Original subtitles

What's the fastest and simplest way I

can get ahead in this particular economy

right now?

It's period. Full stop. No questions

asked. That's what it is.

What do you think is a road map for

someone to go from 50k to 500k?

That is probably the number one reason

that people don't get what they want is

because

if you could whisper something into the

ear of every follower that's brutally

honest, what do you think that would be?

I think the single greatest advantage

you have in your 20s is that

I want to start practical. I think a lot

of young guys

especially that that was the majority of

people were like you gotta interview

Alexi. I feel like they were between 20

and 35. Does that sound about right?

Yeah.

Yeah. I think a lot of these guys

there's ambitious guys who are

overwhelmed and also see there's a lot

of like bad advice. There's a lot of

overly complex advice and there's a lot

of simplistic advice out there. I'm

wondering what you think is maybe the

single most impactful thing that they

need to be doing in their 20s if they

want to get rich later.

They they don't need to get rich now.

Yeah.

I mean, sure, maybe they'd like to, but

I think it's more realistic for them to

get rich in 10 years, 15.

I think if you I think the single

greatest advantage you have in your 20s

is that you can work longer hours. You

have fewer social obligations. You

probably aren't married. You probably

don't have kids. And maybe if you are,

it's like you're earlier. Um, and your

brain is at its absolute peak. And so

those are the advantages you have. The

disadvantages are that you don't have

experience and you're probably not that

good at anything yet. And so the only

real action item that I have is just

accumulate so much volume in a very

narrow space so you can get good. And

once you get good, you know, the rest of

the world kind of opens up to you. But

it's lacking those foundational skills

of whatever income generating

opportunity you want to pursue that most

people lack. And I think that's I think

part of that is because they're like

unclear on which you know path they

should pursue. Um but you know I think a

large a large part of making that that

um deduction is figuring out okay uh is

there is there some sort of profession

that already exists that I want to do?

How do I get good at that? That's

actually usually related to very

straightforward. Uh the next is like is

there some problem that I've personally

suffer from that I can you know help

other people who now that I've gotten

over it that I can help someone else get

over it too. Um and then you just said

like the interest in hobbies right the

things that you're very interested in.

That one could be dangerous because

sometimes uh

yeah,

no, you're a singer, you love singing,

but no one no one else likes your

singing, right?

Um and so you probably should,

especially in your 20s, already have a

pretty strong indication that you're

good because if you look at the biggest

biggest, you know, I'll say just as an

example, like pop stars, many of them

are already there at that at that age.

And so, uh if you were good enough, you

might have already been discovered. And

so, um I tend to be more practical when

it comes to picking those types of

paths. It sounds like you actually still

believe in jobs, which is I think

unusual because if you look at a lot of

other I don't like to throw shade, but

if you look at a lot of the other sort

of online personalities, they're like,

"Ah, careers are for suckers.

Entrepreneurship is the only way to go."

And I it maybe I could be reading into

your words too much, but it sounded like

you didn't throw that option in the

trash.

I mean, you I'm a big believer in do

whatever you want depending on your

goals.

Yeah.

You know, if you want to become a a

trillionaire, there's pretty much like

one way to do it. If you want to become

a millionaire, there's a lot of ways to

do it. And so I think it's picking the

path that makes the most sense for you.

Some people really don't like risk. And

I think there's nothing wrong with that.

Um, and rather than shouting at people

and saying like there's something wrong

with you for not liking this thing, it's

like there might be nothing wrong with

you. And if you're content with that,

then you've already won.

I think a lot of people are w I'm

curious your opinion. I think a lot of

people are wired for risk in completely

different ways, right? So like I was a

kid looking back, I was always not a

daredevil. I wasn't like jumping off the

roof of my house into a swimming pool or

something like that. Probably because we

didn't have a pool, but whatever. Um,

but I wasn't doing BMX jumps and stuff

like that off the bike, but I was always

looking for little business ideas and

things like that. And I like the idea of

being my own boss, making my own money,

controlling my own destiny, if you will,

but I didn't really care that much about

being rich. I was like, upper middle

class lifestyle would be great. I

overshot the mark. Boohoo, right? Um,

I'm doing better than I ever thought I

would, but it was never a goal like I

have to be rich and prove something to

the world. I think a lot of people value

stability far more and I I really don't

think there's anything wrong with that.

Like if you want to have a regular job

at a law firm and you're a really good

tax lawyer. I just don't think there's

anything wrong with that. I I don't like

the narrative that it's like a sucker's

play to get a job.

I mean my first I mean I had many jobs

before I decided to enter

entrepreneurship. I think the key is and

this has been said before but you need

to make sure that you're either earning

or you're learning. And so if you have

if you have the goal to make $100,000 a

year, there's plenty of careers that

will that will help you do that. 200,

$250,$500, like you for sure can make

that at at a company,

um even a million dollar a year. Uh if

you're like, I want to make $20 million

a year, there's a very small amount of

companies that will do it and it'll take

a long time to get there probably. Um

that being said, uh I think

it just Yeah, it comes it's like there

is no correct answer to a number of

eternal questions. How much risk am I am

I willing to take? No one can answer

that for you. That's a you question. I

don't even know how you answer that for

yourself though. Do you have any idea? I

think you just start risking things and

one day if you if you haven't slept in a

week, maybe it's too much risk or maybe

you're just getting used to it. I don't

know.

I think I think you have to reverse

engineer it from the goal, right? If you

want to like there are paths that you

can guarantee success and if you can

guarantee success, then why would you

risk anything, right? If you want to

make $1 million, if you like there's a

number of very known things that you can

do and if you just do those things, the

likelihood occurs is super high. If

you're like, like I said, I want to make

$100 million, it's riskier. you'll

probably have to take on more personal

risk in order to do something like that.

So, I think it it it should vary based

on those things. The worst case scenario

is where you have a small goal and take

massive risk.

Yeah.

Right.

Which happens a lot.

See also crypto bros who put their

entire small to medium life savings into

a shitcoin to get an upside of

Yeah.

twice of what they invested.

But to latter back to what you were

originally saying with the job is that

like

jobs are some of the best ways that you

can learn skills. And so if you can

learn skills and work under somebody

that you admire, which I think is

probably two of the the key and from the

person you admire, you learn other

skills, right? Sure.

Um if if you have those two things, then

learn as much as you possibly can. Um

because sometimes not only like you

might learn at a more accelerated rate

in that setting and get paid for it. In

other settings, you would have to pay

your own money or pay your own time in

order to learn maybe the same skills.

Maybe not. But that that kind of I I use

that like I still think like we we do so

much training at acquisition.com and so

many people come to work here because

they're like I want to grow and we

create huge opportunities for people to

grow and I mean we have very well

compensated people who work at

acquisition.com. So um yeah I I

wholeheartedly toss out the idea of job

or no job. It's just what are my daily

activities? How am I being remunerated?

Right? How am I getting paid for the

stuff I do? And in between those two

things, how many skills am I am I

learning? And that could be maximized

working on your own or in a job like

Yeah, I agree with that. I a lot of guys

Oh, I I I usually hear from guys on this

career stuff. But I think it's funny

because a lot of it's not that women

don't ask career questions. They they

just ask more detailed career questions

and they're usually about building

relationships inside of a career and

moving ahead. Whereas a lot of the guys

are like, "How do I get from point A to

point Z as fast as possible?" It's like

a completely different mindset. Um, one

of the idea I always throw this out

there for for folks that are listening,

which is I think a lot of people who

want to be in the seauite, but they're

like 20some, they're like, "God, I have

to work for 15 years to even get access

to these people." Being the assistant to

the people who are at the top of the

food chain is one of the best things you

can do. There's the the head of the

power company for which you are now

working needs an executive assistant.

And that woman is maybe 21 because you

need somebody who doesn't have a family,

who doesn't have a bunch of obligations,

but is smart and conscientious and can

travel on their own and handle their own

stuff and also handle his stuff and

basically take care of all the business.

So now you're in every meeting taking

notes for this guy or gal and taking

planning meetings, planning all kinds of

stuff. So you're basically like the

king's hand in Game of Thrones, but you

have a college, you have an English

degree and zero years of experience. And

I think that those kinds of shortcuts

can be really good because that person

is infinitely more hirable to move up

the food chain faster because they know

all of these executive sort of protocols

and ways of life. And they're also

they're also friends with the CEO and

can move maybe downwardly uh or across

the company quite skillfully. I really

want to be in HR. Cool. You're now the

assistant to the head of HR.

We're in it.

Yeah, we're in it. Yeah, exactly.

So, do you think that getting wealthy is

a good goal for everyone? I feel like

that's a question that nobody seems to

really be asking cuz it's assumed that

everyone should want to get rich cuz

it's America. I don't really know if

that's true. I'm wondering what you

think about that.

