Podcast Summary: Build with Leila Hormozi

Episode 345: Unlock Your Best Year Yet

Host: Leila Hormozi
Date: March 24, 2026

Episode Overview

In this dynamic episode, Leila Hormozi shares five core principles that entrepreneurs and business leaders can use to make 2026 their best year yet. Drawing from her own journey—from being broke at 22 to building a multimillion-dollar business and running Acquisition.com—Leila breaks down the uncomfortable truths about outgrowing your strengths, the value of recovery, the painful necessity of expensive decisions, and the importance of building autonomous systems. Her tone is direct, candid, and deeply practical, peppered with actionable steps and real-world anecdotes.

Key Principles and Discussion Points

1. Fire Yourself from Jobs You're Good At

[00:50–10:59]

• Main Idea: The greatest threat to your future isn’t your weaknesses—it’s your existing strengths.
• Leila's Experience:
  • In her first company, Leila was the best salesperson, but realized that for real growth, she had to stop selling and start building a team of salespeople.
  • Quote:

    “Who you are today and all the things that you’re so amazing at…are also the reasons why you’re not gonna be able to get to the next level.” ([02:08])

  • Anecdote: Compared her mastery in dieting (losing weight) to the need to learn the opposite (building muscle) when her goals shifted—emphasizing new skills for new outcomes.
  • Mastering “the next thing” demands becoming a beginner again.
• Actionable Advice:
  • List what you’re best at and delegate it entirely.
  • Take on roles where you’ll initially be the worst.
  • Trade short-term regression for long-term expansion.
  • Quote:

    “The things that have made you so valuable for where you’re at in your life right now are often the very things that will make you invaluable in the next era of your life.” ([06:18])

• Memorable Moment: Parallel between running a $10M business (fixing everything yourself) and a $100M business (recruiting, elevating others)—the skill that gets you here will not get you there.

2. Normalize Regressing to Progress

[11:00–16:38]

• Main Idea: Progress always comes with a performance dip; learning curves are a part of leveling up.
• Leila's Experience:
  • Transitioning from a solo business to CEO of a hundred-person company made her feel less capable at first.
  • Quote:

    “You’re going to suck at this first. It won’t work at first. It’s probably not going to be what you think at first.” ([15:30])

  • Used “the dip” as a metaphor for short-term discomfort before the upswing of mastery.
• Actionable Advice:
  • Expect a 3–6 month dip with each new challenge.
  • Judge yourself by your trajectory, not your current state.
  • Communicate the dip to your team to set realistic expectations.
• Memorable Moment: Leila’s teddy bear analogy:

  “We’re all humans made of the same shit. Seriously... we’re the same teddy bear.” ([12:57])

3. Measure Recovery with the Same Vigor as Progress

[16:39–25:45]

• Main Idea: Recovery and rest are crucial for high-quality decision-making—fatigue leads to expensive mistakes.
• Leila's Experience:
  • Tied her worst business decisions (bad hires, blown deals) directly to periods of exhaustion and poor recovery.
  • Quote:

    “Tired minds make expensive decisions.” ([17:07]) “Every decision that you make, tired, costs you twice—once in the bad call and now once in the cleanup.” ([20:09])

• Actionable Advice:
  • Treat recovery (sleep, rest, fun) like a leading indicator and prioritize it on your calendar.
  • Schedule major decisions for times when you’re best rested.
  • Recognize your depletion level and cut scope before it becomes unmanageable.
• Memorable Moment:
  • Explains telling her husband not to discuss big decisions after 4:30 pm, saving the most important thinking for mornings. ([22:43])
  • Compares herself and her team to pro athletes:

    “If I’m going to go really hard, I have to rest really hard.” ([18:45])

4. Make Expensive Decisions Early to Buy Back Time

[25:46–32:33]

• Main Idea: The most expensive asset is time—delaying necessary investments or hires wastes it.
• Leila's Experience:
  • Admitted to being “scrappy” and delaying crucial (and expensive) hires, which cost years of progress.
  • Quote:

    “Now what I ask myself—what’s the decision I’ll make in 12 months? Let me make it today and buy myself back that year.” ([27:33])

  • Shared an example: hired only three executives when she needed eight and recognized the real cost was growth lost.
• Actionable Advice:
  • Identify the senior person or key investment you’re putting off—make the move now, not later.
  • Distinguish strategic investments from unnecessary spending (e.g., don’t confuse hiring an executive with buying a fancy office desk).
  • Quote:

    “Time is the only asset you can’t get back.” ([27:22])

• Memorable Moment:
  • Encourages listeners to “optimize for cheap in the short term, but expensive in the long term,” and to front-load pain for back-loaded growth and freedom.

5. Build Systems That Work When You Don’t

[32:34–39:55]

• Main Idea: The ultimate sign of a scalable business is when it doesn’t rely on you—the founder—for critical decisions.
• Leila's Experience:
  • Her highest earning quarter happened when she was the least involved:

    “I was the least involved I’ve ever been. I had finally built something that could run without me. And that is when I knew we had made it. Not because I was essential—but because I was optional.” ([33:05])

  • Deliberately rejects any growth strategy that requires her direct involvement:

    “Why optimize to be irrelevant? Optimize for the most scarce resources in the company to be the most irrelevant in the ways that grow the company.” ([34:22])

• Actionable Advice:
  • Document your decision process and frameworks so others can replicate your reasoning without you.
  • Shift from being the business's execution engine to being its architect—develop systems, not solutions that depend on yourself.
  • Avoid systems that require perfect conditions, but also avoid ones too rigid to handle real-world changes.
• Memorable Moment:
  • Challenges the common founder mindset:

    “How do I add $10 million in revenue with zero of my time next year?” ([35:35])

  • Urges to “optimize for founder at level zero.”

Notable Quotes

• “The willingness to suck is the price of admission to mastery.” ([13:45])
• “You only have so much time and money... Make sure it’s on the things that give you the biggest bang for your buck.” ([32:05])
• “The more necessary you are… the harder it’s going to be to achieve really big goals.” ([39:23])

Important Timestamps & Segments

• [00:50] — Principle 1: Fire yourself from jobs you’re good at
• [11:00] — Principle 2: Normalize regressing to progress
• [16:39] — Principle 3: Measure recovery with the same vigor as progress
• [25:46] — Principle 4: Make expensive decisions early to buy back time
• [32:34] — Principle 5: Build systems that work when you don’t

Final Thoughts

Leila closes by reinforcing that these five principles are the blueprint for making 2026 your best year yet—but also hints at pitfalls to avoid, teasing an upcoming episode on the "nine things guaranteed to ruin your 2026." Her advice is clear, tough, and deeply empathetic: to achieve greatness, embrace discomfort, invest early and wisely, and build structures that make you nonessential to your own business’s day-to-day.

This summary is crafted to capture the rich content, tone, and actionable insights from Leila Hormozi’s podcast episode “Unlock Your Best Year Yet.”