← The Game with Alex Hormozi
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Learning and becoming the best version of ourselves, at least for me, is kind of the purpose of living. If that is at least part of your life's purpose, then I think having somebody who supports that goal rather than someone who is neutral or detracts from it is probably a good thing. So I wanted to talk about something that's a little different than probably my normal topic, but I think really important for a lot of you, it's actually about your significant other. So here's the deal. Layla and I had this realization that the number one kind of multiplier or amplifier on someone's effectiveness inside the business actually had a lot to do with what was going on outside of the business. And what's difficult for that as a business owner, is that you want, or rather I want, to be able to predict how well someone does over the long haul. If many variables exist, many variables must be studied, right? If we think about your subjective well being, so your happiness metrics, the strongest correlate to that of all variables is the strength of your relationship with your significant other. Believe me, this is about making money, not being happy. That's not my, not my shtick. So I will stay to my lane. I do think that a significant part of that is whether your significant other helps you achieve your goals. And so the reason that this is so nasty is that I have had people who came into our companies and were what I thought were going to be stars, and then their significant other derailed them. And the reason that I think it's so insidious is that it's not done out of malice. And I think that's why it's so tricky is that let's say you have a tough day at work and you go home and your significant other says, ah, like, you know, enough about your day, let's talk about my day. And you know, here's a big bowl of ice cream or hey, let's, you know, let's go out to dinner or hey, let's go see friends, right? All of that seems well intentioned. The question that we have to ask ourselves is, does this increase or decrease the likelihood that hit my goals? And I see hitting one's goals as essentially your relationship with yourself. Which is why I see goal achievement as the most important thing that you can do in your life. Because it's really just, do you keep your commitments to yourself? And before anyone jumps down my throat, the analogy that I would give is the very classic one, which is that when you're on an airplane, what do they say? You Put your air mask on before you help others. And I think that your significant other was likely attracted to you to some degree based on your aspirations, what you want to do with your life. And what's interesting is that they will be attracted to that thing and then also be the source of that demise. They will do things and take actions that make it less likely that you achieve your goals and then complain about the fact that those goals have not been hit. And that's tough. And it's usually because they do not see that what they do hurts you. And I say hurts you, not because, again, out of malice, but out of what happens, what occurs. And so this has been something I've been thinking of a lot. So much so that we are considering putting it as a part of our interview process for people coming in. And so if you look at how supportive a spouse is or your significant other, I think that it's not a binary. I see it on a continuum, right? On the absolute worst case, you have somebody who's like, you need to quit that job. You need to quit that place, whatever. Now, under the right circumstances, that could be super encouraging because they're saying you should go pursue your dreams, in which case that's amazing. And they're over here, right? But if that's the main vehicle that you have to, like, provide for the family and that's your dream or that's your goal, then how terrible is that? And now every time you go home, you're reminded of this, and basically talking about work is punished, which then associates a negative and aversive stimulus with the thing that you need to keep doing in order to hit the goals as a unit. Which is kind of a secondary theme that I have around spouses that are on the good side of the continuum, which is that they see you and them as one. And so it's like, we are achieving this goal. We are like, I am taking these sacrifices. I am making money, too, and I'm allocating some of my money so that my spouse can do what they want to do, he or she wants to do. That type of unit tends to. I'll say. I'll say. Tends to. Tends to outperform the people who are kind of solo dolo, right? Like on again, the extreme, you have somebody who actively tries to destroy. One degree to the left of that is somebody who's passively destroying, which I would say is the same in terms of outcome. Like, hey, don't worry about it. Hey, kick your feet. Hey, let's just go out this weekend. Let's not think about work. Well, it still results in the same thing, which is you work less and you don't talk about the thing that you care about. Now, if you care about your work, then it would make sense that you should be able to talk about that with the one person matters most to you in