How To Master Business: A Deep Dive With Leila Hormozi

no I'm uh the CEO of acquisition. comom currently um I grew up in Michigan uh moved to California when I was about 20 and then Pursuit a career in Fitness I got into fitness and quickly realized that I need to learn marketing and sales um and so I pursued learning those things and then uh randomly on Bumble met my now husband who I started a business with called gym launch and we built and sold that business along with two others Prestige labs and Allen and then after we built and sold those businesses uh started acquisition. comom now those are all the things that I've done and business related uh I think underneath all of that like who I am more so is like uh weird I would say I'm a little weird quirky uh I love people and like my favorite part and why I love business so much is just because I love creating an environment where people really love to work I love helping other people build that in their businesses and I like creating a win-win for the customers for the employees for the business and so that's always been what I've really liked doing like I think ever since I was young I've just been passionate about helping people um and I think what a lot of us aspire to which I also do is just being that person for my younger self that I never had there's this thing that I'm sure a lot of people who are watching or listening are going to say to themselves I was in Fitness but I'm not running a multi-million dollar company that seems like help me connect those dots here so you're into fitness you move to LA I I think I read that you became the top selling salesperson like how are those two skill sets related and how does one become so good at sales when that isn't like necessarily the training or the background that you have honestly dude I think I learned by necessity because I got out to it was Orange County and I went and I had a degree in exercise science and so I'm like oh I think I can get a I can a job as a personal trainer anywhere right which was true I applied at like six gyms I got offered at all six but I had a couple thousand doll in my bank account my rent was $11,000 a month and I you know had gas food all that and so I was like I need to make money money and I had had jobs before but never like commission based anything like that and the thing about the job that you could make the money fastest at was that you had to sell and I had always been so averse to anything like sales I just thought oh sales people are gross and I very quickly understood that like every business sells right it just sells in different ways and if I wanted to actually do what I set out to do which was the main thing for me was I really just really wanted to help people lose weight I actually had been about 100 pounds overweight and I had lost it all and then started doing bikini competitions and so I want to help other people do the same and I realized that like just because I was good at something didn't mean that people were just going to throw themselves at me and want what I had to offer and so I moved out there got that job and I remember there were 20 of us that they hired at the same time and I want to say the end of month one there were three of us left and it was because it was hard you know I think a lot of people there's a lot of preconceived notions about what sales is for one and I think that deters people from even trying to get good at it um and then the second piece to it is that I think it requires a very large like a high capacity to receive rejection and I think that I just have the capacity for that and I developed that earlier in life and so that allowed me to be okay with failing so much so quick and then also saying you know what like this doesn't mean I'm a failure but it means that I need work and I need to get better at what I'm doing I need to acquire skills and so I just use that as the opportunity of like I don't want to have to move back home because I couldn't make money and I couldn't afford my rent like I want to prove to myself that I can do this I don't need anybody I don't need my parents I don't need another person to depend on you know I can make my own money and so I remember reading probably like four different books on sales and the Common Thread that I felt after reading all of them was I should be really good at sales because I actually believe in what I want them to buy and I'm trying to learn sales not to make money I mean there this a consequence of it but like because I actually want to help people lose weight and I actually want their lives to change and it's like this is just something that has to occur in the in between for me to get there and so I think it was realizing that and realizing that behind all of the like tactics of sales is if you if you really realize like if you pull back the curtain everyone's trying to manufacture conviction and I had conviction so why do I need to use any tactics and so instead what I realized I just shared my story with everybody I was like this is why I came out here this is why I literally moved as a 21-year-old female alone to California packed up my car almost no money because this is what I want to do for people and I realized that in sharing that with people that was what got people to be like I'm on board and they were really bought in so they were more likely to be successful cuz they were like that's really cool that you actually did that yourself you know I think for a lot of people you know I mean obviously you can make a lot of money in sales but I would just I got really good at sales quote unquote because it was something that I wanted to sell I really believed in it and I knew that I was going to be able to help people I had the utmost conviction in it and I think the same goes for today it's like I'm sure I'm good at sales but like it's because I would never sell something that was shitty you know I want to pull on that thread a little bit so you have a pretty radical transform transformation story yourself you're this is what you studied so you believe in the product cuz it's transformed your life so your passion carries through in the way that you communicate and I'm thinking about all our audience who are these introverts these creative types maybe they work in branding marketing I I think they believe what they're doing is good too but they don't seem to be able to transfer that same passion and a friend of mine a professor from Art Center he said sales is I have a passion and I just want to share that passion with you so if you can peer into that weird awkward world of creatives and designers what are they missing here that they can't become AA and be able to like just kick ass like that what do you think it is you know what's interesting is that you say that really resonates with me because growing up I identified as like being an introvert you know I felt like when I was in rooms of people I wanted to leave or could be there for a little bit of time and then wanted to go home and over time I realized that I think many people can be both introverts and extroverts it depends on the context and the circumstance um you know because I'm sure that there's people that claim that they're introverts but in certain rooms they would like to stay and they like being around a lot of people depending on who those people are and so as I've gotten older I think uh I've tried to relinquish myself from any label um you know even my own team you know they'll call themselves creatives and they know that I'm like I'm like am I not a creative because I make content you know what I mean um but I don't ever want to put myself in that box and so I say the first thing is like I think many of us could label ourselves as something within a context of a situation but I don't think that we're never equal to a feeling or equal to a label like I am not creative like you can never be that you can never be an emotion either you can't be anxiety you can't be anything you can only be who you are and so I think that by taking on those labels of like well I'm an introvert so this is going to be tough for me how am I going to sell well I'm creative so how you are you you can be a creative and sell you can be an introvert and sell you can be an introvert and be passionate and loud at times and I just found that to serve me so much more because what happens when you label yourself is that it's almost the placebo effect which is you take on this label and you might have a few attributes that within certain situations uh you label yourself as this thing but then it generalizes to the rest of your life and you start to bring yourself you start to show up as that label within all facets of life and then you actually start to take on all the rest of the attributes of that label as well there's a lot of studies on this and so um I would just say that within the question you asked itself that's where people are ultimately starting from I would say like it's just not true like even the statement like I am something like no you are not like you are not any of you cannot be it's not physically possible and so I think starting from a place of like when I'm in these certain situations I tend to act in a way that exhibits these behaviors and I think just even the language in that's in itself changes how you see yourself for me when I am in large rooms with lots of people who are very loud I tend to want to leave right when I am in a large room full of people who are having quality conversations and maybe like sitting and having coffee like I don't feel the need to get out and leave and so I think that the first place is just starting with how we speak of those situations because for me I had a lot of I would say really unhelpful assumptions about myself going into that situation that made it hard at first to realize that it's not or it's and it's not that I have to be an introvert or an extrovert I can be both it's not that I have to sell or not sell I can do both it's not that I have to be good at one thing or the other I can do both and I don't know I'm just more of a fan of and it's like I can be creative and sell my you know so it sounds to me like what you're talking about is um a mindset issue or a challenge that once you reframe how you define yourself then you can open yourself up to more opportunities yeah I me because I like that I think the best thing I ever did for myself was say that I'm never going to label myself I'm never going to subscribe to even now people like well how does it feel to be a female I shut I don't care I don't subscribe to any labels of