← Next Level Pros
Loading summary
Transcript40 lines
- [00:00]
Alex Hormozi
This one action is keeping. You broke in today's discussion. We're throwing it back to a interview that I did with Alex Ramosi. Alex shares with us a little known secret that actually changed the trajectory of his career. Have you ever been focused on a certain aspect of your business but found yourself distracted looking at other opportunities in the way you can make money? Don't worry. This is what every single entrepreneur goes through. In this episode, we'll talk about the principle that launched Alex into his personal brand and the success that you know him as and what made a huge difference in our two nine figure exits. All this and more on today's episode.
- [00:41]
Chris
Growth that your company had in the last year is probably more than it did in the first five years, right? And so like that's the thing. Yeah, like, and, and it's a, it's a tough gear shift pro. I mean like this is me just. I know you're, you're in, in the process of this too, but like when you go from comparing your year seven to year eight growth of a business that you owned to a year two to year three growth of a newer thing that you're doing, it's like we can't compare the two. Like this is, this is, I'm just saying this is what's been hard for me that I've had to like wrap my head around is that like I'm like, God, like it'd be so easy for me to add another like 10 million in EBITDA, you know, to the solar business, right? Versus like, or in gym launch, like add another like six or add another 10, whatever it is, right? Like adding that kind of like ebitda. Like that can happen pretty quickly, right? Whereas you know, when you're in the new thing, like you have to think in percentages rather than in, in absolute amounts because otherwise you'll just get way too bogged down. Like you'll get way too sad about how things are working as fast as you want them to. And so that's, that's been helped too is the shifting from absolutes to percentages to relative changes. And, and also just at least for me thinking that like different businesses have different pain at different times. And so like I'll give you a quick extreme example. It's like on one extreme you got like info businesses, right? There's lots of people who have those. The pain that you experience is when you want to get past a million a month, 2 million a month, 3 million a month. So you basically pick a vehicle that's easy to start easy to make money fast for, but you're not going to make massive money, right. It's very hard to do it. Not so you can't. It's very, very hard. On the flip side, you start a software company and like if you do it the right way, you're probably not going to make any money at all for a long period of time. And so all your pain is front loaded. But once you achieve critical mass, then the things just starts compounding on its own month over month over month and at no incremental cost to you. And the thing becomes a profit monster. Right. And so it's like those are completely opposite sides of the spectrum and it's really just like where do you want your pain? And if you know ahead of time, this is where the pain's going to happen. Not being surprised when the pain comes.
- [02:53]
Levi
Let's dive in, Chris. So Levi, pain now versus pain later. How have you experienced that in your life? When have you, when have you tried to avoid pain now just to experience it later?
- [03:06]
Paul Ace
Oh, I mean I think the easiest thing that I can relate to is just fitness, like fitness and nutrition. Like it's so easy for me. Oh. Like I want to wake up in the morning and work out now. But I could always go later. But then when I wait to go later I can always say I could go tomorrow or the next day and whatnot. And I think a lot of times we like I'm 27 years old.
- [03:30]
Levi
Yep.
- [03:30]
Paul Ace
I'm still pretty young. I'm taking advantage of my youth by not setting myself up for the future of when I could be experiencing more pain of like joints or whatnot by not being in shape and doing what I should be doing now to prepare myself for the future.
- [03:44]
Levi
So Chris, actually ask you differently because we work with a lot of business owners and you see companies at all different levels who've been there for different period of times, time frames. What do you see as like a business owner? What are some of the, the short term avoidances that people do so they don't have to go through the pain now, but they pay it later?
