Original subtitles

I'm making this for people who want to

get rich. And if that is not you, that

is totally fine. There's no judgment.

You can skip this. But this is for

people who are trying to, call it money

max for the short period. So, if you if

you want to max, you have to min, and

you have to be willing to do that for a

period of time.

And so, I'm going to give you an

argument that I think is very compelling

for why you do it sooner. And so, if you

want to get rich, then you should try

and get rich as young as possible, and I

will break down very logical reasons for

why. So, number one, first and foremost,

one of the most underrated reasons is

the math behind getting wealthy. All

right? So, money compounds at three to

four times the rate in the beginning as

it does later, meaning

your increase in compounding on the

excess cash you have in the earlier

parts of your

career will outpace the increase in

earning power. And so, for example,

if you have $1 extra when you're 25, it

might be $90 by the time you're 70,

right? Whereas, if that same dollar at

would only be a third as much. And that

same dollar at 45 would be a ninth as

much, right? And so, the idea is

the dollars that you make, even though

they may be smaller by proportion, when

you get when you allow compounding to

compound, actually results in more money

later. Now, my argument there is not

that you must take 100% of your dollars

and put it into the S&P 500. That's

never been my argument. But that the

dollars you do choose to put into

investments of any kind at an earlier

part in your in your career do get

disproportionate returns. So, that's

thing one. The second thing

is that your skills will also compound

disproportionately that you acquired at

a younger age, right? Like, there's a

certain amount of repetitions that are

required in order for you to become

good. Bill Gates was able to get those

repetitions early because he started

coding early, and then as a result he

was able to build software first, and

then basically was able to keep this

kind of sustained advantage. Like I

talked to a guy yesterday uh not

yesterday 2 days ago Mehdi who had

$700,000 by the time he was 19 right

that saved up. That was very

interesting. Now imagine that that was a

65 year old guy. We wouldn't be as

impressed right and so time has very

real impact on the scope or scale of

your accomplishments as it relates to

your reputation. Meaning when I was

younger and a millionaire early it meant

a lot more and so you actually get more

reputational

um

uh gravitas, right? And so um you can

leverage a smaller win when you are

younger for your reputation because you

are younger, right? And I'll give you a

secret that I you know only found out

later is that you basically have until

you're 30 to be considered young. The

moment I turned 30 I was just a white

dude.

>> [laughter]

>> Before that I was a young white dude. Uh

then I was just white dude and then no

one cared after that, right? So in other

words youth is a multiplier on every win

that you have whether that be press,

network, mentors, capital access. Um I

just made an investment uh this last

week. Uh I I wrote a $500,000 check to a

kid who was 18 years old uh and he was

doing he had just done $30 million a

year in e-commerce business and wanted

to develop a tool

um

to uh to help e-commerce stores. So I

was like I knew he had the avatar. I

knew he'd be able to do it but the fact

that he was 18 and had accomplished that

made me think okay this guy is really

sharp. Now he got into my stuff at age

15. So it took him 3 years to get there,

right? But in other words um

that multiplier decays around 30, right?

But so you have this period of time

where going all in yields higher returns

even for the same outcome. Now number

three.

You leverage early success into bigger

later success. So his $30 million

business now obviously everything's

different in terms of what your scale of

success is, right? But

you can you can you can ladder on top of

it. They're stepping stones.

So for example me when I went through

the beginning it was like I was able to

get in shape really early and I was able

to leverage that into personal training

and online training clients, which I was

able to leverage into a gym, and then

from gym I got into multiple gyms, and

then from multiple gyms I was able to

start Gym Launch. And so, the thing is

is that every part of my career has been

going back and basically taking a

stepping stone on what I learned from

the enterprise I did before. And then,

obviously, the sale of Gym Launch got

basically gave us our cash for

acquisition.com and our family office.

And so, everything builds on itself. And

so, if you if you're going to have these

steps, it's like the steps are are are

set. It's just how soon do you want to

get to this step? It's just how late you

want to start, right? So,

next one is that I'll just rapid-fire

some reasons why I think it's better to

get rich while you're wrong young, which

is that like you also have more energy.

Right? So, think about it like this.

Like you you like you have to play the

cards you're dealt.

Getting those repetitions in takes

energy, and I only know this now that

I'm almost, you know, 40, which is wild

to say. Um that I have less energy than

I see some 18-year-olds, right? And so,

like that is a clear advantage that they

have. And so, if you have that, then

like you want to use it, right? In

addition to that, you have fewer

requirements, meaning there are are

fewer things that you must do. You

probably don't have kids yet. You

probably aren't, you know, wifed up yet

or or husbanded up yet. Um you probably

don't have the same level of geographic

dependence. And so, you are more

flexible. You can go to places where

learning can occur faster. You can have

fewer strings attached. You can live for

less, which means you can be more

aggressive with the excess cash that you

make to reinvest in skills or in formal

investments because you understand the

value of multiplying and compounding,

right? And again, this geographical

flexibility I think is wildly

underrated. One of the things that you

get the advantage of when you're younger

is that like if you want to be in, you

know, politics, go to DC. If you want to

be in finance, go to New York. If you

want to be in uh if you want to be in in

in influencer and media, go to, you

know, go to LA, right? Those are great

places to learn. Now, once you become

Joe Rogan, And can move to Austin and do

whatever the hell you want, right? But

the thing is is that when you want to

get those reps, you want to go where the

reps are are, right? You want to go to

the where the fish are if you're trying

to fish. And what you're fishing for

right now is skills and network. Right?

You're trying to get places and you want

to do it before you have strings tying

you down and roots that you have set.

And that is again, it's a competitive

advantage. It's not to say that when

you're older you can't do it. It's just

harder, right? And so

if you believe that

uh it's hard for you now to uh forego

your existing path which may have been

given to you by your siblings or society

or whatever, I promise you it will only

get harder. And if you can't do it now,

the likely that you're able to do it

later goes down, right? And for me, I

want to stack bets where the

probabilities are highest for my

success. And whenever you enter a new

system, by the way, this is game theory,

the most adaptable player wins. So it's

not It's like uh survival of the

fittest, right? And fittest is most

adaptable. And when you were younger,

you have the most adaptability. You have

the most neuroplasticity as in you can

learn faster. You have the most energy

so you can do repetitions. You have the

least geographical uh constraints. You

can move to where the where the action

is. When you do earn, you make more

dollars on each dollar you make. All the

skills you acquire compound with time

cuz you only get better at it. The

accomplishments that you get from being

young mean more because you're young

than they do when they're old. And so

the final point that I'll say is this is

that you want to model success, not the

exceptions. Of course, we want to tell

the story of of uh of of Colonel Sanders

who started you know, Colonel Sanders at

63. And there's a bunch of you know,

other uh kind of call it exception

stories of people who are older

and then started companies

uh and then obviously were really

successful. But like, wouldn't it be

better to be the rule than the

exception? Like the richest people often

got rich when they were young because

they decided to. Right? And I will say

this cuz I love this quote from James

Clear, but the thing that separates

winners and losers is not their goals.

People's goals are the same. The

difference between the people who win

and lose is the actions they take as a

result and the risk that they're willing

to tolerate and the pain that they're

willing to endure for extended periods

of time with an uncertain payoff. And so

if you think that you need certainty in

order to move forward, I promise you

that this world will never give it to

you. And so it's really that there will

always be uncertain and at some point

you grow the cojones, the gonads by the

way that's bisexual or unisex. Um,

everybody's got gonads. Uh, you will

grow the gonads or they will drop or

whatever it is. Um, I told you I was

going to do some HR stuff. Um, you will

grow the grow the nads you need uh, to

take the bets. And so I think what

really happens is that at some point you

realize that you're not going to die if

you fail, you will just learn and you

will get better which is the point of

the process and you will never finish

and you will never actually win because

by the time you win, you will have

already planted a much bigger goal that

you want because the the goal that you

had

came in shooting distance. And the

easiest analogy I can say for this is

this. When I wanted to

you know, uh, you know, bench 315 for

example. Uh, I was a dream of mine when

I was in high school, right? Because I

remember that just one big plate was a

was wow, the the strong kids could do a

full plate, right? And then two plates

was like super strong, three plates was

crazy. By the time I bench 315, I knew I

was going to hit 315 because I had done

275 for five and I did did 295 for you

know, a triple or a set of five. And so

315 seemed obvious, right? And so the

thing is is that by the time you

accomplish goals, the goals themselves

seem less meaningful because you already

did the work to make that goal

reasonable which is why you achieved it

which is why you have to do so much work

that is unreasonable that you do not

become successful and the best way to do

that is to start when you're younger for

all the reasons I just gave. All right.

That's why you should succeed while

you're young. That's why you should

ignore the people who are telling you

uh, who don't have what you want uh,

telling you how to get something that

they've never gotten.

All right. Feeling spicy this morning on

this Friday

flex Friday. So is that fun? Was that

fun for you guys? Okay. So I'm going to

do a little a little Q&A's and then uh,

and we're going to do some chat and

we're going to do some Q&A's, and uh,

it'll be fun. All right.

Let's go. Caller one, Ian Cunningham.

What it do, bugaboo? Let's go.

If you can unmute Ian, that would be

that'd be super swell.

Ian, what's up, dude?

And you just mute me in the background,

so we just go on Zoom.

Yeah, just mute me in the background.

Yeah, I can hear you, but I can hear me,

too, so just

mute me on the live stream.

Yeah, there we go.

Yeah, let's do it. Let's rock. All

right.

Why are you not making more money?

>> I'm not hearing you on Zoom.

>> [laughter]

>> That's why I'm not making more money.

All right, let's see. I'm

I'm muted. There we go. Okay, Ian.

What's up, dude?

Go for it.

>> Contractor Independence, we do search

optimization and review generation for

roofing businesses.

>> Okay.

>> Um, we've been in business for eight

years. We've gotten up to eight mil in

revenue. We have aspirations to get up

to 30 mil a year, uh, but we have some

big problems happening this year in

2026. So, this year in 2026, we

backtracked. We're actually on track for

five mil this year.

>> Okay.

>> So, everything that we've built over the

past number of years has been built on

direct response offers

over cold meta ads, basically meta ads

to cold audiences.

>> Mhm.

>> And

you know, lots of company strategy, but

if I had to narrow it down, we were

really just trying to keep CPL low, like

get better and better at ads, while

driving retention up, getting better and

better at the product. Uh, but over the

last 18 months, our CPL has six x.

>> As in, your CPL to get your customers,

or CPL to get their customers?

>> Yeah, yeah, to get our customers.

>> Okay, got it.

>> Right, cuz yeah. CPL to get our

customers has six x, despite trying to

adapt to Andromeda, etc. And that's

obviously it's it's strained and kind of

broken the business model. Um we've

recently turned ads off

and we don't have new clients coming in,

so obviously you're going to begin

descending or you're going to begin to

churning. Um just wrapping this up like

my view on the biggest mistakes that

we've made is like

we just kept doubling down on direct

response instead of investing in

long-term like brand and organic and

trust signals. Um and we also it was one

offer like one offer to one channel,

which is great for a while, but we

should have built a better money model,

right? Like a better a better lead

magnet, a better front end. And so this

is the place that I'm in right now is

I'm trying to rectify those mistakes.

>> Okay.

Heard. I think you've identified

a lot of core issues. Um yes, building a

brand would have been nice. Yes,

building a second channel would have

been nice. Um

What's churn for your existing customers

monthly?

>> So monthly churn is about 10%.

>> Okay. And what's price point?

>> Price point is averaging $3,700 a month.

>> Okay. So 37K is uh

lifetime revenue and what are gross

margins?

>> Gross margins are about 72%.

>> Okay. So call it, you know,

uh 27,000 something like that is what

you're making in gross gross uh gross

profit per customer.

>> That's right.

>> Okay. So what are you paying right now

to acquire customer or what were you

paying?

>> Uh we were paying

it it towards the end it got out of

control. We were paying towards 10,000,

which is why we had to end up turning it

off.

>> Yeah. Well, it sounds like um some of

the issues was a cash flow constraint

because even if you paid 10 to make 27,

it's not bad. Um obviously you want it

to be better than that because you'd be

basically your conversion cycle's too

slow.

Um

but

like

I wonder if it got

shut off preemptively because of like

call it a slew of bad creative and maybe

a pixel getting trained on the wrong

audience for a short period which makes

it really difficult to get out of and it

becomes this like death cycle.

>> I'm pretty confident on the the tech.

Like we've gone really deep on the tech.

I'm also confident

on the creative uh because we've we've

adapted a lot. Like I've been to to uh

ACQ working workshop. Like we've adapted

all this stuff. We're doing 15 diverse

creatives a week.

>> Yeah.

>> as much as the account can handle.

>> Yeah.

>> And my my take on it is actually um

I mean the CPMs went up 3x over 12

months. Okay.

>> Okay.

>> So just just the cost to get in front of

people. And then the second piece is I

think the home services space

I think trust has become the currency.

>> Yeah.

>> because so many they've either found

successful marketing and they stuck with

that or if they haven't they've been

burned five times over and they're just

like very untrusting in this space. Uh

and I think that we haven't done a good

enough job. Like we have great

>> reviews, right? We have five stars.

>> Sure.

>> 30 reviews on Google. But I have no

personal brand. I'm not pre-educating

them.

>> I hear you.

>> Just been running cold.

>> Well, let's let me just ask you this cuz

I I just want to zoom out for a second.

Um what do you what do you want? Like

what do you want to have happen?

>> I want to have a world-class product

that I'm incredibly proud of and I want

every for every customer that I get I

would love to get to the point where

that creates another customer.

>> Yeah.

>> referral flywheel.

>> So the the the really difficult part

with the business you're in and you've

you've you've consumed I think enough of

my stuff to know what I'm going to say

here which is that the call it the

the

the SMB, you know, lead gen agency is a

very very tough business. Um

it's like the restaurant of digital

marketing.

Uh it's very easy to get started, very

hard to scale and the main issue is the

avatar. Uh their volatility becomes your

volatility. It's just like it's it's

it's near impossible to scale a business

with 10% churn.

>> Yeah.

>> Because you have to every basically in

order to scale the business, the only

thing that actually scales is your sales

motion. Because if you lose 70% of your

customers every year, which 10% churn

does that, right?

>> Right.

>> Then your entire revenue on an annual

basis minus 30% is what you sold that

year.

Right?

>> That is that's definitely a core issue.

I I agree with you. We can't get to our

goal on 10% churn.

>> Right. And so the thing but what I'm

trying to what I'm trying to hit on here

is that like

it's like having an agency is a great

way to make $3 million a year with you

know, 20 or 30% margins.

Um

it just it's very very difficult to

scale because churn becomes this monster

issue. And the thing is is that it's an

avatar problem more than a than a than a

product problem.

>> Right.

>> And so I've and I've said this before

but I've only seen two marketing like

true turnkey marketing offers scale

uh that are done for for you. Um and

I'll say with the exception of one thing

which is like you can keep all the

things that you said and then just build

a brand that's gigantic. Like if you had

Neil Patel Neil Patel's brand in SEO,

you could scale, right? But he's also

been doing it for 15 years and you know,

etc. etc.

Um

but the the other two angles are like

you go purely AI automated, very low

cost because then you can cut churn

down. Um but you have to do it so it's

high gross margins but low price, right?

Uh or you have to go up market which you

have to earn the right to do that which

you kind of have to slog your way

through what you're doing right now to

eventually get to the better customers

or the multi-location

uh owners.

>> Right. Right.

>> Now, I think that um

is there a sub cohort of your customers

that are more valuable and churn less

than the existing customers?

>> I'm absolutely sure there is. I need to

get better on the data. I mean we've

narrowed down over time, right? We're

we're basically going for two mil and

above roofers at this point. We used to

be generalist in home services. So we

have narrowed down, but I we can go

further.

>> Yeah, I think that you would probably

like it might be worth looking at like

roofers in at least three markets. You

know what I mean? Something like that.

Um because they're just going to have a

different time horizon in terms of

returns. And SEO is one of those things

that just needs time

um in order to work. Uh when does churn

happen for you guys? Cuz you might be at

10% monthly churn, but if you look at it

by cohort basis,

um I'm sure you have a you call it 2 and

1/2 million of the five that you have

left right now has been with you for

over a year. Something like that. That's

my guess.

Um is that true or is that wrong?

>> Say the question one more time.

>> Call it two or 2 and 1/2 million of the

of the five that you have has been with

you for a long time.

>> Yeah, I would say between 1 and 2 years

for sure.

>> Yeah. Right. And so, basically you've

stacked up the people who 2 years ago

were in that 30%. And once you get them

to month six, the likelihood that they

stay goes up by a lot. And that's we've

just seen that across all services

independent, not just marketing. Just

like all services. If you get someone to

month six, churn typically drops to

below 2%, which is wild. But when you

look at blended, which is what you're

looking at with 10%,

um it feels like So, basically the

objective has to become how do we get

them to month six, which is a much more

solvable issue than how do I cut churn

from 10% lower? Is that like tactically?

Okay. Um

and so, if I were to do that, I think

that the CPL going up I care less about.

I just care about LTV to CAC.

>> Right.

>> So, like that that matters very little

to me. Um in fact, one of the highest

ROI uh campaigns I ever ran in gym

launch, I had the highest CPL of all

time.

>> Right.

>> So, just something to consider. And so,

I think that um the algorithm has gotten

so good at pulling who you want that you

can be even more selective than ever

now. So, that's a good thing. Um because

I'm trying to get you out of your

current situation because like, you

know, I could say, "Yeah, go build a

brand." It's like, "Yeah, you should

have done that 2 years ago. You can't do

that right You know, like tomorrow." So,

what are we going to do? Right? Um

So, I I've called called my like my

three-step fast cash and then I would

still want to deploy this into

uh into marketing

um on the ad side cuz I I don't think

it's I don't think you're done there,

dude. That's the thing. It's like I

don't think it's done. I think we can

still

market where other people aren't, which

is being more selective and going up

market. And so I think roofers with at

least three three locations or something

like that might be a better start. Look

at the people who've been with you for 2

years, see what they have in common,

make that the messaging in the avatar.

