From PASSION to PROFIT: 3 Proven Strategies for a Thriving Side Hustle

This special episode of the School of Greatness is brought to you by TikTok Shop. Visit www. TikTokShop.com/podcast to learn more. Today we dive into the world of entrepreneurship and starting a successful side hustle. Lewis sits down with 3 accomplished entrepreneurs who share their invaluable insights on how to turn your passion into profit. They discuss the importance of taking that first step, overcoming self-doubt, and building a resilient mindset. Throughout the episode, you will learn practical strategies for identifying your niche, leveraging your skills, and creating a thriving side hustle. Join us on this journey of empowerment and transformation as we explore the keys to becoming a successful entrepreneur! Rory Vaden discusses how to monetize your side hustle and eventually go all-in on your dream. He discusses the biggest mistakes you’re making on social media when it comes to the process for monetizing your personal brand, how to generate leads and get over the fear of selling, what most people get wrong about sales and marketing, and so much more. Alex Hormozi is a first-generation Iranian-American entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. In 2013, he started his first brick & mortar business, successfully scaling his business to six locations in three years. Since then he has scaled and exited 7 companies – his most notable exit was the majority sale of his licensing company for $46.2M. If you’re ready to learn how to become a master salesperson, quiet your ego, turn any “No” into a “Yes” when negotiating, and make the leap into scaling your own side hustle, this episode is for you! Jenna Kutcher turned her creativity into massive success. She’s a photographer, entrepreneur, and podcaster helping dreamers run authentic, profitable businesses. She is also host of the top-rated Goal Digger Podcast, she’s helped thousands redefine success and chase bold dreams through her decade-long work as a leading online personality and educator. We discuss work/life balance, and why we should all value time over money. In this episode you will learn,How to become a master salesperson, quiet your ego, and turn any "No" into a "Yes" when negotiating, empowering you to scale your side hustle successfully. Insights on redefining success, emphasizing work/life balance, and the profound value of prioritizing time over money, guiding you toward a more fulfilling entrepreneurial journey. How to monetize your side hustle, addressing common social media mistakes, lead generation strategies, conquering the fear of selling, and dispelling misconceptions about sales and marketing, equipping you with actionable steps to grow your business. The importance of taking that crucial first step on your entrepreneurial path and the methods to overcome self-doubt, thanks to the wisdom shared by accomplished entrepreneurs in this episode. Practical strategies for identifying your niche, leveraging your skills, and creating a thriving side hustle, setting you on a transformative journey toward becoming a successful entrepreneur. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1524For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Full Episodes:Rory Vaden: https://link.chtbl.com/1148-podJenna Kutcher: https://link.chtbl.com/1271-podAlex Hormozi: https://link.chtbl.com/1522-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  This special episode of the School of Greatness is brought to you by TikTok Shop. Now, we talk a lot on this podcast about purpose and mindset, finding the things you want to do, things you're passionate about, and getting the right mindset to achieve those goals. For a lot of you, we know those goals are entrepreneurial. We're partnering with TikTok Shop on this episode, all about side hustles, because TikTok Shop can help you launch and grow your business. TikTok Shop offers a powerful new way to sell and shop on TikTok. It's really cool. Brands and businesses of all sizes can reach new customers, collaborate with creators, and drive more sales by showcasing their products and selling directly on TikTok. Visit tiktokshop.com/podcast to discover more. That's T-I-K-T-O-K shop.com/podcast. And stick around later in the episode to hear more about TikTok Shop

• 0:48Speaker 00

  and how it helped a member of the School of Greatness family bring one of their passions to life.

• 0:53Rory Vaden?

  Before you try to sell somebody something, figure out what they care about.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 0:58Rory Vaden?

  Spend time learning about them. You should always win the relationship, even if you lose the sale. If you focus on making sales, you're gonna feel pressure. If you focus on building relationships, man, it's gonna be great.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's gonna be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  So, once you figure out what your side hustle is, how do we start the process of monetizing our side hustle?

• 2:03Rory Vaden?

  Dude, this is such a good, that's such a good question. Cause that's the thing, right? It's like, we wanna make money, wanna help people. We don't wanna be the desperate salesperson.

• 2:13Lewis Howes?

  Please buy my thing out of pity.

• 2:15Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, we don't wanna be the needy guy. And, you know, and this is something I've spent my whole life doing. I went door to door. So I worked in retail sales when I was like, from my time was like 16 years old. And then I spent five years going door to door, 14 hours a day, six days a week, interrupting people.

• 2:34Lewis Howes?

  14 hours a day, door to door?

• 2:36Rory Vaden?

  14 hours a day, door to door, you know, interrupting people and like, you know, pretty intrusive. As I sometimes say, that being a door to door salesperson is like being the human version of email spam.

• 2:47Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. Telemarketer.

• 2:49Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, telemarketer, yeah. It's like, telemarketers are, you know, than us. We bug, we bug telemarketers when they're eating dinner. And then, you know, we built a sales coaching company to eight figures, teaching salespeople how to sell. How do you generate leads? And then brand builders, we do more like marketing and digital lead generation. But whether you're like a Fortune 100 company, a personal brand, a professional service, or just a person with a dream for a side hustle, this is the question. How do you make that first sale? Like, how do you get money? Where do you, where do you find the people?

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  Before you answer that, what was the greatest lesson you learned going door to door for five years? About yourself and about selling in general?

• 3:38Rory Vaden?

  You know, there was this, this thing that we, we used to say all the time, that the, the answer's behind the next door.

• 3:51Lewis Howes?

  You never stop. There's always another door. You'll find the answer in the next place.

• 3:56Rory Vaden?

  It was always like, but that, that, that part of it, I think actually is good. Cause this is, this is true about sale. I mean, a part of the good news for both marketing and sales.

• 4:09Rory Vaden?

  Is that they are both a numbers game. They are a numbers game. It, it's not like it won't work, right? Like you have the fear like, is anyone going to buy this? No, somebody will buy, no matter how bad you are or how crappy your thing is. If you talk to enough people, which is not what the goal is. Uh, but that, that, that people will, they really will buy if you keep going. The truth about most sales is it's, people think of it as like combat. Like, you know, I either have to put the magic marketing words on the page. Or I need to say like the, the voodoo mind trick to like convince you to buy something. And then it's kind of like this battle. And it's more like an Easter egg hunt.