- [04:07]
Alex Hormozi
I mean so the, the pain matrix is, is pretty simple, right? Like you experience pain regardless. Pain now, pain later. There's no choice in, in, in, in experiencing pain now. The, the cool thing about like anything that we only for a very little time, it's, it's not a long duration. So we have a choice of do I want the fake fruit now or do I want the short paint or do I want the short Pain now. And both are short, right? So like the fake fruit is I got out of the work, I got out. So like, to answer your question, like a lot of guys, when they need to get sales in the door or revenue isn't hitting the road, they're going to convince themselves that they need to spend time bookkeeping, they need to spend time cleaning up their offer, they need to spend time working on their management team, everything to avoid the pain of going out and generate revenue or generating the actual issue that is causing like the financial. And so what they get in that little time, they get a nice little fake fruit, little dopamine hit of like, oh, I liked what I was doing, right? Like I, I enjoyed doing the bookkeeping, I enjoyed doing this and I avoided that. But obviously the long term pain of that is what shows up in the financial statement or ultimately hits the bank account versus the opposite where it's like door knocking. Door knocking is a painful activity that most people want to do everything to avoid. And really the initial pain is getting out to an area, getting out of your door and actually making that first knock. Whether you're going business to business, business to consumer, to home to home, these are all just very short term pains that you're going to experience. Because the second you're in that conversation with the customer, all of a sudden it's rewarding. You starting to see like the benefit. You close down a customer, you at least have conversations, you make some progress towards that, that thing. And so I think the important thing to understand wherever you're at is like the thing now is very temporary and later is always going to be lasting. So like waking up at 5am, going to the gym that took five minutes of pain and then you show up to the gym, you get your two hour workout in and you get that longevity of being in shape versus I got an extra 10 minutes of sleep, I put it off or whatever and it felt good in the moment. But now I've got a 400 pound waistline, you know, hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like and subscribe. That way people just like, you can find this content for free here on YouTube. Now let's dive back in the show.
- [06:56]
Levi
One of the, one of the things that I notice is like, it's the, the amount of hesitation that you allow, the harder it is to build that discipline. And so people that are like, all right, let's go do it, just go do it, just go do it. It's like, if you've ever done cliff. Cliff jumping, the longer you stand up there, the more impossible it is to jump. And. And so that's where it's like, decide what you're going to do and then just take the action.
- [07:21]
Paul Ace
Have you heard the analogy of, like, eating the frog? So it's like, if you are told that you need to eat a frog to today a whole frog you can eat at any point of the day, but your day can't be complete until you eat the frog. When are you going to eat the frog? And a lot of people, you know, they'll say, we'll eat the frog first thing in the morning. But if you don't eat the frog first thing in the morning, you got two frogs you got to eat that day, you got the frog that you got to eat later that day, and then the frog you're thinking about all day long.
- [07:49]
Levi
I have no idea what it's like to eat a frog, so I'm struggling with the concept.
- [07:54]
Alex Hormozi
But yeah, to your point, it's. It's the pain, right? Like, if I know I need to go out and knock doors, I'm thinking about it all the time. It's in the back of my mind. It's causing me energy suck while I'm trying to focus on all these other things instead of just going and biting the bullet, doing the thing now and then, moving on and taking advantage of.
- [08:13]
Levi
The next and going back to hesitation. How many people. I see this all the time where it's like, people who are, like, wanting to improve their business, for example, like our courses or our community. The people that hesitate to join our community are the ones that are stuck and never change. And then you see people who join our community, they're like, yep, this is what I want. They go, and you see them, they're able to make change way faster. And then you see them have results that the other guy wants but won't make the changes to do. And so I think if you realize, like, if you're hesitating, all you're doing is you're prolonging pain, you're prolonging, like, suffering, and you're probably putting more energy into that than it would take to just have the success you're looking for.
- [08:55]
Alex Hormozi
Yeah. So it's actually the. Just like the power of decisiveness. In fact, we were at Funnel Hacking Live a couple weeks ago, and we were sitting down with a guy that was considering joining our program, and he was like, man, I just really need to think about it. I need to do this, this and this. And then I explained to him this principle. I said, look, you don't need to buy our course, you don't need to join our community, you don't need to do any of these things. Just learn this one principle from me. And I explained to him the power of being decisive, right? And like, when you make a decision, you can move on. You don't got to continue to think about it. You, you're not going through this pain. And like, and, and the thing I've seen over the years is like the most successful people that I know are decisive in the moment. They measure out the information, they make a decision, they move forward and they don't no longer think about it, they no longer have to dwell in that pain. And the crazy thing is like, after I taught him that principle, he immediately switched and is like, all right, let's do it, I'm in. And then later remarked how much that has changed, just the way that he has improved his business making decisions. And so not only has he gotten a ton just from being a part of our community, but just that mental switch of being decisive. And I, I think it would actually be cool. Let's, let's just switch over to a little clip from him.
