Mut, man selbst zu sein: Leila Hormozi im Interview

0:00Lea Hermos welcome to think unbroken my friend thanks for having me on than thanks for coming I've been looking forward to doing this with you for a long time um you guys have had a ton going on between everything amazing that you do at acquisition. comom as well as this new amazing office that you're that I'm lucky enough to be the first person to record you in here word on the street uh how have you been what's going on in your life good um busy uh probably one of the busiest Seasons since we sold our last business so that's probably been three and a half years I think it's probably the busiest and the most I would say like amount of stress that has been present in my life in a long time which has been interesting to see the difference which is really fascinating because when I you know you and I had the honor of meeting each other um at we did a top top golf event like a year ago right through a mutual friend David Meltzer and you and I had accidentally somehow by the Synergy of the universe found oursel just to the side having the sidebar conversation for like an hour I'm so much more comfortable doing that same right talking to 100 people people don't believe it cuz I'm on stages and podcast a I'm such an introvert I'm like you put me in that room and I just want to run yeah but you you brought something the table that was deeply intimate and you know I I I feel like I have this wonderful gift that's been bestowed upon me to have real conversations with people and at the end of that conversation I was like you're real and you've been through some yeah and so I kind of want to jump this off if you were to describe your childhood in one word what would that be alone I resonate with that why yeah um I think that like what's given me a lot of the skills that I have today of leadership was that I was alone for a lot of my childhood and had to learn how to lead myself and so it started because you know my parents were married but uh clearly did not love each other for my uh the memory of my childhood that I have um my sister and I did not get along when I was a child and so being in the house I remember a relationship where two people were very cold towards one another and therefore I would say like more distant from me because there's a lot going on between them uh rightfully so I if you have a marriage that's not great then it's everything else is a little bit tough um and then my sister and I were not close when we were younger so you know we're great now she's about to get married we were made of but back then we weren't and so uh my parents ended up separating and then getting divorced at the same time my sister uh left the house and so then I was left in the house with my mother so my dad moved out then my sister moved out and then it was just me and my mother and then she stumbled into drugs and alcohol and when that happened uh she just started to I would say first she's aloof uh mentally and then she's aloof mentally and physically and so it got to the point where I would think that she was dead because she'd be gone for days at a time and I think that like if I reflect back on my childhood like what was I feeling it was just like an intense sense of loneliness and isolation um I didn't want to call my dad because I didn't want him to know what was happening with my mom because at when I was growing up I was a little bit closer to her because he was at work and she stayed home and so I felt like this weird sense of obligation to protect her and and not and I felt like worried that if I wasn't there that she might die she might not be able to take care of herself the animals wouldn't be we had a ton of animals wouldn't be able to take care of themselves and so I felt this sense of Duty to stay um I didn't feel close enough to my sister to talk to her about that because we just fought constantly when we were younger like there was I have very honestly I don't think of any like good memories I think she would say the same um until we were much older we just had no relationship and so those were really the two people I could call on and so aside from that there's friends but you never want to reveal too much because you don't want any like anything to happen that takes you out of the house because even if it's terrible when I'm a kid I don't think that I'm just like this is what I know this is what I'm used to and so I just remember having this Perpetual feeling of stress um I remember reading a book one time and I identified a lot with that which was that the feeling that I had was like I'm sitting here and there's a lion circling me and it's just like constantly looking for like where's the lion it's going to get me and eat me and that was the feeling that I had every day all day yeah I think that showed up in a lot of ways in terms of like uh just like a kid being that stressed um it was tough and uh I think I just felt very isolated yeah I I resonate and I think that what happens for a lot of children who grow up in that situation is it makes them unbelievably resilient you know I remember there were times when I'm like 8 years old getting bounced around place to place I never knew I was going to sleep most the time calling my mom no one knows where she is and she would just disappear like ghost and we'd be like where's Mom at and nobody knows and it was another Bender another rehab another my mom got married like six times another just random marriage and some dude would show up and you be like what in the is happening right now and I remember one time I was very young I was like 10 or 11 years old and I was in the house living by myself and I just made this decision and this is the moment that you and I think really connected CU I was like holy I don't know a lot of people have experienced this I was home by myself in Indianapolis living in this house with no electricity no running water everyone's gone and I was like this and I was like when I'm a grownup like I'm GNA be awesome I didn't know like I didn't know what awesome meant and I I got super focused at a young age and it kind of took me down this spiral of different things but I felt so unbelievably certain where I was like I'm never going to worry about paying my rent or my water or my electricity and I'm have all the food and a cool car and a hot girlfriend and the whole n and you had that thought too but what what I think was really interesting about the intersection for us is it both came from there was no other option yeah it's funny when you say that because I'm like it just makes it reminds me that we're all human and we're all so similar but we don't realize that from the outside right we all look so different we all talk differently and we all share different experiences but yeah I had the same moment it was I mean I remember it vividly to this day and it's the moment I think everything in my life changed which was it was like the third day of my mother being gone didn't know where she