Um, I mean, I don't think I don't think

anyone should anything. So, Ily reject

shoulds in general.

So, I mean, do what you want. If you

have a goal of getting in shape, you

want to get married, you want to make

money, all of those have clear action

steps that you can do to pursue them and

everything that is not those steps is

distracting you from them.

I I wonder why. Well, I think a lot of

folks are like, "This guy, you know,

he's always talks about wealth and

generating wealth." Did you care about

being wealthy or did you care more about

building something?

You were younger.

Oh, no. I wanted to make money.

Yeah.

Yeah. Did you

I used to joke about the the mission of

Gym Launch was uh not be broke. That was

the that was the mission of the company.

It's a low bar.

Yeah. Um and so that's you know

obviously we became not broke through

that business and then you know continue

to make money after that. Um but I think

that I think you have to you have to

kind of like put your your life mask on

or your air mask on before you can think

really big. Like it's very difficult or

I have yet to meet somebody who is

thinking about a 10-year vision for

their life when they can't pay rent.

Oh for sure then.

And so it's like we have to we have to

solve the immediate problems first. And

so that's where sometimes having the job

can be, you know, really advantageous

because I think I mean

it's the 5 to9 where everyone loses

everything, not the 9 to5, right? You're

not working from 5 5:00 a.m. to 9:00

a.m. You're not working from 5:00 p.m.

to 9:00 p.m. And those are eight hours

per day every single day. Plus, you got

weekends. It's like you have more hours

not at work than you have at work. And

your job isn't the thing that's

preventing you from getting to where you

want to go. Assuming you don't have what

you already want right now.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. I think there's a sort

of epidemic of people not being

satisfied unless they can.

You mean humans? Yeah, humans, human

nature. It's It's called this pesky

thing called human nature. And I'm I

love that, but I think it also makes

people miserable because it's good to

have the carrot dangling slightly in

front of you. I think it's really bad to

have the carrot seemingly miles out in

front of you because it it's

demotivating. Um and uh actually that

might that might be a good question uh

for you. What about motivation? A lot of

people will tell me I just can't get

motivated. I can't really relate to that

because I don't think I've ever had a

motivation problem, but I'm I'm not sure

why.

I'm not really sure why. Like I always

do something that I like. That's part

that's probably part of it. But I also

graduated from law school and it wasn't

like I was passionate about that and I

just did it and I did well. So I don't

know. I'm wondering if you've given any

thought to this. Surely you get this

question every single day in some form

or another. How do I get and stay

motivated? Um well I mean there's

there's a couple angles on this. So one

is like why do you require motivation in

order to take action which is a first

kind of line of questioning which if

someone can say it's kind of like

courage it's like courage isn't you know

uh action without fear it's action

despite fearite fear

and so I would say the equal opposite

would be the same of motivation which

would be like it's action despite

feeling good about taking action. You

just do it anyways.

Um that's on kind of like the surface

level. Underneath of that though um the

amount that someone is and instead of

like motivation is very I think the

reason the answers to this are so

difficult is because no one has defined

it. How do you define motivation right?

So if I were to define I would say the

likelihood that someone takes a desired

action. Okay so if we define if we use

that as our as our as our proxy for it

then the likelihood of of someone taking

a desired action is uh is correlated uh

pretty closely with their deprivation

around the desired outcome. And so if

you are incredibly hungry and you

haven't eaten in three days, the

likelihood that you are going to be

motivated to eat is high. Now if you've

just eaten, the motivation is very low.

And so often times, you know, you would

think, okay, well, if that's true, then

wouldn't people who lack money be very

motivated to get money,

right? But not always the case,

right? And I think that's because money

is not a psy not a physiological need.

It's a psychological thing. And so

because of that, then it's how do you

create deprivation around money, which

is different. And so if you are the

richest people, the richest person of

the five friends you have, but all five

of you are broke. You might have very

little deprivation around money. As soon

as you get around people who make 10

times more than you, all of a sudden

you're like, "Wow, I didn't even know we

could live this way. I didn't know this

was possible. I didn't know this level

of achievement was something that I that

was that was that anyone could really

do." Maybe I see it on on Instagram or I

see it on TV, but it's not something

that like real people do. But when you

meet those real people, you're like, you

know, they're made of flesh and blood

like me. Like maybe I could maybe this

could be possible. Um and then as soon

as that that question of like this could

be possible happens then all of a sudden

it's like boom you stretch out what

could happen versus where you are and

then that's what creates this rubber

band um of motivation which is why I

mean there was that famous Harvard study

which is you know you're the average of

the uh your reference group who you

compare yourself to and so I think that

if you can choose to I mean if you can

choose to compare yourself to people who

are doing significantly better than you

you will feel significantly worse.

Yeah. I was going to say doesn't always

do well for your mental health.

Yeah.

No and I but to be fair though I think

we're talking about the science of

achievement not the auto fulfillment.

Yeah.

And so, um, feeling very bad about

yourself. Um, there's plenty of people

who have succeeded very well feeling bad

about themselves. And this is me being

an advocate of that. I'm just saying

like these are these are these are

components that that

influence people doing what uh they need

to.

Did you grow up how did you grow up?

Like fin socioeconomically,

I would say I was Baltimore rich, not

like rural rich, you know what I mean?

And so,

uh, yeah, like the the richest

professions I knew were doctors and my

dad's a doctor. So, Gotcha. Okay.

Yeah. So, I I didn't watch for anything.

Yeah, but he was also like first

generation immigrant and built his

entire practice from nothing. So like I

had this position of like we never used,

you know, paper towels because he still

lived that way and we drive out of the

way to, you know, buy milk at the

cheaper store that was 20 or 30 cents

less. Like like we only shopped at

Costco. Like I wore Kirkland basically

my entire upbringing. So like um it's a

it's it's a little bit of a split thing.

Like the way that I was raised in terms

of the values is absolutely one of a

first generation immigrant. Um, and my

my the way that I think about money, all

of those things came came from him.

Sure.

Um, and so yeah, in that way I would say

was atypical.

Does he understand what you do here?

Um, I do business things.

Yeah. So that's

that I'm sure that's what he tells the

phrase.

He's got a building. That's all he

inaccurate.

That's funny. Yeah. I I wonder I always

want I'm like how do how do parents

explain what their kids do, especially

when it's not a traditional profession?

I kind of wondered about that. I figured

you must have had some parental,

not necessarily motivation, but the

Well, let me ask you this. What sort of

stuff that you grew up with, immigrant

mindsets, do you think you still use now

for better or for worse? Like maybe

Leila's like, "Dude, can you not rewash

those things? We have a whole box." But

also something where you're like, "No,

this I learned this when I was eight and

I'm still doing it and I'm never going

to stop."

Besides work ethic and stuff like the

basics. Well, I would actually say that

the vast majority of the things that I

learned from an early uh from many of

those behaviors I've unlearned. Um

unlearned.

Yeah. So, like I don't care if I use

paper towel or not. I don't insist that

I mow the lawn. I'm happy to pay

somebody else to mow the lawn. Uh my

father mowed the lawn himself, even

though he had no need to do so until I

was old enough to mow the lawn. And then

I did that for

Yeah, I was going to say he didn't make

you mow the lawn. What the hell's going

on there? That makes more sense.

Yeah, it just took four hours. Just a

lot of grass. Um, so that was like my

Saturdays.

I can relate,

right? And so the so the thing is like

it was very I'll say this, it's very

difficult to go back in time and say,

"Hey, this is why I do the things that I

do." I honestly have no idea. The only

thing that I can guess is that I have

been rewarded for doing these things and

the more I've done them, the more

rewarded I've gotten. And so I do more

and more of it.

You once I I heard you say in a piece of

content that you don't need motivation

to act and I wonder if that mindset has

ever led you in the wrong direction like

doing something without processing maybe

an impulsive kind of thing for lack of a

better word.

I would say that I have a desire for

novel stimulus. So like new things I

think excite me more than they probably

should. And so it's taken me a long time

to unlearn that or at least

manage the excitement and then not take

action.

I see. Yeah. Okay, I can relate. I can

definitely relate to that. I think

that's that's also maybe a human nature

thing, but some of us are definitely

wired for novelty in a way that maybe

gets destructive if it's indulged a

little bit too much. I think a lot of

your followers assume that you've always

been hyperconfident and driven. I wonder

if there's a a version of you that would

surprise people like a awkward phase or

identity crisis maybe that you went

through like do you have like a goth emo

Alexi phase?

The honest truth is no. No,

I've I've always been pretty driven

and I think that

the people who knew me earlier on were

like, "Yeah, obviously this is what

happened." Like, so I have the u the

glossops of like no one is surprised.

And so that's probably not, you know,

the the motivational speech that people

who are listening want to hear. Um but

it's also the truth. And so I I mean

from a very young age, I wanted to make

money. Um I wanted to be in shape. I

wanted to have a girl that I thought was

attractive. And so I just did everything

I could to make sure that those things

happened.

