← Build with Leila Hormozi
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- [00:00]
A
Seems like no one wants to work anymore. There's this narrative that work is bad and that work has to be punishing and that work something we want less of. And I want to talk about how you can engineer your life so that you get to avoid those situations and be in ones where work is actually good and you want more of it. It really is just like, I feel passionate about, like, people being able to have a job they like. You know, I think there was a time for me when I thought that work was bad and work sucked and I wanted to minimize time spent working. I was actually on LinkedIn the other day and I was looking at all these posts that were popping up. A lot of them were basically people who sell you on having a business that takes you X amount of hours a week. And I actually just felt really sad because they know that you probably had a job that you hate and all this. And I was just like, yo, this is up. It's like being like, you should be single forever because you had one bad relationship. You don't need to be single. You just need to understand what to look for in the right relationship or understand how to build the right relationship rather than avoid it for the rest of your life.
- [00:54]
B
Yeah, there's almost like a messaging out there that being an entrepreneur is going to solve all these problems that you encounter in your work.
- [01:00]
A
It's not even being an entrepreneur. It's that people are trying to minimize work in general, whether it be at their job or it be in now they've quit their job because work sucks and now they try to start a business that takes a little amount of time because work is hard and sucks. I want people to do whatever works for them. But I think that there is a huge argument to be made for people making massive generalizations based off of specific circumstances and then making decisions that affect their entire life based off of these, like, couple specific instances. And I see that there's a lot of people now playing up this narrative that work is bad and work means punishment. If you work for a company, you're never going to be happy. You've got to be happy as an entrepreneur. And then when you're an entrepreneur, you can only work a certain amount of hours, otherwise there's something wrong with you and it's a punishing experience. It is true that there are certain circumstances that are punishing. You can have a boss who is suppressing and demeaning. You can work at a company that is. It doesn't care about its customers, and you can have a Business that's really hard and punishing because maybe you picked the wrong market. But I think that a lot of people end up punishing themselves in not just the short term, but they punish themselves for the entire rest of their lives by not showing themselves what they're capable of, because they're constantly running from work rather than towards it. Because now they've generalized that all work is bad and it's indefinitely that way. And so because of that, there's this constant separation between work and life. And people like me who have found a way to make work rewarding are seen as weird and like workaholics. And you work too much and you're crazy. You work 14 hours a day. Yes, because I love it, and it makes the rest of my life better. So it's like, we take all this time that we're trying to avoid work. We're trying to build a life that we love outside of work, as if you can separate life. And it's like, what if we took that time and we put it towards figuring out a way to engineer a business or a life where you actually love what you do and you actually want to maximize the time you spend doing it. Right. Rather than minimize it? And so what that could mean, right, is like, let's think about a world in which you have a business that involves your children and you get to have them participate in, or you get to have a business where you work with your spouse, or a job where you work with your spouse, or you get to support a cause that you're very passionate about. The way that I thought about it was, like, I would love a business where I get to work with my spouse, because I like working a lot, because I've engineered it that way. And so I want somebody who can be in there with me. I would love to build a culture where people love what they do. Therefore, we can have friendships. Because it's not like I'm their boss punishing them all day. It's like I'm somebody who's helping them grow and get better at a job that they like. And I think a lot of people don't know that, like, where I came from. The reason I do what I do is because I had a job that sucked. It's because I had a boss that sucked. And I said to myself, I never want this experience for people. And I will create a business where I get to have an impact on people's lives by creating a culture where people actually like what they do, and creating a culture where our customers also get to experience a great service or a great team or great interactions, because they also get to see people who actually like what they do. And so by consequence, it makes everyone else's lives better, not worse.
- [04:02]
B
I wonder actually if you could share the story of that first really job, because I think a lot of people could relate.