was it was like whatever 2 or 3:00 a.m. I'd probably called her 20 times and I just wanted her to answer not because I wanted her to come home I just want to know she wasn't dead yeah and I was like leaving messages I'm like just call me and just tell me you're not dead like that like God give me the like relief more even even the death might have felt better than the unknowing the death would be a relief yeah because it's the unknowing and the not knowing what's going to happen next that's just torture um at least when you're a kid at that age and so I remember sitting there and I'd been I was sitting in our guest bedroom staring out the window there's no one out it's dark and I'm on this phone with like this ring ringlet cord you know it's so old school back then where you had to like plug in the phone instead of the internet and yeah show my age I remember that yeah and I just all of a sudden this voice in my head was like stop calling her and I put the phone down and I was like this will not be my life but the next thought was but you've got to make it worth it yeah and I was like I need to become the woman that I do not have in my life I need to become the woman that this girl today could look up to and I started thinking about you know what do I want my life to look like and I was like I want this to be the worst part of my life and I want everything thereafter to be the best life I could ever build and that was I don't know what it was but it was like after that moment I stopped calling her you know I stopped hoping for her to come home and it was like this weird sense of acceptance that it was going to be awful but that I would be better for it you know yeah and it is awful I mean there's nothing more awful than isolation and childhood and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation with you is because you I look at your life outside Observer we don't really know each other and I go oh we have one thing in common we're like it we're going to figure this out yeah and the thing that I'm always driving towards is how you help other people do that but in my own Journey even that that realization I had at such a young age had driven me but in the wrong direction right getting kicked out of multiple high schools handcuffs more times than I can count running in the streets getting shot at hurting people like I don't even talk about Leila because I'm like yo if I say this am I gonna go to jail yeah right and then I I look at it and I'm like there it was more than just one breakdown on the way to this success and a lot of it just had to do with I was just willing to get back up and I know that you had a lot of similar struggles as I did you're overweight as a teen drinking partying bad situations your life up but in the back of your head you still had this I want to be great yeah right how do you like I want to take you back into that moment cuz I think that there are let me rephrase I know there are people right now today who are like I want to be great but they're 37 and their Life's a disaster because they're still tied into 12 years old when you were in that moment and you're like I'm my life up I've been arrested six times I'm fat I'm using your words by the way I was fat too so like fat kid Club I don't give a [ __ ] yeah I don't either right I think we need to admit it yeah how how do you kind of navigate those moments and those break points of like I really want this but I am destroying my life right now I think that you know for me going back and I would say that like I gained a lot of wisdom through what happened when I was a child and I kind of Rose above it and was on a decent path and then I allowed the I would say like anger to overtake me um and that's really what happened that drove me into partying and drinking and doing all this stuff was what everything I just felt pissed and I remember like the moment that I realized I was like I'm mad I was at my dad's house because my mother had tried to kill herself and then eventually the police came found out I got taken away from my mom right I was like 14 15 and ended up living with my dad and I did good for a couple years and then it was close to when I was going to graduate high school and I remember I was because I'd been living on my own for so long and then I came to this house with all these rules and they started telling me what to do and I was like what the I took care of myself I took care of this woman I took care of 13 animals I took it like I've done this for years bills yeah I dress yourself whole drove a car like I was like I don't need these rules you know and I had step siblings in the house and I think they needed the rules but I was like I can take care of myself and I started getting really angry um and I I think the moment I realized it I remember specifically uh I said I was leaving and they were like you can't leave because you know we made these new rules in the house and like we don't want any of you leaving like past this time and I was like this is stupidest I'm just like over it and so I was at my car and they were like give me your keys and I just remember my stepmom was standing there and I was so mad I took my keys and just chucked them out her face wow and my dad didn't speak to me for a month and I remember after that how old were you 18 I remember he sat me down and was basically just like what the you could have really hurt her and I just remember like thinking I was like I'm just so mad all the time like I'm just and I didn't know why and I think that there was what I realized was that though I had gotten through what I did with my mother I still refused to solve a problem that somebody else started M I did not create the circumstances that created my problems and therefore I thought that this isn't fair I shouldn't be the one to solve this yeah and I think that's what when I finally came to the other side of realizing that I was completely my life up like six arrests in overweight as like just a dead beat I remember my dad sitting me down and saying I think you're going to kill yourself and the first thought that popped in my head was I think he's right MH and the second thought that popped in my head was this is not the person I want to be but I just don't know how yeah one of the things I teach my clients it's like the first thing when they come in I make this Frame and I say the problems in your life from your childhood are like owning a house and when you go outside there's trash everywhere and even though it's not your trash it's your house and it was sitting sitting in my therapist office I was like 30 years old I'd been like four five years into this work but I was still just like cuz I destroyed my life at 26 I had made a million bucks I was 50 Grand in debt 350b smoking two packs a day car got repoed brother doesn't talk to me cheating on my girlfriend and I was like this I'm going to fix this and it was like I had spent everything everything time effort energy money to go down this healing journey