← The Game with Alex Hormozi
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- [00:00]
A
Don't try and start a media business. Try and put a media business around your life as it currently stands and change as few things as possible. And then if you are going to change something or add something to your schedule, you better have a damn good reason to know that you're going to get a return on it. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more per customer and how to keep them longer and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.
- [00:29]
B
I think a lot of people are doing things for the wrong reasons and they think they can just put some fuddy duddy shit out there, feel good about it, slap their name on it and some idiots are going to go buy it. And you're certainly not that well, it's.
- [00:38]
A
Why do they do it right? So over recent history, for me, a greater and greater percentage of my enjoyment comes from how hard I worked on something and a greater percentage of my satisfaction comes from that. And so if that is the win, then you can win before you go and then you already won and now you're basically playing extra credit rounds. Whereas if you make all of the win about what happens. There's always things that are out of your control. Like when we did the book launch, there was rumored to be a massive thunderstorm right at the facility that they were like, there's an 80% chance that we lose power. And I was like, what am I going to do? You know what I mean? I'm not going to postpone it. I just spent a month promoting it is what it is. You know what I mean? That's it. And so there's always things that are going to be outside of your control. Luckily the power didn't go out. And so you can massively improve your life by changing what you're optimizing your outcome for. And so you can eliminate anxiety by optimizing for you being satisfied. And then you can absolutely control that. And then you can say, I am satisfied. And so I have no reason to be nervous.
- [01:45]
B
Yeah, it seems like you have that switch for you when you say hard work that I think means a lot different. It's a different thing than most people I think. You know, for me, like when I look back on my history, like, you know, it was for me a lot instilled by my father. You know, I remember going to work, working my ass off, my dad, you know, being there one day when I came home and being like, you know, you look pretty lazy out there. Because he saw me working across the street and didn't think I was working that hard. You know, the kind of person that you come home with an A and he's wondering, why not an A plus, I'm curious, like, where do you get that, you know, gene from? Or how do you look at that? Because I think it's easy to say, like, you know, I just work hard, but there's something else going on there.
- [02:20]
A
I think it's who you're trying to impress. Like, everyone. Everyone's trying to impress somebody.
- [02:24]
B
Yeah, I agree.
- [02:25]
A
And I think the closer you can make that person you're trying to impress to who you are or who you want to be, the more under control impressing them is. And so, like, if you're trying to impress the crowd, it's tough, you know, because they can change their mind really quickly and you can't control that. You want to, you know, impress your parents, maybe you can control that. Maybe you have more understanding what the things are that impress them. And you can just try and hit those keys. Maybe it's your spouse, but I think if you can make it you or what I try to do is future me, then I know 100% of the things that will satisfy that man. And he's ruthless, but he's fair. And so a lot of it is just repetition. It's like, it's funny. I had this tweet that did kind of well that I'm amazed how many times in my life my response to self is, great, I'll do it again, but better. And how many times you can apply that to anything. Like, great, you learn the sales script front to back. Now do it again, but better, and you can do it. Write the book. You can do it for asking the girl. You can do it for the product, you can do it for the UX design, you can do it for the email. Great, then do it again, but better. And I think that if you can keep doing that iteration without getting frustrated with it and seeing the character trait that you want to develop as the output of the activity rather than the thing that you're working on, that I think is where you can get the W that no one can take away from you.
- [03:48]
B
Yeah, I think that future self frame is really important, you know, building something for the long term, like, you know.
- [03:52]
A
Really you are the long term asset.
- [03:53]
B
Exactly. I mean, how do you kind of define that? Like, give us, like, for some people, like, I get what you're saying. Right. But you know, when you're talking to yourself about A given, you know, thing you're looking to release and you're like, okay, would my future self be proud of this? Like, what are some of like the principles that your future self is judging that work off of?