If you need to do a lead magnet or

something like that, you can. The lead

magnet is not really going to be the

thing. I'm just being real. Like lead

magnet really just serves as just a

different hook on the front end so that

you can refresh and when you have a

smaller market. More so than like oh the

lead magnet is why people are buying.

Now, if you're able to get mass mass

mass distribution like my book or

something, then it can serve a different

purpose. But by and large, the lead

magnet is not like the thing. You want

it to be good, obviously, but like

the you if you want to turn a large

percentage of the audience warm, you

have to do that with the least amount of

friction, which is what content is. Like

content is the lead magnet. It's just

free.

>> Right.

>> Right? So, I think that short-term steps

are number one,

I would go past customers win-back

campaign.

Number one.

Uh number two, if you are cash

constrained, you could get some people

to pre-buy future services and give them

a deal.

Uh number three, do some sort of

attraction offer from money models to

the leads list.

Uh kind of like with the countdown in

the campaign, maybe giveaway. Um that

would pull some cash forward. With that

additional cash, I would

step two,

uh reimagine the avatar from the

messaging and the funnel uh perspective

and I would call out what you don't

want, which is like if you want somebody

who's going to get you leads in 3

months, this is not the thing for you.

Like SEO takes a minute. But let me show

you what my 1-year laters look like. So

my campaign would be and this is the

highest ROI campaign I've ever ran at

Gym Launch was the one year later

campaign. And so, you have those

customers right now. I would capture

what their lead flow was before and what

their lead flow is now. And it

automatically frames, like whenever you

talk in 1 year and 2 year increments,

you're going to get a far better

customer, but the cost per lead will be

higher. So, we just care about is LTV to

CAC more so than than CAC. Now, you're

not going to know LTV, but if we have

leading indicators that this is the type

of people who stay twice as long, three

times as long, willing to pay more, then

at least gets us on the right track.

>> Right.

Makes sense, man.

>> That would be my That would be my 1 2 3.

If I had um

if I had a a an item four cuz you're

trying to kill yourself, um I would try

and post as much content as I possibly

could, obviously. Um but I'm trying to

get you out of the current situation

that you're in right now. Um if you want

to build something that is world class

in terms of product, you're going to end

up having to go up market or down

market. It seems like you're probably

better situated given you have a service

business right now to go up market and

just niche down and up.

>> Awesome.

>> Appreciate you, man.

>> Thank you, sir.

>> Hey, just so you know, man,

everyone's been through this.

Like, it sucks, but

like, you're not going to die. And the

worst case scenario is that you have a

bunch of money that you probably saved

up from the years that you were doing

well, and you could just start something

new knowing everything that that you

know right now. That is the true worst

case scenario, which isn't that bad.

>> Really good perspective. Thank you,

Alex.

>> You got it, man. Appreciate you.

All right.

Let's go to the chat. That's French for

uh chat, by the way, for those guys who

don't speak French. Um let's see here.

Uh

do we have preguntas?

Okay.

Uh will you try to scale a business in

an industry vulnerable to AI? As a

software engineer, I don't want to [ __ ]

about how difficult it is to scale my

business. On the other hand, I can't

ignore the market trend.

Um

it's a tough one, man. Uh you can make

the argument that on a long enough time

horizon all businesses will be

vulnerable to AI. What I would caution

you against is not solving the problems

you have today for fear of tomorrow.

Because I heard this this quote which is

I think it's like one of the number one

hard a school of hard knocks quotes of

all time which I really I heard it and I

liked it.

Um but they asked the CEO of Goodyear uh

what's the best piece of advice that

you've ever gotten? And he said

uh a bird doesn't land on a branch

because he trusts the branch, he trusts

his wings.

And so what that means is is like if you

go do this thing that is vulnerable to

AI and you're afraid to start, it's

being afraid of walking out on the

branch. But you can't be afraid of the

branch, you have to be confident that

you'll be able to figure it out. Because

whatever market forces you're going to

come in contact with, you have to

remember that every other person is

going to come in contact with it. And if

you figured out things before in the

past, you'll be able to figure out

things again in the future. And the

problems aren't going to go away,

they're just going to change.

All right. A next pregunta. All right.

Uh you say the fastest way to make 100k

is different

uh to million and fastest way to million

is different than 1 million. How can you

explain on that? Yeah, so it's actually

the example that we had with Ian is a

perfect example. Like it's it's not that

difficult to make an agency that does a

million dollars a year. And the main

reason for that is because you just need

to sell a certain amount of customers in

order to do that.

Um and you and there's a lot of well

SMBs who will pay $2,500

a month or $1,500 a month um to get lead

gen services. Um the problem is that

churn in that business is very high. And

when you have high churn at scale, it

does not work. And so basically

the

the potential of a business is almost is

is directly correlated with revenue

retention. All right, which means how

much does last year's revenue affect

this year's revenue? And so, the common

scenario, which is the worst scenario,

is everything that I sold last year I

have almost no credit for it this year,

which means that every year if you want

to grow, you basically just have to

increase acquisition. And you have to

sell more people to grow.

The second scenario is that, and this is

a much better scenario, right? Is that

you keep the revenue from last year.

Now, that's an amazing scenario, way

better. So, you sold $100,000 last year,

and then this year you already have

$100,000 as your base day one, and then

you can sell $100,000 this year. And now

you have $200,000, right? So, it keeps

stacking.

The best scenario is something called

net negative churn, which is where the

revenue that you have is over 100%

retention. Now, to be clear, you cannot

have over 100% logo retention, meaning

you can't keep more than 100% of

customers. If you sell 100 customers, at

the end of the year the most you could

have is 100 customers. So, logo

retention is always going to be 100% or

less, right? But revenue retention can

go up, which means that you need to have

a model that allows for customers who

are good to spend more money with you.

So, that means that if I started with

100 and I end with 90, but the 90 that

are there have, let's say in total,

uh spent 50% more than they did before,

I might now be at 145

No, that'd be

Yeah, 135,

uh

on my revenue compared to the 100 that I

had at the beginning, even though I have

fewer people. And so, there's kind of

like three different scenarios in terms

of what you get credit for in the

future. And so, what happens is once you

find a vehicle that has high revenue

retention, then it's just a matter of

time, because you literally grow by

default. And so, as long as you keep

selling customers, you will keep

growing. And this is the state where you

want to be in, and I spent a very long

part of my career pursuing businesses

that did not have high revenue

retention. Now, typically high revenue

retention businesses have high revenue

retention because they are slower on the

front end. It is harder to get people

in, which is why it is harder for them

to leave. And so, it is actually a a

function of patience, which is why

patience is more of a a personality

trait than it is, um

than it is a tactic in business, but is

actually required based on the

opportunity vehicle selection that you

do day one. And so, at some point you

decide uh that you want to get into a

stickier vehicle, and then when you do

that, you get you can unlock the level.

If you wanted to make a million dollars

a year, the fastest way to do it is just

go sell something to a lot of people,

and you can do it one time. But, the

difficulty is that you're going to have

to keep selling people, and when you

want to make a hundred million dollars a

year, building the sales infrastructure

to sell a hundred million dollars of

revenue every single year when you have

zero from the year before is incredibly

risky, because it means that every

single month you basically are only as

good as your last month, which means

payroll, rent, all the bets you want to

make, like you can't forecast out any

horizon. If you know that in the future

this money that you just sold last year

is still going to come in, you can take

bigger bets, you can make a bigger

investments, you can do a brand move.

These are all things that having revenue

retention affords you, and that is the

difference between building a a one

million dollar business versus a ten or

a hundred million dollar business.

Okay.

Uh let's see. Next pregunta, and then

I'll do uh and then we'll get to the

next Q&A. Um

How do I deal with myself, or how do you

deal with yourself when you don't feel

like doing anything, like no drive to

achieve anything? Can you teach somebody

ambition? Um

ambition is a very uh vague word, but I

think what we're really going for is

like, can you create a condition that

increases motivation? And I think the

answer to that is absolutely. Um

and so, I I like to use this very

extreme example of like, if I wanted to

motivate people to take off all their

clothes, what I would do is I would lock

the doors to wherever they were, and

then I would continue to crank up the

heat, and I would remove water. And when

you do that, eventually people would

disrobe because it's so hot, right? And

so, you just do that long enough, and

eventually you will motivate the

behavior that you want. And so, if you

want to motivate yourself, you need to

create the conditions where motivation

uh happen, which means you have to make

the right choice the easiest choice that

uh of the choices available to you. And

so, um breaking that down is, okay,

are the people that I surround myself

with people that are taking the actions

that I want?

Are the things that I have in my

physical environment the things that are

conducive uh to taking the actions that

I want? Like if I have a Netflix

subscription, if I know that um I have a

tendency to watch that, then I will

cancel that subscription, right? Um if I

have apps on my phone that tend to

distract me, I'll invest in, you know,

one of the many products that make it

more difficult to get in apps that

distract, right? Because if you like you

it's not that you lack focus, it's that

that you are focusing on the wrong

things, because focus is always present.

We are literally always focusing on

something. It's just that you need to

remove everything else besides the thing

you need to do, so that the only thing

you have to do is the only thing you can

do, right? Jerry Seinfeld was famous for

um

writing his jokes for 2 hours every

single day, and the way that he did it

was that he has a room that has nothing

in it and a desk and a yellow pad. And

he gave himself the rule that he doesn't

have to write, but he can't do anything

else,

right? And so it's by removing

distractions. If you're in a room with

that's all white with nothing and a

black dot, the most interesting thing in

that room is the black dot. And so you

need to make work the most interesting

thing in your environment. And ideally

surround yourself with people who are

doing better than you, who reinforce

work-related activity.

I thought that was pretty thorough

answer. All right, let's do pregunta

numero dos.

David,

let's uh

let's do this.

>> Hey Alex, I'm David. I run an ERP

consulting firm. I'm on track for 1.9

this year, and I'm trying to get to 5

million. And basically what's stopping

me is that I'm the chief cook and bottle

washer key man.

>> Got it. Um

is it that you don't you can't get more

customers or that you are the one who's

involved in the delivery of the

customers?

>> Uh customer acquisition is pretty easy

right now. It's it's all affiliate and

client referrals.

>> So you're delivery constrained

functionally, like you are the one who's

required to do the stuff more. Okay, got

it. Um

question is uh shift one, can you shift

from doer to architect?

>> Uh, it's it's in progress. I do have one

other doer that's Well, I have I have

eight people total. I have one other

doer who is very self-sufficient and

would be the other half of the key man

equation here.

Um, but really I do everything else. So,

he does over half of the delivery, I

would say, but then I'm the key man on

the entire rest of the business as well.

>> Yeah. So, I'll say two things that I

think will be relevant. Um, like we do

this with everyone and it sounds boring,

but it's super effective and it's not

going to take you more time, which is to

just do a time study and look at where

you're spending your time. Now, it's

going to fall in a couple buckets and

the biggest one that I think people

don't pay enough attention to is

problems that aren't actually worth

solving.

So, Napoleon had this problem-solving

method that I actually just recently

read about, um, which very was very

confirming for how I like I like to

solve problems, so I'll share it with

you, which is that he would not open

letters from his generals for 3 weeks

because he didn't want he wanted to let

some problems resolve themselves, so he

wouldn't have to put any effort into it.

Um, and so I'll bet you there are some

problems that you're solving right now

that are not the constraint of the

business, but you are still solving

them.

So, that's thing one in terms of buckets

of things that we can eliminate. Um, the

second thing is, okay, of these other

activities, um,

what's the margin on the 1.9?

>> Yeah, 1.9, 50% gross, 30% net.

>> Okay. So, you have the cash flow to be

able to hire out, call it another person

at $150,000 a year and it's not going to

like sink the business.

>> Right.

>> Right. And so,

I'll bet that if between elimination and

delegation, you can probably get more

than half of your time back just from

those two things, but I would encourage

you to say that, uh, one, I wouldn't

obsess too much about key man, you're

not big enough for it to matter right

now. Any any small business has key man

risk, you know, below 10 million. It's

just what it is. Um, it's painful, but

it is just reality. Um, and so don't

like don't obsess over that. Um, and

then in the things that are coming up

it's like it feels as though the fires

are sporadic, but it is just because we

have not measured them over a long

enough time horizon. And so it feels

like these problems pop up, but they

really pop up once a month. We just

don't know what day they pop up on, but

on a monthly basis that thing has to

happen. And so basically the longer you

do the time study on the more you're

going to be able to codify the

activities that you're doing,

which will then allow you to delegate

them or eliminate them.

>> Which is a variation of what I'm already

doing because of my main

my main product is actually spotting

problems in my client systems and

raising them before they see them.

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and so

it's it's kind of the same work. I just

have to look inward and outward at the

same time.

>> Well, then I mean fundamentally if you

if you feel like a a solution is in

flight, is it just that you are upset

that it is not happening as fast as you

want?

>> Not even upset.

>> Okay.

>> want to make sure I just want to make

sure

>> [laughter]

>> that I'm not being naive to the fact

that like like I can't fix everything

and there's plenty of people that are

way smarter than me.

>> Yeah.

>> Should I be getting those people on the

bus sooner rather than later?

>> Yeah, 100%. I mean you're you're going

to take risk in terms of cash flow that

you're betting. Some of these people are

not going to work out and that's just

going to be a cost of doing business.

The faster you get your pattern

recognition, the faster you're going to

be able to scale the company. If you

think about

this is an easy frame for it to to to

consider. If you were to start over

tomorrow from zero,

um,

the bets that you'd be willing to make

at zero to get to where you're at now,

you'd probably make without thinking

because you're not that worried about

it, right?

>> Right.

>> And so there's a $10 million version of

you as an entrepreneur who would

considers the bets that you have to make

right now the same way. You just haven't

made them yet.

>> Okay. That makes sense.

>> So TLDR, time study,

backfill, be willing to make the bets on

the people that you have to. Accept the

fact that you're not going to get it

right, overemphasize onboarding and

training, and this is the nature of a

service business is that you have to

people are clocks in the machine,

automate as much as you can, which you

probably already are.

Um and this is just the nature of the

game, and I don't think you're doing

anything wrong. It's just like this is

the part that sucks.

>> So I I have an offer question as well.

So um previously I was just selling

general consulting. I've worked my butt

off in the the last 18 months since I

got your book.

>> Yeah.

>> And I've got an offer now that's kind of

a three-part uh

onboarding, expansion, and ongoing

continuity.

What I what I tried to do

and it failed three times in a row is go

from what previously was working 90% of

the time. So 90% of the time, if I did

like a $30,000 assessment at the

beginning of the project, I would always

win a a larger multi-six-figure deal.

Okay. I've tried to jump straight to the

six-figure deal.

>> Okay.

>> And I've struck out three times in a

row. And so I know this is not a lot of

context, but does it just make sure make

sense to kind of go back, put the

assessment back in as a stepping stone

knowing that most of the time I'm going

to win the big money anyway?

>> Yeah.

I mean, it's your part of your sales

motion.

>> Yeah. I just tried to take out a step,

basically.

>> No, I hear you. But I mean, if if if you

know that you're winning 90%, then you

can just basically

approximate the value of a 30K deal is

.9 times the whatever 200K or whatever

your average order value is.

Um so it's 30 plus call it 180. So every

one of these 30Ks that you're selling is

actually worth 210.

And then you can just basically factor

all your marketing knowing that math.

>> Got it.

>> Which feels worth it.

>> Perfect.

>> Yeah. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for

Thanks for calling in.

>> Yes, sir. See you soon.

>> All right. Later, bud.

Okay. Hi, Alex. This is El Gato, which

is Spanish for chat. That's right. We

got Jazzy Jazz with her jazz fingers and

jazz hands telling me real-time

translations that El Chato, did I say

that correctly?

El Chato. Okay, there we go. Not to be

uh

confused with gato, which is cat. Quite

different. Um meow. Anyways, so hi Alex.

How do I

How do I do a suitable How do I find a

suitable passion? Huh? I tried content

creation, AI apps, and so much stuff,

but I really don't feel comfortable

doing it. I'm still hanging in there uh

the hard way.

Okay. Um

Yeah, [ __ ] sucks when you suck. And the

only way to not suck is to do it while

you suck

so you suck less. And then eventually

when you suck less, you tend to like

things that you're good at. Um I I I've

made multiple videos on the the

misconception around passion and how it

is a fallacy overall. Um but like

if I

like

Shit's going to suck. Like it is not

going to be fun and failing and getting

rejected and trying to do something that

doesn't work over and over again is not

enjoyable, but it is the period of time

that you have to go through in order to

get to where you want to go. And so you

fundamentally have to want to get to

where you want to go more than you

than you fear or

tolerate the pain of suffering the

failures on your way there. Right? And

so I do love the saying that I think I

invented.

But failure and success are on the same

road. It's just that failure is an

earlier exit. All right. Um

But I think that what you need to do is

you need to pick and commit. Two things.

You need to pick and commit. And commit

means the elimination of alternatives.

It means you need to let all the other

ideas that you have go away until you've

seen this all the way through. And so I

would write myself a goal that feels

unreasonable that if I did it, I

wouldn't succeed. And say okay, so if I

made a thousand pieces of content and I

had feedback between each thousand, so

not just cranking out a thousand pieces

of slop, I'm saying manually did a

thousand pieces of content and got

better from each one of them, do I think

I'd be good at making content? Probably.

If I made, you know, uh an app and I

spent 2,000 hours on the app myself, do

I think that with feedback from

customers or people that I give away for

free, that I can make the app good or

useful? Probably. Right? And so, the

reason I I I like the unreasonable goals

is because it actually gives you

something you can control. Right? Like,

I want to get in shape. Okay, work out a

hundred times and make sure that every

workout you add weight or reps to the

exercises you did. And you don't have to

put a lot on, just make sure you make

progress. So, if if you did 10 lbs, do

11. And you're like, how do they don't

even have uh 11 lb dumbbells? Yeah, they

have magnets you can stick it on. I used

them for a lot of my earlier part of my

lifting career. So, the point is it's

like, talk in increments. Instead of

saying, I want to do this in this many

weeks, talk in uh work span. Right? It's

a hundred workouts. Right? Do a hundred

workouts. Do uh 2,000 hours. And so,

like when I when I when I make a

project, like the books that I have,

like I put 2,000 hours into the books

and you can see it, right? A lot of time

goes into that and it's only one book.

