Meet The $100,000,000 Man Who Sold Everything | Alex Hormozi

I appreciate I appreciate you having me and to the audience like I know that a lot of the stuff that I I say can be uh triggering and I want to make it clear that it's not my intention to do that um at all. Uh it's just me sharing beliefs that uh as I understand the world and that is no way projection on you or how you see the world etc. It's just this is how I see the world and these are beliefs that served me well um that helped me overcome um a lot of things that I thought mattered. I'm Alex Rozi. Welcome back to the Ice Coffee Hour podcast. And this podcast has made $400,000 in the last 18 months. That's a good guess. It was a good guess. D getting closer. Yeah. Yeah. It's $168,756. Okay. Yeah. I probably backtracked what current revenue is to earlier. That was probably No, you were saying like, "Oh, we think at $40,000 uh a month in ad." No way. No. Nowhere close to that. Really? No. No. Last probably 28 days, we probably did like 10 grand. 10 grand. 10. Yeah. Ad rates are down this year. A lot. Yeah. My channel, which is like not even like a legit YouTube channel, um does like 28,000 a month. How many views do you pull? 4 million a month right now. That's why. Yeah. So, we get because we only post once a week. So, we only post four episodes every month. And because of that, views are around like one to two million a month. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Because I because you probably have a big I would imagine decent businessy audience because mine's pretty much all business owners. Yeah. The RPMs are definitely pretty high in our audience, you know. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What we need to do, we need to post twice a week. That's the only way we can take this podcast to the next level cuz we kind of hit I don't want to say we've uh you know, we've done as much as we could for one episode a week. We got to go to two. Yeah. I think that's the next step. Mhm. I agree. So, thanks, Alex. as as resident YouTube adviser between everybody here, you know, and we'll do it. We'll do it. So, I got to say, man, I've really enjoyed this story of yours. Uh, I listened to the My First Million podcast of you and I thought it was really good and you gave such a complete breakdown on just like sales, being an entrepreneur, and making a ton of money. So, tell us and that's that's the important part we're going to talk about today. So, tell us your tell us your story. Did you go to college? Yeah. What were you like as a student? How do you get these ideas? What did you want to be when you grow up? Wealthy. Yeah. Um yeah, that was definitely like my primary goal. So I was um I was actually a really good student. So I don't think I have the traditional entrepreneur like you know skill like school failed me like I couldn't focus on classes or anything like that. Like I was actually a really good student. I was um vice president of the newspaper. I was editor-inchief of the uh creative magazine. Um played three varsity sports. Did well um went to Vanderbilt uh for my undergrad. uh graduated in three years. Um just kind of was always like trying to just push. Um a lot of that was because I had like the the traditional Middle Eastern parents who were like you had 100 different tests that you got 100 on but this one you had a 99 and then they're like what did what did you miss? Like that was actually like a story and I was like oh I'll never place him. Okay, that's useful to know. Um and so anyways, I I did that and then kind of followed the path which was to do management consulting or investment banking. Um after you kind of go like through the white bread path. Um I did management consulting because it seemed like more interesting. I did defense contracting. So I was in the public sector. So we did space cyber intelligence for the military for two I say we I um did that for two years which sounds really cool but was actually just transcribing interviews and then compiling 600 pages of notes and then color coding them and then trying to give them to people ahead of me and so that they could make a 20point slide deck that would be sold for $4 million back to the military of like how they should combine their assets to kill the most bad guys for least amount of money. Um just like complex problems. Um, and so I did that for two years and then wanted to not do that. Uh, so I was going to go to business school and then was able to uh do really well on the GMAT. Um, so I think I scored above Harvard Smith score and so I was like, "Okay, cool. I think I can get into like with my experience." And what's the GMAT? Uh, it's like the SAT for business school. Oh, so it's like a higher like a harder SAT basically. Um, and then anyway, so I I I I did that and then I started applying to these business schools and on one of them it was like, how will this business school MBA help your short and long-term goals? And for like four days, I just sat there and like couldn't answer this question cuz I wanted to like start a business and I like couldn't figure out how was how spending like 200 grand and like two to three years of my life and not making money during that period of time was going to like help me. Um, and so I was like, you know what? I'd rather just take the money and start a business and and and see. And so I had saved up like I think 60 grand at that point. So I was 24 and or 23. I was 23 cuz I graduated early. So um I took took the money. Um I looked at a bunch of different businesses and so I look I was going to start either a test prep business because I was I was good at that um for like SATs or whatever because there's really good margins in that business. Um a frozen yogurt store because those were like blowing up like 10 years ago. What year was this? 2013 12 was when I was looking at I was the exact same for me. I wanted to open up a uh a fro yo store. I think it was 2013 or 2014. We could talk about that a little later. I know a lot about the yogurt business. Disaster like cost per ounce like percentage of people do toppings versus like there's way there's a lot in it. But um anyways that and then the third was just like do something I'm passionate about like I like fitness like maybe I'll do something there. Um, and I didn't have enough money for the yogurt store, so that one was out. Um, I had enough money for the test prep and I did a bunch of work for it and I was going to like partner with somebody for it and then that kind of fell through. So, it kind of like left this weird like taste in my mouth. So, I was like, I guess I'll just do the gym thing. And so, I knew from the consulting world that like the best way to learn is to consult with experts. Like that's how you rapidly like learn new subjects for like I don't know anything about defense like about satellite mixes and stuff, but like you interview a hundred people who are experts in it and like you get a pretty good idea pretty fast. And so I was like, "Okay, I don't know anything about the gym business, so I'll just email a bunch of gym owners and see if they'll just like let me work for free." And um one guy got back to me. I emailed like 40 gyms. And he was like, "Uh yeah, come on out. You can work for free." So I was like, "All right, awesome." So I left every all I like sold my condo, sold all my stuff, packed my car, and I drove straight uh to California from Baltimore, which is where I was. Um showed up at this guy's doorstep, and he was like, "This is really creepy. I was not really actually expecting you to do this." I was like, "What do you want me to do?" And he's like, "I don't know." like I have stuff to do. Um you can hang out here for a little bit. And he's like, "Where are you staying?" And I was like, "I don't know. I just got here. I just drove to your gym from my house in Baltimore." He was like, "So you have nowhere to stay." And I was like, "No, I figured I figured out later." Wait, where was this located in California? So you drove from Baltimore to California? Yeah, it was 36 hours. I packed food. You didn't do it. You slept though, right? Like you didn't do it? Yeah. Yeah, I slept. I slept, but I didn't stop for food or or asking the important questions. I'm just No, I'm just I'm I'm amazed. 36 hours. And he was he was surprised you even did it. Yeah. You didn't call him while you were driving like on the way like, "Hey man, just letting you know I'm like I'm on the way." I was like I mean we talked once and I was like all right I'll be there. And then I mean I'm sure say that kind of stuff. Yeah. You would think that like hey I'm on my way. I'll be there like this this time. I didn't even have his phone number. I think I just You just showed up at his house. I showed up at his gym. I show his gym. So this So wait, so if you didn't have his number, how did you correspond? So we email. So, I opted in and then he emailed me and then and then we we did have a call, but I don't think it was his cell phone because I think there was like a work like a business like a business phone. It was like however many years ago. Um, so anyways, he uh What did your parents think of that by the way? Your parents were probably telling you do not do this wildly against all of this like why? Cuz they wanted you to go into something more like academic. Just get they're like you a gate like you can get into business school and then you can go continue on the path, you know? And I um I mean basically what I figured out was that the amount of money that I wanted to make, no job would pay me with the exception of investment banking and management consulting. So you can make 5 10 20 million a year as an investment banker or in private equity or as a management consult like you can do that. Um but the path to getting there the traditional way you pretty much give 20 years and then you start making that. And I was like well I don't want to give up my youth to have money later that I won't have like the youth or energy to spend. So that was kind of the thought process was like I'm guaranteed to not get what I want this way and I have a chance of getting what I want this way. So I decided to go that way and that was pretty it was like the riskadjusted return was I have a 100% guarantee that I'm not going to get what I want here even though like people will think it's good. Um and which is kind of a interesting side note is that like every one of the big advancements that I've had in my life and I've like marked all of them like I added a zero to my income uh like per month and each time it was by giving up something that everyone else told me was really good to have something that was better. But it's like the one that you have and giving it up for something that you do not know exists yet, but you believe can exist. And I think that's the hardest like jump in life. Like those jumps. It's like I had a really good job um and I was going to start a business. It's like but you have this thing that everybody will give you status for but I want to do this and then like I scaled that up to six locations. You know, fast forward three years and Wait, wait. Let's hear more. You're skipping. You're skipping. Skipping too much. Too much. Okay. No, no. you show up this guy's gym and it's weird when it happens. Yeah. So, he was actually um really cool about it. Um and I always remember this. He actually just died last year um from co but um No way. Yeah. It was really sad. Um for a lot of reasons because he was also like incredibly jacked. He's Persian like me, like really into the business scene. Was a pretty big influencer. Um so there's a lot of like similarities and we he had like a like a sort of father-son dynamic, you know what I mean? Um, and so anyways, uh, he was like, "Well, dude, if you don't have anywhere to stay, you can stay at my place tonight." And I was like, "Oh, thanks." And so I went to his place and I stayed there for, uh, that night and his like wife made me food or whatever. And I was like, "This is nice. Like California is great." And then the next morning I went to the gym with him and then he just like literally just asked everyone at the gym. He's like, "Anyone have an extra room?" And one guy was like, "You can stay at my place." And so he had an extra room. I paid him like 400 bucks a month. And that was uh that was how I that was how I like started living. I worked at that gym for for 3 months. Um, so what were you doing at the gym though? So he said, "You can be my apprentice." And so I mean I think he recognized that I was like relatively intelligent and hardworking and so he was like just learn everything that I do so that I don't have to do it and you can do it. And I was like, "Okay, cool." Like and so like I was with him from 4:00 a.m. until 4 p.m. every day cuz so like my early mornings kind of started with him because he was like be at the gym at 4:00. And I was like, "Okay, got it." You know, cuz in the consulting world I was at the office at 10:00. So it was like a big difference. And so we would work out from 4:00 to 5:00 and then we would start working at 5:00. And so that was and then he was like, "Man, everybody always says that like you can't uh like work really hard like you have to trade off." He's like he's like, "They're just not willing to wake up early." He's like, "I get I see my kids at 4 or 5:00 every day." He's like, "I just wake up before they're up." And I was like, "What time does he go to bed?" He's going to bed at like 9. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's I go to bed at night, right? And so that actually just kind of stuck with me is that like there's so many hours before people wake up that like you can get like the high quality work done. But anyways, did the three months with him and he was like, "Hey, there's this guy um who's got a gym like close by to where you want to open a gym. Maybe you guys should partner up." And I was like, "Cool, sounds good." Um so I found a spot, met the guy, and uh we were like, "Okay, which is terrible way to do a partnership. Like you guys both have the exact same role and let's just split a facility, which makes no sense." But anyways, um he was like, "We should go to this marketing event." And I was like, "Sure, marketing is important." Like, I didn't know anything. Um and he's like, "Yeah, it's the guy said that if you don't make $10,000 by the end of the weekend, uh you can get your money back." It was $3,000. And I was like, "That's a lot, you know what I mean, of money, like I don't have a ton." And so, um I I decided to do it because I was like, "Well, if I don't make 10 grand, I'll get the money back, right?" Um I did make 10 grand at the end of the weekend. I did not. But he did teach this thing that was kind of crazy and new at the time called Facebook ads. This 2013 and so um learned uh learned enough to understand that there was like something here. Went back to Sam's gym which was the guy Hold up. Hold on. Did you get your money back? I didn't. No, I didn't ask for it, but I I learned enough. So, you didn't make the amount of money that they made anything. I didn't make any money. You made no money with your Facebook. They promise we'll give you the money back and you didn't get the money back. Yeah. They said you can ask for it. It's just like I wasn't ask for it was it was three grand. He said if you don't make 10 grand by the end of the weekend, you can ask for your money back. How are people making 10 grand by the end of the weekend? I take it through setting up a Facebook uh like a Shopify store, running Facebook ads. It would be like lead ads to a call, then you sell them something. Got it. Yeah. I mean, so like and I was the only guy there who didn't have a business. So like from a selection standpoint, I shouldn't have been selected to attend. So it was like a tiny little workshop of like 10 10 dudes who all owned gyms. And so they had businesses that they could like sell people into. Oh, I didn't have anything. I was like, what am I supposed to sell? But I like I he had like this how you build landing pages, how you build ads. And I was like just trying to like understand it. Um and I didn't. But like I got enough of it to go back to Sam and be like we should run Facebook ads. And he was like doesn't work. It's like I tried it once. It's not it's not for us. And I was like well give me a budget. I'll I'll I'll figure it out. And so I ran ads at his gym and we killed it. And so I was like, "Okay, awesome." Like, "I'm going to do this at at the gym that I'm now starting with this partner." And the night before the lease was supposed to get signed, uh, the partner couldn't come up with half the money to do the gym. And so the night before I ended up assuming the entire gym. Um, how much did that cost? So it was supposed to be both. We're going to put 25 grand in. Um, and I had 60. And so it went from uh me having like some padding to no padding. Uh, so it was 50 grand and I had 60. Um, and so I had like $10,000 left, which is enough for two months rent, um, at that gym. So I stopped living at the the place in Chino. Um, and started sleeping at the gym because I couldn't afford two rents. And so um, I remember selling the entire first month and making exactly $4,973, which is the exact amount of the rent. And so then I just watched it go back down to zero. And I was like, this sucks. Um, but the next month we made 10 grand. The next month we made 15, then 20, then 20. It was like five grand a month all the way up to like 35,000 a month pretty much by month. Then um I started hiring people and bringing people in and then at by month like nine it was it was all outsourced. So I had the like a manager and some trainers and whatnot. Then I had two guys come in. There's a very long story here like like I can I can skip through it. But um anyways it started it started working. Started opening um a new location every 6 months because we kind of did something a little different where we figured out I could liquidate the cost of acquisition for new customers and make money in the acquisition. And so like I would put a dollar in and I would get $30 back before having a backend. So it was like it was almost more advantageous to just open more gyms because I made some money. But what was that one to30? Yeah. So it's like walking through the process. It's like if I had um $2 leads, right? And I know that I'm going to close one out of five leads. It's like my cost of acquisition is 10 bucks and I'm selling a $500 thing. And then 