- [04:10]
A
Honestly, it's just level of effort. That's really it. It's just level of effort relative to the task. Now, do I do 28 full 3 times go throughs on an email? No, because the reward relative to the input doesn't make sense. So it's like calibrating the effort that would be hard or hard workable or 100% based on the task to something that's reasonable. Now, the reason that I was willing to put so much into the launch was I did the math on this where I was like, okay, if I had a 5,000 person audience for a big live event, how long would I prepare for that? I was like, I'd probably prepare two, three days for that. Because every single person there is going to tell 20 other people that this one guy just blew everyone away. And that's what I want. I think the background on your phone is Michael Jordan, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. In Last Dance he had this comment that just sent chills through my spine. And he said, there's going to be a kid in the audience who's there with his dad and they can only afford that one ticket that one time. And they're going to make their judgment on how Michael Jordan plays on that one game. And that's why he tried to bring it every game. And I think, I try and think of that frame. And I had that with that, with this audience. There's so many people who are going to come who had never actually seen me live ever. And that might be the only time they ever seen me live. And I was like, I have to fucking bring it. And if I would do that for 5,000 people, if I have 500,000 people, then it would be reasonable that I would prepare a hundred times. I mean, if I think it's reasonable to prepare for two to three days for 5,000, then why would I not think it's reasonable to prefer, you know, a hundred times for 100 times the audience? It makes sense. And so if anything, I underprepared, but it did get to a point of proficiency where I was like, I won't gain more from doing this again. Right. And so it really comes down to the number of repetitions I will allow myself to do based on what I get from the activity in the $100.
- [06:00]
B
Million leads exercises on your site. I was going through them a few weeks back and you talk about the story of years ago, having a group of people you were with, there was a mentor there, he talked about this principle of setting aside, you know, an experiment budget, like a learning budget to, you know, just put towards different things, different bets that you have. Some will pay off, some won't, but either way you learn. And that this is pretty instrumental early on in your career. Huge. I'm curious, you know, how do you kind of go and allocate a learning budget for yourself today? What are you investing those things in? And I know you're someone that's massive on investing in yourself. You know, SME and all this stuff.
- [06:36]
A
Yeah, I think, I mean, pick a percentage or pick an amount. I think 5 to 10% is a good amount of revenue. Personal income.
- [06:44]
B
Personal income.
- [06:45]
A
If you're so. Okay, so depending on who you are in the audience, if you're, if you're like have a job right now, then I'd say personal income. If you're, if you run a company, then I would say of your marketing spend. Okay, right. Rather than revenue because it depends on, you know, the margin of the business and whatnot. But 5 to 10% of the marketing spend in a business I think should be for crazy and wild ideas. And you do it really just to learn. And the idea is a lot of our biggest wins have come from just like crazy experiments. But nine times out of 10, we lose. But if we don't experiment, we will lose in the long run. And so I see that 5 to 10% is basically long term insurance that we will continue to stay relevant, continue to innovate, continue to stay on the top of things. And so even though we have the micro losses of not having something perform, we still get the macro win of learning why that didn't perform and then trying to iterate and then two or three iterations later getting something that smashes and then being ahead of the curve for the next six months. And me that then goes into the 90% of the effort that we put our, put our resources behind and then we continue to rate on that 5 to 10%. And I think that we have done, I think the team's done an exceptional job. Caleb's done an exceptional job at giving what I said earlier about giving the personal freedom. Like he's also incorporated that so that the team also doesn't get burnout from doing the same thing over and over again. Mosey nation, real quick. If you are a business owner that has a big old business and wants to get to a much bigger business going to 50, $100 million plus. We would love to talk to you, and if you like that or would like to hear more about it, go to acquisition.com you can apply anywhere on the page and talk to one of our team and see if we can help you get there.
- [08:17]
B
And is there something that kind of stands out over the last, you know, six months that was like, okay, this is a bet we're putting. We're not even sure if this is really going to work out. Like you said, 9 out of 10 probably aren't, but it's something that's like, what's one that stands out? That just smashed it.
- [08:29]
A
I'll give you two. I mean, we've. We've invested time into a vlog, which we were like, maybe this will work. I don't know.
- [08:35]
B
It's been going well.
- [08:36]
A
Yeah, it has been going well, but that was, like, a wild idea. Caleb was like, what if we just follow you around for a day and, like, make something? I was like, all right, man. I don't know if it's gonna be interesting. You know, you stirred your admiration for the Kardashians.