• 4:52Rory Vaden?

  Where it's like, there is some number of eggs out there in the field that have candy in them. And no matter if you did anything or not to deserve candy being in there, they're just there. You just have to go find them. And there's a lot of empty eggs along the way. There's, there's a lot that you're going to open and it's empty. And, and so that's, that is one part of it. But the, the biggest problem, the, the biggest problem that people have in selling is that they're self-centered. The reason we don't sell more is because we're focused on how do I make money? You know, how do I convince people? And it's, it's, it's, we approach it wrong. And I would say that sales has been taught wrong, done wrong, promoted wrong.

• 5:37Rory Vaden?

  I mean, you know, we're big fans of cleaning this up and changing the way that people think about it.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  I think we're also self-centered in the fact that we're afraid of people saying no. And how it will make us feel about ourselves when they say no.

• 5:48Rory Vaden?

  Absolutely. Yeah. When I say self-centered, part of that is kind of like the, you know, I don't necessarily mean selfish. Like I'm going to take in, in, in for me instead of you. Although there's a part of that where it's like, you know, the sale is convincing people to buy something they don't want. Right? That's not, that's not what we're into.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:05Rory Vaden?

  But it's, it's also. Fear is self-centered. Fear is extremely self-centered. You only feel fear when you're thinking about yourself. You know, we say there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. When you're focused on helping someone else, you're not worried about it, right? I mean, it's like if there's a car accident and someone's on the side of the road, you run up to them, you're not thinking about how's your hair look? And you know, your clothes or your, you know, is your outfit cute? You're going to help somebody. Um, we're always at our best when we're serving others.

• 6:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 6:40Rory Vaden?

  And one of the magic, one of the magical powers of service is that being focused on service releases our insecurities.

• 6:51Lewis Howes?

  It's so true. This is something I learned speaking on stages. I, I said, there's probably different levels to my speaking life. There's the 13 years ago, being terrified to speak in front of three people without stuttering and sweating and being nervous. And me saying, okay, I need to go learn how to get some reps speaking in front of people. So I'm not nervous.

• 7:12Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 7:13Lewis Howes?

  So I joined Toastmasters, which you famously got second in the world for.

• 7:17Rory Vaden?

  What about you famously bring that up every time we talk about second place in the world?

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  Second place at the world, second place at the world championship of public speaking.

• 7:25Rory Vaden?

  True story.

• 7:25Lewis Howes?

  No big deal. Uh, and I did that for a year and I gained confidence through the actions of repetition, of showing up, of preparing, of reviewing my, my speaking film, and just improving through reps over time.

• 7:41Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Lewis Howes?

  And I remember for about seven, eight years, I was getting now paid to speak for my credibility, for my expertise through LinkedIn and everything else. And I would still get nervous for.

• 7:58Lewis Howes?

  A week before a big speech. Then I got better over time and it was like, okay, it's only two days before I'm nervous. Then it was a day before. And I remember it stayed a day before. But it wasn't nerves of excitement, it was nerves of insecurity. It's like, I'm afraid of what people are gonna think about me. And I remember asking a coach of mine that I had hired for a while, he was a good friend of mine. And I said, I'm about to go on stage in an hour. I don't know why I'm still so nervous. Like, I've been doing this for 10 years, shouldn't I be over this by now? And he said, because you're focused on the way you look, not on serving other people in the audience. And the moment, exactly what you said, the moment you start focusing on service, knowing that you will probably forget something, you might make a mistake. And not worrying about those things.

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  Know that something might happen that's not perfect. But when your heart's on service, it's hard to be nervous, as you say.

• 8:49Rory Vaden?

  Ah.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that what something you said?

• 8:51Rory Vaden?

  Uh huh, yeah, years ago on our very first interview together. But I, um, yeah, that's it. And so, so, you know, somebody watching right now, it could be like, okay, well, like, how do I make the money? You know, like, how do I get the lead?

• 9:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Rory Vaden?

  But this is how you get the lead, is you serve first. So, in a, in a, in a digital world, you provide value first.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Value, value, value.

• 9:13Rory Vaden?

  Value, value, value. Give out, it's, it's the three E's, right? You, you're putting out content that is either educational, encouraging, or entertaining. And typically, some mix of all three. Educational, encouraging, or entertaining. And your, the, the digital marketing strategy that we, that we employ at Brand Builders Group, for Rory Vaden Personal Brand, and for all of the clients that we work with, that we teach these personal brands, is teach everything you know for free, one bite at a time, but in all random order.

• 9:50Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:51Rory Vaden?

  Right?

• 9:51Lewis Howes?

  So it's not packaged in the right order, as you would have in a book, or a course, or a workshop, or an event.

• 9:58Rory Vaden?

  Right, you know, we've said this before, people don't pay for information. They pay for organization and application.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:05Rory Vaden?

  And, and we have a thing called the services spectrum, which basically says, you know, information is down here, it's free. Organization is here in the middle. You can charge a little bit, like in a course, or a book, or, you know, like a membership site. But application's up here at the top, which is like a coaching program or consulting, you know, like done-for-your-service application. Information is social media, podcasting, blogs.

• 10:29Lewis Howes?

  Youtube videos.

• 10:31Rory Vaden?

  Youtube. People don't pay for information. But you're just giving them bite-sized chunks of information. You're teaching everything you know, but not all at once in the right sequential order. People pay for the right order. That's organization. I mean, we tell... One of the reasons people hire us at Brand Builders Group is because we have a very set curriculum, The Brand Builder Journey, and we say, "Look, one of the biggest problems with personal brands is that people do the right thing, but in the wrong order." They're like launching Facebook ads the first month, and it's like, "That's step 76." You're like, "You skipped all of this."

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  They don't have a funnel yet, so they're launching it to nothing.