anything because I might want to change tomorrow because it serves me and it serves my life and my happiness and so you know that's what's worked for me it's not what's works for everybody I don't see as many benefits to labels as I do cons I'll put it that way okay the question I have for you then is you're I think you said you were in your early 20s you you moved to LA from Michigan right where did this mindset develop where did did his philosophy come from because a lot of people have labels that were put on them from childhood that they can't seem to escape it doesn't really matter how old you are they just can't escape this box that they put themselves in or someone's put them in I mean I hate to ask it this way but like people always assume were you always this way were you born this way or did you have a moment in your life when hey I don't want that anymore I'm going to change today you know I think a defining moment for me was my parents divorced when I was like I don't know I was eight or nine um and my mother fell into you know alcohol and drugs and I lived with her and she developed this habit and it kind of snowballed like it's at first she's drinking she's going out she getting drunk then it's like she doesn't come home till 3:00 4 a.m. then it's all of a sudden like she's gone for a day two days three days four days and I was young and I had been raised mostly by my mother and so I didn't want to tell my father because it almost felt like I didn't even know him well enough now he has a girlfriend who has kids that they're in the house and I was like I don't want to go there and so I lived with my mom while she was going through whatever she was going through um and I remember there was a night and at this point I'll give you some context I was a very very shy kid like made fun of would sit alone at lunch like overweight I had buck teeth um like not cute and I just remember like intense anxiety going to school every day because I was constantly made fun of I didn't feel like I fit in you know physical appearance all those things and I remember my mother didn't come home for a couple days and I was calling her and i' probably called her like 18 times and I was just worried she was dead I was just like I just wanted to pick up the phone so she can just say that she's alive I don't even care if you don't come home just like let me know that you're alive so I need call the police and I remember just all of a sudden this voice in my head and it was like stop calling and I was like and then I realized I was like there's no point you're not going to change what's happening here and I was like and then the the one thought that came through my head and I just remember crystal clear I was sitting in the guest bedroom with like this cord phone I was staring out the window it was like pitch black 3:00 a.m. and I was like you've got to just make it worth it and I just remember thinking to myself like it's been so shitty for the last few years like every day insane anxiety like feeling all sorts of feelings I don't think you know it's not fun when you're a kid and you're alone um and I just made this promise myself I was like I want to be a better woman for my future kids and the future generation than this woman has been to me and I thought about in that moment everything that she represented to me victim dependent on others weak you know succumbing to Vices and I was like I just want to be the opposite and in that moment and I was so young but I remember so clearly I was like my motivation changed I was like you know what I'm going to start like as a young kid I think at that point you know cuz they got divorced I was eight or nine I think by this point I was probably 11 or 12 I had this new vision of what I wanted to be and how I wanted to show up and that was how I looked at everything and I was like I can't be this shy scared fragile girl if I wanted that to be my life and I think about that a lot because you know even the other day my dad was saying he was like you know I was talking to your sister about your mom and I just like have these insane feelings of guilt that you ever went through what you went through and that didn't know and I was like honestly I'm so grateful for it because I probably would have still been that type of person um and I think that was probably the most pivotal moment I can remember why I had that thought I have no idea but I just remember so clearly having it and I think that it's stuck with me since then I mean it's been like 20 years um but it served me you're 12 years old your mom doesn't come home for days I can't it's hard for me to process what a young teenager you're not even a teenager at that point what the emotions you must be feeling at that point I don't know if it's okay but I'm going to ask you I mean did you cry did you feel abandoned lonely like why is this happen why is this my life because I can't even imine I have two boys that when we leave them alone like they're 17 it's like oh my God are you guys going to be all right like do you even know how to put yourself together in the morning and here you are you go to school your mom's on around I help me understand that it's like how does that impact you as a as a child I think people are so much more resourceful than you think I had friends and I would go stay at their houses and I would go you know get food from their houses and bring it home I would entertain myself with playing with kids in the neighborhood um I think in the beginning it was incredibly hard when it first started happening and it was out of the norm it was unexpected that was the hardest because once it became a pattern you just expect it to happen and it becomes your life when it wasn't and it was unexpected um I think that was when it was the hardest for me and it was the the the way I can only describe it is like when you have that feeling of anxiety like before you step on stage I just had that all the time because I felt like I was living with somebody who's very unpredictable and so I was never sure when the next shoe was going to drop and then once I saw over a long enough time what her new patterns were then it was just how am I going to take care of myself I mean that is where I think so much of actually my leadership has come from is that you know I learned to dress myself take care of myself take care of the house she ended up bringing home 13 animals and then not taking care of them and so I took care of all the animals did the dishes made sure we didn't have rotten food in the house like started taking care of things you know noticing we had P due bills like 14e signature um doing all that stuff as a young kid because it's funny like we treat a lot of kids like they're not capable of all these things but like so many of the things that I did were things that some adults can't even do you know but by necessity I just started doing them I think that you just adapt and I mean after that it was really interesting because then when I had to go and back and live with my dad after years later and the police found out was a whole thing um that was really hard to like have basically been taking care of yourself and then go into a household where people start to try and take care of you that was incredibly uncomfortable um but I think a lot of kids are more capable than their parents think they are and I think you know I don't really know I've read a lot of books on like nature nurture I have no idea what goes into I don't know why but I think I made the best of it at the end you know I think at the same time like there's a lot of stuff I dealt with later um because you know it causes some adverse behaviors like just being angry but I figured that out later on so that was fun I have this Theory and I'm I'm really into comic books and graphic novels and and fiction and I think the difference that um that defines a hero and a villain is how they deal with adversity and Trauma right so in this case somebody else could have shut down uh could have gone down their own dark town and repeated the same behaviors versus emerg more Reliant empowered and made promises to her young self that I'm never going to be this kind of person I'm going to be the antithesis to this um I'm curious um what is your relationship with your mom today we don't speak okay I've tried for a long time um I didn't speak to her for a few years and it's really interesting you know cuz a lot of people they're like oh do you want to talk I'm totally F talking about it um because I think a lot of people carry a lot of guilt for not speaking to their parents but if every time you see your parent there's an incredibly punishing event and they make your life worse would I let somebody else treat me that way if for the last 15 years that I have tried to have a relationship with her it has been a series of punishing events whether it be emotionally punishing physically punishing you know mentally punishing um and so I just decided I was like you know just because you were great for a period of time in my life it's not it doesn't work for any me anymore and just because I'm your daughter doesn't mean I need to stay in a relationship out of obligation um because I have higher standards for how my friends treat me and how strangers treat me like it I wouldn't even let a stranger treat me that way and I'm not talking about like being rude or something like that like it goes far beyond that um so I I don't have a relationship I probably would take spurts of like a couple years try couple years try and the last time was I want to say four and a half years ago and then I let her know that I was no longer going to attempt to try because I tried so many times and i' given so many chances and I said I've just realized by this point it's been 12 years and nothing's changing and you know she's tried to reach out um but it's just not something that I mean it just it sound like people think that I've got like some deep un I have nothing I'm just like what's the benefit I have so many amazing people in my life who bring me so much joy I have so much in my life that I love doing so many people that are so great like and you just make everything worse so why would I want a relationship with you so I just choose not to my wife um has was was raised by a mom who's who's too young to have her like her mom hat on so she's gone through a lot of her life raising herself and her sisters and yeah has similar things a little bit different but there's this thing they have great relationship she's fine but I think there's something deep inside of her that is very sensitive