The #1 Delegation Secret That Changed How I Work Forever

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The #1 Delegation Secret That Changed How I Work Forever

Podcast: Action Academy | Millionaire Mentorship For Your Life & Business
Host: Brian Luebben
Guest: Layla Hormozi (featured via recordings/discussion)
Date: January 14, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode explores the single most transformative delegation framework Brian Luebben has ever encountered, courtesy of Layla Hormozi. Layla breaks down the crucial difference between true delegation and simple abdication, offering actionable advice for entrepreneurs at any stage looking to replace themselves in their businesses without sacrificing quality or culture. The conversation centers on high-performing leadership, scaling through example, and the uncomfortable but necessary journey from operator to true entrepreneur.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power of Leading by Example (02:10)

• Layla Hormozi explains how she always does every task first—no matter her level of success—so she can set the standard for her team.
• Quote: “The easiest way to scale your business is to lead by example...I go in and I do it to show everybody what looks like.” (02:10)
• Being the first to handle tasks (workshops, catering, templates) ensures clarity for the whole team.
• Layla doesn’t just hand tasks off and disappear—she remains engaged, offers feedback, and rewards good execution.

Abdication vs. Delegation (02:43)

• Abdication: Handing something off and never looking back.
• Delegation: Ongoing involvement, feedback, and reinforcement.
• Quote: “Abdication is when you just give somebody something and you're like, now you know how to do it, right?...Whereas delegation is that you give it to somebody and then you continue to give them feedback...” (02:43)
• The danger is in thinking delegation is a one-time handoff—this leads to declining quality and disengaged teams.

Demonstrate, Document, Delegate Framework (06:25)

• Layla details a powerful three-step process to scale responsibility:
  1. Demonstrate – Do the work yourself: “Get your hands dirty.”
  2. Document – Have your team document what they observed you do (not you making the SOP).
  3. Delegate – Your team follows their documentation, with you watching and giving feedback.
• Quote: “You demonstrate to people what needs to be done by doing it your fucking self. Get your hands dirty. Then you have them document what you just did... Then you say, great, now you follow that SOP, and I'm going to watch you do it.” (06:25)
• Nuance: Giving feedback should focus on the one improvement that has the greatest positive impact (“theory of constraints”).

The Example of Real Leadership (04:34, 07:25)

• Layla shares stories of doing the tough, foundational work first in her companies—everything from running initial workshops to negotiating deals and, crucially, being present as the model for others to follow.
• Quote: “If you want to be a leader...you are the model for everybody else. And so you have to go first...It's not like you have to be 10 steps ahead, but you have to be at least two steps ahead of people to show them what we're going to do.” (04:34)
• Layla admits she’s not perfect at everything (“I haven’t set up my HubSpot account”), but stresses the importance of mastering the pivotal elements before handing them off.

Building Great vs. “Lifestyle” Businesses (08:00)

• Layla draws a line between delegating for comfort and for growth:
  • Abdication may result in a money-making business, but never an excellent one.
  • True discretionary effort and persistent leadership is required for a truly impactful, lasting company.
• Quote: “If you want to build something really great, it’s going to take discretionary effort...Nobody wants to do shit for somebody who's lazy. I am the example of how hard we work here.” (08:00)
• The team’s performance is often a direct reflection of the founder’s commitment and drive.

Navigating Personal Growth & Scaling (09:42, 10:04)

• Brian and Layla discuss a classic founder problem: “How do I delegate something I don’t yet know how to do myself?”
• Layla: If nobody in the company knows how, the leader must learn it first before delegating. She models patience and delayed gratification, even when personal comfort is at stake.
• Quote: “Why would I delegate something that I don't know how to do and my team doesn't know how to do? That's actually what's flawed with that question. Cause I'm thinking here, I'm like, that's if nobody in the company knows how to do it. And it's very important to what we're doing, I need to go learn it first.” (10:04)