and here I am four five years into it and like things aren't progressing I'm like why am I still dealing with this and I remember sitting in my therapist's office and he and I was like dude I don't want to be here yeah I'm tired of your face I'm tired of like I literally these were my complete honest honest God words I'm like I'm tired face I'm tired of this same chair this hamom mil tea the same clock every Wednesday night for years and I was like why am I having to clean up the mistakes of my parents and he was like you don't have have to but what else are you going to do and I think that there's so many people who just play into that victim and when we're in that victim space letting anger be The Driver you can watch what your life looks like through a fro through a frame and scope of anger yeah what was it for you that became the pivotal turning point it was in that moment realizing that the times when other people quit are an opportunity for others to step up and win and when I say win I mean win at life and that was what I really realized I was like I'm so angry at the things that my mother did to quote ruin my life but I was a kid when that happened and now I'm an adult and I'm just choosing not to acquire the skills to fix these problems do you I'm going to interrupt you because I this question is killing me I have to ask you I always felt like I was exactly what everyone told me even though I had made money and had a Rel ship and cars and clothes and all that all of my childhood I heard you you're a loser you're not enough you're fat you're you don't matter and even though I had like these glimmers of success I felt like I was living in the expectations of other people does that resonate with you at all it doesn't anymore but it it did back then yeah yeah then yeah I think I let a lot of what other people told me about what happened to me what it meant and what it meant for me and what it meant about me and what I needed to do to get over it and I need to just sit there and keep talking about it and because I just I need to keep talking about it because I'm so angry because I need to talk about it more and I'm like I've been talking about it for five years and like I don't feel any better man like I feel better when I don't talk to you about this and so I think it was that combined with a lot of labels that people put on me they're like oh you should go on you know they put me on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications and like that like has long-term repercussions that you should not be putting children on and it's they told me all of these things that I was feeling and experiencing were bad and wrong and because of them it's a it's a problem right and I think that a lot of where my anger and anxiety stemmed from was believing people that were in Authority authoritative positions and believing what they told me about myself until one day I remember that my dad was like I want you to see a psychiatrist right which we all know difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist one prescribes medication and went in and it was a 20 minute session and I remember the questions this guy asked me like he literally even said he's like do you have more energy on the weekends I was like duh yeah getting for school and after the session he's like I think I know what's wrong he labeled me with like three different disorders I think it was like bipolar uh depressed generalized anxiety disorder um yeah I think it was those three and then he gave me six medications holy six and that's funny cuz that's the solution when you probably just needed a hug like and someone to be like it is reasonable that you're so angry given what happened yeah like the the problem is that people kept telling me that it's a problem that I'm angry if somebody had just said that makes complete sense yeah I would have felt so much better but it's like I felt like my anger and my anxiety was a problem I'm like oh I shouldn't feel this way it's like should you not feel that way when all of these awful things happen to you like of course you would feel that way yeah but I think that people I would say like demonstra negative feelings to the point where people who do experience them think there's something wrong with them for feeling so awful and part of it I think in my journey to like where I am now has been embracing feeling awful and being like I'm good at feeling awful now you know all these people around here that like aren't able to achieve what they want to achieve I think a lot of it is they're not good at feeling awful and I have a lot of reps of feeling awful and realizing that that's a completely normal reaction to a lot of bad things that happen in life and it's okay it's human yeah it's human and this is what I try to teach especially in my men's groups I'm like you need to know how to be angry and allow that that feeling to exist but to control that right and I remember once I was in this men's group and we were talking about anger and one of the guys looks at me and he goes you don't know how to be angry I was like I'll throw you through that wall right now these are literally my words and he goes no no see that's the thing you know how to be violent but you don't know how to understand anger and it changed my life forever cuz I realize it was an emotion not a reaction and we're all victim to our emotions especially if you're sitting in this moment where here's this guy who's like this is why look I'll I have a lot of different thoughts about Psychiatry and therapy as a whole and I tell people all time if I go back in time I would have hired a coach before I hired a therapist because I needed behavioral changes because this is what happens you have all these people who are just young and hurt or even older and hurt and they're like my life is a disaster they sit around with some guy who happened to go to college he's like here's six prescriptions and you're like do you know what it's like in this real world but that's a that's trappings right because that becomes an excuse and it almost becomes dogmatic to look at this experience of childhood and be like well my life's forever it I might as well kill myself or I might as well not be successful I might as well will continue to be fat and and it's so difficult for people to shift their mindset if you look back at the beginning of this and you're like okay I'm going to make this decision to become this different version of Leila did you have this grandiose idea about what life looks like now or was it something much more nuanced I just knew I had to make the bad worth it and so I did not have a clear idea of what it was going to look like I just knew I was going to run as hard as possible in the opposite direction so like I just looked at honestly and I still probably have this as like a reference point for myself which is like I was like what is everything I detest about my mother and what is everything that I'm so terrified of becoming and then I ran in the