48 hours later I'm going to sell $250 of supplements. And then 3 weeks after that I'm going to sell them a year paid in full upfront with a discount. And so if you follow the cash flow, it's like I put $10 out and then I got 500 and then I got 250 and then I got a,000. And so it's like it was insane. What was the business model of the gym? Like how many people would be signing up for it? How many people would be actually showing up? What was the cost of that? Yeah. So we sold we kind of had a different model than most people. And I think that's why it ended up working well is that most gyms tend to like I call it like the sell your soul problem, which is like you just they just give away as much as they possibly can on the front end to attract people. but it attracts in general less committed people. They don't actually follow through because they don't really value it. Um, and so we just kind of flip the model on its head, which is like charge people when they're the most excited upfront. Uh, so like charge them $500 for define program rather than a membership because no one really wants a membership. They just want like a result. So sell them the result and then put like a really compelling guarantee around that. Um, and so the offer that we had at that point was like lose 20 pounds and you get all the money back. And so people were like, "Oh, that's awesome." So, it's like they kind of like bet on themselves to hit the goal. But once they were in the mousetrap, it didn't really matter because as soon as they came in, we'd sell them products. So, that would already cover even if they did refund cuz they were going to buy the products and that wasn't refundable. And then, you know, 3 weeks in, it's like, "Hey, you know, Lucy, you just lost 12 lbs. You need to hit 20. Once you hit 20, are you like you done forever? Like, your body's perfect." And they're like, "No, I really want to keep going." And you're like, "Right. So, then you understand that this is not about 6 weeks. It's about 6 years. So, why don't we just take that, you know, $500? I'll give it to you like you want it and we'll just credit it towards you staying. And she's like, "Okay." And it's like, "Cool, new agreement signed and then the money disappears, right?" And so it didn't really matter. And so, um, and then, yeah, and we'd give them, you know, a paid in full for the year discount if they wanted to like pay it all then or we just discount it off of like the next 12 months or whatever. Got it. How did lose the 20 pounds? How do you stick with that? Is that with a trainer or is it like if you follow this planned outline? Yeah. So, there was three things, right? I mean, I'm going to get in my my fitness selling days, but it's like fitness, nutrition, accountability. So, like fitness wise, you got to work out of the gym three times a week with a trainer. We'll walk you through everything. We'll show you what to do. Can you do that? Yes. Cool. Second thing is nutrition. We'll walk you through a nutrition plan that's made specifically for you. You'll have, you know, grocery list, food, preparation, instructions, eating out guides, everything that you need to make sure that you can get to where you're trying to go and make it as easy as possible. I've got kids who don't speak English and 12-year-olds who can do it. Do you think you can handle that? They say, "Yes." And he's like, "Great." Third thing is accountability. So, it doesn't matter what plan. I sold 4,000 of these. So, I can still do it and spend 10 years. Um, and so it's like, you know, I can give you the best plan in the world and the, you know, best training, best nutrition, but if you don't show up, it doesn't matter. Right. Right. Okay, cool. So, the reason that we have such a high success rate is that we have three forms of accountability. One is that you have peerto-peer accountability of other people you're going to be starting with who are in the same spot as you. Next is you have alumni accountability. So, people further ahead of you who are going to be pulling you and cheering you ahead because they've done it. And then you've got expert accountability from the coaches who've done this 100 times, right? And the last one and the most important one is that the reason we have the success rate we do, which at that time we were doing about 78% of people who started will hit the goal, which is pretty impressive. It's actually way more impressive than most like weight loss programs, is that people basically make a bet on themselves. And so, so you pay $500, you do everything, you hit the goal, we'll give you the whole thing back, right? And that was pretty much the explanation. So, it's like that makes sense. So, how much money were you making from like actually selling the the membership or whatever? because you said you're giving that money back to them versus how much your money we didn't actually if you follow the cash. Right. So it's like right right versus how much money you're making like with the supplements and with like all of these other things. So it was like about 50/50 in terms of like membership on the back end ver like cuz like in the beginning there's way more front-end sales than there's back end and then the back end continues to grow and kind of compound. Um but yeah, we was like about 50/50 between front end and back end in terms of like cash flow. Got it. Because I know with a lot of gyms, don't they try to get a lot of people in around New Year's just expecting that like 80% of people are never going to show up? It depends on the type of gym. So it the gyms kind of exist on a continuum. On this side, you've got like what I call facility leas um gyms which are like, you know, Anytime Fitness, Planet Fitness, like they just the the business model is based on 92% of people not showing up. Like it couldn't work because if if if 100 people 100% of people actually showed up, they would have to charge $200 to $300 a month because there wouldn't be space. Okay. So once you've started expanding these gyms, yeah, why not just continue on that? It was a great question. Yeah. So I yeah, I had six um and I had my next four location so I was going to get to 10. I had United Fitness. It was going to be like America's gym. I was like very motivated to do it. Um and I joined an internet marketing mastermind uh which was like a ClickFunnels mastermind by Russell Brunson. This is like 6 years ago or seven years ago. And um anyways, I I I went there and the sales guy was like, "Oh yeah, there's tons of like gym owners here." And I mean I I I it's all like we're all good, you know what I mean? But like um he's like, "Yeah, tons of guys like, you know, learn and they make even more money doing internet stuff or whatever." And I was like, "All right, cool. If there's other gym owners and stuff, like cool." So I show up. I'm the only brickandmortar business owner. Every single person in the group is an internet person. And I was like, "What am I doing here?" Um and I think at the time it was like $25,000. So like I had more money at this time, but it was still a significant chunk of change. Um, and so I got up there and I was like, well, I kind of just walked them through what I just walked you through. I was like, this is my model. This is how we car customers. This is our LTV. This is our cost of acquisitions. How much it cost me to open a gym. This is how many like gyms I can open per per month based on this cash flow, whatever. And I like talked really fast and I was like, "So, what do you guys think?" Yeah. And um, Russell at the time was like, "I don't think you should be in the gym business." And I it like it actually like killed me cuz I was like in front of all these people. I like gave this like whole spiel about like why I thought it was awesome. And he was like, I think you should be showing other people how to do exactly what you just talked through. And um and then he said like the sentence that changed my life, which was um I think you have a level 10 skill set and a level two opportunity. He's like, I think you should be like building these types of businesses, not like opening and running gyms. And so that really changed my life because at that point I was like well either I don't listen to the guy and just continue down this path or I you know accept that he has more money than me and therefore you know I don't I necessarily think it's black and white now but you know I was like he has a lot more money than me and if I don't listen to him then why did I pay for this? And so I was like okay. And so in the next 90 days I sold all my gyms. Um not for a ton of money. I think in cumulative like I think I sold them for like maybe 300 grand. It wasn't a lot. It really why so much? But you were making so much money off the gyms. I was making like there's overhead and every all the cash flow like I wasn't taking dividends which is a which is a lesson I can talk about later. Um so like I took all the cash in each gym and just opened up new gyms, right? And that was like basically what I did. Um, and like I like I feel like through like my entrepreneurial journey, it's been like I very much have come from the the extreme side of like selling and value and building stuff that people want and then there's like this other extreme which is like investors and I think as you like age you kind of meet in the middle cuz I've got some friends who like started investing and then they started buying small businesses and they started getting better at business, they started getting better at marketing etc. Um, and then you know I'm I was on this side like I understood how to like make money but then like didn't really understand like capital allocation. I didn't understand like how debt worked. I didn't understand how like the like the equity in the companies actually had value. Like you know what I mean? Like for me it was just like all these gems are a lot of work. I wonder if somebody will just like take them off my hands. And so um I probably could have waited like a year and like got them ready for sale and like you know cleaned up all the books and like done all that stuff. But um I've just been a huge proponent of opportunity cost and like within 30 days I was doing 100 grand a month in the next business. So like you know and I was taking home 100 grand a month which was more than I was taking home from the six gyms. Um so it was just like okay well that worked. And so like at the end of the day like whatever we should be doing could probably make us 10 times more than what we're currently doing. And like the faster we can switch to that thing Got it. Like it makes more sense. So how did you switch to teaching other people how to do that model? Yeah. So, um I was debating doing a franchise. Um so, there's there's three basically different models that you can do to expand a brick-andmortar service type business. You can either franchise, you can license, or you can um or you can do you can privately own them all, right? That's kind of like the the three big paths. Um I had a friend who had done the franchise thing. I flew out um to one of her facilities. We spent the whole weekend together. She showed me all all the pros and cons and she was like, "It's really slow. It's very ligious." And I was like, I'm like 26 at the time. I'm like, uh, I don't know if I want to deal with all that. That's kind of sucks. Um, on the private ownership side, I'd already done that. So, I was like, I guess I'll license. And so, um, but the in between there was like I wasn't even sure if I wanted to license still. So, I was like, well, I just know that I make a ton of money opening gyms. So, I'll just go and open a ton of gyms, but I'll just give the gyms to the other people. So, that's when gym launch actually started was I would fly out to a gym and I would fill it up doing all the stuff I knew how to do at my gyms and I would just keep all the money and they would get all the customers for free. So, that was the deal. So, I would risk my money, risk my time, do all that, like run all the ads, everything, and all the cash that I collected was mine, and then they would get 200 free customers that they would convert on the back end of their membership. How do you ensure that they actually do a good job with those customers, that you don't bring them a whole bunch of people, and they were just like, "All right, see you." Excellent, excellent, uh, question. Uh, that was the hole in the model. Uh, and so all these gyms that were coming to me who wanted the help were typically not that good, you know, uh, and and that's not a that's not an insult to them. just, you know, they didn't know what to do. Um, and so I would sell 200 people into a gym that currently had 70 members. They go from 70 to 270 in like 30 days. And they didn't have the systems, they didn't have the bandwidth, they didn't have the trainers, any of that. And so what ended up happening is I did that for and then we started getting like refunds and chargebacks. And I was like, what the hell? But like I'm the one who carries the bag on the processing cuz I was the one who processed the money. So they were doing a bad job, but I was the one who was holding the risk. Um, and so I uh like in two gyms at one point got on a chair and told every single person to refund cuz they were like, I just can't deal with all these people. Like just go home. They're literally just like go home. And so I had like $150,000 in refunds in a week. And that's when I was like, all right, I'm done with the gym business. Like you know, I had my gyms. I did this turnaround thing, which was almost two years that Leila and I were flying out to gyms. We scaled up to like eight sales guys doing eight gyms a month. So like it became an operation. We're doing I think at our highest month was like like 350, you know what I So, like it was it was a decentsized operation. Um, but we uh anyways, they did that and Ila, my wife now, had this little like side online business where she would like train people. And so I was like, you know what, screw this. Why don't we make you the front person? I'll be behind the scenes and we'll just take the eight sales guys and we'll just sell fitness direct and not do the gym thing anymore. And so that actually started to work. And so we started doing a,000 bucks a day within like 14 days. And so I was like, we take the eight guys, we'll do 8,000 a day. Like this could work. How do you build these businesses so fast? Every single business you've told me so far, it's like, "All right, in one week we're like doing 300 grand a year, you know, it's like, so I mean, acquisition.com, the reason it's called that is like acquisition has never been the bottleneck in any business I've ever had. Like we know how to get customers. Um, and so like we knew how to market and sell and so we knew how to do that and so that's what we did." So we knew how to run ads. We knew how to get on the phone and talk to people who didn't know us and get them to give us their money. Um, and so that's what we did. And then what ended up happening, this was like the craziest thing of my life is that I had eight gyms that were supposed to launch the next month and we started this thing started working her like the fitness thing. So I called up the first gym and was like, "Hey man, like changing model like I'm not flying out, you know, and they didn't pay for me to do this. They basically just reserved a date and I would fly out or one of our team, you know, would fly out. We'd launch the ads and we'd sell. I was like, "Sorry, man. Not going to happen." He's like, "Dude, I just refinanced my house. I maxed out on my credit cards like just to make this gym work. I've been doing this for 3 years. like you you launched my buddy's gym and he's like totally pumped and his gym's packed. Like I need like you have to do this. And I was like, "All right, man. Um I'm not flying out. Like I'm not I'm not going to do what I did." I was like, "But I can I can show you how to do it. Um I'm call my getting out of the gym business like sell my secret sale." Um he was like, "Well, how much?" And I was like, and I remember thinking like the highest number I could possibly imagine, which was at the time $6,000. Like that was like the highest number I could just to show you where I was. Um he was like, "Done." And I just remember like staring at the phone and being like, "Holy [ __ ] $6,000." Like, "Hot damn." Um, and so I, you know, called the next guy, had the exact same conversation. He was like, "How much?" And I was like, "Eight grand." And he was like, "Okay." And I called the the next six guys and we did like $60,000 in sales in that day just selling like my entire like system of how I would fill the gyms up and all that stuff. And I was like, "Holy shit." And I looked at I was like, "I think we're still in the gym business." I was like, "I think we're just doing it wrong." And so then I called back all the 30, 40 gyms that we had already done the turnarounds for and I was like, "Remember how I filled your gym up?" They're like, "Yeah." I was like, "Remember how I made all that money and you didn't?" They were like, "Yeah, you for that." And I was like, "Want me to show you how I did it?" And they were like, "Really?" And I was like, "Yeah." They were like, "Done." Cuz they'd seen how much money I had taken out of their gym. And so I like overnight I'd sold like we did like 300 like we again did like 300 grand. This time there was no operational drag because it was just like the same like the cost of making the thing once versus selling it 100 times was the same. And that was when I basically understood the the value of having leverage. So could you explain acquisition.com? So yeah, what does it do? Yeah. What's the process? Um it's it's we call it value acceleration capital, but if you were to look at like three circles on a table and you've got like private equity, uh venture capital, and then management consulting, it's kind of like the intersection of those three. So it's like we deal with companies that are typically smaller than most private equity. So ours are like$1 to10 million in IBIDA. So so for people who don't know what that means, it's just like fancy word for profit. Just use it as that, right? Um the amount of money that a company's taking home. Most of the companies that we're working with are like three is the minimum topline cut off. Most of times they're at like five to like 25 millionish. Um I think the smallest company we have right now is 5 