your life. Right? But if you can't, it's very lonely. And I think it makes it less likely that your goal is that you stick with it because it no longer becomes an us thing, it's just a you thing. And then work becomes something that's a take from your relationship. Super tough, because now you have some. You have conflicting priorities, you have conflicting reinforcement contingencies. You've got the spouse that whenever you do this other thing, it's taking away from that person. And that's because of how they have framed it. And so if you can have a spouse who frames you working as you loving them, then you win because they see you working as you feeding the unit, you feeding our goals, what we want to do with our lives, what impact we want to make as a family. And a family can still be two people, but nonetheless, on the left, right, you've got that, you've got the actively destroying. Second, you've got passively destroyed. And the only difference I see there is intention, not as outcome. Now, to the. To the middle of that, I think you have neutral. And so these are the people that are just like, you do your thing, I do my thing, Right. And I think there's kind of two. Two flavors of this. One is you've got a spouse who has their own career or their own business, and they're just running on their path and you're running on yours, which can actually be a very successful pairing as long as you both given each other space to go. Pursue both of your goals, which then both of you are achieving your best version of yourselves. And then as each of you levels up, you become more and more attracted to the other person because, like, your stock goes up and so does theirs. Cool. The other version of neutrality I see is that they will not detract, they will not interfere with you achieving your goals. Now, very different from supporting. They just won't get in the way. If you have to work, they say, okay, now they're not going to say, hey, honey, don't worry about it. I got it at home, I got the kids, or I got the. Whatever is going on. Like, I got this. Go do what you got to do. Right? That's supportive. Neutral is understood, right? I'LL go figure out what I need to do in the meantime. And you can already guess where the next. The next version of this is. Right. Is supportive, which is not. They. They increase the likelihood that you hit your goals. That's how I define support, is that they take interest and they increase the likelihood that you hit whatever goal you set out to do. I think many people, some of you guys right now, if you're being honest with yourselves, if you were to answer the question, does having this person in my life increase or decrease the likelihood that I have my goals? I think some of you might have a very tough, tough set of questions to have. So I'm going to give you five questions that I think are just destructive and just nuclear bombs. Number one, if someone tells you that you're a lot like your ex or your current, would you take that as a compliment? Think about it. Number two, would you allow your future kid to date someone like your spouse? Three, were you able to unapologetically be yourself, or do you have to act like someone else when you are with them? Four, do you like the real them? Just their good side or the idea or potential of them? And then finally, while you are with them, are you fulfilled or are you simply less lonely? And so I think if you can think through those, those are tough questions to answer. And I would, and I'll be clear. I think that every day, like, sometimes there are. There are moments where you, you know, a relationship can get in the rocks. But I think what's interesting about this particular, these, this set of questions is that they zoom out a lot. It's. Would you want your kid to date someone like this? It, like, if someone describes you like them, would you take it as a gone. That's usually going to take it into, like, their character, the behavior traits they do on a regular basis. Right. Do you like the real them or the idea of them? Are you fulfilled or just lonely? These are, I think, really good questions when we're thinking about this, because I've been fortunate with Leila and I, by no means do I stand here on a pedestal. I want to be very clear. But she has made it more likely that I hit my goals. And fundamentally, the reason that I ended up marrying her was from that frame and we actually got married. I probably won't go too much more into this. I don't like talking about relationships very much. I had a. I had a. You call it a mindset. I think it's technically an executive coach. I had an executive coach when I was like 26 or 7. And it was before Leela and I got married. And I said, I don't know if I want to be with this girl. It's not like we have this chemical fireworky chemistry relationship. But I think she's really cool, and I like her a lot. I like being around her, and I feel like I'm better when I'm with her. And he said, well, look at your stats. And so he just went. He went category by category. So he's like, how about. How about fitness? Are you working out? And I was like, yeah, she goes to the gym. And so I, you know, basically, if I don't want to go, I'll still go with her. He was like, okay, so