EP 308 - Alex Hormozi

Summary

Podcast Summary: Going Deep with Chad and JT - EP 308 - Alex Hormozi (Released September 13, 2023)

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Episode Overview

In this spirited episode, Chad Kroeger and JT Parr welcome entrepreneur and fitness icon Alex Hormozi for a high-energy, insightful, and often hilarious deep dive. The discussion flows freely between topics like maximizing “stoke,” fitness wisdom, building business brands, personal development, and how to live a life driven by authentic effort rather than ego. Hormozi shares stories from his fraternity days, practical advice on building businesses and content, and his personal philosophy for sustained growth and fulfillment.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Chasing "Stoke" as an Ideal

• Stoke and Froth: The hosts discuss the concept of “stoke” (peak enthusiasm or passion), likening it to an unattainable ideal rather than a permanent state.
  • “It’s an ideal that we always strive for but never achieve.” — Alex (04:38)
• Hope and Stoke: They draw parallels between “stoke” and hope, referencing Harvey Milk and Pandora’s box.
  • “You gotta give ‘em stoke. But it’s not like ever going to be top top. You’re trying to get there.” — JT (04:40)

2. Gym Sales to Entrepreneurial Skills

• Developing Communication: Hormozi credits his experience selling gym memberships as fundamental to his communication and persuasion skills.
  • “I had...a rocky cut scene of life...five years of me taking 20 plus one-on-one consults a day selling gym memberships...You just learn how to say stuff better.” — Alex (05:21)
• Connecting Across Backgrounds: Transitioning from a business background at Vanderbilt to gym sales expanded his worldview and empathy.

3. Fratonomics and Leadership Lessons

• Practical Leadership: Hormozi recounts being fraternity president at Vanderbilt, negotiating mergers, and using economics to improve party attendance.
  • “I gave this presentation on Fratonomics...I had to get 100 dudes in college to do stuff they didn’t want to do with no hard authority. You learn how to motivate people.” — Alex (11:00)
• Negotiating a Fraternity Merger: Describes a “hostile takeover” and how influence matters more than technical voting blocks. (12:39)

4. Fitness Philosophy & Advice

• Sustainability Over Extremes: Hormozi advocates for simple, sustainable fitness routines, critiquing overly rigid approaches.
  • “If you can’t do it forever, don’t do it for a day.” — Alex (19:22)
• Optimal Training: Explains why he prefers hack squats and leg presses for leg building over barbell squats for long-term joint health.
  • “You want the muscle you’re trying to train to be the mechanical limiter of the lift.” — Alex (21:19)
• Diet: Emphasizes consistency with high-quality foods and knowing your “10 core meals” for body composition management.
  • “If you want to change your entire life, all you have to do is just change what those 10 meals are.” — (29:05)
• Bodybuilding as Ultimate Functional Training:
  • “In my opinion, bodybuilding is the most functional training...Being jacked is functional.” — (86:23)

5. Brand Building and Content Creation

• Authenticity First: Hormozi strongly warns against letting algorithms dictate content away from personal interests.
  • “The biggest mistake content creators make today: not being them.” — (54:52)
• Learning Process: Uses Twitter/X to test ideas—tweets that get traction become shorts, then longer-form content. (47:14)
• Brand Philosophy: He explains how brands are built on clear associations (e.g., Nike = victory, Stoke = peak feeling). Brands add perceived value through meaning, not just product. (36:50)
  • “Branding is just a teaching process of associating things people don’t know with things they do know.” — (37:20)

6. Business Building and Investing

• Deal Criteria: Focuses on brick-and-mortar service chains, looks for businesses where his team can add value, favors proven multi-unit models.
  • “Is it a company we can add value to? Are the unit economics good?...Most of the time, we DQ founders more than businesses. Biggest one is ego.” — Alex (42:29, 43:59)
• Entrepreneurial Muscles: Delayed gratification, generosity (“give without expectation”), and a love of process over outcomes.
  • “Be romantic about the work and not the outcome.” — (67:04)

7. Personal Philosophy and Motivation

• Effort as the Metric: Hormozi emphasizes sincere effort rather than external benchmarks or awards.
  • “The time that I...enjoyed the most have been the pursuit, not the goal.” — (69:15)
  • Refers to striving for self-approval from his envisioned 85-year-old self, “Solomon,” as his internal guide. (77:01)
• Contentment and Mortality: Discusses how meditating on death relieves ego and adds urgency for meaningful work.
  • “If I die at 30 or I die at 70 on a 5,000 year timeline, who cares?” — (91:14)

8. Additional Highlights and Memorable Moments

• Legendary Fraternity Tactics: Hormozi’s “hormozi” move—stealthily taking extra chicken breasts from the college cafeteria. (16:35)
• Cheat “Life,” Not Cheat Days: Makes fitness sustainable by leaving room for flexibility.
  • “I believe in cheat life. I eat pretty much fruit, meat, and dessert.” — (28:16)
• Conversation on Vices: Hormozi’s favorite dessert—ice cream, especially paired with a warm cookie. (75:35)

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Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On communicative clarity:
  • "Is the brain just a clear highway, no traffic?" — JT (05:08)
  • "I actually think it’s super well lubricated." — Alex (05:15)
• On not over-relying on books:
  • “Be the person that someone writes the book about.” — JT (33:33)
  • “You need to do the things that will make you successful. And the book is not one of those things.” — Alex (33:26)
• On business partnerships:
  • “Only assholes want to work for assholes.” — Alex (44:43)
• On content strategy:
  • “If you do it for a day, and you can’t do it forever, don’t do it for a day.” — Alex (19:22)
  • “Follow what you’re interested in. That’s on brand for you.” — (47:42)
• On stoke and mortality:
  • “Think about dying...makes me more stoked to live.” — Chad (93:39)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 04:34–05:05 | Peak stoke as an unattainable ideal.
• 06:26–12:36 | Lessons from fraternity leadership and ‘Fratonomics’.
• 19:22–24:59 | Fitness philosophy: Sustainability, workouts, and exercise selection.
• 28:16–29:00 | Cheat days vs. cheat life; making fitness sustainable.
• 33:15–33:51 | Books vs. action in developing business acumen.
• 42:29–44:54 | How Hormozi evaluates businesses and founders; ego in leadership.
• 54:52–56:16 | Content creators: Algorithm vs. authenticity.
• 66:42–67:04 | Building entrepreneurship "muscles": delayed gratification, generosity, love of work.
• 69:15–73:07 | The value of the journey over the goal; seeking self-approval.
• 77:01–80:41 | Mentorship through the “Solomon Paradox”: Conversations with your ideal future self.
• 91:14–93:20 | Meditating on mortality; why expectations shape our feelings about life and death.
• 93:50–97:22 | Song picks, gym community, and the universality of effort and “brotherhood under the iron.”

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Tone and Style

The episode is fast-moving, genial, and peppered with easy humor, bro-quips, and pop-culture asides. Hormozi shifts naturally from depth to fun, bringing energy and insight, while Chad and JT keep the vibe positive and irreverent yet thoughtful.

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CONCLUSION

This episode of Going Deep is a lively, enriching listen for fans of entrepreneurship, fitness, self-improvement, and the search for lasting "stoke." Hormozi stands out as a lucid, practical thinker who grounds life and business advice in self-awareness, sustainability, and effort—all while never losing his sense of humor or gratitude.

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For more from Chad, JT, and Alex:

• Visit chadgoesdeep.com and acquisition.com
• Alex Hormozi’s books: $100M Offers, $100M Leads

Transcript

[Alex Hormozi]

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[Chad]

Guys, we have an epic, epic podcast for you. We got Alex Hormozi on dude. Buff, buff dude. We get into it, we go from, well, we don't want to spoil surprise.

[Alex Hormozi]

Right.

[JT]

I would say not just buff biceps but buff brain.

[Chad]

Yeah. And that's all you want in the podcast.

[JT]

And that was like six Bs in a row in that sentence.

[Chad]

Yeah, absolutely. But guys, before we get into it, we want to let you know that we are on tour. We are gonna be in Irvine September 28, one show and it's tickets are

[JT]

going quickly so it's gonna sell out.

[Chad]

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[Chad]

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[JT]

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[Chad]

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[JT]

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[JT]

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[Chad]

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[JT]

Cook. Our.

[Alex Hormozi]

Our whole media team says, like, max

[JT]

stuff as a result of us or

[Alex Hormozi]

just period of you guys.

[JT]

Let's get it on the pod. Oh, we're rolling. Cool. Sorry. I really want people to know that.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, yeah, no, for sure. No, I saw that.

[JT]

Cuz that's sick.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I saw that clip where you were like, town hall. I know you guys do a bunch of clips at town. Is it town hall?

[JT]

Yeah, that's correct.

[Chad]

City council.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Yeah. And we were just talking about how, like, the stoke was dying down in the community and like, there needed to be opportunities for Max stoke.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

And I told Caleb, my director of brand, I was like, dude, we need more stoke.

[JT]

Do you think there's something. Cause I think the stoke is always dying down in a way. It's like our human condition to believe that it used to be higher or could be higher in the future. But I think that's almost valuable, right? To, like, believe that it will go higher at all times.

[Alex Hormozi]

It's hopeful. Yeah. We're chasing peak stoke, but like, you know, froth can only stay frothy so long. The moment you stop frothing it like the bubbles.

[JT]

Froth's a little More ephemeral. While stoke is always there, we just gotta reach it.

[Alex Hormozi]

It's an ideal that we always strive for, but never achieve.

[JT]

It's like we kind of took it from Harvey Milk. Cause in the movie Milk, at least he says, you gotta give him hope. It's like the last thing that comes out of the box. Pandora. And that's what we think with Stoke is like, you gotta give him stoke. But it's not like ever going to be top top. You're trying to get there.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, it is. I mean, it's the ideal. It's the top of the mountain.

[Chad]

What gets you stoked?

[Alex Hormozi]

Hard things worth doing.

[JT]

Whoa, dude, you are such a lucid speaker.

[Chad]

It's crazy.

[JT]

Is that something you practice or is the brain just a clear highway, no traffic? Yeah. How do you keep it free of traffic?

[Alex Hormozi]

Dude, I actually think it's. It's super well lubricated.

[JT]

Oh, nice.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. More than.

[JT]

There's good infrastructure.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, right? Yeah, good, good guardrails. No, I took, I. I spent, I spent like, I had like a rocky cut scene of life that was like five years of me taking 20 plus one on one consults a day selling gym memberships. And so, like, I had to talk to everyone, like all the time, every day. And so, like, I think you just learn how to say stuff better so

[JT]

people would just come into your gym and it was just you convincing them to get a membership. And you just got so good at giving them the pitch that it just carried over into all your thinking.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. And then just like, I mean, I'm sure, like I've gotten better because, like, the topics have gotten wider than just like. So what brings you in today? Would you. Would you have. So far, like, how'd you try that? Like, how'd that work for you? What'd you like about it? You know, like, you go through the same scripting over and over again, but like the first five minutes it goes from like, you know, Mike the cop to Lupita the house cleaner to, you know, like all different people. It is absolutely the masses. You know what I mean? Like, I got to talk to every walk of earth and a lot of us are in these bubbles, like friend groups or whatever communities. We talked about Vanderbilt for a second.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Going from like the white collar world of Vanderbilt and then like a management consulting career to haggling over a $99 a month boot camp membership was like, it was both humbling but also just like eye opening in terms of like, how little I knew about like the world and other People and et cetera.

[JT]

And was your gym. It wasn't like a bougie one, right? Like, it was like, like, price point wise. It had a wide demo.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, totally. Because it was a service facility. So like, even though it was 99 and then eventually, like, 150amonth, it was. It was service based. So it wasn't like, you're like. You wouldn't compare it to, like, an LA Fitness because they would have 100 times more equipment and showers and all this stuff. I didn't have any of that stuff. I just had, like, me. And I was going to train people together. Oh, okay. I did group training.

[JT]

It was like, oh, nice. And how'd you come up with, like, the workout methodology that you used?

[Alex Hormozi]

I did the stuff that they wanted to do. Like, I didn't. I didn't train them the way I trained because they didn't want to look like me. So I trained.

[JT]

You didn't want to be jacked.

[Alex Hormozi]

I know. Actually, I'll tell you a funny story. I had a guy come in.

[JT]

They sound cool, but what's up?

[Alex Hormozi]

I had a dude come in once, and. And he just started off the conversation. Hey, to be clear, he's like, I never want to look like you. I was like. And so, like, naturally, as the. You know, like, I've got, like, ego. You know what I mean? And then I've got, like, close the sale and just, like, take it. And so I went with ego.

[JT]

How did you resist the urge to, like, grapple him?

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, what I did. I went with the ego response. And I was like, don't worry, you never will. And then I took a step back and I was like, no, because, like, you don't overnight, like, sneeze and become jacked. I was like, there's like, 100,000 days between where you are and where I am, and you can just, like, stop.

[JT]

And I'm measuring you right now, and you don't have the determination to get there.

[Alex Hormozi]

I've weighed and measured you, and there's no way that you're sufficient.

[JT]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Nightsteps.

[Chad]

Were you naturally a people person before you got into entrepreneurship, or did you develop that skill?

[Alex Hormozi]

I think so, yeah. I was fraternity president when I was.