Now, how fast can I write a book? A hell

of a lot faster than 2,000 pages. It's

just not going to be as good. And a lot

of the good is removing the stuff that

sucks. And a lot of stuff you make

sucks, which means you got to delete.

Hit delete over and over again on things

that you thought were good but aren't.

And so, uh I think you have to accept

the fact that it is not going to be fun

and that is the period that you have to

get through and that is how you earn the

right to become successful. And I think

one of my favorite tweets of my own. The

old self quote.

Nice. Um greatness rejects all

first-time applicants.

And you are a first-time applicant, so

it is not surprising that you've been

rejected.

Okay. Uh

Brother, uh you say you need to pick the

right opportunity vehicle because other

vehicles get you further in the same

amount of time. How do I know the

opportunity I have is the right vehicle?

Well, you start.

And once you start, you'll get

perspective that you you only get from

starting. Right? Because you get

perspective from feedback, and you get

feedback from taking action. You do not

get feedback from contemplating. Right?

You do not get feedback from uh weighing

options. You get feedback from taking

action on a path that you begin to walk

down. Right? The future is foggy. You

will only be able to see a couple steps

ahead of you. And as you continue to

walk, the next steps will become clear.

But, I think that there is this this

overemphasis on this perfect pick, the

fallacy of the perfect pick, that you're

somehow going to get your pick so right

that everything's going to come true.

And I promise you, even if you had the

best vehicle in the world, even if you

wanted to do OpenAI and started in 2017,

and then suffer for years before it

actually was a product, even then it

will suck, and you won't be sure. Right?

And so, I think there's this big

misconception that somehow um you're

going to know steps A to Z when you

start, and you will not. And so, you

will learn step uh B when you do step A,

and then maybe you get to step D and see

that there now that you've learned

something, there is a superior path.

Maybe. But, I will say this, which is

that almost all paths, when taken to

their natural extreme, accomplish most

people's financial goals. And so,

whether you want to be rich from

restaurants, or you want to be rich from

apps, or from

whatever you want, like

I had a question the other day that was

like, you know, what business can I get

to $100,000 a month in

in profit? And [clears throat] the

answer was basically every business can

get to $100,000 a month in profit. And

then people in other countries were

like, "No, no, that's only in the US."

And it's like, you literally are missing

the [ __ ] point. Every model, when

expanded enough, can hit $100,000 a

month in profit.

Period. Now, it might not be the one

location if you're brick and mortar, it

could be multiple locations. Right? It

might not be uh you know, one customer,

it might be multiple customers. But, the

thing is is that a scaled version of the

thing

just about any business, I've yet to

encounter one that cannot hit $100,000 a

month in profit. The only way,

conceivably, that you could have a

business that it would it be impossible

to hit $100,000 a month in profit, which

let's say the vast majority of people if

they did that they'd be pretty stoked.

The only way that you make that

impossible is if there's literally not

enough people

who are willing to buy your thing. And

there's a lot of people.

So, yeah.

A lot of businesses can do it. Okay,

let's go

Go go gadget.

Next.

Q. Next caller.

Jazz hands.

Jazz hands, we're going.

>> Hey Alex, can you hear me?

>> Yes, sir.

>> Awesome. Hey man, I'm James. It's a

pleasure to meet you. I started Harbison

Outfitters here in Alabama. We help the

elderly age in place through home

accessibility modifications. We did

500,000 last year with 40% margins and

we're having a tough year this year only

at 150,000

with 58% margins. I want to get to a

million a year within 6 months. We have

20 to one LTV to CAC and I believe I can

straight with in my control is legion,

specifically with baby boomers. So,

>> Yeah.

>> how do I get southern baby boomers to

want to buy a ramp, place a grab bar for

themselves or their parents?

>> Who are you Who are you predominantly

selling to? The kids or the parents?

>> The kids most of the time. I'd say 85%

of the time.

>> Got it. Um how are you doing legion

right now?

>> Mostly referrals. I'm a nurse by trade

as well as a medical social worker. So,

I'm able just to walk into hospitals

with my scrubs on and then that gets me

through any doors in the hospital. Um

I'd say that's 90% of it.

>> [laughter]

>> It's like a man with a cone and a neon

vest and a clipboard can get into

anywhere.

Um

>> And dang right.

>> Yeah, and man with Yeah, man with scrubs

can can get in any any hospital setting.

Um that is So, okay.

Here's the good news.

Uh well, your LTV to CAC those numbers

are kind of off because basically your

CAC is your time. So, I don't know how

much we can credit to give could put it

at that. But, what is what do you what

do you make per call it unit sold?

>> Yeah, yeah. So, we're $6,000 average

ticket. We have 30% close rate and I'm

only getting around 10 leads a month

that are incoming. So.

>> And that's all from referrals and call

it door knocking fundamentally, right?

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. 90% Yeah, that's

correct.

>> So, um I would say you have two options

that you could pick from that you're

already like very, very equipped for. Um

you could do Google PPC, which is just

like basically keywords and looking for

people who are looking for ramps, which

is option one. I'll bet though that if

you did there there's probably already

some players and you'd have to have a

more sophisticated sales motion,

otherwise you're going to waste money.

Um waste money that like you'll get

leads, but it'll cost you more than

you're able to afford right now.

Um

the other option, which I think is

probably more likely to work because you

have a very visual service,

um is showing before and afters. I mean,

you've seen these ads, right? Um and if

you're targeting the kids, it's like did

your parent recently have a fall, right,

which is super common.

Um it's like and did you know that 90%

of falls are are um

preventable by just having by outfitting

the home environment and it extends how

long they can live in their home by

another 10 years. So, parents are happy

and kids are happy. Like to me that

would be my hook and my angle for my ads

and then the creative itself would just

be before and after on the homes that

you're doing the outfitting to. And

you'll probably be able to get leads

from there and I'm sure do you have like

financing or insurance something like

that that covers it?

>> Yes, sir. Yeah.

>> Yeah, dude. Like

like if you could say that it's like and

we you know, insurance covers X, Y, and

Z, I think this is just a pure you could

you could probably have the simplest

funnel in the world, which is just run a

lead ad and then call the leads up, have

the

the thank you page sorry, the the the

lead ad redirect to a VSL, so a video

sales letter.

Um and then with a call now button

underneath of the video and that's

probably all you'd need. And you just

got to work the [ __ ] out of leads.

Like that's really it. Like this is

super, super, super simple. Like you

have like I if you just do this and

ignore like do nothing else, I'm I'm

you. Do nothing else.

run meta ads,

use the angle that it's free, use the

angle that a lot of falls are avoidable.

I'm sure you can find the stats on that,

right?

Um use the stat that parents are happy

because it pushed them out going to a

home for another 10 years, right? They

want to be in their own home.

Um that way the kids don't feel guilty

about it. Um and that it's free, right?

Like those are like there's a ton of

media angles.

>> Look right there, it is not free. The

ramps, the grab bars, 95% of the time uh

they're paid for. They used to be free,

but we had a lot of a budget cuts from

Alabama which covered those. So now I'm

having large volume which which kind of

sucks. That's the decrease in my

>> It's fine. It It's fine. It's fine. Um

>> Got it.

>> It It doesn't matter. And if if like two

options there. One is you can just not

say it's free and then just collect

leads like normal. The other option is

that it's free and then you just find

out if their insurance covers it and if

it does you do the sale. If it's not,

whatever.

>> Heck yeah.

>> Cool. But do nothing else. I'm just

telling you right now, do nothing else.

Like you can get an ad like do you have

any any creative on before and afters of

like outfits you like it being an outfit

and whatnot?

>> I've got tons, hundreds.

>> Okay. So like

today

write your first five variations of the

ad copy and put five variations or 10

variations of the creative and then run

it in a 20-mi radius, drop a pin on the

map of where you're at in Alabama.

>> Yeah.

>> And then just do a lead just do a lead

form. Keep it really simple. I don't

even like we could have a video on the

alpha page, but I'd rather just get live

and start getting leads to be like,

"Holy [ __ ] this actually works." And

you can have AI walk you through the

setup. It's not hard.

>> Heck yeah, man. I appreciate the time.

That helps a ton. Thanks.

>> Appreciate you, man.

>> I'm there.

>> Cool business though. Very cool

business. By the way, for everybody

who's listening to this, there's so many

ways to make money. Who here could walk

in being like, "You know what? I could

outfit houses with ramps for old folks."

Right? There's so many ways to make

money. By the way, growing market, lots

of pain, they've got the money.

It does check the offer boxes. All

right. Um

Question from El Gato

from the cat in Spanish. So hey Alex, I

run a business where we train teams /

businesses how to use AI, not done for

you. Uh how do I hire trainers without

them taking our training resources and

then selling pieces to start their

businesses?

Uh dude, just use AI. Uh

Um

Like I think what you're dealing with is

is like that's basically like saying

how does any business that educates

anyone

hire anyone without those people taking

your stuff?

This is the nature of competition.

The thing is is that there are more

components to a business which you

already know

than just delivering the materials. You

have to generate leads, you have to

close sales, you have to price.

Uh there's a lot of other pieces that

make the business work, right? Um if you

want to make it less likely, you can

switch from a one-on-one to a

one-to-many model and you can rotate

who's doing the instructions and you can

make it a kind of call it like a

four-phase approach. So, imagine you've

got somebody who teaches phase one,

somebody who teaches phase two, somebody

who teaches phase three. That way you

keep some of the keys in the castle in

your own pocket and you're kind of uh

silo-ing the information by design. That

would be something if you were really,

you know, anal or worried about it. I

personally, I would only do that if it

actually served the business model and

it was a material problem rather than a

fear.

So, basically, are is this actually

happening or is this something Are you

trying to solve a problem that hasn't

happened yet? If it hasn't happened yet,

let's make sure it happens then we can

solve it.

All right. Uh I recently quit my job to

go full-time into starting a business,

but I'm not sure what business to start.

I feel stuck in this analysis process.

Oh man. Um

Okay, I'm going to give you actually

very tactical answer here. Instead of

just saying, "Well, obviously do just

pick one." You need to put limitations.

All right? You need to add constraints.

So, if you have So, if I said, "Pick

from everything in the world." it's very

hard to make that. Right? If I give you

25 different jams to pick from, it's

hard to pick your favorite jam. If I

give you two, much easier, right? And

so, what you need to do is give yourself

constraints on the question. This goes

for everybody. So, instead of saying,

"What business should I start?" say,

"What are the requirements that I have

for this business? Do I want to be in

person? Do I want to be remote? Do I

want this to sell to businesses? Do I

want to sell to consumers?

Uh do I want to do phone sales or do I

want to do a checkout-based system? Do I

want to get customers from ads or do I

want to do it from door-knocking?"

Right? Like, each of these things is

going to narrow down

>> [clears throat]

>> the types of business that will be

available to you. Do I want a business

that I don't have to put capital into

start? Do I want that doesn't require

capital? Um do I want to have a business

that uses a lot of employees? Is it

going to be service-based? Do I want it

to be technology-based or product-based?

Right? Each of those are decisions that

you can make. And if you're like, "Well,

which one?" I promise you, all of those

can grow into big businesses and it does

depend on your goals, but let's assume,

for the sake of argument, that you want

to make $100,000 a month in profit. All

of those paths can lead you there.

Right? And so, if you follow my stuff, I

would encourage you to sell fewer things

to at a more expensive price tag to

fewer people because it takes fewer

customers to make the amount of money

that you want to make to solve your

current life problems. Um but, the

answer to your question is that you have

to add constraints to your question in

order to answer it.

Uh one more and then we'll do the next

one. Okay, so if sales was your main

constraint in business and you need to

learn it from zero, what would you do?

Um I you want to get as many reps as you

can.

Uh and so,

I mean, this is one of the advantages of

working out of business before you go

out because you basically get to learn

on a business's dime, which is something

I'm a big advocate of. Um

I'm I'm going to like

I'm going to guess that you're not

learning it from zero because like

you said sales your main constraint, but

you need to learn it from zero, which

means you've never made sales before,

which means you don't have a business.

And so, if you don't have a business,

then you could start

on a call floor anywhere or on a

door-knocking team and learn from there

and get paid to do it. So, that's option

one, which I'm a big advocate of.

Um

option two is you basically got to go

out and my encouragement would be to

sell people for free. And so in the

Leads book I talk about getting your

first five customers. Follow that

playbook of getting your first five

customers for free cuz it's still a

sale. It's just a much easier sale cuz

you're still going to get them to risk

their time, sometimes their money, um in

order to to get some sort of, you know,

deliverable service from you. Um and

then from there you'll be able to learn

from those conversations to then

eventually start charging money. Um but

some people I would say the the poor

people in the comments will say uh never

give away your service for free because

it'll devalue as they say being poor.

You get more from giving away your stuff

for free than they get for getting it

for free because you will get feedback

and you'll get learnings and you'll get

lessons and you probably do suck which

is why you probably shouldn't charge and

you should be very willing to give away

your stuff for free because you should

not be valuing your time because it is

not valuable.

The market has already determined it's

not valuable. People are not knocking on

your door. It is valuable when the

market determines it is valuable which

means when demand surpasses supply. And

the easiest way to do that is to

decrease price. And so when we decrease

price we can increase our demand and

then over time as we get better and

better demand will go up and then price

can rise naturally with the market and

this the beauty of a marketplace.

I think that was a very elegant answer.

Very good. All right, let's do next Q

Q to the A.

Perhaps any definitely a Q.

All right, what do we got Mr. Gong?

>> Byron you're up.

>> Byron, let's do it.

>> Hey Alex. Man, this is exciting. Thanks

so much to you and Leila for what you

do. I run a disability support provider

in Australia. It's government funded

scheme, price capped, high compliance

requirements, can't bill in advance.

>> Mhm.

>> Last year we did 1 and 1/2 million

revenue, gross margins at 30%. This year

scaling back to focus on target audience

cuz I was just accepting money from

everyone and it was a nightmare.

Um so we're aiming to do about a million

dollars this year.

>> Right.

>> Currently though breaking even due to

debts from

>> Yeah. starting another adjacent

business, manpower shortage. My goal

though

is to productize my service to

distinguish myself from the commoditized

industry, then work to sell the business

and go into something that isn't price

capped. My question is, what would

revenue, net margin, and the org chart

need to look like in order to sell it

and is it worth it?

>> Yeah, so from a sellability perspective,

I mean you could sell any business. The

question is who do you want to sell it

to and at what kind of price or

multiple? So you kind of have to reverse

from the goal. Like I could buy your

business today for $0 just to put it as

a hypothetical extreme. So what, more

specifically, what kind of outcome do

you want?

>> Yeah, so I'd love to sell it for

$500,000 and if I could do that in the

next 2 years, that would be incredible.

>> Well, that's a lot I mean that's that's

a lot easier.

Um

So, do you have any revenue retention or

is this all one-off?

>> As in for the clients that that stick

around?

>> Well, I mean is the service a recurring

service or is it a one-time service?

It's a recurring service. So,

is it sticky in that do you keep people

from last year to this year?

>> Yeah, about people stay for about 12

months.

>> Okay, so it's not sticky because they

leave.

>> Right, yeah, okay. Yeah.

>> Okay. So, that is the thing that will

make the business more viable. Also,

it'll make something it'll make it into

something you might not want to sell.

Which it like the goal to build a

sellable business is build something you

don't want to sell because it makes a

lot of money. That's the goal.

Um

okay. So, $500,000 uh you said you have

30% gross margins. What are net margins?

>> Net margins right now is pretty much

nothing. So, I've started a

>> Yeah.

>> I started another business and yeah,

that sucked up everything.

>> Well, okay, if you hadn't started the

other business, what would the margin

have been if you hadn't blown all the

money?

>> 12 and 1/2%.

>> Okay. Which is actually, you know, if

your gross margin's 30, doing 12 and 1/2

is is not bad relatively. I do think

that 30% gross margin's hard to make a

business work there.

Um

And so, when you are price fixed, you

have two options available to you. All

right? Option one is that you sell

insurance plus, which is like, we'll do

the stuff that's covered by the

government and other stuff if you want

it, which some people are willing to pay

out of pocket, and that can make a

material difference in the net profit of

the business. So, even if 10% of people

are willing to pay, you know, 50 or

something more, it doubles the profit of

the business.

Right?

>> Yep.

>> So, that's op- that's Yeah, okay.

>> Oh, sorry. That's where So, what I found

is that we've just accepted work from

anywhere and everywhere, and so it's

been difficult to try and find staff cuz

somebody leaves and then it's like I've

you know, I've got a hiring target, but

then I realize I'm hiring really only

one person. So, if somebody else leave

you know, it doesn't solve the problem.

So, looking at productizing, so rather

than molding ourselves to everybody's

infinitely complex life,

>> Yeah.

>> it's saying, "Well, this is the problem

that we solve. This is what we're going

for."

>> Yeah.

>> Um so, the idea Yeah, okay. So, I'm on

the right track there.

>> Yeah, scaling roadmap. One to three, you

have to start templating your solution.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> So, you you kiss a lot of toads, which

is what you did. You kiss a lot of

toads, you figure out a bunch of these

suck, and then you figure out a couple

of these are good, and then you realize

that they don't have different problems,

they have the same problem, you can

solve them the same way. So, you create

the template, which is what you're doing

right now, which is fine. Um but I said

there's two strategies to get out of

this. All right? So, strategy number one

is that you can do insurance plus or

whatever, you know, government's

government sponsored plus,

uh which is when you ask Again, it's a

sorting question right at the front of

the sale, which is, "Are you here to get

this the best solution to this problem

or the only one that's free?" Right? And

that way some people will say they want

the best, and the best is that, "Listen,

we'll give you the free thing plus these

other things, which we do at, you know,

whatever cost." And then you can charge

with a much better margin. That's option

A. Option B, and you can do both these

together, by the way. Option B

is when you have a price capped

business, you have to create margin from

the floor.