- [08:48]
B
And now he's like, all right, let's finish this thing up.
- [08:50]
A
And that was. That was, you know, like, there's still reasons that basically, there has to be some sort of reason that we think that would, like, there's a chance of it working. So it's really just like, can we generalize something that's been successful in one place to our current context? So I don't think anything that we're doing has never been successful before. So I don't want to say, like, we're that level of innovator. It's just like, okay, there's something that works here. Can we apply it here? And that's probably how we use kind of our thinking process. And if we can understand why it works there, that's where you can understand, like, the validity of utility. Like, what are the things that make it valid in multiple contexts? And if we can apply the right principles, then it should be we can do it our own way and still make it work for us. And so that's why I think the study of this stuff has been really interesting. But the vlog is one. You know, Twitter overall was just a meta experiment. Like, the whole thing for me was just. Has been a massive experiment platform. Like, I tweet stuff all day long just as it comes up, and when people find something interesting, we repurpose the hell out of it, they become Instagram posts, they become shorts, they become. And if we have, you know, three or four or five or six that do really well around a specific topic, then that becomes a long YouTube forum, long YouTube video. And so all of those are just micro experiments. And I think if you can create a place where you have low risk to experiment, you should lean into that as much as possible. And one thing, I just want to close the loop earlier that I forgot to say, for the people who are getting into making content, I would say decrease friction to the absolute highest degree possible. So if you like. If you like doing podcasts or like, you like, you like, you want to be behind a mic, but you don't want to be in front of a camera, then start there. If you're like, I'm great on camera, but I don't like interviewing, cool, then start there. If you like writing, then start there. So there's a lot of different mediums that you can start on. Start with the one that comes most naturally to you. And I like to think about getting outsized returns on things by getting, again, getting more for what I put in. So the ideal scene is I change nothing and I get more from it. And so if I'm already doing certain things, like the vlog works, like, I already work. And so if we can now get something from that, my behavior doesn't change at all. I just now get more out of it, which is super high leverage. And so thinking about it from that framework of what are all the things I'm currently doing? And really looking at your calendar and saying, okay, what are literally all the things that I do? Are there any of these things or periods of time or days of the week that I currently have tasks that other people might find interesting? And I think asking your team might be helpful because a lot of times we don't have as much. I don't think a lot of my stuff is interesting. Literally on the way here, Jason and I were talking about. And I was. And he was like, I'm really glad we did yesterday. Cause I had a whole meetings day yesterday. And at the end of yesterday, I was like, I don't know if we got anything, man. And he was like, oh, no, dude. Like, there was like, there were six different moments throughout the day that were like, awesome that we're gonna clip out and do stuff with. And I was like, cool. Well, I was just working, so it was. It was high return for me. So I think if you can, don't try and start a media business. Try and put a media business around your life as it currently stands and change as few things as possible. And then if you are going to change something or add something to your schedule, you better have a damn good reason to know that you're going to get a return on it because you're not adding things to your plate, which I take really very seriously.
- [11:54]
B
Yeah, I think it's that, yeah. Frame shift of going from I got to create this new thing, I got to make this new thing, that kind of shiny toy vibe to moving more to. I'm just going to document what I'm already doing because there's got to be like you said, either me three years ago, that would have really been admired. You know what I'm doing now and get a lot of lessons from this.
- [12:09]
A
Let me add nuance to that because I think it's important. I think people misunderstand it when, when, when we say document, don't create. First off, I think Gary was the first person to say that. Yeah, but document doesn't necessarily mean have somebody follow you around with a videotape all day because a lot of you guys have really boring lives and no one wants to watch it. All right, I'm just being really real with you. But you can document in other formats. And I talk about this in hundred million dollar leads book, which is look at your calendar and think, okay, what were the lessons from this week? You can still, you know, crystallize or create an artifact from the week that consolidates a week's worth of stuff into 10 minutes that will be valuable. So thinking like, how can I distill things that happen so you're still documenting, it doesn't mean you have to just capture it in real time. And so I think having a method for documenting. So for me, Twitter is my actual document is that something happens. So, like, if you ever want to know, like what mood I'm in, whatever is happening on Twitter is what I'm thinking right now. Now I tend to whitewash like names and businesses and things like that. But like what I tweet about is like, what my.
