If I Couldn't Stay Disciplined, I'd Study This for 1 Hour

0:00How to avoid tons of problems in life. Go to bed on time. So, I love these. I want to find single behaviors that have many positive outcomes. So, if you think about leverage as what you get for the effort you put in. If you have lots of leverage, then it means you can do one thing and get many big outcomes, right? Or one very big outcome. That's high leverage. If you put a lot of work in and get a very little bit out of it, you have low leverage. And so the highest form of leverage I think of are what's one behavior or one skill that I can learn that then has many many downstream impacts. And so for and this is specifically I'll say for the the 20ish year old so 20 to 30 20 to 35 if you can simply go to bed on time you avoid drinking and getting in a DUI.

0:51You avoid early pregnancies. you avoid missing messing up your work because you don't sleep well because uh you show up hung over the next day and then you don't get the career advancement that you want or you get the judgments from your co-workers from the fact that you're responsible because you drink even though it might have been responsible drinking but you still smell like booze because it's in your system if you go to bed on time. It's less likely that you'll get mugged.

1:17It's less likely you'll be in a car accident. Like there's there's all of these downstream impacts from one single behavior. And you also have better quality sleep in general if you go to sleep at the same time every day over and over again. So that means that you have life extension things that happen. You look younger. And so now 5 years, 10 years later, people are like, "Wow, you look so good for your age." There's all of these things from one central behavior, which is just [ __ ] go to bed on time. And so if you want the action for this, you set your alarm for when you go to bed, not for when you wake up. If you set your alarm for when you go to bed, you will always be able to wake up naturally at whatever time you wake up. And it's very difficult to oversleep when you go to bed at 9ine because you can get eight hours of sleep and still be up by 5. Most already know what to do but simply don't do it. And the main question is why? Well, number one, because of an inability to delay gratification. Number two, because they don't fully know how to do something.

2:10This is the most common reason in more successful business owners. And a business owner asked me this exact question. When all the information is available, why are entrepreneurs still stuck? And so this is what I told him. I'd say at the most basic level, it's because of an inability to delay gratification. And so if we just think about like why do humans do things in general? It's because they're they've been rewarded more for doing what they're currently doing rather than changing what they're doing. And I think that makes sense from an evolutionary perspective that like more of what you're currently doing is safe. And so people once they find another point of equilibrium, it's very difficult for them to break out of that. Even if they're quote like mentally like, I really wish I could scale. they they want to want to scale, but what they really want is to do what they're currently doing, which is why they're doing it. Um, and so I think um being able to clearly articulate also like the actions. So how is just like such a simple word, it's a short word, but has a lot of like depth to it, which is um if I were to talk to a toddler and say, I want you to scale a business, they would just look at you like, what? Um if you were to tell me, hey, can you scale this business? I'd probably say, "Yeah, I can." And so the specificity of a request is inversely correlated with the skill of the recipient. Meaning, if you have somebody who has very low skills, I have to say like, "Okay, here's how you turn on a computer. Once you turn on a computer, then you're going to open up Safari. What's Safari? It's an internet browser. What's the internet? Okay, let's explain what the internet is, right?" And then eventually you're like, "Okay, we're going to go to Google."

3:35What's a Google? We'll get there. Don't worry. We go to Google. Okay. Finally, we're going to sign up here. You're going to get an email. Once you have an email, I don't know how to type. Great. Let me teach you how to type. And so the thing is is like the lower the skill level of the individual, the more aggregate skills they have to learn in order to chunk up. >> And so sometimes people hear the word, oh, you just need to do outreach. >> But that is a bundled term that has a hundred things underneath of it, which is like how do I warm up a domain? How do I set you know what's an opener? How do I integrate my, you know, Clavio with my whatever, right? Like how do I integrate these tools? And so there's a hundred hows underneath of it. and they'll usually get stuck on one of the house and being unwilling to try because it's so frustrating of like I think I think what makes entrepreneurship feel slow is that you can try to learn something for a day and not have an outcome and then have to come back to it tomorrow and figuring things out is by nature a wandering activity which means that if you knew how to figure it out then you wouldn't have to figure it out because you'd already know it and so it's people do really poorly with uncertainty and So entrepreneurship, a lot of it is just the the ability to tolerate uncertainty, which feels very painful the entire time you're in the uncertain period, which is what I honestly think a lot of the pain of entrepreneurship is wondering whether the investment you're currently making today, the thing you know you're going to lose, the money, the time, the effort, the sweat, is going to actually pay off to the thing that uh you hope is going to happen and you don't know when it's going to happen. And so it's almost like if you run a marathon, you know it ends at 26 miles or 0.2, I don't know, for you runners. Um but like for entrepreneurship it's just someone saying run.

5:11>> Yeah. >> And like I'll tell you when to stop. >> And even if you like just that idea almost sounds torturous of like just run. It's like well how long? It's like run. >> It's like but what if my lungs start hurting? Run. >> Yeah. >> Keep running. And I think that's what what makes a lot of entrepreneurship painful. And then the idea of even me saying this, some of you guys probably had your heart rates go up, right? Even the idea of not knowing when something is going to end or in other words when you're going to figure it out. A lot of people just don't want to start that race.

5:38>> And so they know what they're currently doing. And it's they get more rewarded for talking about scaling, for talking about their goals than they do for pursuing them, which involves a lot of uncertainty, f pain, and frustration. So this leads me to the next lesson where I want to talk about one of the most important mindset/skills that you need to train yourself on if you want to grow as a person and your business. And at least that's what's helped for me. And that's actually self-awareness. So I go deep on it right now. The hardest thing for people is judgment which is like how do I how do I know to listen to this guy versus that guy right that's the hard part because you will see conflicting advice and if you were to ask two people who are both wealthy what someone should do if you were to ask the Indian question what should someone focus on English might not be the first answer from Richard Branson I don't know maybe it is um it also doesn't mean that his advice is wrong if it were different than mine right maybe his advice is more right no idea um but I think understanding what is right for you given your existing resources and skills is probably the most valuable thing which is self-awareness. And so I think I've always had a decent amount of self-awareness which has allowed me to make sure that I'm picking the products, services, information that I'm consuming the most of around whatever I believe the constraint to be. And then I would say that I'm relatively maniacal in the focus that I have around whatever the thing that's limiting me is. And so when I got into when I was like, "Okay, we're going to start this family office." I think I read 15 books in like two weeks on, you know, different family office structures, different investment thesis, um, books by people who ran big hold just so I could get some better idea of this stuff. And I would say 15 books is not like a huge amount of information, but it was like just to give an idea of like I did nothing else besides read.

7:17Um, and so if I thought that sales was the issue, I think people try to solve a problem one way, I tend to approach a problem with like I don't care which one works. I will do all of them violently and one of I will I will will my will this thing through. And so if like I needed to learn sales, I wouldn't be like, "Oh, I'll read a sales book." It's like, I'm going to read many sales books. I'm going to consume all videos on sales. I'll hire somebody who's good at sales to teach me and review my stuff in real time. and I will keep doing this until sales is no longer my problem and then I'll be like more which what's my next issue and then I'll just bomb the hell out of that thing and I think people take too little action around what the constraint is so either they haven't properly identified the constraint of their business or they take insufficient action to solve it or both and I see commitment and focus as as very similar like kind of sister twins um which is just the elimination of alternatives

8:13>> and so I think most people are not that committed And so I think I it's really it really comes down to that like it's one of the one of the things that's really difficult to explain and like there's a few lessons like from a human nature perspective or from a skill-based perspective that are very difficult to see unless you're there and consistency is one of them. So is volume and they tend to be the two things that are most required in order to get to where you want to go. And so like you can't witness consistency unless you are also consistent in order to witness it.