to the feeling of not being loved so whenever I show anything where I'm not pleased with something it's way more than what that is because it's like a sign that I don't love her and of course I do love her do you have all the love that you need in your life I think I have a lot of love no yeah I I wouldn't say that like my whole life I have but I feel like right now is probably the happiest I've ever been just like I think it comes down to a really simple sentence that I've just learned is life is so over complicated it's like do stuff you like with people you like and do more of that and so I just try to follow that it's like even when it comes to work because I think that if you like what you're doing you like the people you're doing it with um there's nothing more enjoyable for me and so I do feel that way and I think I'm lucky because I have friends that have become like family and then a really strong father um that I think you know my father and I became super close through that experience because after everything became exposed to him um and I moved in with him you know I don't know if that would have happened if I don't know if I ever would have gotten that close to him and still we're very close we talk every day um he now works in my company um I don't know if that would have happened if everything with my mom hadn't happened and my dad is like one of the most genuinely amazing people that I know like that I truly have ever met in my life it's not because he's my dad it's just because of who he is and so I feel really lucky um I think when I was young I had a lot of feelings of Envy towards people who had a strong mother that was tough for me like watching people go shopping with their mom and watching them you know it' be movie night and the mom comes down she's talking with us about like guys and all that and like it's like stuff like that when you're a teenager and you're growing up and becoming a woman and not having a woman to talk to that was hard but as I've gotten older I think I've been resourceful enough to people that have been able to supplement in that way and I think that I miss the love that the mother I had before she turned to alcohol was but I don't miss what I got after and I'll be honest dude like I don't spend any time thinking about it because I'm like it might be true that I'm missing a mother's love but is it useful to think about does it benefit my life does it make me feel better or worse and if it doesn't make me feel better and there's nothing I can do about it I don't know I'm so blessed compared like I'm I grew up here in America you know like I because my dad came from Iran it's like I I genuinely am like there's just so much that could be so worse I have nothing to complain about yeah it's really wild for me to hear you say this and describe your thought process because this how I think and I describe it to people and like you alien nobody thinks like that I'm like no I know somebody else who thinks just like that where like here's the example I would give to people like I don't know for a fact that we have free will I don't we could just all be like cause and effect machines that we just don't understand I actually agree with you 100% right yeah but I choose to believe that we have free will because it's a better idea than to say like I'm not responsible for my actions and my thoughts right and so when something bad happens to us we get to choose what is an empowering idea what's going to move us forward what are we going to learn from this experience and you sound like you got that part worked out cuz you like you you're saying like I might not be me today had it not been for those tough times so you've gone past the point of blaming and being angry to the point of I think it sounds like gratitude that made you who you are that's I think right or no well I think what it is is that I've I've stuck around long enough and like enough time has passed I've seen the benefit and I've been able to correlate like skills I have now with what I learned then and I think when you're in the like messy middle of it you're just feeling shitty and you don't feel grateful because you haven't yet recognized the benefit it brings your life and some things that happen you don't see the benefit for five or 10 years and I feel like that's how it was with that I don't think I saw the benefit for about 10 years but then when I saw it it was so clear to me and I was like this is why all of that is going to benefit me like that developed skills that I'm now using here and it's Mak it's giving me a huge Advantage like for my age and I think my gratitude is only Amplified over time probably because of that it's like I've just recognized the benefit of it now you said something um and I'd like to revisit this part of it when you're a young person you're like that's not the mom I'm going to be I'm going to fix myself so I don't repeat these patterns and it's an incredibly powerful idea because I think what people do is they just wind up repeating the same patterns over and over generation to generation so I have this question asked you because people ask me this okay so in this environment the Lila that we know today is here so if you were to have kids would you want them to be like hey go take care of yourself figure out your life because I'm not gonna take because that's what made you or do you say like let me let me take care of you so that you don't have to deal with that and then how does that shape their thinking I'm curious in that thought experiment what you would do I think there's a difference between having kids and parenting and when I think of parenting I think it's very similar to like there's a lot of similarities between parenting and mentoring mentoring like younger people and I think that I would look at it like I am this person's mentor and I've thought about this a lot um I do not think that I am how do I put this um I don't let my emotions dictate my actions enough for me to not do what I know is ultimately right by a person so even when I mean I have so much care for the people on my team but I will not baby them because I don't see how that benefits them even if I want to even if I'm like they're crying and I'm like is that going to benefit them in the long term and if it's not going to I'm not going to do it you know cuz I feel like that's selfish because it only me feel better not them um and so I view kids the same way which is I would do what's best for them in the short and long term and I think that that's a a good frame for parenting is like how do I act in a way that benefits my children both in the short term and long term because a lot of the times it's one or the other and I think the best is when you can find it that it serves both um but I think to be honest um I would never I would just never hand my children anything because I don't again I just don't see how it would benefit them I think that that doesn't mean I wouldn't teach them and give them Advantage by educating them but it doesn't mean that I'm going to give it to them right like I'll teach you how to build this I'm not going to give it to you there's something that um Alex wrote that U and he said on stage that I'd like to get your opinion on he said something like um successful people have these three traits if I I hope I'm getting this right they have something like a God complex they think they can fix the world to make it better um they have some form of crippling insecurity and they're willing to delay gratification but the thing that I want to focus on is insecurity thing like Alex is a super yolked guy very successful like what do you have to be insecure about and then I saw on your Instagram you're like I have insecurity you're a super successful fit beautiful person like everybody's going to be watching it's like what can she possibly insecure be insecure about and what is it and where is it coming from and how are you dealing with it I think insecurity comes from if from from if more of my life than not I was a certain way then it will take longer to acclimate to the new conditions so it's like if for a long time I was overweight then it's going to take me a long time to feel confident even if I've lost the weight because the circumstance can change but like my behaviors of acting like a fat person do not so like even to this day like it's so funny uh I was talking to one of our good friends Dr cashy was here in town and I was saying something and I was like I just want to lose like four more pounds so I can like look like really fit in this and he was like you do but you wear baggy clothes and I was like oh and he was like yeah you don't dress like you're fit but you're fit and I was like it's so funny I still don't to this day like I still feel weird wearing tight clothes because for so long I was so fat and so I think it's almost like the circumstance changes but we don't adapt our behaviors to match and I think that's why there's just a lot of things that have changed very quickly for me in my life um and happened on a fast time Horizon and it's almost like you don't catch up to it I think that's the first thing and I think the second thing is I'm always comparing myself and looking at people who are so far ahead of me um that I do feel like I have a lot of deficits and skills to work on I don't now let me put it this way I'm not like beating myself up over it like I that's old like old Lea would do that maybe I was like 21 22 but like I don't beat myself up over that I'm just like oh man I've got a lot to learn um but I think the insecurity it's probably more now like in the like probably most what's most relevant to me has been since I started making content because running a business I felt very insecure in the beginning the first few years I was like oh my God I'm 23 these probably people probably think I'm a idiot who's this 23-year-old running a business you know what I mean like seriously I mean I'm like it's not what business do you have doing this you don't have any experience and like now I got to work for you you know and so that's the like what I would play out that they're thinking when I hired them and I was like I have no actions that support that I will say like it drove me to try so hard and like work my ass off to make sure that I would be really good at what I did and I don't think that I felt I don't think I recognized I don't think that my confidence matched my competence until probably 5 years in and I think with like social media and posting and making videos and all that like even now you were telling me before you're