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Follow the plan. Follow the plan. Follow the plan. Buck your mood. Follow the plan. Every year I map out a 12 month plan for my business. I do this because I'm trying to get all the hard thinking done ahead of time so that every day when I step into my business, I just get to execute. I don't have to keep thinking. I like separating my decision making time from my execution time. Every Sunday I will schedule my entire week. I will schedule all my meetings, I will schedule all my workouts, when I'm going to do my breathing, when I'm going to do a project, dinners I'm going to have, date nights I'm going to have. And I do this because I want to front load the decision making and avoid wasting my energy. When I get to my day of like, what should I do today? I think that it reduces stress, I think it prevents us from avoiding shit we need to do and it makes sure I don't lose energy switching between those two sides of my brain. If your week isn't planned by Sunday, you have already lost the week. The top 1% of performers have cracked the code differently. Okay? They don't learn better, they learn faster. I discovered this the hard way when I went from being broke and I was frustrated to finally being able to build multimillion dollar company. Not because I got smarter, I got faster. You do not get what you want most in life. You get what you work for. And most people are actually working to keep their comfort. Everybody says they want success. Very few people can actually show it with their actions. If your time and your calendar and your money do not reflect your goals and the life that you say you want, then be honest with yourself. You want the life you currently have more than the one you say you want. That's it. If you wanted that one more, you would be on your way to getting it. The disconnect between desire and behavior is what keeps you stuck in the patterns that you hate and the life that you hate. Because those patterns are easier than choosing growth. Respect starts with you. Okay, let's start with the biggest lie that you've ever been told. Okay? Respect is earned from others. You don't earn respect, you set the standard for it. And most people set the bar way too low. If somebody cheats on you and you're thinking to yourself, I will leave, you don't need to yell at them. You don't need to tell them they're a piece of shit because guess what happens? You do that, you lose respect for yourself. The next time your boss Yells at you, they say something demeaning to you, they do something unethical, you just leave. It's about you respecting yourself enough to walk away from the situation and not need to emotionally vomit on somebody, because that, again, is going to make you respect yourself less. Believing you're in charge does not just change your mindset. It changes your results because it determines how much effort you're willing to put in when things get hard. Because if you believe it's all up to other people, how hard do you think you're gonna try? Now, in psychology, this is called the locus of control. Okay? People with an internal locus believe that they shape their outcomes in the world, whereas people that have an external locus believe that fate for other people or powers outside of themselves decide what happens. Willpower and motivation are like batter, so they're going to constantly deplete. Structure is where you derive power from, and discipline is like the power of grit. When I first started dieting, I told myself, I'm just gonna white knuckle it. Like, don't eat anything bad. Don't eat this, don't eat that. And I would always cave because I was relying on motivation, I was relying on willpower. It would run out, and then I would end up eating something I don't want to eat. If your goals rely on feeling motivated, then you're already behind because motivation is unreliable. Okay? Instead of relying on motivation, you create structure. So what does that look like? If I want to lose weight and I'm going out to dinner, I'm going to look at the menus for the dinner ahead of time. When I get there, I don't have to think, I don't have to decide what I'm going to eat. I just get to eat what I already decided. If you don't have structure and you don't have systems, then you quickly burn through your motivation and you don't ever get to achieve your goals because you don't have the real structure it requires to achieve one. Repetition beats so many things in life. If you just do things over and over and over again, it's like volume negates luck. And so you don't need to get lucky of finding a spouse. You don't need to get lucky yet. Are you gonna make the sale? I can get lucky. I just have taken a thousand baths. I have done it 10,000 times at this point. Like, it's not luck. And so I think for a lot of people, they're like, what's the thing I need to do? It's like Seek out the no and then do an unreasonable amount of volume. Answer this. What is a time in your life where you took action before you felt ready? And what happened? Wonder how many years it's taken me to feel competent at making content? Three and a half years. I think in the last three months, that was the first time that I ever felt competent in making content. Most people have this backwards. They wait their entire life to feel ready instead of acting their way to readiness. Confidence does not come first. You're not gonna feel confident before you do the first, right? You will feel confident or more confident on the second rep, but you will not feel confident before the first rep. Action comes first. Action builds experience. Experience then builds competence, right? You're getting the skill and then that competence. Having those skills is what creates confidence. That's it. But if you haven't done it before, you're never gonna feel ready. If I'm feeling insecure and I'm feeling uncertain, I immediately like. It usually takes me like five or 10 minutes. And then I'm like, oh, I need to take action. I need to lean into the insecurity right now. Which is whatever it is that's making me feel super insecure. Whatever it is that's scaring me, I need to go into it, not away from it. Most of the times what it is is that I'm scared of something because I haven't done it before or because it's new to me because I don't know enough about it. Confidence comes from