship was not in the forefront of mind. So it was really the first year, I think that what we did learn by necessity was how to communicate with each other. You know, I learned how Alex works. A lot of people get really intimidated by Alex because what you'll learn if you get close to him is like he likes one word answers.

Starting point is 00:46:14 Like he'll be like, okay, if you're like, you write him a whole novel, he's like thumbs up. You know, like very like, I thought Alex hated me after my. I was like, why does he hate me? Most people think that. Yeah, he's just like not, he's not like you bubbly sweet, like not like that at all. No, and that's, it took me time to learn too. You know, I joke with everyone that's on our team. I'm like, listen, I thought he hated me too when we first worked together. And then we got married, so apparently he didn't.

Starting point is 00:46:40 So it was really learning how to communicate with each other, learning like what are my nuances, like, how does Layla behave? And then how does Alex behave and, like, how do we behave together? The hardest part was that. And I think when you get into any relationship and you're under stress, because we were under intense stress those first couple of years, it was learning how to use that to our advantage to become better versions of ourselves because being around somebody else in close quarters exposes you when you're under stress of where your flaws are or where your weaknesses are. And I know for me, like one of the best lessons that Alex taught me early on by just pointing it out was I was very cold. And I think that I have substantially warmed up. I think that if people meet me now, I seem pretty warm in the beginning anyways, but I was not that way.

Starting point is 00:47:29 I was scared. I was stressed. And I would just shut down. And I remember one time we were sitting in the car and I shut down on him because there was something that he said and I was upset about it, but I didn't want to tell him. And he looked at me and he was like, I just want to let you know that if you keep doing this cold thing, this relationship won't work. And I was like, but it was funny because what I actually actually. thought in that moment, I wasn't angry, I wasn't defensive. I was like, you know what?

Starting point is 00:48:00 Any relationship I have in my life, this will be a problem. Why not solve it now? He's right. I am cold. And I remember that was like the switch for me. And that was the biggest thing that I had to work on in the beginning of our relationship. And on the other hand, you know, for Alex, his was probably ego or temper. You know, he used to get angry pretty easily and I think under stress, even more so. And typically when someone's angry, it's like, are they angry at themselves? You the situation you don't really know. But he would get angry and then I would shut down because he was angry and I was scared.

Starting point is 00:48:32 And so we had to learn that about each other, talk about it, and then learn how to speak each other's language. You know, like if Alex is angry, I know how to de-escalate him. If I'm stressed, Alex knows how to de-escalate me. because we've learned and we've talked about it enough that I've said what I need and he has said what he needs. And it's a conversation that we have. It's not like I'm guessing. You know what I mean? I'm not over here. Like, what do you want me to do? Like trying to figure out what he wants me to do and he's angry. I'm just like, hey, when you're angry, what do you want me to do? And I think that's been the biggest blessing of our relationship is the same way that you would talk with a business partner. How do we do this in the business? We've taken that into our relationship, which is there's nothing that's not talked about. Like anything to a very high degree. We talk about every problem, every problem, every. everything we notice. If we're like, hey, we feel pretty distant right now. Do you feel distant?

Starting point is 00:49:20 He's like, yeah. And we're like, okay, let's work on that. Or if we're like, hey, I feel like we need some space. Like, I'm just feeling like we are way too close right now. Like we've had way too much time together. I just need like a breathing room. We're like, okay. And so that's been, I think what's been a huge contributor to the success of our relationship would just be that, you know, taking those same principles that you would apply to any productive relationship inside of a workplace and using it in our marriage. Yeah. That's so healthy. Like I know, a lot of relationships, they do not feel that open in terms of the communication. Like, they just feel so scared to tell each other how they actually feel about things.

Starting point is 00:49:53 So it's so great that you can work through that. I would also, I would say this. Yeah. You can either be scared to communicate something to your partner or you can be scared of losing yourself in the relationship. And it's like you get one or the other, which is if you're constantly living in fear of what your partner will think, you lose yourself. And so I have always kept that forefront of mind.

Starting point is 00:50:14 I will not compromise, nor will Alex, who I am and who he is. I always, and we both really accept each other for who we are, but it's one thing that I'm very adamant about. If there's something that's happening that I need to communicate how I feel about it or I'm dissatisfied with and same with him, we will do it even if it hurts our partner's feelings because we both know that we have to put ourselves and what is true to us forefront of mind. Otherwise, our relationship will never work in the long run. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:50:40 It might feel good in the short term to avoid that thing, but in the long run, you're setting yourself up for dysfunction. Yeah, 100% and total failure. So smart. Okay, so I feel like this is a really good segue into behavioral change because you mentioned, and Alex mentioned this on the show, that you were, you were the fastest person he knows in terms of changing your behavior. And so from my research, I found out you used to be afraid of public speaking. And now you essentially do that probably every day as part of your career. You also thought you would never be a good manager, and that's literally what you're known for now in terms of like your management styles. So how do you continually adapt and change your behavior in order to succeed? Yeah. I think that when a lot of people talk about

Starting point is 00:51:23 behavior change, what they're really asking for is belief or thought change, right? Because if you think about changing behavior, that's a lot. That's not very complicated. It's like don't eat the cookie, right? But I think a lot of people want to know how, well, how do I not want to eat the cookie? right? It's really, that's what they want to know. Because people are like, how do I lose weight? I just can't lose weight. I'm like, no, you can't be hungry. You don't know how to tolerate hunger. That's why you can't lose weight. And so it's not that I lack anxiety, stress, nervousness. When we got on this podcast, I was like, my heart was racing. Really? Happens every time with every podcast. If I go up to speak, the last speech I did, I got on the stage and I couldn't, my mouth was so dry. I thought

Starting point is 00:52:05 I was like, I was like, the words for sure won't come out. I still get terrified. Because I care, because I want to make sure that I do the job. I want to feel like I give value to the audience, right? But what I've learned is to, one, not judge myself for that. And two, I can be nervous. I can be scared. I can be anxious and I can still act like I'm not. And that's the biggest thing that was the unlock for me with behavior change.