[JT]

I was gonna ask if you were fraternity president. I swear to God.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I was.

[JT]

Which was it a tough election?

[Alex Hormozi]

Pike.

[Chad]

You're a pike, dude. I'm a pike.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, I. Santa Clara. All right. No, it was a runaway election. It was a landslide.

[JT]

Did you feel bad for the other guy?

[Alex Hormozi]

No. One guy. Only one guy. Ran against me. And like, when we did the voting, he went to the other room and he just like shook my hand and was like, you're going to get it. I just promised myself that I would run no matter what.

[JT]

Oh, respect.

[Alex Hormozi]

And yeah, I was like, dope. He ended up becoming vp, so it was like all good.

[JT]

Good VP too. He wasn't like, you know. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Trying to upstage, trying to betray you, Trying to organize a coup. Right? No, he was.

[JT]

He was a trip from Pismo to Cabo.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, I had. Because some of the older classmen because, like, the older guys also want to make sure the house is in good hands with. And so they start like thinking like, hey, like, have you thought about, you know, running? Like, I hadn't thought about it until one of the older guys was like, you should totally run.

[JT]

I was like, dude, that's the best. They asked you to do it, to lead. That's nice.

[Alex Hormozi]

It worked out. But it's funny because a lot of the, especially in like the Internet world, anybody who is not in that world, which is most people assume that it's like chief partier. And it's like, not that. Because you like the guy that has to be able to be respected enough when he says, like, I'm pulling away the punch bowl, like, the cops are here or the guy who has to talk to the cops, or like when a girl goes to the hospital because she drank too much, you want that guy who's gonna have the conversation, who's gonna like, you know, negotiate on your behalf with Vanderbilt with like, how much trouble you're gonna be in because you brought liquor on campus and you're not supposed to just like the hard conversations and that you want somebody who's gonna do that. So in some ways it's like you get the prestige because of the title, but the actual day to day is like, do we have enough cups? Do we have ice? Do we have speakers? Like, where's the musician?

[JT]

Outside. People underestimate that in like, bro hierarchy that they think the top bro is the one who parties the most or gets laid the most, but it's actually the person who can do those things. But you still respect them ethically. You know, that they'll do the right thing.

[Alex Hormozi]

When it comes down to the party enabler, long term. So it's like, long term partying is all I was maximizing for. I even had this thing, I gave this like, presentation on Fratonomics to our fraternity as an argument. Cause it was really interesting. It was actually a huge. I got so much life experience from this because I had to get 100 dudes in college to do stuff they didn't want to do. With no hard authority, there's no punishment. You know what I mean? And they're also friends of mine, so it's like, how do I get them to do community service? Because we have to do a certain amount of hours, and they have to show up to the events. And one of the things was we were notorious. Our house was notorious for showing up really late and partying really late. And I was trying to explain to them. I was like, guys, if we all show up early, earlier to the parties, I was like, our parties aren't gonna be, like, twice as big. I was like, they'll be, like, five times as big. And that's when I explained fraternomics. I was like, so if people are, you know, like, girls are walking on the. You know, the frat row or whatever, and they see all these parties. Well, if it's like 10, 30 or 11, that's, like, when people start walking to parties, and you're gonna look and you're gonna see where the line is. Be like, where the line is is where it's probably happening. If there's no line, there's no real party. And so we're all getting there really late, but the guys who got a little bit earlier get. Get the snowball effect. So then, like, they're all there, a line starts earlier, then more people go to the fraternity, and then it just starts compounding, right? And so I was like, we're not gonna have twice as. We'll have five times.

[JT]

People love spectacle.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, yeah.

[JT]

White noise.

[Alex Hormozi]

I negotiated a merger between our fraternity and another fraternity.

[JT]

Oh, wow. Hostile takeover or leveraged by a kind of.

[Alex Hormozi]

It was a hostile takeover. So we got. So we got kicked off campus for whatever, and so we lost our house.

[JT]

Wait, what's whatever?

[Alex Hormozi]

What was whatever we got? Oh, actually, it was hazing, bro. It was a legitimate.

[JT]

It's always a haze thing.

[Alex Hormozi]

It wasn't. So we had apparently, like, 20 generations earlier taken a loan from the institution to totally frat out the house. But then we had never repaid the loan because whoever took out the loan was 20 alumni ago and had graduated and it didn't care. And so then the university, we had no interest payments and then just called the loan due. And so we would have had to pay, all of us out of pocket for a house we didn't own. But the. But the university did. So, like, we took a loan to improve the real Estate that the university owned. But then they called us 20 generations later for the. It was basically like all the houses had loans. They chose to call ours because they wanted us off campus. That was like what.

[JT]

They had other reasons, but that was the thing. They caught you.

[Alex Hormozi]

That was what they caught. Yeah, we got caught for. It's like Al Pacino with like mail fraud or something like that was the mail fraud for us. So we got kicked off campus. And so that obviously is like a death because everybody who's on campus is gonna have best access to talent. It's everything. And so there was this other fraternity that was dying, but they had a really sick house, but no bros. And I was like, dude, we have bros but no house. And I was like, I feel like we could figure something out. And so their big concern. And they were actually pretty okay with it. Cause we had a ton of girl. We had a lot of good rep for that.

[JT]

We had some cache.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, yeah, we had some cachet.

[JT]

That's sick.

[Alex Hormozi]

And. But they were like, hey. And they were a southern fraternity and we were like a northern fraternity. So they were like, what about the Clash? Like, literally some of the negotiations were like, how much country is going to be played versus, like how much house music? And we had to go like, we had to like go like term by term. Right? And so I was explaining to them because some of their older guys were like, I don't want to change anything. And I was like, listen, we pull from different girl pools. Like, you pull southern girls, I was like, we pull northern girls. I was like, so there's no overlap. We're just going to have bigger, better parties and a more diverse crowd. You're going to see chicks you've never seen before. We're going to see chicks we've never seen before. And so the final of the negotiation was how do voting rights work? Because everything gets voted on. And they were like, because you guys have like 100, 120 guys and they were like 30 guys. So we basically came up with a three fifths compromise. Just. Yeah, just like, just like, you know, back in the day, like the forefathers. And so that's actually what we worked on. And so like every pike vote was worth one quarter of every one of their votes.

[JT]

That makes sense too.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. And so. But the problem was that influence doesn't work that way. If 3/4 the guys want to do one thing and a quarter of the guys don't, like, the peer pressure is just insurmountable.

[Chad]

Right.

[Alex Hormozi]

And so we ended up being Able to. That's where like the hostile, you got

[JT]

most of your like agenda across.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. So then as soon, as soon as we did get, as soon as we infiltrated and merged, we became one.

[JT]

When you're playing chess like that, do you know it's going to work out that way or are you just playing one move at a time and hoping that if you do your best on that move, it'll work out the way you want?

[Alex Hormozi]

I take all the plays from the last thing that I want to have happen and try and work backwards.

[JT]

Wait, explain that.

[Alex Hormozi]

So this crosses even business stuff or whatever. But if decisions become more complex when you're trying to serve more than one master. And so if we're trying to get something to happen, then it's like, I don't want to also say, well, I also want a house that has great checks. I also want a house that. It's like I needed to keep our house on campus. That was the goal. And so everything backed down to. Okay. Of all the different places that I could do a deal, which one's most likely that would accept a deal? Okay, well, where do we have the most leverage? Okay, well, you know, and then just like. And it's like, okay, this is the highest likelihood target that I could go after. And then it just clarity step by step from there. Yeah, nice. Cause at the end of the day, they had the most leverage because they had the place, they had the house. But I had bros. Yeah, you have bros. Yeah, I had bros.

[JT]

But you guys were Ronin's.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, yeah, we were. You were nomads? We were brothers. We were bromads.

[Chad]

Is there a legendary lore about your parties?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, yeah, we had, we had a Catalina wine mixer and I got an ice helicopter on the front yard. Yeah, everyone, like some of the seniors, like, you spent $1,000 in this? I was like, I know I only spent $1,000 on this. Can you imagine? But the fraternomics just took over because they quickly saw the line out there. Because as soon as you see it, you know, a half to scale ice sculptor of a helicopter, like, you know, they mean business.

[Chad]

Is there the Alex Hormozi book of fratonomics at Vanderbilt?

[Alex Hormozi]

There are some moves that have been, that have been patented and trademarked. I came back to campus five years later and I was in the cafeteria and two freshmen I didn't know were in front of me and I couldn't make this up. And they check out. And as I check out after them, I go to like the ketchup and whatever station. And one guy turns to the other and says, dude, I just pulled a hormozi.

[Chad]

Really?

[Alex Hormozi]

Because he stole a chicken breast. And so the way that way back in the day, you'd put a chicken breast underneath your salad, and you could also have chicken breast on the side, so you could get two chicken breasts, but you'd have one meal credit, so you couldn't have more than one. You have to pay extra. So I put one under my salad, and that way I could get it through.

[JT]

It's still on two levels because it's also a healthy meal. Like, you're focused on just trying to get more jacked and bulked, but clean.

[Chad]

Were you as jacked in college as you are now?

[Alex Hormozi]

As shredded? Not as jacked.

[JT]

Smart.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I was lighter. I hadn't come into my man body yet. But. But. So they. But the. But the administration started catching on to this, so they started, like, asking people to push their salad aside to make. To show that there was nothing underneath.

[JT]

They got hip to it.

[Alex Hormozi]

But we stayed. We. The royal. We stayed, you know, a step ahead. And so I started getting newspapers because they had newspapers in the cafeteria. And so I'd have my plate and I would have a newspaper like this. But then I threw chicken breasts, and then I could put, like, two or three chicken breasts lining the inside of the newspaper.

[JT]

Whoa. But now you're getting. Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered. I mean, at what point are you, like, I'm taking too much chicken?

[Alex Hormozi]

I felt like it was kind of like how Lindsay Lohan approached that issue in Mean Girls. Like, the limit does not exist. Oh, yeah.

[JT]

I felt like you have said that. No, that's the first time.

[Alex Hormozi]

Natty, bro, you pulled it.

[Chad]

That's sick. Is there such a thing as too much protein?

[JT]

That's a good question.

[Alex Hormozi]

Spiritually or no, like, metabolically. So for what outcome? Like, you get as much protein as you want, it's just, like, how much of it is going to be, like, used to gain muscle? Like, you max out from that perspective, that's pretty well studied. Like, if you eat, like, more protein gets you more muscle until it doesn't anymore.

[Chad]

Right.

[Alex Hormozi]

And so then after that point, it's just calories the same as a carb would be. There's like an asymptote.

[Chad]

Right.

[JT]

And everyone's different, Right. Like, I was. I've always. And I don't know anything, but I've always felt like, diet, like, me neither. Every person's different, right? Like, there might be a more. There might not be one. Diet that fits everyone. There's an ideal diet for every person, but it might not be an ideal diet for all people. So how do you find out what's the ideal diet for you?

[Alex Hormozi]

The thing you can stick to. Right.

[JT]

So it's just about.

[Alex Hormozi]

It's like real talk function.

[JT]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like, if. Because I. I mean, mind you, I had a lot of weight loss and fitness conversations in my life, but, like, I would have this talk a lot. And I had to have this talk with my trainers too, because they would want to, you know, a powerlifter wants to train everybody. Like a powerlifter. Bounty builders want to train every. Like bodybuilders. Kettlebell girls want to train everybody. Like, kettlebell girls. Whatever. I was like, if we get these people in shape for six months of their entire life and then they go back, I was like, what did we accomplish? Nothing. I was like, if we get everyone to walk 10 minutes a day for the rest of their lives, I was like, we won. Because you can add 10 years of someone's life by just getting them to walk for 10 minutes a day. That's how little it takes. And so it's way more about at least my perspective of, if you can't do it forever, don't do it for a day kind of thing. Because you're just gonna feel everywhere. You're gonna stop eventually. If you're gonna stop eventually, why start? So I want to think, like, how little do I need to do that I will actually be able to persist to do that. I will get the most from. For the least amount of work.

[Chad]

I found that with diets because I've dabbled in. I did keto, I did Carnivore for like two weeks. But I made the mistake of eating In N out patties. We were like shooting the video and I was like, sick.

[JT]

He was a little tired that day. He has max energy most days. And that day I was like, you might need some broccoli, dog.

[Alex Hormozi]

You have a Flintstone buddy.

[Chad]

Well, I was like. Because I watched this guy, he's like, doesn't matter where it comes from, just

[JT]

as long as it's meat.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

But then I found that just high quality food is the best because I maintain that. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? Actually that was like the best shape I had been in. It's just high quality food consistently. And then not even working out too hard. Like, I would just, you know, go, max effort. And then just not even working out too hard. Just like, kind of listen to your body, I think.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, whatever. You Stick with.

[JT]

Are you doing like hypertrophy? What's your. Like that's your main thing?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I just strength train because that's what I like.

[JT]

What's your rep target?

[Alex Hormozi]

It's more, it's more of a. I mean it's a range, you know what I mean? It depends on the exercise. Depends on the exercise.

[JT]

I'm talking the main ones, the compound lifts.

[Alex Hormozi]

Even then depends.

[JT]

So you'll do 20 reps on squat?

[Alex Hormozi]

I don't squat, but for like leg lifts for sure.