opposite direction and by the way that still controls you if you run the opposite direction which I then realized later which is like okay well I do have aspects of her that I like so I can Embrace those as well but for a long time and I think a lot of times what I realized for myself was when it's when you're first stepping into that change you know when you're first going from like being a dead beat to like I need to get my together I think it's okay to use a little bit of that energy I agree you use whatever the you've got I had a ton of anxiety and I probably to this day still do a a lot and I use it in a way that is acceptable right right and I think that that is what I realized is that I was using I was letting the anxiety use me I'm just using general terms um and now I have used learned how to use it in a way that is celebrated socially and that is all like it's not like the feelings one I think that I have a very high tolerance now for negative feelings like I can suffer very well I can feel awful very well and a lot of people I think have a very low tolerance to suffering um and these are not things I say about myself these are things that I would say my closest friends observe about me and uh I think with that um having that tolerance is that a lot of people never allow themselves to build it because they're spending so much time trying to run away from it it's like I'm just trying not to feel it and I'm trying to just like pretend it doesn't exist not feel it whatever rather than like me who I accept it and then I doesn't it's almost like I can find joy in feeling bad because I realize that if I can feel bad bad and still behave well I will get to my goals the feelings will come and go I have control of my behavior I'm going to get to my goals either way does that make sense yeah of course and it's like you have to compartmentalize because if my feelings were the thing that controlling we controlling me my feelings are to move towards pleasure by any means necessary and pleasure for me knowing who I am is drugs alcohol girls porn video games gummy bears chocolate cake buying cars like the whole like that's pleasure yeah and suffering is chosen I love that you use that word because I look at it suffering means if you look at the definition to be in discomfort growing a business is in discomfort coaching people standing on big stages losing weight fit bikini competitions like that's chosen suffering and i' I believe this to my core it takes as much energy to destroy your life as it does to create your life but I think there's a decision- making mechanism involved in this and I know that you have this really interesting thought process on decision making and left for you to break that down how you utilize that in your life yeah I think a lot of the times if I'm looking at making a decision whether it's about a person a behavior I just ask myself the same question all these scenarios which is is this going to make my life better or worse by my definition and that has served me very well in a lot of instances um example would be drinking is this going to make make my life better or worse now there's a caveat which is I would say like there's like 10 minutes and 10 years uh it could be better in 10 minutes worse than 10 years right and so I try to when I filter that question uh I want to make the best decision that will make what will make my life better both in 10 minutes and in 10 years and I actually think about that like that question probably pops into my head five times a day because I have a lot of urges to do things especially because I'm generally uncomfortable a lot of the times that are not going to be prep me towards my goals and so I have to catch myself and and that is the question I constantly use is like is this going to make my life better in the next 10 minutes and in the next 10 years and if it's not going to in both then not going to do it even if I want to I ignore that I think a lot of people they come to me and they say like but I was thinking I'm like dude don't trust your thoughts yeah like if your life is why are you listening to your own thoughts go listen to somebody who knows what the they're doing go listen to you go listen to me go listen to Somebody El together I was like your thought up don't listen to whatever the pops up in your head okay you should probably just do the opposite so for me that's always worked really well and I think that's guided me into making good decisions because I think a lot of the times making bad decisions is just thinking what would make my life better now not later yeah and that's that's the impulse that's the thing of moving towards pleasure and the immediacy for going uh delaying instant gratification or trying to have instant gratification instead of forgoing it and then you end up in this situation where you're like I can't believe I just woke up hung over again I didn't start the project I cheated on my wife next thing you know the kids don't talk to me I'm $50,000 in debt and then you're in this crazy vicious cycle and it's really about self-control but it's so difficult like here's what I always think about like if you grow up in chaos self-control is so far away from your emotional home that you might as well be talking about planet Mars yeah you know what I mean and then it what come to discover is the people who create actual change in their life they become radically disciplined it almost becomes non-negotiable to the point that people think they're insane like I know with C I've had ex the last three women I've dated have all called me a workaholic oh sure because they don't understand the mission yeah and my mission is to be the greatest version of me humanly possible which requires discipline like doing like getting up at 5:30 in the morning and researching Ila her MOSI and then like packing up the studio and coming up the city and dealing with the I15 traffic and be like this is what I decid to do how do you follow through on your decision making I think that there's a couple things which is I always try to engineer my environment to make it easy as possible for me to make good decisions so I'm not the type of person who's like oh you should grit through it I'm like dude if you can make it easier that's called intelligence like if I can make my easier for myself which means if there's any friends that they can be rich they can be billionaires they can be but if they make me want to go drink if they make me want to go if they're single women that ask me to go out with them and they're going to go try and get guys like if it's anything that would influence that could ruin the things that are most important me to me in life I just say I don't touch that I just ignore them honestly I'll why you don't have to what do you mean like why ignore them like why make the decision to keep moving forward right because why have those people in my life in the very few slots I have when I could have people that are propelling me forward towards my goals