The "Never Two News" Rule & Nailing It Before Scaling (11:21, 12:29)

• Layla introduces the idea that you should never pair two “new” elements in a business process/role; always an “old” and a “new” for continuity.
• Quote: “Never two news. I need an old and a new, never two news with each other. Because then it's two people don't know what the they're doing.” (11:21)
• She stresses the importance of founders remaining in uncomfortable roles until they’ve “nailed it,” teaching by presence rather than rushing to offload.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Abdication is when you just give somebody something and you're like, now you know how to do it right?...Delegation is that you give it to somebody and then you continue to give them feedback…” — Layla Hormozi (02:43)
• “You demonstrate to people what needs to be done by doing it your fucking self. Get your hands dirty.” — Layla Hormozi (06:25)
• “If you want to be a leader...you are the model for everybody else. And so you have to go first.” — Layla Hormozi (04:34)
• “You can have a shitty business that makes money. That's absolutely true. But if you want to build something really great, it’s going to take discretionary effort.” — Layla Hormozi (08:00)
• “Never two news. I need an old and a new, never two news with each other.” — Layla Hormozi (11:21)
• “Follow the plan, fuck your mood.” (14:07 — banter, referencing Hormozi’s signature phrase)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:10] – Layla explains leading by example as the foundation of delegation
• [02:43] – Distinguishing abdication vs. delegation
• [04:34] – Stories of Layla modeling hard tasks, being “the example”
• [06:25] – Detailed framework: Demonstrate, Document, Delegate
• [07:25] – The art of feedback; focusing on the critical “one thing”
• [08:00] – On building impactful companies vs. lifestyle businesses
• [10:04] – Navigating personal growth; why founders must go first
• [11:21] – The “Never Two News” rule for process continuity
• [14:07] – Layla’s mantra: “Follow the plan, fuck your mood”

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Final Takeaways

• Delegation is not about offloading responsibility, but about setting the example, staying engaged, and iteratively transferring both skill and ownership.
• “Demonstrate, Document, Delegate”—in that order—is the best way to ensure quality and culture as you grow.
• Enduring some discomfort and resisting the urge to abdicate too soon is essential for leaders building truly great businesses.
• The attitude and intensity of the leader set the tone for the whole company. Layla’s relentless, hands-on approach demystifies how high performers replace themselves without letting standards slip.

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Transcript

[A]

What's up, guys? I am currently at a conference where the average net worth in the room is $16 million. In the average median take home income is a million dollars. So wild week to say the least. And throughout this week, I've been working on a lot of new frameworks. So sit tight for those. Just bear with us as we kind of get the podcast settled back into itself while I'm completely out of pocket for a few weeks. But one of the main concepts that I've been working on that I may actually write a book on, bear with me, is how to truly go from employee to entrepreneur. And in the beginning of Action Academy, we taught people how to do the thing right. So here's how you buy multifamily, here's how you buy storage, here's how you buy businesses, and you're in the trenches doing it. And that was wonderful. But now I have since realized, with growing maturity and sophistication myself as a business owner, not an operator, right, that there are so many skill sets that you can learn even in the beginning of your acquisition journey that will catapult you at scale significantly further and faster down your acquisition journey and your investing journey than doing it as an operator solely. And that is learning how to properly delegate. Today's episode is the best advice that exists on the Internet about delegation. And it is the only time that I've ever heard it brought broken down this way in this framework. And that is from Ms. Layla Hormozi, the wife of Mr. Alex Hormozi. You guys know the Hormozies. $100 million net worth at age 30 years old. They're gangsters. So sit back, relax and listen to Layla actually teach you how to properly delegate. No matter what level you're at, if you're getting a va, if you're hiring an acquisitions director, if you're hiring a freaking CEO, this is how you do it. And if you guys want your handheld as you learn this stuff and you want to actually build a business and skip all the awkward, messy middle of entrepreneurship and investing, actionacademy.com Go in the show description, click the link, book a call, join our other 400 plus members that are growing across the country and buying a bunch of stuff. And of course by stuff, I mean cash flow and producing assets. Let's get to it.