Which means that you have to cut all

expenses um like everything. Uh which

templating is a big, you know, big part

of that solution. Um but it's like you

have to think from like you want to do

something called zero cost budgeting,

which is imagine you had no expenses and

then you build only what is required.

>> Yeah. Okay. So, part of This is leads me

to the next question, which is that I

find it

frustrating from the point of view that

it doesn't matter how good I make the

service. Obviously, there's the

insurance plus approach.

>> Yeah.

>> Um

but I feel as though a lot of the people

in this area

they're family like so they come from a

family and many people in the family

have a disability as well. So, they

don't have a lot of uh cash left over.

>> Yeah.

>> So, it's like I would want to work in a

space where I can charge for the value

that I provide rather than just being

price capped.

>> Yeah. I mean, you talk about serving

public sector versus private sector. So,

yeah.

>> Yeah. So, if I was to I mean, I have

thought about moving, starting something

else, maybe in the same industry, but

working with businesses, but I don't

know whether this is just me going,

"Look, it's getting hard and I need

something else out of it." or whether

I'm assessing and going, "Look, based on

what I now know about business, I would

like to be able to set my own prices."

>> It's a tough call, man, because right

now it's it's a push or pivot question,

which is relatively personal um

in terms of, you know, the risk that

you're willing to take on. Um you want

to sell this for $500,000, but basically

to sell this for $500,000, you're going

to need to make it make at least 250 in

profit, probably I mean, maybe more than

that. Um

which I I don't think is that hard for

you to do if you did the plus model and

ate up some margin from the bottom and

you didn't have the distraction and the

cash that went out. Right? Because Cuz

did 12 and 1/2% on a million or a

million five, right?

Um so you had $200,000 in profit on that

year, correct?

>> Yeah. And so does that include my my

wage or not?

>> Yeah, it does. Seller's it's called SDE,

seller's discretionary earnings, uh

which typically small businesses like

yours, they trade there. Um they trade

on SDE, not EBITDA.

Um and so but typically when you're

trading for this type of business,

you're going to get one, two, three

times earnings maybe, and it's usually

going to be a somewhat structured deal

depend because it'll just be somewhat

structured. So they might say like,

"Okay,

uh you know, you get to 250,000 a year,

I'll buy the business for 500, I'll give

you 200,000 up front, and then 300,000

over time as long as the business stays

at this level or whatever, right?" So

um

the better the business is, the more the

multiple is, the more you'll command

because it's still supply and demand on

the business side. Like the the the

product becomes the business, and then

the demand is what what investors want

to buy it, and it's going to come down

to the nature and the quality of the

business overall, right? But I would say

that you would you would for sure get

offers at 500,000 if you did $500,000

in profit in the business, um and

depending on how reliable it is. Now, if

you can show that these people are going

to consistently keep paying you over if

you can get it to like two or three

years, then the business is going to

grow no matter what, which ultimately

would make it both sellable and

accomplish your goal.

So there's a number of ways we can solve

this, but if I am you,

if the goal was 500 grand,

then I would just say I'm going to do

cost plus on the front end.

I'm going to do I'm going to eat up

margin on the back,

and then I'm going to try and see what I

can do to get people to stay two years

or three years. Like if you just

accomplish those three things, you will

likely recreate the margin you had, and

then you'd be able to sell the company.

>> Yeah, awesome. Okay. Cheers.

>> Yeah, cheers, brother. Appreciate you.

Straya.

Straya. All right. Um

so those of you guys who are asking in

the chat, how do you get a chance uh to

converse

uh with Matt, which is is French for me.

Um

we have a link I'm sure somewhere. Uh,

I'm I'm taking calls from people who are

in Vantage, which is our online

community which we we created uh a lot

of which for international folks who

can't come out in person. Um, so if

that's you, then uh come to Vantage.

Basically our advisors in there. Um, we

share the stuff that's working best for

us right now. So it's like if you want

the behind the scenes of like how we're

making the content, and how we're

cranking out so many ads, like our sales

process, the basically every week we

have tests that are running inside the

company like this test, right? That I'm

doing right now with these lives, like

I'm doing more details inside of there.

Um, and so yeah, that's what Vantage is

for. And it's for million dollar plus

businesses, so if that's you, you can

join. If not, enjoy the free [ __ ] All

right. Let's go, Edgardo. All right, so

hi Alex, I'm a one-man music academy

owner, okay? Uh, what do you think of my

industry and is it still worth pursuing

since I live in the Middle East and my

main Western clients are migrating due

to war?

Um,

I I'm going to guess that's in person

and not

not remote, because if it was remote,

then I don't think it would matter if

they were migrating because they could

just keep working with you remote. Um,

but it it sounds like the reason that

you're giving to change the industry's

because of the geography, which doesn't

actually

translate. Because you could say like,

I'm a one-man dry cleaner, I'm a one-man

lawn care service, is it still worth

time since people are moving away from

the Middle East? Um,

so I don't know if that's a reason to

stop doing it. I think that there is,

you know, there's always been strife

there. Um, and that has not really

changed for, you know, like a thousand

years. Um, so I wouldn't make that the

reason. It's more likely that you're

attributing a difficulty in business to

an external environment thing, which you

don't really have any control over.

Um,

so that being said, I'd say your options

are as follows. Number one, you could

just do online, which then you could

serve anyone anywhere, which I think

it's a great idea.

Um, or option two, we could just

advertise more because you don't need

that many clients to feed you. Like

think about it like this.

Music will be consumed or music lessons

will be consumed in the Middle East and

if it is harder then it will make the

people who are bad at it go out of

business faster than the people who are

good at it. And so you would just absorb

market share by being better.

And so either of those options work.

Both of them are under your control.

All right.

Uh next question from El Chat.

Um I'm a failing Let's see.

I'm failing

I'm on failing business number six right

now. They haven't all failed per se, but

none of yet to generate cash and running

out of runway. Do you recommend I get a

job or keep pushing harder to get one of

these profitable? I will be a business

owner one day, but the phase I'm in

right now sucks. I feel like I'm on the

verge of something great, but my bank

account says otherwise. Well, first off

you are a business owner. You're just

not a profitable business owner, so so

don't feel too bad. Um technically

you're a multiple business owner, which

I think might actually be your issue. So

you said your

you're on failing business number six

right now. Um

you said uh

I'm pushing hard to get one of these

profitable.

Um

I have this feeling that you have more

than one that's ongoing right now and

that your attention is split. You have

such limited resources that

you need to allocate all of them towards

one thing because you can do so little.

Like compare Like I'm just being real.

Like compared to

me, you can do not a lot. I have a lot

of money. I have a lot of media. I have

a lot of employees and I say that just

to um

demonstrate the difference in leverage

that exists. And I don't say that to

make you feel bad. I do that to clarify

how concentrated you need to make your

effort in order to get a reasonable

enough return to multiply that effort.

Multiply the output.

So

big picture I am guessing that you are

over complicating the process of getting

your business started, which just means

that you need to get a stranger to give

you money in exchange for doing

something for them that they do not know

how to do or want to do.

Or have time to do.

Right? They don't have the time to do

it, they don't want to do it, or they

don't know how to do it. Those are the

three buckets.

You do any of those three things for

somebody in exchange for money, and you

get them to give it to you as the trade.

That is the easiest business to start,

and so if you are struggling there, I'm

guessing that you're not doing that,

which means that means you're probably

not letting people know about your

stuff, and you're spending all your time

trying to think about your business,

rather than letting people know about

the one you got.

Like, you will iterate the business in

time, but the requirement for having the

business is having strangers find out

about it. And so you are focusing on the

wrong part of the business. You need to

be promoting the business as almost all

you're doing every day. And so right

now, for those of you who are in the

fallacy of I don't know what business to

start, the best way to figure out to

start is to talk to people. Advertise,

let people know. So, outreach, content,

paid ads, going to affiliates and

saying, "Hey, you got a bunch of my

customers, what can I do for them?"

Right? Solve people's problems.

That's it. That's all it is, and then

you ask for money to do it. And in the

beginning, you can do it for free. And

then, if they value it for free, then

they will value it for less than free.

If you get enough of them, and you have

testimonials, and then that is what

spins the wheel. This is the first five

clients chapter in the leads book, so

review that.

Okay. And the offers book, you should

read that anyways.

Okay. Um I'll do one more. So,

uh I have a Okay, so I've run a coffee

business for 5 years doing 300,000

annually. At 32, how do I know when it's

time to leave the business supporting my

family to pursue something with more

upside and long-term potential?

What you ask is, when is the right time

to take a risk?

It's entirely up to you.

Um and I know that's not the question

you want, but it is the answer that is

correct. Uh which is that

you could

I mean, you have you have dependents,

right? You have dependents. Um you know,

you're doing 300,000 a year. I don't

know what your profit is. Maybe that's

your profit, maybe that's your revenue.

I'm not sure.

I would say having a nest egg is a good

idea.

And I would say considering having a

conversation about downsizing lifestyle,

you know, with your spouse.

And saying, "Hey, this is going to be

for a season, not forever. And this is

so that we can unlock things greater and

I just need you to have faith in me."

And this is to be fair, it's a hard

conversation. Like

like your spouse has to believe in you.

Now

I mean, at the end of the day, you have

to believe in you. I mean, it is your

life, but I think having spousal support

is really important. I will wager that

your kids probably don't care or know

the difference.

Because, you know, depending on how

young they are, like cardboard box often

entertains just as much as a toy that

that that it came in.

And so, I think that

we have this idea that we need to make

lots of money in order for our our kids

to have a good time, but I think more

often they just want to to spend time

with us.

And I say this not being a father yet,

but that is a wager that I'm willing to

bet on.

But with that being said, I think you

need to have a convo with your spouse

and then say

um

This is the question I would ask.

What would you need to see or what would

it take for you to feel comfortable for

me to make this bet?

And so, instead of asking how long or

when, ask what conditions would need to

be true in order for this to feel like a

good idea.

And I think that is something that you

can check off. And then as soon as you

have that rubric, you can then just go

check off the list and go do it rather

than saying arbitrarily in 6 months, in

12 months, which which they'll never be

a good time.

And you'll always kick it out. So, I

would say, "What has to be true about

the environment or my conditions in

order for me to move forward?" And then

do it once you have met those

requirements.

All right.

Hi Alex, I'm 13 and I have an AI

automation company. Awesome. I have no

clients.

Uh have more than 6,000 messages sent.

Only tips to scale and actually close.

I'm working on a few deals currently.

Hard to close. Sometimes I doubt this.

Uh start for free.

Get testimonials.

Demonstrate value. Once you have a

demonstrated value, you can advertise

the value create and then attach a price

tag to that value and charge a discount

on the value you create.

I think I'm I'm guessing you're just

trying to sell people when you don't

have track record. Get track record

first and then it's much easier to sell.

Also, it's easy to sell those people.

Also, it's easy to ask those people for

referrals if they don't want to pay. So,

it's a great first start no matter what

you're going to do. All right. Let's do

the next one.

Mr. Gong.

>> Prosper, you're up.

>> Uh

hi Alex. I'm Prosper.

>> What's up?

>> my my wife and I were really huge fan of

of your family and congratulation on

soon being a father.

Uh so, my wife and I will run a private

sport coaching business in Fribourg,

Switzerland.

We started outdoors in 2024.

And now we have two studios with one

including a 100% uh woman-only space

with a dance studio and a fitness boxing

uh space.

>> Mhm.

>> And now uh

the problem is that my wife and I were

the only ones who are actually uh you

know, dealing with the whole with the

whole business.

And we need approximately 4K a month to

cover our costs and you know, be able to

pay ourselves salaries. But right now

we're doing approximately 20K a month.

And so, the question is should we um

actually delegate? Should we be

delegated some work to people so we can

concentrate on growing our business or

should we still be doing it ourselves?

>> So,

your fixed costs are 4,000. You're

making 20, so there's 16 in profit. Is

that right?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> No, sorry. No, fixed cost is 40,000 a

month.

>> Oh.

>> 40k a month.

>> And you're making 20?

>> Yeah.

>> So, you're losing money right now.

>> Exactly, because we opened the uh the

woman-only space in the month of May,

and in my region, that's like uh the

summer down period.

And so, we were actually expecting to

lose a deal of money.

>> Okay.

Are you making progress every month?

>> Uh yeah.

>> Okay.

>> And I mean, I mean I mean like we are

expecting like uh right now we're we're

on break for 3 weeks, and we're going to

start up in the 17th of August. And

usually at this period, we have so many

so many demands. And so, we're actually

uh

And we're actually, you know, thinking

of delegating so we can grow the

business, or we're thinking of, you

know, doing continue continue to do it

ourselves since we don't have

uh since we're in a financial

struggle, yeah.

>> Yeah. Um I mean, it sounds like you

don't have many options, though. Um

because the both So, it's two locations

or one?

>> Two locations.

>> So, you guys are basically Is your wife

at one and you're at the other?

>> Exactly, more or less, I guess.

>> Yeah. Um

With the time you get back,

fundamentally, the only thing that's

going to grow this business is selling

memberships, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. So, it's This is a pure dollars

and cents question, but you have to be

confident about the answer, which is if

I got somebody to train, let's say 8

hours a day, so you don't have to be on

the floor,

can you make more Basically, can you

make enough money in in membership sales

to cover the cost of that labor?

>> Uh I think so, because um

I Well, the problem we have is that we

also have two kids.

>> Okay.

>> And you know, if we can get if we can

liberate a bit of time to you know, like

you know, run so the business we don't

have to pay the business for the

business to run.

And so with this way we can also

concentrate more time on you know,

getting the business to get bigger and

you know, like have clients and you

know, and so that's the question we're

like that's a bit of the question we're

asking each other right now.

>> If you can take the extra time and make

more than it cost you to pay the person

to do the training, then it makes sense

to make the trade.

So the first hire I had when I I was in

your exact position so I I know it very

well. Um was I got somebody to handle

all my uh morning sessions. Sorry,

afternoon session. No, I actually think

I started with my morning sessions, but

um I probably should have started in

retrospect with my afternoon sessions,

but I think I was just dying cuz I was

waking up at 4:00 every day

um and going to sleep at like 11:00.

Anyways,

um

point being

I'm guessing your when is when are sales

the best for you? Afternoons?

>> Yeah, I think I have more people in the

afternoons.

>> Right. So I would say teach the morning

sessions, get somebody to cover the half

day in the afternoon. It's going to cost

you I don't know, maybe 20 bucks a

session. You're going to do four

sessions in the afternoons group, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Right. So it's going to cost you 80

bucks a day. And so as long as you can

cover and that's going to be what? Five

days a week they're going to do that?

>> Yes,

yeah, five six days a week to be honest.

>> Yeah. So if it's So if it's let's just

say five days for simple math, so it's

going to be 400 bucks a week, it's

$1,600

uh a month that it's going to, you know,

add up for

uh in terms of total cost. As long as

you can, if you had all your afternoons

free so you can do your sales, cover

$1,600 a month, you should do the trade

as soon as possible.

>> Okay.

>> And then once you have that, then you

can say I'm going to do the same thing

in the morning, but the thing is is that

you have to make sure that whenever you

make those trades, whenever you trade

money as in like cuz it's the reverse

trade, you're trading money for time,

that when you make that trade, you have

to make the money back. Otherwise,

you're actually losing money.

>> Yeah. I think well, know, though, we

also have the feeling that most of our

clients, they come because they actually

come because of us.

And we're also afraid that if they come

and they don't see like our face or if

it's not us that doing this,

>> It's easy.

It's fine. Everybody goes through this

cuz you have to take it to the natural

extreme, which is you're not going to

run every class forever. It's not going

to happen, right? You know that's going

to happen. That's not going to That's

not going to be forever. So, what you

can do is do this over the next, call it

4 weeks, have somebody come in for one

session or two sessions, and then three

sessions, then four sessions, then five

sessions. Um over time, you can do them

together. In the short term, you

transfer the authority over. And then

when people come in, you can still greet

them, say hi, you know, do the the back

and forth and whatnot. And you're going

to have to accept the fact that some

people are like, "Oh, it's not like

you." And you're like, "Yeah, you're

right. He's even better." So, you you

are in a service business. You have to

make sure the person who comes in is

good. Um but the goal should be to find

somebody who's better than you, but you

can still greet people, have the social

component, all that. But then the rest

of the time during the sessions, you

need to do sales. And if you don't have

sales, go out on the floor and basically

anytime you're not in sales, be on the

floor so that you can still kind of

cover that in between. Does that make

sense?

>> Yeah, it does.

>> Okay.

>> And if if if I may just one last

question. Like, uh right now, uh

client acquisition uh method is mostly

Instagram or like

word of mouth.

And we've tried uh putting up some ads,

but we feel that it's not really working

for us. So, what do you actually like uh

what do you think we should do about

this?

>> Well, I think you probably

[clears throat] don't have the right

offer or sales motion. Ads for sure work

for Are you doing like what, Meta ads

for the gym?

>> Meta ads, exactly. Mostly.

>> Yeah, I mean, Meta ads still to this day

work fine. What was your cost per lead?

>> Uh

I think we did uh 500 Swiss francs,

that's about $500 for 1 month just to

try. I mean, we got uh we got we got

some clients, but I think people mostly

come because, you know, I'm quite famous

in my region.

>> Yeah.

>> And so, it's uh I think that's what

really attracts people more than, you

know, the metal ads.

>> Well,

if you're quite famous in your region,

ads will only work better.

And you'll be able to liquidate, or

you'll be able to get the cash back for

the time that you're paying the trainer

to be on the floor. And so,

yeah, I mean, I think you should run

ads. You should post content the way

that you are.

And do sales.

>> Okay.