rather than just not helping me is that discipline I would say it's a form of discipline and intelligence and probably also not people pleasing a lot of people don't know how to say no and so somebody's like well you come to the party and they're like I went to the party I end up drinking because they invited me I'm like what the you know what I mean like replace the wishbone with a backbone like you need a backbone you need to say no and I think a huge piece for me was I have learned how to say no without being a complete to people m you know pardon my French but like I think a lot of people feel like oh I don't want to say no I'm like why saying no to somebody else is saying yes to yourself and I think a huge piece for me was I felt like I had to say yes to all these other people otherwise I was like a mean person that was a huge thing for me and so what I realized is every time I said yes to somebody else that deterred me just a little bit from my goals I was saying no to myself and I think a lot of people it's the little stuff stuff like that where they get stuck it's like how do I say no to my family how do I say no to my my old friends how do I say no to my boyfriend how do I say no to my boss and I'm like okay well if that's not going to help you get the ultimate yes that you need to make to yourself then you just default to no and I think a lot of people don't have that muscle and it just takes doing it one time to to get the I would say like to start working the muscle I I look at it as what does my future look like if you're in it like I'll tell you right now like dating me is very intense I ask the craziest questions right off the cuz I just don't want to waste my time and I rewind that back to this really intensive moment like I never hit my mom in my entire life she would beat the out of me I'm 6' 3 220 like I'm a big dude my mom was like 5'7 and I never touched her until one night she like tried to attack me with scissors and I kicked her to the ground and I stood over her and I said if you ever touch me again I'll kill you and I and I meant it I meant it more than I meant anything I'd ever said in my life and I said I'll never talk to you again and Lea I promise you this I swear to God I would not be here with you without that cut and dry moment of being like enough and I think that's the thing that people fear is I can't say no what if I don't it's my mom it's my sister it's my cousin it's this it's that and it's like they feel shame they feel guilt how for me I didn't feel that there was no other alternative and I don't feel it now if you don't move me towards my goals there's no place at my table for you right and that's not to be selfish but it's just looking at the reality of the world expect others to do it too I I 100% do I I don't want to even interview people who aren't moving towards something incredible in life how is it that you know and I don't know if this is true for you but when you have to step away from these people when you have to change the environment when you have to say no is there is there shame is there guilt are there thoughts in your head about like what if or what not I think sometimes I feel sad for the people I have to say no to because they don't have anything that they're moving towards in life and so if anything I feel sad for them because I go through this process truly I could help them is that within the scope of this relationship though no is it worth my time no like I have the ability to help these people and like the truth is I would rather put it towards these other people so it's like that's actually the thought I go through and so sometimes if I feel slightly guilty but it still doesn't justify it to me because I look at it like this which is if you say yes to this person who on the other side are you robbing that time from whether it be yourself or somebody else who is much more deserving of that time and who has done much more to propel themselves in the direction that you also seek to go and so I a huge frame I use for s is like okay well this person wants this thing from you you could help them well who else needs your help that is uh shown through their actions that they are probably more worthy of it and I'm like well I have a whole team I could I would rather spend more time with them I'd rather spend more time with these six people that I think are like my true friends I would rather spend more time with my husband like I would just rather do that and so I think it comes down to a preference at the same time which is like I have the ability to help somebody that doesn't mean that I have to and I also just say I would prefer not to M and I think a lot of people have a lot of like shoulds must have to and I just think you have preferences and I just say I would just prefer not to help this person yeah it's not like I can't because that's also langu like that's factually incorrect people like I just can't help them I'm like know you can you choose not to so I just I'm like I just prefer not to I think I have other things that I would rather do differentiating who it is that you want to become I think is the frame and the filter for that decision making yeah and that's a really hard thing most people don't have a North star they don't have they're moving towards and and it's one of the things that drives me crazy like there are people who I've coached over the year I mean thousands of people at this point who've come through my programs or one-on-one and I always can tell the people who are really going to be successful because it's very simple they just do what the I tell them and that's the whole point and that's not me being like Oh I'm no more than you or it's not it's just like there are reasons it's success leaves Clues right and in your own life you have to ask like is this person bringing value to me even if it's my own mother mhm I think it's really interesting point that you point out because when people are always like I need a mentor and I'm like no you don't like when you're first starting off you need to go look at somebody who's successful and just do exactly what they're doing just go emulate them because the thing is is that at that point when someone's just starting off like they're a complete dead beat and they come to you and they're like I have no idea what to do they also have no skills they need one skill which is they need to know how to follow instructions that you give them and it's going to get them is it going to get them to exactly where they want to be uh probably not but it's going to get them way better than where they are right now and then hopefully by that time they can acquire critical thinking skills decision making skills they can think about like ways in which they want to live their life but if you meet people that are at that point in their life they don't even have the skills to decide what that looks like for themselves and so it makes sense to follow instructions from somebody else I say this is somebody who I don't