• 11:07Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, you're driving it back to nothing. You're spending all this time on social media, driving back to nothing. So, the first thing is, find your uniqueness, figure out what you're good at. Then extrapolate that into a product. You know, create your service, your product offer. You may already have that. And then, after that, it's like, "Okay, how do I drive traffic?" And there's two worlds here. When I think of marketing and sales, I think of the online world and the offline world. And we've done both, which is rare. Most of the people have done one or the other. You know, and it's like, I've done the door-to-door thing. I worked for a startup IT company doing inside corporate B2B phone sales. Then when we started our former company, we did phone sales like B2B for like, small businesses,

• 11:52Rory Vaden?

  and we did free presentations and we sold. But the fastest mechanism to generating a lead is to do a free presentation, demonstrating your value, your expertise. It's giving people a sample, and then offering them the next step.

• 12:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 12:13Rory Vaden?

  Here's what it is. It is the food court. When you go to the food court.

• 12:18Lewis Howes?

  Want some orange chicken?

• 12:19Rory Vaden?

  And the orange chicken on a stick.

• 12:20Lewis Howes?

  Man, tastes good. I want the whole thing now.

• 12:22Rory Vaden?

  It's a sample and if you want more, I'm right here.

• 12:26Lewis Howes?

  Sees candy gets me every time. Gets you a free piece of candy just going to the store and you're like, ooh, I want the whole box.

• 12:32Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, I mean, it's and.

• 12:34Lewis Howes?

  It's a free presentation. You could do this through many different mechanisms. It used to be free workshops in person.

• 12:41Rory Vaden?

  And by the way, like when I say this is, this is what everybody does, like this is what Jim Rohn did and Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins and like everybody in the personal development industry, they used to go do, which is how we built our former company.

• 12:54Lewis Howes?

  This is what people in real estate industries do.

• 12:56Rory Vaden?

  They do it.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  They teach at a free seminar.

• 12:58Rory Vaden?

  Free seminar.

• 12:59Lewis Howes?

  A 90 minute live free training.

• 13:01Rory Vaden?

  Financial advisors do this.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:02Rory Vaden?

  Come to your, my free dinner presentation on 10 keys to retirement. Why? Cause it works.

• 13:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:09Rory Vaden?

  Like you're giving value and you're leveraging the law of reciprocity, right? As, um, as I give to you before, instead of ask, you don't, the way you make sales is by giving so much that at some point they like ask you to buy versus showing up and asking all the time. In fact, we use a, a rule called, uh, we call it the rule of 10. And this is a pricing. This is more of like a pricing thing. But you know, people get really weird around price and asking for the money and you know, when it comes to collecting a credit card and or, or if you're on like a webinar or, or a Facebook live, or if you're, it doesn't matter if it's Facebook live, it's a webinar, it's a video funnel, or it's standing on stage, or it's talking to one person.

• 13:54Rory Vaden?

  You gotta be convicted in the value you're bringing and the way you do that is by over delivering. The number one way to drive your own conviction is over delivering. And everyone teaches sales is like, you know, the voodoo mind tricks on the person you're talking to. The real game is the mind is winning the, the, the battle in your own mind and being convinced that what you have is valuable. And the rule of 10 helps you do that. So basically when people are putting together their first offer, they tend to like swing for the fences and go, I'm going to charge for 2,000, a $2,000 video course or something. And they say, well, I saw a video and you know, my coach told me, charge what you're worth. That's terrible advice. Don't charge what you're worth.

• 14:36Lewis Howes?

  What should we charge?

• 14:37Rory Vaden?

  When you're starting out, don't charge what you worth. Charge what you can get. Charge what you're convicted on. Charge what you can massively over deliver upon.

• 14:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:47Rory Vaden?

  If I'm charging what I'm worth, there's gonna be a bit of reluctance when I deliver the price. They're gonna feel it and it's going to massively reduce the percentage conversion.

• 14:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, someone once told me, charge what um 10x the value.

• 15:03Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, that's the rule of 10.

• 15:04Lewis Howes?

  Right, it's like if it's uh.

• 15:06Rory Vaden?

  Charge one tenth of what it's worth.

• 15:07Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, if it's a thousand, if it's $10,000 worth of value, then charge a thousand, right?

• 15:12Rory Vaden?

  That's right.

• 15:13Lewis Howes?

  And if it's a thousand dollars worth of value, charge a hundred. It's a hundred, charge 10.

• 15:17Rory Vaden?

  So you always, you always have, you know, if it were a bank account, you always have this like credit, this balance with people and, and you go and it starts for free, it starts on social media, which is amazing, like

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:31Rory Vaden?

  The, the power that social media gives us, it's not that you have to reach millions of people. It gives us a mechanism to push a button and deliver value.

• 15:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:39Rory Vaden?

  Because it's like people go, it's like a chicken or the egg, how do I build an audience? You know, I want to provide value, but I don't have an audience. No, you provide value first. If, if nobody is watching, you record and you teach value, you deliver it and people will engage with that. Now, we have a process, uh, which I'm happy to talk about, of converting comments into customers. So, you know, I don't know if you want to take this more like online or if you want to do like more offline.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  I think online's cool.

• 16:07Rory Vaden?

  Okay.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:08Rory Vaden?

  So let's talk about that. So, you know, it starts, it starts with the mind, okay? Self-centeredness is the problem. Service-centeredness is the solution.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:19Rory Vaden?

  You never feel fear when the mission to serve is clear. You get your mind right. Then you go, okay, I'm gonna go out and provide value. So you start pumping out value. We have a thing called the content diamond, which I know I've talked about on other episodes, we can touch on that. But anyways, you're putting out value. And now what happens is people like and comment. And what most of us do is we go.

• 16:45Rory Vaden?

  Six views.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:47Rory Vaden?

  And it's just like, I mean, and we get self-centered again. And we go, I only have six views. Jay Shetty gets like six billion views. And I'm like, and it just makes me feel awful because I'm thinking about myself. I mean, unless you're just doing the thing where you're gonna do it for years and years and years, and one day you'll have, you'll have more audience, but even it's like, you, if you wanna really impact lives, impact lives. Like, that's what pisses me off is people are like, I wanna impact lives. And it's like, great, okay, let's put, you know, you put a video out there. Why I don't have any followers? Well, I don't care, like, I'm not getting paid to do it.

• 17:23Lewis Howes?

  Focus on one at a time.

• 17:24Rory Vaden?

