Podcast Summary
The Stacking Benjamins Show
Episode: Alex Hormozi on Skills That Actually Build Wealth (SB1784)
Date: January 2, 2026
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy (A), OG (B), Neighbor Doug (C)
Guest: Alex Hormozi (D) – Bestselling author and business expert
1. Episode Overview
This episode sets the tone for the new year by focusing on a different side of personal finance: how to increase your income by investing in yourself and building scalable skills. Joe interviews renowned business builder Alex Hormozi in Las Vegas, with frequent commentary and breakdowns by OG and Doug. The conversation rejects short-term hacks and incremental change in favor of big-picture, high-leverage thinking, aiming to inspire listeners—whether entrepreneurs or employees—to proactively design their own path to wealth.
2. Key Discussion Points & Insights
A. The Importance of “Doing More” and Long-term Persistence
- Start with Action: Success often comes from simply doing more, embracing a high velocity of mistakes to learn rapidly.
- “Do more than you probably are. In the earlier days… you have to act a lot on faith.” – Alex (10:21)
- Host Reflection: “We evaluate too much and we do too little. We don’t take action enough...” – Joe (14:16)
- Focus on Activity, Not Just Results:
- “Success comes from doing the thing, not from the result of the thing.” – OG (11:44)
- Compounding small, consistent actions leads to wealth, even if daily results are invisible.
B. Everyone is in Sales & Skill Acquisition is Key
- Universal Relevance of Sales Skills:
- “If you think about the highest leverage skill that you can have, it's to get other people to do stuff for you.” – Alex (15:13)
- The S&ME 500 (Investing in Yourself):
- “I’d reinvest all of [my money] into skill acquisition… courses, seminars, tutoring, mentorship...” – Alex (22:27)
- Small, practical certifications (e.g., phlebotomy) can provide rapid value multipliers for employees.
C. Incremental Optimization vs. Order-of-Magnitude Thinking
- Stop Obsessing Over Tiny Tweaks:
- “Optimizing typically gets you incremental returns, not order of magnitude returns… Focus on what makes ALL your goals irrelevant if you do it.” – Alex (34:04)
- Example: Instead of saving pennies clipping coupons, work on earning more by developing a rare, valuable skill.
D. Build a Unique “Skill Stack” to Unlock Opportunities
- Multiplicative Power of Skills:
- “Where you get outsized returns is adding skills together. That’s what creates unicorns… each of those is a skill that opens the doors to the next level.” – Alex (43:41)
- Skills from distant but relevant domains create market differentiation (e.g., finance + negotiation + advertising).
E. Know Your Market (and Its Ceiling)
- Pick Your Arena Wisely:
- If your field’s best performers aren't making the kind of money you aspire to, consider pivoting.
- “You can’t be in a market where nobody has a shot at [major wealth].” – Joe (45:49)
- The size of the pie matters, but so does creativity in expanding it.
F. Measure and Leverage Your Value
- Track Your Dollars Per Hour:
- “Looking at dollars per hour is actually a wonderful way to continually measure your intrinsic value...” – Alex (29:51)
- Take charge of your own upskilling and career trajectory; don’t wait for a boss to define it.
G. The Theory of Constraints and High-Leverage Actions
- Identify Your Bottleneck:
- “Every system will grow until it’s constrained, then grow no further. Be able to identify the actual constraint in your system.” – Alex (54:06)
- Massive change comes not from more effort everywhere, but from removing the biggest current barrier.
H. Opportunity Cost of Ignorance
- Not Knowing is Expensive:
- [Alex retells a powerful story (56:00):]
- “$950,000 per year is what you pay in ignorance, not knowing how to make a million dollars a year.”
- [Alex retells a powerful story (56:00):]
I. Risk, Negotiation, and Exponential Rewards
- Those Who Take and Understand Risk Win Big:
- “You can make outsized returns without having been the one who made the value… if you are willing to take on risk, you will get disproportionately rewarded.” – Alex (61:55)
- For employees, upside comes through negotiation and accepting more responsibility/risk (e.g., commissions, bonuses).
3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
“Long-term sounds good in theory, until it takes a long time.”
— Alex Hormozi (13:02)
“If you think about the highest leverage skill that you can have, it’s to get other people to do stuff for you.”
— Alex Hormozi (15:13)
“Success comes from doing the thing, not from the result of the thing.”
— OG (11:44)
“Invest in the S&ME 500 rather than the S&P 500… the first hundred thousand dollars, I’d reinvest all of that into skill acquisition.”
— Alex Hormozi (21:52)
“Optimizing typically gets you incremental returns, not order of magnitude returns.”
— Alex Hormozi (34:05)
“The more skills that you have, the more of a weapon you become.”
— Alex Hormozi (44:57)
“$950,000 per year is what you pay in ignorance, not knowing how to make a million dollars a year.”
— Alex Hormozi (56:23)
“If you have a clear path to a billion, it’s time. If you don’t, it’s skill.”
— Alex Hormozi (61:10)
4. Timestamps to Key Segments
- Advice to Young Alex—Just Do More: (10:10–11:01)
- Sales Is the Highest Leverage Skill: (15:13–15:23)
- Confidence and Mindset on Wealth/Bouncing Back: (16:37–21:35)
- Invest in Yourself—the S&ME 500: (21:52–24:41)
- Skill Stacking Illustrated (Finance Example): (43:41–44:57)
- Pie Size, Negotiation, Replaceability & Value: (42:12–45:49)
- Opportunity Cost of Ignorance Story: (56:00–56:23)
- Theory of Constraints Applied to Your Career: (54:06–55:46)
- Risk and Rewards (Eduardo Saverin Example): (61:19–62:16)
5. Practical Takeaways for Listeners
- Take relentless action—don’t overanalyze, over-plan, or focus too soon on long-term results.
- View every job as a sales job and learn how to persuade, communicate, and drive value.
- Invest your time and money in acquiring skills that move you to higher-value arenas.
- Stop obsessing over tiny optimizations and instead seek one or two high-leverage moves to transform your trajectory.
- Proactively build a unique skill stack that distinguishes you from others in your field.
- Regularly calculate your personal value (dollars per hour) and look for ways to multiply it through new skills, not simply cost savings.
- Identify and remove the constraints holding back your career or business, instead of piling on more effort.
- Recognize risk as an amplifier of rewards—but manage it through knowledge and skills, making it look less risky to you.
6. Conclusion
This episode combines Alex Hormozi’s “big swing” entrepreneurial mindset with personal finance practicality, urging listeners to invest aggressively in their own skills, attack the highest-value opportunities available, and think much bigger. Everyone has a shot at transforming their financial life—if they relentlessly build skills, take smart risks, and refuse to settle for incremental gains.
For More:
Find Alex Hormozi’s resources at acquisition.com
Stacking Benjamins returns with Part Two of this conversation, diving further into building your “income machine”.