even coach people but like I'm like hey if emulating this person's life would make your life better why would you not do that because like they're like well I don't know what I want and I'm like well that's clear like it's very clear so like I'm pretty sure if you just pretend to be them it'll get you better than where you are right now yeah taking a step forward is always better than taking no Step at all right and and that's the thing that I look at I mean I have failed so many times in my life that have become these beautiful lessons of learning and health wealth relationships and especially in business it's like holy if I make one more mistake I might close the whole thing down and you're like okay just keep going and I think that's a huge part of it is just the just keep going and this is an infinite game there's there's no loss in this journey if you're willing to show up and play all out but fear keeps people completely trapped like you know this as well as I do like you can see the fear in people's eyes even the willingness to be like hey will you come on my podcast like people are like oh she'll never do it she's super famous she's very busy blah blah blah and you're like we're all just humans we all have fear we all are navigating this thing in front of us and I've just learned to sit inside of fear and look at it and be like I was homeless when I was eight I don't give a right and I Leverage What I've learned to do is leverage the worst scenario of my life against everything the opposite yes when fear comes into your life how do you navigate that in your health in your wealth in your relationships I try to just completely go into it like just rather than resisting it I just go all in like I do not avoid it I do not try not to think about it I try to I would even say like befriend it like how can I get more of this because I know that through everything I've done in my life the more that I embrace the fear and what I mean by that is I engage with it the less power it has over me and why would you be scared of fear if it does not control your behavior people who fear fear the reason that they have that fear is because it controls their behavior if fear does not control my behavior then why would I be scared of it and so for me I just know that every time it pops up every time it's present the only way to ensure that I do not become scared of it is to just not let it dictate my behavior and so I almost make it like if I'm scared I'm like I have to do it then because I'm just violently opposed to letting it rule my life and I think I'm more scared of that than I am of whatever like very uh catastrophic scenario my mind has made up yeah which probably isn't even going to happen anyway never has it ever no maybe like once maybe right and I look at I I look at my life very simply and I ask myself on my death bed what is the last thought going to be and it's like you know on that last little breath and you're like your soul leaves your body or whatever happens if it's regret that's my last thought I know I failed and so even though I'm scared of business even though I'm scared of dating especially in Las Vegas is Nightmare even even though I'm scared of like the idea of like speaking on stages I I spoke in front of Grant Cardone and 10,000 people and he invested in my company wow I was terrified and it was like it let's go and I think that you have to courage I think is probably the most important thing that someone can do in this journey yeah is the willingness to stand at the edge of the mountain look down and just say I trust that it's going to work out at the end yeah and to compartmentalize that emotional irrational thought process that they have about the what if because especially if you catastrophize and you look at the worst case scenario you won't get love you won't get happiness you won't get joy and and and obviously those are fleeting emotions they don't all stay with you all day long long but when you look at life and you ask yourself maybe you haven't I don't know I'm going to ask you and you look at that last moment that last before it's all over for you how will you know if you actually kept that promise to that little Leila inside of you you know it's funny the first thought that pops up is like because I'll be beat the up by the time I get there like I I want to know on my deathbed I'm like take me I'm good I'm [ __ ] I'm toasted like I've given every ounce I've got I'm exhausted I'm ready to go and I think I've always had that thought there was actually a quote and I I don't remember word for word but it talks about like the point of life is not to like make it to death well preserved in this like amazing looking body with like everything perfect and having never been touched by any tragic but it's to get there like beaten up like up but like proud of yourself for doing it because you got through it and I think I look at it that way for myself is like I just want to know that I died not having lived my life ruled by fear and I think that's honestly the main thing for me it's like I just never want to be ruled by fear that's it are you proud of yourself today yes why because I am constantly scared and constantly still doing things and I think that I've gotten good enough at being scared that people don't even know I am and to me that's an accomplishment because I also don't want my fear to change somebody else's Behavior you know I don't want my fear to change my team's Behavior I don't want my fear to change my spouse's Behavior I don't want my fear to change my friends Behavior because I think that people show up better when people around them aren't scared and how can you lead others or influence others in a positive way if they think that you're terrified and so I think that I do feel proud of myself because I think on a daily basis I am proving that to myself that I do do those things I think that confidence is built by consistently doing incredibly uncomfortable things just every day all the time no matter what and and for some people the most uncomfortable thing is not like the running the business it's not the working out some people it's love especially when they come from chaotic backgrounds when they come from having mothers who were like our mothers and you know we get I got to share that with you in solidarity which is kind of a very rare thing for me how have you learned to accept love in your life it took me a really long time I don't think that I loved anybody until Alex like I had lots I had a five-year relationship I had a three- year relationship at had a two-ear relationship and I don't think I let any of them in because I was too scared and when I met Alex he said something to me one time we were in the car it was probably like 6 weeks into meeting each other and something happened and I used to shut down and be cold when I was upset um which is weird to think just don't do that anymore but um he looked at me and he said he just he looked at me like this and he was like if