  One person. You said you wanted to impact lives. Impact lives. There's no barrier to impacting lives. There's no barrier. It's easier than it's ever been in history to impact lives.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious for people that aren't entrepreneurs, or that haven't done entrepreneurial things, because you and I weren't entrepreneurs.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  We kind of became one.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  Should they just go for it? Should they test something first and try to get a few sales in something? What do you think is the best approach now in today's time?

• 17:53Speaker 03

  So, I talk a lot about how I sometimes don't necessarily know what I want, but I know what I don't want.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  Which is what?

• 18:04Speaker 03

  Like, when I was in corporate America, I sat down at a table just like this, and my boss said, here's your five-year plan. They never once asked me, what do you want? What, what's your next move? Where do you wanna go? And I wanted to go to corporate. Like, I wanted to move back to Minnesota, be in Minneapolis. But here I was in a store, a glorified HR person that had to bring the garbage to the dumpster at the end of the night, wearing red and khaki, which by the way, I hate red and khaki. And I, sometimes I think that people get really lost because they're like, well, yeah, if I knew what my passion was, I could go figure out a way to make money, but I don't even know what my passion is, right?

• 18:44Speaker 03

  And sometimes I think knowing what you don't want is just as important as knowing what you do want.

• 18:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  And sometimes it's an easier place to start with, like, I don't want ten vacation days a year. I don't want to work weekends and nights, like, you know, and so it's like trying to figure those things out.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  But the other piece of that is that we have to like start to be open in saying, I've changed.

• 19:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  I'm evolving.

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  Maybe I wanted this thing for a while, but now I want something different. Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  It's like we get so attached to our identities that the thought of like saying, oh, I'm different, or I, I know I said I wanted this, but it doesn't feel the way I thought it would, and so I want to pursue something different. It's like this, there's this notion, um, Dr. Maya Shanker was on my podcast and she talks about identity foreclosure. And it's like, the reason why you hold on to genes that don't fit you anymore, because you remember how you invested in them? Or the reason why you get the degree, even though three years into it, you know that you don't want to do the profession. It's this idea of like, so I gotta make it worth something, but instead then we're wasting our future, right? And so

• 19:49Lewis Howes?

  You call it identity closure?

• 19:50Speaker 03

  Identity foreclosure.

• 19:52Lewis Howes?

  Foreclosure.

• 19:52Speaker 03

  Like as in I'm foreclosing this piece of me. I am shutting it down because I am no longer who I was. And it's fascinating because even being here with you today, having a book coming out, you're seeing a changed mind.

• 20:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you didn't want to do this.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  At all. I mean, you are the one person who truly witnessed how much I said I wouldn't do this.

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're like, just go out your course and make a bunch more money and have less stress.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Thanks for joining us on this special side hustle episode brought to you by TikTok Shop. And I want to take a quick break from the episode to highlight a TikTok shop success story. Jordan from my team created an amazing children's picture book called Mirrorface, which he's been selling directly on his own website. To reach new audiences and drive more sales, Jordan signed up for TikTok Shop and has seen a huge lift in book sales. Go support his book as well as thousands of small businesses like his who are also on TikTok Shop. And now is your time to sign up for TikTok Shop too. Entrepreneurs, if you're just getting started selling your Products. This is a great way to let people know about your new business. TikTok is such an incredible tool for building and growing an audience. And now with TikTok Shop, it's a super simple way to convert your viewers to actual customers

• 21:05Speaker 00

  through shoppable videos and live shopping experiences. Later in the episode, you'll hear more about some of these world-class brands using TikTok Shop every day. It has easy-to-use tools that can help businesses of all sizes. And visit tiktokshop.com/podcast to discover more. That's T I K T O K shop.com/podcast.

• 21:24Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  And so it's like, we are so afraid of changing. And not just changing, which is scary and uncertain. We're afraid of people seeing us change. We're afraid of being like, I know I said this one thing, but I don't believe it anymore.

• 21:39Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  And I think that change is like growth and evolution. And like, we're in this thing called life school, school of greatness, life school, where we are learning. And if we're not learning and evolving, like, what are we doing? We're missing this opportunity. But I would say for those people who are like, maybe I have this idea or whatever, do it as an experiment. Don't attach money to it. Don't attach deadlines. Look at how I wrote the book. Do it in a way that proves to yourself that, one, you're capable of taking action, but in a way that doesn't necessarily paint things as like black and white success and failure. Look at everything as an experiment. I'm gonna try this thing. All it's gonna do is yield a result, and that result is gonna guide my next step.

• 22:21Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 22:22Speaker 03

  And I feel like nowadays, it's like, we have to like, define, is this a success or is it a failure? No, no, no, no, no. I've done many things and failed. I've tried many different things and been like, oh, that was not like, I did senior portraits one year. So I was like, I can make bank shooting seniors. I hated it.

• 22:38Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 03

  Did it for one summer. I was like, never again. Was it a failure? No way. It was just a point on the path that was guiding me forward. And so I feel like getting really open to like, trying things. And the other part of that is that every single time I've tried something different, it's always been a side hustle. I've not abandoned the nine to five to jump all in on something. I've used the nine to five to fuel the other something. Then when I did courses, I use the courses to fuel the podcast. And when I did the podcast, I, you know, it's like they all pour into each other. And it's like, we're so quick to neglect something because it wasn't the perfect fit, when it's like, that can propel you forward if you lean on it.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  And it'll give you this ability to not feel the desperation that makes us say yes to the wrong things, or do things that were never meant for us.

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  Right, absolutely. What was the biggest identity foreclosure you've had in the last few years?

• 23:34Speaker 03

  Getting rid of my Abercrombie jeans from when I was 18.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  Truly, I, I remember how expensive those suckers were and how I saved every pretty penny. And I told myself someday they'll fit again. And guess what? They don't. And they're not even in style anymore. But I literally, no, I mean, that was part of it. But I think for me, moving back home, which is something, so Drew and I met in college in Wisconsin, lived in Wisconsin for over a decade and, and moved back home to Duluth, Minnesota. And, you know, one, I never thought I'd move home. I, there's just something about it where it's like, ah, the people that are there are still doing the same things.

• 24:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Still the same people.

• 24:18Lewis Howes?