8:45So, like, you can't see me come to the gym every day at 4:00 a.m. unless you were there every day at 4 a.m. And you can't see me work all day unless you were also here working all day. And I can say it and it takes 2 seconds, but when you witness it and you see it every single day, it has a different impact. And I think that's what what a lot of people miss out on. And like I talk about volume a lot and I repeat it so many times and I talk about focus so much because like those are the things that really separate the people who end up winning. And the amount of volume that it takes is just so much more than you're prepared for. And I think if people really knew how much volume and repetition it took, they wouldn't begin.

9:22And so I don't even think it's a bad thing that people don't understand because like if you really saw how far away the goalpost was, you'd be like, I'm not I can't do it because you can't do it. You couldn't even comprehend that because you're so far away from that type of person or that level of entrepreneur who'd be able to do it that it seems unfathomable. but you think it's a couple steps ahead of where you are and then you get a little bit of better and then you realize it's actually this much further but then you get a little bit better and then you realize it's this much further and then eventually you start to realize like when you look back at how much you did in order to get there and then you're like oh that's why

9:53>> work life balance/h hardwork love and happiness >> okay if we start with work life balance it was that [ __ ] question >> beliefs on it >> so I will answer with how I derived my kind life thesis which was after we uh so when we went to so we had taken about $40 million in distributions from gym launch um personally throughout the you know years that we ran the company and then in the year of the sale um for those you've never sold a company before you typically don't want to change a lot of things you kind of want the company to just be like be stable keep working everything's fine and so one of it's one of the most harrowing experiences to go through because you can't really change anything and if you're the founder you're always trying to innovate. So, you can't do what you're normally doing.

10:40Um, and you also can't start the NE. So, you can't change current and you can't start new because if the deal doesn't go through, then you don't want to start two businesses. Remember, because we're, you know, cardinal rule number one, we're not chasing chasing women in the red dress. And so, you basically have to sit idly by and just like let things operate. And so, in that year, it was one of the most miserable years of my life because I basically had nothing to do. And um when I looked back on my life, this sounds like, you know, I looked back on my life as though it's been so long. I looked at the days that I enjoyed the most. And on those days, I had worked out and I had produced something. And I had done both of those with people I liked. And almost all of those days, I'd worked many, many hours.

11:29And when I realized that the idea of working hard so that I can insert blank, the so that actually makes it still destination driven. So that was when I derived what I called hard work is the goal. It's just to work hard. That is my goal.

11:52>> And then dieh on things worth doing. And I those are the days that I love and I get a tremendous amount of push back for saying this and it bothers a lot of people and to them I say live your life whatever way you want. This is again my my life is not a sermon. It's a documentary. This is just how I do it. You can do whatever you want and for the people who are dissatisfied try it and if not no worries. Um, I really enjoy working. Like the best days are like when I write those books, it's the happiest I am. And it's not happy in the moment because it's really hard.

12:32>> But the amount of challenge is about proportional to my level of skill. And every book, I think, is better than the last. And the third book that's coming out is going to be [ __ ] awesome. I'm very excited about it. But there's nothing that I enjoy more. But in the moment, I'm like, how do I break this down? And I'm just rubbing my forehead and I'm like and then I and I create two three different frameworks. I'm like nope that's that doesn't work here and that doesn't work here which means some kid in Afghanistan is going to get stuck on this step because it doesn't work. I have to figure out how to get it so that it works everywhere. And I keep driving but the moment it's like it clicks. I'm like that's it. Fight me. Like that's the framework.

13:07That is what I what I strive for. And for me the love, the happiness and work have all because of the nature of my life been one. Now, some people have lived their lives where their love life and their happiness and their work are all separate. Um, for me, it has just been life and I like it that way. And for the people who are upset by that, I'm not upset about how you live your life. Um, I just choose to live it this way. And if in the future I change my mind, I'll change my life. If I get to a point where I'm like, this is no longer a priority for me, something else is, then I will. But when I look at the centinarians and I look at the people who like I look at Warren Buffett as somebody and Charlie Mer as two of my heroes. Charlie worked until the day he died. And to be clear, I don't work on a 7-day calendar. Um I don't work a certain hour. I work as much as I can until I feel like my rate of output drops precipitously because of fatigue.

14:03And then I and I sleep. And then if I feel like on a on a longer time horizon of like I've worked nine days, I've worked 20 days, I've worked 30 days in a row and I'm like, "All right, I feel like I don't have any gas today," then I'll take the whole day off. And whether that's a Tuesday or a Sunday or a Saturday, I take the day off. And that just is what it is. And I've just I have learned to work that way. And I am okay with it. >> The goal clearly for you then is the hard work itself and not a certain place you're trying to get to necessarily

14:29>> because that always moves. Yeah. And so, um, Jesse Sler has this and maybe maybe I'll I'll be able to steal it from him someday. Um, but he told I saw him show a picture of his kid finishing a race and putting a zero up. And what that signified was nothing left in the tank, that he'd spent everything he had on the field. And I would, and it's like I have this visual of uh the 300 movie where the queen says to the king as he goes off to battle, she says, "Come back with your shelter on it." And I kind of see like my work that way. Like I can't imagine a better way to go out than like doing the thing I love. And it bothers a lot of people that I love something different than they love. And it's like it really it really bo it bothers me that it bothers them to be honest. Um because I I I make no projections like do whatever you want. And I feel like if if I ever had a a like one thing that that people took from me, it was like absolute freedom. And because of that absolute freedom, we are 100% responsible for our own lives. And so where we place the the finger of blame is also where power flows. So if you blame your parents for your life, your parents have power over your life. If you blame your boss for your bad life, your boss has power over your life. If you blame you for your bad life, at least you can change you and you can do something about it. And so I think absolute responsibility has been my my core tenant. And if you have a life where you're like, I don't want to care about work that much and I just want to spend all my time with my family. I'm like, congratulations. You [ __ ] won.

16:01That's amazing. Just don't assume that everyone's you. And that what winning for me is is the same as winning for you. and and it and I think the the times that I talk about this I I know that my my message won't resonate with everyone and that's okay but it's for the few people who were like me and felt like everyone told them there was something wrong with them and I still get people to tell me there's something wrong with me and if wrong means not normal then yeah you bet but it's more so that like you are different and that's okay and I think that if you're if you're okay with that And it unleashes this whole new realm of possibility of being able to do what you want. And kind of like I had the, you know, you do a hundred of these and you look at the top 10%, do 100 of these, look at the top 10%.

16:52That was my way of trying to operationalize happiness because it was this ephemeral thing that when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, I struggled a ton with. I was very depressed. I looked at, you know, religion. I looked at a lot of different things. And this is common for people at that age. And um I I came up with a mantra for me at that time which was [ __ ] happiness. Now people will then hear this and I'm sure this will get taken out of context but that was basically like this release moment for me where by continually chasing happiness, it always existed outside of me. And so it was always this carrot that was in front of me that I could never really get to.

17:31>> And so by saying [ __ ] happiness, I was like it's unattainable. I'm just going to work and I'm just going to do the stuff I want to do. And when I started doing the stuff that I wanted to do, I looked up years later and I was like, I actually kind of like my life. And I was like, is this what happiness is? And I was like, I don't know. But I think one of the the major plights of humanity, myself included, is the expectation that life should be different than it is. And so we we we create this idea that whatever we have right now is not what it should be.

18:07And I think should is the is the root of all pain. Is that all the things that we think should happen but aren't is our is basically the measurement of our pain. And so I've tried to eradicate should from my life. Should for other people. She should do this, they should do that. Um and just just lean into is it just is this way. I work period. Not I should work more. I should work less or I should work differently or I should see my mom more. I should call my dad more.