you do this this cold thing this will never work and I was like and I felt very seen in that moment um because he was so calm it's like he yelled at me and the first thought that popped in my head was he's right and it wasn't like oh I must do this to save this relationship it was if you ever want a relationship to work you're going to have to learn this and so I really learned how to love through showing it I think that I I realized like I was really bad at holding hands touching people like hugging like there's a lot of stuff I just didn't do it felt weird and I just challenged myself to do those things because I wanted it I just didn't know how or what to do and so I just did it through action and I think that the more through what I say to people like and how I am affectionate towards the people I love and hugging and praising and you know little like micro movements and and like stroking hair like all of those things I would say um are what made me comfortable with having I would say like giving and receiving love I think that my actions um in terms of like showing love to my partner like Alex like that was never hard for me like showing that I am loyal showing that I will go through through uh I will endure tough conditions and maintain the relationship like that's what I think love is is like how much will you go through to maintain the relationship with the person and I would do a lot but I had a really hard time allowing any reciprocation um and that took me and it's probably I mean still something that I can be bad at you know even oh three weeks ago he was like you know you're really bad accepting help and I was like H but I'm I'm really good at taking feedback so I I was like o well that's not good okay can and then I just literally was like okay I'll ask him for help on something um I think that I'm very good at showing it to others I'm not as good at receiving it but I'm so much better than I was and I think it's also circumstantial I can absolutely receive it from Alex and I've learned to even ask for it um but also be okay if it's maybe he's busy or something um I think I just allowed it to be uncomfortable and just knew it like I was just like I it makes sense it's uncomfortable because it's not something that's familiar to me I didn't grow up watching it I didn't grow up understanding it I was never in a household like that so I only saw like that in like the movies yeah you know what I mean I do um it's funny because nobody's ever asked me about this so I'm not very articulate around it but um okay it's it's interesting for me it's I think what has helped as well is I think that I'm also with somebody who has experienced similar things and so we can talk about this things and we've been able to grow together in those ways which has been really helpful to be honest because it's not like I had you know in my past for example I had a relationship where I was just showered in like just just like forced push almost like a pusher of love and I was just like so wildly uncomfortable at the rate at which it was being thrown at me that I just left the relationship because I was like I just don't know how to deal with this you know and I don't think that relationship would have worked out anyways but I think that I needed somebody that could I would say like had a higher level of intelligence to understand where I was coming from and Alex knew he's like oh she's got a little bit of like a barrier she's a little cold you know she has some behaviors that are not working in her favor and he was like that's okay if you're working on it and so I do think that finding somebody who you can be a work in progress with and you can talk about it with and maybe they're work in progress in something else and you can hold each other accountable I think that's really special for a lot of people I think it's necessary too like if you really truly want to live like it's about the allowing you know and I look at this in my own life it took me a long time to like love myself first to do the work to show up to be like yeah I'm going to push myself through this discomfort I'm going to choose suffering I'm going to make myself get out of $50,000 in debt and lose 150 PBS and stop SM I'm going to make my myself love myself there was a moment I hit this massive rock bottom and effectively I just I put a gun in my mouth I was done I was like this I've suffered so and I was 26 at the time I suffered so much I just didn't want anymore yeah and there was this this voice that called to me and this question in my head it was like what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have and the answer was no excuses just results it's driven me every day of my life but sometimes no excuse es for me also means allotting the space where other people can care about you where you can let your guard down where you can be human knowing that like even three weeks ago having this experience of like you are bad at asking for help it's like yeah that's human for people who had to figure out the streets to figure out how to navigate the world to figure out that maybe they are alone until they realize that they're not and and it also reinforces this thought I always have where it's like this is a rest of your life Journey it's kind of like when you decide to you what's really crazy about it is like well you just signed up for the rest of your life game and it doesn't end when when you think about that when you look back at this journey and these Transformations building amazing businesses leading becoming this person that both men and women alike look up to in the world like it must feel worth it it does and not because of any of that but I think because of I can go to bed at night feeling proud of who I am like I I was writing this uh post the other day and it was like confidence doesn't come from compliments from strangers or even public recognition but it comes through the like Teeth gritting White Knuckle moments that you experience by yourself that you get through while adhering to your values becoming the person you want to be that nobody ever sees and I think that is why I do think it's worth it and I hope I mean I hope that it is an example for others like specifically for people who have been in situations like that of course um because I think when I was growing up and even early in my life and even in early my 20s I didn't know who to look to you know like the what I wanted to look up to just didn't exist and I think that that probably also propelled me forward into like well then step into it um because I think that there were a lot of uh just candidly like there were a lot of men I looked up to there were not a lot of women because I felt like I would be really I would admire a woman a lot and then they would expose themselves as a victim in another area and I was just like I just can't look up to somebody who blames others and I think there's now completely different uh more of like there's a lot more women stepping into I would say