Podcast Summary: The Game with Alex Hormozi

Episode: Throwback: Why You Need To Be Working On Hard Stuff | Ep 948
Host: Alex Hormozi
Date: September 1, 2025

Overview

This episode of "The Game with Alex Hormozi" focuses on the realities of hard work for entrepreneurs—specifically, why tackling the "hard stuff" that you don’t yet know how to do is not only essential but where the greatest growth occurs. Alex discusses why most entrepreneurs gravitate toward tasks they're already skilled at and explains how to reframe stress and failure as necessary components of progress. The episode is rich with metaphors and practical advice, aiming to nudge listeners from contemplation to action.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What "Hard Work" Really Means in Entrepreneurship

• Definition & Misconceptions
  Alex clarifies that real hard work isn’t about bravado but about “the work you don’t know how to do.”

  • "The hardest work is the work that you don't know how to do.” (00:26)

• The One Thing That Changes Everything
  Every business has a single biggest priority; solving it makes everything else easier or irrelevant.

  • Examples: Fixing churn, building a mega brand, hiring the right sales director.
  • Many entrepreneurs avoid this ‘level 3 boss’ in favor of easier, familiar tasks.

• Entrepreneurial Avoidance and Ego
  People often solve problems they're good at for the ego boost, rather than confronting new, harder challenges.

  • “It's basically like going back to level two when you're at level three and you don't know how to beat that boss… it feels good.” (01:46)

2. The Nature of Stress and Growth

• All stages—growth, stagnation, decline—involve stress because each requires tackling unfamiliar problems.

  • “Growth is stressful, stagnation is stressful, decline is stressful… in each of those scenarios, you're still doing the same thing, which is that you're solving a problem you don't know how to solve yet.” (02:40)

• Stress is a byproduct of meaningful problem-solving, not a problem itself.

• “If you're solving problems you don't know how to solve, welcome to the game.” (03:15)

3. Obstacle as Opportunity: Why Difficulties Increase Moats

• Barriers as Moats
  Harder problems create barriers for competitors. Relentlessness becomes a competitive advantage.

  • Story: Alex on a complicated CPG product—difficulty in manufacturing is a good thing as it deters easy copycats.
  • “Because that's more things that anyone who's going to try and copy us is going to have to overcome.” (04:08)

• Metaphor of the Heavy Rock
  The “big rock” analogy: tough challenges are directly proportional to the rewards.

  • “On the other side of that rock is a big bag of money. And the bigger the rock in general, the bigger the bag of money.” (05:12)

4. Quantifying Hard Problems: Motivation by Value

• Assign dollar values to challenges to see the real incentive in solving tough problems.

  • Example: Software feature worth $150M if successfully executed.
  • “If you hire that sales director, I'll pay you $5 million, guess how motivated? You'd probably be more motivated. But the thing is that your business will pay you $5 million when you solve the problem.” (06:28)

• Reframes stress as compensation for useful action in uncertainty.

5. The Power of Action and Real-World Learning

• Transitioning from theory to practice dramatically accelerates learning.

  • Personal anecdote: Alex’s leap from running businesses to managing a family office—real learning came through action, not just research.
  • “You learn a hundred times more from your first hundred phone sales than you will from 10,000 hours of reading books about it.” (09:11)

• Shortening the gap between contemplating action and taking action is the biggest driver of progress.

• Definition of Learning:
  “Learning is same condition, new behavior. If you have not changed your conditions and your behavior remains the same after this video, you have learned nothing.” (10:16)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On hard work and priorities:
  “Most of entrepreneurship is eating glass.” (02:17)

• On stress and problem-solving:
  “Stress is a fact that occurs when you solve problems.” (03:03)

• On barriers and market competition:
  “If we can bet on the fact that we're more relentless… then we will be able to be the winners.” (04:35)

• On motivation and valuing challenges:
  “If you can quantify how much more valuable your enterprise or your business will be as a result of this change, then you can ascribe a value to it.” (06:07)

• On real learning:
  “The faster I can get to me just wrapping my arms around it, me actually taking the first action, you learn a hundred times more…” (09:09)

• On measuring learning effectiveness:
  “You can measure every video, every piece of content… as to will this change my behavior? If it didn't, it was a waste of time.” (11:19)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 – 01:10 | Introduction to “hard work” and the challenge of the unknown in business
• 01:10 – 03:00 | Why entrepreneurs prefer familiar tasks; analogy of “levels” in business
• 03:00 – 04:00 | Role of stress in growth and solving new problems
• 04:00 – 05:30 | Barriers as moats; difficulty deters competitors
• 05:30 – 07:10 | Quantifying value of tough challenges; business will “pay you” for growth
• 07:10 – 09:30 | Learning by action vs. learning by research; family office example
• 09:30 – 11:30 | Action as the true learning mechanism; “same condition, new behavior”
• 11:30 – End | Encouragement to close the gap between thinking and acting; effectiveness of learning

Tone & Language

Alex Hormozi’s style is direct, no-nonsense, and metaphor-rich—frequently using analogies to games, bosses, and battles (“eating glass,” “level three boss,” “big rock, big bag of money”). His practical, tough-love approach motivates listeners to take action rather than fall into analysis paralysis.

Conclusion

The core message: Progress and profit in business come not from repeating what you already know, but from pushing through the discomfort of solving new, difficult problems. By reframing stress as an indicator of valuable work and acting quickly, entrepreneurs build unique advantages and accelerate their learning—and their success.