you're working out more than you were on your own? I was like, yeah. He's like, okay. He's like, what about. What about food? Are you eating healthier? And I was like, yeah, she. She's actually, you know, she did a year of culinary school. She likes, you know, cooking for me. She likes baking, she likes doing all that stuff. And. But she's like, in fitness, so she knows how to make, like, the kind of stuff that I want to eat. And also. And he was like, that's great. Cool. He's like, okay, what about. What about financially? He's like, does she spend a lot of money? I was like, no, actually, she makes me money. Like, she not only doesn't spend money, she makes me money, and she helps me go make more money because she handles things that I would normally have to do so that I can go somewhere. And he's like, okay. And so we just keep going down this list. And basically all my stats were up. And so that conversation was one of probably three moments in my life with Layla that I was like, huh? What if I use the frame of like, does this person help me become the person I want to be? Rather than do I have the butterfly tingles and fireworks? Which is basically the litmus test that I used for every other relationship that I'd been in in my life. And the nice thing is, is that there's a lot of humans. And I think that it's kind of like mediocre employees where, like, the dangerous ones. Frank Slootman talked about this. He's like a serial, multi billion dollar CEO. He said, the thing that will destroy your company is B players, not C players. C players are obvious and everyone's happy to kick them out. A players are winners. He said, it's the B players. They're good enough to not get fired. And they're really just along for the ride. And I think many people, myself included, have been stuck in B relationships with B players for extended periods of time. And maybe they don't, like now, maybe they don't have negative intentions. But when we ask the question, does it make it more likely that I have my goals with this person in my life? Is it more likely that I become the person that I want to become? Am I better as a result if I had them rub off on me? Do I see that as a compliment? Do I see that as a pro? And I think many of you guys want to succeed here. And I think many of you have a shackle around both of your feet and you're trying to run a marathon and you're wondering why you can't run as fast as other people, but you're carrying this weight behind you, making it virtually impossible to run and compete. I know this one is as a tactical as what I normally. I normally talk about, but it's kind of one of those big picture things that the reason Layla and I brought it up is that when we looked at the people who come into our company and then we only measure them based on the relationship and support they have with their spouse, it was 100%. And that was why it was so freaky to me. Like, we just went through couple after couple after couple after couple, and we could predict where they would end up. And what was interesting is that it didn't have a ton to do with where they started. So some people who are lower in the organization and had all in spouses who were like, would wear gym launch gear, wear acquisition.com gear. Even though they don't work at the company, they're like, whatever they need to do. And I've seen this on the husband side and the wife's side, right? Those people disproportionately perform compared to the opposite, where you have a star who comes in, then you meet the spouse, you meet the significant other, and it's like, oh, and here's the thing is that that person doesn't make you a worse runner. It just means that you have to use up so much of your energy on something that doesn't propel you forward. If you've got this weight around your ankle, you still have to be strong to run the race, arguably stronger just to compete as a normal person. The idea is that you're wasting a huge amount of your potential just managing this relationship so that you can do what you want to do with your life. And I think this has just been just a theme. And even, you know, I've met some of the school day winners and things like that. I get, you know, questions during the lunch and people are just asking more personal stuff. And I just see it as this theme. If you want. If you're like, hey, I'm in. I'm in a B relationship. I Do you think I just have somebody who's along for the ride? If you want to not be a coward, let them go for two reasons. One, because what it says about you, and the other is for what it does for them. One is you are a coward for being afraid of being alone rather than. Than wanting what you believe you deserve. It's settling. And you will always know at the end of the night when you're in bed and you're looking up at the stars or the dark ceiling and you'll know when they're asleep whether or not you feel like you are equally yolked. Do you feel like you are with someone who. Who makes you who you want to be? The second piece is that if you truly care about this person which you claim to, I'm betting, then do you think it's fair to them that if they knew what you felt about them being a B player, that they would still want to be in a relationship with