- [04:06]
A
So I took a job at a gym and I was a trainer there. And the first boss I had was fantastic. He was investing in my growth. He was constantly checking in on me, having one on ones, asking me if I was reaching my goals, like trying to invest in me, giving me books to read, having multiple meetings with me per week, encouraging me, constantly telling me that I could do things that I didn't think I was capable of. And he left to go work somewhere else. And a new boss came in. And that boss was all of the opposite things. He was punishing. He yelled at me, he demeaned me. He told me he wanted to run me over with his truck and light me on fire. He threatened me if I wasn't doing well at work, which of course I wasn't because I didn't want to work for him. And every single day when I drove up to work, I specifically remember sitting in my car and I would just try not to cry because I was scared of him. So going to work was just like a very stressful experience. And two, I just felt like I was no longer doing anything that was meaningful to me because he had taken all the meaning out of it by making it such a punishing experience. After I left that job, the first thing I thought to myself was like, I have to have my own business so I can do things the right way. Not because I think that all work is this way, but because I would love to set an example for people of what it can be rather than what people think it needs to be. That was when I made it my mission. Like, I always want to build a place where people genuinely want to work, where people genuinely come here and say, my life is better for having this job, My relationship is better for having this job, My health is better for having this job, not worse. That's the goal. And I think if people thought about that as their framework, how do I find a job that makes the rest of my life better? Rather than how do I find a job that I have to work so little I can focus on the rest of my life?
- [05:49]
B
Because it's like, even for someone who's able to, let's say, shrink their work day to six hours or take a part time Job like they're still putting in four hours into something that they, they might hate.
- [05:58]
A
I think that the difficulty is that if you build a business that does not benefit the rest of your life, then every time you work on the business it takes from here. And every time you work on these, they take from. And I don't think a lot of people think about this. The goal is how do I create it so that they all make each other better, whether it's a job or a business, if people actually put this thought into it. How do I engineer my relationship so that I do things in my relationship that make my job better? How do I engineer my job so I do things at my job that make my health better? And it's just that most people instead say, I'll separate these systems, but then every time you're doing one, you are quite literally taking from another and starving the other. Whereas they can feed each other and actually make each other better over time if we just put some thought into it.
- [06:51]
B
We have all these social norms like Sunday, scary, can't wait for the weekend, like Friday happy hour, no clock out early. It is really embedded into our culture. Kind of joke about work as if like it's like bad traffic or like weather.
- [07:03]
A
It is. And the thing that sucks is that because it's so embedded in our culture to avoid work, to try and minimize work, try and do less of it. When you do get an opportunity where you work somewhere or build a business that you want more of, everyone else around you wants you to do less of it. And then what happens is that because you do not educate people on how your work makes you a better spouse, a better friend, a better family member, they try to pull you away from it because they assume, they generalize that your experience is like theirs. And therefore you create these two competing systems and then you never win. The only way to win is if you can make the systems, each system makes the other system better. And until people figure that out, I do not think that they can achieve work life integration. Work life integration is just one system, one understood thing. Rather than looking at them separately and allowing them to feed off each other like parasites.
- [07:57]
B
Like what does it mean to have work that is contributing to your relationship?
- [08:01]
A
If I am constantly growing as a person, I'm becoming more confident because I'm taking on challenges. I'm putting myself in uncomfortable situations that grow my self esteem and I'm putting time into things that matter to me. Do I think those are going to make me a better or worse partner for my spouse. Do I think those skills will translate? Do you think that a wife who shows up more confident the more a more autonomous sense of self, with more self esteem is going to be better or worse to her husband? Do you think she would be more valuable to his life or do you think she will take more from his life? The more valuable we are as individuals, the more valuable we are in a relationship. If we can create an environment where our work makes us more valuable, then by consequence it makes all of our relationships more valuable. The difficulty is a lot of people see one person becoming more valuable and instead of saying, I should be inspired by them and also become more valuable, they say, come back down here with me. Don't work so much. Why do you try so hard? You look tired. Yeah, because I'm winning at life.
- [08:59]
B
I know a lot of friends of mine out of college who went into like the investment banking route could definitely argue that like I'm getting, you know, destroyed 100 hours a week and I'm getting better at, you know, making spreadsheets. Like, do you think the difference between that and like a job that someone really likes but is also putting in the same hours as autonomy? Think about like someone like Elon who's like also doing 100 hours but probably loves his work.
