Podcast Summary: Build with Leila Hormozi

Episode 338: "Your Calendar Is Killing Your Company"

Date: January 27, 2026
Host: Leila Hormozi

Episode Overview

In this episode, Leila Hormozi shares transformative lessons learned from radically reducing meetings from her calendar during a tumultuous year. Through candid storytelling and actionable insights, Leila challenges business leaders to take charge of their time as a way to strengthen both personal well-being and organizational effectiveness. She explains how her calendar overhaul was initially forced by a health crisis, but ultimately became a pivotal leadership shift. The episode offers a clear framework for anyone frustrated by endless meetings and seeking more impact with less chaos.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Forcing Function: Health Crisis Leading to Calendar Overhaul

• Leila describes 2025 as the year she “deleted the most meetings ever,” not out of a productivity drive, but because of a serious health issue that left her unable to keep her overloaded schedule.
• This period of working from bed, in pain, forced her to recognize and eliminate wasteful activities, especially unproductive meetings.
• Quote:

  “It really was a forcing function for me. And the amazing outcome of that is that I have completely eliminated things that are wasteful from my calendar and my life.” (03:15)

2. Taking Personal Ownership of the Calendar

• Even with executive assistants and a strong team, Leila stresses that no one should abdicate responsibility for managing their own time:

  “Your time is the most important thing you have in life. Not just your business, but your life. You cannot just expect other people to know how to manage it.” (05:40)

• She highlights the importance of regularly reviewing your calendar as a window into your priorities, beliefs, and insecurities.
• Calendar bloat is often due to “trying to be everything to everyone” and letting others’ priorities fill up valuable time.

3. The Real Reason for Most Meetings

• Leila asserts that most meetings exist because of organizational deficiencies—unclear roles, lack of processes, poor documentation.
• Meetings “become the band-aid for a structural problem.”
• Timestamp: 14:00
• Quote:

  "Most meetings exist to solve problems that should not exist.” (14:15)

• She recommends always asking:
  • “Why do we need this meeting?”
  • “What would have to happen to make this meeting irrelevant?”
• Implementing this questioning led to a dramatic reduction in meetings across her company, visible in Slack as teams proactively canceled unnecessary appointments.

4. The Skill of Saying No

• Leila reframes saying “no” as a learnable skill, not a personality trait:

  “Saying no is a skill. It is not a personality trait.” (20:15)

• She shares a formative experience with a therapist encouraging her as a young personal trainer to practice declining unreasonable requests.
• Confidence in refusing meetings or tasks without justification creates internal respect, which leads others to respect boundaries too.
• Practical advice: Practice saying no without over-explaining. People adapt quickly to new boundaries.

5. The Power of Deep Work: One Uninterrupted Day > Five Fragmented Days

• Leila advocates for batching meetings into specific days and protecting deep work time.
• She describes the compounding effects of this shift: more creativity, effectiveness, lower reactivity, and higher-quality output.
• Quote:

  “One deep day, one uninterrupted day, beats five half-interrupted days.” (28:45)

• She recalls instances where she canceled entire weeks of meetings to focus on mission-critical work, emphasizing that nobody understands how her time serves the company better than herself.

6. Eliminating Meetings Forces Team Growth

• Removing herself as the “glue” in meetings pushes others to fill leadership gaps, driving ownership and accountability.
• Being less available is not abandonment—it’s empowerment.
• Quote:

  “Eliminating meetings forces your team to grow without you. And if you are the bottleneck in your company, then your company will never grow.” (34:10)

• She underlines that stepping back reveals structural business gaps and ultimately builds more capable teams.

7. Practical Takeaways & Company Culture Tips

• Drowning in meetings is not a scheduling or time problem—it’s a standards and identity problem.
• How you treat your own time sets the floor for how others treat you.
• At Acquisition.com, meetings require a memo with clear context, a proposed solution, pros/cons, and desired outcomes before being scheduled:
  • “We have a term that we say at Acquisition.com, which I really like, which is we say, ‘Write a fucking memo.’” (41:00)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [05:40] “Your time is the most important thing you have in life... Why am I letting anybody but myself make these decisions?”
• [14:15] “Most meetings exist to solve problems that should not exist.”
• [20:15] “Saying no is a skill. It is not a personality trait.”
• [28:45] “One deep day, one uninterrupted day, beats five half-interrupted days.”
• [34:10] “Eliminating meetings forces your team to grow without you. And if you are the bottleneck in your company, then your company will never grow.”
• [41:00] “[On meetings:] ‘Write a fucking memo.’”

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 — Leila frames the year’s major shift: eliminating meetings as a result of a health scare.
• 05:40 — On taking full ownership of your own calendar and time management.
• 14:15 — Most meetings are a response to lack of structure—how to ask the right questions to eliminate them.
• 20:15 — The importance of practicing and developing the skill of saying no.
• 28:45 — The outsized productivity and clarity benefits of deep, uninterrupted work days.
• 34:10 — How canceling meetings creates leadership opportunities for teams and builds stronger businesses.
• 41:00 — Acquisition.com’s rule: “Write a fucking memo” before scheduling meetings.

Final Thoughts

Leila’s message is bold yet practical: The path to an unshakeable business runs through a disciplined calendar and a leader who fiercely protects their time. By raising your standards and letting go of meetings that solve the wrong problems, leaders can create stronger teams, better results, and more personal fulfillment. “You can just say no.” (43:00)

Tag and share your takeaways with Leila—she’s eager to hear how you’re building better businesses, one calendar decision at a time.