[B]

The easiest way to scale your business is to lead by example. And so for me, getting in and doing everything first has been the number one fail safe way of me scaling my business. So for example, we started those Workshops. Okay, let's think back. Who decided on the catering? Who decided on. Who built out the templates? Who decided what the lighting looked like, what the state. Like, all of those things were me. Just because I have a team and money and success. Like, I know how to do it right, which means that I go in and I do it to show everybody what looks. Like.

[C]

Set the standard.

[B]

Yeah, I set the standard. And then even so, it's not that I just disappear. Like I think a lot of people think as I scale my business. That means that, like, when I hand something off, it's like, no, you do it. No, that's abdication rather than delegation. Abdication is when you just give somebody something and you're like, now you know how to do it right? You watch me once, right? And then you're like, peace the out. Whereas delegation is that you give it to somebody and then you continue to give them feedback about how they can continue to do it well or reinforce them on why they're doing it well and how they keep doing it well. Or you give them feedback on how to get better. It's like, you never. You don't ever. I'm like, you just get better at rewarding people. Watching people, remembering. I know so much of what everyone's doing, and I'm constantly rewarding them for those things. I think that's where most people drop the ball and scaling is they give it away to somebody. They forget that they ever gave it away. They don't tell them they're doing a good job when they're doing a good job, and then eventually that thing starts to decline. I can pretty much point to any area of the business, and if I don't pay attention to it or give it what it needs, it starts to decline.

[C]

Oh, my soul hurts, Layla. My soul hurts.

[B]

Why?

[C]

Because you're talking to me right now like I want? Yes, I was advocating my ass off. What are you talking about?

[A]

And you think in the beginning that it's delegation.

[C]

You're like, oh, delegate. Yeah, delegate, Elevate.

[A]

Okay, cool.

[C]

Copywriting or, like, content. Here's my social media. Have fun. You're like, wait a second. Why aren't you doing things the way that I want them to be done? And then now you're pissed off, and now you're like, okay, what's going on? You mentioned something in one of your videos that I've really found interesting. So it was the act of you doing, like, the goodie bags or, like, the gift bags from when people are, like, crushing it, but Also, when really terrible things happen for employees and, and the importance of, like, you leading by example and you stuff in the bags, you doing the stuff first. And then because your team sees you doing that, it's not just an SOP that you set out.

[A]

It's.

[C]

You say, okay, I'm physically setting the standard.

[A]

Does that apply?

[C]

Can you think of any stories to share to reinforce that?

[B]

Oh, man, dude, like, I've done everything first. Yeah, like, even like, you came to one of the first workshops, like I did. I showed up on stage and to about five, five or six hours of the workshop in the beginning. And now I've scaled back to showing up at 2. And there's a main. A level of, okay, I'm not going to scale back anymore. But I learned how to do all the presentations, also built the presentations, taught people how to build the presentations with our portfolio companies. In terms of, like, teaching, it's like, when you ask me this question, it's hard because I'm like, what haven't I done first? It's so much like that I, I absolutely will do the hard things first. Anyone, even teaching somebody how to sell something, like, I will go sell it first. You know what I mean? Because I think that it's. If you want to be a leader, you are a. I, I think rather than looking at yourself as a leader, you are a model. You are the model for everybody else. And so you have to go first. It's not like you have to be 10 steps ahead, but you have to be at least two steps ahead of people to show them what we're going to do. Even like the first few portfolio companies we brought on, I did, I took calls with random people. It's like, literally, like, we didn't have to show somebody how I wanted them to do them. I took calls with people who said they were interested in having us invest. This is when we're getting 20,000 people a month saying they want. And I'm getting on the. I had stacked calendar, I'm getting on calls with them, and I'm teaching people how to filter for the companies. And then we get to the point of, okay, now we're going to do a deal. I'm helping negotiate the deal, and I'm leading through the negotiation and the lawyer process and all that because I'm, I want people to know how we negotiate a deal. So there's not anything I don't think that I haven't done. Besides, I will say I'm not great with tech. I haven't set up my HubSpot account. But you know, the important things that go into the business that are, I would say, like tipping points, I will always do those things first because I think, I think that's what great founders do.