- [10:15]
Paul Ace
My name is Paul Ace. I've got a company called Amplify ccom and we help high ticket coaches scale to eight figures. And then I am based in the uk in Leicester. I met Levi and when I met Levi, we talked for like half an hour, just like shooting the stuff, right, Talking about every kind of thing. And I was like, we're at a part in our business where we want to scale and I know we need something different to help us get us there. And the easiest way to find that next level of growth is to find someone who's already done what you want to do. And instead of finding, you know, a coach or mentor that's like, well, in theory this is what you should do. These guys have actually done it, right? They built two nine figure exits. And then I got introduced to them and I have never, ever, ever bought a high ticket product on the spot ever in my life. And I spoke to Chris and the way Chris was with me, I was like, you know what? This guy's got so much trust, belief, uncertainty in what he does. I believe in it too. And then you get that moment afterwards where you're like, did I make the right thing?
- [11:18]
Chris
Right?
- [11:19]
Paul Ace
And then these guys took me out for dinner. The amount of introductions I've had in the first 24 hours has probably already paid for the program and more probably tenfold. And that's where we're at.
- [11:28]
Levi
Yeah, so that's what I see too. I see people that when they decide to make a decision and take action, like, everything changes. What's one story just popped my head were when you were in Vegas and you actually married that couple that have been dating for years. Right? Right. And you just made them like you. You. You convinced them that they already wanted to do this. Let's do it. Tell us. Tell us a little bit about that. So that.
- [11:52]
Alex Hormozi
That was wild. So I was speaking at an event back in November, and it with Kyle Malan. He has an incredible group. They teach people how to go and acquire businesses and whatnot. And so I run into a friend of mine that I hadn't seen in years. I had met at a previous event. We had stayed in contact and via social media, he had recently had a baby and different things. And so they invite me to go to dinner after I speak. And I'm like, yeah, dude, let's do it. And so we jump in the car and there in the back seat is his girlfriend. And. And I'm like, cool, man. So you guys just had a kid, right? Yeah, yeah, we do. And I'm like, so when's. When's the big day when you guys get married? And they're like, oh, you know, I don't know. Like. Like we're committed to each other. And you know, all these different things. Like, he gave me all these reasons of why he's committed without being committed, which. Which was just interesting. And, and so then we went through and we just talked about, like, dude, marriage is like the ultimate form of commitment. Why wouldn't you give the woman that you love and you say you want to be with forever and everything else and you already have a child with, like, why would you not do some level of commitment? And like, we had this discussion for like two or three hours to ultimately, he's like, dude, I said, look, I'm an ordained minister. Let's get you married. We're in Vegas. We are in the city of marriage. In fact, a fun fact that I learned that night, Vegas will process up to a thousand marriage certificates a day.
- [13:22]
Levi
That's incredible.
- [13:22]
Alex Hormozi
Pretty wild. Pretty wild. And so, dude, we go. We get to like one of the casinos at like 8:30 or 9. We go to a jewelry store. He gets a ring. We go to dinner. He proposes that dinner. He makes the decision, acts on it, proposes, they get engaged. We dial up everything to get the marriage Certificate, marriage license. And it's closing at midnight. One of the only places in the world where the marriage certificates closes at midnight. From the city government building, we head over there, we get the certificate, we go to a local chapel, get married, do all this stuff. Dude, it was like. It was like one of the craziest nights. I think we wrapped it up about 2am no alcohol, no anything. Like. Like nothing's going on. And so. So this is the. This is the. The stuff we got going on. But the crazy thing was, is, like, how much their lives have changed since being decisive. I went and visited him, so that was in November. I just visited him last month down in Arizona. And his wife comes up to me and she's like, I just want to thank you so much. Like, our lives have completely changed, like, since we have become decisive, basically, that's what she was saying, right? We've become decisive. We become committed to each other. And I think there's just so much power and commitment.
- [14:40]
Levi
Well, the reality is if you, if you make a bad decision and you're decisive in that decision, your ability to make the other decisions, to get out of it are a lot easier, right? And so there's really, like, so much power in just being decisive because it can get you in a really good situation. It can also get you in a bad situation, but you can get out of it a lot easier, which just teaches you the next time how to do it better and better.
- [15:03]
Alex Hormozi
Well, this goes back to back in Covid, right? So, like, when Covid hit, that was obviously a big deal over at our solar business. And I don't know if you guys remember the, the words that we were using, like we were purveying with. With everybody that the, the word pivot. Remember, we'd say, hey, we need to pivot, not panic.