[JT]

Is it because you just don't want disc degeneration for.

[Alex Hormozi]

So barbell lifts, like for the whole concept of like doing it forever thing. Like you don't see many 80 year olds barbell squatting. And so I just see that as like most people can't mechanically do it for a long enough period of time.

[JT]

It's a shame I'm about to give it up right now, but I'm sad to move over to like the leg press. But I'm doing pilates, which is great for the lower half.

[Alex Hormozi]

I haven't done barbell lifts in years.

[JT]

How are your trunks? You big?

[Alex Hormozi]

They're solid.

[JT]

Yeah, Those calves are nice.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh yeah. I can show quads later.

[JT]

How do you keep the, how do you keep the legs. How do you keep the legs big when you're not hitting the squats and the deadlifts?

[Alex Hormozi]

You can get them bigger without doing that, bro. 100%, dude.

[JT]

Come on.

[Alex Hormozi]

How 100%?

[JT]

Well, tell us.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, think about the limiting factor.

[JT]

Unless it's like proprietary.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, no, no. I mean it is, but.

[JT]

But you'll give it away.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[JT]

All right, we'll put this one behind a paywall.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, good call. Sucks. Just make sure now we're switching to only fans only gains anyways. So if you think about the limiting. So you want the muscle that you're trying to train to be the mechanical limiter of the lift, right? So that, that's the one that actually goes to true failure in order for you to stop doing the reps. If you're squatting. Most times when you fail squatting, you fall forward, right? The bark, like if you fail failure, you fall forward and it's because your core gives out before your legs do. Like if you can leg press a thousand pounds, if your body were perfectly rigid, you'd be able to squat a thousand pounds. And so the best squatters have cores, core strength that are. It's like out of this world. They've turtle shell abs out to here and it actually doesn't Even look that good because they have so much hypertrophy in the literal sense of their abs that it almost looks like it's called a power gut. It's like you have this really strong

[JT]

gut, which I think a lot of people maybe then misinterpret as being a result of HGH or some kind of supplementation.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I'm sure some people, but oftentimes

[JT]

that's just from what you're just being strong, just training. But I'm sorry I knocked you off.

[Alex Hormozi]

Keep going. No, you're good. And so, like, you know, same thing with, like deadlifts. It's like, well, if you want to, if you want to be a great deadlifter, then deadlift. If you want to be a great squatter, then squat. If you want big legs, then you need to take your legs to absolute failure. And so you basically want moves that isolate everything else except for the thing that you have that you can just absolutely take it to near death. And so that's like hack squats come into place where you have full range of motion on the joint that you're trying to work. Like, you can hit. Like, with a hack squat, you can go all the way ass to grass, or, you know, hamstrings to calves, and go full stretch, full squeeze.

[JT]

And you think that's best ass to

[Alex Hormozi]

grass or in a hack squat because of the way that a well designed hack squat will allow you to do that with limited mobility. Like, most people don't even have the mobility to deadlift properly without rounding their backs.

[Chad]

How do you feel about the hex bar?

[Alex Hormozi]

So more people have the mobility to do a trap bar deadlift than a straight bar deadlift. And so what ends up happening with that is that like a trap bar, that's a great overall body lift because, like, it works your grip, it works your back, it works your traps, it works your glutes, it works everything. And there's nothing. Again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm saying if you're going to train, if your goal is like, I want to train this muscle, then I want to have the exercise that is going to get me the fullest range of motion on the joint that I can do the most volume on, that I can load in a way that's incremental, that is safe for everything else that I do. And so if I check all those boxes and that's pretty much how I look at the exercises that I select. They're ones that I know that I can do a Ton of volume on. Without hurting my joints. Because, like, at a certain point, like, I'm almost 20 years into training, like, competitively or at like a real training level. And so it's not even like I can squat right now, but I can't hit the same volume on squats as I can on banded leg press or hack squats or, you know, a Smith press. You know, whatever.

[JT]

Lunges.

[Alex Hormozi]

Lunges are brutal.

[JT]

But yes, you throw those in.

[Alex Hormozi]

I would. So with lunges, I would probably do like a Bulgarian split squat if I wanted to, like, isolate glutes.

[JT]

So you'll throw a foot up on the bench and come forward like that?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, because then your glute is the mechanical.

[JT]

You get the focus. So you're really trying to maximize the focus on it. And so with compound lifts, do you almost avoid those because you want to compound squats?

[Alex Hormozi]

Like a hack squat? Still a compound lift.

[JT]

Right.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like, it's still a multi joint movement,

[JT]

but it's just offering a bit more

[Alex Hormozi]

focus and a bit more sustainability on the things that are not core to the lift so that they don't become limiters.

[JT]

Right. Again, my hip flexors will get in the way of my squat. It's like, that sucks.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. So you have mobility limiters and then you just have, like strength limiters. So, like, your core might be a strength limiter for squat. You might also have hip flexibility limitations, like on the movement. So you actually can't even do it properly to feel the muscle that you want to because you're. Because your mobility won't allow you to get the muscle in the position that it would be the limiter.

[Chad]

When you were. When you were starting out in entrepreneurship, like, deep in.

[Alex Hormozi]

This is the most I've talked about fitness in probably like seven years.

[JT]

Good.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like legit. No, like, Caleb's. Like, I have not been asked about fitness in like seven years.

[JT]

Dude, I'm glad. All right. Yeah, I think I am glad.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

When you were like starting an entrepreneurship, like, deep into it, were you lifting as much as you are now? Were you able to maintain that lift?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I've lifted pretty much the whole time.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[JT]

Do you lift with bros?

[Alex Hormozi]

I go Brolo for the most time, but.

[JT]

And sorry, is that a single bro or no bro?

[Alex Hormozi]

That's. I'm the solo bro.

[JT]

Oh, I thought you said bro low.

[Alex Hormozi]

I am Brolo. I lift Brolo.

[Chad]

I think you're thinking like bro, like low bro. But he's solo bro.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Oh, like solo Brolo is me.

[JT]

Copy. I should have known that.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, it's all good. It's all good.

[JT]

And I'm Jake. Cut that.

[Chad]

Don't keep it. Cause people might be confused.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. They might not know. They might not know.

[JT]

Yeah. It's good if I'm vulnerable.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, it's good there. It's authentic. Though I prefer to train with training partners. I just happen to train Brolo. For the most part.

[JT]

Same. But it's hard to hit those. Same. You're going to push yourself harder if you have some friends with you, especially if they're stronger than you.

[Alex Hormozi]

Totally.

[JT]

And I have trouble. I work out by myself. Typically at the end of the day, I'm very tired. I don't go to failure on every set because I don't have the horsepower internally to get there. But I know if my dogs were there, I'd probably hit it.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, yeah.

[JT]

But then I might get hurt too. I mean, there's a downside to it as well.

[Alex Hormozi]

And that's where. That's where I think the exercise selection is. So, like key with that stuff. Like, it's really tough to get. I mean, you can get hurt on a hack squat, but it's like a lot less likely. Like, you can't take squats to failure. There's fundamentally you can't do it because you just like, it's massively risky to take squats like barbell squats to failure, but taking a hat squat to failure, fine. You know what I mean?

[JT]

Yeah. When you watch football players hitting their max in college, they've got 20 guys around them. There's like three guys watching spotters. Everything's shaking. It's a big event. You can't just do that in your garage.

[Alex Hormozi]

No. And to be fair, that's how my

[JT]

friend Teddy stopped being Teddy.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yes, but. But like, even then, like from a hypertrophy perspective, everything comes down to just volume times intensity. And so those kinds of lifts, if you like get super jacked up and do that thing like, you end up having more central nervous fatigue. So that actually impacts your future volume and intensity for the rest of the week. And so there's a trade off that happens where, like, it makes sense to do those lifts if you're getting close to a competition or you need to have a peak event of some sort.

[JT]

Yeah. You need max performance.

[Alex Hormozi]

Right. But for the most part, you're really just trying to accumulate volume and fatigue on the mus so that you adapt to it.

[JT]

So do you think guys who get super hyped up before a set are actually doing themselves kind of a physical disservice? Because that's just more like pomp. But it's not really helping their body.

[Alex Hormozi]

It's about how much you. I know you like really willy nilly answers here, but like if you do it every once in a while, then it's like, then it can serve you. It's just like intensity techniques. Like if you do drop sets or you do one and a half reps, or you do slow eccentrics or anything like that to like make a set more intense. You can do that. If you do it on every set, then you'll end up fatiguing in the wrong way. Right.

[JT]

What's your favorite thing to talk about?

[Alex Hormozi]

I almost exclusively talk about making money in business, which is great. I'm loving this. So this is like a breath of fresh air. So I'm wrong.

[JT]

Yeah, I was wondering. I was like. I was like. Was he tired of talking about weightlifting or this is more of like a detour for you.

[Alex Hormozi]

This is fun. This is a side quest.

[JT]

Oh, nice.

[Alex Hormozi]

But like a worthwhile side quest.

[Chad]

Do you believe in cheat days?

[Alex Hormozi]

I believe in cheat life.

[Chad]

Cheat life, what does that mean?

[Alex Hormozi]

So I just wanna. So like I eat pretty much fruit, meat and dessert.

[Chad]

Nice animal based.

[Alex Hormozi]

That works for me. So I just get all my protein in really easily before I go to dinner. And then when I go to dinner, I eat whatever, you know what I mean? And that way. So basically I just back in from. So all the people that I know have been incredibly fit for a very long time have a much more simplified version of how they stay fit. Because anybody who's like adhering to any kind of strict anything, they're not gonna do it until they're 80. So like, don't care.

[JT]

Are you friends with any fat people?

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, they're friends with me.

[JT]

Right, right. And you don't say anything, but there's a you harbor just.

[Alex Hormozi]

Do you present some detachment? No, not at all.

[JT]

Because you know you can't count on them if a fire starts. No, I'm being ridiculous. No, of course.

[Alex Hormozi]

I'm sorry. No, of course I do. What people choose to do with their bodies is their choice. But as far as I'm concerned from the food perspective, I know what my calorie intake needs to be. And I counted calories for years of my life to the point now I know what's in everything. Ballpark enough. And since I also don't have a tremendous amount of food variety, I know what all my meals are. And so the easiest hack in the world for anyone who's trying to get back in shape is most humans, 90% of their meals are the same 10 meals. If you think back over the last week, you probably have the same two or three things you rotate for dinner, two or three things you rotate for lunch, and maybe two or three things you rotate for breakfast, if that. And so if you want to change your entire life, all you have to do is just change what those 10 meals are. It makes it way easier for people to. You don't have to change everything. It's like you just need to find two or three breakfasts that you like that actually help you rather than hurt you or whatever. And so for me, I have the same breakfast and the same lunch every day. And then that knocks out almost all my protein macros for the day. And then when I go into dinner, because that's when I usually have social things, business dinners, whatever, I can be way more flexed. And I just know what my rough calorie intake is. So I can have dessert, I can have drinks, I can do whatever. And so I've drink for almost the entirety of being shredded and jacked. I basically stopped drinking for, like, three years just because the business was, like, blowing up, and I was like, I'm not gonna be the reason something gets fucked up. But since then, I've been drinking for the last four years, and I drank for my whole life before that, from the time I was a toddler and I was shredded the whole time. Meaning if you just get the. If you just know at the end of the day, it's just. Again, this is apparently controversial, which is ridiculous, but, like, you burn a certain amount of calories, you take in a certain amount of calories. The difference is what you gain or you lose, period.

[JT]

So was the choice to keep your dinner option to keep your dinner open diet wise, also to optimize business? Because the social aspect would be better?

[Alex Hormozi]

I think it's just optimize life. Right.

[JT]

You need to have some fun.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. And just, like, not be the guy who's gonna bring Tupperware or be a pain in the ass.

[JT]

Cause that can kill the vibe.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. The stoke would definitely be diminished.

[Chad]

And then when you're drinking, like, are you able to. Do you ever, like, just let loose? Yeah, like.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like loose on special occasions.

[Chad]

Yeah. How many times per year?

[Alex Hormozi]

Once. Once a year, Maybe twice.

[JT]

How do you. Do you know the day is coming? Or is it surprising?

[Alex Hormozi]

Feel it.

[JT]

Yeah. You're just halfway through the day and you're like, I think I'm getting fucked up today.

[Alex Hormozi]

I know. I think it's before I even start training. I'm like, oh, my God, you can

[JT]

feel that burning demon needs to come out.

[Chad]

So you don't put that in your schedule.

[Alex Hormozi]

The demon coming out.

[Chad]

You're like, yeah, yeah. Demon day.

[Alex Hormozi]

So my birthday. My birthday corresponded with the book launch that I just did. And so, like, after the book launch was over, the team came and I was like, there's a time for work and there's a time for play. I was like, it is now a time for play. And, like, Layla came to pick me up from the pool cabana, like, six hours later. And she was like, I knew you

[JT]

just finished a book, bro. You get to rage. Yeah, that's been true throughout all of history.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. I mean, even B.C. like 2000 B.C. like, Seneca was shotgunning.

[JT]

Yeah. All the Greeks, dude, when they finished one of them plays, they were like, bring on the wine.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Suckling from the Epictetus, for sure.