million. Next smallest is like 10. So like and then after that they're all bigger. Um, and so what we do is we we take a minority stake in the company. Um, and I'm using this as kind of my way to practice being a majority owner without being a majority owner. So we're doing everything exactly as we would if we were to take over the entire company. Um, and so we kind of follow a three-step process. So the first thing we do is we we we get the data infrastructure in place. And so typically a company of that size that's doing like you know 1 million 2 million 5 million in IBIDA um you know they got there pretty quickly. They don't have infrastructure. The reporting's their finances are terrible. Like everything's a mess but like they know how to sell and they've got some product market fit. And so um we go in and just get all of the data correct so we can actually like make good decisions. So once we have the correct data uh then we come up with kind of our strategic plan of like okay what kind of company do we want to build? Where do we think like the biggest leverage opportunities exist? And then we put them all out and then we're like, "Okay, there's a lot of things we could do. What are the two things we're going to do?" And then we just disregard everything else and just ruthlessly focus on those two things. And then um and then the third kind of arm of what we do is we're very good at recruiting. And so like the reason we want to build so many companies is that we're very good at finding talent. And so um kind of an interesting framework for for you guys or for your audience is I think a lot of times we talk about like pipelines in terms of like building businesses. It's like how do I turn raw attention into leads into prospects into customers etc. But there's a second acquisition channel which is like how do I market to get applications that I then interview which is the same as the sale just internal right and then how do I onboard which is the same as onboarding a customer and then how do I ascend which is same thing how do I ascend a customer so there's mirror mirror acquisition pipelines that are happening on both sides of a business as this one flows in with new customers you so too need one that flows in u with recruiting to build the infrastructure of the company and so most of the times the companies we're working with have this sort of and none of this and they don't have the infrastructure upon which to And so it's like we get the right data to make the right decisions and then we fill the people that can actually execute that vision. So that like a lot of times people most entrepreneurs think and and rightfully so usually like under 3 million 5 million like the entrepreneur needs to learn more. Um and typically the company will be a subset of the entrepreneurs knowledge. So it's like I can do every job in my company better than all the people who are currently doing it and all of them have learned from me. That's a really terrible way to build a business because it's literally just you and no one's smarter than you and businesses are always the the the accumulation of all of the brains in it. But if the brains are all a subset of yours, it's the accumulation of one brain, which the bigger your brain, great. But but like it's way better to have like 10 good brains that that all know different things. And so that's when uh we kind of have to be like it's not about you learning more. Like we need to get someone who's already done this 10 times in companies just like this. So we need to go find a director of finance. we need to go find a, you know, a controller. We need to go find, you know, a recruiter. We need to go find X, Y, and Z to really build the company into what it needs to become rather than like the uh transition from the genius with a thousand hands, uh, which is what most companies are at that point to like an actual company that has people who can drive growth in their respective apartments. Probably just talk straight for like an hour. So, yeah. What's what's the end goal with it? Do you want to now sell this or is your is your goal is to have a whole bunch of small ownership interest? I think eventually I'll I'll do majority buyouts. Um, but I think for the next 5 years minimum, I'm focused on these minority deals to prove track record. Um, but I'm not planning on raising money. Um, I don't need it. Um, I want to there's a lot of checkboxes that acquisition.com met, which is like I wanted to have something that uh I would have a lot of new different businesses that I could like interact with. Um, I wanted to still have one singular focus, which was a difficult uh balance to strike between those things, which is why I ended up selling the majority of those three to just go all in on the portfolio being the one thing rather than like I have three companies and I have my portfolio, which for me I can't handle. Um, most people are probably better than I am and that's probably they can do it, but I can't do it. Um, and so, uh, it had to have a way that I could actively get returns on my own money because like it's great to invest, but like I know the stuff that I'm buying. I I know what it's worth and I know how to improve it. Um, so I can just I can just get so much better value from my money um, in doing these types of transactions and these types of deals. Um, and so ultimately I want to build something that I don't ever want to sell. I don't think I'm going to transact like the only type of transaction that I would ever do would be some sort of like very minority participation of like Mosy Nation friends and family and things like that. I might sell like 5% to like everyone who knows me and just to be like trust me like just put this in your pocket and wait 20 years like cuz I I think that we have a a pretty cool opportunity and we're very good at like we've built six uh multi-figure businesses in the last 5 years. So like we know this process and so I just want to prove it out with like 50 or 100. And in terms of like the why because like I don't need the money obviously. Um, like the mission of the company is like rings true to my heart, which is just like it's to document and share the best practices of building world-class companies. It's like what I love. It's like why I wrote the book. It's why I do the channel. It's why I make the courses. Like I just I just love business. Yeah. Do you invest? It doesn't sound like you invest at all. It It seems like you have no index funds. You own no real estate. You're just like, why would I waste my time earning a measly 8% a year when I could just buy another business? No, I um so actually you'd be surprised. Um, I have I have probably a quarter of my cash in indexes. Um, I've got uh probably Do you mind talking numbers? Yeah, sure. I've got about 60 million bucks. Um, like that's not like equities in companies that are not like publicly traded. So, like I would consider a commercial apartment building or a stock stuff that people would accept as like money. Whereas like my equity in a company that's doing 30 million a year, what is it worth? It depends on the day, right? You know what I mean? Um, so like that's what I have. And so like it's basically split up between um indexes, um, indexes, uh, real estate, just big multi- um, buildings. I try and do like fewer. So like just a handful of like multi-million dollar like um, allocations cuz like at some point like it doesn't make sense to put like 100 million sorry $100,000 or like $250,000 allocations like it just it's just too. So are you investing in um, like like syndicates for that money or you're doing it yourself? Well, I'll share something with you. So, um I learned from a mentor um who sold his company which is in the real estate um space for 3.6 billion and I was like, "Hey, man." Who is it? I I won't share cuz he doesn't want his numbers public. All right. But anyways, he sold his real estate thing. Um and uh I was like, "So, what do you think I should do?" And he's like, "Well, with the" He's like, "The slugs that you're putting in," he's like, "You should just always have you should always be participating in the GP." Um and so for everyone who's watching like you have your limited partners and you have your general partners. So limited partners normally will will contribute the majority of the capital. General partners will actually run the deal and there's usually some sort of agreement between them in terms of the split. There's some sort of pref you know preference or some sort of you know split in terms of after the fact like there there's a million ways to structure those agreements. And so he's like well if you're going to be putting up the money for these deals and if you can do like a third or half or more of the entire deal he's like you should just also get a corresponding percentage of the general partnership. And so like we realized that and then you know after talking to lots of different GPS we're like all right what are the handful of people that we want to do business with that we like and then we were just like listen we'll just fund all your deals like just like when you see another you know $30 million building I was like we'll just fund it like and then we'll just like there won't be LPs it'll just be us and we'll fund it and we'll just have a simple arrangement. How do you do your taxes? I'm thinking of all of this thinking like it's got to be a stack of like that. It's not as complex as you think cuz like all the stock stuff is like automatically generated. Um, and then you know we don't and because of like in the very beginning Leila and I were like all right let's try and participate in these like real estate things and I think we allocated like $1.5 million between like eight deals and I was like this is stupid let's not do this cuz like they would be like hey can you sign I was like dude like the fact that you asked me to sign this is not worth the time. Um and so uh we stopped doing that and we're like all right what's our minimum allocation size and it's like 5 million bucks those are the chunks that we're doing and so like if it's not that I don't care and so that's kind of like what and so now it's just like we have two or three operators that we work with that can that do that are doing deals in those sizes and so like when they come with a really good one and then we're like yeah we'll do it we'll take it down or we're like we won't but I want to do that but they pre but they like pre-screen you know I mean and and like the nice thing is that like when you're not on like the traditional LP you're not just like on their their list of 100 investors that they're going to go and try and get 50 to 100 grand from, right? Like you're just a a nothing for us. It's like, dude, if we take the whole deal down, like make it good, you know? Like I'm making your life easier. Make my life easier. So like everybody wins. That's awesome. Yeah. So that's what we do on that side. And then um and then I I still have a big chunk in cash and um I'm just not that in afraid of inflation. It's just not as big of a deal for me. Mostly because I just own businesses. So like I can adjust prices if I need to. And I think it's just in terms of a percentage. It's like if if 3% of your portfolio is in cash Oh, no. It's like way harder than that. Even 5%. It's like way harder than that. 10. Oh, no. We're like 25% cash. 25%. Oh. Oh, wow. So 25% of 60 million. Yeah. But 15 mil. Why is that just for to find deals as they come up? Yes. Okay. Um we I have considered actually putting it into like a dividend ETF um and then just taking loans against it to fund the deals. It's something that I'm literally actively thinking about. Um I think there's just like peace of mind. Um and as you probably just saw from my decision to sell three companies in one year and a house and two cars. Um I sold everything last year. Um literally all my material possessions. Um why did you do that? Just wanted to clean slate. You know what I mean? Like every five years or so I feel like I have like I had like three seasons. I had like my college and management consulting season. Um I had my gym ownership season. I had my gym launch prestige labs Allen season and then like this is like the season of acquisition.com. So it's like it's always been in like that three to five year season range and so like every time I end up usually just like cleaning the slate focus. How does your wife feel about that? Oh, she's fine with she doesn't care. Well, she works with me in the business. She's co-CEO. Cool. So we actually met um so our first date I just pitched on working for me cuz I was like listen this might not How did you meet her? Do that. I was like, "This might not work out." I was like, "But like like if you can cuz she could sell. She was the top salesperson for 24-hour fitness um for all of our Is that how you met her?" Not I met her through uh Bumble, but dude, no way. Met her through Bumble. And then she told me she was the top sales rep. And I was like, like if you can sell, we can make a ton of money together. And she was like, "Okay." She was like, "I want to learn how to market." And I was like, "Well, I just so happened to know how to do that." And so, um, yeah. So, I was like, "I'm going to start this company called Gym Launch." And then she was like, "Whatever." And the next time she saw me, I was like, "Look, I got the bank accounts. I got the corporate." And she was like, "Oh [ __ ] you're like really doing this." I was like, "Yeah, like yes, I'm doing it." Um, I was like, "You should quit your job and join me." And she was like, "I literally just met you." And I was like, "Yeah, you should totally quit your job and join me. Like, I'm going to go like fly around the country and launch these gyms." And she was like, "Uh, let me know how it goes." And so I launched the first three gyms, came back. Um, she picked me up from the airport. I hadn't taken her on a date yet. This is a funny story. And, um, and uh, I was like, "I will take you on this date. promise as long as you do this one thing for me first. And she's like, "What?" I was like, "You help me process these contracts." And so I had this stack of contracts that was like this high. And so I told her how to process them and we processed like 120 grand in in like an hour. And she was like, "What do you do again?" And and then and she like before I could even answer, she was like, "Is it legal?" But you know for a fact when you're handing her a stack of contracts with 120 grand, you're like, "All right, yeah, come join now. You see you see these numbers. You see what we're doing. You want to join." Did you start off as like employees first? to was she your employee first and then it evolved or what? No. So we we were it was literally like same time like we started dating and I was like you should quit your job and so like there was a lot of trust obviously you know what I mean and like and while I went to go launch these three gyms like I left and I was like hey here's my bank account and can you go pick up all the money at all my gyms and so she was like showing up as this girl that I'd only known for 10 days like with like a big bag where they would like put all the cash in and she'd be like thank you like a drug dealer like and she go to the next gym and like they just put all the cash in. She was like, "Do they not pay with check or like Well, so we had so anybody who bought physical products, well, people still use cash, you know what I mean? This was five years ago, too. Um, and so like we had a certain percentage of the sales that were I didn't have a cash register because I didn't want to encourage cash. It's theft and all that stuff. And so, um, if someone paid in cash, we had a little envelope system where they would like what was it for, the amount, and then they'd slide it in the safe and then we'd pick up the cash once a month. So, what did you sell the other year? Like you said, you sold everything. What was that? Like what? A house. You said two cars. So, I sold Allen, the software company, the strategic buyer. I can't disclose the price on that one. I sold the the supplement company, Prestige Labs. I sold Gym Launch. Um, I sold the majority shares of both of those or all three of those. And then I sold my house in Austin. Um, which was crazy. Um, it like doubled in value, which is cool. Um, so we sold Since Since you sold it? No, not since. So, we bought it for 1.8, we sold it for four. Got it. Um, in in three years, which is cool. Um, and I bought that all cash, no mortgage, so I actually have zero debt, which is um, ironic. Uh, everyone's like, "Dad's all smart." I don't know, whatever. I might just be It's very possible. Um, and so anyways, we sold that and then sold my cars. I had a Bentley. Um, which I only bought because like I hadn't spent money on really anything expensive. And then people were like, "Dude, you should buy something expensive." And I was like, "All right, I guess we'll like" Like we only had one car until like last year. What car was it? Uh, it was an i8, which I got as a gift um for being an affiliate of ClickFunnels. So, they give you an i8. Yeah, we sent him a lot of business. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Did Did Wow. Does Russell send you that like personally? Uh, basically he's like, "Here's the list of cars you can get." And I was like, "Can I just get like Can I just get the money?" And he was like, "No, you have to get the car." I was like, "Why is that for like marketing?" Yeah. Yeah. It's like you got you send him a picture and then like a video like, "Hey, Click's great." And then and then you get the car. So, um Yeah. So, so bought the i8. Um, ironically, couldn't even uh couldn't get a a loan for the i8 and we were doing like a million a month takeh home at the time. You know what I mean? Couldn't get a loan for it. Just no credit score. I've never had debt. Okay. I've like I've never had debt ever. So, like I don't have a besides credit cards like which like business credit cards like we I have no I have no history of repayment. I bought my house. You have no per you have no personal credit card. I have a personal credit card that gets paid off, you know, every month or whatever, but like I have no like loan. I don't have a mortgage. I have nothing. So, I'm going to take I think I'm going to try and take my first mortgage out of buying a house. So, it'll be exciting. Why? Just to have a history with a mortgage. Um Oh, why am I taking the mortgage out? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I think it makes like that seems like lowrisisk debt to me. You know, I was um I would say, you know, a lot of people poo poo on Dave Ramsey. He he introduced the concept of debt to me that I that I thought was valuable, which is like debt increases risk. Risk expended over a long enough time horizon can get you to zero. And my my tolerance for zero like the the marginal utility I have of more money is basically nothing. The the the marginal cost of me going to zero is very high. And so like I want to risk money ris I want to increase my risk to to get more of something that I don't need and risk something that I do have that I do need. Like if you just thought about it like that. Yeah. And so, you know, and when I think about like how am I going to become a billionaire? Um, right now I'm probably over like 100 million if you like took the other 40 million from like equities of the other companies that I own. And so, it's like I just have to 10x over the rest of my life. And so, but like I don't think I'm going to get there through indexes. I mean, I could if you put it 45 years out or whatever, but um I think that like it's the appreciation of equity which is where I'm going to get it through these companies that become something big. Um, and so just realizing that that's actually where my wealth is going to be built. I just everything in my life is built around just minimizing the amount of head space that it takes up so I can put it in the vehicle that that I get the highest return on. I wouldn't even get a mortgage. Why? I would just pay it on just continue doing what you're doing. Not even worth it. I think um we might I mean like I'm it's it's a nondecision. Like I don't I don't have a lot of emotional investment in it. Okay. Yeah. Walk us through like a normal day. Like what time do you get up? Because you said like you you showed up here and you're like, "No, I don't want coffee. I already had two coffees." Yeah. I was like I told you I was like, "We should do it at night." And you're like, "Okay, sure." And I said, "Sure, 7:30." Or I said something like that. And you're like, "Oh man, that's late." I was like, "You partying?" Um, no. I like we usually get up at 4:00 or 5. You know what I mean? Like I don't we don't we don't have an alarm clock. Uh, but we I have like I have a mental alarm clock for when I get exhausted and get sleepy. What time is it? Yeah, like between 9 and 10. Okay. 9 and 10. I'm usually going to bed. Okay. So I fall, you know, fall asleep at 10:00, wake up at 4:00 at 6 hours. Like it's fine. If I need more sleep, I'll sleep till 5. Like, you always been a morning person. Since I did that thing with Sam, since I went from like waking up and I mean, I've always been okay in the morning. Like I I I definitely now would be what I can't I can't strong word. I I don't work past like 4. So I'm like a like I usually work from like 4:00 or 5 until like 11:00 and that's when I get all my work done. And then from like 11 to 3:00 or 4 is when I do like meetings and stuff. And I've structured my day like that for a while and it works for me. What advice do you have for us? See, I need to pick I need to pick your brain on this. Yeah, I'm here. Let's rock. Give us advice. How do we make money? Well, you have like an insane audience. And so I think it's just like figuring out what what you know, I was talking to um uh Mr. beast uh and he was like and I I still have this recommendation. So if you do if you are watching this I still stand by what I said which is I feel like he should have um an energy drink called like beast mode or something. I was like every single like because it had to be something that like kids could consume. It had to be something that was mass market. It had to be something that had good repeat purchase. It had to be something that had good gross margins. And I was like so I thought about it for a while because we were we were talking about stuff. Um and I feel like I feel like he should have that for his channel. And so I feel I use that as an example of like I think that there has to be something that that within your audience would be really awesome that would be a good vehicle like um I know you know Grant Cardone right like he's been able to build you know a billion dollars worth of equity because he used a better vehicle than all the YouTubers but he doesn't have like more reach than YouTubers he has a better vehicle and so I think that it's it's that it's like I think the vehicle that most of them like the ad revenue and like course sales are like meh like who cares? I mean, like there's nothing wrong with it, but like there's there's better ways to skin the cat. And so, I think it's really um figuring out what high leverage play you can make there. So, that's where like fund vehicles or high leverage plays, you know what I mean? Like anything that's investment related is always a higher leverage play. And it's like, well, I don't know what I would necessarily invest in. It's like, well, then go acquire that skill or go find the guy who has that skill, bring them in, cut them a piece, and then be like, cool, here's this guy. He's awesome. Like, I'm putting all my money with this cuz XYZ, and you can too or whatever. Yeah. Um, obviously there's regulatory and all that stuff, but like you can do it legit. There's nothing different about that versus, you know, a guy on Wall Street doing the same thing. He's just like calling friends and family and calling lists from trust funds, you know what I mean? And you would just be hitting your own audience, which gives you your own upside. You mentioned Grant Cardone. I noticed that you posted this one video. I paid Grant Cardone. It was $120,000. Yeah. 13, I think. $130,000 over like what was it? It said 120. I actually now remember I think it was 130, but Yeah. Got it. Yeah. And that was over what, like four sessions or something. Yeah. So my wife got me a Christmas gift as a surprise. Yeah. And so she was like, "What can I get Alex?" And so she like called um Grant's office up and was like, "I want to pay $120,000." $120,000. I know. She skimped this year. I'm like really upset about that. Um I don't I'm kidding. Imagine. No, just give me the money. You think so, right? But like you guys have joint accounts. We need the Yeah. I mean, I I don't I've never logged into our account, so I don't I could all this money I could be making up. I have no idea. Like, and I mean, in terms of I'm not making it up, but I'm saying like, you just don't Yeah, she manages all stuff. I don't look Do you Okay, so when you're purchasing, how often would you say you purchase things? I mean, daily. And do you ever like think when you swipe? It's just like, okay, I think I need it. I kind of want it. That's what I've always been curious about, though. So, if you guys share an account and she buys the $120,000, is that gift kind of like you both are paying for it? Yeah. I mean, yeah. It's not like her her money, you know what I mean? Like, I was hustling on the side on Only Fans just for you. Like, it's like I'd rather you just not do that. Yeah. No, but she I mean she Yeah, she co-owns everything with me, you know what I mean? So, she's half the money is all hers anyways. Wait, what did you get her? That was for Christmas. Yeah. What did you get her? Um, actually something pretty cool. Um, I told her I was like, "This is my best present for five years. Like, you just got to give me credit next year, too." Um, so I got her this uh this there was like a whole presentation behind it. Um, which my assistant helped me with. Um, but uh got this uh photo book that had like all these pictures in it from like the early days until now. Like hundreds. It was like really well done. And then it was like, "Hey, we've made lots of memories together. Maybe we should make some more." And so got like uh the lady who does the photography sessions for Vogue um to do like a joint like we need more head shot and stuff. It's been like four years since we've done last one. So, I was like, let maybe I'll make a thing of something that would be a business expense. Um, and so we're going to do like a full day like uh like photo shoot for like, you know, it's new season, new new all my stuff's like gym stuff, so it's like new season, new pictures. So, that was the gift. Sounds lamer now that I'm describing to you, but like the photographer was nice. Yeah, it was cool. There was like some stuff around it. But yeah, that was uh that was but anyway, so she got me that because like what do you get somebody who like so like money has very little marginal utility, right? Like there's once you have enough there's there added value is very low, right? And so I was like well like for me everything I always value is like if I can get education or some sort of skill or belief that needs to be broken like that's all that I try and spend my money on. It's the highest and like is the best thing that I've gotten honestly in in a long time. Um, and so she called them up and they were like, "You can't do that." And she was like, "Just name a number. I'll do it." And then they was like, "I'm not sure. I'm going to have to call you back." And then the guy hung up. And she was like, "I thought this was a sales organization." She's like, "I'm here." I will pay you whatever you want. And so anyways, the manager called back and was like, "You will be dealing with me directly. Forget about that guy." Um, and he's like, "We can absolutely facilitate this." Um, and so I think it was 30,000 a call or something like that. How long were the calls? Um, an hourish. So, um, would you say you got $130,000 worth of value out of that? So, explain the calls. So, like how does the first call go? Have you met him yet at this point? Not in person. I mean, we met on Zoom. So, you had spoke to him previously. The the first call I had with Grant was a Zoom call. Oh, that was the first time you've ever spoken to him in Wouldn't you think? Uh, and when was this actually? Uh, about a year ago. I still haven't used all the calls. Got it. Okay. I've done two calls. I always think at at your level even a year ago that you would have access to Grant Cardone without the maybe I mean he's pretty busy. You know what I mean? And like I'm I don't like I'm I'm no one from like uh like I you know I mean like a year ago I didn't have an audience. I started making YouTube stuff a year ago. So like Okay. All that's new. Sure. Um but yeah. So I mean I didn't have anything to offer besides money. I was like I will I would happily pay you for time. So what what happened in the first call? Um I said, you know, these are the four kind of areas that I'm looking at and I'd like your context. And one of the things that's unique about Grant is that like he's he's he's he's followed a similar trajectory. Obviously, you know, he does his own vibe. He does his own thing. But like in terms of like actual doing this, like he was a car sales guy and then he started teaching car sales and then he went broader and started teaching sales. Um and then he transitioned to marketing briefly. Uh and then he transitioned to real estate which has been the main thing now. Um, and so with each of those kind of iterations, uh, he's grown bigger and wider, uh, in terms of what he's done. And so I was like, okay, you know, I was a gym guy and then I started teaching gyms and I started going more general. And so like there's a similar path there. And he also has a, I think, a good dynamic with Elena that I was like, I think that's cool. I think they have a good thing going there, which I which most people don't. Um, so I was like, okay, I would like to understand the fame machine is like my bullets. I was like, I'd like to understand the fame machine. I wanted to understand more about his how's actual businesses functioned. M um I want to understand the wealth machine in terms of how he sees it. Um and there was a fourth one I can't remember but I did have four and those are the I mean obviously I guess those are the the ones that I care about most now but um yeah so I I I asked him for context on the income thing which actually did help give direction for acquisition.com. So for me like did I make the $120,000 back like in five seconds you know what I And I think one of the things with like people see the prices, but like I think it's understanding like relative income and also relative to upside, which is like for for context, it's like if you make $10 million a year, right? It's like I'm making 20 times more than the average American household, right? Is that 10 million or 200? 200. There it is. 50K. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so 200 times more than the 50k. So take whatever price something costs and divide it by 200 and that's the relative cost. And so it's like, okay, I can't believe you go out to $200 dinners every night. I'm like, well, it cost me a dollar. Would you go out to a fivestar dinner if it cost you a dollar? Sure. Well then that's why we do it. You know what I mean? Like and uh like would you pay this $120,000 if it cost you whatever that is divided by 200, right? Less. Yeah. You know, whatever that is was 600 bucks to talk to Grant or 7800 bucks to talk to Cardone. Yes, I would do that. Absolutely. And so that's why we we do that. And then relative to upside is like I like only way that I like people are like I wish I could have access to Bill Gates, right? Yeah. $150 to talk to Grant credit, right? So it makes sense like to talk to um to Bill Gates, right? It's like there's nothing that Bill Gates can tell me. I don't think at this point that I could ever get what it would what it would cost me to pay him for his time. like I have to be bigger in order to have enough leverage to use whatever he would give me. So like if I'm at like a billion and he's at a hundred billion, he's a hundred times bigger than me, but like he could give me something that for the relative small amount of time to pay him, I could get enough leverage to go from 1 billion to 10 billion. Like that's reasonable. But if you're like a $100,000, you don't you don't there's no lever you can pull on, right? That's going to make make up the delta. And so it's like I'm a big believer in like trying to go two steps ahead, but like 10 steps ahead just makes no it makes no difference. You know what I mean? Like there's so far like the cost because we're like I should pay Grant Cardone and you're like I'm like dude you're a sales guy. There's nothing he can tell you besides like save your money which there you go. You know what I mean? Like like for me I had things that I I was like I've got these three portfolio companies. This is what I'm doing with my money. I'm consider you know and like when I was thinking about doing the sale I talked to him about that. I was like what do you think about this? And you know, he he basically said like don't don't sell if it's financial. He's like, but there are other reasons to sell, which if you don't want to own it anymore, you want to do something else, then then then do it. You know what I mean? But it's not from from a financial standpoint doesn't make sense. And so we were in agreement on that, but I ended up pulling the trigger for other reasons. How many calls have you done with them so far? Two. I did a podcast, which is got what got aired that actually wasn't a coaching call. That was a podcast for like the community. But um so I've done three calls technically, but two of them were coaching calls. And the two calls that were coaching calls were not aired. Not because I didn't want to, but he they weren't recorded for whatever reason. There was like a text malfunction. It's funny that you paid $40,000 or whatever it was per call. 30,000 and uh and then you held on to like the tickets that you have like the coupons or whatever for the calls. What if you held on for like 10 years and Grant is then worth, you know, like billions of dollars or something like that? Right. Then you c can you still use this? Probably. That's funny. I mean Grant Grant. So, as much as like a lot of people talk a lot of crap about Grant, but like haven't met Grant. Um, he was incredibly respectful. He's super attentive. He like writes notes during the calls. He like pays attention like and he genuinely came from a place of trying to help. And so, like I have I have nothing but, you know, respect and he's been nothing but helpful for me. You were telling uh uh me something earlier about the mustache as far as branding is concerned. That's why I mentioned Jack shaved the mustache. I shaved my mustache. I got to say I'm not a fan of the mustache personally. Oh, I thought you were gonna say that you're now like realizing that it was good for me to have a mustache. It looks in your in your podcast, The My First Million that you did, you're talking about personal branding. Uh could you explain this because I do think it's really interesting and I and I do think that uh uh Jack, you should probably hear this. And I'm I'm going in with an open mind. Well, I just don't understand why you get rid of so much raw masculinity in one fell swoop. You know, you're like, "I'm not a fan of the stash." It's like, I'm not a fan of the feminine face. No, I'm just kidding. Um, no, but uh but on the on the show I read a book by Dan Kennedy and I think in some paragraph somewhere he was like people who have recognizable facial features are um are more easily remembered. Um and so it helps for branding and things like that. And so I was like okay. And um I fell into the mustache. It wasn't supposed to be like the stash. I had that in the back of my mind. Um but I ended up just doing a porn stash for my first event because I was like so nervous to like I was like what if I tank or what if no one likes me or whatever. And so I was I did that to like look at myself in the mirror and be like you will survive. You have a porn stash. Like this is all a joke and it's all gonna be okay. And so anyways, I got out and I think the event really went really well and like twothirds of the dudes the next week all had porn stashes who came to the event. And so so like it just like instantly just became a thing. And so then I was like I guess I can't shave this. And so 5 years later like I didn't shave it pretty much until um until co hit. And then I was just like burnt out um at that point. But um I'll probably bring the stash back at some point. But now I have a beard. So But you were telling me uh what was it? A buddy in college. Yes. Right. Also had a mustache. Oh, so he Well, he was dipping. That was his issue. So um I'll tell you Yeah. What's dipping? Uh really? Oh, like putting like tobacco in your lip like dip? Oh, like the baseball players. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So there's chewing tobacco and then there's like dip which is like smaller pouches and stuff or dirt. Um but anyways, I was in college. I was a pledge and this guy that I was driving home because that's what you do in your pledge is drive, you know, drunk brothers home with the girls that they have in the back. Um, and uh, and this girl was with this guy who was like notorious for like always pulling the hottest girls and all this stuff and he was like a senior and uh, and he was still dipping while this girl was like while while he was like making out with this girl like he still had tobacco in his bath still like and she was like, "Ah, dip is so disgusting." Um, and he was like pledge. He was like lesson listen. And I was like, "Oh god." Cuz either he's like going to haze me or something or, you know, and he was like, "She's more attracted to the fact that I don't give a [ __ ] about what she thinks than she is disgusted by the dip in my mouth." And I which was ridiculous, but also probably true. And so I think um I think the stash is a lot like that, which is like because I think you asked me like, "How does your wife feel about the stash?" I think at the end of the day she would care. She'd be more attracted to me being unattracted by a choice of haircut. If I was not being me to have a more quote attractive haircut, that would be a far bigger turnoff than than me just being me. I think that's very true. That was that was my that was my porn stash and dipping uh life lesson. I just thought that was really interesting. But from like a brand standpoint, well, I actually had to uh license out likeness for the stash uh in the sale of the business. So, it was definitely a thing enough that it was like had to be listed as a line item on intellectual property. So, is the beard intentional too for No, I just happened to have one and I like it was like scruff they got too long and then was like keep it. I was like it seems like you're going for kind of a look though like like a like a like you just came out. Yeah. You know, a lumberjack. You look like Hugh Jack fan. You look like him. These are so comfortable. Like this is stretchy. I know. Well, I know because there's no way to get your biceps through like a normal nonstretchy channel. Well, no, they're insane. I've been looking at them the whole time, man. They're insane. Oh, yeah, man. We're going to We're Oh, yeah. We're going We're going all the way, man. We're going all the way. I got to hit the gym right after this. No, me too. Seriously, do you want to go to the gym now? Anyways, uh Wow. It wasn't really So, so I've been consistently just always trying to optimize off function. And so like these shirts are super comfortable, but I also have like four temperatures cuz like right now I'm a little hot. Um, and so like so there's four temperatures with this shirt. And I actually stopped wearing t-shirts cuz like beers are awesome. And so I just like recently discovered these and I was like I will wear these forever. I think you should. How much are they? Beers like 5 cents. These for nothing. Oh, you're talking about the beater. I thought you were talking about the Oh, the flannel. These are actually really expensive. I'm kind of embarrassed by probably 250. What? They're like one Yeah, they're like 200 bucks. I thought that you got coupon every time and get like and get like 30 40 bucks off. You should be getting this for free. I probably should. But I'm not good at the influencer games. You know what you should do is a handlebar mustache. I Well, that's what I that's what I kind of had for was like gunslinger. Yeah, but I think go all the way down. All the way. I just connected the chest area just all the way down. Um but yeah, so this is cool because I if I if it gets cold I can button up and I can roll the sleeves down. If it gets a little warmer, I can roll the sleeves up and keep it buttoned. I can open it and keep the sleeves rolled or I can keep it open and roll the sleeves down. So, I have four different temperature settings and I can take it off. So, like I have tons of temperature adjustment with one setting. And with this, I have the beater and I've got like basically Hawaiian shirts and I've got flannels. So, it's like when it's summer, I'll switch to Hawaiian and it's winter and I'll have flannels and I can just have beater as the base and I don't have any t-shirt. You need an affiliate link. Like you got to buy a minority stake in this this I probably should. I have a lot. I literally have all of the colors of the shirt. Oh my gosh. Now, Jack, do you want to tell them about your walk? Do you want to mention that? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. This is al also something I I haven't told you. So, basically, I planned on I I plan on walking from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Tomorrow. Actually. Yeah. That's insane. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and basically I I talked with Grim about it. I kind of wanted to make a video around it. I walked this amount of x miles, 300 miles for a Tinder date. That was the the plan of the video. And then I spoke with Graham about it and Graham was like, you know, it's not really different if you walk 300 versus 100, at least like for the audience. And 100 might even look better than 300. And I was like, well, makes sense. It's a lot less walking, too. Mhm. Uh I just figured Los Angeles to Las Vegas because it's like I drive that all the time and I was like, yeah, why not? It's it sounds kind of fun. Uh so I might actually now just walk 100 miles. It still sounds terrible. Really? I mean, it's a lot. I mean, that's like four marathons. Well, here's my thought. Five. Yeah. Well, it's St. George, so you did 120. It sounds good to say I walked from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Does it really? It does. But your title was I walked 300 miles for a dinner date. Terrible, right? And so I thought between 300 and 100 people can conceptualize 100 more than they can 300. Just like we say how to make $100 a day in passive income, we never say how to make $300 a day, even though that's three times more. See, I figured I walked to Los Las Vegas from Los Angeles is not that great of a title because it's like it's restricting your audience because you have people coasters to know the difference the distance between, you know, LA and then Las Vegas. But if you say, I walked this amount of miles for a Tinder date, then it's universally What about you said hours? If you're like, I walked for no here's how you do it. I walked from Los Angeles to Las Vegas would be your title and the thumbnail would show 300 miles. Boom. that I was going to do a Matthew Beam type thumbnail like day six and it's me like like this and like I have like the crazy, you know, eye bags and stuff like that. You could do that title. Yeah. But but the thing is that if you don't walk all the way and you want something like walking to a Tinder date, then that gives an alternative title. So for Tinder date, I think it's 100 miles. I think Tinder date is probably the way to go. I think that's pretty clickable. But I'm planning on doing that and I think we're going to leave for St. George now instead. In Utah, it's 120 mi. So, you have to find a date. I don't know, man. I think you uh you sold yourself short there. [Laughter] What are you talking about, Alex? That's it. That's it. That's all you're going to say? I mean, you're going to say anything else? You hyped up this whole You've been telling Graham and I, "Oh, I'm going to walk to Yeah. Alex, but you're like, "Hold on." But before this video idea, the whole reason you told us that you wanted to do this walk was, you know, you were so passionate about you wanted to do it. And then all of a sudden now it's like, "Oh, well, now I'm doing a video." And then now it's like, well, you know, 100 miles does seem better clickable, so now I'm just going to walk 100 miles. You know what it was? You know what it was? shifted from a personal adventure to a YouTube video and optimizing for Well, if I'm going to do it, it makes sense to do it for you. Are you letting the YouTube tail wag the life accomplishment dog? I It's a hard analogy for me to understand, but I'm assuming no. Is the tail wagging the dog? I I don't think so. No, it's not. But here's the thing, man. I brought this walk up to you guys and you guys shot it down and you kept saying, "It's stupid. It's dumb. It's idiotic. You should not be doing this." And I'm like, and now all of a sudden when I change the the the range, so it's not 300, it's 120. You guys are like, "Oh, no. It's a, you know, you're doing it for the the whale tag." When when Jack brought this idea to me, he was filming. He was filming and uh I was critical of the idea cuz we and we were both filming. So like I was filming for the vlog and Jack was Jack was filming for his channel telling me about this idea. And I'm thinking, well, you know, if you look at the value of your time, what are you going to get from this? What is this going to do for you? And I was like, we should use that time to get more sponsors. And like that was like we have every episode is completely filled with sponsors, but we could do more. We could I don't want to put in more sponsors. It's I just thought there there are other things like from a utility point of view. And then he was explaining it's not utility point. It's it's a personal thing that he wants to do for himself that would help his personal growth. And it's more it's a it's a lot of things. Yeah. And then I was like, okay, well then, you know, well then you just got to do it. What if you just did it and didn't YouTube it? I would do that, but I the thing is I don't think it's smart to just take two weeks off to do this walk. And also, I've been training recently for this walk a little bit, 10 mile days, and it kills my legs. My legs are toast. 10 miles to take two weeks off, but it's hard. So, here's the thing. It's hard, man. Like, I had to ice bath my legs. Oh my god. Jack, explain this to me. Like, cuz I was like, Jack, how are you going to take like 10 days off? What about So, like a podcast episode comes up. like what's going to happen? And Jack explained to me, well, you know, it's no different than me going on a vacation for a week or two. And it's like, you wouldn't say this if I went to the Bahamas for I was like, okay, you know what? You're right. Uh but but now Jack's saying, well, it's you know, he doesn't want to this is so silly because I went and I got dinner with Graham and Graham spent probably 20 minutes trying to convince me to walk 100 miles instead of 300. And all of the sudden when I say, you know what, Graham, I think that's a good idea. No, Jack, you should go back to doing 300 miles and taking more time off. The reason why was because uh it sounded like you wanted to optimize for a YouTube video. And between the two as a YouTube title, I think 100 miles is easier to conceptualize. Yeah. And also, I'm getting the same experience. Like I'm walking a marathon a day for what would that be? 5 days, maybe a little bit less for six days. Camping in a tent on the side of the road, it's still going to be the same content. It's still going to be the same experience. You know what I mean? Personal growth and everything. Yeah. I don't know. Just keep telling yourself. Yeah. What do you What do you think? You're you're a neutral third. Yeah. You have a lot of experience with this. I think you just got He has a lot of experience. I think so. I have a I have a a big personal thing which is like no half measures. And so a lot of times we we we compromise on the goal and try and mix two priorities. So it's like either I'm buying my dream house or I'm buying a good investment. And a lot of times people are like, "Well, I'm going to try and buy my dream house, but also make sure it's a good investment." And you end up with a mediocre investment and not your dream house. So, it's like you have to just figure out like, is this something I'm doing for me or is this something I'm doing for YouTube? If it's doing it for YouTube, then just make it for YouTube and accept it. Or you're like, I'm doing it for me, period. Wow. That was a If it's YouTube, I think 100 miles Tinder date, optimize for that and make a great video out of it. And then you can still do the 300 for yourself if you want to. I also thought it would be somewhat idiotic to walk 300 miles after only walking 10 miles two times. I told Jack like 30 times this. I told Jack to train try to get like 25 miles a day cuz that's how long we were supposed to do that yesterday but Apple was like too much work and that's the guy I'm doing it with. So we didn't do it. Gosh. And I wanted to. You know 10 miles a day would take you 30 days. I know. That's insanity. I And the thing is it's like I I could damage my body doing that and I don't want to do that. Why don't you just bike? Because man, I like I I I do really like walking. And a part of it is like I just want to walk and just walk for as long as I can. You should do the 300 miles. 10 miles for a Tinder date and then just be exhausted when you get there. That's the thing. I'm going to walk straight into the date. Well, I'm saying like just just just 10 m like just walk the whole day and then go. No, because I I want to walk for multiple days like that. That is a desire of mine. I want to ask you this. Uh so here's here's my question to you. I have had a really difficult time scaling. Uh because everything is just Yes. I would say the the entire Graham Stefen brand. Um I would say brought on Jack. We scaled through the iced coffee hour. There's been a few other things here and there, but I would say the iced coffee hour is the only one that really hit. Um, but I find myself no more productive. Uh, we got Alex on now. I'm not getting any more work done. I'm not getting any extra content done. Um, obviously we we could go to two times a week on the podcast. That's something I know we could probably double growth on the podcast by doing two times a week. Um, I'm kind of tapped out on what I could do because I can't make more videos in the main channel. So, like the main channel is optimized. Yeah. Um, I've been starting to outsource some of the editing with Alex. I'm not getting any extra work done because it's not not like I could get an extra video done on the main channel. Some of that's new. What's the objective? Uh, I would say both longevity because I really enjoy it, but I also don't like just feeling like I'm in the same place or like doing the same things repetitively. I'll ask you a better question. So, you said we're having trouble scaling. Scaling what? Scaling influence, scaling money, scaling income, scaling like what are we scaling? All of it. Probably all of it. Cuz I love it's money. Well, okay. So, for don't just give them a straight answer, man. But it's not just that, but it's like for for scaling for scaling money. I know it's sponsorships. It's getting more sponsorships. Sponsorship. It's not sponsorship. I just don't want to feel Well, I would say money money is a component of it, but I wouldn't say it's the entire thing. Do you want to be a business guy or do you want to be a media guy? It's a genuine question. I don't like have a dog in the fight. I don't know. I like the media aspect of it, but I'm worried of how fickle it is that uh you know, it's it's way riskier to do that. And so, part of me would like to maybe over 10, 15 years scale back on that and be more of a business person than than a media person. But right now, I know I've got a unique media opportunity here that I don't want to I don't want to waste it. But I also know like how easy it is to, you know, I've seen just what could happen with a cancel culture or you don't even do anything, but you get accused of something and and then your brand is kind of tarnished and I've had so much writing on just like a clean image. Scaling media, you have this unique opportunity right now. You don't want to waste it because something could happen because you have a clean image, right? So in my my my opinion is that you have like my opinion is that unless you monetize it in some way and it doesn't have to be now but like as long as there's some sort of plan to do so then it then it isn't wasted because like if you have monetized it then it's like cool this thing happened and like I've set myself up for life that's done. Um and then you can just continue to play the media game or because like right now like if I had your size audience like I mean I would have a billion dollar thing. Um, and so like I feel like you're working on something that's not the constraint of the system. You're like, I need more eyeballs, but like you don't need more eyeballs. You need more monetization of the eyeballs you have. I guess my problem is that I feel like I'm so good at the media aspect of it that anything that diverts my attention away from that kind of kills what I have going for me. Fair. I just see the world through a business lens. And so like I'm like, man, just attach a business to this gigantic media machine that you have here. Um, I mean, you could just do the media play. I mean, I still think that like the easiest types of businesses are the the Rock, you know, tequila or like McGregor tequila or Kylie tequila. Actually, they're all doing or, you know, what's his name? McGregor's doing whiskey, but like it's that's why I said the beast thing with the with the the soda. It's like what's an operationally simple business that you can do a partnership with somebody and then you push the traffic and it makes sense. I have the coffee brand bankroll, but uh our margins are so slim and uh it's a good business. It's just everything's reinvested. I don't make anything myself. And I don't know how long-term to make money without either raising prices. Uh in which case we might upset some of our customer base and probably not the end of the world or eventually partnering or selling a portion of that to a much larger established company. It seems like those are the only two outlets on that. But I started it really just for fun. Yeah. So, so I think rather than starting it necessarily for