- [15:21]
Levi
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [15:22]
Alex Hormozi
And so, because, like, dude, that was a time of panic. A lot of people were scared. They had no idea what was going to be going on with their business. And so we had to just be decisive to be able to get out of that negative situation that, hey, look, we're going to pivot. We're going to make some changes in the business, and we're not going to panic about it. And so, yeah, it works for both the good, you know, the good things, the bad things, the ugly. Gets you out of good situations, keeps you in the good situations.
- [15:47]
Levi
It's funny, I think the only thing that can cause an issue is if you are decisive, you make a bad decision, and then you go back to old Habits of I'm not going to be as decisive anymore, then you're in a worse position. But I think if you stay decisive, you always work yourself in the best situation possible because you're taking action.
- [16:06]
Alex Hormozi
Yeah. Amen. Amen. You know, it's. Alex has just so many good takes. I mean, obviously 3.2 million subscribers now on, on YouTube. This guy's got some really good takes. It's fun to, like, look back on our experience with Alex. Obviously, you guys remember when, when we had him up to the cabin. That was a good time.
- [16:27]
Paul Ace
It's cool because in, in the podcast, he references at the beginning like this, how he was just a big fish in a pond when he needed to be playing in the ocean. Right. And the catalyst for him selling gym launch was at our mastermind a few years ago.
- [16:43]
Alex Hormozi
Yeah. And so for those of you guys don't know, we. We had this mastermind. We'll actually pop up the little picture right here. I had Russell Brunson, Alex Leila, Brooke Castillo, Reuben Chen, a few, few just amazing, amazing people that were at that event. And yeah, Alex referenced in our podcast right here, where that was a big change for him.
- [17:07]
Chris
Tell you a story that you may. You may not know this. So when I went to, we had that little meetup, it was like you, me, and like six other people at your cabin. Right. And so some of my audience listened to this. Like when I talked about that meetup that was actually with Chris. And together it was like the eight of us were doing half a billion a year in revenue, which I thought was pretty cool. You know what I mean? If you just added up all the business, it might even been higher than that, but it was at least half a billion a year in revenue. And it was interesting from an experience for me because that meeting was actually one of the reasons I decided to sell gym Watch. And the big takeaway for me, like, even though we talked about lots of stuff. Yeah, we talked about lots of strategies, tactics, hiring, people scaling, blah, blah, blah, that kind of jazz. But the biggest takeaway I had was I looked at everybody in the room who was doing more revenue than I was, and I was like, okay, is it there a skill set that I'm lacking? What am I missing? Right. And the biggest thing that I saw as my takeaway was I was just in a pond and everyone else was going after an ocean. And I think if I hadn't sold then I could have continued to go down that path. But I didn't want to be known as the fitness guy. I already had felt kind of tired of being known as the gym guy. And you can make an argument that that would have been a better move because I've known the space and you just get deeper and deeper knowledge and that becomes your competitive advantage. But In September of 19, I started making general business content, and I stopped making content about gyms. And so. And it was actually almost at that time that things started growing for me. And so, like my podcast, I went from talking about only gyms to talking about business. And then it started growing, even though I'd been doing it for like two or three years at that point. And then, and then I think a year later after that, I started making my first YouTube videos.
- [18:49]
Paul Ace
So you guys have learned this principle and, you know, I would argue even master this principle of taking massive action, being decisive, and committing to it. Was there ever a catalyst for you guys that actually caused you to learn this principle? Because I'm sure at some point you probably weren't taking decisions seriously and putting off your pain for later.
- [19:10]
Levi
So one, one thing you're actually brought up was how, how to do that in a partnership. And what we had to learn in a partnership was if someone was like super into making a certain decision, the other person wasn't, you had to decide like, who, who was going to charge it. And if the person who wanted that decision was going to charge forward with that, the other person had to fully be behind them. And so we had to make a decision of like, okay, I disagree with you, but it's your decision and I'll fully back you, and that's the end of it. You never go back and say I told you so or anything like that. It was like a hundred percent support go forward. And so I think in partnerships, actually what's really important is to support decisiveness because it can create so much power in a relationship versus trying to like, I told you so or gotcha or, you know, I, you should have done what I said.