18:34I do this and if something changes I will change and so unconditional shoulds. Now if there is a condition of like if you want to make more money then this is a high higher likelihood you might want to consider doing this. Those are things that I don't consider in that category but just the generalized shoulds of he shouldn't do that. He should he should build a family. He should have kids. He should have gotten married earlier. He should have gotten later. He should have married someone different. He shouldn't have the the life that he has. you shouldn't work this way according to what and so for me that is my my theory on life on on on happiness work and love has been very unified because I love my work so much that I got out of a relationship and when I you know started dating Ila I said I am not willing to change this and so you have to be willing to deal with me working this way or this won't work because my relationship with my work is the most satisfying relationship I have.

19:38Now, people will hear that and be like, "Well, that's because he's never experienced true love or whatever, whatever whatever narrative they'll they'll say, but it's like you haven't lived my life and I haven't lived yours and I don't project anything onto you." Um, but I I like I like I love what I do and I like I get attacked for liking what I do so much and I like working a lot and and it's because they have negative associations with the word and that's that's their own history of of of their experience with the word. But I see my goals and my relationship with my goals as one of the most sacred things that I have because I see them as a relationship with myself. And so those those proxy when someone comes in and says hey you know sweetie you've been working too much according to what why should I stop right um now let's do this other thing and people will probably see this as a they'll put whatever labels they want on it but like I just said this is what I would like to do with my life and if you can incorporate yourself into that that would be amazing and so my second date with Ila after we talked about business for 4 hours on our first date was I said I'm going to be working all day. It'd be cool if you worked with me." And she just worked next to me. She had her own thing, but she just worked beside me. And I was like, "This is nice." And over time, eventually was like, "Hey, maybe you want to work on my thing with me." And she was like, "Yeah, that sounds good." It was a little bit more than that, but like fundamentally I got her to switch to to working on it with me. And at that point, what we got to talk about was what we were creating together. And to me, that's been, you know, the journey of my life. And it's been it's been amazing. And um I'm not saying it works for everyone. I would say it probably doesn't work for most people. Uh but it has worked really well for me. And it would make sense for me that my path would be different than most people's because I don't behave like most people. And so I would have to have a different formula for how I derive, you know, meaning or joy from my own life. And since I don't believe in inherent meaning, um just the meaning that we choose to ascribe to things, then it's up to me to create that meaning within the work that I do. And so the reason acquisition.com was all based on and it was during that year where I just basically had nothing to do where I was like what I want to do with my life because I don't need to work anymore and that was you know we taken 40 out before the sale and then we obviously got the sale. So like I don't need to work I like to work and I I try to spend I look at you know I had this boss that told me this and was one of the one of the catalysts for for looking at life this way. She said, "I had just had like a good weekend or something, and I came in like chipper." And she said, "Well, you must have had a good weekend." And I was like, "Yeah, it was it was good." And she said this, it was like an off-handed comment. And she said, "I'm pretty sure the key to happiness is living as many days in a row like that as you can." And it was actually like really operational. Like I could I was like, I can use this. Like what are the good days? How do I live as many of those days in a row as I can?

22:25And so I've, you know, I've been attacked for like saying that I don't really enjoy going on vacation very much. Um, and it's because like I just want to get I just want to get back to doing the thing that I really enjoy doing. And I remember we Leila and I went to uh Mexico uh this year for a week and it's always during the week of Christmas cuz no one works and it drives me nuts and I've just like I've I've just given up trying to get you know get everyone to [laughter] work because even if my team will work cuz my team will because they they're crazy too other teams won't and vendors won't and it's just anyways. And so while we were there all I came out with was like this is for other people and not me, and that's okay. Uh, so I um I'm a relatively like we're a relatively young company and so one of the things that I struggle is more on that third category [snorts] with the focus or the woman in the red.

23:10>> Crazy how common these are. I'm just saying. Yeah, go for it. >> So like for me is basically like how do you balance the consuming of useful content for your business? Like there's always like a new tool, a new strategy, new content from the Hormosis, right? And also and also like we're leaving this workshop with like hey this is what you should focus on. So is it a matter of just like hey switch off YouTube for the next 12 months and just do this

23:36>> or miss out on >> everything except my business. >> Exactly. Right. And so or potentially like miss out on like a particular strategy or tool that can maximize what you're focusing on. So how do you balance both of those >> in your business? >> Yeah. I'm gonna make this really short because I could do a whole talk on this, but um so in terms of prioritizing what you're going to do, three steps. What, how, who, so what are you going to do? It either is going to get you more customers or make them worth more. If you can't figure out what goal it's going to accomplish, then don't do it because you have to be able to say because the only way you're going to grow a business is get more customers, make them worth more. That's it. And so if it doesn't do either of those things or not clearly, then find something else that does. Once you know that it's okay, cool, we're going to get more customers.

24:18That's going to be our our deal. Well, how are we going to do that? You can do more, you can do better, or you can do new, right? And typically, when you're small, you do this first. When you're big, you do this first. You do more first and then you do better when you're bigger. And then once you can't do any more any better, then you try something new. >> So, right now, and then you go into who's going to own the the initiative.

24:42Now for you, um, I asked the same question, which is, why can't you do 10 times more what you're currently doing that's working? What breaks? >> Um, there's a knowledge barrier or like, um, I haven't learned how to do it yet. >> Well, yeah, but what would actually break? So, if you det like what's how do you get customers right now? >> Uh, mostly organic, just referral and channel partnerships.

25:07>> Okay. What's the percentage split between those? Uh 70% organic, [clears throat] 30% channel. >> Okay, got it. Is the channel partner like a reliable process or they just come inbound? >> Uh they What do you mean >> as in like do you reach out to people and you convert a certain percentage of those people into channel partners? You know, channel partners are worth X. >> Yeah, that's what we're doing. >> Okay, cool. So, what stops you from doing 10 times more reachouts for channel partners?

25:31>> Just um time and like outreach just like what's the right strategy to reach out to them? >> Well, what you're doing is already working. You have 30% of your business comes from it. So what just changing nothing? What stops you from 10xing the amount that you're doing there? >> That's nothing. Just >> No, I be like it's a it's a real question. Is it you can't do 10, right? >> You need somebody else. >> Okay. So recruiting somebody who can take over a portion or add to your output or rather your input

25:58>> would be the constraint of the business. >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah. >> That's it. Because if you hired five more people to do what you're doing, would the business make more money? >> Yes. >> Is there anything else you could do that would make the business more money than doing that? >> Right now, I mean, >> all right. >> What is Alex's fitness routine aside from what he has said? And diet diet as well. >> Yeah. Um, like right now, I haven't worked out in like three or four weeks.

26:25Um, which is not as common for me, but I go through seasons. Um, I would say like I didn't I didn't miss uh more than a week of working out for like 16 years. >> Wow. Um, and then I in my old age, um, you know, I'm crossing 19 years of training now. Um, so I've like for everyone who's like the entrepreneurs who like all of a sudden decide to like start getting into fitness and then they start lecturing people when they've only been doing working out for like 2 years. Like I read the book in the article and I know the guy who wrote it and I know how he makes his money and you're not seeing the whole truth. But

26:54>> that's okay. Uh, >> wait, which article are you referring to? >> Oh, I'm just saying like >> in general, like whatever that thing is that you're like really obsessed about right now, it's because you understand it very like I'm all keto. I'm intermittent fasting. I do high carb, you know, high carb or I only do vegan or I like whatever makebelieve thing you have. Like there's a few things that matter >> and everything else is just preference. You know what I mean? And so I don't know if this is an evolism, but like if you can't do it for a decade, don't do it for a day. Um, and so there's definitely been seasons when I'll train harder. Uh, but overall I do resistance training cuz it's the number one thing for, you know, longevity, maintaining bone mass, etc. Um, and then from a health perspective, it just comes down to calorie intake from a body aesthetics and then making sure that you have the vitamins that you need and micronutrients. But like for most people in the developed world, we don't normally have vitamin deficiencies and we usually don't have mineral deficiencies. Um, again, that clinic that you go to where they do the blood work and they can have you chew on something and then spit it out and it does pink and then you take a supplement then it's blue. Like you have to understand these are also businesses.