fun, it would be like looking at a number of different like the thing with the the soda thing is like the cost on making a soda is very low, which is why Coca-Cola is still here because they make so much money. Um, like their gross margins are amazing. And so it's like I think I like I only want to get into a product unless if I can sell it for like usually at least five to 10 times what it costs like or I'm just not interested. It's just too it's just too difficult um for me and that's probably because I'm going to be an idiot. So like I just want things to be easier if I can like we get to choose so might as well choose the easier thing. Um, and so like I think that the simplest business like media selling media cuz you make media is very simple because it's sponsorship, but like the people who are buying your sponsorships are getting 10 times their money or more from the sponsorship, which is why they continue to buy them. So it's like, well, what is everyone else selling on my channel and which of these things could I also just do myself? Like that would be like maybe the first thing I would look at. You know what I mean? But um or like creating some partnerships like and you're doing the sponsorship deals, but it might also just be valuable to say like I don't want money like give me equity in the company and I'll and I'll push the traffic. So it's very difficult to do that. I I believe it but you're you and you can just choose to say like it's kind of like the GP thing with the real estate. People were like you just ask for it. I'm like I just don't do deals unless it's this. And so I think you can just draw a new line and say like from here on forward like the Graham Stefen show just like I'm not promoting anyone that I don't have equity in period. So if you want to be on the show then yeah I tried that for all of 2020 and there was only one company that agreed to equity and it's interesting the other companies that agreed to equity were terrible companies. I mean they're the ones who oh yeah no we' we'd rather do that give that away. Um, but I found that either they're overpriced, they want some crazy high number, or valuation for that. Yeah, crazy valuations where it's like, well, there's all the upside. I'm paying a premium for that. I'm not going to do that. Um, or they're just crappy business. All the good businesses that I've seen guard that so heavily. Like, they never want to give up equity. Like, that's their bread and butter. And, uh, they know their potential. They know their 10x. So, I have so many thoughts, but sure. Um, but like so I mean it's either like I am a media company. That's all I want to do. I'm going to stay in my lane. It's like like either way that that business component has to get looped in. Yeah. So it's either you partner with somebody or you build the simplest business possible. So I know you have I think you have a teachable thing. Um Yeah, I do. Uh so it's like you could do more stuff like that. You could do a higher version of that which you know but that it creates a business. So it's like you might want to just bring somebody in who is a businessy guy if you want to just keep focusing on what you like doing or you can learn that game which I think my opinion is that like everyone who stays in the game long enough like everyone does kind of meet in the middle like I feel like you've come from like the personal finance savings investing side um but like the more complex and the more your assets grow like I feel like you'll like you continue to start walking more and more towards the value creation buying marketing selling you like running operating a business. Yeah. So that's just I've come from this world and walked this way. I think you're from this world, walked this way. But I think you do end up in the middle out of necessity. Like you have to know how to allocate capital and you have to know how to get return on the capital. Yeah. The only thing I could think of uh is is working a real estate syndicate similar to what Grant Cardone does. And uh that makes a ton of sense to me. I think a lot of people would trust you to do that. And um you can either do it yourself or just say like it's me and I am the fund raise. Like it's it's really typical in a fund to have three parties. is like you've got the guy who does the money, the guy who does the actual investing, and then the guy who like operates the the fund. Like those are like kind of the typically the three roles. The guy who does the thing, the guy who gets the money, and the guy who runs the little shop, right? And so I mean, you could sometimes have two, you know, in that instance. But like I think just getting the partner who goes and like operates all of the um the the the units or whatever you're you're buying and then you raise the money, I think those are really good partnerships and that would make a ton of sense for you. Yeah. any other advice that you have in terms of uh like productivity or getting more accomplished because I feel like you know I could bring five more people on the team but I wouldn't get any more done. I think it's so I'm a big believer in the theory of constraints which is like it's kind of like you getting more media like the constraint on all the scaling stuff is not the media you have more media than like anyone so like you're working on the wrong side of the bridge so it's it's like the reason it's my belief that we've been able to move quickly you know professionally I'll use quotes here like quickly um because it's like only focusing on what is the thing that is is stopping us from getting to the next level and then ruthlessly working on that thing until it is debottlenecked and so it's like having the awareness ess to say, "Okay, I have this thing. Um, I could do more of this, but it's being pushed through a pinhole." Like, so I can just try and get more water. It's like where I can just expand the pinhole. And so, I think that right now, like the pinhole is the opportunity vehicle that you're you're working off of. AdSense is not an efficient vehicle. Teachable is okay, but like it would be way better if you had like a sales team and a phone system and like you had an actual like you would 10 like you'd go to a million a month like two seconds like one second. you'd be at a million a month, probably 2 million a month or 3 million a month if you had like chops around doing that. Um like seriously or you know um the syndication thing given just given what I'm like the very limited amount that I have met. So take this with a gigantic Himalayan grain of salt. Um I think the syndication play makes a ton of sense because you just get to still be pretty much in the position that you're at in terms of like your dayto-day. It's just like make stuff that people like and find value in. um let people invest with me because they're probably already asking to I would imagine. Yeah. And then find somebody who does that full-time and has been doing it for 20 years and then just like and that's it. And then you just participate really like very well cuz you can build it yourself and you're not asking for equity, you're building equity. I mean that would be the easiest way for you to just like go to 100 million and like skip all these in between steps. Yeah, definitely good food for thought. Thank you. I appreciate that. Otherwise, you have to build a business, which is then like you can either sell a service or you can sell a product. And so, I don't think you'd want to sell a service because it's difficult. Yeah. Or it's more operationally complex. And so, a product would make the most sense, but it has generally lower margins uh cuz you have cost of goods unless you can figure out like a a Coca-Cola or, you know, something that's very very like, you know, when you sell like stickers, you know what I mean? Or like there was a girl I know who sold um magnet lashes, right? Or whatever. It's like the cost in those is like 10 cents. You sell them for 20 bucks. It's like great. You know what I mean? Like where you can just sell air, right? Like that's that's always been my like moniker for when I'm looking at businesses is unique, expensive, sticky air. So I want something that only I can sell. Um I want it to be very uh very expensive, premium uh air, very low cost uh and sticky something that people keep buying. And so like if I look for all four of those things, then I try and find a manager who is hardworking, has an impeachable character, um and is super sharp. And so if I and has a long-term owner mindset. So it's like if I put those things together like I have a business. Interesting. Thank you. Yeah. Any advice for Jack? I think I'm pretty perfect. Jack's like, "Do not give me any more advice, please." Yeah. Mustache and Yeah. mustache and get ripped. Yeah. It just gets folded. Yeah. I'm trying on I can't wait to see this Tinder date. Yeah. She worth it. I was I was about to ask like is she worth it? We'll see. We'll see. Does she know you're walking out or are you finding somebody and like I'm working on it. She doesn't exist. That's the real challenge honestly. What if she stands you up after? Actually, it'd be better for That's good content. It really is. Yeah. But then you're doing it for the tube. Well, it's a I I disagree. I think what? Let's hear it. You sold out. Guys, you will know when you see Jack's video on his channel, if he releases the I walked 100 miles, he's sold out and he's doing it for YouTube. If he walks the 300 miles, you know, he stayed true to what he told. Grab an eye. Here's the thing. If he walks 300 miles and doesn't film it. Yeah. Alex, you hated that idea. You hated it, too, Graham. I didn't like the idea. Well, I was kind of Okay. I'm all for like personal goals and I think that Graham needs to like do more fun things. Graham. And uh I don't think so. No. Okay. But, you know, so I was kind of giving you some slack because it's like, you know, we're vlogging, we're having fun, but if it's truly like your goal and it's truly what's going to make you happy and it's going to give you life fulfillment, then I say do it. And, you know, but if you're changing your your goal based on doing a YouTube video, then it's not really like unless unless your personal goal is like being fulfilled by YouTube. But when you pitched it to Graham and I, you know, you said it was for you. So, you know, from my experience, and you know this too, I think filming it ruins it. It takes you out of the moment. And I I have to force myself to film, but like there's some things it's like I have less of an experience because I have a camera up and even just thinking of the camera or trying to get the shot or trying to think of like how I could structure it. Well, I have one quick one because you said something uh Alex to to Graham about like the working thing. Um, I mean a lot of people used to get on me about like you need more work life balance like blah blah blah blah blah and it's just like I just like you have one life and they are your terms and no one else's terms and we optimize typically for the things that we enjoy doing and like if you have more stimulus from working than you do from not working then like work and then if you feel like at some point you have traded off something that you don't want to trade off for then you can adjust. That's how I've always felt. I enjoy working. Um like what was it? My mom um so we have we have like um a wedding to go to on uh the day after my birthday. So we were talking about uh you know we have to fly up on my birthday. She's like, "Oh, we could do this on your birthday this." I was like, "No, I just want to work." She's like, "No, but it's your birthday. You shouldn't have to work." And I was like, "I want to work. That's all I want to do. I just want to work." Even uh Santa Monica, my birthday. I was like, "The only thing I want to do today is work." That was it. just wanted to work. I mean, everybody wants to they're like, "Man, do some do do something you love and you'll never work another day in your life, but like it's just because everyone has this really poor definition of work, but like if if you have accomplished that, which obviously you have, like you're just living." Yeah. And like what you do in life. So I I'll I'll rewind something really quickly, which is like 2021 I did nothing. So like I owned all the companies, pounded out a lot of cash flow, and I did nothing. And it was a very miserable year for me because I tried to spend the money that I was making and I couldn't. Like it was just not even really a possibility. And so like I got into a place of like why why am I even doing this? Like what's the point? Like I'll never even be able to spend this money that I have like why have I been doing all this stuff? Um, and in starting acquisition.com or at least making that the sole focus now again and being able to build all the infrastructure, you know, hire the teams and all the stuff that we're doing on that side of the business, like I have so much joy getting back into the game. Uh, cuz I feel like I've been kind of like in a super high leverage position for like an extended period of time. Um, that I exited the business because I thought that that was what the next natural step was supposed to be, which is like you go from CEO to owning it as a shareholder or board of directors, whatever. And that is very much what happened. Um, but I realized that for me at least, it's like I work to create options, not to not work. And so a lot of people like they work really hard to not have to work later. It's like no, no, it's like I work to have the option to work. And so I can choose to work and that choice is the freedom that I have. And so like if I'm choosing with the optionality that I have to work, then that is exactly what I want to do. And so um, just being on the other side of it of like going to the like there's literally no way I can spend this money for the rest of my life mountaintop. um like the only thing that I wanted to do was the thing that got me here, which is like I love working and so it's the thing that I find meaningful. And I think that maybe you shift direction in terms of like maybe some of the stuff that you create, like maybe there's some things that you create that are for YouTube versus like for Graham. And I just think that it just slowly optimizes to only doing things for Graham, which a lot of times still ends up being that, but like you get there backwards. It's like if you made it purely for you, then you might be able to make a video after that that's like I walked 300 miles and I didn't film anything and this is what I learned. Like that would probably be a really valuable video because you probably would have some interesting insights. Like I didn't film either of the Grant Cardone videos and then just like made videos about the calls of like my takeaways and they were still really great videos. Interesting. Okay. So my only thought to that is like you are in a very unique position because you run this this business with your wife and and stuff like that. And I think that marriage plays a big part in my life and I think marriage is a compromise. And so, um, my my wife doesn't like it when I work as much and and her I guess her her like love language is what quality time or whatever. And I think Graham's girlfriend Macy is similar. And I think that there's a compromise there where yes, Graham, if all he wants to do is work, that's great and he can work and work and work. But I think that marriage, a successful marriage is truly a compromise. And if if it were turns out that you know like like you that's really good. I have like so many thoughts right now. Yeah. It's stimulating conversation and and I think and I think everybody's in a unique position because um you know definitely like there's you you could say well you know I'm going to grind away now so that you know I I don't have to work in the future and we could spend time together. Um or you can kind of balance and live in the now and live in the future. But I think everybody's kind of in a unique position. But I think that that part of your life is is is always going to be a compromise to some sort of extent. So I think it's a belief that you choose to define it that way. Yeah. Say compromise is a belief statement. Like that's not a statement of fact. That is a belief. And so like I don't believe that marriage is compromised. Tell us your experience with that because I have uh because I'm sure we all have different experiences. Mine in the beginning was that I did find that there was a compromise because Macy came from the mindset like, you know, 5 or 6 p.m. comes around. Uh you're done with work. Yeah. And you're free. And my mind works 24/7. Uh I tried that and I woke up really early. I'd wake up at like 5:00 a.m. So I could be done by 5:00 p.m. and have the night. And I that worked for actually quite a while because I actually found I was so productive in those morning hours that I could be done by 5 and be like, "Oh, wow. This is great." Uh, but over a long time trying to figure out like a like a balance, I found myself I wasn't myself. Like I I was really I felt anxious. I was just like uptight. I was um Why about what part? Like no because because I couldn't work during the hours that I wanted to work. Like sometimes I just you just have those those days where it's just like no no I'm so focused and I got it. Like I you have that concentration you just have to continue. And so having that freedom for me if I don't have that I just wasn't myself and I was miserable. Yeah. I mean I this is what I'm going to say and I I I have very strong views um and they are not common um but I also think that I don't want to live a common life and so that I cannot have common views right so just like as a as a big disclaimer to that um like I've only seen two dynamics that work in relationships over like an extended period of time um one is kind of the the like we're in it together and the other is like the you know cheerleader and quarterback back like cheering you on. But the thing is is like I can tell I can speak a lot to the you know we're in the game together. Um for me I know personally like I had two very long relationships that were cheerleader dynamics. Um and to me I could not imagine living life that way having now lived what I live now. Um because like there's a certain amount of shared respect that you never get with somebody who does not know what it's like to be in the battlefield or in the arena. Um and