Starting point is 00:52:29 And what has always been was, I don't need to eliminate feelings. I just need to change my relationship with them. Most people, what they do is they think, oh, I feel. anxious. I feel scared. I feel nervous. I need to rid myself of this feeling so I can act in accordance with my values and with the behavior that I would like to have. But that's not the case at all. I need to learn how to befriend these feelings, how to live with these feelings, how to manage these feelings and be okay with these feelings and still take, you know, steps forward anyways. And so for me, it's always been if I'm feeling stressed or anxious or whatever and I'm trying to

Starting point is 00:53:04 change a behavior, I just remind myself, you have to level up. It's above the situation. It's about, you know, grabbing the cookie or not grabbing the cookie. It's about what's my relationship with hunger, right? And so it's for somebody who's dieting. It's not that you're hungry. It's not that you need the cookie. It's not that it's that you don't know how to be hungry. You can't tolerate the feeling of hunger in your body. For people who get stressed with public speaking. It's not that you can't public speak. It's that you cannot tolerate the feeling of nervousness in your body before you go on stage. So what I do, despite not wanting to, is I force myself, into situations where I know that those feelings will be provoked,

Starting point is 00:53:43 and I practice, like, visualizing ahead of time, the thing's going to happen. I'm going to feel like I'm nervous. I'm going to feel like I'm going to throw up. I'm going to feel like I'm going to panic, like whatever it may be. How will I act despite feeling that way? So, for example, if I'm public speaking, I visualize myself having a panic attack on stage before I go on stage. And then I walk through, what would I really do?

Starting point is 00:54:06 Right? Because a lot of people just go, Jesus, I'd have a panic attack on stage and that's it. That's it for me. Right. I'm done. Or I'm like, okay, say I have a panic attack on stage, right? Then what? Then only lasts for like two minutes. What's going to happen the next two minutes? I could make a joke about it. I could use it as an example for resilience for everybody else that's watching. Like, I could make fun of myself. There's so many things that I could do next to actually make that an opportunity, turn that challenge into an opportunity and then I could continue and give my speech. Yeah. So like if the worst thing happened, what would I do? And how would I turn that around? Then it makes it not that scary because then you're like, well, if something bad happens, this is my escape plan. Right. But here's what I will say. It's not even that. Because that's reassuring ourselves. That's saying, okay, well, even if the worst happens, I'll figure, okay, well, what if you don't figure it out? Because that's the other route, which is like, you know, I talked to business owners and they're like, well, what if my business does die? And I'm like, okay, then your business dies. Then what? They're like, well, I'm like, you have like millions of dollars in the banks. What are you going to do after that, right? And then they're like, well, I guess I would start another business. And I'm like, okay, so let's talk about the steps. And so I think it's one, talking about what I would do if the work. case scenario happen, and then also making peace with the fact that sometimes when the worst case scenario happens, we don't act in accordance with what our plans were. And visualizing that and visualizing how I would get over it, that it would be okay. So what? I expect that at some point in my career giving a speech or something, like, I'm sure at some point I'll like, nobody will know, but I will have a panic attack on stage because I can get through it now, right? I can talk through those

Starting point is 00:55:43 things. But I'm sure it will happen. And when it does, I've visualized it enough times that I'll be okay with it. I'm not going to judge myself for it. And I hopefully can use it as a lesson for other people to show them that you can do things and be scared at the same time. And that's really been like my whole life. Like, how do you get rid of the anxiety and all that? I'm like, it's never gone away. Like, only still hanging out next to me all day every day. But I've just learned how to live with it and really act despite feeling a certain way. Yeah. And I think that if you're not constantly trying to get out of a feeling, the feeling will naturally go away anyways. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:56:17 But when you're constantly trying to rid yourself of a feeling, what happens is that feeling sticks. But if you're not trying to rid yourself of it, it is much more likely to fade away. So I want to stick on something that you lightly mentioned, which was being uncomfortable, right? And I know that you say that one of the things that holds back are younger generations is that they don't want to be uncomfortable. I had Wim Hof on the show. He's the Iceman.

Starting point is 00:56:42 He says something similar, but he talks about like being physically uncomfortable and the importance of that, that we all wear clothes. We have, you know, the temperature control on. We don't even want to be cold. That's how far we go with it. And then we don't even unlock the power of our bodies. It's hard to work out. So we don't work out, you know. But I think you take it more from like also a mental perspective.

Starting point is 00:57:01 So I'd love to hear from you in terms of why it's so important to be uncomfortable sometimes. Yeah. I do actually think that the physical aspect is useful in many ways. I don't go to the extreme with it. Like I lift and I lift really heavy and hard and I've done that for a while. And that taught me a lot in life, which is make the most progress when you're in a lot of pain under the bar. But I think that it's important because what feels good is often not good for us. And I think that I've learned that early on in my life, which is most of the things that

Starting point is 00:57:38 feel good for us are not. But if you, this is what a lot of people think, they think, well, gosh, I don't want to be uncomfortable all of the time. But here's the thing, is that those things that are uncomfortable, if done, repeated enough times, become comfortable. And so if you do it in enough areas of your life, it's ironic because then actually everything that is uncomfortable becomes comfortable. And so I think it's just breaking through getting yourself to take that first step because our brains don't like unpredictability. And so the reason anything the first time is so hard is because we can't predict what happens next. But the moment we do do that thing, our brain has a new association, it has a memory it's going to make, right? And most of the time,

Starting point is 00:58:19 it's not as bad as we think. Yeah. And so I think that it's almost a practice in the sense of, I try to do things that are uncomfortable with for me every day. I try to push myself. I try to not lean into my feelings, not because I don't want to. I want to, like today, for example, like had a not great night last night and then didn't sleep well because one thing or another that happened at work and then woke up, had calls at 6 a.m. was going, I was like, I feel like absolute ass. I was like, but you know what, I'm going to fucking show up here.