27:58Like I come from the health and fitness world. like there's there's games behind these things. Um, and so I try to keep things as simple as possible. I eat two pounds of meat a day. That's how I get my 200 grams of protein in. That is very easy for me to do. And then I have dessert in excess of my calories to hit my goal. If I want to lose weight, I eat less dessert. If I want to maintain weight, I eat the same amount. If I want to gain weight, I'll add other calories to my other meals that have meat in them. So rather than just meat, I'll have meat and pasta or meat and rice, whatever.

28:26Um, but training has been progressive overload on resistance training, meaning weights and machines and plate loaded machines for almost two decades. >> Got it. >> Is there anything else? It's I I think you probably My guess here is that you started out and then you tried all the things and it's like no, let's just simplify to these and these work. >> Yeah. >> Do you do anything around >> anything else that's strange like preventative healthcare? People like, oh yeah, the MRI scans, all this type of stuff.

28:51>> I don't. Maybe I will later, but right now I I don't. I've um I focused I mean all the things that I just mentioned. So like I did kettle bell only training. I did barefoot training. I did exclusively swim sprint training. Um I've done high-intensity interval training. I've done um like all strongman style training. I've I was a competitive powerlifter for 5 years. Um and now people would probably consider me more of like a bodybuilderesque in terms of training style and aesthetics. And so like I have done a lot of different styles of training. And when it comes to diet, I did the warrior diet when you ate one big meal at night. I've done intermittent fasting. I've done alternate day fasting. I've done um I've done keto. I've done uh all um the opposite of keto. So like high high carbs, super low fat, h high protein.

29:35I've done zone. I've like I have done them. And it was because in my first decade of fitness, you hop on all of these trains because part of it is like you want to experiment, you want to learn, you want to see how you react. And part of it is because you believe the magic, right? There's something different. But there's a few fundamental truths and they all come down to physics which is just like law of thermodynamics like there's a certain amount of energy that you consume and if you have less than that you will lose fat period it will get taken from energy stores like well what about uh starvation mode and things like that like there was a Minnesota starvation study where they starve people for like months no food

30:09>> and the biggest decrement they saw in basil metabolic rate was 30%. And so that means that when you're truly starving your BMR goes to 70%. which I mean is significant, but it's also not like like the women that I used to, you know, have at my gym like I think I'm in starvation mode. I was like, I think you just snack, you know, like I was like, if you want to see starvation mode, go to Africa. >> Like none of them have cellulite because they are starving. [laughter]

30:34>> Like, you know, we use these words, but like in order to truly get that level of decrement and decrease in your, you know, BMR, uh, you have to really be restricting for a very long period of time. And most people don't even track what they eat. And so like if you don't track what you eat, it's kind of like the guy with the opinion. Like I don't I don't care. Like you don't even have data. So >> and the the thing with any of these these you know diets or at least approaches is you have a certain calorie intake that you maintain your body weight at. The thing that fudges this is that people are very bad at measuring what they take in like what they eat and there but that's even uh that's still easier than measuring what your output is because you have non- exercise activity that really so like if I'm if I'm bobbing my foot or I'm chewing more gum or I'm taking the stairs more or I'm cleaning the house like those few hundred calories a day over a week or over a month add up a lot. Um, and so usually what happens is when you get older, your metabolism doesn't necessarily decrease nearly as much as people's activity decreases. And so they think that their metabolism is really slow, but it's like when you were 20, you were in two wreck leagues and you had to walk across campus uh in college and you were walking 3 miles a day and you didn't even notice it, right? With a backpack on that was like 25 lbs, right?

31:48Like it's rocking now, but like you just had a backpack cuz you were a student. And so it's just like we have these perspective shifts that have to happen, but there's a few things that happen. Progressive overload, meaning you lift more weight over time, works. That builds muscle, right? Uh protein increase builds and maintains muscle. Hormones build and maintain muscle. Calorie surpluses help maintain anabolic states. Calorie deficits, you lose tissue, you go into catabolic states.

32:14Period. That's it. The rest of it is preference. >> Yeah. Look, I I think this all wraps well together because it's the reason I bring this up too is cuz you've simplified it. And just like business, it's comes down to people, right? A lot of blocking and tackling. Same thing with this the health stuff, too. It's like we're there's a lot of distractions. Oh, there's this new diet over here. Oh, should we like cold plunge or should we like infrared sauna? Like should we I don't know, blue light blocking, whatever, right? Um but it just comes down to the simple stuff.

32:43>> And I talk about this just for context. So this is for you guys who can add it back in. um is this is per purely from the perspective of aesthetics. If you want to maintain a certain amount of body mass with a certain percentage of fat and certain percentage of muscle, those are the only things that matter. Um the other stuff it it gets into you know magic and and all the stuff that I I don't I don't partake in. And what's interesting is like I don't talk about fitness much. Um, and it's mostly because I am so I mean it's been 20 years. So like I'm I'm I've been in I've been knowing about fitness for longer than I've known about business for context. Um, and so I also did that professionally for a very long time. And a lot of like the the YouTube world and like the influencer world or people that follow me don't know like they see that I'm quote jacked, but like I wrote the plans that 4,000 gyms use. Like you've probably used my stuff. And so, you know, people are like, "Oh, this guy has such great thinking, but then if I make a comment about food, then everyone feels entitled to an opinion because they have a body,

33:42>> right?" [laughter] Y >> right. So, they but like they How many people have you helped change like their physiques? Probably not many. Um, and you probably can't even change your own. So, like >> it's kind of like in in in business where like no one wealthier than you will take shots at you. Y >> no guy who's ever been more jacked than me has ever said anything negative to me about fitness stuff. It's only like laptop warriors and whatnot. And so like again my my level of care is so much more passionate about helping people make money to like sustain their families and whatnot. Um and it's I don't have a lot of passion anymore around fitness. And maybe it's been two decades and maybe that's why. Um but yeah, to me it's the the equation's been simplified. And the thing is is that business I remember this

34:24>> there was a moment when I stopped reading T- Nation and mind you that's not where I got my source of content but I'm just saying like Nation it was like back in I mean back in the like the early 2000s okay uh there's like all these articles for like lifting and nutrition and stuff >> and I remember there was a day when I was like >> I think I get it like I I human bodies haven't changed and so I I have a sufficient amount of knowledge to do all the things that I need to do and to help other people do what they need to And so my consumption of new stuff dropped dramatically because everything at this point is such a small increment in terms of changes in physique and performance and all that stuff that like sleeping well, eating your protein and working out are still so big compared to everything else that it just doesn't matter. And the reason I think I got into business and I've stayed and I think I will continue to be interested in business whereas I my my love of fitness started to Wayne is because business changes all the time. Y

35:19>> so like bodies haven't changed but business in the market changes all the time and I think that's why I love it. It's always harder takes longer and costs more than you think it will. That is a reflection of poor expectations. Not that that reality is bad. And so it makes sense that it would be harder, take longer and cost more because if it didn't then everyone would have it and everyone had it then it wouldn't be worthwhile. And so literally the difficulty of the task that you embark on is proportional to the reward that you ultimately get because you are the asset that you build more than the achievement. And so if it's hard, that's amazing because it will make you that much harder once you conquer it. And it will also make it harder for anybody else who wants to follow in your footsteps. And so the higher up the mountain you climb, the thinner the air gets and the rarer the climber or explorer must be in order to get there.

