Get Rich While You’re Young | Alex Hormozi Answers Your Questions Live

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.