Starting point is 00:58:45 And I'm going to crush it and I'm going to crush my meetings later. I'm going to crush my interviews later. And I think that every time we do that, what we do is we build confidence within ourselves so that every other thing in our life that's uncomfortable is easier to, accomplish, right? And so I think it's just a matter of building momentum. A lot of people are like, well, I just, Layla, I have a really hard time getting uncomfortable. I'm like, but you've made a habit of being comfortable. So you know how to make a habit. Now we just got to make a habit in the other direction. Yeah. Which is funny, but it's really like you have the power of inertia on your side

Starting point is 00:59:13 once you start doing it, which is if you start leaning into comfort more and more and more, I have a friend that wrote a book called The Comfort Crisis. Start to do everything in your life in accordance with the comfort. And it's called the Comfort Creek. That's what he named it. Versus the opposite direction. You start to do everything uncomfortably, right? Then it's discomfort creep. You start to notice in every area of your life, you start to make yourself a little more uncomfortable and you start achieving more and more. Because achieving things comes from like the only reason that accomplishments feel good is because we did something that was uncomfortable. And often people think I have to rid myself of this discomfort to do this thing. But no, accomplishments without the discomfort don't actually

Starting point is 00:59:51 feel good. And so the reason that successful people are so confident isn't because they didn't have discomfort and did something is because they had so much discomfort and did it anyways. And so I think for me, it's just always been, I encourage people to get uncomfortable. I encourage people to also be aware of how to make themselves uncomfortable in a way that they can manage, right? It might be, let's try some small steps first. Okay, if you're terrified of public speaking and you're going to throw up when you get on stage, let's do some podcast interviews online first, right?

Starting point is 01:00:19 Like maybe let's make some YouTube videos. And then let's get a stage maybe six months down the road. And I think that you can stare, step your way up to your greatest fears or your greatest discomforts. And we all have to know ourselves and know what works best. Some people can throw themselves in the fire and just like go straight into the most uncomfortable situation and come out great. Some people, that wouldn't work too well. And they have to stare, step their way into something that's uncomfortable.

Starting point is 01:00:42 I think it's a matter of figuring out what works for you. Yeah. So I love this topic. I kind of want to stay here for a little while. I love the topic of motivation because I feel like a lot of my listeners reach out to me telling me like they don't know how to find their motivation and they feel like it's this external thing and they always feel like they need to have the feeling of motivation to get something done and I know that you have said in the past that you don't always stay motivated you don't do

Starting point is 01:01:08 things just because of the way that you feel so I'd love to learn a little bit more about that. I think that most people don't have motivation because they don't have enough responsibility. go look at the single mom who is raising four kids. Does she lack motivation? No. No. She has responsibility. And so I think a lot of people, when they're talking about motivation, what it really is is that they lack responsibility. If you are responsible, I am responsible for all of the people that work at my company. I am responsible for all of the companies that are in portfolio. I am responsible for an audience that supports me. That's what I think in my mind. So am I going to take the selfish action of doing the thing I want to do? Or am I going to take the action of doing the thing that's better for all of them?

Starting point is 01:01:56 And I think that what a lot of people do is they avoid responsibility, which then decreases motivation. You don't feel like doing something when you don't have a big enough reason. Create enough reasons, which is usually people, and you have more motivation to do things. So it's not that I feel motivation every day, but I have a responsibility to the people whose lives I have influence over. And so every day when I wake up and I have to make the decision, am I going to do this or not going to do this? I'm going to do that or not going to do that. That's what I'm thinking with. And so I think that for those people who are asking, you know, I just don't have the motivation, take on more responsibility.

Starting point is 01:02:31 You won't even have time to think about how you feel because you've just got to do it because you're responsible for other people. And I think that we live in a day and age where people lack responsibility. I mean, if you even look like the family construct in this country, it's like completely different than it was a long time ago. And so we have less pressure to do well. We have less pressure to stick with our commitments, and we have less pressure to get uncomfortable. But if you're the person as responsible for many other people's lives, you'll have the motivation much more than you wouldn't.

Starting point is 01:03:03 Does that make sense? Oh, it totally does. I align so much with this. I even wrote down some thoughts about this, and it's like we're very close in terms of what we were saying our approach would be. So, for example, you were saying before this interview, you kind of felt like crap, didn't really want to do it, but you showed up, right? Me too. I almost broke up with my boyfriend

Starting point is 01:03:22 last night. I had a terrible night. I was like, oh, God, like I have to be, I have my game face on. But at the end of the day, we have to show up because that's why we're successful, because we show up even when we don't feel like showing up. And like you, I zoom out. And I think if I don't show up here, I'm putting my employees at Jeopardy. If I don't show up today, I'm putting my, my fans aren't going to have an episode. Layla gets a lot of money to talk. I'm not going to cancel and like ruin my reputation with Layla. It's like all these things to your point, like you hit the nail on the head. I'm responsible for a lot of things. So the only way I'm canceling an interview is I literally have strep throat and I can't talk. And the other thing I think about is like if I'm physically

Starting point is 01:04:05 able to do the show, if something actually does happen that's bad to me down the line, at least I did the actions that I could to get myself as far as I could. And then when, when I actually am sick, I can be like, all right, I deserve to be sick. I can cancel this interview, you know? So I think we're a line there. Let's talk about the GSD muscle, right? You talk about this get shit done muscle. How can we build and develop that muscle?

Starting point is 01:04:29 A lot of people don't get shit done because they spend way more time in the thought and less time in the action. Now, I know how to think. I can definitely sit and think and do all. But a lot of the times what I need to do is go take action. And I think that a lot of the time, the times, and this is like what we were talking about earlier, it's just a theme that I've noticed, which is people are staying in their heads so much now. It's overthinking, over analyzing,

Starting point is 01:04:51 you know how stuff. I'm like, you've got to build the get shit done muscle, which the only way you do that is if the moment that you think about something, you own your power by taking action immediately. The way that you get more power is you take action on a thought faster than others, faster than you used to, faster than you did five days ago. And so for a lot of people, it's that. That paired with being able to face the discomfort. I mean, like we just talked about, I think that if you want to get shit done, you're going to be uncomfortable.