36:11And so, I don't know about you, but I would so much rather climb a mountain that so few people have been able to climb so that I can see a view that other people haven't seen. And so, speaking of expectations, let me talk about the worst expectation of all, which is entitlement, which is the expectation of life or other people to give you something without earning it. And I think that this is is a is a virus in today's culture right now. And so, there's the famous quote, "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men and weak men create hard times. It makes sense that right now we have a lot of weak men because it's been pretty good times. The good news about that is that it's so easy to beat them. You just have to show up, be on time, prepare the night before, remembers people's names, actually follow up when you say you were going to, and try like you mean it rather than trying like you want to get credit for trying. And I see this is this this thing that's that that's pervasive right now is that people will comment or they'll DM me and they're like, "Hey, I'm trying really hard." As though I'm supposed to give them credit for trying. The world doesn't work that way. It gives you credit for achieving.

37:24And the reason that you want credit for trying is because you want it to cost less, take shorter time period, and be easier. And so if you restate your complaint about the difficulty as, "Oh, I have false expectations about the ease or the price tag of this goal," then all of a sudden you realize that the only real problem was that you expected it to cost less. It's like going to the store and being like, "Oh, I've got these Jordans that I really want to buy. I got $50. I'm so excited to buy them." You go to the store and and see that they're $300. At that point, you can just say, "Jordans aren't for me." Or you can say, "Oh, I will have to keep working and keep saving so that I can afford this."

38:02And so it's a lot about affording the goals that you want to achieve. And a lot of things that we have to spend in order to get them is the time and the rejection of not achieving what we want on the timeline we originally thought. Like what makes success hard is that the expectation that society puts because we only see the highlight reel. You actually only see people after they finish the race. People think success is like watching a marathon, not running a marathon. When you watch a marathon, you look at the beginning and you look at the end. It only takes you a couple of seconds to see both of those. But running a marathon is four, five, six straight hours of breathing heavy, wondering when it's going to end, counting, starting to play games in your mind of like, okay, I'm I'm twothirds of the way there. I'm two two more quarters of that. I'm only one of the of 1/8 of the way there. And you keep doing this to play tricks on your mind to keep going. But the thing is is that in a mile marker race, it's very clear to know how you're going to get to the finish line and how long it's going to take. The only difference with success is that you just have to keep running and you don't know where the finish line is. And people will only cheer you on at that finish line that they don't know where it is either, which means you have to get used to running alone. And so the difficulty is you have to start running and you have to keep running, but you just don't know whether you're running for a mile or 300. And so this is where the pacing is important. So a lot of people will run really hard. They'll they'll think because they only saw the beginning of the marathon on TV and the finish of the marathon on TV that they can just sprint because both of those clips only lasted a couple of seconds.

39:36So, they start their marathon of success of whatever it is they're going after by sprinting as hard as they can and then they realize that there's no one around and there's just a bunch of open road ahead of them and they're like, "How long is this going to take?" And that's when reality sets in. And so, I make these videos to say that a lot of times it's going to take I don't think many people actually have any idea where the motivation comes from because like answering why is very difficult. Mhm.

40:03>> Uh and so we know that we have a lot of independent variables that created a behavior set that increased the odds of achievement. >> Mhm. >> Can we have a you know double blind placebo control study to say like was it because you know your dad didn't hug you too much or you hugged you too hard >> or it was for this period of time or it was because somebody at school said a certain thing or a teacher treated you a certain way. It's like yes and all of it and none of it. Um, I think that from a drive perspective, um, I see motivation as the equal opposite of deprivation.

40:35So, like what are the things that we feel like we lack? Um, and so like if you're super hungry, uh, it's because you lack food. If you're if you're very driven to sleep, you you're sleepd deprived. >> And so having some sort of desire is like I think key to having drive, like you have you feel like there's some lack that you want to fill or achieve. Um but for me I think uh I do think it shifts and so I think that like the nature of the motivation can change. Um and I'll give you a really dark example but I think it really drives the point home. So Albert Kimu who's one of my favorite philosophers says the meaning of your life is the reason you don't kill yourself which people at face value because you say the word you know kill yourself people get really triggered by that but it's more so I think it has a very positive slant to it which is that

41:21>> if someone truthfully answers the question they're like well I couldn't because like my family my friends my my team my the you know the company and so I think the meaning for a lot of people's life isn't just one thing it could be many things >> um and said differently instead of like what is the meaning of your life if you say what does your life mean to you >> you're kind of brings on different different thoughts around the topic. And so why are you so driven? Um I feel like has similar kind of undertones to like what does the meaning of your life or what does your life mean to you? Uh what does your work mean to you?

41:53>> Um I think answering that question can get a little bit closer at something that's more tangible. >> Um and so for me I do things I like with people I like and that's what I try to maximize. And I a lot of people say this, but like I really believe that the middle path has been my like is my current flow right now, which is that uh I made enough that I I really didn't need to work for you know when I was about 31. At that point I was like I I really don't need to do anything. So I took about a year and in that period of time my conclusion was because I just you know I come off of a big work season and then I took basically that year off and I knew that taking the year off was not for me. um I needed to do stuff and so then I came up with like hard work is the goal that became my like operating um my mo and I've done that for probably five years now since then and I would say that I'm now in another kind of like post-launch cycle um where I have a little bit like obviously I didn't sell the company or anything like that but like I have a little bit of a period of kind of reflection and so for me I think that the beauty of entrepreneurship or at least life exists in the contrast and so like when you are when you're single, you want to be married. When you're married, you want to be single.

43:12Obviously, I'm taking that, you know, just extremes. There's desires on both sides, right? Um in in the same degree, like when you're working a ton, you're like, I just want a day off. >> But when you take a lot of days off, you're like, I just can't wait to get back to work. And so, it's like like we are the problem, right? >> And so, if we are never satisfied, even when we get what we want, we want something different. It's really just the desire for novelty. And so then it's like, okay, how can I engineer novelty into my day-to-day existence? And so contrast is the one that I've been thinking a lot about, which then comes down to like, you know, Buddha's middle path. Like it's and I think that balancing the middle is actually significantly harder than doing the extremes. Like in the beginning, you don't you can't do anything because you're not motivated. You can't you have to you have to figure out like the basics, right? Once you start working, you get rewarded for working and you just basically most people go all the way to the other side and just work all the time.

43:58>> Mh. And that's a I mean and I I have no judgment of should and should not just out of like observation. Um but for me coming back to like how much skill is required I think there's more skill that's required to basically design um a cadence around ideal or optimal living. >> And for some people that will be less work than others. For me it's probably more work than most people do in their maxed out state. But I know that if I if I have a handful of things that occur on a weekly basis or monthly basis, I kind of maintain that contrast. So that gives me the longevity to pursue significantly longer goals

44:38>> um that are more meaningful to me. >> So it's a long-winded answer for you. >> Um >> I sell CFO advisory really. Um >> sell that CPA CFO advisory. Super expensive B2B. It's probably sticky. You're probably operationally constrained though. So, keep going. >> Yeah. In tax planning. Yeah. >> Um, we will do probably about 2.9 this year. >> Amazing. >> I would love to be at like 20 million.

45:04>> Okay. >> Um, but what's stopping me? >> I have We've made all this stuff. I have two books. I fire my CPA. I have Taxfree Millionaire. I've made all these courses. I don't know what to do with them. I don't know how to market and I don't know how to advertise. I've never done any of this. >> Well, you're doing three million a year. >> All organic. >> Yeah. I mean, you're obviously not marketing shitty. Um, so you've got all this stuff, right? You got these books, you got these courses, you make content.

45:33>> Yes. >> Okay. So, you are marketing. >> Well, I've never put them out there. Like, I don't know what to do with it. >> Wait. Huh? Okay. Hold on. So, you've got all this stuff in your back pocket. So, you've got tax-free millionaire book andor course. You've got fire CPA book andor course. And you make content about tax accounting [ __ ] >> Yep. >> And so people come in and buy your tax accounting [ __ ] right? And you're trying to get to 20.

