https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLYy-mjfhFE&ab_channel=Charlie%26BenPodcast

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alex thanks so much for coming on man
happy to have you here very honored to
be here thank you for having me
yes so uh i've been watching your stuff
i i think you have the best tagline of
the business community on youtube hi i'm
alex ramosey i made 85 million dollars
this year i have nothing to sell you
which is just
the best the best way to start any
advice video that i've ever seen
um but yeah so so talk not necessarily
about the tagline but for people who
might not have seen you in our audience
how'd you get started a little bit about
jim launch and
what your uh superhero origin story is
um
so i had a i would say a more atypical
um entrepreneur journey and i say this
i'd like to at least explain this part
because i think a lot of people who are
contemplating entrepreneurship et cetera
being influenced by a lot of the
marketplace which talks about you know
hey school never understood me i
couldn't you know i'm dyslexic i can't
read and i had to drop out of high
school and all that kind of stuff and i
didn't have that experience at all i was
a really hard-working
student i did really well in school um i
finished in three years magnum maori i
was president of basically every every

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part thing that i was a part of um
and and then to kind of follow follow
the path so then i became a management
consultant after after college i did
that for two years we did defense
contracting so space cyber and
intelligence i thought it was going to
be
really interesting i didn't find it as
interesting
and i really didn't enjoy it
as a whole and so i quit and i think
that
i think if i had been in a different
career path or a different company i may
never have quit uh because quitting for
me was probably
not probably it was the single hardest
decision i've ever made
in my life which should hopefully be
reinforcing to anybody in the audience
who's contemplating that it's like if it
feels very hard then just know that
every decision after that is much easier
uh
and so you just described charlie and i
to a t okay
like eerily eerily even to the point
where charlie's doing consulting for the
government contract
really oh that's fun
that's that's fun um yeah i had my i had
my tssi clearance i i did the whole you
know oh you were legit yeah i was a

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scrub i was i wasn't going into any sort
of clearance yeah i have mine i was in
excel i posted my card and they were
like you can't post it on the internet
and i was like oh my bad so i like it i
was like look guys
i got top secret clearance
when you use toilet paper i want you to
know charlie probably picked the brand
yes that was that was me going single
ply we've got to save money none of that
double ply luxury yeah every guy is just
rubbing their their backside hating you
um
anyways so i ended up quitting that um
and then but the thing that i learned
the most is the consulting process of
how to how to acquire skills and learn
and that was something that i i took
with me for the rest of my life
and so
um i knew that from my consulting role
the best way to learn or rapid skill
acquisition is to talk to experts and so
i reached out to as many experts as i
could so i could learn about what i
wanted to do which was i want to do
something in fitness because i liked it
a lot and so uh anyways one guy got back
to me i mentored with him for free uh
for for 90 days
and then i started my own facility and
so uh from there i slept on the floor

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very miserable experience for me
my first book not the one that we're
talking about probably uh talks about
that in more depth um but very very very
hard on me uh it was very dark time in
my life i mostly was driven by rage and
insecurity of proving my parents wrong
and proving
you know the many stories that a lot of
us have that we tell ourselves about
what other people are saying or behind
about us behind our back in reality
they're not thinking about us at all um
but anyways i i continued in that and
and i did reasonably well with it and uh
by month nine uh i had outsourced the
whole facility and then every six months
after that i opened a new facility off
cash flow um at full capacity on the
first day which i thought was normal
because i was like why would you open a
gym without everybody already being
pre-sold and they were apparently that
was not the way it was being done
um you know fast forward i had six
locations
talked uh joined an internet marketing
mastermind which i had no business being
a part of because i was a brick and
mortar business owner but the sales guy
was like oh it's tons of gym owners here
there's not a single gym owner in this
bathroom like we've heard that like it
was actually hilarious i got in and i

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was like he was like oh yeah tons of gym
owners like that and you'll learn how to
do the online thing and have online and
i was like all right cool and it didn't
end up happening but it ended up being
one of the best decisions i've ever made
because when i was there
uh russell brunson who's the guy who
owns click funnels uh this was years ago
um he was like i think you have a level
10 skill set a level two opportunity i
think you should be showing people how
you run your gyms rather than opening
more and at that point i had location
789 10 already picked out and i was like
like we're talking
weeks away from signing the leases
um and so that was a big pivot you know
kind of crossroads for me but i'm a big
believer that if you're going to pay for
advice especially from somebody who's
ahead of you uh if you don't listen to
it you know you kind of might as well
burn your money and so uh
i was like okay well he does make more
than me and he uh well i will heed his
advice and so i sold all my facilities
within um within uh 90 days
uh pretty much fire sale i can talk more
about that later if you want but uh then
i pivoted into uh kind of doing a gym
turnaround business so we used to fly
out two gyms and filled them up and i
did that for almost two years we did 33

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turnarounds
and then from there i felt confident
enough to start licensing the model out
there's lots of trials and tribulations
in losing my money twice throughout that
story um and having to start over from
broke but that's the that's the nuts and
bolts of that story and then we started
licensing and that's when things just
took off our
we went from zero to two and a half
million a month within like 12 months
and our first full year of business we
did 28 million in revenue and
um
and then i started a supplement business
that the next year after that prestige
labs to sell through our distribution
base
the next year after that we started uh
allen which is a software company that
uh that works leads because that's one
of the biggest problems with brick and
mortar gym is really the front desk no
one's calling the leads even if they're
getting them so we try to solve that
problem um
and then uh after that because you know
the business is you know generated just
in the last three years you know 40
something million in profits that layla
and i have taken out um now we had a ton
of capital
and i was like all right well let me see
if i can start investing in in some

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other businesses that are similar and so
that was kind of what started
acquisition.com about a year ago
and so now we have uh
three about to be four portfolio four
other portfolio companies so that's
seven companies um that are in that
portfolio we'll still probably acquire
about one a quarter it's kind of our
target um
and uh and kind of grow kind of grow
that way and wrap in the systems that we
have um the the overall thesis which may
the audience may find interesting is
that um i'm ironically i'm not a big
believer in formal education despite
being very formally educated um you know
having gone to college uh i think most
of us have been um
they failed most of us uh mostly because
the value proposition is just very very
low spend 200 000
don't work for four years and give up
all the income you would have made
and then have the same exact job
prospects as you had when you came into
the you know college doesn't make a lot
of sense to me um
if you're doing anything business
related if you want to be a doctor then
yeah keep doing it but for everyone else
it doesn't make a lot of sense and so i
think that's what's given rise to the

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kind of guru industry that's been
blowing up because the demand for skills
will always be high because i believe
people do want to work and they do want
to provide value
and they just and they're willing to pay
for that um and i think that candidly
the e-learning space and education and
training that's
existing right now i think is so far
superior i think the way it's marketed
is could probably be improved but in
terms of what it actually provides if
you learn how to you know
make airbnbs or do airbnbs and make
money that's awesome if you learn how to
you know
put atms in small businesses that's real
value if you learn how to uh you know
sell high ticket sales like that's real
value that i don't think is in the
formal education system but is very real
world valuable
and if people saw them as classes rather
than saying hey i took one class in
college and now i have a degree but
instead thought of like their e-learning
experiences i'm going to need to take a
lot of different you know courses
mentorships coaching seminars et cetera
um to be able to to put assemble a skill
set that will i can then apply to
whatever opportunity comes my way and

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and see the time that i'm kind of
acquiring those skills as just my
education rather than why am i not a
millionaire yet um i think a lot of
people will be better served and so with
acquisitions
yeah i think it's interesting because
you say you think that people inherently
want to work hard and they want to do
something that's valuable for the world
but that is not the tagline of a lot of
the online gurus so i think when people
sign up for these online classes it's
they haven't been brought in by someone
who said hey listen this is 101 after
this is 102. over the course of four
years you're going to work really hard
but you're going to make something
amazing for the world right a lot of the
marketing that they're
being given is
you're not gonna have to do anything you
don't need any skills it's going to be
easy so i don't know if it's sure or not
that people do have that inherent
uh
proclivity to work hard and try to be
valuable but certainly those are not the
people
joining most make money guru courses
because most make money guru courses are
not marketed that way yeah i think i

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think you're i think you're right um
to challenge that piece i um
i think maybe it might be romantic on my
part but in terms of like i just i think
people want to i think what people want
to provide value i think people lack
work ethic absolutely but i think the
desire
to provide value they wouldn't say it in
those words their desires to make money
but we know that that's you get you get
money through providing value um yes
i think i think the desire is there uh
you know the backing it up i think we
all know a lot of people don't work hard
but but i i and i think i i i tend to go
towards educational businesses in
general because i'm so pro-education i'm
so against formal education but it's
just my life has been safe through
education and so that's why it's what
i'm what i'm called to do and that's why
acquisition.com to wrap around to the
original point everything we have is
free and i have nothing to tell you is
because you know my hope is that people
take all the stuff they don't if they
don't have any money or they're in third
world countries they can use the the
books and the courses and and the videos
and all that stuff that we make and just