Starting point is 01:05:18 And I think that you build that muscle faster when you put it under tension on a more frequent basis. And so when I think about the get shit done muscle, it's like any other muscle, which is you've got to go to the gym and you've got to put time under tension, right? It doesn't matter if you're doing high reps, low reps, weight on the bar,

Starting point is 01:05:34 like it's time under tension that builds a muscle. And it's the same for the get shit done muscle, which is the moment that you realize that it's, okay, thought to act. action threshold. How many more times can you do that in how many situations? And so what I like to do for myself when I'm trying to instill that, and maybe I feel like I'm in a season where I, something happened and, you know, didn't go my way or I'm scared or I'm stressed or something's happening. I write down what are those things on a daily basis that I can do? I read it at the beginning of

Starting point is 01:06:00 the day. And I'm like, these are the small things I'm going to do to build that muscle today to do my time under tension. It might be a hard conversation with a coworker. It might be that I have to have a hard conversation with portfolio company. It might be, you know, I start. I'm ask myself, like, what are these things that maybe I'm avoiding or could avoid that if I were to do today would make me stronger tomorrow? And that is what the get should done muscle is. And I think that a lot of people don't have it or it's atrophied because they're okay living with the pink elephant in the room. You know, I think that if you have a very strong get should done muscle, you don't have a lot of dirty laundry. Whereas if you do have a very strong getcha done muscle, there's nothing. Like there's no

Starting point is 01:06:37 pink elephant in the room. Like, there's nothing there. Like, you have a clear conscience. And so that's I talk about utilizing that because for me at least, that's how I keep my headspace clear. I don't like having to think about a lot of situations that are like, I want to say like not complete, not resolve. Open loops. Like I don't like having that. I don't like having, if anything bothers me, I feel like there's anything off with the teammate, I just address it immediately. And so I think that that's, that's really where the muscle is and what it comes from. And it's just like anything else, any other muscles, like time under tension is how you're going to build it. I love that. I found something really interesting when I was studying,

Starting point is 01:07:11 and it was about hiring. And you said, you can't hire anyone who is a better person than you if you're the boss. And from my understanding, you've essentially turned down working with companies

Starting point is 01:07:21 because you've believed that top talent wouldn't actually work for the leader. Could you shed some color on that? Yeah. You know, I'll put it this way. I think that it's not that there are situations

Starting point is 01:07:32 in which top talent will go work for that person, but how long they stay is what I'm concerned with. I don't think that, think about this, right? like I have a certain level of character. I would never work for somebody who had worse character than me.

Starting point is 01:07:47 And if I did, it would probably be for a very short amount of time and I wouldn't be loyal to that person. And so when we're looking at companies, that is 1,000 percent. The biggest issue that I see, which is there are so many young entrepreneurs that have these insane opportunities, these insane companies, and they lack the integrity, maybe they lack the discipline, they lack the trust that I don't think that true top talent would be easy to recruit for them.

Starting point is 01:08:17 And so I don't want to work with them. I think that you might feel this, but you can feel someone's intention when you're having a conversation. Yeah. Right? So like there's a lot of people that I talk to in business, for example, it's like when I'm at like an event and I talk to them, I'm like, this motherfucker wants to suck the blood out of my brain. Like they just want all the information.

Starting point is 01:08:33 I talk to somebody else. I'm like, they just want me to like talk about them on social. Like you can feel someone's intention. and there's a lot of people I've gotten on the phone with, not an overwhelmingly amount, but enough that have success, but I can tell that the success is self-fulfilling. It's not for others.

Starting point is 01:08:49 They're not in it for others. They're not in it for their clients. They're not in it for their team because they don't talk about that. You know what they talk about, I, I, I, me, me, me. That doesn't create loyalty. That doesn't create an environment

Starting point is 01:09:01 in which top talent wants to work for you or your self-mot, it's being selfishly driven. And one could argue that you are selfishly, driven to help other people because it feels good yourself. But I would take that over being selfishly driven to have more money, have more status, have more power. And I can feel when I talk to somebody by the language that they're using what they really want. And a lot of that comes from even asking them, like, what's the point of the business? Why does the business exist? And a lot of them will say,

Starting point is 01:09:28 well, you know, I wanted to make some money and then this and, you know, and then it's always about them. It's like, you know, I really like this house. I like this car. I like this, I like this lifestyle. I like the lifestyle, right? Whereas I think the best leaders in the world are not building a company to pursue a lifestyle. They're building a company to pursue a purpose. And they're building a company to pursue impact. Because that's what I think about. The question I ask myself every day when I wake up is, is my team supported? Do they have clarity? Are my portfolio company supported? Do they have clarity? Those are the two questions that I think of in the morning. I don't ask myself, how does Lela gain more status and influence. I could give a fuck. Like I do this because I want people to know who I am

Starting point is 01:10:10 because I hope that my true character shows through and they can see I'm not like an asshole boss. I'm not that I really want to build a place where people love working and I want to teach other companies to do the same. Because I too used to have a shitty boss. So I know what it's like to work in an environment where I wanted to shoot myself every day. It sucked. Yeah. And so I think that that's really how you sense it is the language somebody uses. You know, are they talking about themselves How else more, are they talking about the why, the people, the team, the clients? It's just a little nuance, but you can tell when you're in the conversation. Yeah, 100%.

Starting point is 01:10:42 So let's talk about the hiring process and dive deep into that. You have a YouTube video called $100 million hiring process. And according to your video, the first step in the hiring funnel is the application generation. So I know a lot of my listeners are entrepreneurs. A lot of people are struggling with hiring right now, so I thought we could spend a little time on it. So I'll give you this. A lot of people get the. job title wrong because one, they don't know what right looks like. They don't have mentorship.

Starting point is 01:11:08 They don't have advisors. And they also don't do research. So what I did when I was first starting out to understand what kind of job title I need is I would put in keywords just into Google of like, what's a job for somebody that does? And I would like say the top three things. I'm not even kidding you. And then I would look at all the titles that would come up. And then I would Google those titles and read the job descriptions of each one. And then I would find out the one that had the most similar description to the job that I need somebody to do. And so I think that the reason is a lot of people don't put in the time, the effort, they don't have the experience.

Starting point is 01:11:40 But you can easily do that with literally using Google. Yeah. So it's like, if you went and you read, you're like, okay, I don't know what this role is called, but you read 17 job descriptions and then took the top three that you think it could be and compared them on six other websites. You're going to figure out probably the best name for the job. I think it's just that most people aren't diligent about that because they don't understand why it's important.

Starting point is 01:11:59 If you understand why it's important, it's a task worth doing. When you don't understand the importance, it's not a task worth doing. But the reality is that most of the time when someone can't recruit, the number one thing that I'll change is the job title. I'm like, oh, it's not the right job title. So I'll give an example. I'm hiring for, I'll say, an administrative assistant to help my EA team. So I put it out as administrative assistant. And the people I was getting were like, they had like one year of experience.