like we're talk about brand I was like you know like because I'm like oh my gosh I just started like two and a half years ago at the most like the very it was 2 and a half years ago I'm like I feel like I'm like barely scratching the surface and I feel like I'm a with all of it I think that a lot of times it just takes time for you to recontextualize where you're at and especially if things happen quickly like our business grew quickly uh some people might say my brand like grew generally quickly compared to others and so it's like you don't catch up necessarily and I think it's like you're still human I think just because I act a certain way I don't let insecurity drive my behavior doesn't mean it doesn't exist but I hope that that can be aspirational for people rather than you know because I used to always look at people and think oh my god I've got to get rid of all my insecurities until I can build a business until I can make content until I can do all these things and then I realized that that never happened and I did it all while having all those feelings at the same time and that was relieving to me and it still remains relieving because I'm like oh I can make room for all these emotions and I can still get this done okay soft transition here mhm um I've not achieved anywhere near the level of success that you have but when people ask me what's the secret to success I pause and I'll tell them this answer and they're not expecting it and I'll say choose a good partner in your life cuz they'll lift you or they'll drag you down they'll make you feel guilty for working or they'll be right there next to you working with you and so I have to say and I I've I've done a little research in your story and I I think there's something quite remarkable about your relationship with Alex because I think I cannot imagine two people who are more suited for each other than the two of you it's like you're the female version of him and he's the male version of you it's like your mirrors you love to work like it's so weird to say like hey what are you doing let's work I'm like I don't know any woman who would do that and like you're the one again it's like the the the the anomaly in The Matrix right and you guys find each other and you support each other and you lift each other the question I have for you is this Alex tells a story and it's pretty well documented he's like I'm a loser I've lost everything I made you quit your job you've come live with me my question for you is why are we so loyal to him what did you see in this person that didn't even give himself credit and I think in the book that I read it's like if you left him there I think he would have been a broken human for the rest of time because there was not a lot going for him and and every once I think everybody if they're so blessed in this life to have one person who could look him freaking in the eye and say I believe in you before you believe in yourself I'm just curious what you saw uh because you know there's a lady or a man out there there and you you have a partner let's learn to identify these things cuz we we we can't abandon these people too early when I first met Alex and this is just to give context I remember the fourth day having met him and I was he had to go out of town for something and I was at work and he was like hey can you pick up all the cash from all of my gyms and deposit it into the bank for me and I was like I remember I called him I was like what the are you doing you just met me on Bumble and you're asking me to pick up all your money he was like no you're loyal and I was like how do you no he was like I can just tell he's like you would never do that and I was like he's right you know what I mean I was like I mean he's right I would never steal a penny from anybody right that's just not who I am and so I say that to demonstrate like I am loyal to a fault and I had been loyal many times previously in my life just to people who maybe didn't reciprocate it back to me and when I met Alex um I think that there's two drivers of that which is like one I think I I I value loyalty from others and so I want to exhibit it to others first I also I think I genuinely have always strived to be like as good of a person as my father is and he's the type of person who will stand by someone no matter what you know what I mean and so I think I'm really grateful to have him as a role model but when I'm met Alex I think bringing that into the relationship and then when I met him I saw a man who was so incredibly strong the most persistent person I've ever met his work ethic was and still is higher than anybody's I've ever seen I mean like his ability to actually have high output for 14 hours a day just sitting there not needing reinforcement it's crazy to me um but I saw that he was in a place where I think there was two things that I felt and he probably he might not agree with some of this because it has to do with other people but um I felt like he didn't have the right people surrounding him to let his strengths shine he had very special gifts I would say that he had cultivated in himself and he didn't have the right people around him to Showcase those gifts that's the first thing and the second thing is that what a lot of people also don't know is that Alex is incredibly giving incredibly he will give more than the other person always and that's how he is in all relationships um and I felt like that was kind of the place he was in which is like he continued to be giving to people and like giv too much and also I didn't feel like there was anything that he was doing that was wrong I just felt like he didn't have the right people around him and I remember thinking to myself and telling him I was like I feel like we can make such a great team like I really feel like I see exactly what you're fantastic at and I think I have a complimentary skill set and I think if we keep cultivating our skills we could be unstoppable together and I'd always had the vision of wanting somebody who Amplified me as a person rather than suppressed me as a person and he was the first man I met that actually voiced that he wanted that I remember even just the way he said it he was like if I want somebody to cook and clean for me I'll hire a maid and I was like I get it um but I had had a lot of people that i' been in relationships with who wanted me to be more quiet you know to stand down to not be so opinionated and I'm like I am loud and I'm weird and I'm I work really hard and I'm try to be successful you know what I mean so like it just felt like they wanted me to be less than myself and I understand that that's not for everybody and I don't I have no judgment upon that either I don't think there's anything wrong with it um it's just not what works for me and so in that moment honestly the thought that came to mind was like I just remember the first thought was like shut the up like I'm I'm not going to leave like I would there's no way after all of this that we've been through after this last year like we're going to turn the story around and that was the biggest thing I had in my mind I remember after that talk we had we went and we went to The Cheesecake Factory I think um and we were in the parking lot and it was like dark and the stars were really pretty and I remember walking I was like do you see what this could become I was like we can be so great together and I just know it I can feel it like it just makes so much sense and we have so much working against us right now the moment it's not I just know that this can be something so great and I saw glimpses of it at times but I you know it's funny it's like I don't know what that is um because I'd never met anyone like him so it wouldn't be pattern recognition um but I'd also never met anyone that I was so compatible with and so I think that was also part of it like I'd never met someone who we had so many shared interests so much shared history family history Heritage I mean like everything was just weird and we met randomly and so I was like the feeling of like this is not how the story ends like I'm not that person who walks away when it's hard I get in there and buck down I'm like I'm in this two dude like I just made all my friends quit their job to come work for us like we are both risking right now and I also was just like I'm never going to be that partner that brings my man further down when he's already down like I want to bring him up and remind him how great he is and I think that that's been something that has been incredibly useful for us as a couple has been you know a lot of times in your relationship and one is down the other gets brought down by that person and then you're both in the and and we've always been like if one of us is down the other one's like selling them on why you're so good and bringing them back up and I think it's been really helpful for us over the years that's really beautiful I feel like if we're listening very carefully right now there are 10,000 people listening on the internet crying because they don't have somebody like this in their life please correct me if I'm wrong here I think Alex was feeling super down on himself he's like I blew it again all the money's gone we're in a deep place and he's like we're breaking up I thought did he say that or did I read that said I'm a sinking ship you should leave me you got to leave me and I don't know a lot of people who do yeah no I'm going to stick to you know the ship like when you watch Titanic like gentleman it's pleasure playing with you now I'm looking for the boat cuz what are we doing are we going down with the ship what what I don't I don't know many people who would say no no no no hold on you're in a you're in a low spot I've seen you at your high let's get back up there and let's double down again I don't think anybody like the best the biggest accomplishments in life and that people hear of and know of like it's not like one person does it alone you know even if you look at the most successful companies it's three founders and I think it's because of that it's because you need people around you when is not working that are going to be like I've got you and you know I want that from a partner and so I'm going to show it to them what you guys have is so rare and I wish everybody has an opportunity to find this where the other person only wants to see you in your best light to never to feel intimidated by your success by by your beauty or by your fortune whatever it is that there just please be more of you because more of you is what I love and then for the other person to feel