What age do you think you were when you

started consciously being like, I have

to plan this out and execute on it. So

like, you know, a lot of kids who are

younger, they just kind of feel their

way through it. Or were you like age 12,

here's what's got to happen.

I didn't tie things to age. Um it was

more just like these are the things that

I want to do or want to have happen. Um,

I had a there was a girl that I dated

many years ago before Ila and uh she

said that her goal was to make $10,000 a

month and I I think at the time my goal

was to make $100,000. I can't remember

what it was and and she said, you know,

do you think that I'll achieve my goal?

And I said, well, I don't know. Cuz I

make I was making more money than she

was at the time. And I was like, uh, I

don't know. These are, you know, some

things to consider. And I said, well, do

you think uh I'll achieve my goal? And

she said, yes. And I was like, why? And

she said, because it's all you talk

about. And so I bring this up because I

think there sure there's some signs

around writing goals and things like

that.

I actually really haven't written many

of my goals down at all.

It's just that I literally think of

nothing else.

Yeah, you probably don't really need to

remember it if it's the thing that's

the only thing I think about all day.

And so I would say that and you know

what and like is that the right way? Is

that the wrong way? I have no idea.

Um but I would say that for those of you

who do have that um it will increase the

likelihood that you get them.

Yeah, for sure. What do you think about

work life balance? A lot of people are

advocates for this. It doesn't seem like

maybe you're uh in that camp.

I think it depends on seasons. And I

also have no shits. You can do whatever

you want.

Um if you want to achieve more than the

average person, then you will likely

have to work more than the average

person. It's like you cannot expect an

exceptional outcome and then not expect

to be an exception.

And so what's interesting about this is

that like,

you know, if you want to make, let's

say, a top 1% income in the United

States, which is about $600,000 a year

right now, then that means that in a

room of 100 people, you have to be

number one. And if you want to be, you

know, top point, you know, 1%, then

you're looking at a few million dollars

a year of income. It's like, okay, in

order to do that, you need to walk into

a room of a thousand people and

literally be better than all of them.

And you want to get to, you know, 10

million or or dollars a year. It's like,

you need 11,000 people in the room. And

so you're looking at, you know, a third

of a stadium. And you need to look at

every single person there and be like, I

have beaten all of them. It's like, so

if you if that's the if that's what it

looks like at those levels, it's like,

do you think it makes sense that you

would behave the same way they do? Mhm.

Do you think it would make sense that

you would that you'd spend the time the

same way they do? And also, does it make

sense that they would understand why you

do what you do? What's been really

interesting for me to observe is that

when I had no money, everyone criticized

me uh for working so hard. And then once

I had money, people criticized me for

working so hard.

That's funny. That's that's funny. What

how ironic is that? What's going on

there? thing.

I I think that when people see people

making trades that they are unwilling to

make the you have two options. One, you

say like this person is is more

motivated or they're better than I am.

Um or you criticize and I think it's a

much easier path to criticize.

That's exactly what I was going to say

if you came I didn't think you were

going to say I'm not sure but I I uh I

was going to jump in with that because I

think it's it's something that a lot of

us I think experience. Um, I noticed

that it's it's in every domain, too.

It's not just income. If you are, I

mean, if you're dating somebody who

people think is out of your league, it's

well, she's going to dump you at some

point. She's going to realize. And then

when you marry that person, they go,

"Well, you know, shallow son of a

bitch."

Yeah. We'll see how long it lasts.

Yeah. We'll see how long Yeah. See how

long it lasts. Or he's, you know, this

is shallow. Or, oh, you know, he's got a

lot of money. It's like, all right. Uh,

because the other option is, hm, this

person is better at this. the skill of

reproduction than I am or whatever. And

that is mating and reproduction. And

that's a that's like a core level

identity shift. And same thing with

money. Money is one of those primal sort

of provider levers where it's like you

can pretend you don't care about it, but

not many people are going to believe you

if you do that. U maybe if you're in

like a hippie circle. Uh but in

mainstream/normal

civilized company people are almost

always going to go unless you've done

something horrific like you are dumping

oil products in the bay for profit you

people are almost always going to go

well you've done well if you've managed

to create you know acquisition.com or

whatever it is without literally

murdering people.

I think you'd be surprised. I think

people will will will should talk anyone

who knows better than

Oh, I think they will do that. But I

think secretly they actually admire it.

They just won't admit it because it's

again that core level identity shift has

to happen where they go,

"Huh, I either have to let my ego take

this on the chin or I can publicly try

and [ __ ] talk this person and that makes

me feel better." But they still know if

they have any sort of modicum of

self-awareness. I feel like they still

know. Um I I personally think work life

balance is something for people maybe

over 40. Uh, I don't think and that's

that's if you want it. I think before

that it's a little delusional. If people

want work life balance, you're going to

be 30, you want to go on vacation five

times a year, but you also want to be

super wealthy. You better be the in the

top.1% of whatever skill you have. And

if you don't have that, you might be

delusional if you think you're going to

achieve that in in spite of all of these

other uh factors. Most people are stuck

thinking about like a 3 5% whatever

raise. You talk about scaling income

like it's a skill. What do you think is

a 30,000 foot overview of a road map for

someone to go from 50k to 500k for

example?

Uh within a job or within

Yeah. I I'll do within a job because I

think otherwise it's create a company

dot dot dot sky's the limit.

Um let's do the hard version which is

inside a career.

Yeah. So, um, you would have to be

likely at a company that had like you're

not going to make $500,000 a year in a

business that makes $500,000 a year,

right? Right. So, it has to be in a

business that could Well, yeah. And and

the thing is is a lot of people don't

know this is there's plenty of

businesses that exist that make 100

million, $200 million, $500 million a

year that aren't on the S&P 500 and they

do very well and sometimes they're

familyowned manufacturing businesses.

Like, it's there's plenty of

significantly larger businesses than

people expect. Um, so number one is I'd

go to kind of a if you wanted to make

$500,000 a year, you'd probably be

needing to look to work at a company

that does minimum call it 10 million a

year, probably maybe 20 plus uh to get

that kind of level of compensation

unless you're a CEO. Um, now beyond

that, you basically want to tie yourself

to the closest basically as as close to

revenue as humanly possible and

typically you want to take on as much

risk as humanly possible. So this is

where you basically become an internal

entrepreneur. And so one of the one of

the factors of entrepreneurship is like

you are taking more risk. And so um most

companies most people uh who are at

least good business people. So put a

caveat there. Um if you said hey if I

could bring an extra $5 million into the

business would you be willing to give me

10% of that. And if it's an extra $5

million then most people would say yeah

they would. And so it's always going to

be a discount on the amount of money

that you can make somebody else is what

you're ultimately going to make. Which

also works the exact same way as an

entrepreneur right? Think fundamentally

if if you're B2B then you're going to be

trying to make a business make more

money in some way and they're going to

pay you some smaller percentage of that

and if you do that for many businesses

you make a lot of money right on the on

the business consumer side uh well this

is all business I'll just keep it there

so even within a business you're still

basically a service provider to the

business itself and so you just want to

kind of think of yourself more as a

vendor than as an employee and thinking

like okay in what way and this is this

is a wonderful exercise by the way which

is and for the business owners listening

it's also good um can you clearly

Explain how what you do makes the

company money.

Sounds like a very simple thing to do,

but if you go around and ask your

customer service rep, how do you make us

money? Now they you're a finance person.

How do you make us money? You're a law.

How do you make us money? I actually

walk around and the thing is the people

who understand business will very

clearly be able to explain how each of

those roles now sales is an obvious one.

Okay. Well, if I don't sell, we don't

make money. Sure. But like many of these

things are second or third order uh you

know consequences away from the primary

revenue generation. And so if you can

even articulate that and say, "Hey, uh,

I'm in customer success and our churn is

10%, and I want to lead this project

that I think can cut us from 10% to 5%.

If I get us to 5%, will you bump me to

here?" Right? And so all of that though

is based on performance. And so you want

to get into a situation where you can

say, "Hey, I believe I can generate this

much value. I would like to be, you

know, uh, paid a small percentage of

that. Are you open to it?" Now they're

not

okay. It's very real to have cappers

and move. I mean I think that's a dumb

move from a business owner perspective.

Now there's also going to be the well I

think I can do this. Okay well what

resources are you asking me to to to put

into it? How much money do I have to put

in? How much time?

So the the more of that outcome you can

own in terms of uh money and time then

the more of the upside you'll be able to

to unlock. Yeah, I think that's smart. I

think doing that ahead of time is a good

strategy. A lot of people say, "I did

this and I earned all this money for the

company and they gave me the 5% raise.