>> I I just don't think you should Don't

overcomplicate this. Take the afternoon

sessions. That's when you sell. If you

don't have a sales appointment, go on

the floor so people see you. But

otherwise, you should be basically

working leads and selling. That's That

is the job that you're in right now.

>> Okay.

>> All right. Like, you got in the gym

business, but you're actually in the

marketing and sales business.

>> Yeah, it's sometimes it's hard to, you

know, like, switch.

>> It's a different game, dude. Different

game. I started my gym cuz I thought it

was going to be about fitness, but I

never think about fitness. All I was

thinking about membership sales.

>> Yeah.

>> All right. Appreciate you, dude.

>> Yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks a lot, man.

>> Also, read the uh Gym Launch Secrets

book.

>> I I I I do. I did.

>> Okay, good.

>> actually.

>> Well, good, then

>> other one, also.

>> Then do that.

Run the like the whole the whole model's

already in there. Just do it.

>> Yeah. I always pick I always pick a a

chapter, and I try to uh you know, do

the exact same thing.

>> Good.

>> So, I you know, so yeah.

>> Good. You're going to want to get semis

going as fast as you can so you can sell

higher ticket stuff.

>> Okay.

>> And so, if you want to have people come

to you, again, this is short term, long

term, but short term, if you want to

increase the cash of the facility,

depends how much money you want to make

and what your ultimate goal is. But, if

you got two facilities and you and your

wife are comfortable working, I'd say

you guys can do the semi-private, so let

the the trainers do the the one-to-many.

And then people are going to want to

ascend to the semi-privates at a higher

price point. Instead of paying, you

know, $150 a month, they're going to

pay, you know, 400, 500, 600 a month to

one-on-six with you.

>> Yeah, we actually thought of doing that,

but we don't really know how to put that

into motion. Well, yeah, we we we

already talked about this.

>> Run ads and sell people into it. That's

it. That's how you put it into motion.

Pick one time a week that you have and

then you keep adding times.

>> Okay.

>> All right. Appreciate you.

>> Okay. Yeah, man. Thanks a lot.

>> All right. Bryce Clifford 8974.

Hey Alex, I started an LLC last week.

Business account is open. Website is

built. Early access launches Saturday.

I'm excited to put 1,000 hours of

consumed Hormozi content to work. Haha.

Great. Love it. Um

You either get an epic outcome or an

epic story. Both mean you win. That is

such a powerful mindset shift for any

entrepreneur facing obstacles right now.

Thank you for this. You're welcome.

Okay.

Um

Raul Flo. Hi Alex, I'm 24 years old and

look like I'm 18.

>> [laughter]

>> I made a restaurant management SaaS and

I can't seem to get any customers. The

problem is that I have an age difference

because they think of me as a teenager.

Um

So, let me give you a secret that I did

when I started at 22. Um I didn't tell

people I own the business. I told people

that I was the manager and that the

owner was someone else. And everyone was

very happy to pay adult prices to

someone a kid who worked for an adult.

Uh and whenever I had to like, you know,

let me see if I can Let me Let me see if

the boss, you know, will do it. I would

step outside and I'd pull my phone out

and I would just do nothing and then I'd

come back in and be like, "Yeah, yeah,

he's good with that." Um and then I like

even had a celebration where like, "I'm

I'm a part owner." And people are like,

"Oh yeah, he's a part owner." Um and so,

that's actually how I managed to do that

when I was younger. FYI. So,

use it.

I mean,

I think Tim Ferriss talked about this

where he would respond to emails as like

the name and then like head of customer

success, but he was also

uh head of sales and head of marketing

and head of of everything else. So, uh

yeah, you do what you got to do when

you're when you're starting out.

Okay. I I you'd say don't switch

businesses every time it gets hard, but

how do you know if you're just hitting a

wall you need to push through or if the

business itself is just not going to

work out. It just comes down to whether

the fundamental assumption that you

built the business upon is false. So if

it's I don't know how to get customers

that is not an assumption that is just a

lack of skill. If you are talking to

what you believe to be your core avatar

and they do not want your thing we have

to make sure that it is not an offer or

sales problem.

But assuming that you were doing

everything correct instances

if people just don't want the thing

which is which is only true when you're

trying to invent a new category. And so

I'm going to be really clear about this.

If you're getting into an industry that

literally already exists you just lack

skill period. So if you're like

I don't know if

you know how to if I'm just hitting a

wall I need to push through. If you're

starting an agency for small business

owners

and you're not making money it's not

like the agency business somehow has

been disproven by your failure. You just

lack skills. And so for

the vast majority of you the vast vast

majority of you you're trying to get

into businesses that have already

existed. It's very like almost none of

you guys are inventing something that

doesn't already exist. And so that if

you're in that 99% bucket it means

there's already a version of your

business that works and you can look at

what that model is and how they price

and you can begin there and then you can

start to iterate. But you'd have to have

some assumption that has been proven

wrong which is that people do not want

this thing fundamentally not just from

you. They just the whole market doesn't

want it. So if there's anybody else who

can sell something similar to what you

do or rather at least has the problem

that you're trying to solve then you

know there is a version of your business

that works and you just need to push

through.

All right. Let's do

Mr. Gong.

Next. What's up?

>> you one more question.

>> One more? All right. Let's do another

chat. Give me a give me a scroll up

though cuz I got to I'm

I'm getting a little freak out zone.

All right. I'll take this as a shake a

shake moment.

All right.

Let's get some Nicorette.

Hold on.

I got one.

Little Nicorette break, nicotine break.

This break brought to you by nicotine.

All right. Um

Okay, so guys, let's see stay here. Um

Can you scroll up a little bit?

Or no, all right, here. Okay, that

works. Okay, um

I'm starting an online lead generation

and qualification site where it's

self-serve. How would you get customers

with a limited budget? So, Alibaba 2478.

So, you're trying to

do lead gen and then sell those leads?

I mean, fundamentally, if you're

starting out you're going to do a lead

gen business, the whole game is

arbitrage. This means that you have to

buy leads for less than you're going to

sell them for. Um and whether you're

selling them on a retainer or on a per

leads basis, it doesn't really matter.

But, your entire game needs to be

understanding customer acquisition at a

deep level. And so, I would just like

really heavily think about the question

cuz you're basically saying

this is the core thing of my business

and I don't know how to do it, which is

kind of an issue. Um

but

the cheapest ways of getting customers

is going to be SEO, AEO, content.

Um and then selling them to people who

are accustomed to paid ads prices. And

so, you'll have high quality leads uh

for low prices and that is the

fundamental arbitrage that you are

selling.

All right.

Um

let's do

Commit Daniel Camelo 01. I'm a local

food content creator, but I have a hard

time charging restaurants over $300. I'm

one of the most known

in my city, but I sometimes have

restaurants who don't want to pay.

Okay.

So,

restaurants are tough because they make

no money and they're really volatile. Um

but you just have to show them that

you're going to get them customers. And

you could have a

I don't know how many customers you

have.

Uh

Yeah, it's a tough niche, man. Um

there for sure are people who make money

in that niche.

Um

I think what you'll end up having to do

is like it's probably content plus ads,

which is like you can make the

the the you know, the ad the content

that you're going to make, but then you

put money behind it.

And if you can

uh if you can capture the leads and

demonstrate that those people are

showing up, uh then you will have

a much better chance at demonstrating

ROI. Cuz like if people don't want to

pay $300, it's cuz they don't believe

you, right? So, that's really what it

comes down to is they don't actually

believe that you're going to be able to

get them a return. And so, you have to

pay down is the risk they have

associated with not getting it. And so,

you know, the easiest version of this is

that you say you'll do it for free once,

and if they want it again, they can pay.

That's the easiest offer that you can

give. Um you could also do it as a trial

again, which is same concept. Um or you

could do it as a pay per. The difficulty

with pay per is the attribution of like

how honest they are going to be. Um and

so, that's the hard part.

I don't I don't love and like I don't

want to dissuade you from doing it. I

don't I don't love the

it's just a very tough avatar.

It's a tough avatar because they're

usually not that sophisticated. I think

that you should be anchoring much higher

than $300 though.

Um you're probably looking at like 1,500

a month, something like that uh for it

to even be worth it. Um but I think it's

the combination of content plus ads

that's going to be like the unlock for

you.

So, that's my TLDR.

All right. Um Naiards

4532. Hey Alex, if you can pay for a

knowledge skills and want to learn

one-on-one, how would you approach

someone in the same industry since

they're likely competitors and might not

want to share? So, important question.

Um

I I've learned from two people, uh

typically not competitors.

They're usually not willing to just give

you their secrets.

Um so, I like learning from outside of

people who literally just teach for a

living, right? Outside of those obvious

answers, um our number one vendors. So,

people who serve your type of avatar.

So, let's say you're a painter and you

find an agency that's helps painters get

leads, I would offer to pay them double

what they currently charge to learn the

thing and then sell them on the fact

that listen, I'm sure your turn is, you

know, your average stick is 6 month or

or 9 months and like I'll be worth more

than that and then I would just pay you

the same amount after the fact just for

consulting. Um and if you do that for

enough people, you'll have somebody

who's willing to to to take the offer.

That's number one.

The second way,

and the way that you sell it is time on

task, by the way, which is you say,

"Listen, I'm sure that what you would

end up doing is like you check my

account, you know, twice a week or, you

know, so this is how I'd reverse sell

it. You say, "Hey, I'm a painter, you do

lead gen. Okay, how much time are you

going to put on my account?" At this

point, because they're selling you,

they're going to say a lot of time,

right? And so, they're going to be like,

"Oh, I check your account daily and

then, you know, we have a weekly

one-on-one." You're like, "Okay, cool.

So, I want to do all of that stuff

except when you check daily, I just want

to be there. So, just tell me when you

do it. Um and I want to be the one to

click the buttons and when we do the

daily, you know, the weekly one-on-one,

I just want feedback so I can understand

the decision-making process. And I'm

willing to pay the same or more in order

for you to do that, but it takes no

extra time for you. I'm just going to

get more value from it." That's the

idea. That's the pitch to a vendor. If

you want to go to a competitor, you will

absolutely be able to learn from a

competitor if you do it in a market that

that you're not in. So, when I had my

gyms uh in California, I went to um

different gyms that were not in my local

area um and those gym owners were happy

to help me out and I also said I was

willing to share anything that I knew um

to help them out.

I didn't have to pay them. They said

they'd do it because I was also young,

and typically older business owners, if

they don't see you as direct

competition, which being young helps,

and not being in their area double

helps,

they were willing to just put me under

their under their wing. And so, I got a

lot of help from early gym owners, which

is also why I make this content because

many people helped me out on my way, and

many people did it for free. Some

didn't, but many did it for free.

Um

please give any brutally honest advice

to help me. I'm 24, single father, lost

my fiance of 9 years,

my job, had to drop friends because of

bad decisions they made, and about to

lose my house.

Okay.

Um

I mean, I think you don't need brutally

honest advice.

I think you just need encouragement, um

which is just that

bad seasons happen. I'm sure that you

contributed partially to it. I think it

is worthwhile trying to understand how

you contributed to the outcome. I think

saying woe is me is not valuable.

Um

and realizing that you were still alive,

and if you had cancer, you would wish

for all of the problems you have instead

of cancer.

All right. And so, it's reframing your

reality as someone else's dream.

And

the TLDR of this whole thing is that you

simply are going to have to change your

lifestyle in the short term,

which might mean moving in with friends,

moving back in with parents in the short

term, so that you can basically get your

feet back under you, which really just

means financial stability,

and then start making bets yet again on

what you need to do next. But, I think

you need stability right now before you

try to add more chaos variables into

your life cuz you've had a lot of

change. And so, I'd say like, I would

want to introduce routine, and I would

want to introduce stable environments

physically and emotionally, so that you

can weather the time period. But, the

strongest frame that you should approach

this with is that am living someone

else's dream.

And just think about what that person's

life would have to be in order for your

life to be the dream so that you can

flip it.

Like Layla has this frame that I've been

thinking about a lot lately which is um

50% of your life is good and 50% of your

bad. 50% of your life is good and 50% of

your life is bad and whether you have a

good life or a bad life

it just depends on which 50% you focus

on.

So dude, you're healthy, you're young,

you have energy, you have a kid

hopefully likes you. Like you have other

things that are going for you. You said

these other things that are out there.

Like you lost your fiance but at the

same time you're single.

And there's some people who are in

relationships that all they want is

single. So it's like even though these

things like many of the things you

described are changes to your condition

rather than inherently negative

outcomes.

And so you lost your job but also many

people hate their jobs and wish they

could change jobs and you just got to

change done to you. And so each of these

conditions like could be reframed as

potentially positive because you have

the opportunity now to do whatever you

want.

Which in some people

that is their goal is freedom and you

have it right now.

So maybe see it as the beginning of

something new and great

and emerge from the ashes which is what

the most fertile ground is.

Hopefully that helps.

Um

Royal International Academy. I'm

organizing feminine retreats in Turkey.

I don't know how to act to be

to be heart-touchable.

I'm so natural. Please advise me.

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

That made

no sense

at all.

Um

No clue. Yep, move on from that one.

Uh

>> [laughter]

>> Uh I'm a 15-year-old freelance marketer.

I've been learning for 2 years. I had a

client for 3 weeks, but he didn't pay

me. Jackass. Bro,

come on.

I will bet

dollars to donuts that you made some

mistakes in this process and you need to

learn from it. Thankfully, you don't

need the money. You're probably living

at home and you're not going to starve.

Um

I don't even know if there was a

question in that one, but I think that

you just need to go get more customers

and learn from your mistakes.

All right, Mr. Gong. Let's do another Q.

>> Alex, special but talking best for me

today.

>> Special guest for me today. That could

be

bad or good. We'll see.

>> I

>> Hello?

>> Hi Alex.

>> Yes.

>> Hi Alex, this is Lily from the UK.

>> Hey Lily, what's up?

>> Nothing. I'm a little nervous.

>> Me, too.

>> Oh.

I See, I run a local coffee shop with my

husband and

um

I just wanted some advice.

>> Okay.

>> So, I'm trying to figure out how to get

him to listen to me.

Um

I I can't even get a hold of him and I'm

hoping maybe maybe you could help me get

a hold of him.

>> I

Ha

Like he's not returning your calls?

>> Like he doesn't text me back.

>> Ever?

>> to talk to him about the business.

He's just so busy and he won't he won't

rest. He won't listen to me when I ask

him to rest.

>> But are you working in the business,

too?

>> Yes.

>> So, you see him at the business, right?

>> Yes.

>> So, when you see him at the business, do

you not talk to him?

>> No, I do, but you know, there's

employees there.

>> Can you go in like the back the storage

room closet or something?

>> To do what?

>> To talk to her.

>> Oh, oh god.

>> Or walk outside?

>> I It's just a little frustrating, you

know, because I'm constantly

>> I just figured it out.

>> [laughter]

>> It was the laugh that did it. It was the

laugh that did it.

>> [laughter]

>> Love you.

>> This is Layla. There we go.

>> You didn't get it from Lily, the name we

were talking about earlier?

>> No, I did think of that and I was just

like, that is an odd coincidence.

And I just kept living my life.

So so this husband of yours,

um

Do you not talk to him at home?

>> [laughter]

>> I'm going to call into his [ __ ]

hotline. That's what I'm going to do.

>> Is this how you uh is this how you get a

hold of him?

>> Hold on 1 second. I'll see you in a

minute.

>> Oh, you're oh, you're busy now? Uh now

you're busy To be clear, I'm available.

I'm making time.

I'm making time.

Let the record show I was available.

All right.

Um

Was that fun?

Uh

Okay, I need a pep talk. Uh diagnosed

Hold on.

>> [laughter]

>> Uh wait, what

We got let me What's up?

>> We got That's what

a live question.

>> Hm? We got a live one?

>> A live one. Live question.

>> Are you coming? You're joining the All

right, we have a special guest. I was

like, why is this special?

>> [laughter]

>> It's like, I mean, nothing wrong with

some

UK shop lady.

It's like, it's fine.

>> [laughter]

>> I I almost peed my pants.

>> All right. We're getting a double

trouble. We're getting the uh

We're dynamic duo.

Okay. [snorts]

Let's uh We want to do We have another

Do we have another uh next up?

>> My god, you reek of nicotine.

>> Do I reek of [ __ ]

>> [laughter]

>> So bad.

>> Yeah, all right. So let's

let's look at the chat. Can you slow

down the chat so we can

we can answer some of these?

All right, so I'm 25 years old. I'm

pursuing a BS in mechanical engineering.

You know something about that? How do I

beat the fear fear of failure with

taking six classes and working 40 hours?

Laila.

>> [snorts]

>> Or Lily.

>> [laughter]

>> Had to get the giggles out.

Um, I don't think that you beat the

failure.

Or the fear of the failure. I think that

you have to take it with you. I don't

think that you're going to like everyone

always wants to get rid of the fear

before they do something, but the

reality is is that the fear only goes

away when you do the thing.

And that's the reason why I don't think

you ever feel ready or you ever lack

fear until the second time you do

something.

Um, I think it's reasonable to have a

healthy amount of concern if you're

like, "Hey, working 40 hours a week and

taking six classes, like that's a lot

for me." Like literally looking at the

hours in a day, I think it makes sense

that you'd be concerned about that. I

don't think that

that is

I think it's also like how you're

talking to yourself about the situation,

which is like, "I'm fearing the

failure." It's like, "Okay,

what's actually likely going to happen?

What? Like you don't do as well in one

class? Maybe you're late to work a time

or two? Like I think it's better to

contextualize realistically what could

happen rather than catastrophizing and

thinking that I'm going to lose my job

and I'm going to fail out in all my

classes."

The reality is it's probably somewhere

in the middle. Like there will be times

where you sacrifice some

of your studies for work and some of

your work for your studies and you're

going to have to figure out how to

balance that, but you're not going to

ever figure out how to balance it unless

you just go and do it.

>> And what an amazing opportunity of a

story that you will be able to someday

tell to your kids about how you

persevered when it was difficult. But

like if you've never if you just took

six classes, you would have no story.