you? And don't you feel like you owe it to them to give them a chance to find somebody who does think that they're an A player for them? And to be very clear, I don't think that these are actually intrinsic to the person. I think that dynamics between two people are very unique. I've had relationships in the past that were wonderful people, and I still hope the absolute best for them. I just wasn't the right person for them, and that's okay. And so I think that we need to raise the bar on ourselves and to be kind, not nice. Like being kind is maximizing the benefit of the other person not supporting their feelings and getting agreement. In the short term, it's very easy to get agreement. You just basically do whatever they say. But if you think that it's in their best interest that somebody else would love them better than you, then I think you owe it to them. I also think you owe it to yourself. I get. I get. I get what I call trade off questions, which is like, hey, so what? How do I get my girlfriend to be into my work? It's never going to happen. Lay low. And I talked about business the first day for four hours. All she cared about was Fitness marketing, when we talked, is literally what we talked about. Talking about ads, funnels, offers and conversion processes. That was their entire first date. We didn't talk about kids, we talk about anything. We just talked about that. And so it felt like it was just a business meeting. And I was like, well, that was fun. Like, I didn't have to pretend to talk about something that I didn't care about. I was like, this was wonderful for me. Right. Instead of having to pretend for an hour over, you know, froyo that I give a about whatever you're doing. Right. Much better. So if you're in that trade off, like, how do I. You're not gonna, you're not going to. It's very unlikely, right. Unless you create some sort of rewarding stimulus that gets them to be addicted to work. Difficult. Not impossible, but very difficult. Second to that, you get the trade offs of like, okay, well, I wanna spend time with my kids, I wanna spend time with my wife. How do I balance that with work? You just, you balance it and that's fine. It's just understanding that you're going to make trades. Like if you worked every hour, every day, you'll probably do better than if you didn't. And that's okay because also it's relative to you, not relative to everyone. So Jeff Bezos was married and had kids and then grew Amazon, like many of the richest people in the world are married and have lots of kids. Would you go as fast as you could if you spent all your time? No. Is it a trade off you're willing to make? Probably, and I think that's fine. And so I think a lot of people get in these trade off questions, but where, where I think you get into issues is where you have, you're making the trade, but you're not getting either. You're trading your goals and you're not getting the fulfillment. You're not getting the person that makes you better. You're not getting the person that you would feel like a compliment if someone were to describe you like them. You're, you're being with the person that you wouldn't want your kid to date. You're being with a person that only is there to keep you less lonely, but in no way makes you fulfilled. And I think that's where you get the, you get the, you get the worst of both. And that's where compromise means you just get none. Neither person goes they want. And so I think some of you guys may have a hard conversation or two and sometimes it could just Be the simple conversation of being like, hey, I would like it if you increase the likelihood to have my goals. The way that you do that is in these three behaviors. And instead of this, do this. So if you want to get feedback, don't tell people to not do stuff, tell them what to do instead. So under this condition, change your behavior in this way. It would help me. So when I come home and I say I'm stressed about work, I don't want you to tell me that work isn't cool. I want you to just listen or I want you to help me solve it. But tell them what you want and then they can behave in the way according to that. And so in a lot of ways you can make that person who's neutral and supportive because maybe, and very likely they do want to support you, but they just don't know how. And so if you haven't communicated that, then you absolutely like, you don't need to do any of the stuff that I talked about. If you haven't even done one on one, right. Which is telling. But if you have told them and it's not of interest to them, then I think you have to look at other options. If you want, you can obviously just be dissatisfied and just be in an empty relationship for the rest of your life. So that's, that's obviously something too. And you can just not achieve your goals. So always, always a path and a path that many people authentic your dreams, your dedication to your dreams is your dedication to yourself. I think that learning and becoming the best version of ourselves, at least for me, is kind of the purpose of life. If that is at least part of your life's purpose, then I think having somebody who supports that goal rather than someone who is neutral or attracts from it is probably a good thing.