I'm so pissed off." And I get it that I

would be angry, too. But I think the

mistake is they didn't go in saying,

"I've got this initiative that is going

to succeed. C can you commit upfront?"

Because one, uh, it's easier for them to

commit when they currently have to pay

you zero uh of that commitment. And two,

why am I going to pay you something

where I'm not sure if you planned this

or if you got lucky? Is it repeatable? I

mean, I'm not I'm not sure.

You weren't the one who actually did it.

Yeah. Were you the one who did it or did

Tom who just left 3 months ago do it and

he's not here to defend himself?

Yeah. I mean, yeah. I'll just leave it

at this.

Yeah. Yeah. The example that you were

going to give might not be might not be

good on record. Uh, all right. It's

2025. The economy is super weird uh for

many people. The job market's

unpredictable. Everyone's chasing I

think quick wins. Maybe not everyone. A

lot of people are chasing quick wins. If

someone came to you and said, "Okay,

what's what's the fastest and simplest

way I can get ahead in this particular

economy right now?" What would you tell

them? And is that different because of

the current economy or is it the same as

the answer you would always give?

I don't even know what the answer I

would always give is, but for right now,

it's AI period. Full stop. No questions

asked. That's what it is.

Uh, can you be more specific with AI?

It's basically applying AI to any

function of the business. So, you can

apply AI to marketing and that could be

on the paid ad side, that can be on the

content side. Um it could be applying

that to kind of the sales process which

is either outbound u or the actual you

know setting or the closing process in

whatever whatever it is that somebody

sells. It could be um on the delivery

side like how can we personalize

messaging in a way that um is going to

you know reduce headcount and increase

uh retention or decrease or increase

stick decrease turn. Um uh is there a

way that we can apply this to finance?

Is there a way that we can apply this to

recruiting? Is there a way that we can

apply this to IT? So all of these

different you know these are all the the

components of the business right uh or

the product itself and so right now

there's there's two the two greatest

forces in business for for for making

money are supply and demand and leverage

and so the idea in the ultimate scenario

is that you have tremendous demand very

small supply and as the person who's the

supplier you have tremendous leverage

not leverage in the like you have

leverage over them which for sure you

would in that scenario but leverage over

your deliverable which is can I do this

one thing a million times and be the

only person who does it for many people

right and so that's the perfect scenario

for creating or creating value right

and so what are the things that have the

highest amount of you know demand right

now for sure AI is is booming in terms

of business's demand for people who have

AI skills and AI related skills as it as

it as it affects any of those functions

of the business so it's like if we just

did that we're going to start shifting

the demand curve in our favor the other

benefit of the AI is that AI gives you

tremendous leverage because you can, you

know, spin up agents, you can do many

things uh for many people with just

being you. And so, you know, I define

technology as something that uh

decreases the value of humans uh but

increases the value of a human. And so

that is very much what AI is doing. All

humans, you know, base labor is becoming

less valuable with AI. Somebody who can

use AI in of themselves is more

valuable. And so it's it's never been

easier to make gigantic amounts of value

or money uh than it is today. And so um

and also information has never been more

accessible. And also I'd say the norm of

having many years experience has been

you know increasingly challenged. The

need for accreditation and colleges and

degrees has been I would say more or

less dispelled especially even at the

top places and so at the bottom ones

even more so you know notwithstanding

the the classic lawyer accountant

whatever. Um and so for somebody who's

like how do I fasttrack to money? is you

need to learn everything you possibly

can about AI and never stop and try and

get one specific problem for a business

that either requires a lot of headcount,

a lot of training uh to perform that

function and then get AI to do it. You

do that, you'll make as much money as

you want.

Yeah. I think it's AI is almost like

electricity. It's like when we came when

we when they came up with the

electricity, the the light bulb for

example, it was like great. Oh, now we

can put these on street lights or

whatever the first thing was. It's like

no, no, no, wait, think bigger, right?

What else can we electrify? Not just

where else can we put lights? What else

can we electrify? And that's see

seemingly what AI is right now. It's

like, oh, it's a it's like Google, but

it talks to you and it's like, oh, wait,

you got the search engine. Cool. That's

fine. That's the street light. But it's

the AI function of how do we make this

so that it can tell you the optimal, I

don't know, battery charge of every

electric car in the world and then tell

the communicate with the grid. That's

like a billion dollar idea. And it's

it's sort of a we have to have well

first of all educated and younger people

wrap their minds around this problem

because right now old older folks are

like oh it's just a fancy it's Google

2.0 when it's a completely different

thing. It's like electricity 2.0.

I I would just posit to make this uh

tactical for the people who are

listening like having the billion dollar

AI idea is worth exactly $0.

Yeah.

To be clear. And so I would encourage

you to simply think about how you can

apply AI to one of the eight functions

which are going to be fundamentally the

departments that exist in a business. A

smaller business won't have all eight

departments. A bigger one certainly

will. Right? And so you have marketing,

you have sales, you have product, you

have customer success or support, you

have IT, you have recruiting, you have

HR, and you have finance,

legal if you want to add it in.

Sure.

Those are the functions. Every business

has those things. And that's because

those things must occur in order for a

business to continue. And so all you

have to do is pick one of them and say,

"Okay, because because right now you're

trying to boil the ocean, be like, I

want to AIFI." It's like that doesn't

mean anything. I want to electrify the

world. That means nothing. So it's like,

how do we apply it in this very very

specific context? And then that will

allow you to kind of eat the elephant

one bite at a time.

Yeah, I like that. I I like the

actionable smaller idea, I think, is

better. I think the example I'm giving

is not somebody's idea. It needs to it's

it's that the magnitude of what AI can

do is so much greater than what people

are seeing. And I think that's the

important point. I think people are

thinking that it's some sort of fancy

automation tool like shortcuts on your

iPhone and it's it's well beyond that.

If a human can do it, AI can do it. And

so look at what humans are doing and

then figure out how to get an AI to do

it and then you're done.

And and the first jobs that go are

lawyers and well the one of the first

jobs to go is lawyers. And I noticed

that as soon as I could do legal

research with AI. Now granted, it cited

a bunch of cases that didn't exist, but

you can fix that. You can you can make

sure that something checks that. You can

have a really junior associate check

that case law. That's not a problem at

all. But once you see something do what

a mid-level or senior associate can do

in 15 minutes instead of 15 hours, like

that's when you know you're in trouble

and that's when you know you can make a

ton of money. I'm sure there's a ton of

companies out there automating legal,

but if you do it right, it's worth

hundreds of millions of dollars. You

built your whole brand around being

ultra ultra practical, no fluff, no

motivational speeches, just tactical,

and I like that. But I wonder if you

secretly have any rituals or habits that

would ruin your nononsense rep if people

knew about them.

Probably not.

No, nothing. No time wasting stuff.

I work out.

I don't think that's a waste of time.

Well, so like I mean my days I work out.

Yeah.

Um I work and I eat dinner with when we

eat dinner, we'll watch whatever show

and then we go to bed. And that's that's

that's more or less what my day is. If I

don't have a deep project that I'm

working on, um, I call it management by

walking. So, I'll walk around the

building. I'll peep into HR. I'll peep

into sales. I'll peep into marketing,

peep into media, and I'll just

I'll hang out. You know, what's going

on? Any problems I can help with? And

that's that's more or less it. Like I

I work a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I figure as

much. I want you watching anything uh

embarrassing on Netflix?

Um, what are we watching now? We're

watching All-American, which is like a

football show. That's an older show. Um,

and Leila likes Gossip Girl, so

sometimes.

Yeah. Oh, that's funny. Can relate.

What's a belief or maybe a behavior that

you had, let's say, 10 or 15 years ago

that you now see as misguided?

Um, not committing.

Not committing. Interesting. Tell me

more. Say more about that. So I mean I I

define commitment as the elimination of

alternatives which was I had the

misconception that I will work on

multiple things and see which one works

when in the reality any of them would

have worked if I had worked on it. And

so I would just never get past the point

of critical mass. And so the easiest

analogy I have for this is imagine you

uh want to start a party, right? It's

very hard to start a good party. Like

you have to invite a lot of people, you

have to prepare, you have to do all this

stuff. Um, but if you are successful

enough and get enough people to the

party, the party can't eventually take

off on its own and kind of become its

own thing. Now, to the same degree,

imagine you try to start four parties on

the same night at the same time, it's

almost impossible because you only have

you only have the same resource. You

have the same number of people, you

know, you have the same amount of money.

It's very, very hard to do that. And so,

this is what I see the vast majority of,

you know, smaller entrepreneurs uh doing

is that they're trying to start four

parties and say, "Well, whatever party

takes off is the one that I'm going to

I'm going to invest more in." But none

of them will take off. That's why in the

beginning, it feels very manual, very

like push. You're like, I promise the

party is going to be great. It's going

to be awesome, but who else is coming?