[C]

So I think that's the missing link that people don't pay attention to is they just make the SOP first and they just give it to the team. And what you said was the other word, abdication.

[B]

This is. It is you want to demonstrate, document, delegate. You demonstrate to people what needs to be done by doing it your fucking self. Get your hands dirty. Then you have them document what you just did. It's important because a lot of people, what they do is they demonstrate and then they make the SOP of what they just did. What you want is you want to demonstrate and have your team make the SOP or the process, showing what they learned from what they watched you do. And then you say, great, now you follow that SOP or that process, and I'm going to watch you do it. And that is delegation. Delegation is when you say, now I want you to demonstrate to me how you would do it by following the process that you documented when you watched me Money. And it's not that you give it to them and then it disappears. You give it to them and then you watch. You know what I mean? So, for example, with any presentation that we hand off in the workshop, so I have a live feed in a room where I can watch them. So the last four workshops, I've watched every presentation because we had new people trying. We had people trying different presentations.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

And then I would give them feedback. Here's the one thing I would do differently. That's it. Because I also think this, which is like, when you delegate something, a lot of people, it's easy to point out a hundred things somebody does wrong, but it's very hard to discern what is the one thing that if they did that one thing, it makes everything else better. It's like when we taught the theory of constraints at the workshop. It's a theory of constraints within skills, which is just what's the one thing, if this person focused on would make everything else better? Might be tonality. It might be using your body on stage. It might be just not being so anxious, which in what that case, I would never tell someone not to be anxious. I would instead distract them.

[A]

Yo, chill.

[B]

Yeah, that doesn't work too well. I. I don't know where. I think, I think it might be with like social media and the Internet and like glamorizing what it means to grow business. Here's the thing. If people watch my content, I think that they would know by now that I do not strive to have a lifestyle business. I strive to have a big business that makes a big impact and is very successful and something that is remembered for beyond me. Right. So I will say this is the caveat, which is, if you want a lifestyle business, I do think you can get it by abdicating and having a shitty business, which is fine. You can have a shitty business that makes money. That's absolutely true. But if you want to build something really great, it's going to take discretionary effort. Which means every day I'm thinking about, what is it that I talked about with Frank or Neil or Ben or Rocky yesterday? Okay, do I need to follow up with them? Should I reward them? Did they do that? You know, that meeting earlier? You know, did so and so they told me they wanted to be more direct in meetings. This person told me they wanted to speak up more meetings. This person shy reinforced them for doing that. Should I send them a message? Like, all my energy goes towards those things. And I think that a lot of people just underestimate. It's just. It's this fallacy that, like, you bought. You get this business and you're like, I'm gonna have the people do it for me. Nobody wants to do shit for somebody who's lazy. And so I look at it, I'm like, I am the example of how hard we work here. And if I look at my team and say that they're not working hard, it's probably me. But a lot of people don't want to face the person in the mirror and think, oh, I am the reason that everyone on my team sucks. But it's. You look at a kid and it's like, you can almost always point back to the parent. You know what I mean? And let me. Don't get me wrong, like, winners will win no matter what. And I do think we have a ton of winners on this team. But winners don't always want to win if they're working for a loser. You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah. So a big question I have, especially.

[C]

On that, when you're like, okay, cool, you need to do the thing first. Demonstrate before you delegate how do you keep your personal development. And like you, Layla, growing faster than the business, if that makes sense. Because then it comes up to where you're like, holy shit, I don't know.

[A]

How to do this.