if I'm like I need to work for the next 3 days and like write five book chapters like there's not a discussion. It's like of course do your thing. There's no like there's no like I can't believe you're like uh and to the flip side in the cheerleader dynamic a cheerleader who's really rooting for the team doesn't ask the quarterback to come out when the game's on the line. And so I think that a lot of people are running in what they consider to be cheerleader dynamics, but they are inverted dynamics. They're actually sabotaging the game. And um I think that it's like in that dynamic, it's harder in my opinion to do the cheerleader quarterback because you have to have a very aligned mission and goals of like the relationship. It's easier to do that in um in the dynamic that you're working together because it's so clearly stated with the mission and the goals of like this is where I want to go and this is how I want to get there and like do you want to come with me? And then you're very much operating on this shared sense of reality. And it also becomes difficult for entrepreneurs in my opinion now like I mean I'm sure you've seen plenty of people get divorces as they get older and whatnot is that like if you're like all right this will be interesting. So typically um when people become attracted so Esther Pel if you've ever heard of her she's really interesting like relationship person. She's like one of the top TED talks on it. Um there's I think it's called mating mating captivity is her book. Um but in the beginning you have kind of this mystery because you don't know each other and that's what creates like the excitement right and as you get to know each other over time you swing like from uh mystery to familiarity right um you get a little bit more security get to know each other better and it feels like more and more amazing and so what you do is you just keep trying to do that right but what ends up happening is that you overcorrect and then you become siblings and then it's like ah well that's not good and so there it's not a problem to be solved but a a dichotomy to be managed right in terms of like how much space do you create versus how much familiarity what happens s when people uh like entrepreneurs specifically like have their business and they uh have the wife, they spend more time in the beginning and all of a sudden they don't spend as much time together and then they grow apart because they're also um uh exposed to different stimuli, right? And so you adapt to the stimuli that you have and you grow apart. Um on the flip side, if you're in my scenario where we're like doing the same thing together, the downside of this one, these couples make five times more money than any of the other uh versions that I just said. But the uh you can become too familiar and then you just become siblings. So for us, we actually create more space. So it's like we try to work on separate sides of the house. We don't attend the same meetings. So like at the end of the day, we can sit down at dinner like, "How was your day?" And she can tell me something rather than me saying like, "Oh, I was there. I know." Right. Yeah. And so the the happiest couples are actually couples that have uh both have careers that are not necessarily together. So on average, these couples are the ones that because they have a shared goal in terms of like this is what we want to do. they have shared values in terms of how they want to get there. Um, and they respect one another and they respect each other's goals and then they walk kind of in parallel. So, you've got the like I'm working the entrepreneur and you've got the stay-at-home wife. There's many times everyone's seen that one go wrong. There's the like we're both working together in it where so these people have to uh uh correct for trying to create more familiarity. These ones have to create more space so you have the space to be missed and then these ones tend to be in the middle already and so they just kind of like have to keep walking. And so for me it was actually just interesting seeing the the different dynamics um and like how we had to correct in the beginning like we were way we spent all day every day together and the business was small so it was like she was there and I was here and we worked out together and we ate together and we did that for like two years and I was like you know maybe I'll sit on different meetings than you. Yeah. Um but like seeing the level of like commitment and loyalty that you get from that and I don't know. So, I went on a little bit of a tangent there, but I I have strong beliefs around around that. And I think that you don't have to compromise anything if you don't want to. That's I think maybe we just have different goals because my goal is not to make a boatload of money with my wife. My goal in life is to be happy, have a great relationship, and just enjoy life. And honestly, if I live my entire life, like, you know, as long as I don't go broke, I I think I'm going to be happy. And and that's okay to disagree with somebody and have different goals because everybody Yeah. Everybody has different goals. So, does that mean you would you would you agree with with Kelsey in the sense that like you'd rather be have have a more like predictable schedule, spend more time together, build a family? I think it's a it's a balance for me, right? because um that's my like long like if if if this job if I was working for you and it was so intense and I knew it was going to be intense like till the day I die like to the fact where it's going to affect my relationship. I don't care how much money I'm making like personally. Um but it's also a balance because we want like I'm not oblivious to money, right? Like I I want to make more money. I want to reach for more. I want to do things. Um, but I still want to keep my first goal in mind, which is to be happy. And like I said, I don't I I think one time like Graham like pulled me aside and asked me like how much money I want to make in the future. We were just having like a conversation and I didn't have like a specific number, but I was just like, you know, just enough to like, you know, not have to stress about money. And you know that's a different number for different people because we all have a different It also changes. Yeah, it also changes. But Alex, yeah. Do you do you feel like because you're above that number now? Do you feel like you stress about money still? Uh yes. But I feel like that's only because I have that uh like I live like I'm like going to be broke the next day mentality. Like I'm like like in my head I'm like well if this all just disappears the next day like I cuz I remember you you telling me that number and you're you're above that number and I I think we could double it from here and you would still have the exact same mentality of just like well you you know still live you get 100 I'll just tell you it doesn't it doesn't go away. So, how do you how do you as somebody who's made a ton of money and and you know, how do I because Graham's right like I we kind of reached that number and I'm like I don't I I've accepted the fact that this thought right is not going to go away. So, what do you do? Like what do you do? Like I really I'm kind of I maybe you could give me some advice about that. Maybe I'm the one you should be giving advice to. I guess there's so many statements I was trying to like keep like keep track but like you make a lot of belief statements. Um and so like when I'm like a lot of people make statements like as they're like isms like this is this way. Um like I have this thought and it is um and you're like and I've just accepted that like I'm always going to have this like I would just never speak that over yourself just right off the bat because like you're just saying I'm never going to get over this thing. Like the statement you said earlier about like um at the end of the day I just like I just want to be happy. Like when you admit that you just want to be happy, then what happens is you create a deficit between your current reality and happiness, which means that it doesn't matter what happens because there will always be happiness that is outside of yourself. Does that make sense? Kind of. Yeah. I mean, but I would consider myself he didn't get that at all. I got I got because I'm like looking at Jack, oh man. But I thought, okay, so here's my here's my interpretation of it. If I'm telling myself that I just want to be happy, then I will never be happy is what you're saying. No, I understand what you're saying, but I'm telling you right now that I am happy now. Good. So, but it Okay. Wait, Graham. I Why do you still think I don't understand that? No. No, but I I think um the the So, like deficits deficits occur when we speak desires, right? And so, um I love this statement. Um, a desire is a contract we make with ourselves to be unhappy until we get what we want. And so whenever we state a desire, like I want this, I want this amount of money, I want whatever, you literally sign a contract that says like I won't be unhappy until that happens, right? And so like I had this thing earlier on where I was like, I want to have meaning. I want to have great meaning in my life. And I was talking to a guy who made a lot more money than me. Um, and he was like, because I asked him, I said, "How do you create and destroy meaning in your work?" That was the question I asked him on a on a podcast. Um, and he was like, "Why do you think life needs to be meaningful?" And it was the same exact thing as the happiness versus like the meaning thing where it's like I say life has to be meaningful and therefore everything that I'm doing like I create this expectation of life. Whereas if life just is, it just is. And it's the only way that you can actually be there. Um, it's just ex it's just pure acceptance, right? Um, which is why like the whole like shoulds of like we should work, we should have balance, we should act. It's like I believe marriage is a compromise. Like these are just statements of belief that are casting expectations out in the world that are just bound to be untrue at some point and then create dissonance. And so it's like I believe marriage is marriage and I believe my marriage is my marriage and I believe your marriage is your marriage and like I believe that I can work 24 hours a day if I want to and that is all. Period. Not and it's bad or and it's good and there's no judgment on it. It just is. And so like if I get you know if I get dopamine secreted in my brain when I start working cool like and I will optimize for dopamine and if I die I know that in a thousand generations nothing I do anyways is going to matter so who cares like that's like the the opening thing in my book is like there are no rules like we live in this like this like shoulds and have toss and like like happiness everyone talks about it and it's just like everyone is unhappy because they say they want to be rather than being like accept and be like [ __ ] happiness like I just am period and then like I don't need to judge the am it just is how do you what do you say to that I don't know that makes sense cuz so one thing I noticed is if you're like I just want to be happy does that mean Alex that you think that at some point that will change for you or something or you're you have you live this fear that that will I think you guys maybe are taking what I'm saying the wrong way. I mean, like like um Alex is saying, you know, everybody has different beliefs and there's no one rule fits all to everybody. And so if I say I want to be happy, that doesn't make me wrong. Like if I want to live my life that way, that's perfectly fine. But the the thing that that what Jack is saying is no, I am like happy. Like I but I for me I like to make like a conscious effort to work towards that and Alex can live his life like life is life. My marriage is my marriage. Um and it works for him and that generates happiness whether he's like thinking about but it doesn't have to generate happiness. That's the point. That's the point. Yes. Yes. like right like but like because it makes like not because it's like when when people say like hey um work uh you know set these goals and like the rest will take care of itself it still makes the rest taking care of itself the reason that you're doing it which means that it's actually not getting around it when people are like you got to be process driven if you're like if we focus on the process the goals take care of themselves it still means that the goals are important so like you have to if if you want to make the transition from like a process driven life which is like I'm doing these things to do them period. Then the so that I can be happy, so that I can have a good marriage, so that I can have a meaningful life has to disappear from the equation. It has to be I do them period, not because I do them. But then it goes back the other way like, but why? Because you say so like because you want to, right? Like if you want to have if you want to ascribe a meaning to why you're doing something, you can do it for whatever reason. Wow, this is deep. So, I mean, this is what I spent a lot of my time thinking of because I have nothing else to do. And this is what my last year was was like trying to figure out like why why I I didn't have like I I felt the exact same way while I was while I had nothing as to where I have now. I feel the same like like people were like, "Man, it was cool when the money hit my account." I felt nothing. Like truly like not even like the two-day like I it was irrelevant. How did you learn all of this? Did was this through speaking with other people who have who have been there before you thinking? Um I mean my closest friend is a philosopher and I use that in terms of like the actual meaning of the word philosopher. So like felt to love and then sofos is wisdom or knowledge. So like he's a lover of knowledge, lover of wisdom and like we talk every week. It's like the only standing meeting that I have is we talk for like two hours and we just talk about life and he's one of these guys who like lives in a cave um and it's like he got his PhD when he was 20 like just a very brilliant guy. and he and I just talk about things, you know, should uh share his contact information for some guests on the podcast. Oh, I mean, he's brilliant. I mean, if you like Dr. Gashi is brilliant. He's the he's the smartest human that I know in terms of like brilliance and their ability to communicate it um in a in a simple way. Um and so he helped me get over a lot of the things that I that I used to struggle with. And a lot of it was just like the language that we use matters a lot because like how we say things is how we think things. And so like what I was saying earlier, Alex, and this is not like this is not like a a slight. I'm just saying like when I hear like when I hear anyone talk like on my team or or customers or whatever, it's like people talk so many things over themselves and they're like, I don't know why I'm not successful. And it's like well define success and why are you not? And then what are the you know what I like I just want to do this to be h like there's so many chains that they put on themselves that it be becomes very difficult to live and so like I spent a long time trying to not do that um and it was just because like I was unhappy and I didn't like being unhappy and then I stopped judging myself for being unhappy and then I stopped thinking about it altogether and so I think that like I'll give you a really real example for this so one of the things that I'm vehemently opposed and I'm like you no one give Graham flack you can give it to me um and like this is coming from a family who like had al alcoholics and drug addicts and things like that like I really don't like the alcoholics anonymous um concept of every morning waking up and saying I am an alcoholic high you know whatever and then they go into their in their meetings because what it does is it puts it at the forefront of their mind and they they literally label themselves every morning as having this problem right when somebody who's not an alcoholic just doesn't think about it they don't think I'm an alcoholic. I have to fight not drinking every day. They just don't think about it. And so I think to the same degree that um like living a meaningful life is not saying like I'm living a meaningful life. You just are and you're not casting it. You're just you just are. But don't you think some of that is just that inherent belief that some people just have they're raised from that. They have positive experiences that turns into a spiral. But the people who don't have that who are used to every day being like I'm worthless. I suck at this. I am bad at this. Don't you think that maybe that like first step and like getting in that direction is positive affirmations of like I could do it. I could Isn't that like that's better than zero? Like I feel like we're going to zero to one. I think it's exiting I think it's exiting the equation all together. So it's saying I am worthless instead of saying like I want to be worthy or I am worthy. Just saying worthiness doesn't matter. But then wouldn't you get just people not caring at all? Yes. Yeah. So I'm 100% a nihilist. Yeah, like I believe we die, nothing happens and like you know it is what it is, right? But um and there are different ways to take that. Some people are like life is meaningless and there's no point in any of it, which I would agree with them. And then the other people are like there's no point in any of it and so I'll do what I want. And some people see that as like very very self- serving which it might be. Um but to the same degree like you are released from the chains of the expectations of others and most people in my opinion that I have witnessed who are unhappy is because they are weighted down by the chains of their parents of their friends of their siblings of the whatever things the people that they believe are casting judgment on them and they care so much about that person's disapproval that they don't want to do the things that they want to do and so if I think it's easier to get someone to realize that none of it matters and then build from there than to try and flip the negatives. It's just to exit the equation altogether. Just say none of this matters. Therefore, I will start my YouTube channel and not care if my dad says that YouTube isn't real. Like, it's not about being worth