[Chad]

Yeah. So Farcles, he got after it, dude.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[JT]

Are you a big. Do you like literature a lot? Do you read a lot?

[Alex Hormozi]

Not a ton.

[JT]

What do you read?

[Alex Hormozi]

Not a ton.

[JT]

Oh, that's interesting. So how do you get information? Mostly from communication. Like, how'd you learn about business? Just through doing.

[Alex Hormozi]

Doing for the most part, honestly.

[JT]

So you don't read like Barbarians at the Gates or Shoe Dog or any of that stuff?

[Alex Hormozi]

Not a ton. Layla does more reading than I do, and then she just, like, tells me what she read. I'm like, that's good.

[JT]

Through osmosis, you pick up osmosis. That's smart.

[Alex Hormozi]

I do. So my learning so learns differently. But for me, when I want to go into a new category or learn about something, I'll usually read a ton of books on a very narrow topic. So it's really unlikely for me to read a big mass market book. But when we started getting into doing deals with acquisition.com, i read eight books on deal making in a week. And then I called everybody I knew who does deals for a living and is an investor, and I just asked every question I could possibly think of and then compiled all their answers with all the notes I have in the book. And then had some sort of working thesis of like, okay, I think this is what I want to do.

[JT]

Was the book helpful or was it more just that you put in the effort to read the book that you think kind of fortified you in the deal making?

[Alex Hormozi]

No, the books were helpful. Yeah.

[JT]

Okay.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think books definitely work.

[Chad]

I've heard you talk about before that you view. Because I feel like a Lot of people, though. They're like these motivational things where it's like, you got to read a book a week or whatever, and you're like, that's just an excuse. That's just like a waste of time.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, like, if you boil everything down to, like, brass tacks, it's like, you need to do the things that will make you successful. And the book is not one of those things.

[JT]

Be the person that someone writes the book about.

[Alex Hormozi]

Sure. I mean, that's like Benjamin Franklin said, to be remembered, you either have to do something that people write books about or write books worth reading. This is the only thing that can live on. But from my perspective, totally lost my train of thought.

[JT]

I was going to ask, have you ever wrestled a book? Because I lost my train of thought.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay, perfect. Have I wrestled one? I don't know, dude.

[JT]

My brain went scramby. Dude, I'm right there with you. I think we hit a natural kind of time to set up again.

[Alex Hormozi]

Again. Yeah, Just chill, recalibrate.

[JT]

Figure it out, dude.

[Alex Hormozi]

We had a refraction period.

[JT]

That happened. Yeah. I feel like all three of our brains were just on a collision course, and it just hit, you know, fusion, boom, new energy. Yeah. What do we.

[Alex Hormozi]

I mean, where do we go from here?

[JT]

That's crazy. I don't know. And I know, like, we got our hands on the wheel, but I feel

[Alex Hormozi]

like it's just willy nilly we have Jesus take over.

[Chad]

How do we. How do we turn Stoke into a business?

[Alex Hormozi]

Is, well, the brand. Oh, Stoke is a brand. Is for sure. Like a brand. And so I think, can we call it something else?

[JT]

Or does it have to be a brand?

[Alex Hormozi]

And I love Stoke as a brand.

[JT]

Okay, but. But if it. But if Stoke. But Stoke feels like it can't be a brand. Right.

[Alex Hormozi]

Why wouldn't it be?

[JT]

I know, because then I guess I'm wary of commodifying it. But we have to, because I want to have a good life.

[Alex Hormozi]

So. So. So I think so. The Stoke is an ideal, right. And so, like, Nike is victory. It's an ideal that everyone strives towards. And so Stoke is also an ideal. Different. And to build Stoke, you associate Stoke with as many Stoke like things that you guys determine it is. And so the more associations you say, like, you see, like, this epic wave, and you're like, that's Stoke for sure. And then everyone's like, I'll co. Sign a wave. They're like, yeah, of course. Right. Hancock all over it. And you're like, okay, that is Stoke. And people Are like, oh, so epic Wave Stoke.

[JT]

Charge 5 bucks to ride the wave.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, what you do is you basically show pictures and have discussions about Stoke next to and about things that you agree on that you co sign are also stoke that you just be like, if Stoke were a bucket of ideas, you'd be like, that's like, you know, what's that shoot? It was like the Wilderberries.

[JT]

Traveling. Wilderberry.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, there was a. There's the. Okay, so there was this band, and they had like, an in crew, and

[JT]

they called them Tom Petty. You're talking about the supergroup.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, there's. It's basically just call it Cool Kids. Right? And so it's. It's like, if you were to say, like, what about Sarah? Is she a cool kid? You're like, nah, she's not a cool kid. Right. And then you're like, what about John? Is like, definitely a cool kid. Whatever that is. It's like, you basically do that. Yes or no, hot or not, but for a brand. So there's way more things that are being not Stoke than stoke.

[JT]

Yeah, you have to be selective, of course.

[Alex Hormozi]

Otherwise, then it's everything.

[JT]

Because I got to hurt people's feelings. But, hey, there's. We got to protect it up here.

[Alex Hormozi]

It's an ideal, right? And so, basically, once you make enough associations of STO with other Stoke like things, then eventually Stoke in and of itself, everyone will have a shared context of what Stoke means and what it means to them. And then you say, this T shirt is Stoke because now you've associated the wave and other epic things with this icon, this brand, this logo, this ideal. And then you put it on a white T shirt, and it goes from being a $5T shirt to a $500 T shirt. Because, like, if you think like, Louis Vuitton T shirt versus Old Navy T shirt. Same T shirt, different logo.

[JT]

The meaning, the perception of the meaning.

[Alex Hormozi]

So if you think about what brand is, I'm gonna get a little on this. But so if you go back to what brand originally was, brand was like what you seared onto a cattle. Right? It was a brand.

[JT]

That's the end of my life.

[Alex Hormozi]

And so if you have two cows and one of them has a brand and the other one does it, why do we do that? They did that because it would change the person who was looking at its behavior. And so if I look at a cow that doesn't have a brand, I'm like, I might have that cow. That might be my cow. I might take that cow for myself. But if you see a brand that's got Tom's thing on it, you might.

[JT]

It fed a certain thing, it lived a certain place.

[Alex Hormozi]

Or you might return it and be like, oh, this is Tom's cow. I'm not gonna mess with it. Cause it's Tom's cow. It has his brand on it. And so the point of brand is to change behavior at scale. And so if I have no brand on a T shirt, the likelihood someone buys it is low. If I put a Nike swoosh on it, the likelihood someone buys it is high. And so that brand, over lots of time of branding, has changed the behavior of zillions of people. And so when you are branding, you're just associating an idea that people don't know about. Stok. Now, some people know about it, but not enough people know about it. And then we have to teach the masses what Stoke really is. And so you have to teach them. So, like, branding is really just a teaching process of associating things they don't know with things they do know.

[JT]

So who's an artist that you've seen. Well, integrate their ideal into a brand.

[Alex Hormozi]

An artist. You're talking about like an individual.

[JT]

Yeah. Or like a content creator.

[Alex Hormozi]

I mean, I think what, like, Rihanna did with Fenty is like a really elegant example of that. Like, she can't. And that's just a single person with a brand. Most times it's the opposite, is that brands are going after artists and creatives that all embody similar values that they want to associate with.

[Chad]

So our work is basically to be Stoke sultans to.

[Alex Hormozi]

I feel like you need a stoke bell.

[Chad]

I've been hanging onto that word for, like, three minutes.

[Alex Hormozi]

You're like, I've been waiting just to just.

[Chad]

I'm just repeating my head.

[JT]

That's good.

[Chad]

So. And then. So we need to teach, because I feel like we're kind of. We've kind of been doing that.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like, you need to be stokebassadors.

[Chad]

Stokebassadors. Yeah.

[JT]

Right?

[Alex Hormozi]

And spread the message. Spread the good news.

[Chad]

This is what it is.

[JT]

Stoke debaters. Debaters of Stoke.

[Chad]

Oh, dude, I thought you said another word. So we need to really sort of like. Cause we say the word.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

But we don't really say what it is enough.

[JT]

But I think there's power in not saying what it is too. Like, you don't want to clear. You don't want to too clearly define the ideal, do you? Because that minimizes the meaning.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, you're giving contextual.

[JT]

Right. You point in A direct. You just say, not yes, not yes. But you don't ever give the Webster's. You don't want it to be too prescriptive.

[Alex Hormozi]

So the way that I think about Brand from a visual perspective is like imagine a bouquet of flowers, right? So you have all these different flowers inside of it. If we were to break the vase and scatter all the flowers, it's all the same components, but now it's not a bouquet anymore. So did the bouquet ever exist to begin with?

[JT]

Oh, this is kind of like the pirate ship wood plank thing.

[Alex Hormozi]

Not sure, but I think I do.

[JT]

The philosophical ideal, if you replace all the same wood, is it the same boat? Is it the same boat?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yes and no. And so if you have all the flowers there, right. So when you put all of them together, the bouquet has an identity. Right. Because it's association between all the flowers basically amalgamizes into one concept. Now if you take out one flower and put it in a different flower, it does shift it a little bit. Now if I break one of the flowers or make it rotten, it really shifts it, which is why if you get a DUI or you rape a girl as a really good guy, all of a sudden it completely shifts the bouquet, despite all the other flowers that you've done and associated with.

[JT]

Yeah, those flowers are bad now.

[Alex Hormozi]

Right, Exactly. You can't hand your girlfriend just one flower that's rotten. They should be like, why did you give me a rotten bouquet? Even though the rest of flowers are totally fine? And so brand works a lot the same way, which is like you're assembling a bouquet of like. So you're like, a wave is one of the flowers. But it's not always. That's just an example of something that is stoked. Right. And then you put another one in, another one. And then eventually people get a conglomerate idea of what stoke really is.

[JT]

And it has to be a very careful, like, thought out arrangement, 100%. Like, each one has to fit perfect with one another or. Because people can suss that out if they see any kind of like, they're like, oh, those pedals are bad. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

It doesn't look like it goes with the rest of it.

[Chad]

Sorry.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, yeah, you're good.

[Chad]

I was like, if we made videos where we're like at the beach with Corona, we're like, this is stoked. Yeah. And then you go to like a crime scene, you're like, that's not stoke.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. They do things that would totally work.

[Chad]

Just keep doing that.

[Alex Hormozi]

That would totally need to.

[JT]

You need to know what it is and you need to know what it's not because people throw things. And like, this is stoked. Yeah. We did a sports. We were drafting the best sports movies last night and people were throwing in like Air Bud and like Snatch and

[Chad]

I was like, ruined Jerry Maguire.

[JT]

Yeah. But that was. I think that was better than what these people were thrown in.

[Alex Hormozi]

I don't.

[JT]

True to your heart. Yeah. You're romantic. That's part of your stoke, is the romance of sports. But literally romance.

[Chad]

Yeah, I'll say it.

[Alex Hormozi]

So. And Tom Cruise is timeless, which is also stoke.

[Chad]

Dude.

[JT]

So what's your primary business now?

[Alex Hormozi]

Stoke.

[JT]

Oh, fuck. Well, from my lawyers, dude.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. So acquisitions.com is the. Is the primary.

[JT]

And what do y' all do?

[Alex Hormozi]

We buy companies.

[JT]

So do you help other people buy companies or you buy companies?

[Alex Hormozi]

We buy companies.

[JT]

And so how do you. What makes a company, like, appealing?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, a lot of things. But the first and biggest one is, is it a company that we feel like we can add a lot of value to? And so a lot of it just comes from like, what's our expertise, what's our experience in. And so for us, our biggest successes and what we continually double down on is just brick and mortar chains. So small businesses like a photography studio chain or a teeth whitening chain or a nail salon chain, like those are gym ch. These are all brick and mortar service businesses that are simple operating units and tactile experiences.

[JT]

You got to be in there to do it.

[Alex Hormozi]

I like services. Personally, I don't do retail. I like services because it gives lots of people jobs. We're pretty good at training and teaching. And so that's what allows you to scale service based business. We're really big on culture and being able to scale culture, which is really just a set of rules of how we behave. And so being able to explain that to the masses allows everyone to act in the same way on brand. And that's what allows you to scale like a service based business, which can be really profitable. And so we like those types of businesses. So number one is can we add value to it? The second is how big is. Is it big enough for us to get into? You know, if someone has just one location, it's really, it's. It's hard to say that they have a good model or are they just a good operator and they're like have a lot of razzle dazzle, which is totally fine.

[JT]

You don't know if you can reproduce that elsewhere.

[Alex Hormozi]

Exactly. It's not. It's not a system. It's really just a really charismatic founder, which is fine, but it's not what we would probably invest in. We want to see. We'd want to see at least three, arguably, you know, ideally five or more locations with good unit economics. Meaning each individual box makes money and it makes sense in terms of how it makes money. And then for us, how big is the overall market that we're going after? If someone has a tiny little weird grocery store thing that I might not be super interested in that again, that's not service. But I'll just give you the last one, which is the founder itself. And I would say that most of the time we DQ founders more than businesses. It's like, man, I love that business. Just didn't like the founder. No stoke.

[Chad]

Interesting.

[JT]

What do you accuse the person? They just don't have the charisma or their ethics or. It could be a multitude, honestly.