the exact same way it's always something's off I'm jealous I'm envious I feel guilty and you guys do this and it's when you see that and you see the ascent of both you and how much you've achieved in such short period of time it makes perfect sense and it's a beautiful thing yeah and I think from a behavior standpoint the more autonomous the person the more freedom they need to have in a relationship whether it be in a job or in a partnership or friendship and if I want autonomy then why would it's almost like um I think a lot of people wish for a partner that they can control but also that has all the attractive features of somebody who's autonomous and you can't have both because when people feel like they can control their partner because maybe they're a little less something than them it gives a feeling of security but I've just never wanted that and I've always wanted someone to feel like when they're with me they can be completely themselves and I can be completely myself and that we are together not because we feel like we have to be but because my life is better with you it would be great on its own but with you in it I like it more you know okay business stuff if you don't mind yeah and branding I I heard a staggering figure when he said this on stage and it the the hilarious thing is it's it's way crazier than this number now I think he said that you guys spent like $20,000 a month on your media content branding stuff and then I told somebody else like Chris you monkey they don't spend that they spend this what is the current number that you both spend individually on media and content I think in total it fluctuates anywhere between 880,000 [Music] and 30,000 a month and each no in total okay uh and then that's without like travel and all that stuff yeah okay so let's say it's for round numbers $50,000 each sure okay that's you guys do the math I think that's $600,000 a year that L list is that right $600,000 yeah $600,000 a year which is more than what most people make in in in a year and you guys are spending so much money your shrewd business people what is it that you're getting by investing so much and I think you guys keep saying we're going to double quadruple down on this cuz it's working what is it that you're getting can you tell us the tangibles and intangibles when we first started making content there's I think two reasons which was one we just wish we had documented sooner what we were doing in gym launch and we felt like it would have been really helpful for people you know right when we were selling gym launch I was like man you know I saw Alex started making more General content for people that didn't have gyms and then I was like you know I I wish CU people always ask me this question they always say What would women woman have you looked up to in business and I always blink because I don't have one um it's always been men and so I've always been like damn like you can't be that for other people unless they know who the you are right and I know there's a lot of like 19 20y old girls out there who like looking for a woman to look up to and like I make it my mission to like be worthy of somebody's uh admiration but you can't do that unless you put content out there so I think that's half of it the other half is I see no world in which anything I want to build in the future wouldn't Ben benefit from people from having a brand personally and if I can learn how to build a brand personally I think I can also learn how to build a business brand to build many other brands because I think a lot of people look at the brand and they say wow it's so valuable their personal brand but the formula for building the brand is actually more valuable in my opinion and so it was something I felt was worthy of understanding because even in business prior it's like I understood paid ads outbound email marketing um affiliate marketing you know it's like referral marketing like I understand all of that and how to do it but I've never understood brand and so we said when we started when we sold our companies we were like whatever we do next I think we should start a brand it required us to make a decision that we would also give up a lot of privacy which I think we both really liked at that point it was a very different life we had we lived in like a big house in a Suburban neighborhood you know didn't make content like didn't leave our house much didn't do much social stuff and our life is completely different now um and so I think how it's changed my life has been I think a net positive because I think that it's made it for me specifically not Alex um my ability to build a team is so much easier because now when people go in the interview process they can go watch all my content I get people who are much more uh that have shared values with me much earlier than before whereas before I would have to vet people out much more on the interview side now they vet themselves out by watching my content that's the first piece the second piece is that you know Alex was the face of gym launch and so people always thought I was like his secretary and so people would come because they wanted to work for Alex and then be like oh Lea runs everything like I report to her and I was like oh my God and so it's been really helpful in that there's a I think a more balanced culture team because there's some people who like were attracted to Alex and some that were attracted to Lea I think that makes a much stronger team because like we balance each other out therefore the team balances each other out I would say from a business standpoint um deals come to us rather than us going to go get deals and if we do want to pursue a deal um like approach them they answer because they know our brand or one of our names uh same with Talent uh if I can't necessarily if maybe the person isn't coming to me that I'm looking for it's very specific skill set if I reach out to them they answer and so it's made a lot of things much easier to do when it comes to business it's made a lot of I would say like being on social media more positive because you can see the impact you have on people and getting to run into people and them telling you like how much you've changed their life like that's really cool um I would say on the other side I have uh a very large lack of privacy now and I don't feel like I can leave my house without seeing somebody who's seen me on the internet who like snaps a picture uh especially if I'm with Alex cuz he wears like a costume you know um you know we probably get stopped six to eight times every time we go on a walk um my I think it's made me I would say in many ways become a better person because you realize that like you can't afford to be in a bad mood uh one we now have an inperson headquarters like I can't afford to be a bad mood in front of my team poor Jason probably sees it more than anybody um but you know me and Alex I might be in a bad mood or him in a bad mood when we're out just at the mall or at the grocery store on a walk and then you run into somebody and they just want to like this is their one time they meet you and you're like pissed the off about something I have just learned to just completely turn it off just forget whatever's happening with me and just be like they deserve better and so I think it's had a lot of net benefits for me um I think sometimes I miss like being able to walk on my house and not like you know be like looking like hit as and someone take a picture um cuz sometimes that happens and I'm like you want to picture in my pajamas I was walking to CVS you know um but I think it's overshadowed by the benefit and I think more than anything it's like getting to see people avoid the mistakes that I made while building a business while navigating my way through my early life like that's the coolest part um because all the rest of it like there's also I mean our businesses could work in different ways we wouldn't have to have a brand but like I think it's cool to see the impact and I think the only reason somebody should even pursue it is if they want to have an impact otherwise and they have to mean it because again I know a lot of people who will have a brand and then they start getting the notoriety but then they start losing the privacy and losing the autonomy and they're like this sucks I hate this um and I can see how somebody might feel that way some days that's why I think you have to be really serious about what you want in life and I think after we built gym launch and sold those businesses and we're like it was a monetary success in my opinion like a large monetary success but it didn't feel like an impact success to me on an industry many would say yes but I was like I want to have a bigger impact than that and I think that's what the content allows us to do while also benefiting us from a business standpoint I don't think I'm alone in saying this I think it'd be cool for you to be out there with no makeup with curls on and in your your sweaty pants and a stain on the shirt I think that would be super cool that would be a Lela I love as well I'm just saying so if you wanted to go to the CVS run I think it's pretty cool and somebody's like look she's so real look at her to be fair I do I just you know wear sunglasses and and then they're like hey and I'm like you recognize me yeah like yeah I can tell too let's talk about the costume again okay everything is an alignment except for the way the two of you see style and fashion and I will say this to Alex when he's here it's like bro I don't get it I just to totally do not get it it's the strangest Vibe and then here you are all put together top to bottom it's a total style mismatch how do you guys how does that work in your world I'm just curious Alex really likes to be functional and by the way when I say costume uh I call it his costume because he literally wears the same thing every day if he doesn't wear that people don't recognize him nearly as much um but if he wears that he's always recognized so I'm like it's a it's a costume almost now um he's always been just function like the guy is very like when he wants something to be the certain way I mean we probably have in the house currently 55 pairs of shoes that he's tried uh we've probably thrown away 15200 pairs from the last year uh because he's like I got to get the perfect shoe uh same with pants and shorts I got to get the perfect short I want them to be versatile I want to be able to go to a wedding go to a pool get into a restaurant out go to sleep and I'm like that's gross um how about you take a shower uh stay on your half