No, you. No one, right? But if you just

put all you're like, if you're like,

I'll be there. I'm not doing anything

else. This is all I'm going to be doing

is trying to make sure this part is

amazing. The likely that party one is

good and then two gets good enough that

you don't have to push to keep growing

it is good. It's just kind of a

microcosm for a business just on a much,

you know, shrunken time scale. But I

think for that reason, that's that is

probably the number one reason that

people don't get what they want is

because they spread themselves too thin.

You have such limited resources in the

beginning. It's like I think this is the

piece that people misunderstand like you

have functionally no money if you're an

individual you have basically no money

when it comes to a corporate scale right

you have almost no money and you have

almost no time uh again compared to 100

people right

you have no no money no time and so you

have such such such limited resources

that the actual skill that's missing is

strategy and so strategy is

prioritization of resources so said

simply like what do we do and more

importantly what do we not do with the

few things that we can do out of the few

things that we can do and So, just being

able to just say, you know what, all

four of these parties could be good. It

could be a pirates theme. It could be a

it could be a Greek theme. It could be

a, you know, whatever theme, but I'm

just going to try and make this pirate

theme one good. That's all I'm going to

do. And the thing is is that we then

think, oh, well, this succeeded because

it was pirate themed. No, it just

succeeded because I was the one that you

worked on. So, as long as fundamentally,

like you let people know about your

stuff, you have a conversion mechanism,

you have and the thing that you sell

cost significantly less than the thing

you at the price you sell it for, you'll

probably be okay. But people just spend

forever trying to figure out which party

theme is going to be the best theme. And

you just don't need to do that because

as soon as you pick, you eliminate the

alternatives. You commit and then you're

good to go.

How did you figure out that that was the

problem that was keeping you from

success? Or did something just

eventually take off through sheer brute

force and you realize that you wasted

your time with the other initiatives?

No, nothing took off. Yeah, I um I and

people may be surprised by this, but I

was probably making a few million

dollars a year, not income, revenue,

uh between like

nine different businesses.

Yeah. O, that's stresses me out just

thinking about

I was 20 26

at the time.

Uh and I like to tell people I you know,

nine businesses, but like that's because

I thought that's what successful

entrepreneurs did when in reality it's

like no, you make one business extremely

successful and then you just make

investments and you don't spend your

time. You can only be CEO of one thing.

And so I was CEO of nine businesses and

almost I almost died. Um got DUI head on

collision the whole thing like like yeah

and then I had somebody uh thankfully

say hey uh you were spread too thin. The

stress will kill you quite literally and

you need to make decisions. The

difficulty was for me I was the rain

maker in all the businesses. And so I

basically was just killing myself to

generate income for all of them.

Um and almost nothing was left over

every month because I had to pay people

to do everything else because that was

the only thing that I was doing. And so

uh Leila obviously came into my life.

obviously came into my life. Um, and she

said, "Hey, you know, genius, wouldn't

it be cool if there's this one thing

that you do that seems to work better

than the others, but we haven't given it

a chance because you're only giving 2

hours a week to it?"

Uh, what if you spent all your time on

that? And so, u, I thought that logic

made sense. And I clearly what I was

doing was not working.

And so, I, um, I had to have all the

hard conversations and I lined them up

over 48 hours. I literally called every

partner that I had with all the other

businesses and said, "I'm out and you

can have everything." And you know when

I when I made that call you know the

people that were in my life were like

you worked for years to build these

businesses and like what are you

thinking like why don't you why don't

you sell them for more money um and I

tomorrow yeah exactly because I fire

sold fires sold it all. What was really

interesting is that over the next six

months I made more money than I would

have made from the sale of all those

businesses uh put together by just

focusing on one thing which is why I've

been such an advocate of it and I repeat

that theme because the thing is is that

focus never gets easier. It's kind of

like an addiction like you have to beat

it every day. Tell me more about that.

Focus never gets easier.

Yeah, because the more skilled you

become, the more aware of opportunities

uh you you become as well. And so you

see more ways to make money the more

ways you know how to make money.

I see. And do you find that to be

potentially distracting from what you're

currently doing?

It never stops. And like I mean imagine

this for a moment like imagine you have

a million people who are a captive

audience of yours who love your stuff.

How many different businesses could you

start?

This is the problem that I run into

every single day. And people go, "Oh,

you're leaving money on the table." And

I'm like, "Yeah, I know. It's I'm glad

I'm glad you realize that because I'm

doing it on purpose."

I don't want to write three books and

have a merch line and run my own network

because right now I read books and talk

to smart people and I get a fat check

because of it. You're telling me to do

less of the thing that I like that makes

all of the money and then print

t-shirts. Why is that a good idea? And

nobody can really come up with a good

reason other than they get a cut of that

particular business because that's what

they do or whatever. And I think leaving

money on the table is actually a

brilliant plan for most people,

especially when, like you said, I never

thought about it that focus never gets

easier, but you're right. You start to

go, "Oh yeah, I do have this audience. I

could sell them this. I could sell them

this. I could sell them this. I could

sell them this." And somebody will go,

"What if you had to do only 15% of the

work for that particular thing?" And

one, that's always a lie. And two,

that's always a shitload of work. It's

actually a ton of work, 15%. So, it's

it's not just like an extra hour a week.

It's like an extra 15 hours that month

or that week potentially, depending on

how how screwed up that business gets

due to you not focusing on it the whole

time. I feel like you can probably

relate to that. Uh, so get used to

leaving money on the table, I think, is

is a is is pretty much fair. I wonder if

there's anything you still suck at no

matter how much time or money you throw

at it.

I think focus. It's still the thing that

I have to beat every day. It's very

hard. It's extremely hard.

Yeah. Um because also to the same degree

like when we have more resources I have

a ton of very smart people who work you

know at acquisition.com we have good

amounts of capital that we can put to

work uh to pursue any opportunity. And

so um I just have to be even more

selective about the things that are

worth doing. And so if something has a

$100 million cap I'm just not

interested. Right? But it's like and

even even a billion dollar idea, it's

like I want I want something that has a

decabillion dollar, you know, potential

minimum in order for me to be like, "All

right, let's let's literally say no to

everything else besides this one thing."

And so, and then once you say yes to it,

it's it's it's it's committing. It means

eliminating the alternatives. Like, you

get married to the idea. And I I use

that term because when you get married,

you eliminate all the alternatives.

There's no other person you're going to

be with. That's the point. Um, and that

also means that if someone what appears

to be better comes along, it means you

stick with your original commitment. And

typically though, I'll say this is, you

know, my my my two cents on that is that

when that better person comes along,

it's it's very rare that they're

actually better. It's just that you

don't know all the bad stuff yet because

Yeah. Well, of course.

Because it's early and it's new, right?

And so

applies to business, applies to dating.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the grass is always

greener on the other side, but it's also

because it's fertilized with [ __ ]

And so it's just remembering that. And

so I would say that the this last year

was the first year in my career that I

realized that I didn't feel FOMO. And so

that was like a very huge accomplishment

for me. Um because I would say for the

first more than decade of my career, if

someone was making, you know, someone

came to me and say, "Hey, I did this

thing and it made a bunch of money." I

immediately was like, "I need to stop

doing this. I should start doing that."

Um or I was like, "Man, uh you know, his

thing's easier. Mine's not, you know,

mine's mine's harder. This is so dumb

with me.

I can relate." Yeah. And I would say

that at this point um you know if

someone comes to me and they just did a

monster deal or something my immediate

thought and this is what has changed is

I'm like that's amazing and I know

nothing about that and I've spent this

much time learning about this thing and

you spent this much time learning about

that thing and for me to catch up to

where you're at. I have to spend the

same you know 13 14 years you did

learning this one thing but here's the

part we have to compare it against.

Let's say you're 13 years into one

career path. Well if you're younger say

you're two years into your career path.

You have to start at two years behind on

this other thing because you have to

compare year four of your current thing

to year two of the other thing.

Yeah. Interesting.

Not year two of the other thing to where

you're currently at now cuz we have to

take into account like we're also going

to get better. And the longer you do

something, the better you get and the

more that the incremental benefit acrews

to an outsized return. So I'll give you

an example. So let's say let's say

you're you're a runner just for

simplicity sake. The difference between

first place and second place is almost

nothing. It's a tenth of second, right?

But the difference between first place

and second place in terms of real world

is everything. And so the same thing

happens when it comes to skills. If

you're the absolute best marketer in the

marketplace, you will the the vast

majority the line share of the returns

will go to number one. And so if you're

on this path and you're like, "Okay,

well now I'm top 10%." It's like that's

great. Do you want to start at zero

again? Because the thing is is going

from 10% to 5%. Might only be a 5%

absolute uh difference, but might be a

triple in your income. And so that's the

piece that like if they're like, "Man,

I've made all this progress to get to

here and I'm not making as much as I

want." And it's like, yeah, but all the

fruit is at the end.