[Alex Hormozi]

Biggest one is ego. That's the most, that's the majority of time. Interesting. Yeah, so.

[JT]

But they got to have some ego, right?

[Alex Hormozi]

I don't know.

[JT]

Have you seen egoless successful people?

[Alex Hormozi]

Totally. Interesting.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

I mean, I think any human has no ego, but I think that you absolutely can have. I mean, one of the most successful, actually the two largest companies in our portfolio are headed by couples, husband, wife, duos, where they both are aware of their deficiencies, they both cover for one another. And I would say that they're the most anxiety ridden of them of like, am I doing good enough? Is this right? I feel like we should be doing more like paranoia around improving the product, the service, the culture, the business overall. Whereas the more ego driven ones want to reflect more of the greatness of the business onto themselves. They want to take more of the credit, they tend to hog more of the work, they don't delegate well, they can't attract talent at scale because only assholes don't work for assholes. And so it's like it just.

[JT]

I think I was kind of conflating ego with confidence too. Awareness, right?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Well, confidence I would define as the percentage likelihood that what you say will happen will happen. So if he's a confident guy and you can be confident at public speaking and not confident at doing math because the percentage likely that the speech goes the way you want it to is high versus the percentage likelihood that you do the excel sheet. Right. Is low. You can be confident in different arenas versus just confident overall. And so I think that's just a segue on that for confidence. I think it's nuanced in terms of where are we applying it?

[Chad]

It seems like people who run purely on ego, they can get to a high place, but it's kind of like a house of cards. They don't have a stable foundation.

[Alex Hormozi]

It can be. It's just, it's usually because in general, this is massive generalizations here. Now, are there super successful people who are super ego driven? Absolutely. But I would say that I would make the argument that they succeed despite their ego. Meaning if they did all of the things that they did that are right and they didn't have an ego, they would be more successful. So it's not that ego prevents success, it just doesn't. I don't think it causes success. I think that some people who have egos become successful, some people who don't have egos become successful. But the things that need to be done are the things that drive the performance. Like, either you advertised or you didn't. Either you built the sales team or you didn't. Either you had a good product or you didn't. Whether you're an ego driven asshole or a really kind person, irrelevant. But in terms of how we want to live life and who we want to hang out with on a daily basis, because at the end of the day, like, I'm going to die, no one's going to remember me anyways. I'd rather hang out with people with more stoke.

[JT]

Does that fuck you up that people won't remember us anyways?

[Alex Hormozi]

No, I think it's really freeing because

[JT]

you just feel like, what's your own life? Make it what it is.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Do it for you.

[Chad]

So when did you start making content?

[Alex Hormozi]

26, seven months ago, somewhere in there.

[Chad]

And then. So what's your output per week these days?

[Alex Hormozi]

I think right now we're about 300 a week more.

[JT]

300?

[Alex Hormozi]

350. 350 pieces. No, pieces of content a week.

[Chad]

And so with your videos, shares with your videos. Because I found you through YouTube videos and so do you. Do you basically go, if you're like speaking to someone, an idea pops in your head, like, that'd be a good video. Or do you have like a brainstorm sesh where you're like, I'm gonna do a video on this topic? Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

So my brainstorming is Twitter or X now. That's where I do all my brainstorming. So I probably tweet like five times a day. And it's just like as things come to me and if there's a lot of traction on it, then I'll make a short about it. And if there's a lot of traction on that, we'll make longs about it.

[Chad]

Right.

[JT]

And are you conscious of your brand while you're tweeting? Like, do you ever have thoughts and you're like, oh, that's a good thought. But it doesn't really fit into, like, the kind of culture I'm building around this thing.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think it would be less than. Because if it's from me, it's gonna be on brand for me.

[JT]

So you believe it's a wide scope, what works? Because it's all. As long as it's authentic.

[Alex Hormozi]

I'm me. So I have lots of different aspects. Like, was once a frat bro, also management consultant, also a gym bro, also an investor. Like. Like, I have a lot of things that are just, like, weird. Yeah, exactly. And so, like, if it's. If it relates to things that are part of me, then it is on brand for me. If I'm going to say it, then it's on brand, but it might not be contextual to the platform.

[JT]

Right. It's not form fit for where you're

[Alex Hormozi]

talking, but it might not be a good X piece of content. X as in x dot com.

[JT]

So if you're like, tree should be blue. You're like, maybe not on X, maybe that belongs somewhere else. Painting.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. If that's. If that were core to my brand, which I don't talk about trees much or the color blue.

[JT]

Is there a reason on the blue kick? I guess.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, no, I hear you. I hear you.

[JT]

Because that's what stuck out to me there.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, well, none of my. I'm trying to think. I don't think any of our brands are blue.

[JT]

We can circle.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, Leeds is blue. That's right. The book is blow. The book is blow.

[Chad]

What's up, guys?

[JT]

We're

[Chad]

interrupting the podcast. Let you know that we are on tour. Get your tickets to a show near you atchad and jt.com. do not miss out on these shows. They're epic. You have fun, right, at the shows.

[JT]

Yeah, it's the time of my life.

[Chad]

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[JT]

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[Chad]

You'll more. Yeah.

[JT]

Like not more people, but more times with one person that you hopefully really care about.

[Chad]

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[JT]

Yeah. You don't lose your boner.

[Chad]

No. Losing the boner. No. No. Friggin.

[JT]

Don't get it twisted. People listening. I can fuck a lot even without it. I just need more connection. You can always find that when you're single.

[Chad]

Yeah. And also, you know, you don't want.

[JT]

I didn't have to say all that, but I think it's important.

[Chad]

Well, I think, you know, I'll be honest, I've had pool noodle scenarios.

[JT]

Of course, man, you're human.

[Chad]

Yeah. You know, just you trying having as

[JT]

much sex as you're having. It'd be weird if it didn't happen.

[Chad]

Thank you.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

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[Alex Hormozi]

But.

[JT]

So you'll put out a tweet and what you get back tells you if that's a good idea or not.

[Alex Hormozi]

From the market? Yeah, they tell me if they think it's interesting. Like I say, I think this is interesting. If they like and share it, they tell me they think it's interesting too.

[JT]

I'm with you. I worked at a super liberal place and they would complain about Iggy Azalea doing appropriating culture. And I'd be like, well, kind of let the market decide and then it would turn them off. They were like, don't talk like that. And I was like, well, if people like it, there must be some kind of utility to it. And I don't think think she's the best, but I think time will settle these things. But I, I, I. How do you, how do you reconcile that when people feel like taste and even sometimes morality can be adjudicated through the market?

[Alex Hormozi]

Adjudicated?

[JT]

Is that the right word?

[Alex Hormozi]

No, I just don't know what it means.

[JT]

Like when, when people think that stuff should be worked out by the market.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, I don't touch morality stuff often because I'm like, yeah, because what's the point? Yeah, right. If I can't say this is true, this isn't true, then I usually don't touch it. So all the content that I make, I have two boxes for it. I just want it to be true and I want it to be useful. And so if I say some things work and some things don't, then that is true. Is it useful? Not really. If I say, hey, xyz, when someone walks in the door, give them a checklist and they'll be more likely to buy. It works, but it's not always true. And so what I try and do is find the sweet spots where it says in this context, in a weight loss sale, if you put this checklist in front of people and you don't do anything different in the process, a higher percentage of people buy. That's both true and useful. And so that's kind of where the sweet spot of where I try to make content and that's what the books are about, is like, if I put something out, I don't want anyone to be able to say, like, that's wrong. I mean, they can say that's wrong, but that's their problem. But in terms of, like, you know, it works. If more people find out about your stuff, more people will buy it, period. Who fight me. And so that's really, like, when I create the arguments that are inside of, like, the books that I have and the content I put out, it's always based on those types of arguments. It's like, if you do more of this thing, you will make more money, period.

[Chad]

What do you think is the biggest mistake content creators make today?

[Alex Hormozi]

Not being them? Yeah, 100%. Well, basically getting taken over by the algorithm. And then like talking about blue trees when they don't actually fuck with blue trees. But they did it because they did one Blue Tree post and people. Right, dude, had to. And so they got a lot of likes and they're like, maybe I'll start making more stuff on Blue Trees. But like, then they go down that alleyway for six months or a year and then they're like, oh, I'm like the Blue Tree Channel. But like, I don't even care about trees. Like, that's not even the stuff I like talking about. And so they can't actually sustain it because the biggest brands are built over decades, not days or weeks or months. And so you have to optimize again. Like, remember starting at the end, at least for me. Starting at the end and then working your way backwards, it's like the only thing that will persist over my entire life is me. And so for my life,

[JT]

you always fall back on that being there. Because it's.

[Alex Hormozi]

I'm going to be. As long as I'm alive, I'll be here.

[JT]

Right.

[Alex Hormozi]

And so if everything that I talk about is related to stuff that I fuck with, then it will always be on brand for me. Now, what's cool is that my interests will slowly morph and shift over time, but it usually doesn't happen overnight. And so there's something called successive approximation. But basically, it's like you can. It's like slow boiling frog. Right. Like, you. Like the Bud Light, Dylan Mulvaney thing was going from, like, cold water to hot water. Yeah. Now, if they'd done that over 30 years, it probably would have been fine and seamless. Right. But it was too big of a shock too soon. And so it's about having like a hundred tiny iterations that. That's how you can, like, steer a railroad.

[JT]

Tankers. We're moving them slow, baby.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, we're titanicing. Minus the iceberg.

[JT]

They hit an iceberg.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, they hit an iceberg. They did.

[Chad]

So. So are you saying follow. Follow your inspiration. Is that correct?

[Alex Hormozi]

All the things that you're interested in?

[JT]

Yeah, sure.

[Alex Hormozi]

I just use inspiration always, like, scares me as it works. Like, I feel like it means so many things to different people. But if you're interested in it, then I think talk about it.

[Chad]

Yeah, I guess it's like, follow what? But you're sort of a. Is creative spark the right word?

[Alex Hormozi]

Sure, yeah, I'll say. There's also two categories of creators that I think is probably worth delineating. So everything I just talked about, I would say is more for entertainers. So on the other hand, you've got educators, and I think there's way more mistakes in the education side than there is in the entertainment side. The entertainment loop is the algorithm loop, where they start making content about stuff they don't actually care about because they think it's going to feed the algorithm. The educators start trying to teach on stuff that they haven't done, and so they try and pretend they have more authority so that they can get more views, but they don't have that. And so at some point they feel like a fraud because they are like, that's the. Like, people are like, how do you deal with imposter syndrome? I was like, you don't have it. If you did what you're talking about.

[JT]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like, I don't have imposter syndrome about talking about investing. It's what I do every day. Right.

[JT]

So you're suspicious of, like, academics a little bit in that respect. Not suspicious. But are you? A little bit. Like, because I had that, too. It's like when you're in film school and you have a teacher, but then you check his IMDb and he hasn't made movies, you're like, well, you're telling me this shit, but you haven't sold anything more than I have at this point.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think that. I mean, I would say that that is the most legitimate complaint. Like, I think that all content is consumed within the context of the creator's background. So, like, for example, if I tweet on the Ivory Throne, it might get likes, it might not. If Elon Musk does it, it'll get a zillion shares and likes and whatever. Because it's consumed within his context, which, to be fair, that context, for many times, is the brand itself. But part of the brand, the things that we've associated with it. Right. Are the background evidence that the person is who they say they are. And so, like, I had, you know, just under a $50 million exit. You know, we have a portfolio right now that does plenty of money, and so people have that evidence. So when I say, hey, when I'm buying companies, like, if I. So if you'd asked me, what do you look for in companies that you're trying to buy, and I'm a schoolteacher that doesn't have an investment portfolio, and I give you my answer, they could say the exact same words as me, but everyone would be like, you're full of shit.

[JT]

No, it's like when I talk about how to win a basketball, it doesn't have the same credence as when MJ does it.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[JT]

Which disappoints me because I know what I'm talking about.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think it's valid.

[JT]

Thank you.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, but, like, that's like a specialist. That's like the number one. That's like the biggest. It's like the entertainers go down the algorithm trap of talking about stuff that they're not actually interested in. Educators go down to the ego and status faking, track the fake it till you make it, which I'm so aggressively against. Just be real about the stuff that you actually have done. And if you want, like, in my world, it's the opposite. It's do crazy shit and then you can talk about it.

[JT]

Yeah.

[Chad]

And then was there a point in your. Did you want to get into content creation prior to before you started doing it, or was there a point where you're like, I think I've earned enough at this point to where I can legitimately talk about what I want to talk about?

[Alex Hormozi]

So two things. I've made content, but the content was different over whatever season I was in. So when I owned my gyms, I was talking about intermittent fasting and programming and stuff.

[Chad]

Is that good, by the way? Intervention?

[Alex Hormozi]

If you stick with it, sure. Okay, yeah.

[Chad]

Good to know.

[Alex Hormozi]

But from a creation perspective, I just saw the content as just like lead nurture. People might click an ad, see some content and then decide to buy. It wasn't to get customers. It was just to let people know that I wasn't a total idiot. Like, that was it Probably. It was two and change years ago. I saw. I mean, this is ridiculous, but I'll share it anyways. So Kylie Jenner became a billionaire. Or like, she was on the COVID of Forbes and she was like 20 and I was 27 and I felt so poor and bad.