You'd be like everyone else. If you just

worked 40 hours a week, you'd be like

everyone else. And so you have the

opportunity something that's more

exceptional, more above average, and I

think most people hope for that

opportunity because like the story that

you're going to be able to tell is going

to be based and built on the hardships

that you endured to get to where you

want to go.

>> Inspiring.

>> Yeah. Inspo.

Inspo Lilly.

All right. Uh Layla, I'm going to ask

you [snorts] this question. I'm 37. Is

it too late?

>> You're literally about to turn 37.

>> That's why it's so relevant. Is it too

late?

>> quite depressing that you're 37.

[laughter]

Let's just ignore that fact.

>> [gasps]

>> Um no, it's not too late. Like that's

ridiculous. Um I think some of the, you

know, most successful people on Earth

started when they're 45, 50. Who is it?

The founder of McDonald's? Was it him

that was

>> Ray Kroc.

>> Ray Kroc, wasn't he like almost 50 or

40-something when he started?

Um

I just think it to myself, you have so

much life left. Why

I don't know why people ask that

question actually. Is it too late? Too

late for what?

Like too late to live your life, too

late to succeed, too late to have what

you want. Yeah, exactly. It's like why

does this prohibit you? Like you're not

at the point yet where your health is

like rapidly declining either. So like I

don't really understand

what that means.

>> Let me give you an interesting frame on

this.

When you are 20, 30, 50, 100, you

literally only have one thing, which is

the present.

So there is fundamentally, as much as I

made an argument at the very beginning

of this that like you should go hard

when you're young because you have a lot

of advantages.

It doesn't negate the fact that you

should go pursue your goals with

whatever condition you have. It doesn't

mean yes, there are advantages when

you're younger. There's also advantages

when you're older. Like you might have

more experience, might have more wisdom,

you might have more resources. But let's

just assume for the purpose of this

discussion that you have no resources

and no experience because you wasted the

first 17 years of your life. Great.

Think about this. Are there 20-year-olds

who started at and then at 24 are

crushing it? Yes. So, there's no reason

that at 37 you can start at 41 you're

crushing it. Like

Like, by saying it is too late is

accepting that you will accomplish

nothing between now and when you die.

That's what it turns into.

>> It's tough.

>> Right. So, as long as you believe that

you're going to stay alive and you're

going to do something with the time you

have. You're going The time is going to

get spent either way. You might as well

spend it building something that you

want to build rather than basically

running the clock out until you die.

>> I also think it's you know you said

this, but I think highlighting it is

there are advantages to being young.

There's also a lot of advantages to

being older. So, I I mean, I can think

about when we our first 10 years of

work, you know, being in our early 20s

when we started. Like complete Like you

have so much energy. You have

>> I started the whole

>> You have no pain.

>> [laughter]

>> What? You started the whole live like

that?

So much energy.

>> Yeah. [snorts]

>> Um You don't have any physical pain. You

don't have any ailments.

Um You don't have a lot of

responsibility. So, like there's a lot

of things there, but then as you get

older you have way better critical

thinking. You have I would say way

better judgment.

Way better emotional control. More

patience. You're typically wiser. So,

there's a lot of advantages and I think

that as you get older you see ways to do

things that

um you can get things done with more

leverage. Like you don't have to use

yourself to get everything done. You see

a lot I would say smarter ways that you

can get things done in business. So, if

I were starting, you know, and actually

we have done this. I mean, on our third

business started it completely different

than we did in the very beginning. First

business is like did everything myself

first. Didn't hire anybody smart for a

long time. Like duct taped everything

together with brute force. Um and then

on our third business it's like, all

right, hiring the entire executive team

first.

So, and I think that's just judgment.

That's learning. That's understanding,

oh, I don't have the energy to do it all

anymore.

>> It's leverage with capital. Like there's

a lot of things that go into it. Um but

yeah, I mean that's why it's a stepping

stone. You know what I mean? Like we

wouldn't have been able to get the

talent that we have on this team if we

didn't have the track record to get us

here. So you just build on what you got.

>> Can I ask you a question?

>> Okay.

>> Okay. So I'm 20 and I'm at my breaking

point. I'm tired of everyone and

everything. I have no family, no

counseling, no friends. I've been

betrayed, laughed at, mocked, and thrown

away. I'm tired and I want to win.

>> Well, I'll say this. Everything you said

before I want to win doesn't really

matter.

>> Nobody really cares.

>> Yeah, it just doesn't really matter. If

you want to win, great. Do the Do the

stuff that winning takes. I think

everything else that you mentioned there

was to try and get a sympathy response.

But like the world will not give you

sympathy.

Like the world does not care. It is

uncaring. It cares about the value that

you can create for it. People are

self-interested. And so

your sob story only helps

you feel better about your current

condition, but it does not change your

condition.

>> What's that your dad used to say? Better

to be envied than pitied.

>> I know, my dad used to say it all the

time.

>> Yeah, Alex's dad likes to say that.

Better to be envied than pitied.

>> Yeah, like

I um so I'll give you guys like a little

bit of deeper insight into this for

those of you who like take this the way

I mean it. Like many people talk about

having an immigrant father.

Um

I was an only child with a immigrant

father and my mother wasn't super

present. Um and so it was just immigrant

father 24/7.

And one of the thing that's like

there's there's downsides to that for

sure. But and but I feel like I'm the

output of what happens when you have a

pure immigrant father who just drives.

And one of the things was that?

>> I love you, dad.

>> No, my dad's a sweetheart now. But um

and he you know, he's evolved. He's

evolved, right?

Um

but one of the things that I would say

that he had absolutely zero tolerance

for was complaining.

It was just zero. Like and so he would

actually give me a null response. Like,

he would ignore

me and anything that I said if it was

negative or if it was complaining.

And like, anytime I complained because I

wanted to get sympathy or I wanted

comfort and maybe that's what a motherly

role would have been.

>> [laughter]

>> But like, whenever I basically made a

bid for that kind of attention, it was

completely ignored. And I'm not saying

that's healthy or unhealthy, that's not

my point of this, you know, live your

life the way you want. But I am saying

that it is

it served me in the pursuit of

accomplishing things by not putting a

lot of time into all the things that

went wrong because the first person I

got feedback from in reality completely

disregarded it. And it was just and he

always used to say like, it's better to

be envied than pitied. Never seek to be

pitied.

And that was that was that that just

like rang true in my whole life and I

would say it's been incorporated into

how I function like, you saying all of

these things just breeds victimhood.

And I

like

do you really want to be a victim like,

do you want to be a victim of your own

life? You might be right and so what?

Like, if you were right that you were a

victim, is that the award that you want

to win?

It's competing for a prize that when you

win, you lose.

What?

>> So intense.

>> I know, right? Really honest.

>> not how it normally is.

>> This is not how Dear Layla goes. This is

not

>> No. [laughter]

No. I think it's interesting too is like

what as you say this, you know, I have

people that have messaged me and said,

"I'm at my breaking point. I'm

heartbroken. I'm" and I'm like, "You're

not at your breaking point." And the

words that we use to talk about

ourselves and describe our lives, it's

very important. Which is like a big

reason why people will say they'll look

at my content and they'll be like

I'll say something like, "Well, I'm

concerned." They're like, "Why will you

not You're suppressing your emotions."

I'm like, "No. Me saying I'm [ __ ]

stressed out of my mind. I'm [ __ ]

overwhelmed. I'm [ __ ] like, that doesn't

actually make me feel better. And I

remember we had a conversation like

early in the relationship and I remember

I wouldn't like outwardly express my

emotions a ton. And we were like, is

that healthy? Is that not healthy? And

there was a ton of studies basically

that came out on venting and the way

that you speak about yourself and how

like large outbursts of emotions,

speaking negatively about yourself and

exaggerating your situation, or using

dramatic words to essentially like

>> create an emotive emotive response.

>> Yeah, it actually makes it worse. It

doesn't help you move forward in the

situation. So it's like maybe those

things are all true. What you do next is

up to you.

All these things may have happened. You

may have been betrayed. You may have had

bad luck. You may have had all these

things occur. But you're an adult who

can take action to move forward in their

life next. You're not stuck where you

are. And all of those things happened

yesterday. They're not happening today.

So I don't know if that's helpful or

not, but

I think the way that you talk about

yourself is really important. That's one

thing I say a lot is like, I'm

concerned. Um I'm frustrated. Like I

think it's very important to use precise

language when you're talking about how

you feel and your situation because you

might actually be digging yourself into

a much deeper hole than you're actually

in.

>> Yeah, I'm at my breaking point. It's

like, what if you just weren't at your

breaking point and you're fine and you

would still eat and live and be fine the

next day?

>> It's like heartbroken. It's like your

heart's not broken. I'm sad.

>> Yeah, which is fine.

>> Yeah, I miss somebody.

>> Um

This will this this is a

uh

I need a pep talk.

Diagnosed with melanoma at 38 1 and 1/2

years ago. Uh can't get out of my own

way and build my marketing business.

>> I mean, I think the pep talk is you're

still here a year and a half later.

So there's something positive in the

statement itself.

I think I think it'd be reasonable to

say if you're dealing with overcoming

cancer,

it's going to be hard to have 100% of

your attention to build a business.

You're not

>> Obviously.

>> This is like the same question I get

when people are like, what do I do? I

have a new baby, but I'm also trying to

build my business." I'm like, "What do

you want me to say? [ __ ] your baby?"

Like, "No." Seriously though, it's like,

"What? Like, be like, [ __ ] your cancer,

pay attention to the business." It's

like, it is of course going to take

attention from you. It's going to take

time from you. It's going to take mental

bandwidth that somebody else who doesn't

have that diagnosis is not going to have

to deal with.

But, I try to look at the bright side,

which is like, "Look at all of these

skills that you're going to have to

acquire to be able to pursue both of

those things." And how can you

overcoming and dealing with your

melanoma diagnosis actually help your

marketing business?

And I think it's

always in these situations that are

presented as outwardly bad, you have to

ask yourself, "What's good about this?"

Every time something like absolutely

tragic has happened in my life, I've

always said, "But what's good about it?"

And it feels sometimes really impossible

to find it, but I actually think that

you can find a lot in that.

>> I'll tell you um so, first off, uh I'm

sorry. Second off, uh this will be part

of the story that you tell. And you can

see from the comments we've mentioned

earlier, there's tons of people who

don't have cancer and are struggling to

get, you know, started in their

business. And so, there's something like

even the fact that you're starting

is still an advantage over the people

who haven't, even though you have

cancer. So, kudos to you on that. Um

I'll tell you a story that I think might

illustrate this

what what Layla was saying. We have a

friend, Brooke Castillo, who uh big life

coach. Um and one of the questions that

she said, um I think she said it on a

podcast, but she said, she got she got

divorced later in her life and she said,

she said, "How could getting divorced be

amazing?"

>> Yeah.

>> She said, "How could I have the most

amazing divorce that's ever been had?"

>> And she did.

>> And she did. They like they're they have

a great relationship, their kids were

fine, like everything was good. And so,

it's it's basically

asking the question, "What would it take

for this to be a good thing?"

And then solving for that.

>> Which is usually what action would I

have to take, what attitude would I have

to have about the situation? Someone

recently here actually was getting

divorced and then they like everyone

looked at me like a house in response. I

said, "Congratulations."

>> Yeah.

>> Congratulations. You made a decision.

You've probably been wanting to do this

for a long time.

So, like good luck. Like, you get to

move on with your life now.

>> And to be clear, we're not saying

divorce is good or bad or anything like

that. She had made a decision, and it's

great. Whatever your decisions are,

congrats. Now you get to live life.

Um

so, yeah. Focus on what you can do, and

uh my my kind of ruthless tactical stuff

on this for uh my melanoma friend, um is

if you feel sad about the cancer stuff,

work can be a great distraction.

And introspection is a modern invention.

>> Yeah, I don't think

I mean, I've had to deal with health

issues over the last few years, not

cancer, but, you know, still things that

were like got in the way of me living in

my life. Um and the biggest thing I will

say is I do not Everyone told me that

like you should stop working so much to

focus on this.

How on earth would that have helped?

I would have gotten rid of the things in

my life that made me feel good, that

gave me confidence, that I got to use my

skills in

to then what? Focus on something I can't

control? Because the reality is you

can't control cancer. You can do your

best to show up and to do the treatments

and to do and to find the best doctors,

but we can't control some of these

things. And so, I I actually just really

disagree with a lot of the

you know, quit everything to focus on

what the health diagnosis is. I actually

think it makes things worse much of the

time.

>> It's removing the positive reinforces in

your life.

>> Yeah. It's like Yeah, I should also get

divorced and say bye to my husband

because then I can focus more on my

cancer or my my diagnosis. It's like

that's silly. And I think a lot of times

business and building a business gives

people the same reinforcement.

>> And people who give the advice also have

a negative label associated with work.

So, they're saying, "Oh, work is

stressing you out. Therefore, you should

stop it to give yourself rest." And if

work was stressing you out, then you

that would make a stronger case, but

they make the assumption that it is.

But, if you enjoy the work that you do

or you find it stimulating or

interesting,

uh and you continue to develop skills,

you interact with you know, clients, you

enjoy that, like you might need to

adjust how you work, but not necessarily

remove everything from your plate. So,

hopefully that helps. Sorry they're

going through it, um but we're rooting

for you.

All right. I'm 21, just graduated, and

torn between two careers that I love,

filmmaking and robotics. That is a wild

dichotomy.

Uh I believe I could become world class

in either, but dividing my focus could

cost me both. How do you decide?

>> I'm sorry. How do you decide?

>> Um

My god.

I'm just thinking a lot. Um

My bladder.

Um

>> [laughter]

>> Wait, I was pregnant.

>> [gasps]

>> Um

I think for myself when I'm making a

decision like that, I think about

a couple things, which is like what I

anchor to, at least. So, this is just

what helps me. I'm not even saying it's

good advice.

Um

I look at my life, and I look at the

conditions that make me happy. And it's

like the things that make me happy are

usually doing something I love with

people I love.

And something that I'm substantially

challenged in.

If that's either of those things, then I

don't really know if you have a a wrong

answer. Um I would say that the question

that we don't or the the frame that we

would need to answer this or help you

more is what are your goals? Um you

could become world class, but are you

trying to make money? Are you trying to

build a business? Are you trying to have

a certain type of career? And so, I

would say, what are your career goals?

Why even go into filmmaking or robotics?

Are you somebody who's uh trying to have

a lifestyle business? Are you trying to

build a generational business?

>> to be a technician? Because like,

reality is that in either of those

businesses, if you start a business,

then you'll be doing business for the

majority of your day, not filmmaking or

robotics.

>> Yeah.

>> And so, then you have to analyze which

business opportunity you want to get

into. Like, for example, I was really

into fitness, but as soon as I started

my gym, fitness was a very small

percentage of the time that I actually

did. And so, like, business was the

majority of what I spent my time doing.

And so we have this fallacy that if you,

you know, do the thing that you love

you'll never work another day in your

life. But the reality is that the actual

day-to-day is you're never you're very

rarely doing the thing that you actually

love. You're doing all the supporting

overhead so that 4-5% of your time you

can do something that you quote love.

Which then when you think 95 versus 5

you're like, you know what, I might as

well just build a business that I really

like.

>> I will say one I think one thing though,

which is I think if if you like the

customers you serve, I think that's

important because when you build a

business, yes, you'll be in business no

matter what, but if you don't like the

customers you serve, that's really

tough. And I think that's something that

we think a lot about when we start

businesses is like do we like the

customers that we're serving? So that

being said, you have to anchor to your

goals. You'll be good at either one of

these. You'll probably have a great life

either way. There's probably a low risk

in this choice. It's just a matter of,

okay, what are my goals and is there one

that's more aligned with those career

goals than the other?

>> So I'll give you a different frame on

your question, which is I have my last

meal. It's the death row last meal

question. Should I have steak and

potatoes or should I have a pizza as my

last meal?

You'll probably be full either way and

you'll probably like either of them. Um

but what actually guarantees you not uh

doing either is not deciding. And so I'd

say the core the core skill that you

have to have is and you're becoming

you're getting older, right? And one of

the marks of getting older is is trading

in options. Is that you commit, you make

decisions, that you eliminate

alternatives. And so that is a sign of

maturity is that you're willing to

forego some things that you might like

for something that you might like more.

And if you still are not sure, you just

have to decide either way because you

won't you know that you have a

guaranteed zero if you don't make a

choice.

And I promise you in retrospect you will

um

probably

what's it called? Not um

you will retroactively logic how you

will justify you will justify the

decision that it was the right call in

either of the paths that you choose.

>> Yeah. I think it's more about like

in anything in life, it's like bet on

the jockey not the horse.

>> Yeah, bet on the

>> So, like you're betting on you. So, in

either these situations, you're you. So,

you'll win in either one.

>> Also, Elon started in Zip2 recruiting,

then he got into payments and banking,

and then he got into solar panels and

cars. And so,

it's very likely that you'll live

multiple lives throughout your

entrepreneurial career. And so, there's

nothing to say that you can't do

filmmaking second, or you can't do

robotics second. And there's also a

likelihood that you leaning really into

robotics might be able to capture better

with some of your filmmaking skills. Or

if you do filmmaking stuff, that you

will be better at some of the I don't

know what robotics components or

filmmaking maybe the technical

components, right? And so, like there's

still going to be carryover. Like I

started as a writer, and then I learned

sales, and then copywriting happened.

Right? And so, like these things are

additive. They're not necessarily

completely siloed. There's lots of

crossover, and that's where a lot of

magic happens, and where you get very

like one of zero talent that makes you

more unique.

All right, how can I overcome

procrastination? Even if I get myself

sorted and put in the effort the moment

I get close to results, I can feel my

bad habits coming back.

>> Yeah, Leo.

>> Oh, me?

>> The bad habits are returning. The return

of the bad habits.

>> Not a procrastinator. However, I think

there's three reasons that people tend

to procrastinate.

Um anxiety, which is the task that you

need to do makes you anxious, and so you

avoid doing it.