of the bed yeah oh 100% he's just always prioritized function I would assume it's probably also because you know many like Alex went to uh private schools and he had to wear uniforms and so I would also imagine it's like it's probably I mean if you do that your whole life or you wear the same thing you never have to think about an outfit you probably see that that's beneficial and so I I've thought about that I'm like I wonder if that's where it comes from too because you never have to worry about your wearing um for me I have always and I still don't feel like I'm like I nailed down anything when it comes to style but I've just found like what you wear clothing wise as it's just fun for me almost so like it's not that I'm always dressed up because I'm not sometimes I come to office I'm just in workout clothes and whatever or like sweatpants but like I like dressing up and I think part of it is also that in the last few years I finally realize that I'm not 220 lb and I also like I'm proud of like staying in shape and like looking nice and like I for so long wanted to wear things that looked awful on me and so I think there's a sense of uh freedom in choosing clothing and seeing something that's cute and then putting it on it's still looking cute rather than like looking like you're busting out a bag um and so I think that's part of why I like dressing a certain way there's nothing like deeply that I'm deeply attached to I mean I might go weak with like not dressing up at all I might go a week with dressing up every day I just do what I feel like and I think it's it's just fun for me I that's literally I think it's just turned into a little bit of a hobby and like fun it's just understanding also just probably understanding the world of fashion getting to talk to fashion designers getting to speak to people who uh design clothing um come out with like you know some of the top people in the industry getting to understand the intent behind it it's much more interesting so I'm going to throw a tough question at you know um how would you describe your personal brand in seven words or less it doesn't have to be a complete sentence just like I'm just curious how you see yourself and your personal brand a little weird well spoken for the most part you can say masculine powerful energy at times um authentic quirky business Simplicity Yeah you mentioned weird a couple of times now I'm dying I have to open that door what's what's the weird stuff oh I mean like I like watch the Vlog footage and I'm like what the um I have a lot of I'm very expressive and have a lot of mannerisms when I am just like on a daily basis and so when I'm watching the Vlog footage and I like I make weird voices like constantly fluxing my voice different yeah he knows uh to like play different characters you know when I speak of my dad I'm like I talk to my dad the other day and he was like sweetie when I was talking to you like I do that all the time doad sound like that I mean he's a little nasly so he's oh I just love you so much like I just do that all day every day okay and so when they do the Vlog footage not like a direct a camera or an interview like this I see it and I'm like oh my God I am not like if I were watching this i' I mean I told Alex I was like like how big is my viewer base because I watch myself and I'm like little weird um cuz I just I don't know I get it from my family like my both my father and my mother actually very expressive like huge facial expressions large mannerisms it's something that I've probably been like self-conscious of when I was younger but then as I got older I've learned to like it about myself because it makes you unique um but I do think it's like quirky because I would say it's like a lot of women would probably not make such ugly faces um like I can make some hideous faces and I do it all the time and poor Alex experiences it on a daily basis consistently um sometimes I'm like how are you still married to me okay I have a question for you what is your book going to be called and what is what is it about I would love to write a book in like 15 years and I want the title to be know your place and I want it to be about just building a business and how to build a business but I want to with every Everybody by making the title know your place so they think it's about being a woman okay that's it I've talked about it with Alex a few times um but it would be you know building a business from the ground up uh to over a billion dollars like that's the book I want to write why why 15 years why so long I don't have time right now okay that's fair I mean realistically I've had a lot of people approach me like wanting to Publishers like they want to ghost right what I I do not want to put anything out there that's written by ghost riter um I tried that with content for a little while and like I just it's nothing on like ghost writing in general like it works for some people but for me it's like I've just realized I want more things to sound more like me and if I wrote a book like especially my first book I want it to be something that I write and I want it to be when I've built something that's been a billion dollars that's the marker then when you do a billion so you're setting the Mark at less than 15 years yeah I mean it could be way less but it's also like you have to it has to have the business has to be worth a billion and then also I have to decide I want to write the book so I just assume in the next 15 years talking about financial goals I don't know what the exact number is I think there's a theory that it's like if you once you make like say $35 million from 35 to 100 to whatever it doesn't matter because we don't know how to spend that kind of money anyways right so for you guys to work towards that billion dollars what is the the drive besides playing the game and the game is fun to play but is there something bigger than hitting that number bigger no I think you know when me and Alex there's probably days where we go around like does it even matter to be that to get to that and this and that and I'm like well I don't know what else I'm going to do until I die and I would just like to I would really like to find out what it takes to do that and I think it's just curiosity it's like I really want to know what it takes I would love for that to be the story is that I was able to do that I feel like because I also not going to do it in a way that's gross I'm not going to do it in a way that doesn't benefit others I'm going to do it in a way that benefits everybody around me that makes people better you know that makes everyone that works for me better people that I interact with our partners um everyone that watches our content so I think for me it's thinking like I want to do it in a way that is so opposite of how most do because I think most people do it by stepping on others and making other people's lives worse who interact with them um especially private Equity like people who buy businesses they usually just like businesses are after and they everyone that works there hat it the people who sold it are like well at least I got the money and you know they just financially bloat the company with debt and then you know just let it maintain until it dies one day I just like to do everything the opposite of that and that is what sounds cool to me and then the billion is just because then people will listen and realize that you don't have to do everything the traditional way and there is a way to build a company in where it benefits everybody and you can truly have a place where people love to work and love to partner with your company and like all around it's a win for everybody that's what's cool to me is like the process of doing it and I think I don't ever want to preach how I do stuff until I have the credibility to get behind it and I think right now you know obviously we have like the $100 million offers and all that so it's like businesses that are of that size and Below but I would really love to set a standard for a much larger industry that's in the billions because those are people who have a lot of influence over the market and that's really incentivizing to me and yeah I I mean that's really the reason why I pick that number I mean it's honestly it's also like the next natural sequence from where we've been so I mean that makes sense to me um and I'm sure after that it's like all right now it's 10 billion 20 billion 30 whatever um or maybe I changed my mind want to live on an island drink moito all day I have no idea but I don't think so fast forward you hit that number is there anything you want to splurt ONN like to to buy that you can't already buy today that you're like hey I did it now I'm going to spend this money in this really fun way cuz Gary Gary talks about Gary Vayner talks about I want to make this money so I can buy the Jets and it's this thing because he's obsessed since a child right and I think I want to make my money so I can go buy an art school and just convert it and make it like not free but like super cheap and affordable yeah so that's that's what I want to do so what would you spend your money on there's two things there's one from a more charitable side which is like we would love to be able to start a school you know like we're about making real business education available to everybody and I think the best place to do that is with younger population so like I think both Alex and I have like a soft spot for teenagers and you know people they're not yet into college they're in high school it's like would love to create a school where they can learn the real we're teaching um so that's on the charitable side on the selfish side I would like a mega yacht how big is this mega yacht you think a mega yacht is big enough that you can fit another yacht and a plane on it I love that do you like the ocean yeah I do I really like boats um and I also feel like you know it's funny is like people buy planes they like wow if you I'm like oh my God you can buy a plane for cheap I could buy two planes tomorrow but like a mega yach you got to have some you money to do that so I like that like if I can have that in a school I've made it I read somewhere um that you had invested I think in three companies and got them to 120 million-ish in Revenue this this blows my mind this speaks about your chops as a CEO as an operator you know how to make businesses make more money so I I'm thinking like what is it that they don't know that you know what is it that you get them to do that gets them to that next level can you distill down like the top