Starting point is 01:12:26 So I was like, shit. Like, I need someone with more experience than that. So then I made it senior administrative assistant. I started getting people with five, six years of experience. Just the tiny change in job title, right? But if you look at salary.com, payscale.com, what's the difference between an administrative assistant and a senior? There's a difference in pay and an experience.

Starting point is 01:12:45 And so it's going to attract a different type of person. And so I think for a lot of people out there that are struggling with this, it's the exact same thing as a marketing funnel, as a client acquisition funnel. It's just a talent acquisition funnel. And that's the reason so many people don't succeed in business is they don't see. the similarities between those two things. Or they don't believe they haven't accumulated the evidence to show them like, this really works. I've just had enough at-bats and I think that I got lucky in the beginning of believing it was

Starting point is 01:13:11 important to try it enough times and see it work. Yeah. And I think that a lot of people don't realize that when there's a top talent person searching, they're searching for the job title that they know about, right? They're not going to read every single job post and research, like, just find you, right? You need to be able to be searchable for that. them. 100%. They're looking for the name that resonates with who they identify with. So second part of the hiring funnel is nurturing. So talk to us about how we can have a frictionless

Starting point is 01:13:38 candidate experience and what the indirect and direct experiences are during that process. Yeah. So there's really two things during the hiring lead nurture process that I would like to call or candidate nurture process, which is indirect communication, which is if I search a company, what am I going to find online? You know, is it good? Is it bad? Because is what candidates do is they go look at your reviews on Google. They go look at your client reviews. They go look at Facebook group reviews. They go look at Last Door, all of it.

Starting point is 01:14:06 Not just employee reviews, lots of customer reviews. You have to understand, because that's usually what pops up first. So that's the first thing I'm asking is, what does it look like when they search your name? That's the indirect part of the funnel. And you can have a lot of say in that in terms of what kind of press you're putting out there, what your website looks like. You can control the narrative. A lot of people are just too lazy to do it, right?

Starting point is 01:14:26 And so the narrative is controlled by customers, by ex-employees, etc. But if you take control by controlling the narrative by putting out content for your company, then you are going to control the narrative and most likely have a better indirect experience for that candidate. The other side is the direct communication, which is what I see as a huge pattern is people think, I need to have so many tests and so many complicated things to make this candidate go through for this nurture process because I want to make sure I only get the smart ones, the smart people. have unlimited opportunity and don't give a fuck about your funnel and don't want to take your 30-point test. That's just reality because guess what?

Starting point is 01:15:04 They have five other jobs that are going to pay them the same, if not more, that don't have that test. And a lot of people would say, I just want the person with the character, though. I'm like, you don't understand. This is opportunity cost. Yeah. Or they're going to get poached on LinkedIn. Like they're not even going through an application. No, this is opportunity cost for them.

Starting point is 01:15:20 I mean, they have so many opportunities. You have to understand. They don't give a shit about that. And so a lot of people try to make it very complicated. They try to make it very, you know, they try to think of it like the candidate should be coming to me versus how could I better, create a better experience for the candidate. And so I've just taken the same principles from customer experience and I put them into candidate experience, which is if I was trying to nurture a lead, how would I be talking to them? I do the same thing with people if I think they're going to hire. Like, I want to hire them.

Starting point is 01:15:48 I'm like, I will be reaching out to them. I will be talking to them. I will be complimenting them. I'm not going to expect them to just always come to me. And so I think that that's the first thing. And it does take somebody who doesn't have, who has a good amount of humility because I think a lot of people think, my shit don't stink. They should be coming to me. I'm like, nobody knows who the fuck you are.

Starting point is 01:16:05 So let's just get over ourselves. Yeah. Can you talk to us about the importance of speed and hiring? Mm-hmm. The average top candidate gets a job in eight days. The biggest reason that any of our portfolio companies have lost a candidate is time. They'll interview someone on Monday. And then I get like a, you know, a Slack on like Thursday.

Starting point is 01:16:27 And it's like, hey, I've got a candidate. I want you to interview. I'm like, oh, did you speak with them? Like, what? How was it? Yeah, yeah. No, I met with her on Monday. And I'm like, like, it is just the same way that you would nurture a lead that was a

Starting point is 01:16:40 $100,000 customer is how you would want to nurture an employee because often you're paying someone $50,000 to $200,000, right? Say your small business. How would you nurture a lead that was worth that much money, let alone, an employee who's going to stay for a long period of time. And so I think that we look at it the wrong way. We think that it's different than that, but it's actually the same. And candidates right now, especially, you know, I think it's going to change a little bit in the next coming months.

Starting point is 01:17:06 But right now, you know, the ball's still in a lot of people's courts where they have unlimited opportunity. And so the companies that are out there that are getting the top talent are the ones that have more robust infrastructure and are able to go faster. But if a small company is equipped with this and they understand because like when we first start gym launch, it was me and my assistant hire. And I still was like day of. We send rejection day up. We send follow up. We schedule a meeting from a meeting. So it's like, we'd get done with an interview and be like, cool, we want to do the next

Starting point is 01:17:32 interview. Let's schedule it right now while we're on the call. Because we understood the importance of speed. And I think that anybody can do that. It's just a matter of understanding the importance, which is if you're waiting more than eight days to hire somebody, you're getting worse candidates. Yeah. Something that I loved what you said, you said in a video or an interview that were buying people's

Starting point is 01:17:49 brains. And I thought that was so smart and funny. And so I'd love for you to unpack that. Like, how do we tell if they have the right skills, the right culture? If you feel those tests aren't relevant, is there at some point in the process where we would give people those types of tests or is it more just getting it out of conversation? You know, different people do it different ways. I tend to err more on the side of conversations and situational interviewing than I do hard testing. If you look at a lot of the practical tests people put together, those are typically the same format of questions that you would have for an interview anyways.

Starting point is 01:18:23 So what I do is I think of, okay, what are situations in which somebody would exhibit the values that we have in the company? And then I will take those apart and I will break them down into questions. So competitive greatness, for example, if I wanted to figure out if somebody has competitive greatness, I would ask them, why do you want to work? What motivates you? Why do you come to work every day? And if somebody says, money, it's not competitive greatness to me, right? And if a portfolio company, I say, why do you have your company? and they say, well, I want to make $10 million.