[C]

So, like, how can I demonstrate something that I don't yet know how to do personally. And especially with the rate of growth that you guys have, how do you stay ahead of that?

[B]

I don't think that you need to be super far ahead of. There's a few steps, something. Yeah, just a few steps. But I think it's more of. So. How do you demonstrate something you haven't done yet? Why would I delegate something that I don't know how to do and my team doesn't know how to do? That's actually what's flawed with that question. Cause I'm thinking here, I'm like, that's if nobody in the company knows how to do it. And it's very important to what we're doing, I need to go learn it first. I need to do it for long enough that I know what good looks like. For example, again, for a founder who's building a business, they have a new product and they're like, great, I'm going to hire somebody to sell it. Fuck that. If you really want to make it work, you will find out how to sell it first. You will get in there and, and you will sell it for two or three months yourself. You will figure out what a good close rate looks like, a good show rate, a good follow up rate, all these other things. And then once you know it like the back of your hand, you pass it off. But I think the issue is this, which is like most people try to figure something out just enough to, to hand it off somebody. I don't try to rush that process. So like right now, for example, I'm CEO of the company. I'm also basically operating as COO because I don't have anybody who's at that level right now or in that seat. And I'm also CEO of Workshops. We've had Workshops for almost a year now. And every quarter people are like, Layla, you have so much on your plate. Should you bring in an op? I'm like, I don't know enough yet. Wow. And it's not that I don't know it well enough to the degree of, oh, I don't know what's going on and what makes it successful. It's that it's in a point of flux where I could say I will delegate it to somebody to gain back personal comfort that I would like to have. Absolutely. I would like more time. I would like more time to do things outside of work. Yes, I'm a human as well. I like to work out, spend time with my husband, travel, et cetera. But do I think that's the best decision for this team right now. No, because we have all these new people coming in. What if I change the one new person up here too? So I have all this new layer and then I. And then amongst all this change of this new person, I put in a new person up here. What do I think is going to happen? I have this saying I say, which is never two news. I need an old and a new never two news with each other. Because then it's two people don't know what the they're doing. It's like I talk about it, I'm like, it's like when you're a teenager, it's your first time and everyone's like, where's it go? It's like that. It's like nobody knows what they're doing and it's like a disaster.

[C]

Can't wait for my team to listen.

[B]

Yeah, I just think that's why I think the main thing is like, if it's not for everybody to grow a big business and to do it in the way that I do it, because I know it's very uncomfortable. I was thinking about this morning, I made a podcast and I was like, this shit's fucking hard. Like, I absolutely would like to have more days where I could just do other things I want to do. I would like more time to ideate and think. And I feel like my content hasn't been as good lately because I don't have as much free time to think about what I put out there. There's a lot of things I would like, but my long term goals are more important than to me than the short term comfort of getting relief right now. And if I know that is better for the business that I remain in the seat, I will remain there. Because guess what? What's going to happen in six months or 12 months is I'm going to have a leader who's in a seat and they're going to say, you know what, I want to deli. I want to bring someone to do this. And I'm going to have to say, do you Remember when for 18 months I was the CEO of Workshop and I did it despite feeling very uncomfortable and feeling stretched then because. Because it was the right thing for the business and the right thing for you right now is to remain in the seat you're in for longer. Cause we don't have this nailed yet. We always say nail it before you scale it. Somebody has to be in charge to say, we have nailed it now we can scale it and I'm at the point where I'm like, no, I don't feel like I'm there yet. And I just think a lot of people, in terms of personal development, I develop myself by understanding that a lot of the things that will get to me, to where I want to go require me to be uncomfortable in the short term. And you find ways to make it easy to remain in that discomfort and to normalize it and to be able to associate it with achieving your goals rather than not. But it is absolutely uncomfortable.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Fuck your mood.

[A]

Follow the plan.

[C]

Yeah, I love it. Now you got to even merch with it. I was like, okay, cool. Now she's going.

[B]

Solid merch.

[C]

Exclusive Merchant.