- [20:02]
Alex Hormozi
I think that just goes back to like having a, A, an established culture of trust, right? Like that we, that we have the, the same goals, the same right vision and direction for where we're going in the relationship, in the business or whatnot. And so that even when you are, are misaligned, right, like, you're, you're willing to like, take the, the corrective feedback or, or support somebody that you don't necessarily understand the exact decision, right? It's just like, hey, this, the, we're in this together. And so, and to, to even answer your question, A little bit further. Like, when was that? I think it. Dude, it's. It's like, over so many years of experience and different things that have taken place. But I think one of the most key principles, along with this, of the addressing pain now is, is the ability to have hard conversations. Right? Because that is a painful thing in business. Partnerships in business is, like, when somebody does something wrong or does you wrong or, like, there's something that you really don't agree with rather than putting it off and allowing it to fester. Going and addressing the situation in the moment, like, that is the most quick and painful thing that you can do in business. And so, like, when you disagree about it, you go. And a lot of times you create this anxiety and the stress around it, like, oh, man, what are they going to think? What are they going to say? Instead of, like, pondering on that, you go, you address it. And I cannot tell you how many times I have just panicked over a potential hard conversation I was going to have. And then five minutes into it, I'm like, oh, this isn't as bad as I thought. Hey, guys, it's Chris. Hey. A lot of you leave comments asking for help. Do me a real quick favor. Shoot me a text at 509-374-7755. That's 509-374-7554. Shoot me a text. I'll answer and help you with whatever you need. Don't worry, I got you back. Let's go back to the show, baby.
- [21:59]
Levi
You always tell me times have we had the conversation of, like, all right, that's just a monster in your head, right? We've had that over the years over and over again, and it's kind of like the David and Goliath story, where it's like, you. You build up this monster. It's, like, undefeatable. And yet you have this guy come in, and it doesn't take that much effort. It just takes focus. And. And that's really what it comes down to. Anything that sounds painful with focus, you can bust through it and, like, pass and move, move past it so easily.
- [22:24]
Paul Ace
We've talked a lot about, like, on the micro level, these decisions, you know, working out, having these hard conversations or whatnot. But in this Alex Formosi clip he references in the podcast, too, is being willing to say no to fast money now for big money later.
- [22:42]
Alex Hormozi
Absolutely.
- [22:42]
Paul Ace
And I think as entrepreneurs and business owners, we've worked with so many that they'll get, like, the classic entrepreneurial squirrel. Like, oh, well, we can add this onto our offer and package it this way and then we could add this vertical and partner up with this guy and whatnot. I think it also relates to this ability to make decisions and committing all the way through that decision to be willing to say no and decide no on things that might sound good in the moment.
- [23:08]
Alex Hormozi
So I think two things there. One like, yeah, saying no to opportunities because yeah, we can always find ways to make money, right? But the second one is saying no to fulfilling my own personal desires outside of the business. Robbing the business to satisfy my cars, my watches, my house or whatever, instead of biting the bullet in the, in the, and playing the long game, right? Taking that money, reinvesting into marketing, reinvesting into growth. Because I mean, dude, there were years, two, three years where all the money that we were making at Soldier was just getting rolled right back into it. And that's the way that we were able to build the long term money that ultimately allowed us to be able to go and exit a private equity because we're investing into that growth.
- [23:55]
Levi
And I think the way we looked at that was, you know, we wanted to live off of what we needed, right? Essentials were taken care of. But what was crazy was the, how exponentially it changed the business. And I think that's a hard principle for people to learn because most people look at it as, I got the money, now take it and run versus okay, now that I got money, how can I make this business thrive even more? And there's a lot of challenges with that. But if you have the right mindset, it's, it's a powerful, it's a powerful thing to do in a business.
- [24:28]
Alex Hormozi
I love it. So I mean what we're talking about here is the eighth pillar of growth, which is the leadership pillar, where is housed under having the hard conversation, doing the painful things in the moment, the self development, everything like that. And so a lot of you guys have heard about the eight pillars. If you haven't, go ahead and drop a comment down below, ask us any questions that you have. Also make sure that you like and subscribe to the channel. We're going to continue to roll out and help teach these different eight pillars. Pillars for growth, I mean fundamentally, to be able to scale any business, you have to implement these eight pillars across the board. And so many business owners, as we know in our community, they struggle with these different type of pillars. But hopefully you gained a ton of value from today's conversation. Until next time.