Starting point is 01:18:53 I'm like, it's not competitive greatness to me. Right. Competitive greatness is an unending process, right? It's a continuous cycle of self-improvement, you know, knowing that the challenge itself is what creates who you want to be. Another example would be sincere candor, which would be tell me, I'll give this one. You would think it's like easy and people could fake it, but nobody ever does. I say, tell me the last hard conversation you have and tell me how it went.

Starting point is 01:19:16 And I swear, most of the time, nobody can think of it. I could tell you when I had a day ago. I could tell you yesterday. I had a hard conversation last night. You know what I mean? So if I'm looking for someone who's sincerely candorous, I'm going to ask that, and you're going to be able to tell by their reaction, not just what they say, but their reaction, in terms of like, do they actually have that?

Starting point is 01:19:36 And then in terms of the skill side of it and their experience, it's asking people to recall how they drove results. You know, I think you can talk about the actions you took on a daily basis, but I don't really care about that. I want to know, tell me about results you drove. for a company that are similar to the results I'm asking you to drive here and tell me how you did it. How did you go about it? Right?

Starting point is 01:19:55 Give me a summary of that. And that's typically what I'll ask. So if I have somebody I'm hiring for Director of Customer Success and I need them to reduce churn for a customer base, I'm going to say, tell me about a time that you reduced turn, how much did you reduce it by and how did you go about doing that? And you can tell when someone's answering those questions, if somebody doesn't know how to do that and you have any, you know, as a CEO, of course, like I feel like I have to have knowledge of every department. Like, I have enough to know if somebody is bullshitting me or if, like, the answer

Starting point is 01:20:21 they're giving is, you know, mediocre. What I'm looking for most of the time is that I learn something from that interview, right? One, I want to feel like the values are true to them. The other side of the experiential piece in the education is I want to feel like they're able to teach me something on that interview. And so I leave being better for it. Does that make sense? Yeah, total sense. So I know that the end of the process is that you believe, as long as you're relatively small company, you know, a thousand employees or less, it should end with a CEO interview. And I know that a lot of small entrepreneurs, even if they have 20 employees, they do not do every single interview. This was one of the biggest mistakes I made as a young

Starting point is 01:20:56 entrepreneur. My business scale to 60 employees. And it started to have lower level employees hiring my employees. And then it was like a mess. I had really bad talent for a little bit. And I had to let go a lot of my team and it was really hard. And so I learned that lesson, first year in business. Like, I will never do that again. Talk to us about why that's so important. I believe that if you are truly a people-first company, if you really believe that your employees and your team are the most important to the business, which I would argue in any sense of the way they are, they are the business, then you would think that the CEO would show with the most valuable resource they have,

Starting point is 01:21:35 which is time, not money, time, how important those people are to them. And I don't think there's a more important way or a more impressive way than having the last interview. And basically what I do on that interview is I show them that I'm not just here for you with this job, but you as a person, which is what are your personal goals? Do they align with the opportunity that we have within this business? And that's what I'm trying to figure out. And so I come on there and I want to set the tone for what their relationship is going to be like with us and be like with the business, which is it's not you're just a number here.

Starting point is 01:22:07 It's not this. It's person first, human first. I want to show you why you're important. And I'm showing you right now with my time. Yeah. Just like a parent, if they have a kid, it's like, cool, you can pay for them to like go get ice cream with their kids and, you know, go to this really cool amusement park. But like there's nothing more meaningful than it being their time. So like we mentioned, a lot of people are having a little bit of trouble hiring right now. There's more opportunities to start businesses. It's easier than ever to kind of be a freelancer. And so people have a lot of options. So I heard you say something that was really interesting to me, which was that we really need to create a bigger vision so that people. actually feel they can fit within that if we really want them to work for us because they could just really work for themselves now. Could you talk to us about that? Yeah. I think, so I read the book

Starting point is 01:22:54 by the CEO of Blackstone where he talks about it's just as easy to create a big company as it is to create a small company. And that really resonated with me because I think that what he explained is that it is easier to recruit talent if you have a big vision than to recruit talent if you have a small vision because big talent doesn't want to work for a small vision. And so that really hit home with me. And it showed me that you can't have one without the other. It's almost, I cannot even get top talent without a big vision. And you can't create the thing that creates the vision or fulfills that vision without

Starting point is 01:23:34 the top talent. And so that really hit home with me. And I realized that you have to have a vision big enough that other people's visions for their own lives can fit inside of it. And to the degree of which somebody's vision for themselves fits inside the company is how long you'll keep them. Once they see that they've hit a point where their personal trajectory of their life has, say, the business is here and they're here, and then they go up here, right? Now there's a deficit.

Starting point is 01:23:57 They're feeling like they're lacking something in the workplace because there's some kind of experience that they're not getting from the workplace that they're getting outside. And so I think the most important thing that we can do is be very explicit about the vision, be very explicit about where we're going and very diligent in making sure that when you bring people in, you understand how much runway they have. I will never tell somebody that they have a long runway if I know they don't. If somebody doesn't have a long runway, I will absolutely tell them. If somebody comes on to be, you know, an EA for me, I'm like, I don't really want you to go anywhere. Like, I'd like you to just want to be an EA for forever. Because like, you know, anyone that's on our administrative team, like, there's not a ton of upward trajectory.

Starting point is 01:24:36 Obviously promotions and raises in like small amounts. But, you know, becoming a director of operations or director of HR, that's going to create a huge hole for me to fill. And so I'm not really looking for that. Versus if I bring somebody into a new department and I put them as, you know, head of, you know, business development and there's one person in there, I'm like, hey, one day I'd like you to be, you know, VP of Revenue or, you know, CRO. And so I hire according to that, which is what is their personal vision for themselves? What's my vision for the role? And I want to make sure that the two match. And I think a lot of times when we're recruiting, the reason a lot of people can't get good talent is because they

Starting point is 01:25:12 think that they're like, oh, it's just money. I just can't afford to pay top talent. Okay, well, when we had gym launch, I was able to get some really big talent that wouldn't have otherwise worked for us because we had enthusiasm, we had vision, and we had an ability to show those people how they would be able to grow within our organization. And so we didn't have the biggest opportunity, but we could show them that their opportunity could at least fit inside what we did have in that company. And I think that a lot of people are just so focused on money and thinking about the competition that's trying to recruit people. I'm like, people want opportunity. That's what they really want. They want to see, like, it's almost like in the relationship, right? When you get