  Different mindset, stuck in a ways, or whatever, yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  And I had noticed too, a trend, and I'm curious, like, when you go back to Ohio, if you like, stay where you grew up, like, do you kind of revert to your old self?

• 24:30Lewis Howes?

  A little bit, yeah. I really love it though. Cause, yeah, I do. Cause I'll hang out at the restaurants.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:35Lewis Howes?

  And I'll like, just talk to the people, just like, I'm there.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:38Lewis Howes?

  You know, like, I'm from there.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. It was funny though, cause I like, whenever I would go home, like, in college, I'd like, find myself like, sleeping on the couch again, and watching MTV, and eating ramen noodles. And like, things that were not a part of who I was, but like, there was just this like, comfort, like, this is what I do. I never thought I'd move back home. And I had this vision.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  After our second loss, I like hired someone to like help me unpack the grief because I was, I skipped like denial and went straight to anger after our second loss. So I just was like, what is wrong with me? Why is this happening? Um, you know, I was very public about our first loss and felt like there was purpose there.

• 25:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes, the second one, you're like, this is frustration and anger.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I was like.

• 25:22Lewis Howes?

  I got the lesson already. I don't need this again.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  Right, and I was like praying to God, like, where is your redemption song? Because I want to like prove how great you are and now you've let me down again and like, I don't even know where to go from here. And I hired this person to like, help me unpack my grief because I was like, I'm angry, I hate my body, I don't know what to do. And she like led me through this exercise and we were like sitting together and she, we would get on the phone once a week and every time I wanted to like hit ignore, you know, like I was just like, didn't want to do the call.

• 25:52Lewis Howes?

  Deal with it, yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, cuz I was just like, I know this is gonna suck. And we're like on the phone, and she's like, okay, we're, we're gonna do a little exercise and I want for you to close your eyes and like breathe. And her name is Erin Trilor. And she runs um, a really cool Instagram called Raw Beauty Talks and it's all about like coming back to your body. And uh, so she's like having me breathe and she's like, I want for you to envision like the most vibrant version of yourself. Like you are happy and energized and alive and, and it didn't just stop at like the vision. She's like, you know, like put your fingers in your finger slots, like step into your feet. Like I want for you to be there and like feel what it feels to like be fully alive and to enjoy your life.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  And she said this line and it was like, like a dial on a stereo, I want for you to turn your intuition up and turn the noise of the world down. And I was like envisioning all this. And in the vision, I saw this little girl and pancakes and a Persian rug. And I was wearing jeans and a white linen shirt. And I opened my eyes after the vision. I was like bawling. And I said to her, she goes, you know, what came up for you? And I was like, I think we have to move. And she was like, what do you mean? And I was like, I love the house we're in, but there's this bedroom and it was always gonna be our baby's bedroom.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  I get so emotional, but then I'm like, every time I walk by it, I just think about what hasn't happened.

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  And I was like, I just this vision of like this long table and like this rug and this baby and like I see it. And I was like, I think we've got to move. And that day, because I'm a quick action taker.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  You're like, looking at houses, you're like.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  Literally.

• 27:43Lewis Howes?

  Finding an agent.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  I get on Zillow and I type in Duluth, Minnesota. And Drew and I had never talked about moving home. Like it was like, maybe we'll move to Minneapolis someday, like, you know, kind of stay.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  Where were you living at this time?

• 27:56Speaker 03

  We were in a really small town in Wisconsin called Fort Atkinson. And we had great friends and stuff, but we didn't have the support of a family. And I found this house on Zillow. And I text my family text thread as a joke and say, maybe this will be the Kutcher Craftsman. Like it was this beautiful home in Minnesota. We had never talked about it. Drew is out on a run and his phone starts blowing up because my family's like, move home.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Oh my god, he's like, what? We never talked about this.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, he gets home and he's like, what is going on in your family text thread? Like it's going crazy. And I was like, did you see the listing? And he's like, what listing? And I was like, I saw this house in Minnesota. I thought he would be like, you know, maybe three years from now and he's like, oh, we could do that. And I was like, what? And, you know, it's crazy because I didn't necessarily move because of the vision, but it was like the first thing where I was like, you know, the where we are is not working for me. The craziest part is this, Louis, we didn't move for like seven, eight months. The day after we moved in, I took a positive pregnancy test.

• 29:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  It was, it was literally, I like, I always say, I'm like, it's like I would like had to move home. And like be grounded at home. Like it just felt like this like crazy moment where it was like, I'm home and I'm ready and like this is it.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  And that next day you moved in.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  It's crazy.

• 29:21Lewis Howes?

  When was this?

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Hmm, April first of twenty seventeen.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Or twenty eighteen, yeah. So it was like.

• 29:28Lewis Howes?

  It's like right after the mastermind that, yeah, it was.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  That next year.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  And it was like, and here's the thing that's so wild about my journey because, you know, one in four women experiences pregnancy loss.

• 29:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  Um, is that when you're in it, I mean, it is dark.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  I can imagine.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  And I often think about, it's like if you were like walking through like a warehouse and it's just like pitch black. And you're literally just like inching step by step, like you don't know where you're going. And it's like you just, you have a flashlight, so you can only see like directly in front of you. And once you get through it, it's like somebody turned the lights on and you see where you were and why you were there. And I hate the line, like, everything happens for a reason, because when you are in it, there is zero reason why, yeah, there is no reason why that happened. But our like three year waiting season, I can see now with hindsight. Was required for me to build a life that supported what I was waiting for.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 30:32Speaker 03

  When I first was pregnant with my first pregnancy, I was shooting twenty five weddings a year. I remember we were in Hawaii and I looked up the due date. And I was like, I can't be due then. I have like four more weddings. I mean, I like have to cancel on these, like I literally was like.

• 30:47Lewis Howes?

  Like you were sabotaging your body.

• 30:49Speaker 03

  It was like I didn't know how I would do it. You know what I mean? Like.

• 30:53Lewis Howes?