Yeah.

And that's why that's why sticking with

the pick is so important.

Yeah. I think that's that's smart. What

have you ever heard of the concept of

skill stacking where it's like, all

right, I'm never going to be in the top

1%, but I can be in the top 5% in five

different areas that overlap. What do

you think about that?

I'm a a a hardcore uh advocate. So, I

won my my number one YouTube video of

all time that interesting. I I I got

that from uh Scott Adams, but it makes

sense that you also had that. I probably

also watched it during my binge and uh

planted it in my notes.

It's so important because what happens

is this is kind of like we were saying

earlier where the more skills you have,

the more opportunities you can see. And

so that's where these disperate skills

can connect and then you can see kind of

through lines where no one else can see

them because if you only know how to do

one thing,

it's it's very limited in terms of

number of things you can do. But if

you're very good at, you know, math at

the beginning and then it turns into,

okay, well, I'm good. I learned how to

bookkeep and then I learned how to do

accounting and then you learn how to do

insurance then you learn how to do tax

then you learn how to do M&A all of a

sudden that stack together becomes

unbelievably valuable and so but if you

just learn and this is where I think it

gets interesting is that you want to

learn skills that are complimentary

um now in retrospect you know Steve Jobs

is like okay well I learned calligraphy

and it turned into the fonts you know

for Mac I would say you know the

secondary question is

would Mac not have been successful if it

didn't have fonts

I I was just going to say I don't think

the the iPhone is a result of him

knowing what Sans Sarah

Um but what people don't know is that he

studied he was super into computers and

super into hardware from the time he was

a child and so um learning skills now if

he learned more about supply chain that

would probably be beneficial for that

business right and so learning those uh

you know now there are some

generalizable skills they'll apply to

just about any business because there's

the core product and you want to learn

as much as you can about whatever that

core skill or core thing that you're

building is but then there's all the

things that will always be true for

every business and so this is kind of

what I would consider the difference

between learning the game of business

versus the product itself which is If

anything, if you look across all the

different businesses that exist, the

product's really the only

differentiator. The rest of it's the

same. You're going to have marketing,

you have sales, you're going to have HR,

you're going to have legal, you're going

to have financing, all these functions

are there. And so, you can guarantee

that you have to learn all those things

if you want to get in the game. Right?

Now, which one do you start with? You're

not going to start with finance because

you have no money to count.

Yeah, good point.

Right? So, it's like we have to start

these things in sequence. And so,

typically, it's going to be um either

you decide to learn the business from

the outside in or you learn from the

inside out. So what that means is like,

okay, I have to learn how to promote. I

have to let people know about stuff. I

have to learn how to get them to give me

money. So I have to learn how to sell.

Um, and that's kind of like if you just

know those two things, if you literally

only know how to promote and learn how

to sell, you will be able to feature

stuff for the rest of your life. If you

just know those two things, now from the

product side, it's like, okay, well, I

can build this thing and then I'll have

to learn how to market and sell it. You

can you can go either direction. Um, but

at the end of the day, you will have to

do all those three things um at a large

enough level. uh sorry at a deep enough

level in order to get that first dollar

across and that's like those are the the

core deficiencies that that people are

getting into business struggle from.

Yeah, I I think that's quite a student

and I I remember learning a lot of this

stuff almost by accident when in my 20s

it was like finding these info marketers

online that wrote really good emails and

they would promote some course and I'd

buy the course all excited and I'm like

this course is an absolute piece of hot

garbage and I was like I can make a

better one. So, I made better ones and I

was like, "Oh, I got to learn all this

email, newsletter, website, landing page

stuff, which turned out to be not magic

and was quite sort of formulaic and

relatively easy." And then, uh, we

started doing a podcast and people were

like, "Oh, it's like content marketing,

but it's an audio." And I was like, "Oh,

I never thought about it like that cuz I

just enjoyed doing it." Focused a little

bit more on the content marketing side.

Dot dot dot made tens of millions of

dollars with that particular business.

Great product, better marketing. And

then in my 30s it was like, "Oh, now

that I consciously actually sort of kind

of maybe know what I'm doing, then your

foot's on the gas and it's it's a lot

easier to actually make money." But you

have to be conscious of these steps

first. Otherwise, you're farting around

in the dark. I think a lot of the time

it's easy in retrospect.

Yeah. Yeah. Of Exactly. If you could

whisper something into the ear of every

follower that's sort of brutally honest

that you think they might not be ready

to ear ready to hear, what do you think

that would be?

You're not making as much money as you

want because you're not as good as you

think you are.

So

yeah, I think that's that's probably

true for for for most people. I think

that's probably true.

I think people have this this belief

that somehow the universe is unfair. And

I think that actually for the vast

majority of the time, the universe is

extremely fair. It's just that it being

fair has made you not make money.

Yeah. I I mean I I feel like it's

unfair, but I'm I'm in the I'm getting

the advantage of that. I feel like it's

unfair in my direction. Like I've been

incredibly incredibly lucky, so I can't

complain. Is it fair? I don't know. I

mean, some people get the short end of

the stick. I just don't happen to be one

of those.

This is an interesting topic that I

don't think I've ever talked about,

which is just kind of the influence of

luck on outcomes.

And so, if we look at So, there's a

couple elements of this. So, one is if

you look at the top outcomes in like

just earning money, right? We we want to

look at the top 10, the top 100, but if

you look at that from a percentage

standpoint, that's somebody who has

incredible drive, incredible

intelligence, um a huge stack of skills

and luck,

right? Because if you think about the

the absolute max outcome has to have

everything in its favor. And so there's

probably tons of things you can learn

from the top 10,000 richest people in

the world, not just the top five, right?

Because the top five will have all those

things plus luck. Right? Now, that being

said, uh Napoleon, I think, had a had a

had a little saying. He said, uh he

preferred lucky generals.

So even if a general did everything

right, but he was unlucky, he just got

rid of them because he's like, "Well, if

I had to pick, I'd rather have lucky

generals."

And so one of the things that I would

say has served me really well has been

that I have an intrinsic belief that I

am lucky. um in like most situations

like almost annoyingly so like people

around me are like of course it's gonna

work out for Alex like and so I would

encourage you to like if you don't

believe that now start looking for the

things that you have been lucky for so

that you can internalize that um because

I think believing that you were lucky

allows you to take on bigger shots and I

think that that is where you actually

get a huge amount of upside so like the

belief that this thing will probably

work out because the downside is I'll

probably be okay um allows me to take

bigger swings and then if you take

enough big swings one of them works out

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I think

acknowledging the role of luck, people

are afraid to do that because they feel

like it somehow diminishes all of their

hard work and I think that's the wrong

way to look at it. I think it's better

to view yourself like you said as

extremely lucky on completely in the

other side of that because you you'll

one be less risk averse and two I think

it's it's quite fair to acknowledge the

role of luck as long as you're not

blaming bad luck for your failures all

the time. I mean sometimes I suppose

it's accurate but usually there's

something you could have done about it.

And what's interesting though is that

luck itself is also manipulatable,

right? So it's like we can increase our

luck. Of course, like if you never go

outside, uh the likelihood, so if we're

just in luck in terms of chance, if we

say it differently, the chance that you

meet someone who's going to change your

life is very low, right? If you go on a

100red dates, uh you know, a year, the

likelihood that you meet or the chance

that you meet a girl that you like is

significantly higher. And so people will

complain that they never met the girl of

their lives, but they didn't they never

created the opportunity for luck to

occur.

Yeah. There's less not enough surface

area for luck. 100%. And so it's like

how do I increase my luck surface area?

And there's different vectors that you

can do that. Um but one of the most

basic ones is if I am around people who

are succeeding,

then when the luck falls their way, it

might also spill into me.

Right. Yeah. Right. Right. The halo

effect. I like that. What's a fail?

Speaking of unlucky and lucky, I

suppose. What's a failure or loss that

you wouldn't trade away because it

changed who you are?

So many.

So many.

Yeah. I mean I mean I am a product of my

failures.

Is there anything epic that's uh that

stands out?

I mean I've lost everything I have

twice.

So

so that that stands out.

How old were you when that happened?

Uh 26

seven somewhere there.

Yeah.

Both times.

Yeah.

So both times in one year.

Yeah.

Oh jeez. That's a tough year.

Technically different calendar years but

yeah.

Yeah. Same age. That's that's tough. I

mean

first year of dating. Wow.

Matt be successful. Lost it all. Started

getting it all back. Lost it all again.

I I'm so curious. At what point was she

like, "Okay, third time's a charm." And

if not, well, you know, tick tock.

That's funny. I wonder what she'd say

about that. Uh you guys seem like a

powerhouse couple. I'm wondering if

you've had a disagreement that you can

share that shook your foundation and how

you rebuilt from that.