Starting point is 01:25:46 with a guy or a girl or whatever, right, you get a new relationship, you're going to treat it differently if you think that you're going to be in that relationship for a long time, then you would if you think you're only going to be there for a few weeks, a few months or even a year. It's the same way it goes for employment. And so it's reciprocated because if I feel that somebody really can feel, like I can tell that they think their vision fits within the company, I see how they act. They see how I act. It's a much more trusting relationship. And you have a lot more loyalty with each other than you, would otherwise. And I think a lot of people just don't use it to turn of their advantage because, one, they're probably scared to think too big. They're worried that they'll fail. But the reality

Starting point is 01:26:20 is you'll for sure fail if you don't think big enough that you can't attract the right talent to build something. So smart. And I heard you say before that basically people hop from job to job so they can level up in their career. They need to be able to hop in your company too from job title to job title. Is there a certain way that you kind of show that to your employees or something that you do to show them the trajectory or do you just give them new projects all the time? Like how to do you, is it obvious? I think for executive level, it's a little bit different. Executive level, it's often showing the business, like I have the business projected for the next 10 years along with like an org chart for the next three. And so people can see what kind of responsibility they'll continue to

Starting point is 01:27:00 assimilate as an executive team. For people under the executive team, there's two things that we're working on right now because you have to remember, Acquisition.com is pretty new. Competency maps. So a competency map is basically showing you, here's the levels in our organization. So say there's six core levels. Here's the skills and the traits needed for each level. And so if you want to get from one level to the next, here's the skills and the traits required to do so. And here's what the pay raise looks like as well. Here's what the opportunity looks like. Here's what your relationship with management looks like. And so I try to do that within, one, the organization as a whole, and then within each department that makes sense. So two that

Starting point is 01:27:34 are very typical would be media. So if you have a large media team, like we're building out one for our media team right now, to show everyone like, here's the levels needed to build out the media team and here's all the room you have upward, like upward trajectory-wise. Same with a sales team.

Starting point is 01:27:46 That's a very traditional one, is to show people, you know, based on their experience, how much what their close rate is, all those things. Here's all the levels that you can get to. And here's how much you can make along with the opportunity that you'll have in the company.

Starting point is 01:27:59 And so it's called a competency map. If you look it up, you can find them for other companies. And for a small company, the thing is, it's actually easier to make because you have less people. And so you could even just show, like, if you don't even know, break it down to like three levels. Individual contributor, manager, leader, right? Individual contributor, manager, executive, whatever it may be, right? And I think that if you can just start by showing people, it shows them that you give a shit.

Starting point is 01:28:24 You know what I mean? And I think that a lot of people are like, well, it's not going to be perfect. It might be as good as Layla's as she's describing. Okay, well, the point is that you give a shit. And that's what people want to see, is that you're thinking about their future. Yeah. Most bosses don't even think about the future of an employee. Hmm.

Starting point is 01:28:39 It's so true. So let's say we've used all your guidance. We've hired a great team. But if you have a great team and no accountability, then, you know, you're at risk of not getting much done. So you talk about your accountability framework. You even go as far to say that instead of CEO, you call yourself the chief accountability officer, which is really cute. Could you talk to us about your accountability formula? Yeah, it's understanding that accountability doesn't exist without measurement, right, without feedback, and in a timely manner.

Starting point is 01:29:15 And so a lot of the times, the two things that are missing is the measurement, which is, are you showing someone where they fit on a spectrum? You know, on a scale of one to ten, how well are they doing their job? Are you letting them know that they're only at a seven and what they have to do to get to a ten? that's one of the first things required for accountability. It's just like if we were a weight scale, so if I go and weigh myself, right, the scale is basically the accountability officer, as I would say, which is the scale gives them a number, it gives them feedback, right? Now, the way that we can amplify accountability, the only way that we can actually

Starting point is 01:29:45 multiply it, right, is by giving the person feedback of the measurement, right? So it's like there's the measurement, which is telling them how good they're doing, and then it's how many times are you telling them in how many ways how good they're doing. Are you doing quarterly reviews? Are you doing one-on-ones? Are you having conversations with them? Are you slacking them feedback? So like, for example, you know, we just did a kickoff with a new partner company. And the first thing I did this morning was I wrote feedback to the person that conducts the kick-offs. I said, here's all my feedback for you. Here's how well I think you did. I actually thought this was the best one you ever did yet. Right. And so I'm telling him where he's at in terms of my expectations. And so the best thing that we can do as as CEOs, entrepreneurs, people that employ other people is really just the feedback. Like if there's one thing that you could do, because especially if you're a small business, the crux that is always, hey, I don't have measurement. I don't have things in place yet. Well, you can at least tell someone verbally in a qualitative

Starting point is 01:30:40 manner how they're doing. And you can do it more than mumbling it on a call with them when they're not really paying attention in a way that doesn't even sound direct or like it makes any sense, right? Because that's what a lot of people do. The way that they give feedback is, oh yeah, and then, you know, next time you, you know, do that presentation, maybe we just do it, a little bit differently, you know, maybe you just, and it's like they say it in a way that's very non-direct when I think the best way to give people feedback and to hold them accountable is to be as clear as possible. It's like when you measure yourself on the scale, it's not like it says like, it's not like blurred. You're not like having to like lean in and really wonder what's saying.

Starting point is 01:31:13 You're like, say 150 or 155. Like you would be like, I don't know what the feedback is. Did my weight go up or down? Five pounds is a lot is a big difference. That could have been up, it could have been down. Right. And so when people are vague with their feedback to employees, it's the same as the scale being that way and being vague. It's like a small amount of nuance makes a big difference. And so you have to be very clear in your communication because a lot of the times, if someone's delivering critical feedback, the employee actually thinks that it's positive feedback because the way that they're delivering it is so poor. And so I think it's being explicit and being able to find your voice is a really important piece of that. And you don't do that unless you

Starting point is 01:31:44 have at-bats. And so in the beginning you're going to suck at doing it and you just have to get better and better over time. Yeah. And would you say that feedback should be continual and not just like once a quarter or once a year performance review? 100%. It's the only thing that can amplify and multiply accountability. It's the only thing that really strengthens it to a high degree is giving that feedback. And it's just the more you can normalize feedback, the easier people can take it, the more likely they are to act on it.