46:00>> Yeah. >> Do people turn out? >> Well, I've never tried to sell anybody on this stuff that I've made. >> Well, but we don't need but like forget let's erase those for a moment. >> Those are not real things for the purpose of our conversation. >> If you didn't have those things, what would you do to grow the business? People call our office and they come in and I sell them for monthly service and I get referrals for

46:26>> in person or virtual. Yeah. >> Okay. But you're local. >> I'm local. We have a bricks and mortar. I have a billboard, >> but most I do. Yeah. But most of our clients are are are not in Texas. >> Okay. Her. Okay. So, they're coming from the content. They call up. You guys sell them. Whatever. >> Referrals. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. >> And what are you growing at annually? >> What am I what >> growing at annually? >> Uh last year I was 2.2. Okay, it's great. Yeah, super good. So, whatever 30 35% annual growth, it's awesome. Okay, so what's the um so you you want to get to 20 and I'm guessing you just don't want to wait like seven years to get to 20 at that compound rate.

47:01>> Yeah. >> Right. So, as long as you're keeping customers, when I said do they churn, that's what I meant. Like, are they stay do people stay with you? >> The people that are on monthly stay a lot more than the people that come in just for a onetime tax plan. >> What's the um this will be fun for you. >> Okay. So, what's the I'll give you like some some business accounting. Um, what sales velocity right now? >> I don't know what what >> how many units a month do you sell? >> Uh, on the monthly reoccurring?

47:28>> Yeah, >> there's probably about 190 clients. >> No. How many do you sell every month? >> Oh, new ones. We're We've closed down for new sales because I'm trying to figure everything out. So, nothing right now. Nothing. >> Well, that will not grow the business. That for sure. That [laughter] >> There's my >> Yeah, I'll be here all day, guys. Uh, okay. So, so you have a goose egg there.

47:52Okay. But, okay, you have this other stuff. Why do we care? >> Well, that's what I want to do. Like, I like the products. I like to educate. I like to be in front of the camera. Like, I want to do all that. >> Okay. Well, what's wrong with the business that you decided to stop selling stuff for? >> It's [ __ ] hard. That's why. >> It's re No, like to fulfill on it. And yeah, you could always just start a business where you sell everybody else's stuff. >> Um, well, >> you need to get my joke. You missed it.

48:19Okay. >> And what I'm trying to get to now, like AI, what you were saying is going to completely obliterate our industry, which I'm really excited about because I want to dive into it. I want to leverage AI tools and even overseas partners doing low-level stuff. Okay. >> Um, because people in our industry are really slow and outdated. >> Yeah. >> But all of these are not things that you would solve with marketing. you're supply constraint and so you're like how do I market more? I'm like you can't even take people.

48:49>> Well, I want to market like for courses and to buy my books and things like that. >> You have a valuable business right now. >> No, I I I do. Yeah. >> No. Why are we Why would we start another business that's not >> That's what Ed told me, but I I want to do that, [laughter] too. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean like like I make the content I continue to repeat and I get I get my my memes made of me of like Alex just going to say shit's hard and hard things are hard and hard hard and it's because it just never stops being hard.

49:16It just always sucks. Like the course thing will suck too. You just don't know it yet. Ask the course people. They'll tell you it sucks. >> That's great advice, >> right? They're like it sucks. Yeah. The customers aren't sticky. They'll expect you to do everything. They're like, "I'm not a taxfree millionaire already and I bought your $17 course. Like, [ __ ] you." You know, like,

49:41>> like that's, you know, that's what's going to happen. But you have you have a service that people aren't turning out of. I'm guessing. >> No, they're not. >> Yeah. >> I mean, some, but they're pretty sticky. >> Yeah. No one no one who no one who has bad churn stops selling. I'll say that. So, like the fact that you're comfortable enough that you're like, "Oh, we don't need to take customers for a while." Like, I'm sure your stuff is better than you think. Um, but I think that we have to think basically you're a supply constraint and so we just need to fix the supply constraint of your business because if I said hey we found a way what are your margins right now?

50:15>> About 20 25%. >> Okay. So if we said okay let's see if we can find um offshore talent that can give your existing team two or 3x leverage. So you don't have to increase internal headcount, you can increase external headcount and then when AI comes in, you can basically wipe those guys off the map and then fine, right? So it's like, yeah, they don't have jobs or families. Uh [laughter] they're overseas, they're not real. Um I'm kidding. So I know half you guys are overseas. That was a joke. Um but yeah, so I think that we need to create operating leverage. We have to look at basically how the service are being delivered so that we can figure out how to get each person two or three more, you know, X in terms of their ability to deal with customers. Um, probably there's a little bit of tech that's missing because this is for everybody.

51:02Everybody, every entrepreneur I talk to is like, I want to be AI first, right? And then you're like using Jeff GP for emails. Like that's not how you're AI first. Um, the first thing that you have to do in order to have an AI first company is you have to be a data first company because AI works with data. If you don't have data, then there's no [ __ ] AI. So, you have to have complete data first from your approach and have an architecture in place so that you know all the elements of the business from data and then we can put the AI layer on top to put reinforcement training in place in order to actually train it to do stuff. So, if that's where you want to go, which does have tremendous operating leverage and like just for everybody, this is the once in a generation move right now. So 25 years ago cloud computing came out and then you know software went from CDs to cloud and that and then all of the software companies and all that boom was the last 25 years and all the billionaires are made. The next boom is this right and so we're early and so the hard of this is like well the pieces don't all fit together perfectly yet and it's like well that's the figure out that we make lots of money from right

52:02>> so I don't think the solution is you selling a course because you just happen to have recorded it. I think that we need to fix the supply constraint first and you'll use all those things as marketing assets to increase demand when the time comes. So save those in your back pocket. There's nothing wrong with them. But I want to look at the model increase operating leverage. That'll probably also increase margin. Start making this number more than zero. >> Okay, >> which I promise you can take this to the bank. If you make that not zero, you will grow faster. Um you will make more money if you sell people. uh and then I think from there so it's like increase operating leverage through offshoring add in data layer once the data layer is there then we can add in the AI component that further increases operating leverage once you put the remote team in you'll then be able to sell again if you get to the point where you're like

52:52>> I've now reached my new 2 or 3x capacity without even marketing then great if you do need to market more then use the assets that are in your back pocket to go do more delete That was like four or five steps. >> From an outsers's perspective, you seem to have a really high level of focus, even going back to when you were studying for the GMAT, just four hours. Do you have any suggestions or tricks for business owners that are constantly dealing with distractions on on how to maintain that focus?

53:19>> I think it's um learning to say no and playing out the consequences of saying no. And I'll tell you, I remember like the very first big no when I started doing this is 12 years ago when I had my first gym, I had a trainer call me uh at 5 o'clock in the morning uh to wake me out of the one night or one day I would sleep in a little bit. Um and he was like, "Dude, there's a leak." And I was like, "Okay."