Boredom, it's not the task is not

stimulating enough. So, when you think

about doing it, there's always something

that's more exciting or more

stimulating. And rebelliousness, which

is somebody else has asked you to do the

task, and because of that, or because of

some deadline somebody else put on you,

whatever, you would like to say [ __ ] it

to the man and not do the thing. Um all

of those things I think are solved in

the same way, which is um frustration

tolerance, which is most of the time

when somebody is procrastinating

something, it's because they're not good

at And say or not practiced at,

tolerating the feelings of boredom,

anxiety,

um, or frustration in general. And so,

that is why a lot of people end up

procrastinating something because they

don't want to feel the feelings that

will occur when they do the work on the

thing.

So, I think it's good to know which of

those you tend to lean into. Like, I

would say if there's anything that would

ever be for me,

in my past, it would probably be more of

anxiety. I would say now it'd probably

be more of boredom of just like that's

just not stimulating, I don't feel like

doing it. Um,

and then the next piece to it is like,

okay,

um, if I continue procrastinating this

thing, right? Um,

then you're obviously going to keep

reinforcing those habits. So, how do I

raise my frustration tolerance? Well,

the only way to do that is to

decrease your sensitivity in the

situation, which is to increase your

surface area of exposure to the

situation, which is to do the thing.

>> Do more [ __ ]

>> So, the best way that I like to tell

people to do that is to just, um, create

goals that are incremental of how long

you spend doing the thing that you're

avoiding or procrastinating. Um, so

maybe it's like, I procrastinate by, you

know, I'll start doing the thing and

then I start doing something else. Okay,

well, let's just do the thing for 40

minutes, then 45, then 50, then 60,

whatever it might need to be. Um, the

second thing you could do is, say you

continue to put something off until the

last minute. It's also a common one.

Okay, well, tend typically is that you

wait until a day before the thing. It's

like, could we do three days before the

thing? Four days before the thing? A

week before the thing? So, like, even

with myself, I have things that I don't

like to do that are good for me. I have

plenty of things right now that I am

doing that are not fun, but they're good

for me. Like, say physical therapy

exercises so that I'm not in pain all

the time cuz I'm pregnant. Um, the first

day I I did those, it's like, okay, I

don't want to [ __ ] do this. It's

like, I'm just going to do it for 10

minutes. And it's like, okay, I'm going

to do it now the next day for 15

minutes. And then the next day I'm going

to say, I'm I'm to do one set of each. I

give myself small goals because it's

almost like building up a tolerance.

It's like a muscle.

And so if you have atrophied that

muscle, you don't just go and bench, you

know, 300 lb the next day. It's like

we're going to bench 150, then 160, then

165, then 170. So, these are just

um emotional muscles or I would say like

soft skill muscles and I think it you

have to train them in one way or the

other.

>> I think something that I've learned a

lot from Leila is that she's able to uh

recognize emotional discomfort and act

despite it. Meaning we do not need to

change our plan and this is where like

[ __ ] the mood follow [ __ ] the mood

follow the plan really came from, which

is like how you feel and what you do do

not need to have any correlation to one

another. And so the more you can act in

an uncorrelated way to your emotive

state, the more likely you will stick

with things for extended periods of time

past the points of emotional volatility,

which ultimately gets you to your goal

faster. And so you feel uncomfortable

and you feel because of that discomfort

you must change something, but the fact

that you were uncomfortable is why you

should persist.

>> And here's what's really interesting is

that a lot of the time people think,

well, I feel this way or I think this

thing, therefore I don't want to do this

thing.

Well, you can either say, okay, that

means that I have to wait until I feel

or think differently to do the thing or

what you I know is that doing the thing

actually changes how you think and feel.

So, if you start to do the thing, what

you'll find is that if you've been

procrastinating, is 20 minutes in, 30

minutes in, suddenly you feel like doing

the thing. Suddenly it doesn't give you

so much anxiety. Suddenly because your

body is teaching your brain the same way

your brain teaches your body. So, it's a

two-way system. It can work either way.

So, it's like whatever one you got, use

that. For me, it's that easier for me to

take action. Most of the time, I'm not

as good at changing my mind about

something.

Oh, this is an interesting one.

>> Go for it.

>> I'm 22. My girlfriend is annoyed that

I'm working so much. It's making me feel

like I have to choose between my

business and her. What's the trick to

make them both coexist.

>> Kill one of them.

>> [laughter]

>> Um

I think like

I don't know if there's a trick. Yeah, I

don't know if there's a trick. So, I'll

say like two two different frames on

this. So, one is there's a selection

thing, which is like I

found someone who when I started our

relationship, I was like, "I work all

the time

and you have to be cool with that." And

then it turned out Layla was like,

"Well, I have to work a lot, too." And

then I was like, "Maybe we can work

together." And that's what basically

started our journey together. I'm not

saying that's right for everyone. I'm

saying that was right for us. Um

the other side of it is

um basically making agreements. Like

they're like this will be a perpetual

problem for you. So, it's probably it is

unlikely that you will solve it.

And you know, this is from Gottman, the

uh relationship people. 69% of problems

in relationships are perpetual. They are

unsolvable. Meaning they are two

different preferences that sit uh in

contrast to one another.

And so, uh you might have a minimum

amount of work that is required. Uh and

I'll actually give you one from Sam

Evans from from school that he had with

or has currently with his wife. Um

she obviously wants him to be home

because she loves him and they have kids

and all that. He also knows that he

needs to work 12 hours per day uh to get

School to be the number one platform in

the world for communities. And so, the

way they reconciled that was for her

she's like, "I really want you to be

home for dinner every night." And so,

dinner is 6:00. And so, 6:00 onwards

he's at home, he's having, you know,

dinner with the kids, etc.

And so, uh their agreement is

functionally uh as long as he's home at

6:00 uh and he's completely present

during that time period and he takes off

Sundays, they're fine. And so, he works

from 6:00 to 6:00 and then takes

evenings off and then on Sunday he's

fully there with the kids and I think

every 12 weeks they take a vacation

together. And so, that is their

agreement. And so, I think you just have

to come to an agreement and then once

you make the agreement, you both stick

to those terms. If you cannot come to an

agreement that is a compromise that that

meets both of your minimum requirements,

then it might mean that your goals are

misaligned and it I not make sense long

term.

>> [sighs]

>> I thought you were giving us some

tricks.

>> That was a trick.

What do you want trick? And

>> [laughter]

>> Silver bullet.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh

>> Buy her some [ __ ] Uh uh

>> That always does work.

>> Yeah, with all that money you're making

it work.

Uh

>> [laughter]

>> It does work. I don't know. Like that's

actually a thing though is like I think

men don't like to be bought things.

Women do like to be bought things.

Hint hint.

>> [laughter]

>> It always works.

>> So maybe if you go over by a certain

amount you can purchase things as almost

like paying for your overtime. So then

it gets into the question of like how

much am I making in my overtime versus

my cost per gift for excuse? And so then

you're like in a ratio of like, "Okay,

if I work 10 hours over I might make an

extra $5,000 like my $500 gift $500 gift

you're still getting 10 to one on the

time."

Arbitrage leverage leverage.

>> [laughter]

>> Uh Mahmoud

Khatib

Uh Layla I'm 39, married with three

kids, working full-time while launching

an AI SaaS with a technical partner, no

revenue yet. I have no bandwidth and I'm

holding the business back. When would

you quit your job?

>> That's a question that's really personal

because you have to understand like your

what is going to Because if you were

working this business

especially in the beginning if your

head's not in the game. Is your head

going to be less in the game when you

don't have the job or is it going to be

less in the game when you do have the

job? And that's really only something

that you can answer because I think it's

difficult to know how people are going

to act. Like I've seen some people like

I'm the type of person that I have to go

all in. I need to cut off the job and I

I trust myself so it it doesn't scare

me. I will go through all the worst case

scenarios. I'm like, "Here's all the

things that I would do if the business

doesn't make money but I've quit my

job." Um and then I just kind of think

that through before I make the decision.

Some people I've given that advice and

then they get really [ __ ] nervous and

freak out and like burn the business

down. So, I have

renegade on that advice and say like you

have to do what works for you. If you're

going to be really freaked out and

anxious and sabotage the business when

you're quit if you quit your job, then

it's like maybe wait a little longer

until you have a certain amount of

money.

Um I will say this, which is like

I think in general

being in the situation you're in when

you're married, you have three kids, you

have a job, you're also launching a new

business.

You're going to feel like you don't have

any bandwidth even once you get rid of

the business because you have so much

other stuff in your life, it's going to

continue to fill the space.

I think it's more about a it's more of

an emotional question than it is a

logical question, which is just like

what do you have to do to get to a point

where you can actually give majority of

your attention to the business.

Um I would say that in general

if you were asking me what I would do, I

would say that once the business has

proven that it produces revenue,

I would feel okay quitting my job if I

knew that I could get customers and

continue to sell them more products. If

I did not have revenue in the business

and people were not buying the thing I

was selling, I would definitely not feel

comfortable quitting my job.

>> So, this is what I would I'll tactically

add this on, which is that you are

working a job and you have a family. My

my ask would be your is that you block 2

hours a day to work on the new business.

And in that 2 hours, you need to go

generate revenue.

And if you cannot generate revenue in 2

hours per day times five, so 10 hours a

week, you're not going to generate it

with 40. So, generate the revenue, prove

that you can do it on a limited amount

of time, and then you can do the math on

well, if I had all my time or four times

time, five times the time, I'd be able

to 5x or more the amount of revenue I'm

able to generate. So, prove that you can

get a dollar across the bridge for this

new business before you're going to go

all in. That is my that would be my

wreck.

>> They can't fire you if you're

unemployed, if you'll understand.

What?

>> Clutch man 2025.

>> I think it's called ghosting and

pussying out, but whatever.

When somebody quits because they know

they're about to be fired, I'm like,

"Fucking pussy." Anyways, sorry. I'm not

supposed to say that.

>> We'll find out what Layla really thinks

after the commercial break.

>> And

let's cut that one.

>> All right. Win0622,

hi Layla and Alex. Why do I suck?

I'm a lash salon owner with one employee

and filled our bookings.

No more space to bring more employees

and customers. I don't know if it's a

location expansion or price issue. I'm

guessing when you say suck means that

you're not making money, which I find

hard to believe. But if you are fully

booked, you and your employee at a

location and you're not making money,

then you should absolutely increase

price. Now, when you have a supply

demand like when you when you have zero

supply left, which is what booked out

means, right? Then that means you have

more demand than your supply, which

means price goes up. That is what

happens.

>> Yeah, I mean, as somebody who was an

avid customer of this type of business

for many years,

I don't think this is one where you're

like, "Yeah, let's get a larger location

and try and get more employees and more

customers." Like, it is very difficult

to find, retain, and pay really, really

good lash techs. And if this is your

first business, that sounds like that

sounds hard. So, like, I would rather

>> You got lashes done?

Those aren't natural?

>> Nothing. Nothing is natural on this.

>> [laughter]

>> That is natural as a can of diet Coke.

Um so, I think in general, go towards

the price increase. Continue to increase

your prices, increase your skill set so

you're constantly on the edge of like

all the new lash techniques that

everyone's figuring out, um

and focus on yourself and that one

employee until you have enough profit

and revenue that you can take days off

and not worry about it.

You can be selective with your

customers. Like you have to get to a

point of excess before you say, "I want

to expand again." And that's a tough

business to expand. We've talked to a

lot of people. There's a reason there's

not a lot of like enormous chains that

are highly talented. There's like a lot

of run-of-the-the-mill, you know, I

don't know what I like to call them, but

like

there's like kind of shitty lash chains

because again, it's just hard to expand

if you want to keep that quality. So,

yeah. Increase your prices, get to a

point where you can be selective.

>> And have a talent strategy. And so, you

will need to have higher prices so that

you can have higher cash flow so that

you can pay better people so that you

can get better techs, which is what's

going to ultimately be the thing that

you sell, which is the product, which is

the quality of the service. And so, we

had a chain that we almost looked at

buying that was it was actually nails,

but same concept.

And one of the the things that made the

business really interesting is that they

had a very very developed career path

for their technicians. And in so doing,

they were able to retain them

significantly longer than the industry

average. And as a result, because they

retained them better, they were more

skilled. And so, they were able to fill

up their salons much faster almost

entirely off word of mouth because their

techs were so good. And so, I would

encourage you not to go for the lowest

price techs, but go for the highest

skilled techs. And whenever you have the

highest skilled people, you will always

have

women and I guess guys, I don't know if

guys do lashes. You have customers who

are willing to pay premium for the best.

>> It's tough.

>> All right.

Bruno Guerrero, 5314. Hi guys, congrats

on the baby. I've been connecting more

with Leila's content as of late. Okay.

Great. Love that for you.

Uh dear Leila is sick.

>> Yeah, you're happy for me?

>> Yeah, keep going. This was a

great comment. Glad glad you're loving

Leila's stuff. Glad you've moved on, you

know, and

you know, you're you're resonating more

with her content.

>> what is funny though?

This is actually really funny. It's like

when we're out in public and we see

people, like people come up and they'll

be like, "Oh my god, Layla, you are so

stuff, guys." Blah blah blah. And

often times like if somebody comes up

and and they're a fan of mine, they'll

be like, "Oh,

uh Alex, like love your stuff, but you

know, love Layla. Love Layla." Nobody's

ever said that to me. They've never been

like, "Oh, you know, Layla, good stuff,

but love Alex. Love Al-" And like

>> [laughter]

>> I'm like, "You actually make me feel

like [ __ ] by saying that, by the way,

cuz you make me feel like I am lesser. I

know I don't get as much media, okay?"

And I'm like, "You don't need to make me

feel good by putting him down, being

like, [ __ ] your shit."

Isn't that interesting though? Nobody's

ever said that to me. They've never been

like,

>> "Yeah, I'm actually a much bigger fan of

Alex's stuff."

>> Yeah, nobody's [laughter] ever said

that. But people say that all the time

to me that I'm a way bigger fan of

Layla's stuff, actually.

And I'm like, "You know that's rude. We

are married."

>> All right, fun life 016.

How do you become courageous and

shameless when you are a coward and

shameless?

Tough.

Well, first off, I will just I'll crack,

and then I'm sure Layla will add on a

bunch, but um

I would stop calling yourself that,

first and foremost. Uh I would say that

you have exhibited behaviors that that

that tend to get that label. So, I've

acted in a cowardly way. I've acted

shamefully. Not that you are a coward or

that you are shameful, right? So, just

big thing number one. Then we have to

define what these terms mean, right? And

so, shame is when you break other

people's rules. Guilt is when you break

your own rules. And so, then it's like,

"Okay, whose rules am I breaking and why

do I care about their rules?

What punishment are they inflicting on

me that I that I deem meaningful enough

or more meaningful than the punishment

I'm inflicting on myself for not

achieving what I want?" So, that's on

the shame side.

On the coward side, um it's that on some

level

you are

basically not taking action for fear of

punishment.

Right? Um now, whether that is like I it

righteous cowardice versus like in some

ways you can be cowardly of of of

breaking a traffic law because there is

a consequence that you don't deem worth

it. And so, it's kind of like the same

thing which is like what is the outcome

or the consequence of this behavior that

you're deeming more important or more

painful than the pain that you're

currently experiencing.

And so,

I think it's a really common saying but

it's like when the pain of change is

less than the pain of staying the same

is when you change. And so, you will

flow to the path of least resistance and

so, you need to make the path of least

resistance the path that you want to

take.

And then all of a sudden you will feel

like you are more courageous and you'll

have less shame around it because you

are taking the easiest path.

But, you just arranged the conditions so

that the easiest pass path was the best

path.

I don't know.

>> [laughter]

>> You probably like your content better.

Does it resonate better with you?

>> Okay, one more and then you should take

a call.

>> Okay, you want to know?

>> Yeah, I mean I have to go.

>> Oh, you don't want to take the call?

>> No, I just I have to go.

>> Well, you probably have really important

content to get to.

>> I have to go to a meeting.

>> [laughter]

>> All right.

>> much of your success was followed by how

aligned you and Leila are.

>> So,

>> Were you always so aligned? How did you

manage to keep that alignment when

things were not so clearly successful?

>> How did we do it?

>> How did you do it?

>> How did I do it?

Dragged her kicking and screaming.

>> [laughter]

>> How did I do it?

>> [laughter]

>> I don't know. I'm pretty easy.

>> No, you're fine.

Um

>> Fine?

>> Yeah, I mean you weren't you weren't you

didn't

Yeah.

Fine.

Mid.

>> [laughter]

>> Um

Okay, how did how do we keep alignment?

I mean actually I don't think we really

got out of alignment. I mean we knew

what the goals were and I think we were

both just very dedicated to the process

of just continuing to work at it. I

think we both had a lot of faith that we

would eventually figure it out.

>> Um, it's also

>> And we didn't blame. I'll say it's a big

one.

>> You've never blamed me for a mistake.

>> No, we don't blame each other. I also

think we were very clear about our goals

up front, and basically, like, in our

business and marriage, like, giving up

is not an option. Like, I both think

both of us have said that many times,

and that was just like the

building blocks of our relationship and

partnership.

>> I also think both of us take 51%

accountability, and so, what I mean by

that is like,

neither of us has to like correct or

chastise the other person because the

other person is already beating

themselves up about the mistake. That's

not everyone, but I'm saying for us,

that was that was probably more common.

And so,

um,

a lot of like the more difficult times,

it was me beating myself up, and then

I'd be like, "It's fine. We're figuring

it out." Or or the or the converse,

right? Like, she was beating herself up,

and I'm like, "No, you crushed that. It

was fine. Like, we'll get it."

>> Give each other benefit of the doubt.

>> Yeah, so it's like round up, you know,

give each other grace more than like,

you don't need to blame them. And like,

I think the worst thing you can ever do

is, "I told you so." Right? It's like,

the person [ __ ] knows. Like, they

knew And like, if you did tell them,

they know.

Um, and they probably feel terrible

about it. And so, I would warn against

any "I told you so" type behavior.