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you know just make the world better
overall and hey if you're you know you
cross 5 million 10 million and you'd
love us to to help you get to 50 or 100
then like we'd love to invest and be a
part of it with you
yeah that's awesome the i'm so reminded
of i don't know if you've thought of
this particular analogy of google's
business model when i listen to you
which is like do everything
awesome for free because you're making
money elsewhere and you just want
everybody in the ecosystem is that
something that has occurred to you and
you're like let's be the google of
education or you know how did you sort
of come to this
it's just a very different way of
thinking about online education and i've
heard you say a number of things that
have reinforced this most people think
of customers as the entrance of money
into their bank account as opposed to
the beginning of a relationship and that
sort of is underscored by what you're
trying to do with acquisition.com
curious how that arose yeah most people
make sales uh most people get customers
to make sales rather than making sales
to get customers
i think that i think the biggest issue
um are not issues i think the the
underlying pieces is time horizon

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so the reason i think most people don't
operate that way is because their their
time horizon is rent this month their
time horizon is how i'm going to feed
myself and so they can't think past the
first dollar
um but i think i i don't i don't i don't
need any more dollars right and so
i can play super long right and so for
me i'd rather i'd rather
help the next you know mark zuckerberg
or whatever read all my books start his
business get it growing and then say
dude you help me do all this stuff
and
most of the wealth in the world is
created through big fast growing
companies and it would be easier for me
to not have to have some sort of a
massive education business which i don't
have a desire to build
and instead just have goodwill
overall which
candidly i value a lot and i think that
part of it is because of my viewpoint in
the world which i share relatively
publicly that i don't think that any of
us matter and then i think when we die
nothing's gonna happen and i don't think
legacy is real and so it's like i also
tend to this tends to be the shovel that
i want to use to dig my own grave um and
i enjoy digging into this fight

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yeah yeah well i want to get to the life
stuff i definitely have a lot of
questions just personally about what you
know i i'm i'm confused if we should
start with business
all right well let's do it here because
this is this is the burning question
that i have
um i have i make you know a fraction an
order of magnitude less than than what
you make but i i really feel that i've
solved my money problems with with rare
rare exception uh and so i am
i'm curious when i hear you talk because
you you say all these things and i have
the same experiences like i've given a
lot of money for me to charity and it
has felt morally right but uh
i don't feel it in the same way like i
know it's the right thing to do but i'm
not feeling it so my question for you is
i guess there's two big ones one
why why continue to use money as a
measuring stick is it like you're like
i'm gonna have a billion dollars or this
that the other thing why why has that
remained and then two
what are the the milestones of money or
things that you've been able to spend
money on that have really increased the

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quality of your life and some that
haven't because i'm seeing
uh increasingly that it seems like
there's fewer and fewer things that i
can spend money on that increase the
quality of my life so then i go what am
i doing you know i'm just gonna play
video games with my friends which is a
complete waste of time if i'm trying to
make money but is is fun while i'm doing
it right so which we want to make money
to go have fun so then wait what right
yeah so uh
let me see if i can answer the the
second question first because it was the
one you just asked um
the marginal utility of money decreases
massively over time right so the
additional your next million dollars
makes a significantly less impact on
your life than your first million
dollars right and the first hundred
thousand dollars in my opinion has but
you know eighty eighty to ninety percent
of the utility you will get from the
first hundred grand right and then
everything after that is really really
diminishing in terms of its return i
think the only thing that's expensive um
there are two things that i get that i
get value from
uh one is i like flying private

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it's uh
not private i was going to say first
class but that's it
for the world private is way better it's
not even close it's way better
it's about forty nine thousand dollars
more per flight so well you know
we're
so you can do it for
it's about four to five thousand an hour
so if you have a three hour flight uh
you're looking at 12 to 15 grand and if
you got six to eight seats on the plane
you know if you're taking if it's you
and two or three other people all of a
sudden it's like two or three thousand
to take it like it can be i'm not
by no means am i saying it's like you
know
i'm just saying that like it's it's it's
anyways i like it i do think it to use
warren buffett's word i do think it's
indefensible um but at some point i'm
like well what why even
what am i accumulating more money to do
yeah right there's right and so it is
100 a comfort uh thing but what and
layla consolidated this statement
i won't talk more about private flying
um but she said what it did was it

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transformed travel from a nuisance into
a positive experience and so
going from
economy to first class it's still a
nuisance it's still a pain right it's
just a little less of a pain but it's
still a net negative in my opinion
flying private i would say
borders on and may actually be a
positive experience because you
literally just drive your car to the
plane you walk on the plane you've got
filet and lobster
and then you get off the plane into your
car and you drive to where you're going
and there's no security there's no
there's no other there's no babies
there's no like there's it's just it's
nice so that's the one thing that i
would say and the other one is i like
buying places with views
so
um we're in a we're in a las vegas uh
penthouse right now um
and it's it's beautiful you know what i
mean like i look outside and i feel like
i genuinely gain perspective because i
see everything and i see the amount of
wealth that exists in the world and i
think it helps it only helps me from a
perspective standpoint so there's the
two things that i think that have been i

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would say very expensive um that i have
gotten actual value from but beyond that
uh very very very little marginal
utility of extra money
the first question i think you asked was
why use money as a measuring stick and
why do i why do i say the billion thing
so um
i have
i have absolute commitment to getting
there and i have no emotional investment
towards its achievement i don't care
it's more that it's kind of like gary
vee's like i'm gonna try and buy the
jets it doesn't really matter it's more
just about the game and i think that
and it might be self
um self aggrandizing for me to even
think this way but i think it's probably
true because i'm human um
i think that people will listen to me
more if i'm a billionaire than if i'm
just a hundred billionaire
you know and that's probably just my own
insecurities or whatever um and i think
that i think that we'll get there based
on the math it would be it
would i don't it's it would be
unrealistic for me not to get there
unless

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unless i massively blow something you
know what i mean um somehow
and so
just on the math of just the literally
the pure cash we have not even the
businesses or the cash flow that those
generate if we just set that in ten
percent when i'm 65 off a billion
dollars so mind you a billion dollars
today will be 10 billion dollars then so
you know you can't think about that but
anyways inflation does sorry can i can i
come in because i kind of want to i want
to ask this a simple it's going to sound
similar but i'm going for something
different which is
so i don't know and i'm not trying to
say your exact net worth but let's just
say
you have 40 million dollars or 50
million dollars in the bank cash right
no i've probably i'm probably closer to
the mid 30s it depends on you okay like
in investable assets 35 million
sure
what
motivates you to do work you don't enjoy
or do you just only do work that you
enjoy because i could imagine
having 35 million dollars in the bank
and going
i'm only going to spend my time doing

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things that are fun and the second
something's not fun but can make me more
money i'm just not going to do that
thing because i don't need more money
and so i'm curious do you have that
philosophy and if not what is it that
gets you to do the thing that's yeah so
this is actually convenient or stressful
or not so this is interesting
i believe that humans need challenges
to enjoy life
and so then it starts to become am i
living by my values
because am i the type of person who who
because one of my biggest fears and i
remember saying this over and over again
was that i never want to become soft
i never want to feel like if everything
were taken from me i could not build it
again and so for me i feel very shishy
fufu whatever word you want to use for
not wanting to do
certain things now that being said to
your question the vast majority of my
time or 100 of my time i pretty much
spend doing stuff that i find
enjoyable or stimulating to a certain
degree
but i won't shy away from something if
it's
if if i if to get to the thing the next
thing that i want to do

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i have no difficulty in in attacking it
but i think what ends up happening to
the question that you have
and this may be interesting for you i
don't know what level you guys are at
business-wise but
we
when i talk to seven-figure
entrepreneurs right
um they're talking about tactics they're
talking about hey we did this order bump
we did this changing headline or we'd
switch to this new platform it's
tactical
eight figure guys they're usually
talking about processes that they're
putting inside of their business you
know they just hit a million a month or
a million a half two million months more
in there and they're like that's what
they're that's what they're thinking
about
all the people that i know who are and i
think i think we'll hit i think we'll
cross 100 million in in revenue
by by probably end of q1 next year maybe
q2 next year
but
the conversation that i have with all
the guys that i know that are at that
level and above it's all about people
and so i was having this conversation
with a friend of mine and he was like
yeah all the business owners that we
serve and they have a big platform he's
like they just always they're always
like how do i get more traffic how do i