Starting point is 01:32:15 But a lot of people avoid giving feedback and they create a culture of secrecy and of, you know, whispers and gossip. when the reality, if you give feedback on a regular basis, everyone gets used to it and then it doesn't feel bad. It's just like discomfort. It's something that's uncomfortable. Do it enough times. It's not uncomfortable anymore. Yeah. And it's so important so that your employees actually get better at their jobs and continue to learn and improve instead of making the same mistakes over and over again. Okay, let's take it from the employee perspective. Let's take it from, you know, a lot of my listeners are entrepreneurs, but at the same time, a lot of them are corporate professionals. They want to level up in their jobs. They want to be seen by their boss, taking up for promotions.

Starting point is 01:32:55 So what can somebody do as an employee to really stand out? I get a lot of shit for this, but I believe in it, which is the only way to stand out truly is to exceed expectations. Humans, when expectations match reality, we are neutral. We feel nothing. We feel that was how it was supposed to go. So if somebody does their job exactly how it's laid out, I think to myself, that was how it's supposed to go. Now, if somebody does their job worse than the job is laid out, I feel disappointed,

Starting point is 01:33:30 I feel frustrated, I feel angry. If someone exceeds the expectations, the only time somebody will really stand out a job is if they exceed expectations. Meeting expectations is not enough. You don't stand out. Nobody feels anything from that. Like truly, your nervous system does not get excited by that. But the moment that somebody does beyond the job description and exceeds expectations is when the boss will feel like truly, like actually feel excited, feel elated, feel encouraged, right? And so I think that a lot of employees say, you know, doing my job is enough, doing beyond my job, takes too much effort. It's not always about the amount of work you're doing. It's how you do the work. Yes. Right. And so a lot of people, you can exceed

Starting point is 01:34:10 expectations in the way you do something, not even just there's doing something and completing a mission, which is expected, but how you do it is also what's going to make a difference. So if you're told to make a presentation to train a team, you can make a presentation that can train a team and it could be sufficient, or it could have animations. You could bring in a guest speaker. You could think about it like that, right? To the degree at which you do every of your daily tasks is the degree at which you will impress the person, whether you exceed expectations on a consistent basis in the tasks you're

Starting point is 01:34:39 doing or whether you're not meeting expectations. Because just meeting them, you'll just blend in. Yeah, I totally agree. There's this trend of quiet quitting I was talking about on the podcast. And basically what it is is a lot of people have just decided I'm going to do the bare minimum. And to your point, they feel like I should just do what I get paid for and that's it. But if you do that, no one's going to like as a boss, it's like nobody wants an employee like that. You want an employee who's going to be worth 10 times what you pay them, right? And that's why you're going to promote them and let them lead and become a manager. So I feel like that's just a recipe for not. moving in your job? It is. And I think, here's the thing. A lot of, I talked about this and I got a lot of backlash in terms of people saying, well, Layla, these people treat me like shit. They don't give me promotions. They don't give me raises. I'm not recognized. I understand that. But I just don't think that acting in despite of someone else's actions is going to help anybody. Because at the end of the day for me, when I had, I had plenty of jobs before I had my own company. I, how I actually

Starting point is 01:35:44 was more important to me for who I was, for my integrity with myself, than it was for the person I was working for. Because it's not about them. It's about me, who I am, how I work, how I show up when nobody else gives a shit. And so for me, it's not even about either of these things. It's about who are you? Because you're not defined by how you think and feel. You are defined by the actions you take. And so if you act like a lazy person and you don't work, you are a lazy person. It's like when people say, you know, if you feel it, nobody cares how you feel. They just care how you behave. And that is what you are identified with.

Starting point is 01:36:16 You are identified with your actions. So people are like, oh, he had good intentions. I'm going to fuck. Intention doesn't equal impact. So it's like, well, you know, this boss isn't going to be a promotion. I'm like, that says a lot about you. Because I can tell you that I worked my fucking ass off for years in jobs that I never got a raise and I never got a promotion.

Starting point is 01:36:31 I did it because that's who I am. And I do everything with excellence. And so to me, it's the employees are shooting themselves in the foot because they are degrading their own character. I don't care about the boss piece. I'm just talking to you as a human, which is like, why are you doing that to yourself? You're literally fucking yourself by doing that.

Starting point is 01:36:48 Yeah, not to mention that like your vibe and your energy is that of a lazy person. You're going to attract lazy opportunities. You're not going to be able to attract the things that you want in your life because you're not doing them. So I totally agree with that. All right, so we close out this interview with two questions that we ask and then we round them out and summarize them at the end of the year.

Starting point is 01:37:06 So the first one is, what is one actionable thing? that our young improfitors can do today to become more profitable tomorrow. Like actually in business? It doesn't matter. It could be in life, profiting in any way that you see fit. I'm going to say it again. Make a list of five things that you can do tomorrow that you've been avoiding because they're uncomfortable and do them. Despite how you feel, despite how you rest tonight, despite how your mood is tomorrow,

Starting point is 01:37:37 commit to five things tomorrow that you've been avoiding, write them down, and do them. Get uncomfortable, right? And what is your secret to profiting in life? The ability to take action quickly after failure. So I think that a lot of the times when we're getting uncomfortable and we're doing things that are uncomfortable, we fail, we stumble. But I do not let that. I don't dwell on my failure. I don't find that to be productive. I can, I just get up and I go and I try it again. immediately. Not the next day. Not a week later. I try to do it immediately. And so I think that there's nothing wrong with failing. It's the fact that most people dwell on their failure for so

Starting point is 01:38:18 long that that becomes their life when you could have just gotten up the next day and done it again. I love that. And where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? You can go to Acquisition.com. We have some free courses on there for business and you can opt in for our email list and we email out like, you know, different interesting nuggets. You could also go to at Layla Hormozy on Instagram, Layla Hormozy on YouTube, and Layla Hormozy on Twitter. And I am pretty active on those three platforms. Awesome. And I'm going to stick all those links in the show notes.

Starting point is 01:38:50 Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for having me.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Leila Hormozi: The Leadership Mindset That Changes How You Operate in Business and Life | Leadership | YAPClassic

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