- [09:18]
A
Nobody likes something they're not good at at first, but a lot of people don't stick it out long enough to get good at it. Or they don't have enough base level intelligence to realize that if I eat now, it pays off later. And I think whether it's in business or a job, sucking at something is different than being threatened and yelled at. Sucking at your job is part of getting to a place where you're ever good at it. Being yelled at and threatened by a boss is completely different. But we're at the point now where people think sucking at their job and not having a sense of self esteem in the beginning people are quitting and they're saying, you know what? This isn't for me. It's too hard on my mental health. It's too challenging. If you really cared about your mental health, then you would do hard things. The reality is, is that most things that are good for us don't feel good. Most things that make our lives better don't feel good. I think a lot of people, when they talk about their mental health, they talk about not what is good for them, but what feels good for them. Whereas I would argue that if something makes you feel angry, depressed, anxious, sad for a day, maybe it's because it's a new experience. It's a skill you don't have. It's a challenge you're taking on. And if you get through that day, your mental health will be better for all those days after. If I look at the pivotal moments in my life that made me better and made me stronger, they were the hardest moments of my life. But I trade those hard weeks or months for good years or decades, and a lot of people just are cashing in chips day after day, saying, you know what doesn't feel good? Try again tomorrow. If I feel good, I'll do it. If it feels good tomorrow, maybe I'll do it tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow won't make me as anxious. Maybe tomorrow I won't be as angry about it. Maybe tomorrow won't feel so hard. I say that day after day after day. And so we've gone into this cycle where people perceive mental health to be feeling good rather than being and doing good. Understanding that the two are not the same and understanding that feeling bad in the short term is often good for me in the long term have been what have helped me turn my life around.
- [11:13]
B
The ability to undergo harder and harder challenges is like the is. Is how you become a better person by the end of it. Yeah.
- [11:20]
A
Not by avoiding them.
- [11:22]
B
So you've talked about meaning. Do you feel you could define what makes meaningful work?
- [11:26]
A
Meaningful work is based on the person, which is. It means something to you. So for me, lots of people look at me and say, you have all this money. Why are you still CEO? It's so much better to be an owner. It's so much better to own an asset that gives you dividends over time. I'm like, that's great. I have real estate. I don't think I'm making anyone's life better by owning real estate and making money off houses. I like making people's lives better, and it means something to me because I've had people make my life, and I've had people make my life amazing. And I want to be the person for everyone else that makes their life amazing and better. And so I feel like I derive meaning from that because I get to choose what I want to do with my life and where I drive. Meaning. And I would like to do it in a way that benefits other people, not just me.
- [12:07]
B
But the real estate example made me think of this idea that I think both you and Alex talked about of, like, passive income. Like, what do you think about the word?
- [12:13]
A
I think that, again, like, people who seek out passive income, they seek out passive income because they are trying to avoid work and they're more than they're trying to get income. It's not that they want income, it's that they don't want work. Which again comes from this belief that work is bad and punishing. And I think actually a lot of it even, it's actually I want to avoid people because what does work have you do interact with people all day? A lot of people try to avoid people because of one or two bad ones. It's just like somebody doesn't get a relationship because of one bad boyfriend.
- [12:40]
B
Let's say I'm at a job that feels punishing and I'm not totally convinced that I want to leave yet. What are some things I can do to make that better?
- [12:49]
A
I think you have to figure out if you are truly being punished by the organization and boss or you are punishing yourself for not meeting your own standards. And I think a lot of people cannot differentiate the two. They just look around at where they're at and say, oh, it's the job. It could also be the fact that you beat yourself up when you do not exceed standards set by other people. It could be the fact that you are a complete perfectionist. And anytime something's not perfectly to order, you feel like you hate yourself. It could be the fact that you have the compulsion to work extra every day if one thing is not done and therefore you overwork yourself. Or on the other side, if you have somebody who's forcing you to do those things, I would say that's a punishing work environment. But if you are the one forcing you, then that is just you.
- [13:29]
B
I bet a lot of people would rather blame the circumstance of their job or someone else because it feels, I don't know if easier to do or like they don't have to do as much.
- [13:38]
A
I mean, I think for good reason. Changing your environment to change how you feel is smart because humans need to be efficient. We cannot put 10 out of 10 effort into everything. If every time you needed to change something you had to do all these like crazy, it's much easier to just switch the situation. There's some situations that it just. It makes more sense. So that's sensible. In my opinion. It's when it becomes a compulsion to switch situations that it's a problem. And when you're switching situations more than you are improving yourself. Most people have a compulsion to do something when an emotion occurs. An emotion occurs. They must take an action. And all that you need to do is allow emotion to Occur and just do what you were going to do next, no matter what. Were you going to go eat breakfast with your spouse? Were you going to go to work? Were you going to leave work? Were you going to go play with your dog? Were you going to go watch a movie? You just have the emotion and go do that thing anyways. What you teach yourself over time is that emotions are not directives. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean you need to let it dictate your behavior.
- [14:33]
B
Also, if it sucks to like be bad at something, then restarting is probably not the solution because you're going to have to start over.