  Body's like, we're not gonna let you do it then.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, like it's crazy. And then the second time around was a huge wake up call because I found out that I had lost the baby. But my body was still pregnant and I had to show up and shoot a wedding the next day.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  Ah, oh my gosh.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  And so I had to pretend like I was the happy, you know, the happy wedding photographer.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  And so when I look at those losses, they were massive teachers in my life. But by the time I was pregnant for the third time. I had built a life where I was able to move and I wasn't tied to anything and I had no clients to answer to and I had built that and so there's this quote that I heard from a preacher and it's like sometimes the season of waiting is just as important as what it is that we're waiting for.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  I think a lot of people find themselves in seasons of waiting and it's really easy to want to like twiddle your thumbs and just sit there, right? Like just wait and wait and wait, but I think we waste it and it's like I worked while I waited and I don't mean like I hustled, I worked towards a life I wanted for when the time came.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:02Speaker 03

  And it was so evident when it happened.

• 32:05Lewis Howes?

  That's inspiring.

• 32:07Speaker 03

  It's a crazy story and it's one that I don't tell often and there's a line in my book that says like, okay, I know this story is wild, but like you don't have to move zip codes to start living more into yourself. One of the things I realized after that vision was my vision was jeans and a white linen shirt and I looked down and I was wearing sweatpants and like a college T-shirt and I was like, you know what? Maybe I just start putting on the jeans, maybe I don't have the baby and the pancakes and the Persian rug, but maybe I can just start dressing the way that I would dress if I was vibrant and alive and healthy. Maybe I just take a tiny step of becoming, I can't control the outcome of having a baby.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  But I can control showing up as a more vibrant version of myself right now.

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. You said during the season, the dark season.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  That it's hard to think about, this is all happening for a reason, right? What do you think we can think about during a dark season? Some someone deals with anything dark in their life. What should they, how should they be processing or thinking about it as opposed to, oh, well, maybe this is happening for a reason?

• 33:19Speaker 03

  I don't think that, yeah, I agree. I don't think that language is helpful when you're in it, right?

• 33:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Cause there are so many tragedies and things that shouldn't happen. Or that you shouldn't have to experience. There's this line in my book that uh talks about grief, cause we talk about it and it says that a lot of times people want to move on from grief. You're waiting for life to feel normal again, you're waiting to feel like yourself. And I say grief isn't something that we're meant to move on from. It's something we're meant to move with. We're meant to pick it up and carry it with us, even if we're inching forward. Like we're getting stronger because of the things we've been through. You're not meant to come out on the other side of grief, the same person you were when you went into it.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  Right? Like that, what a wasted opportunity for tragedy. And in my life, loss has probably been my greatest teacher. Right? Like I look at those like lost pregnancies and I'm like, they were like somehow like looking out for me. And it doesn't mean that it wasn't hard or that I, I literally think about those babies every single day. But if I wasted that and like didn't use it, that would be a real loss.

• 34:34Lewis Howes?

  That's the tragedy.

• 34:38Lewis Howes?

  What was the, the habit or the switch from one year to the next? That started to bring in more abundance financially, not in a incremental 20%, but it was like boom, this was five X, 10 X. What was that habit or mindset shift for you that started to develop more income?

• 34:55Alex Hormozi?

  So there's like the, the science and the art kind of both sides. So like the science side is just the leverage. So the amount of money you make is proportional, the amount of leverage you employ in your life. And so, you know, four types of leverage, this is not mine, this is the Val Robiconts, but I'll just say them. So you've got labor, I call it, I use four Cs because it's easier for me to remember. He says labor, I say collaboration. So funny that you said that earlier. But it's just getting other people to basically use their time, right? For your cause. The second level of leverage is other people's money, is getting people to invest in your thing. And then the next two are, so these two are permissionless, the first ones. Like you need to get someone's permission to work for you and you get someone's permission to get, give you their money. The other two are permissionless, so you can do them on your own.

• 35:37Alex Hormozi?

  One is media, which is what you have here because of the cost of making one video and having one person see it versus a million people see it is the same cost, right? And then the other is code, right? So I say content and code. So those are my four Cs. So collaboration, capital, content, code. And both of them, and those are not binaries. It's not. Am I using other people? Am I not using other people? It's to what extent am I using other people? Am I, do I use other people's money? Yes or no? No, it's how much of other people's money am I using? And so each of these are continuums, not binaries. So like, somebody could just use other people's money and be a billionaire because of the extent they use it. But those are the types of leverage that exist. And so as my income went up, it was by proportion to the amount of leverage I was employing.

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  Really? How were you, what of these four were you leveraging the most?

• 36:18Alex Hormozi?

  So in the beginning, I had no leverage because I was an employee, right? I was using my own time. The next thing that I started doing was I became self-employed, right? So I had a little online training business that I started in between my quitting my job and, and starting the gym. And so when I started the gym, I started getting labor was the first.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Other people, yeah.

• 36:36Alex Hormozi?

  Not a lot of it, but I got some of it. And so that gave me that first next tier. I went from making.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  Part-time interns.

• 36:40Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah. Five, I went from $5,000 a month to, I think about $30,000 a month. So that was the, that was the big jump. It was just, I had a team, you know what I mean? A small team, but I had a team, right?

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  Now, that's overall in revenue. That's not your take on that.

• 36:53Alex Hormozi?

  No, exactly.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  Sales, you might've been losing money or whatever.

• 36:55Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah, right. We, we made, we, I made, I made, I was probably making $20,000 a month at that point.

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  For yourself?

• 37:00Alex Hormozi?

  Yes.

• 37:01Lewis Howes?

  After expenses and team and everything, yeah.

• 37:03Alex Hormozi?

  That was then, and then.

• 37:04Lewis Howes?

  What did that feel like going from five to 20? Did that make you feel something different? Was there a shift inside of you when you took that action?

• 37:11Alex Hormozi?

  Because for me, when I started this, it was all about vanquishing my father. So it was all about, I was Middle Eastern father, only child. So like, I was raised by a single dad. It was just me and him. That was it for the vast majority of my life. And so he's Middle Eastern, came here with the $1,000, became a doctor, or he was a doctor, came here, learned English from watching television, you know what I mean? Has the American success story, absolutely.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 37:33Alex Hormozi?

  And so I was born here, though.

• 37:35Lewis Howes?

  Speaking another language too?

• 37:36Alex Hormozi?