So, I don't think we've had a

disagreement that's shaken our

foundation. We've had only one, I would

say, like true fight, if you want to

call it that, and it was a business

fight. It wasn't anything romantic. Um,

our our Leila and I have a very like

like there's some people who have very

like fireworksy relationships. Leila and

I have what I would consider just like a

a a coal fire, you know what I mean?

Like it's not going to take like it just

it just burns. You know what I mean?

Yeah. It's very consistent. And so

she and I have a lot of respect for one

another. And so if like the the initial

response to a disagreement is always

what information do you have that I

don't have because we typically make

decisions the same way and we have the

similar values. And so if we're

optimizing around the same goal and we

want to get there the same way, then if

one of us disagrees, it's typically

because we have some information vanish,

right? And then sometimes, you know, she

might say, you know, well, it's this and

like that's a great perspective. Didn't

think about that. Good point. Or it

could happen in reverse. But the um the

instance where uh we came to a

disagreement was that I I wanted to

start the software company um when we

already had a sol company and gym watch

at the time. And um it you know, she was

like, "We cannot do this. We are so

spread thin. Like we can't do this." And

I was just like, you are not thinking

big enough. Like this is a huge

opportunity. And um and I was wrong. You

know, we uh I mean, we built the company

and and I you know, I forced it into

existence. And um it I could have taken

all of that effort and just continued to

improve the existing business and I

would have made more money than if I

than me distracting everyone and making

this my my new pet project. We ended up

selling the company, but it I I lost

money on the sale of Gym Launch and

Prestige Labs to create Allen

and the amount that I got from that

pales in comparison to what I would have

gotten if I had built the other thing

the right way.

Interesting. So, that's back to your

point about focus and things like that.

The number one sin of my entrepreneurial

career.

Yeah, that's that's an interesting

point. It's funny you mentioned the

consistency in the fireworksy

relationships. If you're in a fireworks,

this is a PSA. If you're in a fireworksy

relationship, ask what you are really

getting out of that level of drama

because talk about focus and

distraction. I can't think of anything

more distracting than trying to run a

company while your relationship is up

here one day and down here the next day

and requires cost and attention and

repair. No, thank you.

Cost and attention and repair. That's a

good That's a good way of saying it.

I mean, that's like you're just holding

a car together like this if you're

trying to run a business.

You have a free hand. Yeah.

Jeez. No, thank you. If I asked Ila

what's something Alex has has wrong

today, what do you think she would say?

Wrong today?

Yeah.

I mean,

actually, let me rephrase this here.

It's hard to put words in her mouth and

it might not work out. What's something

about Alex that the internet has totally

wrong? What's something that she sees

that other people don't see?

Well, I think we'll say from the

internet perspective, that was a that

one's more straightforward. I think I

think people think, despite know how

many times I say it, that I think people

should do something.

Mhm.

I'm such an advocate of personal

freedom. Do whatever you want. I speak

because the vast majority of people do

want to make more money and they aren't

making as much money as they want. And

so I talk to those people and if you

create caveats with every single

statement you make, then I have a

disclaimer, you know, after every

message, it doesn't it doesn't actually

reach anyone. And so it's like I have to

be willing to take licks for people mis

like for a small percentage of people

misunderstanding me so that the vast

majority of people understand me

correctly and it doesn't apply to their

situation. Um, but anyone who meets me,

I would say in person would be like,

"Oh, Alex is like more laid-back than I

expected." Um,

because, you know, if someone's like,

"Well, do you think I should?" Like,

"You do whatever you want, dude. Like,

do whatever you want." And if you want

nothing, you've won.

Yeah. No kidding. I There are many days

that that I wish I wanted less than I

do.

Yeah. Or want what you have.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, that's I would say that's

probably the number one thing. Um, I

think people think that I'm again more

hardcore

uh than I am because I just speak in

terms of sacrifices. Um, that you can't

add things to your calendar when you

already have a full calendar. And so you

have to give things up in order to get

more of what you want. Um, and I think

when I when I spelled that out more

tactically, they're like, "Well, are you

saying I shouldn't enjoy my 20s?" I was

like, "You should do whatever you want."

Right?

If you spend that time that you could

otherwise have invested in some sort of

skills, you will not do as well as if

you had invested in those skills. And if

you're okay with that, awesome.

So, it's really just walking through

those trades. And I think that's where

that's where I get taken out of context

the most times.

I will say for the record, my 40s are a

lot better than my 20s in many ways. One

of the reasons is because I didn't have

that much money in my 20s and now I have

plenty of it and I can do a whole lot

more. Yes, I would love to be 25 again

for another maybe like a year, but I

think I would probably be itching to

come back after that amount of time. Uh

especially because once you if you stay

in shape, there's not a whole lot that

you're missing other than like well once

you get married, there's certain things

that are off the table. But there's not

a whole lot of stuff that you're

missing. And people take you much more

seriously when you're 40 than they do

when you're 25. I'll tell you that. You

talk a lot about removing your ego from

the equation in business, but you also

have you have this public brand. How do

you draw the line between building a

legacy and maybe like feeding that

identity?

Um, well, I I I've never really thought

much about building a legacy overall.

Okay.

Um, mostly because like the moment I'm

dead, I won't be around. And so

obsessing about what's going to happen

afterwards when it has absolutely zero

effect on me is something that I I I

actually put zero attention to. Um, I I

focus most of my time on just utility,

like how can I be useful? Um, because I

get some level of fulfillment from that.

And so for me, maximizing my utility to

other people has been something that's

been rewarding for me. And so I just do

as much of that as I can. Um, now the

second part, the question you said was

how do I how do I break that apart from

uh it was kind of like how do you how do

you draw the line between because you

have a brand, right? We talk about

removing ego. You have a brand, but you

also have to feed the identity without

feeding your ego. Does that make sense?

I actually don't know what that means.

No, it's kind of like you're building a

brand, right? You're you're using you're

creating content marketing, things like

that. A lot of people who do that, it

gets so tempting to mention examples,

but that's not why we're here. They feed

this ego, this pretend version of

themselves, and they eventually delude

themselves into believing that they're

actually that person. Or do you think I

mean many people are surprised when I'm

exactly the same way in real life as I

am on this podcast? I wonder if you

experience that cuz a lot of creators

are not the same person that they are

online. They're totally totally wildly

different and it's weird in my opinion.

So I I mean I would think that anyone

can reconcile it by being the same

person in both scenarios.

It's probably easier said than done

though for some people. I think they

don't like themselves. I think that's

what it comes down to. I'm not accusing

you of that by the way. I just think

other people don't like the real version

of themsel and instead of working on

that they put out the false persona and

they kind of think if a million people

believe that this is who I am that

magically becomes who I am even though

they still have to go to bed with

themselves at the end of the day. I

think you know the number one rule of

marketing that we have that's like the

the first thing that I teach everyone is

state the facts and tell the truth and

so you won't feel this imposttor

syndrome if you just state the facts and

tell the truth and so if you want those

that truth like if people are not

excited if an audience does not suddenly

gather around you when you state the

facts and tell the truth then you have

to look in the mirror and say well how

do I make these facts and truths more

compelling which means I have to do more

[ __ ] and so that's where I focus the

vast majority of my attention and I

think many younger guys would be better

served by simply saying, "Hey, you will

make more money by taking 10 years

accomplishing [ __ ] and then two years

talking about it than you will about 12

years talking about stuff you haven't

done." And I think that's the thing

because there's also a level of depth

and nuance that you can only really

discuss once you've actually done

something. Otherwise, you're really just

regurgitating content that you've just

researched on the internet and just

trying to parrot things. And I can think

of no worse life than just being a

parrot.

Yeah. And so I think that and the thing

is is um

you know people want the view without

the climb. People want to be an

influencer or people want to build a

personal brand without if you look at

like let's just use the business space

because it's simple and the the largest

business influencers that exist have

mondo business outcomes. Like I would

say the largest business influencer

Yeah. Exactly. I would have said like

the largest business influencer right

also happens to be the richest man in

the world.

Yeah.

Exactly. And the thing is he didn't even

need he didn't he didn't like the brand

occurred

as a result of his association by

building three of some of the most

valuable companies in the world. Basos

has a personal brand but it came as a

result of the thing that he built. And

so um when you're thinking especially

especially in the business space um if

you want to kind of build that personal

brand focus on the evidence focus on the

proof. Um and if you do that the talking

kind of takes care of itself because you

get to talk about things you've done.

And I think the the easiest pivot in

terms of, you know, modifying your

language is instead of saying how to do

this thing, talk about how you did this

thing. And no one or you'll be

significantly less likely to a piss

people off or b sound like preachy. If

you're like, hey, I did this thing.

Here's how I did it. Use what's useful.