53:46Uh he's like, "So, we can't have sessions." I was like, "Okay, what do you think I'm going to do?" He's like, "Um, well, I just figured I'd tell you." And I was like, "Yeah, what do you think I'm gonna do?" He's like, "Uh, call a plumber." I was like, "Okay, so maybe start there." [laughter] And so a friend of mine, uh, is he manages a gazillion dollars. Um, and he he told me this. He was like, every time he picks up the phone, he says, "Is it an emergency?" And he said, "Because if yes, call 911. If no, why are you calling me?" And so either way, he's like, "Don't call me." He's a good friend of mine. And I only say that because most time there's almost nothing that's urgent in a business. And that's what I've really realized. like nothing is urgent. Like the only thing that maybe is urgent is if you have an inability to transact. So your payment processing has just been shut down immediately and you have live transactions going. Even then, it's like there's a cost of not being able to do business. And it's like, all right, fine. We lost half a day of sales. We've done worse. We're closed two days a week anyways, right? So like we have this illusion that there's emergencies, but basically like unless bullets are flying and people are dying, I'm just not that worried. And so because of that um my ability to say no to more things uh has improved over time and I think a lot of it is also communication expectation setting within the team and this gets trained on a regular basis which is like every single person who comes into this company they say hey Alex is just not going to respond to you and if he does just give you a thumbs up or a K. He doesn't hate you. He just says got it.

55:12Like that's his way of saying heard understood. And a lot of what I focus on in training all the people who are especially in my immediate vicinity is talking about what is this going to change about what I do? And so kind of like the AI question we had earlier, it cuts through 95% of communication is what what do you want me to do? I just thought you should know. Well, if it's not going to change my behavior, it's irrelevant. And so when teams, for example, present lots of data, so in the beginning they present no data and then you tell them to present data and then they just present all the data. And if they can't explain what they are going to change about the behavior if a if a if a if a a stat changes then there's no point in reporting the stat to begin with because the only point of data is to change what you do. And so this razor of thinking solely and exclusively about what actions I take as a result of something has eliminated the vast majority of communication in my life. It's also made me a much more proficient teacher uh for teams and for making content. So people are like, "How do you simplify these complex things?" Because I just think about what someone has to do and that just cuts so much out of everything. And most of the time, me as a business owner, I actually don't have to do a lot.

56:24And so most of the time, it's making sure that other people aren't constrained in doing things that don't matter. So in terms of focus, it's mostly just comes down to being able to say no. And so Steve Jobs talks about this at length, but um I think it's the quantity and quality of things that you say no to is the measure of your focus. And so he would start his meetings with executives by saying, "What have you said no to lately?" And he like some of his execs would say they would have to like give sacrificial lambs of like not real things they said no to. And he's like, "No." Like he wouldn't be satisfied.

57:01He's like, "No, what really amazing thing that you really want to do have you said no to?" because he wanted to show have people demonstrate that we're just sticking through this because that's where all the un the the big gains come on the back end. And if you think about strategy from the big picture, I know I'm ranting on this but hopefully you guys are good with it. Um, I think the reason we've been able to grow our businesses dis, you know, much faster than normal and grow the portfolio companies much faster than normal is because I like to think of like I think Tim Ferrris calls it the big domino, which is if I made this one thing true and only this one thing true, would it solve all of my problems? And if the answer is yes, then nothing else matters. Which means that if nothing else matters, then it doesn't deserve my attention. Not to say that it's not important little eye, but if this one thing solves that or makes this other thing irrelevant, why bother? And so that to me is where you get the highest returns on effort. And so four years ago, I thought, hm, if I built the biggest business brand, then I wouldn't have to worry about being the best picker for investing because I would have more at bats and I wouldn't have to be the best negotiator because I would have people who wanted to do deals with me. And if I am the best at making business content, I'm probably pretty good at business. And so I'll probably grow those businesses disproportionately. And so that became the one big thing. And so if I just do that, everything else becomes irrelevant. And so if I didn't do that one thing, then all of these other things would be important, but not important if I make this one big thing, right? And I think most businesses don't know what that one big thing is, so they do lots of small things that don't matter as much.

58:35Thought you were just going to say rolin, but was that? Oh, a lot of people get triggered by this. They see someone ahead of them, they throw rocks at them like because it makes them feel bad at themselves. I strongly encourage you not to do that. If someone is doing better than you, they are better than you in some way. And in that you can learn of them. Real. So when someone's doing better, if you're like, I got to beat them, you look at their volume, right? And let's say that someone's doing three times this volume that you can see, right?

59:04What do you do? Do you do three times the volume? No. Because now you're just matching them. You need to do 10 or 20 or 30 times the volume. Because not only that, they're doing volume that you can't see. You're just you're just judging on the volume you can see. And so if you want to leave no doubt, it's like not only if I did the same amount of work as that guy, I'm always behind. So I got to do more work to catch up. But that's just based on what I can see. I might have to do more more to make sure that I accommodate for the things that I can't see.

59:35And so I I said I would I would I would tell you my I'll tell you another Chiron story. So this is um this is two years ago I think maybe three years ago. Gez, it might have been three years ago. He's uh at the time he was uh he was making content. He was like it's not really popping. Like can you help me out with it? And I actually had a repeated story, the same I literally had the flip reverse conversation with him where I was like, "Well, how many times you post in a day on Instagram?" He was like, "One." I was like, "How many days are you posting a day on TikTok? How many times do you post in a day?" And by the time I got to this, literally just the the third one, he was like, "I get it. I get it." He just stopped me. He was like, "I get it. I need to do more." And remember, this is the guy who got on 200 plus stages. This guy understands volume. And so to to to land the plane here, we were having dinner. He told me about the 200, you know, the 200 plus stages, 260 stages or whatever that he was on that year, right? And after he said that, he just looked at me. He was like, "No one gets it." He's like, "No one gets it. Everyone thinks that I've got some magic trick that I've got the most the highest converting presentation that I'm some amazing guy on stage and it has nothing to do with that." He's like, "No one understands the volume. No one gets it because it's not doubles, it's not triples, it's not 5x, it's not 10x, it's a hundredx the volume.

1:00:53And so that is my that is my that is my word duour. Um and I'll uh I'll I'll close on I'll give you a second close. We're closing twice. All right. Consistency is the rarest of traits. And I think the reason it is so rare is because you cannot observe it without at least having some level of consistency.

1:01:18Think about that for a second. How can you observe consistency? You It's very hard to do, right? You can't see somebody coming like you have to be at the gym every day to see someone at the gym every day. Which is why like when people come to acquisition.com all of a sudden they get this gigantic boost in their skill set, their productivity, their output because they're around everyone. Like when you show up at acquisition.com at 5:30 in the morning, the parking lot's full.

1:01:47Like we're here to win, not play. We want to win. And so I think I would ask yourself the question, if the if I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I could do a hundred times more than I'm currently doing, I would hit the goals that I have. Then I would then ask the question,"Great, what resources are required?" And then following up to that, is it worth it? And if the answer is yes, what's stopping you?

1:02:11>> Hi. Uh my name is Sam. Uh my business partner and I run a membership site for real estate agents where they b they get daily social media templates, lead magnets, training videos, all the stuff to help them sort of save time and get better at Instagram. >> Okay. So it's a membership. >> Yeah. what do you what do you give them on a monthly basis? >> Um, a lot of it is just daily social media templates. So, 30 days of content that they can edit, customize to their own personal branding, post on social media. And then there's a library of like little lead magnet things and and that they can customize again and use on their Instagram and training videos to help them set all up their Instagram, all that stuff.

1:02:52>> But mostly it's going to be the the content templates. >> Yeah, it's it's a content membership. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Okay. So, how many people you got? What do you charge? >> Yeah. So, we charge uh $49 a month. >> Okay. >> Um we have just under 300 members. >> Okay. >> And uh yeah, I mean we do just under sort of 20K a month. Yeah. >> And we take you know 75 80% of that.

1:03:16>> Cool. Got it. So what is the what's the issue? >> Yeah. So my question is you know what's churn? What's churn? >> Yeah. Uh yeah. uh hovers around 12%. You know, >> monthly pay. >> Yeah, >> monthly. Okay, got it. Do you have any metrics that like after a certain point people continue to stick?