[JT]

A little inadequate compared to her, of course.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. So I have this rule with business, which is, like, if someone's making more money than you, then they're better at the game of business in some way than you are. And you have something to learn from them doesn't mean you have to. Like, just because you learn from someone doesn't mean you need to become them. And I think that's a huge one. It's like, I can learn. Like, I'm going to take a really extreme example of somebody who has zero stoke, but you can look at Hitler and think, there are things we can learn from this. Now, obviously there are things that we should learn from it in the other way, which is like, learn what not to do. But in terms of creating a movement, in terms of oration rhetoric, there's a lot of things that he had that were good just used for the wrong means. Right, right. And so bringing it back, bringing it back home to content. Kylie Jenner hit the front page. I felt inadequate. And then Conor McGregor, like, months later had proper 12 sold for 600 million. And then Clooney had just had his. The first ever of, you know, what was it?

[JT]

Casamigos.

[Alex Hormozi]

Casamigos sold for a billion. And then the Rock had Teremana. And then Huda Beauty was a big influencer and she sold a portion for 600 million as well. And so it was like within this corridor of like 12 months like, like, all these massive exits happened from all these people had big personal brands, and I had this belief. I was like, I feel like I'm good at business. And so, like, at the time, I think I'd taken home that year, like, something like 17 million in income like, that year. And I was like. I felt like I was hot shit. But when I saw that, I was like, I don't know anything. And so that was when I started getting into the idea of, like, maybe I should build a personal brand. Maybe I should start making content. I still didn't like the idea of, like, being famous because I kind of liked being more, like, just doing my own thing. But I had a friend of mine who's really big, kind of, like celebrity, and I was at his house talking over the kitchen table. I said, don't you get tired of, like, the death threats and the letters to your kids and, like, all the stuff? And he was like, if that's the price I have to pay for the impact I want to have, I would pay it every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[JT]

Right.

[Alex Hormozi]

And he said that to me, and I just felt like such a pansy for, like, not taking this, for being afraid of that. Yeah. And so I was like. And literally the week after that, I made my first YouTube video, and that was it.

[JT]

And so do you think this is, like, a specific moment in time where to be a successful entrepreneur, you do have to be, like, front of the house and kind of publicly facing, or do you see people who are doing it in discreet ways?

[Alex Hormozi]

I don't think you need to. I do think that increasingly. So if just from a statistic perspective, cost to acquire a customer on paid media has gone up, like, 100% in a very short period of time. So it's doubled. Like, the cost to get a customer has doubled. And so what that means is at least how I translate I.e. brands will need to have trusted ambassadors to associate with so that consumers trust whatever they're buying, because trust has never been lower. And so you have to create a brand that people trust, associate it with the product, and then do it. Now you can partner with creators.

[JT]

It doesn't have to be you, but it has to be somebody.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think more brands would benefit from it. Now, you know, you have the mega dudes. Like, Elon has basically hacked that system and gone public, made one of the biggest personal brands of all time. And people are like, I like Elon. I will vote for that by buying his shares and buying his cars. And so, like, he has a way to monetize every single person on planet earth in the most efficient monetization vehicle, which is a public company of shares. Like the most efficient vehicle to make money if you have a public brand is to go public.

[JT]

Wait, so what do you mean?

[Alex Hormozi]

I'm sorry, you can make the most money if you have a public brand.

[JT]

Because if you think by public brand you mean him.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yes, our personal brand.

[Chad]

Oh.

[JT]

And then people can invest in the brand because it's just called your stockbroker and put shares in it.

[Alex Hormozi]

And if you think about like the size of a business in terms of potential, it's number of potential units, units sold times potential gross profit per unit. So like if you're, you know, if I wanted to get into banking, for example, like everybody banks. And so like the TAM is huge. Right. So that might be a good opportunity. But like, does my brand resonate with banking? Maybe. But if I wanted to sell something else, then it might have a much smaller target audience and smaller price tag. Right. If I want to sell golf clubs, one, it's not really my brand, but if I did, there's a very small percentage of people who do it. But maybe the lifetime value is higher, you know, per person. So that's like the, that's the really hard exercise that a lot of creators have to go through when they're going through. Because you don't want to start like 100 companies. You want to be like, what's the one thing that I can slice, that hits the most of my audience, that has the most long term value per customer? And that's pretty much like the X mark that you try and find when you're trying to build a brand. But when you're a public company, the most expensive thing that someone will buy is all their money to invest in something like investment opportunities, which is why they're so heavily regulated. Because everyone will give their life savings to something because it's an investment is anyone can invest in anything. Which is why you get the most money from the most amount of people. And so that's why a public company, if you have a front facing founder that is public and very big and vocal, can be a hack to generating the most money. On the flip side, if Elon does something that's egregious the business, he could destroy the entire business.

[JT]

It's like the Uber guy, Travis Kalanick or whatever.

[Alex Hormozi]

But he didn't even have a really. He wasn't like, he didn't have a profile like Elon.

[JT]

I guess that was even more Internal to like the Silicon Valley world. But everyone's like, oh, this guy's hard charging. He'll run through walls. And everyone's like, dude, this guy's reckless.

[Alex Hormozi]

He ran through too many walls.

[JT]

Yeah, he's doing espionage on like his competitors and shit.

[Chad]

He got too stoked.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, he did cool off.

[JT]

Well, ego too. He was burning on ego.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. I don't know. I don't. To be fair, I don't know.

[JT]

I know I read one book, but I feel confident. He seems like he piece. Yeah, I don't know the dude, but for sure, for sure.

[Chad]

Just a Gordon Levit pilot. He's like, you're not super pumped. I'm like, wrong kind of stoke.

[JT]

Wrong st. Yeah, he's pushing the. The stoke with the. I want to just to circle back one thing on the authenticity thing with content creators and chasing like the. The algo. Do you think part of it is like, because they're chasing the trappings of what come with that success, bro.

[Alex Hormozi]

Stoke.

[JT]

Boulders for shoulders. That's what's up, dog.

[Alex Hormozi]

Thanks, man. All right. It's getting warm in here.

[JT]

So I feel like sometimes the way people go, the mistake. I mean, sometimes I think they're chasing profit, but sometimes I think they're chasing other things too, like attention or status, stuff like that. So I guess I was curious what is like your goal and what you're chasing?

[Alex Hormozi]

So the mission of the business is to make real business successful for everyone. And so that's why we put out the books and the courses and the content and everything's free. So like my courses are free on my site without any opt in. Like you don't have to give me any.

[JT]

So you just want to democratize entrepreneurship, that is?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yes.

[JT]

And do you think all people are capable of it, of being an entrepreneur? I think of it as like a singular skill that just is blessed and serves people.

[Alex Hormozi]

If we're defining entrepreneurship as just someone who transacts in a business, I think anyone can do that.

[JT]

That's really.

[Alex Hormozi]

If any kid can start a lemonade stand, then anyone can be an entrepreneur. The question is, how good of an entrepreneur can you be? Now that definitely has, I think, genetic predispositions, just like anything else does. And also just nature nurture side of it. Like, if you. If you grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, the likely that you're an entrepreneur is significantly higher than if you grew up in a family of government workers.

[JT]

So what are the muscles of entrepreneurship that you would most recommend people work? And I know it's probably case by

[Alex Hormozi]

case, but broadly delayed gratification.

[JT]

Yeah, baby.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like number one. And to be fair, that's probably for everything. But delayed gratification is number one, being generous first, which is really tough for a lot of people. Like being, being, being willing to a give more than you get back and give without expectation. And that kind of pairs with the delayed gratification thing, which is like, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give. And I also have to accept that some people will burn me and that shouldn't dissuade me from continuing to give. And so I say like, that's probably number one and number two. And then number three is being romantic about the work and not the outcome. So like, I was on this podcast not that long ago and someone asked me, they're like, so what motivates you now? So we crossed $100 million in net worth when I was 31. I'm 34 now, and I publicly say I'm like, I'm going to document my way to a billion and beyond. And that's kind of all the stuff I'm sharing to the audience. But like, that idea doesn't motivate me. It's also like way in the future, like, it would be a one time thing. We'd cross the line. I'd be like, well, now what? Right. The thing that has unlocked more juice for me than anything else is I'm trying to say it in a way that's not trite, actually seeing what your best looks like. I think there's a little Giants, the football movie.

[JT]

Yeah, Talk about that movie.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think it's that movie when he's like, is that your best? And he gets on the thing. It might be that. Or it's. It's one of the football movies. And he's doing the push thing where the coach is on the little machine guy and he pushes him and he says, you can stop when you've done your best. And he stops at the 30 yard line and he's like, is that your best? And he pushes again and now he's at the 50 and he's like, is that your best? And he pushes again and he's like, is that your bet? He goes all the way and he pushes it past the end zone, right? And then the kid gets off completely. Like, I want to leave nothing on the field, but I want to see what nothing on the field actually looks like. And I think the more I do, the more I realize I can do. And that's what Gets me stoked.

[JT]

So have you found.

[Chad]

Sorry, yeah. Was there a moment when you. Because you. Did you have that big moment, like, 100 million? Is that. So you. You reached that milestone, right? Was there sort of like, you were like, that. That's. That's the end goal. Was there a part of you, like, that's the end goal? And then you got there and you had that kind of thing where you're like, is this it? You know what I'm talking about?

[Alex Hormozi]

I felt nothing with it, but I also expected to feel nothing with it. And So I started acquisition.com the day after. So I'm not a bit like. So I have now realized, just from my own self, that the time that I. When I look back on my life, the things that I enjoyed the most have been the pursuit, not the goal. Like, when I actually look backwards now, looking forwards, you think it's the goal, but looking backwards. All my happiest times are like when I was even in the struggle, sleeping in the gym. Like when you have a worthy foe that challenges you to the end of your ability and forces you to get better. Like that flow.

[JT]

They get me fired up right now. Let's go.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, that flow is where I feel most alive.

[JT]

A goal worth pursuing that makes you stronger because you're fortified in that pursuit. If you don't know what you're going after, anyone can kick your ass, basically.

[Alex Hormozi]

And so that has been so. I think I saw this interview from Kobe that I just loved, and they said, so most athletes are either really afraid of losing or they really want to win. I don't know if you saw this.

[JT]

I just saw that.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. And he says, I don't think I'm either. And me paraphrasing what his response was is he just wanted to do the absolute best he possibly could. Divorce the outcome. And I think that a lot of people will say something like, yeah, I just want to try really hard. But then there's the second part of the sentence where they're like, so that I can win. So that I can whatever. Which means that that's still not the goal. It's just the vehicle. But I think the thing that I've been working the most on myself, that has been yielding me disproportionate returns in terms of my effort and what I'm getting out of myself is cutting the second half of the sentence off and saying, like, how hard can I work?

[JT]

You just want to know how hard you can try.

[Alex Hormozi]

I want to see how hard I can try.

[JT]

Have you felt that limit. Have you pushed the tackling dummy as far as it'll go? Have you seen what your limit is in emptying the tank? Or do you think it's not finite? It could keep growing.

[Alex Hormozi]

That's what it is. I think that the more you do, the more you realize you can do

[JT]

you feel big, huh? Because you're just like, dude, I could

[Alex Hormozi]

just keep you proved yourself. You give evidence. You're like, well, I did that. So that gives me evidence that I can probably go a little further. And then you do that and you're like, you just get this never ending momentum of like. Because the first book I wrote has done really, really well. $100 million offers, has like 17,000 five stars on Amazon. It's always a top 100 book. Still, like, two years later. And when I wrote my second book, $100 million leads, I worked on that book five times harder than I did on the first book. And I think that that book will outsell the first book over the longevity of its book career. But I had so much enjoyment from seeing how hard it was to really write. That book is probably the hardest book I'll ever write because it was literally trying to consolidate advertising into a single book, which is so hard to do. But it unlocked a new level of effort. And I know that future books that I write, that will be the new baseline, that'll be the new minimum standard that I know I can do. And so, because I was thinking about this actually this morning, weirdly, I was fast forwarding to if I had a kid and they. They were playing peewee soccer or whatever, right? I don't. I don't want to be the dad who's like, you won high five or you lost high five. I want to be the dad who's completely divorced from the outcome. And, like, we won 10 to 0. And I look at little Timmy and I'm like, you did not try your hardest. And on the flip side, if we lost 10 to 0 and he left everything on the field, I'd be like, you fucking crushed it.

[Chad]

Right?

[Alex Hormozi]

Like. Like, I am proud of you.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

And that's been like. And I. And I want to keep that same perspective for myself. If I'm Timmy and future me is dad looking back. Like, I want to make that man proud. And that man's the only man who knows how hard I could have tried but didn't. So, like, everyone else will give you applause for the stuff that you're already really good at and do well at, because they're comparing your outcome to what they think they could achieve. But like, only you can compare your effort to what you know you could have tried. And I think that's like that gap is what I'm trying to close in myself. And that's the journey I'm on right now. And the business is just a outward manifestation of that.

[JT]

What's the main prohibitor in terms of emptying the tank? Is it fear that it won't work out if you do, or is it just laziness?

[Alex Hormozi]

You mean why don't people.