- [13:08]
B
That's the thought stream.
- [13:08]
A
That's. That's my thought stream. Right. That's what's going on during the day. And if you see. So if I, If I talk about like how someone's being a bonehead, like look at my schedule around that time somebody was doing something. And so I would encourage you to have some outlet that allows you to most, with the least amount of friction possible, crystallize the learnings from the week or the month or the day. And I think doing that will provide value to an audience because anyone who can compress time provides value. So everybody learns a lot in a year. If you just made one video a year on everything you actually learned, it'd probably be a pretty decent video. Now if you do it every hour, you probably don't have as much. And so it's really just like at what interval do I have enough substance that I can provide value to an audience? And I think that's a decent frame to start with.
- [13:53]
B
I just want to get into one last question here. We had a question from the founder west community surveyed everyone in there. Okay, one of the founders was asking, out of all the different methods that you go into lead generation and $100 million leads, what do you feel like is the one that's like the most overlooked but the most impactful?
- [14:07]
A
Oh, it's referrals for sure. I mean, if so taking it from the reverse scenario, if all we did was make a product that every person who bought it brought 1.1 other people, we would never need to advertise ever again. And so like, well then solve for that, you know what I mean? Like all the other things in my opinion are to give you the reps to iterate the product such that you get 1.1 people to refer per person who purchases. And at that point now you can gas, you gas everything. And so I think the big, the unfortunate thing in the marketing community is that you can make a decent amount of money just being good at marketing and sales. And when I say decent, I mean you can make 10, 20 million dollars a year, 30 million dollars a year just being really good at marketing and sales. But in order to get from 30 to 100, 100 to a billion, and I haven't got 2 billion, so I can't say that. But in the next five years, hopefully I'll be able to say that and it'll still be valid. But the cost to acquire customers will only go up. And so you need to have an equally strong force that will cause it to go down. And that is for every purchase you get, you get 1, 2, 3, 5 purchases that come on the back end from other and new customers. And so if one customer brings you two, you now get three customers at the price of one. And now your CAC goes down from a monetary perspective to one third of what it was before. And that allows you to spend money to reach bigger and broader audiences. And that's what allows you to scale and a lot of guys will mess it up. Where they have a product, they learn something about marketing and sales, they make more money. And the problem is that they then associate marketing and sales with the only way that they're going to make more money. But they quickly hit a plateau, and then they're like, I don't know what to do now. And the reality is sometimes you have to take five steps back, fix the product, so that when you do add the gas to it, more people find out about your good stuff, not about your mediocre or shitty stuff. And so this exercise that I love that we took some companies through, which was we had them divide up into teams of 10 or no, sorry. We had them divide up into teams of like four, and we give them 10 minutes to create a pasta tower, right? They get like a piece of paper, like duct tape or marshmallow, and like a pound of pasta. And then at the 10 minute mark, you stop it. And so it's a really interesting exercise because you then ask questions about it. So you say, okay, who could have done this better? Right? And everyone says, okay, if we'd given you a full day to think about, you think you'd come up with a better one? Yes. Okay, instead of 10 minutes, we've given you 10 days. Do you think you'd build a taller tower? Yes. Okay, now everybody has their current tower that's shitty. You know, straight line up. Say, okay, if I need you to 10x this tower, could you do it? And the answer most of the time is no. It's because the fastest way to build a pasta tower is in 10 minutes. Is not the fastest way to build a pasta Tower. That's 10 stories. And so a lot of times people build their businesses that way is that they're trying to hit a goal as fast as humanly possible, but in so doing, prevent themselves from hitting a much larger goal later. And then their ego prevents them from taking the step back to then build it, right? And so in being a rush, they never get there.
- [17:10]
B
Well, on that note, this has been a lot of fun, a lot of great learnings here, Alex. Appreciate it. Appreciate all you've done with your books and with all the free content online. Everyone should go check out $100 million leads. Legendary book. Appreciate you making the time here, Alex. Means a lot. Hope you have a lovely day.
- [17:25]
A
Dude, thank you so much for having me and awesome question.