three things well I would say part of it is in who we pick so picking Founders who have an unfair Advantage I would say that the most successful founders already have one skill not a ton of skills but they have one thing that they are not world class at but incredibly good at and they can be world class at and you can see that potential in somebody you know and you can feel it and you can see it in the work because usually it's the engine for the company is like that one skill they have that's like crazy good it's not just like oh like everybody else in the industry it's like they stand out that's the first thing is that all those people had that and then they also had uh a really strong support system so I would say you have a very talented one or two Founders who have you know crazy unique skill sets that are it advantageous for the business and then they have supportive family and partners with them if you don't have one of those things it's really tough because you can have a team of three founders that are like all like good at something and they could get a business that does like 10 15 million but if they don't have if they're not in a great Market with a great skill set it's going to be tough and on the other side if you have really talented person and they don't have a good support system they often are their own demise they sabotage themselves you know they I would like success is a double-edged sword and the thing that they're really good at they usually also have these huge deficits and they have nobody to cover them and so I think those two things have been trates in the founders that we've looked for um I do feel like we got really lucky with a couple of those companies uh to be fair like I I really do because it's not like every company we invest in like skyrockets and like I don't want people to think that cuz I'm like if you act like an idiot it's nothing I can do I'm not there every day it's those two things and then what we do is I mean the thing that's interesting is that we have Alex and I and then our whole team it's like we have Alex and I who are strategists that have complimentary skills and then we have our team hor strategist in each of their functions Marketing sales product Tech customer success people whatever and so we basically whatever the constraint of the business is whatever the reason it's not growing faster is then we will just attack that first and it's always different it's always changing and we just make sure that we have somebody that's on it and we know what the constraint is and so it's really a question of asking yourself like especially when a business is small like a lot of them were when they came to us it's like okay there might be seven things that are broken which one if fixed provides us with the highest return that's it and so it's like cool let's start there and let's not try and do six at once let's start there let's do it this quarter and the next quarter we'll take on another and most people if they took that approach would get way more done in a year than they take by like ah we got to solve all seven right now it's like cool you're going to like move each of them an inch rather than completing each so that's a lot of the approach that we take I will say that um each company's different so you know one company we took on I would say that a lot of our changes were strategic and they were very skilled operationally and didn't need a ton of help scaling the infrastructure to as you know hundreds and hundreds of people versus you know another company we barely made any strategy changes and they needed all the help with the infrastructure we built all the teams out and so it's just whatever the business needs and I think we just understand business well enough to know like what good looks like so it's like all right we know and if we don't know something I at least have a network where I can bring somebody else in who does and that's a huge Advantage it's like somebody's like hey we've got this python code so I don't know that I will bring in my friend who I know is an expert in Python though and he will look at it you know I it's also like if we don't know something and if we don't know a business we don't invest in it God you know there's so many businesses that want to partner with us and I'm like oh my God I don't know the first thing about this they get on they explain their business I'm like I don't even know what he just said and I'm like yeah we can't invest in this business I have no idea um and so we we always take on industries that we understand and that we have that our skills translate over to so it sounds to me like if I'm I'm hearing this your ability to pick winners because of your experience and knowing what the key ingredients are that you can't invest in like once you have that then we can help you that's critical and then it depends on if they need a strategic point of view or they need technical infrastructure help then you can come in you can help them solve that right yeah but I will say like I think it sounds much more glamorous than it is there's a lot of companies that I mean I made a decision a quarter ago and I was like I'm getting rid of the bottom three I was like I'm cutting them like we're just going to we're going to divest because it' been a year a year and a half two years and those were Investments where we did not take controlling interest because that's what we did for most of the time up until recently um like about 34s ago we changed to taking majority and I could not you know we cannot move things forward because of the person leading the company and then if the person leading the company we can't move things forward if they won't let us bring in somebody from the outside to move things forward it's tough and so I mean I take that on in mind that's my bad like I didn't pick right you know what I mean and so that's a real thing and I think a lot of people also don't know in most private equity in like Port there's portfolio Theory which is like so 80 to 90% of your portfolio like revenue and profit comes from the top one to three companies in smaller portfolios so it's like how many companies do you have that are just like they just never the market changes the founder becomes distracted you know the product never is able to get that good competitor comes to Market it's all the same it's not like because Alex and Lea touch it it's magic and I hate dealing with that and that was honestly that was a quarter for me having to like be like yeah buy and they're like seriously I thought you were going to help me and I'm like but you actually don't have the capability to do this and I have never realized that and I suck for not having realized it sooner that sucks I hate it it's literally Jason knows I like come out and I like I'm like therapy with the content team they're like what's wrong I'm like God today had to have this conversation I hate myself you know um but I don't want to be like normal private equity and just be like yeah we're just going to ride along and like cruise and like I'll just like take distributions and like know that you're not going anywhere but I'll just take the money I'm just not I can't I can't do that it's not me that would probably be a drag on your mental energy and your resources right cuz it's like these are not winners let's just cut our losses right and I don't want any money from a company that isn't you know that I'm not able to help have an impact on so it's just I mean it's different when you take controlling interest because it's on you like now with the companies that we have majority of whether it's doing well or not we got to figure out what to do but we also have the ability to change everything at any point in time versus working through others very different um and that's been interesting for me because you know I explained to you why we've picked the companies and why we got lucky with that but at the same time it is much harder then well now I have this brand and this ability to recruit people that have run insane companies that are insanely talented and if I put them against this is real if I put those people that I can recruit against most of the founders I speak to on the phone who would I choose this person so then I'm like all right does it make sense that I with every company you know take a minority stake and like trust that the founder is going to guide it in the right direction there are still some companies like even right now and some in the pipeline where like I'm like this Founder's got it like I just know right and I'm like they I would hire this person to run this company but if I wouldn't hire the founder to run the company then why would I partner with them and not have control you see what I'm saying so I've taken a different approach where it's like there are some companies in which it make sense which if if the question I can answer is like I would confidently hire this person to run this company outside of them being the founder then then I think taking a minority interest um can work at times but also for how much there's other things to factor in which is like how much work we do uh how much time we spend on the businesses you know how much of an advantage we provide to them and if I want to be able to like one day put my brand behind them do I do that for like less than controlling interest and I feel like the future goes towards no this is super interesting um I'm I'm glad you brought this up because okay you're saying we're pretty good but we're not magicians there are going to be bad bets that we make and then there's going to be the the the winners that Skyrocket and the ones that don't work out do you do you record content around that I don't because in fact I've never talked about it just because I feel really sensitive to not talking about something it's timing in a year yeah I could make content about it but I never want someone to watch it and be like that was about me I just I've I've had it happen it doesn't feel good I'm really sensitive to people's feelings there's been like two or three Vlogs that I haven't that are we fire Vlogs and I was like we canot post these maybe in like a year and the team's like oh and I'm like we just can't timing cuz so much what I do is so like it's Personnel focused and it's like I don't know I I'm never going to sacrifice personal relationships for Content so even if it benefit others it's like it can wait it will benefit them in a year as well so no I haven't I don't talk about investing a lot because I don't think it's relatable um and I don't feel like I'm an expert