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get more traffic and uh i we both were
laughing and i was like i would just say
go hire someone who knows how to get
traffic and then do that you know
and we both crash
but that's
candidly that's how i think about stuff
now and if i were to start a new
endeavor i wouldn't build a business i
would assemble a business and so it's
like i know we need one of these one of
these one of these i put it together and
say go pursue it on my behalf here's the
incentive for all of for everybody and
and that's how the business would grow
and if it doesn't grow then i would swap
people out until it until it was growing
and so the thought process changed but i
think you do have to go through it maybe
that's a belief or a story i'm telling
myself but most the guys that i know who
have achieved that did go through each
of the steps so that they could they
could cross-check and be like i know
this guy's full of it and i know this
guy knows his stuff so that you can
simply make better judgments on other
human beings with with decreasing error
rate you still have one but just fewer
errors
got it i want to this is your question
no i want to i want to i do want to
circle this because i actually really
need to figure out the hiring thing but

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i do have one question uh because i
agree that people
need is a weird word but i would say
thrive on challenges and if challenges
are rewarding and fulfilling
do you find that you diversify them
amongst monetizable challenges and
challenges that don't make money
or do you focus mostly on challenges
that make money because i can imagine
again 35 million at the bank you go i'm
going to learn to play piano i'm going
to build a homeless center that makes no
money at all in las vegas and i'm going
to try to invent something i'm going to
do the challenge of inventing
a new way to improve solar energy and
maybe it'll be a billion dollars but
maybe it'll just
solve global warming and i won't make
any money uh but i also know people who
are serial entrepreneurs and everything
they do is in the pursuit of of wealth
and so i'm curious what uh how do you
pick your challenges i guess what what
drives you so right now
i'm still
so money is not the driver
um

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i just love the game of business so much
i just love the game of business i loved
and was obsessed with fitness i had
multiple state records i was you know i
mean like i was in good
like physical competitive shape right
still are i saw the quads before we
started i appreciate it um
but but when as soon as i got into
business
the love that i have for fitness just
paled in comparison to just like how
obsessed i was how much i just i just
loved spending every hour that i could
and like my free time now like right now
i'm going through a course on on deal
structure i was like this is great you
know like i'm just like i love it like i
truly love it and so in terms of
challenges the the way that i have
skinned the challenges for me at least
in my current season is pursuing bigger
goals than i did before
monetarily
but
with massive constraints
and so it's like can i get to and so
right now my actual like mental target
is i'd like to do 100 million in profit
a year so that's my that's my up between
all the portfolio companies right that's

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my next target
and so
if i do 100 million in profit per year i
don't want to do that as a slave i would
like to do that as a as an owner advisor
and working two to three days a week uh
with them and i say work so for me the
work is like meetings so that's meeting
with the ceos of the companies meeting
with a handful of leadership that's what
i consider like work work um and then
the rest of my time is
you know making the youtube stuff uh
writing the the books making the courses
that we're gonna be publishing
doing podcasts like this like these are
all just this is you know i i enjoyed i
enjoy this a ton
nice
yeah so well the reason i the reason i
ask is because i could imagine people
who are listening who who are very
enviable of your life the fact that you
are an advisor who buys businesses who
has
more money than almost anybody on the
planet like they want to get where
you're getting but maybe they don't feel
the same way you do when they first pick
up entrepreneurship so maybe they were a
great athlete who doesn't

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find the business books exciting or
whatever it is maybe they're an
incredible musician who when they try to
go into the online course world they
find it a grind have you
had any success with yourself or with
other people
learning to love the game or do you find
that it's kind of like how some people
like art and some people like sports and
you like it if you like it and you don't
if you don't so if business is your game
you're set up for success and if it's
not
then
you don't get to beat alex for mosey
yeah
um so first off i just like for the
audience you even saying the 35 million
thing
i literally feel pangs of insecurity
that's not that much money
just so you know
really i just want like i just want to
give everyone like that like i'm like my
god it's not over a hundred i'm such a
poor person like nobody thinks i'm
successful i hope no one hears this like
i'm just like i can i can tell you the
thoughts that i'm having while we're
talking about this wow
well i respect your self awareness and
your willingness to share that
i'm happy to uh i'll tell you all the

26
00:25:00.000 --> 00:26:00.000
things that are just flawed within me uh
but the the other part which is
uh
if if you don't inherently love the game
right so
my perspective on this has shifted which
then makes it hard for me to even talk
because then i think about some things i
said five years ago i wish i just never
said anything but then it's like then i
wouldn't speak anymore and then whatever
um
and so
my
my viewpoint on it is that i do think
that there's a lot more luck than i used
to give credit for and the luck is not
from outside circumstances of like
things happening and meeting people but
more luck of the draw the initial draw
of like what were my genetics what was
the initial upbringing that i had were
the stimuli i was exposed to
that gave me these proclivities because
if you think about it from a large
number standpoint right
with a large enough pool of people which
most people just about everybody is
within a system where the money is
involved right and if we just if we just
said only capitalism systems sure
there's still a billion plus people or
two billion plus people that are i guess
including a three you know half the
world's population is in a capitalist
system of some sort right
and so
with that many numbers

27
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lots of people will work hard
but the people who have a proclivity and
work hard and have some level of natural
talent towards it will just excel better
and faster and so
do i think that
i think that most people almost everyone
can accomplish
um a a very very everybody can be in the
top one percent
that i believe which means one to five
million investable assets i believe
everyone can do that in their lifespan
100
but
most people don't have the character
traits in the discipline to do that now
is that luck is that you know who knows
but the the question that my closest
friend dr trevor akashi uh who's a
scientist and studies behavior stuff all
the time he's like
is it useful
to ask the question
because it's not under our control at
all
he's like so you might as well tell
yourself that you do have a natural
productivity to being in business if you

28
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want to be successful in business
because it doesn't sure my question
oh yeah my question was only like what
do i do if that i'm just making up an
example but what do i do if i'm an
incredibly talented guitarist who wants
to
start a business where i've been
teaching people music and i've been
trying for two years and it's just not
working
and i don't i don't think i have that
proclivity can i
acquire that i guess i think you could i
think you'd probably be smarter for that
person to go find someone who loves that
game and then the only skill you'd have
to have is how how do i have the
perspective in which to make a judgment
that this person actually is good and
then do i have enough skill in
negotiation so i can make a favorable
deal for myself and so if you can do
those two things you can be justin
bieber
who's not a business guy
but he's still extraordinary wealthy
eminem is not a business guy he's still
extraordinarily wealthy so i think
there's still ways to play it without
necessarily having business be the game
which i find kind of interesting too
because i'm not kylie jenner you know
what i mean and kylie's younger than me

29
00:28:00.000 --> 00:29:00.000
and wealthy than me which i'll tell you
another one when i found out she was a
billionaire and she was younger than me
i literally like had a day where i was
like i just felt like i felt horrible
about myself oh no i'm telling you i'm
just like literally just like i suck
i was like why am i done so i'm just
telling you like the insecurities run
deep to get here right sure um well you
know
you you had an instagram post and i i
really appreciate this is one of the
reasons i want to talk to you uh your
candidness there's an instagram post
where you said uh you were in text
conversation with a friend and you said
something to the effect of like the
bigger the hole in your heart the bigger
the stuff required to fill it so i have
millions of dollars read what you will
into that uh
i think i just i appreciate you saying
it and and separately for if you have
have you ever
done anything like therapy or
psychedelic medicine or anything like
that and have you found it have you
found it helpful uh because i i mean i
appreciate you sharing all of your
knowledge but and then when i hear those
things as well i mean dude i can

30
00:29:00.000 --> 00:30:00.000
i i can totally relate to that smaller
number values and i i guess at some
point i'm appreciative
that the stubbornness in me quit and
went this is [ __ ] stupid like a
hundred thousand subscribers a million
subscribers 5 million there's like when
i get that diamond play button at 10
million
then people will see me differently and
i and i hear that same
uh
and as his business partner and best
friend it's been a mixed blessing
like as his friend i'm like that's great
and as the business partner i'm like
remember when you had all those
insecurities yes it's taking the it's
taken the wind out of my sails it's
taking them out of myself so yeah have
you have you addressed it other than um
filling it with success and achievement
have you have you have taken other ways
of looking at that that internal feeling
yes
um
and how is that going like what what is
what is soothed or out there i would say
that i think time dulls the sting of
pain
um you know over a long enough time
horizon
um but for me i think i think i i don't
think pain the pain changes when we look

31
00:30:00.000 --> 00:31:00.000
back on it until we understand it
and i think that's i think
for me defining what the objective was
for quote therapy or self-work or
whatever
simply as my i seek to understand and i
think it becomes far less uh
intimidating to go explore some of these
things if you're like i'm just i'm not
i'm not here to change anything like
you're telling yourself right you're
like i just want to understand it right
and so for me the conclusion that i've
made and candidly this is also just the
story that i might just be telling
myself so hey who knows um but the story
that i tell myself at least is that
um
i i had
these
massive insecurities about my father's
approval right that so that was the
thing that was withheld for me
my
childhood adulthood um
i mean and for context my father called
me and he he pretty much said all the
things that i'd done up to you know
every every decision that i made was not
a good decision after i decided to veer
off the path of the job right everything