  French was my first, actually. There's a whole story around it, but anyways, but yeah.

• 37:39Lewis Howes?

  French is your?

• 37:40Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah.

• 37:40Lewis Howes?

  How many languages do you speak?

• 37:42Alex Hormozi?

  That's the best one. I, I'll just leave it at that. But all of it was about making him proud, right?

• 37:49Lewis Howes?

  So that's what you did, you set out to do that?

• 37:51Alex Hormozi?

  That's what I was trying to do. And then I think that throughout my like adolescence, I realized that it was something that was always going to be withheld from me. So it didn't matter what it was, the goalpost would always move so that.

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  You would never be proud enough?

• 38:01Alex Hormozi?

  Right, and it was just, and it was because he wanted the most out of me. And so like, if I got, let's say, you know, a 99 on a test, it wasn't congratulations, it's what'd you get wrong?

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 38:09Alex Hormozi?

  Right, and that was always what it was. That's okay, like, I'm, we're cool. I'm very happy with my life.

• 38:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:13Alex Hormozi?

  And I, I realized that, and so this desire to gain approval turned into a very deep anger. And so.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Towards the world, him, yourself, other people.

• 38:24Alex Hormozi?

  Mostly him, mostly him, um, and most like him and myself probably split, probably fifty fifty, you know what I mean? And, um, and so it was like my earlier, I'll say quote, success was purely fueled by rage. Like it wasn't, it wasn't like, it was, it was rage. You know what I mean?

• 38:43Lewis Howes?

  I was in the same boat, yeah.

• 38:44Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah. And it was like, and I, but there was probably some element of me that's like, almost enjoyed the suffering because like I just would get in the space. When, when you ask like, how did I feel?

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:54Alex Hormozi?

  By getting the extra twenty thousand a month. First, my goal was to make as much as my dad. And then it was to make more than my dad. And then it was to make more than my dad had ever made his whole life.

• 39:06Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 39:07Alex Hormozi?

  And so, once I had done that, the, the, I wanted the success to be unquestionable. Like it couldn't, there couldn't be a but, there couldn't be an asterisk. It had to be so undeniable that, that vanquishing was the word, right? And so for a five year period after I quit my job, my dad did not support. He didn't support me quitting my job.

• 39:31Lewis Howes?

  Why not? Even though you were off making money and building a business and.

• 39:34Alex Hormozi?

  Because he didn't, he's like, you're, what are you, a gym owner? Like, he's like, you went to Vanderbilt? You were on a management consulting career? He's like, you got, you know, you got above Harvard's mid score for your.

• 39:44Lewis Howes?

  You could have had a credible career.

• 39:46Alex Hormozi?

  Of course.

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:47Alex Hormozi?

  Right? Gym owner doesn't sell well in cocktail parties, right? What do you, uh, you know, he's, uh, he's figuring himself out.

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, he's doing this little gym as a side thing.

• 39:54Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah, he'll sniff out, right? And so, you know, I mean, I made plenty of mistakes too, when I had the gym. So it wasn't like all, you know, sunshine and rainbows for me. Like I had a lot of mess ups that I did. I got in bad partnerships. I mean, like all the things that you could possibly do. And, and over that five year period of me scaling to six locations with my, with my facilities, um, at the end of that whole thing, I ended up losing it all.

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:14Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah, lost everything.

• 40:16Lewis Howes?

  Six locations, lost the whole business.

• 40:18Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah, well, I sold it. I sold five of them. I shut one of them down. Um, cause I wanted to start doing this gym launch thing, which would be like flying around doing turnarounds. Cause I, I started doing, that's when I met Leila.

• 40:27Lewis Howes?

  You find a gym that's kind of like not succeeding.

• 40:30Alex Hormozi?

  And you'd fly in.

• 40:31Lewis Howes?

  And you'd do a makeover.

• 40:32Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah, exactly. Bar Rescue, same thing, like same exact thing.

• 40:35Lewis Howes?

  Should have done a TV show with it.

• 40:37Alex Hormozi?

  Believe me, the many regrets I have, right? That would have been an awesome one. We did thirty-two turnarounds.

• 40:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:42Alex Hormozi?

  It was almost two years. Yeah. And so, um, we, we, we started doing that. Anyways, I lost everything. Um, because I took all the sale money and I put it into my last location and then the partner that I had there siphoned the money out. Um, cause I was like, yeah, like, well, I'll put all the money from the sale of these gyms into this thing. Like, it doesn't matter. Um, it was my mistake. It was on me. Um, but it was, even then it was, you know, we'll see, you know, we'll see how, like, this isn't real. Like, we'll see. And then, once I started, once gym launch really started taking off, it wasn't until I think we did like seventeen million in EBITDA, like profit take home.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  In one year?

• 41:18Alex Hormozi?

  In one year, that my dad, I was twenty-seven.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 41:22Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah. My, my dad, my dad called me and he's like, are you sitting down? I remember like at this point, like, we, we were like not talking too much. You know what I mean? Maybe every few months, it'd be like a five-minute phone call. And so I was like, sure, yeah, I got time. What's up? And he's like, you're gonna want to hear this. And I was like, okay, what? And he's like, I'm sorry. And it was the first time he'd ever apologized to me in my life. And, um, what's interesting to me though, is that it didn't feel like anything. I didn't care.

• 41:49Lewis Howes?

  Why not?

• 41:51Alex Hormozi?

  Because I had stopped caring about what he thought about me a long time ago. And it was like, when I quit my job was the day that like I, I accepted dying to my father. Because, because very much to me at that point was, I was, um, I was really, really sad at that point in my life when I had the job. Cause I'd really done everything that he had wanted me to. I finished Vanderbilt in three years. As president fraternity, uh, I had won writing awards. I'd done like a bunch, like, I'd done everything. You know what I mean? I was in, I was vice president of powerlifting team, like.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, every club.

• 42:18Alex Hormozi?

  All the stuff I could possibly do. Yeah, yeah. While, while still being president and did it in three years, right? And got a management consulting job that was like, good job. Had all the credibility and it just I knew it wasn't enough and I knew that. And so I knew that the choice for me was that I either had to die to him or I had to die to myself.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:36Alex Hormozi?