1:03:41>> Um, we've only been in business for >> just over a year. So, it's hard to get that like 12 month kind of stick number, but monthly it's it's 12%. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell I'll tell you why this is important. If let's say it's 12% well 12% is tough because that's like you lose all the customers by the end of the the year almost. Um okay what's sales velocity right now meaning monthly sales unit sold? >> Uh between you know you know 50 a month 50 months >> 50 a month.

1:04:09>> Yeah. >> Okay. Got it. >> Right. We're getting to the point where churn is starting to catch up with us. >> Yeah. Um, and and that kind of leads into my question being, you know, how do you kind of decide whether to push or pivot when there are sort of these structural challenges or at least perceive structural challenges in your market? Um, and you're maybe looking at a different market, a different niche that might sort of be better for your business or for your offer essentially as not marketing as as in not doing it for real estate agents, maybe doing it for a different uh market.

1:04:41Why do you think this other market is going to be different than real estate agents? >> Yeah. So, I mean, generally real estate agents um from my perspective, they're they there is a lot of structural volatility in terms of their income and obviously [clears throat] with SMBs, that's you know, >> a given. It's probably worth real estate agents. Um >> and you know, if they don't make a lot of money, there's not a lot of willingness to pay. Yeah. And basically what we've seen in our market there is like a market leader with you know over 5,000 members been doing it for six plus years now. Um and a couple others with a thousand plus like we are a late entrant into this market. This is something we started to do just because we thought we might as well pick a proven business model.

1:05:25>> Okay. >> Um and we've seen other content memberships in other industries like you know accountants uh one with like aesthetic nurse practitioners. Yeah. >> Start at the same time as us have the same Instagram following. We've gone through their funnels and they've like 5xed. >> Yeah. >> From from where in terms of what we've been able to do growthwise and we're wondering trying to figure out why that is essentially. >> Um well do you do you have full transparency into their numbers?

1:05:53>> Um I have full transparency into a few of their just you know the amount of members they've had and the amount of Instagram followers they had. I've kind of gone through their funnel a little bit. I know that they don't necessarily run a ton of ads. like it's not like they're doing a ton of ad spend for example. >> Do you know what their churn is and how many members they have? >> Um I can give you one example of one that has we have like 50k on Instagram. They have 40k on Instagram. We're kind of friendly with them and I know they have like 1,800 members.

1:06:22>> Okay. >> And that's that's been a year and and their sales velocity from what I can tell is like 100 plus a month. Maybe 150 200 a month. >> Okay. And they start at the same time as you >> basically. Yeah. similar following, all that. >> So, I mean, the only >> and they have no they have no big competitors. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, I think going to an underserved marketplace is not a terrible idea. Um, the reason I'm like more okay with this is that you guys are still really early. You know what I mean? Like it's it's kind of it's it's pretty much a brand new business. I do think that like is this business that you have uh fixable? Yes. If the market leader, I'll put quotes around that, has 5,000 people, well, there's like a million realtors. So there's lots of opportunity, right, that's still there.

1:07:05Like no one really owns the market. Um, so those are kind of the plus sides. I'm going to also bet that like to your point, it might not be that realtor like realtors of course if you take them in aggregate are have volatility, but if you look at the top 5% of realtors like they they make they're full-time, right? If you have a lot of part- timerrs who are in there, uh, then you have huge amounts of churn because they're they're not they're barely even business owners, right?

1:07:29>> Right. So you could probably fix >> our value prop though. >> Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. >> Yeah. Just in terms of our value prop. I mean if you're a top 1% agent, you probably have uh some sort of social media manager or media team or a lowcost alternative to that essentially. So it's kind of just a a you know a feature not a bug I guess in our business. >> Yeah. Um but you'd have to have like the I mean the thing that's bad with the business right now. Okay. Zooming all the way out. What do you want to have happen?

1:08:01Do you want to sell this thing? You want to make more money >> shortterm make more money for sure. That's what we're the thing is is that you're selling 50 a month which is actually like really not a lot. Um from a sales velocity perspective given the size of that market and that like that is the problem, right? Like you could sell like if you have a million person marketplace it's like we could be selling a thousand of these a month, right? And then the churn, even though it's, you know, 12%, it's like, well, we just know that we're going to get eight months on average times 50 bucks. So, we're going to make $400 per customer as long as CAC is, you know, $100 or less.

1:08:36Cool. We have high margins. We're good to go. Um, and you just take the money and then you do whatever you're going to you're going to do. Uh, that's like short-term. You could do that. And I think targeting people who've done a sale within the last 30 days or something like that, maybe they're not the 1%, but they're like quote on the way. they're quote reinvesting their business and they just had a sale in the last 30 days. They have some cash. Like there's some elements here that you can do. Also, like are you doing a big uh do you do a big promotion for getting annuals?

1:09:03>> Uh we Yeah, we try our best. We do two months off. We're we're starting to add other bonuses in terms of the annual as well to try to push more people towards annuals. But yeah, >> right now LTV is eight months for you. So you might as well give four and pull the cash flow forward since it's equivalent and turn on those customers will be lower, >> right? >> Cool. All right. So, that's thing one. Um, now to the larger question of like should you go after a blue, you know, a blue or ocean market? Um, and in in so doing, like does that mean you're going to start another Instagram page and like build that whole thing up and do that game?

1:09:35>> Essentially, that's kind of the thing that we're, you know, relatively best at. I think we invest a lot of time into. It's something that I think we can do, but it's obviously going to take time and time away from our, you know, everything else we do. >> Yeah. I like I Okay, I'll tell you what I want. I I don't think it's a bad idea. I'll say that. I don't think it's a bad idea. Um like normally I just say like no, stick with your existing thing. I do think you should stick with this thing a little longer. And I'll tell you why. I think that it would it would behoove you to learn which types of realtor churn versus the ones that don't. And there's probably two or three characteristics that separate the people who do versus the ones that don't. Number one. Number two, I do think you need to make a better incentive to get people to prepay for annual. Number three, is there a version of this business that like on top of this you sell some sort of maybe $500 a month thing as an upsell or $1,000 a month thing that does have some sort of managed element to it that you have lots of AI and automation built into it so that you can do with high gross margins,

1:10:36>> right? Yeah, definitely something we've thought about just adding adding upsells, adding different offers. >> Yeah, I I like I I I I can appreciate the simplicity of the business, believe me. Um, I just feel like you have a lot more to learn from this before doing the next thing. Um, rather than just saying like, "Oh, it's the avatar." It's just cuz like that's the obvious thing that everyone says. And the market leader and I'll put quotes here as 5,000 people. It's not that many. >> No. And and I' I've tried not to just say the avatar to the best of my abilities. Seems like Yeah. It's the easy way.

1:11:06>> So that's what I would do. All right. So I would try to learn more about the customers. Number one. Number two, I'd have the annual prepaid thing. Number three, I would start running ads and see what your cost of acquisition is with ads and having that strong pre pre prepayment thing. I would also have a selfquidating offer on the thank you page that could be even higher than just the annual, right? Because that could just improve the uh funnel metrics overall. Maybe like a high ticket a higher ticket item.

1:11:33>> Yeah. And I'll say higher ticket with quotes here. I'm talking I'm talking like 197 to you know 397 somewhere in there which might be like uh we have all these accounts we'll tell you we're going to give you the 100 best performing pieces of real estate content over the last year. >> I would buy that. >> Right. >> Right. >> Yep. >> All right. That's what I would do. I think you need to learn this game better and then you'll have more perspective and you might just break through and then just become the market leader.

1:11:58>> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Really appreciate that and appreciate everything you do. All the content you make. >> Appreciate you too. Later. Thanks. >> All right. If you like this video and you're a business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million and three businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling road map that I've used to go from 0 to 1, 0 to 10, and 0 to 100 plus. And so, you can click here and you can check it out. Again, absolutely free. And since you're a business owner, appreciate you. And uh enjoy.