32
00:31:00.000 --> 00:32:00.000
after that was a bad decision and it was
only when i had literally made more
money than he'd ever made in his entire
life
that he said you know
you're going to want to hear this and i
stepped out
and i was like what i'm at like dinner
he was like i'm sorry and i was like for
what he was like you know for for saying
that you shouldn't have done this
and i was like okay
and
and he was like no i i think it was he's
like but for the record he's like if it
had been 30 years ago when i was coming
up i would have been right
um yeah and i remember thinking to
myself
one
if i cared about your opinion i wouldn't
have done it
and so i had to i'd break the sting of
your approval when i was literally on my
balcony thinking about killing myself in
my consulting career um
that was what was the painful enough to
force me to make the change where i was
like well if the alternative is death
then i can at least disappoint my father
that was really what it had to come to
like it sounds ridiculous but that is
what i had to and that's why you

33
00:32:00.000 --> 00:33:00.000
probably often hear me measure a lot of
decisions against death because it helps
me gain perspective on what is important
and so for me i was like well i am
guaranteed to be to be miserable forever
and if i'm going to be miserable forever
doing this then i might as well die and
if death is what this is then i might as
well choose this and live with the
disapproval and so i explained that um
and
the the piece that i think i delivered
that i think stung but i think the
audience might appreciate was like i was
like you know that moment i was talking
to my dad you know that moment when
people get on stage and like i just want
to thank my mom and my dad for always
being there and always being supportive
of me i was like i'm not going to say
that
i was like because you weren't
and so you could probably hear my voice
like i still have the anger that's there
um but
what i had to realize was what i had
done up to that point and up until maybe
a couple years ago was
i wanted to
beat my father so badly at his game that
it would be
um
that no one that he could not claim that
i had not won
and so every aspect of my life has been

34
00:33:00.000 --> 00:34:00.000
built to be uh impenetrable
and so it's like i don't want to just be
in shape i want to be so jacked that no
one says that i am not in shape i don't
want my wife to be just a girl i want
her to be incredibly hot incredibly cool
and [ __ ] good at business and making
money right i want i i can't just make
money or have a living or just be in the
top one percent like i want i want so
much money and the real reason is
because i just want everyone to leave me
alone and not hurt me right yeah yeah
and that's how i i built my defenses up
and so it was it was to be just an
unheard-able machine but it was just
because deep down i was right and so
yeah the game that i did was to play a
game that he had built for me
and so now
the question that i had to ask myself
was what game do i want to play and so
it's been it's been illuminating for me
to try and redefine my own game and i
think that for me my my decision
acquisition.com is the first business
that is spawned from
my desires
rather than from the games and the the

35
00:34:00.000 --> 00:35:00.000
variables that were set out by you could
say society dad whatever
that i had to win right and so the new
games that i'm trying to play are to die
the person who gave the most and so
those are the things that feel aligned
with my values not the values that i was
trying to prove
uh
to other people
yeah i mean i i this is uh
your your conversation interview but i i
just did um mdma with my dad oh right so
that's like a yeah and it uh
it's it was not exactly the same i would
say everything that i hear about you i
have like an order i'm it's the same for
me but an order of magnitude less you
know but it was that competitive
uh
that thing going on and and the the deep
seeking of approval and uh you know he
told me the same thing when i did my
business which just and and and and
understanding him it was because for him
it didn't work in his in his era that
wasn't how he did things so i i totally
relate and and separately will try to

36
00:35:00.000 --> 00:36:00.000
convince you to do mdma but
for now for now i actually um unless you
wanted to stay on this i wanted to sort
of talk about a little bit about the
book that you've got and offers and
stuff like that is that did you want to
stay on this ben no go for it because i
want to circle back to business but it
feels really shallow compared to what
we're talking about
and then i'll bring up a topic that's a
tie with how shallow you go i'm happy to
talk about money mind you like i like i
enjoy making money and all the things
about it so i'm happy to talk you know
this is this is my life man i love going
in and out like i love sitting up here
and talking about like dude this this
whole game is [ __ ] like this this is
all silly and it doesn't matter and then
[ __ ] screaming when i'm losing it
like how do i get better at this game um
so that's that's how i live and that's
everything but uh in terms of the game
in terms of the offer one of the like
learning uh listening to you is you're
very pithy you've got a lot of useful
frameworks that are helpful and one of
them that as i watched uh a video was
the it's like an equation for what an
offer is and i don't want to mess it up

37
00:36:00.000 --> 00:37:00.000
but essentially on the top part of it
you know better than i do i'll let you
introduce it yeah so i think the the
contribution of that book to maybe the
marketing community or business
community as a whole like if it were
summarized into one thing it would
probably be that equation which is the
value equation
and um the reason that it actually came
to be was because i was trying to i was
actually this came to me like three
years ago
when i was building our supplement
company
and when i was doing research on
supplements it turns out that
supplements
sell there's twice as much revenue and
supplements as there are in gyms as a
whole and i was like how can that be
right because like gyms obviously help
way more people get in shape i was like
but but if that
but the marketplace values with the
marketplace value so it was like that
was kind of the
the data point that set me on this kind
of little path to figure this out and so
um
and and trying to compare like why is
this thing they both solve the same
problem why is this one
worth more why do people pay more for
this than this and so it came with these
four variables and then organized them
to an equation that became a fraction
which was the value equation so if we're

38
00:37:00.000 --> 00:38:00.000
i think we have a video too so people
can see this right so if you if you draw
a line in the middle of the screen which
is just the fractional line there's the
top of the equation the numerator i know
everybody's remember from grade school
right and the denominator is the one
underneath okay so the first part of the
equation is dream outcome which is what
is the experience of transformation that
a customer is going to go through that
we are that rather we are promising that
they are going to go through right and
so
this is more to speak that
in general if you have if i'm talking to
men for example and i say i can help you
make a million dollars versus i can help
you be handsome right in general most
men will value making a million dollars
more than being handsome and you can see
that by the size of the men's beauty
market compared to the making money
market for men right so it's not that
all things but just in general this
category of items will be higher valued
than this category of items and so that
is the only purpose of this first one is
what is the experience that we're
actually going to be giving and how much
value would that convert to the ultimate
price we'll be able to charge so that is
variable number one
now if two things are the same outcome

39
00:38:00.000 --> 00:39:00.000
let's say it's weight loss right and
i've got a nine dollar ebook and i've
got a fifty thousand dollar liposuction
surgery they both have the same outcome
why is one fifty thousand and one nine
dollars because of the other three
variables so variable number two now
that we're talking about two two types
of solutions to the same
in the same vehicle right or sorry the
same the same destination but different
ways of getting there so number two is
perceived likelihood of achievement
and to use the liposuction example um if
i have two doctors right
and one of them has done what has not
done a surgery yet they're fresh out of
medical school and the other guy has
done 10 000 surgeries and they're both
going to do a liposuction surgery which
of these guys
would we be more likely to want to work
with which of them would be would we be
more likely to want to pay more the 10th
out we probably asked this guy to pay us
to be his first patient right
and here's what's even funnier is that
of these two people
it'll probably take this guy longer so

40
00:39:00.000 --> 00:40:00.000
it has nothing to do with time right
he's we're going to get more work out of
this guy's probably harder for this guy
than it is for this guy he does it in
his sleep but still our perceived
likelihood of getting what we want when
we buy and the important point is is
that it confers value to the prospect
prior to the purchasing decision so the
knowledge that this guy's done ten
thousand versus the nazis guys done zero
actually provides value in in that can
be translated into increased pricing
power
a prospect so when i when you start your
business and you're and you've done a
hundred testimonials i used to joke i
was like oh that because we raised our
prices over time and i was like well
that was my hundred testimonial price i
was like this is my 4 000 testimonial
price
because the likely that you achieve this
it would be unreasonable for you to
believe that our our solution will not
work right
so those are the first also seems to be
especially in the internet it's it's
almost i don't it appears exponential
right when you i guess there's when
you're number one in a category and and
people just trust that it's you given
the time is finite especially if there's

41
00:40:00.000 --> 00:41:00.000
any time like the liposuction doctor
he's not just charging three times like
he's charging an insane amount of money
more and his clientele are willing to
pay for it and part of that's because
the the delicate dance of desire right
the supply demand curve right but we can
get into that later yeah so
uh number one for everybody is dream
outcome with the experience what's the
thing that we're providing
number two is the perceived likelihood
that the prospect believe that they
believe that they will achieve it upon
purchase right same thing if you get the
nine dollar e-book what do you think the
likelihood is that you're gonna lose fat
on your stomach probably pretty small if
you get liposuction what percentage
likely do you think that you're gonna
actually lose fat on your stomach pretty
[ __ ] high so
you mentioned you mentioned testimonials
is this is this the variable most
influenced by marketing and in terms
like you know if you have a sales page
on the internet is this is that what the
sales page does is it like tries to
confirm certainly marketing somebody
who's the hole that word of mouth does
not have for a business
because if you think about which is word
of mouth is if you have three friends
who read the book right and said the
book was good i don't need to have a
sales page for the book because you
already have a perceived likelihood of
achieving uh a desirable result from