competence, and competence comes from trying something. So you have to try doing something, then you gain competence, and then once you have enough competence, you gain confidence. Emotions are the top reason that we cannot think clearly. Especially when stress, fear, urgency, they all cloud our judgment. There's a rule that I've made for myself and I want to give this rule to you guys. If I feel emotional, I do not make a decision. When your emotions spike, so do all the errors in your decision making. We've been conditioned to think that suffering equates to learning. But the reality is, is that prolonged suffering actually impairs learning by keeping your brain in stress mode. Peak performance. People who are always at their highest, they require peak recovery. And you can't do that if you're always mentally beating yourself up. So this is something that I actually really like to do, which is the next time that feel bad about something, I want you to set a 24 hour timer on your phone. For real. Like set a Timer. You get 24 hours to feel bad about that mistake. Process it, learn from it. Move the fuck on. Look at your calendar, look at your bank account. And then ask yourself what doesn't line up with what you say you want. So circle the one thing that you are spending time or money on that is not leading to life you want, and then replace that with something that will do this for a week, a month, a year. It's the little changes like this that compound and actually bring you to the person you want to be. The fastest way to get faster is to give yourself half the time that you think is needed. I've learned to use Parkinson's Law against myself. Parkinson's Law is work expands to fill the time available. If I think that something will take me two weeks, I give myself one. If I think it's going to take four hours, I give myself two. And here's what I have seen happen. I become more innovative. I focus on only the things that actually move the needle. I make decisions faster. Time pressure doesn't create stress, it creates clarity. Because the less time you have, the faster you actually figure out what matters. It's funny because people say all the time, they're like, you know what? I would love to see a day in your life, Layla. And I'm like, well, that's boring as fuck. Because my life is a system. My life is a series of systems strung together every day. So it means, like, I have a system for working out. I have a system for my marriage. I have a system for my business. I have a system for every aspect of my life. I also know that feelings are pity, and I want the long term satisfaction knowing that I can stick with something, knowing I have control over myself and knowing that I've mastered some. And what I've seen is that when you start doing it, it adds up. And then you start to feel better about yourself because you're like, I trust myself. I trust myself to stick with the plan. I trust myself to have my own back. And at the end of the day, discipline is not just going to bring you closer to your goals. It's going to bring you closer to the person that you want to be.
Host: Leila Hormozi
Date: January 6, 2026
In this concise and motivating episode, Leila Hormozi shares her proven strategies for creating an “unshakeable” business and a purpose-driven life. Drawing from her personal journey from broke to building a $100M+ enterprise and scaling acquisition.com, Leila focuses on practical systems, mindset frameworks, and actionable routines that anyone can adopt to make 2026 their best year yet. The episode provides a roadmap for separating decision-making from execution, building discipline, and shifting from comfort to growth—even when it feels uncomfortable.
"I like separating my decision making time from my execution time." (00:31)
"I got faster ... you do not get what you want most in life. You get what you work for." (02:05)
Respect isn’t “earned from others,” it’s set by one’s own standards.
“You don't earn respect. You set the standard for it. And most people set the bar way too low.” (03:30)
Locus of Control explanation:
"If your goals rely on feeling motivated, then you're already behind, because motivation is unreliable." (06:20)
Real growth comes from acting before feeling ready.
“They wait their entire life to feel ready instead of acting their way to readiness.” (10:12)
Confidence is built through competence, which comes only through action.
Leila’s self-coaching method:
“If I feel emotional, I do not make a decision.” (12:45)
"Time pressure doesn't create stress, it creates clarity." (16:45)
"My life is a series of systems strung together every day." (17:10)
"Discipline is not just going to bring you closer to your goals. It's going to bring you closer to the person that you want to be." (end)
On discipline and planning:
"If your week isn't planned by Sunday, you have already lost the week." (01:45)
On honest self-audit:
"If your time and your calendar and your money do not reflect your goals and the life that you say you want, then be honest with yourself. You want the life you currently have more than the one you say you want." (02:25)
On structure over motivation:
"Willpower and motivation are like batter, so they're going to constantly deplete. Structure is where you derive power from." (05:15)
On confidence:
"Confidence does not come first. You're not gonna feel confident before you do the first, right? You will feel confident or more confident on the second rep, but you will not feel confident before the first rep. Action comes first." (10:42)
On emotionally charged decisions:
“If I feel emotional, I do not make a decision. When your emotions spike, so do all the errors in your decision making.” (12:45)
On self-trust and discipline:
"I trust myself to stick with the plan. I trust myself to have my own back. And at the end of the day, discipline is not just going to bring you closer to your goals. It's going to bring you closer to the person that you want to be." (end)
Leila distills powerful business (and life) advice into a no-nonsense playbook: Plan proactively, systematize everything, measure honest alignment, take action before you feel ready, don’t rely on motivation, and create an environment where discipline and self-respect flourish. If you want 2026 to be your best year, start by building your calendar, your systems, and—most importantly—your self-discipline.