it. Like, this is one where they're like, I deserve success. Like, no, you don't. No one deserves anything, but you can do the stuff that gets success independent of your deservingness. You be a terrible person and get and become successful. So, that person doesn't deserve it, but they did the things that create success. If we define success as some material whatever and so I think um like if you can exit the equation of like labeling yourself and then just doing because because what else will you do while you are alive um it creates some levels of freedom that um allow for clarity of thought and also for the ability to take risks that most people can't take and I candidly I understand the difficulty it's not like I'm some perfect like you know like nihilist who just like never believes anything matters and doesn't get upset like of course I do but like my instant self-help is like whenever something happens, it's like I'm going to die and it's not going to matter. And that like it's like it just got so ingrained in me now that like it's okay. But would you consider yourself emotional? Yeah. I mean, probably. So, I think I have emotions. Got it. Cuz a lot of the times, at least in my experience, like in and what I've seen people that are nihilists, it's easy to that's like an easy out. If something bad happens, if something good happens, it's just like, oh yeah, that's fine. Sweep it under the rug. It's not it's not like it matters anyways. something bad happens and it's not like you actually deal with or process whatever you know event or action occurred that make you felt that emotion if we believe that we have to like why should we why should you feel that emotion like why should we process a traumatic event like what does that mean well I do believe that there are like you know things in your brain biologically that if they are deprived of something or there's like uh some some bad traumatic event or something like that will affect your biological traumatic versus non-traumatic. I I mean I feel like the definition of the word trauma would probably but what would be the line between like okay in like let's let's give an example of something terrible right um actually not because it's a podcast and people might hate on crap. So let's just say something bad happens that we describe as bad in this culture right in another culture that might not be bad. It's trauma in this culture. It's not trauma in this culture. So if the circumstances the same, why was it traumatic? Circumstances weren't the same. Why not? Because the culture, the facts were the same. What we described the facts as changed, which means that we can choose to call something trauma. But wouldn't isn't it, doesn't it make sense that people would be built up due to culture and environment? 40-year-old guy sleeps with a 15-year-old girl. Terrible, right? Rewind 200 years. 40-y old guy sleeps with a 15-y old girl. 100% normal, right? How is it trauma now and not trauma then? And mind you, like this is not my statement. I'm just I'm you have to pull an extreme example if we're going to talk about trauma to to illustrate the concept, right? Mhm. So, if it's traumatic in one instance and not traumatic in another, then it means that we can basically change the cultural narrative that we're ascribing to our context and make it not traumatic. That makes sense. Right? Which means it didn't matter. Which means the only thing that matters is that you chose to make it meaningful. Well, let's say like like the the the passing of a parent or a loved one or something like that. If we think like we feel like we have this we have a narrative that says if I don't mourn it means I didn't care about them. Right? That's a statement of belief. I could say that if I don't mourn about them it means I totally cared about them. like why does my morning have any indication on how much I cared? They're non-correlates, right? But it's just because we have like we have so many of these belief statements that like quote society or things that we inherit, right? But we just choose to say that this is how life is. And so it's I think it's just like monitoring what those statements are. And so like one of my favorite one of my favorite sayings probably like if I had one thing on my tombstone um it would be it would be a a permutation of a quote by Orson Scott Card which is um we question all of our beliefs except for those that we truly believe and those we never think to question. That's a good quote, right? And so it's like we like oh of course I'm opening to questioning my beliefs. It's like what's trauma? Like when someone's like I was traumatized it's like were you? Or do you just choose to label it as trauma and then now you [ __ ] up the rest of your life because you call it trauma when 200 years ago it was life and a thousand years ago having your parent killed in front of you was just nature if you want to go biology, right? And so we're just like we just choose to create meaning around things. And so like at the end of the day like end to end to end bottom bottom bottom root. Yeah. All our brains do is just create and destroy meaning. And so we say this is a threat, this is not a threat. We make like we need to reinforce this behavior. We don't need to reinforce this behavior. All through meaning. Mhm. And so if you can control what you de deem meaningful, you can massively shift the odds in your favor because you don't need to ascribe meaning to Well, couldn't that be? Let's say like like 500 years ago, you see like a parent killed in front of you. Isn't that because all you have on your mind is like food, shelter, water, and now that we have those things taken care of, our minds go to other places. Sure. I just don't think it changes the actual facts. So it's like we have we there's there's stimulus response, right? And so like we get to control the response. we control the stimulus. And so like was it um it's either Senica or Epictitus who's like no one yells at a rock, right? And so it's like if you are the rock then like just it doesn't matter, right? Like you just like eventually like people just [ __ ] off and just leave you alone. And so like and if you if you see stimulus of life that way in terms of like how you deem things or label things traumatic or not traumatic or good or bad, you know, I mean it's the same thing, I'm sure with like the hate comments and whatnot is like if you deem the comments of of the fans as meaningful, then you will both care about them being positive and you will care about them being negative. But if they're not meaningful at all to begin with, then like I don't think you can do either. I think you just either have to participate in both sides or you remove that is also a belief statement, right? So like maybe you can. Um so you know interesting thoughts. So, how did you transition from assuming I'm assuming you used to care a little bit more about beliefs and stuff like that? How did you transition from that to now not caring? And like did you have to completely change your mindset to where you're automatic response to things was just like what what are these chains of emotions and like the cultural constraints and stuff like that that are making me feel this way that did did you just switch that light switch or do you still on occasion catch yourself slipping? I just did right now. I was like I just said that as a belief, right? That's what I figured 100%. Yeah. I mean, I think you you systematically you hear like that's why the talking is so important. Like what words are we using? What do those words mean? Like you say trauma and like define that. What do you mean by that? Which is why like when you hear really good writing that's academic like the first few pages will be like we're going to talk about this and this is how we define this and this is how we define this. It's like we're putting constraints around the words that we're using because they mean they they equate to thoughts. They're just buckets, right? That we like say a word like trauma and like it means something different to all three of us. So it's like we have to agree on the definition before we can talk about it. Does that make sense? Um, and so no, I had um, so I I I definitely made uh, a conscious effort. So when I was like 19 or 20, I became a born again Christian. Um, the dunk, the whole thing was like, "Oh my god, life's amazing. Jesus is great." Um, and then, um, I ended up falling away from that because I was like, I don't know if this is true. Um, and uh, and then I spent the next 5 years um, dedicated to apologetics, which is defense of faith of the Christian faith. So just learning the arguments around like why Christianity like is true, right? Um I ended up not believing uh in it and I can give a variety of reasons but I I'll give you the simplest one. Um hopefully I'm not insulting anyone. This is just my belief that I'm sharing um which is a lot of one of the biggest one of the strongest arguments for Christianity against other world religions is that um other world religions say like if you go to the good place so if you do a good job you go to the good place right and fundamentally that's it's a it's a hard paradigm because it means like at what point are you 51% good versus 49%. Should I have just held one more door open and I would have gone to the good place forever right not even talking about like finite circumstances creating infinite outcomes but like whatever. Um, and so if you can draw that line, then it makes it kind of makes it ridiculous, right? And it like kind of breaks down on the like be a good person system, right? And so that's all world views with the exception of Buddhism and Christianity. With Christianity, they're like you don't have to be good, you just have to have faith. And if you have faith in Jesus, then you go to the good place, right? And so the the reason that for me fundamentally I didn't believe in that was because you actually create another false binary which is believe or not believe when in reality is to what extent do you believe it's how hard you believe and again you create another 50% line which is show I believe 1% more and then I would go into the good place forever right so um anyways the point is is that I I studied apologetics for a long period of time um and then I was really sad um and I was just like, "Fuck being said." And I was like, "Fuck happiness." I was like, "I'm just going to do stuff that I think is cool." And that was like, that was like the first break in the chain for me. Um, my slogan to myself was actually just [ __ ] happiness. Um, and that was wildly freeing because I stopped judging myself for not being happy. And then I was just like, "Oh, I'm like I am unhappy." I'm like, "Cool, whatever." And I just kept going. And all of a sudden, it just like stopped mattering to me. Hm. Like I don't think about it. I genu like I don't think like does this make me happy? Does this like I don't think about it. You just do what you want to do in the moment. Just do whatever I feel like doing. And it's not like it's like all short-term like all pleasure- seeeking whatever. Like I still have a long-term perspective of like this is what I want to build. Yeah. Like I want to write these books. I want to build these courses. Um I want to do this stuff. But it's like those are things that I enjoy. So that's what I that's what I do. I love it. That's great. All right. I don't have anything to say. No, I mean I had questions, but now I know the answers to them just based off. I'm just listening. Like I'd rather just listen and not say like I don't want to mess it up. But then I created a belief that now I'm going to mess it up. Oh god. Why does it matter, man? Why does it even matter that I messed it up to begin with? It doesn't. And you can't mess it up. And then the comments are going to be Greg messed it up in the comments. Why does that matter? I know it's I mean I know it's crazy stuff but like I think that like if you want to like you can't do what 99% of people are doing if you want to be in the 1%. Yeah. Like fundamentally. And so like you have to have like what I would consider like maybe uncomfortable conversations just be like that's okay like cool like I just I'm going to do my thing and then they're like and the thing is a lot of times if you just even just make your statements of like this is how I believe like people feel like you're attacking them especially if you articulate it well cuz they're like why I don't I'm like cool like I don't give like do whatever you want like it's all good to me. Um and so which is why I don't talk about it as much publicly. How about this? Yeah. What bothers you? There's got to be something out there that like I also have wasting my time. People wasting your time. That's that's a really good answer. That's a great answer. Yeah. I only It's the only thing I don't have a lot of. This may seem like a silly question, but if you go to a restaurant and you order something, let's say you order a steak and you order it medium well and it comes back medium rare. Yeah. Do you say something? It's not worth his time. No, I don't actually. You don't? No. Why would I? I don't care. Same. But at the same time, I was like, well, a lot of people would be anxious to say something, and I figured you probably wouldn't care about those emotions, right? I wouldn't even have an emotion first. I mean, that's such a non Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe like like we have a big ad campaign that's supposed to go out and like I get all the creatives the day before and it's supposed to launch. Like, would that annoy me? I would be like, yes, but let's fix it. You know, like this is bad. We can't run this. Let's try again. You know, and in the end it won't matter cuz we're all going to die and this money is going to go back to the game. I'll give you this one analogy. This might be a good wrap-up. Um, so this is like my mental analogy that I that I I don't makes sense to me, which is like if if if life were a game, right? And all of us are given a token to like enter like a casino cuz we're in Vegas, right? So we're all get a you know a token, we enter the casino and we sit down at the table to play poker, right? And everybody's playing, everybody's got cards and all of you know we're dealt cards. Everybody's dealt different cards and we got to play the hand we're dealt and depending on our level of skill, we amass more and more chips throughout the game, right? And um at the end of the game, the difference between the real world and the c and the the game of life, right? In the real world, you just you go and you can cash out your chips and you walk out with money and there you go. There's your day. Um but I feel like in the casino of life, you get tapped on the shoulder by the Grim Reaper and he says, "Your time's up. and then all your chips get pushed right back to the middle of the table and then you leave the casino empty-handed because it was a fake game with fake rules that didn't matter. And so like we accumulate these chips that I'm just going to push back in the middle again that other people are going to play on. And like the reason that that analogy became real for me is like I bought this piece of land in Austin and I was like that's neat. And then I was like how many people have owned this piece of land? It's like the guy, you know, the guy before me owned it and the guy before him owned it and the guy before him owned it and I was like and they were like this is mine and then they die or they sell it and someone else this is mine. It's like they're just chips that just get played with and they just get amassed and then they get redistributed. It just doesn't matter. Like death taxes everybody 100%. So like everyone's like estate planning it's like dude 500 generations from now like a your your offspring are you know 500 to the you know.5 or you know 1/2 to the 500th power of like diluted they're basically just humans at that point. So if if your wealth somehow is a big enough that it can be diluted that that much um and it last that long the people who own it are just humans. So it like they're so they're just as close to me as you are. You know what I doesn't matter, right? Um, and then the alternative is the people that I'm giving this to are just the ones that I care about are the immediate family, but then when people get resources that they didn't learn how to uh use or manage, then it destroys them because it's too much potential energy. They can't handle it, right? And so it's like it's really for nothing. And so like if you want you can build something that you think is cool. Um, but like at the end of the day like we're just going to cash the chips in. So anyways, Alex's worldviews. But wow. It's a great analogy. Just have to think about this one. Yeah, I'm going to have to rewatch that, you know. Yeah. You know what's funny? I was actually thinking I would never listen to podcast. I would actually listen to this. Yeah. Yeah. Money, income, no earth. Investing, indexes, savings accounts. What credit cards? That's good. Jeez. Thank you so much. Thank you, Alex, for coming on. This has been an incredible podcast. Yeah, really. So, I appreciate I appreciate you having me. And to the audience, like I know that a lot of the stuff that I I say can be uh triggering and I know that at different points in my life, if I had heard someone say what I'm saying in the position that I am, I would be offended. Um, and I want to make it clear that it's not my intention to do that um at all. Uh it's just me sharing beliefs that uh as I understand the world and that is no way projection on you or how you see the world etc. It's just this is how I see the world and these are beliefs that served me well. Um that helped me overcome um a lot of things that I thought mattered that you thought. There we go. That was it. That should be our intro. Yeah, that could be our intro. Honestly, that's a good segment to put right there in the beginning cuz it's going to catch people's attention. They were like, "What? What's offensive? What am I going to disagree with?" Perfect. Let's do that. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on, man. It was nice meeting you, too. Thank you. Good luck on your Tinder date. Thank you. Thanks. Should grow the stash out by the way. You think so? I mean, if you want to slash. That's why I shaved it last night, by the way. Get some thumbnails up here. Oh, yeah. One sec. Oh my dude, that was incredible.