42
00:41:00.000 --> 00:42:00.000
reading the book
right just so so it fills the hole if
you don't have word of mouth
but yes yeah if i tell my friend to read
a book he'll just he'll just read it and
you're already already spilling out that
value part of the equation for them
but yes 100 to your point yes for people
who for a new prospect who doesn't know
who you are your marketing your
messaging your sales your stories your
positioning in the marketplace overall
it's gonna be the thing that's gonna
confer the perceived likelihood of
achievement
so there's the top two got it for us as
business owners and entrepreneurs and
marketers our goal is to increase this
the highest of our ability right we want
them to have a beautiful experience a
beautiful beach in maui that they're
envisioning themselves on and a very
high likelihood of achievement if they
if they buy this thing they're going to
get to maui right now come the other two
parts of the equation which is the
bottom half these are the detractors
these are things that take away
increased doubt increased risk all right
so the first is time delay so between
when i purchase and when i'm going to
experience the result
and so as a as a fun uh anecdote for
anybody if you want to create value in a
marketplace look at what everyone else
is doing and provide the same thing in

43
00:42:00.000 --> 00:43:00.000
half the time
easiest way to provide value right
but for for most people and i want to
demonstrate this right so if we have a
weight loss example and i use weight
loss because everyone understands it if
you were to click a button and buy a
thousand dollar thing uh for weight loss
and you're a guy and all of a sudden you
look down at your abs or your stomach
and there's just a six-pack there how
unbelievably valuable would that thing
be
wild oh yeah right and if you were a
marketing agency which i feel like a lot
of the marketing world and lots of
people have their smas or whatever it is
right if someone signed up and as soon
as their credit card ran
their phone rings and they pick it up
while they're on the phone with you
after just buying and it's like hey this
is mark i heard about your company i
just saw some of your advertisements i'd
like to you know i'm interested they'd
be like holy crap and the thing is is
that
the only thing that changed that might
still happen 60 60 days from now but how
much more valuable is the service or the
product if it happens fast right and so
the goal is that time is a huge
component of value fast beats free

44
00:43:00.000 --> 00:44:00.000
the reason spotify was able to take over
even though there was this huge rampant
piracy in the market was that it was
fast
that's how they beat free
and i've got a friend of mine who who
has um i think they probably have 20
locations now um who who created like
the mvd rather than the dmv
um in new mexico and so they got
licensed through the state to provide
dmv renewal services
as a private company and their whole
shtick is you come in you pay fifty
dollars you pay 50 bucks to not have to
wait that's it that's the entire value
prop and they kill it
yeah that's tsa pre-check that's all
i wish there was more of that but it's
one of the easiest value things to think
of as an entrepreneur like how can i do
this thing faster so that's the third in
the in the in the value equation and the
fourth and final is effort and sacrifice
and i didn't talk about this as much in
the book so i'll be able to give the
listener something that's unique here is
that effort sacrifice i see them as two
sides of the same coin
effort is things that a prospect has to

45
00:44:00.000 --> 00:45:00.000
begin doing that they were not doing
that they do not enjoy as a result of
the purchase
so this might be
if i had a marketing agency all of a
sudden i've got to start working leads i
have to make ads that i have to give
this person i have to make creative i
have to have weekly meetings with the
team and blah blah blah all this other
stuff that comes as a consequence of the
purchase right the flip side sacrifice
are what are the things that i enjoy
doing
that i no longer am able to do as a
result of the purchase and so a lot of
times they're flipped out of the coin
like if i'm susie and i got to wake up
early because i got to go to the gym now
because i'm trying to lose weight well i
used to sleep in so that's a sacrifice
i'm no longer able to sleep in the
effort is that i now have to wake up so
it's kind of two sides of the same thing
but i like i like delineating the two
because i think you think differently
about things when you when you hear both
sides of it and so the idea for us as
business owners is how can i get the
effort and sacrifice as close to zero as
humanly possible because in theory and
as i've kind of evolved in the business
world
i used to spend the beginning part of my
entrepreneurial career always focused on

46
00:45:00.000 --> 00:46:00.000
the top side it was always about bigger
promises bigger claims lots of
testimonials right that was it was all
the the marketing side of it right but
as i as i got older and we started
making more money and i started
observing the people who were making far
more money than me and the companies
that were much bigger it became
realizing that the way that those guys
were providing value was on the more
competitively uh defensible side because
anyone can make claims that anyone can
have testimonials and and big marketing
and great copying words and stuff that's
the easy part the hard part is actually
having the operational advantage of
figuring out the way to provide the
thing faster and provide the thing
without effort and sacrifice on behalf
of the prospect and so that's why the in
the book i titled that section getting
the bottom to zero which is like in
theory for us as entrepreneurs if we
could have anything on the top side of
the equation that's positive but the
effort and sacrifice and time delay was
instant right as soon as they purchased
it it was instant
you would have an infinitely valuable
product and if you think about like
amazon netflix each of these each of

47
00:46:00.000 --> 00:47:00.000
these uber whatever each of these
companies has this value proposition and
all of the of the effort in amazon in
their in their in their reinvestment
strategy has been on decreasing effort
and sacrificing uh and an increasing
time delay sorry a decreasing time delay
making things faster yeah yeah
so
i would as well as i'm going through
this i was thinking of our own business
and
i love it when i find ways that
i don't know if it's cut the gordy and
not or like find oh my gosh if i just
you know frame it differently one of the
things that i was coming up against at
least in my head if it's not a limiting
belief is the physics of transformation
and so like take uh weight loss for
instance you know you're doing gym stuff
and you can always promise seven minutes
six minute absolutely can you talk about
designing a product that fulfills these
like
it would seem that finding an offer that
did it a bigger thing
more reliably faster and more like that
that's just hard to do so operationally
and in sort of creating these products

48
00:47:00.000 --> 00:48:00.000
like
i know i know how i might love to talk
about what i do but how do i make that a
thing what are the skills that one does
in order to actually devise a product
that you can realistically handle being
talked about in this awesome totally so
in the book you know the the section go
over this and so hopefully it's not
repetitive for you guys but the audience
i haven't read it so i'm going to go
over this so
i think i think thinking about product
improvement is really hard because what
does that mean right but just thinking
about what are the problems every single
problem in as nuanced details i possibly
can about the customer experience both
perceived and actual
that the customer is going through from
the from before they start to use the
product all the way through the end and
after the result are experiencing the
result of the product every single micro
step that occurs on that process how can
i lubricate that how can i make it
faster and easier for them so that when
they get to that they just click cheat
code and they move through right and so
with services this is probably easier
right but this is where great product

49
00:48:00.000 --> 00:49:00.000
and design comes into play is like okay
well i'm use if you had software right
it's like how many clicks do i need to
get here is there a way that we can
reorganize the ux so that we can do this
in fewer clicks how can we display the
information differently um you know what
i'm saying here like how can we make it
so the effort and sacrifice in terms of
training their team
and all of that stuff is decreased and
minimized so that ultimately the the
experience is improved
and so can you give a concrete example
of what like uh not even necessarily a
gym launch but like how a fitness
trainer you know somebody who like
understands like dude you're gonna have
to eat healthy foods that's gonna suck
you're gonna have to exercise like how
can this person talk about something as
difficult to
transform as physical fitness which is
diet and exercise yeah how how can they
talk about it and create a product that
beats other physical fitness trainers so
the first like step one is delineating
every single problem that the person is
going to encounter all the changes that
they're going to have to have the
efforts and the sacrifice thing that
they've started doing things they have
to stop it right and so the things they
have to start doing it's like they have
to like if we're going sequence here

50
00:49:00.000 --> 00:50:00.000
right they're gonna leave with some sort
of plan of some sort now hopefully you
have that building them a plan as part
of the thing that you're selling them
right
but after that they're then gonna have
to go to the grocery store so we have to
ask the questions how they're gonna know
which store to go to uh are they gonna
have to go to multiple stores uh when
they go to the store how are they gonna
find the things they're looking for what
brands are they gonna need to buy how
much of them right all of those
questions arise these are all the things
people get stuck on so it's like okay
well then how can i solve this problem
of grocery shopping i haven't even
gotten to one click grocery delivery or
something like you know you got the plan
i'm just going to send the food to your
house or i'm going to send the food and
a chef to your house or i'm going to
send
yes okay
so i'm going to take the grocery store
example so in the book i have the
delivery cube which is the six different
ways you can look different lenses you
can look at the product through right um
but just just for groceries because this
is the first product we haven't even
gotten to cooking we haven't gotten a
meal prepping it out we haven't gotten
to actually shopping for the first
workout just groceries all right so if i
were trying to help them with this one
problem i could say okay well i could
have a a do-it-yourself