[JT]

Yeah, because I feel like everybody can empty the tank and I feel like most people don't. Or maybe they just have too much responsibility and they don't have like the bandwidth to do it the way they'd want to.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think it's, I think it's. Well, one, there's a lack of comfort because it's usually new. Like you push past the comfort zone,

[JT]

you're outside of where you're used to.

[Alex Hormozi]

I have a hard time in general, just as a side note, answering why questions because I don't know why anyone does anything.

[JT]

And I'm asking you, like, you should know.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I have no idea. But do you know? No idea.

[JT]

When you're in yourself, how do you, how do you, on the days where you don't empty the tank because they must come. How do you rationalize that to yourself that you didn't have it that day?

[Alex Hormozi]

So the times when I don't empty my tank now is usually when I don't have clarity on what I should be doing. If I have a really clear goal of what I need to do, that's my shit. If I have a three day weekend and a blank calendar and a big goal and a lot of coffee, you will never find a happier version of me just chowing. I call it I need another bone right now because I just launched the book and literally next week we have our big leadership meeting and my whole talk to the team is like, I need another bone. And so like, let's just figure out what Alex's bone is going to be and I'm going to gnaw on it for the next 18 months.

[Chad]

I feel like a good marker for finding what you really want to do in life is when you don't notice weekends or holidays where you're just sort of like. I remember because when I started doing comedy, it's like I was teaching like surf lessons and there was Fourth of July was coming up. I didn't even know Fourth of July is like my favorite holiday. I Didn't even, like, notice, you know, just doing open mics and you just sort of like, like, oh, fourth of July went by and like, then you're like, okay, now. Now I know I'm really locked into what I want to do.

[Alex Hormozi]

You don't experience FOMO if you're doing something better.

[JT]

If you're in your go mo, dude.

[Alex Hormozi]

Nailed it. Clip it.

[Chad]

Do you have a. What's your biggest vice?

[Alex Hormozi]

Vice?

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

I mean, I drink on occasion. If you want to consider that a vice, that's a vice. If you want to consider dessert of ice, you could, but, like, I just eat in my macros. It doesn't really matter too much.

[Chad]

You like ice cream? Yeah, I love ice cream.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Big ice cream fan.

[Chad]

Me too.

[Alex Hormozi]

I'd say it's. I'd say if I had to pick up only one type of dessert, it would be ice cream, dude.

[Chad]

Same.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. I like mixed. I like mixed methodologies, though. I like, like, warm cookie ice cream with, like, crunch.

[JT]

The contrast.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, exactly. A little texture. I want temperature contrast. I want texture contrast.

[JT]

Yeah. My brother was talking shit one time on Pizookies.

[Alex Hormozi]

He was like, oh, it's just a

[JT]

cookie with ice cream. I was like, yeah, that's all it is. It doesn't need to be other. He's like, I guess he didn't like the name, but I'm like, well, they gotta call it something. I think Pizookie works, but those two things together, it's kind of undefeated, bro.

[Chad]

They didn't. Pizookie sounds too much like Dookie, right? I think they need to change it to.

[Alex Hormozi]

Cause Pizookie.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

They could just go like, cookie.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[JT]

Pudding. Not. Not pazuki. This is not Dookie.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, but that's.

[JT]

People define themselves too much by what they're not, but not by what they are, which I do think is a modern phenomenon that distracts me and bothers me.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. I think they have more examples to look at to say what they're not.

[JT]

Do you have people like, I'm sorry. That I frame it in, like, a. I'm. It's not that I'm looking for, like, holes in the game, but I'm genuinely curious. Like, do you. Do you have a mentor?

[Alex Hormozi]

It's gonna sound weird as, so. Yeah. But it's wildly narcissistic yourself, sort of. So I kind of was. Yeah. So basically. All right, we're gonna go into it. All right. We're gonna go deep, bro. All right.

[JT]

You got the light on your head. We're behind you in the cave. Let's find. Find out.

[Alex Hormozi]

Roller coaster. Let's. Let's put the click in. So there's something called the Solomon paradox. And so the Solomon paradox, if you remember King Solomon from the Old Testament, really Wise guy, smart guy. Exactly. And so the Solomon paradox simply states that people give better advice to other people than they follow themselves.

[JT]

Absolutely.

[Alex Hormozi]

And so they've actually observed this in psychology exam. They do double blind. They actually whitewash someone's own personal stats from something and then they have the same person look at themselves from an objective perspective, not knowing it's themselves. And the advice they give that person differs from what they do in reality, which to me just indicates that there are emotions at play when it's your own stuff, but you can be more logical and impartial when it's from the outside in. And so one of the things I've struggled to have therapists and coaches, I've never been able to do it well because I feel like 90% of the time that I'm talking to them, I'm trying to give them context around a decision so they can help me make a decision, which feels like a big waste of time. Especially it's like, I need you to have lived my whole life so you can have context on why this decision means something. On the flip side is that I also feel like they have misaligned incentives, meaning their only incentives for me to come to the next session.

[JT]

They want you back, they need the money to keep coming in. They don't want you to get too good.

[Alex Hormozi]

I mean, as shitty as it sounds, kind of. Right. And so taking all that in consideration, people are better giving advice to other people. I have to give context to somebody in order to get some advice. And then incentives are aligned. I was like, well, what would be the best person to give me advice? And so for me, the best person to give me advice has been my mental envisionment of 85 year old me, who's already achieved every goal that I wanted and more and is the man that I would like to be. And then having basically sessions with that man and saying, hey, it's Monday. This is what I have on my docket this week. What do you think? And then I put my 85 year old self hat on and I'm like, all right, well what's the goal? What are you trying to work on? I'm like, well, this. And he's like, well, what are your concerns? I'm like, well, this is kind of what I'm worried about. Well, you know that's not going to matter. And then I'm like, yeah, I get it, but this, what about this other thing? So I can Skip past the 90% of giving context because future me already has context on the situation. Future me is also 100% aligned with long term me, which is I think, a big thing because short term me always wants to make short term decisions, but long term me is like, dude, let's do this for us. And the biggest thing that's gotten me through really hard times has been working to gain the approval of that man. And, and in a lot of ways it's scary because it's the hardest man's approval to gain because he always knows how much harder I could have pushed. And so it has forced me to pick fewer things to try and excel at because I know for me to get the stamp of approval from future me, who I call Solomon, even though it's future me to get the approval of Solomon, I need to leave it all on the field. And so walking into the book launch, we had like 500,000 people who registered for the launch. Like a whole city like Baltimore, like it's like all of them. Like when I walked up, I knew that I had made Solomon proud before I stepped on stage. And so I didn't have a lot of stage fright because I knew I had prepared a ton. I'd done every single day for the weeks leading up to it. I had done, I'd said the presentation out loud and then I had done a recording of the presentation and then I would watch the presentation with my slides up and edit the slides. And I did that every single day for the entire month leading up to it. So I'd already done the speech like a hundred times before I stepped on stage. And so independent of what happened, Solomon was like, you have my approval and that is enough. And I think that that's been it for me. It's like if I can gain that man's approval, then the noise from the outside world and the approval of others has mattered less and less. And that's my continuous, that is my pursuit is to make that man's opinion the only opinion I listen to.

[JT]

How jacked is Solomon? When you visualize him, the limit does not exist, bro. He's a mountain.

[Chad]

Who's say you look at like a 75 year old bodybuilder which physique. Which bodybuilder who's older now do you look up to the most?

[Alex Hormozi]

I think Frank Zane has a great physique. He aged extremely well. He stayed in Shape. There are more and more examples now because there's all this anti aging stuff and people take better care. We have more science, we know things now. But yeah, that'd probably. That'd be the single example of.

[JT]

Guys, do you think he has the most beautiful body in, like, Olympia kind of history?

[Alex Hormozi]

Not my favorite body. I think he's the best. I think Lee had a great body. My favorite. I really love Flex Wheeler's body. Flex was just like.

[JT]

Let me look it up real quick.

[Alex Hormozi]

Look at the black. And there's a black and white image of Flex Wheeler. That's just like unbelievable.

[JT]

So he's before Arnold, right?

[Alex Hormozi]

No, he's after Flex. Was after. Yeah, he's after Arnold.

[JT]

Damn.

[Alex Hormozi]

Milos Sarchev at his peak time. I loved his body. Mike Mentzer. Hugh loved Mike Mentzer's body.

[JT]

And I don't even know these dudes. Rigs and I used to follow this. I had a subscription to Muscle and Fitness. I don't know what happened.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, Mentzer's like Arnold's days. Mentzer's like Arnold's time.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[JT]

I can only remember the ch. I'm. You know, personally, I don't know if you can tell by what I'm going for, but I'm going for Ronnie. I'm a Coleman head.

[Alex Hormozi]

I am almost didn't. I mean, I know I look more

[JT]

textured, but I'm going for Ronnie.

[Alex Hormozi]

And I actually. And I actually really like Flex Wheeler's body. Sorry, no, Phil Heath's body. Really like Phil Heath.

[JT]

They started to get a little bit less gargantuan. Right. In his era, they toned it down from the Coleman, like 320 weight.

[Alex Hormozi]

I don't know. I just think there hadn't been enough. I mean, Big Raimi. Big Raimi was like the biggest bodybuilder who won and he won in the last three years.

[JT]

Just a black and white effect.

[Chad]

Wow.

[JT]

I mean, yeah, there's not. You know, he keeps the abdomen a little more tight too, than.

[Alex Hormozi]

He's exceptional.

[Chad]

I have a random one, but Laird Hamilton.

[Alex Hormozi]

Who?

[Chad]

Laird Hamilton.

[JT]

Surfer guy.

[Chad]

I could get along with him.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Chad]

Yeah. I think he'd be right up your head.

[JT]

Yeah. I could see you guys like slapping hands.

[Chad]

For sure. Do you do ice baths?

[Alex Hormozi]

Not really.

[Chad]

No.

[Alex Hormozi]

No.

[Chad]

He does this workout thing where you lift weights underwater. He's like a big wave surfer guy. But I'd check out his documentary on Hulu. It's very inspiring.

[JT]

He's just kicking ass the whole time. Yeah, dude. I did a Peptides recently and I had to get off them. Because I think I did too many out the gates. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Too fast. I get it.

[JT]

But I was taking CJC 1295, BPC 157.

[Alex Hormozi]

I don't know what any of these are.

[JT]

No, you haven't delved into that world.

[Alex Hormozi]

Not peptides. No.

[JT]

No.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[JT]

And it also made me a little bit manic, which I'm a little predisposed to. So I just woke up at three in the morning and my first thought was, you're amazing. And I was like, I need to slow down.

[Alex Hormozi]

I feel like that stuff's. I feel like you should take more.

[JT]

Yeah, maybe I should. Yeah. I don't know why I was so wary of that thought. It was probably just the volume. A little intense. Yeah. Also, I was like, you know what if I was thinking about my Solomon? I was like, I don't know if you've earned that thought right now. So it doesn't feel ego syntonic to the moment you're in. And that's why I pushed it out, bro.

[Alex Hormozi]

Fair.

[JT]

But I appreciate you wanting me to feel that. But are you. Are you very adventurous with that stuff or do you keep it pretty tight?

[Alex Hormozi]

No, I've been on TRT for four years. Five years. I was 28 or 29 when I started TRT.

[JT]

I did it when I was 18 for a summer, and I was doing HGH together. It was most fun summer of my life. But I up my shoulder. I was just doing more overhead lifting than I should have been doing. And then it ultimately resulted five years later in surgery. So the longevity part of it is the thing people don't look out for.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, it's like. I mean, I keep. It's like, if you can't do it for a decade, don't do it for a day. Like, I just love that frame. And especially, I mean, when it comes to anything, but especially fitness stuff stuff. So everything for me starts with joint pain, which is like, which of these hurt my joints the least that I can do the most amount of volume on. And then those are the ones that I hammer so that I can just accumulate the most fatigue on the muscle and then ultimately drive the most growth.

[JT]

And for shoulders, which one is that?

[Alex Hormozi]

Exercises. So, like, overhead press, for example, doesn't build shoulders a ton. Now you've built strength for sure. I mean, you'll get a ton of core strength. You'll get a lot of. There's a lot of triceps in overhead press. Especially, like, from here up is. It's all tricep. So Oftentimes, the limiter isn't your. Isn't your shoulders. So, like, if you do overhead press, oftentimes, like, you could do this, and then, like, at the end, you could do these. So it's like, your delts are not the limiter. Your triceps are. So you can't finish the lift because you still have juice in your. In your delts, but you don't have juice in your triceps. Right. So if you actually use perfect form as your. As your. As your compass for when you stop reps, then you always stop short of when you're. When your shoulders are done. And so I do a lot more, like, lateral raises and things like that to build shoulders. Because they are the sole focus. I can take them beyond death.

[JT]

So that's giving you more width. And are you strict with the technique or are you swinging them?

[Alex Hormozi]

So I train. So I'm strict with the technique for all my first reps, and I will continue to do the same technique but with less and less range of motion. So if I'm doing lateral raises, I'll hit. Hit perfect for the first 10 or 12, and then I'll hit three quarters, and then I'll hit whatever. Now, I don't do that on every set, but if I want to, like, finish the last two sets off really strong, I'll do something like that. Like, I want to. I want to squeeze everything out of it. To be fair, delts are also muscles that can recover faster. They're smaller, they can take more workload than, like, your back can. Like, if you're doing deadlifts, like, training that way is a terrible idea.