Um,

but like, if you are if you're the part

if you're partners, which you are,

independent even if you're not business

partners, if you're life partners, and

one of you is in business, um,

like, you want to like support, I define

as increasing the likelihood of success,

or set conversely, decreasing the

likelihood of failure. And so, are you

actively

decreasing likelihood of failure? And if

we define failure as quitting,

then like, your job is to keep the other

person going.

>> Yeah.

>> By any means possible. Any means

necessary.

>> I think we do like really good job at

that. Like, when one of us is down, the

other one

will lift them up,

even if that has to be for sustained

period of time.

>> And I'm sure there were many times where

I like didn't deserve to be lifted up or

encouraged

uh and Layla did it anyway because she

probably asked herself well what it how

much does this help if I just make him

feel worse?

Like does it increase the likelihood

that we actually get what we want? Like

I will be right today but we will lose.

>> Yes, I just don't see I'm not worth it

if you don't think that way.

I also think it's

that's fair.

>> [laughter]

>> Where's the lesson in that? Um I also

think it's looking at a relationship in

the long term not the short term which

is like they're going to be

over the entire length of the

partnership or relationship there going

to be years where one person is pulling

more weight than the other. It is not

and that's in in only because there are

ways where somebody will have something

happen, you know, I a year ago had a

bunch of health stuff go on and then now

I'm pregnant and so like there's a lot

of things that like I used to do in the

relationship I don't do and like you do

more in other ways recently.

And we acknowledge that and don't think

there's anything wrong with that because

we're in it for the long haul and so

it's like then again, you know, a year

or two years from now I'll probably step

up and be doing more in a different way.

So

it's just

also I think patience like

if you want to be in a relationship or

partnership indefinitely then like you

can't look at things on a month or even

like a yearly time horizon at at times.

It's like I think we say it all the time

we're like I'm in it for the long haul.

Like

>> I'm I'm reading one of the comments and

I'm going to say it and I'm going to

sound mean but I I want it to resonate

and you're anonymous so no one knows

it's you that I'm saying this to

but you said there's no such girls where

I live. I will add on to that that are

attracted to you.

There absolutely are girls where you

live that are high quality girls.

You just have to be

eligible.

Like you have to qualify.

You have to meet the requirements. A

girl like that has a lot of options.

And so you need to be the best option

which means that to work on you. You to

get better. Got to get in shape.

Make some money.

Be a nice person. Be interesting. Have

other you know have other stuff going

on. Like those like that is what a you

know top tier girl will find

interesting.

>> [snorts]

>> And I'll also add something that Leila

said. I heard you say it on a live but I

thought it was really good, which is

like

>> watch my content?

>> Well, I mean I like it better than my

content.

>> [laughter]

>> Um

you said this thing I think to to a girl

who called in was like you know should I

settle blah blah blah blah blah. Um

and you said you guys are looking at

Alex and I, this is me talking is you,

as we are today and think that is

that is who we were when we met.

>> Yeah.

>> And that is not true.

And so if you take the position that you

are both going to get better, then the

relationship hopefully should also get

better too. But both of you guys are

going to grow. And so to look at you

know someone's chapter 10 versus your

chapter one, it's just it's a it's not a

good trade. And if you wait for somebody

who's at chapter 10 and completely you

know dialed in all these different

arenas, guess what you're not going to

be able to have? The story of the fact

that that you know like Leila and I met

when I had nothing and I got to lose

everything with her at multiple times.

And we have the story of overcoming

that. And so

when you meet

in your imperfections, you give

yourselves the opportunity for a more

meaningful story. And I never have to

doubt is Leila just here for the money?

Is Leila just here because I'm so

incredibly good looking? Is Leila just

here for you know insert reason because

the thing is is that when we met I

didn't have those things.

And and not only that, I also actively

failed and moved backwards I would say

in status for the first probably year or

two of us dating

um

before moving forward. And so you can

have some confidence that the person at

least as a guy, you want a girl who

believes in you and bets and sees in

your potential and is like, I'm willing

to make this bet. Um

And I mean, and for me, looking at

Layla, it's like, I just wanted someone

who was was loyal and would go through

thick and thin with me.

And she has.

And so, you don't get the opportunity to

see any of those things if you have

perfect conditions.

Or you are at your quote finish line.

And so, I think that I would look for

somebody who has potential more than

actual, because if you're starting out,

too, you probably can't attract actual.

You have [snorts] potential that's not

actualized, and they have potential

that's not actualized, and both of you

make a bet

that the person is growth-oriented, and

that's why it's like, do you have

aligned goals? Do we have aligned

values? Like, how we want to get there,

right? Do we want to go to the same

place? Do we want to get there the same

way?

>> I also think it's there's

>> And we're not [ __ ] relationship

experts. I'm just saying what worked for

us.

>> No, no, no, no. But, I do think there's

something that's interesting that I've

noticed has continued to evolve over

time, which is like, people are

incredibly have incredibly high

expectations of

>> Mhm.

>> the people that they are dating,

meeting, etc. Like, to the degree that

it's almost impossible to win. It's

like, I I can't tell you how many girls

tell me they're like, "Well, I went on a

date with this guy." And then it's like,

every guy, there's something wrong. And

I'm like, "Have you ever thought there's

something wrong here?"

>> [laughter]

>> Um

and it's the reality is is that

everybody has something wrong with them.

You also have something wrong with you.

>> wrong with me.

>> Well, seriously, though. I mean, like,

and there's and there I think there's

also like, you're going to have

there's no person that you're going to

meet and be like, I have literally zero

doubt in the world, and at every point

in time, I am so incredibly happy to be

in a relationship with them, and I've

never desired to be single. I'm sure

there's been plenty of times you've

thought about being single. So many that

I have.

>> So much.

Constantly. It's only thought I really

>> But, you look at it, and you you say,

"I've made a trade-off, and I would make

that trade again." And does that not

mean that I I could see another life

with another person, or another this, or

somebody who didn't have this issue, or

this? Of course. But, it's just a matter

of what you want in life, and do you

want to be in a relationship

or do you want like do you want to be

right and have the perfect person or do

you want to be in a relationship because

you're never going to have the perfect

person and you're never going to be

right about everything. So I would also

just say like

it sounds contrary but like you have to

lower your standards a little bit in the

sense of like there's this illusion now

with social media that everybody is

perfect and nobody has flaws and it's

like we have plenty of flaws and

imperfections and we talk about them

with each other all the time and we're

open about it which I think is why it's

okay.

Yes

>> [laughter]

>> and it's it's an open dialogue between

us versus something that we hide and

don't talk about.

Emotionally

[laughter]

avoid it.

Anyways I'll I'll add this one point in

which is the fact yeah I will just a

little piggyback and I'll just a little

little sprinkle on top you know just

make it just put the gravy on the on the

biscuits if you will.

Yeah this is a good point though.

>> [laughter]

>> What I would say is that I think you're

also trying to find 10 different people

in one

right which is

the analogy that I give is like you want

to have the perfect house and that house

is by the beach it's also in the

mountains it's also walking distance

from a mall it also has

room for you know entire family

entertainment but it's also small and

cozy

like you will not have a house that has

all those things and to the same degree

you will not find a person that is

incredibly consistent but also loves

variety and also is your therapist and

your coach and a good provider and

amazing in bed and also super romantic

and wants to write you poems like you're

not going to have all these things just

like you're not going to find a house

that has every single view you will make

a trade and you will be just as happy in

a house on the beach and at the mountain

knowing what you're missing and

accepting that that was the trade that

you were willing to make because you

wanted to have a home.

That's good and later I'm going to ask

you which house I am because I would

like to know which house I am. house. Am

I a beach house?

>> The best house. was the right answer.

>> The best house.

>> With that

>> huge

>> I will leave you to the live callers.

>> huge

>> What?

I mean I am a planet. Jesus [laughter]

Christ.

I'll never say that again.

>> And with that, we have our next caller.

Uh we've got some A's for some Q's. So

uh bring on the Q's.

And that's not the way you leave this

room.

All right, Lila is trying to leave

because she makes so much content she

didn't know the exit. Oh.

All right.

Mr. Gong, who do we got?

>> Alexander, you're up.

>> I know I'm up.

Who else is up?

>> Our caller's name is also Alexander.

>> I I figured. I was making a funny.

>> Alexander, are you are you here?

>> Alexander was like, [ __ ] this [ __ ] He's

like, at the house that analogy got him.

He was like, nope. No, thank you.

>> All right, Ava's going to be up next.

>> Ava

the legend

So Ava's the oldest the oldest client we

have at the ripe age of 20.

I think.

What else we got? All right, I'll answer

another question in in while we wait for

whoever to pick up their phone.

Um okay. I No, we did the the Okay,

brutal question. Do you agree with the

love of money is the root of all evil?

Yes, I think that is I think it's

biblical. Love of money is the root of

all evil. I think fundamentally the

point of this the statement is that if

you sacrifice

um

the things that matter for money, you

have lost the plot.

But

the love of money, yes. Cuz there's

another version of it that's like um

the it the when you look at I think it's

the I can't remember if it was the

Aramaic or the Hebrew, whatever the

original translation is kind of

interesting if you look it up because

there's different ways of translating

it. Um

but yeah, I think loving money is

probably not the the best the best play.

And whether it's the root of all evil, I

believe ignorance is the root of all

evil.

That's my perspective. It's also

Socrates' perspective. Um

but that's my two cents. So, is it the

root? I don't know because in a

money-less society is there still evil?

I'd probably say yes.

Um and so I would make the ignorance is

the root of that. Like when we slight

other people it's because we do not have

complete context on their situation. I

think the reason that um a god figure is

so valuable to us is because the dream

or fantasy of having someone who

completely understands us, has complete

context on our situation, um understands

our intentions rather than our outputs

or outcomes,

um is incredibly satisfying.

So, let's move to something lighter like

Meta Ads.

Uh Meta Ads didn't ruin me, I did, okay?

Uh I built a one-product business on two

years of trying to get my results then

Andromeda changed everything. How do you

recover, diversify, and rebuild the

business now? Dude, I think that I mean

if they just changed the algorithm so

that it favored more diverse creative.

Um I mean I know a lot of people who

Andromeda has only helped. Um I would

say the majority of our businesses

improved with Andromeda. The only

downside was that we had to have

significantly more creative that needed

to get made. Um

but I mean that type of winning strategy

of volume uh is one that I am very well

uh set up to do and so I think you just

needed to do more and not say that it

ruined you. You just had ads that didn't

work cuz you didn't change your

strategy. You just have to, you know,

change your strategy cuz the conditions

changed. I just wouldn't catastrophize

it. It's just like it's not like ads

stopped working. Ads still work, I

promise you. Uh you just need to change

your your your ad strategy.

Uh I'm 25 with a relatively successful

business. What can I do about apathy? Uh

I want to do more than I am now, but I

feel no urgency until I manufacture Can

you scroll up?

Rick, till I manufacture

uh a real condition to force action.

Yeah, I think that you you're on the

right path. Um once you satisfy your

personal needs, you have to have

something bigger. And so, the something

bigger can either be something you're

running away from uh or something you're

running towards. If the thing you were

running away from was poverty, then that

need was satisfied. And so, either you

run towards uh kind of the mission you

have behind the business, which is why

many people talk who have very big

businesses about the mission because

that's what motivates them. Um I would

also say that many people that I met who

have larger businesses that I would say

have more boring businesses, they don't

have some like incredibly charismatic

mission, um they really care about their

teams. And so, they care about providing

career opportunities and growth

opportunities for the people that work

for them. Uh and that can become

incredibly uh motivating.

Um on top of that, uh

you can think about it from a

citizenship and community perspective,

like what impact are we making as a

result? And so, um those are I would say

the the very like time-tested ways of

solving it. But, if you want a a kick in

the ass, so to say, um I think you need

to make a big bet. And so, basically,

you've gotten to the point where you're

playing uh blackjack at a table with $10

hands, and you are a millionaire, and

$10 hands make no difference in your

life. And so, you have to up the ante in

order for the game to still stay

stimulating.

All right. Uh

Eva or Ava?

Eva or Ava?

>> Hi, my name is Ava.

>> Hey Ava, what's up?

>> I appreciate this uh

opportunity. I run a Hungarian online

membership and digital products

business. Last year, we did $1 million

in revenue. Goal revenue is $3 million.

What's stopping me? Low net profit, low

lifetime value, lack of focus, and not

enough launches. And I provide you some

data.

84% gross margin, 7% net profit, best

and best LTV to CAC is 5 to 1 or

we can do 80 to one as well.

LTV is uh $320.

In my membership, the churn is 7%

uh average, but in the first month 14%.

>> Mhm.

>> We have 18,000 people

uh

email opt-ins. They are active on my

list, and uh

1,500 members in my membership. How to

improve LTV and triple net profit? What

to focus on in your opinion? Thank you.

>> So, you said you had a focus issue and

you're not doing enough launches.

Um

my my initial thought would be remove

the things that are distracting you and

do more launches. So, what stops you

from doing that?

>> it. Yeah, thank you. I I

I removed it already. So, now I start to

focus on

>> Yeah. If you have a digital products

membership, the churn on those types of

products are typically higher. And so, I

think that you will probably waste a lot

of time trying to get it lower.

Um if you're at 7%, you're you're doing

you're doing okay for digital. Like, the

incremental return that you're going to

get, I mean, you can make sure that you

have good onboarding. Make sure that

it's consumable value, meaning

that the value that you give to them out

on a monthly basis is something that

they can consume rather than they learn

once. Um and so, if you have a one-time

learning thing, then you need to deliver

it every month. Uh or it's something

that is consumable in nature. So, like,

if we did market signals for trading or

uh hot niches if we're doing buying real

estate. If like, if we said uh trending

t-shirt designs, if we you know, showed

people how to like make t-shirts. Like,

whatever is trending, anything that's

news for that uh

you know, for the audience that you

have. Uh you know, like sticker

templates. Like, there's there's always

something that's consumable. It's

typically lower value than the upfront

education they're going to receive. So,

all that to say, I don't think the churn

that you have is the issue. I'm going to

bet that it is the distraction problem

and doing more of the what works issue.

Because when you're at one to three

where you're at right now, it's usually

a very limited resources and you need to

very much focus those on the one things

that are making the most money, which is

probably running ads and doing launches.

>> Yeah, you are right.

>> Yeah, and so like everything that's not

that is probably taking away and just

streamline the delivery so that you can

like one of the things that's a big

misconception or mistake I think that

happens especially with digital

products and memberships is that people

try to put too much in them, right? And

they think oh I'm going to solve this by

more, but you don't solve it by making

more, you solve it by making better and

fewer because you have to think about

value per second. If you make 10 things

and people only consume one, even if

it's good, they think they're only

consuming a tenth of the value. And so

you want to make it as easy as possible

for them to consume all of the digital

assets that you give them and just make

sure that when they consume it, it's

good as possible. Does that make sense?

>> Yes, thank you.

>> So on the delivery side, think better

not more.

And on the front end side, think more

ads, more launches. And anything that is

not both of those two things, I would

ignore.

>> Okay, thank you. I will do that.

>> All right, you have appreciate you.

>> I appreciate you. Thank you.

>> You bet.

That was an easy one.

Light work.

Light work.

All right.

I think I'm coming up on I'm getting

close to I'm getting close to lunch.

Feels like it's getting close to lunch

time. It is getting close to lunch time.

All right, so I'm going to do uh

I'm going to do one or two more

um and then we're going to wrap this B.

All right, so final and best question of

the day at Alex Hormozi. How would you

advertise screws and fasteners? It's

commodity product. Can't even see it

once it's installed. Lots of good high

quality product difficult to stand out.

Really, really good question, man. So

there are two kind of strategies that

you can employ to decommoditize a

commoditized product. Um one is we have

to think about all the other facets of

the product. So if you think about a

car, a car gets you from point A to

point B, but there's still tons of

differentiation within cars. Now,

there's luxury vehicles, there's status.

I'm not to say that's the same thing

with fasteners because people don't see

it, and it's probably more of a utility.

That being said,

you have service quality, you have speed

of delivery,

um you have what percentage meets

qualifications, so that's kind of a

quality metric. Um and so, we have to

look at the other variables, like the

actual purchasing process. So, think

about swallowing up the entirety of the

customer experience, and think what

happens before, during, and after

someone makes a purchase from me. How

can I make that as easy and seamless as

possible? So, sometimes it's expanding

the scope so that you can have

differentiators that are outside of the

core product that still, in a very real

way, deliver value. And so, it's

basically getting out of the micro of

this local transaction, and thinking

about the macro of the business or

customer that's buying it, right? And

so, if we can frame the purchase from

you as a even though it's locally more

expensive, it is globally cheaper to

purchase from you and that they get it

faster, they have fewer mistakes, etc.,

then you can have a commodity product

that becomes decommoditized through the

additional kind of layers of service and

value that you provide around it. That's

thing one. The other thing is just the

brand associated with it, right? Which

is what are the associations and

pairings that we do on an active basis

so that people, like for example, the

reason that sometimes these types of

businesses are relationship driven is

that the person that they'd rather buy

from, they like that salesperson, so

that person's reputation and brand kind

of confers over to the product. And so,

we have to think what kind of brand um

allows us to charge a premium for what

is otherwise considered a commodity. And

so, those are the two elements of

basically increasing the premium, the

brand itself, right? And the associated

elements of the offer or product or

deliverable. And so, those are the

levers that you have at your uh

disposal. The brand will take time. The

other ones you can do more immediately.

And in thinking and reframing the sale

from local, short-term to global,

long-term, or the holistic view of the

business and the customer experience.

That That a thorough answer. All right.

Uh with that being said, uh this is our

third day of our experiment of 30 days

of lives.

Stay real, stay awesome, stay hard. Or

hot. I don't know. Stay hard is David

Goggins' thing. Stay hot. There you go.

Or is that a Parasaurolophus thing? Just

stay.

Stay.

I don't like that either. I got to grow.

How about this?

Improve. How about that? We'll do that.

And with that, have an amazing day.

Bye.