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grocery calculator that i could build so
that it would adjust based on their
weight and their goals their calories
and they would adjust for them another
ways i could already have a pre-made
book based on the weeks that they could
they could go through and buy that way i
could do a uh
or a grocery store tour right where i
take a big group of them out and we go
buy groceries together i could record
that tour and give that as a virtual
product i could put people together as a
buddy system and say hey you're not
gonna go but you're gonna go with an
alumni you're going to go together and
you're going to do that for the first
two months of working with me until you
have the skill right or i could
personally take them grocery shopping or
to your point i could pre-make the list
load in an instacart and then send it to
their house i could also create a
an alliance or an affiliation with some
sort of meal prep company as an
additional solution that would be done
for you right so like all of these are
just different ways i mean another one
would be because i have i'm just going
through the delivery cube in my head if
i said okay you can go grocery shopping
but i will be on call
for phone or tech support at any time if
you get stuck
during your shopping experience i won't
be with you but i will be there to
support you and you can text me a
picture of anything and i'll immediately

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respond to you
i've so
that one of the books that has had a ton
of influence on me is essentialism i
don't know if you've read it but it's
the disciplined idea of less is more
how does that idea because it seems like
it may compete with this you know the
idea that being there all the time
having 10 different ebooks for this
person potentially to read and six
different numbers they can call and all
this stuff
do you see that as being competitive
with this idea of
uh
solving every micro problem that this
person might experience in their in
their journey
i don't think it is i'm trying to think
about the nuance between the difference
because
when i delineate all of these different
things that we just said as different
ideas of how we would solve that problem
we would through trial and error figure
out what the highest likelihood success
so like if i had to pick of all of these
the most likely would be i pre-load
instacart with their stuff
got it that would be the most which is
right simple yeah simple not at the
grocery store not answering that and
we're just using this as an ideation

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process for everyone who's listening so
you can think about whatever problem
you're trying to solve there is a unique
way to solve the problem that the
prospect more importantly will perceive
as an easy solution and to your point
every single time we've made iterations
in our services um and we have education
components for our licensing business
right every new uh improved version of
it gets shorter not longer
it's always become less and that's why
the book was small because it took me
four versions of the book to get it down
to 160 pages so that my goal was that
someone could read it in one setting
that was the goal of the book for me
eight of the books that will happen i
did
yeah that was the goal
so a hundred percent in terms of
simplicity um but for you from the
ideation process the ideation process
you can be all over the place but then
that's why the fourth step is trim and
stack is how am i going to trim and trim
and trim down to the few things that
have the absolute most value or
perceived value in the prospect's mind
and then once you go through a handful
of customers you'll also learn more and

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get feedback and say they're still
having trouble with this i have to
somehow retweet this solution and this
one they don't value so i can cut it out
and this is requiring it sounds like
real time or at least survey interaction
with your customers so that you're
seeing like one what are these problems
i didn't even think of grocery shopping
as a problem you know so i've got to be
next to them or asking them these sorts
of questions and then
receiving or soliciting feedback of how
did that go what did you like those
sorts of things go into the
final version of the product yeah and
especially for newer entrepreneurs i i
tend to be
i tend to believe in kind of like the
tesla ideology of starting at the top of
the pyramid and then working your way
down so they you know the tesla first
test of roadster was like whatever
500 000 whatever it was a lot of money
right and then the next one was i think
it was 250 000. the next thing they came
out with was the hundred thousand dollar
power and then you know years later they
came out with the 30 000 version and so
i think that people would be best served
starting with done for you kind of
operationally heavy solutions for people
and that's because you simply don't know
enough and so it's it's do the expensive

55
00:54:00.000 --> 00:55:00.000
quote consulting work that is not
scalable to get paid to learn more about
how to solve problems for your prospects
so that you will be able to then have a
a brand story right for yourself about
how you started at this price anchor and
how you can provide this level because
it's anchored to this price of value at
a lower mid tier price which might be
done with you rather than done for you
solution
with all of the learnings you have from
and this mirrors the experience that i
had which is like i had six gyms and
then i did two years doing turnarounds
where i flew out and actually literally
did every aspect of it before i was like
okay our licensing solution will work
for gyms whereas the vast majority of
people are like well he's doing a
licensing thing i'll do a licensing
thing but they didn't do the path that
got us there and that's why they don't
replicate the success
yep makes sense ben i know that you'd
wanted to ask about a personal business
questions i do so this is where we use
our podcasts in order to get coaching
that would otherwise be quite expensive
but
it doesn't go ahead this is a question

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for everyone in the audience that has a
5 million subscriber youtube channel and
has burned out from right so
for all of those people listening the
question is uh we
have made 300-plus videos and to date it
has been the engine of our business
that's how we form a relationship with
people create credibility and create
desire for
mastering charisma and then we give them
the program that masters charisma
i am curious because we have tried to
hire for a number of roles we thought
well maybe the the youtube channel
doesn't have to be the backbone of
the company maybe we can just get a
really good marketer and so we did a
multi-month search pretty much got my
ideal person if i could have before the
search like i was like oh i would love
to poach this person we got that person
but it didn't end up working out and
then i've secondly
been it's been hard to find someone who
can write
content at the level that we would be
proud to publish it and so the i though
getting out of the business from the
bottom rung and being an owner and a

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strategist like you are has been
something i've personally struggled with
and i was curious how do you
find the right people because i know
your big thing is i don't hire
talented people who i need to train i
hire people with pre-existing skills
how how do you go about that because it
has been something that i have either
misjudged in the sense that i went this
person is going to crush it they have
the pre-existing skills or
i've gone i don't know how to find
someone with the pre-existing skill of
knows a ton about charisma and is good
at writing scripts
so i'm just curious if you have
any suggestions or advice on ways i
might go about this
and i will i will answer this as a off
the cuff of me thinking through it out
loud uh rather than saying this
to you know alex's definitive answer um
if i were in this position when i'd be
thinking through like well justin bieber
is like i just can't find someone to
sing like i can on stage so that i can
outsource my justin bieber brand
um you know what i mean so like
sometimes i think there are some
businesses that are more and more
difficult to do that with um yeah i feel

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i feel like a mix of a business and an
artist
yeah and i think that's normal and so i
think um the first thing that i would do
is i'd see if i could chunk chunk down
uh the
the the actual activities right because
no one's so like
are you familiar naval ravicon i i talk
about some of this stuff because i like
his stuff a lot but he talks about
specific knowledge being not that you're
gonna be the best in the world at this
one thing it's that if you can be
decent at seven things when you combine
those seven things that's what creates
you'll be number one at those seven
things when combined right and so i
think a lot of entrepreneurship and why
you guys have been exceptional at your
thing is that you were good on camera
you understand script writing you also
understand youtube uh you're also like
good looking young guy like you know i
mean there's there's and then when you
combine all those things then you become
boom number one
at this type of thing and so if i could
chunk down because you're not gonna be
fine to be able to find a you because
there's only one of you right but if can
i find the number one of these seven or
eight skills that put together and it

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might take
a village
to try and replace you and i'll say
within the business that i had on the
licensing side it took me two years
um
to replace my like it was a two year
long process to replace me
um
and and i i speak candidly about the
fact that now part of this might have
been because there was this pandemic
that went around at the same time as i
stepped down so that might have
influenced the that you know the income
number so that's not uh um a slight at
the team or i'm saying this because my
team might also listen to this um
but
i was willing to make the trade off to
get the time back right i was willing to
make half as much from that particular
entity in order to get 100 of the time
that i was you know not 190 of the time
that i was allocating there so how do
you do it um i think you chunk down and
then you'll still be left with something
and so this might be the one fallacy
that i can hopefully share is that we
have this illusion as entrepreneurs that
we're going to quote replace ourselves
and turn our business into passive
income right

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it is my opinion that nothing is passive
and it's just you have varying degrees
of active and so even even if i were to
somehow
you know roll everything
into one person who all of my companies
rolled into they would replace myself
right
well who does that person report to
right it's so like you're you're you're
only just you're consolidating you're
aggregating but never really eliminating
and i think that simply eliminating the
false the fallacy the false belief that
that we are failing at complete
passiveness somehow sometimes can solve
the problem by realizing that it's not a
problem to be solved but just something
that needs to be diminished and it's not
a binary of yes or no but to what degree
it's a continuum
and i think if if you shift that way
then you can look back two years from
now and say am i more or less involved
in the business than i was and if the
answer is i am 50 or 75 less involved in
the business and we're still making the
same money then i would say i'm doing a
great job i'm going to keep you in this