And no one's like, screw that guy. But

as soon as I say, here's how to do this

thing. Do it like this. Now it's like

anybody who has a different opinion or

different experience is going to say,

this guy's full of [ __ ] He sucks.

Whatever. And so I I just like that it's

simply like I ate oatmeal, not you have

to eat oatmeal. It's a very small

difference, but actually I think it

makes a very large one in terms of how

people perceive the

That's true. The credibility gap is is

massive between those two things. Let's

talk about fear for a second. I'm

wondering if there's something that

scares you now that didn't scare you

before money, audience, brand, whatever

current sort of life that you have. Like

is there anything A lot of people that I

talk to, for example, on the show,

they're they'll say secretly like, "Oh,

I I would hate to have to start over."

You already did that twice in one year

before we just talked about. So, so it's

probably not that. There's probably Is

there anything else?

Yeah, I'm afraid of losing my mind. Um,

literally like going crazy.

Yeah. Oh, uh, crazy if it was younger,

but older if I had Alzheimer's or

something like that.

Oh, literally like mental mush. I see.

Become mush. Um, so losing my mental

acuity is I would say a large fear of

mine.

How old are you now?

Uh, 36.

Okay. I'm 45. I got bad news for you.

Now, actually, I have good news for you.

So far, I don't notice it. So either I'm

too far gone or it happens slower than

people start to than people talk.

Your fluid intelligence peaks like in

your like mid20s and then you have until

like 35ish where it like kind of

plateaus and then it just starts slowly

going down. Then you have to make up for

different types of intelligence,

crystallized intelligence, etc. Um but

so that's that that's probably big fear

number one. And then my second biggest

fear um is chronic pain. So if I had a

if I had some sort of disease or some

sort of debilitating thing that like

chronically every morning I'd wake up

and the first breath of air that I have

is just pain. That's something that um

and the reason I think pain especially

like physiological pain um is that all

species not just humans like

physiological pains puts you in kind of

a state of aggression. Um that's why

people are just cranky

when they're in pain. And I think it's

just very hard. I mean, not to say that,

you know, hey, if that does happen, I'm

sure I'll develop some sort of, you

know, mental fortitude around that. Um,

but I would say those are those are

probably the two things. Like one is

just being the largest burden possible

on other people. And the second is like

I just it would be it'd be very hard to

live.

Yeah, that's man.

So, those are my two

those are real answers, man. For sure.

Those are real answ.

Uh, and it's probably always in the back

of your head. And yeah, the chronic pain

thing, I did a show on pain and chronic

pain. It it tends to be turns out it's

not just physical. It's like completely

psych it's a very holistic kind of

thing. And the people that wrote in who

have chronic pain and detailed how it

affected their lives, it was really

sobering. I mean, it is just like

Yeah.

You trade your problems in the middle of

the table, you probably pick your own

back up.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Absolutely.

My my father's father didn't recognize

him for the last 25 years of his life.

So like I like that's that's very hard.

And also if you if your mind is going

like that then you actually can't really

learn anything because you just

groundhog day over and over again and

you're really just a burden to everyone

and it's tough because there's some real

you know human questions about that.

It's like if this person cannot develop

because the brain cannot remember

anything ever

and there's 25 years left in this

person's life where their body is

healthy.

It's like is that person the same

person?

Yeah. I don't think

so there's a lot of harder questions

have to ask around that but like u you

know Ila has my living will she knows

she knows what I want to do and probably

most people can guess what I want.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's it's interesting.

I'm the same way. I I um I was speaking

with some older folks recently and there

was a guy who told me that he he visits

his wife in the nursing home or

whatever, but she doesn't remember him

and his heart broke because of that. So

there and there's another woman that

visits her husband in the same nursing

home and he doesn't remember her. So

these two started dating and I was like,

"Oh my god, your spouses are still alive

but you're dating someone else." And

he's like, "Are is my spouse still

there? I take care of her because I

still love that person, but she doesn't

even know who I am. So, I don't think

that that's one, what, she wouldn't want

this. She wouldn't want me to be s just

with a vacant shell of a partner. And

two, it's like he's he's basically made

the argument that she it's not actually

her still there. Like in his heart and

in his mind, she's still there kind of,

but like there's that dis enough of a

disconnect where it's it's really her.

It's an ethical question for sure.

Sickness and health. What is sickness?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You're Well, look,

on a happier note, you're a systems guy.

You optimize. Would you say everything?

Is that fair? Uh I wonder if there's

anything in your life that you

intentionally leave messy just to like

stay human.

Yeah, I train. I work out.

Um and

I didn't notice

more recently. Um I've just given myself

the kind of like [ __ ] launch of uh I

work out whenever I want and I take as

long as I want and I tend to like longer

workouts. I like to take my time. Um

because it was it was a big realization

for me because I've trained my whole

life. You know, I've trained 20 plus

years.

Um and I haven't really met like I've

been pretty consistent. Um but you know,

there's seasons of you know, uh being

into it versus seasons of like I'm not

really into my training right now. It's

like I'm just doing it cuz I I want to I

want to keep what I have, right?

Um

but the big realization that I had was

that I was like what separates the

workouts because the work like I've been

doing this for a long time because I do

enjoy something, right? And so I was

like, well, what what do I enjoy the

most? And so for me it's like very long

morning workouts

um like you know multiple hours and I

like doing it with somebody that I like

and if I do that and then I and like

bonus points if I can eat afterwards

with that person and just like shoot the

[ __ ] to me that's like the beginning of

an amazing day. And if I just do that

like my day is a W. And so um I think it

was like some realization that I had

actually this year where I just said I

have enough money that if I work out

I could work out. It's like the one

luxury where you just

It's exactly that. It's exactly that.

And I spend I spent an egregious amount

of money on my gym. Uh it's in this

building. And um I spent I've spent more

I spent more on this gym than I spent on

all six of my gyms put together.

Yeah.

That I owned as a commercial gym owner.

Oh, really? That's funny. Can I see it

after this? I'm so curious.

Yeah. Um and so it's just like I have

all the best pieces from all the

different manufacturers around the

world. Pieces that are my favorite

pieces. And I and I just I just give

myself permission to feel guilt-free

about that work about about training

that way. And so that's been that's been

one of the big gifts of this year.

Yeah. Good for you, man. That's that's

good to hear because otherwise, you

know, all work and no plays something

something. Why bother?

When do you feel most unimpressive or

like a beginner again? And how do you

handle that versus maybe how you would

have handled that 15 years ago? Um, I

mean, new domains, you know, um, like

right now, new domains, like I need to

learn. I'm I'm a beginner in AI, you

know, compared to what I think I should

be at. And so my the free time that I

have, it's how can I learn to use this

stuff? Like I'm trying to code apps

right now so that I can just not apps

that I need to use, just so that I can

go through the process and get the reps

so that I can speak about it more

intelligently. Um, but yeah, I feel like

a beginner right now. And I I mean, I

know what I And the diff here's the

difficult part for me right now is that

I have my existing requirements. I have

my existing duties and tasks that I have

to do to continue to feed all the

families that rely on acquisition.com.

Um, and so this is again the advantage

that the young man has or the young

woman has, which is like you don't have

my responsibilities. And so like I have

to keep this large ship going

and also somehow try and go back and

beat somebody who's 25 years old or 20

years old who has every hour of every

day to dedicate to this. And so, you

know, the leverage that I have is I'm

like, "Okay, well, can I hire that

person?" And that's why I said at the

very beginning of this, like, if you

have these amazing skills, you have

tremendous leverage, right? Um, and so,

and this is also, I think, one of the

natures of like why I think part like

older people, I'll say quotes here, I'm

not consider myself old, but older than

a 20-year-old. Um, it's like they

struggle with technology partially

because it's something new. Um, but I

have very little of that. I'm like, I'm

I'm in. I want to I want to learn as

much as I can. The problem is that

there's just so many other things that

are also incredibly important that they

have to continue because other people

rely on them. And so like I could say

everything and everyone, you know,

figure it out on your own, but that

would be risking a lot of people's, you

know, careers for me to learn this other

thing. And so I have to just try and

like my goal right now is just to be

good enough that I'm dangerous. Um, but

not expect that I'm going to also be the

CTO and build this whole thing. And so

that's I have to I have to play the game

that I'm best at. And so that's going to

be the the game around the game.

Yeah. Yeah. I can appreciate that. Well,

thank you. so much, man. I can see why a

lot of people so many people follow your

advice. You don't sugarcoat stuff. I

always appreciate that. Um, and it seems

like you tow the line between telling

people to be bold and but not telling

them to do stupid insane things. Uh, and

burn the ships for no good reason.

So, and thanks for letting me interview

you on your home turf. This is a pretty

cool setup we got here. It's generous of

you. I do want to see the gym.

Yes.

I wasn't kidding about that. For sure.

Let's do it. Thank you, man. Appreciate

it.

Thank you.

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