like an era of self-responsibility um of not blaming their emotions for being mean or rude or anything to people or spouse or whatever um which I think is really great but I think that it all stems from taking responsibility yeah which is like the most difficult thing that we do MH it's so much easier not to yeah and and it is about that it's about this decision and creating this life in this space where if you really truly want to be the person that you're capable of being it's like you have to because like and look I'm going to say something this always gets me in trouble when I say it no one gives a if your life I don't care I don't give too like I don't I'm here to help you I will guide you I will do do anything in my power I will interview the greatest Minds in the world and expose you to them but if your life's and you're not doing anything like so what yeah that's true nobody cares nobody cares but it like that personal responsibility is almost frowned upon right now I mean yes we see this shift happening and thank God because we we are creating such a weak Society of human beings but I would have to I would have to take a step back and look at my life and understand one thing to be true to understand how I got to where I am today and it's personal responsibility yeah it's really sad to see because I think I see a lot of it which is just blaming shaming other people calling people bad toxic awful um it makes me sad because I'm like in those moments when you you're just giving your power away yeah like even if it's true even if it's this person's fault even if they're a terrible person how is this useful how is it useful to you to blame this other person and that's the question that I I post to people cuz I'll be honest the question I get a lot is like well how do you deal with being a female when you have this husband and and people don't give you credit I'm like I don't even think about that and they're like well I think it's true and I'm like even if it's true how's this useful to me yeah it's a great it's not useful to think about that so why would I think about that one I could think about a million other things I could do that could make other people's lives better and my own yeah and so I think if more people took that stance of maybe it's true is it useful I think they would have way better lives I agree and and if I look at my life maybe it was true I was fat I was I was lazy I was a drug addict I was a cheater I was a manipulator all true great and you can either use it for you or against you because none of those things are true today and and it's something that I take a lot of pride in and to tell you the truth I just have a ton of gratitude for myself because I'm like I'm really glad there's a hilarious um video of Snoop Dog on the day that he got put on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and he goes first of all I'd like to thank myself and I was like yeah you should yeah but today since I'm interviewing you first I'm GNA extend gratitude to you thank you for being you thank you for the willingness to show up and to honor that little girl in you that wanted something better because of that decision you're shaping the world which means that you're supporting my mission which is to in generational trauma in my lifetime so that kids don't have stories like ours and and I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for your willingness to get the out of your own way and show up and it's very difficult what do you have gratitude for yourself for my honesty I think that I have a lot of gratitude for my ability to be honest with myself and honest with others and hon honest with social media um I I actually it's weird you say that because I I'm like oh I mean I'm not good at recognizing things I'm good at or that are important to me so then I was thinking like what is really important to me and people around me I was like honesty is like the number one like people can do things but if they're honest about it I'm likely to be forgiving because nobody's perfect um but if somebody does a thing and hides it I don't want to talk to you I'm never going to talk to you again um and I was like why is that and I was like you know it's because I hold myself to this irrational standard of honesty that probably bites me in the a lot of the times um because I just when people are like oh I'm going on this podcast but I'm like what should I say and I'm like I've literally never had that thought I'm just like I don't know be honest and the way that I think that the what I'm grateful for is that the reason that I can be honest is because I'm proud of who I am and if I wasn't proud of who I was I don't think it would be easy to be honest but I am and I don't feel like I have anything to hide and so because of that I think I'm proud of how I can show up who's somebody in your life that you don't give enough gratitude to that in this moment you were extend something to them they've played a role in your life maybe they've helped you in some little way maybe there's somebody that just man that one time at that one place in that one thing or maybe even somebody closer who changes your life on a daily basis who who's somebody that needs a little bit of gratitude from Lea my friend Trevor uh his name is Trevor cashy he is just like the most amazing human and he because of the things that he does um and he studies and then he teaches me he is I just sent him a text yesterday I was like you have just generally in every area of my life made my life better and I think that he has given me the tools to articulate the things that I know how to do and without him I do not think I would be able to do that nearly as well and so I feel grateful for him every day almost to the point where I think it's weird to say so uh but I sent him a text yesterday about it and so I I would say it's him I think um it's very rare in life that you find a friend where when you take on something new or when you have a problem they immediately go and read 12 books about the topic so that they can then condense the information to give it to you and help you and he is that friend before I ask you my life ask question where can everyone find you uh I would say I'm most active on Instagram so Le horos and you can also find my podcast uh build with le la hor MOSI which is like a mix of it's really just building your life uh you know building business building career building relationships building health wealth all that stuff um so I those are the two places I'm probably the most active my last question for you my friend what does it mean to you to be unbroken to admit that you actually are and that that is normal brilliantly said thank you so much for being here unbroken Nation thank you for listening please remember when you share this you're helping other people transform their trauma to Triumph breakdowns to breakthroughs and you're helping them become the hero of Their Own Story and until next time my friends be unbroken I'll see you …