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direction rather than i'm not passive
yet i suck
sure
well i've i'm much less active and ben
is much more active
so it turns out there's not just one of
us there's two of
so um
what in terms of hiring do you have tips
and i believe that i've heard you again
i've heard kind of heard you speak about
this but wanted to ask for clarification
i think so many things in business are
you developed an instinct and you just
kind of know
after a lot of time and that's life as
well but in terms of knowing if you've
got the right person for the job about
how much time do you feel like is
appropriate before you get that that
instinct that and allow it to kick in
and are do you have any tips and tricks
or particular things to look for uh to
know if this is someone who needs time
and tlc and training or if this is
likely to not work out that that is an
area that i think we are
very deficient oh hold on oh there's
hold on so many fun things too long so
many fun things on this one okay
so

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01:01:00.000 --> 01:02:00.000
uh okay
so it does a hundred so i'll consolidate
some stuff for the audience so
zero to one million is about promotion
all right one to ten million is about
product 10 to 100 million is about
people right and so that's the that is
the trajectory that everyone goes
through
first first false belief is that uh
people uh have like an impeccable picker
you just get better you never you never
get perfect right just as i'm just
throwing it out there it's just that my
error rate is lower than it used to be
but it's not that it's somehow like i
have eliminated error we still make bad
hires but these are the thought
processes and this is kind of this might
be interesting for you guys is that uh
resume will have three times the
predictive power of interviewing
in terms of no kidding the success yeah
success of people in the role now mind
you in a perfect world you'd have 10
good resumes and then you pick off of
interviews right that's kind of the
that's how you would solve for both of
those right um because then you look for
culture fit and all that kind of stuff
but
in terms of skills track record is going
to be is going to be the greatest
predictor that they're going to be able

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to do the same thing again right and so
and as specific as possible so rather
than like this person was in marketing
it's this person uh handled marketing in
a in a youtube channel that was at 10
million or higher and so ideally you
want someone who's who's a little bit
above where you are but not so far that
they've forgotten where you are now
so and you're poaching it sounds like
you're like finding that person and
they're they've got a job and they're
you know and you're going i want that
guy or that gal yes so and this is again
higher level right so when you're
playing beginner beginner business um
and i'm saying this with love to all
business owners that's not i'm not
saying it's a pejorative thing but like
when you're going zero to a million most
of times you gotta you gotta train
people because you kind of can't afford
really really good people you can't the
business economics aren't there right so
you have to take undervalued labor and
add value through your own skills and
that's how you end up having still
making a profit with low labor costs
right and then you know at one to ten
million you can you can you can hire
people with some level of skill and you
can still use job ads and job placements
and things like that you'll still get
decent people once you start crossing in

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01:03:00.000 --> 01:04:00.000
the 200 000 500 000 a year threshold
those people are always employed
they're never not employed
yeah they're never not employed so and
every company that they've ever been
employed will work really hard to keep
them so those are people that are have
to you've got to trade them out of the
position they're in to come to work for
you now in terms of the characteristics
i'm going to be borrowing this from
warren buffett but i think he's a pretty
good source and so i will share with you
what he has shared with me personally in
our many talks together
that he looks for
uh intelligence which i define as uh i
just niched that down to uh super
relevant experience uh within the and
having solved the problem that i'm
looking to solve right i'm hiring for
solutions i'm not hiring for for
positions
and i think if we can be very clear
about what problem we are trying to
solve we'll be much better at defining
the problem we get much more clear about
the solution so number one is he says
intelligence i just define that a little
bit more nuance to have this person
solve the problem uh in a business just
like mine

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01:04:00.000 --> 01:05:00.000
the second is is he calls it energy i
call it work ethic right and the way
that you would judge that for me is
what's the speed of response when we're
interacting with this person uh if i ask
them for something how quickly do they
get it to me uh just general
communication style because we like to
move quickly and i know that if they're
not moving quickly during the interview
process i'm not going to expect it to
move faster afterwards that is how i
measure that
um and then the third is character right
which is difficult right he says
integrity but just i would say character
in general and the underpinnings of that
which is the fourth piece um is do they
have a long-term perspective
can they think in longer time horizons
and that's so important especially as
you get leadership positions in because
at each level of the business you're
you're in the beginning you're replacing
tasks you're replacing doing right and
then you're replacing managing
and then you're replacing leadership
and then you're replacing
vision innovation and um
and decision making

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so each of these levels right the things
that we're placing become more
intangible and harder to find which is
why most people shouldn't succeed and
don't scale their businesses because
it's harder to look for leadership right
but that's like the when we're
approaching these these interviews we
keep it front of mind which is like what
am i looking for right now they got on
the interview because they have the
track record okay
the correspondence has been speedy-ish
what i'm really looking for is the
character that i think can lead this
component in the company and do they
have the teeth to really want to drive
which a lot of people don't got it right
and you still you still get it wrong you
just have fewer mistakes
yeah the the big thing that i mean we
if we shifted would be to
target our outreach much more instead of
like posting a job post or uh even even
a paid job post on linkedin which did
net good applicants is to go
know the industries that we're looking
for a bit better and go like that's the
person that wants to come write my
videos or do my thing and go track them

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down and be like
you're the person we want you what do we
got to do yeah exactly i mean i would
say for
for our marketing for our marketing
position we did offer several hundred
grand and we actually did poach
both of our top two candidates were
currently employed
um but we
this is going way off i don't know if
we'll just cut this for the podcast but
our
we're not willing to do some of the
marketing strategies that have been
successful at other places
and so someone might come in and say hey
we want to run
discounts that only certain people will
know about and so it's not unfair
because the other people won't know
about it and we go well
pretend everyone knew about it would
people be upset that this had happened
he goes yep they're not going to know
and we just we just don't feel
comfortable doing it yeah and that was
not
something i had a good grasp on was like
how exactly this person so okay you took
i'm gonna make this up you know 2
million to 10 million what were the
exact strategies that you did i just saw
oh you took 2 million to 10 million in a
video that sells self-improvement
courses just like us
you're perfect you know yeah

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01:07:00.000 --> 01:08:00.000
and so i think where i
where we are particularly a pain in the
butt for marketing people is our
definition of
of honesty or doing right by clients is
annoying to most marketing people that
we hire they find it inconvenient and
straight yep yeah well it's
i don't and
it's it's short term long term right
long term
if you thought that long term that
discount approach would actually net you
more money forever maybe be more
inclined to do it but i don't think you
think that i think that you think that
would be a short-term strategy in
long-term you'd lose brand equity
for both reasons i well even if it would
long-term i don't know like i said i've
solved my money problems so if i'm
trading a tiny bit of my own personal
morality or integrity for more it's just
like i don't you really don't need that
things are too good for me to give a
damn um so that's that's kind of the the
other thing and and to you know to the
credit of all the people that have come
for us i've watched a lot of your videos
and i and i go
alex could help guys with our business
but not with our [ __ ]

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01:08:00.000 --> 01:09:00.000
with not with our drive uh i've i've
been kicking back and enjoying and i
watched your video that you talk about
the gym that you worked out where the
boss said be here at 9 00 am and he
locked the door and everybody who came
in after 9am was fired and i'm the guy
who shoot the boss who shows up at 905.
you know i just don't set the standard
at a level but what i what i think is
still wonderful and that i do like about
it is that i think we have a lot of
happy
people who work here and enjoy working
here and it is uh
i don't know i i like it i'm not i'm not
too we'll be aligned regardless yeah
you're not gonna be aligned you're not
gonna show up at nine yes exactly we've
aligned values and and it probably isn't
the value of 100 million dollar company
but we can grow slowly maybe maybe not i
mean there's hedge funds that that
operate that way and they manage
zillions of dollars
yeah so i don't i think it's just i
think if you're being integris to what
you believe then i think that will
always win out in the end and you can
attract and look for people i was going
to add one more note that i think might
be valuable for you in terms of that
interviewing process but
my wife talked to this a lot laila if

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01:09:00.000 --> 01:10:00.000
you see her channel her channel is super
super like it's really good on building
infrastructure because that's how the
companies that we all she's really the
one who's building that but yeah what
what is her channel shout out
it's my name
in front of it um oh you guys got to
find a way to do it that's so funny man
because you you now pop up on my
homepage it's a youtube thing if you
ever want to chat youtube by the way i
don't know if you have somebody that's
helping you i'm happy to sit down and
talk thumbnails titles all that kind of
stuff
so yeah
it can definitely help because it's also
interesting that she's not popping up on
my homepage given how much similarity
their youtube would imagine so there's
there's some things that you guys can do
to cross pollinate as well sweet i
appreciate it yeah so she um she says
this process and i like it a lot is that
she uses the interview process and at
one point you were saying directly reach
out you can also just hire a headhunter
so at this point now we just have
several head hunting firms that we know
that are reputable we know the owners
and we just they know exactly what we're
looking for and so it makes it so much
faster and easier for us because i just
write a check in the problem solved and
i have and i have three beautiful
candidates and we make a pick it's just
it's just way faster that way and
sometimes the people that like so i just