yet because it's been only 3 years and Investments Take 5 to 10 years to pan out often and so you know I know that I'm really I I am confident in my business Acumen I have a lot still to learn when it comes to investing and I also am there's just a lot you know I think that people over they romanticize it right now I think there's a lot of people on you know buying businesses and doing this and I'm like oh my God come on like it is it is just as shitty as running a business there's nothing it's not better or worse it's like they are equal there are different like you have different on each side and so um I also don't want to talk about it CU I don't want I'll tell you this I had somebody that reached out to me that uh used to be a client at at gym launch and then they said they started their own company and I was like that's amazing what are you doing and they're like oh well I'm just I'm doing what you and Alex are doing taking P out of your book I'm taking equity in these companies and I was like and that person was one of our bottom clients they were just really loud and I was like that's scary to me that you would take equity in somebody's company when you're not even good at running your own you know you're not an investor and you're not a business person and so I feel like it's really irresponsible and you know I have all my years of experience in actually doing business and then uh all of my anxiety to propel me to learn this very quickly um that like I don't like talking about it because it feels like it's it's a topic right now and it it honestly just grosses me out like it grosses me out that people think that it's cool to teach people stuff that is high risk like you are taking on all the liability and by the way if you can buy a company for no money it's probably a piece of like if somebody sells you their company for no money you probably don't want it it's probably liability and so I see all this stuff and I'm just like I mean I obviously have opinions about it but it's uh I also feel like I can't speak on it because people are probably like she just doesn't want us to do what they're doing cuz they've got the secrets and I'm like no it's hard dude like it's hard it's kind of like um we sold Prestige Labs the supplement company and then someone asked me on a podcast they were like would you start a supplement company again today and I was like never and then all these people were like ragged on me and they were like she just doesn't want us to make the money she made and I was like no I was like it was awful if I mean it's not a great business to get into and so it's like would I recommend private Equity to most people just trying to make money and get into business absolutely not you know what I mean like absolutely not it is very hard and like a lot of people in the industry are very Cutthroat that you have to be working with and like the vendors and things it's just very different than business and so um but it's hard I feel like it's one of those things you talk about in the future rather than while it's happening because nobody will believe that your intentions are pure they'll think that I'm like coming from a scarcity mindset of like thinking that oh they're going to scoop up all the companies or something like I don't know people say these things though I'm going to say this on a from a very selfish point of view and and maybe make a case for it you talked about like how we learn more from our failures than from our success that we can learn more from criticism than we can from a compliment I didn't know that there's like these businesses that you you invested and that didn't work out I don't know why I just assumed that it always worked out I would love it for you to sit there for an hour and a half here's what went wrong abstract all the names and things so that we can just learn along the side like that's what makes you not investable people don't do this stop doing that because what we see is like oh they put in their magic now it's a $100 million doll company damn it I'm never going to be that person but in Sharing like okay here's where the owner did this and we just couldn't get them to change their mind get out of their way because often times as you coach I coach people yeah it's like if you could just do this one thing get out of your own way it would be magical and rainbows and everything but you got to stop and they don't and they can't you know they're stuck and we realized it too late right I would love to see that it would be such good content I I know your sensitivity your your issues about ethics but from just a very selfish like I would learn so much by by hearing you say that knowing next time if I want Leila and Alex invest in me I cannot be that person because it's gonna fail and they're gonna throw me out that's that that's I mean not like those words but you know no that's fair no I understand what you're saying I don't think it's a bad idea at all I mean it probably I would love to I would watch that I binge watch that all day long our postmortem on why a business succeed yeah like here the lessons here's what the entrepreneur did you know abstract the names faces Market whatever yeah or the market that's that's a valuable lesson too everything should have worked and it didn't cuz we couldn't see this thing coming yeah I mean the amount of businesses that I mean even like we keep in our Pipeline and keep in touch with and then the market in the last year they've just dissipated into almost nothing um just based on like a few people that were in unlucky markets you know what's something that people would be surprised to learn about you I'll start okay okay like I tell people I used to be into skateboarding like oh I didn't know that your turn I used to I thought I wanted to be a zoologist so I had a ton of reptiles growing up so I had uh at one point I think like multiple different lizards and uh things so when I was like 14 I had like a 7 foot iguana for example um so I've just always really liked weird animals like spiders birds reptiles snakes like all of it um so a lot of people don't know that I had all of those growing up I guess so like people would come to my house and they were like disgusted by how many animals were in cages if that makes sense I'm going to ask you five really simple questions one word I'm really not giving you what you want here no no this is I love this okay favorite fashion label brand designer I love um Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen beautiful okay he knew he knew he knew he's like McQueen I like McQueen too is super expensive I'm not there yet necklace is that McQueen yes it is oh my God you do know your stuff okay and number two like favorite series to binge watch so basic but the Kardashians okay okay yeah all right you know there's new information out there okay um um favorite band or one that's in heavy rotation I know it's always hard like the favorite you know oh my God I don't actually know if I have bands that I listen to oh man what kind of music I listen to like really inappropriate music so I don't what do you mean there's no such thing as inappropriate music uh I mean yeah like I would never share it because it's like people be like what are you listening to this you know what I mean I think are you beli her what are you talking about here no I just think it's um like very um I like the beat but like if you listen to the lyrics it's like choke that on the floor from behind you know and then I'm like oh my God and then like my team walks in my office they're like Le what are you listening to and I'm like I'm like I really like the Rhythm but like I don't know I just like like it playing in the background and then Alex will come in the car and he's like what the fu you know just like that kind of stuff um okay is that like like speed metal is that when you say I don't know maybe like close to like some tech 9 like that kind of vibe you know just like really aggressive and dark but like I'm not listening to the lyrics I'm just like I like the pace okay Tech 9 McQueen I can I'm see a picture here okay all right um what's the thing that you hate the most about making content you know the first thing that popped up was that I have so many good comebacks to all these people that leave comments but I'm too well-mannered to leave them oh you just you should clap back it's fun just whole laws of behavior if I clap back I reinforce them commenting they want me to clap back I will never give somebody want they want but sometimes I've got such a good one I'm like oh I'm going to knil him and then I'm like and I have to tell Alex and he's like you're a and then I'm like okay what is the thing that you love the most about yourself I actually love the fact that I am willing to be completely honest like like I think a lot of people and I know because there people are friends of mine that make content say like I'll really all show like I'll I'll say anything and it's like if I am asked it I will tell the truth and so I think it's actually that like I really do think I am a truth teller and I have tried hard to do that I think that so I think that's what I like the most about myself but I think that there's definitely times where I feel like based on the audience how you tell the truth I I get nervous you know cuz like if I'm in a close room with just like our team talking about something like I'm cracking jokes saying things that aren't appropriate you know riffing swearing and it's like I always worry about that stuff getting taken out of context this is super fun thank you for doing this great thank you if people want to find out more about you where do they go how do they find you I would say start with my podcast build with Lea horos and if you like visuals then you can go to YouTube and just type in l horos and if not you go to any other social platform and type in Le horoi and you will find me um and if you want to learn about how to if you're a beginner in business I would say that we have a book uh100 million offers and $100 million leads that you can find on acquisition. um and you can get your copies there right I've read both they're wonderful books I'm endorsing the books right now guys thanks very much thank you Chris

Channel: The Futur

Views: 110,117

Keywords: the futur, business of design, mindset, content marketing, pricing strategies, negotiations, sales training, branding, personal branding, brand lab, bald asian guy, logo worth, brand strategy, ikigai

Id: ZmGBqGGshzs

Length: 78min 55sec (4735 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 08 2024