- [14:40]
A
Right? Because a lot of people escape one job to go restart at another job because they feel like they're not good at it or they suck. But then they're just even worse at the new thing. There's the learning curve and so they're not getting the compound returns on their skill as they would if they were to stay in the job that they're at. Like I'm going to constantly try to get into a new situation and I haven't even worked on myself in six years. Well, what's the common denominator amongst all these circumstances? You've had six jobs, Sally. Why do you hate all of them? With completely different bosses and completely different industries where other people liked it.
- [15:09]
B
Is there an example of someone that you've seen that has taken a mindset shift from work sucks? You know, I don't want to do this to like they're totally turned around
- [15:19]
A
and invested now the easiest way way to change your mentality about work. If you are the kind of person who thinks I should minimize how much I work work is punishing is you put yourself somewhere where you are the one standing out. For example, if somebody comes into acquisition.com feels that way, they will quickly conform to the opposite. Because as humans, how do we survive? We blend in with everybody else that's in our, our clan or whatever. If somebody puts themselves in a situation where everyone else talks about how much they love work, they like working and they work more, however much work benefits their lives, they will very quickly change.
- [15:54]
B
I bet the flip side of that is if your friends outside of work are all the kinds of friends who are just on working harder, it's probably also going to be hard to adopt the new behavior.
- [16:03]
A
Yeah, I think a lot of people have friends who reinforce the belief that work is bad. You know, you've got taco Tuesday, whatever, hump day Friday, beer or something. You know, turn Sunday mimosas And it's like you literally are reinforced constantly by people who also have these two things that compete with each other. The more time you spend your relationships, the more it hurts work. The more time you spend at work, the more it hurts your relationships. People say, why do you work with your spouse? And I'm like, if you understood this, you would do it too. Because every time I make my business better, it actually makes my husband's life better. And every time my husband makes himself better, it makes my business better, which makes me better. Who won?
- [16:40]
B
Where do you think like remote work fits into this?
- [16:43]
A
I think that the problem that remote work solves is that a lot of workplaces are punishing. And so what you get to do when you are remotely working is avoid a lot of the punishing situations. You don't have to interact with people nearly as much. There's many less social interactions. And the ones that you do have are in a much more controlled environment where people can get their together for five minutes to send a slack or they can show up to a zoom, basically put on a face for 30 minutes and then go back to whatever they were doing. I actually think that remote work has just allowed us to avoid work by disguise. If the work is not bad, then you want more of it. Then in person makes sense. The reason some of the best organizations have wonderful workplace cultures and they have in person headquarters and such is because they know that work doesn't need to be punishing and they engineer an environment where it's not. So people want to work more and they want more social interactions. Why are people moving to Vegas to work with acquisition.com? why are our employees going from remote to working here? Because they come here for a week or two. They like the social interactions because of the not a punishing place. And they say, gosh, I'd like more of that. And I think a lot of workplaces are just the opposite.
- [17:42]
B
Are there other pieces of advice you have for someone who's like in the struggling through the phase of like not being that good at their, let's say, entry level job?
- [17:49]
A
I would just say that anything worth having is hard. And hard doesn't mean bad. And you don't need to make the hard times mean bad. And I think this is something that I've learned because even in my first business, it was so hard and I was so stressed that I was unhappy. And I was unhappy because I didn't know that it was okay for it to be hard. And that was actually a good thing. And even just the other day, I was talking to Alex, and he said, you seem pretty stressed, and, like, what you're doing is pretty hard right now. I said, but I'm happy. What more can you ask for than, like, when you're striving towards a goal that's really high? There's a lot of hard things happening, and you're stressed. Also happy. A lot of the times where that came from for me was just thinking that hard was bad, but now I've just. Haven't I have enough evidence to show me that every time I do something hard, my life gets better on the other side. Doesn't feel good while I'm going through it. Sometimes it feels terrible, but my life will be better in the long run. And so hard is good.
- [18:46]
B
It feels like a superpower just to, like, extend the time horizon through which you're evaluating something.
- [18:50]
A
The biggest superpower of all, I think, in people is people who can enjoy the negative feelings. They create a relationship with negative feelings where they don't run from them, but they actually embrace them because they know that they're going to come out a better version of themselves on the other side, better than they ever were. And I think that that's a huge attribute of successful people. You see it to the degree of people who are like, give me more. Give me the hard stuff. Give me the. That's not a coincidence. It's because they've created a relationship with all of the, quote, bad in life, whereas other people are just avoiding it because they've told themselves that that's a bad thing.