[Chad]

I think I messed up my shoulder doing that.

[Alex Hormozi]

Really?

[Chad]

Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know. You know, I had, like, a thing where my brother, he's like, a similar build to you, and I saw him over 4th of July, and he just looked like a tank. So I was like, I need to lift more. Because I've always been more of, like, a cardio guy.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

And now my shoulder kind of hurts, so I'm back on yoga.

[Alex Hormozi]

Well, like, that's. That's where I like the bodybuilding perspective. Like, in my opinion, bodybuilding is the most functional training. Hear me out. Because being jacked is functional, right? Like, every time I'm on video, I'm using it. Every time I'm in a picture, I'm using it. Whereas people are like, well, when are you gonna kill? Yeah, when are you gonna let. Yeah. And you can't either. You know, I don't need to. Oh, not you.

[JT]

No, I didn't take. But yeah, you're right. The utility of it is to appear like you could kill a lion. That's how it's like no one looks at a peacock with their plumage and they're like, yeah, but that can't stab a rhinoceros. It's like, I don't need to. I gotta impress the girl over here.

[Alex Hormozi]

He's crushing.

[Chad]

Yeah, yeah.

[JT]

Sexy, sexy dog.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. No one's gonna say peacocks literally invented peacocking, right?

[JT]

I know. And then mystery totally stole it from them.

[Alex Hormozi]

They're the originators.

[JT]

So with that with gals, did you always have pretty good rhythm or was that something you worked on similar to your body, similar to your entrepreneurial spirit?

[Alex Hormozi]

I always did. Okay, there. Yeah, good.

[Chad]

You know what?

[JT]

I like where you're landing it. Just leave it there. It's not a good thing to volumize on. People talk about, I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah, how do you feel about that? Like all these. I guess I'll speak for myself. Yeah, all these podcasts were like, 40 year old dudes are talking about like, how to get laid and stuff like that. I'm like, what are you doing? I'm like, shouldn't you have like a family and like something like these things? I look, man, if I see a girl and she like, you know, looks at another guy, I'm like, later. I'm like, dude, you're 42. What are you doing, bro? Go home and like pet your dog and cook a burger.

[Alex Hormozi]

Put some Bengay on, you know, I'm sure those joints are hurting. I.

[JT]

It just speaks to me of like a culture that has like misaligned values, I guess.

[Alex Hormozi]

I think it's the polarization of gender roles. So it's just like right now, gender's not a topic. I don't talk about it because I don't get into it, but because there's so much around definition of terms, people are just oscillating on opposite sides of the fight. Yeah, it's, it's. It's really like a posturing move and I'm, hey, like, I'm a big do whatever you want guy. But yeah, I probably steered clear of that movement because that's not my message. Mine is about entrepreneurship and believing that the only. There are a lot of problems in the world. And I believe that entrepreneurship and business is the most efficient way to solve problems. And so I will not be able to solve all the problems in the world. I don't think anyone can. But I can at least help, help equip the future entrepreneurs who will.

[JT]

And if everyone has a house, we'll be fighting about that stuff less. I do think, like, there's a lot of efficacy, and if people are, you know, have food security and shelter security, maybe some of these other fights that we're having that are more on the margins won't feel as significant.

[Alex Hormozi]

I, I, you know, I would actually argue the opposite.

[JT]

Oh, you think that. Oh, you think because we have security,

[Alex Hormozi]

we have, we have to find something else to argue. Yeah.

[JT]

Because the bottom part of the pyramid's taken care of. We're like, let's fight about more nebulous stuff.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Because if you, if you go to Africa, they're not arguing about it because they want, Want food.

[JT]

People say that, but I went to Africa. They're fighting.

[Alex Hormozi]

No, I'm okay. I was like, I was like, really? That would have been the best counterpoint.

[JT]

Jt, gotta try threads about this, dude. Yeah.

[Chad]

Jt, you gotta try negging.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, no, that was great. No, but I think, I think it's, it's. We have, we have so much abundance in everything that we have. We're trying to find. So Leila, my wife, found this really interesting study on this. But basically, the number of problems that the brain finds is always the same.

[JT]

Yes.

[Alex Hormozi]

And so all you do is switch the things that you see are problems. And I just thought that. So then for me, it helped me think about problems as not problems because they're just a thing that will always be there. And so the easiest way to solve a problem is to decide it's not a problem to begin with.

[Chad]

It's just the mind's function.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. And it's supposed to do that because it's trying to keep you alive.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

Trying to determine threats. Like, the really happy monkey probably didn't do as well as the paranoid monkey that was watching out for lions, because the happy monkey's like, dude, life is awesome, and they're done. You know what I mean? Right. But the other one that was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Like, this place. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? Like, stressed out his mind. Like he's, he's up in the tree and the other guy's like, it's fine. It's always the rain. Relax. And then done.

[JT]

Yeah, you're always gonna be the same level of stressed out. Just have those good problems to focus on.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Champagne problems. Like, that's the, that's the goal.

[Chad]

Would you argue that the monkey that was happy but died early had a better life.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yes. And what really, like, bends my noodle is when we even use the word early. So I'm gonna go dark and then we're gonna go light. All right, perfect. So I had a cat named Bill. Nickname Chill Bill. Nice. Awesome dude. Max Stoke. And Bill was always chill. Best cat I ever had. And he, like, he was like a dog. He would just like, like, chill. Like, he would come up and just like, he'd just always be around you. He's like, hey, I'm here. If you need something, I'm here. And I was like, I appreciate that. And so one day, and Bill was a young cat when I had him. He was a young lad. And then, like, I think like 20 months later, he died. Like, he died of, like, some freak heart thing. His heart was too big. Classic, right? Evidenced by his chill nature. And it actually. I think we actually found out it was because, like, it was because of that. Because, like, his heart beat differently. So he literally was like, extra chill. Like, too chill. But so I. I was really sad. And I was like, why am I sad? Like, why am I sad about Bill? And so I thought about it and I was like, I'm sad because I think he should have lived longer. Like, it felt unfair that he died at, like, just under two years old as a cat. So then I thought, what if all cats only lived six months and Bill actually made it like four lifetimes? And then I was like, that's deep. I was like, I'd probably be really stoked that he lived such a long, amazing life. And so it was only based on my expectation that he should live 10 years or 12 years or something, rather than saying, well, on the scale of 5,000 years, we're all living that short period of time. And so if I die at 30 or I die at 70 on a 5,000 year timeline, who cares? And so that helped me get over. Did the monkey die too early? It's like the monkey died and he had a good life, right?

[JT]

Yeah. It's like someone dies of natural causes, they die because they have a painless aneurysm in their sleep, which sounds like a bummer. Summer next day, whole city floods, everyone else dies by drowning. Who had it better? Yeah, aneurysm, bro. With 24 hours less.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

And I think. I think thinking about death, too, is such a great. Can be a motivator and helps you to give less truth. Because we. We had like, a show come out and like, oh, yeah, we're going deep. Yeah.

[JT]

No, I mean, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die.

[Chad]

I'm almost certain, but, like, it's. It's like, we had a show come out, and it's like you get so consumed in your, like, ego, you know, because you're, like, thinking about, how's it gonna perform? Yeah, how's it gonna perform? Are people gonna think if it doesn't do well, are they gonna think I'm a loser? All that kind of stuff. Then you think, well, I'm gonna die one day.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

What does it matter?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

So I just think it's thinking about. I think the stokes do that. They think about death, and it's, like, all the time. It's very freeing.

[JT]

Yeah. You just want. Empty.

[Chad]

Stoke inducing.

[JT]

Put the clip into that machine gun and just pin that trigger and just let him out into the air.

[Chad]

Just think about dying.

[JT]

Bullets.

[Chad]

Yeah, Think about dying, D. Think about dying.

[Alex Hormozi]

Kisses of bullets of love. Yeah.

[Chad]

Think about dying. Makes me more stoked.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[Chad]

To live. Yeah, to live.

[JT]

There you go. Maybe we should end with we do of the weeks, but we're trying to mix them up right now.

[Alex Hormozi]

All right.

[JT]

Do you have a song of the week that's really banging for you?

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. Can you.

[JT]

Can you get him his guitar?

[Alex Hormozi]

I would have said that. That Oliver song that went super viral. Yeah, I would have said that.

[JT]

But now it's too, like, I don't want to get.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, I don't want to get. I don't get all. I just. I did. I listen that song.

[JT]

Like, the song's good.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah. But I'll play you a different song that I've been jamming on this week.

[JT]

Hell, yeah. Do you have one? Doggy?

[Chad]

I'll.

[Alex Hormozi]

There it is. I'm ready.

[JT]

It's like classical texture.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, dude. Jay Z, Rihanna, and Es. Posthumous post hummus.

[JT]

And that's the dude who threw it together. Yeah, that's the man. I'll go. Do you have yours?

[Chad]

I can go. I mean, I. I'm just really psyched on this artist. Peggy Goo.

[Alex Hormozi]

Okay.

[Chad]

Peggy Goo. No, I love Peggy Goo.

[Alex Hormozi]

Peggy Goo.

[Chad]

Peggy Goo.

[Alex Hormozi]

All right.

[Chad]

She's a Korean dj, and she's. She's big in Europe right now. I think she's breaking into huge in Germany. Like, Hasselhoff, dude. Yeah, dude.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[JT]

That's the dream.

[Alex Hormozi]

He's a God.

[Chad]

But I. So I already. I already talked about her one song, Na na na, on another podcast, But I'll do Starry Night just because I'm psyched on Peggy Goo. Yeah, I'm gonna do Na, na, na.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[JT]

Do what you feel.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, maybe.

[JT]

What's gonna get us feeling?

[Alex Hormozi]

You do one of these. As you're walking in,

[JT]

people, the sunglasses people are responding. They're pointing back. They're like, yeah, you got it. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

He knows.

[Chad]

You rip your shirt off.

[JT]

This is my day. Yeah, this is gonna be my day. It's very gentle. That's what I like about it.

[Alex Hormozi]

Four children come up to your. Your heels and start and lift you up like toddlers. Yeah, Four. Four.

[JT]

And toddlers know the truth. Yeah, dude.

[Alex Hormozi]

The strength of body weight ratio for toddlers.

[JT]

Amber has clothes and he doesn't need them. Dude, this guy looks good.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah.

[JT]

All right, I'm gonna go with Good Charlotte. The river.

[Chad]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[JT]

Epic kind of LA song

[Chad]

I love.

[JT]

Here's the thing about Good Charlotte. They actually kind of go hard, but people don't know because they went soft. And then once you go soft, people forget you can go hard.

[Alex Hormozi]

They brand you as they associate you.

[JT]

One thing. Yeah.

[Chad]

Is this new?

[JT]

No, this is like 16 years old, so. Yeah.

[Alex Hormozi]

It feels new, though.

[JT]

Do the valley of the shadow of that. Yeah. I was listening to this at the gym, and I was like, dude, I'm just a guy in LA going for it. Did the people at the gym could see my energy? I was like, yeah, I'm in it, dude. I'm in it, bro. I'm feeling this things.

[Alex Hormozi]

And you got. So at the gym, you're just getting up nods.

[JT]

Like, I'm getting a lot of up and up. Nod is way. Dude, that's such a good call. That it's an up nod, not a down. Oh, no, down nod's a little bit like, watch. Slow down.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[JT]

Up nod's like, that's what's up.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, yeah. All right. So you went all the way, dude.

[JT]

I loved it. And that's the thing about the gym, too, dude. I was gonna say this. You must have noticed this. The gym, demographically, it's all races, all ages, all people. That's when I go to 24 hour in North Hollywood. The spread is insane.

[Alex Hormozi]

You know what's cool? The iron doesn't care.

[JT]

We're all brothers under the iron.

[Alex Hormozi]

Like, 500 pounds is 500 pounds. This is what it is.

[Chad]

That's the title of this podcast.

[JT]

Sweet, man. Well, thank you for coming on.

[Chad]

Thank you, guys. It's such a pleasure, man.

[Alex Hormozi]

It's really appreciate you. Thank you.

[JT]

I felt like we really cooked with gasoline. That was nice.

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, nice. Okay. That's the preheat, and then we switched right to the charcoal. Maybe a wood. Wood plank.

[JT]

Okay, Tell me about it.

[Alex Hormozi]

Yeah, get a little cedar going, some aromatics, let it simmer.

[Chad]

Freaking Traeger, Dude. Yeah. Such a pleasure, man. Thank you.

[Alex Hormozi]

It's mutual. Thank you guys for having me.

[JT]

Sweet.

[Alex Hormozi]

Hopefully we went deep enough.

[Chad]

I think so. Dude, that might have been the deepest we ever gone.

[JT]

We covered a ton.

[Alex Hormozi]

If you need advice,

[JT]

these guys are really nice. You want to know what you where

[Chad]

to go when you need someone to guide you?

[JT]

And, Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show. Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Alex Hormozi]

Oh, no.

[JT]

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird. Yeah, the bird looks out of your league. Anyways, only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty. Liberty.

[Chad]

Liberty.

[JT]

Liberty.