71
01:10:00.000 --> 01:11:00.000
hired i'll tell you guys this is cool so
on monday um my new executive assistant
starts very excited about this she was
sheldon adelson's uh
assistant uh for 10 years and he just
recently passed this wasn't so she
happened to have been on the job market
at the exact moment that i needed an
executive assistant and for those who
don't know he was a he's worth 33
billion so i'm not quite there um but
hopefully i'll learn from some stuff
from her but but yeah like those people
exist it's crazy and using the interview
process itself as a learning process for
you so when you talk to let's say 10 of
these high-level marketing people and
you asked no specifically what would you
do because that is part of our interview
process i want to know specifically what
you would do like we had one guy who's
like well i'm not going to share that
with you until you hire me we're like
next right so another guy and then he
wrote this massive thing about how we
were horrible and it's so unprofessional
to expect that and i was like thank god
we didn't hire you and so
so the other guys were all like i would
do this i would do this i would do this
i would do this and the thing is is by

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01:11:00.000 --> 01:12:00.000
the 10th interview we've got a list of
like 30 really good ideas and we have
other guys who are like what do you
think about this it's like oh i have
experience with those things so the
interviews get better and better and
better as we get more really nuanced
information and solutions from people
who have already done it and so we
actually get it's like a two-sided
learning process and i think that even
thinking about it that way shifts the
perspective of like god it's such a
waste of time me interviewing all these
people to this is a learning process for
me just as much as it is an interview
for them
cool
interesting is there did you have other
stuff that you wanted to do on the
hiring piece i know that that was a big
thorn in your side
no i mean it's not
you know it's not
i wish there were a magic cure you know
i think what i've been doing i've been
aiming for what you described which is
you're not going to get the person but
maybe you can get someone that takes
half the work away and so that's what
i've shifted what i'm aiming for it's
like okay i'm not going to be able to
just send a title and a topic and have
them write it record it send it over to
our editor and i'm not involved but
maybe they can do

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01:12:00.000 --> 01:13:00.000
a bunch of early research in a first
draft such that i do half the work so
that's that is where i'm actually
leaning i was just kind of hoping you'd
have some magic alex or mozy bullet that
i didn't know about where i could clone
myself but lobotomize him so he loves
working and hates fun
um
but
he hates money until i hate money so i
can do that no he loves yeah he hates he
hates money he hates sunshine and
surfing but he's my clone
um
but no i mean i think to like your your
advice is exactly what i'm gonna try to
pursue so it's comforting to know that
that's at least in the right direction
yeah so okay well then then i'll start
to bring us back uh
home and we can wind down with uh sort
of a follow up
you mentioned uh
you talked about you know uh flying
private is really cool all this stuff is
really cool you're getting to do what
you like i i
without using the term happy but i will
use the term happy
maybe joy is a better word um
how what is bringing you joy what is
working because like you said you've

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01:13:00.000 --> 01:14:00.000
solved your money problems and these are
the problems that you're that you're
solving now is is are these interviews
and and these kinds of uh making videos
for acquisition and those challenges do
you find that uh joyous have you have
you found a way to solve your i don't
know joy problem that all humans face
now that you're really probably more
heavily focused on that so i've been um
looking into this a lot this is probably
um
i'd say probably 25 to 30 of my time is
focused on kind of these types of
questions
um
and so what's really interesting is that
i think
aristotelian um so aristotle i kind of
made this this point and it's actually
gave me a lot of solace in thinking
about it um but it was that you cannot
see whether a man's life was well lived
until after he is he's dead
and i thought that was for me it
actually gave me a lot of comfort
because it was like so then i it
decreases the pressure that i have in
terms of how to always try and create
meaning because meaning is actually
created posthumously so rather than
think as i'm doing something is this
thing meaningful instead i could finish
my week and then look back and say i

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will ascribe this meaning to these
activities
and that that has actually been very
helpful for me um in terms of the
meaning in life i i'm borrowing this
from a friend of mine um
who quoted albert camus who's a a a
moroccan i believe a moroccan uh
philosopher and he said the meaning of
life is the reason you don't kill
yourself
and
it's not super it's super morbid but
it's also kind of true right like
whatever the reason we get like what
like if you think why would i not do
that it's like well whatever the actual
first or second answer that you have is
your meaning and i thought that that was
actually really really powerful so for
me that was also very very uh useful and
then the third what did you come up with
for that the game
oh the game the game just that the game
is is in and of itself i love the game
pleasurable i love the game and my wife
layla i wouldn't
in that order yeah
she's part of the game did she's got a
youtube channel
is awesome like layla and i mean i'm
gonna i'm gonna
selfishly take the next 60 seconds for

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everybody who's who's um
who's deciding on like who their life
partner is going to be and i call it
that way rather than like spouse or wife
or husband because i think it is really
a life partner um i'm such a proponent
of loving logically and i know that's uh
that's that's a oxymoron you know in as
most people understand it but i think
that arranged marriages make a lot of
sense
like because parents look like you could
you probably know your friends and see
some of the people they're doing like
what are they thinking right like this
what an idiot all the time all the time
and the thing is is that sometimes
you're that friend
right
and so i think that like
the biggest the second biggest risk i've
taken in my life besides quitting the
job that i did was when layla and i got
married i was petrified because i was
like i can't believe i'm adult enough to
actually do this and make this decision
this is insane
how are they letting me do this really
no really and i was like i can't believe
i can actually just choose to marry
someone this sounds insane right
um
but
the reason i was able to move forward

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with it and i wasn't able to move
forward in the past is that logically my
logic brain kept stepping in whenever i
had these relationships that i was like
really passionate and loved and all this
stuff and this chemistry right and i was
just like this doesn't make sense they
don't like the stuff i like you know i
mean i would just think i was like but
they don't like like it would always be
like okay done talking about business
now let's talk about what i like to talk
about and i was like i don't want to
stop talking about what i want to stop
talking about i don't want to compromise
and so i feel like for me what we what
with layla is i kind of have a life
without compromise like
i was like this is exactly how i want to
live do you want to do that and i
remember when i was dating people were
like that's so
selfish and one-sided and you're never
going to find anybody who likes that and
i was like well i only need to find one
and that's what i think people miss
about that in the past it's like it's
like well what's the likely that you
find i'm like i only need one n equals
one is all i have to find so it's okay
that it's an outlier i expect it to be
an outlier it should be an outlier
but it doesn't mean i can't find it it
just means it'll take me longer

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and so i would just say for everyone
like the single most important decision
i think that we make in terms of
subjective well-being and that's
supported with data is that you have a
0.71 correlation to yours to your own
subjective well-being based on the
strength of your relationship with your
significant other and so for me i've
taken the they're in the business with
me approach i'm not saying you have to
do that but i'm saying that is what
worked for me because i could have this
shared experience and we're aligned in
where we're trying to go and we both are
exposed to the same stimuli so we grow
together in that direction and that has
been very valuable to me
interesting no i we've talked about
compromises regards relationships in the
past and it is a
sticky question you know a lot of people
tell you that compromise is the bedrock
of relationships and that has always for
me gone
it's not been the bedrock of my
friendships you know it has not been
like it has been not at all uh really in
my friendships almost never in my
friendships is there a compromise it's
just shared desire to do and not do the
same
of things so why would that be
completely different in a relationship
uh and then you know there's a bunch of

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reasons that are offered that tend not
to make a ton of sense
uh so that's that's something that i
that i have not gotten to the bottom of
but it we've discussed in the past here
and i've felt similarly that compromise
sounds like a dirty word to me
sometimes um anything else that you
wanted to to get to before we hop off
then
no nothing comes to mind yeah i want you
to let you do uh you know i'll shout you
out i think your channel's awesome i
have gotten a lot out of it myself it
has
really crystallized why we are at the
level that we are at and why we are
growing at the speed which is still good
we're still growing but why we're you
know not parabolic at this point because
i'm going oh you know that's what would
be required and it totally makes sense
uh so no matter where you're at i think
one of the cool things is that you can't
always tell with alex's channel
immediately whether it's a video for
somebody who's just getting started or
somebody who is making three five ten
million dollars and there's tons of
value at every single level so it's alex
hormozy on youtube anything else you
want people to check out

80
01:19:00.000 --> 01:20:00.000
uh there's the books 99 cents on amazon
it's about 100 million offers i'll be
making nine more books uh in the series
each book comes with a course that's
free it's on my site acquisition.com you
don't have to opt in for anything so
it's there you can just consume
everything there's downloads checklists
everything from for making the offer
that you have more compelling so you get
more people to say yes at higher prices
yep and like i've gone through the one
course that was up when i last checked
and those are you know if you like
reading check the book if you like if
you like watching videos go to
acquisition.com it's all awesome thanks
so much for coming on man appreciate
happening thank you guys so much it's an
honor to be here
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