  And that was ultimately like the choice that that I put in front of myself. And that was whenever I was like, maybe I should just get, I was like, die to him or die to you. And so that was what gave me the the the confidence to to break that. And then I physically moved because I couldn't be in the same area.

• 42:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:54Alex Hormozi?

  So I actually.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  You were 23 at this point or?

• 42:57Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah. So I called my dad when I was like in Ohio and I'm from Baltimore.

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  That's where I'm from.

• 43:03Alex Hormozi?

  It was for you. I called him when I was there and I was like, hey, by the way, I'm doing the gym thing. He was like, okay, it's like, why don't you come over? We'll talk about it because he knew because he knew that like if he came over with enough battering, I would be like, fine, I know this is smart thing. I'll take the, you know, I'll apply to, you know, Booth and Harvard or whatever. And I'll get the, I'll do that whole thing. And that because that was a cycle. I just kept doing that and I was just like, no, I'm not going to do it. So I was like, well, I can't, I'm in Ohio. He was like, what do you mean? And then the tone totally shifted and he was like, you always do these crazy things. And you're always like, he's like, you're never balanced. It's always extreme with you. There's no middle path, blah, blah, blah. And so anyways, I, you know, I did that five years gyms, lost it all anyways. And then started, and then started gym launch. And then that's one, and then that really took off.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 43:47Alex Hormozi?

  And then, but when he called me and he apologized, and this is where I like, you know, I'm ashamed of myself. But like, I could have just let it lie and been like, thanks, appreciate it, you know.

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  What'd you do instead?

• 43:59Alex Hormozi?

  Um, instead I said, I was like, you know, when people get up on stage and they're like, hey, you know, they get awards and they're like, hey, mom and dad, I just want to say, thanks so much for always believing me. I was like, I won't say that.

• 44:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 44:10Alex Hormozi?

  I was like, because you never did. I was like, the only time you accepted me, I was like, was once every other person on this planet had accepted it too.

• 44:16Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh, man.

• 44:17Alex Hormozi?

  And so.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  That's.

• 44:19Alex Hormozi?

  So I said that.

• 44:19Lewis Howes?

  It's intense on the phone, you said that? What do you say to that?

• 44:22Alex Hormozi?

  He said, well, we'll see how long it lasts.

• 44:24Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 44:25Alex Hormozi?

  So that was.

• 44:26Lewis Howes?

  So he's still kind of in competition with you.

• 44:28Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah. And to be fair, when he apologized, he said, you know, I'm sorry. He said, but in my defense, if it had been in my time, I would have been right. And so, you know, but all that to say, like, I should have just said, like, appreciate the apology, you know? Thank you because, you know, Tony Robbins said something that I thought was really impactful was like, for the vast majority of my life, it's been like. How my father shaped me, or whatever. But rather than thinking like, what can I use from this dynamic? Like, what gift do I have?

• 44:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, like from his mother, kind of like beating him or whatever.

• 45:00Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, what do I, like, what do I, you know, they blame him for the good, right? And so like, I have so many things to blame for good from that, and I'm very, very happy with my life. That is why $20,000 a month didn't feel significant to me because the goal that I had, my expectations weren't to make money. My expectation was that I had to make more than he'd ever made. And so I had a very big vacuum to drive towards, which I think in a lot of ways was a gift because like, I blew past $100,000 a month, $500,000 a month, a million a month. Like, I blew past those things because like, it was never about having enough money for me. It was about feeding this monster. But once I got there, I realized that what I had done was set up a game to win by my father's rules.

• 45:40Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 45:41Alex Hormozi?

  And so then I-

• 45:42Lewis Howes?

  And you could never win.

• 45:43Alex Hormozi?

  Right. And to be fair, would I want to win a game that wasn't for me?

• 45:48Lewis Howes?

  And it was making you suffer.

• 45:49Alex Hormozi?

  Sure.

• 45:49Lewis Howes?

  You're playing the wrong game.

• 45:50Alex Hormozi?

  I'm playing his game. And so I did win, but I won at his game, not mine.

• 45:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 45:54Alex Hormozi?

  And so that was kind of what, I think, making that realization was it was kind of the the slow shift that happened from there.

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  So when you won the financial game, or the game of like, I've made more than you in a month or a year than you've made your whole lifetime.

• 46:06Alex Hormozi?

  Yeah.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  How did that make you feel? And when did you realize you needed to start playing a different game? And what would that game become?

• 46:13Alex Hormozi?

  Okay, there was three questions there. What was the first one?

• 46:15Lewis Howes?

  How did it make you feel the moment you crossed the finish line of the game of making so much more than he'd ever made in a short amount of time?

• 46:23Alex Hormozi?

  Relief, because we actually got our relationship back. Not like, you know, I wouldn't say we have like sunshine or rain, but like, we have a functioning relationship. I would say it's role-based, like, I'm a father, you know?

• 46:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:34Alex Hormozi?

  But what happened was, we are both very like, strong personalities. And it wasn't until, I think, that he accepted me as often our relationship, that we were able to kind of like, move forward again. Because before that, my, because my dad's, he's a doctor, so he's always had, you know, like, decent money. And I wanted to be beholden to no one, you know, including him. Like, I didn't want his money. I didn't want, I didn't want anything, you know? And so I think I had to establish my own, I had to like, really plant my own flag to be seen as a man in his eyes. And so I think once that happened, I think I thought, there was some level of like, there's no conflict here anymore.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  And that wraps up our special side hustle episode brought to you by Tik Tok Shop. With the right mindset, your side hustles can become more than just a side hustle. They can grow into full careers. I've seen it happen with my own eyes for my own life and others, and I know you can do it too. The fact that you've listened to this entire episode tells me you're doing your research and already taking the right steps to pursue your dreams. So keep it up. Thousands of small businesses and huge brands like Barstool Sports, OtterBox, and L'Oréal Paris are already on the platform. Brands can develop a lasting relationship with an exploding community of users who are already talking about your products on Tik Tok. There's no requirement for the number of followers needed to set up your Tik Tok Shop account. Get started now and visit tiktokshop.com/podcast to discover more.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  That's T I K T O K shop.com/podcast. Huge thanks to Tik Tok Shop for supporting this show.